As many people (still) know, John Keats closes his immortal poem "Ode On a Grecian Urn" with the following equation:

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

Works for me, John! Intellect is nowhere in Keats' equation, nor should it be. Intellectualism is a conceit. Give it up. Forget about it. Let's just get back to Beauty and Truth.

If you have been deeply affected by the music of Chopin, that doesn't mean you're smarter than someone who hasn't been affected by (or exposed to) Chopin. It just means you're luckier.

It's not true that people don't read anymore. Lots of people still read. They read trashy romance novels, John Grisham novels, Chicken Soup for the Soul books, or whatever Oprah tells them they should read. It's not intellectual stuff, and it's not my cup of tea, but those who lament the "fact" that people don't read anymore undercut their own credibility, because what they say is not true. People do read.

And people do waste vast amounts of time on the internet, but through the miracle of search engines, they can also locate the entire text of a John Keats poem in less than one second.

That's what they said about Marv Albert ("Chomp! Chomp!").

Some anecdotes and points about the Texas primary elections:

1. Jesse Jackson won the Texas primary in 1988. It didn't matter, though, because a) Dukakis had already clinched the nomination by then and b) The state Dem convention only sent a few token (pardon the expression) Jackson delegates to the national Dem convention.

2. Kerry won Travis county (where Austin is located) in the 2004 general election. Newsflash: The rest of Texas went for Dubya.

3. There are many counties in Texas that are 110% percent repub, to the point where, for decades now, no Dem has bothered to run for office there, much less vote in the Dem primary. This year, record numbers of people are turning out to early-vote in the Dem primary in these totally repub counties. Unfortunately, there are very few names on the Dem primary ballot in these counties, other than Obama and HRC. That's too bad, because we won't ever be able to get Dems elected to state offices if they're not on the ballot in November.

3a. Here and there, there are some young, moderate repubs who are running against the worst of the far-right, corrupt, senile, holy-roller statewide repub officeholders. In other years, the moderates might have had a chance of winning in the repub primary. Not this year. One downside of the heavy Dem primary turnout is that those who do vote in the repub primary will be the staunchest of the right-wingnut holy-rollers. So get ready for the same old hated Texas repubs to return to Congress.

3b. The good news: when I early-voted in the Texas Dem primary (in my 110% repub county) last week, everybody voting while I was at the poll was voting in the Dem primary.

The bad news: The voting machines were Diebold touchscreens.

The worse news: When I returned to the desk after voting, one of the poll workers grabbed the paper receipt out of my hand, tore it in half, and said, "You don't need that. We're just tearing them up and throwing them away." So if what somebody else said is true, then not only do I not have a paper-trail receipt, but I can't vote at my Dem precinct caucus, either.

3c. When I was early-voting, a middle-aged white woman in front of me wanted to vote for Obama, but when the poll worker explained to her that, in order to vote for Obama, she'd have to vote in the Dem primary, the woman freaked out. "I ALWAYS vote for the republicans!" she exclaimed.

Obviously, she didn't/doesn't understand the primary election process. Maybe you had to be there, but I thought it was hilarious.

4. In my opinion, Dems need to quit arguing about which Dem candidate has the best chance to beat McCain. Either Dem will beat McCain handily, because they will be running against McCain himself, not Karl Rove. Both McCain and Rove are washed-up has-beens now, but in the past, Rove was unbeatable.

It's hard to say how much of the holy-roller vote Huckabee will draw. Texas holy-roller churches are totally politicized, and have been for a long time. They all operate on the Unification Church (Rev. Moon) model. Which is to say that they're all about advancing the interests of the republican party, even if it means voting for an "infidel" like McCain. They love Dick Cheney more than they love Dubya, and they love Dubya more than they love Jesus.

Ron Paul could draw a lot of votes here too, of course.

Shawn, buddy, I don't doubt that Rove is still involved in repub campaigns. I just think his time has come and gone. In early 2000, McCain was Obama, Reagan and JFK all rolled into one. He was the populists' populist, and he would have won it all, except for one unbeatable guy: Karl Rove.

Eight years ago, Rove emasculated McCain and drove a stake through his populism. Rove may still have some mojo left--I don't know. But not even Rove can raise the dead.

This article doesn't mention Richard Brautigan, but in my opinion, several of his experimental novels were/are classics. My favorite Brautigan novel is Confederate General at Big Sur.

Another, much more current experimental writer I'd like to tout (also from the West Coast) is Denis Johnson. His novel Already Dead is wonderfully-written, from beginning to end.