Profiles

Permission was received by the writers to post these pieces.

Mariah Boisvert

Word Count: 1320

AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS – A long hike in New Zealand inspired an Irishman to tell Abby Bliss, two strangers at the time, about how meditation helped him confront his depression.

Looking back almost 15 years later, Bliss said this encounter was the reason she began meditation, a big part of her life that she now brings with her to her job as a student advisor in the University of Massachusetts journalism department.

Abby Bliss in her office in the Integrative Learning Center at UMass Amherst on Oct. 20, 2016

Bliss has a soft smile and short, dark, wavy hair that frames her face. She has a thin physique and wears simple, tasteful clothing with a lot of natural, neutral colors.

She grew up playing soccer, playing on the Doherty High School Varsity team for four years. Bliss also has always enjoyed reading. “ I like words, ideas, expression,” Bliss said.

Bliss has always gotten along with her three sisters. Her mom had a career as a librarian at Worcester public library and her father was A journalist at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. She grew up with newspapers constantly around the house and spent a lot of time in a newsroom.

“I know all of this is pretty usual and nondescript, but that was my childhood,” Bliss said.

While Bliss had a happy childhood, she had a strong distaste for her hometown of Worcester. She said it was “a homogenous place, a really grey, industrial town. When you’re in high school and you have to wake up early to a grey place, it really affects you,” she said.  She said Worcester was “insular. And not open-minded.” Bliss also said, “there was diversity around but I didn’t experience it.” She only knew people in her own neighborhood. Within her high school, she did not know people outside of honors classes. “Nothing felt integrated,” Bliss said,  “But I suppose I could have done more to bridge those gaps.”

Bliss’ first inspiration to travel came about from a soccer camp in seventh grade in Scandinavia. She played a series of tournaments in Finland and Sweden, on a summer team that was created for people in Worcester and neighboring towns. She did not do any traveling after that until college.

When deciding on a college, Bliss looked for a school that was as different from Worcester as possible, leading her to the University of Arizona in Tuscan, Arizona. She enjoyed the change of scenery; it was far away, there were seasons, it was warm and most of all, it was bright. “I think there are less than 30 days of clouds in Tucson a year,” said Bliss. “I also really liked how independent the students seemed. I got into smaller, more competitive schools, but they felt claustrophobic. I wanted to be autonomous and anonymous,” said Bliss. She graduated with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Psychology.

Though she loved the atmosphere of the University of Arizona, Bliss didn’t “click” with a lot of people. “They were west coast partiers and I was a crunchy, nerdy person from the east coast,” she said.

Bliss showed up to summer orientation in “khaki shorts and Birkenstocks, with a button down Abercrombie plaid shirt.” She said, “they didn’t know to give me the parent flier or student flier --  I could easily pass as a boring parent. I knew right away that I wouldn’t fit in there.”

Bliss’ ultimate goal upon graduating was to travel the world.

She got a job as a mail deliverer for about three months to make some traveling money. As hoped, she earned enough to move to New Zealand, which is where she met the Irishman while hiking. He convinced her to attend a( ten-day) 10-DAY meditation course, which she attended two weeks after the hike. The experience really resonated with her.

Bliss ran out of money in New Zealand. At the same time she discovered that the biggest meditation center outside of India, the Vipassana Meditation Center, was in Shelburne, Massachusetts. “This was the only reason I came back home,” Bliss said.

Upon her return, she volunteered at this center. To pay for expenses, she reverted back to delivering mail for one month. She took some time to travel to Puerto Rico, Italy, France and India. When she got back, she became a long-term volunteer at the meditation center and eventually became the head of registration there.

Meditation appealed to Bliss’ desire to discover a mental challenge, as she was already very invested in physical challenges – namely hiking, yoga and running. Furthermore, as she spent more time in nature, she realized distractions got fewer. “I needed to look to my mind,” Bliss said. More than that, though, being in the silence of nature made her realize “how loud” her mind was.

