“
Talk. We are going to talk first. I want to see you smile and laugh. I want to know what your favorite show was when you were a kid and who made you cry at school and what boy band you hung posters of on your wall. Then I want you naked in my bed again.
”
”
Abbi Glines (Fallen Too Far (Rosemary Beach, #1; Too Far, #1))
“
I dont think having a My Chemical Romance action figure will make a kid start his own band, I like to think it will make him save children from a burning building.
”
”
Gerard Way
“
There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
”
”
Elizabeth Warren
“
Keegan chuckled. “I think they mean to kill me.”
“So, they don’t know…”
“Aye.” Keegan nodded. “Appears the serpents don’t know those kids stole the grail from a band of immortal pirates.
”
”
Lisa Kessler (Pirate's Passion (Sentinels of Savannah, #2))
“
I never went out of my way to say anything about my drug use. I tried to hide it as long as I could. The main reason was that I didn’t want some 15-year-old kid who likes our band to think it’s cool to do heroin, you know? I think people who glamorise drugs are fucking assholes and, if there’s a hell, they’ll go there.
”
”
Kurt Cobain (Nirvana)
“
I don't think having a My Chemical Romance action figure will make a kid start his own band, I like to think that it will make him save children from a burning building.
”
”
Gerard Way
“
It was like being at an Arabian hoedown with a band of psychedelic hillbillies (p. 171).
”
”
Patti Smith (Just Kids)
“
I got schooled this year.
By everyone.
By my little brother...
by The Avett Brothers...
by my mother, my best friend, my teacher, my father,
and
by
a
boy.
a boy that I'm seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly, and undeniably in love with...
I got so schooled this year.
By a nine-year-old.
He taught me that it's okay to live life
a little backwards.
And how to laugh
At what you would think
is un-laughable.
I got schooled this year
By a Band!
They taught me how to find that feeling of feeling again.
They taught me how to decide what to be
And go be it.
I got schooled this year.
By a cancer patient.
She taught me so much. She's still teaching me so much.
She taught me to question.
To never regret.
She taught me to push my boundaries,
Because that's what they're there for.
She told me to find a balance between head and heart
And then
she taught me how...
I got schooled this year
By a Foster Kid
She taught me to respect the hand that I was dealt.
And to be grateful I was even dealt a hand.
She taught me that family
Doesn't have to be blood.
Sometimes your family
are your friends.
I got schooled this year
By my teacher
He taught me
That the points are not the point,
The point is poetry...
I got schooled this year
By my father.
He taught me that hero's aren't always invincible
And that the magic
is within me..
I got schooled this year
by
a
Boy.
a boy that I'm seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly, and undeniably in love with.
And he taught me the most important thing of all...
To put the emphasis
On life.
”
”
Colleen Hoover
“
Do vampyres play chess? Were there vampyre dorks? How about Barbie-like vampyre cheerleaders? Did any vampyres play in the band? Were there vampyre Emos with their guy-wearing-girl’s-pants weirdness and those awful bangs that cover half their faces? Or were they all those freaky Goth kids who didn’t like to bathe much? Was I going to turn into a Goth kid? Or worse, an Emo? I didn’t particularly like wearing black, at least not exclusively, and I wasn’t feeling a sudden and unfortunate aversion to soap and water, nor did I have an obsessive desire to change my hairstyle and wear too much eyeliner.
”
”
Kristin Cast (Marked (House of Night, #1))
“
As a kid, I imagined lots of different scenarios for my life. I would be an astronaut. Maybe a cartoonist. A famous explorer or rock star. Never once did I see myself standing under the window of a house belonging to some druggie named Carbine, waiting for his yard gnome to steal his stash so I could get a cab back to a cheap motel where my friend, a neurotic, death-obsessed dwarf, was waiting for me so we could get on the road to an undefined place and a mysterious Dr. X, who would cure me of mad cow disease and stop a band of dark energy from destroying the universe.
”
”
Libba Bray (Going Bovine)
“
Apparently, Columbine was a horrible place. It was terrorized by a band of reckless jock lords and ruled by an aristocracy of snotty rich white kids in the latest Abercrombie & Fitch line. Some of that was true—which is to say, it was high school.
”
”
Dave Cullen (Columbine)
“
her laptop. That’s where the good stuff would be anyway. It always was. Even at my old school, kids had always been frantic when they’d lost their laptops, thinking about all the incriminating stuff that someone might find on them. Like e-mails about how drunk the kids had gotten with their friends the weekend their parents thought they went to band camp. Papers they’d downloaded and plagiarized for AP English. Porn.
”
”
Jennifer Estep (Touch of Frost (Mythos Academy, #1))
“
They band together and reduce us to kids having a tantrum, dismissing our words so we can’t pierce their armor. Part of me wants to kick crazily at the floor and scream until they listen, but of course that’ll only confirm their belief that I’m nothing more than a silly child.
”
”
Jesse Q. Sutanto (Dial A For Aunties)
“
When he broke the kiss we were both breathless. “Talk. We are going to talk first. I want to see you smile and laugh. I want to know what your favorite show was when you were a kid and who made you cry at school and what boy band you hung posters of on your wall. Then I want you naked in my bed again.
”
”
Abbi Glines (Fallen Too Far (Rosemary Beach, #1; Too Far, #1))
“
I can’t wait to see the inside of your tour bus,” Reagan said. “I usually have to suck off at least two roadies to get in to see a band.”
Trey gaped at her and she laughed.
“I’m kidding,” she said.
When he relaxed she added, “It usually only takes one.
”
”
Olivia Cunning (Double Time (Sinners on Tour, #5))
“
To encapsulate the notion of Mardi Gras as nothing more than a big drunk is to take the simple and stupid way out, and I, for one, am getting tired of staying stuck on simple and stupid.
Mardi Gras is not a parade. Mardi Gras is not girls flashing on French Quarter balconies. Mardi Gras is not an alcoholic binge.
Mardi Gras is bars and restaurants changing out all the CD's in their jukeboxes to Professor Longhair and the Neville Brothers, and it is annual front-porch crawfish boils hours before the parades so your stomach and attitude reach a state of grace, and it is returning to the same street corner, year after year, and standing next to the same people, year after year--people whose names you may or may not even know but you've watched their kids grow up in this public tableau and when they're not there, you wonder: Where are those guys this year?
It is dressing your dog in a stupid costume and cheering when the marching bands go crazy and clapping and saluting the military bands when they crisply snap to.
Now that part, more than ever.
It's mad piano professors converging on our city from all over the world and banging the 88's until dawn and laughing at the hairy-shouldered men in dresses too tight and stalking the Indians under Claiborne overpass and thrilling the years you find them and lamenting the years you don't and promising yourself you will next year.
It's wearing frightful color combination in public and rolling your eyes at the guy in your office who--like clockwork, year after year--denies that he got the baby in the king cake and now someone else has to pony up the ten bucks for the next one.
Mardi Gras is the love of life. It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods, and our joy of living. All at once.
”
”
Chris Rose (1 Dead in Attic: Post-Katrina Stories)
“
Blackburn thought that any band that believed it's lyrics were crucial was kidding itself. Kids out on Saturday night wanted to drink, dance and yell "WOOOO!" and have sex with somebody. They didn't want to hear a bad poet bare the angst in his tortured and immature soul. They could go to college for that shit.
”
”
Bradley Denton
“
When I was thirteen I spent a lot of time pretending to like dance music because everyone at my school seemed to love it. If only I'd known it was OK to have different tastes to others and that one day my mind would be blown open by an older man who would introduce me to The Smiths, The Cure, Buzzcocks, Talking Heads and almost every other band I adore to this day. I also wish I'd been reassured that one day, yes, a boy would actually fancy me in spite and potentially, deliberately, FOR my zero boob/skinny legs combo. But mainly I wish I'd listened to my mother when she said learning to play the piano might come in handy in the future and would actually be something I would thank her for forcing me to do. Every Wednesday we would drive to Mrs Batten's house listening to The ArchersI, with me in the passenger seat trying desperately to think up excuses for why I hadn't practiced that week. Though it seemed very unlikely at the time, I am thankful for those piano lessons every time I manage to impress a boy by hammering out some Chopin when drunk (swot up, kids!).
”
”
Alexa Chung (It)
“
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.
Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
”
”
Elizabeth Warren (A Fighting Chance)
“
Maybe you'll change
Abandon all your wicked ways
Make amends and start anew again
Maybe you'll see
All the wrongs you did to me
And start all over, start all over again.
Who am i kidding?
Now, lets not get overzealous here
Youre always been a huge piece of shit
If i could kill you i would
But it's frowned upon in all fifty states
Having said that, burn in Hell.
”
”
Set it off
“
As I walked up toward the band kids, Ben shouted, ''Jacobsen, was I dreaming or did you-'' I gave him the slightest shake of my head and he changed gears mid sentence- ''and me go on a wild adventure to French Polynesia last night, traveling in a sailboat made of bananas?''
''That was one delicious sailboat,'' I answered.
”
”
John Green (Paper Towns)
“
Thomas," Chess said, "if you don't want to be famous and have your stories heard, then why'd you start the band up?"
"I heard voices," Thomas said. "I guess I heard voices. I mean, I'm sort of a liar, enit? I like the attention. I want strangers to love me. I don't even know why. But I want all kids of strangers to love me."
The Indian horses screamed.
”
”
Sherman Alexie (Reservation Blues)
“
Dr. Doris Parker: I have your ten week report. You know what it says "F, F, F… ". Do you know what that means? It means you don't care.
Student: You're brilliant. (Pause) Can I go now?
Dr. Doris Parker: (Sarcastic laugh) God! you're shallow, disgusting creature. You wanna know the truth?
Dr. Doris Parker: One, you're not gonna be in a band or a model missy because you have no ambition. With no skills you'd be competing with 80 percent of US work force for minimum wage job which you will work at for the rest of your life, till you're replaced by a computer.
Student: I don't care!
Dr. Doris Parker: The only talent you ever have is *insult*. Your life will basically become a carnival of pain and when you can't stand not one more day, not one more hour, it will get worse, much worse. Every day I come to this office and I listen to you kids *insult* all over your selves. It is so easy to be careless, it takes courage and character to care. Not that you have any of those qualities.
”
”
Doris Parker
“
It came down to that flexibility of a person’s mind. An ability to withstand horrors and snap back, like a fresh elastic band. A flinty mind shattered. In this way, he was glad not to be an adult. A grown-up’s mind—even one belonging to a decent man like Scoutmaster Tim—lacked that elasticity. The world had been robbed of all its mysteries, and with those mysteries went the horror. Adults didn’t believe in old wives’ tales. You didn’t see adults stepping over sidewalk cracks out of the fear that they might somehow, some way, break their mothers’ backs. They didn’t wish on stars: not with the squinty-eyed fierceness of kids, anyway. You’ll never find an adult who believes that saying “Bloody Mary” three times in front of a mirror in a dark room will summon a dark, blood-hungry entity. Adults were scared of different things: their jobs, their mortgages, whether they hung out with the “right people,” whether they would die unloved. These were pallid compared to the fears of a child—leering clowns under the bed and slimy monsters capering beyond the basement’s light and faceless sucking horrors from beyond the stars. There’s no 12-step or self-help group for dealing with those fears. Or maybe there is: you just grow up. And when you do, you surrender the nimbleness of mind required to believe in such things—but also to cope with them. And so when adults find themselves in a situation where that nimbleness is needed . . . well, they can’t summon it. So they fall to pieces: go insane, panic, suffer heart attacks and aneurysms brought on by fright. Why? They simply don’t believe it could be happening. That’s what’s different about kids: they believe everything can happen, and fully expect it to.
