Of Big Events and Such

Since the summer of 1967 – Lyndon Johnson was President, there was a war in Vietnam, Civil Rights was a kind of day--to--day thing with no yet obvious outcome, Barack Obama was then 6 and headed to live with his mom in Indonesia for several years – I have been a photographer interested in covering the big deal stories of our times. After graduating from college I spent a couple of years floating around Washington DC and Miami, doing assignments for TIME, and hoping that bigger things would come my way. I wasn’t yet either good enough, or smart enough to know how to operate, and ended up on the periphery of some big events, doing them in my own “style.” I was ripped off by some Republican bullshitter who was SUPPOSEDLY involved with planning the Nixon Inaugural Parade in January of 1969. I don’t even remember how I met the guy, but he wanted me to shoot pictures of the floats which I dutifully did, though I suspect the pictures weren’t so great either. He had a big suite in the Watergate (who didn’t?!) but when I went to get paid, he couldn’t actually write me a check. He had the air of one of those Republican operatives, always in elegant jacket and tie, who lived with, and spent much ill-begotten cash. It was in the days before paying with plastic became so prevalent, and I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, though I was, when he just took a check written to him for $125 (would have paid my month’s rent on my small Georgetown studio) endorsed it to me, and dismissed me now that I’d been paid. Cash certainly flowed freely in those days. No real reporting standards. Just a lot of money meant to be leveraged for votes in as many places as possible. Later that summer, having moved to Miami, I convinced the TIME photo editor to let me cover the masses of people attending the Apollo XI launch: the first men to land on the moon. In a time of grave doubts about the reason and will of government (the Vietnam war was leading the news nearly every night) this one expression of human endeavor drew millions to watch the rocket’s liftoff – providing a rare inspirational moment for parents to share with their kids. It was a scene to be sure, and I was on my first color assignment for a magazine. I found an old envelope with those pictures just two years ago, and have been immensely happy with the place they have come to occupy in my body of work. Contrasting as it does with the imminent end of not only the Space Shuttle but the US Manned Space Program, it was a moment of hope, and filled with a sense of possibility. crowds at Titusville watching Apollo XI blast skywards - July 1969

In the early 70s I spent two years trying to cover the war in Vietnam, returned to a country whose political system was warped by the Watergate break-ins and subsequent investigations, and ultimately, the resignation of a President. I spent years following Presidential candidates on the stump, at their conventions, and ultimately campaigning for votes. I covered the Summer Olympic Games from 1984 onwards. L.A. Seoul. Barcelona. Atlanta. Sydney. Athens. Beijing. And at each one I was able to make a picture or two which came to have some significance for a magazine audience. For all those decades, the 70s, 80s, 90s, and into the 00s, there was still a presence that printed magazines had something which gave their mere existence a certain gravitas, even if you were only to glance through an issue four months out of date at your dentist’s, you would undoubtedly find something of value and worth your time.

In the last decade, magazines have struggled, and in some kind of blind rush to the internet, companies now feel obliged to spend their marketing resources there, though no one really even knows what that means. They spend and spend and spend, and in doing so, DON’T spend on the magazines that for years were the main showcases of printed marketability and advertising. Very few are actually finding success online, still a ‘work in progress’ as they say. Meanwhile, the tenor of still photography has changed as well. No longer do I have non-stop phone calls from news magazine editors, competing for my time to send me hither or yon, or sometimes both. The calls come but it’s a very different world. We are too many photographers, already living in too many places, facing a combination of oversaturation-of-market, and a lack of value for what we do when compared to the way the products of photojournalism were regarded even a decade ago. Giant earthmoving/tree-cutting companies like Getty Images have redefined downwards the value of our work, selling cheaply in order to be able to be everywhere and gain (are you ready for that great word?) “marketshare.” They are an example of a photo-related enterprise which ultimately does what it perceives (and I’m not even sure that their perceptions are correct) is good for the company, while at the same time negatively effecting individual photographers. Sadly, news photographs have come to regarded as a commodity in the same way that apples and potatoes are. Pretty much something that has a per pound or per picture price structure, no matter what the subject, quality, or exclusivity.

I was reminded over the past couple of days that we are living in a new era. I have just returned from an assignment in London to cover the Royal Wedding. I felt some kind of obligation to history, I suppose, having been present as part of a big team of photographers covering the Diana-Charles thirty years ago...
wedding at St. Paul’s. So many things have changed. At the time, Contact Press Images, then a small New York based agency, did a deal through our London agent (Colorific) with, among others, the London Sunday Times Magazine, to add our team of a half dozen foreign based photogs to the LSTM 40 page coverage. We flew from New York, stayed in reasonably priced hotels (though I did have to change from bunking with my friend, the late Gerry Davis, after one night of hearing his championship buzz saw cut lumber for 7 hours), were taken in by the Magazine as partners in the process, and, additionally had a number of commitments from Germany, France and Italy, as well as the U.S. for our material. It remained a time when a group of photographers of a certain reputation could still demand top dollar for something which everyone regarded as a ‘big deal’ story.


It was also the era of that quaint process known as film. Yes, each time you loaded your camera, there were only 36 shots available, no matter how many times you loaded it. (By contrast, my Canon 7 D with a 16 gig card shoots about 400 high quality RAW and jpg files. ) As in most things of the more modern age, modest simplicity has been replaced by cart loads of hubris and self-annointment. We take it for granted that we can shoot hundreds of pictures, virtually unlimited, without worrying about running out of film. There is little urgency to save your button pressing for a key moment, one you hope won’t be frame # 36. Part of that process has given today’s photographers a feeling that they can simply keep their fingers on the trigger, produce hundreds of images most of which might be worthless, but hey, it doesn’t cost anything and eventually there might be a good one. It’s a very different form of notetaking than when you pared off each frame of a roll of 36 with some care, knowing that fate could always strike when you weren’t prepared. (Case in point: March 26, 1979 – the White House. President Jimmy Carter meets with Israeli Prime Minister Begin and Egyptian President Sadat to sign the “Camp David Peace Accords,” effectively an agreement which opened up the two countries to each other for the first time in a generation. I was the agency “pool” photographer on the center stand, and had been given several extra cameras from other photographers, in addition to my own three Canons, so that when the ceremony started I had five cameras to shoot this historic moment. The idea was “shoot a lot of originals” make dupe frames of each situation in the camera so I didn’t need to go through the laborious process of shooting duplicates on a copy machine later at the lab. (Dupes were never as sharp as an original…) The three luminaries entered, they sat down – I shot with each camera -- they started to sign the documents – I shot a LOT with each camera – and when a minute later they stood up and grabbed each others hands in celebration, I tried to shoot again, but I was already out of film in all five bodies. I could hear the sharp reports of Nikons and Canons in all directions, as I struggled to rewind one body and reload before the moment was passed. But I was too late. By the time I had recharged my F1, they’d sat down, and the magic was gone, captured on other rolls by other photographers, but totally escaping me. I was not happy. But it was a lesson learned: never find yourself empty in all cameras as you just don’t know when fate will present you with that Cartier-Bressonesque “decisive moment.” On the upside, it was the day (still celebrated as our true anniversary) when Iris and I met on a blind date, our first encounter, though she remembers me that evening as being sullen and singularly uninteresting as I was no doubt sulking from my days’ reportage failure. I’m sure I was sulking. No one likes to miss “the photo.” Shooting over my shoulder that day was a last minute arrival (he’d just come from Begin’s motorcade) -- TIME photographer David Rubinger who I helped up to the stand. He installed himself standing on his 300mm case just behind my left shoulder, and I shall always remember the twangy whine of his camera in my ear, capturing in perfection the three heads of state with the outstretched flags behind them, as I, in a moment of abject failure, was haplessly twirling a rewind knob in that vain attempt to reload.)

