inessential by Brent Simmons

11/22/01

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are a few things (and people, places, etc.) I’m thankful for. This list is by no means comprehensive.


The Renaissance

The Sistine Chapel

Modernism

Picasso

Erik Satie

The Revolutionary War

outliners

The Killers by Ernest Hemingway

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Philip Roth

Anjelica Huston

movies

Gutenberg and the invention of the printing press

The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

Susie Bright

The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams

language

The Story of English

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

wild animals

butterflies

cats

earthworms

Dogwood trees

skyscrapers

The Atlantic Ocean

The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges

Eiffel Tower

Romance languages

The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker

Milan Kundera

baseball

The Decameron

Beowulf

Star Trek

vacuum cleaners

gold toe socks

guitars

Prelude to an Apres-Midi d'un faun by Debussy

Stravinsky: Sacre du Printemps

Henri Matisse

The Web

Monty Python

Red Dwarf

The Democratic Party

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

Martin Amis: The Information

Sabbatical by John Barth

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Daniel J. Boorstin

Summer

Dahlias, nasturtiums, black-eyed susans, chrysanthemums

The Space Needle

The Pacific Science Center

The Wyeth Museum

George Washington

Catch-22

Paris

London

Rome

Spain

bullfights

boxing

Blondie

The Clash

The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille

courtroom dramas

Babe Ruth

The Mariners

steak

potato chips

The Chesapeake Bay

Washington, D.C.

Buddy Holly

Chuck Berry

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas

Cocoa

hot chocolate

Coffee

Mac OS X

Fantagraphics

zoos

Leonardo da Vinci

Machiavelli

Shakespeare

pasta

ska

airplanes

dirigibles and blimps

the end of the Cold War

the defeat of Nazism and Imperial Japan in WWII

Philip K. Dick

Socrates

pasteurization

Virgina Woolf

Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf? by Edward Albee

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Raymond Carver

The Roman Empire

Roman ruins

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbons

comic books

the Polio vaccine

Camille Paglia

Scotch on the rocks

Bloody Marys

Queen Elizabeth I

Sherlock Holmes

squirrels

eagles

Richard P. Feynman

Casablanca

Humphrey Bogart

Spencer Tracy

Katharine Hepburn

Douglas Engelbart

Linux

Python

Frontier

Handspring Visors

Clay flower pots

Cordless telephones

Regular trash, recyclables, and yard waste collection

Email

democracy

free speech

Einstein

Pilot Razor Point pens

Ancient Egyptian civilization

The Sphinx

The Library of Alexandria (wish it hadn't burned down)

Marco Polo

garages

Doc Martens

colleges

garlic

tomatoes

potatoes

French fries

oregano

electricity

indoor plumbing

indoor lighting

Susan Sontag: Against Interpretation

Umberto Eco

Avalon, New Jersey

laptops

BBEdit

The Audubon Society

LCD monitors

Trinitron monitors

Carbon

Alexander the Great

The Canterbury Tales

violins

drums

frogs

gravity

rakes

The Marquis de Sade

The Story of O

barbecues

curtains

jeans

firemen

police

photographs

The Moon Landing

Nelson Mandela

The Specials

Bonnie and Clyde

Alexander Hamilton

Thomas Jefferson

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Thomas Paine

Abraham Lincoln

W.E.B. duBois

Sojourner Truth

The underground railroad

The Harlem renaissance

Langston Hughes

Ralph Ellison

White Noise by Don DeLillo

Absolutely Fabulous

jewelry

Jean-Paul Gaultier

gold

The Washington Monument

Descartes

Voltaire

Denis Diderot, Jacques le fataliste

cheese

refried beans

radar

submarines

washing machines

digital cameras

Harold Bloom

Charlie Rose

William S. Burroughs

ibuprofen

soda

chocolate ice cream

boats

Dr. Seuss

The Stainless Steel Rat

Esperanto

Atlases

The Athenian republic

mosquito-eaters

Argentinea

Rio

The Old Testament

CIA

John leCarre

Eudora

Apache

fishermen

notebooks

carpet

nylon

teflon

The Origin of Species

Cote d'Azur

clocks

Arabic numerals

The number zero

J.D. Salinger

porches

flags

swing sets

beaches

jokes

Henny Youngman

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

stoves and ovens

microwave ovens

dishwashers

Camper van Beethoven

Martin Luther King, Jr.

pine needles

picnics

Italian subs

office supply stores

underground sewer pipes

plumbers

umbrellas

Boeing

disposable contact lenses

rye bread

cheeseburgers

The Four Seasons

flamenco dancing

cardigans

various unmentionables

The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

In the Beginning was the Command Line

compasses

Henry the Navigator

The Odyssey

Aristotle

Amerigo Vespucci

Christopher Columbus

Dashiel Hammett

Raymond Chandler

Mary McCarthy

Dorothy Parker

Altoids

TastyKakes

Johann Sebastian Bach

Speed Racer

Wings of Desire and Until the End of the World by Wim Wenders

Dictionaries

The Rosetta Stone

The Great Pyramids of Giza

Vasco de Gama

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

trains, especially the TGV

Cancer researchers

AIDS researchers

The Center for Disease Control

NASA

paper clips

nail clippers

tape measures

step-ladders

sky lights

particle accelerators

The Constitution

salt and pepper

chile peppers

cookbooks

Frederico Garcia Lorca

William Carlos Williams

paved roads

Roman aqueducts

archery

kitty litter

fences

mice

dinosaurs

Cezanne

Jasper Johns

Andy Warhol

Lou Reed

the Pogues

travel books

CD-RW drives

VCRs

bookshelves

halogen lamps

birdbaths

cherries

Patrick Henry

glue

catnip

Suze Orman

The West Wing

lawn mowers

color printers

trauma centers

helicopters

Stonehenge

veterinarians

Grand Canyon

The Alps

Mt. Everest

Mars

leather

satellites

the invention of latitude and longitude

etc.