My writing – Page 20 – Christopher Wink

Thoughts on City Paper cover story on Philly porn star

So turns out one of today’s biggest, brightest and youngest upcoming porn stars lives in South Philadelphia.

And really, where else could Stoya live.

Philadelphia City Paper devoted its latest cover story to her. Nearly 5,000 words, friends. Writer Matt Stroud is getting beaten up a bit in the blogosphere and on the story comments – though some are complimentary – and there’s been some buzz around it, so I gave it a read, though I’m currently out of Philly.

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Weed and prostitutes: a conversation in Amsterdam

By Christopher Wink | Oct 9, 2008 | WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com

We meet Sander and Neek at the outskirts of Amsterdam’s Red Light District. Sean, his brother Brian, and I are on a bridge demarcating where the sex ends and the large, quiet residences begin. A small, sloping bridge over a small canal, 15-feet wide, on which covered bicycle taxis perch to take drunk tourists back to their hotels.

We’re deciding if one more walk through the alleyways glancing at half-naked women in their rented window brothel doorways would be one too many. Half-naked women tap on the glass under red fluorescent lighting – the most give and take you’ll ever have window shopping. They’ll sleep with you for a little money. This is one half of many people’s Amsterdam.

Sander and Neek walk by reminding us of the other half, shouting at us to ’smoke weed everday.”

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I am the future of journalism (Publish2: 12/30/08)

By Christopher Wink | Dec. 30, 2008 | Publish2

It is 11:55 p.m. on Dec. 30, 2008: minutes before deadline. Perfect.

I am very young and very green. Sometimes I spend entire hours thinking about everything I don’t know. Then I go ask a journalist.

My name is Christopher Wink, and I am the future of journalism because I don’t know anyone who loves the history of journalism and is excited by the future of journalism as much as I am. New media punditry is mostly filled with those who say print is dead and seem downright gleeful about it, and those who are still wondering, hey, why don’t all the newspapers get together and not put any content online?

I want to do both.

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Philadelphia Weekly: Father Figure

Pick up a copy of today’s Philadelphia Weekly. My first freelanced article makes an appearance.

There are saints and prophets on all corners of Philadelphia, but on the 1400 block of North 11th Street few are Catholic and even fewer are Irish. So 50-year-old Father Kevin Lawrence, with a hardy laugh and soft, precise speech, might seem out of place—if he weren’t taking over for another Irish Catholic.

In fact, the future of one of the most dynamic and independent parishes in the Philadelphia Archdiocese rests in Lawrence’s hands. Yet the only thing anyone seems concerned about is that Lawrence doesn’t write poetry. That’s because Lawrence is replacing St. Malachy’s Father John McNamee, a North Philadelphia icon.

…

Read the rest on Philadelphia Weekly.com.

See two other photos of the pair after the jump.

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King of Prussia: the child of Philadelphia tax structure

Your boy Tom Infield had an 1,800-word (not including sidebar) profile of King of Prussia – the 27,000-person outpost northwest of Philadelphia famed for the mall of the same name – for the Inquirer yesterday.

It is the prototype for suburban sprawl that is trying to remake itself into green(er)-friendly, small city life to retain a growing environmentally-conscious and urban drawn population who still might be concerned by the rampant crime of Philadelphia.

The thing is I don’t think any of the 60 online comments for the story came after having read the whole thing – I know mine didn’t.

Because, while Infield’s piece suggests King of Prussia was developed by the convergence of major roads at its doorstep – 202, 422, I-76, and the Pennsylvania Turnpike – it didn’t mention anything about Philadelphia’s aggressive tax structure.

This is something I read quite a deal about for my honors thesis, which focused on Philadelphia’s Republican Party. Indeed, I actually posted on this very topic back in January on the blog I made for the thesis.

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Six days from now

By Christopher Wink | May 08, 2008

One week from yesterday three strangers riding beside me on the 3 bus will be dead.

But I can’t know it. It hasn’t happened, and I’ve never spoken to them before and won’t in the future. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even like know they were there, except for the boy, and that was only because his iPod was playing so loud I heard the bass of his trashy hip hop.

In just six days he will die on the same day as two others he doesn’t know.

I just want to get home without listening to what’s left of the music in some teenage boy’s ears.

I work at my uncle’s deli near Wissinoming Park. Normally my boyfriend picks me up after his afternoon class at Holy Family and has dinner with my dad and me in Port Richmond, but he has some group project. So I’m on the 3 with Jimmy Quinn.

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Six days from now: excerpt

ONE WEEK FROM YESTERDAY three strangers riding beside me on the 3 bus will be dead.

But I can’t know it. It hasn’t happened, and I’ve never spoken to them before and won’t in the future. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even like know they were there, except for the boy, and that was only because his IPod was playing so loud I heard the bass of his trashy hip hop.

In just six days he will die on the same day as two others he doesn’t know.

I just want to get home without listening to what’s left of the music in some teenage boy’s ears.

This is a short excerpt. To read the rest of this piece and other writing, go here.

Tony Lain is dead: excerpt

There is a suddenness to life in this city.

Surely it is exaggerated in the minds of those who live mostly in fears of their own creation. Four hundred dead of 1.5 million isn’t anything to the pain and poverty of many in this world, but murders on the streets of Philadelphia require a viciousness that can’t possibly come naturally.

The stories come and seem to portray great tragedies in their crushing art.

Tony Lain was a 42-year-old married father of two from Mayfair, a neighborhood of runaways from the gritty, urban decay of Kensington’s old Irish Catholic blocks.

This is a short excerpt. To read the rest of this piece and other writing, go here.

I am currently traveling. This was forward-posted on May 6.

Philadelphia police beating is not as bad as Rodney King

You’ve heard it by now.

Fox 29 captured an 11-minute video following a Philadelphia police chase that ended with officers punching and kicking three men, suspected of a drive-by shooting minutes prior.

In case you’re smart enough to avoid cable news, you might not realize that the story is being recycled again and again each news hour with new perspectives with the same information. Here’s the footage discussed with a New York City lawyer on CNN.

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Tony Lain is dead

By Christopher Wink | May 06, 2008

There is a suddenness to life in this city.

The stories come and seem to portray great tragedies in their crushing art.

Tony Lain was a 42-year-old married father of two from Mayfair, a neighborhood of runaways from the gritty, urban decay of Kensington’s old Irish Catholic blocks.

He worked for Petro Oil in Southhampton, a working class man of flaws and simplicities.

Continue reading Tony Lain is dead