Fast forward thirty years (which becomes increasingly disconcerting when you have been shooting for 45 years, and everything in your past seems like it was three weeks ago, or, perhaps a month ago. ) The current excitement about the first real Royal wedding in a generation had lit up not only the English but people everywhere. And it was so interesting to see how we, the reporting world, have changed in those thirty years. First, and perhaps most important to remember: at Charles and Diana’s wedding, CNN and Cable news had not yet been invented. “The News” on tv still meant being reported in a nightly 30 minute network broadcast. Magazines were still plentiful and thick with pages and advertising. Newspapers and mags remained the primary source of presenting photographs of that which was happening in our world. For the most part (my opinion) cable TV has taken all the weak elements of broadcasting and multiplied them, with virtually no emphasis on the positive. (to wit: instead of getting wonderful, deeply layered many minute pieces on a steady basis, we get headline after headline and a lot of reporters with microphones feeling obliged to stand outside in a rainstorm and be pelted in the face with hail just to report a weather story. It’s been sad to see how funding for great magazine reportages was siphoned off to support, first, television, then the web. Along the way there are plenty of excuses why clients don’t feel they can pay you for your pictures (“…the web isn’t profitable yet…”) while, at the same time, they absorb much of the resources which formerly were allocated to magazine production.
This past year, since the announcement of the Wedding, I admit I was attracted to it once again. Maybe it was that I saw Diana walk up the steps of St. Paul’s in her last moments as an unmarried woman, and years later walked through Hyde Park crowds who’d gathered for her funeral. As you age, things in your past take on greater meaning. Maybe it was just a desire to see how a big wedding might take place in this electronic era. I was lucky enough to convince a magazine client that I wanted to come, and they obliged. It has been at least ten years since I was in England, and of course the things that don’t change (the stately buildings, the red buses, Lord Nelson’s statue) are always there to anchor your memories. The food is a little better, the beer still without peer, and the prices would probably make sense if they were dollars, instead of pounds. It was another of those confounding “how do people afford to live?” trips. But perhaps if you are thirty and don’t know what it was like ‘before’ you just carry on as if this is the way life is supposed to unfold.

A large photo platform was set up across from Westminster Abbey. Three rows of slightly elevated positions, for once each position wide enough that you didn’t have to breath down each other’s necks. It may not have been the best position but it wasn’t terrible, and the one thing that you learn is that the place you think might be the best could turn into a disaster, and the most unobvious location can sometimes produce the best picture of all. Thankfully there is still a little of the unknown left in our work, in our business. Things can be so predictable that the possibility of gambling or taking a chance on your instincts becomes a rarity. As my pal Wally McNamee once explained with great simplicity, our work is essentially about “anticipating.” What might happen, what might not happen. But you always have to be ready. This kind of thing was of course taken to the limits in all discussions of “the kiss.” In 1981, as the Royal family assembled on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, dozens of photographers at the QVM (Queen Victoria Memorial but please, ONLY refer to it as the KewveeEmm) were waiting for that shot of the family “en famille,” and if there might be a “kiss.” At one point Charles and Diana made a fleeting move to each other, their lips touched, and it was a moment which marked whether you were to pass or fail class. Douglas Kirkland, the great L.A. based photographer, shooting with our team absolutely nailed it with his long lens. Surprisingly , a number of well known photographers missed it altogether. Though I did hear a story yesterday that a guy whose job was in jeopardy saved himself by getting that kiss picture. This time around, it wasn’t so much anticipation, as of just knowing it WOULD happen, and not missing it. Most of the British papers led with some version of the “Kiss” today, but I’m sure there were, even in the “I have 11 rolls of film in my camera….” era, a few people who just somehow missed the moment. My heart goes out to them as I know they’re having a really lousy weekend.

caught by a Reuters photographer in front of Westminster Abbey, yours truly marching to a different drummer
At the Abbey entrance, I was lucky enough to have next to me a sharp English woman shooter, probably about thirty, working for a small British agency who knew well her subjects. She was sporting a 600 on an ancient tripod (one of colleagues poked fun, asking it was the tripod she’d had in school.) But each time a limo would approach I’d take a guess at who it might be, and I suppose I was about a C+ guesser (I got David Cameron right, but didn’t know Eugenie.) She was always obliging in correcting me as to who the real occupants were. The funniest moment was the arrival of a lone Bentley saloon with two guys in it … “who’s that?” I asked. It was all she could do to stop laughing: “Oh, Will and Harry?” Hey, you can’t winnem all. There was a magic moment when Kate stepped from her car, in that amazingly wrapped white gown, the veil seeming to be like a light cloud over her face. All the hype about the gown, I have to say, was justified. She was a true vision of beauty as she walked in with her father. The one fault of Westminster Abbey is that it’s all built on ground level. No stairs leading to the gate, so you didn’t have that beautiful oblique chain of white. As one of the photogs started grousing about being blocked by trees with his 800mm of seeing the side guest entrance, the young woman at my side responded with wisdom far beyond her years. “You can only shoot what’s in front of you --- don’t worry about what you can’t see.” So right. Concentrate on that which you CAN control, that which you CAN see. The half hour chorus of bells peeling at the beginning of the arrivals was like a call to mission. Had there been no crushingly loud musicality to accompany us, it might have been a mere moment of transition. But you felt those bells were pushing you to look in every direction, find every snap within range. Once all the principals were inside, the bells stopped and it was like an order to stand down and take a breath.

This morning on BBC in one of the dozens of interviews they have done, a newspaper editor mentioned they had looked at some 25000 pictures since yesterday morning. How do you not feel you are swamped by the weight of it? How does one keep a clear head in the onslaught of so many pictures competing for that ever evaporating attention of a viewer. I’m not sure I know the answer. It remains a difficult task for the good pictures to be able to rise to the top. Every now and then there will be “the picture” though in a quick perusal of Yahoo & AOL News sites I don’t think I’ve seen it yet. I’d like to think I might have seen one yesterday on my Macbook, but again, I’m just not sure. Going forward, there will continue to be a few big events like this, but they will no doubt morph more and more into becoming television productions. When the tv producers are the ones who make the calls about how things should go, it might be time for us photographers to just pack our bags and go do something a little more real.

Like all my colleagues, I have been devastated by the recent deaths of two great photographers, Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington, in Libya. The war in Libya is certainly the yin to the wedding’s yang. One couldn’t be further from the other. No amount of producer’s planning can account for the randomness of acts of war. A single mortar or RPG can lay low the most accomplished, most combat wise of us. These two guys were smart, capable, and gifted with the ability to bring to their work more than just a photographic record of some event they’d witnessed. They made you part of it. They let you feel the emotion of the moment. Their work connected with you in ways that made you understand what they must have been feeling at the time. Photography remains a powerful tool and in the hands of a talent, can tell those stories we need to share amongst ourselves. Hell, I only wish I could have spent some time on the photo stand with Tim and Chris this week, making stupid jokes about the lameness of trying to create photo magic of an event that competes with hundreds of TV cameras, not to mention dozens of photographers. Wherever we are, there is a certain sense of fraternity in our business. Ed Murrow, in a captivating seventeen minute 1943 radio piece about a night bombing raid over Berlin where he’d ridden along with the RAF, speaks about how “there is something of a tradition among reporters, that those who are somehow prevented by circumstances from filing their stories will be covered by their colleagues.” Two correspondents on that mission were on planes that didn’t come back. Murrow closes with “I have no doubt that Bennett and Stockton would have given you a better report on last night’s activity.” I know that both Chris and Tim would have probably thought that covering a wedding would seem frivolous and misguided when there was such a compelling story going on in North Africa. But I also know that if they had been present, had brought their singular vision and poignant eye to the task, that we’d be seeing their images today and saying “ah, so THAT’s what was really going on.” We’re just sayin’….. David

How Do You Pronounce "Cholent"

For those friends and fans who have been e-mailing us (you KNOW who you are!) about our "Cholent" , the recipe and the cooking time and temperature, I am going to share our magic recipe - straight from the "Gefilte Fish Chronicles Companion Cookbook.” But first, here's one comment I thought I would share for reasons that will become obvious, as well as cover a multitude of other questions:

“I'd never heard of this specific dish, being Gentile and all, before Dave's (Facebook) Post, but am likely to try it. Some questions, Iris, since your husband likes mush, but at what stages are the potato root vegetables, greens, beans, onions added to the pot of long simmering meat?"

And now friends, direct from the GFCCC:

CHOLENT IS NOT FOR AMATEURS
Dubroff Cholent (There are other kinds but we are purists - meat, potato, onions, matzo meal stuffing).
Take 45 pounds of good beef chuck, carefully examined at the butcher or the supermarket. Bring it home, cut it into chunks, and layer it in a pot the size of Miami with quartered potatoes and a big ball of stuffing made of matzo meal, eggs and schmaltz (chicken fat). If you use 5lbs of meat the pot can be smaller but use the same seasoning and technique. The meat should be seasoned for taste with sliced onions, potatoes, salt, pepper, steak seasoning, and paprika - which has no taste but adds color. The stuffing recipe will follow.

Layer the meat, potatoes, onions. I can't tell you how many layers, it depends on if you use 5 lbs or 45 lbs of meat. But keep layering till you’re out of things to put in the pot. Cook the meat and potato in a 200 degree oven for at least 17 hours.
If you need two pots the size of Miami and you don't own a catering business, one of the pots can be placed on the stove top and after 12 hours, and 30 or more discussions, can be switched with the help of two weight lifters and a supervisor.

