A few weeks later, I describe Commissioner Bud Selig as "looking like a peevish, insomniac owl, perched under the eaves of a stadium, waiting for Barry Bonds to pass Henry Aaron and get us all back to our lives".
The effects of its limited horizon did not become apparent to me until later, as I described in "A Leg to Stand On": I was moved into a new room, a new spacious room, after twenty days in my tiny cell.
Later that night, I described the sound to him over text and he was like, "You did find it, didn't you..."...
FoLaterChloe Caldwhen on TwItter.
So this is the situation: Two-thirds of a century later, I am describing that ride to New York City in an article on the writing process that is focussed on the principle of leaving things out.
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I saw the forest beneath me like "green cauliflower, like broccoli," is how I described it later on.
However, later I hear him described as a "ruthless asshole" – even if the Village People and Can't Stop employees do seem very happy with him.
The last song was the Beatles' "Hey Jude," which I later described to another friend's mother as "a seven-minute slow dance," hoping to shock her.
Wouldn't it be great if I could just type, "Hey, DavidG, do you think Thornton Wilder really deserved a Pulitzer Prize for 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey'?" Or: "DavidG, should I worry about overhearing the baby say to her doll, 'Here, you want more glass of wine'?" Later, I tried to describe the experience to Jack Gifford, a professor of marketing at Miami University in Ohio.
