Elbow Band Quotes

The pool,” said Kallorek, pointing. “The pool, right there.” “You mean the pond?” “I mean the pool,” growled the booker. “Get in. Swim.” He accompanied these words with effusive gestures that set his jewellery ringing. Clay examined the pond. “Swim to where?” he asked. “What do you mean swim to where?” Kallorek’s brow deepened. “Is it a healing spring?” Gabe asked. He flexed his arm, wincing as he extended it fully. “Because I think my elbow—” “Listen, fuck your elbow!” Kallorek blew up. Clay had forgotten how short the booker’s fuse was. That big toothy smile one moment, and the next …“It ain’t a spring, or a pond, or a godsdamned sea nymph’s bathtub. It’s a fucking pool. Just a pool! You swim around in it to relax.

Instead of putting a Band Aid on your cut finger, why not just amputate at the elbow? See, I’m a problem solver. I should go into politics.

Now I was the only one left. I thought about what I was going to say: Oh, hi there, I'm Thom. I just want to say what an honor it is to be a part of this prestigious team. A leader that wants to kick my ass, some bitchy girl with a major attitude problem, a geriatric precog, a guy who should probably be quarantined at the Center for Disease Control, and me, just your average, ordinary, gay teen superhero. Surely we're what the founding members had in mind when they banded together to form the world's premier superhero group. What's not to be excited about? "I'm Thom." I scratched a dry patch above my elbow. "I can heal things. Sometimes.

He got up. It was too early to go to bed; at least, he was not in the mood for it. He pined for a bit of amusement - something cheap and easy. A seat in the pictures, cigarettes, beer. Useless! No money to pay for any of them. He would read KING LEAR and forget this filthy century. Finally, however, it was THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES that he took from the mantelpiece. SHERLOCK HOLMES was his favorite of all books, because he knew it by heart. The oil in the lamp was giving out and it was getting beastly cold. Gordon dragged the quilt from his bed, wrapped it round his legs and sat down to read. His right elbow on the table, his hands under his coat to keep them warm, he read through "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." The little gas-mantle sighed above, the circular flame of the oil-lamp burned low, a thin bracket of fire, giving out no more heat than a candle.

She sat for a moment, feeling the rhythmic rattle of the train’s motion. “Does it ever bother you to be in his shadow, Wayne?” “Who? Wax? I mean, he’s been putting on weight, but he’s not that fat yet, is he?” He grinned, though that faded when she didn’t smile back. And, in an uncharacteristic moment of solemnity, he slid his boots off the table and rested one elbow on it instead, leaning toward her. “Nah,” he said after some thought. “Nah, it doesn’t. But I don’t care much if people look at me or not. Sometimes my life is easier if they ain’t looking at me, ya know? I like listening.

When we entered a classroom we always tossed our caps on the floor, to free our hands; as soon as we crossed the threshold we would throw them under the bench so hard that they struck the wall and raised a cloud of dust; this was "the way it should be done." But the new boy either failed to notice this maneuver or was too shy to perform it himself, for he was still holding his cap on his lap at the end of the prayer. It was a head-gear of composite nature, combining elements of the busby, the lancer cap, the round hat, the otter-skin cap and the cotton nightcap--one of those wretched things whose mute ugliness has great depths of expression, like an idiot's face. Egg-shaped and stiffened by whalebone, it began with three rounded bands, followed by alternating diamond-shaped patches of velvet and rabbit fur separated by a red stripe, and finally there was a kind of bag terminating in a cardboard-lined polygon covered with complicated braid. A network of gold wire was attached to the top of this polygon by a long, extremely thin cord, forming a kind of tassel. The cap was new; its visor was shiny. "Stand up," said the teacher. He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to laugh. He bent down and picked it up. A boy beside him knocked it down again with his elbow; he picked it up once again. "Will you please put your helmet away?" said the teacher, a witty man.

Dave and Serge...played the Fiddler's Elbow as if it were Giants Stadium, and even though it was acoustic, they just about blew the place up. They were standing on chairs adn lying on the floor, they were funny, they charmed everyone in the pub apart from an old drunk ditting next to the drum kit...who put his fingers firmly in his ears during Serge's extended harmonica solo. It was utterly bizarre and very moving: most musicians wouldn't have bothered turning up, let alone almost killing themselves. And I was reminded...how rarely one feels included in a live show. Usually you watch, and listen, and drift off, and the band plays well or doesn't and it doesn't matter much either way. It can actually be a very lonely experience. But I felt a part of the music, and a part of the people I'd gone with, and, to cut this short before the encores, I didn't want to read for about a fortnight afterward. I wanted to write, but I didn't want to read no book. I was too itchy, too energized, and if young people feel like that every night of the week, then, yes, literature 's dead as a dodo. (Nick's thoughts after seeing Marah at a little pub called Fiddler's Elbow.)

