Mark Ibach, a good guy.
A friend to his dog is a friend to all.
My friend Mark Ibach was all that and more. Since 1981, he rescued five basset hounds. There may even have been more that we don’t know about. Mark’s Christmas cards featured a photo of him with his hounds. He brought them to the annual Chicago White Sox Dog Day. He faithfully took them to the annual mid-September Basset Bash & Waddle parade in Dwight, IL. That’s the biggest gathering of basset hounds anywhere.
Mark was the most passionate music fan I knew. He attended nearly 1,000 concerts in his lifetime and often bought two [...]
“In Lieu of a Carrot” by the great Jonathan Winters
Comedian-actor-artist Jonathan Winters would have turned 99 years old today.
Over the last week, I returned to Winters’ books, artwork, and a conversation with him. I needed an elixir.
Winters was very kind, very funny, and a curious listener. Just before the election, I re-read his 1987 book “Winters’ Tales (Stories and Observations for the Unusual).” The book is a collection of 25 years of Winters’ essays and thoughts. I bought “Winters Tales” for my father who was a huge Winters fan. They are both gone now but their considerable [...]
The Virginia Press Association (VPA) asked me to be the keynote speaker at their annual conference and awards banquet, held May 4 at the Omni Hotel in Charlottesville, VA. This year’s theme was “Beyond the Fold (Navigating Tomorrow’s News Landscape).”The association was founded in 1881 by the Virginia General Assembly. Current VPA Executive Director Betsy Edwards liked the hopeful tones of my book “Beacons in the Darkness (Hope and Transformation Among America’s Community Newspapers).”
By request here is a lightly edited version of my 40-minute talk. Post-conference updates are denoted by ***. Enjoy.
No place is a place until things are [...]
Artist Ken Auster’s “Turnin-A-Burnin” (Courtesy of Jack Morris)
The only Ruby Tuesday restaurant left in Illinois is off of Route 66 in downstate Litchfield. I’ve had the chicken and broccoli pasta a few times there over the past year. On every visit, I’ve paid a little more attention to the artwork. The walls contain restaurant themed paintings that recall Edward Hopper’s sparse realism.
On the north wall of the Ruby Tuesday, there is a giclee (inkjet printing process) of a waiter in a creased white shirt serving two men at a small table with a white tablecloth. A chef with a [...]
