Crossed Comic Quotes

Comics are an international language, they can cross boundaries and generations. Comics are a bridge between all cultures.

Christ did not descend from the cross except into the grave. And why not otherwise? Wouldn’t it have put fine comical expressions on the faces of the scribes and chief priests and the soldiers if at that moment He had come down in power and glory? Why didn’t He do it? Why hasn’t He done it at any one of a thousand good times between then and now? I knew the answer. I knew it a long time before I could admit it, for all the suffering of the world is in it. He didn’t, He hasn’t, because from the moment He did, He would be the absolute tyrant of the world and we would be His slaves. Even those who hated Him and hated one another and hated their own souls would have to believe in Him then. From that moment the possibility that we might be bound to Him and He to us and us to one another by love forever would be ended. And so, I thought, He must forebear to reveal His power and glory by presenting Himself as Himself, and must be present only in the ordinary miracle of the existence of His creatures. Those who wish to see Him must see Him in the poor, the hungry, the hurt, the wordless creatures, the groaning and travailing beautiful world.

The closer they come to transcending technique and the memorization of lines--the closer to really beginning to act, in short--the more Chinese they begin to seem. Happy now approaches Miss Forsythe to pick her up in the restaurant with a wonderful formality, his back straight, head high, his hand-gestures even more precise and formal, but with a comic undertone that ironically comes closer to conveying the original American idea of the scene than when he was trying to be physically sloppy and "relaxed"--that is, imitating an American. I think that by some unplanned magic we may end up creating something not quite American or Chinese but a pure style springing from the heart of the play itself--the play as a nonnational event, that is, a human circumstance.

...You see I believe in that stuff to: yoga and mystical powers. I once knew a man who could kill himself on command. Can you believe that? . . . Why do you laugh? . . . Believe it! By will of his own mind, he could make his heart stop beating for good' My neighbor poised and looked seriously at me, searching in my eyes. '...You laugh!' he repeated once more… 'You laugh, but he was a master at it! He could commit suicide at his own will!' Indeed, hearty laughter streamed through my nose. 'Could he do it perpetually?' I asked. 'Perpetually...?' My neighbor rubbed his waxy chin. 'I mean, is he still able to do it?' 'I’m not sure I understand.' 'Well? Then is he dead…?!' My neighbor's puzzled face slowly began to transform into a look of realization. 'But sir,' he said, 'Of course he’s dead! I mean to say... this man could kill himself on command, you see. And you don’t come back from the dead!' The two of us found ourselves crossing to the door so I could let my visitor out. I slapped him with friendliness on the shoulder. 'No, you don’t come back from the dead,' I agreed.

We made it back to the airport without getting mugged, stoned, shot at, pounced on, bombed, shelled, garroted, gassed, pitched into, caught in a cross fire, sniped at, blockaded, napalmed, or trip-wired. No one even hit us with a water balloon.

We call it hypocrisy, but it is schizophrenia, a modest ranch-house life with Draconian military adventures; a land of equal opportunity where a white culture sits upon a Black; a horizontal community of Christian love and a vertical hierarchy of churches--the cross was well-designed! a land of family, a land of illicit heat; a politics of principle, a politics of property; nation of mental hygiene with movies and TV reminiscent of a mental pigpen; patriots with a detestation of obscenity who pollute their rivers; citizens with a detestation of government control who cannot bear any situation not controlled. The list must be endless, the comic profits are finally small--the society was able to stagger on like a 400-lb. policeman walking uphill because living in such an unappreciated and obese state it did not at least have to explode in schizophrenia--life went on. Boys could go patiently to church at home and wait their turn to burn villages in Vietnam.

You can't NOT cross the street because you might get hit by a car.

I noticed a copy of X-Men, a Marvel comic he loved, in his backpack, which was lying open on his crossed legs. Sometimes it seemed a part of those characters lived inside him. Peter wasn’t your classic knight in shining armor; he was a complex hero full of doubts and conflicting emotions who suffered from unrequited love.

Never in a million years would he have imagined her to look at him like that - eyelids batting of their own volition and her lips puckering in expectation as she leaned slightly forward. Yet here she was doing precisely that - it was much too comical to stop the smile crossing his face. And that was when she hit him. It wasn't a faint slap on the cheek. No, Alexandra put all her weight behind the right hook that landed squarely across his jaw, throwing him completely off balance. Damnation!

By the dim light of a lantern, they crossed the field toward the oak woods. Ned took the lead then, being more familiar with the nocturnal hazards of a meadow. With his guidance they avoided cow pats, thistles, sudden ditches, murky dark puddles, and an iron rake someone had left lying about just waiting for a comic moment.

Seinfeld began his advice to Isaac with some common sense, noting “the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes,” and then explaining that the way to create better jokes was to write every day. Seinfeld continued by describing a specific technique he used to help maintain this discipline. He keeps a calendar on his wall. Every day that he writes jokes he crosses out the date on the calendar with a big red X. “After a few days you’ll have a chain,” Seinfeld said. “Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.” This chain method (as some now call it) soon became a hit among writers and fitness enthusiasts—communities that thrive on the ability to do hard things consistently.

The depressing majority of comics seem to be about violence of one sort or another, [...] And I just don’t enjoy violence. I can see that narratively it is often a powerful spike in a story, but I certainly don’t want to dwell on it. I don’t want it in my real life, I don’t find violence entertaining in and of itself, or exciting, or funny. But sex is happily part of most people’s lives, and crosses the mind most days, I would say, even if it’s just watching your partner get out of bed in the morning. [...] Most pornography is pretty awful. I mean, it does the job at the most utilitarian level, but it rarely excites other areas of the mind, or the eye. It’s repetitive, bland and often a bit silly. I was interested in trying to do something that has an aesthetic beauty to it if possible, and something that tickles the intellect as well as the more basic areas of the mind. Maybe that’s not possible, and as soon as you start to think too much, it stops working as pornography. I don’t think so, but I guess it’s in the eye and mind of the viewer.

so I drop the rock and cross my arms in front of me, suddenly self-conscious in the presence of two goddesses who look like comic book heroines.

We're your guardians until my uncle tracks down your cousin and arrests him." Tammy's face was almost comical in its incredulity. "But it's daylight," she said at last. "Vampires can't go out in the sun, everyone knows that!" Bones chuckled. "Right. And we shrink back from crosses, can't travel over water, can't enter a home unless invited, and always get staked in the end by the righteous slayer. Really, who'd be afraid of a creature like that? All you'd need is a Bible, a tanning bed, and some holy water to send us shivering to our dooms.

