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the bug finding kit. <PERSON> looked a little green at the thought, but he let himself be pulled outside, but not before he kissed his boyfriend, who had to go get ready to go on duty. He was working the two-to-midnight shift this summer, in hopes that he can get an earlier shift once <PERSON> starts school so they're at least able to see each other in the evenings. I have faith they'll work it out somehow.
<PERSON> had kissed his cheek and whispered that he better come home in one piece, something that I gathered was said every time <PERSON> left for work. I worry about him when he's on duty, of course, but I can't imagine what it must be like for <PERSON>. But <PERSON> is doing what he's always wanted to do, and no one can begrudge him that.
So it's just <PERSON> and me at the table, our tea cooling in mugs in our hands. It's been a while since it's just the two of us, and I don't know how often we're going to be able to do this once the twins come.
For a long time, <PERSON> and I had this... weirdness... between us. Most of it had to do with <PERSON>'s homecoming and everything that happened after. I hadn't handled things the way I should have, and it took a while for us to get back on an even keel. But she stuck by me, even when I didn't think I deserved it, so I must have done something right to have her still want to be by my side after all these years.
Family is funny like that, I guess. Our pasts are woven together so much that I don't know that we could ever be torn apart.
"You and <PERSON> good?" I ask her.
"We're fine, Papa Bear," she says. "He makes me want to pull my hair out nine days out of ten, but then he always makes up for it on the tenth day."
"Three guys in the house, though."
"Right? Karma, I guess."
"For?"
She shrugs. "Something, I'm sure. How are you and <PERSON>?"
I blink. "Fine. Why? Did he say something? Because if he did, he's a fucking liar. How was I supposed to know that pole was there in the parking lot? I didn't mean to back into it."
"Really, <PERSON>? You didn't know that stationary pole was there?"
I scowl at her. "There never used to be a pole right in that spot."
"And no, he hasn't said anything. Not bad, at least. He's just as goofy in love with you as always."
I grin at that. "Pretty awesome, right? No one's spilled the secret that I got the better end of that deal, and it's been years. By the time he's figured it out, the twins will be here, and he won't ever get to leave me. It's the perfect plan."
"Trap him with kids," <PERSON> says, knocking her mug against mine. "That's devious. I like it."
"Eh, I learned from the best."
Her eyes narrow.
|
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She likes jocks."
"And you're really not a jock," <PERSON> pointed out.
"Just gotta change her mind," <PERSON> said. "Not that hard. Make her see behind my skinny nonjock body. Just you watch."
We watched as he stood from the lunch table.
He marched over to her.
The girls around her giggled.
We couldn't hear what he was saying, but from the look on <PERSON>'s face, it wasn't anything good.
He nodded a lot. Waved his arms around like a lunatic.
<PERSON> frowned.
He pointed at her, then back at himself.
<PERSON> frowned even more.
She said something.
<PERSON> came back to the table and sat down. "She said my English was very good for someone born in another country. I've decided she's a jerk and not deserving of my love and devotion."
<PERSON> and <PERSON> glared at her from across the lunchroom.
When she stood to leave, tossing her hair, my fingers twitched. Her metal lunch table jerked to the left, knocking her in the leg. She tripped and fell, her face in Tuesday's lumpy mashed potatoes.
<PERSON> laughed. That was important to me.
THEY TALKED about girls sometimes, <PERSON> more than the others. He loved the way they smelled and their tits, and sometimes he said they gave him a boner.
"I'm going to get so many girlfriends," he said.
"Me too," <PERSON> said. "Like, four of them."
"That sounds like so much work," <PERSON> said. "Can't you just have one and be happy with it?"
I didn't talk about girls. Not even then.
WE WERE out behind the house, <PERSON> and me.
He was saying, "...and when I shifted for the first time, I scared myself so badly, I shit myself. Surrounded by everyone, I just shit. I squatted down like a dog and everything. That's when I think <PERSON> decided he wanted <PERSON> to be his second instead of me."
I laughed. It felt strange, but I did it anyway.
<PERSON> was watching me.
"What?" I asked, still chuckling.
He shook his head slowly. "Uh—nothing. I just—it's nice. Hearing you. Like this. I like it. When you laugh."
Then he blushed furiously and looked away.
I CARRIED the wooden raven wherever I went. Whenever I couldn't breathe, I would squeeze it until it pressed into my flesh. There would be an imprint in my palm for hours.
One time the wing cut me, and I bled on it.
I hoped it would leave a scar.
It didn't.
<PERSON> CAME back to Green Creek. Men in suits followed him. He wanted to speak to <PERSON> and <PERSON>. He didn't want me there.
<PERSON> ignored him. "<PERSON>, if you please."
I followed them into <PERSON>'s office.
The door shut behind us.
"He's a child," <PERSON> said as if I wasn't in the room.
"He's the witch to the <PERSON> pack," <PERSON> said evenly. "And he belongs here as much as anyone. And even if I didn't insist upon it, my son would."
<PERSON> nodded without speaking.
"Now that that's out of the way," <PERSON> said, settling in behind his desk,
|
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and protection against dismissal, while employees of Northern export firms would be unwilling to abandon their 'factory-floor alliances' or enter into wage agreements that might jeopardize their competitiveness and with it, jobs; the South would not be able to raise its productivity, nor the North its costs, to the point where the two could converge. The struggle between the two approaches would continue, the share of exports and trade surpluses of the North rising, while the pressure on the South for deflation and rationalization would persist.
The result – and this brings us to the third level of conflict – would be a state of permanent friction over the Eurozone's financial constitution. The struggle might be analogous to the endless disputes in Germany about the financial settlement between central government and the <PERSON>, except that in the EMU this would be a conflict between sovereign states, without the overarching framework of a shared democratic constitution, or anything like the close network of common institutions in a nation state. Nor would it be fought out inside a single, more or less unified economy, but rather between differently constituted national variants of capitalism, and through the medium of volatile and emotive international relations. The sums involved would be considerable, and they would constantly fall due – even if the 'structural reforms' demanded of the South were actually implemented and the countries affected were able to start recovering, after a deflation of 20–30 per cent. The idea that, after all this, they would be able to grow their economies faster than the Northern countries, without any assistance at all, is something only economists could imagine.
How huge the fiscal transfers from the North would have to be cannot be specified with any certainty, but we can be sure they would not suffice to bridge the gulf between North and South. Recognizing that this would involve not only Greece but also Spain and Portugal, and possibly the entire Mediterranean region, the payments required of the North would be proportionally at least as great as the annual transfer of resources made by the FRG to its new Länder after 1990, or by Italy to the Mezzogiorno since the end of the Second World War: roughly 4 per cent of GDP in both cases, with the modest result of merely preventing the income gap between the affluent and the poor regions from growing any larger. As for the EU's budget, this would have to increase by at least 300 per cent, from 1 to 4 per cent of its GDP. At a conservative estimate, member states might have to transfer some 7 per cent of their public expenditure to Brussels. In Germany, where the Federal budget amounts to about half of public expenditure, the increase would have to be around 15 per cent – during a period of low growth and general fiscal constraint.
These are the principal fault lines inherent in all future Eurozone domestic politics. Over and above one-off 'rescue payments' that might be justified on humanitarian grounds, transfers will be politically feasible only if they
|
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seem unrealistic to hope that intergovernmental negotiations will deliver redistributive benefits within the EMU, since these may also correspond to the interest of core countries in stabilizing demand in the periphery. North–South transfers may be used by receiving countries either to strengthen their national economy (in the sense of a rationalization and modernization drive to make it more competitive internationally) or to bolster consumption and purchase support for the national political class, as in the Southern Italian model. It suits the recipients well that, because of the long lead time of catch-up capitalist development, the two uses cannot be easily kept apart in practice.
Nevertheless, the North–South alliance to preserve monetary union harbours major conflicts, both within and between the countries involved. For those in the North, there is the question of how much money they have to (and are willing to) pay to those in the South, as compensation or as development aid, to make it easier for them and motivate them to remain in the EMU. In the domestic political arena, they must work out who will bear the costs of the currency union. In Germany, export sectors are keen to spread them among as many others as possible, including those that derive little or no advantage from the country's export surpluses. For the government this presents the difficult task of shifting onto the backs of ordinary taxpayers, consumers and welfare recipients what should in principle be a levy on the competitiveness of German export industries – and to do so as inconspicuously as possible. For this it has of course many means at its disposal, one of which is to call on the European Central Bank.
As to the Southern countries, their aim must be not only to set a high price for continued EMU membership, but also to keep to a minimum the sovereignty sacrifices, in terms of institutionalized powers of supervision and intervention, that the Northern countries will demand in return for their financial support. Internally, the frontline runs between resistance to a potential 'Euroimperialism', on the one hand, and readiness to collaborate with the surplus countries on the other, in the hope of large equalization payments or of gradual convergence with the prosperous West European core ('Europeanization'). Intergovernmental clashes can easily fuel nationalist sentiment on both sides, while domestic resistance must be held in check through the neutralization of democratic institutions: in the North by technical tricks or calculated silence to camouflage actual transfer payments; in the South by pointing to binding international obligations or by clientelist vote-buying.
Over and above the basic structure of interests in the political economy of the EU, here presented in a simplified account, many turbulent processes play themselves out in a climate of multiple uncertainties. What will happen if, as the treaty envisages, EU member-states such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania join the EMU? How should EU and EMU relate to each other in general in the years ahead? How does the fiscal pact agreed under international law fit into the system of European law? What
|
20423c43-2a8c-ccff-4acc-6567899d807f
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['8db70cbd-e243-cad1-b95c-7bd6e68e78f3']
|
But at the foundation of this prejudice lies _a quite definite way_ of _experiencing_ the something that we call the human being: the sort of thing that consists of different pieces, facts, which pieces belong to it, _all of which_ is at hand in it. The {. . .}. In every question a decision already _before_ the answer and thus the circle of _possible_ answers already _staked out_. And this fundamental decision comes from the fundamental experience, and accordingly so does the form of the question.
On the grounds of the experience we mentioned there grows the question: _what is man?_ But there is nothing objectionable in this question; how else should we ask _if we are asking about man at all? However_ —there is _still another_ possibility and _necessity_ of asking about man; not "What is man?" but " _Who is man?_ "
But according to what we just presented, is there a fundamental decision _here as well?_ By all means! And which one? That man is a _self_.
But this characterization is _not the determination of something present at hand_ , but _addresses us as our vocation. Self: being that is delivered over to itself in its Being; "consciousness" only a consequence_. For a being that _is a self does not only know something about itself_ , but it itself is _properly left to its own discretion and decision_ , namely, in _how_ it is—i.e., _how_ it takes its _own Being, how its own Being is an issue for it_.
This—that there is a being for whom its own Being is an issue—itself belongs _to the originary constitution of its Being_. Hence I call the Being of the self _care_. Nothing to do with meddlesome fussing and the anxiousness of neurotics.
Care is the _condition of possibility for resoluteness_ , readiness, engagement, labor, mastery, heroism; _and where there are such, there are necessarily_ innocuousness, busy-ness, cowardice, money-grubbing, slavery and cowardice; and not just as a regrettable addition, but as _essential necessity_.
Care and historicity. Care as the condition of possibility of the political essence of man.
_Care as existence: what_ and _who—categories_ and _existentialia_. Cf. _Being and Time /_ "On the Essence of Ground."
Care _as self: "I" and "we";_ and _struggle_ and _predominance_ and in each case mastery _of both_.
_Who is man?_ This question decides and determines the question, _"What is philosophy?"_ —decides in general about philosophy as such, whether it can and must be, or not.
But this question has still _quite different questions_ behind and before it! Can man know and find his _essence_ in the first place _beginning with himself?_ To go _to the limits! How do we know that we know_ , and can know, _who we are? Whence the truth about man? Of what sort_ is this truth? _What is truth?_ This question: the question _of the essential history of man_ —and that is philosophizing: _standing fast in the questioning about Being and truth_.
Bending back! Circle! Certainly—but work through it.
We must stand fast in the face of the _question, precisely in
|
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|
_fundamental condition for all sciences_. I will give some examples here to show that all comportment, even the knowing comportment toward beings, even scientific comportment, is grounded on an _originary view of essence_ that must develop in each case according to the depth of human beings.
Let us think of particular great discoveries about nature (by <PERSON>, <PERSON>, <PERSON>). What is the basis for the great achievements of these much-admired natural scientists from the beginning of modernity? What is the difference between modern natural science and that of antiquity? One may say that modern science introduced the _experiment_. But that is an error. Neither does the meaning of modern science lie in the fact that, in contrast to the earlier, qualitative form of observation, quantitative observation gained ground—"mathematization"!
Both things already existed among the Greeks, and both fail to characterize modernity, because both have the decisive point as their _condition of possibility:_ namely, that <PERSON>, with the means of ancient physics, established a _new fundamental position toward actuality;_ that, _before_ all experiments and all mathematics, _before_ all questions and determinations, he first laid down what _should belong to the essence of a nature_ , in that he approached it as the _spatiotemporal totality of the motion of mass-points_. By _reaching ahead_ into actuality, he laid down what a nature should be. Only on the basis of this approach did it become possible to experiment, to question nature, to listen in on it, as it were, and then to measure it. So here is a quite _definite advance understanding_ of what nature as a being should be.
It is a completely different question whether, regardless of this approach and despite it, nature was held directly close to man and kept within his power, or whether quite different domains inserted themselves between nature and man, so that this hollowing out of man could come about—so that man no longer has a relation to nature. _Technology_ has blocked this relation.
How great the distance has become, natural science itself is quite incapable of deciding. That is philosophy's prerogative. "The worldview of the natural sciences" is nonsense from the start.
Another area of knowledge is that of the _science of history_ and its knowledge of human work and fate. _<PERSON>_ is not a great historian simply because he read sources and promulgated them, or because he discovered manuscripts, but because on the basis of the greater depth of his existence, he had a view of the essence of human action that reached ahead, a view of what human greatness, human limitation, and human fate are. He _actually understood the Being_ of this domain, he had an _understanding_ of it _in advance_. Only thereby did he manage to research the facts in a new way.
Now, one says that since then, science has made powerful progress, that so much new material has been discovered that an individual would no longer be in a position to achieve a synthesis. The very fact that one speaks of a synthesis proves that one does not know what one is talking
|
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drugs from guys named <PERSON> and <PERSON> and knew they wouldn't shoot me because Terpsichore wouldn't allow a bullet to penetrate my skin. One night when a large, tattooed ex-con and I were about to go at it just outside a bar, even as he informed me that he had enjoyed carnal knowledge of my mother for the insultingly low price of $25 and as I, in turn, imparted to him the pertinent information that I, along with all of the male residents of the <PERSON>, had had our way with his sister in her hindquarters ("I don't have a sister, faggot!" he yelled at me), I was thinking: He can't hurt me . . . nothing bad can happen to me until I finish the Trilogy.
And it worked. Despite the myriad stupid, suicidal things I did, not once did I die in all that time.
"Why are you doing stuff like this?" <PERSON>, exasperated and worried about her boyfriend, asked me the night I tackled the pickpocket. (He wasn't a pickpocket, it turned out. He was just some dude running.)
"Because," I answered her, jutting out my jaw, "I can."
Was <PERSON> going to suffer a fatal heart attack while working on the third movement of his first symphony? When I was only twenty pages away from the last page of Book I, were <PERSON> and <PERSON> really going to slit my throat with a box cutter because I was five dollars short for three dime bags? That would have been like <PERSON> and not <PERSON> dying in 1962. When he was writing <PERSON> soliloquy I wouldn't be surprised if <PERSON> dove in front of trolley cars nightly or chugalugged flaming shots of absinthe. He must have known that he wouldn't suffer even a sprained toe until he got to the final "Yes" of that book, and here is as good a place as any to say that I've always found the "Trieste-Zurich-Paris, 1914–1921" ending of Ulysses to be about as annoying a thing in literature as exists, even more than that cutesy little flip book of a man falling up into the World Trade Center that <PERSON> included in Incredibly Unbearable and Unbearably Unincredible. The final word of the most overrated work in modern literature, then, is not the affirming, inspiring, exultant "Yes," but is the word "1921," the year that brought the world widespread labor unrest, race riots, the spread of Bolshevism, the Communist Party in China, <PERSON> as the head of the Nazi Party, and the birth of Prince <PERSON>, Duke of <PERSON>. Perhaps one day the world will see Ulysses for what it is: the First Gimmick Book. A whole day in the life of a man, the man is alienated from his surroundings, he is estranged from everyone he knows, all day long he is betrayed, he tries to reconnect with a child forever lost to him. Face it: Ulysses is 24 except not as exciting.
When Book I of the Trilogy was finally finished, I bought a
|
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10-high straight!" I raised again.
Again, nobody believed me. All the others, including the slightly gullible <PERSON>, called. I took the pot (which by then was over 400 bucks) and left everybody chomping on their fingertips.
"Dang," said Amarillo Slim-Fast. "You was tellin' the truth."
I won six of the next eight hands. Over 1,200 bucks in thirty minutes.
I knew to quit while I was ahead. So much of this was luck: I'd been playing as the Hawaiian-shirted, champagne-blond-haired Big Man; it was his seat and body that I'd chosen to occupy. Had I chosen any other seat at the table, I would not have gotten the same cards. Cartoon character was destiny.
"Last hand, guys," I told everyone. "And then you can all start winning again."
"We appreciate that," <PERSON> said.
I drew pocket Kings and there was another King on the flop. Pure magic.
Slim-Fast asked me, "Whattaya got?" and I told him, "This one I'll keep to myself 'cause if you knew I had 3 Ks, you'd fold, right?"
Someone new, whom I'd barely noticed, a player named <PERSON> spoke up. "Sharing is caring, <PERSON>. Do tell. I insist."
The turn card was a 2. With the 2 on the flop and this one, I now had a full house. Fortunately, nobody at the pixilated poker table could hear me chortling at my desk like a madman.
"<PERSON>, let's just say I have this hand all sewn up," I said.
Artsy Painter Gal's avatar was the cool, curvy blonde with the Godiva-length hair falling all the way to the floor. That was not all that was plunging: her tight gold-lamé dress barely contained an enormous bosom. The dress was the one <PERSON> wore when she sang "Happy birthday, Mr. President," but the explosive rack belonged to <PERSON>.
"Oh," she said, "you like sewing, do you, <PERSON>?"
The river card was a meaningless 5. I'd been slow-playing this last hand; that is, I'd been letting others do the raising, letting them think they had me. And when they did raise, I'd wait a few seconds before I called, making them think I was mulling over the decision to stay in or not.
"No," I confessed, "I can barely thread a needle."
"Too bad," she said, "'cause there's a rip in this gown. And I'm sitting on it."
The pot was now over six hundred. A third of my rent, or my cable bill for four months, or one-half of a large HDTV, or round-trip airfare to somewhere possibly very pleasant. When my full boat was revealed, I was met with a chorus of grrrrs and "VNH"s, another "dang" from Amarillo Slim-Fast, and a "Do you have any idea how much I loathe you at this very moment?!" from the fetching <PERSON>.
I clicked the SIT OUT box, which meant I was still at the table but couldn't play. <PERSON>, having dropped $200 in one hand, was gone with the wind and her chair was empty, leaving neither a dimple
|
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downlights spouted an eerie foreboding, a trickle at first and then a shower that drenched me in fear. My heartbeat pounded, reverberating throughout my body, the amplified boom boom causing my hands to tremble. Coils of distress wrapped around me, unhurried and purposeful. Disconnected from reality, my crippled mind was incapable of directing even the simple act of picking up the phone to call someone. I lurched out of bed and crawled into the corner of my room to protect myself from the escalating malevolence.
I woke the next day in the same corner, the world drained of colour. A grey pallor hung over me, my limbs heavy and my movements sluggish. I didn't understand what was happening to me. I attributed the symptoms to an extreme attack of stress that would eventually run its course. Except there was no end to the attack. Day in, day out, the symptoms persisted. It took every ounce of strength I possessed to force myself out of bed and go to work, only to spend the day paralysed in front of the computer screen.
On the weekends I abandoned my usual whirl of the gym, market and cafes. I would spend the entire two days in bed, wrapped in a sweat-stained doona, cowering from the foreboding doom that flooded my bedroom and the feelings of hopelessness that pillaged my mind. The monotony of spending the weekend in bed was broken by the occasional trip to the 7-Eleven to buy a packet of biscuits or chips. This was my only meal and the interaction with the shop assistant my only human contact.
After a month, there was still no sign of the torment abating. I began to suspect it was more than stress, that perhaps it might be signs of depression. Out of curiosity, I completed an online screening test. I clicked 'very much' to a series of questions such as: 'my future seems hopeless', 'I feel like a failure' and 'the pleasure and joy has gone out of my life'. Always a high achiever, I scored 85 out of 100, which placed me in the category of severely depressed. The message in the pop-up window urged me to seek professional help as soon as possible.
'That can't be right,' I thought, dismissing the result. I found another questionnaire and, once again, the likelihood I had major clinical depression was high. I refused to accept it. In my mind, depression was a sign of character weakness. People like me, with two Master's degrees and a senior executive role, didn't experience depression. I reasoned that all I needed was discipline. If I focused and applied my customary determination, I could overcome whatever was happening to me through sheer will.
But my resolve was no match for the force that dragged me further and further into its mire. I was trapped with no sign of escape.
SKIN
FOR weeks, I woke in the early hours of the morning, the amber glow from the digital clock taunting me with the obscenity of the hour. One night I woke with
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mood was beholden to a mix of chemical compounds. The tablets came packaged in shiny foil, fourteen to a strip, two strips to a box. Each pill was sealed in its own plastic bubble, emitting a tiny shriek when it was ejected from its cocoon.
After three years of taking meds, a frantic period of work and travel meant I wasn't as vigilant about monitoring my depleting supply. The day came when I found myself not only without meds but also without a repeat prescription. In fact, I was shocked to realise five days had passed since I had last taken a tablet. To make matters worse, I couldn't get a new prescription as both my GP and psychiatrist had chosen the exact same time to be away. I feared the worst, expecting my depression to roll in any minute. But once the panic subsided, it struck me that I was still standing after five medication-free days with no marked changes in my mood. Buoyed by this revelation, I decided to play it by ear until my psychiatrist's return.
The side-effects of antidepressants are well documented: nausea, dry mouth, headache and weight gain, to name a few, all of which I have experienced. But no one talks about the withdrawal symptoms. In fact, the proper term is 'antidepressant discontinuation syndrome'.
In my case, the syndrome was particularly acute as I went cold turkey rather than slowly tapering the dosage. Remember, I am not a girl to do things by halves.
After stopping the meds, I was gripped by flu and lay prostrate on the couch, simultaneously fevered and chilled, sweating under the doona. This was when I missed my mother the most: the soft touch of her hand against my burning forehead, her restorative chicken and rice broth flavoured with lemon. This was when I realised most palpably what it meant to be an orphan in middle age.
My every bone ached but, strangest of all, I started to feel short, sharp zaps in my head, like mini electric shocks. They weren't painful, just weirdly disconcerting. _Bzzt_ crackled the neurotransmitters in my brain as I delivered a conference presentation on public sector reform. I was zapped again over lunch with girlfriends in a cafe and again in the frozen food aisle at the supermarket buying ice-cream. The shocks just kept coming. Every time I was jolted, I wondered what was happening to the neurons and synapses in my brain. These shocks were reminders that taking antidepressants is not as anodyne as popping aspirin.
I persevered, anxious to see what would happen once the withdrawal symptoms subsided, what lay beneath the chemical haze, aches and zaps. When everything stopped, it was as if a veil separating me from the world was lifted. The grey film that had coated everything around me in a dull, washed-out pallor was replaced by vivid technicolour, so brilliant I had to shield my eyes. My senses awakened and it was a revelation to again taste the saltiness of anchovies, to smell the jasmine creeping in my garden. Sleep
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['8eddc95e-fdf0-9874-b1e9-c6cb596aa56e']
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the rocking chair I'll have waiting for you and we'll rock together and stare at nothing and we'll finally know the answer."
"Let's make it fifty years, <PERSON>," I said. "Forty sounds a little too soon."
"OK. It's a deal." He took a few more puffs of his pipe and then sniffed at the air. The aromas from <PERSON>'s cooking still lingered, and were now mingled with the pleasant scent of the tobacco smoke.
"This home finally smells like it has been lived in," he said.
I don't think anybody wanted the evening to end, but eventually it was time for <PERSON> and me to be on our way. I got up and headed back to the kitchen to find <PERSON> and <PERSON>. I thought <PERSON> would follow me, but I saw him pick up a pad of paper that was on his side table and begin to write something.
The ladies and I talked about doing this again soon, and then <PERSON> joined us. I gave him a handshake and <PERSON> gave him a big hug and a kiss. <PERSON> turned to <PERSON> and gave her a big hug and a kiss, and then I gave <PERSON> a hug. I turned to <PERSON> and he suddenly put his hands firmly on my shoulders. Was giving a hug to his woman a wrong move on my part? No, he was smiling. He walked me back next to <PERSON>, pushed us together, and said, "Don't they make a good-looking couple?" There was no edge to it—he was just being playful. So I put my hands on his shoulders, pushed him next to <PERSON>, and said, "I think you two make a better-looking couple—both of you are pretty."
<PERSON>'s birthday, enjoying some fine German wine. She never drank except with <PERSON>.
We all laughed, and then <PERSON> handed me the note he had written while in the den. I read the note to myself, then read it out loud. <PERSON> didn't say another word. What he had written was simple, heartfelt, and the perfect end to the perfect evening. It was all <PERSON> and I could talk about on our ride home.
The note said:
To <PERSON> and <PERSON>, From <PERSON>:
The Chef that prepares a good dish makes a greater contribution to Human Happiness than the Astronomer who discovers a new star. Thank you for the Good Dinner.
## SIX
## BIGGA
THE REMATCH WITH <PERSON> was on. It was set to take place the night of September 28, 1976, at a fittingly dramatic and historic venue—Yankee Stadium. <PERSON> was a tremendous athlete with an unorthodox, almost "awkward" boxing style. This was the third time that <PERSON> would face <PERSON>. During their first fight, in the spring of 1973, <PERSON>—a former sparring partner of <PERSON>not only won a split decision but fractured <PERSON>'s jaw. That had happened in the second round, and I could only imagine the pain that <PERSON> endured for the next ten rounds as he was hammered by <PERSON>'s powerful blows. Even though <PERSON> lost the
|
3f1600f1-b106-2185-d9e4-b040874d9b04
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['8eddc95e-fdf0-9874-b1e9-c6cb596aa56e']
|
he had been pushed to the main table in the reception room, I went over to him, put my arm around his shoulder, and gave him a kiss. "I know you hate that damn wheelchair," I continued, "but at least you're not broke. One out of two ain't bad."
"Unnh," he grunted. He didn't smile and didn't respond any more than that.
During the time I had to talk with <PERSON> before the ceremony, she said that the only hitch in the wedding day so far had been her father's unresponsiveness. Usually, even on what were physically demanding days for him, he would perk up in the presence of <PERSON>, <PERSON>, his other children, and his grandchildren. He especially enjoyed being a loving grandfather, and his sly sense of humor would almost always come out when grandkids were around. And, though he and <PERSON> rarely had the chance to see each other, <PERSON> always made an extra effort to be "on" when she was around. But on this big day, in a room full of people who loved him, he wasn't responding to anyone. Everyone in the family appreciated how hard it must be for him to get through a big occasion like this, so nobody pressed him to become more involved in what was going on around him. It just seemed very sad that he couldn't enjoy a day that would otherwise be such a special one for him.
At the main table, <PERSON> had <PERSON> on one side of him, and his daughter <PERSON> on the other side, with <PERSON> next to her. <PERSON> had placed <PERSON> and me across from her father so that he could see us more easily. As people got up after dinner to mingle and dance I kept my eyes on <PERSON>, but he kept his head down, sometimes with his eyes closed. <PERSON> and <PERSON> were talking about how unusual the situation was, and I got the sense that there was growing concern that the whole celebration might slip by without <PERSON> really being a part of it. I waited and waited and watched him across the table. Finally, he did look up. He zeroed in on me, and our eyes locked.
I did my own version of the mean face, held a fist up, and gave it a shake in his direction. He had told me so many times through the years that I was the only one who looked uglier than him making that face. I was hoping my face could still get a response—and it did. <PERSON> smiled—a full, real smile—and then he made the face right back at me. And he stuck out his tongue, like I always did. I took my taunting fist and began throwing jabs in his direction. He began throwing jabs right back at me. Just what I had hoped for. His jabs were in slow motion, but at least he was throwing them.
I knew he was in there. I knew he was always there, even when he didn't show it. Now it was time
|
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['8fb9c266-693e-3067-c4e8-dfec9f07bc91']
|
to a single digit before combining them to find the final number. The vowels A, E, I, O, and U are converted directly to 1, 5, 9, 6, and 3, respectively. The letter Y, which converts to 7, is counted as a vowel if it is found in a position where it functions as a vowel, as in the following instances:
a. When there is no other vowel in the name, as in <PERSON> or <PERSON>
b. When there is no vowel in the syllable, as in <PERSON> or <PERSON>
c. When it is preceded by another vowel and sounded as one, as in <PERSON> or <PERSON>
In the case of <PERSON>, her inner person will be motivated by the characteristics of the 7 vibration.
#### Interpretation
The Fifth Sphere of Influence, or inner person, generally plays a concealed role, as the combined forces of the other spheres and environmental influences may relegate it to the background. However, the forces of this sphere do not remain in this position permanently. They emerge from time to time to influence our behavior in long-term affairs, and for this reason, it is essential that this sphere is examined whenever longer-term associations are considered.
### Sixth Sphere
This sphere is found by adding the consonants' values from the full name, again reducing each name to a single digit before combining them to find the final number. <PERSON>'s outer personality will display the qualities of the 7 vibration.
#### Interpretation
The Sixth Sphere of Influence is the outer person. We would like to stress that, though its impact is of a temporary nature (one's true personality is revealed from within), it is nevertheless a permanent aspect of our personality. All our first impressions are created and gained through this sphere. It takes center stage whenever we meet people for the first time. It is our prime asset at interviews of any sort. The need to constantly highlight the positive qualities of this sphere and eliminate the negative ones cannot be overemphasized. An unimpressive or disordered outer personality projected through this sphere could do grave injustice to a splendid real personality and vice versa.
### The Spheres Together
The most significant fact that emerges from this brief examination of the six spheres is their interdependence. Our personalities need to function as well-balanced wholes in order for us to answer the call of destiny and make a worthwhile contribution to society. Therefore, all six spheres must be examined for a balanced interpretation of the personality and the degree of influence each sphere has.
An important numerological fact that needs to be considered when examining these spheres is that the unique characteristics of the numbers will remain constant, regardless of the sphere in which they appear. However, they will express themselves differently according to their position in the spheres.
The two Spheres of Influence within the birthdate take precedence over those of the name, as the birthdate is fixed and comprises the mold in which an individual is formed. But the whole name determines the nature of the four other
|
b0f44334-ef44-7825-3cc7-ec9dbfb35401
|
['8fb9c266-693e-3067-c4e8-dfec9f07bc91']
|
on the alert for humorous situations and will swiftly respond to an ordinary remark with a witty retort. They respond eagerly to personal love, adulation, and flattery. This will be the best approach for receiving their friendship and loyalty. The negative ones who may not receive these attentions will create situations to do so. This urgent need leads them easily into many emotional escapades and makes them prey to all types of other influences.
• Their most powerful weapon is the gift of speech, which is used generally in friendship, though they could be cutting and satirical if they choose to be.
• Their reactions are enthusiastic, optimistic, and animated. Beauty and color instantly catch their eye.
• There is no need to repeat or explain anything in detail to these people. They pick up new facts and information instantly.
• They give an instant response to pets and children.
### First Vowel Y (Number 7)
This is rarely the first vowel, but when it is, the deeper characteristics of the 7 vibration will be displayed. The names <PERSON> and <PERSON> are examples of this. (For more information on when Y is treated as a vowel, please refer to.)
• Their aversion to frivolous and superficial people and their attraction to and admiration for deep-thinking, learned people will be obvious.
• Attempts to obtain any information from them, especially of a personal nature, usually ends in disappointment and embarrassment, for they will not reveal anything about themselves. They are enigmatic and often misunderstood.
• A display of emotion or conduct that does not conform to reason will either raise their ire or cause them to withdraw into themselves.
• Their attention and ready response is always gained if some serious or philosophical matter is broached and discussed objectively.
## 8
____________________
THE SIXTH SPHERE OF INFLUENCE: SPHERE OF THE OUTER PERSON
### Consonants of the Whole Name
The existence of an inner realm within our personality must, by the law of opposites, indicate the existence of an outer realm. The single digit resulting from the sum of the consonants shows the outer, which is also referred to as the outer person. The vibrations of the physical body play a significant part in this Sphere of Influence.
This aspect of the integral personality is projected outward, both consciously and unconsciously. It is the area of first impressions and may be regarded as a facade we present to others, from which their initial judgments are made. Herein lies the importance of the Sixth Sphere of Influence. Although it is not always representative of our true selves, we should be aware of the characteristics presented by this sphere and use them consciously and honestly as a medium by which we may conduct ourselves in the most advantageous manner. The collective features of this sphere can very well be the secret of our success in the many situations we find ourselves in. It could also be used to deceive others as well as ourselves, but any success achieved by these means will be short-lived,
|
3d0ce3d8-2b8c-c8e6-41e4-f8b78f369ba7
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['8fce86b0-86e0-1ac9-4dd4-a6c29ffdf3e9']
|
s'arrange pour mettre, dans ses récits, ses personnages en position de conteurs ; et chacun d'eux prend ses auditeurs à témoin, fait appel à ses souvenirs, se permet des digressions ; il ménage des surprises ; il ne se prive pas d'introduire des réflexions plaisantes ou de glisser des commentaires cocasses ; mieux encore, il a appris à se taire, il sait faire silence sur certains points délicats, laisser dans son récit des pans d'ombre et des zones d'ambiguïté, lui conférer, autant qu'il le faut, un caractère lacunaire et énigmatique. À un type de roman explicatif, qui procédait au fond, jusqu'à Batailles dans la Montagne, du modèle réaliste et naturaliste, même si la part de la poésie ou de l'épopée, – comme chez <PERSON> ou <PERSON> – était prédominante, <PERSON> substitue un type de récit plus désinvolte, il démultiplie les instances de la narration, il entre successivement dans des points de vue opposés, il joue avec le temps, il saute allégrement du milieu du siècle dernier aux années où il est en train d'écrire. Sans doute est-ce sous l'influence de <PERSON> et d'autres grands romanciers étrangers qu'il a adopté cette nouvelle orientation ; mais c'est surtout parce que cette méthode, qui laisse plus de place à l'improvisation et au libre jeu de l'imagination, l'amuse davantage, lui permet les jeux de l'humour et de la désinvolture. On retrouve un certain ton stendhalien dans Le Hussard sur le toit, Le Bonheur fou et tout l'admirable cycle d'Angelo, qui occupe un volume entier de l'édition de la Pléiade. Mais quelle variété de sujets, de techniques, de tons, de personnages, de Un Roi sans divertissement au Moulin de Pologne, des A mes fortes aux Grands Chemins ! Tantôt, comme dans Les Grands Chemins, on a le point de vue d'un narrateur qui découvre une réalité marginale d'autant plus passionnante qu'elle est éclairée de biais et qu'elle demeure en grande partie mystérieuse ; tantôt, comme dans Le Moulin de Pologne, une figure centrale, énigmatique, sur laquelle, réunissant les témoignages les plus divers, toute une ville s'interroge.
Dans Un Roi sans divertissement comme dans d'autres chroniques on trouve une grande souplesse dans le maniement des instances de la narration et des jeux de la temporalité. Quand <PERSON> interrogeait <PERSON> sur les raisons qui l'avaient incité à manipuler curieusement, dans les chroniques, le cours du temps, il invoquait son bon plaisir : « Je me suis aperçu que c'était une technique amusante et qui m'offrait des facilités. Jusqu'ici j'avais écrit des histoires qui commençaient au début, qui se suivaient. J'en avais assez. Ça m'a séduit de mélanger les moments. J'ai voulu ajouter un piment, m'amuser. » Cet amusement a consisté à « manipuler le cours du temps » et à multiplier du même coup les instances de la narration. Dans Un Roi sans divertissement on est déjà frappé par la diversité des témoignages. Mais à cet égard, Les Âmes fortes sont sans doute le chef-d'œuvre de Giono : deux vieilles femmes, lors d'une veillée funèbre, racontent les jours anciens, et leurs points de vue s'opposent sur ce passé
|
e8eefa00-3041-9892-a513-ad7ce63426aa
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['8fce86b0-86e0-1ac9-4dd4-a6c29ffdf3e9']
|
p. 881.
21. « Contre l'obscurité », Revue Blanche, 15 juillet 1896, repris dans Chroniques.
22. Voir Gide, Romans, Pléiade, p. 1479.
23. Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs, Gallimard, 1927, p. 62-64.
24. Romans, Pléiade, p. 990.
25. Ibid., p. 1081.
26. Ibid., p. 1080.
27. Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs, p. 16.
Chapitre 5
1. Le Roman français depuis la guerre, Idées, N. R. F., p. 12.
2. « Notes sur le roman », in Les Problèmes du roman, sous la direction de Jean Prévost.
3. « Les Tendances du roman français, 1919-1939 », in Annales de l'Université de Montpellier, 1944, tome 2.
4. Candide, septembre 1931.
5. « Guerre et roman dans l'entre-deux-guerres », Revue des Sciences humaines, janvier-mars 1963, p. 83-84.
6. Histoire du roman français depuis 1918, Seuil, 1950, p. 305.
7. Cité par <PERSON>, « L'Univers de Martin du Gard », dans le numéro d'Hommage à Roger Martin du Gard, N.R.F., 1er décembre 1958.
8. Dans la remarquable introduction aux Œuvres complètes, Pléiade, tome 1.
9. Cité par <PERSON>, « L'Été 1939 », in Hommage, p. 1057.
10. Cité par <PERSON>, « Un Archiviste monumental », ibid., p. 1049.
11. Conférence à l'Université des Annales.
12. Qu'on trouvera dans le tome I, Le 6 octobre. Voir texte 39.
13. <PERSON>, Malraux par lui-même, Seuil, p. 38.
14. Ibid., p. 41.
15. Ibid., p. 66.
16. <PERSON>, Bilan littéraire du XXe siècle, Aubier, 1956, p. 12 sq.
17. Devenir !, Pléiade, I, p. 25.
18. Cité par <PERSON>, op. cit., p. 73.
19. Pléiade, p. 1172.
20. Ibid., p. 1067.
21. Ibid., p. 1204.
22. Cité par <PERSON>, op. cit., p. 17.
23. La Nouvelle Revue Française, avril 1940.
24. Valéry, Œuvres, Pléiade, II, p. 1381.
25. Messages, 1re série, p. 60 sq.
26. Situations, I, p. 16.
27. Situations, I, p. 37.
28. Ibid, p. 36-57.
29. Le Promeneur, 1944, p. 198.
30. Haute École, Julliard, 1950, p. 165 sq.
31. L'Express, 3 mars 1960.
32. Situations, p. 252-253.
33. Panorama de la nouvelle littérature française, N.R.F., p. 109.
34. Cité par <PERSON>, <PERSON> et « L'Étranger », <PERSON>, 1965, p. 27.
35. Sur tous ces points, <PERSON>, op. cit., p. 41-66.
36. Cité par <PERSON>, ibid., p. 97.
37. Ibid., p. 100.
38. Situations, I, p. 99 sq., « Explication de L'Étranger ».
39. Il s'agit de <PERSON>, réponse à l'enquête de <PERSON>, « Où va le roman ? » dans Le Figaro littéraire, 22 septembre 1962.
40. Cité par <PERSON>, Panorama de la nouvelle littérature française, op. cit., p. 152.
41. Le meilleur exégète de <PERSON> est, à ce jour, <PERSON>, dans un article de Critique.
42. « Littérature objective, » Critique, juillet-août 1954.
43. <PERSON>, Idées.
44. In Esprit, juillet-août 1958. Voir texte 53.
45. Art. cité.
46. Pour un nouveau roman, p. 26.
47. Ibid., p. 23.
48. Les Romans de Robbe-Grillet, Éditions de Minuit, 1963, p. m sq.
49. Préface à Portrait d'un inconnu.
50. Voir l'article
|
268f6b32-bec5-b0dd-669a-cfe2d4be30ce
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['8fd5e0aa-ac15-c047-327b-7f6877206760']
|
black roots." Once Jamaican Rastafarians began to emphasize African mysticism and Black liberation, the gap between British skinhead and West Indies immigrant music increased. This increasing distance also set the stage for Skrewdriver's political affiliation with the British National Front.
<PERSON> summarizes succinctly how working-class skinheads evolved into white racial warriors: "As an attempt to establish a 'defensively organized collective' around a mythic image of proletarian masculinity, skinhead involved an embracing, and even an amplification of, the prejudices of the parent society. It was very easy for this stance to 'dissolve' in the words of <PERSON> 'into a concern with race, with the myth of white ethnicity, the myth, that is, that you've got to be white to be British.' " According to <PERSON>, this denial of their Black roots continues among racist skinheads today: "According to us, if you weren't white power, you weren't a skinhead. Never mind that the first skinheads included black guys and that there were Jamaican influences. We were told that, of course. And we were like, 'Whatever, that's just Jewish propaganda.' " The cultural hybrid in which the "Black man" served as a "past master in the gentle arts of escape and subversion" for British skinheads was, at best, an unstable racial compound.
With his global hybrid music <PERSON> reframes classical fascist ideology for listeners with varied—neo-Nazi, KKK, and racist skinhead—cultural and political histories of white supremacy. By shifting languages and codes, his song lyrics position the local, national, and regional struggles of white listeners within a broader global race war. As I discuss later, his hybrid rhythms and sounds also foster a strong sense of racial solidarity among his global audiences. <PERSON> and his supporters use multiple media—concert promoters, fanzines, party platforms, record companies, and websites—to carry their music from Britain to Germany, Eastern and Southern Europe, the United States, and beyond. In order to convey the global reach of their culturally hybrid white supremacy, Skrewdriver thanks supporters from "America, Australia, Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Rhodesia, Scotland, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Ulster and Wales" on its White Rider CD jacket.
## Inversion 2. Upside Down: White Supremacy as Cellular Network
In addition to his hybrid lyrics, <PERSON> uses his performative aesthetic to promote a cellular network of racist skinheads across the globe. Most of <PERSON> songs have "catchy" tunes and simple refrains. Unlike some skinhead bands whose music is unintelligible growls, the ideological messages in his lyrics are easily understood. These features make it easy for listeners to sing or shout along at live performances. Many Klansmen songs borrow from traditional Southern ballads with tunes that are already familiar to their audiences. As the terms "catchy" and, more recently, "going viral" suggest, listeners often cannot resist these songs that produce visceral responses in primal regions of the human brain. <PERSON>, lead singer for Rahowa, the band I discuss in chapter 4, confirms that white power musicians use repetitive choruses to "infect" their listeners. "We hear the slogan 'White
|
8a2d63b9-e5fd-5f93-5c69-2fd170c73d30
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['8fd5e0aa-ac15-c047-327b-7f6877206760']
|
this possible when the song lyrics, melodies, and rhythms remain the same? The ambiguous, fluid qualities of musical expression make this transformative process possible. As we have seen, embodied sounds can break through the culture industry's order of sameness and evoke the living presence of singular individuals, including their nonidentity with themselves and one another. According to <PERSON>, he now performs "Ode to a Dying People" with a changed heart and a different intention, and that makes it a new song. Its purpose now is not to save a dying white race but to awaken an unreflective humanity.
Other former white supremacists also relate their stories of personal transformation. Their processes of aesthetic reasoning involve accepting their own vulnerability, suffering their all-too-human weaknesses, and learning to embrace a shared humanity. <PERSON> of Centurion puts it starkly, "It's time for everyone who listens to lyrics I wrote and shouted telling them to hurt innocent people to know that I've somehow lived to regret everything I said. Everyone I hurt." <PERSON> writes:
God has taken mercy I don't deserve on me, mercy I never showed my victims. Their eyes still haunt me. I can't remember their faces, but I cannot forget the desperation in their eyes. I pray to God every day to give them peace. And I pray to God never to erase their pain from my memory. I can't make direct amends to most of the people I so brutally attacked during my skinhead years because I never knew their names. But they are in my heart now when I speak out against hatred. They are the reason I will never stop speaking out against hatred.
There is profound suffering in these processes of self-reflection and self-expression, but its purpose now is to lessen suffering, overcome injustices, and promote peace. Or, to change the story.
## CLOSING
In Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, <PERSON> argues that the 9/11 terrorist attacks dramatically exposed the all-too-human vulnerability of the United States as a global superpower. The continuing global economic crisis of 2008 that increased the economic precarity of many middle- and working-class whites only compounded this sense of vulnerability. According to <PERSON>, 9/11 offered Americans of European ancestry yet another opportunity to confront the(ir) history of white power and privilege that continues to haunt western liberal democracies. The British Empire, the American Revolution, the Constitutional Convention, the Civil War, Jim Crow, Indian removal, eugenics programs, Japanese internment, the Cold War, urban renewal, the New Jim Crow, the War on Terror, police brutality, immigration control—this list is woefully incomplete and much too long. <PERSON> asked post-9/11 America, "What politically might be made of grief besides a cry for war?" Unfortunately, many white Americans once again responded with anger, fear, hate, and violence toward nonwhite Others and, as a result, missed yet another opportunity to change the story.
<PERSON>'s larger project is to unsettle the self-possessed, sovereign subject behind processes of neoliberal globalization. She argues that "both our political and ethical responsibility are rooted in the recognition that radical forms
|
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|
scrawled
and fading signature,
or else an island
where no island was,
a space of sea
transformed into a country
and a prayer
as this is now transformed;
grey through the rain
it sways and blurs
rocks, trees, and, nearer, watchers
on the shingle
underneath the trees,
and then the black canoes
like drifting trees
edging towards us,
and strange cries, strange words,
the unexpected friendliness
of a dream
thrust whole into the actual
life of breath
and rope and beam and sail.
This is the moment
of discovery
uncovering time
and this they tell of,
though they never tell
that this is also every
birth and death
transfiguring the dream
and the despair
with sudden shocking unity,
the cry
of life's astonishment
at being life,
the gift of the unknown
to the unknown,
as I continue.
There are no more maps.
Can I expect
log cabins in a clearing,
and a hermit, or a crone,
or perhaps
the remnants of a well
where gold was drowned,
or just incessant forest?
Reindeer moss
shags overhanging boughs;
gold lichen spreads
itself across dead logs;
grey lichen, stiff
as beaten lead, breaks
underneath my footsteps,
and a chipmunk chatters
in a rage:
clearly the inhabitants
have left,
if ever there were inhabitants.
I blaze
a wound upon a tree,
the axe-blow echoes
back from slopes and steeps
I cannot see.
Behind me I am sure
the boat is gone.
IV
I tell I myself that these
are the nineteen seventies,
and there are no mysteries left.
A deer
leaps suddenly from brush.
I catch my breath.
Another creature glimmers
on a stump
ten paces off and then
becomes no more
than uptorn root
and tangled leaf and briar.
I wipe away the sweat
and ease my pack.
I name the landmarks
with my children's names
as I encounter them
or see them distant.
Nicholas Rock is still
a half mile off
over the other side
of the swampy meadow;
Alison river, glistening, idling,
spreads
around it before gathering
somewhere — close
(for I can hear it)
to Saint Brigid's Falls.
Again I wade through tangle.
From that knoll
I should be able to look back and see
whatever ship it is
that I have left
and guess, perhaps,
the century and the cause
for which I clamber.
I cannot remember
more now than the impulse
to go on
however far, to find
what I must find.
Earth teems with musk;
I want to find a woman
wet as this wet-brown bark
whose coppery limbs
envelop me in her;
I want to fall
into the deeper sleep
that breeds the music
each leaf listens for;
I want, I want...
I call _haloooo, halooo_ ,
and time returns
as I must now return
clumsy and wearied to the shore;
my wife
has made a fire; the kids
are skipping stones
out over the bright water:
one does five.
These are the nineteen seventies.
No more mysteries.
Except the mystery of how I came
to move back in this way,
for what discovery?
And what repetition?
I
|
578ef814-74be-9bfd-558a-8810cd8a2364
|
['90de51b8-ee76-b40b-e548-fe7c0b427275']
|
casts lendings off. I turn,
bullying the springs, resentfully to mutter
at that limb's dull ache, as I resent,
all too often, the stiffening of another
that remembers farther darker acts,
casting the mind out gasping. Wide awake,
I rise, walk through the house. My children sleep,
steering through dreams and accidents that come back
always to man and womanhood, trapped, staring,
on such a night as this, at shaking blind,
faint shadowed ceiling, sightless dangling bulb,
with thinking body and with helpless mind.
### AUTOBIOGRAPHY
We all were born in nineteen twenty five;
mother became mother then, and father father,
and the village a real village with real houses,
and people letting smoke from the chimney tops.
The cows in the field found cowness, the big tree
got its size back, and held up the sky.
The birds flew high, because they'd just learnt how to,
and the stairs began to climb, the roof to guard.
Everything started then. We went on together,
getting used to it, getting used to our eyes
and the noises we made, and the fingers made for something
fiddly but rather uncertain, and moving around,
getting space straight, too: in volume X
nothing bigger than X can get, and doors that open
one way won't stay shut if you treat them wrong,
and some things are much harder than other things.
Well, we got it learnt, in a sort of fashion.
Two of us thought we knew a bit already,
and had to unlearn it all, to learn it true;
I was starting from scratch, and got on alright.
At least for a time. Then things began to stop.
The village turned into cardboard on odd days,
and the cows were in the way, and the sycamore tree
dropped dead flies in my hair and dwindled; so
it went on, just like that. We'd started right.
Everything started together for us that year.
Then, bit by bit, things stopped. Some new things started.
Balls began bouncing, for instance, and books to talk,
and wheels to turn and pens to write and blot,
and hands to grab, and violins to play,
and things are still beginning. But the dead.
Oh how the stockstill stopped lives stand about.
Now over thirty years we've seen them stiff.
Only on good days one or two have moved
hesitantly, started up again.
But mostly not. Till now. And now, well now
we suddenly start again. He started us —
I as father, she as mother, they
the same again and different. The house
has proper walls and doors, the chimneys smoking
real smoke up into a proper sky,
where birds have found what voices can get said,
and trees have got the job to keep them there,
and eyes begin to learn the way to look,
and ears to listen, and our hands, our hands,
oh all our hands find that they're here for something
fiddly, uncertain perhaps, but must hold on.
### LAND WITHOUT CUSTOMS
_for <PERSON>_
My land had no customs. Habits, tricks
of the slow tongue, leading
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to speak to the mountain. If voices of condemnation or fear have been shouting at you, shout at them even louder. "Grace, grace, in the name of <PERSON>!" There is power when you open your mouth and let God's Word go forth. Your mouth is an open door for the King of kings to come in with glory.
Is your heart condemning you? God is greater than your heart.
Discouragement, fear, and condemnation are not your lot. You don't have to accept them. God says His kingdom is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). Anything that isn't pure, lovely, or of good report does not belong in your head. You cannot welcome those thoughts.
As you speak against those thoughts, recognize the example <PERSON> set for us. After forty days in the wilderness without food and water, <PERSON> was desperately tired and weak. The enemy came with all sorts of temptations to exploit His vulnerability. <PERSON> didn't spend time weighing whether to entertain His temptations. He didn't rebuke Himself for being tempted. He clearly recognized what was going on and countered with the truth. (See Matthew 4:1–11.)
We are to do the same. It isn't our job to examine the lies, focus on the negatives, and figure out strategies to deal with feelings such as discouragement, fear, and condemnation. Our job is to release light. If you're trying to bring light into a dark room, you don't try to figure out the darkness. You don't even address the darkness. You simply turn on the light. And when the voice of lies speaks to you, all you have to do is bring the truth. The light of God's Word overcomes darkness. You are never a victim; you're a victor.
If you don't know what to pray, start with the Lord's Prayer, or even with a psalm. Just start. The Word of God is quick and powerful, and it will accomplish what it set forth to do. Pick up the sword of the Spirit and fight. Shout "Grace, grace" to the voices of condemnation and fear. Recognize what is going on in your heart. Is your heart condemning you? God is greater than your heart (1 John 3:20). The enemy is after your heart because he is terrified of those who know their hearts are free, cleansed by the blood of the <PERSON>, and righteous before God. Hearts like that come boldly to the throne of grace in times of need. They ask for open doors and are free to walk through them.
GET READY
This is a time of open doors. God's people have the capacity to ask and receive like we've never done before because of the revelation that is being released in this age. We have come to know God deeply, but what we know of Him is still only a tiny fraction of what there is to know. He has so much more in store for us. There will be an increase in revelation knowledge—not just for the sake of our curiosity, but so we can
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we need to be good stewards of the King of all kings, the Spirit of God's Son living in us? Hiding Him under a bushel and failing to dream big is a lot like someone burying his talent in the ground, and it doesn't please God.
Scripture says, "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you" (Isa. 60:1, MEV). We are responsible for stewarding the amazing privilege of having the Son of God in us and starting to dream accordingly. We have to deliberately wage war in our own minds and refuse to align our thoughts with anything other than the thoughts of <PERSON>. We have to declare what is already true of us—that we have the mind of <PERSON>—and take every thought captive that exalts itself against who He is. That's a moment-by-moment choice that begins when we wake up in the morning and think about what we're going to do that day. We can't afford to float through life. God wants us to take captive not only every thought that is contrary to <PERSON>, but also every thought that is contrary to Him _in us._
So if any thought—including your perception of yourself—doesn't line up with the truth of <PERSON> in you, learn to reject it. When I wake up in the morning, I like to remind myself of what I look like. We all behold the glory of the Lord as in a mirror (2 Cor. 3:18), and as we look into the mirror of who He is, we see our reflection. We look like Him! In <PERSON>, He is faithful to forgive me as I repent of my sin, so I can then by faith see myself righteous and pure. No matter what I may feel like, Scripture tells me that even if my heart condemns me, Christ is greater than my heart (1 John 3:20). So I remind myself that I am full of power by His Spirit. I am pure and righteous because of the blood of the <PERSON>. I am peaceful, kind, and patient. Everything the Bible says about love in 1 Corinthians 13 is now the reality of my nature because God is love, and it's not me living today but Him living in me. I begin to imagine how people will respond when they meet me. How will they be impacted when they encounter the peace and joy I have? The truth is that <PERSON> is peaceful and joyful today, so that's what is exuding out of me. Without looking into the mirror of what the Word says about Him, I get deceived into living a life dictated by my flesh and feelings. But as I reckon myself dead and <PERSON> alive in me, I can start imagining what impact my life will have on others today.
I like to do this before I walk into a room, a function, a meeting, or even a family party. I check myself in the mirror of God's identity and think about deliberately releasing the atmosphere of
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of both. The agency had commanded Bolivian forces on the hunt for <PERSON>. Having secured his capture, the agency lied about who killed him and the lies had leaked out through the media. The liaison between the <PERSON> administration and the CIA's covert team, incidentally, was modernization guru <PERSON>. Modernization theorists were not interested in following international standards over treatment of prisoners or due process, this incident suggests. Now the CIA was acting as executor of <PERSON>'s literary estate. Killing <PERSON> was one thing, but they doubled down on his ideas; they must have control of the publication of his combat diary. In the CIA's definition of cultural freedom, ideas were too important to be left free to circulate. Disagreeing with <PERSON>'s views wasn't enough. Those views would have to be falsified, or at least severely annotated by a man who had worked for the same agency, so to speak, that had helped kill the author with no trial.
To fully grasp all this, one would have to pick through the record carefully. And what was at first an open secret later came out in boasts. For instance, Agent <PERSON> repeated a joke that he uses to justify his role in killing <PERSON>. It's a light way of reminding audiences what kind of a man he had helped the Bolivians kill. While <PERSON> was his prisoner in a little Bolivian schoolroom, <PERSON> asked him how he became <PERSON> chief economist. <PERSON> told him that he had raised his hand at a cabinet meeting when <PERSON> asked if anyone was a trained economist. But he realized later that he had misheard <PERSON>. <PERSON> raised his hand because he "thought <PERSON> asked if anyone was a trained Communist." With that one little rhyming misunderstanding, <PERSON>'s entitlement to Geneva protections disappeared. <PERSON> was nothing more than a Communist. But <PERSON> asked explicitly to be remembered as a man and, grateful that <PERSON> hadn't resorted to sniveling or tears, <PERSON> had indicated he would be treated as such, that he would relay a message to <PERSON>'s wife. When his assassin came in shivering and with a nervous look in his eye, <PERSON> told him that there was nothing to be afraid of because the soldier was "only killing a man." Did the CIA not believe that men and women of the left deserved to be tried before a jury? If they did not, what was the telling difference between us and them? We both killed, their side and ours, with no trial.
There was considerable fear in Washington that, once captured, <PERSON> might still get away alive. To prove that he was dead, the guerrilla fighter's hands were cut off and shipped north and <PERSON> kept the prisoner's watch (although he had promised <PERSON> he would send it to his widow). <PERSON>'s body had an interesting afterlife. Initially, <PERSON>'s killers proposed to send his severed head to Washington. Alas, another head (like that of <PERSON>) would be on display in the halls of American amusement and power. But this was too brutal.
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690fbd62-0e66-5105-895a-85b9cbdcc959
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of Black Writers and Artists in Paris in the mid-1950s that exposure to advanced countries was good for under-developed ones. If you were to ask <PERSON> during the British occupation of India, might he not point to the school fees he had to pay, the biases embedded in the curricula at the British-supported institutions of higher learning, and the censorship of the India Congress Party's publications, not to mention the slaughter of protesters? <PERSON> himself may have been ambivalent about the developing world in the mid-1950s when he heard <PERSON> espouse the theory. But the theory was little more than a rationalization for Western interventionist power.
By the mid-1960s, <PERSON> had left _Encounter_ and, with <PERSON>, had founded _The Public Interest_ with a $10,000 grant from the CCF/CIA. <PERSON> had been tasked with interviewing _The Paris Review_ 's candidate for "joint emploi," in <PERSON>'s phrase. And he eventually left _The Public Interest_ as <PERSON>'s politics veered rightward. <PERSON> came to embrace the derogatory term "neoconservative," which he defined as "a liberal who's been mugged by reality."
_The Public Interest_ quietly joined the "Grande Famille," as <PERSON> called his magazines, actively sharing content with _Mundo Nuevo_. _The Paris Review_ reprints started to appear in the pages of _Mundo Nuevo_ , too. An interview with <PERSON> appeared in _Mundo Nuevo_ 's issue 13. Conducted by _The Paris Review_ 's Paris editor <PERSON>, it originally ran in the _Review_ 's Fall 1966 issue, number 39. <PERSON> himself even took some government money to attend a junket, where he subverted his funders, he recalled later, by using the trip to denounce the Vietnam War.
The exchange between _The Paris Review_ and others in the Grande Famille was mutually beneficial to the magazines—a readymade bouquet of "content" at their disposal. In February 1967, <PERSON> wrote to _The Paris Review_ 's <PERSON> to request permission not just for the <PERSON> interview, but also <PERSON> interview with <PERSON>. In May, <PERSON> asked for _The Paris Review_ 's <PERSON> interview and in December for its <PERSON> interview. <PERSON> arranged content-syndication deals with other CCF magazines, as well. He wrote <PERSON>, now editor at _Encounter_ , to request the rights to such pieces as <PERSON> pamphlet on Marxism, articles by <PERSON> on <PERSON>, <PERSON> on <PERSON>, <PERSON> on <PERSON>, and <PERSON> on <PERSON>. Hearing nothing back, he wrote again to request the same arrangement he had with _<PERSON>_. "When I ask them and they are free to give them to me, they do not reply. No answer means a positive answer. . . . If I do not hear from you, can I assume the same?"
In cultural and political propaganda for the West, silence was understood as consent. But if consent was unspoken between editors, how could it be gotten from the author? In some public spaces, the work was getting less and less overt. It was melting into the backdrops. For many confused readers, it was getting harder to
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dcdbe62c-c8d2-cd89-26a1-d76315050b2f
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were mostly on foot.
They broke out of the alley into a plaza where <PERSON> could hear the crackle of musketry. When he scanned the open ground he saw the ranks of mutineers on the far side readying themselves to fire a volley at the British soldiers who had taken up a position in the open a hundred yards away. The mutineers were in the process of loading their cumbersome muskets but they had been previously trained by the British occupiers and knew their drills well.
<PERSON> quickly appraised the situation, realising that his small force had not been noticed.
'Form a single rank!' he roared, and the well-disciplined redcoats fell quickly into a line slightly to the front and flank of the mutineers.
'Present! Fire!'
The soldiers stood, firing a volley into the mutineer infantrymen on the other side of the plaza. Their musket balls, and a few Minié balls from the Enfields, tore through the two ranks of the enemy. The volley caused confusion in the enemy ranks, and they discharged their muskets without properly levelling them.
'Ready bayonets! Charge!'
Immediately, <PERSON>'s small detail of redcoats charged across the open plaza. Yelling and cursing, they caused panic in the demoralised enemy ranks and the flashing bayonets of the British tore into exposed bellies, chests and throats as men cursed, cried and grunted their last breaths.
<PERSON> brought his pistol up to a big, bearded Indian who was waving a large sword in the air. He thrust the muzzle into the man's face, firing as he did so. The heavy lead ball shattered bone, and flesh and blood splashed back into <PERSON>'s face as the man fell. <PERSON> was almost felled by the body of an enemy soldier falling against him from a bayonet thrust in his chest. He stumbled but quickly regained his feet, glancing around for any immediate threat. He was pleased to see that the charge across the open plaza had succeeded, and only panting, shocked red-coated troops remained standing amongst the dead and dying Indian rebels.
'Sir, I must extend my gratitude to you for your timely intervention,' said a young lieutenant with a blackened face and blood-soaked uniform. Desultory fire was still coming from isolated enemy marksmen in the surrounding buildings. 'Lieutenant <PERSON> of the Foot Regiment, at your service.'
'Major <PERSON>, Bengali cavalry,' <PERSON> replied, and suddenly registered his raging thirst. He reached for his water canteen on his belt and a searing pain shot through his left wrist.
<PERSON> spun around in shock, noticing at the same time that Lieutenant <PERSON> had already issued orders for his men to take cover. <PERSON> felt Corporal <PERSON> grip his jacket and yank him to the cover of a stone wall at the edge of the plaza, shielding him against other marksmen in the surrounding houses.
<PERSON> stared down at his hand and saw his mangled wrist. Blood was flowing from the wound and pain coursed through his body.
'Here, sah,' said the British NCO. 'I will wrap your wrist.' He produced a clean linen cloth and
|
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see a real threat in the man's expression. 'I don't just need another ale,' he snarled. 'I need an apology. And his boots.'
<PERSON> realised that the man was a natural bully who used his size to impress his friends – if he had any.
<PERSON> tugged on his sleeve, saying, '<PERSON>, he can have my boots, and an apology.'
'That will not happen,' <PERSON> said.
'If there is going to be any trouble, you two can leave my premises,' the publican growled from behind the bar.
'Suits me,' <PERSON> said casually, hiding his apprehension. The fiddle died away and the drunken patrons became aware that trouble was brewing.
It was the local bully who took up the offer and pushed his way to the entrance. <PERSON> followed with <PERSON> in tow.
'<PERSON>, it is not necessary to get into an altercation,' he pleaded. 'The man looks to be a dangerous brute.' <PERSON> ignored him as the patrons spilled out from the bar to witness the expected short, sharp defeat of the well-dressed stranger. From the corner of his eye, <PERSON> could see the raven-haired girl join the ring of spectators, now around the circle of light from the village streetlamp, who were already cheering the local man <PERSON> was facing. He had already removed his coat and <PERSON> could see that he was a head taller than he but was intoxicated.
'Show him what's what, <PERSON>,' a voice called as <PERSON> passed his own coat to <PERSON>.