”
”
Nick Cutter (The Troop)
“
Merciless—to me Merciless means to be relentless in your pursuit, whether it’s for the love of your wife and kids, or for your passions and goals. You never give up on what’s important to you. If you want your band to be successful, or if you want to open the best fucking ham sandwich deli in town, you need to be Merciless in that quest. Just make sure you don’t go in heavy with the mustard—words of wisdom from the Sandwich Tao of Oz.
”
”
Zakk Wylde (Bringing Metal to the Children: The Complete Berserker's Guide to World Tour Domination)
“
My life was awful. When I was a kid, I was fat, pretty ugly and had awful hair. I used to get teased every fucking day, slammed up against lockers, punched in the face - you name it. Hell, I had to go to prom with one of my female friends because I couldn’t even get a proper date. I can’t even look back at those photos because I look so bad. I transferred schools, but the teasing just got worse. After an, let’s say, ‘incident’ I had with the school play the bullying just got worse. But I made it through high school, only to find out that real life was pretty much the same. I just stayed in my dark room all day and didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t go outside. I just stayed inside and drew. I’d draw vampires, mummies, heroes, villains. Anything to help me escape all the bad in the world. I went to art school and didn’t really belong. All I could draw was comic book characters. I tried to put my only good talent to use by drawing a cartoon and pitching it - only to have it turned down. Life to me was just pointless. I started drinking, doing drugs and just generally wasting my life drawing.
Then one day, I saw bodies falling from the sky. I witnessed people dying. And that’s when I decided to turn my life around. I called up anyone I knew who had an instrument and we formed a band. Being on tour for the first few years was bad. All we’d do is get drunk and do drugs, but I loved it. Because I was doing something I loved with people I loved. And a few years ago I met the most perfect woman ever. It’s like we share a wave-link or something. She just knows me without even knowing me, if you understand. And now, 2011, I have a beautiful baby girl, a caring wife and I get to perform for my adoring fans everyday. I am living proof that no matter how bad it gets, it gets better. I am Gerard Way, and I survived.
”
”
Gerard Way
“
If we were a rock ‘n’ roll band,
We’d travel all over the land.
We’d play and we’d sing and wear spangly things,
If we were a rock ‘n’ roll band.
If we were a rock ‘n’ roll band,
And we were up there on the stand,
The people would hear us and love us and cheer us,
Hurray for that rock ‘n’ roll band.
If we were a rock ‘n’ roll band
Then we’d have a million fans.
We’d goggle and laugh and sign autographs,
If we were a rock ‘n’ roll band.
If we were a rock ‘n’ roll band,
The people would all kiss our hands.
We’d be millionaires and have extra long hair,
If we were a rock ‘n’ roll band.
But we ain’t no rock ‘n’ roll band,
We’re just seven kids in the sand
With homemade guitars and pails and jars
And drums of potato chip cans.
Just seven kids in the sand,
Talkin’ and wavin’ our hands,
And dreamin’ and thinkin’ oh wouldn’t it be grand,
If we were a rock ‘n’ roll band.
”
”
Shel Silverstein (A Light in the Attic)
“
They’re a-”
“-band,” Patrick finished. “I know.”
“They’re not just a band,” Orestes said with reverence, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
“They’re the modern voice of the collective human conscience.”
“Tell that to Tipper Gore.”
“Who?”
Patrick laughed. “She was before your time, I guess.”
“What did you used to listen to when you were a kid?”
“The cavemen, banging rocks together,” Patrick said dryly
”
”
Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes)
“
It was like being at an Arabian hoedown with a band of psychedelic hillbillies.
”
”
Patti Smith (Just Kids)
“
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?
”
”
Joe Kozlowski (Jokes For Kids: Give Your Children The Gift Of Laughter With The Best Jokes In The Business!)
“
This is what always happens when one of my generation dares to talk back to our parents. They band together and reduce us to kids having a tantrum, dismissing our words so we can’t pierce their armor. Part of me wants to kick crazily at the ground and scream until they listen, but of course that’ll only confirm their belief that I’m nothing more than a silly child.
”
”
Jesse Q. Sutanto (Dial A for Aunties (Aunties, #1))
“
In the mind of the kid in skinny jeans leading the worship band, there isn’t a large enough gap between holiness and sinfulness, truth and error, demons and angels, or heaven and hell.
”
”
Kevin Swanson
“
We stare down at the festival below us. I can hear the low pulse of a local band playing cover songs, the rustle of in the lake nearby, and the carrying laughter of kids our age eating cotton candy and flirting with summer loves. The sun has melted down to the horizon line, leaving trails of orange and pink in it's wake. In the distance, our hotel's roof peeks over the tree line.
”
”
Emery Lord (Open Road Summer)
“
Drat.” She dropped the crowbar to the floor and marched over to the box of face masks. Ripping it open, she tugged a white mask from inside. It tore from the force of her pull. “Drat!” Kaine threw it aside and yanked on another one. This time the rubber band for securing it around the wearer’s head snapped from the side of the mask. “Are you kidding me?” she growled at the empty room. Kaine sent the second
”
”
Jaime Jo Wright (The House on Foster Hill)
“
she leaped down the porch steps to her car. There was no thought. No planning. Just action. When you get a call that your kid is in the ER, there can be no room for thinking. Just the deepest fear imaginable, the kind that gripped like a steel band around her chest.
”
”
Susan Wiggs (Map of the Heart)
“
I'm just sorry. Sorry that there won't be any more camping trips for kids or rock bands or even new books to read. No more movies or fresh bags of popcorn. It really sucks when you think about it. Of course, there is the possibility that we might be able to win this war, but not for a very long time. Probably longer than you and I will ever exist in this world."
"I try not to think about it."
"Sometimes it's all I ever think about.
”
”
Jeyn Roberts (Dark Inside (Dark Inside, #1))
“
Taking deep breaths, I gathered my power until I could feel it crackling in my fingertips. "Let him go!" I commanded in what I hoped was my most "I am a powerful demon" voice. Probably would've been better if my voice hadn't cracked on the last word. I released the magic in my hands, which felt kind of like snapping a giant rubber band.
A bolt of power flew from my fingertips, crashing into a nearby tree with a thunderous crack. There was a bright flash like lightning, and a branch fell to the ground. The ghouls startled, which meant the one holding Archer jerked his head back even farther. The smallest one made a noise that might have been distress, but they certainly didn't seem under my control.
And they weren't letting Archer go.
Okay, so my first experiment with necromancy was an epic fail.Take two.
I fought panic and frustration. Shooting off my magic at the ghouls was no good, but what else was I supposed to try? "Think,Sophie," I muttered under my breath.
"Yeah,please do that," Archer replied, his voice slightly strangled. The ghoul holding him had wrapped a hand around Archer's throat. The thing's expression wasn't threatening, just curious, like he was little kid trying to see what would happen if he just kept squeezing.
I slammed my eyes shut. Okay, they were dead. Yucky dead things. That smelled like-okay, those thoughts were not helpful.
”
”
Rachel Hawkins (Demonglass (Hex Hall, #2))
“
(This is from a tribute poem to Ronnie James Dio: Former lead vocalist of the band Rainbow, Black Sabbath. This is written with all the titles of the hit songs of DIO. The titles are all in upper case)
You can “CATCH THE RAINBOW” –
“A RAINBOW IN THE DARK”
Through “ROCK & ROLL CHILDREN”
“HOLY DIVER” will lurk
“BEFORE THE FALL” of “ELECTRA”
“ALL THE FOOLS SAILED AWAY”
“JESUS,MARY AND THE HOLY GHOST”-
“LORD OF THE LAST DAY”
“MASTER OF THE MOON” you are
When my “ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE”
With our “BLACK”, “COLD FEET”,
“MYSTERY” of “PAIN” you crave
You’re “CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE”,
“BETWEEN TWO HEARTS”
When “HUNGRY FOR HEAVEN”
“HUNTER OF THE HEART” hurts
“FALLEN ANGELS” “FEED MY HEART”
“FEVER DREAMS” “FEED MY HEAD”
“I AM” “ANOTHER LIE”
“AFTER ALL (THE DEAD)”
Not “GUILTY” if you “HIDE IN THE RAINBOW’’
With your perfect “GUITAR SOLO”
“DON’T TELL THE KIDS” to “DREAM EVIL”
Don’t “GIVE HER THE GUN” to follow
“DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS”
Those “EVIL EYES” can see
“LORD OF THE NIGHT” “MISTREATED”;
“MY EYES” hate to fancy
“SHAME ON THE NIGHT” “TURN UP THE NIGHT”
Now it’s “TIME TO BURN”
“TWISTED” “VOODOO” does “WALK ON WATER”
And today its our turn
“BLOOD FROM A STONE” “BORN ON THE SUN”
I’m “BETTER IN THE DARK” “BREATHLESS”
The “PRISONER OF PARADISE” you are!
Forever you are deathless
“SACRED HEART” “SHIVERS”
Laying “NAKED IN THE RAIN”
“THIS IS YOUR LIFE”- “ WILD ONE”!
Your “GOLDEN RULES” we gain
“IN DREAMS” “I SPEED AT NIGHT”
I’m “LOSING MY INSANITY”
“ANOTHER LIE”: “COMPUTER GOD”
Your “HEAVEN AND HELL”- my vanity!
By “KILLING THE DRAGON”
“I COULD HAVE BEEN A DREAMER”
I’m “THE LAST IN LINE” To “SCREAM”
Like an “INVISIBLE” screamer
Now that you are gone
“THE END OF THE WORLD” is here
“STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HEART”
“PUSH” “JUST ANOTHER DAY” in fear
“CHILDREN OF THE SEA” “ DYING IN AMERICA”
Is it “DEATH BY LOVE”?
“FACES IN THE WINDOW” looking for
A “GYPSY” from above
Dear “STARGAZER” from “STRANGE HIGHWAYS”
Our love “HERE’S TO YOU”
“WE ROCK” “ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD”
The “OTHER WORLD” anew
“ONE NIGHT IN THE CITY” with “NEON KNIGHTS”
“THE EYES” “STAY OUT OF MY MIND”
The “STARSTRUCK” “SUNSET SUPERMAN”
Is what we long to find
“THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING”
Is the “INSTITUTIONAL MAN”
“SHOOT SHOOT” to “TURN TO STONE”
“WHEN A WOMAN CRIES” to plan
To “STAND UP AND SHOUT”
before “ THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL”
Though “GOD HATES HEAVY METAL”
“EAT YOUR HEART OUT” to reach the goal.
