Cork Sayings Quotes

There is, then, a world immune from change. But I am not composed enough, standing on tiptoe on the verge of fire, still scorched by the hot breath, afraid of the door opening and the leap of the tiger, to make even one sentence. What I say is perpetually contradicted. Each time the door opens I am interrupted. I am not yet twenty-one. I am to be broken. I am to be derided all my life. I am to be cast up and down among these men and women, with their twitching faces, with their lying tongues, like a cork on a rough sea. Like a ribbon of weed I am flung far every time the door opens. I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room.

The thing about champagne,you say, unfoiling the cork, unwinding the wire restraint, is that is the ultimate associative object. Every time you open a bottle of champagne, it's a celebration, so there's no better way of starting a celebration than opening a bottle of champagne. Every time you sip it, you're sipping from all those other celebrations. The joy accumulates over time.

Karen, her elbows folded on the deck-rail, wanted to share with someone the pleasure in being alone: this is the paradox of any happy solitude. She had never landed at Cork, so this hill and that hill beyond were as unexpected as pictures at which you say "Oh look!" Nobody was beside her to share the moment, which would have been imperfect with anyone else there.

Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it’s written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation’s OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation (think of Psyche!) Is a paling stout and spikey? Won’t it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It’s a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!

He is quiet and small, he is black From his ears to the tip of his tail; He can creep through the tiniest crack He can walk on the narrowest rail. He can pick any card from a pack, He is equally cunning with dice; He is always deceiving you into believing That he's only hunting for mice. He can play any trick with a cork Or a spoon and a bit of fish-paste; If you look for a knife or a fork And you think it is merely misplaced - You have seen it one moment, and then it is gawn! But you'll find it next week lying out on the lawn. And we all say: OH! Well I never! Was there ever A Cat so clever As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees!

Who is the best marshal they have?' The sheriff thought on it for a minute. He said, 'I would have to weigh that proposition. There is near about two hundred of them. I reckon William Waters is the best tracker. He is a half-breed Comanche and it is something to see, watching him cut for sign. The meanest one is Rooster Cogburn. He is a pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don't enter into his thinking. He loves to pull a cork. Now L.T. Quinn, he brings his prisoners in alive. He may let one get by now and then but he believes even the worst of men is entitled to a fair shake. Also the court does not pay any fees for dead men. Quinn is a good peace officer and a lay preacher to boot. He will not plant evidence or abuse a prisoner. He is straight as a string. Yes, I will say Quinn is about the best they have.' I said, 'Where can I find this Rooster?

I say, Bertie, is it really true that you were once engaged to Honoria?" "It is." Biffy coughed. "How did you get out - I mean, what was the nature of the tragedy that prevented the marriage?" "Jeeves worked it. He thought out the entire scheme." "I think, before I go," said Biffy thoughtfully, "I'll just step into the kitchen and have a word with Jeeves." I felt that the situation called for complete candour. "Biffy, old egg," I said, "as man to man, do you want to oil out of this thing?" "Bertie, old cork," said Biffy earnestly, "as one friend to another, I do.

These days things had a way of happening around him. Although events seemed chaotic, Cork was beginning to suspect they weren't at all. Sam Winter Moon used to say that sometimes the only way a man learns the true spirit of a rock is to stub his toe on it.

I need some-" Cork thought a moment. "I was going to say advice, but the truth is, I need some guidance, Tom." "We all do sometimes. It's not always easy to admit.

Vox populi,” Belle says. “The voice of the people.

He hasn't written a line for twenty years." "A line of what? What kind of literature can one keep corked up for twenty years?" Wade surprised him. "The real kind, I should say.

I thought if you loved someone you were supposed to, like, forgive them. I thought that was what love was supposed to be all about." Cork shook his head: "Easy to say, harder to do.

They fell quiet. Cork wanted to say he loved her. He wanted to ask her to forgive him. He wanted to lay his head against her breast and weep into her warm flesh and feel as connected to someone as he'd felt the night the grief passed through him when he unted the big bear with Sam Winter Moon. [.............] "You've always made me laugh, Cork. That's not what I want now." "What do you want?" "To feel needed. To feel that you need me as much as you need air to breathe. I'm worth that.

Because I Cannot Sleep Because I cannot sleep I make music at night. I am troubled by the one whose face has the color of spring flowers. I have neither sleep nor patience, neither a good reputation nor disgrace. A thousand robes of wisdom are gone. All my good manners have moved a thousand miles away. The heart and the mind are left angry with each other. The stars and the moon are envious of each other. Because of this alienation the physical universe is getting tighter and tighter. The moon says, 'How long will I remain suspended without a sun?' Without Love's jewel inside of me, let the bazaar of my existence be destroyed stone by stone. O Love, You who have been called by a thousand names, You who know how to pour the wine into the chalice of the body, You who give culture to a thousand cultures, You who are faceless but have a thousand faces, O Love, You who shape the faces of Turks, Europeans, and Zanzibaris, give me a glass from Your bottle, or a handful of being from Your Branch. Remove the cork once more. Then we'll see a thousand chiefs prostrate themselves, and a circle of ecstatic troubadours will play. Then the addict will be freed of craving. and will be resurrected, and stand in awe till Judgement Day

White men get drunk. White men break the law. And nobody says it's because they're white. But an Indian does the same thing and the first reason people come up with is that he's Indian.

