Why is Goya suddenly breaking out all over? Strange how a great name lays dormant and then -- boom! -- a flood. First there's this one by Julia Blackburn, then this one by the Big Kahuna of arttalk, and now -- just this month -- this one by Evan S. Connell. Picked up the Blackburn (now in paper) and the Connell yesterday with the idea of nailing all three in an 800-word piece for the Free Times, which is all the space they let me have or will ever let me have -- a point that has been made to me many times. I'm a pure and simple masochist for overdoing small jobs -- it's all I've done for the past month and a half when, among other things, I read all of Bruce Wagner's book just to read his latest (slated for next Sunday's Charlotte Observer). Then last summer I read all of Norman Rush to review Mortals. I read a huge pile of Dickens some time ago just so I could review Jane Smiley's puny bio. And don't get me started on Byron. You look at all the work and the result is so tiny.