From the poem- Holy Dio: the Diver (A tribute to Ronnie James Dio)
”
”
Munia Khan
“
Maybe Mikey is about to have his perfect life with kids and a wife and a rock band and everything he's ever wanted, while I'm dehydrated and tired and should be drinking water, but I'm not, I'm drinking coffee, spending seven dollars and sixty-eight cents to with myself a happy fucking eighteenth birthday that I'd forgotten all about.
”
”
Kathleen Glasgow (Girl in Pieces)
“
David started rattling off the names of the bands he liked, and in that moment Connor decided to get a tattoo on his forehead that read “I love my kid brother.
”
”
Jay Bell (Kamikaze Boys)
“
Poor kids flip burgers, middle class kids do internships and rich kids volunteer. The extra-cool kids also play in bands and rob houses.
”
”
Tea Hacic-Vlahovic (Life of the Party)
“
Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the somber renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings. I mean long journeys across gray space. I mean danger, the edge of every void, the circumstance of one man imparting an erotic terror to the dreams of the republic. Understand the man who must inhabit these extreme regions, monstrous and vulval, damp with memories of violation. Even if half-mad he is absorbed into the public's total madness; even if fully rational, a bureaucrat in hell, a secret genius of survival, he is sure to be destroyed by the public's contempt for survivors. Fame, this special kind, feeds itself on outrage, on what the counselors of lesser men would consider bad publicity-hysteria in limousines, knife fights in the audience, bizarre litigation, treachery, pandemonium and drugs. Perhaps the only natural law attaching to true fame is that the famous man is compelled, eventually, to commit suicide.
(Is it clear I was a hero of rock'n'roll?)
Toward the end of the final tour it became apparent that our audience wanted more than music, more even than its own reduplicated noise. It's possible the culture had reached its limit, a point of severe tension. There was less sense of simple visceral abandon at our concerts during these last weeks. Few cases of arson and vandalism. Fewer still of rape. No smoke bombs or threats of worse explosives. Our followers, in their isolation, were not concerned with precedent now. They were free of old saints and martyrs, but fearfully so, left with their own unlabeled flesh. Those without tickets didn't storm the barricades, and during a performance the boys and girls directly below us, scratching at the stage, were less murderous in their love of me, as if realizing finally that my death, to be authentic, must be self-willed- a succesful piece of instruction only if it occured by my own hand, preferrably ina foreign city. I began to think their education would not be complete until they outdid me as a teacher, until one day they merely pantomimed the kind of massive response the group was used to getting. As we performed they would dance, collapse, clutch each other, wave their arms, all the while making absolutely no sound. We would stand in the incandescent pit of a huge stadium filled with wildly rippling bodies, all totally silent. Our recent music, deprived of people's screams, was next to meaningless, and there would have been no choice but to stop playing. A profound joke it would have been. A lesson in something or other.
In Houston I left the group, saying nothing, and boarded a plane for New York City, that contaminated shrine, place of my birth. I knew Azarian would assume leadership of the band, his body being prettiest. As to the rest, I left them to their respective uproars- news media, promotion people, agents, accountants, various members of the managerial peerage. The public would come closer to understanding my disappearance than anyone else. It was not quite as total as the act they needed and nobody could be sure whether I was gone for good. For my closest followers, it foreshadowed a period of waiting. Either I'd return with a new language for them to speak or they'd seek a divine silence attendant to my own.
I took a taxi past the cemetaries toward Manhattan, tides of ash-light breaking across the spires. new York seemed older than the cities of Europe, a sadistic gift of the sixteenth century, ever on the verge of plague. The cab driver was young, however, a freckled kid with a moderate orange Afro. I told him to take the tunnel.
Is there a tunnel?" he said.
”
”
Don DeLillo
“
We scoffed at the kids who weren't like us, the ones who already talked about careers, or bliddy mortgages and pensions. Kids wanting to be old before they were young. Kids wanting to be dead before they'd lived. They were digging their own graves, building the walls of their own damn jails. Us, we hung to our youth. We were footloose, fancy free. We said we'd never grow boring and old. We plundered charity shops for vintage clothes. We bought battered Levis and gorgeous faded velvet stuff from Attica in High Bridge. We wore coloured boots, hemp scarves from Gaia. We read Baudelaire and Byron. We read our poems to each other. We wrote songs and posted them on YouTube. We formed bands. We talked of the amazing journeys we'd take together once school was done. Sometimes we paired off, made couples that lasted for a little while, but the group was us. We hung together. We could say anything to each other. We loved each other.
”
”
David Almond (A Song for Ella Grey)
“
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
”
”
Elizabeth Warren (A Fighting Chance)
“
Gus doesn’t belong in this world. He was born with a Hollywood chin, a butter touch, and an ear that can hear rhythms tapped out from Neptune. In another life he would have been drumming in Johnny Carson’s band, drinking water out of a mug. But in this one he has a disease and he can’t say no to shysters like Charlie, who uses his wife and kid to cheat on Gus’s lousy, glowing heart.
”
”
Marie-Helene Bertino (2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas)
“
French parents do offer a few sleep tips. They almost all say that in the early months, they kept their babies with them in the light during the day, even for naps, and put them to bed in the dark at night. And almost all say that, from birth, they carefully “observed” their babies, and then followed the babies’ own “rhythms.” French parents talk so much about rhythm, you’d think they were starting rock bands, not raising kids. “From zero to six months, the best is to respect the rhythms of their sleep,” explains Alexandra, the mother whose babies slept through the night practically from birth.
”
”
Pamela Druckerman (Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting)
“
Was this how you were going to awaken the creatures?"
Machiavelli,clutching the bars of his cell,smiled but said nothing.
Virginia stood in front of Dee and stared into his eyes,using herwill to calm him down. "So you tried to use the pages to awaken the cratures.Tell me what happened."
Dee jabbed a finger into the nearest cell. It was empty. Virginia stepped closer and discovered the pile of white dust in the corner.
"I don't even know what was in the cell-some winged monstrosity.Giant vampire bat,I think.I said the words,and the creature opened its eyes and immediately crumbled to dust."
"Maybe you said a word wrong?" Virginia suggested. She plucked a scrap of paper from Josh's hands. "I mean,it looks difficult."
"I am fluent," Dee snapped.
"He is," Machiavelli said, "I will give him that.And his accent is very good too, though not quite as good as mine."
Dee spun back to the cell holding Machiavelli. "Tell me what went wrong."
Machiavelli seemed to be considering it; then he shook his head. "I don't think so."
Dee jerked his thumb at the sphinx. "Right now she's absorbing your aura,ensuring that you cannot use any spells against me. But she'll be just as happy eating your flesh.Isn't that true?"he said, looking up into the crature's female face.
"Oh,I love Italian," she rumbled. She stepped away from Dee and dipped her head to look into the opposite cell. "Give me this one," she said,nodding at Billy the Kid. "He'll make a tasty snack." Her long black forked tongue flickered in the air before the outlaw, who immediately grabbed it,jerked it forward and allowed it to snap back like an elastic band. She screamed,coughed, and squawked all at the same time.
Billy grinned."I'll make sure I'll choke you on the way down."
"It might be difficult to do that if you have no arms," the sphinx said thickly,working her tongue back and forth.
"I'll still give you indigestion."
Dee looked at Machiavelli. "Tell me," he said again, "or I will feed your young American friend to the beast."
"Tell him nothing," Billy yelled.
"This is one of those occasions when I am in agreement with Billy.I am going to tell you nothing."
The Magician looked from one side of the cell to the other. Then he looked at Machiavelli."What happened to you? You were one of the Dark Elders' finest agents in this Shadowrealm. There were times you even made me look like an amateur."
"John,you were always an amateur." Machiavelli smiled."Why, look at the mess you're in now.
”
”
Michael Scott (The Warlock (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, #5))
“
Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren put it eloquently: “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there, good for you. But, I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against this because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
”
”
Anu Partanen (The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life)
“
But if you ever wonder why so many well-off kids were in nineties punk bands, that's why. They could afford to not get paid. They could also afford to look generous by donating their services more than we could.
”
”
Kathleen Hanna (Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk)
“
Life is a Curious Thing. Winter turns to spring and Parvaneh passes her driving test. Of teaches Adrian how to change tires. The kid may have bought a Toyota, but that doesn't mean he's entirely beyond help, Ove explains to Sonja when he visits her one Sunday in April. The he shows her some photographs of Parvaneh's little boy. Four months old and as fat as a seal pup. Patrick has tried to force one of those cell phone camera things on Ove, but he doesn't trust them. So he walks around with a thick wad of paper copies inside his wallet instead, held together by a rubber band. Shows everyone he meets. Even the people who work at the florist's,
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove)
“
Later, Dean would see Atta’s fighters show up carrying AK-47s, and there with them would be their sons, carrying spare magazines. Behind the sons walked even younger sons, carrying nothing. Dean understood that in this kind of fighting, the sons who carried nothing would pick up either a gun or a magazine if the fathers or brothers were killed. The look on the faces of the kids seemed to indicate to Dean that they expected to die.
”
”
Doug Stanton (Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan)
“
Now came details of Goldby's adventures with the Cooks and their band. "Chicken, Dynamite Dick, The Verdigris Kid. I wish these fellows read something other than Ned Buntline's Own. Why haven't I heard of this Goldsby before this?
”
”
Loren D. Estleman (The Branch and the Scaffold: The True Story of the West's Hanging Judge)
“
We entered the cool cave of the practice space with all the long-haired, goateed boys stoned on clouds of pot and playing with power tools. I tossed my fluffy coat into the hollow of my bass drum and lay on the carpet with my worn newspaper. A shirtless boy came in and told us he had to cut the power for a minute, and I thought about being along in the cool black room with Joey. Let's go smoke, she said, and I grabbed the cigarettes off the amp. She started talking to me about Wonder Woman. I feel like something big is happening, but I don't know what to do about it. With The Straight Girl? I asked in the blankest voice possible. With everything. Back in the sun we walked to the edge of the parking lot where a black Impala convertible sat, rusted and rotting, looking like it just got dredged from a swamp. Rainwater pooling on the floor. We climbed up onto it and sat our butts backward on the edge of the windshield, feet stretched into the front seat. Before she even joined the band, I would think of her each time I passed the car, the little round medallions with the red and black racing flags affixed to the dash. On the rusting Chevy, Joey told me about her date the other night with a girl she used to like who she maybe liked again. How her heart was shut off and it felt pretty good. How she just wanted to play around with this girl and that girl and this girl and I smoked my cigarette and went Uh-Huh. The sun made me feel like a restless country girl even though I'd never been on a farm. I knew what I stood for, even if nobody else did. I knew the piece of me on the inside, truer than all the rest, that never comes out. Doesn't everyone have one? Some kind of grand inner princess waiting to toss her hair down, forever waiting at the tower window. Some jungle animal so noble and fierce you had to crawl on your belly through dangerous grasses to get a glimpse. I gave Joey my cigarette so I could unlace the ratty green laces of my boots, pull them off, tug the linty wool tights off my legs. I stretched them pale over the car, the hair springing like weeds and my big toenail looking cracked and ugly. I knew exactly who I was when the sun came back and the air turned warm. Joey climbed over the hood of the car, dusty black, and said Let's lie down, I love lying in the sun, but there wasn't any sun there. We moved across the street onto the shining white sidewalk and she stretched out, eyes closed. I smoked my cigarette, tossed it into the gutter and lay down beside her. She said she was sick of all the people who thought she felt too much, who wanted her to be calm and contained. Who? I asked. All the flowers, the superheroes. I thought about how she had kissed me the other night, quick and hard, before taking off on a date in her leather chaps, hankies flying, and I sat on the couch and cried at everything she didn't know about how much I liked her, and someone put an arm around me and said, You're feeling things, that's good. Yeah, I said to Joey on the sidewalk, I Feel Like I Could Calm Down Some. Awww, you're perfect. She flipped her hand over and touched my head. Listen, we're barely here at all, I wanted to tell her, rolling over, looking into her face, we're barely here at all and everything goes so fast can't you just kiss me? My eyes were shut and the cars sounded close when they passed. The sun was weak but it baked the grime on my skin and made it smell delicious. A little kid smell. We sat up to pop some candy into our mouths, and then Joey lay her head on my lap, spent from sugar and coffee. Her arm curled back around me and my fingers fell into her slippery hair. On the February sidewalk that felt like spring.