So where did you go, Holly?” Rafiq never tires of this conversation, no matter how often we do it. “Everywhere,” says Lorelei, being brave and selfless. “Colombia, Australia, China, Iceland, Old New York. Didn’t you, Gran?” “I did, yes.” I wonder what life in Cartagena, in Perth, in Shanghai is like now. Ten years ago I could have streetviewed the cities, but the Net’s so torn and ragged now that even when we have reception it runs at prebroadband speed. My tab’s getting old, too, and I only have one more in storage. If any arrive via Ringaskiddy Concession, they never make it out of Cork City. I remember the pictures of seawater flooding Fremantle during the deluge of ’33. Or was it the deluge of ’37? Or am I confusing it with pictures of the sea sluicing into the New York subway, when five thousand people drowned underground? Or was that Athens? Or Mumbai? Footage of catastrophes flowed so thick and fast through the thirties that it was hard to keep track of which coastal region had been devastated this week, or which city had been decimated by Ebola or Ratflu. The news turned into a plotless never-ending disaster movie I could hardly bring myself to watch.

you are an exit wound the extra shot of tequila the tangled knot of hair that has to be cut out you are the cell phone ringing in a hushed theatre pebble wedged in the sole of a boot the bloody hangnail you are, just this once you are flip flops in a thunderstorm the boy’s lost erection a pen gone dry you are my father’s nightmare my mother’s mirage you are a manic high which is to say: you are a bad idea you are herpes despite the condom you are, I know better you are pieces of cork floating in the wine glass you are the morning after whose name I can’t remember still in my bed the hole in my rain boots vibrator with no batteries you are, shut up and kiss me you are naked wearing socks mascara bleeding down laughing cheeks you are the wrong guy buying me a drink you are the typo in an otherwise brilliant novel sweetalk into unprotected sex the married coworker my stubbed toe you are not new or uncommon not brilliant or beautiful you are a bad idea rock star in the back seat of a taxi burned popcorn top shelf, at half price you are everything I want you are a poem I cannot write a word I cannot translate you are an exit wound a name I cannot bring myself to say aloud

And from there the various parties set out on their mission of destruction. Many who witnessed similar scenes in France and Flanders say, that nothing they had experienced was comparable to the punishment meted out to Cork.

But, Bill, old scout, your sister says there's a most corking links near here." He turned and stared at me, and nearly ran us into the bank. "You don't mean honestly she said that?" "She said you said it was better than St. Andrews." "So I did. Was that all she said I said?" "Well, wasn't it enough?" "She didn't happen to mention that I added the words, 'I don't think'?" "No, she forgot to tell me that." "It's the worst course in Great Britain.

I believe no one belongs to anyone else. You, me, Waaboozoons, we are all dust borrowed for a little while from Grandmother Earth. And even that dust does not belong to her. She has borrowed it from all creation, which is the Great Mystery, whih is Kitchimanidoo. And if you ask this old man, I would say that another way to think about Kitchimanidoo is as a great gift. Kitchimanidoo is not about keeping. Nothing belongs to anyone. All of creation is meant as a giving.

champagne, n. You appear at the foot of the bed with a bottle of champagne, and I have no idea why. I search my mind desperately for an occasion I've forgotten - is this some obscure anniversary or, even worse, a not-so-obscure one? Then I think you have something to tell me, some good news to share, but your smile is silent, cryptic. I sit up in bed, ask you what's going on, and you shake your head, as if to say that nothing's going on, as if to pretend that we usually start our Wednesday mornings with champagne. You touch the bottle to my leg - I feel the cool condensation and the glass, the fact that the bottle must have been sleeping all night in the refrigerator without me noticing. You have long-stemmed glasses in you other hand, and you place them on the nightstand, beside the uncommenting clock, the box of kleenex, the tumbler of water. "The thing about champagne," you say, unfailing the cork, unwinding its wire restraint, "is that it is the ultimate associative object. Every time you open a bottle of champagne, it's a celebration, so there's no better way of starting a celebration than opening a bottle of champagne. Every time you sip it, you're sipping from all those other celebrations. The joy accumulates over time." You pop the cork. The bubbles rise. I feel some of the spray on my skin. You pour. "But why?" I ask as you hand me my glass. You raise yours and ask, "Why not? What better way to start the day?" We drink a toast to that.

Rooster here has missed Ned a few times himself, horse and all,' said the captain. 'I reckon his is on his way now to missing him again.' Rooster was holding a bottle with a little whiskey in it. He said, 'You keep on thinking that.' He drained off the whiskey in about three swallows and tapped the cork back in and tossed the bottle up in the air. He pulled his revolver and fired at it twice and missed. The bottle fell and rolled and Rooster shot at it two or three more times and broke it on the ground. He got out his sack of cartridges and reloaded his pistol. He said, 'The Chinaman is running them cheap shells in on me again.' LaBoeuf said, 'I thought maybe the sun was in your eyes. That is to say, your eye.' Rooster swung the cylinder back in his revolver and said, 'Eyes, is it? I'll show you eyes!' He jerked the sack of corn dodgers free from his saddle baggage. He got one of the dodgers out and flung it in the air and fired at it and missed. Then he flung another one up and he hit it. The corn dodger exploded. He was pleased with himself and he got a fresh bottle of whiskey from his baggage and treated himself to a drink. LaBoeuf pulled one of his revolvers and got two dodgers out of the sack and tossed them both up. He fired very rapidly but he only hit one. Captain Finch tried it with two and missed both of them. Then he tried with one and made a successful shot. Rooster shot at two and hit one. They drank whiskey and used up about sixty corn dodgers like that. None of them ever hit two at one throw with a revolver but Captain Finch finally did it with his Winchester repeating rifle, with somebody else throwing. It was entertaining for a while but there was nothing educational about it. I grew more and more impatient with them. I said, 'Come on, I have had my bait of this. I am ready to go. Shooting cornbread out here on this prairie is not taking us anywhere.' By then Rooster was using his rifle and the captain was throwing for him. 'Chunk high and not so far out this time,' said he.

Bottle cork, bottle cork There’s naught within but lees. The glowing eyes of Jack O’Lantern Dance on evening’s breeze; Goblin fires light the wood And flicker through the trees. The clouds, they say, are whipping cream, The oceans seas of teas, The rain a fall of diamonds, The moon a ball of cheese.

For a Christianity preached by royal functionaries who are paid and made secure by the State and employ the police against other people, such a Christianity has the same relation to the Christianity of the New Testament as swimming with a cork float or with a bladder has to swimming, that is to say, it is play.

