The Greatest Obstacle To Pleasure

Poems Are Difficult To Silence.

I Was In Venice Teaching, So I Reread Henry James's "the Wings Of The Dove." I Love James.

First Of All, Shakespeare Is About Pleasure And Interest. He Was From The First Moment He Actually Wrote Something For The Stage, And He Remains So.

A Comparably Capacious Embrace Of Beauty And Pleasure - An Embrace That Somehow Extends To Death As Well As Life, To Dissolution As Well As Creation - Characterizes Montaigne's Restless Reflections On Matter In Motion, Cervantes's Chronicle Of His Mad Knight, Michelangelo's Depiction Of Flayed Skin, Leonardo's Sketches Of Whirlpools, Caravaggio's Loving Attention To The Dirty Soles Of Christ's Feet.

Writing Is A Performance, Like Singing An Aria Or Dancing A Jig