You wild and crazy dreamer, you.

Currently imprisoned by a small cat on my lap. Fortunately i am in a reading chair, have a good book, and a good cocktail. I can probably cope, if I need rescuing I’ll send up a flare.

A Last Wod on a Friday, Sipsmiths gin, why? #cocktailhour

Relayed to me by Tony Geer of Conversation Tree Press, taken after a lovely lunch discussing his plans for their deluxe edition of TIGANA. I have absolute confidence they are going to make a beautiful book.

Can a curmudgeon be happy? Maybe? I picked up Jack Rudy vermouth infused cocktail olives today. I have my beloved Plymouth gin. I have the newly available (and splendid) Cocchi di Torino Extra Dry vermouth. I have good cheese and crackers. And it is almost #cocktailhour!

Likely in spring for the new book.

Kevin Barry is insanely quotable. A man has a whisky and chaser in a bar as darkness falls… ‘The bad nerves fell away on a quick grade to calmness and resolve.’

I am back to reading one of the Barrys. Kevin’s new one, *The Heart In Winter*. (Sebastian is the other, they are not, best I know, related, but both are superb writers.) Try this: In the evening sun the East Ridge glowed sombre and gold and an ignorant wind brought news of the winter.

William Faulkner (born on this day) at Nobel Prize banquet… He ended his speech: "The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

And this just arrived! Alire in Quebec (Jean and Louise, who founded it, are my long-standing publishers and friends) have sent my copies of their edition of All The Seas of the World. I’ll be in Montreal at their Salon du Livre booth later in fall.