I believe more people read poetry than anyone knows. The reason I believe this is because long ago, I had a college football player as a student, and he very shyly came to my office one day to let me know that he was lifting weights to Auden. He had memorized the last part of W.H. Auden’s great elegy to Yeats for my class, and he wanted me to know that the rhythm of Auden worked with weight training.

Around 23,000 people have taken my relationships survey. If you’re in a relationship and haven’t yet, please take it before you read this post and get primed! Also, my perspective on needing a random sample. Raw data is here, though unfortunately I had to remove a lot of data to keep it anonymized. If you want more specific subsets I can hand them out upon request. In my survey, I ask people how monogamous/polyamorous they were.

Pouring Ribbons, the East Village cocktail bar, will close for good on March 26 after a decade in business. Like many New York bars, it was forced to close for an extended period during the pandemic shutdown. But unlike other places, it only sporadically trafficked in to-go cocktails, and its second-floor location made outdoor drinking and dining impossible. The bar was silent a total of 18 long months, far longer than almost any other significant cocktail bar in the city.

A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months later it also became available for paid subscriptions for additional content — and as a way to help keep this newsletter going and for readers to support independent journalism. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription please consider it. If you have already, I truly appreciate it! Also, consider a gift subscription for the Fight Freak in your life.

Dear All, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to each of the 430 subscribers who have chosen to follow my Blogstack. To those who are paid subscribers, an extra special thank you. I appreciate your patience as I work on this book, which is shaping up to be at least 250,000 words. Rest assured, it will be released this year, sooner rather than later. At present, my life feels somewhat bewildering, and I am only just beginning to find some clarity.