Antique Piece Quotes

Red onions are especially divine. I hold a slice up to the sunlight pouring in through the kitchen window, and it glows like a fine piece of antique glass. Cool watery-white with layers delicately edged with imperial purple...strong, humble, peaceful...with that fiery nub of spring green in the center...

When we hear the ancient bells growling on a Sunday morning we ask ourselves: Is it really possible! This, for a jew, crucified two thousand years ago, who said he was God's son? The proof of such a claim is lacking. Certainly the Christian religion is an antiquity projected into our times from remote prehistory; and the fact that the claim is believed - whereas one is otherwise so strict in examining pretensions - is perhaps the most ancient piece of this heritage. A god who begets children with a mortal woman; a sage who bids men work no more, have no more courts, but look for the signs of the impending end of the world; a justice that accepts the innocent as a vicarious sacrifice; someone who orders his disciples to drink his blood; prayers for miraculous interventions; sins perpetrated against a god, atoned for by a god; fear of a beyond to which death is the portal; the form of the cross as a symbol in a time that no longer knows the function and ignominy of the cross -- how ghoulishly all this touches us, as if from the tomb of a primeval past! Can one believe that such things are still believed?

The mother was convinced that the purchase of this piece of furniture would facilitate the bond she so hungered for with Gabriela, although she hated the unnerving history associated with the paravent. But, she thought, what could it possibly do to a child?

It's an upholstered footstool--" "A footstool? You paid five hundred bucks for a stool...for feet?" "It was a very good deal. Its antique--" "You really are gay, aren't you?" "Really? This is what confirms it? Not all the sex that I could have sworn you were present for, but a piece of furniture--

There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past. He cares as little for what will be as for what has been; he cares only for what ought to be. And for my present purpose I specially insist on this abstract independence. If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of the first things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern assumption that past things have become impossible. There is one metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, "You can't put the clock back." The simple and obvious answer is "You can." A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, being a piece of human construction, can be reconstructed upon any plan that has ever existed.

And my grandmother had bought them in preference to other books, just as she would have preferred to take a house that had a gothic dovecot, or some other such piece of antiquity as would have a pleasant effect on the mind, filling it with a nostalgic longing for impossible journeys through the realms of time.

The pieces didn't really coordinate and could be described in no other way than 'eclectic', but once labeled 'eclectic', valuable mismatches generally become fantastically stylish. Very similar to the way adding cash value to 'crazy' results in a whimsical 'eccentric'; you have to buy more flattering adjectives.

My own psychic burden was that I could command a six-figure salary, yet I did not know how to do anything. Whatever I learned to do in my late twenties, I learned from online tutorials: how to remove mold from a windowsill; slow-cook fish; straighten a cowlick; self-administer a breast exam. Whenever I wrenched a piece of self-assembly furniture into place, or reinforced a loose button, I experienced an unfamiliar and antiquated type of satisfaction. I went so far as to buy a sewing machine, like I was looking for ways to shame myself.a

Aristotle tells us that the high-pitched voice of the female is one evidence of her evil disposition, for creatures who are brave or just (like lions, bulls, roosters and the human male) have large deep voices…. High vocal pitch goes together with talkativeness to characterize a person who is deviant from or deficient in the masculine ideal of self-control. Women, catamites, eunuchs and androgynes fall into this category. Their sounds are bad to hear and make men uncomfortable…. Putting a door on the female mouth has been an important project of patriarchal culture from antiquity to the present day. Its chief tactic is an ideological association of female sound with monstrosity, disorder and death…. Woman is that creature who puts the inside on the outside. By projections and leakages of all kinds—somatic, vocal, emotional, sexual—females expose or expend what should be kept in…. [As Plutarch comments,] “…she should as modestly guard against exposing her voice to outsiders as she would guard against stripping off her clothes. For in her voice as she is blabbering away can be read her emotions, her character and her physical condition.”… Every sound we make is a bit of autobiography. It has a totally private interior yet its trajectory is public. A piece of inside projected to the outside. The censorship of such projections is a task of patriarchal culture that (as we have seen) divides humanity into two species: those who can censor themselves and those who cannot…. It is an axiom of ancient Greek and Roman medical theory and anatomical discussion that a woman has two mouths. The orifice through which vocal activity takes place and the orifice through which sexual activity takes place are both denoted by the wordstoma in Greek (os in Latin) with the addition of adverbs ano and kato to differentiate upper mouth from lower mouth. Both the vocal and the genital mouth are connected to the body by the neck (auchen in Greek, cervix in Latin). Both mouths provide access to a hollow cavity which is guarded by lips that are best kept closed.

They made their way to the dining room, where the air was blossom-scented and gilded with candlelight. The mammoth Jacobean table, with its legs and support rails carved like twisted rope, had been covered with pristine white linen. A row of broad silver baskets filled with billows of June roses rested on a long runner of frothy green maidenhair ferns. The walls had been lined with lush arrangements of palms, hydrangeas, azaleas and peonies, turning the room into an evening garden. Each place at the table had been set with glittering Irish crystal, Sèvres porcelain, and no fewer than twenty-four pieces of antique Georgian silver flatware per guest.

Another trick—calculated to lure a different, more sophisticated customer—was to bury a piece in the back of the store, reverse the vacuum cleaner over it (instant antiquity!) and allow the nosy customer to ferret it out on his or her own—look,

They used at one time to make me believe that I took a pleasure in reading him. But that continual repetition of battles, so extremely like one another; those gods that are always active without doing anything decisive; that Helen who is the cause of the war, and who yet scarcely appears in the piece; that Troy, so long besieged without being taken; all these together caused me great weariness. I have sometimes asked learned men whether they were not as weary as I of that work. Those who were sincere have owned to me that the poem made them fall asleep; yet it was necessary to have it in their library as a monument of antiquity, or like those rusty medals which are no longer of use in commerce.

No—” his hands came together on the table—“it was one of the first antiques I ever bought, thirty years ago. In an American Folk sale. I’m not a great one for the folk art, never have been—this piece, not of the first quality, doesn’t fit with anything else I own, and yet isn’t it always the inappropriate thing, the thing that doesn’t quite work, that’s oddly the dearest?

What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful? It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges? I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want. When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking 'Is this the one I am too appear for, Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar? Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus, Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules. Is this the one for the annunciation? My god, what a laugh!' But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me. I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button. I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year. After all I am alive only by accident. I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way. Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains, The diaphanous satins of a January window White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory! It must be a tusk there, a ghost column. Can you not see I do not mind what it is. Can you not give it to me? Do not be ashamed--I do not mind if it is small. Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity. Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam, The glaze, the mirrory variety of it. Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate. I know why you will not give it to me, You are terrified The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it, Bossed, brazen, an antique shield, A marvel to your great-grandchildren. Do not be afraid, it is not so. I will only take it and go aside quietly. You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle, No falling ribbons, no scream at the end. I do not think you credit me with this discretion. If you only knew how the veils were killing my days. To you they are only transparencies, clear air. But my god, the clouds are like cotton. Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide. Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in, Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million Probable motes that tick the years off my life. You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine----- Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole? Must you stamp each piece purple, Must you kill what you can? There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me. It stands at my window, big as the sky. It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history. Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger. Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it. Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil. If it were death I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes. I would know you were serious. There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday. And the knife not carve, but enter Pure and clean as the cry of a baby, And the universe slide from my side.

