Maybe my period is synching with Melinda's and all the gals in the department I work with (ha ha), but I got misty-eyed this morning reading an excerpt of Langston Hughes getting grilled McCarthy-style. Then on the way to work, listening to a dude talking about the life of Johnny Mercer and how painful "One More For the Road" is really meant to be. They played Sinatra singing that, who usually doesn't do a lot for me (except when he's advising Doris Day's mother to stop being hard-boiled), but the song choked me up. Can't think of any events in recent months that should make me feel that way.

The excerpt from Langston Hughes was in the December 2003 Harper's. I was going to post some of that here, and then I ran across another article I wanted to post, and then more and more. So you'll have to dig up that issue for yourself. Too much for me to copy here. I almost made myself late for work reading a short story in that issue, "What We Cannot Speak About We Must Pass Over In Silence" by John Edgar Wideman.