Nancy Rommelmann

WTF Blanket

I am thinking of a good friend of mine as I post this. He knows who he is...

h/t The Mercury blog

Quite the Other Way

Meaning, the direction which Merrill Lynch et al year-end bonuses may begin to flow. I am the daughter of a stockbroker; I understand bonuses are determined by shareholders and if they want to give Thain $10 million, or $10 billion at the end of the year, regardless of the company's performance, that is their right. But not when they're asking for and receiving federal bail-out money, and not, as seems to be the case, when executives hustled up the bonuses by a month in order to get theirs before the full measure of devastation (e.g., a debt-to-capital ratio of 30:1) was exposed. And is there anyone left in this country that doesn't realize these guys' smoke-and-mirrors practices and sense of entitlement are amongst the reasons we're in this financial mess? I still get a kick out of their umbrage and astonishment that we are not all that keen on delivering a wheelbarrow of cash, topped with a bow.

The Last Word(s) on Sam Adams

I don't know Portland Mercury editor Wm. Steven Humphrey (or why he uses a "TM" after his first initials), but I'd like to take my hat off to him for writing this week's cover story, "No One Is Innocent." In addition to striking me as amazingly balanced, it had, for me, the ancillary effect of doing something I, as a former New Yorker, have been desperate to see happen: it un-suctions Portland from the small town mentality and places it squarely wher, through the growing pains of the past five years, it actually is: on a big(gish) city stage, with the capacity to think through and address big city problems. I love it, and reading the piece, I thought, here's the good that comes from the imbroglio: we all get to think and debate and expand like grown-ups.

Speaking of grown-ups: I asked my 19-year-old daughter what she thought of the Adams situation, whereupon she looked at me, with a touch of forbearance, and said, "To me, people have their  regular lives, and they have their sex lives, and they are not the same thing." When I said, well, yes, but what about the lying, I got a little more forbearance. "Well, mom," she said, "people are going to lie about their sex lives. I just expect it."

Which made me realize, for the 409th time, that while this child may lack the experience of her mother (and thank god for that), she's got more wisdom than I ever will.

John Updike, 1932 - 2009

Oh my god. I started rereading the Rabbit series last month, and told my sister-in-law it was like brushing years of literary distractions from my eyes, seeing how a novel is supposed to be written. He was incomparable, funny, sexy, brilliant, taking many things seriously, most of all other people's accomplishments and scholarship, but, one sensed, never himself, or, only insofar as the work. What can I say; this feels like a line in the sand, and I thank him for his writing and his mind.

Sleepless

For reasons that may include the dawn of a new year; my decision to never again write for magazines that make my work look like shit; the advent of new wonderful writing wherein I meet new wonderful people; or my watching this and actually understanding, among other things, why my daughter keeps her room messy, life right now is very sweet, so sweet it seems as though I am holding in my hand a fruit in which there is a little round open pool of something liquid, like pomegranate syrup, and I am dipping in my finger and tasting it whenever I want, for instance last night, when I listened to "Sleepless" by the Decembrists while lying on my bed in the dark, a glass of red wine untouched on the nightstand.

Global Warming's a Bitch, Ain't It?

It's snowing in Portland. Again.

The Campfire Rule

Any grown-ups here? Good. Check out this blog post, by columnist Dan Savage, in support of Sam Adams. I've already left my comment over on the Mercury site, but would love to hear your thoughts.

Getting from Rochester, New York to Portland has proved an ordeal, one that is still unfolding, if in a much more satisfying way: I was bumped from three flights, but did (because I asked) get an upgrade to First  Class on both the Rochester-Chicago and Chicago-Portland flights. During the first, I sat next to a very nice man named Bill, a consultant who does a lot of traveling, and who asked if, between my flights, I'd like to hang out not in the terminal, with its pervasive smells of hot chocolate and pizza and restrooms, but United's Red Carpet Club. Though Chicago was his last stop, he walked me in, got me a free wifi pass and a drink ticket. Thanks, Bill. The first thing I did was go into the ladies room, change clothes, redo my make-up (that took about nine seconds) and spray on some perfume. I came back to the lounge and into the stares of two men. Which made me wonder about something I was wondering about earlier this week: do you think a lot of business travelers have a lot of random sexual encounters on the road? Aside from the fact that I am married and monogomous, I find the idea very sexy, and I can't be the only one. But if this is the case, how come we don't hear about it, read about it, see it as the subtheme of a hundred movies and liquor ads? Or do we and I'm just naive? It made me want to write an article about the business traveler, following one, seeing how he moves in and out (sorry) of these encounters, though I guess it could be a she, I guess it could be a novelette.

Speaking of women's sexual desire, my grade school classmate Danny Bergner has the cover story on said such, of this week's New York Times Magazine.

