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When a person speculates about my identity, it reveals something about their own background and preferences. If the canvas is blank; the only thing people can see on its surface is themselves.

The screen blanked, then produced a book cover. The jacket image—in black-and-white—showed barking dogs surrounding a scarecrow. In the background, shoulders slumped in a posture of weariness or defeat (or both), was a hunter with a gun. The eponymous Cortland, probably.

There is a hole in the universe. It is not like a hole in a wall where a mouse slips through, solid and crisp and leading from somewhere to someplace. It is rather like a hole in the heart, an amorphous and edgeless void. It is a heartfelt absence, a blank space where something is missing, a large and obvious blind spot in our understanding of the universe. That missing something, strange to say, is a grasp of nothing itself. Understanding nothing matters, because nothing is the all-important background upon which everything else happens.

In return, he gave her a silk scarf with a reproduction of Cherry Blossoms at Night, by Katsushika Ōi, on it. The painting depicts a woman composing a poem on a slate in the foreground. The titular cherry blossoms are in the background, all but a few of them in deep shadow. Despite the title, the cherry blossoms are not the subject; it is a painting about the creative process—its solitude and the ways in which an artist, particularly a female one, is expected to disappear. The woman’s slate appears to be blank.

Well, let's argue this out, Mr Blank. You, who represent Society, have the right to pay me four hundred francs a month. That's my market value, for I am an inefficient member of Society, slow in the uptake, uncertain, slightly damaged in the fray, there's no denying it. So you have the right to pay me four hundred francs a month, to lodge me in a small, dark room, to clothe me shabbily, to harass me with worry and monotony and unsatisfied longings till you get me to the point when I blush at a look, cry at a word. We can't all be happy, we can't all be rich, we can't all be lucky - and it would be so much less fun if we were. Isn't it so, Mr Blank? There must be the dark background to show up the bright colours. Some must cry so that the others may be able to laugh the more heartily.

There’s no mighty seat of reason which dwells within the brain. Creation is discovery. God discovered us in the Void because we moved against a backgroundwhich He already knew. The wall was blank. Then there was movement.

Watanabe-san and Sadie exchanged gifts. She brought him a pair of carved wooden Ichigo chopsticks that their Japanese distributor had had made to celebrate the release of the second Ichigo in Japan. In return, he gave her a silk scarf with a reproduction of Cherry Blossoms at Night, by Katsushika Ōi, on it. The painting depicts a woman composing a poem on a slate in the foreground. The titular cherry blossoms are in the background, all but a few of them in deep shadow. Despite the title, the cherry blossoms are not the subject; it is a painting about the creative process---its solitude and the ways in which an artist, particularly a female one, is expected to disappear. The woman's slate appears to be blank. "I know Hokusai is an inspiration for you," Watanabe-san said. "This is by Hokusai's daughter. Only a handful of her paintings survived, but I think she is even better than the father.

I’m going to tell you something, there’s country poor, and there’s city poor. As much of my life as I’d spent in front of a TV thinking Oh, man, city’s where the money trees grow, I was seeing more to the picture now. I mean yes, that is where they all grow, but plenty of people are sitting in that shade with nothing falling on them. Chartrain was always discussing “hustle,” and it took me awhile to understand he grew up hungry for money like it was food. Because for him, they’re one and the same. Not to run the man down, but he wouldn’t know a cow from a steer, or which of them gave milk. No desperate men Chartrain ever knew went out and shot venison if they were hungry. They shot liquor store cashiers. Living in the big woods made of steel and cement, without cash, is a hungrier life than I knew how to think about. I made my peace with the place, but never went a day without feeling around for things that weren’t there, the way your tongue pushes into the holes where you’ve lost teeth. I don’t just mean cows, or apple trees, it runs deeper. Weather, for instance. Air, the way it smells from having live things breathing into it, grass and trees and I don’t know what, creatures of the soil. Sounds, I missed most of all. There was noise, but nothing behind it. I couldn’t get used to the blankness where there should have been bird gossip morning and evening, crickets at night, the buzz saw of cicadas in August. A rooster always sounding off somewhere, even dead in the middle of Jonesville. It’s like the movie background music. Notice it or don’t, but if the volume goes out, the movie has no heart. I’d oftentimes have to stop and ask myself what season it was. I never realized what was holding me to my place on the planet of earth: that soundtrack. That, and leaf colors and what’s blooming in the roadside ditches this week, wild sweet peas or purple ironweed or goldenrod. And stars. A sky as dark as sleep, not this hazy pinkish business, I’m saying blind man’s black. For a lot of us, that’s medicine. Required for the daily reboot.

