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Anatomy of an Article

May 17, 2013
From "What I Am Not Supposed to Say About Literary Journals Until I Am Famous"

From “What I Am Not Supposed to Say About Literary Journals Until I Am Famous”

My only excuse for not writing a blog post for six weeks is that I’ve published almost 40 articles for a total of six editors at four publications in the last month and a half.

Sometimes I just don’t have anything left over.

But I have been getting a lot of questions lately.

People outside the field think that journalism is A) kind of glamorous or B) a bat-shit crazy career choice, and there are lots of things they want to know:

Do you come up with your own ideas or are they assigned?  Do you write something before a publication agrees to take it? How much time do you spend writing? Do you get paid? Don’t you want a real job?

But I also get a lot of questions from colleagues or people dabbling in the field:

How do you make freelancing pay? How do you manage that many assignments? What’s your work-flow? How do you approach your stories?

So before I get back on track with blog essays, I thought I would answer these questions with a walk-through of my work day.

Let’s take my typical local-news article: it will be about an event, issue, or person and will run online. It will have an arts or culture bent, be 700-1200 words long, and earn me $100-$200. Yeah, it’s the big time over here.

Articles begin one of two ways.

  • You find out about something you want to write about, and pitch it to one of the editors you work with, briefly explaining a) the idea b) why it is important or worthwhile to readers. Note: This means sorting through a steady stream of pitches from PR professionals as well as keeping your eyes and ears out ALL THE TIME.
  • An editor (who either knows you or got your e-mail from someone who knows you) writes with a story idea (it could be anything on God’s green earth) and you decide whether or not to accept it.

Work starts on the article long before you begin writing.

  • Once you have made a successful pitch, or accepted an editor’s pitch, you look at your calendar and figure out three things.

a)      What deadline can you commit to?

b)      When will you have time to do the interviews you’ll need?

c)       When will you sit down to write the thing?

  • Decide whom to interview/where to go for the story.
  • Make phone calls or send e-mails to request interviews and/or meetings/tours. Note: This can be quite a process. Often you have to go through a few contacts to get the person you want. Sometimes people will refuse to do the story. And other times, people will vigorously pitch an idea, only to completely flake out as soon as you say yes.

Interviewing.

  • Develop about six core questions in advance of the interview. Note: I used to always write them down, but as I’ve gotten more practice doing interviews, I sometimes skip the writing-down part as long as I’m mentally prepared.
  • Interviews can take many forms. Often, it’s a fifteen-minute phone conversation. Other times, they’re scheduled in-person meetings (from 30 minutes in the boardroom with a director to a walk in the woods with local activists to a four-hour dinner with a French chef).
  • I use a combination of rapid note-taking and iPod voice memos, transcribed later, to keep up with my sources.
  • With practice, note-taking becomes more effective as your brain learns to grab onto quotes as soon as your source is forming the words.
  • Never get so married to your question list that you can’t also pursue a new line of thought should your source provide it.
  • But learn how to keep a lid on a conversation so that you don’t end up spending an hour with someone and not getting what you need. You have to make your time pay.

Preparing to write.

  • Complete any research on information you couldn’t or didn’t get from your sources.
  • Once the interview(s) are done and you have a feel for the facts and the arc of the story, it’s time for what I call “nuts and bolts.”
  • Begin with a preliminary Word document. Type in any interview segments you want handy, either from hand-written notes or from audio, and copy and paste blocks of text – maybe from an informative website, maybe from a press release that confirms venues, dates and times, maybe from a previous article that gives context and keeps you oriented – and the name(s) and title(s) of the people you’re writing about.  Then, the Who, What, Where, When, Why and Why the Hell Do We Care are all waiting right there on the screen.

Time to write.

  • Check the news feed.
  • Go get a snack.
  • Watch the goldfish for awhile.
  • Check the news feed (limit Twitter wars with disgruntled readers).
  • Get a glass of cold water.
  • Refresh all e-mail accounts.
  • Ponder and/or answer new e-mails.
  • FB or G-chat with freelance colleague[s].
  • Post on timelines of all your FB friends with birthdays today.
  • Reach with right hand and massage perpetual knot above left scapula.
  • Go to the bathroom.

WRITE, dammit.

  • Open Pandora and select “Philip Glass Radio.”
  • Return to nuts and bolts document.
  • Write title of article (it can be anything, you editor will most likely replace it with some kind of bad pun).
  • Write “By Alaina Mabaso”
  • Activate knot in left shoulder and write for anywhere from one to four hours. Note: Even though typing the first line feels like the hardest part, the article is actually 80% done at that point. When I have consolidated relevant quotes and research (literally, waiting on the page below) and know how the story will flow as well as what my editor wants (sorry, there is no demonstrable template for that, it’s a matter of skill and practice), writing it is more like fitting a familiar puzzle together than anything else.

Success!

  • Stretch.
  • Frown; massage left shoulder.
  • Look in the mail for checks.
  • Do the math on your budget through the end of the month for the sixteenth time this week.
  • Scan newsfeeds and e-mail accounts.
  • Answer e-mails.
  • Eat a meal and call it “lunch,” whether it’s 10am, 1pm or 5pm.

Finish and file.

  • Copy and paste article draft from “nuts and bolts” page to its own fresh document.
  • Slowly read the article out loud. Listen for clunky/confusing sentences, repetitive phrases, bad punctuation, excessive passive voice and anything else that weighs down the piece.
  • Brutally cut at least 50-200 words.
  • E-mail the piece to the right editor.
  • Be ready to quickly and affirmatively address any questions/clarifications.

Congratulations – you’ve written an article for publication.

NB: this is my process for a particular type of article. Essays, commentary, reviews or full-length features are different. (So far I do not write fiction at all.)

