Notes From The Starting Line

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A signed photo from Captain Saunders on the S.S. Melville JacobyToday brings a bloom of beginnings from a tangle of endings.

Perhaps that’s not surprising. I suppose beginnings and endings all occupy coterminous space. And as I write, I’m struck by how my own beginnings and my own endings weave around one another and, often, between two places — Los Angeles and Portland.

But I’m writing today to recognize one simple beginning: the redesigned, relaunched version of my website*, upon which, presumably, you’re reading these words. I do so hoping to re-introduce the world to my own background as a writer and journalist and as a storyteller, and to re-pique your curiosity about Melville Jacoby, whose adventures, romance and experiences as a journalist in World War II-era China and the Philippines will be the subject of a forthcoming book.

Thinking about Mel, I’m reminded that a year ago today, two friends of mine and I clambered across miles of rocky shoreline beneath the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Despite a cloudless sky, sharp breezes whipped our bodies as we strode along the edge of a continent. In search of history, we found rusted strips of metal that nearly fifty years of waves had torn from a ship once known as the S.S. Melville Jacoby.
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The Thinkingest Episode 6 – Patrick Nork on Creativity

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(Source: Patrick Nork | twitter.com/well_inked_hand)

(Source: Patrick Nork)

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Freelance writing is far from the only game in town when it comes to striking out on one’s own as a creative professional. For the most recent edition of The Thinkingest I sat down with Portland-based visual artist and creative consultant Patrick Nork to talk about going into business for oneself as a creative professional. Nork is the proprietor of Well-Inked Hand, which provides creative problem solving, design and other services. He is also an accomplished printmaker and a board member at Print Arts Northwest.
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No Exit – How Low Car Life Will Save Portland When The Big One Strikes

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The eastside approaches to Portland's Fremont Bridge are among the many pieces of transportation infrastructure vulnerable to a major earthquake.This story originally appeared as the cover story for the December, 2012 edition of Portland Afoot, Portland’s 10-minute news magazine about buses, bikes & low-car life.

Very, very slowly, about 29 miles beneath you, 50 quadrillion tons of bedrock are bending toward the day when low-car life in Portland ceases to be optional.

Someday, maybe tomorrow, a 700-mile stretch of Northwest coast known as the Cascadia Subduction Zone will rupture with a quake equal in strength or stronger than the one that struck Japan last year. Such a temblor, or even a more moderate one centered on one of three faults under the city, will likely shatter Portland’s brittle infrastructure.

Even the bridges and overpasses that aren’t immediately damaged by swinging counterweights or sliding soils (which are likely to hit every major bridge except the Burnside and Marquam) will be shut down for inspections, shutting off food and fuel deliveries to much of the city for at least two days. And the blockages may last a long time if inspectors can’t reach the structures, or if aftershocks start the whole process over again.

That would be bad.

Interstate 84, Interstate 5 and the Willamette and Columbia rivers may all be impassable, city documents report. But those damages would only deepen the problem that is likely to follow even a moderate earthquake near the city: a crippling shortage of motor fuel. Continue reading →

Pearl Harbor as a Reporter Experienced it in Manila

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Today marks the 71st anniversary of the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. Popular history places Dec. 7, 1941 — the day that would live in infamy — as the start of the U.S. involvement in World War II. Of course, the situation was more complicated than that. Reporters like Melville Jacoby saw war coming for some time. They witnessed rising tensions in the days and weeks that preceded Pearl Harbor and speculated when (and where), not if, war would come.

In his role as Time Magazine‘s Far East bureau chief, Mel relayed those reports that seemed most credible and his analysis of the news collected across Asia to the magazine’s editors in New York City. These editors, in turn, synthesized Mel’s cables for news updates in Time (and, at times, Luce’s other publications, LIFE and Fortune) and drew upon them as background for future stories.

This week, as December 7 approached, I tweeted bits of the cables Mel wrote during that last week of “peace.” Now, I’d like to share pieces of what Mel cabled the day of the attacks (which, because the Philippines are on the other side of the International Date Line, meant it was Dec. 8, 1941 when Manila heard about the attacks).

At first, Mel cabled, the the gravity of the situation didn’t seem to register in the Filipino capital:

“Manila has not yet digested the fact of war. Balloon and toy salesmen and vendors on the streets with extra editions are just appearing as fully equipped soldiers are appearing.”

That first cable, sent from Manila at 10 a.m. to Time‘s David Hulburd, confirmed bombing raids at three locations across the Philippines, though at that point there hadn’t yet been raids, or even alarms, in the city. However, American military officials prepared to fight.

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Introducing “Monsieur Big-Hat”

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Most of my posts about Melville Jacoby focus squarely on nonfiction. He was a journalist. I am a journalist. Though Mel worked for a time as a broadcaster and was handy with a camera, he was first and foremost a writer. So it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that he dabbled in fiction a bit.

Some of that fiction is pretty good, though it was never published. Take “Monsieur Big-Hat.” That’s the short story Mel wrote in 1940 while he was working in Chongqing, China’s wartime capital (then known as Chungking). Written at a time when the Japanese were pounding Chongqing with bomb upon bomb, “Monsieur Big-Hat” describes an American correspondent’s encounter with a French diplomat who was just about to leave China to return to Paris after years away. The two meet during an air raid in a shelter dug deep beneath Chongqing. Just as dark news reports arrive from France, the diplomat — so eager to return to his wife and son — makes a fateful decision amid the rattled nerves and thunderous blasts of the raid. It’s a poignant glimpse of life during wartime with descriptions of the attacks so vivid that they were clearly informed by Jacoby’s own experience in the Chinese city.

Mel also took a number of compelling photos of the air raids on Chongqing. I took the story and put it together with some of these photos in a short eBook that’s now available online (an MP3 audiobook is also available). I’ve given the book as a gift to everyone who contributed to One Last Assignment, but now anyone else who wants a copy can get one, too. It’s available for just $2 in a variety of formats at my new store at lascheratlarge.com/store and on most of the other places online where one buys books. That’s currently the only item on sale in my store, but I hope to add other projects soon.

However, if you’re looking for something lovely as a christmas gift, any shot from my entire photography portfolio can now be ordered as a print online. Click here to see those photos or place an order.