How to Deconstruct Almost Anything

How to Deconstruct Almost Anything

"In fact, one of the beliefs that seems to be characteristic of the postmodernist mind set is the idea that politics and cleverness are the basis for all judgments about quality or truth, regardless of the subject matter or who is making the judgment."

Online Etymology Dictionary

Online Etymology Dictionary

Because words, especially the Etymologies of words, make me Hot.

The Postmodernism Generator: Communications From Elsewhere

The Postmodernism Generator: Communications From Elsewhere: "The essay you have just seen is completely meaningless and was randomly generated by the Postmodernism Generator. To generate another essay, follow this link. If you like this particular essay and would like to return to it, follow this link for a bookmarkable page."

Isn't that neat?

Openinghooks.us Opening Hooks, the hook project

Opening Hooks, the hook project�welcome

A collection of opening passages from stories and novels. You can vote and make submissions.

Serious Reading....

Complete Reading List for the semester:

James Baldwin, Going to Meet the Man
Toni Morrison, Sula
Leslie Marmon Silko, Storyteller
Jessica Hagedorn, Dogeaters
Art Spiegelman, The Complete Maus
Junot Diaz, Drown
Sapphire, Push
Werner Sollors, (selected texts)


Selected Readings from:


Giovanni Da Verrazano
Alvar Núñez Cabeza De Vaca
Samuel De Champlain
John Smith
William Bradford
Thomas Morton
John Winthrop
Anne Bradstreet
Mary Rowlandson
Cotton Mather
John Woolman
St. Jean De Crèvecoeur
William Bartram
John Edwards
Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Paine
Thomas Jefferson
Phyllis Wheatley
Assorted Native American Texts
Washington Irving
James Fenimore Cooper
William Cullen Bryant
Caroline Stansbury Kirkland
Francis Parkman
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Margaret Fuller
Henry David Thoreau
Edgar Allen Poe
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Henry Wadswoth Longfellow
Abraham Lincoln
Frederick Douglass
James Russel Lowell
Walt Whitman


Dante La vita nuova
Tasso Jerusalem Delivered
Racine Phedra
Goethe Faust
Leopardi Selected poems
Baudelaire Les Fleurs du Mal
Flaubert Salammbo
Rilke Duino Elegies
Hesse Steppenwolf


Cædmons' Hymn
The Dream of the Rood
The Battle of Maldon
Beowulf
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Chaucer: Prologue to Canterbury Tales, Miller's Tale, Wife of Bath, Pardoner's Tale
William Langland, assorted
The Wakefield Second Shepherd's Play
Assorted Medieval Lyrics
Sir Thomas Malory, Morte Darthur
Assorted Elizabethan Lyrics
Edmund Spenser, The Faery Queene, Epithalamion
Shakespeare, assorted sonnets, Twelfth Night
John Webster, The Dutchess of Malfi
John Donne, assorted songs and sonnets
Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
Thomas Browne, assorted selections from Religio Medici and Hydrotaphia
Ben Jonson, assorted
Robert Herrick, assorted
George Herbert, assorted
Andrew Marvell, assorted
Richard Crashaw, assorted
Henry Vaughn, assorted
John Milton, Paradise Lost


Good Stuff.

The best paper airplane in the world!

Paper airplane - The best paper airplane in the world!


I am going to build a fleet of these and launch them from my 2nd floor terrace. They're æsthetically pleasing as well as flying (gliding) beautifully.

Poynter Online - Fifty Writing Tools

Fifty Writing Tools By Roy Peter Clark.

Excellent advice for journalists, primarily, but I can see the value in using these with all writing.

Bitten by the opera bug.

Puccini's La Boheme libretto, complete opera translation in English

I'm trying to find an online source for the libretto for Turandot- if anyone knows of one, please direct me to it. NPR played a recording of Turandot at the Met in NYC today, and I enjoyed it immensely. They're doing La Boheme on Feb. 19th, I think.

Middle English Pornography

Middle English Pornography
I have a noble cock.

The following text is from this link.

"1 I haue a gentil cook,
2 Crowyt me day.
3 He doth me rysyn erly,
4 My matyins for to say.
5 I haue a gentil cook,
6 Comyn he is of gret.
7 His comb is of reed corel,
8 His tayil is of get.
9 I haue a gentyl cook,
10 Comyn he is of kynde.
11 His comb is of red scorel,
12 His tayl is of Inde.
13 His legges ben of asor,
14 So geintil and so smale.
15 His spores arn of syluer qwyt,
16 In to the worte wale.
17 His eynyn arn of cristal,
18 Lokyn al in aumbyr,
19And euery nyght he perchit hym
20 In myn ladyis chaumbyr.

"Loose Translation:
"I have a noble cock
Who crows for me at daybreak.
He rouses me up early
To say my matins.
I have a noble cock.
He comes from great ones.
His comb is of red corel.
His tail is of jet.
I have a noble cock,
He comes from kin [or nature];
His comb is of red squirrel,
His tail is of indigo.
His legs are of azure,
So noble and so slender.
His spurs are of white silver
As far as the wartwale.
His eyes are of crystal,
Set all in amber,
And every night he perches himself
In my lady's chamber."

Now that's classy!