Yet another Ask Roger Anything query in honor of 16.5 years of me blogging:
How do find the time to do the research for your blog?
Naturally, there are multiple answers to the question.
1) When blogging is going well, it feels as though it takes no time at all, (And when it’s not – when I miss more than two days in a row of writing, e.g. – it takes forever, just to write.)
2) I know stuff. Of course, I have to look up some things, and I have a number of reference books in the office. But it helps tremendously that I know by heart, for instance, all the presidents of the United States by years in office. Thus, when I know the date of Event A, I know it took place in the administration of President Z. It helps me, contextually.
Tunes
Or music. I remember, at least roughly, when much of popular music from about 1955 to about 1990 came out, and some before and after that range. MANY songs evoke place and time.
I bought the Beatles’ Yesterday and Today at the Rexall for $2.99, though I have no idea now where the Rexall was anymore. But I got Sgt. Pepper for $3.67 at W.T. Grant’s in the Binghamton Plaza. Carole King’s Tapestry and Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones I brought on the same day.
One of my oldest friends told me in high school that she hated At the Zoo (Simon and Garfunkel) and Strawberry Fields Forever (Beatles), which shocked me, but I noted not to play them when she was around. A college friend loathed Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick by Ian Dury and the Blockheads.
Music memory is emotional. A lot more songs make me weepy than was true in the past, for whatever reasons. Some are people of my past longer around. “Some are dead and some are living.”
3) I am a librarian. As such, I know where to find stuff online. Census material and other governmental sources. Association: when I was working, they were treasure troves of information.
Wait. You bought Tapestry and Sticky Fingers on the same day?
Eclectic man, yes…
Extra points for Rexall reference. Blast from my past. I, too, remember when you could score a new album for three or four bucks. The thrill of playing Tapestry for the first time, I will never forget. Carole King sent me in a direction that included Melissa Manchester, among others. Women who played piano (or other instrument), wrote, and sang their own stuff. Janis Ian, Laura Nyro. What makes this stand out for me is that they were all white women! First time that ever happened, steeped as I was in jazz.