Now, the question of whether or not you can pay the bills this way (remember: student loans and wholly out-of-pocket health insurance premiums, plus self-employment tax) is not so much a question of whether you can do your own variation of the steps above, but whether you can juggle them at multiple stages simultaneously every day, for an average of six or seven pieces a week, while taking off only 3-4 weekends a year with no paid sick days.

That’s my world, at least.

If you want to read recent examples of my articles, here are two:

An environmental education center launches a paid residency for artists whose installations will actually aid ecological restoration

A charity hosts an exhibition of artists with intellectual disabilities; art therapists describe the ways art helps people with disabilities redefine themselves to the public

This is for those who want to hear more about how to build your freelance network: Ten Non-Fatalistic, Real-Life Tips for Freelance Writers

And this is for those who want to hear more about the actual art of writing: Six Tips for Strong Writing That Have Nothing To Do With Word Choice

Any more questions?

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Posted in Challenges of the Modern World, Writing | 4 Comments »

A Bystander’s Guide to the Five Things Pregnant Women Love Most

April 3, 2013

Let me start out by saying that I’ve never been pregnant, but that these foolproof tips are borne of years of observation and conversation. So give them a read and then go make a pregnant lady’s day.

1) Being touched by strangers

Did you resent learning to keep your hands to yourself in kindergarten? Well, you’re in luck. Look at that businessman on the train, wearing a suit and tie and frowning at his smartphone. Would he like it if you suddenly embraced him or caressed his tummy? No, of course he wouldn’t. But pregnant women are different.  As soon as the bulge of that fetus is visible to you and me, her body is fair game, from the bathroom to the boardroom to the bus. Hands on!

2) Temporal judgments

A pregnant woman is particularly attuned to the passage of time – just listen to her obsess about the first, second and third trimesters. That means she’s also anxious to hear your unsolicited time-related verdicts. For example, feel free to ask her how old she is, and then follow up with any conclusions you may have on whether she is very young or rather old to be a mother. If you think she looks older or younger than she is, make sure she knows it. And remember, once you’ve spotted her belly, what month and day that baby is supposed to emerge is information that you are entitled to. The mother-to-be will also appreciate your comments on whether her current size matches the current duration of her pregnancy. Does she look rather slim for 7 months or “ready to pop” at 6 months? Make sure she knows it!

3) Personal questions

Imagine that man on the train again – his tasteful striped tie and black leather shoes. Would he want you to sit down next to him and ask him his age, whether he feels sick to his stomach, and whether he has children, whether they’re boys or girls, when their birthdays are and what their names are? No, he probably wouldn’t appreciate it, but here again is the magic of pregnancy: gestating women love answering your personal questions. Remember: the propagation of the human race is every person’s business, and that includes morning sickness, the baby’s sex, due date and name, birth plans, and anything else you can think of. Remember: when a woman can no longer conceal the fact that she’s carrying a fetus, she owes you these answers.

4) Horror stories of labor and delivery

That pregnant woman sitting next to you wants to bond with you. Once you’ve ascertained that her due date is just a few weeks away, the best way to cement your relationship is to tell her about your sister-in-law’s cousin’s 43-hour labor and episiotomy during the blizzard of ‘93.  Pregnant ladies enjoy these narratives, which fortify them for their own deliveries.

5) Your projected body image woes

Pregnant women are always ready to soothe your anxieties about their bodies. The last thing they want is for you to be stuck wondering if they’re pregnant or if they’re just packing some extra belly pounds, so feel free to ask them. If, because you were afraid they were simply fat, you’re relieved to find out that their rotund figure is due to an impending birth, make sure they know it. They love being reminded of their ungainly figures, and carrying a baby is the difference between hoping others mind their own business, and having an appreciation for being the subject of strangers’ bodily speculations.

Is there anything else pregnant women love? If I’ve missed something, please add it in the comments.

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Posted in Follies and Excrescences Involving Children | 18 Comments »

You, Me, and the Portman Effect: Like It Or Not, It’s Bringing Gay Rights

March 26, 2013
A save-the-date card for an event my friend calls her "big ole dyke marriage." "Yay! I declare victory!" she says.

A save-the-date card for an event my friend calls her “big ole dyke marriage.” “Yay! I declare victory!” she says. (Design credit Crystal Davis.)

This week I published an essay about friendship and marriage that included a few examples from my own life. My editor said he loved the insights in the piece, but he warned me to watch out.

Pointing to advice maven Ann Landers’s divorce, he said I should consider the future – I might be writing a personal essay now about my perspectives on a healthy marriage, but who knows? In ten years, I might be in the middle of a divorce, and then, a reader might dig up this article to mock me.

Could I handle that?

I told him that I preferred to live in the present, and if I end up getting divorced, I will deal with it when it happens, instead of letting that unpleasant hypothetical notion hinder what I publish now. I also said that while I strive to write in good taste and not bare anything that’s too personal, I feel that if readers give their attention to my essays, I should be willing to give them my honest self in relatable terms.

My editor listened and nodded and said that was wise. Then he chuckled and shook his head.

“It’d be funny, though, if it happened,” he said of my supposed future divorce.

I share all this with you now because, as the US Supreme Court hears landmark cases this week about marriage equality, I think my gay pals have been resting easy for far too long – it’s high time their unions were as legal as mine, so they can shoulder their share of rude comments like this.

Gay pals have been getting a lot of press recently, as this nugget from the Stephen Colbert show sums up pretty well:

Colbert and NPH

People are calling it the Portman Effect, after Republican Senator Rob Portman announced his support for gay marriage (following a long history of anti-gay legislative votes) because, as it turns out, his son is gay. After years of seeing gays as sub-par, faraway citizens who don’t deserve the right to marry their partners or adopt children, Portman looked at his own child and then wrote “All our sons and daughters ought to have the same opportunity to experience the joys and stability of marriage.”

Some people lauded Portman for his courageous stance, given the current state of America’s Republican Party, and others scoffed that politicians should support equality because it’s the right thing to do, not because the issue suddenly becomes personal to you.

