Hi Chet,

Thank you for this post… I was tickled by the little hand-drawing that came in the mail with my copy of My Dinner With Ron Jeremy. I started reading it last night.

I’m working my way through the links on your post this morning. I was surprised to discover that I’ve either read or have on my shelf at least half of the banned books in the list of your first link.

A few years ago I picked up a copy of Fifty Shades for a buck or two at a thrift store, electing to see what all the fuss was about. A number of people I knew were reading and raving about it. I would agree that it was an unpleasant read (who wants to read email when they open a book?), but I powered through it anyway. I surmised that most of the girls reading it were probably encountering overt sexual writing in a novel for the first time and quite enjoying the titillation. That’s all good.

In the end, I’m so glad I read it, because the single detail in the book that hooked me was the reference to Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. As soon as I finished 50 shades, I bought a copy of Tess. Delicious literature! A feast of beautiful words and sentences. And if I’m not mistaken, this title faced some controversy in it’s own time as well.

Anyway, just agreeing that every book deserves its fair play.

now that just pisses me off…. i did not post that 3 times…. someone or something is repeatedly jamming my networking handshake … i apologize for that which i have no control over

i read an article in The New Yorker today that I believe everyone on the entire continent of North America should read…. possibly everyone on the Pacific Rim…. Cascadia Subduction is a huge issue apparently … http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one ….. When the Cascadia earthquake begins, there will be, instead, a cacophony of barking dogs and a long, suspended, what-was-that moment before the surface waves arrive. Surface waves are slower, lower-frequency waves that move the ground both up and down and side to side: the shaking, starting in earnest. …. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-02/heightened-earthquake-alert-issued-for-southern-california …. SERIOUSLY THOUGH…. READ IT….

Soon after that shaking begins, the electrical grid will fail, likely everywhere west of the Cascades and possibly well beyond. If it happens at night, the ensuing catastrophe will unfold in darkness. In theory, those who are at home when it hits should be safest; it is easy and relatively inexpensive to seismically safeguard a private dwelling. But, lulled into nonchalance by their seemingly benign environment, most people in the Pacific Northwest have not done so. That nonchalance will shatter instantly. So will everything made of glass. Anything indoors and unsecured will lurch across the floor or come crashing down: bookshelves, lamps, computers, cannisters of flour in the pantry. Refrigerators will walk out of kitchens, unplugging themselves and toppling over. Water heaters will fall and smash interior gas lines. Houses that are not bolted to their foundations will slide off—or, rather, they will stay put, obeying inertia, while the foundations, together with the rest of the Northwest, jolt westward. Unmoored on the undulating ground, the homes will begin to collapse.

Across the region, other, larger structures will also start to fail. Until 1974, the state of Oregon had no seismic code, and few places in the Pacific Northwest had one appropriate to a magnitude-9.0 earthquake until 1994. The vast majority of buildings in the region were constructed before then. Ian Madin, who directs the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI), estimates that seventy-five per cent of all structures in the state are not designed to withstand a major Cascadia quake. FEMA calculates that, across the region, something on the order of a million buildings—more than three thousand of them schools—will collapse or be compromised in the earthquake. So will half of all highway bridges, fifteen of the seventeen bridges spanning Portland’s two rivers, and two-thirds of railways and airports; also, one-third of all fire stations, half of all police stations, and two-thirds of all hospitals. In the Pacific Northwest, the area of impact will cover* some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people. When the next full-margin rupture happens, that region will suffer the worst natural disaster in the history of North America. Roughly three thousand people died in San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake. Almost two thousand died in Hurricane Katrina. Almost three hundred died in Hurricane Sandy. FEMA projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. Another twenty-seven thousand will be injured, and the agency expects that it will need to provide shelter for a million displaced people, and food and water for another two and a half million.

i read an article in The New Yorker today that I believe everyone on the entire continent of North America should read…. possibly everyone on the Pacific Rim…. Cascadia Subduction is a huge issue apparently … http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one ….. When the Cascadia earthquake begins, there will be, instead, a cacophony of barking dogs and a long, suspended, what-was-that moment before the surface waves arrive. Surface waves are slower, lower-frequency waves that move the ground both up and down and side to side: the shaking, starting in earnest. …. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-02/heightened-earthquake-alert-issued-for-southern-california …. SERIOUSLY THOUGH…. READ IT….

Soon after that shaking begins, the electrical grid will fail, likely everywhere west of the Cascades and possibly well beyond. If it happens at night, the ensuing catastrophe will unfold in darkness. In theory, those who are at home when it hits should be safest; it is easy and relatively inexpensive to seismically safeguard a private dwelling. But, lulled into nonchalance by their seemingly benign environment, most people in the Pacific Northwest have not done so. That nonchalance will shatter instantly. So will everything made of glass. Anything indoors and unsecured will lurch across the floor or come crashing down: bookshelves, lamps, computers, cannisters of flour in the pantry. Refrigerators will walk out of kitchens, unplugging themselves and toppling over. Water heaters will fall and smash interior gas lines. Houses that are not bolted to their foundations will slide off—or, rather, they will stay put, obeying inertia, while the foundations, together with the rest of the Northwest, jolt westward. Unmoored on the undulating ground, the homes will begin to collapse.

