The Things-To-Read Page

Kurt Vonnegut:

Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

That said, I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy.

Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40. Maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

- Kurt Vonnegut, June 1997

Aristotle

- Aristotle from "The Nicomachean Ethics"

Strunk & White

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

- William Strunk, Jr. & E.B. White from "The Elements of Style"

Douglas Adams

"The Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy" is an indispensable companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an infinitely complex and confusing Universe, for though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does at least make the reassuring claim, that where it is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it's always reality that's got it wrong.

That was the gist of the notice. It said "The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate." This has led to some interesting consequences. For instance, when the editors of the Guide were sued by the families of those who had died as a result of taking the entry on the planet Traal literally (it said "Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal for visiting tourists" instead of "Ravenous Bugblatter Beast often make a very good meal of visiting tourists"), they claimed that the first version of the sentence was the more aesthetically pleasing, summoned a qualified poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty and hoped thereby to prove that the guilty party in this case was Life itself for failing to be either beautiful or true. The judges concurred, and in a moving speech held that Life itself was in contempt of court, and duly confiscated it from all those there present before going off to enjoy a pleasant evening's ultragolf.

- Douglas Adams from pg 38 of "The Restaurant at the end of the Universe."

Purfleet Journal

...from The Purfleet Journal: Darts Hit the Big Time but Keep Their Beer-Soaked Roots

January 11, 2005 By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

PURFLEET, England, Jan. 7 - Phil (the Power) Taylor cocked his head slightly, eyed the dart board and, ignoring the soused crowd and the fog of cigarette smoke, sealed the match with a perfect flick of the wrist. But this was no ordinary game of darts relegated to a quaint local pub, where the stakes are more often measured in frothy pints than in pounds sterling.

Showcasing the game's newly acquired razzle-dazzle, tournament players including Bob (the Limestone Cowboy) Anderson, Wayne (Hawaii 501) Mardle and Kevin (the Artist) Painter - tramped into the spacious Circus Tavern here in this London suburb last week with all the flourish and gusto of heavyweight boxers.

With buxom blondes on their arms, theme tunes pulsating from loudspeakers ("I Got the Power") and colored spotlights swirling, the players, clad in boxy, custom-made shirts, ambled to the stage through the screeching crowd of 900 mostly drunken fans. The winner, the legendary Mr. Taylor, who cornered his record 12th world title, took home £60,000 ($112,000), a sliver of what he earns on the circuit and from endorsements.

More important, the match was televised by Sky Sports, seen by at least two million British viewers and was piped into 500 million households worldwide. Darts even registered its first pay-per-view head-to-head match last November, between Mr. Taylor and the much loved Andy (the Viking) Fordham, with the promise of another not too far off.

"Darts is a cross between a Springsteen concert and professional wrestling now," said Sid Waddell, a longtime commentator, embellishing just a smidge. "It's a sport that needs dramatic lighting, and heavy rock music punctuated by the intensity of the crowd."

While purists may tut-tut, there is little doubt that this new formula - not so different from the repackaging of poker in America - has revitalized the ailing game of darts and captured international attention. China and Japan, where fans enthusiastically mob British dart players for their autographs, have embraced the sport with particular vigor. China formed its first national dart organization last September, and 250,000 members signed up right away.

Darts can even be seen regularly in America now, where it is most popular on the East Coast, on Fox Sports Net, which has televised marquee tournaments and the Vegas Desert Classic.

"What darts has become is a television phenomenon," said Barry Hearn, a former boxing promoter and the chairman of the Professional Darts Corporation, a breakaway group that formed in 1992 and spearheaded the revitalization.

Groupies, too, are budding, most notably a set calling themselves "Tarts for Darts."

The game's appeal is rooted in its working-class sensibilities and lager-fueled ambiance, which helps explain why there are 100 million dart players worldwide. There is no game that can be played as easily in a pub by players - the weather is irrelevant, fees are laughably low and obesity is hardly a disqualifier.

The game's success has now prompted efforts to try to sober up its image, get it introduced as an Olympic sport or at least a sport recognized by the Olympic committee. After all, synchronized swimming, table tennis and badminton are Olympic sports, and no one questions the skill and mental focus required to play darts at a top level.

Some consider it unlikely the game will ever make it to the Olympics, and point to its Cockney roots as the biggest obstacle.