How had he got here? Only a few minutes ago he'd been a kid, riding his bike to school, collecting comics, doing homework and watching TV. Over the years, a few trappings of adulthood had insinuated themselves into his life withoutmaking significant inroads. Real adult life seemed to exist over there, somewhere as distant and unreachable as Uranus. He had no idea how people crossed over to this place, or why - the demands of being grown up seemed exhausting. Look how I work all the time. See my silky girlfriend. Watch me exchange money for food. Admire my blood pressure.

Pop culture. Nobody does bullshit better than us. Right? China took over manufacturing. And the Middle East has us on fossil fuels. That's just geography and politics. We're a nation of whacko immigrants. Scavengers and con men. We crossed the ocean on faith, stole some land and stone-cold made up a whole country out of nothing but balls and bullshit. Superhero comics got invented by crazy genius Jews who showed up and revamped the refugee experience into a Man of Steel sent from Krypton with a secret identity.

As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that everyone’s had enough of me to last a month. Actually, I’m what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker—a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either. I hate having to tell you this, but why shouldn’t I admit it when I know it’s true? My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne—to beat her down, hide her. But it doesn’t work, and I know why. I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the “lighthearted” Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the “deeper” Anne is too weak. If I force the good Anne into the spotlight for even fifteen minutes, she shuts up like a clam the moment she’s called upon to speak, and lets Anne number one do the talking. Before I realize it, she’s disappeared. So the nice Anne is never seen in company. She’s never made a single appearance, though she almost always takes the stage when I’m alone. I know exactly how I’d like to be, how I am … on the inside. But unfortunately I’m only like that with myself. And perhaps that’s why—no, I’m sure that’s the reason why—I think of myself as happy on the inside and other people think I’m happy on the outside. I’m guided by the pure Anne within, but on the outside I’m nothing but a frolicsome little goat tugging at its tether. As I’ve told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesn’t give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I’m trying very hard to change myself, but that I’m always up against a more powerful enemy. A voice within me is sobbing, “You see, that’s what’s become of you. You’re surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people who dislike you, and all because you don’t listen to the advice of your own better half.” Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if … if only there were no other people in the world. Yours, Anne M. Frank ANNE’S DIARY ENDS HERE.

For now, the Simple Daily Practice means doing ONE thing every day. Try any one of these things each day: A) Sleep eight hours. B) Eat two meals instead of three. C) No TV. D) No junk food. E) No complaining for one whole day. F) No gossip. G) Return an e-mail from five years ago. H) Express thanks to a friend. I) Watch a funny movie or a stand-up comic. J) Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be about anything. K) Read a spiritual text. Any one that is inspirational to you. The Bible, The Tao te Ching, anything you want. L) Say to yourself when you wake up, “I’m going to save a life today.” Keep an eye out for that life you can save. M) Take up a hobby. Don’t say you don’t have time. Learn the piano. Take chess lessons. Do stand-up comedy. Write a novel. Do something that takes you out of your current rhythm. N) Write down your entire schedule. The schedule you do every day. Cross out one item and don’t do that anymore. O) Surprise someone. P) Think of ten people you are grateful for. Q) Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin in the brain as actually forgiving them in person. R) Take the stairs instead of the elevator. S) I’m going to steal this next one from the 1970s pop psychology book Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No: when you find yourself thinking of that special someone who is causing you grief, think very quietly, “No.” If you think of him and (or?) her again, think loudly, “No!” Again? Whisper, “No!” Again, say it. Louder. Yell it. Louder. And so on. T) Tell someone every day that you love them. U) Don’t have sex with someone you don’t love. V) Shower. Scrub. Clean the toxins off your body. W) Read a chapter in a biography about someone who is an inspiration to you. X) Make plans to spend time with a friend. Y) If you think, “Everything would be better off if I were dead,” then think, “That’s really cool. Now I can do anything I want and I can postpone this thought for a while, maybe even a few months.” Because what does it matter now? The planet might not even be around in a few months. Who knows what could happen with all these solar flares. You know the ones I’m talking about. Z) Deep breathing. When the vagus nerve is inflamed, your breathing becomes shallower. Your breath becomes quick. It’s fight-or-flight time! You are panicking. Stop it! Breathe deep. Let me tell you something: most people think “yoga” is all those exercises where people are standing upside down and doing weird things. In the Yoga Sutras, written in 300 B.C., there are 196 lines divided into four chapters. In all those lines, ONLY THREE OF THEM refer to physical exercise. It basically reads, “Be able to sit up straight.” That’s it. That’s the only reference in the Yoga Sutras to physical exercise. Claudia always tells me that yogis measure their lives in breaths, not years. Deep breathing is what keeps those breaths going.

Do you still think like that? The exit-strategy thing,” she asks. “Sort of, I guess? It’s different now; it’s not urgent like it used to be. It’s more like a habit, if that makes sense?” I glance at her face. “You know how some people go to movie theaters and have to find all the emergency exits, or they go out to eat and have to face the door no matter what, and half the time they don’t even realize they’re doing it?” She nods, but kind of slowly, hesitant. “That’s how it is, just like a glitch in the comfort matrix or something. Something my brain tosses out there, and I’m like, ‘Cool, thanks for the suggestion, but maybe we could just play a video game instead.’ It’s just crossed lines. It’s fine.

At least, man has always feared this 2x2=4 formula, and I still fear it. We may suppose a man may do nothing but search for such equations, crossing the oceans and dedicating his life to the quest; but succeeding, really finding them- I swear he will be afraid of that. Really, he will feel that if he finds them, he will have nothing left to search for. When workmen have finished work, they at least receive their money, they go and spend it in the pub, they get hauled off to the police- station- that's enough to occupy them for a week. But where can mankind go? To say the least, something uncomfortable is to be noticed to man on the achievement of similar goals. His likes progress towards the goal, but he does not altogether care for the achievement of it, and that, of course, is ridiculous. In short, mankind is comically constructed; all this plainly amounts to a joke.

