Weird Birds, Dave Barry, and the Crap Outside Your Window
What I'm reading, August edition
Bird History is my new favorite thing
I’m writing a book about state birds right now, and it’s leading me into the weird, wonderful, puzzling, and sometimes gruesome world of bird history. I stumble across so much that is just barely outside the scope of my book but nonetheless fascinating. A person could spend a lifetime unearthing bits of the strange history of birds and the people who by and large screw everything up for them.
In his Bird History newsletter, Robert Francis explores all the odd and obscure corners of the bird world that I wish I had time to dig into. I’ve already interviewed him for my next book and he and I have become pen pals, swapping bizarre tidbits back and forth.
His stuff is all funny, thoughtful, and deeply researched. Go subscribe right this minute. It’s the best thing ever.
Oh, and he’s also an extremely good linocut artist, and if you pay for a subscription, he’ll send you one of these!?!? I can hardly believe it. How amazing is this?
If you’re a writer and/or a fan of Dave Barry, you should read his new book
Alert readers might know that Dave Barry is right here at Dave Barry’s Substack doing just what he did throughout his long illustrious career in newspapers, which was to cause whoever was in charge at the Miami Herald to hold a weekly emergency meeting of its legal team, its dispirited ad sales reps, and its overworked subscriber cancellation specialists, to assure them that Dave has been given his final warning and that if he pulls anything like this again, he will definitely not be nominated for any more Pulitzer prizes.
That’s a poor imitation of a Dave Barry line, but as I read his new memoir Class Clown, I realized that I’ve been reading his columns from the time I was twelve or so, and I’ve blatantly copied accidentally absorbed some of his writing quirks. I owe him a dime for every time I’ve used some variation of “alert readers” or “I am not making this up” right here in front of all of you.
I particularly love the juicy middle chapters about how he came into his own as a humor columnist. He had the rare luxury, the days when newspapers were flush with cash, to pursue anything he found interesting, no matter the travel expenses or bail bonds involved. He was free, if you want to think about it this way, to be the artist-in-residence of the deeply weird state of Florida, or of the whole country.
What’s so great about the book is that he broke down exactly how he made this work for himself. This would be a gold mine for an aspiring newspaper columnist, if newspaper columnist was a job anyone could aspire to anymore. As it is, it’s fantastic advice for newsletter-writers, and since I’m one of those, I was kind of dazzled by the way he mapped it out. I’m not going to spill it all here—go read the book!—but when you do, please marvel at the way he:
Carried on a massive correspondence with readers, which required a full-time assistant, but also inspired new columns constantly. Nobody does audience engagement like Dave Barry circa 1992.
Went out into the world (yes, the real world, the one outside your door) to pull brilliant journalistic stunts, such as going undercover to test out various bribery schemes to get a good table at Joe’s Stone Crab, to the outrage of everyone who believed that the wait list at Joe’s Stone Crab operated under fair, unbiased democratic principles
Harnessed his army of readers to carry out other real-world stunts, such as encouraging everyone to call the American Teleservices Association at once to help them understand why Americans wanted to outlaw unsolicited phone calls
Wrote such a funny and persuasive column about colonoscopies that for years, doctors handed out copies to nervous patients. That’s called viral content, kids.
Leaned into his linguistic quirks and recurring bits (see “alert reader”, “I am not making this up”, Wildly Incorrect Authority, etc).
Generally found a way to make light of anything we were in danger of taking too seriously, an attitude that we could use in massive doses right now. For instance, this, from the Clinton-era health care debates, which seemed so dire at the time:
This debate, although bitter at times, has resulted in a broad national consensus on two fundamental conclusions:
The United States has the best system of health care in the world.
Something needs to be done about this.
There’s so much more, but you’re an alert reader—go find it for yourself.
This just in from Louise Nevelson
I adore Louise Nevelson and I also adore the Great Women Artists Podcast from Katy Hessel — and those two wonderful things came together in her July 2023 podcast episode on Nevelson, which I only just now heard. This quote stopped me in my tracks. Be the artist-in-residence of the crap you see outside your window!
This week I drew you a flower
I drew a picture from this photo, sent in by an alert reader. The original is on its way to Sandra, but you can draw along with me (and send me your own photo to draw) for much less than the price of a subscription to the Miami Herald.
Also I say this a lot, but: anyone can learn to draw and paint! It’s a technical skill, with basic rules that we can all master. Sometimes people will say: Oh, but knowing what to paint. That’s the part you can’t teach.
Nope, you can teach that, too! I’ve put together my definitive guide to composing paintings and drawings. These are loose rules that are easy to follow and fun to play around with. This tiny painting demonstrates one of those rules. Subscribe to find out which one, and remember, you get access to a whole archive you can dip into any time.
The Bit at the End
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Love the ostrich photo! This summer I took myself on a tour of all the Oakland library branches and discovered that there used to be
Ostrich farms in Oakland. It made me not so secretly wish for an ostrich library mascot.
Dave Barry is one of my favorite humor writers.