I was down in Jersey for a few days, near Asbury Park (my 85-yr-old mother-in-law is a Springsteen fan). Ol' Henry is phlegmatic lately.

Speaking of coincidences : ol' Kent Johnson emailed me last week to say he'd been reading a New Yorker profile on Finnish composer Sibelius, & his thorny relations with 20th-cent. avant-garde, & Kent thought of me. & then this week I received a package from Tasmania, from Ralph Wessman, the only editor on this planet who actually solicits material from me. Latest issue of Famous Reporter includes an excerpt from previous endless Henry series titled Rest Note. The excerpt mentions a lot of birds - Sibelius was a serious bird-watcher (his last words were about his beloved cranes) - & concludes with these lines :

Symphonic morning (slow Sibelius) : from night
to day, processional (with cloud-parades).


Thanks, clerk Kent.