Casa Ki-ké
Keith Botsford and house in Costa Rica
Over the years, I’ve mentioned author and journalist Keith Botsford, who was my professor and occasional employer from 1999 to 2003. He taught esoteric journalism classes that would teach students in North America how to write articles that would only interest editors outside of North America.
He was a CIA agent (maybe), who said he was imprisoned at least twice (freed by JFK once because they were catholics), and survived three plane crashes. His NYT obit, published ten months after his death, is unique.
When he died in 2018, I shared this quote on keeping a notebook from one of my earliest notebooks:
Keith says to be as little self-concerned as possible when keeping a notebook. Record what everyone else says, not what you say. Write about things as they happen, don’t bother wrapping up the whole day. Type up the journal and index it. Read the journals of Pepys and Aubrey’s Brief Lives. Finally he told me to think about things physically as well as mentally.
This week, I discovered an excellent 4-minute film about the house his son, architect Gianni Botsford, built for him in Costa Rica. The house is awe-inspiring and the film honors KB.
-Adam
Hey there, this is the never cohost and number 2 fan of the show (I’m working on bumping Ryan from the top spot). I remember when you mentioned this quote awhile back and I wanted to have a variation of it in my own notebook on the first page. I thought the original quote was too long, so I whittled it down to “Watch and Listen”. Which of course doesn’t sound stalker-ish at all.
I’m one of the many “gonna write a book someday” people, so I was wondering if that professor had already been a published author and if that affected the way he taught. Keep up the great work!
—Jeremy