Many speculate that the Portman Effect will be at work in the Supreme Court chamber itself, because apparently a gay cousin of conservative Chief Justice John Roberts will attend the oral arguments.

In general, I sympathize with those who find the Portman Effect a lousy reason to support equality – one based on personal experience rather than a larger, more rational acceptance on principle. It reminds me of this fabulous article by Anne Theriault, who argues that a common piece of rape-combating rhetoric is “reductive as hell.”

Pundits and politicians often beg would-be harassers or attackers of women to imagine how they’d feel if their own mother, sister or daughter was battered this way.

Theriault lobs back that this “defines women by their relationships to other people, rather than as people themselves. It says that women are only important when they are married to, have given birth to, or have been fathered by other people.”

Rape isn’t wrong because women are wives, sisters and daughters. Women are people and rape is just wrong.

Maybe a man who would refrain from attacking women because he doesn’t like to think of his own family members being attacked is sort of like a politician who doesn’t support equality until he realizes that anti-gay laws affect a member of his own family.

But the plain truth is that humans are primarily emotional creatures. We can call for high-minded, objective, rational ideals, but things must touch us personally before we can process them.

Count me in on the Portman Effect club – I grew up in an insular Christian atmosphere that didn’t exactly heap bile on gays, but did make it clear that theirs was a sad and disordered lifestyle. Gay schoolmates were well and truly closeted and I didn’t know any better than to oppose gay marriage, declaring I had nothing against gays themselves (should I ever meet any), but I didn’t think they had a legal right to marry.

That lasted about as long as it took me to make some friends who were gay, as soon as I hit college and moved outside the sphere of my family’s church.

The personal is the last bastion between acceptance and prejudice. A family member who opposes gay rights once asked me, in a tone that was meant to end the argument, once and for all,

“Well, how would you feel if someone gay was your children’s teacher?”

The answer I think she expected was that of course, in that case, I would be opposed. However, by that time I had already had a gay teacher and turned out just fine. I bet my future kids would, too.

I admit my own investment in equality probably has as much to do with my own personal universe as it does my civic principles. My own marriage would’ve been illegal just a few decades ago – back when people were arguing that Jesus wouldn’t want the races to mix. I imagine what it would feel like if people were protesting my relationship with signs like “God hates interracial couples” and “Marriage = two people of the same race.”

Imagine how stupid you are going to look

I think the Portman affect applies to racial attitudes as well. I remember sitting around a holiday table with someone who referred to African-American people collectively as “the blacks.”

But in subsequent years, my African husband joined the table, and I was interested to note this dinner guest change her tune ever so slightly the next time she shared an anecdote about an African-American person.

“He was a black…person,” the speaker faltered, eyes dodging ever so slightly – or did I imagine it? – at my husband.

In an ideal world, we’d all sit up and cast out our prejudices on principle, before they looked us in the eye and made us sweat.

Until then, we legally married heterosexual people are just going to have to bear the brunt of other people’s odd comments about our marriages – but I sure hope gay people can get their share soon.

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Posted in Pompous Philosophizing | 15 Comments »

The Big Dead Goldfish Dilemma, Part 2: Princess at Rest

March 18, 2013
A girl and her fish.

A girl and her fish.

About a month ago, I was surprised by the response to a post I wrote about my Big Dead Goldfish Dilemma. My extra-large goldfish, Princess, had died very suddenly late last year, and unable to decide what to do with the body, I put her in my kitchen freezer.

I got a range of suggestions from concerned readers in the comments and via social media. They said I could fling Princess into the ocean, cremate her, feed her to a cat, or take her to the woods, cover her body with rocks, pray and burn some sage. I appreciated every response.

But one answer in particular caught my eye. My neighborhood pal Michaelann, who lives just a few blocks away, said I should bury the fish in her garden. I don’t know if Michaelann was serious, but after thinking it over for a few weeks, I messaged her.

Michaelann and Jerome

Jerome and Michaelann in their front yard farm.

And so, on a warm Saturday afternoon in early March, I wrapped Princess in a towel and strolled up the street, where Michaelann and her partner Jerome were waiting.

With an extensive garden, a beehive and a chicken coop, Jerome and Michaelann are serious about urban farming (check out Michaelann’s blog, Elkins Park Front Yard Farm). I met them last year, when I was working on a magazine story about backyard bee- and chicken-keeping.

When I arrived, there was already a foot-deep hole waiting, cushioned with straw.

Michaelann explained that it was the perfect place for the burial: this spring, the grave will be the site of a Native American-style Three Sisters Garden.

A Three Sisters Garden is a trio of corn, beans and squash all in one hill of soil. The beans add necessary nitrogen to the soil while using the cornstalk as a pole, and the squash’s leaves shade the ground, preventing too many weeds and naturally deterring pests. And apparently, Native Americans of the Atlantic Northeast buried an eel or a fish under each hill, to help fertilize the plants.

I unwrapped Princess and laid her in the hole.

Michaelann covered the orange scales with another handful of straw, to ensure successful composting, and we pushed the dirt back in with our hands.

Michaelann puts dirt

The grave left a small mound, which we covered with straw and then a weighted screen, to deter digging animals.

I wiped my hands on a towel and we stood around the grave.

“You were a good fish, Princess,” I said.

Jerome asked if we shouldn’t have some kind of song.

We fell silent for a moment, wondering if there were any hymns about fish.

“Fish heads, fish heads, roly-poly fish heads…” Michaelann murmured at last.

I know Princess will rest in peace.

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Posted in Animals, The Goldfish Fry Saga | 11 Comments »

The FDA Will Dupe You Til the Cows Come Home

March 7, 2013

milk2

milk5

It’s true.