Cholent Stuffing
Melt four sticks of margarine or an equal amount of chicken fat, throw in 2 nice chopped onions. When they glaze add matzo meal and maybe a little cake meal. Pour into a bowl and make sure it has taste - not easy with that much 'meal' Measure 2 cups at a time stirring constantly – and before it gets too thick mix in an egg. It's a lot of work to get that much chicken fat unless you buy it at a kosher grocery where they sell lots of fat chickens. Salt and pepper to taste. Mix in as much matzo meal as it takes to form a baseball-sized ball. Then freeze it until you are ready to layer the meat, onions, potato, (see above) meat, onions, potato. No matter the number of layers, the stuffing is the top and last layer.
If you want to drop by, you are too late for the gefilte fish, the horse radish, the chicken soup, chickens, and matzo balls, but we will be layering tomorrow night. Or, just order a cookbook from our website www.gefiltefishchronicles.com.
the hockers for Gefilte Fish
Passover is a very special time for all of us. Most of us no longer have the Dubroff surname, but without exception, every member of the Minya/Avrum clan, has a Dubroff heart. And what that means for me is, that I am never happier then when I am surrounded by cousins, cooking, and chaos. We laugh and cry and do silly things -- like yesterday while hocking fish, and cooking for nearly 8 hours, the only conversation we were allowed to have had to be based on dialogue - verbatim - from the Chronicles Documentary. (the family is required to know every line in the show.)
the makings of a monumental chicken soup
Friends are always welcome and strangers are never as strange as the family is. This year, Rosie (my mom) died. We sold our house and, after 30 years, have transitioned back to New York. I changed careers and am producing musical theater - like "Gefilte Fish Chronicles the Musical." We have our apartment in NYC, and purchased a house in Newburgh N.Y, where half my mother's siblings lived for all of our growing up years. (the other half in Boonton N.J.). In a way, our move has brought the Dubroff family full circle - the twain between Boonton and Newburgh, has finally met - with us. Aunt Peppy is still giving advice, and as she says in the "GFC," we may all be in different physical geographic locations, but in our Dubroff hearts, we will all be together, having Passover as usual. We’re just sayin’… Iris

Now I'm Mad... My mother would have said “only dogs get mad”, but I’m as mad as a rabid dog. Which yahoo in Congress doesn’t get that

Now I’m mad. My mother would have said “only dogs get mad”, but I’m as mad as a rabid dog. Which yahoo in Congress doesn’t get that unless we stop having wars, we will never balance the budget. What in the world are all our “elected” officials thinking?

Yes, let’s cut programs for the elderly, the sick, the children, the poor. the helpless, and the homeless. But lets worry about those poor civilians on whom we have made, intentional or unintentional war. The Republicans say Obama is not a leader. The Democrats say he is leading us in the wrong direction –all of this is a case for electing someone who can make a reasonable and thoughtful decision about the kind of President we want. It’s unfortunately a case for Donald Trump. Maybe it’s the worse case scenario, but someone forgot to tell the President that Democrats are diplomacy people – we don’t like war. Never did, never will – especially one where we have no idea what exactly we are fighting for, and why we are doing it. But that’s not what I wanted to blob about.

There seems to be a sale on funerals for mothers. My mom dies in July, and since then I have at least ten friends who have lost their moms. It’s true they were all in their late 80’s or 90’s but everyone at once. There has to be something in the air. And those friends whose mom’s are still here, are likely to lose them in the next few months. I have been to more memorial services and ‘shiva’s’ than I care to discuss—but I will.

As I said, most of the mothers were in their late 80’s or 90’s. Some were ill, some were lucid, some were disoriented, some were well—but tired, some just felt it was time to go and some just went to sleep. However they went, they are sadly, gone.

They pretty much had wonderful lives, at least this is true for the people I know. Again, they lived out their lives in different ways, some with family, some in assisted/independent living/ some on their own. A few of the moms had determined never to leave their homes. Kind of like when you hear a hurricane is coming and decide that there’s no where else they wanted to be. My mom had an apartment in a retirement home right near my brother. Steve’s mom was still living alone. And I could give you examples of way too many moms who made decisions about how they wanted to live, and more importantly, how they wanted to die. And now, the baby boomers have become, among so many other firsts, a generation of orphans. I guess this doesn’t make me as mad as makes me sad, but there are those things about which I needn’t be first.

Maybe you feel like these two things, the war and losing our moms are separate and unrelated issues. I disagree. We are equally saddened by the young people who are dying without having lived, in unexplained wars, and the old people who have lived mostly wonderful lives, through a number of wars, both have monumental impact on our lives. Loss, no matter when, is still loss. The difference is that young people dying is unexpected and old people dying seems something that is part of life. But when these people, no matter the age, are permanently removed from our lives it still leaves us empty, and sometimes even, yes, angry. We’re just sayin’.... Iris

Some Sad and Good News.. all 3/26

Today we have good news and sad news. One of the most wonderful opportunities in my long and jaded political career was to work with Gerry Ferraro, first on her Vice Presidential campaign and then on the delegation for the Women's conference in Beijing. As you can imagine, neither was relaxing. In between these two monumental events, we got to be friends. She was always available for questions. Always gave good guidance. Always laughed at my jokes. Stressful situations often bring out the worst in people. This was not the case with Gerry. She was spectacular under pressure and always stayed true to what she believed, regardless of controversy, or criticism. It took great courage for her to do all the things she did, including dealing with this rare cancer. Whether you agreed with her or not, it was impossible not to admire, respect and for so many of us, love her. I will treasure all the memories I have of the time we spent together and the laughter and tears we shared. Rest in peace my friend.

Today David and I will celebrate 32 years together. (We met the night of the signing of the Camp David Peace Accords at the White House: Carter, Begin & Sadat at their best. For us, it was a blind date. )
A picture from the Camp David signing...3/26/79...at the time, we didn't have a clue who the other was...
It probably will surprise you to know that we have spent half our lives connected in some way, most of it married. So when we awakened this morning he said, what are we going to do to celebrate? Since we are in N.C with dear friends, I thought we should do something different. "Here's what I think we should do. We've spent so many good years together, it seems to me we should just get separated. Divorce is out of the question, but I love you so much, I don't want to watch you get old.” (Our getting old has not been pretty.)

“Wow,” he said, “what a novel idea. The leave them laughing approach to life.”

"No one else we know has done it,” I said. "And you know how we like to be the trendsetters amongst the people we know."

So on this, our 32nd anniversary, I would like to share this decision. In true Burnett fashion, we were incapable of making it a decision. I guess that means it at least another 32 years before we have the discussion again. Were just sayin …. Iris

A Child by Any Other Name

As I have done in the past, maybe even yesterday, I will write in order of very good to shame on you!
We welcomed Jake Raymond Gatsik, to the world at 11:20am on Sunday – amidst many Purim carnivals and the excitement of many members of their family. Parents, Jonathan and Beth, are doing fine. Baby is terrific. About 7 pounds and 21 inches, I am told he is skinny but has big feet. Need I say, he is adorable, I think not – the child has an exceptional gene line. Only wish his Great Grandma Elaine had been alive to kvell (something every Jewish parent, grandparent and great grandparent does). Well, we will all have to make sure that we do her proud with our kvelling.

After our trip to the armory for the photo show, we discovered a new restaurant in the neighborhood, Cabana Nueva. We sat at a table for two. On one side was a table of six young women just having a great time. On the other side was an empty table, and on the other side of that table, there was a father in his late twenties (maybe early thirties), with his four year old son. I knew he was four because he acted just like my little Z (also four). They came in just after we did. The father (not actually an adult), was texting when he came in. He told his son to sit down, but without looking up from his iPhone. He used that tone – the one that suggests the child sit down and shut up and not bother him. The child, we’ll call him Kenny, sat right down. The father continued to text. Kenny played with the silverware, fork, knife, and with the napkin. Dad continued to text, and Kenny moved over to the table next to us and proceeded to play with the lit candle on the table. The father didn’t notice. “Honey”, I said, “It’s not a good idea to play with fire.” Kenny looked at me like, “why are you speaking to me, no one else does.”

David was getting upset about the lack of communication between father and son, “I want to say something,” he told me. “Don’t bother,” I said, “this is a guy who snapped his finger at the waiter and hasn’t done anything but order his kid two virgin (I hope) pina coladas – nothing to eat and nothing with which to entertain himself. So Kenny found amusement in lying full out on the table bench, where he kicked some ladies purse and finally fell off, hitting his shoulder and his head.

