Brad Craft
@usedbuyer2point0
Long time bookseller, writes a little, draws a lot, reads aloud in public but not unannounced
Smothered pork chops in mushroom gravy for supper. The beloved husband bought chops the size of Rhode Island. Had to cut one up to fit the pork on the plate!
Breakfast in the balcony with the very last of The Musketeers . Joyeux anniversaire à l'immirtal Dumas !
“But what is there about me I am so completely unaware of and which she summons me to know?” — Marguerite Duras, The Ravishing of Lol Stein, translated by Richard Seaver, for Pantheon Books #margueriteduras
Bought this today: The Places of Marguerite Duras, from Magic Hour Press translated by Alison Strayer. Originally published in 1977, interviews conducted by Michelle Porte. The film is available on YouTube. Duras is a place to which I return endlessly and with gratitude.
Marion Cunningham revised the Fannie Farmer Cookbook twice and produced the greatest American cookbook.
Delayed by a day, but birthday dinner was perfect. We will need second jobs to pay for the steaks though.
“Under his breath God reminded himself to be ‘crystal clear.’ Humans don’t respond well to oracular vague declarations — Eve ate poison, Samson stopped working out, Abraham just about cut his son’s fucking head off.” — Paige Lewis Paige Lewis, from Canon: A Novel, from Viking.
“We ought to wear mourning as a sign of civilization, a sign that we remember every man-made death of any kind, whether it took place in prison or in war.” — Marguerite Duras, Yann Andrea Steiner. Duras est immortelle ! #margueriteduras #quotes
It’s just a cake and ice cream kind of day. Two scoops. (Thanks, decorated British diver and OnlyFans model ((and I’m sure a fascinating and engaging conversationalist)) Jack Laugher MBE Jack Laugher.)
“Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?” — T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
My latest staff recommendation: if you want to understand the rhetoric and policy of the present administration — or the language of you latest employee review — start here: Free to Obey: How the Nazis Invented Modern Management, by Johann Chapoutot.
This week in my commuter car concert, some contemporary soul for summer. Jalen Ngonda Jalen Ngonda’s new album, Doctrine of Love, and The Teskey Brothers The Teskey Brothers’ Run Home Slow. Put some grit in it.
“… I trust thou wilt remember thou art too low to be their lawful love, and too high to be their unlawful loon.” Waiting with The Fair Maid of Perth for company. #sirwalterscott #waverleynovels
So now I’m reading Hexes of the Deadwood Forest, by TOTA Szpila Agnieszka Szpila, translated by Scotia Gilroy Scotia Gilroy. Delicious. #newbook #booksintranslation #polishliterature
Once, years ago, I jokingly told my father on the phone that me and the beloved were getting old and losing forks from our silverware. That Christmas he gave us a box of forks. Miss you, old man. #fathersday
“Pride is for the young” — and that the lost may find a way home, and the sad might know joy, and the hurt may heal.
Q: “What’s something you didn’t understand until you got older?” A: Parsley
He is simply our greatest living features writer, an American treasure, and a supreme master of nonfiction. New from @libraryofamerica.bsky.social John McPhee, Encounters in Wild America.
“I want to be justice, love and the wrath of God all in one.” Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis. And so you were. Rest in peace, poet.
A very old friend at breakfast. Thanks to @scribnerbooks.bsky.social
My disdain generally for what has lazily drifted into a dystopian genre is almost complete. Then there’s the genius of Yoko Tawada