"In my view, the exclusion of darts is down to class-based prejudice," wrote Martin Kelner in The Guardian last year. "Because the drug of choice among darts people tends to be lager, and true Olympians like to go for something with a few more syllables in it, other sportsmen get all sniffy about darts."

Mr. Taylor, the 12-time world champion, who practices six hours a day, said the game's boozy pedigree is unshakeable and a big part of its appeal.

"You can take darts out of the pub, but you can never take the pub out of darts," he said the day after winning his latest title. "We will always have that label. You can never change it. But I don't think it's a bad thing. It's now a professional game and people are realizing it."

"Plus, we've cleaned up the image a lot," he added, pointing to the fact that drinking alcohol is not allowed during a match.

Even the players, particularly the older ones, are trying to get trim. Mr. Taylor, 44, whose paunch hangs over his pants, has been working out with a body-building expert. It is Mr. Fordham, though, who is taking fitness the most seriously, because whenever he stepped on his home scale, as he put it, "it read 'error.' " At 420 pounds, Mr. Fordham - a pub owner whose theme song is "I'm Too Sexy for My Shirt" - is the first to tell you he enjoys the "relaxed" life.

To relax before a match, he used to drink 25 bottles of Holsten Pils. When he broke his wrist last year, his physical therapy consisted of lifting a beer bottle to his lips (the therapy worked beautifully, he said).

When he nearly collapsed from heat exhaustion at the pay-per-view showdown with Mr. Taylor in November, he went outside, took off his shirt, iced himself down and reportedly sipped a beer to recuperate. Too sick to continue playing, he was forced to concede.

The health scare was a wake-up call. He has joined the cast of "Celebrity Fit Club," a reality television show airing now that features celebrities trying to get in shape.

"Drinking goes part and parcel with darts," said Mr. Fordham, 42, whose affable wife, Jenny, owns The Rose, a pub in Dartford. They live upstairs. "But I'm cutting back to as much I can." His initial goal is to reduce his daily intake of beer to 12 bottles.

The Bitter Parrot

I met a fellow from Hong Kong while at school. He told me of a story his father had told him before he came to America. He said that his father had said, "Son, in China we have stores that sell birds. You can go to one of these stores, as you know, and buy birds. You can buy all kinds of birds, including birds that you can keep for pets and also birds that you can eat. The question I want you to ask yourself is why can you buy both kinds of birds in a bird store? And son, when you are certain that you know the answer to this question, then you will be ready to return home."

Well, I don't know the answer to that question; though I suspect that the "inscrutable oriental" expects his child to think on this topic, meditate as it were, until he arrives at the answer. I have not thought about this as I do not think it is important for me to bother and I was struck by the often "foolish" appearance of Asian wisdom. Is it a deep question that can be answered on many levels, or is it a significant idea that demands serious attention? I do not know.

I do know that many cultures have symbols for wisdom and symbols for foolishness. The curious thing is that these symbols are often the same. The Owl, the symbol of my college, is well known to be a symbol of wisdom, but it is also known in some cultures as a symbol of foolishness. This gives new meaning to the term "sophomoric." And it explains why many people find the venerated old men and women of Asia to appear seemingly foolish and old when earnestly queried for advice.

The idea that jumped out at me was, not why do the Chinese sell both kinds of birds in a bird store, but the more pragmatic, "How do you know which is which?" Yes of course, you can ask and the sales help will tell you which is which. We are talking about China, and one cannot assume that your intended dinner has been killed and cleaned for you already. Many food birds in Asia are purchased alive and kicking. So, if one were to find oneself in a self-service bird store somewhere in Kowloon, which bird would you pick for a pet and which bird would you pick for food?

The obvious answer is, of course, by the taste. Birds that taste good are for cooking and birds that do not are kept as pets.

Think about that for a minute.

The problem becomes that the bird that is cooked for dinner, and does not taste good, can't really be kept as a pet anymore. And for that matter, the taste of a bird kept as a pet will always remain undetermined. Which leaves us again with: how does one know which is which?

And you say, "No you dummy! If a chicken tastes good then you have all the other chickens for dinner too, and if a parrot tastes bad then you keep all the other parrots as pets!" Well, I'm not so sure that it is that cut and dried. Everyone knows that it takes a tough man to make a tender chicken, and also that it takes a tough man to make a tough man to make a tender chicken, but I digress. Needless to say, the suitability of a given bird for eating must be determined on a case-by-case basis. Ergo, some chickens are not as tasty as some others, etc. And for that matter the temperament of pets is quite well known to vary from dog to dog, cat to cat, horse to horse, and therefore should also vary from bird to bird, even within the same species. So again, we must realize that the question still remains unanswered.

