More from my July travels to New Orleans here!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Haiti story
One of the pieces I wrote based on my experience in Haiti last summer is now live: Seeing into the Future. Enjoy! And then pray for the folks in Haiti.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
trying to get it right
Tonight I chatted with a writer friend who just returned from a couple weeks in Southeast Asia. We talked about many things, of course, and among the richness was conversation about how to tell stories of people we meet in such places, that are so different from our homeplaces, without descending into unfair cliche and stereotype. How do you tell stories of far-away people and places to people back home who've never visited them? How will they understand?
Relatedly, we talked about photographs, as she considers which photos to share from her trip. She realized that in Southeast Asia she wanted lots of photos of people, but when she and her husband stopped off in Paris for a couple days, she specifically didn't want people in her photos. Was she exploiting the people in Southeast Asia?
Oh, how I understand what she's wrestling with. So many people who visit points in Africa or Haiti or other developing countries return home armed with photos of themselves posing with cute kids. I'm sorry to say that I have a harder and harder time with these photos, as well-meant as they are and as much as they populate my own photo album. And it's because of that exploitation question. That sense of white Westerner showing off the good things they're doing for the poor little kids of Africa is something I find increasingly troubling. And it's sometimes all too embodied in these photos.
The fact is that kids are easy to come by in many developing countries. To explain: particularly in warm weather cultures, much life happens outdoors. That's where children play. So they easily notice the strangers walking through their village or down their street. Warm weather cultures, where many developing countries lie, are also often very communal, so communities watch over children and children watch over each other and everyone is friendly to strangers. It's just not so easy to take pictures of children in places like France because culturally the children aren't so likely to be running around without adults hovering over them. It's just all so different. On a related side note, I think that people in India and many parts of Africa, for example, are some of the most beautiful people in the world. So photos of many of them make for stunning portraits. And that's partly why so many people are able to take compelling photos of them. But...
After working alongside a photographer while in Uganda, I've started paying a lot more attention to the kinds of photos that make their way into the literature of development and mission organizations and into newspapers and other media. My photographer friend is a very good photographer, but the reality is that I see his photos repeated again and again by other good photographers. The faces are different but the photos tell the same story. But it's not necessarily a true story.
You see, there's no way photographs can tell a whole story. In the same way movies are almost never as good as the books they're adapted from, photographs need words to give them context. Photos on their own aren't fully contextual. They can be artistic and amazing, but as sole tellers of true stories, they can be, well, misleading. Everything going on outside a picture's frame is lost, unable to be considered by the photo's viewers. All the viewer can see is the way things looked for a split second of time within the space parameters of the photo. Photographs rarely provide back story. They rarely explain what prompted the smile or frown captured by a snapping shutter. All of this missing information can tell a story that isn't true at all.
As I seek opportunities for further work abroad, I'm coming to a frustrating suspicion: I need to be a photographer in order to be certain to be sent to points outside the U.S. Photographers must necessarily shoot on location. There's no way around it. Writers, on the other hand, well, if you're looking to save on travel costs, it's much easier to ask the writers to stay home and gather quotes via email. At a loss, I think, to true story-telling. There's nothing that can substitute for being on the ground in a place, gathering the back story and the outside-the-frame action that the camera can't possibly capture.
Sure, writing has limits too. There's never space to tell everything. And some photographers do an amazing job telling stories through their lenses. But though a picture may be worth a 1000 words, as the saying goes, there are 1000 other words the picture misses. And I think it's those words, composed thoughtfully, that protect a photo subject's humanity and ward off exploitation of the poor people the world loves to photograph.
Relatedly, we talked about photographs, as she considers which photos to share from her trip. She realized that in Southeast Asia she wanted lots of photos of people, but when she and her husband stopped off in Paris for a couple days, she specifically didn't want people in her photos. Was she exploiting the people in Southeast Asia?
Oh, how I understand what she's wrestling with. So many people who visit points in Africa or Haiti or other developing countries return home armed with photos of themselves posing with cute kids. I'm sorry to say that I have a harder and harder time with these photos, as well-meant as they are and as much as they populate my own photo album. And it's because of that exploitation question. That sense of white Westerner showing off the good things they're doing for the poor little kids of Africa is something I find increasingly troubling. And it's sometimes all too embodied in these photos.
The fact is that kids are easy to come by in many developing countries. To explain: particularly in warm weather cultures, much life happens outdoors. That's where children play. So they easily notice the strangers walking through their village or down their street. Warm weather cultures, where many developing countries lie, are also often very communal, so communities watch over children and children watch over each other and everyone is friendly to strangers. It's just not so easy to take pictures of children in places like France because culturally the children aren't so likely to be running around without adults hovering over them. It's just all so different. On a related side note, I think that people in India and many parts of Africa, for example, are some of the most beautiful people in the world. So photos of many of them make for stunning portraits. And that's partly why so many people are able to take compelling photos of them. But...
After working alongside a photographer while in Uganda, I've started paying a lot more attention to the kinds of photos that make their way into the literature of development and mission organizations and into newspapers and other media. My photographer friend is a very good photographer, but the reality is that I see his photos repeated again and again by other good photographers. The faces are different but the photos tell the same story. But it's not necessarily a true story.
