The annual Fiction Issue sought stellar, unpublished short fiction from local writers. Submissions were judged (anonymously) by Mary Kay Zuravleff, whose latest novel Man Alive! was a 2013 Washington Post Notable Book. Stories had to be less than 1000 words long.
Set in a U Street speakeasy on election night, Victory Party is about the moment that the liberal bubble pops.
The City Paper said:
Good fiction vividly and accurately describes the world we know; great fiction upends that world. And so this story not only exposes the privileged ignorance so many had about the election but also introduces believable supporters for the opposition.
I’m a writer and photographer who has lived in DC for more than twenty years. My fiction is primarily about Washington “beyond the monuments” – the real city and its neighborhoods and people. I think my fiction has a verisimilitude that you won’t find in more commercial works that treat Washington merely as a backdrop. Instead, I write about the city that I wander and photograph on a daily basis.
If you enjoyed Victory Party, then check out my novel Murder on U Street, a mystery set in the city’s art world. It contains the same jaded look at a gentrified city wildly out of touch with the rest of the country.
And come see me read Victory Party at Kramerbooks on Sunday, January 8 at 6:30 PM! It will be a celebration of the City Paper’s Fiction Issue!
Confession of a Grinch: this is my least favorite time of the year.
I know, it’s Christmas and we’re supposed to be happy but the increasing darkness of the days just gets me down. Seeing the sun set at 4:45 PM fills me with low-level dread. December in DC is gloomy, whole days where the golden orb never appears, obscured by an omnipresent layer of clouds.
It’s not the cold – you can dress for that. But you can’t prepare for the lack of light.
Thank god for Florida. And thank my wise parents for leaving Illinois for the Sunshine State. This holiday break amid green trees and blue skies is exactly what I need to cure the funk of the season. Also, the days down here are a good half-hour longer, the sun lingering over the golf course to 5:30 and beyond.
After the holidays, I’ll go back to Washington. The freezing temps of January don’t bother me – it’s invigorating, giving you the feeling of accomplishment just to walk out the door. And the city is magical when it is covered in a thick coat of snow.
So, just get me past Christmas. Then, like a train leaving the station, each day will get a little bit longer, accelerating into the sunny days of spring and summer.
Sometimes, you don’t want to shoulder the DSLR. But you want something that’s better than the iPhone. The Canon G9 X is ideal for this kind of everyday shooting.
Saturday was a day that began in ice but ended with dry roads and blue skies. Once the melting began, I hopped on Capital Bikeshare and headed for Hains Point. Popular with area cyclists, it’s a peninsula that juts out into the Potomac. People like to ride loops around the park. But on Saturday, with a good chunk of the region still dealing with icy roads, the park was deserted.
In the pocket of my jacket, I stuck my Canon G9 X. I’ve been really happy with this purchase. It’s the perfect camera for my photographic adventures, featuring the ability to take great photos – and it do it with a camera that’s not much bigger than an iPhone. You can even shoot one-handed with it. I did so while pedaling on my bike, which is something you can’t do with a DSLR.
It has its weaknesses, of course. No camera is perfect. It lacks a big zoom and the quality of the photos are DSLR-like but will never be as good as a DSLR with a big piece of glass mounted on it.
But, as the camera you stick in your pocket as you head out the door – the Canon G9 X is absolutely perfect for that, offering the ability to take lots of great photos with a convenient and easy-to-use camera. I’ve grown to love this little camera.
Photos from Saturday’s adventure with the Canon G9 X!
How do photographers make their voice heard in a era saturated with millions of images? By forming a photo collective, a group of photographers with a common vision or subject matter. Photographers pool their talents and expertise to make a larger impact.
The idea is an old one. Magnum Photos set the tone for post-war photography, creating iconic images of war and conflict that still resonate today. And it’s a photo collective, owned and operated by the top editorial photographers in the world.
Slightly less famous is The Rooftop Collective, a gang of seven with a shared interest in lifestyle photography (i.e., gorgeous photos of food and drink). Growing out of the much-larger InstagramDC group, the collective had their first show recently at Black Whiskey, a nouveau dive on 14th Street in Washington, DC. Being friends with the group, I was glad to attend – and take some photos with my trusty Canon G9X.