I wanted to take a photo of his face just then. That boyish grin. That look of love, of contentedness. Couldn't he see? We didn't need children to complete us. We were already complete. I had my flowers and plants, and he had his writing. Wasn't that enough? Didn't he love the ebb and flow of our life together just as it was? The way I'd race home for dinner with a basket brimming with vegetables from the market or a handful of herbs from a garden project, eager to read the pages he'd written that day. Didn't he love, as I did, the quiet mornings we spent in our garden, sipping espresso and discussing our latest venture to a flea market in Queens or an antiques shop in Connecticut? Once we carted an enormous painted dresser to a taping of 'Antiques Roadshow' only to find that the piece was made in China. I grinned at the memory.

was in this way that the people of antiquity, when they had raised a temple on the site of one which had been torn down, always took care to introduce into the new building some of the materials, or at least a column, of the old one, in order to preserve something of the old and sacred in the modern, and in order that the souvenir, crude and worn, should have its worship and its influence over the heart, even among the master-pieces of the new sanctuary.

In precisely the same way the pastoral novels of George Sand, which she was giving me for my birthday, were regular lumber-rooms of antique furniture, full of expressions that have fallen out of use and returned as imagery, such as one finds now only in country dialects. And my grandmother had bought them in preference to other books, just as she would have preferred to take a house that had a gothic dovecot, or some other such piece of antiquity as would have a pleasant effect on the mind, filling it with a nostalgic longing for impossible journeys through the realms of time.

The conspiracy of international capitalism and Bolshevism is not an absurd phenomenon but a natural condition. The driving force in both cases is that race whose hatred has torn mankind to pieces time and again throughout the millennia, corrupted it inside, exploited it economically, and destroyed it politically. International Jewry is “the ferment of the decomposition of people and states” today as in antiquity. Things will remain this way, unless the people find the strength to rid themselves of this germ. Proclamation for the 10th anniversary of the Power Taking January 30, 1943

Sal and Henry return with a gust of warm garden air and I settle down to create miniature roses from sugarpaste using tiny ivory spatulas and crimpers. I will have no antique tester bed crowning my cake, only a posy of flowers: symbols of beauty and growth, each year new-blossoming. I let Henry paint the broken pieces with spinach juice, while I tint my flowers with cochineal and yellow gum. As a pretty device I paint a ladybird on a rose, and think it finer than Sèvres porcelain. At ten o'clock tomorrow, I will marry John Francis at St. Mark's Church, across the square. As Sal and I rehearse our plans for the day, pleasurable anticipation bubbles inside me like fizzing wine. We will return from church for this bride cake in the parlor, then take a simple wedding breakfast of hot buttered rolls, ham, cold chicken, and fruit, on the silver in the dining room. Nan has sent me a Yorkshire Game Pie, so crusted with wedding figures of wheatsheafs and blossoms it truly looks too good to eat. We have invited few guests, for I want no great show, and instead will have bread and beef sent to feed the poor. And at two o'clock, we will leave with Henry for a much anticipated holiday by the sea, at Sandhills, on the southern coast. John Francis has promised Henry he might try sea-bathing, while I have bought stocks of cerulean blue and burnt umber to attempt to catch the sea and sky in watercolor.

On this day, Eustace was heating iron rods to fix a broken piece on his antique mower. He had a number of irons cooking in his forge at the same time and, distracted by trying to teach me the basics of blacksmithing, he allowed several of them to get too hot, to the point of compromising the strength of the metal. When he saw this, he said, "Damn! I have too many irons in the fire." Which was the first time I had ever heard that expression used in its proper context. But such is the satisfaction of being around Eustace; everything suddenly seems to be in its proper context. He makes true a notion of frontier identity that has long since passed most men of his generation, most of whom are left with nothing but the vocabulary.

The result was a sort of condensed literature, an essence of nutriment, a sublimate of art. It was a device which Mallarmé after first employing it only sparingly in his earlier works, had openly and boldly adopted in a piece he wrote on Théophile Gautier and in the l’Après-midi du faune, an eclogue in which the subtleties of sensual joys were unfolded in mysterious, softly suggestive verses, broken suddenly by this frantic, wild-beast cry of the Faun: "Alors m’éveillerai-je à la ferveur première, Droit et seul sous un flot antique de luminère, Lys! et l’un de vous tous pour l’ingénuité." Then shall I awake to the pristine fervour, standing upright and alone under an old-world flood of light, Flower of the lily! and the one of you all for innocence!

Because I love you, Mia Sharpe. You are my route to happiness. All of my routes to happiness lead to you, and I haven’t ever found anyone else that has even come close. I love that you are willing to sit in an empty apartment until you find just the right piece of antique furniture that speaks to you even if it takes months. I love the way you call me Beckett most of the time, and Ellie only when it really matters. I love the way you tell people what their gift is when you hand them a wrapped present. I love that you became a firefighter so that you can save people from suffering what you’ve suffered. And I love you so much, that I’ll love you through all of the times where you find it hard to love yourself. Every day. Because there isn’t a piece of you that’s ruined inside, no matter what you might think on your worst days.

They sat down to table, and after an excellent dinner they went into the library. Candide, seeing a Homer magnificently bound, commended the virtuoso on his good taste. "There," said he, "is a book that was once the delight of the great Pangloss, the best philosopher in Germany." "It is not mine," answered Pococurante coolly. "They used at one time to make me believe that I took a pleasure in reading him. But that continual repetition of battles, so extremely like one another; those gods that are always active without doing anything decisive; that Helen who is the cause of the war, and who yet scarcely appears in the piece; that Troy, so long besieged without being taken; all these together caused me great weariness. I have sometimes asked learned men whether they were not as weary as I of that work. Those who were sincere have owned to me that the poem made them fall asleep; yet it was necessary to have it in their library as a monument of antiquity, or like those rusty medals which are no longer of use in commerce.

It was the secret no one told you, the thing you had to learn for yourself: viz. that in the antiques trade there was really no such thing as a “correct” price. Objective value—list value—was meaningless. If a customer came in clueless with money in hand (as most of them did) it didn’t matter what the books said, what the experts said, what similar items at Christie’s had recently gone for. An object—any object—was worth whatever you could get somebody to pay for it. In consequence, I’d started going through the store, removing some tags (so the customer would have to come to me for the price) and changing others—not all, but some. The trick, as I discovered through trial and error, was to keep at least a quarter of the prices low and jack up the rest, sometimes by as much as four and five hundred percent. Years of abnormally low prices had built up a base of devoted customers; leaving a quarter of the prices low kept them devoted, and ensured that people hunting for a bargain could still find one, if they looked. Leaving a quarter of the prices low also meant that, by some perverse alchemy, the marked-up prices seemed legitimate in comparison: for whatever reason, some people were more apt to put out fifteen hundred bucks for a Meissen teapot if it was placed next to a plainer but comparable piece selling (correctly, but cheaply) for a few hundred.

