Letter To New York

In your next letter I wish you'd say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays, and after the plays
what other pleasures you're pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road goes round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,

and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you're in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,

and most of the jokes you just can't catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so terribly late,

and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.

—Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid
if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,
nevertheless I'd like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.
--Elizabeth Bishop. As invoked in David Rakoff's HALF EMPTY, where the author recites it to himself as he goes in for an MRI.

I'm at the Brooklyn Book Festival all day today, and if you want to know more about that you had best find me on Twitter. Updates will be more frequent than usual, but judicious. (Sidebar: This is my first "hometown" festival, which I note so I can have A Moment about it later, but I'll say... so far, so good. Although last weekend someone referred to me as "making the trek" from Brooklyn to East 19th Street, which was hilarious. All the way where?!)

In case you need diversion, I recommend Julie Klausner's recent interview with David Rakoff on her podcast "How Was Your Week?" in which he talks about his beginnings as a writer. You can stream it from this page directly (it's the episode "Shelf of Justice").

Also, congratulations to BUNNICULA author James Howe on his marriage.

Is it supposed to be Iceland?

Amazing cover work. Can anybody find me the artist? David Rakoff's newest comes out September 21.