“
Sometimes...you can cry until there's nothing wet in you. You can scream and curse to where your throat rebels and ruptures. You can pray, all you want, to whatever god you think will listen. And, still it makes no difference. It goes on, with no sign as to when it might release you. And you know that if it ever did relent...it would not be because it cared.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
My delusionary hell does not agree with yours.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
Nothing quite brings out the zest for life in a person like the thought of their impending death
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
The world would be a much nicer place if people only used guns on themselves.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
Dear Die-ary, today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender. I'm wondering if, maybe, there really is something wrong with me.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
It's a frightening world to be alone in.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
Dear Die-ary, there's nothing terribly wrong with feeling lost, so long as that feeling precedes some plan on your part to actually do something about it. Too often a person grows complacent with their disillusionment, perpetually wearing their "discomfort" like a favorite shirt. I can't say I'm very pleased with where my life is just now... but I can't help but look forward to where it's going.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
You….” just you, always you. My russian Cu**, my enemy, my comrade, my prisoner, my gaoler and my life. Words unthinking. “Love……you.
”
”
Aleksandr Voinov (Special Forces: Soldiers Part II -Director's Cut)
“
Enough of this. Does every conversation with you have to be the director's cut? Get out of the car.
”
”
Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn)
“
Whether in a suit or in a loincloth people are ignorant little thorns cutting into one another. They seem incapable of advancing beyond the violent tendencies which at one time were necessary for survival.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
Sin: I've survived a winter in Siberia when I was ten.
Boyd: what were you doing there at ten years old?
Sin: searching for Santa Claus.
”
”
Santino Hassell (Evenfall: Volume 1: Director's Cut (In the Company of Shadows, #1 part #1))
“
Cut! Go again."
And again, and again, and again. Finally, after the fourth of fifth take I yelled down the hill to the director: "This isn't a fucking marathon! If we're going to go again, tell him on the bloody bike to slow down."
David turned to me and said, "Having a bit of trouble, Captain?"
"That's all right for you to say," I laughed breathlessly, "but I'm carrying a rucksack on my back with your fucking hand in a glass jar inside
”
”
John Barrowman (Anything Goes)
“
Dear Die-ary, I've been to heaven and hell...and I still don't know if there is a god or a devil. Still...it's something to write about.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
Witty closing remarks have been replaced by massive head trauma and severe hemorrhaging.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
Trust me, I know what self loathing is. But to kill myself? That would put a damper on my search for answers. Not at all productive. Besides, I've become increasingly doubtful as to whether I can die at all. But let's not get into that.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
Don't you have anything better to fucking do other than babysit and eventually get killed by some psycho?"
"No." Boyd said without hesitation. "I don't.
”
”
Santino Hassell (Evenfall: Volume 1: Director's Cut (In the Company of Shadows, #1 part #1))
“
You’re as close to a fucking home as I get.
”
”
Aleksandr Voinov (Special Forces: Soldiers Part II -Director's Cut)
“
Vadim felt Dan’s breath against his chest, shifted his legs to allow him to lie close, and pushed a fold of the blanket back to make sure Dan was fully covered. Dan. Always him. Always, and again and again.
”
”
Aleksandr Voinov (Special Forces: Soldiers Part I -Director's Cut)
“
Any pile of stunted growth unaware that entertainment is just that and nothing more deserves to doom themselves to some dank cell somewhere for having been so stupid!! Movies, books, T.V., music - they're all just entertainment, not guidebooks for damning yourself!
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
Listen up, ’cause I’m only gonna say this once,” Ty muttered as they walked to their gate. “I don’t talk when I fly. I sleep. And I don’t listen when I eat, understand? I don’t wanna be buddies. I don’t wanna chat,” he said with a sarcastic lilt to the word. “I don’t wanna know about your childhood or how your momma whipped you with a rubber glove or how much therapy you had to go through ’cause you flunked out of preschool. I don’t wanna hear about how you want to be Director someday or how many collars you got chasin’ those Internet freaks or how proud you are of your bowel movements. I don’t wanna go shopping at Barney’s with you, and I’m not gonna help you pick out your ties to match your socks and, I swear to God, if you get me shot, I’ll kill you.
”
”
Abigail Roux (Cut & Run (Cut & Run, #1))
“
I've excluded happiness as one of those possibilities we seek for ourselves. Oh, I still want it, but that's beside the point. Contentment - they say it's the ultimate, but I can't even wish for that. I don't even want the desire to be content. I can only hope for silence.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
Sin looked over at Boyd through sleepy looking, heavy lidded eyes. "Cállate la boca, blanquito."
Hearing Sin speak Spanish didn't help any; he sounded especially sexy when he was drawling those words fluidly in his low, velvety voice. "What does that mean?" he asked, half with an edge and half just curious.
Full lips turned up into a small smirk and Sin raised an eyebrow at him before turning back to the window. "It's a secret."
"Putain de beau gosse," Boyd muttered under his breath in mild annoyance, flipping forward several pages.
”
”
Santino Hassell (Evenfall: Volume 2: Director's Cut (In the Company of Shadows, #1 part #2))
“
Well, I just don’t want you to think that this piece of shit is anything other than a pathetic, human defect. Nothing more. Not a monster, not a bogeyman. Nothing but another reason to feel better about yourself. Understand that it’s just a person - not worth devoting any nightmares to.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (JTHM: Director's Cut (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac) JTHM: Director's Cut)
“
What do you want?” Boyd whispered.
“You—
”
”
Ais (Evenfall: Volume 1: Director's Cut (In the Company of Shadows, #1 part #1))
“
I think a persons life is supposed to be like a DVD. You can see the version everyone else sees, or you can choose the directors cut-the way he wanted you to see it, before everything else got in the way. There are menus, probably, so that you can start at the good spots and not have to relive the bad ones. You can measure your life by the number of scenes you’ve survived, or the minutes you’ve been stuck there. Probably, though, life is more like one of those dumb video surveillance tapes. Grainy, no matter how hard you stare at it. And looped: the same thing, over and over.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes)
“
And so, irritants, it is with this that I leave you. You are spared so that you can think of what it really is to live in a world that engenders a pain for which there is no comfort. Here is your product! You have the rest of your lives to think of this. And I suggest you think quickly, for a long life is never a guarantee.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
You aren’t how I imagined my assassin to be. You’re too beautiful and tragic.
”
”
Santino Hassell (Evenfall: Volume 1: Director's Cut (In the Company of Shadows, #1 part #1))
“
This way, at least, we get to meet and kill interesting people.
”
”
Aleksandr Voinov (Special Forces: Soldiers Part I -Director's Cut)
“
Other people’s lives seem better than yours because you’re comparing their director’s cuts with your behind the scenes.
”
”
Evan Rauch
“
It was like walking through a scene from an Italian movie. The street was lined with clothing stores and little coffee shops and restaurants, and people kept calling to one another from windows and cars. Halfway down the street a horn beeped politely and everyone cleared out of the street to make way for an entire family crowded onto a scooter. There was even a string of laundry hanging between two buildings, a billowy red housedress flapping right in the middle of it. Any second now a director was going to jump out and yell, Cut!
”
”
Jenna Evans Welch (Love & Gelato (Love & Gelato, #1))
“
After all, a life without living was simply a death without dying. What more was there to fear or hate but life, endless life, with no respite?
”
”
Ais (Evenfall: Volume 1: Director's Cut (In the Company of Shadows, #1 part #1))
“
More weapons hidden on his body than hallelujah-singing angels, dangling from a Christmas tree.
”
”
Aleksandr Voinov (Special Forces: Soldiers Part I -Director's Cut)
“
Hence, once the director calls cut on a take, May will often roar, ‘Get me pussy,’ and Munn will appear with the furiously mewing orb of animals. This is not to be mistaken for anything else. He’s not Donald Trump.
”
”
Jeremy Clarkson (The Grand Tour Guide to the World)
“
It was the chuckle of ultimate truth, the smile of an actress right after the director says cut, the intimate joy of seeing the other's soul naked and acknowledging yours is naked too.
”
”
Edgar Cantero (This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us)
“
I had more to say,” Sin said, still looking frustrated. “But it doesn’t come out right when I try. I always say the wrong things.”
Boyd nodded but he was so caught by their proximity, by the green of Sin’s eyes, that at first he struggled with his own words.
“It’s alright,” he said at last. “As long you don’t hate me, it’s enough.”
