Name...

the top 5 most important non-American, non-British writers

the top 5 most readable non-American, non-British writers

(poets, novelists, experimentalists, mentalists, tightrope walkers, etc.

the egg breakers, the egg menders)

Very, very nice. (Unless you are heartbroken.)

FIRE IN MY BONES

While you were quoting Monroe,

the bit about pulling music out of the air,

I was pulling this -- apparently pulled out of the air -- out of the air:

Two From Bill Monroe

''I never wrote a tune in my life,'' Mr. Monroe once said. ''All that music's in the air around you all the time. I was just the first one to reach up and pull it out.''

--

In 1985, someone broke into his home and smashed the 1923 Gibson F-5 mandolin he had been playing for four decades; technicians at Gibson Guitars spent three months reassembling it with microscopes and tweezers.

THE MADNESS BEGINS

Pictures From Brueghel