I was in high school when I first saw a Modigliani painting. I was much taken by the long sensual lines, the muted earthy colors, and the strange contradiction of an abstracted nude that yet, somehow oozed life and sexual allure.

Remember the toy of pegs & holes? The game was to tap round pegs; square pegs; and triangular pegs into their proper holes? It taught us all, early on, to think of disparate things as components of categories.

Friday, March 10, 1933, Monroe Iowa, 8:00 A.M. - Five rounds from a pump-action 12 gauge shotgun took the lives of four souls. Each died from close-range blasts that splattered blood, flesh and bone.

My friend Page would recall some adventure of Bix Beiderbecke’s, which would then remind someone else of an interesting story about Django Reinhart, which would remind me that Django Reinhart had only two good fingers on his fretting hand.