In which I demonstrate my ridiculousness in two ways, conveniently photographed (as is so much of my ridiculousness), by rocketlass.

Books do furnish a bag

That is a photo of the contents of my shoulder bag as they looked on my trip to work the first two days of this week. The sane will note that the mini-library pictured is a bit more comprehensive than round-trip commute of two hours would warrant. To which charge my only defense is that each morning as I packed the books I was telling myself that--all appearances to the contrary--I was merely dipping into, rather than actually re-reading, A Dance to the Music of Time, and thus needed to have a lot of other options to hand.

The reality, harder to escape with each turned page, was that of course I was re-reading Dance; fortunately, so far as self-deception goes, the consequences of this feeble pretense were relatively mild, felt only in my aching shoulders.

Flags do furnish a book

For this battered, beflagged galley copy of Roberto Bolano's 2666 I can offer no defense beyond a legitimate, somewhat fuddled effort to grapple with Bolano's talent. So much to note, so much that I might want to cite in my eventual review of the novel, such a mess my good intentions have made.

Which all leads me to this line from The Journal of Jules Renard, which is also somewhere in the shoulder bag:

Every time I want to settle down to work, literature gets between.

Ain't that the truth.