B Sharps Quotes

Animal minds are simple, and therefore sharp. Animals never spend time dividing experience into little bits and speculating about all the bits they've missed. The whole panoply of the universe has been neatly expressed to them as things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. This frees the mind from unnecessary thoughts and gives it a cutting edge where it matters. Your normal animal, in fact, never tries to walk and chew gum at the same time. The average human, on the other hand, thinks about all sorts of things around the clock, on all sorts of levels, with interruptions from dozens of biological calendars and timepieces. There's thoughts about to be said, and private thoughts, and real thoughts, and thoughts about thoughts, and a whole gamut of subconscious thoughts. To a telepath the human head is a din. It is a railway terminus with all the Tannoys talking at once. It is a complete FM waveband- and some of those stations aren't reputable, they're outlawed pirates on forbidden seas who play late-night records with limbic lyrics.

In 1931, when Ambedkar met Gandhi for the first time, Gandhi questioned him about his sharp criticism of the Congress (which, it was assumed, was tantamount to criticising the struggle for the Homeland). “Gandhiji, I have no Homeland,” was Ambedkar’s famous reply. “No Untouchable worth the name will be proud of this land.”61

The first time she carved something into her skin, she used the sharp tip of an X-Acto knife. She lifted up her shirt to show me after the cuts had scabbed over. She had scrawled F*** YOU on her stomach. I stood quiet for a moment, feeling the breath get knocked out of me. I should have grabbed her arm and taken her straight to the nurse's office, into that small room with two cots covered in paper sheets and the sweet, stale medicinal smell. I should have lifted Ingrid's shirt to show the cuts. Look, I would've said to the nurse at her little desk, eyeglasses perched on her pointed nose. Help her. Instead, I reached my hand out and traced the words. The cuts were shallow, so the scabs only stood out a little bit. They were rough and brown. I knew that a lot of girls at our school cut themselves. They wore their long sleeves pulled down past their wrists and made slits for their thumbs so that the scars on their arms wouldn't show. I wanted to ask Ingrid if it hurt to do that to herself, but I felt stupid, like I must have been missing something, so what I said was, F*** you too, b****. Ingrid giggled, and I tried to ignore the feeling that something good between us was changing.

But you will learn something from that, and use what you learn in the future—and the alternative to that single sharp pain is the dull ache of continued hopelessness and vague failure and the sense that time, precious time, is slipping by.

I have been cheated out of being treated like a human being. In my reflection I saw an empty vessel. They had cheated me and I was desperate to make the sharp pain in my head stop.

We began to walk away when I felt a sharp pain rip through my skull. Trevor had grabbed me by my ponytail and flung me to the floor in a fit of rage. I hit the floor, and the force of the impact dazed me.

Some people are like dogs, Ranga, with wagging tails. Whilst thou are happily watching their wagging tails they are happily biting thou with their sharp teeth. Beware of wagging tails, Ranga. Especially in cricket.

Dear heart, dear heart! But you must have a cup o’ tea first, child,” said Mrs. Poyser, falling at once from the key of B with five sharps to the frank and genial C.

How is slippery ice like music? A: If you don’t C sharp, you’ll B flat. Q: How do you make a band stand? A: Take away the chairs! Q: What’s the difference between a fish and a piano?

National historical myths are a way of giving identity and more authenticity to a people. Exodus flattered the Jews half a millennium after it allegedly took place by making them feel like heroic refugees from slavery, and righteous conquerors of a land corrupted by paganism, wealth, and sex. The Illiad made the politicians, merchants, sailors, farmers, and schoolteachers of Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. into the heirs of austere, remorseless, honorable, courageous warriors, a race of demigods. Contrast this with the real Athenians of ca. 375 B.C. -- their bellies full of fishcakes, their throats bloated with cheap resined wine, their far-flung sharp commercial deals a laughable, reverse mirror-image of the noble warriors of the Trojan War era.

Help us, Lord, to conquer sin out of love to Thee. Help some dear strugglers that have been mastered by sin sometimes, and they are struggling against it; give them the victory, Lord, and when the battle gets very sharp, and they are tempted to give way a little, help them to be very firm and very strong, never giving up hope in the Lord Jesus, and resolving that if they perish they will perish at His feet and nowhere else but there.

We need to understand the role of art, and stop thinking about it as an option, or a luxury, or worse, an affection. Art is the bedrock of culture itself. It is the foundation of the process by which we unite ourselves psychologically, and come to establish productive peace with others. As it is said, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone” (Matthew 4:4). That is exactly right. We live by beauty. We live by literature. We live by art. We cannot live without some connection to the divine — and beauty is divine — because in its absence life is too short, too dismal, and too tragic. And we must be sharp and awake and prepared so that we can survive properly, and orient the world properly, and not destroy things, including ourselves — and beauty can help us appreciate the wonder of Being and motivate us to seek gratitude when we might otherwise be prone to destructive resentment.

When I play, I don’t pay attention to the individual notes. The notes become the melody. The melody becomes the rhythm. The rhythm is the harmony. Whether I play the blues or boogies, concertos or cantatas, I forget about me. I’m Bach. I’m Beethoven. I’m B.B. King. And the music is me. I’m a three-year-old in Italy, running though a field of daisies. I’m a turquoise-backed African sunbird, soaring over the desert savanna. The music slips out and shines like gold. I’m a tiger running through the jungle, strong and powerful. I’m a panther, dark and mysterious. I am so strong. I am in complete control of this world. Chords. Arpeggios. Cadenzas. Sharps and flats. Major chords. Minor scales. Harmony.

Children can be damaged as much or more by a lack of incisive attention as they are by abuse, mental or physical. This is damage by omission, rather than commission, but it is no less severe and long-lasting. Children are damaged when their “mercifully” inattentive parents fail to make them sharp and observant and awake and leave them, instead, in an unconscious and undifferentiated state. Children are damaged when those charged with their care, afraid of any conflict or upset, no longer dare to correct them, and leave them without guidance. I can recognize such children on the street. They are doughy and unfocused and vague. They are leaden and dull instead of golden and bright. They are uncarved blocks, trapped in a perpetual state of waiting-to-be. Such children are chronically ignored by their peers. This is because they are not fun to play with. Adults tend to manifest the same attitude (although they will deny it desperately when pressed).

