a week of first paragraphs–saturday

“On an evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Maroltt, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor. The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line. He occasionally gave a smart nod, as if in confirmation of some opinion, though he was not thinking of anything in particular. An empty egg-basket was slung upon his arm, the nap of his hat was ruffled, a patch being quite worn away at its brim where his thumb came in taking it off. Presently, he was met by an elderly parson astride on a grey mare, who, as he rode, hummed a wandering tune.” –Thomas Hardy, “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”

a week of first paragraphs–thursday

“Ennis Del Mar wakes before five, wind rocking the trailer, hissing in around the aluminum door and window frames. The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft. He gets up, scratching the grey wedge of belly and pubic hair, shuffles to the gas burner, pours leftover coffee in a chipped enamel pan; the flame swathes in blue. He turns on the tap and urinates in the sink, pulls on his shirt and jeans, his worn boots, stamping the heels against the floor to get them full on. The wind booms down the curved length of the trailer and under its roaring passage he can hear the scratching of fine gravel and sand. It could be bad on the highway with the horse trailer. He has to be packed and away from the place that morning. Again the ranch is on the market and they’ve shipped out the last of the horses, paid everybody off the day before, the owner saying, “Give em to the real estate shark, I’m out a here,” dropping the keys in Ennis’s hand. He might have to stay with his married daughter until he picks up another job, yet he is suffused with a sense of pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dream.”  –Annie Proulx, “Brokeback Mountain” (from her collection of short stories, “Close Range, Wyoming Stories”)

a week of first paragraphs–monday

“I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train… Young, good looking, crew cut, Ivy League, advertising exec type fruit holds the door back for me. I am evidently his idea of a character. You know the type comes on with bartenders and cab drivers, talking about right hooks and Dodgers, call teh counterman in Nedrick’s by his first name. A real asshole. And right on time this narcotics dick in a white trench coat (imagine tailing somebody in a white trench coat–trying to pass as a fag I guess) hit the platform. I can hear the way he would say it holding my outfit in his left hand, right hand on his piece: “I think you dropped something, fella.”"  –William S. Burroughs, “Naked Lunch”

a week of first paragraphs–sunday

a few days ago i published a couple of first paragraphs from novels by authors whose work i admire. a first paragraph in any book, but particularly novels, is the garden gate to the rest of the book. you might find yourself saying, “what’s just beyond that arbor there?” or “the hinges are a little rusty, but if i push gently enough i’ll be able to squeeze through and see what’s on the other side.” you may even experience a rush of feeling so powerful that to abandon the book would amount to nothing more than folly. (of course there are first paragraphs that warn you to go no further, “put the book down, it will bring you nothing but boredom, and possibly stupefaction.” can a book do that, i wonder? it’s possible i’ll never know for sure, for if after the first paragraph there is no desire to proceed, i rarely do.)

i hope you enjoy my selections and if you haven’t read the work, might find yourself at the library, or your local bookstore (are there any left?), online at barnes & noble downloading a copy to your kindle, however you come to it, and after that first paragraph you’ll discover yourself in a garden just as i have.

“Somewhere near Venice, Guy began talking with a heavy, elderly man, a refugee from Germany on his way to Trieste. Guy asked questions. The refugee eagerly replied. Neither seemed aware when the train stopped. In the confusion of a newly created war, the train was stopping every twenty minutes or so. Harriet looked out and saw girders, darker than the twilit darkness, holding an upper rail. Between the girders a couple fumbled and struggling, every now and then thrusting a foot or an elbow out into the light that fell from the carriage windows. Beyond the girders water glinted, reflecting the phosphorescent globes lighting the high rail.”  –Olivia Manning, “The Balkan Trilogy: Book One, The Great Fortune”

a shaded bower and re-incarnation

when i was 14 or 15 i bought a ratty old paperback at a used bookstore titled “the world is not enough”. it must have been 4 or 5 hundred pages long and concerned life in a castle in france during the 14th/15th centuries (as best i can remember.)

the protagonist was a young page to one of the knights of the castle, about the same age as me at the time who falls in love with the daughter of the prince whose castle it was. there was much mooning about, secret passageways leading from one bower to another; the young page could often be found sitting in une fenêtre of the castle tower watching the goings-on in the castle’s court with its smell of horses, shouts of the other pages, clanking of armor, and the smell of cooking fires. the book seemed to me to be my autobiography from another life and time, so much so that i could not shake that sense of dèja vu, of having lived that life for years afterwards (still can’t, obvsly.)

