I found out this morning that I have received a prize in the Society for Professional Journalists’ New Jersey Excellence in Journalism Awards: third place in the weekly newspaper feature writing category for my article, “At every new stage, a common refrain: Time flies.” Nice way to start the week on an otherwise dreary day.

I wrote this on the first of the year 2011, worked on it for a few more days, and distributed it to friends and family. But it’s really for everybody. Enjoy.

From below the earth, the prize speaks:

It’s not there, it’s down here you idiot
don’t look up, but down
no, no, you’ve got it all wrong. what did you bring for this job?
a hacksaw? some binoculars? a feather pen?
this is ridiculous. you’ve got to dig!

well, where is this coming from.

it isn’t about setting jets up into the sky
it’s not about racing to the end of the ocean
it’s about taking a look below -

looks.

- then getting up under it, through it, through the stones and
wormshit and mud
and then, then, you’ve begun.
but only just, ha.

looks up, around. nobody hears.

that’s when you take out your pick
put on the big gloves, those ones that go up to your elbows
probably some rainpants too
there will be water, oh yes.

I suppose so.

So then, are you ready? It goes like what you’d expect: You Dig, and
then you dig more. and then
dig, and
dig.

dig,
dig, dig, sister.

wow, really. you gotta do better than that.

it goes on like this for a while. sweat brims, it gets dark.

feel like you’re sitting in your own shit?
by this point, you are, and that’s the effect. welcome to reality, you’re getting close.

This?

Yes, this.
Forget your father, forget your grandmother and cousins
they’re up there, you’re down here, and that’s how it will be.
but you’re going for the real gold, right.
right.

i’m down here, that i can assure you.

My Tyler Clementi story has won Honorable Mention in the Garden State Journalists Association’s Memorial Journalism Awards in the General News category. Small weeklies are considered alongside Associated Press and other daily papers, so it’s great that so many of the weeklies out of our office — The Suburban News, Town News and Town Journal along with The Ridgewood News — were able to garner accolades. Huzzah.

While winning awards for bad news seems like four steps backward for a step ahead, I am pleased to share that two of my stories in The Ridgewood News, where I’ve been working since September, were runner-ups for the New Jersey Press Association’s Robert P. Kelly award for best first-year reporter: one about Ridgewood resident Tyler Clementi’s suicide, and the other about a massive police response for a tame crowd the night before Thanksgiving. In all our newspaper took home 13 awards, including the General Excellence award for papers with circulation below 6,500, so this week we’ve been feeling generally pretty good.

I’ve added some other things here that I’ve written for the Glen Rock Gazette and The Ridgewood News, and I’ll add more soon.

~ Cheers ~

A very close friend is a student in Cairo. I’ve been in regular contact with him via his access to private internet, and he has been doing an incredible -indeed brave- job of recording, tesifying, and reporting via livefeeds, Facebook, and even a spot on CBS radio. He’s been holed up with friends, some journalists and the ‘twitterati,’ as he’s put it, so I am glad he is safe so far. More and more I am heartened that the army and police appear to be backing down; after all it is impossible to stop a march of millions, right? But much blood has already been lost, and I am worried about what could happen if things go awry.

In Egypt the demonstrations have been admirably restrained* – protests have included banding together in human chains around museums to keep out looters, solemn prayers in the middle of the streets, and blockades on neighborhood blocks to keep safe. But there has been much violence against demonstrators. Death count on Jan. 29 was something like 74; I heard from an Egyptian with family in Cairo that Sunday it had been about 140.

To stay tuned, Al Jazeera English is probably the best source. (The latest –5pm update – from my friend — “We believe the Presidential Guard – not the regular army – is in control of security at the Presidential Palace” … and “Army reportedly claiming it will not use force against demonstrators tomorrow” Confirmed at AlJazeera.)

As the situation is on a precipice today, keep a close ear to what is happening. Speak out, go to stand in support of the people of Egypt, call embassies and consulates. They cannot hear loudly enough that those who are fired at, and not those who hold the guns (and whatever remains of failed state-control), have the full weight of the world behind them.

