Original Essays
by Original Essays, February 28, 2008 3:14 PM
I've been an "environmentalist" for 37 years now and I couldn't be happier about the "green" bandwagon that is rolling through Hollywood and the rest of the country these days. It hasn't always been so easy being "green"; in fact, there were times back in the 1990s when I think my lifestyle was considered so strange and extreme it may have even cost me acting work. Certainly environmentalism was considered some kind of far-left liberal cause, a holdover from the days of hippies and the Whole Earth Catalog. Well, perhaps like miniskirts and skinny neckties, the sustainable lifestyle has come back into fashion. But I am convinced it's more than a lifestyle fad. The challenges we face today (and I use the word "challenges" not "problems" because I truly believe they can be overcome) are so widely acknowledged that I am seeing a fundamental shift in human behavior. Perhaps the most rewarding and interesting aspect of this shift, though, is that environmentalism is no longer seen as the province of extremists. Thanks to an ever-growing consensus among very intelligent folks (many with Ph.D. after their names) and highly respected, peer-reviewed studies, we are starting to live in a world in which there is widespread agreement that issues like global climate change, reduction in fisheries, air pollution, water resources, and dependency on Mid-East oil cannot be ignored. And for the first time we are recognizing that these challenges don't reside on one side of the political aisle or the other ? they affect each and every one of us, and are inspiring all of us to make changes in the way we live. People in both the red and blue states have a strong desire to reduce their carbon footprints, reduce their waste, and leave a healthy planet for their children to enjoy. I get so much fan mail now from people in the heartland of America that say things like "I may not agree with you politically, Mr. Begley, but I like the idea of using a rain barrel to catch and use my rainwater like you did on TV ? where do I get one?" It seems conservatives do conserve, too! But when I think about it, that's nothing new. After all, my 37-year journey of practicing environmentally friendly living began as a child growing up in Los Angeles, California ? not in Hollywood, but in the more conservative San Fernando Valley. My father was a staunch Republican of Irish descent who liked to "conserve" and didn't allow anything in our home to go to waste. He was a child of the Depression, and frugality was very much a part of our lifestyle, so the urge to conserve ? to reuse and recycle and make do ? was fostered early on in my life. My father also encouraged my love of nature. He urged me to become a Cub Scout, and later a Boy Scout, and I found I really liked being outdoors. At that time, though, the air quality in Los Angeles was terrible. In the San Fernando Valley where we lived, people would ask, "Why do they call it a valley?" The smog was so thick you couldn't see the hills or mountains on either side of the valley unless you drove right up next to them. I couldn't run from one end of the block to the other without developing a horrible wheeze that made it impossible to breathe. In 1970, the first Earth Day was held, and that celebration really crystallized a lot of thoughts that had been percolating in my mind and compelled me to make some life changes. My father always told me, "Eddie, don't tell people what you're going to do... show them by doing it." So, that year, I bought my first electric car. Its top speed was 15 mph and it had just a 15 mile range ? it was essentially a golf cart with a windshield wiper and a horn. But I did it. I started composting in 1970 by taking my food scraps out behind where I lived and burying them in a hole next to the railroad tracks ? and green things started to grow there! I began to try more things and found that not only were they good environmental practices, they were saving me money! As I saved more money, I began to do more things. In the 1980s, I invested in a better electric car and I also installed solar hot water. In 1985 I invested in a wind turbine in the California desert. In 1990, I installed solar electricity (even before there were government tax credits or rebates). And all of these things I've done over the years that are "good for the environment" have been good for my bottom line! This is where I see the convergence of belief and behavior. People in this country may or may not believe that we share responsibility for global climate change ? but we are all interested in saving money and making our lives easier. We want to lower our energy bills, reduce our gasoline consumption, and eat healthier ? these things are important to all of us. This economic motivation extends not only to individuals but to corporate America. Thirty years ago, businessmen and politicians and economists in California claimed we would destroy the economy by forcing the automakers to reduce emissions and by forcing power companies to clean up their plant emissions. Instead, Detroit and the world made cleaner cars through the use of unleaded fuel and catalytic converters. The power companies cleaned up their dirty plants and moved to cleaner fuels like natural gas. The air quality in California improved markedly and the economy thrived. Today we have four times as many cars in Los Angeles, yet we have half the ozone depletion. We all deserve a medal for bringing about such an astonishing turnaround! That is why I believe the "challenges" we face are solvable. We have made changes, big ones, and we can do it again. Sometimes people ask me, "How can I do the things that you have done, Ed? I don't have the money or the resources of a Hollywood actor. I can't afford to make that type of investment." Well, I'm not a millionaire, nor have I ever been. I'm a working actor. And I started small back in 1970 and did more and more over time as I saved money. Start by changing out your old incandescent lightbulbs for energy-efficient compact fluorescents. Get an energy-saving thermostat. Start recycling and composting. Start your own vegetable garden. Get out of your car a day or two a week and walk or ride a bike or take public transportation. Start by picking the "low hanging fruit" first and work your way up to the bigger ticket items as you save money. We're all in this together and we can overcome these environmental challenges. There is no reason for us to use the world's resources like we're having a going-out-of-business sale. There is value to the trees in the forest that is equal to or greater than the value of those trees being used as two-by-fours. Cutting down the old growth forests for lumber would be like tearing down the Smithsonian because we needed some bricks! I'm filled with hope for the future...and glad to be getting acting work on Hollywood sets filled with recycling programs and hybrid cars! ÷ ÷ ÷ Ed Begley, Jr., is a veteran actor who has appeared in numerous film and television
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Original Essays
by Original Essays, February 13, 2008 4:18 PM
