Just finished a bowl of Old Joe Krantz regular, the original, in an Austrian pipe, a Kemperling smooth bent Rhodesian my sister bought me in Austria. Elderly Joseph is one of my favorites. I buy it in modest quantities in bulk and I always end up eventually re-ordering. It has substance, a kind of rowdy flavor, but not harsh. It's strong without being oppressive, to me. Just finished hearing readings (on the radio) by the late Tony Morrison, from her novels "The Bluest Eye," and "Jazz," and I see the reasons for her Nobel Prize. What precision, spareness, insight, and massive characterization. She wastes no word, and she can deepen the meaning in a phrase. The segments were the account of a young girl's first period, and the account of a woman in her sixties recounting how her only child, a daughter, had much darker skin than hers, and how her husband left her because of it. She really holds your attention, at gun-point as it were. Your mind just doesn't wander. Now the banning of her books has re-launched her career, posthumously, as never before. About the writing, all I can say is, that's how it's done.