Sharpe had owned forty-three enslaved Black folks, but had caught religion during a sermon by a Great Awakening minister. After hearing the sermon, Edward Sharpe had decided he was against slavery. But instead of freeing the Black folks he owned and giving them a plot of land to work, he’d sold them for a profit, and bought land and started a university with the proceeds.

America’s original sin was not the exclusion of people born outside the nation’s borders from citizenship. It was the exclusion of many people who had lived here even before the start of the Republic—in particular, Native Americans and African Americans. For most of its existence, America found it relatively easy to assimilate foreigners, although there were periods of sharp and even violent tension.

Animal minds are simple, and therefore sharp. Animals never spend time dividing experience into little bits and speculating about all the bits they’ve missed. The whole panoply of the universe has been neatly expressed to them as things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. This frees the mind from unnecessary thoughts and gives it a cutting edge where it matters. Your normal animal, in fact, never tries to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Barbara and I had arrived early, so I got to admire everyone’s entrance. We were seated at tables around a dance floor that had been set up on the lawn behind the house. Barbara and I shared a table with Deborah Kerr and her husband. Deborah, a lovely English redhead, had been brought to Hollywood to play opposite Clark Gable in The Hucksters. Louis B. Mayer needed a cool, refined beauty to replace the enormously popular redhead, Greer Garson, who had married a wealthy oil magnate and retired from the screen in the mid-fifties. Deborah, like her predecessor, had an ultra-ladylike air about her that was misleading. In fact, she was quick, sharp, and very funny. She and Barbara got along like old school chums. Jimmy Stewart was also there with his wife. It was the first time I’d seen him since we’d worked for Hitchcock. It was a treat talking to him, and I felt closer to him than I ever did on the set of Rope. He was so genuinely happy for my success in Strangers on a Train that I was quite moved. Clark Gable arrived late, and it was a star entrance to remember. He stopped for a moment at the top of the steps that led down to the garden. He was alone, tanned, and wearing a white suit. He radiated charisma. He really was the King. The party was elegant. Hot Polynesian hors d’oeuvres were passed around during drinks. Dinner was very French, with consommé madrilène as a first course followed by cold poached salmon and asparagus hollandaise. During dessert, a lemon soufflé, and coffee, the cocktail pianist by the pool, who had been playing through dinner, was discreetly augmented by a rhythm section, and they became a small combo for dancing. The dance floor was set up on the lawn near an open bar, and the whole garden glowed with colored paper lanterns. Later in the evening, I managed a subdued jitterbug with Deborah Kerr, who was much livelier than her cool on-screen image. She had not yet done From Here to Eternity, in which she and Burt Lancaster steamed up the screen with their love scene in the surf. I was, of course, extremely impressed to be there with Hollywood royalty that evening, but as far as parties go, I realized that I had a lot more fun at Gene Kelly’s open houses.

What did we talk about? I don't remember. We talked so hard and sat so still that I got cramps in my knee. We had too many cups of tea and then didn't want to leave the table to go to the bathroom because we didn't want to stop talking. You will think we talked of revolution but we didn't. Nor did we talk of our own souls. Nor of sewing. Nor of babies. Nor of departmental intrigue. It was political if by politics you mean the laboratory talk that characters in bad movies are perpetually trying to convey (unsuccessfully) when they Wrinkle Their Wee Brows and say (valiantly--dutifully--after all, they didn't write it) "But, Doctor, doesn't that violate Finagle's Constant?" I staggered to the bathroom, released floods of tea, and returned to the kitchen to talk. It was professional talk. It left my grey-faced and with such concentration that I began to develop a headache. We talked about Mary Ann Evans' loss of faith, about Emily Brontë's isolation, about Charlotte Brontë's blinding cloud, about the split in Virginia Woolf's head and the split in her economic condition. We talked about Lady Murasaki, who wrote in a form that no respectable man would touch, Hroswit, a little name whose plays "may perhaps amuse myself," Miss Austen, who had no more expression in society than a firescreen or a poker. They did not all write letters, write memoirs, or go on the stage. Sappho--only an ambiguous, somewhat disagreeable name. Corinna? The teacher of Pindar. Olive Schriener, growing up on the veldt, wrote on book, married happily, and ever wrote another. Kate Chopin wrote a scandalous book and never wrote another. (Jean has written nothing.). There was M-ry Sh-ll-y who wrote you know what and Ch-rl-tt- P-rk-ns G-lm-an, who wrote one superb horror study and lots of sludge (was it sludge?) and Ph-ll-s Wh--tl-y who was black and wrote eighteenth century odes (but it was the eighteenth century) and Mrs. -nn R-dcl-ff- S-thw-rth and Mrs. G--rg- Sh-ld-n and (Miss?) G--rg-tt- H-y-r and B-rb-r- C-rtl-nd and the legion of those, who writing, write not, like the dead Miss B--l-y of the poem who was seduced into bad practices (fudging her endings) and hanged herself in her garter. The sun was going down. I was blind and stiff. It's at this point that the computer (which has run amok and eaten Los Angeles) is defeated by some scientifically transcendent version of pulling the plug; the furniture stood around unknowing (though we had just pulled out the plug) and Lady, who got restless when people talked at suck length because she couldn't understand it, stuck her head out from under the couch, looking for things to herd. We had talked for six hours, from one in the afternoon until seven; I had at that moment an impression of our act of creation so strong, so sharp, so extraordinarily vivid, that I could not believe all our talking hadn't led to something more tangible--mightn't you expect at least a little blue pyramid sitting in the middle of the floor?

He had lived a man's life, and now it was at an end, and what had he to show for it? Two horses and a few fixin's and a letter of credit for three hundred and forty-three dollars. That was all, unless you counted the way he had felt about living and the fun he had had while time ran along unnoticed. It had been rich doings, except that he wondered at the last, seeing everything behind him and nothing ahead. It was strange about time: it slipped under a man like quiet water, soft and unheeded but taking a part of him with every drop - a little quickness of the muscles, a little sharpness of the eye, a little of his youngness, until by and by he found it had taken the best of him almost unbeknownst. He wanted to fight it then, to hold it back, to catch what had been borne away. It wasn't that he minded going under, it wasn't that he was afraid to die and rot and forget and be forgotten; it was that things were lost to him more and more - the happy feeling, the strong doing, the fresh taste for things like drink and women and danger, the friends he had fought and funned with, the notion that each new day would be better than the last, good as the last one was. A man's later life was all a long losing, of friends and fun and hope, until at last time took the mite that was left of him and so closed the score.

