This article appeared in the Syracuse New Times, February 25, 1987. The brand information is dated, but the larger issues are relevant today. *** When a cold beer slides your way, do you think of your old drinking buddies or Louis Pasteur? Sorry, those are the only two choices. And you can’t drink the beer […]
In 1973, editor Mike Greenstein of the Syracuse New Times gave me the chance to write about beer. My career as a writer had its beginnings then and there. In 1985, Charlie Papazian gave me an opportunity to write for a national publication, Zymurgy, bringing my writing to the attention of people like Dan & […]
To understand Abbey Ales, and how religion and brewing came to exist in such an unexpected and beneficial harmony, one has to journey back to the early days of Christianity and the dawn of the monastic tradition. In the fourth century, monastic orders sprang up all around the Mediterranean. In Italy, St. Benedict laid down […]
It’s summer. I wear shorts to church. This past Sunday, during a lull in the action, I decided to walk down memory lane with my left knee. The first scar appeared when I was about six years old. I had discovered that oiling the wheels of my scooter made it go faster, and on the […]
For many years, I was very lucky to have two grandmothers. Grandma Braun, my mother’s mom, loved little children, until they could talk back. When my cousin Daryl and I told her that the wrestling matches on TV were fake, she was not happy with us. But my father’s mom, Abbie Winship, seemed to find […]
It has been said that your interest in family history begins at the funeral of the last person who could have answered your questions. So it is with me and my interest in Hollis William Slocum. I learned just the other day that Hollis was a cheese maker, and I love cheese. And he’s such […]
In my 38 years as a copywriter, I found taglines the most difficult to write. Long copy was easy. Shorter copy, written to fit a layout, a little harder. Headlines, very difficult. But taglines – in which you sum up a client’s business, promise, spirit in just three or four words – those were a […]
In the first two decades of the 1900s, Raphael Tuck & Sons, England’s foremost postcard producer, published a series of Postcard Painting Books, an introduction to mail art for children. In addition to colored pictures, for reference, and outlines to be painted in, each book included a set of watercolor paints. After painting, the postcards […]
This painting haunts me. I find it beautiful and fascinating. And yet the subject matter – German Stuka dive bombers returning to Greece after a mission over Crete – is, to say the least, disturbing. I have always felt that the Nazis were the gold standard for evil, no matter how glamorously portrayed. The painting […]
You say “Buffalo” and I say “Millard Fillmore! Cookie Gilchrist! Goo Goo Dolls!” But recently I learned of another reason to shout: Gene LaVerne. A professional dancer, he turned to photography when a back injury took him off the stage. Gene LaVerne with Jean Harlow Gene LaVerne became the nation’s preeminent photographer of exotic dancers, […]
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