A Thousand Times No

What a month it’s been! National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) took more out of me that I could have foreseen, but it also brought me more than I could have ever imagined. November has been a month crossed with baby steps and giant leaps.

• Word up: My friend the computerphobe is finally bonding with his MacBook. Per Tom Cruise, his word-processing capability was brought into the world sans screaming or pharmaceutical assistance.
• Paradoxically, I’m slated to interview Barry Schwartz next week.
• Dozens of people have stopped by to read about a certain chewy local treat, including folks from the Just Born candy company.
• Santorum? No more ‘em.
• Canadians dropped in from Alberta, British Columbia, and several other provinces.
• A world of visitors came from faraway places, including India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, and deepest Peru.
• I finally managed to get a credit card without a robot zombie signal.
• Troubador Jonathan Coulton rocked my world.
• Somehow, I had the sheer willpower to get through the month without eating any dogs.
• I got sick as a dog anyway.
• I survived the early onset of the holiday season, mindful that it could have begun far less pleasantly.
• Terrific entries from some great fellow bloggers helped keep me at the keyboard, in solidarity and admiration.
• Best of all, after months of being just a twinkle in my mind’s eye, the podcast is finally here.

People have been warm, generous, encouraging, and kind, serving up a month full of happy surprises. Thank you so much, one and all, and see you in December.

Today on Salon.com, Garrison Keillor says “Bah, humbug” to Christmas naysayers:

There are people who feel “excluded” by Christian symbolism and are offended by the manger and the angels and the Child . . . To which one can only say: Get a life. When you go to France, you don’t expect a stack of buckwheat pancakes for breakfast or Le Monde to print box scores. You’re in France. Now you’re in America. It’s a Christian culture. Work with it.

Ah, oui, the French. They hew to their Christian roots in a manner that may be difficult for many Americans to comprehend. Of the eleven public holidays in France, the majority are tied to dates on the Christian calendar.

There’s Christmas, and there’s the Monday after Easter. That much Americans can follow, what with the New York Stock Exchange continuing to close on Good Friday long after most public schools and private employers no longer recognize the holiday. But in France there’s also public observance of Ascension, Assumption, the Monday following Pentecost, and Toussaint (All Saints) on November 1st.

When you watch the French kicking the holiday season into high gear on St. Nicholas Day each December 6th, or carrying the festivities straight through till the last crumbs of the galettes des rois for the Epiphany disappear in early January, you realize just how deracinated the Christmas season in America has become. In the land of stinky cheese, it’s fine to put out a crêche or wish someone “Joyeux Noël!” After all, you’re in France. “It’s a Christian culture,” the calendar itself proclaims.

Keillor has always been a great humorist; this time he has truly exceeded himself. Emulate the cultural sensibilities of the French? That’s a riot!

While teaching college English students down in Virginia, an acquaintance of mine used to spend time reviewing the different types of metrical feet used in poetry. Iambs, dactyls, trochees and anapests would wend their way through the air, falling mostly on deaf ears. But when it came time to teach the double-down thump of the spondee, he knew how to wake the kids up: “BAD DOG! BAD DOG!”

Earlier today I asked Philadelphia Inquirer columnist John Grogan, author of the ultimate Bad Dog memoir “Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog,” if I could interview him for the podcast. He’s been ridiculously busy ever since Marley became a posthumous star, but he was kind enough to decline my request promptly and graciously.

That’s one more “No” for the tote board, so the toast has still landed butter-side-up. And as anybody with a wet nose knows — whatever hits the floor, it’s all good.

The late, great New York Times writer R.W. “Johnny” Apple loved many things, but he was especially enamored of one particular tropical food:

No other fruit, for me, is so thrillingly, intoxicatingly luscious, so evocative of the exotic east, with so precise a balance of acid and sugar, as a ripe mangosteen. I thought so when I first tasted one half a lifetime ago, in Singapore, and I’ve thought so ever since. I’d rather eat one than a hot fudge sundae, which for a big Ohio boy is saying a lot.

