The Summer had died peacefully in its sleep, and Autumn, as soft-spoken executrix, was locking life up safely until Spring came to claim it.

I'm wild again, beguiled again, a whimpering, simpering child again. Bewitched, bothered, bewildered am I.

Much of the conversation in the country consisted of lines from television shows, both past and present.

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

Literature is by definition opinionated. It is bound to provoke the arguments in many quarters, not excluding the hometown or even the family of the author.

And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?

And what gift of America to the rest of the world is actually most appreciated by the rest of the world? It is African American jazz and its offshoots. What is my definition of jazz? Safe sex of the highest order.