About

See the Doberman is run by the idiot pictured above.

I’m a Columbia grad student currently learning various new media skills (photo, audio, and video software) as well as traditional beat reporting. I’ll be exclusively covering Bensonhurst, Brooklyn as my beat neighborhood for TheBrooklynInk.com until late December, 2009.

I’ve been blogging since 2005, and like everyone involved in journalism and/or the blogosphere, I have deep invested interested in the changing face of print journalism due to online outlets. In addition to random pop culture commentary, I like to review books and movies. I care most about: fiction, film, New England sports teams, politics, hip-hop, and graphic novels. I do not care much about: celebrity gossip, religion, and poetry.

In November 2008, I completed a senior English thesis involving Hunter S. Thompson, Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, David Foster Wallace, and blogging.

The banner image for this blog is a photograph I took from the side of a cliff on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland. I was in Ireland from January to June 2008, studying lit at Trinity College in Dublin.

The blog’s title comes from a passage in The Human Stain by Philip Roth:

At home he was able to speak with all his deliberateness and precision and directness and could wither you with words. He was very fussy about his children’s speaking properly. Growing up, they never said, “See the bow-wow.” They didn’t even say, “See the doggie.” They said, “See the Doberman. See the beagle. See the terrier.” They learned things had classifications. They learned the power of naming precisely. He was teaching them English all the time. Even the kids who came into the house, his children’s friends, had their English corrected by Mr. Silk.

Want to ask me something, yell at me, or maybe hire me? Email me.

DBR resume.doc