Bells And Whistles Quotes

If we want to give oxygen and content to our life, let us bypass the flamboyant bells and whistles of shallow pursuits and take delight in the appeasement of the emotional windfalls that crop up when we encounter the ‘others’ and engage in new mental adventures. ("Transcendental journey" )

I'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they've made of me—and that I've made of myself—as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman's and I can't live up to it

You know how when a guy and girl really like each other in a book, they talk about a spark between them? With Nox there is no spark. No. He bypassed the spark. When Nox touches me, there’s nothing less than the whistling, shrieking explosions of fireworks. Big ones. The ones they save till the end of the show.

We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we're afraid to let them see it in us. We're afraid that our truth isn't enough - that what we have to offer isn't enough without the bells and whistles, without editing, and impressing.

Liam made a low whistling sound through the device in Zane’s ear. “Little touch and go there, lads. Who do I shoot first if things go to hell?

Not all magic is fireworks and fanfare. Sometimes magic is quiet and sneaks up on you. An illusion is what needs all the bells and whistles to make itself appear grander than it really is, which is just a trick that can be explained.

A great commotion immobilized her in her center of gravity, planted her in her place, and her defensive will was demolished by the irresistible anxiety to discover what the orange bells and whistles and the invisible globes on the other side of death were like.

We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we’re afraid to let them see it in us. We’re afraid that our truth isn’t enough—that what we have to offer isn’t enough without the bells and whistles, without editing, and impressing. I was afraid to walk on that stage and show the audience my kitchen-table self—these people were too important, too successful, too famous. My kitchen-table self is too messy, too imperfect, too unpredictable. Here’s the crux of the struggle: I want to experience your vulnerability but I don’t want to be vulnerable.

We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we’re afraid to let them see it in us. We’re afraid that our truth isn’t enough—that what we have to offer isn’t enough without the bells and whistles, without editing, and impressing.

These days, students struggle with conversation. What makes sense is to engage them in it. The more you think about educational technology, with all its bells and whistles, the more you circle back to the simple power of conversation.

I wanted to be with her, like all the time. Eliminate the obstacles, the people and things in our lives that were keeping us apart: Brandi, Seth, Kirsten, society, me. Me? Make that my fear. What was I afraid of, exactly? What other people would think? I guess, a little. But that wasn’t what was stopping me from acting on my feelings. It was the intensity of them. The desire for her. I knew if I gave into it, I’d have to surrender myself completely. I’d lose all control. Everything I knew, everything I was, the walls I’d built up to protect myself all these years would come crashing down. I might get lost in the rubble. Yet, she made me feel alive in a way I'd only ever imagined I could feel. Bells, whistles, music. (Chapter. 15)

A year later we were in a coffee shop, the kind taking a last stand against Starbucks with its thrift-store chairs, vegan cookies, and over-promising teas with names like Serenity and Inner Peace. I was curled up with a stack of causes, trying to get in a few extra hours of work over the weekend, and Andrew sat with one hand gripping his mug, his nose in The New York Times; the two of us a parody of the yuppie couple of the new millennium. We sat silently that way, though there wasn't silence at all. On top of the typical coffee-shop sounds - the whir of an expresso machine, the click of the cash register, the bell above the door - Andrew was making his noises, an occasional snort at something he read in the paper, the jangle of his keys in his pocket, a sniffle since he was getting over a cold, a clearing of his throat. And as we sat there, all I could do was listen to those Andrew-specific noises, the rhythm of his breath, the in-out in-out, its low whistle. Snort. Jangle. Sniffle. Clear. Hypnotized. I wanted to buy his soundtrack. This must be what love is, I thought. Not wanting his noises to ever stop.

Loving him sneaked up on me one tentative step at a time and then a bouncing rush and I was the lucky one who got to love him. I get to love this man every day of my life. It’s an all-consuming love filling every crevice and it’s meant to be that way. I’ve discovered with every opened lock within me that I wasn’t made for half measures, or maybe I’m just not made to be half of anything with Gray. He makes me want to jump in the puddle of love with both my feet. Not only that, I craved it, hungered for the love he showered me with. Our love opened me to new feelings. Like we’ve built mansions on top of clouds with bells and whistles loud enough to drown out the world. Because in the end isn’t that what transcendent love does? It blocked out the world and lets you experience your heartbeats for the first time.

What was I afraid of, exactly? What other people would think? I guess, a little. But that wasn't what was stopping me from acting on my feelings. It was the intensity of them. The desire for her. I knew if I gave into it, I'd have to surrender myself completely. I'd lose all control. Everything I knew, everything I was, the walls I'd built up to protect myself all these years would come crashing down. I might get lost in the rubble. Yet, she made me feel alive in a way I'd only ever imagined I could feel. Bells, whistles, music.

an old man with no destiny with our never knowing who he was, or what he was like, or even if he was only a figment of the imagination, a comic tyrant who never knew where the reverse side was and where the right of this life which we loved with an insatiable passion that you never dared even to imagine out of the fear of knowing what we knew only too well that it was arduous and ephemeral but there wasn't any other, general, because we knew who we were while he was left never knowing it forever with the soft whistle of his rupture of a dead old man cut off at the roots by the slash of death, flying through the dark sound of the last frozen leaves of his autumn toward the homeland of shadows of the truth of oblivion, clinging to his fear of the rotting cloth of death's hooded cassock and alien to the clamor of the frantic crowds who took to the streets singing hymns of joy at the jubilant news of his death and alien forevermore to the music of liberation and the rockets of jubilation and the bells of glory that announced to the world the good news that the uncountable time of eternity had come to an end.