It's important to know that vitamin D is not obtained from the sun just anytime, anywhere. So, the rule of thumb is that if the sun is not at least 45 degrees above the horizon you are not going to be able to get any vitamin D because the ozone in the air is thick enough that the UV-B rays don't get to you. So you can still get sunburn from the UV-A rays but the UV-B rays that help provide vitamin D are not accessible to you. If you want to know if you're getting vitamin D or not it's very simple: When you're outside, look at the ground; look at your shadow. If your shadow is not sharp and shorter than you are tall, you are not getting significant amounts of vitamin D.

If you wait instead until what you are refusing to investigate comes a-knocking at your door, things will certainly not go so well for you. What you least want will inevitably happen—and when you are least prepared. What you least want to encounter will make itself manifest when you are weakest and it is strongest. And you will be defeated. Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.164 (William Butler Yeats,” The Second Coming”) Why refuse to specify, when specifying the problem would enable its solution? Because to specify the problem is to admit that it exists. Because to specify the problem is to allow yourself to know what you want, say, from friend or lover—and then you will know, precisely and cleanly, when you don’t get it, and that will hurt, sharply and specifically. But you will learn something from that, and use what you learn in the future—and the alternative to that single sharp pain is the dull ache of continued hopelessness and vague failure and the sense that time, precious time, is slipping by. Why refuse to specify? Because while you are failing to

I'm in the unique position of being able to call my brother, straight out, a non-stop talker - which is a pretty vile thing to call somebody, I think - and yet at the same time to sit back, rather, I'm afraid, like a type with both sleeves full of aces, and effortlessly remember a whole legion of mitigating factors (and 'mitigating' is hardly the word for it). I can condense them all into one: By the time Seymour was in mid-adolescence - sixteen, seventeen - he not only had learned to control his native vernacular, his many, many less than elite New York speech mannerisms, but had by then already cone into his own true, bull's-eye, poet's vocabulary. His non-stop talks, his monologues, his nearharangues then came as close to pleasing from start to finish - for a good many of as, anyway -as, say, the bulk of Beethoven's output after lie ceased being encumbered with a sense of hearing, and maybe I'm thinking especially, though it seems a trifle picky, of the B-flat-major and C-sharp-minor quartets. Still, we were a family of seven children, originally. And, as it happened, none of us was in the least tongue-tied. It's an exceedingly weighty matter when six naturally profuse verbalizers and expounders have an undefeatable champion talker in the house. True, he never sought the title. And he passionately yearned to see one or another of us outpoint or simply outlast him in a conversation or an argument. Аз съм стигнал до завидното положение да мога направо да нарека брат си кречетало — което не е много ласкателно — и същевременно да седя спокойно, сякаш съм пълен господар на положението, и без усилие да си припомням цяла редица смекчаващи вината обстоятелства (при все че „смекчаващи вината“ едва ли е най-подходящият израз в случая). Мога да ги обобщя в едно: по времето, когато Сиймор бе достигнал средата на юношеската си възраст — на шестнайсет-седемнайсет години, — той не само владееше до съвършенство родния си език с всичките му тънкости, но си беше създал и собствен, много точен поетически речник. Неговата говорливост, неговите монолози, неговите едва ли не прокламации звучеха почти толкова приятно — поне за мнозина от нас, — колкото, да речем, повечето от творбите на Бетховен, създадени, след като се е освободил от бремето на слуха; макар и да звучи претенциозно, тук имам предвид по-специално квартетите в си бемол мажор и до диез миньор. В нашето семейство бяхме седем деца. И нито едно от тях не беше лишено в ни най-малка степен от дар слово. Е, не е ли голямо тегло, когато шестима словоохотливци и тълкуватели имат в къщата си един непобедим шампион по речовитост? Вярно, той никога не се е стремил към тази титла. Дори жадуваше някой от нас да го надмине ако не по красноречие, то поне до дългоречие в някой спор или прост разговор.

According to Shaivism, anupaya may also be reached by entering into the infinite blissfulness of the Self through the powerful experiences of sensual pleasures. This practice is designed to help the practitioner reach the highest levels by accelerating their progress through the sakta and sambhava upayas. These carefully guarded doctrines of Tantric sadhana are the basis for certain practices, like the use of the five makaras (hrdaya) mentioned earlier. The experience of a powerful sensual pleasure quickly removes a person’s dullness or indifference. It awakens in them the hidden nature and source of blissfulness and starts its inner vibration. Abhinavagupta says that only those people who are awakened to their own inner vitality can truly be said to have a heart (hrdaya). They are known as sahrdaya (connoisseurs). Those uninfluenced by this type of experiences are said to be heartless. In his words: “It is explained thus—The heart of a person, shedding of its attitude of indifference while listening to the sweet sounds of a song or while feeling the delightful touch of something like sandalpaste, immediately starts a wonderful vibratory movement. (This) is called ananda-sakti and because of its presence the person concerned is considered to have a heart (in their body) (Tantraloka, III.209-10). People who do not become one (with such blissful experiences), and who do not feel their physical body being merged into it, are said to be heartless because their consciousness itself remains immersed (in the gross body) (ibid., III.24).” The philosopher Jayaratha addresses this topic as well when he quotes a verse from a work by an author named Parasastabhutipada: “The worship to be performed by advanced aspirants consists of strengthening their position in the basic state of (infinite and blissful pure consciousness), on the occasions of the experiences of all such delightful objects which are to be seen here as having sweet and beautiful forms (Tantraloka, II.219).” These authors are pointing out that if people participate in pleasurable experiences with that special sharp alertness known as avadhana, they will become oblivious to the limitations of their usual body-consciousness and their pure consciousness will be fully illumined. According to Vijnanabhairava: “A Shiva yogin, having directed his attention to the inner bliss which arises on the occasion of some immense joy, or on seeing a close relative after a long time, should immerse his mind in that bliss and become one with it (Vijnanabhairava, 71). A yogin should fix his mind on each phenomenon which brings satisfaction (because) his own state of infinite bliss arises therein (ibid., 74).” In summary, Kashmir Shaivism is a philosophy that embraces life in its totality. Unlike puritanical systems it does not shy away from the pleasant and aesthetically pleasing aspects of life as somehow being unspiritual or contaminated. On the contrary, great importance has been placed on the aesthetic quality of spiritual practice in Kashmir Shaivism. In fact, recognizing and celebrating the aesthetic aspect of the Absolute is one of the central principles of this philosophy. — B. N. Pandit, Specific Principles of Kashmir Shaivism (3rd ed., 2008), p. 124–125.

