Dangermond.org

I was speaking to someone about how moribund the newspaper industry is and he asked me if there was any chance they’d come back. I told him about the rapist in our neighborhood – how the information, the accounts of the attack, the tracking of location, the apprehension was all delivered through emails and text messages – all viral. I never once looked at the newspaper and I was more informed about a crime in my neighborhood than the Times Picayune could have provided.

If newspapers were smart – they’d create a world, national, statewide, citywide and community centric viral email system and SMS messaging and from there they could really be said to be on top of the local news. Immediacy, targeted rules out over the day old news.

I cover media and advertising and so I pay possibly more attention to ads than most. Leaving New York, I saw a billboard with www.whocanIsue.com. The catch for out of home billboards is to say it in seven words or less. I guess this one summed it up pretty succinctly.

Flying home on Jet Blue, a photograph of John Updike flashed across the TV monitor and I put my earphones on quickly and gasped to learn that Updike died today. The Rabbit series is possibly the Great American Novel and it surely is the G A N that every writer aspires to write. He will be sorely missed.

I wrote John Updike, I believe in 1991 but my letter and his letter back are not dated. I wrote to tell him I had finished the last of the Rabbit series and that I had been discussing it with a professor of English Literature and the professor had said he believed Updike might have written the Great American Novel. And I had agreed. I told Mr. Updike I had bought Rabbit Run for 50 cents at a book sale. Imagine!

This is what Updike wrote me back:

Mar 8
Dear Ms. Dangermond-
Thank you for your kind letter; it was very encouraging, as I am about to see all four Rabbit novels put into a single Everyman’s edition. 50 cents a piece! What a steal, if I do say so myself.
Best wishes,
John Updike.

I don’t know about you but I loved the whole swearing in of Obama except for Warren, who I thought was a cut below everyone else who took the stage. Alexander’s poem was perfect for the day.

ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each other’s eyes — or not — about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair. Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum, with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus. A farmer considers the changing sky. A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words — words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side. I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe. We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle. Praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign, the figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Others by “first, do no harm” or “take no more than you need.” What if the mightiest word is “love” — love beyond marital, filial, national; love that casts a widening pool of light; love with no need to preempt grievance?

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun. On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp, praise song for walking forward in that light.

I grew up in many parts of Central America, Puerto Rico, Panama, and the United States. I grew up some more when I traveled to Europe, Asia, Cuba, and many an island in the Caribbean. Yesterday, as Geithner gave his acceptance speech, he said his parents educated him by introducing him to the world.

I’m lucky my partner is from the beautiful land of Croatia and our child will be raised swimming in the Adriatic during the summer, soaking up New Orleans’ rich culture most of the year, and also traveling around the world to learn about how vast and small is the globe we live in. Priceless.

A client asked me yesterday what keeps me up at night and I said, knowing that I’m going to have a baby in early June who will keep me up at night.

I read this morning that a woman gave birth to octuplets (is that how you spell it?) in California – that would be EIGHT babies.

Heroic is all I have to say.

I checked into the hotel last night in Boston and the weather card on the front desk said it was 6 degrees outside. I told the clerk that isn’t a temperature it is a sentence. He laughed, but really, it’s ridiculously cold here. This morning, looking at the Commons and the graveyard snow is everywhere – isn’t 6 degrees too cold for snow?

I’m anticipating going out this morning to see clients and a large part of me wishes instead I was inside with a Snuggy. Snuggies are the new craze in case you don’t ever turn on your television and see one of the million ads for this phenomenon. T wanted a Snuggy because she is bony and perpetually cold, but there really is no justification where we live to own one. Here, you would need several Snuggies just to be comfortable.

I was speaking to a colleague today and describing Wolfie and he said that he grew up with German Shepherds and considers them the best of breed. He asked casually if Wolfie was a female and I said yes, and he said you know their tendencies, and I said no, what? He said a female German Shepherd will defend her female mistress to the death.

It struck me because we sense that Wolfie has been abused and definitely by the hands of a man. She shirks and flinches around men but is loving and trusting around women. The other day a friend was by and I told him I think Wolfie was abused, because she bared her teeth at him even though he is almost a dog whisperer. I said I think a man abused her and his response out of nowhere was that maybe it was different, maybe she had seen a man abusing a woman and was responding to that and was protecting us.

We don’t know Wolfie’s past life. We only know the stories we surmise, invent, or otherwise don’t know. But I do know that I felt safer leaving T with Wolfie knowing that a rapist was in our neighborhood, although I feel better now that he has been caught, I felt like push comes to pull, Wolfie would be there, no questions asked.

Oo la – Kimpton Hotel is rolling out the red carpet and lowering the exorbitant rates – why? – have you heard? We’re in a recession and they want my repeat business. Chocolates, champagne on arrival, upgrades to rooms with a view and suites a plenty.

Jet Blue – already a fine airlines, now serving up plenty of smiles and special attention. Why? They want me.

Everyone is a lot friendlier and amenable in a recession. The perks of poor.

I’ve said for the last five years that patience is not my strong suit and today when I was speaking to a man who is Thai and I told him Thai is one of my favorite foods and asked him if he cooks.

He said “Poorly.”

I asked if his mother cooks.

He said “Yes.”

I asked can she teach you?

He said, “There’s a secret ingredient I don’t have.”

What is it? I asked.

“Patience,” he said.