i lost the book years ago and now i believe that i do not correctly remember its title–i’ve searched for it over the intervening years, wanting to read it again to see if it holds the same spell over me it did so many years ago, but i’ve not been able to find it and all i’m left with is my memory of it and the belief that i lived there and then.

an essential reading list

last night was the Chuck Jones Center for  Creativity‘s 2nd annual Red Dot Auction.  it’s one of those projects that is not only complicated (coordinating artists over a several month period–you know, as they say, “it’s like herding cats in a room full of rocking chairs.” –you’ll forgive the trite platitude or turn of phrase today–it’s 5:20 AM, i worked 14 or so hours yesterday, much of it standing and ‘on’; frankly i have no idea why i’m sitting here at the computer five hours after turning off my bedside light after said very long day, but here i am nonetheless, understand?), but also immensely rewarding (see above parenthetical reference to coordinating artists, rocking chairs, and cats.)

after last year’s red dot auction, i went on record saying that it was one of the most emotional and outstanding art events that i had been a part of in my over 30 year career in the visual arts and last night was no different, perhaps it was even more compelling; we worked with more artists, there were a dozen more submissions, the anticipation from the center’s supporters started early with rsvps rolling in as soon as we had sent out a “save the date” notice and went unabated until moments before the doors opened last night at 6 PM. (more on rsvps, serendipity, and the work featured in the photograph above later on in this post.)

over 200 people filled the Center’s new facility at South Coast Collection in Costa Mesa almost as soon as the doors opened last night–it was, as they (them, again) say, “nature abhors a vacuum”, the glass garage door went up, the place filled up immediately (where did they all come from? there wasn’t even a line…all i know is that one moment the venue was empty and the next moment it was alive with the delightful chatter and banter of people enjoying themselves. i love when that happens.)

we ask artists to donate a work of art created on a specific size of canvas, this year it was a 12″ square stretched canvas. the work can be of any media and design as long as it fits on the provided canvas. each work is submitted anonymously; the artists are asked to sign their work on the reverse. by doing this the bidders at the auction must fall in love with the work of art and not worry about the status of the artist based on who they are and where they stand in the art market. we reach out to artists from across the nation, some extremely well-known with decades-long careers, others, well others with more love in their heart than notoriety in the art world. this year, because it is Chuck’s centennial, we asked our contributors to consider the life and times of Chuck Jones as a theme for their submission.

i wouldn’t consider myself an ‘artist’, my talents lay elsewhere, but i like to create things and have for as long as i can remember. collage suits me; i’ve always thought of it as an archeological dig with much to discover as you work your way through the art, twists and turns revealed the more you look at it. “two roads” (above image) was my submission this year. i was inspired by chuck’s “essential reading list” that his daughter, Linda, had shared with me years ago for another project (as yet uncompleted, but it will be one day, it will be.)

chuck’s library (or a portion of the thousands of volumes) has been a part of our working environment as long as i’ve been working for the jones family — 20 years this october — and i’ve always found his catholic taste, i mean the man read everything, fascinating, thrilling, daunting, and inspiring.  i had thought at first that this work would be a riff on robert frost, utilizing some of my photographs of country roads as a reference to frost’s poem, “the road not taken” (…two roads diverged in a yellow wood…), but as i worked on it, i realized that the ‘essential reading list’ was just as important, so the work turned toward sharing that with the viewer. this collage is composed of hand-colored inkjet prints of photographs i have taken, acrylic paint, oil stick, cotton thread, plastic buttons, graphite, paper, bronze, and copper.  on the flaps (like book covers) that open in the center of the image i have written frost’s poem; the rest of the text is chuck’s essential reading list (which is at the bottom of this post for your enlightenment.)

but what has tickled me so about yesterday is this: at about 9:30 AM yesterday morning, the phone at my desk rings and when i answer a woman asks, “is it too late to rsvp for this evening’s event?” to which i replied (jokingly) “yes, it is.” we shared a giggle and i assured her it was not too late and after taking down her name, i said that i look forward to seeing her and her husband that evening. i added their name to the rsvp list and went on my way with the rest of my day.

