Carnival Lights Quotes

On Saturday night, I would see men lusting after half-naked girls dancing at the carnival, and on Sunday morning when I was playing organ for tent-show evangelists at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in the pews with their wives and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday they'd be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence. I knew then that the Christian church thrives on hypocrisy, and that man's carnal nature will out no matter how much it is purged or scoured by any white-light religion.

You've walked those streets a thousand times and still you end up here. Regret none of it, not one of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing, when the lights from the carnival rides were the only stars you believed in, loving them for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved. You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake, ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied of expectation. Relax. Don't bother remembering any of it. Let's stop here, under the lit sign on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

I KNEW IT WAS OVER when tonight you couldn't make the phone ring when you used to make the sun rise when trees used to throw themselves in front of you to be paper for love letters that was how i knew i had to do it swaddle the kids we never had against january's cold slice bundle them in winter clothes they never needed so i could drop them off at my mom's even though she lives on the other side of the country and at this late west coast hour is assuredly east coast sleeping peacefully her house was lit like a candle the way homes should be warm and golden and home and the kids ran in and jumped at the bichon frise named lucky that she never had they hugged the dog it wriggled and the kids were happy yours and mine the ones we never had and my mom was grand maternal, which is to say, with style that only comes when you've seen enough to know grace like when to pretend it's christmas or a birthday so she lit her voice with tiny lights and pretended she didn't see me crying as i drove away to the hotel connected to the bar where i ordered the cheapest whisky they had just because it shares your first name because they don't make a whisky called baby and i only thought what i got was what i ordered i toasted the hangover inevitable as sun that used to rise in your name i toasted the carnivals we never went to and the things you never won for me the ferris wheels we never kissed on and all the dreams between us that sat there like balloons on a carney's board waiting to explode with passion but slowly deflated hung slave under the pin- prick of a tack hung heads down like lovers when it doesn't work, like me at last call after too many cheap too many sweet too much whisky makes me sick, like the smell of cheap, like the smell of the dead like the cheap, dead flowers you never sent that i never threw out of the window of a car i never really owned

A carnival in daylight is an unfinished beast, anyway. Rain makes it a ghost. The wheezing music from the empty, motionless rides in a soggy, rained-out afternoon midway always hit my chest with a sweet ache. The colored dance of the lights in the seeping air flashed the puddles in the sawdust with an oily glamour.

Dad, will they ever come back?" "No. And yes." Dad tucked away his harmonica. "No not them. But yes, other people like them. Not in a carnival. God knows what shape they'll come in next. But sunrise, noon, or at the latest, sunset tomorrow they'll show. They're on the road." "Oh, no," said Will. "Oh, yes, said Dad. "We got to watch out the rest of our lives. The fight's just begun." They moved around the carousel slowly. "What will they look like? How will we know them?" "Why," said Dad, quietly, "maybe they're already here." Both boys looked around swiftly. But there was only the meadow, the machine, and themselves. Will looked at Jim, at his father, and then down at his own body and hands. He glanced up at Dad. Dad nodded, once, gravely, and then nodded at the carousel, and stepped up on it, and touched a brass pole. Will stepped up beside him. Jim stepped up beside Will. Jim stroked a horse's mane. Will patted a horse's shoulders. The great machine softly tilted in the tides of night. Just three times around, ahead, thought Will. Hey. Just four times around, ahead, thought Jim. Boy. Just ten times around, back, thought Charles Halloway. Lord. Each read the thoughts in the other's eyes. How easy, thought Will. Just this once, thought Jim. But then, thought Charles Halloway, once you start, you'd always come back. One more ride and one more ride. And, after awhile, you'd offer rides to friends, and more friends until finally... The thought hit them all in the same quiet moment. ...finally you wind up owner of the carousel, keeper of the freaks... proprietor for some small part of eternity of the traveling dark carnival shows.... Maybe, said their eyes, they're already here.

Isn’t it better that we send them off once and for all beneath the glow of carnival lights, with the taste of treats on our tongues, rather than invite the acrid tang of doubt, and undue longing, and the heart-stab of a freshly sundered bond?

Amory wandered slowly up the avenue and thought of the night as inevitably his-- the pageantry and carnival of rich dusk and dim streets... it seemed that he had closed the book of fading harmonies at last and stepped into the sensuous vibrant walks of life. Everywhere these countless lights, this promise of a night of streets and singing-- he moved in a half-dream through the crowd as if expecting to meet Rosalind hurrying toward him with eager feet from every corner... How the unforgettable faces of dusk would blend to her, the myriad footsteps, a thousand overtures, would blend to her footsteps; and there would be more drunkenness than wine in the softness of her eyes on his. Even his dreams now were faint violins drifting like summer sounds upon the summer air.