We can't all be happy, we can't all be rich, we can't all be lucky - and it would be so much less fun if we were. Isn't it so, Mr Blank? There must be the dark background ti show up the bright colours. Some must cry so that the others may be able to laugh the more heartily. Sacrifices are necessary.. Let's say that you have this mystical right to cut my legs off. But the right to ridicule me afterwards because I am a cripple - no, that I think you haven't got. And that's the right you hold most dearly, isn't it? You must be able to despise the people you exploit.

It was filled with a dark paste, rather than liquid. I unscrewed the cap. The smell rolled toward me, and I reared back. I could almost hear growling, the pop of a bone socket. "Civet," Claudia said, unfazed. "It takes a strong stomach to smell an animalic base note straight, don't you think? But a drop or two, down there in the bottom of a perfume? It sends that other message. Death and sex- that's what perfume's all about. You'll understand when you're older." I stared back at her. I knew about death. I knew about sex. I didn't need her to tell me. She held out another bottle, her expression bland. "Jasmine." I was cautious this time, barely sniffing the contents, but the smell was a relief- sweet, white, and creamy, almost euphoric. I felt as if I were floating in it. Just as I was about to put the bottle down, though, I caught a whiff of something else in the background, something narcotic and sticky. I inhaled more deeply, trying to pin it down. "You like it," Claudia said. For the first time, she seemed pleased with me. "Do you know what that is, that note you're searching for?" I shook my head. It was right there, but in that cool, blank room, I couldn't quite name it. "It's shit," Claudia said. She smiled, slow and lazy. "Technically, the molecule's called indole, but a rose by any other name...

The accuracy of my memories, whether things happened exactly the way that the personalities remember, doesn't really matter. If my memory, combined with the memories of the other personalities, provides some coherent past, then that is far better than the blankness I have. Whatever inaccuracies may occur because of the passage of time or because of the colored intensity of "emotional truth" harm no one. All that matters is that I gain a firm grasp on what is real. The memories of the total entity, accurate or not, are providing me a handle. I must have some background to adequately explain where I am now. I must have a base from which to build an unfragmented future.

universe.” Tan’elKoth’s tone remained dry and precise, but his face grew ever more grim. “Chambaraya is, one might say, a smaller knot of mind within the Worldmind: what the elves call T’nnalldion. Through Faith, the Bog can get its corporate fingers into that knot, unbind it, and tie it again in their own image.” Avery shook her head blankly, uncomprehending. Tan’elKoth’s expression was bleak as an open grave. “They’ll make of it a world like this one.” “Is that all?” Avery asked, frowning. “You make it sound like a catastrophe.” “It will be an Armageddon unimaginable; it will be genocide on a scale of which Stalin could not have dreamed.” “Wiping out magick doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.” “Businessman,” Tan’elKoth said patiently, “you don’t understand. Magick has not been wiped out on Earth; it is a function of Flow, which is the energy of existence itself. But its state can be altered. And it has been. Once, Earth was home to fully as many magickal creatures as was Overworld: dragons and sea serpents and mermaids, rocs and djann and primals and stonebenders and all. But creatures such as these require higher levels of certain frequencies of Flow than does humanity; as the pattern of Earth degraded, these creatures not only died, but their very bones gave up their integrity. They vanished into the background Flow of your universe.” “You’re saying magick works on Earth?” Avery said skeptically. “Magick works, as you say, everywhere. But the manner in which magick works on Earth is a local aberration; the physics of this planet and its spatial surrounds have been altered to conditions that favor the ascendance of humanity.” “And what’s wrong with that?” “I did not say it was wrong. I do not debate morality. In my zeal to protect my Children, I once favored such a fate for my own world. But it is unnatural. It is both the cause and the result of the ugly twisting of human nature that we see around

