Still a little rusty after our podcasting hiatus, we have dusted off the cobwebs by now for our third episode since our big time off. In this episode, Joanna and Kevin talk about the return of poker playing, writing books, and side hustles. Joanna’s eBay store is heating up, and Kevin is looking forward to going to New Orleans one of these days for Tales of the Cocktails. Will Jo go? We wrap up with Continue Reading →
In our second podcast from our too-long hiatus, we welcome our first guest to sit down with us. Shower Curtain Patrick (his bar name) is a longtime regular customer of Joanna’s, and he invented a radical new shower curtain design. He sent a complimentary shower curtain to Jo, which we unbox on the show. The idea came to Patrick when he was sick of “the cling” and the “gunk” of cheap plastic shower curtains, which Continue Reading →
In our first broadcast together since May 2020, Joanna and Kevin settle into the groove of getting the Big Show back up and running. We are together again at The Lambs, catching up. It is indeed sad that we lost two of our guests, Billy the Artist from Episode 4, and Big Ed Cody from Episode 16. Ed also recorded our theme song, which we are keeping on the opening and closing of the show. Continue Reading →
I am launching a fiction reading challenge this month and I invite other fiction fans to join me. I am focused first on O. Henry for a 12-week reading sprint to read his collected works. I’ll be launching an online reading club around it #OHenryReaders on Twitter. Why O. Henry? Because he’s one of the greatest American short fiction writers? Actually, it is because more than a decade ago I picked up 11 of the Continue Reading →
I had the honor to be part of a podcast that means a lot to me which you can listen to here. So often the podcasts I listen to are about pop culture or true crime, but this one means a lot because it’s about a subject I’ve spent the last ten years contemplating and working side projects about, which is the American memory of World War I. It’s why I took part in the Continue Reading →
I had a lot of fun being a last-minute replacement guest on a great New York City podcast last night, Rediscovering New York. You can watch it here via Facebook Live. The subject was Saboteurs and Spies, and I covered the Civil War in New York as well as WWI and the Black Tom Island explosion in 1916. My fellow tour guide Robert Brenner was also a guest covering WWII and those pesky Nazis in Continue Reading →
My family and I were on Governors Island yesterday for the first time in a very long time, due to the pandemic. I did not do one tour last summer there, this was the first time since 2002 that this happened. I am about to announce my new schedule. In the meantime, here is a throwback video that is still fun to watch. I took part in a 2019 segment on Governors Island with CUNY Continue Reading →
I am very happy to be leading tours in New York City again. My first back was September 24, where I led my Secrets of Scott and Fitzgerald Tour from Times Square to Central Park. My upcoming tour is brand new, and one that is quite unique. In partnership with the Woodlawn Cemetery and Conservancy, I am now leading my newest: Dorothy Parker and the Talk of the Town New Yorkers Tour. The next one Continue Reading →
I woke up today to find out that in a speech last night a plan was announced for something called a “National Garden of American Heroes” with a “vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans who ever lived.” This is really surprising to me–and anyone else–who knows about the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, which has been in The Bronx since the first class was inducted in 1900. In Continue Reading →
In what came as a surprise to me, a paperback edition of The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide (2015) has been published by Lyons Press. The hardcover vanished last year (which was the centennial of the Round Table launch, unfortunately) and this paperback takes its place. It is all the same content as the 2015, just in paperback. It remains 274 pages and is priced at $16.95 in the USA. It is Continue Reading →