The Newsletter Leaf Journal I (July 19, 2020)

N.A. Ferrell:

Welcome to the first edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal.  As I noted on site, we will be using this biweekly newsletter to send you news about our content, old posts you may have missed, site updates, things to look forward to at The New Leaf Journal, as well as  some newsletter-exclusive content.  Going forward, you will be able to access our newsletter archive from The New Leaf Journal.  Without further ado, below you will find the newsletter proper.

New Articles and Site Updates

I posted our most recent, and 11th week in review post yesterday.  You can find that article here.  In that article, I discussed our four most recent articles and substantial changes to the site structure and header menu.  I hope that the new header menu will make it easier for you to navigate the site and find content that interests you.

Before continuing, I will make special note of the first article written by someone other than me or Victor.  The New Leaf Journal welcomes “Observant Misanthrope,” who posted a humorous piece reflecting on Matt Damon’s crane-assisted move to Brooklyn Heights.  As a result of his using a crane to facilitate the entry of his furniture and plants into his very expensive penthouse, New York City shut down an entire street in the neighborhood.  This article allows you to share in the special feeling of being graced with the ethereal presence of Hollywood royalty.

Reflecting on Victor's Recent Content with an Anecdote

Among our new articles last week was Victor’s “Please Ring the Doorbell – A Delivery Story.”  I won’t spoil the entire saga here, but Victor’s story ended with an expensive package being left on his sweltering doorstep, despite the fact that he had been home all day and would have readily retrieved it immediately had the FedEx delivery man deigned to ring the doorbell.


Unlike Victor, I live in an apartment building.  For this reason, most of the packages make it indoors one way or another, regardless of whether the intended recipient is home.  But I have found that I have strangely bad luck on this count with sunglasses. 

Several years ago, I ordered a pair of aviator sunglasses from American Optical, via their website.  They were about $100, give or take $10 either way.  I should have known that I was in trouble when the package came into the care of the United States Postal Service – the delivery service most prone to calamity.  One day when I stepped outside, I found a small box sitting precariously on the stoop outside my building.  The glasses were actually bent a bit, although it was fixable.  But all things I considered, I was lucky that they were neither stolen nor more damaged.  The sustained greater damage when I walked into a wall when I was still dizzy from having been on the Roosevelt Island Tram, but I digress.

This week, shortly after I posted Victor’s article, I ordered a cheaper pair of sunglasses – about $25 – in the hopes that they would not fog up in conjunction with my face mask.  Sure enough, I found those too outside my front door.  These glasses came in a hard case, however, so they were in perfect condition.  The jury is still out on their aversion to fogging.

Flash Back to The New Leaf Journal and New York City Past

New York City is entering “phase four” of its vaunted reopening.  The New Leaf Journal began in the midst of the worst of the viral outbreak in New York City.  Victor and I published several pieces of content alluding to the disaster in New York in the earliest days of our online magazine.

Victor began his Quarantine Sessions series of articles based on a terrific ongoing music project with him and the talented Mark Caserta.  You can read Victor’s series introduction here and find links to all of his Quarantine Sessions articles here.


In the first two weeks at The New Leaf Journal, I published three articles about things seen around a largely empty brownstone Brooklyn.  First, I published a very short piece, with a picture, about an endearing inflatable Uncle Sam tribute to first responders in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.  One day later, I posted three pictures of the joint Blue Angels-Thunderbirds flyover of New York City, with the story of how I took the pictures.  We later posted an updated version of the article with the better versions of the pictures that Victor retouched.  Finally, on May 7, I published a brief article about seeing more cardinals on my walks in Brooklyn during the period when far fewer people were out, along with a story of an unusual bird and squirrel sighting from 20 years ago.


Thank You for Reading

Thank you for reading the first edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal.  We hope that you enjoyed the newsletter and all of our recent content.  If you would like to make sure that you get daily updates about our new content, please consider signing up for our supplemental FeedBurner RSS newsletter, explained in our newsletter sign-up page.