I myself was quite big on an Ohio boy at the time this was published, so the comparison has stayed with me ever since.

Unfortunately, fresh mangosteens could not then, and cannot now, be legally imported into the United States. It’s a pest-control issue: according to federal regulators, there’s no way ensure that mangosteens are free from Mediterranean fruit flies. I was left to savor the taste of Apple’s description, if not the fruit itself.

This past week, I noticed something new among the fruits and nuts at my local Trader Joe’s. Could it be? Yes, it was — freeze-dried mangosteen! I almost tore open a bag on the spot. The small, pale pink-white sections are like a more delicate, refined cousin of the pineapple. Even completely dessicated, the mangosteen’s fleshy bulbs are still redolent of something plump, juicy, and vaguely sinful.

So yes, for the all-out real thing, I’d definitely give up a month of sundaes.

 

 InTheNo 1: Author Tom Zoellner [59:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

~ Click the triangle above to hear this interview ~

A broken engagement spurred journalist and author Tom Zoellner to research and write a comprehensive examination of the global diamond industry. Zoellner also helped recount the story of Paul Rusesabagina, the man who saved hundreds of lives during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. We discuss both books during this inaugural podcast episode.

The Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World of
Diamonds, Deceit, and Desire
~ St. Martin’s Press, 2006 ~
[to read an excerpt, visit theheartlessstone.com]

An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography
(Paul Rusesabagina, with Tom Zoellner)
~ Viking, 2006 ~

During the podcast, we also touch on two films:

Blood Diamond ~ [IMDB] [Official site]
Hotel Rwanda ~ [IMDB] [Official site]

Zoellner has a piece on diamonds in the the Nov. 26 issue of Time magazine, in conjunction with their coverage of the Blood Diamond film.

The LA Times takes note of several of the initiatives surrounding the film’s release.

For more information on how to take action on conflict diamonds, visit blooddiamondaction.org.

Who needs a diamond ring? Those of you with commitment issues can sample the podcast, right here, right now. Just click the black triangular “Play” button at the top of this entry to begin. (Many thanks to Peter M. of CrushingKrisis for pointing me to the podPress plug-in that makes this possible.) Since the changes allow you to listen and download directly from this blog, I’m presenting the complete show notes above.

Like what you hear? We invite you to sample other archived episodes. You can also receive future episodes on a regular basis by subscribing with just one click at iTunes, Podcast Alley, or Odeo, or by dropping our RSS feed into your podcatcher:

http://podcast.1000timesno.net/rss

I am very, very pleased to announce that “InTheNo: The 1000 Times No Podcast” has gone live.

You can read more about the details of the inaugural episode by visiting the full show notes. My guest is journalist and author Tom Zoellner.

You can also directly download the first episode from here. (59:59, 55MB)

Throughout November, I’ve been participating in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), striving to make the requisite daily blog post. NaBloPoMo skews very heavily towards personal, rather than political, blogging, with women leading the charge. The NaBloPoMo Randomizer has provided hours of amusement and delight for me and for thousands of other readers worldwide. A hat-tip to all my fellow participants, with a special mention of some of my favorite reads:

• Fussy: Den mother to the teeming NaBloPoMo brood, M. Kennedy’s account of costuming her son for Halloween 2006 is guaranteed to send milk though your nose.
• Dooce: Raised Southern and Mormon, Heather Armstrong is now neither — just so disarmingly frank and funny that you almost fail to notice she’s also whip-smart and cover-girl beautiful.
• Chookooloonks: Karen keeps a gorgeous photo blog of her life in Trinidad, where the view out her front window looks an awful lot like paradise.
• Dirty Catholic: She’s a lay ecclesial minister who tells you how to throw the Book at your slutty friends.
• At Home in Rome: Go to the Eternal City. Fall in love. Get married. Stay in Italia. Blog. Shelley’s got the recipe for a beautiful life.
• Woolgathering: Elizabeth Perry’s lovely, pensive site is filled with still-life watercolors and sketches.
• Pioneer Woman: Ree, a former city slicker, records her life “in the middle of nowhere on a working cattle ranch” in snappy prose and absorbing photos.
• Smitten Kitchen: New Yorker Deb shoots luscious, mouth-watering photos of delicious recipes in the making.