Regret as a learning tool happens through something called counterfactual thinking—a dynamic with two razor-sharp edges.5 When we look back on a decision and think, If I had done A instead of B, then I wouldn't have to deal with horrible C, we are engaging in counterfactual thinking.

As cheddar cheese ages, its flavor becomes sharper. The market flavors available are fresh or current; medium, mild, or mellow; aged or sharp; and very sharp. Aged cheddar melts faster and produces a smoother product than cheese less than three months old.

Ellie Haworth is living the dream. She often tells herself so when she wakes up, hungover from too much white wine, feeling the ache of melancholy, in her perfect flat that nobody eve messes up in her absence. (She secretly wants a cat, but is afraid of becoming a cliche.) She holds down a job as a feature writer on a a national newspaper, has obedient hair, a body that is basically plump and slender in the right places, and is pretty enough to attract attention that she still pretends offends her. She has a sharp tongue-too sharp, according to her mother-a ready wit, several credit cards, and a small car she can manage without male help. When she meets people she knew at school, she can detect envy when she describes her life: she has not yet reached an age where the lack of a husband or children could b regarded as failure. When she meets meant, she can see them ticking off her attributes - great job, nice rack, sense of fun - as if she's a prize to be won. If, recently, she has become aware that the dream is a little fuzzy, that the edge she was once famed for at the office has deserted her since John came, that the relationship she had once found invigorating has begun to consume her in ways that are not exactly enviable, she chose not to look to hard. After all, it's easy when you're surrounded by people like you, journalists, and writers who drink hard, party hard have sloppy, disastrous affairs and unhappy partners home who, tired of their neglect, will eventually have affairs. She is one of them, one of their cohorts, living the life of the glossy magazine pages, a life she has pursued since she first knew she wanted to write. She is successful, single, selfish. Ellie Haworth is as happy as she can be. As anyone can be, considering. And nobody gets everything, so Ellie tells herself, when occasionally she wakes up trying to remember whose dream she's meant to be living.

He focuses then, then, only on the odds for a crash-sharp, catastrophic price drops. After all, it is not small declines that wipe an investor out, it is the crashes. So their scaling formula minimizes the odds of too many of the assets in a portfolio crashing at the same time. They used that to draw a "generalized efficiency frontier"-analogous to Markowitz's original portfolio technique-to help pick a portfolio that maximizes returns for a given amount of crash-protection. As the paper put it, "the frequency of very large, unpleasant losses is minimized for a certain level of return." Thus, it is not just the stock-picking that is important, but also the risk-protection. For the latter, Bouchaud says, multifractal thinking is most useful.

The dark brown soil is turned By the sharp-pointed plow; And I’ve a lesson learned. My life is but a field, Stretched out beneath God’s sky, Some harvest rich to yield. Where grows the golden grain? Where faith? Where sympathy? In a furrow cut by pain. Maltbie D. Babcock

rare and costly books for a twelve-month together; in certain cases, advice and counsel; in other cases, the revising of proof sheets, the translation from foreign tongues, and the transcription of Elizabethan and Jacobean documents: — To the Rev. F. A. Russell, York, formerly of India; the Rev. Edmond Nolan, B.A., St. Edmund’s House, Cambridge; the Rev. Richard Sharp, S.J., Skipton-in-Craven, Yorks.; the

And no Grand Inquisitor has in readiness such terrible tortures as has anxiety, and no spy knows how to attack more artfully the man he suspects, choosing the instant when he is weakest, nor knows how to lay traps where he will be caught and ensnared, as anxiety knows how, and no sharp-witted judge knows how to interrogate, to examine the accused, as anxiety does, which never lets him escape, neither by diversion nor by noise, neither at work nor at play, neither by day nor by night.

The house at the end was the biggest and most outlandish house she’d ever seen. It was Guggenheim in concept with sharp angles and futuristic design.

अनागत विधता च प्रत्युत्पन्नम​तिस्तथा। द्वावेतौ सुखमेवेते यद्भविश्यो विनश्य​​ति ।। 153 ।। Anaagat vidhaataa Cha Prattutpannamatistathaa. Dvaavetau Sukhameveta Yaddbhavishyo Vinashyati. He who is aware of the future troubles and possesses sharp intelligence remains happy. In contradistinction to this stage, he who remains inactive, waiting for the good days to come destroys his own life. [A far-sighted and intelligent person is able to tackle the troubles far more efficiently than that fatalist sluggard who eventually gets destroyed by his lack of foresight and inactivity.] मूर्खस्तु

Which fish dresses the best? A: A swordfish because it always looks sharp!

But, Mr. Harrison, did you never consider a career in music or, perhaps, as a visual artist?" the interviewer persisted. "I have a high school diploma. Guys like me, we don't consider careers. We get a job," Corny said. You're asking him the wrong questions. Ask about the sound of granulated sugar being poured into a stainless-steel bowl, the whirring motor of an electric mixer, or his fist punching down bread dough. A flat, B minor, or C sharp? Or did he prefer music made by others when he worked? If yes, then ask what songs and colors moved this man to make the lightest cakes, the chewiest cookies, breads with tender crusts?

I was greatly impressed by Geshe-la's qualities-his personal solidity, the sharpness of his mind, his obvious mastery of his tradition-which were manifest in the crystal-clear teachings he gave.' I was also impressed by his confidence in the validity of his tradition, displayed in a readiness to discuss any question. Students could raise many questions, and Geshe-la always had an answer, usually a very good one, which he proposed on its own merits, not relying on the authority of the tradition or himself. Moreover, students, like grown-ups, were given the freedom to think for themselves. When they encountered difficult topics, such as reincarnation and karma, Geshe-la would advocate that they provisionally suspend judgment: "You will be able to form a better judgment later through more study and practice. For now, it does not matter; just go on studying and practicing." This attitude, which reflected a view that belief was not a precondition of religious engagement but rather derived from a reasoned inquiry into the tradition, contrasted favorably in my mind with the religious traditions I had been exposed to earlier.

