Overview

Details about the fifty five manuscripts in The Brautigan Library's "Social/Political/Cultural" (SOC) category.

Background

These manuscripts are included in the "Social/Political/Cultural" (SOC) category using The Mayonnaise System, a classification system developed for The Brautigan Library. Manuscripts are cataloged according to fourteen general categories, the year of submission, and the order of acquisition into the category. For example, LOV 1992.005 indicates the manuscript was the fifth one cataloged in 1992 to the LOV(e) category. Manuscript synopses provided by authors at time of submission. Comments from The Librarian provide additional information.

Stats

Manuscripts in SOC category = 55
1996 = 2 manuscripts
1994 = 1 manuscript
1993 = 3 manuscripts
1992 = 4 manuscripts
1991 = 15 manuscripts
1990 = 31 manuscripts
Missing = 1 manuscript (#256 SOC 1992.003)

A Century Past

Jeffrey Barron
MS #312
SOC 1996.002
Registered 1996/01/16 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
The stories in A Century Past were written because the stories needed to be told. They were not written for profit nor for some economic necessity. If you enjoy reading Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and Raymond Carver, then you should enjoy these seven additions to Literature. I hope that you will like at least a couple of the stories in this selection. A lot of work went into them, but I feel good that they are in a place where they can be read.

Communication Relations

Bent Stidsen
MS #311
SOC 1996.001
Registered 1996/01/15 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
The aim of Communication Relations is no less than a mapping of the territory for which the term "communication" may serve as a title. Our key contention is that communication is a life function. And as such it must be comprehended in ways centering on the fundamental characteristics of living systems.

Seek and Go Hide

James Addison
MS #300
SOC 1994.001
Registered 1994/02/02 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Seek and Go Hide is a fictional tragic romance, composed in a literary narrative style, set in contemporaneous surroundings. The story involves a central character named Jacob Sommersveldt, his long-time girlfriend Gwendolyn, and her new intended, a writer named Brad. Jake has lost his job as a recording studio engineer due to the recession, although he claims it is due to a failure of society. He takes a dim view of Gwen's plans to get married to the writer/school teacher, while she contrives in a clandestine way to help him tell the story of his own ill-fated love for her in something like a book, a letters to my ex-type of account. He begins work on a novel but runs away to South Carolina when his publisher starts pressuring him to send the final installment or cancel the contract.

Contemptology: An Essay on Contempt, Respect, and Tolerance

Joseph Gormley
MS #280
SOC 1993.003
Registered 1993/02/08 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Contemptology: An Essay on Contempt, Respect, and Tolerance speculates about the evolutionary origins of the mental attitudes of contempt, respect, and tolerance. It describes the single subconscious mental process that produces those conscious attitudes. It explores the relationships of the contempt process to human emotions and needs. It considers the effects of contempt, respect, and tolerance upon both the individual and society.

Good-Looking People

S. Lanahan
MS #277
SOC 1993.002
Registered 1993/02/05 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Good-Looking People concerns a young woman who becomes a successful interior decorator in New York City. She marries a mobster who is killed soon thereafter. She manages to survive in an environment where no one's ambitions are fettered by ethical standards. Her success in business enables her to spend her summers in Southampton, Long Island where she makes new friends, including a leader in the financial markets, a U.S. Senator and a charming con artist. She finds that her connections to the mob have never been cleanly severed.

The Mower

Kathleen Parley
MS #271
SOC 1993.001
Registered 1993/01/30 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Life in the grass is perilous when you are 3 1/2" tall, particularly so when the tall men bring out the mower. Warned by his elfin intuition that the mower is going to come through his village, Dyra takes his wife and baby and leaves, hoping to find a high place where he can see and understand the dangers. The adventurous little family are finally successful in reaching a safer place to live. Impressed by Dyra's foresight, the conformist villagers follow him and establish a new village under his more relaxed leadership. The Mower sets the scene for the four books which follow in the series The Grass People.

Librarian's Comment
Kathleen Parley has contributed two manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are The Ones in Long Pants are Men (MEA 1991.004) and The Mower (SOC 1993.001).

You Shall Be Heard

John Roberts
MS #268
SOC 1992.004
Registered 1992/12/15 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
You Shall Be Heard is a series of brief essays, some dealing with philosophy in a very rudimentary manner and degree, developing a theory of law as procedural due process exclusively.

