On Being an Editor

I like it.

This is not the first time I have been an editor. That was in high school when I was selected to be an editor of our school literary magazine. The faculty advisor chose me because he liked me, but I was not a very active member of the editorial board and I made no contributions to the magazine. I didn't like writing and had no idea what I was supposed to do as an editor. But I did like my fellow editors, who were all smart and interesting. I felt like a fraud.

It took 15 years and the advent of personal computers and WYSISYG word processing, but I did learn to write. It also took a ruthless editor with no patience for errors and ceaseless demands for clarity and concision. I might have picked up a few tips on editing from Katharine along the way, as well. It was certainly good training.

But writing didn't pay very well, at least, not for me, which is when I became a real editor with a full-time paying job for a publisher. It was exciting and seemed ideal—small press, smart publisher, a dozen or so good books a year, and all having to do with software development, but our best laid plans can go astray. After an 18-month training period in how not to be an editor and how not to treat authors, colleagues, and pretty much everyone in the world, I got fired and spent the next three years not being an editor or a writer. Axes will fall.

Despite the negative experience, I liked editing. I like working with smart people who are passionate about what they do and are so far beyond office politics that they can seem almost childishly naive (which is just like being honest). As an editor, as opposed to a writer, you actually have to work with other people, and despite the fact that bosses tend to make my life miserable, I actually like working in an atmosphere of mutual respect. This is perfect! I like writers who don't know how to write but are experts in their fields. They like techie editors who know the vocabulary sufficiently to guide the writing process, but can't code their way out of a "Hello World" example. I believe this is known as a mutually-beneficial relationship.

So now I'm editing, again. I talk to smart people every day (or at least exchange email). An atmosphere of mutual respect is practically written into our contracts, and this carries over to all levels of the organization. I don't dread the bosses, they don't seem to want to have me fired, yet, and I don't sigh loudly throughout the workday. I don't even feel like a fraud. Perhaps I should thank that high school teacher who liked me. Kenny, where are you?

The Death of a Friend

I did not know Marc Orchant well. We worked together on a couple of projects and even met at a meeting not too long ago. I liked him, respected him, and even envied his ability to chatter on about the latest gadgets in geekdom. He was active, slim, and about the last person I'd expect to die of a massive coronary, which is what happened last week.

At the same time, I've had a number of male friends and acquaintances of about my age recently diagnosed with hardened arteries after complaining of chest pains or simply showing up for their blood tests. My friend, Dikran at Stanford, a life-long skinny person, swimmer and healthful eater, underwent triple-bypass surgery some months back. Laurent, who's been not married to our friend Jane for a number of years, had the same this month, and blamed it on too much imported camembert. (He's French.) Juliann's husband, Alan, complained of chest pains when exercising and ended up suddenly in the hospital for a bypass. It's anecdotal, but there's something real going on, and I hear the warnings.

For my part, I was discovered to have a triglyceride count over 700 (in whatever unit of measure is used). This was about two years ago. At the time I weighed 215 pounds, my heaviest ever, and at 5' 9", was definitely on the obese side by any measure. I've weighed between 180-185 for the past year, we exercise most days (vigorous long walks and visits to the Taft gym), and I have been taking Tricor, a fibrate medication that lowers triglyceride levels. It's a combination that by all measures (blood tests) seems to be working.

But what of Marc? I deleted his name from my address book the other day and it felt like an important gesture of recognition. He's the first person I've deleted in such a permanent fashion and the thought of what I was doing caused me to hesitate over the delete key. And yet, it is an act of acknowledgement, and in this sense a healthy act. So I acknowledge Marc's death, my own mortality, and, this shouldn't sound dismissive, I go on. I'm reminded of the importance of attempting to live my life in a healthful, vigorous way.

Why I am not a Team Player

Several times and by several people I have been told that I am not a team player. This was meant as a negative assessment of my performance, but every time it felt like confirmation of what I wanted to be; which is not a team player. I don't understand why being a team player is the desired behavior unless you're really on a team; the kind of team with a coach who tells you what to do and you do it because you're a team player.

Somehow the team metaphor has become corrupted in its migration to business. The problem is that bosses don't want to be seen as bosses even when they act as bosses. They want to be a member of the team just like me. The team vision in business is more of a socialist equality, which is very far from the reality of any business I've worked for or with. It's more of an Animal Farm socialism where some animals are more equal than others. Unfortunately, the irony is lost in the stultifying dishonesty of bland sincerity that pervades business behavior.