There are a lot of advantages to being part of a collective. Putting on an individual show is a daunting effort. Providing a few photos for a group show is much easier. Collective members share their experience in framing, staging, marketing and outreach.
Being part of a collective is also a third-party endorsement, even if it’s self-created. If you like one Rooftop Collective photographer, you’ll probably like another, for the photographers have been selected for a similar vision.
The biggest benefit, however, is the power of the network. The show at Black Whiskey was packed for the group could draw upon their combined social networks. With seven members, that’s a lot of invites going out and a lot of exposure for photographers in the collective.
By pooling their contacts, resources and skills, the Rooftop Collective can make a much bigger impact as a group than they ever could do individually.
Comrades, the future is the (photography) collective!
Ernest Hemingway: A New Life is a different kind of biography, focusing on the themes of Hemingway’s life: trauma, women, sex, madness.
I’m a writer. I’ve read a lot of biographies of Ernest Hemingway – it’s practically a requirement of the profession.
The first biography of Hemingway I read was the one that Papa wrote himself – A Moveable Feast. It’s a slim and sentimental ode to Hemingway’s early years, romanticizing poverty and Paris. And not exactly true. Hemingway uses the book to settle old scores and falsely claim that Pauline, his second wife, stole him from his first.
Michael Reynolds has written a series of books chronicling Hemingway’s life, such as Hemingway: The 1930s. They’re the best source for a comprehensive account of the author and his works.
The book that stands out for me is Hemingway’s Boat: Everything That He Loved and Lost. It’s a different kind of biography, more of a profile of the people around Hemingway rather than the man himself. And it’s fascinating, showing him as a bully and a braggart – but also hugely devoted to his friends and family.
I was reluctant to read another Hemingway bio but then I saw Ernest Hemingway: A New Life. With the 1922 portrait by Henry Strater on the cover, it’s a beautiful book.
Ernest Hemingway: A New Life is a different kind of biography, one that focuses on the themes in Hemingway’s life:
Trauma – If Hemingway was alive today, he would be diagnosed with PTSD. He suffered the trauma of war, nearly losing his life during WWI. Afterward, he suffered guilt, believing that the brave died while he lived. He also felt like a fraud, being an ambulance driver rather than a proper soldier. His trauma went unrecognized and untreated – as it did for millions of others.
Women – A man married four times has a complicated relationship with women. His mother was famously domineering and Hemingway didn’t even attend her funeral, blaming her for his father’s suicide. He needed a wife, afraid of being alone, yet he cheated on all of them. Interestingly, his best novels, such as The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls, all came into fruition when he was leaving one wife for another.
Sex – An academic industry exists to parse the sexual subtexts of Hemingway’s life and work. Zelda Fitzgerald called him “a pansy with hair on his chest.” His public image as a man of action was largely true – but it was also true that he was bookish and sensitive. He was the type of man who seduced women and then bragged about it. Psychologists can speculate if these hypermasculine displays concealed a more conflicted nature.
Reputation – Hugely competitive, Hemingway not only wanted to bed the best women, he wanted to write the best books. From the beginning, he looked for his place in the literary canon, placing himself up there with authors like Mark Twain. The decisions he made, such as his marriages, were made to further his art. He had a habit of marrying wealthy women so that he could write.
Madness – The Hemingway family is littered with suicides and mental illness. Hemingway, his father, his brother and his sister all killed themselves. Hemingway’s son, Gregory, died in a women’s prison, after being arrested by the police. He was going by the name Gloria at the time. Hemingway said that his son had the “biggest dark side” of anyone in the family, “except me.” Hemingway died after succumbing to the depression that had plagued him his entire life.
Ernest Hemingway: A New Life emphasizes with its tragic subject, elevating the author to hero, not for his public image, but for his creative accomplishments in the face of so much pain and struggle.
A charismatic and iconoclastic figure creates a world-changing product. He insists upon doing things his way, the market be damned. His motto:
Don’t do anything that someone else can do. Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.