Michelangelo: Born with a Gift

Sandra Morin
MS #256
SOC 1992.003
Registered 1992/03/03 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
In the beginning, a statue remains in the mind with intrigue. How could anyone create the most exquisite face out of a cold, hard, rough stone? Many observations of photographs at the public library lead to a familiar book that was written by Irving Stone (The Agony and the Ecstasy). That book deserved the title because of the effort to get through to the end. To make a long story short, I decided to simplify a book for younger readers who are eager to learn about a part of their history. Each drawing has been selected to highlight the different stages of development. I could never begin to mention all the faces which pass by through his life; some had an impact more than others. The relationship, which seemed to surpass all, appeared to be the marriage with the stone. Perhaps, when we learn about how someone great and humble lived, we can develop our own character and we can improve on a better way of life for ourselves. This book, Michelangelo: Born with a Gift is dedicated to my Mom. NOTE: This manuscript is missing from the library collection.

Librarian's Comment
Unfortunately, this manuscript was missing from The Brautigan Library collection when it was transferred from Burlington, Vermont, to Vancouver, Washington.

Miracle Play / When Mourning Comes

Lorraine Smith (Ann McDonald / Toles)
MS #251
SOC 1992.002
Registered 1992/02/25 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Miracle Play is an autobiography about the dissolution of a professional nursing career and the so-called "burn-out" that accompanied the downward descent. Written in an alternative, anecdotal, iconoclastic manner, it reads like a speeding train that has lost its brakes. Searingly honest to the point of brutality, it may offend the sensitive readers that continue to view the "helping professions" as paragons of virtue. When Mourning Comes is a reality/fantasy story of the dissolution of dreams for the individuals that "rode out the storm" of the Eighties that achieves an eerie redemption at its finale.

White Man's Disease

Ronny Kaye
MS #249
SOC 1992.001
Registered 1992/02/18 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
White Man's Disease is a condemnatory cinema-novel, a condemnation of Authority systems, most particularly those of the White West. The narrative devices of "reels" rather than chapters, and of songs, poems, and quotations as transitional elements, are inspired by the jagged narratives of William S. Burroughs and the lyrics of extremist musicians. The "disease" in the title is the death-centered, profit worship of the Mind Control set, known conventionally as the Corporate Overseers. The graphic presentation of murder, torture, sexual mutilation, and armed resistance locates the source of the condemnation in the extreme present.

Librarian's Comment
Ronny Kaye has submitted five manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are White Man's Disease (SOC 1992.001), Songs of Love and Songs of Fear (POE 1992.004), Disturbances (ALL 1992.001), Triad (FUT 1992.001), and Stalin's Chicken and Other Abominations (ALL 1994.002).

The American Book of the Dead

Alan Catlin
MS #235
SOC 1991.015
Registered 1991/12/03 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Although The American Book of the Dead is primarily set in the not too distant past and the foreseeable future, it is a timeless book. It is as timeless as the basic desires of love, hate, greed and the corrupting lust for power are timeless. While all the larger political, philosophical, cultural, and even religious themes are the surface implications of the book, it is essentially a story of awakening and a violent loss of innocence by one uncorrupted individual in a thoroughly corrupt world. While the intent is serious, there is a generous supply of satirical black humor and literary parody.

The Return of a Legend

Stephen Stathis
MS #228
SOC 1991.014
Registered 1991/10/17 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
The Return of a Legend is a psychological look at what happened to a rock and roll singer upon leaving the U.S. Army. The year is 1960. The book is a fictional account of the personal and professional decline of one individual based on the choices he made.

Librarian's Comment
Stephen Stathis has contributed two manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are The Carousel Rider (SOC 1990.021) and The Return of A Legend (SOC 1991.014).

Short Stories and Other Writings

Patrick McElhoes
MS #214
SOC 1991.013
Registered 1991/09/18 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Short Stories and Other Writings is a compilation of writings spanning a two year period 1989-1991. Parts of the manuscript are meant to be quite serious. Other portions are to be read in a more humorous light. Writing for me, up until now, has always been a very private pursuit. Often, I feel or see things a certain way, that will move me to record the moment with written word. I am not an educated man, and am therefore reluctant to place manuscripts along side other works of perhaps a more talented and better schooled individual. However, what is writing if not the preservation of thought, and what good is preservation of anything, if it goes unshared.

