I admire Marcello Carlin because he writes posts as if they were paid magazine articles. Then, on the couple of occasions when as an editor I solicited material from him, he delights me with submissions that suffers no loss of concentration. Since I know little about his private life, I can only guess at the horrors he endured; but I'm happy he's got a reason to be optimistic, and hope it's not churlish of me to admit that I hope he still writes. If not, I hope he stays in touch --he was always someone I wanted to know.

Here's my favorite recent post, searching and complete enough to prevent me from publishing my own thoughts on what it's one of the year's best albums.