Delivery Man Quotes

The landscape was snow and green ice on broken mountains. These weren't old mountains, worn down by time and weather and full of gentle ski slopes, but young, sulky, adolescent mountains. They held secret ravines and merciless crevices. One yodel out of place would attract, not the jolly echo of a lonely goatherd, but fifty tons of express-delivery snow.

A book is much more than a delivery vehicle for its contents.

Finally," Magnus said, grabbing a ten-dollar bill from a table near the door, and he buzzed the delivery man in. "I need some beef and broccoli before I face any more Mr. Darcy. It's a truth universally acknowledged that if you watch too much television on an empty stomach, your head falls off." "If your head fell off," Tessa said, "the hairdressing industry would go into an economic meltdown.

Sometimes we’re on a collision course, and we just don’t know it. Whether it’s by accident or by design, there’s not a thing we can do about it. A woman in Paris was on her way to go shopping, but she had forgotten her coat - went back to get it. When she had gotten her coat, the phone had rung, so she’d stopped to answer it; talked for a couple of minutes. While the woman was on the phone, Daisy was rehearsing for a performance at the Paris Opera House. And while she was rehearsing, the woman, off the phone now, had gone outside to get a taxi. Now a taxi driver had dropped off a fare earlier and had stopped to get a cup of coffee. And all the while, Daisy was rehearsing. And this cab driver, who dropped off the earlier fare; who’d stopped to get the cup of coffee, had picked up the lady who was going to shopping, and had missed getting an earlier cab. The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street, who had left for work five minutes later than he normally did, because he forgot to set off his alarm. While that man, late for work, was crossing the street, Daisy had finished rehearsing, and was taking a shower. And while Daisy was showering, the taxi was waiting outside a boutique for the woman to pick up a package, which hadn’t been wrapped yet, because the girl who was supposed to wrap it had broken up with her boyfriend the night before, and forgot. When the package was wrapped, the woman, who was back in the cab, was blocked by a delivery truck, all the while Daisy was getting dressed. The delivery truck pulled away and the taxi was able to move, while Daisy, the last to be dressed, waited for one of her friends, who had broken a shoelace. While the taxi was stopped, waiting for a traffic light, Daisy and her friend came out the back of the theater. And if only one thing had happened differently: if that shoelace hadn’t broken; or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier; or that package had been wrapped and ready, because the girl hadn’t broken up with her boyfriend; or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier; or that taxi driver hadn’t stopped for a cup of coffee; or that woman had remembered her coat, and got into an earlier cab, Daisy and her friend would’ve crossed the street, and the taxi would’ve driven by. But life being what it is - a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone’s control - that taxi did not go by, and that driver was momentarily distracted, and that taxi hit Daisy, and her leg was crushed.

Watching him during the first several minutes of his delivery, Cecilia felt a pleasant sinking sensation in her stomach as she contemplated how deliciously self-destructive it would be, almost erotic, to be married to a man so nearly handsome, so hugely rich, so unfathomably stupid. He would fill her with his big-faced children, all of them loud, boneheaded boys with a passion for guns and football and aeroplanes.

...giggling disconnected from humor.

This is what you must understand, Elena. They are wrong. Women bear the trials of their men, the delivery of their babies, the weight of their families. Women are extraordinarily strong. So, you must trick the men into giving you power. Do not tell them you are strong, and do not fight them with words because words can be undone. Fight the injustice with action, lottatrice mia, because action can be understood in any language, by any man.

A man unknowingly hurts his partner by speaking in an uncaring manner and then goes on to explain why she should not be upset. He mistakenly assumes she is resisting the content of his point of view, when really his unloving delivery is what upsets her. Because he does not understand her reaction, he focuses more on explaining the merit of what he is saying instead of correcting the way he is saying it. He has no idea that he is starting an argument; he thinks she is arguing with him. He defends his point of view while she defends herself from his sharpened expressions, which are hurtful to her.

Roses are picked every day, they are told that they will be better off sold in the flower shoppe. And so they go from the hands of the picker; to the hands of the delivery man; to the hands of the florist; to the hands of the customer; and then often to the hands of the final recipient of the rose. From field, cut by scissors and passed from hand to hand. The world has forgotten that it is okay for roses to be in fields, the world has forgotten the beauty of the rose uncut. The bouquet is praised and given away but the wild roses are forgotten. People have forgotten what “wild” means; they think it means something entirely different. The wild rose remains untouched, with roots and swayed by the meadow winds. And that is wild. I am wild for having roots and for being untouched and for seeing things that people have forgotten. And I will always remember— that it is okay to be uncut, that it is okay to be untouched by darkness, it is okay to be wild.

YOU DEMAND SALVATION EVEN AS YOU STEAL FROM THE COLLECTION PLATE. YOU SEND FOOD TO THE REFUGEES, AND THEN YOU DON'T ALLOW THE DELIVERY TRUCKS THROUGH THE WARZONES. THE FOOD WILL SPOIL , THE SUPPLIES WILL BE SOLD BY THE VICTORS . THE CIVILIANS WILL STARVE AND SICKEN AND EVENTUALLY DIE. IT IS THE WAY OF THINGS. THEY WILL ALL DIE, WHETHER FROM THE BRUTAL SAVAGERY THAT IS UNIQUE TO MAN OR FROM THE ABUNDANCE OF DISEASE OR FROM THE SCARCITY OF SUSTENANCE.

the man’s name. And the truth was, she didn’t mind any of it, not really: not the being pregnant, which was easy right until the end, nor the delivery itself, which was bad but fast, nor, especially,

The wildly drunk man from the cabin next door to ours is in front of me in the crowd. He's so drunk that he's standing in the women-and-children section. He complains loudly that this is boring and that we are a bunch of assholes. When a clearly terrified woman blurts out, "Please, sir, be quiet," he sways for a second and then lets out a long "Shuuuuut uuuuuuuup" that is funny not just because of its Jackie Gleason-style delivery but also because of its inappropriateness in a situation where we're all probably going to die.

Readers who were born postmillennium might not understand the fuss, but trust me, this was a goddamned miracle. Nowadays, connectivity is just presumed. Smartphones, laptops, desktops, everything’s connected, always. Connected to what exactly? How? It doesn’t matter. You just tap the icon your older relatives call “the Internet button” and boom, you’ve got it: the news, pizza delivery, streaming music, and streaming video that we used to call TV and movies. Back then, however, we walked uphill both ways, to and from school, and plugged our modems directly into the wall, with manly twelve-year-old hands.

Its hurtful and wonderful how our jokes survive us. Since I left home on this journey, I've thought a lot about this-how a big part of any life is about the hows and whys of setting up machinery. it's building systems, devices, motors. Winding up the clockwork of direct debits, configuring newspaper deliveries and anniversaries and photographs and credit card repayments and anecdotes. Starting their engines, setting them in motion and sending them chugging off into the future to do their thing at a regular or irregular intervals. When a person leaves or dies or ends, they leave an afterimage; their outline in the devices they've set up around them. The image fades to the winding down of springs, the slow running out of fuel as the machines of a life lived in certain ways in certain places and from certain angles are shut down or seize up or blink off one by one. It takes time. Sometimes, you come across the dusty lights or electrical hum of someone else's machine, maybe a long time after you ever expected to, still running, lonely in the dark. Still doing its thing for the person who started it up long, long after they've gone. A man lives so many different lengths of time.

Chase asks her what time the appointment is booked for. Rachel says, "It's at 11:30 or midnight. He's supposed to call to confirm." She checks her cell. "But I want to be there early." she says. "Why?" "Just to be on the safe side." "There isn't one, Rachel.

If you don’t care for the message, disparage the delivery.

From the hood of his car, he hefted a large green insulated pack—the kind Fadlan’s Falafel used for deliveries. “This is for you, Magnus. I hope you enjoy.” The scent of fresh falafel wafted out. True, I’d eaten falafel just a few hours ago, but my stomach growled because...well, more falafel. “Man, you’re the best.

Not where, my friend, when. We have gone back in time.” “What in the world would make you say that?” asked Patricia. The delivery man’s eyes held wide as he slowly raised his hand to point. “Them dinosaurs coming out of the forest.

Regardless of the delivery method, your Higher Mind will leave you a trail of popcorn. It's been happening all along, even if you've been unaware, trampling it underfoot. It may only be one kernel at a time, but that's all you really need.

Air and earth form an anthill traversed, level upon level, by roads live with traffic. Air trains, ground trains, underground trains, people mailed through tubes special-delivery, and chains of cars race along horizontally, while express elevators pump masses of people vertically from one traffic level to another; at the junctions, people leap from one vehicle to the next, instantly sucked in and snatched away by the rhythm of it, which makes a syncope, a pause, a little gap of twenty seconds during which a word might be hastily exchanged with someone else. Questions and answers synchronize like meshing gears; everyone has only certain fixed tasks.

