Taking a full day to get cracking on the book’s second draft. I can only hope the end product is as lyrical as the Eritrean revolutionary poetry above.
Entries Tagged as 'Uncategorized'
The Master of “What If?”
June 13th, 2012 · Comments Off on The Master of “What If?”
A year ago I wrote about the great Cuban boxer Teófilo Stevenson, who passed away on Monday. I, like so many others, have always been awestruck by Stevenson’s willingness to forego a pro career, one that would have doubtless earned him millions of dollars. He instead chose to live a simple life in Cuba, where […]
Voyage Into Inner Space
June 12th, 2012 · 6 Comments
The above comes from the military manual given to all new arrivals at Johnston Atoll, the Pacific island where we dumped a whole bunch of toxic material back in the day. I can’t help but love the accidental Zen of this motto. More on the Johnston Atoll lifestyle here.
Tighten Up Tighter
June 11th, 2012 · Comments Off on Tighten Up Tighter
The Army knew better than to stick a talent like Will Eisner in a foxhole. The artist was allowed to serve his country from behind a drawing board, where he was the chief creative force behind a series of comic instructional manuals. The best-known of these was Preventive Maintenance Monthly, the highlight of which was […]
Tags:comics·Joe's Dope Sheet·military·Preventive Maintenance Monthly·sex·Will Eisner
Non-Daily Operation
June 8th, 2012 · Comments Off on Non-Daily Operation
Tremendous apologies for failing to living up to this project’s motto this week. Much craziness with sifting through book edits and trying to rent out the former global headquarters. Was planning something special for today, but need to make an emergency trip to the heart of Nieuw Amsterdam to see a man about some papers. […]
To Scatter an Area
June 5th, 2012 · 5 Comments
I am no great authority on Igbo music, but I think it’s safe to say that Area Scatter was one of the genre’s very few transvestite thumb pianists. The gender-bending was integral to his rock-star mythology, as detailed in Beats of the Heart: His home was filled with bones and skulls and paintings of the […]
Tags:Area Scatter·gender·Igbo·music·Nigeria
My Father, the Sniper
June 4th, 2012 · 2 Comments
There is now a whole sub-genre of literature that deals exclusively with the lives of snipers. The public fascination with these lethal technicians is easy to understand: We see them almost as warrior monks, able to hush their thoughts so as to withstand the sheer boredom of their task. And there is something almost Zen […]
Tags:Adela Jusic·art·Bosnia·Bosnian War·firearms·snipers·Yugoslavia
Trillion with a T?
June 1st, 2012 · Comments Off on Trillion with a T?
It’s always a bit sad to see one of your childhood idols reduced to hucksterism. Yet such appears to be the case with the legendary Eric Dickerson, who once performed wondrous feats for my beloved Indianapolis Colts. Now years removed from the limelight, Dickerson today earns a living by peddling belts that purport to unclump […]
Boiling a Frog in Reverse
May 31st, 2012 · 2 Comments
I have previously written about Mongolia’s struggles with endemic alcoholism, which the political establishment has tried to address by leading by example. But as this editorial makes clear, the problem is only getting worse, with over 55 percent of the nation’s population admitting to excessive alcohol intake. Aside from raising taxes to exorbitant levels, then, […]
Tags:alcoholism·books·Charles Duhigg·Mongolia·psychology·The Power of Habit
Hail to the Chief
May 30th, 2012 · Comments Off on Hail to the Chief
Late jump on the day, so must leave you with a classic from the late Chief Oliver de Coque, who guitar arsenal included this innovative number. Back tomorrow with some thoughts on Mongolia’s skyrocketing rate of alcoholism.
Poetry Lives!
May 29th, 2012 · Comments Off on Poetry Lives!