With a grin, the local champion charged at <PERSON>, who stepped aside and swivelled to deliver a vicious punch to the kidney area of his opponent. It was delivered with the muscle of a blacksmith's arm, and his opponent doubled in pain. With a groan, he turned to resume his attack on <PERSON>, who half-crouched. When the bigger man was within range <PERSON> delivered a rapid rain of punches to his face and stomach that took the local thug off-guard. No one had ever stood up to him before. <PERSON> was aware that he had to finish the fight fast, and grabbed the man behind the head, smashing his knee into his face, bursting open his opponent's nose. The local bully collapsed, but hefted himself on all fours. <PERSON> did not hesitate but lashed out with his boot, catching the man in the face once again. The big man rolled on his back, clutching his badly damaged face with both hands. The crowd that had been calling for <PERSON>'s blood had fallen into a hush of shock. The show was over.
'Who are you?' a male spectator demanded.
'<PERSON>,' <PERSON> replied as <PERSON> passed his coat. Already, a couple of the defeated man's friends were helping him to his feet, to take him inside the public house for an ale.
No other words were said as the crowd retreated to the bar, leaving <PERSON> and <PERSON> alone. At least it seemed that way until <PERSON> noticed the raven-haired girl step into the light before them.
'So, you are <PERSON>,' she said. 'We met
|
2f3b295c-667e-729a-d0a5-a2848007a825
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– je suis toujours saisi de l'envie de répondre : Me prenez-vous pour un barbare comme vous, et me croyez-vous capable de me divertir aussi tristement que vous faites ? (...) Mais ce à quoi les professeurs jurés n'ont pas pensé, c'est que, dans le mouvement de la vie, telle complication, telle combinaison peut se présenter, tout à fait inattendue pour leur sagesse d'écoliers. Et alors leur langue insuffisante se trouve en défaut, comme dans le cas, – phénomène qui se multipliera peut-être avec desvariantes, – où une nation commence par la décadence, et débute par où les autres finissent._
<PERSON>, Préface aux _Nouvelles Histoires extraordinaires_.
_En somme, à l'idole du Progrès répondit l'idole de la malédiction du Progrès ; ce qui fit_ deux lieux communs.
<PERSON>, « Propos sur le progrès ».
« Genus irritabile vatum ! _Que les poëtes (nous servant du mot dans son acception la plus large et comme comprenant tous les artistes) soient une race irritable, cela est bien entendu ; mais le_ pourquoi _ne me semble pas aussi généralement compris. Un artiste n'est un artiste que grâce à son sens exquis du Beau, – sens qui lui procure des jouissances enivrantes, mais qui en même temps implique, enferme un sens également exquis de toute difformité et de toute disproportion. (...) Ainsi la fameuse irritabilité poétique n'a pas de rapport avec le_ tempérament _, compris dans le sens vulgaire, mais avec une clairvoyance plus qu'ordinaire relative au faux et à l'injuste. Cette clairvoyance n'est pas autre chose qu'un corollaire de la vive perception du vrai, de la justice, de la proportion, en un mot du Beau. Mais il y a une chose bien claire, c'est que l'homme qui n'est pas (au jugement du commun)_ irritabilis _, n'est pas poète du tout. »_
<PERSON>, cité par <PERSON>, _ibid_.
XXV
Poésie inconsciente et plume blanche. Affect signataire.
La poésie doloriste, poésie mièvre et humiliée, que le monde intimide jusqu'à aveugler le douloureux, confond la peine en son « pur sentir » et l'expression du « pur sentir » en son intensité. La souffrance exprimante, ou plus simplement : la difficulté expressive, se réduit à l'exprimée : « Seuls le plus grand sérieux et le combat contre l'abus des expériences de grande souffrance, et de la souffrance originaire, pourraient nous aider à réveiller le public et à le faire sortir de sa léthargie fantastique. » <PERSON> s'inclut dans une _léthargie fantastique_ qui sollicite l'imagination : « nous sommes vraiment endormis, nous dormons par crainte d'avoir à nous percevoir, nous-mêmes et notre monde » (1959). Toutes sortes de poésies inconscientes, ensommeillées, comblent la littérature. Pour éviter le comblement, il ne convient pas simplement que la poésie se réfléchisse et se fasse « méta-poétique » ; il s'agit qu'en ses poèmes réels aient lieu une dénudation, une exposition de soi, un exposé du problème de l'affect signataire, de la tâche du _sentiment herméneutique_ (du monde interprétable), et que l'idée de la poésie soit capable de s'exposer en poème dans ce sens, à la faveur de quelqu'un parmi d'autres.
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|
oblige à danser la valse ou les cinq pas ». Le boiteux peut danser. <PERSON> compare les écrivains de prose aux « gens de pied ». Dans les _Quatre vents de l'esprit_ (1881), <PERSON> oppose de nouveau la marche et la danse lyrique : « La prose en vain essaie un essor assommant./ Le vers s'envole au ciel tout naturellement. » « La prose, c'est toujours le sermo pedestris./ Tu crois être <PERSON> et tu n'es que <PERSON>. » Le vers de Lemierre est devenu poncif de l'inspiration : « Même quand l'oiseau marche on sent qu'il a des ailes. » ( _Les Fastes_ , « Invocation à la variété », 1779.) Mais Valéry note dans ses _Cahiers_ en 1918 : « Marche-Danse et, entre les deux, pas rythmé, marche processionnelle. » Dans la marche de la « prose ordinaire », « la manière dont je franchis la distance pour atteindre le but est _nulle_ ». Reste un lien, le continu discret du « pas rythmé » dans l'ordinaire... Les chapitres IX et XXXI du présent _C.u.B._ reviennent au point de la « boiterie changeante », flottaison qui affecte et ouvre la procession intermédiaire. Une prose doit penser sa marche.
___________________________
1. Contre Benn, qui dit : « Un _Gemüt_ ? Je n'en ai aucun. » « Gemüt ? Gemüt habe ich keines. » Dans _Die Struktur der modernen Lyrik_ , <PERSON> reprend à son compte le thème des _Probleme der Lyrik_ de Benn (1951). Ainsi se renforce une _doctrine sans cœur_ de la poésie, doublée d'une doctrine de la _poésie sans cœur_ , c'est-à-dire sans foyer problématique, sans intellect rythmique, « instinct logique » ou instinct formateur, immanent et reconstituable. Car c'est exactement ce que désigne, quoi qu'il en soit, le mot _cœur_ ; Empédocle dit que le cœur est le lieu des pensées, pensées qui se pensent ou pensées impuissantes à se penser.
2. Dans _La Pluralité des mondes de Lewis_ (1991), <PERSON> a deux expressions parfaites et complémentaires, que je reprends pour décrire l'intention inséparée de l'exprimé : l'« intention continuante » est aussi une « intention continuée ». « <PERSON> disait, repris en cela par <PERSON> qui l'approuvait, qu'un tableau change à chaque coup de pinceau. Ils ne parlaient pas des changements qu'on provoque dès qu'on efface ou rectifie quelque chose sur une toile déjà achevée. Ce qu'ils voulaient dire, c'est que, au cours de l'exécution d'un tableau, chaque coup de pinceau modifie l'effet produit par tous ceux qui l'ont précédé, de sorte que, chaque fois qu'il touche sa toile, le peintre se trouve confronté à une situation nouvelle. (...) On a affaire à un processus fait de rectifications, de découvertes et de réponses aux situations rencontrées par le peintre lorsqu'il pose ses pigments. Inutile d'en appeler à une théorie esthétique : quiconque a fait quelque chose sait pertinemment en quoi consiste ce jeu de questions-réponses. Faire de l'intention quelque chose de statique, en supposant que le résultat final se conforme plus ou moins à une idée initiale, reviendrait à nier une large part de l'intérêt
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Ireland shortly thereafter. It was an extraordinary political journey.
<PERSON> had cuttingly described the _Reflections_ as 'rhapsodies in which there is much to admire, and nothing to agree with'. But he had perhaps been more influenced by <PERSON> than he admitted on India, and also on Irish policy, through the Catholic Relief Act of 1793 and the highly controversial endowment of a seminary for Irish Catholic priests at Maynooth in 1795. After his death in 1806 <PERSON> was all but canonized as the saviour of the nation; and in the following decades he was specifically co-opted by sections of Tory opinion as a Christian constitutionalist, defender of the status quo against revolutionary foreign doctrines and opponent of Catholic emancipation. This ignored the inconvenient facts that <PERSON>'s personal views about religion were unknown; that he had supported, not opposed, both parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation; and that he had had little hesitation in suspending habeas corpus in 1794 – supported by <PERSON> – and defying established constitutional principle for reasons of state in the struggle against <PERSON>. Then as now, the propagandists did not let such trifles get in the way of a good story.
By contrast, <PERSON>'s Irish lineage and widely known sympathy to the Catholics prevented such easy assimilation. After the Catholic Relief Act of 1829, however, <PERSON> and <PERSON> became increasingly joined in the public mind. The linkage was given a more specific political slant by <PERSON> in 1835. In his early _Vindication of the English Constitution in a Letter to a Noble and Learned Lord_ – the rather Burkean title can hardly be accidental – <PERSON> identified what he saw as a continuous Tory line of succession stretching back to the early eighteenth century and including <PERSON>, <PERSON> and the Younger <PERSON>.
Disraeli's evident desire was to be seen as a late flowering of the same tradition. But matters went horribly wrong when he was refused high office by the new Prime Minister, Sir <PERSON>, in 1841. It then became necessary for him to show that, far from following the true path, <PERSON> and his successors up to and including <PERSON> had gone disastrously astray. Faithful to the principles of a lifetime, Disraeli therefore reversed himself completely, using his novels _Coningsby_ and _Sybil_ to denounce <PERSON> as the offspring of a deviant 'Conservative' tradition, in contrast to Disraeli's own true Toryism. Neither the argument nor the reversal was persuasive.
On the Whig side, feelings about <PERSON> followed a similar path from equivocation to assimilation. By mid-century, when the Liberal party emerged from the ashes of the Whigs after the Great Reform Act 1832, many Liberals disliked <PERSON>'s rejection of parliamentary reform and abhorred his criticisms of natural rights and of the French revolution. But they admired his support for the American colonists, his belief in religious toleration, his respect for the constitutional settlement of 1688, his hatred of undue monarchical influence and his campaigns against injustices in India and Ireland. <PERSON>, in many ways a political innovator, nevertheless regarded <PERSON><PHONE_NUMBER>, his hatred of undue monarchical influence and his campaigns against injustices in India and Ireland. William Ewart Gladstone, in many ways a political innovator, nevertheless regarded Burke as an 'idol', according
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deputies to renounce every immunity, which put them upon a footing distinct from the condition of their fellow-subjects. In this renunciation the clergy were even more explicit than the nobility.
But let us suppose that the deficiency had remained at the 56 millions, (or £. 2, 200, 000 sterling) as at first stated by Mr. <PERSON>. Let us allow that all the resources he opposed to that deficiency were impudent and groundless fictions; and that the assembly (or their lords of articles* at the Jacobins) were from thence justified in laying the whole burthen of that deficiency on the clergy, – yet allowing all this, a necessity of £. 2, 200, 000 sterling will not support a confiscation to the amount of five millions. The imposition of £. 2, 200, 000 on the clergy, as partial, would have been oppressive and unjust, but it would not have been altogether ruinous to those on whom it was imposed; and therefore it would not have answered the real purpose of the managers.
Perhaps persons, unacquainted with the state of France, on hearing the clergy and the noblesse were privileged in point of taxation, may be led to imagine, that previous to the revolution these bodies had contributed nothing to the state. This is a great mistake. They certainly did not contribute equally with each other, nor either of them equally with the commons. They both however contributed largely. Neither nobility nor clergy enjoyed any exemption from the excise on consumable commodities, from duties of custom, or from any of the other numerous _indirect_ impositions, which in France as well as here, make so very large a proportion of all payments to the public. The noblesse paid the capitation. They paid also a land-tax, called the twentieth penny, to the height sometimes of three, sometimes of four shillings in the pound; both of them _direct_ impositions of no light nature, and no trivial produce. The clergy of the provinces annexed by conquest to France (which in extent make about an eighth part of the whole but in wealth a much larger proportion) paid likewise to the capitation and the twentieth penny, at the rate paid by the nobility. The clergy in the old provinces did not pay the capitation; but they had redeemed themselves at the expence of about 24 millions, or a little more than a million sterling. They were exempted from the twentieths; but then they made free gifts; they contracted debts for the state; and they were subject to some other charges, the whole computed at about a thirteenth part of their clear income. They ought to have paid annually about forty thousand pounds more, to put them on a par with the contribution of the nobility.
When the terrors of this tremendous proscription hung over the clergy, they made an offer of a contribution, through the archbishop of Aix, which for its extravagance, ought not to have been accepted. But it was evidently and obviously more advantageous to the public creditor, than any thing which could rationally be promised by
|
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supplied by their employer, Transport for London. When he compared the men's jacket and trouser sizes with their heart attack risk, he discovered that although the conductors were thinner than the drivers on average, even the heaviest conductors were still protected against heart attacks. Later studies by <PERSON>'s student <PERSON> confirmed that fitness lowers heart attack risk, independent of body weight, in a wide variety of groups, from longshoremen working the docks of San Francisco to Harvard students training for professional careers. Both men were devoted exercisers. <PERSON>, who had been active since childhood, lived to be ninety-nine, while <PERSON>, whose research inspired him to start running at age forty-five, lived to eighty-four, despite a strong family history of heart disease.
One of <PERSON>'s best-known trainees is <PERSON>, an epidemiologist at the University of South Carolina. Growing up as a farm boy in Kansas, he was an unlikely prospect to become a famous scientist. After a concussion ended his college athletic career, he decided to go to graduate school to become a coach. The exercise physiology classes got him interested in the science of physical activity, but his real calling turned out to be in the epidemiology of how physical fitness influences health. He finds the evidence for the importance of fitness so convincing that he uses the bathroom in another building on campus to build more movement into his daily life.
<PERSON> has repeatedly shown that no matter how much people weigh, more physical activity predicts better health. In a meta-analysis, he compared fit versus unfit people across weight categories. People who exercise, even moderately, are 200 to 250 percent less likely to die prematurely than people who rarely get up from the couch, whether they fit into the normal-weight, overweight, or obese categories. In contrast, people who are both obese and fit have only 21 percent more risk than normal-weight, fit people. This much smaller effect was not statistically significant. (That is, statistical tests were not able to rule out the possibility that the finding was due to chance.) These data indicate that exercise habits are ten times more important than weight in determining the risk of early death.
Because obesity is correlated with low fitness, these results suggest that doctors have mistaken a correlated factor (obesity) for the causal factor (fitness) that explains most of the mortality risk. Among middle-class professionals, for example, cardiovascular fitness measured in a treadmill test is low in 9.2 percent of the normal-weight group, 19.4 percent of the overweight group, and 50.8 percent of the obese group. <PERSON> estimates that low fitness is responsible for 16 to 17 percent of deaths in the United States, while obesity accounts for only 2 to 3 percent once the effects of fitness are factored out. His research also suggests that exercise has a stronger effect on health for obese people than it does for normal-weight people. That makes it particularly important for doctors to encourage their obese patients to exercise.
Physical activity also matters for preventing and treating diabetes. Exercising muscles take up glucose for
|
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leptin, at least in the stomach, and increasing ghrelin in the blood, which may help to set the brain's defended range in early life. Successful eradication of _H. pylori_ by antibiotic treatment in adults is often associated with weight gain, relative to cases in which the same antibiotics fail to kill their intended target.
Some types of gut bacteria are influenced by their host person's genes, while others are not. The prevalence of bacteria from the Bacteroidetes family responds to diet and does not depend on the person's genetic heritage. In contrast, a twin study found the highest heritability in a family called Christensenellaceae, which is not easily modified by diet. When transplanted to germ-free mice, a member of this family caused weight loss and reduced body fat. In another study, germ-free mice were given gut bacteria from human twin pairs with one lean and one obese twin. When the mice were housed separately, they became lean or obese, just like the twin whose bacteria they had received. When the pair was housed together, the lean twin's bacteria became established in both mice, and the obese mouse lost weight, but only on a diet low in fat and high in vegetables. If the diet was high in fat and low in vegetables, the obese mouse stayed obese.
The bacteria types common in obesity lead to weight gain because they help us get more energy from food. They are better at breaking down complex carbohydrates like cellulose, xylan, and pectin. For people who eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, that improvement in digestion may provide an extra 140 to 180 calories per day of usable energy. Gut bacteria influence the absorption of nutrients in a variety of ways, for instance by slowing the movement of food through the gut to allow more complete extraction of nutrients, and by increasing the production of an enzyme that moves glucose from the small intestine into the blood. They also suppress an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase that normally limits the ability of fat cells to take up fatty acids and triglycerides from the blood, resulting in more fat storage. This mechanism seems to be particularly important for obesity, as germ-free mice gain only 10 percent of their weight instead of 60 percent if a regulator of this pathway is blocked after they receive the gut bacteria transplant. Gut bacteria also reduce the use of fat for energy in the liver and muscles.
Weight-loss surgery may take advantage of these pathways to change the defended range of the brain's energy-balance system. Gut bacteria modify signals of hunger and fullness, so they might act on the brain's energy-regulation system. Weight-loss surgery causes changes in gut bacteria in both mice and people, similar to those seen during diet-induced weight loss, and also reduces diabetes symptoms. Both these effects of bariatric surgery occur before weight loss and are independent of diet. When bacteria from mice that have had surgery are transplanted into germ-free mice, they lose weight, even though they are very thin already.
In one person, a gut bacteria
|
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not tell stories. What do you think we're going to have for lunch? Do you think <PERSON> will make us some celery and wheatberry salad?"
"The seashell wants to swim in the ocean, like I did that time," <PERSON> said. She seemed to be addressing her comments to one of her horses. "It told me." <PERSON> gave me a look over <PERSON>'s head, but I was watching my daughter. "It told me," <PERSON> said, with wonder, as if she couldn't believe it herself.
* * *
—
There's a private bathroom off one of the conference rooms on Two; hardly anyone goes there. I went in, locked the door, and did my nasal rinse. Forceful gushes of saline solution cut a path through the muck inside my skull. I breathed deeply, with pleasurable clarity, collecting myself. Then I practiced my talking points for the board meeting, making severe expressions in the mirror.
"It's a multilayered challenge," I repeated. I sighed and sat down on the toilet.
I dialed my friend <PERSON> in New York. Her assistant answered. "She's not available," he said crisply.
"I was just calling to say hi," I said. "Not important."
I was skimming a book about the types of electric plugs and sockets in use around the world—surprisingly fascinating stuff—when someone rapped on the door. I sighed. "<PERSON>?" I said. She was the only one who knew I came here.
"Sorry!" she called through the door. "Can I come in?"
I got up, ran the water in the sink, cranked the paper towel dispenser, and squeezed some color into my cheeks. I unlocked the door.
"Is everything all right?" <PERSON> asked.
"I assume not or you wouldn't be here."
"Hey!" she said. She came in past me and leaned back on the edge of the sink. I sat back down on the toilet. "Wow. You look tired."
"Thank you." I yawned. "I'm going to power through. I was just giving myself a brief pocket of..." I trailed off. When you don't have the energy to lie to your assistant, things are really bad. "What's going on?"
She hesitated. "I know you have a lot going on and I don't want to add to your worries. You got another phone call..."
I tensed. "Who else has picked up the suicide story?"
"It's something else, maybe, um, personal?" she said. "Nothing about <PERSON>. Another weird call. I wasn't going to mention it, but this morning's call wasn't the first. It's getting relentless. I'm sorry to bring it up." She looked at me as if she was afraid I was going to get angry she hadn't told me, or wasn't sure she should tell me now. Her eyes were downcast, deferential.
"Prank calls?"
"Maybe." She looked uncertain. "They could be."
"Obscene?"
"Kind of."
"Threatening? Dangerous? Vulgar?"
"Yes. She uses bad language."
"She?" Despite my own commitment to repudiating gender stereotypes, I had assumed the obscene caller was a "he."
"I didn't want to tell you upstairs," <PERSON> said. "In the office, where everyone could hear. I thought maybe this was something
|
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looked intensely pained.
"Have you been to the gardens?" the woman said, and I turned, surprised, toward her. I had forgotten she was there. Her voice was clear and confident, not what I had expected. "At the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild? The lilies are very nice when they're in season. You wouldn't want to miss them."
I blinked, trying to start an answer. Maybe we would go tomorrow if work permitted, though I was secretly hopeful it wouldn't.
"<PERSON>!" <PERSON> chided. I looked over. <PERSON> was getting down onto the floor by the futon, looking for something. <PERSON>'s voice gave away that he didn't care what had happened, he was just saying it to show he was a parent paying attention.
"It's all right," <PERSON> said, reaching under the futon. "I've got it right here." He came toward me with an odd smile, my Conch held out on his palm.
I took back my Conch from <PERSON> and kept a tight hold on it as we shook hands and slinked toward the door. I made a mental note to dip it in hand sanitizer.
"It's a great company," <PERSON> said. "I can't wait to see what you come up with next. I think you would be interested in my company too."
"Thanks so much for keeping our daughter safe," <PERSON> said, taking the initiative to open the door and let us out.
"I love to do small acts of heroism," <PERSON> said. It probably sounded better in his first language. "Please don't go yet. I have a gift for _you_ too."
"Um, thank you, but keeping our daughter safe, saving her—you've already given us the best gift of all, I can't imagine..." And without allowing room for protest, as fast as we could, we piloted Nova down the stairs and out of the building to the car.
* * *
—
Back in our suite I felt exhaustion and soreness in my calves. We ordered room service.
"<PERSON>, baby, do you want some dessert? A boule de glace—that's ice cream? A soufflé citron? That's, uh, citrus. Order whatever you want, all of it if you want to. Are you OK? Were you scared?"
I took an Ativan in the bathroom and washed it down with a third of a cup of red wine leftover from last night. It tasted like the side of a person's tongue but it was fine.
<PERSON> was silent. "Why can't we get six dogs?" she said petulantly.
"That would be too many for <PERSON> to take care of," I said. "How would she have time to make _our_ dinner?"
That seemed to convince <PERSON>, and she immediately began to dump her little plastic animals all over the bed.
<PERSON> came in and hugged me. I tried to explain what a terrible afternoon it had been. "Sounds like it," she said. "But, look, ultimately...it worked out. Your heart must've been like this"—she rapped her chest. "But here she is. Safe and blessed and protected. Everyone has one of these stories. But you get to move on." She sat
|
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which the parents reviewed the early family history, reminding <PERSON> about the seriousness of his childhood asthma and learning disabilities. His perception of them as the villains of his childhood was shifted into a realization that they had indeed had great faith in his abilities, even when he was having little objective success in school.
The reason it is so important to help family members go through this process of unpacking their relationships is because loss and other traumas so commonly create situations where family members cease to talk openly with each other. Childhood misunderstandings and hurts can become fixed and fester for years, breeding further distortion until the air is cleared by open discussion.
The next step in therapy involved exploring <PERSON>'s exclusion from the family, since he seemed a prime candidate for a further cutoff if <PERSON> died. The parents said that <PERSON> had been born shortly after the maternal grandfather died and the grandmother moved into a third-floor apartment in their home. <PERSON>, who was named for his paternal grandfather, became his grandmother's child, with all the special protection that entailed. She took him everywhere and showed obvious preference for him, probably as a replacement for her husband, and he came to spend most of his time on the third floor with her. It almost seemed that the couple had given <PERSON> to the grandmother to help her in her grief and to prevent her from intruding on their nuclear family by having someone of her own. I reframed <PERSON>'s role from bully to sacrificial lamb. A relabeling process began, in which over time his exclusion was modified and he and <PERSON> became closer, hoping they could support each other when <PERSON> died. In repairing their relationship <PERSON> learned to his surprise that <PERSON> had always felt rejected by the parents and that grandma was his refuge from the rejection, not his first choice.
WILLS AND LEGACIES OF LOSS
When families have battles over a will or conflict over legacies, it always makes sense to go back to the genogram and explore the relationships that preceded the death. Unresolved family issues often become focused on conflicts over wills, which reflect two primary issues: who did more and who was more loved by the deceased. With the death of the last parent, usually the mother, such conflicts often arise, since after this death sibling relationships must stand on their own merits. Cultural relationships will influence how overt this disruptive process will be. Sibling cutoffs that go on for years or even generations are very often traceable to these original, unresolved struggles. If family members can be coached to explore the implications of wills ahead of time, the damage they may create can sometimes be avoided, as in the following case.
<PERSON> (Figure 7.7) sought help for issues around her father, who had been "ornery his whole life," but who was now in a nursing home and becoming increasingly difficult. She felt some conflict with her two brothers over responsibility for the father and troubled by what she feared would
|
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|
fused with the child, and a centrifugal father, who is distant or cut off. Such triangles are probably so common because they have largely been supported in the dominant culture, where fathers have been expected to be distant "providers" and mothers the "in-home nurturers" of children. These patterns are no longer functional, if they ever were, so the parental triangle of mother overclose to and father overdistant from a child is not healthy. If one partner, usually the father, becomes the more distant, and the other, usually the mother, becomes overengaged with the child, the imbalance may stabilize the system for a time or even permanently, until other life cycle needs such as launching challenge the structure.
Triangles can develop in either a centripetal or centrifugal, or in a lopsided one in-one-out pattern during the child rearing phase, depending on the family's contextual constraints, history, and the needs of the child.
Figure 9.3 illustrates common triangles formed when the couple divert issues in their own relationship by focusing all their energy on the child. This often emerges from the initially loving focus on the child into overfocusing on the child in an enmeshed family pattern. As the child grows and needs to have more autonomy and to expand relationships with others, this triangle may become one where parents hold on to the child, who may become sick or dysfunctional which holds the parental focus.
**Figure 9.3:** Centripetal Triangles
In centripetal triangles children's needs may become the primary or sole focus of parental attention, with parents overinvested in the child's development, perhaps as a displacement of their own ambitions. If parents are in open conflict, it is distressing to a child, but if a parent tries to draw the child in to take care of him or her, the generational boundaries are disrupted and the potential for dysfunction is increased. The child may become the "baby" or "problem" that binds the parents together.
Centrifugal triangles (Figure 9.4), on the other hand, occur when parents are either too involved or fused with a each other to pay attention to their children or are in serious conflict and ignore their children's needs—not being engaged enough with their children's development. At times this situation creates a context where the oldest child takes over, basically raising the younger ones in the absence of adult supervision. Other times, if children have been abused and/or neglected by parents who do not attend to their needs, they begin to act out or withdraw. They may be seeking outside attention to their dilemma, trying to get someone to notice that "the house is on fire," so to speak. Indeed, it is very common for children's symptoms to be a call for help to the whole system, children being barometers of the family situation, giving a message to the larger context by their behavior that they need more support or attention than they are receiving.
**Figure 9.4:** Centrifugal Triangles
**Figure 9.5:** Parent/Child Triangles
Figure 9.5 illustrates various ways children can get drawn into family triangles. Triangles may evolve where sibling conflicts reflect
|
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home, I have to face him again. If I feel really bad, I'll spend time petting and hugging him and will often stop at the store to get him an extra special treat. But if I had a good time with my friends, I may shout at him or ignore him because he's ruining it for me."
"I feel pretty much like <PERSON>," adds <PERSON> "When it got to the point I was sneaking out of my own house to avoid seeing him or going miles out of my way to buy him a Т-bone, I decided it would be easier to stay home. However, if I don't attend some important function, I'm usually gruff and impatient with <PERSON>." On such occasions <PERSON> may allow his dog only a few minutes to relieve himself, rush through their normally leisurely walks, or ignore <PERSON>'s invitations to play and share affection.
Although <PERSON>'s subtle body language might be imperceptible to everybody else, the <PERSON>' interpretations of the emotions behind it lead them into complex body-language displays. In their case, <PERSON>'s expression almost always strikes them as sad and lonely. Whereas <PERSON> and <PERSON> frequently share a positive greeting, provided the basset hasn't destroyed anything or that <PERSON> chooses to ignore it if he did, the <PERSON> always judge themselves harshly and respond accordingly whenever <PERSON> gives them "that look."
#### DEALING WITH OUR INTERPRETATIONS
Having analyzed two quite different situations involving canine and human emotion and body language associated with boredom, frustration, and isolation, we're ready to test them against our familiar four options. Can <PERSON> and the <PERSON> accept their interpretations just as they are, including the effects on their relationship with their pet? <PERSON>, <PERSON>, and <PERSON> ring forth with a resounding "No."
However, some owners may not share their opinion. When <PERSON> accepted a high-paying job in Chicago and moved himself and his Siberian husky, <PERSON>, from a remote cabin in Minnesota to a crowded condominium complex, he told himself that both he and the dog could cope with a temporary but necessary evil. "It was too good an opportunity to pass up. In three years I can make enough to start my own business and then head back to the woods for good." Because <PERSON> hates the city, he interprets <PERSON>'s isolation behavior as his pet's way of saying he hates the city, too. Although <PERSON> doesn't like having his belongings destroyed by his dog, <PERSON> means the world to him. When <PERSON> encounters the nightly mess, he apologizes to his dog: "I know, old buddy, I know just how you feel. But hey, I'm working as hard and fast as I can to get us out of here."
By preserving his view of <PERSON> as a semiwild creature who deserves to be free, <PERSON> uses his dog's negative behavior as an incentive to work hard and make more money. Were his canine best friend readily to adapt to big-city living, <PERSON> might question his own reluctance to do likewise; if he adapted as smoothly, maybe they'd never get
|
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accoutrements with her dog.
Whether or not our pets suffer guilt matters less than whether or not we believe they do. For example, if <PERSON> comes home from work and finds her miniature schnauzer, <PERSON>, staring at her from his bed, unwilling to move and experiencing apparently uncontrollable periodic waves of trembling, <PERSON> might immediately respond, "Oh, <PERSON>, what did you do? Were you a bad dog?" <PERSON>'s subsequent search of the entire house might reveal the broken lamp, overturned wastebasket, or a telltale puddle or pile. On the other hand, <PERSON>'s neighbor, <PERSON>, associates those same signs in her cairn, <PERSON>, with fear. However, if <PERSON> refuses to look at her, she takes _that_ as a sign of guilt and makes her own search through her home for the incriminating evidence. Meanwhile <PERSON>'s nephew thinks both women are crazy; he knows when his shepherd's done something wrong because the dog invariably hides under the bed.
From these examples we can see that there are probably as many different forms of guilt-signifying body languages as there are dogs and owners. Rather then judging them, simply note the signs you associate with guilt in your own pet.
What about the canine point of view? First, we must consider the body language we use to convey our own feelings of guilt to our dogs. It takes little imagination to recognize, again, that there are as many different signs as there are owners. When <PERSON> feels guilty about not taking <PERSON> to the beach, she hugs the bulldog fiercely to her chest and repeatedly confesses how sorry she feels. <PERSON> converts his guilt to dog biscuits; the guiltier <PERSON> feels about smacking <PERSON> or leaving him home alone all day, the more biscuits he lavishes on the weimaraner. <PERSON> uses ice cream; <PERSON> uses steak; <PERSON> lets <PERSON> sleep on the bed.
What do you use? Treats? A special privilege? Long walks? Extra affection? Again, don't judge your behavior; simply note what body language you use to express this emotion to your pet.
##### BOREDOM, FRUSTRATION, AND ISOLATION
It makes sense to pair the two emotional states of boredom and frustration because most owners view the former as a more subtle, less severe form of the latter. While behaviorists almost never attribute any body language to these emotional states, they've written volumes on frustration as a _behavioral_ state. Because we owners most often worry about dogs feeling bored or frustrated when left alone, we can gain a good deal of insight from the studies behaviorists have made of isolated pack animals.
Although pack animals by nature, wild dogs can and do function singularly. In fact, at times individual wild dogs function quite stably and contentedly on their own. Therefore, when we consider frustration that results from isolation, we're considering only the detrimental or negative effects that occur when one individual is separated from the pack—a lost pup, an adult trapped in a deep pit. In this sort of abnormal and threatening situation the animal may howl, whine, dig,
|
0328eacb-2bda-5b29-fbb7-4eccc1082b39
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taste of the lavender become overpowering, but do remember that the flavour dulls a little when frozen.
Add half a teaspoon of lavender flowers, then churn according to the instructions that came with your ice cream machine. Reserve the other flowers for serving.
To make without an ice cream machine, chill over an ice bath until cool, then freeze. When it starts to freeze around the edges, whisk to churn it – an electric whisk is ideal for this. Put it back in the fridge and repeat every half an hour until it freezes fully. This will take about 3 hours depending on your freezer.
Serve with a small pinch of lavender flowers on each scoop.
*
It can be hard to provide oneself with cereal crops of any type if working with a store cupboard that's strictly local to London, even if you widen it to include the UK. It's now becoming easier to find home-grown and milled flour, especially spelt flour, but a lot of the flours on sale in this country, even ones that appear to be milled locally, are made with a mixture of flours, some of which come from abroad. In most cases, and especially with bread flour, they come from Canada. Hard spring wheat from Canada produces very strong flour with a high protein and gluten content, so it's ideal for making bread. In the UK we struggle to get the same results. Pasta requires a very finely ground flour that is best produced in Italy and which we would struggle to create in this country – again for reasons of climate and soil. I've made a great deal of non-Italian pastas, such as pierogi and spätzle, from locally sourced flour, but pasta with a finer texture is impossible to make with British flour due to the high water content of our wheat.
Tackling this problem when opening Konstam led me to the doors of Wright's Mill in Ponders End on the banks of the River Lee. This is a mill with a long history – an entry in the Domesday Book, written in 1086, for Enfield, Middlesex, states that, along with 57 inhabitants and six slaves, the village had a mill. I made contact with <PERSON>, who runs the mill now, and he was very enthusiastic about producing a truly local flour. Unfortunately, although they mill with grain from nearby in Barnet and Mill Hill, it didn't appear possible for them to provide me with local flour as this is blended, in huge batches, with grain grown elsewhere. The problem was keeping them separate without causing massive disruption to their manufacturing process. We looked at various options and, after some discussion, I was over the moon to learn that he had worked out a way of doing it that didn't compromise the running of the mill. This was a real coup and took us a big step closer to a restaurant with a genuinely local pedigree.
Although we didn't bake our own bread we did find a baker in London who would use this
|
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['971ad58f-c5a5-537a-b095-2282b7d8a282']
|
the morning. It may not be wise and many a yuletide hangover has added to the general exhaustion, but you need those moments to reconnect with the world and to understand what you're doing it all for. It helps you to keep cooking delicious food and to put the love into each plate you send out.
Eventually we get to Christmas Day and the organised chaos begins. From the stockings and the bird-basting to the table laying, gravy pouring, present unwrapping, and bloated TV-watching, the whirlwind finally blows itself out, one last glass of wine is drunk and everyone lollops off to bed.
*
We don't traditionally make bread sauce in my family but, partly because of the lovely bread we had at Konstam and partly because I like it, I've cooked it a great deal myself. I feel we can't be done with the festivities until I've included a recipe for this and one other side dish I feel is a highlight of the Christmas meal – red cabbage. My mum makes great red cabbage, having learned it from my grandmother's housekeeper, <PERSON>, a German woman who worked for her from the age of 22 until she retired in 2004 at 75. By this time they were both pretty unsteady on their feet, and my grandmother passed away a few years later. <PERSON> cooked for four generations of my family on my mother's side and had a profound influence on her cooking and mine. Unfortunately, I didn't take down her recipe for red cabbage but my mum's is reproduced below. It's quite a simple recipe but you can jazz it up if you like. I often add a variety of ingredients, including chopped or grated apple, orange zest, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, red wine, port, brandy or cider.
## Red cabbage
This keeps very well in the fridge for 2 or 3 days, so can be cooked well in advance. The flavours develop with time so it's best made ahead.
#### _Serves 6_
1 red cabbage
75g butter
1 onion
1 cinnamon stick
4 cloves
Zest of ½ an orange
1 eating apple
100ml red wine or cider vinegar
1 tbsp honey
Slice the onion and fry it in half the butter with a good pinch of salt in a big pan with a lid until soft and golden brown, stirring occasionally. While it's cooking, discard any old leaves from the cabbage, cut it in half and remove the core. Shred it thinly, grate the apple and when the onion is ready add these to the pan with the rest of the ingredients. Stir well and put the lid on. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about an hour or until meltingly tender. Be careful not to let it get mushy. Remove from the heat and stir in the rest of the butter.
*
## Bread sauce
#### _Serves 4_
1 pint of milk
½ onion
2 bay leaves
5 whole black peppercorns
A few parsley stalks
1 blade of mace
100g breadcrumbs
100g butter
A few scrapes of nutmeg
4 tbsp cream
Salt
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['97aaeead-6671-e850-deae-d267666c2abd']
|
issue of political obligation).
As a comprehensive educational programme, however, the _studia humanitatis_ had certain philosophical implications. One implication in the area of moral philosophy was an obligation of the person educated, the free Roman citizen, to participate in the life of the community, and hence in politics. The conditions that had encouraged the growth of this educational ideal were replicated to some degree in Italy from the twelfth century onward. As the German emperors lost effective control of Italy, many cities in the north and central parts of the peninsula had become self-governing republics. Although these city-republics were often unstable because of class rivalries and old political enmities, all of them passed through a stage of republican political life. Even if they came under the rule of an authoritarian ruler (as most eventually did), they still retained some republican institutions and practices. In a rough way, therefore, their political structure and practices came to resemble the condition of ancient Greece and ancient Italy. Literate people quickly saw this similarity and turned to the history of Rome for inspiration and guidance.
Any republic formulates and applies public laws and policies through a process of discussion and debate. Thus the Roman educational system, which had no appeal for the aristocratic and clerical rulers of the Middle Ages, provided exactly the kind of training in oratorical skills and fostered exactly the sense of obligation to public service needed for those who governed the Italian communes. At first, this attraction to humanistic studies was felt mostly by judges, lawyers, and notaries. In time, however, as the chaotic political conditions of the thirteenth century gave way to established republics or despotisms in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the social groups who dominated political life found in a humanistic education precisely the kind of education needed to prepare their sons to govern. The humanist programme of education was conceived by an intellectual who was also a great poet, <PERSON>. But its eventual success in becoming the educational _paideia_ of the Italian elite classes resulted not from its being artistically appealing but from its being practical.
**Humanism and the Florentines**
The outstanding example is the republic of Florence. By the late fourteenth century, after almost a century of political, social, and economic upheaval, the wealthy merchant families had gained effective control of the political system, while still preserving some share in government for members of the twenty-one legally recognized professional, commercial, and artisanal guilds. At precisely this same period, not only educational theory but also the actual practice of upper-class families strongly favoured a humanistic education, rather than merely a commercial apprenticeship, for the sons who were destined to grow up to be rulers of the republic. Thus whether it be called a 'philosophy' or not, humanism certainly did provide a common educational formation for the families that ruled Florence in the fifteenth century. While many historians partially or wholly reject <PERSON> famous thesis (see pp. 30– below) about Florentine 'civic humanism', it is hard to escape the impression that there was a symbiosis between republican politics
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and scholarly grammar of any modern European language. He also applied his linguistic skills to the study of the Bible, a risky undertaking that led to the seizure of his notes by the inquisitor-general in 1506. Cardinal <PERSON>, a powerful patron of humanistic studies, intervened to secure their release and eventually gave him a research appointment at the new University of Alcalá so that he could help with the famous Complutensian Polyglot Bible being edited there under the cardinal's patronage. <PERSON> was a far more philologically advanced textual critic than his peers on this project; and while Cardinal <PERSON> heard out his objections to the conservative tone of the edition under preparation, and even allowed him to publish separately his textual notes on the Bible, his pleas that the Latin text must be revised on the basis of the Greek and Hebrew originals were ignored.
The emergence of a unified Spain in the later fifteenth century created a need for well-educated royal officials. The first rulers of the unified monarchy, <PERSON> and <PERSON>, as well as their successors <PERSON> and <PERSON>, recognized this need and promoted higher learning. Until then, universities had played only a limited role in Spanish life; but after unification they became the sole source of the _letrados_ or educated officials who dominated all aspects of administration except the military. In the century following unification, twenty-seven new universities were founded, bringing the total to thirty-three. After 1493, appointment to the highest administrative offices was restricted by law to those who had studied civil or canon law for at least ten years. Thus the Spanish universities were directly linked to the recruitment of high-level civil servants. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, this royal interest was favourable to humanistic studies, though study of law benefited most directly. The link between university education (at least partly humanistic) and high office became typical of most northern countries in the sixteenth century, but in Spain its foundations had already been laid by 1500.
5 Triumph and disaster
By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the programme of humanistic studies and the dream of a renewal of 'civilized' learning and literature and an end of 'barbarism' had established themselves to some extent in all the major countries of western and central Europe. But the new learning, often viewed with suspicion because of its Italian origins and its reverence for pagan literature, had by no means become dominant north of the Alps. Its marginal and subordinate position was accurately reflected in the life of the universities (see Chapter 4). There were some masters in every faculty of liberal arts who criticized traditional textbooks and aspired to modify the curriculum leading to arts degrees in order to de-emphasize logic and give greater attention to humanistic studies. These men were able to offer lectures on classical authors and private lessons in Greek from time to time. A genuine and spontaneous interest in the new learning was growing up, and even in such a notoriously conservative university as Cologne, many students managed
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formulation explicite et conventionnelle, ce concept ne désigne pas un _stade_ de plus dans une évolution génétique, mais une matrice _structurelle_ – et donc définitive – qui situe l'émergence du sujet dans l'horizon négatif d'une _aliénation_ incontournable marquée par l'inversion imaginaire, le ratage de l'objet, l'asservissement au langage et cette « touche de mort » qui fait de l'humain ce qui s'institue sur fond de sa disparition. Dimension proprement « dramatique » qui ne gomme en rien, néanmoins, la complexité des synthèses dialectiques d'identifications, infinis détours qui constituent la vie même.
À partir de là, on peut désigner les deux points sur lesquels <PERSON> s'est efforcé de retrouver la spécificité freudienne. D'abord la question de l' _adaptation_ : à l'encontre de la majorité des courants anglo-saxons, surtout américains, qui voyaient dans la cure l'instrument d'une restauration morale de l'individu conforme aux normes de la vie sociale, et plus précisément d'une certaine conception conservatrice de cette existence collective, <PERSON> rejette le projet d'une adaptation du moi, au profit d'une analyse de la puissance d'effraction et de vérité du ça, de l'inconscient et de la sexualité. Ensuite la question du rapport à la _culture_ : au lieu de se focaliser sur l'orthopédisme ou la prophylaxie éducative censée éviter les traumatismes événementiels (résidu de la théorie du trauma tendanciellement abandonnée par <PERSON>), <PERSON> va s'intéresser à la structure du sujet et à la nécessité d'assumer son hétéronomie irréductible, signe même de la spécificité de la causalité psychique. Son insistance se manifeste dans l'effort de reprendre à nouveaux frais les « concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse » : l'inconscient, la répétition, le transfert, la pulsion, et notamment la pulsion de mort, refoulée par plusieurs courants du mouvement analytique. L'être humain ne vit pas dans « le monde » auquel il devrait s'adapter, mais il en forge un à la mesure de ses distorsions propres et singulières, sans pour autant en être l'auteur conscient ni le _responsable_.
En d'autres termes, <PERSON> participe à ce trait d'époque, identifiable depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, d'avoir inscrit de plein droit la _folie_ (qu'il ne faut confondre ni avec l'irrationnel, ni avec l'organique, ni avec le mystique ou la religion) comme une composante de la _subjectivité_ et de lui avoir assigné la place de la _vérité_. Dans cette perspective, l'accent de ses recherches s'est étendu au-delà de la névrose du côté de la psychose, ce qui l'a conduit à une refonte de la métapsychologie freudienne (ainsi que de l'anthropologie philosophique classique) en une théorie du « sujet de l'inconscient » (distinct du moi, de l'ego, de l'individu) qui se réalise dans ce qu'on peut appeler une nouvelle topique, à nouveau trinitaire, dont les termes sont : le _réel_ , le _symbolique_ et l' _imaginaire_.
Cette refonte avait commencé dès l'introduction du « stade du miroir » dans lequel c'est la catégorie d'« imaginaire », non encore complètement élaborée, qui dominait. Sa rencontre avec les nouvelles théories linguistiques issues de <PERSON>, dont il développe à la fois une reprise et une critique, ainsi que son attention à l'égard des
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<PERSON> et celle au cours de laquelle, également, il nomme pour la première fois sa technique « psycho-analyse ». Cette coïncidence entre vie personnelle, élaboration intellectuelle et passion archéologique est confirmée par ses premiers voyages en Italie à partir de 1901. Ses visites des sites archéologiques de Rome, d'Athènes et de Grande Grèce (Sicile et sud de l'Italie) nourrissent à la fois ses écrits et son auto-analyse. Malgré l'amour de <PERSON> pour l'Italie en général, et Rome en particulier, et le fait qu'une statuette d'Athéna était la pièce préférée de sa collection, <PERSON> y rassemble surtout des pièces égyptiennes. Sa pratique de collectionneur n'est pas sans lien avec l'économie de ses consultations puisqu'il appelle non sans humour _Nazionalgeschenk_ (« fonds national ») l'argent des consultations avec lequel il achète ses pièces. Certains objets lui sont offerts également par ses analysants en fin de cure, et les statuettes président à l'analyse elle-même puisqu'elles trônent sur son bureau et sont placées dans les salles d'attente et de consultation. Lors de son exil final à Londres en 1938, il déménage également sa collection, avec l'aide de <PERSON>, comme un Romain de la République aurait emporté ses pénates.
**Une archéologie de l'esprit ?** À un niveau plus théorique, les statuettes incarnent sur le lieu de la cure un lien que <PERSON> maintient jusqu'au bout (1939) entre destin individuel et destin collectif, entre ontogenèse et phylogenèse. Dans le texte freudien, les mythes sont aux peuples ce que les rêves sont à l'individu et la création artistique à l'artiste ; le lien d'un type de production à l'autre n'est pas rare dans la réflexion théorique, comme le montre en particulier « Un souvenir d'enfance de Léonard de Vinci » (1910), qui associe, dans l'interprétation, l'oiseau du souvenir individuel à Mut, la déesse-mère égyptienne, comme s'il s'agissait, malgré le passage du singulier au collectif, d'un même matériau. Or si ce que l'archéologie met au jour peut immédiatement devenir matière à interprétation, ces objets tangibles remontés du passé le plus ancien rendent en retour plus concrètes les productions psychiques (rêves, lapsus ou symptômes) que fait remonter le travail de la cure. Les résultats des fouilles archéologiques peuvent ainsi être lues, selon le principe du développement séculaire du refoulement, comme témoignant d'un état antérieur, d'une forme d'enfance de la civilisation, d'une époque de moindre refoulement, faisant de l'archaïque dont l'archéologie est la science une donnée universelle _dans_ et _de_ l'individu. Si l'archéologie permet de dégager de l'oubli des productions tout aussi analysables que celles obtenues dans la clinique de la névrose, le rapport entre les deux disciplines cesse d'être de simple analogie. L'identification est renforcée par l'idée que le développement physique de l'individu _récapitule_ le développement de l'espèce – <PERSON> applique cette récapitulation dans le domaine du psychique : l'individu retrace dans son développement psychique, au moins en partie, l'histoire du refoulement parcouru par l'espèce.
**Fonction et limites du paradigme archéologique.** L'archéologie a la particularité de mettre au jour des vestiges concrets (comme les paléontologues mettent au jour des fossiles) et ces vestiges sont humains et non biologiques.
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quelli di dozzinali mercenari. Due o tre jazzisti locali ci infilarono dentro qualche chicca (senti _Free time_ ) mentre altri ci inserirono robe alla _Eros Ramazzotti dei poveri_.
E pensare che volevo costruire un album "d'autore", magari con uno stile semi-nuovo ma arrangiamenti raffinati.
Nemmeno per la copertina c'erano soldi. Il produttore milanese mi disse che <PERSON> cavarmela da solo. Così, per coprire le spese della parte grafica, mi venne l'idea di chiedere la sponsorizzazione alla rivista Sirio.
Oggi non ho paura a definire _trionfalmente_ l'operazione "Astrologia" come una vera e propria stronzata. Brutto ricordo.
**Hai a disposizione una decina di righe per accampare ancora un minimo di giustificazioni.**
****
Ci provo: _Free time_ ed _Ehi ballerina_ sono sopravvissute e ricomparse in forma migliore in "Scialle di pavone" (1998, Musicart/Archimedia). Se canzoni come _Senza tempo_ e _Astrologia_ hanno testi volutamente leggeri, _Non ci si può nascondere_ (dedicata all'allora imprenditore <PERSON>) conteneva originariamente una frase che venne censurata dalla casa discografica. La frase "Non ci si può nascondere, dietro camice firmate e blindate e stazioni tv", in originale recitava testualmente "dietro camice firmate e Sorrisi Canzoni Tv". _Finale_ è una _non canzone_ che, armonicamente, ha un suo perché. _Un'altra vita_ (così come _Astrologia_ ) me l'ero tirata dietro dalla giovanissima età e contiene degli spunti eufonici interessanti. Il titolo originale era _Vita_ ma, come si dice, _ubi maior minor cessat_ : proprio in quei mesi uscì _Vita_ cantata da <PERSON> e <PERSON>. Per non apparire un _copione_ (anche se la canzone l'avevo scritta quattro anni prima) l'intitolai ironicamente _Un'altra vita_. Infatti: mi pare che il sottoscritto possa vantare una vita ben diversa da quella di <PERSON> e <PERSON>, no?
**Visto che hai voglia di soffermarti sulle tracce, c'è anche l'imbarazzante _Con la_ _bocca chiusa_ che apre addirittura il disco...**
****
_Con la_ _bocca chiusa_ è venuta malissimo. Certo, è solo una canzone d'amore - mica _Contessa_ di Pietrangeli - ma se tu avessi modo di ascoltarla con sole chitarra e voce avresti di lei un'altra impressione.
Nell'album è decisamente stritolata, forse la canzone peggio venuta di tutte le incisioni che ho fatto in trent'anni...
**Personalmente rintraccio in _Polifemo_ il brano più intrigante. Non fosse che per il taglio evocativo che possiede. <PERSON> è una specie di eccezione, nel senso che la scrittura _oscura_ (i più bravi scriverebbero _criptica_ , e quasi mai in senso elogiativo) non credo sia esattamente intrinseca al tuo modo di esprimerti. In parole povere: mi dici qualcosa sul come e il perché hai scritto _Polifemo_?**
****
A metà degli anni '80 mi ero preso una cotta per i testi cerebrali.
Piuttosto che dire cose difficili in maniera semplice, preferivo dire cose semplici in maniera incomprensibile. _Polifemo_ nasce tra il 1985 e il 1986 all'interno di un progetto con canzoni dotate di contro-titoli tra parentesi. In quel caso era "Das auge" che in tedesco significa "L'occhio".
La storia di <PERSON>, il ciclope cattivo mono-oculare che finisce per giocarsi il suo unico punto di vista, è nota a tutti, adulti e bambini.
Mentre la figura di Ulisse, ogni tanto, "ritorna"
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dei Bermuda Acustic Trio, con la splendida voce di <PERSON>, fratello dell'Urzino co-autore di _A muso duro_ ) una delle ballate più belle che abbia mai scritto, forse proprio perché evita gli stereotipi e i già detto.
La prima volta che l'ho cantata dal vivo è stata durante il tour "Oracoli", nel 1990. <PERSON> me la fece provare col gruppo due ore prima di un concerto e, poiché suscitò un'ottima reazione nel pubblico presente, decise di farmela eseguire tutte le sere, insieme ad altri due brani, in veste di ospite. Autore, chitarrista, <PERSON>. Cosa chiedere di meglio?
<PERSON> mi ha sempre trattato come al suo pari. Anzi, come un figlio prediletto.
**Nel complesso "BLEZ" suona come un album solido, ed è un disco quasi tutto tuo. Nel senso che è scritto quasi interamente da te. Tolto il rimaneggiamento del testo di _La quinta stagione_ , l'intervento autoriale di Bertoli è circoscrivibile agli episodi di ** _Navigatori_ **(una rock-ballade sul tema dei conquistadores spagnoli in Sudamerica) e dell'inedito _F_** _ondi di_ _bicchiere_ **(slow blues interamente cantato da <PERSON>). Quanto al resto? Fino a che punto avvertito la _presenza_ di Bertoli-produttore si è fatta sentire, fuori e dentro la sala d'incisione?**
****
Se devo dirla tutta, considero "BLEZ" una specie di "Oracoli 2. La vendetta".
La mano ferma, inesperta e anomala di <PERSON> in veste di produttore artistico, lo vide (per la prima ed unica volta) anche arrangiatore.
Il mondo era il suo. Smaccatamente solare, d'impronta celtica con attente contaminazioni folk/italo e nordico/americano, cantato da due artisti (invece che da uno), non famosi (invece che famoso).
Non c'è la _Chiama piano_ (da top ten), ma del resto non c'è nemmeno Concato.
_La quinta stagione_ era considerato un singolo "per modo di dire".
Troppo massiccia e impegnata per scivolare comodamente sopra il muro del mercato.
La presenza di <PERSON> è stata certamente ingombrante, perché appesantita da scelte e da diktat consistenti e pressanti. Ogni parola un forato. Ogni canzone una casa. Ogni album, una piccola città.
Più ancora che mio, considero BLEZ un bell'album di <PERSON>, scritto da <PERSON> e cantato da <PERSON>.
**Tutto ciò non basta ancora ad aprirti spiragli significativi di carriera. <PERSON>, dopo dieci anni di assidua frequentazione, dopo quest'album rompi proprio con <PERSON>, tuo mentore "storico" e sostenitore. Come sono andate esattamente le cose e, ancora una volta, come te le spieghi? (ti avverto che per il momento non sono ammesse risposte che tirano in ballo ipotesi sovrannaturali, quali destino, sfiga, malocchio, etc.)**
****
Ma come faccio, se sono stati proprio il destino, la sfiga e il malocchio a mettersi di mezzo! ... Scherzo, ovviamente. Anche se, in quell'anno - quel benedetto e maledetto 1991 - mi è successo davvero di tutto. Non ci crederai ma, appena lo conobbi, considerai <PERSON> una sorta di ponte di passaggio. Un artista (un gigante, senza dubbio) con il quale avrei fatto soltanto un po' di strada, un po' di dischi, un po' di successo, un po' di soldi.
Di tutto un po', insomma. Ma una difficile prova da superare, per andare oltre.
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flexed and their arms shuddered, for a moment each man seeming not to breathe. And they wrestled wordless but for the exertion that rose out of each man guttural, their necks goitered and their nostrils snorting and the only other sound was the plashing of waves.
He rose a knee up into the groin of his attacker and he felt the man weaken and he squeezed the arm and bent it and the shiv fell to the deck and he looked his assailant in the eye but in the darkness there was nothing to see.
There was a thud and the two men fell backwards and <PERSON> lost his balance and went to the ground and when he looked up he saw the shape of another, The Mute taken by the throat and dragged abaft till the youngster was pitched over the edge of the ship. <PERSON> caught his breath and stood himself up with his hands on his knees panting. The <PERSON>. The Mute's feet off the ground and the air in his throat sealed by The Cutter's grasp.
Leave him, <PERSON> shouted.
The Cutter said nothing and grabbed a hold of The Mute by the belt with his other hand and yanked him up further over the edge. <PERSON> grabbed at the arm of The Cutter.
<PERSON> I said.
This fucker.
It's not worth seeing him kilt.
I've seen enough.
Leave him.
I said I've seen enough of him.
Terror in The Mute's eyes and <PERSON> pulled again at the arm of The Cutter, his limbs hard as the bole of a tree, and then he let The Mute slide back to his feet. A sailor appeared and looked at The Mute on his hands and knees like a wheezing mutt and he stared at the two men and <PERSON> shrugged and walked away following the steps of The Cutter who had stormed ahead cursing darkly under his breath.
HE WATCHED THE LONELY sky give birth to life, a mote of dust that grew before his eyes into a fluttering living thing, a lone gull winging down from high. Black-tipped wing beat the air, bestrode the boat in glide and then it turned and plunged towards the sea. A day passed and more gulls came, swooped down to settle on the Murmod's masts and from the deck they watched the birds and then forgot about them. The birds settled and squawked and swung off again into the serene vastness beating their wings as if they were beating themselves free of life and he watched them till they had become nothing again.
Another day he sighted a vessel through squinted eyes flashing under the sun and the same evening he saw a flotilla of fishing sloops, short sails like fins cutting the water.
The sharks were gone but the ship had more dead to give. The first mate sent below a young sailor to count the fevered, for he himself would no longer go among them, and the sailor emerged with shaken green eyes and he gave his report with a
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went slowly towards it, the animal wild-eyed and he whispered to it, soothing then stroking its flesh, his hands sticky and staining with bloodied streaks the snow white of its fuzz until it stood calm and then he led it back down the path.
That's a girl. Good girl.
No place to secure the horse so he wrapped the reins about a stone and then he bent towards the fallen man. His eyes narrowed and then his gaze turned to the ground for fear of alighting upon the corpse's eyes, sightless bulbs glassy upon the sky, and he grabbed the booted ankles and pulled the body, its hatless head lolling from side to side, until the body lay cruciform upon the track. He stood catching his breath and looked out across the land, through haze the faded gray of quartzite hills and the bogland beneath spread golden-brown, centuries harbored and hushed within its grasp.
He squatted down and locked his arms under the pits of the corpse and heaved up the dead weight to his chest, the head slumping across to rest on his shoulder, and he kicked at its dragging heels. Ghoulish dancers they could have been, stiff-limbed to the melody of a whispering wind, and backwards he lost his balance. The horse skittered nervously and he tumbled to the floor still locked in embrace and the holed head leaning into him and he turned away and his stomach voided. <PERSON>. He got up and wiped his mouth with his sleeve and began again, squatting down and heaving till the dead man stood yanked to attention and then he bent again and put the body over his shoulder and carried it to the horse. He laid the corpse over the seat of the saddle and looked at the shining boots of the dead man then bent to the brush and tore at a clump of dock leaves and rubbed his hands on them. He turned and what he saw was the black dog watching.
<PERSON>'s hound stood at a distance alertly leaning forward, its tail standing and its eyes fixed narrow and unblinking. <PERSON> stamped his foot at it but the dog's gaze was fixed. He looked about his feet and leaned to the wall where he picked up a jag of stone. He threw it weakly, the stone caroming into the brush, and the dog held its ground. He picked up another shaped like a large fanged tooth that bounced dangerous before the animal and it fled.
<PERSON> went to the horse and took the reins and turned the animal and when he looked again over his shoulder the dog had returned. Go to hell. <PERSON> led the horse back through the gate from which <PERSON> had come and closed it and eyed the dog watching from behind it.
The rain stopped and he steered a path towards the cover of trees and stood a minute and listened. Oh please be. The jolly whistle of a blackbird and everything else as it should be. He made a line towards the
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running is so boring!
**A:** Yes, it is boring. Trying to make it a fascinating and fun pursuit will ensure your failure. Embracing the fact that it is boring is one of the keys to your success. Despite this, you may often be pleasantly surprised during the course of a run that the feeling of boredom is replaced by a sense of deep peace and well-being, and you will ALWAYS be glad that you went. ALWAYS.
BE GOAL-CENTRIC
Transform motivation meltdown into motivation zeal by paying to enter a race and pledging to raise a sum of money for charity, ideally one that is of great personal significance. And tell everyone. That way you won't be able to wriggle out of training. Setting yourself goals and putting yourself out there—whether by racing to achieve your personal best, raising money, or beating a friend—are guaranteed to keep you motivated. Check out the Internet and join a club if that's your thing (see Appendix 2)—or run against work colleagues and beat them. It's all about setting targets—and winning.
THE Grit Doctor SAYS:
ANYONE WHO THINKS of running as "fun" does not know the meaning of the word. It is not meant to be fun. If you try to make it fun, you will fail. Fun is what you have after you have been running, and it is what you are because you run.
<PERSON> . . .
I RECENTLY LOOKED back at something I wrote when I was pregnant and pounding out the first draft of this book. . . .
_I was consumed with jealousy watching <PERSON> go about his business this morning having kicked off his day with a run. I want to feel what he is feeling. I want a piece of that endorphin rush. I have to settle for a fast walk each day and I can tell you it is not the same. But my body is being put to a different use for these coming months, and I am determined to enjoy it. But it got me thinking: How will I be able to fit in a run when the twins arrive? This will no doubt be a logistical nightmare, but I simply must find a way. Because I know that the hour I spend pounding Hampstead Heath will be the best hour I can invest in motherhood. It will give me those endorphins I'm desperate for, it will make the more dreary tasks of mothering more tolerable, and it will help me to snatch my sleep wherever I can get it. It will make the whole job that little bit easier to manage and give me energy and patience. And perhaps most importantly, it will help me to enjoy the babies and keep smiling. That's my theory anyway._
Ha! Well, now that the twins are nine months old I can be honest about the fact that motivation meltdown struck me in a _big way_ after they were born. I'd stopped running for short periods before—a few weeks, a few months even—but nothing like this. This was
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class twice a week or playing flag football on the weekend. You are simply not doing anywhere near enough fat-busting, cardiovascular exercise to change anything about your body and your weight. Forget about classes and designer sports gear and all the time-wasting that surrounds them. Do something more effective, something more strenuous, something that will really, _really_ burn away the excess flab—in a way and at a rate that nothing you have tried thus far has been able to.
WHY RUN?
Now, why is it that running is the answer? Well, it is different from all other forms of exercise, at the level at which you are doing them, because _it is much harder_ —not harder as in more complicated but harder as in more physically strenuous. And because it is that much harder, ultimately it is that much more rewarding, both in terms of the dramatic physical changes to your body and indeed to your life in general. You only have to ask any of your friends who run regularly or look at the lean, mean body of any long-distance runner to see why. Running requires discipline and commitment above and beyond other forms of exercise. It all has to come from you. There is no help or encouragement to be gleaned from an instructor or classmate, no underfloor heating or delicate scent of incense, and no one but yourself to get you motivated or to blame if you fail. The first 10 minutes or so of each run are hellish _every_ time. You are entirely at the mercy of the elements; there are no breaks midway through, no variation in the movement, no halftime snacks, and no team banter. Running is the ultimate physical challenge because, at first glance, it looks boring, repetitive, difficult, relentless, punishing, and joyless. **Sounds fun? Ha. I told you it was hard, but remember, hard is going to be the _new black_.**
But surely there's an easier way?
THE Grit Doctor SAYS:
THERE ISN'T. The Grit Doctor would like to remind you— _again_ —that embracing the fact that this is going to be hard is the only cure for the terminally unmotivated. The Grit Doctor suspects that you have become an expert at avoiding the hard things in life. You find yourself stuck in an exercise/weight rut from which you seem unable to escape and cannot understand why your lame efforts fail to yield spectacular results. You have come to expect that somehow you will get thin or fit "the easy way" and keep starting a Pilates class or making it to the swimming pool once a month. You think that this is sufficient effort on your part. It isn't.
Look on the bright side, once you choose to follow the Grit Doctor and surrender to the idea that it will be hard, the world becomes your oyster. Hard is no longer something that you studiously avoid but instead something that you know is necessary to get the results you so desperately want. All the clichés back me up:
The _harder_ the challenge, the sweeter
|
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|
As part of your planning, the group should consider making a list of different responsibilities and dividing them up so everyone has a job.
Assigning planning tasks will give everyone a sense of commitment and will also insure that everything gets done. Here are the planning jobs that need attention.
#### Researcher
The researcher gathers information concerning the details of the trip: when, where, and how far to go; permits; snow conditions; and other physical and regulatory details. The researcher also compiles the base map and locates bail-out options and contingency routes. He or she gathers a list of phone numbers—hospitals, state or provincial police, land management agencies—to use in the event of emergency. This list, plus a copy of the trip itinerary, should be left in the care of a responsible person who is not going along on the trip.
#### Treasurer
The treasurer handles the money. Every group needs an up-front financial commitment from its members so that food, equipment, and other important purchases can be made, permits can be secured, transportation can be arranged, and so forth. The treasurer estimates the costs of the trip, raises the funds from the group members, and acts as banker.
The treasurer also needs to consider how to compensate nonmonetary contributions such as use of a member's car for transportation. Also, somebody always ends up lending out a lot of expensive equipment that gets a lot of hard use. This use should likewise be factored in to the overall cost of the trip, and the owners should be compensated.
Hard work on the trail pays off with stunning views.
In the interest of peace and harmony, all financial matters should be arranged equitably far in advance of the departure date, and the treasurer should keep accurate records of all revenues and expenses.
