Fine, so . . .

. . . let's mark a birthday. James Agee was born a hundred years ago today in Knoxville and died forty-five years later in a New York City cab, by which time he had written two novels, a couple of stories, scripts, lots of journalism, poetry, and that thing that still can't quiet be categorized, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, early on in which he writes:

While we were wondering whether to force a window, a young negro couple came past up the road. Without appearing to look either longer or...