Posted here and at the 92nd Street Y as part of their 75th Anniversary celebration: http://92yondemand. org/Topic/75-at-75/ If I were trying to explain to someone what happens when you are reading Calvino and then sit down to write and find that, somehow inevitably, a strange derivation of Calvino has pervaded your own style, I would say that, first of all, you notice that your adjectives are different. Their purpose now is to distinguish types, genres, members of phyla, not to describe a person you would know on the street. Choosing names for [...] more