New address

I'm going to retire this sweet old site. New digs here.

Happy new reading year

I had a good reading year. As ever, it's difficult to choose favorites. I loved Rachel Cusk's trilogy for its approach and voice. I loved Kate Greenstreet's strange "The End of Something." I read some compelling non-fiction, and Alice Munro is the empress of short stories.

On the downside, "Skippy Dies" disappointed me because I felt zero emotional investment. And "The Valley of Dolls" was outright awful and, I guess, dated. I think Mary Gaitskill is a better short story writer than novelist. I read two Patricia Highsmith books and my mother brought me another one at Christmas but I wonder if it's worth it.

A long time ago I quit trying to control the size of my to-read list. It has helped me feel less constrained.  I'm looking forward to 2019.

2018
Favorite poetry book: Kate Greenstreet’s “The End of Something”
Favorite novel: “Outline” (and the rest of the trilogy) by Rachel Cusk (Runners-up: “Lincoln in the Bardo,” “The End of Vandalism”)
Favorite non-fiction: “Hitler” by Ian Kershaw (Runner-up: “Killers of the Flower Moon”)
Favorite hard-to-classify: “Moth, or How I Came to Be With You Again” by Thomas Heise
Favorite short story collection: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro

1. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro (Jan 1)
2. The Cosmos Trilogy by Frederick Seidel (Jan 4)
3. This Untitled Book of Collage Poems by Sandra Simonds (Jan 9)
4. Die Therapie by Sebastian Fitzek (Jan 7)
5. House of Coates by Brad Zellar (Jan 8)
6. Exercises in Painting Queen by Khadijah Queen (Jan 9)
7. In a Landscape of Having to Repeat by Martha Ronk (Jan 12)
8. Portrait of the Alcoholic by Kaveh Akbar (Jan 27)
9. The Little Brute Family by Russell Hoban (Jan 28)
10. Hitler by Ian Kershaw (Feb)
11. The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich (Feb 19)
12. A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes (Mar 2)
13. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt (Mar 5)
14. Scenes from the lives of my parents by Pattie McCarthy (Mar 12)
15. I Hate Telling You How I Really Feel by Nikki Wallschaeger (Mar 12)
16. The Obscene Madame D by Hilda Hilst (Mar 20)
17. CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders (Mar 26)
18. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (Apr 10)
19. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Apr 15)
20. Mein Esel Benjamin by Hans Limmer (May 1)
21. Two Girls, Fat and Thin by Mary Gaitskill (May 2)
22. The Mare by Mary Gaitskill (May 5)
23. Scenes from an Impending Marriage by Adrian Tomine (May 10)f
24. The Lie and How We Told It by Tommi Parish (May 10)
25. Go On by Ethel Rackin (May 10)
26. Spool in the Maze by Colleen O’Brien (May 12)
27. French Milk by Lucy Knisley (May 12)
28. The Skin by Curzio Malaparte (May 14)
29. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann (May 17)
30. House Held Together by Winds by Sabra Loomis (May 27)
31. The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon (May 28)
32. Purity by Jonathan Franzen (Jun 7)
33. True Tales of American Life, Paul Auster ed. (Jun 16)
34. Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (Jun 24)
35. Autumn by Ali Smith (Jul 7)
36. What is Amazing by Heather Christle (Jul 8)
37. Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro (Jul 22)
38. Logbook by Hiromi Suzuki (July)
39. Outline by Rachel Cusk (Jul 29)
40. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (Jul 30)
41. Someone Else’s Skin by Sarah Hilary (Aug 10)
42. The End of Something by Kate Greenstreet (Aug 13)*
43. The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector (Aug 17)
44. A Little White Shadow by Mary Ruefle (Aug 18)
45. The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (Aug 30)
46. The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith (Sept 5)
47. The Collage Ideas Book, ed. Alannah Moore (Sept 7)
48. A Twenty-Minute Silence Followed by Applause by Shawn Wen (Sept 8)
49. The Fifth Woman by Nona Caspers (Sept 10)
50. Teaching My Mother how to Give Birth by Warsaw Shire (Sept 23)
51. Transit by Rachel Cusk (Sept 26)
52. Artful by Ali Smith (Oct)
53. I Am Not Famous Anymore by Erin Dorney (Oct)
54. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (Oct 9)
55. Hope Tree by Frank Montesonti (Oct 16)
56. English Passengers by Matthew Kneale (Nov 5)
57. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (Nov 17)
58. Skippy Dies by Paul Murray (Dec 3)
59. Moth, Or, How I Came to Be With You Again by Thomas Heise (Dec 4)
60. Puro Amor by Sandra Cisneros (Dec 8)
61. Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay (Dec 12)
62. Kudos by Rachel Cusk (Dec 17)
63. Young Tambling by Kate Greenstreet (Dec 20)
64. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (Dec 22)
65. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (Dec 25)
66. The End of Vandalism by Tom Drury (Dec 31)