I made myself listen to the birds singing squabbles and love songs. Occasionally I heard a war. Sharp mechanical sounds clashed with the nature music. Bells and whistles mashed together in nagging bursts. My new life was calling. I had to get on with it. Body historians, griots of the galaxy, we didn’t diddle ourselves in jungle paradises, we inhabited flesh to gather a genealogy of life. We sought the story behind all the stories.

A syndrome is small, portable, not weighed down by theory, episodic. You can explain something with it and then discard it. A disposable instrument of cognition. Mine is called Recurrent Detoxification Syndrome. Without the bells and whistles, its description boils down to the insistence of one’s consciousness on returning to certain images, or even the compulsive search for them. It is a variant of the Mean World Syndrome, which has been described fairly exhaustively in neuropsychological studies as a particular type of infection caused by the media. It’s quite a bourgeois ailment, I suppose. Patients spend long hours in front of the TV, thumbing at their remote controls through all the channels till they find the ones with the most horrendous news: wars, epidemics, and disasters. Then, fascinated by what they’re seeing, they can’t tear themselves away. The symptoms themselves

The other thing? You mean the invisible hand on my bells and whistle? Yeah, I don’t need anyone knowing that shit. Sir.

None of us came here for the bells and whistles. It's [for] the personnel. These meetings? Like the one where you got your ass kicked? That's what makes you a better doctor. That's all that matters.

Let me tell you something about the beauty of destruction. There is a distinct art in boxing, because there is method, strategy, technique rules and all the bells and whistles that the general public knows. However, since the beginning of time mankind was destined to appreciate the art of combat; and that is the mortal sacrifice - you put yourself out there and display a virtual painting, an interactive canvas that portrays the nature of the human body and what it’s capable of, and as an outcome, the object of combat is not to sacrifice yourself to entertain spectators, no, but to make the other bastard sacrifice himself to entertain spectators - thus comes the art of honor. It’s not a thirst for blood, not at all - but an astonishment, an appreciation for the capabilities of a human that bares his soul naked for the art of combat using strictly his body. That’s entertainment.

Song of myself Now I will do nothing but listen, To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it. I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals, I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice, I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following, Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night, Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of work-people at their meals, The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick, The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing a death-sentence, The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the refrain of the anchor-lifters, The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streaking engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color'd lights, The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars, The slow march play'd at the head of the association marching two and two, (They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.) I hear the violoncello, ('tis the young man's heart's complaint,) I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears, It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast. I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera, Ah this indeed is music--this suits me.

Oh. My. God." he murmured as it all ended in a crescendo complete with beautiful sparks and all the bells and whistles of fantastic makeup sex. Five full minutes later he propped up on a an elbow and kissed the tip of her nose. "Can we fight again tomorrow?" She smiled up at him. "I was thinking of starting an argument right now.

I knew if I gave into it, I’d have to surrender myself completely. I’d lose all control. Everything I knew, everything I was, the walls I’d built up to protect myself all these years would come crashing down. I might get lost in the rubble. Yet, she made me feel alive in a way I'd only ever imagined I could feel. Bells, whistles, music.

There wasn’t just a red flag, there was a warning bell and alarms and whistles and neon lights with DON’T DO IT in all capital letters.

There had been many definitions of Man; he would make another: “The noise-producing animal.” Now there was only the nearly imperceptible murmur of his own engine. He had no need to blow the horn. There were no back-firing trucks, no snorting trains, no pounding planes overhead. In the little towns no whistles blew or bells rang or radios blared or people talked. Even if it was the peace of death, still that was a kind of peace.

Kieran stilled, his whole body going stiff. “What do you use? Your fingers, or a vibrator?” I slid my forearm across my forehead, my body pounding again. “None of your business,” I forced out, my throat tight. “Can I watch?” He glanced back, his tone teasing but his eyes on fire. “You can use both methods, and then compare them with my cock. See which one gets you off the best.” “Vibrator, easy.” I cleared my throat. “It’s got all the bells and whistles. Men just aren’t equipped to compete.” “I’m not a man.” His voice was deep and rich. “I’m a god.

The dark has a eased a little. There has been a street-lamp burning, that has lit the threads of the bleached net scarf hung at the window, now it is put out. The light turns filthy pink. The pink gives way to sickly yellow. It creeps, and with it creeps sound - softly at first, then rising in a staggering crescendo: crowning cocks, whistles and bells, dogs, shrieking babies, violent calling, coughing, spitting, the tramp of feet, the endless hollow of beating hooves and the grinding of wheels. Up, up it comes, out of the throat of London. It is six or seven o'clock.

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry, -- determined to make a day of it. Why should we knock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the meridian shallows. Weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill. With unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail by it, looking another way, tied to the mast like Ulysses. If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we run? We will consider what kind of music they are like. Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin, having a point d'appui, below freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found a wall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, not a Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future ages might know how deep a freshet of shams and appearances had gathered from time to time. If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business. Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore-paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine.