#### Menu Planner
This person solicits meal ideas from group members and creates a menu that's well suited to the physical rigors of a winter camping trip and is tasty, varied, and efficiently packaged. The menu planner, working with the others, also determines how much food is necessary for the trip. On the expedition, he or she may even keep track of the food supplies and notes what's being consumed and at what rate.
#### Equipment Manager
There should be no chance that two days into the trip the group discovers that some vital piece of equipment was never acquired or was left behind. The equipment manager, in consultation with the rest of the team, generates a list of group and personal equipment, sees that necessary items are purchased, and makes sure that all equipment makes it to the trailhead.
#### Naturalist/Historian
When someone learns about the human and natural history of the region, the trip takes on added interest. Knowing about the area you're passing through immeasurably enhances everyone's experience. The naturalist/historian may want to work with the team to incorporate into the trip itinerary sites of natural or historical significance.
#### Communications Director
During the planning process, one person can serve as the central information agency linking all the
|
f9ea6fa3-0967-4f4a-28e3-267b013f14c5
|
['98b6e064-9951-aa6c-5306-625543570b05']
|
ski poles are perfectly adequate when hiking or climbing with crampons. Even so, if your route plan calls for climbing or traversing steep, icy stretches, an ice ax will come in handy. Most backpacks now come equipped with ice-ax loops so that you can carry the ax securely and retrieve it when necessary. Because an ice ax can be extremely dangerous if used improperly, be sure to seek out proper training from qualified instructors before using it in the field.
The safest way to carry an ice ax is to grip the ax at the balance point halfway down the shaft, with the spike pointing forward and the pick pointing down. If the ax is to be used as a cane, grip it by placing your hand over the head, with your thumb around the adze and your fingers curled around the pick, which should be pointing to the rear.
If you're crossing a dangerous area where you may have to self-arrest—that is, stop your slide down a slope—grip the ax by placing one hand firmly upon the shaft above the spike. The other hand grips the head, with the thumb under the adze and the fingers securely wrapped around the pick. Position the ice-ax shaft diagonally across the chest from shoulder to opposite hip. Stop your slide by driving the pick into the snow using your upper-body weight. Press on the shaft with your shoulders and chest. Pulling up on the end of the shaft while pressing on it with your upper body will put additional pressure on the pick to drive it more securely into the snow.
Snow School
What is the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth?
The coldest temperature ever recorded was –129 degrees at Vostok, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.
If you're _not_ wearing crampons and you go for a steep slide, keep your legs straight and dig into the snow with your feet to create additional drag. If you _are_ wearing crampons, keep them away from the surface of the snow until you've almost stopped your slide, otherwise they may catch in the snow. Instead, use your knees to dig in and create additional friction.
Whatever position you're in when you begin your slide, always roll toward the pick to minimize the possibility of self-impalement. Never roll toward the spike because it may catch on the snow, dig in, and either be wrested from your hands or spin toward you at a dangerous angle.
Remember, if you fall, you'll generate a great deal of speed and force. Using sharp objects in these uncontrolled moments is very dangerous. It takes practice to be able to react properly and instantaneously before you gather too much speed.
## Chapter 11
## Rock and Ice
Mountains are alluring. The high country is challenging, remote, and mysterious. Mountains are also—relatively speaking—well protected by the laws of the United States and Canada. You have only to look at a map and notice where the crown jewels of our national park system are located to discover that mountains are a disproportionably well-represented ecological
|
42d9826f-4a8b-b280-8b0b-d61dcfadbe3b
|
['996bc07c-cf62-6ab7-902a-c93abccc04b6']
|
this extent they are continuous with, or interior to, these realities. Psychology is <PERSON>'s most quoted example of this.
<PERSON> on the infinite and phenomenology
With his writing just prior to the publication of _Totality and Infinity_ , <PERSON>'s focus turns to the infinite, which is the Other (Autrui) as 'absolutely exterior' (<PERSON> 1994: 172). The infinite is that which cannot be contained in the idea of it. It exceeds its idea. It therefore cannot also be contained within the order of the Same, which, as an object, includes social and cultural life. The infinite, <PERSON> says in short, 'is the radically, the absolutely other (autre)' (172). The infinite is thus one avenue (perhaps the most important) taken by <PERSON> in going against the prevailing philosophy which reduces the Other to a version of the Same.
Significantly, in the context of <PERSON>'s appropriation of the pre-Socratic notion of _apeiron_ as indeterminate preindividuality and the basis of individuation, <PERSON> refers to the same term as the precursor of the infinite in thought, 'the source of all things, enveloping and directing them all' (<PERSON> 1999: 60). But while <PERSON> argues that the infinite challenges, if not destabilizes, the order of the same not permitting individuation as a mode of identity, <PERSON>, as we saw, makes _apeiron_ the basis of ever-new individuations. In other words, while for <PERSON> _apeiron_ is a principle of infinite transformation open to being thought, for <PERSON>, qua infinite, it can never be transformed or transposed, for to do so is to render it part of the order of the Same, whereas the infinite cannot be assimilated in this way.
But even <PERSON>'s notions of being and Dasein, <PERSON> says, ultimately reduce the Other to the Same (1994: 169). Although Being is the being of beings (of Dasein), Being itself is not a being. Being includes the disclosure of the ways that Dasein is in the world. Dasein, or existence, thus comes within the purview of a philosophical revealing that is also an objectification. Certainly <PERSON> is never described by <PERSON> as an infinity, for disclosure as aletheia – as a bringing into the light – is the basis of the most profound meaning of being. <PERSON>'s finitude – its mortality – only serves to confirm <PERSON>'s being in the order of the Same. Being, in other words, is fundamentally identical with itself, something that infinity does not support. Thus: 'Heideggerian philosophy marks precisely the apogee of a mode of thought where finitude does not refer to infinity' (170). Heideggerian philosophy thus marks the confidence in philosophy as thinking in the deepest sense to do justice to otherness. As Being is absolute, or a totality, there is nothing – no entity – which cannot potentially come into the light – that is, into philosophy. <PERSON> refers to the latter in <PERSON>'s thought as the Neutral because Being cannot be an entity, an individual Dasein, _a_ being, or _a_ point of view. '<PERSON> ontology', says <PERSON>, 'subordinates the relation with the Other [l'Autre] to the relation with the Neutral, which is Being'
|
6caed803-612a-92d4-3989-50b5981be6e4
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['996bc07c-cf62-6ab7-902a-c93abccc04b6']
|
and outside the law
Inside and outside political community and the law
When, in a key argument to be addressed in this study, <PERSON> broaches the issue of human rights in _The Origins of Totalitarianism_ (1968), it is to argue that the notion of human rights is inadequate because stateless people – people external to any political community – cannot find protection – cannot find it by definition, so to speak. For protection implies membership of a political community ( _polity_ ). And so, in the period between the two world wars, it seemed futile for stateless people to call upon the 'abstract nakedness of being human. Not the loss of specific rights, then, but the loss of a community willing and able to guarantee any right whatever, has been the calamity which has befallen ever-increasing numbers of people. Man, it turns out, can lose all so-called Rights of Man without losing his essential quality as man, his human dignity. Only the loss of a polity itself expels him from humanity' (<PERSON> 1968: 177). In these terms, if there are inevitably some for whom there is no place within a polity, and if, furthermore, those peoples deemed to be mired in necessity also, by this very fact, must suffer from not being part of a viable _polity_ , which is the only place, according to <PERSON>, where freedom can flourish, there will thus always be humans who are not fully human – who are 'expelled from humanity'.
Fully stateless people, it is hardly necessary to say, cannot be condemned to death since they do not figure within any given legal system. Indeed, when wholly outside the law, and having no legal status, as was the case for many between the two wars, committing a crime and thus becoming the focus of legal procedures was often the only way to gain 'some kind of human equality' (<PERSON> 1968: 166). Again, the issue to be addressed is the inhuman in the human, rather than the human as defined within a Eurocentric conception, where human always means human within a political community, or at least within a sphere where Western-style law is applicable. Just as, for <PERSON>, _homo sacer_ was that being who could be killed without the perpetrator committing homicide, so those outside the European political community become vulnerable to all kinds of harm – and not to all kinds of injustice because justice, if one follows <PERSON> as representative of European thought on this matter, can only be obtained within a given legal system.
In an example as telling as <PERSON>'s claims about political community, <PERSON> refers, quite remarkably, to infanticide and to duelling as instances where the legislature faces extreme difficulty in imposing the death penalty. We shall, for the moment, leave duelling to one side and focus on <PERSON>'s response to infanticide. The type of infanticide at issue is the one committed by an unwed mother. As <PERSON> notes, the child victim is thus 'illegitimate'. The explanation as to why it is difficult, if not impossible, to impose the death
|
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made and they were sitting together in the kitchen <PERSON> looked at her daughter. '<PERSON>'s one of the doctors at my local surgery. He's divorced too and was very supportive of me when I was having a difficult time after your dad. But it was all completely platonic back in those days.' She grinned sheepishly. 'You could have knocked me over with a feather when he suddenly asked me out for a meal a few months back. And it's just sort of grown from there. I'd really like you to meet him properly – if you feel you'd like to?'
It was all too much. <PERSON> felt the tears blurring her eyes.
'Oh darling, don't cry ... you don't have to if you don't want to. I know it must come as a shock.'
<PERSON> shook her head and pulled out a tissue. 'It's not that. I'm happy for you, really I am. There's just so much going on at the moment ... so many changes. I can't seem to get a handle on anything. Stupid.'
Her mother reached a tentative hand across the table and covered <PERSON>'s with it. 'It's not stupid, it's perfectly natural. I can't begin to imagine what it must be like. I know how I'd have felt if someone had taken you from me. It was bad enough when you went of your own free choice as an adult.'
'Biggest mistake of my life,' <PERSON> said, sombrely.'
'You were feeling abandoned. I can just as easily blame myself for all that went wrong,' her mother said quietly. 'And I do.'
They sat for a while in silence.
'I'm sorry I didn't come to Dad's funeral.' The words tumbled out before she'd even realised she was going to say them.
Her mother looked surprised, taking a moment to respond. 'I don't hold that against you <PERSON>. Not any more. I was hurt at the time but the main reason I tried to persuade you to come was because I didn't want you regretting not coming ...'
'And you were right. I do regret it. Back then I hated him, but sometimes now I do remember the good times – like when he got all emotional when I did that solo of Silent Night, or how he'd usually be the one to patch up my wounds when I hurt myself, and turn it into a game of doctors and nurses.'
'I was never good at that sort of stuff. Too squeamish.'
'I was so angry that he'd destroyed our perfect family.'
'So was I.'
'But you forgave him. If you could do that, what was wrong with me that I couldn't?'
'I never really forgave him,' her mother said. 'And he knew that. But who else was going to look after him? When he told me he was ill I felt trapped. I'd just started to pick up the pieces of my life again. As you yourself said at the time, why should I take him back and look after him just because she wouldn't? But I couldn't turn
|
83cb6085-01e2-05f5-d32e-9f17ae71d948
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['999ec27e-fa00-1dc2-9f25-55269679d0bd']
|
perhaps you could think about telling <PERSON>? Trust him. Don't shut him out. Let him help you.'
'He'd just be disappointed in me,' she said in a low voice. 'He thinks I stopped the pot when I came out of hospital.'
'I'm sure he'll understand. He's made an appointment to come and see me next week. If you like, I could broach it with him, have a chat about how best he can–'
'No.' <PERSON> scraped her chair back, ending the session. 'I'll think about it. But you mustn't tell him anything. Not unless I say you can.'
***
'<PERSON>, why don't you go home early? Mondays are always quiet, and you're not looking good, hun...'
<PERSON> looked at <PERSON> over the length of material she was rolling up. 'Sorry, I've been rubbish today I know.'
'You're thinking about the letter?'
<PERSON> nodded. 'I can't help it. It's on my mind the whole time. I know it's just going to be another hoax, but I can't help thinking, what if it isn't?'
'What time's your appointment with the police tomorrow?'
'Nine thirty.'
'Well, don't come in after that if you don't feel like it. You're doing me a favour and I'm grateful for whatever you can offer but I don't want to take advantage.'
'Thanks <PERSON>.'
She didn't deserve her friend, she knew that. She'd taken her support totally for granted these last six years and not once had <PERSON> ever complained, or let her down.
She took a deep breath and said awkwardly. 'You've been so great through everything. I don't know how you've put up with me sometimes. I feel ashamed of myself. I know I don't say it very often, but I couldn't have managed without you. Our friendship means a lot to me.'
'It means a lot to me too,' <PERSON> said, 'you know that. Now, come on ... get off early for a change and just remember I'm here if you want to talk about anything. I'm on tenterhooks as much as you are over all this. And give the school a ring about your job. I know for a fact that some of the mothers have started a petition against your suspension and that's what you really need – to get back to doing the job you love.'
<PERSON> knew she was right. 'Maybe I'll drop round there now – I could pick <PERSON> up for you at the same time if you like?'
'You don't need to do that.'
'I know I don't, but I love giving her a lift, you know I do.'
'Well ...' <PERSON> grinned. 'Who am I kidding – that would be great. I could go to the supermarket on my way home.'
'Take it as done then. I'll need a bit of light relief after I've spoken to Miss <PERSON>. Just pick her up from mine when you're ready.'
She was doing the right thing telling the Inspector about the letter, <PERSON> told herself as she shrugged into her coat and headed out to the car. Her mother was right
|
03ae66c2-f1ef-5581-7411-38eb6fd8faba
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|
her temporary rage. <PERSON> took a deep, shaking breath as another man walked over to them. His gait said military, his gray eyes trained on her as he took in the situation.
<PERSON> did some assessing of her own. Six foot one. A lean, yet powerful build. Agile footing. A gun concealed under his suit jacket. His posture was confident, with the air of a man in charge. <PERSON> was willing to bet he was head of security.
"Hello, Madam. My name is <PERSON>. Would you come with me?"
<PERSON> flinched as he reached for her. "Where?"
<PERSON> pulled his hand back and bent down on one knee, lowering himself to her level like she was a frightened animal who might bolt at the slightest sound or sudden movement.
"I understand that you have been in an altercation. Please come with me to my office so we can get you cleaned up and then take a statement."
<PERSON> sniffed and wiped at her tear-filled eyes. <PERSON> offered her a small smile which suited his otherwise harsh face, his nose, jaw, and cheekbones a collection of sharp angles. He kept his dark brown hair long and tied back smartly from his face in a tight ponytail.
"Go with him, dear," said the elderly woman with an encouraging nod. "He'll see that you are okay and looked after." She tutted and shook her head. "Americans. Stealing from a young, helpless girl."
<PERSON> was many things, but helpless wasn't one of them.
She looked from the woman to <PERSON>, showing <PERSON>'s trepidation before finally agreeing. "Okay," she said, hugging herself.
"Right this way," said <PERSON>. They left the guard behind to return to his post by the door and <PERSON> led <PERSON> deeper into the large building. <PERSON> kept an eye on the cameras, instinct causing her to avoid them capturing her face. Not that it mattered. Her face on their CCTV was the least of her worries as she followed <PERSON> up a set of marble stairs and further into enemy territory.
Committing each step to memory, <PERSON> kept an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. For anything indicating a higher level of security.
Nothing.
The hallway on the first floor was like a fancy five-star hotel, lavishly decorated to impress visitors, no doubt. Their footsteps were muffled thanks to a pristine cream carpet, the walls covered in matching wallpaper veined with gold designs and large paintings surrounded by gilded frames.
They turned a corner and <PERSON> stopped by the next door. He swiped a card across a reader at the door and the locks clicked open. "Ladies first," he said.
<PERSON> stepped inside, <PERSON> careful not to touch <PERSON> as she entered past him. He followed, closing the door behind him, and she flinched at the noise.
"It's okay," said <PERSON>, holding his palms out, 'you're safe here."
He gestured for <PERSON> to take the seat across from a maple desk and she complied, sitting on the seat edge and shuddering as the tears subsided. The room was much like
|
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['9a2d75d9-8836-629c-0157-46e129c78f23']
|
they were here. "Where are you taking <PERSON>?"
<PERSON> raised her chin. "The situation must be contained."
"Contained?" <PERSON> closed her eyes. She already knew what it meant.
"We can't afford any loose ends."
"Her name is <PERSON>," <PERSON> said through gritted teeth. "She's twelve years old."
"A pity," <PERSON> said, loftily, "but collateral damage is unavoidable sometimes."
<PERSON> balled her fists so hard her knuckles cracked. "It would have been entirely avoidable had you done your job right. What kind of assassin gets caught by a child?"
<PERSON> crossed her arms. "I regret what happened, believe me I do. But our hands are tied."
<PERSON>'s mind raced for a solution. For anything that could save <PERSON>. "There must be another way. A way that doesn't involve killing a little girl."
<PERSON> waved a hand at <PERSON> sprawled on the floor. "You heard her. I was a guest at the party representing the consulate, and she witnessed me killing <PERSON>. She knows too much." <PERSON> stated, her words hard and unyielding. "The decision has already been made."
With <PERSON> able to connect <PERSON> to Britain, it linked the government directly to the murder of <PERSON>. <PERSON> was a risk they couldn't afford, no matter how deplorable it was to eliminate her.
"You're just going to kill an innocent child?" <PERSON> searched each of her colleagues faces, making sure to stare each of them in the eye.
She was met with blank stares.
"Why not have me do it back at the consulate?" <PERSON> asked, her blood boiling. The tremor from before was back, but it wasn't fear for herself or the life growing inside her this time. "Why have me break <PERSON> out and keep her alive if you're just going to kill her anyway?"
"We need to question her," <PERSON> said. "Find out what the Russian's already knew and what they gleaned from her before you arrived."
Bile rose in <PERSON>'s throat. "Interrogation first, then death."
"It will be quick and humane," assured <PERSON>, like a vet telling a bereaved owner their pet was going to be put down. "A doctor will administer a lethal injection tonight. It will feel like she's falling asleep."
"You can't do this," <PERSON> yelled, stepping forwards.
"Stand down," <PERSON> ordered, like she could ever be <PERSON>'s superior.
In a wave of fury, <PERSON> made to swing for <PERSON>, but her men grabbed <PERSON> back.
<PERSON> clicked her fingers and one of the men hoisted <PERSON>'s small frame over one shoulder. She stopped at the foot of the door and turned back to <PERSON>. "You did well, agent. The Consul-General expects an in-person report tomorrow morning before you leave. We'll take things from here."
And just like that, <PERSON> and the man carrying <PERSON> left the apartment, followed by the rest of her team.
<PERSON> fell to her knees as the door slammed closed.
# Chapter 12
<PERSON> brought up the final bites of pizza and spat out a mouthful of bile that burned her throat on the way up.
<PERSON>.
Getting up, <PERSON> rinsed
|
6fcbae42-afe5-8da3-0295-a26e813ce159
|
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|
minutes
Prep time: 1 hour 25 minutes
For a "stir-fry" this is incredibly light yet still filling and a favorite among my friends because of its wonderful array of Asian flavors.
**NOODLES**
1 package (12 ounces, or 340 g) kelp noodles
Juice of 1 small lemon
1/2 cup (40 g) arame, soaked 5 minutes
2 cups (60 g) packed baby spinach
2 cups (140 g) shredded napa cabbage
1 cup (70 g) thinly sliced shii-take mushrooms
1/2 cup (25 g) bean sprouts
2 scallions, green and white parts, thinly sliced
1 large carrot, julienned
1 tablespoon (8 g) black sesame seeds
**SAUCE**
1/3 cup (80 ml) tamari
3 tablespoons (25 g) palm sugar
1 tablespoon (8 g) grated ginger
1 tablespoon (15 ml) toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 clove garlic, crushed or finely minced
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 cup (28 g) chopped almonds
NOODLES
1. Loosen and rinse the kelp noodles. Place in a medium-size bowl and cover with water. Add the lemon juice and allow to soak for at least 30 minutes. This will soften the noodles.
2. Rinse and drain well and transfer to a large bowl.
3. Add the soaked arame, spinach, cabbage, mushrooms, bean sprouts, scallion, carrot, and sesame seeds and toss.
SAUCE
1. Combine the tamari, palm sugar, ginger, sesame oil, salt, garlic, and crushed red pepper in a blender. Pour the sauce over the noodles and toss.
2. Let sit for 1 hour to allow the flavors to mingle. You may even place it in your dehydrator for 1 hour at 145°F (63°C) for a warm noodle dish.
3. Top each serving with the chopped almonds.
This dish will keep for 1 day in the refrigerator.
**Chef's Note:** Kelp noodles are what remains when the outer skin of kelp is removed. They are indeed raw and make a great alternative to flour noodles. They're neutral tasting and will take on whatever flavor or sauce you dress them in.
**Classic Veggie Pizza**
Makes 8 servings
**PIZZA CRUST**
Prep time: 15 minutes
Drying time: 4 hours
**SAUCE**
Soak time: 1 to 2 hours
Prep time: 10 minutes
**CHEESE**
Soak time: 2 hours
Prep time: 10 minutes
**MARINATED MUSHROOMS**
Prep time: 20 minutes
I have to thank the very creative raw food chef <PERSON> for inspiring this pizza recipe. While pregnant with her first child, <PERSON> went on a pizza-making mission and came up with the best sprouted pizza I have ever had. Don't be overwhelmed by the directions; it is so worth the effort. I recommend doubling the recipe and making your crusts in advance. The rest of it takes little time to put together. You can substitute spelt or if you're gluten sensitive, buckwheat, in place of the kamut.
**PIZZA CRUST**
2 1/2 cups (478 g) (1 1/2 cups 279 g] dry) sprouted kamut (see [page 51)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup (120 ml) water
2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil
1 1/2 cups
|
e5639011-8b70-cc71-f155-fe6acd962811
|
['9a64c003-30bb-c7f0-2a33-60099d54ebe0']
|
a sense of well being and clarity. You might have even met some supercool and groovy raw foodists who seem at peace with the world and life in general. In fact, I have yet to meet an uptight raw foodist. But clearly it isn't just the food; it's also the discipline of practicing stress management. When you're not stressed, you can think clearly. If your mind is burdened, your outlook on life can be negatively affected. Here are a few things that, if you can wiggle them into your schedule, can make a big difference in your health and quality of life.
**Exercise:** Walking, hiking, yoga, rebounding, bike riding, and running all help release feel-good endorphins.
**Laughter:** It really is the best medicine. It also releases endorphins and lowers stress hormones and blood pressure.
**Sleep:** Try to get seven to eight hours a night. Work in naps during the day if needed.
**Meditation and prayer:** Both practices can clear and calm our minds.
**Sunshine:** Spend ten to fifteen minutes a day getting sun on your arms and legs. If you live in a cold climate, supplement with vitamin D3. Vitamin D is actually a hormone that supports our immune system, lifts depression, energizes, and balances.
**Take baths.**
**Journal.**
**Garden.**
**Find a hobby.**
**Spend time with friends.**
**Take a break** from your computer, social networking sites, mobile phones, and everything else that keeps you from living in the real world.
Set aside time for yourself every day to do at least one of these things. Schedule it in like you would a business meeting or a doctor's appointment. Life is too short not to enjoy the little things.
Many people in today's society are suffering from poor health, obesity, anxiety, and depression due to the toxicity of their environments. The industrialization and overstimulation within our current culture has led to dietary, environmental, emotional, and relational imbalances in many of our lives. The good news is that a growing number of people are actively taking a role in impacting their own health as they are becoming educated about the importance of detoxifying their bodies, minds, and surroundings. Knowledge is power. Equip yourself by learning ways in which you can detoxify your life. It is fully within our grasp to transform and alter the course of our health, personal lives, and the future of this planet.
— <PERSON>, author of_ Raw Food Cleanse _and director of Raw Food Rehab_
**Glossary**
**agave nectar:** a sweet syrup that comes from the agave plant, the same plant that brings us tequila. There is some speculation about how raw it really is, so I suggest using it sparingly. Use clear agave over the brown varieties, which are most likely heated at high temperatures.
**arame:** a dark, thin noodle-like seaweed. Soak for 5 minutes and rinse before using.
**bee pollen:** considered to be a superfood among athletes. A very good source of complete protein; high in B
|
ed2b1aac-f7c8-55f8-56e0-c789af0d629d
|
['9a7b2823-04ea-c535-284c-0599a568323a']
|
him, going for the takedown. Just before they crashed to the mat I could see he was now sporting a raging woody. They rolled around for a few minutes, but unfortunately for her, <PERSON> really knew his moves, and in a flash he spun, pinned her shoulders, and I flew to the canvas and began banging my open palm. "One! Two! Three!" I jumped up. "<PERSON> _wins!"_ The crowd went wild, half booing, half screaming in delight. Realizing <PERSON> was pitching up quite a tent, I rushed to swaddle him in a robe lest the people in the first few rows get the true idea about the nature of the match. As the crowd roared I heard <PERSON> make another plea to the blonde. "C'mon, meet me backstage."
"You've gotta be kidding," she spat. "Not in your dreams!"
The next morning I got up and pondered our schedule. We had a gig at another college about two hundred miles away and our plane departed at two o'clock. We were supposed to check out around noon and a limo would whisk us to O'Hare in time to make our flight. We would arrive by three so we could have a four o'clock rehearsal with a band we'd never met, then run through all the lighting and music cues for an eight o'clock show with an audience of five thousand.
Though I was too busy to check on <PERSON> all morning, I figured he'd stroll out when he was ready, as usual. At twelve-thirty the limo arrived and no <PERSON>. I went to his room and found a handwritten note taped to the door (the Do Not Disturb sign was not good enough): "Under fear of death do not disturb — I am MEDITATING." Typical <PERSON> melodrama. I knew his meditation took only twenty minutes, so in case he had just put the sign out I gave him exactly that long and then returned. I knocked and then entered. (I had learned by then to secure my own key to his room.) He knew it was me, for no one else would have dared go in, given the written threat. <PERSON> was lolling on the bed in a bathrobe, enjoying some room-service fare and watching cartoons. I heard the rush of the shower.
"We gotta go," I said. "The limo's waiting."
The whooshing water stopped and a moment later the bathroom room door opened. A rush of steam heralded the entrance of a lovely _young_ thing clad only in a towel. A blonde. The "not-in-your-dreams" blonde.
"<PERSON>?" <PERSON> said between bites of Cap'n Crunch. "Zmuda. Zmuda? <PERSON>."
"<PERSON>."
"Zmuda."
<PERSON> casually dropped her towel and dressed as I tried to avert my eyes and <PERSON> focused on the story line from a _Felix the Cat_ episode. I was impressed with <PERSON>'s resolve. He had overcome serious objections to ultimately make the sale with <PERSON>. I felt pride. "Let's roll," I urged, as <PERSON> slid into her clothes.
<PERSON> roused very slowly, so I applied the lash. "Ten minutes, <PERSON>, I mean it. We're gonna
|
dcf53634-7fb8-7d17-dd90-0a1cab753752
|
['9a7b2823-04ea-c535-284c-0599a568323a']
|
the Welsh artist, it began to have a tragically relaxing effect on me — I completely zonked out.
Now, the only thing worse than falling asleep on stage was awakening myself with my own snoring. And the only thing worse than awakening myself by snoring in the middle of <PERSON> performance was to open my eyes to find <PERSON> inches from my face, his own countenance fire-engine red in nearly uncontrolled fury.
I had single-handedly (or single-nosedly) stopped <PERSON> dead in his tracks on a Broadway stage. Unbelievably disturbing as this was, I arose in abject mortification and looked to the master thespian for his forgiveness. "Sorry, Mr. <PERSON>, I haven't slept in two days."
As <PERSON>'s eyes flared angrily, I turned to the audience and, raising my voice, inadvertently took control of the house. "Sorry, I haven't slept in a couple of days. Sorry."
I then walked off the stage, down the center aisle past a stunned audience, and out the front door. So shaken, I went home and couldn't sleep.
One evening <PERSON> dropped by my place. "Wanna see a show?" he asked.
"A movie?" I assumed.
"No. Theater. Live stuff."
"What, like a musical?"
"No." He shook his head. "Great drama. Classical Greek."
I figured it was another <PERSON> put-on and that we'd end up seeing a movie, probably _Night of the Living Dead_ , which he loved, and which we'd seen six times. But he seemed serious. Then again, that's when he was really setting you up. We caught a cab across town, and when we arrived in front of the huge marquee, I knew I'd been had — it read: TONIGHT: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING. The card listed <PERSON> versus some Indian chief. I looked at <PERSON>. "Classical Greek drama, my ass."
He was indignant. "You're wrong. Wrestling is the basis of all drama. It dates back to the ancient Greeks."
He said it with such conviction that I knew he wasn't kidding. Years later, I would realize wrestling so appealed to <PERSON> because of the black-and-white nature of its conflict: it was good versus bad, pure and simple. This would emerge as a theme of <PERSON>'s: righteousness versus evil, <PERSON> versus <PERSON>, pure versus profane, star versus has-been, <PERSON> versus women, success versus failure, and, finally, life versus death. Though the conflict that night occurred in the ring, <PERSON> saw it as both a metaphor and as its most powerful, basest term: winner versus loser.
Watching that rowdy crowd cheer on their heroes, I didn't realize what he was actually seeing. <PERSON> saw the future, his own career, his destiny as an artist. He had been going in that direction for some time, but I know now that the energy in that room thrilled him with the possibilities. The wrestling was actually a show, with preselected winners and losers, and in a way, the audience was in on it. No one could watch and truly believe that men that big and strong could pummel each other that long and hard and survive, let alone
|
107c3f23-6df6-5935-6d0c-b13563506bb6
|
['9ac8b18a-9887-f0c9-19c2-5def2ff42679']
|
fries taste funny," another lady complained. "I want a refund."
"No problem, ma'am," <PERSON> told her cheerfully as he returned her money. What he wanted to say was, If your kid hadn't poured syrup all over them, they wouldn't taste like that! But he didn't.
I gotta get a better job quick, <PERSON> thought, before I toss one of these kids into the french fry grease! But he knew that no after-school job was going to be enough to pay for a school like MIT. He needed big money and soon.
When he got off at ten, his head throbbed and he was starving. Even though he'd been surrounded by food, he hadn't eaten a thing. He stopped by Skyline Chili, where the sauce was thick, the pasta was buttery, and the cheese was real. He ordered a five-way with everything, including onions. I can't really afford this, but man, I'm starved!
He sat inside, sipped on a Coke, and munched on the food. He started to take another pill, then reminded himself that this was the last refill, and tossed the bottle back into his backpack. I can handle this, he thought. No sweat.
He opened his cell phone and hit number one on his speed dial. "What's up, my sweet?" he said smoothly when <PERSON> picked up.
"Nothin' happenin'. Doing homework. Where are you—eating at the competition again?"
"Nobody can compete with Cincinnati's most famous chili place, babe! I bet they serve Skyline in heaven!"
"And all the angels probably have onion breath!" she joked.
"I'd like to share some of my onion breath with you."
"You turn me on even when you're being disgusting!" <PERSON> replied softly.
"For real, girl. You know you're my only."
"I know. I better be." She laughed. "You always know just what to say to me."
"That's 'cause you turn me on, just by the sound of your voice."
"What can I say—I got the power!" she said.
"You got more than that!" he told her.
"Hey, didn't you go to the doctor today?"
"Yeah, I went."
"He didn't give you any more of those pills, did he?"
"Nope. I'm clean," <PERSON> lied.
"What did he say about your arm?"
"He said I'm <PERSON>, and I got arms of steel."
"Well fly on over here, put those steel arms around me, and kiss me good night."
"Wish I could, sweet thing, but I gotta fly home. I still got homework to do. Besides, your mama would kill me if I came over this late."
"I can handle my mother. But can you handle me?" she asked, her voice deep and inviting.
"Ooh, girl! You're one hot mama!" <PERSON> breathed into the phone.
"I gotta go, <PERSON>, before we burn up the phone," she said. "I can't wait to see you tomorrow. Love you."
"Love you back." He closed the cell phone and smiled. <PERSON> made his screwed-up life make sense. Without her, he didn't think he'd make it to graduation, maybe not even to the end of the week. Sometimes it scared him, how
|
02ea0ea6-c6dc-7ac5-1203-d2c2501042a5
|
['9ac8b18a-9887-f0c9-19c2-5def2ff42679']
|
them."
"Do you have any idea who might be shooting?" the reporter asked her.
"No, ma'am," <PERSON> replied. "It's got to be somebody who's really, really sick."
Just then a third set of explosions rocked the air above. The cries and wild speculations from the parents and students below continued.
"Oh God! Have they all been killed?"
"Who's the shooter?"
"A student, I heard."
"I bet it's one of those strange kids who wear black coats and make death threats on their MySpace page."
"Quit stereotyping!"
"All teenagers are a little strange, if you ask me!"
"Where would a kid get a gun?"
"It's easy. The Internet, eBay, Gunstupid.com. Who knows?"
"I buy guns off the Internet all the time. But I'm a hunter," a parent commented.
"Well, somebody is hunting our kids up there because of idiots like you!" the man standing next to him replied angrily.
"Don't blame me for the crazies in the world!"
The two men, about to come to blows, were silenced by the forceful voice of a diminutive girl from the crowd. "I just got a text message from room 317!"
The crowd hushed as <PERSON> raced to Mrs. <PERSON>, who gratefully took the girl's cell phone.
Mrs. <PERSON> read the message, then passed the phone to Officer <PERSON>, who nodded. The news reporters pushed their way forward. The principal held up the phone, then announced, "We have information to share. A text message has been received from <PERSON>, one of the students in the room!"
"What does it say?" a father yelled out.
"I'll read it," Mrs. <PERSON> replied breathlessly. "'<PERSON> IS THE SHOOTER. NOBODY HURT. EVERYBODY SCARED. HELP US!'"
## KOFI
## CHAPTER 34
THURSDAY, MARCH 10
<PERSON>, WHO HAD MOVED HIS BODY SO THAT <PERSON> was behind him, surveyed his trembling classmates. Some held their ears; most curled themselves into the smallest possible target. <PERSON> sat in his chair, higher than the others, gripping the wheels of his chair. He was exposed to the greatest risk. <PERSON>, almost hidden in the corner, seemed to be fiddling with something in front of him. <PERSON> hoped it was a cell phone and that the kid wasn't so scared that he'd forget to turn off the sound. He also prayed <PERSON> wouldn't notice <PERSON>'s furtive movements.
The girls in the room, even though they were teary-eyed, also looked angry and ready to fight back. <PERSON> knew that November would fight to make sure that her baby saw her again, and that <PERSON> was as fierce as the wolf of her name when she had to be. <PERSON>'s physical strength and power could overwhelm a small combat force. <PERSON>'s one-inch fingernails could be useful.
Of the boys in the room, in addition to himself and <PERSON>, he guessed <PERSON>, <PERSON>, <PERSON>, <PERSON>, and <PERSON> were big enough and tough enough to take a skinny kid like <PERSON>. Make that a skinny kid with a loaded rifle—big difference.
<PERSON> still stood on the front table, swaying crazily and talking even crazier.
"Let there be light!
|
79322c8e-4e74-43d8-2743-3b1b0e4ca8d3
|
['9b0fe5a3-4023-d5c4-3274-1fb91a135ad7']
|
a little water puddles on the lids; it will soon evaporate. Place the jars on a dry towel in a draft-free location to cool completely. Leave a few inches between each jar to allow the air to circulate. The bands will likely be loose, but do not tighten them! That could disturb the seal. It will take from twelve to twenty-four hours for the jars to cool.
17. Soon, you will hear a gratifying sound: _ping!_ As the contents cool, they contract and form a vacuum, which pulls the lid down tightly to form a seal, making a sound as the lid goes from _convex_ (curved upward) to _concave_ (curved downward). Do not push down on the lids until the jars are completely cool.
18. When the jars are completely cool (within twelve to twenty-four hours), test the seals. Look at each lid. If it's concave, that's good. Then tap the lid; it should make a high _ping_ sound, not a dull _tap._ Not all lids will sound exactly the same (these aren't highly tuned musical instruments you're dealing with). Lastly, remove the band and gently push up on the lid. It should not budge. If it does, the jar is not sealed. You can process it again following the same directions (use a clean jar and a new, heated lid) or store it in the refrigerator and use it soon.
19. If the lids sealed properly, label and store your newly canned produce, and remember to use it within a year.
As the jars cool, you're likely to hear the gratifying _ping_ that tells you the lid is sealing. When tapping the cooled lids, the sound will be high-pitched, not dull.
**PREPARING JARS, LIDS, AND BANDS**
Whether your jars are new or used, follow these steps to prepare them for canning:
1. Check each jar carefully for chips or cracks. Run your finger around the top edge to make sure it is perfectly smooth. Even a little chip can prevent proper sealing and cause the food to spoil.
2. Select the correct size of band for the jars that you are using. Bands should be clean and free from rust, but they do not need to be sterilized.
3. Wash jars carefully in hot, soapy water and rinse thoroughly. The easiest method is to wash in an automatic dishwasher using the hottest setting, and then leave the jars in the warm dishwasher until they are ready to fill, removing only one warm jar at a time. If you don't have a dishwasher, keep your clean jars warm by covering them in warm water and simmering at 180 degrees Fahrenheit until you are ready to use them. _Do not fill cold jars with hot food—the glass Is likely to crack!_
Select the correct size lid for the jars that you are using. Use only new lids so that the seal is fresh. Place lids in a pan of water and simmer at 180 degrees Fahrenheit for ten minutes before using. Do not boil them, as this can affect the sealing compound. Leave
|
af11f435-28b9-a1a7-c562-6eea829717e5
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['9b0fe5a3-4023-d5c4-3274-1fb91a135ad7']
|
at 0 degrees Fahrenheit prevents microorganisms from growing and slowing down enzyme activity. Flash freezing is used to initially freeze food by rapidly lowering the temperature to -10 degrees Fahrenheit. This helps ensure the highest-quality frozen product. Once flash frozen, food can be stored at 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Freezing and flash freezing are best used for a range of foods, including fruits, vegetables, meats, jellies and jams, breads, and whole meals.
**Pros:** This is the simplest of the common preservation methods (ideal for the food-preservation novice). Flavor retention is greater because it involves minimal heat processing. And this method has high degrees of success and food safety; microorganisms that can cause food spoilage are killed or become inactive when they're frozen.
**Cons:** The amount of food you can preserve is limited to the size of your freezer. Standalone freezers involve significant financial investment that may take several years to pay off. This method has the most expensive cost for storage (depending upon size, age, style, and your local cost of electricity, running a freezer can cost anywhere between $5.00 and $25.00 per month).
Who hasn't experienced frozen peas—whether with dinner or on a bruised knee? If they're one of your favorites, growing your own peas and freezing them may be more economical.
**WATER-BATH CANNING**
After preserving food in glass jars using two-piece metal lids, you submerge the jarred food in a boiling-water bath for a specified period of time to destroy any harmful microorganisms and inactivate enzymes. Subsequent cooling creates a vacuum seal, which prevents air and other microorganisms from entering and causing spoilage. This method works well for a range of fruits, tomatoes, and other high-acid foods. You will also use water-bath canning to preserve jams, jellies, and other fruit-based soft spreads using primarily fruit and fruit juices together with a high sugar content. The high concentration of sugar helps prevent the growth of microorganisms. Pickles must also be water-bath canned. Using salt, vinegar, and other naturally occurring substances, the pickling process raises the acid level of the pickled food, creating an environment that is unfriendly to harmful microorganisms. Pickling is suitable for a range of vegetables, including cucumbers, peppers, cabbage, and cauliflower, as well as green tomatoes.
**Pros:** Water-bath canning requires a low initial investment for equipment, electricity consumption for processing is modest, and there is no cost for storage.
**Cons:** This method can cause some flavor and texture loss compared to freezing. The pickling process can take more than a month, depending upon the recipe.
Think of all the pies you can make with home-preserved cherries or other tasty fruits. Turning your harvest into pantry staples is simple with water-bath canning.
**PRESSURE CANNING**
In this method, you also preserve food in glass jars with two-piece lids. Pressure canning must be used for low-acid foods and involves using an appliance called a—what else?—"pressure canner" to achieve a temperature of 240 degrees Fahrenheit, which is substantially higher than the 212 degrees that the water-bath method can achieve and is sufficient to kill both
|
496c1cf2-8789-abd8-0aec-0681e48a8b40
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['9bab8ff0-e94d-62ea-02c3-9772463a8cab']
|
the dramatic rocky-pass scene. <PERSON> saves <PERSON> from drowning in the Mississippi, providing an ethical alternative to the nefarious activities among slave-traders on the riverboat. On <PERSON>'s plantation, <PERSON> is a shining, <PERSON>-like presence in an atmosphere of wild revelry and bloody torture.
<PERSON>'s depiction of <PERSON> and his surroundings draws from Gothic images common in sensational novels. Aptly, <PERSON> reads sensational fiction. We see him poring over "one of those collections of stories of bloody murder, ghostly legends, and supernatural visitations, which, coarsely got up and illustrated, have a strange fascination for one who once engages to read them." <PERSON> himself is like a character in popular sensational works. In particular, he resembles <PERSON>, the villainous keeper of Monk Hall in <PERSON>'s The Quaker City. Both <PERSON> and <PERSON> are sadists who love to see the blood of their victims flow. Both inhabit dismal structures that have chambers of horror: Monk Hall has its skeleton-littered cellar where <PERSON> tortures people, and <PERSON>'s home its garret, where he once imprisoned a slave woman who died. Both characters are haunted by the ghosts of their victims: Devil-Bug by a man he murdered and <PERSON> by the dead slave woman and the mother he spurned. Devil-Bug laughs when he hears shrieking victims falling "down—down" through the trapdoors of Monk Hall, and <PERSON> has a dream of falling into an abyss "down, down, down, amid a confused noise of shrieks, and groans, and shouts of demon laughter." Both are ostensibly powerful but in fact are outwitted by vindictive madwomen: Devil-Bug by Long-haired <PERSON>, <PERSON> by <PERSON>. Both villains get their due at the hands of black people. In a kind of metaphorical slave revolt, <PERSON> and Glow-worm crush Devil-Bug to death with a boulder. <PERSON> encounters a more benign yet ultimately more damaging revolt—a Christian one that presumably consigns him to hell while his black victims are headed toward eternal bliss. Thus, <PERSON> puts her religious stamp on the portrait of the villain.
An element of popular sensational literature that held special appeal for <PERSON> was its egalitarianism. Her subtitle, Life Among the Lowly, highlights her concern for the marginalized. Besides vivifying the plight of blacks, the novel contains passages defending oppressed white workers. <PERSON> had long-standing working-class sympathies. While growing up in Litchfield, she loved to spend time in the kitchen with her family's servants. When she moved to Cincinnati in the 1830s, she entered a radically democratic environment. Cincinnati, whose population grew from 750 in 1800, when it was just being settled, to over 100,000 by mid-century, was a mushrooming city settled by people of all classes and backgrounds. <PERSON>, who visited Cincinnati around the time <PERSON> moved there, found that "social ranks are intermingled," representing "democracy without limit or moderation." A settler in the region attested that "every person felt that he or she was the social equal of every other person." Perhaps stimulated by this intensely democratic environment, <PERSON> became close to a variety of servants, black and white, who at different times worked in her home.
Much of <PERSON>'s interest
|
9c948750-b7cc-658f-1a57-54becc85bc24
|
['9bab8ff0-e94d-62ea-02c3-9772463a8cab']
|
February 26, 1857. There were many proslavery works that responded to <PERSON>'s novel besides those discussed in the current chapter. Others included <PERSON> Life at the South, a Companion to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (Philadelphia, Pa.: T. B. Peterson, 1852); <PERSON>, Slavery in the Southern States. By a Carolinian (Cambridge, Mass.: <PERSON>, 1852); <PERSON>, "Samuel Hele, Esq.: A Yankee Schoolmistress and an Alabama Lawyer," from The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi: A Series of Sketches (New York: D. Appleton, 1853); <PERSON>, The Planter; or, Thirteen Years in the South (Philadelphia, Pa.: H. Hooker, 1853); and <PERSON>, Notes on "Uncle Tom's Cabin": Being a Logical Answer to Its Allegations and Inferences against Slavery (Philadelphia, Pa.: Lippincott, Grambo, 1853).
"thus display your intense love": <PERSON>, Abolitionism Unveiled; or, Its Origin, Progress, & Pernicious Tendency Fully Developed (Cincinnati, Ohio: E. Morgan & Sons, ;1856), 83. The next quotation in this paragraph is on p. 84.
"vile aspersions of southern character": Dr. <PERSON>, A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, An Essay on Slavery (Cincinnati, Ohio: Applegate, 1853), 36, 12.
"gathers gold and silver pence": "A Lady in New York," The Patent Key to "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; or, Mrs. Stowe in England (New York: Pudney & Russell), 1853; UVA. So <PERSON>: "Here <PERSON>, with prostituted pen, assails / One half her country in malignant tales; . . . / To slander's mart she furnishes supplies, / And feeds its morbid appetite for lies / . . . [She] concocts the venom, and, with eager gaze, / To Glasgow flies for patron, pence, and praise, / And for a slandered country finds rewards / In smiles or sneers of duchesses and lords" (<PERSON>, The Hireling and the Slave, Chicora, and Other Poems [Charleston, S.C.: McCarter, 1856], 27-28).
"Thousands will peruse": The Richmond Daily Dispatch, October 15, 1852.
"Oh! what a fool I was": <PERSON>, Life at the South; or, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" As It Is (Buffalo, N.Y.: Geo. H. Derby, 1852); this quotation and subsequent ones from <PERSON>'s novel are from this <PERSON> edition, on the UVA site. Among the secondary works that discuss <PERSON> novels are <PERSON>, chap. 12; <PERSON>, Uncle Tom Mania, chap. 3; <PERSON>, Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008), chap. 1; <PERSON>, Domestic Novelists in the Old South: Defenders of Southern Culture (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992); and <PERSON>, "Uncle Tom's Cabin and the South," in The Cambridge Companion to Harriet Beecher Stowe, chap. 2.
"When I think of [slaves'] happy condition": <PERSON>, The Planter; or Thirteen Years in the South; this quotation and subsequent ones from <PERSON>'s novel are from this <PERSON> edition, on the UVA site.
"Negroes are subjected": <PERSON>, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Contrasted with Buckingham Hall, the Planter's Home (New York: D. Fanshaw, 1852); this quotation and subsequent ones from <PERSON>'s novel are from this <PERSON> edition, on the
|
6f5fc181-544f-154c-7395-4387d6636a61
|
['9c105f44-0b4e-ddc6-0b9f-4a777aaccf16']
|
office. Some people see it as a political appointment that never does anyone any good."
"Those days are over," <PERSON> said firmly, his jaw set. "I'm not the supervisor type. I'll be right on the front lines. But first I need to become a little more familiar with the police force and the local crime scene. I need to know this city, inside out." He glanced at the materials he was carrying. "That's what all this is. Homework. City charter. Crime statistics. Maps. You name it."
"That's a lot to bite off."
"I've always been a good student. I'll know more tomorrow and a lot more than that the next day. Goodbye, gentlemen."
<PERSON> started down the stone steps toward his black Ford, but the reporter held out a hand to stop him.
"Here's the thing I don't get, Mr. <PERSON>. Why would a Fed like you want to get involved in a city's dirty problems? Mobsters, murder, prostitution—seems like it never ends. You can't win. This city never runs out of criminals."
"I think you're wrong about that." He moved on down the steps and tossed his study materials into the backseat of his car. "This is the best time ever to be in law enforcement. Science is on our side. The FBI has developed the greatest crime lab in the world, and they're showing the rest of us how it can be done. Cleveland has a first-rate <PERSON> department. Top-notch forensic coroner. We're learning more every day about blood types and fingerprints and bodily fluids. It won't be long until we see an end to these problems that have plagued society since its inception. I think it will happen in our lifetime. Crime will become a thing of the past."
#
First night on the job, and <PERSON> was already enjoying the luxuries of his new position. He'd been appointed a driver! He didn't have to motor himself, not even to take his wife out to dinner. Not that he minded driving—in fact, he rather enjoyed it. But that beat-up Ford, though it might be all he could afford on a Treasury agent's salary, was starting to look a little shabby. Didn't really fit the image of the dynamic new safety director.
When they'd arrived at one of Cleveland's swankiest downtown restaurants, the maître d' recognized <PERSON> and gave him the best seat in the joint. This was a great job. Absolutely great.
"I tell you, <PERSON>—they were eating out of my hands."
"I'm sure they were."
"This safety director business could be something terrific. Might lead to something really special."
"I would've thought it was already something special."
"You know what I mean, <PERSON>. The FBI."
"<PERSON>—why would you want to be some podunk FBI agent, working under <PERSON>'s thumb, watching him take all the glory?"
"It's what I've always wanted, <PERSON>. You know that. Ever since I was a kid."
"I think you've done all right for yourself without <PERSON> help."
He leaned a little closer to her. "So you're happy for me? For us? Doesn't
|
35c3a70d-cb0a-8565-944d-4d04eebd99e9
|
['9c105f44-0b4e-ddc6-0b9f-4a777aaccf16']
|
startin" to get suspicious."
"Suspicious? Of what?"
"Of me. Wearin" this baseball cap every day." <PERSON> wore a baseball cap at school to hide the fact that most of his hair had fallen out. Everyone knew this, but <PERSON> preferred to imagine everyone thought it was just a fashion statement. "I was thinkin" maybe if I was actually playing baseball, it might seem more natural."
<PERSON> couldn't resist a smile. She was so proud of her son. He had been through so much, but still had not lost his spirit. "Tomorrow we'll go to Wal-Mart and buy you a baseball mitt. What d'ya say?"
"All right!"
<PERSON> did not play baseball the following summer. Five months later, during a routine visit, Dr. <PERSON> noticed that <PERSON>'s blood platelet count had decreased. He immediately ordered a bone marrow aspiration, and when that proved inconclusive, he ordered a second and a third. By this time <PERSON> was experiencing constant nosebleeds, and the bruising had returned with a vengeance. The fourth aspiration revealed 46 percent blasts.
Dr. <PERSON> met <PERSON> in the hospital corridor outside <PERSON>'s room. He instinctively clasped her hand, something he had never done before with a patient or their relatives.
"Tell me," she said, her lips pressed together to prevent them from quivering. "Just tell me."
"He's relapsed," the doctor said quietly. "The leukemia is back."
"Can we restart the full-time treatment? Induce another remission?"
"Probably." The doctor drew in his breath slowly. "But even if we do, it will only be temporary. We have to look at this realistically. The chances of an absolute cure in this case are... remote."
"This isn't a case," <PERSON> said, struggling to maintain control. "This is my son."
"I know that, but—"
"I want him to start back with the radiation. And the chemo. Immediately."
The doctor nodded, holding his private thoughts in reserve. "As you wish." He hesitated a moment, then added, "<PERSON>, I'd like to give you some names." He pulled a scrap of paper out of his white lab coat. "These are parents of some of my other patients."
"I'm not going to some soapy support group," <PERSON> said firmly. "I'm too busy to spend my time sitting in a circle whining."
"<PERSON>... these parents also have sons. And their boys also have leukemia. Some of them... even more advanced than <PERSON>'s."
Wordlessly, <PERSON> took the list he proffered. Her eyes scanned the names. "<PERSON>? He lives on the same block we do."
The doctor nodded.
"<PERSON>. <PERSON>. These boys go to the same school as <PERSON>. How can this be?"
"There's no explaining cancer, <PERSON>."
"But didn't you tell me leukemia was very rare?"
"Yes. Fewer than four children out of one hundred thousand each year."
"But—these are four children who live within a mile of one another!"
"And there are others besides. I'm not the only pediatrician in Blackwood. Do yourself a favor, <PERSON>. Talk to some of the other mothers."
She shook her head, then crumpled the paper in her hand. "I've got a boy
|
3bb0c4ab-1459-fb73-f3ea-710efaf50c40
|
['9c35d67b-3ff2-7411-4f09-e3de8ea2f228']
|
<PERSON> outside the Kulm Hotel in St. Moritz in the early years after the war.
"<PERSON>, how are you?"
"Very well, sir."
"I suppose after all the vices which the _Daily Mail_ has laid at my door, you've kicked me out as honorary president?"
"No, sir, we have no politics in the bobsleigh club."
The prince went off delighted, murmuring, "Good, good, good! I must come to the run."
And so, once the Swiss government had relaxed its wartime restrictions on foreign visitors—"terrifying formalities," in the words of the _Times_ —life at St. Moritz simply carried on. In fact a new passenger air service between Zurich and St. Moritz made it easier than ever before for the rich to get away there for the winter. The town was soon busier than it ever had been before the war. It was starting to swing.
This was the beginning of the golden era of bobsledding in St. Moritz—"the gay old days," as <PERSON> called them in his memoirs, the age when "gifted amateur socialites went down the run, partly for fun, partly because he or she had a lot of guts, partly because he or she was bent on trying anything going." But the idea that bobsledding was a sport for everybody was long gone; it was now for those rich enough to afford it and bold enough to brave it. "Far more than the weather or the run," <PERSON> wrote, "it is the people who count: they make the season. Everything was taken light-heartedly. All the bobbers stayed at the Palace Hotel. At 2pm they were all out on the run, and at 2am they were all out on the town." Downhill skiing wouldn't become popular until the tail end of the 1930s. Bobsledding was the fashionable thing. The roll calls run in the British papers listing who was in St. Moritz for the season began to read like a European who's who. One week's entry, entirely typical, included the following names: Prince <PERSON>, Princess <PERSON>, the Marchioness <PERSON> of Kedleston, the Earl of Northesk, the Baron and Baronne <PERSON>, Comte <PERSON>, and Sir <PERSON>. Only the young and brave would be out on the run to take part in the big races, but everyone would gather at the Kulm and the Palace in the evenings for the balls, dances, and dinners.
As president of the SMBC, <PERSON> had two things to do. The first was to try to raise the funds to keep the club running, through auctions, raffles, sweepstakes, and generally by twisting the arm of any rich visitors who came his way. It cost $1,500 a season to rebuild and maintain the run. The second was to try to keep the members in line. This was by far the harder job. In the winter of 1924 a mysterious newcomer arrived at the club, a pretty young Russian lady with "auburn hair, vermilion cheeks, and scarlet lips." She went by the name of <PERSON>. "She was, unfortunately, quite unable to talk or understand a word
|
597aba85-09c0-984e-4f94-ff342581012c
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['9c35d67b-3ff2-7411-4f09-e3de8ea2f228']
|
Rule six in the SMBC's book stated that "as far as is possible traffic will be directed to give each bob a clear course, but no allowance can be made for the fact that a bob has been delayed by meeting a sleigh." The SMBC soon realized that it needed to build a dedicated bobsled run.
By now St. Moritz had become a busy place. Business had been so good for the <PERSON> family that in 1892 they'd purchased a second hotel in the town, the Beau Rivage. <PERSON>'s son, <PERSON>, ran it. He traveled to Zurich to hire the leading Swiss architectural firm of Chiodera & Tschudy to convert it into the Palace Hotel. It took a team of five hundred Italian workmen four years to finish it. When they were done, the <PERSON> were the owners of two of the very finest hotels in Europe.
With so many idle rich around town each winter, the SMBC soon found a few wealthy sportsmen willing to stump up 20,000 Swiss francs to help pay for the construction of a dedicated bobsled track, the world's first. The backers were a cosmopolitan and aristocratic bunch. There were 200 francs from a German prince, 500 from a fellow count. An Irish marquess and an English army captain provided another 500 each. Finally, Count <PERSON> contributed 650 francs. His wife, Countess <PERSON>, was a niece and confidante of Empress <PERSON> of Austria. Later <PERSON> descriptions of sledding in the Alps so enchanted the poet <PERSON> that he used them as inspiration for these apt lines from _The Waste Land_ :
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, <PERSON>,
<PERSON>, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
The new course opened in 1902. It started at the top of the hill, in what was now known as Badrutt's Park, up by the Kulm Hotel. From there it wound down through avenues of pine trees into the valley below, until it made a sudden turn to dip down beneath an arch of the railway bridge, and then ran onto the finish by Cresta village. Now that St. Moritz had a specialist bob track, it meant that most of the people who crashed—and plenty did—were unlikely to suffer anything much worse than "a sudden nose-rubbing in the snow," as one observer put it. Crowds gathered around the key corners, named Devil's Dyke, Sunny, and Horseshoe, where the bob would swing round in about twice its own length, hoping to catch a glimpse of a crash so they could enjoy a "Roman holiday," their schadenfreude made all the sweeter by the fact that the sled's occupants "would usually be seen within a few seconds completing their journey with great cheerfulness."
The development of a dedicated course and a few rudimentary safety measures meant that the sport was a lot less dangerous than the ad hoc version they were practicing in the United
|
a42ac3a5-4c3a-7d9e-61ea-261b78380c51
|
['9caec678-214f-1478-b4d4-cf15a22e26ed']
|
Sie brauchen ja nur eine kleine Stelle,
auf der sie alles haben wie ein Baum.
III, 29
Only retrieve them from the cities' guilt,
where everything for them is anger and confusion,
and wounded patience sucks them dry.
Has the earth, then, no room for them?
Whom does the wind seek? For whom
is the wet glistening of streams?
Is there by the banks
of the pond's deep dreaming
nowhere they can see their faces reflected?
They need only, as a tree does,
a little space in which to grow.
III, 29
Die Städte aber wollen nur das Ihre
und reißen alles mit in ihren Lauf.
Wie hohles Holz zerbrechen sie die Tiere
und brauchen viele Völker brennend auf.
Und ihre Menschen dienen in Kulturen
und fallen tief aus Gleichgewicht und Maß,
und nennen Fortschritt ihre Schneckenspuren
und fahren rascher, wo sie langsam fuhren,
und fühlen sich und funkeln wie die Huren
und lärmen lauter mit Metall und Glas.
Es ist, als ob ein Trug sie täglich äffte,
sie können gar nicht mehr sie selber sein;
das Geld wächst an, hat alle ihre Kräfte
und ist wie Ostwind groß, und sie sind klein
und ausgeholt und warten, daß der Wein
und alles Gift der Tier- und Menschensäfte
sie reize zu vergänglichem Geschäfte.
III, 31
The cities only care for what is theirs
and uproot all that's in their path.
They crush the creatures like hollow sticks
and burn up nations like kindling.
Their people serve the culture of the day,
losing all balance and moderation,
calling their aimlessness progress,
driving recklessly where they once drove slow,
and with all that metal and glass
making such a racket.
It's as if they were under a spell:
they can no longer be themselves.
Money keeps growing, takes all their strength,
and empties them like a scouring wind,
while they wait for wine and poisonous passions
to spur them to fruitless occupations.
III, 31
Und deine Armen leiden unter diesen
und sind von allem, was sie schauen, schwer
und glühen frierend wie in Fieberkrisen
und gehn, aus jeder Wohnung ausgewiesen,
wie fremde Tote in der Nacht umher;
und sind beladen mit dem ganzen Schmutze,
und wie in Sonne Faulendes bespien,—
von <PERSON>, von der Dirnen Putze,
von Wagen und Laternen angeschrien.
Und giebt
|
657a2d9c-56fa-04db-9402-aa0448162059
|
['9caec678-214f-1478-b4d4-cf15a22e26ed']
|
um den uralten Turm,
und ich kreise jahrtausendelang;
und ich weiß noch nicht: bin ich ein Falke, ein Sturm
oder ein großer Gesang.
I, 2
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
I, 2
Ich habe viele Brüder in Sutanen
im Süden, wo in Klöstern <PERSON> steht.
Ich weiß, wie menschlich sie Madonnen planen,
und träume oft von jungen Tizianen,
durch die der <PERSON> in Gluten geht.
Doch wie ich mich auch in mich selber neige:
Mein <PERSON> ist dunkel und wie ein Gewebe
von hundert Wurzeln, welche schweigsam trinken.
Nur, daß ich mich aus seiner Wärme hebe,
mehr weiß ich nicht, weil alle meine Zweige
tief unten ruhn und nur im Winde winken.
I, 3
I have many brothers in the South
who move, handsome in their vestments,
through cloister gardens.
The Madonnas they make are so human,
and I dream often of their Titians,
where God becomes an ardent flame.
But when I lean over the chasm of myself—
it seems
my God is dark
and like a web: a hundred roots
silently drinking.
This is the ferment I grow out of.
More I don't know, because my branches
rest in deep silence, stirred only by the wind.
I, 3
Wir dürfen dich nicht eigenmächtig malen,
du Dämmernde, aus der der Morgen stieg.
Wir holen aus den alten Farbenschalen
die gleichen Striche und die gleichen Strahlen,
mit denen dich der Heilige verschwieg.
Wir bauen Bilder vor dir auf wie Wände;
so daß schon tausend Mauern um dich stehn.
Denn dich verhüllen unsre frommen Hände,
sooft dich unsre Herzen offen sehn.
I, 4
We must not portray you in king's robes,
you drifting mist that brought forth the morning.
Once again from the old paintboxes
we take the same gold for scepter and crown
that has disguised you through the ages.
Piously we produce our images of you
till they stand around you like a thousand walls.
And when our hearts would simply open,
our
|
852e2c02-eb0a-9ba3-dfc7-cf7bb8d6fb27
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['9cb0f637-0514-e10c-1545-db1d87d143f5']
|
whole point of the grammatico-historical method of <PERSON> was precisely to lay profane hands on the sacred ark! <PERSON> knew that the moment one makes the Bible susceptible to privileged means of interpretation, the mischief will never stop! The Bible will come to mean anything each interpreter wants it to mean! Today, for us to interpret the Bible as we would any other text, i.e., any secular text, demands that we apply to it the whole array of critical approaches in which current literary theory abounds.
# IN THE BEGINNING WAS LOGOCENTRISM
The fundamental result of our taking all these developments in literary analysis seriously, as we must if we still believe the Bible is amenable to being read like any other book, is that we simply can no longer thunder forth our own exegetical results as "the Word of God." We cannot preach "with authority, not as the scribes," since we are no prophets or messiahs, but merely scribes ourselves! To ramrod home our own opinions by attributing them to God is the worst kind of manipulation and priestcraft.
Why not instead follow the lead of <PERSON> in our preaching? Why not abandon any appeal to authoritative names and theological pedigrees? The Bible, as in <PERSON>' parables, raises questions and challenges readers to come up with their own answers: "He who has ears to hear with, let him hear!" Instead of a prophet, dumping the truth like a ten-ton weight onto our hearers, why not be a Socratic midwife seeking to facilitate the drawing forth of the truth from within our hearers' own consciences and minds? That way, it will be their truth in a way a mere quiescent reception of prepackaged dogma never could be. And that way, it will hardly matter whether or not the Bible is a credible candidate for a divinely inspired and inerrant book: one will be able to recognize its truth—wherever it is true—for oneself. There is no need to appeal to external authority at all. What will be lost if we do this? What is it we are afraid of? We have shared with traditional Western philosophy what <PERSON> calls the Logocentric bias. The proverbs and stories of the Bible are not good enough for us. We have to abstract them, strip them down, use them as raw materials to build theological-ethical systems which we think can alone nourish us. And we seem to think that ideally every one ought to believe in the same system, to do and believe the same things. This is why we speak of "authoritative" preaching in the first place: we want to intimidate people into conformity with "the Truth." It was quite consistent with this hermeneutical/homiletical procedure when Reformed Protestant governments bloodily persecuted Catholic, Anabaptist and Socinian dissenters. Hadn't <PERSON> himself dealt with <PERSON> and his buddies pretty much the same way?
Similarly, when we invoke doctrines of inspiration and debate them vociferously, what is at stake but a fear that we will perhaps lose the secret weapon we love to use to intimidate conformity of belief? "This
|
106eb6e8-f0ab-f292-e9db-aa8033a42948
|
['9cb0f637-0514-e10c-1545-db1d87d143f5']
|
second, if these things were really known in Israelite antiquity, why and how did such knowledge vanish without a trace? Why did it take so long for everyone, including Israelites, to grasp and utilize the knowledge? The answer is: it was not knowledge at all. It is ventriloquism by moderns.
Theoretically, God could have revealed all manner of medical and technological advances that would have made human life less miserable and given people more occasion to ponder the meaning of their lives. But obviously he didn't.
Approach the Bible, I mean the phenomena of scripture, from any angle you want, without trying to make it look like what it is not, and you will find nothing at all that demands, even suggests, an authorship transcending human genius. Much of it does not even reach that high. And when we argue that the mediocre, worse yet, the barbaric and the illogical, are God's truth, then we reduce God to an idol and elevate an ancient artifact to godhood.
