Fear and Loafing

"Fear and Loafing" was a newspaper column by Corey Levitan that ran from January 2006 to June 2011 in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada's largest newspaper. In each column Levitan took on a local job, that he was entirely unprepared to handle, for a day and then wrote about his experiences. The column ran in the Features section and quickly became popular among Las Vegas based readers.[1]

The idea

The idea for the Fear and Loafing column came to Levitan after an awkward journalistic experience Levitan had while writing for the Daily Breeze newspaper in Torrance, California. Levitan had been assigned to cover a nearby nudist camp, but found that none of the members were interested in talking to anyone wearing clothes. Levitan said about the experience: “I was completely awkward and out of my element." After the success of that story, Levitan thought that he could repeat the success of that story in future stories by also placing himself inside his writing in a manner that would provide humor to the reader. Levitan also says that writer George Plimpton’s attempt to join the Detroit Lions and the writing Plimpton did about his experience affected his idea for the column. Levitan makes it clear that there is a major contrast between Plimpton and himself: Plimpton sought adventure, whereas Levitan is “more George Costanza.” [2]

Multimedia

Fear and Loafing featured accompanying video sections throughout the running of the column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. FearandLoafing is the official YouTube account of the Fear and Loafing column. Currently there are 23 videos posted on YouTube for public consumption from the archive of Fear and Loafing videos. There are 58 videos, from the Fear and Loafing column posted on Corey Levitan’s personal WordPress blog.[3][4]

About the author

Corey Levitan began his career in journalism with Circus magazine. He was with Circus magazine from 1995 to 1999. His writing received positive reviews and he got the opportunity to do first-person stories for both Playboy Magazine and the New York Post. He held contributing writer positions in both publications from 1999 until 2003 for Playboy and 2005 for the New York Post. In 2001 he took on a full-time journalist position for the Daily Breeze where he covered jobs in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County. He left the Daily Breeze in 2005 when he took a position in the Features section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. After his employment at the Review-Journal was terminated, he began writing for David Magazine, where he still writes. His website is coreylevitan.com. Levitan’s writing style is heavy on self-deprecating humor, sarcasm, and understatement. His descriptions of the issues that need to be negotiated daily in the jobs he takes on are detailed and very visual.[4][5]

Author's awards

Jobs covered and archive dates

Through the five years of Fear and Loafing, Levitan covered 250 jobs. They are, in his own words:

References

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5][6]

  1. 1 2 3 "Archives". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  2. 1 2 Moye, David. "Las Vegas Writer Pads Resume With Crazy Jobs". aol news. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
  3. 1 2 Levitan, Corey. "FearandLoafing". YouTube. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 4 LevitanC, Corey. "Corey *Levitan". Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  5. 1 2 Levitan, Corey. "Facebook". Retrieved 4 March 2012.
  6. ↑ reviewjournal.com - Columnists: Corey Levitan
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/25/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.