Re: Edward’s desire to track comments — this isn’t exactly what he wants, but it allows your readers to get email notice when someone comments on a thread that they’ve contributed to:

http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/

A lot of people are using it now and I’m going to add it to mine.

Cheers,
Sprague

but normally i try to respond to comments here.

Hugh, is there a way that commentators can be pinged when their name comes up (like in IRC)?

“winter’s night” it seems to me i picked up once, but have not read. I’ll scour my bookshelves again & see if it’s there somewhere.

I would also strongly recommend “Fictions” by Jorge Luis Borges – especially for “The Lottery of Babylon” and “The Library of Babel”