We’re quality persons and we believe in quality stuff. What we eat is the freshest and purest. What we watch has been strained through the finest seive–the New York Times or the London Times or the smallest literary journal with the most anemic editor. Our stocks have been blessed by the financial counselor who renounced… [Read more…]
June 6, 2011
Netherlanders are a thrifty, enterprising people. Their historic wisdom, a distrust of excess, I think, came from the constant awareness of knowing where they are, a sort of cultural GPS, possibly developed after the Tulip Bubble, the first capitalistic mania. When William of Orange conquered England during the “Glorious Revolution” (which was neither glorious nor… [Read more…]
April 14, 2011
Is planning for a book fair something like investing in buggy whip manufactory just as Model A Fords hit the market? While a big box book retail chain declares bankruptcy and Publishers Weekly prints jeremiads about the implosion of major New York publishers, we in Silver City discuss poetry readings, authors who could be speakers… [Read more…]
March 30, 2011
The “book” festival friends didn’t want a book festival, although in conversation every one of us says “book” festival because “word” festival sounds kind of snooty. Some of us have visited the Tucson Book Festival, a major event in which major publishers and major authors take up major space. The Border Festival of Mesilla, however,… [Read more…]
March 27, 2011
A poet started talk of a celebration of words. We need a festival where poets can read and others can listen, she said. And she was right. Silver City, New Mexico, about an hour and a half from Mexico, about three hours from Tucson, in the shadow of the Gila Wilderness, should pay more attention… [Read more…]
June 6, 2011
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