It was a difficult time to be a Minister. The war went from bad to worse and the Government was universally detested. As each fresh catastrophe came to the public's notice some small share of blame might attach itself to this or that person, but in general everyone united in blaming the Ministers, and they, poor things, had no one to blame but each other - which they did more and more frequently. It was not that the Ministers were dull-witted -- upon the contrary there were some brilliant young men among them. Nor were they, upon the whole, bad men; several led quite blameless domestic lives and were remarkably fond of children, music, dogs, landscape painting. Yet so unpopular was the Government that had it not been for the careful speeches of the Foreign Secretary, it would have been almost impossible to get any piece of business through the House of Commons. The Foreign Secretary was quite peerless orator. No matter how low the Government stood in the estimation of everyone, when the Foreign Secretary stood up and spoke -- ah! how different everything seemed then! How quickly was every bad thing discovered to be the fault of the previous administration (an evil set of men who wedded general stupidity to wickedness of purpose). As for the present Ministry, the Foreign Secretary said that not since the days of Antiquity had the world seen gentlemen so virtuous, so misunderstood and so horrible misrepresented by their enemies.

Quickly she shredded the cabbage on the chopping block and tossed it along with the onion and tomatoes in a blue Pyrex bowl. Then she slid the lamb chops, encrusted with fresh rosemary, into the oven. While the lamb baked, she brushed her hair in the washroom and pinned it back again. Then she zipped on a silk floral dress she'd purchased in Bristol and retrieved her grandmother's rhinestone necklace, one of the few family heirlooms her mother packed for her, to clasp around her neck. At the foot of the bed was the antique trunk she'd brought from her childhood home in Balham more than a decade ago. Opening the trunk, she removed her wedding album along with her treasured copy of 'The Secret Garden' and the tubes of watercolors her father had sent with her and her brother. Her father hoped she would spend time painting on the coast, but Maggie hadn't inherited his talent or passion for art. Sometimes she wondered if Edmund would have become an artist. Carefully she took out her newest treasures- pieces of crystal she and Walter hd received as wedding presents, protected by pages and pages of her husband's newspaper. She unwrapped the crystal and two silver candlesticks, then set them on the white-cloaked dining table. She arranged the candlesticks alongside a small silver bowl filled with mint jelly and a basket with sliced whole-meal bread from the bakery. After placing white, tapered candles into the candlesticks, she lit them and stepped back to admire her handiwork. Satisfied, she blew them out. Once she heard Walter at the door, she'd quickly relight the candles. When the timer chimed, she removed the lamb chops and turned off the oven, placing the pan on her stovetop and covering it with foil. She'd learned a lot about housekeeping in the past decade, and now she was determined to learn how to be the best wife to Walter. And a doting mother to their children. If only she could avoid the whispers from her aunt's friends.

The Addams dwelling at 25 West Fifty-fourth Street was directly behind the Museum of Modern Art, at the top of the building. It was reached by an ancient elevator, which rumbled up to the twelfth floor. From there, one climbed through a red-painted stairwell where a real mounted crossbow hovered. The Addams door was marked by a "big black number 13," and a knocker in the shape of a vampire. ...Inside, one entered a little kingdom that fulfilled every fantasy one might have entertained about its inhabitant. On a pedestal in the corner of the bookcase stood a rare "Maximilian" suit of armor, which Addams had bought at a good price ("a bargain at $700")... It was joined by a half-suit, a North Italian Morion of "Spanish" form, circa 1570-80, and a collection of warrior helmets, perched on long stalks like decapitated heads... There were enough arms and armaments to defend the Addams fortress against the most persistent invader: wheel-lock guns; an Italian prod; two maces; three swords. Above a sofa bed, a spectacular array of medieval crossbows rose like birds in flight. "Don't worry, they've only fallen down once," Addams once told an overnight guest. ... Everywhere one looked in the apartment, something caught the eye. A rare papier-mache and polychrome anatomical study figure, nineteenth century, with removable organs and body parts captioned in French, protected by a glass bell. ("It's not exactly another human heart beating in the house, but it's close enough." said Addams.) A set of engraved aquatint plates from an antique book on armor. A lamp in the shape of a miniature suit of armor, topped by a black shade. There were various snakes; biopsy scissors ("It reaches inside, and nips a little piece of flesh," explained Addams); and a shiny human thighbone - a Christmas present from one wife. There was a sewing basket fashioned from an armadillo, a gift from another. In front of the couch stood a most unusual coffee table - "a drying out table," the man at the wonderfully named antiques shop, the Gettysburg Sutler, had called it. ("What was dried on it?" a reporter had asked. "Bodies," said Addams.)...

We are engaged in a world war of stories—a war between incompatible versions of reality—and we need to learn how to fight it. A tyrant has arisen in Russia and brutality engulfs Ukraine, whose people, led by a satirist turned hero, offer heroic resistance, and are already creating a legend of freedom. The tyrant creates false narratives to justify his assault—the Ukrainians are Nazis, and Russia is menaced by Western conspiracies. He seeks to brainwash his own citizens with such lying stories. Meanwhile, America is sliding back towards the Middle Ages, as white supremacy exerts itself not only over Black bodies, but over women’s bodies too. False narratives rooted in antiquated religiosity and bigoted ideas from hundreds of years ago are used to justify this, and find willing audiences and believers. In India, religious sectarianism and political authoritarianism go hand in hand, and violence grows as democracy dies. Once again, false narratives of Indian history are in play, narratives that privilege the majority and oppress minorities; and these narratives, let it be said, are popular, just as the Russian tyrant’s lies are believed. This, now, is the ugly dailiness of the world. How should we respond? It has been said, I have said it myself, that the powerful may own the present, but writers own the future, for it is through our work, or the best of it at least, the work which endures into that future, that the present misdeeds of the powerful will be judged. But how can we think of the future when the present screams for our attention, and what, if we turn away from posterity and pay attention to this dreadful moment, can we usefully or effectively do? A poem will not stop a bullet. A novel cannot defuse a bomb. Not all our satirists are heroes. But we are not helpless. Even after Orpheus was torn to pieces, his severed head, floating down the river Hebrus, went on singing, reminding us that the song is stronger than death. We can sing the truth and name the liars, we can join in solidarity with our fellows on the front lines and magnify their voices by adding our own to them. Above all, we must understand that stories are at the heart of what’s happening, and the dishonest narratives of oppressors have proved attractive to many. So we must work to overturn the false narratives of tyrants, populists, and fools by telling better stories than they do, stories within which people want to live. The battleground is not only on the battlefield. The stories we live in are contested territories too. Perhaps we can seek to emulate Joyce’s Dedalus, who sought to forge, in the smithy of his soul, the uncreated conscience of his race. We can emulate Orpheus and sing on in the face of horror, and not stop singing until the tide turns, and a better day begins.

