THE LAST DYE TRANSFER PRINTER IN CAPTIVITY Sean O'Hagan's Observer (19/11/17) profile of the photographer William Eggleston and, further, recalling reviews of the National Portrait Gallery's recent exibition of Eggleston's work and the various references to his use of the dye transfer color printing process set me wondering: am I the last dye transfer technician in captivity who has never himself been an...
The Cornish Hotels of New York City Part Two Research into the later life of the last two West Twenty-third Street incarnations of the Cornish Arms Hotel from 1914 until c.1973 yields evidence of the decline and the ultimate end of its distinctively Cornish character. From the opening of its final home at 311-315 West Twenty-third Street in 1926 the Cornish Arms, both under the...
Major Wiley In a number of the posts on this website I have referred to those who have died as having "gone under the wire". I glommed this phrase from A.J. Liebling's friend and subject, J.A.S. Macdonald - a.k.a, Col. John R. Stingo, a.a.k.a., The Honest Rainmaker. It is a horse racing term meaning those who have passed the finishing line....
"On a quiet street where old ghosts meet...
THE CORNISH HOTELS OF NEW YORK CITY PART ONE Some time ago, while researching in the Cornish Studies Library at Redruth into the history of an old Cornish public house, I encountered on microfilm copies of the West Briton newspaper’s shipping columns dating from the 1890s a series of advertisements connecting the area of Lower Manhattan where I spent my childhood and...
The Old Punter’s Cautionary Tale of a Ditty - The History of "Dublin Lady" I might have followed the example of Noel Coward when he warned “Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs. Worthington” in advising my children against becoming songwriters. As it is, in the case of my eldest son, the counsel would have come too late. He’s already...
My admiration for Seamus Ennis – always fairly idolatrous – reached its peak one night in March 1971 at Thurso Folk Club. Seamus, the Scotish folk singer/songwriter Archie Fisher and I had driven from Aberdeen; stopping only for a flat tyre in Dingwall, and making the last hundred miles in a slithery drizzle along a serpentine coast road, stretches of...
THE OLD PUNTER’S ADVICE TO YOUNG MUSICIANS & SINGERS 1.) Ditch the music stands and the lyric crib sheets. Unless you are performing in the context of a recital room, a classical or jazz concert hall rather than a club or a pub, you ought to have some grasp of the tunes you’re playing. As to words, if you have not managed...
On March 15th, 1889, the first competitive game was played at the newly completed Gloucestershire County Cricket Ground at Ashley Down, Bishopston, in the historic English seaport city of Bristol. The contest was not a cricket match but rather an exhibition game between two teams of American professional baseball players. The press coverage given the event – including stories headlined...
In his admirable life of Wodehouse Robert McCrum observes that: “In old age, he had become a devoted baseball fan...