Nancy Rommelmann

Horrible. Horrible.

I began to cry as soon as I saw the photo. I realize that stories told since the time humans began telling stories have tried to explain how people can do what they did to these students, but I still don't understand.

Proving Once and For All I Am Easily Amused

I laughed. Din didn't. (Note: it helps if you're familiar with college basketball. Or not.)

Love/Hate

Love: The Adversary, A True Story of Monstrous Deception, by Emmauel Carrere. How deft, how wonderfully written, how horrifying. You might think, as I did, that in every human being, there is something redeemable, something that hurts him so much, you cannot help but feel for his condition. Carrere proves, this is not necessarily so.

Hate: Can anyone here name one chain store in America as ugly as Rite-Aid? I had to stop in on the fly to buy batteries for my tape recorder, and immediately upon entering, felt depressed, dirty and angry. What reasons can there possibly be for this endemic and standardized ugliness, this terrible lighting, the stupid placement? Inexcusable.

Can I Just Show You What Rudy Fernandez Did Last Night?

We were at the game; there were only a few seconds left until the end of the third-quarter, when Fernandez hit a 2 and the Rose Garden exploded, people jumped onto their feet, at which point I heard an even LOUDER cheering, but couldn't see why because of all the people right in front of me but saw a second later on the replay... HOLY CRAP! Din compared it to the time Reggie Miller shined the Knicks, scoring, what, 8 points in 11 seconds? Anyway, this ended the quarter and the crowd stayed on its feet screaming and clapping and cheering its guts out the entire break before the fourth. Playoffs, baby, here we come.

Dispatches from Portland and Baghdad

I can't say it's thrilling to read the front page of the New York Times and see they're using Portland as an example of a U.S. city experiencing a downturn, and leading with the example of Powell's Books -- and a photo no less! I have two things to say about this: one, I heard a report yesterday where a gentleman from Toronto was saying, he had a dinner party; there were 12 guests, they were all in their 30s, and the main topic of conversation was the bloody horrible economy. And yet, not one person at the table had lost his or her job; one had just bought a house, two had bought cars, and he and his wife were planning a European vacation. It's good to remember that, while it sometimes feels as though we're moving inexorably toward a very scary economic edge, we also live day to day, and how is it going for you? It's going pretty great for us, which leads to my second thought: my husband would appreciate it if every single news story about how to save money did not lead with the same facile suggestion of giving up your morning latte.

As readers here know, I am both a huge fan and a good friend Michael Totten, who's been reporting, on his own nickel, lo these many years from Baghdad and other parts of the Middle East. His latest dispatch is here. Please hit his trip jar, because while we may be watching our pennies and also, I suspect, have some Iraq fatigue, where else are you going to get this information -- and images! -- with nearly every news bureau either eliminating or contracting their overseas staffs? How else do we gain perspective unless people like Michael bring the world to us?

Car bomb aftermath, Adhamiyah, Baghdad; photo by Michael Totten

Pray for Me

Second Annual National Entertainment Journalism Awards
Los Angeles Press Club
March 26, 2009

FEATURE, PRINT

* Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times

* Mike Guy, Playboy

* Claire Hoffman, Rolling Stone Magazine

* J. Rentilli, American Way

* Nancy Rommelmann, LA Weekly

Mary Gaitskill Has a New Book of Stories

I had just dipped my toe into the world of writing, back in 1989, when I read Mary Gaitskill's Bad Behavior, and thought, you can do that? And, she just did that? It was thrilling in the deepest sense, also disturbing, and intimidating, and probably more than any writer, hers was the work that told me, you can do this, and you can do it as hard as you want.

Her third book of short stories, Don't Cry, has just been released. Here is a review by Kathryn Harrison, a writer I admire and who also infuriates me, her book The Mother Knot making me so angry I wanted to spit, preferably at her. But then, there is The Kiss, about her incestuous relationship with her father, and if that doesn't take a special kind of bravery to write, I don't know what does. I've yet to read her fiction and would love to hear, here, if anyone has recommendations in that area.

