Jordan Davis thinks wistfully of having 4 hours a day to devote to reading. jinkies, me too! altho I suspect 4 hours for Jordan = 8-10 for this child. it's surprising that I've read as much as I have, when you figure in the sit still factor and the focus factor. for several years now, I've just about given up reading novels, not for disaffection, but that I cannot trust my ability to commit to long haul. I'm way so scattered. I am so utterly pleased to have purchased Ted Berrigan's collected, however. I disparaged Tony Tost a bit the other day (I know, like, who cares????), because of an oh no feeling that slipped over me as I read his spin re qu'est-ce que c'est flarf. shouldn't poetry be fun, or is it just something to place delicately between Harold Bloom's mandibles? dude, have you read Ted Berrigan's interviews????? they are the bomb, and not just a micro defense system. they are event. and his poems jostle along too. yesterday we went to Barnes & Noble, at the behest of Erin. I scanned the psychology section, like, as if that would've happened in my cherry youth. I like reading Jung. yes, he's a screwball, you got a problem with that? bought none of that ilk, tho. I'm in a room almost wll to wall with books: maybe I should read them. I scrummed with the poetry section a bit. Kenneth Koch's collected loomed large: multiple copies. I do enjoy Koch but I couldn't commit to the book. same price as Berrigan but the necessity not quite as decisive for me. I have to be chary with the lucre, that's an influence. Beth was intrigued by that millennial anthology by Rothenberg and Joris but I got a lot of its contents. I saw a couple of books by Mary Oliver, both with a picture of her (one young, one older, but so similar) on the cover. ach, thin books to cherish: no way, Jorge. I don't want to read her. when we met with the minster who would oversee my father's memorial service, he threw out M.O. as a writer who could be read. the link being she was from Provincetown, basically. I said no firmly, just as I said no to "O Captain, My Captain". no. I scanned the philosophy section, where I found The Sophist by Charles Bernstein. must be the publisher's (Salt, now: my copy is by Sun & Moon) directive. yeah, see, it's philopsophy, see. in the end, Erin got an Xmas present for us, Beth a couple of mysteries for light reading, and I went without. so what's all this about, Allen. oh, just reading and writing.