A Word I Needed To Look Up, To Satisfy My Curiosity

clusterfuck: n. coarse slang (chiefly U.S.). 1. A sexual orgy. Also Mongolian cluster fuck. 2.orig. Mil. A bungled or botched undertaking; (also) a situation, state of affairs, or gathering (esp. a military operation) that is disorganized or chaotic.

cluster: n. 1. A collection of things of the same kind, as fruits or flowers, growing closely together; a bunch. a. Originally of grapes (in which sense bunch is now the usual term.) b. Of other fruits, or of flowers; also of other natural growths, as the eggs of reptiles, the air-cells of the lungs, etc. 2. A rounded mass or conglomeration; a clot, a ‘clutter’, Obs. 3.a. A number of persons, animals, or things gathered or situated close together; an assemblage, group, swarm, crowd. b.fig. Of immaterial things. c. A group of faints stars forming a relatively dense mass, appearing as a nebula to the naked eye; a star-cluster; also applied to larger coherent groups of stars, nebulæ, and galaxies. Also attrib. d.Linguistics. A group of successive consonants.

fuck: v., n., adj. Too numerous are the definitions, phrases, constructions, and mysterious etymological origins for me to repeat them all here. We all know what this word means, don’t we?

---

Good. Now my curiosity is satisfied, to some extent. So don't go and fuck up your holiday.

Spikes and Crashes

Blood sugar is an economy like the commodities market. But unlike the commodities market, blood sugar trades only in two commodities: glucose and insulin.

Spikes make you sick. Your face flushes and burns red. Ears especially. So can your fingers, hands, toes, and soles. There are headaches sometimes. Your eyes might scratch as though dried out, dessicated. These symptoms combine and exacerbate each other. Ride them for too long, they are destructive.

Crashes don’t necessarily make you sick. Rather, they threaten your life. After you experience crashes too many times, the symptoms lose some of their effect. What a crash at first causes is shakiness. The shakes, the jitters. This is your brain telling you that your blood is not providing it enough glucose. (The brain feeds on glucose alone. The brain dies without glucose.) Other symptoms can alert you to a blood sugar crash: cold sweat; seeing shapeless electric-blue spots and lines; mental confusion; distraction. But experiencing these symptoms too often leads to a sort of tolerance of them, fatigue. Blood sugar crashes without the usual symptoms, or crashes to a lower level before symptoms manifest.

This happened last night around 3:30. I had been reading Faulkner, and was now trying to sleep. I could not. So I got up and took my glucometer out to the living room and tested my blood sugar. The glucometer read: 22.

The blood sugar low that is considered imminently life-threatening is <21.

What happened? I accidentally overdosed on insulin. Recovery was swift: I ate a vanilla caramel Drumstick and an apple. I was fine by 4:00. I went back to bed.

Good night.

[Last Post Tonight, Guaranteed] Something Guided Me Toward Random Images

(From a file in which I jot things in order to clear the hot, wet stew out of my head.)

Who are these Chinese people I’ve stumbled across? Why are two of them girls who are kissing? Not "why", as in, "This is morally wrong, I demand an explanation"; but "why", as in, "Why am I seeing this of all things?"

Photos of babies on a train, with Santa Claus, then a white woman.

Last: a series of ethnically diverse cheerleaders.

It means nothing to me. More bizarre images are there to be had, certainly. But it's not the superlative that reigns here. Not even the comparative has much say or sway. That image which appears before you, and holds you captivated regardless of how you feel about it or what you think of it, is the image that reigns.

Some Shit I've Learned Recently

1. The "Marriages and Births" section of the newspaper is a good place to find contemporary names (albeit many of them are a tad too trendy to be convincing)
2. The "Obituaries" section of the newspaper is a good place to find names which old people have and young people never seem to have.
3. The rapture is almost upon us, though there is no way to confirm this news until it happens.
4. The vacuum cleaner needs a new belt, as the worn-out belt, when the vacuum runs, produces a smell like burning plastic.
5. Writing is not as difficult as it used to be, but it still presents a formidable challenge.
6. The music of crickets in the middle of winter is continually, continually enchanting.
7. Insulin prices have risen by five dollars.
8. _______________. (What have we learned?)

Something as beautiful as snow that falls in a major intersection...

Part of the trick to observation, to honing the writer's eye, is to look at things with the same amazement and wonder as a young child. Look at things as though you were once again your four-year-old self, and the mystery of the world opens up to you. Look at things in this way, things like Christmas lights, and then imagine your four-year-old self trying to convince an adult how wonderful and beautiful those Christmas lights are. Back away from the sense of things. Look through reasons. Look past your adult understanding. Watch as your carbondated soft drink becomes a magical potion. Tremble and shiver when you hear the sound of a locomotive's air horn carrying across miles and miles of land, because the child in you is hearing something else, something unnatural, something monstrous, a horn--yes--a horn, and a call to war.

The End is Nigh!

Of the semester, I mean. . . .

Everywhere you go, people act out their holiday-induced neuroses through public spectacles. In stores children are screaming. At Wal-Mart the air is rife with burning indifference for your fellow man. But enough about that.

One of my purposes in life, I've discovered, is to understand what bizarre energy is at work in the fiction of Joy Williams. I have read each of her three story collections (Taking Care, Escapes, and Honored Guest) and two of her novels (The Changeling and The Quick and the Dead). I cannot say I dislike any of it. Not one story would I qualify in a negative light. And I won't comment on The Changeling here (I don't think I could). But The Quick and the Dead merits further attention. What on earth is this novel doing? It seems to lack any plot. Or it has just enough plot to move. Enough plot, as John Edgar Wideman says, "to hang the meat from." I have read nothing else that is so utterly bizarre yet so completely engrossing.

My mind slipped. I forgot where I was going with this. More later.

Point of View Violations

The headline alone has an intimidating quality to it, but I wonder: perhaps this is the way to demonstrate point of view and perspective to undergrad writers.

Drei Katzen

Since folks enjoy pictures of cats so much, here are my three ingrates posing as if they care.

I have no title

A girl in Florida recently underwent a heart transplant. Before the operation, she survived for two months without a heart inside her body. The doctors kept her alive. Despite all the problems with the health and medical professions in this country (chiefly, the problems of for-profit service industry and insurance middlemen), the determination of those doctors to keep the girl alive, aware, conscious, with no heartbeat in her chest, while waiting for a viable donor heart, is nothing short of a gift.

***

Characters in stories are real, as real as movie actors, as real as commercial actors, as real as you and I in our day-to-day lives. Characters in stories suffer for a reason: so we can observe and say, "I'm glad my life's not that bad." By necessity, characters in stories suffer. They embody all aspects of our own actual existence so that we can experience our own flaws, failures, shortcomings, our own tiny moments of light, hope, success, and triumph through another's experience of them. In that way story characters are sacrificial, whether they are aware of it or not. By writing them, we give them life. By witnessing them, we share in the experience of that life.

Denken um denken

Think about thinking about this: research suggests that rats are capable of metacognition. I'd put money on cats having this ability too, but they're so calculating I'd probably lose.

Brilliance

Yes:

"The power of [writing] exercises depends on recognition of the value of teaching form, not 'expression.' I believe that unless and until reading and writing are taught together--and are taught together with discussion--there will be little chance that English departments will survive as anything but outposts of sociology. But teaching writing as a way of learning to read and reading closely as a model for careful writing is to guide students to the discovery of the powers of language: should that not be the chief mission of any and all English departments? . . . . Anyone we read with pleasure can help us to teach others to read with pleasure. If we do not aim for instruction and delight, those Horatian values will forever elude us."
(Ann E. Berthoff)

And this one, what brilliance:

"Read it as if it made sense and perhaps it will."
(I.A. Richards)

Process IV

Have you ever watched a cat play with a suction cup? Have you ever taken a shower with someone who had been mauled by a tiger? Have you ever felt exceedingly jealous of a person many years dead? [Albert Einstein watches over my office from the door and from the posterboard. Is it possible for a person alive today to feel jealousy toward Albert Einstein, for whatever reason, even though he has been dead since April 18, 1955?]
---
Some gems from the book Forming / Thinking / Writing: The Composing Imagination by Ann E. Berthoff.

"Having the capacity to understand means having the capacity to misunderstand."

"Language is not a set of pigeon holes into which we put things, ideas, feelings. We discover meanings in the process of working (and playing) with the means language provides."

"The aim of composing is not to tolerate chaos for its own sake but to learn to put up with it while you discover ways of emerging."