# NOTES
1. <PERSON>, _Jesus Christ and Mythology_ (NY: Scribner's, 1958), pp. 54– 55: "It is an illusion to hold that any exegesis can be independent of secular conceptions. Every interpreter is inescapably dependent on conceptions which he has inherited from a tradition, consciously or unconsciously, and every tradition is dependent on some philosophy or other."
2. <PERSON>, _Satan in Goray_ (NY: Fawcett Crest, 1955), 156, 163.
3. <PERSON>, "The Suicide of Christian Theology and a Modest Proposal for its Resurrection." In <PERSON>, _The Suicide of Christian Theology_ (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1970), pp. 39–40.
4. Ibid., pp. 38–39.
5. <PERSON>, _The Inspiration of Scripture_ (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963), Chapter 4, "Inerrancy and the Phenomena of Scripture," pp. 41–69.
6. <PERSON>, _Biblical Revelation: The Foundation of Christian Theology_ (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), Chapter 5, "The Phenomena of Scripture," pp. 175–207.
7. <PERSON>, _The Modern Use of the Bible_ (NY: Macmillan, 1961), p. 30.
8. <PERSON>, "Is Exegesis without Presuppositions Possible?" In <PERSON>, ed. & trans., _Existence & Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann_. A Living Age Book (NY: Meridian Books/World Publishing, 1960), pp. 289–296. Also, <PERSON>, _Jesus Christ and Mythology_ , pp. 49, 54.
9. <PERSON>, _Suicide_ , section "The Analytical Meaninglessness of a 'Non-Inerrant Scripture'," pp. 334–342.
10. <PERSON>, p. 75: "Inerrancy is the standpoint for a Christian to adopt in his examination of Scripture. This _Gestalt_ is inductively derived and provides the framework for understanding what kind of book the Bible is."
11. Ibid., p. 100: "But as to the Christocentric and Redemptive focus of Scripture, there can be no doubt; and those who claim obscurity do so to evade the clear teaching of Scripture." Not only does <PERSON> thus proclaim himself a mind-reader, he has also back-pedaled: for him it is not every page of Scripture but only the broadest salvific theme (and good luck finding anything about a personal relationship with <PERSON> in Obadiah!).
12. <PERSON><PHONE_NUMBER>.
10. Pinnock, p. 75: "Inerrancy is the standpoint for a Christian to adopt in his examination of Scripture. This _Gestalt_ is inductively derived and provides the framework for understanding what kind of book the Bible is."
11. Ibid., p. 100: "But as to the Christocentric and Redemptive focus of Scripture, there can be no doubt; and those who claim obscurity do so to evade the clear teaching of Scripture." Not only does Pinnock thus proclaim himself a mind-reader, he has also back-pedaled: for him it is not every page of Scripture but only the broadest salvific theme (and good luck finding anything about a personal relationship with Jesus in Obadiah!).
12. Robert G. Ingersoll, _Some Mistakes of Moses_ (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1986), pp. viii–ix:
|
f87c7738-939d-9ad5-a0da-8b7ce7d0e106
|
['9cd610ad-a532-b1d1-eabd-a3e9039c967b']
|
The mainstream media described his speech as a "rant" (the _Daily Telegraph),_ and despite <PERSON> trying to seem political and justified, his speech and actions were quickly dismissed as the ramblings of an evil madman. His stunt was quickly hijacked to become propaganda _for_ the establishment rather than against it.
The particular focus on his being 'evil' via being a 'fanatic', 'ranting', etc. connected the threat of terrorism, as well as Islamic fundamentalism, to madness, lack of reason and sense, and individual chaos and insanity, thus discrediting the cause and its people. The headline "Muslim fanatic's evil rant after beheading" (the _Sun_ ), for example, connected 'Muslim', 'evil' and 'fanatic', implying a connection between Muslim identity and ideas, and 'evil' as well as 'mad'. So it conflated Muslim identity with this 'evil' existential threat. It also implied <PERSON> to be a monster, rather than a person, further adding to the idea that he was somehow sub-human. The use of the word 'barbaric', in particular, implied him to be uncivilised, mad and out of control (as well as 'other' and not 'British'). The _Daily Mail_ 's headline, "Blood on his hands, hatred in his eyes," meanwhile, showed <PERSON> as guilty, violent and fuelled by emotion or madness, rather than any reason, which took away any sense of political agency in favour of an image of insanity and barbarism. The _Independent_ , too, emphasised the idea of barbarism: "Unarmed. Attacked from behind. Butchered like a piece of meat" (30/11/13). The apparent treatment of <PERSON> as a "piece of meat" made the perpetrator seem barbaric and monstrous rather than a political actor behaving strategically or with agency. The _Guardian_ also referred to <PERSON> as "savage" (30/11/13), further characterising him as barbaric and sub-human.
In this context of demonisation, it seems unlikely that <PERSON>'s pleas for the British public to throw out its government, to denounce the politicians, and so on, were taken remotely seriously by anyone. Rather, the murder of <PERSON> became one more justification of surveillance and other tightened security measures against that public, who, rather than being inspired to rebel, or spurred to empathise with people in the Middle East, were further scared into support of, and subordination to, the British government.
Boston Bombings
The Boston Bombings were perpetrated by two brothers, <PERSON> and <PERSON>, and from the moment they were identified, stories about their conflicting Chechen-American identities, their fall from innocence, and a certain 'good terrorist / bad terrorist' dynamic began to emerge. The press clearly favoured the younger brother, <PERSON>, as did a niche group of teenage fans, who bemoaned on social media that he was too good looking to be so bad. _Rolling Stone_ magazine ran with this idea, and used the 19 year-old bomber as its cover boy in a following issue, and fan-sites cropped up on the Internet (Segran, 04/03/15), mourning the jailing of a doomed, attractive teenager, as if he were a rock star.
This contributed to the idea that <PERSON> was a weakened character with little political agency, rather than a politically
|
e4db1f86-708c-cd84-9d3a-7ef9c8a6ebc1
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['9cd610ad-a532-b1d1-eabd-a3e9039c967b']
|
grenades and pistols. At Dar El Beida airport non-Israeli passengers were let off, while the hijackers kept twelve Israeli passengers and the plane crew hostages – eventually letting them go after negotiations with the Israeli and Algerian governments, in a prisoner exchange. After this initial success, the group continued to hijack planes (to varying degrees of success, but usually maximum publicity, either way), as did further groups with prisoners to free and agendas to publicise. Television and satellite – newly invented – meant that these dramatic stories would usually find an audience. Hijackings were invented to exploit this new public interest and ability to watch as well as read.
With the invention of the Internet and the popularity of social media, groups such as ISIS have adapted once again, for example by putting violent acts such as beheadings and torture, or speeches filled with threats and bravado, on YouTube, and recruiting teenagers via Twitter. As the audience has become more involved in the media, conveying a message has become at times more intimate and direct, and recruitment more global and disparate.
What is contemporarily known as 'terrorism', then, is an inherently attention-seeking tactic that evolved from 'propaganda of the deed'. It communicates a political message to its audience through spectacular violence. Recent terrorist events such as the Moscow theatre siege and 9/11 were clearly designed with the global audience in mind. While the Moscow attack was actually in a theatre, the 9/11 attacks resembled, as many said at the time, some terrifying Hollywood thriller. Those attacks, without the media, would not have been designed as they were, let alone have had the huge global impact they did. Other terrorist attacks such as the murder of <PERSON>, the Boston Bombings, and ISIS's filmed beheadings were likewise dramatic stunts that aimed to draw as much attention as possible to the perpetrators' cause, to tempt the state (or states) into overreaction, and to influence public opinion and put pressure on them to change various foreign or domestic policies (existing or subsequent) that they considered unjust. Whether terrorism works or not (and when, if so, it does) is a subject for another book, but as a PR move it has the effect, at least, of drawing attention. As we'll discuss later, however, this may not ultimately get a movement very far, whether it's extreme violence such as ISIS's filmed beheadings, or much less fatal or dangerous violence such as vandalism at a protest. A message can be seen and heard by millions and have less than desired reactions. It is an unpredictable tactic, to put it mildly.
But propaganda of the deed is not only about drawing attention to a cause. Iconoclasm for example (recently and in the distant past) is also a kind of propaganda of the deed. Designed to shock, upset and scare, violence against buildings and art undermines the messages and identity of existing political ideologies and groups as well as asserting the dominance of the iconoclasts and their contrasting belief system. During the Reformation in the 17th century, for example, Puritans
|
329b108b-598f-0513-b291-09007ef54134
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['9ce651ca-4fcc-cf52-94c7-b463fbdf7fb3']
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acquaintance gives
amazing head. He may have even said
_brains_ or _dome_ —his lingo rising farther
and farther away from the act.
My friends enlist me in these wars
of knowledge, priming my imagination
to conjure women I know only casually
with mouthfuls of phallus. Personally,
I don't enjoy head. That I cannot say
around other men. I'd feel more
comfortable walking toward the Pentagon
shouting _insha'Allah_. It's treasonous
for a man to admit he doesn't relish
fellatio. In my nightmares, other men
smash in my bedroom door, drag me
from sleep, accuse _you started this_
the day the world's women deny them
their fantasy's privilege. But I seek
no revolution—too messy. The truth is
there's no easier way to find a woman
who will offer you head than to confess
that you do not like it. _Well,
you haven't had me do it_. The matter
is not one of personal technique. Women
don't believe me when I say that as a boy
there was no retort that cut deeper
than to bark back at a boy _suck my dick_ —
maybe a _bitch_ added for punctuation.
I can't separate that history from the act,
can't think of head as casual, as a gesture
other than subjugation. Some women
claim they feel powerful taming the lower
serpent. I think, in the mind's recesses,
their men mouth _suck my dick, bitch_ —
getting off on the penitent posture,
the bobbing bow. I cannot judge.
I simply want no part of the battle
between affection and dominance,
but even that is not true. I love
to enlist my tongue in name
of wracking—to pin down the pelvis
and fiddle over the clitoris as though
with each graze of my tongue
it becomes a new bead on an endless
rosary of release. _This isn't fair.
You won't let me do that for you_.
I'm accused of stubbornness, fear
of my own vulnerability. I say _it's my body_ —
_I have the right to refuse any touch
just as much as you have the right
to tell me stop. Do you want me to stop?_—
to retreat, I ask disingenuously.
I ask without removing my lips.
### NOSTALGIA
_You promised to tell us_ , one student says
just before I dispatch them into the blind
freedom of semester's end. I pause.
_Fine, but guess first_. They pause.
A salvo of numbers then peppers
|
a8fd06ac-12e7-1790-b515-d4519b2e9ac2
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['9ce651ca-4fcc-cf52-94c7-b463fbdf7fb3']
|
in a car or plane or coaster
that plummets sharply
(info encrypted in the lines
of my eyebrow, etched in thin
integers on hairs' spines).
How daylight distinguishes us
now, how the moon knows when
our blood has expired—time
to erase our faces, save our data
in the flesh of another,
and order the earth restore
our bodies to uncoded pulp.
This system: such efficiency. Soon
none of us will need our given names.
### THE ROBOTS ARE COMING
with clear-cased woofers for heads,
no eyes. They see us as a bat sees
a mosquito—a fleshy echo,
a morsel of sound. You've heard
their intergalactic tour busses
purring at our stratosphere's curb.
They await counterintelligence
transmissions from our laptops
and our blue teeth, await word
of humanity's critical mass,
our ripening. How many times
have we dreamed it this way:
the Age of the Machines,
postindustrial terrors whose
tempered paws—five welded fingers
—wrench back our roofs,
siderophilic tongues seeking blood,
licking the crumbs of us from our beds.
O, great nation, it won't be pretty.
What land will we now barter
for our lives? A treaty inked
in advance of the metal ones' footfall.
Give them <PERSON>. Give them Detroit,
Pittsburgh, Braddock—those forgotten
nurseries of girders and axels.
Tell the machines we honor their dead,
distant cousins. Tell them
we tendered those cities to repose
out of respect for welded steel's
bygone era. Tell them Ford
and Carnegie were giant men, that war
glazed their palms with gold.
Tell them we soft beings mourn
manufacture's death as our own.
### FOOL'S THERAPY
~for <PERSON> and other dead "Bees"
<PERSON> is dead. Those words, writing them,
should assuage something. They do not—
they say nothing of his gruff brilliance, nor lure
my mind to parse the syntax of his passing.
I still envy the ease with which <PERSON> untangled
derivatives—he helped me feel the relief
of not being the smartest head in the classroom
(a grace that serves any fool well in later life).
Still, <PERSON> could also say the droll things
that needed saying, as he did during religion class
—his eyes absent, off reading through the window
what awaited us beyond senior year, beyond Newark.
He opined, "<PERSON> is so fine, I'd drink her bathwater."
His hyperbole turned my stomach—recalling too well
what I'd learned of the body and what it secretes,
knowing too little of lust. What
|
6d002721-51f6-f8bd-0276-06a247c50ea5
|
['9cf613e7-b843-77f0-11a9-e3f89f335167']
|
you gotta retrieve it from your memory – which as you say, is _crystal_ -clear –
<PERSON>. This is wrong on so many levels.
DEE. – but see, that'd be a little detail I think I might be inclined to remember.
_Pause._ <PERSON> _shakes his head in barely suppressed rage. The door to_ <PERSON> _'s room abruptly opens and_ EFFIE _darts across the hall to the bathroom, closing the door behind her._ <PERSON> _very slowly folds his contract and returns it to the envelope._ <PERSON> _reaches out to him sympathetically –_
<PERSON> ( _pulling away, quietly controlled_ ). Don't ever touch me.
<PERSON> _calmly stands, walks to the door, opens it quietly, exits, closing door behind him._ <PERSON> _and_ <PERSON> _silently remain where they are._ <PERSON> _sadly shakes his head._
<PERSON> ( _quietly to_ <PERSON>). So was that a yes or a no?
_Then_ <PERSON> _casually strolls out of his room, en route to kitchen._
<PERSON> ( _as he passes through_ ). What happened to your friend, <PERSON>?
<PERSON> _enters kitchen._ <PERSON> _enters from bathroom, plops down at table._
<PERSON>. <PERSON> I had to pee so bad.
<PERSON>. <PERSON> still not back yet?
_We hear a refrigerator open and close and_ <PERSON> _returns with an energy drink in a can. He surveys the room._ <PERSON> _swigs from his can._
Hey, <PERSON>, how 'bout playin' some bridge? No good with two people but if we got three we could play cut-throat.
<PERSON> _takes a drag from a vape pen._ <PERSON> _watches with alarm._ <PERSON> _is lost in thought._
<PERSON> –
<PERSON> ( _very quietly_ ). No thank you.
<PERSON> ( _to_ GIO). Can I have a Nutter Butter?
<PERSON>. Ask <PERSON>.
<PERSON> ( _to_ EFFIE). Excuse me, please?
<PERSON> ( _to_ FRED). Can I have a Nutter Butter?
<PERSON>. Excuse me, young lady? May I ask what that is you're smoking?
<PERSON>. Okay first of all it's not smoking it's juuling – ?
<PERSON> ( _to_ GIO). Oh, you _cannot_ be serious.
<PERSON>. – and second of all?
DEE ( _to_ GIO). That better not be _weed oil_ she's smoking in that little pipe. Is that what I'm smelling?
<PERSON>. Okay, it's not smoking it's juuling – ?
DEE ( _to_ GIO). Are you and your little hoodrat friend actually _smoking weed_ in this house – ?
<PERSON>. I'm not smoking it.
DEE ( _to_ GIO). – are you outta your microscopic _mind_?
<PERSON>. Can I explain something?
DEE ( _to_ EFFIE). Honey, I'm afraid we're gonna have to ask you to leave now –
EFFIE. But can I explain?
<PERSON>. – you don't need to explain, you just need to take that somewhere else. | |
EFFIE ( _continuous_ ). Cuz I have a condition? It's called interstitial cystitis?
---|---|---
EFFIE ( _continuous_ ). – and CBD is the number-one recommended treatment pending approval from the FDA?
DEE ( _re:_ GIO). And let me explain something to _you_ : ( _Re:_ GIO.) This young man is on the _sex offender registry._
EFFIE. I know that.
GIO. She knows that.
DEE ( _to_
|
90da9da5-3858-25d2-152d-fc9d808d6ec8
|
['9cf613e7-b843-77f0-11a9-e3f89f335167']
|
them in the car. I can do that.
<PERSON>
Did you get the chafing dish?
<PERSON>
No ma'am, thank you, though.
<PERSON>
(to <PERSON> and <PERSON>)
Be right back.
(<PERSON> opens the door to reveal <PERSON>, about to ring the bell. He is an oddly formal and uncomfortable-seeming man.)
<PERSON>
Ah. Unexpected. Uhhh...?
<PERSON>
Hello, <PERSON>.
<PERSON>
(relieved)
Ah, <PERSON>.
<PERSON>
(to <PERSON>, squeezing past)
Excuse us, if you don't mind?
<PERSON>
(to <PERSON>, formally)
Not at all. After you, sir.
(<PERSON> makes my for <PERSON> and <PERSON> to pass.)
<PERSON>
(to <PERSON>, as they exit, barely audible)
What is the matter with you?
<PERSON>
(from the door, seeing him)
Ah. <PERSON>, too. Hello, lad.
<PERSON>
<PERSON>.
<PERSON>
(unenthusiastically)
Come on in, <PERSON>.
<PERSON>
(as if working out a puzzle)
Uhhh... Yes. Could do that. However, You'll recall, <PERSON>, that <PERSON> currently happens to be, uh, how shall we say – ?
<PERSON>
Ohhh, is it almost that time?
<PERSON>
Uh, point being, that she did accompany me.
<PERSON>
What do you - you mean she's in the car?
<PERSON>
She is.
<PERSON>
Well, for heaven's sake, <PERSON>! Don't leave her out in a hot car.
<PERSON>
Well, that was my thinking.
<PERSON>
Bring her in with you.
<PERSON>
Will do.
<PERSON>
Of all things.
<PERSON>
(as he goes)
Back in a flash.
(As <PERSON> exits again, <PERSON> descends the stairs in a clean shirt and shoes. <PERSON> and <PERSON> allow him to silently pass by them. He walks to the chair and collects the ice cream carton.)
<PERSON>
You changed your shirt.
(<PERSON> continues into the kitchen without responding. As soon as he is gone:)
<PERSON>
(quietly)
<PERSON>
(whispering)
I know I'm being silly. I know I am, but – (cont'd.)
<PERSON>
(overlapping)
Not at all. Not in the least.
<PERSON>
(continuous whisper)
– it's just that after two and a half years you'd think that with time, because that's supposed to be the thing that helps, isn't it? A little bit of time – (cont'd.)
<PERSON>
(overlapping)
A great healer.
<PERSON>
(continuous whisper)
– and I thought with the new job and the move I thought somehow he would start to let go of –
(<PERSON> returns from the kitchen. <PERSON> goes silent. He goes to a door beneath the stairs, opens it, pulls a string to turn on a light, and exits.)
<PERSON>
(calling after him)
Where are you going, the basement?
<PERSON>
(from off)
Yup.
<PERSON>
Are you looking for something?
<PERSON>
(farther)
Yup.
(The front door opens. <PERSON> escorts his wife <PERSON>, who is eight months pregnant, and who also happens to be totally deaf.)
<PERSON>
Here we are, then.
<PERSON>
Oh, there she is!
<PERSON>
Hehhyoooh, Behhhh. (tr. Hello, <PERSON>.)
<PERSON>
(over-enunciating for <PERSON>'s benefit)
Well just look at you! My goodness. You are just the biggest thing.
<PERSON>
Ah nohhh! Eee toooor. Ah so beee!!! (I know! It's true. I'm so big!!!)
<PERSON>
Took the liberty of not ringing the bell.
<PERSON>
<PERSON>, you know <PERSON>.
<PERSON>
Indeed she does.
<PERSON>
Hah Jeee.
|
5a466332-40cd-86b0-1c51-168af53c6e17
|
['9e14e111-75c8-0a14-3d8d-0bc89210a146']
|
brother's <PERSON>. I made the My Little Ponys kill the G.I. Joes.
I drew hundreds of pictures and they were all bad. I wasn't good at drawing. It was also a little sad to draw so much because I could see everything that was inside me. I had drawn everything I could think of. All that was inside me was a bunch of toys, and TV shows, and my family. My life was boring. I only had one kiss, and it was with my gay cousin, <PERSON>.
One day, <PERSON> came down to the basement. He saw all my little drawings. He didn't say much. He picked them up and looked at them. He looked at every picture that was there. When he finished with each, he put it onto a neat pile.
He was tall and restrained, with clean, fading blond hair, combed back, with a slight wave in the front. He had a plain gold wedding band. As he looked at the pictures, I tried to imagine what he did for fun, but I couldn't. He put the last picture down on the neat stack and looked at me.
"How is Mr. <PERSON>?" he asked. In his accent his words came out short and clean. There was a hint of warmth, but it was contained.
"I found a few scratches today," I said.
"Good," he said, and left. I didn't draw any more that day. I looked at the moon.
The next day I was back in the basement. It was almost lunchtime, and <PERSON> came in.
"Come here," he said, and turned and walked out. I followed him down the hall and outside. We crossed the parking lot, me following him. The surface of the blacktop was melting where they had put tar to fill in the cracks. There were no trees in the parking lot and the sun was pushing hard. I followed the back of <PERSON>'s light yellow shirt and tan slacks over to his truck. It was an old, faded mustard-colored pickup that said TOYOTA in white on the back.
When I got to the truck, he was messing around with something in the stake bed. He put the back part that said TOYOTA down. On top of this, he laid out a big, black portfolio. He opened it and there were drawings inside.
"Look," he said. He stepped back, and I looked. He said, "These are mine."
They were good. They were mostly portraits. There were a bunch of portraits of a pretty woman's face, all the same woman. He was a lot better than I was.
"That's <PERSON>, my wife," he said. "She was not my wife then, when I made them. She became my wife."
"She's very beautiful," I said. She was. Prettier than me.
"I did these when I was at school," he said. "I wanted to be artist. But it was no good. It is no good to be artist. I practiced every day, eight hours a day. Then I could draw like <PERSON>. Then what? There is already <PERSON>.
|
16118ad9-540b-ded9-6917-05ffa2f897b7
|
['9e14e111-75c8-0a14-3d8d-0bc89210a146']
|
the rainbows' colors. The way they do it is they sneak up on the rainbows and they each lasso their designated color and then they drain the colors into their buckets and drink them. There are amazing pictures. Well, the goblins get sloppy and a field of flowers overhears their plans and then all the flowers of the valley conspire with the rainbow and the next day, when the goblins attack the rainbow, it disappears and the lassos spring back at the goblins and they're trapped in them and then the flowers secrete weird colorful juices, tons of them, and drown the goblins. One thing that was always interesting to me as a kid was that the goblins didn't wear underwear and when they drowned you could see the blue goblin's butt.
While I was reading this to <PERSON>, sometimes my gaze would catch a picture on the far wall. It was an image from _In the Night Kitchen_. Those three laughing bakers had such fat faces. Heavy-hanging cheeks and bulbous noses like genitals. I didn't want to look, but the picture kept grabbing my eye. <PERSON> lay there with his eyes closed and his mouth open. He was higher than I was.
At the end of the book the rainbow vows to never touch the earth again.
"That shit was stupid. That was your favorite book?"
"Yes."
"Faggot," said <PERSON>. He didn't open his eyes.
I looked up and saw those bakers again. They were cooking up the naked boy in a pie. I was happy there with <PERSON>.
"Those fucking goblins were gay!" he said.
"Not so loud," I told him.
<PERSON> didn't open his eyes. "They _suck_ the juice out of rainbows? Rainbows stand for _faggots_."
_"Shut up, <PERSON>."_
"What? They're _gay_! Rainbows are _gay_!" His eyes were a little open now.
"So?" I said.
"So, don't get all worked up over it. It's just a fact, you and the Rainbow Goblins are _gay_."
"Shut the fuck up, <PERSON>," I said.
"What? They're a bunch of dudes, and they all hang out all the time. That's all they _did,_ hang out together. All those dudes."
"So?" I said.
"And they lived together in a cave."
_"So?"_
"All in a cave! Gay! _Dirty_ and gay," said <PERSON>. As if he was the cleanest guy.
"Great fucking point, <PERSON>. I mean, what children's book character _isn't_ gay?"
<PERSON> didn't answer. Then he said, "A lot of them."
"Cat in the Hat?" I said. "Gay. The Grinch? Gay. Hungry Caterpillar? He turns into a butterfly, gay!" Now <PERSON> was thinking about it. I continued, "The Runaway Bunny, the bunny in _Goodnight Moon,_ the Velveteen Rabbit, _<PERSON>, all gay. All rabbits are gay."
"No."
"They're sensitive, but different, but also like boys, but then also not."
He thought, and then said, "Yeah, I guess they are."
"The little boy who flies around _naked_ in _Night Kitchen,_ and <PERSON> from _Where the Wild Things Are,_ gay!"
"Bullshit, <PERSON> isn't gay."
"Bull true, he dresses up in his little white wolf suit, so gay.
|
d0916fd2-92a7-224d-1e5f-aedc6e8d684d
|
['9e2abb66-7d52-0b33-3ae2-237ea93dcb6f']
|
in the passage we have been looking at in _<PERSON>'s God_ , where horror is not even recognized as horror; as a voyeuristic pleasure rather, and one licensed by an official culture.
We could apply his analysis to international politics and actual torture, or a moneyed world where corruption will do almost anything but speak its name, and the complicated, self-deceiving mind-set would not change a bit. I think of <PERSON> brilliant remark about American interrogations in Iraq: we don't do this kind of thing, even when we are doing it. As <PERSON>'s reference to <PERSON> suggests, he was thinking of the morality of politics as well as theology, and is generally opposed, as <PERSON> reminds us, to "boot-licking admiration" for any sort of tyrant [<PERSON> 38].
But we shall probably hold on to the question most firmly and see its broadest reach if we stay with the vocabulary of hell and damnation and allow it as many meanings, secular and religious, as it will take. We contemplate a group of people, in any century, in heaven or on earth, who see others damned and are not only delighted by the perspective but regard their own delight as virtuous because the best authorities tell them it is. Here we have a whole conspiracy of cruelty: sadism in some, indifference or blind obedience in others, massive self-congratulation all round, and a supposedly benevolent institution wholly in charge.
Or not wholly. The author who had gloated, as the students thought, the institution's yes-man, was the one whose death <PERSON> proclaimed: he was only a fantasy of the institution itself. The author who had not gloated, as <PERSON> knew, was the one to be found and listened to, even if one almost had to embrace the arguments against the intentional fallacy to do it. Enter <PERSON>.
II
<PERSON>'s intention seems to be clear enough, in and out of _Paradise Lost_ , and <PERSON> says we know that a certain speech shows us "<PERSON>'s mind at work, because we can relate it to the _De Doctrina_." This claim is not quite as encouraging as it seems, since <PERSON> also tells us that <PERSON>'s treatise creates "the effect... of a powerful mind thrashing about in exasperation" [MG 136, 115]. From _Seven Types of Ambiguity_ onwards, the ever-present author in <PERSON>'s criticism can be so divided as not to have anything resembling an intention at all. And here the argument gets more and more interesting. What if God's ways can't be justified? And <PERSON> knows this, at least some of the time? The poem is "not good in spite of but especially because of its moral confusions," and "it is only if you realize what a difficult and unpleasant thing <PERSON> was trying to handle that you can give him his due for the way he handled it" [MG 13, 229].
<PERSON> is "struggling to make his God appear less wicked, as he tells us he will at the start" [MG 11]. There is a small salutary shock in realizing that this is <PERSON>'s deadpan
|
fcfb2c84-43ef-f5ce-55e9-342f454d5fa5
|
['9e2abb66-7d52-0b33-3ae2-237ea93dcb6f']
|
Trenching the map into the lines
That prove no building can be square?
Not nationalism nor yet race
Poisons the mind, poisons the air,
Excuses, consequences, signs,
But not the large thing that is there.
Real enough to keep a place
Like this from owning its new heir;
But economics are divines,
They have the floor, they have the flair.... [CP 95–96]
The last phrase is witty but feels like rather loose comment, perhaps provoked by the need to complete the count of lines for the stanza. For the rest, the two stanzas pursue a close and troubling argument concerning what a poet is supposed to do, and then more specifically, what <PERSON>'s own poetry can tell us about whatever it is that "poisons the mind, poisons the air." We are deep in the "sinister, confusing" atmosphere in which the storm is gathering.
"Had I speeches they were song": a transposition of <PERSON>'s "True song, though speech," in the poem quoted in the epigraph. But does <PERSON> have speeches; does he have more to say than what everyone else already thinks? This is a characteristically modest implied question—<PERSON> was always modest when he was not distracted into arrogance—yet worth pondering. He doesn't exactly think like "the throng" but does feel he has nothing to teach his compatriots. He later thought "like a gong" was perhaps "rather too easy a sentiment," but the only snag with the phrase is the vagueness of its connection to "the place." He didn't mean all of "England" was sound: "The claim is that public opinion in England during this decade has been commonly right while independent of its political leaders and the machinery of propaganda" [CP 380]. The answer to his more than rhetorical question—"But really, does it do much good / To put in verse however strong / The welter of a doubt at night / At home, in which I too belong?"—is yes, but don't expect direct results.
And in fact <PERSON>'s next stanza is a fine example of hesitant speech turned into song. His argument finds itself, almost without a pause, thoroughly reversed. If his "entire despair" and the things he cannot face are not personal to him but part of a feeling that is international (if far from universal), then just saying what one can about this mood and these things will be the best any poem can do, and will refute all accusations of flight. At this point the poem represents a subtle and persuasive skepticism about history's apparent preoccupations. Nationalism and race are real enough of course, and they were everywhere in the 1930s, but they are, according to <PERSON>, "excuses, consequences, signs" of something else:
... the large thing that is there
Real enough to keep a place
Like this from owning its new heir.
This language seems vacant at first—"large thing," "real enough"—waiting for a meaning that hasn't arrived. And then we realize that the meaning is not going to arrive, can't get any nearer to us than such hints allow. We don't find the atmosphere "normal," but we
|
6f6b1a8d-7f68-f4aa-84ff-2f6577c3c639
|
['9edbab1b-b4b7-a956-7efd-275408e80889']
|
whole life story to a total stranger in a heartbeat. I'd done it myself with <PERSON>.
"Been in Mexico long?" I asked.
"Only a week," he said.
"Spring break," she chirped.
Across the street, the Huichol Jesus staggered forward past a row of acolytes holding gold-embroidered banners aloft. "We've got four more days," muscle man said.
"Want to buy some smoke?" I asked.
"What?" The blond dude scowled.
"Got the best you ever tasted."
"What's he saying, honey?" The farm girl didn't have a clue.
<PERSON> grabbed me around the neck. "He's trying to sell us narcotics! Go find a cop!"
"What?"
"Get a policeman, <PERSON>! He's selling marijuana."
Eyes wide as a doe caught in the headlights, <PERSON> backed away, not exactly sure of her mission but duty-bound to do as hubby instructed. In a moment, she was lost in the crowd.
"I can't breathe," I gasped.
Mr. <PERSON> was very strong. I felt the iron bulge of his biceps against my larynx. He relaxed his grip a bit and I turned slightly sideways, driving my elbow full-force into his midsection. He made a sound like a tire deflating and let go. I brought my knee up hard between his legs. He doubled over with a toad-croak, and I slipped away among the onlookers. All eyes stared straight ahead at the Passion Play. I didn't run, strolling along like an innocent tourist.
Heart racing, I crossed Avenida Hidalgo into the Plaza de la Rotonda. What an idiot, trying to peddle dope to a pair of Mormons who didn't even drink Coke. Looking over my shoulder, gripped by paranoia, I walked past a ring of columns circling an eternal flame in honor of Jalisco's dead heroes. The Museo Regional de Guadalajara stood just west of the plaza, a block-long two-story colonial building, once some sort of seminary. A perfect sanctuary.
Crossing Calle Liceo, I passed horse-drawn calandrias waiting at the curb opposite the Plaza de la Liberación. I'd come full circle around the cathedral. No one watched me duck into the museum's main entrance. Admission was ten pesos. I hated parting with the price of a day's food, but I'd never find <PERSON> locked up in jail.
I wandered through the several rooms devoted to pre-Columbian pottery from western Mexico until the museum opened into a central tree-shaded courtyard enclosed by arched colonnades. An empty leaf-littered fountain stood at the center.
I paused. Had I killed enough time for the coast to be clear? Across the way, I noticed two muscular long-haired gringos staring at <PERSON> carriage. They had the look of hippies, wearing jeans and denim work shirts, advertising their individuality with a pair of colorful vests, one Guatemalan, the other Afghan or Nepalese. These guys came on as world travelers, yet their threads were off the racks of East Village hippie emporiums.
Taking it slow and easy, I strolled across the courtyard. "<PERSON> was named for <PERSON>," I said, stepping up beside them. "Il Duce's parents were lefties."
"No shit?" the tall guy in the Guatemalan vest said.
|
e8dc6ac2-4935-93be-2843-64681469e0a0
|
['9edbab1b-b4b7-a956-7efd-275408e80889']
|
behind as he hurried down the long hallway. In his urgency, he gave no thought to his previous visit to these elegant surroundings. He thrust through the open doorway into the Queen Anne library and was astonished to discover <PERSON> quietly sipping tea with Sir <PERSON>.
"<PERSON>...?" Sir <PERSON> rose to his feet, teacup in hand.
The magician understood immediately from the Englishman's astonished expression how alien he must appear in his leather flying helmet and rumpled tuxedo. "Did you get my wire at the Plaza?" he demanded.
The housekeeper fidgeted behind him. "I tried to stop him, Mrs. <PERSON>," she whined. "He just wouldn't listen."
"It's all right, <PERSON>." <PERSON> patted the couch cushion beside her. She wore a gold-embroidered green velvet caftan and her pale, oval features gleamed like polished ivory. "Mr. <PERSON> is always welcome here." The housekeeper left the library with a quiet _humph_ of indignation.
<PERSON> grinned. "Took your advice and remained in Buffalo until this morning."
The magician felt utterly foolish. "Wasn't the séance set for six?"
"So it was, old chap," Sir <PERSON> answered, "but a scheduling conflict arose and so we moved it back to five. Absolutely astonishing session. The Ma'am was with me, fresh as life. But, you know all about Mrs. <PERSON>'s remarkable gifts."
<PERSON> blushed. "Well... yes... . She's... a remarkable woman."
"Won't you join us for some tea?" <PERSON> purred. Her enigmatic smile rivaled the Mona Lisa's. "You prefer yours in a glass, I believe."
"No! Thank you, I mean... I'm afraid I must decline. No time to stay." <PERSON> unbuckled the leather flying helmet. "I hope you'll excuse me.... Sir <PERSON>, I need a word with you in private. It's of the utmost importance."
The knight glanced awkwardly at <PERSON>. "If you insist," he said. "I do beg your pardon, Mrs. <PERSON>."
"Not at all," she said. "We all have our little secrets."
The two men stepped out into the hallway, <PERSON> leading them away from the open door. "Most gifted voice medium I've ever encountered," Sir <PERSON> enthused. "I'm recommending her for the _Scientific American_ prize."
The magician ignored his friend's fervor, drawing him into a small sitting room off the hall. "The <PERSON> killer tried to murder me last night," he whispered.
"What!"
"Suckered me into a trap. Used the chloroform."
"Where? I thought you were away on tour."
"Happened in Chicago. Big surprise. 'Pit and the Pendulum,' only no pit."
"Last night you say? How on earth did you—"
<PERSON> impatiently cut him off, answering the unfinished question by waving the flying helmet and goggles like props in an elaborate trick. "Best escape I ever made," the magician boasted. "Had me shackled under a blade as big as a manhole cover. He was after me all along, like you said."
Sir <PERSON> tugged on his earlobe, flabbergasted by his friend's amazing audacity. "You're positive it's a man...?"
"More than that. I know his identity."
"Good Lord! Who is it?"
"I won't make any accusations until I have proof." <PERSON> strode to the door,
|
2791e449-2475-c319-0ccf-10307108f9cf
|
['9f05f420-ee4c-a031-1d73-0baf3a507a06']
|
gnawing at the animal's head and feet at the same time.
"You see," said the old hypocrite, wiping the grease from his moustache, "this is what I am compelled to do in order to avoid giving offence. My granddaughter is a strange being, sir, as you have perhaps observed — "
"That reminds me," I interrupted, "that I wish you to relate her history to me. She is, as you say, strange, and has speech and faculties unlike ours, which shows that she comes of a different race."
"No, no, her faculties are not different from ours. They are sharper, that is all. It pleases the All-Powerful to give more to some than to others. Not all the fingers on the hand are alike. You will find a man who will take up a guitar and make it speak, while I — "
"All that I understand," I broke in again. "But her origin, her history — that is what I wish to hear."
"And that, sir, is precisely what I am about to relate. Poor child, she was left on my hands by her sainted mother — my daughter, sir — who perished young. Now her birthplace, where she was taught letters and the Catechism by the priest, was in an unhealthy situation. It was hot and wet — always wet — a place suited to frogs rather than to human beings. At length, thinking that it would suit the child better — for she was pale and weakly — to live in a drier atmosphere among mountains, I brought her to this district. For this, señor, and for all I have done for her, I look for no reward here, but to that place where my daughter has got her foot; not, sir, on the threshold, as you might think, but well inside. For, after all, it is to the authorities above, in spite of some blots which we see in their administration, that we must look for justice. Frankly, sir, this is the whole story of my granddaughter's origin."
"Ah, yes," I returned, "your story explains why she can call a wild bird to her hand, and touch a venomous serpent with her bare foot and receive no harm."
"Doubtless you are right," said the old dissembler. "Living alone in the wood she had only God's creatures to play and make friends with; and wild animals, I have heard it said, know those who are friendly towards them."
"You treat her friends badly," said I, kicking the long tail of the coatimunri away with my foot, and regretting that I had joined in his repast.
"<PERSON>, you must consider that we are only what Heaven made us. When all this was formed," he continued, opening his arms wide to indicate the entire creation, "the Person who concerned himself with this matter gave seeds and fruitlets and nectar of flowers for the sustentation of His small birds. But we have not their delicate appetites. The more robust stomach which he gave to man cries out for meat. Do you understand?
|
dc4b2c58-9611-194f-6ea1-85293422da75
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['9f05f420-ee4c-a031-1d73-0baf3a507a06']
|
for that's how she dressed.' But in a few moments she jumped up, crying out that she felt a snake under her, and snatched off the shawl, and there, sure enough, out of the middle of the flat bush-top appeared the head of an adder, flicking out its tongue. The dog, too, saw it, dashed at the bush, forcing his muzzle and head into the middle of it, seized the serpent by its body and plucked it out and threw it from him, only to follow it up and kill it in the usual way.
Rough was a large, shaggy, grey-blue bobtail bitch with a white collar. She was a clever, good all-round dog, but had originally been trained for the road, and one of the shepherd's stories about her relates of her intelligence in her own special line – the driving of sheep.
One day he and his smaller brother were in charge of the flock on the down, and were on the side where it dips down to the turnpike-road about a mile and a half from the village, where a large flock, driven by two men and two dogs, came by. They were going to the Britford sheep-fair and were behind time; <PERSON> had started at daylight that morning with sheep for the same fair, and that was the reason of the boys being with the flock. As the flock on the down was feeding quietly, the boys determined to go to the road to watch the sheep and men pass, and arriving at the roadside they saw that the dogs were too tired to work and the men were getting on with great difficulty. One of them, looking intently at <PERSON>, asked if she would work. 'Oh, yes, she'll work,' said the boy proudly, and calling <PERSON> he pointed to the flock moving very slowly along the road and over the turf on either side of it. <PERSON> knew what was wanted; she had been looking on and had taken the situation in with her professional eye; away she dashed, and running up and down, first on one side then on the other, quickly put the whole flock, numbering eight hundred, into the road and gave them a good start.
'Why, she be a road dog!' exclaimed the drover delightedly. 'She's better for me on the road than for you on the down; I'll buy her off you.'
'No, I mustn't sell her,' said <PERSON>.
'Look here, boy,' said the other, 'I'll give 'ee a sovran and this young dog, an' he'll be a good one with a little more training.'
'No, I mustn't,' said <PERSON>, distressed at the other's persistence.
'Well, will you come a little way on the road with us?' asked the drover.
This the boys agreed to and went on for about a quarter of a mile, when all at once the Salisbury coach appeared on the road, coming to meet them. This new trouble was pointed out to <PERSON>, and at once when her little master had given the order she dashed barking
|
7e8eebc7-c1cc-80ac-2969-392200e3120d
|
['9f674cca-911c-4276-3273-f19137da50f7']
|
President of the Republic, <PERSON> (1960–62). Three entirely separate wings make up the residence. In the midst of a beautiful park, the sarangchae (men's wing) is an architectural gem, combining the aesthetics of the hanok with modern comfort (windows, electricity, etc.). This is another house that, unfortunately, is not open to visitors, except when occasional concerts or other special events are held.
Ñ At the end of the alley is the busy road Yulgok-ro and the é Anguk.
ADITIONAL SIGHTS
Art Galleriesa
TSee Gyeongbok-Bukchon Map.
Samcheong-dong has taken over from Insadong and Pyeongchang-dong as the district for contemporary art. It is simply full of galleries, which are among the finest in Seoul. It is easy to spend at least half a day wandering from one to another, or just visit those suggested in the Bukchon walk.
Hyundai Gallery
80 Sagan-dong, Jongno-gu. é Gyeongbokgung, line 3, exit 5. t<PHONE_NUMBER>. www.galleryhyundai.com. >Open Tue–Sun 10am–6pm. Closed 1 Jan and public holidays. No charge.
This is one of the best private galleries in Seoul, owned by the famous corporate group of the same name (hyundai means "modern" in Korean). Explore temporary exhibitions of contemporary art, mostly dedicated to young Korean talent.
Kumho Museum of Art
78 Sagan-dong, Jongno-gu. éAnguk, line 3, exit 1. t<PHONE_NUMBER>. www.kumhomuseum.com. >Open Tue–Sun 10am–6pm. No charge.
Walking up the street that runs alongside Gyeongbokgung, you'll find another gallery owned by a conglomerate. It has several floors, featuring exhibitions of contemporary art, mostly Korean, of variable quality.
Hakgojae Gallery
70 Sogyeok-dong, Jongno-gu. é Anguk, line 3, exit 1. t<PHONE_NUMBER>. www.hakgojae.com. >Open Tue–Sat 10am–7pm (Sun 6pm). No charge.
An excellent gallery in two parts showing traditional and contemporary art; one part is in a lovely renovated traditional house, where consistently good exhibitions are held.
Sun Contemporary Gallery
66 Sogyeok-dong, Jongno-gu. é Anguk, line 3, exit 1. t<PHONE_NUMBER>. www.suncontemporary.com. > Open Mon–Sat 10am–6:30pm. No charge.
On the same street as the Hakgojae Gallery, this is the sister gallery of the Sun Gallery in Insadong and exhibits "young talent" in contemporary art. Despite the limited size, this is one of the most interesting galleries in Seoul.
Kukje Gallery
59-1 Sogyeok-dong, Jongno-gu. é Gyeongbokgung, line 3, exit 5. t<PHONE_NUMBER>. www.kukje.org. > Open Mon–Sat 10am–6pm (Sun and public holidays 5pm). No charge.
Next door to the Sun Contemporary Gallery and exhibiting mainly big international names, Kukje Gallery is a must. It also includes a French/Italian restaurant modestly called "The Restaurant." It is nevertheless excellent, with a good café-bistro that sells delicious pastries and has a nice wine bar.
Artsonje Center
144-2 Sogyeok-dong, Jongno-gu. é Anguk, line 3, exit 1. t<PHONE_NUMBER>. www.artsonje.org. >Open Tue–Sun 11am–7pm. Audio guide on entry. Guided tours 2pm and 4pm (also noon, Sat–Sun ). ₩3,000.
Opposite the Jeongdok Library, this complex includes a basement cinema, a coffee shop and Dal, an Indian restaurant, on the ground floor. The gallery presents a carefully chosen selection of young artists.
Arario Gallery
149-2 Sogyeok-dong, Jongno-gu. é Anguk, line 3, exit 1. t<PHONE_NUMBER>. www.ararioseoul.com. >Open Tue–Sun 10am–7pm. No charge.
After the interesting Artsonje Center in the alley leading
|
22243a62-d212-d405-9550-7b0a18c87c59
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['9f674cca-911c-4276-3273-f19137da50f7']
|
above the waves. If Routes 418 and 59 are open, you can make for Odaesan National Park directly. Otherwise, continue along the coast to the working fishing port of Jumunjin, which has a colorful marketa and some popular restaurants.
Ñ Continue on Rte 7; then turn right on Rte 6 toward Odaesan.
Odaesan National Park
TSee Gangwon-do regional map.
The road follows the Yeongokcheon (Yeongok Stream) before plunging into the scented forests and lush scenery of the national park (t(033)-332-6417, http://english.knps.or.kr). On turning left to Sogeumgang, the road reaches a village from where there are trails to some wonderful waterfalls. Information is available from the rangers, near the blue bridge. Foodies may also like to try the mountain mushroom specialties in one of the local restaurants.
Ñ Continue on the road, which climbs steeply to a pass and then drops down to a junction. Turn left on Rte 44 toward Woljeongsa.
After passing through the park entrance (> 9am–7pm, no charge; ₩7,500 with a car, map of the park ₩1,000), you reach Woljeongsa (t(033)-033-332, > open dawn–dusk)—or the "Temple of the Watchful Moon"—a vast complex surrounded by cypress trees that lies in a bend in the river, reached by two stone bridges. When the crowds are small, the birdsong is so loud that it drowns out the sound of the tumbling water. Founded in 643 by the monk <PERSON><PHONE_NUMBER>, http://english.knps.or.kr). On turning left to Sogeumgang, the road reaches a village from where there are trails to some wonderful waterfalls. Information is available from the rangers, near the blue bridge. Foodies may also like to try the mountain mushroom specialties in one of the local restaurants.
Ñ Continue on the road, which climbs steeply to a pass and then drops down to a junction. Turn left on Rte 44 toward Woljeongsa.
After passing through the park entrance (> 9am–7pm, no charge; ₩7,500 with a car, map of the park ₩1,000), you reach Woljeongsa (t<PHONE_NUMBER>, > open dawn–dusk)—or the "Temple of the Watchful Moon"—a vast complex surrounded by cypress trees that lies in a bend in the river, reached by two stone bridges. When the crowds are small, the birdsong is so loud that it drowns out the sound of the tumbling water. Founded in 643 by the monk Jajang, the temple complex includes a beautiful nine-tier octagonal pagoda that dates from the Goryeo period (10C) and a rare kneeling bodhisattva from the 11C. Exhibits on Buddhist culture from the Goryeo and Joseon periods are presented in a small museum (>open Wed–Mon 9:30am–4:30pm, lunch break at noon; ₩1,000).
The road becomes a track and continues for 5.6mi/9km to another temple, Sangwonsa (t<PHONE_NUMBER>, >open dawn–dusk, no charge).
The valley is superb, with its mountain stream strewn with smooth, marbled rocks, friendly squirrels and the fragrance of pine resin. Perched on the hillside, the small temple complex is famous for its enormous carved bronze bell, said to be the oldest in the country (A.D. 725). O Various paths leave from the temple, including a round-trip (3hr, 4mi/6.5km) to Birobong (5,128ft/1,563m), the highest point in the region.
Ñ Return to Rte 6.
In the summer, flower enthusiasts should make a detour to the Korea Botanical Garden (t<PHONE_NUMBER>, > open Apr–Oct 9am–6pm, ₩5,000).
After the Kensington Hotel (which you can't miss), turn left on to Route 456. This is a popular winter sports region near the ski resort in Yongpyong. The neighboring town of Pyeongchang has even applied to host the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. Windmills signal the proximity of the Daegwallyeong Pass where the panoramic view reveals that you are much higher than you may have realized. In the past, villagers would climb up here to be closer to the gods. The winding descent offers magnificent views of the surrounding landscape and the sea.
Ñ At the outskirts of Gangneung, turn left onto Rte 7 (toward Sokcho) and then quickly right toward Ojukheon.
Gangneunga
TSee Gangwon-do regional map.
Known as the "city of pines," this town
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15da5b58-396f-dabe-99a2-6e2f47524fdc
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['a008fc3f-1e79-d579-1cae-8ff10436d473']
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the manufacturer's transparent base, except that the base has been whitened with a pigment called titanium dioxide. Titanium dioxide is a very aggressive whitener that comes in both cosmetic- and noncosmetic-grade forms.**
**When you're working with opaque white base, there are a number of issues to keep in mind:**
**Titanium dioxide makes all colors look pastel. If you put dark blue coloring in your opaque soap, you will get a soft, pastel blue.**
**Titanium dioxide is heavy, so it adds weight to the base. If you are doing any special technique, such as swirling clear and opaque soap together, you will find that opaque soap tends to sink because of its weight.**
**Because the whitener is suspended in the soap in finely ground particles, titanium dioxide tends to give a little graininess to the soap. You won't feel the graininess when you wash, but you'll notice that it helps the soap kick up more lather more quickly.**
**Soap crafters sometimes complain that opaque bases result in a white dusting or speckling on the top of the soap bars. What is happening is that the white pigment is falling to the bottom of the mold because the soap base is too hot and thin when they pour it into the mold, and the titanium dioxide sinks. To avoid this problem, work with cooler temperatures. Alternatively, "cut" the white soap with some transparent soap. You can melt together as much as 1 part transparent soap to 1 part white soap and still have a white bar of soap. If you're in an experimental mood, blend 1 part white soap with 4 parts transparent soap. The final soap won't be white, but it will have an exotic pearlescence that is really stunning when colored.**
#### Natural Additives
In addition to using dyes and pigments, the soap crafter can also turn to herbs, spices, and resins as sources for color. Browse your local health food store or ethnic grocery store for ideas. Most natural colorants will limit you to yellows, greens, and earth-toned reds and browns.
Generally, there are three options when working with natural colorants:
**Liquids.** Some colorants, such as chlorophyll and annatto, come in liquid form. The general rule is that soap base can take up to ¾ cup of liquid per pound of soap before it starts to lose its ability to solidify, but you should add as little as possible. When you calculate how much extra liquid to add to the base, be sure to include the fragrances and additives to that amount, if these ingredients are also in liquid form.
**Powders.** Natural powdered colorants aren't easily stirred into soap base, so there's a risk of clumping or freckling in the bars. Think of using powdered colorants in the same way you would use flour to thicken gravy. Rather than just dumping the colorant directly into the soap pot, pour off a little bit of the base into a smaller bowl, add the powdered colorant to the smaller quantity of base, and stir well. Slowly add
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bb6f4673-507d-4818-a81c-dd9e699207e5
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['a008fc3f-1e79-d579-1cae-8ff10436d473']
|
in the neighborhood, showed their samples, and took orders. By the end of the summer, they had cleared $70 each and had also developed a good understanding of how to run their own business.**
## 4
controlling light
Color is one key to good soap design, but for simple entertainment value, nothing beats the manipulation of light. Give a small child a bar of soap with a cool toy embedded in the middle, and he will eagerly scrub his way to the reward. Lather up a transparent soap swirled with sea foam green, and the thoughtless act of hand washing is transformed to meditative wonder as the bar wears away to new colors and designs underneath.
Because melt-and-mold soap is transparent, working with it allows you to play with the nature of light. The light that passes through a bar of soap gives the bar depth and visual complexity similar to the beauty of a geode or semiprecious stone.
Light is, therefore, the second building block to good soap design.
### **shadow-box soap**
Stack your memories in a bar of soap! A shadow box contains a montage of memorabilia set at different heights. The effect is that of a three-dimensional collage. In this recipe, images are embedded in the soap at different levels. When you look at the bar, it looks less like a two-dimensional canvas and more like a "shadow box," as the embedments are layered to create depth. While we use hand-drawn images for this soap, you can use anything, such as stickers or stamped pictures.
#### **shadow-box soap**
**Level of Difficulty:**
**What You Will Learn:**
How layering can create visual depth
**Ingredients:**
1 pound transparent soap
1-3 teaspoons fragrance of choice (choose a colorless fragrance to avoid discoloring the soap)
¼ teaspoon pigment colorant of choice
**Special Materials:**
Artwork drawn on regular paper with any drawing material
Heavy-duty, clear packing tape or laminating paper
A four-cavity or a large 3-cavity mold of choice
Toothpick or other small tool
**1** Cut the artwork into three smaller elements (like a tree, a sun, and a house). Wrap the pieces with the packing tape or laminating material, front and back, to protect the design from moisture. Trim away any excess plastic.
**2** Melt the soap as instructed.
**The last layer of the shadow box is colored to provide contrast with the foreground layers. Experiment with using more than one color in this final pour.**
**3** Add the fragrance oil.
**4** Pour enough soap into the mold to fill it a quarter of the way. Immediately set the first piece of artwork facedown into the soap. You may need to nudge the artwork into place with a toothpick.
**5** When the soap has cooled and is firm to the touch, spritz it with alcohol.
**6** Pour more melted soap into the mold, to about the halfway mark. Immediately place the next piece of artwork facedown into the soap.
**7** When the soap has cooled and is firm to the touch, spritz it with alcohol.
**8** Pour more hot soap into your
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['a05437a8-02bd-12fd-efc3-4b95119c9295']
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is yet another time that active listening skills come in handy. Giving victims your full attention, really hearing them, and letting them know that you've heard them will make things go much more smoothly. Active listening helps you drop the sorts of self-serving defenses that prevent you from seeing things clearly and thus, from fixing actual problems rather than what you imagine (or wish) those problems to be.
If you run a business and are hearing about an incident in real time from a victim, in addition to your apologies and actions to make the situation right, you can offer to make it up to them directly with free admission to the next show, a free drink or meal, or whatever goods or services you can give. Understand that they might refuse, especially if your offer could be read as promotion for your business, along the lines of "Here's a free shirt with our name on it!" It's important to let them know that you are willing to do what you can in order to regain their trust.
In a 2018 study, where the researchers were able to directly analyze video footage of customer service desk interactions at two busy airports, two broad conclusions were drawn. The first was that "customers cared less about the actual outcome than about the process by which the employee tried to offer assistance." For our purposes, that roughly translates to the fact that victims are not holding you personally responsible for the harassment they have endured from someone else, but they will hold you responsible for how you handle their complaint. The second broad conclusion? Being overly apologetic does little to satisfy a dissatisfied customer. To be frank, it can be read as weak and passive when people are looking for an active attitude of responsibility and reparations. But someone who uses active listening to ensure they understand the grievance, sincerely apologizes, and then moves swiftly to rectify the situation is seen as capable, putting others at ease more quickly. "Sorry" is not usually enough, and empty repetitions only make matters worse. You must take action.
It's also good form to create and post public policies that specifically address how the incident could have been prevented or handled better. If you already had policies in place, and they failed you, update them. Consult local experts, search the internet. The more prep work you do, the easier it is to handle these situations when they occur.
Recognize that the individuals involved might not ever forgive you. Just because you have apologized does not mean you are entitled to forgiveness—that's not the goal of an apology! You can't predict or control a victim's reaction. Going back to "how things used to be, like it never even happened," is not the goal of this process. Whether they think you really messed up, or don't feel relaxed there anymore, or your space (or face) just makes them think of what happened to them, they might not want to return ever again. All of those reasons are valid, and none of
|
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|
when you are not as worried about your physical safety and you're up for playing with this mouse like a cat. Those times may be few and far between, so feel free to have fun! You deserve a laugh. So when someone is acting a fool, act a fool right back. One cool thing about the anti-street-harassment community is how many badass, empowering, and just plain funny responses people have come up with to deal with harassment. A Google search is sure to provide more inspiration, but here are a few to get you started:
* Pick your nose at them.
* Announce that you just farted.
* When they ask to marry you, say "Yes, finally! I have a few kids I need help caring for. Hope you have a good job."
* Bellow "Whoooooooooo caaaaaaaaaaaares?!" like a giant foghorn.
* Repeat everything they say like a five-year-old.
* Dance like a chicken (à la the TV show Arrested Development).
* Sing your phone number to them (it just happens to be the same as the song "867-5309").
* If they tell you to smile, say "My dad just died."
* If they say "Lemme talk to you for a minute," start the countdown "60, 59, 58, 57, 56...",
* If they tell you you're "an ugly dyke," let them know you get more chicks than them.
* If they make fun of your hijab, say "Oh this? It's just hiding the serpents—or do you want me to turn you to stone?"
* If someone asks to touch your hair, ask if you can punch their face.
* If you're with a friend, pretend you don't hear or understand what your harasser is saying and have your pal repeat every bullshit thing they say in a very loud voice. Use your best imitation of <PERSON> "WHAAAT?"
* Pretend they are someone you know. You: "Hey, <PERSON>, it's been so long!" Him: "I'm not <PERSON>, girl, I'm <PERSON>, and I think you're sexy as hell." You: "<PERSON>, it's so good to see you! How's little <PERSON>? You still work at the graveyard, <PERSON>? Hey, <PERSON>, you owe me $500, remember?"
* Stare back. Keep staring. Don't break eye contact and make them feel weirded out for weirding you out!
* Physically get in their way until they acknowledge you. Don't let them get where they are trying to go until they apologize (or whatever reasonable thing you're asking them to do).
Creativity-wise, there are also endless, somewhat more artistic things you can try:
* Chalk walk: Put your message on the actual street for everyone to see! Whether you want to overwhelm a space with a message you wish they agreed with ("No Harassment Here" or "Harassment-Free Zone") or you want to warn the neighborhood ("This place harasses women" or "Don't give your money to racists"), it's
|
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['a0d69632-49a3-4ea1-3a1a-9c766684949c']
|
the directive would come from Moscow, from the highest powers, to give me whatever I want. Anything I want: to work in the library, interact with the other prisoners. 'Her term's almost over. Shut her up.' Shut me up. Enough with the human rights delegations, enough with the human rights. Or whatever you call it.
earlier
'We never have any milk!'
'The climate is harsh in the Urals. It's winter for half the year.
It's dark; you don't get the vitamins you need.'
'Is this all?' <PERSON> says, sighing wearily.
'No! Drinking coffee without milk is disgusting!'
'The coffee itself is disgusting,' he grumbles, closing the door.
A month later, milk appears in the store for the first time at Penal Colony No. 28.
milk in the urals
So much has been achieved. I won't stop the hunger strike. Here's a woman who won't see her son for another three years. We've achieved so much, but she won't see her son. She is from my unit. She sits on a bench, her head drooping – grey hair in the June breeze. She says:
'Maybe it was better the way it was before, <PERSON>?'
'Don't you see? People are suffering!'
'Why do you need all this? Why do you care?'
Why?
a loan
'<PERSON>, could you lend me a pack of smokes until Friday?' one of the girls in her blue prison uniform asks me.
'Sure,' I say.
As soon as she leaves the storage room, another girl, in a green uniform, approaches me. She says, 'She went to the head of surveillance to report all your movements. She goes there every day and reports every single move you make. And you give her cigarettes,' the girl says indignantly. 'You should give them to me, instead,' she adds.
'Take them,' I say.
The unit monitor tells me: 'They talk behind your back. They say, "She doesn't give a damn. She doesn't give a damn about us. She just sits there reading <PERSON>." Go and do something – show them what you're made of. Otherwise, they'll never shut up.'
never shut up
I do not refer to the guards in the colony other than as 'the staff'. I show them respect.
Major <PERSON> invites me to meet him in a large room. This is the guards' club, where I won my court case. But the court is not in session today. He is sitting in an armchair at an oak table. He is sitting in an armchair, certain that the room is his domain, that the court case meant nothing at all. It is many days into my hunger strike.
Major <PERSON> has received orders to persuade me to stop my hunger strike. He invites me to sit down at the negotiating table. My legs are shaking. The major has a red face. His eyes squint. The major speaks cautiously. Over the past half-year, we have both learned to choose our words carefully. The major doesn't wish me harm. He doesn't wish anything at all, except for me not to be here. Me and
|
36eda693-6187-5ade-285b-811994ea326a
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['a0d69632-49a3-4ea1-3a1a-9c766684949c']
|
left to go to the police station in my place to find out what was going on.
That day, 23 February, central Moscow was almost empty. There were police everywhere downtown. People in camouflage uniforms were spread out in the side streets, hanging around the terraces of all the cafés. I had already taken apart my phone and put it back together again a hundred times. I was meeting the lawyer in ten minutes, and I was convinced I'd found the perfect hiding place – a café bathroom. I didn't want to come out. The whole place was crawling with people in epaulettes and camouflage.
'And the Leader said to his regiments,
"Men, is Moscow not with us?"'
khaki-skin
I could hear the television blaring inside the café: a live broadcast. <PERSON> is at the stadium, surrounded by a huge crowd, reading a poem by <PERSON>. It's on every channel.
Let's die near Moscow,
As our brothers died.
And we vowed to perish
And we kept our vow of faith
In the Battle of Borodino.
The Battle of Borodino? I thought. Is he in his right mind? All the traffic in Moscow is shut down and the city is swarming with police because <PERSON> decided to call out a bunch of supporters-for-hire and recite poems to them? And this had to happen now, of all times, when the police are looking for me. 'It's my lucky day,' I muttered under my breath as I walked along Kamergerskiy Lane to meet the lawyer, and bumped into one of the uniformed men. He appeared out of nowhere, on the pavement, flooded in sunlight. Behind him were two more; they all wore light blue berets. A thought went through my head: Strange, NK V D officials used to wear those, too.
'Oh, excuse me,' I managed to say.
Before we even said hello, the lawyer told me, 'Don't go to the police. They've issued a warrant for your arrest. Run.'
run, <PERSON>
We went into hiding somewhere on the outskirts of town, where the city turns into countryside. We switched off our phones as soon as the train came into the station. We hurried, certain that we were being tailed, constantly turning around, then separating to reach the apartment we were going to hide in by different routes. We stayed in that apartment for several days.
rule #3: use cash
'We have an interview scheduled with Al Jazeera.'
'But we don't have a single balaclava left.'
'So what? We'll go to the store and buy hats, then cut them up. We've still got two hours before the interview, there's plenty of time.'
'What if there's not enough time to get them?'
'We'll wrap ourselves in sheets.'
'We can't do that! It's Al Jazeera. They'll think we're terrorists!'
