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By Cheryl Wittenauer Associated Press CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. People all over the world seem to know about the Center for Faulkner Studies, from Japanese and Chinese scholars who have studied here to Oprah Winfrey, who chose center director Robert Hamblin to help with her book of The center contains a world- class collection of Faulkner letters, manuscripts and artifacts, and it is the only one of four American university Faulkner collections amassed by a single individual. Treasures in the Brodsky Collection include the unpublished manuscripts and Hollywood screenplays; personally inscribed books to friends and family; letters to his wife and daughter, signed as well as to one of his lovers; and private diary entries about his alcoholism. Faulkner, recipient of the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, chronicles a troubled, tortured South and escaping the burden of its past. was a demon.

It was the only therapy he said Hamblin, who led an online discussion of I Lay for readers in June. The collection includes recipe for curing hams, cartoons he drew for a high school yearbook, a series of his last will and testament, and a pen-and-ink map he drew of his mythical county and town. Serendipitous meeting The center and its holdings are not housed in native Mississippi but rather at the state university in southern tip, just north the transplanted Mississippian Hamblin says of where the American South begins. The center came to be at Southeast Missouri State University after a serendipitous meeting in 1978 of Hamblin, an English professor and Louis Daniel Brodsky, a Farmington, writer and businessman been collecting Faulkner materials since he was a Yale freshman in 1959. Through a mutual acquaintance, they arranged to meet at a Farmington bank where Brodsky had stored his collection in large safe-deposit boxes.

Hamblin believe what he saw. still recall vividly my initial Hamblin later wrote, one, by one, L.D. laid before me the literary treasures he had been collecting for 20 had never before seen such a remarkable trove of Faulkner books and Hamblin eventually asked, are you going to do with all Brodsky had been too busy to give it much thought, though always intended to put the collection in the public domain. They organized an exhibit of the works in 1979 at SEMO that drew national attention. More exhibits, lectures, eight books and various journal articles followed.

In the process, Hamblin, the scholar, and Brodsky, the became best friends and in their shared passion. In 1988, after doubling its size, Brodsky sold and gave the collection then valued at $3.5 million the university but remained its curator. The Faulkner center opened a year later. were like two kids working in a single stamp said Brodsky, who now lives in his native St. Louis.

were truly like kids. We were exuberant. It was a total labor of He said Hamblin brought scholarly, critical knowledge of while he bibliography and biography and grew to know more and The men, each in his 60s now, had little else in common. went to Yale; I come from acommunity college Hamblin said. Yale, he rowed on the varsity crew on the Thames River.

I went to Memphis once to play baseball. never been in a synagogue. I grew up in the Southern Bible Belt. But become brothers, special Hamblin grew up in rural Mississippi, the son of a sharecropper, later moving to town, where his family ran a general store and greasy spoon. He started graduate studies at Ole Miss weeks after death in July 1962, just before violence engulfed Oxford when the university integrated.

helped Hamblin recalled. books were all about racial justice, equality and brotherhood and atoning for the sins of the past. Here I was in the middle of it. At that time I was ashamed of my fellow Mississippians. have been ashamed Road map He got hooked on Faulkner in graduate school, then tried to go about his life, he said, before Brodsky me If Faulkner helped Hamblin navigate their South, reading and collecting Faulkner stimulated writing.

freshman year, I read Sound and the and was totally stupefied by Brodsky recalled. He bought a first edition from abookshop in New Haven, then acquired 200 first and second editions and later printings with textbook money. one collected Faulkner when I said Brodsky, who did it by seeking out the people who knew him. was such a Abig break came in 1974, when New York bookseller Margie Cohn offered to sell Brodsky 14 early inscribed titles acquired from the widow of a Faulkner friend in Hollywood, Hubert Starr. realized that if Hubert Starr had those artifacts, his other friends would have Brodsky said.

never had anything to give except his work, his books, his The same year, Brodsky devoured the just-published A by Joseph Blotner, using it as a road map to find circle of friends, family and associates. He figured he had a 15-year window and had mine In 1989, he acquired research and interview notes, correspondence and copies of manuscripts he had compiled for his book. Another big coup was meeting Dorothy Commins, widow of Saxe Commins, confidant and editor at Random House in New York, in 1977. She relinquished 100 personal letters from Faulkner, her late diary excerpts about alcoholic bouts, and manuscripts of essays, speeches, portions of three novels and more than a dozen books Faulkner inscribed to the couple. are precious, a trove that was Brodsky said.

