The brilliant editor Maxwell Perkins carved Thomas Wolfe’s crate of pages – 333,000 words! – into Look Homeward, Angel. George Vecsey, much admired former sports columnist for the Times, thinks Perkins cut too much, by 100,000 words. Most readers side with Perkins. (And by “most readers,” I mean me.) Plus, he describes the men’s room at the Kew Gardens Cinema and vows that he does not want to kill CitiBike riders – unrelated topics (I think). A conversation at the Port Washington Public Library with music from Bennett Harris.

•  PERSON: Thomas Wolfe
•  PLACE: Kew Gardens Cinema
•  THING: his Trek hybrid bike
•  RANDY’S PLACE: David Letterman’s former office in Rockefeller Center