“That is not enough,” Sin growled. “Not by a goddamn long shot. You just have no idea, Boyd. No fucking clue.”
“About what?”
“Everything. Why I acted the way I did…Why I was so pissed off. It will never make any sense to you because I don’t know how to explain.”
“So try,” Boyd pressed. “Please.”
“I don’t know how.
”
”
Santino Hassell (Evenfall: Volume 1: Director's Cut (In the Company of Shadows, #1 part #1))
“
I think that writers are made, not born or created out of dreams of childhood trauma—that becoming a writer (or a painter, actor, director, dancer, and so on) is a direct result of conscious will. Of course there has to be some talent involved, but talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study; a constant process of honing. Talent is a dull knife that will cut nothing unless it is wielded with great force—a force so great the knife is not really cutting at all but bludgeoning and breaking (and after two or three of these gargantuan swipes it may succeed in breaking itself…which may be what happened to such disparate writers as Ross Lockridge and Robert E. Howard). Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle. No writer, painter, or actor—no artist—is ever handed a sharp knife (although a few are handed almighty big ones; the name we give to the artist with the big knife is “genius”), and we hone with varying degrees of zeal and aptitude.
”
”
Stephen King (Danse Macabre)
“
If life is a movie most people would consider themselves the star of their own feature. Guys might imagine they're living some action adventure epic. Chicks maybe are in a rose-colored fantasy romance. And homosexuals are living la vida loca in a fabulous musical. Still others may take the indie approach and think of themselves as an anti-hero in a coming of age flick. Or a retro badass in an exploitation B movie. Or the cable man in a very steamy adult picture. Some people's lives are experimental student art films that don't make any sense. Some are screwball comedies. Others resemble a documentary, all serious and educational. A few lives achieve blockbuster status and are hailed as a tribute to the human spirit. Some gain a small following and enjoy cult status. And some never got off the ground due to insufficient funding. I don't know what my life is but I do know that I'm constantly squabbling with the director over creative control, throwing prima donna tantrums and pouting in my personal trailor when things don't go my way.
Much of our lives is spent on marketing. Make-up, exercise, dieting, clothes, hair, money, charm, attitude, the strut, the pose, the Blue Steel look. We're like walking billboards advertising ourselves. A sneak peek of upcoming attractions. Meanwhile our actual production is in disarray--we're over budget, doing poorly at private test screenings and focus groups, creatively stagnant, morale low. So we're endlessly tinkering, touching up, editing, rewriting, tailoring ourselves to best suit a mass audience. There's like this studio executive in our heads telling us to cut certain things out, make it "lighter," give it a happy ending, and put some explosions in there too. Kids love explosions. And the uncompromising artist within protests: "But that's not life!" Thus the inner conflict of our movie life: To be a palatable crowd-pleaser catering to the mainstream... or something true to life no matter what they say?
”
”
Tatsuya Ishida
“
[After discussing the importance of the Tuesday workload...] "...'Anyway, I spend a lot of time praying. And my knees are calloused.' ... 'I've spent a lot of time doing the same, ' I said as the light changed. 'That's the only thing that gets me through--on Tuesday's and every other day of the week.
”
”
Janice Thompson (The Director's Cut (Backstage Pass, #3))
“
- If it helps, I used to have a hard time knowing what to do around other people so I watched them and learned to mimic them. If you don't have to be on point, I would interact the minimal amount. If you don't interact at all, people notice and you stand out, and if you're socially awkward and interact too much, people notice too much, people notice that too. But if you speak up now and then in a conversation, of infrequently agree to hang out, poeple will lose interest. It might be harder for you, but that's one thing that works for me."
"- Lfe was easier when I was just expected to shoot people.
”
”
Santino Hassell (Evenfall: Volume 2: Director's Cut (In the Company of Shadows, #1 part #2))
“
When parties in a state are violent, he offered a wonderful contrivance to reconcile them. The method is this:
You take a hundred leaders of each party; you dispose them into couples of such whose heads are nearest of a size; then let two nice operators saw off the occiput of each couple at the same time, in such a manner that the brain may be equally divided. Let the occiputs, thus cut off, be interchanged, applying each to the head of his opposite party-man. It seems indeed to be a work that requires some exactness, but the professor assured us, "that if it were dexterously performed, the cure would be infallible." For he argued thus: "that the two half brains being left to debate the matter between themselves within the space of one skull, would soon come to a good understanding, and produce that moderation, as well as regularity of thinking, so much to be wished for in the heads of those, who imagine they come into the world only to watch and govern its motion: and as to the difference of brains, in quantity or quality, among those who are directors in faction, the doctor assured us, from his own knowledge, that "it was a perfect trifle.
”
”
Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels)
“
I had a dream about you. We were actors in a horror movie and I was hunting you down with a knife. When I finally cornered you the director yelled "Cut".... What? I can't be blamed for following instructions.
”
”
Georgia Saratsioti (Dreaming is for lovers)
“
You know what goes on in this world. They don't understand. They don't see that long after their laughter subsides, in search of the next cheap thrill, their victims are still hearing the taunts in their heads. A cacophony of degrading noise, poisoning perception.
”
”
Jhonen Vásquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut)
“
Well I have to jam but let me know if you want to talk or if, like, you want any additional info on Hsin. I may not be close to him as a person but I’m kind of a Vega lexicon. I’ve studied him like a creeper for a while. It’s a little gross. This obsession should really stop sometime before they think I’m a stalker.
”
”
Ais (Evenfall: Volume 1: Director's Cut (In the Company of Shadows, #1 part #1))
“
Carl Melin, policy director at the Swedish research institute Futurion, says that Swedes built the welfare state for themselves, not for outsiders. He remarks that his country has been cutting back on immigration because of the realization that “people are quite open to showing solidarity for people who are like themselves.
”
”
Dinesh D'Souza (United States of Socialism: Who's Behind It. Why It's Evil. How to Stop It.)
“
Life is like theatre. Each new day is a new scene with new acts and roles to portray. The sets always change. You come across new dialogue and lines to exchange between others. Scripts are improvised. But the beauty in it is that everyday, you are constantly learning who you are and how others around you are. Express yourself and empathize. It's okay to wear a mask every now and then but remember that you'll eventually meet fellow thespians who will find a way to break down your walls and barriers. Remember another thing: this isn't a dress rehearsal. And God is your ultimate Director. Let Him write your script and call the cuts. Allow Him to provide you with the applause that truly matters. Let Him open up your heart to real self discovery. He is the best playwright that never dies. He lives. And so do you when you learn to let go and step on the stage of life.
”
”
Melody Joy
“
Most people feel worse about their behavior than we give them credit for.
”
”
J.S. Taylor (The Director's Cut (Spotlight, #3))
“
You are courageous, he says, between kisses, you are lovely, and I can't believe you are mine
”
”
J.S. Taylor (The Director's Cut (Spotlight, #3))
“
Patience doesn't mean waiting. It means being steadfast despite opposition.
”
”
Monroe Mann (The Theatrical Juggernaut (The Psyche of the Star): 2nd Edition, Director's Cut)
“
New York city wasn't yet the post-Giuliani, Bloomberg forever, Disneyland tourist attraction of today, trade-marked and policed to protect the visitors and tourism industry. It was still a place of diversity, where people lived their lives in vibrant communities and intact cultures. Young people could still move to New York City after or instead of high school or college and invent an identity, an art, a life. Times Square was still a bustling center of excitement, with sex work, "adult" movies, a variety of sins on sale, ways to make money for those down on their luck".
”
”
B. Ruby Rich (New Queer Cinema: The Director's Cut)
“
The only people paying attention to him were those girls and when he made more of an effort to listen, he realized they were commenting on Boyd's and his looks. Apparently, he had an amazing body and Boyd had beautiful hair.
”
”
Santino Hassell (Evenfall: Volume 1: Director's Cut (In the Company of Shadows, #1 part #1))
“
Suddenly, Tony grabbed my waist and pulled me in, and for the first time in a very long time I wanted a man to kiss me. We stood there for a second too long, tension building, before his lips met mine. It was a movie moment. So good, I was waiting for the director to yell, “Cut!” But Tony kept going.
”
”
Jenifer Lewis (Walking in My Joy: In These Streets)
“
It was an extraordinarily attractive theory, but when the computers at the Office of Management and Budget projected that rather than balancing the budget, Reagan’s proposed cuts would create budget deficits of up to $116 billion by 1984, Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, simply reprogrammed the computers.
