Quote Investigator “records the investigatory work of Garson O’Toole, author of Hemingway Didn’t Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations, who diligently seeks the truth about quotations. Who really said what? This question often cannot be answered with complete finality, but approximate solutions can be iteratively improved over time.”
Found is/was a zine-then-magazine, website, Off-Broadway musical, podcast that puts a slightly familiar modern twist to the commonplace book, hearkening back to a time when people kept scrapbooks, into which they pasted poems, inspirational words, or news items and other memorabilia. According to its founders. Davy Rothbart and Jason Bitner:
“We collect found stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids’ homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, doodles– anything that gives a glimpse into someone else’s life. Anything goes. We certainly didn’t invent the idea of found stuff being cool. Every time we visit our friends in other towns, someone’s always got some kind of unbelievable discovered note or photo on their fridge. We decided to make a bunch of projects so that everyone can check out all the strange, hilarious and heartbreaking things people have picked up and passed our way.
“One snowy winter night in Chicago back in 2000, Davy [Rothbard] went out to his car and found a note on his windshield — a note meant for someone else, a guy named Mario [to Amber]. We loved this note. It has an amazing mixture of anger and hopefulness. We shared it with as many folks as we could. Each friend we showed the Mario and Amber note to seemed to have a few finds to show us in return; clearly we weren’t alone in our fascination with FOUND stuff! As a way for everyone to join forces and share their finds with everyone else, we decided to start a magazine called FOUND, a showcase for all the strange, hilarious, and heartbreaking things people have picked up.”
The late Terry Teachout‘s Almanac was wonderful digital commonplace book that appeared on his Art Journal “About Last Night” blog. He was the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal, the critic-at-large of Commentary, and an award-winning playwright and librettist. He lived in New York City. His Wikipedia entry is here, and his MacDowell Colony profile page is here. He won the prestigious Bradley Prize in 2014. Terry was a Twitter friend for many years. He died suddenly in January 2022.
Anne Matthews provides a commonplace book in each issue of the journal The American Scholar.