Archive for April, 2008
Moments and missives from our world
April
18
2008
The phantom departs
Dan Federici died on Thursday at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center after a three year battle with melanoma. For the past four decades, Federici partnered with a Jersey boy named Bruce, providing the distinctive organ, accordion and occasional glockenspiel layers to mix with other members of the E Street Band.
“Danny and I worked together for 40 years – he was the most wonderfully fluid keyboard player and a pure natural musician,” said Mr. Springsteen. “I loved him very much … we grew up together.”
Though Danny’s musical contributions will live on in CDs, DVDs, and bootlegged MP3s, he hoped that many of his fans will wake up to dangers that are often overlooked. The Danny Federici Melanoma Fund can be accessed here , and it contains this message from Phantom Dan:
“What people take for granted on a daily basis, among so many other things, is their skin. I spent my life, like many others, catching some rays, surfing, hanging out in the sun and it never bothered me until now. Who knew that something as simple as a proper sunscreen or keeping yourself covered up on a sunny day could one day save your life? … It’s time to think again. Especially if you’re fair skined, have freckles, or light eyes. Be aware of the dangers, take precaution, and have yourself checked out regularly by a dermatologist from head to toe. It could absolutely make the difference in your life.”
Hamba Kahle Dan, The 4th of July in Asbury Park will never sound as good again.
April
18
2008
Amanda and Pete marry at The Ford Plantation
View more images from the celebration here.
April
10
2008
Some Legends Depart
Death has hit the photojournalism community hard in the past month, as a couple legends passed and an unsung hero made his final exit as well.
Phillip Jones Griffiths was a Magnum photographer whose work from Vietnam was not warmly received by the US Government. Vietnam Inc. stands the test of time as one of the most powerful statements against the destruction and death in war that has ever been compiled.
Burt Glinn died on Wednesday. Glinn was another Magnum member who was one of the first to straddle the line between journalism and corporate and advertising commissions, and one of his most famous images involved Khrushchev visiting Abe on a visit to the States in 1959. 49 years later, it’s still timeless.
The journey of Dith Pran was featured in 1984′s The Killing Fields. Pran was the Cambodian translator / fixer / problem solver and photographer who worked with NYT correspondent Sydney Scanberg as Cambodia fell in the mid 1970s. Pran stayed behind to help Schanberg, even after the New Yorker had made arrangements for him to flee Phnom Penh with his family. Schanberg and other colleagues were later able to leave, but Pran could not, and . Schanberg accepted his Pulitzer on behalf of Pran, stating that he could not have been able to continue effectively without Pran’s able assistance. Pran spent four years in re-education camps before fleeing to safety in Thailand. He subsequently emigrated to the States and the paper of record hired him onto their photo staff. Pran died of Cancer on 30 March, which was the third birthday of our son Josh.
The Times created a video piece with Pran a few weeks before he died, and his faith that he was going to a comfortable place was evident. “To all of us who have worked as foreign reporters in frightening places,†Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said on Sunday, “Pran reminds us of a special category of journalistic heroism — the local partner, the stringer, the interpreter, the driver, the fixer, who knows the ropes, who makes your work possible, who often becomes your friend, who may save your life, who shares little of the glory, and who risks so much more than you do.â€
David Burnett wrote about his disappointment when he could not get a chopper ride to Laos in 1971… a flight which took the lives of four eminent photojournalists, some of whose remains were this week at the Newseum in DC. Dave is one of the business’ rare talents, a man who can certainly see and shoot a picture, but also, after four decades, still manages to approach stories with a fresh eye.
April
10
2008
Deborah and Jim marry at Palmetto Bluff
A slide show from the wedding day can be seen here.
April
10
2008
Traded for a box of uniforms
Paul Salopek is a Johannesburg based journalist whose essay about The Sahel is April’s National Geographic cover piece. While reporting the piece, he was jailed by the Sudanese Government for 34 days, and those experiences are included in a few interviews, where the nugget emerged that he was traded by his initial captors to the Sudanese Army for a box of uniforms.
He was interviewed on Fresh Air, and a link to that 41 minute talk is available here . I like and respect Paul, and have worked with him a few times. This mild mannered, unassuming man has an incredible gift for telling stories. The Pulitzer committee has honored him twice, for explanatory journalism about human genomes, and also for his coverage from Africa. In between the two awards, while we were on our way to see an unheralded King, I asked him if he thought his Genome piece was the best piece he ever wrote. He laughed and said “far from it,” and characteristically mentioned his surprise at the recognition.
In a Q&A on big yellow’s site, he answered the question of why does he keep doing it? “My answer is twofold. It’s for the people who I cover whose stories I feel are not getting out, and to bear witness to darker corners of the world that the rest of the world chooses, for a variety of reasons, to avert its gaze from. And it’s also for my readers, to be the vehicle for conveying that information as objectively as possible. I am not an activist—I am a journalist, a reporter. The moment I start taking on one cause or another and become an activist, that puts me in even more danger. So the only shred, the only fig leaf of protection that I have is the tiny claim to the man whose finger is on the trigger that I will be neutral. So I do it for my readers, and I do it for my sources, who are ordinary people on both ends. I don’t write for policymakers. I don’t write for the people inside the beltway in Washington. I write for plumbers in Indiana and schoolteachers in California—the ordinary bloke on the street. And those are the kind of people that I cover too. I don’t cover politicians, I don’t cover kings or presidents. I cover people who live in huts or who live in houses or shantytowns, or who partake of the most common lifestyle in Africa, which is often pretty poor but on many levels very, very rich. Sometimes when I go to a fisherman’s village in Nigeria, even though he’s financially very poor, his family life is wonderful, and it’s our task to convey all of that in its entirety and not just focus on the bad.”
Paul went on a hunger strike while in captivity, protesting his separation from his translator and driver while being held in a Sudanese Ghost House. Yeah, a hunger strike in the Sudan, and Paul said that his captors were “a bit puzzled” as to why he had stopped eating… in an area of the world where people struggle to eat each day. “The moral high ground that I was trying to claim proved a bit confusing.” The history of Bobby Sands might not have been taught in El Fasher.
After 34 days in prison in 2006, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson helped to secure his safe release. After a while, Paul returned to the Sahel, determined to complete the piece. I’m astounded that he went back, but knowing Paul and his determination, it just made sense. For anybody who has spent time in the Sudan, it is not an especially forgiving and welcoming government. Let alone the hospitality for “governmental guests” who end up in ghost houses. Paul kept his focus on the real story, reminding us that his experiences pale in comparison to what people in the Sahel face each day.
At the end of the interview, Paul stated, “I don’t really consider myself as a conflict reporter or as a war reporter… I consider myself more of a love reporter… I just look for love in all the wrong places.” Well said.
