Contemporary Poetry Starter Kits available!

I'm all for writing and talking about activist writing, as I have done here multiple times, but more literary writing deserves plenty of attention from publishing / readerly folks, too. In that spirit, I give you some poetry.

A few weeks ago, Jeff Gordinier got in touch with us here at SotB to alert us to a charming post he contributed to the Poetry Foundation's blog, which we referenced in a post here. In this post, he confessed to having an addiction to poetry books. I then exchanged an email or two with Gordinier and he kindly passed to me a list he had put together for a friend, which he referred to as a "'starter kit' for anyone who’s interested in dipping a toe into the vast pool of (mostly) contemporary poetry." I for one am thankful for such a "kit" as I'm fairly useless in this genre, reading randomly and messily when I come upon someone interesting.

So here ya go, folks, just in time for the gift-giving season... It's contemporary poetry worth having!

Say Uncle, by Kay Ryan
The Niagara River, by Kay Ryan
Crush, by Richard Siken
Making Certain It Goes On, by Richard Hugo
The Wild Iris, by Louise Gluck
Averno, by Louise Gluck
Landing Light, by Don Paterson
Blood Dazzler, by Patricia Smith
Teahouse of the Almighty, by Patricia Smith
Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid, by Simon Armitage
The Shout, by Simon Armitage
Collected Poems, by Thom Gunn
Black Box, by Erin Belieu
Silence in the Snowy Fields, by Robert Bly
The Continuous Life, by Mark Strand
Made Flesh, by Craig Arnold
Rose, by Li-Young Lee
Refusing Heaven, by Jack Gilbert
Amplitude, by Tess Gallagher
Moon Crossing Bridge, by Tess Gallagher
Hinge & Sign, by Heather McHugh
Lucky Wreck, by Ada Limon
West Wind, by Mary Oliver
Sleeping It Off in Rapid City, by August Kleinzahler
Swithering, by Robin Robertson
A Painted Field, by Robin Robertson
What the Living Do, by Marie Howe
Given Sugar, Given Salt, by Jane Hirshfield
The October Palace, by Jane Hirshfield
Love Poems, by Anne Sexton
Wind in a Box, by Terrance Hayes
What Narcissism Means to Me, by Tony Hoagland
Donkey Gospel, by Tony Hoagland
Embryoyo, by Dean Young
Skid, by Dean Young
The Pajamaist, by Matthew Zapruder
Collected Poems, by Ciaran Carson
Your Time Has Come, by Joshua Beckman
Take It, by Joshua Beckman
Selected Poems, by James Tate
The Dream Songs, by John Berryman
Hoops, by Major Jackson
Lunch Poems, by Frank O’Hara
No Nature, by Gary Snyder
Green Squall, by Jay Hopler
The Cinnamon Peeler, by Michael Ondaatje
Book of Longing, by Leonard Cohen
Stranger Music, by Leonard Cohen
Actual Air, by David Berman
Migration, by W.S. Merwin
No Nature, by Gary Snyder
The Complete Poems: 1927 — 1979, by Elizabeth Bishop
Selected Poems, by James Schuyler

(I'm sorry, but I cannot possibly insert links to each title from the Powell's site - I'll be here for years! If you're in or near Cambridge, MA, check out the Grolier Poetry Bookshop for these, in Harvard Square! In person!)

I can't attest to how good these are due to my own ignorance, except for one or two (Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems, for example). Christopher, however, saw the list and boldly one-upped Mr. Gordinier, mentioning poet Ellen Hinsey, and her two books: The White Fire of Time and Update on the Descent. Like a good, mature reader, Gordinier was not threatened by such a challenge, but rather appreciative of the suggestion. It didn't turn into some kind of online barroom brawl.

A more enterprising blogger would suggest a poetry reading group and even somehow convene a discussion, hosted by the blog, for a few of the titles. I don't know how to even begin such an effort, though it could be an intriguing idea if there's sufficient interest. I'll mull, you can mull, we can re-convene.

For now, happy reading and shopping, new poetry enthusiasts!

Writers as Activists

I am pretty delighted that writer and activist Sarah Schulman posted a video on her Facebook profile from the first OutWrite Conference, in 1990.

