Beers Short Quotes

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer. Guide her, protect her When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

She laughed, and drank more beer. “Take a long trace off a short bridge, vampire.

Unfortunately, beer was only a short-term answer. And head transplants had yet to be approved by the FDA.

You’re still here. No beer. I’m not corrupting a minor.” “But you’re a minor,” she pointed out. “At least for beer.” “Yeah, and by the way, how much does it suck that I’m an adult if I kill somebody, but not if I want a beer?” Shane jumped in. “They’re all dicks.” “Man, seriously, you are one cheap drunk. Three beers? My junior high girlfriend could hold her liquor better.” “Your junior high girlfriend–” Shane brought himself up short without finishing that sentence, and flushed bright red. Must have been good, whatever it was. “Claire, get the hell out of here. You’re making me nervous.

The wish of death had been palpably hanging over this otherwise idyllic paradise for a good many years. All business and politics is personal in the Philippines. If it wasn't for the cheap beer and lovely girls one of us would spend an hour in this dump. They [Jehovah's Witnesses] get some kind of frequent flyer points for each person who signs on. I'm not lazy. I'm just motivationally challenged. I'm not fat. I just have lots of stored energy. You don't get it do you? What people think of you matters more than the reality. Marilyn. Despite standing firm at the final hurdle Marilyn was always ready to run the race. After answering the question the woman bent down behind the stand out of sight of all, and crossed herself. It is amazing what you can learn in prison. Merely through casual conversation Rick had acquired the fundamentals of embezzlement, fraud and armed hold up. He wondered at the price of honesty in a grey world whose half tones changed faster than the weather. The banality of truth somehow always surprises the news media before they tart it up. You've ridden jeepneys in peak hour. Where else can you feel up a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl without even trying? [Ralph Winton on the Philippines finer points] Life has no bottom. No matter how bad things are or how far one has sunk things can always get worse. You could call the Oval Office an information rain shadow. In the Philippines, a whole layer of criminals exists who consider that it is their right to rob you unhindered. If you thwart their wicked desires, to their way of thinking you have stolen from them and are evil. There's honest and dishonest corruption in this country. Don't enjoy it too much for it's what we love that usually kills us. The good guys don't always win wars but the winners always make sure that they go down in history as the good guys. The Philippines is like a woman. You love her and hate her at the same time. I never believed in all my born days that ideas of truth and justice were only pretty words to brighten a much darker and more ubiquitous reality. The girl was experiencing the first flushes of love while Rick was at least feeling the methadone equivalent. Although selfishness and greed are more ephemeral than the real values of life their effects on the world often outlive their origins. Miriam's a meteor job. Somewhere out there in space there must be a meteor with her name on it. Tsismis or rumours grow in this land like tropical weeds. Surprises are so common here that nothing is surprising. A crooked leader who can lead is better than a crooked one who can't. Although I always followed the politics of Hitler I emulate the drinking habits of Churchill. It [Australia] is the country that does the least with the most. Rereading the brief lines that told the story in the manner of Fox News reporting the death of a leftist Rick's dark imagination took hold. Didn't your mother ever tell you never to trust a man who doesn't drink? She must have been around twenty years old, was tall for a Filipina and possessed long black hair framing her smooth olive face. This specter of loveliness walked with the assurance of the knowingly beautiful. Her crisp and starched white uniform dazzled in the late-afternoon light and highlighted the natural tan of her skin. Everything about her was in perfect order. In short, she was dressed up like a pox doctor’s clerk. Suddenly, she stopped, turned her head to one side and spat comprehensively into the street. The tiny putrescent puddle contrasted strongly with the studied aplomb of its all-too-recent owner, suggesting all manner of disease and decay.

You broke the Man Code, dude. 'No man shall knowingly and with malice aforethought kick another man in the nuts.'" "Okay, so I kicked him in the nuts. The little fucker was fleeing the scene of a crime where he'd pointed a weapon at my buddies." [from short story "Beer Run" at the end of Skin Deep]

Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos. There are 7 people in my house. We each have different genders. I cut my hair over the bathroom sink and everything I own has a hole in it. There is a banner in our living room that says “Love Cats Hate Capitalism.” We sit around the kitchen table and argue about the compost pile and Karl Marx and the necessity of violence when The Rev comes. Whatever the fuck The Rev means. Every time my best friend laughs I want to grab him by the shoulders and shout “Grow old with me and never kiss me on the mouth!” I want us to spend the next 80 years together eating Doritos and riding bikes. I want to be Oscar the Grouch. I want him and his girlfriend to be Bert and Ernie. I want us to live on Sesame Street and I will park my trash can on their front stoop and we will be friends every day. If I ever seem grouchy it’s just because I am a little afraid of all that fun. There is a river running through this city I know as well as my own name. It’s the first place I’ve ever called home. I don’t think its poetry to say I’m in love with the water. I don’t think it’s poetry to say I’m in love with the train tracks. I don’t think it’s blasphemy to say I see God in the skyline. There is always cold beer asking to be slurped on back porches. There are always crushed packs of Marlboro’s in my back pockets. I have been wearing the same patched-up shorts for 10 days. Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos.

The Middle Ages hangs over history's belt like a beer belly. It is too late now for aerobic dancing or cottage cheese lunches to reduce the Middle Ages. History will have to wear size 48 shorts forever.

[Francesca] 'You really are a few biscuits short of breakfast.' His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 'You're a few colors shy of a rainbow?' she offered. 'Not pulling a full wagon? Knitting with only one needle? All foam and no beer? Your cheese slid off the cracker? You couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel?' [Nicodemus] 'All right. I get it.

You're gay," wash stated. Rhodes nodded, a short jerk of his head, dropping his gaze to his beer. "As in, you-like-men gay." Still eying his beer, Rhodes gave an affirmative shrug. "As in, you like-to-fuck-men gay." "Yes!

If I get pulled over on the short drive between here and my house I'll have to say, "I had only two beers in two hours, officer, but then I made out with a lumberjack. You know how it is.

On Generosity On our own, we conclude: there is not enough to go around we are going to run short of money of love of grades of publications of sex of beer of members of years of life we should seize the day seize our goods seize our neighbours goods because there is not enough to go around and in the midst of our perceived deficit you come you come giving bread in the wilderness you come giving children at the 11th hour you come giving homes to exiles you come giving futures to the shut down you come giving easter joy to the dead you come – fleshed in Jesus. and we watch while the blind receive their sight the lame walk the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear the dead are raised the poor dance and sing we watch and we take food we did not grow and life we did not invent and future that is gift and gift and gift and families and neighbours who sustain us when we did not deserve it. It dawns on us – late rather than soon- that you “give food in due season you open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” By your giving, break our cycles of imagined scarcity override our presumed deficits quiet our anxieties of lack transform our perceptual field to see the abundance………mercy upon mercy blessing upon blessing. Sink your generosity deep into our lives that your muchness may expose our false lack that endlessly receiving we may endlessly give so that the world may be made Easter new, without greedy lack, but only wonder, without coercive need but only love, without destructive greed but only praise without aggression and invasiveness…. all things Easter new….. all around us, toward us and by us all things Easter new. Finish your creation, in wonder, love and praise. Amen.

So, if people didn’t settle down to take up farming, why then did they embark on this entirely new way of living? We have no idea – or actually, we have lots of ideas, but we don’t know if any of them are right. According to Felipe Fernández-Armesto, at least thirty-eight theories have been put forward to explain why people took to living in communities: that they were driven to it by climatic change, or by a wish to stay near their dead, or by a powerful desire to brew and drink beer, which could only be indulged by staying in one place.

Now, I learned a long time ago how to be quiet on the outside while I'm freaking on the inside. How to turn away like I don't see all the things that need to be seen, just to keep peace. How to lie low and act like I want nothing, expect nothing, and hope for nothing so I don't become more trouble than I'm worth. I'm five months short of eighteen and I know how to be cursed and ignored and left behind, how to swallow a thousand tears and ignore a thousand delibarate cruelties, but it's two in the morning on New Year's Eve and I'm mad and scared and bone tired and really, really sick of acting like I'm grateful to be staying on a hairy, sagging, dog-stained couch in a junky, mildewed trailer with a fat, dangerous, volatile drunk who sweats stale beer and wallows in his own wastewater, and who doesn't think there's one thing wrong with taking his crap life out on his dog, who comes bellying back for forgiveness every single time, no matter how rotten the treatment-

Xhex couldn't stop herself from torturing them both. She sent him a mental scene, drilling the image right into his head : the two of them in a private bathroom, him up on the sink and leaning back, her with one foot planted on the counter, his sex deep in hers, the two of them panting. While he stared accross the crowded room, John's mouth parted, and the flush on his cheeks had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with the orgasm that was no doubt pounding up his shaft. God, she wanted him. His buddy, the readhead, snapped her out of the madness. Blaylock came back to the table with three beers hanging from their necks, and as he took a look at John's hard, sexep-up face, he stopped short and glanced over at her in surprise. Shit. Xhex waved off the bouncers who were coming up to her and walked out of the VIP section so fast, she nearly bowling-pinned a waitress. Her office was the only place that was safe, and she headed there at a dead run.

A few short years ago, the Nazi Party was some angry men in one beer hall. Germany had no army, wasn't allowed an army. Don't underestimate them. That's been everyone's mistake.

The clientel is nothing short of brutish, and most nights, glass crunches underfoot, with blood patching the beer-soaked tables. It´s one of my favorite places.

Life's too short for cheap beer--or cheap men.

The marketing people are always talking about something called 'consumers'. I have this image of a fat little man in baggy Bermuda shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and a straw hat with beer-can openers dangling from it, clutching fistfuls of dollars.

