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July 07, 2008

London Calling

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On July 1st, I stepped down from my editorial position at Allvoices. With two months to pack up our home and move to the United Kingdom, I couldn't have had a better reason to punch out. I'll be spending the next eight weeks at home writing and editing a couple of terrific books while we get everything ready. To make the transition back to book editing, after being immersed in the world of blogs and online periodicals is interesting to note, (as a format exercise), given the direction that this kind of work now moves.

Leaving my office in San Francisco's financial district (pictured above) for the very last time, I couldn't resist capturing the signage of the cylinder shaped newsstand that sits at the building's front entrance. Housing not only my ex-employer, but also a Reuters office, and the headquarters of the local Jewish weekly, The J, my former firm's new abode hosts an above average number of news publishers for such a small, albeit significant, American city.

Mother Jones Entrance

Just before I left, however, I received a call from the very first periodical I ever worked for, in between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, in 1982. Serving as a summer intern for the legendary Mother Jones (whose building, pictured above, is three blocks west of my former office) has earned me a semi-annual email or phone call from what sounds like another MoJo intern, keeping tabs on alumni. "You're a writer, right?" asked the young man who called me. "Yes," I told him. "And an editor, too."

June 25, 2008

Local Levantine

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1 of 4 photographs of our neighborhood, featured in a new photo essay of mine published today in Zeek. Focusing on the imbrication of the Middle Eastern in San Francisco life, the article is a brief portrait of an increasingly multicultural city, bisected by two regional conflicts, and immigrants living peacefully together, side by side.

June 23, 2008

American Oriental

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The main supermarket in 29 Palms, California, home to the largest Marines base in the U.S.

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Back from Iraq, the troops bring home a taste for middle eastern food, American-style.

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The new desert couture: three keffiyehs, next to a U.S. flag in a surplus store down the street.

June 21, 2008

Desert Camouflage

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Jennifer and Joel. Joshua Tree, 2008.

May 19, 2008

California Dreaming

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A Shell station adjacent to a U.S. Marine Corps vehicle depot.  May 2008.