JOHNCARMODY.COM ★ Full Stack Development + Interactive Design + Teaching ★ Sculpting Order From Chaos

carmoDynamics

Sculpting Order From Chaos ★ JohnCarmody.com

Full Stack Development ★ Interactive Design ★ Teaching

  • Teaching

    In my 18 years @ 4 colleges & universities I've taught web development & design; graphic design; audio & video post-production; animation; art history; & plenty more.

  • Skills

    WordPress dev; interactive web design; project management; new media storytelling with data-driven maps, charts, galleries & timelines; audio & video editing; much more.

  • Clients

    Museums & galleries; foundations; law firms; journalists; restaurants; thoroughbred stables; energy companies; pro rock bands, & many others.

  • Bio

    Upon being expelled in December of senior year I became a high school drop-out; before that, aptitude tests reported I was best suited to be a farmer.

  • Reading

    I threw out my television nearly 30 years ago, which leaves me plenty of time for reading only real books, mostly based in the humanities. Average year of publication? 1969.

  • Studio

    Musical instruments, computer screens, vinyl LPs, xrays & mannequins: this is a Collyer Mansion for hermited souls placed between the obsolete and the cutting edge.

  • Photography

    It took me awhile to go digital – a penultimate apostasy in my book, but I missed taking pictures. Take a look and see some lovely shots taken with cheap-o cameras.

  • Music

    I cannot read or write a note of music — I taught myself by ear to play different instruments and to write songs in sundry styles & genres. These are some of my songs by different bands.

  • Video

    Mostly time-lapse & frame-by-frame experiments, some audio découpage too. I shot the imagery and composed the soundtracks and performed virtually all the music myself.

Can You Solve
“The Great Wall of Music”?

John Carmody: A section of my studio was featured in the Washington Post Magazine's “Second Glance” John Carmody: A section of my studio was featured in the Washington Post Magazine's “Second Glance”

A section of my studio was featured in the Washington Post Magazine's “Second Glance” section.

Can you spot the 12 differences?

As workspaces go, my studio is an installation evoking the better elements of a New York loft, a Berlin nightclub, a London used record store and an LA book shop.

All in a Washington cellar.

Quarantine Videos: Découpage,
Time-Lapse Photography,
& Original Music

The pandemic has given me time to continue documenting my studio's evolution, as well as the projects built therein, inlcuding time-lapse & animated video assemblages of mixed-media découpage pieces being built, set to fresh remixes of music I composed, arranged & performed.

  • The Spirit of ’59

    “The Spirit of ’59” is a mixed-media découpage exploration of the days back when popular music was good.

  • Seer/Sucker

    “Seer/Sucker” aka “The Illustrated Man’s Guitar” is a mixed-media découpage exploration of better days in the USA.

  • LP Or Die

    I made the mistake of leaving for college w/o laying down some ground rules, and my folks tossed my vinyl collection in the trash.

  • Chucks Reduxe

    “Chucks Reduxe” is a time-lapse of my studio shot in late-fall quarantine20 on a cheap-o camera with a soundtrack composed and performed by me.

  • The Death Throes of PC DOS

    Shot in luxurious time-lapse, "The Death Throes of PC DOS" explores the intersection of color, serendipity and the lovely chaos brought about by a freshly-kaput 28-year-old computer.

Leon Loved The Snaked Girl

A different type of quarantine project, “Leon Loved The Snaked Girl” is a salute to Directors of Photography who knew how to set-up a great shot.

The video's title comes from the soundtrack I wrote & performed for it, named for characters in the film Blade Runner.

Musically, it was influenced by MMT-era Beatles + scifi gloom 'n doom. Maybe some Stone Roses, too. You can read more about it here.

SOME CLIENT, FACULTY & PERSONAL WORK

Working with clients of all sizes, I am highly skilled at creating custom database-driven interactive solutions using WordPress, PHP, mySQL, jQuery, AJAX & Bootstrap. Database management is a specialty.

Most people in my field do web development *or* web design – I do both back- and front-end. I am well-versed in creating innovative applications serving up API-driven rich content from Scribd, Flickr, SoundCloud, YouTube, Twitter, Google Custom Search, Disqus, Wufoo and others.

I specialize in creating interactive storytelling experiences through integrating custom programming and open-source APIs in WordPress

Partial List of Clients

  • The National Trust for Historic Preservation
  • The American Gaming Association
  • The National Press Foundation
  • The Smithereens – NJ
  • Montgomery College
  • The Corcoran Gallery of Art
  • The Corcoran College of Art and Design
  • The Catholic University of America
  • George Washington University
  • ACLU - DC
  • Amtrak - DC
  • YMCA - GA
  • Honeywell
  • Chadwicks Restaurants - DC
  • Hawk ‘n’ Dove Restaurant - DC
  • AgIS Agricultural Investing – MA
  • Labokay Natural Resources – TX
  • Siena Farm Horse Stables – KY
  • United States Government Accountability Office - DC
  • Louise Nevelson Foundation – PA
  • Vietnam Photography – VA
  • Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP – DC
  • Cameron-Hornbostel, LLP - DC
  • Organizing For Innovation - VA
  • Fund Love: I Am More Than Cancer - NY
  • The Cary Group - DC
  • American Banking Association
  • National Association of Federal Credit Unions
  • Credit Union Stuffers
  • Bank Stuffers
  • 18th & Red Bar and Restaurant
  • New York Alternative Film & Music Festival - NY
  • Randall Hagner Realty
  • ...many others

Montgomery College

  • Media Arts & Technologies: Fundamentals of Graphic Design, II
  • Media Arts & Technologies: JavaScript Fundamentals
  • Media Arts & Technologies: Professional Website Development
  • Media Arts & Technologies: Advanced Professional Web Technologies
  • Media Arts & Technologies: Web Portfolio (Capstone Course)

