Years ago I wrote a column declaring that everything about autumn is cinematic. The golden light, the painted sets, the sweaters — you take your pick. It’s a time to go apple-picking and antiquing and driving through golden countrysides in search of gourds. (Early fall is, anyway. In November, I wish I could crawl into a log for the next four months.)

Our little family unit thought Sunday would be a great day to load the big kayak on the car roof and go up to Chain o’ Lakes State Park, which delivers pretty much what its name promises. It’s a string of kettle lakes connected by shallow channels, excellent paddling water from one end to another, although I’m partial to the channels — lots of wildlife up close, excellent birding.

We went to a lake at the end and launched the boat. After our usual squabble about which end of the lake was the outlet, we found it and started down. Twenty feet in: A beaver dam. Not a big one, just a couple wrist-size sticks bound together with mud. Alan got out, moved it aside, and dragged us over the mud hump. A few feet later: Another one. Another sticky portage. By the third I said, “Let’s drag this thing back the other way, reload it on the car and go down to the middle of the chain. This is ridiculous.” It made me think of a movie, all right: “The African Queen.”

We did so. Sand Lake, the middle lake, was much nicer. We paddled the perimeter — look, a diving duck; look, a heron — and set up the channel. Twenty feet in: Gravel scraped the bottom. Jeebus frickin kreesto, are we that fat? We are not. Although the mighty family truckster kayak has more of a keel than the classy, expensive one Alan calls his own, this was something new. Then I took a closer look around, and remembered we haven’t had significant rain in nearly a month. Water plants that normally lap at the water’s surface were standing inches out of it, looking sort of wilted.

We backed out and went to a picnic area for turkey sandwiches. It was very cinematic.

The turkey was the leftovers from a t-breast Alan smoked on the grill Friday afternoon. Another very movie-ish thing to do. Emma and Alex came over for dinner. Emma quashed the hot rumor du week in the newsroom — that “an L.A. agent” had called the paper, wanting her number. No, it was just a guy in L.A. who handles publicity for several C-list celebrities who likes to talk to her. No overnight-sensationing for E., alas. So what? We’d miss her on turkey-barbecue nights if she left us.

Bloggage: The last two parts of the WashPost series on gay teenagers started today. It’s just as good as the first, which you can read here.

From the NYT, a good story on Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers:

In the old NFL Films clips, Lambeau Field is shaded in the gloomy tones of a Green Bay winter, clouds of players’ and fans’ breath filling the frigid air, the now-legendary figures prowling the field like mythical figures, clumps of grass stuck in their face masks, toughness etched in their expressions.

“I hear some of the lines I wrote back then and wince,” said Steve Sabol, NFL Films’ founder and the writer of Facenda’s memorable voice-overs, whose creations were originally done as highlight films of each team’s season.

Good for him for wincing! As he points out later in the story, “frozen tundra” is redundant. Also, Vince Lombardi hated that line and ordered it removed because it served as a reminder of how his expensive soil-warming system had failed in the Ice Bowl of 1967.

Yeah, that’s a good reason.

A “soil-warming system.” Down south they call it the sun.

Thomas Friedman is back on the op-ed page, and speaking plainly: We’re in trouble in Iraq. Duh.

No, that’s too flip. Here’s the money passage, long but dead-on:

Being away has not changed my belief one iota in the importance of producing a decent outcome in Iraq, to help move the Arab-Muslim world off its steady slide toward increased authoritarianism, unemployment, overpopulation, suicidal terrorism and religious obscurantism. But my time off has clarified for me, even more, that this Bush team can’t get us there, and may have so messed things up that no one can. Why? Because each time the Bush team had to choose between doing the right thing in the war on terrorism or siding with its political base and ideology, it chose its base and ideology. More troops or radically lower taxes? Lower taxes. Fire an evangelical Christian U.S. general who smears Islam in a speech while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army or not fire him so as not to anger the Christian right? Don’t fire him. Apologize to the U.N. for not finding the W.M.D., and then make the case for why our allies should still join us in Iraq to establish a decent government there? Don’t apologize – for anything – because Karl Rove says the “base” won’t like it. Impose a “Patriot Tax” of 50 cents a gallon on gasoline to help pay for the war, shrink the deficit and reduce the amount of oil we consume so we send less money to Saudi Arabia? Never. Just tell Americans to go on guzzling. Fire the secretary of defense for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, to show the world how seriously we take this outrage – or do nothing? Do nothing. Firing Mr. Rumsfeld might upset conservatives. Listen to the C.I.A.? Only when it can confirm your ideology. When it disagrees – impugn it or ignore it.

