A: It's time for an Ottoman classic.
W: a fairy tale or a muratti?
A: Always both.
A: The storyteller, a Turkish Scheherazade, begins her tale by lighting a muratti.
W: sigh & thats why we stay friends.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Jane & John
Esthela Gonzalez's friends are talking to her, but she's not listening.
The chatter is coming at Gonzalez not over a cup of coffee or at Five Guys but on Twitter, through her iPhone. Gonzalez, bored by some of her friends' blabbering, has quietly put a few of them on the social-networking equivalent of timeout. Using a $4.99 iPhone application called Twittelator Pro, the 36-year-old from Chantilly simply tapped a button that says "mute" and, voila, her friends' tweets are blocked. Best of all, they're totally oblivious to the fact that they've been silenced.
"When I saw this feature, it was like a choir of angels coming out to greet me," Gonzalez said.
If John follows Jane on Twitter, John sees everything Jane writes, even if John couldn't care less about Jane's endless posts on "American Idol." This could leave John needlessly annoyed by Jane, a discontent that could seep into their otherwise healthy face-to-face relationship. The same goes for Facebook: John and Jane might be decent friends, but does Jane really care about John's pictures of his new deck?
John's and Jane's options, if they don't want to go hunting around Twitter and Facebook to figure out complicated privacy settings, have until now been dire: Just about the only way to rid themselves of a torrent of annoying posts was to drop each other from their friend lists. But in the face-to-face world, John and Jane would never drop each other over such trivial annoyances. Rather, if John knew Jane always wanted to talk about "Idol" over lunch in the cafeteria on Thursdays, he would simply avoid her table on those days. The new services seek to re-create that easy, unhurtful form of avoidance online.
"This is all really a question about how to best be polite online," said Danah Boyd, a social media scholar at Microsoft Research New England. "This etiquette is just starting to evolve. People are trying to find new ways to appear friendly when they don't really like what you're saying at all."
BACK TO BASICS.
The chatter is coming at Gonzalez not over a cup of coffee or at Five Guys but on Twitter, through her iPhone. Gonzalez, bored by some of her friends' blabbering, has quietly put a few of them on the social-networking equivalent of timeout. Using a $4.99 iPhone application called Twittelator Pro, the 36-year-old from Chantilly simply tapped a button that says "mute" and, voila, her friends' tweets are blocked. Best of all, they're totally oblivious to the fact that they've been silenced.
"When I saw this feature, it was like a choir of angels coming out to greet me," Gonzalez said.
If John follows Jane on Twitter, John sees everything Jane writes, even if John couldn't care less about Jane's endless posts on "American Idol." This could leave John needlessly annoyed by Jane, a discontent that could seep into their otherwise healthy face-to-face relationship. The same goes for Facebook: John and Jane might be decent friends, but does Jane really care about John's pictures of his new deck?
John's and Jane's options, if they don't want to go hunting around Twitter and Facebook to figure out complicated privacy settings, have until now been dire: Just about the only way to rid themselves of a torrent of annoying posts was to drop each other from their friend lists. But in the face-to-face world, John and Jane would never drop each other over such trivial annoyances. Rather, if John knew Jane always wanted to talk about "Idol" over lunch in the cafeteria on Thursdays, he would simply avoid her table on those days. The new services seek to re-create that easy, unhurtful form of avoidance online.
"This is all really a question about how to best be polite online," said Danah Boyd, a social media scholar at Microsoft Research New England. "This etiquette is just starting to evolve. People are trying to find new ways to appear friendly when they don't really like what you're saying at all."
BACK TO BASICS.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Mixed Up
Why do you tell the truth? my son asked & I thought about it for awhile & finally I said, Because human beings get mixed up easier than dogs & plants & fishes. What if you're someone who doesn't get mixed up? he said. Go ahead & lie, I said & then I hit him with a pillow just because I knew he was thinking about doing that anyway.
DC... i thought we were done here.
A: I keep telling myself... this isn't permanent.
W: The only way to survive.
W: The only way to survive.
back to basics
"I just want to allow my brain and my spirit to have a little bit more room, and play with words, and have fun with them again."
"In television, you learn 20 times as much as you are able to report on the air. You get so bogged down by the logistics of what video you have and what studio is available. I want to return to enterprise reporting that consists of a pad, a pen, and a phone."
Back the basics. You go, dude.
Journalist Major Garrett leaves Fox News TV for National Journal print
By Howard KurtzThursday, August 26, 2010; C01
Just when he has a chance to assume a front-row seat in the White House briefing room, Major Garrett is leaving Fox News and returning to print journalism.
Garrett, who has been widely recognized as a straight-arrow reporter caught in the crossfire between President Obama's top aides and the network of Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, is joining National Journal as a congressional correspondent.
The hostility between the administration and Fox "never wore me down," Garrett said Wednesday, but "of course it made my job more difficult. . . . I'd be a liar if I said otherwise." But, he added, "I was a conscientious objector in that war. I never fought it."
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Garrett lived up to Fox's fair-and-balanced motto: "I have always thought Major was one of the smartest people in the briefing room. He's tough, and I'd say the slogan actually did fit him."
The main reason for his departure, the Fox White House correspondent said, is the frenetic pace of cable news: "I want to talk less and I want to think more. I always considered myself an accidental TV reporter."
When he told Roger Ailes he was leaving, Garrett said, the Fox News chairman replied: "You're one of the few guys who never got addicted to TV."
Michael Clemente, a Fox senior vice president, said that "Major's a first-class reporter. He's got a naturally inquisitive mind, and returning to print will allow him to do what he knows and loves best."
Fox is moving Pentagon reporter Mike Emanuel back to the White House, where he will join Wendell Goler in sharing the front-row seat that the network was recently awarded after Helen Thomas resigned under fire for her comments about Israel.
National Journal, part of Atlantic Media, is in the process of reinventing itself under its new editor in chief, Ron Fournier, former Washington bureau chief of the Associated Press. Garrett says Fournier broached the idea over dinner several weeks ago at Kinkead's, a restaurant a few blocks from the White House. Fournier said in a statement that Garrett is "known across Washington as one of the hardest-working journalists in the business, a fierce competitor on his beat, and a good and decent man."
Earlier this week, National Journal hired Matthew Cooper, the former Time correspondent who had been working for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, as its managing editor. In filling about 30 vacancies, the public policy weekly has also tapped political consultant Matthew Dowd, Atlantic's Marc Ambinder and reporters from the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, USA Today and Politico.
Even last fall, when Anita Dunn, then Obama's communications director, assailed Fox as a "wing of the Republican Party," she pointedly excluded Garrett from her indictment. After what amounted to an administration boycott of Fox, Garrett was granted the first interview with the president during a round-robin last fall with network reporters in Beijing.
Garrett, who turned 48 on Tuesday, said he would miss the pace of cable news and the high-profile platform provided by Fox. But in television, he said, you learn 20 times as much as you are able to report on the air.
"You get so bogged down by the logistics of what video do you have and what studio is available. I want to return to enterprise reporting that consists of a pad, a pen and a phone." Beyond that, he said, "I just want to allow my brain and my spirit to have a little bit more room, and play with words, and have fun with them again."
Garrett began his career in print, writing for U.S. News & World Report, the Washington Times and the Houston Post, among others. He joined Fox in 2002 after serving as a White House correspondent for CNN.
Looking ahead to his next challenge, Garrett said: "I've still got a fastball, I think. We'll find out."
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
from a place of honesty
The truth not only sets you free, Andrew, it slays all dragons, banishes all fears, connects all dots, and casts a brand new spell over those who've yet to see you as I do.And you already had the world spinning in the palm of your hand...
Careful now, The Universe
Careful now, The Universe
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
I love this lady...
"Don't plan too hard, because something much better could be out there."
"[on taking year off to be a mom] I'm not sure you always appreciate those times when you're in them, but I look back and say to everybody, 'Take it off- your career will find you. Trust me, when you go back, it'll find you.'"
"Every once in a while a Garth Brooks song- the one about how some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers-- plays in Crowley's mind. There was no California and no five kids. But there was so much else, including this, a show in which she finally plays the lead."
Candy Crowley, veteran CNN reporter, takes on competitive Sunday morning slot
By Ellen McCarthyWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, August 24, 2010; C01
There's no secret about what works on cable news these days.
Flashy graphics and raised voices burst through the screen to jostle into our agitated, unfocused, Twitterized minds.
Anchors are loud, beautiful and opinionated. They are celebrities, meticulously drawn on-air characters who may or may not bear a resemblance to their off-camera selves. Anderson the Great. Glenn of Conspiracyvilles. Rachel, Puckish and Left.
They can present news, sure, but they're really here to provoke. Viewers should be fired up as much as informed. Guests will be either aggrandized or antagonized, based on party alignment and time slot. No segment can run more than a few quippy minutes, and everyone's blood pressure must rise.
And as the host of its Sunday morning talk show, a marquee program in a hyper-competitive hour, CNN picked Candy Crowley -- who embodies absolutely none of that formula.
She is 61 and not gorgeous. She trades on layered, nuanced conversations expressly devoid of personal bias. Her dusty voice never lifts above a lecturer's tone, and if she walked into any given beyond-the-Beltway restaurant, she might not be asked for an autograph. This is a woman who has been a vegetarian for 15 years and kneels to meditate twice a day, every day. In an era of unrelenting interruptions, she's a self-deprecating anchor who hates to interrupt.
Crowley is beloved inside the halls of CNN and roundly respected in official Washington, a veteran political reporter who works hard and knows her stuff. Friends and colleagues describe her as brilliant and hilarious. But as the host of "State of the Union," she's a gamble.
It's not just that the network's executives are betting she can do the job; they're taking long odds we'll sit still long enough to watch. And if early ratings are any indicator, we might not. 'She reads everything'
Candy Crowley has been in our living rooms for more than a quarter-century now, first as an NBC reporter and since 1987 as a CNN correspondent. Until this year, she was relegated to the supporting cast, a perennial smart lady some well-lit anchor would conjure via satellite to explain Washington. She'd talk, he'd nod. Then the cameras would turn away; he'd move on to a hurricane watch or pop-star update, and she'd blink back to political Neverland.
There was no reason to ponder whether or not she really lived there -- which, in fact, she did. It wasn't for us to count the dozen-plus presidential campaigns she covered, the hundreds of congressional news conferences, or innumerable scandals and stump speeches. If we'd stopped to think about it, we might have guessed that she was never just a newsreader like some of the others, but we didn't stop to think about it.
"She's like the CliffsNotes for all the other reporters," says Alexandra Pelosi, who covered two presidential races alongside Crowley. "They talk about those things that nobody reads -- nobody reads bills. But Candy does. She reads all of that stuff. She reads everything. On the bus, everyone would just go to her and ask her, 'Candy, so what's this bill about?' "
Still, Crowley wasn't a star, and for decades no one seemed much interested in elevating her into one. So she is startled to find herself at the helm of a Sunday talk show, peaking in her career during her seventh decade of life.
A year ago, she wouldn't have dared to wish for it. "Or even thought of it," she adds. "People always used to say to me, 'Don't you want your own show? That'd be so cool if you had your own show.' I said, 'You know, it's not gonna happen. So -- no.' "
Mind you, this is the woman who hung a sign above her desk -- in lettering usually reserved for homespun sayings like "Home Is Where the Heart Is" -- that reads: "The Only Difference Between This Place and the Titanic Is That the Titanic Had a Band."
Optimism is not her forte.
