Smarts

In a fit of "Oh shit," a mad panic over my total inability to write anything worth writing, I've recently turned to that drug I suspect all desperate flailing writers turn to from time to time: writer porn. For me, this meant grabbing a copy of The Paris Review Interviews Vol. II, turning to a review at random, and beginning to read. It's the kind of behavior that never really helps, necessarily, not in any definable, measurable-by-metrics way, but it also doesn't particularly hurt, and it does have the effect of helping to remind one that the pursuit of literary arts doesn't necessarily make one insane, from a certain perspective, namely, that of the other nice folks in the heavy coats with the designer sleeves.

I landed on the Philip Larkin interview. I came for the advice, but I'm staying for the humor:

INTERVIEWER

How did you arrive upon the image of a toad for work or labor?

LARKIN

Sheer genius.

I was going to quote a bit of his sheer genius here, but, ah...hell with it. It's time for my pills.