Adventures In "Journalism" by Sari Botton

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure and honor of speaking before the 100 or so participants in the Columbia Publishing Course, a prestigious six-week summer program for those aspiring to careers in book, magazine, and digital publishing. Although it’s been around for 78 years, I only first heard about CPC a few years ago when a colleague mentioned it in something she wrote, and revealed that several other colleagues of mine had attended, too.

How’s this for meta?: What I’m about to describe to you, I’m also experiencing with regard to this post. Since the minute the idea for it came to me a week or so ago, I have felt like a failure for not having yet produced it. This is how it’s consistently been for me since early in my career—which, mind you, began in 1986, forty years ago, the year before I graduated college—when I started writing professionally.

A funny thing keeps happening: Just before podcast interviewers hit “record,” they ask me how to pronounce my name. I offer an easy mnemonic. “It’s pronounced like ‘Larry Cotton,’” I say. “SAH-ree BOH-ton, like Larry Cotton.” Sometimes I add, “My first name has a Long Island ‘ahhh’” to be cute. They thank me—then proceed to mangle it anyway, in any number of all too familiar ways. “Sorry Baton” is probably the most common.

Brian and I doing our version of Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” on our wedding day in 2005, in front of the Rosendale house we’d just bought. After reading Kasia Pilat’s recent profile and me and Oldster Magazine in the New York Times, some people have reached out to tell me they’re concerned about my working 70 hours per week. The truth is, working that number of hours—and sometimes more, if I’m being honest—is just standard Sari operating practice, and has been for most of my career.

Greetings, subscribers old and new. For the uninitiated, while I publish pretty much daily at Oldster Magazine and Memoir Land, here I publish more like once or twice a month. This is my personal blog where I post as I have time, or things on my mind that don’t really belong in my “magazines.” *** This post comes while I’m in the midst of a fairly euphoric and dizzying moment.

Performing Diahnne Abbott’s version of Honeysuckle Rose, accompanied by Ross Rice, onstage at Joe’s Pub during the Oldster Variety Hour. Photo by David Olson. It’s a good thing there are photos, video, and audio from last Wednesday’s Oldster Variety Hour at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan, because I barely remember being onstage and performing.

A still from Kramer Vs. Kramer. Left to right: Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, and Justin Henry. I have never seen Kramer vs. Kramer. It came out in 1979, three years after my parents split up, and they both thought it would be too painful for my sister and me, so they steered us away from it even though every kid we knew had seen it. I can probably handle it now, if by “handle it” you mean cry my eyes out through the whole thing. That’s what I did yesterday when I watched Is This Thing On?

Early in the pandemic I sent my mom a swear words coloring book. Guess who she dedicated this one to? Do not even talk to me until you’ve harassed your senators to vote against funding this criminal, lethal horror. When people in Minneapolis are putting their bodies on the line—being illegally detained, brutalized, and murdered—making calls and writing emails is the literal least we can do. Call (202) 224-3121 and give ‘em hell.

Big news: I’ve planned and scheduled the next Oldster Magazine Variety Hour, this one at Joe’s Pub on March 4th at 7pm. It’s got an amazing lineup: comedian and storyteller Ophira Eisenberg; author and performance artist Mike Albo; author and humorist Joyce Wadler; singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and music professor Ross Rice; my husband, singer-songwriter and storyteller Brian Macaluso; and me.

This week my next door neighbor put her mixed-use property on the market. Itā€™s a house with a bodega attachedā€”a little shop that most patrons go to for beer, cigarettes, snacks, the ATM, and lottery ticketsā€”a million dollarsā€™ worth gross, annually according to the listing. Iā€™m ashamed to admit that since buying our house in 2018, Iā€™ve contributed my fair share to that sum. Typically Iā€™ll spend $5 on three tickets each time: one Lotto, one Powerball, and one MegaMillions.