It's A Hard Life If You Don't

There Should Be No Telephone In Your Writing Room, Certainly No Tv Or Videogames For You To Fool Around With. If There’s A Window, Draw The Curtains Or Pull Down The Shades Unless It Looks Out At A Blank Wall.

These Self-appointed Deacons In The Church Of Latter-day American Literature Seem To Regard Generosity (of Words) With Suspicion, Texture With Dislike, And Any Broad Literary Stroke With Outright Hate. The Result Is A Strange And Arid Literary Climate Where A Meaningless Little Fingernail Paring Like Nicholson Baker's Vox Becomes An Object Of Fascinated Debate And Dissection, And A Truly Ambitious American Novel Like Matthew's Heart Of The Country Is All But Ignored.

And You May Make Revelations That Cost You Dearly Only To Have People Look At You In A Funny Way, Not Understanding What You've Said At All, Or Why You Thought It Was So Important That You Almost Cried While You Were Saying It.

French Is The Language That Turns Dirt Into Romance.

I've Given Up Thinking - It Keeps Getting Me Into Trouble.