ripostes & fiddles

L'affaire Kleinzahler slowly fades. Bradley at The Ethical Exhibitionist has a very nice, longish post on The Poem of a Life, & why Stinky-Feet Augie's review is wrongheaded. (Full disclosure: B is a colleague of mine, & we've hoisted a few drinks together – but as anyone in academia can tell you, such relationships doesn't mean you actually read each other's books, much less like 'em.) 

And Bill Sherman at Friends of Fayaway (gotta love that title – it reminds me of my dad's old small-format 1940s-era paperback of Typee, with its only slightly salacious native-girls illustrations) posts a letter from Leon Lewis in re/ the Kleinzahler review, which the LRB didn't see fit to print. Surprise surprise.

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New scientific study purports to prove why Stradivarii are still the best violins. (By way of Don Share.) Paul Zukofsky says humph!