He cried and dad momentarily got off the phone. “I told you not to do that”, he said. Put him back down, and got back on the phone. It took Kenny about five minutes before he was moving around again. Then, he was momentarily distracted by the arrival of some dinner. It was really momentarily because the dinner was something that dad wanted, but there wasn’t any conversation with his dad about what he might like, so he lost interest in, as I said, five minutes. Dad was still texting when Kenny moved over to the table next to us once again.

“Hi, what’s your name? And how old are you?” I said, holding up three, five, and then four fingers. He chose the four. “What?” he said. And I responded exactly as I do with Z “What,” I repeated in exactly the same tone. We did that back and forth for a while. “What’s your name?” I asked. He told me and asked who David was. “Poppie” I said. “NO” he shouted, and I realized that he must also have a Poppie. “Not your Poppie,” I said, his Poppie, and we showed him a picture of Z. He was delighted to have people paying some attention to him. He got so excited that he knocked my water over.
Dad finally put the phone down. “I told you not to do play”, he shouted. “Whenever you don’t listen to me, something like this happens.”

“I did it,” I said to dad. “Oh, Okay,” he said picking up the phone again.

Kenny went back to his own table, we covered our table with some napkins, and soon after they left – dad still on the phone. “Goodbye, Poppie,” Kenny said, looking at us like he was losing his only water in the desert.

Shame on you, we said, but not loud enough that dad would hear and the punish Kenny. There was a article in the Times this weekend about parents with whom their children are estranged. One woman, whose Dad after years of not being in touch, wanted to be her Facebook friend. She refused Dad, and like Kenny, just wanted a bit of attention, before it was too late. We’re just sayin’…. Iris

Not Funny

This hasn’t been the easiest week. In chronological order:
David went to Paris (oh poor David), Egypt and Tunisia with the Sectary of State. David going away is not unusual, but we are in the middle of trying to buy a house, reregister our cars, get new driver’s licenses, and I am trying to put together a reading (this is an equity event where a show is performed with dialogue and music … but no scenery or costumes. In fact, the performers have to keep their scripts in hand for whatever the duration of the play. Am I theater conversant or what?). It is not too complicated, but it is time consuming. It’s easier to deal with the professional part of life when there are two people dealing with the personal stuff. (No, I m not finished whining – that was only #1).

It has been cold and bleak. Bad weather is never good for my personality –just ask my old friends from Grafton Ma. When it snowed, was cold, or rained, my insides mirrored whatever was going on outside. I was, for the most part, in a bad mood about ten months out of the year. This is no longer the case but it was a rough winter and it just needs to be over. A real spring day would be lovely. We are supposed to have one tomorrow, so maybe next week will be easier.

Yesterday, I was on my way to a reading (most are on Monday because the theater is dark and often people who are involved in a reading are also doing another show – for which they actually get paid what they are worth. Doing a reading is not a way to make a living). Anyway, somewhere between 44th and 49th, on 8th Avenue, a thief, pick pocket, hoodlum, desperate stupid soul, lifted my purse out of my satchel, and fled with all my credit cards, ATM’s, drivers license, supermarket and pharmacy discount cards, Triple A and AARP identification, library card, money, the Tasti Delite buy 10 get one free card and worst of all, my Dairy Queen gift card, which still had about $80 on it. That made me really mad.

Needless to say, it was incredibly inconvenient. My day was spent calling and canceling everything that had any value attached to it. It was challenging, but I did not get hysterical (how I would normally behaved). Nope, I was calm and organized, card by card, number by number, trying to think about all the items I had thrown in the bag thinking, foolishly, they would remain in my possession. But the Dairy Queen card was one bridge to far – one step over the line. It meant a great deal to me. True there are very few Dairy Queen’s in the area, but that’s not the point. I often travel to places where there are more than one –even a few. Whoever took the purse, whatever degenerate lifted my bag, could never have the same respect or appreciation for the Dairy Queen. They couldn’t possibly feel the same way about a hot fudge sundae with pecans, or a vanilla malt, as I do. For me, a trip to the Dairy Queen is like a religious experience. It is sacred, spiritual, and all consuming. The card is gone. Sure I can buy another one, but it’s not the same. There was so much money left on that card. And I was so looking forward to eating my way through it.

Did I already say “woe is me”, well I am saying it again. The cruise we were supposed to take on the Silver Seas (David as a lecturer) was going to Tokyo and north. Oops, pretty bad timing.

OK, now I’ll stop whining and move on. The kids are all great. I look forward to every day. The sun will shine. Gefilte Fish Chronicles is on about 60 PBS stations (check you local pbs for date and time -- probably around the first two weeks in April), and the musical is (GFC the Musical) is nearly complete. I found a green shirt to wear for St. Pat’s Day, and David will be home tomorrow. I guess things, if not funny, are all good. We're Just Sayin. Iris

In Other Words....

Sometimes your own words don't tell the story. You think about a story, a place, someone special, and you sit down and try and put it all into words. On some days it just flows. Others, you feel like a plane speeding down the runway, overloaded with bananas and oil drilling equipment, destined never to get its wheels off the ground. And there is a third possibility: that someone else, quite apart from you, will put it all into those words you couldn't find. Back in January, we spent New Year's with Kerry in Stone Ridge, NY, a rural community between Kingston and Newburgh. Each time we drove to Kerry's house, at the last real Stop sign, I'd see this beautiful barn. Red, worn, regal, needing a little TLC, but quite stunning. We'd always be driving to or from somewhere, with intent, and I never bothered to bother my driving mates to stop the car and properly shoot a picture of the barn. On one trip back from the market, we stopped, and I determined that the likelhood of ice cream melting due to an additional 45 second layover was nil. I grabbed my CX5 off my belt pouch, fired a half dozen frames, and drove on. That day, in some sort of New Year's style artsiness I'd set the camera to a square format (i.e worlds tiniest Rolleiflex.. or, if you will... worlds tiniest Yashica-MAT.) I posted the picture on my Facebook page, and a few days later had a note from an acquaintance, saying she loved the picture, could she buy one. I wrote her back that I'd be happy to make a print for her ( a nice 11x14 as it happened) and sent it on. As usual, this took a month or so, and she just finally got the print about a week ago. Two days ago she wrote me a note which summed up her feelings about that picture, and in many ways of her own life. It's quite beautiful, and I share it with you, as her words are so elegantly more captiving than my own. Thanks T.




David,

I wonder when you stopped to take the picture if you were thinking of me. I am sure you weren’t. How could you have known that all my life I have been looking for this barn? This rustic red barn sitting solitarily in a field--- not connected to anything, but standing for everything.

I never lived in a barn. I only imagined what it would be like to have one. I lived in a house with 3 brothers and 3 sisters and I shared a bed with the youngest. It wasn’t an interesting house, it was just four walls and a roof with perfunctory windows, as little as zoning allowed. It was a mess all the time, stuff strewn everywhere and noise filled corners and crevices when actual stuff did not. It was like that every day, crowded, noisy, smelling of fried baloney--an economical meal for a family of 9.

Maybe I saw a barn on tv and fell in love then. I don’t know. Maybe I drove by one in my life. All I know is that I loved the idea of a red barn. The richness of the red such a contrast to our boring white suburban house, the wood that fits together on the outside, each piece unique. Inside our house we were all the same. Mom used to call us by the same name most of the time, searching to remember the real one she assigned to us at birth.

When I saw your picture, the picture that you stopped to take for some reason, wherever you were, I recognized it. I knew it was the one where I dreamed I would have my first kiss in a hay loft, where my horse would be waiting for me when I entered with a carrot in my hand. I knew it was the one where my sisters and brothers would play hide and seek, where we would decorate at Halloween and all the neighbors would come to admire our work.

You found my barn. My deep red passion. You found it and you knew someone would recognize it. You saw its beauty. You knew it meant something to somebody. To me, it means so much.

Thank you for knowing that this picture might be the only way I ever really get my own red barn.

A Different Auntie Mame

Peppy, Pesha, Pearl, Pepafonic, Pepalicious, Pep, all endearing names, which at one time or another, someone somewhere has called my mother's twin sister, and other half. Last week we got a call from her daughter to say she was in the hospital. Needless to say, all the cousins were concerned because, she is quite a phenomenon and she is also the last of the Dubroff siblings. There were eight of them. Seven female and one male. Rosie and Peppy were fraternal twins and the youngest of all the children. She is the family memory. The last Indian standing. But stand she does - I'll get back to that.

