Today’s writing exercise: Rolphing

If only I would have discovered Rolphing before I finished my book. I’m sure it would have taken my creativity to whole other level. Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda of Chad Vader fame spoke at the conference this past weekend and introduced a room full of middle-aged women to rolphing. Some of the women may have thought it was funny. I thought it was hilarious.

Have you called your granny lately?

I’ve been writing about grandmas today, so I thought I would post a little of what I wrote and remind you to give yours a call.

My Grandma Wilt was a garment worker. That’s her in the front row next to my mom and dad.

In the summers growing up in Versailles, Ohio, she sewed the pockets on Lee bibs. “The more pieces you completed, the more you got paid,” she told me. She didn’t like the job and – to no real surprise – the money wasn’t very good. What is a surprise is that I never knew this. I traveled around the world to meet garment workers and here my very own grandma was one.

She’s not your typical grandma. For instance, she has seen every Death Wish Charles Bronson has made and she’s a fan of Walker Texas Ranger. But like any grandma, she is beaming with pride on a day like this.

Annie’s grandmas are on the other side of the aisle. Betty remembers the Great Depression and to this day it pains her to throw anything away. She has enough canned and frozen goods to survive a nuclear winter. Back then recycle and reuse wasn’t an environmental practice, but purely an economic one. In fact, Annie’s other grandma, Clara, used to make clothes from chicken feed bags for her family and herself.

Poorism

Yesterday’s NY TIMES has a feature on slum tourism (aka Poorism). Here’s the nitty gritty:

Anti-Poorism

“Would you want people stopping outside of your front door every day, or maybe twice a day, snapping a few pictures of you and making some observations about your lifestyle?” asked David Fennell, a professor of tourism and environment at Brock University in Ontario. Slum tourism, he says, is just another example of tourism’s finding a new niche to exploit. The real purpose, he believes, is to make Westerners feel better about their station in life. “It affirms in my mind how lucky I am — or how unlucky they are,” he said.

Pro-Poorism

“…proponents of slum tourism say. Ignoring poverty won’t make it go away. “Tourism is one of the few ways that you or I are ever going to understand what poverty means,” said Harold Goodwin, director of the International Center for Responsible Tourism in Leeds, England. “To just kind of turn a blind eye and pretend the poverty doesn’t exist seems to me a very denial of our humanity.”

The story was written by Eric Weiner the Author of “The Geography of Bliss.” I’m reading it now and quite happy with it.

Bibi Russell on the World Vision Report

The World Vision Report aired my interview with model/designer/saint/UN Ambassador Bibi Russell. They mixed the interview with some Bangladeshi music and I think it turned out quite good. Especially, since it’s my first ever recorded piece to air.

Listen to it now.

Bibi plays an important part in my book. Here’s how the chapter she’s featured in starts out:

“Now is a good time,” Bibi said. “The electricity is out.”

I have never interviewed a supermodel before or even talked to one, for that matter. I never expected that she would be there - up three flights of stairs off the chaotic streets of Dhaka sitting in the dark.

When she stood I almost said, “Boy, you sure are tall and skinny,” but I didn’t. I would say dumber things later.

“Do you smoke?” She asked in her elegant, full-bodied smoker’s voice.

“No…”

“Good,” she said.

“But go ahead.” As if she needed my permission to smoke in her own office.

Scalzi on writing and money

Science-fiction writer John Scalzi delivers some “unasked-for advice to new writers about money” on his blog Whatever.

You gotta give Scalzi some credit, few people talk about money, especially writers who often work a lot to make very little. Although, I suspect, it’s easier to talk about money when you make as much as Scalzi. But Scalzi has paid his dues. Here’s a list of his Science Fiction earnings. In 1999 he earned $400 in 2007 $67,000. (Note: he supplements this income with a fair amount of corporate writing, blogging, non fiction writing, so he was able to feed his family in 1999.)

Anyhow, here’s my favorite point of his unasked-for advice:

8. Unless you have a truly compelling reason to be there, get the hell out of New York/LA/San Francisco.

Because they’re friggin’ expensive, that’s why. Let me explain: Just for giggles, I went to Apartments.com and looked for apartments in Manhattan that were renting for what I pay monthly on my mortgage for my four bedroom, 2800 square foot house on a plot of land that is, quite literally, the size of a New York City block ($1750, if you must know, so I looked at the $1700 - $1800 range). I found two, and one was a studio. From $0 to $1800, there are thirteen apartments available. On the entire island of Manhattan. Where there are a million people. I love that, man.

The other day someone in the publishing industry told me that I sound like the type of guy that should move to New York to be in the mix. He even drew a picture something like this: I would arrive from Indiana, stand on the street corner all wide-eyed with my weathered suitcase, a bag of apples my mom packed, full of naïve optimism, and marvel at the big city.

I told him that although I’m sure if would be nice to have connections, if I moved to NYC, Annie would leave me, which would not be a good thing and would completely go against Scalzi’s tip #3. Also, like Scalzi points out, the big city is expensive. In Indiana my writing career affords a pretty nice life (supplemented by my day job and Annie’s) in a 2400 sq foot home. But In NYC, it would afford a pretty nice cardboard box. And I like not having to worry about my walls getting soggy when it rains.

If I lived in a big expensive city, the pressure to earn money would have probably put a stop to my writing career long ago.