Guest Blogger: Brom Keifetz

Brom is a friend from college with whom I reconnected, via Facebook, last year. He lives in Panama City, Panama; I have no idea if this has anything to do with the fact that he seems no longer able to comment on my blog. From what I know of Brom, he has a great big brain and a lot of opinions he can back up, most of which I agree with, so far as I can follow; often, about round 8 of Facebook exchanges, I sort of whimper and beg off saying I have to go bake or something.

He's our guest poster today. Have at:

"Because my comment to Aroyo shut down conversation on your blog.  I'm happy to open up a new thread.  What will "Obama-ism" be called?  It strikes me as a kind of "Friendly Fascism."  There is a strong corporatist sensibility, meaning the largest financial institutions are favored over all other business and industry.  There is no commitment to free market principles, nor personal freedom, nor civil rights, nor a progressive orientation toward helping the least fortunate.

Both wars clearly are meant to be continuous.  He is actively shopping for a third.  The concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay remains, only it's worse than it was during the previous administration because the inmates no longer have a right even to a military trial (minimum one extra year of remand).  The Office Of Faith Based Initiatives remains and he has taken pains to commingle church and state where possible. 

His "trickle-down" economics would have embarrassed Reagan with the brazenness and would have made Jack Kemp cry.  The greatest upward expropriation of wealth in world history is happening right now and even liberals are cheering and calling it "social change."  That's what it is alright.  A war on the poor.

Yet, with all of the armchair chickenhawk general that Obama has been playing, none of his packages contain any sort of increase in the GI Bill Of Rights allotment nor the VA benefit. 

His foreign policy has been one of arrogance and petulance and were it not for Clinton and Biden being around to clean up his messes in Russia, China, Iran and South America, he might have already gotten the world blown in two, something he still may accomplish with his South Asia escalation as Pakistanis and Indians are already fighting in Kashmir, plus proxy wars in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.  And Obama's escalation continues apace.

Medical Marijuana and Same Sex Marriage are illegal but Peabody's dumping of benzene in the Ohio River is just Georgia-Peachy.  WOW."

Holy Dog War!

My dear friend Sarah sent me this exchange, between two churches that face each other across a busy street in Castle Rock, Colorado.

Leonard Pitts Gut-Punches that "perfect icon of American womanhood, Laura Ingraham."

Wow, Laura Ingraham, Meghan McCain, John McCain and Ann Coulter -- all before eight in the morning! -- courtesy of Leonard Pitts, the Miami Herald columnist whose editorials appear in the O. The gist: after Meghan McCain said, of Coulter, "I find her offensive, radical, insulting and confusing all at the same time," Ingraham took to the air and asked, "in her best Valley Girl accent [and] speaking as Meghan McCain... `OK, I was really hoping that I was going to get that role in the Real World, but then I realized that, well, they don't like plus-sized models.' ''

When she was later called out on this (including John McCain saying on The View that Ingraham could "kiss my fat ass"), she responded by saying the flap over her words was, "just another left-wing attempt to silence any criticism of the liberal agenda.''

Ahahahahahaha

Pitts does justice to this and then some; click here for the blow by blow

Thankful

I know I haven't been around here much, and frankly, it's a good thing; I have a lot of deadlines, first time in a while. I'm not sure of the calculus that's gone into why, with papers folding all around us, I have work. I'm just putting my head down and moving forward. Also started book writing again, which is its own special reward, at least, when you get that one sentence just right.

Hillary called me the other day to say, she could barely read more than a few sentences at a time of the D.T. Max article on David Foster Wallace, "The Unfinished," which appeared two issues ago in the New Yorker. That, as a writer, it was just too damn familiar and painful, and she thought I would think so, too. I did. But my goals compared to Wallace's are negligible; I have maybe one-half of one-percent of his smarts and ambition and perseverance, and certainly, reading the piece, I might say, if he couldn't live through it, what business do I have trying? But there you go.