Venture To Turkey

Pauline Newcomer
MS #212
SOC 1991.012
Registered 1991/09/16 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Venture To Turkey is a diary of letters written in 1959-1960 on a trip from New York to Paris and driving behind the "iron curtain" countries to Istanbul and then to Ankara. We lived on the Turkish economy without access to the PX. My husband served as a guest pathologist at the Ankara Hacettepi Children's Hospital and I wrote medical papers for doctors for publication in the British and American journals, and taught English to Turks. This was before the forming of the Peace Corps.

A Trip To Happiness

Anna T. Smith
#206 SOC 1991.011
Registered 1991/09/12 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Anna T. Smith was born in Czechoslovakia in 1934, four years before the Nazis took over that country and she left for Germany with her parents in 1946, when the Communists started to take over her country. A Trip To Happiness is the story of her life in Czechoslovakia and Germany, where she met her American husband, until her last child leaves home to go away to college.

Pursuit of Trivia

Jean Schulz #205 SOC 1991.010
Registered 1991/08/24 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Pursuit of Trivia is a simplified form of (mostly western) history interspersed with some poetry and art of the period. The two original copies have full color art work.

The Relativity of Retreat

Andrew Colameco
MS #204
SOC 1991.009
Registered 1991/08/24 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
The Relativity of Retreat concerns a small cabin in Northern Vermont. A retreat. An exile. Home to the occasional physical presence of Peter Simmons. Bitter sweet acamagician. A permanent collection of his memories. Letters. Postcards. Ramblings. A few jazz tapes. These memorabilia come to life when the cabin receives an unexpected guest.

Librarian's Comment
Andrew Colameco has contributed four manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are Einstein Doesn't Throw Dice (SOC 1990.013), Theories of Father (HUM 1990.012), The Relativity of Retreat (SOC 1991.009), and Cold Fusion (ALL 1994.001).

The Birth of the Modern Independent Political Movement: The '76 McCarthy Presidential Campaign

Gary De Carolis
MS #203
SOC 1991.008
Registered 1991/08/24 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Written one month after the 1976 Presidential Election, this is one person's account of the Independent Presidential Bid of Eugene McCarthy. The author's seven month, fourteen state, and 13,000 mile travels as a national staff person for the McCarthy 1976 Campaign served as a backdrop for this fascinating look at presidential politics. Also detailed in The Birth of the Modern Independent Political Movement is a prescription for preparing for further Independent presidential bids. The roles of key campaign staff and potential strategies that succeeded and failed are outlined. Further the 1976/1980 campaign election laws for Independent candidates and minority parties are outlined for all fifty states.

C Is for Caucasian

Alexander Stella
MS #200
SOC 1991.007
Registered 1991/08/09 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Within the structure of a play-within-a-play, a young woman well described as a Goody-Goody Two-Shoes forces a theatre production company to use "schvartze" in place of "the 'new trigger' word." The interior play of C Is for Caucasian shows how the unexpected comes to the aid of a middle-aged black man seeking a step up the occupational ladder.

Librarian's Comment
Alexander Stella has contributed eight manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are iLinx (FAM 1990.005), War Dodger (SOC 1990.016), Nodes (SOC 1990.017), Splish (ALL 1990.022), Cinema Inspiration (SOC 1990.025), Crystal Star (MEA 1991.002), A Younger Earth (MEA 1991.003), and C Is for Caucasian (SOC 1991.007).

Jism Noir

Jack Saunders
MS #193
SOC 1991.006
Registered 1991/07/18 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Jism Noir begins as a science fiction novel (or a mystery, or a novella), and becomes progressively more conventional, and more autobiographical, as it works its way backward in time. It's about a writer's struggle to be grateful for what he has and live in the moment he is in, even though he can't sell what he writes and he keeps losing jobs for writing several books a year. He's been at it twenty years now, publishing what he can himself, and giving it away. He considers himself in the main stream of American writing, in the tradition of Thoreau and Whitman, Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac. And Richard Brautigan.

Lois and Alfred

Nick Landacre
MS #188
SOC 1991.005
Registered 1991/07/13 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Lois and Alfred is an anatomy of beliefs and delusions. Prejudice rules, not law, not justice. Human beings are what they believe.

