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 […]
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A look inside my caricatures sketchbooks
Most artists (and people like me who are working at it) keep a sketchbook. It’s a place where they can try out ideas that they may have to bring to fruition on a canvas or a piece of watercolor paper. As such, sketchbooks are not generally considered things for public viewing. A lot of what […]
Political debates and a few thoughts about the election, Harold Bloom on reading, and a century of Christie: newsletter, October 23, 2020
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,5xx) on Friday, October 23, 2020. Political debates in this country have never been especially uplifting affairs. Even the iconic Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 (see below) are remembered because they introduced Abraham Lincoln to the nation rather than for their soaring rhetoric and sweeping […]
The birth of the selfie, why Japan bombed Pearl Harbor (part 1), and reader reactions: newsletter, October 2, 2020
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,519) on Friday, October 2, 2020. Johann Sebastian Bach is on my list of “things to be thankful for” this week. In fact, he’s not far from the top. Bach lived from 1685 to 1750 and was a composer of baroque-era music. He was also deeply spiritual, […]
The 19th amendment, James Lee Burke, John Quincy Adams, and NYT’s typos: newsletter, August 21, 2020
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,5xx) on Friday, August 21, 2020. Through muted celebrations, we noted the centennial of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution this week. This amendment guaranteed the right of women to vote, and it represented the largest and most significant change […]
The movie and book that define noir, online teaching and learning, the hard-boiled detective, and a podcast recommendation: newsletter, August 7, 2020
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,5xx) on Friday, August 7, 2020. Churches can’t meet, businesses can’t operate properly, schools and libraries can’t open — none of this can happen without major concerns about the safety of the people involved. This is a deeply frustrating time for all of us. […]
Baseball finally, the massive output of Georges Simenon, and the need for some creative thinking: newsletter, July 24, 2020
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,5xx) on Friday, July 24, 2020. A memory rattled through my brain this week of a newspaper column I read many years ago. It was in the 1960s, and the column was by Russell Baker in the New York Times (I’m pretty sure), and […]
Presidential candidates who stayed put and the one who didn’t, Smokey Robinson, and the no-tears absence of baseball: newsletter, May 15, 2020
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,579) on Friday, May 15, 2020. One of the bright spots we had going for us this spring — among so many spots that were not quite so bright — is the garden, which with plenty of rain and somewhat cooler temperatures had […]
Clare Hollingsworth’s ‘scoop’ of the century, William Styron’s ‘mistakes,’ the Temptations, and reader reaction: newsletter, May 8, 2020
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,5xx) on Friday, May 8, 2020. {% endif %}One of the most enjoyable things about woodworking — besides completing a project itself — is something I had never really articulated before this week. I was watching one of Steve Ramsey‘s YouTube videos, and he managed […]
Malcolm Gladwell talks books, banned books, Beatles books, and the godmother of forensic science: newsletter, September 20, 2019
American Watercolor, an e-zine begun by Kelly Kane, has a short feature on my watercolors — thanks in great part to you, my faithful newsletter readers. I was named ambassador of the week and got into the running for that title because, several weeks ago, I asked those of you who were interested to sign up […]
The father of American illustration – F.O.C. Darley
Illustrators deserve a more prominent place in the history of American art — and in our own minds — than they have been given. This is especially true in America, where we have a rich cadre of great artists who have made their living, and their fame, by being illustrators. Chances are, with just a […]
What we see, and what we think we see
In June 1913 the Medical Research Committee held its first meeting. The objective was to implement a national scheme for health insurance which would provide hospital treatment for tuberculosis (TB) and to initiate research comparing TB in animals and humans. The committee is now known as the Medical Research Council (MRC). Research has been supported […]
Walking, Arthur Ashe, and a new video: newsletter, Aug. 2, 2018
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,716) on Friday, August 9, 2019. Living well, as any sensible person knows, is not just a matter of diet and exercise. It’s a whole range of behaviors, attitudes, habits, and choices. Susan Saunders and Annabel Streets, two women who have looked deeply into the science […]
Writing the national anthem, ripping off Dickens, publishing a Civil War memoir: newsletter, July 5, 2019
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,747) on Friday, July 5, 2019. I hope that everyone in America (and elsewhere) is having a happy Fourth of July and its aftermath. In America, we celebrate with fireworks, ice cream, baseball, cherry pie, cookouts, and just about anything else we can think of […]
Hemingway on writing, Fraser at writing, counterfeit books, and a podcast: newsletter, June 28, 2019
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,7xx) on Friday, June 28, 2019. The great satisfaction of a project nearing completion came for me this week with the arrival of proof copies of Loyal Mountaineers: The Civil War Memoirs of Will McTeer. McTeer left his home near the Great Smoky Mountains in […]
Sir Walter Scott writes himself out of debt, more on libraries, competing definitions of journalism: newsletter, May 31, 2019
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,7xx) on Friday, May 31, 2019. For the past six or seven weeks, we have left our beehives alone. This is the main honey-making season, and we did not want to do anything to disturb them. That changed this week when I opened them to make […]
Casey at the Bat, the poem and the video
The most famous baseball poem in history is Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. Its subtitle is “A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888.” The poem was first published in the San Francisco Chronicle and tells the story of one game of the baseball team of Mudville and its mighty hitting star Casey. […]
Watercolour World: watercolors as the pre-20th century photography
How can we know what something or some location looked like 200 or 300 years ago? If some master painter depicted someone or something and it hung in a museum, gallery, or collection, that would be one means. Usually, these works were done in oil and took much time and training to complete. Consequently, they […]
Charles Willson Peale and the image of the American Revolution
A big part of George Washington’s image was, well, Washington’s image. What Washington looked like was essential — more important than we probably understand — to what we think of him and ultimately how we think of America. The American revolutionaries of the 18th century understood that very well. It was an age well before […]
The ‘Lightning Sketch Artist,’ a vaudeville act in the early 1900s
Not long ago, a friend alerted me to Gurney Journey, the website of artist James Gurney, and it has become one of my daily stops on my web rounds. Gurney comes up with a wide variety of fascinating items, including the video above that shows sometimes about which I was completely unaware: the lightning sketch […]
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