But sometimes Belbo, when he became really angry, lost his composure. Since loss of composure was the one thing he could not tolerate in others, his own was wholly internal—and regional. He would purse his lips, raise his eyes, then look down, tilt his head to the left, and say in a soft voice: “Ma gavte la nata.” For anyone who didn’t know that Piedmontese expression, he would occasionally explain: “Ma gavte la nata. Take out the cork.” You say it to one who is full of himself, the idea being that what causes him to swell and strut is the pressure of a cork stuck in his behind. Remove it, and phsssssh, he returns to the human condition.

She sometimes takes her little brother for a walk round this way," explained Bingo. "I thought we would meet her and bow, and you could see her, you know, and then we would walk on." "Of course," I said, "that's enough excitement for anyone, and undoubtedly a corking reward for tramping three miles out of one's way over ploughed fields with tight boots, but don't we do anything else? Don't we tack on to the girl and buzz along with her?" "Good Lord!" said Bingo, honestly amazed. "You don't suppose I've got nerve enough for that, do you? I just look at her from afar off and all that sort of thing. Quick! Here she comes! No, I'm wrong!" It was like that song of Harry Lauder's where he's waiting for the girl and says, "This is her-r-r. No, it's a rabbut." Young Bingo made me stand there in the teeth of a nor'-east half-gale for ten minutes, keeping me on my toes with a series of false alarms, and I was just thinking of suggesting that we should lay off and give the rest of the proceedings a miss, when round the corner there came a fox-terrier, and Bingo quivered like an aspen. Then there hove in sight a small boy, and he shook like a jelly. Finally, like a star whose entrance has been worked up by the personnel of the ensemble, a girl appeared, and his emotion was painful to witness. His face got so red that, what with his white collar and the fact that the wind had turned his nose blue, he looked more like a French flag than anything else. He sagged from the waist upwards, as if he had been filleted. He was just raising his fingers limply to his cap when he suddenly saw that the girl wasn't alone. A chappie in clerical costume was also among those present, and the sight of him didn't seem to do Bingo a bit of good. His face got redder and his nose bluer, and it wasn't till they had nearly passed that he managed to get hold of his cap. The girl bowed, the curate said, "Ah, Little. Rough weather," the dog barked, and then they toddled on and the entertainment was over.

Place in a vase some fragments of cork or other floating body, and give to the water in the vase a circular movement, the scattered fragments will unite in a group in the centre of the liquid surface, that is to say, in the part least agitated. In the phenomenon we are considering, the Atlantic is the vase, the Gulf Stream the circular current, and the Sargasso Sea the central point at which the floating bodies unite. I share

I like it here much better. I think what people build can be very beautiful, but what God builds goes beyond beauty. You stand outside Notre Dame, say, and you marvel at the accomplishment, but you can’t really connect. It’s artificial, do you see? It’s only a representation of something. Spirit, holiness, maybe even God. But it’s not the thing itself. Out here, it’s all there before you, around you. You’re steeped in it, the real thing. Spirit. Holiness. God.

Trust. An easy word to say. One syllable. Comes readily off the tongue. Also a thing easy to believe in, to advocate for, to hold in lofty regard. But putting it into practice? Good luck with that one. You share your life, your body, your dreams with another human being. You tie your fortune together with sacred vows. But the truth is that you always keep some deep part of yourself separate from all that. You hold a place inside that’s only for you and that you never let anyone else into.

Rainy took a sage bundle from the store in one of Henry's cupboards, dropped it into a shallow clay bowl, lit it with a match, and waved the cleansing smoke over Cork, Henry, herself and around the cabin saying, "Migwech, Nimishoomis. Thank you, Grandfather. Migwech, Nokomis. Thank you, Grandmother, for the beauty of this day, for the life you have given us, and for the wisdom that comes when we listen to your voices on the wind and in the water and singing among the trees. We pray for guidance from the Creator and the spirits. Let our hearts be open to all you offer us.

That something I cannot yet define completely but the feeling comes when you write well and truly of something and know impersonally you have written in that way and those who are paid to read it and report on it do not like the subject so they say it is all a fake, yet you know its value absolutely; or when you do something which people do not consider a serious occupation and yet you know, truly, that it is as important and has always been as important as all th things that are in fashion, and when, on the sea, you are alone with it and know that this Gulf Stream you are living with, knowing, learning about, and loving, has moved, as it moves, since before man and that it has gone by the shoreline of that long, beautiful, unhappy island since before Columbus sighted it and that the things you find out about it, and those that have always lived in it are permanent and of value because that stream will flow, as it has flowed, after the Indians, after the Spaniards, after the British, after the Americans and after all the Cubans and all the systems of governments, the richness, the poverty, the martyrdom, the sacrifice and the venality and the cruelty are all gone as the high-piled scow of garbage, bright-colored, white-flecked, ill-smelling, now tilted on its side, spills off its load into the blue water, turning it a pale green to a depth of four or five fathoms as the load spreads across the surface, the sinkable part going down and the flotsam of palm fronds, corks, bottles, and used electric light globes, seasoned with an occasional condom or a deep floating corset, the torn leaves of a student's exercise book, a well-inflated dog, the occasional rat, the no-longer-distinguished cat; well shepherded by the boats of the garbage pickers who pluck their prizes with long poles, as interested, as intelligent, and as accurate as historians; they have the viewpoint; the stream, with no visible flow, takes five loads of this a day when things are going well in La Habana and in ten miles along the coast it is as clear and blue and unimpressed as it was ever before the tug hauled out the scow; and the palm fronds of our victories, the worn light bulbs of our discoveries and the empty condoms of our great loves float with no significance against one single, lasting thing - the stream.

This was different country from home. This was a harsh, difficult place, and he hated it. Hated the way all the land rose up like walls. Hated how all that emptiness could so easily swallow a plane and its passengers. Hated that it seemed to be a land with no heart. Henry Meloux would argue with him, he knew. Meloux would say that there was no part of Grandmother Earth that was without heart, without spirit. The fault lay not with the land but with Cork's expectations, with his own wounded spirit. Listen to the land Meloux would probably advise. The land will reveal its heart. The land will tell you its truth.

she trails off with a pointed look to the left, and we follow her gaze to see Ronak who undoes his pants, grabs his junk, and pees all over the carpet. I pinch the bridge of my nose and shake my head. “Duru is gonna be so pissed,” I say. Then I snort at my own joke. I watch as Ronak gyrates his hips a bit, and I narrow my eyes. Is he…? Yep. He’s drawing a dick on the carpet with his urine. A piss dick pic. It’s actually kind of impressive. “Should I, umm, take him outside, my lady?” the servant asks nervously. Ronak chooses that moment to turn around full-frontal, flashing her with his impressive cooch cork. “Ronak!” I snap. “Put your shmecky away, that is not polite!

