Yesterday I talked with my No. 1 son and his girlfriend about some of my favorite writers. Daniil Kharms was among them. They had never heard of him, though, and I copied for my son the bibliographic information from one of Kharms’ books in my library. When my son and his girlfriend left for New York this morning, they left behind a battered copy of a recent issue of The New Yorker, which they had read during their vacation in Istria and Dalmatia. To my surprise, in it I found four full pages of Kharms’ writings, together with a full-page photograph of his unforgettable face. Ah, vacation reading! An oxymoron par excellence.