And a quote, by Mary Shelley, that the author uses: "Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject and in the power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested to it."

Syringes II, section 2

After I dig through my papers-to-recycle, I find two different package inserts, each from a different box of syringes.

I use a lot of syringes. I've done the math. Out of curiosity.

I'll examine the package inserts when I need to.
---
It's these "Syringe" poems, actually multiple drafts of the same poem, that I have come back to. Five pieces spread across time: 03-21-06 to 12-04-07.
---
Needle or syringe? Needle is the pointed tube at one end. Syringe is the body cavity numbered for measurement of dosage. It is overall a poor, if not rudimentary imitation of an instrument perfected by nature. Mosquitos have them. Jellyfish have them. Pit vipers and cobras have them. Scorpions have them. Stonefish have them. The animal kingdom bears needles at every turn. Needles are wielded. Here, there are no dosing instructions or trademarks.
---
"Instructions for use:

1. Wash hands and gather supplies. To expose plunger, twist white cap to break seal, then pull off.

2. Wipe top of insulin bottle with a BD™ Alcohol Swab. If you are taking cloudy insulin, roll the bottle between your hands until it is uniformly cloudy. Never shake a bottle of insulin.

3. To expose needle, twist orange cap, then pull straight off, being careful not to bend the needle or let needle touch anything.

That is the interesting part. Steps four through eight are rather tedious, businesslike, accounting and number-management.

---

These poems obsessed over form and left nothing at stake. They feature missiles, phalluses, and a fog of abstraction. I thought about this poem again, this was on Thursday. All those silly revisions. Allow Syringes to become another form. [This is what Process told me.] It wants to take another form. [I nodded, it made sense.] Give to it another form. [Okay. I will.]

---

I imagine a gun that shoots syringes as ammunition. A belt-fed fully automatic gun that de-caps and fires syringes, needles-first. There is no turn. It always goes toward images of warfare and violence.

Syringes II

Syringes as passive things. They are. They do nothing on their own, they have no agency, no motive power. They have no will, no desire, no need, no want. They are.

The syringe body contains air: a sterile body when manufactured to that effect. Sterility. A syringe never contains nothing. It is impossible for a syringe to contain nothing. It must contain something.
---
I like to gaze at my books from time to time. Usually when I work. I pause to think or to reflect, and I gaze at my books. Many of them I have not read, not yet.
---
Pharmacies sell syringes by the box: "Insulin Syringes / with the BD Ultra-Fine™ needle / 100 sterile single use syringes (10 packs)". [I wonder why "single use" is not hyphenated.] This is and is not poetry. It is not poetry to me because syringes serve a utilitarian purpose. I use syringes to inject insulin into my body. My pancreas cannot make insulin for some reason I do not know and at which I shrug. Insulin syringes are the type commonly used by heroin addicts and methamphetamine junkies to inject those compounds intravenously. (This, the act of pushing a needletip through your skin into a bulging vein, could not seem any more unpleasant an act, even as an act of mere imagination. I shake my head and clench my face in disgust.) The box in which the syringes are packaged says nothing regarding the syringes' possible misuse at the hands of drug addicts. The box lid flap asks politely, "For safe disposal of insulin syringes, please see package insert."

Process III

derange (verb): 1. To remove cattle or other livestock from open rangeland. 2. To remove open rangeland from beneath cattle or other livestock. 3. To keep your pets indoors. 4. To keep your busy hands to yourself. 5. To siphon jet fuel, thus limiting the range, in miles, that a jet is able to fly before crashing.

Is this "deconstruction" or is it simple, old-fashioned imagination? How would we like to hone our sense of words to a fine edge capable of severing nerves and tendons? Has anyone ever seen that stupid TV show on Spike wherein absurd theories are tested for the benefit of a male audience? Does it really take an ample demonstration to prove that silicon breast implants don't float whereas breasts do? All you need is an imagination though some encouragement helps.

What can you read over and over again?

Every short story in each of Joy Williams' three collections.

Martin Amis' Time's Arrow and Einstein's Monsters.

Padgett Powell's short stories (most of them but not all of them).

G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy.

Some things I have never heard but would like to hear before I leave college forever

"Please rewrite this paper in the future tense. I can't make heads or tails out of it as it is."

"I agree with you completely. T.S. Eliot was a goddamn lunatic for writing that nonsense."

"We in the administration value you as a student, not just as a dollar-figure."

"Please put your pants back on."

"Yes, your student health insurance will cover that."

"We don't know how they escaped. But you'll need tomato sauce, believe us."

"The university has decided to play 'opposite fiscal year.' This year the English department gets the athletic department's budget, and the athletic department gets the English department's budget."

Process II

From a Joy Williams story: "Once I dreamed of baking a bat in the oven."

(The rest is not from Joy Williams stories.)

(!) He made a throne. His friend said it was supposed to be uncomfortable. They argued. They cited historical examples. (!) He wanted to be a brigand when he grew up. (!) Point of order. Restraint! Restraint! Handcuffs!
--------
Dare, chance, gamble, risk. . . . . How do we ARC? What is arc? Trajectory? Something -- someone -- must set an arc/trajectory in motion. Up & away OR down & away. What sets trajectory moving backward? How would this happen/work: UNDERTRAJECTORY? . . . . fire into the ground? Digging? Underground. Diving? Underwater. Descending movement. Descending but moving forward. Underway. Unterweg. Back and forth? Hin und her? How much is hidden among what is shown? How much is presented and how much is overlooked?
--------
Considered thus far or soon-to-be considered:
Process.
Revision.
Rewrite.
Heart.
Spine.
Truth.
Tension.
Arc.
Trajectory.
Pace: of narrative, of writing.
Pace: of emotion, of logic.
Can we know the process of another?
Limits.
Limitations.

Update (11/18/08):
I apologize for this post. It makes no sense. I don't know what I was thinking but I wrote it during a class. That was wrong of me. Perhaps I was distracted or off fighting evil in another universe. I don't rightly remember. Sorry.

No, I take it back. Some of it makes sense, with tweaking:
He made a throne. The throne was made of scrap lumber and carpet samples. His friend said it was supposed to be uncomfortable. "It's plenty uncomfortable," he said. They argued. They cited historical examples. The friend said, "Genghis Khan rode a horse all day. That gets uncomfortable." His rebuttal was, "This isn't a horse. What the hell are you talking about?" The friend stared at him in disbelief that they were arguing about this in the first place. Then the friend said, "I can't believe you made a throne. You're no king. How presumptious." He said, "Get the hell out of my garage."

Close-Read Tension

A bad haircut. A cricket pushes a button. A bake sale gone bad. An enterprise consisting of boing. A farmer has a lizard problem. We recycled our housekeys on accident. Research indicates gibberish raises blood pressure. The mayor claims to have made water flow uphill. A flea infestation leads to hangings. A bad instinct. None of the dolls wear pants. The dolls wear shirts and boots but not pants. Her pirate rides a pteradactyl to the fire station. Her pirate. The pirate wench conceals a flintlock pistol behind her back.

Something for later. An unknown at death. A will. A snack to preempt hunger. An extra $20 from the ATM. Something for later.

Tension. We understand 1st drafts (garbage). We understand revision. The question now becomes How do we create and effect tension among characters and reader? The nuances have yet been lost on me. Certainly tension works differently in every story. What is the tension-organ? Nerves?

[Not that one, this one.] With tension the comfortable are disturbed. (With truth the disturbed are comforted.) I have never murdered a characer. I have never characterized a murder. I don’t think especially about killing. To kill would change a story, its dynamics. Imagine the effect of killing a character, of murdering a character mid-story. That would create tension. [Tension with a subtle-B.]

If I know where I’m going when I set out, then I’m not lost; I’m on vacation.

A tunnel in the sand. An overwhelming selection of pens. Discarded helmets. Why are there golf clubs in the storage freezer? Night of the toads. A police cruiser, an ambulance, and a fire truck at a suburban house at the climax of rush-hour, a case of domestic violence, spousal abuse, jealousy, all of it seen through the front window and reported by many dozens of motorists.

Hidden Heart

It's amazing how easy the act of revision comes now. "Revise" used to be the most difficult part of the work. It never went anywhere.

This story I wrote almost two years ago has been evading me. Today I captured it's hidden heart. Or at least a ventricle, perhaps an aorta. But I would guess that about 75% of the story was a narcissistic celebration of youthful whining. The 25% that wasn't all about me showed enormous potential. And yet again the character with whom the heart of the story lies is a woman.