Bliss considered applying to graduate schools and “settling down.” But she was asked to be a formal teacher at the Vipassana Meditation Center. She decided to combine her passion for traveling with her newfound love for meditation and began leading meditation courses in Chile and Bolivia. She helped start a center in Argentina for Spanish-speaking students.

The students in Argentina had a lower quality of life than those in Massachusetts, but she noticed that they “worked harder and complained less,” which provided her with an example to try to emulate when she went back home. Bliss believes that “you have to be the student at some point,” she said.

Additionally, although there are differences between these students and those in the United States,“it was equally as challenging for the people to sit for hours without allowing their thoughts distract them,” Bliss said, which says a lot about human nature.

Meditation is “for all ages, all occupations, all people,” Bliss said. She believes that our challenges are not unique. “No matter what part of the world you live, what our family situation is or how much money you make, we are all human and share the same issues,” Bliss said.

Bliss officially came back to Massachusetts in 2013 and looked towards a steady career. Prior to this time, she “cynical about society’s expectations of a normal 9-5 job,” she said. She thought a desk job was boring and constraining. In high school and college, “things felt prescribed,” she said. Now that she “got traveling out of the system,” she said she is “very comfortable at a 9-5 job.”

In regards to her travels, Bliss said, “I didn’t know I had something to get out of my system. But I think I did.” As she got older, she spent less time traveling at a time.

Advising was appealing because she said it was a “meaningful way to apply my guiding and counseling skills.” She said, “I could have wound up in any department. It was the advising that really appealed to me, but I just got lucky that I also ended up in a department that I love.”

She has a strong interest in journalism because “when it is working right, it should help connect the world,” Bliss said. “It teaches us about other places. Journalism consists of discovery, listening, and expression. I love each of these.”

Bliss opted to attend Karen List’s “Introduction to Journalism” seminar because she felt that in order to best advise students, she needed to experience class from their perspective.

Though not all students know about Bliss’ meditation, her ‘zen’ demeanor is apparent.

In the 2016 spring semester, Chelsea White, a journalism major, sat at the same table as Bliss every Monday afternoon during the seminar. Still, she had no idea about Bliss’ background in meditation. But White did notice “a calmness about Abby. She always spoke softly and eloquently,” White said.

Bliss didn’t just observe List’s class. There was a lot of talk about counseling and help available for students, which Bliss was more than willing to share information and insight about.

List said that Bliss was an “enthusiastic participant.” One time List jokingly told Bliss that “she had to do the assignments—and she did,” List said.

Helping others to gain clarity has always been important to Bliss, whether that be through advising or leading meditations. It is only a coincidence that her last name is Bliss, but it certainly fits.

Profile: UMass Professor David Lenson

By Lauren Scrima

David Lenson hopped up onto the lab counter at the front of the lecture hall and clasped his hands in his lap. He’d spent the majority of class time indoctrinating his students with information about a dystopian writer, but now it was time for him to take questions from his eager pupils. He had a loose, maroon and pink striped buttoned-down shirt on and brown slacks. His eyes were soft and his smile was welcoming. He waited patiently, with both the confidence and the modesty of a sage, for the first hand to appear in the air.  SCENARIO/INDIRECT LEAD  IT'S COLORFUL AND TELLS US A LOT ABOUT THE SUBJECT. 

Lenson is a 65-year-old hippie intellectual with a love for music and a penchant for overlooking standards, whether they are in regards to profanity or class size. He’s a tall man with a slouchy posture. He is often wearing a buttoned-down shirt with a slightly oversized sport coat. His hairline has receded to the sides of his head where the hair that remains is salt-and-pepper colored. Although Lenson’s knowledge of life and literature may be intimidating to some students, he is an accessible man. In fact, his wisdom seems to be purely for sharing. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION PLUS MORE INFORMATION ABOUT HIM AND THE ASSERTION THAT HE IS ACCESSIBLE

