"I am a Tortured Writer."

This, above, is a handwritten note I've put up in my office, to remind myself of my limitations.

I am a slow writer, one who pores over sentences again and again, continually parsing words and switching everything around until the deadline is long past due. I recently mentioned this to a friend who works at a newswire -- where you have less than an hour to turn around breaking news -- that I could never do what she does. And I have no idea how the kids at Gawker Media crank out 12 posts a day. I'd rather work at a monthly. Or something quarterly. Something long-lead.

It's not the pressure, but I have a constant urge to fiddle with the written word. And you should see what happens -- or, more accurately what doesn't happen -- when writer's block hits. For those interested in more about this area, he sure to pick up the fascinating "The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain", by Alice Weaver Flaherty.

I was reminded of this again while reading the forthcoming book "Made to Stick", by Chip and Dan Heath (review TK). Early on, they quote Ed Cray, an erstwhile journalist who is now a communications professor at USC. There, he relates that "[t]he longer you work on a story, the more you find yourself losing direction. No detail is too small. You just don't know what your story is anymore."

Too true-- it's something I need to work on, and part of why I started this blog, to help with the writing process. I've spent far too long writing and rewriting this post already.

"Character is a Psychosis. Integrity is a Complex."

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
-- Jonathan Swift, 1706

One of my favorite books has always been the Pulitzer Prize-winning "A Confederacy of Dunces", John Kennedy Toole's foray into the mind of Ignatius J. Reilly, an intelligent and portly man-child in 1960's New Orleans. So I was heartened to see Peter Hyman raise the seasonal question of whether the book would ever become a film over at Slate yesterday.

Four years ago, when I was writing at a film site, I actually had the chance to read the then-current draft of the screenplay. My main hypothesis was that it was destined to fall into the category of "good book, terrible film". In some sense, I still feel that way, honestly. But I'd give an arm and a leg to still see it made.

I still think the opening to the script was grand. As I wrote at FilmJerk at the time: "The start to Steven Soderbergh and Scott Kramer's treatment of the film is sure to cause [the viewer to gape, grin, laugh out loud, and shake his head in wonderment, in the words of Walker Percy]. "What in the world does the title of this ludicrous movie mean?," cries Ignatius off-screen as he, and we, see the credits of "Dunces" unspooling at a children's matinee. Continuing the very "Mystery Science Theater 3000" moment, Ignatius then calls the director a hack extraordinaire, blows a raspberry at those involved with the writing and, when the producer credits are unveiled, yells out, "That's not a good sign; the more producers, the more feeble-minded the production!" It's a great start to the screenplay, one which aptly sets up what is to come and will invariably draw the audience in."

Given what has since happened to the city of New Orleans 15 months ago, this would be a fabulous time to re-start the journey from page to screen-- to make it a tribute, in part, to a fallen city. It's going to be a hard sell to audiences, I'm sure, but the potential is there for this to be a majestic -- albeit goofy -- film.

I continue to hold out hope it makes it to the screen, someday.

(Disclosure: Peter and I both worked at the same PR agency eight years ago)

Really, You're Delightful

I have fallen into the verbal rut of saying people are delightful. Half of the time I mean it; the other half, notsomuch.

If you're reading this and I've called you delightful in the recent past, nothing to worry about-- you're in the former category, obviously.

Not Leavin' on a Jet Plane

Uncle, uncle. Unlike some others I know, I am not cut out to be a road warrior; I've long battled a fear of flying. Hell, the joke is that I can't even handle being on an airplane unless there is a promise of palm trees and tropical drinks on the other end.

But, in the past two weeks, I've been forced to make two one-day trips to somewhat-distant cities via plane. Nothing beats getting up at an ungodly hour to take the first possible flight out, and return back to NYC less than eight hours later. At the end of each trip, I was barely coherent and locked in a fetal position in the cab ride home.

You want to see a wonderful sight, really?: Watch me during take-off and you'll see that my knuckles turn an odd shade of white as I grip the armrests for dear life. I'm sure that wild-eyed look of panic I display only adds to that wonderful scene.

Whittling the Weekend Away

I am hoping this weekend will pass quickly-- but I'm not in a rush for a new work week to begin or anything like that, nah. At approximately midnight Sunday, the fourth-season finale for "The Wire" will spring onto the scene. And I will be watching, rapturously. And, most likely, more than once. I can't wait to see what transpires, the build-up has been amazing.

This is not the first time I've written about this HBO seies, nor will it likely to be the last. But there is a certain sadness in knowing, in little less than 24 hours time, I'll have to wait more than a year to see the next season. And, the more I see what series creator David Simon intends to do with the fifth season -- check out this interview in Slate that ran Friday -- I'm counting the days.

