It’s my birthday! And I got the requisite pile of books. This is the best: Padgett Powell’s new novel. 

“Well if a war doesn’t break out on you, and you don’t stumble into making money, and you can’t play ball, and women treat you wrong, or men, and you aren’t a movie star, and you don’t have any talent, and you aren’t smart, etc., what are you, we, supposed to do exactly?”

“Live until we die, without any more pondering than a dog, is my guess.”