First, about Schulman. The link to her name is from a recent Salon article about her, which includes info on her new book, Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences (New Press). The Salon article references a nice Q&A Publishers Weekly printed with the author, wherein Schulman confronts the ongoing reality of LGBT writers publishing books that openly deal with LGBT issues:

Gay press reviews have been superb, and I recently had a standing room only reading in Chicago. The excitement and embracing of the book’s ideas is very exciting. Ironically, of course, there has been a parallel blackout by the straight press. This interview is the very first engagement with a mainstream publication acknowledging that the book even exists. It’s a strange through-the-looking-glass experience, one that I have had all my life. It speaks volumes that work that LGBT people love and embrace is often ignored completely by mainstream institutions.

Schulman is quite an inspiring figure, who speaks with tough but plain language about ongoing oppression faced by not just LGBT folks, but all kinds of marginalized communities.

Back to the original video from the OutWrite conference in 1990. I have only listened to her talk, as she is first up on a panel that includes Essex Hemphill (a poet who died of AIDS-related complications in 1995), Pat Califia (lesbian writer at the time, who has since transitioned so is now a transmale), Susan Griffin, and John Preston (writer who died of AIDS-related complications in 1994). This panel was moderated by Roberto Belayo. As it states under this clip:

About Outwrite: "In 1990, the editors of OUTLOOK, a San Francisco-based magazine, conceived and produced the first OutWrite conference. The organizers of that inaugural event sought to bring together the mostly scattered threads of the queer writing community. The OutWrite conference created a place for literary lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered to meet, network, brainstorm, and do business en masse."

What prompted me to post was the end of Schulman's talk, her call-to-arms for writers in any marginalized community. I have transcribed this section, so apologies if I don't have every word correct. It is a powerful and angry call, meant for writers at a time when AIDS was running rampant through the LGBT community, with epicenters in NYC and San Francisco, but it can certainly be applied to other situations:

There is no book that got any drugs released, any drug trial open, or any service provided. Reading a book can help someone decide to take action, but it is not the same thing as taking action, and writing a book is not the same thing as taking action. The responsibility of every writer is to take their place in the vibrant, creative activist movements along with everybody else. The image created by the male intellectual model of an enlightened elite who claim that "their art work is their political work" is parasitic and useless for us.

At the same time, I don’t think that any writer must write about any specific topic or in any specific way. Writers must be free of formal and political constraints on their work so that a culture can grow in many
directions. But, when they’re finished with their work, they need to be at demonstrations, licking envelopes, and putting their bodies on the line like everybody else. We live in the United States of Denial, a nation where there is no justice. The way we get justice is by confronting the structures that oppress us in the manner that is most threatening to those structures. That means in person as well as in print.

I'm still thinking this through and putting it up against some of my favorite writers since literary biographies are a favorite genre of mine. But I wanted to share it widely, as I was immediately struck by the courage it took Schulman to stand before a crowd and say it, and to re-post now, almost 20 years later.

I also think this clip comes at an interesting point in publishing, when digital publishing can make the process of getting work out there easier. Ease of production and distribution can be incredibly useful for activists, just as mimeographs transformed activist work in an earlier era and eventually led to an explosion of zines. (For more on activists and technology, see Bob Ostertag's People's Movement, People's Press, a book I may have been involved with...) How do we use electronic resources for activist endeavors and maintain high standards so that artistic work can survive, and how do we ensure that truly high-quality artistic work comes to light and does not get lost in a glut of information and activist calls? How do we avoid, even within marginalized communities, a tyrant majority - something Schulman confronts in this talk, in reference to gay white men who have more resources than anyone else in the queer community - taking over and becoming the loudest and most visible voices for a marginalized community?

It's useful to pull from the past as we race so quickly forward, and think through the voice of those less heard as those so often heard rapidly acquire means to exploit the best of technology.

Sad Boston news, and Useful Best-Book Lists

It's funny how, when Christopher leaves the country, I suddenly find so much to blog about.

First, I'm sad to have confirmed what I'd suspected was going on: the great indie/activist South End Press has officially left the Boston area. They had talked about opening this NY office, but it wasn't clear whether they were moving all operations there. It seems they have. They are now housed at the Medgar Evers College of City University of New York and are working wtih the college’s Center for Black Literature and DuBois Bunch Center for Public Policy.

