Endless Knots

On the 25th anniversary of my mother's death...

Here, from seven years ago, a repost with the letter she left for her funeral.

And a just-discovered Pottstown Mercury news item from Oct 30, 1945, announcing that this 34-year-old Brooklyn transplant, who'd been in Pottstown less than a year and who had an 18-month-old child, would teach adult ed classes in introductory and advanced lipreading for three hours each Tues and Thurs night at the Y. My mom.

And now the blog repost from Sept 9, 2007:

Eighteen years ago today, my mother, Ethel A. Lipnack, died at the age of 78. This morning, I had the chance to stand on the doorstep where she had passed so many times--at the corner of Myrtle and Clinton Avenue, where she was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. A Connectict Muffin shop occupies the candy store that my grandparents ran at the edge of what was then a very posh neighborhood. I write this tonight from our daughter's apartment, just a few blocks from my mother's original home. In all the years since she died, this is the first time I've been nearby on this anniversary. Sad and happy, all at once.

My mother liked to say that she started working at age five, delivering newspapers along Clinton Avenue. She was just 20 years old when she graduated from Hunter College at the height of the Great Depression. With a German major and a French minor, there weren't many jobs available yet she managed to turn her love of language into a lifelong career. She was one of the first teachers of lipreading in Harlem, a skill that she took with her to Pennsylvania when my parents moved there in 1945, founding the first lipreading school in the Philadelphia area. Coincidence: I married a man with major congenital hearing loss (60% loss in the speech range). My mother called my husband one of the greatest natural lipreaders she'd ever met.

In her late forties, my mother turned her attention to teaching high school English, where she got to spend her days with the age group she loved most--teenagers. She taught for many years at Daniel Boone High School, in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, where she eventually chaired the English department. After she retired, she continued teaching reading and English. She was leaving the business school class she'd just taught when she had a massive stroke on March 26, 1984; she lived for five-and-a-half more years, requiring round-the-clock care, but never losing her sense of humor and or her love affair with cigarettes.

I found a letter she'd written for her funeral in a drawer the day she died. About the young people she so admired, she wrote: "Teenagers are great sources of joy, but most people don't know that. They should take time out to discover this."

One paragraph from her letter stays present across the years, the last sentence so compelling that we made it the epitaph on her gravestone:

My big fight with our society has been against bigotry. It is unfortunately pandemic. I wish I had had a magic formula for eradicating it. I didn't, but I do think I raised people's consciousness about it. So we're different from each other. Good! Let's learn about the differences. They're fascinating. At least I've found them so. This is my legacy:

Love each other despite differences and because of them.

And now my mother's letter in full, which my cousin read at her funeral:

1989 

Dear Family & Friends,

I hope this is not a sad day for you. If I were with you, I would not shed one tear. I would, instead, say that I am glad for her. This is what she wanted and she finally got it. One can live too long and I think I did. When I could no longer work, I felt no need to go on. Life seemed pointless and endless, let alone empty.

My children and grandchildren have been a great source of joy to me. They are beautiful people and should be treated like fine crystal. These are the true values in life. The rest is all hogwash. Along with them were my students. I hope they knew how much I loved them and how I profited from knowing them. Teenagers are great sources of joy, but most people don’t know that. They should take time out to discover this.

Grieve appropriately but not too much. Just be glad we knew each other.

My big fight with our society has been against bigotry. It is unfortunately pandemic. I wish I had had a magic formula for eradicating it. I didn’t, but I do think I raised people’s consciousness about it. So we’re different from each other. Good! Let’s learn about the differences. They’re fascinating. At least I’ve found them so. This is my legacy. Love each other despite differences and because of them.

Let’s not have any more wars. They seem never to solve anything. All they do is make a shortage of men for our beautiful young ladies. O.K., I think I’ve said it all!! Make love, not war, grow and understand. Be happy today and in the future. I wish you all well. I’ve had the best of it—my children, my friends. I owe you all a great deal. I hope I’ve been a good friend to you—I wanted to be.

If I’m in Pottstown, I’m happy. It’s where I wanted to be. It’s not Paradise but it’s been home to me for over 40 years. Brooklyn is where my heart has been.

Your confidences were always safe with me as I’m sure mine were with you. OK—get it over with. Do not cry. I’m relieved—truly. Please respect my things, my books, my art, my collections. I enjoyed them. I hope you do too.

                               Ethel A. Lipnack

 

PS. Try to find an alternative to nursing homes. To do this, you’ll have to take the profit out of them. They’re horrors in their present state. People are segregated by age and they have very little in common. I have found them a terrible home. I’ve done the best I could but that’s not good enough. Had I been in this last mausoleum much longer, I would have gone mad.

Billionaires buying into the news(~papers)

When I started out as a reporter, I was hired by The Pottstown Mercury, the newspaper in my small town by the Schuylkill River and along the Reading Railroad (yes, Monopoly players, there really was a Reading Railroad). The paper was run by Shandy Hill, who lived down the street from us, which is why I knew him, and backed by William M. Hiester (I just did the requisite googling -- I never knew his name until two minutes ago).

Photo credit: Peachhead -- thanks! 

