Nancy Rommelmann

Another Really Good Article on Sexting

In July 2009, Reason magazine published my feature, "Anatomy of a Child Pornographer," which examined the phenomena of teen sexting, and the ramifications -- legal, emotional, political -- of one incident in upstate New York.

Today's New York Times runs, on page 1, "Poisoned Web: A Girl's Nude Photo, and Altered Lives," a fabulous and comprehensive piece covering the same issues, this time in the state of Washington, with a school administrator and prosecutor two years further down the line, and having learned the behavior will not change, only the way it is handled when handling becomes required.

The subhede to my article was, "What happens when adults catch teenagers 'sexting' photos of each other? The death of common sense." The Times piece shows, at least in this instance, the grown-ups keeping cool heads. Kudos to them, and to the Times' writer, Jan Hoffman.

Ode to a Greek Diner

An article of mine I thought was lost to time, Ode to a Greek Diner, about an old-school Greek diner on its last legs. It's closed now, and the decor is spectacular, wow; perfect for someone wanting to re-fab a diner and do it right.

Is Portland the New Neverland?

My article, for the Sunday Oregonian Opinion section, is online now.

The opening:

A recent episode of the AMC series "Mad Men" showed its female characters navigating a husband's departure for Vietnam and the land mines awaiting career women in 1964.

"I realized, watching it, these women were all 26," says Paige Prather, who moved to Portland in August and who is also 26 years old. Unlike her TV sisterhood, Prather, who has a bachelor's degree in anthropology, has not picked a profession. Unmarried, living rent-free in her sister's attic, she is looking for part-time work in customer service, or a full-time position in the arts. Graduate school also looms as a possibility. The crazy-making multiplicity of her situation is not lost on her.

"I sometimes think we're the scatterbrained generation," says Prather. "You have so many choices, and you know what you end up doing? Nothing. You become the DJ-fashion-designing-knitting-coffee-maker."

It was an interesting piece to report, and I am fortunate to have profiled six people about their experience of making it (or not) as 20-somethings in Portland, a city with the "tantalizing insinuation, much heralded in the media, that young people here make their passions their professions, in coffee and beer, music and bikes, progressive politics and as stewards of the land."

Let me know what you think, and/or join two of the people I profiled -- Matt Davis and Kate Williams -- and me this Monday at noon Pacific Time, for a webchat at OregonLive. 

I Am Not a Food Writer

Hi everyone, and in particular, those writers who, for various reasons, need to quote me in print. How are you? Having a good day? Great. If I may, let me direct your eyes to the column on the left, where it says, "My Articles." See those? There are thirty or forty. You might run over, also, to my website, www.nancyrommelmann.com. There are a features posted there, not complete, but enough to give you a sense of what I write about.

People often ask me this question: what do you write about? I tell them, about culture, crime, and deluded people. I also write a lot about books. It's been a good few years, writing about literary con artists and cults and sociopaths and child murderers and the complete loss of common sense some people experience when they catch kids sexting.

Now we've got that out of the way, I have a request: when you quote me, or refer to me, will you please resist the urge to refer to me as a "food writer"? I appreciate it.

Why Not to Follow a Cult Leader - "The Rajneesh Chronicles"

I am fortunate to be writing for an editor at the Oregonian who lets me dig into ideas I find important to disseminate and/or debunk. One of my favorite (least favorite?) is anything having to do with liars who convince others to believe their lies in order to amass personal power. I sometimes think I could write a book called, "Cult Leadership for Dummies," the actions of these charlatans and sociopaths are so proscribed and tawdry and small, a sort of one-two-three in which the manipulator worms his or her way in, worms and worms and worms until the host maggoty and broken. We cannot always protect people from being foolish and weak, but we can and must alert them at every turn not to be so. The opening from today's offering, a Q & A with the author Win McCormack, in the re-release of "The Rajneesh Chronicles."

It is axiomatic that each generation gets the guru it deserves. In the 1970s, fired up by freedoms proffered by the sexual revolution and women's lib, voyeurs to the Beatles' and the Beach Boys' spiritual brushes with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, those seeking a pleasurable enlightenment looked east.

There was someone looking back, someone who, in theory, had feathered a nest just for them. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh preached an admixture of mysticism and the Human Potential Movement, and bound it with a goo of free love. "Know your sexuality," read a Rajneesh ad in Time magazine, "and one day you will stumble upon your spirituality."