Where is the logic in life? It can be hard to find ? when a juvenile delinquent commits a robbery, or a prostitute agrees to put the condom to one side, or an alcoholic reaches for a bottle of vodka, where is the logic in that? Nowhere, you might think. But a new kind of economist is starting to prove that life makes more sense than you would ever have expected. The new economics grabs any tool that works: a brain scan, a giant social experiment, or the hidden patterns in an old map. Its leading experts are discovering the rational behavior in the apparently irrational world that surrounds us. This is a departure for economics ? not because economists have always steered clear of social issues, but because the subject has moved from the realms of pure logic into data detective work. That detective work was what made Freakonomics such a success. But although the star of Freakonomics, Steven Levitt, is one of the most respected economists around, he's just one of many who are doing ground-breaking work. Most have snuck under the radar screen of economics commentators. Economists have long believed that "people behave rationally." But while that used to be a dusty-dry mathematical statement, it is now a subtle and powerful account of human psychology, and it is based on surprising and sometimes dramatic evidence. When I wrote The Logic of Life, I wanted to tell the story of this new type of economist, and I wanted to use it to show us our daily lives in a new light. Whether you are trying to climb the corporate ladder, or to get a date on Friday night, once you discover the hidden logic behind the trials of daily life, you begin to see everything differently. I cannot promise that the picture will always be pretty, but I can promise that there is always something new and different to see. Let's take a look again at those initial examples. The juvenile tearaways first: Many people argue that criminals ? especially young criminals ? simply can't grasp the risks of punishment. If prison works at all, goes the theory, that's only because the bad guys are locked up, so they can't break into your home. But teens have a closer eye on the legal system than you might imagine. Most states have harsher systems for dealing with adults criminals than the young, but the gap is wider in some states than in others. In the states where the difference is particularly big, potential criminals rapidly clean up their act quickly when they become old enough to go to an adult prison. Yet in the states where adults and juveniles are treated in almost the same way, they behave in almost the same way. You might be afraid of that kid in the gang colors, but the evidence is that he's a rational criminal. The heavy drinkers, too, are more rational than you would expect. When taxes on alcohol rise, people cut back on their drinking, and that won't come as a surprise. But what is surprising is that it is the alcoholics who respond more to high prices than anyone else. The evidence comes from looking at medical records: when alcohol prices rise, cases of liver damage fall off a cliff. Nobody would claim that alcoholics are in complete control of their actions, but again, the evidence is that some, at least, know when the habit has become so costly that cold turkey becomes rational. As for the prostitutes, economists have discovered ? through careful interview programs ? that working girls will often leave the condom in the purse in exchange for a pay rise of about a quarter. Foolhardy? The astonishing thing is that the danger money negotiated by the prostitutes seems to be comparable to the premium in pay received by soldiers, firefighters, lumberjacks and other people in dangerous professions. The prostitutes risk their lives for money ? but it's a disturbingly well-calculated risk. Although each of these examples focuses on the darker side of life, that is not unusual. One of the features of the new economics I explore in The Logic of Life is the way that individual rationality can produce socially irrational results. For instance, think of the way a city tends to segregate itself into the toniest neighborhoods and the ghettoes. In the hands of the new economists, a computer model shows how this outcome can emerge from individually rational decisions. Of course, people do not always behave rationally. The Logic of Life shows the bizarre ways in which we trip over the decisions that lie in front of us. And yet, it is striking that these mistakes are not at all commonplace ? they are unusual and they are often subtle, and often arise when we are confronted with something totally unexpected. By contrast, when dealing with the daily choices we make in our relationships or our jobs, we can subconsciously make staggeringly complex decisions about what is to our advantage. In The Logic of Life, I show that traders, procurement managers, poker players, and soccer professionals are able to solve complex problems without even knowing that they're doing so. Top soccer players have been shown by economists to mix up their penalty kicks according to the fiendishly-complex strategies prescribed by economic theory. I don't think it's because they've solved the equations; instead, like the rest of us, they've left the job to their subconscious. If a professional soccer player like David Beckham is smart enough to figure out economic theory, then so am I, and so are you. The calculations take place without us realizing. And it is their subconscious logic that shapes our apparently-illogical world. ÷ ÷ ÷ Tim Harford is the author of the bestseller The Undercover Economist and The Logic of Life and a member of the editorial board of the Financial Times, where he also writes the "Dear Economist" column. He is a regular contributor to Slate, Forbes, and NPR's Marketplace. He was the host of the BBC TV series Trust Me, I'm an Economist and now presents the BBC series More or Less. Harford has been an economist at the World Bank and an economics tutor at Oxford University. He lives in London with his wife and two
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Original Essays
by Original Essays, February 11, 2008 4:00 PM
My grandmother likes to tell the story of the day the army came. It was the summer of 1971, six months into the Bangladesh War of Independence. Her eldest son, Wasif, had left home to join the Mukti Bahini ? the resistance ? and she was left in the city with her two younger children, my mother among them. Dhaka was a small city at the time, still bearing signs of a provincial outpost. When my grandparents had first moved into their neighborhood in the 1950s, the land was still wild and overgrown; she tells me the insects would creep onto their porch overnight, and in the morning she would sweep them back into the mud. I still remember that house, the semicircular porch, the small garden where I would spend summers sucking the red flowers of the exora bush. Even before she told me the story of the guns buried in the garden, I knew the house had its secrets. It was that sort of house; there was something about the color of the whitewash, the eerie glow of the trees by moonlight. By the time the war had broken out in 1971, my grandmother was ten years into widowhood. Her husband had died suddenly, of cancer. Although they'd been relatively well-off in his lifetime ? there were card parties, a coat from Harrod's, a car ? his death had caught them all unawares, as he'd made no provision for her or the children. And in that decade, between his death and the war, she had somehow managed to raise the children, put them in shoes and school uniforms and singing lessons. After my grandfather's death, his cousin tried to get custody of the children. He was under the impression that my grandfather would have left behind a great deal of money. My grandmother neither won nor lost the case ? her children became wards of the court, and every month she had to register at the courthouse to collect on the small life insurance policy that was left in their name. Before the day he died, my grandmother had probably never imagined her husband's death. She certainly would never have spoken of it. But one day he was gone, and she was left with her children in an uncertain world. I have always wondered why she didn't remarry. She told me once that there had been a proposal, but that she had turned it down because the man had not sufficiently convinced her that he would love her children as he should. She kept the family running with the rent from a house she let next door. My mother tells stories of the strict diet she forced upon them ? an abundance of required meals, milk before bedtime, tablespoons of cod liver oil. And other rituals: Vicks rubbed into chests, braids oiled and tightened before school, the regime making up for the leanness of the times and the lack