Search - Curtis and the Dilettantes :: Tales of a Traveler'

01. Something New == 02. She Crashed My Car == 03. Sometimes at Night == 04. Things You Do To Me == 05. Partake == 06. Farewell Old Friend == 07. Crosstown Bus == 08. The Road to PAradise == 09. God's Green Earth == 10. Lights Go Down == 11. First Steps == 12. Genesee == 13. When The Morning Comes == 14. Rebecca == 15. Next Time Around == == == Produced by Curtis Schmidt and Fred Gillen Jr. == ==
In January 2009 I left my career as a salesman for a large publishing company. It was a difficult economic climate, and I had been working hard for many years; it seemed like a good time to take a break and reconsider my options in life. I had some money saved, no debt or mortgage to worry about, and figured that it might be a good time to see what I had been missing.
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I moved out of Manhattan, New York City; away from the apartment I had lived in since entering law school in 1992. I found a small apartment in Dobbs Ferry; cold in the winter, hot in the summer but with a beautiful view of the Hudson river, I settled into the Roost and called it home. I looked for work here and there but times were tough. I sat in with bands and learned the accordion; but things weren't happening and I was looking for direction. As it happened, I found my next path through a book and also through a friend.
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I became interested in Washington Irving, local hero and America's first true writer; I read a biography and saw many things I would have liked if I had known him. I then read his collected fiction and was spell-bound. I especially liked the book he published after his famed 18-- blockbuster "The Sketchbook".
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I preferred the maligned fictional "Tales of a Traveller", published in 18--, it was roundly panned as obtuse, somehow un-American. I found these stories marvelous pieces; virtuosic exercises in form and perspective, with a wry wit passed through a narrator whose identity shifts and transforms while always remaining unmistakably Irving.