Richard Eisner’s Journal
© 2023 by Richard J. Eisner
Introduction
This is a companion website to RichardEisner.com, a collection of my essays. Here (in the website you’re viewing now) are a chronological selection of entries from my diaries—entries I thought readers might find interesting or amusing: stray thoughts; records of experiences, of dreams; political opinions; comments on the news; humor (probably some of it unintentional); advice; arguments; and reflections on myself and my life.
I omit items for various reasons: they’re unflattering; too personal; or just uninteresting. I also omit rough drafts of essays, or any material that significantly overlaps the finished essays (though some overlap is inevitable). When I find an entry too unflattering, I simply omit it—I don’t rewrite it to give a different impression (which, somehow, I considered cheating). If I include it, however, I may rewrite it, not to hide the deed or thought, but merely to use fewer words to describe it, which, admittedly, usually does make it sound less bad.
Exactly repeated entries are accidental. Every time I read through this Journal (for editing), I find some, and I eliminate them (I eliminate one of them . . . or however many as will leave just one). I suspect I haven’t caught them all. Entries that are repetitive—but not exactly so—are more difficult. I deal with them variously by consolidating them, or deleting one or more of them, or (usually, alas) by doing nothing.
Items not preceded by a date were written on the last date given—except two or three, which, by artistic license, I take out of sequence.
On whether to use “he” and “him” versus “he or she” and “him or her”—the latter is more politically correct; the former is more elegant. I opt for elegance.
Finally, when I posted this website originally, it was unstable because it was too big, so I had to break it into parts; I broke it into yearly units (starting at 1993). This first part contains just this introduction (written mostly in 2021). At the end of each section—except, of course, the last one—is a link which will take you to the next section. To go directly to a certain section, go to the menu (which is at the symbol with the 3 little horizontal lines toward the top-right of the computer screen) and click on the year of the entries you want to see, or type in “eisnersjournal.com” followed immediately by a forward-slash and the selected year (like eisnersjournal.com/2007).