I'm an unpaid "finder of fact" in literary circles. LRB, NYRB. Doesn't matter. What matter is getting paid.

The Performing Arts - Chamber Music 5 August 2026 Gertler/Berg /Bartok Violin Concerto/Solo Violin Sonata I'd never complain about a vinyl disc I found for $1 at the local library. But pressing # Angel 35091 sounds like dental gauze. Disc itself is pristine. Weighs a *ton*. Is very rigid.

@lisasass.bsky.social and @afteroctavian.bsky.social: It's way past my bedtime, and I'm a bit punchy. But 100% sober! It just popped into my head that Britten's setting of the Requiem mass at et lux per/pet lux/perpetua in the Decca recording is sheer genius✍️ English vocal music owes him, huh?

Title: «Countée Cullen's Harlem Renaissance: A Personal History» Publisher: Parlor Press Publication Date: 16 July 2024 Order Page Link: parlorpress.com/products/cou... Red Hook Star-Review: www.star-revue.com/quinn-on-boo... Massachusetts Review: www.massreview.org/node/11751

30 April 2026 The Charterhouse of Parma is a tale of cronyism, extortion and greed set in era “whose turpitude and venality cannot, in your wildest imagination, be exaggerated.” Kevin Anthony Brown on Stendhal at 200. www.newenglishreview.org/articles/thr...

Three Times Three: Stendhal at 200

by Kevin Anthony Brown (April 2026) 1 C.K. Scott-Moncrieff, a translator of Proust, also translated Armance, The Red and the Black as well as The Charterhouse of Parma. Three

newenglishreview.org

The Performing Arts - Lieder/Art Song Grinding coffee, I asked myself: "what would @afteroctavian.bsky.social make of this?" Véronique Dietschy's reading of Debussy's "En Sourdine" had shuffled onto the playlist. First version I heard was by a different duo. Which version(s) do people love/hate?

Culture, History, Politics, Society & Sports 23 January 2026 New York Rangers - 1 of 32

Title: "Conjure Women" - An Essay-Review of «The Romare Bearden Reader» Publication: Salmagundi Publication Date: April 2020 Summary: The Romare Bearden Reader anthologizes writings by and about Romare Bearden, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Albert Murray, John Edgar Wideman and August Wilson .

Research & Development 13 July 2026 A head's up to other potentially interested reviewers. Just got wind of this from FSG publicity. A welcome opportunity to read the rest of «The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire», etc. But it would take me until 2027 to do that. On spec✍️

Culture, History, Politics, Society & Sports "Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves." Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Writing Projects - Diary 9 July 2026 "The true nature of Power is to serve Itself." Variation on a Theme of Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian army officer, 1780-1831

Timelines/Chronology (1988-1994) For better and for worse, the New York literary mafia simply worked like this. Gore Vidal (c. 1990) said, "call Barb." Barbara Epstein said, "fax it over." That wasn't corruption and/or cronyism. That was just "connections." Because one HAD to be able to write.

Writing Projects - Journals 1 July 2026 Great diaries are works of literary art, not a vomitus of ego. It took a Leonard Woolf to distill Virginia's «Writer's Diary» into a readable 350 pages. I've been keeping diaries for 40 years. SPARINGLY, I inflict excerpts on Blue Sky members✍️ Like so.

Read the new issue, out now.

Circumstances, Events & Situations 1990-2026 In «A Fish in the Water», Mario Vargas Llosa describes his 1990 loss to Alberto Fujimori in the Peruvian presidential election. Fujimori's daughter Keiko, a right-wing candidate, was declared President of Perú on 30 June 2026.

Circumstances, Events & Situations 22 June 2026 (1/1) In Colombia, Right-Wing President Elected In Argentina - 1956 "The then-unknown Colonel Perón, whose star was beginning to rise . . . saw clearly that the era of the masses had arrived for the country. Ernesto Sábato

Family, Friends, Lovers, Colleagues & Acquaintances Sunday, 21 June 2026, Father's Day Fathers & Sons Never forget. Never regret.

There are no "deplorables," only "persuadables". That's my approach as a literary journalist. "Listen, all I need are 87 million votes."

Culture, History, Politics and Society 28 May 2026 The 100 Best 20th-Century Books, according to Le Monde & FNAC booksellers. As one would expect, this 1999 list is a VERY alternate take on what constitutes Great Literature, compared with the Guardian's (2026). fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_cen...

Les cent livres du siècle — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org

Research & Development 6 June 2026 Fall 2026 Catalog - New York Review Books (page 2)

Research & Development 6 June 2026 Fall 2026 Catalog - New York Review Books (page 1)

“I defend [Democracy],” Flaubert sighed. “But I have no faith in it.” “Give them liberty, but not power.”

«Soliloquies: The Progoff Diaries» (Table of Illustrations) Travel Journal La Chinesca, Mexicali, Baja California #Chinatowns #Museums #Borderlands

Marketing, Publicity & Audience Development 29 December 2025 The following speaks . . . volumes about the book biz. But gives no inkling of what it's like to get up and write every single day. www.vulture.com/article/book...

28 Book Industry Professionals Get Candid About The Year in Books

“Nobody wants to write narrative anymore, but that’s where the fairy-monster-sex books are running laps around the litfic authors.”

vulture.com

«Soliloquies: Progoff Diaries» 3 January 2026 Write a lot, live Just a little I don't need ALL Venezuela's oil & gas I just need one of these in every color 14K gold signet ring settings for precious stones, size 7 (pinky) and/or size 9 (ring finger). Amethyst, Emerald, Onyx, Ruby, Sapphire