"...the World, the Universe."

Cigarettes burning, smoke exhaled, curling around my nostrils, stale and ashen. I breathe the spiced scent of my neighbor's addiction from the deck outside my living room windows. I adopt a second-hand habit, perhaps to distract from my own addictions, or rather withdrawals.

Facing a wall of torn, faded covers I leaf through the tattered, bent pages of scribbled notes in margins and underlined phrases.

"What was after the universe? Nothing."


Relapse. Novels, plays, short stories, epic poems; I dive into the unspoken genius of classic literature long avoided through recovery from academic exhaustion.

And I can't get enough. I want to read and reread everything, I want to study, to analyze, to write, and all without the pressure of a syllabus. Joyce, Browning, Wilde, they all beckon me, inviting me to taste each delicious page, and devour every word.

To further my craving, I was attracted by a brief article in The New York Times on a current exhibition. Steve Wolfe on Paper reproduces timeless books and vinyls to, in a sense, preserve weathered classics after generations of use... an inspiration to us all.