Tomorrow: The 125-pound pumpkin. Well, close anyway.

I flagged this story today for a possible teaching moment with young reporters down the line. It strikes me as a near-perfect example of how to handle an offbeat news feature — in this case, the little-reported east-west feud between Bigfoot researchers — with the lightest and deftest possible touch. The style is transparent, there’s absolutely no snark, the prose is lean and the whole thing’s a delight from start to finish.

So, enjoy.

An open thread on “The Wire.” We’ll catch up this week by opining on the first two episodes.

You may have noticed Richard Price wrote episode #2. He’s a novelist, and I recognized Major Bunny’s speech at the end of the hour as a version of one that appeared in “Clockers,” about the corner being the poor man’s lounge. He was describing the conflict between the law — which says you can’t drink on the street — and reality, which says it’s more fun for a poor man to drink on the street with his friends than inside a stuffy apartment, which is where the good people who run the city want him to drink. (They prefer to drink on the lovely, breezy outdoor patios of expensive restaurants, I guess.)

Anyhoo, by the end of the speech, we pretty much know where Maj. Bunny is going — he’s going to legalize drugs in his district, in a de facto way, by looking the other way when they’re being sold. You can’t really blame him; one of his cops is in the hospital, shot in the jaw during the sort of b.s. hand-to-hand drug bust we like to think makes a difference but really amounts to squishing toothpaste around in the tube. He’s giving up! He’s surrendering! He’s laying down his weapons, and we’ll just see what happens. This is going to be good.

Elsewhere, Kima is on the hunt at the lesbian bar, on the lookout for some strange because she just can’t get into being one of the new baby’s two mommies. This is why I love this show: It just confounds all your expectations. Kima’s so butch she’s worse than a man. I love her.

Bravo to HBO for including this link on their website, which is not entirely flattering to their presentation:

The truly difficult part, however, will be getting any new viewers to watch. “The Wire” has loyalists for the same reason important books have readers. But almost everyone else — Emmy dunces included — hasn’t tuned in. This is a series that goes beyond critical darling. “The Wire” is better than its own hype. If you don’t watch the show, it’s your fault, your loss.

It’s one thing to be principled and believe the work stands on its own, is worthy of effort on behalf of viewers and pays off immeasurably by season’s end. It’s entirely different to be audaciously — and perhaps ill-advisedly — disdainful of the most basic rule of television: Give people a reason to watch. Here’s hoping HBO slaps a 17-minute “previously on” montage to the beginning of Sunday’s episode, however unlikely.

OK, floor is yours. Discuss.

My name is Little Miss Workety-Work, and I think I’m going to knock off, here in hour 12 of my day-for-pay. Since nothing happened other than phone calls and copy manipulation, not much to report. Although we got some more fish! Fish, Round 3! Stay tuned!

But, there was some most excellent bloggage around the dial today, so here you are:

First, a Wall Street Journal correspondent’s personal e-mail to friends describing her daily life in Iraq becomes an overnight internet sensation. Small wonder: It’s some of the most vivid eyewitness reporting from Iraq I’ve yet read.

Second, Lance Mannion on Cat Stevens, old girlfriends and dad when he’s pissed off. Enjoy.

John Scalzi points out some cross-talk from Justice Scalia.

My beloved Poor Man, master o’ snark, gets ayn-gray, uses dirty words, makes sense.

I’m thinking of starting an every-Monday open thread for discussion of “The Wire.” Any takers?

Also, I was wrong about the Anne Hull series. The next two parts run next Sunday/Monday, not this week.

