Episode Best Quotes

The book is almost always better than the movie. You could have no better case in point than FROM HELL, Alan Moore's best graphic novel to date, brilliantly illustrated by Eddie Campbell. It's hard to describe just how much better the book is. It's like, "If the movie was an episode of Battlestar Galactica with a guest appearance by the Smurfs and everyone spoke Dutch, the graphic novel is Citizen Kane with added sex scenes and music by your favourite ten bands and everyone in the world you ever hated dies at the end." That's how much better it is.

Along those lines, to get personal for a moment, I think the best way to die would be swallowed by a giant snake. Going feet first and whole into a slimy maw would give your life perfect symmetry.

This story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it. It is a story of love and loss, brotherhood and betrayal, courage and sacrifice and the death of dreams. It is a story of the blurred line between our best and our worst. It is the story of the end of an age. A strange thing about stories— Though this all happened so long ago and so far away that words cannot describe the time or the distance, it is also happening right now. Right here. It is happening as you read these words. This is how twenty-five millennia come to a close. Corruption and treachery have crushed a thousand years of peace. This is not just the end of a republic; night is falling on civilization itself. This is the twilight of the Jedi. The end starts now.

Decisions to start a war always come down to what is in the best interests of the powerful few.

In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all of its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves. Unlike your experiencing self—which is absorbed in the moment—your remembering self is attempting to recognize not only the peaks of joy and valleys of misery but also how the story works out as a whole. That is profoundly affected by how things ultimately turn out. Why would a football fan let a few flubbed minutes at the end of the game ruin three hours of bliss? Because a football game is a story. And in stories, endings matter. Yet we also recognize that the experiencing self should not be ignored. The peak and the ending are not the only things that count. In favoring the moment of intense joy over steady happiness, the remembering self is hardly always wise. “An inconsistency is built into the design of our minds,” Kahneman observes. “We have strong preferences about the duration of our experiences of pain and pleasure. We want pain to be brief and pleasure to last. But our memory … has evolved to represent the most intense moment of an episode of pain or pleasure (the peak) and the feelings when the episode was at its end. A memory that neglects duration will not serve our preference for long pleasure and short pains.” When our time is limited and we are uncertain about how best to serve our priorities, we are forced to deal with the fact that both the experiencing self and the remembering self matter. We do not want to endure long pain and short pleasure. Yet certain pleasures can make enduring suffering worthwhile. The peaks are important, and so is the ending.

To me, the whole episode was about what happens when a public official becomes obsessed with ideology and forgets that the chessboard on which he is playing out his strategy is, to a great many people, their own life story. Good policy, like good literature, takes personal lived experience as its starting point. At its best, the practice of politics is about taking steps that support people in daily life—or tearing down obstacles that get in their way. Much of the confusion and complication of ideological battles might be washed away if we held our focus on the lives that will be made better, or worse, by political decisions, rather than on the theoretical elegance of the policies or the character of the politicians themselves.

This episode isn't about spiders. Nor owls. It's about looking at something and thinking you understand what it is. It's about assuming the best of what you see only to find out quite suddenly that it is the worst. This kind of misunderstanding has always been, to me, the most compelling kind of horror. The StrexPet here is that issue of Zoobooks.

At best, I consider flying an unavoidable necessity, a time to resurrect forgotten prayers and contemplate the end of all joy in a twisted howling heap of machinery; at worst, I rank it right up there with psychotic episodes and torture at the hands of malevolent strangers.

Strexcorp: The best in the business. In the business of being the best. Think deeply about meadows. Meadows are important. Think deeply about meadows. Meadows are important. Think deeply about meadows. Meadows are important. Strexcorp: Think deeply about meadows. Meadows are important.

She asserted that the best fictional detail was a chosen detail, not a remembered one - for fictional truth was not only the truth of observation, which was the truth of mere journalism. The best fictional detail was the detail that should have defined the character or the episode or the atmosphere. Fictional truth was what should have happened in a story - not necessarily what did happen or what had happened.

People say the beach is the great equaliser Who are they kidding? Sit at Bondi and watch the boys flex And the girls walk bolt upright It looks like a nightmare episode of Baywatch. The true equaliser is the mountain cold And stacks of cold flung together Maybe then we’d listen to what each other is saying Instead of checking out the best bods. And as I wrap another layer Around my Size 10 I think of Jack’s favourite saying: “today’s tan is tomorrow’s cancer” I walk outside And whistle at the wind.

But it appears that I am willing to put up with many things for the sake of Jamie Watson. He is fond of watching old episodes of The X-Files, which is, to the best of my understanding, a show about a rather appallingly dumb man who is nevertheless very attractive, and aliens.

Christians best thrive as a minority, a counterculture. Historically, when they reach a majority they too have yielded to the temptations of power in ways that are clearly anti-gospel. Charlemagne ordered a death penalty for all Saxons who would not convert, and in 1492 Spain decreed that all Jews convert to Christianity or be expelled. British Protestants in Ireland once imposed a stiff fine on anyone who did not attend church and deputies forcibly dragged Catholics into Protestant churches. Priests in the American West sometimes chained Indians to church pews to enforce church attendance. After many such episodes in Christendom it became clear that religion allied too closely to the state leads to the abuse of power. Much of the current hostility against Christians evokes the memory of such examples. The blending of church and state may work for a time but it inevitably provokes a backlash, such as that seen in secular Europe today.

Meanwhile, on the Dearth Star... (Yum, yum, yum, yum, YUM-YUM, yum, YUM-YUM...)

This story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it. It is a story of love and loss, brotherhood and betrayal, courage and sacrifice and the death of dreams. It is a story of the blurred line between our best and our worst. It is the story of the end of an age. A strange thing about stories— Though this all happened so long ago and so far away that words cannot describe the time or the distance, it is also happening right now. Right here. It is happening as you read these words. This is how twenty-five millennia come to a close. Corruption and treachery have crushed a thousand years of peace. This is not just the end of a republic; night is falling on civilization itself. This is the twilight of the Jedi. The end starts now.

Thirty minutes before sundown, they completed digging and packing their shelter in the snow. With the tarp secured over it, Ryan could only hope it would be enough to shelter them from the cold. He’d watched enough survival shows to know how to navigate down a snowy mountain, and he knew the best way to live through an avalanche, but he’d be damned if he could recall an episode that taught him how to fend off man-eating hellions in knee-deep powder.

What the above examples reveal is not a man prone to the faux pas, but a gentleman—strictly defined, by Hitchens, as “someone who is never rude except on purpose.” A spectacular instance of his gentlemanliness occurred during an appearance on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. Unlike most guests, Hitchens did not try to flatter or pacify the audience. Instead, after being booed and jeered for pointing out the horrors of a nuclear Iran, he raised his middle finger and pointed it at them, while intoning, “Fuck you! Fuck you!” What this little episode demonstrated was not only his indifference to crowd opinion—impressive in itself—but also his binary nature: He has a large mind and a big mouth—neither of which ever seems to be closed. Whereas

Back at home, I caught up on TV shows Bill had been saving. We raced through old episodes of The Good Wife, Madam Secretary, Blue Bloods, and NCIS: Los Angeles, which Bill insists is the best of the franchise. I also finally saw the last season of Downton Abbey.

If you look closely at episodes during Season 1, you can see her writing checks. I used to worry someone would pause their TV, zoom in, and steal her account and routing numbers. (This probably isn’t possible, but that’s how my brain works. I have a little Dwight in me. That’s what she said.)

CHRIS PRATT (ANDY DWYER): Chris had the best audition I had ever seen. No one knew his work and he came in and crushed. He is a comedy savant and a natural actor in a way I have never really seen. Each take is different and hilarious and completely unexpected. His character was only supposed to be on the show for six episodes, which seems ridiculous now.

LOST is often lauded as one of the best fantasy dramas in television history, as well as one of the most cryptic and - occasionally – maddening. But confirmation of just how important it is came with an almost unbelievable communiqué from the White House last week. President Obama’s office reassured Lost fans that the commander in chief wouldn’t move his yearly state of the union address from late January to a date that would coincide with the premiere episode of the show’s sixth and final season. That’s right. Obama might have had vital information to impart upon the American people about health care, the war in Afghanistan, the financial crisis – things that, you know, might affect real lives. But the most important thing was that his address didn’t clash with a series in which a polar bear appears on a tropical island. After extensive lobbying by the ABC network, the White House surrendered. Obama’s press secretary promised: “I don’t foresee a scenario in which millions of people who hope to finally get some conclusion with Lost are pre-empted by the president.

It had been sort of a strange episode, but she didn’t regret it. That trip to Old Barrons Road had shaken something loose. Idlewild had always loomed silently in the back of her mind, a dark part of her mental landscape. She’d done her best not to talk about it for twenty years, but talking about it out loud now was like bloodletting, painful and somehow necessary at the same time.

Many of us get anxious in test-taking situations regardless of our intelligence, preparation, or familiarity with the material. One of the reasons test anxiety is so common is that it is relatively easy to trigger. Even one episode of heightened anxiety is sufficient for us to feel intensely anxious when facing a similar situation in the future. Test anxiety is especially problematic because it causes massive disruptions to our concentration, our focus, and our ability to think clearly, all of which have a huge impact on our performance. As a rule, anxiety tends to be extremely greedy when it comes to our concentration and attention. The visceral discomfort it creates can be so distracting, and the intellectual resources it hogs so critical, that we might struggle to comprehend the nuances of questions, retrieve the relevant information from our memory, formulate answers coherently, or choose the best option from a multiple-choice list. As an illustration of how dramatic its effects are, anxiety can cause us to score fifteen points lower than we would otherwise on a basic IQ test—a hugely significant margin that can drop a score from the Superior to the Average range.

