Seeing Things

Also: The thankless art of the librettist, a life of Joseph Fessio, Chris Hughes’s Substack, Ethiopian artifacts in the Vatican, and more.

Thomas Mann. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Good morning. I have been sick for 12 days now and floated through the end of last week and weekend. You have had the sensation, I am sure, of feeling one step removed from reality, as if you were in a film, when you are feverish and unwell. On Friday, I watched myself walk down Third Avenue for a lunch at which I never arrived. I went back to the hotel and watched myself type words for a column that still needs to be filed.