In many of the stories I write the focal character is female. I set this as a personal challenge a long time ago, to write a female perspective. I did, and then I wrote more. They keep coming back. They are more interesting than just about every male character I've written (a juvenile bunch of ne'er-do-wells, with the occasional highly isolated neurotic thrown in). The female characters have more personality too. They are more complex, more complicated, more vulnerable to every possible extreme I can imagine. They are also more resiliant. They seem in many ways more human. I wonder why this is. (No reason for me to think too much about it, or I'll just end up confusing myself.)

Perhaps through them I can say all the things that I cannot say through male characters. I don't know. This requires more process.

The Spine and Cowardice

In order to stand up to you, I have to turn around and show you my backbone. I have to be at your mercy. I have to turn my back on you, I have to risk my life on your honor not to strike me from behind. I have to accept that you might stab me in the back and I would not be able to stop you.

Process

Have you ever put your ear to a cat?

This is an ongoing question.

"Ongoing" is self-contained. One cannot "ongo" and a group cannot "have ongone." Nor: he/she/it "onwent" but it "went on" for some time. Things happen; they "go on" every day.

"Fiction should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." -David Foster Wallace

Part of my process sums up as a lot of rolling around not writing much of anything, but holding the story on the edge of a knife: I don't think about the story too much but I think about it.

The process functions in fragmentary fits. There is no quota. There is no product. The process is ongoing. Everworking. Phenomenal. There is no blame. (Like SUBTLETY: it's not SUBTLE without a B.) When the pen is not in motion, the mind is. The eye is. The nose and ears. The tongue. The skin, the heart, the lungs, the entire nervous energy, the demand for food, the bursts of lust, the need to fuck, it's all the process.

I think I'd rather have my masculinity questioned than be called spineless. I could get by without my balls, but not without my spine.

Of course your characters will evade your attempts to invade their lives. You're God to them. They hate you for it. They're real. But they're not actual people. You won't hurt their feelings by writing out their secrets in detail for the whole world. It's only human to want to witness the misery and suffering of others, and be able to say, "I'm glad that's not me."

The process is very slow. This is because I don't know where the fuck I'm going.

We Want to Live!

November now. Someone has been thinking over the past few weeks about the Heart of a story. What is it? How does it work? What does it do? Why is it there? How does one bring it to life? Then this same someone was reading through his writing journal (and marveling at the inanity of some of the entries therein) when he encountered a question: "What is the spine of the story?" Unanswerable at the time of writing, now the question gained a new facet of perspective. The Spine of a story is its logical straight-and-true, the literal truth of a story. The Heart of a story is its emotional straight-and-true, its flows and lifeblood, what sustains the story.

In other uninteresting news, I can't think of any. Except this: If you're the kind of person who gets lonely in the winter, go to Pet Expo and buy yourself a plastic container and a bag of bigass crickets. Crickets in winter.

Ein Laterne, ein Lausejunge, der Lautsprecher: lautlos

Don't read this. This isn't worth reading. This will tell you nothing you don't already know. This might land you in court, in jail, in detention, in solitary confinement. This is the hard way to update your computer. This is the 25% more, free, without purchase of the rest of the product. This is a test flight. This is a sparrow or a bat carcass stuck in the grill of your truck. This is a lanky cat showing you its asshole. This is moldy bread. This could lend you money or take money away from you. This theory makes no sense. This guy's acid trip went splat after twelve stories. This means don't drop acid in a high-rise dormitory. This will understandably lead to rhetorical grammar. This is the fourth edition. This smells like teriyaki chicken. This check will not clear without personal sacrifice. This commendation to the First Marine Division, Reinforced, at one time will have been rendered pointless to anyone who isn't a Marine. This is a laxative. This is a doohickey or dowackle or skeezix or gobbledygook or twiseasess or zusammenpassen or Nasenbluten or nichtsdestoweniger or Verbindlichkeit. This box contains monkeys. This loudspeaker doesn't work. This fucker has only one eye. This louse lives in his skin. This hope is unconscious. This fortune will be squandered. This time around we have ways of making you talk. This deodorant is unscented. This much is true: the Chinese eat no cheese. This sugar cookie has a toenail in it. This year we try harder. This wanderer knew where to go but not from where. This finger smells funny. This state park toilet facility is home to twelve species of spider. This news does not bode well. This distant relative wrung his hands. This is an attempt to collect a debt. This is your mother. This rash should clear up before Thanksgiving. This coming January shows promise. This time let the clutch out slowly while giving it some gas and don't worry if it hops. This war will get worse before it gets better. This never happened.

WEBLOG: a log with a spider's web on it

First new post in nearly a month. Why are we so goddamn busy? How come each semester has its own bizarre theme? I still don't care one bit for T.S. Eliot or Ezra Pound. I still haven't read "Moby Dick." I would still like to have a standing table constructed. I've blazed through three pads of yellow paper since August and each draft I've written feels incomplete, flawed, gangly, or sideways. I now enjoy W.S. Merwin's poetry. And Charles Baxter's novel "First Light" (it moves backward). I need a secretary.

Liz and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on the 19th.

Things We Never Cease to Wonder at

Two elephants at the Renaissance Fair walked in circles. Children were piled on top, $5 a ride, once around the circuit. The elephants' eyes were deep brown like polished agate, the dense black lashes like shy parasols. The wind had brought autumn. People huddled together, costumes or not. The dandies, a tight group of six or seven, seemed to tolerate the chill. But what did the elephants think of Minnesota? Why would anyone bring elephants here at the end of September. We had bananas in our bag, and an apple that our daughter wouldn't finish. The elephants moved past without much sound aside from their enormous breath. They walked with the patience to be quiet. We gave each of them fruit at the first pass. At the next pass, and the one after, they remembered us with grasping two-fingered trunks, slowing to test the trainer's patience because they can.

Hauslos. Homeless. Without Home. Noplace to Go.

If you stare long enough at someone or something, you begin to sense aspects of that someone or something never before apparent. The homeless. Look past the obvious. Look beyond the stereotypes. Beyond the violence, despair, feelings of intolerance and rejection. Smell them. Smell them as they smell themselves and each other. You are not one of them, but nor are you one of those people who looks down at them, condescends. You are not one of those people who fears the homeless. Why fear them? Have they nothing to lose? Perhaps nothing is all they have. Imagine the things homeless people fear! Each other. Police. Dogs. Rabies. Sickness. The heat, the cold. A freezing night. Being unable to find someplace to sleep. What if one fears to fall asleep because he may not wake up? Do they fear waking up? They must fear each other. A group of them together like any other group divides itself along leadership and subservience lines. Would they fear to accept handouts? Would they be too proud to accept charity? Vain? Are there vain homeless? Selfish or selfless, certainly, but vain? Is vanity ever an effect of homelessness? Who are their folk heroes? Who do they admire? How does American culture influence the homeless and vice versa? How does one earn their respect? How many use drugs, methamphetamine, heroin, crack, pills? How many are drunks? How many pretend for our benefit? How many aren’t homeless, but panhandle professionally?

ecneicsinmO

I've been trying not to think too hard about this lately. Omniscient narration and how it's so difficult to write it. A narrator who knows all seems excessive. Too much information is at my disposal.