She's probably just tired of seeing you miserable.Like we all are," I add. "I'm sure...I'm sure she's as crazy about you as ever." "Hmm." He watches me put away my own shoes and empty the contents of my pockets. "What about you?" he asks, after a minute. "What about me?" St. Clair examines his watch. "Sideburns. You'll be seeing him next month." He's reestablishing...what? The boundary line? That he's taken, and I'm spoken for? Except I'm not. Not really. But I can't bear to say this now that he's mentioned Ellie. "Yeah,I can't wait to see him again. He's a funny guy, you'd like him.I'm gonna see his band play at Christmas. Toph's a great guy, you'd really like him. Oh. I already said that,didn't I? But you would. He's really...funny." Shut up,Anna. Shut.Up. St. Clair unbuckles and rebuckles and unbuckles his watchband. "I'm beat," I say. And it's the truth. As always, our conversation has exhausted me. I crawl into bed and wonder what he'll do.Lie on my floor? Go back to his room? But he places his watch on my desk and climbs onto my bed. He slides up next to me. He's on top of the covers, and I'm underneath. We're still fully dressed,minus our shoes, and the whole situation is beyond awkward. He hops up.I'm sure he's about to leave,and I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed,but...he flips off my light.My room is pitch-black. He shuffles back toward my bed and smacks into it. "Oof," he says. "Hey,there's a bed there." "Thanks for the warning." "No problem." "It's freezing in here.Do you have a fan on or something?" "It's the wind.My window won't shut all the way.I have a towel stuffed under it, but it doesn't really help." He pats his way around the bed and slides back in. "Ow," he says. "Yes?" "My belt.Would it be weird..." I'm thankful he can't see my blush. "Of course not." And I listen to the slap of leather as he pulls it out of his belt loops.He lays it gently on my hardwood floor. "Um," he says. "Would it be weird-" "Yes." "Oh,piss off.I'm not talking trousers. I only want under the blankets. That breeze is horrible." He slides underneath,and now we're lying side by side. In my narrow bed. Funny,but I never imagined my first sleepover with a guy being,well,a sleepover. "All we need now are Sixteen Candles and a game of Truth or Dare." He coughs. "Wh-what?" "The movie,pervert.I was just thinking it's been a while since I've had a sleepover." A pause. "Oh." "..." "..." "St. Clair?" "Yeah?" "Your elbow is murdering my back." "Bollocks.Sorry." He shifts,and then shifts again,and then again,until we're comfortable.One of his legs rests against mine.Despite the two layers of pants between us,I feel naked and vulnerable. He shifts again and now my entire leg, from calf to thigh, rests against his. I smell his hair. Mmm. NO! I swallow,and it's so loud.He coughs again. I'm trying not to squirm. After what feels like hours but is surely only minutes,his breath slows and his body relaxes.I finally begin to relax, too. I want to memorize his scent and the touch of his skin-one of his arms, now against mine-and the solidness os his body.No matter what happens,I'll remember this for the rest of my life. I study his profile.His lips,his nose, his eyelashes.He's so beautiful.

And under the cicadas, deeper down that the longest taproot, between and beneath the rounded black rocks and slanting slabs of sandstone in the earth, ground water is creeping. Ground water seeps and slides, across and down, across and down, leaking from here to there, minutely at a rate of a mile a year. What a tug of waters goes on! There are flings and pulls in every direction at every moment. The world is a wild wrestle under the grass; earth shall be moved. What else is going on right this minute while ground water creeps under my feet? The galaxy is careening in a slow, muffled widening. If a million solar systems are born every hour, then surely hundreds burst into being as I shift my weight to the other elbow. The sun’s surface is now exploding; other stars implode and vanish, heavy and black, out of sight. Meteorites are arcing to earth invisibly all day long. On the planet, the winds are blowing: the polar easterlies, the westerlies, the northeast and southeast trades. Somewhere, someone under full sail is becalmed, in the horse latitudes, in the doldrums; in the northland, a trapper is maddened, crazed, by the eerie scent of the chinook, the sweater, a wind that can melt two feet of snow in a day. The pampero blows, and the tramontane, and the Boro, sirocco, levanter, mistral. Lick a finger; feel the now. Spring is seeping north, towards me and away from me, at sixteen miles a day. Along estuary banks of tidal rivers all over the world, snails in black clusters like currants are gliding up and down the stems of reed and sedge, migrating every moment with the dip and swing of tides. Behind me, Tinker Mountain is eroding one thousandth of an inch a year. The sharks I saw are roving up and down the coast. If the sharks cease roving, if they still their twist and rest for a moment, they die. They need new water pushed into their gills; they need dance. Somewhere east of me, on another continent, it is sunset, and starlings in breathtaking bands are winding high in the sky to their evening roost. The mantis egg cases are tied to the mock-orange hedge; within each case, within each egg, cells elongate, narrow, and split; cells bubble and curve inward, align, harden or hollow or stretch. And where are you now?