”
”
Heather Cox Richardson (Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America)
“
At the Minsk tractor factory I was looking for a woman who had served in the army as a sniper. She had been a famous sniper. The newspapers from the front had written about her more than once. Her Moscow girlfriends gave me her home phone number, but it was old. And the last name I had noted down was her maiden name. I went to the factory where I knew she worked in the personnel department, and I heard from the men (the director of the factory and the head of the personnel department): “Aren’t there enough men? What do you need these women’s stories for? Women’s fantasies…” The men were afraid that women would tell about some wrong sort of war. I visited a family…Both husband and wife had fought. They met at the front and got married there: “We celebrated our wedding in the trench. Before the battle. I made a white dress for myself out of a German parachute.” He had been a machine gunner, she a radio operator. The man immediately sent his wife to the kitchen: “Prepare something for us.” The kettle was already boiling, and the sandwiches were served, she sat down with us, but the husband immediately got her to her feet again: “Where are the strawberries? Where are our treats from the country?” After my repeated requests, he reluctantly relinquished his place, saying: “Tell it the way I taught you. Without tears and women’s trifles: how you wanted to be beautiful, how you wept when they cut off your braid.” Later she whispered to me: “He studied The History of the Great Patriotic War with me all last night. He was afraid for me. And now he’s worried I won’t remember right. Not the way I should.” That happened more than once, in more than one house.
”
”
Svetlana Alexievich (War's Unwomanly Face)
“
The couple in the Skyline came to mind. Why did I have this fixation on them? Well, what else did I have to think about? By now, the two of them might be snoozing away in bed, or maybe pushing into commuter trains. They could be flat character sketches for a TV treatment: Japanese woman marries Frenchman while studying abroad; husband has traffic accident and becomes paraplegic. Woman tires of life in Paris, leaves husband, and returns to Tokyo, where she works in Belgian or Swiss embassy. Silver bracelets, a memento from her husband. Cut to beach scene in Nice: woman with the bracelets on left wrist. Woman takes bath, makes love, silver bracelets always on left wrist. Cut: enter Japanese man, veteran of student occupation of Yasuda Hall, wearing tinted glasses like lead in Ashes and Diamonds. A top TV director, he is haunted by dreams of tear gas, by memories of his wife who slit her wrist five years earlier. Cut (for what it's worth, this script has a lot of jump cuts): he sees the bracelets on woman's left wrist, flashes back to wife's bloodied wrist. So he asks woman: could she switch bracelets to her right wrist?
"I refuse," she says. "I wear my bracelets on my left wrist.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World)
“
Turner let the work speak for itself. Harper wanted to be certain about Elwood's comfort with his new detail. 'You don't look surprised,' the young white man said. 'It has to end up somewhere,' Elwood responded. 'How things are done. Spencer tells me where to go, and he kicks it up to Director Hardee.' Harper fiddled the dial after more rock and roll: Elvis popped up again. He was everywhere. 'It used to be worse in the old days,' Harper said, 'from what my aunt says. But the state cracked down and now we lay off the south-campus stuff.' Meaning, they old sold the black students' supplies. 'We had this god old boy who used to run Nickel, Roberts, who would've sold the air you breathe if he could've. Now that was a crook!' 'Beats cleaning the toilets,' Turner said. 'Beats cutting grass, if you ask me.' It was nice to be out, and Elwood said so.
”
”
Colson Whitehead (The Nickel Boys)
“
The voice, sounding more than ever to Sol like some cut-rate holie director’s shallow idea of what God’s voice should sound like, came again: “Sol! You must listen well. The future of humankind depends upon your obedience in this matter. You must take your daughter, your daughter Rachel whom you love, and go to the world called Hyperion and offer her there as a burnt offering at one of the places of which I shall tell you.” And
”
”
Dan Simmons (Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1))
“
He overheard the director talking to one of the cameramen. The cameraman was explaining that he couldn’t get a good long shot on the exterior because someone had set up a fake graveyard right in the plaza.
“Kids just playing around, I guess, but it’s morbid; we’ll have to get rid of it, maybe bring in some sod to—”
“No,” Albert said.
“We’re almost ready for you,” the director assured him.
“That’s not a fake graveyard. Those aren’t fake graves. No one was playing around.”
“You’re saying those . . . those are actually . . .”
“What do you think happened here?” Albert asked in a soft voice. “What do you think this was?” Absurdly, embarrassingly, he had started to cry. “Those are kids buried there. Some of them were torn apart, you know. By coyotes. By . . . by bad people. Shot. Crushed. Like that. Some of those kids in the ground there couldn’t take it, the hunger and the fear . . . some of those kids out there had to be cut down from the ropes they used to hang themselves. Early on, when we still had any animals? I had a crew go out and hunt down cats. Cats and dogs and rats. Kill them. Other kids to skin them . . . cook them up.”
There were a dozen crew people in the McDonald’s. None spoke or moved.
Albert brushed away tears and sighed. “Yeah. So don’t mess with the graves. Okay? Other than that, we’re good to go.
”
”
Michael Grant (Light (Gone, #6))
“
When it comes to the selections, I heard several observers claim that the Academy was embracing “nostalgia” by honoring The Artist and Hugo. Give me a break! Hugo represents cutting-edge storytelling by a world-class director—in 3-D, no less. The Artist dares to revisit a form of cinema that was abandoned in the late 1920s. The Academy members admired these films for making the past seem immediate and relevant. That has nothing to do with nostalgia; it has everything to do with great moviemaking, which is what the Academy Awards are all about.
”
”
Leonard Maltin
“
Mabel went on, and you Petites Cendres, you haven’t forgotten we’re throwing a party for your Doctor Dieudonné, oh yes, soon as he gets back, the entire Black Ancestral Choir’s going to celebrate Dieudonné, man of God taking care of the poor and never asking for one cent, why did he have to go away said Petites Cendres, carefree in the comfort of his bed, wasn’t his clinic enough, he mumbled into the dishevelled folds of his sloth, I mean why go volunteer there when we’re holding a party for him right here, Mabel’s singsong voice cut in, going from deep to nasal, he’s getting the town’s medal of honour for doctoring all you lazy layabouts and lost souls, and running two hospitals and a hospice, our very own choir director’s going to give him his plaque with those same fingers and long thin red nails of hers, the ideal man, says the doctor, is not one who piles up money but one who saves lives, why he’s even helped our Ancestral Choir a whole lot too, he’s going to need a nice black tuxedo, just what he hates, and Eureka, the head of the choir, will be so proud that day when Reverend Ézéchielle invites us all to sing in her church,
”
”
Marie-Claire Blais (Nothing for You Here, Young Man)
“
Next, he says, he discovered the “moral stain on this ‘chosen people’… Was there any form of filth or profligacy, particularly in cultural life, without at least one Jew involved in it? If you cut even cautiously into such an abscess, you found, like a maggot in a rotting body, often dazzled by the sudden light—a kike!” The Jews were largely responsible, he says he found, for prostitution and the white-slave traffic. “When for the first time,” he relates, “I recognized the Jew as the cold-hearted, shameless and calculating director of this revolting vice traffic in the scum of the big city, a cold shudder ran down my back.”61
”
”
William L. Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany)
“
The last week of shooting, we did a scene in which I drag Amanda Wyss, the sexy, blond actress who played Tina, across the ceiling of her bedroom, a sequence that ultimately became one of the most visceral from the entire Nightmare franchise. Tina’s bedroom was constructed as a revolving set, and before Tina and Freddy did their dance of death, Wes did a few POV shots of Nick Corri (aka Rod) staring at the ceiling in disbelief, then we flipped the room, and the floor became the ceiling and the ceiling became the floor and Amanda and I went to work.
As was almost always the case when Freddy was chasing after a nubile young girl possessed by her nightmare, Amanda was clad only in her baby-doll nightie. Wes had a creative camera angle planned that he wanted to try, a POV shot from between Amanda’s legs. Amanda, however, wasn’t in the cameramen’s union and wouldn’t legally be allowed to operate the cemera for the shot. Fortunately, Amy Haitkin, our director of photography’s wife, was our film’s focus puller and a gifted camera operator in her own right. Being a good sport, she peeled off her jeans and volunteered to stand in for Amanda. The makeup crew dapped some fake blood onto her thighs, she lay down on the ground, Jacques handed her the camera, I grabbed her ankles, and Wes called, “Action.”
