This is Douglas Messerli's eighth volume of readings, events, and memories.

The connecting skein of Messerli's 2001 cultural memoir is a concept of hiding history, of somehow keeping the past secret. Essays on William Carlos Williams, Susan Howe, Eudora Welty, filmmaker Budd Boetticher, and memories of the author's years in Washington, D.C. culminate in a vivid recreation of 9/11. As novelist Tom Frick has noted: "Messerli is creating a priceless cultural diary, a gold mine for future historians of our postmodern profusion."