as i was greeting guests last night, i introduce myself to a charming couple, “welcome, i’m robert patrick, i’m so glad you could join us this evening,” and she said, “i spoke with you this morning!” and we laughed about our little encounter and i wished them well, directing them to libations, nibbles, and the silent auction. we nodded at each other a couple of times during the evening and shared a conspiratorial grin as they perused the artwork that was part of the auction. the evening slowed down eventually, people were beginning to collect their winning bids and take home the art they’d successfully bid on and my ego getting the better of me, i went over to my painting to see who had bid on it.

that’s right, the woman i had spoken with in the morning, and met just that evening, had won my work of art. the serendipity of it all delighted me, but i said nothing and went on my way with the rest of the night. i saw them collect “two roads” and as they were leaving i walked up to them and said, “i’m so glad you could join us this evening and i wanted to thank you for successfully bidding on my contribution to the red dot auction.” the look she gave me was priceless, “this is yours?!?”

“yes, it is,” i responded, “isn’t it crazy wonderful that our day ended this way?” and it is crazy wonderful when strangers come together to support the arts and serendipitous when that love threads its way through their day. so, thank you mr. & mrs. __________. i look forward to seeing you again and i hope you enjoy “two roads” for a very long time, maybe our “paths” will cross again.

Chuck Jones’ list of Essential Books every literate, English-speaking person should read (at least once, probably more often)

• A Spy in the Family – Alec Waugh
• A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
• A Travel Abroad – Mark Twain
• A Treasury of Science – Harlow Shapely
• Animal Architecture – Karl von Frisch
• Anything by Robert Parker
• Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
• Cabbages and Kings – O’Henry
• Career in C Major – James Cain
• Cold Mountain – Charles Frazier
• Damon Runyon short stories (at least three)
• Double Indemnity – James Cain
• Elmer Gantry – Sinclair Lewis
• Farewell, My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
• For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
• Gamesmanship – Stephen Potter
• Major Barbara – G.B. Shaw
• My Life and Hard Times – James Thurber
• Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter
• Roughing It – Mark Twain
• Seventeen – Booth Tarkington
• Short Stories of Somerset Maugham (at least two)
• Silent Snow, Secret Snow – Conrad Aiken
• Sir Niguel – A. Conan Doyle
• Stalky and Company – Rudyard Kipling
• The Autobiography of Lincoln Stephens
• The Bar Sinister – Richard Harding Davis
• The Crock of Gold – James Stephens
• The Elements of Style – Strunk/White
• The Gnome King of Oz – L. Frank Baum
• The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
• The History of Mr. Polly – H.G. Wells
• The Jungle Books – Rudyard Kipling
• The Killers — Ernest Hemingway
• The Little Drummer Girl – John le Carre
• The Moonstone — Willkie Collins
• The Poems of Robert Frost
• The Red Pony – John Steinbeck
• The Short Stories of Ring Lardner
• The Short Stories of Saki (H.H. Monroe)
• The Spy that Came in from the Cold – John le Carre
• The Touch of Nutmeg – John Collier
• The Varming – Owen Johnson
• The White Company – A. Conan Doyle
• Three Men in a Boat – Jerome K. Jerome
• Treasure Island – R.L. Stevenson
• Turnabout – William Faulkner
• Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
• Words at Play – Willard Espy

the swimmer

i’m not sure when i first read john cheever’s “the swimmer”, although i recall the melancholy that followed with acuity. a teenager laying on the sofa in the living room, head propped up on one arm, feet dangling over the other (making little flipper movements–sympathetic assistance for neddy merrill), i want to believe it was summer/fall just as it was in the story, but that may be projection.

my identification with the swimmer was not social or economic; we were not connecticut wasps (although i did aspire to that lofty social position, recalling now my mother saying, “stop putting on airs, who do you think you are?” as clearly as if i still were putting on airs, or possibly striving to understand why cheever touched me so.)

and once “the swimmer” was under my belt, the cheever floodgates opened and i devoured as much as i could of his literary output, and repeatedly read him well into my 20s, a shelf in my ‘library’ devoted to a collection of cheever paperbacks. i know that i was particularly attracted to his patrician good looks, his khakis, his button-down oxford shirts he was always photographed in–although i didn’t try to emulate that style until much later, you do remember “the yuppie handbook”, don’t you?, but drawn to him as if he were speaking directly to me, my life.

