I looked over the final print galley of The Smallest Talk this evening. That book is so close to heading to the printer that I can hardly stand it. Good heavens.

I traded e-mails today with a poet whose work I enjoy immensely. He has a new book coming later this year, and some poems that I have been dying to read will be in it. I’ve heard one of the set, at a reading, and we’ve chatted about the others. Put up a pre-order page, Amazon, and I’ll pre-order this book. (Wait a sec, it’s up… but the cover listed ain’t the one the author sent me to look at.)

For my next trick, ladies and gentlemen, the illusionist said to the eight people in the back room of the bar, I present to you… the dead. His eyes and hands tensed on the spot in front of him, the air became a shroud. Slowly appeared before them all Chester A. Arthur. The crowd grimaced, moaned that they’d expected something a bit more dramatic. One asked who it was and another expressed disappointment that the spirit was just some fop with a Garibaldi mustache. Then one said, I’m quite sure that’s Chester A. Arthur, I recognize him from my childhood book of the thirty-eight presidents. All agreed it was, but who was Chester A. Arthur, really, they grumbled. Then whispers. Couldn’t the illusionist have produced a president who might point a finger at his murderer, wag of some scandal? Arthur’s spirit– and it really was Arthur’s spirit, brought to focus nightly for reasons the illusionist could not understand– opened his mouth to speak, but was again mute, and would remain so until the illusionist could conjure a crowd ready to hear him. This was the third week the spirit had appeared, and still it hadn’t happened. We’re getting closer, the illusionist sighed to the spirit. At least this lot knew who you are.

Listening: lots of Sarah Harmer lately. Why isn’t Sarah Harmer famous like a mountain?