Recently, I watched an episode of The Big Bang Theory. One of the characters, Howard—an astrophysicist—is in space. His new bride, Bernadette, convinces him that it would be best if they lived by themselves when he comes back to earth and not with his loud, annoying mother. Howard agrees. He’s too scared to take ownership of the decision, so he pitches it to his mother like it was his wife’s idea. The mother yells so loud, she barely needs any equipment to be heard in space. Howard dutifully tells her that he will convince Bernadette and they’ll live with her. When Bernadette calls, he doesn’t have the, er, balls, to tell her the truth either. So he tells her all is well with the move. His counterpart, a Russian astronaut, cannot believe his country lost the Cold War to wusses like Howard. When he asks him what he plans to do, Howard has only one option. He’ll stay in space. Earth is where there are problems between his wife and mother. He’s safe in space. He’s not the only one. The world is full of conflicted husbands wishing they could be in space and

FURIOUS FAVOR I wonder if David would be allowed in our churches today. In most cases, when a church member has an affair, he is shunned at best or mistreated at worst—even if he repents. But David doesn’t just have an affair. He lusts, covets, fornicates, lies, and gets another man hammered. Then he tries to keep his dirty little secrets by murdering the husband of the woman he “loves.” I doubt I’ve met anyone as sinful as David. Have you? He breaks half of the Ten Commandments in a single episode. And he doesn’t repent until he’s caught. But when Nathan shoves his prophetic finger into David’s chest and rebukes him, David falls to his knees and admits his guilt. And right then, at that moment, God rips open the heavens to reach down and touch David’s soul with stubborn delight. God eagerly forgives David for his sin, and all of it is buried at the bottom of the sea, never to be remembered again. There is no hiccup in God’s furious favor toward David. So why do repentant sinners still bear the stigma of “adulterer,” “divorced,” or “addict” in our churches today? It’s one thing if they don’t repent. But quite often we shun repentant sinners, like Jeffrey Dahmer, whose crimes we just can’t forget. “He’s the former addict.” “That’s the divorced mom.” “Here comes the guy who slept with the church secretary.” For some reason we love to define people by the sin in their lives—even past sin in their lives—rather than by the grace that forgave it. It’s no wonder that David pens the last sentence in Psalm 23: “Surely goodness and mercy shall [hunt me down] all the days of my life” (Ps. 23:6).

The pain of heartache often comes in unpredictable episodes of intense pain that come and go. These episodes are called grief “spasms”—you feel overwhelmed by your sense of sorrow. You may hurt physically and feel like you have the flu. Consumed by your own pain and situation,you feel disconnected to everyone else and life takes on a surreal, hazy quality. Stumbling through each day, you feel taxed by the most mundane tasks. All you can think about is how much you hurt. The intensity of your feelings may frighten you, but this is normal. You’re not losing control; you’re not going crazy. You are grieving.

Bartky’s theory is concerned with the consciousness or knowledge women can develop about sexist injustice. She draws what may appear to be an esoteric distinction between benighted victims, who do not recognize that they or others are being victimized, and knowing victims, who recognize the workings of injustice in their own lives and in the world. Yet this distinction is compelling as it situates experiences of victimization as sources of knowledge about power and ethics, rather than as mere individual episodes that are best downplayed or forgotten, yielding nothing of value for political and ethical reflection.

For more than two hundred years, on the topic of human population, a disturbingly vicious thread has run through Western history, basing itself on biology and justifying cruelty on an almost unimaginable scale. When I began researching this book I thought of Malthusian theory, eugenics, Nazi genocide and modern population control as separate and distinct episodes in human history. I am no longer so sure. I think there is some persuasive evidence that a direct, if meandering, intellectual thread links the Poor Laws, the Irish famine, the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the one-child policies of Beijing. In all cases, cruelty as policy, based on faulty logic, sprang from a belief that those in power knew best what was good for the vulnerable and weak.

This embarrassing episode remains one of the most instructive experiences of my professional life. I eventually learned three lessons from it. The first was immediately apparent: I had stumbled onto a distinction between two profoundly different approaches to forecasting, which Amos and I later labeled the inside view and the outside view. The second lesson was that our initial forecasts of about two years for the completion of the project exhibited a planning fallacy. Our estimates were closer to a best-case scenario than to a realistic assessment. I was slower to accept the third lesson, which I call irrational perseverance: the folly we displayed that day in failing to abandon the project. Facing a choice, we gave up rationality rather than give up the enterprise.

No attempt should be made to "reconcile" Yahweh's hardening of Pharaoh's heart (plagues 6,8,9,10) with statements in the other plagues that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. The tension cannot be resolved in a facile manner by suggesting, for example, that Pharaoh has already demonstrated his recalcitrance, so Yahweh merely helps the process along, or that he is doing what Pharaoh would have done on his own anyway. Rather, 9:12 is a striking reminder of what God has been trying to teach Moses and Israel since the beginning of the Exodus episode: He is in complete control. However Pharaoh might have reacted is given the chance is not brought into the discussion. He is not even given that chance. Yahweh hardens his heart. It is best to allow the tension of the text to remain.

One day I was watching the cartoon She-Ra, and the episode that was on was called ‘She-Ra and the Mighty Rebellions.’ At that time, the gang was already formed and was on the move. We were already getting involved in territory fights. This was when the Syndicates was out [the Syndicates was the first street gang ever to be established in The Bahamas; however, they were put out of business by the Rebellions]. One day we were on the wall, and guys were throwing out different names. I told them that the best name for this gang would be the Rebellions. To this day, I’m sorry I ever came up with that name, because I’m getting tired of seeing that name on the walls throughout Nassau. Anthony ‘Ada’ Allen, one of the former leaders and founders of the Rebellion Raiders street gang.

My studio team and I approached the creation of this series with enthusiasm, wit, sincerity and sometimes more than a dash of humour. Is the result just another foray into the clichés of Orientalism? I think not. For the most part the people photographed became co-conspirators in our elaborate game of recreating reality. They enjoyed chai with us and a morning samosa (we most always shoot in the early morning since it is the best time to utilize available light). Our models were indeed “posed and paid”, but they cooperated by suggesting so many things themselves… eagerly grasping the process we were undertaking and joining in the creation of what generally became more than just a photo shoot. Each session in the studio became an “event”…an episode of manufactured expression in which all participated and all remembered.

I hope you'll make mistakes. If you make mistakes, it means you're out there doing something. I escaped from school as soon as I could, when the prospect of four more years of enforced learning before I could become the writer I wanted to be, seemed stifling. I got out into the world, I wrote, and I became a better writer the more I wrote, and I wrote some more, and nobody ever seemed to mind that I was making it all up as I went along. They just read what I wrote and they paid me for it or they didn't. The nearest thing I had, was a list I made when I was about 15, of everything I wanted to do. I wanted to write an adult novel, a children's book, a comic, a movie, record an audio-book, write an episode of Doctor Who, and so on. I didn't have a career, I just did the next thing on the list. When you start out in the arts, you have no idea what you're doing. This is great. People who know what they're doing, know the rules, and they know what is possible and what is impossible. You do not, and you should not. The rules on what is possible and impossible in the arts, were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible, by going beyond them, and you can. If you don't know it's impossible, it's easier to do, and because nobody's done it before, they haven't made up rules to stop anyone doing that particular thing again. That's much harder than it sounds, and sometimes, in the end, so much easier than you might imagine, because normally, there are things you have to do before you can get to the place you want to be. When you start out, you have to deal with the problems of failure. You need to be thick-skinned. The things I did because I was excited and wanted to see them exist in reality have never let me down, and I've never regretted the time I spent on any of them. If you have an idea of what you want to make, what you were put here to do, then just go and do that, whether you're a musician or a photographer, a fine artist, or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, singer, a designer, whatever you do, you have one thing that's unique, you have the ability to make art. For me, for so many of the people I've known, that's been a lifesaver the ultimate lifesaver. It gets you through good times, and it gets you through the other ones. The one thing that you have, that nobody else has, is you! Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw, and build, and play, and dance and live, as only you can. Do what only you can do best, make good art.

Go to your desk on Monday morning and write about some event that’s still vivid in your memory. It doesn’t have to be long—three pages, five pages—but it should have a beginning and an end. Put that episode in a folder and get on with your life. On Tuesday morning, do the same thing. Tuesday’s episode doesn’t have to be related to Monday’s episode. Take whatever memory comes calling; your subconscious mind, having been put to work, will start delivering your past. Keep this up for two months, or three months, or six months. Don’t be impatient to start writing your “memoir”—the one you had in mind before you began. Then, one day, take all your entries out of their folder and spread them on the floor. (The floor is often a writer’s best friend.) Read them through and see what they tell you and what patterns emerge. They will tell you what your memoir is about—and what it’s not about.

Jase and I asked Mia what she wanted to do before her surgery. “How about a family party?” she suggested. So the invitation went out. It’s interesting when you mention to family members that they are going to be on TV--schwoom, they are there. As Willie said, “I didn’t know we had this much family.” Mia had always heard the funny stories about Jase wrestling with his brothers and cousins growing up, particularly how cousin Amy beat up Willie, so that’s what she requested for the special entertainment. As Jase said, “It’s the ultimate redneck dinner theater.” A wrestling ring was delivered, and the warmup act was the Robertson boys clowning around, performing their best wrestling moves. Willie surprised everyone with guest professional wrestlers, including Jase’s favorite, “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan. I felt kind of bad for them, wearing only their little wrestling pants, while the rest of us were bundled up in winter coats. Yes, it was January, but it was unusually cold in Louisiana--about twenty degrees. The wrestlers had to keep moving fast; otherwise, they would have frozen to death! At the end of the party, Mia took the stage between Jase and Willie, thanking everyone for coming and then sharing from her heart: “My favorite verse is Psalm 46:10: ‘Be still, and know that I am God!’ God is bigger than all of us, and He is bigger than any of your struggles, too.” I think I can say that there was hardly a dry eye in the crowd. Going into her surgery, Mia was being brave for all of us. In the end, seeing the final version of the episode, I thought the network did a great job of including enough humor to make people laugh but also providing a tender glimpse into the love our family shares with one another and the love we all have for Mia. When Duck Dynasty fans saw it on March 26, 2014, they agreed completely!

