“Did I ever tell you about la mattanza?” he asked. Oh boy, here we go again, I thought. “He explained that la mattanza was an ancient Sicilian ritual in which fishermen waded **into the Mediterranean Sea up to their waist with clubs and spears and then stood still for hours on end until the fish no longer noticed their presence**. Eventually, when enough fish had gathered around them, someone gave an imperceptible signal and in a split second the scene went from preternatural quiet to gory bloodbath as the fishermen struck viciously at their unsuspecting quarry. What we were doing was the journalistic version of la mattanza, Mike said. **We were patiently lying in wait until we were ready to publish and then, at some time of our choosing, we would strike**.“ --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[patience]] , [[teaching-anecdotes]] **Source** -- [[202407230909 - B - Bad Blood]]