I was daydreaming last week, as is my wont, and started to thinking about courtroom artists. I find it charming that such old-world art methods (pastel, pencil and watercolor) are still used to create images for our thoroughly modern media. I love that, and will be sad the day that they let cameras in absolutely everywhere. I also love the strange, hyperdetail of the faces; the squashed perspective as the artist tries to make every person, wherever they are in the room, of equal importance. Sort of Last Supper-style.

Of course, my next step was to search for “courtroom sketch” on eBay. There were five auctions for five lots of varying numbers of sketches. They were all drawn by Freda Reiter, the courtroom artist for ABC-TV from 1966 until her death in 1986.

And two of those lots were from the Watergate trials. If you have been following along, you may recall my deep and ongoing preoccupation with Nixon and Watergate.

So: duh, right? I was going in. Reiter’s courtroom sketches of more prominent Watergate personnel have been sold for thousands of dollars, but I had a choice of a lot of five for a couple hundred bucks or a single one for about $60.

The choice was obvious: the single sketch for sale was the one above. You can see Judge Sirica pondering his Daily Acrostic as a herd of white guys surround a tape player. I’m sure there are major players in that herd, but I am not that much of a Watergate nerd to be able to tell the attorneys and defendants by sight. This is where I wish my parents were still alive, they’d be able to tell me in a heartbeat — they logged unbelievable hours in front of the TV, hooked on the hearings. They did love a good story, as do I.

I won the auction. The drawing is on its way.

I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.

• Unusual delivery method of art? Check.
• Watergate? Check.
• White guys looking kind of comical? Check.
• Old school recording/playback technology? Check.

Related hamblink: Happy President Day