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Legacy of a Photo
Tatjana Soli April 30, 2010 | 3 4 min read
Modern wars are remembered in images, from Robert Capa's Falling Soldier during the Spanish Civil War to Joe Rosenthal's Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima during WWII, to the more recent pictures in Iraq of prisoners at Abu Ghraib or Stephanie Sinclair's photo of a dead Iraqi girl. These are images so powerful that the seer will forever remember the moment she first encountered them. They transcend being worth a thousand words; they are concrete facts of war that are impossible to ignore or dismiss. But on the thirty-fifth anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the war in which images had the greatest impact on public opinion is still Vietnam.
One harrowing photograph, popularly known as Napalm Girl, was taken by AP photographer, Nick Ut on June 8, 1972, in the small village of Trang Bang and published through the AP to newspapers worldwide. Ut's picture shows Kim Phuc, aged nine, running down an empty road, burned by napalm, naked in a group of clothed children, helpless next to armed soldiers. But what is the legacy of that photo, or of any of the recent wartime pictures of Afghanistan or Iraq? Do they have a strong enough impact to raise a call to action? Or has society become desensitized, avoiding that which causes moral discomfort, or, more chillingly, have we become aesthetic consumers of such imagery?
Vietnam was the first living room war, the first war filmed in color and then in moving pictures. Yet it is still this single black-and-white photo that manages to encapsulate everything we guessed was wrong with a war. Kim Phuc's anguish assumes a religious gravitas. Although the anti-war movement had been gaining strength since the late 1960s, it went from being considered anti-American and counterculture to becoming mainstream in the early seventies, due in part to revelations of the My Lai massacre in 1969, the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, and the continuing barrage of pictures showing the devastation of innocent civilians caught in the war.
Kim Phuc's picture, taken not quite three years before the fall of Saigon, was at a period when most American troops had been withdrawn from Vietnam, during the policy of Vietnamization — handing over duties to South Vietnamese counterparts— devised by President Nixon. The napalm strike the photo records was ordered and carried out by South Vietnamese military. Does the fact that the bombs were aimed at North Vietnamese military hiding in the village, that the burned civilians were an unintended consequence, change the picture's power? Or is the horror of unintended consequences precisely the point?
The most recent pictures to bring similar public outcry were of humiliation and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Politicians said it was an isolated incident, an unintended consequence of the war. Since then, additional photos of abuse both in Afghanistan and Iraq have come to light. Congress voted to keep those new photos from the public, citing their indecency. Historically, governments have wanted portrayals of war to create public support for the sacrifices of a country's soldiers. But Vietnam reversed those expectations. Although Americans had already had a steady exposure to disturbing images of the war, from Malcolm Browne's 1963 picture of the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk, to Eddie Adams' 1968 picture of General Loan executing a Vietcong prisoner during the Tet Offensive, Kim Phuc's picture was disturbing in a different way: AP headquarters at first rejected the photo for the indecency of frontal nudity, rather than focusing on the bigger indecency of children being burned alive. Ut and head of the department, Horst Fass, argued that napalm had burned off her clothes and refused to crop the photo. Finally an exception was made because of the news value of the story. In audiotapes of conversations with his chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, President Nixon speculated if the photo was real or if it had been fixed. Nick Ut later wrote: "The horror of the Vietnam war recorded by me did not have to be fixed."
Catherine Leroy, an award-winning photojournalist who covered Vietnam, said in an interview with PDN: "We were not subjected to censorship. It was unprecedented, and it will never be repeated again. We have now entered 'the brave new world' where disinformation and censorship are being implemented and access reduced to photo opportunities." If you search the internet, you will find eloquent pictorial essays on the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but we are not bombarded with them by newspapers, magazines, and television news as during Vietnam. One has to go look for it. Admittedly, this is a thing most would prefer to look away from rather than look at, afraid of what one might find and what that might call on one to do.
Although the Chicago Tribune ran Stephanie Sinclair's photo of the dead Iraqi girl, some worried that it was too graphic, and a compromise was reached to include a story on the legacy of cluster bombs with it. According to an interview with Sinclair on Salon.com: "I found that the Iraqi civilian story was really hard to get published in U.S. publications. And I worked for many. I don't know why. I think they're looking at their readership and they think their readers want to know about American troops, since they can relate to them more. They think that's what the audience wants."
As photographers in Vietnam went from being supporters of their country to critics of their government's policies, they also faced their own ethical dilemmas. Was it enough to record the devastations of war without getting personally involved? Did that make one an accomplice? Or did one have the duty to prevent harm, bring aid? Here's what Nick Ut did. He gave water to the burned girl, and then he drove her the ten miles to a hospital. The staff, seeing the extent of her burns, put her aside to treat those who had a better chance of survival. Ut would not allow this. He used what he had. He said that he was a reporter, that he had taken her picture and that it would be famous around the world. They helped her right away, and she survived. Only then did Ut leave to go develop his film. The picture went on to win a Pulitzer and become one of the most famous photographs of all time. When Ut was debriefed later that day, he didn't mention helping a girl. In London, twenty-eight years later, Kim Phuc told the Queen: "He saved my life."
For the next three years, until the war officially ended on April 30, 1975, Nick Ut regularly visited Kim and her family. She now lives in Canada, married and with her own children. He lives in Los Angeles and is still a photographer with AP. In a recent interview with the BBC, he said she calls him Uncle Nick. They speak on the phone once a week. "We are like family now."
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Tatjana Soli is the author of The Lotus Eaters, released in April 2010. To learn more about Tatjana, the book, and her other writings, please visit www.tatjanasoli.com.
Essays Notable Articles
I've decided to reinvent The Millions
C. Max Magee May 12, 2003 | 2 min read
I've decided to reinvent The Millions. The blog world is crowded. I cannot possibly add to or improve upon the innumerable blogs out there that are about music or politics. So many of the things that I have a casual interest in are covered so obsessively in the blog world that it is hard to find something to write about in any sort of compelling way. Nor do I have much interest in cataloging my daily life. I know from experience that my life is capable of producing, tops, a paragraph or two of mildly amusing reading every few weeks, which does not a blog make. Plus, I would like to try to lure some people into reading what I write, and writing about what I ate for lunch today will likely not do the trick. As for the two of you (you know who you are) who read this blog regularly, I hope you will not be disappointed by my change away from that format. And finally, after some thinking, I have figured out what these changes will be. The Millions will be about books. For a book lover without a whole lot of free time (not to mention money) it can be very hard to consistantly find new and interesting books. To do so, in my experience, requires reading dozens of book reviews weekly and trolling book stores looking for the new and interesting (or the old and interesting). The internet improves this process slightly, mainly by cutting out some of the time required, but it offers little help in locating a book that you might like to take a look at. I have yet to find anyone that has had much luck with Amazon's recommendations. I recently realized, though, that I am singularly qualified to write a blog about books. I work in a great little book store and therefore, in pursuit of my paycheck, I see with my own eyes the hundreds of books that come out weekly and I read reviews in dozens of newspapers and magazines. Finally, I have always loved books and I have always loved telling people about books, and now I have myself a little blog that can serve both of these loves. I hope to update several times a week, if not daily, and hopefully this thing will be chock full of interesting books at all times. So there it is… it feels good to get started on this thing, and if anyone has any comments, questions or suggestions let me know.
