My next job was to tackle 1987, from the anthology edited by Annie Dillard: an easy list of only three essays. (One wonders if Dillard didn’t care for the stuff The New Yorker did; or if she felt obliged to go against the grain, figuring that it was better to take notice of material in other, lesser known venues; or—possibly?—The New Yorker itself was having an off year? It’s interesting that when Geoffrey Wolff edited the anthology the next year, he felt 10 NYer pieces were notable (though he didn’t select any for “best of” status). What’s odd about that, though, is that he included (continued)

Benjamin Chambers, of the splendid literary website The King’s English, has thus far proven to be the ideal reader of the Squib Report if not this entire blog. After I posted exhaustive lists of the Best American essays and short stories according to Houghton Mifflin (in which there are still gaps—by all means submit missing years if you have them!), he not only provided us with the data for two years in the essay list but also decided that he would read all of the listed essays. Benjamin: I admire your dedication! Judging from your industriousness, you’ll have no trouble finishing off the list.

Yeah, but as noted here, the average age of nudists is, alas, increasing.

Also, I don’t see how some of the people out on the nude beach can let themselves go so badly. (I’m not talking about a little plumpness or inevitable signs of age.)

We just had a book grab, and I was delighted to find uncorrected proofs of the new collection by your former teacher the late lamented Kenneth Koch, On the Edge: Collected Long Poems—because I knew that inside I would find “Ko, or A Season on Earth,” which contains a passage that I’ve always remembered very vividly but have never been able to find online. It begins:

Meanwhile in Kansas there was taking place
A great upheaval. High school girls refused
To wear their clothes to school, and every place
In Kansas male observers were amused
To see the naked girls, who, lacking grace,
Were young, with bodies time had not abused,
And therefore made the wheatfields fresher areas
And streets and barns as well. No matter where he is

A man is cheered to see a naked girl—
Milking a cow, or standing in a streetcar,
Opening a filing cabinet, brushing a curl
Back from her eyes while driving in a neat car
Through Wichita in the summer—like the pearl
Inside the oyster, she makes it a complete car.

Some months ago, an Emdashes reader in Grand Rapids, Mich., named Michael Zalewski (who isn’t related to editor Daniel, as far as he knows) wrote me this fascinating letter. I know at least one person who will find this very relevant indeed!

While on Cape Cod recently, I bought 1934 edition (second printing) of Alexander Woollcott’s While Rome Burns. Upon opening the book there were several New Yorker cartoons of Woollcott pasted to the inside of the book.

In addition, I found an envelope postmarked 4:30 p.m. 1933 Grand Cent. Annex N.Y. 14, addressed to John Stewart Mosher, Esq. of Philadelphia, Pa.

Inside the envelope was a letter on Alexander Woollcott stationery (more like memo pad—with address Four Hundred and Fifty East Fifty Second Street).

The letter is dated Oct. 3, 1933.

In type is following:

My dear Mr. Mosher:

I remember our meeting in the Cour Joffre.

I have just looked up “aestivating”. Thanks so much.

And it is signed in ink: A. Woollcott.

I am intrigued. Does this have any