”
”
Michelle Tea
“
My Chemical Romance was on Conan. They had rings in their lips and eyebrows, their hair done up in spikes, but beneath the white pancake makeup and black lipstick they looked like a collection of chubby kids who had probably been in their high-school marching band a few years earlier. They leaped around, falling into each other, as if the stage beneath them were an electrified plate. They played frantically, pissing themselves with fear. Jude liked them. He wondered which of them would die first.
”
”
Joe Hill (Heart-Shaped Box)
“
Maybe real-life Mom didn't vacuum the house flawlessly arrayed in pearls and a pleated shirt like the mother on leave it to beaver. Maybe she flirted with the milkman or waited for the kids to go to bed so she could hammer back a couple of mugs of vodka pretending it was tea. But she was there to greet us when we came home from school in the afternoon. She made us dinner, kept watch on us through the kitchen window, put Band-Aids on our scrapes and bruises.
She was Mom and that was no small thing.
”
”
Andrew Klavan (The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ)
“
When I was very young, my mother took me for walks in Humboldt Park, along the edge of the Prairie River. I have vague memories, like impressions on glass plates, of an old boathouse, a circular band shell, an arched stone bridge. The narrows of the river emptied into a wide lagoon and I saw upon its surface a singular miracle. A long curving neck rose from a dress of white plumage. Swan, my mother said, sensing my excitement. It pattered the bright water, flapping its great wings, and lifted into the sky. The word alone hardly attested to its magnificence nor conveyed the emotion it produced. The sight of it generated an urge I had no words for, a desire to speak of the swan, to say something of its whiteness, the explosive nature of its movement, and the slow beating of its wings. The swan became one with the sky. I struggled to find words to describe my own sense of it. Swan, I repeated, not entirely satisfied, and I felt a twinge, a curious yearning, imperceptible to paasersby, my mother, the trees, or the clouds.
”
”
Patti Smith (Just Kids)
“
Already it is twilight down in the Laredito. Bats fly forth from their roostings in courthouse and tower and circle the quarter. The air is full of the smell of burning charcoal. Children and dogs squat by the mud stoops and gamecocks flap and settle in the branches of the fruit trees. They go afoot, these comrades, down along a bare adobe wall. Band music carries dimly from the square. They pass a watercart in the street and they pass a hole in the wall where by the light of a small forgefire an old man beats out shapes of metal. They pass in a doorway a young girl whose beauty becomes the flowers about.
They arrive at last before a wooden door. It is hinged into a larger door or gate and all must step over the foot-high sill where a thousand boots have scuffled away the wood, where fools in their hundreds have tripped or fallen or tottered drunkenly into the street. They pass along a ramada in a courtyard by an old grape arbor where small fowl nod in the dusk among the gnarled and barren vines and they enter a cantina where the lamps are lit and they cross stooping under a low beam to a bar and belly up one two three.
There is an old disordered Mennonite in this place and he turns to study them. A thin man in a leather weskit, a black and straightbrim hat set square on his head, a thin rim of whiskers. The recruits order glasses of whiskey and drink them down and order more. There are monte games at tables by the wall and there are whores at another table who look the recruits over. The recruits stand sideways along the bar with their thumbs in their belts and watch the room. They talk among themselves of the expedition in loud voices and the old Mennonite shakes a rueful head and sips his drink and mutters.
They'll stop you at the river, he says.
The second corporal looks past his comrades. Are you talking to me?
At the river. Be told. They'll jail you to a man.
Who will?
The United States Army. General Worth.
They hell they will.
Pray that they will.
He looks at his comrades. He leans toward the Mennonite. What does that mean, old man?
Do ye cross that river with yon filibuster armed ye'll not cross it back.
Don't aim to cross it back. We goin to Sonora.
What's it to you, old man?
The Mennonite watches the enshadowed dark before them as it is reflected to him in the mirror over the bar. He turns to them. His eyes are wet, he speaks slowly. The wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have power to wake it. Hell aint half full. Hear me. Ye carry war of a madman's making into a foreign land. Ye'll wake more than the dogs.
But they berated the old man and swore at him until he moved off down the bar muttering, and how else could it be?
How these things end. In confusion and curses and blood. They drank on and the wind blew in the streets and the stars that had been overhead lay low in the west and these young men fell afoul of others and words were said that could not be put right again and in the dawn the kid and the second corporal knelt over the boy from Missouri who had been named Earl and they spoke his name but he never spoke back. He lay on his side in the dust of the courtyard. The men were gone, the whores were gone. An old man swept the clay floor within the cantina. The boy lay with his skull broken in a pool of blood, none knew by whom. A third one came to be with them in the courtyard. It was the Mennonite. A warm wind was blowing and the east held a gray light. The fowls roosting among the grapevines had begun to stir and call.
There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto, said the Mennonite. He had been holding his hat in his hands and now he set it upon his head again and turned and went out the gate.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)
“
My thoughts always go back to the parents – here's their kid who wouldn't be coming back. I got this feeling all the way through. It didn't matter if I saw a dead American or German, I always figured he belonged to somebody. You knew somebody was going to miss him.
- Forrest Guth
”
”
Marcus Brotherton (We Who Are Alive and Remain: Untold Stories from the Band of Brothers)
“
Old Foxy kept on talking!...He was attracting attention in the crowd!...Nobody asked to see his papers...That was the amazing thing!...The kids, the tarts, the soldier-boys ran after him, pulled at him, played tricks on him!...They came touching his dragon, pinching his robe, his behind...
”
”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (Guignol's Band)
“
MacKaye never told anyone to get off the stage. Sometimes this encouraged a rapid and irreversible descent into chaos, but usually it just meant a steady stream of stage divers and kids who just wanted a few seconds of attention while they did some silly dance for their buddies. Anarchy, it seemed, could work.
”
”
Michael Azerrad (Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991)
“
Then Terry - fucking Terry, the Blind King, the pain in the ass, the boy who tapped on her basement window, the kid who asked her the question that started everything, that caused all this pain, that sparked a thousand shows, the boy who said, "You wanna start a band?" - he grabbed his mic and right on time, right on cue, he said the words that were coming but that Kris thought he would never sing:
"And inside that hole!" Terry shouted, and the black ocean fell silent, its colossal sound held back for three seconds, its power coiling, building up, about to overflow. "And inside that hole!" Terry shouted again, "is Black Iron Mountain!
”
”
Grady Hendrix (We Sold Our Souls)
“
I wish we could start over. I wish we were meeting for the first time. Clean slate.’
Haley considers this. It’s such a little-kid term. ‘Do-over!’ they’d shriek on the four-square court. The kickball field. Back when there was no mistake you couldn’t fix, no hurt you couldn’t heal with Band-Aids, hugs, and snacks. She’d love a do-over as well.
”
”
Maria Padian (Wrecked)
“
The unchurched kids laughed at the Bible studies based on television shows or songs of the moment. They weren't impressed at all by the video clips provided by the denomination's publisher, or by the knock-off Christian boy bands crooning about the hotness of sexual purity. What riveted their attention wasn't what was relatable to them but what wasn't.
”
”
Russell Moore
“
Jay insisted on carrying her up the back steps and into the kitchen, and this time Violet didn’t complain when he lifted her. He set her down gently on the kitchen counter, and then he rummaged through the cupboard while Violet told him where the Band-Aids were. He came with bandages, gauze, cotton balls, antibacterial wash, and two tubes of ointment. It seemed like overkill to Violet, but she didn’t say anything. She wanted to see what he planned to do.
“Okay, this is probably gonna sting,” he warned as he leaned over and began cleaning her wounds.
It did sting, more than Violet let on, and she had to bite her lip as the tears came back all over again. But she let him keep working without even flinching, which was no small feat as he stripped away the layers of dirt from her skin.
The wounds were big, and round, and raw. She thought she looked like a little kid with the giant scrapes on her knees, and she imagined that they were going to scab over and possibly even scar. She felt like such an idiot for falling over her own two clumsy feet.
But Jay was gentle, and he took his time, being careful not to hurt her. She admired his patience and took perverse pleasure in his touch. He didn’t look up to see how she was doing; he just kept working until he was satisfied that her scrapes were cleaned out. And then he picked up the antibacterial wash and some cotton balls.
Violet sucked in her breath when he brushed the soaked cotton ball against the angry red abrasions. Jay looked up at her but didn’t stop dabbing at them. Instead he blew on her knees as he labored over them, just like her mother used to do when Violet was a little girl. She thought it was sweet, and she swore that she was even more attracted to him than ever in that tender moment.
When he finished with the wash, he gingerly patted an antibiotic ointment on her knees before covering them with bandages.
“There,” he said, admiring his own handiwork. “Good as new.”
Violent glanced at the ridiculously huge Band-Aids on her knees and looking at him doubtfully. “You really think so? ‘Good as new’?”
He smiled. “I think I did pretty good. It’s not my fault you can’t walk.
”
”
Kimberly Derting (The Body Finder (The Body Finder, #1))
“
You know how they say Black Flag got in a van, and they brought punk rock to the world? The Strokes got on a bus, and they brought “downtown cool” to the world. Along with the Internet, they were changing everything, not just music. They were changing attitudes. The Strokes were making New York travel with them. I saw kids in Connecticut and Maine and Philadelphia and DC looking like they had just been drinking on Avenue A all night. Sixteen-year-old kids in white belts and Converse Chuck Taylors with the greasy hair—hair that had been clean a week ago. Those kids had probably never even smelled the inside of a thrift store before Is This It came out. They found a band that they wanted to be like. They found their band. APRIL
”
”
Lizzy Goodman (Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011)
“
They were Muslims, man, but not your uncles. They need a deen that's not your uncle's deen. Iman, think about it like that, iman! It's supposed to be all about having no fear of death, right? And we got that part down, we've done that and we have plenty of Muslims who aren't afraid to die. Mash'Allah--but now Muslims are afraid to fuckin' live! They fear life, yakee, more than they fear shaytans or shirk or fitna or bid'a or kafr or qiyamah or the torments in the grave, they fear Life... You got all these poor kids who think they're inferior because they don't get their two Fajr in, their four Zuhr, four Asr... they don't have beards, they don't wear hejab, maybe they went to their fuckin' high school proms and the only masjid around was regular horsehit-horseshit-takbir-masjid and they had to pretend like they were doing everything right...well I say fuck that and this whole house says fuck that--even Umar, you think Umar can go in a regular masjid with all his stupid tattoos and dumb straghtedge bands? Even Umar, bro, as much as he tries to Wahabbi-hard-ass his way around here, he's still one of us. He's still fuckin' taqwacore.