After I dragged Amy across the floor/ceiling, I spontaneously blew her a kiss with my blood-covered claw; the fake blood on my blades was viscous, so that when I blew her my kiss of death, the blood webbed between my blades formed a bubble, a happy cinematic accident. The image of her pale, slender, blood-covered legs, Freddy looming over her, straddling the supine adolescent girl, knife fingers dripping, was surreal, erotic, and made for one of the most sexually charged shots of the movie. Unfortunately it got left on the cutting-room floor. If Wes had left it in, the MPAA - who always seemed to have it out for Mr. Craven - would definitely have tagged us with an X rating. You win some, you lose some.
”
”
Robert Englund (Hollywood Monster: A Walk Down Elm Street with the Man of Your Dreams)
“
Integrating the military and diplomatic track is essential for success. . . . Nixon and Kissinger encountered this problem, and were defeated by it; when they began negotiating with Hanoi in 1969 there were 550,000 American troops in Vietnam, but under domestic pressure, Nixon unilaterally drew down to about 135,000 while Kissinger negotiated for almost five years. By the time they cut the final deal in later 1973, the two men were like the losers in a strip poker game, naked. They had no chips—or clothes—left with which to bargain; the result was a communist takeover of our South Vietnamese ally less than two years later. Roughly the same thing happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan, without even the negotiating.
”
”
Steve Coll (Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016)
“
Despite increasing committee interference and intensified conflict between Burnham and Director-General Davis, and with the threat of labor strikes ever present, the main buildings rose. Workers laid foundations of immense timbers in crisscrossed layers in accord with Root’s grillage principle, then used steam-powered derricks to raise the tall posts of iron and steel that formed each building’s frame. They cocooned the frames in scaffolds of wood and faced each frame with hundreds of thousands of wooden planks to create walls capable of accepting two thick layers of staff. As workers piled mountains of fresh lumber beside each building, jagged foothills of sawdust and scrap rose nearby. The air smelled of cut wood and Christmas
”
”
Erik Larson (The Devil in the White City)
“
I say, it sounds like some dangerous psychotic killer wrote this, and this buttoned-down schizophrenic could probably go over the edge at any moment in the working day and stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-180 carbine gas-operated semiautomatic. My boss just looks at me. The guy, I say, is probably at home every night with a little rattail file, filing a cross into the tip of every one of his rounds. This way, when he shows up to work one morning and pumps a round into his nagging, ineffectual, petty, whining, butt-sucking, candy-ass boss, that one round will split along the filed grooves and spread open the way a dumdum bullet flowers inside you to blow a bushel load of your stinking guts out through your spine. Picture your gut chakra opening in a slow-motion explosion of sausage-casing small intestine. My boss takes the paper out from under my nose. Go ahead, I say, read some more. No really, I say, it sounds fascinating. The work of a totally diseased mind. And I smile. The little butthole-looking edges of the hole in my cheek are the same blue-black as a dog’s gums. The skin stretched tight across the swelling around my eyes feels varnished. My boss just looks at me. Let me help you, I say. I say, the fourth rule of fight club is one fight at a time. My boss looks at the rules and then looks at me. I say, the fifth rule is no shoes, no shirts in the fight. My boss looks at the rules and looks at me. Maybe, I say, this totally diseased fuck would use an Eagle Apache carbine because an Apache takes a thirty-shot mag and only weighs nine pounds. The Armalite only takes a five-round magazine. With thirty shots, our totally fucked hero could go the length of mahogany row and take out every vice-president with a cartridge left over for each director. Tyler’s words coming out of my mouth. I used to be such a nice person. I just look at my boss. My boss has blue, blue, pale cornflower blue eyes. The J and R 68 semiautomatic carbine also takes a thirty-shot mag, and it only weighs seven pounds. My boss just looks at me. It’s scary, I say. This is probably somebody he’s known for years. Probably this guy knows all about him, where he lives, and where his wife works and his kids go to school. This is exhausting, and all of a sudden very, very boring. And why does Tyler need ten copies of the fight club rules? What I don’t have to say is I know about the leather interiors that cause birth defects. I know about the counterfeit brake linings that looked good enough to pass the purchasing agent, but fail after two thousand miles. I know about the air-conditioning rheostat that gets so hot it sets fire to the maps in your glove compartment. I know how many people burn alive because of fuel-injector flashback. I’ve seen people’s legs cut off at the knee when turbochargers start exploding and send their vanes through the firewall and into the passenger compartment. I’ve been out in the field and seen the burned-up cars and seen the reports where CAUSE OF FAILURE is recorded as "unknown.” No, I say, the paper’s not mine. I take the paper between two fingers and jerk it out of his hand. The edge must slice his thumb because his hand flies to his mouth, and he’s sucking hard, eyes wide open. I crumble the paper into a ball and toss it into the trash can next to my desk. Maybe, I say, you shouldn’t be bringing me every little piece of trash you pick up.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
“
Man tends to regard the order he lives in as natural. The houses he passes on his way to work seem more like rocks rising out of the earth than like products of human hands. He considers the work he does in his office or factory as essential to the harmonious functioning of the world. The clothes he wears are exactly what they should be, and he laughs at the idea that he might equally well be wearing a Roman toga or medieval armor. He respects and envies a minister of state or a bank director, and regards the possession of a considerable amount of money the main guarantee of peace and security. He cannot believe that one day a rider may appear on a street he knows well, where cats sleep and children play, and start catching passers-by with his lasso. He is accustomed to satisfying those of his physiological needs which are considered private as discreetly as possible, without realizing that such a pattern of behavior is not common to all human societies. In a word, he behaves a little like Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, bustling about in a shack poised precariously on the edge of a cliff.
His first stroll along a street littered with glass from bomb-shattered windows shakes his faith in the "naturalness" of his world. The wind scatters papers from hastily evacuated offices, papers labeled "Confidential" or "Top Secret" that evoke visions of safes, keys, conferences, couriers, and secretaries. Now the wind blows them through the street for anyone to read; yet no one does, for each man is more urgently concerned with finding a loaf of bread. Strangely enough, the world goes on even though the offices and secret files have lost all meaning. Farther down the street, he stops before a house split in half by a bomb, the privacy of people's homes-the family smells, the warmth of the beehive life, the furniture preserving the memory of loves and hatreds-cut open to public view. The house itself, no longer a rock, but a scaffolding of plaster, concrete, and brick; and on the third floor, a solitary white bath tub, rain-rinsed of all recollection of those who once bathed in it. Its formerly influential and respected owners, now destitute, walk the fields in search of stray potatoes. Thus overnight money loses its value and becomes a meaningless mass of printed paper. His walk takes him past a little boy poking a stick into a heap of smoking ruins and whistling a song about the great leader who will preserve the nation against all enemies. The song remains, but the leader of yesterday is already part of an extinct past.
”
”
Czesław Miłosz (The Captive Mind)
“
I saw a guy the other day at a wedding, and I told him my theory on why we’ve seen this explosion in comedies in the past fifteen years. Number one, America is tacking hard to the right. That sort of extremism always kind of kicks up the need to create comedy. But the second thing is Avid. What’s Avid? It’s a digital movie-editing program that directors use, and it’s incredibly helpful. I think Avid is hugely responsible for this boom in comedy. In the past, one would have to shoot the film and edit it, which was a big deal. Now, filmmakers can record the laughs from a test audience at a screening, and we can then cut to the rhythm of those laughs, the rhythm of the audience. We synchronize the laughs with the film. We can really get our timing down to a hundredth of a second. You can decide where you want your story to kick in, where you want a little bit of mood, where you want a hard laugh line. All of this can really be calibrated to these test screenings that we do. It doesn’t mean that it becomes mathematical. It still ultimately means that you have to make creative choices, but you can just really get a lot out of it. Sort of like surgery with a laser compared with a regular scalpel. We’re able to download a movie onto the computer and literally do all our edits in minutes. The precision is incredible. You play back the audio of the test screening and get everything timed just right. Like, “This laugh is losing this next line; let’s split the difference here.” You’re able to achieve this rolling energy. You can try experimental edits, and do multiple test screenings, and it’s all because you can move so fast with this program. Comedy is the one genre that I think has just really benefited from this more than any other.
”
”
Mike Sacks (Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations with Today's Top Comedy Writers)
“
When you’re on the dance floor screaming louder than the amps and dancing to the pulse of the lights, you’re in the bubble. As soon as the bubble bursts, that it, you’re now outside it all. The swinging arms of the crowd become shutting barriers; the lights blind you and force you back; the deafening music becomes a solid wall of impenetrable sound.