He never described himself as a poet or his work as poetry. The fact that the lines do not come to the edge of the page is no guarantee. Poetry is a verdict, not an occupation. He hated to argue about the techniques of verse. The poem is a dirty, bloody, burning thing that has to be grabbed first with bare hands. Once the fire celebrated Light, the dirt Humility, the blood Sacrifice. Now the poets are professional fire-eaters, freelancing at any carnival. The fire goes down easily and honours no one in particular.

She feels like the first drags of fresh cigaretter but last crunches of cherry suckers. She feels like final coats of nail polish. She feels like lines of coke. She feels like knuckles you crack after a long day. She feels like Miami rain. She feels like empty football fields. She feels like full stadiums. She feels like absinthe. She feels like dangling from a helicopter. She feels like classical music. She feels like standing on a motorcycle. She feels like train tracks. She feels like frozen yogurt. She feels like destroying a piano. She feels like rooftops. She feels like fleeing from cops. She feels like stitches. She feels like strobe lights. She feels like blue carnival bears. She feels like curbs at 2 am. She feels like Cupid's Chokehold. She feels like running through Chicago. She feels like 1.2 million dollars. She feels like floors. She feels like everything he's ever wanted in life. […] “I love you more than I planned.

Devereaux is going with our pitch.” “Hey, that’s just great,” I said superperkily. “Wendell’s or mine?” “Yours.” “But you want to fire me. So fire me.” “We can’t fire you. They loved you. The head guy, Leonard Daly, thought you were, I quote, ‘a great kid, very courageous’ and a natural to do a whispering campaign. He said you had believability.” “That’s too bad.” “Why? You’re not quitting!” I thought about it. “Not if you don’t want me to. Do you?” Go on, say it. 298 ♥elavanilla♥ “No.” “No what?” “No, we don’t want you to quit.” “Ten grand more, two assistants, and charcoal suits. Take it or leave it.” Ariella swallowed. “Okay to the money, okay to the assistants, but I can’t green-light charcoal suits. Formula Twelve is Brazilian, we need carnival colors.” “Charcoal suits or I’m gone.” “Orange.” “Charcoal.” “Orange.” “Charcoal.” “Okay, charcoal.” It was an interesting lesson in power. The only time you truly have it is when you genuinely don’t care whether you have it or not. “Right,” I said. “I’m giving myself the rest of the day off.

God created each one of us with a light inside. I’ve had sex with all kinds of people; every single person has a kind of beam inside that shines once they are touched properly.

But no carnival can go on for ever.

Something about the crisp, cool air, the twinkling carnival lights, and the scent of deep-fried food provided the perfect atmosphere for reckless teenage abandon.

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read to the end just to find out who killed the cook. Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark, in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication. Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot, the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones that crimped your toes, don’t regret those. Not the nights you called god names and cursed your mother, sunk like a dog in the livingroom couch,b chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness. You were meant to inhale those smoky nights over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches. You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still you end up here. Regret none of it, not one of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing, when the lights from the carnival rides were the only stars you believed in, loving them for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved. You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake, ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering any of it. Let’s stop here, under the lit sign on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

Streets were quieter then. Dogs had the run of the town and children played outdoors. The side streets were for Simon Says and Green Light and Giant Step and other games. We set up our own carnivals. We told fortunes and sold coin purses that we made. But the buses on Wisteria Drive meant no one played outside my house. Even the dogs were wary except for one who only had three legs and still chased cars.

I stretched my arms towards the sky like blades of tall grass The sun beat between my shoulders like carnival drums I sat still in hopes that it would help my wings grow So then I could really be fly And then she arrived Like day break inside a railway tunnel Like the new moon, like a diamond in the mines Like high noon to a drunkard, sudden She made my heart beat in a now-now time signature Her skinny canvas for ultraviolet brushstrokes She was the sun's painting She was a deep cognac color Her eyes sparkled like lights along the new city She lips pursed as if her breath was too sweet And full for her mouth to hold I said, "You are the beautiful, the stress of mathematics." I said, "For you, I would peel open the clouds like new fruit And give you lightning and thunder as a dowry I would make the sky shed all of it's stars, light and rain And I would clasp the constellations across your waist And I would make the heavens your cape And they would be pleased to cover you They would be pleased to cover you May I please, cover you, please

She feels like the first drags of fresh cigarettes but last crunches of cherry suckers. She feels like final coats of nail polish. She feels like lines of coke. She feels like knuckles you crack after a long day. She feels like Miami rain. She feels like empty football fields. She feels like full stadiums. She feels like absinthe. She feels like dangling from a helicopter. She feels like classical music. She feels like standing on a motorcycle. She feels like train tracks. She feels like frozen yogurt. She feels like destroying a piano. She feels like rooftops. She feels like fleeing from cops. She feels like stitches. She feels like strobe lights. She feels like blue carnival bears. She feels like curbs at 2 am. She feels like Cupid's Chokehold. She feels like running through Chicago. She feels like 1.2 million dollars. She feels like floors. She feels like everything he's ever wanted in life. […] “I love you more than I planned.

