from Elisabeth and Matt, on the road to Porto, Corsica

I liked Kevin Connolly’s take on the photo, though he does not identify its provenance.  I’ll be looking on the Earpian listservs to see who first verifies or debunks the cast of characters. Virgil Earp, for instance?  Unlikely.  Of course, not a woman to be found on that veranda.  Really, put a long coat and hat and mustache on most men, add a vintage black and white print, and they do look alike.

Get out the magnifying glasses

Connolly writes:

If it is real, it is extraordinary: a moment when the myths and legends of the Old West crystallised for a moment into a single group photograph before evaporating again into the anonymity of the hot afternoon.

The 15 men in the picture are arranged along the wooden veranda of a hotel in the resort of Hunter’s Hot Springs in the summer of 1883.

In the fashion of the time, no concessions are made to the brutal heat. Waistcoats are worn, ties are neatly knotted, bowler hats are sported.

They are relaxed but formal.

One of the seated figures leans back confidently against the upper step behind him. Another looks slightly priggish with his legs crossed at the knees and his hands settled in his lap.

The lines between those who enforced the law and those who broke it were a little more fluid back then

They look tough. Like men who meet a lot of tough guys and generally find that they are tougher still.

Which is not surprising when you consider that this was a gathering of some of the most powerful and desperate figures from the old West in the dying days of its wildness.

If it is real.

The story is told that the 15 men include Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Wyatt Earp, his brother Virgil and their friends Doc Holliday and Bat Masterson.

Theodore Roosevelt was US president from 1901 to 1908

The lounging figure is – or might be – Judge Roy Bean, who conducted trials in the bar of the saloon he owned in Texas and encouraged jurors to buy drinks between cases.

A few feet away, apparently on an upturned crate, sits a figure identified as Theodore Roosevelt, the future president.

You would not, of course, find a modern hopeful for the White House posing nonchalantly with bank-robbing ne’er-do-wells, but these were different times.

We know the picture is genuine in the sense that it is a real photograph of 15 men from the 1880s. We just cannot be quite sure who they were.

We know it could be real, which is what makes it so fascinating.

Teddy Roosevelt did retreat into the western wilderness in 1883 after the death of his first wife and when Butch Cassidy, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and Bat Masterson were all dotted somewhere around America’s ragged and dangerous western frontier.

The story goes that the men were brought together to celebrate the opening of new railroad track – a big event at a time when the steel arteries of the railways were carrying the boundless wealth of a booming America westward, hotly pursued by posses of hookers, crooks and lawmen.

BBC NEWS, 28 Aug 2010

Met students from every campus and many high schools — Hunter High Science, Townsend Harris, Herricks, Midwood, Molloy, Yeshiva Flatbush, La Guardia — what, no Stuy? must have been hiding! Great to have new Associate Director of Student Development Drew Adair on board, hurray for Autumn Payne and the Macaulay team, the NYC Outward Bound team, and Macaulay interns Marianna Davydova, Hunter ’11 and Ke Jiang, Baruch ’13.

NEXT UP: TECH DAY AND THOSE LAPTOPS!

EXPERIMENT ** COLLABORATE** ANALYZE** COMMUNICATE** LEARN WITH LOVE

If you go to the VF site, you are invited to buy a print subscription ($1/issue if you buy annually),

Wait, why does it cost anything at all since I have a print subscription?

Or, you might wonder why I want to read it at all?  Yesterday, my pal was telling me about the Steve Rattner article, and I confess, I was hooked and wanted to read it immediately.

Why read it on the iPad?  First, saves my back not to lift the thing.  Second, no one will see that Lady Gaga is coming to the beach with me.  I promise!  I’m only reading it for the articles!

So, reader, I bought the thing, but it’s awfully annoying.  Please, won’t somebody wake up Conde Nast and declare that the 21st century has arrived?

Next up, freshmen orientation at Macaulay Honors College.

But I thought I had written the last chapter of this 15 year saga when I finally cancelled my service on June 28.  Earthlink Sam even gave me a cancellation number, which, thanks to my iPad, Penultimate, and Evernote, and my blog entry to commemorate this historic moment, I still had.  When Earthlink Sam cancelled my service four days before he was supposed to, thereby costing me more than a decade of web files (I know, I’m an idiot, but some of them are lost forever), Earthlink Gary seemed genuinely mortified.  No, he couldn’t restore my files, no they weren’t backed-up on the Earthlink server.  But he did cough up a refund for the last month of service.

That, I thought, was that.

But no!

While I was celebrating a wedding, enduring several weeks of a New York heat wave, reading several books (especially Allegra Goodman!  Cookbook Collector, so beautiful), writing the first 100 pages of my book (alas, not so beautiful yet),  watching many hours of Pinball Wii with my children and new son-in-law, celebrating my dad’s 88th birthday, and getting myself ready for the arrival of the Macaulay Class of 2014…..Earthlink was planning my next torture session!

There it is, as it has been since 1998, my 19.95 monthly Amex charge for hosting kirschner.org.

I was strapping on my pistols for an Earthlink shootout when friend David suggested a faster route through Amex.  And so I have had a lovely call with Amex Alice who tells me that she has driven a stake through the heart of the earthlink vampire and I will never be billed again.  Amex Alice, I do believe you.

Guess what?  Earthlink had already billed for NEXT month too.

I always find customer service nightmares to be surprisingly entertaining, the more absurd the better.  But even I have moved beyond amusement into fury and now, I hope, into the real end of this story.

illustration by Dave Plunket in NYT 8.8.10

From all those people looking into screens rather than ahead, around, behind them, we can conclude that something superior  is right there on the screen.  Why would any dumb text message seem more interesting than real life?

Gary Shteyngart’s publicity is turned up way high, but everything I’ve read about him and by him is wonderful, so soon I”ll tuck into the terribly named Super Sad True Love Story.  As soon as I finish reading Moon and Six Pence for my book group.

I loved the review (Michael Wood) and the accompanying illustration.  Screens have indeed hijacked our eyeballs.  (Speaking of which, around 1995, I made some stupid quote about the NFL owning everyone’s eyeballs, and it keep turning up on blogs as if I said it yesterday.  It’s 15 years ago!  Cut me some slack!)  But I was playing around with Sky Watch and Layar this weekend and beginning to get what augmented reality may bring us.  I was going across the Great South Bay on my way to Fire Island, and right there on my iPhone, there was Wikipedia telling me about Saltaire.  Of course, to miss a second of the actual joy of SEEING Saltaire from the ferry is sad.

So, the usual ambivalence about how technology enhances and reduces our life.