Changing the game

Don't look now, but we've reached the start of another baseball season. At this very moment, the Brewers are getting shelled by the Cards. So some things have carried over from last year, no matter how much has changed in the world otherwise. I've spent the last few weeks focusing on what's just down the road for my book, Pelting Out. Some really good doors have opened, amazing connections within the narrative I'm researching have proven worth the effort to seek them out, and I've scheduled some exciting travel during the next few months. Up next for me is a road trip through parts of the Northwest I've never taken the time to see - expect loads of pictures of those sights (among many other things) to come. Soon thereafter in May and June, I'll be hitting the road again for more than two weeks in both Canada and the northeastern U.S. That's by no means the end of my field research. It merely gets me to where I wanted to be so that I can fill in the bigger pieces of this story. I'm not yet frosting this cake. But I at least have a good idea of what shape it will be. We'll see how it tastes after everything gets mixed in.

I hope it's obvious that I'm extremely excited about lies ahead. It's taken a great deal of will power to hold back some of the compelling stuff that I've found and all the new angles I've learned to use in looking at this very particular slice of life. From here on out, the content on this blog paired with what I offer in other places such as through my Twitter feed might appear to change somewhat. I think you'll see what I mean as it unfolds. Shorter, snappier observations will show up more regularly to start with, followed by more of the grand reveal as we head into the summer and onto fall. Consider yourself forewarned. And thanked - for checking in thus far.

Daisey on the Shame Chain

Near the end of last week, I'd wanted to weigh in here on the cancellation of HBO's "Luck" - the ending of which was directly caused by accidents that led to three horses being euthanized during filming. The story leading up to the plug being pulled on "Luck" had me intrigued because it allowed for a curious peek inside the chasm between PETA and the American Humane Society. But I was also drawn to the evolving intrigue around this horsey story because I just plain love(d) the show. It seems that I'm one of the few who saw the snap once again in David Milch's writing and the conflict-heavy brilliance possible inside the world of racing. As luck would have it, we hit the road last Thursday for a long weekend in the Bay Area. A nice big chunk of which for me meant getting back to the satisfying face-to-face work of research in the field as it relates to much grander narrative ambitions. As has been the case up to now and will still be going forward until such time as having some announcements to make, I don't talk about sources. In effect, this blog parses out parts of the story of a story in progress. Things that interest me as I go along get sporadically posted here - all, hopefully, related to the broader theme. I make up my own rules, but they adhere somewhat to a basic sensibility - I'm not doing journalism, but I treat the people I speak with as if I am doing so. Then something happened over the weekend which made me do a full stop as a small storm of pseudo-journalistic inappropriateness rumbled over the horizon.

"This American Life" ran its "Retraction" of Mike Daisey being featured on their show in January of this year (the most popular episode in their history dating back to the mid-90s). In that original airing, Daisey excerpted and repackaged parts of his stage performance "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs". I wish Daisey's mistake and the subsequent reaction didn't belong to an entire category of such trainwreck stories. James Frey and Greg Mortensen (to name just the most obvious two) have already primed the memory pump. Yet to hear Daisey being interviewed by Ira Glass about the way he outright lied and spun the truth and bent over backwards to lump together an otherwise compelling story about the supply chain for Apple products manufactured in China is to hear a man's reputation come crashing down around him in pieces. I was stunned. I was saddened. I was impressed by "This American Life" immensely yet again. I thought about my own time in China last fall "reporting" for my own book. And I'm still thinking about what it means if someone with a mission to tell a larger truth gets caught with even a few lies mixed into the work.

I can't help but think of my own work and a conversation I continually have (both with myself and others) about the way in which I am pursuing this project. I believe it is possible to write a book that is somewhere between "journalism" and "memoir" - a book that bridges bookstores categories that run from "history" to "current affairs" to the full range of indie bookseller classifications that encompass "animal rights" and "nature" and "politics and culture". In fact, I've been spending a great deal of time lately thinking about just that - if the bridge between categories is something appropriate to use when writing a book. Mike Daisey's experience (and that of Frey and Mortensen and countless others who've seemingly ambled down this same road where they feel like the rules don't apply to them) is very much on my mind today. Whatever happens to him hereafter, I think a lesson might be applicable for all sorts of writers. I think it could be summed up as follows:

If you tweak the truth, someone will follow up and find it. Period. Luck has nothing to do with it.