One thematic harangue on this blog has been, writers need to be paid for their work. Cartoonists, too. But I didn't realize it was a theme until I received an email today from Aaron Johnson, creator of the comic What the Duck, saying, he thought I might appreciate today's strip. I do.

Why Did Mozilla Reload Itself?

Two things have happened with my computer in the past 24 hours: yesterday, Google Desktop decided, as I was working on a Quickbooks 2007 program, that it needed right then to install itself. I tried repeatedly for this not to happen, without luck. All right, I thought; Google Desktop, whatever the hell that is. All I knew was, it appeared as a little icon on my desktop, to be looked at when I have time, which I have not yet had. Possibly because I have no interest.

Today, again while working in Quickbooks as well as having Mozilla open, the computer started to make a lot of whirring; this usually means, in two-year-old laptop language, "I'm tired, I'm thinking, I am going to do weird things whether you're in Word(in which case I'll zip down to the bottom of your document and refuse to budge for a while) or cruising online (in which case, I'll freeze); essentially, I am going to be all quivery but in a few minutes, I'll be myself again." It's like dealing with some old lady. Fine. I went and put in a load of laundry, and upon return, the old girl still had the trembles; I could get out of Mozilla but not Quickbooks, and eventually, I had to manually shut her down.

When I reopened, and went online, a new Mozilla screen was telling me, I'd reloaded Mozilla. Which I had not, but which would not have bothered me but for the fact that ALL MY BOOKMARKS ARE NOW GONE. I'm not talking LA Observed and Arts & Letters Daily, but many folders with many links for stories I have done over the past two years, some of which I will soon be in the midst of fact-checking. To which I say, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Help?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Though in our house, it's also happy birthday to Din, my most darling husband. In order of importance, below (with h/t to Kate Coe at Deep Glamour for the video)

 

"Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism."

Clay Shirky explains what any of us paying attention already know, in "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable," that newspapers are going away. There is no bringing them back. For those who appreciate the information newspapers disseminate, "Now," writes Shirky, "is the time for experiments, lots and lots of experiments."

There's so much good stuff here, you should read the whole thing, but here are a few tasty clips:

Back in 1993, the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain began investigating piracy of Dave Barry’s popular column, which was published by the Miami Herald and syndicated widely. In the course of tracking down the sources of unlicensed distribution, they found many things, including the copying of his column to alt.fan.dave_barry on usenet; a 2000-person strong mailing list also reading pirated versions; and a teenager in the Midwest who was doing some of the copying himself, because he loved Barry’s work so much he wanted everybody to be able to read it.

One of the people I was hanging around with online back then was Gordy Thompson, who managed internet services at the New York Times. I remember Thompson saying something to the effect of “When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem.” I think about that conversation a lot these days...

The curious thing about the various plans hatched in the ’90s [to save newspapers from the internet] is that they were, at base, all the same plan: “Here’s how we’re going to preserve the old forms of organization in a world of cheap perfect copies!” The details differed, but the core assumption behind all imagined outcomes (save the unthinkable one) was that the organizational form of the newspaper, as a general-purpose vehicle for publishing a variety of news and opinion, was basically sound, and only needed a digital facelift. As a result, the conversation has degenerated into the enthusiastic grasping at straws, pursued by skeptical responses.

“The Wall Street Journal has a paywall, so we can too!” (Financial information is one of the few kinds of information whose recipients don’t want to share.) “Micropayments work for iTunes, so they will work for us!” (Micropayments only work where the provider can avoid competitive business models.) “The New York Times should charge for content!” (They’ve tried, with QPass and later TimesSelect.) “Cook’s Illustrated and Consumer Reports are doing fine on subscriptions!” (Those publications forgo ad revenues; users are paying not just for content but for unimpeachability.) “We’ll form a cartel!” (…and hand a competitive advantage to every ad-supported media firm in the world.)

Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke...