When media blogs lit up with speculation that the "State of the Union" job would be Crowley's after John King announced he was leaving the show to take over a prime-time slot in January, what she wondered was: "Who makes this [expletive] up?" If people asked, she'd point out that there was a moment when Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed destined to become Barack Obama's running mate. " 'And then we found out they didn't even vet her! I just want to remind you of that,' " she remembers saying. Plan A
In the past couple of years, Crowley had been more seriously considering an exit strategy than an anchor desk. "It's get on the bus, get off the bus. Get on the plane, get off the plane. Get in the hotel room, get out. Eventually, I was like, 'I don't want to do this anymore,' " she says. "I thought, 'What do I do after this?' "
But she should've known not to over-think it. That's the one piece of advice she always offers young people: "Don't plan too hard, because something much better might be out there."
Crowley didn't plot out any of what her career has become. Which is not to say that she didn't have a plan. She did: As she graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in 1970, "I was wildly in love with this guy," she says. "I thought I would marry him, move to California, have five kids, iron his shirts and write the Great American Novel."
She recalls those dreams from a stool in the recently remodeled kitchen of her Bethesda rambler. The house is a showcase of family antiques, Asian art and memorabilia collected along her journeys with the press pool. Crowley, in chunky rings and a linen jacket, sits facing away from a lushly landscaped back yard, where two young men are doing maintenance on her lap pool. She was up before dawn for a 7 a.m. newscast but is still ebullient at noon.
As her friends are quick to gush, the newswoman is enormously likable -- warm, chatty and without pretension. She laughs heartily at her own jokes, throwing her head back and slapping the counter. In every situation she seems to lead with her humor -- a sharp wit that produces, as CNN President Jon Klein puts it, "some of the funniest e-mail chains you'd ever want to get hooked into."
When things went sour with the college boyfriend, Crowley, the daughter of a St. Louis furniture salesman and a homemaker, moved to Washington with a friend. Neither could "figure out what we could do with a bachelor of arts degree," but eventually Crowley was hired to help put out a newsletter at a chemicals trade association.
She also began freelancing for the National Education Association magazine, and at 22 she married a TV producer. He mentioned an opening with the channel's sister radio station and, thinking that journalism "would be fun," Crowley signed on to work a split shift producing traffic and crime reports during morning and evening drive times.
After a stint with another station, Crowley was hired by AP Radio Network as a general assignment reporter. But within a few years she became a mother to two young boys, and when her husband got a job in Iowa, she became a stay-at-home mom for six years. "I'm not sure you always appreciate those times when you're in them, but I look back and say to everybody, 'Take it off -- your career will find you. Trust me, when you go back, it'll find you.' "
By the time her youngest started kindergarten, they'd returned to Washington, and AP rehired her. The radio network eventually assigned Crowley to cover the White House, where she caught the attention of NBC executives.
President Ronald Reagan was preparing to deploy warships and had just finished a speech on America's stature as a peaceful nation when Crowley asked him, "How does a show of force show that we're against force?" The next day she got a call asking if she'd ever thought about doing television.
"I actually hadn't. I envied the TV people, but mostly because they didn't have to carry a lot of crap," she says. "Everything I carried weighed a thousand pounds."
One screen test later, she was hired. But when the station went through cutbacks 2 1/2 years later, Crowley was on the chopping block. By then, she and her husband had divorced, and she remembers being "terrified because I didn't know what I was gonna do next. I needed the money."
She latched on as a steady freelancer for CNN, and within two years was made full-time. Amid the rush of a 24-hour news station, Crowley's work stood out for its thoughtfulness and eloquence.
"She has a very logical mind, so when she's covering a story or an issue, she's able to cut through all this stuff and get to what's at the core of it," says Molly Boyle, a friend and former colleague. "And then, because she's such an incredible writer, she's able to take that and explain it to you in a way that not only makes sense, but is beautiful to hear."
In the early 1990s, Crowley began covering Capitol Hill, "a puzzle palace of politics," and after five years she was promoted to a national political correspondent.
There were long days, cross-country assignments and two boys she was raising largely alone because their father had moved out of state. For years, she would feel like she was going to throw up every day around 3 p.m., "because that's when they come home from school and call you." She'd pray that no late-breaking assignment land in her lap, keeping her from dinner, homework and hanging out.
Of course the boys, Webster and Jonathan, now 31 and 30 and a neurosurgeon and rock musician, respectively, remember little of that. They remember that takeout dinners were just fine and that their mom made it to every football game, once insisting that CNN provide a car to chauffeur her to the stadium on a layover between campaign events. She refused to be away from her sons for longer than five days at a stretch, but when the youngest left for college, Crowley realized she could take the "Mom, I need money" calls from any hotel room in America.
She was on the campaign trail for months at a time after that, covering Bob Dole, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, John Kerry and Obama. Along the way, she made fans out of competitors and sources.
"I think everyone enjoyed her. She has that great laugh and is just a lot of fun," says Karen Hughes, former political adviser to George W. Bush. "And some of the interviews I've done with her are some of the best interviews that I can remember doing. She's probing and difficult and tough . . . but there's not the air of confrontation that you get from some interviewers."
But by the end of 2008, after almost 18 months on the road, Crowley was exhausted. Campaign life doesn't lend itself to healthy living or serenity. She promised herself she'd spend all of 2009 dedicated to making changes: working out with a trainer, eating more nutritiously. "I just wanted to be a better person. I wanted to feel better," she says. "And if at the end of the year I just hated it, then I'd go do whatever I want."
A doctor friend suggested she also take up meditation, so for four mornings she trained with a Transcendental Meditation teacher in Rockville. The practice stuck and she continues to sit for 20 minutes every morning and every night. "It's a hard thing to describe, but I find that my thought is clearer," she says. "I still get mad. I still get upset. But I let it go more quickly."
She began thinking about what would come next -- "which I thought might be out." She wondered if it was time to attempt that Great American Novel. 'A disarming approach'
When "State of the Union" came open in January, Crowley felt sure she didn't have a real shot, but a friend convinced her that "if you don't ask them for it, they're never going to know you want it."
And just as Crowley returned from a trip to New Zealand with her boys, Jon Klein called her to his office to offer her the job.
Crowley's thick Rolodex and deep political knowledge made her a contender, Klein says, but it was a Christmas Day interview with Janet Napolitano that cinched the deal. When an al-Qaeda operative boarded a Detroit-bound plane with explosives in his underwear, Crowley carried the live coverage, landing an interview with the Homeland Security secretary, who declared that "the system worked." It became a catchphrase for criticism of the Obama administration.
"I think Candy's got a disarming approach," Klein says. "She's never looking to snooker anybody. She's just talking to you. And I think that because she is so real in the conversations, the people she's interviewing become very real, too, and that led directly to the news that was made that day."
After the "State of the Union" announcement was made, a cheer went up in the CNN newsroom, and Crowley was deluged with notes congratulating her on being the first woman to anchor a Sunday morning public affairs show since Cokie Roberts co-hosted "This Week" with Sam Donaldson. Now Christiane Amanpour joins Crowley, hosting the ABC News program.
It has taken a while for Crowley to adapt to the rhythms of a live weekly show -- setting her alarm for 3 a.m. every Sunday and learning to tactfully interrupt politicians, rather than abbreviate their soliloquies in the cutting room, as she'd done for decades.
CNN hired veteran producer Tom Bettag to remake the show for Crowley, softening the set and cameras angles to create the impression of intimacy. Bettag, who worked extensively with Ted Koppel and Dan Rather, places Crowley "in the same class as those two people."
"What she brings is a real humanity," he says. "She's got that mix of, 'You would absolutely believe her and go to her in a crisis, but you would also enjoy having dinner with her.' "
But there is still a question of whether we're willing to spend an hour with our attention fixed on the kind of substantive discussions she conducts -- even if they're with big-name guests such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell, who have all appeared on the show in recent months.
Robert Thompson, a communications professor at Syracuse University, thinks there could be a certain advantage in Crowley differentiating herself from the "adversarial and aggressive talk and opinion" we've come to expect from so much cable news. For a Sunday morning show targeted at political junkies, he says, viewers still "expect a more serious kind of presentation."
Since her debut in February, though, the program's ratings have dropped -- the July numbers were down 22 percent compared to the previous year. All of the Sunday morning talk shows have seen their viewerships decline, so a slow political news cycle may have contributed, but CNN's numbers slipped more than its competitors.
Klein says the network remains committed -- "we're convinced that there is an avid audience out there hungry for surprising insights expressed well," he wrote in an e-mail.
It will take months to reveal whether Crowley's show can find its footing and build a bigger audience.
But for this moment, at least, its anchor is having a ball.
"I sometimes look around that studio in the middle of commercials and think, 'Really?' " she says. "I can't quite believe I'm doing this, but it's a kick."
Every once in a while a Garth Brooks song -- the one about how some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers -- plays in Crowley's mind. There was no California and no five kids. But there was so much else, including this, a show in which she finally plays the lead.
By Ellen McCarthyWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, August 24, 2010; C01
There's no secret about what works on cable news these days.
Flashy graphics and raised voices burst through the screen to jostle into our agitated, unfocused, Twitterized minds.
Anchors are loud, beautiful and opinionated. They are celebrities, meticulously drawn on-air characters who may or may not bear a resemblance to their off-camera selves. Anderson the Great. Glenn of Conspiracyvilles. Rachel, Puckish and Left.
They can present news, sure, but they're really here to provoke. Viewers should be fired up as much as informed. Guests will be either aggrandized or antagonized, based on party alignment and time slot. No segment can run more than a few quippy minutes, and everyone's blood pressure must rise.
And as the host of its Sunday morning talk show, a marquee program in a hyper-competitive hour, CNN picked Candy Crowley -- who embodies absolutely none of that formula.
She is 61 and not gorgeous. She trades on layered, nuanced conversations expressly devoid of personal bias. Her dusty voice never lifts above a lecturer's tone, and if she walked into any given beyond-the-Beltway restaurant, she might not be asked for an autograph. This is a woman who has been a vegetarian for 15 years and kneels to meditate twice a day, every day. In an era of unrelenting interruptions, she's a self-deprecating anchor who hates to interrupt.
Crowley is beloved inside the halls of CNN and roundly respected in official Washington, a veteran political reporter who works hard and knows her stuff. Friends and colleagues describe her as brilliant and hilarious. But as the host of "State of the Union," she's a gamble.
It's not just that the network's executives are betting she can do the job; they're taking long odds we'll sit still long enough to watch. And if early ratings are any indicator, we might not. 'She reads everything'
Candy Crowley has been in our living rooms for more than a quarter-century now, first as an NBC reporter and since 1987 as a CNN correspondent. Until this year, she was relegated to the supporting cast, a perennial smart lady some well-lit anchor would conjure via satellite to explain Washington. She'd talk, he'd nod. Then the cameras would turn away; he'd move on to a hurricane watch or pop-star update, and she'd blink back to political Neverland.
There was no reason to ponder whether or not she really lived there -- which, in fact, she did. It wasn't for us to count the dozen-plus presidential campaigns she covered, the hundreds of congressional news conferences, or innumerable scandals and stump speeches. If we'd stopped to think about it, we might have guessed that she was never just a newsreader like some of the others, but we didn't stop to think about it.
"She's like the CliffsNotes for all the other reporters," says Alexandra Pelosi, who covered two presidential races alongside Crowley. "They talk about those things that nobody reads -- nobody reads bills. But Candy does. She reads all of that stuff. She reads everything. On the bus, everyone would just go to her and ask her, 'Candy, so what's this bill about?' "
Still, Crowley wasn't a star, and for decades no one seemed much interested in elevating her into one. So she is startled to find herself at the helm of a Sunday talk show, peaking in her career during her seventh decade of life.
A year ago, she wouldn't have dared to wish for it. "Or even thought of it," she adds. "People always used to say to me, 'Don't you want your own show? That'd be so cool if you had your own show.' I said, 'You know, it's not gonna happen. So -- no.' "
Mind you, this is the woman who hung a sign above her desk -- in lettering usually reserved for homespun sayings like "Home Is Where the Heart Is" -- that reads: "The Only Difference Between This Place and the Titanic Is That the Titanic Had a Band."