You see, there's no way photographs can tell a whole story. In the same way movies are almost never as good as the books they're adapted from, photographs need words to give them context. Photos on their own aren't fully contextual. They can be artistic and amazing, but as sole tellers of true stories, they can be, well, misleading. Everything going on outside a picture's frame is lost, unable to be considered by the photo's viewers. All the viewer can see is the way things looked for a split second of time within the space parameters of the photo. Photographs rarely provide back story. They rarely explain what prompted the smile or frown captured by a snapping shutter. All of this missing information can tell a story that isn't true at all.
As I seek opportunities for further work abroad, I'm coming to a frustrating suspicion: I need to be a photographer in order to be certain to be sent to points outside the U.S. Photographers must necessarily shoot on location. There's no way around it. Writers, on the other hand, well, if you're looking to save on travel costs, it's much easier to ask the writers to stay home and gather quotes via email. At a loss, I think, to true story-telling. There's nothing that can substitute for being on the ground in a place, gathering the back story and the outside-the-frame action that the camera can't possibly capture.
Sure, writing has limits too. There's never space to tell everything. And some photographers do an amazing job telling stories through their lenses. But though a picture may be worth a 1000 words, as the saying goes, there are 1000 other words the picture misses. And I think it's those words, composed thoughtfully, that protect a photo subject's humanity and ward off exploitation of the poor people the world loves to photograph.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
domestic travels too
I didn't need my passport to go to New Orleans, but my work there over the weekend was not so different from my writing work abroad. I was there on a little media familiarization tour, along with five other writers and photographers. As in Africa and Haiti and London, I had too-few days to try to learn New Orleans, specifically its food culture, enough to write about it later. As in those other places, I discovered that the story is best learned by talking to a city's people.
I've posted some photos and bits of the story on my other blog: www.kamirice.blogspot.com. Today I'm writing up more of the New Orleans stories that I was hired to write. Eventually I'll post links to those stories.
I've posted some photos and bits of the story on my other blog: www.kamirice.blogspot.com. Today I'm writing up more of the New Orleans stories that I was hired to write. Eventually I'll post links to those stories.
Monday, June 22, 2009
mountains, oh, mountains
India makes me want to hike more. In our prep for our trekking in the foothills of the Himalayas and in our time actually doing the trekking, I discovered or perhaps relearned or maybe was reminded that I want hiking/trekking to be a more regular thing in my life. I grew up in the mountains, America's small ones, so hiking should be in my jeans, right? (yes, yes, that was an intended pun. after all my genes are midwestern ones not Appalachian ones)
What a beautiful place we had the chance to traverse during our too few days. In some places homes were scattered along ridges, reminding me of the hollers from my homeland Appalachians, the ones my school bus lumbered into to pick up classmates. Except the Indian version wasn't accessible for school buses or anything with more wheels than a donkey has. In other places we entered real villages with homes clustered together and beautiful, friendly people who made us all want to come back for a few months of village life and work on their picturesque terraced farmland. Oh, someday, perhaps.
Our bamboo hiking poles were essential tools of the trade. Without them the trails would have felt more treacherous. Of course, the locals need no poles and also need no catch-your-breath breaks at embarassingly regular seven minute or so intervals on the climb out of the valley.
Somehow trekking takes on much better purpose when you're hiking through villages and past homes of people who invite you in for chai and chatting. So much more enjoyable than it'll-do hikes around my local Radnor Lake. In India I felt like I was going somewhere as we traversed trails. Here I'm reminded that my normal everyday life is more sedentary than is healthy.
And then after not nearly long enough we were back just a little over a week after we went. And we were the better for it. In more ways than a few. And hopefully we left behind some good news.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
faster than a speeding bullet
In less than two weeks, we're off to India! Check back later and if you're lucky, I'll add the team's bathroom picture. ;-)
Monday, January 19, 2009
reunited. in more ways than one.
I've spent much of this week being reunited with my long-stored belongings. And it's mostly a happy reunion, except for the part where I'm a little overwhelmed by how much I still own even after all the work of purging I've been doing these past couple years. It's mostly books, though, so once those are on the shelves, the pile of boxes waiting to be unpacked will be vastly smaller. As I unpack, I'm enjoying discovering a few more things I can get rid of but am not enjoying disovering the things I did get rid of but now need again. It's much more expensive to re-buy things you once owned but don't anymore. Grrrr.... I mostly guessed right in my purging, but there are a few things I missed on. For example, is there anyone out there with an extra ironing board? :-) I sold mine at one of the myriad yard sales, and now I have an iron but no board and none available in my new home. And ironing on a desk just doesn't cut it long term. Mostly, though, I purged okay.
Today as I unpacked, I participated in a very unexpected reunion, versus all of the expected ones of the day (like the cool mugs I haven't used in ages!). You see, sometime about two years ago I purchased a ring from my sister who was selling jewelry. I loved the ring. It was the perfect style for me, and I could wear it everyday. It was one of the few pieces of jewelry I wore during my four months of travel in Africa in '07, and it was fun to enjoy something pretty. Well, fast forward to the summer of '08, and suddenly I realized one evening that my hand was naked. The pretty little ring was gone. And I had no idea where I lost it and only a slight idea of when. I looked and looked for it, but never found it. And I couldn't afford to replace it. $50 to re-buy something like that just wasn't in my budget.