Viking names included ‘desirous of beer’, ‘squat-wiggle’, ‘lust-hostage’, ‘short penis’, ‘able to fill a bay with fish by magic’, ‘the man who mixes his drinks’ and ‘the man without trousers’.

Being alone never bothered me back then. I'd step out into my yard at any hour with a cold beer and a feeling like I could walk as far as I'd like and be just fine, nobody to hurt me, nobody I could use to hurt myself.

Hey,508! Your room is right above mine. You never said." St. Clair smiles. "Maybe I didn't want you blaming me for keeping you up at night with my noisy stomping boots." "Dude.You do stomp." "I know.I'm sorry." He laughs and holds the door open for me.His room is neater than I expected. I always picture the guys with disgusting bedrooms-mountains of soiled boxer shorts and sweat-stained undershirts,unmade beds with sheets that haven't been changed in weeks, posters of beer bottles and women in neon bikinis,empty soda cans and chip bags,and random bits of model airplanes and discarded video games.s

If Nick were on a quest to return the One Ring to the fiery pits of Mount Doom, Jai Hazenbrook would totally be the hot-as-fuck elf in tight leather pants who could shoot the left testicle off an orc at a thousand paces. Whereas Nick, of course, would be the short hairy-footed guy who liked beer and fireworks and second breakfasts. Even in his fantasy worlds, Nick is a realist.

I was born three drinks short of comfortable...'" "But I knew what that guy meant about the way he was born three drinks short. It made me think about the first beer I ever drank, down at North Beach with a bunch of kids one summer night. It made me think about that first exquisite relief. It made me think about my ex-husband, Scott, who always said I should stop after the third drink. "That's when you get out of control," he'd say. I had no idea what we was talking about. After a couple of drinks is when I start to feel IN control.

All over Atlanta that fall, in the blue twilights, girls came clicking home from their jobs in their clunky heels and miniskirts and opened their apartment windows to the winesap air, and got out ice cubes, and put on Petula Clark singing 'Downtown', and sat down to wait. Soon the young men would come, drifting out of their bachelor apartments in Bermuda shorts and Topsiders, carrying beers and gin and tonics, looking for a refill and a a date and the keeping of promises that hung in the bronze air like fruit on the eve of ripeness.

Felipe Fernández-Armesto, at least thirty-eight theories have been put forward to explain why people took to living in communities: that they were driven to it by climatic change, or by a wish to stay near their dead, or by a powerful desire to brew and drink beer, which could only be indulged by staying in one place.

Changing into shorts, he took a cold can of beer from the refrigerator and drank it, standing, while he heated a large pot of water. Before the water boiled, he stripped all the leathery edamame pods from the branch, spread them on a cutting board, and rubbed them all over with salt. When the water boiled, he threw them into the pot.

He inquired next what Allan had seen in the stranger to take such a fancy to? Allan had seen in him—what he didn't see in people in general. He wasn't like all the other fellows in the neighborhood. All the other fellows were cut out on the same pattern. Every man of them was equally healthy, muscular, loud, hard-hearted, clean-skinned, and rough; every man of them drank the same draughts of beer, smoked the same short pipes all day long, rode the best horse, shot over the best dog, and put the best bottle of wine in England on his table at night; every man of them sponged himself every morning in the same sort of tub of cold water and bragged about it in frosty weather in the same sort of way; every man of them thought getting into debt a capital joke and betting on horse-races one of the most meritorious actions that a human being can perform. They were, no doubt, excellent fellows in their way; but the worst of them was, they were all exactly alike. It was a perfect godsend to meet with a man like Midwinter—a man who was not cut out on the regular local pattern, and whose way in the world had the one great merit (in those parts) of being a way of his own.

unsolicited advice to adolescent girls with crooked teeth and pink hair When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boys call asking your cup size, say A, hang up. When he says you gave him blue balls, say you’re welcome. When a girl with thick black curls who smells like bubble gum stops you in a stairwell to ask if you’re a boy, explain that you keep your hair short so she won’t have anything to grab when you head-butt her. Then head-butt her. When a guidance counselor teases you for handed-down jeans, do not turn red. When you have sex for the second time and there is no condom, do not convince yourself that screwing between layers of underwear will soak up the semen. When your geometry teacher posts a banner reading: “Learn math or go home and learn how to be a Momma,” do not take your first feminist stand by leaving the classroom. When the boy you have a crush on is sent to detention, go home. When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boy with the blue mohawk swallows your heart and opens his wrists, hide the knives, bleach the bathtub, pour out the vodka. Every time. When the skinhead girls jump you in a bathroom stall, swing, curse, kick, do not turn red. When a boy you think you love delivers the first black eye, use a screw driver, a beer bottle, your two good hands. When your father locks the door, break the window. When a college professor writes you poetry and whispers about your tight little ass, do not take it as a compliment, do not wait, call the Dean, call his wife. When a boy with good manners and a thirst for Budweiser proposes, say no. When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boys tell you how good you smell, do not doubt them, do not turn red. When your brother tells you he is gay, pretend you already know. When the girl on the subway curses you because your tee shirt reads: “I fucked your boyfriend,” assure her that it is not true. When your dog pees the rug, kiss her, apologize for being late. When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Jersey City, do not move. When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Harlem, do not move. When he refuses to stay the night because your air conditioner is broken, leave him. When he refuses to keep a toothbrush at your apartment, leave him. When you find the toothbrush you keep at his apartment hidden in the closet, leave him. Do not regret this. Do not turn red. When your mother hits you, do not strike back.

I hate you. You are the reason fungus exists. You are the slime that grows in swamps that even acid can’t break down—” “How long do you plan to keep this up, Rhubarb?” “Why?” “Because I was going to hail down a bottle of beer and I figured you might get thirsty having your mouth open so much.” “Make it a white wine and I’ll keep it short.” “No, you won’t, but it might slow you down. Be right back.

Some days I would take the train into Manhattan. There was so much money everywhere, money flowing out of bistros and cafes, money pushing the people, at incredible speeds, up the wide avenues, money drawing intergalactic traffic through Times Square, money in the limestones and brownstones, money out on West Broadway where white people spilled out of wine bars with sloshing glasses and without police. I would see these people at the club, drunken, laughing, challenging breakdancers to battles. They would be destroyed and humiliated in these battles. But afterward they would give dap, laugh, order more beers. They were utterly fearless. I did not understand it until I looked out on the street. That was where I saw white parents pushing double-wide strollers down gentrifying Harlem boulevards in T-shirts and jogging shorts. Or I saw them lost in conversation with each other, mother and father, while their sons commanded entire sidewalks with their tricycles. The galaxy belonged to them, and as terror was communicated to our children, I saw mastery communicated to theirs.

It just feels surreal. Every now and then it kind of hits me, but only for a short while, and then it carries on feeling like it didn’t really happen, that he’s going to walk in this evening and sit in front of the set drinking beer.

In ancient Babylon King Hammurabi (the same bloke who decided barmaids could be drowned for serving short measures) decreed that the introduction of political debate into beer shops was an offence punishable by – you guessed it – death.

I said we’re cool,” I repeat, but I misjudged the distance between my lips and Summer’s ear. The two collide, and I feel a shiver run up her frame. I shiver too, because my mouth is way too close to hers. She smells like heaven, some fascinating combo of flowers and jasmine and vanilla and—sandalwood, maybe? A man could get high on that fragrance. And don’t get me started on her dress. White, strapless, short. So short it barely grazes her lower thighs. God fucking help me. I quickly straighten up before I do something stupid, like kiss her. Instead, I take a huge gulp of my beer. Only it goes down the wrong pipe, and I start coughing like it’s the eighteenth century and I’m a tuberculosis patient. Smooth move.

Leap Before You Look The sense of danger must not disappear: The way is certainly both short and steep, However gradual it looks from here; Look if you like, but you will have to leap. Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep And break the by-laws any fool can keep; It is not the convention but the fear That has a tendency to disappear. The worried efforts of the busy heap, The dirt, the imprecision, and the beer Produce a few smart wisecracks every year; Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap. The clothes that are considered right to wear Will not be either sensible or cheap, So long as we consent to live like sheep And never mention those who disappear. Much can be said for social savior-faire, Bu to rejoice when no one else is there Is even harder than it is to weep; No one is watching, but you have to leap. A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear: Although I love you, you will have to leap; Our dream of safety has to disappear.

...Not yet dry behind the ears, not old enough to buy a beer, but old enough to die for his country. He can recite to you the nomenclature of a machine gun or grenade launcher and use either one effectively if he must. He digs foxholes and latrines and can apply first aid like a professional. He can march until he is told to stop, or stop until he is told to march. He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation, but he is not without spirit or individual dignity. He is self-sufficient. ...He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never to clean his rifle. He can cook his own meals, mend his own clothes, and fix his own hurts. If you're thirsty, he'll share his water with you; if you are hungry, food. He'll even split his ammunition with you in the midst of battle when you run low. He has learned to use his hands like weapons and weapons like they were his hands. He can save your life-or take it, because that is his job. He will often do twice the work of a civilian, draw half the pay, and still find ironic humor in it all. He has seen more suffering and death than he should have in his short lifetime. He has wept in public and in private, for friends who have fallen in combat and is unashamed. He feels every note of the National Anthem vibrate through his body while at rigid attention, while tempering the burning desire to "square-away" those around him who haven't bothered to stand, remove their hat, or even stop talking. ...Just as did his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, he is paying the price for our freedom. Beardless or not, he is not a boy. He is the American Fighting Man that has kept this country free for over two hundred years. He has asked nothing in return, except our friendship and understanding. Remember him, always, for he has earned our respect and admiration with his blood. And now we have women over there in danger, doing their part in this tradition of going to war when our nation calls us to do so. As you go to bed tonight, remember this. A short lull, a little shade, and a picture of loved ones in their helmets.