A few years later, the paper was sold to the Ingersoll newspaper chain as part of a trend in the late 1960s: Little local papers were starting to be picked up by larger publishers. Today, it appears to be owned by an investment firm after its latest parent filed for bankruptcy (NB: I'm pulling this info together really quickly so the details on this last bit are subject to greater digging).

This local quake was nothing compared with the latest newspaper news: First in early August of this year, Boston Red Sox owner (and billionaire) John Henry scooped up the Boston Globe for a mere $70 million (after its having been sold to the NY Times 20 years earlier for more than $1.1 billion). That was big news for 48 hours -- until billionaire Jeff Bezos (Amazon et al) bought the Washington Post for $250 million. Now, two-and-a-half months later, billionaire Pierre Omidyar (eBay and a bunch of great stuff) is starting from scratch with a digital-only approach, details TBD, though he's started by partnering with investigative reporter Glenn Greenwald, who has left The Guardian.

The blogs are abuzz trying to make sense of this. (My friend -- and seer -- Nova Spivack has been sending me great links.) These guys (they're all guys so far but maybe Oprah is not far behind) are not the new robber barons, i.e. they're not going after gold mines. They're more like city dumps, in which, they must believe, great riches can be found. No one's got the new model yet; maybe Omidyar's on the right track, starting from scratch, which is what Mathew Ingram says in this good piece, "Battle of the new media billionaires: one trying to save something old, one trying to start something new."

What is a newspaper?

I was chatting with two media advisors earlier today. Clearly, they know a lot about media--both new and old. Witness:

Ostensibly, we were talking about planets, i.e. Lake and Finn's collection of stuffed celestial bodies: the sun, Jupiter, the Moon, "Earf," Mars, "Satur-in," and Mercury, all of which accompanied them out of bed.

We got talking about why Mercury has wings on his feet, which led me to talking about my early career as a reporter at the Pottstown Mercury. 

As soon as I said the word newspaper, I wondered whether they knew what I was talking about. After all, it's been two years since I found them reading one.

"What's a newspaper?" I asked.

"It's something grown-ups look at but don't read," Lake said.

 

The virtual winner: The first Pulitzer to a distributed news organization

In a way, all news organizations are distributed, i.e. you can't really get most breaking news stories without showing up. But newsrooms have been the energy drinks for reporters for forever. As previously reported, I started my reporting career at the Pottstown Mercury in a rectange of six steel desks, three facing three. And keys to the newspaper car in order to go on assignment.

But until this year's Pulitzers were awarded, a truly virtual news operation had never received one. Here's a great story from NY Times reporter Brian Stelter on InsideClimateNews's virtual operations. They received the award for national reporting with their journalists in Washington, Boston (dear beloved city), and New York. Here's their "about" and the description of their wild celebration (plus a couple of other lines0 from Stelter's Times story:

'We’re a virtual organization,” said the publisher of the six-year-old Web site, David Sassoon, from his office in New York. So the celebration took place in a telephone conference call; whatever Champagne flowed, flowed in separate locations.

InsideClimate News may be the leanest news start-up ever to be presented with a Pulitzer, journalism’s highest honor, a prize that is typically awarded to regional and national newspapers. It beat out 50 other entrants and two finalists, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, for the prize.

With a full-time staff of just seven and a nonprofit business model, InsideClimate News exemplifies a new breed of news organization that depends on donations, both from rich charitable foundations and a handful of ordinary readers.

 

 

A woman as editor of the Boston Globe?

No, I've got no inside info nor am I starting a rumor (not deliberately anyway :) but...how 'bout it? With Marty Baron going to the Washington Post where he's replacing a man and whereas he replaced a man here in Boston and as only one newspaper of a major city (New York Times, interestingly the owner of the Globe) has a woman as editor, e.g. Chicago Sun-Times, Miami Herald, Baltimore Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer, and...need I go on...all have men as editors AND insofar as we've just elected our first senator who is a woman in Massachusetts PLUS our neighbors to the north have a slate of all women representing them, one has to ask: Isn't it time?

(And before someone pipes up with this: Yes, women have been publishers of major papers for a long time.)

Ever since Margaret Fuller nabbed the greatest number of headlines of her time (famously writing 250 articles in 18 months for the New York Herald Tribune following her stint as the first editor of The Dial), the path to the editorial top of newspapers has been paved with testosterone, often very good testorsterone, mind you, but still, it is 2012.

A little googling reveals that a woman did edit a Boston newspaper at one time. 170 years ago, according to the New York State Library's Women in Journalism: Newspaper Milestones:

Cornelia Walter was editor of the Boston Transcript and the considered to be the first woman to edit a major newspaper in the United States. One of her reporting highlights came on August 3, 1842, during a race riot in Philadelphia, in which she chronicled the plight of the black citizens who had been victimized and left homeless.

Meanwhile, I'm very happy to report that the paper where I got my start, The Pottstown Mercury, has as its editor, Nancy March.

So, Boston Globe Search Committee, how about it? Can you live up to the great standard set by The Merc? (Yeah, I know, The Times is a tad more impressive to some of you rubes...)

 

Reading the Sunday paper

And who says newspapers are dead? Not these two-yr-olds.