In their recent application to the Food and Drug Administration, “Flavored Milk: Petition to Amend the Standard of Identity for Milk and 17 Additional Dairy Products,” the International Dairy Foods Association and the National Milk Producers Federation ask for the ability to produce and market products containing aspartame without any notice on the carton (except for the fine print ingredients) to inform customers of that fact. Here’s a brief NPR story on the controversy.

It is as if Coca-Cola decided it wanted to begin putting its aspartame-sweetened Diet Coke and its corn syrup-sweetened Coke in identical cans – all in the name of helping their customers.

From the petition:

“Petitioners state that milk flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners [like aspartame] should be labeled as milk without further claims so that consumers can more easily identify its overall nutritional value.”

In other words, the less you know about what’s really in your food, the better you’ll be able to make good choices about what to eat.

You have until May 21st, 2013 to visit the public petition online and register your comment about the proposed change to the “Standard Identity” of milk.

 

 

 

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Posted in Animals, Food | 12 Comments »

White Pundits, Black History: oh, the pain of my privilege.

February 27, 2013
From "Borderless News and Views," where Monica A. Gamble asks, "how do we cement the idea that Black history is American history?"

From “Borderless News and Views,” where Monica A. Gamble asks, “how do we cement the idea that Black history is American history?”

Chris Menning wants to blow your mind. All you have to do is tune into his site, Modernprimate.com, and watch his talking-head video “examining the concepts of equality, privilege, and economic class in terms that even the most ignorant should be able to understand.”

“You’re welcome, fellow white people,” he declares before he’s even made any of his points.

Menning is annoyed because, just like they do every February, there are white people complaining that Black History Month is a needless, biased institution. Menning explains why we do not, in fact, need to institute White History Month: the pervasive white privilege that is often invisible to those who benefit most from it.

He makes several good points, including scrapping the concept of “reverse racism” (i.e., blacks’ racism against whites). That’s not reverse racism: “It’s just racism.” Plus, Menning demonstrates the true and troubling racial disparities in America’s poverty rates, and the originally intended meaning of “all men are created equal”: that was actually “white men of English descent who owned a certain amount of property.”

He also directs us to Peggy McIntosh’s thought-provoking “White Privilege Checklist” and Debra Leigh’s worthwhile “28 Common Racist Behaviors.”

But Menning’s own story, and, apparently, his qualification to expound on the topic of racial injustice, begins when he went shopping, somehow set off a shoplifting alarm, and was allowed to walk out of the store without the clerk so much as checking his bags because (as Menning surmises in the video) he is white.

“Being a white guy has its perks,” he says, waving a half-eaten chocolate bar.

Menning points out that he’s made an awesome video.

“Now what I’m about to say is going to be a no-brainer for a lot of you, and it will mind-blowing for some others,” he says.

(Is there a third option? Like, irked by his slightly narcissistic expressions and non-diversifying insights?)

I guess you could boil my beef down to the fact that in the guise of addressing racial inequality, a white man is talking expressly to white people about white people’s internal troubles.

Yes, it is important to shine a light on white privilege. But too often, the obsession with examining our privilege becomes a way of turning the spotlight back on ourselves and shifting the conversation away from the voices of people of color, as if combating your own “privilege” is a drama on par with the struggle of those who suffer under racism.

Menning has lots more to say about what he’s learned from his own privileges:

“I’ve never been turned down for a job that I’ve interviewed for.  Every single time that I’m called in for an interview, do you know what happens? When I walk in there, I meet a white guy, much like myself…I answer some questions about why I want to work there, and I almost always walk out of there with a job.”

A 100% job-nabbing rate in this shitty economy is quite a feat – though Menning does admit that maybe it’s not all due to his skin tone: “The fact that I’m six feet tall helps, or the bass-y undertones in my voice,” he adds.

Or maybe the subtext of this career revelation is that, as a person, Menning is just as mind-blowing as his videos.  (“You’re welcome.”)

But let’s get off the ad hominem wagon.

Bear with me while I set my own quick scene.

This week, I was heading towards a city transit entrance when I noticed a middle-aged man loitering by the doors. He was hollering at a pair of young women half a block away, about how they were so pretty they had to stay and talk to him. They linked arms as they hurried away. I saw the taut, rueful expression on their faces and I swerved towards another entrance, walking an extra two blocks in the freezing weather because I wasn’t in the mood to be bothered, as long experience has taught me I probably would’ve been.

Now imagine that a silent male bystander witnessed this scene and then went home to expound online, pointing out to his intended audience of fellow men how well he recognizes his male privilege – blowing his viewers’ minds on the problem of sexism with his profound experience of…using whatever door he wants without fearing harassment.

Compelling stuff.

Menning says a lot of white people don’t recognize their own privilege simply because they’ve never been in a position to really observe and think about it.

“Every now and then when I stop to look around, I realize that I’m not constantly surrounded by other white men,” Menning says.

Fascinating – when did you first notice this phenomenon?

When this video popped up in my Facebook feed via Upworthy, billed as “The Definitive Response to Jerks Asking, “But What About White History Month?”, it was hard to put my finger on what bothered me about it. Shouldn’t we just applaud anyone who disdains racism and candidly discusses white privilege?

Part of the problem is that despite his apparent goal of a nuanced, modern discussion, Menning holds up an easy stereotype of prejudice. In his video, he’s the lanky, lucid New York hipster versus the bellowing, finger-jabbing, middle-aged Rush Limbaugh type.

I wish racist attitudes were really that easy to indicate and externalize.

Listening to Menning, I hear that a world dominated by one race is a pretty poisonous proposition – at the same time that he perpetuates an image of an all-white professional and social world.

“He probably sees me as someone he’d like to hang out with in some capacity,” Menning says of all those white male interviewers.

Yes, statistics tell us that you won’t find non-white, non-male managers in every building. But given my experience as journalist, in which I’ve interviewed many non-white (and female) executives, directors and researchers in fields from medicine to filmmaking, I’m surprised that Menning’s work experience has been so racially limited – especially since we’re both in major mid-Atlantic cities.

