everyone go read the Noted newsletter by Jillian Hess

I started my days toasting bagels, checking Instagram, scrolling Notes, answering emails & reading news...trying to situate myself in the constellation of likes, needs and urgent happenings. My kids, meanwhile, yelped and raced around me, big laughs, pink butts. All the glory that cannot be measured.

The wonder of public libraries was not lost on Jack Kerouac, who wrote gorgeously about the NYPL in his journals—which, incidentally, I read in the NYPL. And, okay, yes, he was also writing about the Boston Public Library, which is lovely too.

ON BIG CITY LIBRARIES

The two big city libraries that I’ve had occasion to frequent, the one in Boston and

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Eminem claims he has a “rhyming disease.” He explains, “In my head everything rhymes.”4 But he won’t remember his rhymes if he doesn’t write them down. And he’ll use any available surface to record them. Mostly, he scrawls his rhymes in tightly bound lists on loose leaf, yellow legal pads, and hotel notepads.

Taking notes, I’ve come to realize, is a form of collecting. I’ve never been interested in collecting physical things, but when it comes to beautiful literary quotes, I have thousands of notebook entries.