I Don't Know Exactly How Long The

Cool Is Spent. Cool Is Empty. Cool Is Ex Post Facto. When Advertisers And Pundits Hoard A Word, You Know It's Time To Retire From It. To Move On. I Want To Suggest, Therefore, That We Begin To Avoid Cool Now. Cool Is A Trick To Get You To Buy Garments Made By Sweatshop Laborers In Third World Countries. Cool Is The Triumph Of The Will. Cool Enables You To Step Over Bodies. Cool Enables You To Look The Other Way. Cool Makes You Functional, Eager For Routine Distraction, Passive, Doped, Stupid.

But That Incessant Drive To Be Out There In The Literary Universe That Was Important To Me When I Was In My Twenties, Like Going To A Paris Review Party Or Whatever, That Seems Totally Irrelevant Now.

I'm Trying To Read More Dead People Because I Keep Having To Read Stuff For Juries And So Forth.

I Do Think That Just About Whenever I Am Writing, Or More Accurately, Whenever I Have Written, I Feel Better And More At Peace As A Human Being. That Doesn't Mean, Unfortunately, That The Literary Product Is Any Good.

I'm Trying To Make Sure That There's Comedy As Well As Sadness. It Makes The Sadness More Memorable.