As with most twins, they had a special connection. When my mother had a pain in her leg, I knew aunt Peppy probably bumped her leg. When Aunt Peppy had a headache, my mother also felt the unexplained pain. When my parents had an argument my cousin Eden (eldest of Peppy's kids) would call and say her mother was in a bad mood and picking a fight with her father. There reactions to situations which involved food was usually identical, (both thinking they were great chefs and experts on all things Jewish), but we secretly called my mother Delores Defrost, because she would cook in the morning, freeze whatever, and defrost it for dinner. Aunt Peppy actually had fresh vegetables and even salad, but many things were so heavy, more than a taste would kill you. They did, as do we all, make identical tuna salad.

That's where the twin thing ended. Aunt Peppy is a balabusta (real Jewish homemaker). She cooked and cleaned and scrubbed and prayed, kept kosher, honored the Sabbath, and ran every organization of which she was a member. Rosie did not do any of these things. When she cooked, it was always a mess. Usually my Aunt Helene, or Aunt Sophie would trail after her with a wet rag trying to keep the muddle under control. Shopping and returning were her favorite exercise - oh and buying crappy jewelry. She belonged to the Boonton Jewish Center for the social life, and always wore something that sparkled.
They were as different as they were alike, a nice combination of a total person.

On Saturday, when Peppy returned from the hospital, I took a little three hour ride to visit with her. Her ankles are a bit swollen but she said that she was fine before she went to the hospital - which made her sick, and she was fine when she got home. She is supposed to use oxygen, but like her twin, refuses to wear it if there are other people around. (Did I mention that having their hair and nails done, was always of primary importance.) When I got to her apartment I couldn't figure out the confusing directions about how to enter. Finally, a four year old, who saw me wandering aimlessly, said she thought I probably wanted the apartment with the "thing" on the door, (the mezuzah).

We spent a few emotional and wonderful hours talking about my mother's headstone, (I wanted her to check the Hebrew on the engraving), and she told me that she wanted "She had a wonderful life" on her tombstone. I told her that since it was not the wild west, she would probably have a headstone as well .... But not yet. Peppy has always believed that God has a plan for every person. That everyone has a certain amount of time to live. No doctors, tests, or predictions make any difference. It was what all the sisters believed, and they had such strength of character, that you never felt frightened about what lie ahead. That's not the end of my story. On Sunday my cousins Stevie and Billy went to visit her. They also had a difficult time getting in and also had no idea about the apartment number. After fifteen minutes of frustrating encounter with the door and location, they called the apartment. "We're here but we're lost", they told her aide. "Ok
Be right down, stand near the elevator". They followed instruction and when the door opened there was 90 year old Aunt Peppy, with her walker, all dressed up for company."
the twins in action
"There's nothing wrong with me", she told them. "Why wouldn't I greet my company."
And she was right. We were all concerned and incapable of following simple instructions, but she certainly is allright. We’re just sayin’….Iris

There It Is

You just have to listen to the news for five minutes to realize that the world we now live in bears increasingly less resemblance to the 60s and 70s. Curiously, about the only continuity I can think of is that Ghadaffi is still in power (he came along in a coup in 1969.) Not sure for how much longer. But, voila, there he is. And aside from Castro, you have to give Ghadaffi credit on one point. The Queen of England has been in power for nearly sixty years, and nobody besides Lyndon Larouche seems to be complaining about her tenure. Well there are those anti-monarchists in Scotland, but I don’t unfortunately break haggis with those folks often enough to get a personal rant from that p.o.v. But more importantly, there are those little tags in our daily lives, the ones of literature, film, and television which to be the links to those eras just passed.

Language has its funny way of telling you more than you think. Little phrases take on meaning far beyond the letters of their words. They become secret acess panels which, once opened, let you walk into a place of comfort and communication, enabling you to trade in the currency of a certain time, with a number of like minded people. Sometimes the phrases become little codes: their acknowledgement opens a place for you that you might have not otherwise been welcomed to. The one incalculable here is time. Things come and go, and amazingly, we seldom ever know the sources from which they come. I mean at some point you can say ‘Right On!’ was a product of the turbulent sixties, with marches in the street, young (mostly) marchers with clenched fists in the air, speaking to what they perceived as their own cause for justice. But who was the first person that actually put “right” and “on” together, and created that bellwether? (Iris says she remembers it originally as “Right on, brother,” from a poetic African American…) I don’t think we will ever know. And how did it spread so quickly? Obviously some copy cat who heard it thought it resonated, and just grabbed it and made it their own. Within weeks , it became one of the great rallying cries of the anti-war movement. And within months, it crossed social boundaries much like a fast spreading virulent virus, and became an almost everyday platitude, thereby losing its effectiveness as shock value. I was never more amazed than sometime in the early 70s, when a coat-and-tie Deputy Chief of Correspondents for TIME Magazine, a smart and lovely guy who well understood the politics of the world, was used to picking up the fone to move correspondents around from hot spot to hot spot like pieces on a chess board, but who seemed more at home over a three martini lunch than a tightly rolled joint, looked me in the eye one day, and said “right on.” He kind of said it in the same tone he’d have used while ordering a second martini. The displacement between the meaning of the words, and the man uttering them was so out of place, that it probably made far more of an impression than if he’d put a fist in the air and yelled it at me.

I did once ask my mom about her memories of “Oh, you kid!” a phrase popular in the 30s, and one which, like “Right on!” probably meant something very different at the time than we think it does now. I don’t’ even know which word gets the emphasis… “oh” or “kid.” And what the hell does it mean? I still don’t know. But it sounds cool, especially if you’re Dick Powell in a white linen suit.

What made me think about all this today was the single most popular line used by the millions of young Americans who served in Vietnam. It was something which existed virtually only in the firebases and basecamps with young GIs. And as near as I could ever tell, once those young guys boarded a freedom bird to leave the ‘Nam and head back to the ‘world’ the phrase seemed to just disappear. “There it is.”

“There it is….” There is what? you ask. And just where IS ‘there?’ Well no sense in trying to read too much into it. “There it is…” said with a flat tone, mildly strong emphasis building up to “is” was the one lingua franca which all GIs shared. Well, officers, not so much. But if you were under the age of 25, had been drafted, and didn’t particularly want to BE in Vietnam, “there it is” was your key to sanity. The three words which let you express your profound emotional mélange of disgust, annoyance, fear, despair, surprise, acceptance, satisfaction, and occasionally contentment. Once I arrived in Saigon in October, 1970 and began a two year interaction with the world the American GI, it was a phrase which meant so little, yet so much. You could almost say that it meant whatever you wanted it to mean, and be interpreted almost any way. It often just served as a coda in conversation. It was the comment which had the force of finality in a discussion where soldiers were otherwise unable to explain something. “There it is…” was a way of just saying, ‘yeah, that’s how it is here, and this is how we have to deal with it.’ What has always surprised me is that once back home, the phrase seemed to disappear. The context for its usage was gone. Without the very personal, very weird, perplexing, illogical elements of the war lived first hand, it seemed to no longer have a proper context.

Along with a few other everyday Vietnam-related phrases like “shit burning” (yes folks, when you lived on a remote firebase, every few days someone would be assigned the task of pouring some flammable substance on the receptacle barrels on the two-holer, and set it alight. And yes, shit burns) once you returned home it just fell out of disuse. I suppose you could do a drop by at a Legion hall in Wichita or Missoula and ask someone drinking a long-neck at the bar when he last heard the phrase “there it is” and you could have a whole evening’s discussion. I'd love to know what today's GIs in Afghanistan have created as their version of "there it is." But I wouldn't be surprized if it gets left at Bagram Air Base, along with the other contraband stuff you're not allowed to bring home. But living in this madcap world of today, there are moments when it seems quite apropos.

Charlie Sheen is off drugs and booze and has a medical report to prove it. There it is!

The people in the streets of Cairo really rocked the world or politics. There it is!

Gas prices are clearly a product of oil companies ripping us off. There it is!

The Wisconsin’s Governor is just trying to use the budget crisis to bust the unions. There it is!

You wanna taste the best thing that ever crossed your lips.. a Zero candy bar. There it is!

We’re just sayin….. David There it is!

On! Wisconsin...

It is interesting to hear the different takes on what’s happening in Madison, Wisconsin. This much we know, the Governor, refuses, is absolutely adamant about, not negotiating. (Perhaps this is the reason the unions want to have the right to bargain collectively.) The Governor threatened to drag all the Democratic elected officials to jail. (Which is why there are so many of them in Illinois.) The Governor maintains that in a democracy people keep working until they reach agreement. But he is not willing to have a conversation – it’s his way or the highway (presumably the highway to Chicago. Pat Buchanan thinks what the protestors are doing to the Capital is sinful, outrageous, and disgusting. My contacts in the Government think that a State Trooper culture which allows people continued access to the people’s house, is a remarkable tribute, not only to the police, but to the workers united in peaceful protest.

