No Man Is An Island.

Indeed, There Is A Moment On The First Cd - The Electrifying Opening To "i Got Loaded," Which Sounds Like An R&b Standard But Isn't - When You Might Find Yourself Asking Whether Anyone Who Has Ever Been Smitten By Pop Music Can Fail To Have His Heart Stopped By The Chords, The Swing, And, Once Again, Steve Berlin's Wonderfully Greasy Sax.

But What Else Can We Do When We're So Weak? We Invest Hours Each Day, Months Each Year, Years Each Lifetime In Something Over Which We Have No Control; It Is Any Wonder Then, That We Are Reduced To Creating Ingenious But Bizarre Liturgies Designed To Give Us The Illusion That We Are Powerful After All, Just As Every Other Primitive Community Has Done When Faced With A Deep And Apparently Impenetrable Mystery?

What You Don't Catch A Glimpse Of On Your Wedding Day- Because How Could You?- Is That Some Days You Will Hate Your Spouse, That You Will Look At Him And Regret Ever Exhchanging A Word With Him, Let Alone A Ring And Bodily Fluids.

Being A Reader Is Sort Of Like Being President, Except Reading Involves Fewer State Dinners, Usually. You Have This Agenda You Want To Get Through, But You Get Distracted By Life Events, E.g., Books Arriving In The Mail/world War Iii, And You Are Temporarily Deflected From Your Chosen Path.

Books Are, Let's Face It, Better Than Everything Else.