July 11, 2008

My Summer Idyll

By CAROLYN FOSTER SEGAL

Here's a possibly apocryphal story, which I could swear I read a number of years ago but have been unable to find since then. A writer was discussing his summer idyll, describing how he rowed to a middle of a lake with a year's worth of unread New Yorkers. When he finished one, he would drop it over the side of the boat. Quite possibly I made the last part up, a bit of wish fulfillment. Such a practice isn't environmentally sound, but it has a certain appeal. All those piles of magazines,