C. Max Magee | 2 min read
I Guess It's Probably Time for A Manifesto
C. Max Magee July 7, 2003 | 4 min read
At work yesterday, after my first 15 minute coffee break, but before my 30 minute dinner break, I thought about some things. Among them was the idea that The Millions really ought to have a manifesto. A manifesto takes this messy collection of asides and non sequiturs and gives it purpose and meaning. You are no longer reading my uncollected natterings… you are reading a means. And ideally this is a means to an end. It seemed like a good idea save one problem. I'm not really a manifesto guy. They strike me as too rigid, too static. Will I adopt a manifesto and then stop delighting myself, and perhaps a few others, with the promise of a varied discussion on varied topics? On the other hand, I decided a while ago to devote the blog to books primarily, so what's another artificial restriction anyway? Plus, what if my manifesto is purely a force for good, and by devoting myself to it, I provide a service to whomever encounters this little blog. Still, that word manifesto bugs me… so maybe it's just a problem of language then. Perhaps if I think of it as a declaration, a statement of purpose, an annunciation, a mission statement… a pronunciamento if you will, perhaps then I will have less reservations about its formulation. Luckily, last night when I decided that perhaps The Millions needs a manifesto (or whatever you want to call it), a manifesto sprung fully-formed into my mind. It stems from a fact that most readers are not fully cognizant of: there is a concrete number of books that you or I will be able to read in our lifetimes. I'd say that on average, given my moderately busy lifestyle and the fact that I read the New Yorker in full each week, I am able to read approximately one book a week, and therefore, allowing for longer reading time for some of the behemoths that I occasionally undertake, about 50 a year. (n.b. I set a goal for myself to read 75 books this year, but it looks like I'll be lucky if I hit 50). So therefore, I would estimate that I have probably read about 500 real books in my life, give or take a few dozen, and assuming I live until I'm 80 (and am still able to read at such a rate), I'll read another 2750 give or take a few hundred. 3250 books may seem like a lot to read in a lifetime, but a look around the book store and you quickly realize that it is possible to read only a very small fraction of what has been written, and only a fraction of what is worth reading. Which brings me to my manifesto (or whatever), given that you and I will only be able to read a finite number of books in our lifetime, then we should try, as much as possible, to devote ourselves to reading only the ones that are worth reading, while bearing in mind that for every vapid, uninspiring book we read, we are bumping from our lifetime reading list a book that might give us a profound sort of joy.I know, heavy shit: death, obligations, the conversion of unimportant choices into important ones… that's why I wanted to keep my mouth shut. But we have to look at this the right way. I am not making the declaration that if you haven't read Dostoyevsky or Joyce, you are under some sort of moral obligation to do so. I am saying that, given the finite number of books that you will be able to read, you ought to read ones that are good for you, not so much nutritionally, but spiritually. I'm partly inspired here by the food writers that I seem to enjoy inordinately. Calvin Trillin refers in Feeding a Yen to seeking "deliciousness" wherever he can find it. He and his fellow food writers are not saying that if you don't eat at this place or eat this type of food you are doing yourself a disservice; the goal is simply deriving joy from food as often as possible, ideally at every meal. The list of foods that qualify as delicious is different for different people. Likewise the list of books is different for different people. To reiterate: this isn't about compulsory reading; this is about making sure that whatever you read will serve a purpose for you and that, as often as possible, this purpose is to bring you the curious sort of joy that only a book can. Clearly there are some problems with my manifesto, first among them being that, I need a word as good as deliciousness to describe the quality we are looking for in our books. Any suggestions???Lighter NotesMy good and old friend Hot Face has finally joined the rest of us and got himself a blog… follow his adventures if you dare. I continue to feel obligated to mention The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Alvaro Mutis at least twice a week. I do this because, more than any other book, I insist that you read this… Never have I enjoyed a book so profoundly. My excuse for mentioning it this time is that I just found an interview of Mutis in Bomb Magazine. The interview is conducted by another Latin American writer Francisco Goldman, who is an old friend of Mutis' and provides the introduction for Maqroll.The book I'm currently reading refers to this historial event that I was unaware of: "Dan White, on trial for shooting and killing San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, was convicted of manslaughter instead of first-degree murder after his lawyer raised the Twinkie Defense, the claim that Dan White's brain had been so deranged by Hostess Twinkies and other sugary junk foods that he should not be held fully responsible for his actions. Twinkies, the argument went, made him do it." (Apparently this occurred in 1979, but it was news to me)Anybody know of any decent book blogs or websites about books?… I haven't been able to find any besides Arts & Letters Daily and the various newspaper book sections, of course… I'd like to find something that's a little less review focussed and more discussion focussed. (Something I hope to do here in the future).
The Millions Guest Contributor: Author, Kaye Gibbons
C. Max Magee September 5, 2003 | 1 6 min read
I had the pleasure of making Kaye Gibbons' acquaintance via email, and I have very quickly become a big fan. Aspiring writers and precocious readers could learn a lot from her. One of the more noteworthy events of Gibbons' distinguished career was the selection of two of her books, Ellen Foster and A Virtuous Woman by Oprah Winfrey for her eponymous book club. I asked Gibbons how she looks back on this experience as a writer, and she was kind enough to send us the following reply:You'd asked how I felt about having two novels of mine on the Oprah Book Club. There's so much to say about it that I'll talk about it chronologically. Before the Oprah call, I was doing fine, amazing fine. But it didn't start out that way. My advance for Ellen Foster was 1500. But I've always had a strong work ethic, and as I worked, as rights were sold and awards won, the money began to catch up to the blood and time I was putting into it. Unfortunately, being a rather eccentric, free-thinking woman in the South led others and eventually me to conclude that there had to be something pathological about me, and it wasn't until two years ago that a twenty-year old diagnosis of bi-polar disorder was eradicated. Doctors made me feel forced to take drugs that took the edge off my creativity, but I've taken nothing in two years and haven't ever felt and written better.My theory is that I want to write the best literature possible and have it read by as many people as possible. Living in NC, now half-time in NY, there's a long tradition of writers helping one another, reading manuscripts, finding agents. Lee Smith introduced me to my agent, and then in 1997 I was able to pass that along when I read the first pages of Cold Mountain. Chuck [Charles Frazier] and I had had children at the same Montessori school for years and had been close friends. Things like that happen here all the time.But there's still a great deal of intellectual isolation here–and that's probably why I write and read as much as I do. The other day in the grocery store, an acquaintance asked me what'd I'd been writing since I finished Divining Women. When I told her I'd been reviewing books for Atlanta and Chicago, she asked, "They let you review your own books?" This is a strange occupation to have in Raleigh, not so much in Chapel Hill, where Alan Gurganus, Reynolds Price, and others live. But sometimes 20 miles feels very far away.So, with regard to Oprah, one thing her call did was to give what I do for a living a certain amount of validation. I'd been knighted by the French, won awards galore, sold about a million books, had a movie made, done 12 thirty-city book tours, but dealing with the perception that I was a local writer was often frustrating. I'd have an audience of 2000 in Michigan and then 30 in Raleigh, for example.What it took to manage it was self-esteem, and that generally comes from having a firm grasp of reality and what's important, my children. A digression, because I anticipate someone mouthing about the Oprah money: I have a hard time tolerating the starving artist in the garret whining about how a writer writes a brilliant book that the publisher won't promote and that no one is reading. It's easier to be a victim than take action, write a better book, listen to an editor's input, find a new publisher. I truly believe, because I've seen it, that if a brilliant manuscript exists, that if that writer has had enough gall, brains, energy, etc. to write it that he or she can get it to the right people. When a person sends me something that deserves publishing, I see it through the process. But ninety-nine percent of what I'm sent just isn't good. A writer has to be a superb editor, and wishing a book good doesn't make it so. When someone sends me something drowning in cliches, I tell them that language is to use, not to take easy advantage of. When Oprah called and said she wanted to put the two novels on her show, I was nervous about it diminishing my literary reputation, which sounds pompous to say. When she held A Virtuous Woman up and said, "America, you've wanted a love story, well, here it is," I thought, Well, here we go.But, you see, her selling, what now, about three million books that month, didn't change the basic nature of the novels or me. When Jonathan Franzen started running his mouth about the maudlin trash or whatever he said about her choices, I smiled and remembered that the first novel, Ellen Foster, is taught all over the world beside The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird. When it was finished, in 1986, it was sent to and read by Eudora Welty, Walker Percy, Gordon Lish, John Barth, and other people who, over the years, became dear to me. The whole Franzen thing got sort of tedious, and I didn't have the time to get dragged into it.What someone like a Franzen doesn't see was how poor I was growing up, a surreal state of poverty, and then that small advance, and how I worked my way up to financial security. I'm finally making now what many, many first, very young writers are getting, and I think it damages the soul. I finally have a house that doesn't have something hanging off in disrepair. There's the whole attitude now in music and