George Washington University

  • Graphic Design: Layout and Design of the Book
  • Digital Media Design: Frame-By-Frame Animation
  • Digital Media Design: Interactive Web Design I

The Corcoran College of Art + Design

  • Art History: Digital Media Culture
  • Graphic Design: Junior Studio Core, Graphic Design III
  • New Media Photojournalism: Graduate Program, Audio Production: Speed of Sound
  • New Media Photojournalism: Graduate Thesis, Directed Study
  • New Media Photojournalism: Senior Thesis, Directed Study
  • Digital Media Design: Senior Thesis, Digital Media Design IV
  • Digital Media Design: Junior Studio Core, Digital Media Design III
  • Digital Media Design: Interactive Web Design II
  • Digital Media Design: Interactive Web Design I
  • Digital Media Design: Sound Design
  • Digital Media Design: Flash Animation

The Catholic University of America

  • Interactive Media Design: Audio Production & Design
  • Interactive Media Design: Video Art w/Final Cut Pro
  • Interactive Media Design: Intro to Dreamweaver
  • Interactive Media Design: Intro to Flash

more resources >>

    Some Of My Custom Designs @ TEEPUBLIC

    Custom Face Mask Designs, Too

    Examples Of My Photography

    SOME OF MY ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS

    I cannot read or write a note of music.


    I taught myself by ear to play numerous instruments and write & arrange words, music and melodies into songs.

    This is a small sampling of original songs, audio collages, time-lapse videos and photography I’ve composed, recorded, shot and otherwise created over the years.

    This includes musical work I composed for instruments I cannot play (violin, cello, piano, baritone saxophone, tenor saxophone, others.)

    I played in a lot of bands, made recordings, saw some parts of the USA that whet my appetite for travel seen through the windows of a band van.

    All words | music | arrangements | videos | photography copyright John Carmody, Washington DC © 2021

    Original Song:
     “I Really Didn't Mean It”

    When I wrote “I Really Didn’t Mean It”, I was thinking of a 'Buck Owens backed by the Stones in '65 with the drummer from Blondie' kind-of-thing, with a bouncy Buddy Holly-type guitar solo too.

    This song was performed here by one of my 1st bands, The Revellaires, released on Top Records. Play it loud. Sing along.

    >> Send it to your friends, make 'em feel better.

    Words + Music © John Carmody.

    Original Video:
     “RESOLUTION NO. ONE”

    “Resolution No. One” was influenced by Salvador Dali, Man Ray, Edward Hopper and The Who.

    The goal was to create something that reflected brooding mood and intensity, solitude and anonymity. I wanted to shoot and edit time-lapse footage with people and animals and nature.

    Listen closely to the soundscape I built for it – all the water, wind & bird sounds are signals from shortwave and pirate radio stations.

    Photography + Audio © John Carmody.

    All You Need To Know About Me

    I went and pulled the plug nearly 30 years ago, as an experiment in essential living.

    Since 1992 I have been studying American heritage while living a pop culture hermitage.

    That means: no TV; no Facebook; no Twitter; no Instagram; no texting; no celebrities; no sports; no video games; no crummy music; no credit cards; no debt; no logos; no smart phone; no trends...

    You get the idea.