[T]o look back on our life and also to discover something that can no longer be made good: the squandering of our youth when our educators failed to employ those eager, hot and thirsty years to lead us towards knowledge of things but used them for a so-called 'classical education'! The squandering of our youth when we had a meagre knowledge of the Greeks and Romans and their languages drummed into us in a way as clumsy as it was painful and one contrary to the supreme principle of all education, that one should offer food only to him who hungers for it ! When we had mathematics and physics forced upon us instead of our being led into despair at our ignorance and having our little daily life, our activities, and all that went on at home, in the work-place, in the sky, in the countryside from morn to night, reduced to thousands of problems, to annoying, mortifying, irritating problems so as to show us that we needed a knowledge of mathematics and mechanics, and then to teach us our first delight in science through showing us the absolute consistency of this knowledge! If only we had been taught to revere these sciences, if only our souls had even once been made to tremble at the way in which the great men of the past had struggled and been defeated and had struggled anew, at the martyrdom which constitutes the history of rigorous science! What we felt instead was the breath of a certain disdain for the actual sciences in favour of history, of 'formal education' and of 'the classics'! And we let ourselves be deceived so easily! Formal education! Could we not have pointed to the finest teachers at our grammar schools, laughed at them and asked: 'are they the products of formal education? And if not, how can they teach it?' And the classics! Did we learn anything of that which these same ancients taught their young people? Did we learn to speak or write as they did? Did we practise unceasingly the fencing-art of conversation, dialectics? Did we learn to move as beautifully and proudly as they did, to wrestle, to throw, to box as they did? Did we learn anything of the asceticism practised by all Greek philosophers? Were we trained in a single one of the antique virtues and in the manner in which the ancients practised it? Was all reflection on morality not utterly lacking in our education not to speak of the only possible critique of morality, a brave and rigorous attempt to live in this or that morality? Was there ever aroused in us any feeling that the ancients regarded more highly than the moderns? Were we ever shown the divisions of the day and of life, and goals beyond life, in the spirit of antiquity? Did we learn even the ancient languages in the way we learn those of living nations namely, so as to speak them with ease and fluency? Not one real piece of ability, of new capacity, out of years of effort! Only a knowledge of what men were once capable of knowing!

When I drive I like to listen to Schubert's piano sonatas with the volume turned up. Do you know why?' 'I have no idea.' 'Because playing Schubert's piano sonatas well is one of the hardest things in the world. Especially this, the Sonata in D Major. It's a tough piece to master. Some pianists can play one or maybe two of the movements perfectly, but if you listen to all four movements as a unified whole, no one has ever nailed it. A lot of famous pianists have tried to rise to the challenge, but it's like there's always something missing. There's never one where you can say, Yes! He's got it! Do you know why?' 'No,' I reply. 'Because the sonata itself is imperfect. Robert Schumann understood Schubert's sonatas well, and he labeled this one "Heavenly Tedious."' "If the composition's imperfect, why would so many pianists try to master it?' 'Good question,' Oshima says, and pauses as music fills in the silence. 'I have no great explanation for it, but one thing I can say. Works that have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that very reason―or at least they appeal to certain types of people. Just like you're attracted to Soseki's The Miner. There's something in it that draws you in, more than more fully realized novels like Kokoro or Sanshiro. You discover something about that work that tugs at your heart―or maybe we should say the work discovers you. Schubert's Sonata in D Major is sort of the same thing.' 'To get back to the question,' I say, 'why do you listen to Schubert's sonatas? Especially when you're driving?' 'If you play Schubert's sonatas, especially this one straight through, it's not art. Like Schumann pointed out, it's too long and too pastoral, and technically too simplistic. Play it through the way it is and it's flat and tasteless, some dusty antique. Which is why every pianist who attempts it adds something of his own, something extra. Like this―hear how he articulates it there? Adding rubato. Adjusting the pace, modulation, whatever. Otherwise they can't hold it all together. They have to be careful, though, or else all those extra devices destroy the dignity of the piece. Then it's not Schubert's music anymore. Every single pianist who's played this sonata struggles with the same paradox.' He listens to the music, humming the melody, then continues. 'That's why I like to listen to Schubert while I'm driving. Like I said, it's because all the performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of―that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I find that encouraging.

Declan had been told a long time ago that he had to know what he wanted, or he'd never get it. Not by his father, because his father would never have delivered such pragmatic advice in such a pragmatic way. No, even if Niall Lynch believed in the sentiment, he would have wrapped it up in a long story filled with metaphor and magic and nonsense riddles. Only years after the storytelling would Declan be sitting somewhere and realize that all along Niall had been trying to teach him to balance his checkbook, or whatever the tale had really been about. Niall could never just say the thing. No, this piece of advice--You have to know what you want, or you'll never get it--was given to Declan by a senator from Nevada he'd met during a DC field trip back in eighth grade. The other children had been bored by the pale stone restraint of the city and the sameness of the law and government offices they toured. Declan, however, had been fascinated. He'd asked the senator what advice he had for those looking to get into politics. "Come from money," the senator had said first, and then when all the eighth graders and their teachers had stared without laughing, he added, "You have to know what you want, or you'll never get it. Make goals." Declan made goals. The goal was DC. The goal was politics. The goal was structure, and more structure, and yet more structure. He took AP classes on political science and policy. When he traveled with his father to black markets, he wrote papers. When he took calls from gangsters and shady antique auction houses, he arranged drop-offs near DC and wrangled meetings with HR people. Aglionby Academy made calls and pulled strings; he got names, numbers, internships. All was going according to plan. His father's will conveniently left him a townhouse adjacent to DC. Declan pressed on. He kept his brothers alive; he graduated; he moved to DC. He made the goal, he went towards the goal. When he took his first lunch meeting with his new boss, he found himself filled with the same anticipation he'd had as an eighth grader. This was the place, he thought, where things happened. Just across the road was the Mexican embassy. Behind him was the IMF. GW Law School was a block away. The White House, the USPS, the Red Cross, all within a stone's throw. This was before he understood there was no making it for him. He came from money, yeah, but the wrong kind of money. Niall Lynch's clout was not relevant in this daylight world; he only had status in the night. And one could not rise above that while remaining invisible to protect one's dangerous brother. On that first day of work, Declan walked into the Renwick Gallery and stood inside an installation that had taken over the second floor around the grand staircase. Tens of thousands of black threads had been installed at points all along the ceiling, tangling around the Villareal LED sculpture that normally lit the room, snarling the railing over the stairs, blocking out the light from the tall arches that bordered the walls, turning the walkways into dark, confusing rabbit tunnels. Museumgoers had to pick their way through with caution lest they be snared and bring the entire world down with them. He had, bizarrely, felt tears burning the corners of his eyes. Before that, he hadn't understood that his goals and what he wanted might not be the same thing. This was where he'd found art.

Under the Ptolemys, the Museum Library of Alexandria grew to contain more than 700,000 scrolls, and included all the great classical works of antiquity. In 272 C.E. the main library was destroyed by the Roman Emperor Lucius Aurelianus, but much of the collection of classical works was saved by removing it to the nearby Temple of Serapis. In 391 C.E., under the Roman Emperor, Theodosius, the Christians, wishing to obliterate all centers of pagan (non-Christian) learning and culture, burned the remaining collection of classical literature, accomplishing the virtual elimination of all recorded thought of the remote past. It is for that reason that today we possess only scraps and pieces of scattered lines from the great mystics and philosophers of antiquity, along with bits of hearsay by later chroniclers who were, for the most part, indifferent or antipathetic to them.

trust is a fragile thing, like a fine piece of rare china on display in an antiques shop. Once it’s broken, the pieces never quite fit—no matter how carefully you try to glue them together.

For the next two years, he spent every Saturday pushing the mower up and down the vast, tranquil green lawns, so that it felt like he was slowly unravelling his own life, unwinding it and going back to the beginning. It was like having therapy, he said, except that I got very sweaty, and lunch was included. Those lunches – elaborate, fragrant meals eaten in the formal dining room of the house – were an education in themselves: his employers were highly cultured, well-travelled men, collectors of art and antiques, versed in several languages. It took him a long time to piece together the nature of their relationship, two grown men living in luxury together without a woman in sight. For a long time he was simply too stunned by his change of circumstances even to wonder about it, but then, gradually, he started to notice the way they sat side by side on the sofa drinking their post-prandial coffee, the way one of them would rest their hand on the other’s arm while making a point in conversation, and then – they’d got to know him better by this time – the way they kissed each other quickly on the lips when one or other of them left to drive him home at the day’s end. It wasn’t just the first time he’d seen homosexuality: it was the first time he’d seen love.

