Brian Jay Jones's Blog, page 31

Irving the Ivy Leaguer. Sort Of.

My pal Rob Schweitzer over at Historic Hudson Valley snuck this up on the HVBlog a while back, and I only just caught it:  a photo of Washington Irving's 1832 honorary law degree from Harvard University. Very nice.  And not a bad accomplishment for someone who might fairly be considered a candidate for New York's Worst Attorney — after all, Irving allegedly abandoned the only client he ever had!

Nice find, Rob.

The Next Voice You Hear Will…Oh, Forget It.

My plans for voice recognition software were thwarted.

As Jane Smith —  from How Publishing Really Works — pointed out in the comments section, voice recognition software is fairly voice specific.  You have to "train" it to recognize your own voice, at which point you can play your own recorded voice back to it (or speak through a microphone) and the program will recognize your own words well enough to come up with a reasonable transcription.

My problem, however, is that that's not really what ...

Sleep, Pretty Darling, Do Not Cry

Back in late January, Barb and I took our dog Abbey to a specialist to see if they could determine what was causing the rapid deterioration of her back legs.  Initially, we thought she had developed hip dysplasia — a bane to large dog owners everywhere — but Abbey seemed to be getting more and more hobbled as the weeks went on.  She went from dragging her left leg last June, to teetering on her feet by Thanksgiving, to barely walking by Christmas.  Clearly, something else was going on.

Back...

The Next Voice You Hear Will Be Your Own

I'm in the process of getting the interview I conducted the last week in February transcribed — or, rather, I'm in the process of trying to get it transcribed.   I've got four hours of conversation to convert, and initially, I was planning on doing it myself.  I've transcribed interviews before, but nothing quite this long – and after taking 20 minutes or so to transcribe about five minutes of conversation . . . well, that's an unimpressive effort-to-product ratio.  Clearly, I need another...

The Devil You Say!

Washington Irving — and "The Devil and Tom Walker" — causes heartburn in an Illinois classroom.

(For your reference, here's Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker," which first appeared in his 1824 book Tales of a Traveller. Go get it.)

Tomorrow Never Knows

I'm heading back to New York tomorrow — armed with my laptop, notes, and tape recorder — to have a chat with Someone Wonderful related to Project Blue Harvest.  It'll be a quick day — up on the train in the morning, interviewing in the afternoon, then back that evening — but I'm so excited about it that the day will probably seem to go by even faster. I even made sure to book myself a reserved seat on the train on the way home so I'm certain of a spot where I can plug in the computer, plunk o...

A Dose of Reality in High School Reading

Over in The Washington Post, crack education writer Jay Mathews laments the absence of non-fiction on high school "required reading" lists.  "I am not dismissing the delights of Twain, Crane, Buck, Saroyan and Wilder," Mathews writes. "But I think I would also have enjoyed Theodore H. White, John Hersey, Barbara Tuchman and Bruce Catton if they had been assigned."

He's right.  I can't remember ever being assigned any non-fiction in high school, apart from in a journalism class where a wise...

Pulitzer Priceless

Joseph Pulitzer

Last night, I had the great pleasure of attending a reception and book talk for James McGrath Morris's Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power down at American University (which, as it turns out, is also McGrath's alma mater).

If you have the opportunity to see Jamie talk about Pulitzer, jump at it.  Last night, he gave a presentation that encompassed his research (which included the kind of tale biographers love — that of finding The Source That No One Else Has)...

(Snow)Driftin'

The gynormous Blizzard of 2010 has officially been clear of the region for a little less than a week — gone, but not by a long shot forgotten.  Roads are relatively clear — unless you live in the District of Columbia or an isolated cul-de-sac — grocery stores are restocked, and mail delivery has resumed (an overnight mail package I took the Post Office on Tuesday the 9th finally made it to its destination on Friday the 12th — it was stuck on the East Coast for two days while mail delivery...

Trip Report, Part 2: Hi, Society!

When I last left you — at least for the purposes of this particular narrative — I was in the lobby of the Roosevelt hotel, monitoring text messages from Barb and Madi as they made their way up from Maryland on the train.  They were running only slightly behind schedule (as I said earlier, "on time" for the Northeast Regional seems to mean about ten minutes late), so I arrived in plenty of time to meet them, even after walking the mile or so to Penn Station.  A short cab ride back to the...