Dead man's hand in popular culture Destination" is titled "Dead Man's Hand", and takes place in Las Vegas. Also, a comic mini-series based on the film used the "dead man's hand" as a means of foreshadowing. There is a Las Vegas bar called the Nine of Diamonds in the novel "Inherent Vice" by Thomas Pynchon, "out on Boulder Highway...According to Bigfoot Bjornsen, for whom this piece of western trivia had won him many a bar bet, the nine of diamonds had been the fifth card in Wild Bill Hickok's last poker hand, along with the black aces and eights." At least two of John Ford's films
What Is Man? (Twain essay) What Is Man? (Twain essay) "What Is Man?" is a short story by American writer Mark Twain, published in 1906. It is a dialogue between a Young Man and an Old Man regarding the nature of man. The title refers to Psalm 8:4, which begins "what is man, that you are mindful of him...". It involves ideas of determinism and free will, as well as of psychological egoism. The Old Man asserts that the human being is merely a machine, and nothing more, driven by the singular purpose to satisfy his own desires and achieve peace of mind. The Young