There has been no violence, no destruction of property. Just some signs taped up to make a visual statement to the ever-present media. Where is Senator Kohl on this issue? We have heard a many pronouncements from Washington talking heads, but not from any prominent Wisconsin Democrats. Do they think if they comment, the nutty Governor will have them arrested as well. It’s easy to blame the number of Democratic losses in the last election on the local economy, or the mood of the country – or White House lack of leadership. But none of that may be the villain.

Last November there was an article in the (Madison) Capital Times, that addressed some other issues. http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/john_nichols/article_c57190c5-68e9-5318-8b51-f5b9304a28cb.html

The last Statewide election was clearly lesser of two evils for some people. But for many, the choice was to sit it out. They refused to make a bad choice—they preferred no choice at all. Admittedly, there are economic problems everywhere, particularly at the state and county level. (What happened to a balanced budget after Bill Clinton left?) It is unneccessary to play the blame game – obviously the next and following administrations over pontificated, overspent and were pretty damn short-sighted. Now, along with the Federal Government, almost every state, New Jersey, New York, California, just to mention a few, are broke. The cry for “Shutdown the government” has been heard by everyone who depends on the government for any support. The elderly, the sick, children, civil servants, as well as people who are receiving financial assistance, Social Security and Veterans benefits are a few. It is easy for people who are not financially dependent on the state or Federal government to shut it down. People who have money and resources aren’t as apt to care.

When the Government shut down during the Clinton Administration it was horrific – especially for those who were considered “Essential Personnel” (usually a political appointee and no one cared if we missed a paycheck or two) who just answered phones for the entire shutdown. Even if a civic minded civil servant wanted to help, they couldn’t, because it is illegal to volunteer for the US Government. People dependent on government subsidies (earned or otherwise) were simply out of luck. It hardly mattered to elected officials or VIPs, none of whom answered the phones and listened to the stories. But apparently, we have a short memory. Once again, there are threats by elected officials who have no idea what the consequences for the “average citizens”, will be.

It should be interesting to see what the outcome of all these state-wide crises will be. Maybe interesting isn’t quite the right word. It should be devastating to see what happens when elected officials think the power they have gives them the right to determine the definition of Democracy. It sets me to think about my favorite quote from “The Wizard of Oz”…. “If they only had a brain.” We’re just sayin.... Iris

Heart of Hearts

This was quite a memorable Valentine’s weekend. It was time for David to check back in to the White House, and I had an appointment with my dentist – both in D.C. When I found my dentist Brad Schneiderman, some 25 years ago, we were just kids working our way through new careers. He went to school for his career study, I went to Iowa for the Presidential primaries. As with so many people who did not have pediatric dentists, my fears about that chair and all the procedures, were not rational. In other words, I had to be medicated even for a cleaning. Imagine my relief when I confessed all this to Brad, and he said, “OK, but I have to charge you for the gas.” Anyway, I told him that he was not allowed to retire until I died – so that is where I go for tooth issues.

Maybe I buried the lead. Once a year my pal Mike Berman has a Valentine’s Day luncheon party for his “girlfriends”. No one can agree on when they started but it was somewhere between 15 and 34 years ago. And the size has grown from about six of us at a small restaurant, to about 100 of us at the Four Seasons Hotel. It is one of my favorite events of the year. It’s great to see Michael, a friend for many years. It is equally fun to catch up with women friends who I now see about once a year, and to make new friends with people Michael has added, depending on circumstances, and an occasional client. And, as can only happen in Washington, it is the hottest ticket in town. Everyone knows about it and if you aren’t invited, you think you should have been. Anyway, (again), it is not a party I would ever miss, regardless of my location.

We stayed with Steve and Janie, part of the family we created when we moved away from our hometowns – Boonton and Salt Lake City. It was a weekend of non-stop laughs, which started at Argia, a terrific neo-American restaurant in Falls Church, Va. (Yes, there are great places in suburban Washington).

As is our custom on Chinese New Year, we went to our favorite place for dim sum, Mark’s Duck House. For years I have been giving all of the employees, from Chinese wait staff to Hispanic busboys, a beautiful ‘good luck’ envelope – which includes a simple good luck freshly printed, crisp dollar bill. They all appreciate the fact that I remember, and that I go out of my way to find the loveliest envelopes that are made—which I can usually find in China Town in NYC. It is always better to have many people at this food feast -- breakfast/brunch/lunch, so it is an opportunity to see other members of our very special family. It seemed even more important to gather this group, this, the first year we no longer live in Virginia. Kind of an assurance to people we love that we will not disappear from their lives. Unfortunately, not everyone we wanted to join us could be there, but there is always another new year.

And the icing on the cake, for these yearly events, was that Davey posted, (as he has for too many years to confess) a love note for me on the Washington Post Valentine page). Since we live in New York, it’s a good thing we were visiting. There used to be an entire section, a dozen single spaced pages, now it is only a single half page. It is a happy repeated memory for me, but now mixed with a sadness about the lack of expressions of love on the other eleven 1/2 pages, no longer existing sentiments.
(Soon to be a blog about my theory of why they disappeared.) But for now…. We’re just sayin’…. Iris

Al. Al Jazeera, That Is

Since even before 9/11, nearly ten years ago now, there has been in this country a rather biased view of most things Middle Eastern. (Or as you might know it in German “Nahe Ost.”) My oldest memories of anything having to do with the Mid East is a mention of “the fertile crescent” and “Mesopotamia.” Probably it was the fourth or fifth grade. There was some kind of exoticism about this part of the world, and of course living in Utah, you were never very far from some mention of the “holy land.” But it all seemed like it was about another era, another time altogether, none of which really seemed like something that a kid from Salt Lake could really relate to. Of course you never really know a place until you put your feet there, walk around, and check it out for yourself. That wasn’t something I was able to do until the late 1970s when I had a series of trips to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and later, Iran. In Egypt, in particular, I found the most wonderful, warm, and welcoming people. When you come from a place where you have much, one of the first things you do is compare what You have with what others do. It almost a subconscious thing, and I don’t’ mean only material things. But in Cairo, in the late 1970s, I found a very friendly and gregarious populace, most of whom were trying to see how Anwar Sadat’s perestroika with the Israelis might improve their own lives. And there wasn’t much improvement unless you were somehow tied into some big govt. contracts, or US aid money. For the guy hawking trinkets in the souk, or a kid carrying a tray of hot mint tea to a rug dealer, your life probably didn’t get a whole lot better. In fact when Sadat was killed by a group of renegade gunmen, during a military parade review, I flew to Cairo for what many of us incorrectly thought would be a huge outpouring of Egyptian grief – like the famous images of the Nasser funeral a dozen years before. In fact the people who were most bothered by his passing were the American and Israeli diplomats, and big time journalists who had counted Sadat exclusive interviews as real breakthroughs (Cronkite, Barbara Walters…)
Tehran, 1979


In the streets of Cairo there were modest examples of mourning, but not what any of us had expected. And by the second or third day after the funeral – one which saw all the visiting dignitaries in lock step, walking at full speed and surrounded by so many security people that it looked like a mass of ants rather than the diplomatic corps. The only photographer to even make a picture of that marching ensemble was David Rubinger who’d talked his way onto a TV camera platform and was able to shoot over the heads of the security detail. Most of us were scoreless. And so it was probably a good thing that three days later, after more grousing than was proper by the press corps, that the Sheraton Hotel Casino re-opened, enabling otherwise unaccomplished journos to try and make a few real dollars. I confess that I had a good night in that casino, winning about $500 bucks at roulette (then about two day rates).. and on my way out of the room at 2am, put a final $10 on ‘33’ only to see it come up and add another $350 to my pot. That moment provided the week’s only dramatic flourish. I made one picture that week, and in to me it embodied the absolute apathy which I found in the Cairenes. So removed from what we have seen the last three weeks.
October, 1981, Cairo
Something has come alive. And given how many people showed up, and the number of demonstrators who wouldn’t be denied, the few injuries in both civil and 4th estate quarters were surprising, as it could have been much, much uglier. To our western minds, there is never any excuse for what happened to those news crews last week, unless you count the stomping of a woman at a Rand Paul rally in Kentucky last fall before the mid-terms. Well, she wasn’t really a press person, was she. So I guess that doesn’t count. But I suppose if the Egyptians have the same sort of errant view of us, as we very well might of them, then is there any reason for surprise that for the past three or four years, there has been a seemingly calculated plan to keep the Al Jazeera English TV network broadcasts off American cable channels. Yes, a few cable systems here and there (well..not HERE, but maybe There) did take the feed, and as it happens the people who watched their coverage were probably THE best informed about what was happening in the anti-Mubarak demos in Tahrir. For years, no one would touch Al Jazeera. Pretty much in the U.S., no one would touch anything which started with Al, for that matter. They thought they would be funneling the devil’s own news channel into the American heartland.