Print media does much of society’s heavy journalistic lifting, from flooding the zone — covering every angle of a huge story — to the daily grind of attending the City Council meeting, just in case. This coverage creates benefits even for people who aren’t newspaper readers, because the work of print journalists is used by everyone from politicians to district attorneys to talk radio hosts to bloggers. The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at hand; “You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!” has never been much of a business model. 

For anyone who doubts Shirky is spot-on: did you pick up your newspaper today? I picked up mine, brought it over to my husband, and said, "Feel this." He didn't need to; he could see it was no thicker than two nickels back-to-back.

h/t Emmanuelle Richard

Gone to Austin

Back on Wednesday

Swimming

My pal Robey reminded me yesterday that I have not, in fact, been blogging. This is true. I've been both out of town (once, miraculously and deliberately, without a laptop) and busy. Such is life. He was letting me know, he said,  because "some of us have come to expect regular blog posts." The day before, driving down from Tacoma, I'd listened to a tape I'd bought of a panel from the 2001 Los Angeles Festival of Books, a panel of narrative nonfiction writers that included Lawrence Weschler and Nathaniel Philbrick, both of whose work I admire. The moderator, Patt Morrison, asked good questions, including one I don't remember, only Weschler's answer, about how a writer skeins together the strands that make the story, a rough paraphrasing of which went, all the world is chaos and always will be, and the writer corrals some of this chaos and presents it to the reader, who appreciates (or not) the construction of what is now a story. This is as I, too, understand it. The writer is presented infinite particles (and I mean this literally) which he catches with his net, and then organizes. All the panelists agreed, as do I, that it's never a matter of not having enough material (except when it is; except when you start looking into a story that turns out not to be one, but experience teaches you to do this less and less, and then never, though I will posit it's equally true that sometimes you need to take a fishing expedition), always a matter of too much: how do you decide, as did Edward Humes, the author of Baby ER, which compelling, anguished, miraculous threads to include?

I told Robey, he and the other handful of folks who check in on this blog appreciate, for whatever reasons, the way I organize stories, and that this is the highest appreciation I can ever want.

Several days ago, I was asked to part in an art project. All I needed to do was write the one, or at the most two, most important things to me. My answers: 1: The safety of my daughter. 2: To write one great book, and preferably more. I was in Tacoma for the book. Today, driving at six in the morning through Portland, I saw that I have thus far for this book maybe six weeny strands. I imagined them as nerves, running through an outline of a human body, everything else blank, and then saw that someday there will be six hundred -- one will have to stop researching at some point -- all firing against one another, and then there will be coalescing, and the geometry of it will reveal what does and does not stay in the book, and what should.

Yesterday, a friend who I have known since childhood, Maggie Levine, tagged me in several Facebook photos. She wrote they were from LA, 1988-89, though I know the one below is summer of 1990, the age of my child being extremely easy to tell at that point in her life.

This morning, I took this same child to get all four of her wisdom teeth pulled out. I was a little anxious, she'd be going under general anesthetic for the first time in her life. After she'd been in the treatment room for a few minutes, I asked the nurse at reception if she would put my mind at ease; that Tafv had never been put under, and there was that time in LA when she broke her finger and when the doctor had shot a pain killer into the joint, the whites of my seven-year-old's eyes had flushed lavender and she'd started to hyperventilate. That sometimes, Tafv gets anxious.

"And where do you think she got that?" asked the nurse, but she was smiling. The procedure went fine, and quickly. I was led back into a small dark room where Tafv was recovering under a blanket; dopey as hell, nodding in and out every two minutes. I sat there, stroking her head, her leg, watching her nod in and out and babble, and saw the moment contained in a bubble, one of the millions of our lives together. I thought, I wished I'd made more of these bubbles all along; that I could more easily grab these moments with my child. It's now, that she is nineteen, that I am trying to burn them into my brain. Lately, I have dreamt of her -- as an infant, and then just learning to walk, and then at two, and at three.

She's home right now, upstairs, asleep. Before she conked out, we fed her soup. Since she can't really feel anything yet, I gave her a bib, the first she's had since she was about the age of the above picture, and she let me capture it.