Between the Lines


By Larry Burke, Publisher/Editor-in-chief

When Portland, Oregon-based writer Randall Sullivan set out for Angeles National Forest, a crime-ravaged arcadia in Los Angeles County that in many ways has come to epitomize the jagged interface between urban America and wilderness, he was returning to familiar terrain. Sullivan had been a reporter in L.A. for 11 years, and the Angeles was the setting for all too many of the crimes he investigated. "It's a place where you find yourself torn between the natural world's magnificence and humanity's indifference to it," says Sullivan. "The power of the dark side is very real there. And yet, as with so much of Los Angeles, there's a lot of light around it." Sullivan's story is complemented by the photographs of eminent New York-based Czech photographer Antonin Kratochvil.

For much of his life, Nicholas Dawidoff ("The Mild One") has nursed a covert yearning to "ride a motorcycle down a long, empty country road." This fantasy began to coalesce while he was researching In the Country of Country (Pantheon), his recently published book about the rural roots of legendary country musicians. So we decided to help Dawidoff realize his dream by enrolling him in motorcycle school in his hometown, New York City. "I didn't initially tell my mother," he says. "Nobody who cares about you ever approves of motorcycles — nor should they." Dawidoff recently received a Guggenheim Fellowship to write a biography of his grandfather, a Harvard economist who once added spice to his illustrious career by working as ... a motorcycle dealer.

In "Bite Me," former National Public Radio editor Anne Goodwin Sides takes a peek at the slithery world of Bill Haast, an internationally known venom "milker" whose charges sometimes get the best of him. The 86-year-old Haast attributes his ruddy longevity and all-around spunk to a very odd source: the weekly vaccine of diluted venom with which he injects himself. "Haast is part human and part snake," says Sides. "He thinks he's found the fountain of youth — and you can see why. He's the Jack LaLanne of the herp world."

As summer shoves the laggardly among us out into the fresh air, thoughts naturally turn to whupping your neighbors at the weekly pickup game. Well, we're all for a good whupping. Thus this month's cover package, "Masters of the Sandlot," in which former senior editor Brad Wetzler breaks down that enigmatic thing known as athleticism into five simple movements. What's more, he's coaxed some of the world's very best athletes to spill their secrets concerning these building blocks of sport. "The thing is," says Wetzler, "athletes like Grant Hill and Greg Maddux are doing exactly the same moves that we all do. They just execute them better." Read up, and you will too.

This month, Out There columnist Randy Wayne White tromps around the Panama Canal on one of his quirkier quests: to locate a set of bar stools once owned by Manuel Noriega. White, who lives in Fort Myers, Florida, is also a noted writer of intrigue novels. His fifth, North of Havana, was published by Putnam this spring to wide acclaim. ("Rich in atmosphere," says the Miami Herald, "with muscular prose and breakneck pacing." We agree.)

A final note: At the gathering of the American Society of Magazine Editors in April, Outside brought home two of magazine publishing's highest honors. Contributing editor Jon Krakauer won the National Magazine Award for Reporting, for "Into thin Air," his wrenching September 1996 cover story about the Mount Everest tragedy. And for the second year in a row, Outside captured the much-coveted General Excellence award for publications with circulation of 400,000 to one million. "Outside is a magazine you can fall in love with," the ASME judges observed. "Each issue celebrates the wildest places on earth and the human urge to be a part of them." We at Outside are honored by the addition of two more Ellies, the magazine world's answer to the Oscars, to our Santa Fe offices. Our heartfelt thanks go out to all our writers, photographers, and illustrators — and most of all, our readers.