Animal minds are simple, and therefore sharp. Animals never spend time dividing experience into little bits and speculating about all the bits they’ve missed. The whole panoply of the universe has been neatly expressed to them as things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.

with granite of black, gray, and ash white. Jericho explained how all the municipal buildings were built from the same quarry stone, including the courthouse, township building and the walls lining the morgue. It wasn’t the sightseeing that delayed my exit though. In the rich corridors next to the courthouse, we ran into District Attorney Ashtole and Mayor Jonathon Miller, their voices an echo, greeting me with arms extended and questions on their lips. “I’ve already heard so much about you,” the mayor said, his barrel chest filling like a machine as he sucked in air. The man stood a half-foot over me, and though he smiled, his face was fixed in a scowl, his bushy eyebrows stuck in a permanent slant. His shoulders were wide like a football player’s and his hands were like clubs. I wasn’t normally intimidated but he had a presence, and I suddenly found myself feeling nervous. “It’s nice to meet you,” I answered, my hand disappearing in his. Ashtole stood at his side, dwarfed, nearly hidden. “What’s the progress?” the district attorney asked, his voice annoyingly sharp, like the bark of an ankle-high dog. “Three bodies. We need something to tell the press. Heck, the timing is awful.” “Daniel,” the mayor said in a foreboding tone.

The failure of these B2B marketplaces is a sharp contrast to the one major success story in B2B ecommerce from the dot-com era: Alibaba. Alibaba took a very different approach from these other marketplaces. Rather than going after large, consolidated industries, it went after small businesses. This strategy was the brainchild of Alibaba’s founder and CEO, Jack Ma. Ma’s vision was that “the revolutionary significance of the Internet is that it will enable small enterprises to operate independently.

about $50 to $60 million on a new season of GLOW or Godless. So how does Netflix justify its spending on a TV show or movie that it doesn’t “sell”? Again, let’s return to that portfolio effect. Regardless of whether a show is successful or not, investing in sharp new content helps Netflix to both (a) attract new subscribers and (b) extend the lifetime of its current subscribers. Those shows don’t go away! Together, they’re increasing the overall value of the portfolio. They are instrumental in driving down customer acquisition costs (as more subscribers sign up) and increasing subscriber lifetime value (as more subscribers stick around for longer). Netflix knows exactly how long it takes for a subscriber to flip from unprofitable to profitable. Spending tons of money on new shows means Netflix is happy to take a hit on the books in the short term in order to increase their profitability in the long run.

The Motive for Metaphor" You like it under the trees in autumn, Because everything is half dead. The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves And repeats words without meaning. In the same way, you were happy in spring, With the half colors of quarter-things, The slightly brighter sky, the melting clouds, The single bird, the obscure moon-- The obscure moon lighting an obscure world Of things that would never be quite expressed, Where you yourself were not quite yourself, And did not want nor have to be, Desiring the exhilarations of changes: The motive for metaphor, shrinking from The weight of primary noon, The A B C of being, The ruddy temper, the hammer Of red and blue, the hard sound-- Steel against intimation--the sharp flash, The vital, arrogant, fatal, dominant X. Wallace Stevens, Transport to Summer (1947)

I glanced over at him to see if sharp canines protruded out of his mouth or his eyes flashed gold, but he appeared completely human, mostly normal, and the same guy who had blown me off all year.

Several years since, I purchased a living white whale, captured near Labrador, and succeeded in placing it, “in good condition,” in a large tank, fifty feet long, and supplied with salt water, in the basement of the American Museum. I was obliged to light the basement with gas, and that frightened the sea-monster to such an extent that he kept at the bottom of the tank, except when he was compelled to stick his nose above the surface in order to breathe or “blow,” and then down he would go again as quick as possible. Visitors would sometimes stand for half an hour, watching in vain to get a look at the whale; for, although he could remain under water only about two minutes at a time, he would happen to appear in some unlooked for quarter of the huge tank, and before they could all get a chance to see him, he would be out of sight again. Some impatient and incredulous persons after waiting ten minutes, which seemed to them an hour, would sometimes exclaim: “Oh, humbug! I don’t believe there is a whale here at all!” This incredulity often put me out of patience, and I would say: “Ladies and gentlemen, there is a living whale in the tank. He is frightened by the gaslight and by visitors; but he is obliged to come to the surface every two minutes, and if you will watch sharply, you will see him. I am sorry we can’t make him dance a hornpipe and do all sorts of wonderful things at the word of command; but if you will exercise your patience a few minutes longer, I assure you the whale will be seen at considerably less trouble than it would be to go to Labrador expressly for that purpose.” This would usually put my patrons in good humor; but I was myself often vexed at the persistent stubbornness of the whale in not calmly floating on the surface for the gratification of my visitors. One day, a sharp Yankee lady and her daughter, from Connecticut, called at the Museum. I knew them well; and in answer to their inquiry for the locality of the whale, I directed them to the basement. Half an hour afterward, they called at my office, and the acute mother, in a half-confidential, serio-comic whisper, said: “Mr. B., it’s astonishing to what a number of purposes the ingenuity of us Yankees has applied india-rubber.

Leaving the Connecticut River March 8, 1704 Temperature 40 degrees They reached a river where the water was open, seething and churning over rocks. We’re going to cross that? thought Mercy. It’s too wide and deep. We’ll drown. Tannhahorens took off his tobacco necklace. He loved to smoke, as did all the warriors. Since they smoked only when they had time and felt safe, the prisoners also loved it when the men smoked; it meant everybody had time and was safe. Tannhahorens poured tobacco into his palm. He lifted it toward the sky, calling as the loon called, his voice shivering through the wilderness. Then he faced the river and held, it seemed to Mercy, a conversation with the river. Finally, over the sharp rocks and ripping current, Tannhahorens threw all his tobacco. Every Indian did the same. The captives stared. Eliza, who had not spoken once since her husband was struck down, said, “It’s an offering. They give their best to the river, and hope the river will give its best to them.” They walked upstream, fighting thickets and snarling brooks. When the Indians stopped to kick at a great melting drift, Mercy was too tired even to wonder. Snow covered a dugout canoe. Forty or fifty feet long, it had been made of one great pine, the center core burned out and chiseled clean. They would paddle the rest of the way. Mercy lay on fur on the bottom of the dugout, the sounds of water above her head, for she was lower than the surface of the river. Not having to carry her own body was joy. The loons called back for hours, wailing a long wandering cry, like a bell that would not stop ringing or a sob that would not stop weeping. Tannhahorens said to Mercy, “It is the speech of the north,” and Mercy understood. That wild terrifying beautiful cry was the sound of where she was going.