Optimism is not her forte.
When media blogs lit up with speculation that the "State of the Union" job would be Crowley's after John King announced he was leaving the show to take over a prime-time slot in January, what she wondered was: "Who makes this [expletive] up?" If people asked, she'd point out that there was a moment when Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed destined to become Barack Obama's running mate. " 'And then we found out they didn't even vet her! I just want to remind you of that,' " she remembers saying. Plan A
In the past couple of years, Crowley had been more seriously considering an exit strategy than an anchor desk. "It's get on the bus, get off the bus. Get on the plane, get off the plane. Get in the hotel room, get out. Eventually, I was like, 'I don't want to do this anymore,' " she says. "I thought, 'What do I do after this?' "
But she should've known not to over-think it. That's the one piece of advice she always offers young people: "Don't plan too hard, because something much better might be out there."
Crowley didn't plot out any of what her career has become. Which is not to say that she didn't have a plan. She did: As she graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in 1970, "I was wildly in love with this guy," she says. "I thought I would marry him, move to California, have five kids, iron his shirts and write the Great American Novel."
She recalls those dreams from a stool in the recently remodeled kitchen of her Bethesda rambler. The house is a showcase of family antiques, Asian art and memorabilia collected along her journeys with the press pool. Crowley, in chunky rings and a linen jacket, sits facing away from a lushly landscaped back yard, where two young men are doing maintenance on her lap pool. She was up before dawn for a 7 a.m. newscast but is still ebullient at noon.
As her friends are quick to gush, the newswoman is enormously likable -- warm, chatty and without pretension. She laughs heartily at her own jokes, throwing her head back and slapping the counter. In every situation she seems to lead with her humor -- a sharp wit that produces, as CNN President Jon Klein puts it, "some of the funniest e-mail chains you'd ever want to get hooked into."
When things went sour with the college boyfriend, Crowley, the daughter of a St. Louis furniture salesman and a homemaker, moved to Washington with a friend. Neither could "figure out what we could do with a bachelor of arts degree," but eventually Crowley was hired to help put out a newsletter at a chemicals trade association.
She also began freelancing for the National Education Association magazine, and at 22 she married a TV producer. He mentioned an opening with the channel's sister radio station and, thinking that journalism "would be fun," Crowley signed on to work a split shift producing traffic and crime reports during morning and evening drive times.
After a stint with another station, Crowley was hired by AP Radio Network as a general assignment reporter. But within a few years she became a mother to two young boys, and when her husband got a job in Iowa, she became a stay-at-home mom for six years. "I'm not sure you always appreciate those times when you're in them, but I look back and say to everybody, 'Take it off -- your career will find you. Trust me, when you go back, it'll find you.' "
By the time her youngest started kindergarten, they'd returned to Washington, and AP rehired her. The radio network eventually assigned Crowley to cover the White House, where she caught the attention of NBC executives.
President Ronald Reagan was preparing to deploy warships and had just finished a speech on America's stature as a peaceful nation when Crowley asked him, "How does a show of force show that we're against force?" The next day she got a call asking if she'd ever thought about doing television.
"I actually hadn't. I envied the TV people, but mostly because they didn't have to carry a lot of crap," she says. "Everything I carried weighed a thousand pounds."
One screen test later, she was hired. But when the station went through cutbacks 2 1/2 years later, Crowley was on the chopping block. By then, she and her husband had divorced, and she remembers being "terrified because I didn't know what I was gonna do next. I needed the money."
She latched on as a steady freelancer for CNN, and within two years was made full-time. Amid the rush of a 24-hour news station, Crowley's work stood out for its thoughtfulness and eloquence.
"She has a very logical mind, so when she's covering a story or an issue, she's able to cut through all this stuff and get to what's at the core of it," says Molly Boyle, a friend and former colleague. "And then, because she's such an incredible writer, she's able to take that and explain it to you in a way that not only makes sense, but is beautiful to hear."
In the early 1990s, Crowley began covering Capitol Hill, "a puzzle palace of politics," and after five years she was promoted to a national political correspondent.
There were long days, cross-country assignments and two boys she was raising largely alone because their father had moved out of state. For years, she would feel like she was going to throw up every day around 3 p.m., "because that's when they come home from school and call you." She'd pray that no late-breaking assignment land in her lap, keeping her from dinner, homework and hanging out.
Of course the boys, Webster and Jonathan, now 31 and 30 and a neurosurgeon and rock musician, respectively, remember little of that. They remember that takeout dinners were just fine and that their mom made it to every football game, once insisting that CNN provide a car to chauffeur her to the stadium on a layover between campaign events. She refused to be away from her sons for longer than five days at a stretch, but when the youngest left for college, Crowley realized she could take the "Mom, I need money" calls from any hotel room in America.
She was on the campaign trail for months at a time after that, covering Bob Dole, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, John Kerry and Obama. Along the way, she made fans out of competitors and sources.
"I think everyone enjoyed her. She has that great laugh and is just a lot of fun," says Karen Hughes, former political adviser to George W. Bush. "And some of the interviews I've done with her are some of the best interviews that I can remember doing. She's probing and difficult and tough . . . but there's not the air of confrontation that you get from some interviewers."
But by the end of 2008, after almost 18 months on the road, Crowley was exhausted. Campaign life doesn't lend itself to healthy living or serenity. She promised herself she'd spend all of 2009 dedicated to making changes: working out with a trainer, eating more nutritiously. "I just wanted to be a better person. I wanted to feel better," she says. "And if at the end of the year I just hated it, then I'd go do whatever I want."
A doctor friend suggested she also take up meditation, so for four mornings she trained with a Transcendental Meditation teacher in Rockville. The practice stuck and she continues to sit for 20 minutes every morning and every night. "It's a hard thing to describe, but I find that my thought is clearer," she says. "I still get mad. I still get upset. But I let it go more quickly."
She began thinking about what would come next -- "which I thought might be out." She wondered if it was time to attempt that Great American Novel. 'A disarming approach'
When "State of the Union" came open in January, Crowley felt sure she didn't have a real shot, but a friend convinced her that "if you don't ask them for it, they're never going to know you want it."
And just as Crowley returned from a trip to New Zealand with her boys, Jon Klein called her to his office to offer her the job.
Crowley's thick Rolodex and deep political knowledge made her a contender, Klein says, but it was a Christmas Day interview with Janet Napolitano that cinched the deal. When an al-Qaeda operative boarded a Detroit-bound plane with explosives in his underwear, Crowley carried the live coverage, landing an interview with the Homeland Security secretary, who declared that "the system worked." It became a catchphrase for criticism of the Obama administration.
"I think Candy's got a disarming approach," Klein says. "She's never looking to snooker anybody. She's just talking to you. And I think that because she is so real in the conversations, the people she's interviewing become very real, too, and that led directly to the news that was made that day."
After the "State of the Union" announcement was made, a cheer went up in the CNN newsroom, and Crowley was deluged with notes congratulating her on being the first woman to anchor a Sunday morning public affairs show since Cokie Roberts co-hosted "This Week" with Sam Donaldson. Now Christiane Amanpour joins Crowley, hosting the ABC News program.
It has taken a while for Crowley to adapt to the rhythms of a live weekly show -- setting her alarm for 3 a.m. every Sunday and learning to tactfully interrupt politicians, rather than abbreviate their soliloquies in the cutting room, as she'd done for decades.
CNN hired veteran producer Tom Bettag to remake the show for Crowley, softening the set and cameras angles to create the impression of intimacy. Bettag, who worked extensively with Ted Koppel and Dan Rather, places Crowley "in the same class as those two people."
"What she brings is a real humanity," he says. "She's got that mix of, 'You would absolutely believe her and go to her in a crisis, but you would also enjoy having dinner with her.' "
But there is still a question of whether we're willing to spend an hour with our attention fixed on the kind of substantive discussions she conducts -- even if they're with big-name guests such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell, who have all appeared on the show in recent months.
Robert Thompson, a communications professor at Syracuse University, thinks there could be a certain advantage in Crowley differentiating herself from the "adversarial and aggressive talk and opinion" we've come to expect from so much cable news. For a Sunday morning show targeted at political junkies, he says, viewers still "expect a more serious kind of presentation."
Since her debut in February, though, the program's ratings have dropped -- the July numbers were down 22 percent compared to the previous year. All of the Sunday morning talk shows have seen their viewerships decline, so a slow political news cycle may have contributed, but CNN's numbers slipped more than its competitors.
Klein says the network remains committed -- "we're convinced that there is an avid audience out there hungry for surprising insights expressed well," he wrote in an e-mail.
It will take months to reveal whether Crowley's show can find its footing and build a bigger audience.
But for this moment, at least, its anchor is having a ball.
"I sometimes look around that studio in the middle of commercials and think, 'Really?' " she says. "I can't quite believe I'm doing this, but it's a kick."
Every once in a while a Garth Brooks song -- the one about how some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers -- plays in Crowley's mind. There was no California and no five kids. But there was so much else, including this, a show in which she finally plays the lead.
Monday, August 23, 2010
texts from this morning
Forgot to mention that last wk, I bought a beethoven cd for three bucks at borders. I saw a lady wearing a janet jackson concert tshirt. How magical. -- Madam I
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Tell Me Something
"I write because I must. I write because through the action I gain the sentiment associated with forgiveness. I gain clarity, I understand and laugh at mistakes, pinpoint weaknesses, understand frailty. I speak like this with you because you understand beyond the white and the black, beyond the constrictions of time and space and dimensional mechanism. I trust you enough to long for honesty with me and laugh at our futile attempt. I love you with the ferocity of an artist and you forgive me with the strength of a saint. I love you because you do not seek perfection and do not flout in festering situation. I adore you with the potency of unrequited love and second chances; I know you understand. I love you with the passion of the nihilists and the eternity in Buddhism. Tell me something. Anything friend. Teach me, force me to face my demons, hold my hand in my walk towards the mirror, feel free to laugh at my tears, as long as its with compassion. Come friend, to the stars and back we travel seeking adventures and lessons, perhaps simultaneously.
-WRK"
-WRK"
Smiling Eyes
She turned to me & whispered, don't you just love it when you get so excited you forget to breathe? & the thought of her smiling eyes still makes me laugh.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
It's time to get irrational again
What moves you? You need to move toward it
It's time to listen to what life's calling you to do
Published on August 18, 2010
As you may or may not know, I lived in Mexico for four years (2004-2008) and had my own flamenco dance company in Los Cabos (aka "Cabo"). When I was there I did all kinds of different things in addition to dancing in order to fund my dream life down south, including starting a personal coaching practice and writing for local magazines and newspapers. I wrote a wellness column for a magazine called Destino, and this year when the publisher saw that my book, Live a Life You Love, had come out, she asked if she could publish excerpts in upcoming issues of the magazine.
This week, the publisher sent me a link to the online version of Destino's summer issue. As I flipped through it, I felt a surprising hit to my gut. I saw articles about different social events held at different locations (like "Zippers" surf beach), and looked at photos of beaming laughing local faces. I remembered what it had been like to be part of that vibrant community, where I have more friends than I do in my hometown, where I am right now.
As I felt that longing, and the remembrance of how I'd thrived in that place, I knew I had to do something about it. I came back up "home" in early 2009 for practical reasons. Live a Life You Love would be coming out in a year, and I felt that I could better support and market it from up north. My Mexican husband wanted to get his Canadian papers organized and acquire Canadian work experience. I thought it wouldn't hurt to generate some extra funds by working extra hours at the clinic, and being up here I could study with fabulous flamenco mentors that were glaringly absent from my Mexican life.
Yet looking at those photos of Los Cabos, I was reminded on a cellular level that I unexpectedly sold my soul to be up here. I didn't think that that would happen, but it did. There's something that happens to me in Mexico - I expand, I glow, I light up. I create. I dream big dreams. I make big dreams and big things happen. I look years younger. I smile and laugh more. I would wake up every day and gratefully inhale the warm sea air, filling myself with life.
