24 Hours On A Changing Block
'That's why I [expletive] love this neighborhood'
Dan Zak: It gleams like a giant silver bullet lodged in the former site of a used-car lot, between a dumpy little liquor store and a rubbly, vacant property. It's a diner, that American symbol of both thriftiness and plenty, community and loneliness, where the well of coffee never runs dry, where you can eat alone and still feel part of something.
Every city needs a utilitarian district where life is staged, where cabs are serviced, trash is compacted and sand and salt are heaped, and this is where there should be a diner. Nail salons, automotive shops and blighty storefronts line this stretch of Bladensburg Road NE between H Street and Mount Olivet Cemetery, on the eastern edge of the unkempt-but-quaint neighborhood of Trinidad. Hardly an oasis, Trinidad still smarts from a rash of homicides that prompted police checkpoints two years ago. At that time, on the 1100 block, a bar called Jimmy Valentine's Lonely Hearts Club had taken root where an income tax service used to be. Shortly thereafter, a new 18-unit condo building opened on L Street NE. Next, in September of last year, Sullivan's Southern Style Seafood set up shop in an empty former deli spot. And then the diner appeared in February.
Posted by
ben on 09/02/10 at
14:22
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Recipe For Writing
afternoon inspiration
John McPhee (thanks, Richard): I always say to my classes that it’s analogous to cooking a dinner. You go to the store and you buy a lot of things. You bring them home and you put them on the kitchen counter, and that’s what you’re going to make your dinner out of. If you’ve got a red pepper over here—it’s not a tomato. You’ve got to deal with what you’ve got. You don’t have an ideal collection of material every time out.
Posted by
ben on 09/01/10 at
14:36
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Freedom
'Great American Novelist'
From that Time story on Franzen and his latest: Franzen is very conscious that people are freer than ever — that word again — to spend their time and attention being entertained by things that aren't books. That awareness has changed the way he writes.
A lot of literary fiction strikes a bargain with the reader: you suck up a certain amount of difficulty, of resistance and interpretive work and even boredom, and then you get the payoff. This arrangement, which feels necessary and permanent to us, is primarily a creation of the 20th century. Freedom works on something more akin to a 19th century model, like Dickens or Tolstoy: characters you care about, a story that hooks you.
Posted by
Kruse on 09/01/10 at
09:05
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For Their Own Good
always worth re-reading
Ben and Edmund spoke at a company forum yesterday about the work that won a Casey Medal and a Dart Award and was a Pulitzer finalist.
Posted by
Kruse on 09/01/10 at
09:00
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Restoring Names To Unknown Casualties
'Show me my son!'
Anthony Shadid (thanks, Raja): BAGHDAD — In a pastel-colored room at the Baghdad morgue known simply as the Missing, where faces of the thousands of unidentified dead of this war are projected onto four screens, Hamid Jassem came on a Sunday searching for answers.
In a blue plastic chair, he sat under harsh fluorescent lights and a clock that read 8:58 and 44 seconds, no longer keeping time. With deference and patience, he stared at the screen, each corpse bearing four digits and the word “majhoul,” or unknown:
No. 5060 passed, with a bullet to the right temple; 5061, with a bruised and bloated face; 5062 bore a tattoo that read, “Mother, where is happiness?” The eyes of 5071 were open, as if remembering what had happened to him.
Posted by
ben on 09/01/10 at
08:44
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Stuever, Times Two
rolling
Size does matter: When bathed in his own afterglow, Glenn Beck becomes as soft and gentle as Mister Rogers.
In cadence and content, his Washington rally debriefing Monday on Fox News's "The Glenn Beck Program" was soothing television, with a slideshow that proved theirs was not a choo-choo train trip to the land of make-believe, but a real phenomenon. He called it a miracle.