You’re ready to drive back to school now?” Curtis asked, trying to conceal some of the disappointment in his voice. Genesis tilted Curtis’ head up to look at him. “Yes. I wish I could stay longer but the coach raised enough hell about me missing practice today.” “He bitched because you told him your brother is a cop and was shot at? That’s not considered a family emergency?” “No. He bitched because I told him my boyfriend needed me.” Curtis was so shocked he ended up leaning into Genesis’ broad chest to keep from falling over. Boyfriend. “You came back for me?” “If I came home every time God or Day were shot at, I’d flunk out of school for sure.” Genesis drawled. Curtis looked back down at his feet and Genesis gently lifted his head up again. “I know I said boyfriend. I want you to know, I’m not seeing anyone and I haven’t in a long time. I’m not a player or a tramp or whatever else guys try to be these days. I just want someone to spend time with that actually likes me. I just want to spend some time with you. It’s soon, I know. You don’t have to say boyfriend if you —” “No. B-boyfriend is fine,” Curtis said hurriedly. Genesis smiled and shook his head. “Good, then.” He bent and kissed Curtis lightly on his forehead. “I have to head back. I’ll call you later. And I’ll see you on Friday.” “Eight o’clock sharp,” Curtis whispered. Genesis kissed Curtis’ injured wrist and laid it back at his side. “Be good until I get back, bad boy.” Genesis leaned low until he was at Curtis’ ear. His voice threatening and growly. “I’d hate to have to spank you when I get back.” Curtis shivered hard as Genesis gave him a lingering kiss behind his ear, before backing up with a devious grin. Dear lord. How will I stop myself from behaving like a tramp? “Drive carefully, Gen.” Curtis said before Genesis got to the door. “Six days, beautiful,” Genesis said softly, right before he let the door close.

The worst case of discrimination can be witnessed in music. Imagine calling B 'sharp' in presence of D 'minor

When she turned back around, the looming tree grew larger against the dusky sky, like a vicious serpent reaching out its tentacles to grab her. The ancient oak was a sentinel, ready to claim anyone who dared to challenge the road’s wicked curve. She slammed on her brakes.

One lone survivor. A bottle of red wine, left in the trunk from a previous shopping trip, rolled across the pavement amongst the rubble and debris, coming to rest intact against the base of the old tree.

Crow was a full-blooded Apache, well over six feet tall, dressed casually but elegantly. He wore a white shirt, pressed jeans, polished boots, and a silver concho belt. He was inordinately handsome, and he moved with an easy grace. He was all angles and planes, as if he had been packed very tightly into himself. His muscles bulged against his taut skin like sharp corners. Everything about him spoke of tightly compressed force.

How is slippery ice like music? A: If you don’t C sharp, you’ll B flat.

force them to discover with as much difficulty as possible exactly what they have done to disappoint you; and, finally, let them grope around blindly in the fog that you have generated around yourself until they stumble into and injure themselves on the sharp hidden edges of your unrevealed preferences and dreams.

Your strategy, under such conditions? Show your disappointment whenever someone close to you makes you unhappy; allow yourself the luxury and pleasure of resentment when something does not go your way; ensure that the person who has transgressed against you is frozen out by your disapproval; force them to discover with as much difficulty as possible exactly what they have done to disappoint you; and, finally, let them grope around blindly in the fog that you have generated around yourself until they stumble into and injure themselves on the sharp hidden edges of your unrevealed preferences and dreams.

And it is very possible that you are wrong about just what is causing you to feel the way you do. If you are, you need to know it, because there is no point in propagating errors that are causing you and others pain and interfering with your future. Best to find out what is true—best to disperse the fog—and find out if the sharp objects you feared were lurking there are real or fantastical. And there is always the danger that some of them are real. But it is better to see them than to keep them occluded by the fog, because you can at least sometimes avoid the danger that you are willing to see.

We live by beauty. We live by literature. We live by art. We cannot live without some connection to the divine—and beauty is divine—because in its absence life is too short, too dismal, and too tragic. And we must be sharp and awake and prepared so that we can survive properly, and orient the world properly, and not destroy things, including ourselves—and beauty can help us appreciate the wonder of Being and motivate us to seek gratitude when we might otherwise be prone to destructive resentment.

Children are damaged when their “mercifully” inattentive parents fail to make them sharp and observant and awake and leave them, instead, in an unconscious and undifferentiated state. Children are damaged when those charged with their care, afraid of any conflict or upset, no longer dare to correct them, and leave them without guidance.

The probability of three students ending up in the same class…is one-third times one-third times one-third, so one-twenty-seventh? Seriously random!” Takumu shook his head lightly as he walked toward the windows. “No, it’s one-ninth.” “Huh? Why?” “Why?” Chiyuri, having arrived at the same solution as Haruyuki, also raised her voice in surprise. Entrusting his sharp, tall physique to the window frame, Takumu raised his wireless glasses abruptly and explained, “If it’s the probability that all three of us would be in class C, it would be one-twenty-seventh, just like you said, Haru. But in this case, we didn’t know which class it would be. So the problem becomes the probability of all three of us ending up in class A or class B or class C, so the number is tripled and you get one-ninth.

Mark Sharpe: You don't even get it! Those bodies in the crowd, THEY ARE THE MARKETING PLAN!

I content myself with noting that the Jewish social world in the time of Jesus was undergoing significant social change and sharp tensions. The Jewish homeland fell under Roman imperial control in 63 B.C.E., about sixty years before Jesus was born.

When the door creaked open we were hit by the smell of flowers, like at a funeral, sharp and final. A jet-black-haired woman stuck out a hand equipped with five crimson fingernails, and introduced herself as Beatrice Becks, her B’s popping when she said her name, “Beee-atrice Beee-cks.” I smiled cautiously, tossing the name in my mind like a coin.

Would you be surprised if I should tell you that I, too, have had periods of perplexity, uncertainty, and doubt; that I, too, have known the darkness, fogginess, and chill of the valley which lies between illuminated peaks of faith and confidence, and that only the memory of the hilltops along the road over which I have come coupled with the somewhat misty vision of others still ahead has given me the courage to plod on when I was tempted to “chuck it all,” to wrap myself in the comfortless blanket of doubt and self commiseration and just quit the field. Well I have had that experience. But this I can say positively, that each peak which I have climbed has seemed higher and more inspiring than the last, due at least in part, I think, to the dark background of the valley through which I came. Sharp contrasts are sometimes most revealing.