I hate losing things in general and don't do it often. So it really bugs me when I do. Especially when it's something I really like. You can probably see where this is going....
Fast forward to today. When I felt like the woman from Jesus' parable in the Gospel accounts who celebrated when she found her lost coin. As I unwrapped mugs from a cardboard box, something rolled to the bottom of the box. Hoping it wasn't a piece of broken mug, I was shocked when I discovered that it was my lost-for-good ring. It's amazing what a pick-me-up it is to find something you thought you'd lost forever. I want to tell everyone that it is found, so they can celebrate with me! And now I have an object lesson every time I look at my ring-ringed finger: my joy at finding this silly little bit of lost metal is miniscule compared to Jesus' joy at welcoming new children into His fold. And as I worry and fret about checkbook balances, my ring-ringed finger is also a reminder that God isn't an austere, miserly God. He delights in giving His children good gifts, which sometimes means giving things that aren't necessities.
Today as I unpacked, I participated in a very unexpected reunion, versus all of the expected ones of the day (like the cool mugs I haven't used in ages!). You see, sometime about two years ago I purchased a ring from my sister who was selling jewelry. I loved the ring. It was the perfect style for me, and I could wear it everyday. It was one of the few pieces of jewelry I wore during my four months of travel in Africa in '07, and it was fun to enjoy something pretty. Well, fast forward to the summer of '08, and suddenly I realized one evening that my hand was naked. The pretty little ring was gone. And I had no idea where I lost it and only a slight idea of when. I looked and looked for it, but never found it. And I couldn't afford to replace it. $50 to re-buy something like that just wasn't in my budget.
I hate losing things in general and don't do it often. So it really bugs me when I do. Especially when it's something I really like. You can probably see where this is going....
Fast forward to today. When I felt like the woman from Jesus' parable in the Gospel accounts who celebrated when she found her lost coin. As I unwrapped mugs from a cardboard box, something rolled to the bottom of the box. Hoping it wasn't a piece of broken mug, I was shocked when I discovered that it was my lost-for-good ring. It's amazing what a pick-me-up it is to find something you thought you'd lost forever. I want to tell everyone that it is found, so they can celebrate with me! And now I have an object lesson every time I look at my ring-ringed finger: my joy at finding this silly little bit of lost metal is miniscule compared to Jesus' joy at welcoming new children into His fold. And as I worry and fret about checkbook balances, my ring-ringed finger is also a reminder that God isn't an austere, miserly God. He delights in giving His children good gifts, which sometimes means giving things that aren't necessities.
Friday, January 9, 2009
surprised
I've been back in the States for 2.5 weeks now. And I'm surprised. At how clear it is that it is the right decision to stay put for a while. Because I'm tired and full.
Over the years I've slowly, slowly been growing better at first recognizing and then trying to live within the boundaries and limitations inherent in humanness. This isn't an easy thing for me as I tend to live life full with poor ability to recognize it's fullness and only end up wondering why I'm so tired all the time. Until times like this when I stop for a bit and realize that for two years I've been planning major travels while simultaneously growing my freelance biz from part-time to full-time, growing into a new church community in Nashville, deepening old and new friendships, volunteering in my community and then absorbing millions of impressions and interactions as I travel around the world. Oh and trying to learn French. And accepting assignments that I've never done before and have to learn (or fake, at least that's sometimes how it feels) my way through. And trying to read more and actually being successful at that, courtesy of my book group. And trying to cook more. And any number of other things. All while living temporarily (that means home and office are on the constant move which also means constantly lining up manpower and vehicle power for shifting belongings) in one house after another.
Part of the reason I wanted to go to London this fall instead of waiting until 2009 or some other time is that I wanted to return to the States in December. I came back from Africa in December too. And the dark days and contempletive aspect that can accompany the Christmas season, Advent, is the perfect aspect to return into from a long sojourn. I am thankful that this year I didn't have any pressing work assignments during the remaining holiday season, so I could arrive back into my family's arms for Christmastime and then rest with some dear and very fun college friends in a lake cottage in northern Indiana while we rang in the New Year. I needed that time more than I even knew when I scheduled it.
And then I returned to Nashville feeling desperate to secure permanent housing, unsure how long I could muster continued survival in the land of the temporary. Though a generous friend long ago offered me a place to stay for the month of January, until I could figure out more long-term digs, I returned unsure how I could force my way through another whole month of trying to find things in packed and unpacked and repacked bags, of how I could do my work while sitting on an air mattress on a bedroom floor, and in general of how long I could hold on a little longer. The extent of this feeling has surprised me.
Thankfully, thankfully, things have come together in good fashion for me to move into good housing next week. So I've been forcing myself to hold on for just a tiny bit longer. But this is hard. I am not at rest. I am not settled. I am thankful to be able to write at all today because I haven't felt I had the capacity for writing, even for journaling, for what feels like a while but is probably only a couple weeks. Yet I am glad that the visceralness of these feelings will make the contrast of settledness so visceral too.
