Capote And The Non-Fiction Novel

Silent And Unexpected Coup in Honduras

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/world/americas/30honduras.html?_r=1


President Manuel Zelaya was startled awake on Sunday by members of the military and ousted to Costa Rica. Political tension in Honduras has been mounting for weeks because of the president's attempt to pass a referendum which would permit Zelaya to extend his term. The coup still came as a big surprise to Honduras and the rest of the world.
Many Hondurans came by the presidential compound to protest the actions of the military, some believing that the C.I.A. may have been involved. The Honduran Supreme claimed that the military had acted to to defend the law. Roberto Micheletti, the president of Congress, will be taking over Zelaya's duties.

Joe Sacco Speaks At Walker Art Center

Illustrator and journalist Joe Sacco delivers a talk at the Walker Art Center about some of the different scenes that he drew up for his graphic novels "Safe Area Gorazde," "Palestine," "The Fixer," and others.

The Photography Of Lena Herzog

http://lenaherzog.com/default.asp

Featured in the Spring 2009 issue of The Paris Review, Lena Herzog is a self-taught photographer from Ekaterinburg, Russia.

St. Petersburg Times Takes On Scientology

http://www.tampabay.com/news/article1012148.ece

In a 3 part series for the St. Petersburg Times, Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin interviewed Scientology defectors to learn more about some of the harsh methods used to maintain control or collect money from subordinates by some senior members.

Bolivia's Cocaine Trade: A Photo Essay By Marco Vernaschi For Mother Jones

http://www.motherjones.com/photoessays/2008/07/bolivias-cocaine-trade-bitter-leaf

How and Why Bolivian families are turning their attention to the lucrative coca business.

Down And Out In Fresno

http://www.esquire.com/features/down-and-out-0709

Colby Buzzel rents himself a $10 a month, one-person tent(and a hammer) in one of Fresno's infamous "Tent Cities" to learn more about its residents.

Favela Art

http://jr-art.net/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8091890.stm

French Artist JR creates gargantuan posters of staring eyes and has them placed on favelas, buildings, railroad cars, stairs and other structures throughout Rio de Janeiro.

Heavy-Handed Desaturated Blurs Called People

The bricklayer around the corner and two priests outside the bakery.

Last Stand Of The American Salmon

http://www.mensjournal.com/salmon

For most of history, salmon thrived in what seemed like endless abundance in the Pacific Northwest’s three great river systems — the Columbia, Sacramento and the Klamath — that extend thousands of miles through California, Washington, and Oregon, and beyond that, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, and Canada. The Rapid River leads to the Upper Salmon River, then the Salmon, and then the Snake before merging into the Columbia, which was once the world’s most productive salmon spawning ground.

For the region’s Indian tribes, the fish provided nutrition as well as prosperity. Commercial fishermen have shared in the bounty. Thousands of oceangoing fishing boats have harvested salmon along most of the West Coast. But no longer. The populations of wild salmon species that return to the Columbia have virtually disappeared; most are on the endangered species list. Last summer salmon populations were so small that commercial fishing was banned almost everywhere off the West Coast.

G. Bruce Knecht investigates the causes, concerns, and solutions behind the disappearing species of wild salmon in the Columbia river and its tributaries.

Good-Bye Misty

Sleep well Misty, my best friend of 11 years. We'll run into each other again in one life or another, one form or another, one way or another. Goodbye...for now.

What's Happening To All The Pacific Oysters?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009336458_oysters14m.html

Both the Seattle Times and The Portland Oregonian report that oyster harvesting in the Pacific Northwest has been declining gradually for the last decade, and significantly since 2005. The blame was initially placed upon Vibrio tubiashii, a bacteria known to kill oyster larvae, but after attempts were made to kill the bacteria using ultraviolet water-treatment systems, the problem persisted. Later it began to unravel that the Seawater pH levels would drop below normal causing the water to become acidic, due to the ocean absorbing higher levels of Carbon Dioxide. Unfortunately, the winds that blow off Washington's coast replace marine surface waters with much colder and more acrid seawater from below. The wild oyster larvae are killed before they have the opportunity to attach to shells. Researchers are also worried that this may devastate marine life further up the chain.Large and popular fish such as Salmon and Pollock depend on shellfish for a majority of their diet.