What can he tell them? He, who knows nothing. Ibn al Mohammed has not planned atrocities nor committed them. He has never been in the presence of terrorists. Yet Satan’s agents suspect him. He is dark-complected. His hair and beard are black. His name is Muslim. Body tall and slender, hands large, their fingers long and tapered. Dark eyes sunken in a narrow face. Irises like obsidian. He prays on hands and knees, forehead touching the floor. Thoughtlessly aligned, his cage obliges him to face a white plastic wall to bow toward Mecca. No matter; Ibn al Mohammed requires no sight of ocean or sky to know his place in the universe. He knows himself as one chosen, beloved of God. A man whose devotion will allow him to be saved. Standing at the bars, he stares at the plastic wall. Modesty panel, they call it. The detainee wills nothing, attempts nothing, merely stares at blankness as his mind opens toward such signs as might appear. Something, nothing. However little, however great, whatever God vouchsafes is sufficient. The least sign is enough. A crease in the plastic. A shadow cast against its insensate skin, then fleeing, gone. A raindrop: trickling through the roof, one small drop might touch the wall, leave a transparent streak, a tear without sorrow to confirm his understanding of what is and must be. Recognition. Acceptance. By such a sign he will know he is not forsaken. That God notices and prepares a place. He will not serve in the harvest. He will eat the food, drink the water, ride the bus. He will not pick the berries so prized by his captors. Droids will cajole and threaten; perhaps they will beat him. If so, they incriminate themselves. He relishes their degradation together with God’s tasking, this new test of will and faith. To suffer in silence, as meek as a lamb. Ibn al Mohammed will remove himself from himself. Self fading into background, his presence will diminish. His body will persist; corporeally, he must endure. But his self will become absent. Mind and its thought, heart and all emotion will disperse smoke-like into nothingness and in its vanishing forestall injury, indignity, all pain. Does God approve? Does God see? A mere token will assure Ibn al Mohammed for a lifetime. Standing at the bars, he watches. Minutes pass. How long must he wait? God speaks at His leisure to those with patience to attend. What does it mean, to have enough patience to attend to God? It is a discipline to expect nothing because you deserve nothing and merit only death. Ibn al Mohammed has waited all his life. What has he seen? His father taken away. His mother and sisters scrounging in a desert. He himself is confined in-cage. Squats on a stool, shits in a pail. Rain rattles across sheet tin, pock-pock-pock-pock. Food is delivered on a tray. A damp bed beneath his body, a white wall before his eyes. What does Ibn al Mohammed see? He sees nothing. [pp. 203-204]

There were things I liked, things that had caught my attention over the years, but for the most part, I was empty. Over the past couple of years, I'd been slowly unpacking all the emotional baggage from the past, all the trauma and fear, but that mess had done more than just keep me silent, existing in the background. It had held me back from–from living. Wasn't that what being passionate really was? Living? Except that fear was still there and because of it, I was this blank thing. Oddly, a pressure lifted from my shoulders. I didn't feel bad about this as I rose. I was basically a blank canvas and that wasn't a bad thing, I decided in that moment, because that meant I...I could be whatever. I could become anything. I just had to do it.

As one of the large-scale background conditions of human life and human sexuality, our ideals in regard to virginity, like those in regard to gender and class and race, have always depended on historical circumstance.

So, I have a serious question for you guys.” I kept my face completely blank while pausing dramatically. Their expressions turned serious, expecting another conversation about my dad or their backgrounds, I was sure. “Which one of you is responsible for the apple-scented body wash in the shower?” I smiled at the end of the question, unable to hide my amusement any longer. Chase snickered and Knox guffawed, both turning to look at Ethan. He glared at them. “What? I happen to like the smell of fruit. It’s not a crime.

Chicago told its 2016 intake of students point-blank not to expect any trigger warnings or safe spaces at their educational establishment. “Fostering a free exchange of ideas reinforces a related University priority—building a campus that welcomes people of all backgrounds,” wrote the Dean of Students, Jay Ellison, in a letter to freshmen. “Diversity of opinion and background is a fundamental strength of our community. The members of our community must have the freedom to espouse and explore a wide range of ideas.” The

The iridium for this purpose is found in small grains of platinum, slightly alloyed with this latter metal. The gold for pens is alloyed with silver to about sixteen carats fineness, rolled into thin strips, from which the blanks are struck. The under side of the point is notched by a small circular saw to receive the iridium point, which is selected with the aid of a microscope. A flux of borax and a blowpipe secure it to its place. The point is then ground on a copper wheel of emery. The pen-blank is next rolled to the requisite thinness by the means of rollers especially adapted for the purpose, and tempered by blows from a hammer. It is then trimmed around the edges, stamped, and formed in a press. The slit is next cut through the solid iridium point by means of a thin copper wheel fed with fine emery, and a saw extends the aperture along the pen itself. The inside edges of the slit are smoothed and polished by the emery