He reached for Aiden’s hand, which was swinging by the side of Aiden’s chair in a convenient location for Harvard to grab in case Harvard might want to. Harvard not only laced their fingers together, but also brought Aiden’s hand to his lips and kissed the back. Then he let their joined hands rest on the lapel of his uniform blazer, against the golden crown over crossed swords of his captain’s pin… and his heart. Harvard did it all absentmindedly, as though he didn’t have to think about his actions because it came so naturally. Aiden lifted a coffee cup to his lips purely in order to make a Can you believe this? face behind it. There went Harvard again, raising the ideal boyfriend bar to the sky. Could the man not be stopped? “Aw, are you having faith in me, sweetheart?” Aiden murmured. “That’s so nice. And so misplaced.” Harvard murmured, a lovely little sound, patently unconvinced. This is the last time, Aiden thought, and held on. The others ignored Aiden and Harvard’s romantic moment in order to focus on crime.

From the 1960s on, Rivers had been the purveyor of a harsh realpolitik, one based on her experience: Looks mattered. If you got cut off from access to men and money - and from men as the route to money - you were dead in the water. Women were one another's competition, always. For half a century, this dark comedy of scarce resources had been her forte: many hands grasping, but only one golden ring. Rivers herself had fought hard for the token slot allotted to a female comic, yet she seemed thrown by a world in which that might no longer be necessary. Like Moses and the Promised Land, she couldn't cross over.

Yes," she said, "but I am depressed by the awfulness of it all. I feel of so little consequence—so small and helpless in the face of all these myriad manifestations of life stripped to the bone of its savagery and brutality. I realize as never before how cheap and valueless a thing is life. Life seems a joke, a cruel, grim joke. You are a laughable incident or a terrifying one as you happen to be less powerful or more powerful than some other form of life which crosses your path; but as a rule you are of no moment whatsoever to anything but yourself. You are a comic little figure, hopping from the cradle to the grave. Yes, that is our trouble—we take ourselves too seriously; but Caprona should be a sure cure for that." She paused and laughed.

You are a laughable incident or a terrifying one as you happen to be less powerful or more powerful than some other form of life which crosses your path; but as a rule you are of no moment whatsoever to anything but yourself. You are a comic little figure, hopping from the cradle to the grave. Yes, that is our trouble — we take ourselves too seriously; but Caprona should be a sure cure for that.” She paused and laughed. “You have evolved a beautiful philosophy,” I said. “It fills such a longing in the human breast. It is full, it is satisfying, it is ennobling. What wondrous strides toward perfection the human race might have made if the first man had evolved it and it had persisted until now as the creed of humanity.” “I don’t like irony,” she said; “it indicates a small soul.” “What other sort of soul, then, would you expect from `a comic little figure hopping from the cradle to the grave’?” I inquired. “And what difference does it make, anyway, what you like and what you don’t like? You are here for but an instant, and you mustn’t take yourself too seriously.

If ever, my dear Hawthorne, in the eternal times that are to come, you and I shall sit down in Paradise, in some little shady corner by ourselves; and if we shall by any means be able to smuggle a basket of champagne there (I won't believe in a Temperance Heaven), and if we shall then cross our celestial legs in the celestial grass that is forever tropical, and strike our glasses and our heads together, till both musically ring in concert,—then, O my dear fellow-mortal, how shall we pleasantly discourse of all the things manifold which now so distress us,—when all the earth shall be but a reminiscence, yea, its final dissolution an antiquity. Then shall songs be composed as when wars are over; humorous, comic songs,—“Oh, when I lived in that queer little hole called the world,” or, “Oh, when I toiled and sweated below,” or, “Oh, when I knocked and was knocked in the fight”—yes, let us look forward to such things. Let us swear that, though now we sweat, yet it is because of the dry heat which is indispensable to the nourishment of the vine which is to bear the grapes that are to give us the champagne hereafter.

Christ did not descend from the cross except into the grave. And why not otherwise? Wouldn’t it have put fine comical expressions on the faces of the scribes and the chief priests and the soldiers if at that moment He had come down in power and glory? Why didn’t He do it? Why hasn’t He done it at any one of a thousand good times between then and now? I knew the answer. I knew it a long time before I could admit it, for all the suffering of the world is in it. He didn’t, He hasn’t, because from the moment He did, He would be the absolute tyrant of the world and we would be His slaves. Even those who hated Him and hated one another and hated their own souls would have to believe in Him then. From that moment the possibility that we might be bound to Him and He to us and us to one another by love forever would be ended. And so, I thought, He must forebear to reveal His power and glory by presenting Himself as Himself, and must be present only in the ordinary miracle of the existence of His creatures. Those who wish to see Him must see Him in the poor, the hungry, the hurt, the wordless creatures, the groaning and travailing beautiful world.

While people like myself may be dissatisfied with how the Exxon story was covered, people on the right are dissatisfied that it was covered at all! If they had their way, your average newspaper would be nothing but a few glorifying stories about the wonders and blessings of private enterprise, and then a few anti-communist horror stories, you know, what the North Koreans are doing,torturing little babies when they come out of the womb or something, and then some cross word puzzles, and cooking recipes, and comic strips. And by the way, that does describe a lot of newspapers in America. You go across the country and you pick up these papers, and that's pretty much what they are. Now to the extent that they AREN'T those things, that's when the right wing media gets bothered. To the extent that they've gotta hear an occasional bumbling comment about the media (that never goes too far over), to that extent they say "liberal media." And by calling it "the liberal media", you keep the media on its guard, you keep it dressing off to the right, you keep that drumfire hitting from the right to keep pulling it, pushing it over to the right, so you change the center of gravity.

As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that everyone’s had enough of me to last a month. Actually, I’m what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker—a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either. I hate having to tell you this, but why shouldn’t I admit it when I know it’s true? My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne—to beat her down, hide her. But it doesn’t work, and I know why. I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the “lighthearted” Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the “deeper” Anne is too weak. If I force the good Anne into the spotlight for even fifteen minutes, she shuts up like a clam the moment she’s called upon to speak, and lets Anne number one do the talking. Before I realize it, she’s disappeared. So the nice Anne is never seen in company. She’s never made a single appearance, though she almost always takes the stage when I’m alone. I know exactly how I’d like to be, how I am … on the inside. But unfortunately I’m only like that with myself. And perhaps that’s why—no, I’m sure that’s the reason why—I think of myself as happy on the inside and other people think I’m happy on the outside. I’m guided by the pure Anne within, but on the outside I’m nothing but a frolicsome little goat tugging at its tether. As I’ve told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesn’t give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I’m trying very hard to change myself, but that I’m always up against a more powerful enemy. A voice within me is sobbing, “You see, that’s what’s become of you. You’re surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people who dislike you, and all because you don’t listen to the advice of your own better half.” Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if … if only there were no other people in the world.

