Pity the Reporters (Seriously)

The press blitz fascinates me. By "press blitz", I mean my email box. And my unlisted cell phone's voice mail. As I just posted to the Book of Faces, disaster reporting, like nature, abhors a vacuum. No one's been tap dancing on-camera about victims, and the media's gone batshit crazy, practically begging casual acquaintances to come forward and sate the voracious thirst. Reporters hate doing this - they well understand that everyone's grieving - but it's their job. Gotta feed the machine.

It would be easy, especially if I were more closely linked to victims, to label these reporters as vultures (in fact, I myself used the term "vulturish" somewhere around here today). But the fact is, these guys are plainly mortified about doing what their job compels them to do today. Here's a representative example, nearly heartbreaking if you read between the lines:

Jim,

I have the sorry job of trying to explain to an inquiring world who Nancy Lanza was, and what happened with her son. I loved the story you told on your blog, and would like to join the queue of those who'd like to speak with you.


regards,

[withheld]

It obviously sucks to be them now. In the world of drugs, the poor coca farmers are only responding to a voracious, unrelenting demand. Same with the poor reporters. The vultures are us. Those guys are just scrambling to deliver our fix.

I've started writing more sympathetic kiss-off responses. I'm really afraid some of these people are on the verge of cracking. Can someone get them some coffee and blankets or something?

No Further Comment (and the need for slack)

Dear Media,

It was naive of me to figure I could offer a quiet little remembrance here on my sleepy little slog in the midst of a highly competitive reportorial frenzy where journalists are desperately scurrying for any nugget of info they can find.

As I stated in my piece, I didn't know Nancy well. In fact, what I said was pretty much all I've got to say. She's a friend-of-friends who I periodically would briefly bump into, and who always seemed kind-hearted...and, yes, a bit high-strung. But with ample reason, as it turns out.

That was actually the main reason I shared the story. There's a lesson I keep needing to relearn: one never knows what people are dealing with in their private lives. During my Chowhound years, I was highly stressed, and people who didn't understand this may have concluded that I'm naturally anxious or uptight. So I shouldn't need to be constantly retaught that I ought to give people lots of slack. We all ought to give people lots of slack! You never know what someone's quietly putting up with.

But back to the media frenzy thing...I've dumped everything I've got. It's not for me to speak up and be the person who paints the picture of who Nancy Lanza was. Perhaps someone who knew her a lot better than I did will step up. Lord knows every reporter from here to jabip is trying to scratch their way to that person. But the truth is, no one who really knew and loved her is going to be speaking out at length so soon after this (insert weary aside about the vulturishness of the 24 hour news cycle here)

But since I'm not that guy, I have no further comment. So please, reporters, if you're reading this, don't waste time by emailing or calling me.

Support Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

If you're in the habit of giving support to victims of tragedies, but feel stymied because the Red Cross has nothing physical to rescue or rebuild in Connecticut, please consider sending a nice fat check to Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

These guys are not right-wing or left-wing. And they're not trying to take anyone's hunting rifles away from them. This organization, named for Ronald Reagan's stricken press secretary, is just a voice for sanity.

If you're into guns and hunting and all that, I'd suggest that it's extra incumbent on you to support efforts to stave off violent scenarios you'd certainly never defend, by imposing grown-up limits on gun ownership. With the power of firearms and the freedom to buy them comes a responsibility to diligently help stave off depraved results.

I can't understand why events like yesterday's only make the NRA more strident and more extreme. They should be investing millions into organizations like Brady's while lobbying for the rights of responsible owners. That's the sort of conscientious approach I'd expect from Americans defending a right out of principle, and who share my horror at the thought of dozens of helpless kindergarden kids shot to death (or of the many underprivileged neighborhoods in this country whose inhabitants are terrified to walk the streets for fear of gun violence).

Personal Thoughts on Newtown

Nancy Lanza, mother of the gunman and his first victim this morning, was a lovely person. I have friends in the area (all of whom were good friends of hers), and am around there a lot (in fact, I was there just last night, when the town was characteristically peaceful). I didn't know her well, but one memory keeps replaying tonight.

