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“Ideational monads, little billiard balls of thoughts” –March 30, 2003

Having mostly favored writers and thinkers who exhibit synoptic views I find myself, via some osmotic transference, inhibited from chronicling some of the thoughts and observations that are whizzing around some part of my mental space because they are small and somewhat self-contained. Or at least do not, at the moment they occur to me, …

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“The Inferno of James Nachtwey” –March 25, 2003

A few years ago—three to be more exact—I was encountering the usual indignities of a life of freelance writing and was talking with the Boston Globe Arts editor, Scott Powers, about opportunities at that august newspaper. About the same time the renowned photographer James Nachtwey was in town to lecture at the Photographic Resource Center …

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“Scott Spencer’s newest novel, A Ship Made of Paper” –March 23, 2003

Many people who own what they call a library or a book collection (no numerical threshold required) probably have a few books on their shelves or in the piles by their bed—or wherever, that stare out forlornly, unrequited, waiting to be picked up, waiting to be read. How does this happen? Who can say, but …

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“Tender feelings for so-called used bookstores” –March 15, 2003

As loathe as I am to enter commercial shops other than grocery, drug and computer supply stores, I still harbor tender feelings for so-called used bookstores (which these days may not qualify in the commercial category). I recently paid an overdue call to my favorite bookseller Vincent McCaffrey at the new location of Avenue Victor …

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“Indulging myself in a casual Graham Greene film retrospective” –March 10, 2003

Who can know what unconscious synchronic engine moves us to think and act in ways that have some connection with events as they unravel in the real world? Of late, I had been indulging myself in a casual Graham Greene film retrospective, first with Sir Carol Reed's The Third Man, screenplay courtesy of Greene, starring …

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“I am old fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.” –March 2, 2003

A few months ago I came across this passage from the introduction to a one volume English translation of Wistawa Szymborska's Nonrequired Reading: I am old fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised. Homo Ludens dances, sings, produces meaningful gestures, strikes poses, dresses up, revels and …

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“This cornucopia of literature provides hope” –February 18, 2003

Every season brings welcome tidings of the largesse that I am soon to benefit from by way of books sent to me by book publishers. Mostly this comes in the form of catalogues. Occasionally cleverly or handsomely designed, this cornucopia of literature provides hope, at least in the short term, of an interesting and radiant …

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“The announcement of the continuation of the Godfather saga…” –11 February, 2003

What’s with all the goomba bling bling? The announcement of the continuation of the Godfather saga has so far been greeted with a sound, I imagine, of sheep grazing in the meadow. (I wouldn’t know that sound, never having been privy to such rustic entertainment.) The fractious (and admirable) bunch that scour the infosphere for …

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