More Adventures in Research

In the midst of reading a fascinating, detailed, and ground-level nit-pickety history of Islam (it was THESE tax-collection policies of the Abbasid calips which led to THESE events that shaped the religion as a whole...), I took a break and opened one of the books from George's collection that I've had earmarked for reading for years, a little volume called New York Unexpurgated . It's essentially a "guide to swinging New York" (i.e. where to get laid and by whom) published in 1966, and it's like watching an episode of Mad Men: what percentage of discotheque go-go girls hook on the side, how college-girls arrange to do part-time hooking, how madams operate, how different bars change their clientele and "feel" between pre-noon, noon, afternoon, nighttime and after-hours "shifts", what's going on up in Harlem.

George left me with two storage-areas full of books; this was one of the ones I culled for myself before sending the rest off to a used-book dealer (believe me, even 10 years ago you couldn't GIVE away used books). Not sure how or where I can use this information (or the straight dope on the administrative composition of ninth-century bedouin tribal regiments stationed in Persia, for that matter), but for a writer, nothing is ever wasted or lost.

A cool morning. Pale sunlight through clouds and the soft rumble of the office heater. Reading the autumn haikus:

Harvest moon,
northland weather,
uncertain skies.
                Basho