There was something special about a carnival at night. Bright lights pierced the darkness; the tinkling music of the merry-go-round provided the perfect background for the shrill calls of the carnival workers; the giggles of the people aiming fake rifles at fake ducks were full of contagious fun; the distant shrieks coming from the roller coaster and the top of the Ferris wheel filled the air; and a warm breeze carried the tantalizing aromas of cotton candy and hot buttered popcorn.

I used to know a carnival man turned preacher who said the key to his success was understanding the people of what he called Snake's Navel, Arkansas. He said in Snake's Navel, the biggest thing going on Saturday night was the Dairy Queen. He said you could get the people there to do damn near anything --pollute their own water, work at five-dollar-an-hour jobs, drive fifty miles to a health clinic-- as long as you packaged it right. That meant you gave them a light show and faith healings and blow-down-the-walls gospel music with a whole row of American flags across the stage. He said what they liked best, though --what really got them to pissing all over themselves-- was to be told it was other people going to hell and not them. He said people in Snake's Navel wasn't real fond of homosexuals and Arabs and Hollywood Jews, although he didn't use them kinds of terms in his sermons.

I might put it another way: Franz felt his book life to be unreal. He yearned for real life, for the touch of people walking side by side with him, for their shouts. It never occurred to him that what he considered unreal (the work he did in the solitude of the office or library) was in fact his real life, whereas the parades he imagined to be reality were nothing but theater, dance, carnival- in other words, a dream.

Through the clouds of smoke I seemed to see all old Asia before me, and the adventures of past years behind me. A carnival of old camp-scenes danced before my mind’s eye, expiring like shooting-stars in the night—merry songs which came to an end among other mountains and the dying sound of strings and flutes. And I was surprised that I had not had enough of these things and that I was not tired of the light of camp-fires.

The malignancy drew him. It was a dark carnival-Ferris Wheels with their lights out revolving above a black landscape, a never-ending sideshow filled with freaks like himself, and in the main tent the lions ate the spectators.

At high school I was never comfortable for a minute. I did not know about Lonnie. Before an exam, she got icy hands and palpitations, but I was close to despair at all times. When I was asked a question in class, any simple little question at all, my voice was apt to come out squeaky, or else hoarse and trembling. When I had to go to the blackboard I was sure—even at a time of the month when this could not be true—that I had blood on my skirt. My hands became slippery with sweat when they were required to work the blackboard compass. I could not hit the ball in volleyball; being called upon to perform an action in front of others made all my reflexes come undone. I hated Business Practice because you had to rule pages for an account book, using a straight pen, and when the teacher looked over my shoulder all the delicate lines wobbled and ran together. I hated Science; we perched on stools under harsh lights behind tables of unfamiliar, fragile equipment, and were taught by the principal of the school, a man with a cold, self-relishing voice—he read the Scriptures every morning—and a great talent for inflicting humiliation. I hated English because the boys played bingo at the back of the room while the teacher, a stout, gentle girl, slightly cross-eyed, read Wordsworth at the front. She threatened them, she begged them, her face red and her voice as unreliable as mine. They offered burlesqued apologies and when she started to read again they took up rapt postures, made swooning faces, crossed their eyes, flung their hands over their hearts. Sometimes she would burst into tears, there was no help for it, she had to run out into the hall. Then the boys made loud mooing noises; our hungry laughter—oh, mine too—pursued her. There was a carnival atmosphere of brutality in the room at such times, scaring weak and suspect people like me.

Mala faced her wall of faded cereus blooms. She was content. Oblivious to the dew that drizzled from the mudra, she rocked and dozed lightly. Scent, as though too shy for light, no longer trickled from the blossoms but Mala was not yet ready to leave the yard. Her eyes would flicker open and catch a glimpse of the day that was beginning to split the black sky apart. In that first orange light the flowers hung limp, battered and bruised, each one worn out from the frenzied carnival of moths. (140)

The wind whistles down into the skyscraper-bound canyons, across the broad expanses of the avenues and the narrow confines of the streets, where lives unfolded in secret, day in, day out: Sometimes a man sighs for want of love. Sometimes a child cries for the dropped lollipop, its sweetness barely tasted. Sometimes the girl gasps as the train screams into the station, shaken by how close she’d allowed herself to wander to the edge. Sometimes the drunk raises weary eyes to the rows of building rendered beautiful by a brief play of sunlight. “Lord?” he whispers into the held breath between taxi horns. The light catches on a city spire, fracturing for a second into glorious rays before the clouds move in again. The drunk lowers his eyes. “Lord, Lord…” he sobs, as if answering his own broken prayer. […] Another day closes. The sun sinks low on the horizon. It slips below the Hudson, smearing the West Side of Manhattan in a slick of gold. Night arrives for its watchful shift. The neon city bursts its daytime seams, and the great carnival of dreams begins again.