of a father. Although the Bangladeshi resistance to the army occupation was limited, by August of 1971 the Pakistani troops realized the war would not be a short one. There was a mass-movement against the occupation, and the freedom fighter army ? largely untrained and badly equipped ? was causing more trouble than they'd bargained for. My grandmother's neighbor and tenant, Summer Apa, had warned my grandmother not to allow the guerillas to take shelter in her house. But my grandmother, for reasons which may have to do with love or may have to do with courage, had ignored her neighbor's warnings and made her small bungalow into a safehouse for the freedom fighters. She had collected donations for the soldiers and the refugees. Worst of all, she had allowed them to hide their rifles in a box under her rosebushes. The night before the raid on my grandmother's house, the occupying army arrested all the young men in Dhaka who had links to the nationalist movement. Many of my uncle Wasif's friends were picked up, including a man named Bodi. By the time the army were finished with Bodi, he was ready to tell them anything. They put him into a truck and drove him to my grandmother's house. They made him point to the place in her garden where they'd dug a hole and buried their rifles. While Bodi and his friends were being rounded up by the army, my grandmother and her daughter were reading poetry. My grandmother was reading the famed Urdu poet Iqbal, and my mother was reading Tagore's Gitanjali. On the two sides of the bed they shared, the two languages which were at war lay balanced as though on a scale. When the army walked in on them, still asleep in their bed, the officer in charge found their poetry books. The Tagore made him angry; the Iqbal confused him. As the interrogation wore on, it would be my grandmother's fluent Urdu that would save their lives. The soldiers found my grandmother, my mother, and my uncle Rizwan at home. Rizwan was only fourteen. A few nights before, they had celebrated his birthday. My grandmother had sewn him a pair of red pajamas. They searched every inch of the house. They stationed themselves around the periphery of the garden. My mother remembers asking them to leave her while she changed out of her nightgown. This minor politeness sticks in her memory. Their old cook, Abu'r Ma, squatted in the drawing room as the interrogation began. The commanding officer separated Rizwan, still in his red pajamas, from the women and asked him why there was a trench dug into the garden. "We're digging a tubewell," he said. They asked my grandmother, "Why is there a trench dug into the garden?" "We're digging a tubewell," she replied, "there's no water in the pipes." They had not planned to tell the same story. My grandmother calls this an act of God. Then one of the soldiers grabbed Rizwan's arm. Let's take the boy, he said, I'm sure we can find a way to make him talk. My grandmother stood in front of the door and told the officer he would have to kill her first. She spoke to him in Urdu, her native tongue. He was impressed by this. He asked her where the boy's father was. And she said, he's an orphan. And the officer let him go. Perhaps it was the word she used ? orphan ? which swayed the officer. Or her perfect Urdu. Or something in the way she stood in front of the door. This is one part of the story I will never know; the alchemy of that moment. My grandmother insists her acts were never bourn out of courage. If you asked her she would tell you it took more mettle to fight the custody battle, or to survive for a decade without a husband. After the war ended and Bangladesh gained its freedom, the new nation began its process of commemoration. Something had to be done to classify all the war heroes, the victims, the survivors. For their contributions to the war effort, men who had participated in the war were given state honors for their courage and valor. These honors were divided into five categories; the highest of these was Bir Sreshto. Seven men, all of whom were killed in combat with the Pakistan army, were given this honor. Women, too, were recognized by the state ? not for their heroic deeds, but for their victimization by the Pakistani army. For having suffered the defilement of their honor, the rape victims of the Bangladesh war were named "Birangona" ? heroic women. Sheikh
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Original Essays
by Original Essays, February 8, 2008 5:31 PM
Have you ever had a medical test and the doctor tells you, "I'm sure it's nothing; we're just making certain," and you want to believe, you really do, if not for that nagging voice that creeps into your head (and your work, and your every waking and sleeping moment) that says, "Kiddo, you're dead." And in that time between the test and the moment you get the results, you start to imagine how to break the news to your friends and family. You might think of what you want said, and by whom, at your funeral. And then, days or weeks later, the news comes back that you're fine, no worries, so on you go, having dodged yet another of life's errant bullets. I've had enough of these waiting-for-the-death-notice experiences to advance my own little philosophy, which appears in the introduction of my new anthology, For Keeps: Women Tell the Truth About Their Bodies, Growing Older, and Acceptance. In it, I say that to believe that I am healthy, to wish that I am healthy, and to live with the expectation that I will be healthy, in no way guarantees my good health. Perhaps you already know this, but do you know it in that wise place that makes you listen? Full disclosure: I am not a good listener. In truth, I'm amazed at my health, considering how unkind I am to my body. However, I must admit that, after reading and rereading the essays in this book, my listening skills have become considerably sharper. I am now more mindful of how quickly that screw we call life can turn and, at lo! this ripe age, I'm also learning (finally!) that to believe I have full control over anything almost guarantees that something out-of-control is going to happen. In that same book's introduction, I write ? perhaps as a reminder to myself ? while many of us are able to regain that control, we cannot ignore the message that hovers out there, just beyond the coast of consciousness: Our bodies are for keeps. No matter what life brings us, we must forge ahead and celebrate life. Have you ever noticed how we show more sympathy to someone with pneumonia than we do to that friend suffering from depression? We're a quick-fix society, to be sure. Take a pill and everything will be fine. Unless it's not. And then what? Friends who are depressed need us to be there for a very long time, whereas pneumonia is often treated and then it's gone. That's part of the media hype, too. It never shows people with long-term illness, only those who take the drugs and are suddenly smiling, dancing, having erections... sometimes all at the same time. Which brings me to an important message that might have been solely for women a decade ago but now applies to men as well. With everything the media throws at us, do we dare to dream what our lives would be like if we no longer worried how every inch of our bodies looked to the world? Imagine awakening in the morning, peering into the mirror at your sleepy face, creased skin, wild hair... and loving what you see. I don't know about you, but I'm not convinced when some gorgeous, flawless, ageless woman tells me that she buys a product because she's worth it. Hell, I'm worth it, but how do I still that little voice that whispers, "What's the use?" So really, is there a solution to all of this? Well, yes, there is, but it's hard to swallow and, like going cold turkey from various substances, you've got to be willing to believe. Believe that life would be so much more enjoyable (and less painful) if we could turn off the damn hype and just live in our bodies, which is not easy (at least not for