Mexico moves me. It made me, actually. I moved there in 2004, hoping to find time to write and to dance. I left in late 2008 as a professional performer who had performed for thousands of people and even taught celebrities. I was now an author with a publisher and a book contract. I had become a life coach with clients from across the continent. I spoke internationally about wellness and life. I had had all the ingredients inside when I arrived, but Mexico brought it all out of me, on a scale I hadn't dared to imagine. I need that magic again.
When I followed my "crazy" heart's call back in 2004, it proved to be right on, even though it didn't make sense to most people who knew me. It's time to get irrational again.
What moves you? What fills you with a sense of longing? What would you WISH for if you could, like a child fervently wanting wanting wanting something that they long for but don't believe that they could ever have?
Whatever it is, you need to move towards it. You will find life there. You'll find your life there.
Yesterday, Armando and I booked our tickets to Mexico. He's going to stay, to look for work and get settled again. I'm coming down for a short trip to check out the scene and start making plans, I'll probably commute for a while between the two countries like I used to. I can't wait!!!
When we booked the tickets, I danced around the house singing the Mexican Hat Dance (not that anyone can really sing that, it was more a kind of frenzied melodic yelling) like a madwoman. That's a very good sign - I'm clearly onto something.
What could you do today that would bring you closer to you and a life that would inspire you sing and dance out loud with irrepressible glee?
It's time to listen to what life's calling you to do
Published on August 18, 2010
As you may or may not know, I lived in Mexico for four years (2004-2008) and had my own flamenco dance company in Los Cabos (aka "Cabo"). When I was there I did all kinds of different things in addition to dancing in order to fund my dream life down south, including starting a personal coaching practice and writing for local magazines and newspapers. I wrote a wellness column for a magazine called Destino, and this year when the publisher saw that my book, Live a Life You Love, had come out, she asked if she could publish excerpts in upcoming issues of the magazine.
This week, the publisher sent me a link to the online version of Destino's summer issue. As I flipped through it, I felt a surprising hit to my gut. I saw articles about different social events held at different locations (like "Zippers" surf beach), and looked at photos of beaming laughing local faces. I remembered what it had been like to be part of that vibrant community, where I have more friends than I do in my hometown, where I am right now.
As I felt that longing, and the remembrance of how I'd thrived in that place, I knew I had to do something about it. I came back up "home" in early 2009 for practical reasons. Live a Life You Love would be coming out in a year, and I felt that I could better support and market it from up north. My Mexican husband wanted to get his Canadian papers organized and acquire Canadian work experience. I thought it wouldn't hurt to generate some extra funds by working extra hours at the clinic, and being up here I could study with fabulous flamenco mentors that were glaringly absent from my Mexican life.
Yet looking at those photos of Los Cabos, I was reminded on a cellular level that I unexpectedly sold my soul to be up here. I didn't think that that would happen, but it did. There's something that happens to me in Mexico - I expand, I glow, I light up. I create. I dream big dreams. I make big dreams and big things happen. I look years younger. I smile and laugh more. I would wake up every day and gratefully inhale the warm sea air, filling myself with life.
Mexico moves me. It made me, actually. I moved there in 2004, hoping to find time to write and to dance. I left in late 2008 as a professional performer who had performed for thousands of people and even taught celebrities. I was now an author with a publisher and a book contract. I had become a life coach with clients from across the continent. I spoke internationally about wellness and life. I had had all the ingredients inside when I arrived, but Mexico brought it all out of me, on a scale I hadn't dared to imagine. I need that magic again.
When I followed my "crazy" heart's call back in 2004, it proved to be right on, even though it didn't make sense to most people who knew me. It's time to get irrational again.
What moves you? What fills you with a sense of longing? What would you WISH for if you could, like a child fervently wanting wanting wanting something that they long for but don't believe that they could ever have?
Whatever it is, you need to move towards it. You will find life there. You'll find your life there.
Yesterday, Armando and I booked our tickets to Mexico. He's going to stay, to look for work and get settled again. I'm coming down for a short trip to check out the scene and start making plans, I'll probably commute for a while between the two countries like I used to. I can't wait!!!
When we booked the tickets, I danced around the house singing the Mexican Hat Dance (not that anyone can really sing that, it was more a kind of frenzied melodic yelling) like a madwoman. That's a very good sign - I'm clearly onto something.
What could you do today that would bring you closer to you and a life that would inspire you sing and dance out loud with irrepressible glee?
they bask
Shaping, shifting, molding, making... what people do when they discover their imagination.
Spinning, curling, dipping, twirling... what people do when they discover their wings.
Beaming, marveling, basking, sparkling... what people do when they discover love.
Basking, Andrew -
The Universe
Spinning, curling, dipping, twirling... what people do when they discover their wings.
Beaming, marveling, basking, sparkling... what people do when they discover love.
Basking, Andrew -
The Universe
"I like to draw in open spaces..."
Beautiful article about India graphic novelists...
I like to draw in open spaces, where they can breathe.
Symbolism is central to the Gond art world; nothing is perceieved literally. Subhash Vyam, 40, dismisses realistic representations as "ditto art."
It's not a box.
Indian graphic artists draw outside the box for nonfiction 'Bhimayana'
By Rama Lakshmi
Thursday, August 19, 2010
\
NEW DELHI -- When tribal artist Durgabai Vyam was asked by a publisher to draw for a graphic book about caste untouchability in India, she leafed through the celebrated titles laid out in front of her -- books by Art Spiegelman, Joe Sacco, Osamu Tezuka and Marjane Satrapi.
She was aghast.
The books were full of boxes. I did not want to do a book that cages art in little boxes," said Vyam, 35, recalling her first brush with the literary genre that is slowly taking off in India. "I like to draw in open spaces, where they can breathe."
Two years later she got her wish, and two years after that, she managed to finish her first graphic book without boxes. And in doing so, Vyam may have revolutionized the format of the genre.
Vyam and her husband, Subhash Vyam, just put final touches on "Bhimayana," a graphic nonfiction book about Bhimrao Ambedkar, a revered 20th-century leader of India's untouchables, now known as Dalits. The topic is similar to many internationally acclaimed graphic novels that deal with grave themes such as the Holocaust, Palestine and the Bosnian war.
But this book is different in that it jettisons sequential, cinematic narrative style and brings visual magic realism into a new universe. Symbolism tells the story.
The Vyams are renowned practitioners of Gond tribal art, traditionally painted on floors, walls and doorways of mud huts in villages. The indigenous art form made the transition to paper and urban galleries only three decades ago. The edgy graphic book is the latest incarnation of their ancient art.
"Bhimayana" traces Ambedkar's personal battles with untouchability and the 3,000-year-old hierarchical Hindu caste system, which regards the Dalits as the lowest level. The grim graphic book depicts him as a thirsty boy desperately seeking water in a segregated school, as a young traveler denied a bullock-cart ride and as a young man being thrown out of a motel.
The lake where Ambedkar agitated for access to water takes the shape of a giant fish; a road winds across the page like a snake; a desperately thirsty Ambedkar at school is shown with a fish inside him. A train runs on wheels that look like coiled snails; trees grow legs and race along as the locomotive's steam billows like long, flying locks of hair. When Columbia University graduate Ambedkar is thrown out of a motel because he is an untouchable, the Vyams draw prickly thorns all over his body.
"Ambedkar must have felt like he had thorns on him, because nobody would touch him," explained Durgabai Vyam, an unschooled, bony woman in an orange sari with bright bangles jingling on her wrists. She was only 6 when she learned from her mother how to plaster the mud walls with cow dung, collect clay of different colors from the forest and paint on the walls. She illustrated a few children's books before "Bhimayana."
Symbolism is central to the Gond art world; nothing is perceived literally. Subhash Vyam, 40, dismisses realistic representations as "ditto art."
Years ago, the couple drew the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks after hearing about them on the village radio. They never saw the troubling newspapers and television images. Their painting showed two tall thatch-roofed mud huts and a bird gently swooping down to hit them.
Even the speech bubbles in "Bhimayana" are shaped like animals. "If you speak sweet words of truth and justice, then your bubble is like a sparrow. If your words are going to sting and cause pain, then the bubble is like a scorpion," Subhash Vyam said.
About 40 percent of the text and dialogue were changed to suit the drawings. For example, the Vyams inserted bats in the scene before Ambedkar falls from a bullock cart, because a bat is considered a bad omen. The publisher inserted text explaining that bats are a bad omen.
"I want people to pick up the book for its beauty and get to know the ugly social reality of India," said S. Anand, who published and co-wrote "Bhimayana." Anand runs Navayana in New Delhi, which publishes anti-caste books. He also inserted news of caste atrocities in contemporary India into the book.
The graphic book, in its final stages, will be released in October in English and three Indian languages. Discussions continue with publishers and agents in the United States and Britain.
Celebrated American graphic novelist Joe Sacco is one of the endorsers on "Bhimayana's" cover.
"The story was very engaging and done in a style that was completely new to me. I applaud the artists for sidestepping the standard Western comic-book conventions and drawing from their own traditions to tell the story of Ambedkar," said Sacco, author of "Palestine," in an e-mail.
The graphic novel, which is sustained around the world by urban subcultures and enjoys a cult following, is evolving in India. Since 2004, a dozen books have been released dealing with themes of urban angst, strife in Kashmir, corruption and most recently, about the two troubling years when democracy was suspended in India in the 1970s.
This year, New Delhi-based architect and writer Gautam Bhatia wrote a graphic novel called "Lie," using the medieval Mughal miniature painters to tell a tale of modern India's political and social decay.
"These miniature artists used to portray scenes from Hindu mythologies. It was difficult to try to get them to paint modern politicians, multiplexes and malls," Bhatia said. "The graphic book is still in its very early stages in India. Writers are testing new ground and new methods."
Three months into their work, the Vyams almost quit the project. They just could not draw boxes.
Then one day, they hit upon an idea. It was called "digna," the decorative pattern that the Gond tribal people drew on their walls during weddings and festivals.
They began using the digna motif as the dividers on the page. The graphic book took off.
"A digna is auspicious and conveys purity," Subhash Vyam said. "It is the beginning of all our art. It is like an ornament. It is not a box."
I like to draw in open spaces, where they can breathe.
Symbolism is central to the Gond art world; nothing is perceieved literally. Subhash Vyam, 40, dismisses realistic representations as "ditto art."
It's not a box.
Indian graphic artists draw outside the box for nonfiction 'Bhimayana'
By Rama Lakshmi
Thursday, August 19, 2010
\
NEW DELHI -- When tribal artist Durgabai Vyam was asked by a publisher to draw for a graphic book about caste untouchability in India, she leafed through the celebrated titles laid out in front of her -- books by Art Spiegelman, Joe Sacco, Osamu Tezuka and Marjane Satrapi.
She was aghast.
The books were full of boxes. I did not want to do a book that cages art in little boxes," said Vyam, 35, recalling her first brush with the literary genre that is slowly taking off in India. "I like to draw in open spaces, where they can breathe."
Two years later she got her wish, and two years after that, she managed to finish her first graphic book without boxes. And in doing so, Vyam may have revolutionized the format of the genre.
Vyam and her husband, Subhash Vyam, just put final touches on "Bhimayana," a graphic nonfiction book about Bhimrao Ambedkar, a revered 20th-century leader of India's untouchables, now known as Dalits. The topic is similar to many internationally acclaimed graphic novels that deal with grave themes such as the Holocaust, Palestine and the Bosnian war.
But this book is different in that it jettisons sequential, cinematic narrative style and brings visual magic realism into a new universe. Symbolism tells the story.
The Vyams are renowned practitioners of Gond tribal art, traditionally painted on floors, walls and doorways of mud huts in villages. The indigenous art form made the transition to paper and urban galleries only three decades ago. The edgy graphic book is the latest incarnation of their ancient art.
