Welcome to Friday,
Here are five things I found worth sharing this week.
A new biography of Joan Didion just released! This one also looks excellent (as was Tracy Daugherty’s The Last Love Song). I’m excited to read it. Here is an excerpt.
There is so much to love in this essay; road-trips in the American heartland, used books, and childhood traditions. A taste:
“Every summer for twenty years, my Dad loaded my sister and me into a rented cargo van to make a pilgrimage from Houston to a parking lot in suburban Chicago. It was a pilgrimage because my Dad is a bookseller who loves and reveres books and all they stand for. Bookselling is his vocation. And in the latter half of the 20th century, if you loved and revered books and all they stand for, that parking lot in suburban Chicago became a holy site for two weeks at the beginning of every June.”
“Who was the Real Ichabod Crane?”
“Knowledge and vision are not entirely distinct: The more we know, the more we can see, and the more we see, the more we can know.” Despite having spent a lot of time in museums, I’ve never thought to ask for the guards’ opinion on a piece or for more background on it. As this piece demonstrates, guards look at pieces of art every day, from every angle and in every lighting situation possible; of course they can provide insight into what you’re viewing. What a fascinating memoir from a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; I’m looking forward to reading it.
“In what ways do Americans tend to misunderstand the French Revolution?” This piece on how the American and French Revolutions differ (substantially), as well as how they are similar, answers exactly that question.
Currently reading: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving (It’s that time of year again!)
Have a great weekend.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