And in some mutual back-scratching, here are some folks who have been kind enough to point back here:

• To Whom It May Concern: A Chicago-area twentysomething sends sometimes poignant, sometimes acerbic (dis)missives zinging into the ether.
• Mama Nirvana: Amy blogs from Oregon about life with one full-size and two pint-size guys, adorable all.
• CrushingKrisis: Fellow Philly resident Peter serves up a little bit of everything, including a comprehensive A-Z review of NaBloPoMo.

Thanks to my fellow bloggers for making November truly a season of plenty. Less than one week left to go until December!

I’m well aware that Philly drivers are an obnoxious, obstreperous lot — yet they still find ways to astonish me anew with their lack of common courtesy, common sense, and common decency. Take, for example, last night.

I was riding to dinner in a friend’s car, relieved not to be walking in the chilly, drizzling rain. We came to a stop behind several other cars at a busy lighted intersection. When the cars in front of us failed to move after the light turned green, my friend peered forward into traffic.

“There’s somebody down in the intersection,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “There’s a stalled car up ahead?”

“No,” he said slowly. “I think there’s a person lying in the street.”

I got out of the car and quickly walked toward the intersection. Just beyond the cross street, a woman was sprawled face down and motionless on the pavement, with four or five people standing or kneeling immediately around her. Someone shouted that 911 had been called, and an ambulance was on its way. Another person called out, “Is anyone here a doctor?” A man crouched beside the fallen woman, urging her to stay still and to try not to move.

She had been struck by a hit-and-run driver. My friend quickly pulled his car to the side of the road and joined me at the scene. I began taking off my coat and walking back toward the intersection.

“Wait, what are you doing?” he demanded, tugging my arm.

“If somebody doesn’t start directing traffic, another one of those people hunched down in the street is going to get hit here in the dark,” I replied. “And I can’t do it wearing this black coat and black gloves, or I’ll be dead meat.” He let me go and stepped into the intersection himself, working with me to keep cars away from the accident scene and from each other.

Even with two people actively attempting to shield the small circle of Samaritans on the street from harm, there were still several close calls. One car decided it would be a smart move to cut off two lanes of traffic while running a red light. Another thought it was a good idea to come to a complete halt while driving past the accident scene, nearly getting T-boned by oncoming cars. The worst was a woman who actually veered towards the accident scene, gawking at the fallen body while narrowly missing a bystander by a few hapless inches.

This being Philly, we even had to work to keep some of the cars from jumping (and blocking) the intersection as the ambulance approached. By then, a young doctor, still in her scrubs, was tending to the conscious, coherent victim. There was hope for the woman who had been struck.

But there’s no cure in sight for the idiot drivers.

Around this time each year, desperate cooks have a number they can dial when faced with a turkey emergency: 1-800-BUTTERBALL. Trained, experienced home economists and nutritionists are standing by, waiting to help save the holiday.

I’ve always wondered how the operators at the Turkey Talk-Line spend the rest of their Thanksgiving.  Do they stagger shifts so that everyone gets to spend time with their families?  Do they delegate the marination duties at home?  Do they regale their relatives with tall turkey tales from the office?

Hmmm.  This year, I just might call and ask.

I’m pleased to say that the release of the inaugural podcast episode is just around the corner. There are a few final technical details to square away, but it should be ready for download before the end of the month.

Naming the podcast was an interesting exercise. My initial impulse was to call it the No Show, but I quickly discovered the name was already being used by Steve Post at WNYC in New York. Toying with a few variations of “No way” and “No how”/”Knowhow” never seemed to get off the ground. Then, like a character in a Lubitsch film, it finally dawned on me that the very thing I sought had been staring me in the face all along.

Check back soon for InTheNo: The 1000 Times No podcast.