    36 Books Read, 2021

    • The Lost Weekend

      Charles Jackson

      1944 -

    • Brief Answers To The Big Questions

      Stephen Hawking

      2018 -

    • The Disenchanted

      Budd Schulberg

      1950 -

    • Inside Story

      How To Write

      Martin Amis

      2020 -

    • The Shadow-Line

      A Confession

      Joseph Conrad

      1917 -

    • A World Lit Only By Fire

      The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age

      William Manchester

      1992 -

    • Candy

      Terry Southern & Mason Hoffenberg

      1958 -

    • Landfall

      Thomas Mallon

      2019 -

    • Shadow Box

      An Amateur in the Ring

      George Plimpton

      1977 -

    • Reckless

      My Life As A Pretender

      Chrissie Hynde

      2015 -

    • The Long Valley

      John Steinbeck

      1938 -

    • Exit Ghost

      Philip Roth

      2007 -

    • Gone With The Wind

      Margaret Mitchell

      1936 -

    • SCTV

      Behind The Scenes At Second City Television

      Dave Thomas

      1996 -

    • The Korean War

      Dean Acheson

      1969 -

    • The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

      Tom Wolfe

      1968 -

    • Factotum

      Charles Bukowski

      1975 -

    • Life Of Franklin Pierce

      Nathaniel Hawthorne

      1852 -

    • The Silence

      Don DeLillo

      2020 -

    • Sorry For Your Trouble

      Stories

      Richard Ford

      2020 -

    • Poor White

      Sherwood Anderson

      1920 -

    • Recapitulation

      Wallace Stegner

      1979 -

    • Fanny Hill

      or, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

      John Cleland

      1749 -

    • Giants

      What I Learned About Life From Vince Lombardi And Tom Landry

      Pat Summerall

      2010 -

    • Rum Punch

      Elmore Leonard

      1992 -

    • The Road

      Jack London

      1907 -

    • Accessory To War

      The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military

      Neil DeGrasse Tyson & Avis Lang

      2018 -

    • Cogan’s Trade

      George V. Higgins

      1974 -

    • A Good Man Is Hard To Find

      & Other Stories

      Flannery O'Connor

      1955 -

    • The Long March

      William Styron

      1952 -

    • The Optimist’s Daughter

      Eudora Welty

      1972 -

    • Lolita

      Vladimir Nabokov

      1955 -

    • Around The World In Eighty Days

      Jules Verne

      1873 -

    • Citizen Tom Paine

      Howard Fast

      1943 -

    • Something Deeply Hidden

      Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

      Sean Carroll

      2019 -

    • A Confederacy Of Dunces

      John Kennedy Toole

      1980 -

    48 Books Read, 2020

    • The Landscape Of History

      How Historians Map The Past

      John Lewis Gaddis

      2002 -

    • Second Chance

      Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower

      Zbigniew Brzezinski

      2007 -

    • The Culture of Time and Space

      1880–1918

      Stephen Kern

      1983 -

    • Movies For The Millions

      An Account of Motion Pictures, Principally in America

      Gilbert Seldes

      1937 -

    • Portnoy’s Complaint

      Philip Roth

      1969 -

    • Walden Two

      B. F. Skinner

      1948 -

    • The Final Days

      Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein

      1976 -

    • Sister Carrie

      Theodore Dreiser

      1900 -

    • War And Peace In The Global Village

      Marshall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore

      1968 -

    • Rabbit At Rest

      John Updike

      1990 -

    • Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs

      The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe

      Lisa Randall

      2015 -

    • Chicago: City On The Make

      Nelson Algren

      1951 -

    • Picasso

      Gertrude Stein

      1938 -

    • Ironweed

      William Kennedy

      1983 -

    • Some Faces In The Crowd

      Short Stories, 1938-1953

      Budd Schulberg

      1953 -

    • John Brown

      The Making of a Martyr

      Robert Penn Warren

      1928 -

    • Let Me Be Frank With You

      Richard Ford

      2014 -

    • The Mind Of God

      The Scientific Basis For A Rational World

      Paul Davies

      1992 -

    • The Man Who Knew Coolidge

      Being the Soul of Lowell Schmaltz, Constructive and Nordic Citizen

      Sinclair Lewis

      1928 -

    • The Conquerors

      Roosevelt, Truman & the Destruction of Hitler's Germany

      Michael Beschloss

      2002 -

    • Strategies For Winning

      A Top Football Coach's Game Plan for Victory

      George Allen

      1990 -

    • Notes From Underground

      Fyodor Dostoyevsky

      1864 -

    • Jack Benny

      An Intimate Biography

      Irving A. Fein

      1976 -

    • The Names

      Don DeLillo

      1982 -

    • World’s Fair

      E. L. Doctorow

      1985 -

    • A Michener Miscellany

      1950-1970

      James A. Michener

      1973 -

    • Street Without Joy

      The French Debacle In Indochina

      Bernard B. Fall

      1964 -

    • Judgment Day

      James T. Farrell

      1935 -

    • “The Good War”

      An Oral History Of World War II

      Studs Terkel

      1984 -

    • Angle of Repose

      Wallace Stegner

      1971 -

    • Until The End Of Time

      Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe

      Brian Greene

      2020 -

    • Rabbit Is Rich

      John Updike

      1981 -

    • Goodbye, Columbus

      And Five Short Stories

      Philip Roth

      1959 -

    • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

      An Inquiry Into Values

      Robert M. Pirsig

      1974 -

    • For Our Beloved Country

      American War Diaries from the Revolution to the Persian Gulf

      Ed., Speer Morgan & Greg Michalson

      1994 -

    • Titus Andronicus

      William Shakespeare

      1588 -

    • Civil Disobedience

      Henry David Thoreau

      1849 -

    • The Pit

      A Story of Chicago

      Frank Norris

      1903 -

    • A Reporter’s Life

      Walter Cronkite

      1996 -

    • Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

      And Selected Stories

      Steven Crane

      1893 -

    • The Irish Way

      Becoming American In The Multiethnic City

      James R. Barrett

      2012 -

    • The Fifth Column

      Stories of the Spanish Civil War

      Ernest Hemingway

      1938 -

    • Rabbit Redux

      John Updike

      1971 -

    • Women With Men

      Richard Ford

      1997 -

    • The Supreme Court

      William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court

      1987 -

    • An American Dream

      Norman Mailer

      1964 -

    • The Saddest Summer of Samuel S

      J. P. Donleavy

      1966 -

    • House Of Meetings

      Martin Amis

      2006 -

    41 Books Read, 2019

    • Neuroplasticity

      How Our Brains Change In Response To Our Actions

      Moheb Costandi

      2016 -

    • The Wars of Watergate

      The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon

      Stanley I. Kutler

      1990 -

    • Counterblast

      Marshall McLuhan

      1969 -

    • Rome At War

      AD 293 - 696

      Michael Whitby

      2002 -

    • Tortilla Flat

      John Steinbeck

      1935 -

    • Blood Meridian

      Or the Evening Redness in the West

      Cormac McCarthy

      1985 -

    • Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game

      William Kennedy

      1978 -

    • All Those Mornings At The Post

      The 20th Century In Sports

      Shirley Povich

      2005 -

    • White Trash

      John King

      2001 -

    • Daddy’s Boy

      A Son's Shocking Account of Life with a Famous Father

      Chris Elliott with Rebuttals by Bob Elliott

      1989 -

    • Plan of Attack

      The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq

      Bob Woodward

      2004 -

    • Tried By War

      Abraham Lincoln As Commander In Chief

      James M. McPherson

      2008 -

    • Cruising Paradise

      Tales, 1989-1995

      Sam Shepard

      1996 -

    • Elmer Gantry

      Sinclair Lewis

      1927 -

    • A Lost Lady

      Willa Cather

      1923 -

    • Six Crises

      Richard M. Nixon

      1962 -

    • The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan

      James Farrell

      1934 -

    • The Python Years

      Diaries, 1969-1979

      Michael Palin

      2006 -

    • Call If You Need Me

      Uncollected Fiction & Other Prose

      Raymond Carver

      2001 -

    • Flight of the Eagle

      The Grand Strategies that Brought America from Colonial Dependence to World Leadership

      Conrad Black

      2013 -

    • Who I Am

      Pete Townshend

      2012 -

    • No Country For Old Men

      Cormac McCarthy

      2005 -

    • The Essential Groucho

      Writings By, For, and About Groucho Marx

      ed., Stefan Kanfer

      2000 -

    • Rabbit, Run

      John Updike

      1960 -

    • Our Gang

      Philip Roth

      1971 -

    • O Albany!

