Seven Guitars, Fred and Esperanza, Edith Wharton, Sentence of the Week, Oliver.

“At a time when brevity seems the soul of theater, August Wilson is one of our most operatic playwrights.”

Happiness according to William Blake, Dance Fever, Apple TV’s Severance, A.O. Scott, John Donne.

“Humanity, as [Donne] saw it, was rotten with corruption and weakness and failure - and even so it was the great light of the universe.”

On Great American Songs, scribbling, Delhi raptors and NYC.

“Even in chilly March, New York life is lived on the street, and soaking it in—characters and conversations, flashes of beauty and jabs of insight—is a particular New York kind of joy.”

On Almanacs, relics, poetry, “bad artists” and unpacking my (record) library…

“But the records—transported over the years from dorm to apartment to home—are expendable. As they leave, they take a part of me with them.”

On Wagner, QEII, Mose Allison and “Strolling.”

“A stroll isn’t brisk, it is ambling and slow. It isn’t measured in Apple watch heart rates or average daily steps.”