Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Part 1. The Perimeter of Pleasure -- Larry David on Corregidor -- Little Terror -- Pyrrhic -- Duende -- Motor City -- 77 Porter Street -- The anatomy of my melancholy -- Dog Whisperer -- Queen Bee -- Archaeology -- a la Turka -- Thank You, Brian Williams -- Part 2. Elegy -- Erasure -- Barbershop -- Purgatory Blues -- Adamantine -- The Nurse -- What My Father Eats -- Cuba Libre -- Demeter's Last Stand -- Two Emergencies -- The Watch List -- Visit to Fox Hill Cemetery -- Resile -- In my father's favorite photo, -- Emerson in Mourning -- A Billerica Romance -- Part 3. Metastasis -- Pride and Prejudice -- Take Up and Read -- Metastasis, Boracay -- Uncle Ming Pinched Me -- My Funny Valentine -- In Praise of Silence -- On the Meeting of Larry David and Antonin Artaud -- The Appalachian Italian Americans -- Notes.