      William Kennedy

      1983 -

    • Of Mice And Men

      John Steinbeck

      1937 -

    • The 42nd Parallel

      John Dos Passos

      1930 -

    • Sex, Time and Power

      How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution

      Leonard Shlain

      2003 -

    • Billy Bathgate

      E. L. Doctorow

      1989 -

    • In Review

      Pictures I've Kept

      Dwight D. Eisenhower

      1969 -

    • The Red Badge of Courage

      And Other Stories

      Stephen Crane

      1895 -

    • Deliverance

      James Dickey

      1970 -

    • Main Street

      Sinclair Lewis

      1920 -

    • Thirteen Days

      A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis

      Robert F. Kennedy

      1967 -

    • To Chain The Dog Of War

      The War Power of Congress in History and Law

      Francis D. Wormuth & Edwin B. Firmage

      1986 -

    • The Killer Angels

      Michael Shaara

      1974 -

    • Haircut & Other Stories

      Ring Lardner

      1922 -

    • Babe: The Life of Oliver Hardy

      John McCabe

      1989 -

    • The Lay of the Land

      Richard Ford

      2006 -

    • The Journals of Lewis & Clark

      ed. Bernard DeVoto

      1807 -

    41 Books Read, 2018

    • Narcissus and Goldmund

      Hermann Hesse

      1930 -

    • The Gospel In Brief

      Leo Tolstoy

      1893 -

    • A Journal of the Plague Year

      Daniel Defoe

      1722 -

    • The Enemy Had It Too

      A Play In Three Acts

      Upton Sinclair

      1950 -

    • Fahrenheit 451

      Ray Bradbury

      1953 -

    • Amerika

      Franz Kafka

      1927 -

    • On The Road

      Jack Kerouac

      1957 -

    • The Gangs of New York

      An Informal History of the Underworld

      Herbert Asbury

      1928 -

    • Once There Was A War

      Dispatches from Europe & Africa, 1943

      John Steinbeck

      1958 -

    • Lie Down In Darkness

      William Styron

      1951 -

    • Dean Acheson

      The Cold War Years, 1953-1971

      Douglas Brinkley

      1992 -

    • The Ginger Man

      J. P. Donleavy

      1955 -

    • The Great Gatsby

      F. Scott Fitzgerald

      1925 -

    • The Man With The Golden Arm

      Nelson Algren

      1949 -

    • Looking Forward

      Franklin D. Roosevelt

      1933 -

    • The Proud Highway

      Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman 1955-1967

      Hunter S. Thompson

      1997 -

    • The Naked City

      Malvin Wald & Albert Maltz

      1948 -

    • Mad As Hell

      The Making of "Network" and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies

      Dave Itzkoff

      2014 -

    • In Cold Blood

      A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences

      Truman Capote

      1965 -

    • The Information

      Martin Amis

      1995 -

    • A History of Knowledge

      The Pivotal Events, People and Achievements of World History

      Charles Van Doren

      1991 -

    • The Autobiography of Charles Darwin

      Charles Darwin

      1887 -

    • Beyond Category

      The Life & Genius of Duke Ellington

      John Edward Hasse

      1993 -

    • Walden

      Or, Life in the Woods

      Henry David Thoreau

      1854 -

    • Touching and Imagining – An Introduction to Tactile Art

      Poems & Essays, 1973-1984

      Jan Švankmajer

      2014 -

    • Washington Goes To War

      David Brinkley

      1988 -

    • Legs

      William Kennedy

      1975 -

    • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

      Mark Twain

      1884 -

    • President Nixon

      Alone In The White House

      Richard Reeves

      2001 -

    • The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit

      Sloane Wilson

      1955 -

    • Remembering Laughter

      Wallace Stegner

      1937 -

    • Hammer of the Gods

      The Led Zeppelin Saga

      Stephen Davis

      1985 -

    • In Retrospect

      The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam

      Robert S. McNamara

      1995 -

    • Catch-22

      Joseph Heller

      1961 -

    • The Ugly American

      William J. Lederer & Eugene Burdick

      1958 -

    • What Makes Sammy Run?

      Budd Schulberg

      1941 -

    • The Letters of the Rožmberk Sisters, 1449-1482

      Noblewomen in Fifteenth-Century Bohemia

      Ed., John M. Klassen

      2001 -

    • Young Lonigan

      James T. Farrell

      1932 -

    • Red Rat Race

      Morris A. Bealle

      1953 -

    • Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew

      The World's Most-Recorded Musician

      Hal Blaine

      1990 -

    • A Swell-Looking Girl

      Stories, 1929-1931

      Erskine Caldwell

      1959 -

    39 Books Read, 2017

    • Man of the People

      A Life of Harry S. Truman

      Alonzo L. Hamby

      1995 -

    • The Commanders

      Bob Woodward

      1991 -

    • Three Films

      Battleship Potempkin | October | Alexander Nevsky

      Sergei Eisenstein

      1974 -

    • Band Of Angels

      Robert Penn Warren

      1955 -

    • Gilliamesque

      A Pre-Posthumous Memoir

      Terry Gilliam

      2015 -

    • Neutrino Hunters

      The Chase to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe

      Ray Jayawardhana

      2013 -

    • The Tumult and the Shouting

      My Life In Sport

      Grantland Rice

      1954 -

    • What Hath God Wrought

      The Transformation of America, 1815 - 1848

      Daniel Walker Howe

      2007 -

    • The Bad Seed

      William March

      1954 -

    • The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

      Carson McCullers

      1940 -

    • Short Cuts

      Robert Altman & Frank Barhydt

      1993 -

    • A Tour On The Prairies

      An Account of Thirty Days in Deep Indian Country

      Washington Irving

      1833 -

    • Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

      Neil deGrasse Tyson

      2017 -

    • The Public Arts

      Gilbert Seldes

      1956 -

    • The Jack Benny Show

      The Life & Times of America's Best-Loved Entertainer

      Milt Josefsberg

      1977 -

    • The Fables of Ivan Krylov

      1769-1844

      Translated by Stephen Pimenoff

      2017 -

    • The Scarlet Letter

      Nathaniel Hawthorne

      1850 -

    • Ragged Dick

      Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks

      Horatio Alger, Jr.

