Brushes with Greatness: John Waters’ Moustache

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Memory—well, my memory—will sometimes persuade me to remember my memories with a specificity of a snapshot stared at and studied for the pop quiz that I assume life will throw at me on any given school day.

John Waters’ moustache did not knock me out of the way on a Provincetown street one summer afternoon. But that is how I recall my memory of our split-second encounter. He didn’t say or do anything, my memory tells me; his pencil moustache did.
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Exposed: A Favorite Spot

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Most of my favorite places on Earth possess the skill to transform anyone with a camera into Ansel Adams or David Hockney. Earth Day is every day through my cell phone lens.

For instance, the photo at the top. Only one or two readers have asked, which means that perhaps many, many readers have been wondering about this in silence. It’s a clamor of silence. (In the world of a co-dependent like me, almost complete silence is the same thing as many specific requests.) The unasked question(s): The photo at the top, where is that? What is it photo of?

Indeed, there is one photo on this web site that is not of me or my duck friend, and it has sat at the top of the front page since The Gad About Town made its debut three years ago. It is at the top. It is the view of the Hudson River looking south from Frederic Edwin Church‘s home studio, Olana, near Hudson, New York. It is a photo taken in 2013.
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Today in History: April 22

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Today is the 46th annual Earth Day. This year’s theme is, “Trees for the Earth.”

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“He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatness of soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported with the later.”—Henry Fielding, “Amelia”

Henry Fielding was born on this date in 1707. He was also the author of the novels Joseph Andrews; The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling; and Shamela.

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“You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.”—Vladimir Nabokov, “Lolita”

Vladimir Nabokov was born on this date in 1899.
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