Hands smothered Alexei's face. Spider fingers, furry and boney, like a paw. He tasted the sharp tang of blood. A dirty odor stung his nose. "Where am I?" "The past is not dust," echoed a voice like a B-flat note. "I cannot see!" Alexei mumbled. "You see everything. Even yourself. No mirror serves me." "Who are you?" "I am orange in the sky. Green in the pines. Autumn rivulets. I am the conjured." "Where the hell am I. Get off!" "You, Alexei Viktor Georghovlovna, are where you desire to be. Inside my music." Greylock by Paula Cappa

t h e   p e r f e c t h u s b a n d (a jessie hunt psychological suspense—book 22) b l a k e   p i e r c e Blake Pierce Blake Pierce is the USA Today bestselling author of the RILEY PAGE mystery series, which includes seventeen books. Blake Pierce is also the author of the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series, comprising fourteen books; of the AVERY BLACK mystery series, comprising six books; of the KERI LOCKE mystery series, comprising five books; of the MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE mystery series, comprising six books; of the KATE WISE mystery series, comprising seven books; of the CHLOE FINE psychological suspense mystery, comprising six books; of the JESSE HUNT psychological suspense thriller series, comprising twenty four books; of the AU PAIR psychological suspense thriller series, comprising three books; of the ZOE PRIME mystery series, comprising six books; of the ADELE SHARP mystery series, comprising fifteen books, of the EUROPEAN VOYAGE

Horizontal expertise paints on a far-reaching canvas. Say that you are an expert known worldwide for helping CEOs manage change in disruptive environments. Your expertise doesn’t come from understanding a vertical industry, like mining or media or consumer electronics or transportation. You just need to be sufficiently sharp to learn enough about a given industry to know how to apply your expertise in a given setting. In effect, you can work with any viable CEO candidate who wants to learn — regardless of the industry — as long as the primary challenges are defined horizontally, such as navigating deep change in the middle of disruption. Today you’re working with C-level executives at Samsung after their phones are banned on all airline flights, but next month you might be working with an executive in the hospitality industry facing a hotel worker strike. Or health insurance executives navigating an uncertain landscape that can never really see farther than two years. Each of these engagements is interesting because you have to apply your expertise to a new setting. But as much as you are learning, you’re taking two steps back for every three steps forward because much of what you learn with each new engagement is just the bare necessity in order to even be relevant. It’s interesting but challenging. Thrilling but exhausting. Engaging but distracting. There are cases, of course, where new clients regard your broad expertise as a significant selling point. They like that you can apply consumer insights to a professional B2B setting, or that you can help apply change management to consumer engagement. The first advantage of horizontal expertise, then, is how the application of expertise to many verticals always keeps the expert engaged and learning.

The Wars of the Roses could be called the Wars of No Quarter. There is always a special ferocity in civil conflict, but the wearers of the Red and the Snow Roses were particularly revengeful. Margaret of Anjou is given credit for introducing much of the acrimony, but Edward IV, that handsome gladiatorial figure, carried it on by wholesome decapitations after the battles he won. Richard was as ambitious as any member of his family and did not scruple to use the sharp medicine of the headman’s axe against him. But a similar cause, which won admiration for Edward because he succeeded with it, was condemned in the cause of the younger and less spectacular brother because he failed. Enmity was built up against him.

The black-clad enforcer turns toward me. “Is this man trying to hurt you?” He stabs his thumb at Reve. I flinch and back away, my hand flying to my neck like I’m about to lose my head. “That’s my brother.” His energy is dark, jagged, and menacing. He’s got a too-handsome, sculpted appearance, accented with cruel overtones. A pencil-thin, immaculately groomed mustache lines his upper lip. A goatee juts from his chin, ending in a sharp point like the end of a devil’s tail. Both glisten with glints of red, as if wiped by greasy, blood-smeared fingers. His hair is the color of shadows. And his eyes…I can’t even look into those black orbs, for fear of falling into a pitch-dark hole.

What are you doing here?” I said without turning around. I’d known the moment they entered the room but had been too far gone to stop. “Watching,” they said at the same time. “That was fucking intense,” Z groaned. “Why were you watching?” It wasn’t the first time they’ve watched me fuck, but this was different. This was Mian. “Because we want our turn,” Lucas answered. I finally turned on my back to face them. “That’s not going to happen unless she wants it,” I answered confidently. She’d never want it. They broke out in smiles at the same time. “We figured you’d say that.” Lucas laughed. “So,” Z drawled. “You and her?” I looked down at her comatose form. The sharp pain in my chest was answer enough. “It’s not possible.” “Says king of making the impossible possible,” Lucas argued.

I will not stop here to inquire whose duty it was—whether that of the white ex-master who had profited by unpaid toil, or the Northern philanthropist whose persistence brought on the crisis, or the National Government whose edict freed the bondmen; I will not stop to ask whose duty it was, but I insist it was the duty of some one to see that these workingmen were not left alone and unguided, without capital, without land, without skill, without economic organization, without even the bald protection of law, order, and decency,—left in a great land, not to settle down to slow and careful internal development, but destined to be thrown almost immediately into relentless and sharp competition with the best of modern workingmen under an economic system where every participant is fighting for himself, and too often utterly regardless of the rights or welfare of his neighbor.

The voices of radio and television are the voices of quick-change artists; they move rapidly from selling to telling and back to selling again. They are losing their sharpness because they have divided their allegiance.

Right pain is not only constructive but also exhilarating and involves challenge, while wrong pain is destructive and cause excruciating suffering. Right pain is for our growth and for our physical and spiritual transformation. Right pain is usually felt as a gradual lengthening and strengthening feeling and must be differentiated form wrong pain, which is often a sharp and sudden cautionary feeling that our body uses to tell us we have gone too far beyond our present abilities. In addition, if you get a pain that is persistent, and intensifying as you work, it's likely a wrong pain.