Tales from the crypt

Apologies for having missed some comments over the past months, which I've finally published. I hadn't received notification as I used to. The good news (for me) is I'll be moving to new digital digs early next year with a blog and contact page so if you have a question that you'd actually like an answer to, I will get the question when you send it.

The year is coming to a close and I've done a lot of visual poetry and collage, but haven't been submitting very actively. Part of it is the administration: living in two different cities, it's hard to find the time.

I plan to post my annual reading list as usual at year end, and then sail off to the new website. I'll send directions.

Recent poems

The big event of the weekend was trying to explain to airport security in Spanglish what my one-hole hole puncher was for. Not everyone has a frequent need for confetti. It's an excellent tool that makes the trip back and forth across Europe with me these days.

Otherwise, I've had a flurry of visual found poems published over the past couple days. Mostly from the Misery series but also from other books, including "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin," a collection of Eudora Welty stories, and Ali Smith's "The Accidental."

Six are in Tupelo Quarterly, three from Misery and three from Ben Franklin.

Two others, "Like the petals of one big scattered flower" and "Honeycomb," are in The Collagist.

I'll have some others out in the near future in Paperbag and Ghost Proposal.

Wrecked

I've been trying to show a little less skin, figuratively speaking, when it comes to Misery. Less of the original text, more masking and hiding. With that in mind I did "The Wreck" over, here. The original was published at Sixth Finch. I like them both.

I've got a couple Misery poems still coming together, but am also trying out some new texts. Nevertheless, given a couple recent wrecks, including tearing, poor planning, and disastrous shadowing, I just ordered a third copy of Misery. That ought to be it!

You can see some recently published poems from this series online at Dream Pop. Tinderbox also published O flutes and The Manor Gone earlier this year.

In print, Passages North and Poetry Northwest both included Misery poems in their latest issues, too. 

10 Down

Germany is very cold. The sun is sorry and don’t be deceived when it manages to break through the grey.

Lots of traveling these days, but also staying put and receiving visitors. I try to make the most of plane time, reading or napping or listening to a podcast. On the last trip I listened to a Mary Gaitskill story called “A Dream of Men,” which was terrific. It made me regret not having read Mary Gaitskill yet.

I entertained the idea of doing a reading challenge this year and checked out a few popular ones. Understandably most of them encourage you to try genre fiction and, while I’m open to sci-fi and horror and even westerns, there is no way I’ll read romance fiction, and that’s what the two most promising challenges asked for. Why even begin? Then I thought it might be fun to put together my own challenge so I started composing a list until it began to roll its many eyes...

Read a book that came out the month you were born
Read a book about disgrace

Read a novel set outdoors
Read a trilogy backwards
Read a thriller by a person with a rare disease

I dropped this pursuit and simply set a goal of reading 60 books. 10 down. 

Misery catalog

I’ve been able to finish some new Misery poems this past week, though I am facing a disheartening glue conundrum. The stick doesn’t hold forever, and wet glues eat the thin pages. I’ve spent more than 50 euros trying different glues, to no avail. I ordered extra-strong glue sticks a couple days ago, and hope that brings a solution. Glue sticks are super because they don’t warp and well and they don’t weaken the paper. But they’re not lasting.

