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Notes on writing, travel and self-employment |
Don’t get me wrong. I have have a great deal of respect for Jeff Koons. His sculpture, whether its a garage-sized balloon animal made from shimmering aluminum or the towering puppy made from flowers outside the Guggenheim in Spain, shows a creative brilliance that lives up to his fame.
But $16.8 million is just too much to pay for something this ugly:
Jeff Koons’ Pink Panther sculpture goes for $16.8 million
I’m late to the game on this, but during a long run Sunday I finally listened to comedian Marc Maron’s critically acclaimed podcast. It lives up to the publicity.
Aside from the first few minutes of neurotic, semi-confessional rambling about his new therapist, listening to Maron interview Patton Oswalt was like sitting in on a conversation between the two most interesting people at a party. Ever been in a room where someone is just genuinely talented at conversing? at drawing out topics and hitting them from surprising angles and keeping the flow of talk going in an intelligent and engaging way? Add a few dick jokes, and that’s what WTF is like.
Even better, you can pretend to be enriching your writing skills while listening at work. This week’s podcast, while covering a lot of topics and focused mainly on entertainment, hit on some real truths about writing for a living. Namely, that every professional writer has to force himself to sit down and actually write to be successful, and that it pays to be the guy who’s not a pain in the ass to work with.
Starkly honest and brilliantly funny, WTF is worth a listen even if you don’t have any interest in comedy or the entertainment industry.
The Internet supposedly freed the creative professional from the office. All the information locked in books, binders and notebooks now can be browsed, downloaded or sent to the cloud for viewing anywhere, at any time. Why would today’s freelance writer need to visit a library filled with stacks of yellowing paper?
Actually, there are more reasons to hold on to that library card than you might think:
- Free magazines: Obvious, yes, but it’s still worth remembering that there’s no point in paying for a subscription, online subscription or individual issues of potential print markets when you an read several back issues at the library for free.
- Free research material: Not everything is online, and there are many corners of the Internet where high-quality research material commands a top dollar subscription. If you were to pay for individual access to your library’s Lexis-Nexis account, it would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 per year. Even if they don’t subscribe to Lexis-Nexis, they will subscribe to a host of similar databases. Likewise, I’m always surprised at the range of obscure professional journals and research publications even smaller city libraries keep on hand. Need to estimate the average square-foot construction cost of a new rec center in the upper Midwest? RS Means isn’t going to give you that information for free on the Web, but they probably did send their latest reference volumes to your local librarian.
- Professional research: Speaking of librarians, not everyone knows the depth of knowledge these men and women have. Most new librarians have master’s degrees, and their training goes well beyond cataloging books. Need help with archival research, navigating academic papers or finding that nettlesome piece of information that’s too obscure for Google? They can help.
- Market leads: Between Bacon’s, Cision and other research companies that put out multi-volume media directories each year, many libraries have editorial contacts for just about every print publication in the country. Just perusing them by subject can reveal dozens of markets you’ve never heard of.
- Free office space: Need to get out of the house? Many larger libraries have small study rooms with doors, wifi and electrical outlets for laptops. At the very least you can find a table or desk without feeling guilty for taking up space at the local coffee shop.
- Free audiobooks: Many libraries let you download them straight to your mp3 player from your account. That may not be freelance related, but it can still save you money.
Over the last few months, I’ve had the pleasure of writing gallery reviews for C-Ville Weekly. For such a small place, Charlottesville boasts a bevy of established and innovative visual artists. Here are a few whose work I’ve recently had the pleasure of reviewing:
- Fresh Paint: New Members’ Show at the McGuffey Art Center (January 18)
- Witt Makes a Splash: Clay Witt’s “Ultramarine” (November 23)
- The Many Shades of Green: Patrick Costello’s “Cheer On” (October 19)
- Unfolding the Untold: “Serial Thrillers” at PVCC (October 5)
- Off the Wall: “Site Singularity” at The Bridge (September 21)
Ever wonder what happens to all of that money we send to the Middle East in exchange for oil?