(And how sad is it that I've been holing myself up in my apartment all weekend, sorta, watching a mini-marathon of the first season?)

Time to Make Today's Papers

Last April, I highlighted the first thing I read each morning-- Today's Papers, from Slate. It's a crisp, straight summary of what the major U.S. newspapers (The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal) feature on their front pages each day. To say it's invaluable is a major understatement.

Back in August, Eric Umansky -- then the editor -- announced he was leaving and that Slate would be having a "bake-off" between three writers for the feature's editorship. To absolutely no fanfare, Daniel Politi began November 1 as the new editor. A writer living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, his first effort writing TP came in November 2004 and, before officially taking on the role, had written 70 editions of the feature.

If you haven't already, sign up for the free daily e-mail-- and be sure tell Daniel he's doing a fine job, which he is. It's yeoman's work, as this 2003 Mediabistro feature on Umansky illustrates.

If I might make a suggestion for Slate? I'd love to see the site develop a sister newsletter to this one, examining the business pages of the U.S. papers as well-- I'd sign up for that.

The Great Coffee War of 2006

Talk about being overcaffeinated: Soon, four different coffee shops will battle it out on East Ninth Street and Second Avenue in New York City. This coffee connoisseur's paradise finds each within 200 square feet of each other.

Prior to today, it was a two-way battle between the chain, Starbucks, and the indie underdog, Mudspot. Today sees the opening of the second Max Brenner outlet in New York, housed in the spot that Starbucks was a year ago and now directionally opposite the retail giant on the south side of the street. And -- according to the sign I read last night -- Veselka is now expanding its operations several doors down, opening its own coffee shop directly opposite the Mudspot.

Talk about craziness, as well as market oversaturation. We'll see who is standing within a year, but my hope is that the plucky and enterprising Mudspot, which I have a lot of love for, continues to thrive.

"Ghost" in the Machine

As I had mentioned earlier, I have been reading "The Ghost Map", Steven Johnson's look into the 1854 London cholera epidemic. Now that I've finished it, I can say it's a fine book, notwithstanding the extended passages involving fecal matter and Johnson's habit of wandering in places.

A medical mystery chronicling an eight-day outbreak that touched almost every family in the Broad Street area, Johnson uses this event both as a focal point for discussing the evolution of cities and how this event helped to change how we combat large-scale epidemics. One begat the other-- the infrastructure of London helped the cholera breed in 1854. The end chapters, which looks at the future could hold in disease management, are even more eerie and chilling.

As Johnson himself writes in his blog, "So many of the issues that define the modern world today -- the runaway growth of megacities, environmental crises, fears of apocalyptic epidemics, digital mapping, the need for clean water, urban terror, the rise of amateur expertise -- are there, in embryo, in the Broad Street outbreak." Talk about a giant premise, one that he ultimately tackles well.

To me, though, the most eye-opening part of his book comes towards the end when he discusses what could happen in the future. Noting that by 2015, the largest cities are expected to be Tokyo, Mumbai, Dhaka, Sao Paulo and Dehli -- astonishingly, each with populations of more than 20 million -- he writes, "the megacities of the twenty-first century will have to learn all over again the lessons that London muddled through in the nineteenth." We are left with the impression that cholera could strike a major city again, and be even more deadly. Also intriguing is his idea that global warming and the energy crunch "will have disruptive effects on existing cities in the coming decades".

Those expecting only the blow-by-blow of what happened in 1854 will ultimately be disappointed. It's more than that. It's also not the normal Johnson polemic-- it's a large departure from his earlier works, and an improvement. I would love to see him tackle this vein, the historical thriller, again.

Read Like Me

For those who have been asking about what I read online, I've made my Bloglines feed public. You can find it here. It's very unorganized, but tell me if I'm missing something I should be reading.

Already Over: Sunday Brunch

I've now giving up on weekend brunch.

Forgive me, but I've never really understood the purpose of this New York city staple.

You wake up, still a bit groggy from the previous night's excursions, and struggle to make it to that weekend's brunch destination. This even though it's the early afternoon. You arrive and hope that everyone else will make it, so that your reservation isn't ganked -- my apologies, 'gank' is my new favorite word -- by another. You make small talk and your mildew-embedded mind tries to catch up with the conversation. Everyone looks like they're struggling to get through this endeavor.

The check comes and you gawk at how much you've paid for so little; you're still malnourished. And, after awkward goodbyes, you go home to be non-productive. Really, more than anything, you crave a nap.

I hope that whomever came up with the idea of brunch was dragged into the public square, and drawn and quartered in full view of all the other townsfolk. Seriously, I hate the idea that much. From now on, I'm going to leisurely grab a coffee and a newspaper-- at my own pace.