what I wrote

Why Babar and a centaur are on a chart of animal brain-to-body mass, and all you ever wanted to know about Edward Tufte. Read the books. I'll loan them to you if you ask nicely.

12 June 2007 ~

la la la

Is it just me, or is anyone else concerned about how globalized the anti-globalization movement has become? It seems to be increasingly fashionable to take protest vacations wherever the G8/UN/NATO summit is being held. Anti-globalization czars/gurus/consultants can count on ever-increasing numbers of demonstrators thanks to the worldwide network of mass-market transportation systems. And everyone protesting gets to showcase products made in the world's textile mills/sweatshops by dressing casually, in camo/black/colorful clothing, with bandanas/hats/jester caps. Where is the "cottage-industry" anti-globalization of yesteryear? Where those who had something to complain about did so from home, naked, or in spats?

Paris Hilton was in prison, and apparently got out really fast, but she kept a diary while she was there. It's like, totally litterate.

For those of you keeping count, Dr. J made the front page of Arts & Letters Daily yesterday (the Auden article in the r.h. column).

7 June2007 ~

reimaging shakespeare

It doesn't get much different than this.

Also, for those of you who wonder what I'm doing currently: root-beer floats.

5 June 2007 ~

i have a new bike

because my old one got stolen two weeks ago when Ben & I were hiking House Mountain. It was a really nice hike; there was a week-long brush fire on the north slope last month, so parts of the ridge had a moonscape feel. There were some narrow bulldozer tracks along the top, too, so the fire must have been fairly serious, but from further off you couldn't really tell that anything had occurred. Spring was doing a pretty good job of covering up.

We saw a pod of caterpillars emerging and returning from a silky nest wedged into the fork of a tree. They must have just hatched, because they were all over the place; other nests (cocoons?) we saw were empty. There were a couple of colorful millipedes running around, too.

For some reason, I'm thinking I saw a fox; but I know I didn't. It must have been somewhere else recently.

Anyways, when we got back down to the bottom I had this feeling that maybe my bike wasn't there any more, and I was right. Bummer. I was because I'd planned on taking the next day (Saturday) to go ride some of the bike paths around town, and now I couldn't.

The good news is that I found a bike for sale on Craigslist the next weekend and got there first. It's about twice the size of my old bike, and I'm going to hurt myself in a bad way if I ever fall off the seat onto the top tube, but it's practically brand-new! I can barely feel the chain; and new tires are so much smoother than worn-down ones. After three years with the old bike, I was sort of looking around for a new one; I didn't expect to be forced to buy one, though.

10 May 2007 ~

with extremely low ceilings, subjects focused on the sharp head pain

Today the bosses & office staff took off to attend a motivational seminar. Go positive thinking! Here, in a totally unrelated news item, is "business science" at work:

"When a person is in a space with a 10-foot ceiling, they will tend to think more freely, more abstractly," said Meyers-Levy. "They might process more abstract connections between objects in a room, whereas a person in a room with an 8-foot ceiling will be more likely to focus on specifics."

I work in crawlspaces, and I'm happy if I get out with a mild concussion and no significant loss of blood.

26 April 2007 ~

unsuggestions

The CofHE [yes, that would be the Church of Heathen England] has turned up the following wonderful waste of time. Go find out what you won't like reading. Caveat lector, of course. I already have quarrel with some of the front-page examples. I'm not sure how they turned the Lauren Winner vs. Milan Kundera deathmatch into an either/or. Can't everybody win?

Here's my favorite search from my first five minutes. This one is also pretty good. And of course.

17 April 2007 ~

snoop in da house

"It's a completely different scenario," said Snoop, barking over the phone from a hotel room in L.A. "[Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We're talking about ho's that's in the 'hood that ain't doing sh--, that's trying to get a n---a for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC [which announced Wednesday it would drop its simulcast of Imus' radio show] going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them mutha----as say we in the same league as him."

interviewin wit MTV

13 April 2007 ~

not with a bang but a whimper

There's nothing so depressingly old-fashioned as a 30-year-old recording of baroque music. But one vital element is still missing. Handel operas live or die by the singing, and we're not hearing what really thrilled his original audiences: the male castrato voice. In the early days of the Handel opera revival, the castrato parts tended to be transposed down an octave for tenors. Now they're usually given to male countertenors or to women. Whatever gender-bending solution we choose, it won't be the real thing until some enlightened Home Secretary decides that our streets could be made safer by castrating a few hoodies and teaching them to sing.