We found some hats in the only second-hand shop around. We stood by a wall trying to set up Skype on an old laptop so that our four heads fit on to one screen. We kept interrupting each other in the interview, saying that we didn't want to
|
38f6f2d4-ff88-0ae1-48d1-26a5c0005fdd
|
['a0ef1a5c-d671-da67-1f70-4c7650002f0d']
|
this technique in Chapter 5). In these shots it's temporarily in place to check the fit_.**
**_The immediate areas around the bridge were formed once more with Styrofoam, cut to shape this time with a razor saw_.**
**_Once happy, the Styrofoam was fixed in place with PVA, once more temporarily inserting the bridge to check the fit_.**
**_The areas surrounding the wing walls were then plotted and the lines to be cut marked on further Styrofoam blocks_.**
**_The pieces were then stuck in place, held in situ with cocktail sticks whilst the PVA dried and a layer of kitchen-roll soaked in more PVA applied_.**
**_To speed-up the drying process, a cheap hair-drier was employed, set at its minimum temperature_.**
**_With the bridge now permanently fixed in place, shots like this were taken to see the effect. In this one a modified Bachmann 4F heads eastwards to King's Lynn on a three-carriage set from Nottingham. The set is made up from modified proprietary carriages and kits. The area through the bridge is just a photograph, taken along the real road_.**
**_The real thing as it was in 2009. It's even more overgrown following seven more years of no attention. Thankfully, it still stands_.**
**_Observation of the real thing is essential for representing scenic work. Though most of the embankments and cuttings today in the vicinity are so overgrown as to make photography very difficult, odd patches still remain as they looked nearly sixty years ago; such as here behind 60009 at Creeton in 2012_.**
**_If the representation of large areas of grass is required then an 'economical' approach has to be undertaken. For general embankment and cutting representation, use garden centre hanging-basket liner, sold in rolls_.**
**_A layer of neat PVA was applied to the ready-dry embankment sides_.**
**_The hanging-basket liner was then torn into pieces, teased out and applied in small sections (you end up with extremely hairy fingers!)_**
**_Once dry, the liner was given a 'close-shave' with a cheap self-haircutting set, any prominent 'whiskers' being vacuumed off later_.**
**_A pleasing, uniform and subtle representation of rough, summer-dry grass was then achieved_.**
**_Areas of the limestone-based embankment were left bare in part. If anyone considers this representation of limestone is unrealistic, perhaps they might consider where it came from. Yes, the actual embankment!_**
**_Other than the much cheaper hanging-basket liner, proprietary grass mats were also used in part. These are Noch items, sold by Gaugemaster. Though relatively expensive, they are remarkably effective_.**
**_I used these mats to represent more verdant patches of grass on horizontal surfaces. Water will run down an embankment and any grass on it will be less lush. Noch also make individual clumps of grass_.**
**_The mats were initially laid in place to check the fit and torn to shape rather than cut, to give uneven edges_.**
**_Viscous PVA glue was spread over the backs of the sheets_.**
**_Firm pressure was then applied to ensure the mats were fixed in place. The contrast in greens I found most pleasing_.**
**_Areas around the edges were represented by longer tufts of
|
595541e0-89a7-3924-b1ad-c7d6f8890220
|
['a0ef1a5c-d671-da67-1f70-4c7650002f0d']
|
are made for you with regard to how many points there should be, where they should be positioned and how long any roads/sidings should be. Here, <PERSON> is taking a datum from the scale plan to fix the first road's position on the trackbed_.**
**_Having plotted the position, marks were made at regular intervals, giving the centre of the first road to be laid. As a base, insulation foam (which does not degrade) was stuck down to the plywood with PVA prior to this procedure taking place_.**
**_<PERSON> had made the pointwork on top of paper templates, initially weathering them after they were completed. Once the first road had been positioned, any pointwork was temporarily laid in position as a trial fit. Such was the excellence of his work, no modifications were needed_.**
**_The main pointwork was the series of slips crossing between the respective slow lines at the north end. Complex formations like this must be right at source, otherwise running will be compromised. A small vanity mirror was used to ensure the alignment was correct at all times_.**
**_To maintain the correct centres (the six foot gap between adjacent running lines) a small Plastikard jig was used with two nicks cut into it, to fit over the respective rail heads of each line. Once the initial road's position was marked out and confirmed, every subsequent road was plotted from this_.**
**_With the centres marked in pencil, the positions for point motor operating rods were marked and a hole drilled for each one_.**
**_To cover the subsequent hole, a rectangular section was cut out around it and a replacement piece of foam fashioned, into which a slot was cut to allow the point operating rod to move from side to side, as appropriate. Without this, there'd have been a large hole underneath each tiebar_.**
**_Once happy with the alignment and with holes for the point rods made, a layer of high-quality PVA glue was spread over where the roads would be positioned_.**
**_The trackwork was then laid in position and tacked down initially with a staple gun. Pinning track down on scenic sections is not advised_.**
**_With the trackwork temporarily held in place with staples, the ballast was liberally spread over the rails and sleepers and on to the wet PVA. Slater's N gauge granite ballast was used. Why OO gauge ballast is too big is not known, though it's useful for ballasting O gauge track, and so on_.**
**_Surplus ballast was then levelled off with a cheap dust brush, ensuring an even layer overall_.**
**_After checking again with the vanity mirror to ensure that all was well, loose ballast was taken off with a vacuum cleaner (after letting the ballast settle for about 15min). One can either have a dedicated vacuum cleaner (as here) or place a piece of nylon stocking over the nozzle so that any vacuumed-up ballast can be recovered. After this, any staples were removed_.**
**_With that long crossing in place and ballasted, further trackwork was added in the same manner, once more with the little mirror
|
8fe54cdf-a255-86d7-3eb5-0f685f8e7ed9
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['a12ed4c6-9b8e-4d4c-f8d2-fc4872e109d0']
|
don't... have any sort of refrigeration unit here?"
She seemed bemused. "I—I have a deep freeze for frozen foods and such."
"No... I mean, perhaps something to do with farming. For hanging meat. Something like that?"
"This isn't a butchery, Sergeant. It's a family home."
"Of course," <PERSON> said. "Just a thought."
She accompanied him to the front door. Outside, on the gravel drive, the estate manager's SUV was parked. Lady <PERSON> seemed surprised not to see a police vehicle there. "Are you on foot?"
"Afraid so," <PERSON> said. "No worries, though. The exercise will do me good."
"I'd get <PERSON> to run you, but I don't know where she is at present."
<PERSON> waved that aside. "It's alright."
Lady <PERSON> persisted. "Where is it you're going to?"
"Barrowby."
"Oh... well, that's not too far. You can even take a short cut." She pointed across the front lawn toward a wall of foliage. "There are deer paths through the coppice. Follow any one of them. They lead downhill to Croglin Beck. You'll have to get across that, of course, but it's only shallow and there are plenty of stepping stones. Should cut half an hour off your journey."
<PERSON> thanked her and set off across the lawn. A few minutes later, he reached the outer cover of the trees, and glanced back. To his surprise, Lady <PERSON> was still watching him... as if to make sure he was really leaving. As casually as he could, <PERSON> raised a hand. She raised her own hand in return. Then he plunged into the thicket.
For several moments, he fought his way through meshed branches, but at last he broke out onto a path. It was narrow and cluttered with fallen twigs, but it led clearly away in a more or less southerly direction. <PERSON> started along it. On all sides, the leaves had that bright green, freshly painted look so consistent with spring. The undergrowth had yet to become thick and tangled, and indeed there were still swathes of bluebells between the gnarled boles of the trees. The air was fragrant with blossom and bud. Above his head, a red squirrel darted like a streak of flame over a low-hanging bough. There was an aura of solitude that <PERSON> found pleasant. In this May of the year 2000, there was much debate in Britain between country and town: Who had the right to go where? Should fences be put up or taken down? Was it really humane to ban blood sports when they provided jobs for a legion of rural dwellers?
<PERSON> couldn't comment on any of this. He'd been born and raised in a dismal urban district... its grimy sights and smoky scent were second nature to him; without the clangor of shunting locomotives and factory sirens, he found the world oddly silent. Yet this vast tranquil acreage, which still made up so much of England, had a special place for him, too. He'd enjoyed enough countryside holidays to know how lulling it could be, how secret and secluded, how much safer than
|
40a1d365-5d07-1e2e-95da-59526e49c6b7
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['a12ed4c6-9b8e-4d4c-f8d2-fc4872e109d0']
|
didn't know if this was what had inspired the area's name, or if the tiredness brought on by days of hiking in the heat-soaked desert was skewing her vision, but <PERSON> enjoyed the sight anyway—it was kind of like walking on the surface of a sea filled with scorpions, giant desert centipedes, blister beetles, and tarantula hawk wasps instead of sharks and poisonous jellyfish.
"There," <PERSON> said suddenly. Her gaze followed his pointing finger to a pile of beautiful, sunset-washed boulders at the bottom of an incline that led up the side of a small mountain, just one of dozens that remained anonymous on their maps. There were darker shadows amid the huge rocks, deeper crevices that begged for exploration but were likely already occupied. As if to confirm this, they heard the high-pitched wail of a coyote somewhere on the mountainside. "That's where we'll sleep tonight."
It took another twenty minutes to get there, with nighttime slipping in and greedily sucking away the last of the evening's light and the final traces of the day's heat as well; it was as if someone had opened a cosmic refrigerator and they were caught in the escaping wash of frigid air. Still, the desert was anything but done for the day—there was a sense of expectation in the chilly, creosote-scented air, and she knew from the expression on <PERSON>'s face that he felt it, too. It didn't matter that they were exhausted to the bone, because sleep would be a long time coming.
<PERSON> gratefully released the buckles on her hiker's backpack and shrugged it off, sweeping the ground with one hiking boot to make sure she wasn't setting it on top of something alive, and listening for the warning rattle of a snake. But there was only the quiet; the coyote's cry had dwindled away and nothing had moved in to take its place—even the desert grass seemed reluctant to make noise in the occasional stingy breeze.
"Let's eat," she suggested as <PERSON> pulled himself free of his own pack and let it drop. He nodded, and it wasn't long before they'd made a little dinner, working in sync to fire up the camp stove and pull together a no-frills meal of reconstituted beef stew and crackers, a pot of decaf coffee. Afterward they sat in silence, gazing unseeingly at the desert. Its blackness surrounded them, nearly smothering beneath a moonless sky that would have melted into the horizon had it not been for the mad paintbrush sweep of stars overhead, crystalline points of light in the unpolluted air. She was fatigued, yes, but she was... excited, too, full of the desert's odd sense of expectation and that deep heat that she always got around <PERSON> when they were "out in it," as they sometimes called their treks into the dangerous unknown. She could see him watching her across the last flames of the small can of fuel, his eyes as dark as the crevices in the rocks at his back, his hair a layer of blackness that made the white of
|
48d3c2b0-6d8e-f638-ce35-f13d01d66323
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['a1ce5305-1ca2-3faf-2c23-80e5f80619e5']
|
we touched it?
Let's rewind forty-odd years to the groovy 1960s, and take a look at this question through the lens of a then-popular theory called Transactional Analysis.
Transactional analysis (TA) is a slightly wacky branch of psychology centered around (you guessed it!) transactions between people. One of TA's central tenets is that in any given situation, a person's primary goal is not to do what will make her happy, but what will reinforce her worldview. The actions and transactions she engages in to reinforce her worldview are called games. For example, a roommate playing the martyr game will stay up after the house party, mop the floor, and pick up all the beer bottles himself—not because it will make him happy, but because it will justify his worldview that he's the only responsible one, and everyone else is a sloppy jerk.
We can think about going off meds as a kind of game—the going-off-meds game, or the "I'm not bipolar, I don't need meds" game. When you try to go off meds, is it because you really believe you'll be a happier, healthier person without them? Or is it because you temporarily have an "I'm not bipolar" worldview that needs reinforcing? One of the crazy things about bipolar disorder is the tricks it plays on your mind, making you think you're better when you're not, or temporarily filling you with disdain for the very treatment that's been keeping your sorry ass out of the hospital for the past six months. Just having bipolar disorder can cause your normal worldview to fluctuate, leading you to play all sorts of games to justify your new worldview. (Parents and significant others, are you listening? Your bipolar kid/boyfriend/girlfriend isn't stupid or crazy for irrationally wanting to go off medication. It's just another aspect of the disorder. Be nice to them.)
Another big idea in TA is that transactions between people are made up of strokes. Think chimpanzees picking through each other's hair for lice. Strokes are the verbal equivalent of petting each other. Different games require different strokes. Think back to the martyr roommate cleaning the kitchen long into the night. Now imagine the following conversation taking place in the kitchen the next morning:
**Hungover roommate**. Whoa, it's so clean in here.
**Martyr roommate** , _sighs_. Yep.
**Hungover roommate**. Did someone, like, stay up all night and clean or something?
**Martyr roommate**. I did. I was up until 4:30. It took me an hour to get all the vomit out of the couch.
**Hungover roommate**. Dude, you didn't have to do that. We all would have cleaned today.
**Martyr roommate**. You always say that, but no one ever does.
**Hungover roommate**. That's because you always do it before we get the chance.
This situation reinforces the martyr roommate's worldview that his hungover roommate is lazy, that he (martyr roommate) has to do everything himself, and that nobody appreciates him. The martyr roommate sets the game in motion by cleaning up before anyone has a chance to help, thereby ensuring that he will maintain his martyr
|
a703a065-8e94-01fd-e588-bc68c72fa4fa
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['a1ce5305-1ca2-3faf-2c23-80e5f80619e5']
|
you don't need to eat or sleep, and feel a vast and potent connection to complete strangers. Words tumble out of your mouth in a great flood. You start taking your job as a mall cop too seriously and stay up all night drafting a new and improved plan for mall safety, which you work on tirelessly with no breaks for several days. _It's the key, the key. People spend all their time in malls, right? Safety is key, right? Mall safety, that's where it's at, that's where it's at_. Your friends and family notice a difference and try to talk you down. "Dear, can we not talk about the menace of escalators tonight?"
Technically, mania is defined by the DSM-IV as "a distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood, lasting at least one week (or any duration if hospitalization is necessary)." Therefore, drinking too much coffee and running around like a ferret for _one_ day doesn't qualify as a manic episode (unless you get caught by animal control and hospitalized for it). The _DSM-IV_ lists seven symptoms of mania, at least four of which are usually present in a full-blown manic episode:1
1. _Inflated self-esteem or grandiosity_
You (mistakenly) think you're famous and important or think you have special powers. You suddenly realize you're a better painter than anyone else in your art class, and start plotting an elaborate gallery opening at the Museum of Modern Art, featuring your work next to <PERSON>. Your teacher is confused because this represents a major change from your normally humble personality.
2. _Decreased need for sleep_
You keep coming home from the bar at 3 a.m. Tonight you take a one-hour nap, then go for a run, paint the house, and organize a dinner party for all your friends. Sleep is a bad word.
3. _More talkative than usual_
You have pressured speech (the sensation that you need to be talking) and a flood of ideas you need to express. Friends and teachers ask you to slow down and explain your thoughts, but it's too hard.
4. _Flight of ideas, racing thoughts_
Your mind is like a speeding train, or several speeding trains on different tracks. You can't slow down your thoughts, and your ideas fly to their wildest conclusions. You might enjoy the sensation of being flooded with ideas at first, but later become overwhelmed and terrified by it.
5. _Distractibility_
What?
6. _Increase in goal-setting activity or psychomotor agitation_
You're working on a very important project and realize there are three other side projects you should be doing to really get it working. You check twenty books out of the library and start researching every aspect of your subject area. You don't understand why other people can't see the importance of your project. You feel the need to move around a lot.
7. _Excessive involvement in pleasurable activities (such as buying
|
e18982b6-06eb-2f58-2920-f99c19fa8998
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['a28148d2-e142-e9c4-84ac-01470b82884d']
|
mistress can only make love on a bed of wool,
so I'm trying to lay my hands on as much wool
as my hands can carry before the dawn
offers up loneliness and undimpled wool.
I'm desperate, baby. No arguing with wool.
She says it's the finest touch ever made.
Concern for fineness is not American-made.
No one will help out this poor fool.
Already I see her leaving, and the way she walks
consigns me to prattle on the catwalks.
My mistress could teach how fortune's turned
away from delight, to project the unexpected,
its grabbery. Blackjack tables are overturned.
The deck chairs are overturned.
Look for more when you run out of thread,
count on more than four aces in a deck.
At night a cartoonishness paces the deck
looking for residual icebergs of oblivion.
I walked beside the captain, debating oblivion,
the ways we pictured it. Quiet on the deck.
A figure snoozed against a lifeboat turned
upside down for shade. The captain turned
and told me kings go mad and dine on soil
when their soldiers run out of stones,
that the poor go somewhere else to cut sod
and measure their rectangles of dirt,
that this is it, spaceman: life on Earth,
this dancing, my dancing, her dancing.
I wish my body would become a guitar,
when my soul is just beginning to drum
the lines that separate self from stage.
Crossed, they ghost the body a dress.
Failure's no problem for one who walks
without destination. The promise I've made
is to stay glad every dawn,
with one moment enough to go on,
shorn from time's fullest wool,
though its fabric is sometimes returned
and exchanged for cheaper oblivion,
preferring with its infinite thread
the confusion that reigns on deck
when repetition wearies the soul,
though its fabric sometimes belongs
tucked tight across my sleeping body
as my soul slips away from obligations
and steps outside to glare at the night.
## Little Song
To leave you is like waking, or refusing to wake,
in that way the body has of haunting itself.
Returned to your hand, I'm the astronomer
unable to lower his telescope, or look away.
You're the telescope, too. Close, you show me
far reaches that are themselves not even the beginning.
Not to be the one who left is to live in an alarm.
The unstraightened bed.
But don't I always bring bright souvenirs from our travels,
a feather, a coin, a bee? Astonishing in my palm.
Minutes past your touch, what our bodies were
is disappearing like a ship caught in polar ice,
covered up, compressed into deep. To leave you
is where the icicles fall, the fog we wake to.
III
## Inland Empire
Up late reading zombie
comic books, I wake
to first-person shooters
and coffee in the red mug
<PERSON> left behind when she
moved back to Hammond.
My disarray is so local.
The pilot light's gone
the way of all lost pilots
into the dark waters
of the Whirlpool furnace.
And yet
|
5ba178a0-0b30-53f3-30a1-f91e764f87c0
|
['a28148d2-e142-e9c4-84ac-01470b82884d']
|
against the wall of the stage.
I'd go shoegazer, and they'd yank the guitar
from my hands and make me bang the drum.
Red alert. Storm brewing. Alarmed by drum,
estuarine communities say prayers to who made
them eat mangrove; go on long mean walks
to hunt bushmeat; colonial ancestors who made
tactical mistakes. I often leave the bed unmade,
forget to pull tartan blanket weaved from wool
tight across the mattress the mattress factory made
and <PERSON> had delivered to our door made
from an oak tree that could no longer go on
while the demand for front doors would go on.
And all the creatures that jug-band in the shade
have to find a new shade to hide in at dawn.
<PERSON> sleeves grow damp at dawn.
A potter I know knows about oblivion.
For every decorative dish she's turned
on her heel and sent to the possible oblivion
of the kiln, she's had to forget oblivion.
She presses sign into clay, so when the deck
her products rest on decomposes into oblivion,
her sign will become part of oblivion;
in some geologic time nobody has expected,
future diggers will strike the unexpected
shards and have to contemplate oblivion
the way she did, that knotted thread
that through the centuries' eyes may thread,
so let the Maya build without sod
more pyramids from Yucatecan stones.
The old ones have been covered with sod.
(And cover the rebuilt ones again with sod.)
Let astronauts terrafirm alien soil
for pioneers to condition their fear of sod
away from where pioneers have divorced sod.
For I'm tired of studying only this Earth,
happy and unhappy families scarring the earth,
and want to expand past the mysteries of sod,
ramble around on something not called dirt.
As dirt extinguishes me, let me extinguish dirt.
It twists in the wind. Soul spoke to body:
inhale whatever mists, to what they belong,
burl the random stones of wordless body,
dream to tour thighs of a nectarine body.
Even if I knock, it's not kick of soul
gestating within, but a new set of obligations.
Possession sets its own obligations.
It can be argued that it never ends, night,
the way sun has to break it. The default is night.
Night renders to day, often, a dead body,
renders like a trawler a maw of obligations
not to shrimp, but to the shrimp boat obligations,
slick jackets backed against the oil drum,
and each eye the black hole of a guitar.
On the river, I hear the war drum
in every birdcall. The early radio's _all_ drum,
and the nightmare cartoon keeps dancing
to some inner unstoppable drum
of mine, which evolves the body into a drum,
skin stretched tight as the dancer's dress
at some nightclub going on without address,
with all my lovers playing drum
up on the crepe paper and bunting of the stage,
until I'm summoned to appear onstage.
What seems staged, emerging from dawn
solid as last night's settling dusk made
seem knock the harsh scenery of dawn,
rosy cutout fingers
|
8b5b170f-0bf0-8a66-ad5c-8ac56496ac90
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|
trends and tendencies, experiential, stylistic, etc.), among those who engaged in the arts and thought in Cuba and those who did so in the diaspora.
That was just it: the severing of human connections (which are always stronger than ideological or political connections) had been a strategy of the Revolution, which adopted as a principle one of the traits of <PERSON> egocentric personality: the obsessive use of the maxim "Divide and rule". As has already been shown, in his long life <PERSON> managed to chalk up an astonishing tally of attacks on the unity and integrity of those who prevented him from achieving his goals. This warped behaviour was demonstrated even in his distant childhood with his own siblings, as is clear from the anecdotes told by his sister <PERSON>, his older brother <PERSON>, and even <PERSON> himself.
Under that divisive rule, the Revolution would not allow any such cultural reunification to take place because it would lose him his absolute control of culture which, as has been mentioned, was one of his most powerful propaganda tools. Furthermore, some of the international sponsors of this attempt at reunification featured on the official blacklist of enemies of the "revolutionary process". It was therefore understandable that the Cuban government would have an interest in the failure of the events and projects which were all based on the naive belief that such dialogue could be possible with the involvement of the people who had thought of themselves as lords and masters of Cuban culture since 1959.
This explains why the meeting in Stockholm, in 1994, organised by the Olof Palme International Centre and coordinated by the Cuban exiled writer <PERSON>, only took place after lengthy and complex bureaucratic procedures and, as several of the participants say to this day, it was a meeting thwarted in its central aim – to rebuild bridges. The same then happened with " _La isla entera_ " ("The whole island"), a poetry symposium: participants from the island received their "exit permits" just 24 hours before their departure. Although the pressure on them from the political police and cultural commissars would strain their relations with their exiled colleagues at some points, in general there was a close and respectful relationship that irked the censors on the island. As a result, subsequent official analyses of the conference, in Cuba, would be poisoned by the belligerent and excluding language typical of the political leadership, who wished to prevent the experience being repeated.
They succeeded: the Berlin Cuban Literature Conference in 1995, after a long saga of complications lasting two months, was attended by only two writers from the island. The Festival of Nantes, also in 1995, which aimed to provide a complete overview of Cuban culture and to which had been invited hundreds of writers on the island and in exile, in the end could not be held because the Cuban government disagreed with the inclusion of some artists and writers which it considered direct enemies. "The short story in Cuban literature," a seminar organised in Madrid by the
|
1dbc0964-148b-f503-90d3-a0d0a0bcb909
|
['a2a4e796-b609-9c90-c75b-977e0bf11a9c']
|
be acted upon".
_ PAIDEIA Group – Third Option
In this environment in Cuba influenced by _perestroika_ and _glasnost_ , the PAIDEIA project also managed to emerge (if not survive). Without being a group or movement, it had an impact on the ossified official cultural scene of the second half of the 1980s. Again, like _El Puente_ , it aimed to provide a space for promoting the island's abundant and varied avant-garde arts, in all their forms, independent of the power structures set up by the Ministry of Culture, such as UNEAC and the Hermanos Saíz Association.
The only real contact with officialdom was the Group's chosen venue in Old Havana, the result of discussions with the Alejo Carpentier Centre. In the living room of <PERSON>'s house on Empedrado Street, there were literary, artistic and musical activities with writers such as <PERSON>, <PERSON>, <PERSON>, <PERSON>, <PERSON> and <PERSON>, usually led by <PERSON>; painters of the stature of <PERSON>, <PERSON> and <PERSON> (at the time when their careers were just beginning to take off); musicians like <PERSON> and <PERSON>, and choreographers like <PERSON>, founder of one of the legends of Cuban dance, the _Danza Abierta_ (Open Dance) group. After each activity the space would be opened up for public debate, and often critics would take part whose work would become very well-known, such as <PERSON>, <PERSON> and <PERSON>.
This project presented an alternative for promoting artists born in the 1950s and 1960s whose path to official promotion schemes had been barred, basically because they were avant-garde. Unquestionably, its aim was to achieve an alternative cultural policy to that of the cultural institutions, and the brief but well thought-out framework of ideas published in the ' _Naranja Dulce_ ' ('Sweet Orange') bulletin were scandalously distant from the ideological principles that the regime had conceived for culture. Nonetheless, the project aimed to dynamite the status quo from within, proposing a dialogue that would transform the "Sovietisation" which was the basis of "revolutionary" cultural policy. However, not even this attempt to establish channels of communication over this official policy, and not even the fact that many parts of their public statements, theses and other documents defended socialism (its "Declaration of Principles" of 1990 repeated the slogans of the official rhetoric: "...Socialism or Death. The Homeland or Death. We shall triumph"), not even their political views which to some extent followed the party line, were enough to allay the cultural commissars' concerns about the subversive nature of the project from its very inception in 1989, and they began to act both openly and secretly to put a stop to it. And so, almost from its conception until its demise in 1992, PAIDEIA (and the _Movimiento Independiente de Opinión Tercera Opción_ (Third Option Independent Opinion Movement) which was formed out of this project) had to fight battles of clarification at every step, never imagining that, because of the essence of what they were proposing, nothing would be
|
5ce36246-7ac4-2949-ba4a-9fd4691cb649
|
['a369c837-40e2-919c-63b3-4d88c86ae186']
|
The central plaza in Liberia is a great place to people-watch, especially in the early evenings and on weekends. Grab a seat on one of the many concrete benches, or join the families and young lovers as they stroll around.
Liberia's Central Park.
Just off the northwest corner of the main central plaza, the Museo de Guanacaste (Guanacaste Museum; 2665-7114) occupies the city's former military barracks and prison. Amassing a permanent collection is a work in progress, but the space is often used for traveling exhibits and cultural events, including concerts, lectures, and recitals. Inaugurated in 1940, the building is known as the Comandancia de Plaza de Liberia.
If you venture for a few blocks down Calle Real , you'll see fine examples of the classic Spanish colonial adobe buildings with ornate wooden doors, heavy beams, central courtyards, and faded, sagging, red-tile roofs.
A colonial-era building in Liberia.
Although the Catholic church that anchors the central plaza is unspectacular, if you head several blocks east of the plaza, you will come to Iglesia La Ermita de la Agonía ( 2666-0518). Built in 1865, this whitewashed stone church is in surprisingly good shape. Inside it is plain and bare, but it is the only remaining colonial-era church to be found in Guanacaste. The visiting hours are seriously limited (daily 2:30–3:30pm), though local tour agencies can sometimes arrange visits during off hours. Even if you can't enter, you'll still get a good feel for the place by checking out its whitewashed stucco exterior.
Outdoor Adventures near Liberia
In addition to the activities listed below, Liberia is a major jumping-off point for Rincón de la Vieja National Park (p. 228).
Llanos de Cortés Waterfall.
Llanos de Cortés Waterfall
Located about 25km (16 miles) south of Liberia, the Llanos de Cortés Waterfall is one of the most beautiful falls in Costa Rica, with an excellent pool at the base for cooling off and swimming. At roughly 12m (40 ft.) wide, the falls are actually slightly wider than they are tall. This is a good spot for a picnic. Because of construction on the highway, the turnoff for the dirt road to the falls is poorly marked, but it's about 3km (13⁄4 miles) north of the crossroads for Bagaces. From the turnoff, you must drive a rough dirt road to the parking area and then hike down a short steep trail to the falls. A donation of C1,000 is suggested to support the local school. Even though guards are on duty, be careful about leaving anything of value in your car. | Shady Business
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This province gets its name from the abundant guanacaste (Enterolobium cyclocarpum), Costa Rica's national tree. This distinctive tree is known for its broad, full crown, which provides welcome shade on the Guanacaste's hot plains and savannas. The guanacaste is also known as the elephant-ear tree because of the distinctive shape of its large seedpods. Its fragrant white flowers bloom between February and April.
Birding
The Río Tempisque Basin , southwest of town, is
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['a369c837-40e2-919c-63b3-4d88c86ae186']
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wall of windows.
Monteverde. 2645-5009. 11 units, 6 with private bathroom. $25 double with shared bathroom; $35 double with private bathroom; $8 per person camping. Rates include taxes. Amenities: Restaurant, free Wi-Fi.
Where to Eat
Because most visitors want to get an early start, they usually grab a quick breakfast at their hotel. It's also common for people to have their lodge pack them a bag lunch to take to the reserve, though there's a decent little soda at the reserve entrance.
You can get good pizzas and pastas at Tramonti (www.tramonticr.com; 2645-6120), along the road to the reserve, and great paella and other Spanish specialties at Sabor Español ( 2645-5387), a few miles outside of Santa Elena on the road to Tilarán. Also, the restaurant at the Hotel Poco a Poco ( 2645-6000) gets high marks for its wide range of international dishes.
A popular choice for lunch is Stella's Bakery ( 2645-5560), across from the CASEM gift shop. Bright and inviting, its selection changes regularly but might include vegetarian quiche, eggplant parmigiana, and salads. Stella's also features a number of decadent baked goods.
Relaxing by the pool at Monteverde Lodge & Gardens.
Expensive
<PERSON> COSTA RICAN/FUSION Here's your splurge choice, a happy change from typical Costa Rican cooking. The Nuevo Latino cuisine here is based on classic Tico dishes and local ingredients, but with intriguing twists, like tenderloin in chipotle-butter salsa or guava-glazed chicken. Owner and restaurateur <PERSON><PHONE_NUMBER> units, 6 with private bathroom. $25 double with shared bathroom; $35 double with private bathroom; $8 per person camping. Rates include taxes. Amenities: Restaurant, free Wi-Fi.
Where to Eat
Because most visitors want to get an early start, they usually grab a quick breakfast at their hotel. It's also common for people to have their lodge pack them a bag lunch to take to the reserve, though there's a decent little soda at the reserve entrance.
You can get good pizzas and pastas at Tramonti (www.tramonticr.com; 2645-6120), along the road to the reserve, and great paella and other Spanish specialties at Sabor Español ( 2645-5387), a few miles outside of Santa Elena on the road to Tilarán. Also, the restaurant at the Hotel Poco a Poco ( 2645-6000) gets high marks for its wide range of international dishes.
A popular choice for lunch is Stella's Bakery ( 2645-5560), across from the CASEM gift shop. Bright and inviting, its selection changes regularly but might include vegetarian quiche, eggplant parmigiana, and salads. Stella's also features a number of decadent baked goods.
Relaxing by the pool at Monteverde Lodge & Gardens.
Expensive
Sofia COSTA RICAN/FUSION Here's your splurge choice, a happy change from typical Costa Rican cooking. The Nuevo Latino cuisine here is based on classic Tico dishes and local ingredients, but with intriguing twists, like tenderloin in chipotle-butter salsa or guava-glazed chicken. Owner and restaurateur Karen Nielsen has created a sophisticated and romantic ambience here, with solid wooden tables and chairs, soft lighting, and cool jazz in the background. Try to grab a seat in front of one of the large arched picture windows overlooking cloud-forest foliage.
Cerro Plano, just past the turnoff to the Butterfly Farm, on your left. 2645-7017. Reservations recommended during high season. Main courses $14–$20. Daily 11:30am–9:30pm.
Moderate
Café Caburé INTERNATIONAL/CHOCOLATES Set on the second floor of a small complex also housing the Bat Jungle (p. 394), with open-air seating on a broad wooden veranda, this is a good place for a decadent dessert break (though lunches and dinners here are also solid). The homemade chocolates and fancy, flavored truffles here are truly scrumptious. (And if you want to learn more about the chocolate-making and -tempering process, be sure to take the chocolate tour; see p. 395). On the savory side, the main menu features a wide range of international dishes, with everything from chicken mole to shrimp curry to more straightforward but very tasty sandwiches, wraps, and fresh empanadas.
On the road btw. Santa Elena and the reserve, at the Bat Jungle. www.cabure.net. 2645-5020. Reservations recommended during high season. Main courses C2,900–C9,500. Mon–Sat 9am–9pm.
Inexpensive
Morpho's Restaurant COSTA RICAN/VEGETARIAN Although it's moved around over the years, Morpho's is a local institution, serving up hearty meals at reasonable prices. The large and varied casado (a local blue-plate special) is quite popular, as are the fresh fruit smoothies and home-baked desserts. For something a
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and agree with you.
Let's examine the frame of mind of people who are in the process of opening their e-mail. The easiest way to do this is to put yourself in the shoes of your average e-mail recipient. Write down the thoughts that normally run through people's heads as they open their e-mail in-boxes. Here are some examples of typical thought processes:
_Okay, who sent me e-mail today?_ They are curious and eager to receive e-mail. According to AOL's fourth annual Email Addiction Survey, 51 percent check their e-mail four or more times a day, and 20 percent check it more than ten times a day. According to another poll, about 40 percent of people surveyed said they checked their e-mail 6 to 20 times a day.
_I'm busy and I just have enough time to read the good stuff_. They scan their in-box for (1) important business e-mail, (2) personal e-mail, and (3) other things that they have time to read, usually in that order.
_Let me delete all the junk mail so that it doesn't clutter up my in-box_. People are inundated with commercial e-mail, free newsletters, and e-zines—and their forefinger is positioned over their mouse, ready to click on the Delete button.
_My in-box is my private, personal space, and I don't want strangers and salespeople invading my privacy_. Their in-box is a sacred place, and they are protective of it, inviting only friends, relatives, colleagues, and selected business acquaintances to enter. Some people may have additional reasons, but these are nearly universal. Most of us probably feel the same way.
For this reason, the cardinal rule for writing successful e-mail copy is to review the frame of mind of your audience before writing a single word. Clearly, when we want to sell our ideas or products to others, we need to create rapport, and one good way to do this is by aligning ourselves with them, which simply means being like them. People develop a bond with you because they see a reflection of themselves in you. An effective way to do this is by mirroring the language in which your target audience communicates, which allows you to gain instant rapport with them. The result is that they instantly like and trust you, although they may not know why. Can you see how useful this can be in the selling process—online as well as offline?
People online are used to the up-close-and-personal language that is prevalent in e-mail, instant messaging, and text messaging. There is a one-on-one, in-your-face kind of intimacy in e-mail, and you have to work with it and not against it. You must understand who your audience is and speak their language. At the same time, you should make it personal and conversational. Even if you are speaking to CEOs, you don't have to use the language of the boardroom. Speak to your reader's level of intelligence and comprehension, but keep it friendly.
Just as in writing copy for your website, don't begin your e-mail messages with formal corporatespeak: "We at Widgets.com have been
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presentation began with a compelling selling argument. However, when it came to the question-and-answer portion, an attendee demolished the presenters' arguments, and the presentation collapsed. The rest of the audience, however, instead of being turned off, rushed in record numbers to plunk down their $75 deposit to attend the TM program.
<PERSON> thought that the other attendees hadn't quite understood the arguments or the logic of the dissenting attendee, but after interviewing those who signed up, he learned that they had had good reasons for considering signing up for the TM program before attending the presentation. Apparently, the dissenter's remarks, instead of dissuading them, compelled them to sign up; otherwise, they might go home, think about the dissenter's arguments, and never sign up, which would have contradicted their original commitment to TM.
Driven by their needs, they were desperately searching for a way to solve their problems, and they very much wanted to believe that TM was their answer. Rather than face the tedious task of finding another solution to their problems, they opted for the comfort of staying with their original belief, despite evidence to the contrary.
How can you use cognitive dissonance in your web copy? In the beginning of your web copy, you have to get your readers to say, "Yes, that's exactly what I need!" You can do this by crafting a well-articulated promise and inserting it very early in the body copy. Next, get readers to take ownership of that promise and cling to it so tenaciously that no one can pry it away from them. That way, any doubts or obstacles that might arise during the sales process will be squashed by the original belief, thus paving the way to clinching the sale. Here are examples of well-articulated promises:
By the time you finish reading this article, you will know how to consistently pick the hottest stocks that are on the upswing right now—so you can make a killing on the stock market every time.
What if I told you I could show you how to increase your ability to ethically influence others, naturally, without sounding like you're making a sales pitch? How much more money and success could you create with that skill?
### THE CYRANO EFFECT
The value of emotion in web copy cannot be overemphasized. I've repeated the principle "People buy on emotion and justify with logic" often—for good reason. Emotion is such a powerful element of the online sales process, one that is intricately connected with the psychology of the Internet buyer, that it would require an entire book to devote to its intricacies. I've encapsulated those intricacies into one psychological device that I call the Cyrano effect.
If you were to ask a sports car owner why he bought his car, he might tell you something along the lines that the car is a technological marvel, that it goes from 0 to 60 in five seconds, that the engine represents a breakthrough in German engineering, that the car has won many awards—or that he got a good deal for it. What
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the Brain Committee, the drug scene in Britain was changing fast. The government had reported to the United Nations in 1950, that cannabis (then still called Indian hemp) had become a more important problem than traffic in opium. It was no longer confined to the West Indian population and was becoming increasingly popular in music and dance clubs. It had also become clear by this time that there was a new group of drugs on the menu – amphetamines.
Stimulant drugs, like amphetamines, were mentioned by the first Brain Committee only to be dismissed, in spite of some disturbing evidence. They were being widely used as a treatment for depression because they were regarded as 'safe and non-addictive', and they were sold over the counter without a prescription. Their illicit consumption was well-known to the pharmaceutical fraternity, who lobbied for action, but it took until 1964 for the government to do anything about it. Initial concern focused on the prescription of amphetamines by doctors to patients with mental illness, rather than on the increasing use of un-prescribed 'pep pills' – the most popular being 'purple hearts'. Their use by young people in nightclubs initiated the culture which was eventually to lead to ecstasy and other 'rave' drugs.
The government's response was The Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act of 1964. It was a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. It made possession of amphetamines an offence, but not supply, leaving the police with the necessity to obtain proof of sale in order to charge a dealer. The bill was ill-considered and ineffective. It was a political knee-jerk reaction to the need to 'do something' and to be seen to be 'doing something'. It acted as a palliative, delaying more effective amphetamines control until 1971.
The Inspectorate of Drugs at the Home Office became increasingly concerned by the scale of heroin abuse. Problems were mostly in London, where over-prescription was beginning to fuel the black market. An improbable figure, Lady <PERSON>, was largely responsible. In 1957, as a psychiatrist running a private practice for the treatment of alcoholics, she struck up an arrangement with another colleague with some experience in the field, to treat heroin addicts. But her prescribing became increasingly eccentric.
Lady <PERSON> was certainly not alone in prescribing for addicts. Some were very responsible, but the evidence at the time was strong that the black market in heroin depended on the sale of over-generous prescriptions, which in large part paid for the addict's habit. This was an embarrassment to the government in view of its international obligations to suppress addiction and everything that fed it.
In spite of the clearest evidence of irresponsible prescribing by a few doctors, until the beginning of the 1970s there was an extraordinary reluctance on the part of the authorities to do anything about it. The Rolleston Committee had suggested that a tribunal of suitable doctors should be set up to deal with instances when a doctor's prescribing for addicts gave cause for concern. Astonishingly no such tribunal was ever convened. Attitudes were probably influenced by
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['a3c18540-e619-4146-96b1-6ec1150bb737']
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growing and refining, and their ban on educating women unwittingly produced a huge low-cost labour force to sustain and increase opium production, which is very labour intensive.
After two years of disastrous drought forced his hand, the Taliban leader, <PERSON>, offered a cessation of all opium cultivation in exchange for international recognition. The ban came into force in July 2000. They were, nevertheless, able to profit by the sharp rise in the price of drugs that the ban produced, by selling their hoarded stocks. However, the United Nations were able to confirm that opium production had declined by 94 per cent. It was an extraordinary act of national suicide, bringing poverty and destitution to much of the population. The regime collapsed in October 2001. Within days the Taliban rescinded their prohibition on opium growing. In no time gardens and fields were a riot of red and white and pink poppies. A new crop of warlords came out of hiding, and the CIA bribed the Pashtun leaders to drive out the remaining Taliban, but, of course, they were all also drug traffickers, and their loyalty went to the highest bidder.
<PERSON>, the new prime minister, offered opium eradication in exchange for help with crop substitution, reconstruction, and technical support of many kinds. After the initial fanfare of enthusiasm died down, the international community promised just $4 billion of the necessary $10 billion for national reconstruction, and only 5 per cent of the food aid immediately required. Crop eradication payments were woefully inadequate. Heroin remained the only source of money, and became the local currency. Meanwhile the size of the crop grew year upon year.
In 2007 opium production in Afghanistan reached 8,890 tonnes, a rise of 34 per cent from the record levels of 2006. This represented 93 per cent of the world's supply, and far outstripped global demand, estimated at 4,500 tonnes. Overproduction continued in 2008 and 2009. Britain and other countries are formally committed to the destruction of the poppy crop in Afghanistan, but in practice little is done. There are no substitute crops that can bring the farmers anything like the return that poppies do. If it were possible to eradicate poppy growing it would be the most effective recruiting sergeant the Taliban could wish for.
For the past thirty years the international community has spent huge sums of money on this problem, though never enough to make a real difference. Interdiction, crop eradication, crop substitution and 'alternative livelihoods' have all been tried, with little lasting success. In any country over which central government does not have firm and effective control, production limitation is a mirage. Even the recurrent suggestion that the West should buy up the opium crop and turn it into pharmacological heroin or morphine, of which there is said to be a shortage, is fraught with difficulties. In reality there is no worldwide shortage of opiate drugs for medicinal use – it is simply that they are not released for use because they are wrongly assumed by the authorities in many countries to lead to
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['a45aa853-46b6-3f53-2660-5fb3da673eb9']
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usually sufficient.
5. Place your fist under the center of the paper and form a dome in the middle.
6. Push the center of the dome down and into the paper, forming a crater. You can pinch a circular outline, like the rim of a volcano, around the perimeter of the crater. The depth of the crater will be the approximate radius of the mushroom cap. The deeper the crater the wider the cap; and, consequently, the shorter the stem. So, it is wise to imagine the desired proportions of the mushroom while you make this fold.
7. Tightly collapse the volcano into a slender stick shape.
8. Find the original four corners of the sheet and refine them into slender, separate points.
9. Dip the bottom of the mushroom into a glass of water, wetting the bottom third of the paper.
10. Lift the paper out and let it drain for a moment, then gently squeeze more water out. Once again, find and separate the bottom four corners.
11. One at a time, gently spread out a corner and lift it up onto the stem. Do this with each of the four corners, spreading and overlapping as you go.
12. Tightly compress the wet part of the stem. Be sure to do this over a towel or the glass of water, as more water will come out.
13. Dip the bottom of the stem into the water once again. You will be able to fit more of the stem in since it has shortened. Be aware of where the paper for the cap is and try not to get that area wet. Right up close to it is ideal.
14. Lift the paper out of the water, let it drain and then squeeze out more water.
15. Refine the bottom shape. Try to shape the bottom of the stem into a bulbous form, tapering up towards the cap. Open and spread out the paper at the top to form the cap.
16. Floderer's Mushroom with very convincing gills! You can be very creative with this method. <PERSON> has made many kinds of mushrooms this way. Look at pictures to see other kinds, like chanterelles, shitake, and oyster mushrooms. <PERSON> often adds other distinguishing features, such as the ring (annulus) around the stem, just under the cap, and the cup (vulva) at the base of the stem.
#
Traditional
Pinwheel Envelopes
This marvelous fold is sometimes called the "Thread Case" and it has been used in China and elsewhere to hold small objects such as threads and needles. Handy items tuck beneath the interlocking flaps on top, but the lower chamber is its secret compartment, reserved for precious or dangerous items such as needles. This becomes an extra surprise when you use it to present a gift. You can even include layers of messages and surprises! Use any paper, or even fabric. The tricky part of this model is in the equal division of the paper into thirds. If you trim your square to measure a length that is divisible by three,
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8ffdcdf5-45e6-4c85-f78f-19913c00b091
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['a45aa853-46b6-3f53-2660-5fb3da673eb9']
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tossed just because they may be a little greasy. Next time you wash your spoon and cup, cut the empty chip bag and let the detergent get the grease off. Wipe it dry, and you've got a durable new wallet after just a few folds.
Soup, and other can labels. So the kids are into folding dollar bills, but they are driving you crazy going into your wallet... Here's a solution! The veritable Campbell's Tomato Soup can label comes off the can easily, and you choose where to slit it to place the colors and patterns where you want them to be on virtually any dollar bill fold. That's right! The proportion of the can label is so close to the proportion of the dollar bill that the can label can be used for thousands of patterns designed for the buck.
Tyvek.TM Non-woven polyolefin construction housewrap is available from many different companies and suppliers, and it is all tough and versatile. This material repels liquids, yet allows moisture vapor to breathe through. Origami artist and performer, <PERSON>, of Berkeley, CA uses large sheets of housewrap for his street performance props. Snag those white scraps from the local building project, and create bigger, better, tougher origami creations.
Waxed paper. Remember wax paper? Long before plastic wrap, everything got the wp treatment. Inexpensive, translucent, heat activated bonding... wax paper has it all. Use a clothes iron (on the low heat setting) to bond it to fabrics. Imbed colorful, flat objects between layers. Fold floating boats or flowers, and liberate your wishes or problems in an origami offering.
#
MAKING SQUARES
AND SILVER
RECTANGLES
Standardized paper formats, such as US letter, legal, and tabloid, and the "A" series (A4, A5...) common in Europe, Japan, and elsewhere, are among the most common papers entering the world's waste streams. Many of us grew up making simple paper airplanes from these letter-size sheets. For the paper plane enthusiast, letter paper is a staple. You need not prepare the paper in any special way, just begin folding.
As for the pure origami enthusiast, it is the square sheet that is the "gold standard." A square sheet is easy to make from just about any scrap of paper. Simply fold the short edge of a rectangle to match a long edge and cut away the remainder. You will have a usable square for origami projects.
Almost as easy as producing a square by the fold-and-cut method is the method for making a silver rectangle, which is the kind of rectangle that has the same ratio when it is folded in half. The "A" series of letter and printing papers has this characteristic. The silver rectangle is special in that it has many interesting geometric and mathematical properties. Fold a silver rectangle in half, short edge to short edge, and the new, smaller rectangle will also be a silver rectangle!
The following demonstration will show you how to prepare a silver rectangle from US format papers, or just about any non-silver rectangular scrap. You will need
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interacting with it: now implicitly, in war memorials that gather both the nation's history and contemporary masses of citizens and tourists around themselves; now explicitly, in Cubist and Futurist attempts to work the surrounding space into the sculptural object. As we saw in _Trilce_ , <PERSON>'s eye determinedly catches bodies in movement, and his chronicles on sculpture are no exception to this, insisting on the sculptor's use of touch alongside imagination, which brings stone to life while bringing art closer to manual labor. But the most direct staging of the relation between a body and its environment is found in theater, which shows—especially in the naturalist modes of <PERSON> and <PERSON>, which had such a profound impact on <PERSON>—the shaping of the human subject by outside pressures. This staging connects directly to <PERSON>'s ongoing concern with the production of thought and speech in a particular context, which points to a politics of placement and gesture in his work; as he writes in a mid-1929 chronicle on new theatrical scenography in France and Russia:
El pensamiento o, más ampliamente, el espíritu de un personaje varía, y no puede dejar de variar, siguiendo consustancialmente el desenvolvimiento de sus gestos, el tinte de su rostro, los pliegues de su vestido y el lugar donde se halla. _(ACC_ II: 756)
_A character's thought or, more broadly, spirit varies—cannot help varying—in accordance with the unfolding of his gestures, the tint of his face, the folds of his costume and the place where he finds himself._
Clothing and context, in contingent relation to the body, shape its possibilities of experience and expression at any moment. The resulting mutability of the body poses problems for any artistic attempt to capture a character in both its momentary appearance and its longer duration; this is clearly a concern of Cubists and Futurists alike, and <PERSON> draws it out in comments on attempts by artist-friends to capture his face. When the Spanish-born sculptor <PERSON> produced a bust of <PERSON> for the 1925 Art Deco Exhibition in Paris, the poet's failure to recognize himself in the final work led him to a meditation on new forms of portraiture _(ACC_ I: 153), which is rounded out by the comments of another friend in Paris—the Salvadoran caricaturist <PERSON>—who laughed at <PERSON>'s inability to present his face to an artist:
"Usted no sabe, por lo visto, el código del gesto. Menester es que lea usted a <PERSON>, a <PERSON> y a los modernos terapeutas ingleses, que tratan de la gimnasia facial.... Lea usted a estos sabios y no solamente sabrá posar para los artistas malos y para las mujeres bonitas, sino que podrá usted hasta llegar a ser un hombre verdaderamente hermoso." _(ACC_ I: 378)
_"Apparently you're not familiar with the code of gesture. You need to read <PERSON>, <PERSON>, and the modern English therapists who write on facial gymnastics.... Read these learned men, and you'll not only learn how to pose for bad artists and beautiful women; you may even turn yourself into a truly handsome man."_
<PERSON> might also have suggested
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['a46f6847-39e1-34e1-79d6-9df1083657a2']
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in the rhetorical grandstanding of the newspaper office in _Ulysses_ (108): "We mustn't be led away by words, by sounds of words. We think of Rome, imperial, imperious, imperative".... "What was their civilization? Vast, I allow: but vile. _Cloacae:_ sewers.... The Roman, like the Englishman who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on which he set his foot...only his cloacal obsession. He gazed about him in his toga and he said: _It is meet to be here. Let us construct a watercloset._ "
44. <PERSON>'s comments on translating the poem sheds interesting light on _Trilce's_ procedures, here as elsewhere: "To some extent, in a poem as multidirectional as XXV, certain word choices become compromises relevant to other words. For example, in line 4 _cadillos_ can be translated as 'cockleburs' or as 'thrums' (warp ends, which can be associated with "unraveled" in line 5), and by selecting 'thrips' for line 1, I thus get, in line 4, 'thrips and thrums'—a sound play that may be as unusual as the sound play between the first two words in Spanish in line 1. While my translation of _Trilce_ is primarily meaning-oriented, there are occasions when the sound play is so paramount that it must be given equal priority with meaning" (222). The suggestiveness of the poetry's sound is taken in fascinating directions in <PERSON>'s "homophonic" translation of _Trilce._
45. A tentative list is as follows: _alfar_ —to rear up on hindlegs; _rebufar_ —to snort; _lomos_ —loins; _resoplar_ —to wheeze; _portar_ —to bear; _esteva_ —the steering instrument of a horse-drawn carriage; _apealar_ —to lasso the legs of a horse or bull; _soberbio_ —"proud" or "fiery," usually applied to a horse, according to the _Diccionario de la Real Academia; petral_ —the brace attached to the front part of a saddle; _rondas_ —surveillance on horseback, or the gathering together of heads of cattle; "rodeo."
CHAPTER FOUR
1. _El Norte_ , October 3, 1924; _ACC_ I: 44. <PERSON>'s words draw on several discrete suggestions in <PERSON>'s prose introductions to his 1905 _Cantos de vida y de esperanza_ (Songs of Life and Hope) and his 1907 _El canto errante_ (The Wandering Song): poetry as pedagogy, the lure of the marketplace, the pressures of history. But whereas <PERSON> touts the ability of poetry to conquer time and space—by rising above but also incorporating them—<PERSON> insists on situating his poetry in a located, historical present tense.
2. Futurism obviously lent itself to both progressive and reactionary politics, in Peru as much as in Italy or Russia; it was even adopted as a title by a conservative Peruvian political party, which ironically grounded its projects for the nation's future in the continuation of colonial structures.
3. As <PERSON> argues, indigenismo was not simply a rescuing of Peruvian traditions, but a sustained theoretical meditation on "how the region might, in its own way, become modern" (1).
4. If the particular charge of the Latin American avant-gardes, as <PERSON> has systematically studied, was the political imperative to represent new nations to themselves, this tended to take place—as <PERSON> suggests—under the sign
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most notable achievement was that of Capt <PERSON>, commanding 'A' Company of 37th Australian Battalion. Already 47th Australian Battalion had taken two of these strongpoints, the second being outflanked, rushed and bombed from the rear. Then 37th Australian Battalion came under intense machine-gun fire from several German machine-gun posts. Fire from one of these pillboxes was concentrated in a narrow gap in the wire which 'A' Company was attempting to breach and attack through. Within minutes, half of the company, including most of the officers, had become casualties. Capt <PERSON> ordered the remaining men to take cover in shell-holes while Lt <PERSON> of the 10th MG Company tried to suppress the enemy position with Vickers machine-gun fire. However, <PERSON>'s gun was soon put out of action.
<PERSON> knew that the situation was deadly serious and that his company was doomed if nothing could be done. Once it was clear that he was going to be without either Stokes Mortar or Vickers machine-gun support, he decided that that he would have to deal with the offending pillbox himself. He took a bag of Mills bombs and, throwing as he advanced, rushed from shell-hole to shell-hole under cover of the dust and debris from each grenade burst.
He was able to cut through the pillbox's arc of fire using this technique and dropped into the trench leading towards it. Here he encountered part of the German garrison who were sheltering from the British artillery barrage. He threw one bomb close to the pillbox, momentarily stopping the machine-gunner's fire, and immediately rolled two more grenades through the firing slit, killing or severely wounding all the occupants. Having come through the actual event unscathed, he then became the victim of a sniper as he stood on the parapet calling his men up and encouraging them to push forward on one side of the pillbox's flank. He was severely wounded. The sniper was soon located in a tree and shot down. <PERSON> was sent rapidly through the medical chain, survived and was later awarded the VC, much to his surprise!6
As with the New Zealanders, the Australian method of infiltration and outflanking the German positions often caused panic among the defenders.
The enemy, who has grown up in the Australian bush, wriggles to our posts with great dexterity from flank and rear in the high crops in order to overwhelm them. It has often happened that complete pickets [OP Positions] have disappeared from the forward line without a trace.7
This was no exception. The combination of these tactics and the severe hammering which troops of 3rd Bavarian and 1st Guards Reserve Divisions had already experienced led to abject surrender. Many behaved in the way their comrades had done after the mine explosions that morning. Those who did not attempt to escape were found crying like babies and imploring for mercy. It was obvious to the Aussies that the Germans were thoroughly beaten men. They were exhausted, shell-shocked and utterly humiliated. The ones who ran away were either shot down or caught in first their own
|
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this on 14 June, but by the evening of 10 and throughout 11 June it became increasingly obvious that the enemy divisions had been withdrawn to the Warneton Line. The final eastern line was to run from Spoil Bank and White Château park in X Corps sector, through Joye Farm and Wambeke village in IX Corps', to the 'Birdcage'/Hill 20 advance line for II Anzac Corps on the right flank. (See map 22)
Map 22: Messines, June 1917: the end of the battle.
Map 23: Die Schlacht im Wytschaete-Bogen – Die Lage am 12 Juni 1917. German Official History map of the battle, showing the situation on 12 June, from German intelligence and operational reports.
Intelligence reports pieced together the fact that all the original defensive divisions had been replaced and that the new line was occupied by the German 195th, 7th, 11th, 207th and 22nd Divisions and 16th Bavarian Divisions from north to south replacing 204th, 35th, 2nd Divisions, and 3rd and 4th Bavarian Divisions respectively. (See map 23) The new British line in advance of the Oosttaverne line was occupied swiftly and practically unopposed; Spoil Bank was finally vacated as the courageous garrison finally capitulated.
At the eleventh hour, supreme courage was acknowledged for the fourth time in the battle. Once again, it was within II Anzac Corps, only this time in 25th Division. As a stretcher-bearer, Pte <PERSON> of the 2nd Battalion The South Lancashire Regiment (75th Brigade) had been in action for the best part of the battle. He had already distinguished himself, like <PERSON> on day one, for his aggressive spirit and tireless effort. On 14 June he had occupied a trench in the forward line when he and his platoon came under fire from an enemy machine-gun. <PERSON> spotted it and on his own initiative rushed it and bayoneted the machine-gun crew. He then brought the gun back into action in the front line and used it to cover his own men and against any opportunity enemy targets thereafter. He was awarded the VC.4
Pte <PERSON> VC, 2nd Battalion the South Lancashire Regiment (Prince of Wales's Own), 25th Division.
By the early morning of Thursday 14 June, a week since the mines had rocked the Messines–Wytschaete Ridge and the artillery had engulfed it, the battle was officially over. All objectives had been taken, in the main on 7 June. Despite the misunderstanding which had caused additional casualties by the British artillery and those caused by the unforeseen crowding of men on the ridge on the morning of 7 June, this had been a comprehensive and significant victory.
Across the wire, it had been a disaster which looked briefly as though it would have wider, perhaps fatal, implications.
## Reaction – at the Kaiser's Court
As the battle of Messines progressed, it had become all too clear that the shattering of German morale was becoming all-pervasive. Admiral <PERSON> was unequivocal on 8 June: 'This evening at Kreuznach a few details of the English attack at Wytschaete Ridge came through. We have been pushed
|
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to bad weather there was no more flying until 4th January 1942 when, having completed the mandatory five hours with an instructor, I was allowed to go solo. Though the cockpit lay- out was different from those of the American aircraft, I had adjusted to flying this British plane and found that it presented no problems. However, navigation did, as the patchwork quilt of small farms and villages were so different to the wide open spaces of California.
On 7th January, flying was once again cancelled due to bad weather, which continued until the 12th. On this day we were informed that our time at Hullavington was at an end, and that we were to be posted to an operational training unit (OTU). Owing to the very short time that our group had been at Hullavington, and the limited amount of flying that we had been able to have, the only remark that the CFI made in our flying log books was 'Insufficient time to assess'.
Like the other pilots on this course, I spent an anxious time wondering if I was to complete my final training as a pilot in Bomber, Coastal or Fighter Command. To my relief, the following morning, on reading a list of our postings, I found I was posted to 53 OTU at Llandow in South Wales for conversion onto Spitfires. We were informed that as we were not due to report there until 20th January we would be granted leave. This was good news, as I had not been able to spend Christmas at home with my family. Even so, though I enjoyed being at home seeing the family, friends and a new girlfriend, I was more than anxious for the time to pass quickly and get to Llandow where, at last, I could lay my hands on the controls of a Spitfire.
The journey down to Wales was uneventful and when I arrived at Bridgend station, transport was waiting to take several other trainee pilots and me to Llandow airfield. As I drove through the gates I noticed that it had a concrete runway, but that it was not ideal, having a slight rise in the centre that made it difficult to see the other end of the runway when on the ground. Reporting to the orderly room, I was allocated a bed in barracks off the edge of the airfield and a bike to get from there to D Flight dispersal, from where I would learn to fly a Spitfire. After settling in and getting to know the other occupants of the hut, we cycled around the camp locating the sergeants' mess, ante-room, camp cinema and the NAAFI (a canteen restroom run by the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute).
The following day after collecting a parachute from the stores, I reported to D Flight dispersal, where I spent the morning receiving instruction on the Spitfire. In the afternoon I sat in the cockpit familiarising myself with the controls, which were quite different to those in American aircraft. Whereas the control column (joystick) had
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I once again set foot on French soil, having delivered a Spitfire to an airstrip near Ramatuelle, which the bulldozers of the US Army engineers had carved out in an olive grove within a week after landing in the area.
Early in September 1944 an incident happened that was to change the course of my life. With <PERSON>, <PERSON>, <PERSON> and other friends we decided to have a break at the R&R (Rest and Recreation) camp at Saidia. Transport – a 3-ton RAF lorry – was organised, and those who had French girlfriends invited them to join us. After spending a lazy afternoon swimming and sunbathing, we returned to the patio for drinks and an impromptu dance session. I was quite taken by <PERSON>'s girlfriend, <PERSON>, and, when I saw her walk away from him looking cross, I asked her to dance with me. Though my knowledge of the French language was limited and her knowledge of English wasn't much better, we seemed to get on well together. Later we went for a walk along the beach and I found out that she had a job as a typist working in the town hall. We spoke about <PERSON> who, I told her, was one of my closest friends, and that I wouldn't want to break up her friendship with him. She replied that she wasn't over keen on him, which led me to ask if I could meet her whenever I was free from flying duties.
The following week the same group of us arranged to go to Saidia and, though I expected to spend the afternoon with <PERSON>, she seemed to prefer to chat with my other friends. I couldn't understand it, as the previous week we seemed to get on so well. Later in the evening I found an opportunity to ask her if I had done something to upset her, to which she replied that she quite liked me, but that she didn't want to go out with me as she had been told that I was married. I then realised why, on several occasions, my 'friends' were having a good laugh. It took me near- ly two weeks to convince <PERSON> that I was single, after which we started dating regularly.
In mid-September I spoke to <PERSON> about returning to Oujda, so that it would allow me to see more of <PERSON> and, though he wasn't in agreement, I managed to get a flight on a South African Dakota that was flying via Algiers to Oujda. Apart from ferrying aircraft to Corsica, I was also back on the Cairo run, adding Mustangs, Corsairs, a Vengeance and a Hellcat to the growing number of different types of aircraft that I flew.
I was able to see <PERSON> quite frequently and, as our friendship developed, I was invited to her home. I'll never forget that first visit. Arriving on the doorstep expecting to see her open the door, it was her mother who did so. She invited me in and managed to make me understand that her daughter would be
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get it fixed?" <PERSON> asked.
"No, I don't even see that happening, more like a few _months_ if I had to guess. But we really just don't know the extent of it, so who knows?"
"I can't just sit in some cabin in the woods for months," <PERSON> said. "How am I supposed to let my parents know I'm okay? How am I supposed to know if they're okay? And how is <PERSON>'s dad going to get home? And if he does get back here, how will he find us?"
<PERSON> was about to answer when he was interrupted by a loud banging on the door that startled all three of them. He picked up the long machete that he had shown them earlier—another souvenir from his trips to the South American jungles—and walked over to the door.
"Who is it?" he asked, before reaching for the knob.
"Is <PERSON> in there? She's supposed to be at this address," an impatient voice on the other side demanded.
"<PERSON>!" <PERSON> jumped up.
After glancing in her direction and seeing it was obvious she knew his voice, <PERSON> opened the door and introduced himself to the visitor standing on the porch. <PERSON> looked as if he had been drinking all day, which he had. He was holding a beer in one hand and half a six-pack of cans dangling in their plastic rings in the other. He was wearing a New Orleans Saints T-shirt, flip-flops, and shorts, and looked as if he were coming to yet another in a long series of parties.
"I've been looking for you all afternoon!" he said to <PERSON> as he pushed past <PERSON>, barely acknowledging him. "I thought you would stay home until I got back, or at least stay at Casey's."
"Well, I guess you can see that the lights are out, <PERSON>. What was I supposed to do, sit there in the dark?"
"We came over here because my friend <PERSON> has all this stuff," <PERSON> said, pointing out the lantern, the piles of gear, and the bags of groceries they had bought earlier that day.
<PERSON> glanced around the room at all the gear and the three bicycles leaned against walls where they had brought them inside to keep them from getting stolen. "You must be a freakin' Boy Scout, huh?" he said to <PERSON>. "What the fuck are you gonna do with all this shit?"
"We were just making plans to evacuate the city," <PERSON> said calmly. "Things are not going to get better here before they get a lot worse."
"That's bullshit! I don't know why everybody's tripping out about a little blackout. They'll have the lights back on tomorrow or the next day. Besides, how the fuck are you going to evacuate when nobody's car will run? Mine sure won't. They say we're all gonna to have to get new computers in them because they're fried. All we can do is wait 'til the lights come on and the parts stores open."
"I don't think they're going to get this fixed
|
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city of Slidell, the Interstate 10 Twin Span Bridge was one of the major traffic arteries out of the city, and had apparently been the scene of a massive exodus sometime in the previous days. Their first glimpse of this bridge pretty much confirmed all that <PERSON> had told them about conditions in the city. Aside from the grotesque sight of so many of these big black birds of death, stalled vehicles were strung out along the overhead lanes for as far as they could see from their perspective on the water. Some of them appeared to have been burned in the days since the pulse left them stranded there, and lots of smoke could be seen off in the distance in the direction of the city to the southwest. A few haggard-looking people were walking on the bridge among the abandoned cars and vultures, all of them apparently headed away from New Orleans, using both the north and southbound lanes as escape corridors. Some of them yelled down at them like the teenagers on the Overseas Highway near Marathon had done, while others just leaned over the rail and stared, but at least here no one threw anything at them. Because of that incident in Florida, <PERSON> had asked <PERSON> to bring the shotgun on deck before they sailed under the bridges. He hoped they wouldn't need it, but said they needed a means of deterring anyone who might have a similar idea here, as rocks the size of the one that had barely missed them that night, thrown from a height, could do serious damage to the boat or even kill someone.
Beam-reaching on a light breeze out of the south, they soon cleared the bridge and the overpowering smell of death that surrounded it. "I sure hope <PERSON> didn't try to leave," <PERSON> said, his face pale and his stomach twisting as the horrific scene on the bridge receded astern.
"I doubt she would have," <PERSON> said. "After all, the only way she could have gotten out would have been to try to walk. I'm sure she and <PERSON> and maybe some of her other friends are holed up somewhere on the campus and are just fine. I think she's too smart to do anything stupid."
"I hope you're right, but this is one unbelievable scene. I can't imagine how frightened she must be. I just hope she and <PERSON> stayed inside out of sight and have had enough to eat all this time."
"I think we'll find that she's just fine, but a lot of these people must have really suffered. It looks at least as bad here as <PERSON> said it was, doesn't it? And I'm sure it's only going to get worse, but at least we're here. Now we just need to get in and get out while we still can."
Despite his worry and dread, <PERSON> could scarcely contain his relief when he first saw the skyline of downtown New Orleans come into view from the deck of the _Casey Nicole_. They were
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you grieve. It is possible to rebuild your life and love again, and faster than you might be imagining you can.