writing of, I'm 21, Where's my Big Deal? So, even though the Oprah thing seemed to come out of the blue, it had been earned. I think I'd have felt a little ridiculous if it hadn't been. I used a lot of the money establishing a library at a local children's home, which my daughters and I still maintain. We sat down and wrote checks, making decisions together about where the money went. Anything I put away personally was completely eradicated, gone, during a horrible divorce two years later. So, I found myself back at the beginning financially, having been reamed. But I've got this work ethic, and I've got the post-Oprah, broadened visibility. It'll be okay. My daughter wasn't able to go to college in NY, stayed here because of the financial drain of the divorce, but it remains, we will all be okay.I admire Oprah, enormously. As for the book club, she's getting it done, getting people in bookstores. If there's the criticism that the books she selects have taken on a certain sameness, well, so what? She's not picked Danielle Steele, for crying out loud. I know for a fact, given the hundreds of letters, that people are reading, because of her, who haven't read before.Let me tell you that when I got a letter from a mother who said her daughter's impression of her totally changed when she saw her mother sitting down, reading a book at night in bed, how very proud this woman was, it is hard to say anything critical about the Oprah Book Club.The problem is that it is hard, to impossible, for people who live around books, who read them, own them, who have, like me, about 4000 books in the bedroom, to even process the notion that houses exist where there are no books except the ones the kids bring home from school. That's a deplorable, elitist attitude. When I was house-shopping, I looked at about fifty upper middle-class houses, and only in a couple did I see more than a handful of books. I started asking the real estate agent if the sellers had hidden the books, thinking they were clutter.I have two younger teenagers, and I can tell you that seeing them reading anything is a blessing. I don't go over and demand that they upgrade. And for those 350 kids who use the library Oprah made possible day in and day out because the public library in their town will not trust them to check out and bring back books, they'd wonder what all the snobbish hoopla was about. They're able to do their homework better, their grades have improved, and that money was funneled directly from Oprah.I felt nothing but honored by the whole process, and only wish that I'd been in better emotional and physical shape at the time. I was 75 pounds heavier, weight that drugs I didn't need had put on me, and I felt run down and a little thick in the head. But that was then. This is now. I'm the person I used to be before my marriage went to hell, and I'm nothing but glad that the Oprah thing is a part of my experience. If nothing else, local ladies who stop me in the grocery store don't talk to me like I'm having to sell books out of the back of my car.I think anybody who wants to be successful at this whole ordeal of publishing has to take a certain amount of responsibility that I see so many people abdicating in favor of bitter comparisons. Language is a gift, and to be able to use language to make a living is one of the most joyful enterprises I can imagine. I try to take that joy and make what I'm writing a better book every time I edit it. I work 18-hour days. It is a long, lonely, spiritually hazardous occupation. But the joy I feel in putting even two words together in something of an original way has nothing to do with money or movies, nothing external. I think that people buy and read my books, regardless of Oprah, because I've always studied everything I've read, even packaging on the mascara I just bought, and tried to figure out why a particular word was chosen. You can get in a habit of alert, concentrated reading that comes back when the writing begins. I've learned to be honest with myself and cut what sucks.Kaye Gibbons lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her books include Charms for Easy Life, On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon, A Cure for Dreams, and Sights Unseen, as well as the titles mentioned above. Her latest novel, Divining Women will come out April 14th. And make sure to check out her cool new website, kayegibbons.com.Many ThanksThanks to Will Femia for allowing my self-promotion to extend to MSNBC's Weblog Central. For those that are blog-fans, it is always a must-read.
C. Max Magee | 1 6 min read
Classic Shorts
Andrew Saikali November 24, 2004 | 2 min read
The recent news, here in Canada, of our great lady of letters, Alice Munro, taking the Giller prize for Runaway (excerpt), her latest collection of short fiction, gives us a chance to praise that wonderful literary form – the short story – and the authors who have practiced it with precision, humanity, and wit.Collected volumes of short fiction often provided me with an easy approach to the many writers who would become my favourites. Tight, economical writing, a whole world painted with just a few deft strokes – and I was hooked.And so it was that Welcome to the Monkey House became the book of my formative college years. In short order, I would devour all of Kurt Vonnegut's marvelous works, but I still hold dear this short story collection. Even now, years later, the thought of "Harrison Bergeron" makes me simultaneously laugh and shudder at the alternate universe he inhabits – a world in which all citizens are subjected to absurd physical and mental "handicapping," a leveling-out process that results in a form of institutionalized mediocrity. Sameness.For Ernest Hemingway, clarity and precision were his stock in trade, and nowhere is this more resonant than in In Our Time, a collection of early shorts. Hemingway can present Nick Adams to us and reveal more of his world in 5 pages than many writers would dare to in 500. "The Battler" stands out – a tale of young Nick's encounter with a disfigured and psychologically damaged prizefighter while riding the rails. Equally powerful are the numerous vignettes that Hemingway intersperses between the stories, many of them harrowing slices of war.Hemingway's contemporary, F. Scott Fitzgerald, gives us Jazz Age Stories. It's within these pages that you can experience the remarkable "Diamond As Big As The Ritz", an astonishing tale of money, power, fear (of losing it) and the complete moral bankruptcy that ensues. This is an unparalleled story of illusion and disillusion. It creeps up on you and will echo for years and years.While The Catcher in the Rye has become such an iconic cultural phenomenon, its often forgotten that J.D. Salinger wrote anything else. Unless of course you've read Franny and Zooey, or Raise High the Roof Beam. Or my personal choice, the collection Nine Stories. Then you never forget. This is dysfunction grounded in reality, not simply splayed out for shock value or a quick laugh. I recommend you revisit the extended Glass family in the deceptively simmering "A Perfect Day For Bananafish."In recent years, I've come to regard Anton Chekhov as the master of the form. Any collection will do. Try Lady With Lapdog and Other Stories. I challenge you to find an unnecessary or misplaced word. Simple, perfect writing. These selections just scratch the surface, and of course there's no shortage of good contemporary short fiction. But it serves us well to be reminded from time to time of "the greats" – not as an untouchable force that stomps on any newcomers, but rather as artistic touchstones that let you approach, and that remind you of first principles. These masters have given us a vital part of our literary canon.Also recommended: The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde, James Joyce's (surprisingly readable) Dubliners, and Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver
Andrew Saikali | 2 min read
I had not known the aftermath of the napalm photo — very interesting. I just got a copy of Soli's novel and look forward to reading it.
I spotted one factual error you might wish to fix — the My Lai massacre occurred in early 1968. Seymour Hersh's report came out in November 1969. (My source is vol. 2 of the Library of America's Reporting Vietnam collection.)
C. Max Magee says:
That's fixed. Thanks Tom.
Tatjana says:
Hi Tom. Thanks for the correction. In 1969, Seymour Hersch broke the story of My Lai, that occurred in 1968.
Nick Ut is a real role model, as a photographer and a person.
C. Max Magee November 30, 2004 | 2 min read
It occurred to me over the Thanksgiving weekend that after three years of paid participation in the holiday retail experience, this year I am free to don my civilian garb and stroll blithely past the giftwrap lined trenches in which I used to toil. I have to admit before I started working in a bookstore I never gave much thought to what the month of December means to America's retail army. But then, on December 1st, 2001, I was hired as holiday help. I hadn't been at my new gig for longer than a few hours when I was informed that, since there was no time to train me on cash register, phones or anything else really, I would be "designated giftwrapper." This came as quite a shock. Up until that point, every single gift I had ever purchased had been wrapped by my mother, sisters, or girlfriend. If none of them were available, I would simply present the gift to its recipient in the shopping bag that it came in. That December, though, I put in many hours at the "wrapping station," struggling with fists full of Scotch tape and wrapping paper as disapproving customers peered over my shoulders.For many stores, and, it seemed, my independent bookstore in particular, the holiday gift-buying season is vital. Between success and failure lie two dozen days in December. There was a lot of pressure, but it was fun, too. With double the staff and quadruple the customers, the crush of human generosity was heartening.But the holidays bring out a certain amount of desperation, too. Every year, I fielded scores of questions that were variations of this one: "My dad's a lawyer. Do you have any books about lawyers?" Or worse: "What do you think I should get my mom?" As I got good at it, I could watch the blind panic fade from their eyes, reassured that the book that I had just slid into their hands might do the trick. As Christmas neared, the real tough cases came out. The frantic parents emptyhanded on the way to the houses of their grown children, or the daughter who decides at the last minute that she'll get a gift for her step-mother after all, if only just to make her feel guilty. Saddest of all were the drunks on holiday-inspired benders who might stumble in a day or two before Christmas, forgetting why they were there but pulled by some ingrained impulse to try to buy something for someone.I'll just be a regular shopper this year, but miss I'll the frenzied energy of working at the bookstore, and for many Decembers to come, I suspect that the peaceful snowfall of whatever northern clime I inhabit will remind me of December drama at a bookstore nestled in the palm trees of Los Angeles.
