I am clearer in my mind and a bit less confused than I used to be.

Americans are genuinely and profoundly anti-intellectual. They are especially so in their pleasure-seeking, which is epically banal.

I have a very basic notion of the structure the book might have - that's mostly it. The rest is luck and happenstance.

First, he says, you have to go out into the world. This is not a simple matter of going outside one's door. No, that is simply going out. That's what one does when one is on the way to the store to buy a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a bottle of wine. When one goes out into the world, one is shedding preconceptions of past paths and ideas of past paths, and trying to move freely through an unsubstantiated and new geography.

Sunday was always the best of days for being the self you had intended to be, but were not, for one reason or another.

One can't say how one behaved or why, really. Such situations, they are far more complex than any either/or proposition. It is simplistic to produce events in pairs and lean them against each other like cards. I suppose if you a playing go or shogi, then such a thing might be helpful, but that is not life.

As far as ideas about book design: I have plenty. But I also try and let people do their jobs.