Somehow, it's always a nice surprise to wake up and find your right knee malfunctioning. I can bend it just fine; it's just not very pleasing to feel your menisci whenever you are making a step. The philosopher and surgeon George Canguilhem (one of Foucault's mentors) once said that "health is the life in the silence of the organs." I am typically not surprised when my other articulations are acting up on me. I've done enough to them for them to remind me every now and then that I can't be that active anymore.

***

Andrew Schelling commented the following about the closing of Cody's on Ron Silliman's blog:

I think the reason the USED poetry selection got so good was that by developing
a smart, well stocked NEW selection we proved a commitment to poetry. This
brought many poets (& students &c.) in, who swapped their good titles.
The used selection can only be as good as the intelligence of the bookstore's
customers.

Somewhere in Houston, there is someone else who like Mei Mei Bressenbruge, or at least heard enough good things about her to buy a copy of Nest. That person is my hero(ine) and I want to marry her/him.

You've read my bitching about bookstores in Houston. Now tell me about yours (yes, even the chain ones).