*Very imortant to keep in mind, as well, is that there has been – and will likely be more – rhetoric of the ‘chaos’ in the Middle East, coming from politicians as well as others, sadly perpetuated by some mass media. (Another update 5pm: there are reports of ‘chaos’ at the Cairo airport, where thousands of foreigners are trying to flee en masse.) The article I linked to above is from Foreign Policy by Diane Singerman, a professor at American University, on why caution against government and media’s ‘narrative of chaos’ is warranted. Here are a few excerpts:

Although burning buildings and gunfire produce great images for the media, what is striking about the last few days is the fact that Egyptians have shown great discipline and courage as they express their demands for a real transition to democracy and only defend themselves from tear gas canisters fired into mosques, from water cannons and thugs beating peaceful demonstrators.

It is imperative that the new Egyptian leaders and the U.S. reject this narrative of chaos which will only serve to support the repressive Mubarak regime. We must expect the ambiguity of a political transition and not misread the normal unfolding of a transition process that needs patience and political space to deliberate and organize the next chapter of Egyptian history.

Struggles for citizenship, justice, and political rights, are far from over throughout the Middle East. These basic struggles continue as Egyptians, Tunisians, Yemenis, and Jordanians reject their paternalistic fathers who think that they should only be obedient children and leave the affairs of the country to the all-knowing ‘head’ of state or father figure and their sons.

It is my hope that the sons and daughters of the Middle East will think of their mothers, and the mothers think of each other, that they stop war before it starts, and take the time to build governments that can truly stand for Egypt and elsewhere. We can all do our parts to stand with them as well.

Sean Michaels be linking to me… I haven’t updated this blog in forever, though that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. So, hello, there’s some old articles hanging around, and some chewing gum, as you can see. I do like to chew gum sometimes — it’s not really a thing that defines me; but, being near the big city, I guess I’ll mention that the guy in the subway stile at 14th St. has a fine array of Orbit gums. At first I thought it was all about the Citrusmint — but I was mildly traumatized when I chewed a piece of that flavor for maybe only a little longer than normal and it disintegrated, mid-bowling game (at a show at Brooklyn Bowl, Julian Lynch remembers?), and, like, spilled all over the goddamn bowling lane floor. But honestly, it was suddenly liquid disgusting and maybe going to explode and I was not going to swallow it. Months later, after I  forgave Orbit for what it did to me, I came across Cinnamint, which is awesome because Big Red is too spicy for my taste. This gum is good for work-time, though I don’t see it around New Jersey too much. Finally! All hail the Perfect Peach! This is the most perfect flavor gum, so perfect you have to have some other default gum or else, to paraphrase something a friend of mine recently said, you forget what the flavor was about in the first place. Also, so far, difficult to find around the Jersey-town. Suits me okay; gum is pretty silly.

Okay actually, there’s two things you absolutely must respect about chewing gum. First, and most important to me, is all that process, all that energy — and to boot it’s from the jaw, which is the body’s most powerful muscle (by measurement of exertion on something else). But then there’s the permanence of gum. It’s this food product, moderated by the Food and Drug Administration, yet it totally does not break down (unless you’re my piece of Orbit Citrusmint gum on January 5 2010). Old wrapped-up chewing gum is like little treasure; it’s like finding a safety pin or bottle cap somewhere strange. I may be wrong, but I think most humans alive are chewing gum because they’ve got a lot on their minds. When I see gum I wonder what it really was they were (I was) chewing on, whether it made it anywhere other than into the wrapper (/onto the brick wall/ etc.)

What else. These days I’m a reporter for my hometown’s paper (The Ridgewood News.) It’s been very interesting; I’ll try to get some links up to that work soon. Also, hopefully in the coming day or two Maisonneuve will be publishing an edit of a very revealing series of interview-conversations I’ve just completed with with a friend of mine, regarding Wikileaks and ‘Anonymous.’ I’m going back to listening to Sean’s best-of 2010 list now (nudge nudge).