It’s like you stop being one of the actors and turn into one of the film crew behind the scenes. You just have to stand back and watch in silence; the fake set slides away from you on wheels and you’re left in the dark shadows, waiting for the director to shout, ‘Cut!’ just so you can move again.
As soon as you step foot inside a club, you know that you have to keep in that bubble moment; keep drinking; keep dancing; keep mingling. Until one drink too many, exhausted from the dancing, you mingle beyond the last person in the club and fall outside the moment. Then it’s lost forever and you end up sitting next to a sleeping drunk or leaning against a pile of discarded coats.
”
”
Christian Cook (Gem Street. The First Collection 2012)
“
You were taught that even when the charism of celibacy and chastity is present and embraced, the attractions, the impulses, the desires will still be present. So the first thing you need to do is be aware that you are a human being, and no matter how saintly or holy you are, you will never remove yourself from those passions. But the idea was making prudent choices. You just walk away. Celibacy is a radical call, and you’ve made a decision not to act on your desire.” Today, seminaries say they screen applicants rigorously. In Boston, for example, a young man must begin conversations with the vocations director a year before applying for admissions, and then the application process takes at least four months. Most seminaries require that applicants be celibate for as long as five years before starting the program, just to test out the practice, and students are expected to remain celibate throughout seminary as they continue to discern whether they are cut out to lead the sexless life of an ordained priest. Some seminaries screen out applicants who say they are sexually attracted to other men, but most do not, arguing that there is no evidence linking sexual orientation to one’s ability to lead a celibate life. The seminaries attempt to weed out potential child abusers, running federal and local criminal background checks, but there is currently no psychological test that can accurately predict whether a man who has never sexually abused a child is likely to do so in the future. So seminary officials say that in the screening process, and throughout seminary training, they are alert to any sign that a man is not forming normal relationships with adults, or seems abnormally interested in children. Many potential applicants are turned away from seminaries, and every year some students are forced out. “Just because there’s a shortage doesn’t mean we should lessen our standards,” said Rev. Edward J. Burns,
”
”
The Boston Globe (Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church: The findings of the investigation that inspired the major motion picture Spotlight)
“
I see many so-called conservative commentators, including some faith leaders, focusing on favorable policy initiatives or court appointments to justify their acceptance of this damage, while de-emphasizing the impact of this president on basic norms and ethics. That strikes me as both hypocritical and wrong. The hypocrisy is evident if you simply switch the names and imagine that a President Hillary Clinton had conducted herself in a similar fashion in office. I've said this earlier but it's worth repeating: close your eyes and imagine these same voices if President Hillary Clinton had told the FBI director, 'I hope you will let it go,' about the investigation of a senior aide, or told casual, easily disprovable lies nearly every day and then demanded we believe them. The hypocrisy is so thick as to be almost darkly funny. I say this as someone who has worked in law enforcement for most of my life, and served presidents of both parties. What is happening now is not normal. It is not fake news. It is not okay.
Whatever your politics, it is wrong to dismiss the damage to the norms and traditions that have guided the presidency and our public life for decades or, in many cases, since the republic was founded. It is also wrong to stand idly by, or worse, to stay silent when you know better, while a president so brazenly seeks to undermine public confidence in law enforcement institutions that were established to keep our leaders in check...without these checks on our leaders, without those institutions vigorously standing against abuses of power, our country cannot sustain itself as a functioning democracy. I know there are men and women of good conscience in the United States Congress on both sides of the aisle who understand this. But not enough of them are speaking out. They must ask themselves to what, or to whom, they hold a higher loyalty: to partisan interests or to the pillars of democracy? Their silence is complicity - it is a choice - and somewhere deep down they must know that.
Policies come and go. Supreme Court justices come and go. But the core of our nation is our commitment to a set of shared values that began with George Washington - to restraint and integrity and balance and transparency and truth. If that slides away from us, only a fool would be consoled by a tax cut or different immigration policy.
”
”
James B. Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
“
The Robot With Human Hair Pt2"
Said it's the coming of man
And I forget when you went away
Like a kick to the face
Not winning the race
(Lion, I've seen you from afar)
I've seen her in the car
Knowing that you deserve such more
Deserved to know you're free
Leave, I'm the director
Agree to the role of the pilot inspector
Breathe, pilot inspector
Feed off the role of the radar detector
Leave, I'm the director
Agree to the role of the pilot inspector
Breathe, pilot inspector
Feed off the role of the radar detector
Well, then, you said you could do this on your own
I'm sorry baby, I can't aid you
(And then you say, hands down, right now, I'll let this go)
You...
Well, now it's up to god to save you
Save you from all of those bruised,
bruised and battered wounds
(Wave right with a gun in his hand wave right)
Can you taste this blood
Dripping sweeter than...?
And over your eyes
And I, and I fall to both knees
Not to beg for your forgiveness
But to hate the word
And you speak
Take a right off these cliffs
The ground is staring at your wounded weapons
Wounded weapons
(And I can't believe that you're right)
You can bank the night on this its round
And glaring at your well
I get hyphy
Tell 'em I get hyphy
And this is where it ends
Well, then, you said you could do this on your own
I'm sorry baby, I can't aid you
(And then you say, hands down, right now, I'll let this go)
You...
Well, now it's up to god to save you
Save you, save you
Save you, save you
I can't believe these long words
Come from many national absurd
This is a line cut across
Hope, defeat, the line, the loss
I can never be this lone wolf
You can never see me across this earth
This will be a light that I run from
You thought you were so strong
You pleaded to never be wrong
(Brace yourself, fasten belts)
Well, now that you go
(Close the hatch, flip the latch)
I sit here and wonder
(They're not dead, speed ahead)
Times have changed
It's like we've been trashing silos
(Well, now that you go)
In the time bomb aisle
(I sit here and wonder)
Maybe they'll dodge the spill
Oil kills, sure it will
And I can't breathe the air
(Hide your daughter 'cause I'm coming over)
To reach for this light
(You know I'm not lying about)
(Trashing silos in the time bomb aisle)
And you can't breathe the air
(About trashing silos in the time bomb aisle)
Not leaving her to reach
The line, the work, the rope, the love
And I have seen such worse for you
It's a no, I'm not coming back
It's a no, I'm not coming back
It's a no, I'm not coming back
And now you see the sky has turned black
Why do think everyone has turned back?
It's cause he's gone
And now you see the sky has turned black
Why do think everyone has turned back?
It's cause he's gone
And now you see the sky has turned black
Why do think everyone has turned back?
It's cause he's gone
”
”
Dance Gavin Dance
“
ever. Amen. Thank God for self-help books. No wonder the business is booming. It reminds me of junior high school, where everybody was afraid of the really cool kids because they knew the latest, most potent putdowns, and were not afraid to use them. Dah! But there must be another reason that one of the best-selling books in the history of the world is Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by John Gray. Could it be that our culture is oh so eager for a quick fix? What a relief it must be for some people to think “Oh, that’s why we fight like cats and dogs, it is because he’s from Mars and I am from Venus. I thought it was just because we’re messed up in the head.” Can you imagine Calvin Consumer’s excitement and relief to get the video on “The Secret to her Sexual Satisfaction” with Dr. GraySpot, a picture chart, a big pointer, and an X marking the spot. Could that “G” be for “giggle” rather than Dr. “Graffenberg?” Perhaps we are always looking for the secret, the gold mine, the G-spot because we are afraid of the real G-word: Growth—and the energy it requires of us. I am worried that just becoming more educated or well-read is chopping at the leaves of ignorance but is not cutting at the roots. Take my own example: I used to be a lowly busboy at 12 East Restaurant in Florida. One Christmas Eve the manager fired me for eating on the job. As I slunk away I muttered under my breath, “Scrooge!” Years later, after obtaining a Masters Degree in Psychology and getting a California license to practice psychotherapy, I was fired by the clinical director of a psychiatric institute for being unorthodox. This time I knew just what to say. This time I was much more assertive and articulate. As I left I told the director “You obviously have a narcissistic pseudo-neurotic paranoia of anything that does not fit your myopic Procrustean paradigm.” Thank God for higher education. No wonder colleges are packed. What if there was a language designed not to put down or control each other, but nurture and release each other to grow? What if you could develop a consciousness of expressing your feelings and needs fully and completely without having any intention of blaming, attacking, intimidating, begging, punishing, coercing or disrespecting the other person? What if there was a language that kept us focused in the present, and prevented us from speaking like moralistic mini-gods? There is: The name of one such language is Nonviolent Communication. Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication provides a wealth of simple principles and effective techniques to maintain a laser focus on the human heart and innocent child within the other person, even when they have lost contact with that part of themselves. You know how it is when you are hurt or scared: suddenly you become cold and critical, or aloof and analytical. Would it not be wonderful if someone could see through the mask, and warmly meet your need for understanding or reassurance? What I am presenting are some tools for staying locked onto the other person’s humanness, even when they have become an alien monster. Remember that episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk was turned into a Klingon, and Bones was freaking out? (I felt sorry for Bones because I’ve had friends turn into Cling-ons too.) But then Spock, in his cool, Vulcan way, performed a mind meld to determine that James T. Kirk was trapped inside the alien form. And finally Scotty was able to put some dilithium crystals into his phaser and destroy the alien cloaking device, freeing the captain from his Klingon form. Oh, how I wish that, in my youth or childhood,
”
”
Kelly Bryson (Don't Be Nice, Be Real)
“
A school bus is many things.
