The first piece is obviously a table of contents, as the title of each successive story is found in each successive line. Its own title, Propulsion, refers to its purpose of propelling the reader to the more interesting stories of the body of the work. The next piece, Ablution, is clearly about the effects of drug use on a writer - As we all know, writers are more creative when stoned, and the boring middle section supports this idea. The very word "Ablution" makes one's guts feel tired. Very subtle. The third piece, magnificently accompanied by a frenzied blue squiggle, with its sentences that lack their final words, is obviously trying to give the reader an impression of what it is like for someone with a theoretical musical background to listen to a top forty tune of your choice. Things never go where they are supposed to. Clever, I must say. The piece entitled "Modification" is somewhat gimmicky, but nonetheless valid. The piece makes a statement about the unreliability of our capacity to remember, as the content is never truly remembered correctly until the end of the piece, or rather, perhaps the memory is clearest at the beginning, and the narrator's imagination takes over, and "fixes" what the narrator subconsciously does not like about what he is describing. It's an interesting paradox, but it's much overdone. The next piece, Gratification, uses a cheap trick, but at least it's over quickly. The device of truncating the last word of each sentence is used again, but with less effect. The author is completely naive in actually providing the last word on the back of the page. He should have left it blank, as then the reader would truly get the effect of the ethical limiting gratification. "Grey Fixation" does indeed emulate the experience of staring at channel X at three AM, with its random voices speaking (as if in one's head) and the static being the sole visual focus, hypnotizing the mind into believing it's really seeing whatever shapes the mind can conjure. That this might happens in a performance setting is one thing, but that it happens in one's mental movie theatre is quite extraordinary. "Brief Invasion" is another emulative piece, as it tries to induce the same frustration in the reader as the patient feels in being prodded and made aware of his situation. The reader is likewise being prodded and made aware. Nice. "Private Invention" is a quick confessional, and, while slightly fresh and original in form and content (the narrator seems to be always reminding himself not to confess), the whole movement towards confessionalism in writing should be well-guarded against. This piece is no exception. The next piece, "Perfect Intervention" is a piece about one's educational situation as a death metaphor. The situation in the first paragraph is happy and bright, and there exists a great deal of potential for even, quite possibly, Ivy League, but one can never tell. The father enters in paragraph two, and the narrator is taken to an "empty, unlit" (dead) classroom, and tell the narrator he has to go to his mother. The fact that the narrator cannot remember anything from the educational situation in the third paragraph brings to mind Lethe, does it not? And the final line is truly depressing, as it is in this situation that the narrator truly finds himself comfortable. Alas! I cried. The title was a perfect touch - two words closely related to the divine: 'Perfect' and 'Invervention'! I was beginning to think quite highly of this author. Then, I come to the next piece, "Printed Initiation." All I can say about it is that this author should never try his hand at poetry again, especially not after he was striking such strong blows as a prose writer. Tsk Tsk. "Pained Alienation" was the next piece, and I must admit, it was painful, and even more alienating than the botched poetry. This author was bitten by the experiment-bug and wound up far astray from his craft. Again, I must say it. Tsk Tsk.