I had success with the Misery poems last year, with 35 published in 13 different journals. Including Misery 31, published at the tail-end of 2016 in concis, that makes 36. Below is a catalog with assorted links. 

For 2018, seven more Misery poems have been accepted by Diagram, Passages North, Poetry Northwest and Tinderbox. I have others submitted. My semi-move to Spain this past summer ate a lot of time and continues to do so, but it was a good move, and enriching.

Sixth Finch: The Wreck

Diagram: The Republic 

A Bad Penny: Champagne, Hot Temper, Night Flowers, My Ship, Empty Talk
One Sentence Poems: In Flowers 

The Journal: Infant Taint, Frostbite, I’m going up ace 

Escape into Life: The Far Woods, Very Grave/Very Reasonable, All the World, Impossible Flowers

Pith: O my lady, Moonscape 

Permafrost: Noonlight, Mirth, Doubt, Ice, The Upper Hand 

Concis: The Proper Thing 

Collapsar: Past Life, The Itch 

Thrush: Parlor, This Pale Furrow, Straddler, Blacktop, Interior Editor

Shuf: Searchlight, Squall, Eureka (no direct link)

Roanoke: Review: Spoon, The Rains (plus 8 reprints)

2017 Booklist

I squeaked over the 50-book barrier last year, despite a lot of work and tumult. I read less poetry than usual, but I'm not scolding myself. I won't lie and say, oh but I read so much poetry online, because it's not true.  Because I spent much time on airplanes, I listened to a number of story podcasts. Perhaps I'll try to remember them all for a separate list. 

My favorite book this year was War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans, a somewhat hybrid memoiry-fiction about WWI that was very affecting. 

There were books that disappointed, like Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. I also listened to a podcast of one of his stories, which I also disliked. I quite wanted to like Calvino, him being a legend and all, but there you have it. I found Invisible Cities a bit of a yawn, and the story, whose title I forget, sexist and ridiculous. 

I likewise disliked A Little Life by Hanya Yanaghihara, with its bad writing decisions, emotional-disaster tourism and sappy shot at "affirmation." I put this in a category with Bel Canto, which I also dislike, of books that try above all to say oh yes life can be awful but we're alive and did our best and love triumphs over death etc etc and here are some sunrises to prove it, which turns my stomach. 

I did back-to-back Dickens, which was fun. Dombey and Son beat out Our Mutual Friend, which has a fatal flaw, in my opinion, though it was still enjoyable. 

I also read two Brenda Hillman poetry collections and am happy to say she's wonderful. 

I read Clarice Lispector for the first time this year, both The Hour of the Star and The Passion According to G.H. I admired her writing a lot and hope to read more this year. 

I sought out dystopian & apocalyptic novels but was underwhelmed. The best of them was Margaret Atwood's Oryx & Crake and The Year of the Flood, which were imaginative and, most importantly, well written. I skipped the last of the trilogy out of fear of disappointment. 

Other books I'd recommend are Édouard Levé's Autoportrait and How to Be Both by Ali Smith, one of my favorite writers. 