A school bus is a substitute for a limousine. More class. A school bus is a classroom with a substitute teacher. A school bus is the students' version of a teachers' lounge. A school bus is the principal's desk. A school bus is the nurse's cot. A school bus is an office with all the phones ringing. A school bus is a command center. A school bus is a pillow fort that rolls. A school bus is a tank reshaped- hot dogs and baloney are the same meat. A school bus is a science lab- hot dogs and baloney are the same meat. A school bus is a safe zone. A school bus is a war zone. A school bus is a concert hall. A school bus is a food court. A school bus is a court of law, all judges, all jury. A school bus is a magic show full of disappearing acts. Saw someone in half. Pick a card, any card. Pass it on to the person next to you. He like you. She like you. K-i-s-s-i . . . s-s-i-p-p-i is only funny on a school bus. A school bus is a stage. A school bus is a stage play. A school bus is a spelling bee. A speaking bee. A get your hand out of my face bee. A your breath smell like sour turnips bee. A you don't even know what a turnip bee is. A maybe not, but I know what a turn up is and your breath smell all the way turnt up bee. A school bus is a bumblebee, buzzing around with a bunch of stingers on the inside of it. Windows for wings that flutter up and down like the windows inside Chinese restaurants and post offices in neighborhoods where school bus is a book of stamps. Passing mail through windows. Notes in the form of candy wrappers telling the street something sweet came by. Notes in the form of sneaky middle fingers. Notes in the form of fingers pointing at the world zooming by. A school bus is a paintbrush painting the world a blurry brushstroke. A school bus is also wet paint. Good for adding an extra coat, but it will dirty you if you lean against it, if you get too comfortable. A school bus is a reclining chair. In the kitchen. Nothing cool about it but makes perfect sense. A school bus is a dirty fridge. A school bus is cheese. A school bus is a ketchup packet with a tiny hole in it. Left on the seat. A plastic fork-knife-spoon. A paper tube around a straw. That straw will puncture the lid on things, make the world drink something with some fizz and fight. Something delightful and uncomfortable. Something that will stain. And cause gas. A school bus is a fast food joint with extra value and no food. Order taken. Take a number. Send a text to the person sitting next to you. There is so much trouble to get into. Have you ever thought about opening the back door? My mother not home till five thirty. I can't. I got dance practice at four. A school bus is a talent show. I got dance practice right now. On this bus. A school bus is a microphone. A beat machine. A recording booth. A school bus is a horn section. A rhythm section. An orchestra pit. A balcony to shot paper ball three-pointers from. A school bus is a basketball court. A football stadium. A soccer field. Sometimes a boxing ring. A school bus is a movie set. Actors, directors, producers, script. Scenes. Settings. Motivations. Action! Cut. Your fake tears look real. These are real tears. But I thought we were making a comedy. A school bus is a misunderstanding. A school bus is a masterpiece that everyone pretends to understand. A school bus is the mountain range behind Mona Lisa. The Sphinx's nose. An unknown wonder of the world. An unknown wonder to Canton Post, who heard bus riders talk about their journeys to and from school. But to Canton, a school bus is also a cannonball. A thing that almost destroyed him. Almost made him motherless.
”
”
Jason Reynolds (Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks)
“
There’s another level at which attention operates, this has to do with leadership, I argue that leaders need three kinds of focus, to be really effective, the first is an inner focus, let me tell you about a case that’s actually from the annals of neurology, there was a corporate lawyer, who unfortunately had a small prefrontal brain tumour, it was discovered early, operated successfully, after the surgery though it was a very puzzling picture, because he was absolutely as smart as he had been before, a very high IQ, no problem with attention or memory, but he couldn’t do his job anymore, he couldn’t do any job, in fact he ended up out of work, his wife left him, he lost his home, he’s living in his brother spare bedroom and in despair he went to see a famous neurologist named Antonio Damasio. Damasio specialized in the circuitry between the prefrontal area which is where we consciously pay attention to what matters now, where we make decisions, where we learn and the emotional centers in the midbrain, particularly the amygdala, which is our radar for danger, it triggers our strong emotions. They had cut the connection between the prefrontal area and emotional centers and Damasio at first was puzzled, he realized that this fellow on every neurological test was perfectly fine but something was wrong, then he got a clue, he asked the lawyer when should we have our next appointment and he realized the lawyer could give him the rational pros and cons of every hour for the next two weeks, but he didn’t know which is best. And Damasio says when we’re making a decision any decision, when to have the next appointment, should I leave my job for another one, what strategy should we follow, going into the future, should I marry this fellow compared to all the other fellows, those are decisions that require we draw on our entire life experience and the circuitry that collects that life experience is very base brain, it’s very ancient in the brain, and it has no direct connection to the part of the brain that thinks in words, it has very rich connectivity to the gastro- intestinal tract, to the gut, so we get a gut feeling, feels right, doesn’t feel right. Damasio calls them somatic markers, it’s a language of the body and the ability to tune into this is extremely important because this is valuable data too - they did a study of Californian entrepreneurs and asked them “how do you make your decisions?”, these are people who built a business from nothing to hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, and they more or less said the same strategy “I am a voracious gatherer of information, I want to see the numbers, but if it doesn’t feel right, I won’t go ahead with the deal”. They’re tuning into the gut feeling. I know someone, I grew up in farm region of California, the Central Valley and my high school had a rival high school in the next town and I met someone who went to the other high school, he was not a good student, he almost failed, came close to not graduating high school, he went to a two-year college, a community college, found his way into film, which he loved and got into a film school, in film school his student project caught the eye of a director, who asked him to become an assistant and he did so well at that the director arranged for him to direct his own film, someone else’s script, he did so well at that they let him direct a script that he had written and that film did surprisingly well, so the studio that financed that film said if you want to do another one, we will back you. And he, however, hated the way the studio edited the film, he felt he was a creative artist and they had butchered his art. He said I am gonna do the film on my own, I’m gonna finance it myself, everyone in the film business that he knew said this is a huge mistake, you shouldn’t do this, but he went ahead, then he ran out of money, had to go to eleven banks before he could get a loan, he managed to finish the film, you may have seen
”
”
Daniel Goleman
“
In movies, SF dominates utterly: by my count, 57 of the top 100 movies of all time, and nine of the top ten. The only top ten film that isn’t SF is Titanic, made by a director who cut his teeth making SF films.
”
”
Neal Stephenson (Some Remarks: Essays and Other Writing)
“
The reason why we can’t see our eyes moving with our own eyes is because our brains edit out the bits between the saccades—a process called saccadic suppression. Without it, we’d look at an object and it would be a blurry mess. What we perceive as vision is the director’s cut of a film, with your brain as the director, seamlessly stitching together the raw footage to make a coherent reality. Perception is the brain’s best guess at what the world actually looks like. Immense though the computing power of that fleshy mass sitting in the darkness of our skulls is, if we were to take in all the information in front of our eyes, our brains would surely explode.** Instead, our eyes sample bits and pieces of the world, and we fill in the blanks in our heads. This fact is fundamental to the way that cinema works. A film is typically 24 static images run together every second, which our brain sees as continuous fluid movement—that’s why it’s called a movie. The illusion of movement actually happens at more like 16 frames per second. At that speed, a film projection is indistinguishable from the real world, at least to us. It was the introduction of sound that set the standard of 24 frames per second with The Jazz Singer in 1927, the first film to have synchronized dialogue. The company
”
”
Adam Rutherford (The Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (Abridged): Adventures in Math and Science)
“
Crassus retreated. When he parleyed with the Parthians, he was unhorsed and beheaded. The Parthians poured gold into his throat to mock his crassness, then sent the head to Urad, a philhellene married to a Greek princess, who was watching Euripides’ tragedy The Bacchae. The play’s director commandeered the head as a stage prop: an actor appeared on stage holding it and singing the words, ‘We bring from the mountain / A tendril fresh-cut to the palace / A wonderful prey.
