About twice a month, I stop by the bookstore near my office, and scan the racks of elegantly bound new novels and stories. There’s something horribly depressing about it.
A Victorian Englishman went to his local library looking for a copy of the French Constitution; “I’m sorry sir,” the librarian replied, “but we don’t carry periodical literature.”
In the 1970s, odd-looking people with shaved heads used to hang around the edges of college campuses, searching for students who appeared lonely, hungover, or adrift.
Ninety years ago, Max Beerbohm drew a series of cartoons titled “The Young Self Meets the Old Self” about the strange twists in the lives of the famous and near-famous of his day.
The millionaires next door? To me, Donald and Mildred Othmer — the “unassuming” Brooklyn couple who recently left a staggering $800 million estate to charity — were the millionaires in the basement.