1. Pieces of Air in the Epic by Brenda Hillman (Jan 2) USA
2. War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans (Jan 13) Netherlands
3. The Best American Mystery Stories, ed. Carl Hiaasen (Jan 17) USA
4. Eventide by Kent Haruf (Jan 21) USA
5. The Beauty of the Husband by Anne Carson (Jan 22) USA
6. A Little Life by Hanya Yanaghihara (Feb 4) USA
7. The Old Cities by Marcel Brouwers (Feb 11) USA
8. I Love Dick by Chris Kraus (Feb 17) USA
9. The Ground I Stand on Is Not My Ground (Feb 25) USA
10. The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink (Feb 26) USA
11. Ice Mountain by Dave Bonta (Mar 9) USA
12. Loose Sugar by Brenda Hillman (winter) USA
13. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens (Mar 26)* UK
14. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (Apr 30) UK
15. Hot Milk by Deborah Levy (May 6) UK
16. Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (May 10) USA
17. Fortune Cookies by Andrew Cox (May 14) USA
18. How to Be Both by Ali Smith (May 21) UK
19. The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes (May 27) UK
20. Karate Chop by Dorthe Nors (May 31) Denmark
21. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (May 31) - gave up USA
22. I am Legend by Richard Matheson (Jun 1) USA
23. Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector (Jun 3) Argentina
24. The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Lhosa (June 18) Peru
25. The Indifferent World by Ken Craft (Jun 18) USA
26. The Summer Book by Tove Jannson (June 21) Finland
27. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller (July 4) USA
28. Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden (July 15) USA
29. The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (July 21) USA
30. The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh (July 28) UK
31. What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe (Aug 9) UK
32. Night Fever: Interior Design for Bars and Clubs, ed. Frame Magazine (Aug 9)
33. Animals by Simon Beckett (Aug 10) UK
34. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (Aug 13) Canada
35. Recyclopedia by Harryette Mullen (Aug 13) USA
36. The Calling of the Grave by Simon Beckett (Aug 15) UK
37. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (Aug 22) Canada
38. Tinkers by Paul Harding (Aug 27) USA
39. Dark Blonde by Belle Waring (autumn) USA
40. Anna Édes by Dezso Kosztolányi (Sep 3) Hungary
41. Artless: Art by Simple Means by Marc Valli (Oct 15)
42. The Book of the Bird: Birds in Art by Angus Hyland (Oct 17)
43. Experimental Film by Gemma Files (Oct 27) USA
44. Underground Fugue by Margot Singer (Nov) UK
45. Tales of H.P. Lovecraft (Nov 11) USA
46. The Mirror Thief by Martin Seay (Dec 10) USA
47. Autoportrait by Edouard Leve (Dec 11) France
48. Paintings in Proust by Eric Karpeles (Dec 15) USA
49. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (Dec 16) Italy
50. The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector (Dec 27) Brazil
51. Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions by Maurice Manning (Dec 27) USA

Not even someday

You know how there are couple of books in your to-read stack that turn you off every time you look for a new read, despite their long-standing membership there?

As in, every time you see them you think not now, as if it were a mood issue or a simple case of subject, or you wanted a woman writer this time, or something shorter, or something not set in New York or about WWII, so you snub the book again and after a few years of its languishing on the stack you realize it’s more deep-seated than that. 

All the worse when you’ve sampled 5-10 pages of it and then put it back on the pile, pretty much guaranteeing you’re never going to commit. 

These days it seems like my whole to-read stack consists of such books.

The Itch

Two more of my Misery poems are up at The Collapsar, "The Itch" and "Past Life." 

"The Itch" reads:

If you turned the thing over 

to take a look at the works, 

you saw the itch let herself in 

dragging something heavy, 

a cross of soft skin.

"Past Life"

O maddening serene thing

in a previous life

such a rain began to fall

A couple more from this series are due out shortly, and at some point I'll make a linked index of them and post it here.

France

Back from a vacation in France today, and glad to have tomorrow free before returning to Spain for work on Wednesday.

Like last year in Bourges, we saw a number of WWI sites in the Champagne region. One day we went out to visit the ruins of an abbey and found ourselves just a few kilometers from the site where Guillaume Apollinaire was wounded in 1916. Someone erected a stone marker there with an excerpt from the poem “The Seasons.” I picked up these leaves and such as a souvenir.

We are not big champagne drinkers, alas, but we went to a tasting and bought a bottle for the fall birthday of a friend.

I regretted not taking enough books — usually I lug too many. But early on the day before we left I finished Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. It was a good read and I was especially sorry to see it end with no other fiction or non-fiction at hand. I was stuck with a poetry book I was not enjoying and another I’ve read many times. Plus two copies of Misery that I didn’t even look at. Our Airbnb host had two English-language novels on her shelf but one I’d read and the other didn’t interest me, plus I would have felt guilty absconding with one anyway.

