The first issue of The Jackdaw: A Newsletter for the Visual Arts, dated September 2000, arrived in this morning’s mail. Edited by David Lee, until recently the no-nonsense editor of the Art Review, the newsletter promises to blow some fresh air into the British art scene. David’s description of the bird he chose for his newsletter’s name and logo is touching:

Jackdaw is a crow, a nervous little bird with the palest of blue eyes and charcoal all over save for a gray nape, but a crow nevertheless. Gossipy and sociable with its own kind, it is unpredictably tempted by glistening objects which it might attempt to steal in the most unsubtle, brutish manner, even if they happen to be firmly attached to the fingers or ears of a human being. It can be truculent and stubborn, is tenacious when thwarted, and is a tireless collector of small twigs, perfect for kindling, which it drops speculatively down what it believes are extinct chimney pots until one lodges and a funnel of dry wood is built up in which to nest.

In short, my kind of bird. When I saw that the annual subscription for ten issues was only twenty-five pounds (thirty-five pounds for Europe and sixty-five dollars for North America), my decision was made. I wrote my check, put it into an envelope, and stamped it before I looked into the newsletter itself. As it turned out, the no-nonsense bird did not steer me wrong.