”
”
Michael Muhammad Knight (Taqwacores: A Novel)
“
I'm doddering around like an old bumblebee, I'm all tangled up in the air, Ah sees it, I ain't tellin' things in the right order, what about it! You'll excuse me somewhat, kidding about my memories, digressing from rhyme to reason, jabbering away about my friends instead of showing you around!...Let's go! and let's keep going!...Let me show you around nicely...straying neither right nor left!...
”
”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (Guignol's Band)
“
A breeze with September in it blew in off the water. Teddy inhaled deeply. Autumn, even in his childhood, had always been his favorite season. When you’re a kid and your parents are teachers, it’s September, not January, that marks the beginning of a year. He’d always been the first one back to Minerva and loved having the campus all to himself for a day or two before the other students and faculty began trickling back in. Lincoln always arrived next, and then Mickey, since his band usually played somewhere in town the first weekend before classes started. Jacy was always last, coming as late as the middle of the first week of classes. Things couldn’t really begin until then. “You know who I was thinking about on the ferry?” Teddy ventured. “Yep,” Lincoln said. “I do.” And they left it at that.
”
”
Richard Russo (Chances Are . . .)
“
He was always worrying about me – even when we were kids. If I scraped my knee or fell off my bike, he was the first one to help me up and make sure Mom got a Band-Aid.”
“I remember.” I smile. “He was the quintessential big brother.”
“He was. But that’s just it – he’s not here to protect me anymore, Anna. And you don’t have to be, either. I know I let stuff get crazy. I didn’t mean to be like that – it just kind of happened. You couldn’t have changed that. I – it was something I had to go through myself.”
My throat tightens. “I felt like I let him down,” I say. “All that stuff with smoking and Johan and Jake – I didn’t take care of you. I couldn’t even keep that one simple promise.”
“Anna, my brother died. There’s no way you could protect me from that. It’s up to me, now. I let him down. I let me down.
”
”
Sarah Ockler (Twenty Boy Summer)
“
Dylan's voice was awful, an aged quaver that sounded nothing like the deep-throated or silky R&B that Dad took as gospel. But the lyrics wore him down, until he played Dylan in that addicted manner of college kids who cordon off portions of their lives to decipher the prophecies of their favorite band. Dad heard poetry, but more than that an angle that confirmed what a latent part of him already suspected. This was was bullshit.
”
”
Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons and an Unlikely Road to Manhood)
“
It doesn’t help that I’m famous for a thing I started when I was a kid. I think of what it would be like if everyone was famous for a thing they did when they were thirteen: their middle school band, their seventh-grade science project, their eighth-grade play. The middle school years are the years to stumble, fall, and tuck under the rug as soon as you’re done with them because you’ve already outgrown them by the time you’re fifteen.
”
”
Jennette McCurdy (I'm Glad My Mom Died)
“
So what's going on with you and your boyfriend?" Eli asked me right before he shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth during breakfast the next morning.
I made a face in the direction of my plate before shooting a glance upward to find Gordo’s eyes on me, a smirk on his face.
"Mason?" I asked, going back to my food.
Eli made a gagging noise, elbowing me hard in the ribs. "I'm not gonna go into details on how disturbing it is that I say ‘your boyfriend’ and you automatically think of fucking Mase."
"He's always calling me his wife, or telling people I don't know that we're getting married," I replied, elbowing him back as hard as he got me. It was partially the truth… but mostly, I didn’t want to talk about the man who had been kissing my shoulder hours ago.
"I love Mase, but it'll be a sunny day in my asshole before you and him get together," he mumbled.
I snorted, biting into my biscuit. "Who the heck else would you be talking about?" I asked, but I knew. Oh, I knew damn well he was referring to Sacha.
Freaking Gordo snickered from across the table before putting his hands up in surrender when I glared at him. "I didn’t say anything."
"Sacha, Flabby. Sacha. Your boyfriend. Your snuggle bug." Eliza finally answered.
Suddenly the half-eaten biscuit on my plate needed to be eaten immediately. I shoved the entire piece into my mouth to avoid the conversation my brother was trying to edge into. I'd had talks about boys with Eli in the past, and they never ended—or started—well. "There's nothing going on between us. We're just friends."
Because we were.
Eli made a noise that sounded like “hmmph” deep in his throat. It was incredulous and disbelieving. Then he asked the question to prove it, his attention back on his band mate. "Gordo, do you think I'm blind?"
Gordo shook his head.
"Gaby, do you think I'm blind?" he asked.
"Not blind, just dumb.” I smiled.
He shot me a frown. A moment later, he threw his arm over my shoulders and started shoving his plate away with his free hand. "Flabby Gaby, that kid is in love with you."
In love.
With me?
I leaned forward and tried to sniff his breath. “Are you still drunk?”
But my brother kept talking before I could keep going. "Anyone with eyes and ears knows that guy thinks you shit out Lucky Charms."
Gordo and I burst out laughing.
"Is that a good thing?" I asked him.
Eliza shoved my face away with his palm, ignoring my commentary again. "And I think that you love him, too."
The noise that came out of my mouth sounded like a hybrid “moo” and squawk at the same time. "I—,” I slammed my mouth shut before opening it again with a sputter. “What?
”
”
Mariana Zapata (Rhythm, Chord & Malykhin)
“
Let me first establish—on your behalf—feelings of animosity and disgust at the mendacity inherent in this concept of "cartoon." Whenever someone hits you with a conversational shot that is crude or is intended to hurt, and you bristle, the shooter quickly throws up his/her hands and tries to get you to believe, "I was only kidding. It was all in fun. Boy, are you overreacting. You musn't take it seriously, it was just a joke." Well, we know it wasn't any such thing. It was a snippet of truth slipping past the cultural safeguards that keep us dealing with one another with civility. It was for real. Similarly, when such films as Streets of Fire and Gremlins and Temple of Doom are made, we are expected to take them seriously enough to plonk down five bucks for a ticket. When they fail to deliver what they've promised in all those tv clips, and we express our anger at having been fleeced, the shooters tell us we're overreacting and we should feel a lot better about losing our five or ten or whatever amount they got out of us, because it was all a gag. I wonder how well they'd take the gag if we paid for the tickets with counterfeit bills. Or pried open the firedoor at the theater and sneaked in with the entire Duke University Marching Band. "It was all a joke, fellahs; don't take it so seriously; gawd, are you overreacting!" No, they cannot have that cake and eat it, too.
”
”
Harlan Ellison (Harlan Ellison's Watching)
“
It doesn’t help that I’m famous for a thing I started when I was a kid. I think of what it would be like if everyone was famous for a thing they did when they were thirteen: their middle school band, their seventh-grade science project, their eighth-grade play. The middle school years are the years to stumble, fall, and tuck under the rug as soon as you’re done with them because you’ve already outgrown them by the time you’re fifteen. But not for me. I’m cemented in people’s minds as the person I was when I was a kid. A person I feel like I’ve far outgrown. But the world won’t let me outgrow it. The world won’t let me be anyone else. The world only wants me to be Sam Puckett. I’m aware enough to know how fucking annoying and whiney this all sounds. Millions of people dream of being famous, and here I am with fame and hating it. I somehow feel entitled to my hatred since I was not the one who dreamed of being famous. Mom was. Mom pushed this on me. I’m allowed to hate someone else’s dream, even if it’s my reality.
”
”
Jennette McCurdy (I'm Glad My Mom Died)
“
Of Human Bondage?"
Will said quickly, moving just out of sight for a moment and forcing Charlie to move to the edge of the dining area to see him. He tossed one arch look over his shoulder as he reached up to grab that book, and even knowing it was an act, Charlie felt himself tensing. His eyes fell on the leather cuff at Will's wrist, as they were probably meant to.
"Kinky."
Charlie's throat locked. "I'm not..."
"Into Bette Davis? I know, a lot of people find her scary at first, but after awhile you really start to get into her."
The completely reasonable tone was at odds with the wicked light in the kid's eyes, the way his lips were curved up, how he held his breath when Charlie blinked and frowned, replaying the insane words until they made sense. Until he remembered that Bette Davis was in the film version of that novel, until he could finally take his gaze off that wide leather band.
His face was burning.
"Smartass," he muttered, completely mystified when being called a smartass made Will hop in place, since Will had already made it clear that he had a brain under all that hair and glitter.
”
”
R. Cooper (Play It Again, Charlie)
“
All the proper bands from then, when we were kids, yeah? The Rubettes and Mud and Chicory Tip. Yeah. Not like the bands they have now, stupid, modern bands all made out of wire and electricity.
The proper old bands. You'd buy the singles, wouldn't you? The old singles they used to have in the old days. The proper ones. Very nostalgic feelings towards Woolworths. The pick 'n' mix. Remember the pick 'n' mix in Woolworths? All the sweets individually wrapped. Proper, old-fashioned sweets, yeah? Not like the sweets they have now, all with knives in them and AIDS.
”
”
Stewart Lee
“
Lutch Crawford always talked straight to the point. That’s how he got so much work done. “Fawn, about the other night, with all that moon. How do you feel now?”
“I feel the same way,” she said tightly.
Lutch had a little habit of catching his lower lip with his teeth and letting go when he was thinking was hard. There was a pause about long enough to do this. Then he said, “You been hearing rumors about you and me?”
“Well I—” She caught her breath. “Oh, Lutch—” I heard the wicker, sharp and crisp, as she came up out of it.
“Hold on!” Lutch snapped. “There’s nothing to it, Fawn. Forget it.”
I heard the wicker again, slow, the front part, the back part. She didn’t say anything.
“There’s some things too big for one or two people to fool with, honey,” he said gently. “This band’s one of ’em. For whatever it’s worth, it’s bigger than you and me. It’s going good and it’ll go better. It’s about as perfect as a group can get. It’s a unit. Tight. So tight that one wrong move’ll blow out all its seams. You and me, now—that’d be a wrong move.”
“How do you know? What do you mean?”
“Call it a hunch. Mostly, I know that things have been swell up to now, and I know that you—we—anyway, we can’t risk a change in the good old status quo.”
“But—what about me?” she wailed.
“Tough on you?” I’d known Lutch a long time, and this was the first time his voice didn’t come full and easy. “Fawn, there’s fourteen cats in this aggregation and they all feel the same way about you as you do about me. You have no monopoly. Things are tough all over. Think of that next time you feel spring fever coming on.” I think he bit at his lower lip again. In a soft voice like Skid’s guitar with the bass stop, he said, “I’m sorry, kid.”
“Don’t call me kid!” she blazed.