An omniscient narrator knows not everything; an omniscient narrator knows from the onset what is not necessary to the narrative. That helps no one, I know. But my approach lately has been to abandon things I don't need for a given story. This is old advice: "Any one setting out to dispute anything ought always to begin by saying what he does not dispute. Beyond stating what he proposes to prove he should always state what he does not propose to prove." (G.K. Chesterton)

In a way I'm working backward. I find it helpful to work backward. Narrative in reverse cannot move without going forward at the same time, otherwise it makes no sense. (See Martin Amis's novel Time's Arrow.) So I begin with an idea for a story, a vague idea that I imagine will move forward in X, Y, or Z manner. At the same time I establish what the story does not need, and the story now cannot move forward in Y or Z manner. The omniscient narrator knows now of something that the story does not need. I feel as though I'm running in a circle with this. Goddammit, I'll make it clear one of these days. It's a bit humbling to lay out my thought process for anyone to read. Oh well. I can see every possible beginning from the single end.

die Liste des Kinos (the List of Movies)

DVD Movie List
the Abyss
the Addams Family
an American Haunting
American History X
the Animal
Army of Darkness
Beavis and Butthead Do America
Big Money Hustlers (Insane Clown Posse)
the Birdcage
Blade I
Blade II
Blade III
Blood In, Blood Out
Borat
Cape Fear
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Destroyer
the Count of Monte Cristo
the Craft
Creepshow I
Creepshow II
Crybaby
Darkness Falls
Dawn of the Dead
Dazed and Confused
Dead Alive (unrated)
Deuce Bigalow I
Deuce Bigalow II
Doomsday
Eraserhead
Evil Dead
the Exorcism of Emily Rose
the Exorcist
the Exorcist II
the Exorcist III
Fearless Hyena
Final Destination I
Final Destination II
Freeway
From Dusk Till Dawn
From Hell
Gangs of New York
Grandma’s Boy
Great Expectations
Green Street Hooligans
Hairspray (original John Waters version)
Half Baked
Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal 2000
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
the Hot Chick
House on Haunted Hill (2000)
How High
Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
King Arthur
a Knight’s Tale
the Last Samurai
the Libertine
the Longest Yard
the Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring
the Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers
the Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King
Lust in the Dust
Memoirs of a Geisha
Misery
My Crazy Life [Mi Vida Loca]
National Lampoon’s Van Wilder
Natural Born Killers
Night of the Comet
Night of Demons I
Night of Demons III
the Ninth Gate
Pan’s Labyrinth (Spanish w/English Subtitles)
the Phantom of the Opera
Phantoms
the Pick of Destiny (Tenacious D)
Pirates of the Caribbean
Pirates of the Caribbean II
Queen of the Damned
Radio
Red Sonja
Reform School Girls
Resident Evil
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Resident Evil: Extinction
the Ring (American Version)
the Rules of Attraction
Rundown
Saw
Schindler’s List
School of Rock
Shag
Signs
Silent Hill
Sin City
South Park: the Movie
Star Wars: A New Hope
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
Starry Night (Documentary)
Stigmata
Tank Girl
Teen Witch
Thirteen Ghosts
13th Warrior
Troy
28 Days Later
War of the Worlds (2006)
Witchboard

VHS Movie List
a Clockwork Orange
Clueless
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
the Fifth Element
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
the Mambo Kings
Mysteries of Deep Space (documentary)
Night of Demons II
Pearl Harbor
Shrek I
Shrek II
the Scorpion King
Sorority Boys
Speed
Tears of the Sun
Ticks
Tombstone
Trilogy of Terror II
We Were Soldiers
X-Men II

Children's Movie List
Alice in Wonderland
Cars
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Tim Burton)
Corpse Bride
Dumbo
Elf
Ever After
Fantasia
Finding Nemo
Flushed Away
James and the Giant Peach
Monster House
the Neverending Story I
the Neverending Story II
the Nightmare Before Christmas

TV and Miscellaneous Collections List
Dollman / Demonic Toys box set
Extra Weird Sampler
Garden of the Dead Zombie collection
Hercules: the Legendary Journeys season I
Hercules: the Legendary Journeys season II
Horror Classics
MXC: Most Extreme Elimination Challenge season I
MXC: Most Extreme Elimination Challenge season II
MXC: Most Extreme Elimination Challenge season III
Scared Stiff: 10 horror movies
South Park: Christmas Time in South Park
South Park season I
South Park season II
South Park season III
South Park: Timmy!
Xena: Warrior Princess season I
Xena: Warrior Princess season II

Concert and Music Videos List
Black Label Society: Boozed, Broozed, & Broken Boned
Cannibal Corpse: Monolith of Death Tour
Creed
Cypress Hill: Still Smokin’
Disturbed: M.O.L.
Fear Factory: Digital Connectivity (VHS)
In Flames: Used and Abused
Insane Clown Posse: Bootlegged in L.A.
Insnae Clown Posse: Shockumentary (VHS)
Insane Clown Posse: Wicked Wonka Tour
Korn Live
Motorhead: 25 & Alive
Nailbomb: Live at Dynamo
Pink Floyd: The Wall
Rammstein: Lichtspielhaus
Rammstein: Völkerball (Live in Paris)
Sepultura: Third World Chaos (VHS)
Slipknot: Disasterpieces
Soulfly: Conquer
Strapping Young Lad: For Those About to Rock

There's a Reason for Everything

Around 2:15 last night, a pair of low-grade fucknuggets walked up and down our street smashing windows out of certain cars that had the ill fortune of being parked along the curb. As I suggest in the title . . . but wait, what reasons are there behind this act? What reasons that the neighbors can understand and perhaps sympathize with? Who--besides maybe a 19th-century lawyer trained in rhetoric and public address--could narrate this tale of hooliganism with enough empathy and caring and respect to make us, the startled neighbors, understand the hooligans' motives?

I'm not up to that challenge. The bastards woke me up.

Boomerang Books

After a long wait, I have confirmed the validity of Richard Ford's autograph in my copy of Rock Springs. He seemed quite pleased that his autograph boomerang back to him. Next I'll have to get Roger to re-autograph my copy of Lost River. Then I'll track down Tim O'Brien and have him re-autograph my copy of The Things They Carried. After that, Barry Hannah can re-autograph Geronimo Rex, if he's not too crabby.

Liz said that it must be one of the most satisfying feelings an author can have, seeing one's own book many years later. To know that individual people are still reading your work. I agree. Sure, sales numbers or Amazon rankings can tell a writer that people are buying his books, but in a detached way, a commodified way, an impersonal and distant way. Mr. Ford asked me where I found Rock Springs. I said, "At a thrift shop in North Mankato. I paid a dollar for it." He smiled and chuckled at that, and said, "Well, I'm glad the book's not languishing somewhere."

Morning Unliveliness and a Chance Encounter with an Arachnid

Why does getting older come with diminished capacity to wake up in the morning? I don't suffer from "bright-eyed bushy-tailed" syndrome like I once did. A good shower will take care of this problem. Yesterday I saw Al Franken walk through the Student Union. In person, he looks like . . . Al Franken. He's that guy I watched on "Saturday Night Live" when I was a kid: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me." That guy. Richard Ford today. I plan to have autograph the copy of Rock Springs that he already autographed some time in the distant past. As soon as events set in motion that cannot be undone (shower, take a shot, eat). Yes that was a sentence fragment. A few minutes ago a wolf spider got tangled in the hair on my back. The legs tickled. Was the spider mountaineering on my office chair? Or did the spider fall from the ceiling with the misfortune of landing in the jungle? I have no problem with wolf spiders living in my office. I'm rather fond of them. But if it had been one of those goddamn Minnesota centipedes that look like a mustache, I would be wide awake at this point.

Alcohol Swabs and AAA Batteries

Who has ever noticed how STRESS and STRETCH are etymologically interchangeable? Time for breakfast. Dark bread PB&J with coffee. Furthermore, something unrelated to each previous sentence: Everyone should read William Maxwell's 1948 novel Time Will Darken It. If I didn't know any better I'd say the book is alive. Last night I read the first 108 pages in one sitting and had to force myself to go to bed. Time Will Darken It is going on my list of books that I cannot even begin to describe in a way that does justice to their beauty.

I will attempt to subject everyone I know to this movie

If you have never seen this movie, see this movie. If gory, gory movies make you queasy, maybe you should not see this movie. If you love comedies, you should see this movie. If you like stories wherein repressed family psychodrama explodes all over the screen, definitely see this movie. If you don't want to take my word for it, ask Matt Weertz. He has seen this movie. I have seen this movie about 50 times and I never get tired of it. It is one of Peter Jackson's finest works.

What the hell are you reading?

I am currently reading:

John McPhee's Irons in the Fire.
Vladimir Nabokov's Transparent Things.
William Maxwell's So Long, See You Tomorrow.

A few days ago I started and finished Martin Amis' House of Meetings.

I had better do the reading for contemporary poetry, too.

Obsolete and Neglected Words that should be resurrected once more (Part II) with a few strange words I've never encountered before

turpitude: n. 1. Base or shameful character; baseness, vileness; depravity, wickedness. b. with a and pl. An instance of this. c. Rendering the Latin turpitudo of the Vulgate: ‘nakedness’; ‘shame’. Obs. rare. 2. in lit. sense: Foulness, offensiveness, unsightliness. Obs. rare.

punnet: 1. Obs. rare. n. App.: a little pun. 2. n. A small light shallow container (originally made from strips or chips of wood) used esp. for strawberries, raspberries, mushrooms, and similar produce.

uxoriousness: n. The character or quality of being uxorious; doting or submissive fondness of one’s wife.

afeeble: v. To weaken, enfeeble. Obs.

affain: v. To feign to belong to (any one), to attribute ficticiously. Obs.

afel: n. Strength, physical force. Obs. [from the Old Norse]

afald: Obs. or dial. adj. 1. Single, singular, sole, only. Obs. 2. Simple, sincere, without duplicity; honest.