"Bhimayana" traces Ambedkar's personal battles with untouchability and the 3,000-year-old hierarchical Hindu caste system, which regards the Dalits as the lowest level. The grim graphic book depicts him as a thirsty boy desperately seeking water in a segregated school, as a young traveler denied a bullock-cart ride and as a young man being thrown out of a motel.
The lake where Ambedkar agitated for access to water takes the shape of a giant fish; a road winds across the page like a snake; a desperately thirsty Ambedkar at school is shown with a fish inside him. A train runs on wheels that look like coiled snails; trees grow legs and race along as the locomotive's steam billows like long, flying locks of hair. When Columbia University graduate Ambedkar is thrown out of a motel because he is an untouchable, the Vyams draw prickly thorns all over his body.
"Ambedkar must have felt like he had thorns on him, because nobody would touch him," explained Durgabai Vyam, an unschooled, bony woman in an orange sari with bright bangles jingling on her wrists. She was only 6 when she learned from her mother how to plaster the mud walls with cow dung, collect clay of different colors from the forest and paint on the walls. She illustrated a few children's books before "Bhimayana."
Symbolism is central to the Gond art world; nothing is perceived literally. Subhash Vyam, 40, dismisses realistic representations as "ditto art."
Years ago, the couple drew the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks after hearing about them on the village radio. They never saw the troubling newspapers and television images. Their painting showed two tall thatch-roofed mud huts and a bird gently swooping down to hit them.
Even the speech bubbles in "Bhimayana" are shaped like animals. "If you speak sweet words of truth and justice, then your bubble is like a sparrow. If your words are going to sting and cause pain, then the bubble is like a scorpion," Subhash Vyam said.
About 40 percent of the text and dialogue were changed to suit the drawings. For example, the Vyams inserted bats in the scene before Ambedkar falls from a bullock cart, because a bat is considered a bad omen. The publisher inserted text explaining that bats are a bad omen.
"I want people to pick up the book for its beauty and get to know the ugly social reality of India," said S. Anand, who published and co-wrote "Bhimayana." Anand runs Navayana in New Delhi, which publishes anti-caste books. He also inserted news of caste atrocities in contemporary India into the book.
The graphic book, in its final stages, will be released in October in English and three Indian languages. Discussions continue with publishers and agents in the United States and Britain.
Celebrated American graphic novelist Joe Sacco is one of the endorsers on "Bhimayana's" cover.
"The story was very engaging and done in a style that was completely new to me. I applaud the artists for sidestepping the standard Western comic-book conventions and drawing from their own traditions to tell the story of Ambedkar," said Sacco, author of "Palestine," in an e-mail.
The graphic novel, which is sustained around the world by urban subcultures and enjoys a cult following, is evolving in India. Since 2004, a dozen books have been released dealing with themes of urban angst, strife in Kashmir, corruption and most recently, about the two troubling years when democracy was suspended in India in the 1970s.
This year, New Delhi-based architect and writer Gautam Bhatia wrote a graphic novel called "Lie," using the medieval Mughal miniature painters to tell a tale of modern India's political and social decay.
"These miniature artists used to portray scenes from Hindu mythologies. It was difficult to try to get them to paint modern politicians, multiplexes and malls," Bhatia said. "The graphic book is still in its very early stages in India. Writers are testing new ground and new methods."
Three months into their work, the Vyams almost quit the project. They just could not draw boxes.
Then one day, they hit upon an idea. It was called "digna," the decorative pattern that the Gond tribal people drew on their walls during weddings and festivals.
They began using the digna motif as the dividers on the page. The graphic book took off.
"A digna is auspicious and conveys purity," Subhash Vyam said. "It is the beginning of all our art. It is like an ornament. It is not a box."
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Today's Book World
MY HOLLYWOOD
By Mona Simpson
Knopf. 369 pp. $26.95.
Almost 50 years have passed since Betty Friedan published "The Feminine Mystique," but just last month we ran this headline in The Post: "Working mothers not necessarily harmful to children's development." How's that for reassuring when you're running off to a conference with mashed banana on your blouse? Loaded pistols in the nursery aren't necessarily harmful either, but good grief, lady, why take that risk! And by the way, what's for dinner?
Plenty of feminists have noted that, having failed to keep women barefoot and pregnant, we've switched to another crippling strategy: waving them off to work with a purse full of guilt and apprehension, encouraging them to worry they're not good mothers or competent employees. Men have similar worries, of course, but that just means they're great dads and conscientious workers. Besides, we're all thoroughly modern, liberated partners now, so any anxieties mom might be feeling are entirely in her imagination. Glass ceiling? No, no, that's a Tiffany skylight.
Especially in a high-powered town like Washington, we're unsettled about the economics of parenting and the politics of child care -- who should do it, who should want to do it and what it's worth to us. Not much, according to recent data: about $11 an hour, usually without health insurance. It's more lucrative to take care of a couple's car than their child. Who knows what else Mary Poppins is swallowing with that spoonful of sugar just to get through the day.
My favorite novel last year, Lorrie Moore's "A Gate at the Stairs," had a lot to say about the strange tensions of parenting and child care, but it didn't focus on the issue as intensely as an engaging new novel by Mona Simpson -- her first since 2000 -- called "My Hollywood." It takes place in the late 1990s, when mothers have already been working for decades. Anyone still moaning about gender inequality sounds shrill or incompetent because women can have it all! In fact, they've got to: Take care of the house, raise the kids, work full time and feel grateful when their modern husbands condescend to clear the table.
The story, which is vaguely autobiographical, is partially narrated by a successful composer named Claire, who finds parenting nothing like what she imagined. "I assumed I'd have children and work," she says. "He, the putative he, would work a little less and I'd work a little less and the kid would have long hair, paint-spattered overalls, and be, in general, a barrel of monkeys." Sitting home alone with her baby, she recalls that on their very first date, the man she eventually married understood exactly the child-care arrangement she wanted: "With a woman who worked, it'd have to be fifty-fifty. . . . Of course."
Fifty-fifty. Of course. How easily we can all agree on that equitable division of labor. And yet how exactly does that work once the stork drops down an actual, screaming, pooping baby? Claire's husband, Paul, is a TV comedy writer -- a high-income but precarious job that keeps him at the network late every night. (Simpson was once married to Richard Appel, a writer on "The Simpsons," who named Homer's mom after her.) When Claire complains that her music requires hours of quiet, uninterrupted time, Paul has an easy remedy (he always has an easy remedy):
"Just give him to a babysitter and get to work."
"But he cries," Claire says.
"Then let him cry."
The success of this absorbing novel rests on Simpson's ability to make that well-worn marital argument just as uncomfortable and perplexing as it was when you were having it with your own spouse. The tyranny of La Leche fanatics, the reduction of one's career to a hobby, and the futile competition with tight-tummied moms who always have Ziploc bags of organic apple slices -- all the withering insecurities of motherhood are captured here in Claire's stream-of-conversation patter, a mixture of acerbic wit and nervous despair from a smart woman who can't figure out how she can write music and care for a child without growing shrewish and unpleasant.
Simpson is particularly astute with the depressing logic of dad's need to work late at the office. "My Hollywood" never demonizes Paul or even subjects him to particularly harsh satire. The point, after all, is that he's perfectly normal -- devoted, charming and great with children. And, anyway, Claire thinks he's right: He's the breadwinner, he has important meetings to attend and tough deadlines to meet. In the end, it's a game of marital chicken, and the spouse with the flexible, stay-at-home job always yields first. "He proved able to live with my regular disappointment," Claire confesses with the irritation that will eventually consume her. "I could, apparently, live with his working whenever the hell he wanted."
What really invigorates this novel, though, is the way it alternates between Claire's chapters and chapters narrated by Lola, her 50-year-old Filipino nanny. I was worried early on that Lola would be a Southeast Asian version of the Magical Negro, who exists merely to help some self-absorbed white person reach enlightenment. But she's entirely her own wonderful, troubled character, and her relationship with Claire remains complex and unresolved. In lightly fractured English, Lola describes the constant pressure to send more money back to her own children while farming out her affections to high-income Americans who speak of her as one of the family (like a kindly aunt you can fire at will). "We are status symbols," she jokes with her fellow nannies, "like a BMW." She comes to play a crucial role in Claire's life and the life of Claire's rambunctious son, but she never forgets that "raising children, it is all the same story -- they grow above you. And you are no longer needed. They have a name for that here -- obsolete. Things outlive their use, even people."
Through Lola and her friends, we're introduced to a tight network of immigrant child-care workers, women charged with the ultimate responsibilities but subjected to casual humiliations, plied with lavish compliments and stung by racist assumptions, exhorted to stay except when they're being threatened with deportation. They're an agile, wary group, these nannies, sometimes servants, sometimes teachers, stand-in mothers and pinch-hitting maids. It's a poignant vision of the upstairs-downstairs structure that persists in our officially classless society.
Some of the best chapters here, in Lola's voice, stand alone as powerful short stories; indeed, parts of this novel have already appeared in Harper's, the Atlantic, "The Best American Short Stories" and on "This American Life." Simpson may seem focused on the peculiar troubles of the rich and their servants, but with her incisive portrayal of the frustrations felt by working parents, "My Hollywood" could easily be "Our Country."
Humility is old school, too.
Dear Carolyn:
I am an old-school dad with Christian morals. I have three teenage daughters, 14, 18 and 19. Only the eldest is dating at this time. I tell them every day that I love them.
I have told my daughters for a few years now that if they get into a relationship, move in with a guy and decide later to get married, I will not pay for the wedding or reception. I would go to the wedding, give them away, but nothing else. That is the consequence for their action. If they do things right, I will pay.
Also, I've told my daughters several times that I will not raise my grandchildren because of their poor choices (I would in case of death or illness, etc.). They will have to find somewhere to live. If they want to make adult choices they can pay the adult price.
I have several friends with unwed daughters who are raising their grandchildren (the fathers are nowhere around). These grandparents want to relax, retire, etc., but now it's like starting over taking care of a child. The little children are a blessing and are loved, but my friends have told me all the stress it has caused.
I would love and forgive my daughters if one of these things happened, but they would pay the price for their actions. Do you think this is too harsh?
D.J.
Too harsh on your daughters? Not at all. With weddings, anyone grown up enough to get married is grown up enough to pay for it, period. If parents want to pitch in as a gift, then they're free to do so on their terms -- just as children are free to decline the money if they don't like the terms. I applaud your firmness and clarity on that stand.
For the record -- and entirely without relevance -- I do balk at your phrasing, because "do things right" is, to me, nothing more than "do things your way." We're not talking life and death here, or the Golden Rule; your "right way" to get married might not be right for every couple on Earth. But it's your money and it's your world view, and you're entitled to attach strings from one to the other when the stakes are so delightfully black-and-white.
When it comes to thoughtlessly conceived children, on the other hand, the stakes turn gray, and fast. Yes, anyone adult enough to breed is adult enough to secure ample support -- and, I have to think it's good for your daughters to grow up with the expectation of being held accountable.
I think if you talk a bit more to these put-upon grandparents, though, you'll find a few who used to think as you did but have since had a change of heart. The reality of a parent who's in over his or her head is inescapable: The one who suffers most is the child.
The answer may still be to make accountability the tent pole for any shelter you provide, but when an innocent child, your grandchild, is at risk of hunger or neglect, the you-made-your-bed morality you espouse might become a luxury you can't afford. Humility is old-school, too.
I am an old-school dad with Christian morals. I have three teenage daughters, 14, 18 and 19. Only the eldest is dating at this time. I tell them every day that I love them.
I have told my daughters for a few years now that if they get into a relationship, move in with a guy and decide later to get married, I will not pay for the wedding or reception. I would go to the wedding, give them away, but nothing else. That is the consequence for their action. If they do things right, I will pay.