“You better go practice your scales,” he said thickly.
The door slammed.
After a bit he let me out. He went and sat by the window, looking out.
“Now what did you do that for?” I wanted to know.
“For the unit,” he said, still looking out the window.
“You’re crazy. Don’t you want her?”
What I could see of his face answered that question. I don’t think I’d realized before how much he wanted her. I don’t think I’d thought about it. He said, “I don’t want her so badly I’d commit murder for an even chance at her. You do. If anyone wants her worse than I do, I don’t want her enough. That’s the way I see it.
”
”
Theodore Sturgeon (The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume V: The Perfect Host)
“
With the indie kids you have to remember this: they really think that what they do matters in some way. They reckon that history will care. (They don’t know that history will have other shit to be getting on with.) The indie kids figure that they’re passing on the torch or some fucking thing. That, just as they were influenced by someone—the Velvet Underground, Jonathan Richman, the Stooges, whoever—then, in the future, young bands will be influenced by them. Maybe so. Maybe a few thousand malnourished cockless freaks scattered around the globe will give a shit. So what? Real people don’t..
”
”
John Niven (Kill Your Friends)
“
One of the biggest shifts in the last decade of anthropology, one of the discoveries in the field that has changed everything, is the realization that we evolved as cooperative breeders. Bringing up kids in a nuclear family is a novelty, a blip on the screen of human family life. We never did child rearing alone, isolated and shut off from others, or with just one other person, the child’s father. It is arduous and anomalous and it’s not the way it “should” be. Indeed, for as long as we have been, we have relied on other females—kin and the kindly disposed—to help us raise our offspring. Mostly we lived as Nisa did—in rangy, multifamily bands that looked out for one another, took care of one another, and raised one another’s children. You still see it in parts of the Caribbean today, where any adult in a small town can tell any kid to toe the line, and does, and the kids listen. Or in Hawaii, where kids and parents alike depend on hanai relationships—aunties and uncles, indispensible honorary relations who take a real interest in an unrelated child’s well-being and education. No, it wasn’t fire or hunting or the heterosexual dyad that gave us a leg up, anthropologists now largely concur; it was our female Homo ancestors holding and handling and caring for and even nursing the babies of other females. That is in large part why Homo sapiens flourished and flourish still, while other early hominins and prehominins bit the dust. This shared history of interdependence, of tending and caring, might explain the unique capacity women have for deep friendship with other women. We have counted on one another for child care, sanity, and survival literally forever. The loss of your child weighs heavily on me in this web of connectedness, because he or she is a little bit my own.
”
”
Wednesday Martin (Primates of Park Avenue)
“
Sometimes I think we know on some level the person we’re going to be in our life, that if we pay attention, we can piece out that information. I find it strange when people don’t know what they want to do in life. Because even when I was a young kid pushing around clay objects at the UCLA Lab School, I knew I wanted to be an artist. Nothing else mattered. I cringe when I recall Andrea Fraser, the performance artist and one of the most fearless artists I know, using that line in one of her performances to critique art institutions and artist myths: "The exact words are, 'I wanted to be an artist since I was five'." Because that was my line.
”
”
Kim Gordon (Girl in a Band)
“
Jim Adkins: ...There was a girl who wrote us, explaining how she felt like an outsider at her school because the punk rock kids wouldn't accept her, even though she liked us and a lot of the really obscure bands we toured with. And I just thought 'It's not worth your time to trip on this. Punk rock is and should be inclusive. That's the one thing I know. No matter what your definition of punk is, everyone would say that it's inclusive, it welcomes outsiders. Freak flags welcome. Wave 'em around. These chicks don't get it at all, don't waste your time trying to get their approval.' That's where the main idea for the lyrics to 'The Middle' came from.
”
”
Chris Payne (Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo's Mainstream Explosion 1999-2008)
“
In the elaborate con that is American electoral politics, the Republican voter has long been the easiest mark in the game, the biggest dope in the room. Everyone inside the Beltway knows this. The Republican voters themselves are the only ones who never saw it. Elections are about a lot of things, but at the highest level, they’re about money. The people who sponsor election campaigns, who pay the hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the candidates’ charter jets and TV ads and 25-piece marching bands, those people have concrete needs. They want tax breaks, federal contracts, regulatory relief, cheap financing, free security for shipping lanes, antitrust waivers and dozens of other things. They mostly don’t care about abortion or gay marriage or school vouchers or any of the social issues the rest of us spend our time arguing about. It’s about money for them, and as far as that goes, the CEO class has had a brilliantly winning electoral strategy for a generation. They donate heavily to both parties, essentially hiring two different sets of politicians to market their needs to the population. The Republicans give them everything that they want, while the Democrats only give them mostly everything. They get everything from the Republicans because you don’t have to make a single concession to a Republican voter. All you have to do to secure a Republican vote is show lots of pictures of gay people kissing or black kids with their pants pulled down or Mexican babies at an emergency room. Then you push forward some dingbat like Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin to reassure everyone that the Republican Party knows who the real Americans are. Call it the “Rove 1-2.” That’s literally all it’s taken to secure decades of Republican votes, a few patriotic words and a little over-the-pants rubbing. Policywise, a typical Republican voter never even asks a politician to go to second base. While we always got free trade agreements and wars and bailouts and mass deregulation of industry and lots of other stuff the donors definitely wanted, we didn’t get Roe v. Wade overturned or prayer in schools or balanced budgets or censorship of movies and video games or any of a dozen other things Republican voters said they wanted.
”
”
Matt Taibbi (Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus)
“
PANOTII LOOKS PUT OUT ABOUT BEING LEFT BEHIND AND dogs my steps as I stow his tack under the deep overhang on the south side of the wizard’s hovel. There’s plenty of grass here, water at the lake, and it’s not that cold yet, despite the shift in seasons. If the rains start before we get back, the horses can take shelter under the overhang. I’m not worried about them wandering off. Not one of them has stepped outside of the large makeshift corral of God Bolt pits since we got here.
“You can’t come with us,” I tell him. “It’ll be cold and slippery. And big monsters will want to eat you.” He tosses his head, snorting. “Really big monsters. There might be Dragons. And the Hydra. And I can’t vouch for the friendliness of the Ipotane toward regular horses.” I blow gently into his nose. Panotii chuffs back. “You’ll be safe here, and if anyone tries to steal you, Grandpa Zeus will throw down a thunderbolt. Boom! No more horse thief.”
“Zeus may have better things to do than babysit our horses,” Flynn says, stowing his own equine gear next to mine.
I glance northward toward the Gods’ mountain home and speak loudly. “In that case, I’m announcing right now that I’ll make an Olympian stink if anything happens to my horse.” Flynn looks nervous and moves away from me like he’s expecting a God Bolt to come thundering down.
“She’s not kidding.” Sunlight glints off Griffin’s windblown hair. Thick black stubble darkens his jaw. He flashes me a smile that brings out the slight hook in his nose, and something tightens in my belly.
I turn back to Panotii and scratch under his jaw. “You’re in charge here.” His enormous ears flick my way. “You keep the others in line.” Panotii nods. I swear to the Gods, my horse nods.
Brown Horse raises his head and pins me with a gimlet stare. I roll my eyes. “Fine. You can help. You’re both in charge.” Apparently satisfied, Griffin’s horse goes back to grazing, shearing the grass around him with neat, organized efficiency. Griffin and Brown Horse were made for each other.
Panotii shoves his nose into my shoulder, knocking me back a step. Taking a handful of his chestnut mane, I stretch up on my toes to whisper into one of his donkey ears. “Seriously, you’re in charge. I’ll bet you can even rhyme.”
Carver and Kato chuckle as they walk past. Griffin bands his arms around my waist from behind, surprising me. “I heard that.
”
”
Amanda Bouchet (Breath of Fire (Kingmaker Chronicles, #2))
“
My interest in comics was scribbled over with a revived, energized passion for clothes, records, and music. I'd wandered in late to the punk party in 1978, when it was already over and the Sex Pistols were history.
I'd kept my distance during the first flush of the new paradigm, when the walls of the sixth-form common room shed their suburban-surreal Roger Dean Yes album covers and grew a fresh new skin of Sex Pistols pictures, Blondie pinups, Buzzcocks collages, Clash radical chic. As a committed outsider, I refused to jump on the bandwagon of this new musical fad,
which I'd written off as some kind of Nazi thing after seeing a photograph of Sid Vicious sporting a swastika armband. I hated the boys who'd cut their long hair and binned their crappy prog albums in an attempt to join in. I hated pretty much everybody without discrimination, in one way or another, and punk rockers were just something else to add to the shit list.
But as we all know, it's zealots who make the best converts. One Thursday night, I was sprawled on the settee with Top of the Pops on the telly when Poly Styrene and her band X-Ray Spex turned up to play their latest single: an exhilarating sherbet storm of raw punk psychedelia entitled "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" By the time the last incandescent chorus played out, I was a punk. I had always been a punk. I would always be a punk. Punk brought it all together in one place for me: Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius novels were punk. Peter Barnes's The Ruling Class, Dennis Potter, and The Prisoner were punk too. A Clockwork Orange was punk. Lindsay Anderson's If ... was punk. Monty Python was punk. Photographer Bob Carlos Clarke's fetish girls were punk. Comics were punk. Even Richmal Crompton's William books were punk. In fact, as it turned out, pretty much everything I liked was punk.
The world started to make sense for the first time since Mosspark Primary. New and glorious constellations aligned in my inner firmament. I felt born again. The do-your-own-thing ethos had returned with a spit and a sneer in all those amateurish records I bought and treasured-even
though I had no record player. Singles by bands who could often barely play or sing but still wrote beautiful, furious songs and poured all their young hearts, experiences, and inspirations onto records they paid for with their dole money. If these glorious fuckups could do it, so could a fuckup like me. When Jilted John, the alter ego of actor and comedian Graham Fellows, made an appearance on Top of the Pops singing about bus stops, failed romance, and sexual identity crisis, I was enthralled by his shameless amateurism, his reduction of pop music's great themes to playground name calling, his deconstruction of the macho rock voice into the effeminate whimper of a softie from Sheffield.
This music reflected my experience of teenage life as a series of brutal setbacks and disappointments that could in the end be redeemed into art and music with humor, intelligence, and a modicum of talent. This, for me, was the real punk, the genuine anticool, and I felt empowered. The losers, the rejected, and the formerly voiceless were being offered an opportunity to show what they could do to enliven a stagnant culture. History was on our side, and I had nothing to lose. I was eighteen and still hadn't kissed a girl, but perhaps I had potential. I knew I had a lot to say, and punk threw me the lifeline of a creed and a vocabulary-a soundtrack to my mission as a comic artist, a rough validation. Ugly kids, shy kids, weird kids: It was okay to be different. In fact, it was mandatory.