The narrative journalism oath

1/29/08
Karl Schoenberger author of Levi’s Children: coming to terms with human rights in the global marketplace on narrative journalism:

“When the human rights narrative abandons the pretext of objectivity and crosses over into the realm of pure entertainment, it can become as preposterous as it is insidious.

The problem begins with the occasional purple-prose narrative journalism that reveals shocking tales of egregious human rights violations but neglects to follow up on the factual chain of events or to place the sordid tale into a broader context. The consumer of a newspaper article or a TV newsmagazine expose feels absolved of personal responsibility after experiencing a delicious emotional revulsion to the outrage, without being asked to think about how to prevent it from happening again. For an ephemeral moment, the passive audience for cheesy entertainment journalism can feel good about detesting Nike shoes or virtual slavery on Saipan without any obligation to revisit the intellectual and more challenges of the issue the next day.”

I Kelsey Timmerman, soon-to-be author of Where am I Wearing? do solemnly swear to not use purple-prose (or any other color of prose) in my narrative, to place all sordid tales in a broad context, to avoid having my readers experience any delicious emotional revulsion to outrage, and to cut the cheese out of my journalism.

Thank you.

Things I’m excited about: Finding Osama at Sundance & Bliss

1. Morgan Spurlock’s new film Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden recently debuted at the Sundance Film festival. I probably won’t be able to see it for some time since films like this don’t come to a theater near me in Muncie, Indiana. So, I’ll have to wait for the DVD. Until then here’s a taste:

2. Eric Weiner’s book The Geography of Bliss. Weiner a former NPR correspondent banished to report from the world’s most depressing places visits the happiest places on Earth. I’m all about chasing an idea from culture to culture and trying to make sense of it. It’s a bold move looking for something as abstract as happiness, but from what I’ve heard about the book, he does a good job of it.

Here’s a question for you:

Which is easier to find Osama Bin Laden or Bliss?

Look ma! I’m quoted in the Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal reporter Hannah Karp email interviewed me while researching her story The Stay-at-Home vacation. The article is about people who are concerned about their carbon footprint choosing not to fly, even if it means missing a siblings wedding or dream vacation. I take a slightly different stance:

That’s misguided, says Kelsey Timmerman, a 28-year-old Muncie, Ind., scuba-diving instructor and author. If he’d never been to the Great Barrier Reef, he wouldn’t care as much that it is dying from rising ocean temperatures. Decisions he makes as a consumer and a voter offset emissions resulting from his travels, says Mr. Timmerman, who visited Bangladesh, Cambodia and China last year. “Travel helps us care more about our world.”

I’ve heard rumblings of this debate, but had no idea the No-Fly movement was gaining so much ground. Really, I’m amazed that it is since flying represents only 4% of an individual’s average carbon footprint (Farting is probably more than 4%.) I can understand the desire to cutback on unnecessary travel, but missing your siblings wedding? My brother is getting married in Utah in March and if I told him that I wasn’t going to fly out for it because of my concerns of the planes pollution, I would sound like a jackass. I would be a jackass. I’m all for being their for the environment, but I’m even more for being there for my bro. As they say, “Bros before…CO’s.”

Here is the full answer I gave in an email to Hannah:

If I hadn’t been SCUBA diving on the Great Barrier Reef, I wouldn’t care as much that it and coral reefs around the world are dying because of rising ocean temperatures. If I hadn’t been hiking on glaciers in New Zealand, I wouldn’t care as much that it and glaciers around the world are melting because of rising global temperatures. If I hadn’t spent a month in Bangladesh, treated to the near limitless hospitality of the Bangladeshi people, I wouldn’t care as much that homes and lives are being swallowed by the rising sea.

Travel helps us care more about our world. I expect that the decisions I make as a consumer and a voter offset whatever negative impacts result from the fossil fuels burnt to get me from place to place.

ONE Vote ‘08

If eliminating poverty around the world is a factor in your decision for whom to vote for President, the ONE Campaign has all of the candidates on record. Each candidate discusses how they would confront disease and poverty.

The competition to sell the world’s poor laptops continues

I first wrote about the $100 Laptop project in November of 2006. It turns out the non-profit that introduced the project is getting serious, if not below-the-belt, competition from INTEL. There are billions of poor people out there that can’t afford a laptop and those staggering numbers could lead to big profit. What started as a warm and fuzzy project is turning into a bitter business battle. You can read about some of the ugliness in the Wall Street Journal.

My 11/06 post on the $100 Laptop –

Imagine walking into a village. Africa, Central America, it doesn’t matter just as long as it’s remote.

You probably got there by following some pot-holed dirt road. You saw a car, but it was broken down and holes were rusted in the side. There are no power lines in sight. Tonight’s dinner runs amok clucking or mooing.

You approach a building made of corrugated metal and spare 2×4’s. You hear kids chattering about as kids do. It must be a school. You peak in the window. And this is where things get real creapy…

Every kid pecks away at a laptop.

Yves Behar is designing a $100 laptop for countries to buy by the millions to give to school children. The goal - “One Laptop per Child.” Read about the project in Wired magazine.

What would this mean?

Worst case - Cultures are squashed as the children of the world become addicted to online poker.

Best case - World Peace as the children of the world obtain online degrees as pharmaceutical assistants from the University of Phoenix.

I think this is an awesome idea and I hope it comes about. It would be interesting to see how it influences cultures and international politics.

Read a commentary about the project in the Christian Science Monitor.