Launching a new life is a strategic, active process. It doesn't happen by accident. People who are taking care of their day-to-day lives after loss believe they are doing the right things, but many times they aren't. If they are operating in the default mode of the old self, they will continue to experience the pain of resistance. This pain should not be mistaken for grief. It's like trying to put on clothes you used to wear comfortably, which no longer fit you. This is merely a passive survival of grief. The difference between this and strategically launching a new life is that people in survival mode aim to keep busy to distract themselves from their pain, whereas with launching, they focus on movement toward a better life for themselves.
Through my own launch, and from watching the people I have coached transition into new lives using the Life Reentry Model, I've learned that when we are starting over after a significant loss, we pretty much need to renegotiate everything in our lives. We have to reconsider all facets of life, from what we do for a living, to where we live, to what we do for fun, to how we conduct ourselves in our relationships with friends, relatives, and even our children. Most people who successfully transition begin by going back to the basics and making small changes. As they take charge of their destiny and shift their focus to answering questions like "What might I create?" and "What is my new identity?" their pain drops away, and they begin to be excited by the freshness of their lives. Although the new life is not always dramatically different from the old life, how they feel about their prospects is.
### The Risk of Stepping onto the Launchpad
In order to start over, you have to be willing to risk experiencing loss again. I wish I could take this risk away, but it is part of living life, a part of starting over. If you want to create a new life, you have to risk experiencing some tears, some fears, and some mistakes. Above all, you have to be adventurous despite your grief if you want to find out who you truly are and what you are made of. Risk is the key to laughter and passion. The Life Reentry Model gives you a structure and techniques for creating acceptable risk. It helps manage the fear that tells us that we shouldn't do new things, that we should stay where we are. That fear warns us against doing anything out of character, but you need to learn to work against it. For me, fear told me that I was a single mother and that was how I should remain. But I fought fear. I decided to go out on a second first date, and when I was getting ready to go, I felt numb.
I went anyway. Even three years after
|
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client, rather than a group member, but she went through the very same process that people in my groups do. During the early steps of her reentry, she began to immerse herself in an art class and painted the most amazing landscapes and still lifes. The idea of producing an art exhibit, as a labor of love, gave her hope and raised her confidence. Becoming an artist caused her brain to form the baby neural pathways of a very dynamic new personality. Since our brains learn mainly from what we pay attention to, we can surmise that <PERSON>'s brain started to change when she tended to herself, her skills, and her profession.
<PERSON> was diligent in doing the exercises I gave her. She practiced mindfulness. Every night she got real about her grief and wrote about what was going on inside her in a journal. She reflected on her grief and also on the different dimensions of her life. She practiced plug-ins and, as a result, started to create new types of experiences. She purposefully dated men who were very different in personality from her former husband in order to break the paradigm of her unhappy marriage. Mindfulness was the tool that increased her awareness of her behavior sufficiently to help her break free of old negative patterns.
Through her months as a Life Starter, <PERSON> experienced different brain states, including happiness, love, and joy, which brought her to a brand-new place—a place outside the infinite loop of loss of her former identity as a divorced woman. Her brain was able to learn to live a new life by creating baby neural pathways that eventually matured and overrode the maps that were not serving her. She let the old neural pathways go dormant by ignoring them. She conditioned her brain by giving herself rewards for taking steps to live her life, instead of for grieving. Experiencing love for herself and her activities enabled her to bring people into her life who supported her and admired the goals she was setting. Switching jobs put her into a very different workplace than that of her old job. In this new environment, she was encouraged to tap into her creativity.
At the end of her marriage, <PERSON> had forgotten who she was and had lost track of her desires due to the depth of grief she felt. As <PERSON>'s brain integrated all of the elements I have just described, she learned which of her neural pathways were better for bringing her back to her natural state of being.
### The Door to Your Reentry
Earlier in this chapter, you created a new life plan and set out some goals to help you work your way toward it. Now it's time for a very intense exercise that will bring together everything you have gone through so far. It is a guided visualization with your Thriver leading the way. It will help you open the portal and pass through into your new life.
You can do this exercise on your own, or you can have someone read
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the shorter Giro di Trentino before making a decision.
I was certain of my plan. Instead of racing in Trentino, which for once was a flat course and therefore a waste in terms of preparation for the mountainous Giro, I wanted to train more specifically for the Giro and in particular for the most critical climb, the Passo del Ghisallo. This was on the penultimate day and would undoubtedly be the decisive stage if the leader's jersey was still in contention. '<PERSON>, I need to train for that stage. I need to train for that climb.' Dearest to his passionate Italian heart were the great Italian cycle races, the Giro and the Primavera Rosa. To <PERSON> these were beyond any Olympic medal. He had never had a winner in the Giro, <PERSON> achieving a second place in 2001 being the closest the team had ever come. The counter was obvious. If he agreed to my plan, it meant that he would give me one of the seven precious places in the team built around supporting <PERSON> in her bid to win the race this year. I would get just one race outing before the Giro to prove my form – the British Championships. My last race had been in October the previous year.
<PERSON> probably thought I was mad but eventually agreed, and while the rest of the team went to Trentino, I trained alone in the mountains before heading back to Wales for the British Championships. The course was the same as the previous year, and this time I felt very strong and won alone by nearly three minutes. Looking back, this was the most emphatic and dominating win of all my ten British road titles. In terms of competition, second-placed <PERSON> was now firmly based on the continent, and with a stage win to her credit in the Tour de L'Aude she was now performing at a level well beyond that seen by the other British girls for a long time. As I came up to the finish, I gave my left knee a big kiss. I jumped up onto the podium and took my one prize and one jersey. Back home that night after the race, I noticed something strange. The clocks all seemed remarkably quiet. The next day, I flew back to Italy, where my second race in eight months would be the Giro d'Italia.
The women's Giro d'Italia is the most prestigious stage race on the women's calendar, first held in 1988 and still running now. For 2004, there was no women's Tour de France, with accusation and counter accusation flying between organiser <PERSON>, the French Cycling Federation and the UCI. Beyond organisational difficulties, it was obvious that cycling in France had been shaken to its foundations since the Festina revelations of 1998. The French cycling media and population did not appear to be as gullible as many elsewhere in accepting the story of <PERSON> unbelievable rise. With waning interest, sponsors were lost. While the men's Tour had more margin for loss, events already operating
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The team enjoyed a successful week, with <PERSON> winning overall, and I achieved a second in Stage 4 and won Stage 5, beating <PERSON> in the sprint from a small breakaway group. Next up was Rotterdam and the final World Cup race.
I knew that with the World Cup in the bag, it would be a great opportunity for me to support my team-mates in going for a big result themselves, as a 'thank you' for their dedication to me. It was a grey and wet day and there was not much action until the finish. Mum, <PERSON> and my Ajax club-mates had placed themselves around the course, waving flags, cheering and sounding their car horns as we went past. Given the grim weather conditions on the course, they seemed to outnumber the local spectators, which did make me and my team-mates feel quite special to have such wonderful support. At the finish, I helped set up my team-mates for the leadout, and then eased up, not wanting to take any risks, and rode over the line in 54th place, punching one arm into the air and then being mobbed by my team, including <PERSON> who had won the race. It was very special being presented with my jersey and trophy in front of my team, family and supporters.
After Rotterdam, I took up the kind offer to stay with <PERSON> parents in Athens, spending three days riding the 2004 Olympic course, getting up at 5am to ride several laps before the traffic became too busy. This allowed me to learn about the hills, gradients and the finishing straight as well as taking lots of photos, to remind myself of what it was like when back home.
Another great race of the time was the San Francisco Grand Prix. Rather than go early and attempt to adjust to the time difference, we went late and I maintained my European meal and sleeping pattern, taking full advantage of the 24-hour restaurant in the hotel. At the press conference, I was one of two female stars accompanying the men, as we were given proper coverage. I even had to act as interpreter, as one of the male cyclists spoke only Italian. The race itself was brilliant, with four ascents of the fearsome 18% average Fillmore Street. A small group was left at the foot of the final climb. On the podium, preparing to receive the winner's bouquet, I looked at my hands. I'd been gripping the brake levers so tightly on that final climb that I'd drawn blood.
From there I maintained my hectic schedule and returned to Italy. With no adjustments needed to my body clock, I was racing two days later in the six-day Giro di Toscana, where I won a stage and figured in the finishes of several others. My attention by now was firmly on the World Championships, in Hamilton, Canada, with the GB team. I believed I was capable of a medal, and I really wanted to make up for last year's disappointing performance. The circuit
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only got what was coming to him, know what I mean?"
<PERSON> kept her eyes firmly fixed on the asphalt under our feet. "It was awful what you did to him. I mean, what could he possibly have done to deserve _that_? I've known <PERSON> since kindergarten, and he's always been a nice guy. And now—I mean, you ruined him, <PERSON>, you know that? He's starting at Strake next week, did you hear? One week back at Watkins and he couldn't handle it. So his parents transferred him out."
I didn't like it, the way <PERSON> was lecturing me, almost like she was <PERSON> or <PERSON> or something. It wasn't cool. "Yeah, well, his damn parents can afford it, so lucky for <PERSON> he finally got his wish. It's always been his dream to go to a fancy school with a bunch of tight-ass kids with their heads buried in books all the time. I mean, really, what could be better for <PERSON>—a place where he can be surrounded by even _more_ white people?"
I laughed at the expression on <PERSON>'s face and went on, "I only wished I'd gotten to see him one more time, if you know what I mean, before he took off. See if he'd learned his lesson for good."
<PERSON> had no response to this, but she looked more freaked out by me than ever.
"Hey, <PERSON>, man, c'mere," <PERSON> called out suddenly, and I glanced over toward the basket where he and the guys were still standing in a semicircle. The girls were several few feet away all huddled together. Only me and <PERSON> were on our own, a good distance down the court from the rest of them. She was still looking away from me, so I trotted over to <PERSON> and the guys.
"So what were you and <PERSON> talking about so hush-hush like that?" <PERSON> wanted to know.
I shrugged. "Nothing much. Just talking."
"Do you like <PERSON>?" <PERSON> asked me, a smile spreading across his face.
"Yeah. I mean, she's a really nice girl. I like talking to her."
This, for some reason, cracked the boys up. They all exchanged fist bumps, and <PERSON> said, "Ah, yeah, _talking_ to her. That's what I like to do with the shorties."
But then <PERSON> got serious all of a sudden. "So speaking of <PERSON>," he said, "you know she's got a big party planned two weeks from now, don't you? Her mom's gonna be outta town, so it's gonna be bumping."
"Yeah," I said. "I think I might've heard something about it."
"And do you know who's gonna be at that party?" <PERSON> asked. "You know a guy by the name of <PERSON>?"
I shook my head. "Should I?"
"Don't know. He lives around here, but he goes to Central now."
"Yeah, and thank God for that," <PERSON> murmured. "I'd kill that mofo dead if I had to see his face every day."
"I'd do the same if someone stole my girl," <PERSON> said.
"His girl?" I glanced over at <PERSON>, who was
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now I see—I mean, I understand that nothing really went down the way I thought." I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, then drew my hands to my temples as if to block out the nonexistent glare in that dark-ass room.
I started up again after a long pause. "See, the thing is, I thought <PERSON> had been telling stories about me. Really bad, nasty stories. Whether those stories had any truth in them is beside the point. Truth doesn't matter so much at <PERSON>; it's what people say about you that counts, know what I mean? And I was pretty sure that if <PERSON> kept telling his stories, life as I knew it would be over in a big way. So I did what any decent man would do in the circumstances, and I took the necessary steps to protect myself. You following me?" I said, but I still didn't look up.
I heard <PERSON> make an "mm-hmm" sound and went on, "But now I find out, in the most random possible way, that <PERSON> never told stories about me to anyone. So when I went over and clocked him on the playground that day, he had no idea what was coming. And all afternoon, I keep replaying the moment over and over, and I see that stunned look on his face, and it doesn't make me mad anymore like it used to. It makes me . . . sad, you know?"
And as I spoke I felt the shaming splash of warm liquid sliding down my cheeks, but I no longer cared all that much what <PERSON> thought about me. Everybody else, yeah, but not <PERSON>, not right then. I was just too tired to give a shit anymore. Tired, and—that word again—really, really sad. "I was wrong, and there's nothing I can do about it anymore."
<PERSON> didn't interrupt to say that of _course_ there was something I could do about it, and I was grateful to her for that. We both knew it wasn't true, so what would've been the point? I wasn't playing games, so neither was she. "I mean, <PERSON> doesn't even go to Watkins anymore, you know? One semester left of junior high and he's gotta start over somewhere else. And the thing is, <PERSON> was my friend. Yeah, part of the reason was because I didn't have any better choices, but still. He was the only one who ever bothered to be nice to me at that shitty-ass school, and _this_ is how I repay him? Man, I'm a bigger piece of shit than I thought."
"You're not a piece of shit, <PERSON>," <PERSON> said—first time she'd spoken in what felt like an eternity.
"Yeah, I am," I said. "But at least now I know it, right?"
Would my dad still be proud of me if he found out why I did what I did—meaning, no reason at all? Knowing him, probably. But for some reason, that wasn't much consolation. The more I thought about that whole day on the playground, the
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and black gunnery sergeant, we looked like the crew of Star Trek. The main street was scarred by the explosion of bombs left along it for us during the two-year occupation, and traffic crept close to the curb when there was trouble. Suicide bombers also drove their cars with a slow erratic discomfort, so as we rushed past each car along the route, my body tightened involuntarily, expecting them to detonate. None of them did.
We announced our arrival to the gate of Camp Ramadi and hurried to Charlie Med, where all casualties were taken. Marines were gathered in silence near the emergency room, and I went inside pretending authority and not knowing what I would find. I wanted to make sure that the Marine in charge of the medevac knew that we had arrived and that we were accounted for. It was the same field hospital I had been treated in a few months before. There was a cluster of army medical personnel encircling the sergeant who was writhing on a metal table. They seemed to be feeding on him. I stood away from them until a nurse placed me by his head so that he would see someone familiar while the medics did their work. He barely knew me but I was not unknown. He looked up and said, "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't want to let you down." I tried to assure him that my disappointment was an impossible thing, but I can't remember what I said in the presence of his inconceivable apology.
The round had been fired as a single shot from a sniper as the sergeant was running across the street. The bullet had entered his hand and left through his forearm, leaving a discolored mass of muscle and the sinews of other necessary parts hanging from the exit wound. There were bone fragments inside that would have to be dealt with later. Blood dripped from the table onto the floor as they flushed the exposed interior of his arm. The medics threw some kind of sand down to keep from slipping on the slick pool of blood and alcohol.
He asked to see a photo of his family and told me that there was one in his wallet. We found it sorting through his cut-up uniform, and I held a photograph of his baby daughter and another of his family together over his face. He was afraid that he would lose his arm, but I joked that I was afraid he would have to keep it. I tried to help him pretend his injury was minor. The more he worried, the more blood he would lose.
I went outside as the helicopter was being called in, and the platoon had condensed into a silent pack nearby. They seemed full of something unsettled and beyond words. I knew the feeling. They were, again, incapable of exacting revenge, unsure if they should blame the mission, the leadership, or the city. For the sniper, the little bullet had been very particular. He had made a choice. For the
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['a610bf85-bc31-4588-2ee2-244930b2723b']
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that inspiring?" I replied.
"Oh, it was inspiring, sir, and you would have been the shit in the Civil War, but times have changed. The officers go behind the troops now."
"I defer to your wisdom as always, Corporal <PERSON>."
We had discussed my enthusiasm before and it had become the subject of considerable banter between us. <PERSON> was convinced that I was doomed to some inappropriate and unnecessary heroism, and took it upon himself to protect me from it. He watched as I picked up a red stone and slid it into my pocket. He was accustomed to me doing that but he never asked why I kept rocks from the places we went. Nearby were petroglyphs left by the first humans to migrate south after crossing the Asian ice bridge thousands of years ago. People passing here had been drawn to mark the volcanic outcroppings with stone tools, the dry desert preserving the etchings as if they had just been made. My platoon sergeant brought up the last Marines and we checked scrapes and bruises. The valley would be attacked again, Marines rushing across it, tripping on the sharp stones as bullets sprayed overhead. The rocks would remain, except for the one I took.
When my unit arrived in Babylon as the quick reaction force (QRF) for the First Marine Division, we set up near the helicopter landing-pad beside a shallow concrete-lined pond. It looked poisoned despite the sparse presence of lethargic gray fish. The area had been a visitors' center for people touring the ruins before the invasion, and it would be again when we withdrew. My first sergeant organized our headquarters in an abandoned café and I put my tent on the dirt beside it. Shards of <PERSON>'s bricks lay all around us. The soil and fragments were what remained of one of the most storied cities in history. Now it was the seat of the First Marine Division as it retrograded, and the Polish division which was to take command of all coalition forces as we withdrew. The military situation was comical. To our south, Nicaraguan and El Salvadoran troops in Karbala refused to take orders from the Spanish military nearby in Najaf due to old colonial resentments. The Spanish refused to take orders from the Polish, demanding that if Spanish troops were to be employed under coalition command that all orders would have to come to them by way of their ambassador, meaning that the Poles, stationed in Babylon, would have to contact their own ambassador in Poland, who would then have to contact the Spanish ambassador in Spain, who would then have to contact the Spanish military in Najaf and order them to respond to a tactical situation. The Poles, on their first mission outside of Poland, were the third largest international force in Iraq after the United States and Britain, and they were key to allowing a U.S. force reduction, but they came with political difficulties of their own. We were told that if the Polish force took a single casualty, they would likely
|
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['a6e2a4a7-c28c-6817-765b-11a4a5f3b845']
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that in the first quarter, so your postcards don't get lost in the holiday mix in editorial offices. Being strategic, and not just marketing when things are slow, will serve you well in the long run.
Your marketing plan should outline the particulars of a campaign, which can include a press release, several posts on your own blog, and a big social media push. It helps to make a spreadsheet of each quarter's campaign including deadlines and tactics, along with details that become your to-do list each week of that quarter. The more organized your promotion, the more effective it will be.
# CHAPTER _4_
# SELLING _your_ ART
There is nothing like the feeling of selling your artwork to a passionate buyer. These days, working artists sell their work through gallery representation, online sales, exhibitions, or commissions—or, most commonly, a combination of all four. Many artists will sell original work at least once during their career—and that includes illustrators whose work is primarily commercial. Creating print reproductions provides another way to get your work into the hands of more people at a lower price point. Whether you decide to sell original works or prints, understanding how to sell, price, pack, ship, and provide customer service will help increase sales and guarantee an enjoyable experience for your consumers—and a profitable experience for you.
## SELLING PRINT REPRODUCTIONS OF YOUR WORK
Selling digital print reproductions of your original art allows you to offer your work at a lower price point and is a great way to get your work out into the world. A digital print reproduction is made from a high-resolution scan or photograph of your original artwork. It works best with work that is two-dimensional (as opposed to a sculpture or three-dimensional mixed media work), because photographs and scans of two-dimensional work look essentially the same (minus any texture). When I discuss prints in this chapter and throughout the book, I am referring to digital print reproductions and not to printing techniques like screenprinting or linocuts. Those are considered original works that have multiple editions.
## UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL PRINTING TERMS
Take a glance through any online marketplace that sells digital print reproductions of fine art and you will see terms like "archival" and "giclée" and "limited edition." What do these terms mean and which of them apply to your reproductions? Here are some definitions:
**Archival acid-free paper:** Paper with acid removed from the pulp so that it has a neutral pH of 7.0 (or above). The acid that normally occurs in paper can turn it brittle or discolor it over time. Digital print reproductions or photographs printed on acid-free paper will not fade or disintegrate as rapidly.
**Archival ink:** UV-resistant ink is ideal for digital photo prints. Using archival ink will help prevent your prints from fading quickly over time.
**Digital printing:** The process of printing a digital scan or photograph with a digital printer. Nowadays, most prints that you see in the market are digital prints made from scans of original works.
**Giclée:** A high-quality print made by a digital
|
688465cb-c2ab-fda4-64dd-23e8d3605739
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['a6e2a4a7-c28c-6817-765b-11a4a5f3b845']
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distance freestyle and completed an AAU long-course (four-mile) swim. Shortly thereafter he went on to get a full-tuition swimming scholarship to Northwestern University. Now his love is open-water swimming. <PERSON>'s youngest daughter is also an open-water swimmer, and they've participated in several events together over the past 10 years. "I am happiest swimming in open water and prefer a routine of doing one-plus miles each workout. I have always counted strokes as a method of keeping track of my progress (i.e., 7 to 8 strokes = 25 yards) and now find myself counting strides when I walk for exercise, too."
<PERSON> was born in a small farming town called Te Kuiti in New Zealand. She moved to the United States when she was 17 years old to attend college at UC Berkeley. She learned to swim as a child in school, but didn't begin swimming regularly or have formal swim training until the age of 32. Two years earlier in 2007 after a freak accident in which she fell down a flight of stairs, doctors informed <PERSON> that she had a 1 percent chance of walking unassisted again.
Diagnosed with acute compartment syndrome in her right leg, she refused amputation and decided to rehabilitate her leg.
As part of that quest, <PERSON> began swimming for the first time since primary school. What is exceptional about her story is that shortly after she began swimming, she embarked on an unbelievable journey of distance open-water swimming. "I am a medical case study due to my remarkable recovery," she says. Within several short months after getting in the water, she swam from Alcatraz to Aquatic Park in San Francisco. In 2011, she became the first woman to participate in a relay swim from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallon Islands. Since then she has completed open-water swims around the world including relays across the English Channel and around Manhattan, and solo swims of Cook Strait, Lake Tahoe, Molokai Channel, and Tsugaru Strait in Japan. <PERSON> follows all marathon swimming rules, wearing only a regular suit, latex cap, earplugs, and goggles. "There is no resting or touching the support boat," she adds.
In September of 2014, <PERSON> successfully crossed the North Channel (Northern Ireland to Scotland), her seventh and final "Oceans Seven" swim. The Oceans Seven consists of seven of the toughest swims in the world. To date, only six people have finished the Oceans Seven, including <PERSON>. "I love the adventure of the ocean. It is both exhilarating and terrifying. With each swim, I have been given a very unique opportunity to push myself in unimaginable ways. It is completely satisfying feeling emotions at such intensity and doing something that scares you. It's living."
Chel was born with spina bifida, a serious neurological disease that develops in the womb. People with this disease experience muscular, skeletal, and nerve-based health issues. "I was categorized at birth as someone who would very likely be physically disabled," <PERSON> says. "This never set well with me. Although I had a zillion health issues, I always wanted to be
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the top with strips of omelette and pickled ginger. Serve chilled or at room temperature.
MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS. FROM _S EASONAL SALADS._
### **BROWN RICE AND BEAN SALAD**
_Rice and beans are complementary protein partners, and, weight for weight, this salad has the same amount of usable protein as a piece of steak. Do not, however, think it will be heavy and boring. The finished salad looks moist, colorful, and tempting, and most important, it tastes good._
**4 ounces dried red kidney beans (or chick-peas or white beans), soaked overnight, then cooked and drained**
**5 ounces brown rice, cooked, rinsed, and cooled**
**3 tablespoons mayonnaise**
**3 tablespoons cider vinegar**
**2 cloves garlic, crushed**
**1 tablespoon lemon juice**
**2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley**
**Salt and black pepper to taste**
**1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into matchsticks**
**1 green pepper, seeded, and diced**
**1 stalk celery, finely chopped**
Combine the beans, rice, mayonnaise, vinegar, garlic, lemon juice, parsley, salt, and black pepper, and gently mix well together. Set the mixture aside in the refrigerator to chill for 30 minutes and to give the beans and rice time to absorb the dressing.
Toss in the carrot, green pepper, and celery, and serve.
SERVES 4 TO 6. FROM _S EASONAL SALADS._
### **LOUISIANA RED BEANS AND RICE**
_Red beans and rice have long been the classic "poor man's food." The combination is a perfect example of old folkways producing intuitively what we know now, scientifically, to be a perfect complementary protein combination. But it would be a pity to make red beans and rice sound like a nutritional medicine and lose the gourmets' interest, for this may be the best recipe in this collection. I've never served it to anybody who didn't enjoy it._
**2⅓ cups (1 pound) red kidney beans**
**3 cups water**
**½ teaspoon salt**
**2 or 3 ham hocks**
**1 medium onion, chopped**
**1 garlic clove, minced**
**1 celery stalk with leaves, chopped**
**1 bay leaf**
**1 pound sausage**
**2 cups cooked brown rice**
**Chopped green onion**
**Grated cheddar cheese**
Soak the beans overnight or use the quick-soak method: drain and put them in a kettle with 3 cups fresh water; bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover the pan, and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add the salt, ham hocks, onion, garlic, celery, and bay leaf. Simmer 2 hours or longer. Add water if the mixture gets too thick. The beans will be tender in 2 hours, but longer simmering makes the flavor richer.
About 30 minutes before serving, remove the ham hocks, and cool them until you can remove the meat from the bones. Cut the meat into small pieces and return it to the kettle. Meanwhile, cut the sausage into small pieces and fry until brown. Drain away the fat and stir the sausage into the beans. Simmer over very low heat to blend the flavors.
To serve, spoon the beans over the rice on a large platter and garnish with generous amounts of chopped green onion and grated cheddar cheese.
MAKES 8 TO 10 SERVINGS.
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['a7860811-2a49-5d8d-c883-fad1508d5b5b']
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blends, purchase 2- to 4-ounce sizes.
Make the gift complete by creating a nice label that clearly states the ingredients, cautions, and directions for adding oils to the bath, and number of drops to use (or capfuls in the case of diluted blends). I always include the date the blend was made and my initials as well. If you are making a large quantity of bath blend for several gifts, you can order decorative address labels by mail with your blend information printed in place of your name and address.
I like to make labels from either ready-made sticky-backs or paper cards that can be hung from the bottle neck. If you use sticky-back labels, cover them with a protective layer of clear tape once they're on the bottle so they last longer. Paper cards can be hole punched and tied on the bottle with a piece of ribbon. Tie on a glass eyedropper with each bottle, unless you can find bottles with dropper inserts. Eyedroppers come in sizes to fit specific bottles. I use ones that fit 4 ml (1 dram) and 15 ml (approximately ½ ounce) amber bottles.
**OTHER BATH-OIL COMBINATIONS**
_Here are some other possible combinations of essential oils that make good bath blends. You can mix and match the amounts of each ingredient depending on your personal preference._
**lavender, ylang-ylang, patchouli, and rose absolute**
**lemon, juniper, grapefruit, and rosemary**
**bergamot, rosewood, sandalwood, frankincense, and clary sage**
**lavender, rose geranium, and patchouli**
**sweet orange, vanilla oleoresin, and frankincense**
### **BATH SALTS**
adapted from _The Essential Oils Book_
_Bath salts make great stocking-stuffers or Hannukah gifts. There are endless combinations of essential oils for bath salts. These are a few favorites that work well. The recipes can be easily doubled to make more._
_Make sure the salt is well dissolved in the bath water or you will end up sitting on uncomfortable little lumps. Remember to keep the container of bath salts tightly sealed to prevent the volatile essential oils and absolutes from escaping into the environment and reducing the potency and effects of the bath salts._
**BATH SALTS COMBINATION #1**
_This is a balancing, refreshing blend. If desired, add 1 or 2 drops of a citrus oil like lemon, sweet orange, or tangerine to brighten this blend._
**3 drops rosewood**
**3 drops bergamot**
**2 drops frankincense**
**2 cups (500 ml) sea salt**
**Bath-Salts Gift Jars**
When properly sealed, bath salts can last a long time. To ensure a longer shelf life, do not add base oil to the salt (you can include instructions for doing this just before use on the label). Find a pretty jar or decorative tin, and give this gift to a friend who's experiencing exasperating times. (You might want to put a small muslin bag of rice in the bottom of the container of salt to absorb any moisture that might find its way into the container.)
Wrap the container in some pretty paper you've purchased or printed and gather at the top with ribbon or twine. Attach a hand-printed
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Nassau's major public buildings is to take our walking tour, which will give you not only an overview of the historic highlights, but also an overall feel for the city. After that, concentrate on specific sights you'd like to take in; Ardastra Gardens and Coral Island Bahamas are notable options.
Fifteen Miles of Great Scenery for a Buck
In Nassau, local tourism officials are promoting a bus route, the no. 10, that takes you on a road trip that covers 15 scenic miles along West Bay Street, passing historic forts, ocean vistas, well-to-do neighborhoods, secluded coves, and strands of golden-sand beaches. The cost is only $1 per ride, a super bargain compared to the other means of transport used by visitors—chauffeured limos, horse-and-carriage rides, loaded bus tours, rented cars, or even motor bikes.
The Top Attractions
Ardastra Gardens, Zoo & Conservation Center ★ The main attraction of the Ardastra Gardens, almost 2 hectares (5 acres) of lush tropical plants about 1.5km (1 mile) west of downtown Nassau near Fort Charlotte, is the parading flock of pink flamingos. The Caribbean flamingo, national bird of The Bahamas, had almost disappeared by the early 1940s, but was brought back to significant numbers through the efforts of the National Trust. They now flourish in the rookery on Great Inagua. A flock of these exotic feathered creatures has been trained to march in drill formation, responding to human commands with long-legged precision. The flamingos perform daily at 10:30am, 2:10pm, and 4:10pm.
Other exotic wildlife here include boa constrictors (very tame), macaws, kinkajous (honey bears) from Central and South America, peacocks and peahens, capuchin monkeys, iguanas, lemurs, margays, brown-headed tamarins (monkeys), and a crocodile. There are also numerous waterfowl in Swan Lake, including black swans from Australia and several species of wild ducks. Parrot feedings take place at 11am, 1:30pm, and 3:30pm.
You can get a good look at Ardastra's flora by walking along the signposted paths. Many of the more interesting and exotic trees bear plaques listing their names.
Chippingham Rd. <PHONE_NUMBER>. www.ardastra.com. Admission $15 adults, $7.50 children 4–12. Daily 9am–4:15pm. Bus: 10.
To Market, to Market at potter's cay
One of the liveliest places in Nassau during the day is Potter's Cay, a native market that thrives beneath the Paradise Island Bridge. From the Out Islands, fishing boats and heavily laden sloops arrive early in the morning to unload the day's catch. Spiny lobster is the most expensive seafood, but grouper reigns supreme along with fresh crab, jack, and mackerel.
If grouper is king, then "sweet, sexy conch," as the locals say, is queen. Vendors make the freshest conch salad right on the spot; if you haven't eaten the delicacy before, this is the place to try it.
What we don't like to see are fishmongers chopping up sea turtles, a highly endangered species. However, the vendors are not of the politically correct sort, and they're more interested in catering to the Bahamians' lifelong love of turtle flesh than they are in preserving the species for future generations.
Not just
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|
is no formal objection, the registry will issue the license 15 days after receiving the notice. Airmailing your completed notice to Bermuda takes 6 to 10 days, so plan accordingly. The marriage license will be sent to you and will be valid for 3 months.
Hiring a Wedding Consultant
Many hotels can help make wedding arrangements—reserving the church and clergy, hiring a horse and buggy, ordering the wedding cake, and securing a photographer. Weddings in Bermuda range from simple ceremonies on the beach to large-scale extravaganzas at the Botanical Gardens. Other popular sites include churches and yachts.
The Bridal Suite, 125 North Shore Rd., Pembroke HM 14, East Bermuda <PHONE_NUMBER> or <PHONE_NUMBER>; www.bridalsuitebermudaweddings.com), arranges wedding packages that range in cost from $2,000 to $30,000.
Some hotels—including the Elbow Beach Hotel and both of the Fairmont hotels—will arrange weddings; see chapter 4 for contact information. If you're staying at a small hotel, it's better to go through a wedding consultant to plan your wedding.
Bermuda
American Express The representative in the City of Hamilton, Meyer Franklin Travel, 35 Church St. (P.O. Box 510), Hamilton HM 12 <PHONE_NUMBER>; www.meyer-franklintravel.bm), handles travel itineraries for the company.
Area Code The area code for all of Bermuda is 441.
Banks The main offices of Bermuda's banks are in the City of Hamilton. All banks and their branches are open Monday to Friday 9am to 4:30pm. Banks are closed Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays. Many big hotels will cash traveler's checks, and there are ATMs all around the island.
The HSBC of Bermuda, 6 Front St., Hamilton <PHONE_NUMBER>; www.hsbc.bm), has branches on Church Street, Hamilton; on Par-la-Ville Road, Hamilton; and in Somerset.
The Bank of Butterfield, 65 Front St., Hamilton <PHONE_NUMBER>; www.bm.butterfieldgroup.com), has several branches, including locations in St. George and Somerset.
The Bermuda Commercial Bank is at 43 Victoria St., Hamilton <PHONE_NUMBER>; www.bermuda-bcb.com).
Business Hours Most commercial businesses are open Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm. Retail shops are generally open Monday through Saturday from 9am to 5pm (or 7pm); several shops open at 9:15am. A few shops are also open in the evening, but usually only when big cruise ships are in port.
Cellphones See "Mobile Phones," later in this section.
Climate See "When to Go," in chapter 2.
Crime See "Safety," later in this section.
Currency Exchange See "Money & Costs," below.
Customs Visitors may bring into Bermuda duty-free apparel and articles for their personal use, including sports equipment, cameras, 200 cigarettes, 1 liter of liquor, and 1 liter of wine. Certain foodstuffs may be subject to duties. All imports may be inspected on arrival. Visitors entering Bermuda may also claim a duty-free gift allowance.
Persons who are taking prescription medication must inform Bermuda customs officials at the point of entry. Medicines must be in labeled containers. Travelers should carry a copy of the written prescription and a letter from the physician or pharmacist confirming the reason the medicine is prescribed.
When you're leaving Bermuda (if you're flying back to the U.S.),
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bab523a5-7b49-430d-7067-7f89e148b6e6
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heavy material was really only comfortable in the three colder months of the year."
South 21 still employs a hard-working staff of four; some have been at the drive-in for over 40 years. One of those is <PERSON>, the Greek griddle master who has been flipping perfect patties at South 21 since 1971.
Late-night cruising is a thing of the past, as the last burgers are sold at 10 p.m. on weekends. Check the drive-in's hours before you head out to South 21 to show off your '66 Corvette Stingray.
<PERSON> is at the drive-in every day to take orders and manage the staff. She seems confident in the quality of their fare and understands why people continue to patronize South 21. "Diehard fans tell people, 'If you haven't eaten there, you haven't eaten.'"
# **WHAT-A-BURGER DRIVE-IN**
**210 SOUTH MAIN ST | MOORESVILLE, NC 28115**
**704-664-5455**
**(4 OTHER LOCATIONS IN KANNAPOLIS AND CONCORD, NC)**
**MON–SAT 11 AM–10 AM**
**T** his is not the well-known Texas burger chain you are thinking of. In fact, this What-A-Burger actually opened in 1950 in Virginia, the same year as the 700-store Whataburger chain, but both owners were unaware of the existence of the other. After a lawsuit brought more than 50 years later, the two chains agreed that they would not expand into each other's territory and that was that. Today, the Texas based burger chain has expanded into eight states and Mexico but has stayed away from North Carolina and Virginia where a handful of What-A-Burgers still exist.
<PERSON> opened the first What-A-Burger in North Carolina in 1955. At one point, through the ownership of many members of the <PERSON> family, there were up to fifteen locations in the Charlotte area. Today, <PERSON>'s son <PERSON> is the president of the company and there are now five locations that still retain their original number in the chain (for example, the Mooresville location is still called No. 11). Some of the locations still offer curb service.
Built in 1965, the What-A-Burger of Mooresville is an authentic artifact of the drive-in era that sits just south of the main drag. Twenty-eight curb service stalls sit under a retro corrugated shelter and the dining room inside can hold up to a hundred hungry burger lovers.
The burgers at What-A-Burger are very wide, cooked on a flattop, and are made from fresh-ground beef. "The patties come in every morning from a butcher in town," employee of 25 years <PERSON><PHONE_NUMBER>**
**(4 OTHER LOCATIONS IN KANNAPOLIS AND CONCORD, NC)**
**MON–SAT 11 AM–10 AM**
**T** his is not the well-known Texas burger chain you are thinking of. In fact, this What-A-Burger actually opened in 1950 in Virginia, the same year as the 700-store Whataburger chain, but both owners were unaware of the existence of the other. After a lawsuit brought more than 50 years later, the two chains agreed that they would not expand into each other's territory and that was that. Today, the Texas based burger chain has expanded into eight states and Mexico but has stayed away from North Carolina and Virginia where a handful of What-A-Burgers still exist.
Eb Bost opened the first What-A-Burger in North Carolina in 1955. At one point, through the ownership of many members of the Bost family, there were up to fifteen locations in the Charlotte area. Today, Eb's son Mike Bost is the president of the company and there are now five locations that still retain their original number in the chain (for example, the Mooresville location is still called No. 11). Some of the locations still offer curb service.
Built in 1965, the What-A-Burger of Mooresville is an authentic artifact of the drive-in era that sits just south of the main drag. Twenty-eight curb service stalls sit under a retro corrugated shelter and the dining room inside can hold up to a hundred hungry burger lovers.
The burgers at What-A-Burger are very wide, cooked on a flattop, and are made from fresh-ground beef. "The patties come in every morning from a butcher in town," employee of 25 years Diane told me. They are served on soft white buns that have been toasted on a large press. The thin patty and the squashed, toasted bun make for a very flat but satisfying burger. If you are hungry, go for the "Double What-A-Burger." Priced at under 4 dollars this half-pound burger could be the best deal going. There's also a kid-sized What-A-Burger, a smaller version of the original.
You'd have to be a local to understand the baffling burger combinations that What-A-Burger offers. The signature "What-A-Burger" comes with shredded lettuce,
|
cb383b52-e5f3-3fd0-aba0-b899c0a8a329
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['a849eaa0-4351-0555-2899-4c613cd0bb2e']
|
guessed already: I am the proud owner of an official steam box for cheeseburgs, courtesy of Ted's Restaurant. Although this is the best and most authentic way to produce a steamed cheeseburg, you do not have to own one to make them at home.**
A
**THE STEAMED CHEESEBURG**
**MAKES 6 BURGERS**
**EQUIPMENT**
**A large multistage steaming stockpot with two steaming colander inserts and a cover (glass is best)**
**2 small heatproof ramekins for melting the cheese**
**Long tongs (skip the plastic tips!)**
**THE BURGER**
**2 pounds (about 1 kg) fresh-ground 80/20 chuck (ask your butcher for a loose grind)**
**Salt, for seasoning**
**½ pound (225 g) sharp white cheddar cheese, cut into 1-ounce (30-g) cubes**
**6 small Kaiser rolls (you'll want something substantial here—that hot cheese needs support)**
**THE TOPPINGS**
**Green-leaf lettuce**
**1 or 2 medium Vidalia or Walla Walla onions, sliced**
**Yellow mustard**
**Ketchup and mayo (to be fully authentic)**
**1** **Place ¾ inch (2 cm) of water in the bottom of the stockpot and bring to a gentle boil.**
**2** **Divide the ground beef into 6 equal portions and hand-form each into roughly ½-inch (12-mm) thick patties.**
**3** **When the water is boiling, it's time to cook the burgers. I recommend cooking two at a time. After each batch add a bit more water to the pot. An audible clue to little or no water in the pot is that you'll hear rendered fats sizzling. Nothing should be sizzling in there.**
**4** **Salt both sides of the patties just before placing them into the first steamer insert. Lower the insert into the stockpot, cover, and let cook for 8 minutes. Resist the temptation to remove the lid during steaming. Keeping the steam robust is key.**
**5** **While the burger patties are steaming, add a 1-ounce (30-g) cube of cheese to each ramekin.**
**6** **When 8 minutes are up, lift the lid (it's okay, you have my permission now), and add the second steaming insert to your stockpot, placing the two cheese-filled ramekins inside. Cover and let cook for 6 minutes more.**
**7** **While everything is steaming, prepare the Kaiser rolls. Cut the rolls in half and put some lettuce on each bottom bun followed by a slice of onion. Smear some mustard (and ketchup and mayo, if desired) on each top bun. Set aside.**
**8** **When 6 minutes are up, uncover the stockpot, lift out the insert with the cheese ramekins (be careful—these will be** _**hot**_ **), and set aside.**
**9** **Test the doneness of the burgers by gently pressing the top of a patty with the tongs. If the surface gives just a little, it's perfect. If the surface gives a lot, it's undercooked. If it feels like a rock, they're overcooked. But don't worry! You have 4 more patties to get it just right.**
**10** **Once they're fully cooked, use the tongs to transfer the steamed burgers to the prepared Kaiser rolls; pour the hot, molten cheddar over the patties; and close with the top buns. Eat immediately and enjoy, though be careful—the beef will be steaming hot.**
|
bee76a08-376f-3a1e-9c64-63b257c17265
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['a8e69fe4-b2a9-7b31-2ec9-c23a499de853']
|
is not directly above you, somewhere during your time pivoting around, you will be looking into the sun. Likewise you will also be looking away from the sun, during some portion of your exposure. Sometimes the sun can be hidden behind a tree, building, or cloud. Sometimes it is simply unavoidable. You can imagine how this might wreak havoc with your exposure settings.
* * *
My work is my sensuous life.... To make the subject become more beautiful took my full attention, the attention of a lover for his beloved.
—<PERSON>, in _Ruth Bernhard: Between Art and Life_ , by <PERSON> (2000)
* * *
My rule of thumb is this: Stand with your shoulder to the sun. You are at a 90-degree angle from the sun. Take a meter reading. Make a mental or written note of the settings. If you are using the automatic exposure setting on your camera, change it to the manual mode and dial-in that suggested exposure setting. That exposure setting will be used on _all_ of the images that will be used for the finished panoramic. All of your photographs will be taken with the same _f_ -stop and shutter speed setting. Why, you ask? In automatic mode, the exposures would be the best ones for each and every shot, but they would vary too greatly from one another to be blended together cohesively. You would be surprised at the difference, especially in the sky areas, from one exposure to the next. Saturation will also vary. For this task, I want a uniformity of tone for easier blending as I join the pieces together.
Figure 8-9 illustrates a series of four exposures taken with the same exposure settings on all, using the manual setting. Figure 8-8 illustrates that same series taken with an automatic exposure setting.
There are exceptions to this rule. A good example of this is a panoramic that I made as I entered the Scottish Highlands. The weather and sky were dramatic that day. Remember, your digital camera has a finite tonal range, just as film does. Knowing that piece of information, and sensing a huge range of tones in front of me, I actually pivoted around three times to obtain the shots for Figure 8-10, taking in excess of 150 photographs. I used three different meter settings. On one sweep, I metered for highlights; on another sweep, I metered for midtones; and on the final sweep, I metered for shadowed or dark areas. I knew that was the only way I would come close to the tonal range I saw that day. I wouldn't recommend this technique for the first dozen or so panoramas that you construct, as it can be quite a challenge,
**Figure 8-8**
_Automatic camera exposure_
**Figure 8-9**
_Manual exposure setting of
1/400s at f/10_
**Figure 8-10**
_Scottish Highlands_
but once you are a seasoned panoramic photographer you may want to try it for those difficult scenes that exhibit an enormous amount of tonal
|
b5648d44-b861-a9ff-48c6-1a5b7087fbbf
|
['a8e69fe4-b2a9-7b31-2ec9-c23a499de853']
|
underlying photograph.
**Assess the painting**
**Use Straight Cloner at 2% opacity for details in selected areas**
**Select Oil Brush > Glazing Brush variant > lay down a light glaze**
After covering the canvas with paint strokes using the Wet Oil Cloner, it was time to step back and assess the painted image. I used the Straight Cloner at 2% opacity to bring a little of the window-box foliage into view, instead of green smears. The next step was to leave the Cloning brush and go to the Oil > Glazing Brush, also set at a low opacity. I picked a rich dark brown and glazed over the shadowed areas on the left, intensifying the shadows and depth.
* * *
The content of a painting is tied up with the time, place and history. It is always related to man's beliefs and disbeliefs, to his affirmations and negations. How we believe and disbelieve is mirrored in the art of our times.
—<PERSON>, in _The Artist's Voice_ , by <PERSON> (1960)
* * *
**Figure 5-40**
_Glazing brush used_
**Use the Glazing brush to deepen shadows, lighten highlights, and add detail**
The Glazing brush was used with various shades of aqua, green, pink, and yellow to add some color interest in the window boxes. More flowers were added using this brush. The photograph was taken in January and the geraniums were just hanging onto life. The Cloning brush was akin to adding fertilizer to the dirt. The growing conditions improved immediately. Feel free to use your creative license.
The completed painting has the look of an oil painting. There are smears, loose blending of colors, and the appearance of a thick, impasto, paint application. There are several oil options to use and many different brushes. Experiment with thick paint. Be selective with the photograph that you choose. Not all images will look good rendered in oil paints. Some images are better suited to a delicate watercolor rendition than to a thicker, more opaque application of paint. Choose the medium to match the feel of the photograph. This image was printed on inkjet canvas.
**Figure 5-41**
_"Venetian Canal" completed painting_
## **More Oil Painting**
**Figure 5-42**
_Oil Paint Cloner used_
**Use Oil Paint Cloner on the clone**
I'm going to show a few more variations on the Oil Paint Cloner, since the look of an oil painting is often an effect that many photographers desire. In Figure 5-42 the Oil Paint Cloner was used for the first painterly effect.
**Figure 5-43**
_Oil Paint > Glazing Round brush used_
**Light application of color gazing was added with the Oil Paint >**
**Glazing Round brush**
The next brush that was used was the Oil Paint > Glazing Round variation. Colors were selected from the Color Wheel and stroked lightly into the hair area. The opacity was set low to give a feel of transparency.
* * *
All the Fine Arts are different species of Poetry.
—<PERSON>, _On the Principles
|
43c2e2c5-6b41-bc1e-e3c1-557882b76104
|
['a9284be3-88a6-ceaa-f24e-e12e80d91fa6']
|
fireplace. She gave me a strange, detached smile and swirled the wine in her glass.
"How was the interview?" I said.
She patted the chintzy cushion next to her twice, and I sat down.
"I kept on driving," she said.
"Past Mastic?"
"Past Mastic, Shirley, Ronkonkoma. I nearly made it to Queens."
I nodded, trying to stay one step ahead of her as she told me the story of her day. Marital surprises always made me intensely anxious.
"You blew it off."
"Uh-huh," she said, taking another sip of wine. She'd pulled both her legs up against her side, so it looked like she was riding the overstuffed couch sidesaddle.
"That's not good?"
I didn't know what it meant actually. I didn't want to pressure her more by making it a statement.
"There's this incredibly large Gulf station in Centereach. I parked near the air pump and cried like a baby sitting at the bottom of a well."
I tried to put my arm around her shoulder, but she clearly didn't want that. She shrugged off my hand effortlessly, and then she widened her brown eyes and glared at me.
"I fired <PERSON>," she said. "Just now. The poor woman actually looked devastated."
"Why?" I said. "Was it the crumb cake?"
"He was moaning," she said, allowing a shiver to shake her shoulders. "I didn't even walk into his room to see what he was making her do."
"<PERSON>."
"Her husband was out there waiting for her too, smoking his cigarettes in the car. That's my father. His blood turns to sludge unless he's preying on someone."
"Yeah," I said, telling myself that this was the moment to bring up <PERSON>. Before another second passed.
"Maybe we should get him an abusive male nurse," I said instead.
That brought a faint smile to her face again, and she ran the palm of her hand along my leg until she reached my knee cap, her fingers curling over.
"Look at me," she said. "I still love you so much sometimes."
The diluted expression of affection chilled me a little, but I let it go. She was having an awful day.
"Glad I could cheer you up."
She took another sip of wine, emptying the glass. She wanted to talk about the Gulf station in Centereach again. For some reason, as I listened to her, I pictured a human-resources manager at an industrial park in Mastic, waiting for her in his cheaply paneled office, her résumé sitting on his polished desk.
"Well, I sat there for a long time, watching strangers walk in and out of the mini-mart. I was trying to figure out who was in worse shape than us. You know, like a family dragging their kid in to pee. Arguing over snacks inside."
"That probably would have been us."
"I'd take it."
I opened my mouth, ready to give her my valedictory speech about weathering the storm, hanging in there, the hope in hopelessness, but all <PERSON> wanted was three things.
"Don't try to cheer me up," she said. "Get me
|
f6052432-a953-5063-07cb-8fabf9606a34
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['a9284be3-88a6-ceaa-f24e-e12e80d91fa6']
|
before she met me and had always been a little bit self-conscious about it. It had healed as well as it ever would, leaving behind a whitish, raised thread of extra skin. Before I turned off the light, I kissed her there, right on the scar, then on the valley of her stomach and once on her hip.
"I'm sleeping," she said, running her hand quickly through my hair.
"I know," I said, turning off the light.
—
Besides my steadily growing affair with the house next door, there were other disturbing developments that week in December. Whenever I came back from one of my expeditions to the house—I got as far as touching its windows, pictured myself scaling a drainpipe—her father's voice could be heard when I hit the play button on the answering machine.
"You son of a bitch," he said. "Pick up. I know you're there."
At first I thought he might be addressing an old colleague, mistakenly dialing his own number in a morphine haze. But there were many messages. Eight of them that particular day, his seething rage crackling on the phone's small speaker.
"Pick up."
"How does she let you touch her? You're a piece of shit."
"Pick up, scumbag. You fucking coward."
It went on like that till message seven, and I felt almost reassured. I was hoping there was someone, somewhere he liked even less than me.
The eighth message cleared that up. He prefaced this one with my name and then told me that if he found me in his house he was going to drown me with his own two hands, right there in the bay. And he'd enjoy every minute of it.
"That's enough, now," a voice said, tearing the phone away from him.
When <PERSON> came home that night, she shook her head before I could even tell her what I had heard.
"I was there," she said. "The nurse was too. Apparently, it's typical. Their thoughts become disordered."
"Actually," I said, "they sounded very orderly. He wants to drown me in the bay."
<PERSON> arched her lip as if she would laugh, but then she must have remembered how crazy he looked when he said it, and the humor vanished.
"What's going on?" I said.
"I don't know," she said. She looked miserable as she stared down at the floor. Lines of mascara blotted under her eyes.
"Do you want to hear the messages?" I said, reaching toward the answering machine.
"No," she screamed. "Just turn off the phone. Why did you have to listen to them?"
She went upstairs and I thought the night would end there, but she was awake when I walked into the bedroom later. I could see glistening white dots where her eyes were.
She'd been crying in the dark.
I'd always suspected that she had an uncomfortable secret regarding her father. A friend of hers had hinted at it, years before, at a party. The friend had told me that she remembered one day in particular, when they were little girls. <PERSON>'s dad
|
f1eb7eb8-c5a8-5159-85fd-9ad90107fd79
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['a941ed0f-fd63-2781-bce7-9e9c94f41525']
|
my own phone. "Nothing. I don't have service."
"Hmm. That's strange."
"That might mean <PERSON> and <PERSON> don't have service either. If they don't, they can't get in touch with us."
"But why would I—" He shook his head. " _She_ did this. She must have."
"How can she make sure one cell phone has service and others don't?" I whispered, more harshly than I'd intended.
"I don't know how she does half the shit she does." He shook his head. "I can't talk about this right now. It will make me angry, and then I won't be able to control my voice. Or the rest of me, for that matter."
I nodded, entwining my fingers through his. "It's okay. Relax."
He stood stiffly and didn't respond, and I realized how ridiculous my command had been. He wasn't capable of relaxing any more than I was, even after an amazing orgasm.
We wouldn't truly relax until we had found the women and <PERSON>'s uncle and gotten them out of here.
"I'm going to check the door," <PERSON> said.
I gasped quietly. Or at least I tried to.
"There's no other way," he said. "We can't stay in here forever." He turned the knob slowly.
A stream of harsh fluorescent light hurt my eyes. I squinted.
"I don't see anyone," <PERSON> whispered.
"Should we go?"
He nodded, extending his arm. I gripped his hand and followed him out into the hallway.
"We have to find <PERSON> and <PERSON>," <PERSON> said.
"Your dad told them to go down that other hallway. Do you think they're still there?"
"Probably. There's no way to know, if their phones aren't working." He checked his phone again. "Nothing."
Then he cocked his head to the right. "Did you hear that?" he whispered.
I shook my head.
"Shit!" He pushed me back into the closet. "Stay here until I come for you." He closed the door quietly.
My heart thundered and my bowels churned. Not a good time. I had no idea where the bathrooms were around this place, and there certainly wasn't one in this tiny closet.
_<PERSON>, please! Don't leave me here!_
I shouted the words in my mind.
Seconds passed. Then minutes. I strained, my ear against the door, trying to hear something, anything.
Nothing.
Sheer silence met my ear. I didn't even hear <PERSON> walking away. Away from me.
_No, <PERSON>. Don't. Do not cry._
I gulped back the threatening tears. <PERSON> would never put me in danger, so if he told me to stay put, I would stay put. I had food and water in my pack. I would be okay.
But I didn't want to be okay. I wanted <PERSON>. I wanted to find <PERSON>. I wanted to find <PERSON> and her baby who had been crying in my dream.
I'd heard a baby crying when we were underground, searching for this place. I'd also heard a woman scream. But this underground hospital was most certainly soundproof, so where had those cries come from?
I shook my head. Dr. <PERSON>. It was
|
9b466438-d28f-4050-97bf-22c01fef6aed
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['a941ed0f-fd63-2781-bce7-9e9c94f41525']
|
want to see the women you're holding here."
"Look, man, we have nothing to do with all that," one of the others said. "We bring her blood and meds. That's it. We don't know where they are."
"Wrong. Your boss here just said she wants the blood for the wolf."
"The wolf is a little bitch. I should have sliced her innards out that night in the cemetery," the third vamp said. "I say let her bleed to death."
A menacing growl rose in my throat. This was the vampire who had stabbed <PERSON>. "Take me to her now," I said in a voice not quite my own.
<PERSON> shoved a small soft-sided cooler into my hands. "You want to see her? Fine. Take the blood in there yourself. We don't fucking care whether the little bitch dies. Open the door, <PERSON>."
<PERSON>, the vampire who'd wanted to cut out <PERSON>'s innards, inserted a key into the deadbolt and opened the door. "There you go. Have fun."
<PERSON>. She was still safely in the closet. She'd told me she had food and water. I hadn't meant to be gone long, but now I had gained entrance to another part of _her_ lair. I had to take the chance while I had it. Plus, if <PERSON> was truly in trouble, both <PERSON> and <PERSON> would want me to take care of her.
_I'm sorry, baby_ , I said silently. _I love you and I will return for you._
Then I dropped the cooler and pounced on <PERSON> with a right hook to his nose.
"Fuck!" he cried out.
The one called <PERSON> jumped onto my back, but I shrugged him off as if he were a toddler. I turned around quickly and slammed him against the wall. "You fucking stabbed her, you piece of shit."
"Little bitch had it—"
I choked him until he passed out, and I let his big body fall to the floor.
I turned to the other vampire.
"Hey, man. We're good here."
"Sorry. I can't leave you standing. You all need to be out cold." I executed a roundhouse to his kidney.
He doubled over, and I finished him with an axe kick to the small of his back. His head hit the tile floor, leaving him unconscious.
I returned to <PERSON>, whose nose was spewing blood. I slammed him up against the wall, my fingers squeezing his neck. "How many more of you are there?"
"Fuck you!" he said with a rasp. He attempted to spit in my face, but he lacked the velocity and his saliva dribbled down his chin.
I squeezed harder. "There's <PERSON>, right? That makes four. Any more?"
"Fuck—"
I squeezed harder. "Do you think I care if you live or die? You either tell me how many there are, or I find out another way. I can kill you right now. Right here."
"You...can't—"
One more pinch to his neck, and he caved.
"Six altogether. The other two...are...above ground. Getting drugs."
"And <PERSON>?"
"She..." He wheezed. "She put him...in...the arena."
# Chapter
|
0bdc8849-13ac-93bf-605b-d82e1f94db5e
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['a9ac5ab5-4514-0682-3509-c2bb09ca85e2']
|
called _mista,_ or "spooks of the night." The bald eagle was not considered a true eagle because it eats fish, unlike the others that consume only meat. It was also regarded as a thief because it steals fish from osprey. So it made sense to the Cheyenne that the thieving eagle was a symbol of the federal government, because they felt that the United States had stolen from, and mistreated, native people.
<PERSON>'s multiethnic bird guide describes the similar traditional views of Yaghan and Mapuche bird culture, but it also includes basic scientific understandings. Take the green-backed fire crown, a hummingbird, Omora Park's namesake. The small bird's color, size, and other physical attributes are described in English in the guide. Then alongside that is the bird's name in Yaghan, _omora,_ which means "little spirit" and reflects the belief that the bird leads humans to safety during times of trouble and maintains harmony between society and nature. Then in Portuguese, the guide tells us, the hummer is called _beija-flor,_ or "kiss the flower," while in Spanish it is _picaflor,_ or "pierce the flower," which refers to what the bird must do in order to drink its nectar, while in Mapuche the bird's name is _pinda,_ which means "humming." Bird sounds and songs are also included on a disc that accompanies the book.
Bird legends, too, are recounted in the guide. The tribe members were suffering from severe drought, the Yaghan hummingbird story goes, and a mean fox guarded the only lake that still held water. Despite the people's thirst, the fox stubbornly refused to share the water. <PERSON> asked the fox to please, please give the humans some water, but the fox laughed and sneered and said, "Go away, tiny bird." The fox turned his back, though, and the wily hummingbird stabbed him with a harpoon and then ripped down the fence so the people could reach the water. This <PERSON> and <PERSON> story, says <PERSON>, explains the Yaghan belief that all life is connected and that cooperation is essential for survival. "There is a duty to share," says <PERSON>. "Private property is called into question always."
Sharing is a common theme among indigenous bird stories, because it's a matter of survival. A clan of the Bosavi people, the Kaluli, who live in the forest foothills of a collapsed volcano, Mount Bosavi, in the interior of Papua New Guinea, have a tale of the _muni_ bird with a similar lesson. A brother and sister go fishing for crayfish, and the sister catches some but doesn't give any to her younger brother. This is a violation of basic social etiquette. The brother takes a crayfish shell and puts it over his nose, which turns purple, and then he turns into a purple-nosed fruit dove, or _muni,_ and when he opens his mouth to speak, his voice turns into a bird's voice. This becomes a form of crying with poetry in it, a profound expression of loss and abandonment. The bird's song becomes a metaphor, then, for this deeply felt emotion that is fundamental to
|
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|
Tail feathers, or _retrices,_ are used for both control and stability during flight. On the edges of both the remiges and retrices are rows of smaller feathers called _coverts,_ which streamline the wings and insulate.
There is one other, much rarer type of feather. Parrots, herons, and a few other species of birds have something called "powder down" feathers that produce a fine, oily dust that sifts through the feathers, a self-cleaning mechanism that gathers up moisture and dirt, which the birds can then preen away. Birds also have glands that produce preen waxes, which coat feathers and allow them to better shed water and keep themselves dry.
Each feather is attached to a follicle, the so-called "goose bump" that birds have, which are arranged in neat rows on the skin. Most feathers have a long stiff shaft with two vanes that extend out from it. The central shaft is hollow at the end—called the _calamus_ —where there are no vanes, and solid where the vanes are attached to the shaft, which is called the _rachis_. The vanes are asymmetrical. The leading edge of the feather in flight, the outer vane, is the shorter side, while the longer, trailing side is the inner vane.
Individual barbs, the long strands that extend from the shaft and make up the vanes, are similar to tree branches that grow progressively smaller as they grow farther away from the trunk. Each barb has a barbule on the tip, which is hooked, and on the barbules there are microscopic barbicels, also hooked. This hooked design in the exterior feathers creates a gently fixed, self-assembling and disassembling wing, a kind of natural Velcro. As a bird flies, the feathers are constantly fastening themselves together and coming apart, firmly hooking up on the downstroke for better resistance to air, to create lift for the bird's flight, and unhooking to yield to resistance on the upstroke, making the transition effortless and efficient.
One known but virtually uninvestigated secret of bird feathers is how they function as a living part of the bird, acting like transducers that sense wind speed, pressure, and location and relay this real-time flight information to the bird's brain, via a few specialized nerve cells at the point where the quill attaches to the skin. There are tiny, adroit muscles around each follicle that allow feathers to be microadjusted based on flight conditions.
Another secret is how, precisely, wing feathers keep birds in the air. "Equations for how air flows over feathers are based on the idea that a feather is solid, like an aluminum airplane wing," says <PERSON>. "But in fact the feathers are made of tiny microscopic air gaps and huge volumes of air inside the feather. All of our analysis about bird flight ignores the fact that the feathers are porous. Why? Because no one has measured it."
And feathers are so strange in the way they grow that they are a prime example, along with such things as eyeballs and flowers, of how novelty arises during the course of evolution. A decade ago,
|
cb328c84-d24f-98bc-e145-2b14f474629d
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|
offer. But there was no teaching involved: "Visitors are entirely free to work on any piece of research or writing which they may have on hand." One need not stretch one's limits to imagine <PERSON>'s reactions. The timing alone is revealing. <PERSON> immediately called <PERSON>, who was in Beverly Hills with her parents. The call bore an uncanny resemblance to the one that preceded the departure from Washington four and a half years earlier. This time she was less shocked than tentative. She felt at home in Bogotá. The girls were happy. They had a wonderful life. But <PERSON>'s career had reached a plateau. <PERSON> knew, not for the first or last time, that this was a unique opportunity to revive the closeted métier of an intellectual. There does not appear to have been much negotiating: <PERSON> had sent his letter to Bogotá on the 13th, and <PERSON> accepted within a week. While this meant he would delay opening a branch of his consultancy in Mexico or Venezuela, he was "truly exhilarated." The terms were quickly sorted out, and the <PERSON> began to pack for the year. <PERSON> wrote to <PERSON> to ask if he and <PERSON> could help find something to rent in or near New Haven, and the <PERSON> went house hunting. "It's going to be a pleasure to have you here," wrote <PERSON>, "and a highly exploitable opportunity. I'm awfully glad you accepted."
Many years later, <PERSON> acknowledged the significance of <PERSON>'s invitation. It arrived as <PERSON> was fighting local traffic, dealing with his clients, and "hanging around hotel lobbies trying to land new contracts," he told his first chairman. With the fullness of hindsight, he added that "the letter of yours has turned out to be a principal turning point in my life. For me, it typifies what <PERSON> has called the influence of fortuna on one's fate in contradistinction to that of virtù. Of course, looking at the matter from your point of view, writing that letter and making things work out were part of the daily performance of your work and duties—it was part of your virtù. From which circumstances we can derive an important generalization: one man's virtù is another's fortuna."
Among the steps and contingencies in <PERSON>'s reinvention, moving to Colombia was one opportunity for a new start. But in no way did it point to a life as an intellectual, though <PERSON> was itching to do more than write investment memoranda. The Yale letter thus represents another such step, this time, albeit for just one year, to leap from utter obscurity on the periphery to the heart of the American academic establishment. No wonder hindsight seemed to string each opportunity together with a cord of good fortune; fortuna did indeed appear to be smiling on him. A common biographical device relies on turning points and epiphanies as pivots. But plenty of chances are squandered. Others come with expectations that never ripen. And most acquire significance only after the fact, which reminds us that it is what comes later that makes the turning
|
a78578b3-1257-016c-8fc3-ecde30240bee
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['a9e772bb-7996-0cc8-2471-1212ee7e4911']
|
letters portending difficulties in getting the project back on the tracks." It was becoming a "nightmare" dealing with many people "all wanting to make their own decisions." The only downside was missing the opportunity to collaborate with <PERSON> really regret not being able to work with him." The same hesitation came up a year later, when <PERSON> asked him to lead another review of CEBRAP for the Ford Foundation. He tried—unsuccessfully—to beg off. Though "it is one of the most interesting intellectual enterprises I have come across and I feel greatly honored to be called upon to participate in the discussion about its work that you are planning," he was on sabbatical, lost in some remote readings, and was reluctant to travel because he was "deeply immersed in a new project." In the end, though, he acceded; an invitation to be at the table when Latin American social scientists were going to discuss their fate was not something that <PERSON> could easily turn aside. "This was too nice and honorable assignment to turn down."
