• Font Victory! That title is smashing.
• In case you could tell the people on the cover are Japanese ... chopsticks!
• This painting is beautiful yet boring. It really really wants you to believe that the hardcore marital boning inside is tasteful.

• "It leaves one both roused and afraid." Uh ... TMI, "The Reporter."
• Mid-century was a big time for arguing that books about Doing It could be "art." Like, you had to justify it because of stupid hypocritical censorious America. Note the critical armature on this book's covers. Some kind of Chatterley-related hold-over. "If critics like it, then it's OK to jerk off to."
• Love the author photo. "Just take the fucking picture. You weary me."

All through March I'd written that I was still stubbornly defending the "last line," and I did my best to convince him of it. In fact, it was on March twenty-fifth that I surrendered that last "paper-thin" defense.