Andrew Huth reviewing Handel for The Guardian

8 April 2007 ~

bad french pun to use when perfect situation arises

Jeunesse a quoi.

4 April 2007 ~

my sweet jesus

Unavoidably, I spend Holy Week contemplating because things out there don't fit with things in here. Every year I find it is art that focuses my thoughts and forces me to confront the hard truths of the season. I've gotten a good dose of that the last few days, thanks in no small part to the "Chocolate Jesus" scandal. I do believe it is a scandal, but in the Mark Noll sense of the word: a testament to something horribly wrong.

A description of the artwork, first. Intended to display this week inside a New York hotel, life-size, it is the nude body, of Christ, arms pinned out, reaching for their place on an invisible cross. The work is titled "My Sweet Jesus." It is made entirely of chocolate.

Protests were inevitable. They came from Catholic groups, including the NYC Archbishop Edward Egan. It was claimed that this sculpture offensively parodied the eucharist. After several days of protest the exhibition was canceled. I'm not sure I understand why this was desirable.

Why object to this image of controversy, and yes, insult, but image of Christ nonetheless? The more I think about this sculpture, the more powerful it grows. It may be powerful despite the artist's intentions (which I do not know).

Consider the material: chocolate. Indigenous to the Americas, the use of this material places this work in our world, in our country and culture.

Consider the use of chocolate. As a food, for therapy and rejuvenation; as zit-giving, as fattening, as addiction.

Consider the word 'chocolate.' As a reference to skin-tone, it remind us that Christ was not blond & blue-eyed.

Consider the culture and season. Consider the millions of pounds of chocolate rabbits lining the aisles of stores. Consider how each of them will be bought and consumed.. Consider how powerless they are to give lasting hope. Consider how this will happen again next year.

Consider some faithful individual who has given up chocolate for Lent. Consider those who should have given up chocolate for Lent. Consider those who could not. Consider those who gave up nothing at all.

Consider all those who see in this type of Christ a good and wonderful thing, disfigured and wasted; a pleasing and disturbing offering.

2 April 2007 ~

Lullaby for the Cat


	Minnow, go to sleep and dream,
	    Close your great big eyes;
	Round your bed Events prepare
		The pleasantest surprise.
			
	Darling Minnow, drop that frown,
		Just cooperate,
	Not a kitten shall be drowned
		In the Marxist State.
			
	Joy and Love will both be yours,
		Minnow, don't be glum.
	Happy days are coming soon--
		Sleep, and let them come . . .	

				~ Elizabeth Bishop

25 March 2007 ~

a view from my room

E.M Forster can't have been a perfectionist, for he wrote a flawless novel every time. I'm currently burrowing through the compounded edition of A Room With a View and Howards End, and have been struck by how much direct authorial comments a good writer can get away with. Some chapters are all analysis and admonition. Also, I'm sure I read A Passage to India again recently, but I can't find any record of it.

Meanwhile, on the authorial conspiracy theory front: a hint, and only a hint, that Forster's Collected Works might be one work in several novels (I have yet to read his two earliest). In Howards End, Meg, hoping to induce Mrs. Wilcox to stay longer after a dinner party, mentions that "Miss Quested plays [the piano]." I'm not sure if it could be the same Miss Adela Quested of APtI as HE definitely takes place before WW1; the chronology of India is vaguer. Later in HE, Tibby notes that a "Mr. Vyse" is the specimen of manhood to which he aspires. Meg calls him "wretched and weedy"; from Tibby's scant defense we hear that Mr. Vyse is "free of any profession", which suggests that he is a bachelor. Grant this deduction, and it seems probable that Mr. Vyse is the Cecil Vyse of A Room With a View: Lucy Honeychurch's arrogant, thrice-rejected suitor, who had proposed to bring Lucy into contact with high-thinking London society. Here he is, perhaps, a few years later, surfacing in the conversation of other lives. Whether Forster meant to revisit his characters or not, I think more highly of him for it.

20 March 2007 ~

the other anna

I've started reading Anna Akhmatova, which is a difficult occupation. I may have to learn the sounds of the Cyrillic alphabet to hear what she's up to. Imagine a Russian Emily Dickinson: like Emily in her self-controlled style; Russian in her forcefulness. Sister, perhaps, to the Emily Dickinson of her letters.