me, someone who views myself through narrowed eyes that sometimes reflect scorn and disappointment); believe you would rather live to 90 than have tight abs, or choose a long life over unwrinkled skin, which is a piece-of-cake decision for me, but there are, sadly, too many men and women who would choose early death if that guaranteed taut bodies and smooth skin. Again, I blame the media. And why not? We're practically assaulted on a regular basis (if you watch television, that means every twelve minutes) by someone else's idea of perfection. Every time the message begins, we're being told that we're imperfect, unacceptable, that we don't look, feel, smell, present in a way that will give us pure happiness. But what if you're a woman lounging on the sofa in your old college sweats, face free from makeup, legs unshaven, and the guy snuggled next to you loves you like that? Or you're a man hanging out, unwashed, in need of a haircut, and she can't keep her hands off of you? Even more poignant, what if you're on that sofa, with your beloved or all alone, and you love you like that?! What does that say about the message? So, the plan is to buy this book (at Powell's, of course ? is this too blatant a pitch?), and then read, inhale, absorb, laugh, nod, sigh, learn, change ? after which you will undoubtedly move on to the next book. But I must warn you: the essays stay with you. After all, we have hearts to be filled, lessons to be learned. In case you're worried that the essays in this anthology are frivolous ? I got a bad wax job and can't leave the house! Cellulite has ruined my sex life! ? you can relax. The authors have shared what happens when their bodies and emotions let them down, when life let them down; it's about how they responded when they found themselves tested to the limit (and sometimes beyond) and were forced to decide between giving in or fighting back. Imagine being told that you should undergo a double mastectomy to protect you from the high probability of breast cancer. Liza Nelson didn't think twice. She not only loved being alive and intended to remain so for a very long time; she also rejoiced in the reduction of the enormous breasts that had caused severe back and shoulder problems since adolescence. Christine Kehl O'Hagan fought being tall and overweight throughout her childhood, and then something amazing happened. Elizabeth Rosner discovered what it feels like to be the only naked person in the room. And Masha Hamilton shares the rare experience of giving shiatsu massage to burqa-clad women in Afghanistan. It's no secret that poor body image can lead us into a bottomless pit of self-loathing, one of those spiraling-downward conditions that worsens as the body shows signs of age. Some of us deal with it through sensible diet, exercise, and moisturizing creams, while others of us feel the burden and opt for the temporary gratification found in dark chocolate (Trader Joe's, with almonds, heavenly... so I've been told) or other sins of the palate. And yes, there are more extreme responses: anorexia, bulimia, isolation, suicide. I love how Aimee Liu revealed, "The more my body hurt, the more my willpower gloated. A war was under way, my physical constitution its battleground. Health was no more my real goal than che
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Original Essays
by Original Essays, February 7, 2008 5:22 PM
So here's my favorite question I've been asked during interviews about my new book, The Assist: "Were you really in Ridley's bedroom with your notebook as he and his teammates celebrated their big win by dancing to Jay-Z?" Or sometimes, it's a variation of that question, like: Were you really with these guys as they got up at the crack of dawn to make their long commute to school? Or hanging out with them in classes throughout the school day? Or walking beside them as they ambled through housing projects? The implication behind these questions is pretty obvious. These were black teenagers living in some of the toughest neighborhoods of the city. I was a white guy in his thirties living in the suburbs. How was it possible for me to observe all this without somehow changing the dynamics of the situation, without sticking out like a grandpa in the front row of a Hannah Montana concert? It's a fair question. But, as it turns out, the answer is not that complicated. I was, in fact, able to witness all those scenes, and I don't think anyone behaved all that differently because I was there. That's partly because Ridley and his friends were remarkably welcoming of me into their lives. It's partly because I tried to know when to put my tape recorder away or give them some space by leaving the room entirely. But mostly it's because the guys grew so accustomed to my being around. When I began my work on this story back in 2004, some of the players were justifiably guarded. But it's pretty amazing how quickly those walls came down. The first breakthroughs took place on the bus rides to away games. For each long ride, I would sit next to one player or another and we would start talking. This was just before the explosion of iPods, and most of the guys were still listening to their music through headphones attached to Sony Discmans. I had just gotten a combination MP3 player and digital recorder ? a little white cube of a thing called a Muvo ? and many of the guys were curious about it. "What music you got on that?" they would ask me. Figuring they'd be unimpressed by my Solomon Burke and Ray Charles, I'd put the question back to them, "What should I put on it?" The players turned me on to some good rappers. There was 50 Cent before he became a big crossover hit, and The Game before his blowup with 50, his former mentor. There was Lil Wayne and Shawnna and many others. I loaded it all onto my player and began listening to it. And liking it. The next time someone asked me what I had on my player, I could point to music they knew. I would also show the guys how the digital recorder function of my MP3 player worked, and let them know when I was recording our conversations. Sometimes, after we had finished one, they'd want to hear it, so I'd hand over my headphones. My goal was to demystify the process for them while also making them aware of what I was doing. Time bred familiarity which in turn bred a certain ease between us. I found it especially useful to hang out with the guys in different settings and configurations. When we'd talk one-on-one, usually when I was giving one of them a ride home from practice or when we were taking the subway together, they'd sometimes get reflective, opening up about things they would have never discussed had their buddies been around. But when I hung out with a small group of the guys, I would get to see the natural interplay between them ? the ribbing, the off-color jokes, and the warmth they had for each other. Probably the most productive times for me were when I sat with the guys in one of their bedrooms ? usually Ridley's, the team's preferred off-the-court hangout ? just watching ESPN or playing PlayStation or hanging out while they got their hair braided or trimmed. Spend enough time doing nothing and things begin to feel nothing but real. I think it also helped for the guys to see that I wasn't going to skimp on effort when it came to trying to understand their lives. I awoke at 4:30 in the morning to make my way over to their apartments so I'd be able to see them getting up at 5:30 to start their day. I'd ride with them for their 3-hour roundtrips to and from school, through changes from bus to subway to bus, sometimes taking the least efficient route in order to avoid tripping over some housing project gang boundary that was invisible to me but unmistakable to them. I'd sit with them through their full day of classes, trying to survive a midday study hall when time crawled so slowly that it made you plot when to make your trip to the bathroom to best break up the tedium. By the end of the school day, I'd be sharing their