He makes products for artists, by artists – many of his new hires have no business experience – and he reaps monopoly profits for decades due to his singular and uncompromising vision.
Steve Jobs?
No.
Edwin H. Land, creator of the Polaroid camera. Now just a historical curiosity, his company was a mainstay of investment portfolios during the 50s and 60s. It was the technology sector, with a huge budget devoted to research and a reputation for developing new and cutting-edge products and processes. Polaroid was a skunk works, a Lockheed Martin of photography, that well-funded competitors like Kodak hopelessly chased.
No camera represented the 1970s more than the Polaroid. It was as iconic as the iPhone is today.
After 43 years as CEO, Edwin H. Land retired in 1981. His successors lacked Land’s passion. His risk-taking. They were bland corporate types more comfortable with spreadsheets than artists experimenting in labs.
Like other camera manufacturers, Polaroid saw the promise and threat of digital photography but failed to act upon it. Edwin Land had said, “An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” But with digital photography, Polaroid was afraid to fail, fearful of cannibalizing their own market for instant cameras.
Polaroid developed new products but they were just repackaged versions of old cameras. They created cheap products though Land (like Jobs) never wanted to compete on price – both men wanted to compete on innovation, creating new technology that demanded a premium in the marketplace.
The end came more quickly than anyone imagined. Polaroid went from record profits to bankruptcy in a decade, as one-hour prints undercut the attraction of instant photography. Corporate raiders swooped in, to loot the company for their own profit, the end of Edwin Land’s company coming in 2001.
The amazing and tragic story of Edwin Land is brought to life in Instant: The Story of Polaroid. Not only is it a great read, it’s a beautiful book that would look at home on any coffee table.
Reading it, the parallels between Land and Steve Jobs are inescapable. “Like visiting a shrine,” is how Steve Jobs described meeting Edwin Land and seeing his lab. The cameras created by Land were beautiful objects to admire. “He saw the intersection of art and science and business and built an organization to reflect that,” Jobs said.
And so did Steve Jobs. Products like the iPhone fuse revolutionary technology and great beauty. Neither man was interested in marginal improvements but whole new categories of products – things that people didn’t know they wanted until they saw them.
Land demonstrates the SX-70 on the cover of Life magazine.
While Polaroid produced many cameras, its most famous product was the SX-70. Introduced in 1972, it was a beautiful revolution in technology, offering truly instant photography in a foldable body. Though expensive, it was adopted by artists like Andy Warhol and by the general public. Every detail was overseen by Land, like Jobs did with the iPhone. It was also the last major innovation from Polaroid, the company content with making cameras that were cheaper and slightly better than the previous models – but not revolutionary.
What has Apple produced since Jobs’ death in 2011? Other than the curiosity that is the Apple Watch, they have not produced any new category-defying products. New iPhones come out with regularity but, like improvements to the SX-70, they are just marginal advancements. Without innovation, there is no excitement.
When was the last time you had to have an Apple product? I’m typing this blog post on a MacBook Pro that’s six years old. Why haven’t I upgraded? While the new models are a little slimmer, and a little faster, they’re not fundamentally different than my current computer. And the newest models are worse than my MacBook, lacking ports – ports! – that every computer user needs to do their work. I’m not interested in acquiring a collection of dongles, so I’m going to keep this MacBook for a while. It’s still better than anything in the Windows world.
The fate of Polaroid is a warning to Apple, demonstrating how a company can go from dominance to disaster in a few short years, if it ceases to innovate. I hope that Apple arrests its drift and empowers the artists within the company. In the words of Edwin Land:
In my opinion, neither organisms nor organizations evolve slowly and surely into something better, but drift until some small change occurs which has immediate and overwhelming significance. The special role of the human being is not to wait for these favorable accidents but deliberately to introduce the small change that will have great significance.
Email is the simplest of digital marketing tools and one of the most effective ways of motivating an audience. Of all the tools in the online suite, it’s been around the longest. It’s pre-web, people! The first email was sent in 1971, when the World Wide Web was nothing but a fanciful theory and social media meant communing over magazines with your friends.