Think of all the requirements writers imagine for themselves: A cabin in the woods A plain wooden table Absolute silence A favorite pen A favorite ink A favorite blank book A favorite typewriter A favorite laptop A favorite writing program A large advance A yellow pad A wastebasket A shotgun The early light of morning The moon at night A rainy afternoon A thunderstorm with high winds The first snow of winter A cup of coffee in just the right cup A beer A mug of green tea A bourbon Solitude Sooner or later the need for any one of these will prevent you from writing. Anything you think you need in order to write— Or be “inspired” to write or “get in the mood” to write— Becomes a prohibition when it’s lacking. Learn to write anywhere, at any time, in any conditions, With anything, starting from nowhere. All you really need is your head, the one indispensable

If this place were closer to Terra there’d be empty beer cans and plastic plates strewn around. The trees would be gone. There’d be old jet motors in the water. The beaches would stink to high heaven. Terran Development would have a couple of million little plastic houses set up everywhere.

at least thirty-eight theories have been put forward to explain why people took to living in communities: that they were driven to it by climatic change, or by a wish to stay near their dead, or by a powerful desire to brew and drink beer, which could only be indulged by staying in one place.

Even his command of languages was only partial: although he could read them flawlessly, he used his own made-up pronunciations, which no one who spoke the languages could actually understand. In Norway, hoping to impress colleagues, he once tried to order a dish of raspberries and was brought twelve beers.

The plan was simple. We had three weeks to get from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland – by foot or by bike – without spending a single penny. Setting off in just a pair of Union Jack boxer shorts, we hoped to rely on the generosity of the British public to help us with everything from accommodation to food, clothes to shoes, and bikes to beer.

Inside the room there sat a rocker, which she sat on, and which had rocked her while she sipped the beer, because in spite of herself she had become so giddy to have so quickly relieved her heart that she allowed herself to lean backwards while in the rocker, which had made it possible for the rocker to rock her, although it was not her intention to be so rocked. Also there stood an ironing board with a still hot iron on it that was burning a yellow shift, and there was, among several items that were not as noticeable to the woman, and yet were noticeable enough to at least bear mention, a fake man. "I hope you don't mind me asking," said the woman who lived in the room, but then while in her chair she nodded off.

I married an American man I met in a supermarket parking lot. He worked in construction, and when I met him he was sitting in his truck swallowing beer. I fell in love with his arms; they were golden from the sun and a thin film of dust glistened on his blonde hairs. These are the things of love, my father once told me. “Cuídese, mi hija. It only takes one thing.

When I was a little girl I didn’t like the smell of the hops in the carts. Nor in the fields. Je n’aime pas les houblons. No, my God, not a bit. The man that owns the brewery said to me and my sister to go to the brewery and drink the beer, and then we’d like the hops. That’s true. Then we liked them all right. He had them give us the beer. We liked them all right then.

I am watching a girl dressed in a light green sweater, blue shorts, long black stockings; there is a necklace of some sort but her breasts are small, poor thing, and she watches her nails as her dirty white dog sniffs the grass in erratic circles; a pigeon is there too, circling, half dead with a tick of a brain and I am upstairs in my underwear, 3 day beard, pouring a beer and waiting for something literary or symphonic to happen;

For the Word created heaven and earth and all things [Ps. 33:6]; the Word must do this thing, and not we poor sinners. In short, I will preach it, teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept [cf. Mark 4:26–29], or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philipp and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything. The Second Sermon, March 10, 1522, Monday after Invocavit. [Luther, M. (1999, c1959). Vol. 51: Luther’s works, vol. 51: Sermons I. (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther’s Works (51:III-78). Philadelphia: Fortress Press]

Over the years I’ve come to stop believing in goal setting. Why? Because goal setting, or at least the way most of us are trained to do it, actually gets us to be obsessed about the how of attaining our goals, rather than the passion, the vision, and the beauty of the goal itself. In short, we get obsessed with the ‘means’, rather than the ‘end’. And this is why so many of us wake up at the age of 40 one day, dreading going to work because we were forced to pick a career before we could legally buy a beer.

Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city. It is a complex order. Its essence is intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance — not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole. The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any once place is always replete with new improvisations. The stretch of Hudson Street where I live is each day the scene of an intricate sidewalk ballet. I make my own first entrance into it a little after eight when I put out my garbage gcan, surely a prosaic occupation, but I enjoy my part, my little clang, as the junior droves of junior high school students walk by the center of the stage dropping candy wrapper. (How do they eat so much candy so early in the morning?) While I sweep up the wrappers I watch the other rituals of the morning: Mr Halpert unlocking the laundry's handcart from its mooring to a cellar door, Joe Cornacchia's son-in-law stacking out the empty crates from the delicatessen, the barber bringing out his sidewalk folding chair, Mr. Goldstein arranging the coils of wire which proclaim the hardware store is open, the wife of the tenement's super intendent depositing her chunky three-year-old with a toy mandolin on the stoop, the vantage point from which he is learning English his mother cannot speak. Now the primary childrren, heading for St. Luke's, dribble through the south; the children from St. Veronica\s cross, heading to the west, and the children from P.S 41, heading toward the east. Two new entrances are made from the wings: well-dressed and even elegant women and men with brief cases emerge from doorways and side streets. Most of these are heading for the bus and subways, but some hover on the curbs, stopping taxis which have miraculously appeared at the right moment, for the taxis are part of a wider morning ritual: having dropped passengers from midtown in the downtown financial district, they are now bringing downtowners up tow midtown. Simultaneously, numbers of women in housedresses have emerged and as they crisscross with one another they pause for quick conversations that sound with laughter or joint indignation, never, it seems, anything in between. It is time for me to hurry to work too, and I exchange my ritual farewell with Mr. Lofaro, the short, thick bodied, white-aproned fruit man who stands outside his doorway a little up the street, his arms folded, his feet planted, looking solid as the earth itself. We nod; we each glance quickly up and down the street, then look back at eachother and smile. We have done this many a morning for more than ten years, and we both know what it means: all is well. The heart of the day ballet I seldom see, because part off the nature of it is that working people who live there, like me, are mostly gone, filling the roles of strangers on other sidewalks. But from days off, I know enough to know that it becomes more and more intricate. Longshoremen who are not working that day gather at the White Horse or the Ideal or the International for beer and conversation. The executives and business lunchers from the industries just to the west throng the Dorgene restaurant and the Lion's Head coffee house; meat market workers and communication scientists fill the bakery lunchroom.

You’ll have your turn,” Wolfe told him. “He can have it now.” Miss Duday was contemptuous. “That’s all I have to say—unless you have questions?” “No. Well, Mr. Helmar? Go ahead.” There was a polite interruption from Eric Hagh. He wanted a refill for his glass, and others were ready too, so there was a short recess. Hagh seemed to have got the impression that we were counting on him to keep Sarah Jaffee company, and I was too busy to resent it, but apparently Nat Parker wasn’t. Wolfe poured beer from his third bottle, swallowed some, and prompted Helmar. “Yes, sir?

From Wishful Thinking...Sydney's first siting of her soon to be love interest, "as I gazed across the fire the hairs on the back of my neck began to tickle and stand on end. I watched as he gripped his beer bottle with a strong, sun tanned hand. My eyes followed up his arm and even through the flames I could see strong muscles rippling beneath the thin t-shirt he was wearing. As my eyes continued up, I saw a strong jaw, big smile, deep brown eyes, and short dark brown hair, which looked freshly cut. Not too short though, just enough to put your hands through and tug a little.

Now I think my role is to make sure that everybody here gets the idea that we have a theme and to remind people what we’re up to and to set standards. . . . I’m actually a little embarrassed to talk about what I do because I love it so much and it’s such a sort of a selfish, quixotic kind of existence I have. But life is short, and if I thought we were being silly, and the beer was a joke, and it was all a con job, then I’d really be embarrassed about what I do. But I have so much fun and do such amazing things, I’m beginning to relax and enjoy it. Because I’m persuaded that the beer is so damn good.

Getting back to Audrey, though, I should really feel complimented that she won’t ever touch me because she likes me more than anyone else. It makes perfect sense, really, doesn’t it? If she ever gets down or depressed, i can make out the figure of her through the front window of the shack. She comes in and we drink cheap beer or wine and watch a movie or all three. Something old and long like Ben-Hur that stretches into the night. She’ll be next to me on the couch in her flannel shirt and jeans that have been cut into shorts,and eventually, when she’s asleep, I’ll bring a blanket out and cover her up. I kiss her cheek. I stroke her hair. I think of how she lives alone, just like me, and how she never had any real family, and how she only has sex with people. She never lets any love get in the way. I think she had a family once, but it was one of those beat-the-crap-out-of-each-other situations. There’s no shortage of them around here. I think she loved them and all she ever did was hurt her. That’s why she refuses to love. Anybody. I guess she feels better off that way, and who can blame her? When she sleeps on my couch, I think about all that. Everytime. I cover her up, then go to the bed and dream. With my eyes open.

