D.H. Lawrence

I have to start by saying my heart sinks when it's football season and summer is almost over and the days are getting shorter and I'm supposed to care about football...

...so every morning from now on before I do almost anything else I pick a book from my shelf at random, open it at random, and read the first thing I see...

...but before I do I have to say I'm happy Rafael Nadal won the US Open and that I fully expect him to throw his underwear into the crowd after he wins his next Major...but back to books...

...because I have good books the method I have for reading them is foolproof. 

This morning I picked up D.H. Lawrence, Selected Poems, with the preface by Kenneth Rexroth and opened it to the poem, "Little Fish."

The tiny fish/enjoy themselves in the sea./Quick little splinters of life,/their little lives are fun to them/in the sea.

For a moment or two I have Einstein's "happiest thought," that a freely falling person would not feel his weight as he fell.

Then it's time for coffee and an orange cut into six sections, three for her and three for me.

What comes next is all up to me.

There's certainly a lot to do today--Tom Fuller's coming to town for book parties in honor of his novel, Monsieur Ambivalence.

 I take up the book my small press published and open it at random:

The great privilege of the century is privacy but you have to go out of the way for it and take no hard positions. I'm going to an extreme, I have strong feelings that seem less and less relevant, I'm questing

to remain without restlessness in my room for one hour.

(Monsieur Ambivalence, IF SF, 2013, illustrated, 257 pages, $15.00).