It’s old. It’s not sexy. Yet, a good email list can drive traffic to your web site like nothing else.
But how do you get subscribers to open your emails? That was the subject of a recent GovDelivery talk, How to Design Great Emails. This breakfast talk offered tips to create engaging emails that resonate with citizens and drive results.
While geared for government communicators, the tips offered by Allison Hamilton, are applicable for anyone who manages an email list, no matter what technology they use.
How much of your email do you actually read? If you’re like most people, you scan the subject lines in your inbox looking for things you have to read or want to read. Everything else gets trashed, right? How else can you cope with the onslaught of electronic communication that all of us endure?
To get readers to open your email, you need to be clear, concise and direct. Remember: the average attention span online is 8 seconds. You need to capture readers before they move on to the next bit of online communication.
That means simplifying. Make things easy for the reader. Don’t make them think.
Use a compelling subject line, include relevant imagery and have a clear call to action – that’s how you get people to open your emails.
Here’s a slide from Allison’s talk on the anatomy of an email. She could’ve spent an hour just on these keys to getting readers to open your email.
1. Subject Line – Imagine writing the title of a book. How would you describe it in 5-7 words? What is this email about? What are you giving the reader? Look back on previous emails and check open rates. What words/phrases resonate with your readers? Don’t use your organization’s language – use that of your readers.
2. Relevant Imagery – Why do ads contain photos? Why don’t companies just spell out the benefits of their products in long blocks of text? Because photos work. They draw the reader into the page – particularly photos of people. Create/buy/acquire a photo library of relevant imagery to use for web and email. Relevant imagery means images that tell the story of your organization.
3. Obvious Call to Action – This seems, well, obvious, but it’s not. I’ve worked in organizations where the call to action is buried under paragraphs of text. Why? Because XYZ Agency wants to tell readers how wonderful they are. Or they want to explain how they developed this new thing and here’s a page of scientific explanation that you need to slog through. No. If you want reader to do something – download a report, sign-up for an event, lobby their Senator – then put that “above the fold.” It belongs at the start of the email, not the end.
We look down upon email. It’s an “email blast” in many organizations, which is a terrible term for such an important tool. Do you want to be blasted?
Email is simple and effective. It delivers results. And it could do more, with just a few simple tweaks to the “above the fold” content. To improve open rates on your emails, use a compelling subject line, include relevant imagery and feature an obvious call to action.
For short trips around DC, I love to use Capital Bikeshare.
Bikes and coffee are two of my favorite things. With plentiful bike trails and an endless market for hipster coffee, Washington, DC, is great for both. I was coffeeneuring before coffeeneuring – there’s nothing I like better than wandering the city and then stopping for mid-afternoon java.
Now in its sixth year, the Coffeeneuring Challenge is where you bike to seven different coffee shops over seven weeks. And with the timely end of my gubment contractor job, I had plenty of opportunities to bike the city. Also, a recent liberalization of the coffeeneuring rules permitted rides during the week – not just the weekends.
It was like the universe wanted me to coffeeneur. So I did, biking way more than seven rides. Biking and coffee was nearly a daily experience. Always Be Coffeeneuring, indeed.
Here are the highlights of my coffeeneuring adventures!
Oct 18 Swings, Del Ray, VA 26 miles Specialized Sirrus
Thank you, federal government, for giving me time to catch up on my reading, among other pursuits. I began my coffeeneuring with a 26 mile jaunt across the river to Swings in the charming Del Rey neighborhood of Alexandria, VA. Squeezed between the Mount Vernon and Four Mile Run trails, Del Rey is very bike-accessible.
October 21 Filter 12 miles Specialized Sirrus
REI is White People Heaven! Opening day of this new store in the NoMa neighborhood of DC and I’ve never seen such a frenzy. The line to get in stretched around the block and beyond. While I waited for that to clear, I cruised up the Metropolitan Branch Trail to Filter near Catholic University. They make one of the best cappuccinos in the city.
And the REI is well worth a visit. Located in a historic arena where the Beatles played, it’s huge and packed with cool stuff.