      1868 -

    • Hard Times

      An Oral History of the Great Depression

      Studs Terkel

      1970 -

    • The Day of the Locust

      Nathanael West

      1939 -

    • Life on the Mississippi

      Mark Twain

      1883 -

    • I Married A Communist

      Or, The Woman On Pier 13

      Robert Stevenson

      1949 -

    • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

      A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

      Hunter S. Thompson

      1971 -

    • In Confidence

      Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold War Presidents (1962-1986)

      Anatoly Dobrynin

      1995 -

    • Being There

      Jerzy Kosinski

      1970 -

    • Lincoln’s Constitution

      Daniel Farber

      2003 -

    • Manhattan Transfer

      John Dos Passos

      1925 -

    • The Prince

      Niccolò Machiavelli

      1513 -

    • Leonardo’s Brain

      Understanding Da Vinci's Creative Genius

      Leonard Schlain

      2015 -

    • No More Vietnams

      Richard Nixon

      1985 -

    • 1066

      The Year of the Conquest

      David Howarth

      1977 -

    • Ragtime

      E. L. Doctorow

      1974 -

    • Herblock: A Cartoonist’s Life

      Self-portrait and Views of Washington from Roosevelt to Clinton

      Herbert Block

      1993 -

    • Tobacco Road

      Erskine Caldwell

      1932 -

    • How The Other Half Lives

      Studies Among The Tenements Of New York

      Jacob A. Riis

      1890 -

    • All The Pretty Horses

      Cormac McCarthy

      1992 -

    • Darkness At Noon

      Arthur Koestler

      1941 -

    • Keith Moon

      The Life & Death of a Rock Legend

      Tony Fletcher

      1998 -

    • Animal Farm

      George Orwell

      1945 -

    37 Books Read, 2016

    • The Gutenberg Galaxy

      The Making of Typographic Man

      Marshall McLuhan

      1962 -

    • Longitude

      Dava Sobel

      1995 -

    • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

      Philip K. Dick

      1968 -

    • Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

      Capt. Ted W. Lawson

      1943 -

    • On The Beach

      Neville Shute

      1957 -

    • Thinking With Type

      A Critical Guide

      Ellen Lupton

      2004 -

    • The Wayward Bus

      John Steinbeck

      1947 -

    • Crossing To Safety

      Wallace Stegner

      1987 -

    • Off The Record With FDR

      The War Years 1942-1945

      William D. Hassett

      1958 -

    • Specifications Grading

      Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students & Saving Faculty Time

      Linda B. Nilson

      2015 -

    • Finale

      The Reagan Years

      Thomas Mallon

      2015 -

    • The Bell Jar

      Sylvia Plath

      1963 -

    • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

      Benjamin Franklin

      1793 -

    • The Big Picture

      On the Origins of Life, Meaning & the Universe Itself

      Sean Carroll

      2016 -

    • Six Amendments

      How and Why We Should Change the Constitution

      John Paul Stevens, US Supreme Court Justice (ret.)

      2014 -

    • Death of a Salesman

      Arthur Miller

      1949 -

    • Notes From A Dead House

      Fyodor Dostoevsky

      1862 -

    • Real Peace

      Richard Nixon

      1984 -

    • Stars In Their Courses

      The Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863

      Shelby Foote

      1963 -

    • Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72

      Hunter S. Thompson

      1973 -

    • Zero K

      Don DeLillo

      2016 -

    • The Johnstown Flood

      The Story Behind The 1889 Disaster

      David McCullough

      1968 -

    • A Walk on the Wild Side

      Nelson Algren

      1956 -

    • The Jungle

      Upton Sinclair

      1906 -

    • Working

      People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do

      Studs Terkel

      1974 -

    • Hells Angels

      The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs

      Hunter S. Thompson

      1966 -

    • Babbit

      Sinclair Lewis

      1922 -

    • Don’t Wait for the Next War

      A Strategy for American Growth and Global Leadership

      General (ret.) Wesley K. Clark

      2014 -

    • Here, There and Everywhere

      My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles

      Geoff Emerick

      2006 -

    • Sound Man

      A Life Recording Hits with The Stones, The Who and Led Zeppelin

      Glynn Johns

      2014 -

    • Waiting For Lefty

      And Other Plays

      Clifford Odets

      1937 -

    • The Big Rock Candy Mountain

      Wallace Stegner

      1943 -

    • Voices From Chernobyl

      The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

      Svetlana Alexievich

      1997 -

    • The Executioner’s Song

      Norman Mailer

      1979 -

    • Claudius The God

      And His Wife Messalina

      Robert Graves

      1935 -

    • The Imperial Presidency

      Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

      1973 -

    • Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey

      1840-1870

      Lillian Schlissel

      1992 -

    34 Books Read, 2015

    • Harpo Speaks…About New York

      Adolph Marx

      1961 -

    • Not Too Old To Cut The Mustard

      Jumping Bill Carlisle & Friends Talk About His Life & the Country Music Business

      Anita Capps

      2000 -

    • The Prank

      The Best of Young Chekhov (1880-1882)

      Anton Chekhov

      2015 -

    • Polk

      The Man who Transformed the Presidency and America

      Walter K. Borneman

      2008 -

    • A Study In Scarlet

      Arthur Conan Doyle

      1878 -

    • The Bridge of San Luis Rey

      Thornton Wilder

      1928 -

    • In The Wake of the Plague

      The Black Death & the World it Made

      Norman Cantor

      2001 -

    • All Quiet on the Western Front

      Erich Maria Remarque

      1928 -

    • Libra

      Don DeLillo

      1988 -

    • Requiem For A Dream

      Hubert Selby, Jr.