It’s that time of the month again… As we head into those dog days of July, Mike would like to thank those who helped him get the toys he needs to enjoy his summer. Thanks to you, he bought a new bass boat, which we don’t need; a condo in Florida, where we don’t spend any time; and a $2,000 set of golf clubs…which he had been using as an alibi to cover the fact that he has been remorselessly banging his secretary, Beebee, for the last six months. Tragically, I didn’t suspect a thing. Right up until the moment Cherry Glick inadvertently delivered a lovely floral arrangement to our house, apparently intended to celebrate the anniversary of the first time Beebee provided Mike with her special brand of administrative support. Sadly, even after this damning evidence-and seeing Mike ram his tongue down Beebee’s throat-I didn’t quite grasp the depth of his deception. It took reading the contents of his secret e-mail account before I was convinced. I learned that cheap motel rooms have been christened. Office equipment has been sullied. And you should think twice before calling Mike’s work number during his lunch hour, because there’s a good chance that Beebee will be under his desk “assisting” him. I must confess that I was disappointed by Mike’s over-wrought prose, but I now understand why he insisted that I write this newsletter every month. I would say this is a case of those who can write, do; and those who can’t do Taxes. And since seeing is believing, I could have included a Hustler-ready pictorial layout of the photos of Mike’s work wife. However, I believe distributing these photos would be a felony. The camera work isn’t half-bad, though. It’s good to see that Mike has some skill in the bedroom, even if it’s just photography. And what does Beebee have to say for herself? Not Much. In fact, attempts to interview her for this issue were met with spaced-out indifference. I’ve had a hard time not blaming the conniving, store-bought-cleavage-baring Oompa Loompa-skinned adulteress for her part in the destruction of my marriage. But considering what she’s getting, Beebee has my sympathies. I blame Mike. I blame Mike for not honoring the vows he made to me. I blame Mike for not being strong enough to pass up the temptation of readily available extramarital sex. And I blame Mike for not being enough of a man to tell me he was having an affair, instead letting me find out via a misdirected floral delivery. I hope you have enjoyed this new digital version of the Terwilliger and Associates Newsletter. Next month’s newsletter will not be written by me as I will be divorcing Mike’s cheating ass. As soon as I press send on this e-mail, I’m hiring Sammy “the Shark” Shackleton. I don’t know why they call him “the Shark” but I did hear about a case where Sammy got a woman her soon-to-be ex-husband’s house, his car, his boat and his manhood in a mayonnaise jar. And one last thing, believe me when I say I will not be letting Mike off with “irreconcilable differences” in divorce court. Mike Terwilliger will own up to being the faithless, loveless, spineless, useless, dickless wonder he is.

You know what you need?” “What?” “You need to think about what a badass bald man would do in this situation” “There are no badass bald men. By definition.” “What about Dwight D. Eisenhower?” Carlos suggested. “President Eisenhower?” “Doesn’t he qualify as a badass?” Carlos insisted. “Look, he may have been president, but he doesn’t exactly come to people’s minds when you ask them to think of a badass.” “All right. How about Kojak?” Carlos asked. “That police detective show with Telly Savalas?” Sammy asked. “Yeah, Kojak. He was a badass. Always cool under pressure.” “All right,” Sammy replied. “Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that Kojak was a bald badass. So what?’ “So you have to imagine how Kojak would deal with this situation we have in front of us. He wouldn’t be worried about whether this girl digs bald guys. He would just walk right up to her, knowing that he’s a badass and just take care of business. You see, it’s all in the delivery.” “The delivery?” “Yeah, the execution

By day the old area of Barcelona is bustling, full of shouting, hammering, drilling and shutters being pulled up and down. You listen out for sounds. If you want a replacement gas cylinder you wait for the sound of the delivery man hitting a cylinder with a piece of metal in the street.

From the hood of his car, he hefted a large green insulated pack - the kind Fadlan's Falafel used for deliveries. "This is for you, Magnus. I hope you enjoy." The scent of fresh falafel wafted out. True, I'd eaten falafel just a few hours ago, but my stomach growled because ... well, more falafel. "Man, you're the best. I can't believe - Wait. You're in the middle of a fast and you brought me food? That seems wrong." "Just because I'm fasting doesn't mean you can't enjoy." He clapped me on my shoulder. "You'll be in my prayers. All of you." I knew he was sincere. Me, I was an atheist. I only prayed sarcastically to my own father for a better colour of boat. Learning about the existence of Norse deities and the Nine Worlds had just made me more convinced that there was no grand divine plan. What kind of God would allow Zeus and Odin to run around the same cosmos, both claiming to be the king of creation, smiting mortals with lightning bolts and giving motivational seminars? Bur Amir was a man of faith. He and Samirah believed in something bigger, a cosmic force that actually cared about humans. I suppose it was kind of comforting to know Amir had my back in the prayer department, even if I doubted there was anybody at the end of that line. "Thanks, man." I shook his hand one last time.

For every taxpayer, no matter who he is, establish a single tax, not too great, which is known in advance and collectable immediately from all payments, deliveries, transactions, and income. And this tribute must not exceed one tenth part, because the holy church has tested this since ancient times and learned from its own rich experience that a man will agree to pay a tenth part of his wealth, but no more, not even out of fear of our Father in Heaven. And this means that there is no point in tempting him.

There was nothing remarkable about him at all, save for his eyebrows, which were noticeable from a surprising distance. They were chaotic thickets of tangled, wiry hairs, extending in every possible direction from his brow ridge. His eyebrows overshadowed and dominated the rest of him, as if he weren’t so much a man as an eyebrow delivery system.

He did so, after the shocking birth of his first child (he was treated at the State University of Iowa hospital in March of 196$ for a fainting spell, following the first look at his gory, swaddled son. ‘It’s a boy!’ the nurse, fresh and dripping from the delivery room, informed him. ‘Will it live?’ asked Trumper, sliding gelatinous to the floor).

If that was a proposal, you really need to work on your delivery.

Sahl was never a great comic. His nervous, jabbing, keep-them-off-balance delivery was the strategy of a man who was not comfortable in front of an audience. His creative method -- a rapid scanning of the day's output of newspapers, magazines, and radio broadcasts -- was a recipe for superficiality or, at best, the kind of quick, shallow laugh triggered by a topical allusion. Sahl was always devoid of the two basic ingredients of great humor: imagination and soul. He could make fun of the latest Hollywood movies. He could stab at the pieties of his own class. He could take an abrupt insight into politics or wold events and phrase it neatly into a gag. What he could never do was suggest a world of living, breathing people behaving in ridiculous yet recognizably human patterns.

She sits at the edge of the leather sofa and looks around the living room, remembers the delivery man from Ethan Interiors who changed the lampshade the other day. “You got a great house, ma’am,” he’d said, with that curious American smile that meant he believed he, too, could have something like it someday. It is one of the things she has come to love about America, the abundance of unreasonable hope.

... I think it possible that I have watched too many blue movies for it to have a lasting hold on me. If you grow accustomed to wall-to-wall, even the slightest shred of mystery or plot can become an agitation. Who cares why these people have found themselves in this banal, suburban tract home in Burbank? He is not a delivery man; she is not a bored housewife. They are not the stars---their orifices are. Let them open.

You getting lighter, big dog?” I asked as I kissed his face. “Get a room,” BT said. “I plan on it,” I told him. His confused look passed over quickly. “Shit, man, that was pretty good.” “I’ve been working on my timing and delivery.

Nigger, you sure ought to be glad it was us you talked to that way. You’re a lucky bastard, ’cause if you’d said that to some other white man, you might’ve been a dead nigger now.” I was learning rapidly how to watch white people, to observe their every move, every fleeting expression, how to interpret what was said and what left unsaid. Late one Saturday night I made some deliveries in a white neighborhood. I was pedaling my bicycle back to the store as fast as I could when a police car, swerving toward me, jammed me into the curbing. “Get down, nigger, and put up your hands!” they ordered. I did. They climbed out of the car, guns drawn, faces set, and advanced slowly. “Keep still!” they ordered. I reached my hands higher. They searched my pockets and packages. They seemed dissatisfied when they could find nothing incriminating. Finally, one of them said: “Boy, tell your boss not to send you out in white neighborhoods at this time of

On an air-cooled engine like this, extreme overheating can cause a “seizure”. This machine has had one...in fact, three of them. I took this machine into a shop because I thought it wasn’t important enough to justify getting into myself, having to learn all the complicated details. The shop was a different scene from the ones I remembered. The mechanics, who had once all seemed like ancient veterans, now looked like children. A radio was going full blast and they were clowning around and talking and seemed not to notice me. They sat down to do a job and they performed it like chimpanzees. Nothing personal in it. The radio was a clue. You can’t really think hard about what you’re doing and listen to the radio at the same time. But the biggest clue seemed to be their expressions. They were hard to explain. Good-natured, friendly, easygoing—and uninvolved. They were like spectators. I found the cause of the seizures a few weeks later, waiting to happen again. It was a little twenty-five-cent pin in the internal oil-delivery system that had been sheared and was preventing oil from reaching the head at high speeds. On this trip I think we should notice it, explore it a little, to see if in that strange separation of what man is from what man does we may have some clues as to what the hell has gone wrong in this twentieth century. I don’t want to hurry it. That itself is a poisonous twentieth-century attitude. When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things. I just want to get at it slowly, but carefully and thoroughly, with the same attitude I remember was present just before I found that sheared pin. It was that attitude that found it, nothing else.

What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August 1914! The greater part of the population, it is true, worked hard and lived at a low standard of comfort, yet were, to all appearances, reasonably contented with this lot. But escape was possible, for any man of capacity or character at all exceeding the average, into the middle and upper classes, for whom life offered, at a low cost and with the least trouble, conveniences, comforts, and amenities beyond the compass of the richest and most powerful monarchs of other ages. The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world, and share, without exertion or even trouble, in their prospective fruits and advantages; or he could decide to couple the security of his fortunes with the good faith of the townspeople of any substantial municipality in any continent that fancy or information might recommend. He could secure forthwith, if he wished it, cheap and comfortable means of transit to any country or climate without passport or other formality, could despatch his servant to the neighbouring office of a bank for such supply of the precious metals as might seem convenient, and could then proceed abroad to foreign quarters, without knowledge of their religion, language, or customs, bearing coined wealth upon his person, and would consider himself greatly aggrieved and much surprised at the least interference. But, most important of all, he regarded this state of affairs as normal, certain, and permanent, except in the direction of further improvement, and any deviation from it as aberrant, scandalous, and avoidable. The projects and politics of militarism and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies, restrictions, and exclusion, which were to play the serpent to this paradise, were little more than the amusements of his daily newspaper, and appeared to exercise almost no influence at all on the ordinary course of social and economic life, the internationalisation of which was nearly complete in practice.