I asked once before, do you always court trouble, Miss Click, or does it just seem tae follow you where’er you go?” She flushed. So word of her run-in with Hero McClary had reached the doctor as well. Her face grew pinker, not from his mention of the feud but from his intense scrutiny. She managed as calmly as she could, “As I told Colonel Barr, the matter is settled.” His eyes sparked. “Nae, no’ settled. Nothing is ever settled with a clan like the McClarys. It matters no’ that you’re a woman. It matters greatly that you live alone.” She swallowed, not taking her eyes from his, and saw the warning and concern in their blueness. Wearily, elbows on the table, she rested her face in her hands. Gently but firmly his fingers encircled her wrists like iron bands and brought them back down. “Look at me, Lael, and say that you’ll come tae the fort, just for the winter.” Lael. Lay-elle. In his Highland brogue, it sounded like no name she had ever heard, yet she bristled at his familiarity. Her resistance to the notion of forting up doubled. “Nay,” was all she said as she looked away. Releasing her, he looked down at the bowl of food Ma Horn had set before him. Did he find turnips and greens disagreeable fare? Or was he regretting saying her given name? In a few days’ time, “Miss Click” had changed to “Lael.” “I’d best be going,” she said but made no move to do so. “Nae . . . stay.

So what's going on with you and your boyfriend?" Eli asked me right before he shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth during breakfast the next morning. I made a face in the direction of my plate before shooting a glance upward to find Gordo’s eyes on me, a smirk on his face. "Mason?" I asked, going back to my food. Eli made a gagging noise, elbowing me hard in the ribs. "I'm not gonna go into details on how disturbing it is that I say ‘your boyfriend’ and you automatically think of fucking Mase." "He's always calling me his wife, or telling people I don't know that we're getting married," I replied, elbowing him back as hard as he got me. It was partially the truth… but mostly, I didn’t want to talk about the man who had been kissing my shoulder hours ago. "I love Mase, but it'll be a sunny day in my asshole before you and him get together," he mumbled. I snorted, biting into my biscuit. "Who the heck else would you be talking about?" I asked, but I knew. Oh, I knew damn well he was referring to Sacha. Freaking Gordo snickered from across the table before putting his hands up in surrender when I glared at him. "I didn’t say anything." "Sacha, Flabby. Sacha. Your boyfriend. Your snuggle bug." Eliza finally answered. Suddenly the half-eaten biscuit on my plate needed to be eaten immediately. I shoved the entire piece into my mouth to avoid the conversation my brother was trying to edge into. I'd had talks about boys with Eli in the past, and they never ended—or started—well. "There's nothing going on between us. We're just friends." Because we were. Eli made a noise that sounded like “hmmph” deep in his throat. It was incredulous and disbelieving. Then he asked the question to prove it, his attention back on his band mate. "Gordo, do you think I'm blind?" Gordo shook his head. "Gaby, do you think I'm blind?" he asked. "Not blind, just dumb.” I smiled. He shot me a frown. A moment later, he threw his arm over my shoulders and started shoving his plate away with his free hand. "Flabby Gaby, that kid is in love with you." In love. With me? I leaned forward and tried to sniff his breath. “Are you still drunk?” But my brother kept talking before I could keep going. "Anyone with eyes and ears knows that guy thinks you shit out Lucky Charms." Gordo and I burst out laughing. "Is that a good thing?" I asked him. Eliza shoved my face away with his palm, ignoring my commentary again. "And I think that you love him, too." The noise that came out of my mouth sounded like a hybrid “moo” and squawk at the same time. "I—,” I slammed my mouth shut before opening it again with a sputter. “What?

