Because Sometimes Magnificence Is Its Own Rationale

Jefferson Airplane. New York City rooftop. Jean Luc-Godard. 1968.  

Life's Best Prize? Joy.

Sometimes something happens that's so unexpected, so moving, so deeply satisfying --- that it leaves most of us speechless. And glad to be alive. Such was the case when I heard the news last week that Gilbert King had won a Pulitzer for his most recent book.

You've never heard of him, right? See this photo of me? (I use it on Facebook, Twitter, and here on the About page.) He took it. He was an established fashion photographer (which, heh, is why he was able to make me look so nice).

But Gilbert also wanted to write, and to write history. That's what we talked about that day in 2006 when he took that photo. This was in New York City, where he lives and where I was visiting. My new book was about to come out, and I needed publicity photos. (*1)

So Gilbert toted his camera around the environs of the Upper West Side.  This photo was taken on a brownstone stoop on W. 82nd St.

After we finished, we went for lunch. And talked. And he told me about his literary aspirations. He wanted to write a book about a long-forgotten legal case that involved a young black man in the south. He didn't have a publisher. He didn't have an "credentials" or "platform," as the publishing insiders call it. He just wanted to write this book.

So he did.

Life goes on. We've been in touch a few times, but I've not seen him since that day. And now he's won a Pulitzer for his second book. (*2) And this profile in the New York Times.

I lack the skill to express how happy I am for him, but far more important, how moved I am that he pursued this work for the love of writing and knowing and learning and making a statement.

And apparently the people who make Big Decisions decided he'd done not just well, but had achieved excellence.

Life is an odd thing, you know? One day, you're clipping along doing what you can do to make your place in the world better and to be the best human you can. And then --- someone notices.

Life's best prize: Joy.

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*1: Truly oddball story behind that. I've only met Gilbert in person once; the day he took the photos. But we'd met virtually some months earlier in an online writing group. I can't recall now how or why that particular group started (and soon ended) (as most such groups do). At some point, he offered to take some publicity photos for me,

The next time I was in NYC, I took him up on his offer. (Which is surprising. I'm the kind of person who doesn't take freebies from anyone.) So he shot photos and then we went to lunch and talked and talked. The afternoon was delightful.  He's a lovely man and simply the kind of person with whom anyone would feel comfortable. After lunch, his lifelong best friend came to meet him (as did a mutual friend of mine and Gilbert's). We sat in the bar of Gramercy Tavern and talked some more. By the time we parted company, I felt as though Gilbert and his friend were old acquaintances. I remember feeling sad that the day had to end.

*2: The bookies were NOT betting on Gilbert for the 2013 award. Another book that had been a bestseller and received a great deal of attention was also in the running. I think most people, including me (had anyone asked me; I wasn't paying attention), assumed the other book would win.

My Reign Has Ended (And On To the Next Chapter)

Since early 2007, I've been the American-beer-history, go-to person in the U.S. (And, for that matter, often abroad as well.) (*1) That wasn't my goal when I wrote the beer book. Rather, that was an unexpected but happy consequence. A payoff for my hard work and the years devoted to amassing knowledge.

My reign is over. Craft beer has a new historian, and I hereby hand my crown to him (and do so with good cheer). (*2)

Tom Acitelli is the author of The Audacity of Hops: The History of America's Craft Beer Revolution, a new book whose title describes its contents.

I loved the book. He did the topic justice. (*3)

From here on, a journalist looking for info about craft beer (which is more groovy than ever and certainly more so than when my book appeared in 2006) can turn to Tom for what he/she wants to know.

Tom, here's to you and the future of good beer and good writing and good history. It's all yours. (Don't fuck it up, okay?)

Having said that --- I'm slightly sad about the end of this part of my life. Slightly. Because, no surprise, I'm on to other stuff (and as some of you know, when I'm on the trail of new work, I'm jazzed). (*4)

If you will, please join me in applauding Tom and his accomplishment.

And now Tom: over to you. Godspeed.

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*1: No, I don't mean I'm the ONLY PERSON EVER that journalists have consulted on the subject of beer's American history. There are others. But I had a particular niche, and had it more or less to myself, and I did it justice. No apologies at my end. Indeed, I've crusaded and proselytized for craft beer's passion, ingenuity, and creativity since 2006. I'd like to think I converted a few skeptics in the world of reporting.