I know were all intelligent people, but intelligence is a curious thing in the dreamstate: can't live with it. can't live without it. It's like an icepick in a balloon store. We have to push it into a cork or things are gonna start poppin'. That's the real point of all spirituality and religion and philosophy: they are the safe corks into which we can bury the sharp points of our minds. This self-inflicted dulling of the wit is how we constantly cast our own sleep spell. No one else is doing it to us. There is no magic behind our delusion except the magic we conjure with our own emotional energy. If we stop weaving our enchantment. we start waking up. and that is the last thing we want to happen. even though it may be our stated intent. Whatever we might say, we don't want things to start poppin

The Netflix documentary Sour Grapes is a fascinating insight into this world. A crooked, though brilliant, Indonesian wine connoisseur called Rudy Kurniawan was able to replicate great burgundies by mixing cheaper wines together, before faking the corks and the labels. He was rumbled only when he attempted to fake wines from vintages that did not exist. I am told that it is possible to detect a forged Kurniawan wine by analysing the labels, but not by tasting the wine. I hate to say this, but Rudy was an alchemist. Several experts I have talked to in the high-end wine business regard their own field as essentially a placebo market; one of them admitted that he was relatively uninterested in the products he sold and would sneak off and fetch a beer at premium tastings of burgundies costing thousands of pounds a bottle. Another described himself as ‘the eunuch in the whorehouse’ – someone who was valuable because he was immune to the charms of the product he promoted.

Okay, two Irish brothers are out at sea fishing. A storm blows up, and they lose both oars, they’re convinced they’re going to drown. Then suddenly one of the brothers spots something in the water, and manages to grab hold of a bottle. They pull the cork out and POOF! A genie appears. He grants them one wish, anything they want. So the two brothers look around at the stormy sea, they’re stuck out there with no oars, several miles from shore, and the first brother is thinking about what to ask for when the second brother cheerfully blurts out: “I wish the whole sea was Guinness!” The genie stares at him like he’s an idiot, then says, okay, sure, let’s go for that. And POOF! The sea turns into Guinness. The genie vanishes. The first brother stares at the second brother and snaps: “You bloody idiot! We had one single wish and you wished the sea was Guinness! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” The second brother shakes his head in shame. The first brother throws his arms out and says…” The negotiator left a dramatic pause, but didn’t have time to deliver the punch line before Jack cut in from the other end of the line. “Now we have to piss in the boat!

Formerly there were two ways. One was to take the ferry. This is the way I came on my first visit, and I have to say it was strange. All the passengers – and there weren’t many – went below and lay down on whatever horizontal surface they could find. Many covered their faces with their coats, as if hiding. Just after we left port, the snack bar closed. All this seemed a little odd, and then we hit the open sea and we began to roll and pitch in a weirdly restrained way. I am not the most experienced of sailors, but I have been on a few boats in my time – including once through the Beagle Channel in South America, which isn’t so much a water passage as a trampoline for boats – and I can say that I had never encountered anything quite like this. It wasn’t rough, but just slowly, cumulatively, peculiarly unsettling. The problem, as it was explained to me later, is that the ferry must have a flat bottom to get in among the shallows around St Mary’s, the main port of the Scillies, but this means that it sits on the water like a cork, which guarantees a lot of motion even on the smoothest days. In rough weather, I was told, you will often have the novel experience of being sick on the ceiling.

Who has not known you, O deep joys of wine? Whoever has had some remorse to appease, a memory to evoke, a sorrow to drown, a castle to build in Spain, in fact all men have invoked you, mysterious god concealed in the tendrils of the vine. Wine is like man himself: one never knows to what extent one may esteem or despise him, love or hate him, nor of what sublime actions or monstrous crimes he is capable. Let us not then be crueller towards wine than towards ourselves, let us treat him as an equal. Sometimes I think I can hear wine speak (he speaks with his soul, the spiritual voice heard only by the spirit) and he says: “Man, my beloved, I would pour out for you, in spite of my prison of glass and fetters of cork, a song full of brotherhood, a song full of joy, light and hope. I am no ingrate; I know that I owe you my life. I know what it cost you in toil, your back under the burning sun. You gave me life and I shall reward you for it. I am the soul of your country. I am half-lover, half-soldier. I shall light up your aged wife’s eyes, the old companion of your everyday cares and your oldest hopes. I shall soften her glance and drop into the pupil of her eye the lightning-flash of her youth. Our close reunion will create poetry. Between us we shall make a god. This is what wine sang in its mysterious language.

So are you riding with me?” he asks, like Courtney never happened.   “Dear god. I need wine.” I ignore his question. I clearly do not share his ability to ignore everything going on around us.   “Is that a yes?” he asks.   I nod, watching the smile cross his face before he reaches for my hand and guides me to the bar.   “White or red?” he asks me when the bartender approaches us.   “With alcohol.” Because after the way this night has played out, I have no right to be picky.   “Can she have a bottle of your most popular wine, please?” Gavin asks the bartender, who happily agrees. Both men are looking at me with huge grins on their faces, and the bartender is laughing! Apparently he was one of the unlucky few who didn’t see what just happened. If he had, he’d be looking much more sympathetic and handing me a bottle of Patron.   He’s walking away when I remember one very important detail and yell after him, “Make sure it’s a twist lid!”   “A twist lid bottle of wine? Really?” Gavin says beside me.   “Yes, really. Do you have a corkscrew in your truck?”   He’s full on laughing at me when Mr. Bartender comes back with a bottle in his hand, its metal lid gleaming under the lights.   “It’s not our most popular, but it’s the only one I could find that didn’t have a cork.”   “Do I seem like my standards are sky-high right now? This is perfect.