fatigue, knowing they still had several hours of grueling practice in front of them. Establishing trust was also key. Even though I was talking every day with their coach, Jack O'Brien, the guys quickly realized that I was not going to betray confidences. If they complained to me about their coach, or if the coach complained to me about them, neither side was going to hear about it from me. Over time, they were kind enough to grant me some pretty robust access into their world. And as grateful as I was for that access, I was careful not to try to fool myself into thinking I was more than a visitor. I loved the clever nicknames the guys had for each other. Spot got his because of the birthmark on the side of his head and a threat a former teammate once made to "smack that spot onto the wall." Midnight got his on account of having the darkest skin on the team. Phil, a player with a complexion just a shade lighter, was called "11:59." But as much as I delighted in knowing all these nicknames, I usually called the players by their real names. That just seemed more appropriate. With most of the guys, our conversations got deeper and easier the longer I'd known them. But things were different with Jason White, who went by the nickname Hood. With piercing eyes and a muscular build, Hood cast an intimidating figure. But once I was able to get him to open up, I found him to be incredibly bright and reflective. After he let down his defenses, we had some deep conversations. Yet the next time I saw him, we'd have to start from scratch. That's just the way it was with him. No matter. Hood, who would become one of the people at the center of the book, was worth the effort. In the beginning, I suspect I was more than a little self-conscious about the gulf of experience between me and the teenagers whose lives I was documenting. But I learned an important lesson from O'Brien, the driven coach who made it his life's work to help these kids get ahead. He never got caught up on the differences separating him from his players. He just dove into their lives, getting to know the dreariness that held these kids back and the dreams that kept them going. In time, I tried to do the same. In my three years in their lives, I grew to care deeply about these guys, to cheer quietly for them to get ahead. Even if I felt I owed it to everyone involved to be truthful when things didn't go well, in my heart I never stopped hoping that they
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Original Essays
by Original Essays, February 6, 2008 8:59 PM
There are things I've done for love that, at first, did not seem to have anything to do with food ? but I've come to understand that the two demand an acquired taste for endurance and memory and longing. For love, I've fled to France with a French industrialist after six months of a fairy-tale courtship only to get lost in recipes in hopes of finding myself. I've endured a survival trip on the Mana River in the Amazon, third-degree burns on my thighs, and hot peppers registering off the Scoville chart. For love, I've humiliated myself and flew to Tunis on a whim in the middle of a hot June afternoon to be with a poet who lied about being in the process of a divorce. I remember sitting alone at the Café des Nattes in Sidi Bou Saïd, hoping that my life wouldn't end in a country where I couldn't speak the language or have a last meal of hot fried chicken and red beans and rice, or at least a bowl of pasta, pancetta, and cream with an egg on top. I grew up in the city of original sins. In New Orleans, we fry oysters and crawfish, alligator, and 30-pound turkeys. When I used to throw dinner parties in Haute Provence for CEOs, Swiss bankers, a Bedouin Prince from Saudi Arabia, and the local mystery writer, I always cooked up the perfect meal ? truffles from our own backyard lightly tossed into a soft scramble of eggs, anchovies cooked down into a rich thick garlicky sauce to pour over boiled cardoons, and long-simmered stews bursting with marrow. But sometimes, after all the guests had gone, sitting in the stillness of my kitchen in Provence, I longed for the impossible dish, something from my New Orleans childhood ? something so spicy and served forth from a deep cast iron skillet that had been in my grandfather's family for generations, or perhaps a taste of Korea ? a country I resembled even though it would never be mine. Since the search for a taste of home has nourished me my whole life, it was impossible not to include recipes in my memoir. For me, they are like poems, illustrations of indelible moments in my life. So when Powell's asked for an original essay, I thought I would write about how both food and poetry became main characters in Trail of Crumbs. But when the guidelines only required that the writer do what the writer does best ? write ? I decided to share these small acts, four poems of food and love, and loss, and a dream of the impossible dish. ÷ ÷ ÷ Small Acts I don't think I'm lonely anymore
and when you call I try, instead,
to talk of favorite places
to taste icy oysters
on the half shell.
I prefer lemon and thinly-sliced shallots.
You like the bite of grated horseradish
and sweet catsup. We talk of where we'll meet next
Cairo, Cayenne, probably New Orleans
in a courtyard ripe with fig
and night-blooming jasmine. We'll toast to the story of life
we somehow continue living
while mothers die of heartbreak
and friends lose friends. Across the ocean someone is losing
her land, another is going hungry
going out on a limb
searching for a definition of freedom. Hush, you'll say
light candles, break bread,
pour wine. Let's practice
the simple, small acts of the living. Touch me, here
in this quiet kitchen of the night. ÷ ÷ ÷ Just Enough ? for Dorothy Hoppe Outside, the car motor is running.
Inside, my grandmother's lungs are beating
to the panicked rhythm of a june bug
caught between window and pane. This may be the last time
I see her, staring beyond
a bone white bowl of melted lime sherbet
to a photo of her wedding day. I have failed because there's nothing
I can cook that will give her a reason to taste.
The world, she says, has eaten her up?
her trembling body now empty of hunger. She gestures to the glass jar
wrapped in Sunday's paper.
Inside is hot crawfish bisque
made from my dead grandfather's recipe. Rich without cream or butter,
just stuffed crawfish heads
in a sweet tomato gravy,
extra spicy herbed dressing. Outside, a small summer shroud
of Louisiana heat as I climb into the car,
my bare thighs stick to the leather seats,
the smooth glass jar propped against my belly. Inside, I'm smiling because now I know
the secret: Use only Binder's French bread
she whispered, and make just enough
to always keep you wanting for more. ÷ ÷ ÷ The Dream Life of Food Mexico opens her mouth
and laughs, stops momentarily
to listen to the cicadas
busy with their evening-song while her daughter chars poblanos and anchos
over the open fire
so slender are her fingers, so deft
as she manipulates the flame
To concentrate better, Mexico lowers the volume of the small
television set, so there are only images?
angry men with their blown up faces
speaking soundless words. I slice ripe pears into a bright green bowl
of grilled sweet corn, the kernels
crisp and milky, full of promise
and I think to myself
that this is a gift
to feel so fearless
in face of so much. Here, a mother and daughter can busy themselves
with orphan's rice, dishes of deep mole amarillo and still-warm tortillas
enough food to feed an army
as countries, with the luxury of money and time,
wage wars for the rest of the world. In this half-sleep I almost blink away the cake
but luckily I am already tasting it,
a recipe so illogical no chef would ever make it.
Smooth batter, the exquisite color of stars.
My tongue fills with rich dulce de leche
and a top layer of tender pearl-white rice whipped into a mousse. Mexico and her daughter let me split open
the pomegranate ripe with juice
that stains my wrists and hands.
