Finished The Mars Room yesterday by Rachel Kushner. Soon I will start it again because it was such pleasure and such a ride. I have something else I should start reading for school but don’t want to alter the space I’m in, still grooving from The Mars Room, the characters still alive inside me. Four books I found particularly exceptional the last 18 months. I’ll pick up hardcover versions and keep nearby for inspiration while trying to complete my own daily scribbling. Lie With Me by Philippe Besson, Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov and The Mars Room. Records and films like that too. Some a once a year pilgrimage, soak in their power just because. I showed my daughter two scenes from 8 & 1/2. Both of kids her age acting like kids and even though Fellini is referencing Italy in the 1930s it was as I hoped and gleefully universal for her. The scene with kids getting a bath in grapes and staying up all night to make sure the figure in a painting never moves its eyes and Saranghina on the beach which musically never ceases to amaze me, it was years before I stopped to sort out what made comprised the texture. Just electric guitar, conga and accordion and the whole thing unspeakably awesome. Nino Rota.