Then things broke loose in Tunisia, and a few weeks later, in Cairo. And, and, and. It does seem like it has a certain momentum. And today in Tehran, street battles reminiscent not only of last year’s post-election confrontations, but those of 30 years ago which I photographed during the Revolution of 1979. And yet for the deepest, and broadest coverage, watching Al Jazeera English service provided so much more information and background than any of the US channels (no surprise here, but still surprising.) And in the end, it has all come full full circle. In fact, the circle may even be a double rainbow style set of loops. Today, following the street demonstrations which supposedly didn’t happen in Tehran, the Iranian government shut down Al Jazeera in the country. I had to laugh. Al Jazeera can’t win for losin’. Although it’s done wonders all of a sudden for their American exposure. Their viewer ship is up in the hundreds of percents, and as it should be. It’s another news network, in English, with lots of money to send people (good people) out to do stories, and can it be any worse than CNN or Fox? I don’t think so. And when the Iranian regime today joined the ranks of wacko Rightwing dingbats, and other people in this country and shut down the Al Jazeera feed, it was a kind of closing of a perfect circle in this crazy world we inhabit. It was as if anyone with a real window on the truth (ok, the Al Jazeera English version of the truth) but a window nonetheless, was going to end up befuddled by local constabularies.

No one is quite sure, including both demonstrators and despots, where this movement is going. In 1989 it started with a crack in the Berlin wall, and spread quickly across Eastern Europe in what my pal Tom refers to as the “End of Communism” tour. This may not be the end of or beginning of Anything tour, but then it might be. And if you can watch some of it on a channel who actually speaks the languages of the street, you just might understand what all the hoopla’s about. We’re just sayin….David

What a Surprise

It was Jordan’s birthday yesterday. As is the case with most good parents, I sent her a few cards and all my best wishes. Along with these small items, I sent her a pair of her own character shoes, which had been repaired in NY. And since she is in LA, I figured that’s where the shoe’s belonged.

A day or two before her birthday she received the package with the shoes and, of course, assumed it was a birthday gift. She called me to say thanks and she was going to wait til her birthday to open it. “Fine”, I said, but nothing more. Jordan is not very patient. She waited about five minutes, and ripped into the box. Then she called me.

“Mom, I cannot believe that you sent me my own shoes for my birthday.”
“I never said it was your birthday present.”
“ Well mom, what else was I supposed to think”

It was not until that conversation that I thought, wow, what a good idea. We should all send our children their own possessions for their birthdays. How many items of clothing or toys or sundries (I don’t know what sundries are but they always sound delicious), do our children have that; still have the price tags attached, they have never used, or that they don’t even remember are part of their wealth and or property.

Just as an example, Jordan loves shoes. Not only character and tap shoes, but boots, and heels, and flats, and anything that covers her tootsies-- the sillier the better. (That was a personal opinion). When we moved and I packed up her room I discovered any number of shoes that were if not new, not even a little worn. There were also sweaters, dresses, shirts, and pants. Part of the problem is that kids have so much stuff, they forget what lives in their closet/closets. And it’s not only kids. When my mother moved to Seattle, we went through all her clothes to see what she might want to take with her. (What things were weather and size appropriate). Mom was kind of a catalogue queen. She never received a catalogue she didn’t like, and from which there was at least one purchase. So, before member of our extended family went to a store to shop for a shower gift, (it didn’t matter what the occasion) they went into my mother’s attic to look for something to re-gift. Technically it wasn’t re-gifting, because Mom thought it might come in handy one day. Which, in fact it did, when someone wanted to give a gift they knew would be new and usually fun. (My favorite was a 3” high, pretend rock, eternal, water fountain – don’t ask). Am I repeating myself? Who can tell the difference anymore?

But back to the point (not a chance). We would all do well to look at the things we have in our closets, dressers, cabinets and yes, “chachkas” – those are the things that are, for the most part, useless. But you collect them because; they are cute, you found them on a favorite trip and they are part of the memory, you have others and you can’t stop buying them, it’s trendy, you just couldn’t resist, you are a shopaholic and for absolutely no reason at all. For example, before we sold our Arlington stuff, we had mementos from our trips, childhood, and parents. David had a seriously mildewed golf bag and some old clubs, that were his dad’s. I had carved elephants from places where I traveled that had elephants. David’s bag was a death trap for any of us who have allergies, and my elephants were serving as quite adequate dust collectors. We were never going to give them as gifts nor were we going to schlep them to a new life. But those were an aberation because we threw them away. Admittedly, I found old (but nice) clothing that still had price tags. And there were some sets of dishes and bowls and silverware, that had never been opened. What to do with all these precious items.

Since my conversation with the birthday girl, I have realized how to save already spent money and so much time. For any and all occasions that require a gift, we should merely shop from our own closets. And my guess is that most of what we re-receive, will be a big surprise. We're Just Sayin... Iris

To Photography, and Photographers

I’m in Amsterdam, participating in the jury process for this year’s World Press Photo awards, probably the Premier awards in the field of photojournalism, drawing entries from something like 70 countries from around the world. In the course of the week, we go through some 100+ thousand images, in both singles and story categories (Daily Life, General News, Sports, etc. etc. see Worldpressphoto.NL for more info.) The days are long and incredibly tiring. I don’t know when the last time was that you looked at twenty thousand photographs in a single day. For me it was today. The startling thing is how attuned you can become to looking at pictures quickly, and separating the “keepers” from the “might have beens.” Of course it eventually becomes a somewhat subjective decision: photographic technique, esthetics, and news value, among other things, all come in to play. You try and balance things out so that the winning pictures which emerge at the end of a two week process are more than worthy. And in most cases the only reason a picture more remarkable didn’t win is that it’s author didn’t get around to entering the competition. World Press has been around for over fifty years, and seen its yearly celebration of news photography grow like a mad weed. I was on the jury in 1997, and chaired it (as I am now) in 1999, but compared to the sheer volume of imagery, it seemed at the time to be a bit more manageable. Additionally, the biggest change is that instead of sending prints or slides, which for years caused there to be ceiling high stacks of Carousel trays in every room, everything comes in digitally. In most cases the pictures are shot digitally, so the process is less encumbering than before. You merely edit your work, clean it up and send the files to Amsterdam.

All the entries are catalogued by a small battalion of what is probably the finest professional organization I have ever worked with. The staff is amazing: thoughtful, efficient, helpful and always breaking for a coffee when that umpteenth picture has finally caused your head to ache. The other jury members are a great mix from around the world – Dakar, Paris, Mexico City, Hamburg, and Seoul were my teammates in the first week. We all bring a particular sense of what photography is about for us, and what it should mean in the world at large. The decisions and conversations about photography are really wonderful, if occasionally bordering on the contentious. But more often than not, rather like the Continental Congress, open discussion and frank criticism leads to a final product of which we are all proud. I write this on day 5 of what is a 15 day process, so as of yet I have no clue what will win anything, though I have seen a lot of really great work. Inspiring, individual, thoughtful.

And it’s because I’m right in the middle of the judging process, or will be next Monday, that I won’t be able to attend another event which I would truly like to see. That afternoon, at the Maison Europeen de la Photo, a wonderful photo-centric space in Paris, a long overdue exhibition will open, honoring a photographer who is, sadly, probably unknown to young photogs now just learning the craft. Henri Huet, a soft spoken, totally dedicated French-Vietnamese who worked for years for Associated Press, will finally have his due. Henri was a great photographer, who covered the war in Vietnam for many years, and always brought to his work the eye of someone whose blood was of that soil. He was a staff photographer for the AP, and covered both the civil and military stories in Vietnam: sometimes they were the same. In 1966 he won a Robert Capa Gold Medal (Overseas Press Club of America) for his work of a US Army medic tending to the wounded. (Here is that work, in Digital Journalist.) Always ready to get back into action, he came back to Saigon from abroad in late January 1971 when it looked as if a big build up in I Corps (South Viet Nam) would mean something was being planned to interdict North Vietnamese supply traffic on the Ho Chi Minh trail, just a few miles over the border into Laos. Thousands of South VN troops were ferried over the junglesque hills, in large part by US helicopters, to try and establish positions which would slow down the resupply traffic. In what was the first instance of an official US decision to try and control press access, the normally user-friendly American choppers (you could often just walk up to a crew chief, and if he was going where you wanted to go, he’d say “jump in”) started refusing to take Press over the border, and insisted that any Press jaunts be handled by the South Viet Namese Army. The VN Army was well equipped but for the most part much less trained and experienced than American chopper crews.

