1.
The American writer spreads a virus for which there are any number of safe and effective vaccines. But there are new variants all the time.
2.
“They’re like a comment on each other,” Pammy Wynant, in DeLillo’s Players (1977), says of the World Trade Center towers. Pammy’s saying all American violence is copycat violence.
3.
Three-day weekend. Gonna be a weird Sunday morning. Jesus gonna make it weirder.
4.
A Little Life About Face.
Must housekeeping and child-rearing be feminist work? Feminism would be the first to answer “no.” So let’s have big books about dark MAGA dads, without losing brunch realism. It shouldn’t be a big leap.
5.
“Art made tongue-tied by authority” is just another thing on the list, in sonnet 66, that pisses Shakespeare off. “Simple truth miscall'd simplicity” is another.
6.
Scabrous writing bandaged itself long before the book jacket judged it so.
7.
To arrive in New York City, with everything for sale, and feel like a rich man who wants none of it.
8.
The critic asks: is he serious? The artist did enough work.
9.
“Excuse me,” a dear friend writes, “but art makes nothing happen.” You don’t have to excuse yourself, buddy.
10.
The classics of literature couldn’t be published today. But the classics of literature weren’t “published” yesterday but self-published or put out by friends. Most corporate books of yesterday are unread and unmourned. Like most corporate books today.
11.
The restored prairie grows wilder every year. I walk, no I travel, into the protected area and the burden of the day drifts away. If I didn’t request your flight info immediately, it’s because I was here, in the bending grass, listening to the birdsong travel into the willows. Travel into the preseason practice drills. Travel into my thirst for pilsner, pale ale, and winter’s first porter pull. And I understand your sudden visit. And I wish you safe travels. Although I’ll never know if you crashed.