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."
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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."
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Faulkner, William. "Light in August."
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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."
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Ford, Richard. "Rock Springs."
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Hutson, Jan. "The Chicken Ranch: The True Story of the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas."
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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."
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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."
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Mansfield, Peter. "A History of the Middle East."
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McCarthy, Cormac. "Outer Dark."
McCarthy, Cormac. "Blood Meridian."
McCarthy, Cormac. "All the Pretty Horses."
McCarthy, Cormac. "No Country for Old Men."
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McMurtry, Larry. "Roads."
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McPhee, John. "Uncommon Carriers."
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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."
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Miller, Henry. "Tropic of Cancer."
Miller, Henry. "Tropic of Capricorn."
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Minot, Susan. "Lust & Other Stories."
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Moore, Lorrie. "Birds of America."
Morrison, Toni. "Tar Baby."
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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."
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O’Brien, Tim. "The Things They Carried."
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O’Connor, Flannery. "Three by Flannery O’Connor."
O’Connor, Flannery. "Mystery and Manners."
Olmstead, Robert. "River Dogs."
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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."
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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."
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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."
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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."
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Sheffer, Roger. "Music of the Inner Lakes."
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Thompson, Hunter S. "Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail ‘72."
Thompson, Hunter S. "Hell’s Angels."
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Tolkien, J.R.R. "The Lord of the Rings."
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Syringes to the nth power

After giving the question some thought (and some math), I would guess that I have used anywhere from 4,000 to 5,000 syringes in the past four years. I have poked myself several thousand times within that timeframe. If I live to 50, I suppose I will have poked myself another 33,580 times. Give or take. (I'm not looking for symapthy: I'm used to poking myself. It would be weird if all of the sudden I didn't have to do it anymore. I'm just impressed by the numbers.)

Addendum: Who else is terrified of needles? I know I am. Every time I pay a visit to the phlebotomist I cannot watch the blood being drawn from my arm, and the pinching sensation that persists while the needle is inside me makes me feel queasy...even just thinking about it.

Addendum II: You don't need to say it; we're a bunch of pussies compared to the pain of, say, childbirth, kidney stones, or a long slow freeze.

Addendum III: ...And in all that time, I only had to reuse one syringe. I was at Denny's. I had forgotten to grab a clean syringe before we left home. There was a dirty one in the glucometer pack. It made me squirm.

One of the best writers you've never heard of?

More information on Leonard Michaels can be found here. As well as here & here.

Opening Paragraph: The "wow" of Leonard Michaels

I can't let up with Leonard Michaels, not yet. Here is the opener of his story "Manikin"

"At the university she met a Turk who studied physics and spoke foreigner's English which in every turn expressed the unnatural desire to seize idiom and make it speak just for himself. He worked nights as a waiter, summers on construction gangs, and shot pool and played bridge with fraternity boys in order to make small change, and did whatever else he could to protect and supplement his university scholarship, living a mile from campus in a room without sink or closet or decent heating and stealing most of the food he ate, and when the University Hotel was robbed it was the Turk who had done it, an act of such speed the night porter couldn't say when it happened or who rushed in from the street to bludgeon him so murderously he took it in a personal way. On weekends the Turk tutored mediocrities in mathematics and French . . ."

What an opening paragraph [should be]

The opening paragraph of "The Deal" by Leonard Michaels:

"Twenty were jammed together on the stoop; tiers of heads made one central head, and the wings rested along the banisters: a raggedy monster of boys studying her approach. Her white face and legs. She passed without looking, poked her sunglasses against the bridge of her nose and tucked her bag between her arms and ribs. She carried it at her hip like a rifle stock. On her spine forty eyes hung like poison berries. Bone dissolved beneath her lank beige silk, and the damp circle of her belt cut her in half. Independent legs struck toward the points of her shoes. Her breasts lifted and rode the air like porpoises. She would cross to the grocery as usual, buy cigarettes, then cross back despite their eyes. As if the neighborhood hadn't changed one bit. She slipped the bag forward to crack it against her belly and pluck out keys and change. In the gesture she was home from work. Her keys jangled in the sun as if they opened everything and the air received her. The monster, watching, saw the glove fall away."

Wow. Jesus.

How many of these goddamn things have I used in the past four years?

Here we see "The March to War." Twelve syringes marching in formation, arrow-shaped.

And here is the more traditional Syringe Bouquet. As small as it is, it makes a poor centerpiece, but a decent accent.

The 2:00 a.m. question

Now what in the hell am I supposed to do with a Ziploc bag full of 100-unit syringes? Play darts?

Another List for the List of Lists

Some books the writer has read, not in part but in whole, this summer:

Joshua Farris, Then We Came to the End. At first, the first-person plural was hard to get used to. A bit annoying. But as you read on the perspective opens up to you, befitting life in an office. You are not "one of us" at first. But if you stay with it, you become one of us. We becomes like a more intimate third-person, capable of separating individual pieces of itself from the group as need demands.
Martin Amis, Time's Arrow. A book I recommend everyone read. Never before have I seen the depths of depravity turned so completely upside-down (backwards, that is) as to render the Holocaust as "the fires of creation." From a writer's perspective, the dual narrative is admirable and a great accomplishment; but I am left wondering: how could one make a third-person narrative move completely backward without relying on the narrator "speaking for"? (I am seriously considering studying Time's Arrow for the Comps.)
Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin. I have not read a Nabokov novel that I have not enjoyed immensely. Beyond admirable in Pnin is how Nabokov can get away with long, long stretches of exposition that do not bore. The details are lucid and vibrant and alive. And frankly, I don't care that I have to keep a notecard handy: so many strange and unfamiliar words, bizarre novelties they are, that I have to write down so I can look them up later. Of course, Timofey Pnin himself could be your grandpa or mine, despite (or perhaps as a consequence of) his stumbling along through small-town-college America. Artificial teeth, stubbornness, polite gruffness, gruff politeness...
Steve Almond, My Life in Heavy Metal. Henry Miller is the only other writer I can think of who so carefully believes in sex on the page. I paid close attention to the title story, in particular Almond's use of sensory verbs, the accumulation of small details, and release...of information. I can't help it: I think of this story and it's gushing Mexican mermaid, and it's so perfect that everything I read or write becomes a minor sexual pun. Almond's obsession runs through the book: the gushing lifeguard; the grimy Polish girl; two Greek women fistfighting in the street; pierced, youthful, Chinese Ling; and, of course, the Republican operative.
Tom Franklin, Poachers. This collection shows how at ease Franklin is with voice and dialect and colloquialisms. But, such is Alabama. Voices throughout the collection call to mind the variance of voice in Barry Hannah's stories (Bats out of Hell, Airships). Many of Franklin's characters succeed beautifully at failure, fail beautifully at success. But their redeeming moments are powerful. The fuel storage tank inspector, in the story "Dinosaurs," when he drives off with the gigantic stuffed rhinoceros...the moment just stays with you. The title-novella creates such suspense that all the unanswered questions don't seem to matter any by the end.

I am rubbing my hands together in anticipation. I am reading Martin Amis' Yellow Dog, roughly two-thirds of the way to the end. Coming soon in the mail: Nabokov's Glory; and Martin Amis' Einstein's Monsters.