Stealing a day to write before picking up Microkhan Jr. from preschool. Back tomorrow with something on the evolution of bomb-squad armor.
Entries from November 30th, 2011
Groggy
November 29th, 2011 · 2 Comments
It’s no secret that myriad small Pacific nations are having problems with First World diseases, especially those related to obesity. Fiji’s dictatorial government believes that its citizens’ expanding waistlines are due not only to food consumption, but also to overindulgence in yaqona, a mild intoxicant you may know better as kava: Fiji’s all-time favourite pastime, […]
Reeling in the Days
November 23rd, 2011 · 2 Comments
One of my very first posts, way back in the unenlightened days of April 2009, was about the art objects crafted by World War I’s unfortunate grunts. Since then, I’ve always kept an eye peeled for the artwork of combat soldiers, which is often formed in the most desperate and uncomfortable of circumstances. I love […]
Alien in Alabama
November 22nd, 2011 · Comments Off on Alien in Alabama
The deeper I get into my latest book project—just crossed the 30,000-word mark—the more I keep digging into memories of my formative reading experiences. Doing so goes a long way toward helping me understand why I’m attracted to certain stories, and that self-awareness helps me separate the narrative wheat from the narrative chaff. Loyal followers […]
Tags:defectors·East Germany·Jens-Peter Brendt·sports·Sports Illustrated·swimming·writing
The Flipside of Nonsense
November 21st, 2011 · 8 Comments
There is an interracial romance at the heart of my next book, so I’ve spent appreciable time researching the question of how such couples were regarded in the early 1970s. As is typically the case, that line of inquiry has piqued my interest in a tangential matter: the creation of anti-miscegenation laws specifically targeted at […]
Tags:California·law·Philippines·pseudoscience·racism·Washington
The Pivot
November 18th, 2011 · Comments Off on The Pivot
Dedicating the next three days to finishing another chapter of the book. This one’s key, because the meat of the narrative starts in the ensuing chapter. And as much as I enjoy weaving together random tidbits of historical background into a semi-cohesive whole, the real pleasure in this process will come from recounting the tick-tock […]
Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That
November 17th, 2011 · 2 Comments
It’s been far too long since I posted about suicide, a Microkhan staple since this project’s earliest days. Let me rectify that oversight by quoting from this 1971 study of mortality among Hiroshima survivors. One might expect such unfortunate souls to be so psychologically traumatized by their experiences that they would be unusually prone to […]
Tags:Hiroshima·Japan·Jaswant Basuta·NDEs·nuclear weapons·suicide
Managing the Bloodshed
November 16th, 2011 · Comments Off on Managing the Bloodshed
While heading to Microkhan Jr.’s preschool the other day, I heard a dreadful squawk emanate from courtyard of an apartment building. It took me a moment to realize that someone was killing a chicken for supper—a bird likely purchased from one of Queens’ many live poultry shops. I had no problem with the violence, as […]
Tags:animal sacrifice·Islam·Pakistan·public health·religion·Saudi Arabia
Progress Report
November 14th, 2011 · Comments Off on Progress Report
Lost the morning to a parent-teacher conference at Microkhan Jr.’s school. Now on to shaping my next Wired feature. Back to this space as soon as humanly possible.
Tags:Earth Wind & Fire·Japan·music·R&B
Local Knowledge
November 11th, 2011 · Comments Off on Local Knowledge
A brief Veterans Day special today, as I try and dedicate a strong eight hours to the book. I was planning on directing your attention to this excellent site, which honors the men and women of the 335th Station Hospital in Tagap Ga—the Burmese hamlet where so much Now the Hell Will Start action goes […]
Tags:Burma·Kachin Rangers·Kachins·OSS Detachment 101·Veterans Day·World War II
The Best-Laid Plans
November 10th, 2011 · 1 Comment
The section of the book I’m working on today is basically a brief history of terrible kidnapping plots. They’re not all necessarily dumb crimes from the get-go—many of the cases I cover involved months of careful planning by above-average crooks. But they inevitably make one key error that unspools the entire enterprise. And more often […]
Tags:crime·kidnapping
Despots of a Feather
November 9th, 2011 · Comments Off on Despots of a Feather
Strange YouTube journey this morning as I sought some quickie material for a reporting day. Inspired by Dr. Swerve-On’s latest installment of Fresh Produce, I started off looking for George Benson’s version of “California Dreaming.” Yet I somehow ended up fixated on the video above, in which Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu pays a visit to […]
Tags:dictatorship·Kim Il-sung·Nicolae Ceausescu·North Korea·Pyongyang·Romania
Mo’ Problems
November 8th, 2011 · 2 Comments
Given that I’m all about narrative arc these days, Barnaby Barford is an artist who’s right up my alley. He uses his ceramic skills to tell stories, and his latest project is a doozy—a modern update on A Rake’s Progress that recounts an English lottery winner’s rise and fall. One moment our protagonist is sitting […]
Tags:A Rake's Progress·art·Barnaby Barford·Britain·lotteries
Sedition Was the Case That They Gave Me
November 7th, 2011 · 2 Comments
In most corners of the world, graffiti artists operate in fear of being nabbed for vandalism. In totalitarian Fiji, they face far more serious charges, at least if their scrawled messages carry the whiff of the political: A New Zealand businessman is in custody in Fiji along with four others who have been arrested over […]
Tags:civil rights·dictatorship·Fiji·Frank Bainimarama·graffiti·law·sedition
An Embarrassment of Riches
November 4th, 2011 · Comments Off on An Embarrassment of Riches
Spending today sifting through an absolute treasure trove of primary-source documents, which is why you’ll have to make do with some Algerian chanteusery instead of the usual polymathic mish-mash. Though I can’t yet reveal the exact nature of the documents I’m examining, I can tell you one thing they’ve taught me so far: Kim Il-sung […]
Potemkin Would be Proud
November 3rd, 2011 · 3 Comments
There’s a terrific old episode of Cops—yes, Cops—in which the Miami police round up a bunch of streetwalkers in advance of Super Bowl XXIX. What’s so surprising about the operation is how up front the police are about their objective—namely, to present the game’s attendees with a prostitute-free version of the city. In the episode’s […]
The Catch
November 2nd, 2011 · Comments Off on The Catch
I love this whole approach of picking apart successful yarns to figure out what makes them work. To get myself in the book-writing mindset, I’ve been doing likewise with a bunch of great stories from my formative years—things that have managed to stick with me all these decades later. It’s probably no great shock for […]
Tags:Ernest Hemingway·fame·football·Percy Howard·sports·Sports Illustrated·Super Bowl
Where Do We Go Now?
November 1st, 2011 · 4 Comments
With roughly six months to go ’til my first book is due, you can expect plenty more research extras in the coming weeks. A lot of those posts will be designed to help me think through some of the slippery issues I’m encountering as I shape the central narrative—I’m still struggling to understand the mindsets […]
Tags:crime·Detroit·Dwight Johnson·Medal of Honor·military·psychology·Vietnam War