All 250 + episodes to date can be found at tim.blog/ podcast and itunes.com/ timferriss Jamie Foxx on Workout Routines, Success Habits, and Untold Hollywood Stories (# 124)—tim.blog/ jamie The Scariest Navy SEAL I’ve Ever Met . . . and What He Taught Me (# 107)—tim.blog/ jocko Arnold Schwarzenegger on Psychological Warfare (and Much More) (# 60)—tim.blog/ arnold Dom D’Agostino on Fasting, Ketosis, and the End of Cancer (# 117)—tim.blog/ dom2 Tony Robbins on Morning Routines, Peak Performance, and Mastering Money (# 37)—tim.blog/ tony How to Design a Life—Debbie Millman (# 214)—tim.blog/ debbie Tony Robbins—On Achievement Versus Fulfillment (# 178)—tim.blog/ tony2 Kevin Rose (# 1)—tim.blog/ kevinrose [If you want to hear how bad a first episode can be, this delivers. Drunkenness didn’t help matters.] Charles Poliquin on Strength Training, Shredding Body Fat, and Increasing Testosterone and Sex Drive (# 91)—tim.blog/ charles Mr. Money Mustache—Living Beautifully on $ 25–27K Per Year (# 221)—tim.blog/ mustache Lessons from Warren Buffett, Bobby Fischer, and Other Outliers (# 219)—tim.blog/ buffett Exploring Smart Drugs, Fasting, and Fat Loss—Dr. Rhonda Patrick (# 237)—tim.blog/ rhonda 5 Morning Rituals That Help Me Win the Day (# 105)—tim.blog/ rituals David Heinemeier Hansson: The Power of Being Outspoken (# 195)—tim.blog/ dhh Lessons from Geniuses, Billionaires, and Tinkerers (# 173)—tim.blog/ chrisyoung The Secrets of Gymnastic Strength Training (# 158)—tim.blog/ gst Becoming the Best Version of You (# 210)—tim.blog/ best The Science of Strength and Simplicity with Pavel Tsatsouline (# 55)—tim.blog/ pavel Tony Robbins (Part 2) on Morning Routines, Peak Performance, and Mastering Money (# 38)—tim.blog/ tony How Seth Godin Manages His Life—Rules, Principles, and Obsessions (# 138)—tim.blog/ seth The Relationship Episode: Sex, Love, Polyamory, Marriage, and More (with Esther Perel) (# 241)—tim.blog/ esther The Quiet Master of Cryptocurrency—Nick Szabo (# 244)—tim.blog/ crypto Joshua Waitzkin (# 2)—tim.blog/ josh The Benevolent Dictator of the Internet, Matt Mullenweg (# 61)—tim.blog/ matt Ricardo Semler—The Seven-Day Weekend and How to Break the Rules (# 229)—tim.blog/ ricardo

Long, long ago in the days when gods appeared to men... Bread fell down from heaven. Some lamented loudly that the bread was not meat. Meat fell down from heaven. Some lamented loudly that they preferred the bread. God came down from heaven. He will make water fall down for a time, until everyone knows what will make them happy. Rain fell down from heaven. Everyone lamented loudly that their clothing became wet. Flames fell from heaven. Everyone lamented loudly that their houses had been burned. God came down from heaven. He will make nothing fall from heaven, until everyone knows what will make them happy. Nothing fell down from heaven. Some lamented loudly that God had forsaken them. All manner of things fell down from heaven. Some lamented loudly that God should be more selective in what he sent. Boulders rained down from heaven. Now the lamentations finally ceased. Rain fell down from heaven. passing travelers expressed their gratitude. "God, we thank thee for the unexpected weather. Now we can carry on our long journey and enjoy the break from the monotony." God saw them off without a word. As it should be. Gods and dice are best when silent.

On the sixth of September, 1901, President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz at Buffalo. Immediately an unprecedented campaign of persecution was set in motion against Emma Goldman as the best known Anarchist in the country. Although there was absolutely no foundation for the accusation, she, together with other prominent Anarchists, was arrested in Chicago, kept in confinement for several weeks, and subjected to severest cross-examination. Never before in the history of the country had such a terrible man-hunt taken place against a person in public life. But the efforts of police and press to connect Emma Goldman with Czolgosz proved futile. Yet the episode left her wounded to the heart. The physical suffering, the humiliation and brutality at the hands of the police she could bear. The depression of soul was far worse. She was overwhelmed by realization of the stupidity, lack of understanding, and vileness which characterized the events of those terrible days. The attitude of misunderstanding on the part of the majority of her own comrades toward Czolgosz almost drove her to desperation. Stirred to the very inmost of her soul, she published an article on Czolgosz in which she tried to explain the deed in its social and individual aspects.

Crying is therapeutic Most people can relate to the calming and stress reducing effect of a “good cry.” Grieving children should be supported in their need to cry. Unfortunately, children sometimes suppress their tears, thinking that they can control their pain if they control their crying. Parents may find their child’s pain very stressful or threatening and may therefore knowingly or unknowingly suppress natural expressions of grief. They may try to distract the child by promising a treat if he stops crying; cutting the feelings short (“Hush, hush”); minimizing the feelings (“You’re OK now”); contradicting his reality (“You’re going to love it here”); criticizing (“Stop making such a fuss”); embarrassing (“You’re too big to act like such a baby”); or threatening (“Stop it right now or I’ll give you something to cry about”). Crying should be supported with empathy and nurturing. It might be helpful to say something like, “I can tell that you are feeling very bad. Maybe it is because we were just looking at pictures of Nana, and you’re thinking about her now and missing her. Let’s sit here together for a while and I’ll rub your back.” Don’t rush the toddler’s grief before she is ready to let go of it. When the crying has subsided, offer a cold glass of juice or a walk outside. Often, children are more receptive to being cuddled, making eye contact, and other attachment strategies after an episode of acute sadness.

Thrasher" They were hiding behind hay bales, They were planting in the full moon They had given all they had for something new But the light of day was on them, They could see the thrashers coming And the water shone like diamonds in the dew. And I was just getting up, hit the road before it's light Trying to catch an hour on the sun When I saw those thrashers rolling by, Looking more than two lanes wide I was feelin' like my day had just begun. Where the eagle glides ascending There's an ancient river bending Down the timeless gorge of changes Where sleeplessness awaits I searched out my companions, Who were lost in crystal canyons When the aimless blade of science Slashed the pearly gates. It was then I knew I'd had enough, Burned my credit card for fuel Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand With a one-way ticket to the land of truth And my suitcase in my hand How I lost my friends I still don't understand. They had the best selection, They were poisoned with protection There was nothing that they needed, Nothing left to find They were lost in rock formations Or became park bench mutations On the sidewalks and in the stations They were waiting, waiting. So I got bored and left them there, They were just deadweight to me Better down the road without that load Brings back the time when I was eight or nine I was watchin' my mama's T.V., It was that great Grand Canyon rescue episode. Where the vulture glides descending On an asphalt highway bending Thru libraries and museums, galaxies and stars Down the windy halls of friendship To the rose clipped by the bullwhip The motel of lost companions Waits with heated pool and bar. But me I'm not stopping there, Got my own row left to hoe Just another line in the field of time When the thrasher comes, I'll be stuck in the sun Like the dinosaurs in shrines But I'll know the time has come To give what's mine. Neil Young, Rust Never Sleeps (1979)

Early on it is clear that Addie has a rebellious streak, joining the library group and running away to Rockport Lodge. Is Addie right to disobey her parents? Where does she get her courage? 2. Addie’s mother refuses to see Celia’s death as anything but an accident, and Addie comments that “whenever I heard my mother’s version of what happened, I felt sick to my stomach.” Did Celia commit suicide? How might the guilt that Addie feels differ from the guilt her mother feels? 3. When Addie tries on pants for the first time, she feels emotionally as well as physically liberated, and confesses that she would like to go to college (page 108). How does the social significance of clothing and hairstyle differ for Addie, Gussie, and Filomena in the book? 4. Diamant fills her narrative with a number of historical events and figures, from the psychological effects of World War I and the pandemic outbreak of influenza in 1918 to child labor laws to the cultural impact of Betty Friedan. How do real-life people and events affect how we read Addie’s fictional story? 5. Gussie is one of the most forward-thinking characters in the novel; however, despite her law degree she has trouble finding a job as an attorney because “no one would hire a lady lawyer.” What other limitations do Addie and her friends face in the workforce? What limitations do women and minorities face today? 6. After distancing herself from Ernie when he suffers a nervous episode brought on by combat stress, Addie sees a community of war veterans come forward to assist him (page 155). What does the remorse that Addie later feels suggest about the challenges American soldiers face as they reintegrate into society? Do you think soldiers today face similar challenges? 7. Addie notices that the Rockport locals seem related to one another, and the cook Mrs. Morse confides in her sister that, although she is usually suspicious of immigrant boarders, “some of them are nicer than Americans.” How does tolerance of the immigrant population vary between city and town in the novel? For whom might Mrs. Morse reserve the term Americans? 8. Addie is initially drawn to Tessa Thorndike because she is a Boston Brahmin who isn’t afraid to poke fun at her own class on the women’s page of the newspaper. What strengths and weaknesses does Tessa’s character represent for educated women of the time? How does Addie’s description of Tessa bring her reliability into question? 9. Addie’s parents frequently admonish her for being ungrateful, but Addie feels she has earned her freedom to move into a boardinghouse when her parents move to Roxbury, in part because she contributed to the family income (page 185). How does the Baum family’s move to Roxbury show the ways Betty and Addie think differently from their parents about household roles? Why does their father take such offense at Herman Levine’s offer to house the family? 10. The last meaningful conversation between Addie and her mother turns out to be an apology her mother meant for Celia, and for a moment during her mother’s funeral Addie thinks, “She won’t be able to make me feel like there’s something wrong with me anymore.” Does Addie find any closure from her mother’s death? 11. Filomena draws a distinction between love and marriage when she spends time catching up with Addie before her wedding, but Addie disagrees with the assertion that “you only get one great love in a lifetime.” In what ways do the different romantic experiences of each woman inform the ideas each has about love? 12. Filomena and Addie share a deep friendship. Addie tells Ada that “sometimes friends grow apart. . . . But sometimes, it doesn’t matter how far apart you live or how little you talk—it’s still there.” What qualities do you think friends must share in order to have that kind of connection? Discuss your relationship with a best friend. Enhance

