Authors ranked by their novelty candle scents

7. Jane Austen -- "my goodness,  Kitty, do you ever throw any of your flowers out from gentlemen?" "I always save one in case I need it for my scrapbook." (Coughing)

6. Mark Twain -- I deputized the neighbor kids to make this, not knowing they were going to put in Ol' Widder Thomas' vanilla. P-U!!!

5. Edgar Allen Poe -- and as he stared into the candle flame and the curl of smoke, a terror inchoate grew within him so that he might shout, "What Hath God Put Into This Thing?"

4. Emily Dickinson --

Good night! which put the candle out?
A smelly zephyr, not a doubt.
Ah! friend, you little knew
How long at that cassis wick
Tennesseans labored diligent;
Extinguished, now, for you!

3. Charles Dickens -- Sold by a merchant inevitably named Jeremiah Dripp who doesn't approve of your purchase and will keep telling you that every 100 words or so.
2. Leo Tolstoy -- also available in the "Things Levin Never Knew Existed, And Other Things He And Kitty Can't Live Without" catalog.
1. Oscar Wilde -- cedarwood, basil and bon mots. You can't keep up with its witticisms so don't even try.

(Available at Paddywax.com or at Barnes & Noble)

Emily Dickinson for each ecstatic incident

I highly recommend a spin through the new open-access Emily Dickinson Archive, a major collaborative research project that brings the Belle of Amherst (ugh, how I hate that nickname) ever close to us.

Bill Murray Reading Poetry

This is probably the second most important thing I will post here all year, so straighten up.

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period --
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay --

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

--Emily Dickinson, in honor of the spring equinox or as I like to think of it, opening day of iced coffee season.

I used to find Dickinson fusty and mannered, so I only take her in small doses now.