I'm particularly sad as the Press is named after my neighborhood, which is showing fewer and fewer signs of the activist spirit that was once so strong, having fallen victim to serious gentrification. I take refuge in that gentrification, I suppose, but I also find it deeply troubling. Alas, the Lucy Parsons Center - the "independent, non-profit, radical bookstore and community space" - remains in the 'hood... for now.

Having said all that, I hope the South End Press prospers in their new home and continues to publish amazing, important books.

I also wanted to post today about best-of lists that are more than just your typical best-fiction round-ups of the year (which are so dominated by the usual suspects, both in authors and in publishers). Though there isn't much more indie cred found in these lists, I did enjoy two somewhat different takes on this idea:

• The Guardian did a Best of the Decade list, including reviews of certain titles.
• Details did a list of The 25 Greatest Gen X Books of All Time, which was their effort to show that men do, in fact, read, and read somewhat widely. I was surprised by some choices - such as Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies - and disappointed in others - including Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors, which really is a fail, folks - but there was a lot to like on the list. (Thanks to Jeff Gordinier for giving me the heads-up about it, though they accidentally missed his own X Saves the World!)

For those who love to read every best-of-year book list you can find, head over to see the full list provided by Largehearted Boy. You can spend hours clicking away!

Publishers with Identities

Please don't think I'm over the whole non-profit community bookstore idea, because I ain't. This post, however, will be on a somewhat different topic. We here at SotB allow our sharp, analytical, ever-curious minds to wander.

And my mind wandered over to the Huffington Post, where I found this great piece by Eric Obenauf, one-half the brains behind indie press Two Dollar Radio. In this article, Obenauf explains how indie presses have created - and must create - identities for themselves, and in fact, these identities are now being marketed in creative ways to boost their sometimes thin bottom lines. Two Dollar Radio, like Small Beer Press and Featherproof Books, sells tee shirts to generate some income. (For shame - Obenauf did not link to these presses in his article. What's up with that?) I would add the very cool Moby Lives t-shirts from Melville House, one of which I am secretly hoping to find under the tree this year. 

Obeanauf explains why this works with indies, when it wouldn't work with corporate presses:

As a small press, it is much easier to craft an identity. If you buy a book published by an independent press, then chances are good you really did intend to buy that book. Either it was recommended to you by a friend, you read a review, or you discovered it on the shelf of an independent bookstore: small presses deploy no marketing sleight of hand, no clever gimmicks or paid product placement in order to finagle someone into buying one of our books. As a result, I would wager that consumers of small press books are more aware of who published the work than those of corporate presses, which makes it easier for an independent publisher to sell brand merchandise. I doubt anyone would buy a shirt that says "Random House" on it; it just isn't cool. Nor would it stand for anything: one person might stop you in the street imagining you share an affinity for raising the perfect dog, while another might be a John Irving or Kurt Vonnegut fan. But I've seen students at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, rocking McSweeney's shirts and I know their taste.

I love this point, because there is so much truth in it, and because it does signal a way forward in this world of soulless conglomerates and corporate houses chasing empty book ideas - blogs, reality stars, etc - instead of new and interesting work. 

In this holiday season, go forth, dear reader, and buy indie! Wouldn't the book nerd in your life love a tee shirt with a literary theme from a somewhat obscure press everyone the least bit interesting will wish they knew? Of course s/he would, and s/he deserves that.

Lambda Rising, RIP

Sorry for the one-two punch here, folks, but some sad news from bookselling to report: Lambda Rising, the wonderful, well-stocked, and lively gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) bookstore in Washington DC, is closing early in 2010. The story of this closing is recounted in three parts, starting here. In fact, the whole chain will now be closed, with the closing of the DC and Rehoboth Beach, DE store closings.

The three part story is worth reading, as it contains a lot of fascinating gay history. The owners accomplished so much in their 35 years opening and running these stores. In addition, Deacon Maccubbin, Lambda Rising's founder and co-owner, saved the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in NYC from closing in 2003, though it, too, had to close its doors in 2009. In managing Lambda Rising, Maccubbin and his spouse, Jim Bennett, reached out to communities with no lgbt stores, setting up outlets in these communities to get gay-themed books to folks in those areas. They also kicked off DC Gay Pride before turning over the event to special organizers when it got too large.