‘kay? See you all tomorrow.

I keep thinking I should write something about the Dan Rather thing, only the only thing I have to say seems so obvious and duhhh I keep waiting for someone else to say it. Probably someone has; I can’t read every damn blog in the world. But OK, here goes:

* If you were going to fake documents from 1972, wouldn’t your very first act be to go to a junk shop and buy a damn period typewriter? I mean, it’s so obvious. Doesn’t everyone old enough to remember typing the old-fashioned way remember their reaction the first time they used a word processor? Oooh, it looks just like a book, in case you forgot. Also: When I type ‘my 37th birthday,’ it makes the ‘th’ little and bumps it up half a line! That is too cool! OK, maybe not you, but certainly this was my reaction, and I’m not that different. Granted, I have a background in print publications, and I have half an eye for typography, thanks to JCB, but you probably had the same idea.

(Speaking of typewriters, JCB remembers, too.)

* Also, what’s all this crapola about the crumbling edifice of TV news, particularly that of the sainted Tiffany network? Does anyone watch network news anymore? I don’t, and I’m talking for years and years now. When I do, I’m astonished at how simple-minded so much of it is, how dead-on it’s aimed at the Crabby Old Man demographic (“Who’s spending your tax dollars on crap, crap I tell you? Stay tuned.”) And the ads! There’s a look at the id of any program, because the advertisers know: Adult diapers, cholesterol medications, and those pills whose name we cannot speak around here. (“Will you be ready?”) I haven’t watched network news regularly since I discovered NPR, which was in 1978. Plus I remember about a million other chinks in CBS’s armor, including “The Insider.”

So right there, I can’t get past the fact the obvious forgery is so totally obvious it’s insulting, and the premise that by humiliating Dan Rather, bloggers have somehow topped a Saddam statue and beaten it with their shoes.

That’s just me. But my brains may be suspect these days. I actually paid 99 cents for an iTunes Music Store download of that “Milkshake” song. That thing’s mind control, I tell ya.

If I was indolent over the weekend in my bloggage, I have an excuse: Our street had a block party. What a great end-of-summer idea — throw up barricades at the end of the street and drag some tables and barbecue grills out there instead. The kids get the primal thrill of riding their bikes all over the street and we get a similar charge out of sitting in a lawn chair eating a hamburger. The thing started at noon and broke up at 8 p.m. I came and went several times, even pausing for a nap for 90 minutes or so.

Yes, it was a potluck. “What are you bringing?” Alan asked.

“I thought I’d bring my beet sal–”

“WHY DON’T YOU JUST BRING KIPPERED HERRING?” Alan exploded. “I MEAN, FOR GOD’S SAKE.”

If he had heard me out, he’d have heard the whole plan — Waldorf salad for the rank and file, beet salad for the brave. Both were eaten to the last scrap. Revenge!

Because it was a neighborhood party and the policing is community-oriented, an officer dropped by, with his drug-sniffing dog. The kids were thrilled, especially when the dog peed on command, which is evidently something you have to teach a dog that spends most of its day riding around in the back seat.

The dog detected no illegal drugs at our party, although he seemed intent on the hamburgers.

Called Carolyn today, after I heard that Hurricane Jeanne took much the same path as Frances, which hit them pretty hard. She was, as usual, at work. No rest for the weary during a four-hurricane month, at least not for a weary Florida journalist. She told me funny stories about watching the network-news bigfeet take turns wading into a huge puddle to do their live stand-ups. My favorite, though, was the part about sleeping on a cot in her office, watching the storm rage outside the window: “There’s this green lightning, and at some point all you can do is just sit in awe and watch it.”

That’s the best part of journalism — the sitting-in-awe part.

Carolyn’s house is fine and they got their power back pretty quickly this time. And her paper’s website is getting a zillion hits a day.

Over the last couple of years I’ve come to look forward to Anne Hull’s bylilne in the WashPost. Even though it appears rarely, it’s always over a well-written story that keeps me paging through take after take (that’s newspaper jargon for “page after page,” if you’re wondering), the whole time saying, “But I don’t have time to read this much…”

I’ll follow a good writer anywhere.