For the next two years, he spent every Saturday pushing the mower up and down the vast, tranquil green lawns, so that it felt like he was slowly unravelling his own life, unwinding it and going back to the beginning. It was like having therapy, he said, except that I got very sweaty, and lunch was included. Those lunches – elaborate, fragrant meals eaten in the formal dining room of the house – were an education in themselves: his employees were highly cultured, well-travelled men, collectors of art and antiques, versed in several languages. It took him a long time to piece together the nature of their relationship, two grown men living in luxury together without a woman in sight. For a long time he was simply too stunned by his change of circumstances even to wonder about it, but then, gradually, he started to notice the way they sat side by side on the sofa drinking their post-prandial coffee, the way one of them would rest their hand on the other’s arm while making a point in conversation, and then – they’d got to know him better by this time – the way they kissed each other quickly on the lips when one or other of them left to drive him home at the day’s end. It wasn’t just the first time he’d seen homosexuality: it was the first time he’d seen love.

have a boyfriend, I told her in my head, a small part of me hoping the pieces of her that had been passed down in the blood now rapidly carrying oxygen out of my brain might overhear. I would never tell Mother Bhūmi I was queer aloud. By then, I had imagined that she was sealed off by her own carceral ways of thinking—punitive ideas she heeded that encouraged harming those who did not fit this society’s norms around gender, even if they were family. It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand my queerness or love me if she knew, but I believed that the parts of her that would understand and love me were buried so deep beneath her own pain that they would take years to excavate. Years I knew she didn’t have. Years that had been stolen from her, just like my childhood had been pried away from me. How much could I blame her for what she replaced them with? How much could I blame myself for internalizing self-hatred while trying to find what about me was worth saving in an anti-Black, anti-queer world that hated me, too? How much could I blame Mata? And how much should I hold accountable the world that separated us from our childhoods in the first place and told us that blaming each other was all we could ever do about it? Was it my, my mother’s, or my grandmother’s fault that we were too fractured ourselves to hold every aspect of one another, or did the problem stem from an anti-Black society that wouldn’t allow any of us to exist as fully whole people within it?

put my key in an alabaster bowl on top of the antique chest Mom had inherited. Most of our furniture shared those two qualities. Antique and inherited. Not one matching piece in the entire house. Somehow, Mom made it work. Right down to the mismatched dining room chairs surrounding the oak table that

Stood in the doorway, I considered my options in four easy steps. Step one and I’d bump into a stiff-looking piece of red moulded plastic. The visitor’s chair. Step two and I’d bang my knees on an antique wooden writing table that was piled high with pizza boxes. Step three and I’d have by-passed both the table and its companion, a leather armchair, only to find myself nose-to-brick with the opposite wall. Step four and … oh, that’s not possible. Not without a pneumatic drill at least.

Ember smiled brightly. “Hello! We haven’t met before. My name is Ellen. I’m an antiques dealer around these parts?” Mrs. Bailey looked surprised, but gave a polite smile. “Oh, yes?” “Yes. I’m sorry to burst in on you like this, I know it’s early. But I heard from one of the women in the historical society--Yolanda? You know her, don’t you?--that you collect antique ice picks. Best collection in the county, she said.” Mrs. Bailey smiled, looking a little confused. Ember wasn’t sure if there was a Yolanda in the historical society, but evidently Mrs. Bailey wasn’t sure, either. “Of course,” said Mrs. Bailey. “I have some very special pieces. I didn’t realize the historical society knew about them. Would you like to see them? I keep them just in here.” She pointed back behind her, into the house. “That would be lovely,” Ember said eagerly. So Mrs. Bailey let Ember inside. Ember noticed with a bashful feeling that the large picture she had knocked had been replaced on the wall, but all the glass of the frame was missing. Probably it had taken a long time to clean up all those many pieces. “My name is Anna, by the way,” Mrs. Bailey was saying. “It’s nice to meet you, Ember. I’m always so pleased to know young people such as yourself who are interested in antiques.

The home I grew up in was something you might expect to find in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. Domed ceilings with ornate moldings, inlaid marble floors, and more powder rooms than people. It was a small palace. Mom loved French architecture and décor and would take trips overseas to find unique antiques. There were two exterior swimming pools, a tennis court, a pavilion, plus a rose garden, Italian stepped stone fountains, and grounds galore. A branch of the Trinity River flowed near stone-covered walking paths, swaths of carefully tended grass in green spaces waving nearby.

What was the inspiration for all this? Snow White's forest?" "Close, kind of," I replied. "This one's actually FernGully." "You're kidding," he said. "Nope. She wanted her very own enchanted rain forest, and it looks like that's exactly what she got," I said. "She sure did," he replied. "I can't believe we're in Tennessee." The clear-top tent was anchored by fourteen-foot faux weeping willow trees. Candles in glass orbs hung from every branch. The elevated dance floor floated in the center of the space and could be described only as an enormous Lucite shadow box filled with thousands of faux flowers in a rainbow of colors. The bars were covered in green moss and adorned with hundreds of colorful butterflies. The clear ceiling was almost entirely covered in twinkling fairy lights that would look just like a sky full of stars once the sun set. But the real showstopper was the centerpiece on every dining table. Atop every amethyst silk tablecloth was an antique birdcage that housed two real-life lovebirds. The rosy-faced little birds were hopping around and singing, and the space looked, sounded, and felt exactly like an enchanted forest from the movie. I wasn't precisely sure how authentic they were to the rain forest setting, but their chirping certainly added to the wild vibe.

A white vintage A-line dress brushed just below her knees. Soft tendrils escaped her honey-colored bun, a grandmother's antique brooch the only accent. She clasped a loose pink bouquet in one hand, his hand in the other as they stood solemnly before the judge. Lush, wild clusters of pink peonies and white hydrangeas interspersed with soft dusty miller lined the aisle of simple white folding chairs. Two larger arrangements in antique silver urns flanked the couple. A single cellist sat in the corner of the room. All simple, but stunningly elegant. She couldn't stop smiling, and I realized I'd never seen her so at ease. They quietly said vows they wrote themselves. Our small crowd watched in happy silence. I tried not to shift too loudly, every movement echoing on the cold marble tiles. Someone sniffled. The sound reverberated in the cavernous space. The groom's mother caught me staring and winked at me across the room. This bride had sent me on quite a journey, forcing me to finally reckon with my past and my future. With my identity, even. It hadn't been easy, but I was grateful. I had no right to be here, but here I was. How I ended up here remained a bit of a mystery to me. Her forgiveness was simply a gift, one of the type I was gradually learning to receive. Maybe, just maybe, that could be me someday.

