personal history
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 4 (2010)
Having obtained a newly uncovered photo of Lee as a little girl (with her brother Edward), I thought it was high time to return to her collected e-mails. Since our last installment, we learned that the extremely funny, talented, and charming Chris O’Dowd has joined the cast with the already announced, amazingly wonderful Julianne Moore in […]
Thanks, Dave
Did David Letterman have an impact on my life? Well, he changed the way I speak, so I guess that’s kind of a big deal. You see, I unconsciously drop the word “the” into sentences where that word isn’t really necessary, just like Dave does. “Are you familiar with the Instagram, Paul?” “I finally signed […]
Thank You, Vin Scelsa
Am listening right now to Vin Scelsa do his last radio show ever, on WFUV. In the summer of 1990 I was a college intern at Scholastic, living in the NYU dorm the Brittany at 10th and Broadway in Manhattan. It was a two-person room but I never did get assigned a roommate. At some […]
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 3 (2009)
With baseball season underway, it seems like a good time to return to the collected e-mails of Lee Israel, as this batch heavily features her interest in our national pastime. Lee routinely watched Yankees games on TV even if, as you’ll see, she wasn’t particularly root-root-rooting for the home team. The previous year, with the […]
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 2 (2007–08)
When last we were here, in my collection of emails from Lee Israel, we learned that Lee was working on a memoir, and also that money was tight, so she was looking for copy-editing assignments. We pick things up on… 4/20/07 eager to read your piece. cannot open it. I’ll pursue later. Did you know […]
Help Karl Hendricks
I knew the other 2/3 of the Karl Hendricks Trio—but who exactly was Karl? Drummer Tom Hoffman was a great pal from English classes at CMU; bassist Tim Parker was a really nice guy who I knew from WRCT. But Karl… hmmm…. Sure, I had the 7″ from his band Sludgehammer. Yet I don’t think […]
It Was 20 Years Ago Today
Kurt Cobain took his own life on April 5, 1994, but we didn’t learn the news until Friday, April 8. Can you imagine that today, three days passing? No distraught tweet from Courtney Love? No Instagram of the body from an assistant coroner, whose account is taken down the next day? It was bad enough […]
Meatball Sandwich Review: Favia Pizza
It was snowing like nobody’s business and I had to get to Jersey City. OK, sure, I could’ve rescheduled the interview I was conducting for a day with less inclement weather. But, I’m a bit of a masochist, a firm believer in “no time like the present,” and besides, I might get that meatball sandwich […]
Carded at the Library
What’s that old saying? “Unless we know a historian, we’re doomed to repeat it?” Something like that, anyway. Well, I am lucky to have a historian friend, Christina. When she recently told me she had helped put together an exhibit called “Driving for Justice: The New York Taxi Workers Alliance Records,” I was very eager […]
Jack Silbert, curator