Spoke to the guy on my corner with the UHO table, or rather the table formerly known as UHO. He has a new, unmarked 15-gallon plastic water jug and a scrap of paper that doesn't pretend to be a city license on a table that no longer comes with strings attached, and he's as nice as he ever was, and I gave him a buck same as always.

In case you haven't heard, the UHO has been unmasked (again, only this time by attention-hog Andrew Cuomo) as a non-charity that collects a fee from homeless people who, in turn (shocked, shocked we all are to discover) pocketing the proceeds directly.

Six poets, former students of Richard Howard, read their poetry in his presence yesterday evening at the Casa Italiana in Morningside Heights.

His love and compassion was evident, and was reciprocated, except for when he commented that one of them, Lucie Brock-Broido, was famous for telling her students to "cut that." He could have been referring to the poem she had just read, and it certainly cut her. She drew the corners of her ample mouth down, and down they remained.

A cage goes in search of a bird.

The advice that hurts the most is the stuff you know is true -- Joseph Fasano, who read an intense and gripping poem.

When I thought my collection of short stories, The Actual Adventures of Michael Missing, was ready (it wasn't, but that's another story), I sent it to an agent I had met through a friend, who told me it was very good, but that it just wasn't for her.

She wasn't that into it.

I was living in France at the time, and it was a painful letter to get. I answered her letter with one of my own (this was in the 80s, no email), asking if she could think of anyone who might be "that" into it.

She suggested someone, and I wrote saying, dear Bill/John/Sarah, Wendy says you might be interested in this collection of short stories.

Dear Lee,

Morningside Heights has changed considerably over the past thirty years or so. Change is part of the human condition, and it would be dangerous to cling to the past for its own sake; life cannot be preserved like a daguerreotype.

On the other hand, we can choose how things will change.

I'm writing about one particular decision, to force Morningside Bookstore out of business -- but I am also writing about every decision you make and its impact on our community.

Morningside Heights is more than just the home of Columbia the University; it is also home to Columbia the Community; thousands of alumni, teachers and intellectuals, attracted by the diversity, the climate of ferment and discussion, the availability of bookstores, cafes, and cheap eateries frequented by others of their kind.