Menning recognizes his shortcomings. “My attitudes toward other people are largely affected by how much interaction I’ve had with them,” he says. “I can see my own ignorance. It’s not actually that hard.”

The trouble is, I don’t think you should rest on your laurels (or pontificate) for simply realizing that your attitude towards people of other races is affected by how little time you spend with them, patting yourself on the back for admitting what you don’t know and easily landing all those plum jobs in the meantime.

I know times are tough. But, “fellow white people,” you don’t have to work in a place where you sense that accolades come easily because of your white skin.

When a colleague’s boss once advised me to remove my married name, “Mabaso,” from my resume because hiring managers would assume I was black and throw my application in the trash, my first response was why would I want to work for someone who would trash a person’s resume just because of his or her race?

To borrow Menning’s phrase, “It’s not that hard” to get out of your own head and live an inclusive life in the 21st century.

I choose diversity in my professional life by writing for publications which hire and feature all voices – not just white male ones – where I can pitch stories that feature these voices.

And if you really haven’t got friends or family members of a different race (the 2010 US Census found that 10 percent of hetero married couples – a stat that grew 28% in the last decade – are interracial or interethnic, and 18 percent of non-married hetero partners and 21 percent of gay unmarried partners are interracial/interethnic) I honestly wonder what century you’re in.

My sister-in-law and I. The world has gone global. Get over it.

My sister-in-law and I. The world has gone global. Get over it.

Of course the world needs more racial harmony.  But it’s not the anomaly that Menning implies it is. And recognizing your privilege, or simply noticing, as Menning puts it, that “there are people of every race, gender and class all around me,” should not be a goal in itself. It should be the first step in the active work of not just noticing others, but understanding them.

Does that mean Menning’s points about white privilege aren’t worthwhile, that he isn’t a cool smart guy, or that I’m always aware of my own white privilege?

No.

He comes from his own perspective.  This is my take. No-one can make a comprehensive or “definitive” survey of racial problems in one web post – especially if he or she is white.

“So white people, this Black History Month, instead of wondering why black people get their own history month, let’s just take a little time to reflect on how good it is to be white,” Menning finishes, while text flashes on the bottom of the screen: “Clarification: How good we have it. NOT how good we are.”

Or, instead of generating another white-initiated, white-centered discussion about thoughts and attitudes instead of action (“Black History Month for White People”), ignore the dolts who whine about Black History Month, be they Limbaugh or the hot girl down the hall, and just appreciate some black history, preferably more than one month out of the year.

What do you think?

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Posted in Challenges of the Modern World, Pompous Philosophizing | 5 Comments »

Make ‘Em Cry Scriptwriting with Julian Fellowes; or, Why I Love Carson

February 20, 2013

DowntonAbbey1

Alright. Wipe your eyes. It’s not too soon to discuss this.

“You know this is a soap opera, right?” my husband Lala said that time he watched five minutes of Masterpiece Theater’s “Downton Abbey.”

“Yes,” I said.

Sometimes my South African husband calls British period dramas “racist” just because they’re wall-to-wall white people. I used to protest, but then again, that was pretty much the same reason I scoffed at the 2012 Republican National Convention.

But Lala says it’s ok because these dramas – also known as “your English crap” – are my heritage. He’s right – my mom’s dad’s family is British and many of my distant relatives live in England today.

I won’t lie – I haven’t missed an episode of the entire series (written by Julian Fellowes), whose season three finale just aired in the US a few days ago.

For the uninitiated, the show is about the fictional Earl of Grantham and his family and staff, who live on a massive estate in early 20th-century Yorkshire. The story follows the insufferable entitlements, infighting and romances of the noble Crawley family, and the below-decks machinations of their (mostly) loyal servants. It’s worth watching just for the glorious costumes.

I’m going to continue now; if you’re not familiar with the show, I will neither entreat you to watch nor explain the plot and characters further – feel free to ditch this post if you haven’t already, and come back next time (I promise the blog isn’t becoming a TV rehash zone).

Does anyone else wish that Mr. Swire had kept his money in the family? I really would have enjoyed watching the Crawleys sell out and move to a smaller house, which, as Lord Grantham dolefully points out, would require a staff of just eight.

Imagine living with only eight servants.

The fact that I actually felt sorry for Lord Grantham is the biggest reason I hate to love Downton Abbey.

Besides, as the Crawleys bemoaned the imminent loss of their ancestral home, wondering what their identity could possibly amount to without Downton Abbey, I couldn’t help thinking that if their home is an abbey, it’s only belonged to Lord Grantham’s forebears since Henry VIII dismantled England’s Catholic institutions to enrich himself and his allies. Talk about rightful ownership.

Season three had a goodly shock for us midway through, when we lost the saint-like Lady Sybil to eclampsia. She was mourned as one of Downton Abbey’s best-loved characters, but to me, she was also one of the least interesting.

Lady Sybil

I understand about actors departing and all, but Sybil’s dabbling in progressive politics had been eclipsed by her chaste, patient and wholly disinterested romance (disinterested in the Austen sense, you know what I mean), and then Tom Branson joined the Crawley fold without bloodshed. Other than that scandalous Aladdin-pants incident, Sybil was goodness itself, and the only other drama her character could conceivably create (no pun intended) was to die in childbirth.

Besides, if you ask me, Anna Bates has the steady, uncomplicated angel vibe covered, along with her limping, faithful, crinkly-eyed husband.  In a true soap opera, there’s only so much room for these types.

Now blow your nose – we’re coming to it.

All of Edith’s lovers are desperately affable yet unavailable middle-aged men. But have you noticed that everyone who hits the sheets with Mary ends up dead?

Yes, Matthew survives WWI and the Spanish flu, recovers from paralysis and (surely worst of all) the threat of inheriting a smaller house with only eight servants, only to die in a freak car accident just after his wife gives birth to a son.