According to Felipe Fernández-Armesto, at least thirty-eight theories have been put forward to explain why people took to living in communities: that they were driven to it by climatic change, or by a wish to stay near their dead, or by a powerful desire to brew and drink beer, which could only be indulged by staying in one place. One theory, evidently seriously suggested (Jane Jacobs cites it in her landmark work of 1969, The Economy of Cities), was that ‘fortuitous showers’ of cosmic rays caused mutations in grasses that made them suddenly attractive as a food source. The short answer is that no one knows why agriculture developed as it did.

I suppose that many think we live in a cheap and sensational age, all sky-signs and headlines; an age of advertisement and standardization. And yet, this is a more enlightened age than any human beings have lived in hitherto. For instance, practically all of us can read. Some of you may say: ‘Ah! But what? Detective stories, scandals, and the sporting news.’ No doubt, compared with Sunday newspapers and mystery stories, the Oedipus, Hamlet and Faust are very small beer. All the same, the number of volumes issued each year continually gains on the number of the population in all Western countries. Every phase and question of life is brought more and more into the limelight. Theatres, cinemas, the radio, and even lectures, assist the process. But they do not, and should not replace reading, because when we are just watching and listening, somebody is taking very good care that we should not stop and think. The danger in this age is not of our remaining ignorant; it is that we should lose the power of thinking for ourselves. Problems are more and more put before us, but, except to crossword puzzles and detective mysteries, do we attempt to find the answers for ourselves? Less and less. The short cut seems ever more and more desirable. But the short cut to knowledge is nearly always the longest way round. There is nothing like knowledge, picked up by or reasoned out for oneself.

Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This confusion became more and more intense. As he went down the stairs, he even stopped short, two or three times, as though suddenly struck by some thought. When he was in the street he cried out, "Oh, God, how loathsome it all is! and can I, can I possibly… . No, it's nonsense, it's rubbish!" he added resolutely. "And how could such an atrocious thing come into my head? What filthy things my heart is capable of. Yes, filthy above all, disgusting, loathsome, loathsome!—and for a whole month I've been… ." But no words, no exclamations, could express his agitation. The feeling of intense repulsion, which had begun to oppress and torture his heart while he was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached such a pitch and had taken such a definite form that he did not know what to do with himself to escape from his wretchedness. He walked along the pavement like a drunken man, regardless of the passers-by, and jostling against them, and only came to his senses when he was in the next street. Looking round, he noticed that he was standing close to a tavern which was entered by steps leading from the pavement to the basement. At that instant two drunken men came out at the door, and abusing and supporting one another, they mounted the steps. Without stopping to think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that moment he had never been into a tavern, but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a burning thirst. He longed for a drink of cold beer, and attributed his sudden weakness to the want of food. He sat down at a sticky little table in a dark and dirty corner; ordered some beer, and eagerly drank off the first glassful. At once he felt easier; and his thoughts became clear.

Trixie slept through Jason Underhill's unofficial interrogation in the lobby of the hockey rink and the moment shortly thereafter when he was officially taken into custody. She slept while the secretary at the police department took her lunch break and called her husband on the phone to tell him who'd been booked not ten minutes before. She slept as that man told his coworkers at the paper mill that Bethel might not win the Maine State hockey championship after all, and why. She was still sleeping when one of the millworkers had a beer on the way home that night with his brother, a reporter for the Augusta Tribune, who made a few phone calls and found out that a warrant had indeed been sworn out that morning, charging a minor with gross sexual assault. She slept while the reporter phoned the Bethel PD pretending to be the father of a girl who'd been in earlier that day to give a statement, asking if he'd left a hat behind. "No, Mr. Stone," the secretary had said, "but I'll call you if it turns up.

Vern did not trust humans was the long and short of it. Not a single one. He had known many in his life, even liked a few, but in the end they all sold him out to the angry mob. Which was why he holed up in Honey Island Swamp out of harm's way. Vern liked the swamp okay. As much as he liked anything after all these years. Goddamn, so many years just stretching out behind him like bricks in that road old King Darius put down back in who gives a shit BC. Funny how things came back out of the blue. Like that ancient Persian road. He couldn't remember last week, and now he was flashing back a couple thousand years, give or take. Vern had baked half those bricks his own self, back when he still did a little blue-collar. Nearly wore out the internal combustion engine. Shed his skin two seasons early because of that bitch of a job. That and diet. No one had a clue about nutrition in those days. Vern was mostly ketogenic now, high fat, low carbs, apart from his beloved breakfast cereals. Keto made perfect sense for a dragon, especially with his core temperature. Unfortunately, it meant that beer had to go, but he got by on vodka. Absolut was his preferred brand. A little high on alcohol but easiest on the system.

The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither the Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer. Guide her, protect her When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For Childhood is short—a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day— And Adulthood is long and Dry-Humping in Cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, That I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes. Amen

The billboards ruin everything. The historical flavor, the old-time architecture, even the beauty of the wooded hillside—all are sacrificed. Pole-lines and wires may be accepted, like fences, as part of the basic American landscape. They do their work without striving to be conspicuous, and often their not-ungraceful curves add a touch of interest, an intricacy of pattern, even some beauty. Billboards are different. . . . billboards blast themselves into the viewer's consciousness. . . . some of the smaller billboards—those advertising local hotels, service-stations, or small industries—seem to have a certain rooting in the soil, and are often modest and comparatively harmonious to the setting. The large billboards—owned by special companies, usually advertising the products of mass-production—are always placed in the most conspicuous spots, and have designs and colors carefully chosen to clash with the background. One feels a difference between a home-produced: "Stop at Joe's Service Station for Gas—Two Miles," or "The Liberty Café—Short Orders at All Hours—Give Us a Try!" and some gigantic rectangle advertising tires or beer. Large billboards are now springing up along U. S. 40 even in the vastnesses of the Nevada sagebrush country. They are an abomination! Personally, I try to buy as little as possible of anything that is so advertised.

Extract from 'Quixotic Ambitions': The crowd stared at Katy expectantly. She looked at them - old women in black, exhausted young women with pasty-faced children, youths in jeans and leather blousons chewing gum. She tried to speak but the words wouldn’t come. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, she blurted out her short speech, thanking the people of Shkrapova for their welcome and promising that if she won the referendum she would work for the good of Maloslavia. There was some half-hearted applause and an old lady hobbled up to her, knelt down with difficulty, and kissed the hem of her skirt. She looked at Katy with tears rolling down her face and gabbled something excitedly. Dimitar translated: ‘She says that she remembers the reign of your grandfather and that God has sent you to Maloslavia.’ Katy was embarrassed but she smiled at the woman and helped her to her feet. At this moment the People’s Struggle Pioneers appeared on the scene, waving their banners and shouting ‘Doloy Manaheeyoo! Popnikov President!’ Police had been stationed at strategic points and quickly dispersed the demonstrators without any display of violence, but the angry cries of ‘Down with the monarchy!’ had a depressing effect on the entertainment that had been planned; only a few people remained to watch it. A group of children aged between ten and twelve ran into the square and performed a series of dances accompanied by an accordian. They stamped their feet and clapped their hands frequently and occasionally collided with one another when they forgot their next move. The girls wore embroidered blouses, stiffly pleated skirts and scarlet boots and the boys were in baggy linen shirts and trousers, the legs of which were bound with leather thongs. Their enthusiasm compensated for their mistakes and they were loudly applauded. The male voice choir which followed consisted of twelve young men who sang complicated polyphonic melodies with a high, curiously nasal tenor line accompanied by an unusually deep droning bass. Some of their songs were the cries of despair of a people who had suffered under Turkish occupation; others were lively dance tunes for feast days and festivals. They were definitely an acquired taste and Katy, who was beginning to feel hungry, longed for them to come to an end. At last, at two o’clock, the performance finished and trestle tables were set up in the square. Dishes of various salads, hors-d’oeuvres and oriental pastries appeared, along with casks of beer and bottles of the local red wine. The people who had disappeared during the brief demonstration came back and started piling food on to paper plates. A few of the People’s Struggle Pioneers also showed up again and mingled with the crowd, greedily eating anything that took their fancy.

It was when they determined that I had been born dead That my life became easier to understand. For a long time, I wondered why rooms felt colder when I entered them, Why nothing I said seemed to stick in anyone’s ear, Frankly, why I never had any money. I wondered Why the cities I walked through drifted into cloud Even as I admired their architecture, as I pointed out The cornerstones marked “1820,” “1950.” The only songs I ever loved were filled with scratch, dispatches from A time when dead ones like me were a dime a dozen. I spent my life in hotels: some looked like mansions, Some more like trailer parks, or pathways toward A future I tried to point to, but how could I point, With nothing but a hand no hand ever matched, With fingers that melted into words that no one read. I rehearsed names that others taught me: Caravaggio, Robert Brandom, Judith, Amber, Emmanuelle Cat. I got hungry the way only the dead get hungry, The hunger that launches a thousand dirty wars, But I never took part in the wars, because no one lets A dead man into their covert discussions. So I drifted from loft to cellar, ageless like a ghost, And America became my compass, and Europe became The way that dead folks talk, in short, who cares, There’s nothing to say because nobody listens, There’s no radio for the dead and the pillows seem Like sand. Let me explain: when you’re alive, As I understand it, pillows cushion the head, the way A lover might soothe the heart. The way it works for me, In contrast, is everything is sand. Beds are sand, The women I profess to love are sand, the sound of music In the darkest night is sand, and whatever I have to say Is sand. This is not, for example, a political poem, Because the dead have no politics. They might have A hunger, but nothing you’ve ever known Could begin to assuage it.

