Went to New York this weekend with no books at all. It was weird. I didn't meant to not have any books. But so I sat on the train and read the New Yorker's story on the New Orleans police force, and then the story on James Agee. I like James Agee's film criticism. I have tried to read some of his other work and wasn't in the right frame of mind -- which means that though I own a copy of "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," I have never taken the wrapper off it. But because I'm also reading "Here Is Your War" by Ernie Pyle I'm interested again in reading this -- another writer who, however briefly, lived among his un-privileged subjects, clearly reporting on them (not undercover or anything) but in their lives in a sympathetic way.

None of my dad's people were involved in the West Virginia mine story. There were no Italian last names at all. As horrible as the miners' story is, there's also this twisted undercurrent of people from West Virginia wanting to be on TV. Can you imagine being the governor of that state. The last time you were on was during the Big East tournament or something.