August Wilson, the playwright from Pittsburgh
When August Wilson was 15 years old, he decided to drop out of school. Several stories about why he made this decision are part of his legend. One is that he had written a 20-page paper on Napoleon...
View ArticleRoger Angell, pitch-perfect prose about the game and meaning of baseball
When Roger Angell wrote about baseball, which he did frequently but not often enough, he could put you in the seat next to him in the ballpark. It would be a good seat, not in the press box with all of...
View ArticleThe pitch-perfect prose of Roger Angell, the modernity of crossword puzzles,...
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,421) on Friday, May 27, 2022. What do you think a librarian does? The answer to that question undoubtedly depends on your point of view, but...
View ArticleNew rules for baseball: baseball’s pitch clock
Old time baseball aficionados like me used to be able to brag that, unlike basketball and football, baseball was not governed by any kind of a time clock. The pace of the game could be fast, or it...
View ArticleThe Great Defender, a population explosion, and a newspaper article that...
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, May 5, 2023. During my nearly four decades as a college professor, I cannot remember a course that I taught where I did not...
View ArticlePaul Laurence Dunbar, bait hive success, an apology, and wonderful reader...
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, May 12, 2023. Sometimes you have to simply accept responsibility. That happened to me last week when my website crashed and...
View ArticleFrancis Walsingham, the Elizabethan spymaster, moving the bees in a bait...
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, May 19, 2023. This newsletter will have something special for its readers during the month of June. First, in each weekly...
View ArticleMore on Francis Walsingham, Walt Whitman, loving your enemies, and more:...
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, May 26, 2023. The New York Times recently reviewed a book a few years ago that I have not read but whose title I certainly...
View ArticleJim Bouton’s Ball Four, Ann Radcliffe and Women With Words, and the...
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, June 16, 2023. The public discourse these days has created an equivalent to “climate change.” It’s “doom.” But what if...
View ArticleThe NYC Shakespeare riot of 1849, Alan Furst, and a bit on college admissions...
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, July 14, 2023. College admissions procedures have, once again, become big news. A recent Supreme Court decision has...
View ArticleAlfred Thayer Mahan and the might of seapower, James Baldwin on the role of...
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, August 11, 2023. The limerick has been a part of my very limited poetry knowledge for as long as I can remember, but I have...
View ArticleBritain’s secret assassination squads, more on JFK, and journalists covering...
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (3,070) on Friday, September 1, 2023. People should be careful about what they say, about the words that they use. That’s a bit of age-old...
View ArticleThe purpose of the honeybee, Philip Roth, F. Tennyson Jesse : newsletter,...
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (3,070) on Friday, March 29, 2024. The first of last week’s newsletter made fun of the world’s obsession with the fact that Kate Middleton,...
View ArticleThe Bard in class, James Rivington, taking criticism badly, and reader...
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (3,070) on Friday, April 19, 2024. In baseball, certain events beget predictable rituals. For instance, let’s say a batter is called out on a...
View ArticleThe Great Gatsby, the book Obama wrote, Joseph Pulitzer, believing false...
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (3,070) on Friday, April 26, 2024. You hear and read a good deal these days about conspiracy theories and believing false information, even when...
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