One of the books I am about to let go of is The Encyclopedia of Calligraphy Techniques (Diana Hardy Wilson, 1990). It's not a bad tome, but I need more space in my study, and the primers I own by Tom Gourdie and Charles Pearce address my interests more directly.

I set it aside last week for one last farewell page-through. It's been years since I looked up anything in it other than the alphabets I'd sticky-noted - a fact that became all too clear when I came across Paul Shaw's poster of the Twin Towers, and the discussion of their existence in present tense -- an image that hadn't ever captured my attention during previous meanderings through the book. Oof.

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The subject line's from Victor Hernandez Cruz's The Lower East Side of Manhattan.

A stray memory: a tableful of tipsy Irish people in a Belfast pub called the Morning Star, last November, who for reasons known only to them kept trying to sing "New York, New York" (and not quite succeeding).

Last night's bedtime reading included Peter Brookesmith's book on snipers and Quia Amore Langueo. I am not exactly lively company today.