About this book

We might see ourselves more clearly by looking at our fringe desires and behaviors, not at normal middle-class behaviors, nor at generalized types or classes. Understanding differences, instead of taking into account only similarities, can help us understand why individuals drop out, behave strangely, fail to conform to expectations, or have exceptional abilities.

Whether individuals are weird because they choose to be or because they can’t help it can be difficult or impossible to determine. It’s better not to blame.

I admire weird people. I applaud everyone who accepts the weirdness of others and their own weirdness, as long as no harm is intended.

On the cover is a chromolithograph advertising the Forepaugh & Sells Brothers combined shows, and featuring “The World Famed Hanlon Troupe — In the Most Astonishing MidAir Achievments Ever Accomplished.” It was printed by Strobridge Lithographing Company in 1899. On the contents page is a drawing of elephants, identified as “Herr Souder’s wonderful funny elephant brass band,” standing upright and playing tubas, from a poster for the Ringling Bros. World’s Greatest Shows, for their appearance in Richland Center, Wisconsin, 14 July 1900.

Links and shortcuts

In any page, you can click on or touch links to jump around in this book.

Each entry in the contents links to the poem.
The title for a poem links back to the contents, highlighting the entry for the poem.
Words in the headers and footers link to the index, the contents, a listing of books by the author, to this page, and to the previous and next poems in the book.

You may find the following keyboard equivalents to be convenient. Here I use the symbol ⌥ for the option key on Mac/OS or the alt key on Windows, ⇧ for the shift key, and ⏎ for the return (enter) key. Arrow keys are ◄ (left), ► (right), ▲ (up), and ▼ (down).

Keyboard shortcuts for navigating this book
Context	Keys	Jump to / Behavior
cover	⌥ ◄	Books by Tom Sharp
	⌥ ▲	About Tom Sharp
	⌥ ►	about this book (this page)
	⌥ ▼	contents
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	contents
contents	⇧ ⌥ ▲	cover
	⌥ ▼	select the next item in the contents
	⌥ ▲	select the previous item in the contents
	⌥ ►	open the selected page
	⌥ ⏎	open the selected page
poem	⇧ ⌥ ▲	contents
	⌥ ◄	contents
	⌥ ▲	open the previous page
	⌥ ▼	open the next page

The author

Tom Sharp, photo by Liz Douthitt Sharp — Photo by Liz Douthitt Sharp

Tom Sharp is a Native American of Aleut heritage, a member of Seldovia Village Tribe. He is the author of numerous books, including Spectacles: A Sampler of Poems and Prose, Taurean Horn Press (ISBN 0-931552-10-9), a novel, Hans and the Clock (ISBN 979-8580172484), The book of science, SciFi (ISBN 979-8694935210), Things People Do (ISBN 979-8687425568), The book of beliefs (ISBN 979-8683553593), The I Ching (ISBN 979-8573510620), Images (ISBN 979-8577560515), Aleut Artifacts (ISBN 979-8575608998), Aleut Words (ISBN 979-8582103394), and First Nations (ISBN 979-8682924769).