[critique] Re: New Song: Ghosts

[Lee Gold <leeway@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Martin Julian DeMello wrote:
> 
>  I think my main objection is that
> close-range is a rather detached, even inanimate word - it lacks the
> intimacy that ought to attach to 'close friend'. Do you want to repeat the
> 'close'? If not, 'nearby' would work too. Also, I'd say 'a close friend',
> though that's just personal preference.

I liked "close-range" and "close friend" but I do agree that 
"close range" carries connotations of aiming a weapon or perhaps
a camera.  "Close up"?  

In any case, I don't take "close range" as indicating the degree of
intimacy but rather of physical distance.  Not over the phone,
but where the two friends can see one another's faces clearly,
hear every nuance of voice, but ghosts may supersede the sensory
details.  

"Nearby" doesn't work for me at all.  Paradoxically, it sounds 
farther away than "close-range."  

--Lee