Harvard pointed. “You know, right there is when the stuntman catches the sword out of frame.” “I know.” Aiden did know. Harvard always told him this fact at this precise moment. Aiden had watched this movie without Harvard once—on a date. Seeing the sword fly without the familiar murmur had upset Aiden enough to turn off the movie. Tonight, Harvard was here with him. They were both lying on their stomachs with their legs kicked up and their hands cupped in their chins, as though they were six years old. They weren’t. Aiden tangled their legs together slightly, deliberately. It felt far more dangerous than crossing swords. Aiden couldn’t imagine a match with so much at stake. “During a date when you stay in,” Aiden said, teaching, “you should try to see if the other person is receptive to you getting closer.” Harvard gave Aiden a look out of the corner of his eye, and let their legs stay tangled, resting with light pressure against one another. Love was a delusion, nothing but an electrical impulse in the brain, but there were many impulses running electric under Aiden’s skin right now. The man in black smiled beneath his mask and switched his sword to his right hand. The clash of swords rang over the sound of the sea. Aiden sneaked another look at Harvard, the shine of his dark eyes and white teeth in the silvery glow from the screen. Harvard caught him looking, but he returned Aiden’s look with a look of his own, warmly affectionate and never suspicious at all. Harvard never suspected a thing. Because Aiden was his best friend, and Harvard trusted him. And Harvard could trust him. Aiden would never do anything to hurt Harvard, not anything at all. Aiden moved in still closer, his arm set against Harvard’s, solid muscle under the thin material of his shirtsleeve. He could put his arm around Harvard’s shoulders or slip an arm around his waist or lean in. He was allowed, just for tonight.

In the last years of the Republic there were films such as Robert Siodmark's Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday, 1930)) and Gerhard Lamprecht's Emil und die Detektive (Emil and the Detectives, 1931), which embraced the airy streets, light-dappled forests, and lakes surrounding Berlin. Billie Wilder, a brash young journalist and dance-hall enthusiast, worked on the scripts for both these films. While Kracauer and Eisner saw malevolence in the frequent trope of doubling (one being possessed by another and thus becoming two conflicting psychological presences), Wilder witnessed another form of doubling during the Weimer era: transvestitism, a staple of cabaret. Men dressing as women (as do Reinhold Schünzel in der Himmel auf Erden [Heaven on earth]) and Curti Bois in Der Fürst von Pappenheim [The Masked Mannequin][both 1927]) or women as men (as does Dolly Haas in Liebeskommando [Love's Command, 1931]), in order to either escape detection or get closer to the object of their affection, is an inherently comic situation, especially when much to his or her surprise the cross-dresser begins to enjoy the disguise. Billie left Germany before he directed a film of his own; as Billy he brought to Hollywood a vigorous appreciation of such absurdities of human behavior, along with the dry cynicism that distinguished Berlin humor and an enthusiasm for the syncopations of American jazz, a musical phenomenon welcomed in the German capital. Wilder, informed by his years in Berlin (to which he returned to make A Foreign Affair in 1948 and One, Two, Three in 1961), wrote and directed many dark and sophisticated American films, including The Apartment (1969) and Some Like it Hot (1959), a comedy, set during Prohibition, about the gender confusion on a tonal par with Schünzel's Viktor und Viktoria, released in December 1933, eleven months into the Third Reich and the last musical to reflect the insouciance of the late Republic.

I don’t believe in love that never ends,” said Aiden, his whisper clear and distinct. “I don’t believe in being true until death or finding the other half of your soul.” Harvard raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Privately, he considered that it might be good that Aiden hadn’t delivered this speech to this guy he apparently liked so much—whom Aiden had never even mentioned to his best friend before now. This speech was not romantic. Once again, Harvard had to wonder if what he’d been assuming was Aiden’s romantic prowess had actually been many guys letting Aiden get away with murder because he was awfully cute. But Aiden sounded upset, and that spoke to an instinct in Harvard natural as breath. He put his arm around Aiden, and drew his best friend close against him, warm skin and soft hair and barely there shirt and all, and tried to make a sound that was more soothing than fraught. “I don’t believe in songs or promises. I don’t believe in hearts or flowers or lightning strikes.” Aiden snatched a breath as though it was his last before drowning. “I never believed in anything but you.” “Aiden,” said Harvard, bewildered and on the verge of distress. He felt as if there was something he wasn’t getting here. Even more urgently, he felt he should cut off Aiden. It had been a mistake to ask. This wasn’t meant for Harvard, but for someone else, and worse than anything, there was pain in Aiden’s voice. That must be stopped now. Aiden kissed him, startling and fierce, and said against Harvard’s mouth, “Shut up. Let me… let me.” Harvard nodded involuntarily, because of the way Aiden had asked, unable to deny Aiden even things Harvard should refuse to give. Aiden’s warm breath was running down into the small shivery space between the fabric of Harvard’s shirt and his skin. It was panic-inducing, feeling all the impulses of Harvard’s body and his heart like wires that were not only crossed but also impossibly tangled. Disentangling them felt potentially deadly. Everything inside him was in electric knots. “I’ll let you do anything you want,” Harvard told him, “but don’t—don’t—” Hurt yourself. Seeing Aiden sad was unbearable. Harvard didn’t know what to do to fix it. The kiss had turned the air between them into dry grass or kindling, a space where there might be smoke or fire at any moment. Aiden was focused on toying with the collar of Harvard’s shirt, Aiden’s brows drawn together in concentration. Aiden’s fingertips glancing against his skin burned. “You’re so warm,” Aiden said. “Nothing else ever was. I only knew goodness existed because you were the best. You’re the best of everything to me.” Harvard made a wretched sound, leaning in to press his forehead against Aiden’s. He’d known Aiden was lonely, that the long line of guys wasn’t just to have fun but tied up in the cold, huge manor where Aiden had spent his whole childhood, in Aiden’s father with his flat shark eyes and sharp shark smile, and in the long line of stepmothers who Aiden’s father chose because he had no use for people with hearts. Harvard had always known Aiden’s father wanted to crush the heart out of Aiden. He’d always worried Aiden’s father would succeed. Aiden said, his voice distant even though he was so close, “I always knew all of you was too much to ask for.” Harvard didn’t know what to say, so he obeyed a wild foolish impulse, turned his face the crucial fraction toward Aiden’s, and kissed him. Aiden sank into the kiss with a faint sweet noise, as though he’d finally heard Harvard’s wordless cry of distress and was answering it with belated reassurance: No, I’ll be all right. We’re not lost. The idea of anyone not loving Aiden back was unimaginable, but it had clearly happened. Harvard couldn’t think of how to say it, so he tried to make the kiss say it. I’m so sorry you were in pain. I never guessed. I’m sorry I can’t fix this, but I would if I could. He didn’t love you, but I do.