In this short philosophical novel he completely undermined the kind of optimism about humanity and the universe that Pope and Leibniz had expressed, and he did it in such an entertaining way that the book became an instant bestseller. Wisely Voltaire left his name off the title page, otherwise its publication would have landed him in prison again for making fun of religious beliefs. Candide is the central character. His name suggests innocence and purity. At the start of the book, he is a young servant who falls hopelessly in love with his master's daughter, Cunégonde, but is chased out of her father's castle when he is caught in a compromising position with her. From then on, in a fast-moving and often fantastical tale, he travels through real and imaginary countries with his philosophy tutor Dr Pangloss, until he finally meets up with his lost love Cunégonde again, though by now she is old and ugly. In a series of comical episodes Candide and Pangloss witness terrible events and encounter a range of characters along the way, all of whom have themselves suffered terrible misfortunes. Voltaire uses the philosophy tutor, Pangloss, to spout a caricatured version of Leibniz's philosophy, which the writer then pokes fun at. Whatever happens, whether it is a natural disaster, torture, war, rape, religious persecution or slavery, Pangloss treats it as further confirmation that they live in the best of all possible worlds. Rather than causing him to rethink his beliefs, each disaster just increases his confidence that everything is for the best and this is how things had to be to produce the most perfect situation. Voltaire takes great delight in revealing Pangloss' refusal to see what is in front of him, and this is meant to mock Leibniz's optimism. But to be fair to Leibniz, his point wasn't that evil doesn't occur, but rather that the evil that does exist was needed to bring about the best possible world. It does, however, suggest that there is so much evil in the world that it is hardly likely that Leibniz was right – this can't be the minimum needed to achieve a good result. There is just too much pain and suffering in the world for that to be true. In

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,

How long you guys been renovating?” Craig asked Arianna. “About a month.” “How much longer?” Arianna sighed. “The contractor messed up the counters, so who knows.” “Preaching to the choir.” “Yeah?” “Oh, yeah. But in the end everything turned out for the best.” “How so?” “Well, for one, I switched from laminate to granite.” “Granite . . .” She exhaled, confounded, as if the granite countertop quandary was the most perplexing philosophical question of all time. “Yeah . . .We’re torn.” “More expensive, but aesthetically superior,” Craig lobbied. “Also retains value longer.” Knowing the sexual perversity about to transpire, I couldn’t reconcile that I was suddenly in an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Granted, I didn’t know from normal pre–group sex discussion topics, but I was pretty sure home improvement wasn’t on the list.

The electronics effort faced even greater challenges. To launch that category, David Risher tapped a Dartmouth alum named Chris Payne who had previously worked on Amazon’s DVD store. Like Miller, Payne had to plead with suppliers—in this case, Asian consumer-electronics companies like Sony, Toshiba, and Samsung. He quickly hit a wall. The Japanese electronics giants viewed Internet sellers like Amazon as sketchy discounters. They also had big-box stores like Best Buy and Circuit City whispering in their ears and asking them to take a pass on Amazon. There were middlemen distributors, like Ingram Electronics, but they offered a limited selection. Bezos deployed Doerr to talk to Howard Stringer at Sony America, but he got nowhere. So Payne had to turn to the secondary distributors—jobbers that exist in an unsanctioned, though not illegal, gray market. Randy Miller, a retail finance director who came to Amazon from Eddie Bauer, equates it to buying from the trunk of someone’s car in a dark alley. “It was not a sustainable inventory model, but if you are desperate to have particular products on your site or in your store, you do what you need to do,” he says. Buying through these murky middlemen got Payne and his fledgling electronics team part of the way toward stocking Amazon’s virtual shelves. But Bezos was unimpressed with the selection and grumpily compared it to shopping in a Russian supermarket during the years of Communist rule. It would take Amazon years to generate enough sales to sway the big Asian brands. For now, the electronics store was sparely furnished. Bezos had asked to see $100 million in electronics sales for the 1999 holiday season; Payne and his crew got about two-thirds of the way there. Amazon officially announced the new toy and electronics stores that summer, and in September, the company held a press event at the Sheraton in midtown Manhattan to promote the new categories. Someone had the idea that the tables in the conference room at the Sheraton should have piles of merchandise representing all the new categories, to reinforce the idea of broad selection. Bezos loved it, but when he walked into the room the night before the event, he threw a tantrum: he didn’t think the piles were large enough. “Do you want to hand this business to our competitors?” he barked into his cell phone at his underlings. “This is pathetic!” Harrison Miller, Chris Payne, and their colleagues fanned out that night across Manhattan to various stores, splurging on random products and stuffing them in the trunks of taxicabs. Miller spent a thousand dollars alone at a Toys “R” Us in Herald Square. Payne maxed out his personal credit card and had to call his wife in Seattle to tell her not to use the card for a few days. The piles of products were eventually large enough to satisfy Bezos, but the episode was an early warning. To satisfy customers and their own demanding boss during the upcoming holiday, Amazon executives were going to have to substitute artifice and improvisation for truly comprehensive selection.

I've done this sort of thing before. Not prophecies so much, but you'd be surprised how many people want to realign their ancestral lines to seem nobler, or rewrite their family history to remove more morally questionable episodes." He paused to recall a recent rewrite. "One lord wanted the murderers removed from his family line. His family was so corrupt, he ended up with three virgin births, two generations removed entirely and a lady who gave birth at the age of two. Still, no one questions it as there is evidence in the archives." Bubo smugly tapped a book. "There is one thing though, faking a prophecy in the past is easy, you already know the result. How will you make this come true in the future?" "I have someone in mind for it, but I'm not sure he'll go for it. But then prophecy is all optional anyway." Corvid looked up as if a thought had occurred to him. "I'd best go check on my man, I've not met him yet.

manuals and curricular materials, has historically been edited to portray Mormons at their best and the world at its worst. Episodes and actions that reflect poorly on the Mormon people (like the Mountain Meadows Massacre) or create awkward questions (like Joseph Smith’s plural marriages) were largely omitted or downplayed. Coming out of a legacy of bitter conflict, persecution, expulsion, and martyrdom, early Mormon historians felt no compunction about portraying the Mormon past as a black-and-white struggle between God’s covenant people and gentile oppressors. The trauma and unrequited murder of Joseph and Hyrum in particular lingered long not just in collective but in personal memory. A friend of the Smith family described the scene in the Mansion House when the bodies of the two victims of the mob were laid out following their return to Nauvoo: “I shall not attempt to discribe the scene that we have passed through. God forbid that I should ever witness another like unto it. I saw the lifeless corpses of our beloved brethren when they were brought to their almost distracted families. Yea I witnessed their tears, and groans, which was p80-1

Both Sarah’s and Bryce’s desks were paired together, as were those of every other field and support agent team, but none of the field agents hated being stuck at their desk more than Sarah, which was a sore spot for Bryce, because he loved his desk. He loved his computer. He loved the fact that he had terabytes of processing power and that the room temperature was always a crisp seventy-one degrees. And he loved that he had the best piece of technology in the world at his fingertips. The GSF satellite that hovered in the atmosphere high above them had the capacity to see anything, or anyone, anywhere in the world. It was the epicenter for the entire agency, and it was Bryce’s pride and joy. However, not everyone was as appreciative of his accomplishments as he would have liked.

Through the Fire by Raj Lowenstein Trafford Publishing reviewed by Anita Lock "Beware the Abomination." After initially treating Michael Braun for wounds resulting from a brutal attack, David and Kelly Hartman—a physician and nurse respectively, as well as a gay, married couple—feel that the best place for her (yes, a she despite the masculine name) to recover is at the condo of David's twin brother, Dan. Dan, an overworked detective, ignores David's frantic texts and is shocked when he wakes to find a stunningly beautiful but battered woman sleeping upstairs. Michael is also a mute who communicates through American Sign Language (ASL), a language in which Dan happens to be an expert. Although the two eventually fall in love, there is more to Michael's past that Dan is aware of until he receives information from none other than Michael's abuser. Raj Lowenstein presents a romantic thriller that appears more disturbingly real than fiction. Set largely in Texas, Lowenstein's plot has a bit of a Law and Order feel to it—minus the court and prison scenes. Laced with gender-related issues and replete with a tight cast, Lowenstein's storyline zeroes in on Dan and his unexpected romance with Michael amid peculiar situations. Lowenstein punctuates her thought-provoking, third-person narrative with the sinister and hideous presence of Catfish, whose persona is a paradox to say the least. Key to Lowenstein's writing style is the use of engaging dialogue to generate dynamic characters who are developing their relationships and facing life's challenges. Lowenstein aptly fashions her well-developed cast within cliff-hanging chapters that alternate between unanticipated character scenes. Scenes are filled with back stories, steamy romantic episodes, investigations, the evil machinations of Catfish, and are all used in the deliberate build-up to the novel's intense and unnerving apogee. Kudos to Lowenstein for creating an edgy and eye-opening debut! RECOMMENDED by the US Review

Eventually, I talked to Dad and Willie about my plan to go work on the oil rigs. Both told me to stay with the family at Duck Commander. “That would be a mistake,” Dad said. “Stay with us. You won’t believe what’s going to happen in two or three years. Be patient.” He had faith in the business, and he felt it was just a matter of time until we hit it big. “We’re all going to do well,” he’d say. Did I mention he’s one of the most optimistic people you’ll ever meet? Every day we go hunting (and he hunts every single day of duck season), he’ll sit back, laugh, and say, “Boys, this is going to be the best day of your life. You’ll be telling your grandchildren about this day!” Willie felt the same. “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” he said. “But let me tell you this, I’m fixin’ to turn this thing around, and I want you to be here for it.” I decided to stay because Jess and I knew it was more important to be with family than to make more money. I continued working just about every job at Duck Commander. I still loved shipping and packaging, and I watched the entire run of X-files episodes when I worked in that department. Then I started making the reeds, the job Uncle Si does on the show.

