Encyclopedia

Most grocery stores here have dishes for special promotions. I bought a china dinner plate and a cup and saucer set when I moved here last August. That plate is white with green ivy leaves around the edge. Then, when it was early December and my mother was taking the bus up for a weekend visit, I bought another dinner plate and a mug. That pattern has small pine branches, mainly needles with a few pine cones nestled close. At least all the dishes are white with green decoration. I splurged and bought a red candle, one of those pillar ones, that smelled like spices when it burned. That was our centerpiece.

When I was nine, the grocery store down the block did something different. One Saturday Mom brought home the first two volumes of an encyclopedia. The first was only ninety-nine cents but the second was $3.99. After that, she bought a volume when she could, but we never did get the full set.

And we wish it could hold everything, don't we? Obsessively we categorize, alphabetize, simplify, sqooshing the juicy funny awkward dripping parts of life into dark printed digital squiggles on the proverbial page. Some people know how to read encyclopedias backwards, so that every entry is a question.

Is there a record of when or why the »a« was dropped
from »encyclopaedia«? I do not wish to initiate a discussion
on the evoloution or usage of language, but there seems to
be an overbearing anarchism at play. If, as I suspect, the less adept
are having such an influence-is this website helpful or
unhelpful and, if either, who for? Surely only the adept will
know or care, while those who do not understand will see
a cause that they (despite not understanding it) are prepared
to follow. As long as arrogant twats like me
remain I suppose we'll understand each other. Have I had
too much to drink?
This shows signs of paranoia and insecurity mixed with
megolamaniacal tendencies. The point is I know the answers
to all thse questions and it really isn't important anyway-
just interesting and I am only talking to myself. See what
you've started? What was the keyword anyway?

Frank sits at a zinc bar somewhere in Exmouth Market. The bartender, who is known locally as Dublin Sandy, suggests a couple of exotic drinks: the Newton's Apple, the Gooseberry Martini.

Frank orders a Budweiser and is very surprised to find that the stuff tastes better in Britain.

Frank says to Sandy, »My friend Vidalia is after the elemental. She's writing a Dictionary of Desire.«