I spent part of the long holiday weekend catching up with Evan Osnos’s account of Macau’s casino scene, a story gorgeously stuffed with details of nouveau riche excess. The mind reels at the thought that Macau’s high rollers require stools upon which to place their handbags, or that they rock $12,000 mobile phones. But the […]
Tags:China·Evan Osnos·gambling·Macau·poetry·The New Yorker·writing
A Game in Which Everyone Loses
May 25th, 2012 · Comments Off on A Game in Which Everyone Loses
As you enjoy the forthcoming three-day weekend, take a moment to think good thoughts for the beleaguered citizens of Papua New Guinea, who are weathering what could be the nation’s nastiest political crisis in years. Matters started to get out of hand three days ago, when Papua New Guinea’s Supreme Court ruled that former prime […]
Tags:law·Papua New Guinea·Peter O'Neill·politics·Sir Michael Somare
The Slip-and-Fall Queen
May 24th, 2012 · 2 Comments
If the good folks at the National Insurance Crime Bureau are to be believed, the ol’ slip-and-fall con is thriving anew these days. Yet today’s practitioners of this tried-and-true scam are rank amateurs compared to Patricia Latham, who became a wealthy woman by perfecting the art of slip-and-fall. Her dedication to her craft was as […]
Tags:con artists·crime·Florida·Patricia Latham·slip and fall
The Corsican Glass is Half Full
May 22nd, 2012 · 2 Comments
As a tremendous fan of the French movie A Prophet—I defy you to find a flick with a better razor-attack scene—I was naturally drawn to this recent account of Corsica’s organized-crime problem. The French-run island sounds like it’s run like the Brooklyn docks circa 1952, with men of violence calling the shots at all levels. […]
Tags:Corsica·crime·murder·statistics
There is Hope for Us Yet
May 21st, 2012 · Comments Off on There is Hope for Us Yet
Slammed this Monday on business-y stuff—primarily trying to find a new tenant for the old Harlem headquarters. (Anyone in the market for a two-bedroom in a historic neighborhood? Holler.) Back tomorrow with something thoughtful; in the meantime, revel in the fact that some great humor does, in fact, translate across disparate cultures. So heartwarming that […]
The Economics of Bird Theft
May 18th, 2012 · Comments Off on The Economics of Bird Theft
I must confess to an undue fascination with bird theft, a crime too-seldom explored in the annals of popular literature. Though there is no shortage of stories about purloined finches, reporters never seem to explain how much the crooks stand to earn—or, more important, the mechanics of fencing illegally obtained birds. I was thus pleased […]
Tags:bird theft·birds·Cameroon·crime·economics·Florida·swans
Punished for Cleverness
May 17th, 2012 · 2 Comments
Your daily reminder of why Belarus shouldn’t be hosting the 2014 World Hockey Championship: A Belarusian opposition activist has been sentenced to 15 days in jail for using a sign to mock a plainclothes security officer. In the April incident, Ivan Amelchanka was photographed standing next to a man who was using a hand-held camera […]
Tags:Belarus·censorship·dictatorship·hockey·Ivan Amelchanka·protest
“One Day It Might be Your Houses”
May 15th, 2012 · Comments Off on “One Day It Might be Your Houses”
The last time we checked in with Carol Kidu, Papua New Guinea’s lone female legislator, she was proposing a bil that would set aside a percentage of parliamentary seats for women. Since then, she has become the head of the nation’s forlorn opposition, a role which has brought her into frequent conflict with PNG’s thoroughly […]
Tags:Carol Kidu·corruption·Paga Hill·Papua New Guinea·politics·Port Moresby
Never Say Die
May 14th, 2012 · 1 Comment
On the road for much of today, so start your week off right with a little vintage King Kobra, the rare hair-metal band willing to sacrifice its hair for a worthy cause—in this case, the destruction of Commies. Louis Gossett Jr. kills it in this video, too.
