the breakfast table
columns
- The Supreme Court Breakfast Table
Should there be a shooting range next to the Supreme Court gift shop?
Walter Dellinger
posted June 27, 2008 - The Supreme Court Breakfast Table
Was it ever Miller time?
Dahlia Lithwick
posted June 26, 2008 - What's the Big Secret?
Continuing the conversation.
Patrick Radden Keefe
posted Aug. 30, 2007 - A Supreme Court Conversation
Everything convservatives should abhor.
Walter Dellinger
posted June 29, 2007 - The Midterm Elections
The blame game, George Allen, and more.
Mark Halperin
posted Nov. 3, 2006 - Search for more the breakfast table articles
- Subscribe to the the breakfast table RSS feed
- View our complete the breakfast table archive
Kerr and Rothstein
Postprandial Ruminations
Posted Thursday, March 11, 1999, at 4:59 PM ETDear Sarah:
Now I'm really on the spot. I'm going to have to filter out from my prose all signs of narcissism, desperation, ideological rigidity, false modesty, and dilettantism. If I do that, what will be left?
But seriously (... to use a Catskills line ...), this kind of quick conversation is, as you say, more difficult than it seems. It is riskier than ordinary conversation because the words appear in immutable text; it is riskier than ordinary writing because there is no time to rework, discard, destroy, or postpone. The consolation is that in a few days, it will all be lying in the cyber-compost heap.
What is interesting though, is that "The Breakfast Table" makes writing about newspapers seem very similar to writing for newspapers. A lot of these sensations are familiar to me from life as a critic. I spent about eight years reviewing between three and seven concerts a week, writing reviews (between 200 and 1000 words) for the following morning, and sometimes rushing back to the office to file important reviews within an hour so they could make it into the next day's paper.
It is a life of personal exposure, done with few safety nets; errors rankle; lost opportunities and undeveloped ideas cause dismay. Watch details and the big picture blurs; keep your eyes on the big picture and the little detail slips by. I recently found out that a peculiar slip of the typewriter keys that turned the word vibrato into the word rubato in a music review was taken by some readers as a sign I knew nothing about either.
But what I do like about all this, and it is probably the reason I continue to court these ridiculous deadlines, is that hanging really does concentrate the mind. The limits on time and space enforce a ruthless focus. Metaphors have to resonate; arguments have to be stripped down to their bones; unnecessary rhetorical flourishes awkwardly stick out. Discoveries are made.
The problem is that I have just realized I haven't made any discoveries since breakfast. And aside from Slate deadlines, there's an editor here at the New York Times waiting for me to cut 100 words from an essay; there are two movies to watch and a book to read before I write a column for tomorrow afternoon; and ... well, sometimes I think I'm always sitting at a breakfast table. But this time around, I've enjoyed sharing it with you.
Best,
Ed
Postprandial Ruminations
Posted Thursday, March 11, 1999, at 4:59 PM ETfeedback | about us | help | advertise | newsletters | mobile
User Agreement and Privacy Policy | All rights reserved
- Today's Headlines
- » More from the Onion
Over the LineHarold Ford Jr. | I know what it's like to be smeared by your opponent.
: The Positive in Negative Ads
- Robinson: A Little Worried About the Meltdown
- Khaled Hosseini: Sen. McCain, Am I a Pariah?
- Ombudsman: A Puff Piece About the Obamas?
- King: The Anatomy of an Assault
- Today's Headlines
- Cars: GM-Chrysler Merger Would Be A Lemon
Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:51:58 GMT - Laramie Resident Reflects On Shepard Anniversary
Sat, 11 Oct 2008 23:11:55 GMT - Zakaria: A More Disciplined America
Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:00:21 GMT - » More from Newsweek
- Today's Headlines
- Letter From North Carolina
Fri, 10 October 2008 18:50:36 GMT - Poll-arized Mistrust
Fri, 10 October 2008 20:16:32 GMT - Oh, Lord, Kumbaya
Fri, 10 October 2008 18:31:56 GMT - » More from The Root

the breakfast table