The main rectangular swimming pool ran perpendicular to the house, which you wouldn't know because it was almost completely covered in a cloud of white. I walked closer, stunned at the beautiful lotus and water lily blooms floating beneath my feet. A glass aisle was laid across the center. You felt like you were walking---or sitting--- in a Monet painting. Complementary flowers lined the sides of the aisles, with chairs extending on either side of the now-concealed pool deck. I had no idea what wizardry kept the central flowers from floating freely, but my sister would walk down the aisle above a lush bed of white blossoms. Beside it, the ornamental gardens had been tented for the reception. Cedric had managed to integrate the existing stone sculptures (French, Greek, and Italian antiques, of course) into the design. Tables dotted the scene, covered in custom cream linens with Italian lace overlays. Cut crystal stemware and antique silverware donned each place setting and would sparkle later that evening from the glow cast down from the crystal chandeliers overhead. And the flowers. The all-white flowers also created a table-runner effect that filled the entire length of each table and spilled over and down the sides. A backdrop and stage had been erected at the end opposite the house, then covered in a cascade of white peonies and roses and mirrored by florals draped around the doorframes and windows of the back of our house. It was an enchanted garden, rivaling that of a royal wedding.

The décor was the perfect contrast to the club's existing dark wood walls and coffered ceilings. Cedric's team used accents of gold to tie in with the space, but lightened things up with oodles of ivory and blush flowers. They highlighted the massive arched window overlooking the twinkling lights of downtown by flanking it with two equally massive blooming dogwood trees. Where he found blooming dogwoods this time of year in Dallas was a mystery, but that was all part of his magic. Dining tables were draped in champagne-colored velvet linen, and atop every table was an ivory urn overflowing with blush antique garden roses. They reminded me of the roses that grew in our garden at home, which was certainly on purpose. Twinkling candles in glass sleeves covered every surface, and next to the bar stood a sparkling tower of champagne glasses.

We walked around the other side of the whitewashed barn structure, where the massive antique doors had been opened and adorned with large wreaths made entirely of baby's breath. Inside, every wooden beam in the ceiling was wrapped in lush greenery and dripping in white wisteria blooms. The floor of the barn was covered in faux moss, and benches carved to look like bent tree branches served as seating for the guests. The benches flanked an aisle covered in white rose petals, and at the end of the aisle was an arch made entirely of white dogwood blooms. It was breathtaking and looked exactly like the wedding scene from the Twilight series.

In large-scale strategy, the presence of numerous troops is linked with an extra-long sword. Smaller numbers are consistent with the use of a short one. Is it not viable for a small number of troops to take the fight to a larger force? The virtue of strategy is precisely that smaller numbers can triumph [if guided correctly]. From the earliest days, there are many examples of small forces crushing big armies. In our school, this kind of narrow-minded preconception is to be rejected above all else. Research this well. (2) About Schools That Use Swords with Force （一、他流におゐてつよみの太刀と云事） One should not consider a sword [stroke] in terms of being strong or weak. The cut will be coarse if the sword is brandished with too much brute force. Such an uneven technique will make victory difficult. You will not succeed in cutting through human flesh and bone if you think only of striking with brute force. It is also bad to use too much power when testing the cutting power of a blade (tameshi-giri).4 When punishing some mortal foe, nobody thinks of cutting feebly or brutishly. “Cutting to kill” it is not achieved with a mind to do it strongly, and certainly not weakly. It is achieved with just enough power to ensure death. Your own sword could break into pieces by hitting the enemy’s sword with excess strength. Consequently, it is senseless to strike with excessive force. In large-scale strategy, relying on force of numbers to rout the enemy will lead to him countering with equal force. Both sides will be the same. Winning at anything is not achievable if correct principles are ignored. Thus, the underlying principle of my school is to defeat the enemy in any situation by applying strategic wisdom, without incorporating anything that is “excessive.”5 This must be researched attentively. (3) Schools That Use Short Swords （一、他流に短き太刀を用る事） Some warriors try to win using only short swords but this is at variance with the true Way. Since antiquity, swords were called tachi and katana, proving that distinctions have long been made between short and longer lengths.6 Warriors of superior strength can brandish a long sword as if it were light and thus there is no reason for them to prefer a shorter sword. They are, in fact, capable of wielding even longer weapons, such as yari (pikes) and naginata (glaives). With shorter swords, it is ill advised to look for openings as the enemy swings his blade and closing the distance to grab him. Aiming for an opening as the opponent attacks gives the impression of relinquishing the initiative and should be avoided as your swords will become entangled.

I feel like a spectacle. Like I’m standing in an antique shop window, and everyone has their eyes on the fragile piece holding center stage.

Kafka loved the streets, palaces, gardens and churches of the city where he was born. He looked with joyful interest through the pages of all the books on the antiquities of Prague which I brought to him in his office. His eyes and hands literally caressed the pages of such publications, though he had read them all long before I placed them on his desk. His eyes shone with the look of a passionate collector. The past was for him not some historically dead collector's piece, but a supple instrument of knowledge, a bridge to today.

Tell me honestly’ he says. ‘Do I look my age?’ Frankly Scobie looks anybody’s age; older than the birth of tragedy, younger than the Athenian death. Spawned in the Ark by a chance meeting and mating of the bear and the ostrich; delivered before term by the sickening grunt of the keel on Ararat. Scobie came forth from the womb in a wheel chair with rubber tyres, dressed in a deer-stalker and a red flannel binder. On his prehensile toes the glossiest pair of elastic-sided boots. In his hand a ravaged family Bible whose fly-leaf bore the words ‘Joshua Samuel Scobie 1870. Honour thy father and thy mother’. To these possessions were added eyes like dead moons, a distinct curvature of the pirate’s spinal column, and a taste for quinqueremes. It was not blood which flowed in Scobie’s veins but green salt water, deep-sea stuff. His walk is the slow rolling grinding trudge of a saint walking on Galilee. His talk is a green-water jargon swept up in five oceans — an antique shop of polite fable bristling with sextants, astrolabes, porpentines and isobars. When he sings, which he so often does, it is in the very accents of the Old Man of the Sea. Like a patron saint he has left little pieces of his flesh all over the world, in Zanzibar, Colombo, Togoland, Wu Fu: the little deciduous morsels which he has been shedding for so long now, old antlers, cuff-links, teeth, hair…. Now the retreating tide has left him high and dry above the speeding currents of time, Joshua the insolvent weather-man, the islander, the anchorite.

the campaign in Poland is remembered as one in which an antiquated Polish army was quickly pummeled by the world’s most modern army. Polish lancers charging in a valiant yet idiotic attack against German tanks is the only image from the 1939 Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland remaining in the popular imagination today. Originating as a piece of Nazi propaganda, paradoxically adopted by the Poles as a patriotic myth, the fictional charge obscures the actual events of September 1939.

Decades have passed The morning star Can be seen on the distance Greeting the seasons That have leave its footprints On this humble soul That walk without umbrella Despite the gross rain Everything continue to looks so near That seem touchable But it is so unachievable That I cannot draw near my hand I can just observe How the time continues advancing To a closed point Where I cannot caress That magical dream That I pulled from heaven On an attempt to had in my world A piece of paradise And here I wait Calmly looking the back Of that antique book That has my name sealed on it But, how much I should wait A century would be enough Maybe I should be born again To conquer the wind That on this life disappeared That from this gap has vanished.

The notion that a story should unfold over the course of two or three hundred pages was as antiquated as the idea that a band’s musical output should consist of four or five songs on one side of a piece of vinyl, and then four or five slightly more experimental and intelligent songs on the other side. Albums used to make sense; they used to hang together as a body of work, and this had something to do with the fact that vinyl records could only hold eight or ten songs. Digital music changed all that. A quote-unquote album could now hold two mp3s or two hundred.