I am also eager to stop for a while and listen to and process all that's been poured into me these past two years. I am still in Nashville, and I am still writing, and many of my friends are still the same. Yet everything has also changed. These two years of fullness have launched new things, and I am excited to stop long enough to learn what these new things are.
I am thankful, too, for friends who affirm my weariness, who tell my always-onward self that it's okay to retreat a little for a while, who understand why all I want to do right now is sleep and read and sit with my friends.
Originally, I was planning to return to England this year, hoping to get in a full six months abroad. But over the fall months in London, though that continued to be the plan I wanted, I never felt full peace with it. So I proceeded with it until God made more clear that instead I need to stay in Nashville for a while. And as much as I would love to head back to London so soon, I've found a bit of relief in the rearranged plans, and I am very excited to participate in Nashville life through the larger eyes and heart I'm bringing back to my city. And I'm excited to trust God for all the places and people I hope to get back to some day and for all the new ones I hope for too. And I'm hoping and trusting that stopping for a while will better equip me for those places and seasons even as stopping works out it twin purposes for my right-now life too.
Over the years I've slowly, slowly been growing better at first recognizing and then trying to live within the boundaries and limitations inherent in humanness. This isn't an easy thing for me as I tend to live life full with poor ability to recognize it's fullness and only end up wondering why I'm so tired all the time. Until times like this when I stop for a bit and realize that for two years I've been planning major travels while simultaneously growing my freelance biz from part-time to full-time, growing into a new church community in Nashville, deepening old and new friendships, volunteering in my community and then absorbing millions of impressions and interactions as I travel around the world. Oh and trying to learn French. And accepting assignments that I've never done before and have to learn (or fake, at least that's sometimes how it feels) my way through. And trying to read more and actually being successful at that, courtesy of my book group. And trying to cook more. And any number of other things. All while living temporarily (that means home and office are on the constant move which also means constantly lining up manpower and vehicle power for shifting belongings) in one house after another.
Part of the reason I wanted to go to London this fall instead of waiting until 2009 or some other time is that I wanted to return to the States in December. I came back from Africa in December too. And the dark days and contempletive aspect that can accompany the Christmas season, Advent, is the perfect aspect to return into from a long sojourn. I am thankful that this year I didn't have any pressing work assignments during the remaining holiday season, so I could arrive back into my family's arms for Christmastime and then rest with some dear and very fun college friends in a lake cottage in northern Indiana while we rang in the New Year. I needed that time more than I even knew when I scheduled it.
And then I returned to Nashville feeling desperate to secure permanent housing, unsure how long I could muster continued survival in the land of the temporary. Though a generous friend long ago offered me a place to stay for the month of January, until I could figure out more long-term digs, I returned unsure how I could force my way through another whole month of trying to find things in packed and unpacked and repacked bags, of how I could do my work while sitting on an air mattress on a bedroom floor, and in general of how long I could hold on a little longer. The extent of this feeling has surprised me.
Thankfully, thankfully, things have come together in good fashion for me to move into good housing next week. So I've been forcing myself to hold on for just a tiny bit longer. But this is hard. I am not at rest. I am not settled. I am thankful to be able to write at all today because I haven't felt I had the capacity for writing, even for journaling, for what feels like a while but is probably only a couple weeks. Yet I am glad that the visceralness of these feelings will make the contrast of settledness so visceral too.
I am also eager to stop for a while and listen to and process all that's been poured into me these past two years. I am still in Nashville, and I am still writing, and many of my friends are still the same. Yet everything has also changed. These two years of fullness have launched new things, and I am excited to stop long enough to learn what these new things are.
I am thankful, too, for friends who affirm my weariness, who tell my always-onward self that it's okay to retreat a little for a while, who understand why all I want to do right now is sleep and read and sit with my friends.
Originally, I was planning to return to England this year, hoping to get in a full six months abroad. But over the fall months in London, though that continued to be the plan I wanted, I never felt full peace with it. So I proceeded with it until God made more clear that instead I need to stay in Nashville for a while. And as much as I would love to head back to London so soon, I've found a bit of relief in the rearranged plans, and I am very excited to participate in Nashville life through the larger eyes and heart I'm bringing back to my city. And I'm excited to trust God for all the places and people I hope to get back to some day and for all the new ones I hope for too. And I'm hoping and trusting that stopping for a while will better equip me for those places and seasons even as stopping works out it twin purposes for my right-now life too.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
break a leg
You might as well hear the news straight from the horse's mouth, or so the saying goes and is going tonight: I was very happy to be flying under the radar of the flu/cold causing viruses floating around London infecting my friends. But my luck didn't hold. Those little pests found me. In an act of defiance at not wanting to let them ruin my last week-plus of London explorations (which they have been disrupting since Thursday), I accepted my friend Beth's last-minute invitation to join her for a bit of London theatre, courtesy of a generous friend of hers. Cold or no cold, how could I say no to enjoying one of the very-London things I haven't yet partaken of these three months past? So I said yes. And am very glad I did (especially if I wake up miraculously mucus-free in the morning). Beth and I found our ways separately (her by bus, me by DLR) to a hidden gem of a performance space that would have been a treat in itself even if the play had been rubbish, which it wasn't, of course.