We could try to examine the bird before killing it to determine if it is tasty or awful, or said better, if it is sweet or bitter. Consider the case of the aforementioned parrot. How would one determine if a parrot were sweet or bitter, without having to eat it first? Would you know a bitter parrot when you saw one? What are the salient characteristics of a bitter parrot? "Polly wants a cracker but no one wants to bother giving Polly a cracker anymore." "Polly can't get no crackers anymore just because of one little smart remark made over FIFTEEN YEARS AGO!" Is that how you know when you have a bitter parrot? I mean, what is a bitter parrot like anyway? "I mean what is a bitter parrot like anyway?"[sic]

Then again, if you determine that the bitter parrot would taste bitter, and conversely, sweet parrot would taste sweet, we get to the further idea of why would you keep a bitter parrot for a pet? Polly says that, "You're too fat to ever find a new boyfriend and your lack of will power to diet means I'll never have a really hot looking owner." I mean really, shouldn't we keep the sweet parrot for a pet and eat the bitter parrot for dinner?

Well, no. We, being only human, would want to keep a sweet parrot for a pet and have a different sweet parrot for dinner. The bitter parrot will have to be sold to a bird dealer who might be able to palm it off on some other unsuspecting customer. Which is probably what made the parrot bitter in the first place. You'd be bitter too if no one wanted to eat you either.

As to our original question, I expect that my Chinese friend will, when he has sufficient spare time to ponder such important issues, will meditate on the why of Chinese bird stores until he arrives at the one true answer. He will then send for money to buy a ticket and go home. What happened to the bitter parrot, however, continues to elude me to this day.

- Alex Caemmerer, December 2003, previously unpublished

Boxes

There was a fine layer of dust on everything. No one had been in the garage for several months, not since Eric had stored his boxes here after the divorce. He sat on the end table, looking aimlessly at the square of sunlight on the floor. The light was streaming in through the window and illuminated the swirling and billowing cloud of dust he had stirred up. The glimmering particles bounced and flew like a thousand tiny pinballs in some intergalactic three dimensional video arcade.

The only sound was the tick-tick-tick of the wall clock. Eric had mistakenly plugged it in to the wall socket operated by the light switch. Normally, when no one was here, the clock stood still only bothering to be correct twice a day as real time swept past wall time. Now it was nearly two hours off and was contentedly marking off time all the while totally oblivious to the inaccuracy that it carefully kept pace with.

The constant ticking was slowly penetrating Eric's mind as he tried to find a pattern in the motion of the dust. It was going tick-tick-tick, but not like the slow steady rhythm of an old Negro blues man tapping his foot while waiting for his harmonica solo in some dark back alley night club, but more like the incessant tapping of the foot of some well-dressed impatient white woman who was clearly waiting for Eric to make up his mind about something and relent to her will. He could see her in his mind's eye but he was not sure if she was his ex-wife, or his mother. Not that there was much difference between the two. His sister always said he married her because she was just like his mother. He says he divorced her because she was just like his mother. Maybe they were both right. In any case, he felt her/their glare trying to force him to some sort of conclusion.

"Eric, you're wasting your time here."

Eric knew that she/they were probably right. But his thoughts kept returning to the collapse of his marriage, and he, like some archaeologist, was here now physically examining the artifacts of his life with her. They were all here, all the momentos, the documents, the knick-knacks he and she had collected during the three years they were married. What was he looking for? Was it an answer to why the marriage had failed or was it something else?

"Eric, it's over now, let it go."

He sat there and looked at the opened boxes he had been pouring through. He had spent maybe four hours or more going through each one looking for things of significance. Now he realized that none of it had any significance. The only items of any importance were his tax records which he had long ago dropped off at his accountant. Everything else was just a paper trail leading to the breakup of the only meaningful relationship in his life.

"Eric, it's time to get on with your life."

The voice of his wife/mother kept badgering him to be sensible, to let go of the past, to forgive and forget, to move on to new things. He knew she/they were right. He has spent too much time wandering through the events of the recent past. But he resented the nudges to move on before he was ready. She/they always asserted what she/they knew to be best for him. They always had, and he always resented it. Even worse, they were often right.

"Eric, what are you going to do? Ruminate about this your whole life?"