The progress of Sybilla though a market was the progress of worker bee through a bower of intently propagating blossoms. Everything stuck. From the toy stall she bought two ivory dolls, a hen whistle, a rattle and a charming set of miniature bells for a child’s skirts: all were heroically received and borne by Tom, henceforth marked by a faint, distracted jingling. From the spice booth, set with delicious traps for the fat purse, she took cinnamon, figs, cumin seed and saffron, ginger, flower of gillyflower and crocus and—an afterthought—some brazil for dyeing her new wool. These were distributed between Christian and Tom. They listened to a balladmonger, paid him for all the verses of “When Tay’s Bank,” and bought a lengthy scroll containing a brand-new ballad which Tom Erskine read briefly and then discreetly lost. “No matter,” said the Dowager cheerfully, when told. “Dangerous quantity, music. Because it spouts sweet venom in their ears and makes their minds all effeminate, you know. We can’t have that.” He was never very sure whether she was laughing at him, but rather thought not. They pursued their course purposefully, and the Dowager bought a new set of playing cards, some thread, a boxful of ox feet, a quantity of silver lace and a pair of scissors. She was dissuaded from buying a channel stone, which Tom, no curling enthusiast, refused utterly to carry, and got a toothpick in its case instead. They watched acrobats, invested sixpence for an unconvincing mermaid and finally stumbled, flattened and hot, into a tavern, where Tom forcibly commandeered a private space for the two women and brought them refreshments. “Dear, dear,” said Lady Culter, seating herself among the mute sea of her parcels, like Arion among his fishes. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten which are the squashy ones. Never mind. If we spread them out, they can’t take much hurt, I should think. Unless the ox feet … Oh. What a pity, Tom. But I’m sure it will clean off.

Mowgli went on with his work, but it was nearly twilight before he and the wolves had drawn the great gay skin clear of the body. 'Now we must hide this and take the buffaloes home! Help me to herd them, Akela.' The herd rounded up in the misty twilight, and when they got near the village Mowgli saw lights, and heard the conches and bells in the temple blowing and banging. Half the village seemed to be waiting for him by the gate. 'That is because I have killed Shere Khan,' he said to himself; but a shower of stones whistled about his ears, and the villagers shouted: 'Sorcerer! Wolfs brat! Jungle-demon! Go away! Get hence quickly, or the priest will turn thee into a wolf again. Shoot, Buldeo, shoot!' The old Tower musket went off with a bang, and a young buffalo bellowed in pain. 'More sorcery!' shouted the villagers. 'He can turn bullets. Buldeo, that was thy buffalo.' 'Now what is this?' said Mowgli, bewildered, as the stones flew thicker. 'They are not unlike the Pack, these brothers of thine,' said Akela, sitting down composedly. 'It is in my head that, if bullets mean anything, they would cast thee out.' 'Wolf! Wolf's cub! Go away!' shouted the priest, waving a sprig of the sacred tulsi plant. 'Again? Last time it was because I was a man. This time it is because I am a wolf. Let us go, Akela.

On April 12, 1955, a team of scientists announced that Jonas Salk’s vaccine against polio—the disease that had killed thousands a year, paralyzed Franklin Roosevelt, and sent many children into iron lungs—was proven safe. According to Richard Carter’s history of the discovery, on that day “people observed moments of silence, rang bells, honked horns, blew factory whistles, fired salutes, . . . took the rest of the day off, closed their schools or convoked fervid assemblies therein, drank toasts, hugged children, attended church, smiled at strangers, and forgave enemies.”4 The city of New York offered to honor Salk with a ticker-tape parade, which he politely declined.

Hugh Anthony, in his new nautical overcoat with brass buttons, neither knew nor cared what he looked like, but was comforted in his heated state by a whistle on a white cord. For years he had been telling his grandparents that a whistle should always accompany marine attire and now at last, just in time for the festival, this remark had sunk in. With his lovely eyes fixed on the altar and an expression of great spiritual beauty on his face he was wondering just when to blow the whistle. Should he accompany the last hymn on it or should he blow one shrill blast in the middle of the Dean's sermon? It was difficult to decide. He must, as Grandfather said one should, wait and be guided.

The buzzards over Pondy Woods Achieve the blue tense altitudes Black figments that the woods release, Obscenity in form and grace, Drifting high through the pure sunshine Till the sun in gold decline. (...) By the buzzard roost Big Jim Todd Listened for hoofs on the corduroy road Or for the foul and sucking sound A man's foot makes on the marshy ground. Past midnight, when the moccasin Slipped from the log and, trailing in Its obscured waters, broke The dark algae, one lean bird spoke, (...) "[Big Jim] your breed ain't metaphysical." The buzzard coughed, His words fell In the darkness, mystic and ambrosial. "But we maintain our ancient rite, Eat the gods by day and prophesy by night. We swing against the sky and wait; You seize the hour, more passionate Than strong, and strive with time to die -- With time, the beaked tribe's astute ally. "The Jew-boy died. The Syrian vulture swung Remotely above the cross whereon he hung From dinner-time to supper-time, and all The people gathered there watched him until The lean brown chest no longer stirred, Then idly watched the slow majestic bird That in the last sun above the twilit hill Gleamed for a moment at the height and slid Down the hot wind and in the darkness hid. [Big Jim], regard the circumstance of breath: Non omnis moriar, the poet sayeth." Pedantic, the bird clacked its gray beak, With a Tennessee accent to the classic phrase; Jim understood, and was about to speak, But the buzzard drooped one wing and filmed the eyes. At dawn unto the Sabbath wheat he came, That gave to the dew its faithless yellow flame From kindly loam in recollection of The fires that in the brutal rock one strove. To the ripe wheat he came at dawn. Northward the printed smoke stood quiet above The distant cabins of Squiggtown. A train's far whistle blew and drifted away Coldly; lucid and thin the morning lay Along the farms, and here no sound Touched the sweet earth miraculously stilled. Then down the damp and sudden wood there belled The musical white-throated hound. In pondy Woods in the summer's drouth Lurk fever and the cottonmouth. And buzzards over Pondy Woods Achieve the blue tense altitudes, Drifting high in the pure sunshine Till the sun in gold decline; Then golden and hieratic through The night their eyes burn two by two.

