December 4, 2016

The historical section at The National Museum of African American History and Culture is breathtaking: including a statue of Thomas Jefferson standing in front of a stack of bricks—each brick with the name of a slave owned by Jefferson.

Chuck Berry's Cadillac and Michael Jordan from the entertainment and sports sections.



Took a cab to the Lincoln Memorial. Wanted to be there at night.



JFK at the Kennedy Center.

November 22, 2013

History unfolding right before your eyes, happened again on 09/11. Can't believe it was 50 years ago.



Both Time Magazine and The New York Daily News have reprinted their editions from fifty years ago. Fascinating to read and the ads interesting to compare to today's pitches. 5¢ for the paper.




Starbucks always has a great selection of Christmas Songs that you probably didn't have in your collection. This year, 'tis the Season :

Frank Sinatra - I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
Cocteau Twins - Winter Wonderland
Teddy Thompson - Christmas
Elvis Presley - Here Comes Santa Claus
The Roches - Good King Wenceslas
Wham! - Last Christmas
Sarah McLachlan - Silent Night
John Fahey - What Child Is This
Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Il est né / Ça bergers
Bahamas - Christmas Must Be Tonight
Dolly Parton - The Little Drummer Boy
Dinah Washington - Ole Santa
Tony Bennett - Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
Cyndi Lauper & Norah Jones - Home for the Holidays
Peggy Lee - Deck the Halls
Bob Dylan - Christmas Island

November 16, 2013

50th Anniversary of JFK assassination coming up soon. I was in the Eighth Grade, by 3:00 P.M. my class was in a church praying for him. My old college roommate was a huge conspiracy buff and still is. He was always interested in the Organized Crime connections, which were many. He always railed against the Warren Commission report.

The Warren Commission , above, was also a great source for Don DeLillo's Libra :

"Then there was The Warren Report, which is the Oxford English Dictionary of the assassination and also the Joycean novel. This is the one document that captures the full richness and madness and meaning of the event, despite the fact that it omits about a ton and a half of material. I’m not an obsessive researcher, and I think I read maybe half of The Warren Report, which totals twenty-six volumes. There are acres of FBI reports I barely touched. But for me the boring and meaningless stretches are part of the experience. This is what a life resembles in its starkest form—school records, lists of possessions, photographs of knotted string found in a kitchen drawer. It took seven seconds to kill the president, and we’re still collecting evidence and sifting documents and finding people to talk to and working through the trivia. The trivia is exceptional. When I came across the dental records of Jack Ruby’s mother I felt a surge of admiration. Did they really put this in? The testimony of witnesses was a great resource— period language, regional slang, the twisted syntax of Marguerite Oswald and others as a kind of improvised genius and the lives of trainmen and stripteasers and telephone clerks. I had to be practical about this, and so I resisted the urge to read everything."

Don DeLillo, The Art of Fiction No. 135



The Sunday NYT Book Review gives a thumbs up to The Bully Pulpit Thanks to Jury Duty, I am half-finished with this over 700 page book. TR dominates but it is interesting to see what an accomplished individual Taft was in all that he did.



Holiday Market getting ready.



Cayenne Peppers.