They had always been there in the aftermath of every crisis to help him to get over it. To help him see what the only sane course of action was. To give him the advice he needed whether he was ready for it or not. Why is it good advice can be so annoying? Why is it so hard to accept the help of people you know care for you and are just trying to do their best for you? He sat and pondered this for quite a while. There was a piece that did not fit, there was a piece that spoiled the effect of all the others.

"Eric, are you listening to me? I'm trying to help you but you don't seem to want to help yourself?"

He realized that he has always resented the soothing words of those around him ever since he was fourteen when his father died. Every one was so concerned about how his father's death was going to affect him at that impressionable and vulnerable age. They were so intent on making sure his loss of his father was not going to derail him from the ambitious life they saw in his future. And this grated upon him from within. He knew he had to accept their help. He knew that he could not ask them to stop. They would not understand and would only see his rejection as a further sign of the necessity for them to intervene: to nip his recalcitrance in the bud. The more he showed any signs of distress, the more they would intrude, sure that they alone knew the answer and they alone were motivated to get him back on track again.

His father had been derailed. He gave up a promising career in the military to settle down in one place to raise his family. Eric's mother did not want her children to move about every couple of years following his career. She didn't want them to be perpetual outsiders, Army brats that suffer some deep seated insecurity because they never had any long term relationships as a child.

Eric saw that she was right, but unlike her, he saw the effect this had on his father. He was never the same after he resigned his commission. Sure he landed a good job with a local firm and rose a couple of rungs on the ladder, but she never saw how the light in him had died. He had given up on the last of his adolescent dreams for the sake of his children and it killed him. Eric always felt that the drinking which eventually caused his death was a result of some need he had to fill a void in him since he quit the military. She always felt that his drinking was because he was weak and could not face up to a real career with real responsibilities.

The part that twisted in his gut was that all her posturing seemed to do was cover up her own responsibility. Every time she came out with some "hang tough" platitude like, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." or the such, it seemed to portray her as the strong and wise solver of problems without ever addressing her participation. Every time she presented a solution it seemed to Eric that she was at the same time also denying her participation in the problem. It was if she was saying, "If I provide the solution, how could I have also been the cause?"

What Eric wanted here was to preserve the artifacts of his marriage and also his life so that some archaeologist in the future would be able to examine them and would deduce and present in a paper to some interested panel that Eric had suffered and it was not entirely his fault. He secretly hoped that someone would eventually realize that he was not the sole cause of all his troubles. That's what these boxes were and why he kept them. They were the physical evidence that would show to anyone who cared to look that she/they were as guilty of the tragedies of his life as he was. They would not be allowed to gloss over their participation with their offers of pragmatic and timely advice. They had a need to sweep in, kiss it and make it better. Or more realistically, to sweep in and kiss it, so if it doesn't get better, it must be his fault.

That was the bottom line with she/them. Everything was okay just as long as it was clearly his fault. It had always been that way, as child and as a husband: it was his responsibility to take the blame. He would always be forgiven just as long as he accepted all the blame.

It was time to grow up and face his predicament. There would be no archaeologist to study him and his life. There would be no dissertation committee to pass judgment on his family. No one now or in the future is going to know or care what happened to him, nor how he handled it. He was not ever going to convince either his mother or his ex-wife of anything. He now knew who he was and what he had done. He knew that he was not always right, but also that they were not always right either. He made a place in his heart for them, but he also made one for himself. In it he put all the things he knew to be true that no one would ever admit to. In this place he put the story of his father and the story of his marriage and he built a wall around it and vowed to not ever let anything anyone ever said to him shake his faith in the power of the truth of these things. He knew he was done now. He got up and dusted himself off. He walked to the door, turned off the clock with the light. He locked the door and put the key under the mat and strode to the house. Once inside, he called his mother's handyman and told him he could take the boxes in the garage to the dump. He kissed his mother and said, "Goodbye mother." And then he left.

At home, he put all his affairs in order, he canceled the cable-TV, called the landlord and power company. He booked a flight to Los Angeles and arranged a cab to the airport. Everyone always said he should move to L.A. He decided they were right and that he was going to have a career writing for television. The cab was late and honked twice before it pulled into the driveway. Eric didn't care, if he didn't make this flight, he'll catch the next one.