They waited in position, bayonets fixed, on the morning of July 1st, and listened to the mines go, on schedule at 7.25 a.m. In the distant village of Fricourt, the church bell rang clamorously as the tower collapsed. The weird sound unnerved the men as they waited in their trench, as if the clanging of the bell were the terrible gabble of their own mute fear. Then the whistle went, and they surged forward, over the top into a world of noise. There was no logic that carried Perceval Lucas forth as he ran on those strong, lean legs of his; no discernible path that had taken him from his garden by the stream at Rackham Cottage to one of the bloodiest battles in human history, there on the upper reaches of the River Somme. The following morning, his company entered the village square, and kicked away, underfoot, the stone fragments of saints. The church was a smoking stump, and they saw that its bell-tower had crushed two houses as it fell. Cows wandered the streets, mad and fevered with not having been milked.

The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe present an extraordinary movement of millions of people. Men leave their customary pursuits, hasten from one side of Europe to the other, plunder and slaughter one another, triumph and are plunged in despair, and for some years the whole course of life is altered and presents an intensive movement which first increases and then slackens. What was the cause of this movement, by what laws was it governed? asks the mind of man. The historians, replying to this question, lay before us the sayings and doings of a few dozen men in a building in the city of Paris, calling these sayings and doings “the Revolution”; then they give a detailed biography of Napoleon and of certain people favorable or hostile to him; tell of the influence some of these people had on others, and say: that is why this movement took place and those are its laws. But the mind of man not only refuses to believe this explanation, but plainly says that this method of explanation is fallacious, because in it a weaker phenomenon is taken as the cause of a stronger. The sum of human wills produced the Revolution and Napoleon, and only the sum of those wills first tolerated and then destroyed them. “But every time there have been conquests there have been conquerors; every time there has been a revolution in any state there have been great men,” says history. And, indeed, human reason replies: every time conquerors appear there have been wars, but this does not prove that the conquerors caused the wars and that it is possible to find the laws of a war in the personal activity of a single man. Whenever I look at my watch and its hands point to ten, I hear the bells of the neighboring church; but because the bells begin to ring when the hands of the clock reach ten, I have no right to assume that the movement of the bells is caused by the position of the hands of the watch. Whenever I see the movement of a locomotive I hear the whistle and see the valves opening and wheels turning; but I have no right to conclude that the whistling and the turning of wheels are the cause of the movement of the engine.

All Night, All Night Rode in the train all night, in the sick light. A bird Flew parallel with a singular will. In daydream's moods and attitudes The other passengers slumped, dozed, slept, read, Waiting, and waiting for place to be displaced On the exact track of safety or the rack of accident. Looked out at the night, unable to distinguish Lights in the towns of passage from the yellow lights Numb on the ceiling. And the bird flew parallel and still As the train shot forth the straight line of its whistle, Forward on the taut tracks, piercing empty, familiar -- The bored center of this vision and condition looked and looked Down through the slick pages of the magazine (seeking The seen and the unseen) and his gaze fell down the well Of the great darkness under the slick glitter, And he was only one among eight million riders and readers. And all the while under his empty smile the shaking drum Of the long determined passage passed through him By his body mimicked and echoed. And then the train Like a suddenly storming rain, began to rush and thresh-- The silent or passive night, pressing and impressing The patients' foreheads with a tightening-like image Of the rushing engine proceeded by a shaft of light Piercing the dark, changing and transforming the silence Into a violence of foam, sound, smoke and succession. A bored child went to get a cup of water, And crushed the cup because the water too was Boring and merely boredom's struggle. The child, returning, looked over the shoulder Of a man reading until he annoyed the shoulder. A fat woman yawned and felt the liquid drops Drip down the fleece of many dinners. And the bird flew parallel and parallel flew The black pencil lines of telephone posts, crucified, At regular intervals, post after post Of thrice crossed, blue-belled, anonymous trees. And then the bird cried as if to all of us: 0 your life, your lonely life What have you ever done with it, And done with the great gift of consciousness? What will you ever do with your life before death's knife Provides the answer ultimate and appropriate? As I for my part felt in my heart as one who falls, Falls in a parachute, falls endlessly, and feel the vast Draft of the abyss sucking him down and down, An endlessly helplessly falling and appalled clown: This is the way that night passes by, this Is the overnight endless trip to the famous unfathomable abyss.

I knew both from personal experience and by the example of many of my comrades that fighting in a war has an irreparably destructive effect on almost any man. I knew also that the constant proximity of death, the sight of the killed, wounded, dying, hanged and shot, the great red flame in the icy air above blazing villages on a winter’s night, the carcass of a man’s horse and those auditory impressions - the alarm bell, shell explosions, the whistle of bullets, the desperate, unknown cries – none of this ever passes with impunity. I knew that the silent, almost unconscious memory of war haunts the majority of people who have gone through it, leaving something broken in them once and for all. I knew myself that the normal, human ideas regarding the value of life and the necessity for a basic moral code – not to kill, not to steal, not to rape, to show compassion – had been slowly reasserted within me after the war, but they had lost their former persuasiveness and had become merely a system of theoretical morality, with whose correctness and necessity I couldn’t, in principle, disagree. Those feelings that ought to have been inside me and that were a condition of the re-establishment of this code had been razed by war; they no longer existed, and there was nothing to take their place.

