We thought we’d put some ideas here.
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, …
“Ideational monads, little billiard balls of thoughts” –March 30, 2003 Read More »
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 …
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 …
“Scott Spencer’s newest novel, A Ship Made of Paper” –March 23, 2003 Read More »
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 …
“Tender feelings for so-called used bookstores” –March 15, 2003 Read More »
Simple salesmanship executed with honesty. By Peter Sills Things are getting interesting. For the first time since this war machine has gotten going I feel like it may stall out. This may just be a misguided observation but it seems to me that the British resolution for demands marks the first break in Tony Blair's …
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 …
“Indulging myself in a casual Graham Greene film retrospective” –March 10, 2003 Read More »
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 …
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 …
“This cornucopia of literature provides hope” –February 18, 2003 Read More »
MAN WOMAN BUTTERFLY ARROW (a dream) by K.D. Bates In my dream there is a Man (he is a man but is also me) he stands by a window in an office looking out on the sea And is so near home, he might walk there for lunch. In this dream, a Butterfly red wings, …
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 …
“The announcement of the continuation of the Godfather saga…” –11 February, 2003 Read More »