*2: Some of you may be thinking "What the fuck kind of egomaniac is she?" I assure you, and as those who know me will attest, egomania is the least of my flaws.

*3: My [possibly too glowing] review of it is in the new issue of All About Beer magazine. Alas, it's not available online. (But you could track down a copy of the magazine, right?)

*4: I believe that some of that "stuff" will be concerned with beer, or beer's recent history. But oooh, boy, I'm glad Tom's handled the heavy lifting for what I have in mind for my next long-form commentary on beer and history and so forth.

The Traffic Island of My Life

So if you want to know what's REALLY going on in my life, this essay, which was a completely random find on my part, sums the situation. (*1) For thirty years now, I've been racing from one project, one job, one "place" to another. I'm exhausted. I no longer have the stamina I had when I was forty. Or had when I was fifty. More to the point, I no longer WANT that kind of "stamina," "stamina" being another word for "racing like mad to accomplish as much as I can every. single. day."

So what I'm REALLY doing these days is figuring out how to handle my half dozen new Major Projects, as well as all the ongoing stuff, as well as family life, as well as running our household. Etc. And do that while decelerating. (*2)

I'd go into detail in how this project is playing out ---- such as a few days ago when I wanted to crack open The Husband's skull because he was chattering on about something, utterly oblivious to the nine bags of groceries staring at him, which I was busy unloading, or trying to do so but he kept getting in my way while he rattled on, and realizing that rather than crack his skull open surely it would make more sense to let the groceries go for a moment, and simply slow down and chat with him, screw the groceries, I'll do it later ---- but that's all too boring.

So instead --- hey, I'll figure it out, and meanwhile I'm trying to reacquaint myself with the fine art of blogging while also, I have to admit, reveling in all the ideas that are clamoring for my attention now that the goddamn meat book is finished. Because honestly, I AM GLAD THAT BOOK IS FINISHED. It was wearing on me.

Also, in less than a year, I've had not one but two vacations, an all-time record for me, and those convinced me that adding more "leisure," or downtime, or whatever we want to call it, is a good thing. No. Not a good thing. A necessary thing.

Case in point: Yesterday I made changes to the page that describes the new meat book, and while doing so realized that it's entirely possible that I'm losing it. For real. I captured that moment on that page (you can read it here) --- and left what I wrote intact to remind me to SLOW DOWN before I turn into a giggling, nearly hysterical lunatic. (Picture some poor soul confined to a nineteenth century "insane asylum." Can you imagine being chained up like that for no reason other than that your brain and body were trying to tell you to slow down?? Good lord.) (See? I'm not even making much sense. It's disturbing. I GOTTA slow down.)

So. I'll figure it out. And yeah, I realize this is about as narcissistic a post as it's possible for one person to write. But I rarely do this kind of stuff here, so I guess we'll all live. Also, of course, if I do go right over the edge, at least I can say I gave the world fair warning. (I'm kidding. I'm not THAT deranged.)

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*1: I'm embarrassed to admit that several years ago, I had several panic attacks. I didn't know what they were --- I thought, wrongly, that panic attacks were situational: they happened in specific circumstances. Turns out that's not true. They're, um, random as hell. And frightening. But did I do anything different? Oh, no! Not me! That would be too smart.

*2: Because I've got to say that the last excruciating push of finishing the meat book deposited an unexpected and delightful surprise in my lap: As I noted in a previous blog entry, I was so exhausted by that process that when I wasn't actively working (writing, proofreading, revising, checking sources, etc.), I did "nothing." And the "nothing" part of the day proved to be powerful in both is allure and satisfaction. I want more. More, I say!

Gone Hiking . . .

I'm on vacation. For which I won't apologize. I'm tired. The manuscript of the meat book is now with the copy editor, so the production process is really, truly underway.

I'll be back in mid-April. Till then, I'm (mostly) in Northern California, hiking, watching the seal migration, and hanging with my family --- including The King, aka my grandson. Aka The Four-Year-Old Wonder.

Oh: and I FINALLY get to visit Russian River Brewing.

Life is good. No. Scratch that. Life is amazing.

Where the Brain Goes, So Go I. Sort Of.

This is interesting -- unintentionally inspired by news that Google Reader is leaving the house. (Don't worry if you don't know that story. Not needed here.) (I've so far tried four alternatives to GR. Haven't settled on a replacement.)