Here's a picture Beck has of Sarah Palin praying for fully 10 minutes, Beck said, "the most beautiful picture of Sarah Palin ever taken," just look at it. Here's one of a man and his young son in a moment of patriotic bliss-out under blue skies. Here are the geese that flew in perfect formation over the crowd just as the rally began on Saturday in front of the Lincoln Memorial. As he stood in his bulletproof vest and prepared to restore America, those geese, Beck said, were a way of knowing that God had noticed.
And on closure: Closure is both a concept and an emotion and something we talk about so much in life that the word became its own cliche. And closure, it seems, is an unspoken reason why we channel-surf so much in the first place -- TV is the place where things work out, where crimes are easily solved, where weight comes off and where roses are bestowed in quasi-real stagings of love.
In his live televised Oval Office address Tuesday night, President Obama dealt out a therapeutic, paternal sense of closure: The war in Iraq is over, in the sense that America is no longer officially fighting it. Our sacrifices have been made and honored.
A trillion-dollar investment, on which we are now closing the books. Which is not the same as closure, so much as transferring the balance.
Posted by
ben on 09/01/10 at
08:42
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For A Textile Town, A New Future
unlike anything in the world
Michael Graff (thanks, Elizabeth): Before he started working in genetic sequencing, Randy Crowell dropped out of high school.
He went down to the mill in Kannapolis, 16 years old, and got a job opening bales of cotton. He made a couple of bucks an hour. He got married a year later, at 17. It was the 1970s, and around these parts, about that time, that was life.
Cannon Mills was the provider for a region, the provider for generations, the largest producer of sheets and towels in the world, the daily home to some 22,000 employees. Around here, about then, good hands got you a job and a diploma got you a pat on the back. Crowell, raised in nearby Salisbury, was destined to work in the mill. When he first stepped inside that 6 million-square-foot titan of textiles just outside downtown Kannapolis, he figured he’d work there forever.
That was just the way it was.
It’s only a piece of land, underneath it all. Three hundred and fifty acres of land, to be exact. Bordered by Main Street and a railroad track and a three-block downtown. In that downtown is the oldest single-screen movie theater in the country still in operation today. The theater might be the most notable thing here, if not for the land.
Rising from it now is the North Carolina Research Campus, a place where geniuses have come to get smarter. It is now a piece of land that employs one scientist who was a leader in sequencing human chromosome 1 in the Human Genome Project and another scientist who is a world leader in studying choline’s effect on the human brain. It is now a piece of land with toys such as a nuclear magnetic resonance machine that, when powered up at 950 megahertz, is the world’s most powerful superconducting magnet. It is now a piece of land where super fruits such as the blueberry are about to become even more super.
Posted by
ben on 09/01/10 at
08:16
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In Death, A Donation
'Does this mean I can finally hit a major league fastball?'
Sorry for the gangrissues yesterday. Back now and rolling. Here's Thomas Curwen (thanks, Mark): If Elizabeth Uyehara were alive, she would be pleased. Everything was working out as she had hoped. The terrible banality of her illness had ended, and she was about to make her final journey.
Two hours before she died, David Jones' pager went off. He canceled his lunch and made a few phone calls to sort out the details with the hospital and the family. He went to his lab and picked up the paperwork and, before heading over the Sepulveda Pass, stopped at a 7-Eleven for some ice that he tossed into a cooler.
He parked in the back of the mortuary in Northridge and let himself into the prep room. Her body lay on the porcelain table. He walked over to the cabinet where he kept his instruments, pulled on two pairs of size-81/2 surgical gloves and zipped open the white bag.
Posted by
ben on 09/01/10 at
08:11
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Katrina, Revisited
collection
Let's post the best of the best. This one is worth reading again. Dan Barry: NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 7 - In the downtown business district here, on a dry stretch of Union Street, past the Omni Bank automated teller machine, across from a parking garage offering "early bird" rates: a corpse. Its feet jut from a damp blue tarp. Its knees rise in rigor mortis.
Posted by
ben on 08/30/10 at
08:53
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Baby Fat, And Balls
"Wehl alraght."
Blake Hall (thanks, Hank): I met Roy in early 2007. I was the leader of a reconnaissance platoon of scouts and snipers in Iraq and was just back from a two-week leave in the United States. Roy was our new interpreter.
