how to fit a 20 piece band on a 10 foot stage

The Winter Jazzfest, January 2009

(Thanks, memend, for the happy new gear.)

The Bones of Mendihuaca, in Winter VQR

Colombian military escort the forensic team in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta.

In its Winter 2009 issue, the Virginia Quarterly Review publishes my report on the exhumation of victims of paramilitary violence in Colombia. Complex, gruesome and under-reported, the injustices of Colombia's vast paramilitary power remain unresolved. Here's what happens when the trappings of order are cynically deployed in a lawless land.

Maira Alejandra Martínez Suarez is sweeping away another layer of dirt when the bullets come flying overhead. She’s twenty-six years old, and with her French braid tucked under a brand-new baseball cap, she looks more like a rec-league softball pitcher than a forensic anthropologist under fire. She grabs her shovel, paintbrush, and dustpan and, standing in an open grave, peeks over the ledge of moist earth. She scans for incoming fire across the clearing dotted with body-sized rectangular pits. Her Colombian army bodyguards, belly-down, shoot out into the surrounding brush. A ranch corral is too far for escape. She crouches, comes eye to eye with a silver tooth in a half-buried skull and starts to pray, lying in a grave she’s digging.

Subscription required to read the full story. Better yet, support VQR with a newsstand purchase.

Jasper the friendly ghost

NYC, December 2008

Jacob's Ladder NYC

Jacob's Ladder, NYC

Outside bloggin no more

I'm ending my stint here as a contributor to Outside's blog, but look for more bylines in the magazine. A final field test entry:

Field Tested: BaileyWorks Messenger Bag

Was it North Face that pioneered expedition-class gear as casual wear? I can't pinpoint it, but some time in the 1990's, I remember seeing people walking down the streets of New York with scuba gear on a rainy day. Hey, I'm all for testing products in extreme conditions, but there comes a point where pro-grade should be left to the pros.

Enter the BaileyWorks SuperPro Messenger Bag.

The Portsmouth, New Hampshire, bag designer describes this baby as "Built for the Working Bike Messenger" and loads it up with a Cordura shell, waterproof lining, a blink-light clip and reflective strip, and options for customization when ordering online. More importantly, it has an innovative "split strap," which is a kind of extra harness that snugs the bag across your chest and keeps the one-shoulder bag from flopping forward. The strap is reversible, so you can wear the bag on your right or left shoulder.

The SuperPro runs from $145 in small to $185 for XX-large (presumably for that extra yard of pricey Cordura?). And, true, there ain't a blueprint, estate deal or urgent law brief it can't handle.

Now, are you a professional bike messenger, racing through the streets of New York, Chicago and San Fran on a tarot-card-studded fixie? Probably not. You're probably like me. I'm a daily bike commuter lugging my laptop, lunch and papers to the office, on the same steel 18-speed I use for weekend warrior rides. For a messenger bag, I use this:

It's a piece of swag (thanks, Salon.com) from the Cartoon Network, promoting a show called Out of Jimmy's Head. It's canvas. It has lots of pockets: two on the front plus one on each side, plus a zippered pocket inside, and some loops for pens. It has a decent Velcro closure for the flap that isn't so aggressive it rips your sweater off. The strap is adjustable and, uh, reversible. What's more, the bag is completely waterproof -- when I wrap it, or its contents, in a plastic grocery bag from my local Albertsons.

And as nice as the BaileyWorks bag is, I'm not going to trade in my trusty satchel for it.

--Matthew Fishbane

Q&A with Dean Karnazes

Seven Days in the Desert
DEAN KARNAZES talks about racing in the most extreme conditions on earth.

The Ultramarathon Man wants to be the first person to complete all four legs of the 4 Deserts race series in one year. He survived the Gobi March and the Atacama Crossing, which he won last March. Next up, the Sahara Race—scheduled to begin this Sunday in Bahariya, Egypt—and the Last Desert, at the end of November, in Antarctica.

"My intention is to not necessarily win any of the individual races (the Atacama win was a fluke), but to pace myself to successfully make it through all four," Karnazes said in an email. "I also threw in the Badwater Ultramarathon after Gobi because I wanted to run one of the great deserts in North America."

He took fourth there. Outside caught up with Karnazes just before his departure for Cairo and the 135-degree heat and grueling soft sand of the Sahara.

What's the format of the race?

The 4 Desert series is always the same. They start the race at 8 in the morning, so you do whatever you can to get the finish line. You're on the clock. It's like the Tour de France. You can wait and try to run at night, but the advantage is going to belong to someone who can handle the heat during the day.

How do you plan on tackling the Saharan heat?

Read the rest at Outside Online.


(photo courtesy Dean Karnazes)

Masquerade

Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Tragic Hero

An addendum to the Earl Blumenauer saga. The New York Times noticed that Congressman Blumenauer had inserted the bike commuter act into the $700 billion bailout bill.

But they also noted that Congressman Blumenauer voted against the bill.

Bicyclers, collect your $20-a-month credit starting in January, and think of our bike-lapel-pin-wearing hero when you do.