My overview of the What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam? exhibit appeared earlier this week on the Washington City Paper‘s Young & Hungry blog. Read the post here.
Vitamin Doughnuts! Exploding Ketchup! The Unsettling History of Food Safety On Display Downtown
Filed under DC
An eco-fashion-conscious internship
My friend Sri just launched a line of Ayurvedic clothing and is looking for an intern to help catapult it into orbit. This could make a great feather in your resume. Interested? Know someone who might be? Grab the link to this post and share generously!
Here’s the announcement:
PR/Marketing/Communications Intern – to assist in developing and executing the PR/marketing strategy for a revolutionary startup in the health/wellness/eco-clothing space.
This is a short-term unpaid position for 2-3 months with the potential for a paid longer–term engagement.
Looking for someone who:
–has a background in PR/Marketing/Communications
–is social media savvy (using Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.)
–is passionate about health, environment, and is interested in the eco-fashion space
–is interested in Ayurveda (a plus)
–is highly organized
–has highly effective writing and communications skills
–thinks outside the box
Primary responsibilities:
1) Assist in developing and executing a highly effective PR strategy for getting coverage on leading mainstream publications like the Washington Post, NY Times etc as well as magazines, blogs and other publications in the yoga/natural health/Ayurveda/eco-fashion space
2) building and maintaining a large following in the social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs)
Serious interests only. Please contact sri(at)vastra.us ASAP after visiting the information on the website at http://www.vastra.us
Filed under Jobs, Public relations/communications
Half-baked at the White House
The conveyor belt and metal detector were temporary, but the guard stood immovable. “You can either take it back to your car, or leave it with us,” he said. “And if you leave it with us, you don’t get it back.” He pointed to the sign that noted no insulated cups were allowed—even empty ones. So I turned in my potential weapon. Then I gripped my pink ticket for the White House Garden Tour and resisted the desire to tell the guy that no one in their right mind would try to park here.
I joined the crowd. I imagine us all imagining sun glancing off pink, purple, and yellow blooms, the diva perfume of lilac and the tender sweetness of daffodils.
But as I followed the masses down the path, I started to suspect mugs weren’t the only items banned from the grounds. Clouds layered themselves between me and the sun as I passed by a Rose Garden without roses and expanses of closed green buds. No perfume or sea of color here; just a half-baked project in a vacuum of chilly air.
As if to accentuate the theme, off to one side stood an area that looked like a patio trying to become a half basketball court. The green-tinted ground was fringed by rusting park benches and perhaps a bag or two of cement and paint to mark fresh foul lines. Continue reading
Filed under Other arts
Reviewing friends’ work
Two friends recently asked me to look at novel manuscripts. When the electronic files popped into my mailbox, I immediately knew a few things: 1) This chance to see their new creations flattered me to no end; 2) As honored as I was, I would not be able to look at them right away, and; 3) When I did take in my friends’ carefully-crafted phrases, sentences, and pages entrusted to me, I would believe that they gave me this privilege because of my writing wisdom and experience—and would have absolutely no idea what to say.
Should I mark the margins with my comments about what I loved? Point out moments that confused me?
Would they want me to trot out the proofreading marks, dotting the page with missing-comma carrots and delete-it curlicues?
Or look at the pieces holistically, and offer comments that way?
If I go with that last idea, should I speak to the areas where I have experience—via life, my understanding of the writers’ perspectives, or my particular brand of fiction interest—or engage it simply as an innocent reader?
One did ask me to look at certain parts of the book related to a deaf character, because I have some involvement with the deaf community. The other explained that he is calling on reviewers because this is the first time he has written a major work without a workshop class to share it with. Should I stick to what they’ve asked, or decide what begs to come back to them?
I have worked through some of their words already. I found myself marking in the margins on my hard copy printouts, as if I were back in workshops. Where do I go from here?
What do you do when a writer friend or colleague asks for feedback?
