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In 1952 I went to Surprise Lake Camp for two weeks. It was in Cold Springs, New York. It would prove a memorable moment in my life. No clocks were allowed, and the time was never given to the campers, for some camp wizard knew the wisdom of durational time. You rose and went to mess for breakfast – I had the best tasting hot chocolate served in metal carafes I have ever had before or since. It was brewed to perfection. One event after another kept us busy but not in a mechanical way. The sunset and the sky…

During my summers at Woodstock I met some interesting characters, went to some interesting places. What made them characters was that they were different from the usual people I had met and often they were artists. Someone wrote that the neurotic is a failed artist, that is, this very day, he wishes to accomplish in the moment everything he wishes or dreams to attain but because of his neurosis he fails at attainment or achievement. So the neurotic fails. The neurotic could very well be an artist if he chose to, but he cannot. I have also observed that people…

  . . .We cling to the past, sometimes in pride, more often in guilt and confusion, but cling all the same. And increasingly as we age we turn to memory to our particular past as to a world in reserve for rest and reassurance. Novelists know this especially well. What they seek through their work is a reclamation of the past which will proclaim the reality of human selfhood to its deepest foundations. Terrence Des Pres, The Survivor I miss the Sixties. I miss them because they are still within me, so missing them is akin to loss. It was the…

The last week or so has been devoted to reworking the manuscript of I Truly Lament   Working Through the Holocaust. The editor forwarded the text with a slew of deletions, revisions, and even rephrasing of the content, all listed on the right side of the pages. Jane who is much more conversant with computer tech and much more savvy than I, deciphered the edits and incorporated them into the manuscript. It was my task then to read all 229 pages and spot typos, awkward sentences and the like. Here and there I deleted a sentence or two and replaced them with…