I was thinking some more about my seedbed bookcase, looking it over. It's always a surprise. Ideas that attracted me still amaze me and get the cogs going. Take Erving Goffman (1922-1982). I often do. I first came across him in 1972 wen I read a review of his book, Relations in Public, New irk, Basic Books. He was already well known by that time, well on his way to what he is now considered to have been one of the finest sociologists of the 20th century. I began to buy and read his books, most published before that review I kept. I have:

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1959

Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction, 1961 (but my edition is dated 1985)

Behavior in Public Places, 1963

Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, 1963

Of course, I'm not a sociologist, but I found what Goffman has to say - and you'll pick up on it immediately from his titles - I found his insights enormously fascinating and useful to my development as a playwright. I even found some of my notes indicated possibilities of plays based on his analyses of people and their relationship. .Later I was told that Goffman was on a drama course at the National Theatre School.

Not only are there not enough hours in each day to do what I want to do, learn, think about, accomplish and write, there aren't enough years in my life. The darn thing is, in spite of my desire, I get tired. I goof off, I take naps, I play. What am I going to do?

My blogs have been dreary lately as I ricochet from crisis to crisis. I do apologize. I/we need to consider something fun and stimulating. When in doubt I turn to Elias Canetti (1905-1994), the Bulgarian/British writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981. Most of his work is too heavy and serious for me. I was tempted recently to read Crowds and Power but a friend and mentor warned me off, saying it's nothing like the two books I love - that he didn't know about. They are The Writer's Notes: 1954-1971 and The Secret Heart of the Clock: Notes, Aphorisms, Fragments (1973-1985), and they are delicious. My copies look like hedgehogs, bristling with post-it notes sticking out of them and inside, the pages are lined and underlined with comments and notes and references by me. These books will go into my archives because they have influenced me so much.

There are descriptions of people or situations that cause me to note for possible stories; there are phrases that trigger (light) poetry; others that (perhaps) describe a state of mind that Canetti was going through at the time, or maybe not:

"If you had traveled more, you would know less."

"If you just wanted to name everything that exists, a lifetime would not be enough. Let alone wanting to know it!"

But then here's an entry that sounds more like a journal, i.e. more than merely (?) an aphorism or a summary:

"...now the silence has entered me and I am happy. I am not tempted to go anywhere. I don't know what to do next. I am waiting, waiting for the thunderbolt and the powerful voice...I often regret that my mind never acquired an English wardrobe...."

I mustn't say too much. You have to see for yourself.

I have an expression I have often used, and describe what it means in my book about writing: seedbeds. I keep a special bookcase full of books that are my seedbeds, like petri dishes ready to grow something from a germ or seed. These two books by Canetti are in my seedbed bookcase.

"Insatiable need for words. Is that immortality?"

Maybe.