It’s becoming clear that the internet is taking on the role of the catalog of America’s collective attic. Cruising around last night, I found this item from a 2011 sponsored by Cowan’s auction house: a second national Confederate flag, approximately 4.5 feet by 10 feet. Accompanying the flag was a notarized letter of provenance dated …
Neither Ginny nor I are prone to tout our own abilities, but there are some things we can do, and that’s all there is to it. As it happens, one of them is sitting. Like Will Sonnet, the old TV character played by Walter Brennan put it. “No brag, just fact.” Not that we won’t pee …
I had a great time on Sunday speaking about Commander Will at the Scarsdale Library. We had a terrific crowd, very attentive and receptive. Many thanks to Claudette Gaffney for arranging the event and publicizing, and to her staff for the thoughtful decorations and refreshments. It was great fun–I couldn’t think of a better way …
Here is the talk I gave at the Naval Academy.
I was seriously chuffed, as my English friends say, to be invited to talk about Will Cushing at my alma mater, La Salle University in Philadelphia last Thursday. When I was an undergraduate there, it was a mere college plopped onto three street corners; now it a big sprawling plant, with something like 10,000 students. …
I had a great time last Wednesday, when I delivered a talk on CommanderWill Cushing at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis as part of the Shifley Lecture series. A crowd of perhaps 50 or so, divided among midshipmen, officers and civilians attended, and I hope they enjoyed the talk at least half as …
The Winter of Our Discontent phase of the 2015 Push the Cush Tour saw us braving the snow and cold of January and February to make four stops. Regrettably, illness cost us visits to the Falmouth Historical Society in Massachusetts and the Naval War College in Rhode Island, but we had great time visiting The Group …
Thanks to Patrick E. Purcell, who gave Commander Will Cushing a terrific review in Civil War News. “With a skillful account of the Cushing brothers’ careers,” says Purcell, “Jamie Malanowski has created a well-written and often thrilling story that is as engaging as an action novel. His book is highly recommended.” Thanks, too, to Rea Andrew …
Until January 7th, I had never heard of Charlie Hebdo, but when Islamic terrorists broke into the offices of what was described as “a small French satirical magazine’’ and killed dozen people, including the editor-in-chief, four other cartoonists, two other editors, an economist, a mainterance worker, and two police officers, I instantly identified with the …
Originally published in The Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2014 Let us pause in the day’s labors to raise a glass, preferably containing Madeira or a rich, full-bodied port, to the centenary of the greatest historical novelist ever, and one of the best novelists of our era. Patrick O’Brian was born Dec. 12, 1914—or, rather, …