Since he had, in contrast to his delivery, a big burly squared-off bulk of a body which gave hint of the methodical ruthlessness of more than one Russian bureaucrat, Von Braun’s relatively small voice, darting eyes, and semaphoric presentations of lip made it obvious he was a man of opposites. He

Greatness has its beauties, but only in retrospect and in the imagination": thus wrote General Bonaparte to General Moreau in 1800. His observation helps to explain why the world, only a few years after sighing with relief at its delivery from the ogre, began to worship him as the greatest man of modern times. Napoleon had barely left the scene when the fifteen years that he had carved out of world history to create his glory seemed scarcely believable. Only the scars of the war veterans and the empty places in the widows' beds seemed to attest to the reality of those years, and time soon eliminated even these silent witnesses. What remained, in retrospect and in the imagination, was legend and symbol.

She had signed her own death-warrant. He kept telling himself over and over that he was not to blame, she had brought it on herself. He had never seen the man. He knew there was one. He had known for six weeks now. Little things had told him. One day he came home and there was a cigar-butt in an ashtray, still moist at one end, still warm at the other. There were gasoline-drippings on the asphalt in front of their house, and they didn't own a car. And it wouldn't be a delivery-vehicle, because the drippings showed it had stood there a long time, an hour or more. And once he had actually glimpsed it, just rounding the far corner as he got off the bus two blocks down the other way. A second-hand Ford. She was often very flustered when he came home, hardly seemed to know what she was doing or saying at all. He pretended not to see any of these things; he was that type of man, Stapp, he didn't bring his hates or grudges out into the open where they had a chance to heal. He nursed them in the darkness of his mind. That's a dangerous kind of a man. If he had been honest with himself, he would have had to admit that this mysterious afternoon caller was just the excuse he gave himself, that he'd daydreamed of getting rid of her long before there was any reason to, that there had been something in him for years past now urging Kill, kill, kill. Maybe ever since that time he'd been treated at the hospital for a concussion. ("Three O'Clock")

I drop the phone in my lap and stare at him. “What?” he asks. “Who are you? I mean . . . you have hundreds of comments in a matter of seconds about milk-shake man and his wife.” “What are people saying?” I check again. The numbers are already way up. “Really nice things.” I scroll and hardly know what to read aloud, because the sheer volume of comments is overwhelming. I read, “‘I’ve always wanted to do something like this. Good for them. Hope they rock it out.’ Lots like that. Someone wants to know the name of the store and when they’ll be opening. Another person says . . .” I squint and then giggle. “She says that the milk-shake dude is crazy hot, and she’s single, in case his wife ends up hating milk-shake life and runs off to Barbados with the ice-cream delivery boy.” “Well, that would be a sad ending to an otherwise inspiring story.

into the main part of the store. Off to get Kendal, I mouthed to Celine, and she nodded. I stepped out into the September afternoon. Behind me, Eighty-ninth Street stretched several blocks to Riverside Park, a favorite place of mine and Kendal’s. Just ahead the intersection at Broadway sparkled with a steady stream of cars and our neighboring retailers’ windows. A man walking his dog nodded a wordless hello, and a mom with a baby in a stroller bent to pop a pacifier back into her unhappy child’s mouth. A delivery truck double-parked and the car behind it honked its disproval. The air held only a hint that summer was waning. September used to be my favorite month. I liked the way it sweetly bade the summer pastels away and showered the Yard’s shelves with auburn, mocha, and every shade of red. September brought in the serious quilters, those who loved spending

Arthur and his partner – shifting fridges is a two man job – are not employed by the delivery company directly, but rather have a contract that requires them to undertake a certain amount of deliveries while paying the company for the use of their liveried van. You read that correctly. Arthur pays for the privilege of going to work in a van owned by a company that pays him no sick pay, holiday pay or pension contributions. While technically self-employed, he is obviously unable to work for any other company or employer except over and above his already full-time schedule. Indeed, if one of them is ill or otherwise indisposed and unable to source their own replacement, the rent for the van is still due. It means that, in twenty-first-century Britain, getting sick while holding down a relatively menial job sees the sick person not just lose their wage for the days they’re off sick, but actually pay money to their employer (who’s not technically their employer) for every day they’re off the road.

Waqar Younis arrived as a child, but a fully grown man. For five years, the only thing that slowed down his deliveries were stumps and toes. His superpower seemed to be that his torso could detach from his waist, turn all the way back and then hurl the ball from a wind-up that mortal spines could not maintain. You knew where he was going to bowl it, how it was going to get there, how fast it would come, and what would happen if you missed it. Still, you were out. From 1990 to 1994 Waqar took a wicket every 32 balls in Test cricket. No one has ever done better for that long. Ever.

In 1932, the combination of these intractable forces would result in widespread hardship for the agricultural provinces of old Russia, and death by starvation for millions of peasants in Ukraine.* [*While many of the young loyalists (like Nina) who joined the udarniks in the countryside would have their faith in the Party tested by what they witnessed, most of Russia, and for that matter the world, would be spared the spectacle of this man-made disaster. For just as peasants from the countryside were forbidden to enter the cities, journalists from the cities were forbidden to enter the countryside; delivery of personal mail was suspended; and the windows of passenger trains were blackened. In fact, so successful was the campaign to contain awareness of the crisis, when word leaked out that millions were starving in Ukraine, Walter Duranty, the lead correspondent for The New York Times in Russia (and one of the ringleaders in the Shalyapin Bar), would report that these rumors of famine were grossly exaggerated and had probably originated with anti-Soviet propagandists. Thus, the world would shrug. And even as the crime unfolded, Duranty would win the Pulitzer Prize.]

Early in the twenty-first century a device had been introduced which allowed printed text from any book to be downloaded to a small hand-held device. A world already holding a phone to its ear or staring at it to write trivial messages rather than look at the world around them now had one more such human interaction killer. No longer did people have to walk into a book store and interact with another human being to purchase a book. No longer were they forced to say hello to the delivery man as he dropped off books they had ordered by computer. No longer would they be able to lend a book to a workmate or family member. They could hold a piece of metal or plastic in their hands and read the text coldly flowing across the small screen devoid of the warmth and feeling beyond the words which had been the author’s intent. Within half a century, real books had become extinct. No longer was a book a friend who would take you by the hand and lead you on a great adventure. Gone was the beckoning cover creating an image in the reader’s mind which they could glance at even while reading. Absent was that wonderful smell of a new book when it is first cracked open. Even used books had a scent which spoke of distant places and other worlds. As the book went, so had society gone.

Jack renovated the cabin without being asked, while I stayed at Doc’s house,” Mel said. “About the time I was going to make a break for it, he showed it to me. I said I’d give it a few more days. Then my first delivery occurred and I realized I should give the place a chance. There’s something about a successful delivery in a place like Virgin River where there’s no backup, no anesthesia… Just me and Mom… It’s indescribable.” “Then there’s Jack,” Brie said. “Jack,” Mel repeated. “I don’t know when I’ve met a kinder, stronger, more generous man. Your brother is wonderful, Brie. He’s amazing. Everyone in Virgin River loves him.” “My brother is in love with you,” Brie said. Mel shouldn’t have been shocked. Although he hadn’t said the words, she already knew it. Felt it. At first she thought he was just a remarkable lover, but soon she realized that he couldn’t touch her that way without an emotional investment, as well as a physical one. He gave her everything he had—and not just in the bedroom. It was in her mind to tell Brie—I’m a recent widow! I need time to digest this! I don’t feel free yet—free to accept another man’s love! Her cheeks grew warm and she said nothing. “I realize I’m biased, but when a man like Jack loves a woman, it’s a great honor.” “I agree,” Mel said quietly. *

And there, until 1884, it was possible to gaze on the remains of a generally neglected monument, so-called Dagobert’s Tower, which included a ninth-century staircase set into the masonry, of which the thirty-foot handrail was fashioned out of the trunk of a gigantic oak tree. Here, according to tradition, lived a barber and a pastry-cook, who in the year 1335 plied their trade next door to each other. The reputation of the pastry-cook, whose products were among the most delicious that could be found, grew day by day. Members of the high-ranking clergy in particular were very fond of the extraordinary meat pies that, on the grounds of keeping to himself the secret of how the meats were seasoned, our man made all on his own, with the sole assistance of an apprentice who was responsible for the pastry. His neighbor the barber had won favor with the public through his honesty, his skilled hairdressing and shaving, and the steam baths he offered. Now, thanks to a dog that insistently scratched at the ground in a certain place, the ghastly origins of the meat used by the pastry-cook became known, for the animal unearthed some human bones! It was established that every Saturday before shutting up shop the barber would offer to shave a foreign student for free. He would put the unsuspecting young man in a tip-back seat and then cut his throat. The victim was immediately rushed down to the cellar, where the pastry-cook took delivery of him, cut him up, and added the requisite seasoning. For which the pies were famed, ‘especially as human flesh is more delicate because of the diet,’ old Dubreuil comments facetiously. The two wretched fellows were burned with their pies, the house was ordered to be demolished, and in its place was built a kind of expiatory pyramid, with the figure of the dog on one of its faces. The pyramid was there until 1861. But this is where the story takes another turn and joins the very best of black comedy. For the considerable number of ecclesiastics who had unwittingly consumed human flesh were not only guilty before God of the very venial sin of greed; they were automatically excommunicated! A grand council was held under the aegis of several bishops and it was decided to send to Avignon, where Pope Clement VI resided, a delegation of prelates with a view to securing the rescindment if not of the Christian interdiction against cannibalism then at least of the torments of hell that faced the inadvertent cannibals. The delegation set off, with a tidy sum of money, bare-footed, bearing candles and singing psalms. But the roads of that time were not very safe and doubtless strewn with temptation. Anyway, the fact is that Clement VI never saw any sign of the penitents, and with good reason.