      1978 -

    • Notes on the Death of Culture

      Essays on Spectacle and Society

      Mario Vargas Llosa

      2012 -

    • A Detailed Analysis of the Constitution

      Edward F. Cooke

      1958 -

    • Paterson

      Volumes I - V

      William Carlos Williams

      1946 -

    • Art & Physics

      Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light

      Leonard Schlain

      1991 -

    • The Story of a Bad Boy

      Thomas Bailey Aldrich

      1870 -

    • Independence Day

      Richard Ford

      1995 -

    • The Spectator Bird

      Wallace Stegner

      1976 -

    • O Pioneers!

      Willa Cather

      1913 -

    • Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

      Harriet Jacobs

      1861 -

    • White Mule

      William Carlos Williams

      1937 -

    • The Time Machine

      H.G. Wells

      1895 -

    • The Haldeman Diaries

      Inside The Nixon White House

      H.R. Haldeman

      1993 -

    • Travels With Charley

      John Steinbeck

      1962 -

    • John Barleycorn

      Or, Alcoholic Memoirs

      Jack London

      1913 -

    • Law and the Nation

      1865 - 1912

      Jonathan Lurie

      1983 -

    • Days of Wine and Roses

      David Westheimer

      1962 -

    • One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich

      Alexander Solzhenitsyn

      1963 -

    • That Man

      An Insider's Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt

      Robert H. Jackson

      1954 -

    • Harlot’s Ghost

      Norman Mailer

      1991 -

    • Looking Backward

      Edward Bellamy

      1888 -

    • Equus

      Peter Shaffer

      1973 -

    • Seven Plays

      Sam Shephard

      1981 -

    • A People’s History of the United States

      Howard Zinn

      1992 -

    • The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin

      Richard Lourie

      1999 -

    34 Books Read, 2014

    • The Unvanquished

      William Faulkner

      1938 -

    • Blockade Diary

      Under Siege In Leningrad, 1941-1942

      Elena Kochina

      1990 -

    • The Luck of Roaring Camp

      And Other Stories

      Bret Harte

      1869 -

    • Groucho And Me

      The Autobiography

      Julius H. Marx

      1959 -

    • The Glass Cage

      Automation and Us

      Nicholas Carr

      2014 -

    • From Here To Eternity

      James Jones

      1951 -

    • The Zone of Interest

      Martin Amis

      2014 -

    • The Autobiography of Mark Twain

      1877-1910

      ed., Charles Neider

      1959 -

    • The Communist Manifesto

      Karl Marx + Frederick Engels

      1848 -

    • The Iron Heel

      Jack London

      1908 -

    • Slaughterhouse-Five

      Or, The Children's Crusade

      Kurt Vonnegut

      1966 -

    • It Can’t Happen Here

      Sinclair Lewis

      1935 -

    • Homer & Langley

      E. L. Doctorow

      2009 -

    • Plain Speaking

      An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman

      Merle Miller

      1974 -

    • From Eternity to Here

      The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time

      Sean Carroll

      2010 -

    • The Plot Against America

      Philip Roth

      2004 -

    • Hitchcock and Bradbury Fistfight in Heaven

      ed., McSweeney's 45

      2013 -

    • Good Hunting

      An American Spymaster's Story

      Jack Devine

      2014 -

    • Bad Monkey

      Carl Hiaasen

      2013 -

    • All The King’s Men

      Robert Penn Warren

      1946 -

    • Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940

      How Americans Lived Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression

      David E. Kyvig

      2002 -

    • Morning And Noon

      A Memoir

      Dean Acheson

      1965 -

    • Killer Of Crying Deer

      William Orem

      2010 -

    • Barabbas

      Par Lagerkvist

      1950 -

    • The 480

      Eugene Burdick

      1964 -

    • Big Bets & Black Swans

      Policy Recommendations for President Obama in 2014

      ed., Brookings Institution

      2014 -

    • Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

      Philip K. Dick

      1974 -

    • The Friends of Eddie Coyle

      George V. Higgins

      1970 -

    • Nixonland

      The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

      Rick Perlstein

      2008 -

    • The Human Comedy

      William Saroyan

      1943 -

    • The Sportswriter

      Richard Ford

      1986 -

    • My Silent War

      The Autobiography of a Spy

      Kim Philby

      1968 -

    • Winesburg, Ohio

      A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life

      Sherwood Anderson

      1919 -

    • Frankenstein

      Or, The Modern Prometheus

      Mary Shelley

      1831 -

    36 Books Read, 2013

    • The Crucible

      Arthur Miller

      1952 -

    • Last Exit To Brooklyn

      Hubert Selby, Jr.

