Monthly Archives: March 2010

When I saw this photo, posted on Washington Post ace feature writer Hank Steuver’s blog, I had this feeling of nervous excitement, not unlike falling in love — or, maybe better, hate. It was there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I mixed with existential dread mixed with, “Damn straight; somebody really cares!”

The hands in this photo are President Obama’s. Those scratched-out and arrow-riddled words of type belong to his speechwriter, Jon Favreau. Obama’s been criticized in the press for being overly reliant on his Teleprompter — something you’d never know, judging from the smooth way he uses it — but I think this photographic window into his thinking, writing and editing says a lot more about his passion for, and his reliance on, just the right word.

I’ve been a teacher and a reporter for many years, though never a paid editor. I don’t have the temperament for the politics of it, I go crazy if I sit for 10 consecutive hours in stale office air, and I’m often more comfortable talking to strangers than to people I know.

I’m a firm believer in writing and rewriting and then rewriting some more. Very often I take print-outs of my stories to my backyard chaise lounge, with something like my sixth cup of coffee, and try to pretend like I’m scribbling on someone else’s work.

I have to admit, though, I’m not as eager to get those scribbles from someone else. One friend describes the editing process as having your work urinated on. The first time I had a major project returned to me from Carole Tarrant, our newspaper’s top editor, it was all I could do to shake my head, promise to go over the edits one at a time, and run from her office — before I burst into tears. I think it was the long row of ZZZZZZZZZs that did me in. In red ink. Snaking down a section I had spent literally two days crafting.

It was an eight-graph summary of immigration history in Roanoke — you try pulling that off! — culled from scads of yellowed clippings and a thorough reading of a 500-plus page city history.

I thought it sang, frankly. I thought it gave the piece heft and context.

But it put Carole to sleep, as many of our so-called babies do.

It’s taken me 20-plus years to figure this out, but I’ve learned to train myself to respond to red pen edits by taking a deep breath and, deadline permitting, saying nothing at all. The truth is, I’m not equipped to digest that much negative feedback on a project until I’ve had time to let it sink in and simmer — ideally, in private and overnight. Then I pick the edits off methodically, one at a time, working from the easiest fixes to the teeth-gnashers.

If it’s something I’m dead-set on stetting — stet is ancient copy editor-speak for “let it stand” — I try to get my arguments in line before we meet again. I write better than I talk, so I draft my stet arguments out ahead of time, carefully and with the utmost respect. If I really, really care about a line, I’m not above groveling. But I definitely pick my battles. No one likes a reporter who fights over every little nit.

I’m proud to say I have never shouted in anger, “Well, then, take my name off that story!” or threatened to quit (as others have, back when newspapers could afford to tolerate such behavior). I haven’t ever kicked an office trash can a la Bucky Martin, though I once threw a couple of pens at a page designer (sorry, Tim), and I have certainly cursed and groaned, which I consider my constitutional right. As Jeff DeBell is my witness, I have sometimes acted quite immature.

But many a time my butt has been saved by a quick-thinking editor. Brian’s a whiz at helping me ground my stories in data — a weakness of mine — and Carole drills down so deeply with questions that when she lands on the one I can’t answer, I know that’s where my next round of reporting has to begin. Edit sessions with my first editor, Wendy Zomparelli — whose “Zomp-Stompings” were legend — were so loud, long and full of fencing jabs that we sometimes had to close the door so as not to disturb the rest of the newsroom. She drove me crazy with her relentless drive for precision, but we laughed a lot, too, and I have to concede that she’s usually the editor in my head, and I’m better for it.

All of which is to say: Being edited can be angst-ridden and enlightening, challenging and sometimes even fun. The best editors put their criticism in a bun, as my teacher-husband calls it — that is, they find something good to say before and after the moment they throttle you with their red pens.

Today I had one of those headaches, probably weather-related. It started at the base of my left ear and circumnavigated the span of my frizzy-from-the-rain hair. I took two Tylenol. Then a third. Then an Ibuprofen. The frizzies might as well have been daggers.

Sleep, my husband ordered when I returned home about to fall to my knees. Then he told me about Joe Biden and his unintentionally broadcast, off-color, high-fiver of a remark to the president during the signing of the health care bill. I took my laptop to bed and rushed to the New York Times Web site for the up-to-the-minute scoop (forgetting that the Gray Lady would never, ever print what Biden actually said).

There it was in the right-hand column, one of the best-read stories of the day, and it had nothing to do with health care or bad language. But it was a great tonic for my raging headache. A recipe for garlic soup, exactly one bowl of garlic soup.

(By the way, not long ago a Times reporter talked to the Niemans about an award-winning project he’d written and casually dropped into his talk the importance of those “Most Popular” story links on the side of their home page — and not just to readers. One reporter is so worried about job security that every time she writes a story, she e-mails a link to all her relatives and friends, asking them to e-mail it to someone else.)