Lenson is a professor and the program director of the Comparative Literature department at the University of Massachusetts. He currently teaches two classes: CompLit 131: “Brave New Worlds” and a 500-level course called “Modern Poetry and Poetics.” He has written five books: “On Drugs,” “The Birth of Tragedy,” “Ride the Shadow,” “The Gambler” and “Achilles’ Choice.” SPECIFIC INFO

He was born in Nutley, New Jersey, which Lenson described in a recent interview as “one of the towns where a lot of the Sopranos takes place.”  INFO PLUS GOOD QUOTE

June and David, 1945, painted by Michael Lenson; MichaelLenson.org

NICE TRANSITION:
There, his father, Michael Lenson (1903-1971), became a painting legend in the 1930s painting murals for the Works Progress Association (WPA). His mother, June (1918-1992), worked at a marketing research firm owned by Daniel Yankelovich. “She went back to work at the age of 40 as a receptionist and retired 25 years later as a vice president,” Lenson said. He recalled his time spent at summer jobs at the research firm. “I’d come in and run these marketing research sessions for 30 people, like, ‘What do you think of purple beer? Do you think it’s a good idea?’” BACKGROUND WITH FUN QUOTE

Lenson’s brother, Barry Lenson, lives in New Jersey and worked for Donald Trump as a blogger.

Lenson has been married once, and has a 19-year-old daughter named Lizzie Lenson. She was a freshman at UMass during the 2009-2010 semesters, but dropped out and is now headed to UMass Boston. She writes and paints, following in both her father and her grandfather’s footsteps. GOOD INFO

As a professor, Lenson is wise, informative and thought-provoking. He wants his students to take away from his classes “a willingness to reconsider their own values, even if they just confirm them, but just take a minute to question what you believe.”  STRONG QUOTE

“I hear from old students all the time and that’s the best thing when somebody emails you fifteen years later and still remembers it,” he said. ANOTHER GOOD QUOTE; TELLS US A LOT ABOUT HIM

The students who like him, like him for his cool style of speaking and casual disregard of the rules of conventionality. Jake Bissaro, a sophomore enrolled in his Brave New Worlds course said, “He’s outspoken and interesting and he doesn’t conform to lecture standards. He says whatever he wants.” Veronica Nguyen, also enrolled in Brave New Worlds, called Lenson “funny” and “kind of brilliant.” GOOD JOB INCORPORATING A QUOTE ABOUT HIM

Another student, Tim Allessio, said “I’d like to go out to a bar with him and just listen to his stories from his past.” CONCISE QUOTE

The students who don’t like him, whether it be because of the reading material assigned in his class, the amount of reading assigned, or his occasional use of profanity, most likely dropped his class within the first week (making room for the eager students on the waiting list). One student, Dave Haber, is still enrolled in one of Lenson’s courses, but is not particularly fond of the professor. Haber said that he enjoys the course material, but doesn’t see eye-to-eye with Lenson’s opinions. “He’s a cool guy, I just don’t agree with most of his views.”  GOOD QUOTE -- GIVES US ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE

Andres Wilson, one of Lenson’s teaching assistants, said that “He is the perfect blend of erudite professor and crazy 60s artist-slash-activist.” Wilson continued to say that, even though Lenson is this iconic figure, he has compassion for his students and really cares about them.

It’s true that most of Lenson’s students, like Bissaro, view him first and foremost as a man who has “probably done a lot of drugs.”

This is appropriate, because when asked in a recent interview which of his books was his favorite, he replied, “Oh, the drug book, absolutely. Sure.”