Bells Screamed all off key, wrangling together as they collided in midair, horns and whistles mingled shrilly with cries of human distress; sulphur-colored light ex-ploded through the black windowpane and flashed away in darkness. Miranda waking from a dreamless sleep asked without expecting an answer, “What is happening?” for there was a bustle of voices and footsteps in the corridor, and a sharpness in the air; the far clamour went on, a furious exasperated shrieking like a mob in revolt. The light came on, and Miss Tanner said in a furry voice, “Hear that? They’re celebrating . It’s the Armistice. The war is over, my dear.” Her hands trembled. She rattled a spoon in a cup, stopped to listen, held the cup out to Miranda. From the ward for old bedridden women down the hall floated a ragged chorus of cracked voices singing, “My country, ’tis of thee…” Sweet land… oh terrible land of this bitter world where the sound of rejoicing was a clamour of pain, where ragged tuneless old women, sitting up waiting for their evening bowl of cocoa, were singing, “Sweet land of Liberty-” “Oh, say, can you see?” their hopeless voices were asking next, the hammer strokes of metal tongues drowning them out. “The war is over,” said Miss Tanner, her underlap held firmly, her eyes blurred. Miranda said, “Please open the window, please, I smell death in here.

On Sunday, November 10, Kaiser Wilhelm II was dethroned, and he fled to Holland for his life. Britain’s King George V, who was his cousin, told his diary that Wilhelm was “the greatest criminal known for having plunged the world into this ghastly war,” having “utterly ruined his country and himself.” Keeping vigil at the White House, the President and First Lady learned by telephone, at three o’clock that morning, that the Germans had signed an armistice. As Edith later recalled, “We stood mute—unable to grasp the significance of the words.” From Paris, Colonel House, who had bargained for the armistice as Wilson’s envoy, wired the President, “Autocracy is dead. Long live democracy and its immortal leader. In this great hour my heart goes out to you in pride, admiration and love.” At 1:00 p.m., wearing a cutaway and gray trousers, Wilson faced a Joint Session of Congress, where he read out Germany’s surrender terms. He told the members that “this tragical war, whose consuming flames swept from one nation to another until all the world was on fire, is at an end,” and “it was the privilege of our own people to enter it at its most critical juncture.” He added that the war’s object, “upon which all free men had set their hearts,” had been achieved “with a sweeping completeness which even now we do not realize,” and Germany’s “illicit ambitions engulfed in black disaster.” This time, Senator La Follette clapped. Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Lodge complained that Wilson should have held out for unconditional German surrender. Driven down Capitol Hill, Wilson was cheered by joyous crowds on the streets. Eleanor Roosevelt recorded that Washington “went completely mad” as “bells rang, whistles blew, and people went up and down the streets throwing confetti.” Including those who had perished in theaters of conflict from influenza and other diseases, the nation’s nineteen-month intervention in the world war had levied a military death toll of more than 116,000 Americans, out of a total perhaps exceeding 8 million. There were rumors that Wilson planned to sail for France and horse-trade at the peace conference himself. No previous President had left the Americas during his term of office. The Boston Herald called this tradition “unwritten law.” Senator Key Pittman, Democrat from Nevada, told reporters that Wilson should go to Paris “because there is no man who is qualified to represent him.” The Knickerbocker Press of Albany, New York, was disturbed by the “evident desire of the President’s adulators to make this war his personal property.” The Free Press of Burlington, Vermont, said that Wilson’s presence in Paris would “not be seemly,” especially if the talks degenerated into “bitter controversies.” The Chattanooga Times called on Wilson to stay home, “where he could keep his own hand on the pulse of his own people” and “translate their wishes” into action by wireless and cable to his bargainers in Paris.

I. The Burial of the Dead April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. [...] (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you, I will show you fear in a handful of dust. [...] Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. [...] II. A Game of Chess [...] Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair Spread out in fiery points Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. III. The Fire Sermon [...] The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. [...] At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea, The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights Her stove, and lays out food in tins. [...] I Tiresias, old man with dugs Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest-- I too awaited the expected guest. [...] IV. Death by Water [...] A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool. [...] V. What the Thunder Said [...] A woman drew her long black hair out tight And fiddled whisper music on those strings And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings And crawled head downward down a blackened wall And upside down in air were towers Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

cap to scratch his bald head. ‘Well, you won’t miss the veg because I’ll be bringing you some every week now. I’ve always got plenty left over and I’d rather give it to you than see it waste.’ He gave a rumbling laugh. ‘I caught that young Tommy Barton digging potatoes from Percy’s plot this mornin’. Give ’im a cuff round ’is ear but I let him take what he’d dug. Poor little bugger’s only tryin’ to keep his ma from starvin’; ain’t ’is fault ’is old man got banged up for robbin’, is it?’ Tilly Barton, her two sons Tommy and Sam and her husband, lived almost opposite the Pig & Whistle. Mulberry Lane cut across from Bell Lane and ran adjacent to Spitalfields Market, and the folk of the surrounding lanes were like a small community, almost a village in the heart of London’s busy East End. Tilly and her husband had been good customers for Peggy until he lost his job on the Docks. It had come as a shock when he’d been arrested for trying to rob a little corner post office and Peggy hadn’t seen Tilly to talk to since; she’d assumed it was because the woman was feeling ashamed of what her husband had done. ‘No, of course not.’ Peggy smiled at him. A wisp of her honey-blonde hair had fallen across her face, despite all her efforts to sweep it up under a little white cap she wore for cooking. ‘I didn’t realise Tilly Barton was in such trouble. I’ll take her a pie over later – she won’t be offended, will she?’ ‘No one in their right mind would be offended by you, Peggy love.’ ‘Thank you, Jim. Would you like a cup of coffee and a slice of apple pie?’ ‘Don’t mind a slice of that pie, but I’ll take it for my docky down the allotment if that’s all right?’ Peggy assured him it was and wrapped a generous slice of her freshly cooked pie in greaseproof paper. He took it and left with a smile and a promise to see her next week just as her husband entered the kitchen. ‘Who was that?’ Laurence asked as he saw the back of Jim walking away. ‘Jim Stillman, he brought the last of the stuff from Percy’s allotment.’ Peggy’s eyes brimmed and Laurence frowned. ‘I don’t know what you’re upset for, Peggy. Percy was well over eighty. He’d had a good life – and it wasn’t even as if he was your father…’ ‘I know. He was a lot older than Mum but…Percy was a good stepfather to me, and wonderful to Mum when she was so ill after we lost Walter.’ Peggy’s voice faltered, because it still hurt her that her younger brother had died in the Great War at the tender age of seventeen. The news had almost destroyed their mother and Peggy thought of those dark days as the worst of her

