todd m. sweet

Book Review: “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets”

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I know David Simon’s work from Homicide (the TV show), The Wire, Generation Kill & Treme, but I had never read this book. Quite simply, he is an amazing writer who clearly understands the streets of Baltimore and the business of murder. You can see the foundation for so many of his future works in this 600-page true-crime procedural. Excellent book.

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Social Networking Serendipity

Yesterday a friend posted an incredible photo on Facebook that hit me quite hard. It was a Pulitzer Prize winning photo from 2006 taken by Todd Heisler of The Rocky Mountain News. Caption:

The night before the burial of her husband’s body, Katherine Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his body for the last time. The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer and played songs that reminded her of “Cat,” and one of the Marines asked if she wanted them to continue standing watch as she slept. “I think it would be kind of nice if you kept doing it,” she said. “I think that’s what he would have wanted.”

The photo itself is wrenching for numerous reasons. The stoic presence of the Marine watching over his fallen comrade and his comrade’s wife. The wife wanting to spend as much time as possible with her fallen husband before he is laid to rest. I’ve paid very close attention to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and frankly was surprised I had never seen this series of images before.

A couple hours passed and I received a message from a close friend about the image. The Marine standing guard was a close relative. He offered a few more details regarding the circumstances, but asked to keep any info private out of respect for his relative, who was not identified in the image. Shortly after that my friend, photographer Jason Lindsey, posted a comment about Todd Heisler. He and Heisler went to ISU together, worked together, and remain good friends.

I had a hard time wrapping my head around this series of events. Amazing, award winning photo, and I have a two-degrees-of-separation connection to a subject and the photographer. Sometimes the world is indeed a small place, made smaller by this crazy thing we call social networking.

Best Albums of 2011

Perhaps the name of this list is a bit of a misnomer. Truthfully, this is a list of albums containing my favorite songs of the year. Regardless, here it is, in no particular order.

• Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
• The Head & The Heart - The Head & The Heart
• The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient
• My Morning Jacket - Circuital
• Eddie Vedder - Ukulele Songs
• The Lonely Forest - Arrows
• Youth Lagoon - The Year of Hibernation
• Bon Iver - Bon Iver
• M83 - Hurry Up We’re Dreaming (double album)

If you’re on Spotify I’ve created a playlist featuring all of these albums in their entirety.