Sam Adams Should Keep His Job

If you look at it this way, and I do.

Ick

Mayor Adams meets with Oregonian editorial board part 2

Grammar Rappers

Sticklers for both grammar and online etiquette? You know I love these girls.

Best Sam Adams Comment I've Read

I'm here in Rochester, New York, rather than the steamy cauldron that Portland has become since my colleague over at Willamette Week, Nigel Janquiss, broke the story about our brand-new, 45-year-old mayor schtupping a then-18-year-old a few years ago, and lying and lying and lying about it, and instructing others to lie, essentially building a house of lies in order to get elected. My buddy Matt Davis over the Mercury is doing a helluva job on this story, which has more intrique and connect-the-dots players than, as one friend put it, "my favorite Korean soap opera."

The Tribune (another Portland paper) just ran a piece about local musician and Adams-booster Thomas Lauderdale claiming Sam will not resign. It eludes me why Lauderdale has become a spokesman, or why we should listen, aside from the small town "you call in your ringers, I'll call in mine" aspect of it all, but I do appreciate the following comment to that article, by someone in nearby Vernonia, which flooded badly last year:

Re: Adams’ survival teeters on edge

Out here in Vernonia, Oregonia we have a saying..."when the going gets tough, and the road is full of potholes, and the sidewalks are crumbling, and the leaves are blocking the sewer drains, and there are rusty abandoned cars littering the main Piazza, and the crawdads have all died out because the e-coli bacteria in our drinking water has exceeded it's medicinal levels, and our trailers have flooded and our 2 dollar a square yd carpet is ruined, and the Goodwill has run out of toothpaste from China, we move the trailer to higher ground, level it with some 2X4's and ball jacks, run an extension to the neighbors house in the black of night, turn on the flat panel, crack open a beer, and watch the Portland local news for entertainment. Sam..the consensus in Vernonia, Oregonia we love you and want you and your crowd to hang in there. We have NEVER laughed so hard in all of our lives. You and your backbiting, vindictive little gang of buddy's are better than any sit-com rerun we tend to watch out here as we wait form the lumber industry to return...( where the trees will come from we haven't a clue)..but what else can we do?...become freeway flaggers in the Obama infrastructure federal fiscal stimulus plan? You hang in there..if only for the laughs. Get Vera to do a guest spot.

"Rick Etts, Vernonia, Oregonia"

Two Pilots

We've had two pilots in the news this week, and if I had a magazine, and the right writer, I might assign a think-piece contrasting their actions. As the world knows, Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger landed a jetliner on the Hudson River, "the first time in 45 years that a major aircraft crash-landed in the water - and every passenger on board made it out alive," which Captain Sullenberger made sure by walking "the aisle of the downed US Airways jet twice looking for passengers before exiting the plane." I have heard two people I know, both constitutionally opposed to the word "miracle" (as am I) use it for this landing, and the survival of all 155 abroad. (And on that note, let us not forget the stewardess who prevented a passenger from opening a rear exit door, which was submerged.) What's stunning to me is how the jet just floated there as the passengers disembarked, as if it were saying, "Despite my weighing, oh, about a million pounds, I'll just hang out here until you guys get to safety." While I am sure Sullenberger will be besieged by the media, possibly even offered a book deal, I do hope they will resist dissecting his life; that we can all join in saying, well done! And then leave him alone. Hero is an awfully big mantle, and I can't imagine the right people enjoy being yoked to it.

The other pilot of the week is, of course, our anti-hero, Marcus Schrenker, who, in an effort to fake his own death, placed a "distress call" from his single-engine prop plane, parachuted to safety; fled on a motorcycle he'd previously stashed (one whose panniers were stuffed with cash), wound up in a cut-rate motel room and later a KOA campground, where he slit his wrists and was captured by the police. The man is despicable for setting the plane on autopilot and letting it crash where it would, there's no excuse for that, but the rest is fascinating. I think Schrenker's is a life that would bear dissection, to see how the man goes from this to this (scroll through images); to see how close the circumstances of his own making really are.

Lost at Sea

I am developing a minor fetish with the site Cruise Bruise, which reports, in great depth and with zero sentimentality, on the many mishaps and tragedies daily visiting those on cruise ships, both aboard and overboard. Some of the more sensational ones wind up on TV news shows like 20/20, instances where people are murdered and tossed overboard, or have sex on the balcony railing and... whoops! There are amazing stories of survival, and stupidity. But the ones that don't get much press are ones such as this, where an elderly couple just... disappears. I've been reading about these instances for years, and while I hate to sound insensitive, I see the pragmatism in a couple thinking, well, we're getting pretty feeble; nothing but trouble to the kids; might just be better if... and they're gone. I think it takes some bravery and resolve, but then, I have always wished to be thrown in the ocean when I die, or to perish there.

