Lou sends (all his love)

OK, first thing: I was wrong. Ben Walker does indeed have a website from which you can order his CDs and at which you can look at cool photos of him. My dream is that he someday puts out a full-length live CD of vocals with mandolin. But he's great on guitar and keyboards too.

Next: I visited with Walmsley yesterday. He's recently written an opera libretto. But we got to talking about music, perhaps because I mentioned the movie New York Doll. Anyway, we agreed it was strange how one's taste changes. I mean, I almost never listen to Elvis Costello anymore, but I still love the Clash. Tom says that his great constant is Lou Reed. The idea of putting on Berlin again is so depressing. In fact, I think I only listened to that brilliant album in its entirety once, because it's so fucking sad.

Next: I've been editing a lot of French-to-English translations lately. Both children's stuff and adults'. It's fascinating. My French is pretty basic, so at first I was suffering a bit of imposter syndrome. I called Anne several times, because she's a translator, and I picked her brain about how editors worked with her. Seemed I was on the right track. We had a really interesting discussion about what happens when the translator is working on a mediocre novel. Is it her duty to make it better (loyalty to the publisher) or to reflect exactly the quality of the author's writing?

Hmmm.

Anyway, the translators I've worked with have so far been thrilled with my edits, so now I'm confident.

Next: Rox has set up his own blog. It's the second Rox blog. The first was set up by Jeff for Rox, and Rox ran it for a day and then exploded. I suggested maybe Rox set up a poem-a-day kind of blog. I see that some writers do that. Go see his poems over here. It'll be interesting to see what form his blog eventually settles into. Or if it eventually settles at all.

Next: I don't like blogging about blogs. Just like I don't like including computers in my poetry or fiction.

Next: How can I expose a used bookstore owner and his assistant as anti-Semites without getting myself in trouble? It makes my blood boil that these fuckers take so much business away from decent bookstores, and do such hot trade in obviously stolen books?

Over and out.