Impressions of Paul

Paul Mobley
MS #181
SOC 1991.004
Registered 1991/06/08 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Impressions of Paul is not a theological book, but it is a characterization of the personal traits which helped to make the Apostle successful. It will surprise many readers, and inform all, for there is no known book on the market like it. Thus, it presents a role model for all aspects of a person's life, personal, professional, and otherwise.

Summit Day

Paul Criton (Troncelliti)
MS #176
SOC 1991.003
Registered 1991/04/26 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Summit Day is a recounting of events of historical (and not-so-historical) significance from December 8, 1987, as experienced by one person somewhere in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Also explores the genesis and development of an extraordinary friendship.

Sudhira, Or the Porch of Spirits

Joe Palmer
MS #164
SOC 1991.002
Registered 1991/03/09 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Sudhira, Or, The Porch of Spirits is the more-or-less true story of experiences of an American professor in Thailand during the Vietnam war. It is a sort of contact literature in which the cultural differences between the worlds of an educated, conservative Westerner and those of a traditional Buddist society are highlighted. Much of the story is absolutely true. Ruell Denny, professor of literature at the East-West Center, University of Hawaii, tried to get it published, to no avail. To those who have tasted that other, Buddhist world, it may provide some good memories and comfort. Part two was published as part of a Festschrift for Momluang (Princess) Boonlua Debyasuvarn in Paasaa (language teaching in Thailand) in 1989. The author is a Knight Templar.

The Other Voice of America

Roland Van Zandt
MS #152
SOC 1991.001 A, B
Registered 1991/01/15 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
The Other Voice of America is a book of quotations that evokes the history of dissent in America from the founding to the present. The book contains approximately 2,000 quotations from 375 different spokesmen. Its purpose is to help supplant the official textbook version of American history. Howard Zinn has characterized the work as "a treasury of statements and insights from people famous and unknown, and it adds up to a powerful commentary on American civilization."

Moon Harvest

E. Nickson
MS #129
SOC 1990.031
Registered 1990/11/02 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Atlantis sank beneath the waves in a single day and night, destroyed by an asteroid striking the Earth. But supposing that had not happened, that the calamity had been only postponed, and that Atlantis had survived to become the present-day dominant world power? The world today would have been both a familiar and yet very different place. This scene is painted in Moon Harvest which, while grappling with the race to save civilization from destruction, gives ample scope for exploring a diversity of sociological, theological, scientific and even linguistic byways.

The Promotion

Bud (Gerald?) Boudreau
MS #127
SOC 1990.030 A, B
Registered 1990/10/26 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
In The Promotion, Gary Gleason is up for promotion to replace his boss, who is retiring. Grooming for the promotion notwithstanding, the promotion isn't automatic. Office politics, laws, and politics all have a say in his destiny.

Epistle

Steve Rutz
MS #126
SOC 1990.029
Registered 1990/10/26 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Epistle is a fifty-six page letter from my greatgrandson who is intrigued by the study of our era and possesses the delicate talent of communicating with our generation in the form of this letter. While the result of our behavior seems to teter on disaster, he is quite understanding and encouraging in his descriptive account of how our descendants remember us. The year 2131 by contrast, is a time when the virtues of peace, love, and understanding are shared by all of Earth's inhabitants.

Childhood Memories of World War II

Eva Rappart Edmands
MS #121
SOC 1990.028
Registered 1990/10/11 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Born in Vienna, Austria, Eva Rappart Edmands was eight years old when the Anschluss shattered her secure and comfortable Jewish household. During the following years, as they emigrated to France and fled Nazi persecution, Eva and her parents lost everything. They lived in cellars, learned the pure joy of a three-potato gift, and lived with the constant fear of discovery and deportation. They also learned the value of friendship and human love. These are Childhood Memories of World War II.

Maud

Thomas McGuire
MS #115
SOC 1990.027
Registered 1990/10/01 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Maud, a stage play, focuses on the stormy love affair between Maud Gonne, the fiery Anglo-Irish revolutionary and W.B. Yeats, one of Ireland's great poets. Maud's zeal to improve the lot of the simple peasant fuels Yeat's romantic vision. Against the backdrop of impending revolt, their clash embraces both art and politics. Despite conflicting strategies and physical estrangement, these two giants of 20th Century Ireland remain inextricably bound.

