This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,392) on Friday, March 12, 2021. One of the writing roles that I have never pictured myself fulfilling is that of a memoirist. Tell other people’s stories, I would say to my journalism students, not your own. Your job is to write about other people, not yourself. I • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,386) on Friday, March 5, 2021. When I got into the rhythm of writing this newsletter several years ago, one of the things that I knew early on was that I wanted to learn more about – and write about — women who had • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,392) on Friday, February 26, 2021. One of the big milestones in learning any skill, I have found, is getting to the point where you have the confidence that you can do what you were trying to learn how to do. That was the • Read More »
Those of us who have accumulated lots of birthdays have the privilege of looking back across the years with a certain level of bemusement and objectivity. The half-century point is always a good marker, and for the past few weeks, I have been thinking about my life a half-century ago. It was a significant • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,480) on Friday, February 12, 2021. “Keep your mind focused” is undoubtedly a phrase you have often heard. Sometimes it comes in the form of a baseball metaphor: “Keep your eye on the ball.” It means, very simply, don’t let your mind wander. Sometimes, however, • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,401) on Friday, February 5, 2021. The ability to learn is one of our highest values. Gathering facts and information and marrying them to our previous knowledge and experience is the essence of what it means to be human. But what about our • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,480) on Friday, January 29, 2021. This pandemic and the necessary isolation that it has caused forced us all to change our habits, particularly our ways of socialization. Every organization that I know of has had to change the way it conducts its business • Read More »
During the last few weeks, I am more and more reading short stories rather than novels. Up to now, I have never paid much attention to short stories. It began, I think, when a newsletter reader mentioned Ed Hoch, whose name I had never heard and stories I had never read. And it’s gone on from • Read More »
A common saying among woodworkers – one you have probably heard – is “measure twice, cut once.” That saying counsels us to be careful. But there is another saying that is less well-known and maybe just as important: “Let the tools do the work.” What that saying tells us is that sometimes we can • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,480) on Friday, January 8, 2021. Many people, with good reason, are not fans of January and February. Those months are part of the “bleak midwinter,” which features colder temperatures, shorter days, and a dearth of vegetation. For the landscape artist (I confess to occupy in a • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,480) on Friday, January 1, 2021. Happy new year. During this time of year, we often hear the word “resolutions,” and we may be encouraged to “make resolutions.” Possibly like many of you, I have found that making resolutions is frustrating and ultimately unproductive. • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,480) on Friday, December 25, 2020. Merry Christmas. Part of the genius of the Christmas story is that it is about a baby. There is something about a baby that calls forth the depth and the best of our Humanity. Human babies are the • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,4xx) on Friday, December 18, 2020. With the death of John le Carré (see below) last weekend, my thoughts immediately turned back to the last couple of newsletters where I profiled Erskine Childers. In two different parts of the 20th century, these two writers did pretty • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,4xx) on Friday, December 11, 2020. No room in the inn. Anyone familiar with the Christmas nativity story has heard the phrase “no room in the inn.“ The phrase is a short explanation for why Jesus was born in a stable, but over the centuries • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,4xx) on Friday, December 4, 2020. When I was a child I was given piano lessons, but I didn’t take to that instrument very well. After a few years, I stopped, but my mother believed that I should continue to have music lessons of some • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,489) on Friday, November 27, 2020. The small farm where I live is blessed with hundreds of feet of fencerows. They stretch past the barn and around the pasture and by the garden. And they have been neglected for many years. That means that the • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,495) on Friday, November 20, 2020. Thanksgiving is approaching, and I have always particularly enjoyed our national season of gratitude. It is important that we acknowledge what we have been given, even during a year when all of us have seen our lives • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,5xx) on Friday, November 13, 2020. Some people cook and bake. Some people collect. Some make things. Some draw and paint, some listen (to music, etc.), some watch (birds, airplanes, insects, old movies, etc.), some read. The list could go on and on, of course. • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,5xx) on Friday, November 6, 2020. There are those of us who are wondering if the fevered political season will ever end. An interesting novel is sometimes a good antidote. I’m reading a couple now: Ian Rankin’s In a House of Lies and Ian McGuire’s The Abstainer. • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,5xx) on Friday, October 30, 2020. Back to the (Zoom) Future. In the last few days, I attended a poetry reading of a friend’s new book on Facebook; I helped another friend launch a book on Zoom; and I attended a memorial service on YouTube for a friend • Read More »