claque, aka canned laughter It’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s nothing new under the sun (a heavenly body, by the way, that some Indian ascetics stare at till they go blind). I knew that some things had a history—the Constitution, rhythm and blues, Canada—but it’s the odd little things that surprise me with their storied past. This first struck me when I was reading about anesthetics and I learned that, in the early 1840s, it became fashionable to hold parties where guests would inhale nitrous oxide out of bladders. In other words, Whip-it parties! We held the exact same kind of parties in high school. We’d buy fourteen cans of Reddi-Wip and suck on them till we had successfully obliterated a couple of million neurons and face-planted on my friend Andy’s couch. And we thought we were so cutting edge. And now, I learn about claque, which is essentially a highbrow French word for canned laughter. Canned laughter was invented long before Lucille Ball stuffed chocolates in her face or Ralph Kramden threatened his wife with extreme violence. It goes back to the 4th century B.C., when Greek playwrights hired bands of helpers to laugh at their comedies in order to influence the judges. The Romans also stacked the audience, but they were apparently more interested in applause than chuckles: Nero—emperor and wannabe musician—employed a group of five thousand knights and soldiers to accompany him on his concert tours. But the golden age of canned laughter came in 19th-century France. Almost every theater in France was forced to hire a band called a claque—from claquer, “to clap.” The influential claque leaders, called the chefs de claque, got a monthly payment from the actors. And the brilliant innovation they came up with was specialization. Each claque member had his or her own important job to perform: There were the rieurs, who laughed loudly during comedies. There were the bisseurs, who shouted for encores. There were the commissaires, who would elbow their neighbors and say, “This is the good part.” And my favorite of all, the pleureuses, women who were paid good francs to weep at the sad parts of tragedies. I love this idea. I’m not sure why the networks never thought of canned crying. You’d be watching an ER episode, and a softball player would come in with a bat splinter through his forehead, and you’d hear a little whimper in the background, turning into a wave of sobs. Julie already has trouble keeping her cheeks dry, seeing as she cried during the Joe Millionaire finale. If they added canned crying, she’d be a mess.

In order to conform to the current Empire style in fashion, the modiste had raised the waistline so that it fell just beneath Esme's small rounded breasts. Mrs. Benson had embellished further by adding a slender grosgrain ribbon there that matched the exact shade of tiny embroidered golden flowers scattered over the gown's ivory satin. Next she had shortened the sleeves so they were now small puffed caps edged against the arms with more narrow golden ribbon. As for the long length of material that had once run from shoulder to heel, she'd removed it and used the excess fabric to create a sweeping train that ended in a spectacular half circle that trailed after Esme as she walked. The entire hem was further enlivened by small appliquéd white lace rosettes, whose effect was nothing short of ethereal. On her feet, Esme wore a soft pair of ivory satin slippers with gold and diamond buckles that had been a last-minute gift from Mallory and Adam. On her hands were long white silk gloves that ended just above her elbows; her lustrous dark hair was pinned and styled in an elaborate upsweep with a few soft curls left to brush in dainty wisps against her forehead and cheeks. Carefully draped over head was a waist-length veil of the finest Brussels lace, which had been another present, this one from Claire, and in her hands she held creamy pink hothouse roses and crisp green holly leaves banded together inside a wide white satin ribbon.

I’m supposed to spread my fingers as wide as they were with the rubber band, mash my palms hard into the floor, and pull myself down. When I do, I surprise even myself when my elbows straighten with barely any effort.

At the unexpected sight of Spence, Colbie startled hard. How was it that he was the one who needed glasses and yet she’d not seen him standing against the window? “No, I don’t kill a lot of people,” she said cautiously because she was wearing only a towelin front of a strange man. “But I’m happy to make an exception.” He laughed, a rough rumble that was more than a little contagious but she controlled herself because, hello, she was once again dripping wet before the man who seemed to make her knees forget to hold her up. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said and pushed off the wall to come close. She froze, but he held up his hands like, I come in peace, and crouched at her feet to scoop up the clothes she hadn’t realized she’d dropped. Leggings, a long forgiving tee, and the peach silk bra-and-panty set that hadn’t gotten so much as a blink from the TSA guy. But it got one out of Spence. He also swallowed hard as she snatched them back from him. “Hold on,” he said and caught her arm, pulling it toward him to look at her bleeding elbow. “Sit,” he said and gently pushed her down to a weight bench. He vanished into the bathroom and came back out with a first aid kit. It took him less than two minutes to clean and bandage the scrape. Then, easily balanced at her side on the balls of his feet, he did the same for both her knees, which she hadn’t noticed were also scraped up. “You must’ve hit the brick coping as you fell in the fountain,” he said and let his thumb slide over the skin just above one bandaged knee. She shivered, and not from the cold either. “Not going to kiss it better?” she heard herself ask before biting her tongue for running away with her good sense. She’d raised her younger twin brothers. Scrappy, roughhouse wild animals, the both of them, so there’d been plenty of injuries she’d kissed over the years. But no one had ever kissed hers. Not surprising, since most of her injuries tended to be on the inside, where they didn’t show. Still, she was horrified she’d said anything at all. “I didn’t mean—” She broke off, frozen like a deer in the headlights as Spence slowly lowered his head, brushing his lips over the Band-Aid on her elbow, then her knees. When he lifted his head, he pushed his glasses higher on his nose, those whiskey eyes warm and amused behind his lenses. “Better?” Shockingly better. Since she didn’t quite trust her voice at the moment, she gave a jerky nod and took her clothes back into the bathroom. She shut the door and then leaned against it, letting out a slow, deliberate breath. Holy cow, she was out of her league. He was somehow both cute and hot, and those glasses .