An old Chevy, I think,” he was going on now. “It’s supposed to be back soon, though. Not really the same without it, is it?” He actually sounded genuinely mournful. I was surprised to find myself battling back a quick, involuntary smile. He did seem to be more interesting than your average, run-of-the-mill BMOC. I had to give him that. Get a grip, O’Connor, I chastised myself. “Absolutely not,” I said, giving my head a semi-vigorous nod. That ought to move him along, I thought. You may not be aware of this fact, but agreeing with people is often an excellent way of getting them to forget all about you. After basking in the glow of agreement, most people are then perfectly content to go about their business, remembering only the fact that someone agreed and allowing the identity of the person who did the actual agreeing to fade into the background. This technique almost always works. In fact, I’d never known it not to. There was a moment of silence. A silence in which I could feel the BMOC’s eyes upon me. I kept my own eyes fixed on the top of the carless column. But the longer the silence went on, the more strained it became. At least it did on my side. This guy was simply not abiding by the rules. He was supposed to have basked and moved on by now. “You don’t have the faintest idea what I’m talking about, do you?” he said at last. I laughed before I quite realized what I’d done. “Not a clue,” I said, turning to give him my full attention for the very first time, an action I could tell right away spelled trouble. You just had to do it, didn’t you? I thought. He was even better looking when I took a better look. He flashed me a smile, and I felt my pulse kick up several notches. My brain knew perfectly well that that smile had not been invented just for me. My suddenly-beating-way-too-fast heart wasn’t paying all that much attention to my brain, though. “You must be new, then,” he commented. “I’d remember you if we’d met before.” All of a sudden, his face went totally blank. “I cannot believe I just said that,” he said. “That is easily the world’s oldest line.” “If it isn’t, it’s the cheesiest,” I said. He winced. “I’d ask you to let me make it up to you, but I’m thinking that would make things even worse.” “You’d be thinking right.” This time he was the one who laughed, the sound open and easy, as if he was genuinely enjoying the joke on himself. In retrospect I think it was that laugh that did it. That finished the job his smile had started. You just didn’t find all that many guys, all that many people, who were truly willing to laugh at themselves. “I’m Alex Crawford,” he said. “Jo,” I said. “Jo O’Connor.” At this Alex actually stuck out his hand. His eyes, which I probably don’t need to tell you were this pretty much impossible shade of blue, focused directly on my face. “Pleased to meet you, Jo O’Connor.” I watched my hand move forward to meet his, as if it belonged to a stranger and was moving in slow motion. At that exact moment, an image of the robot from the movie Lost in Space flashed through my mind. Arms waving frantically in the air, screaming, “Danger! Danger!” at the top of its inhuman lungs. My hand kept moving anyhow. Our fingers connected. I felt the way Alex’s wrapped around mine, then tightened. Felt the way that simple action caused a flush to spread across my cheeks and a tingle to start in the palm of my hand and slowly begin to work its way up my arm. To this day, I’d swear I heard him suck in a breath, saw his impossibly blue eyes widen. As if, at the exact same moment I looked up at him, he’d discovered something as completely unexpected as I had, gazing down. He released me. I stuck my hand behind my back. “Pleased to meet you, Jo O’Connor,” he said again. Not quite the way he had the first time.

It is possible, I have found, to love something but forget about it for periods of several years or even longer when your mind is filled with a special kind of blankness or a particularly loud sort of noise. Sex can do it and so can grief. Also raising a child, I’ve heard, or caring for the aged, two things I never did because I was afraid of exactly this kind of forgetting. But, I think, even if forgotten, the thing you love is always there, running in the background. It takes energy to forget something you love that much, in a way that can leave you feeling perpetually tired and unused.

There’s no mighty seat of reason which dwells within the brain. Creation is discovery. God discovered us in the Void because we moved against a background which He already knew. The wall was blank. Then there was movement.

I'd heard much about the showcase and seen half a dozen dumps like it. It was one of those phonily “artistic” dives, where pale poets quote blank verse to blank people, where bands honk “modern” dissonances as background to sonorous verbiage. Here gathered painters and writers and poets and sculptors and all sorts of people who talked in lower case, like the showcase sign outside. It wasn't much of a place for laughs.