Hearts stopped all over the world as season three ended with a wide-eyed Matthew crushed beneath his car, blood pooling out of his ear.

Hanging was too good for Fellowes.

Women expressed grief at Matthew’s death as if he was a real person – except worse, because with real grief, much as we’d often like to lay blame somewhere, even if it’s God, there’s really no point when it comes to truly coping with death. But in this case, we can rail against actor Dan Stevens, who refused to renew his contract for the tacked-on season four, or writer Julian Fellowes, who (perhaps in a fit of pique over losing this golden boy) devised a graceless, gruesome death as clichéd as it was shocking.

I’ve been doing my best to process this in the twenty-four hours since I watched the episode, and you may hate me for this, but I think it’s the Sybil syndrome all over again.

Yes, Matthew’s blue eyes were more beautiful than glaciers lost to global warming, and his voluminous blond bangs were so well-sculpted that Alfred, had his arm grown tired, could’ve rested a dish of hollandaise sauce on them. But the only thing bigger than Matthew’s torch for Mary was his moral fortitude. Now that the whole thing with Lavinia and the inheritance was put to rest, how much blissful connubial nuzzling could one audience take?

Many people knew some kind of demise for Matthew was in the works. News had broken of the actor leaving the series before the final episode aired in the US, but I was totally out of the loop.

I still knew Matthew was going to bite the dust, though.

The first clue was the end of the penultimate episode of season three. Lord Grantham joyously embraces his two sons-in-law on the cricket green in a closing scene more sticky and golden than the jar of honey in my cabinet.

Fellowes couldn’t have spelled it out any clearer: he was about to break our hearts.

The second clue was Matthew’s season three dialogue.

When Matthew wasn’t declaring his undying love for his wife every time they turned back the sheets, he was sticking up for Edith, Tom, the whole Downton estate, and that new floozy, Cousin Rose.

When Mary gave birth to a son, Matthew was so happy he felt as if he’d “swallowed a box of fireworks.”

Some commentators argued that Fellowes punished Dan Stevens with the nature of Matthew’s death because the actor had the gall to leave the hit show. But if the writer really was trying to stick it to Stevens, I think the best evidence is the truckload of sappy lines that characterized Matthew in season three.

Fellowes knew that such a stream of unadulterated goodness and progressive wisdom could only be matched by our tears.

But I’m willing to forgive him, because of my favorite moment in the final episode.

“Downton is safe,” Mary sighs as she cradles the estate’s new heir. The entire family is likewise in raptures because her baby doesn’t have a vagina. But Carson, the butler, a terminal traditionalist and the biggest snob in the building, loves Mary so much that when he gets news of the birth by phone, he’s the only one in town who completely forgets to ask if it was a boy or a girl.

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Posted in Expounding on Film | 10 Comments »

The Big Dead Goldfish Dilemma

February 19, 2013
Do fish go to heaven?

Do fish go to heaven?

Not every Princess’s passing makes the news.

She cost just a few cents when I bought her – a tiny orange dart. My youngest sister-in-law, whose own middle name is Princess, became especially fond of the fish and named it after herself.

Princess (on the right in the blog header photo) grew quickly. She outgrew all my nets. At about a foot in length, she was the size of a hearty lake trout. We fried smaller fish for dinner when we went surf fishing on the Jersey shore. When I leaned over the tank to feed her and her companions, she splashed my face like a cheeky dolphin.

Princess in her younger days.

Princess in her younger days.

About two years ago, she was partially responsible for what I called the spawning of a new era, and I have been parenting her fry ever since.

Princess's fry.

Princess’s fry.

She was the biggest, fastest, greediest fish in the tank – until one day last fall, when she suddenly seemed a little lethargic. The next day, she wasn’t interested in her food. I wasn’t too worried, having nursed her through a couple ailments in the past, including a quick bout of ick and some fin and tail rot. I added a natural antibacterial remedy to the tank.

The next morning, she was dead.

In all my years of fish-keeping, I’ve never seen a fish go down so fast. Princess should have lived many more years. I have no idea what she had, but whatever it was, it didn’t seem to affect any of the other fish.

I’m not immune to grief over my goldfish, who usually survive a couple years at least (my two oldest have been with me since college). All pets, however small, should be a genuine commitment, and I hate to lose them.

In the past, when my own fish have floated, I’ve made do with a quick flush, a tender wrapping and a trip to the dumpster, or a hasty burial, all with a fond word of farewell.

But I never lost a fish as large as Princess before.

As a practical matter, flushing was totally out of the question. And such was my fondness for Princess that I couldn’t countenance tossing her in the trash. But burial posed its own problems. We live in an apartment complex and have no front yard to speak of – just a concrete porch, parking lot, sidewalk and street.

I could have installed Princess in a large shoebox and taken her to the public park across the road – but what would the neighbors think, if they saw me digging a hole in the grass big enough to lay Princess to rest? I don’t even own a shovel.

And what if a passing Labrador retriever took too keen an interest?

Mom said next time I visit, I can haul the body across state lines and bury it in my parents’ yard. But my preference for travel by train is a problem. I doubt Amtrak counts a medium-size dead fish among approved luggage items.

To complicate matters, my sister-in-law, who was out of the country at the time of Princess’s demise, also grieved the fish and asked us not to dispose of the body until she could pay her respects.

Finally, in a textbook failure to cope with the situation, I put the poor fish in a gallon-sized plastic Ziploc bag and stashed her on the door of our freezer, next to a bag of sweet corn and an ice pack for my plantar fasciitis.

And there Princess remains, still eyeing me reproachfully every time I reach for some French-cut beans or a Popsicle.

If ever there was a first-world problem, it’s what to do with an oversized dead goldfish. But that doesn’t make me feel any better. So I’m taking to the blog.

What should I do?

Princess, almost two years ago.

Princess, almost two years ago.

For the touching conclusion to this story, check out Part 2: Princess at Rest.