Anyway, her Sunday/Monday two-parter on a gay teenage boy coming to terms with his sexuality in deepest Oklahoma is worth the time. First part here, second part here, and Tuesday/Wednesday is about a girl going through the same thing, if I read the promos right.

Yes, it’s long. Yes, it requires registration. But if you have the time, it’s worth it:

It was a Sunday morning that Janice Shackelford will never forget. Michael had a friend staying over. Church was starting in an hour, so Janice knocked on her son’s bedroom door. “Time to wake up, guys,” Janice remembers calling. She tried the door, but it was locked. Next to the door were some blinds hanging over a glass panel. Janice peeked through and saw Michael and his friend on the floor, kissing.

Suddenly, Janice realized why she’d hit so many roadblocks. “The gay movement had gone into the politics and changed everything,” she says. “Now it’s not even a disease or sickness.”

I’m thisclose to closing down comments and going back to the old send-Nance-an-e-mail system of feedback. Today I spent 20 minutes killing comment spam for boner pills. My blacklisting system can kill 80 at a time, and I must have reloaded at least six or seven pages’ worth, so that’s, what? Fifty million? Yes.

But speaking of which, I got an interesting call today: I was the high bidder, by default, on a geegaw from the Rockin’ Docs silent auction. There was a disputed high bid, the next two people down on the list didn’t leave phone numbers, and so there I was, little old me, high bidder (at $37) for a clock with a little blue pill that goes around on the second hand. A border around the edge asks, “Is it time to talk about (the pill whose name I dare not speak, for triggering another wave of comment spam)?” Plus there’s a necktie, AND two pens, all emblazoned with Big Pharma’s big hit.

I know just who I’m giving it to. That is, if I can stand to give it up.

When I worked in Columbus, the zoo — then under the stewardship of Jack Hanna — was the sort of place where a reporter just couldn’t win. The editor sat on the board, the publishers were big boosters, and the rules seem to be: We can’t write enough about this place, and it better be flattering. To be sure, there were a few good stories there, but for the most part it was Here’s the New Gorilla Exhibit, Is the Elephant Really Pregnant, et al.

Here’s one good story: A report came over the scanner that a gorilla had escaped from its cage. An escaped gorilla! It was a Superman comic! A photographer and I raced to the scene, only to find the gorilla had wandered through an unlocked door, nosed around the place, did no harm and then had to suffer the indignity of a tranquilizer dart. I wrote a whimsical piece that evoked King Kong and Fay Wray, the copy desk eviscerated it, and I hated zoo stories after that.

A much better zoo story came the night two keepers got drunk after hours and threw a troublesome, nipping goose into the cheetah exhibit. “Is this really Page One material?” the editor-on-the-zoo-board wondered. For once, he was overruled. If that isn’t a Page One story, nothing is.

The Fort Wayne zoo is a somewhat different story. It always got friendly coverage, but it pretty much always deserved it — it’s a children’s zoo that manages to be fun, inexpensive and people-pleasing all at once. It’s not too big, doesn’t have delusions of grandeur and is just a nice place to spend an afternoon. As is frequently the case with standout public institutions, it’s all due to one man — the former director, Earl Wells. He was a reporter’s dream, fun to talk to, easy to quote. I recall a long conversation about how misunderstood snakes are, while a friendly baby boa constrictor went up and down my arm. He was also a 4-H leader and all-around great guy. Everybody loved him. He retired a few years ago.

Last week came the awful news: He’d set up a ladder at his house that slipped into an underground wasp nest. He fell, was knocked unconscious, and stung something like 1,000 times, after which he fell into a coma. Died yesterday. Damn it all. Talk about irony. The man spends his life helping animals, and ends up slain by wasps.

Longtime readers — if there are any left — might recall the spring before last, when I was working the world’s nuttiest schedule, one-third columnist, one-third reporter, one-third metro editor. The latter was a night shift, which meant I answered at least a dozen calls a night from people who didn’t get their newspapers. Most of these I could transfer to the appropriate people in circulation, but there were always a few who called too late.

