Monthly Archives: December 2014
Martha Gellhorn’s Excellent 1947 American Adventure
Martha Gellhorn was much more than just another ex-wife of Ernest Hemingway. She was a superb war correspondent, an accomplished novelist, and a perceptive analyst of post-World War II America. (See Boston University’s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center for further … Continue reading
Daniel Berehulak Wins NYT ‘Year in Pictures’ Bakeoff
As you splendid readers might – or more likely might not – have noticed, the hardlooking staff has annually chronicled the leading lights in the New York Times Year in Pictures review. (Previous winners: the redoubtable BU alum Tyler Hicks … Continue reading
Raymond Chandler’s Not-So-Simple Art of Murder
As you splendid readers might – or more likely might not – remember, the hardworking staff waxed nostalgic the other day about the great hardboiled writer Raymond Chandler and his trademark essay, The Simple Art of Murder. We subsequently re-read Chandler’s … Continue reading
The World’s Oldest Living Altar Boy (Peggy Noonan Edition)
As the hardworking staff has previously noted, back in the 1960s we were the world’s oldest living altar boy at the Church of St. Thomas More in Manhattan. And as we also noted, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York intends to … Continue reading
Christmas Present: Chandler’s ‘The Simple Art of Murder’
Splendid reader Bill sent this response to our recent Grammer Is My Business post about the new book The World of Raymond Chandler: In His Own Words. Chandler’s essay “the Simple Art of Murder” is the best essay on any … Continue reading
Five Restaurant Chains That Won’t Be Advertising in the NYT Anytime Soon
Yesterday’s New York Times featured this article from The Upshot on page 3: Call the roll of the departed advertisers: Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Potbelly, Chipotle, Shake Shack, Sonic. If any of them run an ad in the Times in … Continue reading
Whistler Past the Graveyard: America’s Most Artistic Artist
Ever since reading the novel I, James McNeill Whistler by Lawrence Williams in 1972, the hardworking staff has been a fanboy of James Abbott MacNeill Whistler, the 19th century American expatriate artist who embodied “art for art’s (and my) sake.” (Just for the … Continue reading
Ave Atque Vale, NYT Advertising Column(ist)
It’s the end of an era at the New York Times: The Grey Lady is apparently tearing the sheets with its eight-decades-long advertising column. From the New York Post: Times set to drop popular advertising column Word is circulating that … Continue reading
‘The World’s Oldest Living Altar Boy’ II (St. Thomas More – or Less – Edition)
As chronicled here not long ago, I was the world’s oldest living altar boy back in the ’60s, thanks to a deal my Mom (aka Jackie’s Agnes) cut with Bishop Furlong at the Church of St. Thomas More in Manhattan. In … Continue reading