And if you wish to receive of the ancient city an impression with which the modern one can no longer furnish you, climb—on the morning of some grand festival, beneath the rising sun of Easter or of Pentecost—climb upon some elevated point, whence you command the entire capital; and be present at the wakening of the chimes. Behold, at a signal given from heaven, for it is the sun which gives it, all those churches quiver simultaneously. First come scattered strokes, running from one church to another, as when musicians give warning that they are about to begin. Then, all at once, behold!—for it seems at times, as though the ear also possessed a sight of its own,—behold, rising from each bell tower, something like a column of sound, a cloud of harmony. First, the vibration of each bell mounts straight upwards, pure and, so to speak, isolated from the others, into the splendid morning sky; then, little by little, as they swell they melt together, mingle, are lost in each other, and amalgamate in a magnificent concert. It is no longer anything but a mass of sonorous vibrations incessantly sent forth from the numerous belfries; floats, undulates, bounds, whirls over the city, and prolongs far beyond the horizon the deafening circle of its oscillations. Nevertheless, this sea of harmony is not a chaos; great and profound as it is, it has not lost its transparency; you behold the windings of each group of notes which escapes from the belfries. You can follow the dialogue, by turns grave and shrill, of the treble and the bass; you can see the octaves leap from one tower to another; you watch them spring forth, winged, light, and whistling, from the silver bell, to fall, broken and limping from the bell of wood; you admire in their midst the rich gamut which incessantly ascends and re-ascends the seven bells of Saint-Eustache; you see light and rapid notes running across it, executing three or four luminous zigzags, and vanishing like flashes of lightning. Yonder is the Abbey of Saint-Martin, a shrill, cracked singer; here the gruff and gloomy voice of the Bastille; at the other end, the great tower of the Louvre, with its bass. The royal chime of the palace scatters on all sides, and without relaxation, resplendent trills, upon which fall, at regular intervals, the heavy strokes from the belfry of Notre-Dame, which makes them sparkle like the anvil under the hammer. At intervals you behold the passage of sounds of all forms which come from the triple peal of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Then, again, from time to time, this mass of sublime noises opens and gives passage to the beats of the Ave Maria, which bursts forth and sparkles like an aigrette of stars. Below, in the very depths of the concert, you confusedly distinguish the interior chanting of the churches, which exhales through the vibrating pores of their vaulted roofs. Assuredly, this is an opera which it is worth the trouble of listening to. Ordinarily, the noise which escapes from Paris by day is the city speaking; by night, it is the city breathing; in this case, it is the city singing. Lend an ear, then, to this concert of bell towers; spread over all the murmur of half a million men, the eternal plaint of the river, the infinite breathings of the wind, the grave and distant quartette of the four forests arranged upon the hills, on the horizon, like immense stacks of organ pipes; extinguish, as in a half shade, all that is too hoarse and too shrill about the central chime, and say whether you know anything in the world more rich and joyful, more golden, more dazzling, than this tumult of bells and chimes;—than this furnace of music,—than these ten thousand brazen voices chanting simultaneously in the flutes of stone, three hundred feet high,—than this city which is no longer anything but an orchestra,—than this symphony which produces the noise of a tempest.

There is a spurious vitality about all this noise. But under it, when you come back, you can sense another more significant and more enduring vitality. It has been somewhat hammered down of late. The bell ringers and flag fondlers have been busily peddling their notion that to make America Strong, we must march in close and obedient ranks, to the sound of their little tin whistle. The life-adjustment educators, in strange alliance with the hucksters of consumer goods, have been doing their damnedest to make us all think alike, look alike, smell alike and die alike, amidst all the pockety-queek of unserviceable home appliances, our armpits astringent, nasal passages clear, insurance program adequate, sex life satisfying, retirement assured, medical plan comprehensive, hair free of dandruff, time payments manageable, waistline firm, bowels open. But the other vitality is still there, that rancorous, sardonic, wonderful insistence on the right to dissent, to question, to object, to raise holy hell and, in direst extremity, to laugh the self-appointed squad leaders off the face of the earth with great whoops of dirty disdainful glee. Suppress friction and a machine runs fine. Suppress friction, and a society runs down.

The reason Bitcoin developers haven’t added extra functionality and flexibility directly into its software is that they have prioritized security over complexity. The more complex transactions become, the more vectors there are to exploit and attack these transactions, which can affect the network as a whole. With a focus on being a decentralized global currency, Bitcoin developers have decided bitcoin transactions don’t need all the bells and whistles. Instead, other developers can either find ways to build atop Bitcoin’s limited functionality, turning to Bitcoin’s blockchain as a system of record and means of security (e.g., Counterparty), or build an entirely different blockchain system (e.g., Ethereum).