Moving forward amidst the Holidaze

If you've been reading this blog for some sense of what I'm working on, rest assured that the groundwork for Pelting Out continues. Things keep coming up that interest me, including stories that looked more ominous than certain parties might have thought on first read. I recently began digging into my own Scandinavian ancestry. And I'm still trying to open some doors that I've been knocking upon for months. In terms of writing, it's definitely still time to make the donuts. Concurrently, it's that time of year when work gets ever so briefly repositioned so that the zesty parts of life can be attended to more fully. In terms of straight-up logistics, my family in Seattle is hosting a loving gaggle of visitors. Dinners and excursions are being planned, all sorts of goodness is being hoped for by kids young and old. I love to fully enter Holidaze mode. Which also gets me in the mood to pass around the cheer. However you celebrate this time of year, I hope it proves major league merry. And for those looking to the week ahead and the calendar, you'll want to check back for something I do each year - my annual YearEnder. You can get added to my "nice" list by sending me an email - in which case you'll get the full YearEnder with all the familial updates. Of course, "naughty" still gets plenty here with the business end of the shtick I offer up to assess the year we're collectively leaving behind. Either way, I hope that whatever you wrap yourself up in this time of year keeps you warm and ready for heaps of awesomeness in 2012. Thanks for reading. Rock on. Merrily.

The Burlesque after Charleston.

We spent the weekend in Charleston, South Carolina. Meaning we spent two days traveling, basically sandwiching one day worth of a lovely wedding. Not exactly restful stuff. But well worth the effort given the good feelings generated by the event. I'd only been to Charleston once before. That was for another wedding over a decade ago - a similarly beautiful occasion, albeit with a totally different crop of folks. I love that place and each time find more than a few quirky stories I hope to someday share here and elsewhere. However, the motivation lag after such a weekend lingered longer than I like. Still, thanks for checking in for new posting action.

Which leads me to show my hand here a bit more. Some of you have surely wondered just what I'm doing with this blog. I plan to let the light shine a bit brighter on that over the coming weeks. If this blog could be seen as a burlesque dance, admittedly it's been mostly feathers and air kisses up to this point. Consider this fair warning that I'm ready to give y'all more of a peek at the goods. Or at least the teasing focus will sharpen. Expect quick flashes of what I find worth showcasing. That means more explanation of the subject areas that relate to my book. Along with more of who I am, where I came from and how this wraps around the work I'm doing on this book. Like any performer - no matter the venue - I think you'll dig the show. No need to gather up a fistful of dollar bills to slip into my garters. Yet.

So please check back. Sign up for my email updates. Keep an eye out for some design revisions. Follow my Twitter feed. And thanks for all of that. Rock on.

Wrapping a neat little bow around China? Good luck with that.

I still have to look back at my last - and probably favorite - part of the ten days I spent in China. Hong Kong. I got just a taste - delivered in a whirlwind of exploration and not much sleep. But it was enough to amp up my sense of urban life halfway across the world. I was completely caught off guard by how much I loved the blend of East and West there. This part of my tour was really only about exploring - not the spoon fed exposure to this business I'm researching. So I could just soak up tiny bit of a city that has blended East and West into a fascinating stew.

But since my return to Seattle and the dozens of conversations both large and small about this trip to China, I'm finding it hard to wrap a bow around it. Without giving away everything I've been working on for Pelting Out - please bear in mind that this blog is meant to slowly let out some line on the reel that is a big book project. A few nights ago I talked with one of my best friends about the broad arc of all this - China, writing a non-fiction book when fiction's been the gig for so long, how it feels to be an American overseas these days. This friend has always been one of my most unflinching, spot-on sounding boards. And as such, he made me think about what any of us know about China - those who've been fortunate enough to visit, those who complain about their rise, those who couldn't care less about the subject. I found us debating whether there's a historical comparison for China's rise. Maybe you've got one, but we came up bupkis. So rather than look for a big summarizing construct...I'm done with the China shtick in this forum. For the time being. But not before I lay out a few of the things I did in Hong Kong that so entirely entertained me for that brief recent period.

I jostled my way around the subway system. I saw how people congregate downtown on a Sunday, with crowds of what appear to be foreign-born women dancing in the street and throughout Statue Park. I braved the crowds to ride the Peak Tram (the world's steepest funicular rail line) up to Victoria Peak. I tried not to interrupt morning exercises of all kinds in Kowloon Park. I wandered the Night Markets. I got chops made for family - carved marble ink stamps with Chinese characters spelling out our Western names phonetically that are used to accompany signatures. I took an amazing ferry cruise not just through Victoria Harbor and back, but all the way out to Lamma Island for a seafood dinner. I even got a full clinic on using chopsticks correctly - an embarrassing but validating discovery during an incredible three-hour dinner seated next to a friendly local who wasn't the least bit afraid of pointing out that my technique needed tweaking.