æstable: adj. ‘Belonging to summer.’ Obs.

gablock: Obs. exc. dial. n. [var. of gavelock.] 1. An artificial metallic spur for a fighting cock. Obs. 2. dial. An iron crowbar.

gadza: n. Obs. Some textile fabric.

gaig: v. Obs. [from local Scottish gaig (?) a cleft, chink (Jamaican English, which also gives geg n. and v. in the same senses.] trans. To chap, crack (earth). Only in pass.

Introversion

I know that people think I'm a bit odd. Strange. Intimidating sometimes. Okay with me, I suppose. Introverted people are like that. I don't know how many times someone has said to my wife, "You and your husband are so different, like complete opposites." (No one has ever said anything like this to me.) She loves people. I love people in small doses. I'm not unhappy, angry, irritated, depressed, annoyed, outraged, or anything else. If I were angry, you would know it instantly. Anyway, that's it.

Things that shape this writer's artistic vision

Flannery O'Connor's Mystery & Manners:

"The novelist must be characterized not by his function but by his vision, and we must remember that his vision has to be transmitted and that the limitations and blind spots of his audience will very definitely affect the way he is able to show what he sees." (47)

"The type of mind that can understand good fiction is not necessarily the educated mind, but it is at all times the kind of mind that is willing to have its sense of mystery deepened by contact with reality, and its sense of reality deepened by contact with mystery." (79)

"The writer has to judge himself with a stranger’s eye and a stranger’s severity. The prophet in him has to see the freak. No art is sunk in the self, but rather, in art the self becomes self-forgetful in order to meet the demands of the thing seen and the thing being made." (81-82)

"For him [the artist], to be reasonable is to find, in the object, in the situation, in the sequence, the spirit which makes it itself. This is not an easy or simple thing to do. It is to intrude upon the timeless, and that is only done by the violence of a single-minded respect for the truth." (82-83)

"The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can’t make something out of a little experience, you probably won’t be able to make it out of a lot. The writer’s business is to contemplate experience, not to be merged with it." (84)

"...sentimentality is an excess, a distortion of sentiment usually in the direction of an overemphasis on innocence, and that innocence, whenever it is overemphasized in the ordinary human condition, tends by some natural law to become its opposite." (147-148)

"Pornography, on the other hand, is essentially sentimental, for it leaves out the connection of sex with its hard purpose, and so far disconnects it from its meaning in life as to make it simply an experience for its own sake." (148)

Deleuze & Guattari's Anti-Oedipus:

". . . the human essence of nature and the natural essence of man become one within nature in the form of production or industry, just as they do within the life of man as a species . . . man and nature are not like two opposite terms confronting each other––not even in the sense of bipolar opposites within a relationship of causation, ideation, or expression (cause and effect, subject and object, etc.); rather, they are one and the same essential reality, the producer-product." (4-5)

"[Process] must not be viewed as a goal or an end in itself, nor must it be confused with an infinite perpetuation of itself. Putting an end to the process or prolonging it indefinitely––which, strictly speaking, is tantamount to ending it abruptly and prematurely––it what creates the artificial schizophrenic found in mental institutions: a limp rag forced into autistic behavior, produced as an entirely separate and independent entity." (5)

". . . when the theoretician reduces desiring-production to a production of fantasy, he is content to exploit to the fullest the idealist principle that defines desire as a lack, rather than a process of production, of "industrial" production. . . . If desire produces, its product is real. If desire is productive, it can be productive only in the real world and can produce only reality. . . . Desire does not lack anything; it does not lack its object. It is, rather, the subject that is missing in desire, or desire that lacks a fixed subject; there is no fixed subject unless there is repression. Desire and its object are one and the same thing." (26-27)

"The artist is the master of objects; he puts before us shattered, burned, broken-down objects, converting them to the régime of desiring-machines; the artist presents paranoiac machines, miraculating-machines, and celibate machines as so many technical machines, so as to cause desiring-machines to undermine technical machines. Even more important, the work of art itself is a desiring-machine. The artist stores up his treasures so as to create an immediate explosion, and that is why, to his way of thinking, destructions can never take place as rapidly as they ought to." (32)

"That is what style is, or rather the absence of style––asyntactic, agrammatical: the moment when language is no longer defined by what it says, even less by what makes it a signifying thing, but by what causes it to move, to flow, to explode––desire. For literature is like schizophrenia: a process and not a goal, a production and not an expression." (133)

"There is no longer any need for applying psychoanalysis to the work of art, since the work itself constitutes a successful psychoanalysis, a sublime 'transference' with exemplary collective virtualities." (134)

"The unconscious does not speak, it engineers. It is not expressive or representative, but productive." (180)

Ron Carlson's Ron Carlson Writes a Story:

"Vision, of course, is not teachable. What a person chooses to write about is not teachable. The passion a writer brings to the page is not teachable." (3)

"The process of writing a story, as opposed to writing a letter, or a research paper, or even a novel, is a process involving radical, substance-changing discovery. . . . I’ve also become convinced that a writer’s confidence in his/her process is as important as any accumulated craft dexterity or writing ‘skill.’" (4)

"How can you know what you know until you write it?" (10)

"Since I don’t know where I’m going, why would I hurry?" (41)

"Do we want a story to go elsewhere? Absolutely: elsewhere is our destination. We want the story to be true. We don’t want it to have a point, theme, doctrine. If we write the story well, those things will emerge--we can’t prevent it." (50)

"The single largest advantage a veteran writer has over the beginner is this tolerance for not knowing. It’s not style, skill, or any other dexterity. An experienced writer has been in those woods before and is willing to be lost; she knows that being lost is necessary for the discoveries to come. The seasoned writer waits, is patient, listens to her story as it talks to her." (15)

"We’re looking for the small acts that reveal character." (36)

"The assumption on the part of any writer that she is writing about people we all know (without explanation) is a useful one. It’s called not underestimating your audience; readers are terribly smart. It’s a relief and allows us to leave things out." (62)

My Own: Carlson’s "lost and loving it" metaphors are apt. One cannot experience mystery without being lost. Though I still think that typing out a first draft is risky, given the speed at which I type. By hand, however, a kind of patience takes over the writing process. Patient writing is obvious when you encounter it. Perhaps patience, stillness, and silence are things that should be presented repeatedly to undergraduate writers. Perhaps, also, undergraduate writers should have to experience the act of writing a story entirely by hand, so long as they are not physically incapable of doing so. [Right. Maybe I can teach Maude and Toby to square dance.]

Other (my own reflections):

Writing a story is not achieved by active, conscious manipulation of elements of the text. Rather, "trusting myself," as the metaphysical advice goes, means allowing the details of the story to come naturally without thinking about them. Do not go back and try to rewrite what you have written. Do not go back and try to connect the dots from point A to point B to C to D to E and so forth. Do not rely on theories, sociological, literary, political, theological, or otherwise to help you write the story. Do not rush through the writing of a story. By doing any of those things, a story cannot happen. A story cannot be crafted with craft alone. The story must take its shape first, be crafted second.

The Connect-the-dots writing process is similar to an inexperienced writer's effort to work overtly with symbol: it doesn't work. Connect-the-dots cannot happen in a character-driven story. The characters themselves make all the connections; the writer has to listen to the characters, not connect things. Characters in a story are real; the world in a story is real; the emotions, the objects, the words in a story are real. Characters have real motives and real agendas. Characters experience real emotions, real joys and real sorrows, real pain and real remorse. The reality of a narrative world and the characters who exist therein cannot be compromised. In this vein, I think that John Gardner’s "Vivid and continuous dream" is a metaphor that tries to explain the mystery, but lacks. Indeed, a dream seems very much like a story. But we wake up from dreams. Often, the narrative structure of a dream makes little sense. Listening to another person tell about a dream he had the other night can sometimes be an act of enormous patience. The narrative of a dream is full of holes and gaps, unexplainable things, unbelievable things. Stories are more than mere dreams. One's actual life is vivid and continuous, dreams can only seem that way.

Think of "trust" as an intransitive verb.

The reality of a story contains one kernel of absolute truth that is what the story is. The closest that a writer can approach to a story’s absolute truth is merely the best that the writer can do.