It is also worth noting what they did to help lgbt literature across the board at a crucial time in our history:

In another effort to encourage writers and publishers to produce quality glbt books, in 1987 Maccubbin began publishing the “Lambda Book Report,” a bimonthly review of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender literature. That publication spawned the “Lambda Literary Awards.” The first “Lammys” were given out in a black-tie awards ceremony held in Washington DC in 1989. Lambda Rising continued to shepherd both the review and the Lammy awards until 1986 when it turned the whole program over to a new non-profit organization, the Lambda Literary Foundation, which continues to run the annual awards program today.

In 1987, the AIDS crisis was in full force and the backlast against the gay community was intense. The owners don't mention this context but I think it's well worth mentioning, as it makes their efforts that much braver, and important.

I'm so frustrated by these closures. I know lgbt publishing and activism has changed, but I also know that queer people look for homes when they go to new cities, and I fear the only place they will find such homes will be bars and clubs. Now I'm all for such venues, but there as to be more. And if those places can stay open, why can't bookstores?

I then go back to what I have wondered before: can't these places go non-profit and survive?

I'm going to look more into this idea, as I think it's a valuable discussion to have, beyond glbt bookstores. Fortunately, Chad Post over at the Three Percent blog provides a good starting place in this post on the very concept. He mentions in that post the non-profit bookstore Woodland Pattern in Milwaukee. Of course, this effort failed with the Shaman Drum in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

More to come on this concept, as we cannot let community minded bookstores - lgbt, feminist, African American-oriented, etc - fall to the wayside in a crap economy. I will mention in closing, however, that Boston does in fact still have a terrific gay bookstore: Calamus Bookstore, run by the tireless John Mitzel. Visit online or in person and you won't be disappointed!

So much for breakfast

The Q&A with Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO, in the NY Times Magazine this weekend, done by Deborah Solomon, is a brief but frustrating read. I give Solomon credit for being bratty, though clearly she kind of puts Bezos on the ropes throughout. Still, there's no getting around Bezos' quest for retail domination. It's been edited down so I wonder how the conversation actually went. Judging from the end result in the magazine, it was somewhat tense.

Bezos' defensiveness seems a bit feeble, with him dismissing products that could be better and coming up with rather pathetic reasoning. The Nook allows you to share a book (file) with someone else, something you cannot do with the Kindle. Bezos is unimpressed:

The current thing being talked about is extremely limited. You can lend to one friend. One time. You can’t pick two friends, not even serially, so once you’ve loaned one book to one friend, that’s it.

But that's still slightly better than the Kindle, for those keeping score.

Then he's asked about the limits of reading an electronic device in a place like the tub. His suggestion to get around this problem is partially an attempt at humor, I think, but also real. His suggestion for modifying one's device to make it more bath-friendly puts him in line with friends who get a device that's too cool for school. "Look at this new calculator! It does everything!" "But can you do basic addition?" "Oh yeah, you just have to type these extra codes, which are totally, um, easy, and turn off this function..."

What do you say to Kindle users who like to read in the bathtub?

I’ll tell you what I do. I take a one-gallon Ziploc bag, and I put my Kindle in my one-gallon Ziploc bag, and it works beautifully. It’s much better than a physical book, because obviously if you put your physical book in a Ziploc bag you can’t turn the pages. But with Kindle, you can just push the buttons.

What if you dropped your Kindle in the bathtub?

If it’s sealed in a one-gallon Ziploc bag? Why don’t you try that experiment and let me know.

At that point, he's just sounding bitchy.

And then he once again confirms my concern that places like Amazon are desperate for us readers to move to a digital platform, which would mean less warehouse space for Amazon, less laborers for Amazon (see Ted Striphas' book on this issue), and probably more profit. This smells like the dream of a self-fulfilling prophecy lies beneath it:

Of all the books that Amazon sells, what percentage are digital books?

For every 100 copies of a physical book we sell, where we have the Kindle edition, we will sell 48 copies of the Kindle edition. It won’t be too long before we’re selling more electronic books than we are physical books. It’s astonishing.

Astonishing, as if there are not major ads pushing the Kindle, including commercials on the tv. No, it's just what people want, right? Just like flat screen tvs and sports cars. It's demand - we retailers are just here to provide.

