I read a brief piece in The New Yorker recently by Norman Mailer (or maybe it was a short piece quoting Norman Mailer), but the bottom line was he has a book on writing called The Spooky Art coming out in February. There was a review in today's Chronicle. A short review, not all that enthusiastic. Evidently Mailer is prone to digress. "But such digressions of self-praise, self-criticism and self-interest seem less like writing lessons than self-amused monologues. Which is just to say that Mailer is still Mailer" (Bob Blaisdell in The Chronicle) I'm ordering the book today from Amazon. There was something that came through The New Yorker piece that needs my attention. Haven't heard much from Mailer, an up and down bigger than life writer, but all the bullshit aside; he can, you know. Write.

A sign of returning strength: I managed another page on artandlife. A sign I'm not all the way back: Many thoughts along the lines of, "well, I'll come back some day and fix this and fix that." Odd how long it has taken me to generate the interest and the energy to get it done. The operation, yes, but artandlife predates the operation by five months. Do I want this site? What am I fighting? I have the photographs. It takes time to scan them and size them and put them up, but so what? The design could be refined. It's funky. I can do better. Still, the very act of building another page, even an add-on to the existing Dykes on Bikes, is progress. More coming. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. Maybe in November.

Super Bowl today.