On tap was The Cordelia Dream, a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. It's too late and I'm coughing too much to try to offer a review of the play, so I'll just say: it was interesting, intense, dramatic and worth seeing. And it was especially worth seeing at Wilton's Music Hall, a nearly derelict old space with a colorful history that folks are trying to keep alive. Far from the glitz and the suffocating, look-how-fashionable-I-am crowds of theatre central around Leicester (pronounced "Lester," just for future don't-sound-like-a-tourist tips when you visit London) Square, the hall is tucked inside a brick-paved pedestrian road called "Grace's Alley." As you walk down Cable Street in East London toward Ensign Road, there are no real clues that you're anywhere near a theatre. Which means you feel like you've been let in on a secret when you pass through its barnlike and almost miss-able main doors into the warm yellow glow inside. And perhaps you have. One of the best kinds of secrets.
the front doors
Grace's Alley
don't get excited. it's just rain, not snow. it's okay if you get excited about the theatre banner, though. 
fyi: go to the right of the staircase to enter the main performance hall. kitchen reflections
If I lived in London's City of Westminster rather than its Borough of Lewisham, I might have heard Big Ben chiming twelve as I returned from my theatre jaunt, but I don't. And neither did I hear any less famous substitute, as there don't seem to be chimes in this corner of London. Only occasional sirens that are more than occasional (think "very normal") during rush hour. Anyway, my eye caught this intriguing sight after brewing a cup of pre-bed tea (chamomile, vanilla and honey. Yum!) and grabbing a literal midnight snack. My camera was on hand and the lighting was sure to be different in the morning. It was a now or never moment. And like the worst storytellers, I won't leave you in suspence. I went with now.
You might call it "Still Life in the Kitchen."
You might call this "Alien causes flower stems to grow mysterious bowl of oranges. (No one has been able to get to the bottom of this yet.)"
You might call it "Still Life in the Kitchen." 
You might call this "Alien causes flower stems to grow mysterious bowl of oranges. (No one has been able to get to the bottom of this yet.)" Saturday, December 13, 2008
hot off the presses!
One of the things among many that I've loved about London is its newspaper culture. This is a city of not one, not two, but many major newspapers. And there's a way in which that gives life to a city, I think. Or maybe the city gives life to its newspapers.
I suppose it helps that London is a city of commuters who don't have to pay attention to their driving while they the travel to and fro and, instead, can pay attention to their news. But, even DC, which is also a city of commuters, never seemed to have the relationship with the newspaper that London does.
There's some thoughtful, witty writing in some of these newspapers. I especially appreciate that because my city's primary newspaper is increasingly hard to appreciate in terms of quality or coverage. And Nashville's not exactly a sleepy little hamlet with nothing going on. These London newspapers leave make me less resistant to being called a journalist (I prefer the term writer, as I think it has more depth and more possibility) because they actually showcase some excellent writing. (as does the New York Times, by the way)
From my new friend The Evening Standard, which comes out later in the day instead of in the morning, to the freebies London Lite and The London Paper that are distributed as the evening commute begins to the well-respected Guardian and Observer, newspapers and newstands abound. (and that's not all of them!) Most of them are also printed tabloid style which I personally think is much, much easier to handle and read than the broadsheet layout of most American newspapers (I think I got those terms right!). Maybe that's the reason for declining newspaper readership: give people something that's not so ridiculously bulky to manage, something you can still see around while you're reading it, something that doesn't require a table the size of a football field (American football, that is) to hold it when you read it while eating.
I also love living in a city where magazines I might want to pitch stories to actually have offices. Even if I never meet the necessary editors, there's something so hopeful in the possibility of not being dependent only on emails (which inevitably get snagged by over-zealous spam filters) or phone calls to plead your case. It's possible, if needed for some reason, to drop by the offices of these media mavens. It makes access to work for a freelance writer feel much more probable.
And for all the moaning and pontificating about the end of the reading culture, I still see lots of people reading books everywhere here and in lots of other places too, and those are just the public places where people read. Although I will admit that I also see lots of people with earbuds tucked inside their eardrums, a habit I have yet to appreciate. Do you really need music with you so constantly that you must drown out the rest of the world whenever you're in the midst of it? I want to engage with my surroundings too much for that, always watching for a chance to exchange a smile with a stranger or something. That's less likely to happen if the stranger's eyes are closed and their ears are plugged and beats are emanating from their body.
Anyway, that's the soapbox. The real point is "long live newspapers!" ;-)
I suppose it helps that London is a city of commuters who don't have to pay attention to their driving while they the travel to and fro and, instead, can pay attention to their news. But, even DC, which is also a city of commuters, never seemed to have the relationship with the newspaper that London does.