A mutual friend was in trouble, and I'd driven up to Newtown to discuss a loan. It wasn't for a ton of money, but more than just a few bucks. We discussed drawing up a letter of agreement, and that I'd hold the title to his little sailboat as collateral. Nancy overheard the discussion, and, unblinkingly, told him she'd just write him a check then and there. While I'm far from the most generous guy in the world, it's not often that I feel stingy. But I learned something from that. I should have just written him the check. She was right.

I never really befriended Nancy, though we exchanged greetings whenever we crossed paths. What held me back was my impression that she was a little high-strung. But now that I've been filled in by friends about how difficult her troubled son (the shooter) was making things for her, I understand that it wasn't that Nancy was overwrought about the trivialities of everyday life, but that she was handling a very difficult situation with uncommon grace. Plus, she was a big fan of my trombone playing. My next jazz solo's for you, Nancy.

Other scattered thoughts:

Whenever the press reports on something I'm familiar with or close to, it's painfully obvious how much they get wrong. I've been hearing nonsense from major media all day. The info I received via text message from friends early today was much higher quality than press reporting even hours later.

Speaking of which, if I read one more report about the shooting in "suburban Connecticut", I'll scream. This is a small town, not a suburb. It is, in fact, pretty much the Platonic form of a small town - which makes the events that much more horrific.

I'm in favor of gun control, but as a devout civil libertarian, I'm susceptible to the guns-don't-kill-people-people-kill-people argument. I want the government to exercise extreme restraint in determining what's too dangerous for people to do or to own. But, y'know, we (quite properly) don't allow people to own anti-aircraft guns, or tanks, or lots of other deadly instruments, though that same argument could apply. And while I understand the slippery slope perils of government intervention, human beings are just too damned crazy for guns to be so freely and easily available.

Finally, it really infuriates me to hear right wingers, at times like this, insist that "this is not the time to discuss gun control". I remember how, during the worst of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Mitch McConnell said the same thing: this is not the time to discuss regulating deep water drilling. Was September, 2001, not the time to discuss counterattacks on al-Qaeda? Was Katrina not the time to discuss levee engineering in Louisiana? I respect those whose opinions on guns differ from mine. But people taking this particular tack are loathsome.

Postcards From My Childhood Part 5: The Strong Drunk

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"The child is the father of the man", they say. Surprisingly, I understood this even as a child. And so I willfully sent forward to my elder self some thoughts and images which I knew would be helpful, and which I suspected I'd otherwise forget.


When I was 16, I took the train into Manhattan for my weekly trombone lessons in a claustrophobic little music studio near scary Times Square. This was 1978, the era of unending strikes, racial unrest, corruption, budget defaults, crumbling infrastructure and rampant muggings and car thefts. When it came out in 1981, the sci-fi film "Escape From New York" didn't seem like so huge a stretch.

So I picked up a book about "urban survival", which turned out to be pretty silly, though highly amusing. But it did contain one insight which I've retained. In the chapter about surviving bar fights, it explained that drunk people are sluggish and clumsy, so it's easy to outrun or outmaneuver them. But if they ever get their hands firmly on you, watch out, because drunks are stronger than sober people.

I've never been in a bar fight, but the image of the strong drunk has become a touchstone for me. Time and again I've found myself confronting people (or institutions) functioning as Strong Drunks, and who therefore needed to be finessed or adroitly outmaneuvered. The mantra is: don't ever let them get you in their clutches!

Cops, for example, are strong drunks. If a policeman decides, rightly or wrongly, that you're on the wrong team, and has you within his grasp, you will be out of options. There's ample maneuvering room in defusing that determination, but if it goes the wrong way, and you're within their range, you'll find yourself utterly powerless.

Cockroaches are the opposite. A roach can't hold or harm you...but they hide well and they run fast. If you manage to catch one, it can be effortlessly stamped out, but there are always more of them craftily evading you, and you can't do much about it. To a cockroach, you are the strong drunk.


Read the next installment

Jerry Seinfeld's Tiny Masterpieces

One theme of this Slog is the joy of lavishing effort on small - or even publicly invisible - creations. For example, I wrote the following in my explanation of JD Salinger:

"What makes me happy...is writing well and playing music well. Period. "Full stop", as the British say.