in 1974, cheever published “the leaves, the lion-fish, and the bear” in esquire magazine and suddenly, at least for me, the revelation that he could, that he would, write about love and sex between two men made all of my love for him as a writer that much more concrete.

has cheever held up over time?  i haven’t read his work since his daughter, susan, published her biography and then only to reacquaint myself with his cadence, his economy, his pencil sharp observations of a life that in some small way reflected what i thought of myself, at that moment in time, laying on a sofa reading “the swimmer.”

a travelogue, in which the author visits with jean-hippolyte flandrin & considers other points of interest along the road

for many years, when i was a boy, i could lay on my bed and travel the world just by looking up or looking sideways; my walls were papered with maps that came with national geographic (a yearly christmas gift from my wyoming grandparents–the homesteaders, who liked to travel, at least in the continental west, in fact i don’t recall if they ever went east of the missouri river in all of their years together, but they were on intimate terms with the spine of the states–this side of the rockies and that one, from canada to mexico and all of the little nooks and crannies in-between.)

the imaginary adventures i went on, down the amazon and up the nile (it is interesting to note how some rivers are ‘up’ rivers and others are ‘down’, isn’t it? or is that just me?  no matter.)  these dreams of travel were flat, pre-galileo, pre-columbian if you’d rather, so flat that it always confounded me later, after i started to get around on my own, how round the world seemed, particularly if viewed from a great height, not just in an airplane, but from the top of a tall building or the peak of a mountain (pisgah, harney, pike’s, haleakala) when all the world it seems is laid at your feet, and your stomach does that little flip of acknowledgement of your smallness in spite of conquering the world as you are with your feet spread wide, the wind blowing your clothes so tight against your body you might actually be flying with the eagles, soaring, dipping, and riding the currents of time and nature.

i haven’t traveled much, at least not compared with some of my friends and acquaintances.  yes, i’ve been here and there and i’ve had a lot fun in _____ and _______; amazed by this monument, and fell in love (again) with this painter or another when i finally saw their work in situ, the emanations of their life rumbling under the soles of my feet as i stood outside the door of their studio (i need not tell you the where, you can imagine that on your own) or stood at the very top of _____ ____ and let literature come to life, bells ringing, the crowd below roaring (or that could have been my companion poleaxed by vertigo screaming for me to come down from there).

and it’s interesting to note that i don’t mind so much that i haven’t been everywhere i dreamed of as a child, the jungles, the deserts, the savannahs, the mountains, and the seas (although someday i do hope to visit ___ in southern ______, because i feel a strong connection to that specific area of that particular continent–although i fear it may be only because of learning and not a spiritual one; the answer would only be found by being there.)   but i consider myself fortunate to have visited as many places as i have through books, maps, paintings, and music and whether or not i ever stay at chateau de roussan or get to see “jeune homme nu assis au bord de la mer” at the louvre again doesn’t really matter; i’m quite happy traveling there in the comfort of my imagination.

the alley behind 1343 wolfram street, east of southport & north of diversey, chicago, 1980, watercolor, crayon & ink on paper, 11″ x 17″ by robert patrick, s.a.i.c.,recently retrieved from the garage wall where it has been hanging in a ratty old frame for at least 15 years

this apartment’s personality was such that it often made up for what i lacked, although of all the places i lived in chicago over 16 1/2 years, i like to think we were equally matched and that it was as much a personification of me as I was of it.

this was an apartment that was passed from one friend to another as the current tenant’s life took a turn and required their leaving it behind; all that was required was a “i’m moving,” and the word was out that it was available.  it is how i came to live there after my fall (from grace, and as i was reconstructing my life…perhaps even ‘finding myself’ to use the psycho-patois of the day), and was living with t. (who had rescued me from my past).  it was passed lovingly, perhaps a little frayed around the edges (misty with the previous tenants’ memories still lingering at the edges of the rooms), from the friend of a friend into my waiting arms; a bouquet, a child, a gift.

it was an unassuming shingle-sided two-story dark chocolate brown wood frame building with a steep pitched roof on a double lot (in the summer, the yard was a grassy respite complete with roses and pansies and petunias (he said without irony).  the apartment was tucked into the attic with gables for the dining room and kitchen, narrow bedroom and tiny bathroom (painted with gray & pink stars, tiles to match), the whole space couldn’t have been more than 350 square feet.  the ceiling in the ‘living room’ was coved like an airstream trailer and from its window you could see the john hancock center.  it occupied a little less than half the attic, with a set of back stairs (not unlike “upstairs, downstairs”) that led down to the laundry room on the ground floor and the caretaker’s apartment.

