PicoBlog

To celebrate today’s release of the expanded paperback edition of BLOOD & INK, here’s a (lightly tweaked) excerpt from the postscript I’ve added to the book, describing an unexpected research breakthrough in the Hall-Mills murder case. It’s a story about how new information, even from a century-old mystery, can turn up in places where you’d least expect it. “Hall-Mills jackpot enroute to NBFPL.” That was the subject line of an email I received last winter from Kim Adams, archivist of the New Brunswick Free Public Library, whose name you will see again in my “Note on Research and Sources,” first published in the hardcover edition of Blood & Ink.

Freelancing, platform-mediated “gig” work, and other forms of self-employment are at an all-time high in the United States and the rest of the world. Over a third of America’s workforce engaged in some type of independent work in 2023. As this type of work continues to play a larger and unprecedented role in the economy, efforts have sprung up in recent years to regulate independent contracting. These efforts primarily aim to address ‘misclassification’ and to move more independent contractors to traditional employment so they can receive various employment-based benefits and protections.

Numbers are an interesting place to start this story. The United States has a population of just over 322 million, and 5,342 Thai restaurants. That’s one Thai eatery for every 60,277 Americans. Brooklyn boasts a population of 2.5 million with 89 Thai restaurants, or one per 28,089 Brooklynites. The considerably smaller (population:13,623) but mighty City of Lebanon, NH? A total of 4 Thai restaurants, or one per 3,405 residents. Take that, Brooklyn.

When you’re thinking about what you’ll wear on New Years Eve, the key thing you want to consider is where you’re going to be. I can think of four categories/locations that would call for different outfit equations. The first is for celebrating at home. Then there is celebrating at someone else’s home. Then there’s a restaurant And then there’s THE CLUB but really this category captures any location less intimate than a restaurant but probably more intimate than a gigantic concert hall for which event, truly, anything goes.

When I first arrived at Wesleyan University in 1979, I was disappointed that people there weren’t more interested in current music.  Punk and New Wave were happening.  College radio was becoming a thing.  There were tons of bands.  Every city had its own scene.  But people at Wesleyan were still listening to the Grateful Dead and blowing soap bubbles on the quad.  My sophomore year, a freshman kid from Washington DC arrived.

When Howard “Pappy” Mason made bail, he made an imaginary gun with his thumb and index finger, turned to the prosecutor and pulled the trigger. Which must have been worrying, given that he had just been freed by a hung jury in a murder trial in which he was accused of killing Lorenzo “Fat Cat” Nichols’ parole officer. The supposed motive? The parole officer had dared to send him back to prison.

It’s always fun to visit New York where I get to see friends and stock up on essentials. This time I brought back black cocoa powder to make these brownies, crunchy organic peanut butter (there’s now a nut butter mill in Paris, but its peanut butter doesn’t look crunchy), unscented shaving cream and other products (sensitive skin!), and a roll of non-stick aluminum foil, which many have told me is a godsend to bakers.

Dimes Square is technically a triangle, a few blocks-radius on New York City’s Lower East Side, teeming with dimly-lit bars, cafe tables that spill out on to the streets, stuck-in-time storefronts with signs written in Chinese, plus a high concentration of people dressed with an uncontrived nonchalance that screams cool. While staying at 9 Orchard right in the center of things last weekend, I came across a woman, pictured below, who not only embodied the neighborhood’s distinct style but also inspired me to give it a whirl, with a pair of belted low slung, loose-fitting jeans, tucked into Larroude knee-high boots and an oversized cashmere crewneck.

Hey Squeeze Peeps —  Very brief newsletter, just to clarify something I’m seeing people talk about online. As some of you already know, New York Public Radio laid off 20 staffers, or 6% of its workforce last week. If you followed the news, you might have read this WNYC/Gothamiststory, in which an outside freelancer hired by the station to cover the story reported that in addition to reducing its staff, NYPR “cut podcasts More Perfect and La Brega as part of a broader cost-cutting effort.