Fake Accent Quotes

Not nearly enough. Not recently, anyway.” And she was sad about that. “I know,” he said, and kissed the back of her hand. “We’ll fix it. Get some sleep.” “Night,” she said, and watched him walk toward the door. “Hey. How’d you get in?” He wiggled his fingers at her in a spooky oogie-boogie pantomime. “I’m a vampire. I have secret powers ,” he said with a full-on fake Transylvanian accent, which he dropped to say, “Actually, your mom let me in.” “Seriously? My mom? Let you in my room? In the middle of the night?” He shrugged. “Moms like me.” He gave her a full-on Hollywood grin, and slipped out the door.

Michael rose to his feet and padded down the last few steps silently, came up behind Kim, and leaned over her to say, “I vant to drink your blood” in a heavy, fake-Dracula accent. She shrieked, flailed, and a zombie ate her brains on-screen. You sabotaged me!” Kim yelled, dropped the controller, and smacked him hard on the chest. “I can’t believe you just totally sabotaged me!” Can’t let him lose,” Michael said, as Shane hit the high score and the victory music sounded. “Gotta live with the dude.” They high-fived. You’re seriously going to take that as a win,” Kim said. “When he totally cheated for you.” Yes,” Shane said. “I seriously am.

Snake Street is an area I should avoid. Yet that night I was drawn there as surely as if I had an appointment.  The Snake House is shabby on the outside to hide the wealth within. Everyone knows of the wealth, but facades, like the park’s wall, must be maintained. A lantern hung from the porch eaves. A sign, written in Utte, read ‘Kinship of the Serpent’. I stared at that sign, at that porch, at the door with its twisted handle, and wondered what the people inside would do if I entered. Would they remember me? Greet me as Kin? Or drive me out and curse me for faking my death?  Worse, would they expect me to redon the life I’ve shed? Staring at that sign, I pissed in the street like the Mearan savage I’ve become. As I started to leave, I saw a woman sitting in the gutter. Her lamp attracted me. A memsa’s lamp, three tiny flames to signify the Holy Trinity of Faith, Purity, and Knowledge.  The woman wasn’t a memsa. Her young face was bruised and a gash on her throat had bloodied her clothing. Had she not been calmly assessing me, I would have believed the wound to be mortal. I offered her a copper.  She refused, “I take naught for naught,” and began to remove trinkets from a cloth bag, displaying them for sale. Her Utte accent had been enough to earn my coin. But to assuage her pride I commented on each of her worthless treasures, fighting the urge to speak Utte. (I spoke Universal with the accent of an upper class Mearan though I wondered if she had seen me wetting the cobblestones like a shameless commoner.) After she had arranged her wares, she looked up at me. “What do you desire, O Noble Born?” I laughed, certain now that she had seen my act in front of the Snake House and, letting my accent match the coarseness of my dress, I again offered the copper.  “Nay, Noble One. You must choose.” She lifted a strand of red beads. “These to adorn your lady’s bosom?”             I shook my head. I wanted her lamp. But to steal the light from this woman ... I couldn’t ask for it. She reached into her bag once more and withdrew a book, leather-bound, the pages gilded on the edges. “Be this worthy of desire, Noble Born?”  I stood stunned a moment, then touched the crescent stamped into the leather and asked if she’d stolen the book. She denied it. I’ve had the Training; she spoke truth. Yet how could she have come by a book bearing the Royal Seal of the Haesyl Line? I opened it. The pages were blank. “Take it,” she urged. “Record your deeds for study. Lo, the steps of your life mark the journey of your soul.”   I told her I couldn’t afford the book, but she smiled as if poverty were a blessing and said, “The price be one copper. Tis a wee price for salvation, Noble One.”   So I bought this journal. I hide it under my mattress. When I lie awake at night, I feel the journal beneath my back and think of the woman who sold it to me. Damn her. She plagues my soul. I promised to return the next night, but I didn’t. I promised to record my deeds. But I can’t. The price is too high.

He rose to his feet and padded down the last few steps silently, came up behind Kim, and leaned over her to say, “I vant to drink your blood” in a heavy, fake Dracula accent. She shrieked, flailed, and a zombie ate her brains on-screen."!

