The City & the Country – no.20 – August 23 2014

As soon as I have reason to think someone is reading my book I always want to sit down and read it again, imagining I’m reading it with them. Some kind friends are aware of this and send me brief notes saying, ‘On page 575 now…’ (this is the page in the photograph, right) or wherever it is they’ve reached, and I turn at once to the page in question and read it pretending I’m seeing it through someone else’s eyes.

Not so long ago I received an email that mentioned, ‘I’m afraid I gave up reading your book on page […] (I won’t say which page it was but it’s seared into my memory. The number, that is. As for the page itself I haven’t been able to bring myself to look it up – for fear of thinking, this is the fatal page that stopped someone dead…).

Down to P’keepsie, New York’s little Detroit, to record my weekly radio show, today with star Private Chef Sarah Chianese as my guest, to talk about her life and consuming passion: food. A storm supposedly due, never materialized. Instead, wonderful skies.

On Main Street, P’keepsie: our radio station, the best radio station in the nation, as I intone on air with great sincerity – because it’s true. Wonderful music – old jazz, blues and rock, collected by the station’s owner J P Ferraro – and some nicely eccentric shows, like mine: Roll on the Radio, it’s called, in honor of our sponsor, Rollmagazine.com. Opposite the station, my favorite store, the House of Cards reduced to a compelling message. Use ’em, I say! Use nothing else, in this verkockte world.