That night, my platoon was sent out on a raid. Our target was an al-Qaeda suicide-attack coordinator. Scanning the intelligence report, I learned that previous attempts to capture him had ended with his bodyguards detonating suicide vests and killing 16 Iraqi police officers. An image of my lead scout team entering a house in southern Baghdad and vanishing in a ball of fire flashed through my mind.
I gave my platoon a 30-second rundown of the situation and the mission, and we scattered to our vehicles. As I pulled on my night-vision goggles and the pitch blackness turned a glowing green, it hit me that less than 24 hours before, I was eating lunch at a Panera in Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport. Life is full of surprises.
But that night, at least, the surprises went our way. We raided the target's home without incident, capturing him while he slept in his bed. Later, as I watched two of my snipers lead the shuffling insurgent toward a U.S. prison in Baghdad, I saw what looked like a little kid in camouflage get out of the armored vehicle two down from mine.
I glanced at one of my scout team leaders. "Who let the 12-year-old out with us?"
Posted by
ben on 08/30/10 at
08:16
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Little Slugger
He made sure I wrote it all down
TLake in SI: The New York Yankees' top prekindergarten prospect lives in Jersey City and plays baseball with his three brothers in the dusty courtyard behind their apartment. They made me umpire. You're the empire, they said. I was a bad empire, studying my notebook as plays unfolded, but I was watching when Ariel Antigua lined a home run onto the roof and stumbled on his way to third and lay in the dirt, crying, while his brothers retrieved the Wiffle ball by using a shovel to pull down the ladder of the fire escape. After the game, when Ariel had cheered up, he cracked open a can of Coors Light.
"Want some?" he asked me, smiling wide enough to reveal his sharp white baby teeth.
"Ariel!"
Posted by
Kruse on 08/27/10 at
10:41
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Here's To The Can
everyone takes it for granted. for 1,000 words, let's not.
That picture! I haven't had a Schlitz tall boy since the 6th grade. Here's Dan Zak: The march of Western civilization and the prosperity of the United States have partly hinged on the quiet little object behind those boxes of pricey whole-grain rotini pasta on the third shelf of your cupboard. The object is cylindrical and silver and wrapped in a paper label. It is dusty. Its expiration date has passed.
"You think it's still good?"
"I dunno. Open it. No, wait. Don't."
Or do. Several years ago, on the 50th anniversary of his marriage, an Englishman in Denton ate a can of cooked chicken he received as a wedding present. His only complaint? It was "a little bit salty."
Such is the power, the longevity, the simplicity, the overwhelming ordinariness of the can. Until food can be bought, cooked and consumed via iPhone, we will remain a container society, a canned civilization, preserved, pickled, hermetically sealed against the ravages of time, a people whose food and drink shall not perish from the Earth.
Posted by
ben on 08/27/10 at
09:46
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The New No-Style?
flat
(h/t HS) Is the way Tao Lin writes a harbinger of a new no-style (concrete/literal) favored by the all-web generation?
Tao Lin profile from The Observer: The Observer was sitting at his desk. It was Friday at 1:03 p.m. His Gmail was open, and the inbox showed a new message from Tao Lin. The subject of the message was "just confirming, 630pm five leaves."
The Observer replied, "Yes, and the assignment is fully confirmed. The profile of you will run in the Observer issue of August 18."
Tao Lin replied, "Sweet. Thank you."
A few minutes later, The Observer decided to write his profile of Tao Lin in Tao Lin's style. An editor came up to The Observer's desk to check on his work. The Observer told him there was no problem with his work. The editor seemed relieved.
The Observer said, "Tonight I am having dinner with Tao Lin, and I am going to write a profile of him in his style. He writes in a flat style. One thing just happens after another. There is no figurative language, and every time a character thinks something he uses the verb 'think.'"