The people are the energy of a carnival. Excitement bleeds. It flows like rivers. Ask any carnie, and they’ll agree that there is a frantic current to a carnival. Yes, it’s completely fabricated. So is the electricity that powers a light bulb. Being artificial doesn’t mean it isn’t real—it only means it has a purpose. It’s this power of excitement that carnivals tap, feed upon, exploit. And for all that people call carnivals a scam or a con, they’re nothing of the sort. We go to them to be exploited. That’s part of the charm. While you’re there—among the dizzying overload of lights, chatter, excitement, sticky ground, and thronging people—you feel that there must be more than enough energy to go around. Human exhilaration is a renewable resource. And you can generate it with cheap stuffed animals and fried foods.

There were charming ones as well as terrible ones, that I must admit. The painter was particularly entranced by Japanese masks: warriors', actors' and courtesans' masks. Some of them were frightfully contorted, the bronze cheeks creased by a thousand wrinkles, with vermilion weeping from the corners of the eyes and long trails of green at the corners of the mouths like splenetic beards. 'These are the masks of demons,' said the Englishman, caressing the long black swept-back tresses of one of them. 'The Samurai wore them in battle, to terrify the enemy. The one which is covered in green scales, with two opal pendants between the nostrils, is the mask of a sea-demon. This one, with the tufts of white fur for eyebrows and the two horsehair brushes beside the lips, is the mask of an old man. These others, of white porcelain - a material as smooth and fine as the cheeks of a Japanese maiden, and so gentle to the touch - are the masks of courtesans. See how alike they all are, with their delicate nostrils, their round faces and their heavy slanted eyelids; they are all effigies of the same goddess. The black of their wigs is rather beautiful, isn't it? Those which bubble over with laughter even in their immobility are the masks of comic actors.' That devil of a man pronounced the names of demons, gods and goddesses; his erudition cast a spell. Then: 'Bah! I have been down there too long!' Now he took up the light edifices of gauze and painted silk which were Venetian masks. 'Here is a Cockadrill, a Captain Fracasse, a Pantaloon and a Braggadocio. Only the noses are different - and the cut of their moustaches, if you look at them closely. Doesn't the white silk mask with enormous spectacles evoke a rather comical dread? It is Doctor Curucucu, an actual marionette featured in the Tales of Hoffmann. And what about that one, with all the black horsehair and the long spatulate nose like a stork's beak tipped with a spoon? Can you imagine anything more appalling? It's a duenna's mask; amorous young women were well-guarded when they had to go about flanked by old dragons dressed up in something like that. The whole carnival of Venice is put on parade before us beneath the cape and the domino, lying in ambush behind these masks... Would you like a gondola? Where shall we go, San Marco or the Lido?

Despite the enormous evening sky spreading over most of the canvas, its moon no more than a tarnished coin, dull and flat, in a devalued currency; despite the trees, so dark themselves, stretching upward like supplicants, utterly leafless; despite what could be a face, rinsed of feeling, aimed in their direction, the two small figures at the bottom of this picture glow bravely in their carnival clothes, as if the whole darkening world were dimming its lights for a party.

My mind still, now and again, becomes a carnival of lights, laughter, and sounds and possibilities. The laughter and exuberance and ease will, filling me, spill out and over and into others. These glinting, glorious moments will last for a while, a short season, and then move on. My high moods and hopes, having ridden briefly in the top car of the Ferris wheel will, as suddenly as they came, plummet into a black and grey and tired heap. Time will pass; these moods will pass; and I will, eventually, be myself again. But then, at some unknown time, the electrifying carnival will come back into my mind.