In essence, the beauty of social media was in how you designed and implemented a campaign, not in the bells and whistles you used. It was the informal and formal dialogue you had with your community that ultimately taps into the platform’s unique possibilities.

I knew it was a bad idea. There wasn’t just a red flag, there was a warning bell and alarms and whistles and neon lights with DON’T DO IT in all capital letters. But sometimes, even when we know something is bad for us, we do it anyway. Maybe for the thrill, maybe to cure our curiosity, or maybe just to lie to ourselves a little longer.

I was well-accustomed to this aloneness, this want for independence having already accepted as natural law that no one could ever reach me but myself, the bells and whistles of attention that made most others seem to feel better for me more a distraction than a balm.

I started back around to see what she was havering at when all kinds bells and whistles went off at once across Dance's boards and all the cockpit lights went green-amber-red and 'I'm Not Ready for This'.

The street was very narrow, cobbled with the same color tones as the faded cinnamon-brown buildings that darkened the street with their shade. It had the feel of an alleyway. Many red flags decorated the walls, spaced only a few yards apart, flapping in the wind that whistled through the narrow lane. It was crowded, and the foot traffic slowed our progress. ‘Just a little farther,’ Olivia encouraged me; I was gripping the door handle, ready to throw myself into the street as soon as she spoke the word. She drove in quick spurts and sudden stops, and the people in the crowd shook their fists at us and said angry words that I was glad I could not understand. She turned onto the little path that could not have been meant for cars; shocked people had to squeeze into doorways as we scraped by. We found another street at the end. The buildings were taller here; they leaned together overhead so that no sunlight touched the pavement- the thrashing red flags on either side nearly met. The crowd was thicker here than anywhere else. Olivia stopped the car. I had the door open before we were at a standstill. She pointed to where the street widened into a patch of bright openness. ‘There were at the southern end of the square. Run straight across, to the right of the clock tower. I'll find a way around-’ Her breath caught suddenly, and when she spoke again, her voice was a hiss. ‘They're everywhere?’ I froze in place, All the same, and all, she pushed me out of the car. ‘Forget about them. You have two minutes. Go, Bell, go!’ she shouted, climbing out of the car as she spoke. I did not pause to watch Olivia melt into the shadows. I did not stop to close my door behind me. I shoved a heavy woman out of my way and ran flat out, head down, paying little attention to anything All the same and all, the uneven stones beneath my feet.

In walking the streets of Mexico City you are immersed in a symphony of sounds. From the recordings of the tamale vendors to the whistles of knife sharpeners, the camote vendor with his oven that sounds like a train, the melodies of organilleros, the sounds of birds and church bells that fill the morning air – each note adds to the beautiful chaos of the city.

I was supposed to miss him. To miss my life. To miss the bells and whistles that I was supposed to love.

How Ma Bell Helped Us Build the Blue Box In 1955, the Bell System Technical Journal published an article entitled “In Band Signal Frequency Signaling” which described the process used for routing telephone calls over trunk lines with the signaling system at the time. It included all the information you’d need to build an interoffice telephone system, but it didn’t include the MF (multifrequency) tones you needed for accessing the system and dialing. But nine years later, in 1964, Bell revealed the other half of the equation, publishing the frequencies used for the digits needed for the actual routing codes. Now, anybody who wanted to get around Ma Bell was set. The formula was there for the taking. All you needed were these two bits of information found in these two articles. If you could build the equipment to emit the frequencies needed, you could make your own free calls, skipping Ma Bell’s billing and monitoring system completely. Famous “phone phreaks” of the early 1970s include Joe Engressia (a.k.a. Joybubbles), who was able to whistle (with his mouth) the high E tone needed to take over the line. John Draper (a.k.a. Captain Crunch) did the same with the free whistle that came inside boxes of Cap’n Crunch. A whole subculture was born. Eventually Steve Jobs (a.k.a. Oaf Tobar) and I (a.k.a. Berkeley Blue) joined the group, making and selling our own versions of the Blue Boxes. We actually made some good money at this.

Boeing had sought to keep cost data out of the hands of rank-and-file engineers, to keep the information from compromising their designs; now the opposite was true. Boeing wanted them all to make decisions with the cold eye of a Jack Welch or a Harry Stonecipher. After finishing the course, engineers were meant to “understand, God, that program has to be produceable, I can’t put every bell and whistle on it,” said Boeing’s vice president of learning, Steve Mercer, the former deputy at Crotonville.

The New Age is not one of bells and whistles and mystical special effects. It is not a fantasy state driven by the alignments of planets or the power of crystals, nor a metaphysical rising to higher plains of consciousness by virtue of chanting esoteric mantras. It will not feature the arrival of a thunderbolt-wielding god, ready to set up a final judgment by reviving hordes of old, decayed corpses. The real New Age is a simple, but stunningly profound, awareness that one’s Self and all that one encounters are two aspects of the same, singular Essence.

Sometimes late at night before closing, when the store was empty and there was only the hum of the cooler and a faint buzz from the overhead fluorescent lights to disturb the silence, she would have the feeling that she was perched at the very edge of her dreams. She would stop whatever she was doing and lean on the counter, listening. A Gulf breeze rustled the leaves in the gutter; a train whistled on the outskirts of town. Possibility seemed to shiver in the air, like the electric sensation before a hurricane. Any minute now, she would tell herself, staring out the window, any minute now it would happen. It had to happen. She could feel it like a tingling beneath her skin. Any minute now, the bell would ring, the door would open, and her future would step in to greet her. He’d be wearing a suit and tie, and he’d ask in a polite, gentlemanly voice that sounded at once foreign but completely familiar, “Miss? Hello? Can you help me?

