- Overheard: “I admit to being abstract and I don't deny it, and I don't think it’s a bad position. On the other hand, I find you very academic.”
- The first student I connected with, a teenager in Great Neck, discovered and excised a pre-cancerous melanoma on my back 47 years later.
- On a draft of "
Tyger Tyger Burning Bright,” Blake changed form to frame.
- I really really saw, in the same day, a dog barking up the wrong tree and the blind leading the blind.
- Cartoon Caption: Dog says to person, “Quit damning me with faint praise and give me a fucking treat!”
- Among the celebrities my father saw in Hollywood and obtained autographs from during his 1940 cross-country trip: Freddy Bartholomew, Eddie Albert, Greer Garson, Robert Young, Rosalind Russel, Mary Astor.
- While the moon is being eclipsed, a mama rat and her children cross Riverside Drive in front of a taxi paused at a Stop sign. The mama stops in the middle, waiting for the kids to catch up. The taxi driver honks two gentle beeps. The kids speed up and the whole family reaches the other side. The taxi goes on its way. The moon returns.
- Overheard: “Subliminally when I got burned at the stake it was tough for me.”
- A small parrot perches behind the counter of a tiny antique shop in Paris. I stare at it and smile. The clerk says, “Babu,” and gestures it is all right for me to approach. The bird nibbles on my hand and watch band. I try to explain in French that I am waiting for my wife (“femme”), and the clerk thinks I am talking about Babu, whom she turns upside down and says, “Pas une femme.” I purchase a quill pen, and go looking for Erin so I can introduce her to Babu. When we enter, the clerk smiles and hands me my eyeglasses, which I didn’t even know I left there.
- Overheard: “You got a problem, you pull a man to the side and you talk to him.”
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