gloriousness and gloriousosity
A giant among bitches.
I held off posting anything the day I heard Halberstam died, mostly because my connection to him was deep, though in a strange and deeply personal way. Aside from HST, he was among the first journos I took the time to learn something about: during my first real writing job with the Tampa Tribune stringing nonsense education stories and doing my very best to ruin them, I was so completely clueless about the profession (moreso than I am now, and that's really saying something), on a kind of whim I grabbed Once Upon a Distant War, William Prochnau's book on the bright young things who went from merely covering the invasion of Southeast Asia to writing the real history of that godawful time (in fact, I had the book under my arm in the off chance I could impress the sad little editor lady I was writing for during our first meet...and one of the reasons my feelings about Halberstam remain so strong was that The Ex, who had some vague designs on photojournalism, was there with me in the Trib breakroom that day too).
I remember being impressed by Prochnau's portrait of Halberstam, all brilliance and nerdy glasses, and I did the best I could to take a moment to read him whenever I ran across his stuff again. I was stoked when I'd heard had started writing for ESPN.com, and I still vividly remember the piece he wrote on Allen Iverson during the 76ers run at the title in 2001, which was about the time I had really started following the NBA again. Halberstam's death has pulled at me a little, mostly because of all those old weird memories, but also because the way it happened seems so undeserving of the man.
This morning, though, feels a little more hopeful: Democracy Now! had Bill Moyers on, a giant among bitches, for a full hour, in what was the most magnificient interview I've ever heard Amy Goodman give - by the last twenty minutes, you get a sense that what you're really listening into is a couple of old friends having some serious convo over coffee. Here's the link to the transcript, but you should really take some time this evening or during yr lunch break to listen to the whole thing. It's glorious.
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