Also, I've told my daughters several times that I will not raise my grandchildren because of their poor choices (I would in case of death or illness, etc.). They will have to find somewhere to live. If they want to make adult choices they can pay the adult price.
I have several friends with unwed daughters who are raising their grandchildren (the fathers are nowhere around). These grandparents want to relax, retire, etc., but now it's like starting over taking care of a child. The little children are a blessing and are loved, but my friends have told me all the stress it has caused.
I would love and forgive my daughters if one of these things happened, but they would pay the price for their actions. Do you think this is too harsh?
D.J.
Too harsh on your daughters? Not at all. With weddings, anyone grown up enough to get married is grown up enough to pay for it, period. If parents want to pitch in as a gift, then they're free to do so on their terms -- just as children are free to decline the money if they don't like the terms. I applaud your firmness and clarity on that stand.
For the record -- and entirely without relevance -- I do balk at your phrasing, because "do things right" is, to me, nothing more than "do things your way." We're not talking life and death here, or the Golden Rule; your "right way" to get married might not be right for every couple on Earth. But it's your money and it's your world view, and you're entitled to attach strings from one to the other when the stakes are so delightfully black-and-white.
When it comes to thoughtlessly conceived children, on the other hand, the stakes turn gray, and fast. Yes, anyone adult enough to breed is adult enough to secure ample support -- and, I have to think it's good for your daughters to grow up with the expectation of being held accountable.
I think if you talk a bit more to these put-upon grandparents, though, you'll find a few who used to think as you did but have since had a change of heart. The reality of a parent who's in over his or her head is inescapable: The one who suffers most is the child.
The answer may still be to make accountability the tent pole for any shelter you provide, but when an innocent child, your grandchild, is at risk of hunger or neglect, the you-made-your-bed morality you espouse might become a luxury you can't afford. Humility is old-school, too.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
exactly what I needed to hear this morning
Andrew, you're the only person who knows what's right for you.
The only one.
And if you already know what this is, commit to it. If you don't, commit to nothing.
Only you know,
The Universe
The only one.
And if you already know what this is, commit to it. If you don't, commit to nothing.
Only you know,
The Universe
the search
"...they said researchers found that longterm happiness doesn't come from material things but rather taking trips because the memories create the happiness we so desire...DUH." - Sarai
hahaha YES. Sarai you are absolutely right, and the researchers are right on the nose too. Taking trips, yes this we already knew. It probably explains why I'm basically so happy about my life- I'm always making trips.
But what concerns me... is the pervalent idea of a "pursuit." There is such a market out there for "pursuing happiness" or for "finding your bliss." And with all this capitalist/material hubub, yeah it can definitely feel like you gotta have those new clothes from JCrew or that new car in order to feel good, to feel whole.
And that's the problem as I see it. Too many people are walking around with holes. They are walking around waiting for happiness to just waltz into their life. Or, if they aren't waiting, they're investing in all kinds of stuff, from material objects to oracles and palm readers. And if they aren't waiting or investing, they're on the move desperately searching. They're waiting or they're desperately searching it seems for "the one" person who is going to change them, who's going to "complete" them.
I hate it when two people are in a relationship and they start staying "he/she's my other half." He/She is your other half?!!? OKAY, STOP. We have problems. There ain't no body who is your other half. Because YOU, my friend, are WHOLE. Okay? You are a whole person, and your partner is another whole person. Together you do NOT complete one another, together you compliment one another. It's two wholes coming together.
But it's this attitude. And then you have people just running. Jetting off to different places to go on trips, or to "find themselves." And I think phrases like that are just giant traps. Umm... where are going to find yourself, again? In some bazaar in Egypt? At the Taj Mahal when you visit India? Trust me, you're not in Egypt, you're right where you are. This idea that you have to go search, that you have to find your bliss, the idea that you aren't good enough the way that you are.
This is what I don't like. Because- um breaking news- you are WHOLE. And your happiness is on your own terms. If one can just find a way to relax, if they can listen to their inner voice, their intuition, and then pick up your cues, than one can have happiness right in their bedroom, in the shower, in the car, or even in the Giant on Braddock Road.
Looking at my own life, it's crazy because I've participated in this desperate "search" for years. In the summer of 2007 I ran off to London, after months and months of saving, thinking I'd show up off the plane a new and renewed person. Didn't happen. That was a very hard trip for me-- ended up being incredible, but it was challenging on so many levels. And for years I've been doing tarot card readings and studying other new age-related forms of holistic healing. It's very fascinating and I dabble in it every so often, but again it's another device. A device that usually gives me a false illusion. I was hoping for an easy answer or an easy way out, and life just doesn't have that path for anyone. Everyone has to handle their shit, handle their own demons, but once you face what you need to face, the idea of happiness is really extraordinarily laborless. Because it's about experiencing gratitude and appreciation for what you have right in front of you.
...AND THEN you go on trips and the bliss just gets even more flippin' out of CONTROL!! :D
hahaha YES. Sarai you are absolutely right, and the researchers are right on the nose too. Taking trips, yes this we already knew. It probably explains why I'm basically so happy about my life- I'm always making trips.
But what concerns me... is the pervalent idea of a "pursuit." There is such a market out there for "pursuing happiness" or for "finding your bliss." And with all this capitalist/material hubub, yeah it can definitely feel like you gotta have those new clothes from JCrew or that new car in order to feel good, to feel whole.
And that's the problem as I see it. Too many people are walking around with holes. They are walking around waiting for happiness to just waltz into their life. Or, if they aren't waiting, they're investing in all kinds of stuff, from material objects to oracles and palm readers. And if they aren't waiting or investing, they're on the move desperately searching. They're waiting or they're desperately searching it seems for "the one" person who is going to change them, who's going to "complete" them.
I hate it when two people are in a relationship and they start staying "he/she's my other half." He/She is your other half?!!? OKAY, STOP. We have problems. There ain't no body who is your other half. Because YOU, my friend, are WHOLE. Okay? You are a whole person, and your partner is another whole person. Together you do NOT complete one another, together you compliment one another. It's two wholes coming together.
But it's this attitude. And then you have people just running. Jetting off to different places to go on trips, or to "find themselves." And I think phrases like that are just giant traps. Umm... where are going to find yourself, again? In some bazaar in Egypt? At the Taj Mahal when you visit India? Trust me, you're not in Egypt, you're right where you are. This idea that you have to go search, that you have to find your bliss, the idea that you aren't good enough the way that you are.
This is what I don't like. Because- um breaking news- you are WHOLE. And your happiness is on your own terms. If one can just find a way to relax, if they can listen to their inner voice, their intuition, and then pick up your cues, than one can have happiness right in their bedroom, in the shower, in the car, or even in the Giant on Braddock Road.
Looking at my own life, it's crazy because I've participated in this desperate "search" for years. In the summer of 2007 I ran off to London, after months and months of saving, thinking I'd show up off the plane a new and renewed person. Didn't happen. That was a very hard trip for me-- ended up being incredible, but it was challenging on so many levels. And for years I've been doing tarot card readings and studying other new age-related forms of holistic healing. It's very fascinating and I dabble in it every so often, but again it's another device. A device that usually gives me a false illusion. I was hoping for an easy answer or an easy way out, and life just doesn't have that path for anyone. Everyone has to handle their shit, handle their own demons, but once you face what you need to face, the idea of happiness is really extraordinarily laborless. Because it's about experiencing gratitude and appreciation for what you have right in front of you.
...AND THEN you go on trips and the bliss just gets even more flippin' out of CONTROL!! :D
Monday, August 16, 2010
Radio Lab from WNYC
Words
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/
What a phenominal podcast!
"the brain begins as a series of islands... on one island waaaay over here you have color, you have an island called blue. Then waaaay over there you have another island, for special objects, definitions, like the concept 'Left.'
At some point the child stumbles upon the language- 'left of the blue wall' and then these islands COLLIDE. They come together. It is literally the phrase itself that brings that together."
Certain words give you a concept- like, Time for instance. That word is like a bridge that takes you to a new mental place. Without that concept, Time would be extremely difficult to understand or describe. A deaf man, who for many years never even knew he was deaf, who had no concept of language, had no language what so ever. Eventually, when the man was much older, a woman was able to teach him language. When asked later in his life what that time of his life was like when he didn't have language, he said "it was the darkest time of his life." And then when asked to describe it, he said that he "couldn't remember."
Language. As a great connector, as a efficent tool... but also as a means for giving meaning to this world, and handing you the power to begin to actually THINK. Words, language are essential tools to start thinking. The more words you have, the more cognitive capacity you have and the more you can think...
Incredible podcast!!
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/
What a phenominal podcast!
"the brain begins as a series of islands... on one island waaaay over here you have color, you have an island called blue. Then waaaay over there you have another island, for special objects, definitions, like the concept 'Left.'
At some point the child stumbles upon the language- 'left of the blue wall' and then these islands COLLIDE. They come together. It is literally the phrase itself that brings that together."
Certain words give you a concept- like, Time for instance. That word is like a bridge that takes you to a new mental place. Without that concept, Time would be extremely difficult to understand or describe. A deaf man, who for many years never even knew he was deaf, who had no concept of language, had no language what so ever. Eventually, when the man was much older, a woman was able to teach him language. When asked later in his life what that time of his life was like when he didn't have language, he said "it was the darkest time of his life." And then when asked to describe it, he said that he "couldn't remember."
Language. As a great connector, as a efficent tool... but also as a means for giving meaning to this world, and handing you the power to begin to actually THINK. Words, language are essential tools to start thinking. The more words you have, the more cognitive capacity you have and the more you can think...
Incredible podcast!!
Tell Me Something
katmason5: what worries me about these shows the article is talking about is the excess
Sent at 11:01 AM on Monday
katmason5: it says they can cost as much as a $10 million Broadway show. i feel like this could lead to companies trying to one-up each other with spectacle
Sent at 11:03 AM on Monday
me: oh, you're totally right.
how can we top "that other show"
katmason5: right
and art (not just theatre, but all art in general) doesn't need to be spectacular to be great
Sent at 11:06 AM on Monday
katmason5: all this instantaneous, media-saturated stuff were exposed to constantly makes people forget about simpler ways to evoke emotion that are just as effective
me: uh i love it. you are so right
that sounds like a thesis to me! LOL
im like.. why all the flashyness?
constantly!
lets sit down, open your mouth, and tell me something.
Sent at 11:01 AM on Monday
katmason5: it says they can cost as much as a $10 million Broadway show. i feel like this could lead to companies trying to one-up each other with spectacle
Sent at 11:03 AM on Monday
me: oh, you're totally right.
how can we top "that other show"
katmason5: right
and art (not just theatre, but all art in general) doesn't need to be spectacular to be great
Sent at 11:06 AM on Monday
katmason5: all this instantaneous, media-saturated stuff were exposed to constantly makes people forget about simpler ways to evoke emotion that are just as effective
me: uh i love it. you are so right
that sounds like a thesis to me! LOL
im like.. why all the flashyness?
constantly!
lets sit down, open your mouth, and tell me something.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Truth has a power of its own. Art has a power of its own. That age-old lesson—that everything we do matters—is the meaning of the people’s struggle here in United States and everywhere. A poem can inspire a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution. Civil disobedience can arouse people and provoke us to think. When we organize with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress. We live in a beautiful country. But men who have no respect for human life, freedom, or justice have taken it over. It is now up to all of us to take it back.
- Howard Zinn
- Howard Zinn
Gathering Electrons
This hair gathers electrons from the atmosphere & uses it to perpetuate new ideas about hair's role in the history of civilization.
Pools of Light
My favorite time of day is just at dark when all thoughts of what must be done stop & small pools of light come alive on tired faces everywhere.
this man is my HERO
Coffee, tea or flee? JetBlue attendant's exit strategy serves crummy job right
By Monica Hesse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 11, 2010; C01
Steven Slater.