At this moment I have to report wonderful poetry thanks to the translation work of Lyn Coffin, who makes Akhmatova's lines sound sublime in English. Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward do a passable job and include the originals on the facing page, which tempts me to defect, or take a class in Russian. But I need to stress one thing: Do not even bother with Richard McKane; he decided against rhyming his quatrains. I say his quatrains because of versions like this of her early untitled lyric:

Today they brought no letter for me; he forgot to write or maybe went away; spring like a trill of silver laughter, in the bay the ships rock. Today they brought no letter for me . . . .

Those stresses missing from the middle lines make it sound a little rough. By the time the word "rock" surfaces I feel as though I rode through them. Here's Lyn Coffin's version of the entire poem for comparison; and see how she turns that third line into gold--which it should be, being the key into the second stanza, and then to the whole poem:

They didn't bring me a letter today: He forgot to write, or went on one of his trips; Spring's the trill of silver laughter on his lips, I see the boats in the harbor sway. They didn't bring me a letter today . . . Not long ago he was with me still, Expressly enamored, amorous, and mine, But that was when winter gave off a white shine, Now it's spring and the sadness of spring can kill, Not long ago he was with me still . . . I listen: a light, trembling blow strikes home, It beats, beats, as if premortal pain were cause, Now I fear my heart will break its bonds like laws Before I can finish this tender poem . . .

Can anyone recommend a good edition of the poems of Boris Pasternak, or shall I have to make my own? He got me into this Russian literature in the first place.

10 March 2007 ~

and in tonight's acceptance speech

I would like to thank the Girl Scouts of America: for their groundbreaking research in high-density non-fissile materials which has enabled them to cram more fat per cookie than once thought safely possible; for their dedicated marketing staff who ensure that Americans will voluntarily choose self-obesity so that young girls can go to summer camp; and for their practical in-home demonstrations on the uselessness of willpower.

8Mar2007 (really) ~

books!

A list of books.

8 March 2007 ~

folk music

A list, in no particular order, of people I think about when I hear certain songs:

Anything by Nirvana: Nick Boyle

Anything by Oasis: James Domine

"Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer: Christopher Johann Cumings (trussed in duct-tape and Christmas-tree lights, oddly enough!). [I heard it starting to play on a distant radio just before lunch today.]

"Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House (had to look that band up): Matthew Bales. [Caught the tail end of this last week as the workday was winding down.]

I realize some of you are thinking, "Hey, don't you associate any or all Billy Joel songs with me?" The answer is no.

5 March 2007 ~

what hasn't been happening

The bit where I sit down and disappear into a book hasn't happened for a while. Also the bit where I find something to blog about even when there isn't anything, that bit is on its last legs. Even Alvin Plantinga going after Richard Dawkins was, in its own way, unspectacular.

So I'm going to go to sleep now and perhaps I'll be awake in the morning. Maybe I'll finish my taxes, or something exciting like that.

23 February 2007 ~

well some times my life

just don't make sense at all
When the mountains look so big
And my faith just seems so small

So hold me Jesus
'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my Glory
Won't you be my Prince of Peace?

--Rich Mullins

18 February 2007 ~

the great global warming conspiracy

Wednesday night, as I was about to leave work, I walked into the following soliloquy [which I will now proceed to rant about. Consider yourself warned. Go read about childcare instead.]:

"My kid came back from third grade last week and said 'Guess what, Dad? We learned about global warming today. Can you help me with my homework.' So I sat down with him and went through his worksheet with him so he'd get a good grade, and when that was done I told him 'I want you to know that you don't need to believe any of this' and then I wrote a note to his teacher saying 'I don't mind you teaching this to my son as long as you're providing evidence for this global warming and as long as you present both sides equally' and she wrote back the next day and said 'Well, I know but it's in the curriculum so we have to teach it.' I mean, it's like evolution. You wouldn't want stuff like that being forced on your kids, would you? There was this teacher in Washington [State] who tried to show Al Gore's film [An Inconvenient Truth] and they fired her, which is what they should have done."

