From Pete Townshend’s online diary. Townshend, 55, wrote this entry, titled “Dampa Tampa,” on Sept. 27, the day after the Who performed at the Ice Palace. Townshend’s writings can be seen at http://www.petetownshend.com. — Mike Wilson, Floridian editor

We played a good show yesterday in Tampa. It was the first indoors for a while, and the sound seemed quite booming at times. Roger (Daltrey) had some problems with his headset, which distracted him terribly until I sang Drowned solo. Then he was able to go over to Bobby Pridden our stage engineer and get it sorted. He came back on beaming and bouncing and from then on it was great. I played well and I suppose I have to admit I thought it was fun.

Being here in Florida for five days so far has been rather wonderful. As I write we have another day off on the beach, Roger is out there deepening a tan that really shouldn’t go too much deeper otherwise he’ll look like beef stew. Young beef stew....

The degree of isolation that I go through on the road — to a great extent it is self-inflicted — has always disturbed me. I don’t know quite why I wish to shut myself away.

Cyril Connolly was a British writer and critic in the war years. He is perhaps most famous for The Rock Pool. His writing about writing has always struck me as deeply significant to my own process. Like Somerset Maugham in The Summing Up his take on the creative sys-