I am definitely going to buy Sean Wilsey's book when it comes out in June. As soon as I learned (from "Peace Is a Beautiful Thing," if you lost the midsection of this week's magazine through some hot-yoga mishap) that he's a third-generation memoirist, that was already enough delicious trauma to get me hooked. I'm still only partway though the excerpt—I'm savoring it—but I'm thoroughly convinced the entire book will be this disas-tactular. Wilsey's writing is a treat; throw in a confused Pope, joint custody, a pillow needlepointed "You can never be too thin or too rich," Tab, divine visions, the music of the spheres, and a poison-pen columnist...it's just great.

In an inspired but doomed Google search for an image of a pillow like the one described above, I found this useful note from a debunker of the origins of famous phrases:

Consider "You can never be too rich or too thin." This maxim is associated with any number of wealthy, skinny women. It has been attributed to Rose Kennedy, Diana Vreeland, the Duchess of Windsor and Babe Paley. (The last two most often.) In the early 1970s the Duchess of Windsor, had it inscribed on a throw pillow. No matter how rich and thin she may have been, the Duchess was not particularly clever and is unlikely to have coined this phrase. Babe Paley is a more promising candidate. The comely wife of CBS founder William Paley was known for her tart tongue. But no credible evidence exists that she coined this remark. The most likely candidate of all is one to whom the maxim is seldom attributed: Truman Capote. According to quote maven Alec Lewis, Capote said he observed you can't be too rich or thin on "The David Susskind Show" in the late 1950s (probably 1959). Since kinescopes of Susskind's shows are tied up in litigation, this cannot be confirmed. Capote's biographer Gerald Clarke told me he has no evidence that the writer originated this phrase, but that he very well might have. Capote was close to Babe Paley and could have fed her the line.

By the way, I'm reading some poems at 2:30 this afternoon in Shafer Hall and Rachael Rakes' famed Frequency series at the Four-Faced Liar, where anybody who doesn't know your name will shortly. Like poetry? Marianne Moore didn't either! So come and have an ale, pale or less so.

Nice Guys Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations [Ralph Keyes]

Categories: NYer, Wilsey, Poetry, &c.