19. VISITATIONS & CONSTRAINTS
Like des Esseintes in his Fontenay fortress, I, too, have made eccentric improvements during my time here to what, for all intents and purposes, has become my lake house. I will describe some of those improvements presently. First, some prefatory remarks.
Occasionally as a Senior Instructor at the Metropolitan Writing Institute I would give my students exercises. My favorite was the “Boring Exercise.” It consisted of writing two one-minute pieces, each about a page long. The object of the first piece was to gain and hold our attention by any means possible. The object of the second piece was to “bore us stiff.” When they had written both pieces, without saying which piece they were reading, in the same tone, with another student keeping time, I’d have them r