How do you teach both sides of everything, especially when one side seems, like Goliath, to have--gasp!--actual evidence deployed against the David of your uniformed bias? Not to fear. Here's my concise guide to Hot Topics presented with educational fairness and balance:

The Big Bang
Point: The Big Bang, a theory of the formation of the universe, was initially proposed by physicist and priest Georges Lemaitre. Despite opposition from some astrophysicists (Fred Hoyle, among others) that the theory was covertly religious because it pointed to an instant of creation, it has been substantiated by the measurement of cosmic microwave background radiation.
Counterpoint: Typical atheist scientist way of denying the existence of God by making up some theory.

The Age of the Earth
Point: Geologists study rocks. Rocks form in layers. The tectonic plates move rock layers around like a drunk shuffling a deck of cards. If you examine the order of the layers, you can see that rocks on Plate A used to be best buddies with rocks on Plate B. Now they're Scotland and Nova Scotia. At their current rate of movement (a few cm every year) they must have been separated a long time. Their publicists say they have no plans to get back together. (Incidentally, humans and dinosaurs missed each other by a couple million years.)
Counterpoint: If you get out your book of Genesis, and read everything literally, but do your sums with a faulty calculator, you'll see that the earth was created in exactly 4004 BC. (Incidentally, the dinosaurs were too big to make it onto the Ark.)

Evolution
Point: Over the course of 4 billion or so years, a whole host of conditions operating on this earth have brought about an amazing variety of living organisms. Nematode, oak tree, cat, and humans share the same starting point; we all ended up looking so different due to repeated mutation over time. Analysis at the molecular level shows all life forms on this planet fit onto the same family tree. If you compare human DNA to the DNA of chimpanzees, 98% of the genes are identical.
Counterpoint: Some scientists say that evolution means God doesn't exists. We can't contest that argument. But the Bible says God created man, so evolution must be wrong. Plus we don't have any monkeys in our family album.

Ethics / The Ten Commandments
Point: Murder is wrong.
Counterpoint: Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out.

The American Civil War
Point: The American Civil War was fought over slavery, and whether the freedoms propounded in the Declaration of Independence should apply to rich white guys, or all Americans.
Counterpoint: The Ku Klux Klan are the real American heroes because the good guys always wear white.

The Holocaust
Point: Hitler's Third Reich systematically killed some 6 million Jews (and other persons) in concentration camps during WWII.
Counterpoint: Hitler was misunderstood. There certainly weren't any mass killings, and if there were, the Jews did it to get attention.

English Language
Point: Learning to use the standardized grammar, spelling, and pronunciation of the English language greatly increases ability to communicate in a intelligent and understandable way.
Counterpoint: Whut doez i need dat fo'? All your base are belong to us. w00t.

Global Warming
Point: Numerous studies that have measured carbon dioxide levels found a strong historical correlation between atmospherical concentration of CO2 and temperature. It's hard to imagine how a hundred years of power plants, automobiles, and increasing deforestation could make absolutely no impact on global CO2 levels. Quite plausibly, you would expect average temperatures to rise, which among other things might cause warmer winters, decreasing ice cover, and a rise in sea levels. Oh, wait. Those effects have been observed, too. Hmm.
Counterpoint: We had a couple cold days this winter. And there have been Ice Ages in the past so who knows what might happen next year. Maybe Ice Age 3 will come out. Anyways, only liberals believe in it, so it must be wrong.

See how easy it is to come up with fair and balanced presentations of these Hot Topics? When we take the time to present both sides equally, we can see that both sides always have valid points. Now your kid doesn't have to believe in the explanatory power of evidence or evaluate the quality of other people's opinions against documented facts. Sure, one may be true. But you can always find a way to The Other Side.

5 February 2007 ~

because of strong market demand

we are pleased to announce the opening of the Nicholson Memorial Home for Orphaned Children and Weasel Farm (motto: "Tota Mustela Usamus*"). Our innovative work-for-food program will teach your child to feed, delouse, cull, skin, cut and sew certified organic mustela lutreolina: valuable skills for any child, orphan or not, in the 21st century. And as an alternative to fatty, overcooked cafeteria-style meals, we'll have your dears butcher their own mustela nivalis. Should they prefer to dine on cooked internal organs, they'll build their own fires (without the corrupting influence of matches), and (because we forbid the young to harm themselves by using metal tools) singe their fingers trying to warm up the scrounged icky bits of mustela strigidorsa. Though our entire curriculum is predicated upon such an ecologically-aware manner, do not imagine that we ignore the higher pleasures of life. All our better students are provided with individual rooms in one of our many mustela felipei fur-lined suites. Furthermore, those who pursue a life of health and vigor by not dying of rabies by the end of their first semester will be permitted to make a coat of their own (on their own time, with what scraps of fur they can gather). You will not be disappointed in your decision to dump the little darlings on us.