After all that and much more than you surely care to read, I came back to Seattle. Sated, challenged, and armed with stories and pictures and impressions I'm obviously still sorting my way through. Do I want to go back? Absolutely. But for the time being, I've got fish much closer to home to catch and season for serving. Thanks for reading. If you check back, I promise there will be more (and less - shorter entries hereafter) that I hope proves tasty. All heading in the general direction of a much larger project. Or so I keep telling myself.

Unlacing a bit of the Lacey Act

Most Americans have never heard of the Lacey Act. That's pretty normal for obscure trade laws that date back to the conservation movement in the early 20th Century (President McKinley signed it into law in 1900). As a thumbnail, the Lacey Act controls importation of wildlife, fish and/or plants that may have been obtained through illegal means. Trap a Sasquatch in British Columbia or pick a peck of Peruvian pickle plants for sale in Poughkeepsie and you'll be facing a Lacey smackdown. Yet the evolution of the law - and its political undercurrent - is what's caught my interest as it's been once again placed on the minor current affairs platform. I actually was reminded of Lacey thanks to the music show "Sound Opinions". They picked up the Gibson Guitar company's case of being raided by the Feds for using dubious wood. There are lots of ways to run with that double entendre. The point being, nonetheless, that I'm intrigued by the idea that a law established in the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt progressivism is still being spun over a century later by Conservatives as an example of how the Federal Government oversteps its mandate. That's a really superficial reading on this bill. Especially because it also applies to issues I'm interested in for Pelting Out. But that's about as far as I'm able to get on this today.

Until the next page turns...may your own time spent in a bookstore flipping through travel guide after guide prove to be at least conversationally worth it when you get to the other side of the planet.

Which NFL authentic jersey would you wear to Fashion Week?

I've never been to Fashion Week. Any of them, anywhere - New York, Milan, Paris, Dubuque, Ulan Bator. Not that I'm unfashionable. I'll happily brag that my wife relies heavily upon me to make the call between prospective outfits she's contemplating. My skills are largely those of a fashion idiot savant, with the equivalent assurance of any former speechwriter currently working as a pundit for FOX News. But I'm now paying more attention thanks to my research for Pelting Out. Would I have gone to Anna Wintour's brainchild shoppanal - Fashion's Night Out 2011 - last night in NYC? Yes, I think I would have braved the crowds. Not for the Bieber, mind you. For the actual nuts and bolts of the fashion. It would have given me at least a slightly more hands-on sense of what may be tried on at China's equivalent Fall fashion features later this month. Oddly enough, I expect to see some of that public rendering when I head to the Far East a week from today. Because the only thing more fascinating but way out of my comfort zone than going to some gala fashion soirees in New York or Europe is to do so in a rapidly developing nation. Add in some of tangential thinking I've been doing, thanks in part to a NYTimes piece on China's appetite for collecting Western art and you've got a case of cultural consumption leapfrog that's wonderfully mind-boggling. If you're intrigued by what this might all mean and what I might bring to bear on the discussion, check back. Real observations - not just these hints of what might be upcoming - are promised in easy to consume chunks of cheese on an unpretentious platter.

Until the next page turns...may your own daughter's new soccer season's schedule not parallel your own NFL team's broadcast schedule.

Let the Months be your guide

The start of the school year has me thinking about continuity. That ol' chestnut - the more things change, the more they stay the same. We brought our own daughter to her first day of First Grade this morning much like families all across the country are doing or recently have done. So goes this time of year. For me, continuity is a touchstone not only of these special family moments but the overall structure of Pelting Out. I'm using a timeline that extends across decades, but not in anything like a yearly chronological sense of time. Instead, I'm hanging everything off an eternal monthly calendar. What happens in September, stays in September - whether we're talking 1917 or 2011. That, for me, has allowed narrative threads to be strung between what would otherwise be hard to connect periods of history. When I frame my thinking using the months of the year, I can consider what my Grandfather Harry might have thought on my family's then nearly 40-year-old homestead in northern Wisconsin in September of 1917. Then, just maybe, I can present the parallel with what's going on as I enjoy Seattle's beautiful extended summer. Much like what I experienced for the first time when I arrived here for graduate school nearly 20 years ago. The trick will be to do that over the whole arc I've set up for Pelting Out. Narrative non-fiction is, after all, an exercise in storytelling that requires structure and (hopefully) a unique point of view.

Until the next page turns...I hope you saw your own child skipping into the classroom this morning.