Posted by
ben on 08/25/10 at
15:50
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Journalism 4308
at the University of Florida
Taught by SPT Enterprise Editor Kelley Benham. Here, with her permission, is the About This Course:
In this class, you'll tell stories. A story is not an article. You'll learn the difference.
You'll turn on your old friend, Inverted Pyramid, and embrace new story structures and new tools for storytelling. You'll learn a new kind of reporting. You'll learn to listen. To see and to think. To be still.
You'll learn to gain altitude, to zoom in on the smallest details, to love precision, to accept freedom, to take control.
You'll read some of the best journalism that has ever been done, stories that make you want to give up now, while there's still time for law school, because you'll realize how hard this is to do well.
You'll learn, fairly quickly, how bad you want it.
Posted by
Kruse on 08/25/10 at
09:32
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Stories That Should Never Go Away
Part II
In 1994, Tom Junod wrote a story for GQ called "The Abortionist." The piece won him the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing in 1995, and would eventually be cited as one of the top 100 works of journalism in the 20th century. Many people read this story when it appeared in print, but not me—I read it years later. I sought it out in early 2003, when I was living in New York City after I had graduated college, after I had read all of Junod’s work at Esquire and was looking to read the stuff he’d done at GQ. One day I went to GQ and made a copy of “The Abortionist”, along with a dozen other stories written by all the famous writers during the magazine’s breathtaking run under Art Cooper and David Granger the mid-90s, stories that have become legendary to nerds like me, but stories that have also never been resurrected by the internet, stories that more people should know about. While I was searching the bound issues (thank you, Chris Raymond), I was particularly interested in a story Tom wrote the very next year, in 1995—a story even darker than “The Abortionist”, but a story less famous, for whatever reason. A story completely unavailable to read unless you had access to those bound copies, or unless you bought that issue of GQ on eBay. The story is called “The Rapist Says He’s Sorry”, and when Tom wrote it, he was 37 years old; he had not only become one of the most prolific magazine writers but also, in my opinion, the best. He says that “The Rapist…” changed him—the process of writing it changed his writing, and the story itself changed his life. The piece won the National Magazine Award in 1996, making him the first and only person to ever win two bronze elephant statues in a row. Now, I don’t think you should have to do what I did in order to read the story—go digging through a dusty magazine shelf in Manhattan. So here it is, for the first time, online—“The Rapist Says He’s Sorry.” A story that should never go away.
-- Justin Heckert
This is Mitchell Gaff. Mitch lives in a special place. A facility the state of Washington created for sexual predators. Mitch’s therapists think there’s a chance that Mitch won’t go raping again next time he has the opportunity. Which is a good thing. Because, soon, Mitch and the thirty men who live with him are getting out.
The Rapist Says He’s Sorry
By Tom Junod
GQ
December 1995
The first thing that strikes you about Mitch Gaff is his voice. The voice is not merely soft, not merely sincere, not merely considerate, not merely kind—it is the essence of softness, sincerity, consideration and kindness. It is the kind of voice that seems incapable of telling a lie, mustering aggression or even allowing itself the freedom of an insult. It is the kind of voice that begs you to trust it, that pleads with you to trust it, and if you heard it on the street, or in a bar, you would trust it, immediately. It is the voice of the nicest guy you’ve ever met. It is a voice Mitch Gaff has put together—has devised and constructed—with great care, great courage, great effort, and at the cost of great pain, and that is why he is horrified and heartbroken when he opens his thoughtful mouth, starts speaking in his thoughtful syllables and scares the living hell out of people.
Here's the rest of the story, and a Gangrey-exclusive note from Junod.
Posted by
Justin Heckert on 08/24/10 at
09:06
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Going Monthly
THINK ABOUT IT
In the last seven years, Atlanta magazine has employed six different writers who did at least one of the following things:
1. Became a finalist for the City and Regional Magazine Association's Writer of the Year award. (Fennessy, S.; and Lake, T.)
