Once an Engineer , livre ebook

275

pages

English

Ebooks

2010

Écrit par
Joe Amato

Publié par
State University of New York Press

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275

pages

English

Ebooks

2010

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

State University of New York Press

Date de parution

30 mars 2010

EAN13

9781438428536

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

2 Mo

Finalist for the 2009 ForeWord Book of the Year in the Autobiography/Memoir Category

Once an Engineer is a funny, tragic, garlicky chronicle of a dozen years spent growing up on the wrong side of the tracks. The tail end of the sixties finds Joe and his younger brother, Mike, living with their divorced and unemployed father in a low-income neighborhood on the edge of Syracuse, New York, a once prosperous city now down on its luck. Mike and Joe mature under their father's distinctively masculine tutelage, but their dreams of a better life are tempered by the harsh realities of public assistance.

When the brothers are offered the chance to attend college, they are drawn to the engineering profession, with its seductive promise of middle-class wages and social status. At the same time, their father's trade, furniture finishing, succumbs to a new era of industrial and economic change, and as the gap between father and sons widens, they come to learn the true costs of upward mobility.

Once an Engineer tells the story of three lives rooted in the moods and lore of Central New York, and the difficulty of finding meaningful work in a world gone inexorably, technologically global.
Part I — Bildung

1. Winter Rat

2. Landscaping

3. Wicked Piss

4. Games People Play

5. The Flying Pork Chops and Other Adventures in Craft and Cuisine

6 Linkage

Part II — Rebuilding

7. Salt City

8. Just Produce: A Meditation on Time & Materials, Past & Present

9. Primitive Roots

10. Say-Cursed Susan B. Anthonies

11. Notes toward a Supreme Fiction

Epilogue: Variable Cloudiness, Chance of Precipitation 50%
Acknowledgments

Voir

Publié par

State University of New York Press

Date de parution

30 mars 2010

EAN13

9781438428536

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

2 Mo

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Once an Engineer

SUNY series in Italian/American Culture

Fred L. Gardaphe, editor

Once an Engineer A Song of the Salt City

Joe Amato

Cover photo credit:501Raphael Aveby Michael Amato.

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or trans-mitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Excelsior Editions is an imprint of State University of New York Press

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu

Production by Ryan Morris Marketing by Fran Keneston

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Amato, Joe,1955-– Once an engineer : a song of the Salt City / Joe Amato. p. cm. -- (SUNY series in Italian/American culture) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978–1–4384–2843–7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Amato, Joe, 1955—Childhood and youth—Anecdotes. 2. Syracuse (N.Y.)— Social life and customs—20th centiury—Anecdotes. 3. Amato family--Anecdotes. I. Title.

F129.S8A437 2009 974.7’66043092--dc22 [B]

2009003932

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

for memory, and against

And herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor,— all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked,— who is good? Not that men are ignorant,—what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men. —W. E. B. Du Bois,The Souls of Black Folk

Kee vah sah-noh, vah pee-ah-noh Ay kee vah pee-ah-noh Vah lohn-tah-noh. —Rosario Amato, transcribed ca.1974

I would have the engineers join in the drinking and the dancing. —Samuel C. Florman, The Existential Pleasures of Engineering

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Contents

Part I — Bildung Winter Rat Landscaping Wicked Piss Games People Play The Flying Pork Chops and Other Adventures in Craft and Cuisine Linkage

Part II — Rebuilding Salt City Just Produce: A Meditation on Time & Materials, Past & Present Primitive Roots Say-Cursed Susan B. Anthonies Notes toward a Supreme Fiction

Epilogue: Variable Cloudiness, Chance of Precipitation50% Acknowledgments

3 13 31 47

67 87

105

127 147 159 185

251 259

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