It wouldn’t be long before I’d learn another lesson that was a real turning point. I saw a dog scrounging around in the school parking lot, a dirty and scrawny mutt that had evidently been on his own for a while. Some of the kids and I shared a bit of food with the dog at recess. By the time classes were starting again we had befriended the poor thing. I suddenly felt an unusual responsibility toward the stray. I didn’t feel it was enough just to give it something to eat and say that I’d helped it, and then move on. I needed to make sure that dog was in a safe place. “We’ve got to do something to help,” I said to my teacher. “The school’s already called animal control,” my teacher explained. She assured me that if the owners were looking for the stray, they would have the best chance of finding it through animal control. I was stubborn. “But after a period of time, if the dog isn’t claimed, they’ll put it to sleep, right?” My teacher nodded reluctantly. “I suppose.” “So that’s not good enough.” My teacher sighed, giving me an I-haven’t-got-time-for-this look. “There aren’t really any other options, Terri.” And that was that. What happened to the stray dog, I’ll never know. But with the fierce determination of a child to right injustice, I resolved that when I grew up, I would no longer turn a blind eye and walk past a problem. I would stop and fix it. I remember that episode very clearly as a defining moment in my life. Neither the stray dog nor the ducklings were huge events, just minor incidents in the life of a young girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest. But they formed two vital threads in the fabric of who I am today: When you help an animal, do your absolute best to make sure you don’t harm it at the same time, and Never walk past a problem with an animal--fix it. These were the lessons I remembered when I encountered a sick, emaciated cougar in a plastic pet cage.

We're trying to count the rebel ships, Lord Vader," he said, "but we lost count at three. We expect there are a million and a half of them. However, they're so small that they're evading our turbo saser sauce.

armed with the dreaded soap-and-water guns

He is aware that his strong, capable wife is not the best person around whom to have a nervous breakdown. There was a time he would have felt bitter about this. 'Insomnia isn't glamorous. Just come to bed', is all Kirsten would say if she woke up now and saw the light on in the den. He's learned, over many painful episodes, that his beautiful intelligent wife doesn't do reassurance. But better than that, he's started to understand why. She isn't mean; it's her experience of men and her defences against being let down kicking in. It's just how she processes challenges. It helps to see these things; he is accruing alternatives to vengeance and anger.

Sporadic cases of plague were discovered throughout the summer and fall of 1900. Most alarming, at least to the native-born American population of San Francisco, was the first white plague victim discovered in August. In January 1901, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Lyman J. Gage, who oversaw both the Marine Hospital Service and the Immigration Bureau, commissioned three nationally prominent plague experts to investigate the health conditions in San Francisco. Their report, using the best bacteriological methods then available, confirmed that plague did, in fact, visit San Francisco. The experts explained that the wisest precaution to take against plague's potential return was not to isolate people based on race but, instead, to intensify cleansing and fumigation efforts in any area where plague was found. Between March 1, 1900 and February 29, 1904, 121 cases of plague were diagnosed in San Francisco with 113 resulting in death. Of these deaths, 107 were Chinese, 4 were Japanese, and 2 were white.59 Alas, this episode hardly brought an end to the all-too-reflexive impulse Americans often have in establishing quarantine or public health policy based on race, ethnicity, or social disen-franchisement.

The fact that the question is even asked, the fact that black excellence in a particular field needs ‘explaining’, tells its own story. I can’t recall any documentaries trying to discover an organisational gene left over from fascism that explains why Germany and Italy have consistently been Europe’s best performing football teams. Spain’s brief spell as the best team in the world, with a generation of players born in the years immediately after Franco’s death, would seem to confirm my fascism-meets-football thesis, right? Clearly this would be a ridiculous investigation - or who knows maybe I am on to something - but the question would never be asked because German, Italian and Spanish brilliance don’t really need explaining, or at least not in such negative ways. When I was young, I vividly remember watching a BBC doc called Dreaming of Ajax which investigated why one Dutch club, Ajax Amsterdam, was able to produce better football players than the whole of England. It was a fantastic documentary that looked with great admiration at the obviously superior coaching systems of Ajax, which became so visible in their home-grown players’ performances. But it did not look for some mystery Dutch gene left over from some horrendous episode in European history. Nor did white dominance in tennis or golf - until Tiger and the Williams sisters, anyway - need to be explained by their ancestors having so much practice whipping people for so long, and ending up with strong shoulders and great technique as a result!

Perhaps the Carlockian worldview is best summed up by this exchange from a recent episode, when Tracy arrives at the hospital just after the birth of his daughter. TRACY (O.C.) (CONT’D) Why is the baby covered in goop?! DR. SPACEMAN (O.C.) Because everything about this is disgusting!

Prior to the last episode, InsideHook explained it best: “No matter who wins the Iron Throne, it’s clear that Game of Thrones has conquered not just the kingdom of television, but the continent of American culture in a way few other cultural touchstones can in these divided times. It’s a show that’s watched by Republicans and Democrats; discussed in nerdy fan forums and The New Yorker; watched in dive bars and corporate boardrooms. Maybe the only thing that unites us in 2019 is a TV show about fictional warring kingdoms, evil ice elves and winged lizards.

best friend,

Episode" Dear: The Letter    The reason I loved you from the first moment we met is because you seemed to hold a certain hostility towards me which I mistook for wisdom. I thought you really knew me instinctively, which is a laugh. But who's laughing?    In the heyday of our exceptional excitement with each other I think you thought I loved you blindly, but actually I was just wondering whether you loved me or just saw through me to yourself. That, of course, is nothing to be sneezed at. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy (enjoy! how cool I am!) sex with you more than with anyone else in my whole life so that it hardly seemed to be with anyone and became some- thing else, like a successful American satellite, but the thought of it doesn't exactly nourish me spiritually.    Yes, it does. It would still keep me out of a monastery, if I were invited to attend one.    But this is a message, no time for thinking. The thinking's been done. By you too, baby. I didn't just make this all up. So now that you feel serious and responsible again, what do you propose to do about it? I'm not putting any return address on this, and it's being mailed by a "friend" so don't count on the postmark. I know you don't love me still, I'm not so vain, I just know that you'll be mightily intrigued. And you are one of the few living mortals of whom the word "mightily" indicates a quality. You see, even now, I am never ironic.    Well, I don't want to sound like a French moralist. I am dying without you, and I won't be dying long. But don't come.                                                     Best always,                                                                  Frank

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Elizabeth had tried to hate him in that first year when the pain had been intense enough to drive her almost out of her mind. But even then she had not been able to. The best she could do eventually was to dull all feeling, so that a mere empty ache would gnaw at her when her mind strayed to that episode in her life. She had trained herself to think of him, if at all, as he was at the beginning of their relationship.

Protection from stress serves only to erode my capacity [to handle it]. Stress exposure is the stimulus for all growth, and growth actually occurs during episodes of recovery. Avoiding stress, I have learned, will never provide the capacity that life demands of me.

refractions of divine goodness are best identified, praised, and enjoyed. If their appearance is episodic and brief, and even if they are contaminated with selfishness or pride, don’t let the unattractive features of someone’s life blind you to the good.

The subjects of this practice of inclusivity are first the poor and outcast. This is articulated both generally, in terms of Jesus’ ministry to the “crowd,” and specifically, in terms of episodes involving the disabled (2: 1ff.; 10: 45ff.), the ritually unclean (1: 45ff.; 5: 25ff.), the socially marginalized (2: 15ff.; 7: 24ff.); and women and children (10: 1ff.). This solidarity is perhaps best represented in the first episode of the passion narrative (above, 12, B, i), in which Jesus is pictured residing at the house of a leper, and there teaches that one woman's act of compassion outweighs all the pretensions to faithfulness of his own disciples (14: 3–9). Because it is often raised in political readings of the Gospel, the question must be addressed: Does Mark's story portray Jesus as the author of a “mass movement?” This might be suggested not only by his clear “preferential option” for the poor of Palestine, but the evident class bias in the narrative. There are those who would see some of Jesus’ “popular” actions, such as the wilderness feedings (above, 6, D, ii) or the procession on Jerusalem, as indicative of mass organizing. But we must keep in mind that Mark's discipleship narrative articulates a definite strategy of minority political vocation. That is, Jesus creates a community that is expected to embrace the messianic way regardless of how the masses respond to the “objective conditions for revolution.” In what sense, then, do we understand Jesus’ solidarity with the poor?

It’s my first time in this place. Maybe like you, though, I’ve been here before—anyone who’s walked through Williamsburg or seen an episode of Girls has. It’s a landscape of under-35s, bristling with locally brewed IPAs, restaurant pop-ups, and new kinds of mustard. And everybody—literally everybody—is flaunting freestyle forearm ink. But tonight I’m not in Williamsburg. I’m in Indianapolis.