can hardly blame ye for not waiting.” I could see Ian in profile, leaning over the log basket. His long, good-natured face wore a slight frown. “Weel, I didna think it right, especially wi’ me being crippled …” There was a louder snort. “Jenny couldna have a better husband, if you’d lost both legs and your arms as well,” Jamie said gruffly. Ian’s pale skin flushed slightly in embarrassment. Jamie coughed and swung his legs down from the hassock, leaning over to pick up a scrap of kindling that had fallen from the basket. “How did ye come to wed anyway, given your scruples?” he asked, one side of his mouth curling up. “Gracious, man,” Ian protested, “ye think I had any choice in the matter? Up against a Fraser?” He shook his head, grinning at his friend. “She came up to me out in the field one day, while I was tryin’ to mend a wagon that sprang its wheel. I crawled out, all covered wi’ muck, and found her standin’ there looking like a bush covered wi’ butterflies. She looks me up and down and she says—” He paused and scratched his head. “Weel, I don’t know exactly what she said, but it ended with her kissing me, muck notwithstanding, and saying, ‘Fine, then, we’ll be married on St. Martin’s Day.’ ” He spread his hands in comic resignation. “I was still explaining why we couldna do any such thing, when I found myself in front of a priest, saying, ‘I take thee, Janet’… and swearing to a lot of verra improbable statements.” Jamie rocked back in his seat, laughing. “Aye, I ken the feeling,” he said. “Makes ye feel a bit hollow, no?” Ian smiled, embarrassment forgotten. “It does and all. I still get that feeling, ye know, when I see Jenny sudden, standing against the sun on the hill, or holding wee Jamie, not lookin’ at me. I see her, and I think, ‘God, man, she can’t be yours, not really.’ ” He shook his head, brown hair flopping over his brow. “And then she turns and smiles at me …” He looked up at his brother-in-law, grinning. “Weel, ye know yourself. I can see it’s the same wi’ you and your Claire. She’s … something special, no?” Jamie nodded. The smile didn’t leave his face, but altered somehow. “Aye,” he said softly. “Aye, she is that.” Over the port and biscuits, Jamie and

Try any one of these things each day: A) Sleep eight hours. B) Eat two meals instead of three. C) No TV. D) No junk food. E) No complaining for one whole day. F) No gossip. G) Return an e-mail from five years ago. H) Express thanks to a friend. I) Watch a funny movie or a stand-up comic. J) Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be about anything. K) Read a spiritual text. Any one that is inspirational to you. The Bible, The Tao te Ching, anything you want. L) Say to yourself when you wake up, “I’m going to save a life today.” Keep an eye out for that life you can save. M) Take up a hobby. Don’t say you don’t have time. Learn the piano. Take chess lessons. Do stand-up comedy. Write a novel. Do something that takes you out of your current rhythm. N) Write down your entire schedule. The schedule you do every day. Cross out one item and don’t do that anymore. O) Surprise someone. P) Think of ten people you are grateful for. Q) Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin in the brain as actually forgiving them in person. R) Take the stairs instead of the elevator. S) I’m going to steal this next one from the 1970s pop psychology book Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No: when you find yourself thinking of that special someone who is causing you grief, think very quietly, “No.” If you think of him and (or?) her again, think loudly, “No!” Again? Whisper, “No!” Again, say it. Louder. Yell it. Louder. And so on. T) Tell someone every day that you love them. U) Don’t have sex with someone you don’t love. V) Shower. Scrub. Clean the toxins off your body. W) Read a chapter in a biography about someone who is an inspiration to you. X) Make plans to spend time with a friend. Y) If you think, “Everything would be better off if I were dead,” then think, “That’s really cool. Now I can do anything I want and I can postpone this thought for a while, maybe even a few months.” Because what does it matter now? The planet might not even be around in a few months. Who knows what could happen with all these solar flares. You know the ones I’m talking about. Z) Deep breathing. When the vagus nerve is inflamed, your breathing becomes shallower. Your breath becomes quick. It’s fight-or-flight time! You are panicking. Stop it! Breathe deep. Let me tell you something: most people think “yoga” is all those exercises where people are standing upside down and doing weird things. In the Yoga Sutras, written in 300 B.C., there are 196 lines divided into four chapters. In all those lines, ONLY THREE OF THEM refer to physical exercise. It basically reads, “Be able to sit up straight.” That’s it. That’s the only reference in the Yoga Sutras to physical exercise. Claudia always tells me that yogis measure their lives in breaths, not years. Deep breathing is what keeps those breaths going.

They stared into the distance as though they were being absorbed into an alternate space-time reality. Perhaps they were. But probably they already had been.

Fate will play the hand it wants to play - regardless of what we do. The best we can control is how we react to things and hope for the best. We all have our own destiny - big or small. If a person loosest everything. If you have a dream, do the work and research to make it a reality. if you can dream it, you can do it...it just takes some elbow grease. As a child, I loved to draw and write. I even made my own comic books. I think the best story was a twenty part cross over between two series I worked on. I never expected - being a small town kid in a remote area of Canada - that I would ever get published. Yet, here I am and I am working on book number two.

They'd read comic books and crossed wooden swords and flipped baseball cards against the walls, while floors above people lay strapped to their beds for trying to gouge their own eyes out.