”
”
Simon Sebag Montefiore (The World: A Family History of Humanity)
“
It was a virtual cut-and-paste job from one harmony to the next, resulting in a boring, mildly satisfying piano piece. A computer could have written it. Mine practically did. That’s how easy it is to compose a bad prelude. Still, it took me five days and I turned it in overdue. I got a B plus. Nobuo Uematsu wrote the prelude for Final Fantasy (FF1) in under three minutes, as a filler track, to satisfy a last-minute request from the game’s director.
”
”
Sebastian Deken (Final Fantasy VI: Boss Fight Books #28)
“
The next day, Trump toured Fauci’s lab, the NIH Vaccine Research Center, as part of the White House effort to showcase the president’s determination to speed up the creation of a vaccine. Fauci again reminded Trump that getting a vaccine in a year was wildly optimistic. At the end of the tour, Fauci and Azar drove with the president across Wisconsin Avenue from the NIH campus to the helipad at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Marine One awaited to fly Trump back to the White House. “So how’s Francis Collins doing?” the president asked Azar, referring to the NIH director they had just said goodbye to. “He’s really helped us on the fetal tissue ban,” Azar said. He referred to Trump’s 2019 decision to dramatically cut government funding at NIH and elsewhere for medical research that relied on tissues of aborted fetuses. This was a move to please antiabortion conservatives, a key part of the president’s political base. Collins didn’t agree with the policy, Azar told Trump, but was “being very professional in implementing it.” Azar was surprised when Trump asked, “Is that fetal tissue issue going to slow down the vaccine and therapies?” When he learned the answer was yes, the president said he wanted them to reverse the ban, but that never happened.
”
”
Carol Leonnig (I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year)
“
The second group consisted of active military officers of the rank of colonel or below who had been directed into I.S.I. after failing to make the cut for promotion to generalship. Two thirds or more of Pakistan Army officers rising through the ranks were not destined to become generals, so at a certain point they were assigned to branches of service where they could rise as high as colonel. Some went into logistics, others into administration, and some entered into careers in intelligence, which allowed some of them to serve in uniform at I.S.I. for many years.
”
”
Steve Coll (Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016)
“
Widely hailed as the most popular director of Central Intelligence since Allen Dulles, Bush had enormous support within the Agency. As the campaign got under way, Reagan-Bush posters appeared all over CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, many cut in the middle with only the right side, the Bush side, on display.
”
”
Craig Unger (House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties)
“
Meet David Link, the 25+ year former Managing Director of Accenture also known for his role in having founded a cutting-edge payments platform known for its innovative technology and ability to supercharge global banks and payment processors: Verrency.
”
”
David Link Verrency
“
Writing a clean, lean, simple story is one of the hardest things in the world to do. When stories are first born, they’re always big and complicated, but simple stories are more powerful and meaningful. Think of Blaise Pascal’s famous postscript: “I’m sorry for writing such a long letter, but I didn’t have the time to write a shorter one.” Writers are always inclined to make their stories bigger and more complicated than anyone else wants them to be. Luckily, there are gatekeepers to cut us off at the pass. Editors chop novels down to size. Theater directors chop out scenes that don’t work. Producers slice the fat out of screenplays. They take sprawling, complicated messes and find the lean, simple story hiding inside. Ghostbusters was sold to the studio in the form of a forty-page treatment. It was set in the future. New York had been under siege by ghosts for years. There were dozens of teams of competing ghostbusters. Our heroes were tired and bored with their job when the story began. The Marshmallow Man showed up on page 20. The budget would have been bigger than any movie ever made, and far more than anybody was willing to spend. So why did the studio buy it? Because it liked one image: a bunch of guys who live in a firehouse slide down a pole and hop in an old-fashioned ambulance, then go out to catch ghosts. So the studio stripped away all the other stuff, put that image in the middle of the story, spent the first half gradually moving us from a normal world gradually that moment, and spent the second half creating a heroic payoff to that situation. That’s it. That’s all they had time to do. A few years after the success of Ghostbusters, one of the writers/stars of that movie, Harold Ramis, found himself on the other side of the fence. He wanted to direct a script called Groundhog Day, written by first-time screenwriter Danny Rubin. This was a very similar situation: In the first draft of that movie, the weatherman had already repeated the same day 3,650,000 times before the movie began! Everybody loved the script, so Rubin had his pick of directors, but most of them told him up front they wanted him to rewrite the story to begin with the origin of the situation. Ramis won the bidding war by promising Rubin he would stick to the in medias res version. Guess what happened? By the time the movie made it to the screen, Ramis had broken his promise. The final movie spends the first half getting the weatherman into the situation and the second half creating the most heroic payoff.
”
”
Matt Bird (The Secrets of Story: Innovative Tools for Perfecting Your Fiction and Captivating Readers)
“
I cut a forlorn figure as I tramp through the streets of Ginza in the pouring rain, killing time before the 7 p.m. showing of director Kiju Yoshida's 1973 film Kaigenrei at the National Film Center.
”
”
David Kintore (Silver Screen Cities Tokyo & London)
“
It goes without saying that if we were to build a Great Pyramid today, we would need a lot of patience. In preparation for his book 5/5/2000 Ice: The Ultimate Disaster, Richard Noone asked Merle Booker, technical director of the Indiana Limestone Institute of America, to prepare a time study of what it would take to quarry, fabricate, and ship enough limestone to duplicate the Great Pyramid. Using the most modern quarrying equipment available for cutting, lifting, and transporting the stone, Booker estimated that the present-day Indiana limestone industry would need to triple its output, and it would take the entire industry, which as I have said includes thirty-three quarries, twenty-seven years to fill the order for 131,467,940 cubic feet of stone.5 These estimates were based on the assumption that production would proceed without problems. Then we would be faced with the task of putting the limestone blocks in place.
”
”
Christopher Dunn (The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt)
“
Who is responsible for an agency’s operational response to growing workloads and declining fees? In today’s agency culture, it’s everyone… and no one. The agency management culture is fragmented and divided. Everyone does his/her own thing. An integrated counter-attack is hard to organize, and in practice, it simply does not happen. At the end of the year, the finance director has the ultimate responsibility to deliver the agency’s profit margin, and this is often done through cost reductions – a blunt instrument, indeed, but the laissez-faire culture does not allow for much fine-tuning during the year. The agency management culture is a barrier to change. It
”
”
Michael Farmer (Madison Avenue Manslaughter: An Inside View of Fee-Cutting Clients, Profithungry Owners and Declining Ad Agencies)
“
engages youth through film in the promotion of safer and more diverse learning environments, free from homophobia, transphobia and bullying.”) Follow him @razielreid. Table of Contents Preproduction Hair and Makeup The Set Child Star The Small Screen Rehab Movie Poster Flashback Sex Scene Train Wreck Sunset Boulevard Shoot-out Fight Sequence 9021-Opiates Typecast Hidden Feature Rewrite Hollywood Ending Director’s Cut
”
”
Raziel Reid (When Everything Feels like the Movies)
“
We can’t understand what happened in 2016 without confronting the audacious information warfare waged from the Kremlin, the unprecedented intervention in our election by the director of the FBI, a political press that told voters that my emails were the most important story, and deep currents of anger and resentment flowing through our culture. I know some people don’t want to hear about these things, especially from me. But we have to get this right. The lessons we draw from 2016 could help determine whether we can heal our democracy and protect it in the future, and whether we as citizens can begin to bridge our divides. I want my grandchildren and all future generations to know what really happened. We have a responsibility to history—and to a concerned world—to set the record straight. I also share with you the painful days that followed the election. A lot of people have asked me, “How did you even get out of bed?” Reading the news every morning was like ripping off a scab. Each new revelation and outrage made it worse. It has been maddening to watch our country’s standing in the world plummet and to see Americans live in fear that their health care might be taken away so that the superrich can get a tax cut.