Voicemail #1: “Hi, Isabel Culpeper. I am lying in my bed, looking at the ceiling. I am mostly naked. I am thinking of … your mother. Call me.” Voicemail #2: The first minute and thirty seconds of “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You” by the Bee Gees. Voicemail #3: “I’m bored. I need to be entertained. Sam is moping. I may kill him with his own guitar. It would give me something to do and also make him say something. Two birds with one stone! I find all these old expressions unnecessarily violent. Like, ring around the rosy. That’s about the plague, did you know? Of course you did. The plague is, like, your older cousin. Hey, does Sam talk to you? He says jack shit to me. God, I’m bored. Call me.” Voicemail #4: “Hotel California” by the Eagles, in its entirety, with every instance of the word California replaced with Minnesota. Voicemail #5: “Hi, this is Cole St. Clair. Want to know two true things? One, you’re never picking up this phone. Two, I’m never going to stop leaving long messages. It’s like therapy. Gotta talk to someone. Hey, you know what I figured out today? Victor’s dead. I figured it out yesterday, too. Every day I figure it out again. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel like there’s no one I can —” Voicemail #6: “So, yeah, I’m sorry. That last message went a little pear-shaped. You like that expression? Sam said it the other day. Hey, try this theory on for size: I think he’s a dead British housewife reincarnated into a Beatle’s body. You know, I used to know this band that put on fake British accents for their shows. Boy, did they suck, aside from being assholes. I can’t remember their name now. I’m either getting senile or I’ve done enough to my brain that stuff’s falling out. Not so fair of me to make this one-sided, is it? I’m always talking about myself in these things. So, how are you, Isabel Rosemary Culpeper? Smile lately? Hot Toddies. That was the name of the band. The Hot Toddies.” Voicemail #20: “I wish you’d answer.

I wonder if it would be unethical for me to turn James Marsters? And then force him to fake the Cockney accent? And then make him my love monkey?

Angeline's been hanging out with that dhampir. I just saw them walking off together. Is something going on with them?" "Which dhampir?" I asked. "The one with the fake British accent." "I don't think it's fake." "Well, whatever." Even I could read the jealousy in Trey's features. "What's up with them?" "Pretty sure there's nothing." "Then why are they always together?" Because she's trying to get over you, I thought.

I’m avampire. I havesecret powers ,” he said with a full-on fake Transylvanian accent, which he dropped to say, “Actually, your mom let me in.

Either peace or happiness, let it enfold you when I was a young man I felt these things were dumb, unsophisticated. I had bad blood, a twisted mind, a precarious upbringing. I was hard as granite, I leered at the sun. I trusted no man and especially no woman. I changed jobs and cities, I hated holidays, babies, history, newspapers, museums, grandmothers, marriage, movies, spiders, garbagemen, english accents,spain, france,italy,walnuts and the color orange. algebra angred me, opera sickened me, charlie chaplin was a fake and flowers were for pansies.

In truth, she had claim to no nationality. Her papers were all forgeries, and her accents -all except one, in her first language, which was not of human origin- were all fakes.

At this point two elderly security guards in parkas, the guys who normally work the front desk at the plant, asked John to step behind the tape. John claims that here he told the guards that he could not speak English and when that failed to persuade them, he fa...ked a violent seizure. I am unclear as to the purpose of this part of his plan. John flung himself down and began rolling around in the snow, thrashing his limbs about and screaming “EL SEIZURE!!! NO ES BUENO!!!” in a Mexican accent.

Your love of the halflings’ leaf has clearly slowed your mind,’ ” he quoted. “Sting was an Elvish blade, forged in Gondolin in the First Age! It could cut through almost anything! And its blade only glowed when it detected the presence of orcs or goblins nearby. What does Mjolnir detect? Fake accents and frosted hair?

Ifemelu decided to stop faking an American accent on a sunlit day in July, the same day she met Blaine. It was convincing, the accent. She had perfected, from careful watching of friends and newscasters, the blurring of the t, the creamy roll of the r, the sentences starting with “so,” and the sliding response of “oh really,” but the accent creaked with consciousness, it was an act of will. It took an effort, the twisting of lip, the curling of tongue. If she were in a panic, or terrified, or jerked awake during a fire, she would not remember how to produce those American sounds.