Oct 23 Green Lizard, Herndon, VA 65 miles Specialized Sirrus
My first metric century! That’s 100k or 65 miles by bike. The secret, I discovered, is to keep eating and drinking. The WO&D Trail is perfect for that. I stopped at the Whole Foods in Vienna for a snack, Carolina Brothers in Ashburn for trailside barbecue and cappuccino in Herndon at Green Lizard.
Nov 4 Best Buns, Shirlington, VA 21 miles Specialized Sirrus
I’m obsessed with the bike commuters on the Mount Vernon Trail. It looks so much fun to bike into the city every morning along the river. So I tried a reverse commute to Shirlington. It was quick and easy.
Nov 8 Emissary 3 miles Capital Bikeshare
Located a block from Dupont Circle, Emissary had the best coffee of the Coffeeneuring Challenge. This cappuccino was tiny, perfect and delicious.
Nov 13 Glen Echo 23 miles Specialized Sirrus
The coffee at this former amusement park was awful. But it’s such an interesting and photogenic spot along MacArthur Boulevard that it’s well worth the trip.
Nov 18 A Baked Joint 23 miles Specialized Sirrus
For the grand finale of the Coffeeneuring Challenge, I went to Friday Coffee Club. Every Friday morning, area cyclists gather at A Baked Joint to talk all things bike. It’s where you go to learn about new routes, equipment and other tips. Plus, the coffee is great and they have a nice chorizo biscuit.
Nov 20 Illy 4 miles Capital Bikeshare
I’m including this just because it was a delicious. Located in the Renaissance Dupont, Illy Coffee dishes out some great coffee, including this, a Cappuccino Viennese. New to to me, it’s a cappuccino with whipped cream and dusted with cocoa powder. Damn, this was good.
Thank you, Mary G., for starting the Coffeeneuring Challenge! I, of course, love biking and coffee and will take any opportunity to take part in two of my favorite pursuits.
But the challenge makes me feel like I am part of something bigger. And I am! Coffeeneuring now takes place in every part of the globe. It’s a worldwide movement of bikes and coffee.
If you’re a progressive, these are dark times indeed. You’ve suffered a historic and surprising loss, one that seems to usher in a new age of evil.
Great works of literature, such as The Lord of the Rings, can provide consolation to discouraged liberals in the new Trump universe. Look for hope, not from the east, but in the big books of fantasy. From Gandalf to Aslan, the characters in these imagined worlds endured far worse than a bright orange politician. They took on and defeated enemies who would enslave them. Let their stories be your guide to surviving the Age of Trump.
When it comes to confronting evil, no one is more inspiring than Gandalf the White in The Lord of the Rings. Pulling together an unlikely coalition of misfits, he defeats evil in its purest and most implacable form.
His greatest weapon: hope. As he struggled with the impossible task that was destroying the One Ring, he rallied his companions by saying:
Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt.
If you’re Gandalf, you fight on, even as you plunge into the pit with a Balrog.
His credo was simple:
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
That means that you do what you can, every day.
Gandalf knew how to deal with a two-faced politician, too. Lock him in a tower. After the treacherous wizard Saruman is defeated by the Ents, Gandalf keeps him trapped in Orthanc. Saruman pleads for release, with words whose very sound was an enchantment:
Those who listened unwearily to that voice could seldom report the words that they had heard; and if they did, they wondered, for little power remained in them. Mostly they remembered only that it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire awoke in them by swift agreement to see wise themselves. When others spoke, they seemed harsh and uncouth by contrast; and if they gainsaid the voice, anger was kindled in the hearts of those under the spell.
Saruman possesses the oratory of Ted Cruz. And, like Cruz, he’s taken every side on every issue. He turned evil because evil was going to win. Better to be on the winning side. Gandalf wisely keeps him in Orthanc.
And if Saruman is Cruz then who is his treacherous companion, Grima Wormtongue? He tries to weaken King Théoden of Rohan and nearly succeeds. Playing the role of Wormtongue in the Republican Party would be Newt Gingrich, who sought to discredit the Republican establishment from within. Unlike the Lord of the Rings, the Grand Old Party never woke up from its spell. Rohirrim did not ride to the rescue at the Republican Convention.