Troy MacLarty, Supersta

I have a nice piece on this month's MIX magazine, entitled "An Appetite for Travel," though I told my buddy Troy (that's him, at right) the piece might more aptly be called as above. I'll also be starting a column for MIX in the next issue, a column I've wanted to do for years.

In other news, I'm on two other stories, one of which takes me to Eugene on Monday, the other of which necessitates I fly to sunny Rochester, New York for the week on Tuesday. When Obama is being sworn in, I'll be taxiing down the tarmac. Anyone have any suggestions as to good things to do/eat in Rochester, let 'er rip. Not that I'm going to have much downtime, but hey, a girl's gotta eat.

I Read the New York Times for You

What a good, good paper today, including:

"Mapping the Sea and Its Mysteries." Did you know that Prochlorococcus, "so small that millions can fit in a drop of water — has achieved fame as perhaps the most abundant photosynthetic organism on the planet. It daily releases countless tons of oxygen into the atmosphere" and that "the tiny organism is estimated to provide the oxygen in one in every five breaths we take"?

John Tierney on why "Anti-Love Drug May Be the Ticket to Bliss."

David Brooks's really quite comforting "In Defense of Death."

Sarah Palin on how unfairly she's been treated. (Kicker: "Are you whining? There's no whining in politics.")  (Bonus video, here.)

A review of David Sanger's "The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power," in which the reviewer compares Bush's "inexplicable resistence... to changing course" (Sanger's words) to "a Nixon who never went to China." Sounds juicy!

A short item on a pilot faking a distress call, parachuting to safety, and fleeing.

And... Inuit throat singing! (Bonus video, here.)

Katie Shearer Dies at 24

A few years ago, I blogged about the saddest story I had heard during the holiday season, from someone at a cocktail party, about her friends, whose ten-year-old son had broken his leg playing soccer, and when the doctors did the x-ray, they saw a shadow, just a little shadow, but the shadow was cancer, and so the boy was hospitalized, and it was decided, they needed to take the boy's knee, and this is what always kills me, taking away a ten-year-old boy's knee. And they did, but they did not get the cancer, and soon, the boy was dying, and this family, they were not religious, but they tried, because what else could they do, to explain that he would be going to heaven, to which the boy said, "But I'm not going to know anyone there." And the boy died, and the parents marriage did not survive.

On Christmas Day, Oregonian sports columnist John Canzano ran a column about 24-year-old Katie Shearer, who had malignant melanoma and had about a week to live. A Trail Blazers fan, she wanted to spend Christmas with her family at the game; I and about a thousand other people contacted Canzano to give her a ticket, but the Blazers were way ahead of us; Katie and her family were well taken care of, details of which I heard about during a one-hour radio show Canzano does, and on which Katie was a guest last week.

I know about entering the realm of of a stranger's death; I know how involved one can become. I also know that the end of Katie's life touched people in ways they did not expect or anticipate; she made a good, good ripple in the community.

Katie passed away Sunday. Links to all articles and radio show are here. I include the photo to commemorate her, and also the anguish around her mother's eyes, which brings me to tears.

End Times

Had brunch yesterday at the home of Matt and Sue Davis, a brunch that spooled out into four hours, so engaged were we in talking about books and TV and Portland [pro and con] and insider baseball. As to the last, I mentioned I have more work now than I have in two years, which seems counterintuitive, looking at the state of newspapers. But Matt said, no; with so many people out of work, and sending so many query letters, the editors are going with their ringers; and that he, in his position at the Mercury, has to field at least six amateurish pitches a day, to which he just wants to respond, "Do something else; go into retail, because you cannot write." It's not simply a matter of writing, but getting over hurdle one. Personally, I have no more time to coddle wannabe-writers. While I am generous with my contacts for people whom I know know how to deliver, I am completely done with folks who do not follow-through, or show up rumpled, or who, after you have a beer with them and make for them introductions with your contacts overseas, have yet to figure out it's a good idea to type, "thnx" into an email. It's a quite lovely fact that deciding what you will no longer do frees you up to do what you do want.

Speaking of the end/new beginnings of journalism, I found "End Times," in this month's Atlantic Monthly and about how the print edition of the New York Times could, conceivably, be out of business by May -- yes, this May -- particularly sobering. Good hed, though.

Those Delightful People You Meet on the Internet

And for the most part, they are. I've reconnected with people through Facebook, forged work relationships via the blog, and become both virtual and actual good friends with folks I've been introduced to online.