      1957 -

    • Six Months In 1945

      FDR, Stalin, Churchill & Truman - from World War to Cold War

      Michael Dobbs

      2012 -

    • The Circle

      Dave Eggers

      2013 -

    • The Millennium

      A Comedy of the Year 2000

      Upton Sinclair

      1907 -

    • God’s Little Acre

      Erskine Caldwell

      1933 -

    • Return of the Thin Man

      Dashiell Hammett

      1935 -

    • NW

      Zadie Smith

      2012 -

    • Confederates in the Attic

      Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

      Tony Horwitz

      1998 -

    • I, Claudius

      From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius

      Robert Graves

      1934 -

    • Go East Young Man

      Short Stories on Class in America 1917-1931

      Sinclair Lewis

      2005 -

    • Dewey Defeats Truman

      Thomas Mallon

      1997 -

    • The Art of Intelligence

      Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service

      Henry A. Crumpton

      2012 -

    • Uncle Tom’s Cabin

      Or, Life Among The Lowly

      Harriet Beecher Stowe

      1852 -

    • Visual Explanations

      Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

      Edward R. Tufte

      1997 -

    • A Democrat Looks At His Party

      Dean Acheson

      1955 -

    • The Wanting Seed

      Anthony Burgess

      1962 -

    • Flatland

      Edwin A. Abbott

      1884 -

    • Cosmopolis

      Don DeLillo

      2003 -

    • Sabbath’s Theater

      Philip Roth

      1995 -

    • London Fields

      Martin Amis

      1989 -

    • The Hunt For KSM

      Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind

      Terry McDermott and Josh Meyer

      2012 -

    • The Luck of Barry Lyndon

      William Makepeace Thackeray

      1844 -

    • Amity & Sorrow

      Peggy Riley

      2013 -

    • Affection and Trust

      Personal Correspondence, 1953-1971

      Harry S Truman and Dean Acheson

      2010 -

    • Fellow Travelers

      Thomas Mallon

      2006 -

    • Pakistan On The Brink

      The Future of America, Pakistan & Afghanistan

      Ahmed Rashid

      2012 -

    • The Good House

      Ann Leary

      2013 -

    • Freedom

      Jonathan Franzen

      2010 -

    • The Thin Red Line

      James Jones

      1962 -

    • Give Me Everything You Have

      On Being Stalked

      James Lasdun

      2013 -

    • Marjorie Morningstar

      Herman Wouk

      1955 -

    • Time’s Arrow

      Martin Amis

      1991 -

    • Junky

      William S. Burroughs

      1953 -

    • Hedy’s Folly

      The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr

      Richard Rhodes

      2011 -

    • Sunday Nights at Seven

      The Jack Benny Story

      Jack Benny

      1990 -

    38 Books Read, 2012

    • American Nations

      A History of the 11 Rival Regional Cultures of North America

      Colin Woodard

      2011 -

    • Narcopolis

      Jeet Thayil

      2012 -

    • Escape From Camp 14

      One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West

      Blaine Harden

      2012 -

    • Citizen Soldier

      A LIfe of Harry S Truman

      Aida D. Donald

      2012 -

    • Visual Strategies

      For Scientists & Engineers

      Felice C. Frankel & Angela H. DePace

      2012 -

    • A Farewell To Arms

      Ernest Hemingway

      1929 -

    • Cities of the Plain

      Cormac McCarthy

      1998 -

    • Swamplandia

      Karen Russell

      2011 -

    • Midnight Rising

      John Brown & the Raid that Sparked the Civil War

      Tony Horwitz

      2011 -

    • Envisioning Information

      Edward R. Tufte

      1990 -

    • Washington, D.C.

