Roll over for
Roll over for
About the cover: the illustration of a man sitting in his chair smoking a cigar watching a flat screen television was drawn by remarkably prescient French artist Albert Robida in 1892. See Back to the Future on page 404. The dancers on the back cover were originally what he was watching. I switched channels from 1892 to 1977 with John Travolta dancing in Saturday Night Fever, which I licensed. In the first edition he was watching the space shuttle Discovery taking off from Cape Kennedy October 23, 2007. That photo was free since we taxpayers funded it. The background on the back cover is Robida’s Leaving the Opera in the Year 2000, done in 1882.
There’s no detailed table of contents. There are about 1122 articles (you can count them different ways), up from 804 in the first edition, not including 88 notes and the 76½ pithy profundities styled Deep Thought scattered through the book, so it’s not feasible. It’s a nonlinear book anyway. Feel free to jump around in it. There are 394 photos and illustrations, black and white in the print edition and in color in the Kindle and ebook editions as well as this site; however, many of the older pictures are black and white. Click on the Book link at the top and bottom of each page for print and Kindle editions. If the Kindle screen is too small, there is a free app you can download to read it on any device.
In addition to the 56 newsletters I’d written by 2015 for the first edition of this book, I’ve now written 13 more newsletters plus articles too long or too political for them, which I added to the second edition. There are three more sections: Famous People You’ve Never Heard Of, Trump You!, and Forget-Me-Not, a poignant elegy on the last page.
Since there’s nothing to watch on TV, I write. I had written so many articles about just about everything that I reorganized them into the first edition of Now and Then Again, The Way We Were and the Way We Are. The jewelry articles were put in one section, Bijoux and Beyond. I wrote many articles about the past which, juxtaposed with contemporary articles, are eerily resonant, hence the title. See Made in China on page 1
In addition to jewelry, the newsletters had articles about consumer and middle class issues, money, economics, and the lighter side of life. The books also had politics sections that would have been inappropriate for the newsletters. I wrote about politics in the books mainly to see if I could. It’s not so easy. The politics are pretty mild, unless you’re not.
I compiled the first 34 newsletters into a book titled Ornamentally Incorrect in 2008. This was followed by two other editions in 2011 and 2013. The 69th newsletter was done and ready to go when the shutdown happened; the articles from it are in this book.
I sent newsletters to about 1400 of my customers 3 times a year. The newsletters were an instant hit when I started them in 1997. They were so popular — people would call to thank me for sending them — I can’t believe I’m not rich. There were three four page letter size newsletters a year, Spring, Fall, and Holiday, mailed to my customers and also posted as a download on my web site, jewelrynewsletter.com, referenced occasionally in the book. The Viet Nam photos were on the old site as a remembrance of things past and so they are here also. I was in Đà Nẵng, Việt Nam in the Air Force from February, 1965 to December, 1966. I was a Vietnamese linguist and a lifeguard on China Beach.
Introduction
I owned Joseph’s Jewelry in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey (not the part of New Jersey they make jokes about) for 33 years until the continuing Great Recession and the forced corona virus shutdown of my nonessential business finally did me in. I was a bench jeweler, stone setter, and gemologist
A small number at the upper left or lower right of an article indicates the page number of a note. You won’t have to scrutinize fine print on a note page to find the note you’re looking for. Notes are in the same format as the articles, with title in bold. They’ll jump out at you.
There’s no more jewelry newsletters, but there’s plenty of jewelry. While I did well on my going out of business sale, there was a lot left over and I am selling it at 5% over cost/wholesale on Shopify. You can see it here.
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| Apple |
| Kobo |
| Scribd |