I grew up in Portsmouth. It's a weird, but very hospitable town. (Newburyport, just down the turnpike, is reputedly the model for Innsmouth.)
The glowing tombstone wasn't part of the local folklore when I was growing up, and South Street Cemetery is only three blocks from my parents' house. But I did have a genuine UFO encounter in nearby Rye. From an introduction I wrote a few years back for "The Campfire Collection":
One warm night in the early Eighties, my friends Tom, Ken and I were riding along the beach road in my parents' big, red Plymouth Satellite, staving off boredom with conversation and beer. We stopped at Odiorne Point State Park, just over the town border in Rye, a favorite late-night hang-out. We climbed a small hill that overlooked the parking lot and some service buildings. We sat and talked about the things that interest college students during their summer breaks.
At some point, Tom grabbed my arm and whispered, "What's that?"
"What?" I said.
"That light!"
I looked. There was a big, bright, white light just above the roof of the bath house. Presumably it had been placed there so no one would trip on the stairs in the dark.
I said, "That's the light over the bath house. What's your problem?"
And then the light suddenly dimmed to half its intensity -- and moved.
We certainly knew that mysterious light at Odiorne Point was Not Right. It moved in spooky silence, without even the whisper of any motor. It dipped and weaved at angles not likely for any kind of aircraft with which I am familiar. It was not a weather balloon. It was not swamp gas.
The light hovered over the bath house for a few minutes, then zigged and zagged through the air until it was out over the dark water, where it was joined by two other glowing, silent objects. Ken, Tom and I watched open-mouthed as these lights flew out to sea and then disappeared from view. We ran for the car.
From a restaurant pay phone, Ken called Pease Air Force Base in nearby Newington and asked if they had received any reports of strange lights in the sky. They claimed not to know what the hell we were talking about. (Although of course they would say that, wouldn't they?)
I have no explanation for what we saw that night. That's why I am confident in saying that it was an Unidentified Flying Object. It was definitely something that flew and that could not be recognized.
While far from the best of any given time period, "The Matrix" is a truly enjoyable movie. As long as you don't think about it too hard.
If you think about it too hard and start to notice how the Wachowskis (sp?) have ripped off characters, costume designs, themes and set-pieces from Grant Morrison's widely ignored comics series "The Invisibles," "The Matrix" becomes downright infuriating. (Morrison thought of suing but eventually let it go.)
During the release of the sequels, I couldn't understand why no one was pointing out the debt they owed to "The Invisibles." I should have done so myself.
"What's your favorite novel?" strikes me as a no-win kind of question for a politician. Someone's going to think badly of you, no matter what you say.
Depending on my mood, I might answer, "The Shining," which would strike some people as ridiculously low-brow. Or I might say, "Nabokov's 'Pale Fire.'" Which some might find excruciatingly pretentious.
As bizarre as Romney's pick is, at least it's not pretentious. (Like W. got anything out of reading "The Stranger" by Cam-moose a couple summers ago.)
I don't agree with everything in this article, but it outlines many of the challenges facing newspapers right now.
Georgina -- Meant "quarter of a century." A late-night slip, no doubt the result of a deep-seated sense of denial at having a 25-year track record in any professional enterprise.
My newspaper has a fairly large online presence. Like among the Top 10 in the nation.
Peter Darby -- Newspapers used to make a huge amount of cash, millions of dollars per year for a major daily, from classified ads -- not from notices for garage sales or surplus kittens, but from vast linage devoted to automotive, real estate and recruitment advertising. Much of that linage has disappeared in the past 6-10 years. I spend every working day of my life dealing with that fact.
Run-of-press display ads are, indeed, where newspapers continue to make most of their money. The money raised through circulation (subscriptions, street sales, etc.) is negligible.
Greta Christina -- There has been "satirical" talk upthread invoking buggy whips and the balancing of bodily humors. I am sure it was all in good fun. "Good riddance" is a direct quote from Mitch Wagner. I'm sure he didn't mean it.
There is obviously no point in bitching and moaning when one has sided with the milkmen, telegraph operators and silent film stars.
I really don't mean to diss Craigslist. It provides an invaluable service. But let's not assume that what's true today will be true tomorrow, right?
Mitch Wagner says "...if the general public values journalism, there will be a way to pay for it." What if the general public doesn't value journalism? Should it just go away? Will everybody be happier then?
Yes, Craigslist seems to care about people now, but let's see what happens in 10 years or so. I remember Google's much-trumpeted ideals about doing no evil.
I understand what you're saying about newspapers. I've invested close to a quarter of a decade in one. In the last contract, I took a hefty pay cut and lost a ton of benefits and security. So my eyes are wide open.
But I do somewhat resent the implication that those of us who have stuck with the industry deserve whatever we get after this paradigm shift and that nobody really needed us anyhow, so good riddance.
Mitch Wagner -- Almost every capitalist enterprise I can think of exploits young, idealistic people for the benefits of the corporate owners. Happens in law, in medicine, in book publishing, in high tech. Sorry to hear your four years in the newspaper industry were so disillusioning. I know your experience isn't unique.
I'm not arguing that the news has to come printed on paper and delivered to your front door. But it's a complicated question as to how all this "good journalism" we seek will be funded when the traditional advertising base has been decimated. (And, yes, I know the literal definition of that verb.)
First off, apologizes to all and sundry for the snippiness of my post and the infelicitous "you folks" construction. It's just that I get irked when I perceive a massive indifference to the fate of newspapers in America and a certain "well, they shoulda seen it coming" attitude when discussing print journalism's response to the Web. (And that, in truth, doesn't seem to be the prevailing sentiment here.)
My problem, not yours. But I genuinely believe that we would all be worse off if daily newspapers went away.
Teresa: I'm 47 and I know very many newspaper editors my age or older. Is that what you were asking?
I agree that, whether a jest or not, the article in question is stoopid. But you folks would be a lot less sanguine if it was YOUR JOB on the line.
My favorite from Berkeley:
MY KID'S AN HONOR STUDENT AND MY PRESIDENT'S A MORON.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2007 | 4 |
| 2006 | 10 |
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