Is this an antique?” He nodded. “It was a wedding present from my grandfather to my grandma.” She traced the pattern with her fingers. “It’s beautiful.” “Yeah, it is,” he said, in a thoughtful tone. “They were honeymooning in France and she fell in love with it. When they got home, it was waiting for her.” “How romantic,” Maddie said, studying the rich detail work. Even back then, it must have cost a fortune. “My grandpa was desperately in love with her. If she wanted something, he moved heaven and earth to get it for her.” What would that be like? To be loved like that. Steve always acted like he’d do anything for her, but if he’d loved her unconditionally, wouldn’t he have liked her more? She looked back at Mitch. “How’d they meet?” He chuckled, a soft, low sound. “You’re not going to believe this.” She crossed her legs. “Try me.” He flashed a grin. “I swear to God, this is not a line.” “Oh, this is going to be good.” She shifted around, finding a dip in the mattress she could get comfortable in. He stretched his arm, drawing Maddie’s gaze to the contrast of his golden skin against the crisp white sheets. “My grandfather was old Chicago money. He went to Kentucky on family business and on the way home, his car broke down.” Startled, Maddie blinked. “You’re kidding me.” He shook his head, assessing her. “Nope. He broke down at the end of the driveway and came to ask for help. My grandmother opened the door, and he took one look at her and fell.” He pointed to a picture frame on the dresser. “She was quite beautiful.” Unable to resist, Maddie slid off the bed and walked over, picking up the frame, which was genuine pewter. She traced her fingers over the glass. It was an old-fashioned black-and-white wedding picture of a handsome, austere, dark-haired man and a breathtakingly gorgeous girl with pale blond hair in a white satin gown. “He asked her to marry him after a week,” Mitch said. “It caused a huge uproar and his family threatened to disinherit him. She was a farm girl, and he’d already been slated to marry a rich debutante who made good business sense.” Maddie carefully put the frame back and crawled back onto the bed, anxious for the rest of the story. “Looks like they got married despite the protests.” Mitch’s gaze slid over her body, lingering a fraction too long on her breasts before looking back into her eyes. “He said he could make more money, but there was only one of her. In the end, his family relented, and he whisked her into Chicago high society.” “It sounds like a fairy tale.” “It was,” Mitch said, his tone low and private. The story and his voice wrapped her in a safe cocoon where the world outside this room didn’t exist. “In the sixty years they were together, they never spent more than a week a part. He died of a heart attack and she followed two months later.” She studied the bedspread, picking at a piece of lint. “I guess if you’re going to get married, that’s the way to do it.” “Any

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table sat an antique ormolu clock, its hands frozen on the twelve and the ten, 11:50. The magic hour. The time when Zee’s ghosts appeared in the greenhouse wall. Bits and pieces of two scenarios were coming back to her, fitting together like a child’s jigsaw puzzle. She had, indeed, come to this place—Mathew Brady’s New York studio—a short time earlier to have her portrait made

My own psychic burden was that I could command a six-figure salary, yet I did not know how to do anything. Whatever I learned to do in my late twenties, I learned from online tutorials: how to remove mold from a windowsill; slow-cook fish; straighten a cowlick; self-administer a breast exam. Whenever I wrenched a piece of self-assembly furniture into place, or reinforced a loose button, I experienced an unfamiliar and antiquated type of satisfaction. I went so far as to buy a sewing machine, like I was looking for ways to shame myself. I wasn’t alone. Half the programmers I knew between the ages of twenty-two and forty, mostly men, were discovering that their fingers were multipurpose. “It feels so good to do something with my hands,” they said, before launching into monologues about woodworking or home-brewing or baking sourdough.

the charmer. He schmoozed people. I was great at identifying a piece and could authenticate an artifact, but people didn’t like me. I had very little people skills. I was a nerd. I loved reading and studying. I had double-majored in college because I loved the idea of making money and I loved archeology. Unfortunately, the two were mutually exclusive. That led me to become an antiquities dealer. I never had to doubt what I was buying was the real thing. Alec was also an archeological sciences major, and when I couldn’t verify the authenticity of a piece, he could. We could divide and conquer. I sent him all around

[*In those early years of the Soviet Union, how did the Bolsheviks countenance the idea of gilded chairs and Louis Quatorze dressers in the mansions of starlets? For that matter, how did they stomach them in their own apartments? Simple. Nailed to the bottom of every piece of fine furniture was a small copper plate embossed with a number. This number served to identify the piece as part of the vast inventory of the People. Thus, a good Bolshevik could sleep soundly in the knowledge that the mahogany bed he was lying on was not his; and despite the fact that his apartment was furnished with priceless antiques, he had fewer possessions than a pauper!]

ancient and she’d never played on an antique one before. She looked up at the old man and realized he was lonely. Maybe that was why he was so gloomy. Did Sky spend any time with him at all? Her Ye Ye was lucky; he was always surrounded with girls wanting his attention. Who did the old man have? “Just wait? We can do more than that. Why don’t you let me beat you in xiangqi?” The old man looked taken aback for a moment. Even speechless. Then he looked down at the board and to the watch on his wrist. “Why not? I’ve got another eight hours of nothing to do before I can go to bed. Set it up, girl.” Linnea smiled to herself. She’d have Sky’s grandfather eating out of her hand in no time. After all, it was obvious the man was starving for companionship and interesting conversation. Linnea would give him both. Half an hour later Sky had still not appeared, but Linnea was becoming intrigued with his grandfather as he worked carefully to set up the xiangqi board. She could’ve had it ready in minutes, but she sat patiently and watched as the old man examined every piece before placing it in the correct spot. She felt sure he was grateful for the attention and wanted to stretch it as far as possible. “So, what would you like me to call you, Laoren?” she asked, realizing she’d never been formally introduced. Though she was using the universal Chinese title for an old person, she’d like to have something other than old person to know him by. “Mr. Lau will be fine. Linnea,” he answered gruffly,

Meals are occasions to share with family and friends. The ingredients are often simple, but the art lies in orchestrating the sun-warmed flavors. Courses follow in artful and traditional succession, but the showpiece of the meal is tender, juicy meat; this often means lamb or goat grilled or roasted on a spit for hours. Souvlaki--melting pieces of chicken or pork tenderloin on skewers, marinated in lemon, olive oil, and a blend of seasonings--are grilled to mouthwatering perfection. Meze, the Greek version of smorgasbord, is a feast of Mediterranean delicacies. The cooks of the Greek Isles excel at classic Greek fare, such as spanakopita--delicate phyllo dough brushed with butter and filled with layers of feta cheese, spinach, and herbs. Cheeses made from goat’s milk, including the famous feta, are nearly ubiquitous. The fruits of the sun--olive oil and lemon--are characteristic flavors, reworked in myriad wonderful combinations. The fresh, simple cuisine celebrates the waters, olive groves, and citrus trees, as well as the herbs that grow wild all over the islands--marjoram, thyme, and rosemary--scenting the warm air with their sensuous aromas. Not surprisingly, of course, seafood holds pride of place. Sardines, octopus, and squid, marinated in olive oil and lemon juice, are always popular. Tiny, toothsome fried fish are piled high on painted ceramic dishes and served up at the local tavernas and in homes everywhere. Sea urchins are considered special delicacies. Every island has its own specialties, from sardines to pistachios to sesame cakes. Lésvos is well-known for its sardines and ouzo. Zakinthos is famous for its nougat. The Cycladic island of Astypalaia was called the “paradise of the gods” by the ancient Greeks because of the quality of its honey. On weekends, Athenians flock to the nearby islands of Aegina, Angistri, and Evia by the ferryful to sample the daily catch in local restaurants scattered among coastal villages. The array of culinary treats is matched by a similar breadth of local wins. Tended by generation after generation of the same families, vineyards carpet the hillsides of many islands. Grapevines have been cultivated in the Greek Isles for some four thousand years. Wines from Rhodes and Crete were already renowned in antiquity, and traders shipped them throughout the Greek Isles and beyond. The light reds and gently sweet whites complement the diverse, multiflavored Greek seafood, grilled meats, and fresh, ripe fruits and vegetables. Sitting at a seaside tavern enjoying music and conversation over a midday meze and glass of retsina, all the cares in the world seem to evaporate in the sparkling sunshine reflected off the brightly hued boats and glistening blue waters.