Legs? Check. I am five foot seven, after all. They’re slender but not too skinny. I run every morning, so my legs have always been slightly muscled, but in a feminine way — at least I hope they look feminine; bulky is not a word I’d want someone to use. I think the not too short, but short enough to still be very stylish, pleated and thickly cuffed navy blue shorts show my legs off nicely. My cork and white wedges with a cute little bow at each ankle are the perfect finishing touch. A simple dove-gray ribbed tank completes the outfit and hugs my curves. Maybe there is something to Mel’s theory after all.  My golden-blonde hair is sun-kissed in the summer, and its soft waves cascade to the middle of my back. I usually have it up, but tonight Melanie insisted that I leave it down and wavy. I let her play Barbie, and I can’t say I hate it. The real show-stopper, though, is my eyes. They’re a bright, vibrant green. They look almost fake, but as I lean into the mirror to get a closer look, I catch small little flecks of gold around the outside that I know no contact lens could replicate. I have always loved my eyes. I have my mother’s eyes. I’ve seen them in the few pictures I have from my childhood. Even if my eyes were the murkiest, dingiest, dullest brown, I still would have loved them, as long as they were my mother’s. It’s really the only thing I have left of her.  I gave in on the hair and let Melanie have a field day, but I insisted on keeping my makeup simple — a soft pale pink blush, clear lip gloss, and a light dusting of gold eye shadow is all I need. A quick swipe of some mascara, and the look is complete.

HE DO THE POLICE IN DIFFERENT VOICES: Part I THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD First we had a couple of feelers down at Tom's place, There was old Tom, boiled to the eyes, blind, (Don't you remember that time after a dance, Top hats and all, we and Silk Hat Harry, And old Tom took us behind, brought out a bottle of fizz, With old Jane, Tom's wife; and we got Joe to sing 'I'm proud of all the Irish blood that's in me, 'There's not a man can say a word agin me'). Then we had dinner in good form, and a couple of Bengal lights. When we got into the show, up in Row A, I tried to put my foot in the drum, and didn't the girl squeal, She never did take to me, a nice guy - but rough; The next thing we were out in the street, Oh it was cold! When will you be good? Blew in to the Opera Exchange, Sopped up some gin, sat in to the cork game, Mr. Fay was there, singing 'The Maid of the Mill'; Then we thought we'd breeze along and take a walk. Then we lost Steve. ('I turned up an hour later down at Myrtle's place. What d'y' mean, she says, at two o'clock in the morning, I'm not in business here for guys like you; We've only had a raid last week, I've been warned twice. Sergeant, I said, I've kept a decent house for twenty years, she says, There's three gents from the Buckingham Club upstairs now, I'm going to retire and live on a farm, she says, There's no money in it now, what with the damage don, And the reputation the place gets, on account off of a few bar-flies, I've kept a clean house for twenty years, she says, And the gents from the Buckingham Club know they're safe here; You was well introduced, but this is the last of you. Get me a woman, I said; you're too drunk, she said, But she gave me a bed, and a bath, and ham and eggs, And now you go get a shave, she said; I had a good laugh, couple of laughs (?) Myrtle was always a good sport'). treated me white. We'd just gone up the alley, a fly cop came along, Looking for trouble; committing a nuisance, he said, You come on to the station. I'm sorry, I said, It's no use being sorry, he said; let me get my hat, I said. Well by a stroke of luck who came by but Mr. Donovan. What's this, officer. You're new on this beat, aint you? I thought so. You know who I am? Yes, I do, Said the fresh cop, very peevish. Then let it alone, These gents are particular friends of mine. - Wasn't it luck? Then we went to the German Club, Us We and Mr. Donovan and his friend Joe Leahy, Heinie Gus Krutzsch Found it shut. I want to get home, said the cabman, We all go the same way home, said Mr. Donovan, Cheer up, Trixie and Stella; and put his foot through the window. The next I know the old cab was hauled up on the avenue, And the cabman and little Ben Levin the tailor, The one who read George Meredith, Were running a hundred yards on a bet, And Mr. Donovan holding the watch. So I got out to see the sunrise, and walked home. * * * * April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land....

February 4 An Invitation to the Feast Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.”—Matthew 22:1-2 One ordinary day my doorbell rang. I answered the door to find no one there. Someone is laughing because I fell for this, I thought. I was just about to close the door and return to my chores when I noticed a small bottle sitting on the doorstep. I was suspicious of the package, but when I noticed a neatly typed label that bore my name and address, I felt a little better. Finally, curiosity got the best of me and I popped the cork. Imagine my surprise when I looked inside and found an invitation to a banquet! Jesus says in Matthew 22 that God’s kingdom is like a wedding feast. He, too, delivers a personal invitation. Although we probably will not see or hear anything with our physical senses, He has an undeniable way of speaking to each of us. Are you suspicious because God’s invitation seems too good to be true? If you’re like me, you wonder why He would even ask you to come to the feast if He really knows you. But God does not make mistakes. Your name is on the invitation. Maybe, like me, you don’t deserve to come to God’s feast. My friend, He loves us so much that He invites us anyway. Jesus says that the Master invites everyone he can find, both the good and the bad (Matthew 22:8-10). That’s my favorite part! We all come to a moment of decision. We must respond, and we have only two choices: we can refuse because we’re busy, prideful, angry, ashamed, or scared; or we can graciously accept His offer. Lord, thank You for who You are. You invite each of us to Your feast just because You want our company, and when we accept Your invitation, You make us worthy to be there by clothing us in Your Son (Galatians 3:26-27). You are amazing!