Prospects should purchase the solution for the value it provides, not its bells and whistles. There’s a reason why so many B2B solutions have large market shares in spite of terrible user experience. B2B buyers buy an ROI, not an interesting feature set.

Every breath we take from the air Takes oxygen from an insect’s lungs mid-prayer And every exhalation does loudly declare That in the currency of life, we’re millionaires. A butterfly flapped it’s wings and Rome fell A passerby’s whistle cracked the liberty bell And I dare urge the daring not to yell Lest we so bid a skyscraper a rough farewell. A snake’s tongue slithered and man did sin Let me tell you how the waves from a shark’s fin Did set the tides on D-Day and let the allies win; Chance and destiny are identical twins. A word was spoken and the earth created Another phrase and the future was dictated And so every action must be carefully weighted We just never know how things are interrelated.

Don’t be so concerned about doing things the corporate way—just get the product out there and sell. Cut back on the bells and whistles, and ensure that the core of the product is solid;

{2} Neither did I but vacant seasons spend In this my scribble; nor did I intend But to divert myself in doing this From worser thoughts which make me do amiss. Thus, I set pen to paper with delight, And quickly had my thoughts in black and white. For, having now my method by the end, Still as I pulled, it came; and so I penned It down: until it came at last to be, For length and breadth, the bigness which you see. Well, when I had thus put mine ends together, I shewed them others, that I might see whether They would condemn them, or them justify: And some said, Let them live; some, Let them die; Some said, JOHN, print it; others said, Not so; Some said, It might do good; others said, No. Now was I in a strait, and did not see Which was the best thing to be done by me: At last I thought, Since you are thus divided, I print it will, and so the case decided. {3} For, thought I, some, I see, would have it done, Though others in that channel do not run: To prove, then, who advised for the best, Thus I thought fit to put it to the test. I further thought, if now I did deny Those that would have it, thus to gratify. I did not know but hinder them I might Of that which would to them be great delight. For those which were not for its coming forth, I said to them, Offend you I am loth, Yet, since your brethren pleased with it be, Forbear to judge till you do further see. If that thou wilt not read, let it alone; Some love the meat, some love to pick the bone. Yea, that I might them better palliate, I did too with them thus expostulate:-- {4} May I not write in such a style as this? In such a method, too, and yet not miss My end--thy good? Why may it not be done? Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none. Yea, dark or bright, if they their silver drops Cause to descend, the earth, by yielding crops, Gives praise to both, and carpeth not at either, But treasures up the fruit they yield together; Yea, so commixes both, that in her fruit None can distinguish this from that: they suit Her well when hungry; but, if she be full, She spews out both, and makes their blessings null. You see the ways the fisherman doth take To catch the fish; what engines doth he make? Behold how he engageth all his wits; Also his snares, lines, angles, hooks, and nets; Yet fish there be, that neither hook, nor line, Nor snare, nor net, nor engine can make thine: They must be groped for, and be tickled too, Or they will not be catch'd, whate'er you do. How does the fowler seek to catch his game By divers means! all which one cannot name: His guns, his nets, his lime-twigs, light, and bell: He creeps, he goes, he stands; yea, who can tell Of all his postures? Yet there's none of these Will make him master of what fowls he please. Yea, he must pipe and whistle to catch this, Yet, if he does so, that bird he will miss. If that a pearl may in a toad's head dwell, And may be found too in an oyster-shell; If things that promise nothing do contain What better is than gold; who will disdain, That have an inkling of it, there to look, That they may find it? Now, my little book, (Though void of all these paintings that may make It with this or the other man to take) Is not without those things that do excel What do in brave but empty notions dwell.

After any highly stressful event, such as an automobile accident, it is normal for memories, emotions, and sensations associated with the trauma to flood involuntarily into consciousness. In most cases, people replay these memories over and over again, and this "replay" mechanism actually helps defuse their emotional content and allows people to put the experience behind them. This kind of mental processing is healthy and does not lead to long-term problems. But events that are extremely traumatic—being caught in a hurricane, attacked in a war, being the victim of an assault or a rape, or having suffered severe abuse as a child—are not effectively processed by some people. When images or memories of the event return, they are not able to think about them analytically or dispassionately, but instead they reexperience the terror all over again. These intrusive thoughts do not fade with time but are persistent, and each time they occur they are newly traumatizing. Such people are haunted by nightmares, flashbacks, and feelings of anxiety, fear, and foreboding that make them experience the trauma not as a painful event of the past but as a real, in-the-present, on-going threat. As a result, their entire stress-response system, in body and mind, becomes stuck in a state of constant alert, but the state tends to be unstable. Their emotions tend to swing from one extreme to its opposite. To cope with such emotional overload, these people organize their lives around avoiding any reminder of the trauma and the feelings it invokes. It is ultimately a futile struggle, however—like fighting an invisible enemy. The battle for control sets off a vicious cycle of intrusive thoughts that produce fear and anxiety followed by desperate attempts to achieve psychological numbing to reduce the anxiety. They progressively lose the ability to control or modulate their physiological response to any kind of stressor, and stimuli completely unrelated to the trauma may trigger intrusive memories. Lit up like a pinball machine, all their internal bells and whistles blaring, they cannot articulate how they feel because they cannot decipher the messages that their nervous system is sending them. Eventually, just having a feeling, any feeling, can seem enormously threatening.