I can remember my first day on the job at the Allstate Research and Planning Center in Menlo Park, CA. Everyone, without exception, said "welcome to the team." This was the most hierarchical company I ever worked for: supervisors, managers, Directors, VPs. It's pretty standard practice in old-style companies and not so different from the military. It's easy to see that there's a certain necessity for following orders as a combat team member in the heat of battle, but we were just running statistical summaries on millions of insurance policies.

Most of the work I've done for the past twenty years has involved quite a bit more thought than action. I've been paid for taking responsibility, not needing supervision, working independently, all things that are pretty much the opposite of anything having to do with team membership. To be sure, there is much collaboration, but collaboration and following the boss's orders are really different things. Yet bosses, even the ones who say they really welcome your honest opinion, seldom want to hear what you have to say if it doesn't agree with what they think you should be doing. You might as well be a traitor as suggest an alternative to "the way we've always done things."

What it all boils down to is a metaphor gone amok. Team playing is supposed to be good, but I never want to work for a company that values blind, stupid, lock-step agreement. I am no sycophant. I do not play for a football team. I am not valued for my physical prowess or my ability to block when told to block or run when told to run. No suicide missions for me, no unquestioned obedience or respect when respect is not due. I can do many things, I can even be a leader when called upon to lead, but I cannot and will not be a team player.

Next time, it's "welcome to the cooperative," for me!

Nothing Civil in a Civil Suit

Got served with papers on Saturday. I was cleaning gutters and turning compost, an apt activity for such an occasion. I was about as dirty as I've been in a long time and was up to my elbows in wet, decomposing leaf litter when I heard a car in the driveway. I thought it was the postman with a package too big for the box. Instead, it was an obese gentleman with a FedEx envelope that he had opened. Strange, I thought.

He had been hired to serve the papers to me. He does this for a living. I think lawyers pay him and that he has some sort of official status that can't be ignored. So when I said I didn't want them, he explained the federal and state laws that gave me no choice in the matter. He liked Hoover, told me about his dead dog and dead cat and how they were going to co-mingle their ashes and save them so that their own children could add their ashes at the appropriate time and throw the blend off the dock of their house in Florida. How is one supposed to respond to such a story?

A man finds happiness remembering his animals. Another man is angry and seeks revenge. A third is deeply involved with compost and leaf litter. I like to think that I'm easily contented, but I need to find a way to detect underlying anger before I become mired in more legal mudslinging. On the other hand, we are all angry at times. It's a necessary personality component. But there are those people whose lives seem to be ruled by their anger and others for whom anger is a temporary state rather than the foundation of their being. I don't think there are any angry babies, so this must be something one acquires with age.

Music Review: Richard Goode in Newtown, CT

Seen and Heard (MusicWeb International)

Richard Goode, Piano
Newtown Friends of Music
Edmond Town Hall, Newtown, Connecticut
September 16, 2007

J S Bach

Prelude and Fugue in G minor, BWV 885 (Book II)
Four Sinfonias

E major, BWV 792

E minor, BWV 793

G minor, BWV 797

E-flat major, BWV 791
Prelude and Fugue in B major, BWV 892 (Book II)

Haydn, Sonata in D major, Hoboken XVI:24


Beethoven, Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2

‘Sonata quasi una fantasia’


Debussy, Three Preludes

La cathédrale engloutie (Book I)

Ondine (Book II)

General Lavine - Eccentric (Book II)


Chopin
Impromptu in F-sharp major, Op. 36

Three Mazurkas

G major, Op. 50 No. 1

C major, Op. 24, No. 2

C-sharp minor, Op. 50, No. 3

Nocturne in B major, Opus 62, No. 1

Polonaise in F-sharp minor, Opus 44

So many pianists try to be flamboyant in their playing or exaggerated in their interpretations often to the point of affectation. Thus it is a particular pleasure to listen Richard Goode’s playing, which is all about the music—capturing the mood, transmitting a feeling without extraneous fanfare—it seems so reserved, but in a good way. I suspect it’s harder to be interestingly thoughtful and subtle than to come out with all barrels blazing. And what a treat to hear Richard Goode in the rather intimate setting of Newtown Connecticut’s Town Hall.