* "We Use the Entire Weasel!!!"

2 February 2007 ~

bam! ouch.

Well, I got home this evening, took off my hat, and there was an inch-long laceration on the top of my head. Almost looks stitch-worthy. Beats me where it came from. I had my hat on all day.

Headline of the day: Tolstoy claims CIA published Pasternak. It's nice to read about a good use of government money.

29 January 2007 ~

disorientation

As I'm living out of a hotel room this week, I have no idea what the date is. I'm still pretty good on the day of the week, I think. I missed last night's State of the Union, which apparently had lots of applause. Instead, I took a nice urban hike from my hotel across farmland, church parking lots, devious subdivisions, dirt, and four-lane highways to get to dinner at the Tandoor Restaurant. As far as interesting terrain, this hike had it all. If it hadn't been for a twenty-foot drop-off above a road I needed to cross, I would have come fairly close to taking the shortest distance on the way there. The chicken karahi was alright, but nothing special. It was hot, though; I drank 10 glasses of water. The walk back was much colder (there was snow on my car this morning) but also half the time, as I stuck to sidewalks and back roads for the most part rather than bushwhacking through fields and occasional back yards.

I thought I should report that the dish sponge quandary has been partially* solved. Do not try to dry kittens in the microwave, however. It will hurt them.

* You still have to train your wife.

24 January 2007 ~

the end of an era

My Jewel Card--the little keychain one--is dead. No longer does it hang, large and square, with the bundle of keys in my pants pocket. Oh, the things I bought with that value card. Oh, the people I hung out with when I was buying those things with that value card. Oh the cash I didn't have. Oh the hours I spent by myself.

Now it can live in my wallet, just in case I ever go near Chicago again.

17 January 2007 ~

really bad tom swifties

"How did the ping-pong tournament go?" Tom asked winsomely.

"You may not be able to see with your vodka goggles on, Vladmir, but you've got a good poker hand!" Tom said voraciously.

"The original article quoted me" Tom said excitedly.

"Yo, Hamlet's had enough to eat!" Tom said disdainfully.

15 January 2007 ~

technical writing

courtesy of Ben's Christmas present:

"Ya Le Electric Hand-Pressing Flash Light. Simply Shake to Recharge.
Product Charcteristics:
1, This product is a new science and technology product and made with high and new science and technology. It can illuminate only placing it in rhythm.
2, No need any power, no environmental pollution. Low noise and health. Comparing with common torch.it can be several times on lift. The skull is opened before the use: Take out among the battery isolation paper."