the author with roses and petunias outside 1343

it fit me perfectly.  up to where the ceiling began its curve the walls were tiled in blond maple wood squares with hidden doors that slid up into the wall revealing the sofa.  there were print drawers hidden behind another set of doors.  the dining room and kitchen were tiled in hammered copper tiles — with a dining room table on a pipe that allowed you to pull it out from the wall, exposing a banquette upholstered in turquoise naugahyde (exquisite against the burnished copper) for additional guests.  at the end of the table was a large multi-paned metal mullioned crank-out window that looked out onto the yard and the alley behind the building, toward downtown.

fine dining chez moi (more likely, fine drinking)

much of my life during the 5 years i lived there (when m. entered my life, we lived in it for a bit until a larger apartment became available downstairs, but we held onto the attic apartment until we finally moved into a home we had bought elsewhere in the city) was spent sitting at the table with its large window lighting my day time reading, or the view inspiring my painting (often though i would draw and paint on the cork floor tiles–which afforded me more room) or smoking a cigarette and just dreaming (day- or night-).

diligent dilettante maintaining his correspondence

part of the fun of living there was seeing the expression of delight on someone’s face when they first saw the space after clamboring up the three flights of stairs a hand on the wrought iron railing, the echo of footfall your constant companion (and if we weren’t already fumbling with each other’s clothes, mouths locked together, boots being pulled off, etc., i was, after all, only in my 20s.)  what i do remember is how it embraced my friends, everyone comfortable in a chair or at the table or staring out the window, no matter where they may have lit after arriving, it appeared to me that they had always just been there, perhaps in another life, or perhaps this apartment just held people differently, lovingly.  i believe it was a healing space.

a swede bearing gifts

the apartment was furnished in what would now be considered mid-century but then was just a decade or so from new.  the bedroom had an extra long single bed that you could slide under the eve, with bolsters that made it a sofa.  there were built in bookshelves which suited me just fine (besides the ones in the living room) and with a long narrow east window high above the bed that let just the right amount of light in the morning and was perfectly dark at night.  i spent a lot of time in there (do not snigger and besides) reading — this year the russians, gogol, turgenev, dostoyevsky, tolstoy; that year devoted to graves, lawrence, woolf, and durrell (i am passionate about lawrence durrell’s alexandria quartet) and the year after that devoted to mann, james (henry), elliot and hardy, i love you tess.

it was an extraordinary feast.   one made richer by the lack of television watching, this then my lost decade of tv (except for i, claudius on pbs) for i only had a 10″ b & w set that got spotty reception and it seemed such a chore to watch tv when there was so much to do otherwise (read, draw, smoke, go out to bars, work, stare into space without guilt).  a friend took pity on me after i quit my job at the restaurant and treated me to a season of opera-going at the lyric opera of chicago and along with that there was the tending of my friendships (a garden of my own).

did i tell you that i only paid $40.00 a week in rent?  you were sitting down, weren’t you?  of course, that rent was a reflection of the times, but as i found out, it went directly into the pocket of the caretaker, violet linné, and her boy toy (not that that particular handle had been in circulation then, but it is the appropriate term to apply to him), wally, as part of their compensation for maintaining the building and yard/garden.  violet was a wraith of a woman, wispy gray hair a halo around her pale thin face (blue veins just below the surface of her temples; she often tried to pull her hair into the semblance of a bun at the back of her neck with a scarf à la little edie tied loosely around her delicate brain pan, it was the head of a porcelain doll.  she was a sparrow, a little bird) a fluttering, hopping, pecking woman who adored ‘young men’ (her euphemism for gay men) whom she preferred to rent to over young women whom she found, “disturbingly inconsistent, always getting pregnant, so unstable, running off to get married,” — who knew what her experience had been to cause such a statement, but it was delivered often enough to have become the truth to her.