2. Won the CRMA Writer of the Year award. (Dittrich, L.; and Heckert, J.)
3. Became a finalist for a National Magazine Award. (Burns, R.)
4. Won a National Magazine Award. (Williams, P.)
(This list does not include Tom Junod, the most-nominated writer in the history of the National Magazine Awards, who started here in the late 1980s.)
Anyway, there's about to be an opening here, and Steve Fennessy, the top editor, would like to fill it in early 2011.
Want a shot? Steve's e-mail address is sfennessy@atlantamag.emmis.com, and he's expecting to hear from you. He likes reporters who can dig.
Posted by
T.Lake on 08/23/10 at
13:36
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The "Frank Sinatra Has A Cold" Question
let's talk about it
Liam Dillon from voiceofsandiego.org writes in with a good question: I’m the City Hall reporter here and am working on a profile of the mayor’s chief of staff, a woman who’s rarely heard of in public despite the importance of her position. I am expecting her not to participate in the profile and I’m wondering if a) anyone has tips for writing a profile where the subject doesn’t participate or b) anyone can link to examples of good profiles where that’s happened. Thanks very much for your help and time.
Posted by
Kruse on 08/23/10 at
11:58
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Advice from Roy
the glamour of grammar
In his new book: The best stories are formed around a question that the story answers for the reader: Who did it? Guilty or not guilty? Will she win the money? Will he get the girl?
Posted by
Kruse on 08/23/10 at
11:05
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Capital "W" Writing
the liturgical narrative
Hank over on storyboard: There just seems to be this – not overwriting – it’s almost like someone is telling you a great story on the way to church, and then we get to church and they shut up, or they kind of whisper it to you instead. Or it becomes an incantation. I feel like a lot of stories are written from that high point, not from the pulpit, but from the feeling that people are in sacred space and they’re too afraid of violating the space.
A lot of narrative stories have that hush of seriousness about them. That feels like capital “W” writing to me. They are honoring all the narrative or feature stories about serious or weighty or disturbing subject matter that came before, so therefore there’s going to be that mood. It’s too dramatic or liturgical.
Posted by
ben on 08/23/10 at
08:49
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The Ghost
finally!
Thanks to GQ for posting one of the best profiles I've ever read. Here's (circa '00, I think) Elizabeth Gilbert: I say, "Just speak your mind, Hank-3. Don't let me stop you."
Me and the grandson of Hank Williams are sitting in some honky-tonk dive in downtown Nashville, listening to some mediocre band churn through some weepy old set of country-music standards. The grandson of Hank Williams bears the Christian name Shelton Hank Williams, but he is better known around these parts as Hank-3, so that's why I call him that. Me and everyone else in this bar. Who have all recognized him on sight. Hank-3 is a little hard to miss, mind you. He's the only six-foot-two-inch, 144-pound, twangy-voiced, heavily tattooed, longhaired skeleton walking around Nashville these days who looks exactly like Hank Williams. And you cannot hide the face of Hank Williams in this town. It would be like if Elvis Presley had a dead-ringer grandson who someday tried to walk around Memphis without getting any attention. Not a chance. Heads would turn, jaws drop.
Tonight the grandson of Hank Williams is perched on barstool, balancing on his bony ass, smoking cigarettes as if there were some kind of contest for it and drinking whiskey just as competitively. And he's bitching about his recording label, Curb Records. He's griping about what a hard time he had getting Curb to put even a measly three of his own songs on his debut album (which is a very impressive and totally rocking country production called Risin' Outlaw—and the three original cuts are the very best part of it, thank you very much). Hank-3 seemes to have never heard that tenet about not telling journalists every single little thing you think, do or want, which is why he's saying, "These people at Curb are all fucking assholes. The next album I'm doing, it's all gonna be filled with all my own songs, or fuck them and I'll see you in court. Because this is fucking bullshit. They tried to make my album commercial and radio-friendly, and that is not what I am all about, man. And now the radio doesn't even play my shit anyhow. So what was the fucking point?"
I say, "Just speak your mind, Hank-3. Don't let me stop you."
Posted by
ben on 08/21/10 at
01:20
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