So I’m glad to be home with a few unread books to choose from. I’d really like to read the fat book I have about the French revolution but recall I’ve left Kershaw’s big biography of Hitler in my desk at work in Barcelona, which dissuades me from cracking open anything too heavy.

The roses have dropped their lawsuit

I neglected to mention the generous Jennifer MacBain-Stephens has written a review of my chapbook "Heiress to a Small Ruin." It was a surprise to me, and very welcome. She spends some time with "Seven Postcards from Solitude," "I Will Now Eat a Loaf of Bread," and "Salem," among others.

If you are interested in "Heiress," it's here.

Bloodshot Cartography

My poem Bloodshot Cartography is now a blockbuster movie! The generous Dave Bonta of Via Negativa fame is the video artist, with a reading by me.
This poem began with my wondering whether the word 'amazon' had anything to do with 'amaze,' and finding out it doesn't. Mix in a little homesickness, lack of sleep and antipathy for insects, and it's done. The poem was originally published in Crab Creek Review.


Bloodshot Cartography from Dave Bonta on Vimeo.

Mid-year book list

Here's my half-year book list. I double-Dickensed in the spring!

My favorite fiction was Clarice Lispector's "Hour of the Star" because I loved the writing.

1. Pieces of Air in the Epic by Brenda Hillman (Jan 2) USA
2. War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans (Jan 13) Netherlands
3. The Best American Mystery Stories 2007, ed. Carl Hiaasen (Jan 17) USA
4. Eventide by Kent Haruf (Jan 21) USA
5. The Beauty of the Husband by Anne Carson (Jan 22) USA
6. A Little Life by Hanya Yanaghihara (Feb 4) USA
7. The Old Cities by Marcel Brouwers (Feb 11) USA
8. I Love Dick by Chris Kraus (Feb 17) USA
9. The Ground I Stand on Is Not My Ground (Feb 25) USA
10. The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink (Feb 26) USA
11. Ice Mountain by Dave Bonta (Mar 9) USA
12. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens (Mar 26) UK
13. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (Apr 30) UK
14. Hot Milk by Deborah Levy (May 6) UK
15. Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (May 10) USA
16. Fortune Cookies by Andrew Cox (May 14) USA
17. How to Be Both by Ali Smith (May 21) UK
18. The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes (May 27) UK
19. Karate Chop by Dorthe Nors (May 31) Denmark
20. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (May 31) - gave up USA
21. I am Legend by Richard Matheson (Jun 1) USA
22. Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector (Jun 3) Argentina
23. The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Lhosa (June 18) Peru
24. The Indifferent World by Ken Craft (Jun 18) USA
25. The Summer Book by Tove Jannson (June 21) Finland

I go to the hill & the hill helps me down

At the end of May I went to Ireland for a reading with O Bheal, which was fun and went well. My daughter went with me and we spent a few days in and around Cork. The highlight was the hours we spent trawling a used bookstore. She also tried on some gorgeous long dresses in a vintage shop. They were tempting but where would you wear them?

My reading —about a half hour— is here.

I've had some poems --mostly found visual poems from Misery-- out recently, and many more accepted. Three are in The Journal, a favorite publication of mine:

Frostbite, with the image of a jump suspended.
Infant Taint, which I put together the day after the November election.
I'm going up ace, a brag poem.

Ucity Review took four poems that came out last week:

Infinite Loop, a bookish poem.
What's What, about going with the flow.
On Missing the Bottom Step, about a mishap I am a victim of not infrequently enough.
Ingested Pins, one of a few poems inspired by Philadelphia's Mütter Museum.

Other recent but yet unpublished acceptances have come from Permafrost, Thrush, Zone 3, Tinderbox, Passages North, Poetry Northwest, Collapsar and Diagram.

Stupidity is a Dangerous Enemy

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one's prejudgment simply need not be believed--in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical--and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous. 

-Dieter Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Spring poems

I have been remiss in writing this month, since it's National Poetry Month and I'm not with the poem-a-day program.

