Having Stopped Expecting Truth, We Rarely Get

Writers Are Doubters, Compulsives, Self-flagellants. The Torture Only Stops For Brief Moments.

It Is The Artists Who Make The True Value Of The World, Though At Times They May Have To Starve To Do It. They Are Like Earthworms, Turning Up The Soil So Things Can Grow, Eating Dirt So That The Rest Of Us May Eat Green Shoots.

Venice, That Capital City Of Dream And Intrigue, That Double City (one Above And Seemingly Solid, One Below, Wavering And Reflected In The Waters), Which Never Disappoints.

As A Reader, I Want A Book To Kidnap Me Into Its World. Its World Must Make My So-called Real World Seem Flimsy. Its World Must Lure Me To Return. When I Close The Book, I Should Feel Bereft.

Venice Is Ever The Fragile Labyrinth At The Edge Of The Sea And It Reminds Us How Brief And Perilous The Journeys Of Our Lives Are; Perhaps That Is Why We Love It So. City Of Plagues And Brief Liaisons, City Of Lingering Deaths And Incendiary Loves, City Of Chimeras, Nightmares, Pigeons, Bells. You Are The Only City In The World Whose Dialect Has A Word For The Shimmer Of Canal Water Reflected On The Ceiling Of A Room.