On the slope of the desolate river among tall grasses I asked her, `Maiden, where do you go shading your lamp with your mantle? My house is all dark and lonesome---lend me your light!' she raised her dark eyes for a moment and looked at my face through the dusk. `I have come to the river,' she said, `to float my lamp on the stream when the daylight wanes in the west.' I stood alone among tall grasses and watched the timid flame of her lamp uselessly drifting in the tide. In the silence of gathering night I asked her, `Maiden, your lights are all lit---then where do you go with your lamp? My house is all dark and lonesome---lend me your light.' She raised her dark eyes on my face and stood for a moment doubtful. `I have come,' she said at last, `to dedicate my lamp to the sky.' I stood and watched her light uselessly burning in the void. In the moonless gloom of midnight I ask her, `Maiden, what is your quest, holding the lamp near your heart? My house is all dark and lonesome---lend me your light.' She stopped for a minute and thought and gazed at my face in the dark. `I have brought my light,' she said, `to join the carnival of lamps.' I stood and watched her little lamp uselessly lost among lights.

Blaine: (as Humphrey Bogart) TIME'S DIFFERENT HERE, SHWEETHEART. YOU MUST KNOW THAT BY NOW. BUT DON'T WORRY; THE FUNDAMENTAL THINGS APPLY AS TIME GOES BY. WOULD I LIE TO YOU? Jake: Yes. That apparently struck Blaine's funnybone, because he began to laugh again--the mad, mechanical laughter that made Susannah think of funhouses in sleazy amusement parks and roadside carnivals. When the lights began to pulse in sync with the laughter, she shut her eyes and put her hands over her ears. Susannah: STOP IT, BLAINE! STOP IT! Blaine: (as Jimmy Stewart) BEG PARDON, MA'AM. AH'M RIGHT SORRY IF I RUINT YOUR EARS WITH MY RISABILITY. Jake: (hoisting his middle finger) Run this.

The Men’s Wearhouse where the boys were measured for their suits was holy; the T.J. Maxx where the girls texted each other pictures from their respective dressing rooms was holy; the Shoe Carnival where they staggered up and down the aisles almost laughing; the Michael’s where they chose posterboards for collages; the florist where they pointed at baby’s breath; the bakery where they deliberated over tea cookies; the Clinique counter where they bought waterproof mascara; the Cheesecake Factory where they ate bang-bang shrimp after it all and were very very kind to each other was holy, and the light fixtures she always made fun of seemed to bloom the whole time on their stems.

The show was chaos--moshing, shattered bottles, and music so loud that it didn't even feel like music but just a thumping in her chest, a wailing guitar, and Billy Corgan, who screamed until his throat sounded blood-gargled. After an hour, Maggie lost Uncle Kevin and stumbled through the crowd, fighting the urge not to panic, and then she found him in a corner making out with a blond woman whose shirt was all cut up so that Maggie could see not just the woman's cleavage but the cleavage _under_ her boobs--she had not known this was possible. He pulled away from the woman, wrapped Maggie in a sweaty hug, and took her up to the bar and bought her a pop. She drank it, fighting the feeling of exhaustion and fever that had descended on her brain and sinuses, and when it was over and the lights were turned on to reveal a shiny-eyed crowd wafting animal smells and trembling down from whatever high they'd been on, the music had latched hold of her. She felt half-crazed, elated, having forever transcended the world of high school, where she was noteworthy only for her ability to diagram sentences faster and more accurately than anyone else in Mr. Blackwell's English class. One thing was for sure: she would never diagram another sentence, at least not willingly, for as long as she lived.

Drifting on the black, rippling surface were fingers. Thumbs. Dozens of them. Hundreds, floating like dead fish in a dynamited pond. I saw part of an ear. The lights went out.

walls of the Young Adult Room were painted purple and yellow. There were swirly zebra-print rugs on the floor and a lumpy cluster of beanbag chairs. A couple of sofas were designed to look like Scrabble trays, with letter-square pillows. Akimi nudged Kyle in the ribs. “Check it out.” In the far corner stood a carnival ticket booth with a mechanical dummy seated inside. A “Fun & Games” banner hung off the booth’s striped roof. The dummy inside the glass booth? He looked like Mr. Lemoncello. He wasn’t wearing a turban, but the Mr. Lemoncello mannequin reminded Kyle of the Zoltar Speaks fortuneteller booths he’d seen in video game arcades. “That’s not really him, is it?” said Akimi, who was right behind Kyle. “No. It’s a mechanical doll.” The frozen automaton was dressed in a black top hat and a bright red ringmaster jacket. Since the booth had the “Fun & Games” banner, Kyle figured you might have to talk to the dummy to get a game. “Um, hello,” he said. “We’d like to play a board game.” Bells rang, whistles whistled, and chaser lights blinked.

Pomegranate" I pry out the seeds with my fingers and all my memories spill onto the frosty marble counter. Little, lit up like ruby-red carnival lights, rough as the cat tongue of Time inviting us to sit at the table to gobble us up in a mouthful. The pomegranate returns late autumn, ready to ruin us, on whichever night we are in the kitchen, distracted by dinner: very lightly it stains our fingers that pensive, murky color, the color hours take on that won’t clot—the open color of memory.