There's some thoughtful, witty writing in some of these newspapers. I especially appreciate that because my city's primary newspaper is increasingly hard to appreciate in terms of quality or coverage. And Nashville's not exactly a sleepy little hamlet with nothing going on. These London newspapers leave make me less resistant to being called a journalist (I prefer the term writer, as I think it has more depth and more possibility) because they actually showcase some excellent writing. (as does the New York Times, by the way)
From my new friend The Evening Standard, which comes out later in the day instead of in the morning, to the freebies London Lite and The London Paper that are distributed as the evening commute begins to the well-respected Guardian and Observer, newspapers and newstands abound. (and that's not all of them!) Most of them are also printed tabloid style which I personally think is much, much easier to handle and read than the broadsheet layout of most American newspapers (I think I got those terms right!). Maybe that's the reason for declining newspaper readership: give people something that's not so ridiculously bulky to manage, something you can still see around while you're reading it, something that doesn't require a table the size of a football field (American football, that is) to hold it when you read it while eating.
I also love living in a city where magazines I might want to pitch stories to actually have offices. Even if I never meet the necessary editors, there's something so hopeful in the possibility of not being dependent only on emails (which inevitably get snagged by over-zealous spam filters) or phone calls to plead your case. It's possible, if needed for some reason, to drop by the offices of these media mavens. It makes access to work for a freelance writer feel much more probable.
And for all the moaning and pontificating about the end of the reading culture, I still see lots of people reading books everywhere here and in lots of other places too, and those are just the public places where people read. Although I will admit that I also see lots of people with earbuds tucked inside their eardrums, a habit I have yet to appreciate. Do you really need music with you so constantly that you must drown out the rest of the world whenever you're in the midst of it? I want to engage with my surroundings too much for that, always watching for a chance to exchange a smile with a stranger or something. That's less likely to happen if the stranger's eyes are closed and their ears are plugged and beats are emanating from their body.
Anyway, that's the soapbox. The real point is "long live newspapers!" ;-)
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
field trip
I'm not normally a fan of modern architecture or skyscrapers or anything close. I also don't really know what quays are except I think they're pronounced "keys." But tonight I took a field trip up the DLR (Docklands Light Rail) to a place called Canary Wharf/West India Quays. And I'm glad I went.
Though I left the house around 4:45-ish, it was of course already pitch black making it feel like evening when it was still late afternoon. So I only saw the quays and scrapers in the dark. Which is a beautiful, if probably incomplete (that whole thing about darkness hiding things) way to see them. The Docklands are basically across the Thames from Greenwich in the spot where the river twists down and back up in a deep capital "U" shape. The London guidebook I picked up in Bratislava's Next Apache used book shop explained to me (while I sat in a Canary Wharf Starbucks) that the whole area has been fairly recently developed away from the shall-we-say disrepair it had fallen into. Apparently the quays were (are?) part of London's shipping biz. I think they're man-made, but I'm not sure. Perhaps I should go visit Wikipedia, but I don't feel curious or awake enough for that right now.
Tonight the trees outside the high-end shops at the Canary Wharf DLR station and outside the high rise buildings housing offices of people who work late-ish trying to figure a way out of the world's financial free-fall, tonight those trees twinkled with subtle, elegant bluish-purple lights that I think are in honor of Christmas season but could be there all year for all I know. Either way, they're nice.
And unexpectedly, so are all those high rises with office lights mostly still on even as the offices emptied (I'm surprised they get away with that in environment-conscious London, but it would be less striking if they were all dark). It's definitely a different facet of London than the others I've visited thus far. Perhaps I'll make it there in the day time. Sometime before Dec. 23 when I will end this go-around of London life.
In other news, I've been discovering little tricks of the trade lately, little tricks that I'm learning about too late to take much advantage of. Like tonight, for example, I discovered that Lewisham station's DLR entrance boasts TWO ATM machines that are a good five minutes closer to my house than the one I usually go to to get my rent money and other cash. For WEEKS now, I've been walking FIVE whole minutes further (that's TEN minutes round trip of course) than I've needed to!!
Also, tonight in less of an annoyed tone I discovered that the movie theater (aka: cinema as they call it here, probably because this is actually a place that has lots of real theaters where live people perform so that saves any confusion) at West India Quay is actually pretty cheap as movie theaters go. PLUS it's only a cheap DLR ride away. And I've finally firmly concluded tonight that I like the DLR a lot. It just feels more gentle and easy and less grinding than the train I usually have to take to get to places like cinemas. For those of you who have no way to test my theory on this, just trust me. You would agree if you were here. I just know it.
So I concluded my field trip tonight by trying to catch up with my book group in Nashville that read The Secret Life of Bees for November and then went to see the film together. I've handled that book in book stores so many times but never succombed to purchasing it or checking it out from the library. Since I'm still finishing October's book group book and want to read January's book, I decided here was my chance to skip the book and just catch up by watching the movie. It's a good flick. And it was a good night for such a flick.
So there you go. Field trip done. On to tomorrow.