Leonard Cohen, Master of Prose
Andrew Saikali January 4, 2005 | 3 min read
Leonard Cohen turned 70 a few months ago and, amid the celebration, was the subject of countless pieces of reflection. Most of them concentrated on the music career that has consumed the last half of his life, and on the poetry which runs as a current through everything. But this is not a music blog, and I've never felt particularly confident writing about poetry. (Though I implore each of you to get your hands on his various volumes of poetry and at least his first three LPs. No record collection is complete without Songs from a Room.)So this, then, is about Leonard Cohen, master of prose, and in particular, his first novel – The Favorite Game. By 1963 a 29-year old Leonard Cohen had already given the world two volumes of poetry and was living in London, reflecting on his youth in Montreal. And so we meet Lawrence Breavman, poet-adventurer. The Favorite Game weaves past with present, with an acute comic eye for Breavman's childhood — his years of discovery of his place within and without his family, of friendships and girls. These scenes cut in and out of a later narrative which finds Breavman in his college days, still prowling for adventure, now adding words to his arsenal of weapons to conquer the hearts of women.Poetry is "a verdict," Breavman tells us, a judgment passed, and quite distinct from the creation of the words themselves. When he writes them, when he utters them, they are "propaganda," Breavman confides to us. They are spoken for their luring powers. In his childhood, Breavman experimented on unsuspecting girls with hypnosis with much the same intent. The boy becomes the man.Through it all, childhood and youth, there was Krantz — Breavman's best friend, partner-in-crime. Devil in his ear. Their friendship was an ongoing dialogue played for comic effect, a running commentary on the world around them. It gave them an awareness, a self-awareness. A detachment.And then Krantz leaves. His next chapter will happen, unwritten, in England. "We've got to stop interpreting the world for one another." And so the dialogue is suspended, but not immediately. The early post-Krantz days find Breavman still the prowler, still soaking up experiences, and still invoking Krantz's name as if he were still there. Still devil in his ear.Enter Shell. We'd met her before. Snippets of dialogue and confidences popping up in the early narrative. But we'd never been properly introduced. Now the narrative catches up with their meeting. In New York now — grad school. Breavman and Shell. Shell and Breavman. They become a closed world to themselves. The tone becomes more serious. More adult. Krantz is no longer in his ear. We don't know yet whether Shell will wind up as merely another conquest, another shadow, another scar. We do know that this seems different. She not only enters Breavman's life, she anchors it.When Krantz's name is mentioned late in the narrative, it's jarring. A name from the past, from a different Breavman. We realize how different his world has become. And then Krantz is back — but he's changed. Or maybe Breavman's changed. Either way, the suspended dialogue is released, and it crashes.There's more. Old voices call Breavman back. They mix with the new voices. Pretty soon the new ones become the old ones, and Breavman's life continues, unwritten, beyond the pages of the book.Three years later, Leonard Cohen would give us Beautiful Losers, his only other novel. Its a stunning work, stylistically rich and daring. It deserves its own discussion, but not now.There's a common and rather irritating perception of Leonard Cohen as a harbinger of doom. The song "The Future" and a few other cautionary tales aside, I've never really bought into this. Maybe for some its the deep voice of the later records. But then they can't be really listening to the words. So maybe it's the depth of the words. He digs deeper into life than most writers, but he doesn't just reveal foreboding. He reveals absurdities with wit. He reveals longing with passion. And he reveals loss with sadness.This is not the stuff of dread and gloom. It's the stuff of life. And we're all the richer for his passion.
Books to Laugh with
Andrew Saikali February 9, 2005 | 3 min read
In 2001, the New Yorker treated faithful readers to Fierce Pajamas, a comprehensive survey of humor culled from the 75-year history of the magazine. When I heard about this, my well-honed cat-like reflexes snapped into action and, three years later, I bought the book. These short pieces, known as "casuals," include parodies, absurdities and flights of fancy. They showcase the wit of some of the giants in American humor – from E.B. White, through S.J. Perelman and George S. Kaufman, on up to Steve Martin. And along the way, two of my favorites – Woody Allen and James Thurber.As is often the case with anthologies, I wind up seeking out more complete works from specific writers. In this instance I was led back to my own bookshelves, to the dusty 'A' section in the top-left corner of my wall, for my small but complete trio of Woody Allen books. This necessitates the use of a stepladder because in addition to being obsessively organized – fiction alphabetized by author, then chronological within each. I won't even get into what I do to my non-fiction – I'm also quite short and can't actually reach the top shelf of anything in my apartment.Getting Even, Without Feathers, and Side Effects collect Woody Allen's written humor from the mid 60s through to the late 70s, in 5-year chunks. I think you can get them all in one volume now, but I'm quite partial to my pocket-sized second-hand paperbacks – perfect for explosive bursts of laughter on the subway. There's hardly a page without some jaw-droppingly hysterical absurdist musing, non-sequitur, or parody of some philosophical tract or of a psychological case-study. Even a few one-act plays for good measure.Getting Even contains "The Metterling Lists" – essentially a collection of Herr Metterling's laundry lists, spun-out Woody-style into a psychological and biographical profile. And "The Gossage-Vardebedian Papers" – a succession of correspondence-chess letters, each one more politely sarcastic and seethingly hostile than the last.Without Feathers includes "God" – a now-classic one-act play in which an actor and a writer are on stage bemoaning the lack of an ending to their Greek play. "Audience members" join in the scenario and eventually the melee includes cameos by a wayward Blanche Dubois, and one Mr. Woody Allen, the Creator himself. Reality is turned on its head, then rolled up in a ball and shot through a hoop in this Pirandello-esque comedy.Side Effects has "The Kugelmass Episode" – a hilarious story in which our hero, with the help of a magician, escapes his humdrum world and retreats into the lusty pages of Madame Bovary for a succession of romantic encounters with Emma, confounding Flaubert's readers and scholars with the sudden presence of a balding 1970s New Yorker in Emma Bovary's boudoir.Fierce Pajamas also led me to the "Ts," to my somewhat haphazard collection of James Thurber books. Many years ago, my good friend Doug Holland, always a step or two ahead of me, introduced me to the world of Thurber. Humorist, cartoonist, editor, James Thurber was a mainstay of the New Yorker for decades.Out of the half-dozen books I have, my pick would be My Life and Hard Times, a humorous memoir written by Thurber in the 1930s, replete with illustrations by the author, looking back on his youth in turn-of-the-century Columbus. Deceptively gentle and low-key, his stories often build to a frenetic climax. A common theme is how misunderstanding leads to rumor leads to panic. Seems simple. Yet no one does it quite like him.A few weeks ago, as I was thinking of what to say about Thurber, fortune shone as my fellow Millions-contributor Patrick posted a great piece about the Paris Review, and in particular "The DNA of Literature", a treasure trove of archived interviews that you can read on their website. I've been exploring this site in the weeks since then, and one of the first things I came across was a great interview (pdf) from 1955 with James Thurber himself!In it he speaks of his astounding memory and how he can juggle hundreds of details in his mind. And of how he never knows until he's typing away exactly how his stories will develop. He talks about the "New Yorker style" of humor in which you take your initial gleeful idea, your hilarious impulse, and then rewrite it, playing it down. Thurber also reflects on Harold Ross, the great Editor of the New Yorker, an unread man with bloodhound instincts who demanded clarity of his writers, and, to a man, kept them from being sloppy. Thurber also talks about his wife, his sounding-board, who it seems prefaces everything she says to James with "Goddammit Thurber…"Always writing, always crafting the perfect phrase, always keeping it concise and clear, Thurber was the consummate New Yorker humorist. His humor took over his body. So much so that when turning a phrase over in his head, his daughter grew so concerned with the look on his face that she asked her mother: "Is he sick?" to which Thurber's wife reassured her: "No, he's writing something."
Battle of the Sexes by Patrick Brown
Patrick Brown April 25, 2005
Earlier in the year, I took a look back at the books I'd read in 2004. I was surprised to find that most of them were by men. I'd always thought of myself as a guy who reads good books, regardless of who wrote them, but the facts proved otherwise. My girlfriend, meanwhile, pointed out that her reading list was split fairly evenly between the sexes. The only conclusion I could draw is that I am a chauvinist pig. Well, maybe not, but for a guy who claims he has no biases, my reading list was well stocked with white men and little else.To remedy this, I've decided to try a little experiment this year. For the entire year, I am alternating between books by men and women. Aside from enforcing gender equality, this has so far leant some much needed discipline to my life.Some of you will no doubt say, "But Patrick, I'm not a sexist pig. I don't have to force myself to read women, it comes naturally." My hat is off to you, but I'm sure you have a literary blind spot that could be addressed with a program like mine. Maybe you only read contemporary literature. Perhaps your reading list is strictly non-fiction. Maybe you haven't read a short story collection cover-to-cover since college. If any of these are true, I recommend developing a little curriculum of your own. You'll find your literary world blown wide open, and you'll introduce yourself to some great books you might not otherwise get around to reading.