I felt a numb shock as I drove home anxious to get my chocolate flowers and wondering how my mother arranged to get them delivered to me at the exact time of her passing as promised. I arrived home to a note on my door to go to the neighbor on the right. I knocked at the door and the grouchy older man answered. Without saying a word, he went to his refrigerator, opened it and said, "I think these are for you." He handed me the large bouquet of fruits all cut out like flowers and dipped in chocolate."It looks like chocolate flowers." he said with a grin, adding "I had a few, and they were great!" I held my delivery. I opened the small envelope and read the card: Dear Jori, We appreciate you showing us homes and although it has been months, we thought of you and wanted to do something nice for you today. I hope you remember us. The Johnsons This was a previous client who was a pastor. He never knew I had a mother who had cancer nor did I ever mention the conversation about the chocolate flowers. It had been several months since I had heard from this couple who were considering purchasing a home. I called the client, whom I haven't spoken to in such a long time. I was confused and wanted to know what made them decide to send me chocolate flowers, and why that day, of all days? He said it was his wife's idea to do something nice for someone and they agreed it on it being me. Mrs. Johnson thought of the chocolate flowers.

The panel delivery truck drew up before the front of the “Amsterdam Apartments” on 126th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues. Words on its sides, barely discernible in the dim street light, read: LUNATIC LYNDON … I DELIVER AND INSTALL TELEVISION SETS ANY TIME OF DAY OR NIGHT ANY PLACE. Two uniformed delivery men alighted and stood on the sidewalk to examine an address book in the light of a torch. Dark faces were highlighted for a moment like masks on display and went out with the light. They looked up and down the street. No one was in sight. Houses were vague geometrical patterns of black against the lighter blackness of the sky. Crosstown streets were always dark. Above them, in the black squares of windows, crescent-shaped whites of eyes and quarter moons of yellow teeth bloomed like Halloween pumpkins. Suddenly voices bubbled in the night. “Lookin’ for somebody?” The driver looked up. “Amsterdam Apartments.” “These is they.” Without replying, the driver and his helper began unloading a wooden box. Stenciled on its side were the words: Acme Television “Satellite” A.406. “What that number?” someone asked. “Fo-o-six,” Sharp-eyes replied. “I’m gonna play it in the night house if I ain’t too late.” “What ya’ll got there, baby?” “Television set,” the driver replied shortly. “Who dat getting a television this time of night?” The delivery man didn’t reply. A man’s voice ventured, “Maybe it’s that bird liver on the third storey got all them mens.” A woman said scornfully, “Bird liver! If she bird liver I’se fish and eggs and I got a daughter old enough to has mens.” “… or not!” a male voice boomed. “What she got ’ill get television sets when you jealous old hags is fighting over mops and pails.” “Listen to the loverboy! When yo’ love come down last?” “Bet loverboy ain’t got none, bird liver or what.” “Ain’t gonna get none either. She don’t burn no coal.” “Not in dis life, next life maybe.” “You people make me sick,” a woman said from a group on the sidewalk that had just arrived. “We looking for the dead man and you talking ’bout tricks.” The two delivery men were silently struggling with the big television box but the new arrivals got in their way. “Will you ladies kindly move your asses and look for dead men sommers else,” the driver said. His voice sounded mean. “ ’Scuse me,” the lady said. “You ain’t got him, is you?” “Does I look like I’m carrying a dead man ’round in my pocket?” “Dead man! What dead man? What you folks playing?” a man called down interestedly. “Skin?” “Georgia skin? Where?” “Ain’t nobody playing no skin,” the lady said with disgust. “He’s one of us.” “Who?” “The dead man, that’s who.” “One of usses? Where he at?” “Where he at? He dead, that’s where he at.” “Let me get some green down on dead man’s row.” “Ain’t you the mother’s gonna play fo-o-six?” “Thass all you niggers thinks about,” the disgusted lady said. “Womens and hits!” “What else is they?” “Where yo’ pride? The white cops done killed one of usses and thass all you can think about.” “Killed ’im where?” “We don’t know where. Why you think we’s looking?” “You sho’ is a one-tracked woman. I help you look, just don’t call me nigger is all.

The odor of burning sulphur shifted on the night air, acrid, a little foul. Somewhere, the Canaan dwellers had learned of a supplier of castor - an extract from the beaver's perineal glands. Little packets containing the brown-orange mass of dried animal matter arrived from Detroit at the Post Office's "general delivery." At home, by the kerosene light, the recipients unwrapped the packets. A poor relative sometimes would be given some of the fibrous gland, bitter and smelling slightly like strong human sweat, and the rest would go into a Mason jar. Each night, as prescribed by old Burrifous through his oracle, Ronnie, a litt1e would be mixed with clear spring water. And as it gave the water a creamy, rusty look, the owner would sigh with awe and fear. The creature, wolf or man, became more real through the very specific which was to vanquish him.

Mother charged about five hundred dollars for a delivery, and this was another way midwifing changed her: suddenly she had money. Dad didn’t believe that women should work, but I suppose he thought it was all right for Mother to be paid for midwifing, because it undermined the Government. Also, we needed the money. Dad worked harder than any man I knew, but scrapping and building barns and hay sheds didn’t bring in much, and it helped that Mother could buy groceries with the envelopes of small bills she kept in her purse. Sometimes, if we’d spent the whole day flying about the valley, delivering herbs and doing prenatal exams, Mother would use that money to take me and Audrey out to eat. Grandma-over-in-town had given me a journal, pink with a caramel-colored teddy bear on the cover, and in it I recorded the first time Mother took us to a restaurant, which I described as “real fancy with menus and everything.” According to the entry, my meal came to $3.30.

Imagine a form of baseball in which the pitcher, after each delivery, collects the ball from the catcher and walks slowly with it out to centre field; and that there, after a minute's pause to collect himself, he turns and runs full tilt towards the pitcher's mound before hurling the ball at the ankles of a man who stands before him wearing a riding hat, heavy gloves of the sort used to handle radioactive isotopes, and a mattress strapped to each leg. Imagine moreover that if this batsman fails to hit the ball in a way that heartens him sufficiently to try to waddle sixty feet with mattresses strapped to his legs he is under no formal compulsion to run; he may stand there all day, and as a rule, does. If by some miracle he is coaxed into making a misstroke that leads to his being put out, all the fielders throw up their arms in triumph and have a hug. Then tea is called and everyone retires happily to a distant pavilion to fortify for the next siege. Now imagine all this going on for so long that by the time the match concludes autumn has crept in and all your library books are overdue. There you have cricket.

That’s what the FBI can never understand—that what Paulie and the organization offer is protection for the kinds of guys who can’t go to the cops. They’re like the police department for wiseguys. For instance, say I’ve got a fifty-thousand-dollar hijack load, and when I go to make my delivery, instead of getting paid, I get stuck up. What am I supposed to do? Go to the cops? Not likely. Shoot it out? I’m a hijacker, not a cowboy. No. The only way to guarantee that I’m not going to get ripped off by anybody is to be established with a member, like Paulie. Somebody who is a made man. A member of a crime family. A soldier. Then, if somebody fucks with you, they fuck with him, and that’s the end of the ball game. Goodbye. They’re dead, with the hijacked stuff rammed down their throats, as well as a lot of other things. Of course problems can arise when the guys sticking you up are associated with wiseguys too. Then there has to be a sit-down between your wiseguys and their wiseguys. What usually happens then is that the wiseguys divide whatever you stole for their own pockets and send you and the guy who robbed you home with nothing. And if you complain, you’re dead.

It's only that... well, if Olivia cannot be with the man she loves, as he has vanished like a bloody 'cowardly'..." She stopped talking abruptly. Yanking herself back like a dog on a leash. Which was a pity, as the words had acquired a fascinating whiff of venom and had begun to escalate in volume. She would have done some squeaking of her own. Genevieve Eversea was beginning to interest him. "If she cannot be with the man she loves..." he prompted. "I do believe she can only to be with someone... impressive." "Impressive..." He pretended to ponder this. "I hope you do not think I presume, but I cannot help but wonder if you're referring to me. Given my rank and fortune, some might describe me as such. And I'm flattered indeed, given that there really are so many other words you could have chosen to describe me." A pause followed. The girl was most definitely a 'thinker.' "We have only just become acquainted, Lord Moncrieffe. I might elect to use other words to describe you should I come to know you better." Exquisite and refined as convent lace, her manners, her delivery. And still he could have sworn she was having one over on him. She seemed to be watching her feet now. The scenery didn't interest her, or it caused her discomfort. And as he watched her, something unfamiliar stirred. He was... 'genuinely' interested in what she might say next.