I’ve always yearned to be a black man, to have a black man’s soul, a black man's laughter. You know why? Because I thought you were diflFerent from us. Yes, I thought you were something special, something difiFerent on this sad earth of ours. I wanted to escape with you from the white man’s hollow materialism, from his lack of faith, his humble and frustrated sexuality, from his lack of joy, of laughter, of magic, of faith in the richness of after-life. encouragement and signs of gratitude or recognition have been very few, if any, along my road. If humanity can be compared to a tribe, then you may say I’m completely de-tribalized. You love Negroes out of sheer misanthropy, because you think they aren’t really men. in the end all human faces look alike with nothing bright or hopeful around me, except those distant stars— and even there, let’s be frank: it’s only their distance that gives them that purity and beauty ideals don't die— obliged to live on shit sometimes, but don’t die! the company a great cause always keeps: men of good will and those who exploit them your skin, you know, is worth no more than the elephants’ hide. In Gennany, at Belsen, during the war, it seems we used to make lampshades out of human skin— for your information. And don’t forget, Monsieur Saint- Denis, that we Germans have always been forerunners in everything ‘Women,’ I concluded rather bitterly, ‘have at their command certain means of persuasion which the best- organized police forces do not possess.’ The number of animals who lived in cruel suffering, sometimes for years, with bullets in their bodies, wounds growing deeper and deeper, gangrenous and swarming with ticks and flies, could not be estimated to change species, to come over to the elephants and live in the wilds among honest animals Always cheerful, with the cheerfulness of a man who has gone deep down into things and come back reassured. No one knew the desert better than Scholscher, who had spent so many nights alone there on the starlit dunes, and no one understood better than he did that need for protection which sometimes grips men’s hearts and drives them to give a dog the affection they dream so desperately of receiving themselves. by ‘defending the splendors of nature . . .’ He meant liberty.” Islam calls that ’the roots of heaven.’ and to the Mexican Indians it is of life’— the thing that makes both of them fall on their knees and raise their eyes and beat their tormented breasts. A need for protection and company, from which obstinate people like Morel try to escape by means of petitions, fighting committees, by trying to take the protection of species in their own hands. Our needs- for justice, for freedom and dignity— are roots of heaven that are deeply imbedded in our hearts, but of heaven itself men know nothing but the gripping roots ...” . . . And that girl sitting there in front of him with her legs crossed, with her nylon stockings and cigarette and that silent gaze, in which could be read that stubborn need, not so different from what Morel had seen in the eyes of the stray dogs at the pound. but not even all that was comic and childish about him could deprive him of the dignity conferred upon him by his love for his Maker. that human mass whose physical strength was nothing compared to the faith and spirit that dwelt in him. Three quarters of the Oul6 traditions and magic rites had to do with war or hunting while it's easy to suppress a magic tradition it's difficult to fill up the strange voids which it leaves in what you call the primitive psychology and what I call the human soul The roots of heaven are forever planted in their hearts, yet of heaven itself they seem to know nothing but the gripping roots It must be very consoling to take refuge in cynicism and to try and drown your own remorse in a consoling vision of universal swinishness, and you can always

Even angry she was beautiful”. Even tired. Even sick. Even one crazy night later. Even with two broken ribs. Even, even, even. An eye hangs in front of me. Always watching. How silly for me to care about being pretty. But I care about being pretty. Do men feel like this? Even alone sometimes I catch myself fixing, tidying. I cross windows no one can see in and I worry that someone will see in. I lock the bathroom door and have strange, unlikely thoughts about people who will sneak in and rip the curtain off the rod and see me naked. Sometimes, in the worst moments, I wonder: what if there’s a camera and people are seeing this ugliness. My mother taught me to plan underwear in such a way that if they found your body you wouldn’t be embarrassed. It seems insane until you watch six seconds of television; where our dead bodies are almost always mostly naked, even beautiful in death. I worry I will die in an unflattering position. “Who cares what they think?” I ask myself. I don’t even want the attention of men. Dressing for the attention of men on a daily basis is a dangerous thing and isn’t sustainable on the metro system. I want the attention of other women. But I still look in the mirror and adjust things. I do this and don’t think about men. I wear makeup and it’s not for men. I sit pretty in traffic and it’s not for men. This eye, I guess. The “them”. It never blinks. Maybe I am the one who is watching. The woman in the comic book has been kidnapped and tortured. We zoom in on her lips. Beautiful. Even then.

...man is a frivolous and unseemly being, and perhaps, similar to a chess player, likes only the process of achieving the goal, but not the goal itself. And who knows (one cannot vouch for it), perhaps the whole goal mankind strives for on earth consists just in this cease-lessness of the process of achievement alone, that is to say, in life itself, and not essentially in the goal, which, of course, is bound to be nothing other than two times two is four – that is, a formula; and two times two is four is no longer life, gentlemen, but the beginning of death. At least man has always somehow feared this two times two is four, and I fear it even now. Suppose all man ever does is search for this two times two is four; he crosses oceans, he sacrifices his life in the search; but to search it out, actually to find it – by God, he's somehow afraid. For he senses that once he finds it, there will be nothing to search for. Workers, when they're done working, at least get their pay, go to a pot-house, then wind up with the police – so it keeps them busy for a week. But where is man to go? Something awkward, at any rate, can be noticed in him each time he achieves some such goal. Achieving he likes, but having achieved he does not quite like, and that, of course, is terribly funny. In short, man is comically arranged; there is apparently a joke in all this. But still, two times two is four is a most obnoxious thing. Two times two is four – why, in my opinion, it's sheer impudence, sirs. Two times two is four has a cocky look; it stands across your path, arms akimbo, and spits. I agree that two times two is four is an excellent thing; but if we're going to start praising everything, then two times two is five is sometimes also a most charming little thing.

Dunne’s dreams seemed to him evidence for what Einstein and other physicists and mathematicians were just beginning to assert: that since the present moment depends entirely on where you stand in relation to events—what might be in the past for one observer may still be in the future for another observer, and vice versa—then the future must in some sense already exist. Einstein’s theory of relativity suggested that time was a dimension like space. To help visualize this, his teacher, Hermann Minkowski, pictured “spacetime” as a four-dimensional block. For the purposes of this book, let’s make it a glass block so we can see what is happening inside it. One’s life, and the “life” of any single object or atom in the universe, is really a line—a “world line”—snaking spaghetti-like through that glass block. The solid three-dimensional “you” that you experience at any moment is really just a slice or cross section of a four-dimensional clump of spaghetti-like atoms that started some decades ago as a zygote, gradually expanded in size by incorporating many more spaghetti-strand atoms, and then, after several decades of coherence (as a literal “flying spaghetti monster”) will dissipate into a multitude of little spaghetti atoms going their separate ways after your death. (They will recoalesce in different combinations with other spaghetti-strand atoms to make other objects and other spaghetti beings, again and again and again, until the end of the universe.) What we perceive at any given moment as the present state of affairs is just a narrow slice or cross-section of that block as our consciousness traverses our world-line from beginning to end. (If it helps envision this, the comic artist, occult magician, and novelist Alan Moore has recently revised the “block” to a football—one tip being the big bang, the other the “big crunch” proposed in some cosmological models.32 I will stick with the term “glass block” since I am not a football fan and “glass football” sounds odd.) Precognitive dreams, Dunne argued, show that at night, as well as other times when the brain is in a relaxed state, our consciousness can wriggle free of the present moment and scan ahead (as well as behind) on our personal world-line, like a flashlight at night illuminating a spot on the path ahead. This ability to be both rooted mentally in our body, with its rich sensory “now,” and the possibility of coming unstuck in time (as Vonnegut put it) suggested to Dunne that human consciousness was dual. We not only possess an “individual mind” that adheres to the brain at any given time point, but we also are part of a larger, “Universal Mind,” that transcends the now and that spaghetti-clump body. The Universal Mind, he argued, is ultimately shared—a consciousness-in-common—that is equivalent to what has always been called “God.