I made my peace with the place, but never went a day without feeling around for things that weren’t there, the way your tongue pushes into the holes where you’ve lost teeth. I don’t just mean cows, or apple trees, it runs deeper. Weather, for instance. Air, the way it smells from having live things breathing into it, grass and trees and I don’t know what, creatures of the soil. Sounds, I missed most of all. There was noise, but nothing behind it. I couldn’t get used to the blankness where there should have been bird gossip morning and evening, crickets at night, the buzz saw of cicadas in August. A rooster always sounding off somewhere, even dead in the middle of Jonesville. It’s like the movie background music. Notice it or don’t, but if the volume goes out, the movie has no heart. I’d oftentimes have to stop and ask myself what season it was. I never realized what was holding me to my place on the planet of earth: that soundtrack. That, and leaf colors and what’s blooming in the roadside ditches this week, wild sweet peas or purple ironweed or goldenrod. And stars. A sky as dark as sleep, not this hazy pinkish business, I’m saying blind man’s black. For a lot of us, that’s medicine. Required for the daily reboot.

We can't all be happy, we can't all be rich, we can't all be lucky - and it would be so much less fun if we were. Isn't it so, Mr Blank? There must be the dark background to show up the bright colours. Some must cry so that the others may be able to laugh the more heartily. Sacrifices are necessary.. Let's say that you have this mystical right to cut my legs off. But the right to ridicule me afterwards because I am a cripple - no, that I think you haven't got. And that's the right you hold most dearly, isn't it?

Simon gave her a blank look. “Yeah, I don’t get it either,” Elena said, waving it away. “The important thing is, Lou is still searching for names. I also have my office looking into Aaron Corval’s background—his birth certificate, anything—so we can get a handle on that. Which brings me to the big thing.” Elena stopped and let loose a deep breath. “What?” he said. “I found another connection.

Simon gave her a blank look. “Yeah, I don’t get it either,” Elena said, waving it away. “The important thing is, Lou is still searching for names. I also have my office looking into Aaron Corval’s background—his birth certificate, anything—so we can get a handle on that. Which brings me to the big thing.” Elena stopped and let loose a deep breath. “What?” he said. “I found another connection.” There was something odd in her voice. “Between all of them?

Sometimes I wake up suddenly in the middle of the night drenched with sweat all over my head. And I cry with no tears coming out of my eyes staring blankly into the pointless space in front of me. I try hard and close my eyes hoping to fall asleep but like a daemon running in the background it scares the hell shit out of me. I just wish it is just a story on the back of my mind and as soon as I will wake up next morning it will fade away like a dream but I fear it isn't and I know it won't.

The act of writing a novel is generally thought to be a solitary journey from that first awe-inspiring blank page to the end. However, the fact that most authors offer acknowledgments speaks to the presence of a team in the background, offering advice, support, information, a shoulder to cry on, or someone to share a laugh with.

Music needs blank spaces sometimes,” Cotton said. “They take up all the blank spaces.” “Now you’re talkin’ about music,” said Billy Goat. “Nobody makes real music anymore. It’s all just a big show.” “Just background for MTV,” said Duncan. “It’s almost impossible for a real musician to do anything worth listening to anymore. Now it’s all I-don’t-know-what.

The Clock Cell A Poem by Rosa Jamali Something happens to die And the sunlight which has been soaking is wet and obscure If I carry on the lines The frozen object which has been captured in your hands will drop Otherwise, the day has come to an end. Void When I get home; staring at all those cubical shapes; Standstill current of water And the sunlight which is never damp On the blank sheets of writing bursting into tears over old sheets on my bed. The elements Its essence has been painted by my blood The rain of cats and dogs on my field The moon is encompassing the land! Here with the frostbite on the iron post, I left the time on the river bank Time was a whim slipped away from my fingers The moments have been cleaned and cleared. The wall has turned blue Me and the black gown Have taken the flow of the river. It's a calf death breast-fed. What is it? Sediments on a neutral background It could be in a different colour It's been many days since I started walking on the rope The creased moon is hanging down the ceiling. Blizzard A flimsy stone The frostbite on the window glass The bridge has fallen down Silence on a metal tape Ending to a blind full stop. (TRANSLATED FROM ORIGINAL PERSIAN TO ENGLISH BY ROSA JAMALI)

People who want to be invisible to assholes use different kinds of camouflage, but it helps them blend into the background too. They are quiet when others talk. They are boring when others are interesting. They try to do work that is neither lousy nor excellent, but somewhere in the middle. They dress to avoid standing out—just like everyone else, but with a bit less pizzazz. They hide behind bland and blank expressions. Their aim is to lay low and to not make waves, to be invisible and forgettable.