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UPDATE: World leaders, experts deliberate food, forests, climate change
World leaders, experts to deliberate: Can we grow enough food for 9 billion people without destroying Earth's forests and accelerating climate change?
Journalists welcome to attend the Global Landscapes Forum at the University of Warsaw, Saturday and Sunday, 16-17 November.
Go to www.landscapes.org/media-contact
One of the most vital events of its kind will draw more than 1,000 participants — government ministers, global experts, policy makers and business leaders — to the University of Warsaw this weekend to chart a new course toward joint solutions for forests, agriculture and climate change.
Media are invited to seize this opportunity for access to the world's leading thinkers and practitioners on sustainable landscapes, climate change, agriculture and forestry. Participants at the Global Landscapes Forum will seek to devise solutions for one of the most pressing challenges of our time: Can we grow enough food for 9 billion people without destroying the planet's forests and accelerating climate change?
This event represents the most intensive effort yet to place these themes on the global agenda as a single "landscape" concept, and to link this concept to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Confirmed speakers include:
Marcin Korolec, COP President and Polish Minister of the Environment
Rachel Kyte, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development
Stanislaw Kalemba, Polish Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development
Ruth DeFries, Denning Professor of Sustainable Development at Earth Institute
Peter Bakker, President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Braulio Dias, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
Journalists may attend the Forum at no cost. From live video streams to blogs, from press conferences to Twitter chats, the Forum's communication team will ensure that journalists have a front seat. Media are invited to use any and all content created for the Forum, including blogs, photos and videos.
Media briefings at the University of Warsaw: Enter through main gate and follow signs:
11-11.45am: High-level press conference: The GLF's goals and importance to international climate discussions and negotiations
11.30-12: What climate change looks like in South, East and West Africa
1-1.30: From Facebook farming to Uganda's post-war forests: Ten young entrepreneurs kick start the Global Landscapes Forum
4-4.30: Exactly what is the "landscapes" concept?
10.35-11: What are the problems? Why the need for a GLF?
12.40-13.10: Post-IPCC Report – framing landscapes, forests, agriculture and rural development
13.15-13.45: Book launch – Climate-smart agriculture
Full details of the briefings can be found here.
General media inquiries:
Alison Binney at Econnect Communication: alison@econnect.com.au (tel. +61 428 900 450)
Polish media inquiries:
Aleksandra Grzegrzólka at Tomo Group: glf@tomogroup.pl (tel. +48 516 440 772)
For the Collaborative Partnership on Forests:
Bruno Vander Velde at CIFOR: b.vandervelde@cgiar.org (tel. +48 513 948 057)
For the Agriculture and Rural Development Consortium:
Vanessa Meadu at CCAFS: v.meadu@cgiar.org (tel. +44 777 219 5317)
For inquiries related to social media:
Peter Casier: p.casier@cgiar.org
Follow us online at:
Twitter hashtag: #GLFCOP19
Paper.li: LandscapesNews.org
Blog: www.landscapes.org/blog

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Description Firethorne is Gustavus Adolphus College's student-run literary magazine comprised solely of student work. This includes drawings, poems, short stories, and other artistic works.
Citation Gustavus Adolphus College. Firethorne: Literary & Arts Magazine. St. Peter, Minn.: Gustavus Adolphus College, DATE.
Parent Collection GACA Collection 0033. Firethorne. Arts and Literary Magazines, 1973-Ongoing.


South Africa, which qualified for its second consecutive Olympic Women's Soccer Tournament, was drawn into a difficult Group E with host Brazil, China and Sweden and is hoping to continue to make positive strides as soccer grows and develops in Africa's sixth most populous nation. In its first women's FIFA event at the 2012 Olympics, South Africa did not advance out of its group, but did score its first goal in a FIFA event in a 4-1 loss to Sweden, and its first point in a 0-0 draw with Japan.
South Africa played its first international women's soccer match as a nation in 1993 and has never qualified for a FIFA Women's World Cup, but with the expansion of the tournament to 24 teams it is hoping that 2019 in France will be its first.
Almost all international soccer teams have nicknames, but National Teams from Africa generally takes it one step further. South Africa is known as Banyana Banyana, which translates to "the girls," and it uses the nickname in all of its official documents and social media presence. Additionally, every player also has a nickname on the official roster. Pretty awesome.
South Africa's 53-year-old head coach Vera Pauw is well-travelled, having been in charge of four different National Teams in her career. In 2014, the South African Football Association came calling and Pauw has been in charge of Banyana Banyana since.
Pauw is one of the most experienced women in the game of international soccer. During her playing career, she was the first female Dutch player to play her trade abroad professionally. After hanging up her boots, she was the first Dutch woman to earn her professional football coaching diploma with the KNVB and led FIFA's Technical Study Group at the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup Japan 2012. She also helped set up the Eredivisie Vrouwen – Holland's top flight women's league -- and now passes on her expertise to member associations around the world in her role as a FIFA Instructor.
U.S. WNT forward Christen Press holds a special place in her heart for South Africa. Press visited Khayelitsha in November of 2015 with Grassroots Soccer, an organization that uses the power of soccer to help girls in Africa understand difficult topics. Press said that being there inspired her and gave her a perspective about life and the game she loves.
"Despite living in incredible difficult circumstances these women are resilient and they are dedicated to using soccer to educate, inspire and mobilize the next generation," said Press.
The presence of South Africa in a second consecutive Olympic Games only reinforces those themes and what some communities in the country are trying to teach. Soccer has helped solidify important moments in the country's history in women's sport – showing that hard work, camaraderie and dedication can one day take you to compete at the highest levels in the world.
The match on July 9 will be the first meeting between the two countries at any level of women's international soccer. The match represents a positive development for women's sports as it highlights a new nation coming onto the world's stage and competing to make the women's game a powerful force across the world.


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Horse Farms
Sport Horse
A Time to Dance
By Linda White
Finite time, or chronos, is measured in minutes, hours, centuries and millennia. The other kind of time is kairos, or immeasurable time: God's time. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 categorizes time, reminding us in verse 11 that God has made all things beautiful in their time. We can record our Arabian horses' age, height, weight and number of offspring, but his timeless beauty and supernatural intelligence are incalculable. So are the joy, richness, and sense of purpose he adds to our lives. Thus, the Arabian horse embodies both the measurable and the immeasurable.
Horses must have fascinated Homo erectus for a very long time, because those drawings of horses on cave walls in Europe and Asia are at least 35,000 years old. Some archaeologists have suggested that the crude renderings may have been ceremonial talismans for a successful hunt. Talismans for good luck snaring rabbits and grouse? Maybe, but a human being's running after (and actually catching!) a fleeing horse, or even hoping to catch one, seems pretty unlikely. The old and slow probably did land on our ancient forebears' dinner tables, but the swift, graceful creatures also fired his imagination, as they have done ever since.
There was no such place as "Arabia" until 530 BCE, but an 8,000-year-old drawing of a horse closely resembling the modern animal we call the Arabian was discovered on the plateaus above the Syrian Desert, where the proto-Arabian probably developed. This drawing suggests that this was the horse that long-ago artist was looking at. A worn cylinder from around 4,000 BCE, depicting horses hitched to 4-wheeled chariots, is the earliest known artist's representation of domesticated equines. Page 17 of Gladys Brown Edwards' The Arabian: War Horse to Show Horse features a bas-relief discovered in the ruins of Elam, south of Babylon depicts a refined, high-headed, mounted horse with an exotic face, as do two bas-reliefs of mounted Hittite horses strongly resembling modern Arabians, dating from c. 850 BCE.
Written language added credibility to equine images' impact around the fourth millennium BCE, when a Sumerian took the initiative, carved the blunt end of a reed into a wedge (cuneiform means "wedge-shaped") and developed a visible system for recording people's thoughts on wet clay tablets, which then were baked. For the next 3,000 years, cuneiform allowed humans to extoll the beauty, courage and mystical connection between them and the fabulous Arabian horses that lived alongside them. A baked clay tablet from Turkish Asia Minor, inscribed into the wet surface by a Babylonian horseman who lived c. 1350 BCE, contains an essay on horse training - the oldest yet discovered.