Suffice it to say, since my last post – a long time back – I went into a bit of a tailspin, and now I’m working on equalizing. It is work, but it is coming along.

I’ve taken on a reporting job with a local newspaper for the town next door to mine. It’s called the Glen Rock Gazette, the second Gazette I’ll have worked for now. I always found it a good name for a paper. I have been reporting a lot on the cuts to state school aid in New Jersey, as well as the municipal budget, emergency services, and other things that happen in a town like this. It is certainly a real job, complete with a 401K plan my parents insisted I set up. “The magic of compounded interest,” they say. Hmm.

Here is my article on the Glen Rock teachers’ union’s decision to take a pay freeze – a big deal in the area, which brought the article to the top of the most-emailed list at NorthJersey.com for a couple of days. Northjersey.com/glenrock is where many of my articles can be found, but the website leaves something to be desired, so my updates to this blog will probably continue to be sporadic. I’m not expecting to do much freelancing right now, though I miss it already and feel a little like the inverted pyramid has sucked a bit of my soul away. We’ll take this as it goes, though. As somebody told me recently, I haven’t missed any buses.

Springtime has unleashed a wrath of birds here. A couple of wrens built their nest in my windowbox, and started to make a habit of waking me up very early with a piercing warble, to my first-delight and then-growing annoyance. They don’t seem to want to make a commitment to the nest though. As I write this, the male has returned for the first time in a week, to take a look around. What’s he figuring?

I found myself in a more urgent situation last weekend at the Celery Farm, a little bird sanctuary I’ve been going to visit. I was walking along when a Canada goose appeared from the river and began walking toward me, then running toward me, then flying at my head. He landed, turned around, and galloped at me again. I had only one direction to run in: out. Next time, goose.

Other humble adventures around here include journeying to the very northern end of the island of Manhattan, where in the midst of a cascade of rocks and barbed wire we found fools’ gold, daffodils in the wild, and later, this most chilling plaque:

On Easter I went for a muddy hike in Harriman State Park with friends Ethan and Grant, where we found a belly button-sized whirlpool but an unsettling lack of birdsong. And today, I purchased an elephant vest (that is, a vest with elephants stitched on it) from Udelco, the dusty vintage clothes warehouse in Hawthorne, NJ. It’s wonderful.

Week’s highlight: Seeing three coyotes while taking the pictures for this story. Week’s setback: Failing to photograph the coyotes.

Lately I have been making paper airplanes and watching vintage Superman on YouTube, and making lunch and snacks and fielding tantrums and throwing Michael Jackson karaoke parties and helping with homework. This newly-substantial daytime babysitting gig has been a joy and an enormous learning experience. It has not been easy, nor is it particularly helpful in pushing me to mature. But I don’t stress about that because I’m also writing lots of responsible and (at least locally) important stuff. It’s fun wearing these different hats. And coats. These days I’m trading between acid wash and peacoat.

Also lately: I covered more delays on the saga that is the Valley Hospital planning. I helped cover a $50-million vote in town. I covered tree-lighting ceremonies way too much: the controversial, the sparkly and consumer-bent (photo feature = fun for me), and the reverent.

And today I wrote about electric cars in Ridgewood, and confirmed via good Wiki graph that the U.S.’s electricity is still about 50 percent coal-derived.

Finally, I’ve also been psyched that Martin, Bleeker, Matt and Etienne – y’know, Real Estate – are blowin up like crazy people. It’s a big deal. So, not to coast on their wave but to settle my own heart, I am in the early stages of some serious writing about the hometown crew. I mean, there’s also been everything else – Titus, Vivian Girls, more – that has happened from our neck of the woods. And, obviously, these days I am thinking way more about the place I grew up than I know what to do with. So I pretty much have no choice. Hopefully it goes well and gets published well.

Just happened to be driving by a fire evacuation outside the YMCA tonight. lol – except for the older ladies in nothing but bathing suits waiting outside in a van. That’s really not funny at all.