The funny thing: I’d worried, if anything, that Boris was the one who was a little too affectionate, if affectionate is the right word. The first time he’d turned in bed and draped an arm over my waist, I lay there half-asleep for a moment, not knowing what to do: staring at my old socks on the floor, empty beer bottles, my paperbacked copy of The Red Badge of Courage. At last—embarrassed—I faked a yawn and tried to roll away, but instead he sighed and pulled me closer, with a sleepy, snuggling motion. Ssh, Potter, he whispered, into the back of my neck. Is only me. It was weird. Was it weird? It was; and it wasn’t. I’d fallen back to sleep shortly after, lulled by his bitter, beery unwashed smell and his breath easy in my ear. I was aware I couldn’t explain it without making it sound like more than it was. On nights when I woke strangled with fear there he was, catching me when I started up terrified from the bed, pulling me back down in the covers beside him, muttering in nonsense Polish, his voice throaty and strange with sleep. We’d drowse off in each other’s arms, listening to music from my iPod (Thelonious Monk, the Velvet Underground, music my mother had liked) and sometimes wake clutching each other like castaways or much younger children. And yet (this was the murky part, this was what bothered me) there had also been other, way more confusing and fucked-up nights, grappling around half-dressed, weak light sliding in from the bathroom and everything haloed and unstable without my glasses: hands on each other, rough and fast, kicked-over beers foaming on the carpet—fun and not that big of a deal when it was actually happening, more than worth it for the sharp gasp when my eyes rolled back and I forgot about everything; but when we woke the next morning stomach-down and groaning on opposite sides of the bed it receded into an incoherence of backlit flickers, choppy and poorly lit like some experimental film, the unfamiliar twist of Boris’s features fading from memory already and none of it with any more bearing on our actual lives than a dream. We never spoke of it; it wasn’t quite real; getting ready for school we threw shoes, splashed water at each other, chewed aspirin for our hangovers, laughed and joked around all the way to the bus stop. I knew people would think the wrong thing if they knew, I didn’t want anyone to find out and I knew Boris didn’t either, but all the same he seemed so completely untroubled by it that I was fairly sure it was just a laugh, nothing to take too seriously or get worked up about. And yet, more than once, I had wondered if I should step up my nerve and say something: draw some kind of line, make things clear, just to make absolutely sure he didn’t have the wrong idea. But the moment had never come. Now there was no point in speaking up and being awkward about the whole thing, though I scarcely took comfort in the fact.

Lark wrapped an arm around me and started to speak until Bailey’s startled voice interrupted us. A huge football player had her pinned against the wall and she was yelling for him to back off. Instead, he crowded her more while playing with her blonde hair. “Hey!” I yelled as Lark and I rushed over. Six four and wide shouldered, the guy was wasted and angry at the interruption. “Fuck off, bitches,” he muttered. Bailey clawed at his neck, but he had her pinned in a weird way, so she couldn’t get any leverage. While I was ready to jump on him in a weak attempt to save my friend, someone shoved the football player off Bailey. I hadn’t even seen the guy appear, but he stood between Bailey and the pissed jerk. “Fuck off, man,” the asshole said. “She’s mine.” “Nick,” Bailey mumbled, looking ready to cry. “He humped my leg. Crush his skull, will ya?” Nick frowned at Bailey who was leaning on him now. The football player was an inch or two bigger than Nick and outweighed him by probably fifty pounds. Feeling the fight would be short, the asshole reached for Bailey’s arm and Nick nailed the guy in the face. To my shock, the giant asshole collapsed on the ground. “My hero,” Bailey said, looking ready to puke. She caressed Nick’s biceps and asked, “Do you work out?” Running his hands through his dark wavy hair, Nick laughed. “You’re so wasted.” “And you’re like the Energizer Bunny,” she cooed. “My bro said you took a punch, yet kept on ticking.” Nick started to speak then heard the asshole’s friends riled up. I was too drunk to know if everything happened really quickly or if my brain just took awhile to catch up. The guys rushed Nick who dodged most of them and hit another. The room emptied out except for Nick, the guys, and us. I grabbed a beer bottle and threw it at one of the guys shoving Nick. When the bottle hit him in the back, the bastard glared at me. “You want to fight, bitch?” “Leave her alone,” Nick said, kicking one guy into the jerk looking to hit me. As impressive as Nick was against six guys, he was just one guy against six. A losing bet, he took a shot to the face then the gut. Lark grabbed a folding chair and went WWE on one guy. I was tossing beers in the roundabout direction of the other guys. Yet, Bailey was the one who ended the fight by pulling out a gun. “Back the fuck off or I’ll burn this motherfucking house to the ground!” she screamed then fired at a lamp. Everyone stopped and stared at her. When she noticed me wide-eyed, Bailey frowned. “Too much?” Grinning, I followed Lark to the door. Nick followed us while the assholes seemed ready to piss themselves. Well, except for an idiot who looked ready to go for Bailey’s gun. "Dude,” Nick muttered, “that’s Bailey Fucking Johansson. Unless you want to end up in a shallow grave, back the fuck off.” “What he said!” Bailey yelled, waving her gun around before I hurried her out of the door. The cold air sobered up Bailey enough for her to return the gun to her purse. She was still drunk enough to laugh hysterically as we reached the SUV. “Did you see me kill that lamp?” “You did good,” I said, groggy as my adrenaline shifted to nausea and the alcohol threatened to come back up on me. Nick walked us to the SUV. “Next time, you might want to wave the gun around before you get drunk and dance.” “Don’t tell me what to do,” Bailey growled, crawling into the backseat. Then, realizing he saved her, she crawled back to face him. “You were so brave. I should totally get you off as a thank you." “Maybe another time,” he said, laughing as she batted her eyes at him. “Are you guys safe to drive?” Lark nodded. “I’m sober enough to remember everything tomorrow. Trust me that there’ll be mocking.

Gareth Miller grabbed the beer first, then the hotdog, because if there’s one thing you don’t want to be caught dead without at these sorts of events it’s beer. The hotdog was strictly for show, a prop, a way of blending in. Burst of static in his right ear: “G-man, you read me? What’s yo’ twenty, dawg?” Gareth departed the concession stand, stopped, looked down at his hands, and tossed the hotdog into the first trash receptacle he saw. Raising his wrist to his mouth, he spoke into the cuff of his long-sleeved tee. “Concession stand, Section B. Over.” Allowing his hand to linger by his chin, he gingerly scratched his cheek as if he had meant to do it all along. The same voice: “Yo, I’m in position. Ready when you is.” Gareth cringed while crossing the wide concourse, checking both directions. The giant hallway was the main drag of a ghost town, its only residents a solitary custodian sweeping debris into a portable waste bin and the concession crew to his rear.

Zachary looked down into the swirling morass that was his beer as the man walked onto the stage and started to play a solo piece, the band respectfully allowing him to start off his set by staking his claim. Zachary would give him staking his claim. He had his guitar nestling close by his side, as always, the leather of the case gently touching his calf, sending an almost erotic charge through his body every time he moved like the less than innocent brush of a future lover's hand on a bare arm.

What happened to the troubled young reporter who almost brought this magazine down The last time I talked to Stephen Glass, he was pleading with me on the phone to protect him from Charles Lane. Chuck, as we called him, was the editor of The New Republic and Steve was my colleague and very good friend, maybe something like a little brother, though we are only two years apart in age. Steve had a way of inspiring loyalty, not jealousy, in his fellow young writers, which was remarkable given how spectacularly successful he’d been in such a short time. While the rest of us were still scratching our way out of the intern pit, he was becoming a franchise, turning out bizarre and amazing stories week after week for The New Republic, Harper’s, and Rolling Stone— each one a home run. I didn’t know when he called me that he’d made up nearly all of the bizarre and amazing stories, that he was the perpetrator of probably the most elaborate fraud in journalistic history, that he would soon become famous on a whole new scale. I didn’t even know he had a dark side. It was the spring of 1998 and he was still just my hapless friend Steve, who padded into my office ten times a day in white socks and was more interested in alphabetizing beer than drinking it. When he called, I was in New York and I said I would come back to D.C. right away. I probably said something about Chuck like: “Fuck him. He can’t fire you. He can’t possibly think you would do that.” I was wrong, and Chuck, ever-resistant to Steve’s charms, was as right as he’d been in his life. The story was front-page news all over the world. The staff (me included) spent several weeks re-reporting all of Steve’s articles. It turned out that Steve had been making up characters, scenes, events, whole stories from first word to last. He made up some funny stuff—a convention of Monica Lewinsky memorabilia—and also some really awful stuff: racist cab drivers, sexist Republicans, desperate poor people calling in to a psychic hotline, career-damaging quotes about politicians. In fact, we eventually figured out that very few of his stories were completely true. Not only that, but he went to extreme lengths to hide his fabrications, filling notebooks with fake interview notes and creating fake business cards and fake voicemails. (Remember, this was before most people used Google. Plus, Steve had been the head of The New Republic ’s fact-checking department.) Once we knew what he’d done, I tried to call Steve, but he never called back. He just went missing, like the kids on the milk cartons. It was weird. People often ask me if I felt “betrayed,” but really I was deeply unsettled, like I’d woken up in the wrong room. I wondered whether Steve had lied to me about personal things, too. I wondered how, even after he’d been caught, he could bring himself to recruit me to defend him, knowing I’d be risking my job to do so. I wondered how I could spend more time with a person during the week than I spent with my husband and not suspect a thing. (And I didn’t. It came as a total surprise). And I wondered what else I didn’t know about people. Could my brother be a drug addict? Did my best friend actually hate me? Jon Chait, now a political writer for New York and back then the smart young wonk in our trio, was in Paris when the scandal broke. Overnight, Steve went from “being one of my best friends to someone I read about in The International Herald Tribune, ” Chait recalled. The transition was so abrupt that, for months, Jon dreamed that he’d run into him or that Steve wanted to talk to him. Then, after a while, the dreams stopped. The Monica Lewinsky scandal petered out, George W. Bush became president, we all got cell phones, laptops, spouses, children. Over the years, Steve Glass got mixed up in our minds with the fictionalized Stephen Glass from his own 2003 roman à clef, The Fabulist, or Steve Glass as played by Hayden Christiansen in the 2003

But then that bubble popped when I found out he was the one who’d taken over the shop space next door.” Thankfully, the holidays had hit shortly after they’d discovered that little detail. She ended up getting slammed with the overflowing winter break pub crowd as a result, and he’d had family things to attend to in addition to all the final preparations getting his chocolate shop ready for its grand opening. Then after nearly a week

the famous quatrain: "Let princes revel at the pump; Let peers with ponds make free; But whisky, beer, or even wine, Is good enough for me.