Prepping for a trip to China, tracking the roots of the ginseng trade

I'm preparing for a big trip in less than two weeks. I've known about it for the past few months and the timing is fortuitous given my writing plans. I'm still largely unsure of what I'll see along the way. No withheld mystery here - I'm going to China. 10 days, a chance for a big drink from a wide open firehose. I'm being afforded the chance to briefly explore Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Call it a trade mission, because I'm going with a group of Americans and Canadians whose purpose and interest in visiting China has a specific business implication. But I have plans to be personally adventurous (within safe bounds - hello, unseen all-knowing Internet sniffers) along the way. As a matter of educating myself, I've been reading a fair amount online, flipping through maps and guides, and asking questions of some well-placed friends and friends-of-friends. I'm also finishing off a book this weekend that just came out in August by Tom Scocca - titled Beijing Welcomes You. One direction he pointed me is to mention a travel guide titled Beijing By Foot that is made up of set of 40 maps (printed on cards) that itemize walks around the city. I noticed that journalist James Fallows wrote one of the blurbs on their website. Not bad. I contacted the publisher and they can send a copy to my hotel after I pay by PayPal. Call it the ultra-modern equivalent of getting a TripTic from AAA. Costs more, pays off much much more. I hope.

For today's clue about why I'm here, doing what I'm doing as the sun struggles to burn off the Santa Barbara fog a handful of hours earlier than most recent days. A tangent got me wondering about the Trans-Pacific (if that's what you can call the connection between China and the USA) trade of ginseng. I've always been struck by how little truth in labeling there is on any teas or Whole Foods-y things that feature ginseng. It's rather like trying to find out what part of the moon your moon rocks come from - complete lack of specificity. I suspect this has always been the case with ginseng. And the crazy part is that ginseng from the USA has been making its way to China for centuries. When the trade with Korea (the traditional source of most of the ginseng consumed in China) collapsed, American wild ginseng entered the breach. Eventually, cultivated ginseng became a new trade opportunity. The degree to which that continues, I'm now exactly up to date. But this is something I'm thinking about, for the time being. We'll see if I learn more during my visit.

Like what you see thus far? Well, then become a Follower of my blog. Use the top box in the right-hand column. It won't hurt. It will actually help - updates come automatically, I'll be able to respond to questions, everyone gets a free hug. Or some of those things, in no particular order.

Until the next page turns...may you have a chance to go to the beach and eat pancakes after a workout.

Back with good reason. And a first clue for why that might be.

The time has come to quote that most overused of Al Pacino lines (no, not "Say hello to my little friend"). I'm speaking, of course, of that widely-paraphrased bit from "Godfather III" where Michael Corleone says "Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in." And so it is with me and blogging. I'd been out. For a year, in all but the rarest of circumstances. Aside from my beloved (albeit small) audience from past ventures, I don't expect that the world is missing my contributions to the world of blogging. After all, aren't we over this and other similar venues by now? I've said so myself - in the future, no one will blog. Is this the future? Well, not yet. I've still got some work to do.

In particular, I'm writing a new book. One that was always my "Plan A" for a big, personal, unique and meaty tome. Non-fiction. With a major league first person narrative hook. After writing two novels and countless words on subjects that I suppose in retrospect largely stand as somewhat contrived or at least not nearly as personal as what I've got planned with this project, the time has come to redirect. I'll explain myself a bit from this - the utter outset of my blog "Pelting Out". But don't expect this will be an entirely above-board examination of a particular subject in a particular way of framing. Do, however, expect this will be a place to see a mystery unfold. One that I fully intend to be worth following. Those of you with a sleuthing instinct will dig down deep pretty quickly. Still even those searchers will be flummoxed by what I've got in store. Because this is a blog about a world I expect few (if any) of you know a thing about. Oh, sure - you may think you know something about it. I'm amazed how many people do. They are often at the very least misguided, though. Usually wrong - painfully so. Almost always missing an important piece of the whole puzzle. And without a doubt set up for a sucker punch of hidden truth. Or a volley, delivered not with an ulterior motive other than to educate and entertain. Slice this or any of my past work to its core and the intent remains the same - I am here to tell stories.

Does this sound like something you might be interested in following? I certainly hope so. Then, please, do so and come back. The clues will present themselves daily - a rather cumbersome gambit, but one that I expect will make more sense as time goes by. I'll even set up some of those mechanisms to alert you when a new piece has fallen into place, especially for subscribers to this blog. For today - this first post and my first step back into blogging - I will offer one thing:

Alice Munro may be the only writer who has proceeded me on this path. I don't claim to have a thing on her as a writer. A person on the perennial Nobel Prize short list stands far above the twittering, blogging mass of New Century voices. I'm only speaking of her past. For this one, our shared old friend Wikipedia can surely give you all that's necessary to see the landscape. The pieces of "Pelting Out" after this won't fall into place so easily. So you're welcome. But, more importantly, thank you for checking in.

Until the next page turns...make way for time at the pool, with a daughter who has recently found her way to being a happy, confident swimmer.