The Oxford English Dictionary traces two historical trajectories for the use of the term "cross-talk" in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One derives from theatrical stagecraft. The earliest example cited by the OED is a reference in 1909 to a "carefully rehearsed 'cross-talk' dialogue between two knock-about artistes of the Variety firmament". "Cross-talk" of this kind has roots in the nineteenth-century minstrel show olio, which featured a "cross-fire" passage in which an interlocutor, placed centermost in a line of blackface performers, served as the straight man for a rapidly paced series of jokes delivered by the "end man". The OED flags this earlier usage when explaining the related term, "cross-talker", citing a 1907 reference to "those pioneer cross-talkers, the Christy Minstrels". A common term for a particular kind of two-person comic routine (or "two act") by vaudeville performers in the early twentieth century, "cross-talk" also survives in critical commentary on later theatrical forms influenced by vaudeville or music hall traditions, as in references to the "cross-talk" in Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

We stayed two more days in Kurkurast, getting well fed and rested, waiting for a road-packer that was due in from the south and would give us a lift when it went back again. Our hosts got Estraven to tell them the whole tale of our crossing the Ice. He told it as only a person of an oral-literature tradition can tell a story, so that it becomes a saga, full of traditional locations and even episodes, yet exact and vivid, from the sulphurous fire and dark of the pass between Drumner and Dremegole to the screaming gusts from the mountain-gaps that swept the Bay of Guthen; with comic interludes, such as his fall into the crevasse, and mystical ones, when he spoke of the sounds and silences of the Ice, of the shadowless weather, of the night's darkness. I listened as fascinated as all the rest, my gaze on my friend's dark face.

Christ did not descend from the cross except into the grave. And why not otherwise? Wouldn’t it have put fine comical expressions on the faces of the scribes and the chief priests and the soldiers if at that moment He had come down in power and glory? Why didn’t He do it? Why hasn’t He done it at any one of a thousand good times between then and now? I knew the answer. I knew it a long time before I could admit it, for all the suffering of the world is in it. He didn’t, He hasn’t, because from the moment He did, He would be the absolute tyrant of the world and we would be His slaves. Even those who hated Him and hated one another and hated their own souls would have to believe in Him then. From that moment the possibility that we might be bound to Him and He to us and us to one another by love forever would be ended. And so, I thought, He must forebear to reveal His power and glory by presenting Himself as Himself, and must be present only in the ordinary miracle of the existence of His creatures. Those who wish to see Him must see Him in the poor, the hungry, the hurt, the wordless creatures, the groaning and travailing beautiful world. I would sometimes be horrified in every moment I was alone. I could see no escape. We are too tightly tangled together to be able to separate ourselves from one another either by good or by evil. We all are involved in all and any good, and in all and any evil. For any sin, we all suffer. That is why our suffering is endless. It is why God grieves and Christ’s wounds still are bleeding.

Because blunders were a tributary of spontaneity, and without it, they would vanish like an illusion. In this respect, Actyn might have gone too far, and he might now be entering the arena where all his efforts were automatically sterile. Ever since he had decided to turn all his firepower against Dr. Aira and his Miracle Cures, he had burned through stages, unable to stop because of the very dynamic of the war, in which he was the one who took every initiative. In reality, he had overcome the first stages — those of direct confrontation, libel, defamation, and ridicule — in the blink of an eye, condemned as they were to inefficiency. Actyn had understood that he could never achieve results in those terrains. The historical reconstruction of a failure was by its very nature impossible; he ran the risk of reconstituting a success. He then moved on (but this was his initial proposition, the only one that justified him) to attempts to produce the complete scenario, to pluck one out of nothingness . . . He had no weapons besides those of performance, and he had been using them for years without respite. Dr. Aira, in the crosshairs, had gotten used to living as if he were crossing a minefield, in his case mined with the theatrical, which was constantly exploding. Fortunately they were invisible, intangible explosions, which enveloped him like air. Escaping from one trap didn’t mean anything, because his enemy was so stubborn he would set another one; one performance sprung from another; he was living in an unreal world. He could never know where his pursuer would stop, and in reality he never stopped, and at nothing. Actyn, in his eyes, was like one of those comic-book supervillains, who never pursues anything less than world domination . . . the only difference being that in this adventure it was Dr. Aira’s mental world that was at stake. But, according to the law of the circle, everything flowed into its opposite, and the lie moved in a great curve toward the truth, theater toward reality . . . The authentic, the spontaneous, were on the reverse side of these transparencies.

I have never looked up and cross-checked so much in my life. I said to John French at one point that if I’d been obliged to do this much referencing while working on, say, a major comic crossover event, I’d have quit. It was stupid levels of minutiae. But something kept me going, and I think it was the simple fact that I love Warhammer 40,000 and have become completely committed to finishing – properly – the job we started with Horus Rising. Let’s face it, there is a certain amount of expectation. The ending needs to deliver.

I walked away in the manner that we always do from horror: believing that refusal to accept reality might just negate it, knowing that it walks one constant, smirking step behind us. I walked until the vast, black truth of what had happened overwhelmed me, becoming part of my existence, pivotal--" - Ian Cowley, Crossed: Badlands #1

Christ did not descend from the cross except into the grave. And why not otherwise? Wouldn’t it have put fine comical expressions on the faces of the scribes and the chief priests and the soldiers if at that moment He had come down in power and glory? Why didn’t He do it? Why hasn’t He done it at any one of a thousand good times between then and now? I knew the answer. I knew it a long time before I could admit it, for all the suffering of the world is in it. He didn’t, He hasn’t, because from the moment He did, He would be the absolute tyrant of the world and we would be His slaves. Even those who hated Him and hated one another and hated their own souls would have to believe in Him then. From that moment the possibility that we might be bound to Him and He to us and us to one another by love forever would be ended.