Oh, I love his accent! If I could drink words, he'd be my hot chocolate, my mulled wine, and my glass of water first thing every morning.

She had always found Asian girls with American accents to be quite ridiculous. They all sounded like they were faking it, trying to sound so ang mor.

I’d heard it many times before. That the great deal of the staff at the RiRa put on fake accents. They weren’t even Irish. An English told me. — Land of The Story Tellers

I changed jobs and cities, I hated holidays, babies, history, newspapers, museums, grandmothers, marriage, movies, spiders, garbagemen, english accents,spain, france,italy,walnuts and the color orange. algebra angred me, opera sickened me, charlie chaplin was a fake and flowers were for pansies.

And for the Doctor, time is literally running out. He knows that Compassion is dying. He’s aware that he has lost his own ability to regenerate. He’s worried by Fitz’s fake German accent.

Bruno Bettelheim, who might have had more influence if he weren’t, as Dr. Spock himself noted, a “[v]ery frightening” figure who “scared the hell out of people.” A Holocaust survivor with a heavy accent, a stern manner, and some outlandish ideas, Bettelheim gave people the creeps, and after his suicide in 1990, we’d learn there was good reason: his credentials were faked,

4. Or else: Rough draft of a letter I think of you, often sometimes I go back into a cafe, I ist near the door, I order a coffee I arrange my packet of cigarettes, a box of matches, a writing pad, my felt-pen on the fake marble table I Spend a long time stirring my cup of coffee with the teasspoon (yet I don't put any sugar in my coffee, I drink it allowing the sugar to melt in my mouth, like the people of North, like the Russians and Poles when they drink tea) I pretend to be precoccupied, to be reflecting, as if I had a decision to make At the top and to the right of the sheet of paaper, I inscribe the date, sometimes the place, sometimes the time, I pretend to be writing a letter I write slowly, very slowly, as slowly as I can, I trace, I draw each letter, each accent, I check the punctuation marks I stare attentively at a small notice, the price-list for ice-creams, at a piece of ironwork, a blind, the hexagonal yellow ashtray (in actual fact, it's an equilaterial triangle, in the cutoff corners of which semi-circular dents have been made where cigarettes can be rested) (...) Outside there's a bit of sunlight the cafe is nearly empty two renovatior's men are having a rum at the bar, the owner is dozing behind his till, the waitress is cleaning the coffee machine I am thinking of you you are walking in your street, it's wintertime, you've turned up your foxfur collar, you're smiling, and remote (...)

There’s no need for that,” a thick Northern accent says over my head. I blink as the chair opposite me is dragged out with an ear-piercing squeak, and my neighbour Zack heaves his massive, muscled body into Mike’s empty seat.  “Hey, gorgeous,” he says cheerfully, leaning over the table. I jump when he brushes his lips across my cheek, my lungs filling with his warm, honey-and-whiskey smell. “Sorry I peed for so long.” He sits back in his chair and grins at me. “Right. Back to the date. Where were we?

Why do you always call me by my full name?” “I don’t know. I guess that’s how I think of you in my head.” “Oh, so you’re saying you think about me a lot?” I laugh. “No, I’m saying that when I think about you, which isn’t very often, that’s how I think of you. On the first day of school, I always have to explain to teachers that Lara Jean is my first name and not just Lara. And then, do you remember how Mr. Chudney started calling you John Ambrose because of that? ‘Mr. John Ambrose.’” In a fake hoity-toity English accent, John says, “Mr. John Ambrose McClaren the Third, madam.” I giggle. I’ve never met a third before. “Are you really?” “Yeah. It’s annoying. My dad’s a junior, so he’s JJ, but my extended family still calls me Little John.” He grimaces. “I’d much rather be John Ambrose than Little John. Sounds like a rapper or that guy from Robin Hood.” “Your family’s so fancy.” I only ever saw John’s mom when she was picking him up. She looked younger than the other mothers, she had John’s same milky skin, and her hair was longer than the other moms’, straw-colored. “No. My family isn’t fancy at all. My mom made Jell-O salad last night for dessert. And, like, my dad only has steak cooked well-done. We only ever take vacations we can drive to.

