No matter what you think about Bill Clinton, it was fascinating to see some of the old shtick resurface this week in the wake of his Democratic Convention Speech. Bubba's long-winded. Bubba's a wonk. Bubba's charming as all get out. I'm not looking to stir up anyone's favored beehive (or am I?). But I do have another Bubba trope to offer that's I could see being slid back onto the table. Not the adults' table. I'm talking about a folding table, banished to and ignored in another room few people venture into anymore. Still...remember Whitewater? Well, I was shocked SHOCKED to stumble back into that tangle of stories when a surprisingly colorful figure from that whole overwrought saga came across my radar this week. That figure is Parker Dozhier - an Arkansan and self-confessed Clinton foe. Actually I'm talking past tense - Dozhier passed away last week. I never spoke with the man, but I'd been meaning to contact him for months after being told to seek him out by a writer I met at BEA back in June. It was only when I was looking to say a little something to that writer (Steve Rinella, who has a new book out as of this week) that I searched for the proper spelling of this suggested source - Dozier, Dozer, Do'h-seer. From there, I end up here. Polluting the water. With my tongue firmly in cheek.

Just goes to show that some linkages get all up in your face - or simper off into the margins without ever getting their due attention - after the fact of realizing how completely awesome it would have been to have made that call. The moral of this surely confusing story? If you've got a call on your list that might get made today, although it can probably wait until at least, well...it is awfully nice outside and the weekend's almost here in earnest...I'm here to say that you shouldn't delay making that call. You never know who you might end up chatting with across the ol' Bait Shop counter. Know what I mean?

The act of joining a crowd of thousands at the tail end of a pilgrimage seldom produces an obvious path to enlightenment. But that's exactly what I'm doing in early June when I dive into the receding tide of this year's Book Expo America (BEA - named in honor of Bea Arthur...at least that's what I'm telling people). So even though I've been advised it can be an endless swarm of people with no particular utility, I'm all in. Woo. Hoo. I also mention it here to bolster my registration as an official "book blogger" - a job I've taken very seriously (wink, wink) for a very long time. To prove my bona fides, I'll even add in a few recent thoughts as a consumer of bookish products. Or is it book-y? Hard to decide - such is the richness of language-ing.

1. As someone who spends what most people consider a sick amount of time out running, I've graduated from podcasts to audio books. Less annoyance, more substance. At least that's occasionally so. Case in point - Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve is a deep pool of awesome road fodder. I'm about a long run and a cool down away from a full review. Greenblatt's book deservedly won last year's Pulitzer and National Book Award for non-fiction. Plus he's repped by my literary agency. All very good things. In whatever form, The Swerve moves along smartly and with real purpose.
2. The novel I desperately need to find a few hours to sit down and finish (in old-timey, dead-tree form) is Kevin Barry's City of Bohane. Irvine Welsh (who will never do anything better than Trainspotting, nor does he need to) gave him a front cover blurb - that and Pete Hamill's review in the NYTimes Book Review caught my eye. But once I dipped into it myself, Barry's melodic, mashed-up, bleak-future Irish brogue got all up inside my brain and turned things a wee bit off kilter. In a good way. Bohane dances a fast and brutal jig, while Barry writes like a house and barn and the surrounding grassy hills on fire. I give this book huge conversational props. It may even be great. I'll let you know when I'm through.

I could go on. Us "book bloggers" so often do. Maybe later.