A Donald Barthelme Collection


Title:  The Teachings of Don B.  Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Storis, and Plays
Printing:  First
Year of publication:  April, 1998 (hc 1992)
Publisher:  Vintage
City:  New York
Number of Pages:  384
Cover:  paperback
ISBN:  0679741194


Table of contents


    Preface by Kim Herzinger

    Introduction by Thomas Pynchon

    Satires, Parodies, Fables, and Illustrated Stories

  1. The Teachings of Don B.: A Yankee Way of Knowledge (Guilty Pleasures)
  2. I wrote a letter... (previously uncollected)
  3. Challenge (previously uncollected)
  4. Three Great Meals (previously uncollected)
  5. Languishing, half-deep in summer... (previously uncollected)
  6. The Palace (Guilty Pleasures)
  7. Mr. Foolfarm's Journal (Guilty Pleasures)
  8. Natural History (previously uncollected)
  9. The Joker's Greatest Triumph (Come Back, Dr. Caligari)
  10. The Author (previously uncollected)
  11. I was gratified this week... (previously uncollected)
  12. When I didn't win... (previously uncollected)
  13. Return (previously uncollected)
  14. At last, it is time (previously uncollected)
  15. The Inauguration (previously uncollected)
  16. The Art of Baseball (previously uncollected)
  17. Games Are the Enemies of Beauty, Truth, and Sleep, Amanda Said (Guilty Pleasures)
  18. An Hesitation on the Bank of the Delaware (Guilty Pleasures)
  19. I have for some time... (previously uncollected)
  20. The Great Debate (previously uncollected)
  21. Snap Snap (Guilty Pleasures)
  22. Ming (previously unpublished)
  23. Donald Barthelme's Fine Homemade Soups (previously uncollected)
  24. Adventure (previously uncollected)
  25. Heliotrope (Guilty Pleasures)
  26. The Angry Young Man (Guilty Pleasures)
  27. Cornell (Overnight to Many Distant Cities)
  28. I am, at the moment... (Overnight to Many Distant Cities)
  29. Now that I am older... (Overnight to Many Distant Cities)
  30. Speaking of the human body... (Overnight to Many Distant Cities)
  31. A woman seated on a plain wooden chair... (Overnight to Many Distant Cities)
  32. That guy in the back room... (Overnight to Many Distant Cities)
  33. They called for more structure... (Overnight to Many Distant Cities)
  34. A Nation of Wheels (Guilty Pleasures)
  35. Kissing the President (previously uncollected)
  36. And Now Let's Hear It for the Ed Sullivan Show! (Guilty Pleasures)
  37. Bliss... (previously unpublished)
  38. Brain Damage (City Life)
  39. Many have remarked... (previously uncollected)
  40. Swallowing (Guilty Pleasures)
  41. The Young Visitirs (Guilty Pleasures)
  42. My lover said to me... (previously uncollected)
  43. That Cosmopolitan Girl (Guilty Pleasures)
  44. L'Lapse (Guilty Pleasures)
  45. More Zero (previously uncollected)
  46. The Story Thus Far (previously uncollected)
  47. Bunny Image, Loss of: The Case of Bitsy S. (Guilty Pleasures)
  48. Two Hours to Curtain (Guilty Pleasures)
  49. The Royal Treatment (Guilty Pleasures))
  50. Man's Face (previously uncollected)
  51. Wasteland! (previously unpublished)
  52. The Educational Experience (previously uncollected with collages)
  53. The Dragon (Guilty Pleasures)
  54. Newsletter (previously uncollected)
  55. The Photographs (Guilty Pleasures)
  56. We dropped in at the Stanhope... (previously uncollected)
  57. Well we all had our Willie & Wade records... (Overnight to Many Distant Cities)
  58. Down the Line with the Annual (Guilty Pleasures)
  59. Monumental Folly (previously uncollected (no illustrations))
  60. The Dassaud Prize (previously uncollected)


    61. Plays

  61. Friends of the Family
  62. The Conservatory
  63. Snow White


beginning:

While doing anthropological fieldwork in Manhattan some years ago I met, on West Eleventh Street, a male Yankee of indeterminate age whose name, I was told, was Don B. I found him leaning against a building in a profound torpor--perhaps the profoundest torpor I have ever seen. He was a tallish man with an unconvincing beard and was dressed, in the fashion of the Village, in jeans and a blue work shirt. After we had been introduced, by a mutual acquaintance, I explained to him that had been told he knew the secrets of certain hallucinogenic substances peculiar to Yanke culture and in which I was professionally interested. I expressed a wish to learn what he knew and asked if I might talk with him about the subject. He simply stared at me without replying, and the said, "No." However, taking note of the dismay which must have been plain on my face, he said that I might return, if I wished, in two years. In the meantime, he would think about my proposal. Then he closed his eyes again, and I left him.