C.S. Lewis would argue that great sacrifice is needed to cleanse the world. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where it’s always winter but never Christmas (which feels like Washington today), it takes blood to put things right in this thinly veiled Christian allegory. Perhaps Hillary, like Aslan, should’ve sacrificed her political ambitions and let a more palatable candidate run for office.
George R. R. Martin dismisses these ideas about good and evil. You’re naïve to even think that way and liable to get beheaded if you embrace the hero myth. In the Game of Thrones, you either win or you die. Like Petyr Baelish aka Littlefinger, it’s best to look after your own interest, without morals. His scheming and self-interest represent many in Washington.
I prefer the consolation of Gandalf. As progressives enter the political wilderness, remember the words of Greybeard:
Not all those who wander are lost.
In the years before the War of the Ring, Gandalf adventured throughout Middle-Earth, defeating monsters and learning about the people under his protection, from greedy dwarves to breakfast-loving hobbits. He could not become Gandalf the White without the forge of this experience.
From merry wizards to talking lions, the world of fantasy offers consolation to progressives looking into the land of shadow. At the very least, they’ll provide something to read over the next four years.
Nothing makes sense anymore. You wake up one morning and your country has changed. It seems absurd. Laughable. Yes, America really did elect Donald Trump.
How do you survive this new vulgar age? By reading fiction. According to a recent Time magazine article, books will not only make you smarter, they can provide comfort during a traumatic time. The immersive experience that good books provide is cheap therapy for the disaffected.
Here are five books to help you cope with recent events. Five novels that provide a comic perspective to understanding the Age of Trump.
No one is better at identifying a failing and corrupt state than a Soviet emigre. In Super Sad Love Story, Gary Shteyngart draws a portrait of a dystopian New York in the near future. No one works anymore, everyone seeks social media fame and the Chinese are threatening to foreclose on the country. It’s a comic ruin of a book, one that will break your heart while it keeps you laughing. And one that will make you determined that this dystopia never comes to America.
Our poisonous politics began during the culture wars of the 1960s, according to the The Nix by Nathan Hill. Hippie vs square, young vs old, liberal vs conservative – it’s a battle that was never resolved and continues to today. In the book, a failed writer puts down the gaming console to discover the mystery of the mother who abandoned him for radical politics.
Racism. That’s the explanation for Clinton’s loss, according to her supporters. It’s America’s original sin. Okay. But what do you next? If you’re the narrator of The Sellout, you decide to reinstitute segregation in your LA neighborhood as an attempt to bring people up. And you keep a slave, one that has forced himself into your service. That the nation is outraged by these efforts is not surprising, as “The Sellout” is brought before the Supreme Court in a tour de force of comic writing. It’s a searing novel that deserves the mother of all trigger warnings but one that contains the tiniest threads of hope for the American project.
What do you do if caught in a world that doesn’t make sense? Thousands of bureaucrats in DC are about to find out, being whiplashed from the soft socialism of Obama to the incoherent populism of Trump. In this WWII novel, Yossiarian finds himself in a system that doesn’t make sense. He’s a bombardier and has to fly dangerous missions. If you’re crazy, you don’t have to fly missions. But being crazy is a rational response to flying missions. Therefore, you’re not crazy and have to keep flying. Catch-22 is a hell of a catch. This novel by Joseph Heller illustrates an absurd system, one instantly recognizable to any federal government employee.
American politics are tumultuous. But not as tumultuous as Macondo, the fictional world created by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude. The doomed Buendia family suffers war, revolution, murder, magic, dueling, insanity, incest, massacre and a hurricane in this sprawling human comedy. It’s seven generations of suffering, as history repeats itself, going from hope to tragedy. A simple election doesn’t seem so bad by comparison. At least, you’re not being lined up in front of a firing squad, dreaming of ice. Lose yourself in this thick book.
Reading can provide consolation to those suffering trauma. Or at least distraction. Forget the news. Put down the iPhone. Pick up a novel instead. These five books will help you survive the Age of Trump.