”
”
Grant Morrison (Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human)
“
Even as a kid, I’d lie when people asked if I attended church regularly. According to Gallup, I wasn’t alone in feeling that pressure. The juxtaposition is jarring: Religious institutions remain a positive force in people’s lives, but in a part of the country slammed by the decline of manufacturing, joblessness, addiction, and broken homes, church attendance has fallen off. Dad’s church offered something desperately needed by people like me. For alcoholics, it gave them a community of support and a sense that they weren’t fighting addiction alone. For expectant mothers, it offered a free home with job training and parenting classes. When someone needed a job, church friends could either provide one or make introductions. When Dad faced financial troubles, his church banded together and purchased a used car for the family. In the broken world I saw around me—and for the people struggling in that world—religion offered tangible assistance to keep the faithful on track.
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
From Walt: The Grapes of Wrath, Les Misérables, To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby-Dick, The Ox-Bow Incident, A Tale of Two Cities, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Three Musketeers, Don Quixote (where your nickname came from), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, and anything by Anton Chekhov. From Henry: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Cheyenne Autumn, War and Peace, The Things They Carried, Catch-22, The Sun Also Rises, The Blessing Way, Beyond Good and Evil, The Teachings of Don Juan, Heart of Darkness, The Human Comedy, The Art of War. From Vic: Justine, Concrete Charlie: The Story of Philadelphia Football Legend Chuck Bednarik, Medea (you’ll love it; it’s got a great ending), The Kama Sutra, Henry and June, The Onion Field, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Zorba the Greek, Madame Bovary, Richie Ashburn’s Phillies Trivia (fuck you, it’s a great book). From Ruby: The Holy Bible (New Testament), The Pilgrim’s Progress, Inferno, Paradise Lost, My Ántonia, The Scarlet Letter, Walden, Poems of Emily Dickinson, My Friend Flicka, Our Town. From Dorothy: The Gastronomical Me, The French Chef Cookbook (you don’t eat, you don’t read), Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals From Death Row, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Something Fresh, The Sound and the Fury, The Maltese Falcon, Pride and Prejudice, Brides-head Revisited. From Lucian: Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, Band of Brothers, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Virginian, The Basque History of the World (so you can learn about your heritage you illiterate bastard), Hondo, Sackett, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Bobby Fischer: My 60 Memorable Games, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Quartered Safe Out Here. From Ferg: Riders of the Purple Sage, Kiss Me Deadly, Lonesome Dove, White Fang, A River Runs Through It (I saw the movie, but I heard the book was good, too), Kip Carey’s Official Wyoming Fishing Guide (sorry, kid, I couldn’t come up with ten but this ought to do).
”
”
Craig Johnson (Hell Is Empty (Walt Longmire, #7))
“
His feeling of having crashed did not consist of envy, exactly, or even entirely of having outlived himself. It was more like despair about the world's splinteredness. The nation was fighting ugly ground wars in two countries, the planet was heating up like a toaster oven, and here at the 9:30, all around him, were hundreds of kids in the mold of the banana-bread-baking Sarah, with their sweet, yearnings, their innocent entitlement - to what? To emotion. To unadulterated worship of a superspecial band. To being left to themselves to ritually repudiate, for an hour or two on a Saturday night, the cynicism and anger of their elders. They seemed, as Jessica had suggested at the meeting earlier, to bear malice toward nobody. Katz could see it in their clothing, which bespoke none of the rage and disaffection of the crowds he'd been a part of as a youngster. They gathered not in anger but in celebration of their having found, as a a generation, a gentler and more respectful way of being. A way, not incidentally, more in harmony with consuming. And so said to him: die.
”
”
Jonathan Franzen (Freedom)
“
It’s okay. And clearly you’re not the thief either or you’d hardly be hunting for the real one.” “I just want to clear my name.” “Understandable.” Mr Jackson applied the Band-Aid to his knee. On the desk, Angus noticed a second photo. Mr Jackson with his arm around a little girl. Five or six years old, maybe. “Who’s she?” he asked, indicating the picture. “My daughter. She died.” “I’m sorry,” he said again, not knowing what else to say. “She was in hospital for a long time. The staff were good to her.” Neither of them said anything for a time. “Look,” continued Mr Jackson, finally, “I think it’s great that you and your friend are trying to find the thief. But you have to be realistic about your chances. And you definitely don’t want to be going into any school rooms without permission like you did the other day or you will end up in even more trouble.” “Okay,” Angus said, standing up. “Just a thought,” said Mr Jackson, “but if you’re serious about finding the culprit, I’d look closer to home.” “Closer to home?” Angus didn’t understand. “The phone was found in your tidy tray, right?” “Yes, but—” Angus couldn’t finish as Mr Jackson’s own
”
”
Lee M. Winter (Angus Adams: the adventures of a free-range kid: Book1 of The Free-Range Kid Mysteries)
“
When a middle school teacher in San Antonio, Texas, named Rick Riordan began thinking about the troublesome kids in his class, he was struck by a topsy-turvy idea. Maybe the wild ones weren’t hyperactive; maybe they were misplaced heroes. After all, in another era the same behavior that is now throttled with Ritalin and disciplinary rap sheets would have been the mark of greatness, the early blooming of a true champion. Riordan played with the idea, imagining the what-ifs. What if strong, assertive children were redirected rather than discouraged? What if there were a place for them, an outdoor training camp that felt like a playground, where they could cut loose with all those natural instincts to run, wrestle, climb, swim, and explore? You’d call it Camp Half-Blood, Riordan decided, because that’s what we really are—half animal and half higher-being, halfway between each and unsure how to keep them in balance. Riordan began writing, creating a troubled kid from a broken home named Percy Jackson who arrives at a camp in the woods and is transformed when the Olympian he has inside is revealed, honed, and guided. Riordan’s fantasy of a hero school actually does exist—in bits and pieces, scattered across the globe. The skills have been fragmented, but with a little hunting, you can find them all. In a public park in Brooklyn, a former ballerina darts into the bushes and returns with a shopping bag full of the same superfoods the ancient Greeks once relied on. In Brazil, a onetime beach huckster is reviving the lost art of natural movement. And in a lonely Arizona dust bowl called Oracle, a quiet genius disappeared into the desert after teaching a few great athletes—and, oddly, Johnny Cash and the Red Hot Chili Peppers—the ancient secret of using body fat as fuel. But the best learning lab of all was a cave on a mountain behind enemy lines—where, during World War II, a band of Greek shepherds and young British amateurs plotted to take on 100,000 German soldiers. They weren’t naturally strong, or professionally trained, or known for their courage. They were wanted men, marked for immediate execution. But on a starvation diet, they thrived. Hunted and hounded, they got stronger. They became such natural born heroes, they decided to follow the lead of the greatest hero of all, Odysseus, and
”
”
Christopher McDougall (Natural Born Heroes: Mastering the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance)
“
The biggest fear for homeschooled children is that they will be unable to relate to their peers, will not have friends, or that they will otherwise be unable to interact with people in a normal way. Consider this: How many of your daily interactions with people are solely with people of your own birth year? We’re not considering interactions with people who are a year or two older or a year or two younger, but specifically people who were born within a few months of your birthday. In society, it would be very odd to section people at work by their birth year and allow you to interact only with persons your same age. This artificial constraint would limit your understanding of people and society across a broader range of ages. In traditional schools, children are placed in grades artificially constrained by the child’s birth date and an arbitrary cut-off day on a school calendar. Every student is taught the same thing as everyone else of the same age primarily because it is a convenient way to manage a large number of students. Students are not grouped that way because there is any inherent special socialization that occurs when grouping children in such a manner. Sectioning off children into narrow bands of same-age peers does not make them better able to interact with society at large. In fact, sectioning off children in this way does just the opposite—it restricts their ability to practice interacting with a wide variety of people. So why do we worry about homeschooled children’s socialization? The erroneous assumption is that the child will be homeschooled and will be at home, schooling in the house, all day every day, with no interactions with other people. Unless a family is remotely located in a desolate place away from any form of civilization, social isolation is highly unlikely. Every homeschooling family I know involves their children in daily life—going to the grocery store or the bank, running errands, volunteering in the community, or participating in sports, arts, or community classes. Within the homeschooled community, sports, arts, drama, co-op classes, etc., are usually sectioned by elementary, pre-teen, and teen groupings. This allows students to interact with a wider range of children, and the interactions usually enhance a child’s ability to interact well with a wider age-range of students. Additionally, being out in the community provides many opportunities for children to interact with people of all ages. When homeschooling groups plan field trips, there are sometimes constraints on the age range, depending upon the destination, but many times the trip is open to children of all ages. As an example, when our group went on a field trip to the Federal Reserve Bank, all ages of children attended. The tour and information were of interest to all of the children in one way or another. After the tour, our group dined at a nearby food court. The parents sat together to chat and the children all sat with each other, with kids of all ages talking and having fun with each other. When interacting with society, exposure to a wider variety of people makes for better overall socialization. Many homeschooling groups also have park days, game days, or play days that allow all of the children in the homeschooled community to come together and play. Usually such social opportunities last for two, three, or four hours. Our group used to have Friday afternoon “Park Day.” After our morning studies, we would pack a picnic lunch, drive to the park, and spend the rest of the afternoon letting the kids run and play. Older kids would organize games and play with younger kids, which let them practice great leadership skills. The younger kids truly looked up to and enjoyed being included in games with the older kids.
”
”
Sandra K. Cook (Overcome Your Fear of Homeschooling with Insider Information)
“
MY PROCESS I got bullied quite a bit as a kid, so I learned how to take a punch and how to put up a good fight. God used that. I am not afraid of spiritual “violence” or of facing spiritual fights. My Dad was drafted during Vietnam and I grew up an Army brat, moving around frequently. God used that. I am very spiritually mobile, adaptable, and flexible. My parents used to hand me a Bible and make me go look up what I did wrong. God used that, as well. I knew the Word before I knew the Lord, so studying Scripture is not intimidating to me. I was admitted into a learning enrichment program in junior high. They taught me critical thinking skills, logic, and Greek Mythology. God used that, too. In seventh grade I was in school band and choir. God used that. At 14, before I even got saved, a youth pastor at my parents’ church taught me to play guitar. God used that. My best buddies in school were a druggie, a Jewish kid, and an Irish soccer player. God used that. I broke my back my senior year and had to take theatre instead of wrestling. God used that. I used to sleep on the couch outside of the Dean’s office between classes. God used that. My parents sent me to a Christian college for a semester in hopes of getting me saved. God used that. I majored in art, advertising, astronomy, pre-med, and finally English. God used all of that. I made a woman I loved get an abortion. God used (and redeemed) that. I got my teaching certification. I got plugged into a group of sincere Christian young adults. I took courses for ministry credentials. I worked as an autism therapist. I taught emotionally disabled kids. And God used each of those things. I married a pastor’s daughter. God really used that. Are you getting the picture? San Antonio led me to Houston, Houston led me to El Paso, El Paso led me to Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Leonard Wood led me back to San Antonio, which led me to Austin, then to Kentucky, then to Belton, then to Maryland, to Pennsylvania, to Dallas, to Alabama, which led me to Fort Worth. With thousands of smaller journeys in between. The reason that I am able to do the things that I do today is because of the process that God walked me through yesterday. Our lives are cumulative. No day stands alone. Each builds upon the foundation of the last—just like a stairway, each layer bringing us closer to Him. God uses each experience, each lesson, each relationship, even our traumas and tragedies as steps in the process of becoming the people He made us to be. They are steps in the process of achieving the destinies that He has encoded into the weave of each of our lives. We are journeymen, finding the way home. What is the value of the journey? If the journey makes us who we are, then the journey is priceless.