Humanizing Architecture

G. Trieschmann
MS #114
SOC 1990.026
Registered 1990/10/01 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Humanizing Architecture is written in annotation for dynamic visual demonstration of how modern Western building came to be and how it has led to the "Savings and Loan Crisis" in the United States, "property crisis" in Australia, and general discontent over building in Great Britain as expressed by Charles, Prince of Wales, in A Vision of Britain.

Cinema Inspiration

Alexander Stella
MS #113
SOC 1990.025
Registered 1990/09/28 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Cinema Inspiration is a potpourri of theme and style. The principal is a movie script about a love affair between a fundamentalist Christian televangelist and a "new age" religionist. That's "Hot Rabbits." "Mother Star" is a treatment about a teenage boy who mistakenly believes he's an extra-terrestrial alien.

Librarian's Comment
Alexander Stella has contributed eight manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are iLinx (FAM 1990.005), War Dodger (SOC 1990.016), Nodes (SOC 1990.017), Splish (ALL 1990.022), Cinema Inspiration (SOC 1990.025), Crystal Star (MEA 1991.002), A Younger Earth (MEA 1991.003), and C Is for Caucasian (SOC 1991.007).

Fantasies II

Marvin Spivak
MS #100
SOC 1990.024
Registered 1990/09/18 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Fantasies II is my second short story collection. The other is Fantasies (Mojave Press, 7118 Canby Avenue, Reseda, CA 91335). These are collections of science-fantasies, social fiction, and mystery about mythical worlds, human suffering, and religious experience.

R.I.F. (Reduction In Force)

Ernest Cohen
MS #098
SOC 1990.023
Registered 1990/08/29 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
R.I.F. (Reduction In Force) is both a fiction, and a philosophic statement concerning the meaning of life in the modern world. It covers about thirty years in the lives of two people, starting with their courtship at Cornell University, and ending with their dedication to restructuring society. The novel comments on technology, unemployment, Judaism (and Jews by choice), family, community, and society. The Family-Community Movement (and its Jewish branch, Hehillat Mishpakhot) is an attempt to implement the philosophy of R.I.F. in our present American society.

Mother and Daughter

Dennis Manuel
MS #097
SOC 1990.022
Registered 1990/08/29 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Mother and Daughter is the first draft of a short novel or play. It's about every young, insecure and overly possessive black mother and her precocious daughter. Apparently later "scooped" by the author of the 1980 TV movie, Mother and Daughter, except that my story has a black cast and takes place in a matter of hours, as opposed to years.

Librarian's Comment
Dennis Manuel has contributed two manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are Mother and Daughter (SOC 1990.002) and Camp Terror (ALL 1990.002).

The Carousel Rider

Stephen Stathis
MS #092
SOC 1990.021
Registered 1990/08/20 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
The Carousel Rider deals with a one boy's development built around his experiences with the carousel carvers from the turn of the century. It shows his state of mind as he goes from the city to the country, from an abandoned carousel to one that works. He in time finds that he must find his own happiness as he grows up.

Librarian's Comment
Stephen Stathis has contributed two manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are The Carousel Rider (SOC 1990.021) and The Return of A Legend (SOC 1991.014).

How To Succeed As A Successful Woman, Or Keeping A Stiff Upper Lip

Barbara Kingsley
MS #090
SOC 1990.020
Registered 1990/08/16 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Losing her husband and child early in WWII, the author survived many tragedies and went on to have successful careers in three different countries, as well as two more happy marriages and another child. How To Succeed As A Successful Woman, Or Keeping A Stiff Upper Lip is her story.

The Search

Joseph Diblin
MS #083
SOC 1990.019
Registered 1990/08/10 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
In The Search, a pilot disappears during a mysterious flight from Colombia. His friend and sister search for the missing flyer. Against the unusual background of the island of Saba in the Caribbean, the searchers find cocaine and love and the missing pilot.

No Lunch in Nirvana

Bob Singer
MS #070
SOC 1990.018
Registered 1990/07/19 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
No Lunch in Nirvana is one man's perspective of what it's all about!

Nodes

Alexander Stella
MS #069
SOC 1990.017
Registered 1990/07/16 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
In Nodes, an aspiring young actress, trapped on stage, encounters Friedrich Nietzche, Joan of Arc, Cataline, Diotima, and a couple of others. The denouement packs enough power with its Twilight Zone ending to qualify as an "anti-denouement."