Eine große Liste

LAST UPDATE: 01-05-09

Abrams, M.H. et al (eds.). "The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Volume 2A: The Romantic Period."
Adams, Douglas. "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy."
Adams, Jane. "The Transformation of Rural Life: Southern Illinois, 1890-1990."
Agee, Jonis. "A .38 Special and a Broken Heart."
Aleith, R.C. "Bergsteigen: Basic Rock Climbing."
Alexie, Sherman. "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven."
Alexie, Sherman. "The Business of Fancydancing."
Alighieri, Dante. "The Divine Comedy."
Alinder, James and John Szarkowski (eds.). "Ansel Adams: Classic Images."
Allison, Dorothy. "Bastard out of Carolina."
Almond, Steve. "My Life in Heavy Metal."
Almond, Steve. "The Evil B.B. Chow and other stories."
Almond, Steve. "Candyfreak."
Amis, Martin. "The Information."
Amis, Martin. "The Rachel Papers."
Amis, Martin. "London Fields."
Amis, Martin. "Time’s Arrow."
Amis, Martin. "Yellow Dog."
Amis, Martin. "House of Meetings."
Amis, Martin. "Visiting Mrs. Nabokov."
Amis, Martin. "Einstein's Monsters."
Andersen, Hans Christian. "The Little Mermaid."
Ansay, A. Manette. "Read This and Tell Me What It Says."
Aristotle. "The Rhetoric and the Poetics."
Arnold, Matthew. "The Works of Matthew Arnold."
Arroyo, Fred. "The Region of Lost Names."
Atwood, Margaret. "The Handmaid’s Tale."
Atwood, Margaret. "Bluebeard’s Egg."
Atwood, Margaret. "Cat's Eye."
Atxaga, Bernardo. "Obabakoak."
Baldick, Chris (ed.). "The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales."
Bass, Rick. "The Diezmo."
Bass, Rick. "The Hermit’s Story."
Bass, Rick. "The Book of Yaak."
Babel, Isaac. "You Must Know Everything."
Bailey, Tom (ed.). "On Writing Short Stories."
Baker, James W. et al. "20th Century Bookkeeping & Accounting."
Ballard, J.G. "The Atrocity Exhibition."
Barney, Stephen A. "Word-Hoard: An Introduction to Old English Vocabulary."
Barthelme, Donald. "Sixty Stories."
Bartholomae, David and Anthony Petrosky. "Reading the Lives of Others: A Sequence for Writers."
Baumann, Mary K. et al. "What’s Out There: Images from the Edge of the Universe."
Baxter, Charles. "First Light."
Baxter, Charles. "A Relative Stranger."
Baxter, Charles. "Burning Down the House."
Baxter, Charles. "The Art of Subtext."
Beale, Walter H. "A Pragmatic Theory of Rhetoric."
Beattie, Ann. "Another You."
Beckett, Samuel. "First Love and other shorts."
Bei, Ai. "Red Ivy Green Earth Mother."
Bellow, Saul. "Collected Stories."
Benedict, Pinckney. "Town Smokes."
Benedict, Pinckney. "The Wrecking Yard."
Benedict, Pinckney. "Dogs of God."
Berkeley, George. "Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous."
Berthoff, Ann E. "Forming / Thinking / Writing: The Composing Imagination."
Birch, Cyril (ed.). "Anthology of Chinese Literature: From Early Times to the 14th Century."
Bloom, Harold et al. "Deconstruction & Criticism."
Bocock, Maclin. "Heaven Lies About."
Born, Max. "Einstein’s Theory of Relativity."
Borror, Donald J. "Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms."
Borrow, George. "Roving Adventures, or Lavengro, the Scholar-the Gipsy-the Priest."
Brewer, Robert Lee (ed.). "2008 Writer’s Market."
Bridwell, Tony. "It Happened in Minnesota."
Brontë, Charlotte. "Jane Eyre."
Brookner, Anita. "Hotel du Lac."
Brookner, Anita. "Fraud."
Brower, Daniel R. "The World in the Twentieth Century: From Empires to Nations, 4th Edition."
Brown, Stewart and John Wickham (eds.). "The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories."
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. "Sonnets from the Portugeuse."
Bryson, Bill. "In a Sunburned Country."
Bulgakov, Mikhail. "The Master and Margarita."
Butler, Robert Olen. "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain."
Caillois, Roger. "Man, Play and Games."
Canin, Ethan. "Emperor of the Air."
Canin, Ethan. "Carry Me Across the Water."
Canty, Kevin. "A Stranger in this World."
Carlin, George. "Napalm & Silly Putty."
Carlson, Ron. "Ron Carlson Writes a Story."
Carver, Raymond. "Fires."
Carver, Raymond. "No Heroics, Please."
Carver, Raymond and Tom Jenks (eds.). "American Short Story Masterpieces."
Casares, Oscar. "Brownsville."
Cervantes, Miguel. "Don Quixote de la Mancha."
Chaisson, Eric and Steve McMillan. "Astronomy: A Beginner’s Guide to the Universe, 4th Edition."
Charters, Ann. "The Story and its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction."
Cheever, John. "Falconer."
Cheever, John. "The World of Apples."
Chekhov, Anton. "The Portable Chekhov."
Chesterton, G.K. "Utopia of Userers and other Essays."
Chesterton, G.K. "Orthodoxy."
Christ, Carol et al (eds.). "The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Volume 2B: The Victorian Age."
Christ, Henry I. and Jerome Shostak (eds.). "Short Stories."
Cliff, Michelle. "Abeng."
Conarroe, Joel (ed.). "Eight American Poets: An Anthology."
Confucius. "The Analects."
Conrad, Joseph. "Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer."
Conrad, Joseph. "The Nigger of the Narcissus."
Coover, Robert. "The Origin of the Brunists."
Cordingly, David. "Under the Black Flag."
Cox, Michael and R.A. Gilbert (eds.). "Victorian Ghost Stories."
Crews, Harry. "A Feast of Snakes."
Crews, Harry. "Classic Crews: A Harry Crews Reader."
Crossley-Holland, Kevin (trans.). "The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology."
Cuddon, J.A. (ed.) "Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory."
Curtiss, David Raymond and Elton James Moulton. "Essentials of Trigonometry with Applications."
Danbom, David B. "Born in the Country: A History of Rural America."
Davis, Norman (ed.). "Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Primer, 9th Edition."
Dawid, Annie. "Lily in the Desert."
Dawson, Clayton L., et al. "Modern Russian I."
Dawson, Clayton L., et al. "Modern Russian II."
Decker, William Merrill. "Epistolary Practices: Letter Writing in America before Telecommunications."
Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. "Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia."
Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. "A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia."
Derrida, Jacques. "Of Grammatology."
Derrida, Jacques and Maurizio Ferraris. "A Taste for the Secret."
Descartes, René. "Meditations of First Philosophy."
Dexter, Pete. "Paris Trout."
Dexter, Pete. "God’s Pocket."
Dexter, Pete. "The Paperboy."
Dexter, Pete. "Train."
Didion, Joan. "The Year of Magical Thinking."
Dobyns, Stephen. "Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry."
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. "The Brothers Karamazov."
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. "Great Short Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky."
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. "Notes from Underground."
Drury, John. "The Poetry Dictionary."
Dubbe, Tom. "Nightmares and Secrets."
Dubus, Andre. "Dancing After Hours."
Dubus, Andre. "In the Bedroom."
Dunlop, Storm and Wil Tirion. "How to Identify the Night Sky."
Dunn, Katherine. "Geek Love."
Dunn, Katherine and Sean Tejarathci (ed.). "Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook."
Dunn, Stephen. "Different Hours."
Durrell, Martin et al. "Essential German Grammer."
Dybek, Stuart. "I Sailed With Magellan."
Ellison, Ralph. "Invisible Man."
Erdrich, Lise. "Night Train."
Evans, Donald G. "Good Memory After Bad."
Evans, Jorge. "Neighbors" (chapbook).
Ewen, Robert B. "An Introduction to Theories of Personality, 4th Edition."
Faulkner, William. "The Sound and the Fury."
Faulkner, William. "Light in August."
Faulkner, William. "Collected Stories."
Faulkner, William. "The Reivers."
Ferber, Peggy (ed.). "Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills."
Ferris, Joshua. "Then We Came to the End."
Finsand, Mary Jane et al. "Complete Diabetic Cookbook."
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. "The Great Gatsby."
Foltz, Ramon D. and Thomas A. Penn. "Protecting Scientific Ideas & Inventions, 2nd Edition."
Ford, Richard. "Rock Springs."
Foucault, Michel. "The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Volume I."