Part of the collection but still in possession are a Royal typewriter Faulkner used at home office to type aversion of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech and a pocket watch he kept on his sailboat, the Ring Dove. and are hand- etched on the back. been a wonderful Brodsky said, Don Frazier Associated Press FAULKNER SCHOLAR: Robert Hamblin looks through some of the personal papers at Southeast Missouri State. Intruders in the dust One collection of Faulkner books and papers also brought him a partner and and led to the formation of a center in Missouri. Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (July 25-31) as compiled by Nielsen Media Research.

They are based on the average number or people who watched a program from start to finish. Nielsen estimates there are 277.93 million potential viewers in the U.S. ages 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions. Program Network View- ersProgram Network Viewers 1 CSICBS13.40 2 Without a TraceCBS11.28 3 CSI: MiamiCBS10.31 4 Two and a Half MenCBS9.63 5 Law Order: Criminal Intent NBC9.02 --------------------------------------------6 NCISCBS8.96 7 Brat Camp (9 p.m.)ABC8.89 8 Everybody Loves Raymond CBS8.50 9 Cold CaseCBS8.41 10 Law OrderNBC8.34 --------------------------------------------11 Big Brother 6 12 PrimetimeABC8.12 13 Crossing Jordan 14 So You Think You Can Dance FOX8.02 15 Law Order (9 p.m.)NBC7.88 --------------------------------------------16 Law Order: SVUNBC7.82 17 60 MinutesCBS7.78 18 HouseFOX7.50 19 King of Queens 20 KitchenFOX7.42 --------------------------------------------21 Big Brother 22 CSI: NYCBS7.36 23 24 The Simpsons (8:30 p.m.) FOX6.73 25 MediumNBC6.69 --------------------------------------------26 Am Las VegasNBC6.65 28 Family GuyFOX6.62 29 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (8 p.m.) ABC6.50 30 48 Hours MysteryCBS6.42 --------------------------------------------31 Rock Star: INXS 32 Dateline: NBC 33 Dateline: NBC 34 According to JimABC5.96 35 The Simpsons (8 p.m.)FOX5.92 --------------------------------------------36 Funniest Home Videos ABC5.91 37 Brat Camp (8 p.m.)ABC5.86 38 Nanny 911FOX5.71 39 Most WantedFOX5.66 40 Rock Star: --------------------------------------------41 RodneyABC5.50 42 My Wife and KidsABC5.45 43 Law Order: Criminal Intent (Sat.) NBC5.41 44 American DadFOX5.40 45 Desperate HousewivesABC5.25 --------------------------------------------46 George LopezABC5.21 47 Financial 48 Big Brother 6 49 Cops (8:30 p.m.)FOX5.12 50 Law FirmNBC5.08 WWE 52 Average Joe 4 53 Crimetime SaturdayCBS4.91 54 Fear FactorNBC4.89 55 Numb3rsCBS4.84 --------------------------------------------56 AnatomyABC4.82 57 King of Queens 58 That Show (8:30 p.m.) FOX4.52 59 Crossing Jordan 60 Hope and FaithABC4.46 --------------------------------------------61 Malcolm in the Middle (Wed.) FOX4.44 62 LostABC4.39 63 Will GraceNBC4.37 64 Rock Star: INXS 65 That Show (8 p.m.)FOX4.31 66 Average Joe 4 67 Extreme MakeoverABC4.22 JoeyNBC4.22 CopsFOX4.22 70 EmpireABC4.21 --------------------------------------------71 Law Order 72 ERNBC4.13 73 Hope and Faith (8:30 p.m.) ABC4.12 74 Trading SpousesFOX3.94 75 --------------------------------------------76 Hooking UpABC3.83 77 The CutCBS3.80 78 King of the HillFOX3.79 79 I Want to Be a HiltonNBC3.59 80 Less Than PerfectABC3.53 --------------------------------------------81 8 Simple RulesABC3.47 82 Law Order: Trial by JuryNBC3.40 83 Veronica Mars 8 p.m.) CBS3.28 84 Veronica Mars 9 p.m.) CBS3.18 85 Malcolm in the Middle (Sun.) FOX2.96 --------------------------------------------86 The O.C.FOX2.73 87 RUthe Girl: With T-Boz Chili UPN2.69 88 Girlfriends 89 All of Us 90 Half and Half --------------------------------------------91 One on One 92 of 93 Arrested Development (8 p.m.) FOX2.25 94 RebaWB2.18 95 Half and Half --------------------------------------------96 Gilmore Girls (8 p.m.)WB2.08 97 Arrested Development (9:30 p.m.) FOX2.06 98 Gilmore Girls (9 p.m.)WB2.05 99 Arrested Development (8:30 p.m.) FOX2.01 Girlfriends --------------------------------------------Living With FranWB2.01 102 Smallville 103 Arrested Development (9 p.m.) FOX1.84 104 All of Us 105 7th HeavenWB1.75 --------------------------------------------106 What I Like About YouWB1.68 One on One 108 Smallville 109 110 Blue Collar TVWB1.58 --------------------------------------------111 Veronica Mars 112 CharmedWB1.42 113 SummerlandWB1.38 114 One Tree HillWB1.22 115 EverwoodWB1.04 --------------------------------------------Network averages Here is the number of viewers (in millions) that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season.