The Chilean coup tipped the scales in favor of involvement. After the sobering trip in 1973, it was all the more important to get beyond the either-or of exaggerated hopes and paralyzing despair. Events only confirmed that free markets were "not a solution" and social revolution is "not available." <PERSON> wanted studies of policies that made differences; he wanted to nurture a social science that would liberate Latin Americans from their defeatism and its twin, the application of fancy "theories" derived from someone else's experience. In the meantime, the SSRC had its hands full with a deluge of applications from beleaguered students and scholars in Chile and Uruguay. In the shadow of the Chilean tragedy, the committee gathered at the SSRC offices in New York in November. <PERSON> began the meeting by suggesting that the committee support collaborative, thematically driven projects conducted _in_ Latin America itself and avoid the tendency for "area studies" to be an American invention. <PERSON> (who was not on the committee) drafted an outline for a collaborative project on "public policy" in Latin America. Given the complexity of personal relations involved, <PERSON> tapped a young Columbia political scientist, <PERSON>, who regarded <PERSON>'s essay on dictatorships as a landmark. <PERSON> penned a memorandum outlining a complex proposal to study "the State."
Getting an amorphous theme like "the State" into an integrative research agenda could not help but mean more discussion, not all of which helped clarify the point of the exercise. <PERSON> had to press softly to create a coherent network that still enabled participants to realize their own agenda within it. To this end, <PERSON> arranged a follow-up meeting at the Instituto Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires and asked <PERSON>, the host, and <PERSON> of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Geneva, to plot out for the group a framework centered on something that had concerned him since the 1950s: public policy. The <PERSON>-Schmitter manifesto argued that the project should focus on policy making from the perspective of "the
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d6ae0ed0-e1fc-47ef-cce8-9ed2b44e2ae9
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['aada040c-7ee4-c8f9-911c-27240a188957']
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New World. Audubon finally found a publisher in Edinburgh. By this time his plans for the work, to be titled _Birds of America,_ had grown and he returned to America for more material. By now Audubon was an American national institution. Government schooners were placed at his disposal to take him to Labrador and other far-flung spots. In 1838 all five volumes of the great work were finally published.
In 1840 he received a letter from a seventeen-year-old boy named <PERSON>, describing a species Audubon had missed: the yellow-bellied flycatcher. Audubon invited the boy to visit and the two became friends. Ten years later the enthusiastic young naturalist had a specimen collection that filled two freight cars (2,500 American birds, 1,000 European birds, nests, eggs and reptiles, as well as 600 skulls and skeletons of American vertebrates and fossils). The freight cars carried the collection to the Smithsonian where <PERSON> was to take up his appointment as assistant secretary.
The 1850s saw the beginning of the great age of exploration of the West, and <PERSON> was responsible for shipping back to the Smithsonian all specimens collected by the explorers and surveyors. The information <PERSON> gleaned from the numerous expedition reports was encyclopedic, so it was to him that the government eventually turned for information regarding the possible purchase of Alaska in 1866. <PERSON> advised Congress to ratify the purchase.
Of the hundred or more expeditions in which <PERSON> was involved perhaps the most exciting was that led by <PERSON>. In 1867 <PERSON> obtained <PERSON> a grant from Nebraska for a survey of the state's geological resources. The survey was extended and refinanced over the next four years, and in 1871 <PERSON> returned from the Rockies with stupendous photographs by <PERSON> that persuaded Congress to declare the area a special place: the first National Park in the United States.
It became known, after the river running through it, as Yellowstone National Park. And it contained the biggest geyser in the Western world: "Old Faithful."
81 153
70 142
123 232
68 141
18 40 38 68
83 157
41 76
<PHONE_NUMBER>
136 254
121 224
## **Fire from the Sky**
**A** t the end of a bleak, wind-swept plain in the southern part of Iceland can be found one of the most extraordinary sights on the planet. Amid clouds of sulphurous steam and hot pools, every fifteen minutes _Strokkur_ erupts, throwing a plume of scalding water seventy feet into the air. The word for this phenomenon, "geyser," comes from the old Icelandic word for "gush": _goysa._
Geysers happen where the waters of an underground spring encounter hot rocks. This usually occurs in areas of volcanic activity and it happens in Iceland because of a gigantic, mile-long fissure known as "the thing that eats everybody": _allmannagja._ The fissure is part of a split in the Earth's surface that runs north-south the length of the Atlantic. As magma from the molten planetary core wells up through the split and hardens it forces the Atlantic tectonic plates
|
34dea34a-0a50-8018-a540-e9592609403e
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['aada040c-7ee4-c8f9-911c-27240a188957']
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include corn pancakes and curry (India), blood pudding and fried potatoes (England), waffles and maple syrup (America), cold ham and cheese (Germany) and meat-and-cabbage soup (Colombia). However, these quaint local anachronisms are gradually disappearing before the onslaught of television advertising campaigns that exhort viewers to "eat healthy." The breakfast-food marketplace is now global. Today in almost any store anywhere in the world you can buy breakfast cereals.
For every hundred kilograms of grain used to make cornflakes, eighteen kilograms of used corncob are left. This vegetable detritus has had a varied career. Early in the twentieth century it was used to increase the water-holding capacity of mulch and soil, as well as for landfill in swampy ground. Corncobs have also been used for animal and poultry feed, as poultry litter, as a mild abrasive to clean car windscreens, and in soft-grit blast-cleaning of metals in aero engines.
However, it was the work of a nineteenth-century German chemist named <PERSON> that turned corncobs into a world-changing product. <PERSON> rose from obscure beginnings to become an unqualified journeyman chemical manufacturer, and at the age of thirty had the good fortune to befriend <PERSON>, chief administrator of the technical college in the University of Jena, Germany. The college patron, Grand Duke <PERSON> of Saxony-Weimar, probably approved <PERSON>'s hire in the hope that he would produce potentially profit-making inventions. Whatever the reason, in 1810 the unqualified <PERSON> was given a doctorate and a place on the faculty. Twenty-two years later he found a use for corncobs.
<PERSON> processed corncobs (it is not known how, or why) and produced an amber-colored chemical he named "furfurol." Little or no use was made of this discovery until the 1920s, when the growing petroleum industry had begun to make inroads into the chemicals market. Up to this point most chemicals had been derived from plants, so the change was bad news for the agricultural industry. Quaker Oats looked around for more ways to make money from their products and found that pressing, boiling, steaming and acidifying oat husks (and other forms of bagasse, such as corncobs) would yield the almost-forgotten furfurol. It was then discovered that furfurol could be processed to make a solvent for use in oil refining, in the manufacture of synthetic rubber and the development of nylon. It also found uses in carbuncle ointment, antibacterial medicine, acid-resistant containers, molds for the metal industry, insecticides, charcoal for barbecues, herbicides and antiseptics.
Furfurol was also used as an adhesive resin that would bond abrasives to a grinding wheel. Up to the end of the nineteenth century the abrasives (emery or sandstone) wore out quickly. Then in 1891 a young American, <PERSON>, made an accidental discovery that changed grinding and illumination. <PERSON> had previously worked as timekeeper, railroad ticket agent, assistant surveyor and railroad engineer and oil-tank gauger. In 1880 he was inspired by an article in _Scientific American_ to seek employment with <PERSON> at Menlo Park, where for four years he worked on electric lamps. In 1888 he set up his
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bfc3ffd9-4f26-f9b7-6497-f0cde402707d
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['ab04992e-747e-c168-a1b8-0a912e8ea2fb']
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in your game is going to happen lots of times or is causing your game to slow down a lot. If this does happen, check out the guide on improving performance at <https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/how-to-improve-game-thread-cpu-performance>.
Often in game studios, designers will prototype a game mechanic so that it feels right and if it's decided to be used in the game, it's revisited and if it needs to be revised, a programmer can then reimplement it knowing exactly what the designer had in mind while making it as efficient as possible. Lionhead Studios is currently doing this during the development of their new game _Fable Legends_. For more information on that, refer to <https://www.unrealengine.com/showcase/fable-legends>.
# Setting up your development environment
One of the first things that we'll need to do when working in Unreal Engine 4 using C++ is having our **Integrated Developers Environment** ( **IDE** ) set up and making it in such a way so that we can run our new code. Let's see how we can do this now.
## Getting ready
You'll need to install Visual Studio 2013 (at the time of writing, the 2015 RC version is not supported, so you'll need to install 2013) on Windows or Xcode on Mac to work with this chapter.
## How to do it...
Since I'm working in Windows, I'll be using Visual Studio in which there is a Community edition that is free for students, open source projects, and teams of less than five people. Follow these steps:
1. Open up your web browser and go to the Visual Studio Community's page at <https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs.aspx>. Once the page is loaded, scroll down to the **Visual Studio downloads** section and from Visual Studio 2013, select the Community 2013 edition and then click on **Download**.
### Note
Xcode can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for free at <https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id497799835>.
2. Once you've got the installer installed, check the agree checkbox and then click on the newly-appeared **Next** button.
3. Just keep the initial default settings to install and then click on the **Install** button and wait for it to download the software. This may take a while, so feel free to take a rest and come back later (I had it go overnight, but depending on your Internet connection, it may be completed sooner).
### Note
For more instructions on setting up Visual Studio to build a project from scratch, visit <https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Programming/Development/VisualStudioSetup/index.html>.
4. Once Visual Studio is installed, we can then open up the Unreal Editor by clicking on the **Launch** button from the Unreal Engine Launcher.
5. Start a new project from the **Project Browser** tab by selecting the **New** **Project** tab. Click on the **C++** tab and then select **Third person** and make sure that **With Starter Content** is selected. Give the project a Name (`Cookbook_Chapter9`). Once you are done, click on **Create Project** and wait for it to finish compiling the project.
### Tip
If, on the bottom of your screen, you see a red box saying there was no
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f55ab3ac-f4e2-4bf7-c96d-c437948a3245
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['ab04992e-747e-c168-a1b8-0a912e8ea2fb']
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4. Select the `ShopPanel` object and then from **Vertical Scrollbar** , assign the newly created `Scrollbar` object:
5. Now, let's create an empty game object to hold the entire menu. To do this, right-click on the **Canvas** object and select **Create Empty**. From there, rename the object to `ShopMenu` and then drag and drop the `ShopPanel` and `Scrollbar `objects on top of it to become children. Finally, from the top of the **Inspector** tab, uncheck the `ShopMenu` object to easily hide the menu options:
# Opening/closing the shop
Now, let's make it so we can open up the shop. With this in mind, let's create a button to do just that:
1. Right-click on the `Canvas`object, select **GameObject | UI | Button** and then rename the object to `ShopOpenButton`. Change the **Width** to `300` and **Height** to `60`. From there, extend the `Text` object by selecting it and then from the **Inspector** tab under the **Text** component, change the **Text** to `Open Shop` and change the **Font Size** to `40`.
2. Now from the **Hierarchy** tab, select the `ShopOpenButton` object once again and then from the **Anchor Presets** window, hold down _Alt_ and _Shift_ and then click on **top-left**. Then, change **Pos X** to `20` and **Pos Y** to `-20`. Scroll down to the **Button** component, and from the **On Click ()** section, click on the **+** button. Connect the **ShopWindow** object and then from the dropdown, select **GameObject | Set Active**. Then, click on the checkmark to enable the shop. Click on **+** again and drag and drop the `ShopOpenButton` object to the list with an unchecked **SetActive** (so it'll turn itself off once pressed):
3. Now duplicate the `ShopOpenButton` (select from the **Hierarchy** tab and then press _Ctrl+D_ ) and rename the new one `ShopCloseButton`. Change the text of the close button to `Close Shop`, and from the object's **Button** component, add a **+** button to turn off the `OpenCloseButton` button (unchecked **SetActive** ). Then, go to the `ShopOpenButton` and turn the `ShopCloseButton` object on (checked **SetActive** ).
What we are doing here is so when one button is pressed, it will turn the shop on or off and then turn itself off and on:
4. Save your scene and play the game:
Now when we open the shop, we will see the shop and be able to close it.
# Purchasing upgrades
Now that we have the shop menu up and working, let's add in the functionality to purchase things:
1. Go to the **Hierarchy** tab and then toggle the `ShopMenu` back on and delete all of the other buttons except for one which will be our reference for others.
We will want each button to have three texts--the name of the object, the number we have, and the cost to build another.
2. First, change this object's name to `Desc `and change the **Text** component's **Alignment** to the left horizontally, then duplicate it (`Ctrl+D`) name the duplicate `Cost` and center it. Finally, duplicate
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62d85f52-f0f7-38b6-5735-588b95421bab
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['ab8e2de1-9d3b-1d9f-cb6b-a9b814fb000c']
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she would prefer a glass of sherry or port.
|
'Oh, definitely sherry,' she said. 'Sherry is like the nectar of the gods. Just looking at it in this crystal decanter fills me with anticipation. When the stopper is removed and the beautiful liquid is poured into the glass and I inhale the delicious tangy aroma, I am lifted on the wings of ecstasy. As I taste the magical potion, my whole being glows, it seems like a thousand violins are playing in my ears, and I'm transported into another world. Port, on the other hand, makes me fart.'
**60** | Why did God invent alcohol? – So that fat women can get laid too.
**61** | A blonde walked into a bar and ordered a triple Jack Daniels . . . followed by another . . . and another . . . and another . . . and another. She ended up spreadeagled on the floor, and all the guys in the bar took advantage of her.
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It was the same story for the next two nights: she downed a succession of Jack Daniels, collapsed on the floor, and all the guys in the bar had sex with her.
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On the fourth night, she asked the bartender for a martini.
---|---
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'I thought you drank Jack Daniels?' he said.
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'Not any more,' she replied. 'It makes my pussy sore.'
**62** | An ex-US Marine Virginian hillbilly came to town carrying a jug of moonshine in one hand and a shotgun in the other. He stopped a man on the street and said: 'Here, friend, take a drink outta my jug.'
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The guy protested, saying he never drank, but the hillbilly levelled the shotgun at him and commanded: 'Drink!'
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The stranger drank, shuddered, shook, shivered, and coughed. 'My <PERSON>!' he said. 'That's awful stuff you've got there!'
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'Ain't it, though!' replied the hillbilly. 'Now, you hold the gun on me while I take a swig.'
**63** | <PERSON> started chatting up a good-looking girl in a bar. Seeing that she didn't back off, he asked her name.
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'<PERSON>,' she replied.
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'That's a nice name,' he said, warming up the conversation. 'Who named you, your mother?'
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'No, as a matter of fact, I named myself.'
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'That's interesting. Why <PERSON>?'
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'Because I like cars, and I like men.' Looking directly into his eyes, she asked: 'What's your name?'
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He said: '<PERSON>.'
#### ALZHEIMER'S
**64** | After playing bridge together for many years, two old ladies had got to know each other pretty well. Then one day, during a game of cards, one lady suddenly looked up at the other and said: 'I realize we've known each other for many years but, for the life of me, I just can't bring it to mind. Would you please tell me your name again, dear?'
---|---
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There was silence for a couple of minutes, and then the other lady answered: 'How soon do you need to know?'
**65** |
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a63d0d8c-b587-b15a-271b-f42ea7591604
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['ab8e2de1-9d3b-1d9f-cb6b-a9b814fb000c']
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horses' parliament ever pass any legislation?
Because whatever was proposed, they always voted "neigh".
Why didn't the horse draw a cart?
**Because he couldn't hold the pencil.**
What did one horse say to the other?
**Any friend of yours is a palomino.**
What do hippie horses eat?
**Hay, man.**
A horse walks into a bar. The barman says, "Why the long face?"
A stallion and a mare were due to get married, but the stallion didn't turn up at the church. He got colt feet.
How does a horse ride a bicycle?
**With stable-izers.**
What do you call a horse that plays the violin?
**Fiddler on the hoof.**
Some race horses were staying in a stable. One of them started to boast about his track record. "In the last 15 races, I've won eight of them!"
Another horse broke in, "Well in the last 27 races, I've won 19!"
"Oh that's good, but in the last 36 races, I've won 28!" said another, flicking his tail.
At this point, they noticed that a greyhound had been sitting there listening. "I don't mean to boast," said the greyhound, "But in my last 90 races, I've won 88 of them!"
The horses were clearly amazed. "Wow!" said one, after a hushed silence. "A talking dog!"
What did the breeder call when his horse was possessed by an evil spirit?
**An exhorsist.**
What do you call a horse that is more bashful than the others?
**A shire horse.**
Why is a horse with a sore throat twice as sick as any other animal?
**Because he is then a hoarse horse.**
The thunder god went for a ride on his favourite horse.
"I'm <PERSON>!" he cried.
The horse replied: "You forgot the thaddle, thilly."
# HYENAS
A hyena and a gorilla are talking. The hyena says, "I'm fed up."
"Why's that?" asks the gorilla.
The hyena explains, "Every morning I go for a walk and this lion keeps jumping out of the undergrowth and beating me up."
"That's not very friendly," says the gorilla. "If I ever see that happen, I'll come and help you."
"Thank you," says the hyena.
The next morning, the hyena goes for his usual walk and, sure enough, the lion jumps out, beats him up and runs off. As the hyena lies writhing in agony on the ground, he looks up and sees the gorilla relaxing on the branch of a tree. "Hey," says the hyena, "you said that if you saw the lion beating me up, you'd come and help me."
"I did," says the gorilla, "but you were laughing so much I thought you were winning."
What do you get if you cross a chicken with a hyena?
**A creature that laughs at every yolk.**
What do you get if you cross a hyena and a Rottweiler?
**I don't know, but join in if it laughs.**
# IDIOTS
Did you hear about the idiot that got an AM radio?
**It took him a month to realize he could play it at night.**
Why did the idiot scale the chain-link
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e9325662-ea04-73ca-8710-5580eaf2c22e
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['aba7d59a-1030-950b-1af5-b742093d91e7']
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followed, <PERSON> tucked her hands into her armpits and sharpened her eyes.
This is what she saw. The hair. Undeniably similar. The familiar nose. Better looking on a middle-aged woman. The serious way the woman walked. (That's how _I_ want to walk, thought <PERSON>.) Her distinct shape against the neighborhood scene, beneath a blue unbroken sky. The jacket. <PERSON> loved the woman's jacket, open and flapping, corduroy the color of cantaloupe, with scalloped lilac trim on the sleeves and hem. Oh, how she loved the jacket. She'd never seen anything like it.
For just a second <PERSON> felt a separateness from every other person except the woman. And that second seemed to contain her whole life, everything that mattered. And the unfinished things inside her felt complete.
<PERSON> found it hard to breathe. The world was shrinking to a pinhole.
Now the woman came closer to the window. She whipped her hair into a high, loose bun, using the window as a mirror.
Now she passed right by them, glancing into the coffee shop, a mere sheet of glass separating them. <PERSON> didn't speak, but with imploring eyes she asked, _Do you know me? Is it me you're looking for? Do I belong to you?_
Now the woman walked out of <PERSON>'s direct line of sight. Out of the world.
Now there was something new in <PERSON>'s voice when he said, "It's really true. We've had a sighting. This is significant. This is the strangest thing that's ever happened to me."
And now <PERSON> whispered, "To _me_."
Perhaps, this, this, was the start of her life.
Strange things always occur in life, she reasoned. Unbelievable things were as common as common ones if you were open to them, she told herself. If you looked beneath the surface.
Miracles did happen. At least, she believed they did. They _could_. Wasn't it true? There are people whose hearts stop and then beat again. People who are missing for years and then show up one day out of the blue. There are kids who fall from great heights and barely suffer a scratch. If there were six billion people on the planet, couldn't one uncanny, irrational thing happen to one of them, to her? Couldn't she experience something from another dimension? Couldn't she?
"We still have to name her," said <PERSON>. " _You_ should. She's your mother. What's your mother's name, anyway?"
Her mother's name was <PERSON>, but she didn't want to say it out loud. "I'll call her <PERSON>," said <PERSON>.
"<PERSON>'s your mother's name?"
"No. <PERSON> is my middle name. My mother wanted to call me <PERSON> because I was born on January sixth, the Feast of Epiphany."
"What's that?"
"It's the day the Three Kings supposedly visited Baby <PERSON> with their gifts. But we're not religious and my father thought it was an odd, trendy name. But, anyway, it's my middle name. So that's what I'm calling the woman."
"Your _mother_. That's cool. And, hey, it's another one-word name like <PERSON>."
_Your mother_. Was this whole thing <PERSON>'s way to pass his
|
b0bf3835-f10a-96b6-760f-2f5efa1185f8
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['aba7d59a-1030-950b-1af5-b742093d91e7']
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"A very nice person."
<PERSON> felt great relief.
"Tell me about this rabbit," said Ms. <PERSON>.
"It was my mama's when she was little," <PERSON> began. "I thought you would like it because it's the Year of the Rabbit."
"Does your mama know you brought it to school?"
"Oh, it's okay," said <PERSON>. "It's mine."
"I _do_ like it, but I think you should keep the rabbit," said Ms. <PERSON>. "I think you should keep the coins, too. But I can always use a paper clip. And a safety pin. And I should probably keep the nail, too. I'm glad it didn't poke you."
"I think it tore my pants a little."
During their conversation, <PERSON>'s eyes would flit up at Ms. <PERSON>, but when he spoke he cast them downward.
"Here you are," said Ms. <PERSON>. She placed the coins and the rabbit in his hand. "And thank you."
When, after a brief silence, he had the courage to look at her, really look at her, he did so with a kind of curiosity at first. He saw her differently, somehow, and suddenly, unexpectedly, he found it natural and easy to ask, "Do you think I'm smart enough for second grade?"
"Oh, <PERSON>. Absolutely. Yes." She paused. "Are you worried about something?"
He told her his story—about falling—and he showed her his lump.
"Your bump is nearly gone," said Ms. <PERSON>.
"The doctor said when I fell I protected myself."
"Well, that was smart of you," said Ms. <PERSON> in a voice that was clear and kind. "You _are_ very smart."
<PERSON> blinked, as if by doing so he could replay Ms. <PERSON>'s last remarks.
The doctor in Minnesota had said <PERSON> was _lucky_. But Ms. <PERSON> had just said that he was _smart_.
Smart.
That one word said in Ms. <PERSON>'s voice made him feel as if he were filled with helium like a balloon and might rise off the floor.
"If you go quickly, you'll still have some time for recess," said Ms. <PERSON>. "And, thank you for my silver things."
"I like your chopsticks," <PERSON> said over his shoulder as he hurried out of the room.
When he got outside, he couldn't believe it—the fog had lifted; the sun had burned through the damp air. Everything was bright. Sharper. He spotted <PERSON> and some other kids in a cluster at the far end of the playground. He rushed toward them.
He couldn't help smiling, even as he ran. He doubted he'd tell anyone about his talk with Ms. <PERSON>. There really was nothing to say—even to Mama and Papa.
"Hey, <PERSON>!" he shouted. He said no more until he reached his friend, but his mind was sending off sparks.
It's only the second day of school, he thought happily, and my teacher said I was smart.
## PART TWO
## FATHER
1
Things were changing. The light was different. The trees throughout the neighborhood were turning. Every day it seemed the leaves were more colorful, as if someone had taken a paintbrush to them during the night.
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bd221cdb-f519-76b0-f9f5-73107b3f297d
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['ac59e099-6255-a5ec-5054-5d94fb4fa067']
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20s the Dadaists became surrealists. Many of these artists had fought in the war and by the 30s saw that the whole gasket was about to blow again. <PERSON>, <PERSON> (again), <PERSON>. Perhaps the entire counterculture was a result of the Second World War, as the baby boomers entered the mystic in an attempt to avoid inheriting the sins of their parents. The problem by the mid-90s is that the old soldiers are dying out and the children of the baby boomers can only remember back as far as the mod revival of '79. And so in 1997 the children of punk clink glasses with the prime minister at a Downing Street champagne reception. When the grandeur of the moment has faded and the ignorant vulgarians are feeling, well, just a little foolish, they will protest _I only wanted to have a look round the gaff_. And look round they did. Happily for us every loving, obsequious gaze is caught on camera. Forever. So, children, wear your poppy with pride and while you're at it remember to write a good song.
Conditioned by years of featherweight religion, the public and media – always happy to believe in something that does not exist – have yet to twig that the so-called Britpop party is over. Unlike some of the main players. Elastica are in a sloth somewhere in self-induced narcoleptic oblivion. Pulp are working on an album called _We Don't Like Being Famous Anymore_. Blur have released a song called 'Beetlebum' which sounds like one of mine from a few years ago. Oasis, not content with disgracing themselves at the aforementioned vainglorious shenanigans in Downing Street, have released a dead-dog's dinner of an album, _Be Here Now_ , which by the twenty-first century (but not 1997) will become a byword for dead-dog's dinners. The lead singer from Kula Shaker will invoke the 'I'm a deluded rock star; I have been dabbling in mystic mumbojumbo and, with thudding predictability, am now going to reclaim the swastika as a sign of peace' clause, thus precipitating the cruel but necessary end to his career (his loss, our gain). American magazine _Vanity Fair_ – with a front-cover photo of the singer from Oasis lying down with a blonde lady – will bestow the epithet 'Cool Britannia' upon this once-noble nation. People who normally sneer and carp at everything the yanks say or do take this very seriously.
Of course _I_ saw it all coming. _What d'ya mean Oasis have blown it? Could have told you that before the first album came out, etc_. I'm an old boxer swinging on the ropes, just trying to conserve a bit of energy.
So, how am I taking advantage of these chinks in the armour? By tearing down the walls of Jericho of course. On returning from my trip to the countryside, I decide that the best way to meet the world of showbiz head on is to write and record a concept album about telekinetic children – _ESP Kids_. By March '97, after tens of thousands of
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– one or two microdots, perhaps some mushroom tea. When the patient is pleasantly tripping the short procedure can commence – the trepan.' <PERSON> does another flourish with the drill and looks like <PERSON>.
<PERSON> and I fail to suppress our snorts of laughter. The amateur surgeon is irritated.
'Trepanation is designed to release pressure and restore the brain blood volume level to that of childhood, the time in one's life when the ego is instilled. With you it may be earlier, Mr <PERSON>. Your friend has agreed to have the procedure, though I feel it may also be beneficial to you. I could uncork your head like a cheap bottle of wine,' says <PERSON> mock-threateningly.
'Thanks,' I say. I'm on the upswing. I haven't taken psychedelics – of my own free will or otherwise – for years. I figure that this situation is so absurd I may as well enjoy it. At least I think that's what I think.
'Can I have some more acid, please?' I ask our new friend brightly.
'Good wisdom,' says <PERSON>. 'Go to the kitchen and fetch me my coat.'
I look at <PERSON>, now sat in the old aeroplane seat – the 'operating' chair – and think to myself how I must thank my friend for introducing me to such a lovely person. I stumble out the bathroom door and stand outside for a few seconds just to listen to the great preacher.
'I will make an incision here, the bore hole. With the drill I will remove a semicircle of bone, being careful not to penetrate the membrane. Penetration of the dura membrane will certainly cause permanent brain damage.'
'Oh,' says <PERSON>.
_<PERSON>. What a guy. Hurry along, don't want to miss this_ , I think to myself as I head next door, back to the main farmhouse, where <PERSON> has returned from her martial arts tournament and is making hot dogs for a couple of the karate kids. I do my best 'I am normal' walk to the kitchen table, not wanting to upset the children.
'You all right, darling, had a little too much wine?'
I don't answer, unsure of what might come out. I attempt a comforting smile.
'Oh dear,' says <PERSON>. 'Listen,' she continues, 'have you seen <PERSON>? I need to talk to him about our tenant. The old guy keeps avoiding me. He owes us two months' rent. Have you seen him?'
'Yeah, he's next door. He's drilling a hole in <PERSON>'s head.' I was worried I might say something like that. <PERSON>'s not sure what I'm talking about, but she has an inkling that something is about to go very wrong. The younger karate kid, a boy of about eight, looks like he's about to burst into tears.
'Kids, go and play in the front room; everything is going to be all right. Auntie <PERSON> is just going next door, to have a chat with Uncle <PERSON>,' says Auntie <PERSON>. Then to me: 'Go to the pub. Get help.'
Is she telling me to just go
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by the Beach," which draws the best street basketball teams.
### 5. Street Performers
The best in the business, Boardwalk's street performers dance, walk barefoot on glass, balance people on their chin, and even juggle chainsaws.
Google Map
### 6. Drum Circle
People of all backgrounds and ages gather on the beach on Sunday afternoons, chanting and dancing to the seductive rhythms of pots, bells, and bottles.
Google Map
### 7. Windward Avenue
Flanking Windward Avenue are Venice's oldest Renaissance-style buildings, including St. Marks Hotel, a hostel.
Google Map
### 8. Beach Architecture
Unique private homes line the Boardwalk between Venice and Washington Boulevards. Look for the one by <PERSON> at No. 2311 and <PERSON> Norton House.
Google Map
### 9. <PERSON> Sausage Kingdom
The simple sausage goes gourmet at this locally popular but unassuming take-out stand. 2011 Ocean Front Walk • _<PHONE_NUMBER>_
Google Map
### 10. Sidewalk Cafe
The kitchen produces satisfying sandwiches, salads, and other simple fare. Ideal for people-watching. 1401 Ocean Front Walk • _<PHONE_NUMBER>_
Google Map
View photo
## Outdoor Pursuits
### 1. Hiking
Around 600 miles (1,000 km) of hiking trails meander through the Santa Monica Mountains, stretching from Griffith Park in Hollywood to the north of Malibu. Will Rogers State Park and Topanga State Park are good gateways for hiking.
Google Map
### 2. Inline Skating
Enjoy skating along this 22-mile (35-km) paved trail parallel to the beach from Temescal Canyon Road north of Santa Monica to Torrance Beach. Rental outfitters are abundant in both Santa Monica and Venice.
Google Map
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### 3. Bicycling
The paved beach path is equally popular for slow bike cruises. Mountain bikers have plenty of trails to explore in the Santa Monica Mountains.
Google Map
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### 4. Hang-Gliding
Learn to take to the skies while training on beachside "bunny" hills or launch from a height of 3,500 ft (1,000 m) on a breathtaking flight with an instructor. Windsports • _<PHONE_NUMBER>_ • www.windsports.com
### 5. Sailing
Skipper around the marina or cruise out to the open ocean with your very own sailboat. Rental outfits usually have a variety for you to choose from. Marina Boat Rentals • Fisherman's Village, Marina del Rey • _<PHONE_NUMBER>_
Google Map
### 6. Kayaking
One of the nicest places for sea kayaking is off the coast of Catalina Island. Traveling leisurely by yourself allows you to explore its craggy coastline and to discover your own secret cove.
### 7. Surfing
The archetypal California watersport is practiced all along the coast – Surfrider Beach in Malibu is one of the most famous, but Manhattan Beach and Palos Verdes are equally popular.
View photo
### 8. Boogie Boarding
Enjoy the thrill of the waves while riding a boogie board to the shore.
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['acc61ac2-ba3c-3667-67ad-d307e7265028']
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a dead body outline? A coffee mug featuring a skeleton dressed up like <PERSON>? A toe tag key chain? You'll find all these and more at this gift shop operated by the LA County Coroner and located right above the morgue. Proceeds benefit a county-run youth drunk driver alternative sentencing program. 1104 N Mission Rd, E of Downtown • _323 343 0760_ • Open 8:30am–4:30pm Mon–Fri • www.lacoroner.com
Google Map
### 6. Million Dollar Pharmacy
The aisles of this bizarre "pharmacy" are packed with potions and powders said to cure many ills, mostly of the aching heart variety. Wiping your floors with a vile liquid will banish evil spirits, while lighting a strange-smelling candle will bring you good fortune. They also have voodoo dolls, complete with an instruction leaflet, should you feel really wicked. 301 S Broadway, Downtown • _213 687 3688_
Google Map
View photo
### 7. Farmer <PERSON>
It takes a morbid sense of humor to cover a sausage factory with a giant mural of verdant pastures with happy, frolicking pigs. But that's just what the <PERSON>, the family behind the Farmer John meat empire, did when they hired <PERSON>, a Hollywood set painter, in the late 1950s. Tourists have gone "hog-wild" ever since. 3049 E Vernon Ave, southwest of Downtown
Google Map
### 8. Bunny Museum
The private home of <PERSON> and <PERSON> is a living museum filled with over 28,000 bunny collectibles. This is the world's largest bunny collection and includes old favorites such as Bugs Bunny, <PERSON>, <PERSON>, and Alice in Wonderland's March Hare. 1933 Jefferson Dr, Pasadena • _626 798 8848_ • Open by appointment only • Free • www.thebunnymuseum.com
Google Map
View photo
### 9. Museum of Jurassic Technology
The doors of this bizarre museum open up a parallel universe where the seemingly mundane becomes extraordinary. Exhibits include Cameroonian stink ants and American trailer park populations alongside an uncanny likeness of Pope <PERSON> in the eye of a needle. Give in to this strange world and prepare to be mesmerized. 9341 Venice Blvd, Culver City • _310 836 6131_ • Open 2–8pm Thu, noon–6pm Fri–Sun • Donation • www.mjt.org
Google Map
### 10. Venice Boardwalk
Venice's origins as an amusement park live on along the Venice Boardwalk. An endless parade of poseurs and eccentrics, from wiry street performers dancing on broken glass to steroid-enhanced musclemen, it remains a place where true freedom of expression reigns (for further details see Venice Boardwalk Attractions).
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Chapter contents
## Places to See & Be Seen
### 1. <PERSON>
Today's hottest stars such as <PERSON>, <PERSON>, and <PERSON><PHONE_NUMBER>_ • Open 8:30am–4:30pm Mon–Fri • www.lacoroner.com
Google Map
### 6. Million Dollar Pharmacy
The aisles of this bizarre "pharmacy" are packed with potions and powders said to cure many ills, mostly of the aching heart variety. Wiping your floors with a vile liquid will banish evil spirits, while lighting a strange-smelling candle will bring you good fortune. They also have voodoo dolls, complete with an instruction leaflet, should you feel really wicked. 301 S Broadway, Downtown • _<PHONE_NUMBER>_
Google Map
View photo
### 7. Farmer John Mural
It takes a morbid sense of humor to cover a sausage factory with a giant mural of verdant pastures with happy, frolicking pigs. But that's just what the Cloughertys, the family behind the Farmer John meat empire, did when they hired Les Grimes, a Hollywood set painter, in the late 1950s. Tourists have gone "hog-wild" ever since. 3049 E Vernon Ave, southwest of Downtown
Google Map
### 8. Bunny Museum
The private home of Candace Frazee and Steve Lubanski is a living museum filled with over 28,000 bunny collectibles. This is the world's largest bunny collection and includes old favorites such as Bugs Bunny, Peter Rabbit, Roger Rabbit, and Alice in Wonderland's March Hare. 1933 Jefferson Dr, Pasadena • _<PHONE_NUMBER>_ • Open by appointment only • Free • www.thebunnymuseum.com
Google Map
View photo
### 9. Museum of Jurassic Technology
The doors of this bizarre museum open up a parallel universe where the seemingly mundane becomes extraordinary. Exhibits include Cameroonian stink ants and American trailer park populations alongside an uncanny likeness of Pope John Paul II in the eye of a needle. Give in to this strange world and prepare to be mesmerized. 9341 Venice Blvd, Culver City • _<PHONE_NUMBER>_ • Open 2–8pm Thu, noon–6pm Fri–Sun • Donation • www.mjt.org
Google Map
### 10. Venice Boardwalk
Venice's origins as an amusement park live on along the Venice Boardwalk. An endless parade of poseurs and eccentrics, from wiry street performers dancing on broken glass to steroid-enhanced musclemen, it remains a place where true freedom of expression reigns (for further details see Venice Boardwalk Attractions).
View photo
Chapter contents
## Places to See & Be Seen
### 1. Fred Segal
Today's hottest stars such as Jennifer Aniston, Nicole Kidman, and George Clooney have all been spotted browsing for cool clothes and accessories at this style emporium. It's also a favorite for wardrobe buyers for TV and feature films. The West Hollywood branch is more celebrity-heavy. 8100 Melrose Ave (also at 420 Broadway, 500 Broadway) •
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['ad5dda72-3d41-b024-f662-e64e6717b555']
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wounds_ (Prokopios, _Wars_ 6.2.14–18).
Later in the siege of Rome, _one of the barbarians shot <PERSON> in the face, above the right eye, not far from the nose. The whole of the iron point penetrated his head and disappeared entirely, although the barb on it was large and extremely long, but the remainder of the arrow duly fell to the ground without the application of force by anyone, in my opinion because the point had never been securely fastened to the shaft. <PERSON>, however, paid no heed to this at all, but continued killing and pursuing the enemy. But in the fifth year after this_ [i.e., 541] _, the tip of the ironof its own accord began to project visibly from his face. This is now the third year_ [i.e., 544] _since it has been slowly but steadily coming out. It is to be expected, therefore, that the whole barb will eventually come out, although not for a long time. But it has not been an impediment to the man in any way_ (<PERSON>, _Wars_ 6.5.24–27).
Fig. 8.1 The Byzantine army retreats naked from a defeat in Serbia; from the Madrid Skylitzes.
During the war with the Persians in 586, a Roman unit came across a dying soldier after a battle. His body bore four wounds: a Persian arrow had passed through the cheek-guard of his helmet and was lodged in his upper lip; a second arrow was protruding from his lower lip, but had come from a different direction, so that his tongue was pinned fast and he could not close his lips; there was a spear stuck in his left arm; and another spear was lodged in his right side, and this was the mortal wound. All this hero wanted to know before he breathed his last was whether the Romans had won (<PERSON>, _History_ 2.6).
### DISCIPLINE AND CAUTION
Leading the army on campaign against Tarsos, <PERSON> (963–969) saw a soldier drop his shield when he became exhausted by the rough terrain. He ordered one of his attendants to pick up the shield and later summoned the soldier and his captain to his presence. He berated them both and ordered the captain to flog the soldier, cut off his nose, and parade him through the camp. But the captain didn't do this, either out of pity or because he was bribed. When the emperor saw that the soldier was unharmed the next day, he imposed the same punishment on the captain himself, and saw that it was carried out (<PERSON>, _History_ 1.2).
Byzantine strategy was famous for a calculated avoidance of pitched battles and heroic behavior. Victory was to be obtained by diplomacy, bribery, and subversion of the enemy's nobility; if it came to war, generals were instructed to use delaying tactics, ambushes, and harassment of the enemy. A military manual associated with the emperor <PERSON> (963–969) advised generals _to avoid not only an enemy force of superior strength but also one of equal strength,_ unless it has already been defeated three
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case. So whereas the Byzantines' "distorting" labels came from classical and late antique texts, modern distorting labels are derived from racial and national ideologies, or "innocently" confuse historical linguistics with cultural identity. Some of these modern labels have recently been questioned and even undermined (especially the "Germanic" one), but more remains to be done. Moreover, Byzantinists are vulnerable to the charge of hypocrisy on this front, as they have systematically occluded and even flatly denied the Roman identity of the Byzantines, which is loudly proclaimed in the primary evidence and which we all now recognize the "Byzantines" positively claimed for themselves. These so-called Byzantines knew exactly who they were (Romans) and what they wanted to be called, yet they are the one medieval people whose own name modern historians refuse to use. In fact, the modern term "<PERSON>" is itself a species of classicism, in that it links the entire culture to the _Greek_ city on the Bosporos rather than to its primary _Roman_ dimension (Constantinople being "New Rome"). The existence of a Greek-speaking, Orthodox living Roman empire has not sat well with western ideologies (at least since the ninth century), and the basis of Byzantine civilization has been systematically denied and distorted so as not to offend these sensibilities. Far from resisting this ideological distortion, many modern Byzantinists have in fact led the charge. Tu quoque, then.
Byzantine classicism had its political overtones, which we will consider below, but it was fundamentally a literary phenomenon. <PERSON> famous paper on "Byzantine Literature as a Distorting Mirror" suggests that courses in Greek composition may have unintentionally had a harmful influence in shaping modern perceptions of Byzantine classicism. He found that newspaper articles sound strange when turned into Attic prose and concluded that the Byzantines must have distorted the reality—the "flavor," as he called it—of their world by writing in that register and adopting its conventions, including ethnonyms. Setting aside the question of whether it is possible to understand anything about the workings of the world today through newspapers, given the high level of both internalized and cynical distortion they purvey, it is important to recognize that any society that has newspapers has also undergone transformations affecting the totality of its life and language such as were not imaginable from either an ancient or a Byzantine standpoint. The changes that even Christianity introduced to the ancient world were slight by comparison. The difference between warfare in the first century and warfare in the tenth is almost zero when both are compared to that of the twentieth. It has yet to be proved that Attic Greek, enhanced by the Christian vocabulary that middle Byzantine writers could also draw upon, ever produced _that_ level of distortion when used to describe the events of, say, the tenth century. As <PERSON> wrote about emperor <PERSON>,
no discontinuity even remotely like that to which a modern, postindustrial society can be exposed had come between the men of the fourth century and their models. It is only with the nineteenth century that the teaching of the classics finally
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that she had converted him to Christianity. A murder plot was hatched and the governor put to the sword. Clearly the story belongs to the genre that contrasts the simple, even democratic nature of Arab government with the hierarchy and pomp of the empires and kingdoms it replaced. It may also reflect a tension between those Arabs who had married rich heiresses from among the local people and the rank and file of the invading army.
The new rulers of Spain began to make their mark on the administration almost immediately. We can see this most clearly in the case of the coinage. The arrival of <PERSON> was marked by the minting of a new gold coinage, based not on Visigothic but on North African models. The earliest of these coins have the Latin legend ' _In Nomine Domini non Deus nisi Deus Solus'_ , a direct translation of the Muslim formula 'There is no god but God', an unusual mingling of Muslim and Latin traditions. This was probably produced in mobile mints that accompanied the army to recycle booty, perhaps valuables taken from churches, into cash money which could be more easily divided among and spent by the military.
The Muslim conquerors of Spain were not settled in military towns: there was no Iberian equivalent of Fustāt or Qayrawān. It seems rather that there was a much more dispersed pattern of settlement, in some ways more similar to the ways in which the Germanic invaders of the western Roman Empire in the fifth century settled in Gaul and Hispania. It looks as if the Arabs, who must mostly have come from urban backgrounds in Fustāt or Qayrawān, chose to settle in the cities and villages of the Guadalquivir and Ebro valleys, around Cordoba, Seville and Zaragoza, while the Berbers, who came from more pastoral backgrounds, established themselves on the high plains of the Meseta in the centre and the southern mountains.
The conquest had been astonishingly successful. Within five years of the initial invasion, almost the whole of the Iberian peninsula had been brought under the control of the Muslim armies. There was, however, an important and, as it turned out, fatal exception to this rule. In the north of Spain, as in some areas of the Middle East, the 1,000-metre contour line represented the limit of the territory held by the Muslims. This meant that in the high southern valleys of the Pyrenees and the Picos de Europa further west in the Asturias, small groups of refugees and indigenous inhabitants gathered to protect their independence from Arab rule. In the Picos de Europa, the movement is said to have been led by one <PERSON>, who may have been a Visigothic noble and member of <PERSON>'s court. We know nothing about the history of this rebellion from the Arabic sources, but for the Christians of the Kingdom of the Asturias, the story of the rebellion was the foundation myth of their realm. As recounted in the Chronicle of Alfonso III, probably composed soon after 900, <PERSON> was about
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year his successor <PERSON> was murdered. The regime began to disintegrate, plagued by infighting between different factions. Meanwhile <PERSON> was managing to persuade large numbers of men to rally to the cause of a campaign to replace the Umayyads as caliphs, not openly naming the Abbasids at this stage but calling for a 'chosen one from the Family of the Prophet'. No doubt many imagined that this meant a descendant of <PERSON> and <PERSON>, and <PERSON> did not disabuse them.
The movement tapped into a whole spectrum of grievances against the Umayyads. It appealed to Arabs who felt that their interests had been disregarded by the powerful governor <PERSON>, _mawālī_ who resented being treated as second-class Muslims, Khurasanis of all backgrounds who no longer wanted to be ruled by a distant government in Syria which collected taxes but seemed to give nothing in return, and pious Muslims who hoped that the coming of the rule of the Family of the Prophet would begin a new era of truly Islamic rule by <PERSON>-guided caliphs. <PERSON> marshalled the disparate forces and in 747 was powerful enough to attack and take possession of Merv, the capital of the province. <PERSON> was driven out and the new Abbasid army began to march through Iran to take over the rest of the Muslim world. This was no mere provincial rebellion, it was a revolutionary movement which intended to bring radical change to the whole Muslim community.
The last Umayyad caliph, <PERSON> (744–50), was a tough and experienced soldier, but the Umayyad armies were exhausted by many years of fighting; their leaders were divided and Syria itself had recently been ravaged by a terrible earthquake which had left many of its cities in ruins. In a series of battles the Umayyad armies were defeated and <PERSON> was pursued through Syria to Egypt where he was cornered and killed in a skirmish on the edge of the Nile delta.
Now the real political manoeuvring began. It was centred on Kufa where an Abbasid agent called <PERSON>, who had acted as a link between the Abbasids in Humayma and <PERSON> in Khurasan, attempted to hold the ring. Even at this stage, the movement was still calling for an unnamed 'Chosen One'. Meanwhile members of the Abbasid family travelled to Kufa. <PERSON> prevaricated: it is possible that he intended a new _shūra_ to choose who the new caliph would be. But <PERSON>, who had remained in Khurasan, was having none of it. He ordered men he trusted in the army to kill <PERSON> and arranged the public proclamation of an Abbasid as caliph.
<PERSON>, known as <PERSON>, was proclaimed caliph in the great mosque in Kufa. A public _bay a_ was held and large numbers came and touched hands with the new caliph in person to accept him as their leader. He began to preach, but had to step down when the fever from which he was suffering overcame him.
What purports to be the
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confronted with the paradox of needing to apply new ideas threatening to the practices that have created their current successes. If generals are said to fight the last rather than the current war, managers rely on ways of doing things that contributed to their organizations', and their own, past progress, rather than ways that will deal more effectively with the future. Since <PERSON> established the first company dedicated to producing innovations at the turn of the 19th century, many different ways of structuring the creation and use of ideas have periodically been favoured. As the business environment has changed, the large, centralized corporate R&D laboratory is no longer used as often as in the past. The search for ways of balancing routines with innovation is constant.
Organizations rarely innovate alone: they do so in association with others, including their suppliers, customers, and communities of users. They innovate in particular regional and national contexts. Access to innovation-supporting skills and university research, for example, often has a local dimension, as seen in the case of Silicon Valley and other international centres of innovation. Government policies and regulations affect innovation, as do national financial and legal systems that influence issues such as the availability of risk-taking investment capital, the creation of technical standards, and protection of intellectual property rights. Availability and cost of infrastructure for communications and transportation matter greatly. These factors add to the complexity, and hence unpredictability, of innovation, as innovators are never completely masters or mistresses of their destiny. They also point to the essentially idiosyncratic nature of innovation: each innovation occurs in its own particular set of circumstances.
In all the major elements of contemporary economies—in the services, manufacturing, and resources industries, and in the public and third sector—progress depends upon owning or accessing and using knowledge and information. Being competitive and efficient relies on being innovative with all the resources organizations possess: their people, capital, and technology, and the ways they connect with those contributing to and using what they do.
As well as the challenges in developing and implementing innovation for people and organizations it is also necessary to consider the broader social and political challenges associated with innovation. Employment levels and the nature of jobs are profoundly affected by innovation. It has given us weapons of mass destruction and caused immense environmental damage. For all the benefits of the Internet, it has also aided terrorism, child exploitation, and online bullying. The broader social impacts of innovation are a subject to which we shall return.
# Innovation thinking
The American economist <PERSON> argued that virtually all of the economic growth that has occurred since the 18th century is ultimately attributable to innovation. The successful application of ideas has been recognized within industry as the primary source of its development since this time.
The 18th century also saw the beginning of the study and recognition of the importance of the relationships between organization, technology, and productivity with the publication of <PERSON> _Wealth of Nations_ in 1767. <PERSON> produced his now famous analysis of the importance of the division
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and change in unexpected ways. The early lead in biotechnology research in Harvard University, for example, was lost to Stanford University because of the election of a populist mayor in Boston who built on people's fear of unknown consequences of genetics research. What matters is thinking about the ways in which all the innovation-supporting institutions interrelate and evolve over time along with business practices and relationships. And whatever the level of analysis—global, national, regional, sectoral, technological—what is important is to understand how they relate to one another and co-evolve.
Governments have a major role to play in developing innovation systems, as seen especially clearly in Asia. The industrialization of Asia in recent decades has led to the extraordinary social and economic development of the region. South Korea, for example, has been transformed from the second poorest country on Earth in the 1950s to a member of the OECD, the group of the world's thirty richest nations. Asian industrialization has required rapid developments in research, education, finance, and law. Countries such as India, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore have developed coherent national innovation systems and become important international contributors to innovation. The models of development have varied. South Korea, for example, has depended on large conglomerate companies, Taiwan on networks of small firms, Singapore on direct foreign investment by large multinationals, and China has pragmatically used all of these approaches. In East Asia, the process of development has been strongly directed by the state, and this is, of course, especially so in China.
China has experienced the most rapid and remarkable industrial development in history. From the devastation of the Second World War, civil war, and cultural revolution, it has emerged as a global manufacturing powerhouse, investing massively in science, technology, and education, and potentially challenges Western hegemony in innovation. The transformation of innovation in China has resulted from strong political leadership. President <PERSON> called for an innovation-oriented country, pursuing a path of innovation with Chinese characteristics, a theme further promoted by President <PERSON>. The political discourse in China refers to 'harmonious growth', and the imperative for inclusive development is the most important challenge confronting innovation in China. This encompasses the need to use innovation as a means of reducing income disparities between the poor and wealthy, and the economic disparities between coastal regions and inner China. The evolution of China's national innovation system to one that allows it to compete equally with the West in innovation is incomplete and continuing, but it is clear that the state will continue to play a strongly directive role. Like most things in China, when decisions are made they occur at scale, so when, for example, it was decided to corporatize government industrial research institutes, this involved around 2,000 organizations employing around one million people, and their transformation occurred rapidly.
# Chapter 5
# <PERSON> organizational genius
Organizations have choices on how they organize themselves for the continually evolving challenges in innovation; the structures and procedures they adopt, the staffing and incentives they use. These reflect their strategies and innovation objectives.
#
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simultaneously purchasing a new March Corn futures contract to open that position.
Assume that today is November 15, one week before the expiration of December options. Also assume that December Corn futures are trading at 2.35 and that March Corn futures are trading at 2.50. Finally, assume that Cerealco, a cereal manufacturer in Minnesota, is long a December Corn futures contract and that the company's hedging manager wants to roll this position out to March of next year.
Cerealco could execute a traditional long roll by selling its long December contract at 2.35 and simultaneously purchasing a March contract for 2.50. At these prices, the spread would be executed for a 15-cent debit; i.e., the difference of 15 cents is an amount paid.
The question is, How might Cerealco use options to do better? If the December Corn 220 Call is trading at 17 cents, the following example shows how this call might be used to improve the price at which the spread is executed.
Instead of simply selling the December contract and buying the March contract, the hedging manager at Cerealco might consider selling the December Corn 220 Call at 17 cents and buying March Corn futures at 2.50. After this transaction, the new position will be long December Corn futures, short the December 220 Call, and long March Corn futures.
Fast-forward 1 week to the expiration of December options. If December Corn futures are above 2.20, the December 220 Call will be assigned, and Cerealco will sell its December Corn futures contract at an effective price of 2.37, 2 cents better than the price of 2.35. Remember, from Chapter 1, that the effective price is the price of a futures transaction that takes into account the option premium. In this example, if the short December 220 Call is assigned, a futures contract is sold at 2.20. The premium received from selling the 220 Call, however, was 17 cents. Consequently, the effective price of this futures transaction would be 2.37 (2.20 + 0.17).
The risk of selling an in-the-money call to roll a hedge is that during the remaining life of the call, the price of the futures contract could drop below the strike price of the call. In the example above, if the price of December Corn drops below 2.20 before December options expire, the December 220 Call will expire worthless. If the 220 Call is not assigned, Cerealco will still have the long December futures contract and be exposed to all the risks that such a position entails. The price at which Cerealco ultimately sells the contract, plus the 17-cent call premium, will be the effective price of selling that futures contract. If December futures drops below 2.20 before the contract is sold, the effective selling price could be substantially worse than 2.35, which was the initial price of December futures in this example.
Table 10–4 shows the three steps in using an in-the-money short call to improve the price at which a long hedge is rolled out to a later expiration.
Table 10–4 Gaining on the Spread 1:
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f3818913-7a65-798a-6cca-e703502d4199
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['af706542-cf2a-b7ff-1a7c-5f961bd89fa3']
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Bullish Collar
Figure 8–4 Final Purchase Price: Hedging an Inherent Short Position with a Bullish Collar
Table 8–4 is similar to Tables 8–1, 8–2, and 8–3 except that it has seven columns. Two columns are required to show the profit or loss from the two components of the strategy. Column 3 shows the profit or loss from the long call, and column 4 shows the profit or loss from the short put. In this example, it is assumed that a 320 Call is purchased for 15 cents per bushel and that a 280 Put is sold for 15 cents per bushel. Column 5 contains the combined profit or loss of the long call, the short put, and the inherent short market position. The final purchase price in column 7 is calculated in a way similar to previous tables, by subtracting combined profit in column 5 from the initial cash market price in column 6 or by adding the combined loss to the initial cash market price.
The conclusion from Table 8–4 is that the bullish collar offers a fourth set of trade-offs. There are three positive aspects and two negative aspects. The bullish collar requires little or no initial cash payment. It leaves open the possibility for long hedgers to reduce purchasing costs if prices decline, and it locks in a known, maximum purchase price, assuming that the basis is unchanged. The negative aspects are that the possibility of reducing purchasing costs is limited and that the maximum price locked in is above the current price. This conclusion is presented graphically Figure 8–4. The three lighter lines in that figure represent the components of the strategy: the inherent short position, the long call, and the short put. The heavy solid line represents the final purchase price and corresponds to column 7 in Table 8–4.
## A Practical Example
Consider again the case of Flour Manufacturing Co. and its desire to hedge its purchasing needs for wheat in November. To estimate a purchase price, FMCO needs to know the current prices of the appropriate call and put and the basis.
## Estimating Purchase Costs
As in the examples above, assume a December Wheat futures price of $3.00 and a Moline cash price of $3.10, so that the basis is "10 over." Assume also that FMCO creates a bullish collar by buying a December 320 Call for 15 cents and simultaneously selling a December 280 Put for 15 cents. Given these assumptions, FMCO can estimate its purchasing costs as presented in Table 8–4A.
Table 8–4A A The Bullish Collar as a Long Hedge: Estimating a Purchase Price
The effective futures price is equal to the current futures price plus the net premium paid or minus the net premium received. Since the futures price is 3.00 and the net cost of the bullish collar is zero in this example, the effective purchase price of the futures is $3.00 ($3.00 + $0.15 – $0.15). The following scenarios illustrate how the bullish collar can benefit long hedgers if the market behaves in a certain way.
#### Prices
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['af919da0-3242-b444-8ed3-f902f933d84e']
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the behavior of prices and making livelihoods dependent on acquisition and spending. Insufficiency of material means is not "natural"—it is just the necessary starting point of economic activity under capitalism. Fiercely <PERSON>, both <PERSON> and <PERSON> insisted that scientific data showed material plenty to be available for all, were capitalism to come to an end. The solidarity of all people could be positively affirmed on the basis of statistics and geographical data that showed, conclusively in their view, that the earth's resources were ample and sufficient to feed everyone. "The great factory of the earth," managed cooperatively, means a world of equality in abundance, or communal luxury.
It would be mistaken to draw from these deliberations a merely—or even a primarily—moral character to <PERSON>'s notion of solidarity. Solidarity in his thinking and his way of living was neither an ethics nor a sentiment—it was at once buttressed by his version of science, and it was a revolutionary strategy, perhaps the most important one. We can establish its strategic dimension most clearly by looking closely at his 1892 pamphlet, "A mon frère, le paysan."
Especially after the Paris Commune <PERSON> had become convinced that by ignoring the countryside, revolutionaries risked playing into the hands of the dominant classes, whose power, as the Commune had shown better than any other event, relied on fomenting hostility between urban workers and peasants. "The association of workers of the land," wrote <PERSON> in 1873, "is perhaps the greatest development of the century."21 And yet, he complained, not a word was devoted to the peasantry or to the question of agriculture in the revolutionary meetings he attended. "A mon frère, le paysan" was designed in part to combat the ignorance of city-based revolutionaries, but it was primarily concerned with combating the fear and hostility of the peasantry, as well as the propaganda that fostered it.
That fear was the same as the terror propagated by the <PERSON> during the Commune: the fear that the "partageux" in the city would make off with peasant land and divide it up amongst themselves. Using informal, second-person address, <PERSON> speaks to that fear directly by contrasting those to whom he speaks—those who work the land—with those who own title to it: the wealthy who inherit it and the investors who profit from it. From the outset it is the opposition between those who work the land and those who derive wealth from it that takes the place of any opposition between city worker and peasant. Being assured that the land belongs to those who work it, though, is only the first step in solving the individual peasant's isolation. Reclus evokes the Russian _mir_ , or "group of friends" as the rural commune was known in Slavic countries, as an initial first grouping peasants and farmers have formed in the face of the common enemies of capitalism and the state. The commune offers not only a shared alliance—it also has the advantage of creating a notary-free existence, for "the commune is the property of each and all." But the commune itself is no
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ba3ea9a8-a1c4-3aa3-e862-121bfc1b9443
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['af919da0-3242-b444-8ed3-f902f933d84e']
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within the city walls? In Paris Communards were not unaware of Versaillais maneuvering, as a song sung on the streets at the time makes clear: " _Leur plan c'est d'mettr' comme chats et chiens / Le provincial et l'parisien /... En faisant croire aux campagnards / Qu'Paris n'est qu'n amas d'pillards_."44 A "wall of lies," <PERSON> writes in the five dense pages he devotes to the countryside's relation to Paris at the moment of the Commune, separated the two: "The Provinces are only allowed to look at Paris through the Versailles _camera obscura_."45 What <PERSON>'s study of the press during the Commune revealed was that only the Versaillais and the German press was available outside Paris; any news communications that made their way out of the insurgent city were ordered to be seized and burned in the public square. "It is evident that it is only the Versailles army, government and a Chinese wall of lies that stand between Paris and the Provinces. If that wall falls, they will unite with it." Making the wall fall would have necessitated a crash course in Gramscian-style political education which, of course, never happened. The task was to make peasants see—in a situation where they were prevented from seeing anything—that it was the Commune, and not the rule of the great landed rural proprietors, that was founded on what <PERSON> called their "living interests" and "real wants."46 Despite the everyday fact of his degradation into a rural proletarian, the French peasant clung to "the delusion," "the pretext," of proprietorship. The Commune would convert the peasant's nominal proprietorship of the land into "real proprietorship of the fruits of his labor." The Commune offered cheap government and no war indemnity to peasants who were heavily blood-taxed to pay both for the war and the costly state machinery. The whole parasitical judiciary body—embodied in small rural towns by that great Balzacian social type, the notary—which enriched itself from the peasants' works, would be replaced by Communal agents employed at workers' salaries. "[The Commune] will break down this whole judiciary cobweb which entangles the French peasant and that gives abodes to the judiciary and mayors of the bourgeois spiders that suck its blood."47 If the Empire was founded on artificially nourished delusions and traditional prejudices, an alliance with the workers in Paris would be founded on the peasant's "living interests."
The Communards themselves seem clearly to have realized by early April that the provinces were in fact the Commune's only hope of victory. Sympathetic uprisings in Toulouse, Marseilles, Lyons and elsewhere, though quickly suppressed, had initially held out the possibility of aid from outside the capital. In municipal elections in April surprisingly strong republican gains occurred in many rural regions. "To the Workers of the Countryside," a manifesto co-authored by <PERSON>, himself of peasant origins, and <PERSON>, a feminist novelist, was written to reach out to peasants who did not own the land, that large mass of farmers, sharecroppers, and agricultural laborers. Printed in 100,000 copies and destined for distribution in the provinces, it emphasized the
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548d1af6-8f53-2ae2-3462-825db0d3b7d2
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['af93515d-c3cb-ba2d-14fd-7984e46a031c']
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can find lists of frequencies for these amateur beacons on various websites. A good reference for all beacons on HF and 6 meters is the excellent list at `www.keele.ac.uk/depts/por/28.htm`. Amateur VHF beacons are listed on several websites; just enter amateur VHF beacon in a web search engine to locate several beacon listings.
* * *
Listening on VHF and UHF
Most contacts on the VHF and UHF bands are made with repeaters (see Chapter 2). Repeaters are most useful for local and regional communication, allowing individual hams to use low-power handheld or mobile radios to make contacts over that same wide area. For this scheme to work, the repeater input and output frequencies are fixed and well known, so the bands are organized into sets of channels. (Except for some at the upper end of the 10 meter band, repeaters aren't used on the HF bands because of the need to receive and transmit simultaneously — difficult within single HF bands.)
Most VHF and UHF voice contacts use the FM mode of voice transmission because of its excellent noise suppression, making for comfortable listening. The drawback is that FM doesn't have the range of CW or SSB transmissions. Contacts made directly between hams via FM are referred to as simplex, and those made via a repeater are duplex.
* * *
Mapping contacts online
Because most hams have a computer online right in their shacks, they can report what they're hearing and who they're contacting. Several sites use this information to plot contacts between stations on a map. When the bands are open, contact after contact pops up. Sometimes, a band may be closed at your location, but by watching the online map, you can see propagation gradually moving in your direction.
The best-known set of online contact maps is at `www.dxmaps.com/spots/map.php`, which is run by <PERSON> (EA6VQ), from the Balearic Islands, off the coast of Spain. You can watch maps of contacts on most amateur bands, send messages to other stations, check solar and ionospheric data, and do much more.
If you'd rather run a mapping application directly on your computer, you can use the program ViewProp (`http://zl2ham.wikispaces.com`), by <PERSON> (ZL2HAM), from New Zealand.
As the online mapping tools become better and better, look for them to be combined with real-time information from the ham bands.
* * *
Repeater and simplex FM channels are generally separated by 15 or 20 kHz. You can view a complete band plan for the 2 meter and 70 cm bands at `www.``arrl.org/band-plan`. I cover repeater operation in more detail in Chapter 9.
Repeaters enable you to use low-power and mobile radios to communicate over a large distance. Many hams use repeaters as kinds of intercoms to keep in touch with friends and family members as they go about their daily business. These contacts generally are much less formal than those on HF, and you're likely to hear contacts among the same groups of hams every day. Repeaters are where you find local hams and find out about local events.
Finding contacts via
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f5ec22b0-67f5-7fcf-dabc-e649a2377ce9
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['af93515d-c3cb-ba2d-14fd-7984e46a031c']
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up one or two of each type. To make up coaxial cables, you need to have a few RF connectors of the common types. UHF, BNC, and N. SMA connectors, common on the newer handheld radios, take special tools to install. You'll purchase cables with SMA connectors already installed or adapters, as described next.
You often need adapters when you don't have just the right cable or a new accessory has a different type of connector. Table 15-1 shows the most common adapter types. You don't have to get them all at once, but this list is good to take to a hamfest or to use when you need an extra part to make up a minimum order.
Table 15-1 Common Shack Adapters
Adapter Use | Common Types
---|---
Audio | Mono to stereo phone plug (1⁄4 inch and 1⁄8 inch), 1⁄4 inch to 1⁄8 inch phone plug, right-angle phone plug, phone plug to RCA (phono) jack and vice versa, RCA double female for splices
Data | 9-pin to 25-pin D-type, DIN-to-D cables, null modem cables and adapters, 9-pin and 25-pin double male/female (gender benders)
RF | Double-female (barrel) adapters for all four types of connectors, BNC plug to UHF jack (SO-239) and vice versa, N plug to UHF jack and vice versa, SMA to UHF adapter or jumper cable
A plug is the connector that goes on the end of a cable. A jack is the connector that's mounted on equipment. A male connector is one in which the signal contacts are exposed pins (disregard the outer shroud or shell). A female connector has recessed sockets that accept male connector pins.
Along with adapters and spare parts, you should have on hand some common consumable parts:
Fuses: Have spares for all the fuse sizes and styles your equipment uses. Never replace a fuse with a higher-value fuse.
Electrical tape: Use high-quality tape such as Scotch 33+ for important jobs, such as outdoor connector sealing, and get the cheap stuff for temporary or throwaway jobs.
