21 Days To Nieman

Mark Singer in Somewhere in America: One thing I'm not on the lookout for is the proverbial "colorful" or "weird" character or narrative, especially now that exotic behavior of the spurious, ready-for-reality-T.V. variety has become ubiquitous. What does strike me as authentic is the degree to which America, in this new century, has become a land of deep unease. Increasingly, I'm drawn to stories about how people, one way or another, are earnestly trying to hold on to something — whether it's the "right" to pray at a high school football game or skinny-dip on someone else's property or promote cockfighting or wave the Confederate flag ro refuse to pledge allegiance to the American flag. …

The notion that we necessarily have a common story now strikes me as naive, but that hasn't stopped me from looking for, and hoping to find, whatever it is that does connect us. I am a pathologically optimistic person: not that I believe everything's going to turn out just swell, but that hope doesn't hurt. Americans are notorious for their ravenous appetites, and I can't help, reflexively, wanting/hoping for me. So, perhaps quaintly, I still want to go to a place, somewhere on the map, where someone has a story to tell. That a tale matters to its teller usually means that it also matters to me.