REPORTING LIVE FROM THE LAUNCH OF LAPHAM’S QUARTERLY: What a party! Once again, I was lucky and my flights to and from New York were perfect. The party was lavish, though I thought the larger-than-life nude ice sculptures of Lapham were in questionable taste. Lapham roused the crowd with a stirring speech including this unforgettable line: “One of the problems with contemporary media is it’s without context. In the eternal now of 24-seven, there is no past and no future. The news comes in short phrases or paragraphs, and it’s without the back-story. Without that, how can you write the front story?”

I like to write the front story in advance, from the press release. There’s no past and no future anyway! Lewis should understand. It was the most unforgettable November 14th any of us had ever experienced! Finding the present in the past, and the past in the present. And the future in the present!