by Ron Carlson and Bill Binzen “The sky is not the limit here.  Nor, in fact, is the earth the limit, the green hills or the human face. It is hard to find the limit ... We wanted to take things to the limit,” the writer Ron Carlson says, “but it kept moving and finally it got up and ran away.   Then we did what we could.”       The writer Ron Carlson offered the photographer Bill Binzen some of his offbeat musings; Mr. Binzen gave Carlson a set of his strange photographs. Here is a sample from their project:    Images and Notions.  Read more in the newest print issue of our magazine.

What Annoys Me Is Nite by Ron Carlson Photo by Bill Binzen That’s right, nite, the pseudo-word nite, used anywhere, anytime, even in a headline to save space, or in a list, or an e-mail, or a note regardless of its haste or brevity.  Kite is an actual word and will fly, and mite is a word and represents its tiny creature, but nite is not a word.  I don’t care if it is in the Dictionary of This or That, the Dictionary of Silly Words or Slang, or even where it properly should be, in the Dictionary of Things that are Not Words.  It has been used as a stand-in for another word, and it cannot stand in.  It cannot hold a candle to the other word, nor can it hold up the jillion stars in their bright loneliness, nor offer us the healing dark and enough sleep to knit up the raveled sleeve of care. (Someone writes:  “The baby slept through the nite.”  Ye gods!  There’s a worry.  That’s not enough sleep for any person, big or small.  This baby is going to be tired for years.  Someone e-mails:   “Will you be there Friday nite?”  No.  There isn’t room for me.  I’ve never been there Friday nite; I wouldn’t know how to behave.) Nite is a brittle little trinket, but it is not a good word.  It is insufficient in every way and will not represent the sweet mystery that you and I have known ten thousand times, thirty years of days, each held apart and blessed by night.