Though I left the house around 4:45-ish, it was of course already pitch black making it feel like evening when it was still late afternoon. So I only saw the quays and scrapers in the dark. Which is a beautiful, if probably incomplete (that whole thing about darkness hiding things) way to see them. The Docklands are basically across the Thames from Greenwich in the spot where the river twists down and back up in a deep capital "U" shape. The London guidebook I picked up in Bratislava's Next Apache used book shop explained to me (while I sat in a Canary Wharf Starbucks) that the whole area has been fairly recently developed away from the shall-we-say disrepair it had fallen into. Apparently the quays were (are?) part of London's shipping biz. I think they're man-made, but I'm not sure. Perhaps I should go visit Wikipedia, but I don't feel curious or awake enough for that right now.
Tonight the trees outside the high-end shops at the Canary Wharf DLR station and outside the high rise buildings housing offices of people who work late-ish trying to figure a way out of the world's financial free-fall, tonight those trees twinkled with subtle, elegant bluish-purple lights that I think are in honor of Christmas season but could be there all year for all I know. Either way, they're nice.
And unexpectedly, so are all those high rises with office lights mostly still on even as the offices emptied (I'm surprised they get away with that in environment-conscious London, but it would be less striking if they were all dark). It's definitely a different facet of London than the others I've visited thus far. Perhaps I'll make it there in the day time. Sometime before Dec. 23 when I will end this go-around of London life.
In other news, I've been discovering little tricks of the trade lately, little tricks that I'm learning about too late to take much advantage of. Like tonight, for example, I discovered that Lewisham station's DLR entrance boasts TWO ATM machines that are a good five minutes closer to my house than the one I usually go to to get my rent money and other cash. For WEEKS now, I've been walking FIVE whole minutes further (that's TEN minutes round trip of course) than I've needed to!!
Also, tonight in less of an annoyed tone I discovered that the movie theater (aka: cinema as they call it here, probably because this is actually a place that has lots of real theaters where live people perform so that saves any confusion) at West India Quay is actually pretty cheap as movie theaters go. PLUS it's only a cheap DLR ride away. And I've finally firmly concluded tonight that I like the DLR a lot. It just feels more gentle and easy and less grinding than the train I usually have to take to get to places like cinemas. For those of you who have no way to test my theory on this, just trust me. You would agree if you were here. I just know it.
So I concluded my field trip tonight by trying to catch up with my book group in Nashville that read The Secret Life of Bees for November and then went to see the film together. I've handled that book in book stores so many times but never succombed to purchasing it or checking it out from the library. Since I'm still finishing October's book group book and want to read January's book, I decided here was my chance to skip the book and just catch up by watching the movie. It's a good flick. And it was a good night for such a flick.
So there you go. Field trip done. On to tomorrow.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
happy thanksgiving!
My cousin Melissa arrived in town Wednesday night, just in time to make it feel like a holiday weekend. She is stopping by on her way back home following a few weeks of travel in Madagascar and Mauritius. 
On Thanksgiving Day we headed out to Cambridge for a few hours on our way to Thanksgiving dinner.
Since I don't actually have any pictures from our dinner, I figured I should include this food picture from a market in Cambridge in honor of the meal. From Cambridge we proceeded to Huntingdon where we joined a proper American feast courtesy of a friend of mine who was visiting his aunt and uncle and invited us to join in.
Nearly at the end of our Thanksgiving Day, we were thankful to be able to wait indoors for our next train instead of out in the cold.And to you and yours....HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! (a day late)
Friday, November 28, 2008
things in Europe that have made me smile
Italian stop sign - obvious, isn't it?First, you should know that I’m easily amused. Second, you should know that these aren’t the only times I’ve smiled. Just in case you were worried. ;-) In recap style, here you go:
*Stop signs in Italy, or at least in the part of Italy I was in, are in English, exact replicas of stop signs at home. Why? Did some American stop sign maker score a seriously good business deal when he convinced the Italians that everyone has watched enough American movies to know the English word for stop? (Incidentally, this same stop sign maker’s sales person apparently scored deals in Slovakia too, though I didn’t catch photographic evidence of that, only saw it.)
*Another strange sight: Jessica, Stephanie and I walked past a nicely situated house during our walk along the Tuscan country roads near their house. Upon passing back by the house, I noticed a red mailbox just like the black one outside my growing-up house. Upon further inspection, I discovered that this mailbox in the Italian countryside also said “U.S. Mail” on the mailbox door, just like the box at home. Upon even further inspection, I discovered that all the names on the side of the mailbox were Italian names rather than something like “Smith” that would have made more sense. Perhaps they picked it up as a souvenir during a jaunt to America?
*Watch your TV listings for a special Geraldo Rivera special on going undercover as a Bratislava tram driver. While Julie and I waited for the correct tram one Bratislava day, a tram approached that was not the one we were waiting for. And sitting in the driver’s seat wearing a warm-looking, off-white, cable-knit, high-necked, zipped-up cardigan (it seemed odd that the tram drivers in Bratislava didn’t wear uniforms, just normal clothes) was a dark-haired, mustached dead-ringer (at least from a side viewing from a distance of a couple yards away through tram glass) for good ol’ Geraldo. And who would put it past him to be doing a special on a week in the life of a tram driver? I’m sure it was him. Definitely. Except that the necessary camera crew was doing an amazing job of being incognito.
