NYT Free Acess Week

[Monte Davis]

Thank you, Keith. Using the link, I just re-read Richard Locke's piece on GR
for the NY Times Book Review for the first time since it came out, and was
transported back to the central Maine woods, where my brother and I had
spent the winter of 1973 expanding a family vacation cottage. Still quite a
bit of snow around in early March, no neighbors for miles, and cabin fever
well advanced. No wendigo symptoms, but we *had* developed a repertoire of
vocal characters a la Firesign Theater, including an
Empire's-gone-to-the-dogs London clubman named Lord Nose -- soon to be
assimilated, had we but known, to Blatherard Osmo.

Money was tight, but as New Yorkers we did manage to lay out for a Sunday
Times (special order held for pickup on Tuesdays at a variety store in town,
16 miles away). The Locke review determined us to get GR the next time we
went the 80 miles to Bangor and a bookstore.That happened maybe the last
week of March, and I started it on the way back. By the time I'd finished
reading aloud "wasted gods urging on a tardy glacier" and giggling over the
banana menu, my brother was gripping the wheel grimly: "I get it when we get
home."

We started out trading 50-page stints, but had to drop that to 20, running
the generator unwontedly late night after night. Whoever didn't have the
Book would ostentatiously regard his watch and tap his fingers and clear his
throat as he scraped the pipe for usable residue (an old Penobscot Indian
tradition ratified by Vaslav and Dzaqyp).

When we came to. well, it couldn't possibly have been real spring yet,
hardly into "mud time," but the world was definitely a different place.



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