The Moon And The Sledgehammer

“It’s a good job the moon’s well up there,” the old man says. “I got room enough to swing a sledgehammer underneath him.” As peculiar as it is hypnotic, Philip Trevelyan’s 1971 oddity documents a bold British family living off the grid in the Sussex woods. On the outskirts of London, the elderly Mr. Page, along with his two sons and daughters, makes do with little. Lacking running water and electricity, their only links to “modern” technology are the steam tractors they repair to make a living and the rifles they use to shoot their next meal. Gripping his camera, Trevelyan steps uncomfortably close to these craftspeople, molding an intimate family portrait that is at once perplexed and awestruck.

The women knit and garden; the men rev their engines; and Mr. Page decries the urban London lifestyle. They seem at first naive about the ways of the world, but Trevelyan captures something poignant in their uncluttered harmony with the land. Birds and bugs swarm the farm. A rotting piano left outdoors sounds eerily beautiful. A kitten dances with the hands of Mr. Page’s son as he fantasizes about the moon, drawing its shape in the soil. Mr. Page scoffs at these imaginative ramblings, less because he’s uninterested in the heavens than because he sees more that’s worth cherishing in his wooded oasis. He may be right—and that’s what makes this bizarre biography so unforgettable.—S. James Snyder (From Time Out New York)

This is a very strange and outlandish film from director Philip Trevelyan. The 1971 documentary may seem absurd or unnatural at times, but creates a fetching atmosphere around the Page family, who construct a mosaic of their various personalities throughout the length of the film.

http://www.themoonandthesledgehammer.com/

Man On Wire

Beautifully shot. Beautifully told. Beautiful film, enough said.

Chicago Public Radio Explains What Lead To The Economic Meltdown

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242

The U.S. economy has been in a state of turmoil for a while. While hundreds of billions of dollars are pumped into the banking system by the Obama administration and the unemployment rate is steadily rising, people are quick to make assumptions and cast blame to who or what caused the economic meltdown.
"The Giant Pool Of Money" episode from This American Life, attempts to pinpoint the several factors of the housing crisis which has lead to devastation on Wall Street, Detroit, and in numerous suburbs.

Who Is Jacob Zuma?

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906/south-africa-zuma

" Jacob Zuma is a former goatherd, a master of traditional Zulu stick-fighting, a resistance hero, a one-time spymaster, a graceful dancer, and the father of some 20 children. He has been tried for rape and indicted for corruption, racketeering, and fraud. He has been called the next Mandela and the next Mugabe, a black Jesus and a crass rube. By the time you read this, he will almost certainly be the new president of South Africa. Here is the story of his sometimes troubling rise—and what it portends for the future of his country." - Douglas Foster