I adorn the frosting with seeds
like jewels, traces of indelible bloodlines
on a cake offered only in a dream. ÷ ÷ ÷ A Pasta Poem for Two ? for D. We sit at the bar at Babbo anticipating
linguine with clams. You also want mint love letters
because you have been reading to me from Heat, and let's order
the duck liver ravi
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Original Essays
by Original Essays, February 5, 2008 6:02 PM
What is the nature of the memoir? Where does the memoir situate itself, along the literary continuum and within literary history, between fiction and nonfiction? Is the popularity of the memoir a reflection of our voyeuristic times, or a rebellion against it? These are terribly important questions to roughly eighteen people, half of whom work for literary journals with pseudo-meaningful flowers on the covers, and half of whom work for literary journals with pseudo-meaningful graphics on the covers, and none of whom will be reading this anyway because a) they know everything already and b) they're too busy discussing the plight of book reviewing in America. If they did read this, I'm afraid they would learn nothing about the nature of memoirs, because a) they know everything already, b) I don't know anything and c) I don't particularly care; the world would have to be in considerably finer fettle than it is now for me to have space in my "Top Ten Things to Worry About" for "The State of the Memoir." All I can talk about is the one memoir I wrote, and all I can tell you about the memoir I wrote is this: I didn't want to write it. I really, really didn't want to write it. I wanted to write a novel. I wanted to write a Big Novel. Something with a journey, a child narrator who is wiser than his years, something wherein I could "play" with language ? misspelling English words because my child narrator who is wiser than his years is also foreign, or combining English and some other language because my child narrator is an immigrant and Shakespeare played with language and he verbed nouns and nouned verbs and look at the juice that guy has. That is what I wanted to write. Generally speaking, and I say this with all due shame and self-loathing, I set out to write for two reasons: 1. Mind-bending, all-encompassing, dumbfounding, seizure-causing rage at the world ? at fate, at God, at nature, at humanity, at stupidity, at cruelty, etcetera, etcetera. Or: 2. Mind-bending, all-encompassing, dumbfounding, seizure-causing need to be respected and loved by the very same awful world. (Burning down someone's house probably isn't the best way to get that someone to love you ? arson isn't a great Valentine's Day gift ? but there you have it. I never said this made any sense.) And so even though it had been suggested to me that I try to write a memoir, and even though I thought it might be an interesting personal challenge, Respect came up to my office one day, sat down beside me, closed my laptop and said, "Let's talk." Whatever memoir is, Respect said, it isn't respected. It's been Oprahed, it's been Springered, it's been Poviched. It's "easy," it's "dirty laundry." It's ? thanks, James ? a pack of lies. And then Respect took me by my hand, and he led me out through the window and we flew and we flew until we flew into the future, and we flew until we came to a great concert hall, and inside that concert hall they were giving out Pulitzer Prizes, and I saw that I wasn't even in the audience. And then Respect took my hand and we flew again, and we flew even further into the future, and we flew until we came to another great concert hall, and this time I saw myself in the audience, and the man at the podium (it may have been Garrison Keillor, I'm not sure) called my name, and I saw myself stand up and walk up to the stage and Garrison handed me a prize (it was a chocolate bust of a writer, possibly Dostoyevsky but also maybe Rushdie) and a tear rolled down my cheek, and Respect clapped me on the back, and I turned to him, and I looked into his eyes, and Respect nodded and said, "Novel, asshole. Write a goddamn novel." And so a few days later, I went to my office and sat down at my desk and started to write a novel. Something with a journey, and a child narrator who is wiser than his years. Also, he was an immigrant. Respect sat beside me, sipping a latte and wondering what he would wear to the National Book Awards party. It was all going quite well ? verbs were nouning, nouns were verbing ? until a few days later, when I found myself in a doctor's office, standing beside my wife, who was lying on the exam table with clear gel on her belly. "It's a boy," said the nurse. Some history: I was raised in an ultra-orthodox Jewish community, and was taught, from a very young age, to be terrified of God. God was a bit of a bastard, and He killed great amounts of people for very small reasons. And so when the nurse told us we were having a boy, I thought, "Foreskin," and then I thought "Shit," and then I thought about circumcision, and I thought about whether I should do it, and how God would react if I didn't, and whom He would kill ? would he kill my son? would he kill my wife? would he kill me? would he kill us all? would he kill just them and let me live so I could feel the pain of the loss for the rest of my days? ? and I thought about it and thought about it, and that night I couldn't sleep, and I got up, and I walked through the dark halls of my house, and then I found myself at my laptop, and then I sat down, and then I turned, and Rage was sitting beside me. And I said to Rage, "This is fucked up." I was 34. It was 2004. There were Space Shuttle launches, and brain surgery and the World Wide Web, and here I was, about to become a father, and instead of feeling joy ? instead of painting the second bedroom baby blue and buying tiny New York Rangers jerseys and size 1 Chuck Taylor's ? I was feeling terror. And I was angry. And I thought to myself, "Maybe this is worth writing about. Maybe this is worth relating. Maybe this is it ? maybe I can write a book that just explains what this feels like, that tries to tell how I got here. If someone calls it a memoir, fine. Respect will have to wait." I stood up, made myself a cup of tea, sat back down at my laptop and took a deep breath. Jerry Springer, here I come. So be it. Respect muttered, climbed out the window and said, "You're wasting your time." Rage opened my laptop, pressed the power button and said, "Write." And so I did. ÷ ÷ ÷ Shalom Auslander was raised in Monsey, New York. Nominated for the Koret Award for writers under thirty-five, he has written for the New Yorker, Esquire, the New York Times Magazine, and is a regular contributor to NPR's "This American Life." His short story collection, Beware of God, was published in 2005. He lives in New
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Original Essays
by Original Essays, January 30, 2008 5:25 PM
Let me begin by saying that I am one of those naturally wary people who considers the verb "return" a kind of insidious threat. I am no fan of ritualized reunions, of going back for the sake of going back, old times and all that ? the very idea has been known to send me running to the other side of the country in search of more than one stiff drink. On the whole, I don't know why, I often disappoint myself (as well as others) with my abiding mistrust of any sort of nostalgia. That said, of course, I'm a novelist, and no matter what I do, I can't seem to stop returning to places ? and experiences ? in my mind. In 1986, when I was twenty-one, I lived in Tokyo for four months, boarding with a Japanese family and working for an American company. At the time, I thought I wanted to be a businessman. I was by then a member of Harvard's East Asian Studies Department, with almost three years of Japanese language study under my belt, and the author of reams of undergraduate essays devoted to every aspect of Japanese culture, from the spiritual iconography of zen gardens to the ways of the Yakuza to the economics of the Kobe beef industry. This was the 1980s, one must remember, and the Japanese economy was still considered a miracle. I'll say this for my intrepid, youthful self on my first journey to the Far East: I put my heart into it, touched and tasted everything I could and pined nobly for the rest. I spoke the language and, a couple of times, even dreamed in it. I had "adventures" ? a few of which turned up (surprise!) in my first novel Bicycle Days, published when I was twenty-four. Who knows? Had I not gone to Japan in 1986, had I stayed home and majored in English literature as I'd intended to do, I might indeed have become an investment banker, an