wally, on the other hand, rarely spoke more than a declarative sentence, a big shambling man, whom i remember in coveralls more often than not, although that particular memory may be completely false, the result of finding him lurking in the dark shadows of the laundry area, wiping his hands on a greasy rag–it may have been that he had a workshop back there and found it a quiet space to be in, but nonetheless it always startled me to hear him behind me as i stuffed sheets into the washing machine or pulled towels out of the dryer, with a “hey wally, how’s it going?” issuing from my lips and a grunt his response (which did nothing to dispel his creep factor.)

author with muse 1

how did all of this start?  oh yes, the painting of the alley that ran behind the building:  the stairs up to my apartment (and the two below it), ran up the back of the building in what appeared to be an addition to the structure, a window on each landing and mine the final stop, it with a balcony looking down the entire flight, the place i stored my bike and after buzzing someone in i would wait for them there, listening to their breathing as it deepened the closer they came to the top of the stairs, their eyes lifted up in anticipation of my smile of welcome (usually).

but the alley.  it was my preferred entrance to the block as i walked west on diversey and would slip up lincoln avenue and left down into the alley there.  it’s not surprising to anyone who is a fan of alleys that there is much more information about the building’s inhabitants happening there than on the street where they’ve put their best face forward (or not.)  of course, my most vivid memories of walking down that alley take place in winter (when is it not winter in chicago?) there would be tire tracks to follow through the deeper snow, but for reasons beyond my comprehension at the time — or even consideration — i found it the most quiet, serene part of my day, whether coming home from work, play or going out in the morning or late at night, for i was a habitué of late nights (as were many gay men then, somehow it was safer — there were more of us around at night, trolling for, um, companionship, camaraderie, love.)

author with his constant muse

i am not an artist.  i don’t pretend to be one.  but the painting of the alley behind 1343 wolfram (since demolished) is as i remember it.  there would be dark corners and bright windows, green lawns and the smell of dinner and the sound of a lawn sprinkler and then there would be that heavy blanket of snow and all the colors would leach out, leaving gray, brown, white, taupe (the other painting in my head.)  this one though is filled with nighttime and waning light, the angle of a porch light on the wooden stairs to the garage, and the smell of garbage cans, metallic and cold to the touch.  and there i am, neither coming or going, but here.

to your health!

the string theory of life: past lives, future ones (& what i’m reading)

i remember reading once that the hindu concept of time is multi-layered:  imagine strands of different times hanging across the sky in front of you & that your life is a line that dissects those strands at different points, up & down, in a non-linear, but consistent way in that your life touches on different points of the past, the present & the future.

are you still with me?  let’s use for example, the metropolis case by matthew gallaway that i am currently reading.   in this book the four main characters each live in a different time (& place,) but i’m sensing that they may be all parts of a greater character (the protagonist, if you will) & although i’m not far along enough in the narrative to know this for sure, the spark it’s lit in my imagination (& my memory) has me remembering a time when i felt such strong connections to other periods of time (the past always, rarely the future sadly) that i was thoroughly convinced i had lived then.

it’s possible that i still feel these connections & on a day like today, with a cold rain drumming on the roof (that gargle & gurgle you hear as the water falls through the downspout) they seem even closer than they have in quite some time.    of course, i realize that where i touch these times are little knots tied with a flourish & flow from my reading (those required & those i found on my own,) but, & i know you’ve felt this too, when you make that connection & inside your mind you think, “i’ve lived this,” then that time, that very point in time, becomes an irrevocable part of you.

& that is what i’m feeling reading the metropolis case.  isn’t that what great writing should do, make the sense of character & time & place so real for the reader that they have no choice but to have lived then as well?  of course, as i’ve grown older, & the stack of books by my bedside & my chair & in a bookcase or put away in a closet has grown, ebbed & flowed (& over-flowed), my sense of belonging to specific periods of time, as if i had lived then, has grown stronger (not weaker) & when i discover a new writer who transports me to those times i arrive with my bags properly packed & my cultural touchstones at my fingertips.

this then, this connection, knot, knowledge, shared as it is by the author with his audience (we, the readers — now there’s a constitution!) can be such an intimate one because, as if you were two strangers on a street corner in a busy metropolis, you brush past each other or you meet for just a moment’s time through friends, acquaintances, other strangers, however it is, your time lines (those strings hanging down through which our lives traverse) are knotted together at that one point & although you may never meet IRL (ah, the language of digital age), for just that moment you share a life.    that for me is a great pleasure.