He guarded him . . . like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him. (Deuteronomy 32:10–12) Our almighty God is like a parent who delights in leading the tender children in His care to the very edge of a precipice and then shoving them off the cliff into nothing but air. He does this so they may learn that they already possess an as-yet-unrealized power of flight that can forever add to the pleasure and comfort of their lives. Yet if, in their attempt to fly, they are exposed to some extraordinary peril, He is prepared to swoop beneath them and carry them skyward on His mighty wings. When God brings any of His children into a position of unparalleled difficulty, they may always count on Him to deliver them. from The Song of Victory When God places a burden upon you, He places His arms underneath you. There once was a little plant that was small and whose growth was stunted, for it lived under the shade of a giant oak tree. The little plant valued the shade that covered it and highly regarded the quiet rest that its noble friend provided. Yet there was a greater blessing prepared for this little plant. One day a woodsman entered the forest with a sharp ax and felled the giant oak. The little plant began to weep, crying out, “My shelter has been taken away. Now every fierce wind will blow on me, and every storm will seek to uproot me!” The guardian angel of the little plant responded, “No! Now the sun will shine and showers will fall on you more abundantly than ever before. Now your stunted form will spring up into loveliness, and your flowers, which could never have grown to full perfection in the shade, will laugh in the sunshine. And people in amazement will say, ‘Look how that plant has grown! How gloriously beautiful it has become by removing that which was its shade and its delight!’ ” Dear believer, do you understand that God may take away your comforts and privileges in order to make you a stronger Christian? Do you see why the Lord always trains His soldiers not by allowing them to lie on beds of ease but by calling them to difficult marches and service? He makes them wade through streams, swim across rivers, climb steep mountains, and walk many long marches carrying heavy backpacks of sorrow. This is how He develops soldiers—not by dressing them up in fine uniforms to strut at the gates of the barracks or to appear as handsome gentlemen to those who are strolling through the park. No, God knows that soldiers can only be made in battle and are not developed in times of peace. We may be able to grow the raw materials of which soldiers are made, but turning them into true warriors requires the education brought about by the smell of gunpowder and by fighting in the midst of flying bullets and exploding bombs, not by living through pleasant and peaceful times. So, dear Christian, could this account for your situation? Is the Lord uncovering your gifts and causing them to grow? Is He developing in you the qualities of a soldier by shoving you into the heat of the battle? Should you not then use every gift and weapon He has given you to become a conqueror? Charles H. Spurgeon

Don’t cry, Mary,” Eden croaked. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.” My lip quivered as I softly replied, “You’re dying. How could I not cry?” I didn’t hear Lucas walk up behind me, but he put his hand on my shoulder for comfort. I sniffed back tears as I looked at my aunt lying helplessly in the hospital bed. I took in a sharp breath as Eden’s glassy eyes searched mine. “I love you,” Eden said weakly, coughing into her shaking hand. “I love you, too,” I whispered. “But this isn’t goodbye. Don’t say goodbye,” I pleaded.

A sharp pulse of warming was observed both in Greenland and in the tropics beginning at about 15,000 years BP. This was followed by an abrupt climate reversal, a resumption of near glacial conditions that set in at about 13,000 years BP and lasted about 2,000 years. This cold snap, referred to as the Younger Dryas, was apparently global in scale and is usually attributed to a change in the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean. It is interesting to note that the final cold-to-warm transition that marked the end of the Younger Dryas appears to have taken place over a time interval as brief as 20 years, highlighting the fact that important changes in climate can take place extremely rapidly—something

He lolled mindlessly, miserably, in the dark place, not wanting to be there, but unable to go anywhere else. He was pressed down by anxiety, weighted in place by an all-encompassing self-loathing, his mind turned into crystalized molasses: sharp, impenetrable, and unbearably painful. But when the darkness began to loosen its hold, as it invariably did, the suicidal demands became more insistent.

Bach-Busoni—Choral Prelude I Call on Thee? Lord 27. Bach-Busoni—Fantasie, C minor 28. Bach-Hess—Choral Prelude Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring 29. Beethoven—Variations in C minor 30. Brahms—Intermezzo, B-flat minor 31. Brahms—Intermezzo in E 32. Chopin—Berceuse 33. Chopin—Écossaises 34. Chopin—Mazurka in A minor, Op. 41, No. 2 35. Chopin—Nocturne, F sharp 36. Chopin—Prelude Op. 45 37. Chopin—Scherzo, B minor 38. Chopin—Scherzo, B-flat minor 39. Chopin—Waltz in C-sharp minor 40. Chopin-Liszt—Chant polonais (Moja pieszczoiha) * 41. Debussy—Cathédrale engloutie 42. Debussy—Danseuses de Delphes 43. Debussy—Prelude (from the suite Pour le piano) 44. Debussy—Reflets dans l'eau 45. Griffes—The White Peacock 46. Handel—The Harmonious Blacksmith 47. Mozart—Sonata in F (Köchel listing 300K) 48. Rachmaninoff—Prelude in G 49. Schubert-Liszt—False Caprice No. 6 50. Scriabin—Flammes sombres

The business model for a new Netflix show is fundamentally more stable. It spends about $50 to $60 million on a new season of GLOW or Godless. So how does Netflix justify its spending on a TV show or movie that it doesn’t “sell”? Again, let’s return to that portfolio effect. Regardless of whether a show is successful or not, investing in sharp new content helps Netflix to both (a) attract new subscribers and (b) extend the lifetime of its current subscribers. Those shows don’t go away! Together, they’re increasing the overall value of the portfolio. They are instrumental in driving down customer acquisition costs (as more subscribers sign up) and increasing subscriber lifetime value (as more subscribers stick around for longer). Netflix knows exactly how long it takes for a subscriber to flip from unprofitable to profitable. Spending tons of money on new shows means Netflix is happy to take a hit on the books in the short term in order to increase their profitability in the long run.

Fuller drew a sharp distinction between strategy and grand strategy.

We are the hewers and delvers who toil for another’s gain,— The common clods and the rabble, stunted of brow and brain. What do we want, the gleaners, of the harvest we have reaped? What do we want, the neuters, of the honey we have heaped? What matter if king or consul or president holds the rein, If crime and poverty ever be links in the bondman’s chain? What careth the burden-bearer that Liberty packed his load, If Hunger presseth behind him with a sharp and ready goad? JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE

In Ours, the grass that grows is sharp. It gleams at its edges, such that when the buttery light of spring falls into it, the light cries out and yellow pours slowly over the earth.

How do I know this is not just the beginning? That you aren’t trying to tempt me so I become a… a demon, like you?” A laugh, sharp as a needle. “There is only one demon like me, and there only ever will be.