Oh well, spring has arrived anyway, bringing Misery poems. At this point, I've had more poems accepted in the first three months of  2017 than I had accepted in all of 2016.

Which is something to ponder.

A Bad Penny published five Misery poems here, including "Empty Talk" and "Night Flowers."

Pith also has two: "Moonscape" and "O MY lady."

Hopefully, I will depart April with at least one decent poem in my notebook or on my drawing board. 

This land is my land

Things that kept me awake: whether my alarm clock would work, whether my back-up alarm clock would work, a lie my husband may be telling me, my daughter's education and future, my son's education and future, my doctor's appointment, the dog's broken claw, a story I'd edited perhaps with an error, the source of certain information (I got out of bed to check this), the story I had to write the next morning, dry skin, my son's sleeping hours, whether I should go to the bathroom (I did), whether I was warm enough (I got a sweater), or too warm (I took off the sweater), my lung capacity, why must I have a body, why must I have a mind, one or both of these are keeping me awake, the disaster administration, the glow of the energy saver strip, electromagnetic-wave pollution in the home, the earth, how miserable I'd be in the morning, the future of public lands.

(erasers by Anu Tuominen) 

Misery 33

One of the found poems I wrote using Stephen King's Misery, The Wreck, is up at Sixth Finch.

I'm still working on this project, but am thinking of moving on soon, maybe to another book. A motivating factor behind Misery was I had to do it - it was my assignment as part of a larger group. I worry that if I choose the book, I might give up too easily when I hit a rough spot.

So far I've done about 40 Misery poems, half of which are worth submitting. Five of those have already been accepted somewhere.
 

I'd like to use thread a bit more, though I've got collage material out the wazoo. 

And every day the paper boy brings more. 

On an otherwise dismaying day

When we got to the last station this morning I found a personless backpack at my feet. I thought, whoops, pretty sad to forget your backpack on the UBahn. My second thought was, well, this is an "unattended baggage" problem that doesn't need to be mine.

But then it was, & I hadn't sat next to anyone shady -- a 20-something woman listening to music, then a middle-aged man head over heels in love with his companion, headed out of town judging by their bags. But I was engrossed in a Kent Haruf novel about compassionate people on the Great Plains and hadn’t paid much attention. The UBahn lights went off, which means GET OUT so I grabbed the backpack and got out. 

I felt bad rifling through the backpack but no way but forward. The wallet was stuffed with Swiss francs & the plastic had a male name so I knew it was the man's. There was also a phone, laptop, glasses, gloves & files. I thought, ok, this guy is on his way to Switzerland minus some very important stuff, which he's surely realized by now. I found the platform for the one train to Switzerland but didn't spot him. I went to lost&found but was told since I found it in the UBahn & not a long-distance train I had to go to another office downtown. Mr. X's long lovebird weekend would be ruined by the time all that played out. I kept hoping he'd call his phone, but alas. I thought about how unmoored I'd be without my glasses. 

I went to my office & burrowed deeper into his things. I found his Twitter profile but he never tweeted & there was nothing revealing otherwise. In his wallet I unearthed a Swiss consulate ID. I called the consulate & got the robot who says "if you are calling about A push B, etc." Finally I pushed 86 & got a human & explained the situation & asked how I could reach this man or talk to a colleague. I was put on hold. A few minutes later a breathless woman came on & said the man had just called & gee what luck & was I British that's some accent & she took my number & said he'd call. He was at the police station at the train station. I hadn't known there was one.

Soon after he rang & I said I worked nearby & could bring the backpack over. I worried he'd be offended that I looked through his stuff, which was absurd. I asked a station worker where the police station was & I was standing right next to it. So much for my sleuthery! I remembered the old New Yorker cartoon of a man standing below a sign that said "The Illiterate Club" who asks, 'Hey, where is The Illiterate Club?' It was more imperial in there than I expected, except for the guy and his girlfriend who were thrilled and a smiling police woman who downgraded the case from theft to forgetfulness. The guy handed me 50 euros but of course I said no thanks. Go on your trip and give it to someone who needs it, I said in the spirt of my reading.