Here's the part that intrigues me:

Today I realized that I'm devoting a relatively large amount of time to finding a replacement. I'm surprised that it's that important to me. Apparently it's a tool that's as valuable as my wordprocessing program, my Mac, my iPad. Big punch-in-nose jolt of awareness of how much both my life and the way I "spend" time have changed.

Then tonight, while hunting for something unrelated to my search for a GReader replacement, I discovered, by accident, that Wordpress offers a "reader." It's easy-peezy: Import your sites from Google Reader, and 60 seconds later: Voila! You're good to go with your new Wordpress Reader.

Its interface is mesmerizing. It delivers each item in the feed in "magazine" style: Large, colorful "cover images" introduce, as it were, each story on the Reader. (#1) It's lovely.

But - there's always a but - within 12 or so seconds I'd rejected it as a potential replacement: my brain needed five times longer than usual to process necessary information about each item in the feed ("necessary" meaning: gleaning just enough information to decide if I want to read the entire piece). Magazine-style presentation, visually rich and image-laden, is too rich to be useful for a Reader. (*2)

Dear reader, my brain has changed in response to my online interactions. It's learned to process "screen"-based information at hyper speed.

What's slightly scary is that I didn't realize just how efficient this part of my brain had become until I looked at the Wordpress Reader.

That discovery prompts this question: What would our net/web encounters be like if we moved at a more leisurely pace? What if we lived like elite, way-upper-class Romans did, lounging in togas, dipping into plates of grapes cultivating leisure in the way that they did? (*3)

Because whatever else we moderns, do, we don't cultivate leisure. Elite Romans treated leisure as an art form. We moderns, especially we Americans, cultivate labor and utility. They're our art forms.

But they're art forms that we enjoy at the expense of a more textured life. We've taught our brains to move at warp speed whenever we're "online." But are we doing enough to balance that warp speed with a slower, more leisurely place when we're "offline"?

Yes, that sounds embarrassingly cliched: we're all moving too fast. Slow Food, etc. etc..

But experiencing that warp speed in such a  . . . tactile, immediate way startled me. Made me a bit wary. (And made me glad that I long ago made a conscious decision about how I'm living my off-line life.) (*4)

Anyway. My two cents, or less, on Life In These Times. More to come on leisure, work, and so forth in the days to come (now that I'm out of Meat History Manuscript Prison).

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#1. I would be remiss if I failed to mention what I was looking for when I ran across the WordPress Reader: A way to support Wordpress more directly than the fee I pay now. It's a valuable resource for me. I don't want to do volunteer work for them, but I'd give them some dough. Anyway, I found nothing. No "help us" buttons. I gather that means that they've moved beyond that stage, and I'm glad for them.

Also: It's interesting to note how accustomed I've become to practicing socialism. You know: Spreading my money around. Great thing about the net/web is that I can find interesting ways to do that. I love the ease with which I can give ten or twenty bucks to someone working on "work" that's outside the conventional strictures of "work," jobs, mortgages, etc. Yes, I pay taxes to various governments and I buy stuff from big companies, etc. Because in that sense, we're all socialists. (Socialism = traffic lights, people.)

*2: New project! New project! I gotta learn to "read" that specific kind of info much more quickly. Not there yet. Wonder how much faster a 27-year-old can read that kind of visual stuff? Seriously. I'll be sixty this year. My brain and reflexes have slowed from when I was in my twenties. New project! Learn to speed read magazine style!

*3: Oh. Wait. We iPad-owning, thought-pondering modern ARE like Romans....

*4. I've made a conscious (not always easy) decision to seclude myself from the world -- to retreat as much as possible -- when working.(*5) I don't go out, don't talk to people, spend an inordinate amount of time looking out the window and staring into space. Intentionally avoiding anything and anyone who moves faster than I want to move. So part of my brain is definitely operating on low gear. But apparently part of it is able to crank up to warp speed in an instant. (And yes. I'm fortunate. I know that. Odd thing is that I suspect many of us could afford far more leisure of this sort if we made decisions in that direction. And I say that as someone who lived a long while on other side of the fence I'm on now.)

*4: My husband used to fret that I was becoming agoraphobic because it's not unusual for me to stay in the house for days on end, except to walk or run (and I often do that late at night). It's not agoraphobia. I choose to avoid, as much as possible, unnecessary signal noise, if you know what I mean. That includes television, for example. I watch less now than ever, because it's so ... noisy (and I don't mean its decibel level).