When I have pictorially captured smell, the most palpable of the senses, the next thing will be to imprison sound- vulgarly speaking, to bottle it. Just think a moment. Force is as imperishable as matter; indeed, as I have been somewhat successful in showing, it is matter. Now, when a sound wave is once started, it is only lost through an indefinite extension of its circumference. Catch that sound wave, sir! Catch it in a bottle, then its circumference cannot extend. You may keep the sound wave forever if you will only keep it corked up tight. The only difficulty is in bottling it in the first place. I shall attend to the details of that operation just as soon as I have managed to photograph the confounded rotten-egg smell of sulphydric acid." The professor stirred up the offensive mixture with a glass rod, and continued: "While my object in bottling sound is mainly scientific, I must confess that I see in success in that direction a prospect of considerable pecuniary profit. I shall be prepared at no distant day to put operas in quart bottles, labeled and assorted, and contemplate a series of light and popular airs in ounce vials at prices to suit the times. You know very well that it costs a ten-dollar bill now to take a lady to hear Martha or Mignon, rendered in first-class style. By the bottle system, the same notes may be heard in one's own parlor at a comparatively trifling expense. I could put the operas into the market at from eighty cents to a dollar a bottle. For oratorios and symphonies I should use demijohns, and the cost would of course be greater. I don't think that ordinary bottles would hold Wagner's music. It might be necessary to employ carboys. Sir, if I were of the sanguine habit of you Americans, I should say that there were millions in it. Being a phlegmatic Teuton, accustomed to the precision and moderation of scientific language, I will merely say that in the success of my experiments with sound I see a comfortable income, as well as great renown. A SCIENTIFIC MARVEL By this time the professor had another negative, but an eager examination of it yielded nothing more satisfactory than before. He sighed and continued: "Having photographed smell and bottled sound, I shall proceed to a project as much higher than this as the reflective faculties are higher than the perceptive, as the brain is more exalted than the ear or nose. "I am perfectly satisfied that elements of mind are just as susceptible of detection and analysis as elements of matter. Why, mind is matter. "The soul spectroscope, or, as it will better be known, Dummkopf's duplex self-registering soul spectroscope, is based on the broad fact that whatever is material may be analyzed and determined by the position of the Frauenhofer lines upon the spectrum. If soul is matter, soul may thus be analyzed and determined. Place a subject under the light, and the minute exhalations or

IZZY KAMIKAZE: It must be five years ago, they introduced a debate, a one-off debate, into the Cork Women’s Weekend as a one-off thing. I thought that was very interesting. Katherine O’Donnell to the best of my recollection chaired it … One of the things that I would have said there – and I take responsibility for this – is younger people in the community are not really aware of the history. And I don’t think it’s on to blame them for that. How are they going to be aware of the history if we don’t fucking tell them? That’s our job. So I remember one younger woman standing up at that debate that day, maybe 23 or something, and saying, ‘I’ve been out since I was 14 and getting married is the first thing I’ve ever been told in my life that I can’t do because I’m gay.’ And I was thinking: there’s the fucking culture shock. Ok! Well, I can see how it could feel important to you in that relatively cosseted situation. Like, you obviously didn’t grow up somewhere where you were having stones thrown at you every time you stuck your head outside your front door. You obviously have a very supportive family, probably the kind of people I used to go marching with thirty years ago, and all of that. So you’ve got the illusion that that’s the battle to fight now, that that’s all that’s standing between you and equality. And it is an illusion.

Stoned Soup by Stewart Stafford Keith Richards talks Brendan Behan, Making soup, wrapped in a blanket, While in a kitchen in County Cork, Mick Jagger listens and laughs loudly. Discussing the previous night’s gig, Mick says the crowd was wonderful, Keith agrees and says so was Charlie, Keith’s lip cigarette jigs to each word. Through choking plumes of smoke, The soup is ready, Mick tries some, His notable lips curl downwards fast, He humours Keith and says it’s great. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

This is one kind of water when it hangs over him a man is a nobody underneath a big wave his loneliness expands his hair floats out like seaweed and when he surfaces his head full of green water sitting alone on his raft in the middle of death then it is wide it is a wide field of horrible upheavals there are fish in it there are shearwaters searching and sometimes in these gulfs a goddess who used to be human now she is yellow-eyed sometimes she shrieks heavy-winged with laughterless laughter and lands on his raft shaking the underworld off poor man she says poor man it's obvious you can sniff it everywhere the shabby weirdness of the sea-god leaning intimately over and turning his shadows against you poor morsel of cork you bob about throwaway in all this what is it grief grief grief but this grief is so old its matter has lost its mind blinks blinks and sees nothing howls howls and hears nothing

Who are we taking?” Ed straightens, catching the cork in his palm. “Why can’t we all go together?” “Because it’s not junior prom,” Chris says. “We can’t just go solo?” “I mean, you could,” Chris says, “but this is gonna be a big deal with dancing and coupley stuff. Go solo and be the loner, go in a group and we’re the table of dudes—and Mills—sitting there awkwardly. We should get dates.” Reid rolls his dice and begins counting out his turn. “I call Millie.” “You call me?” “Whoa, whoa.” Derailed from his initial argument, Chris turns to Reid with a frown. “If we’re just going to pair up, why’d you pick her?” Reid shrugs and gives a vague nod in my direction. “She looks better in a ball gown.” Ed seems genuinely insulted. “You have obviously never seen me in one.” “I took you to the Deans’ Banquet last year,” Chris reminds Reid. “We had an awesome time.” His turn completed, Reid drops the dice onto the center of the board and picks up his drink. “We did. I’m just being fair and going with someone else this time.” Ed smacks Chris’s shoulder. “I’m more Reid’s type. Remember that cute bartender he liked? The one with the curly hair?” He makes a show of pointing to his head and the mass of auburn curls there. “Tell me we wouldn’t look great together.” “I can beat that.” Alex brings up a foot to rest on the table and rolls up the hem of his jeans, flexing his calf muscle. “Reid is a leg man. Just look at these stems. I could spin you all around that dance floor.” Reid watches each of them, bemused. “I mean, technically speaking, Millie is my type. Being female and whatnot.” “Is it weird to anyone that this roomful of straight men is fighting over Reid and not me?” I ask. Chris, Alex, and Ed seem to give this fair consideration before answering “No” in unison. I lift my glass of wine and take a deep swallow. “Okay, then.” Finally, Reid stands, carrying his empty glass into the kitchen. “Millie, you need anything?” “Other than tips on how to develop an alluring female presence?” I ask. “I’m good. Thanks.

