Back from paradise. The weekend was not devoid of literary pursuits. I found a great used bookstore downtown Charleston and treated myself to birthday novels/collections from Doestoevsky, Gogol, Kafka, John Kennedy Toole, Harold Brodkey, Jose Saramago, Jeffrey Eugenides and Jonathan Lethem. Then I was able to meet one of my favorite artists, Bill Callahan (!), and discuss literature with him. According to Bill, he was into Doestoevsky at my age, enjoys Knut Hamsun, is unimpressed with David Foster Wallace and thinks Milan Kundera is "sleazy." Currently, he is reading Christopher Hitchens's God is not Great. Amen.

Anyway, I still don't have much to post. I'm revising today and tomorrow, still hoping to have 15-20 pgs for Wednesday. Today I'm revising the first scene involving the narrator's romantic interest "Joni." I'm focusing on recording a dizzying accumulation of images that comes from the heightened state of awareness the narrator has speaking to someone whom he has the screaming desire to fuck. I'll probably provide an excerpt tomorrow.