I also receive the occasional fan email for my work, which is always nice. That is, until earlier this week, where after receiving a personal email with a compliment on one of my books, I wrote back, thanks. Here's what I got in return:

how many guys have u had sex with

Nice, huh? Before blocking his email address (and we are going to assume it is a he) I wrote back telling him, if I knew where to find him, I'd have my husband go over and punch him in the face. Then, taking a page from my friend Amy "Revengerella" Alkon, I got in touch with Yahoo! Because the guy has a Yahoo address. I must say, I am very pleased with their response. While they won't tell me who exactly it was, and frankly I don't care to know, they did sanction the guy.

Certainly, I'd had lewder things spammed to me, but to take the time to personally email such garbage, what a cretin. Anyone else had this happen? If so, what did you do?

We Can Fly!

My pal in Hawaii, Bill Boyum, just sent me this link, with the note that it made him and his wife think of me. I don't know why but... wheeeee!


wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Marc Cooper Lets the LA Weekly Have it With Both Barrels

While Mark Twain famously said, "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," and Steve Jobs yesterday had to issue his own "I'm still here!" statement, author and journalist Marc Cooper today released the LA Weekly's autopsy report, on the body of the paper as we knew it. Perhaps mostly of interest to Weekly/news wonks. A few clips:

[T]he 30-year-old Weekly's heart and soul has been scooped out by a corporate management that seems hell-bent on a suicidal tack. The Weekly once distinguished itself by being, alone with the Village Voice, the only major metro weekly in America willing to focus on national and international coverage beyond the local boho bar scene. It had a real and substantial editorial budget. The Weekly was read avidly for 30 years by an audience that relished not only its excellent cultural, film and music coverage, but primarily its bold and prominent political writing-- including a rich menu of commentary and opinion. Its reporters were, not infrequently, sent across the country and sometimes around the world to write 10,000-word cover stories that could be found nowhere else. It now boggles the imagination when I remember –in a different era—reporting from South Africa, El Salvador, Cuba and from within various national presidential campaigns—for the L.A. Weekly. And these were not just second-rate self-absorbed wannabe writers who were on the road. I'm in great company when I note that those of us who wrote those stories also worked for The New Yorker, Harper's, Vogue, and the Sunday magazines of the Los Angeles and New York Times. We wrote for the Weekly because we chose to write for the Weekly – certainly not because we had to...

For nearly 30 years, the L.A. Weekly had been a crucial launching pad for budding local (and sometimes national) writers. It was a place you got started, where you found your voice, where you made your chops and maybe even a name. That possibility is just about completely foreclosed.

I've written near a 100 pieces for the Weekly; hell, I'm writing one now (and, full disclosure, I consider Jill Stewart a friend). Two days ago, I wrote an an essay called "After the Hangover," dealing with the issues of which Cooper writes, as well as some editors/publications' of my acquaintance who have so little trust in their readers that the truth of stories is slaughtered at alter of facts, and brevity; shoved (no matter how many limbs must be amputated) into tiny little boxes for tiny fearful minds.

Yesterday, I spoke on the phone with a brilliant writer and editor in Seattle, who said, "It must be hard to be a long-form journalist and live in Portland," meaning, where the publications don't run many (if any) long-form pieces. "Even in the New Yorker," he added, "the articles are rarely more than five thousand words."

Go ahead, sit there and read this and think, aw, poor wittle Nancy and all those other windy feature writers, wasting our time with 10,000-word pieces; who needs 'em? To which I say, you do. I will end this post, which has made me unexpectedly angry, which something my sister-in-law, a fine fine writer with a fine brain, wrote the other day, when I was blogging about the latest fake memoir:

Storytelling is our culture’s digestive system. We process experience by trying to recombine it in ways that make sense and provide us with mnemonics–myths, legends, tragedy, comedy, fiction. My 16 year-old son asked for two things this Christmas: Nietsche and Dostoyevsky, so I know that this tradition, this healthy process, is alive and well. Anyone who watches Battlestar Gallactica or The Wire knows that myth-making can be as powerfully cathartic and uplifting today as it was for those who first took in Shakespeare’s plays.

The “true stories” that have been exposed as false lately aren’t stories that carry the moral weight of powerful fiction; instead, they are reductive and sentimental. There is a stench rising from these stories; they are rotten. We spent the first part of the Bush era debating whether or not we were lied to about weapons of mass destruction, which was the wrong debate: The question wasn’t whether or not this were true, but whether it were plausible. Was it salient, or just noise? We were so caught up with the “truth” that we failed to look at the real story.

The truth is synergetic, it’s more than the sum of a collection of “facts.” The truth has weight and momentum. Not all facts weave into our stories, and not all improbabilities are created equal. The existence of weapons of mass destruction was a mere improbability. The election of our first black president was a miracle–one that Oprah has every right to celebrate, and will and should. It’s crucial that we understand the difference as we move forward. We need to tell the stories, both true and fictional, that allow us intelligence and complexity, not those that gloss over and sentimentalize that which is difficult to digest, or distract us from our pursuit of our own betterment.