Most were righteously p.o.’d, and I can’t say I blame them — just because you didn’t get home from work until 7:30 doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get your newspaper if your carrier screwed up. I always asked where they lived, and if they lived south, I’d drop by on the way home from work and hand-deliver a copy. It took me into strange neighborhoods, but almost all of them would chat a bit, and that was a very nice fringe. It was spring, the world was turning warm, and I played jazz on the radio. I was Nick Danger, Late-Night Newsboy, who always goes the extra mile for a subscriber.

So you can imagine where my sympathies were when I read about this woman, cited for delivering her Harrisburg, Pa. Patriot-News route to a flooded area in a rubber raft. Illegal operation of a watercraft, or some such crapola. Of course the paper won’t back her up, because she’s an “independent contractor.” I say every so often you get to stand up for the good people in the world, and they oughta. We shall see.

Another southern California day — 80s, not a cloud, bright starlight, no humidity. You couldn’t have ordered a better one, so I spent the afternoon making phone calls, lolling with “Cloud Atlas” between them, and finally taking a bike ride. I went past our new skate park, which I’ll have to get the picture-machine going on — it’s quite a nice one, and it is packed, it seems. I’ve never ridden past that there weren’t at least 50 kids risking their necks. The city tried this in the ’80s; they threw up some half-pipes and let the lawyers take over, so it was liability-release-on-file and helmets-must-be-worn and restricted-hours-yessir and blah blah blah. Amazingly, it failed. This one is much nicer and has a plainly stated, skate-at-your-own-risk sign on the gate, and it’s hopping all the time. It’ll probably be supporting a snack bar before long. Economic development downtown! Who’d have thought?

Well, hell. I don’t know what happened. Day before yesterday, the computer was running so fast it was practically blowing my hair back. Then yesterday — nothing. I mean, I couldn’t get the network up with all the Viagra in the world. Today I went back downstairs, unplugged everything, dusted everything (don’t know why; it seemed like a proper offering to the gods), replugged everything in, and it worked at lightning speed again.

And yes, I did all this yesterday, and it didn’t work.

But it works now! Rejoice! Leave comments!

Reader Maureen asked if I can bring back the daily picture. Maybe. I’ll work on it. Right now, I’d be satisfied with the daily something-to-say. I’m aware I’m sucking of late, but oh well.

I wanted to write something about “The Wire.” I notice it premiered Sunday, on Emmy night, and I wonder if it was intentional — the show’s been shut all the way out, not even a nomination, every year it’s been eligible. (It did win a Peabody, no small consolation prize.) I also noticed too many people spent Sunday night watching said Emmys, and even though this is the age of TiVo, and HBO is the network of second chances to see what you missed Sunday, it makes me a little sad. No true “Wire” fan would miss the premiere.

If you haven’t seen the show before, don’t do what I did the first year: Shrug your shoulders and say, “Oh, another police procedural. No thanks.” It’s worth the time and effort, because it does what the best cop shows have always done — use the station house to tell a bigger story. In this case, we’re talking class and race and crime and punishment and luck and misfortune and …ambition! Yes, ambition is going to be a big, big theme this season. You can smell it. (Also, they tell you.)

About every piece of publicity this show gets mentions that its creator, David Simon, was a journalist, and surely, one of the very cool things about the show is how sharply observed it is, how it gets the details just right. The little corner boy with the asthma inhaler, the drug lord with the hankering to be a real businessman, the black couple in the fancy restaurant who look around and see two different things.

It’s a challenge to watch, no doubt about it, but put your little hand in mine, and we’ll climb the mountain together. The basic outline: The Barksdale gang sells drugs in the projects and on the corners of Baltimore; the police in the Major Case Squad are trying to bring them down. It all gets a little Russian-novelly at times, but HBO has visual aids, and anything you want to know, just ask.

A lot happens in this show; I notice the synopsis of the first episode on the HBO website is about four times longer than the ones for “Six Feet Under” and “Deadwood.” If you like challenging TV, you’ll certainly be challenged.

Make a date. Set the TiVo. And screw the Emmys.