Sometimes he wondered if it wasn’t all a giant con, the gaggle of letters after his name, the dinners with Angela Merkel and Narendra Modi, the notes from Gordon Brown and Larry Summers. They were like those fake Oscar statues bought at ‘World’s Greatest Photocopier’ or ‘Best Lightbulb Changer in the Galaxy.’ When he died only his writing would remain, until it was rendered obsolete when oil and coal ran out and the species established its first settlement on Mars. Professor Chandra was the foremost trade economist in the world, could phone any finance minister in any country at any time and have them take his call. And yet, what if he had only convinced himself that the world envied him? What if, in reality, they felt sorry for him with his swollen ego and his Savile Row suits and his sculpted tri-continental accent?

It's true that Lucinda had once spent hours of her own time putting together a research memo on the Canadian rock band Barenaked Ladies, specifically investigating whether then lead singer Steven Page was purposefully singing in a fake American accent for their 1998 hit single "One Week." She'd notice that the song loudly announces itself with the lyric "IT'S BEEN," but the word "been" is pronounced *bin*, which is the American pronunciation, as opposed to the more Canadian way of saying it, *bean*. Even more notably, the oft-repeated lyric "sorry" is also pronounced the American way, *sawry*, instead of a round Canadian *soary*. After scouring the internet for video and audio interviews with Steven Page, she discovered that he did in fact pronounce "been" the Canadian way in casual conversation, which meant he (intentionally or not) was putting on a fake America accent when he recorded the song. Lucinda couldn't find any literature or analysis on this subject, so she was forced to conjure her own theories, which included: a. Steven Page was actively suppressing his Canadian accent because someone told him his music would be more successful worldwide if he sounded more American, b. he was subconsciously suppressing his accent because he'd already internalized this idea, or c. the song itself is sung from the point of view of a character who lives in the United States and is in fact a subtle satire of American culture.

Johnny Rotten slouches at the front of the stage, propped up on the mike stand. He's leaning so far forward he looks as if he might topple into the empty space in front of the audience. · His face is pale and his body is twisted into such an awkward ugly shape he looks deformed. He looks ordinary, about the same age as us, the kind of boy I was at comprehensive school with. He's not a flashy star like Marc Bolan or David Bowie, all dressed up in exotic costumes, he's not a virtuoso musician like Eric Clapton or Peter Green, he's not even a macho rock-and-roll pub-band singer – he's just a bloke from Finsbury Park, London, England, who’s pissed off. Johnny sneers at us in his ordinary North London accent, his voice isn't trained and tuneful, it's a whiny cynical drawl, every song delivered unemotionally. There's no fake American twang either. All the things I'm so embarrassed about, John's made into virtues. He's unapologetic about who he is and where he comes from. Proud of it even. He's not taking the world's lack of interest as confirmation that he’s wrong or worthless. I look up at him twisting and yowling and realise it's everyone else who's wrong, not him. How did he make that mental leap from musically untrained, state-school-educated, council estate boy, to standing on stage in front of a band? I think he's brave. A revolutionary. He's sending a very powerful message, the most powerful message anyone can ever transmit. Be yourself.