The first text acknowledging and addressing the horse's mentality, or psyche, as well as his physical potential, was written around 350 BCE. On the Art of Horsemanship was authored by Xenophon, an esteemed Athenian horseman, scholar and mercenary who may have mentored Alexander the Great, who loved horses. Alexander accepted a gift of 200 fine desert-bred horses when he traveled through Libya; he bequeathed a herd of 30,000 mares and 3,000 stallions to his successor, Seleucis Nicator.
The eerily keen, intuitive understanding Xenophon referred to seems to be unique to Arabians, however. They have the thinnest, most sensitive skin of all the horses on earth – and horses are second only to cats in having the thinnest, most sensitive skin in the world. This allows the Arabian to receive tremendous sensory input; no other breed even approaches the Arabian's sensitivity and intelligence.
An estimated 6,000-year partnership may account for his obvious interest in human beings; every judge familiar with other breeds has experienced that distinctively Arabian characteristic firsthand. When a judge walks the lineup to inspect each competitor, other breeds typically gaze off into the middle distance, exhibiting little or no interest in the two-legged creatures walking around them. Not so, Arabians. They immediately make eye contact with the humans, and watch their movements with great interest. This behavior, so typical of Arabians, often surprises people accustomed to more aloof breeds, and reminds Arabian fanciers of what reeled them in initially.
The Arabian's nearest kin, the original English Thoroughbred, was the result of crossing imported Arabian stallions on local English mares. The Thoroughbred today is bright, thin-skinned and sensitive, but the Arabian's intelligence, stamina and bravery remain unmatched. Horse racing was probably introduced into England around 200 AD, when Roman soldiers brought the sport to Yorkshire. While racing statistics are measurable, the Englishman's passion for racing and race horses soon became incalculable. Tales of early power brokers' passion for their fine racing bloodstock are not limited to England, however.
Salah al-Din Yusuf, better known in the west as Saladin (1138-1193 AD), was a fine horseman and nephew of a Syrian general. The enterprising young man accompanied his uncle to the Crusades, albeit reluctantly, but quickly proved his mettle. Saladin became the first sultan of Egypt and Syria. When he defeated England's Richard the Lionheart on the battlefield during the Crusades, he gave the British monarch two Arabian stallions in recognition of Richard's courage.
"Saladin's rule is considered by many to have been the most glorious in the history of Moslem domination of Egypt, and one in which the Arabian horse played a historic role during the Crusades," wrote Arabian horse authority and breeder Judith Forbis in The Classic Arabian Horse. "The rulers of Egypt in the 13th century renewed their interest in breeding Arab horses, and took great care in their selection," Forbis confirmed, adding that although some Egyptian rulers were brutal and deceitful, their passion for Arabian horses knew no bounds. One Saladin successor spent enormous sums for, and built elaborate stables to house, his Arabian herd of more than 4,800 animals!
Chronos and kairos have always been inextricably woven together, although violence, intrigue and betrayal have often characterized human endeavors in horse breeding. When Henry VIII ordered all of England's wealthy Catholic monasteries destroyed (and its monks executed) as he established the Anglican Church, he rewarded faithful Protestant partisans with the monasteries' Arabian bloodstock. A less ruthless descendant, King James I (1566-1625), paid a fortune for the Arabian stallion Markham's Grey in Syria, and imported him to England, where he, along with the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Barb, the Byerly Turk, and other Arabians became the genesis of the Thoroughbred breed.
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), England's first Lord Protector, was a passionate horseman, intent on developing a light, agile charger to replace the cumbersome "great horses" bred to carry heavily-armored knights. Cromwell imported expensive Arabian stallions his agents selected at the horse markets of Aleppo, Syria to cross on English mares. Many of Cromwell's Arabians and their offspring were significant in the Thoroughbred's early development.
In Early Horse Racing in Yorkshire and the Origins of the Thoroughbred, David Wilkinson wrote, "After Cromwell's death in 1658, his stud master, Rowland Place, removed one of Cromwell's Arabian stallions to his own estate at Lower Dinsdale, where it became Place's White Turk." England's GSB, or General Stud Book, Vol. 1 is filled with references to Place's White Turk and two of his sons, D'Arcy's White Turk and D'Arcy's Yellow Turk. "These two horses, when crossed with the mares located at D'Arcy's Sedbury Stud (only 10 miles from Place's stud at Lower Dinsdale) produced much of the foundation stock of the English Thoroughbred."
"Daughters of Place's White Turk … carried the line on to influential ends, as he appears as the sire of at least five mares in the GSB, including several at the very beginning of foundation families," wrote Ann Peters in her Thoroughbred Heritage: Historic Sires. "The Sedbury Royal Mare, who appears five times in the pedigree of Eclipse … is probably the same Place's White Turk mare who produced the dam of Brown Farewell, granddam of Matchem." [Ed. Note: Matchem, also descended from Cade, a Godolphin Arabian son, joined Herod and Eclipse as the three Arabian-descended stallions from which all Thoroughbreds trace.]
Coffin, a daughter of the Place Mare, was another of the Cromwell horses Rowland Place appropriated after his Lord Protector's death. An Introduction to a General Stud Book describes how Coffin came by her odd name: "Mr. Place … stole this mare out of Cromwell's stud, and kept her concealed in a Whitechapel cellar until the search for her was over."
Coffin's is only one of the countless stories of passion, heroism, treachery, devotion and abiding love that have been written about Arabian horses since the fourth millennium BCE, when written languages began to appear. Innumerable words, written in hundreds - probably thousands of languages have described the past, present and future of humans and Arabian horses. Chronos, or finite human time, dictates the beginning and ending of each individual's sentence, paragraph or chapter. Yet with every breeding, every foal born, and every person who becomes smitten by Arabian horses, a new chapter opens in kairos, or God's time, and the story continues. "For what happens to the children of man, and what happens to the beasts is the same," offers Ecclesiastes 3:19-20. "They all have one breath … and all go to the same place."
Publisher: Rod Thompson
Editor: Jacque Thompson
Contributing Editor: Linda White
Rod Thompson - (865) 246-8904
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info@arabianhorse.com
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Erica Rivera Profiles Jane Wunrow
Erica Rivera spoke to artist Jane Wunrow about the migraines, dreams, and trauma that inform her mixed media work. Read the profile on City Pages here.
Labels: Art, Artist, Health, Interviews, Online Content, Women's Health
Erica Rivera Profiles Dean Phillips for City Pages Cover Story
Erica Rivera followed Dean Phillips, a liquor company heir turned congressional candidate, on the campaign trail. Has his business background prepared him for public service? Is he a true-blue Democrat or a political opportunist? Read Rivera's critical take on his candidacy in the cover story for the January 24, 2018 issue of City Pages or online here.
Labels: City Pages, Cover Story, Dean Phillips, Election, Interviews, Politicians, Politics, Publications
Erica Rivera Interviews Daphne Willis
Erica Rivera spoke to singer-songwriter Daphne Willis about her recovery from addiction and mental health issues. Read the Q&A about the sober concert she's headlining that will benefit Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers on City Pages here.
Labels: Addiction, Alcohol, City Pages, Concerts, Interviews, Lawyers, Mental Health, Music, Musicians, Online Content, Q and A
Comedians are known for being filter-free. Adam Grabowski is no different, but he extends the no-filter invitation to his fans as well, especially when it comes to talking about mental health. Grabowski's #sayitanyway campaign encourages open dialogue about depression, anxiety, and other mental-health concerns.
"Talking about things that affect you the most is difficult," the 30-year-old from suburban Chicago says. "What I've recognized throughout the years by performing for a lot of 18- to 24-year-olds is that people -- young people especially -- don't feel that it's acceptable to show who we actually are and what we experience."
Older generations were taught it was impolite to talk about their feelings; younger generations put it all out there on social media, or they seem to, but online lives are often carefully curated. In comparison, many feel like their lives don't match up to the glamorous, jet-setting, exciting-looking lives of their peers. "It's this constant pressure to produce, to appear happy, to keep up," Grabowski says. So when someone feels depressed or anxious, they're unlikely to declare it – or find support – on social media.
And yet, 16-million American adults experience depression per year; over six million experience anxiety. A recently released study by the American Psychological Association showed 63-percent of Americans felt the country's future was a "very or somewhat significant source of stress." What's more, 59-percent of Americans consider 2017 the "lowest point in U.S. history" in memory – lower than World War II.
