| Essay | Degree of Truthfulness | Form | Type of Failure Risked | |
| Outline towards a Theory of the Mine versus the Mind and the Harvard Outline | Very true indeed | Harvard Outline | Absurdity | |
| I Have Been Thinking about Snow | As true as my memory lets it be. |
Page as field (of snow?) | Instability | |
| Cranbrook Schools: Adventures in Bourgeois Topologies |
All true, which is probably the most important essay in the book to be true, as it contains the most personal revelations that might seem otherwise fabricated. | Mathematical proof + memoir | Embarrassment | |
| Index for X and the Origin of Fires | Not very true at all | Index | Confusion | |
| Fragments: On Dentistry |
All too true | Fragments | Decay, Impermanence | |
| Subject to Wave Action: a There and a Back (with Orchestral Accompaniment) | True, especially the parts which I omitted to protect the reputations of the ladies. | Narrative; Seemingly Straightforward Sentences | Disappearance | |
| The Long Crush | As I wrote this it became more inaccurate, like writing about any kind of technology, especially in the world of books, as opposed to the quicker-moving magazine world or the world of the blogs. Technology advances fast in the world of disc golf discs. Everytime I returned to revise this essay I had to add more information, making it increasingly obnoxious. I had thought, after writing the title of the essay, about making this the story of a crush I had on this one girl for like six years, but it is not, and is instead about disc golf. | Narrative | Uselessness | |
| Failure: A Meditation, Another Iteration (With Interruptions)
|
True, except for the parts I totally fabricated | Page as field, broken up | Forgetability | |
| After Form and Formlessness: Bodies, Boats, and Bathing | Only minor errors in this essay; it is mostly true. | Narrative approaching formlessness | Incoherence, Forgetability | |
| The Big and Sometimes Colored Foam: Four Annotated Car Washes |
True, with some additions | Annotated Car Wash Narratives with Explanations and Meditations | Redundancy | |
| Afterword: Elegy for Telegram and Starflight | Too true for my own comfort. A couple spots have lying in them, but not enough to hurt you or your friends. | Telegrams + narrative | Obsolescence | |
| Appendix: Parts of the Book You May Additionally Enjoy Such as An Appendix | True, addresses the truth question more straightforwardly than elsewhere, sort of. | Reflection with self-doubt | Disappearance | |
| * | ||||
| Decoder wheel | If you consider the decoder wheel an essay, it is even more true than the others in the pursuit of its form, which it approximates very nicely, thank you. | Decoder wheel, sometimes called a volvelle | Obsolescence | |
| Website | Somewhat more bogus. Filled with lies and misdirection. Except this page. It's all super-true because it's on the web! | Card catalog, interrogation | Absurdity, Invisibility |