Is Joanna Gaines here? We have a warrant here for her arrest,” the officer said. It was the tickets. I knew it. And I panicked. I picked up my son and I hid in the closet. I literally didn’t know what to do. I’d never even had a speeding ticket, and all of a sudden I’m thinking, I’m about to go to prison, and my child won’t be able to eat. What is this kid gonna do? I heard Chip say, “She’s not here.” Thankfully, Drake didn’t make a peep, and the officer believed him. He said, “Well, just let her know we’re looking for her,” and they left. Jo’s the most conservative girl in the world. She had never even been late for school. I mean, this girl was straitlaced. So now we realize there’s a citywide warrant out for her arrest, and we’re like, “Oh, crap.” In her defense, Jo had wanted to pay those tickets off all along, and I was the one saying, “No way. I’m not paying these tickets.” So we decided to try to make it right. We called the judge, and the court clerk told us, “Okay, you have an appointment at three in the afternoon to discuss the tickets. See you then.” We wanted to ask the judge if he could remove a few of them for us. “The fines for our dogs “running at large” on our front porch just seemed a bit excessive. We arrived at the courthouse, and Chip was carrying Drake in his car seat. I couldn’t carry it because I was still recovering from Drake’s delivery. We got inside and spoke to a clerk. They looked at the circumstances and decided to switch all the tickets into Chip’s name. Those dogs were basically mine, and it didn’t make sense to have the tickets in her name. But as soon as they did that, this police officer walked over and said, “Hey, do you mind emptying out all of your pockets?” I got up and cooperated. “Absolutely. Yep,” I said. I figured it was just procedure before we went in to see the judge. Then he said, “Yeah, you mind taking off your belt?” I thought, That’s a little weird. Then he said, “Do you mind turning around and putting your hands behind your back?” They weren’t going to let us talk to the judge at all. The whole thing was just a sting to get us to come down there and be arrested. They arrested Chip on the spot. And I’m sitting there saying, “I can’t carry this baby in his car seat. What am I supposed to do?” I started bawling. “You can’t take him!” I cried. But they did. They took him right outside and put him in the back of a police car. Now I feel like the biggest loser in the world. I’m in the back of a police car as my crying wife comes out holding our week-old baby. I’m walking out, limping, and waving to him as they drive away. And I can’t even wave because my hands are cuffed behind my back. So here I am awkwardly trying to make a waving motion with my shoulder and squinching my face just to try to make Jo feel better. It was just the most comical thing, honestly. A total joke. To take a man to jail because his dogs liked to walk around a neighborhood, half of which he owns? But it sure wasn’t funny at the time. I was flooded with hormones and just could not stop crying. They told me they were taking my husband to the county jail. Luckily we had a buddy who was an attorney, so I called him. I was clueless. “I’ve never dated a guy that’s been in trouble, and now I’ve got a husband that’s in jail.

Happy Mother's day to all mothers and fathers who are also good mothers. * Why does mother have 2 more points? * Comparison between mother and father. Why is a mother's status greater than a father's? Why is mother always given the right to more respect? Such questions are always going round on social media. The first thing is that you cannot normalize the situation. It is not the same for everyone. It can be different in every family. There are many mothers who fulfill the responsibility of both father and mother. They are good mothers as well as complete fathers. There is also such a father in this world who is also fulfilling the duty of a good mother, but that type of father also remains 2 steps behind. This is because every mother has 2 points extra that no father can achieve. 1st. Any man can't really understand the period of 9 months when the mother holds the baby in her womb. It is not just something to be in their stomach, she faces many challenges in many ways; physically, emotionally, restless sleep, uncomfortable days without rest, uncomfortable all the time, all that no man in this world has ever experienced. 2nd In this world, even today, due to pregnancy and delivery, 1 woman dies every 2 minutes. This condition is at this time when this world is fully loaded with science and technology. But till date, not a single man has died due to giving birth to a child. So the truth is that this is the only mother who directly risks her life while giving birth to a child. Was put at risk but : - It does not mean that you should not respect the father or respect him less. The father's value and respect is not less, this article is just to explain why the mother has 2 points more than father and what I think why mother's value is grater than father !!

She spoke so passionately that some of the Historians believed her, even the ones like Dr. Karuna who had been passed over for promotion when Crome put Valentine in charge of their Guild. As for Bevis Pod, he watched her with shining eyes, filled with a feeling that he couldn’t even name; something that they had never taught him about in the Learning Labs. It made him shiver all over. Pomeroy was the first to speak. “I hope you’re right, Miss Valentine,” he said. “Because he is the only man who can hope to challenge the Lord Mayor. We must wait for his return.” “But …” “In the meantime, we have agreed to keep Mr. Pod safe, here at the Museum. He can sleep up in the old Transport Gallery, and help Dr. Nancarrow catalogue the art collection, and if the Engineers come hunting for him we’ll find a hiding place. It isn’t much of a blow against Crome, I know. But please understand, Katherine: We are old, and frightened, and there really is nothing more that we can do.” The world was changing. That was nothing new, of course; the first thing an Apprentice Historian learned was that the world was always changing, but now it was changing so fast that you could actually see it happening. Looking down from the flight deck of the Jenny Haniver, Tom saw the wide plains of the eastern Hunting Ground speckled with speeding towns, spurred into flight by whatever it was that had bruised the northern sky, heading away from it as fast as their tracks or wheels could carry them, too preoccupied to try and catch one another. “MEDUSA,” he heard Miss Fang whisper to herself, staring toward the far-off, flame-flecked smoke. “What is a MEDUSA?” asked Hester. “You know something, don’t you? About what my mum and dad were killed for?” “I’m afraid not,” the aviatrix replied. “I wish I did. But I heard the name once. Six years ago another League agent managed to get into London, posing as a crewman on a licensed airship. He had heard something that must have intrigued him, but we never learned what it was. The League had only one message from him, just two words: Beware MEDUSA. The Engineers caught him and killed him.” “How do you know?” asked Tom. “Because they sent us back his head,” said Miss Fang. “Cash on Delivery.” That evening she set the Jenny Haniver down on one of the fleeing towns, a respectable four-decker called Peripatetiapolis that was steering south to lair in the mountains beyond the Sea of Khazak. At the air-harbor there they heard more news of what had happened to Panzerstadt-Bayreuth. “I saw it!” said an aviator. “I was a hundred miles away, but I still saw it. A tongue of fire, reaching out from London’s Top Tier and bringing death to everything

A remarkable number of the memoirs of booksellers are basically anecdote delivery devices.

In Detroit in 2011 “a Detroit pizza delivery man turned the tables on three would be crooks.” The black men ambushed the driver. He killed one. Police caught the others. The delivery man had a permit to carry a concealed weapon. “The manager at the pizza shop told Action News … many of his other drivers” have permits too. Every year hundreds of delivery drivers are robbed. Over the last several years, hundreds have been killed. Most do not carry guns. That is why the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls it one of the most dangerous jobs in the country.11

No man is better for knowing that God so loved the world of men that He gave His only begotten Son to die for their redemption. In hell there are millions who know that. Theological truth is useless until it is obeyed.

Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It" [Female Insert] Maestro!!! [Ice Cube] Blame me [Intro: Ice Cube] You niggas know my pyroclastic flow You niggas know my pyroclastic flow flow You niggas know my pyroclastic flow it's R-A-W, R-A-W [Ice Cube] You looking at the grand wizard, war lord vocal chord so vicious And I don't have to show riches to pull up pull off with some bad bitches And it ain't about chivalry It's about dope lyrics and delivery It's about my persona ain't nothing like a man that can do what he wanna Ain't nothing like man on that you knew on the corner See 'em come up and fuck up the owner See 'em throw up Westside California Nigga I'm hot as Phoenix Arizona I'm Utah I got multiple bitches It's a new law keep a hold of yo riches Dumb nigga don't spend it as soon as you get it And recognize I'm a captain and you a lieutenant [Chorus 1] I can say what I want to say ain't nothing to it gangsta rap made me do it If I call you a nigga ain't nothing to it gangsta rap made me do it I can act like an animal ain't nothing to it gangsta rap made me do it If I eat you like a cannibal ain't nothing to it gangsta rap made me do it [Ice Cube] I'm raw as a dirty needle Choke an eagle Just to feed all my people Lyrically I'm so lethal Plant thoughts in they mind just to defeat you Ice Cube is a saga y'all spit saliva And I spit lava I got the fearless flow Don't get near this ho If you sacred to go I keep it gangsta and why should change that fuck you all you motherfuckers trying to change rap But aren't you the same cat that sat back when they brought cocaine back I'm trying to get me a Maybach how you motherfuckers gonna tell me don't say that you the ones that we learned it from I heard nigga back in 1971 [Chorus 2] So if I act like a pimp ain't nothing to it gangsta rap made me do it If I call you a nappy headed ho ain't nothing to it gangsta rap made me do it If I shoot up your college ain't nothing to it gangsta rap made me do it If I rob you of knowledge ain't nothing to it gangsta rap made me do it [Ice Cube] Thank God when I bless the mic You finally get to hear the shit that you like A nigga talking bout real life so you can try to get this shit right Use your brain not your back use your brain not a gat It's a party not a jack (for real) Don't be scared of them people Walk up in there and show them that you equal (fuck them fuck them) Don't be material a nigga grew up on milk and cereal I never for got vaness and imperial Look at my life Ice Cube is a miracle It could be you if you was this lyrical It could be her if she was this spiritual Cause me and Allah go back like cronies I don't got to be fake cause he is my homie [Chorus 3] If I sell a little crack ain't nothing to it gangsta rap made me do it If I die in Iraq ain't nothing to it gangsta rap made me do it If I take you for granted ain't nothing to it gangsta rap made me do it If I fuck up the planet ain't nothing to it gangsta rap made me do it [Intro] [Ice Cube] Oh yeah and another thing For all ya niggas that don't do gangsta rap Don't get on TV talking about gangsta rap Cause 9 times at a 10 you don't know the fuck you talk about Talk about that bullshit rap you do Stay the fuck out of mine

Although, by the time of his second daughter’s birth, the Duke had overcome the worst of his stammer, it tended to re-emerge under pressure; his public delivery remained slow and monotonous. All in all, he looked very largely what he was – a well-meaning man, but ill educated, self-doubting, unresolved.

