Today, a singer-songwriter I like, Jay Brannan, had an outburst on his Facebook page: “when an item or article of clothing wears out or breaks, i want to replace it with EXACTLY the same thing. the idea of “discontinuing” or “redesigning” ruins life.” Soon after, he tweeted the same thought, refining it: “the idea of… Read more »
At least, it was when it began. It was in the Depression of 1873. A few years before, a bunch of greedy New York bankers artificially jacked up the price of gold, causing a financial panic and sending America into a slump that lasted for years. (Sounding familiar yet?) Anyway, at the time, France was… Read more »
Long before you lived here, America was a land of many towns. Our expansive “agrarian society” was barely a society at all, really, save for a loosely connected sense of similar place and purpose. And each place had its own time on the clock. When it was 9:00 am in your town, it could be… Read more »
My interview with Ken Burns, published in time for the premiere of Baseball: The Tenth Inning on PBS, is here! I’ve chopped it into three bits for your digestion. Think of them as three more innings: You may remember I was all a-titter about meeting him on the day we shot this. I was so… Read more »
My mother and I have an ongoing argument. “Life was simpler in the ’50s, Jay. It really was,” she says. I call baloney on that. Just think about what the ’50s offered Western culture: atomic bomb terrors, the HUAC, segregation, women who lived in fear of unwanted pregnancies and could only choose from a few… Read more »
A few years ago, I was doing something mundane when the feeling hit me. I want to go to Harpers Ferry, I thought. Can’t explain why. I went through a John Brown period about 15 years ago (doesn’t every American history buff go through a John Brown period?), when my collaborator and I were trying… Read more »