Incredible Panic Rules

Welcome to the shop of yet another East Coast journalist and author, one with many interests and a few obsessions.

Note: if you came here looking for the Chris Lombardi who runs a record company, wrestles in spandex, or wields a paintbrush or a tattoo needle, hit the back button on your browser.  Otherwise:

In all my reporting and writing, I’m most interested in how ordinary people interact with the decisions of those in power– whether in the Bronx, Fort Benning, or Cambodia. Of course, as we all discover quickly, there are no truly ordinary people. And lately, I’ve been learning a lot about the city I moved to in 2008. At the top of this page you can find links to some of my work

I’m also happy to report, finally, that my book I Ain’t Marching Anymore is finally destined for the bookshelf, and will be in the Fall 2012 University of California Press catalog. I blog at the unofficial bookblog here,   and keep lively a equally informal Facebook page. And now you know why my Twitter handle is @CrisAintMarchin, too.

You can also find me at Women’s Voices for Change, where I’m currently an editor; Newsworks, the news portal of WHYY (Philly’s PBS station) and Guernica, where I’m a contributing writer; on Facebook and my Twitter feed, or some irregularly-updated musings at New in Philadelphia. If you’d like to work with me, please be in touch, maybe on Twitter. Follow @CrisAintMarchin

Why the sitename? It’s from that essential piece of journalism The Dream Songs.

I am, outside. Incredible panic rules.

People are blowing and beating each other without mercy.

Drinks are boiling. Iced 

drinks are boiling. The worse anyone feels, the worse

treated he is. Fools elect fools. 

A harmless man at an intersection said, under his breath, “Christ!”