Al Pacino is everywhere now, plugging his autobiographical “Sonny Boy” (Penguin Press, 10.15). I have the Kindle version, mainly bought on blind faith.

I’ve read a few sample pages on the Amazon site, and it’s an easy, soothing soul cruise that doesn’t feel “written” — it reads like a transcription of Pacino talking it through. Which feels right for what it is. One of those “this is what happened, and how it felt then and how it feels now” books.

But this morning I had a glorious time re-reading John Lahr’s decade-old Pacino profile in The New Yorker, and man, it’s one of the most fulfilling, perceptive and elegantly written profiles of the now 84-year-old actor…really wonderful.

Consider two excerpts:

Here, by the way, is a re-posting of a Hollywood Elsewhere Pacino phoner, recorded just before the 1.23.15 opening of Barry Levinson‘s The Humbling.

Please listen to a two-and-a-half-minute excerpt in which Al recalls the relatively recent “would you please take our picture?” episode. Starting at the 15-minute mark and ending around 17:25.