BROKERS WITH HANDS ON THEIR FACES. Via… Sparrow Fallen, maybe? Read more

We assembled again around the table, the shop assistants rubbed their hands, red from the cold, and the prose of their conversation suddenly revealed a full-grown day, a gray and empty Tuesday, a day without tradition and without a face. But it was only when a dish appeared on the table containing two large fish in jelly lying side by side, head-to-tail, like a sign of the zodiac, that we recognized in them the coat of arms of that day,... Read more

CHYPRE AT THE GATES OF DAWN*: In which I gush all over Perfumes: The Guide. *What were you expecting? “Scents and Sensibility”? Read more

AND MY USUAL PLEA FOR “A CIRCLE IN THE FIRE”: Thread for nominating “the best short stories.” I do my usual shtik. But I’d be interested not only in you all’s nominations, but also your theories about why certain stories are great and/or popular, and why certain genres and media (comics but not movies, for example) gravitate to or at least accommodate the short story. Read more

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FOURTH GRADERS. Go add yours! Read more

SOMEDAY ALL THIS WILL BE PICTURESQUE RUINS: Best of 2008. Best books read (nonfiction): Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture, Frederick RodenThe Letters of Abelard and Heloise/Heloise and Abelard, Etienne GilsonI May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination, Francis J. SpuffordSexual Personae, Camille Paglia (more)The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, Andrew Solomon Best books read (real books): The Little Friend, Donna Tartt–I’m not sure what I can say about this other than, READ IT NOW, since even... Read more

…The fragrance is a delicious Tabu-like oriental, whose claim to be a masculine is based entirely on its transience. A man is a woman consisting entirely of top notes.–Luca Turin reviewing Old Spice, in Luca Turin and Tina Sanchez, Perfume: The Guide Read more

I THINK I’M SUPPOSED TO HAVE A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE. So, rejoice!–this was written about 40 years ago and yet if you’re reading this, you’re probably not dead! Woohoo! On the other hand, I note that your local Catholic church can probably hear your confession. I’m just sayin’. Read more

…AND BE FORGOTTEN WITH THE REST. Awful news from Mory’s Temple Bar–a place I loved, but which had been showing increasing strains in the past few years as it struggled to cope with an ethos of not merely egalitarianism (you don’t need to be a Weatherman to weather that one, at Yale) but health- and temperance-fascism. I remember countless hangover hot chocolates and lunchtime soups bought from Au Bon Pain, the year I was working in a New Haven suburb... Read more

[…] the devouring gorgon romantic love, toward which, as toward wine, unfaith is renewal–Marianne Moore, as excerpted here Read more