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Posted in Animals, The Goldfish Fry Saga | 20 Comments »

Lending a Hand To Disaster

February 17, 2013
Our parking lot after Hurricane Sandy: I noticed something strange in the leaves.

The morning after Hurricane Sandy hit Philadelphia, I noticed something  strange in the leaves that coated the parking lot.

I was still the new girl in the 15th-floor center city office when the Digital Integration Specialist stuck his head into my cubicle.

“Fire drill today at ten o’clock,” he said.

I was oddly pleased to carry this ritual of my elementary school days into my career – the welcome break from the day’s work, the shuffling in line through the hallways with our ears plugged against the alarm, the waiting on the grounds while our teachers counted us, and the knowledge that should disaster befall the school, we’d know what to do.

But about ten minutes before ten o’clock, everyone in the offices and cubicles around me began putting on coats.

The assistant account executive on my left explained. Fire drills happen every six months, and since the elevators are out of service during the drill, instead of walking down fifteen flights of stairs, everyone flocks to the elevators and goes out for coffee about ten minutes beforehand.

Once we crowded into the hallway outside the office suite, the company president took charge of loading the elevators. After I stepped out of the building and crossed the street, I watched the entrance, which was teeming like a flooded anthill. Twenty floors of office dwellers had done exactly what we had. Soon the faint, totally unheeded screech of the fire alarms could be heard over the noise of the city.

After the fire drill (such as it was) concluded and the workers crowded back into the elevators, I stayed behind to ask the concierge about it.

He said that he is a former fire marshal, and he shook his head with helpless, long-lived frustration at our response to the drills.

He explained that they have actually made some recent progress by setting the alarms to ring throughout the exercise, as the firefighters check each floor. Previously, office workers would refuse to interrupt their work for the drills, and simply stay at their desks throughout. Now, the prolonged, ear-shattering noise drives them out.

Once I returned to my floor, I asked our office manager what he thought of our studious avoidance.

He shrugged and eyed me with what could have been a hint of annoyance. “I think anyone who’s sane would make sure to go down in the elevator,” he said.

I wondered how sane we’d all feel if a fire we explicitly refused to prepare for caught us in the middle of a meeting.

But sometimes, one man’s disaster preparedness is another man’s disaster.

As Hurricane Sandy approached last fall, my apartment complex’s superintendent was determined to protect the four-story building he manages. According to one of my neighbors, he noticed a tiny old chimney of sorts in the building’s roof and worried that the rain would get in. So, as tree-snapping winds approached, he chained a ten-pound metal gym barbell to a piece of wood and used the contraption to block the hole in the roof.

This storm is no match for a ten-pound weight...right?

A storm like this is no match for a ten-pound weight…right?

The weight flew right off the roof on the wings of the storm, and demolished the windshield of a car belonging to a resident who is handicapped. The hurricane blasted into her vehicle all night, filling the interior with broken glass and soaking the dashboard, before the accident was discovered. I’m very sorry my neighbor’s car got smashed. But I’m thrilled that the weight hit an empty car, and not any of the people, including my husband and me, who frequent that parking lot in all weathers.

I’d hazard a guess that disasters are defined by our perennial unwillingness to anticipate them in any reasonable way.

In 2011, my computer crashed, and I lost a majority of my files.  I wept with rage. But had I anticipated this fairly common occurrence by backing up all my documents, the crash would have been an inconvenience instead of a crisis.

I know – it’s crass to compare the loss of my files to something like a tsunami or a tornado. And of course, many true disasters are wholly unpredictable. But if my former office building were to catch fire, the episode would hardly be called a calamity if well-practiced staffers filed quickly and calmly out the door. If panic and ill-informed escape routes led to injuries or deaths, it would be a different story.

Having totally failed to visualize the reality of hurricane-force winds, my superintendent’s notion of preparedness was placing an unfastened barbell on the roof. My subsequent sense of intellectual superiority probably could have powered my fridge, had my electricity gone out (I’m convinced it didn’t because of my ready stash of batteries, flashlights, charged gadgets, water and non-perishable food). But when I followed everyone else in the office to exit the building by elevator ten minutes before the fire drill, did that add up to a smarter way to prepare for disaster?

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Posted in My Worst Fears | 2 Comments »

Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off: The Case Against Weddings.

February 1, 2013
My own wedding reception, in July of 2007.

My own wedding reception, in July of 2007.

I’ve got an idea.

High school and college freshmen should all get a party. The night before their first classes, they should celebrate with a big cake, gifts and gift-cards, toasts and a dance party for all their friends. Their intention to finish their diploma or degree merits a big bash.

And why should anyone have to wait until they’re 65 to enjoy the professional accolades of all their friends and colleagues over a catered dinner and plenty of cocktails? If they intend to give a career their best shot, we should encourage them with a lavish celebration before their first day on the job.

If all that actually sounds foolish to you, then why don’t extravagant weddings seem equally unwise?

I don’t want to minimize the boundless suffering of badly-clad bridesmaids, slighted mothers-in-law, and the aftermath of champagne-induced sexual debaucheries.  But a recent New York Times article examines one of the true plagues engendered by our cultural wedding fetish. It’s called “Married to the Plan. Still Looking for a Possible Groom.” It’s about young American women who have their weddings planned all the way down the napkins – even though they don’t even have a boyfriend.

In a stroke of truly incisive and creative reporting, this NYT piece reveals that there are drawbacks to planning your wedding as if the groom is a last-minute prop stitched into a tux.

“First, what some single women imagine may not be feasible and may actually be a waste of effort,” writer Alyson Krueger explains.  She turns to the owner of a wedding trade show company, who says that brides, for example, might dream of guests sipping pumpkin soup. But then, if they get married in, say, Miami, in, say, February, the chef might announce, “I know you love pumpkin soup, but it’s not in season right now.”

Horrors.

