In which he laments the demise of a once-beautiful service
It’s literally the end of an era. After seven national titles, eleven SEC championships and one hundred and twenty-three players drafted into the NFL, Alabama Crimson Tide head football coach Nick Saban is retiring. College football is not going to see another legend like him for a while. I admire what he did at LSU and Alabama almost as much as I hated when Florida played against him.
We have got to be living in a golden age of notebooks. I’m sure there is an obscure German word that defines an addiction to collecting notebooks paired with the overestimation of how much actual writing any one person can possibly accomplish. I adore my dozens and dozens of Field Notes and Moleskines and already have more than I am ever likely to fill, but holy hell these Keepbooks from Studio Neat are gorgeous.
Several times when they went to commercial during tonight’s College Football Championship game, ESPN was playing Gimme Shelter from the 1969 Rolling Stones album Let It Bleed. It’s an awesome song. The entire album is fantastic, and I’ve loved it since I was in middle school. I am just having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that a song released five and a half decades ago is still so popular (and well known?) that it works. For comparison, if ESPN had existed in 1969, and if the CFP existed in 1969, they’d be playing Carry Me Back to Old Virginny by Alma Gluck or It’s a Long Way to Tipperary by John McCormack. Those were “hits” right at the start of World War I and — I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here — teenagers at the tail end of the 60s weren’t rocking out to Alma Gluck.
And the Stones are still touring!
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You can read dozens of essays and articles and find hundreds of links to other sites with stories and information about Ernest Hemingway in The Hemingway Collection.