Mindy runs to the DVD player and delicately places the disk in the holder and presses play. “Will you sit in this chair, please, Princess Mindy?” I ask, bowing deeply at the waist. Mindy giggles as she replies, ”I guess so.” After Mindy sits down, I take a wide-tooth comb and start gently combing out her tangles. Mindy starts vibrating with excitement as she blurts, “Mr. Jeff, you’re gonna fix my hair fancy, ain’t you?” “We’ll see if a certain Princess can hold still long enough for me to finish,” I tease. Immediately, Mindy becomes as still as a stone statue. After a couple of minutes, I have to say, “Mindy, sweetheart, it’s okay to breathe. I just can’t have you bouncing, because I’m afraid it will cause me to pull your hair.” Mindy slumps down in her chair just slightly. “Okay Mr. Jeff, I was ascared you was gonna stop,” she whispers, her chin quivering. I adopt a very fake, very over-the-top French accent and say, “Oh no, Monsieur Jeff must complete Princess Mindy’s look to make the Kingdom happy. Mindy erupts with the first belly laugh I’ve heard all day as she responds, “Okay, I’ll try to be still, but it’s hard ‘cause I have the wiggles real bad.” I pat her on the shoulder and chuckle as I say, “Just try your best, sweetheart. That’s all anyone can ask.” Kiera comes screeching around the corner in a blur, plunks her purse on the table, and says breathlessly, “Geez-O-Pete, I can’t believe I’m late for the makeover. I love makeovers.” Kiera digs through her purse and produces two bottles of nail polish and nail kit. “It’s time for your mani/pedi ma’am. Would you prefer Pink Pearl or Frosted Creamsicle? Mindy raises her hand like a schoolchild and Kiera calls on her like a pupil, “I want Frosted Cream toes please,” Mindy answers. “Your wish is my command, my dear,” Kiera responds with a grin. For the next few minutes, Mindy gets the spa treatment of her life as I carefully French braid her hair into pigtails. As a special treat, I purchased some ribbons from the gift shop and I’m weaving them into her hair. I tuck a yellow rose behind her ear. I don my French accent as I declare, “Monsieur Jeffery pronounces Princess Mindy finished and fit to rule the kingdom.” Kiera hands Mindy a new tube of grape ChapStick from her purse, “Hold on, a true princess never reigns with chapped lips,” she says. Mindy giggles as she responds, “You’re silly, Miss Kiera. Nobody in my kingdom is going to care if my lips are shiny.” Kiera’s laugh sounds like wind chimes as she covers her face with her hands as she confesses, “Okay, you busted me. I just like to use it because it tastes yummy.” “Okay, I want some, please,” Mindy decides. Kiera is putting the last minute touches on her as Mindy is scrambling to stand on Kiera’s thighs so she can get a better look in the mirror. When I reach out to steady her, she grabs my hand in a death grip. I glance down at her. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is opening and closing like a fish. I shoot Kiera a worried glance, but she merely shrugs. “Holy Sh — !” Mindy stops short when she sees Kiera’s expression. “Mr. Jeff is an angel for reals because he turned me into one. Look at my hair Miss Kiera, there are magic ribbons in it! I’m perfect. I can be anything I want to be.” Spontaneously, we all join together in a group hug. I kiss the top of her head as I agree, “Yes, Mindy, you are amazing and the sky is the limit for you.

Come on Lee, we gotta talk.” Hopper’s voice was deep and gravelly, with a thick, phony-sounding country drawl. The accent was so obviously fake that under other circumstances Lee would have laughed,

At the time he seemed both ancient and French, but the wisdom that has come with age tells me he was thirty-two and faking the accent.

Sven, “the Swede” who had a detectable Brooklyn accent, talked the entire time. He was beyond excited about my makeover and wouldn’t let me look until he was finished. It was that dramatic. Finally, he squealed, “Are you ready, little one?” I glanced up at Sven. He was so wound up, he could barely contain himself. Though he was very tall and extremely blond, he reminded me of Martin Short’s character in Father of the Bride.

Philip, I just love your accent,” the casting director cooed as she looked over his rather blank résumé. “We can always use someone like you.” While Philip continued to form a bond with the powerful and influential casting director, the girl next to me leaned over and whispered, “It’s amazing what a little accent can do for your career.” “I know.” I watched in awe. “I wish I had an accent.” My heart stilled as the answer to my five-year question hit me smack in the face.

