If you don't die of thirst there are blessings in the desert. You can be pulled into limitlessness which we all yearn for or you can do the beauty of minutiae the scrimshaw of tiny and precise. The sky is your ocean and the crystal silence will uplift you like great gospel music or Neil Young.

Both the Obama and Romney campaigns said they pulled all their political ads today in observance of the September 11th anniversary. But politics wasn't very far offstage. The Obama campaign sees foreign policy as an advantage this year.

Every time I got 'Amazing Spider-Man' or 'Fantastic Four' or another book firmly on the rails we got pulled into some big event book or crossover and it cost momentum and messed badly with the pacing and structure of the book.