Let’s start off with a picture:

Thaws occur in two places, external and internal.  External, as depicted above, are caused by GOD or Nature or The Nature of Things.  However  you look at it, it is deserving of capital letters.  That edge of pond water appearing in the photo above between shore and ice is a true delight right about now.  Our winter, for the first time in quite a while, has been truly authentic.  Cold, snows, clear, crisp light and all the usual man-on-the-street reactions to it.

Internal thawing, in my particular case, has been caused by this man, Lew Brown (seen here with my beloved, Bobbie.)

You’ll notice they’re laughing.  You’ll also notice a feeling of genuine love between them.  You’ll also also notice that it must have been something he said.  You see, Lew Brown says things, and, quiet as it’s kept, if he’s saying them to you (or me, as in the case about to be related) you’d (I’d) better listen.  This time he wrote it in response to a blog entry about 3 back in which I expressed my terror at the idea of writing a book about my home-away-from-home from 1968-1985, the All State Cafe. What he wrote was this:

W.M. Tweed’s/ All State Cafe..listen my Brother now I understand.  Dig “Goldie”, it had too be happening if you hung there like any spot or universe  graced by your presents.  “It won’t be televised”.  Write the book.

The first two sentences–especially “my Brother” are here designed to soften me up.

• “Dig,” he uses to create historical intimacy.  We do go back to 1956
• and “Goldie,” my New York street name, which folks back home in Hartford have never used in addressing me to bring that intimacy up to date.
• Note the “too,” a subtle form of emphasis rather like putting 3 or 4 o’s in good or half a dozen a’s in bad to stress the affirmative
• and then the pun on presence, the kind of thing I did in the title of this piece and in several others as well.
• Finally for those of you all old enough to remember Gil Scott-Heron, “It won’t be televised”  refers to the revolution which also, if we are to believe Mr. Scott-Heron, will not be available for viewing TIVO notwithstanding.

Is this man sly or what?

OK, so  here I am reading this and smiling and feeling loved and at ease and then

BOOM!

right straight out of left field without even an exclamation point (call it New England understatement):

Write the book.

(sigh)

OK, so I spent the entire afternoon working on the All State book.  I wrote some notes on organization and expanded my blog entry into what might serve as a first chapter.  I reread the NY Times article on the bar when it closed and another about an alcoholic clarinetist or maybe flutist who drank there.  I thought about the possibility of including some drawings like this one:

or maybe some photos like this one:

I thought about calling Steve Resnick, the owner (I still can’t say former owner) and Glenn Johnson, the All State’s eternal customer, to tell them of what I accomplished.  Then I thought about just throwing it up on the blog to tell my small corner of the world.  Instead I’ve opted for a short tequila and, in a few moments, the next episode of  The Simpsons.

Whatever…