Rock. On.
The JetBlue flight attendant whose splendiferous wig-out on Monday involved an escape via an emergency exit slide has become a folk hero to his fellow stewards of the sky.
Also, to everyone.
"I've had that fantasy," says Sara Keagle, a flight attendant for 18 years. "He lived my fantasy. He is the Thelma and Louise of flight attendants."
It is a fantasy born of dealing with passengers who refuse to sit down, refuse to power down, refuse to simmer down. They want it their way, and they want it right now, and they want to waddle onto the aircraft with six carry-ons the size of freaking Stonehenge and pretend that it's all going to fit under the seat.
Uh-uh. We are going to put a stop to that nonsense, and we are going to call that stop The Slater.
The incident in question happened at the end of a Monday flight from Pittsburgh to New York, and the essential reported details are this: Slater got into a dispute with a passenger when the passenger ignored instructions involving an overhead luggage compartment. At one point, the passenger's luggage struck Slater on the head. Slater then got on the intercom, unleashed a mighty tirade ("I'm done! I quit!" according to one passenger's blogged account), deployed the plane's exit chute and slid onto the tarmac -- but not before stopping at the beverage cart to grab a beer.
He drove home, where he was arrested on charges of reckless endangerment and criminal mischief -- charges that could result in up to seven years in prison. He was suspended from duty on Tuesday and arraigned in a Queens courtroom, where a judge set $2,500 bail. His lawyer told the judge that Slater had been stressed over his ailing mother.
But Tuesday afternoon at Reagan National Airport, flight attendants were walking a little taller, smiling the secret smile of the righteously vindicated.
"Every single one of my friends said, 'Good for him!' " whispered an attendant wearing an American Airlines uniform who, like some others interviewed, declined to give her name, citing airline regulations and fear of losing her job. She has dealt with the cellphone arguments. The passenger bickering. She has pulled out the final threat: Do I need to call the captain? "You put on a smile and you treat them like children," says the former schoolteacher. Don't make her turn this plane around.
"Passengers can all be divided into four types," says another no-nonsense attendant who has whittled the chaos of airline travel into logical precision. The four types are:
A: All About Me
B: Business
C: Casual
D: Deer in Headlights
"A and D are the ones you have to look out for," the woman says. A's are obvious -- they're the ones who are demanding bottled water and a free snack box before the wheels go up. But never underestimate a D. Your typical D passenger, the spacey novice, is the one who is going to open the overhead bin and gently spread his overcoat down the length of the whole compartment. The D will not hear the sighs of annoyance from the other passengers, because the D will have already unwrapped his smelly sandwich and plugged his headphones into your seat's jack.
Incorrect, Passenger D. That move is incorrect.
Bobby Laurie, a San Francisco-based attendant reached via telephone, has dealt with more A's and D's than he cares to remember in his five years on the job, including one colossal A who swept his first-class meal onto Laurie's pants when he "didn't like the looks" of the dinner option. This is why, when Laurie speaks of Slater, his voice gets tremulous and overcome with glee.
"He took a stand for not only flight attendants but everyone" who has ever hated a job, says Laurie. "You always hold back. You always bite your tongue. You never actually say it. But he said it! He said it!"
Slater is reminiscent of Tuesday's other Internet darling, the administrative assistant who quit her job by sending a series of photographed messages written on a white board to everyone at her firm. The messages revealed that her boss, in addition to referring to her as a "Hot Piece of [expletive]," also dedicated nearly 20 hours a week to playing Farmville. (People are already speculating that it's a fake, but the joy it prompted was definitely real.)
In a way, the only unique aspect of Slater's amazing exit fantasy is the flight vocabulary -- the slide, the beverage cart, the overhead bins. Every other part of his Buh-Bye looks like the one we all dream of at our own cruddy jobs.
"I worked in the past for a legacy airline that had" never treated its employees particularly well, says Laurie. He consoled himself by planning his escape and how he would leave it all behind. "My last day on the job I was going to slide to freedom. Hit that slide and ride it alllll the way to freedom."
Hit that slide. Soon the phrase will become this generation's "blow this popsicle stand"; someone will create an entry on UrbanDictionary.com.
Oh wait. Someone just did. "Hit the slide: To quit one's job in a truly stunning fashion."
By Monica Hesse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 11, 2010; C01
Steven Slater.
Rock. On.
The JetBlue flight attendant whose splendiferous wig-out on Monday involved an escape via an emergency exit slide has become a folk hero to his fellow stewards of the sky.
Also, to everyone.
"I've had that fantasy," says Sara Keagle, a flight attendant for 18 years. "He lived my fantasy. He is the Thelma and Louise of flight attendants."
It is a fantasy born of dealing with passengers who refuse to sit down, refuse to power down, refuse to simmer down. They want it their way, and they want it right now, and they want to waddle onto the aircraft with six carry-ons the size of freaking Stonehenge and pretend that it's all going to fit under the seat.
Uh-uh. We are going to put a stop to that nonsense, and we are going to call that stop The Slater.
The incident in question happened at the end of a Monday flight from Pittsburgh to New York, and the essential reported details are this: Slater got into a dispute with a passenger when the passenger ignored instructions involving an overhead luggage compartment. At one point, the passenger's luggage struck Slater on the head. Slater then got on the intercom, unleashed a mighty tirade ("I'm done! I quit!" according to one passenger's blogged account), deployed the plane's exit chute and slid onto the tarmac -- but not before stopping at the beverage cart to grab a beer.
He drove home, where he was arrested on charges of reckless endangerment and criminal mischief -- charges that could result in up to seven years in prison. He was suspended from duty on Tuesday and arraigned in a Queens courtroom, where a judge set $2,500 bail. His lawyer told the judge that Slater had been stressed over his ailing mother.
But Tuesday afternoon at Reagan National Airport, flight attendants were walking a little taller, smiling the secret smile of the righteously vindicated.
"Every single one of my friends said, 'Good for him!' " whispered an attendant wearing an American Airlines uniform who, like some others interviewed, declined to give her name, citing airline regulations and fear of losing her job. She has dealt with the cellphone arguments. The passenger bickering. She has pulled out the final threat: Do I need to call the captain? "You put on a smile and you treat them like children," says the former schoolteacher. Don't make her turn this plane around.
"Passengers can all be divided into four types," says another no-nonsense attendant who has whittled the chaos of airline travel into logical precision. The four types are:
A: All About Me
B: Business
C: Casual
D: Deer in Headlights
"A and D are the ones you have to look out for," the woman says. A's are obvious -- they're the ones who are demanding bottled water and a free snack box before the wheels go up. But never underestimate a D. Your typical D passenger, the spacey novice, is the one who is going to open the overhead bin and gently spread his overcoat down the length of the whole compartment. The D will not hear the sighs of annoyance from the other passengers, because the D will have already unwrapped his smelly sandwich and plugged his headphones into your seat's jack.
Incorrect, Passenger D. That move is incorrect.
Bobby Laurie, a San Francisco-based attendant reached via telephone, has dealt with more A's and D's than he cares to remember in his five years on the job, including one colossal A who swept his first-class meal onto Laurie's pants when he "didn't like the looks" of the dinner option. This is why, when Laurie speaks of Slater, his voice gets tremulous and overcome with glee.
"He took a stand for not only flight attendants but everyone" who has ever hated a job, says Laurie. "You always hold back. You always bite your tongue. You never actually say it. But he said it! He said it!"
Slater is reminiscent of Tuesday's other Internet darling, the administrative assistant who quit her job by sending a series of photographed messages written on a white board to everyone at her firm. The messages revealed that her boss, in addition to referring to her as a "Hot Piece of [expletive]," also dedicated nearly 20 hours a week to playing Farmville. (People are already speculating that it's a fake, but the joy it prompted was definitely real.)
In a way, the only unique aspect of Slater's amazing exit fantasy is the flight vocabulary -- the slide, the beverage cart, the overhead bins. Every other part of his Buh-Bye looks like the one we all dream of at our own cruddy jobs.
"I worked in the past for a legacy airline that had" never treated its employees particularly well, says Laurie. He consoled himself by planning his escape and how he would leave it all behind. "My last day on the job I was going to slide to freedom. Hit that slide and ride it alllll the way to freedom."
Hit that slide. Soon the phrase will become this generation's "blow this popsicle stand"; someone will create an entry on UrbanDictionary.com.
Oh wait. Someone just did. "Hit the slide: To quit one's job in a truly stunning fashion."
the Sitcom is back
with this show. Seriously. I don't watch TV- at all! I haven't had a regular show that I tune into for many, many years. Until now. I am so in love with this show... the writing is clever, the actors are flipping hysterical together... this show is like a breath of fresh air. For years I thought the Sitcom was dead, but this has proved me wrong. I've been watching these episodes weekly since mid-June and I KID YOU NOT, i have been WEEPING in laughter week after week after week.
It's TVLand's first ever original sitcom and it's so popular that they've picked it up for another season. Woo Daddy!!
Hot in Cleveland
It's TVLand's first ever original sitcom and it's so popular that they've picked it up for another season. Woo Daddy!!
Hot in Cleveland
Delivery from Turkey
Maybe the Nicest Email Ever
I AM THANKFUL: FOR THE WIFE WHO SAYS IT'S HOT DOGS TONIGHT, BECAUSE SHE IS HOME WITH ME, AND NOT OUT WITH SOMEONE ELSE.
FOR THE HUSBAND WHO IS ON THE SOFA BEING A COUCH POTATO, BECAUSE HE IS HOME WITH ME AND NOT OUT AT THE BARS.
FOR THE TEENAGER WHO IS COMPLAINING ABOUT DOING DISHES BECAUSE IT MEANS SHE IS AT HOME, NOT ON THE STREETS.
FOR THE TAXES I PAY BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM EMPLOYED .
FOR THE MESS TO CLEAN AFTER A PARTY BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN SURROUNDED BY FRIENDS.
FOR THE CLOTHES THAT FIT A LITTLE TOO SNUG BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT.
FOR MY SHADOW THAT WATCHES ME WORK BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM OUT IN THE SUNSHINE
FOR A LAWN THAT NEEDS MOWING, WINDOWS THAT NEED CLEANING, AND GUTTERS THAT NEED FIXING BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE A HOME .
FOR ALL THE COMPLAINING I HEAR ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT BECAUSE IT MEANS WE HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
FOR THE PARKING SPOT I FIND AT THE FAR END OF THE PARKING LOT BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM CAPABLE OF WALKING AND I HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH TRANSPORTATION .
FOR MY HUGE HEATING BILL BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM WARM. FOR THE LADY BEHIND ME IN CHURCH WHO SINGS OFF KEY BECAUSE IT MEANS I CAN HEAR.
FOR THE PILE OF LAUNDRY AND IRONING BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE CLOTHES TO WEAR.
FOR WEARINESS AND ACHING MUSCLES AT THE END OF THE DAY BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN CAPABLE OF WORKING HARD.
FOR THE ALARM THAT GOES OFF IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM ALIVE.
AND FINALLY, FOR TOO MUCH E-MAIL BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE FRIENDS WHO ARE THINKINGOF ME. SEND THIS TO SOMEONE YOU CARE ABOUT. I JUST DID. Live well, Laugh often, & Love with all of your heart!
I AM THANKFUL: FOR THE WIFE WHO SAYS IT'S HOT DOGS TONIGHT, BECAUSE SHE IS HOME WITH ME, AND NOT OUT WITH SOMEONE ELSE.
FOR THE HUSBAND WHO IS ON THE SOFA BEING A COUCH POTATO, BECAUSE HE IS HOME WITH ME AND NOT OUT AT THE BARS.
FOR THE TEENAGER WHO IS COMPLAINING ABOUT DOING DISHES BECAUSE IT MEANS SHE IS AT HOME, NOT ON THE STREETS.