5 January 2007 ~

currently reading

recently finished

~ My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok ~ The Promise by Chaim Potok ~ The Chosen by Asher Lev ~ stories by Katherine Mansfield ~ The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai ~ Scandal by Shusaku Endo ~ The Samurai by Shusaku Endo ~ Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen ~ Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness by Kenzaburo Oe ~ A Sportsman's Notebook by Ivan Turgenev ~ The Girl I Left Behind by Shusaku Endo ~ Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe ~ Volcano by Shusaku Endo ~ Howards End by E.M. Forster ~ Poems of Anna Akhmatova, translated by Lyn Coffin ~ A Room With a View by E.M. Forster ~ Prussian Nights by Alexander Solzhenitsyn ~ Fire Down Below, Close Quarters, Rites of Passage by William Golding ~ Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz ~ Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov [okay, so it was boring and I gave up] ~ Palace of Desire by Mahfouz ~ Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz ~ Kampong Boy by Lat ~ West of Everything by Jane Tompkins ~ No Full Stops in India by Mark Tully ~ Horse Latitudes by Paul Muldoon ~ Interrogations at Noon by Dana Gioia ~ Omeros by Derek Walcott ~ The Narnian by Dr. J ~ Learning the Ropes by Eric Newby ~ Collected Poems by Paul Muldoon ~ Slowly Down the Ganges by Eric Newby ~ Moy Sand and Gravel by Paul Muldoon ~ Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie ~ A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby ~ Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai ~ Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai ~ Folktales of India ~ Diamond Dust: stories by Anita Desai ~ Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut ~ Kim by Rudyard Kipling ~ A Death in the Family by James Agee ~ Anna Karenina by Fyodor Dostoyevsky ~ Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke ~ A Hundred White Daffodils by Jane Kenyon ~ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers ~ Dave Barry's Money Secrets by DB ~ Richard III by WS ~ Henry IV, Part I by WS ~ Richard II by WS ~ The Water Mirror by Kai Meyer ~ The Critics Bear It Away by Frederick Crews ~ The Good Earth by Pearl Buck ~ Below from Above by Georg Gerster ~ The Codebreakers by David Kahn ~ The Moviegoer by Walker Percy ~ A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson ~ The Bourne Ultimatum by Lord Burt Mule ~ The Bourne Supremacy by Old Rum Butler ~ The Quiet American by Graham Greene ~ My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell ~ The Captain and the Enemy by Graham Greene ~ Video by Mira Nair ~ The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum ~ Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith ~ The World of Nagaraj by R.K. Narayan ~ House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus ~ A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul ~ The Art of Mathematics by Neb's Math Prof ~ The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton ~ The Ramayana as told by R.K. Narayan ~ Malgudi Days by R.K. Narayan ~ A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker ~ Baumgartner's Bombay by Anita Desai ~ The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene ~ Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene ~ Brighton Rock by Graham Greene ~ Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene ~ Daylight and Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton ~ Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt ~ Eva Luna by Isabel Allende ~ Modern Physics and Ancient Faith by Stephen Barr ~ The Final Martyrs by Shusaku Endo ~ Deep River by Shusaku Endo ~ Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk ~ Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean Carroll ~ Silence by Shusaku Endo ~ In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith ~ The Sea and Poison by Shusaku Endo ~ Triple Pursuit: three by Graham Greene ~ Monkeyluv by Robert Sapolsky ~ The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende ~ The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende ~ Beowulf by anonymous pre-Christian Germanic poet(s) and later monk(s), translated by Seamus Heaney ~ Collapse by Jared Diamond ~ Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond ~ The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery ~ The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki ~ The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie ~ The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles ~ The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini ~ Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief by Roger Lundin ~ The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose ~ The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond ~ Positively Fifth Street by James McManus ~ The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner ~ Collected Poems of James Agee ~ Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ~ Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson ~ The Human Factor by Graham Greene ~ Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger ~ Forty Stories by Anton Chekov ~ Atlantic America by D.W. Meinig ~ The Life You Save May Be Your Own by Paul Elie ~ The Death of Adam by Marilynne Robinson ~ Very Like A Whale by Moby Dick ~ Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer ~ HP6 by JKR ~ Collected Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges ~ Gilead by Marilynne Robinson ~ The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco ~ Carnival by Isak Dinesen ~ Ehrengard by Isak Dinesen ~ Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer ~ Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin ~ Holes by Louis Sachar ~ Peace Kills by P. J. O'Rourke ~ Freakonomics by Steven Levitt ~ Earth: An Intimate History by Richard Fortey ~ A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth ~ 21 by Patrick O'Brian ~ The Wind in The Willows by Kenneth Grahame ~ Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes ~ The Next Christendom by Philip Jenkins ~ Among the Believers by V.S. Naipaul ~ The Second World War by Winston Churchill ~ An Area of Darkness by V.S. Naipaul ~ The Remains of the Day by Anthony Hopkins, I mean, Kazuo Ishiguro ~ Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card ~ The Last Battle by CSL ~ The Silver Chair by CSL ~ The Spirit of Early Christian Thought by Robert Wilken ~ Prince Caspian by CSL ~ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by CSL ~ Claudius the God by Robert Graves ~ Big Bang by Simon Singh ~ I, Claudius by Robert Graves ~ Lewis and Freud by Armand Nicholi ~ The End of the Affair by Graham Greene ~ The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene ~ The Story of the Malakand Field Force by Winston Churchill ~ Jesus Through the Centuries by Jaroslav Pelikan ~ A House For Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul ~ Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner ~ Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini

in perpetua
~ Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter ~ The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

homage to men

(really, they all are! except for one girl, and she only worked a few months, or unless you count Brandi, who answers the phone) of renown: the fueler

hand coded by me. copyright reserved on all original content. wait, this is on the web. you thieving plagiarizing bastards!