My Site Meter tells me that “About Last Night” was read around the world yesterday, in time zones ranging from here to–I think–Iraq. Quite a few Asian and European readers, somewhat to my surprise (at one point during the day I seemed to have more readers in Central Europe than in the Mountain Standard Time zone of the good old U.S.A.). The kudzu is spreading!
I’m no less pleased, as well as a bit stunned, to announce that my mailbag is now empty. (I cleared out 500-plus e-mails in the last 48 hours.) I also switched off my autoreplier, a token of my determination to answer my mail promptly from now on, or at least while I’m in New York, which I won’t be this weekend, so don’t get your hopes up.
I found plenty of interesting things in my mailbox, including an e-mail from the long-lost woman who played Flora to my Miles in our small-town high-school production of The Innocents (talk about way weird), a note from someone who thinks I’m a redbaiter for having pointed out that Dalton Trumbo was (gadzooks) a Communist, and a large number of e-mails weighing in on the subject of which work of art Yale University Press should put on the cover of A Terry Teachout Reader. Most of you preferred Fairfield Porter’s lithograph Broadway. I reported your choice to my editor at Yale, who wrote back as follows:
That’s good news indeed because that’s the image that both I & the designer strongly prefer. It’s elegant, classy, & a bit nostalgic without the treacle.
How about that? Your vote did count, sort of.
In other news, Maud Newton
picked up on my hints about Friday’s guest blogger. No announcement yet–you’ll have to wait while the suspense continues to build.
Now on to today’s topics, from natty to dishevelled: (1) A genuinely fresh contribution (no fooling!) to the Frank Lloyd Wright debate. (2) Four poker faces. (3) Why we blog. (4) Who now reads Pope? Nobody. (5) Today’s installment. (6) The latest almanac entry.
I e-mailed my entire mailing list for the first time in several weeks, reminding everyone to come visit www.terryteachout.com, and what do you know? The numbers soared. Why can’t you do that, too?