55 years ago, St. Paddy's Day also fell on a Friday. I was in New York City at the time, having just exited Grand Central Terminal following my trip down from New Rochelle on the New Haven RR's Stamford Local. My immediate mission: to view the clock at the Biltmore.
In those days, St. Patrick's Day was more YUGE than nowadays, and being on a Friday made it moreso. Yalie guys would ride the New Haven to Grand Central, exit on 42nd Street as I did, turn right, cross Vanderbilt Avenue to the Biltmore Hotel (long since razed) and head for the large clock in the lobby area.
The slogan for Ivy League guys and Seven Sisters gals was, "I'll meet you under the clock at the Biltmore." So while the Yalies were on their way, presumably Vassar girls were taking the New York Central down from Poughkeepsie and Smithies and Mt. Holyoke students were on their way from central Massachusetts.
I had no date, being a lowly slick-sleeve Army private from the Information School at Fort Slocum, years away from my own Ivy League days. But I did make a point of entering the Biltmore and checking out the clock scene. Nothing much was happening, so I continued on my way to my favorite cheap Italian restaurant down on West 34th Street.
Friday, March 24, 2017
Coincidences
Nancy, my late wife, was fascinated by full moons. She: “Don, there’s a full moon! Come look.” Me, thinking: “Big deal. I know what they look like.”
She died the day of a full moon.
Which happened to be my daughter’s birthday.
Her older son happened to schedule her memorial for 20 May, citing various logistical reasons.
That would have been our 11th wedding anniversary.
Apparently some coincidences do come in threes.
She died the day of a full moon.
Which happened to be my daughter’s birthday.
Her older son happened to schedule her memorial for 20 May, citing various logistical reasons.
That would have been our 11th wedding anniversary.
Apparently some coincidences do come in threes.
How I Got Started
It was almost exactly 12 years ago that I got involved with blogging. Since then I’ve written more than 2000 blog posts.
The first blog for me was the late, lamented (because it was pretty popular) 2Blowhards blog. The guy running it was Ray Sawhill who wrote bylined articles on art and culture for Newsweek magazine in the 1980s and 90s. Ray blogged using the nom-du-blog “Michael Blowhard” in order to maintain separation from his Newsweek day job. The other Blowhard was “Friedrich von Blowhard,” a Princeton buddy of Ray’s based in Los Angeles.
The blogging software they used was primitive by today’s standards — an important defect being that post drafts couldn’t be stockpiled for later publication scheduling. That meant each post had to go live shortly after it was written. That put strain on the bloggers who wanted content flowing at the rate of one or two posts per day in order to keep readers interested and returning to see what was new.
So for some reason Ray pulled me from the commenter ranks to full-time 2Blowhards blogger to ease the load on the original two. Except that I posted using my actual name.
At first, I was worried that I could maintain a reasonably high rate of posting. I knew I had perhaps a dozen really nice items that I could write up, but after that? You see, I recalled what happened when old vaudeville stars such as Eddie Cantor first appeared in TV “specials.” They used the good stuff that they’d honed over decades on stage, so their first show would be a wowser. After that, in future specials, their material wasn’t nearly as good due to lack of testing.
So I resolved to hold back on my so-called good stuff and write what came to mind each day. And it worked. As far as I recall, I never used up the “good stuff.”
Here’s the deal. Be sure to blog on topics you know something about. Then you must stay alert and notice things related to those subjects that might serve as hooks for posts. It’s even better if you can relate whatever it might be to similar or opposite examples, because that can make for a deeper, more interesting post. Apparently, it’s a special skill set: Ray Sawhill once told me that he thought I was “a natural blogger.”
Eventually, after his Newsweek buyout, Sawhill tired of 2Blowhards and turned it over to me. I carried on for a few months and finally decided to strike out on my own. My first blog, Art Contrarian, debuted in 2010. It is based on the idea that modernism in art was an experiment that largely failed. More interesting work had been done by more traditional painters in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Illustration, architecture and industrial design are other subjects I treat.
I’ve always been interested in automobile styling, so in 2013 I started Car Style Critic blog. I post two articles per week on each blog and maintain a backlog of two or three months’ worth of post drafts. Readership for each blog is several hundred page views daily, which is good enough for me.
The first blog for me was the late, lamented (because it was pretty popular) 2Blowhards blog. The guy running it was Ray Sawhill who wrote bylined articles on art and culture for Newsweek magazine in the 1980s and 90s. Ray blogged using the nom-du-blog “Michael Blowhard” in order to maintain separation from his Newsweek day job. The other Blowhard was “Friedrich von Blowhard,” a Princeton buddy of Ray’s based in Los Angeles.
The blogging software they used was primitive by today’s standards — an important defect being that post drafts couldn’t be stockpiled for later publication scheduling. That meant each post had to go live shortly after it was written. That put strain on the bloggers who wanted content flowing at the rate of one or two posts per day in order to keep readers interested and returning to see what was new.
So for some reason Ray pulled me from the commenter ranks to full-time 2Blowhards blogger to ease the load on the original two. Except that I posted using my actual name.
At first, I was worried that I could maintain a reasonably high rate of posting. I knew I had perhaps a dozen really nice items that I could write up, but after that? You see, I recalled what happened when old vaudeville stars such as Eddie Cantor first appeared in TV “specials.” They used the good stuff that they’d honed over decades on stage, so their first show would be a wowser. After that, in future specials, their material wasn’t nearly as good due to lack of testing.
So I resolved to hold back on my so-called good stuff and write what came to mind each day. And it worked. As far as I recall, I never used up the “good stuff.”
Here’s the deal. Be sure to blog on topics you know something about. Then you must stay alert and notice things related to those subjects that might serve as hooks for posts. It’s even better if you can relate whatever it might be to similar or opposite examples, because that can make for a deeper, more interesting post. Apparently, it’s a special skill set: Ray Sawhill once told me that he thought I was “a natural blogger.”
Eventually, after his Newsweek buyout, Sawhill tired of 2Blowhards and turned it over to me. I carried on for a few months and finally decided to strike out on my own. My first blog, Art Contrarian, debuted in 2010. It is based on the idea that modernism in art was an experiment that largely failed. More interesting work had been done by more traditional painters in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Illustration, architecture and industrial design are other subjects I treat.
I’ve always been interested in automobile styling, so in 2013 I started Car Style Critic blog. I post two articles per week on each blog and maintain a backlog of two or three months’ worth of post drafts. Readership for each blog is several hundred page views daily, which is good enough for me.
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