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Zachary Weiss is a Manhattan-based brand consultant and writer, focusing on menswear, food, and travel. Follow along with him on Instagram: @ZacharyWeiss. Zachary here. Skinny, glossy, and usually covered with a water color of some sort of women’s frock, there’s no mistaking the J. Peterman catalog when it shows up in the mail. Approaching the holidays, deliveries seem to pick up in frequency, arriving on what soon starts to feel like a weekly basis.

1× 0:00 -10:48 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade.It is one of the most distressing thoughts in my head.  I have done so much work in my life.  I had eight produced plays by the time I was 26, and crawled my way from the garage theater underground into legitimate Bay Area venues like The Magic and Berkeley Rep.  I’ve been a professional journalist since I was 19, published 4 books I’m proud of with real publishers, and written 2 screenplays for Francis Ford Coppola.

Share In 1857, 31 year old Rabbi Mordechai Aby-Seour set off from Akka, in South West Morocco, to travel across the Sahara desert to Timbuktu. He was planning to re-establish the old Jewish trade routes between the two cities. His journey would take him through the mountains and desert occupied by the Berbers, the people who had originally populated the region before the arrival of the Arabs during the 7th century.

Nickelodeon’s “Drake & Josh” contains some of the most memorable moments in the canon of classic 2000s-era teen sitcoms. The tale of two stepbrothers—goofy, bumbling geek Josh Nichols (Josh Peck) and popular, airheaded slacker Drake Parker (Drake Bell)—gave us timeless catchphrases and running gags that are still referenced today through the bountiful virtual fountain of Internet memes. But there is one particular episode—and one particular moment from that episode—that still resonates with me, one that I can’t seem to shake off because of how it changed the way I viewed “Drake & Josh” and how it managed to expertly tackle a serious issue within its silly, slapstick-heavy DNA.

Welcome to Say Chess! This newsletter goes out to 4,017 chess players. If you haven't joined yet, sign up now and get the ebook '100 Headachingly Hard Mate In Two Puzzles Composed By Sam Loyd' for free. This week, I will share an interview with Marcus Buffett, a passionate chess enthusiast and innovative programmer. Marcus and his co-founder, Ollie Campbell, are in the process of developing a chess opening tool designed to streamline the learning process, potentially providing an alternative to Chessable's extensive variations.

I fell in love with movies about stuntmen while researching and writing The Fractured Mirror, my massive upcoming book about the history of American films about filmmaking. It’s a fascinating, overlooked, and underrated genre that experienced huge booms in the 1930s and 1970s and has its own set of conventions and cliches.  ncG1vNJzZmimkam1orrRmpmipl6owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpwvI6tn55lmqTGbrvFZqeoq5mptre107JkoaefpbKzeZBybnE%3D

I have been thinking a lot about Saturday Night Live-derived motion pictures as of late because I am writing a column for this newsletter in which I will watch and write about them ALL, in due time, but also because I was VERY excited about returning to Old Joliet Prison for the second Blues Brothers Convention until I found out that it had been cancelled due to the actor’s strike.

The “just-world fallacy” is a cognitive bias — a feeling more than an idea — that people get what they deserve. The rich and beautiful must be wonderful, even if their goodness is not immediately evident, while those who suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune must have done something to bring it on themselves. Maybe they’re dim, or lazy, or cruel, or profane. Whatever. It’s their fault. Somehow or other.

Welcome to the Brown History Newsletter. If you’re enjoying this labor of love, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your contribution would help pay the writers and illustrators and support this weekly publication. If you like to submit a writing piece, please send me a pitch by email at brownhistory1947@gmail.com. Don’t forget to check out our SHOP and our Podcast. The Horrific Murder of Hannah FosterSurjit Singh Chhokar: The Murder that Changed a Country’s Outlook ·