. Mark Mathew Braunstein's advocacy for vegetarianism & drug law reform

• Connecticut College Campus Artworks www.conncoll.edu/visual www.conncoll.edu/visual artworks at Connecticut College, the photos of the artworks and the websites of the photos are created by me and my skilled student staff of underpaid lackeys

• REMBRANDT's Self-Portraits www.rembrandtpainting.net/rembrandt_self_portraits.htm www.rembrandtpainting.net/rembrandt_self_portraits.htm these Stages upon Life's Way are probably the most profound series of artworks to come from that dank, moldy crawl space called Europe

• VAN GOGH's Self-Portraits www.vggallery.com/painting/main_se.htm www.vggallery.com/painting/main_se.htm individually, Vincent self-portrait paintings surpass Rembrandt's, but because Vincent's span only four years of his life, collectively Rembrandt's still excel

• Mamacoke Island, CT ct.audubon.org/IBA_MI.html ct.audubon.org/IBA_MI.html the house in which I am blessed to be living since 1987 in the Connecticut College Arboretum, not wilderness, but nature nonetheless, the house is on the shore of a brackish pond adjoining the south cove of Mamacoke Island

• Northern Connecticut Vegetarian Society northctveg.org/ northctveg.org/ the most active group in CT, it maintains a bulletin board of veg events throughout the state, including those of the NorthEASTERN CT Veg Society, as well as for RI & MA

• Willimantic Food Coop willimanticfood.coop willimanticfood.coop my beloved local independent natural foods store, it provides sanctuary to vegetarians as it sells no dead animals except in some of the dog & cat food, and it offers more organic produce than does any partially-Whole Foods supermarket

Connecticut's two most active organizations that advocate drug law reform, and for whom I serve as the poster child for medicinal marijuana

• Efficacy www.efficacy-online.org/speaker.html www.efficacy-online.org/speaker.html Founded by Cliff Thornton, the Green Party 2006 candidate for Governor of Connecticut. If you wish to promote drug law reform in CT, then this is the group to which your contributions would be best put to use.

• A Better Way Foundation www.abwf-ct.org/agenda.htm www.abwf-ct.org/agenda.htm The group that coordinates most of the CT legislative initiatives advocating drug law reform.

some of my most cherished writers

• Edward ABBEY www.abbeyweb.net/ www.abbeyweb.net/ my single most dear book, perhaps my bible, is Abbey's DESERT SOLITAIRE, to which a good companion is this Abbey fan's personal website, funded solely by book sales referrals to amazon.com, so next time you buy books from amazon, link to it thru this very informative website

• Franz KAFKA www.kafka.org www.kafka.org a rich archive of documents about the literature of KAFKA, including some English translations of stories freely offered by the translators, one of which is "A Hunger Artist"

• Herman MELVILLE www.melville.org/ www.melville.org/ while I've read all of Melville's very lengthy novels, still my favorite single work is his novella "Bartleby," available as a free download of course at bartleby.com, but here are other masterworks too

• Rainer Maria RILKE www.gutenberg.org/etext/2188 www.gutenberg.org/etext/2188 until one of the several English translations of the Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge outlives its copyright, if you want to download it for free, you'll just have to learn German

• Walt WHITMAN www.gutenberg.org/files/1322/1322-h/1322-h.htm www.gutenberg.org/files/1322/1322-h/1322-h.htm Walt Whitman's LEAVES of GRASS says it all. (Need I say more?) Free downloads are available from several sources, including the aforementioned www.bartleby.com, and www.princeton.edu, but the most legible and practical online version is probably Project Gutenberg's.

• E. M. CIORAN www.cioran.eu www.cioran.eu the best almost for last

• Marcus AURELIUS www.bartleby.com/2/3/1.html www.bartleby.com/2/3/1.html Third-grade girls in pony tails nicknamed me Marcus Aurelius. Yet till I was 33 years old did I overlook his little book, which will outlast my little life. Between your passage from rebirth to redeath, you should peruse these passages, so that on your death bed you might lastly gasp, "What, again?"