Calvin,

Thanks for leaving that Ethiopian coffee behind; it was crucial in waking me up this morning. Also thanks for the bottle of French wine and the adventure and for emailing me the set list. Just remember, music as a path of least resistance is boring. But the show was Mississippian and utopian nonetheless. All quiet here in general, except for last night. When it was almost dark I took a walk around the pond. When I reached the far side I missed stepping on a garter snake by a few inches. The flashlight lit up its yellow markings as it switched its I to an S. There is something primordial, archetypal, or incommunicable about snakes. After all, a slither is like the beautiful hoi polloi who are more willing to see than as then than truth as lie, a slither is one of the starkest separations of this from that, you from me as I have ever seen.

All the best, and if you need to reach me this weekend, call me on my cell phone. I will be in Harrisburg--

John

September 25, 2005

This morning I listened to a plaintive piano grabbing a neglected memory or two. . .All my worries this week have been about the paragraph. Now that I’ve been asked to write a series of essays, how will I slide back into ecstatic prose?

In front of the words, a fruit fly flies.