the column of lasting insignificance: June 14, 2014
by John Wilcock
Dear Readers,
As I address you this summer, I am unable to write. David has kindly put my words into text. I had some kind of attack affect my right side and am still unable to use pen or pencil, and when I read, the shift is somehow far to the right, so the material is out of focus. I can read one or two paragraphs at a time and I hope my condition will improve.
I am grateful to all of you who know me and have expressed sympathy, and I hope that in a few weeks, if I have the patience, a sort of semi-life will return to me.
On the off chance that someone might want to contact me, my email address is johnwilcock@ojaiorange.com.
Now on Boing-Boing!
JOHN WILCOCK:Sneaking Julie Bovasso into McSorley's 'Men's Only' Saloon
May 23, 2014
Wednesday,October 27, 2010
A Budget Travel Pioneer on a Time When $5 a Day Was Real (Frugal) Money
nytimes.com: Frugal Traveler by Seth Kugel
It was the first handwritten letter I'd received in 5 years. Or maybe 10. Signed by John Wilcock, a man I'd never heard of, and postmarked Ojai, Calif., it was waiting for me when I returned from my São Paulo-to-New York summer trip. Mr. Wilcock wrote that he had been an assistant editor at The Times Travel section back in the 1950s, and had written the first editions of “Mexico on $5 a Day,” “Greece on $5 a Day” and “Japan on $5 a Day” for Arthur Frommer in the 1960s.
By George, I thought. This man was the original Frugal Traveler.
Forty years ago the second of my three books about magic was published, A Guide to Occult Britain (Sidgwick & Jackson) covering a wide range of sites from Stonehenge to Loch Ness and King Arthur country to the witches of Pendle Hill. It is now available as an eBook on amazon.com.
Manhattan Memories An Autobiography by John Wilcock
"A GOOD WAY to describe John Wilcock is to say that he is a talented bohemian counter-culture journalist who once played a major role in the emergence of America’s underground press. Born 1927 in Sheffield, England, he left school aged 16 to work on various newspapers in England, and on Toronto periodicals before moving to New York City. There in 1955 he became one of the five founders of the Village Voice in which he and co-founder Norman Mailer wrote weekly columns. Wilcock called his column “The Village Square”, an intended pun. He and young Mailer were not quite friends, although Wilcock was at times annoyed, but always amused, by Mailer’s monstrous ego."
-From the preface of Manhattan Memories, by Martin Gardner