two flatbed tow trucks lumbered down the driveway. Each with a covered vehicle on the back. They pulled up in front of the house and positioned themselves to unload the vehicles. The man in the first truck got out and said, “This Stargazer Ranch?” Jack replied, “Yeah.” “You the owner, Jack Turner?” “Yeah.” “Delivery’s for you, man.” Jack and Caleb came off the porch, staring at the trucks and the man. “Whose cars are these?” “Yours. Sign here, please.” Jack signed and the man got out two pink slips. “Who gets the Camaro?” Caleb and Jack looked at each other blankly. “She didn’t,” Caleb blurted. “If the she you’re referring to goes by Jenna Caldwell, then yes, she did,” the delivery man said. “Uh, the Camaro is mine, I guess.” Jack couldn’t believe it. She bought him a car. “Okay, sign here.” Jack did and took the pink slip. “Is the Mustang for you?” the delivery man asked Caleb. Caleb opened his mouth, closed it, then said still unsure, “Uh, yeah, I guess it is.” “Sign here and we’ll get them unloaded.” “Jack, she bought me a car. Why did she buy me a car?” Stunned, they could only stare. “This can’t be real. People don’t buy other people cars. Not like this.” “I don’t know. She bought me one, too,” Jack said, dumbfounded. -Deliveryman, Jack, & Caleb

The central police station of the governorate of Qasr el-Nil looked like the poorly maintained palace of a deceased sheikh. Protected by tall black fences, its dark facade opened onto a garden containing a mix of palm trees and police vehicles, which seemed more like grocers’ delivery vans. Only the large blue two-note revolving lights showed the difference. In front of a long staircase, six military guards—each with white short-sleeved shirt, kepi bearing the insignia of an eagle stamped with the national flag, Misr assault rifle across the shoulder—slapped the edge of their hands against their chests at the exit of a corpulent man endowed with three stars on his epaulettes.

in one comic scene, Brennan and Cooper share the same bed, with Brennan’s arm, at one point, draped over Cooper’s. It is tempting to see Lillian Hellman’s hand in such scenes, since she was assigned to do rewrites of Busch’s script. She specialized in the sexual ambiguity of the ménage à trois, as in These Three (1936), a Goldwyn production that featured two schoolteachers in love with the same man. In The Westerner, it is the off-screen Langtry who links Brennan and Cooper. Her aura envelops Harden and dazzles Bean, especially since Bean has to work overtime to pry out of the laconic Harden luscious details the judge slavers over. Accompanied by Brennan’s moist patter, Cooper dryly doles out his delicacies, including a lock of Langtry’s hair (actually taken from the daughter of a homesteader who has fallen in love with Harden). During the Lux Radio Theatre production of The Westerner (broadcast September 23, 1940), Cooper’s droll delivery evoked more laughter than Brennan’s stridency.

Networking was already a sore subject at Microsoft. A standard feature of minicomputers and workstations, networking had been slow to arrive in the world of PCs. Aside from Apple, whose Macintosh contained a simple and effective means of sharing files and printers between machines, customers had yet to find a standard way of linking together different brands of PCs. A Utah company named Novell had grabbed the lead with a program called Netware, which made it possible for many PCs to both share a single printer and handle a set of files located on one PC. Print and file services, though mundane, were the lifeblood of PC networking. Novell’s lead stemmed largely from its fast delivery of these services: Microsoft was unable to better or even match Novell’s products. At the moment Rubin led a large group that was building a networking attachment to OS/2 called Lan Man, which was Microsoft’s latest hope in the attempt to overtake Novell. Cutler

The trustworthy postman dressed in khakhi uniform riding a bicycle has been an integral part of urban and rural landscape in India; I wonder if this cultural icon will ever be replaced by the local pizza delivery man? The

THERE'S ALWAYS A LAX MAN DRAWING REKHAS AROUND YOU. It starts in childhood with your Mom screaming - Re Kha, to your youth, with bullies at school kicking your butt - re kha, to the teacher with the whip - re kha, the batsman hitting your balls for sixes - re kha, to the girlfriend making you eat your words - re kha, to the pizza delivery boy spitting on your pizza - re kha, to the man giving bribe to policeman - re kha, to the dirty deals with ministers - re kha, to channels pushing content down your throat - re kha, to doctors pushing tubes into your throat - re kha, and finally after death, your kids pushing ghee into your dead mouth - re kha! The only place it was relevant was at a relative's wedding. Re Kha! *For those unfamiliar with hindi re kha means 'EAT'' and rekha means 'lines'. Laxman rekha means to draw boundaries around a person.

This book’s body is inextricably linked to her experience of reading it. I hope that she continues to hold on to it, because as long as she does, its wavy, expanded pages will remind her of the hot day she read it with her feet in the water—and of the fourteen-year-old she was at the time. A book is much more than a delivery vehicle for its contents, and from my perspective, this fair was a concentrated celebration of that fact.

I used to be a dairy farmer, but I don’t do so much anymore. I’m not retired. I’m just tired.” I think Amos just made another joke. You haven’t seen deadpan delivery till you’ve seen the Amish.

Can a Delivery Man Be A Turnip?

Preaching is not just a sermon. Preaching is not simply a transfer of ideology from one man to a group of people. Preaching is a verbal celebration of God and all of His glory. The preacher seeks out the best, most choice words in order to present the truth of the text in a way that propels the hearer into a new realm of discovery and spiritual growth. The preacher not only engages the mind, but also penetrates the very depth of a person’s being. It is in that potent combination of delivery that the seeds of transformation embed themselves and take root.

Anthropology gives the acquisitions of psychoanalysis or psychology new depth by incorporating them in its own framework: Freud or today's psychologists are not absolute observers; they belong to the history of Western thought. Thus we must not think that Westerners' neuroses and complexes give us a clear view of the truth of myth, magic, or witchcraft. According to the ethnological method rule of reciprocal criticism, we must be equally concerned with seeing psychoanalysis as myth and the psychoanalyst as a witch doctor or shaman. Our psychosomatic investigations enable us to understand how the shaman heals, how for example he helps in a difficult delivery. But the shaman also enables us to understand that psychoanalysis is our own witchcraft. Even in its most canonical and respectable forms, psychoanalysis reaches the truth about a life only through the rapport it establishes between two lives in the solemn atmosphere of transference, which is not a purely objective method (if such a method exists). When it is applied to so-called "normal" subjects themselves, with all the more reason it ceases completely to be a conception which can be discussed or justified by cases. It no longer heals; it persuades. Psychoanalysis itself fashions subjects who conform to its interpretation of man. It has its converts, and perhaps its defectors; it can no longer have its convinced adherents. For it is neither true nor false but a myth. When Freudianism has deteriorated to this degree it is no longer an interpretation of the Oedipus myth but one of its variants.

was a small lavatory. The door to the lavatory was missing and Myers screwed his face up at the sight of the mess inside. The place didn’t need cleaning. It needed burning. There were a few random, oil-stained chairs dotted about and a collection of torn car magazines. It was the poorest attempt at a customer waiting area Myers had ever seen. Along the back wall, however, was a large workbench and two tall tool chests. They were red with silver handles and covered in stickers. On the wall above the bench, which was covered in spare parts, drinks cans, and oily rags, were several calendars which fell into the category of cliché garage topless pictures. To the right of the workbench was a fire escape door with a long, silver push-handle and Myers thought that even hovels like the garage needed to have some form of emergency exit. He wondered what he’d find out there, then shuddered at the thought. He stepped into the space and felt a strange guilty pang of combined intrusion and fear. There were no cars in the garage, but the air retained a thick, oily smell borne of years of spilt oil and vapour seeping into the pores of every surface in there. He pulled his jacket in tight around him. It seemed as if every surface was coated in a thick layer of grease. But there was something else in that smell. Something that had combined with the oil to form a sickly aroma. He knew the smell, but it had been tainted by the oil and he couldn’t put his finger on it. There was something not quite right about the place. It was the first time he actually wished Fox had been there with him. Another pair of eyes would be useful, and despite her annoying traits, she was actually turning out to be a smart thinker. It was she who had seen the slight variation in the forms. It was she who had known the format of the numbers reflected a container number. And it was she who had theorised that Donald Cartwright could be in trouble. The fact that Donald Cartwright was not in the garage did not mean he wasn’t in trouble. In fact, it only gave weight to the theory. Something had happened in the garage. And Myers was sure the two were connected. Donald Cartwright’s shipment had been delivered to the garage, the only delivery for years that hadn’t been delivered to his father’s warehouse. The form was different and the adviser, Sergio, hadn’t countersigned it. The

Paul, the baby is coming very soon.” He smiled. “That’s getting real obvious.” “You’re my very best friend, Paul.” “Thanks, Vanni,” he said, but he furrowed his eyebrows. Suspicious. “I want you to be with me during the delivery.” “With you how?” he asked. “I want you to be the one to encourage me, coach me, coax me. Hold my hand. Support me.” “Um… Isn’t that Mel’s job?” “Mel is going to be very much a coach, but she’s also going to be the midwife and she’ll be busy with other things. Especially when the baby is coming out. I need you to do this.” “Vanni,” he said, scooting forward on his chair, “I’m a guy.” “I know. Guys do this.” “I can’t…Vanni, I shouldn’t…. Vanessa, listen. I can’t see you like that. It wouldn’t be…appropriate.” “Well, actually, I thought about my brother or my dad and frankly, that really doesn’t appeal to me. So,” she said, lifting a video from the table beside her, “I got us a childbirth movie from Mel.” “Aw, no,” he said, pleading. She stood up and popped it into the VCR, then sat down again with the remote in her hand. “Jack delivered his own son,” she said. “I know, but in case you’re interested, he wasn’t thrilled about it at the time. And he refuses to do it again—he’s adamant about that. And, Vanni, this isn’t my son. This is my best friend’s son.” “Of course I know that, Paul. But since it is your best friend’s son, he’d be so grateful.” She started the video. “Now, I want you to concentrate on what the partner is doing. Don’t worry about the mother. Most of the time while I’m in labor you’ll either be behind me, or helping me walk or squat to use gravity to help with the dilating, or reminding me to breathe properly. It’s not like you’re going to have your face in the field of birth.” “I’m starting to feel kind of weak,” he said. “Why don’t you ask Brie or Paige, if you need someone for that?” “I could do that, but to tell you the truth, I’m much closer to you. And you’re here—right here. You can do this. We’ll watch the movie together and if you have any questions, just ask me.” He looked at the screen, his brows drawn together. He squinted. This was an unattractive woman, giving birth. Well, not just yet—she was working up to it. Her big belly was sticking out, which was not what made her plain. It was the stringy hair, monobrow, baggy socks on her feet and—“Vanni, she has very hairy legs.” “If that’s what worries you I can still manage to shave my legs, even though I have to admit I’ve lost interest.” The hospital gown on the woman was draped over her belly and legs in such a way that when she started to rise into a sitting position, spreading her thighs and grabbing them to bear down, she was covered. Then the doctor or midwife or whoever was in charge flipped that gown out of the way and there, right in Paul’s face, was the top of a baby’s head emerging from the woman’s body. “Aw, man,” he whined, putting his head in his hands. “I said watch the coach—don’t worry about the woman,” Vanni lectured. “It’s pretty damn hard to not look at that, Vanni,” he said. “Concentrate.” So

