Pages 56-60 in the PHG present four authors who use
techniques of observation in their writing, and they provide great examples.
Joseph Nocera, a writer for Esquire, writes about Steve Jobs, co-creator
of Apple computers, as an example of "Observing People." Paule Marshall observes a place in an excerpt from Brown Girl, Brownstones, which is contrasted
with Wendell Berry's description in The Unsettling of America. Each passage provides
a wonderful example of descriptions that evoke mood as well. In "Observing
Objects," architecture critic Paul Goldberger's critique compares and contrasts a sugar wafer and a Fig Newton. An excerpt from Paul Guarlanicik's
Lost Highway: Journeys and Arrivals of American Musicians describes a performance
by Bobby "Blue" Bland as an illustration of "Observing Events."