My most cherished moments have been spent embroiled in the creative process. After that comes only problems. I detest having to find channels for my output; the touchy ritual of petitioning unhip, haughty gatekeepers. And then there's the issue of reaction. While I'm pleased when my work happens to be appreciated, I understand that the active pursuit of acclaim is a house of mirrors.

Creative people quickly learn to expect a zany mix of zealously wrongheaded admiration and flat out rejection in response to their work. And the killer is that success rarely correlates with quality. So one must labor within a madness-making, completely erratic feedback system (it's worth noting that lab animals become mortally stressed when reward and punishment are randomly meted out). There's no predicting or controlling how your work will be perceived - or whether it will be perceived at all. Those lucky few who attain some perspective on it all (usually via great success or failure) quickly realize that it's foolhardy to stake one's self worth on an uncontrollable, capricious system. Far better to just do the best work one can, and let chips fall where they will.

Of course that's not how you build a career. That's not how you get your playing heard and your writing read. That's not how you cultivate contacts and build a following. That's not how you "become somebody". And such things can hardly be disregarded if you aim to live off your creative work. That's why I deeply respect artists like Charles Ives, who plied a humdrum day job so he could compose in the spirit of pure creation."

As commenters pointed out, Salinger was far from the only person who reached the same conclusion. For example, there were John Hughes, Bill Whithers, Sam Shephard, and Irving Rosenthal. And we can now add, of all people, Jerry Seinfeld, who's created a superb series of heartfelt little web videos titled "Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee". This is about as small as things can get and still be visible: humble concept, tiny crew, minimal production values, short length, no marketing whatsoever, all playing out on a site nobody's ever heard of. They're just hovering out there - rhapsodies in small awaiting discovery.

There's nothing conspicuously impressive. These quietly personal little films are funny, but not guffaw-inducing. Yet they somehow stick with you - none more than the Carl Reiner episode, where it's revealed, over coffee, that Mel Brooks comes over Reiner's house each night to watch TV. Seinfeld asks if he can join in, and the result is as amusing as you'd expect, but also unforgettably touching - and it offers a glimpse of something rarely caught on film.

The sole dud is the Ricky Gervais episode, which never quite sparks. Aside from that, I'd strongly recommend them all, including the "spare parts". Jerry Seinfeld may not be the warmest guy in the world; any remnants of his heart were long ago dry cleaned from his sleeve. But he loves cars and he loves comedians, so he went from there, bravely resisting any impulse to biz it up, or to even need have people watching it. He just did it. And it's beautiful.

Not Getting Pushed in Subways

Regarding that poor Queens guy who was pushed onto the subway tracks....

There were a rash of these in the 1980's, so I trained myself to be conscious of my center of gravity while on subway platforms, and to lean ever-so-slightly away from the track at all times, even when I'm not close to the edge. I still do this.

Studying judo as a kid, I learned that you can't move another body very far via brute strength (consider how tough it is to move a corpse). You can only disrupt someone's center of gravity, so they move themselves as they flail to recover balance. So small balance adjustments can yield large defensive benefits.

I'm not saying that by planting feet and leaning imperceptibly away from tracks you'll become utterly impervious. But, as any martial artist will attest, this small move makes you much, much harder to push. Surprisingly so. Furthermore, in so doing you send a signal which others unconsciously pick up on: You seem less pushable (as, indeed, you are.)

Another example of an unconscious signal: if you're walking in a busy area and someone's aggressively walking straight toward you, and there's no way for you to easily/safely get out of the way, slow down a little. The other person will be unconsciously compelled to walk around you (please wield this trick only for defensive purposes!).

World's Greatest Quote

"We are here on Earth to help others. What the others are here for, I’ve no idea."

