...I got the new Elton John collaboration he does with Leon Russell. Some of it is really sleepy and a bit whiny like an old Willie Nelson record, but I usually need to give a disc two listens to know for sure whether it's good or not. Sometimes I'll flip-flop on the second listen.

...Well, Pale House really liked my letter to "Dear Citizens of Los Angeles." They're handing it out to 10,000 people in LA and are going to publish it in their November issue online and may include it in their anthology coming out in Spring. I did include my name and town at the bottom because it seemed necessary. If I hadn't put any name would have been a cop out. Now, however, I'm hoping that no angry LA folks come up here trying to rough me up. I was honest in my thoughts, but not always flattering.

...Presently there are fourteen hip people from Australia at my house. They are muscians, which, like writers, are my favorite kind of people. It's hard to dislike Australians, even if you wanted to, because they have that accent. Vegamite, however, provides a case for distain. That stuff looks like gelled motor oil and smells like anchovies.

...This is really good: "The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, and it smells good. Writing is mere writing, literature is mere. It appeals only to the subtlest senses--the imagination's vision, and the imagination's hearing--and the moral sense, and the intellect. This writing that you do, that so thrills you, that so rocks and exhilarates you, as if you were dancing next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else."--Annie Dillard