”
”
Hillary Rodham Clinton (What Happened)
“
In April 2013, a few weeks before DSM-V was formally released, NIMH director Thomas Insel announced that his agency could no longer support DSM’s “symptom-based diagnosis.”32 Instead the institute would focus its funding on what are called Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)33 to create a framework for studies that would cut across current diagnostic categories.
”
”
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
“
Accountability for agency operations is fragmented. Each office in a network is a separate profit center. Each department in an office self-defines its missions. Creative heads focus on creativity; finance directors focus on headcounts, overhead and budgeted/ actual costs and profits; client heads manage the service that they provide to their ‘disorganized’ clients and keep them coming back for more. (Despite this there seem to be very few happy clients.) Managing
”
”
Michael Farmer (Madison Avenue Manslaughter: An Inside View of Fee-Cutting Clients, Profithungry Owners and Declining Ad Agencies)
“
The cultural divides within the advertising industry became wider when web pages became part of the marketing mix, beginning in 1995. Early web pages were like printed catalogs, and traditional advertising agencies knew how to design catalogs – they were just pictures and words in a different medium, right? The rub was that web pages seemed to clients and agencies more like the domain of software folk, like computer programmers, rather than the domain of traditional copywriters and art directors. An automotive company that wanted to put up web pages to help consumers choose car models and features was more likely to go to a group of programmers than to a traditional agency. The web production costs were exceptionally high, too – the hours spent by web designers and programmers far outstripped the creative hours spent on catalogs. Wasn’t the business of web design (and later, web advertising) a separate business? Traditional
”
”
Michael Farmer (Madison Avenue Manslaughter: An Inside View of Fee-Cutting Clients, Profithungry Owners and Declining Ad Agencies)
“
Andrew Mellon served as an officer or director for more than 160 corporations. In 1913, he and his brother established the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, which later merged with the Carnegie Institute of Technology to become Carnegie Mellon University. During the First World War, he served on the board of the American Red Cross and other organizations supporting America’s wartime efforts. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Andrew Mellon to secretary of the treasury, and he continued as such under both Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. As secretary, Mellon was a pioneer of supply-side economics, cutting tax rates in order to spur investment and
”
”
Jeff Miller (The Bubble Gum Thief (Dagny Gray Thriller))
“
Mike Morrison, vice president and dean of the University of Toyota, likes to ask employees: “What’s on the other side of your card?” In other words, the front of your business card may read “Managing Director,” but you may better identify with “big picture thinker” or “educator” or “calm under fire.” This kind of information—or even a few simple details like where a person lives, what his or her favorite hobby is—cuts through the red tape to get somewhere more meaningful, and it can more immediately and effectively forge a connection between two people.
”
”
Shawn Achor (The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work)
“
Fulgham told the bureau’s director that if they gave him the authority to distribute control, he would cut the number of people needed from more than four hundred to just thirty employees and deliver Sentinel for $20 million in a bit over a year.
”
”
Charles Duhigg (Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive)
“
Some days she simply wanted to get in her car and drive and keep on going.
”
”
Donna Hill (Justin & Bailey: Director's Cut --The Untold Story)
“
Goss, his wrestling coach, and other experts came up with sensible reforms to end the long-standing practice of extreme weight cutting, then told the Big Ten and the NCAA that Michigan would only wrestle under those rules, and would only wrestle against other teams that abided by them, too. Such a stand might have gotten another program blackballed from the wrestling community. But when it came from the Michigan athletic director, it proved to be the lever needed to reform the sport at every level, with the Big Ten adopting Michigan’s reforms, followed by the NCAA, and the high schools—a sequence of events that Yost, Crisler, or Canham would have readily recognized as Michigan’s influence at its best. Those rules are still in effect today.
”
”
John U. Bacon (Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football)
“
It seems to me that we are rather in the position of the hunters who divided up the skin of the bear before they had killed it. I personally cannot foresee the situation in which we may find ourselves at the end of the war, and I therefore think that any discussion at the present time of how we are going to cut up the Turkish Empire is chiefly of academic interest. BRITISH GENERAL GEORGE MACDONOGH, DIRECTOR OF MILITARY INTELLIGENCE, JANUARY 7, 1916
”
”
Scott Anderson (Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East)
“
The cut was only the beginning. With Goldi acting as art director, a couple of girls in pink smocks swooped in and painstakingly separated strands of his hair and painted them with a noxious substance. Then they carefully encased the locks in foil so he resembled a Star Trek extra. He was placed in a chair where—no lie—they lowered a plastic dome over his head and set it on Bake. Under the plastic dryer-dome, Bo sat there like an abductee and pondered what else his captors had in mind. He wondered when they were going to bring out the probe.
”
”
Susan Wiggs (Fireside (Lakeshore Chronicles #5))
“
March 17: Running across the rodeo grounds during a shot, Marilyn loses a shoe. But she keeps going, realizing the scene is now more dramatic. She is upset when Logan seems about to shout “Cut!” But then, he allows the cameras to run as the spectators roar. Marilyn, watching his indecision, loses some respect for her director and becomes distrustful.
”
”
Carl Rollyson (Marilyn Monroe Day by Day: A Timeline of People, Places, and Events)
“
It was her concern and commitment to a friend which last year involved her in perhaps the most emotional period of her life. For five months she secretly helped to care for Adrian Ward-Jackson who had discovered that he was suffering from AIDS. It was a time of laughter, joy and much sorrow as Adrian, a prominent figure in the world of art, ballet and opera, gradually succumbed to his illness. A man of great charisma and energy, Adrian initially found it difficult to come to terms with his fate when in the mid-1980s he was diagnosed as HIV positive. His word as deputy chairman of the Aids Crisis Trust, where he first met the Princess, had made him fully aware of the reality of the disease. Finally he broke the news in 1987 to his great friend Angela Serota, a dancer with the Royal Ballet until a leg injury cut short her career and now prominent in promoting dance and ballet. For much of the time, Angela, a woman of serenity and calm practicality, nursed Adrian, always with the support of her two teenage daughters.
He was well enough to receive a CBE at Buckingham Palace in March 1991 for his work in the arts--he was a governor of the Royal Ballet, chairman of the Contemporary Arts Society and a director of the Theatre Museum Association--and it was at a celebratory lunch held at the Tate Gallery that Angela first met the Princess. In April 1991 Adrian’s condition deteriorated and he was confined to his Mayfair apartment where Angela was in almost constant attendance. It was from that time that Diana made regular visits, once even brining her children Princes Willian and Harry. From that time Angela and the Princess began to forge a supportive bond as they cared for their friend. Angela recalls: “I thought she was utterly beautiful in a very profound way. She has an inner spirit which shines forth though there was also a sense of pervasive unhappiness about her. I remember loving the way she never wanted me to be formal.”
When Diana brought the boys to see her friends, a reflection of her firmly held belief that her role as mother is to bring them up in a way that equips them for every aspect of life and death, Angela saw in William a boy much older and more sensitive than his years. She recalls: “He had a mature view of illness, a perspective which showed awareness of love and commitment.”
At first Angela kept in the background, leaving Diana alone in Adrian’s room where they chatted about mutual friends and other aspects of life. Often she brought Angela, whom she calls “Dame A”, a gift of flowers or similar token. She recalls: “Adrian loved to hear about her day-to-day work and he loved too the social side of life. She made him laugh but there was always the perfect degree of understanding, care and solicitude. This is the point about her, she is not just a decorative figurehead who floats around on a cloud of perfume.” The mood in Mount Street was invariably joyous, that sense of happiness that understands about pain. As Angela says: “I don’t see death as sad or depressing. It was a great journey he was going on. The Princess was very much in tune with that spirit. She also loved coming for herself, it was an intense experience. At the same time Adrian was revitalized by the healing quality of her presence.” Angela read from a number of works by St. Francis of Assisi, Kahil Gibran and the Bible as well as giving Adrian frequent aromatherapy treatments. A high spot was a telephone call from Mother Teresa of Calcutta who also sent a medallion via Indian friends. At his funeral they passed Diana a letter from Mother Teresa saying how much she was looking forward to meeting her when she visited India. Unfortunately Mother Teresa was ill at that time so the Princess made a special journey to Rome where she was recuperating. Nonetheless that affectionate note meant a great deal to the Princess.
”
”
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
“
That’s the burning topic on your minds? Not, gee, will my parents find out, will the school suspend me, or will my director cut me from the show!” “You can’t cut us man, no one could learn our parts in time,” Eli said. “You got me there, but I have the power to put you in some very ugly costumes.
”
”
Angie Stanton (Dream Chaser)