After parking in the west lot, far from a certain gang member with a reputation that could scare off even the toughest Fairfield football players, Sierra and I walk up the front steps of Fairfield High. Unfortunately, Alex Fuentes and the rest of his gang friends are hanging by the front doors. “Walk right past them,” Sierra mutters. “Whatever you do, don’t look in their eyes.” It’s pretty hard not to when Alex Fuentes steps right in front of me and blocks my path. What’s that prayer you’re supposed to say right before you know you’re going to die? “You’re a lousy driver,” Alex says with his slight Latino accent and full-blown-I-AM-THE-MAN stance. The guy might look like an Abercrombie mode with his ripped bod and flawless face, but his picture is more likely to be taken for a mug shot. The kids from the north side don’t really mix with kids from the south side. It’s not that we think we’re better than them, we’re just different. We’ve grown up in the same town, but on totally opposite sides. We live in big houses on Lake Michigan and they live next to the train tracks. We look, talk, act, and dress different. I’m not saying it’s good or bad; it’s just the way it is in Fairfield. And, to be honest, most of the south side girls treat me like Carmen Sanchez does…they hate me because of who I am. Or, rather, who they think I am. Alex’s gaze slowly moves down my body, traveling the length of me before moving back up. It’s not the first time a guy has checked me out, it’s just that I never had a guy like Alex do it so blatantly…and so up-close. I can feel my face getting hot. “Next time, watch where you’re goin’,” he says, his voice cool and controlled. He’s trying to bully me. He’s a pro at this. I won’t let him get to me and win his little game of intimidation, even if my stomach feels like I’m doing one hundred cartwheels in a row. I square my shoulders and sneer at him, the same sneer I use to push people away. “Thanks for the tip.” “If you ever need a real man to teach you how to drive, I can give you lessons.” Catcalls and whistles from his buddies set my blood boiling. “If you were a real man, you’d open the door for me instead of blocking my way,” I say, admiring my own comeback even as my knees threaten to buckle. Alex steps back, pulls the door open, and bows like he’s my butler. He’s totally mocking me, he knows it and I know it. Everyone knows it. I catch a glimpse of Sierra, still desperately searching for nothing in her purse. She’s clueless. “Get a life,” I tell him. “Like yours? Cabróna, let me tell you somethin’,” Alex says harshly. “Your life isn’t reality, it’s fake. Just like you.” “It’s better than living my life as a loser,” I lash out, hoping my words sting as much as his words did. “Just like you.” Grabbing Sierra’s arm, I pull her toward the open door. Catcalls and comments follow us as we walk into the school. I finally let out the breath I must have been holding, then turn to Sierra. My best friend is staring at me, all bug-eyed. “Holy shit, Brit! You got a death wish or something?” “What gives Alex Fuentes the right to bully everyone in his path?” “Uh, maybe the gun he has hidden in his pants or the gang colors he wears,” Sierra says, sarcasm dripping from every word. “He’s not stupid enough to carry a gun to school,” I reason. “And I refuse to be bullied, by him or anyone else.

Why can't you call me Alex?" I ask, my head down while I stare at the food in front of me. "If I wanted to call you Alex, I wouldn't have bothered to name you Alejandro. Don't you like your given name?" My muscles tense. I was named after a father who is no longer alive, leaving me the responsibility of being the designated man of the house. Alejandro, Alejandro Jr., Junior . . . it's all the same to me. "Would it matter?" I mumble as I pick up a tortilla. I look up, trying to gauge her reaction. Her back is to me as she cleans dishes in the sink. "No." "Alex wants to pretend he's white," Carlos chimes in. "You can change your name, bro, but nobody'd mistake you for anythin' other than Mexicano." "Carlos, collate la boca," I warn. I don't want to be white. I just don't want to be associated with my father. "Por favor, you two," our mother pleads. "Enough fighting for one day." "Mojado," Carlos sings, egging me on by calling me a wetback. I've had enough of Carlos's mouth; he's gone too far. I stand, my chair scraping the floor. Carlos follows and steps in front of me, closing the space between us. He knows I could kick his ass. His overblown ego is gonna get him in trouble with the wrong person one of these days. "Carlos, sit down," mi'ama orders. "Dirty beaner," Carlos drawls at me in a fake deep accent. "Better yet, es un Ganguero." "Carlos!" mi'ama reprimands sharply as she comes forward, but I get in between them and grab my brother's collar. "Yeah, that's all anyone will ever think of me," I tell him. "But you keep talkin' trash and they'll think that of you, too." "Brother, they'll think that of me anyway. Whether I want them to or not." I release him. "You're wrong, Carlos. You can do better, be better." "Than you?" "Yeah, better than me and you know it," I say. "Now apologize to mi'ama for talkin' smack in front of her." One look in my eyes and Carlos knows I'm not kidding around. "Sorry, Ma," he says, then sits back down. I don't miss his glare, though, as his ego got knocked down a peg.

