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Greetings

OCTOBER 27, 2009

Several years ago I was invited to join Drawger. At that time, though, Congress had just announced its intention to pass a radical new anti-copyright bill and I thought somebody who had a stake in copyrights ought to say something about it. I thought I’d just write an article. The next thing I knew it was several years later. So a belated hello to everyone here at Drawger and a very belated thank you for the gracious invitation to join you.

When I was a kid, we never had any books in the house except the World Almanac my father used to buy at the drugstore every year. Dad was always looking up facts and figures in them and telling me when the next eclipse was going to be or when a comet was due. Then in the 1970s, David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace (and a cast of thousands) produced The People’s Almanac. It came out in a couple of editions, but it was less a compendium of facts and figures and more like a hodgepodge of whatever David and Irving and their friends wanted to stick in.

Of course, the most famous almanac in American history was Poor Richard’s Almanac, written and published by Benjamin Franklin under the pseudonym Richard Saunders. It began as a real almanac with information about meteor showers and when to plant your corn crop, but pretty soon it morphed into an outlet for Franklin to spout off about whatever he wanted to spout off about. This was my inspiration for this page.

In Poor Bradford’s Almanac I’ll emulate Ben Franklin, only I’ll skip the celestial predictions and weather forecasts and go straight to the spouting off part. I’ve been in the art business a few years, and I’ve been known to have an opinion or two. In addition, I’ve met a few people in the course of my business, seen a few places and had a few experiences. I’ll try to set down some of them as faithfully as memory will permit.

In the meantime, thanks again for the invitation and I hope I’ll be able to contribute a thing or two of interest.
© 2024 Brad Holland