Deeply ambivalent also is the image of fire in carnival. It is a fire that simultaneously destroys and renews the world. In European carnivals there was almost always a special structure (usually a vehicle adorned with all possible sorts of gaudy carnival trash) called "hell," and at the close of carnival this "hell" was triumphantly set on fire (sometimes this carnival "hell" was ambivalently linked with a horn of plenty). Characteristic is the ritual of "moccoli" in Roman carnival: each participant in the carnival carried a lighted candle ("a candle stub"), and each tried to put out another's candle with the cry "Sia ammazzato!" ("Death to thee!"). In his famous description of Roman carnival (in Italienische Reise)h Goethe, striving to uncover the deeper meaning behind carnival images, relates a profoundly symbolic little scene: during "moccoli" a boy puts out his father's candle with the cheerful carnival cry: "Sia ammazzato il Signore Padre!" [that is, "death to thee, Signor Father!"]

3. SENSITIVITY: Keenly aware, spirited kids quickly respond to the slightest noises, smells, lights, textures, or changes in mood. They are easily overwhelmed in crowds by the barrage of sensations. Getting them through a shopping center, long religious service, carnival, or family gathering without losing them to a fit of tears is a major achievement. Dressing can be a torture. A wayward string or a scratchy texture can render clothes intolerable. Every sensation and emotion is absorbed by them, including your feelings. They’ll tell you that you are having a rotten day before you realize it yourself and they’ll even scream and sulk for you.

I’d seen little chunks of light from the dark, somber man that I’d met, but once I’d broken through his impressive walls, he blazed with his own light, his own heat, and the incredible warmth of his kindness.

May the lights never dim. May the Wheel never stop turning. May the road never end. May the ride go on forever…

What was up I didn’t know. But the morning of Carnival, when I was lighting those candles, these two mockingbirds, you see, they flew from the skies, rested on my porch, watched my hands they did. I looked at their bodies. So pretty, shaped like swollen arrows. To them I said, “Welcome.” Who these birds were, I did not know. But mockingbirds don’t fly up every day and watch me light candles, no. So I said to myself, Soliel Marie, something could be up. A breeze blew through. I sucked in as much of the clear wind as I could. I wanted it to sit in my body. Swirl through, find my heart and my bone, I told the breeze. The two mockingbirds right then, lifted wings through the air, them. Then I knew. I opened my mouth so the breeze could leave. Believe me, yes, I felt the sign was definite. Change was coming.

Amy came for dinner and before eating we watched a dozen YouTube videos by an outfit called Soft White Underbelly. They provide great lighting and a judgment-free space for drug addicts, prostitutes, pimps, hard-core alcoholics, and people who are just plain crazy. Then they ask them really good questions. One of our favorite interviews was with a man who was transitioning into a gender-less dragon.

As Time’s inexorable gray tides sweep us to the vortex of Eternity we become given to looking back and, in the shade of retrospect, the things once perceived as small appear smaller, those recalled as large grow larger still, youth’s sadnesses seem infinitely sadder, its light moments lighter, bright-hued balloons of carnival-past, for nostalgia is a dewy-eyed old teller of tall tales, and memory warps as does the faulted mirror, enabling us to see with astonishing clarity that which never was…

Today on two legs stood and reached to the right spot as I saw it choosing among the twisting branches and multifaceted changing shades, and greens, and shades of greens, lobed, and lashing sun, the fig that seemed to me the perfect one, Shhh say the spreading sails of cicadas as the winch of noon takes hold and we are wrapped in day and hoisted up, all the ribs of time showing through in the growing in the lengthening harness of sound— white powder in the confetti of light all up the branches, truth, sweetness of blood-scent and hauled-in light, withers of the wild carnival of tree shaking once as the fruit... Iwant to sit under it full of secrecy insight immensity vigor bursting complexity swarm. Oh great forwards and backwards.

Persistent tatters glowed orange and blue against a backdrop of stars, a vast, doomed displayed of color and light.

Unless something remarkable had changed, he wore spiky, kinky sandy-auburn braids a shade darker than his freckled skin and a shade paler than his light-catching eyes.

His hair was unmistakeable, a startling light color that Lesa was almost temptd to call blond, though nobody classically blond had survived Assessment.

A train thunders by late at night, you gaze idly at the dark rushing mass, you see a patch of light and within that patch of light, a face; in a wink of time it is gone - but, having seen it, you know it will never be gone, you know you will see that face in your dreams perhaps forever. Such is the insubstantial stuff of which fiction - or madness - is made.