Network Last week Season to date CBS6.9911.75 NBC5.808.99 ABC5.239.21 FOX5.089.02 UPN2.783.20 WB1.653.07 Prime-Time TV Rankings From Associated Press nothing better than a good crime mystery if you want to settle in front of the television on a warm summer night. In last Nielsen Media Research rankings, released Tuesday, 10 of the 16 most- watched programs in prime time Crime Scene to Order: that genre. The one thing the public insists upon is solving that mystery within the hour. Each one of the dramas was self-contained, meaning the plot continue into another week. continued its modest summer success, although nothing along the lines of With the You Think You Can hold the interest, dropping to 8 million viewers last week after 10.3 million sampled the debut.

which premiered with only 5.1 million viewers, Star: and dating game are all summer duds. For the week, CBS won by averaging just under 7 million viewers in prime-time, NBC had 5.8 million, ABC had 5.2 million, Fox had 5.1 million, UPN had 2.8 million, the WB had 1.7 million and Pax TV had 700,000. won the evening news ratings race, averaging 8.3 million viewers. News had 7.6 million viewers and the Evening had 6.6 million. Prime-time crime pays as CBS wins the week court, at the coffee place, on the front porch of a row house.

Each episode has a title that matters, in its deadpan, presentation Gang Gets Wants an Drinking: A National The installments have a loose, easy feel; like extended, almost old-school sketches that comment on airborne social issues with believable twists of goofy plot and payoffs that pay off. In Gang Gets Dee enlists a black friend from her acting class to help promote the bar, which exposes a racial divide, which gets the guys wondering at the lack of color in their extended friendships. So Mac and Charlie go to Temple University to look for some black people to befriend, with surprising results. In Wants an an old high school fling of re-emerges to claim that her out-of-control 10-year- old is his son; meanwhile, Mac discovers that virulently antiabortion chicks are hot to trot, and further, that anti-abortion protests are good places to try to choice is pro Mac shouts outside a clinic. great the zealot girl shouting with tells him.) That episode keeps building builds to the moment when Dennis hits up the same protest outside a Planned Parenthood facilityand strikes out on the pro-choice side of the fence.

man, no talent over he complains to Mac on his cellphone, and Mac advises him to hop the fence and try the anti-abortion side, whereupon Dennis is egged from both factions. In this way, Always Sunny in is like a Ben Stiller or Will Farrell comedy but distilled and more compact. You can see how an episode like Drinking: A National in which contorted logic leads the gang to open up the bar to underage drinkers have a social responsibility to provide a safe haven for these kids to be Mac argues) could just as easily end up as a bloated 90-minute feature. But here the idea gets the half-hour treatment, starring four relative unknowns who have among them the subtle choreography of a sketch troupe and the believability of actual people. According to the press notes, show creator McElhenney, in young- Hollywood-actor debt and frustrated with his career, made the pilot called Always Sunny on and shot it with Howerton and Day for $200 on a hand-held digital camera, then edited it on ahome computer.

For FX, this became Always Sunny in If this particular back story of Hollywood penury has become a little boilerplate shot it for $6.50, and ate nothing but Ramen for two years here easy to root for. And believe. And enjoy. Michael Yarish FX OUTSIDE: McElhenney, left, and Howerton; the show afraid to get away from the glamorized unreality of studio sets. Sunny in from Page E1 Where: FX When: 10:30 p.m.

Thursday Ratings: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17) Rob McElhenney Glenn Howerton Charlie Day Kaitlin Olson Dee Executive producers Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, John Fortenberry, Michael Rotenberg, Nick Frenkel. Director John Fortenberry. Creator Rob McElhenney. Writer Charlie Day. Always Sunny in WITH THE KIDS 04ED069 HEBC Calendar Weekend.

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