The so-called “Goulash capitalism” episode in Hungary clearly illustrated the problem. In 1994, shortly after the privatization of agriculture and food production, the country was swept by an epidemic of lead poisoning. After searching far and wide for the cause, doctors and scientists finally tracked down the source of the problem. Manufacturers of paprika—a staple of Hungarian cuisine—had been grinding up old paint, much of it lead-based, and adding it to the spice in order to improve its colour. The practice was so widespread that Hungarian officials were forced to order all the paprika in the country removed from store shelves and destroyed. At the time, no laws were in place to prevent such a catastrophe, simply because it had not occurred to anyone that this kind of thing would happen. Under communism, in which firms had no competition, no one had any incentive to poison their customers, and so consumer protection laws were unnecessary. In making the transition to the market, policy-makers assumed that producers would compete with one another to produce the best-quality paprika. They didn’t realize that producers would compete only to produce the best-looking paprika.

Babe got his five minutes of fame—he was an extra in the Holland episode, a scene in Eindhoven. He's sitting at a table with a hat on, watching the action. He thinks he's a big shot now. I want to get in one of those Al Capone movies. Or be in Godfather Ten.

While we are in the realm of comedy, it is worth recalling that one of the best and best-known episodes of the historical sitcom Blackadder, titled ‘Ink and Incapability’, confronts this very subject. Its fidelity to history is limited (Jane Austen is Johnson’s contemporary, and apparently has ‘a beard like a rhododendron’), but its representation of the perils of lexicography is just. The

Moron?” I asked, trying to lighten the suddenly tense mood. She covered her eyes with one hand. “It was the best I could come up with on the spot. Now that he’s gone, I have so many bitchier things to say.” Her chin trembled, and I was the one that felt like a moron. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

They weren’t exactly friends. They were more like drifters in the old westerns Orville watched, bound together by some shared need, on a quest, in search of something or someone, though whom or what they were searching for was never clear. They went from town to town, each town like an episode in the show, a new bad guy to best or a mystery to solve. The

Aaron stared down at his pad of paper, unsure. He said, “So what would be the best word for you? Vagrant?” Reacher said, “Itinerant. Distributed. Transient. Episodic.

During the writing of this book, I found myself questioning why the sixteenth-century history of the Irish-English conflict—“the Mother of All the Irish Rebellions”—has been utterly ignored or forgotten. This episode was by far the largest of Elizabeth’s wars and the last significant effort of her reign. It was also the most costly in English lives lost, both common and noble. By some estimates, the rebellion resulted in half the population of Ireland dying through battle, famine, and disease, and the countryside—through the burning of forestland—was changed forever. Yet almost no one studies it, writes of it, or discusses it, even as the impact of that revolt continues to make headlines across the world more than four hundred years later. Likewise, few people outside Ireland have ever heard of Grace O’Malley, surely one of the most outrageous and extraordinary personalities of her century—at least as fascinating a character as her contemporary and sparring partner Elizabeth I. Of course history is written by the victors, and England was, by all accounts, the winner of the Irish Rebellion of the sixteenth century. But the mystery only deepens when we learn that the only contemporary knowledge we have of Grace’s exploits—other than through Irish tradition and legend—is recorded not in Ireland’s histories, but by numerous references and documentation in England’s Calendar of State Papers, as well as numerous official dispatches sent by English captains and governors such as Lords Sidney, Maltby, and Bingham. As hard as it is to believe, Grace O’Malley’s name never once appears in the most important Irish history of the day, The Annals of the Four Masters. Even in the two best modern books on the Irish Rebellion—Cyril Fall’s Elizabeth’s Irish Wars and Richard Berleth’s The Twilight Lords—there is virtually no mention made of her. Tibbot Burke receives only slightly better treatment. Why is this? Anne Chambers, author of my two “bibles” on the lives of Grace O’Malley (Granuaile: The Life and Times of Grace O’Malley) and Tibbot Burke (Chieftain to Knight)—the only existing biographies of mother and son—suggests that as for the early historians, they might have had so little regard for women in general that Grace’s exclusion would be expected. As for the modern historians, it is troubling that in their otherwise highly detailed books, the authors should ignore such a major player in the history of the period. It

I shot her because she had just killed my best friend and my worst enemy with a single hand -grenade. This episode made me sorry to be alive , made me envy stones. I would rather have been a stone at the service of the Natural Order

Mid May 2012 Dearest Andy, After all these years, you have not changed. You’ll always be the Valet I’ve grown to love and adore. When I read your email, I can hear the sound of your voice as it was so long ago. Although we are miles apart, I continue to feel you close to my heart. After our separation, I looked for a ‘big brother’ and lover like you and failed miserably, until Walter came into my life. He inquires about you persistently. I think he is hoping for a triplet relationship, similar to the one we shared with Oscar. He thinks highly of you. Walter is very similar to you, in that you both know that you are gods who could do no wrong. In the majority of cases, that is how I remember you. Of course we both have our shortcomings, as humans do. The wonderful times we shared definitely overshadowed the negative moments. I fear that having two alpha males in the same house will be a disaster because you’ll both be competing for power and lording your masculinity over me. That’s scary! LOL! That said, my partner and I discuss you frequently. The difference between you two is that he fully supports the writing of my memoirs while you, my friend, have made it clear that writing about my adolescent life experiences isn’t a good idea. I respect both your differing opinions, but this is something I will have to decide on my own. I sincerely believe that now is the moment to tell my story and I will tell it without hurting or exposing anyone unnecessarily. I’ve changed the names of the schools, the society, and, of course, the people that played an important role in my young life. Do you remember when we were in Las Vegas working on “Sacred Sex In Sacred Places”? The Count told us that Howard Hughes was in town and you dragged me along for an audience with the tycoon? You desperately wanted an apprenticeship in his aerodynamics engineering company. I remember the episode well. That experience is definitely worth documenting in my memoirs. We will have many opportunities to reminisce, but for now I am simply happy that we are communicating regularly. Tell me more about yourself in your next correspondence. I love you and miss you. Wishing you all the best! Young.

But over against this downplaying or mocking we also see, from the earliest documents of the New Testament right on through the first five or six centuries of church history, the resolute affirmation of the cross not as an embarrassing episode best left on the margins, but as the mysterious key to the meaning of life, God, the world, and human destiny.

Do you know how, sometimes, during a commercial break in your favorite television shows, your best friend calls and wants to talk about one of her boyfriends, and when you try to hang up, she starts crying and you try to cheer her up and end up missing about half o the episode? And so when you go to work the next day you have to get the guy who sits next to you to explain what happened? That's the good thing about a book. You can mark your place in a book. But this isn't really a book. It's a television show.

An inconsistency is built into the design of our minds,” Kahneman observes. “We have strong preferences about the duration of our experiences of pain and pleasure. We want pain to be brief and pleasure to last. But our memory … has evolved to represent the most intense moment of an episode of pain or pleasure (the peak) and the feelings when the episode was at its end. A memory that neglects duration will not serve our preference for long pleasure and short pains.” When our time is limited and we are uncertain about how best to serve our priorities, we are forced to deal with the fact that both the experiencing self and the remembering self matter.

Ms. James: Dr. Ogden has told me that you are a Catholic. Murdoch: Yes Ms. James: Catholics face some measure of prejudice and ill will. Quite unfairly I imagine. Murdoch: One difference I suppose is that people can’t tell that I’m a Catholic just by looking at me. Ms. James: What do you do when you encounter such treatment, detective? Murdoch: I know the truth about myself Miss James, and I know that no matter what someone might say, or think about me, I must be the strongest and the best version of myself that I can possibly be. Ms. James: So go along to get along? Murdoch: No, no. Simply be better than anyone who might hate you.

I need your help, Puke. She needs your help. I'm getting too old for these things. I've got arthritis in my legs and my eyesight's starting to go. Last week I thought I was eating a chicken leg and it turned out to be a salt grinder. THAT hurt comin' out the other end. Like I'd sat on a lit blowtorch. And a set of kitchen knives. Tied to the blowtorch.

Usually this “fantasy” is a character’s primary wish for their life, which has something to do with the way others treat them, their place in the world, and their basic life situation. It’s usually bigger than any one job, relationship, or measurable goal—although a specific episode might focus on something smaller like that. Usually it connects to love, belonging, respect, freedom, and/or the ability to succeed in one’s chosen best life. It’s about what life could be like, and what they wish it were like—if they were seen how they want to be seen and got to live the life they most want to live.

