Marjorie:
First, I gotta say something about the Pulitzers. I think yesterday was one of the best days for the Post since I’ve been there. There was such a warm feeling in the place, the speeches by the winners were moving, and even the owner got a prolonged ovation. In how many newsrooms would the staff applaud the owner like that? I’m sure you saw Jeff Toobin’s piece in The New Yorker, saying that Don Graham wants to run a safe, risk-averse, “local” newspaper, and that the Post is not as literary as, say, the New York Times. I’m thinking The New Yorker might want to consider a retraction at this point. Just take it all back. “Never mind.” There was nothing safe about any of the stories or photographs that won, and the writing was the definition of literary journalism. Meanwhile, news has yet to reach Washington of any Pulitzers won yesterday by the Times. (Yes, I’m gloating! Try it some time; it’s wonderful.) Perhaps the Times previously received some unpublicized Pulitzers in the technical categories, like Best Ink, or Best Headline Font.
The truth is, the Post should have won more. David Finkel’s reporting from Kosovo was just about the most amazing feature writing I’ve ever read. I’d give anything to have written a story, just once in my career, as terrific as his piece about the Kosovar woman who had to choose between her family and her first true love.
I know I’ll never win a Pulitzer because I increasingly forget to put human beings in my stories. More and more, I write about stuff like the origin of life–you know, did it happen with a single replicating molecule, or with a larger sack of molecules. I’ve gone molecular in my work. It’s a well-known fact in journalism that when you go molecular you can never go back. Soon I may stop writing about liquids and solids, because they’re just too flamboyant, and instead write only about gasses. My next book will be called Trends in Vapor.
Thanks for your eyewitness report on Saylor, who seems to be turning into the northern Virginia version of Donald Trump. The big house he’s building is forgivable–if I had a lot of money I’d build a big house, too, or at least a house large enough that it could plausibly have stone lions out by the driveway, and an official name, like ThrogsGate. (I grew up in a vintage Florida cracker house, wood frame, and one of its most endearing features was the name above the front door: Woodland Echoes. Remind me that we need to continue that thread about childhood sights and sounds. The other day I was feeling blue and suddenly heard a song by the Allman Brothers, and it reminded me I needed to head south, just for my sanity. A beach would be nice. Yes, immediate surroundings shape a person, as you said yesterday so eloquently regarding Elián, but your culture also puts a deep imprint on your psyche, and you wind up spending much of your life trying to get back to some dimly remembered beach, to some moment when you felt perfect. Back to that smell of salt water.)
Did you think that Saylor’s gift of $100 million for this online university was totally self-aggrandizing? It struck me that way, but maybe I don’t give him enough credit. Why can’t he just give some money to one of the myriad existing institutions, charities, and nonprofits? There’s nothing wrong with starting something new, but the Internet culture has become a cult of the new, which is why companies that have never made a dime in profit have market evaluations twice as large as General Motors. Michael Lewis got it right.
Moms hunting Internet pedophiles is a great story of our times, and I’m guessing that what you found creepy about the Mom in this case–correct me if this is not right–is that she was rather invasive herself, co-opting the thoughts and passions of her kids, using them for what had become an obsessive quest. In any case, you can imagine that Hollywood could do something with this material. Julia Roberts is the Mom. Ideally there’d be some twisted romantic complications–like, she falls in love with one of the sickos! In the teen-slasher version, the pedophile-hunting cheerleader is closing in on the pervert, only to discover that the vile e-mails are coming from … inside the house! (I’d be shocked if this plot isn’t already in the pipeline out there. You’ve Got Mail meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre.)
Back to you, Marjorie.
Yours,
Joel