A Tip Of The Hat

A Saturday afternoon at Meyer The Hatter in New Orleans may get hectic, especially when swarms of music buffs make their way down for the Jazz and Heritage Festival towards the end of April. The annual festival attracts large crowds who gather for the barbecue, the bar scene, the nearly limitless number of music acts, and a visit to Sam Meyer. “My wife was here, my boys were here, my grandchildren came in to help with all the people, “ said Meyer, 83, with his welcoming Southern accent.
A hat may just be another fashion accessory no different than a tie or pair of shoes. Styles change, opinions change and lives change. Rarely is anything certain and still the hat industry has remained virtually unaltered. Hats have been passed down as heirlooms and they have been sold off to pawn shops. They have been habitually packed away into old boxes in a damp and moldy corner of someone’s garage. They have been sold off at yard sales for mere change. They have been left forgotten in more than a few closets.
When you were younger, you probably dug through the stack of boxes in your uncle’s garage and found it. You passed your neighbor’s lawn one day and saw it laying at a yard sale. You went digging through the closet for Christmas presents and stumbled upon it. Yes, you saw it and there was an instant spark.
It becomes more than a fashion accessory. It becomes a story, a personality and a statement combined. “People don’t look at John Wayne’s boots,” said Meyer. “Where would John Wayne be without his hat?”
Around since 1894, Meyer The Hatter has witnessed an economic depression, two world wars, the advent of the atomic bomb, and an arms race with the Soviet Union. Taking up three floors of a building on the corner of St. Charles Ave and Canal St in downtown New Orleans, the traditional hat shop began with a handshake between Sam Meyer’s grandfather and a Stetson hat representative.
The long and narrow sales floor is stocked from floor to ceiling with every type of traditional hat. There are bowlers, fedoras, cowboy hats, panamas, newsboy caps, homburgs, deerstalkers, berets, top hats, telescope hats and even safari helmets.
Most hats are still assembled by hand out of wool or fur, usually either beaver or rabbit. They are molded over a wooden block with steam to shape the top part (the crown). The brim is ironed flat and cut to a specific size. It is then placed on a wooden flange to create a chosen shape. A hat is then stiffened with shellac or any other coating if necessary and then sanded to smooth out any rough edges. Finally comes the application of a leather inner band and sometimes an outer band to the finished product. “In all, there are twenty to thirty small steps, “ said Meyer. “It’s a squarely intricate process.”
Very few companies still manufacture hats and even fewer make it to the shelves of Meyer The Hatter. Some of the trusted brands include Biltmore of Canada, Stetson of St. Joseph, Missouri, and Borsalino of Italy.
Customers come from every walk of life. There are the lifetime customers that Meyer has known since that day in the 1940’s when him and his brother started helping around in the shop. “I got some very old and loyal folks that keep coming back, “ said Meyer.
Recently there have been rising numbers of younger customers who have taken a liking to hats. “All these young folks come in here now,” said Meyer. “They love to buy small-brimmed hats and caps. We sell tons of those.”
These last few months have seen businesses, large and small, calling it quits. Financial markets have become as unpredictable as fashion trends. Despite folding and gloom everywhere, the heart of the traditional hat industry continues to beat, even though less than 1% of men wear hats.
There have been days when the lively Sam Meyer was running back and forth between different people to keep up with orders, frequently picking up a ringing phone to give directions to the store or check for a customer’s size. Some days are much quieter but Meyer is thankful for every single day of the more than 60 years that he has dedicated to the hat trade. “We’ve just done beautifully,” said Meyer. “We’ve been blessed with a good little business.”
Sam Meyer’s shop isn’t the only hat store with a reputation for thriving. JJ Hat Center in Manhattan has been outfitting New Yorkers for the last 98 years, since it first opened in 1911.
Marc Williamson loves his job and he loves hats. For the last 12 years he has been the manager of JJ Hat Center near the corner of 32 St and Fifth Av. His favorite style is the newsboy cap and he can usually be found at a workbench towards the back of the store, using a 250-degree steamer and a brush to clean off several fedoras while the store mascot, JJ the cat, lounges at his side.
He brings out two Panamas, named for being worn by Theodore Roosevelt when he visited the Panama Canal. They were both made in Ecuador out of straw but the first one is loosely woven while the second is woven so tight, that its smoothness can only be matched by silk. “Someone can make five of these in a day,” said Williamson, holding up the first hat. “One like this would take a month by hand,” said Williamson, pointing to the tightly woven hat.
Recounting a day when a young woman entered the store looking to re-shape and clean her grandfather’s old military dress hat as a birthday gift, Williamson takes pride in knowing that he can restore and illuminate a piece of history in everyone’s life. “We have people coming in with their father’s hat, their grandfather’s hat,” said Williamson.
Many people within the traditional hat industry claim that hats lost popularity when JFK was the first president to deliver his inauguration speech without wearing a hat. Although this is true, there are other reasons that people discuss. Hairstyles for men became fashionable and caused hats to almost become completely obsolete. “You’re not going to get a $200 haircut and then wear your hat over it,” said Williamson.
Another reason that hats slipped off the radar for a while is the counterculture movement of the 1960’s. “It was in style to be against the establishment,” said Williamson. “Establishment was viewed as a suit, a tie, and a hat.”
A hat may be judged by the quality of the felt, the leather sweat band, or its durability against the weather, but what really garners attention for a particular hat comes down to who is wearing it.
It was only after Harrison Ford wore his signature brown Fedora in Indiana Jones and after Notorious BIG performed in videos wearing his black suit, black cape and black fedora, that traditional hats were ready to come back and join the mainstream. This time it looks like they may be staying for good.