Filed under Community of writers
Beans with a history
Sweet, bacon-y baked beans. Would you believe they started with Jews? Well, they did. Connecting such seemingly disparate things as Judaism and pork-infused legumes usually takes a story. I recently wrote that story–with a recipe–for My Jewish Learning. Take a look at Vegetarian Baked Beans.
Photo by the author.
Filed under Jewish community
Goat cheese and greens
Spoon Bread and Strawberry Wine*. From Okra to Greens**. Many great pieces of theatre or poetry start with two random foods. My latest recipe for MyJewishLearning.com tries a little of that melding. The dish combines pungent, earthy goat cheese with spicy greens. And though it’s dinner, not literature, it does come with a couple of stories. Read all about it.
*A 1994 book of “recipes and reminiscences” by Norma Jean Darden and Carole Darden, which I saw off Broadway as a young’un.
** A work of drama/poetry by Ntozake Shange that is lesser known than For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf, but worth checking out.
Filed under Jewish community
Omni and literary, for not a lot of money
The Association of Writers and Writing Programs brings its annual conference and book fair to D.C. next month. I plan to attend, but definitely need help with choosing sessions. If you’re a student, you can get in for 50 bucks. And as my friend Marina pointed out, in a sense we are all perpetually students.
Apparently, the country is teeming not only with students, but with writers. So many want to attend that the event sprawls between two hotels — the Omni Shoreham and the Marriott Wardman Park.
In other news, I recently found guides to literary markets that other writers might find useful. Media Bistro members can find out where, when, and how to submit personal essays in the three-part Personal Essay Market feature (thank you to Emily from my freelance writing group for that one!) Then there’s Writers and Poets’ (FREE!) guide to literary magazines, searchable by genre. P&W also has a hefty, gratis guide to grants and awards. Also free. (Did I mention that neither of these cost anything?)
If you don’t mind shelling out $40 for the year, you always have Writers Market. I recall very complete listings last time I had a membership. Don’t worry if you aren’t ready to make the investment, though; there’s a free seven-day trial.
Filed under Uncategorized
Which words to believe?
Haiti's presidential palace remains crumpled in August 2010. Photo by Rhea.
January 12, 2011 marks the one-year anniversary of the earthquake that toppled Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It was the aftermath of that 35 seconds of destruction that brought me to the country in August, and led to a five-part series on members of the group Friends of Deaf Haiti volunteering at a deaf tent city (see this page).
In November, Haitians voted on a new president for the first time since the quake. It is this event, perhaps more than arguments in criticism or defense of foreign aid, that have dominated public discussion in recent days. That is, until the airwaves and Web pages lit up with questions about a tragic shooting in Tuscon.
The United Nations and Organization of American States acknowledge some glitches in the election process in Haiti, but overall see no need for a rehash. Others see irrevocable flaws. Meanwhile, in the scramble to find meaning in a deadly few seconds outside of a supermarket, we debate whether slaughter originated in political rhetoric or just an imbalanced mind.
Many truths remain clouded until someone puts them into words. Facts and textures emerge through the telling. But what happens when the stories differ? I’ll leave you with that question as I contemplate a grim milestone and a bewildered country.
Filed under International, On media
Grist publishes best food books of 2010
To usher in 2010, Grist has published a look at the best food books of this closing year. Or at least what people were reading this year. This list brings together my two great loves: literature and food.
The recommendations come from the greatest sustainable food minds of our time–including my pal and one-time article source Daniel Bowman Simon (of The People’s Garden in NYC).
What are you reading about food?
Filed under Uncategorized
A peek at the journalism of yore
Flickr photo by Roxanne Weber
Scott Simon recently lamented our current discourse as weakened by watering-down factors. I don’t think all is lost, but I know one thing: The way journos write has changed. My thoughts got churning as I waded into a few ’70s-era articles in preparation for an upcoming screening from my dad’s video collective past.
Here are two tidbits:
“’Videofreex Is a Video Production Studio, a Mobile Production Unit, a Video Environment, a Group of People,’ a sign said.” This opens a December 12, 1970 “Talk of the Town” piece in The New Yorker simply titled “Videofreex.” Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Rhea Kennedy Morgenstern, writer 