Whereas one of Wallace Stevens's colleagues at the Hartford thought that he was really just a big kidder in his poems.

Dude did ayahuasca before ayahuasca was cool. (That is Lucien Carr in the middle, btw.)

The Saudi Comedy Fest -- unbelievable! -- is nicely timed to coincide with this anniversary. Gotta love their sense of humor, right?

One of Kerouac's best books. On balance is got better reviews than ON THE ROAD, but the shock of the new had worn off and sales were far less.

"Saudi Comedy Fest"!!! Yeah, everybody knows that their political assassinations and dismemberments really kill. Amazingly a number of women comics are performing at it. Sisterhood ain't so powerful when Saudi cash is on the table. Mo' money, less integrity. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/w...

I believe he wrote high-class porn for Olympia Press. Versatile!

Will Kirkus start reviewing new flavors and brands?

You could go back to this classic, almost ur-memoir to refresh. your sense of the artistry a great writer can bring to the form.

You will want to read this amazing book by Patrick Leigh Fermor and then its two sequels. He did exactly that.

This lovingly restored early fifties Studebaker (we think) makes us smile every time we pass the body shop that is doing the work. It has charm to spare -- we call it "Cupcake.

What say you, Alan Dershowitz?

It takes nothing away from this very great book to say that many people, myself included, think that SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION is even better. What a talent.

Here is this morning's all-purpose found metaphor. Apply where fitting and as needed.

Thomas Friedman is surely kidding himself in deploying his eloquence in the direction of a man who is incapable of any generosity of spirit. The President will continue to do all he can to spawn hatred and division. A broken man, "leading" a broken country. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/o...

@PhantomFridays, 25 minutes early.

The view of the beautiful 9/11 Memorial lights from Ridgewood Heights, NJ. On that day in 2001 twenty-three guys from my alma mater, Xaverian High School -- bankers, cops, firemen, bond traders -- died when the towers collapsed. I was in midtown Manhattan that eerily beautiful day.

I don't exactly remember, but I am quite sure I read it in an Iris Murdoch novel.

Ah, the midlife crisis Blue Chew look.

Donald Trump is an Ubu Roi update.

Not coming to a bookstore near you: THE BOOK OF T.S. ELIOT'S AFFIRMATIONS.

And as Stormy Daniels has testified, he's a virtuoso between the sheets - -despite his, you know, tiny hands.

No pierogies for you, fella. And that is the sound of Claus Von Bulow and O. J. Simpson clapping in hell for you.

One of the best things you can say about this country is that it invented jazz music, and that that music has jumped racial and geographical boundaries to unite us all in joy and excellence.

Thank you for your service, Mr. President . . . Huh? You had bone spurs and was declared 4F? Your father paid off a doctor for the diagnosis? Oh. Well, I'm sure you would have been a very brave soldier if they'd let you go to Vietnam. Your physical courage and all that. Sir!

Sorry, this is exactly what I am afraid of.

If you are unlucky enough to have Optimum as you internet provider, my sympathies. They really should be called Minimum, for their absence of reliability. Others who feel this way, please vent in my direction.

It's almost the weekend, but Steven Miller, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio are still hard at work planning their next outrages against the Constitution and human decency, while the Big Boss Bug cheats at his well deserved round of golf.

In 1974 I read Marshall Berman's superstar piece on the larger meaning of the sixties and have never forgotten it. It has never been reprinted until now, by, bless them, Dissent. it is truly one of the greatest political essays ever written by an American. www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...

Watch this hilarious clip from W. C Fields' THE DENTIST (1932) and ask yourself: Even if this was released just before the Hays Code really clamped down, how did the studio ever let it through? www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qYm...

Would you settle for a "Good job!"?

I saw HUSBANDS, John Cassavete's epic of male midlife malaise and confusion, in the early seventies, while energetically running from maturity myself. I said to myself," I'll never let THIS happen to me, nosirree!" I wonder how that worked out.

More genius in one small place than ever before or since, posssibly. Astonishing.

Rikers Island? Alcatraz?

Excuse the extra "O."

Better than Riker's Island, I suppose.

A better book than CUCKOOO'S NEST even

This piece in the AMERICAN SCHOLAR tries to correct some widespread misconceptions about the genesis and publication of ON THE ROAD and apportion credit and some blame where both are due. It derives from my book on Cowley, THE INSIDER, coming in November. theamericanscholar.org/scrolling-th...

Turns out that Woody is the Alan Dershowitz of directors. Remind me why we all used to love you . . . the memory grows dim and dimmer.

You could have seen a similar tableau in Tomkins Square Park two Sundays ago at the annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. It's been going on for about thirty years without a hitch -- a great NYC tradition D. Trump neither knows about or can understand.

Check out the contents of NEW AMERICAN REVIEW 1 in 1967: two stone classic stories by Paley and Gass, the first appearance in print of PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT, top drawer critical essays and poetry, all for $.95.

I would argue was that the best postwar literary magazine was NEW AMERICAN REVIEW, published in 26 issues fron 1967 to 1977 under Ted Solotaroff's inspired editorial guidance.Here is the cover of Number One, with a clique of assistant profs on the quad in deep discusion about the crises of the day.

"I've never felt better in my life."

If you were looking for the most uncompromising, hardest edge fiction being written in the eighties, you could find it in the fan-folded paper, glassine-enveloped, tipped-in cover art magazine BETWEEN C & D. Jay McInerny? Feh. This was the stuff. Joel and Catherine were fearless and brilliant.

Heading off in the Subaru Outback in five minutes to Beacon, NY, where I hope a friendly boookseller will relieve me of 200-plus books (of very high quality!) for a fair price. Part of the Great Book Cleanse of 2025 -- this is one of two loads.

I just read this book -- alas not in this delicious Penguin edition -- and while I certainly enjoyed Spark's dark wit and economical style, I found myself . . . puzzled. It felt like "The Lavender Hill Mob" as reimagined by Cardinal Newman. Write to me at this address with clarifications.

How do they live with themselves? Well, we might well have asked the same question of the guards at Auschwitz. Paging Hannah Arendt . . . .

"Occasionally miracles"??? Wow. Rembering that I am a cradle Catholic, I wonder if this means that Sam Altman and Andrew Ng et al. are poised to join Mother Seton and Kateri Tekawitha on the short list of canonized American saints.