Foucault, Michel. "Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison."
Franklin, Tom. "Poachers."
Friedlander, Edward Jay and John Lee. "Feature Writing for Newspapers and Magazines."
Furman, Laura. "The Glass House."
Gardner, John. "Grendel."
Gardner, John. "October Light."
Gardner, John. "On Moral Fiction."
Gardner, John. "The Art of Fiction."
Gay, William. "I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down."
Germain, Deanna. "Reaching Past the Wire: A Nurse at Abu Ghraib."
Ghose, Zulfikar. "Figures of Enchantment."
Gibaldi, Joseph. "MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th Edition."
Gilbert, Elizabeth. "The Last American Man."
Gillespie, Paula and Neal Lerner. "The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring."
Gilliland, Gail. "The Demon of Longing."
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wall-Paper and other stories."
Gloeckner, Phoebe. "The Diary of a Teenage Girl."
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. "Faust."
Goffman, Erving. "Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity."
Goodwin, Ruby Berkley. "It’s Good To Be Black."
Goshgarian, Gary (ed.). "Exploring Language, 9th Edition."
Grass, Günter. "The Tin Drum."
Grass, Günter. "Die Blechtrommel." (in the German)
Grass, Günter. "Katz und Maus." (in the German)
Grass, Günter. "Crabwalk."
Grass, Günter. "The Flounder."
Grass, Günter. "The Günter Grass Reader."
Grattan, William. "Ghost Runners: A Novella."
Greene, Graham. "A Sense of Reality."
Griffith, Benjamin W. et al. "Barron’s Pocket Guide to Correct Grammar."
Grimes, Tom. "City of God."
Guerber, H.A. "The Myths of Greece and Rome."
Haddon, Mark. "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time."
Haddon, Mark. "A Spot of Bother."
Hall, J.R. Clark. "A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th Edition."
Hanh, Thich Nhat. "The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajñaparamita Heart Sutra."
Hannah, Barry. "Airships."
Hannah, Barry. "Bats out of Hell."
Hannah, Barry. "Geronimo Rex."
Hansen, Ron. "Nebraska."
Hansen, Ron and Jim Shephard. "You’ve Got To Read This."
Harding, Warren ‘Batso.’ "Downward Bound: A Mad! Guide to Rock Climbing."
Harper, Kenneth et al (eds.). "New Voices: Contemporary Soviet Short Stories." (in the Russian)
Harris, Elizabeth. "The Ant Generator."
Heaney, Seamus. "Selected Poems: 1966-1987."
Hemingway, Ernest. "For Whom the Bell Tolls."
Hemingway, Ernest. "The Short Stories."
Hemingway, Ernest. "The Sun Also Rises."
Hersch, Patricia. "A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence."
Heynen, Jim. "The Man Who Kept Cigars in His Cap."
Hirshfield, Jane. "Given Sugar, Given Salt."
Hobsbawm, Eric. "The Age of Empire: 1875-1914."
Hofstadter, Douglas R. "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid."
Hollander, John. "Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse."
Horrell, C. William, et al. "Land Between the Rivers: The Southern Illinois Country."
Hribal, C.J. "Matty’s Heart."
Hugo, Richard. "The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing."
Hume, David. "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding."
Hunter, Seb. "Hell Bent for Leather: Confessions of a Heavy Metal Addict."
Hutson, Jan. "The Chicken Ranch: The True Story of the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas."
Hyde, Lewis. "The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World."
Imhoff, Edgar Allen. "Always of Home: A Southern Illinois Childhood."
Irving, John. "The World According to Garp."
Irving, John. "A Prayer for Owen Meany."
Isaacson, Walter. "Einstein: His Life and Universe."
Ivanhoe, Philip J. and Bryan W. Van Norden (eds.). "Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy."
Jacobs, Harriet A. "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl."
Johnson, Denis. "Resuscitation of a Hanged Man."
Johnson, Denis. "Jesus’ Son."
Jones, Thom. "The Pugilist at Rest."
Joseph, Diana. "I’m Sorry You Feel That Way."
Joyce, James. "Dubliners."
Joyce, James. "Finnegan’s Wake."
Joyce, James. "Occasional, Critical, and Political Writing."
Kant, Immanuel. "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics."
Kant, Immanuel. "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals: On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns."
Kaplan, Charles and William Davis Anderson. "Criticism: Major Statements."
Kafka, Franz. "The Complete Stories."
Kahler, Erich. "The Inward Turn of Narrative."
Kennedy, William. "The Ink Truck."
Kennedy, William. "Ironweed."
Kennedy, William. "Legs."
Kennedy, William. "The Flaming Corsage."
Kim, Scott. "Inversions."
Kincaid, Jamaica. "Annie John."
Klaits, Joseph. "Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch Hunts."
Klosterman, Chuck. "Fargo Rock City."
Klosterman, Chuck. "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs."
Kolln, Martha. "Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects."
Koplowitz, H.P. "Carbondale After Dark and other stories."
Kovach, Bill and Tom Rosenthal. "The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect."
Krakauer, Jon. "Into Thin Air."
Krakauer, Jon. "Into The Wild."
Kramer, Kathryn. "A Handbook for Visitors from Outer Space."
Kundera, Milan. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being."
Kundera, Milan. "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting."
Kuusisto, Stephen, et al (eds.). "The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of Contemporary American Poets."
Larrington, Carolyne (trans.). "The Poetic Edda."
Lauter et al. "The Heath Anthology of American Literature."
Lee, Li-Young. "Rose."
Leonard, Elmore. "Freaky Deaky."
Lerner, Betsy. "The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers."
Leser, Hartmut et al. "Diercke: Wörterbuch der Allgemeinen Geographie Band 2 N-Z." (in the German)
Lipking, Lawrence et al (eds.). "The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Volume 1C: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century."
Locke, John. "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding."
Lukács, Georg. "A Defence of History and Class Consciousness: Tailism and the Dialectic."
Lynds, Dennis. "Talking to the World."
Machiavelli, Niccolo. "The Prince and the Discourses."
Madden, Charles F. (ed.) "Talks With Authors."
Mailer, Norman. "The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing."
Malamud, Bernard. "The Stories of Bernard Malamud."
Mann, Thomas. "Death in Venice and seven other stories."
Manning, Martha. "Chasing Grace: Reflections of a Catholic Girl, Grown Up."
Mansfield, Peter. "A History of the Middle East."
Mao Tse-Tung. "On Practice and Contradiction."
Márquez, Gabriel García. "The General in His Labyrinth."
Márquez, Gabriel García. "One Hundred Years of Solitude."
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. "The Communist Manifesto."
Mascaró, Juan (trans.). "The Upanishads."
Maxwell, William. "So Long, See You Tomorrow."
Maxwell, William. "Time Will Darken It."
Maxwell, William. "All the Days and Nights."
McCarthy, Cormac. "The Orchard Keeper."
McCarthy, Cormac. "Outer Dark."
McCarthy, Cormac. "Blood Meridian."
McCarthy, Cormac. "All the Pretty Horses."
McCarthy, Cormac. "No Country for Old Men."
McDonald, Russ. "The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents."
McMath, Robert C. "American Populism: A Social History 1877-1898."
McMurtry, Larry. "Lonesome Dove."
McMurtry, Larry. "Roads."
McPhee, John. "Irons in the Fire."
McPhee, John. "Uncommon Carriers."
Melville, Herman. "Moby-Dick."
Melville, Herman. "Billy Budd and other stories."
Merwin, W.S. "The Second Four Books of Poems."
Meyer, Milton W. "Japan: A Concise History, 3rd Edition."
Michaels, Leonard. "Going Places."
Miller, Barbara Stoler (trans.). "The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War."
Miller, Henry. "Tropic of Cancer."
Miller, Henry. "Tropic of Capricorn."
Milton, John. "The Complete Poems."
Minot, Susan. "Lust & Other Stories."
Mohlenbrock, Robert H. and John W. Voigt. "A Flora of Southern Illinois."
Moore, Lorrie. "Birds of America."
Morrison, Toni. "Tar Baby."
Mosko, Lauren (ed.). "2008 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market."