Getting a good look at him… he was huge. Like literally massive. Was that normal? Was he on steroids? “Hey, friend,” I said. “Wait here a second, okay? We’ll get you some help.” He didn’t respond, obviously. Why my heart started beating faster though, I really didn’t get. Never mind, I guess I did. I was going to have to grab this big son of a bitch. If my memory served me correctly—from all the episodes I’d seen of zoo shows and the one game warden show—you just kind of had to... grab them. Could they smell fear? Like dogs? I eyed my new friend and hoped like hell he couldn’t. Two seconds later, the door to the house burst open and Amos was out, setting a big crate down on the deck before running back inside. He was back out another second later, shoving something into his pockets and then picking up the crate again. He slowed down as he got closer to the garage and walked way around where the bird was still standing. He was breathing hard as he slowly set it down between us, then pulled out some leather gloves from his pockets and handed those over too. “This is the best I could find,” he said, eyes wide and face flushed. “You sure about this?” I slipped the gloves on and let out a shaky exhale before giving him a nervous smile. “No.” I kind of laughed from the nerves. “If I die—” That got him to roll his eyes. “You’re not doing to die.” “Make up some story about how I saved your life, okay?” He looked at me. “Maybe we should wait for my dad.” “Should we? Yeah, but are we? No, we have to get him. He should have flown off by now, and we both know it.” Amos cursed again under his breath, and I gulped. Might as well get it over with. Five minutes from now wasn’t going to change anything. My mom would’ve done it. “Okay, I can do this,” I tried to hype myself up. “Just like a chicken, right?” “You’ve picked up a chicken before?” I eyed Am. “No, but I’ve seen my friend do it. It can’t be that hard.” I hoped. I could do this. Just like a chicken. Just like a chicken. Opening and closing my hands with the big gloves on, I bounced my shoulders and moved my neck from side to side. “Okay.” I inched closer to the bird, willing my heart to slow down. Please don’t let him smell fear. Please don’t let him smell fear. “All right, love, pal, pretty boy. Be nice, okay? Be nice. Please be nice. You’re beautiful. I love you. I just want to take care of you. Please be nice—” I swooped down. Then I shouted, “Ahh! I got him! Open the crate! Open the crate! Am, open it! Shit, he’s heavy!” Out of the corner of my eye, Amos rushed over with the crate, door open, and set it on the ground. “Hurry, Ora!” I held my breath as I waddled, holding what I was pretty sure was a steroid-taking bird—who wasn’t struggling at all, honestly—and as fast as possible, set him inside, facing away from me, and Amos slammed it shut just as I got my arms out of there without getting murdered. We both jumped back and then peeked through the metal gate. He was just hanging out in there. He was fine. At least I was pretty sure he was; it wasn’t like he was making faces. I held up my hand, and Am high-fived it. “We did it!” The teenager grinned. “I’ll call Dad.” We high-fived again, pumped up. Amos hustled back inside his house, and I crouched down to look at my friend once more. He was a good hawk. “Good job, pretty boy,” I praised him. Most of all though, I’d done it! I got him in there! All by myself. How about that?

When he told me that my stories were bad, boring, tepid, I’d fight for them to get on air anyway. Time after time, they were huge audience hits—dozens of people would tweet that they cried at my stories, that my episodes were their favorites, the best they’d heard all year. I produced a short that won us an Emmy.

Those are the best evenings, when we fill up on bread bowls stuffed to the brim with clam chowder and then spend the full-moon-drenched night on the empty pier, gathering the thick, swirling clouds of raw magic. I wouldn't be able to spend late nights with Remy, cozied up in my room with magic-infused globes floating around us as we watch the latest episode of Demon Slayer projected on my ceiling, while sipping charmed mugs of yuzu honey tea.

A couple of weeks before, while going over a Variety list of the most popular songs of 1935 and earlier, to use for the picture’s sound track – which was going to consist only of vintage recording played not as score but as source music – my eye stopped on a .933 standard, words by E.Y. (“Yip”) Harburg (with producer Billy Rose), music by Harold Arlen, the team responsible for “Over the Rainbow”, among many notable others, together and separately. Legend had it that the fabulous Ms. Dorothy Parker contributed a couple of lines. There were just two words that popped out at me from the title of the Arlen-Harburg song, “It’s Only a Paper Moon”. Not only did the sentiment of the song encapsulate metaphorically the main relationship in our story – Say, it’s only a paper moon Sailing over a cardboard sea But it wouldn’t be make-believe If you believed in me – the last two words of the title also seemed to me a damn good movie title. Alvin and Polly agreed, but when I tried to take it to Frank Yablans, he wasn’t at all impressed and asked me what it meant. I tried to explain. He said that he didn’t “want us to have our first argument,” so why didn’t we table this conversation until the movie was finished? Peter Bart called after a while to remind me that, after all, the title Addie Pray was associated with a bestselling novel. I asked how many copies it had sold in hardcover. Peter said over a hundred thousand. That was a lot of books but not a lot of moviegoers. I made that point a bit sarcastically and Peter laughed dryly. The next day I called Orson Welles in Rome, where he was editing a film. It was a bad connection so we had to speak slowly and yell: “Orson! What do you think of this title?!” I paused a beat or two, then said very clearly, slowly and with no particular emphasis or inflection: “Paper …Moon!” There was a silence for several moments, and then Orson said, loudly, “That title is so good, you don’t even need to make the picture! Just release the title! Armed with that reaction, I called Alvin and said, “You remember those cardboard crescent moons they have at amusement parks – you sit in the moon and have a picture taken?” (Polly had an antique photo of her parents in one of them.) We already had an amusement park sequence in the script so, I continued to Alvin, “Let’s add a scene with one of those moons, then we can call the damn picture Paper Moon!” And this led eventually to a part of the ending, in which we used the photo Addie had taken of herself as a parting gift to Moze – alone in the moon because he was too busy with Trixie to sit with his daughter – that she leaves on the truck seat when he drops her off at her aunt’s house. … After the huge popular success of the picture – four Oscar nominations (for Tatum, Madeline Kahn, the script, the sound) and Tatum won Best Supporting Actress (though she was the lead) – the studio proposed that we do a sequel, using the second half of the novel, keeping Tatum and casting Mae West as the old lady; they suggested we call the new film Harvest Moon. I declined. Later, a television series was proposed, and although I didn’t want to be involved (Alvin Sargent became story editor), I agreed to approve the final casting, which ended up being Jodie Foster and Chris Connolly, both also blondes. When Frank Yablans double-checked about my involvement, I passed again, saying I didn’t think the show would work in color – too cute – and suggested they title the series The Adventures of Addie Pray. But Frank said, “Are you kidding!? We’re calling it Paper Moon - that’s a million-dollar title!” The series ran thirteen episodes.

An important way to nurture this receptivity to the self ’s emerging forms of aliveness is to develop a compassionate attitude toward our own suffering, particularly when it is caused by events and circumstances outside our control. As much as I have stressed the transformative potential of suffering, there may well be times when the best we can do is to allow ourselves to dwell within, and acknowledge the weight of, our affliction. By this I do not mean that we should not endeavor to ease our anguish, but merely that a compassionate stance toward our suffering entails knowing that there are incidents in our lives that have no deep purpose, that do not contribute to any future aim or aspiration, and that do not yield any profound insight no matter how vehement our attempts to interpret them—that do not, in short, in any way enhance our art of living. This is to say that as much as we should remain open to the idea that pain can guide us to something of value, we need to concede that sometimes certain experiences come about—or refuse to do so—without this in itself meaning anything at all. In this context, the fact that our lives are composed of fleeting moments can even work in our favor in the sense that we can learn to live through episodes of pain and suffering without letting them scar us irrevocably. We can learn to effectively reach for happiness in a world of fragile things.

Episode 1 – Anger: Ramy said that as soon as I got off the phone with Mama, she raged around the living room, furious that I would dare to attack her for being a bad parent. I wish I could have watched this impassioned performance, which included such hyperbolic claims as, ‘I am the best mother in the world’; ‘how dare Amrou accuse me of this when it is Amrou who made me unhappy all my life’; and, with utter seriousness and self-belief: ‘I am perfect’. This was the reaction I assumed she’d have. Whenever any critique came her way, her go-to response was that she was a person without flaws. As much as I admired the goddess complex, it automatically made everyone else at fault. She so vehemently believed that she was the ideal mother and person, that by proxy you were always in the wrong. Mama was good at gaslighting, but also an expert emotional manipulator; it didn’t take long for her eyes to water, and for her to spin out gut-wrenchingly guilt-tripping phrases like ‘I sacrificed my life for you’, and ‘I only ever wanted you to be happy’.

William James said near the end of the nineteenth century, “No mental modification ever occurs which is not accompanied or followed by a bodily change.” A hundred years later, Norman Cousins summarized the modern view of mind-body interactions with the succinct phrase “Belief becomes biology.”6 That is, an external suggestion can become an internal expectation, and that internal expectation can manifest in the physical body. While the general idea of mind-body connections is now widely accepted, forty years ago it was considered dangerously heretical nonsense. The change in opinion came about largely because of hundreds of studies of the placebo effect, psychosomatic illness, psychoneuroimmunology, and the spontaneous remission of serious disease.7 In studies of drug tests and disease treatments, the placebo response has been estimated to account for between 20 to 40 percent of positive responses. The implication is that the body’s hard, physical reality can be significantly modified by the more evanescent reality of the mind.8 Evidence supporting this implication can be found in many domains. For example: • Hypnotherapy has been used successfully to treat intractable cases of breast cancer pain, migraine headache, arthritis, hypertension, warts, epilepsy, neurodermatitis, and many other physical conditions.9 People’s expectations about drinking can be more potent predictors of behavior than the pharmacological impact of alcohol.10 If they think they are drinking alcohol and expect to get drunk, they will in fact get drunk even if they drink a placebo. Fighter pilots are treated specially to give them the sense that they truly have the “right stuff.” They receive the best training, the best weapons systems, the best perquisites, and the best aircraft. One consequence is that, unlike other soldiers, they rarely suffer from nervous breakdowns or post-traumatic stress syndrome even after many episodes of deadly combat.11 Studies of how doctors and nurses interact with patients in hospitals indicate that health-care teams may speed death in a patient by simply diagnosing a terminal illness and then letting the patient know.12 People who believe that they are engaged in biofeedback training are more likely to report peak experiences than people who are not led to believe this.13 Different personalities within a given individual can display distinctly different physiological states, including measurable differences in autonomic-nervous-system functioning, visual acuity, spontaneous brain waves, and brainware-evoked potentials.14 While the idea that the mind can affect the physical body is becoming more acceptable, it is also true that the mechanisms underlying this link are still a complete mystery. Besides not understanding the biochemical and neural correlates of “mental intention,” we have almost no idea about the limits of mental influence. In particular, if the mind interacts not only with its own body but also with distant physical systems, as we’ve seen in the previous chapter, then there should be evidence for what we will call “distant mental interactions” with living organisms.

That’s another thing with my episodes. They make me snappy, irritated. Everything bothers me. The crowd, the daily chores, my mom, school, teachers. Everything. But I tried my best to hide it on the Outside so I don’t seem crazy to anyone.

