When I write, I surround myself with media – music, always (lots of Rufus Wainwright, Shearwater, Ute Lemper, some Dylan, some Roxy, and so on and on); and visual aids, many of them snippets or fleeting glimpses torn from magazines, newspapers, flyers, whatever. This intelligent personage, however, is a painting by Rick Lieder, that has been in my viewing field for months. Very nourishing, that face.