[A sincere tribute to our dashing older writer:]

Lavish Auster-ity

Happy birthday, Paul Auster,

Subject and object of romance,

Park Slope literary light–

Long may you dance to the music of chance.

A warm welcome to OTBKB’s new Verse Responder, Leon Freilich, who will be featured on OTBKB three times a week.

Brooklyn born and bred, Freilich reported for Star Magazine until it migrated to Florida. Since he’s not a sun worshipper and not (to my knowledge) moribund, he stayed behind. He’s lived in Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope, attended Stuyvesant High School, City College and Boston University, majoring in Greek and Latin language and literature (explaining his subsequent difficulties with English). His first children’s book of silly verse went out to some ten publishers and aged more slowly than the kids it was written for. Most of the ms. took six months to hit his mailbox; maybe it was the extra burden of a rejection letter that slowed their passage. These days he’s getting even with the evil publishers by working on a second silly book.