No Special Writing Rituals. And My Desk

The First And Perhaps The Most Important Requirement For A Successful Writing Performance - And Writing Is A Performance, Like Singing An Aria Or Dancing A Jig - Is To Understand The Nature Of The Occasion.

I Believe That It Is A Whole Lifetime Of Work On Shakespeare's Part That Enabled Him To Do What He Did. But The Question Is How You Can Explain This Whole Lifetime In Such A Way To Make It Accessible And Available To Us, To Me.

I'm Reading Hans Kummer's "in Quest Of The Sacred Baboon." It's Wonderful. It's A Scientist's Journal About Baboons, But It Relates To The Search For Human Origin.

I Have Lots Of Things That Aren't So Old That I Value, Such As A Copy Of Allen Ginsberg's "howl," Which He Signed For Me.

Now A Protestant Confronting A Catholic Ghost Is Exactly Shakespeare's Way Of Grappling With What Was Not Simply A General Social Problem But One Lived Out In His Own Life.