I never tire of hearing Goode’s intelligent rendering of Beethoven sonatas, this time, the so-called Moonlight. There’s nothing melodramatic or sappy about Goode’s articulation, and instead of the usual Chopin-like romanticism one hears in the first movement so often, Goode emphasized the dark melody in the base and the brooding quality of C-sharp minor was more redolent of a moldering grave than anything light or frilly. It was remarkably and rivetingly effective.

Goode began his recital with a selection of Bach put together like a baroque suite. The clarity of his articulation and the beautiful subtlety in his phrasing seemed so natural and unforced that it was easy to forget one's reviewing duties and simply enjoy the music. How utterly pleasant.

Similarly, Goode’s Haydn was immaculate, and moving from baroque to classical brought a fierceness and urgency to the playing that ripped along at a great rate of many notes per second—delightful.

The Beethoven followed, and you could feel the expressive range growing with the chronology. Lots of sforsandos, great dynamic range. And then after intermission, a leap across all of romanticism directly to three Debussy preludes. I wondered how Goode’s clean lines and elegant phrasing would match up with the slowly emerging images Debussy painted in the preludes. I needn’t have worried. Clarity and precision, Goode’s hallmarks, combined with his intellectual understanding of the works, created what felt like newly cleaned artwork glowing in freshly polished frames.

Then back to romanticism for a bookend collection of Chopin movements to balance the synthesized Bach suite at the opening. It was a long concert and, surprisingly, the Chopin felt murky by comparison to the rest of the performances. I’ve heard Goode play Chopin with the ferocity of a middle Beethoven sonata, and it works beautifully, but this was more of a relaxed finish to the afternoon.

Goode is a transporting performer, an intellectual with plenty of technique to communicate his thoughts about the music. Nothing is ill-considered or dashed off without careful consideration. It’s as though he has considered just how every note in the piece should be played. He is intense without being showy, correct without being stuffy, original without outlandishness. Goode allows us to hear new things and it’s a treat. He sets a standard of excellence that few can match.

CA

Fired, Again!

I was fired from my job as an account manager one week ago today. It was remarkably like being fired three-and-a-half years ago from my job as an acquisitions editor. This time, though, I felt like an old pro at being fired, which probably isn't something I should be proud of. There are some striking similarities in the two situations.

In both cases, I had grown to hate my job to the point of not wanting to get out of bed in the morning. It depressed me to work for people who seemed to take such pleasure in criticizing my work. I continued to do my job, not even perfunctorily, but well, but it was no use. I became withdrawn, uncommunicative, and argumentative even as I was trying my best (admittedly not great) to do as I was told. Once again, I find that I do not have the constitution of a good little girl.

In addition to being fired twice, I have been laid off and once I got offered a severance to leave when my boss went unnecessarily ballistic and cursed at me. But I've also had managers who I liked and who liked me. Interestingly, a couple of them have gotten fired along the way, as well

Is there a lesson to be gained from my experiences? Probably not, but I do think that a certain worldly caution is inevitable after such earth-stopping events. Or perhaps the lesson is simply that I'm slow to learn my lessons. No wonder I spent so much time in the "Thinking Chair" in second grade.

Tomato Confit

I’ve been making batches of Tomato Confit. Timo found the recipe in the Zuni Café cookbook, exclaimed with satisfied glee, and passed it along. I’ve picked a lot of plum tomatoes at Waldingfield, washed, sliced, salted, added garlic and basil, covered all with too much olive oil, and roasted half-a-dozen batches at 300° for two hours or so. Almost every night we have a fresh batch to eat with bread and salad, and I’ve been piling up the left overs in a covered glass dish, which was almost full.

There’s enough oil in each batch that it’s easy to leave most of it in the baking dish and just layer in the next batch of tomatoes, garlic, and herbs. The oil becomes remarkably flavorful, almost rich with the concentrated flavors baked into it. The tomatoes themselves are baked long enough to remove almost all the water from them, and the effect is essentially sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil. 

Which brings up the question of what percentage of tomatoes sold as sun-dried are sun-dried? I suspect it’s very low. But oven-dried tomato isn’t a particularly appealing name. It brings up images of limp stewed tomatoes. So confit, which I’ve only known as various forms of meat packed in their own fat, seems like an apt name for the result of the long, slow roasting.

Today, I reheated the accumulated confit in the oven and canned it all in pint-size jars. It looks quite beautiful and the jars sealed nicely. I think that we have at last found a way to store tomatoes for use through the winter. I want to make much more, and I have another batch in the oven right now.