David?” I almost looked around to see who she was talking to and then remembered my own name. It sounded different on her lips. “Yeah?” “You’re so nice. I didn’t expect you to be so nice.” “Why?” “Because all the girls at the bar are either in love with you, and they want to sleep with you, or they hate you, and they still want to sleep with you. I thought you were one of those bad-boy types.” “Oh, I’m plenty bad. I just try not to be an asshole to people who don’t deserve it. I guess you could say I’m a nice bad guy.” “I don’t think it works that way,” she said softly. “Trust me. It does. I’m good with people. But don’t cross me. And don’t cross the people I care about. Or you’ll see my bad side.” “I’ll remember that,” Amelie said seriously, nodding as if she had been contemplating crossing me only seconds before. The thought of the dainty, blind brunette with the pearly skin and the sweet smile screwing me over was comical. “You plotting something?” I asked, trying not to laugh. “I was. But I thought better of it.” She shivered dramatically. “Don’t want to see bad Tag.” “Bad Tag and Silly Millie.” “Millie?” “Doesn’t anyone ever call you Millie for short?” “No,” she answered frankly. “Henry and Amelie aren’t names you hear every day. They sound kind of old-fashioned.” “That’s because we were actually born in the late 1800s, when our names were more popular. We vampires don’t age, you know. And my blindness is just a ruse to make people feel safe.” Her lips twisted in a smirk. “Is that right?” I drawled, “Well, I’ll be damned. So you and Henry are forever gonna be, what, thirteen and twenty-two?” “Fifteen. Henry’s fifteen.” “But you’re actually one hundred and twenty-two?” “That’s right. We’ll still look this good in another hundred years.” That was a sad thought for Henry, but for Amelie, not so much

There you are!” Kendra says as they pull to a halt in front of me. They both look flustered and cross. “We were totally freaking out,” she says angrily. “Where were you?” And then Luca rises up from the window seat, and their expressions change so fast it would be comical if I didn’t know that I’ll pay for this later. “Ohh,” Kelly says, clattering to a halt a few feet away, a world of understanding in her voice, and Luca, looking amused at my obvious embarrassment, flourishes her a little bow and holds out his hand. “I am Luca di Vesperi,” he says, taking hers with a debonair smile. I expect Kelly to crumble under this charm onslaught, but I underestimated her; she’s made of tougher stuff. “Of course you are,” she says dryly, looking up at him. “I heard about you. What were doing, showing Violet the family paintings? From your lap?” “Kelly!” I plead desperately as Kendra muffles a giggle. “I do not understand everything you say,” Luca says to Kelly, his blue eyes gleaming, “but I think you are funny.” “Oh.” This does disarm her. She coughs gruffly. “Well, thank you. We should be getting back. Your mum and Catia are doing their nut.” “Their nut?” Luca looks over at Kendra, who shrugs, an elegant rise and fall of her smooth shoulders. “Don’t ask me,” she says. “It’s like my dad said, the UK and the States are two countries separated by the same language.

He supposed it was comic after all, but comic on a scale so vast there was no basis for human comprehension—it was only awful and stunning. Re-living the torment of those first few blocks (remembering how, at 59th, he couldn’t go another step, and did; recalling his fright at every street-crossing; seeing again in his mind’s eye how far the next pawnbroker’s sign had been, hanging far up the street; how much farther the next), he would never have believed he could have made it. Not all this distance. Soaked with the sweat of that inhuman effort, he stood in the uproar of the traffic almost in smiling wonder and marveled at his feat.

Comic shops were present for the birth and the death of video stores. They lived through the fall and gradual revival of record stores. Their market continues its unlikely growth across the board and is currently the dominant first medium for cross-platform exploitation. Several top-rated TV shows were once something you could buy only in a comic shop. Many top movies can be traced to a collectible back issue. There are even comics taken seriously as art, a notion that at one time seemed more quixotic than any superhero’s quest. Comic shops have been there for those comics, too.

It's a great indy movie with many a spark, Robert Downey Jr starring as Tony Stark. Only that it didn't have the public recognition, Now are the headlines about films in exhibition: Many good movies with no channel to portrait All end up with a few public to its own fate. No need to say who made them obliterate. (AnA Cross+Tic for Iron Man)

Pulling off my cover-up, chucking it on the stone flags, I dive in, the shock of the cool water on my overheated skin exactly what I need to stop me thinking. I do a length underwater as fast as I can, and when I come up, gasping and shaking my head, I realize that everyone’s staring at me. “Wow,” Evan says, looking over his guitar, which is propped on his lap as he sits cross-legged on a towel. “You in a race with the Invisible Man?” I giggle at this image. “Violet,” he sings, strumming a chord. “Running a race with a serious face--so did you win? Or was it him? Don’t forget, Vio-let--Dive in!” He ends on a high falsetto note, grinning at me. “That doesn’t make much sense,” he adds. “But hey, at least I rhymed your name.” “Violet’s pretty easy,” I say, propping my arms on the edge of the pool and smiling back at him. “Regret, forget, net, jet, yet, set, bet--” “Try Evan,” he suggests. “Apart from numbers and heaven, which gets old very quickly, there’s practically nothing.” “Numbers? Oh! Eleven…seven…” I furrow my brow. “Devon,” Kelly calls over. “That’s a county in England.” “Leaven,” I add. “You do it to bread.” Evan’s expression is comical, his blue eyes stretched as wide as they’ll go as he plucks a string and, in a singsong nursery-rhyme voice, intones: “From the age of seven to eleven Before he tragically went to heaven Evan leavened bread in Devon.” He throws his hands wide. “See? Not much to work with.

I use a magic whetstone these days to make sure they hit their mark. All unwanted intruders.” He smiled wider. “Good. Remind all the other suitors they better keep their distance.” Suitors? Only Ruben would use archaic words like that. And why was he so interested in Jules’s dating life? Not that she had one. She rolled her eyes. Again. The action became comical in its redundancy. “There are none, Ruben.” “That’s because they’re all afraid of you. But I’m not.