New Review of Ray DiPalma's The Ancient Use of Stone by Terence Winch

Best American Poetry


As you know doubt know, if you have been reading this blog over the years, I am excessively fond of temporal convergences, coincidences, and the like. The early years of fait accompli consisted of a conscious effort to create synchronicities by blogging from my journals and selecting moments that felt similar to those in the here and now.

There is something special about the Thanksgiving holiday for me. For many years, Toni and I have been visiting her sister and brother-in-law and spending a few days. Bob and Beryl tend to indulge my need to be near books, so I am usually transported to one or more bookstores in the course of the several days visit. A few years ago during the Thanksgiving visit we travelled up to Gloucester, checked out some terrific bookstores and I found a book by Gerrit Lansing I enjoyed very much. After I blogged about it to my surprise Lansing called me. Gerrit is reading on Sunday at the BPC hosted by Mitch Highfill and I am certainly looking forward to that reading.

Yesterday Toni's sister took us to the Brandeis Rose Museum, which has an excellent collection, notably a great Rauchenberg, a fine DeKooning, terrific paintings by Matta, Reginald Marsh, Stettheimer, Max Ernst and many others. Unfortunately the whole collection may have to be sold off due to some bad investments on the part of University with Madoff.

Then Beryl took us to Back Pages Books owned by Alex Green. When I entered the store I noticed Pariah by Dave Zeltserman was on display in the front of the store. I just finished reading the book and found it to be a page turner, a strange but interestingly twisted story about a gangster , having already read and enjoyed his earlier book, Small Crimes. Turns out Zeltserman lives in the area and has read at Back Pages Books. Alex told me Dave likes to hear from readers, so maybe I can track him down and get in touch.