Reaching the brow of a stunted hill, Amelia paused in bewilderment at the sight of a towering contraption made of metal. It appeared to be a chute propped up on legs, tilted at a steep angle. Her attention was caught by a minor commotion farther afield … two men emerging from behind a small wooden shelter … they were shouting and waving their arms at her. Amelia instantly realized she had stumbled into danger, even before she saw the smoldering trail of sparks move, snakelike, along the ground toward the metal chute. A fuse? Although she didn’t know much about explosive devices, she was aware that once a fuse had been lit, nothing could be done to stop it. Dropping to the sun-warmed grass, Amelia covered her head with her arms, having every expectation of being blown to bits. A few heartbeats passed, and she let out a startled cry as she felt a large, heavy body fall on hers … no, not fall, pounce. He covered her completely, his knees digging into the ground on either side of her as he made a shelter of his body. At the same moment, a deafening explosion pierced the air, and there was a violent whoosh over their heads, and a shock went through the ground beneath them. Too stunned to move, Amelia tried to gather her wits. Her ears were filled with a high-pitched buzz. Her companion remained motionless over her, breathing heavily in her hair. The air was sharp with smoke, but even so, Amelia was aware of a pleasant masculine scent, skin-salt and soap and an intimate spice she couldn’t quite identify. The noise in her ears faded. Raising up on her elbows, feeling the solid wall of his chest against her back, she saw shirtsleeves rolled up over forearms cabled with muscle … and there was something else … Her eyes widened at the sight of a small, stylized design inked on his arm. A tattoo of a black winged horse with eyes the color of brimstone. It was an Irish design, of a nightmare horse called a pooka: a malevolent mythical creature that spoke in a human voice and carried people away at midnight. Her heart stopped as she saw the heavy rounded band of a thumb ring. Wriggling beneath him, Amelia tried to turn over. The strong hand curved around her shoulder, helping her. His voice was low and familiar. “Are you hurt? I’m sorry. You were in the way of—” He stopped as Amelia rolled to her back. The front of her hair had come loose, pulled free of a strategically anchored pin. The lock fanned over her face, obscuring her vision. Before she could reach up to push it away, he did it for her, and the brush of his fingertips sent ripples of liquid fire along intimate pathways of her body. “You,” he said softly. Cam Rohan.

Matthew, mentioned you.” “He did?” Leni said. Don’t smile so big. What a dork. Geneva Walker slipped in beside her husband. “Hey,” she said, smiling at Cora. “I see you’ve met my husband.” “Ex.” Tom Walker put his arm around Geneva, pulled her close. “I love the woman like air, but I can’t live with her.” “Can’t live without me, either.” Geneva smiled, cocked her head to the left. “That’s my main squeeze over there. Calhoun Malvey. He doesn’t love me as much as Tom does, but he likes me a helluva lot better. And he doesn’t snore.” She elbowed Mr. Walker in the side playfully. “I hear you guys aren’t too well prepared,” Mr. Walker said to Dad. “You’re going to have to learn fast. Don’t be afraid to ask me for help. I’m always up for it. Anything you need to borrow, I have.” Leni heard something in Dad’s “Thanks” that put her on alert. He sounded irritated all of a sudden. Offended. Mama heard it, too; she glanced worriedly at him. Mad Earl stumbled forward. He was wearing a T-shirt that read I’VE BEEN FISHING SO LONG I’M A MASTER BAITER. He grinned drunkenly, swayed side to side, stumbled. “You offering Ernt help, Big Tom? That’s mighty white of you. Sorta like King John offerin’ to help his poor serfs. Maybe your friend the governor can help ya out.” “Good Lord, Earl, not again,” Geneva said. “Let’s play some music. Ernt, can you play an instrument?” “Guitar,” Dad said. “But I sold—” “Great!” Geneva said, taking him by the arm, pulling him away from Mad Earl and toward Large Marge and the makeshift band gathered at the beach. She handed Dad the guitar Mr. Walker had put down. Mad Earl stumbled over to the fire and retrieved his crockery jug. Leni wondered if Mama knew how beautiful she looked, standing there in her form-fitting pants, with