I'm thinking of kicking back for a few days with Peter Robb

Anybody else out there like Peter Robb? You could write in, we might compare notes. I miss the guy and I'm loathe to ask what's become of him. But if we get another book, I know it will be terrific, and I'll re-read parts of it for years. Here's a really pretty good introduction to him, from the Australian press.

Meanwhile, all our cool friends need to pick up Colm Tóibín's new collection of stories, The Empty Family, while it's still in its 1st US edition. Particularly, those who favour good writing over our radical illustrations, need to know where to go for satisfaction. The page will certainly pick apart The Street, which found Whit and me being incredibly quiet, all the way through. Here's a face from a character in it - wrong ethnicity, right colouring and attitude. Guy's really neat, by the way. Figure'd I'd get the worst out of the way for you now. 

While we're doing faces, though, this was one Whit picked up on as I was researching physiognomies for this ongoing Iliad Project we run from time to time. You know, how Whit and his family have all been favoured with the very most drop-dead speckled masks, which has only made him even more discerning than I, when it comes to freckles - or, rather, chance genetic scatterings of pigment about the cheekbones. A subtle dog, that. I'm quite fond of him and you may not have him, but if you're running a blog or a dating service, say, and you need a qualified opinion on such matters, I don't mind asking him to take a look.

So, for a little while, we may post an entry here or there - we haven't run a phenomenal clavicle in some time - but in fact, the gigantic success of our Chatwin posting only proved conclusively that one's readers aren't mere picture-snatchers, but quite spiffy little wordies, so it shouldn't matter that Robb is immense and not blond, yes?








Colm Tóibín
The Empty Family
Scribner, 2011©




Peter Robb


Midnight in Sicily
  On art, food, history,
  travel, and La Cosa Nostra
Faber & Faber, 1998©


M 
  The man who became Caravaggio
Henry Holt, 2000©


A Death in Brazil
  A book of omissions
Henry Holt, 2004©


Whit
  Songbird's Sparks Will Fly
Santa Barbara, upper right, 2002