Education
University of Cambridge. Amherst College.
(Conover is expert at gate-crashing and we are so lucky th...)
Conover is expert at gate-crashing and we are so lucky that he's a great writer, too. Here, he's written about his stint as a cab driver in Aspen, but the engrossing part is his own ability to crash celebrity-only functions. It's an interesting study in the interaction of haves and have-nots, for the rich and pampered of this famed snow town NEED the hardworking waiters and drivers and maids and ski instructors and yet are often bizarrely detached from the realities of working a steady job. Conover finds ways of crossing into the world of the haves, without ever forgetting who he is. Conover doesn't show real envy for the rich and famous, but he enjoyed their parties. He's a downhill skiier and cyclist, so he certainly enjoyed the outdoorsy life there and treats a venture into a star studded party as just another nature hike worth detailing. Conover shows a kind of pity, in fact, in a brilliant little section about hanging out in a bar booth with Mick Fleetwood and friends. Who you'll meet in the vignettes and tales of Conover's observations of Aspen life: the plethora of fine-looking young ladies, the unreal mansions with their no-holds-barred parties, the spoiled nouveau riche corporate wives, movie stars and rock stars, the crotchety old guard of the small town, drunks and granola eaters, skiers and commuters from the working class lowland. It's not a gossip-fest, nor is it a boring social critique. But it's a real slice of life. And you get a little local history and politics, too. It's a fine book for anyone who is fascinated by how the other half lives. The author's own mobility, personable nature, and mutability are his true assets. He seemed to walk away from Aspen satisfied and with a desire to explore other realms. ( Amazon customer)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002SD4JKE/?tag=2022091-20
(Irreverent, poignant, and revealing, this meditation on t...)
Irreverent, poignant, and revealing, this meditation on the sweet temptation of wealth and the vainglorious quest for paradise as they exist in Aspen, Colorado, features a "cast of characters (that) includes such barn-size satirical targets as exclusive health clubs, over-the-hill drug dealers and movie stars and rock stars of wattages bright and dim" (The New Republic).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067974178X/?tag=2022091-20
University of Cambridge. Amherst College.
A graduate of Denver"s Manual High School and Amherst College and a Marshall Scholar, he is also a distinguished writer-in-residence in the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University. He teaches graduate courses in the Literary Reportage concentration and an undergraduate course on journalism and empathy. Conover"s books of narrative nonfiction have typically been explorations of off-beat social worlds.
He will often become an active participant in the subculture he is writing about.
His first experiment with this melding of anthropological and journalistic method took place in 1980, when he rode freight railroads back and forth across the western United States with some of the last remaining hobos. This experience, initially rendered as an ethnography for an honors thesis, became the basis of his first-person book, Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America"s Hoboes (1984).
A few of those Conover met on the rails were Mexican nationals, and in his next book, Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America"s Illegal Migrants (1987), he turned his attention to illegal immigrants, describing them as "the true modern-day incarnation of the classic American hobo." Conover spent a year traveling with Mexicans in order to write Coyotes. He lived in a "feeder" valley in the Mexican state of Querétaro, spent time in Arizona, Idaho, California, and Florida, and crossed the border three times.
The 1987 book came out in a new edition in 2006 with a new preface and subtitle: "A Journey Across Borders With America"s Mexican Migrants."
His next project, which he has stated he undertook in part to see whether the participatory approach could work with wealthier people, describes life in the mining-town-turned-lifestyle-capital of Aspen, Colorado, where Conover worked as a driver for the Mellow Yellow Taxi Company, the Aspen Times, and for a catering company.
The result was Whiteout: Lost in Aspen (1991). A few years later, Conover took a job at Sing Sing prison in New York state, where he worked for nearly a year — without the state"s knowledge — as a rookie correction officer Foreign many months, prisoners and their visitors were banned from reading Newjack.
Now, inmates who receive a copy have to wait up to several months while the state redacts several pages that it considers a threat to security.
His most recent work is The Routes of Manitoba: Travels in the Paved World (2011). Conover discussed it in the Paper Cuts blog of the New York Times Book Review.
In addition to books, much of Conover"s work has been published in magazines. He frequently contributes to The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic Magazine, Travel + Leisure, and others
He is on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common, based at Amherst College, and published work in the debut issue.
(Irreverent, poignant, and revealing, this meditation on t...)
(Conover is expert at gate-crashing and we are so lucky th...)
(Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover. Vintage Books...)
(New copy. Fast shipping. Will be shipped from US.)