The most remarkable thing is that even in Adam Smith’s examples of fish and nails and tobacco being used as money, the same sort of thing was happening. In the years following the appearance of the Wealth of Nations, scholars checked into most of these examples and discovered that in just about every case, the people involved were quite familiar with the use of money, and in fact, were using money- as a unit of account. Take the example of dried cod, supposedly used as money in Newfoundland. As the British diplomat A. Mitchell pointed out almost a century ago, what Smith describes was really an illusion, created by a simple credit arrangement: In the early days of the Newfoundland fishing industry, there was no permanent European population, the fishers went there for the fishing season only, and those who were not fishers were traders who bought the dried fish and sold to the fishers their daily supplies. The latter sold their catch to the traders at the market price in pounds, shilling and pence, and obtained in return a credit on their books, which they paid for the supplies. Balances due by the traders were paid for by drafts on England or France. It was quite the same in the Scottish village. It’s not as if anyone actually walked into the local pub, plunked down a roofing nail, and asked for a pint of beer. Employers in Smith’s day often lacked coin to pay their workers; wages could be delayed by a year or more; in the meantime, it was considered acceptable for employees to carry off either some of their own products or leftover work materials, lumber, fabric, cord, and so on. The nails were de facto interest on what their employers owed to them. So they went to the pub, ran up a tab, and when occasion permitted, brought in a bag of nails to charge off against the debt. The law making tobacco legal tender in Virginia seems to have been an attempt by planters to oblige local merchants to accept their products as a credit around harvest time. In effect, the law forced all merchants in Virginia to become middlemen in tobacco business, whether they liked it or not; just as all West Indian merchants were obliged to become sugar dealers, since that’s what all their wealthier customers brought in to write off against their debt. The primary examples, then, were ones in which people were improvising credit systems, because actual money- gold and silver coinage- was in short supply.

You’re going to what?” It wasn’t anything Sean hadn’t asked himself every five minutes or so since getting sucked into Emma’s plan, but it sounded different when his cousin said it. Or maybe it was Kevin’s subsequent pointing and laughing his ass off that changed the tone. “It’s only a month,” Sean said, maybe a little defensively. The shorter, dark-haired waitress—Darcy, he thought her name was—put a beer in front of him and he took a long pull. He’d been looking forward to it all day. Kevin looked skeptical. “A month of living with a total stranger, pretending you’re so madly in love with her you’re going to marry her? For real?” “No, not for real, moron. For pretend. That’s the point.” His cousin laughed some more, then pulled out his cell phone and started texting. Sean craned his neck, but couldn’t see the screen. “What the hell are you doing?” Kevin chuckled. “Telling my wife.” “You could have waited until I went upstairs.” “No, I really couldn’t.” Kevin shut his phone, but it was only a few seconds before it chimed. He looked at the screen, chuckled, then was texting again. Sean pulled out his phone and opened a new message to Kevin. I’m still here, asshole. Send. A couple minutes later, Kevin grinned and slid his phone back in his pocket. “Beth wants to know the sleeping arrangements since there’s no way even a grandmother will buy a separate-bedrooms story.” “Beth wants to know, huh?” “Trust me, by now the whole family wants to know.” Sean was tempted to bang his head against the bar, but he wouldn’t be able to knock himself out, so he didn’t waste the effort. “There’s a sofa in the bedroom. She’ll sleep on it and I get the bed.” “Chivalrous.” “I’m too tall for a sofa.” “I don’t know Emma well, but I seem to recall she’s not exactly short.” Kevin gave him a knowing look. “Not exactly hard on the eyes, either.” That she wasn’t.

I put the package back, sighing. “You, sir, are a few beers short of a six-pack. Anyone tell you that?” “No. To be fair, though, I didn’t know anyone who spoke fluent douchebag before we started dating,” he explained.

I left my car on the street, walked up across the dead yard, and a guy I took to be James Lester opened the door. He was average-sized in dark gray cotton work pants, dirty white socks, and a dingy undershirt. His hair was cut short on the sides and on top, but had been left long and shaggy in back, and he looked at me with a squint. He was thin, with knobby, grease-embedded hands and pale skin sporting Bic-pen tattoos on his arms and shoulders and chest. Work farm stuff. I made him for thirty, but he could’ve been younger. He said, “You’re the guy who called. You’re from the lawyer, right?” A quarter to eleven in the morning and he smelled of beer.

E-13 No wonder it makes a man blush. No wonder a real true preacher look upon his congregation and try to lead them before the throne of God, and visit their homes and find them smoking cigarettes, telling dirty jokes to each other, entertaining in the back yard with beer parties, walking around on the streets, their young women, and middle age, and so forth, and even grandmother with little shorts on. Mother out on the street with a baby on one arm, dressed sexy enough to attract the attention of any bootlegger that walked the street, and calling themselves Christians? It would make any true man of God blush to bring such a person in the Presence of God. Right. ( "A Blushing Prophet" Preached on Sunday evening, 25th November 1956 at the Branham Tabernacle in Jeffersonville, Indiana, U.S.A. - See Paragraph E-13 ).

I’d been at the plant for three weeks when Curly invited me to his trailer for a drink. He lived just outside Hood River in a double-wide he shared with his mother, a woman he often spoke about. “I told Mother what you said about Dorothy’s mouth looking like a gunshot wound and, Lord, she just about bust a gut, she was laughing so hard. She is one funny lady, my mother. Nothing tickles her funny bone better than a knock-knock joke. You know any good sidesplitters?” Desperate as I was for company, I understood that I was clearly dealing with a loser. Management seemed the perfect career for a person like Curly. I could easily picture him in a short-sleeved shirt, the pocket lined with pens. Someone would ask him to check the time cards and he’d probably say something goofy like “Okey-dokey, artichokey.” I’d tried to straighten him out, but there’s only so much you can do for a person who thinks Auschwitz is a brand of beer. He

Terry picked up the snubnose and snapped back the hammer, waving it around the room wildly. He squeezed the trigger by accident. Flame spit from the short barrel. The crew hit the floor. All except Valentina, who stood calmly looking at Terry. Terry looked from the gun to Valentina. “Sorry.” “Point it at the floor. Not your foot, the floor. Everyone alive?” “I spilled my beer,” Sam said. “I swallowed my gum,” Candy said. “I shit my pants,” Jacob said. They

again. It was the unmistakable sound of laughter. I knit my eyebrows together, briefly wondering whether what I heard was representative of the giggling I heard in my dream. The day’s events rushed back, and I knew without a doubt what was happening. I grabbed a sweatshirt and tugged it over my head, slipping into my shoes before pushing open the front door and trudging outside. If Chief Terry hadn’t gone out of his way to stop by with his warning, I would’ve ignored the noise. Confronting partying teenagers isn’t my idea of a thrilling midnight excursion. I followed the sound of the voices, stopping twice to adjust my trajectory, and when I found the source about two hundred feet into the densely wooded area I wasn’t surprised to see a bonfire, several cases of beer and about ten rowdy kids. It brought back fond memories – which I quickly tamped down because I’m a responsible adult

I CONSIDERED going into town for breakfast the next morning, instead settling for Raisin Bran and an apple before returning to my garden project. If I was going to be an adult, I figured being a responsible one was probably my best course of action. I tracked down a pair of gloves in the shed out back and was on my way to the front garden when I changed my trajectory and headed to the previous evening’s party spot. It took me a few minutes, but when I arrived I wasn’t surprised to find garbage and empty beer cans strewn about, discarded in haste when the teenagers made a run for it after my threat. For the record, I didn’t follow through on it. Now I was reconsidering my decision. I made a disgusted sound in the back of my throat and briefly considered leaving the mess – or calling Chief Terry to find out who Andy was so I could call his parents – before returning to the lighthouse to retrieve a garbage bag.

- They parted with a wave, concealing from each other the slight smile that each wore once safely walking away, pleased to know that they would meet again in a few short hours, over curry and beer and Nick and Ilsa’s.

They parted with a wave, concealing from each other the slight smile that each wore once safely walking away, pleased to know that they would meet again in a few short hours, over curry and beer and Nick and Ilsa’s.

We hump, werewolves in the jungle, sweating 3.2 beer, ready, willing, and able to grab wily Uncle Ho by his inscrutable balls and never let go. But our real enemy is the jungle. God made this jungle for Marines. God has a hard-on for Marines because we kill everything we see. No slack. He plays his games; we play ours. To show our appreciation for so much omnipotent attention we keep Heaven packed with fresh souls.