Librarian's Comment
Alexander Stella has contributed eight manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are iLinx (FAM 1990.005), War Dodger (SOC 1990.016), Nodes (SOC 1990.017), Splish (ALL 1990.022), Cinema Inspiration (SOC 1990.025), Crystal Star (MEA 1991.002), A Younger Earth (MEA 1991.003), and C Is for Caucasian (SOC 1991.007).

War Dodger

Alexander Stella
MS #068
SOC 1990.016
Registered 1990/07/16 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
While a graduate at Oregon State University, Larry Ice undergoes enlightenment as he battles drugs, disenchantment and despair. War Dodger is a multi-faceted novella examining the different periods of the protagonist's life.

Librarian's Comment
Alexander Stella has contributed eight manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are iLinx (FAM 1990.005), War Dodger (SOC 1990.016), Nodes (SOC 1990.017), Splish (ALL 1990.022), Cinema Inspiration (SOC 1990.025), Crystal Star (MEA 1991.002), A Younger Earth (MEA 1991.003), and C Is for Caucasian (SOC 1991.007).

Abuses of Power: Restructuring Our Schools

Robert Rose
MS #066
SOC 1990.015 A, B
Registered 1990/07/12 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Abuses of Power: Restructuring Our Schools explains how those associated with schools, children to school boards, abuse their powers. At the same time each person and group is a victim as well as a victimizer. Dr. Rose explores how this happens and makes suggestions for changes which would help each more effectively perform his function and make democracy, equity, responsibility, and realized potentials a reality, not empty buzzwords.

Librarian's Comment
This manuscript was Dr. Rose's Ph.D. dissertation.

Said Fleet

Jeffrey Davis
MS #065
SOC 1990.014
Registered 1990/07/11 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Said Fleet consists of twenty poems, all, except for the last, less than twenty-one lines long, addressing, among other existents, a mallard, mousse, Gaius Julius Caesar and Carl Jung, lemurs, love, ironmen, anacoulothons, artichokes, archaeology and neomythology. Said poems are annexed to twenty one-plus page sometimes witty prose character cameos, varied aphorisms, and a butterfly quiz. These collected creations are concluded by a felicitous invention. The general theme of Said Fleet is the discovering of transcendence in common, seemingly insignificant, circumstances of everyday life.

Einstein Doesn't Throw Dice

Andrew Colameco
MS #061
SOC 1990.013
Registered 1990/07/02 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Einstein Doesn't Throw Dice is a poetic narrative where we explore the life and mind of Peter Simmons during a few days in April 1985. A cynical, jaded excommunicated physicist, Simmons is relegated to a lonely but imaginative existence roaming the city streets and renewing the same four library books. Through his fantasies, or perhaps, through unusual twists of fate, he is rollercoastered from street person to celebrity and in and out of love. All the while, a rich world of spirits watch, protect and torment him, including the ghost of Einstein.

Librarian's Comment
Andrew Colameco has contributed four manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are Einstein Doesn't Throw Dice (SOC 1990.013), Theories of Father (HUM 1990.012), The Relativity of Retreat (SOC 1991.009), and Cold Fusion (ALL 1994.001).

My Stories and Poems

Marcus Lloyd
MS #054
SOC 1990.012
Registered 1990/06/25 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
My Stories and Poems is a wide-ranging collection of what the author hopes are highly original, imaginative, amusing, ironic, disturbing, funny, satiric and/or provocative short stories, personal essays, and a few verses.

Beyond Drug Wars

Jed Diamond
MS #048
SOC 1990.011
Registered 1990/06/22 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Drug users are obsessed with getting drugs while our government has become just as obsessed with trying to eliminate drugs. Wars on drugs have never worked. Beyond Drug Wars offers a revolutionary alternative for ending drug abuse in America.

The 4-H Club

Rita Gordon
MS #044
SOC 1990.010 A, B
Registered 1990/06/19 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
The 4-H Club is a novel set in modern America (1990) that tells of several individual's struggle to lose fat in a bizarre and intrigue-filled fat farm full of many nationalities of unusual characters. The pyschodynamics of human behavior during weight loss has a serious side and a humorous side. This story also has a third (underlying) side: American economics.

Librarian's Comment
Rita Gordon has contributed two manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are On the Tide (SOC 1990.009 A, B) and The 4-H Club (SOC 1990.010 A, B).

