“It Didn’t Look Like a House of Death When I Saw It”
Roger Ebert day-dreams of a life on the balcony, as things come to an end.
“One of these days I shall tackle the rest of Baudelaire,” wrote Walter Benjamin to his friend Max Horkheimer, in a last letter from Paris.
Samuel Beckett adamantly refused be taped. Against character, I decide not to watch this tape of him posted by writer Jim Murdoch. You make your own decision, I won’t think any less of you. Really.
Copy editor David Sullivan continues his coverage of the incredible shrinking newspaper business. Also Alan Mutter …
Kay Ryan is named Poet Laureate of the United States. She bites.
Personally, I don’t see what’s wrong with naming a baby “Yeah Detroit.”
Advice for the aspiring novelists: a mixture of all things and an orderly combination of contraries, courtesy of Plato, via Marcus Aurelius, via our friend Oronte Churm.
Nigel Beale makes a milk run to Wyatt Mason.
PW’s Bethanne Patrick leads me to a righteous blog about literary tattoos.
Our friend at My Life in Books does yours truly a kindness – I think – but also alleges that there is reading going on in these pages. Outrageous!
And Duane Swierczynski gives us a photo of the house where James M. Cain wrote Double Indemnity.
No blood-red drapes, alas.
UPDATE: … and I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given ducksanddrakes it’s heaviest traffic ever. Thanks!
Since nobody does good language worse than a real writer, I thought to pack up my scepticism and bring it along to the hallowed university portals.