I’d just turned back to window-covering when a hand landed on my shoulder. Alycia’s father, the one with the goatee and Tinder date. “Uh—Edie, is it?” “Eve.” Their family clearly had trouble with names. “Eva. Do you know where my daughter is?” Damn. Why me? I’d tell him about the yacht, I decided. But would I tell him about possible difficulties with its navigation? I didn’t want to implicate David. And yet. I stood there with the hammer. It felt heavy. “She didn’t choose to come back with us,” I said. His mouth hung slightly open. “I’m sorry. You mean she’s still down there? All by herself? On the beach?” Beside me, Sukey stopped hammering also. “She sailed for Newport,” said Sukey, blunt as always. “On a yacht called the Cobra. Owned by a venture capitalist.” “Ha ha! No seriously,” said the goatee father. “Seriously,” said Sukey. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” “Nope,” said Sukey, and went back to hammering. When the father turned away he seemed stunned. Then the gynecologist mother came down the steps from the breakfast room. “They’re saying it’s a Cat 4. Winds up to 140!” “All this hysteria’s for nothing,” said the short father. (Low’s, I recalled with a surge of satisfaction.) He was holding a beer bottle. Hadn’t lifted a finger to help cover the windows, just watched and critiqued. “You’ll see.” Another mother stuck her head out the door. “Hey. Where’s Alycia?” Not again. I sighed. “On a yacht headed for Rhode Island,” I said. “They’ve got excellent food on that boat,” piped up Dee. “The chef used to work at Chez Panisse.” I opted not to look at the mother’s face right then. Everyone knew Alycia didn’t eat.

As of February 8, 1979, James Arthur Springer—Jim, as he went by—had been twice married. His first marriage, to a woman named Linda, ended in divorce. His second wife was named Betty. Jim Springer grew up in Ohio and once owned a dog named Toy. He had a son named James Allan (although perhaps with one L). He was a chain-smoker who liked beer. In his garage he had a woodworking bench. He drove a Chevy, suffered from high blood pressure and migraines, and once served as a sheriff’s deputy. His family lived on a quiet street—theirs was the only house on the block. As of February 8, 1979, James Edward Lewis—Jim, as he went by—had been twice married. His first marriage, to a woman named Linda, ended in divorce. His second wife was named Betty. Jim Lewis grew up in Ohio and once owned a dog named Toy. He had a son named James Allan (although perhaps with one L). He was a chain-smoker who liked beer. In his garage he had a woodworking bench. He drove a Chevy, suffered from high blood pressure and migraines, and once served as a sheriff’s deputy. His family lived on a quiet street—theirs was the only house on the block. As of February 8, 1979, Jim Springer and Jim Lewis had almost no knowledge of one another. They had met before, but only as infants. On February 9, 1979, the two met for the first time in nearly forty years. They were identical twins, given up for adoption as one-month-olds, now reunited. The shocking coincidence seems like that of myth, but it’s almost certainly not—shortly after the twins’ reunion, People magazine and Smithsonian magazine reported on the incredible confluence of genetically identical twins with anecdotally identical lives. The two men piqued the curiosity of a researcher named Thomas J. Bouchard, a professor of psychology and the director of the Minnesota Center for Twin and Adoption Research at the University of Minnesota.

Some days I would take the train into Manhattan. There was so much money everywhere, money flowing out of bistros and cafés, money pushing the people, at incredible speeds, up the wide avenues, money drawing intergalactic traffic through Times Square, money in the limestones and brownstones, money out on West Broadway where white people spilled out of wine bars with sloshing glasses and without police. I would see these people at the club, drunken, laughing, challenging breakdancers to battles. They would be destroyed and humiliated in these battles. But afterward they would give dap, laugh, order more beers. They were utterly fearless. I did not understand it until I looked out on the street. That was where I saw white parents pushing double-wide strollers down gentrifying Harlem boulevards in T-shirts and jogging shorts. Or I saw them lost in conversation with each other, mother and father, while their sons commanded entire sidewalks with their tricycles. The galaxy belonged to them, and as terror was communicated to our children, I saw mastery communicated to theirs.

I’m trying to make a profit. I’m using batteries, toilet paper, and paper towels as currency. Each is something that will eventually be in short supply.” “You’re trying to get all the toilet paper in town?” Astrid shrilled. “Are you kidding?” “No, Astrid, I’m not kidding,” Albert said. “Look, right now, kids are playing with the stuff. I saw little kids throwing rolls of it around on their lawns like it was a toy. So—” “So your solution is to try and take it all away from people?” “You’d rather see it wasted?” “Yeah, actually,” Astrid huffed. “Rather than you getting it all for yourself. You’re acting like a jerk.” Albert’s eyes flared. “Look, Astrid, now kids know they can buy their way into the club with it. So they’re not going to waste it anymore.” “No, they’re going to give it all to you,” she shot back. “And what happens when they need some?” “Then there will still be some left because I made it valuable.” “Valuable to you.” “Valuable to everyone, Astrid.” “It’s you taking advantage of kids dumb enough not to know any better. Sam, you have to put a stop to this.” Sam had drifted away from the conversation, his head full of the music. He snapped back. “She’s right, Albert, this isn’t okay. You didn’t get permission—” “I didn’t think I needed permission to give kids what they want. I mean, I’m not threatening anyone, saying, ‘Give me your toilet paper, give me your batteries.’ I’m just playing some music and saying, ‘If you want to come in and dance, then it’ll cost you.’” “Dude, I respect you being ambitious and all,” Sam said. “But I have to shut this down. You never got permission, even, let alone asked us if it was okay to charge people.” Albert said, “Sam, I respect you more than I can even say. And Astrid, you are way smarter than me. But I don’t see how you have the right to shut me down.” That was it for Sam. “Okay, I tried to be nice. But I am the mayor. I was elected, as you probably remember, since I think you voted for me.” “I did. I’d do it again, man. But Sam, Astrid, you guys are wrong here. This club is about all these kids have that can get them together for a good time. They’re sitting in their homes starving and feeling sad and scared. When they’re dancing, they forget how hungry and sad they are. This is a good thing I’m doing.” Sam stared hard at Albert, a stare that kids in Perdido Beach took seriously. But Albert did not back down. “Sam, how many cantaloupes did Edilio manage to bring back with kids who were rounded up and forced to work?” Albert asked. “Not many,” Sam admitted. “Orc picked a whole truckload of cabbage. Before the zekes figured out how to get at him. Because we paid Orc to work.” “He did it because he’s the world’s youngest alcoholic and you paid him with beer,” Astrid snapped. “I know what you want, Albert. You want to get everything for yourself and be this big, important guy. But you know what? This is a whole new world. We have a chance to make it a better world. It doesn’t have to be about some people getting over on everyone else. It can be fair to everyone.” Albert laughed. “Everyone can be equally hungry. In a week or so, everyone can starve.

I didn’t think you were coming back until later,” he says. He eyes me up and down but not in a creepy way. “Who’s your friend?” he asks. He sticks out a hand to shake, and I take it. “I’m Paul,” he says. He’s huge, and he has even more tattoos than Pete does. There’s another guy behind him. He’s thin and has long, blond hair, and it’s held back with a rubber band at the nape of his neck. “Matt,” he says as he sticks out his hand to shake. Then I notice a guy and a girl sitting on the couch. She’s the blonde I saw at the prison, and she eyes me with the gaze of an antiques dealer, as if she’s looking for all my imperfections. “Emily,” she says with a little wave. “Logan,” she says, as she pats Logan on the chest. He extends his hand, and I take it. But there’s one more, and my breath catches in my throat when he steps out from behind Logan. He looks so much like Pete. He has to be Sam. I look from Pete to Sam and back. “I’m the pretty one,” Sam says. He reaches out like he wants to hug me, but I recoil. I can’t help it. I’ve come a long way, but not that far. “It’s nice to meet you,” he says with a nod. I extend my hand, and instead of shaking it, he lifts it to his lips. His short little moustache tickles the back of my hand. I twist my fingers out of his grip, and Pete glares at him. “Keep your fucking hands off my girl,” he growls. But then he opens his arms, and Sam falls into them. They hug the way men do, with lots of backslapping and murmured words. “I’m glad you’re here,” Pete says. “You called. I came. Like a good big brother.” “Eight minutes,” Pete growls playfully. He drops an arm around my shoulders. “He was born eight minutes before me and he thinks he’s the shit because he’s older.” He coughs into his fist. “Excuse me. I am the shit.” He grins. He looks so much like Pete that it’s almost disturbing. “I think you’re both shits,” Paul says as he goes to fridge and gets a beer.

Some days I would take the train into Manhattan. There was so much money everywhere, money flowing out of bistros and cafes, money pushing the people at incredible speeds, up the wide avenues, money drawing intergalactic traffic through Times Square, money in the limestones and brownstones, money out on West Broadway where white people spilled out of wine bars with sloshing glasses and without police. I would see these people at the club, drunken, laughing, challenging break dancers to battles. They would be destroyed and humiliated in these battles. But afterward they would give dap, laugh, order more beers They were utterly fearless. I did not understand it until I looked out on the street. That was where I saw white parents pushing double-wide strollers down gentrifying Harlem boulevards in T-shirts and jogging shorts. Or I saw them lost in conversation with each other, mother ad father, while their sons commanded entire sidewalks with their tricycles. The galaxy belonged to them, and as terror was communicated to our children, I saw mastery communicated to theirs.

