[Ipg-smz] Tempting tidbits from John McPhee's THE PATCH (attention Esther)

[Daniel Dern]

THE PATCH, John McPhee's newest (and 7th) collection of short pieces, 
has two parts:
- six long sports or sport-related articles (mostly golf) (~ 90 pages)
- "an album quilt" -- ~130 pages of dozens of his shorter articles (or 
excerpts from same)

In case "John McPhee" and "new collection of short pieces" isn't enough to 
make you borrow or buy the book, here's links to 3 sections of quilt, and 
if these aren't enough to get you to borrow or buy this book (and, by 
extension, proceed to read more of his books), well, then more wouldn't 
help.

1, "Pools and pools and pools of chocolate -- fifty-thousand pound, 
ninety-thousand pound, Olympus-length pools of chocolate..."

https://fsgworkinprogress.com/2018/11/14/the-patch-2/


2, "When Martha, my youngest daughter, was seventeen, her English 
teacher--Mrs. Thomas--write forty-seven vocabulary words on the blackboard 
and told the class to write a short composition using all forty-seven 
words: aspersion, audacious, avarice, blanch..."

https://books.google.com/books?id=xmtuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA157&lpg=PA157&dq=condign+effulgence+empyreal&source=bl&ots=ln2fuHix3K&sig=ACfU3U3Dh5RhRSRXfX_5Pzu8UvdBrOzNPg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj6wfj5jqPgAhXHm-AKHRCVCDIQ6AEwAHoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=condign%20effulgence%20empyreal&f=false

(DPD notes, in searching for this, by omitting McPhee's name, the above 
search's results includes "A Glossary for the Fiction of Clark Ashton 
Smith" 
http://www.eldritchdark.com/articles/criticism/69/a-glossary-for-the-fiction-of-clark-ashton-smith 
)


3, McPhee tries an eary word processor

"Joseph Martin, computer methologist at The New York Times, has been 
pursuing for some years what he descirpts as 'the ideal philosphy of 
creating a newspaper'... you start by 'capturing the keystroke at the 
origin.'"

https://afflictor.com/2013/12/01/the-machine-that-was-going-to-tranquilize-this-scene-was-locked-away-in-a-quiet-cubicle/

https://books.google.com/books?id=8DlIDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=John+McPhee+Patch+martin+overwrought&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjA1sTfk6PgAhUMhOAKHRnXD3wQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=John%20Martin&f=false


(DPD notes, the first URL does not contain the full text of what's in the 
book.)

DPD