outcome that perhaps would have proved a more severe blow to the health of the U.S. economy than to the history of the novel. In which case, having never gone to Japan in the first place, I could never have returned as I did nineteen years later, to do research for another novel set in Japan. That novel, now completed, is called The Commoner, and besides being a story about three generations of women suffocating within the sealed glass bubble of the Japanese imperial family, it is also inevitably, I suppose, the story of its author's return to a land that he was never able to forget. Between those two trips ? in 1986 and 2005 ? lay quite a few layers of history, both national (the collapse of the Japanese economy; the investiture ? through marriage ? of a new empress and crown princess) and personal (I lived in Europe for a time; I became a husband and then a father; I wrote two more novels, neither of which had anything to do with Japan). Somewhere along the way, a relative of mine returned from a visit to Japan and recounted to me in vivid detail a private lunch she'd had with the Empress ? who seemed to her, behind her smile and her grace, a deeply tragic figure. And a brilliant, poised young woman who had been two years ahead of me at Harvard (I never met her), finally, after rejecting him three times, agreed to marry the Japanese Crown Prince ? thus, in a sense, ending her life. And, despite myself, I continued to read articles, essays, and books about the country that I had once been in love with but then had rejected (for the usual defensive reason ? namely, that I felt she had rejected me first). And the new Crown Princess began to suffer from severe depression and, after giving birth to a girl (who will never be allowed to inherit the throne), one or possibly two nervous breakdowns. And the Empress, who had been the first commoner (a privileged but regular citizen) ever to marry into the 1,500-year-old Japanese imperial family, grew older and seemingly more surrounded by silence than ever, drowned by silence, and I could not help but begin to wonder how she perceived her artificial world and hidden life, what her silent voice sounded like inside her own head, what she remembered of her childhood ? back when, long ago, she had been a girl like any other. In 2005, as I've said, I returned to Japan. I went alone, without my wife or son. I stayed in a hotel in Shinjuku that was as new and gleaming and soulless as anything in a science fiction movie. I had lunches with a couple of influential people in the Court hierarchy ? from whom, politely, I learned little that I didn't already know. I sensed in them a protective, wary curiosity, and a pervading hope that my project not come to fruition. This was not surprising. Nothing like the novel that I'd already begun to write had ever been published in Japan, let alone by a foreigner. In Japan, more than in any other country I've ever been in, one is not supposed to write about the people in the glass bubble; that is why they are in the glass bubble. It does not matter if one is making them up out of one's imagination, because in some fundamental sense, the real people who live in the imperial palace are already fictions, ancient mythical creations of the nation. By the time of my "research" trip, I had been conducting my own intense study of the imperial family for about a year ? only to run up against the wall of silence (and the literal moat and stone ramparts) that surrounds Japan's oldest and most arcane institution. Past that absolute dividing line, perhaps only a handful of people in the world know anything about what really goes on inside the palace, or in the hearts and minds of its most august inhabitants. Consequently, my meetings with people from the Court involved few questions and even fewer answers. Their real value, for me as a novelist, was in the opportunity to observe, in my own foreigner's way, the layers of remove between those who run the system and those who are run by it. It was months later, and with a jolt of surprise, that I realized that two of the people with whom I'd had lunch in Tokyo ? both intimates of the real Empress ? had, in much changed form, become the odd inspirations for important characters in my novel. The rest of my time was spent wandering, looking, staring. It was cedar pollen season, and thousands of people on the streets of Tokyo were wearing white surgical masks over their noses and mouths, hoping to block out impurities and differences that would agitate them or make them ill. Tokyo seemed ever larger to me, too large, a behemoth, a planet once seen from afar in a book. In truth, it was a lonely, unsettling trip. And it was only over time, after I'd returned home and thrown myself back into the writing of my novel, that I came to understand that, paradoxically, the sense of brooding dislocation I had experienced in
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Original Essays
by Original Essays, January 29, 2008 3:57 PM
"In oil painting, when two or more pigments of different colors are combined, 'broken colors' occur. Here, for example, is viridian,"she said, and she squeezed a bead onto the palette. "See, it's a bright, pure tone of emerald green. Now, I can create a fake viridian by mixing a blue with a yellow. See? It looks close, doesn't it? But the difference is that it won't reflect the red light waves that makes viridian so fresh. You have to remember that to keep colors luminous and vibrant, it's important not to muddy your palette." (From Broken Colors.) I For many years I was a visual artist exhibiting in museums and galleries, in both the United States and Europe. Over time, random words began to appear on my canvases...then poems...then elaborate fragments of narratives. I started to think more about writing and less about the visual world. Finally, I simply wrote myself off the canvas and onto the lavender quadrille pages of a bright orange-covered notebook. That book was titled Violette's Embrace. It is about the French writer Violette Leduc and is a collage of genres: biography, fiction, and memoir. My newest book, Broken Colors, is a novel written with a metaphoric paintbrush, or what I call writing from a visual perspective. Writing in this style offered me the opportunity to use my skills as a painter and experiment with vivid color and voluptuous form to create my characters. Before writing the first draft, I made a psychological and philosophical profile of all my characters, a kind of architecture of their lives. It was the same as making a maquette for a sculpture or a preliminary drawing for a painting. These profiles had an idiosyncratic freedom of movement to them ? grand emotional gestures that would eventually be refined and repainted as the book progressed. Emile Zola said about Edouard Manet: "In beginning a picture, he could never say how it would come out."I started painting/writing the portrait of my primary character, Sophie Marks, at the beginning of her life, not knowing who she would ultimately become until I got to the end. I was surprised, astonished, and sometimes disappointed by her choices. For Sophie and the other characters to become full-bodied entities, I had to ask questions that were more and more detailed. I had to look for nuances in their emotional lives. I needed to see them, to hear them, even to smell them before I could begin creating the story. Then they started to come alive. Indeed, Sophie moved in with me. For four years she was woven into my life. Every now and then I would sense her perched on my shoulder. She was telling me what to do. Sometimes her imaginary friend, Stella, was on the other shoulder and they would bicker about a decision I had made in the story. The voices helped me to see my characters as three-dimensional people, rather than flat, paper-doll cutouts. Stella, who is blonde and a bit on the voluptuous side, is dressed in a blue and red and yellow flowered dress that buttons down the front and is cinched at the waist. She wears high-heeled ruby-red leather shoes that match her bright red lipstick. Sophie, on the other hand, is a bit too thin, and might wear 1940s flare-legged forest-green pants with a black knit turtleneck sweater. She has a Modigliani face, with dark hair, pulled back in one long braid. Visualizing the two women helped me understand how important it is to have an intimate relationship with all of one's characters. Depending on the story, one hopes to imagine watching them making love on a grassy hillside in the spring, not worrying about being discovered because their passion is so intense; murdering a human being with their bare hands, and discovering