On Schopenhauer, Blue Cheese and the Workshop of Pain

Character, said Schopenhauer, is destiny.

I remember reading that in my studio on Rue du Docteur Roux, a meandering back street in the 15th arrondisement of Paris, one block down from the Institute Pasteur where they would first discover the ticking HIV time bomb. I read a lot of things in that odd little room, a place I fondly referred to as the