This isn't a man who loves books or ideas. This is a man who loves selling crap and making money. Books made him some money, but not enough, so he changed Amazon: as Solomon points out, Amazon is now "a retail omnivore that sells basketballs and vacuum cleaners and hamster food and everything under the sun." Then he found a way to increase book sales, by pushing an exclusive (and severely limiting) reading device and files to go on it.

I'm amazed that everytime I hear or see him speak, I get that same bad taste in my mouth. And then I go to Indiebound.

Sherman Alexie Strikes Again!

Sherman Alexie has again made his feelings about e-books known, now on The Colbert Report. (Link to Huffington Post) Alexie has made an appearance on this blog before, for the same reason: He hates the Kindle and other devices like it.

I like Alexie. I appreciate his humor in this interview, in the face of the idiocy of Colbert. (The act is getting tired.) I admire his commitment to his community, to books, to independent presses (he's published by Grove/Atlantic and publishes his poetry with Brooklyn independent Hanging Loose Press). He says a lot of useful things here. Someone like Alexie should use his pulpit to bring up concerns about electronic devices. But...

A few years ago, Christopher and I went to see Camille Paglia speak in Harvard Square. (Yes, Christopher and I do see each other in person occasionally, rather than only "seeing" one another here on SotB.) We both agreed that she was very entertaining, but once you give her comments a bit of thought, many didn't hold water. But the provocation was useful to push our thinking on issues. In the same way, I think Alexie's comments here are useful to start discussions. I don't agree that making books digital means the downfall of book culture. Many other factors have gone into the death of media around books. But good for him for talking about this death and airing his concerns, in a venue wherein he can reach many people who are not reading this or any other publishing blog.

And I was impressed to hear people applaud when he first mentioned his aversion to the Kindle.

Lastly, as an editor who just recently told two different authors that they each needed snappier conclusions to their book synopses, I must salute Alexie for a fantastic finish. Watch the whole 6 minutes to hear him nail it.

When you're done watching that and perhaps feeling a bit agitated, take a watch of this gorgeous video that Christopher emailed to me, which he wanted to post before flying the coop for Germany. It's called Going West, it was put together by Colenso BBDO in Auckland and animated by Anderson M Studio for the New Zealand Book Council, and it's really quite charming.

Another Christmas post

Ok, as promised yesterday, I am going to post a piece of writing I did when I was 13-years old. What is it, exactly? It is an imagining of Holden Caulfield reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement Moore. Why did I do this? I'm not really sure. I remember loving The Catcher in the Rye when I was a teen and feeling like Salinger's book really spoke directly to me but other than that? I got nothin'. A little history before the post, if you don't mind?

In 1983, computers were just coming onto the scene and they were real exciting. I had a friend who had a Commodore 64 fresh out of the box. He was way more advanced than I was with it and somehow-I still to this day don't know how-he had an account on the fledgling UMass Amherst computer network then called "cyber-something-or-other." On UMass's servers, one could log on and chat with other people smart enough to have figured the whole thing out and that is just what we did. Sometimes we'd be chatting with other people for hours. I vaguely recall that some of the user names were things like "NCC-1701" or "The Klingon," perhaps attesting to the direct line of nerd-dom from Star Trek to computer literacy in the early days. Perhaps not.

Anyway, after a while people-I don't remember any names-put up electronic bulletin boards to post stuff...and, you guessed it, I posted this thing. I really don't know what it is but I remember the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. This past month, I 'googled' my name (C'mon, you know you do it too!) and was floored to find a small archive posted of things a former UMass cyber user had saved for decades. I took it from there and corrected the spelling of a teenage and am now posting it as is. Pretty cool.

Finally, what does this have to do with the survival of the book? I guess it shows how deeply ingrained a work of literature can become in a person as well as how books, whatever their technological faults, can reach us in ways that television, movies, computers, or even Kindles cannot.

Here it is:

“Twas the Night Before Christmas” read by Holden Caulfield (with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore and J.D. Salinger).

Oh hell, I hate this story, but I guess I'll tell it to you anyway. I'm in the right mood for it anyhow. Sometimes you gotta be in the right mood for this sappy story. I guess I am.

Well, here we go. “Twas the night before Christmas...” Twas? Is this guy serious? Twas? Obviously the people who wrote this didn't know how to spell. Maybe ‘cause they didn't have a good English teacher, or maybe just ‘cause they are British. British people can't spell anyhow.