- Alex Caemmerer, August 1998, previously unpublished

Single Malt Scotch

The other thing about Pedro was that he understood. Not everyone understood, so it was always good to find someone who really understood. I never liked spending time with people who did not understand. It's not that they were bad company, it's just that you knew no matter what you said they would not really understand. They always seem to talk all the time, the people who did not understand. I never figured out if that they did not understand and so they talked all the time, or if talking all the time prevented them from ever really understanding. I don't think it matters. I like when writers write as someone who does not talk all the time. You can feel as if the story was about someone who understood. The trouble with movies and TV is that you need characters that talk all the time so that the audience can follow the story. There can never be a good film about someone who does not talk all the time because no one could ever follow what was going on. Reading is better that way because you can understand stories about someone who does not talk all the time.

I think people who talk all the time are hiding something. I don't think they are hiding secrets, I think they are hiding some emotional scar or inadequacy. They talk so as to appear to know more than they do, or to prevent anyone else from talking about what hurts them. Either way they are always talking and I do not want to waste time listening because I know they do not understand. I find I talk less about the things I understand. I also never talk about the things I understand with other people who also understand. There would be no point. But I like talking with people who understand, we just talk about things different from what we understand. It is better that way. I hate ruining something that I understand by talking about it too much. I hate when people who do not understand ruin something by talking about it too much. Everyone nowadays always seem to talk too much.

I remember when I realized my father understood something. Much like Mark Twain: when I was 17 my father was not very smart, but by the time I was 25 he had gotten much smarter. We were at a party and I saw that he understood about his work. He never talks much about his work at home, except when he thinks he is helping us with a problem and then we must defend ourselves, my brothers and me, by not really listening. But at a party I saw that he understood. A young Intern from another hospital was talking to him about their treating a patient. They both are physicians and the intern made a joke. I immediately knew the joke was funny, but I also saw my father understand the joke as it was. I had never seen that before. I understood because I recognized the pattern of the joke and that it could be true, but I saw my father understand that it was true. I also had never seen anyone kiss up to him before. I could not conceive of anyone wanting to kiss up to my old man. I think that children naturally resent the idea of kissing up to their parents because we have seen them when they thought no one was looking. Children will respect their parents, but I don't think they ever kiss up to them. But this intern did it and did it as if he thought it was deserved. It did not sink in at the time but I later came to realize that, at least in his own field, my father really did understand what he was doing. But the young intern was different. I could not tell if he understood, or if he just knew how to get a good response. My brother is like that.

He used to collect shot glasses from places where he'd been. When I could, I would buy him a shot glass from places that I had been and give them to him the next time I saw him. It always bothered me though because I could never tell if he minded. Sometimes I thought that he resented my glasses because he wanted his collection to be only ones he had gotten from places he had been. I also knew that he would never tell me that even if I had asked. He would be nice and say it was alright even if it was not. I hate when a relationship gets awkward like that. You start to say things you don't mean to help things along and you always want to say more to make things work out, but every extra word is too much and only makes matters worse. The only way is to drop the subject and hope that it heals by itself. I hate rifts like that but I never learned how to force them to work out okay.

I remember the shot glass I bought. It was from a ski area and had the name of the ski area on it and it had the three symbols rating a ski slope on it too. Full was expert, two thirds full was intermediate, and one third full was beginner. I have seen this same shot glass at every ski area I have been to. I think it is meant to be special to each ski area and if you only went to one ski area you might think that it was. I think in this country we pretend that we have regional differences, but the products we buy are the same all over. It seems that the good ideas of one area always end up being spread out all across the country, only camouflaged to appear local. We want to feel that we have been somewhere special, but everywhere we go, it is all the same. Airports have souvenir shops in them now so you can buy a trinket from someplace where the closest you got to being there is catching a connecting flight on your way to somewhere else. I wonder if my brother understands this about airports and shot glasses.

I wonder now if I could teach him about single malt Scotch. Maybe I can't because the shot glass thing is still a problem. Or maybe he already knows from somewhere else. I hate when you try to tell someone something you understand and they act like they already know. Especially when you think that they don't and even worse when you realize that they already do. He does not want to learn from me. I think it is still the sibling rivalry thing.

I think I owe it to Pedro to teach someone about single malt Scotch. I know more now then when he taught me. I do not know if I know more than him yet. I think I should pass on what I know, but I don't think younger people drink the way they used to. I think the hard drinking in our culture is dying out. People I know drink beer and wine, and they only drink hard liquor to get drunk. I learned to drink hard liquor to get drunk, but now I drink it because I like it.

- Alex Caemmerer, July 1996, previously unpublished

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last updated 29th May 2009