It's been a spell since I spent time in the special reading room at the New York Public Library. We were out of town for a month, then sciatica made the library's imposing scale and long hallways and staircases forbidding, then heat wave after heat wave... I'm also at a stage in my book-writing where reading a lot of new things isn't needed, or even welcome. I'm drawing together what I have, which is already a lot, trying to make a coherent argument out of it. Very rough and shaggy draft by the end of next month is the goal! Still, here I was, looking for a few specific images I want to peruse anew, like this wonder in Christiane Klapisch-Zuber' stunning Arbre des Familles (2003). What have family trees to do with my argument? You'll see!