“Second favorite would be the second book of poems which I still like. The other two are academic books. The one that got me tenure: “Achilles’ Choice,” and there’s then a second one, a book on Nietzsche that got me promoted. You just have to do those to play the game professionally,” he said. SOLID INFO

Lenson also considers “On Drugs,” “the cult book that made [him] briefly famous,” to be his greatest achievement. “It tried to be different than all the other drug books by approaching the subject from the user’s perspective and, except for like drug memoirs and trip reports and that kind of thing, that hadn’t been done in a sort of more rigorous way before.” GOOD INFO

The late Timothy Leary, a leader of the drug culture in acid’s golden days of the 1960s, said of “On Drugs,” “Lenson’s magnificent book is a perceptive mapping of the rippling waves of undiscovered solar systems within our brain. It will comfort the fearful and guide the unprepared. A classic!” GREAT JOB INCLUDING A USEFUL QUOTE FROM A SECONDARY SOURCE

Lenson recalled the interaction with Leary. “Well, actually, it’s kind of a funny story. My publicist was able to contact Leary and send him a copy of page proofs or something like that and then called back a couple weeks later and Leary goes, ‘Yeah, this is very good, just write whatever blurb you want.’” INTERESTING QUOTE!

“So, I got on the phone with the publicist and tried to think like Timothy Leary… ‘What do you think? What would he say?’ …and so we made up some bullshit and called Leary back and Leary said, ‘Forget it, I’ll just write it.’ It was very generous of him to do that. It was a really nice thing.”

Professor Lenson in his office. Photo taken by Lauren Scrima

Despite Lenson’s accomplished writing career, it seems as though his favorite thing to do for money is play music. Lenson has been playing saxophone in a blues band for the last six years, and has played with such musicians as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and Buddy Guy, but his musical career began much earlier. “I’ve been doing it since I was 14 -playing music for money- so, I’m like, I’m either an unsuccessful professional or a very successful semi-professional I can’t quite decide which one,” he said. “I was out of it for most of the 60s because nobody wanted sax players. After the British invasion it was like guitar, guitar, guitar, guitar, guitar…everybody had guitar bands until in 1970 the Rolling Stones came out with ‘Exile on Main Street’ and they had Bobby Keys as the sax player on it and then ‘BANGO!’ I was working again. It was great; I owe Bobby Keys a drink sometime.”

Lenson said that he chose saxophone because when he was a child, the popular music of the 1950s often featured saxophone. “Some of the best musicians in town were sax players and sax players frequently fronted bands…so it was the prestige instrument and I wanted to play it.” Lenson’s mother, however, felt differently. She made him take clarinet lessons until the day that Lenson took the $45 he had saved up throughout elementary school and bought a saxophone.

“It was so long ago that I could actually buy a sax for $45 and I played that sax for a long time. I didn’t get rid of it ‘til ’74,” Lenson said proudly.

He went on to talk about his current band, the Reprobates. They are a New England based blues band. According to their Myspace Music page, Myspace.com/TheReprobateBluesBand, the band consists of Charlie Scott on vocals, Bo Henderson on guitar and vocals, Janet Henderson on bass and vocals, Thomas Major on harmonica, guitar, slide and vocals, and David Lenson on saxophone, cowbell and vocals. The band’s drummers are Doug Plavin, Dale Monette, and Rich Blake. GOOD USE OF AN ONLINE SOURCE OF INFORMATION

Of the band Lenson said, “It’s fun. It’s a hard-working band. In fact, uh, I’ve had some insane years in recent years. In 2006 I played 161 gigs, which is like,” he chuckled, “stupid.” He smiles when he talks about music the way someone would smile when talking about a best friend. “I think that what’s nice about music is, one, immediate creation and immediate reaction. When you write a poem, even if you get it published right away, it won’t be out for a year and you don’t get the reaction of the readers usually, but, you know, when you’re playing music, you do it right then and they react right then. The other thing is that music, because it’s a combination of emotion and mathematics at the same time…it’s the only thing in my life that has a spiritual dimension to it. It’s like a spiritual quest. And you wouldn’t think so, given the, you know, vulgar kind of music I’m playing, but it really is.”