Night-time, from the pig’s countless observations, serves a higher order of enthusiasm for the humans than daytime circus operations. Whether it's the tacky neon lights or hypnotic carnival music, the humans skip around as if they've discovered a festive utopia. When the arena is buzzing with a crowded house and the ringmaster can be heard romancing the masses, Walt becomes ill with anxiety.

We met in the middle of a blackout. It was searing hot and there wasn’t any running water and New York City had lost its mind. People were sweaty and edgy, thronging the streets, leaking heat and anxiety. Traffic lights dangled dead over the intersections; taxis lurched through the dark. The ATMs didn’t work and bodegas were charging insane amounts for bottled water and I was thirsty, hungover, and almost out of cash. I felt defenseless every time I walked up the ten flights to my apartment, carrying a lit candle in the ghostly stairwell. I was nearing panic when a friend called and told me he had the water back on in his building down by City Hall, and a grill out on the balcony. As I walked there, on the cobblestone street just north of Washington Square Park, past an intersection where a woman in a sundress was directing traffic, down into the lighting district—window after window teaming with powerless, shimmering chandeliers, the people in the apartments above drinking beer on their fire escapes—the city seemed less like a nightmare and more like a carnival. My friend had said he had a houseguest in town, visiting from California: Lucy. She was golden-skinned and green-eyed in her white shirt, and she smiled with all the openness in the world when I walked in the door. She had the radiant decency of a sunflower.

Carnival Cruise Lines has its own successful way of doing things, which in this case involved creating a musical group called “The Hot Shots!” The word “Fantastic” comes to mind when thinking of this musical group! Each member auditioned separately at the Carnival rehearsal facility in Miami and then rehearsed as a group until they were ready for the big leagues aboard ship. Fortunately for me and my team, which includes Jorge Fernandez, a former guitar player from Cuba and now a top flight structural engineer in the Tampa Bay area, who helps me with much of my technical work; Lucy Shaw, Chief Copy Editor; Ursula Bracker, Proofer, and lucky me Captain Hank Bracker, award winning author (including multiple gold medals), were aboard the Carnival Legend and were privileged to listen to and enjoy, quite by chance, music that covered everything from Classical Rock, to Disco, to Mo Town and the years in between. Talented Judith Mullally, Carnival’s Entertainment Director, was on hand to encourage and partake in the music with her outstanding voice and, not to be left out, were members of the ship’s repertory cast, as well as the ship’s Cruise Director. The popular Red Frog lounge on the Carnival Legend was packed to the point that one of the performances had to be held on the expansive Lido deck. However, for the rest of the nights, the lounge was packed with young and old, singing and dancing to “The Hot Shots!” - a musical group that would totally pack any venue in Florida. Pheona Baranda, from the Philippines, is cute as a button and is the lead female singer, with a pitch-perfect soprano voice. Lucas Pedreira, from Argentina, is the lead male singer and guitar player who displayed endless energy and the ability to keep the audience hopping! Paulo Baranda, Pheona’s younger brother, plays the lead guitar to perfection and behind the scenes is the band’s musical director and of course is also from the Philippines. Ygor, from Israel, is the “on the money” drummer who puts so much into what he is doing, that at one point he hurt his hand, but refused to slow down. Nick is the bass guitar player, from down under New Zealand, and Marina, the piano and keyboard player, hails from the Ukraine. As a disclaimer I admit that I hold shares in Carnival stock but there is nothing in it for me other than the pleasure of listening to this ultra-talented group which cannot and should not be denied. They were and still are the very best! However, I am sorry that just as a “Super Nova” they unfortunately can’t last. Their bright shining light is presently flaring, but this will only be for a fleeting moment and then will permanently go to black next year on January 2, 2020. That’s just the way it is, but my crew and I, as well as the many guests aboard the Carnival Legend, experienced music seldom heard anywhere, any longer…. It was a treat we will remember for years to come and we hope to see them again, as individual musical artists, or as perhaps with a new group sometime in the near future!

...she turned in the water, she observed herself at every angle and in every light, she writhed upon herself--and always this offensive, naked body pursued her. It was a flight from her own body that she was attempting, as if from another person whom she, Signora Isotta, was unable to save at a difficult juncture, and could only abandon to her fate. Yet this body, so rich and so impossible to conceal, had indeed been a glory of hers, a source of self-satisfaction; only a contradictory chain of circumstances, apparently sensible, could make it now a cause for shame. Or perhaps not; perhaps her life always consisted only of the clothed lady she had been all of her days, and her nakedness hardly belonged to her, was a rash state of nature revealed only now and then, arousing wonder in human beings, foremost in her. Now Signora Isotta recalled that even when she was alone or in private with her husband she had always surrounded her being naked with an air of complicity, of irony, part embarrassed and part feline, as if she were temporarily putting on joyous but outraged disguises, for a kind of secret carnival between husband and wife. She had become accustomed with some reluctance to owning a body, after the first disappointed romantic years, and she had taken it on like someone who learns he can command a long-yearned for property.