In other words, we're depressed and anxious AF. But few people talk about it, either because of the stigma or because they assume others won't understand. "We all have this internal dialogue where we think that it's only us that is experiencing something, and that's clearly not the case. If anything has shown true, it's that we all experience very similar things because we have the same instincts and genes and functionality as humans," Grabowski says. "You can talk about the things that you are experiencing. Doing that helps you understand that you're not alone. It also helps you find a potential path or a way toward feeling better about what your experiences are."
Talking about these tough subjects has helped Grabowski's depression, which started at the end of his undergrad years at the University of Illinois. He finished a degree in psychology and sociology with a "great GPA" ahead of schedule, but he couldn't decide what to study at grad school, or if he wanted to go at all. "Trying to find your identity or how you work within the world is difficult. That's when I started experiencing the most depression, because I was worried about what my identity to the world was," he says.
As a means of "productive procrastination," he tried standup for the first time at age 21. Within a year, he was doing comedy full-time. Grabowski has since headlined 47 states (Alaska, New Mexico, and Mississippi are the holdouts) and appeared on America's Got Talent in 2016. ("TV is fake" is all he'll say about the experience.)
The depression toured with him. Sometimes it descended when he was lonely. Other times, it was because he was dissatisfied with his circumstances. Often, there was no cause or explanation for his despair.
A year and a half ago, Grabowski moved to Los Angeles; the warmer weather helped his mood. Though he initially resisted medication, a year ago he tried a low-dose antidepressant. "I was like, 'Oh my god. I'm such an idiot. This is way better than before,'" he says. Though he has never had thoughts of self-harm, friends of his have attempted suicide. That's what prompted him to launch #sayitanyway. As part of the campaign, he designed bracelets with the hashtag inscribe on the outside and "You're not alone" on the inside. He colored them gray because "just like depression and mental illness, they blend in," he says.
Don't dismiss Grabowski as a downer, though. He doesn't overwhelm his show with mental-health talk. He has bits on "food pervs" and the "Jedi mind trick" some people do when they apologize (and end up receiving an apology instead). And while he's performing in St. Louis Park this Saturday as part of the Twin Cities Jewish Humor Festival, he doesn't include religious jokes in his act. "I'm not afraid to talk about religion. I have no problem with that," he says, but even when religious jokes are "the most appropriate, politically correct thing, someone is going to be weirded out and be annoying about it."
Instead, he prefers to focus on the human experience. And if fans want to share their mental health experiences with him post-show, he's all ears. "All feelings can change and the only constant in life is change," he says. "Let's discuss out loud how this is not a 'you' thing. It's a people thing."
Originally published on City Pages on Jan. 18, 2018.
Labels: City Pages, Comedian, Depression, Interviews, Mental Health, Online Content, Psychology
Erica Rivera Interviews Rob Morgan
Erica Rivera met up with Rob Morgan, the Owl City bassist who recently started his own podcast. Read the feature in the January 17, 2018 print issue of City Pages or online here.
Labels: City Pages, Interviews, Musicians, Owl City, Podcast, Publications
Erica Rivera Interviews Laura Larson of Scrunchies
Erica Rivera interviewed musician Laura Larson about her new band, Scrunchies, feminism on the music scene, and keeping creepers in check at concerts. Read the Q&A on City Pages here.
Labels: City Pages, Feminism, Interviews, Music, Musicians, Online Content, Q and A, Women's Issues
Erica Rivera Profiles Dean Phillips for City Pages...


Discover the thrilling holiday concerts that patrons return to year after year! Celebrate the season with inspiring music in beautiful sacred spaces, played by the finest singers and brass players in the city. The beloved tradition continues as hand bells ring out and voices rise to the rafters.


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This check is already done userService.changePasswordUsingActivationKey(activationkey) so don't do it here again, it's the reason why you added the new exception class, remember?
Why did you add this method?
Where are you using this?
Why don't you use an existing user?
@wluyima I have been checking and the last dataset that contained an existing user was defined since 1.8 so i am thinking declaring a new user here is appropriate.
Where is the test for a valid password reset request?
Where are the tests that test the setting a user activation key and changing the password?
Where is the valid test for a valid change password request?


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SkyscraperCity > European Forums > UK & Ireland Architecture Forums > Projects and Construction > North East England > Newcastle Metro Area
Newcastle Great Park | Newcastle | Various | U/C
Newcastle Metro Area For Newcastle, N Tyneside, Gateshead, S Tyneside, South Northumberland
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July 10th, 2011, 03:22 PM #101
Newcastle Historian
Moderator and Archivist
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne
Likes (Received): 2094
Originally Posted by Newcastle Historian
Historical Newcastle Great Park Documents - Parts 1 to 21.
We are covering approximately sixty projects on this forum at the moment, and most of them have their own individual 'Project Thread', the same as this one for the Newcastle Great Park project.
Before we came on-line as a Forum, many (fairly recent) major projects ('Angel of the North', 'Sage Concert Hall', etc, etc) came and went, so do not have their own records preserved on individual threads on here.
The 'Newcastle Great Park' project falls into that same category of major projects started long before this Forum came into being.
However, it is still "ongoing" (and will be for many years to come) so we DO have a thread for this one.
That was my reasoning behind publishing whatever (pre-forum) Newcastle Great Park documents that I had, to fill in the gap on this ongoing thread, for the period before this Forum arrived.
I have published 21 sets of documents and newspaper reports, and while they are not (by any means) fully comprehensive of everything that has happened, they at least give a flavour of some of the 'pre-forum' action on this project.
As we now return to 'current' NGP progress, I hope they were of some interest and value.
Originally Posted by Adrian_Swall
What is the current 'state of play' with NGP. How many homes have been built of the intended 2500? Are there any other business there apart from Sage?
The earlier posts of this thread, such as Posts 24, 32 and 46 . . .
https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpo...9&postcount=24
contain some of the latest information, along with other earlier posts on this thread.
You would need to do further research on the City Council Website, to get the actual full latest postion . . .
http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/core.nsf...astlegreatpark
Or perhaps on the actual 'Newcastle Great Park' Website itself . . .
http://www.newcastlegreatpark.com/
Over time, updates will periodically appear on this thread.
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SkyscraperCity.com
July 19th, 2011, 11:26 AM #102
Review into housing problems on Newcastle Great Park
by Andrew Glover, The Journal, July 19th 2011
A COUNCIL LEADER has ordered a review into the process that led to homes on an exclusive estate being built without necessary legal approval.
More than 50 houses in the Great Park area of Newcastle were built by developer Bryant Homes without Building Regulations Approval.
Because the builder, now known as Taylor Wimpey, did not apply to the council for the clearance a series of standard inspections did not take place.
The oversight emerged when families on the estate began to find defects on the homes.
One couple, Phil and Andrea Bell, paid for a private surveyor to inspect their home on the Melbury development, and were astonished to find over 50 flaws which they claimed would cost up to £50,000 to remedy.
The Bells and others affected by the blunder have been in correspondence with Newcastle City Council ever since the problems started to emerge.
Now Coun Nick Forbes, the leader of the authority, has now asked council legal chiefs to review the situation. Coun Forbes spoke to The Journal as he visited the estate and met residents to discuss the issue.
He said: "This is the newest big development in the city and I know that there have been particular issues here. I'm aware of the long-standing complaints that a number of residents have and have asked the head of corporate law to investigate them thoroughly.
Read More - http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-e...#ixzz1SXOosNKc
August 9th, 2011, 10:22 PM #103
Originally Posted by Newcastle Historian; May 17th 2011
Anger over Newcastle Great Park shop's plan to sell drink
by Dan Warburton, The Journal, May 17 2011
FAMILIES have reacted angrily to a shop's second bid to secure permission to sell alcohol, claiming it would spark an increase in anti-social behaviour.
Fears teenage gangs would take to the streets of Newcastle Great Park, Newcastle, saw local residents object to plans for a licensed shop when an application was submitted to Newcastle City Council in February.
That bid was thrown out by a city council committee, which said that it could "potentially lead to crime and disorder". However, managers at the Londis store, on Featherstone Grove, have submitted an almost identical application to sell alcohol between 8am and 8pm.
Neighbours have said crime, loitering teenagers and alcohol-fuelled violence would increase if the plans were given the green light. One person who objected said: "An almost identical licence application was refused by the committee on February 15, 2011.