On the Tide

Rita Gordon
MS #043
SOC 1990.009 A, B
Registered 1990/06/19 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
On the Tide is a romantic/war story set in the years 1896-1898. It is a tale of the Spanish-American War that takes place in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Florida and Cuba. The historical facts are accurate; the historical characters were real people. The lovers lose their innocence at the same time America loses hers.

Librarian's Comment
Rita Gordon has contributed two manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are On the Tide (SOC 1990.009 A, B) and The 4-H Club (SOC 1990.010 A, B).

Over the Quagmires and through the Bogs

Rena Kunis MS #037 SOC 1990.008
Registered 1990/06/11 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Over the Quagmires and through the Bogs is dedicated to the principle that if you don't laugh you'll cry. It deals with adventures common to all denizens of the twentieth century in the United States, including growing up, being educated, getting a job, marrying, raising children, accumulating possessions, forming opinions and growing older. As the title indicates, we may skirt the pitfalls, be we can arrive at our destination bloodied but unbowed.

Three Essays Advocating the Abolishing of Money

Stephen Bort
MS #036
SOC 1990.007
Registered 1990/06/08 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Three Essays Advocating the Abolishing of Money argues that capitalism is to civilization what AIDS is to the human body. The injustice of injustices (in our world today) is that our fundamental human needs must be earned through labor and purchased with income. Human existence does not have to be subservient to the flow of money. When the needs of humanity are met unconditionally (without first having to earn the right for survival) then we, as a people, a community, will be free to turn the creativity within our minds and hearts to higher concerns.

For Dear Old Ireland and Others

Thomas K. Withey
MS #035
SOC 1990.006
Registered 1990/06/07 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Reagan, The Queen, Charles, Diane, Bakker, Swaggert, Falwell and Bush are all present in For Dear Old Ireland and Others, a critique about the gods, the near gods and the demi gods. We other mere mortals are also mentioned.

Librarian's Comment
Thomas Withey has contributed four manuscripts to The Brautigan Library. They are The Courier (LOV 1990.005), For Dear Old Ireland and Others (SOC 1990.006), Come Laugh and Cry with Me (POE 1991.003), and Seven Cities of Gold (POE 1991.012).

Broken Pieces

Joseph DeRosa #026 SOC 1990.005
Registered 1990/05/31 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Broken Pieces grapples with the seeds of violence in a contemporary society on several levels: psychological, sociological, and spiritual. It is about people who gather together for community, who have nothing to offer one another but their own form of self destruction. Yet within the confines of their self induced hell, redemption is offered with freedom for those who are daring enough to grasp it.

Escort

Alicia Locarno (Heidi Bried)
MS #018
SOC 1990.004
Registered 1990/05/23 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
Escort is the story of an ambiguous, greedy girl who works for an escort service (as a highly paid hooker) who has a doomed relationship with a man who sincerely loves her, and who comes to a bad end, this being the case with such a dangerous occupation.

Land of The Lourie

Donna Allen
MS #003
SOC 1990.003
Registered 1990/04/10 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
The American wife of a South African farmer-yachtsman recounts an unusual life at the troubled tip of the continent, Land of The Lourie. Their travels covered the picturesque miles from the port of Cape Town, to the high country of Rhodesia, down to Mozambique, and home to District Knysna on the Indian Ocean. Frequent callers ranged from Dr. Christiaan Bernard, titled friends, Cape colored neighbors, passing yachties to baboons and deadly snakes.

"Allan, You May Use Your Ballpoint Pen Now"

Allan Nichols
MS #002
SOC 1990.002
Registered 1990/04/02 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
In grade IV in Montreal on Fridays we had "spelling" in our good books with long fountain pens, which we had to dip in our ink wells and "write and spell properly." We were marked on neatness, correctness of spelling, and penmanship. For some reason, the horror of this event for me manifested itself in an incredible, unstoppable shaking of my hand. The introduction of the ballpoint pen two years later freed me totally of the "shakes" and I dedicated this collection to that freedom.

The McNowski Papers

Donald McNowski
MS #001
SOC 1990.001
Registered 1990/04/01 by The Librarian

Author's Synopsis
The McNowski Papers is a collection of letters, responses and more from Burlington's premier cultural critic, Donald McNowski. Patriotism, religion and America's repression of drunk drivers are dealt with in a manner which only some have called stupid.