“Another problem [as bad as the soup debacle, d’you think?] is the not-quite-bride is not taking into account a future partner and what his needs and considerations might be.”

The trade-show maven goes on.

“‘Even though you have all these ideas and you’ve done your homework and you are prepared as a single girl,’ she said, ‘you have to understand that marriage is a union and you have to take your other half into consideration.’”

But the single girls obsessed with their as-yet-unscheduled weddings weren’t worried.

As one woman explained, “if she met someone she wanted to marry, she doesn’t think his input would matter.”

Krueger does her homework and quotes a clinical psychologist:

“‘I think for anybody it’s much easier to plan a wedding than it is to form a meaningful relationship that is going to lead to a fulfilling marriage.’”

Stop the world, I want to get off.

Not only are women spending untold hours of their lives planning weddings to non-existent grooms. The New York Times finds it necessary to inform us that this one-sided, superficial obsession does not prepare anyone for a real partnership.

I’d like to shake the hand of whoever came up with that angle. I mean, really, thank God for clear-eyed psychologists.

Image from Postsecret.

Image from Postsecret.

It seems to me that lavish weddings are an irresistible incentive for people who have no business embarking on a lifelong emotional, sexual, reproductive, practical and financial partnership.

Imagine a world of marriages, but no weddings.

We would have been spared the whole Kim Kardashian/Kris Humphries fiasco: without the promise of a televised fairy-tale netting millions, these two probably would have forgotten the meaning of the word “marriage” altogether.

Picture it: no Katy Perry/Russell Brand shambles. The world was a grayer place when we all learned that two elephants on a red carpet at a luxe Indian resort does not a marriage make. No acres of tabloids speculating on the wedding of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, when they already have forty-two children together. No millions of pounds for security measures for the wedding of William and Kate when the rest of Europe is rioting over austerity measures.

True, if we abandoned big weddings, it’s not only the wedding industry that would suffer – advice columnists would see a 75% drop in their mail volume, as all those questions about bridesmaids who dare to get pregnant, guests who demand vegan dinners, and deplorably late thank-you cards would cease to exist.

But if, as the American Psychological Association says, 40-50% of all married couples in the US end up divorced, shouldn’t we consider de-incentivizing marriage itself?

My home church produces a pamphlet about the importance of marriage, and it irks me, because the picture on the cover is of a beautiful young couple in a wedding gown and a tux scampering away together on an idyllic beach.

To avoid giving the wrong impression to those who are selfish enough to believe that their future spouse should have no say in what his own wedding is like, I vote for a different wedding pamphlet image.

I could volunteer the image of my husband and me on the morning we had to get up together before dawn so that we could both go to the insurance-mandated mechanic to hand over our totaled car and sign for a supremely ugly rental before we had to be at work. Or the time my husband got raging tonsillitis while we were on our only vacation of the year. Or the time we bought a couch and then realized it wouldn’t fit in the narrow, angled stairwell to our second-floor apartment.

Sorry, you dewy-eyed lovers, but once the last dance is over, the last congealed canapé is scraped into the caterer’s trash bags, and that new Waterford crystal pitcher is stashed in the closet, that’s marriage.

Did I say I regret it? Of course not. I love my husband and we’ve had many good times. But as the years go by, from coping with grief together to disputes over household chores, marriage can be a mammoth challenge.

And I worry that legions of young people are getting duped into it because of lifelong bridal-gown fantasies.

from Postsecret.

from Postsecret.

I don’t want to you think that my own wedding wasn’t lovely. I argued with my mom about the live goldfish centerpieces, the outdoor July ceremony was wiltingly hot, and I didn’t have time to eat anything during the reception, but it was a wonderful day.

However, it seems that the only thing to match our culture’s divorce rate is our obsession with weddings. At what other time do we lavishly reward people for beginning what is meant to be a difficult lifelong endeavor? (Baby showers, maybe, but giving birth is an even bigger commitment than getting married – you can’t divorce your child and pick a new one.)

The problem with weddings is that they affirm the easiest part of your union (no, that consuming drama over what kind of shrimp you’ll serve or whose estranged aunt should be excluded from the list does not mark the most stressful time of your relationship). You’re young (for the most part – I do realize a greater number of folks are getting married later in life) and you may still be in the giddy infatuation phase of your relationship, when you just can’t get enough of each other. And this – when it all looks so simple and rosy – is when we launch websites to showcase our romance (and disseminate material wish-lists), and spend ourselves into oblivion so all our friends can bear witness to the fantasy.

Maybe we should clear away the sequined gowns, the cummerbunds, the towering cakes with their tasteless marzipan mortar, the lavish gift registries, and the rented parquet, and let marriage stand for what it truly is.

I know many folks from my own family’s church and maybe yours would protest that the beginning of a marriage should be marked with public celebrations, to uphold the value of marriage and help others aspire to it.

But it seems to me that the US at least is already rife with incentives to marry. In fact, countless government benefits bestowed on married couples are a major reason that American gays are still truly second-class citizens in a majority of states.

From taxes, immigration and insurance to inheritance and adoption proceedings, government, social and business policies often favor married couples and their children.

Do we really need fancy weddings, too?

I’m in my late twenties, so of course our fridge is dotted with save-the-date magnets, and I’m happy for my friends. But I’d love to go to a big party for a couple who married modestly and then successfully weathered ten, fifteen, or twenty-five years together. I’d like to toast their love, and, instead of listening to speeches about how much they will mean to each other all their lives (fingers crossed), applaud what the couple has actually achieved and the example they’ve set.

But the reality of marriage is not nearly as sexy and romantic as what we imagine over a new diamond ring. So I fear we’ll continue to wallow in weddings, and hope the rest works out.

Have you been to a wedding (or watched a marriage) that convinced you, one way or the other?

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Posted in Challenges of the Modern World, Pompous Philosophizing, The Joys of Marriage | 24 Comments »

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