(no subject)
National Geographic is a goddamn treasure. Dad and Nancy have a subscription, and I devour it when I come up here. But last time, I read an issue that stuck with me so much that...well, read it and maybe you'll see why.
I am consistently impressed by the quality of writing in Esquire and National Geographic.
Michael has a subscription to the first, and I want one to NG at some point. The article, by Paul Salopek, is about Africa, about Darfur and the Sahel, a line that stretches from shore to shore. Salopek was captured and held in Sudan for five weeks, and still went back to finish the story. He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and it shows. The writing is incredible, and it's stayed with me, for what reason I can't say. You should all read it, even though it is pretty long. But it's worth it. It probably won't change your life, but you'll come away from it having learned something you might not have known before, even if it's just someone's insight on a situation from which most of us are so very far removed, it may as well be alien. (If you disagree, you can have a free shot at me, or just my apologies.)
The Sahel is a line.
But it is also a crack in the heart-a tightrope, a brink, a ledge. See how its people walk: straight-backed on paths of red dust, placing one foot carefully before the other, as if balanced upon a knife edge. The Sahel is a bullet's trajectory. It is the track of rains that fall but never touch the sand. It is a call to prayer and a call for your blood, and for me a desert road without end.
I am consistently impressed by the quality of writing in Esquire and National Geographic.
Michael has a subscription to the first, and I want one to NG at some point. The article, by Paul Salopek, is about Africa, about Darfur and the Sahel, a line that stretches from shore to shore. Salopek was captured and held in Sudan for five weeks, and still went back to finish the story. He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and it shows. The writing is incredible, and it's stayed with me, for what reason I can't say. You should all read it, even though it is pretty long. But it's worth it. It probably won't change your life, but you'll come away from it having learned something you might not have known before, even if it's just someone's insight on a situation from which most of us are so very far removed, it may as well be alien. (If you disagree, you can have a free shot at me, or just my apologies.)
The Sahel is a line.
But it is also a crack in the heart-a tightrope, a brink, a ledge. See how its people walk: straight-backed on paths of red dust, placing one foot carefully before the other, as if balanced upon a knife edge. The Sahel is a bullet's trajectory. It is the track of rains that fall but never touch the sand. It is a call to prayer and a call for your blood, and for me a desert road without end.