Fasteners: Purchase a parts-cabinet assortment with No. 4 through No. 10 screws, nuts, and lockwashers. Some equipment may require the smaller metric-size fasteners. You need 1⁄4-inch and 5⁄16-inch hardware for antennas and masts.
Cleaning equipment is an important part of maintenance, and you need the following items:
Soft-bristle brushes: Old paintbrushes (small ones) and toothbrushes are great cleaning tools. I also keep a round brush for getting inside tubes and holes.
Metal bristle brushes: Light-duty steel and brass brushes clean up oxide and corrosion. Brass brushes don't scratch metal connectors but do damage plastic knobs or displays. Don't forget to clean corrosion or grease off a brush after the job.
Solvents and sprays: I keep on hand a bottle or can of lighter fluid, isopropyl alcohol, contact cleaner, and compressed air. Lighter fluid cleans panels and cabinets gently and quickly, and also removes old adhesive and tape. Always test a solvent on a hidden part of a plastic piece before applying a larger
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ever since the accident. I told her how I'd spent nearly two weeks in the hospital while the rest of my classmates finished junior year without me; how I'd missed prom and the student government elections and the Junior-Senior Luau; how the first surgery hadn't worked and my mom had cried when she found out I had to have another; how my tennis coach had come by the hospital and I'd heard him fighting with my dad out in the hallway, blaming me; how my so-called friends had sent a cheesy card they'd all signed, rather than visiting; how the doctors made such a big production of telling me that I'd never play sports again that I thought they were going to say I'd be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life; how the worst part was having to go back to school with kids I'd known since kindergarten, and the only thing that had changed was me, because I didn't know who I was anymore, or who I wanted to be.
When I finished, <PERSON> didn't say anything for a long time. And then she closed the short distance between us and brushed her lips against my cheek.
They were cold from her diet soda, and it was over in an instant. But she didn't move away. Instead, she sat down with her jeans touching mine and leaned her head on my shoulder. I could feel the flutter of her eyelashes against my neck with every blink, and we sat there for a while, breathing quietly together, listening to the thrum of traffic on University Drive and the gurgle of the creek.
"There's this poem," <PERSON> finally said, "by <PERSON>. And I used to write a line from it in all of my school notebooks to remind myself that I didn't have to be embarrassed of the past and afraid of the future. And it helped. So I'm giving it to you. The line is, 'Tell me, what is it you plan to do/With your one wild and precious life?'"
We stared out at the creek, watching the couple across from us gather their things and head back to the path.
"Well," I said. "What are my options?"
"Let me consult the oracle," <PERSON> mused, leaning forward to pull up a blade of grass. She examined it in her palm as though she was reading my fortune. "You can sound your barbaric yawp over the rooftops . . . or suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune . . . or seize the day . . . or sail away from the safe harbor . . . or seek a newer world . . . or rage against the dying of the light, although that one doesn't start with s, so it sort of ruins the poetry of it all, don't you think?"
"And here I thought you were going to say doctor, lawyer, or business executive." I laughed.
"Honestly, <PERSON>." <PERSON> stood up, brushing the grass off her jeans. "You'll never escape the panopticon thinking like
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suits. Well, six of us in suits, and one in a Hogwarts uniform. We wound up at the Cheesecake Factory, which I thought was an odd choice, when there was a Denny's and a Burger King. It wasn't something we talked about, but I knew <PERSON> never had much cash.
"Who wants appetizers?" <PERSON> asked cheerfully, cracking open the giant menu. He caught my expression and started laughing. "Dinner's on <PERSON>."
"That's not funny," I said. "Even tennis doesn't pull that on the new guys."
"Relax." <PERSON> flashed a credit card. "It's coming out of our team budget. Which, technically, you approved last April. Rather generously, I might add."
"Oh, right," I said sheepishly. I had approved the next year's Team Activities budgets. "Appetizers for everyone, then. You can thank me later."
"Actually, the new guy buys the booze," <PERSON> told me.
<PERSON> shook her head. "He's kidding."
We ordered a couple of appetizer platters, and everyone filled me in on the rivalry with Rancho.
"Basically, they hate us," <PERSON> said. "They think we don't take debate seriously."
"We don't take debate seriously," <PERSON> drawled.
"Yeah, but we used to," <PERSON> said. "We were like, sister teams, or whatever it's called, during freshman year. Before your time."
<PERSON> and <PERSON> were both juniors, but I kept forgetting.
"Debate sucked back then," <PERSON> said. "Coach <PERSON> would surprise us and search the hotel rooms."
"It sucked," <PERSON> agreed. "Poor <PERSON>."
"What happened to <PERSON>?" <PERSON> asked, taking a sip of her drink.
Everyone sighed, and I got the impression that this was a story they'd all heard a million times. But <PERSON> was determined to tell it again. He grinned.
"So <PERSON> comes by at two in the morning to make sure we're all in bed and not still awake, because <PERSON> made this huge show of bringing a Monopoly board with him. So <PERSON> is all, 'Open up! I can hear you little shits playing Monopoly in there,' and no one opens the door, because there's liquor everywhere. So he wakes up everyone sleeping in the adjoining room and bursts through, and there's <PERSON> with three neckties around his head, doing sake bombs while ironing his pants."
We all crack up.
"And Coach <PERSON> is all, 'What the fuck, <PERSON>?' Because <PERSON> was team captain back then, and one of the best policy debaters around. And <PERSON> looks at Coach with the three neckties still around his head, in his goddamn underpants, and says, 'It's not what you think. I got a chance card in Monopoly, <PERSON>.'"
Even <PERSON> was choking on her soda at this point.
"What happened?" I asked.
"A week's suspension," <PERSON> said. "And he got banned from overnight competition for the rest of the year. <PERSON> took over as captain. And she'd hooked up with the Rancho captain the year before, so that was awkward."
"And that, Dragon Army," <PERSON> said, "is why Rancho is the enemy."
"And also why the enemy's gate is down," <PERSON> added, earning a few
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all the components of alcoholism. Get specific. Was it yelling, physical roughness, no money, uncertainty, bad breath, mood swings, broken promises, shame, social stigma—what? The more specific you are, the easier it will be to dissolve. Get to the real meat, the intense stuff that pushes your buttons, and don't hold anything back. Remain focused. The bigger the charge and the more specific you can be, the better.
Fill in at least two pages of Columns 1 and 6, the positive and negative qualities or character traits of your person. If you have more than two pages, keep going. If you find yourself on a roll with one side, stay with it, but when it dries up, go to the other side and keep writing. Do whatever helps you move the fastest. Don't just sit there stagnating and staring. Time multiplied by intensity yields results, so the more focused you are, the more profound the effects. When you've filled at least two pages with positive and negative qualities, go on to the next step.
**Step 3**
Now go to Column 2 and write down the initials of all the people who have seen you as having the same positive and admired trait that you've written in Column 1. If you wrote "Considerate" there, put down the initials of all the people in your life that you know have perceived you as considerate at some point in time—past or present. Keep writing until you can see that you have the trait in Column 1 to the same degree as the person in question, although it may be in similar or different forms.
All of your traits are conserved through time and space, so you never gain or lose a trait; you only change the form of its expression. Continue until you can honestly see that you're just as considerate as the person you're Collapsing. This is called _owning your positive disowned parts._ You may need as many as three rows of initials here, so write small. Don't just say "everybody," that's an illusion. Be specific. This is a way of integrating your brain and personas. If you think you don't have this trait, that's your illusion, so just keep thinking and writing until you can see that you do. I've been blessed to be able to assist more than 10,000 people through this process, and everyone finds every trait.
Now go to Column 7, writing down the initials of at least five people who have seen you as having the same negative and despised trait that you wrote down in Column 6. Find out who perceives you as having that negative trait, and list their initials until you can truly see that you have it to the same degree. On the average, it will be 5 to 8 people, but sometimes it will be up to 30 before this becomes confirmed with certainty. This step anchors into your mind the reality that you have these traits. It's essential to be honest with yourself. This is called _owning your negative disowned parts._
If it's
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605ef060-0448-9a7e-2cf4-98d9a6853b5f
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['aff4c1c6-16f4-6be9-7b8d-4af57477c5a2']
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it really means is that the child values the video games more than academics. That's just what's true for the child, and the label of ADD, in this light, is clearly a misnomer. Video games are this child's genius.
There's probably something like this going on for you. Unrecognized treasures remain buried inside you: treasures according to _your_ values! Even if someone else labeled you with ADD, or if others haven't recognized your knowledge, your genius, or the power of your mind, just know that their estimation of your wisdom isn't really true for you.
In a later chapter, you'll be clarifying your values so you can see exactly where your genius resides. Maybe you already know where it is. Perhaps you're already aware of your highest value, which is where your mind is sharp and alert! And if you haven't discovered that yet, then for now know that deep in the earth where great diamonds are born, there's a geothermal power and pressure—and you have that same power and pressure inside you, ready to burst forth and explode with possibility.
**_Your Mental Treasure #5:
Intention/Visualization _**
Imagine yourself living as you'd love your life to be. As you visualize this, you might start with some haziness and it may be a bit awkward, but take a moment to let the fog lift and the picture sharpen.
Intention and visualization were both significant parts of the movie _The Secret,_ in which I was delighted to participate. That film has resulted in the mainstream media discussing the Law of Attraction, something I've been interested in and investigating ever since I sat in <PERSON> class all those years ago. So the truth is that the Law of Attraction isn't really a secret. Power athletes, most notably <PERSON>, have talked often and openly about how they use visualization to bring results that they'd most deeply love to experience out of the realm of mind and into the tangible world.
I'm fond of saying that your vitality is directly proportional to the vividness of your vision. Your mind has the capacity to picture things in such detail that it literally impacts the quantum fields that surround you and permeate the universe.
Don't misunderstand me here, as some have misunderstood _The Secret._ I'm not saying that you should sit on a beanbag chair in your den and dream about millions of dollars falling down your chimney and into your lap—and expect that to be the trick. This isn't a magic show. This is about aligning your intention with _action:_ using the power of your mind to shape and consciously create your reality.
After I heard <PERSON> speak—after he spurred me to imagine my destiny—I didn't just go back to my tent and sit cross-legged in the sand to visualize. No, I got busy instead. I started taking steps immediately in pursuit of my new mission. I held fast to that vision—and now what I imagined at age 17 has become a reality for me. I'm living the exact life I saw for
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57aa26c3-b4a4-5793-15fc-211bb699dd5c
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['b07d7ff3-4501-c4b9-c10a-457e2bd9db67']
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known as Freedom Riders, took buses south to protest segregation. When the Freedom Riders and <PERSON> met in Montgomery, Alabama, a crowd outside threw bottles and stones at the First Baptist Church of Atlanta. A brick hit a stained-glass window, shattering it and sending glass over some of the people inside. They were scared, but <PERSON> told them, "Fear not, we've come too far to turn back."
Some people still refused to accept that the world was changing and that segregation was a thing of the past.
Alabama governor <PERSON> was one of those people. He hated **integration** so much that he broke the law to keep it from happening. On June 11, 1963, he defied a federal court order allowing two black students to attend the University of Alabama, which was the last segregated state university in the country. He actually stood in front of the school's administration building to bar the students' entry with his own body. That's how much he didn't want them to come in! President <PERSON> ordered the Alabama National Guard to remove the governor and let in the students.
<PERSON>
<PERSON> had a long career in public life. He ran for governor for the fourth time in 1982. During that race, though, he was a very different candidate. He apologized for being against integration earlier in his life and wound up winning the majority of black votes and winning the position.
There was no doubt about it. Black Americans needed a federal law that would ensure their rights no matter if they lived in Alabama or Alaska.
The night after the incident with <PERSON>, President <PERSON> told the country he would send a civil-rights bill to Congress that would give all Americans the same access to public places. To support the president in this effort, <PERSON> and other black leaders led a march to Washington, D.C., that was one of the biggest the country had ever seen.
On August 28, <PERSON> was amazed at the sea of people stretched out across the Washington Mall. The turnout for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom exceeded his expectations. He couldn't possibly have imagined that more than two hundred fifty thousand Americans from all over the country would travel to D.C. that day to show their support for a civil-rights bill. No wonder the rally became known as the Great March on Washington. Thirty special trains and twenty thousand chartered buses were needed to bring the people to D.C. Meanwhile, not all of them arrived by bus or by train. An eighty-two-year-old bicycled all the way from Ohio, while another man biked from South Dakota. One man roller-skated from Chicago, which took him eleven days!
"I Have a Dream"
Out of a number of leaders who addressed the crowd, <PERSON> was the last to speak. It didn't matter that there were a quarter of a million people waiting and listening. Like always, <PERSON> didn't use notes. His speech, which was only supposed to be four minutes, had a very formal tone. But after
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503259dc-d068-023c-53ba-0f06bcef69a8
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['b07d7ff3-4501-c4b9-c10a-457e2bd9db67']
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off the streets and instead work to get people out of jail.
<PERSON> had a decision to make, and it wasn't easy. A lot of people were counting on him to do the right thing. He left the men and went into his bedroom to pray. When he returned, everyone knew his decision without him having to say a word. Normally, <PERSON> wore nice suits, but he was wearing jeans. He only wore those when he was going to jail. He had decided to protest.
<PERSON> led fifty people in a march toward city hall; everybody was arrested within minutes. Once in jail, <PERSON> was denied all his rights. Sitting in solitary confinement, he wasn't allowed to make even one phone call. He knew <PERSON>, who had just given birth to their fourth child, <PERSON>, would be worried sick if she didn't hear from him.
Easter Sunday came and still he wasn't allowed to contact anyone on the outside. His mind was racing with thoughts. Locked up in a dark cell while the world outside was in turmoil, it would have been easy for <PERSON> to doubt himself. But he was a man of unshakable faith in his mission. Even when a group of eight white ministers published a letter in the _Birmingham News_ stating the protests in Birmingham were wrong because they created more violence, <PERSON> didn't waver. The white pastors admitted there were social injustices, but they believed the problems should be fought in court and not on the street.
<PERSON> needed to respond, but how? He didn't have any paper to write a letter. He had faced bigger obstacles before. Over the rest of his eight days in jail, with only toilet paper and the edges of newspaper available, <PERSON> passionately argued, in a letter that would make history, that unjust laws should not be obeyed.
Letter from Birmingham Jail
<PERSON> smuggled out his 6,500-word essay on scraps of paper handed to his lawyers, who brought them back to the leaders' headquarters. In his letter, he addressed the white clergymen's concerns, including the idea that this was not a good time for the protests. "Justice too long delayed is justice denied," he said, quoting the former British prime minister <PERSON>. <PERSON>'s Letter from Birmingham Jail, as the piece became known, was reprinted many times in magazines and books.
<PERSON> spent the week in jail with many of the other black adults in Birmingham. In order to keep the protests going, one of the main organizers came up with the idea of having children march. <PERSON>, worried about the kids' safety, didn't approve. But on May 2, over a thousand children, from six-year-olds to teenagers, sang during a four-hour march. <PERSON> didn't care how old they were. He arrested them, too! More than nine hundred kids were crowded into police vans and school buses and carted off to jail.
That wasn't even the worst of it. Later that day, <PERSON> ordered the use of fire hoses and police dogs on any kids marching or people watching. The
|
c303c09a-8c82-54c5-cf9b-da051e8c718d
|
['b0df1cec-34f1-bbbe-6265-dd2fe245eac0']
|
is. We're becoming a nation of snake oil peddlers, rolling all over the map, trying to set up shop. Today, _Oz_ works as a morality tale because the morality it espouses is no longer pervasive—but also because its moral vision is close enough to our history for us still to feel its pull. Today, the nostalgia we feel for this story is existential: it calls us to a way of being that we have lost, but not that long ago.
Deep down, we know that <PERSON> is right, that there is no place like home, because that's the country we grew up in—that's what's in our blood. But today we need to hear it a little more often, because the voices of those who would tell you otherwise are getting awfully, awfully loud.
**VI**
**Something Wicked** **This Way Comes**
**18**
**_Wicked_ Feminism**
PAM R. SAILORS
**I** 've lost all respect for <PERSON>. First, she simpered her way through _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_ , letting the <PERSON>, <PERSON>, and <PERSON> maneuver her through every obstacle <PERSON> could dream up. Not only did they do all the heavy lifting, they also chivalrously tried to give her credit for their gains, simply because she invited them to come with her to see the Wizard. And, being the crowd-pleaser she was, she took the credit and proclaimed herself happy just because they were happy:
"I am glad I was of use to these good friends. But now that each of them has had what he most desired, and each is happy in having a kingdom to rule besides, I think I should like to go back to Kansas."
Perfect example of the stereotypical female: let the men do the work, coyly accept their compliments, base your own happiness on the happiness of others, and then return to the domestic front where you can, once again, be invisible.
The cinematic version of <PERSON> in <PERSON> _The Wizard of Oz_ was a slight improvement. In fact, if you squint your eyes just right, you can almost see <PERSON>'s backbone. She does try to stand up to Miss <PERSON> to save <PERSON>, but he ends up in Miss <PERSON>'s basket nonetheless. She thinks about running away from home, but when Professor <PERSON> tells her that Aunt <PERSON> will be sad without her, she gets weepy and runs right back. Just like the <PERSON> of the book, all she wants is to get back home; she's not interested in acting to improve the conditions for anybody she meets along the way. And she's protected by the <PERSON>, <PERSON>, and <PERSON>; it's actually they who solve the problems encountered on the Yellow Brick Road.
This <PERSON> accomplishes two things at least partially on her own: killing the Wicked Witches. But she refuses to accept responsibility for either act. When <PERSON> asks <PERSON> if it was she who killed her sister, <PERSON> denies it. "No. No, it was an accident. I didn't mean to kill anybody." Later, when <PERSON> kills
|
a1202640-a930-c838-0583-9cfd681195de
|
['b0df1cec-34f1-bbbe-6265-dd2fe245eac0']
|
without knowing it, a half-breed, half of our world and half of Oz. This is a difficult mode of being, with one foot in either world. Indeed, it may be _im_ possible, in the sense of contradictory. She lives nearly her whole life not knowing why she is so misplaced and miserable, and she is not quite able to believe the truth about herself when she finally learns it.
<PERSON>'s situation leads her to suspect that she has no soul, and in a self revealing moment, when pondering what she would ask for from the Wizard if she could have anything at all, she wishes for a soul. <PERSON> is suggesting, in a literary way, that to have a soul, that is, a strong sense of belonging and self-identity in the world, one needs to belong wholly to one and only one world (although that alone is no guarantee you won't feel like an alien, it's a sure bet that you'll feel like an alien if you try to straddle more than one world).
Anyway, our beloved WWW, being a hybrid, and under the influence of a potion that apparently came from Omaha with the Wizard, has dreams of the other world, _our_ world. I have a feeling, from internal clues <PERSON> provides, that the "potion" is nothing more than sea water, from our world, which is not deadly to Elphaba (see my essay in this volume about why water from Oz melts her). Here is how <PERSON> describes the scene:
The Witch had taken the green glass bottle, whose label still read MIRACLE ELI-, and placed it on her bedside table. She took a spoonful of the ancient elixir before sleeping, hoping for miracles, seeking some version of the fabulous alibi <PERSON> was unwinding, that she had come from someplace other–not the real states across the desert, but a whole separate geophysical existence. Even metaphysical. The <PERSON> had made such a claim for himself, and if the dwarf [who told <PERSON> the Wizard was her father] was right, the <PERSON> had this ancestry too. At night she tried to train herself to look on the periphery of her dreams, to note the details. It was a little like trying to see around the edges of a mirror, but, she found, more rewarding. (p. 383)
After drinking the potion, the Witch dreams of our world that night, and it is to her, a nightmare so severe and intense that she vows never to sleep again and sets about creating potions to insure she will stay awake. But in this dream, she sees the <PERSON>, her father, failing in a suicide attempt. He swims out into the ocean and is spat back up on shore again and again by the tide. Perhaps the <PERSON> has no soul because she fails to belong wholly to any world, and is therefore "no one," a metaphysical wanderer, or perhaps, on the moral side, she thinks she has no soul because her father could not bear his own world and also could not end life, and
|
5c91bb2f-47a1-dae8-4eb0-02a025057765
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['b0e7d75f-2f03-1e35-7efc-4b39a3aa8b99']
|
pay. But it doesn't matter. I no longer have an appetite.
# Five
August: An In-School Out-of-Body Experience
Last hour of the day, I have my elective. Art. The familiar smell of turpentine pricks my nose as I take a spot behind one of the beat-up tables. Both Mrs. <PERSON> and my fellow art-freak, <PERSON> (yes, that's his name, poor kid) smile at me.
<PERSON> gives me a thumbs up as I slide onto the stool next to his. His thumbnail is painted black. As are the rest of his nails, though somehow the overall effect is actually masculine. There's a hole in his nose where a ring should be. School policy doesn't allow obvious body piercing. However, there's apparently no policy against <PERSON>'s electric blue hair. Go figure.
"Hey," I whisper, and nudge him with my elbow. "Looks like she's still got a thing for you." I'm talking about <PERSON>, the center on the girls' basketball team, who's sitting on his other side. She sits next to him every year and flashes her long legs in his direction. She likes to play up her assets.
<PERSON> blushes and hooks a combat boot onto the rung of his stool. He narrows his eyes at me. "You okay, <PERSON>?" Leave it to <PERSON>. Haven't seen the guy in almost three months and right away he knows something's up with me. Like every time I'm upset I have a tattoo on my forehead announcing it. Today it could read: _Shadows Sucked Me Pale_ or _Dad Moved Out._ I don't talk about the shadows, but eventually I'll end up telling <PERSON> about my dad. After <PERSON>, he's really the only friend I've got. We sat next to each other in Mrs. <PERSON>'s Art class freshmen year and hit it off from day one. He's got blue hair; I've got a blue outlook on life. Makes us buddies, I guess. Plus he's never called me _Psycho_ , despite witnessing a couple of my "incidents."
<PERSON>'s about to say something else when Mrs. <PERSON> stands up and demands our attention.
"Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I hope your summer was nice." She pushes a strand of jet-black hair from her face. "We'll be starting off simply today. Just a charcoal sketch." We all go to the back of the room and gather our materials together. When we're at our places again, Mrs. <PERSON> continues. "I'm going to need a model." Several hands shoot up like rockets – it's a chance to get out of actually doing the assignment and to just sit still for the next couple of classes.
I stare down at the table, my hands tucked between my legs. No way do I want my classmates to study my features, draw them on paper. I'd rather die first.
"<PERSON>? I'd like you to do it," Mrs. <PERSON> says in a firm voice.
I whip my head up and let out a little squeak. All the blood drains out of my face, maybe my body, too. I'm sure if I get up, there'll be
|
da3dbae7-60ce-507f-3d57-3302a7d6ddc3
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['b0e7d75f-2f03-1e35-7efc-4b39a3aa8b99']
|
, I think.
But the only thing that bites is the situation. Because <PERSON> glares at <PERSON>, then <PERSON>. "Absolutely nothing's going on," she says and pushes me and <PERSON> down the hall. "Come on."
My face is on fire. Once we're far enough away from <PERSON>, I whisper, "Don't do that again."
<PERSON> looks surprised. "What?"
"Treat me like I'm a kid. Talk for me."
"Sorry. I was only trying to help."
"Don't." Now that <PERSON> has curves, she's acting like my mother. I'm sure she sees me differently than she used to. Now I'm Psycho Skinny <PERSON>, her little friend who has to wear two pairs of jeans, one on top of the other, so as not to seem so disgustingly frail. Her little friend who can't be trusted to drive a car or ride a bike because her sinews might soften all of a sudden and cause an accident.
"Just don't," I say again, angrier than I know I should be.
The morning drags on forever. I check my cell between classes and <PERSON>'s texted me an apology. By lunchtime we're friends again.
<PERSON> catches up to us as we're walking into the cafeteria. "Can I sit with you?"
I stop and let the wave of people pass in front of us through the double doors. "God, <PERSON>. Don't you have _anyone_ to sit with?"
My brother looks down at his shoes – some sneakers Mom got at Target for $11.99. He's small and skinny like me —a little too fragile looking. It's only day one at high school, but I can already tell the next four years aren't going to be good to him. I mean, he barely got through orientation without crying.
So, while I really don't want him to sit with me (I see enough of him at home, okay?), I still want to keep an eye on him. Make sure he's doing okay. Plus, today is extra tough: I know Dad's leaving is killing him because it's killing me. "Fine, you can sit with us," I say. "Just for a few days."
Behind his glasses, his eyes close in relief. Then he nods and smiles and follows <PERSON> and me through the lunch line.
"I can't believe Mr. <PERSON> is doing it again." <PERSON> takes a cup and pours herself a Suicide Mix, every couple seconds moving the cup down the line on the soda fountain to put in a new flavor until it's full. The end result smells something like cat pee. "It was great and all the last couple of years, him giving out Twix bars for geezer rock trivia questions. But don't you think at some point the guy should teach Geography instead of the Rolling Stones?"
Moving my tray down the line, I wrinkle my nose. What _is_ that — refried beans or vomit? "Really, <PERSON>, you don't think knowing the length of <PERSON> tongue is as important as knowing where the Rocky Mountains are?"
<PERSON> leans over, his eyebrows knotted. "What's a <PERSON>?"
I ignore him and keep
|
d60323ed-a0b8-efec-b323-79331569c65d
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['b1225f3f-23fa-4799-e178-b17c77ba648b']
|
A grid composition will take on a different look on a square or rectangular surface.
## Elements of a Strong Composition
What makes a strong composition in comparison to a weak composition? The ability to create a good composition comes with practice and assessing your own work. Here are some key considerations in regards to composition.
### BALANCE
A strong composition has balance. This does not mean that you can divide the work down the center. It means that the entire painting works together as a whole unit. It can be asymmetrical but is balanced at the same time. You may have a large shape on one side of the painting, but it is balanced by three smaller shapes on the other.
### UNITY
All elements of the composition are unified. The painting works together as a unit. You have not used different styles in different sections of the painting. It has a unified color scheme. You will achieve better unity if you work on the entire painting instead of one section at a time.
### FOCAL POINT
Even in abstraction there needs to be a center of interest or a focal point. Where is it that you want the viewer's eye to be drawn? The focal point is achieved through mark making or colors. This area stands out in contrast to the other areas.
### VALUE AND CONTRAST
Have you used different values in your selection of colors? Are all the colors of the same value such as too light, too dark or too brilliant? A work is much more interesting if it has contrast and the values are varied within the work. A painting has more impact when it contains contrast.
### VARIETY
Does the painting have variety? Variety is displayed through different mark making, brushstrokes, textures and patterns. You have varied your brushstrokes. In some areas you have used broad strokes of pastel, and in others you have more defined strokes of color. There is variety in the surface of the work. If everything is the same, the work lacks variety. Variety makes the work more exciting and interesting.
### DIVISION OF SPACE
When you are creating a composition, you are dividing the space of the square or rectangle. Think about dividing the surface you are working on into different areas. These areas may be composed of organic or geometric shapes. Some paintings can become too complicated and have too many things going on. It is best to keep beginning abstractions simple. Think of dividing the square or rectangular shape of the surface into three or five different spaces. Within each of these spaces you can have different elements. Your work will benefit from keeping it simple.
## Circle or Closed
This type of composition refers to an object centered within the work. A shape is centered with space surrounding it on all sides. It does not extend out and beyond the edges of the surface but is contained within the painting. The painting may contain abstracted elements that are centered within a broader space that surrounds it. An
|
fad94883-29cc-f4c2-082c-53156944945e
|
['b1225f3f-23fa-4799-e178-b17c77ba648b']
|
will help you focus on values of color is your underpainting—a very important part of the beginning stages of a work. Spending more time developing value in your underpainting will help you in choosing or mixing the corresponding value of color. If the area of your underpainting is dark, you know you will choose a darker pastel or mix a darker paint for this area.
Value creates impact in a painting. Some contemporary artists may want very little change in value, and it is a conscious choice for their work. Some may work in a very limited color range. There are exceptions to every rule or thought when it comes to abstraction. I prefer works with impact and a certain amount of drama. Value is important to achieve this. The works I am drawn to are the works that make an immediate impression on me. They are usually works with a lot of contrasting values. You may choose another direction.
Value drawing on tone paper
Pastels based on values
### DON'T FORGET NEUTRALS
Do not forget the importance of neutrals in your color choices. Neutrals are earth colors and grays in your complementary color scheme. There are many variations of these colors.
It may be easier to understand these in painting. When you mix orange and blue together in different combinations, you will get a less intense version of both colors. You will get the neutral, gray or brown of the color. These colors are very important because they give more energy to the pure color.
Too many pure, brilliant colors fight for attention and can look garish. Those same colors look much different if you surround them with neutral colors. You may have an area of blue-gray in your pastel painting, and then you add a touch of yellow-orange. That yellow-orange sings next to the blue-gray. The neutral helps bring out the vibrancy of the color. Adding the same yellow-orange alongside Ultramarine Blue would not have the same effect. They would both fight for equal attention.
### mix paints TO learn about neutrals
Learning to use neutrals can be challenging. Mix paints to learn more about neutrals and all the variations you can achieve. One year I took cheap tempera paints and explored neutrals because I knew I was not choosing enough neutral colors in my pastel paintings. I chose two colors like red-violet and yellow-green. I mixed many combinations of the two and found so many beautiful variations. I took these small exercises to my pastel collection to look for corresponding colors. This really helped me identify some wonderful neutral colors that I had ignored.
## Color Study with Acrylic
I often create color studies before I start a larger work. You can create a small color study on canvas paper or small stretched canvas or even heavy paper. Use the same colors and composition for your larger painting. Color studies help you practice brushstrokes, color mixing and application. You can test colors out to see how they appear together in a color study. This example shows a primarily red
|
e5bc017b-593d-fe29-3dfc-ab882cc60293
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['b144f656-51f6-eca6-59b1-78e2a2ac047b']
|
sensitive to anything cold: air, wind, drafts, drinks, food
• Better from wrapping ear, from keeping warm in general
• Sensation of a splinter in ear, offensive smelling discharge from ear
**LYCOPODIUM**
• Right-sided infection, or begins on right and spreads to left
• Worse between 4:00 and 8:00 P.M.
• Worse from cold air or drafts
• Ear feels stopped up; buzzing or ringing in affected ear
**MERCURIUS VIVUS**
• Ear pain with swollen glands and sore throat; worse at night
• Pain may extend to face and teeth
• Offensive smelling discharge from ear
• Sweaty, increased saliva, foul breath
**PULSATILLA**
• Begins with a common cold that progresses into ear infection
• Much pitiful crying from pain; clingy, wants to be held and caressed
• Ear feels stopped up, with pulsating or bursting sensation
• Worse at night, in a warm, closed room
• Better in open air and from being rocked or carried gently
• Usually thirstless; bland discharge from ear
**COMMONSENSE MEASURES**
• Put a few drops of warmed _Mullein_ oil ( _verbascum_ ) in the affected ear every three or four hours, but only if there is no discharge from the ear. Have the child lie on his or her side for five minutes or more, so the oil slides all the way in.
• A warm carrot or onion compress can also give welcome relief from ear pain. Warm a slice of onion, wrap it in a handkerchief, and lay it gently against the ear. Put a woolen ski cap or similar hat on the head to cover the ears. This holds the compress in place and helps retain heat. With a carrot, grate it and heat briefly in a pan. Then place it in the center of a handkerchief and tie it off to make a compressible, ear-size ball. Apply in the same manner as the onion. A chamomile compress can be made in a similar manner.
**SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP**
• If significant pain persists for more than twenty-four hours
• If the bony area behind the ear becomes painful, red, or swollen
• If the child has a stiff neck with high fever, drowsiness, and headache
**GROWING PAINS**
Sometimes during a growth spurt, or for no apparent reason at all, children experience pains in their legs. Growing pains usually occur in children between ages six and thirteen, and are most commonly experienced at night. Give one of the following if indicated, in a 6C potency, three times daily for up to two weeks. Discontinue when there is improvement, and repeat only as needed.
**CALCAREA PHOSPHORICA**
• Primary remedy for aching in legs caused by very rapid growth
• Legs feel restless, sometimes with a tingling or crawling sensation
**GUAIACUM**
• Worse in cold, damp weather and from exertion
• Often worse in thighs
• Better from cool applications and applying local pressure
**PHOSPHORIC ACID**
• Tearing pains in legs, as though the bones were being scraped
• General tiredness after a period of prolonged
|
126b3331-e0a3-a4b2-5b4b-d600f0ae7e3f
|
['b144f656-51f6-eca6-59b1-78e2a2ac047b']
|
distilled water or sterile saline solution. Use a clean eyedropper to flush the eye with the solution, taking care not to touch the tip of the dropper to the eye. Repeat three or four times per day. When there is marked pus, discharge, or crust, a _Hypericum_ and _Calendula_ lotion is preferred: Add 2 drops of each mother tincture to 2 ounces of distilled water or sterile saline solution. Bathe affected eye as just described, and gently wipe the outside with a clean cloth dipped in the lotion.
**SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP**
• If there is any loss of vision
• If pain, redness, swelling, or discharge is severe
• If pupils are irregular in size or shape
• If bright light causes much pain
**STIES**
An infected pimple or boil on the margin of the eyelid, a sty can be quite painful. Typically the spot becomes red and inflamed, and fills with pus. Eventually the sty will burst and heal. A homeopathic remedy can aid the healing process and bring considerable pain relief. Children with recurrent sties will benefit from constitutional treatment.
**APIS MELLIFICA**
• Markedly swollen eyelid, with burning and stinging pain
• Better from cool compress; worse from any warmth
**BELLADONNA**
• Sty appears very quickly with much redness
• Sensitivity to light with dilated pupils
**HEPAR SULPHURIS**
• Very painful and sensitive to touch and cold air
• Sty comes to a head very slowly
• Better from a warm compress
**LYCOPODIUM**
• Sties on right eye, often on inner corner of eyelid
**PULSATILLA**
• Primary remedy when there are few other symptoms
• Especially occurring on upper lid
• Yellow-green discharge may be present
**STAPHYSAGRIA**
• Tendency to recurrent sties, with itching
• May be caused by suppressed anger or upset after an argument
• Tends to form a hard lump
**SULPHUR**
• Very hot, red, and burning sties
• Worse from heat and bathing
**COMMONSENSE MEASURES**
• Bathe the eye several times a day with water as hot as is tolerable. This will help soften the sty and bring it to a head.
**SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP**
• If vision is impaired
• If symptoms are severe or do not resolve within three days
• If there are accompanying symptoms of illness, such as fever or weakness
**CROUP**
Croup is a type of cough caused by an irritation of the larynx; it sounds harsh, hoarse, and barking. Croup occurs most often in children aged three months to four years. Homeopathic remedies are often very effective in helping shorten the course of the illness. The first three remedies are often indicated during onset. More information about these remedies can be found in "Colds, Coughs, and Bronchitis." The last three remedies are best suited to more developed cases.
**ACONITE**
• Primary remedy for croup that comes on suddenly at night
• Sudden onset of dry cough after exposure to cold, dry weather
• Hoarse, barking cough with restlessness, anxiety, and fear
**BELLADONNA**
• Sudden high fever
|
2874bdc5-9588-31c0-8662-19a82c8f0bb7
|
['b213c791-0876-22c8-b12b-b09fb0f3edbc']
|
Francisco. I played a small role in the show, a bit at the intermission feature when <PERSON> and I did a thing called 'tits on your head, Polaroids five dollars'. It was a comment on prostitution. I was the photographer.
<PERSON>: Members of the audience would line up to the stage, wait in line – men and women, boys and girls. They would climb up the stage, still in line, and one at a time they would sit in front of <PERSON>, who was bare-chested. She would put her tits, which were huge, on their head, and <PERSON> would snap a picture. That's 'tits on your head'.
<PERSON>: A Polaroid. A Polaroid meant that there was no negative, so only that person had that image. So at the end of that I would help <PERSON> change her costume on stage, and she said to me, '<PERSON>, the performance artist, is here. Ask her to come backstage afterwards.' I knew where she was sitting so I went up the proper aisle to the aisle seat where I knew this person was sitting and I said, 'Miss <PERSON>'.
<PERSON>: And I'm just sitting there not expecting anyone to approach me, let alone this really tall blonde, high heels.
<PERSON>: It was my high-class hooker look.
<PERSON>: She had this great spangled jacket on, and I thought, 'Oh my gosh.' So I, being a gentleman, I stood up.
<PERSON>: And up, and up and up, and there's this tall redhead standing in front of me and I thought, 'That's very nice indeed.' I managed to mutter out my invitation for her. <PERSON> was with her lesbian lover, who had just announced that she was going to become a man. They both announced they would come backstage and I thought, 'How fabulous, both of you.'
At that time I represented a lot of performance artists. There was a catchphrase, back in the day, in the 90s, that if there's a man in a dress or woman who takes hers off, <PERSON> represents them. One of the few performance artists I didn't represent was <PERSON>, because I'd heard she had a manager and it's not cool to steal a person from another manager. Very shortly after this, Gender Outlaw came out and that gave me her email address because she printed it in the book, the silly; but I always knew where she was, I'd kept an eye on her. I'd heard she'd broken up from her partner, who had transitioned, but I'd missed my chance – she had gone to be in a relationship with a dyke couple in Seattle. She came to perform one of her shows at PS122, and I flirted. It was nice but, no, she was still with the couple in Seattle.
<PERSON>: Wait a minute, 'with the couple' doesn't quite explain it. I was their slave, their full-time 24/7 slave. It was a sadomasochistic relationship as well as a master–slave relationship. So when I got to PS122 to perform, I still had fresh scars on me. I was reminded
|
3b7f6443-5ba0-0a29-ea05-23256b6092e5
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['b213c791-0876-22c8-b12b-b09fb0f3edbc']
|
E-J was in person at the Trans and Nonbinary Conference at The University of Brighton a few years ago. I was giving the morning's keynote. I saw E-J and we hugged. It was a great conference, and that made complete sense to me considering that the person organising the event, E-J, should be so reflective about their own identity and be able to use that as a starting-point for wider enquiries and investigations about the world around us.
It's the kind of quality you seldom find in people: the ability to be reflective before speaking and then formulating opinions or standpoints. Great teachers aren't simply experts in their own fields but also have the ability to reflect at length on their teaching practice and methods. Being an expert isn't enough if you wish to share expertise or knowledge. E-J's work, be that through the Museum of Transology or the work they do at the Tate, is accessible, tactile and emotionally open because they know, as all great teachers and communicators do, that to reach people you first have to respect and then trust them. Almost universally in this queer universe of ours, if you talk of E-J, people have only positive things to say about his generosity of spirit but also the tenacity of his queerness.
E-J's is my last interview. It wasn't planned to be – it's just how it's turned out – but it feels right that it is. When I walk into his shared house, it feels right.
The noise of his dogs barking makes me miss my own who bark endlessly in an untrained (I did try) fashion whenever a soul comes near to my house. My dogs live in Spain most of the time, principally because there they can run free in the mountains but also because there are far fewer people to bark at. That's the net result of my training methods: move to the middle of nowhere. <PERSON>, the smaller of my dogs, has taken to barking at any movement or noise, including the weather if it's anything other than the normal, silent, sunny days. The rain or wind are all reasons for her to bark now. <PERSON> barks and <PERSON>, my larger dog, follows. I'm sure their chorus can be heard across the valley and up into the mountains. They are both rescues, so I make allowances for their tougher beginnings but I'm mortified by my inability to train them.
E-J's dogs' barking makes me think about <PERSON> and <PERSON> in kennels in Spain. <PERSON> is happy anywhere, but <PERSON> dislikes being anywhere but home or my mum's house in the U.K. I love collecting them and taking them home. It's genuinely a joyful time.
E-J's interview is the final interview for this book. After him, the interview process is over. Tomorrow morning I fly home to put the book together. I have about six or eight weeks to finish it and hand it in.
I've written three books over the past three years, two complete outlines and far too many articles, essays and
|
2f854784-a37d-a565-7b8a-1201b8c77ac9
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['b251cd8f-5f5e-b37d-45d3-bd0ac25db8f6']
|
worry it was my fault. What if I wasn't good enough for her to share that last part of herself? What if I was holding us back?'
'I'm sure it wasn't like that.'
'Then why did she drop me for a fucking infernal?' <PERSON> covers her face.
'Maybe she messed up. Maybe you were the stronger one.'
'No. I'm not. You didn't know her. She was... perfect.'
'It's true, I didn't know her. But she didn't save me from the First. You did.'
<PERSON> keeps her face hidden. 'I thought about it... The First's offer... I didn't believe in you... I thought we were going to die... I was... tempted.'
'You didn't sound tempted.'
'Because it was an infernal... I thought I was loyal... I thought we would never...' She tails off, hands pressing roughly against her mouth.
<PERSON> sighs. 'It's okay. I don't blame you. The truth is, I don't believe in me either. Since I picked up the sword I've been terrified of getting things wrong. My Uncle says that when you don't know what to do, then it helps to pretend that you're someone who does.' A little pride tugs at her lips. 'I pretend to be my father because he was a knight. He always knew what to do. The thing is, I'm not very good at it.'
'I never knew my father, or my mother. They were just codes on my record.'
'Do you know anything about them?'
'No. The Harmonium Forge made me and the Winged Eye raised me.'
Gently, <PERSON> takes her hands, rests them in her lap. 'For what it's worth, I like you better now the other you isn't here.'
She looks up, disbelieving. 'But I'm horrible to you.'
'Only sometimes.'
She punches <PERSON> on the arm. 'I think I'm starting to like you, too.'
'I thought so.' <PERSON> punches her again, a little harder this time. 'Ow! What was that for?'
'It's not easy for me, you know. I'm not like you.'
'Okay.'
'... <PERSON>?'
'Yes?'
'I don't want to die.'
She squeezes <PERSON>'s hands. 'No.'
Abruptly, the Harmonised stands up. 'I don't want to talk any more. Let's eat.'
## _One Thousand One Hundred and Thirteen Years Ago_
The island is shy, only visible from the shore on a clear day. There has not been a clear day for three centuries now. Mankind makes his own clouds that hang low and heavy, squatting just above the waves, hissing out from rows and rows of metal pipes that sprout like grey grass. Undersea tubes connect the island to the mainland. There are three in total, each divided into two chambers, allowing traffic to flow back and forth. One carries people, another materials. The third is reserved for important items, living or otherwise.
An angry sky flings rain and lightning around the island. <PERSON> glides through it all, fearless. For her the clouds are easy to read, their bunchings and rollings giving ample warning as to where the next strike will be.
She makes towards the buildings clustered on the island's crown. Six
|
2abc8e8b-bc70-ce3d-5491-15618954cb0a
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['b251cd8f-5f5e-b37d-45d3-bd0ac25db8f6']
|
FOR: THE PRESIDENT
THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
DIR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
SUBJECT: ISRAELI MILITARY PLANS
THE PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL INFORMED ME AT 6 P.M. EST THAT U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND HAS AN EFFORT UNDERWAY TO LOCATE AND RECOVER NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN IRAQ. HE INTIMATED THAT IF THE EFFORT DOES NOT SUCCEED IN 72 HOURS, ISRAEL IS PREPARED TO LAUNCH A PREEMPTIVE NUCLEAR ATTACK ON IRAQ.
She didn't bother to suggest what U.S. government actions needed to be taken, nor did she include copies to the Vice President or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After reviewing the text, she simply sent it via a secure e-mail link to the State Department's message center, just down the hall from her office, where it would be distributed.
She was still fuming over the embarrassment of learning about an incredibly sensitive U.S. operation being carried out in the Middle East—from the Prime Minister of Israel, no less! _Most powerful nation_ _on earth, and I have to sit still for a dressing-down by the Israeli PM._ She clicked the Logoff button on her screen and closed the notebook computer, then shoved it hastily into her briefcase.
It was shaping up to be a hectic week. She walked out of her office complex toward the elevator that would take her downstairs to the security desk, where her driver and security detail were waiting.
But as she got to the elevator, she began to have misgivings about the message she had drafted.
_Before that message is distributed, I'd better check to make sure that business about CENTCOM is true._
She returned down the hall to her office suite. Depositing her briefcase on the desk in the reception area, she went into her inner office. When she got to her desk, she picked up the phone and called the Communications Center. The duty officer answered on the fifth ring.
"What took so long?"
"Sorry, ma'am. We're trying to locate the Sec Def and the DCI so we can send out that Flash/Eyes Only cable you sent us."
"Have you sent it out yet?"
"No, ma' am."
"Good, hold it. Don't send it until I tell you to." She hung up and picked up the red phone that connected her directly to the White House signal operator.
"Connect me to the Commander in Chief of CENTCOM."
"Yes, ma'am. Wait one."
Several minutes passed."Ma'am, the Command Center at MacDill informs me General <PERSON> is out of the country and is not expected back for three or four days."
"Then track him down and get him on the line for me."
"Ma'am, he's in Incirlik, Turkey...there's a seven-hour time difference...it's after midnight there. Do you still want to call?"
"Yes. And hurry up."
Finally, the call went through.
"Hello...General <PERSON> speaking. What can I do for you, Madam Secretary?"
"General, I just concluded a telephone call with the Prime Minister of Israel. He informed me that the United States Central Command has some kind of covert operation underway in Iraq, looking for nuclear bombs."
She waited.
"Did the Prime
|
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['b2f9285c-dd00-9331-4ba1-48dff0c64f4b']
|
moral weight. The debates surrounding New World peoples are especially instructive on this point, given the paradoxical fact that Amerindians, South Pacific Islanders, and other newly discovered peoples were often presented in modern philosophical writings as empirical examples of purely natural humans, that is, as those who inhabit a state of nature. It might seem that, from the standpoint of a social contractarian and modern natural right perspective, one could not be more human than a natural or pure human, but it was precisely those who were so identified theoretically who were ultimately most easily dehumanized in practice.
The defence of non-Europeans against European imperial powers and the development of anti-imperialist arguments depended not only upon potentially egalitarian and humanitarian concepts (which, despite their exclusionary tendencies, at least countered the idea that non-Europeans were inherently inferior in some fundamental sense), but also, secondly, upon reconceptualizing the relationship between cultural diversity and humanity. In the view of a number of Enlightenment anti-imperialists, what most noticeably differentiates humans—their various and often in-compatible or competing cultural systems of meanings and values—is integral to the human condition. Humans, in other words, were theorized as fundamentally cultural beings or cultural agents, as I have put it so as to emphasize the symbiotic relationship that these anti-imperialists discern between human reason, freedom, and imagination, and humans' social and cultural contexts. To view human beings in this way acknowledges their status as artful, reasoned, and free individuals who are partly shaped by their social and cultural contexts, yet who also through their actions and through changing perceptions alter such contexts themselves. Standard readings of <PERSON> and <PERSON>, in particular, have generally ignored the ample textual evidence to support such a view and argue in-stead that they held humans to be respectively either materially deter-mined automatons or, at bottom, 'noumenal' metaphysical subjects. As I have argued at length in the preceding chapters, such interpretive mis-conceptions fail to illuminate the specific manner in which <PERSON> and <PERSON> theorize humanity and (what we would today describe as) cultural diversity and, accordingly, how they engage in anti-imperialist arguments. The changing understanding of New World peoples is represented well by the contrast that can be drawn between, on the one hand, noble savage theory and most social contract accounts of Amerindians (which portray them as living solely by the light of Nature, by either natural instincts or natural laws) and, on the other, the political theories of Di- derot, <PERSON>, and <PERSON>, which view New World inhabitants as fellow cultural beings (rather than as pure or natural humans).
Third, closely related to the idea that humans are fundamentally cultural agents is the view that differences in social practices and cultural norms—even among the peoples who seemed strangest and most 'exotic' to European observers, such as Amerindians, Hottentots, and South Pacific Islanders—are often incommensurable and do not imply that the peoples themselves or the individual bearers of such distinct ways of life are inferior. By incommensurability, I mean the idea that, with regard to certain practices, institutions, or concepts, there are no universal standards that
|
bd0c8208-57b0-1c76-5649-ccd545ddd20f
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['b2f9285c-dd00-9331-4ba1-48dff0c64f4b']
|
do not come under attack in PH, as they do in <PERSON>'s Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, <PERSON> seeks to identify and to probe the symptoms of a variety of social ills through a self-consciously iconoclastic assault upon prevailing intellectual dispositions. Dissatisfied with the state of academic knowledge and the conventions of political life, <PERSON> calls for a new universal history to begin to grasp the outlines of the human condition in all its variety, a task that he himself would eventually undertake in the Ideas (1784–91), to which I will turn later.
I detail in the opening sections of this chapter <PERSON>'s philosophical approaches toward the study of history and society in PH, especially as they relate to first, the limits of generalizations and the contingency of human lives; second, the perpetual flux that characterizes human history and all societies; third, the limited horizons of any one individual's knowledge, and the lack of a universal standard by which we can rank peoples or conceptions of happiness; and fourth, the concept of the 'nation'. <PERSON>'s arguments in PH already give some indication of the manner in which he would later develop his own anthropological and political study of the world's peoples and histories in the Ideas. My analysis of the Ideas focuses in the fifth section upon <PERSON>'s anthropological understanding of humanity; in the sixth, upon his conceptualization of human diversity; and finally upon his doctrine of moral incommensurability and his ethical understanding of Humanität, by which <PERSON> theorizes international justice and a world beyond empire. The languages of moral universalism and humanity are far stronger in <PERSON>'s political thought than is usually assumed. Moreover, his commitment to cultural pluralism and his doctrine of incommensurability (and concomitantly his attacks on ethnocentrism) are closely related to his complex understanding of 'humanity'. Stated most abstractly, then, <PERSON>'s political thought does not choose between the universal and particular aspects of human life and moral judgement, but presents them as closely interrelated. Hence, his anti-imperialism reflects not simply a defence of cultural particularity and national independence, but also a humanistic affirmation of the universal dignity that he identifies in the diverse flourishing of human reason and freedom from individual to individual, and from people to people.
**Generalizations, Contingency, and Historical Judgement**
Throughout et Another Philosophy of History, <PERSON> mocks those who too easily generalize about the social and political features of human societies. "No one in the world", <PERSON> exclaims, "feels the weakness of general characterization more than I do."5 (SC 181) Indicating the fragility and arbitrariness of language itself, topics that he investigated at length in his earlier study on the origin of languages, he concludes that the ultimate result of such facile conclusions is a series of chimerical words that fail to signify any of the particularities that actually constitute social life. Such generalized language must often be articulated and applied in the most arbitrary fashion and, thus, imposes on history and societies a set of characteristics that obfuscates the rich diversity of human life. As <PERSON> notes, it
|
b659a0ee-ec33-fdfc-91ca-8b14c6351618
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['b3e6a4ad-ac8f-f82e-a0b7-111fb588f0f7']
|
without fear of the consequences if the initiative turned out badly. The insurance policy would pay off with a supplement to one's lifetime income if it turned out years or decades later, based on verifiable data, that there was less of a market, or even no market at all, for people with this career.
Someday there also could be marketplaces, like futures markets, for career incomes by occupation. If the markets were long term, they would entail price discovery for the career decisions individuals made. Promising careers would be indicated by high market prices.
Sometimes when a family member becomes ill, the disability is devastating for the remaining members of the family. Insurance could also be expanded to better cover many of these risks. Long-term care insurance is already privately offered, but the take-up rate for such policies is abysmally low so far. Welfare and unemployment programs will sometimes cover such eventualities, but only on a temporary basis. The illness of a family member can last for many years, even a lifetime. It will take financial innovation to achieve such improvements, to overcome the real barriers to such insurance that we see today.
As another example, hurricane risk in the eastern United States has shown signs of increasing over recent decades, and if weather patterns are changing so as to make hurricanes much more likely in the future, there may be a devastating impact on property owners in those areas. But hurricane insurance policies as currently offered are overwhelmingly short term. Thus there is nothing to insure against the risk that the long-term danger from hurricanes will increase. A new kind of insurance, long-term catastrophe insurance, which effectively insures against the risk that risks will increase, is an innovation we can expect to see in the future.
#### _The Process of Improving Insurance_
The process of financial development includes broadening the scope of insurance. And in this area, it is clear that much remains to be done.
Moreover, extending insurance to larger segments of the population is not exclusively a challenge for the poorest regions of the world. Even in the most advanced nations, there are still risks crying out to be insured. There is a clear need for home equity insurance (which insures people against a drop in the market value of their homes) and, as we have seen, livelihood insurance. These seem no closer to reality today.
Pushing the concept of insurance to new horizons can be inspiring work. The intelligent response to stories of human suffering in the BP oil spill or the Haitian earthquake or agricultural famines around the world is to recognize that the real costs of these disasters could be met by better risk management—by better insurance. There is certainly a role for those who wish to enter the field of insurance to make this happen.
### _Chapter 8_
### _Market Designers and Financial Engineers_
Market designers, sometimes called mechanism designers, start with a problem—the need for a market solution to some real human quandary—and then design a market and associated contracts to solve the problem.
|
803525c8-288e-061c-2243-7cb3e68327ce
|
['b3e6a4ad-ac8f-f82e-a0b7-111fb588f0f7']
|
roads and a sewage system in expectation of a later population influx, since putting the whole system in place at once is the most efficient approach. It would be sensible for the city government to finance these infrastructure needs by borrowing: the current population of the city cannot afford them, and they ought to be paid for by the subsequent residents, who will actually use them and be resident in the city when the debt comes due. Governments may also need to borrow during an economic crisis, again in expectation of better times ahead. Yet the indebted government may run into problems, for example if the anticipated future population does not arrive or if the economic crisis lasts longer than expected.
#### _Human Errors Regarding Debt_
People and businesses have trouble living up to the standards of rationality presupposed by the economic theorists who model and quantify these fundamental economic issues.
First of all, as discussed in the previous chapter, people—individuals and to a significant extent those in corporations and governments as well—seem to blandly accept the kinds of credit vehicles that are put before them by salespeople, and that have been sanctified by conventional wisdom or popular opinion. As discussed in Chapter 10 on lawyers and financial advisers, most individuals do not usually have experts available to help them with such decisions. Financial engineers—who might help reduce the problems associated with leverage—are by and large not listened to in public policy discussions. So people often find themselves faced with serious leverage problems.
To behave rationally, in accordance with theory, those involved in financial decision making must keep in mind the long-term wealth management problem: initially borrowing, then eventually tapering off their borrowing and saving enough wealth, given interest rates, to provide a good long-term outcome.
Yet individuals, as well as businesses and governments, often have difficulty in fully understanding—at least before a crisis develops—that when they borrow heavily they become leveraged, so that any otherwise small problem becomes magnified by the debt. If debt becomes too large relative to resources, there is a "debt overhang," which inhibits any form of positive action. People, and firms and governments as well, feel pinned down by their debt. Few of the individuals presented with this problem have the quantitative skills to understand and resolve the underlying issues without the help of financial advisers.
Lenders may step into this situation, hoping to make a profit, and sometimes with little regard for the real interests of the borrowers. The extent to which they can advertise and the kind of lending schemes that regulators allow differ significantly from one country to another. Hence there are massive differences across countries in average levels of indebtedness, and in propensity to save and build wealth.
#### _Leverage in the U.S. Financial Crisis of 2007_
During the boom in the United States just prior to the severe financial crisis, between 2001 and 2007, household debt, including mortgage debt and credit card debt, doubled from $7 trillion to $14 trillion. Household debt as a fraction of income rose to a level not
|
468e10fb-7100-3c5e-1ef9-b538c253c9da
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['b3eebe47-96d0-aa7e-457a-791954b661e2']
|
that isn't your style. Already we can see that two different characters share this space!
LIGHT
Bedrooms are often the forgotten part of our homes in terms of lighting. They too often have a dismal central light or, even worse, a grid of six downlights. A third of our life is spent in these rooms, sleeping. Once you are up you should be able to draw the curtains and let light pour into the room, so a bedroom that faces the rising sun is the ideal. With the light pouring in you will hopefully feel invigorated, your circadian rhythms are set for the day, plus some direct sunlight will prevent mould and damp in your sleeping environment.
On the other hand, when you're sleeping, your room needs to be dark with good-quality curtains or blinds, as in hotel rooms. A darkened room is a blank canvas in which to introduce new lighting and sleeping smart technology. This is especially important if you need to sleep in the day because of work shifts, or in the bedrooms of young children who still need daytime sleeps.
TASK LIGHTING
Do you read in bed? If so, make sure you have some over-the-shoulder light to illuminate the page while you are sitting up in bed. These days, reading in bed is often the only time many of us have to get into a book, so a good bedside reading lamp is imperative. I suggest a light that is close to you, has a small beam of light and is hooded so that the reader isn't disturbing a partner who is trying to go to sleep.
If you have a sofa or chairs in the bedroom, then make sure you have a floor lamp or dedicated downlight to illuminate that area specifically.
WARDROBE LIGHTING
If your wardrobe is in your bedroom, make sure you have lights centred in front of the wardrobe doors so that when they are open they light up to reveal the clothes inside. Lights within the actual closet behind the doors are also a great idea and can look fantastic; switching on when you open the door, they are a practical and efficient way of lighting up your clothes so you can make a good choice for the day. In a walk-in wardrobe with no doors, ensure that there is good lighting that focuses on the clothes. If you have a layout bench then make sure you have some excellent spotlights onto that. And be sure to light the area in front of a full-length mirror. I recommend also involving natural light in the area where you dress. (We have all noticed someone who has clearly got dressed in the semi-dark...)
AMBIENT LIGHT
With good task lighting in place for reading and dressing, the only reason you really need strong ambient light in a bedroom is to clean. Otherwise, bedrooms are places where most of us would appreciate soft and low ambient light. Of course, this ambient light should be cosy, never glaring: a warm white–yellow light is best. Introduce wall lights that
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5bba65d6-2eaf-091a-8f9d-0c5ae44dc25c
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['b3eebe47-96d0-aa7e-457a-791954b661e2']
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at night: not a solution, but a fix.
MUSIC – THE FOOD OF LOVE
A quality sound system is a great addition to relaxing when going to bed at night. Ensure you have the luxury of controlling it from your bedside, preferably with a dedicated control. Remember, we are trying to remove our smart phones from our bedside tables.
Soft furnishings affect the sound of a room. Here carpet, bedding, fabric upholstery and curtains all soften the acoustics of the bedroom.
VIEW
Because you probably don't spend too much time in the bedroom awake, and usually not during daylight, a view is less important here than in other areas of the home. However, it is definitely nice to have! Waking to a magnificent view is not to be sniffed at – just remember that it is something you are generally going to see in the morning or late at night.
LOOKING UP
A sky view is lovely from your bed in the morning; you can instantly start to read what sort of day it is going to be, and if you can have your blinds automated then you can start to appreciate the view without even getting out of bed. I will often recommend electric roller blinds on the windows.
A bedroom can often be suited to a secondary view; perhaps a small courtyard or a neighbour's tree or even a view over the street. Every room needs a window, so position it carefully to capture something worth seeing or, even better, contemplating. If you don't have any view at all, consider adding some window sill planters or flowers. Or consider turning that blank wall outside into an artwork or even a vertical garden of foliage.
<PERSON>
If you don't have a balcony or deck off your bedroom, then consider making the window more just than a window. Consider replacing it with a sliding glass door or a set of French doors (you will need the approval of your local authority). Then design a balustrade to provide safety. For a sliding door, the balustrade can be on the inside or the outside; for French doors the balustrade has to be on the inside. Flinging open the doors to let in the morning sun and breeze feels so much more of a celebration than just opening a window.
The balustrade needs to be well designed and add character to your room – think of wrought iron or timber hand rails, or glass to maximise the view. You can add window plants hanging from the balustrade to make it charmingly European, if that fits your style. Arrange chairs and a side table in front of the Juliet balcony and you have created your own 'outside room'.
When you are thinking about bedroom views, remember what your main vantage point will be. If that is lying down, then make sure you can see the view from that position. Think, too, about materials used for balcony balustrades – this one is designed to not obstruct the view from the bed.
Design your outdoor area to
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c77ea353-6673-2976-1060-25b2ee26fe0b
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|
would fold around your present perfectly, like the template for a cube given in Chapter 2, but if our objective is to save on paper, this is a pretty stupid idea, since you'll probably end up throwing away a lot of what you cut away round the edges. Plus, if you have time to measure out complicated shapes like that, you really should consider spending it with the people you're buying the presents for, rather than locking yourself away in your wrapping shed for most of December.
Let's be sensible, then, and limit ourselves to rectangular pieces of wrapping paper. The standard way to wrap a cuboidal present is to place it with its edges parallel to the edges of the paper and fold all the way round in one direction so that opposite edges of the paper meet in a straight line on the top, before folding in to cover the two ends that remain uncovered (see Diagram 1 below).
For maximum mathematical efficiency, you should measure out your paper so that one edge is equal to the sum of the length and the height of your present, while the other edge is equal to double the sum of the width and the height* (though, of course, you'll need to make the rectangle a tiny bit larger, to give yourself a bit of leeway). That way, everything should meet up perfectly, as in Diagram 1.
We've marked the excess paper in red on the diagrams. It's actually quite easy to see how much has been wasted, because you can imagine those four red rectangles being stuck together into two squares, each with side length equal to the height of your present. The wastage with this method is therefore equal to twice the square of the height.
There is also a diagonal method for wrapping cuboidal presents, one that smarmy wrappers claim is superior. This alternative technique is often presented as some sort of mystical secret, accessible only to the pure of heart, so powerful that those who master it are able to completely cover a fridge–freezer using only a postage stamp.
Sadly, diagonal wrapping is not a miraculous way to hack your Christmas. Mathematically speaking, it's actually a bit rubbish. While the technique may be sufficiently novel to dazzle the easily impressed, it is in fact less efficient than the standard method.
The diagonal approach uses a square piece of wrapping paper, with a side length equal to three-quarters of the sum of the width, the length and double the height of your gift. This produces a piece of paper that's a touch larger than necessary, so there's no need to factor in any additional overlap. Then you place your present in the centre, at a 45° angle, and fold the four corners over on to the top, as here in Diagram 2.*
Once again, there will be four flaps of excess paper at the corners of the gift – triangles this time, marked in red again – and once again you could imagine these being stuck together to form two
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b7b8dc9d-32bc-3268-ca24-589ff938c9bc
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['b3ef8f7f-64e7-8e9b-e899-6d2c0f2ea087']
|
diameter.* If you put your gift in the middle of this piece of paper, you should just be able to bring the four corners over to meet on the top. Then you can simply press down the unavoidable big sticky-out bits and hope for the best.
Alternatively (see Diagram 7 here), you can cut a rectangle of paper, with one side equal to the circumference of your present and the other side equal to half that length.† Using this method, you roll the gift up in a cylinder of paper, then gently press in the ends. You'll have to make sure it's right in the middle though, because if you've measured accurately there should only be just enough paper to cover it.
Although these methods are the best you can do with a rectangular piece of paper, they still fall well short of wrapping perfection. Despite the sphere having almost 20% less surface area than a cube of the same volume, our wrapping techniques use only 5% less paper and the end results are not exactly works of art either. We must be able to do better.
Well, as it happens, you can, but you'll need a lot of patience. There is a family of shapes called petal wrappings that can wrap a sphere as beautifully and as efficiently as you like (Diagram 8).* The only catch is that if you want to achieve maximum efficiency you'll need to cut a piece of wrapping paper with an infinite number of petals. So while you are welcome to have a go at this if you like...
... it might be easier to put your ball in a box.
### ENDNOTES
1 Surface area to volume ratio is actually a tricky sort of quantity, because it doesn't remain constant as the size of a solid shape increases. For instance, although a cube with side length 1 metre has a surface area to volume ratio of 6, if you double the length of each side to 2 metres, the new cube will have a volume of 8 cubic metres and a surface area of 24 square metres, giving a ratio of just 3 (24 divided by 8). The surface area to volume ratio is not fixed for each shape. Thankfully, since we are only comparing presents of the same volume, we don't need to worry about this. Oh, and strictly speaking, the units for the ratio should be measured in inverse length, since it's a square unit divided by a cubic one, but hey; Christmas is too short to worry about that sort of thing.
2 Diagrams 4 and 5 actually show the most efficiently wrappable cylinder and triangular prism using the method depicted. Here are some extra mathematical notes on wrapping cylinders and prisms with this technique, for completists:
* The wastage of the wrapping methods shown in Diagrams 4 and 5 is always equal to twice the area of the end of the triangular prism or cylinder.
* For a cylinder, the lowest possible surface area to volume ratio
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