That’s what it all comes down to in the end,” he said. “A person spends his life saying good-bye to other people. How does he say good-bye to himself?” I threw away picture-frame wire, metal bookends, cork coasters, plastic key tags, dusty bottles of Mercurochrome and Vaseline, crusted paintbrushes, caked shoe brushes, clotted correction fluid. I threw away candle stubs, laminated placemats, frayed pot holders. I went after the padded clothes hangers, the magnetic memo clipboards. I was in a vengeful and near savage state. I bore a personal grudge against these things. Somehow they’d put me in this fix. They’d dragged me down, made escape impossible.

I am a poet and Frank said to me that I couldn’t say certain things, but if I put it in a poem?’ He then agreed to recite his poem aloud for the pair: ‘There is a full force hurricane, storming, circulating, swirling, angry, aggressive and vengeful, around the outside of my head. Yet because of beauty and love and thoughts of you, I remain calm in the eye of the hurricane. And in the bonfiring of my dreams, at that final moment, between the laughter and the tears, at the tumult of my fears, with thoughts of beauty and love and you, I am able to stay as calm as the stilled mill pond.’ Concluding the poem, he said it perfectly captured where he was at that precise moment in time. ‘That is from the heart. I am not acting calmly in a hurricane–I am.’ He acknowledged he was a ‘bit worried about herself’, in reference to his partner, Ms Thomas, who was not participating in the interview but who was painting in her studio just a few metres away. ‘She is a bit shook,’ he said. The poetry dominated coverage of the case over the coming days, most likely as intended. The striking photograph taken by Mark Condren, a multiple winner of the prestigious Irish Press Photographer of the Year Award, dominated the front page the following day. Such was the impact of the image it was reproduced several times over the coming weeks for use with various updates on the Paris trial and verdict.

I said, ‘I’m not going to be here for long.’ ‘The lending desk closes in five,’ she said. And she wheeled on towards a door with a poster on it saying Enter a World Of Adventure, and disappeared through it. For a while I couldn’t locate the Poetry shelves at all. I walked past Pottery and Ceramics, past Parenting Skills, Personal Development, Philosophy, Psychology and Pet Care, but there was no Poetry. I walked past an old man sitting beside a shelf that said Withdrawn Fiction: 10p, and a big woman in Scholl sandals and beige socks, reading a book called Bring Me My Arrows of Desire. I walked past a carousel displaying off-the-peg reading glasses – See Clearly Again for only £3.99! said a sign – a claim which seemed improbable to me, like one of Jesus’s miracles. Pinned to a cork noticeboard beside the carousel was another poster I hadn’t noticed the last time I’d gone there. It said: THE WORLD ENDS TOMORROW! (according to Nostradamus) So please make sure you return your overdue books

Then you run your finger along the neck. See the seam in the glass here? You need to slide the saber along the seam, toward the head, and strike at where the cork is. The spot where the two seams meet is the weakest. Pressure on that point will make the glass crack clean and the cork will fly.

Grief is funny like that, how it ebbs and flows from you, it’s not corked like champagne, a bottle that bursts open, fizzes all out until it’s empty. It’s more like a kind of weather. A kind of wind. Sometimes it’s these horrible gusts that you feel undeniably, hurts your ears, makes you close your eyes, chills you right down to your bones, some days it’s a pleasant breeze that blows across your face and it’s neither sad or bad, it’s just some kind of unspeakable tenderness. Some days you feel no breeze, that’s started happening to me—I don’t know how I feel about it yet—not that I don’t think of her, I sort of think I’ll think of her every day for forever, but more that, when I do, it doesn’t necessarily feel like someone’s dropping a crystal vase inside my chest. That’s not to say I don’t still have days where I’m a glassware shop situated somewhere along the San Andreas Fault and there’s an earthquake and things are falling and breaking everywhere, but there was a time where every day felt like the big one California’s waiting for—just total demolition. I suppose it doesn’t feel like total destruction anymore.

The earth isn’t just rock and dirt and trees and water. It’s one thing, one heart, one spirit. It offers us life and beauty and, if we listen, wisdom. And it asks nothing in return, not even gratitude, because giving is the whole reason for its creation. “And why are we created? To receive, to honor, and to protect. What you talk about here isn’t just the wounding of that beautiful, giving spirit. What you talk about here, in your ignorance, is the wounding of the spirit of us all. We are not separate. To kill the water, to kill the fish, to kill the trees, to kill the birds, is to kill ourselves. That is all I have to say.

LeDuc nodded at the check lying on the table. “Is that going to be enough? If you need more, don’t be shy about saying so.” Cork shrugged. “What’s a nice coffin cost these days?

Or when a cork breaks on you, do you ever immediately think it’s a metaphor for your life?

Christians seem to love Shame: shame on your body, your soul, your actions and inactions. Put a cork in all of your holes and choke on the light of God. We have no power over a universe that we can barely comprehend. We are truly armed with nothing. Our ideologies impoverish us. They give us a reason to destroy Earth and ourselves along with it. How can Christians shame the process of welcoming spirit into flesh? How can Christians say we are born in sin?