More than two dozen kids lined a low railing around the gazebo. They were all tied to it by a rope leash that gave them no more than a few feet of movement. Neck to rail, like tethered horses. Each of the kids was weighed down by a concrete block that encased their hands. Their eyes were hollow, their cheeks caved in. Astrid used a word that Sam had never imagined coming from her. “Nice language,” Drake said with a smirk. “And in front of the Pe-tard, too.” A cafeteria tray had been placed in front of each of the prisoners. It must have been a very recent delivery because some were still licking their trays, hunched over, faces down, tongues out, licking like dogs. “It’s the circle of freaks,” Drake said proudly, waving a hand like a showman. In a crusty old wheelbarrow to one side, three kids were using a short-handled shovel to mix cement. It made a heavy sloshing sound. They dumped a shovelful of gravel into the mix and stirred it like lumpy gravy. “Oh, no,” Lana said, backing away, but one of the Coates kids smashed her behind the knee with his baseball bat, and she crumpled. “Gotta do something with unhelpful freaks,” Drake said. “Can’t have you people running around loose.” He must have seen Sam start to react because he stuck his gun against Astrid’s head. “Your call, Sam. You so much as flinch and we’ll get to see what a genius brain really looks like.” “Hey, I got no powers, man,” Quinn said. “This is sick, Drake. Like you’re sick,” Astrid said. “I can’t even reason with you because you’re just too damaged, too hopelessly messed up.” “Shut up.

I was also really fortunate at Eton to have had a fantastic housemaster, and so much of people’s experience of Eton rests on whether they had a housemaster who rocked or bombed. I got lucky. The relationship with your housemaster is the equivalent to that with a headmasterat a smaller school. He is the one who supervises all you do, from games to your choice of General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), and without doubt he is the teacher who gets to know you the best--the good and the bad. In short, they are the person who runs the show. Mr. Quibell was old-school and a real character--but two traits made him great: he was fair and he cared. And as a teenager those two qualities really matter to one’s self-esteem. But, boy, did he also get grief from us. Mr. Quibell disliked two things: pizzas and the town of Slough. Often, as a practical joke, we would order a load of Slough’s finest pizzas to be delivered to his private door; but never just one or two pizzas--I am talking thirty of them. As the delivery guy turned up we would all be hidden, peeping out of the windows, watching the look of both horror, then anger, as Mr. Quibell would send the poor delivery man packing, with firm instructions never to return. The joke worked twice, but soon the pizza company got savvy.

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Here is another thing that used to puzzle me. Is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in Him? But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know about Him can be saved through Him. But in the meantime, if you worried about the people outside, the most unreasonable thing you can do is to remain outside yourself. Christians are Christ’s body, the organism through which He works. Every addition to that body enables Him to do more. If you want to help those outside, you must add your own little cell to the body of Christ who alone can help them. Cutting off a man’s fingers would be an odd way of getting him to do more work.5

As she piped rosettes, docked a sheet of dough, or doused a tart with sanding sugar, another world occurred on the doorstep. Now Avis answers the door herself and leads surprised delivery people into the front entrance, across the living room, and through the heavy swinging door to her kitchen. She almost enjoys the contact with the outside world. On Monday, there is a Colombian man who delivers free-range eggs and unpasteurized milk that glows like satin. Tuesdays, a woman from Lima bring special concoctions of candied lilacs and fruit peels and 'gelees,' and later a young boy comes with a box filled with dried starfruit and bananas and fresh tea, mint and sage from his father's botanical garden in the Redlands. She asks and forgets everyone's names, but next week, she thinks, she'll ask again. Some deliveries- like those from her son's market- come every week, others- like the fig balsamic vinegar- were special-ordered to accompany a single chocolate strawberry ice cream cake.

In Nevada, at Frenchman’s Flat, a bright flash and ugly mushroom cloud had signified a gigantic change in the tactical battlefield—a change that had not come about at Hiroshima, despite statements to the contrary. In its early years the atomic device had remained a strategic weapon, suitable for delivery against cities and industries, suitable to obliterate civilians, men, women, and children by the millions, but of no practical use on a limited battlefield—until it was fired from a field gun. Until this time, 1953, the armies of the world, including that of the United States, had hardly taken the advent of fissionable material into account. The 280mm gun, an interim weapon that would remain in use only a few years, changed all that, forever. With an atomic cannon that could deliver tactical fires in the low-kiloton range, with great selectivity, ground warfare stood on the brink of its greatest change since the advent of firepower. The atomic cannon could blow any existing fortification, even one twenty thousand yards in depth, out of existence neatly and selectively, along with the battalions that manned it. Any concentration of manpower, also, was its meat. It spelled the doom of Communist massed armies, which opposed superior firepower with numbers, and which had in 1953 no tactical nuclear weapons of their own. The 280mm gun was shipped to the Far East. Then, in great secrecy, atomic warheads—it could fire either nuclear or conventional rounds—followed, not to Korea, but to storage close by. And with even greater secrecy, word of this shipment was allowed to fall into Communist hands. At the same time, into Communist hands wafted a pervasive rumor, one they could neither completely verify nor scotch: that the United States would not accept a stalemate beyond the end of summer. The psychological pressures on Chinese Intelligence became enormous. Neither an evaluative nor a collective agency, even when it feels it is being taken, dares ignore evidence.

Even at a cost of $100,000, a purchased piece of software is costing only about as much as one programmer-year. And delivery is immediate! Immediate at least for products that really exist, products whose developer can refer the prospect to a happy user. Moreover, such products tend to be much better documented and somewhat better maintained than homegrown software. The development of the mass market is, I believe, the most profound long-run trend in software engineering. The cost of software has always been development cost, not replication cost. Sharing that cost among even a few users radically cuts the per-user cost. Another way of looking at it is that the use of n copies of a software system effectively multiplies the productivity of its developers by n. That is an enhancement of the productivity of the discipline and of the nation.

No word from Max saying whether he was definitely going to come and see me, let alone what time and for how long. As usual he just took it for granted that I would hang about the house all day waiting for him. Clearly nature intended him to be a delivery man, not a university lecturer.

BRAND VERSUS PRODUCT The Modi brand was built on the promise of delivery. The 2014 campaign was promoted under the theme ‘Achche din aane wale hain’ (good days are on the way). It assumed that Modi would bring change. It was not an empty promise: it came from his certitude and his reductive understanding of the problems that India and its government grapple with. The Modi view of the world is also the view of the middle classes, generally speaking. It can be understood thus: the system is bad, but it cannot be fixed because politicians are corrupt. India’s poverty and inefficiency was the product, therefore, of bad politicians. The view also is that India’s potential has been kept suppressed and the people, especially the middle class, have suffered for this. The nation had not become developed though it was full of people who were talented. The politicians had let the rest of us down. The system had failed because of the party which had created it and run it. The Congress stood for corruption and socialism and dynasty (this last bit is less damaging than is assumed, in a society where such things as a ‘good family’, meaning virtue spread through genes, are believed to be true). The Gandhis were nepotistic, and people like Rahul Gandhi are not equipped or qualified in any way to lead India to its deserved greatness. A good man, an honest man, a strong man who means well is the thing needed to fix this system because the system is the problem and needs to be fixed. Once that is done, this great society will be able to take its destined place in the world.

The greatest boon to mankind that history will ever know can be brotherly love,” he was saying. “Brotherhood! It can be more nutritious than bread. More warming than wine. More soothing than song. More satisfying than sex. More beneficial than science. More curing than medicine.” The metaphors might have been mixed and the delivery stilted, for Marcus was not highly educated. But no one could doubt the sincerity in his voice. The sincerity was so pure it was heart-breaking. Everyone within earshot was touched by his sincerity. “Man’s love for man. Let me tell you, it is like all religions put together, like all the gods embracing. It is the greatest.…” No one doubted him. The intensity of his emotion left no room for doubt. But one elderly black man, equally serious, standing on the opposite side of the street, expressed his concern and that of others. “I believe you, son. But how you gonna get it to work?” “We’re going to march!” Marcus declared in a ringing voice. Whether that answered the old man’s question or not was never known.

As to Mr. Tennant, he says, “In private converse with him I found him to be a man of considerable parts and learning; free, gentle, condescending; and from his own various experience, reading the most noted writers on experimental divinity, as well as the Scriptures, and conversing with many who had been awakened by his ministry in New Jersey, where he then lived; he seemed to have as deep an acquaintance with the experimental part of religion as any I have conversed with, and his preaching was as searching and rousing as ever I heard. He seemed to have no regard to please the eyes of his hearers with agreeable gestures, nor their ears with delivery, nor their fancy with language; but to aim directly at their hearts and consciences, to lay open their ruinous delusions, show them their numerous, secret, hypocritical shifts in religion, and drive them out of every deceitful refuge, wherein they made themselves easy with a form of godliness without the power.” [Christian History, Vol. 2, p. 384-387.]