*During one of my first couple weeks here, I think I saw a chimney sweep during my walk back home from the Brockley train station. I’ve already been enamored with all of London’s chimneys, so spotting a soot-covered (face, clothes, everything) man carrying a broom toward a van parked beside a quiet stretch of residential city road only added to the old school charm of the chimney culture. (And, of course, started such tunes as “chim, chimeree, chim, chimeree, chim, chim, chi-ree” singing through my brain.)
*Walking to the train station one mid-day (the Lewisham station I use most often), I turned left off Brookbank Road toward the short stretch of road leading to the pedestrian tunnel under the train tracks. As I passed halfway down the block, someone was carrying things into their house or something. Their front door was open and suddenly, loudly out the front door rang an exuberant line of song that transported me back home as I chuckled: “Ain’t nothing but a hound dog…”
*Late last night as cousin Melissa and I walked back up the hill on Brookbank road, two guys were petting the orange cat who’s been my friendly greeter on several of my very regular jaunts up and down the hill. I hadn’t seen the cat lately and have been wondering if it’s been locked inside since it’s been so cold out. Yesterday was warmer. I stopped and asked the guys whether it was their cat. It’s not. And they aren’t sure where it lives, but perhaps five doors down, they said. I explained that the cat had accompanied me down the road the morning I was rushing downhill with my suitcase at 4 am to catch the bus to the airport. That is not the time you want a cat rubbing up against your legs for a friendly morning greeting. I was more generous when it greeted me during my 3:30 am return from my travels two weeks later. I stopped to pet it that time. As we walked on up the hill from our brief conversation, one of the guys called out, “Happy Thanksgiving!” I guess our American accents were pretty obvious.
*Stop signs in Italy, or at least in the part of Italy I was in, are in English, exact replicas of stop signs at home. Why? Did some American stop sign maker score a seriously good business deal when he convinced the Italians that everyone has watched enough American movies to know the English word for stop? (Incidentally, this same stop sign maker’s sales person apparently scored deals in Slovakia too, though I didn’t catch photographic evidence of that, only saw it.)
*Another strange sight: Jessica, Stephanie and I walked past a nicely situated house during our walk along the Tuscan country roads near their house. Upon passing back by the house, I noticed a red mailbox just like the black one outside my growing-up house. Upon further inspection, I discovered that this mailbox in the Italian countryside also said “U.S. Mail” on the mailbox door, just like the box at home. Upon even further inspection, I discovered that all the names on the side of the mailbox were Italian names rather than something like “Smith” that would have made more sense. Perhaps they picked it up as a souvenir during a jaunt to America?
*Watch your TV listings for a special Geraldo Rivera special on going undercover as a Bratislava tram driver. While Julie and I waited for the correct tram one Bratislava day, a tram approached that was not the one we were waiting for. And sitting in the driver’s seat wearing a warm-looking, off-white, cable-knit, high-necked, zipped-up cardigan (it seemed odd that the tram drivers in Bratislava didn’t wear uniforms, just normal clothes) was a dark-haired, mustached dead-ringer (at least from a side viewing from a distance of a couple yards away through tram glass) for good ol’ Geraldo. And who would put it past him to be doing a special on a week in the life of a tram driver? I’m sure it was him. Definitely. Except that the necessary camera crew was doing an amazing job of being incognito.
*During one of my first couple weeks here, I think I saw a chimney sweep during my walk back home from the Brockley train station. I’ve already been enamored with all of London’s chimneys, so spotting a soot-covered (face, clothes, everything) man carrying a broom toward a van parked beside a quiet stretch of residential city road only added to the old school charm of the chimney culture. (And, of course, started such tunes as “chim, chimeree, chim, chimeree, chim, chim, chi-ree” singing through my brain.)
*Walking to the train station one mid-day (the Lewisham station I use most often), I turned left off Brookbank Road toward the short stretch of road leading to the pedestrian tunnel under the train tracks. As I passed halfway down the block, someone was carrying things into their house or something. Their front door was open and suddenly, loudly out the front door rang an exuberant line of song that transported me back home as I chuckled: “Ain’t nothing but a hound dog…”
*Late last night as cousin Melissa and I walked back up the hill on Brookbank road, two guys were petting the orange cat who’s been my friendly greeter on several of my very regular jaunts up and down the hill. I hadn’t seen the cat lately and have been wondering if it’s been locked inside since it’s been so cold out. Yesterday was warmer. I stopped and asked the guys whether it was their cat. It’s not. And they aren’t sure where it lives, but perhaps five doors down, they said. I explained that the cat had accompanied me down the road the morning I was rushing downhill with my suitcase at 4 am to catch the bus to the airport. That is not the time you want a cat rubbing up against your legs for a friendly morning greeting. I was more generous when it greeted me during my 3:30 am return from my travels two weeks later. I stopped to pet it that time. As we walked on up the hill from our brief conversation, one of the guys called out, “Happy Thanksgiving!” I guess our American accents were pretty obvious.
What determines a mailbox's nationality? Where it's located or what it says on it? And for that matter what if you put non-US mail in a US Mail box?
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