The message proved irresistible to thousands of Westerners. And if, upon arriving at Rajneesh's communes, life proved less than idyllic, with encounter groups devolving into sanctioned gang rapes, and meditation giving way to 120-hour unpaid workweeks, and sterilization and abortions strongly encouraged if not demanded due to Rajneesh considering the institution of family "a symbol of all that is ugly," then perhaps these were the costs of building a better world.

Read the rest here.

How to Become a Scandal

The first of three pieces I will have in the O this week, a review of Laura Kipnis's How to Become a Scandal. A clip:

"The pleasure of knocking the excessively privileged and overly lucky down a notch or two can hardly be underestimated," [Kipnis] writes. "Scandalizers screw things up in showy, provocative ways and the rest of us throw stones, luxuriating in the warm glow of imaginary imperviousness that other people's life-destroying stupidities invariably provide." (For more on that, I give you "The Real Housewives" and "Jersey Shore.")

Kipnis, a cultural critic whose previous books have examined sexual politics and pornography, lays out the lavish details of each story. She includes Sol Wachtler, a former chief justice of the New York State of Appeals who committed adultery, extortion, blackmail and interstate racketeering but thought he might get away with it all by faking an inoperable brain tumor.

Tumors, diapers, Bill Clinton's cigar, Monica's thong: All, in Kipnis' words, "so cringe-making," and yet they linger in our collective memory, like embarrassing smells we nevertheless like to sniff, and perhaps need to, to remind ourselves, don't be that guy!

Genesis Biopod

If you ask people what they’d like done with their bodies after their deaths, here are the answers you’ll receive, or the answers I received, in order of preference: cremation, put in a pine box, buried at sea, eaten by animals, and “set out with the recycling.”

 

The last is from my dad. I told him, we might do a little better than that...

 

I wrote a piece about a very cool alternative, the Genesis Biopod, which ran in today's Oregonian, lead story in the Business section, a section in which I have never before appeared -- tah dah!

 

If I can get it together time-wise before we head out of town tomorrow, for the Outstanding in the Field dinner at Cameron Winery (we'll be spending the night in the vineyard), I have an essay percolating that I will try to get posted.

Jules Feiffer, "Backing Into Forward"

I absolutely adore reviewing books for Jeff Baker at The Oregonian; it's an honor and a pleasure. He and I are on the same page as to which books I am the right reviewer for, and I feel like a kid in a candy shop when he lets me check out his shelves of books to see what I might like.

When my stepfather David Levine died this past December 29, I told Jeff about the memorial, and how one of the people giving the eulogy was Dave's good friend and fellow cartoonist Jules Feiffer.

"I have Jules' memoir here, if you want to consider reviewing it," said Jeff. "With full disclosure, of course."

Of course, but still, I wrestled with the idea: would I be able to find a reason why it was salient that I review this book? What if I hated it? What if I loved it? I did a little sweating...

For about an hour, when I realized that, yes, there was a reason why I should review it, but more than that, that the book was hilarious, and cranky, and full of the most amazing stories, as when Jules and a bunch of other luminaries are in the elevator in New York apartment building qua apartment building, the Dakota, and Woody Allen is rushing to get in, because the paparazzi are on his tail, and they keep holding open the elevator door, not letting it close until they get a photo, at which point Jules snarled, "Woody, let them take your picture or get the fuck off the elevator!"

I've known Jules for many years; my mother's known him for many more, and she has been begging me to read the review. I told her, she had to wait until it's published.

Here you go, mom.

Christopher Hitchens, Matt Taibbi, Mark Bowden... Nancy Rommelmann?

Apparently, this is the company I run with: my article on sexting, "Anatomy of a Child Pornographer," for Reason magazine, named amongst the Best Journalism 2009. Yup.

On Books, Writing, Writers

I have two new articles out, a book review of Sam Shepard's "Day Out of Days," in the Sunday Oregonian, and "Live from the Cannabis Cafe" in the February issue of Reason. Have a read.

In other writing news: turned in my book proposal for "On the Bridge" the day before I left for Panama.

More writing, as in, my current favorite: Charles McCarry, former spy and espionage author extraordinaire. Start with "The Miernik Dossier." Prepare to be awed. Writing does not get better than this.