Logan is far and away the best X-Men movie I’ve ever seen (I’m tempted to say it’s the best X-Men movie ever made, but I haven’t seen Apocalypse so who knows). The characterizations are deeper, their relationships more nuanced. The acting is better: you wouldn’t expect less from Patrick Stewart, who somehow managed to maintain his dignity and gravitas throughout even the most idiotic ST:TNG episodes (looking at you, “Skin of Evil”), but the rest of the cast keeps up with him and makes it look effortless.

The difficulty of the amorous project is in this: "Just show me who to love then get out of my way!" Countless episodes in which I fall in love with someone loved by my best friend: every rival has first been a master, a guide, a barker, a mediator.

The TIE fighter pilots chasing the Falcon were among the best in the Empire. But they couldn't compete with Han Solo. Either they weren't good enough, or they weren't crazy enough. Only a lunatic would have plunged his ship into a suicidal journey through these asteroids.

Jim has never received adequate recognition for his skills as a comic actor. Fred Allen’s status as a witty ad-libber is well-documented, yet Jim could fire off an spontaneous line with the best of them. It is this talent of the quick quip that is noted in the comments of numerous episodes in this book.

In all 279 episodes of Big Bang, one that consistently pops up on everyone’s best-of list, including the actors, happened early on in season seven. It was “The Scavenger Vortex,” which saw the characters pair off to find a gold coin that Raj had hid. At the time the episode aired, Oliver Sava wrote in the A.V. Club (October 3, 2013): “Over the past seven seasons, The Big Bang Theory has grown to become a nerdy West Coast version of Friends, so it’s no surprise that this week’s competition-centric ‘The Scavenger Vortex’ is reminiscent of Friends’ classic ‘The One with the Embryos.’ Both episodes spotlight the series’ tight ensemble casts by putting the characters in increasingly tense circumstances, and while Big Bang’s paired scavenger [hunt] doesn’t have the high stakes of Friends’ apartment game show, the mismatched couples bring focus to some of the less defined relationships on the show.

We were watching videos at night on her Samsung tablet or my company iPad. She showed me the Silvano Agosti 1983 Italian interview with a little Italian boy called “D'Amore si vive, We Live of Love.” The boy was so cute, and his thoughts seemed similar to mine and Martina's. I was so deeply in love with her. The boy on the interview was just like what our own child would be, and we agreed and laughed. “We Live of Love.” What a coincidence! Living. By: Love. I knew the interview from before and she was surprised at how I knew about it. I showed her on my Instagram a picture of the boy I had recently taken a screenshot of and posted. With the subtitle at the right moment under his face: “Descubrir a la vida.” To discover life. Together. With his one and only girlfriend, as the boy explains. I told her multiple times that I was still unsure if she was real, or if it was all a dream; if I had only dreamed of her one night in the dark; if Pinto and I had invented her in my mind. She was a big fan of space, but I thought she liked the mystery behind the endless space with all its questions and secrets for us humans. I thought she liked the sky and space because she recently flew from Argentina to land in my arms. Martina and I were obsessed with Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy; we both knew all their stand-up comedies by heart. We kept replaying the best moments or faces that Chris or Eddie made. We had so much fun watching the same videos over and over that I couldn't believe it. Nobody else ever found the same moments or the same stand-ups as funny as Martina and I did. Nobody before or after found it so amusing. If I showed it to someone, they didn't understand why I was so excited about it or why racist jokes were so funny for an hour from one black comedian to the next. We were obsessed the way Eddie spoke about the „Zebra-Bitch of his dreams, his dream-wife who doesn’t know the concept of money”, saying “she should have an afro, like Angela Davis goes 'God damn it.'“ We were laughing so much. Sometimes I tickled her flat belly or her ribs and she was laughing so sweetly and so much that she couldn't stop. She was begging me to stop tickling her when I barely touched her. She said “No, no, no, no” so many times so quickly and cutely that I had to stop and kiss her; I couldn't resist her lips or her person, I had to kiss and hug her. We laughed so much at particular parts of Chris Rock's stand-up comedies that we could barely stop, almost as if we were tickling each other. We were laughing when Chris Rock was mocking Bone-Thugs-n-Harmony for singing ‘Welfare chariots’ such as „The First of the Month” or when he explained that the government hates rappers, but „only the good rappers get gunned down. They could find Saddam Hussein in a cave in Iraq but couldn't arrest anyone related to Tupac Shakur’s assassination, which didn't happen in a cave in Iraq but in Las Vegas, on the Strip, not one of those side streets, but in front of Circus Circus, after a Mike Tyson fight. Now how many witnesses do you need, to arrest somebody?” We were fascinated with Eddie Murphy, Charlie Murphy, and Chris Rock, but when I showed her Richard Prior, Doug Stanhope, Aries Spears, or George Carlin, she was no longer so impressed for some reason. Her favorite part perhaps was when Chris Rock talked about love and relationships. He said that „you never really been in love unless you have contemplated murder; unless you have practiced your alibi in front of the mirror, staring at a can of rat poison for 45 minutes straight, you haven't been in love. And the only thing preventing you from killing your significant other was an episode of CSI.” He said that relationships are hard and that in order for them to work, both people need to have the same focus, which is all about: her.

And Johnny and Molaro put up the little picture of her on the refrigerator in Sheldon and Leonard’s apartment, which remained until the very end of the series. Steve Molaro: We wanted her to be in every episode from then on, so we knew Sheldon and Leonard’s refrigerator was the best place to do that. Simon Helberg: I would look at it often, and it was nice to have a little piece of her there. It was also kind of funny because no one knew what she looked like, and so you could get away with putting that picture of her up there. It felt like a secret nod we had as a group.

We were watching videos at night on her Samsung tablet or my company iPad. She showed me the Silvano Agosti 1983 Italian interview with a little Italian boy called “D'Amore si vive, We Live of Love.” The boy was so cute, and his thoughts seemed similar to mine and Martina's. I was so deeply in love with her. The boy on the interview was just like what our own child would be, and we agreed and laughed. “We Live of Love.” What a coincidence! Living. By: Love. I knew the interview from before and she was surprised at how I knew about it. I showed her on my Instagram a picture of the boy I had recently taken a screenshot of and posted. With the subtitle at the right moment under his face: “Descubrir a la vida.” To discover life. Together. With his one and only girlfriend, as the boy explains. I told her multiple times that I was still unsure if she was real, or if it was all a dream; if I had only dreamed of her one night in the dark; if Pinto and I had invented her in my mind. She was a big fan of space, but I thought she liked the mystery behind the endless space with all its questions and secrets for us humans. I thought she liked the sky and space because she recently flew from Argentina to land in my arms. Martina and I were obsessed with Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy; we both knew all their stand-up comedies by heart. We kept replaying the best moments or faces that Chris or Eddie made. We had so much fun watching the same videos over and over that I couldn't believe it. Nobody else ever found the same moments or the same stand-ups as funny as Martina and I did. Nobody before or after found it so amusing. If I showed it to someone, they didn't understand why I was so excited about it or why racist jokes were so funny for an hour from one black comedian to the next. We were obsessed the way Eddie spoke about the „Zebra-Bitch of her dreams, her dream-wife who doesn’t know the concept of money”, saying “she should have an afro, like Angela Davis goes 'God damn it.'“ We were laughing so much. Sometimes I tickled her flat belly or her ribs and she was laughing so sweetly and so much that she couldn't stop. She was begging me to stop tickling her when I barely touched her. She said “No, no, no, no” so many times so quickly and cutely that I had to stop and kiss her; I couldn't resist her lips or her person, I had to kiss and hug her. We laughed so much at particular parts of Chris Rock's stand-up comedies that we could barely stop, almost as if we were tickling each other. We were laughing when Chris Rock was mocking Bone-Thugs-n-Harmony for singing ‘Welfare chariots’ such as „The First of the Month” or when he explained that the government hates rappers, but „only the good rappers get gunned down. They could find Saddam Hussein in a cave in Iraq but couldn't arrest anyone related to Tupac Shakur’s assassination, which didn't happen in a cave in Iraq but in Las Vegas, on the Strip, not one of those side streets, but in front of Circus Circus, after a Mike Tyson fight. Now how many witnesses do you need, to arrest somebody?” We were fascinated with Eddie Murphy, Charlie Murphy, and Chris Rock, but when I showed her Richard Prior, Doug Stanhope, Aries Spears, or George Carlin, she was no longer so impressed for some reason. Her favorite part perhaps was when Chris Rock talked about love and relationships. He said that „you never really been in love unless you have contemplated murder; unless you have practiced your alibi in front of the mirror, staring at a can of rat poison for 45 minutes straight, you haven't been in love. And the only thing preventing you from killing your significant other was an episode of CSI.” He said that relationships are hard and that in order for them to work, both people need to have the same focus, which is all about: her.

Do you know how, sometimes, during a commercial break in your favorite television shows, your best friend calls and wants to talk about one of her boyfriends, and when you try to hang up, she starts crying and you try to cheer her up and end up missing about half of the episode? And so when you go to work the next day, you have to get the guy who sits next to you to explain what happened? That’s the good thing about a book. You can mark your place in a book. But this isn’t really a book. It’s a television show.

This undignified episode revealed Poe’s difficult relationship with his popular audience. Ambivalent about Boston and about literary readings that put him on exhibition like a showman, he was characteristically hypersensitive and nervous in that hostile atmosphere. Instead of making the best of the situation by reading a poem that would have impressed his listeners, he chose to expose their pretentiousness and to retaliate with rudeness for their low fee and lack of appreciation.

This is about so much more than losing my virginity. This is about growth. Taking control of my life. Being the best me I can be. A big part of accomplishing that is sticking to my guns and not folding under the pressure of other people’s expectations.