In the past decade, those in international journalism have paid a heavy price to be in the field. In addition to their bureaus closing and staffs cut, they’ve had to face countless trials while reporting in places with no press freedom, kidnappings and even death. It’s easy, then, among all these headlines to lose sight of why journalists get into the game at all: camaraderie and joy of telling a story. Journalists had the opportunity on Friday, March 8, at OPC board member Minky Worden and Gordon Crovitz‘s penthouse apartment for the OPC’s second Tchotchke Night, to relay a bit of the joy that takes them far from home.
Party-goers were treated to a steady stream of dim sum trays and endless supply of cocktails and other beverages that assisted in loosening the lips of those who brought items procured from their reporting adventures to tell the crowd the backstory.
OPC board member Arlene Getz was in Saudi Arabia last year and displayed her abaya, a covering that many Saudi women wear. Abayas can run into the thousands of dollars but with some shopping, Getz found an elegant black abaya with sequins for $10.
Some participants turned the “foreign country” on its head, like OPC member Eva Schweitzer who is a reporter for German publications and writes about America. She came to the party wearing alien earrings and an alien T-shirt from her reporting from Roswell, New Mexico.
OPC member Adam Ellick who brought a T-shirt from the distant country of “Texas” with the line: “Welcome to America, Learn the Damn Language.” To help those who don’t know English, the same line was written on the back in Arabic, Spanish and German. Ellick and Beth Knobel reprised their tandem show-off from the first Tchotchke Party in the event that their items duplicated the other. At the first Tchotchke Night, they both arrived with miniature burkas; Ellick introduced it as a bottle cover, but Knobel corrected him that it was actually a burka for Barbie dolls. There was no repeat this year as Knobel brought a shot glass with the Afghanistan flag. “I purchased this at Bagram Air Base,” she said. “If it were for sale today, it would induce rioting.”
Some of the storytellers were of recent ventures, and others dated back to the 1970s and early 1990s. Charles Wallace was in East Africa covering the overthrow of Idi Amin. Wallace, with UPI at the time, was the first reporter into Amin’s house. From Amin’s bedroom he took a T-shirt that read: “Idi Amin, the king of Africa.”
Neil Hickey displayed a Kuwait flag that he acquired on February 27, 1991. He was one of the first journalists to cover the Iraqi Army evacuating from Kuwait City.
The tchotchke that took first prize, was presented by documentary filmmaker Jennifer Utz. “In Dahiya I found in stores toys and propaganda, like this cigarette lighter,” Utz demonstrated to the crowd that it also projected the face of Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. “And this coffee mug,” she said. The mug was jet black but when she added hot water, the image of Nasrallah emerged. The crowd crowed in delight and congratulated Utz throughout the night for her sharp eye for kitsch while on the road.
The evening served as a reunion for some but also as a membership incentive for correspondents to join the OPC. The evening, on all counts then, was a success with eight new Student, four Young and two new members. Once these applicants are vetted by the OPC Admissions Committee, we hope to welcome them into the Club. More photos on page 10.