- W.H. Auden (as quoted by John Lloyd)

iPhone/iPad App Tips

Fantastical is a new iOs app, just released. I'm a big fan of their Mac app, and this one shows the same slick functionality. Basically, it replaces your Calendar app. You type (or, if you have recent hardware, dictate) something like "Lunch with Joe on thurs at 1", and it creates a "Lunch with Joe" calendar entry perfectly configured for the correct time and date. This is how Apple's Calendar should work, but doesn't, and for $1.99 you can fix that (twice the price if you wait; this is a special launch pricing). The interface is a joy to use. Just get it (here's a review).

If you don't have Siri, you ought to know that a recent update of the free Google iPhone app adds powerful voice control. Ask it when Tom's Diner in Mamaroneck closes today, or what time Skyfall's playing near you (btw, here's some Internet dude making a plausible case that Bond died at the beginning of the film, making the entire Bond series a dream) or what "fecund" means, and you'll not just get search results but an actual out-loud voice answer. It's great for driving. And, actually, it's worth using even if you do have Siri, as several web demonstrations show that Google's comprehension is keener.

Downcast is a much better podcast manager than the incredibly buggy native iOs app. It's worth $1.99 if you have even a nodding interest in podcasts (and if you don't, you should. Check out The Tobolowsky Files, Radio Lab, Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, Alec Baldwin's "Here's the Thing", Elvis Mitchell's "The Treatment", The Nerdist or WTF with Marc Maron for starters).

Flow Free is an awesome addictive game. It's hard to describe, but the best way to check it (or any iOs game) out is via video demo. FWIW I dislike their follow-up game, "Flow Free Bridges".

Other games I love: "AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!" (an adrenalin-pumping base jumper game that's so clever and funny; so meticulously crafted); Dark Meadow, a droll horror adventure with great ambiance, loosely based on the mind-blowing Bio Shock (which, by the way, is a must-play for your Mac). And anything at all by Pangea, whose games look juvenile in screenshots, but play like crafted treasures. I also love Osmos and MiniSquardron.

You probably figure viewing Wikipedia via web browser is more than good enough. No. It's not. Believe me, I understand the reluctance to have separate apps for every damn thing, but Wikipanion just makes Wikipedia so vastly more surf-able and enjoyable (not to mention bookmark-able). Unlikely though it sounds, it's one of my most-used apps. And it's free for both iPhone and iPad versions.

iPhone cameras are poor at photographing documents, signs...anything flat and hard-angled and informative. I use Scanner Pro for that stuff. Among other things, it makes my collection of takeout menus in Evernote that much more readable.

The big, expensive dictionaries for iOs periodically go on sale. I track expensive apps like these on AppShopper, which lets me know if one of them has a price drop. For example, I scored the $29 New Oxford American Dictionary for a mere 99 cents. AppShopper also has its own free app, making it even more convenient to monitor your wish list.

Did you miss my rave for the freebie Bongiovi DPS, which makes everything on your iPhone or iPad sound miraculously better? Or my recommendation of Hopstop to recoup the transit data stricken from iOs 6's lousy Maps app? Or my suggestions for using iPad as a laptop? Or the trick to resurrect lost browser tabs in iPad? Here are all Apple-related postings in reverse chronological order.

Hillary's Running

Hillary Clinton, yesterday (as quoted in Haaretz):

"That fragile cease-fire is holding, the skies above Israel are clear... but the world knows - and always will know - that whenever Israel is threatened, the U.S. will be there. What threatens Israel threatens America, what strengthens Israel, strengthens America."

I taught myself to write by dissecting other people's writing, both good and bad. In the process, I learned to decode intentions via word choice and rhythms. And to me, that quote is extraordinarily revealing. The first sentence is a good, crisp bit of diplomat-speak, burnished and conveying the requisite clarity. Nothing further was needed; the communication was effective, and complete. Done. Nailed it!

But the second sentence was a graft-on, and the clumsy, greasy thumbprints weren't even wiped away. It's patently redundant, and bears a jarringly different tone. That's no longer the voice of the Secretary of State, it's someone else - someone shamelessly political. And it doesn't present itself as a mild thrust of political option bolstering. Rather, it's a full, headlong, cheesy, sanctimonious lunge, to the point of overreach. It is, in other words, a classic example of Hillary Clinton's distinctive campaigning style.

And I'm definitely not a fan.