Lenson’s love for music is further applied to the radio show that he hosts with Roger Fega at WMUA. The show is called MR2 and focuses on, at a basic level, visual, literary and musical artists. According to MassReview.org, the show’s topics include, “the blues, bookbinding, painting, publishing, literature, nudity, the majesty of catalpa trees, marijuana, Disney, perversion, animals, weaponry, binaural recording, book design, contemporary poetry, ancient Athenian sex strikes, war protest, media criticism, sculpture, sexuality, food, intellectual stimulation, baseball.” GOOD USE OF ANOTHER SOURCE

When asked about his favorite interview on the radio show, Lenson fell silent for a few minutes. Finally he thought of Peter Coyote, an actor who has been in both film and television. Lenson said, “What his current generation of fans may not realize is that he was one of the founders of the whole counter culture, with the San Francisco Mime Troupe in the very earliest days and he wrote this incredible memoir about it, called, ‘Sleeping Where I Fall.’”

“After the memoir came out I just wrote him this gushy letter and I was surprised that he answered me and we stayed in correspondence for a while. Then one year, the book was technically out of print, but one year I managed to wrangle copies at a reduced price and I taught it in 131. And, so, that semester I interviewed him… It was a very nice interview. It might’ve been my favorite,” said Lenson.

Lenson seems to have as many regrets as he has successes, but it appears as though he tries to have fun with whatever he does. His final statement in a recent interview was, “Good luck making something out of that hodgepodge; It’s been a very inconsistent life.”




                                                    ***

PROFILE TIPS

1) CONTENT

Should include

--basic information including family, home town, education, occupation, likes-dislikes, hobbies, successes-failures

--brief physical description

EXAMPLES: "His mannerisms slightly resemble those of Woody Allen, although he is much taller and has much more hair."

--anecdotes, scenes

--telling quotes

--verification of claims. If a person claims to be a popular, well-respected professor, check with students, other professors.

2) STRUCTURE

-- Direct or delayed lead followed by a nutgraph summing up significance of profile then story.

--Should be organized thematically -- not in the order you discussed things with your subject in an interview.

--Avoid using questions in place of a strong transition. For example, instead of saying something like, "So why did he decide to join the Army?" Say something like, "After paying close attention to the news following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, he felt a growing sense that he should DO something. Within weeks, he had approached the Army recruiter who often sits at a table in a far corner of the Campus Center."

3) WRITING

--Keep the reporter OUT of the story. Don’t use first person.

--Avoid empty, generic, cliched, abstract language. Remember, SHOW, don’t TELL. Rather than describe a person as being a good leader, for example, relate an anecdote in which the subject of your profile is SHOWN to be a good leader. If a subject says something like, "I learned a leadership skills in the Army," ask him or her to give you an example of when he or she thought she demonstrated those skills. Ask someone who knows your subject to try to think of an example that demonstrates your subject’s leadership skills.

Instead of saying something like, "She was always interested in nature." Describe how your subject used to hunt butterflies as a child.

--Don’t be hagiographic – that is, don’t write the life of a saint or a public relations puff piece. Your reader wants to get to know your subject as a human being and doesn’t want to be “sold a bill of goods.” 

--Use only QUOTEWORTHY quotes. A quote should be colorful or otherwise give your reader an idea of how your subject talks. Don’t quote run-of-the mill answers to your questions. Don’t use slang like “Wanta,” coulda,” “gonna,” etc.

NOT good quotation material:

"I grew up in Pittsfield and went to the University of Vermont," Carey said.

GOOD quotation material.

"Heath Hatch had a philosophy when he was going through schooling as a kid. "I knew to pass a course, you had to accumulate a grade of 50 percent, and if I got a 51 percent, I felt like I was wasting energy." (This also makes a good lead.)

4) MECHANICS

--Remember -- after you mention your subject by full name, use last name only for the rest of your story.

--Commas and periods INSIDE quotation marks.

AP STYLE TIP

AGES: Always use figures. When the context does not require "years" or "years old," the figure is presumed to be years. Ages expresses as adjectives before a noun or as substitutes for a noun use hyphens. A 5-year-old boy. The boy is 5 years old. The boy, 7, has a sister, 10. The woman, 26, has a daughter 2 months old. The law is 8 years old. The race is for 3-year-olds. The woman is in her 30s. (NO apostrophe.)