Evening's Empire

My review of Zachary Lazar's memoir, Evening's Empire: The Story of My Father's Murder, appears in the Sunday Oregonian. It's about vice and real estate, the awakening to the rot that was the early 60s, about getting away with murder. Lazar had to have a steady hand to still what he needed to long enough to get it down on paper, to wit:

Beneath it all runs the blood that brought Lazar to his task, blood and purpose exposed as he recalls watching his mother the moment she is told her husband's body has been found:

"(S)he was sitting on the couch, bowing and rising like a marionette, or as though someone was shoving her from behind, only to yank her back upright with her blouse in his fist. When she looked at me, she screamed, her face distorted. The scream was angry, personal, insane."

Dee's Golden Door

I have a feature I adore, Golden Girls, in the December issue of Portland Monthly. The photo (by Daniel Root) at right should tell you why. Dee's Golden Door is a beauty parlor around the corner from the first Ristretto Roasters; we share a parking lot. The hairstyles I see coming out of Dee's are amazing, bouffants and beehives and a safety-orange atomic swirl. I knew I wanted to write about Dee's, and owner Nancy Tilton was kind enough to let me be a fly on the wall.

Added bonus: they taught me how to do my hair in a 60's sex kitten style which is not only easy, but elicits the sort of disarmed, admiring glances a girl does not mind fielding.

The Cost of Running Away

Early last year, my editor at the LA Weekly emailed one night to ask whether I was interested in reviewing Debra Gwartney's Live Through This, a memoir of her teenage daughters' running away. By the time my editor logged on the following morning, he had three emails from me, including one to his Facebook account, saying, "YES!"

It was a privilege to spend time with Debra and her girls. As I was leaving her apartment in Eugene, part of me wanted to say, "But can I stay the weekend so we can keep talking? I can sleep on the couch." Instead, I came home and wrote about Debra and her girls and the devastation that running away can bring.

Last month, I received an email from a friend about a local girl who was presumed missing. Without going into detail, I thought, I should write an Opinion piece about this for the Oregonian. But I dragged my feet. I was busy; I had the flu. My family had the flu.

Two weeks ago, the New York Times ran a series on teen runaways, focusing on kids in Oregon. I sent a link to the story to Debra, with the note that I was probably the 609th person to do so. In fact, she wrote back, I was the first, and when the heck were we going to get coffee, anyway?

I stopped dragging my feet earlier this week, and asked my editor at the Opinion pages whether he wanted a short piece from me about a runaway. This, though I realized I was probably a little late to the game, what with the NYT piece having run...

"Actually, your timing is perfect," he said, and that what I wrote would run as a companion piece to a long piece running this week, by a woman whose daughters had run away. I said, I bet I know who. Ah, he said, and did I know Debra's book is a finalist for the Oregon Book Award?

Debra's piece is "Good Guys, bad guys and running away." Mine is "Letter to a Teenage Runaway." Honored to be in such company.

Ode to a Greek Diner

After two weeks of feeling as though we've been moving through soft butter here in Portland, what with the heat, I'm finally awake, and good thing: so much going on. Have to hit the road tomorrow, to drive to Baker City for a meeting. Looking forward to seeing the Eastern part of the state. My smashing TV appearance of last Friday is online, here; you can hear the lights crashing and a phantom radio come on, a radio that my husband (who was watching as we taped live) said the techie could not turn off and eventually just threw into another room. Oh, and we started the production in a black-out. It was total fun; host Joe Donlon is all-pro and made me laugh a lot. A nickel to everyone who can peg when during the interview my mind went utterly blank!

Biggish news: new food website ZesterDaily.com launches today, and I have a piece up, "Ode to a Greek Diner," about a restaurant here in Portland called Niki's. I'd been to Niki's a few months ago, when I interviewed Adam Arnold. I went back two weeks ago to hang around, and the article is what I found. That's Niki, in her kitchen.

If I can get my edits right, later today I'll have part five of Stott-Smith up, though not about her and her children, but the murder of another child.

The Art of the Street Cart

More work from me (and two more pieces coming Monday!): food cart dining on the streets of Portland, Oregon, in the September issue of Bon Appetit. Yes, it's a topic that's gotten a whole lot of press -- and a phenom that my pal Cuisine Bonne Femme started following, oh, three years ago. But the carts are only getting better, with more and more interesting ones opening each month. I believe the piece I covered ten places; not sure if I'm not seeing a sidebar online, but anyway, check them out.

Could Fred Oldfield Be the Last Cowboy Painter?