Across the region, other, larger structures will also start to fail. Until 1974, the state of Oregon had no seismic code, and few places in the Pacific Northwest had one appropriate to a magnitude-9.0 earthquake until 1994. The vast majority of buildings in the region were constructed before then. Ian Madin, who directs the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI), estimates that seventy-five per cent of all structures in the state are not designed to withstand a major Cascadia quake. FEMA calculates that, across the region, something on the order of a million buildings—more than three thousand of them schools—will collapse or be compromised in the earthquake. So will half of all highway bridges, fifteen of the seventeen bridges spanning Portland’s two rivers, and two-thirds of railways and airports; also, one-third of all fire stations, half of all police stations, and two-thirds of all hospitals. In the Pacific Northwest, the area of impact will cover* some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people. When the next full-margin rupture happens, that region will suffer the worst natural disaster in the history of North America. Roughly three thousand people died in San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake. Almost two thousand died in Hurricane Katrina. Almost three hundred died in Hurricane Sandy. FEMA projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. Another twenty-seven thousand will be injured, and the agency expects that it will need to provide shelter for a million displaced people, and food and water for another two and a half million.

i read an article in The New Yorker today that I believe everyone on the entire continent of North America should read…. possibly everyone on the Pacific Rim…. Cascadia Subduction is a huge issue apparently … http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one ….. When the Cascadia earthquake begins, there will be, instead, a cacophony of barking dogs and a long, suspended, what-was-that moment before the surface waves arrive. Surface waves are slower, lower-frequency waves that move the ground both up and down and side to side: the shaking, starting in earnest. …. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-02/heightened-earthquake-alert-issued-for-southern-california …. SERIOUSLY THOUGH…. READ IT….

Soon after that shaking begins, the electrical grid will fail, likely everywhere west of the Cascades and possibly well beyond. If it happens at night, the ensuing catastrophe will unfold in darkness. In theory, those who are at home when it hits should be safest; it is easy and relatively inexpensive to seismically safeguard a private dwelling. But, lulled into nonchalance by their seemingly benign environment, most people in the Pacific Northwest have not done so. That nonchalance will shatter instantly. So will everything made of glass. Anything indoors and unsecured will lurch across the floor or come crashing down: bookshelves, lamps, computers, cannisters of flour in the pantry. Refrigerators will walk out of kitchens, unplugging themselves and toppling over. Water heaters will fall and smash interior gas lines. Houses that are not bolted to their foundations will slide off—or, rather, they will stay put, obeying inertia, while the foundations, together with the rest of the Northwest, jolt westward. Unmoored on the undulating ground, the homes will begin to collapse.

Across the region, other, larger structures will also start to fail. Until 1974, the state of Oregon had no seismic code, and few places in the Pacific Northwest had one appropriate to a magnitude-9.0 earthquake until 1994. The vast majority of buildings in the region were constructed before then. Ian Madin, who directs the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI), estimates that seventy-five per cent of all structures in the state are not designed to withstand a major Cascadia quake. FEMA calculates that, across the region, something on the order of a million buildings—more than three thousand of them schools—will collapse or be compromised in the earthquake. So will half of all highway bridges, fifteen of the seventeen bridges spanning Portland’s two rivers, and two-thirds of railways and airports; also, one-third of all fire stations, half of all police stations, and two-thirds of all hospitals. In the Pacific Northwest, the area of impact will cover* some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people. When the next full-margin rupture happens, that region will suffer the worst natural disaster in the history of North America. Roughly three thousand people died in San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake. Almost two thousand died in Hurricane Katrina. Almost three hundred died in Hurricane Sandy. FEMA projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. Another twenty-seven thousand will be injured, and the agency expects that it will need to provide shelter for a million displaced people, and food and water for another two and a half million.

Raw, dude… C’mon, you should know by now that each Vault package is announced within the first 10 days of the month that begins the quarter. Why distract from a subject like this with a question like that? Don’t you think that shows disregard for the topic?

When is the new Vault going to be announced?

Well Chet
… I have thought a little on this as it pert ains to the reactionary nature of social censure and ever-looming possibility of tyranical order rearing its ugly head politically over the years but, in fact, as the awareness played out before my amateur bookseller/archivist eyes it was the industrial complex itself which has become the most prolific banner of books. It is disturbing how quickly a text goes out of print to me personally. In print and on the shelf but a moment only to be out of print and lost in the next. Maybe the real point becomes the journey we make to arrive at the sacred space and time where a text is made tangible beyond interference or abridged experience? I just want to thank you and Third Man artists for doing your part… as for my part… the part where I rustle up sacred moments and some cherished space that is my own for some unlimited time… well… it is still about the journey… Just imagine if we all just stopped and sat down on the curb and began to read… read to our hearts desire… reading to learn… reading to forget the social distortion of discontent… reading as pure joy!!! Maybe then our respect for other writers and their efforts to wrestle whole moments of the experiential matrix might in fact move us beyond the incompleteness of the vast digital divide which has replaced the organic wonder of truly touching the earth as a spiritual … no…. spiral ritual… of touching the earth and fully realizing our potentials in every other moment that is not the tangible art of reading or word crafting…. for me its Guilty as Charged when it comes to my own publishing processes and investing in TMB … yet and still I look forward to my return to the library days and open book ways where an hour becomes four with no alarm sounding! What Fun…

This should be interesting…

In the beginning was the Word. That’s not just a metaphor. Spoken, written, or sung, they’re the most fundamental means by which we’ve shaped not only our understanding of our world, but the world itself. They’re our most powerful possession. That’s why my university observes banned books week every year, and I’m proud to get up and read not only my favorite passages from Moby-Dick, but also some of the filthiest parts of Naked Lunch (which are gloriously filthy). Both are wonderful and liberating, but it wouldn’t matter if they were the utmost shit. Because words need to be free. So, good post, thank you.