Ritual characterizes every aspect of life here, and even mundane, daily activities take on an ageless quality. The daily rhythm begins at dawn, as the fishermen launch boats from countless harbors, an event that has taken place for centuries. The women go to market, exchanging greetings and comments. Ritual rules the care and time taken with every detail of the midday meal, from the hearty seafood appetizers to the strong, syrupy coffee that marks the end of the feast. The day winds down with the evening stroll, a tradition thoroughly ingrained in the culture of the Greek Isles. In villages and towns throughout the islands, sunset brings cooler air and draws people from their homes and the beaches for an enjoyable evening walk through town squares, portside promenades, and narrow streets. Ancient crafts still flourish in the artisans’ studios and in tidy homes of countless mountain villages and ports. Embroidery--traditionally the province of Greek women--is created by hand to adorn the regional costumes worn during festivals. Artists craft delicate silver utensils, engraved gems, blown glass, and gold jewelry. Potters create ceramic pieces featuring some of the same decorative patterns and mythological subjects that captured their ancestors’ imagination. Weddings, festivals, saints’ days. And other celebrations with family and friends provide a backdrop for grave and energetic Greek dancing. For centuries--probably ever since people have lived on the islands--Greek islanders have seized every opportunity to play music, sing, and dance. Dancing in Greece is always a group activity, a way to create and reinforce bonds among families, friends, and communities, and island men have been dancing circle dances like the Kalamatianos and the Tsamikos since antiquity. Musicians accompany revelers on stringed instruments like the bouzouki--the modern equivalent of the lyre. While traditional attire is reserved mainly for festive occasions, on some islands people still sport these garments daily. On Lefkada and Crete, it is not unusual to find men wearing vraka, or baggy trousers, and vests, along with the high boots known as stivania. Women wear long, dark, pleated skirts woven on a traditional loom, and long silk scarves or kerchiefs adorn their heads. All the garments are ornamented by hand with rich brocades and elaborate embroidery. All over the Greek Isles, Orthodox priests dress in long black robes, their shadowy figures contrasting with the bright whites, blues, and greens of Greek village architecture.

The walls were painted a robin's-egg blue. Antique wood-and-glass display cases had mottled milk chocolate-brown marble countertops. Antique iron-and-glass stands would make the future little cakes (under their glass domes) pop up and down on the counter like jaunty hats. From the top of the left wall of the bakery, Gavin had hung a canvas curtain and arranged a display area in front of it. Both the curtain and display would change each month- as would, of course, the colors and flavors we showcased. The idea was to sell not only cakes, but also cake stands, serving pieces, plates, paper napkins, and other goodies, so once your little cakes got home, they'd look as good as they did in my bakery. One-stop shopping. On the right, Gavin had arranged a seating area with dark bentwood chairs and cafe tables. It looked like a tea salon in Paris. I sighed with delight. But I wanted to see where I would spend most of my time. The work and storage areas were screened off in the back, although I would have been happy to show off my two Vulcan convection-ovens-on-wheels and the big stainless steel worktable with the cool marble slab at one end for chocolate work. The calm milk-chocolate plaster walls, stainless steel, and white marble made the workspace look like a shrine to the cake baker's art.

… I could never get those antique furniture pieces back; ever. The loss was bearable, had Raghu not got an impression that I had lied to him …

 When St. Kari of the Blade Met Luke Skywalker, Star Wars Jedi Knight  “What’s that?” Kari asked pointing to the silvery object attached to Luke’s waist. “It’s my lightsaber,” Luke said cautiously, not knowing where this was going. “It’s like your sword, only many years advanced.” “I see me thinks,” grinned Kari, “although I cannot see how such a short object labors as a sword. Can you show me how? Here, block my blade.” Kari pull-whipped her sharp, simple straight edge fast and held it so that its steel shaft was stationed off Lukes left shoulder. “I don’t want to ruin your sword,” Luke said with a slight grinning shrug. “It will cut your blade in half.” “No it shan’t. C’mon and try” quipped Kari, her violet-grey eyes dancing with mirth. Luke felt compelled just a little bit to teach the seemingly uncomplicated girl a lesson in advanced blade-play. He struck at her sword, but to his amazement, the laser did not cut through Kari’s antiquated, plain cross-hilt weapon, as it easily should have. She wryed and smiled. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Luke said eyes widening in surprise. “The only thing that resists a lightsaber cut is Cortosis.” “Let me try cutting at you,” Kari said, her gridelin eyes glittering in delight. As she struck Luke’s sword, the neat humming cylindrical beam of laser light that was Luke’s blade fell as one solid piece to the ground and began to eat itself inward and disappear, both ends vaporizing and fizzling, meeting in the middle and ending with a loud “pop!” “How did you do that?” Skywalker asked in amazement. “What’s your sword made of?” Kari smiled. “My sword is made of adamantine eternal belief. It both cut and resisted your blade because I shalled it to. I am she. All swordplay in the ’Halla exists on the edge of belief, something you will have to learn if you are to survive here whilst your sky-ship is being refitted and rigged out. Learn about the ’Halla, Luke.” Luke awkwardly grimaced. His lightsaber was an amazing piece of advanced technology and here this wispy backwater of a fencing lass had just “out-believed” him, making his well-ahead art of laser swordplay more primitive than the girl’s unadorned straightedge. He remembered Yoda’s words on failure and belief and felt stupid. The word Jedi was not in Kari’s vocabulary, Luke thought, but notwithstanding, she seemed more than a Jedi than he.

Hostility to innovation and free trade was grounded in a broader worldview that saw money itself as the root of all evil. From the time of antiquity until the Enlightenment, trade and the pursuit of wealth were considered sinful. “In the city that is most finely governed,” Aristotle wrote, “the citizens should not live a vulgar or a merchant’s way of life, for this sort of way of life is ignoble and contrary to virtue.” In his Republic, Plato laid out one vision of an ideal society in which the ruling “guardians” would own no property to avoid tearing “the city in pieces by differing about ‘mine’ and ‘not mine.’” He added that “all the classes engaged in retail and wholesale trade . . . are disparaged and subjected to contempt and insults.” Furthermore in his hypothetical utopian state, only non-­citizens would be allowed to indulge in commerce. A citizen who defies the natural order and becomes a merchant should be thrown in jail for “shaming his family. In ancient Rome, “all trade was stigmatized as undignified . . . the word mercator [merchant] appears as almost a term of abuse,” writes Professor D.C. Earl of the University of Leeds. Cicero noted in the first century B.C. that retail commerce is sordidus [vile] because merchants “would not make any profit unless they lied constantly.

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