Because carnivals don’t need electricity, Investiture, or other forms of power. The people are the energy of a carnival. Excitement bleeds. It flows like rivers. Ask any carnie, and they’ll agree that there is a frantic current to a carnival. Yes, it’s completely fabricated. So is the electricity that powers a light bulb. **Being artificial doesn’t mean it isn’t real—it only means it has a purpose.** It’s this power of excitement that carnivals tap, feed upon, exploit. And for all that people call carnivals a scam or a con, they’re nothing of the sort. We go to them to be exploited. That’s part of the charm. While you’re there—among the dizzying overload of lights, chatter, excitement, sticky ground, and thronging people—you feel that there must be more than enough energy to go around. **Human exhilaration is a renewable resource. And you can generate it with cheap stuffed animals and fried foods.**

Elves are creatures of life and nature. Anything evil turns our stomach, and if an elf ever turns dark, they will never see the light of hope again.

the Russian invasion was not only a tragedy; it was a carnival of hate

AND NOW AT LAST, HERE IT COMES, THAT DECEMBER WIND, SCREAMING down the narrow streets, stripping the year-end rags from the trees. December, beware; December, despair, as my mother always said. And once again, as the year draws in, it feels as if a page has turned. A page—a card—the wind, perhaps. And December was always a bad time for us. The last month; the dregs of the year; slouching toward Christmas with its skirt of tinsel dragging in the mud. The dead-end part of the year looms; the trees are stripped three-quarters bare; the light is like scorched newspaper; and all my ghosts come out to play like fireflies in the spectral sky— We came on the wind of the carnival. A wind of change, of promises. The merry wind, the magical wind, making March hares of everyone, tumbling blossoms and coattails and hats; rushing toward summer in a frenzy of exuberance.

transfixed by the forest flying behind us. Every tree passed is another memory coming back to haunt me, like that night Dylan, Tyson, Joey, Summer and I spent the night in the woods playing a never-ending game of flashlight tag. The blinker flicks on, stealing my attention. There’s a hypnotic quality to the beat of the flashing lights as we slow down, making a careful right turn onto Joey’s dirt road. The rain hasn’t stopped since the funeral, but it’s turned into a light sprinkle. Everyone at the party is probably soaked. Party.

I have almost five hundred dollars saved.” Alison spoke slowly and deliberately. This time Laura did pull away. “Five hundred dollars?” Her eyes were incredulous. “How did you ever save that much?” Then, before Alison could answer, Laura’s eyes widened again and she let out a faint squeal. Mom half-turned to the back again, and Alison could tell that Laura was fighting to keep a normal look about her. After Mom had resumed her road watching, Laura finally spoke. “Just think of all the things we can buy on vacation,” she spouted. “Cotton candy at the carnival, model horses, saltwater taffy, postcards…We can even ride all the rides, more than once!” Alison shook her head and sighed again. “Let me remind you that this isn’t your money.” “It is if you want me to keep it a secret,” Laura challenged. “Why, you little rat!” “Well, it’s mostly yours,” Laura conceded. Alison rolled her eyes in exasperation. If she hadn’t needed her sister on her side she’d have been tempted to rap her. She tapped Laura on the top of her red head. “Think about it,” she prodded. “What could we buy with five hundred dollars?” All at once a light filled Laura’s eyes. All right, Alison thought. Laura is finally awake! “A pony!” The words slid from Laura in a hiss. “Are you going to buy a pony at the Pony Penning auction?” This time it was Alison who settled back smugly in her seat. “Every year we ask Mom and Dad, and every year they say we can’t afford one,” she said softly. “Now I have the money. How can they possibly say no?

t is interesting, he says, how weapons reflect the soul of the maker. The Soviets always wanted bigger yield, bigger stockpiles. They had to convince themselves they were a superpower. Throw-weight. What is throw-weight? We don’t know exactly but we agree it sounds like hurled bulk, the hurled will of the collective. Soviet long-range missiles had greater throw-weight. They had to convince themselves with numbers and bulk and mass. “And the U.S.?” I say. Eyes flicking my way, happy as carnival lights. It was the U.S., Viktor says, that designed the neutron bomb. Many buzzing neutrons, very little blast. The perfect capitalist tool. Kill people, spare property.

Body heat, muted stage lighting, and Rob Zombie’s “Living Dead Girl” poured from the tent’s back entrance.