And so it was I found myself at a base camp near the Laotian border on the morning of February 10th, 1971, trying to secure a seat on a chopper which had been assigned to the press. I’d gone to Quang Tri (about 40 miles away) the day before to ship film, and had just returned, and thereby found myself at the back of a very small line. There were four news photographers, a reporter, and a Vietnamese Army photog all waiting for the first Press chopper to take them to the story. As they started to get aboard, I realized there would probably not be room, but that made no real sense to me, as I was working for TIME, and did absolutely NOT want to lose this scoop to the others there. They represented the main news organizations, Henri Huet of AP, Kent Potter of UPI, Larry Burrows from LIFE, and Keisaburo Shimamoto from Newsweek. Between them something like 35 years of experience in Viet Nam. So I kept trying to harangue the VN Army major who’d been tasked with taking care of the journalists. And the clearer it became that I might not get on that bird, the more worked up my pleas. Finally, as the engines began to whine, a reporter friend from TIME, Jon Larsen, came over and gave me some sage advice. “If you keep annoying that guy you’ll NEVER get to Laos. Why don’t you walk away, cool off, and come back later.” I did just that, still fuming over the situation. In one last look I saw them all settle into their webseats as the helicopter readied to take off and head west into the Laotian jungle.
Henri and DB, I Corps, 1971
It was less than an hour later, while walking by the VN command post, the same major who had kept me off the bird came outside and said in halting English, “ I think maybe your friends shoot down Laos.” And as I started to ask what he meant, he spun around and walked back inside. Moments later I ran into LIFE reporter John Saar. John was a few years older and infinitely more experienced in working in VN, and often worked with Larry, the icon whose photo reportages on Vietnam for LIFE were the definitive photographic work. I recounted to John what I’d just heard, and we both wondered what to do next, who to talk to in order to find out what the hell was really happening. As we started to walk, I saw in the distance Hal Ellithorpe, the LIFE stringer who I’d seen get on the chopper with Larry, and for a moment I was relieved.

“Boy, am I glad to see you,” I said to Hal. He asked why and I once again recounted what the major said. “But if you’re here, that means everyone is back safely.”

“Oh no,” Hal said. “I didn’t go. They did a hover test, the bird was too heavy, and Larry looked at me and said “LIFE’s a picture magazine… you can came later. I never left.”

And at that moment it all sunk in. They probably were lost. No one knew for sure just yet. But to get away from that moment, I left the area, and went off shooting for the rest of the day. That night I returned to Quang Tri, where the press briefing center was, and in a moment I’ll never forget, as I walked into the back of the briefing room, Brian Barron, a young silver haired BBC correspondent turned around to me and whispered… "have you heard, Larry Burrows has been shot down in Laos.” It didn’t then, and in many ways even now doesn't make sense to me. Seeing them one minute, they being "lost" the next. The calculations that war photographers go through carry a large basket of unknowns with them. You can try and figure what is and isn’t worth trying to do, what might or might not be a little TOO dangerous, but these are always done with false math. There is no formula. And if it might be safe for someone else to take a lonely stroll up Hiway 13 towards the sounds of battle, it won’t necessarily be that safe for you. We all try and make our guesses based on the best of what we know, and what we suppose could happen. But it’s not a science.

That day five very talented photographers died in a helicopter crash on a jungle hill top in Laos. Their lives, the stories they covered, the families they left behind would be forever changed by that one helicopter ride. A most moving and literate description of not only the day they disappeared but of the enormous effort launched by two journalists from AP – photographer Horst Faas and correspondent Richard Pyle – is contained in their book Lost Over Laos. It’s the kind of book young photographers of conflict would do well to read, but I suspect most don’t, figuring that nothing like this will ever happen to them. I suppose that is what we all think when we enter in zones of conflict be it the jungles of Vietnam or the streets, this week, of Cairo. Nothing is certain. Nothing is a given. You try and do your best work, and keep in mind that the whole point of journalism is sharing those pictures with others. The words, the pictures, they have to get out, they have to be reproduced somewhere for it all to matter. We have the newspapers and magazines (and a few websites) which still keep the work of those photographers alive for people to see. But there is something quite impressive about photographic prints, and so next week’s opening of the Huet show in Paris is a wonderful tribute to a helluva nice guy whose heart was in his pictures. I only knew Henri in passing. The week before the helicopter ride, most every journalist in Vietnam was buzzing around Khe Sanh, or Ham Nghe, looking for a way to scoop everyone else. No one succeeded, though in the hanging around, we did end up posing for a few “fourth estate” group shots near signs saying “No Press Pass This Point.” I’m not sure I ever really have thought of myself as a War Photographer, other than about six months in Viet Nam in the 2 years I lived there. That feeling kind of came and went. I guess I thought there might be something more I could offer in my pictures than work that would rival that of the steely nerved colleagues who truly knew what they were doing. Henri’s pictures, published in a beautiful book by his niece Helene Gedouin “I Was a War Photographer in Vietnam” shows that his work and his attitude were something special. There is much to learn from his photographs, so if you are anywhere near the Maison Europeen de la Photo next Monday, do yourself a favor. Drop in. Next Thursday the 10th will be the 40th Anniversary of that fateful helicopter ride. It will be the last day of the work of the World Press Jury, deciding what this year’s Press Photo of the Year will be. I’m already pleased to be able to actively participate in a process that helps keep photojournalism alive and well. But when I grab a drink that night, the first people I’m going to toast will include the talented and wonderful folks who rode that chopper on what they hoped, as journalists would be another chance to illustrate the first draft of history. Cheers, my friends. We’re just sayin’…. David

And Just Like That..

Did I ever tell you about the time when David went away and it snowed. And snowed. And snowed. That is, as my mother would say, what was. We had a house and a driveway, three (sometimes four) cars. Stone sidewalks and a back deck. It seemed that every time David left town, I was left to shovel out all the previously mentioned localities. In fact, one time, when David was away, there was so much snow, I had to shovel my way into the house. But this was before we moved to a factory storage space and an apartment in midtown Manhattan.

I don’t have to shovel anymore. Even though it hasn’t stopped snowing for six or eight months, the sidewalks in the Big Apple are pretty clear. I felt so great about this new circumstance that I poked a finger at the sky, and yelled, “Ha Ha!” Almost before I had a chance to take my finger out of the sky, the technology Gods said, “She doesn’t have to shovel, so as long as he’s gone, let’s make sure she is aggravated about something else.”

And so ladies and germs (didn’t you always hate that), I don’t have a workable internet router in my apartment. I cannot send or receive emails. I can’t check Face book, or be entertained by youTube. I am so lonely.

This morning, I went to the 24 hour Fitness Center to use their wifi. It was not uncomplicated. It was sleeting. (Thought I’d do color along with the rather boring play-by-play). I was wet when I got there – it is just across the street, which gives you an idea about the amount of sleet. Then I logged on to their computer, which kept asking me if I wanted fettered or unfettered communication. I thought, unfettered – but that was not to be. Then I had to write a number, to prove I was literate, if not math capable. Once I had completed all the assigned tasks, I was shown my e-mail. This does in no way mean I could read my email. Everytime I clicked on a message, the computer immediately took me back to the “fettered/unfettered” question and more numbers. Defeated, I logged out, never having read one communication from any friend or Overstock.com.

In my heart of hearts, I know none of this is David’s fault. But I can’t help thinking his leaving and all the “tsuras” (it’s Yiddish for aggravation but I didn’t want to repeat myself) has some indirect connection to his absence. Yes, admittedly, I felt I needed someone to blame. And who better than your absent IT guy, when there’s a breakdown. While it is true that my IT guy does have another life, it does not mean that he shouldn’t be available to my every whim.

As if that weren’t all too terrible for words, his patience during my crisis was irritating at best. “Well dear, just buy a new one and have someone at the Apple store walk you through it. It’s so simple I know you won’t have any problems.” Before I trekked over to the Apple Store (if you have never been there it’s unexplainable – but you have to have an appointment), I thought I would look on line to see how simple this was going to be.

You know what’s coming next. As I read through the instructions I was so confused and bored, that my eyes glossed/glazed over and I went to sleep. This did not help – except to make me understand that I would be inaccessible to everyone in my life, (professionally and personally), until David comes back in the middle of February.

This is all to say, don’t expect to hear back, about, or from me for anytime soon. I will remain incommunicado until someone who knows something about anything takes pity on me. And of course it’s David’s fault. We’re just sayin’…. Iris