A friend and I had some work to finish up so we rented a cottage on the Kenya shore. It looks a lot like paradise, conventionally defined. As you may know, the fighting in Kenya demolished the country’s tourism industry and we appeared to be the only guests staying at a very nice beach.
My friend and I both spend much of our time writing pitches to various magazines and read deep into the entrails of their responses, when we get responses. At the shore we were on the receiving end of the pitches and I can’t say I liked it. Each time we stepped off the cottage porch –a rarely violated, but unspoken barrier— fishmongers approached wondering what we’d like for dinner tonight and tomorrow night and, if we’d care to say so, the night after that. They carried long legged octopi tied together with reeds. Fish they’d just speared hanged from their belt. Gaze a second too long in the wrong direction and someone held a cephalopod aloft.
If I had my way with editors, they would respond quickly. Along with their yes or no, one can dream, they’d suggest topics of future interest. If a fish monger had his way, I’d ignore his friends and listen to him explain how the fundamentals of capitalism work in this particular case (he finds sea creatures and sells them to us) then lay out our menu for the next few days.
Of course, when we bought fish, it had nothing to do with who had the freshest fish or who nagged us best. It had quite a bit to do with who happened to be walking by the minute we decided ‘we want fish.’ It’s not hard to find a parallel to my own professional situation.