      A Novel

      Gore Vidal

      1967 -

    • Lionel Asbo

      State of England

      Martin Amis

      2012 -

    • Where’d You Go, Bernadette

      Maria Semple

      2012 -

    • The Counterlife

      Philip Roth

      1986 -

    • Complete Stories

      1943 - 1982

      Truman Capote

      2004 -

    • American Diplomacy

      George F. Kennan

      1952 -

    • Logavina Street

      Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood

      Barbara Demick

      1996 -

    • The Dictator’s Learning Curve

      Inside the Global Battle for Democracy

      William J. Dobson

      2012 -

    • Canada

      Richard Ford

      2012 -

    • The Education of a Typographer

      ed. Steven Heller

      2004 -

    • The Corrections

      Jonathan Franzen

      2001 -

    • Page One

      Inside the New York Times & the Future of Journalism

      ed. David Folkenflik

      2011 -

    • Mao II

      Don DeLillo

      1991 -

    • A Visit from the Goon Squad

      Jennifer Egan

      2010 -

    • The Years of Lyndon Johnson

      The Passage of Power

      Robert A. Caro

      2012 -

    • Grouped

      How Groups of Friends Influence the Social Web

      Paul Adams

      2012 -

    • The Angel Esmeralda

      Nine Stories

      Don DeLillo

      2011 -

    • One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

      Ken Kesey

      1962 -

    • The Best American Science Writing

      ed. Jesse Cohen

      2010 -

    • Watergate

      A Novel

      Thomas Mallon

      2011 -

    • The Design of Everyday Things

      Donald A. Norman

      1988 -

    • Satan Is Real

      The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers

      Charlie Louvin

      2011 -

    • The Cleanest Race

      How North Koreans See Themselves

      B.R. Myers

      2011 -

    • The Long Goodbye

      Raymond Chandler

      1953 -

    • The Orphan Master’s Son

      A Novel

      Adam Johnson

      2012 -

    • Sound Reporting

      The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production

      Jonathan Kern

      2008 -

    • The Hidden Reality

      Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos

      Brian Greene

      2011 -

    • Reclaiming Fair Use

      How To Put Balance Back In Copyright

      Patricia Aufderheide & Peter Jaszi

      2011 -

    38 Books Read, 2011

    • Night of Camp David

      Fletcher Knebel

      1966 -

    • Collected Works, The Screenplays Vol 2

      1971-1978

      Paddy Chayefsky

      1995 -

    • The Visual Miscellaneum

      David McCandless

      2009 -

    • Eisenhower

      The White House Years

      Jim Newton

      2011 -

    • I Married A Communist

      Philip Roth

      1998 -

    • Stasiland

      Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall

      Anna Funder

      2002 -

    • The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

      Edward R. Tufte

      1981 -

    • The Art Of Creative Advertising

      Michael Antebi

      1968 -

    • Life In Year One

      What The World Was Like In First-Century Palestine

      Scott Korb

      2010 -

    • The Great American Novel

      Philip Roth

      1973 -

    • The Song of the Lark

      Willa Cather

      1915 -

    • You Are Not A Gadget

      A Manifesto

      Jaron Lanier

      2010 -

    • The Stranger

      Albert Camus

      1946 -

    • Famine Ship Diary

      The Journey of an Irish Coffin Ship

      Robert Whyte

      1847 -

    • White Noise

      Don Delillo

      1985 -

    • Nothing To Envy

      Ordinary Lives In North Korea

      Barbara Demick

      2010 -

    • Mr. Citizen

      Harry S Truman

      1960 -

    • The American Civil War

      A Military History

      John Keegan

      2009 -

    • The Boys of Summer

      Growing Up Within Shouting Distance of Ebbets Field

      Roger Kahn

      1971 -

    • The Big Sleep

      Raymond Chandler

      1939 -

    • Augustus

      A Novel

      John Williams

      1972 -

    • Making Movies

      Sidney Lumet

      1995 -

    • The PEN/O Henry Prize Stories: 2011

      The Best Stories of the Year

      ed. Laura Furman

      2011 -

    • Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure

      Matthew Algeo

      2009 -

    • My Antonia

      Willa Cather

      1918 -

    • Bomb Power

      The Modern Presidency and the National Security State

      Garry Wills

      2010 -

    • Underworld

      Don Delillo

      1997 -

    • The Moviegoer

      Walker Percy

      1960 -

    • Jefferson Davis Gets His Citizenship Back

      Robert Penn Warren

      1980 -

    • The Next Decade

      Where We've Been..and Where We're Going

      George Friedman

      2011 -

    • Cognitive Surplus

      Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

      Clay Shirky

      2010 -

    • Change By Design

      How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations & Inspires Innovation

      Tim Brown

      2009 -

    • The Humbling

      Philip Roth

      2010 -

    • The Art of Immersion

      How the digital generation is remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the way we tell stories.

      Frank Rose

      2011 -

    • Chuck Amuck

      The Autobiography of Chuck Jones

      Chuck Jones

      1992 -

    • The Lost Peace

      Leadership in a Time of Horror and Hope, 1945-1953

      Robert Dallek

      2010 -

    • Cyber War

      The Next Threat to National Security

      Richard A. Clarke

      2010 -

    • Marshall McLuhan:

      You Know Nothing of My Work

      Douglas Coupland

      2010 -

    36 Books Read, 2010

    Books Read, Top 30

    • The Journals of Lewis & Clark

      ed. Bernard DeVoto

      1807 -

    • Frankenstein

      Or, The Modern Prometheus

      Mary Shelley

      1831 -

    • The Luck of Barry Lyndon

      William Makepeace Thackeray

      1844 -

    • Uncle Tom’s Cabin

      Or, Life Among The Lowly

      Harriet Beecher Stowe

      1852 -

    • How The Other Half Lives

      Studies Among The Tenements Of New York

      Jacob A. Riis

      1890 -

    • The Jungle

      Upton Sinclair

      1906 -

    • O Pioneers!

      Willa Cather

      1913 -

    • The Bridge of San Luis Rey

      Thornton Wilder

      1928 -

    • I, Claudius

      From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius

      Robert Graves

      1934 -

    • The Big Rock Candy Mountain

      Wallace Stegner

      1943 -

    • All The King’s Men

      Robert Penn Warren

      1946 -

    • Paterson

      Volumes I - V

      William Carlos Williams

      1946 -

    • The Ginger Man

      J. P. Donleavy

      1955 -

    • A Walk on the Wild Side

      Nelson Algren

      1956 -

    • The Autobiography of Mark Twain

      1877-1910

      ed., Charles Neider

      1959 -

    • Catch-22

      Joseph Heller

      1961 -

    • The Gutenberg Galaxy

      The Making of Typographic Man

      Marshall McLuhan

      1962 -

    • Understanding Media

      The Extensions of Man

      Marshall McLuhan

      1964 -

    • The Imperial Presidency

      Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

      1973 -

    • Plain Speaking

      An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman

      Merle Miller

      1974 -

    • Requiem For A Dream

      Hubert Selby, Jr.

      1978 -

    • The Real War

      Richard Nixon

      1980 -

    • A Brief History of Time

      Steven Hawking

      1988 -

    • Time’s Arrow

      Martin Amis

      1991 -

    • Art & Physics

      Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light

      Leonard Schlain

      1991 -

    • Independence Day

      Richard Ford

      1995 -

    • In Confidence

      Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold War Presidents (1962-1986)

      Anatoly Dobrynin

      1995 -

    • Visual Explanations

      Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

      Edward R. Tufte

      1997 -

    • American Pastoral

      Philip Roth

      1997 -

    • Lincoln’s Constitution

      Daniel Farber

      2003 -

    458 Books Read:
    January 2010 — September 2021    .

    That's 1 book every 9.36 days or 3.25 books a month for 11.75 years.

    Every title on this list is a 100% genuine book, of course.

    That is to say, not one was consumed on a device.

    Average year of publication? 1969.

    Click Here for the big list of books.

    Me?

    Aptitude tests in high school reported I was best suited to be a farmer.

    Expelled my senior year from Gonzaga College High School in Washington, I was a high school drop-out for awhile, living the life of a musician, playing shows and trying to get my bands signed to record contracts.

    Eventully I was accepted by the Catholic University of America despite having neither a high school diploma nor GED or SAT scores. I made Dean’s List and graduated from CUA with a BA in American History.  >> Would you like to know more? <<

    Unplugged Since 1992


    For nearly 30 years, I have been studying American heritage while living a pop culture hermitage:

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    • no celebrities
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    • no eBooks
    • no texting
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    • no consumerist wastage
    • no trends
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    Photos of My Studio

    Click here to see more photos from the Washington Post Magazine shoot, as well as other photos taken over the last 18 years as this space has evolved.

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    All content on this website is © 2021 John Carmody, Washington, D.C. including but not limited to:

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