Squished
May 11th, 2012 · 2 Comments
I’ve been breaking out all my old kiddie books to read to Microkhan Jr., an experience that has taught me a lot about the formative images that shaped my worldview—sometimes to horrifying effect. One that jumped out at me the other day was from Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy World. It purports to depict the demoralizing […]
Tags:books·Japan·Richard Scarry·subways·Tokyo·transportation
A Return to Normalcy
May 10th, 2012 · Comments Off on A Return to Normalcy
I dog-eared a whole bunch of pages in Mark Bowden’s Guests of the Ayatollah, including one featuring a passage about a longtime favorite topic: the psychology of captivity. I am a firm believer in the proposition that extended confinement can warp the mind in terrifying ways, which means I’m also a great admirer of men […]
Tags:books·Guests of the Ayatollah·Iran·Mark Bowden·prisons·psychology
Black is White, Night is Day
May 8th, 2012 · Comments Off on Black is White, Night is Day
There is, of course, no reason to expect anything but prevarication from the government of Azerbaijan, an authoritarian kleptocracy with no compunctions about employing dirty tricks. Still, the regime’s insistence on spouting obvious falsehoods is a dark wonder to behold. With its turn as Eurovision host fast approaching, Azerbaijan is going to great lengths to […]
That’s All I Can Stands
May 7th, 2012 · Comments Off on That’s All I Can Stands
Will future historians look back upon Angela “LaGija” Dlamini as the great tea-leaf reader of Swazi politics? In recent days, her husband, the absolute monarch King Mswati III, has come under an unusual amount of fire for his profligacy—it is still tough to imagine, for example, why he merited a new $46 million jet, or […]
Tags:corruption·currency·dictatorship·King Mswati III·South Africa·Swaziland
End of Act One
May 4th, 2012 · 3 Comments
As you read these words today, I’ll be putting the finishing touches on my book manuscript—an 84,000-word tale of a young couple that pulled off an amazing heist many moons ago, then went roaming about the world. Tough to believe I’ve reached this point in the process; I started working on this project nearly three […]
So Close, So Far Away
May 3rd, 2012 · Comments Off on So Close, So Far Away
Just about thirty hours to go ’til my book deadline. Furiously trimming adverbs and trying to inject much-needed moments of humor and profundity. Sit tight.
Tags:Asha Bhosle·Bollywood·India·movies·music
Bad Reputation
May 2nd, 2012 · Comments Off on Bad Reputation
As you may have noticed, I have a soft spot for walruses, who I like to think of as Nature’s couch potatoes. I was thus amused to learn that the self-styled scientists of the sixteenth century believed that these sedentary sacks of blubber were, in fact, agents of the Devil. Check out this 1539 description […]
The East Bay
April 30th, 2012 · 1 Comment
I’m out in California, doing some (very, very, very) last-minute reporting for the book. In my absence, check out these abandoned structures; the ones from Gary, Indiana, are particularly haunting.
You Have My Sympathies
April 27th, 2012 · 1 Comment
I have exactly one week to go before my book deadline, so expect the next few posts to spin off my last-minute writing struggles. Over the past several months, I’ve occasionally shouted out great examples of single descriptive details that elevated non-fiction tales into the realm of high art. There was Barbara Demick’s retelling of […]
The First of Many Final Laps
April 26th, 2012 · Comments Off on The First of Many Final Laps
After a day spent haggling with the callous mandarins of America’s health-care system, I’m back to working on the final chapter of the book. I actually came up with a killer last line while walking Microkhan Jr. to school this morning; everything else, alas, is a mess, which is why I’m just leaving you with […]
Tags:Australia·photography
America’s Penchant for Reinvention
April 24th, 2012 · 1 Comment
Our vast nation’s architectural history boasts few curiosities more delightful than the Nuwaubian pyramids of Eatonton, Georgia, captured here in drive-by video. Some approximation of a backstory is available in this Macon Telegraph story; suffice to say that one must always be wary of religious leaders who were once aspiring musicians. (See also: Koresh, David; […]
Tags:Anderson Scott·architecture·cults·Georgia·Nuwaubian pyramids·photography·religion