FOR THE TAXES I PAY BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM EMPLOYED .
FOR THE MESS TO CLEAN AFTER A PARTY BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN SURROUNDED BY FRIENDS.
FOR THE CLOTHES THAT FIT A LITTLE TOO SNUG BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT.
FOR MY SHADOW THAT WATCHES ME WORK BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM OUT IN THE SUNSHINE
FOR A LAWN THAT NEEDS MOWING, WINDOWS THAT NEED CLEANING, AND GUTTERS THAT NEED FIXING BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE A HOME .
FOR ALL THE COMPLAINING I HEAR ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT BECAUSE IT MEANS WE HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
FOR THE PARKING SPOT I FIND AT THE FAR END OF THE PARKING LOT BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM CAPABLE OF WALKING AND I HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH TRANSPORTATION .
FOR MY HUGE HEATING BILL BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM WARM. FOR THE LADY BEHIND ME IN CHURCH WHO SINGS OFF KEY BECAUSE IT MEANS I CAN HEAR.
FOR THE PILE OF LAUNDRY AND IRONING BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE CLOTHES TO WEAR.
FOR WEARINESS AND ACHING MUSCLES AT THE END OF THE DAY BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN CAPABLE OF WORKING HARD.
FOR THE ALARM THAT GOES OFF IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM ALIVE.
AND FINALLY, FOR TOO MUCH E-MAIL BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE FRIENDS WHO ARE THINKINGOF ME. SEND THIS TO SOMEONE YOU CARE ABOUT. I JUST DID. Live well, Laugh often, & Love with all of your heart!
ugh- i can't wait for the next escape...
This Week's Top 10 E-Saver Deals from US Airways...
From
To
Each way*
Pittsburgh, PA
Hartford, CT
$102
New York, NY (LGA)
Boston, MA
$82
Charlotte, NC
Savannah, GA
$79
Washington, DC (DCA)
New Orleans, LA
$109
Charlotte, NC
Fort Lauderdale, FL
$349
Phoenix, AZ
Los Angeles, CA
$249
Philadelphia, PA
Freeport, Bahamas
$170
Phoenix, AZ
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
$150
Chicago, IL
Montego Bay, Jamaica
$424
Charlotte, NC
Bermuda
$484
From
To
Each way*
Pittsburgh, PA
Hartford, CT
$102
New York, NY (LGA)
Boston, MA
$82
Charlotte, NC
Savannah, GA
$79
Washington, DC (DCA)
New Orleans, LA
$109
Charlotte, NC
Fort Lauderdale, FL
$349
Phoenix, AZ
Los Angeles, CA
$249
Philadelphia, PA
Freeport, Bahamas
$170
Phoenix, AZ
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
$150
Chicago, IL
Montego Bay, Jamaica
$424
Charlotte, NC
Bermuda
$484
For real, though
You can choose to go, do, be, and have, and in the end you'll exclaim, shocked and bewildered, that because of all the synchronicities of your life, all the "clicks" and "coincidences," and the many happy "accidents," your bounty and good fortune must have been your destiny.
Or, you might choose to wait for a miracle, a savior, or divine intervention, and in the end you'll exclaim, shocked and bewildered, that because of all the synchronicities of your life, all the missed chances and disappointments, and the many unhappy accidents, your lack and misfortune must have been your destiny.
Andrew, do you see what the difference is?
It ain't me, The Universe
Or, you might choose to wait for a miracle, a savior, or divine intervention, and in the end you'll exclaim, shocked and bewildered, that because of all the synchronicities of your life, all the missed chances and disappointments, and the many unhappy accidents, your lack and misfortune must have been your destiny.
Andrew, do you see what the difference is?
It ain't me, The Universe
Great Balls of Fire!
Scarlett O'Hara's dresses in poor shape
By JIM VERTUNOAssociated Press
AUSTIN -- It's time to find out if fans of Gone With the Wind frankly give a damn about the fabulous dresses worn by Vivien Leigh in the multiple Oscar-winning Civil War drama.
The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin is trying to raise $30,000 to restore five of Scarlett O'Hara's now tattered gowns from the 1939 film.
The Ransom Center is planning an exhibit to mark the movie's 75th anniversary in 2014, but at the moment most of them are too fragile to go on display, according to Jill Morena, the center's collection assistant for costumes and personal effects.
"There are areas where the fabric has been worn through, fragile seams and other problems," Morena said. "These dresses have been under a lot of stress."
The Ransom Center acquired the costumes -- including O'Hara's green curtain dress, green velvet gown, burgundy ball gown, blue velvet night gown and her wedding dress -- in the mid-1980s as part of the collection of Gone With the Wind producer David O. Selznick. By then, they had already been through decades of traveling displays in theaters and had been on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
"Film costumes weren't meant to last," Morena said. "They are only meant to last through the duration of filming."
The costumes are among the most famous in Hollywood history and they played a key role in one of the most popular films ever. Gone With the Wind won eight Acadamy Awards.
Yet the green curtain dress -- symbolic of O'Hara's determination to survive -- has loose seams and needs structural reinforcement. Others have suffered abrasion and areas where the fabric is nearly worn through.
Leigh wore the curtain dress in three scenes: the jail scene in which Scarlett asks Rhett Butler, played by Clark Gable, for financial help; as she walks through Atlanta with Mammy; and when she meets Frank Kennedy.
Talking about his costume designs for the film in William Pratt's 1977 book Scarlett Fever, designer Walter Plunkett was modest.
"I don't think it was my best work or even the biggest thing I did," Plunkett said. "But that picture, of course, will go on forever, and that green dress, because it makes a story point, is probably the most famous costume in the history of motion pictures."
Donations can be made on the Ransom Center website.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
overheard today
L: You're doing something differently, you look great, what is it?!
A: Yeah, the hair! It looks fabulous!! Your dress, this green, this pink, this--
B: I'm actually doing absolutely nothing, I go home and sit on my fat ass and watch TV.
L: ...maybe its the green and pink.
A: Yeah, the hair! It looks fabulous!! Your dress, this green, this pink, this--
B: I'm actually doing absolutely nothing, I go home and sit on my fat ass and watch TV.
L: ...maybe its the green and pink.
from the brain doctor
"guys we cannot be calling them the Fats, i almost said that in a meeting the other day."
"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."
Kafka
Kafka
morning wisdom from The Leila
Andrew, I love how you are so amitious, but that its tempered with this openness. You're jumping out there and trying new things but being open and seeing what's for you and what's not for you. You never know what's good for you! Too many people don't get that shit! Allowing yourself to recieve.
"look for the magic"
"I'll tell you a big secret, my
friend. Don't wait for the last judgment. It
takes place every day."
Albert Camus (1913–1960)
French writer
Nobel
Prize winner
texts from 395
A: I had a moment of road rage this morning where I caught myself thinking "I think FAT people drive slow on purpose because they want people to slow down for them. Fuckers just want attention."
L: Hahahaaa... I think the same thing about handicaps.
L: Hahahaaa... I think the same thing about handicaps.
phone home
Of course, Andrew, the most deceptive of all illusions is very likely space.
You know, that thing between "here" and "there" that would have you see yourself alone, instead of as the bridge between them. That medium between you and the rest of the world that disguises your role in creating it. You know, that veil through which the physical senses must explore your chiseled secrets.
See? Aliens are the least of your worries...
Phone home,
The Universe
You know, that thing between "here" and "there" that would have you see yourself alone, instead of as the bridge between them. That medium between you and the rest of the world that disguises your role in creating it. You know, that veil through which the physical senses must explore your chiseled secrets.
See? Aliens are the least of your worries...
Phone home,
The Universe
Monday, August 9, 2010
So Many Things...
Yes, Andrew, it's true. There are so many things you don't know about. Things, quite frankly, that you can't know. About the magic, the unseen, and the miraculous logistics that can so swiftly change a life. Yes, it would be enough to daunt even the hardiest of souls.
But, then again, Andrew, one needn't learn the mysteries of the wind, to sail effortlessly around the world, either.
Actually, you got a pretty good deal.
Land ho, The Universe
But, then again, Andrew, one needn't learn the mysteries of the wind, to sail effortlessly around the world, either.
Actually, you got a pretty good deal.
Land ho, The Universe
Saturday, August 7, 2010
mark your calendar
Vision Series #1 - Todd Kashdan: The Science of Happiness and Meaning in Life
September 13, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Concert Hall
Contrary to conventional thinking, searching for happiness, certainty, and safety often gets in the way of the fulfilling life we want. Cutting-edge research is showing that harnessing and intensifying our curiosity is an overlooked and powerful tool for creating a rich, meaningful existence. When we are open to new experiences and relish the unknown, positive events linger longer and we extract more pleasure and meaning from them. When one is genuinely curious it is not possible to be aggressive. Instead, a curious attitude strengthens relationships whether negotiating with colleagues, attracting friends, or igniting passion in romantic relationships. Evidence shows that highly curious people live longer and live better. Curiosity is one of the few things that can demonstrably alter peoples’ lives. Best of all, people can learn to wield this underappreciated strength.
September 13, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Concert Hall
Contrary to conventional thinking, searching for happiness, certainty, and safety often gets in the way of the fulfilling life we want. Cutting-edge research is showing that harnessing and intensifying our curiosity is an overlooked and powerful tool for creating a rich, meaningful existence. When we are open to new experiences and relish the unknown, positive events linger longer and we extract more pleasure and meaning from them. When one is genuinely curious it is not possible to be aggressive. Instead, a curious attitude strengthens relationships whether negotiating with colleagues, attracting friends, or igniting passion in romantic relationships. Evidence shows that highly curious people live longer and live better. Curiosity is one of the few things that can demonstrably alter peoples’ lives. Best of all, people can learn to wield this underappreciated strength.
Friday, August 6, 2010
In the sage words of Larry Walters, an American truck driver who, in 1982, attached 45 helium balloons to a standard lawn chair and then floated from his home in San Pedro, California, to an altitude of 16,000 feet, before eventually shooting a few of the balloons with a pellet gun and drifting into the controlled federal air space of Long Beach airport, where he crashed into a power line that caused a 20-minute blackout in a Long Beach neighborhood, "Well, a man can't just sit around."
Word, Shout, Sing
In 1933, Turner recorded Amelia Dawley in Harris Neck singing that song:
A wa ka, mu mone; kambei ya le'i; lii i lei tambee A wa ka, mu mone; kambei ya le'i; lii i lei ka Haa so wolingoh sia kpande wilei Haa so wolingoh, ndohoh lii, nde kee Haa so wolingoh sia kuhama ndee yia.
(Sudden death commands everyone's attention like a firing gun. Sudden death commands everyone's attention, oh elders, oh heads of the family. Sudden death commands everyone's attention like a distant drum beat.)
A wa ka, mu mone; kambei ya le'i; lii i lei tambee A wa ka, mu mone; kambei ya le'i; lii i lei ka Haa so wolingoh sia kpande wilei Haa so wolingoh, ndohoh lii, nde kee Haa so wolingoh sia kuhama ndee yia.
(Sudden death commands everyone's attention like a firing gun. Sudden death commands everyone's attention, oh elders, oh heads of the family. Sudden death commands everyone's attention like a distant drum beat.)
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
My How You Have Grown
So much love, blazing insights, a wild imagination, and opposable thumbs... Andrew, do you know what this means?!
You're nearing the zenith of your evolutionary curve!
Don't delay!! This is the time to invite fate, tempt passion, and expect miracles by dreaming big and taking nonstop action!!
All things are indeed looking possible and you alone decide how your tomorrows will unfold.
My how you have grown,
The Universe
You're nearing the zenith of your evolutionary curve!
Don't delay!! This is the time to invite fate, tempt passion, and expect miracles by dreaming big and taking nonstop action!!
All things are indeed looking possible and you alone decide how your tomorrows will unfold.
My how you have grown,
The Universe
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