Munro, Alice. "Runaway."
Nabokov, Vladimir. "Glory."
Nabokov, Vladimir. "Lolita."
Nabokov, Vladimir. "Pale Fire."
Nabokov, Vladimir. "Pnin."
Nabokov, Vladimir. "Transparent Things."
Nabokov, Vladimir. "Look at the Harlequins!"
Nabokov, Vladimir. "Details of a Sunset and Other Stories."
Nabokov, Vladimir. "Ada, or Ardor."
Neiman, Susan. "Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy."
Neely, Charles (collected by). "Tales and Songs of Southern Illinois."
New World Bible Translation Committee. "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures."
Nietzsche, Friedrich. "The Birth of Tragedy."
Nunez, Elizabeth. "Beyond the Limbo Silence."
Oates, Joyce Carol (ed.). "The Oxford Book of American Short Stories."
O’Brien, Tim. "The Things They Carried."
O’Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find."
O’Connor, Flannery. "Three by Flannery O’Connor."
O’Connor, Flannery. "Mystery and Manners."
Olmstead, Robert. "River Dogs."
O'Reilley, Mary Rose. "The Love of Impermanent Things."
Ormes, Robert. "Guide to the Colorado Mountains."
Orwell, George. "Animal Farm & 1984."
Orwell, George. "The Collected Essays."
Paley, Grace. "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute."
Paterniti, Michael. "Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain."
Peterson, Roger Tory. "Birds of Eastern and Central North America."
Petterson, Per. "Out Stealing Horses."
Phillips, Jayne Anne. "Fast Lanes."
Phillips, John Bruce. "Computer Methods in the Study of Chromatographic Processes (Dissertation.)"
Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Fall of the House of Usher and other writings."
Pope, Alexander. "Selected Poetry."
Pope, John C. (ed.). "Eight Old English Poems."
Potter, Beatrix. "The Peter Rabbit Library."
Powell, Padgett. "Edisto."
Powell, Padgett. "Typical."
Powell, Padgett. "Aliens of Affection."
Prather, Hugh. "I touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me."
Prigogine, Ilya and Isabelle Stengers. "Order out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature."
Prose, Francine. "Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them."
Proulx, Annie. "Close Range."
Rauch, Mabel Thompson. "The Little Hellion."
Rahula, Walpola. "What the Buddha Taught."
Redd, Teresa M. and Karen Schuster Webb. "A Teacher’s Introduction to African-American English: What a Teacher Should Know."
Regan, Stephen (ed.). "Irish Writing: An Anthology of Irish Literature in English 1789-1939."
Rich, Adrienne. "An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991."
Richard, Mark. "The Ice at the Bottom of the World."
Rilke, Rainer Maria. "Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus."
Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. "Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics."
Rushdie, Salmon. "The Satanic Verses."
Sagan, Carl. "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark."
Satrapi, Marjane. "Persepolis."
Satrapi, Marjane. "Persepolis 2."
Schachner, Robert W. "The Official Scrabble Word-Finder."
Scholes, Robert and Robert Kellogg. "The Nature of Narrative."
Sedaris, David. "Naked."
Sedaris, David. "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim."
Shakespeare, William. "The Merchant of Venice."
Shakespeare, William. "Twelfth Night."
Shakespeare, William. "Troilus and Cressida."
Shakespeare, William. "The Comedy of Errors."
Shakespeare, William. "Henry IV, part I."
Shakespeare, William. "Henry IV, part II."
Shakespeare, William. "The Taming of the Shrew."
Shakespeare, William. "Hamlet."
Shakespeare, William. "The Tempest."
Shakespeare, William. "Measure for Measure."
Shakespeare, William. "Much Ado About Nothing."
Shakespeare, William. "Macbeth."
Sharpless, Rebecca. "Fertile Ground, Narrow Choices: Women on Texas Cotton Farms, 1900-1940."
Sheffer, Roger. "Lost River."
Sheffer, Roger. "Music of the Inner Lakes."
Smith, Zadie. "White Teeth."
Sneed, Glenn J. "Ghost Towns of Southern Illinois."
Stevick, Philip. "Anti-Story: An Anthology of Experimental Fiction."
Strand, Mark and Eavan Boland. "The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms."
Strunk, William and E.B. White. "The Elements of Style."
Stull, William L. and Maureen P. Carroll. "Remembering Ray: A Composite Biography of Raymond Carver."
Sun-tzu, Ralph D. Sawyer (trans.). "The Art of War."
Swift, Jonathon. "Gulliver’s Travels."
Szatmary, David P. "Shay’s Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection."
Teichert, Herman and Lovette. "Allerlei zum Lesen."
Terrell, Peter et al (eds.). "Webster’s New World German Dictionary."
Thomas, Abigail. "Getting Over Tom."
Thompson, Hunter S. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
Thompson, Hunter S. "Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail ‘72."
Thompson, Hunter S. "Hell’s Angels."
Thon, Melanie Rae. "First, Body."
Thoreau, Henry David. "Civil Disobedience and other essays."
Tolkien, J.R.R. "The Hobbit."
Tolkien, J.R.R. "The Lord of the Rings."
Tolkien, J.R.R. "Morgoth’s Ring."
Tolkien, J.R.R. "Unfinished Tales."
Tolkien, J.R.R. "The Silmarillion."
Tolkien, J.R.R. (trans.) "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Pearl; Sir Orfeo."
Tolstoy, Leo. "A Confession."
Tolstoy, Leo. "War and Peace (Abridged)."
Trethewey, Natasha. "Bellocq’s Ophelia."
Trowbridge, William. "The Complete Book of Kong."
Turow, Joseph and Andrea L. Kavanaugh (eds.). "The Wired Homestead."
Twain, Mark. "Life on the Mississippi."
Twain, Mark. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
Twain, Mark. "The Complete Short Stories."
Twain, Mark. "A Pen Warmed Up in Hell."
Twain, Mark (ed.). "Mark Twain’s Library of Humor."
Tyson, Lois. "Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide."
Uusi, Hillar and Veljo Ranniku. "Estonian Northern Coast." (in the English, Estonian, Russian?)
Vonnegut, Kurt. "Bagombo Snuff Box."
Vonnegut, Kurt. "Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons."
Vonnegut, Kurt. "Slaughterhouse-five."
Vonnegut, Kurt. "Cat’s Cradle."
Wagner, Erica. "Ariel’s Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and the Story of Birthday Letters."
Waller, Robert James. "Old Songs in a New Cafe."
Watson, Catherine. "Home on the Road: Further Dispatches from the Ends of the Earth."
Weaver, Constance. "Teaching Grammar in Context."
Weiss, Daniele Evan. "The Great Divide: How Females and Males Really Differ."
Wells, Rebecca. "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood."
Westmoreland, Timothy. "Good as Any: Stories."
White, Ray and Duane Lindsay (eds.). "How I Got Published: Famous Authors Tell You in Their Own Words."
Wideman, John Edgar. "Brothers and Keepers."
Wiesel, Elie. "Conversations with Elie Wiesel."
Wight, Frederick S. "Goya."
Williams, Frederick (ed. & trans.). "A Cry of Kings: Six Greek Dramas in Modern English."
Williams, John A. "!Click Song."
Williams, Joy. "Honored Guest."
Williams, Joy. "Escapes."
Williams, Joy. "Taking Care."
Williams, Joy. "The Changeling."
Williams, Joy. "The Quick and the Dead."
Williams, Joy. "State of Grace."
Williams, Joy. "Ill Nature."
Williams, William Carlos. "Imaginations."
Williams, William Carlos. "The Collected Poems: Volume I, 1909-1939."
Williford, Lex and Michael Martone (eds.). "The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction."
Wilson, Leigh Allison. "From the Bottom Up."
Wilson, Leigh Allison. "Wind."
Wolff, Tobias (ed.). "The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories."
Woodruff, Jay (ed.). "A Piece of Work: Five Writers Discuss Their Revisions."
Woods, Geraldine. "English Grammar for Dummies."
World Service Office, Inc. "Narcotics Anonymous, 5th Edition."
Wylie, Philip. "Generation of Vipers."
Yakobson, Helen. "Conversational Russian: An Intermediate Course."
Zamyatin, Yevgeny. "We."
Žižek, Slavoj. "Organs Without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences."
Žižek, Slavoj. "The Indivisible Remainder: On Schelling and Related Matters."
Žižek, Slavoj. "The Metastases of Enjoyment: On Women and Causality."
Žižek, Slavoj. "Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle."
Žižek, Slavoj. "Welcome to the Desert of the Real."