Mike Phillips: All Points Bulletin

In 1973-74, I briefly knew a man in his early 20s who seemed as serious and ambitious a reader as I was. We both lived in Bowling Green, Ohio, and his name was Mike Phillips. I can’t remember how we met, but it may have been through the restaurant where I worked and in which I eventually invested some money – Sam B’s Sandwich of the Absurd. Named after Samuel Beckett, it was located across the street from the campus of Bowling Green State University, where I had gone to school for three years. I think some permutation of it still exists.

I remembered Mike Phillips today when I visited the library and checked out The Desert Fathers, by the Irish writer Helen Waddell. Mike was the first person to mention Waddell’s work to me, which I soon read and enjoyed. He also introduced me to Edward Dahlberg’s work, which became a fierce, brief passion. I remember talking with him about Kierkegaard, Robert Burton and Osip Mandelstam.

My point is not nostalgia but information. After roughly 33 years, I’d like to locate Mike, in part to thank him for good conversations and reading suggestions. Here’s a portrait of a guy I haven’t seen in more than three decades and never knew well: His manner was friendly but mildly pedantic. He was not shy about correcting minor errors of fact or grammar. He would probably be about my age, 54. He was white, with short, straw-colored hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He impressed me as tidy, not a difficult impression to make on a college campus in the early seventies. He played guitar and I think he was associated with the school of music at BGSU.

Because his first and last names are so common, Google searches have proved futile. If the elusive but influential Mike Phillips sounds familiar, please be in touch.