Last night I came back late from a gathering. I felt stimulated, and wanted to wind down my train of thoughts. For some reason I thought to re-read Another Country by James Baldwin. To my surprise, it worked. My eyes kept drifting away, my mind was floating to another country (ha). Possibly because the opening lines are about a man in tatters, himself drifting across the dark streets of New York City.

“He was facing Seventh Avenue, at Times Square. It was past midnight and he had been sitting in the movies, in the top row of the balcony, since two o’clock in the afternoon.”

It’s the kind of first line in a novel that makes you wonder.