Read More - http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-e...#ixzz1Mb0gmVIc
Parklands Ward, Newcastle upon Tyne - FOCUS (Summer 2011 issue) . .
Adrian_Swall
Can never understand why supermarkets / convenience / newsagents feel the need to sell liquor at 8 am? No wonder there are so many problems with alcoholism and drink related problems?
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August 10th, 2011, 04:25 AM #105
bigchrisfgb
I think it should be illegal to sell alcohol before 12pm. I understand clubs go can stay open until the early hours of the morning and so can other establishments so therefor I would say a total ban on the sale of alcohol between the hours of 3am and 12pm should be in order with places that serving alcohol between 11pm and 3am being heavily watched and those sorts of licences not being handed out will nilly.
Working in convenience retail I see first hand what the effects of ready available and cheap alcohol can do to you, even more so then what people in pubs see.
The stars are falling into bombs!
Newcastle Metro Area
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Quite agree. However, the genie is now out of the bottle and supermarkets sell below cost price. I don't think NCC should allow local stores to sell alcohol for the hours they do. A local newsagent near me sells drink from 8.00 am and you can smell the drink on people in the morning. Pubs (not stand-up drinking establishments) are a lot more responsible how they serve drink.
November 1st, 2011, 03:32 PM #107
Dale Farm travellers set up camp in Newcastle Great Park
by Rachel Wearmouth, Evening Chronicle, November 1st 2011
Travellers at the 'Park and Ride' near the Sage offices at Newcastle Great Park
TRAVELLERS booted out of the illegal Dale Farm site have set up camp on Tyneside.
Declaring they will be here "for life", around a dozen families are calling a car park in Newcastle their new home.
Caravans, transit vans, pets and people litter an area of Newcastle Great Park, which is just a stone's throw from software firm Sage's headquarters.
The caravans started to arrive on Saturday and it is said the car park's new residents are refusing to budge.
A traveller, who was holding a baby but did not give his name, spoke in a thick Irish accent about the deadlock last night.
He said: "We were kicked out of Dale Farm.
"You probably saw it on the television. We have nowhere to go. It is a life on the road now."
His partner, a woman, added: "We are here for life now."
Read More - http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north...#ixzz1cSLhWW9Y
November 2nd, 2011, 03:56 AM #108
Irish Blood English Heart
Letting off the happiness
Location: Wherever I lay my hat
You couldn't make it up.
Visit Irish Blood English Heart's homepage!
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Anger at decision to build more houses at Hawthorn
Grange near Newcastle Great Park
by Andrew Glover, The Journal, January 18th 2012
OWNERS of luxury homes on a secluded development have expressed their anger after permission was given for more homes to be built.
Families who bought homes at Hawthorn Grange in Newcastle around two years ago, claim they were told they would have use of a paddock to the north of their land. But members of Newcastle City Council's planning committee have now given original developer Field Luxury Homes consent to extend the site and build more houses on the land of the paddock.
Residents who bought the first 14 homes in countryside on the edge of Newcastle Great Park, have opposed plans for the three new properties. Gaynor Ball lives at Hawthorn Grange with her husband David, a pilot, and their two young children.
The 36-year-old said: "We were told that it was a rural gem with the amenities of Newcastle Great Park, with the shared use of a grass paddock with views to the North and to the East." "We were also told there was no plan to develop for at least 10 years. We're not stupid, obviously someone was going to try and build on it but we didn't expect it to happen so soon.
The land, off Brunton Lane, hasn't been classified as green belt since 1998 and City Councillors were told the paddock was "covered in debris, top soil and building material, discarded on the land during the construction of the Hawthorn Grange development".
Read More http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-e...#ixzz1jnnIT4fJ
tcollins
It is a personal bug-bear of mine that the most vociferous opposition to new development tends to come from people living in the most recently-built houses. People never appreciate that at some point the plot their own house is built on used to be greenfield.
AndyMac100 liked this post
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September 5th, 2012, 04:51 PM #111
North Newcastle £60m bypass to cut
through Newcastle Great Park
by Adrian Pearson, Evening Chronicle, September 5th 2012
image hosted on flickr
The site of a planned £60m bypass in North Newcastle, including through Newcastle Great Park
A MAJOR new £60m bypass will be built in Newcastle in the 'countryside' areas of North Newcastle, as city leaders prepare the way for thousands of new homes. City planners want to link up the A1 at the North Brunton junction to the A69, passing through Newcastle Great Park via the A696 near the Callerton Parkway Metro Station. The move would be paid for by developers keen to build a new generation of homes on Tyneside.
While the bypass will be welcomed by thousands of motorists using the congestion-hit route, it presents a new threat for campaigners looking to scupper plans by council leaders to build thousands of new homes on the edge of the city. City officials say that if or when new housing is built in the outer west, North of the A69, it will need new roads to access and service them.
Newcastle City Council wants to build 21,000 homes as part of a long-term plan to create more jobs and homes, called the One Core Strategy.
Read More - http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north...#ixzz25bLr8Xq4
This is a horrible plan.
This is the hidden agenda that NCC has always had when they have invited landowners and developers to come forward with plans to build on the green belt.
We are just heading for a huge urban sprawl across the Outer West.
WilfBurnsFan
It will be very interesting to see a proper map of the proposed route, and whether it passes 'through' the NGP as the Chron has it or by-passes it. I can't imagine the NGP developers being too happy at having what will inevitably become a major through route (despite the single-carriageway talk) chopping right through their area.
And another thing about the 1944 ARP scandal...
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Originally Posted by WilfBurnsFan
I'm not familiar with the masterplan of the NGP, but looking at the document referred to the proposed alignment is roughly on an east-west alignment skirting the northern edge of the Sage HQ and going through the middle of a housing site immediately to the west of the Sage offices.
I do worry about there being no dual carriageway options being considered. I only hope they safeguard the land and construct it in such a way that it could be expanded at a later date if necessary.
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Looks as if it will pass through Woolsington (Hall) Park too - looking at the map there's not enough room to pass north of the hall.
Northern Engineer
Location: Newcastle Upon Tyne, Leeds
Wow didnt see that one coming
Suppose this road would improve access to Newcasle airport for those coming from the North and West and more importantly, relieve congestion on the kingston Park/Denton roundabouts which are nearly always busy.
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jkkne
Northumberland Import
Location: Hexham
Nimbys are in uproar apparently
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September 6th, 2012, 12:50 AM #118
BigLebowski
An aerial view of the, *ahem*, affected 'green belt' area
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toonlad
Urban Environmentalist
Location: Whitley Bay, nr. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Yeah NCC build all new homes out towards the airport, thats always a good idea!*
*dont mention Heathrow's third runway row
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November 20th, 2012, 10:43 PM #120
Jazmincleo
As someone living on Great Park, this thread was a fascinating read. I've lived here since 2004 and there's been lots of changes to the estate since I moved in.
We didn't have a bus service for the first 2 years and it's only just 18 months since we got a shop, which was opposed by many many residents.
The estate has got some very decent people on it and we have our own community forum but there's a lot of discontentment on the estate too.
Great Park (East), which is Melbury and Warkworth are technically Gosforth in postcode NE3 however the rest is NE13 and technically a suburb of it's own. Melbury and Warkworth are annexed off from the rest of Great Park. We have no direct access now to the forthcoming town centre, school or facilities the estate is supposed to have. We have one way in and one way out, Brunton Lane and we're annexed off from Brunton Park too (coz they hate us).
North Gosforth Parish council, don't want us, they even went to central government to have Melbury and Warkworth taken off their remit and the boundary withdrawn but took parish council fees off us for 10 years without ever supplying a single service. Warkworth has just been adopted by the council but 9 years on Melbury still hasn't. The roads, pathways, parkland and lighting is still in control of the developers.
There is a new supermarket planned for the town centre, some of the town centre units are already built and await occupancy but it will be a long wait. Various rumours have existed as to whom will occupy the new supermarket but it's a substantial size. In 2008 we were told that Asda had plans for the site as they didn't have a 24 hour Asda in Gosforth, that has since changed. Sainsburys have been touted too with a much bigger store than the High Street branch but locally, most would like to see an Aldi. We all hoped the Wansbeck Road wouldn't become another Asda when Netto sold out to them and hoped for an Aldi but alas that never happened. We're not all snobby in Gosforth.
It's been interesting to see what people thought of the estate. It's very quiet here, most folk are nice and the shop is a godsend.
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