Orchard workers at Mt. Pleasant Orchard, near Havre de Grace, Maryland, c. 1915. Over the Christmas holiday, I unearthed a small journal...

Mr. I sent me a link recently to Atlas Obscura’s “The Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature’s Most Epic Road Trips.” It is...

Does a battle assume there has been a victory? Writing has a threshold that must be crossed, marking the departure from everyday life and...

I spent July at a Research Fellowship at Winterthur Museum, Library, and Garden. This mainly meant identifying manuscripts and object...

To sleep in your car – completely American? Or not normal? Here’s the Thing, Alec Baldwin’s excellent radio program. I’m not much of a...

My time here at Winterthur is wrapping up. I took yesterday to visit two incredible local institutions, the Friends Historical Library at...

I’m in residence at Winterthur Museum, Library, and Garden working on my 18th century runaway project and participating in a preventive...

It’s a little bit untrue to title this small volume solely a book. It caught my eye while I was perusing the stacks last week at the New...

McSorley’s. 2003. I just finished Dwight Garner’s “A Critic’s Tour of Literary Manhattan” in The New York Times (December 14, 2012). I’m...

The Leaky Faucet features two of the weirder Muppets, The Martians. Their octopus-like lower halves are topped with wide flexible mouths...

The Leaky Faucet features two of the weirder Muppets, The Martians. Their octopus-like lower halves are topped with wide flexible mouths...

Mourning miniature, 1788. Brooklyn Museum. 21.474. Twinkies. I’ve had a few. I’ve had more pink Snowballs and Suzy-Q’s than Twinkies. I...

RL Fifield. 2008. It’s something about the light of shops shining out onto the sidewalks, people wrapped in coats, the tall buildings...

Perhaps Amtrak is a little late for many rail fans, but the Amtrak history website led to me losing a few hours last night while I poked...

I was putting together another post on Amtrak when I stumbled across a New York Times Opinion on Amtrak’s Quiet Car by Tim Krieder. The...

Business travel breeds ideas. My business trips involve some off days, waiting around at my destination, combined with really long...

One of many meals I’ve eaten while dining alone. Dusseldorf. RL Fifield, 2012. I can travel a fair amount for my job. Anyone who travels...

Seattle. RL Fifield, 2012. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. Brilliant sun and a cloudless sky marked my days in Seattle. Like San...

I think I heard about this study on the Registrar’s Committee of the American Alliance of Museum’s listserve, a very long time ago. If...

I moved into New York City proper in 2005, and while my journalling habits have given way to blogging, research writing, and fiction, I...