Sometimes it's an honor and a pleasure to write a story, because the people you're writing about are so darn friendly. Such was the case last month with my meeting with Fred Oldfield, up in Tacoma. Fred's 91, painting a painting a week, as he has for the past 75 years, mostly scenes from memory, of when he crossed the Northwest with his family by covered wagon, was hired out at 15 to pick potatoes (ten tons a day!), and barnstormed up in Alaska to make a buck. My profile of Fred appears on the cover of the August issue of City Arts magazine. The copy is not online, so here's a PDF: Download Cowboypainter

The photos in the piece are amazing, but since I am too dorky to figure out how to properly embed the story here, below is one I took. Is he a handsome man or what? We should all be as vital and lovely at 91.

Adam Arnold, Grilled Cheese and Me

My lunch with so very nice, funny and talented clothing designer Adam Arnold published today. A clip:

MIX: How long have you been sewing and did you know it would lead to a career? 

AA: I started sewing 20 years ago. I grew up in Vancouver; I was living in my parents' basement and I would go out every night dancing. I'd get up in the morning and think who I wanted to be that night. This was the early '90s, lots of glitter and disco. People would see what I was wearing and say, "Wow, you should be a clothing designer!"

MIX: The clothes you design for men and women are pretty far from disco. The lines are so clean, so functional. They look expensive and yet they do not shout, ever.

AA: Good design is something that fits into your life. It doesn't draw attention to itself, except that it's made well and it fits you. How's your turkey sandwich?

MIX: It's good. I especially like that the French dressing on the salad is the orange kind. You so rarely see that anymore. And what are you doing with your fries?

AA: Well, I put stripes of mustard on the ketchup, and then I roll the French fry lengthwise. [He holds up a red-and-yellow striped fry.]

In other news, I am back in Portland since Monday night, drinking French wine for Bastille Day at Carafe, with Troy MacLarty and his pal Shannon, who is making Portland's best pomme frites bar none over at Laurelhurst Market. And then, last night, sitting in the beautiful, peaceful Southeast Portland yard of our great friends Josh and Heather. He grilled some steak and jalapenos, the latter of which let us just say caused a good deal of crying and coughing all around, an apoplexy only a few shots of good rum could fix. Then we sleep like babies and wake up in the sunshine. This entire summer feels, to me, like a gimme, as though I have been afforded this beautiful time as a gift.

We have two trips planned. First up: Panama in January. All suggestions welcome, and yes Brom, we will be seeing you xx

I Took First Place at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Awards *

My sweet friend Amy Alkon, who's attending the awards ceremony in Phoenix, called just now to say, "You won two seconds ago!"

It's for "No Exit Plan." I am of course pleased and honored. I won for feature writing once before, in 2001, for "Jena at 15."

And now, my husband is taking me to Fred Meyer to buy a mop.

*Updated: the winners list was not yet online when we went to Freddy's, but is now: many congratulations to my pals and fellow winners, Matt Davis at the Mercury, who nabbed two; Kevin Allman, editor in chief of The Gambit, which also took two; Jonathan Gold, who took (another!) first for food writing, and Willamette Week, which also won two. Congrats, my friends -- a toast!

On the Radio

Tonight, Friday, 6:35 PM, the Victoria Taft Show, KPAM 860, talking about "Anatomy of a Child Pornographer," my article in the July issue of Reason magazine.

Fly to LA tomorrow for Press Club awards, and to see the peeps.

Honeymoon's Over

My first piece for the Oregonian's Sunday Opinion section, "Honeymoon's Over," runs today. When I referred to it last night as "Part 3" of my writings about the Stott-Smith case (part 1, here, part 2, here), my husband said, "But comparatively, light." The lead:

Among Oregon's top news stories in 2003 were those about men who'd killed with such indifference to human suffering, the physical shock of their actions threatened to blow the citizenry right off its pins.

First, there was Christian Longo, convicted of murdering his young son and daughter by tying pillowcases filled with rocks to their ankles, stuffing them into a sleeping bag and throwing them, while still alive, into an inlet on the Oregon coast; his strangled wife and toddler's bodies were found in a nearby bay. Then, there was the ongoing case against Ward Weaver, who eventually would plead guilty to the rape and murder of two adolescent girls, whose bodies, one entombed in concrete, he hid in his yard in Oregon City.

I hadn't read a thing about either of these crimes until I bought a house in Portland that same year. Where, I wondered, was I moving?