Check out other work in the Light series here.

Tolstoy’s wife copied out the entire manuscript of War and Peace in longhand seven times. (213)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMBookshelf #Numbers

An illiterate, underbred book. Said Virginia Woolf of Ulysses. (214)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMBookshelf #DMquotations #GreatsOnGreats

I can’t even pronounce the filthy thing. Said Wallace Stevens of the word womb in a poem. (215)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMquotations #Bigotry

All legends to the contrary, Empedocles did not leap into Mount Etna. Or even die in Sicily. (216)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DM Map

Byron was nine when he was introduced to sex by his nurse, one May Gray. (217)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons
I was just a skinny lad
Never knew no good from bad
But I knew life before I left my nursery
Left alone with big fat fanny
She was such a naughty nanny
Big woman,
You made a bad boy out of me

How well insulated would the ceiling of a former garage be? Would Ishmael/Meursault/Kurtz be aware of virtually every movement on the floor above? (218)
#Reader/Protagonist #DMCastofCharacters #DMBookshelf

Tony Trollope, he was naturally called. (219)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Madeleine Grey. The Chants d’Auvergne. (220)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons
Rule: Listen to any piece of music mentioned. 

Check out other posts from the Markson Project here.

Check out other work in the Dirty Dish Gallery here.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
   As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
   Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring-fish
   That lived in the beautiful sea.
“Now cast your nets wherever you wish,—
   Never afraid are we!”
   So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
            Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
   To the stars in the twinkling foam,—
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
   Bringing the fishermen home:
‘Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
   As if it could not be;
And some folk thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed
   Of sailing that beautiful sea;
   But I shall name you the fishermen three:
            Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
   And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
   Is a wee one’s trundle-bed;
So shut your eyes while Mother sings
   Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
   As you rock in the misty sea
   Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:—
            Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

By Eugene Field

Check out other work in the Strange Faces Other Minds series.

Check out more Ear Candy here.

Brunelleschi was the first Renaissance artist about whom a full-length biography was written. (204)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

I am weary, Ananda, and wish to lie down. (205)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMBookshelf #DMquotations 

June 22, 1633:
With sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and abhor the aforesaid errors and heresies contrary to the Holy Church, and I swear that henceforward I will never again say or declare, verbally or in writing, anything that might bring about a similar suspicion toward me. (206)
#DMTimeline #DMquotations

Goethe did not go to bed with a woman until he was forty. (207)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Where would Protagonist’s son and/or daughter be? How often would he see, hear from them? (208)
#Reader/Protagonist

Will he? (209)
#Reader/Protagonist

Samuel Beckett was once forced to hide for ten days under a false floor in Nathalie Sarraute’s Paris attic while working for the Resistance in World War II.  (210)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DM Map #Numbers 

Eppur si muove. (211)
#DMquotations

Check out other posts from the Markson Project here.

Check out other work in the Paint Chips, Cracks, and Decay series here.

-Operation Forest of Thought was my attempt to create the prison of mind that I hoped would hold Snevets. I consulted English, philosophy, and art professors. I gave them intimate access to Snevets’ case files. Their job was to construct the bars of this prison from the information there within. I had never managed such a group before. The police community is very hierarchical. These men were not. They could argue and talk and seemingly never settle on anything. What I thought would take a week took a year. But, they finally had nine recommendations. 

1. Snevets was a francophile. Any space constructed to hold him must include objects from French thought and letters.
2. Color was important for Snevets. Many of his jobs turned on colors, their metaphoric properties, their relation, and their motion.
3. Fruit drew Snevets’ eye as much as anything. Knowing a high end green grocer to stock the space would definitely help hold Snevets.
4. Walking: The old man loved it. Giving him a park nearby or a large grounds surrounding the property would allow him to stretch his legs and mind.
5. As far as architecture, it needed to be comforting, suburban. They explained that Snevets lived a contradiction. He had the imagination of a libertine with the habits and routine of a middle class life. He needed the physical comfort of suburbia to access his profuse imagination.
6. Privacy: his imagination had a great need for privacy to exercise itself. It was inward facing, needing space from others to plumb its deepest levels. His reveries of mind were ultimately solitary.
7. A library of course. I didn’t need the professors to know this. But they helped me with stocking the library from classics to the literary journals of the day.
8. The fellowship of men, which is a nicer way to say drinking buddies. Snevets was no débauche but seemed to find relief in periodic nights of eating, drinking, smoking, gaming, and conversation. 
9. A study to work in. Preferably abutting the library. Containing the usual: a desk, a window, good lighting, a reading chair, prints on the walls, and a low coffee table. 

Check out other posts from The Snevets Stories here.

Check out other work in the Uncollected series here.

-April 11th 2026
The unexamined death is not worth dying. 

How I end my life is important. Ideally, my friends and family should have foreknowledge and a chance to say goodbye, nobody is traumatized by finding me dead or the cleanup, my estate is in order, and the death is not painful or violent. There are few options given current sentiment surrounding suicide, especially for a healthy person. However, Switzerland is providing an alternative. The right to choose the manner of dying is protected by Swiss law. There are Swiss non-profit organizations that will help an individual to self-administer pentobarbital sodium after careful checks into the person’s health and intention. One falls asleep within 20 seconds and dies within 5 minutes in the presence of loved ones. The company then cremates the body and sends it to next of kin. It isn’t cheap at $11,000, but it is currently the best option. My hope is that in the intervening 31 years I have left other countries join Switzerland and there are cheaper options closer to home. 

Check out other posts from Death Letter here.