 

What's wrong with this picture?

Do you see what I see?

And now from the inventor of crash blossoms, "snailpapers"

Further to my "Crash blossoms" post, I received this comment below from Dan Bloom, inventor of the meme, a comment that is just so delicious that I've elevated it to its own post. Now he's invented "Snailpaper," which takes about a quarter of a second to figure out. Terrific. Go, Dan!

As the goofy guy who coined Crash blossoms , and i am named BLOOM, a blooming idiot if ever there was one, here's my latest coinage and please blog on this too it is MORE important than crash blossoms and i was JOKING about the term and it took OFF, i have no idea why.... DAN BLOOM in Taiwan...I wrote THE SNAILPAPER STATEMENT today, and here's a preview:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that while the Digital Age is upon us fast and furious, the print newspaper -- hereafter dubbed the "snailpaper" -- shall persevere as a good daily read, a fascinating look at the world around us and a valuable tool for understanding oped pundits and above the fold headlines. Sure, the dear snailpaper will also be seen as a useful tool

for wrapping fish at the Fulton Fish Market or lining the bird cage in the den, but all kidding aside -- har! har! -- the daily snailpaper can hold its head high and be certain of its place in the culture. While news migrates in pixels and bytes to the Internet at an exponential rate, piling breaking story upon breaking story and turning everyone and his mother into a 24/7 news freak and RSS aggregator, the plodding snailpaper will nevertheless remain the bedrock of analysis and insight, from sea to shining sea, delivered at a snail's pace, yes, read at a snail's pace, yes, and absorbed, word for word -- on glorius printed paper! white newsprint reflecting inked letters! -- at a snail's pace, yes, as long as the Republic of Letters shall live."

Full blast here:

http://zippy1300.blogspot.com/2010/02/snailpaper-statement-mini-version-by.html

Stop(ped) the presses at 140 papers and counting

Ian Lamont, editor of The Standard, alerts us to this great/concerning/comprehensive "Best blog on the business of news(papers): Reflections of a Newsosaur. If you're not reading it, start now." I've done a few tear-stained posts here, including referencing Paper Cuts which the Newsosaur mentions as its blogger, Erica Smith, is keeping a map of where newspapers are disappearing. As per the title, 140 in 2009 gone, kaput.

For any of us who got our start getting high on newsprint and printers' ink (legal but so addictive that at 16 I preferred reporting from 3-11 at The Pottstown Mercury to going to the drive-in to meet boys), the transformation from packed newsroom and the ca-thunk of presses churning out papers to sitting alone and googling for sources--while charming in its own right and oh-so-efficient--is nevertheless unnerving and filled with loss.

In defense of Margaret

Clip of review of Margaret Fuller's 1845 book, The Broadway Journal

Thanks to Princeton, Massachusetts, Town Moderator Harry Pape, I've learned that my letter to The Boston Globe, standing up for the reputation of Margaret Fuller, saw the light of print on Sun, Nov. 8. For reasons unknown to me, it doesn't seem to be online so I hereby offer it--and the original, a study in editing for those who like to learn about such things. Either way, I am very pleased that June Wulff, who writes and edits for The Globe, plucked mine from the slush.

As published, "Fuller in full," Boston Sunday Globe, Section N, P. 2, November 8, 2009:

Matthew Guerrieri Guerrieri identifies Margaret Fuller, the brilliant, widely published author from the 1840s, foreign correspondent for Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, editor of The Dial, the translator of Goethe, and author of "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," as the "sexy muse" of the Transcendentalists ("Beethoven's Early Believers," Arts & Entertainment, October 25). Trivialization hardly describes his dismal description. Fuller has been the subject of doctoral dissertations and biographies, has an academic society devoted to her, is taught as a major figure in American literature, and will be honored next year on her bicentennial. Sexy muse? In your dreams.

JESSICA LIPNACK
Co-chair, Margaret Fuller Bicenten-
nial Committee in New England
West Newton

As submitted:

To the editor:

No offense but is Matthew Guerrieri a bit of a "tool?" Fair's fair: In "Beethoven's Early Believers," October 25, 2009, Guerrieri identifies Margaret Fuller, the brilliant, most widely published author of the 1840s, the foreign correspondent for Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, the editor of The Dial, the translator of Goethe, and the author of Woman in the Nineteenth Century, along with many other books, as the "sexy muse" of the Transcendentalists.

Trivialization hardly describes his dismissal of the woman around whom intellectuals and artists of the 1830s and 1840s, both in the US and in Europe, revolved. Not to mention that Fuller has been the subject of numerous doctoral dissertations, has an academic society devoted to her, is taught as a major figure in American literature, and will be honored on her bicentennial next year, 2010.

Oh, I almost forgot. She did all of this without benefit of a long life (she only lived to forty), wrote entirely by hand (sorry, Mr. Guerrieri, unlike you, she didn't have a keyboard to make it go fast or the web to look up salient details), and spoke six languages.

Sexy muse? In your dreams.

Jessica Lipnack
Co-chair, Margaret Fuller Bicentennial Committee in New England, and author of The Persuasion, a novel about Fuller
West Newton, MA