Once, while I was in college, a guy nearly triggered an aneurism over the phone, overwhelmed with his anger at being bothered by ours and other campaigns calling him at home (to interrupt his supper). He announced he was going to vote for our principle opponent, because her campaign had not bothered him yet. It took two other campaign volunteers to restrain me from immediately calling back with a fake accent on behalf of her campaign. There

Dah-ling! Where are you going?! Don’t be skurd!” Brianna said in an awful fake French accent that sounded more like a six-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And everything you say sounds better because it’s in French. I might just have to speak in a fake French accent for the rest of my life.

The Ten Commandments of Punk Thou shalt know everything by the time thou art seventeen, with a great and sure certainty. Thou shalt proclaim the year zero and not honor the past because the new alone shall count. Thou shalt wear a garb of torn leather jacket and trousers, with accessories bearing a hint of S&M, with thy feet shod by Doc Martens. Thy T-shirt, like thy lyrics, will bear a slogan to offend. Thou shalt be bored, angry, pretty vacant, or at least faintly pissed off. Thou shalt have no more heroes, nor accept anyone in authority. Thou shalt bear an adjective for a surname like Rotten or Vicious. Thou shalt connect with thy audience so that they may invade thy stage or receive thy spit in their eye. Let them mosh. Thou shalt speak the truth in a fake cockney accent, even if thou art Irish or went to a minor English public school. Thou shalt not grow old lest thy come to realize the biggest authority thy will need to defeat is thine own self.

But Rebecca grew up in a city on the East Coast, where she was extremely isolated from people who looked like her. That made her instinctively competitive when, all of a sudden, she finally was surrounded by women that looked exactly like her only because they were waiting to audition for the role of the wet-haired ghost from The Ring or Angry Waitress with Fake-Ass Accent #2. The “specialness” she was used to feeling from looking different vanished instantly.

Indians lose their accent pretty fast when the ticket counter at a heritage site asks them to pay 600 bucks instead of 40.

I Am Not Like Them” They call us terrorists, filled with hate, Our prayers, they say, hide darker schemes. But I’m different, peaceful, good— I don’t belong in their fearful dreams. Yes, I am a Muslim, but… I am not like them. They mock my accent, my skin, my face, They say we lie, and hoard, and cheat. But I’m honest, fair—don’t lump me in With those who tarnish the country’s seat. Yes, I am Indian, but… I am not like them. They say we’re leeches, here to take, Their jobs, their homes, their hard-earned bread. But I’m no thief; I work, I strive, Unlike the others, who cheat instead. Yes, I am an immigrant, but… I am not like them. They see us as paper citizens, fake, A birthright they claim we don’t deserve. But I was born here, raised with pride, Not like those who don’t “preserve.” Yes, my parents are immigrants, but… I am not like them. But what is this game we choose to play, This fight to stand above the rest? In trying to prove we’re “not like them,” We leave our brothers dispossessed. These words, so small, so selfishly sharp, Slice through the ties that could bind us strong. Each time we say “I am not like them,” We let the hate march further along. For what is hate but a shifting mirror, That turns and finds a new face to blame? Until we shatter the mirror itself, We will always live in its frame.

The most logical answer that I have found is precisely that I was an out-and-proud Jew and Israeli. I didn’t try to hide my identity to fit in with the locals, nor did I adopt a fake British accent or keep my head down. On the contrary. I spoke confidently in my Israeli accent, without being embarrassed or second-guessing myself. I was a proud Jew and Zionist, and I radiated the national and personal pride that I felt. I made friends for life, and we are still in contact. When we were young, we had arguments, sometimes extremely passionate ones, but we maintained the kind of camaraderie and mutual respect that aren’t possible among people who lack a meaningful moral spine.