You’ll be pleased to learn that these fancy cork jackets really do a remarkable job of keeping a person afloat,” she heard spill out of her mouth after a full minute had passed. Everett, annoyingly enough, kept reading, but then his head snapped up and he narrowed his eyes on her. “I do beg your pardon, Millie, I was completely engrossed in my book, but . . . what did you just say? Something about keeping a person afloat?” “I said these jackets are remarkably effective.” She twirled around to show off the jacket she was wearing. Everett shot out of the chair before she could finish her twirling. “Where are the children?” he demanded as he rushed for the door, scowling down at her when she, seemingly unable to help herself, moved to block his way. “They’re languishing, which means lingering, in the ocean, having a most marvelous time of it, I might add.” Everett actually picked her up and set her aside right before he froze. “Elizabeth was right, Miss Longfellow. You really are a lunatic.” “And you, Mr. Mulberry, are rapidly turning out to be a rather unlikeable sort,” Millie shot back. “Do you honestly believe if the children had gone overboard that I’d waste time seeking out your assistance instead of jumping into the ocean after them?” “You don’t know how to swim.” “Which is why I’m wearing this jacket, and which is also why, because you know I can’t swim, you should have stayed topside with the children instead of burying yourself in here with what appears to be some type of novel.” She peered over at the desk, but couldn’t make out what he was reading. “Did you forget the children’s fascination with walking the plank?” “They were considering walking a plank?” “Don’t be silly,” Millie said with a sniff. “After what happened the last time they tried that game, I do think their interest in that has dimmed simultaneously.” Everett’s brows drew together. “Simultaneously?” Fumbling with the cork jacket, Millie stuck her hand in a pocket and retrieved her dictionary. Flipping through the pages, she glanced over different words. “Ah, here we go. I think significantly might have been what I meant to say.” She lifted her head and refused to sigh when she realized Everett was now scowling her way. “Why would you bring up the whole plank business when you knew the children had abandoned their interest in it?” he asked. “You annoyed me.” “The amount of money I’m currently paying you to nanny the children should hold any and all annoyance you may think you feel for me at bay.” “Even if you paid me twice what you are, I’d still get annoyed with you on a frequent basis.” “I’m

When Mrs. Byrne isn’t around, Mr. Byrne is friendly. He likes to talk with me about Ireland. His own family, he tells me, is from Sallybrook, near the east coast. His uncle and cousins were Republicans in the War of Independence; they fought with Michael Collins and were there at the Four Courts building in Dublin in April of 1922, when the Brits stormed the building and killed the insurgents, and they were there when Collins was assassinated a few months later, near Cork. Collins was the greatest hero Ireland ever had, don’t you know? Yes, I nod. I know. But I’m skeptical his cousins were there. My da used to say every Irishman you meet in America swears to have a relative who fought alongside Michael Collins.

Another time he told me about two mountains—one of cork, the other of marble—which had spent thousands of years staring at each other without any mutual comprehension, and he concluded this tale by telling me about the verse in the Holy Koran which says to build your homes on high ground.

When we walk in, everybody turns to look at us. Pres looks down at our joined hands and then looks to Knox. I open my mouth to say something, but he beats me to it. Of course he does. “Yo. Little announcement here. Violent Violet and I are together. She’s my old lady and I’m her old man. Yada yada yada, we’re getting married. So there’s that.” I look at him, and I feel my jaw pop open. “Did you just yada yada your proposal to me?” Knox shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Wasn’t going to let you tell me no.” The big scarred-up guy comes over and gives him a high five. “Best way to do it,” he says and pats Knox on the back. “About time you made an honest man out of him,” Pres says, walking over and giving me a hug. I feel Knox’s hand tighten, and he doesn’t let it go while I awkwardly try to hug the guy back. “We’re all a family here now, and it’s going to stay that way. We agreed that you’re patched in, regardless if you marry this nerd or not.” I lean into Knox and laugh. “Thank you.” “Welcome to the Ghost Riders,” Pres says, and suddenly I hear a champagne cork pop and we’re all being sprayed with suds. I try to turn into Knox’s chest, but he holds me in front of him so I get covered. As more champagne is popped and more bottles get poured, Knox spins me in his arms and raises me up so we are at eye level. “I love you, baby,” he says, kissing me on the lips. ‘Love you, too,” I mumble as I wrap myself around him. I’m finally at peace with myself and my life, and I’ve got someone to always make me feel safe. It was a long time coming, but it was worth the wait. And now we’ve got the rest of our lives to do this thing we call love.

668. Bill Gates is at the beach when he discovers a bottle in the surf. He pulls out the cork and a Genie appears. The Genie says, “I have been trapped for 100 years. As a reward you can make a wish.” Gates thinks about it as he carries the bottle back to his beach cottage. Once there, he goes to a bookshelf, pulls out an atlas and turns to a map of theMiddle East. This area has seen conflict and suffering for hundreds of years. What I wish for is peace in the Middle East. The Genie replies, “I don’t know I can do a lot, but this? Don’t you have another wish?” Bill Gates thinks and finally says, OK. The whole world hates Microsoft because we have conquered the software market and because Windows still crashes. I wish you would make everybody love us. The Genie says, Let me see that map again.

Lecia tells me that Harold allegedly propositioned some cowboy in the men’s room, and the guy had beaten the shit out of him. Which prompted Mother to draw—from her beaded bag—the pearl-handled revolver so small it could pass for a cigarette lighter. She held the cowboys at bay through the parking lot while she wrangled the pulp-faced Harold into her car. Once home, Mother poured herself a glass of milk and opened a tranquilizing package of ho-hos. Then she proceeded to tear Harold a new asshole—verbally speaking. He was bloody-nosed already, and stout as a prize pig, blubbering Mother was his soul mate till he corked off on the kitchen floor. Mother had sat on the counter stool, sipping at the milk and ratcheting up her pissed-off with every whisper sweep of the clock till it came to her Harold needed a piece of her mind. She’d pelted him with a pastry, then kicked him not very hard, she’d told Lecia, and mostly in his big fat ass. Then she got her pistol out again and fired it over Harold’s head, and he’d screamed himself awake. Somewhere in there, he’d pissed his pants. She couldn’t shift him off the kitchen floor, so she called to Tex, who hauled Harold to detox. She shot at him? I say. That’s exactly what I said. You shot at him? Lecia says. So embarrassing.

If you become the action, and execute the process perfectly, you will become the result,” he wrote. “Fear and worry are the heart of failure.” As Morgan saw it, blind tasting well depends first and foremost on sharpening your focus and mental control. You have to keep your mind open to the wine’s message at the same time that you silence the doubts that inevitably creep into the edges of your brain to whisper You always miss Moscato. “It requires consciousness. It requires attention. It requires saying, ‘I’m going to be in tune with my senses, and I’m going to listen to this glass of wine,’” Morgan said.