Nebrasklopedia

Nebrasklopedia
In light of the nature of this album and this class, we have decided to structure our presentation a little differently. Since this is, ostensibly, a class on postmodernism, we looked to the work of our nearest and dearest Postmodern expert, Larry McCaffery, for inspiration. Among his many publications we found Federman: A to X-X-X-X, A Recyclopedic Narrative (McCaffery et al, 1998). This volume is an encyclopedia of sorts, but focused on one author, Raymond Federman. As with a regular encyclopedia there are multiple entries which appear in alphabetical order. Each entry is narrowly focused on a single topic, however, if the text of one entry happens to touch on the topic of another entry the key word is in bold font. When a reader encounters a bold font word, she or he may jump to the entry listed under that word and begin reading on a new topic. He or she may also choose to ignore this possibility and continue to read the original entry in its entirety. This format frees the reader from the confines of traditional left-to-tight, A-to-Z methods of conveying information.

If you take a look at the handout, you will see that we appropriated the Recyclopedia format. This is, after all, a class in postmodernism; something had to be appropriated at one point or another.

The Nebrasklopedia exists on the pages in front of you, but we are not content to leave it at that. Tonight you have tickets to a live, one-night-only concert by Pete, Wayne, Jim, Travis, Zac and myself. We are not a band, but we do intend to give you a performance. We have each authored entries in the Nebrasklopedia and tonight we are going to jam with them, just like Bruce, Clarence and little Stevie do at a show. We are going to fit these pieces of information together to form a melody, a harmony, a beat and hopefully a better understanding of what Nebraska is all abut. Like any good live show, this performance is going to be loose. We will need you, the audience, to be actively listening because we are going to be passing the melody around a lot. Each time one of the band starts to speak that person will be performing an entry listed in the handout. The bandmember may not make it all the way through that entry before hittinga word that is the topic of another band member's entry. At that point, the point of intersection, of harmony between ideas, the second band member will take over, beginning to perform the next topic. The entries we present should relate to each other just like songs on an album. The connection won't always be quickly apparent, but if you listen carefully, you will be sure to find it.

"Put on your stockings baby, the night's getting cold"