But who wants to worry about job security when you have a headache, so back to the soup. I tinkered, as is my wont. And while I can’t say it was the cause of my current pain-free state, it sure didn’t hurt. Were I smart and more enterprising, I’d have had a slice of toast with it, using Penny Wright’s knead-free bread recipe. Were I rich, I’d have ordered the coolest toaster on the planet to help — a lovely appliance I got to use when I stayed at Penny’s sister’s house in Southampton last week. It’s a brand called Breville that features such functions as a “lift up and look” button and “A bit more.” I love that: A bit more!

Garlic Soup

(inspired by Martha Rose Shulman’s version in today’s New York Times)

2 cups chicken broth (Shulman’s recipe calls for water)

2 garlic cloves (big ones), minced

Splash of olive oil

Salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to taste

Handful of pasta (I used rotini)

Two big handfuls of fresh spinach (or any other green or favorite vegetable), chopped

1 egg

Handful of shaved Parmesan cheese

In a small soup pot, pour chicken broth and throw in garlic and cook on medium for about 15 minutes. Then toss in pasta and seasoning. Cook till almost al dente.

Add spinach, stirring for one minute or so, then turn the burner off. Crack egg into a cup; to that add a ladle full of the hot soup and stir. (You’re trying to avoid the egg turning into scrambled bits in your soup.) Return to soup, stir and let sit for another minute or two, and enjoy the buttery color it becomes. Adjust with more salt to taste.

Serve topped with Parmesan or copious amounts of any good cheese. (Next time I cook this up, I’ll start off by sauteing some garlic and bread crumbs in olive oil and then add the broth etc. I might also use arugula instead of spinach, but I’ll only let it simmer 30 seconds or so.)

When it’s all gone and your headache history, ask somebody to make you a bit more.

In order to understand your place as well as your people, sometimes it’s good to get away for a few days.

Last week I spoke about my work to a group of library patrons in Southampton, N.Y. (a topic I’ll save for my next posting). To get to the tony Long Island community, my fantastic South African traveling companion Janet Heard and I took an Amtrak train, followed by a cross-sound ferry, followed by a car ride that took us on two more ferries — including through Sag Harbor, where we looked longingly, without success, for hometown studboy Alec Baldwin.

The next day, we toured New York City, by way of the Hampton Jitney bus (complementary muffins and New York Times), several subway rides, a city bus and a carriage ride through Central Park, guided by a nursing student named Mamet, a cheerful Georgian immigrant who mistakenly thought we were gay. “Sorry to disappoint you,” I said.

Not that our feet didn’t share the burden of transport. We figured we put in 60 city blocks in as many hours. On St. Patrick’s Day morning, I found myself in total heaven: standing elbow-to-elbow  amid a cacophony of kilted Irishmen, Smithwicks in hand. The bar was called Molly’s Pub and Shebeen, and we chose it from the throngs of standing-room-only Irish pubs because my Capetown buddy swore that Shebeen was a South African word for an after-hours bar. Turns out it is, not unlike a Southern nipjoint, only the word is Gaelic in origin. (Where matters of drinking are concerned, I defer — always — to the Irish.)

At a trendier-than-thou restaurant on Broome Street (where our Barbie maitre d’ wore runner-laden black pantyhose under the tightest, shortest black skirt on the lower East side), we met our writer pal Ashton Applewhite, who was fresh off her six-week stint as an “interpreter” in the Tino Sehgal show at the Guggenheim — and still high with excitement. “The only time in my life I’ll ever be in The New Yorker and The New York Times in the same week.” It’s the only time in my life I’ll ever know someone who’s been in The New Yorker and The New York Times in the same week!

After a night showing of “Fela!” — a jamming musical/dance tribute about Fela Kuti, a kind of Nigerian Bob Marley — we capped our trip off with a woefully short two-hour visit to MoMA, where South African artist William Kentridge’s haunting drawings and multimedia works chronicled Apartheid and its aftereffects. (Note to MoMA visitors about to hop on a bus: You’re not allowed to check your suitcase at the museum, but a nice lady at the museum may encourage you to pretend you’re a guest at the nearby Hilton so you can stash your bags there with the Egyptian bellman . . . who may also inquire if you are gay. [Whattup? Was it the newsboy hat?])

For a while it felt like we’d gone to New York to learn about . . . Africa. Which is fine and good. But I did have to smile when I spotted this photo in another MoMA exhibit with a dateline of Radford, Va, circa 1930s.

I asked my buddy Ralph Berrier, font of all Radford knowledge, if he’d ever seen the photo before, and he said no. But his characteristically Ralphy reply made me miss my hometown all the more: “We ain’t got no MoMA in Bigg Lik, but we got a lotta Hot Momas!”

By the way, Ralph’s book, “If Trouble Don’t Kill Me,” will be published by Crown this summer. It’s the wild, true tale of his musician-grandfather who was within a mosquito wing’s width of reaching fame and acclaim. So New Yorkers, get ready to pull out your fancy pantyhose and break out the Smithwicks: Big Lick’s coming to town.