Even though I don’t stand a chance with Vanni, I have to come clean about how I feel. It’s still too soon after Matt. You gotta believe me, I never wanted anything bad to happen to Matt.” Joe gripped Paul’s biceps. “Of course you didn’t. But this business with Vanni? You owe it to yourself to know where you stand before you borrow all this trouble.” “Yeah,” he said, hanging his head. “I’m sure she’ll just try to let me down as easy as she can…” “Then again, you never know,” Joe said with a shrug. “Maybe it’ll go your way for once. In which case, right after she says, ‘I love you, too,’ you’re gonna have to say, ‘I’m going to be a father pretty soon.’ Whew.” Joe gave a short, unhappy laugh. “That’s gonna bite. I think, my friend, your ass is grass. Either way.” Paul leveled his gaze at Joe. Then he said, “We’re gonna need a lot more beer.

Kylie was seconds away from falling against his warm chest and begging him to hold her. Nothing ever felt better than Trey’s arms around her, but then she saw the girl, Trey’s screw toy, walk outside, carrying two beers. In less than five minutes, Trey would be trying to get in her panties. And from the too-low-cut blouse and too-short skirt the girl wore, it appeared he wouldn’t have to try too hard.

Apart from Lucy and Shanan, the only person I know today is my other former flatmate, Oliver. At dinner, I’m seated next to him, and he helpfully announces to the whole table that I’m not drinking. I’m asked if I’m pregnant. I say no. Oliver tells them that I’m writing a book about my booze-free year. There are a few astonished faces. A guy sitting opposite me pipes up, ‘That would be a really short book. Fucking boring. The end.’ I laugh politely, but secretly I want to stab him in the eye with my entree fork. He says that stopping drinking would be easy in winter, but impossible during Melbourne’s Spring Racing Carnival: ‘You can’t not drink at the races. You just can’t.’ This, it seems, is an indisputable fact. He tells me how he stopped drinking for three months a few years ago, and every day of it was so boring that he’d never do it again. He doesn’t appear to see the irony in the fact that with a beer in his hand, he’s the most boring man alive.

The sun was already behind the western hills, and the light was failing. Two of Maggot’s sons and his three daughters came in, and a generous supper was laid on the large table. The kitchen was lit with candles and the fire was mended. Mrs. Maggot bustled in and out. One or two other hobbits belonging to the farm-household came in. In a short while fourteen sat down to eat. There was beer in plenty, and a mighty dish of mushrooms and bacon, besides much other solid farmhouse fare. The

The man uttering these words had a face like the Golem of Prague and a barrel-shaped body that belonged on a beer cart. He wore a short leather coat and a cap with a peak that grew straight out of his forehead. He had ears like an Indian elephant, a mustache like a toilet brush, and more chins than the Shanghai telephone directory

When enough people share a short-lived delusion, vast sums of money can be acquired overnight. The ‘tulip mania’ in Holland in the mid-seventeenth century was such a time. Tulips had been imported into Holland for forty years before the madness hit. By 1635, a single tulip bulb was swapped for a collection of valuable articles, which included the following: four tons of wheat eight tons of rye a bed four oxen eight pigs a suit of clothes two caskets of wine four tonnes of beer two tons of butter one thousand pounds of cheese a silver drinking cup The current value of the above would be $50,000 or more. And this was for a single tulip bulb! Fortunes were made or lost, especially the latter, when the music stopped. Within a few years, a tulip bulb was worth less than a dollar in today’s money. Here is the wonder of collective short-term delusion writ large.

You’re setting yourself up for disappointment, was how Robins and Beer explained it: “short-term benefits but long-term costs.” In other words, the lie catches up. The power of the rosy lens seems to have a limit. And when it runs out, the fact of your impotence will really sting.

The mixture of displeasure and relief is so overpowering my mind. I knew that I would pick to have that pleasure if he kept being so passionate and felt right. I look down the tunneling hallway my eyes feel like kaleidoscopes, yet I can figure there are kids with sparklers and the firecrackers the sounds are going off within all the colors I see. He has to hold me with my back against the walls or I am sure I would fall, I see Justen feeling the left of a rail of the stairs, walking over the entryway into their room feather down that hallway, up above me, me like they’re going to slip away any second, and share the rest of the night cuddling in bed. Is tonight the night I follow him to his room and crawl in with him, or isn’t tonight the night, maybe hold back until tomorrow? That kept running through my head. Tonight, or tomorrow? Tomorrow I’ll wake up and be the same, regardless if I am in his bed or not. This earth will look the same, and everything will feel and taste and smell the same. What am I rushing it for, he’s going to love me the same if not more is, I hold out? Maybe play that three-date rule. My throat gets taut, just thinking about what we could be doing right now, also I have to think about what Ray and Justen are doing, and my eyes start to tingle in ire, and all I can think at that moment is that it’s all Ray’s fault, that my sis has gone home broken-hearted. Yet I don’t want her spending the night here anyway, with him of all boys. It’s funny how you can go from love to hate in seconds. Half an hour later the party starts to wind down. Inside, everyone is just about passed out, at this point, I need to find a place to crash too. Then I thought, should I, or shouldn’t I? My sis is one of those shy ones around cute boys, and those are the ones you have to worry about because they are freaks between the sheets. I can see that somebody pulled the drooping icicle lights off the wall there getting crouched on by the others passing by. They are getting tangled up in my feet, as I move. There twanging and shorting out from the broken blabs, in sparks lighting up the grime corners, like cups and broken beer bottles. You have to be careful like I see a lot of girls with flip-flops on or barefoot running around not a good idea. I think that I’m feeling better now until I move away from the walls, but I’m starting to feel more like the girl I should be around all my friends. ‘There’s always tomorrow,’ Jenny walked up to me and said before going up to her bed when I told her about Ray, yet she seemed not suppressed and I ran the phrase over and over in my head like a chant: There’s always tomorrow. There’s always tomorrow. So that is what I went with thinking… I am going to be with him tomorrow night. I see myself in the ornate hall mirror in the makeup that I replayed, thinking- ‘God Marcel loves this face.’ Every time I put on makeup it reminds me of my mom, I used to watch me bowed over her vanity, getting ready for dates with my father-daughter dates-and it calms me down.

Finally, Scott opened the door with a can of beer in his hand.  Wow, did he look terrible!  His short brown hair wasn’t brushed.  His oval face was red.  His blue eyes were bloodshot.  He wore a faded wrinkled T-shirt over his rotund thirty-four-year-old figure.

Before 1800 the word “light,” apart from its use as a verb and an adjective, referred just to visible light. But early that year the English astronomer William Herschel observed some warming that could only have been caused by a form of light invisible to the human eye. Already an accomplished observer, Herschel had discovered the planet Uranus in 1781 and was now exploring the relation between sunlight, color, and heat. He began by placing a prism in the path of a sunbeam. Nothing new there. Sir Isaac Newton had done that back in the 1600s, leading him to name the familiar seven colors of the visible spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. (Yes, the colors do indeed spell Roy G. Biv.) But Herschel was inquisitive enough to wonder what the temperature of each color might be. So he placed thermometers in various regions of the rainbow and showed, as he suspected, that different colors registered different temperatures.† Well-conducted experiments require a “control”—a measurement where you expect no effect at all, and which serves as a kind of idiot-check on what you are measuring. For example, if you wonder what effect beer has on a tulip plant, then also nurture a second tulip plant, identical to the first, but give it water instead. If both plants die—if you killed them both—then you can’t blame the alcohol. That’s the value of a control sample. Herschel knew this, and laid a thermometer outside of the spectrum, adjacent to the red, expecting to read no more than room temperature throughout the experiment. But that’s not what happened. The temperature of his control thermometer rose even higher than in the red. Herschel wrote: [I] conclude, that the full red falls still short of the maximum of heat; which perhaps lies even a little beyond visible refraction. In this case, radiant heat will at least partly, if not chiefly, consist, if I may be permitted the expression, of invisible light; that is to say, of rays coming from the sun, that have such a momentum as to be unfit for vision.

A few years from now, far away from here, a young woman will be sitting on a sofa at a party. Everyone around will be dancing and drinking but his eyes will be glued to the television. It's just a short clip from concert by one of the country's most female performers right now. Her name is Maya Andersson, and the young man has always loved that name. How ordinary it sounds. He's never thought about her accent, has never reflected upon why it sound so familiar to hin, But now he sees her on television and she's singing a song about someone she loved,because it's hit birthday, and on the huge screen behind ger a photograph of him flashes up for moment. She knows no one will really see it, a thousand more images flash past right after it, she just inclided that particular photograph for her own sake. But he man on sofa recognizes it. Because he remembers fingertips and glances. Beer bottles on a worn bar counter and smoke in a silent forest. The way snow feels as it falls on your skin while a boy with sad eyes and a wild heart teaches you to skate. The man on the sofa pack almost nothing. He takes just a light bag and the case containing his bass guitar and travels to the next town on Maya's tour. He elbows past her security guard and almost gets knocked to the floor and he he calls out: "I knew him! I knew Benji! I loved him too!" Maya stops mid-stride. They look each other in the eye and see only him, the boy in the forest, sad and wild. "Do you play?" May asks. "I'm a bass player," he says. From then on he is her bass player. No one plays her songs like he does. No one else cries as much each night.

We might understand each other better if we had more rank conversations between britons and Americans," [Murrow] observed during one BBC broadcast. "You must bear in mind that we are, on the whole, more emotional, vociferous and intolerant than you. We'll go to a baseball game or a football match and shout for the blood of the referee, and on occasion, fling beer bottles at him. Our domestic controversies are conducted in strong language, with much name-calling--in short, we're inclined to say what we think, even when we have not thought very much.

Debris of beer cans, Subway wrappers, and chip bags attested to the fact that Jules, by dint of youth, good genes, and an active lifestyle, could consume as many calories as he pleased with zero impact on the eminently fuckable physique on display through his tie-dyed tank top and his voluminous cargo shorts.