“…when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that fat old St. Nick soon would be there.” Can I say something here about ‘Ol St. Nick? He's phony. Right down to his belly full of jelly. If he's so great, why does he want to get all that shit all over his suit? I'll tell you why! He's phony all the way through. (Although he does have great taste in the color hats to wear.)

Anyway, I wonder what ’Ol St. Nick's wife says about him traipsing across the countryside ‘til all hours of the morning. She probably doesn't like it! Then again, she is a moron anyway, living in the North Pole. Have you ever noticed that all the phonies and the morons end up together? Sorry, back to the goddamn story. "The children were all nestled..." Ha, ha, “nestled.” That killed me. “...while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads. And Momma in her kerchief, and I in my cap had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap.”

“When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the shutter, and threw up
the sash.” “Threw up the sash,” how stupid. That killed me though. I always wondered what it would be like if the line read “and I threw up on the sash.” Maybe that's what it really said and they had to censor it? Have I ever told you the time when I was so drunk, I could barely stand and then I puked? No? Good, I don't feel like telling you about it anyway. “Threw up on the sash,” that killed me.

“The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow gave a luster of midday to objects below.” Well, I don’t know about you but I sure am bored as hell by this story. Maybe what I'll do is skip the boring part and get to the toys. Aw, hell! I'll just finish the book. “When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer. With a goddamn, fat rider so jolly and quick I knew in a minute it must be St. Nick.” Don't these people know by now? St. Nick is a phony. Some people won't realize things unless they are thrown at them. St. Nick gives me a headache. He really does.

“More rapid than eagle his coursers they came.” “Coursers?” Seriously, give me a break! “And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name! Now Dasher! Now Dancer! On, Comet! On, Donner! and Blitzen! Now Cupid!” I changed that myself because there are so many goddamn goats in this part. “To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall! Dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!” Haven't you had enough yet? This goddamn story has so many pages. By the time the parents finished the book it would be Christmas day already. Hey, I could be reading Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen to you instead. I loved that book even though I’m illiterate, but I do read a lot. I really did love it. Parents wouldn't read us this Christmas story anyway. They are too goddamn
stubborn. You practically have to pay them to read a story to you. Even then they use phony excuses like “it's too late” or “we already read that one.” How phony!

Next there’s this part about dry leaves and hurricanes here but it sounds too phony so I’m skipping it. You can read it for yourself if you aren’t too goddamn lazy.

“And then in a twinkle I heard on the roof the prancing and pawing of eight tiny reindeer. As I drew in my head and was turning around, down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was all dressed in fur from his head to his foot. His clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.” See what I mean? Soot all over his fur. Phony! I swear to god! “A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, and he looked like a goddamn peddler opening his sack.” I remember one of the only presents I ever got anyone. It was a record that Phoebe wanted for a long time. Boy, was I stupid. I ended up breaking the record into a million pieces. I gave it to her anyhow, and she appreciated it. She really did. Old Phoebe was one hell of a girl. She really was. I gotta stay on the story, ‘cause it will end faster.

“His eyes how they twinkled, his dimples, how merry. His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry. He had a broad face, and a round little belly, that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump…” Or “fat,” why don’t they just say it? “…a right jolly old elf, and I cracked up when I saw him, in spite of myself. A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He didn't say a goddamn word. He really didn't. He just kinda worked without stopping.”

Ok, this is the part that really kills me: “And laying his finger on his nose and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.” He is so phony, he can't fool me. I know why he put his finger on his nose! He wanted to pick it! Maybe he had a big one in there and couldn’t wait for Christmas himself? I guess that is human nature, but in public that is just gross! It really is. Onward, only one more page. Thank god this goddamn book is almost over.

“He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle…” And they crashed down on top of Stradlater's dorm. I hate him. He is a secret slob, which is the worst kind. Not exactly the correct ending, but it will do. If you really need it, the ending is “…and they flew out of
sight, like a down from a thistle. But I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight, I'm tired and I wanna go home.” Ha, ha, just kidding. I really am. He actually said “Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!”

Well, that was fun, but I am still bored as hell. Maybe I'll give old Jane a call? Nah, maybe not, she is probably busy anyhow. She probably is.