Today’s New York Times recounts a phone call between a reporter and an imprisoned 19-year-old U.S. citizen who alleges he’s been tortured in a Kuwaiti prison. The reason? Because Gulet Mohamed visited Yemen last year and FBI agents won’t accept his explanation of why he was there.
Even Kuwaiti officials indicated Gulet — a Virginian who immigrated from Somalia with his family in 1995 — should be released, but he’s effectively barred from from re-entering the United States. Instead, FBI agents have given him two choices: Say he was in Yemen to meet with terrorists (He maintains he was studying Arabic in the Yemeni capital, just as he had been in Kuwait) or face imprisonment, sleep deprivation and beatings for the indefinite future.
Allow me to lay out just a few reasons why his plight is exceptionally disturbing for anyone in America who travels in the developing world:
1. Visiting Yemen is not illegal
In fact, my former Spokesman-Review colleague Holly Pickett has traveled there. She’s a successful photographer. But working freelance for several news organizations, it’s completely possible some border agent could cite her lack of a plastic badge from a newspaper as proof she was being dishonest about her activities in the country. Does Gulet’s plight suggest journalists like Holly are at risk of indefinite detention and torture at the instruction of American intelligence? I really wish that didn’t sound so far fetched.
2. “I will end torture, end extraordinary rendition and indefinite detentions”
You know who said that? I’ll give you a hint: He’s Hawaiian, he likes basketball and he’s been in office for two years.
3. Gulet was not charged with a crime.
His original questioning by Kuwaiti border officials was simply a fishing expedition (maybe even a justified one, given Yemen’s rotten reputation). But what should have been a straightforward line of questioning into what a kid with no ties to terrorism was doing in such a rough country turned into indefinite imprisonment without trial.
How do I know it was merely a fishing expedition? If the FBI possessed any evidence solid enough to prosecute Gulet, they would have extradited him from Kuwait to face terrorism charges in a United States court. It would be nice, high-profile-bad-guy conviction. It would give the intelligence agencies and DHS a rare PR opportunity to show that they’re capable of more than just bustin’ skulls and fingering people at the airport.
By leaning on Kuwaiti authorities to imprison a guy without charge, against whom it apparently holds no evidence, our government has effectively suspended the habeus corpus rights of an American citizen.
4. Under long-established international law, it is illegal to deny someone entry to their own country.
Even the stamp drones at the airport will admit that if you give them enough shit.
Gulet’s as much of an American citizen as I am. If his U.S. passport can be rendered useless, what does that say about mine?
I’ve been to the Middle East, Africa, India, Peru, China and Indonesia. All of those places have terrorist groups of one stripe or another. Who’s to say I won’t land in jail the next time I visit a country that happens to be too poor or crime-afflicted to attract a Disney park franchise?
I really dread the next time I travel internationally and get asked by the locals why my country brags about the supremacy of its constitution, then it treats its own citizens traveling abroad (let alone everyone else) to about as much due process as North Korea.
Not sure which Mexican beach escape I’m talking about? Much as I hate resorting to pop cultural references, you may remember it as the sleepy Pacific village Tim Robbins escapes to at the end of The Shawshank Redemption.
These days you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone describing Zihua and neighboring Fonatur-conceived Ixtapa as secluded. All the same, it manages to retain a calm and casual atmosphere that draws Canadian retirees and Britney Spears alike to it’s azure surf.
I bring this up because two stories I reported from Ixtapa/Zihuantanejo last fall are finally online. This one ran in Frontier Airline’s inflight magazine, Wild Blue Yonder. And this one ran at culturemap.com, which also had me produce the video.
The River Styx Printer Cartridge Refill Kit: Perfect for budget-minded freelancers and/or heroin addicts with substantial printing needs.
Saw this story from the Beeb today on a relatively new flight and hotel search aggregator out of Singapore.
Wego offers a decent search of the same American airlines’ sites as Kayak and all the others. Where it’s likely to come in handy, though, if for discount flights in Asia. The melange of cut-rate carriers out of Singapore and Australia all offer their discount fares on different sites. Wego does a pretty good job of rounding them up in a single search.