a hidden hideous side of themselves; giving birth in a taxi, the back seat covered with blood and the placenta, and the anxiety of trying to figure out what to do with the cheese-covered newborn on the seat; or eating a croissant with blackberry jam on a terrace under a morning sun, and simply dreaming time away. Sometimes, if I felt vacant of an emotional description, I would metaphorically climb into bed with one of my characters and ensconce myself in a cocoon of imagination. Once I had a turpentine-smelling dream about a painting Sophie had buried; another time I had a dark and gruesome nightmare about the war; another time, when I was sitting beneath a tree in Central Park, I daydreamed about seeing pinkish-yellow dust motes that sparkled and jitterbugged against the light of a morning sky; once I imagined walking into the Paris studio of Sophie's lover, Luca Bondi, and smelling the strong odor of wood ? an unlikely aroma to find in a city; and once... Like most artists, Sophie and Luca learned to know themselves, both emotionally and artistically, through their visual sense. They naturally experimented with a variety of forms until they found their own perceptual languages. Of course, these forms changed over the years, each change revealing another facet of their beings. For Sophie, geographical location had a significant influence on her art. For instance, at the beginning of her career in England, she would paint and then bury her portraits, petrified about their seeing the light of day. When she lived in the desert, she thought that a part of her sensual self was lost, dried up, ancient. The portraits she painted there were small, jewel-like, reflecting her need to be quiet. But when she moved to the Continent, surrounded by sensual colors and light, she painted the music embracing her, and like an ancient damask silk flower, opened up to love. II The act of placing a brush on a canvas is a physical gesture creating an emotion that is part of a narrative. This gesture is imbued with the same magic as writing down words next to each other, especially if you are writing by hand. The difference for me between the two genres is that I am more intimate with writing and find it more emotionally provocative. I like this. In creating visual work for thirty-some years, I never experienced the same visceral intimacy and immediacy as I do in writing. Painting was more of a physical and intellectual exercise that eventually would weave itself into my consciousness. Writing takes me by the hand and walks with me through the years it takes to make a book. Now that the book has been published, I have to admit that I miss Sophie and the people in her life. And I still dream about her. She has taken to wearing a cloak of black velvet. The cloak is beautiful; it shimmers when she walks, swings like a bird swooping toward the ground. Although I realize that she is wrapped in approaching death, I continue to count on Sophie to show me the way. ÷ ÷ ÷ Michele Zackheim is the author of one previous novel, Violette's Embrace, and one work of nonfiction,
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Original Essays
by Original Essays, January 17, 2008 4:15 PM
Like so much in my life, the fact that I wrote this book at all came as a surprise. For a year I took refuge in the basement guest room of a family who had befriended me when I first arrived in Montana. I was escaping the harassment of protesters who were stalking and threatening me, trying to close the clinic I had opened in Bozeman. Alan Kesselheim and Marypat Zitzer took me in and provided a haven during one of the most hectic, frightening, and rewarding periods of my life. Inevitably, I shared my stories with them, relived the events of the day and of my career. We sat together at their kitchen table and talked late into many nights. I had been toying with the idea of writing things down, trying to capture the truth of my life as an abortion doctor, along with the incredible tales that kept coming my way through patients. But I am not a writer. I have a good memory for details and conversations, have strong and clear convictions and have kept journals throughout. But I did not consider myself a wordsmith. Al, however, is a writer, and he encouraged me to get started. More than that, he wanted to work with me. I trusted him. I felt he understood. More important, I believed he could help me fashion the raw material into something readable. At first, I would start talking and Al would scribble like mad. We sat up late in his living room, talking, or at coffee shops on weekend mornings. He filled legal pads with his notes. I talked and talked, often shaking with emotion. Then he'd pull things together into a rough draft that we could hand back and forth, revising and shaping. Later on we reversed roles. After talking things through, I would take a stab at a first draft, then hand it off to Al to work his magic. We leapfrogged along, me writing the next chapter while Al reworked the previous one. My biggest dilemma was that I really didn't want to write a memoir. On a basic level, I felt, and still feel, that my story isn't that important. What is important, what can't get glossed over, is the reality presented by the patients that come my way. That is what I wanted to focus on. "It has to be about the women," I kept saying, "not about me." Al kept nodding. He understood my motivation, but I could also tell that he didn't agree. "This story is about you, Sue," he said. "I know it's also about the women, the protesters, the big picture issues, but without you, it doesn't hang together. Like it or not, if you really want this to be a book that people will read, you have to reveal your own story." Despite my own hesitations, I began to understand that readers are curious about how a woman like me might come to this profession. So much about abortion is kept secret and hidden. People need to understand so many basic things that are commonly misunderstood. What the abortion entails, for starters. How women are counseled and treated inside a clinic. How a medical career like mine is marginalized and exposed, and what effects that marginalization has on a doctor's family life, personal safety and daily routine. Very tentatively, I began to open the doors to my own life, and to tell my own story. It has not been easy or comfortable. I have had to relive many things I'd rather forget. And, to be honest, I am afraid. For me to be visible and exposed is dangerous. Abortion doctors have been murdered by fanatics who call it justifiable homicide. Clinics and doctor's homes have been bombed and burned. The danger is very real. Besides, in telling my story I am forced to reveal my mistakes, my regrets, my failures to follow rules. At one point in the writing process I got cold feet. I told Al that I didn't feel able to go on. I wasn't secure enough to risk that kind of exposure. We put the book on hold, a sheaf of typed pages kept in a file drawer. Years passed. Women's stories kept coming to me. I kept working. My life took unexpected twists. Then, several years ago, Al and I had coffee one morning, catching up. Towards the end of our visit he casually brought up the book project. He said he was still willing to work on it if I ever felt able to. I jumped on the possibility. I had been thinking about it as well. I was ready. I was completely frustrated and outraged by the politics that limit women's options to control their lives. Even if I was still afraid, I also believed that by sharing my story, along with the stories of patients, I would find support in greater measure than I would encounter harassment. Ultimately, this book is in memory of my mother, a woman who believed it would happen, a woman who stood by her convictions, who was a feminist and social activist before those labels came into vogue. So, as I wrote, as Al and I collaborated again, it was her image I held tight to. Hers, and my daughter, Sonja's. As it happens, This Common Secret is only superficially my story. It is, more accurately, the story of women everywhere, facing the dilemmas that are the universal legacy of pregnancy and sexuality. Mine is a story I share with my mother and grandmother, my daughter, my sister ? with all women, and the generations of women to come. ÷ ÷ ÷ Susan Wicklund has worked in the field of women's reproductive health for more than twenty years. For much of that time she has been on the front lines of the abortion war, both as a doctor and as a spokeswoman for women's rights. She has been interviewed by numerous leading media outlets, including 60 Minutes and Fresh
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