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Zach Neese (How to Worship a King: Prepare Your Heart. Prepare Your World. Prepare the Way)
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The Unknown Soldier
A tale to tell in bloody rhyme,
A story to last ’til the dawn of end’s time.
Of a loving boy who left dear home,
To bear his countries burdens; her honor to sow.
–A common boy, I say, who left kith and kin,
To battle der Kaiser and all that was therein.
The Arsenal of Democracy was his kind,
–To make the world safe–was their call and chime.
Trained he thus in the far army camps,
Drilled he often in the march and stamp.
Laughed he did with new found friends,
Lived they together for the noble end.
Greyish mottled images clipp’ed and hack´ed–
Black and white broke drum Ʀ…ɧ..λ..t…ʮ..m..ȿ
—marching armies off to ’ttack.
Images scratched, chopped, theatrical exaggerate,
Confetti parades, shouts of high praise
To where hell would sup and partake
with all bon hope as the transport do them take
Faded icons board the ship–
To steel them away collaged together
–joined in spirit and hip.
Timeworn humanity of once what was
To broker peace in eagles and doves.
Mortal clay in the earth but to grapple and smite
As warbirds ironed soar in heaven’s light.
All called all forward to divinities’ kept date,
Heroes all–all aces and fates.
Paris–Used to sing and play at some cards,
A common Joe everybody knew from own heart.
He could have been called ‘the kid’ by the ‘old man,’
But a common private now taking orders to stand.
Receiving letters from his shy sweet one,
Read them over and over until they faded to none.
Trained like hell with his Commander-in-Arms,
–To avoid the dangers of a most bloody harm.
Aye, this boy was mortal, true enough said,
He could be one of thousands alive but now surely dead.
How he sang and cried and ate the gruel of rations,
And grumbled as soldiers do at war’s great contagions.
Out–out to the battle this young did go,
To become a man; the world to show.
(An ocean away his mother cried so–
To return her boy safe as far as the heavens go).
Lay he down in trenched hole,
With balls bursting overhead upon the knoll.
Listened hardnfast to the “Sarge” bearing the news,
—“We’re going over soon—” was all he knew.
The whistle blew; up and over they went,
Charging the Hun, his life to be spent
(“Avoid the gas boys that’ll blister yer arse!!”).
Running through wires razored and deadened trees,
Fell he into a gouge to find in shelter of need
(They say he bayoneted one just as he–,
face to face in War’s Dance of trialed humanity).
A nameless sonnuvabitch shell then did untimely RiiiiiiiP
the field asunder in burrrstzʑ–and he tripped.
And on the field of battle’s blood did he die,
Faceless in a puddle as blurrs of ghosting men
shrieked as they were fleeing by–.
Perished he alone in the no man’s land,
Surrounded by an army of his brother’s teeming bands . . .
And a world away a mother sighed,
Listened to the rain and lay down and cried.
. . . Today lays the grave somber and white,
Guarded decades long in both the dark and the light.
Silent sentinels watch o’er and with him do walk,
Speak they neither; their duty talks.
Lone, stark sentries perform the unsmiling task,
–Guarding this one dead–at the nation’s bequest.
Cared over day and night in both rain or sun,
Present changing of the guard and their duty is done
(The changing of the guard ’tis poetry motioned
A Nation defining itself–telling of
rifles twirl-clicking under the intensest of devotions).
This poem–of The Unknown, taken thus,
Is rend eternal by Divinity’s Iron Trust.
How he, a common soldier, gained the estate
Of bearing his countries glory unto his unknown fate.
Here rests in honored glory a warrior known but to God,
Now rests he in peace from the conflict path he trod.
He is our friend, our family, brother, our mother’s son
–belongs he to us all,
For he has stood in our place–heeding God’s final call.
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Douglas M. Laurent
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Brynn was playing another one of Simon’s borrowed CDs. Last time, it had been a band called Echo and the Bunnymen, which Maggie had thought was cute. This time, it was a soundtrack to a movie called The Lost Boys. A guy was singing about crying for his little sister. There was a choir of kids harmonizing something that sounded like the commandments behind him. It gave Maggie the creeps.
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Ania Ahlborn (I Call Upon Thee)
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When George was a kid he used to follow me and my first girlfriend, Cynthia—who became my wife—around. We’d come out of art school, and he’d be hovering around like those kids at the gate of the Dakota now.
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Rob Sheffield (Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World)
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Just about every kid in America wished they could be Kyle Keeley. Especially when he zoomed across their TV screens as a flaming squirrel in a holiday commercial for Squirrel Squad Six, the hysterically crazy new Lemoncello video game. Kyle’s friends Akimi Hughes and Sierra Russell were also in that commercial. They thumbed controllers and tried to blast Kyle out of the sky. He dodged every rubber band, coconut custard pie, mud clod, and wadded-up sock ball they flung his way. It was awesome. In the commercial for Mr. Lemoncello’s See Ya, Wouldn’t Want to Be Ya board game, Kyle starred as the yellow pawn. His head became the bubble tip at the top of the playing piece. Kyle’s buddy Miguel Fernandez was the green pawn. Kyle and Miguel slid around the life-size game like hockey pucks. When Miguel landed on the same square as Kyle, that meant Kyle’s pawn had to be bumped back to the starting line. “See ya!” shouted Miguel. “Wouldn’t want to be ya!” Kyle was yanked up off the ground by a hidden cable and hurled backward, soaring above the board. It was also awesome. But Kyle’s absolute favorite starring role was in the commercial for Mr. Lemoncello’s You Seriously Can’t Say That game, where the object was to get your teammates to guess the word on your card without using any of the forbidden words listed on the same card. Akimi, Sierra, Miguel, and the perpetually perky Haley Daley sat on a circular couch and played the guessers. Kyle stood in front of them as the clue giver. “Salsa,” said Kyle. “Nachos!” said Akimi. A buzzer sounded. Akimi’s guess was wrong. Kyle tried again. “Horseradish sauce!” “Something nobody ever eats,” said Haley. Another buzzer. Kyle goofed up and said one of the forbidden words: “Ketchup!
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Chris Grabenstein (Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics (Mr. Lemoncello's Library, #2))
“
Just about every kid in America wished they could be Kyle Keeley. Especially when he zoomed across their TV screens as a flaming squirrel in a holiday commercial for Squirrel Squad Six, the hysterically crazy new Lemoncello video game. Kyle’s friends Akimi Hughes and Sierra Russell were also in that commercial. They thumbed controllers and tried to blast Kyle out of the sky. He dodged every rubber band, coconut custard pie, mud clod, and wadded-up sock ball they flung his way. It was awesome. In the commercial for Mr. Lemoncello’s See Ya, Wouldn’t Want to Be Ya board game, Kyle starred as the yellow pawn. His head became the bubble tip at the top of the playing piece. Kyle’s buddy Miguel Fernandez was the green pawn. Kyle and Miguel slid around the life-size game like hockey pucks. When Miguel landed on the same square as Kyle, that meant Kyle’s pawn had to be bumped back to the starting line. “See ya!” shouted Miguel. “Wouldn’t want to be ya!” Kyle was yanked up off the ground by a hidden cable and hurled backward, soaring above the board. It was also awesome. But Kyle’s absolute favorite starring role was in the commercial for Mr. Lemoncello’s You Seriously Can’t Say That game, where the object was to get your teammates to guess the word on your card without using any of the forbidden words listed on the same card. Akimi, Sierra, Miguel, and the perpetually perky Haley Daley sat on a circular couch and played the guessers. Kyle stood in front of them as the clue giver. “Salsa,” said Kyle. “Nachos!” said Akimi. A buzzer sounded. Akimi’s guess was wrong. Kyle tried again. “Horseradish sauce!” “Something nobody ever eats,” said Haley. Another buzzer. Kyle goofed up and said one of the forbidden words: “Ketchup!” SPLAT! Fifty gallons of syrupy, goopy tomato sauce slimed him from above. It oozed down his face and dribbled off his ears. Everybody laughed. So Kyle, who loved being the class clown almost as much as he loved playing (and winning) Mr. Lemoncello’s wacky games, went ahead and read the whole list of banned words as quickly as he could. “Mustard-mayonnaise-pickle-relish.” SQUOOSH! He was drenched by buckets of yellow glop, white sludge, and chunky green gunk. The slop slid along his sleeves, trickled into his pants, and puddled on the floor. His four friends busted a gut laughing at Kyle, who was soaked in more “condiments” (the word on his card) than a mile-
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Chris Grabenstein (Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics (Mr. Lemoncello's Library, #2))
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Activity pouch on airplanes Buttons and pins Crayons and coloring place mats from restaurants Disposable sample cup from the grocery store Erasers and pencils with eraser tops Fireman hat from a visit to the fire station Goodie bags from county fairs and festivals Hair comb from picture day at school Infant goods from the maternity ward Junior ranger badge from the ranger station and Smokey the Bear Kids’ meal toys Lollipops and candy from various locations, such as the bank Medals and trophies for simply participating in (versus winning) a sporting activity Noisemakers to celebrate New Year’s Eve OTC samples from the doctor’s office Party favors and balloons from birthday parties Queen’s Jubilee freebies (for overseas travelers) Reusable plastic “souvenir” cup and straw from a diner Stickers from the doctor’s office Toothbrushes and floss from the dentist’s office United States flags on national holidays Viewing glasses for a 3-D movie (why not keep one pair and reuse them instead?) Water bottles at sporting events XYZ, etc.: The big foam hand at a football or baseball game or Band-Aids after a vaccination or various newspapers, prospectuses, and booklets from school, museums, national parks . . .
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Bea Johnson (Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Your Life by Reducing Your Waste (A Simple Guide to Sustainable Living))
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Kids, marriage, my job, her workaholic tendencies – it all flies out the window. I am not letting this woman go. Not anytime soon anyway.
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Pippa Grant (Stud in the Stacks (Girl Band #2))
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Are you kidding? A girl that tough slapping me like this means she’s totally into me. I’m going to marry that girl,” he said with a smile.
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Logan Byrne (Banded (Banded, #1))
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After a few more minutes, Josh guzzled back the rest of his beer. “Gotta head out. Elizabeth is making me go to a cake-tasting party tonight. Since when did everything about weddings turn into a damn event? I’ve had to go to a food tasting, a band showcase, and a floral-presentation party. Vegas is sounding better and better.”
“Just wait.” Chase stood. “Anna had a bridal shower, a pregnancy-announcement party, and a gender-reveal party. You’re just getting started, buddy.”
“What the hell is a gender-reveal party?”
The parents-to-be give a sealed envelope that contains the sex of the baby to a bakery, and the baker puts pink frosting inside the cupcakes if it’s a girl and blue if it’s a boy. Then they have a party, and everyone finds out at the same time, including the parents-to-be. Pure. Fucking. Torture. Whatever happened to the kid popping out and the doctor giving it a smack and yelling it’s a boy over the thing crying?
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Vi Keeland (Bossman)