Isolarion

Acknowledgments       
Introduction     
 
FIRST PARTITION
 
Embarkation    
Purification      
Of Music and Cannibalism       
Doing My Part 
The Melancholy Pilgrim
Bread and Circuses     
Boucherie Chatar         
Designated Desire-Lines: Planning a New Road           
Further Purification of the Pilgrim          
Enrobed          
Of Love and Jewels     
Behind the Blue Door (Inside the Private Shop)
From the Literal to the Allegorical and Back     
Wittgenstein’s Lion and a Cappuccino Sea       
Virtual Streets and Gateways: The Plans Revisited        
Cosmonauts and Coleslaw
St. Edmund’s Well and a Faded Warning         
 
SECOND PARTITION
 
Making Do and Getting By      
Egyptian Vagabonds, Afternoon Men, and the Malus Genius of Our Nation    
Losing the Key
Bed-Sits and Birardari
What They Think You Can Bear: Football, Religion, and Nightmares on the Cowley Road        
Between Two Fires: Pulling the Dragon’s Teeth
Melancholy, an American Photographer, and the Irish Writer    
Cowley Road Calling   
Just Less Lucky           
Dreadlocks and Rim-Shots: Reggae at the Zodiac        
Of Lepers, Lunatics, and Layabouts     
Dancing Sand and Zum-Zum Water    
Junior Jihad     
Of Books and Bitumen
Carnival           
Returning to the Source
 
THIRD PARTITION
 
A Journey in the Hinterland      
Into the Furnace          
Blessings and Tribulation          
A Graveyard Reborn   
Finding a Clue 
Of Bats and Mutton Curry       
Margaret’s Story         
A Hidden Pool
The Liquid Kingdom    
The Gateways Close    
Of Robots, Wild Rhubarb, and the New Oxford Way  
Things Fall Apart: An Ending of Sorts