Observed

Holly Brubach. Period.

“With no closing time — and no drinks (B.Y.O.B!) — the site hosts selected fashion photos, ad campaigns, music videos, commercials and documentaries spanning the past three decades of Weber’s career alongside paintings from a show by the artist Jeremy Everett (a friend of Weber’s), an appreciation of Simone de Beauvoir’s book about Brigitte Bardot and high praise for Danny DiMauro, a barber in  Montauk, N.Y.”

– Holly Brubach, temporarily forgetting the concept of the period in a 64-word sentence.  Ms. Brubach was writing recently in The New York Times about fashion photographer Bruce Weber’s new Web site.

Bill Clinton WAS president in 1996.

Mr. Kett admonished me one day not to get hung-up on grammar.  Of course, he was right.

He was right about the importance of putting my reader at ease…even if that means relaxing the *rules* that govern punctuation, usage, syntax and the like.

I’m better at putting first things first.  Yet, I still catch myself correcting word errors (mine as well as those of others).  Even if it’s just a mental edit.

For example. (more…)

Sometimes, I remember I used to be an historian.  Or, at least trained as one.

I caught myself thinking about the history of food the other day.  About what food tells us about ourselves.  Not so much nutritionally, but sociologically.

While I’m just guessing, it wouldn’t surprise me, for example, to learn that the ability to serve imported coffee or tea to your house guests in 18th-century Kentucky, my homeland, said a lot about your status way back then.  Out on the western frontier, you did whatever you could do to demonstrate your hegemony over the wilderness — whether it was by putting a Georgian mantle over your fireplace, Pekoe in your teacup, silk around your neck or some pepper on your taters. (more…)