I watch and try not to think. Everything is a film: a fly on the windshield trying to get in, a delivery truck parked in front of whatever to deliver something I will never savor, a plane carrying flesh messages across the sky. The movie is wonderful to watch when I’m not in it.

young loyalists (like Nina) who joined the udarniks in the countryside would have their faith in the Party tested by what they witnessed, most of Russia, and for that matter the world, would be spared the spectacle of this man-made disaster. For just as peasants from the countryside were forbidden to enter the cities, journalists from the cities were forbidden to enter the countryside; delivery of personal mail was suspended; and the windows of passenger trains were blackened. In fact, so successful was the campaign to contain awareness of the crisis, when word leaked out that millions were starving in Ukraine, Walter Duranty, the lead correspondent for The New York Times in Russia (and one of the ringleaders in the Shalyapin Bar), would report that these rumors of famine were grossly exaggerated and had probably originated with anti-Soviet propagandists. Thus, the world would shrug. And even as the crime unfolded, Duranty would win the Pulitzer Prize.]

these creatures grow up with a peculiar knowledge. They know that they have been born in an infinite variety. They know, for instance, that in their genetic material they are born with hundreds of different chromosome formations at the point in each cell that we would say determines their "sex". These creatures don't just come in XX or XY; they also come in XXY and XYY and XXX plus a long list of "mosaic" variations in which some cells in a creature's body have one combination and other cells have another. Some of these creatures are born with chromosomes that aren't even quite X or Y because a little bit of one chromosome goes and gets joined to another. There are hundreds of different combinations, and though all are not fertile, quite a number of them are. The creatures in this world enjoy their individuality; they delight in the fact that they are not divisible into distinct categories. So when another newborn arrives with an esoterically rare chromosomal formation, there is a little celebration: "Aha," they say, "another sign that we are each unique." These creatures also live with the knowledge that they are born with a vast range of genital formations. Between their legs are tissue structures that vary along a continuum, from clitorises with a vulva through all possible combinations and gradations to penises with scrotal sac. These creatures live with an understanding that their genitals all developed prenatally from exactly the same little nub of embryonic tissue called a genital tubercle, which grew and developed under the influence of varying amounts of the hormone androgen. These creatures honor and respect everyone's natural-born genitalia –including what we would describe as a microphallus or a clitoris several inches long. What these creatures find amazing and precious is that because everyone's genitals stem from th same embryonic tissue, the nerves inside all their genitals got wired very much alike, so these nerves of touch just go crazy upon contact in a way that resonates completely between them. "My gosh," they think, "you must feel something in your genital tubercle that intensely resembles what I'm feeling in my genital tubercle." Well, they don't think that in so many words; they're actually quite heavy into their feelings at that point; but they do feel very connected –throughout all their wondrous variety. I could go on. I could tell you about the variety of hormones that course through their bodies in countless different patterns and proportions, both before birth and throughout their lives –the hormones that we call "sex hormones" but that they call "individuality inducers." I could tell you how these creatures think about reproduction: For part of their lives, some of these creatures are quite capable of gestation, delivery, and lactation; and for part of their lives, some of them are quite capable of insemination; and for part or all of their lives, some of them are not capable of any of those things – so these creatures conclude that it would be silly to lock anyone into a lifelong category based on a capability variable that may or may not be utilized and that in any case changes over each lifetime in a fairly uncertain and idiosyncratic way. These creatures are not oblivious to reproduction; but nor do they spend their lives constructing a self-definition around their variable reproductive capacities. They don't have to, because what is truly unique about those creatures is that they are capable of having a sense of personal identity without struggling to fit into a group identity based on how they were born. These creatures are quite happy, actually. They don't worry about sorting /other/ creatures into categories, so they don't have to worry about whether they are measuring up to some category they themselves are supposed to belong to.

I know it hurts,” I said. “But just think, now you’ll know what it feels like for a man with a cold.” Jessica’s favorite delivery line.

quarter that has followed his death, his birthdate has been commemorated as January 11, 1815—as in the joyous celebratory dinner staged each year in Kingston, Ontario, for example, and in the inscriptions on all the plaques and statues that honour him. But this particular day may be a mistake. The January 11 date is taken from the entry for his birth made by his father, Hugh Macdonald, in his memorandum book. The entry recorded in the General Register Office in Edinburgh, though, is January 10.*1 Similarly, precision about where specifically Macdonald was born, while a matter of lesser consequence, is as difficult to determine. The delivery may have taken place at 29 Ingram Street in Glasgow or, not far away, at 18 Brunswick Street, both on the south side of the Clyde River, because the family moved between these locations around the time of his birth. To pick at a last unknowable nit, Macdonald’s father recorded the moment of birth as 4:15, without specifying afternoon or early morning.

The distinction and particular value of anything, or any person, inevitably must alter according to the time and place from which we take our view. In any new discussion of Emerson, these two weights are upon us. By time, of course, I mean our entrance into the twenty-first century; it has been two hundred years since Emerson’s birth in Boston. By place, I mean his delivery from the town of Concord, and all his corporeal existence anywhere. Now he is only within the wider, immeasurable world of our thoughts. He lives nowhere but on the page, and in the attentive mind that leans above that page. This has some advantage for us, for he is now the Emerson of our choice: he is the man of his own time—his own history—or he is one of the mentors of ours. Each of these possibilities has its attractions, for the man alive was unbelievably sweet and, for all his devotion to reason, wondrously spontaneous. Yet as time’s passage has broken him free

The Bible is the Book of Emancipation of Man. The emancipation of man means his delivery from sorrow and sickness, from poverty, struggle and uncertainty, from ignorance and limitation, and finally from death itself.

I came across an Etruscan word, saeculum, which is a concept, or marker, of a temporal interval. Generally speaking, it is the span of time lived by the oldest person present. The day will come…when the last person to have fought in Vietnam will die. . . .Who will remember when . . . a car had to be cranked to start or when the clank of an ice delivery man carrying fifty-pound block in tongs brought merriment to the afternoon? I wonder, then, what would be my saeculum. Or whom. I wonder what young nephew or niece’s child, siphoned through the tunnel of time, would see a faded photograph of me and search their memories for my name. I think he was some sort of great-uncle, she or he will say. I don’t remember exactly. Look at his clothes!

Yes, there is a God, but he doesn’t want you to think of him as relaxing in some remote postal zone where deliveries come only a couple of times a week. He’s right there, next to you, friendly and favorable as a puppy and packed with wisdom. You can join into God’s embrace in a single motion, whenever you want. It’s easy. In fact, you’re already and always there. You can’t be anywhere else.

and mostly empty, as we’re still thirty minutes from the ceremony. ‘First things first…’ I say. ‘Kevin is a real assjack. What d’you see in that guy?’ Why she would have ever dated him in high school is beyond me. He’s a far cry from her husband, Jake. Kevin is a narcissistic forty-something, white, balding man with a beer gut. Jake is a funny thirty-something black guy with a six-pack. They’re worlds apart. But Kevin, unfortunately, owns the building I want to lease. The building that once held my late father’s florist shop. I remember spending entire days in that shop helping my dad put together floral arrangements and going out on deliveries. I’d love to have my shop in a place filled with so many memories of him.

Man has not the clearness of perception, the retentiveness of memory, or the power of presentation, to enable him (without supernatural aid) to give a trustworthy account of a discourse once heard, a few years or even months after its delivery. And that this should be done over and over from month to month for thousands of years, is an impossibility. If to this be added the difficulty in the way of this oral transmission, arising from the blindness of men to the things of the Spirit, which prevents their understanding what they hear, and from the disposition to pervert and misrepresent the truth to suit their own prejudices and purposes, it must be acknowledged that tradition cannot be a reliable source of knowledge of religious truth. This is universally acknowledged and acted upon, except by Romanists. No one pretends to determine what Luther and Calvin, Latimer and Cranmer, taught, except from contemporaneous written records. Much less will any sane man pretend to know what Moses and the prophets taught except from their own writings. Romanists admit the force of this objection. They admit that tradition would not be a trustworthy informant of what Christ and the Apostles taught, without the supernatural intervention of God. Tradition is to be trusted not because it comes down through the hands of fallible men, but because it comes through an infallibly guided Church. This, however, is giving up the question. It is merging the authority of tradition into the authority of the Church. There is no need of the former, if the latter be admitted.

Nine months after that yes, on February 20, 1984, my mother checked into Hillbrow Hospital for a scheduled C-section delivery. Estranged from her family, pregnant by a man she could not be seen with in public, she was alone. The doctors took her up to the delivery room, cut open her belly, and reached in and pulled out a half-white, half-black child who violated any number of laws, statutes, and regulations—I was born a crime.

What's the bill, Arbuckle ?? Well, it comes to $17.94. I gave him a twenty. He started digging for change. You know better than that. Buy yourself a new home.

Your delivery is perhaps a little . . . glib. I feel that you’re not quite connecting yet with the character’s emotions. Romeo has fallen instantly in love with Juliet and they’ve met and shared a kiss, but he doesn’t really know how she feels about him. He’s so intent on finding out that he’s come to this dangerous place, he’s standing right under her balcony! So Romeo is bold, daring! But at the same time”—Dan’s voice softened, paused, stuttered. “He’s hesitant. Look at the text: ‘I will answer it.’ He’s determined to get her attention. Then the next line: ‘I am too bold.’ Backing off. You see? He’s like any young man who is approaching the girl of his dreams and wondering whether he’ll be greeted with a smile or told to shove off.

My body had become that of an old liar, and my most spontaneous transports had begun to end in calculated maneuverings and delayed deliveries. It was no longer a question of self-esteem or pride; when I thought of breaking up with her, it was not to avoid some sort of discomfiture: it was a question of authenticity. I loved Laura too much to drag myself along on crutches in the wake of our love.