Famous Browning Quotes

Yet Byron never made tea as you do, who fill the pot so that when you put the lid on the tea spills over. There is a brown pool on the table--it is running among your books and papers. Now you mop it up, clumsily, with your pocket-hankerchief. You then stuff your hankerchief back into your pocket--that is not Byron; that is so essentially you that if I think of you in twenty years' time, when we are both famous, gouty and intolerable, it will be by that scene: and if you are dead, I shall weep.

Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton... I could just lie here all day, and watch them drift by... If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations... What do you think you see, Linus?" "Well, those clouds up there look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean... That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor... And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen... I can see the apostle Paul standing there to one side..." "Uh huh... That's very good... What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?" "Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind!

There’s a great quote from the movie Almost Famous that says, “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.

It’s the conflict between Apollo and Dionysus—a famous dilemma in mythology. It’s the age-old battle between mind and heart, which seldom want the same thing.

Then let me ask you this famous question: Would you rather live in a world without technology…or in a world without religion? Would you rather live without medicine, electricity, transportation, and antibiotics…or without zealots waging war over fictional tales and imaginary spirits?

Death wins nothing here, gnawing wings that amputate–– then spread, lift up, fly.

I know a lot of famous people didn't do well at school, like James Brown; he dropped out in fifth grade to be an entertainer, I respect that... but that's not going to be me. I'm not going to be able to do anything but work as hard as possible all the time and compete with everyone I know all the time to make it.

Despite Langdon’s six-foot frame and athletic build, Anderson saw none of the cold, hardened edge he expected from a man famous for surviving an explosion at the Vatican and a manhunt in Paris. This guy eluded the French police…in loafers? He looked more like someone Anderson would expect to find hearthside in some Ivy League library reading Dostoyevsky.

We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we’re afraid to let them see it in us. We’re afraid that our truth isn’t enough—that what we have to offer isn’t enough without the bells and whistles, without editing, and impressing. I was afraid to walk on that stage and show the audience my kitchen-table self—these people were too important, too successful, too famous. My kitchen-table self is too messy, too imperfect, too unpredictable. Here’s the crux of the struggle: I want to experience your vulnerability but I don’t want to be vulnerable.

Religions had learned long ago that a human mind facing the terrifying prospect of eternal nothingness would believe almost anything. Timor mortis est pater religionis, Langdon mused, recalling the ancient saying made famous by Upton Sinclair. Fear of death is the father of religion.

You have been reading Byron. You have been marking the passages that seem to approve of your own character. I find marks against all those sentences which seem to express a sardonic yet passionate nature; a moth-like impetuosity dashing itself against hard glass. You thought, as you drew your pencil there, "I too throw off my cloak like that. I too snap my fingers in the face of destiny". Yet Byron never made tea as you do, who fill the pot so that when you put the lid on the tea spills over. There is a brown pool on the table - it is running among your books and papers. Now you mop it up, clumsily, with your pocket-handkerchief. You then stuff your handkerchief back into your pocket - that is not Byron; that is you; that is so essentially you that if I think of you in twenty years' time, when we are both famous, gouty and intolerable, it will be by that scene: and if you are dead, I shall weep.

The mathematics of Malthus? A quick Internet search led him to information about a prominent nineteenth-century English mathematician and demographist named Thomas Robert Malthus, who had famously predicted an eventual global collapse due to overpopulation.

For many years when I have heard nice people try to be respectful about describing undocumented people, I’ve heard them call us “undocumented workers” as a euphemism, as if there was something uncouth about being just an undocumented person standing with your hands clasped together or at your sides. I almost wish they’d called us something rude like “crazy fuckin’ Mexicans” because that’s acknowledging something about us beyond our usefulness—we’re crazy, we’re Mexican, we’re clearly unwanted!—but to describe all of us, men, women, children, locally Instagram-famous teens, queer puppeteers, all of us, as workers in order to make us palatable, my god. We were brown bodies made to labor, faces pixelated.

You’re being ridiculous. In the end I’ll be more famous than you anyway. Cassius Bellona, the Man Who Killed Fear.

The world of publishing is in crisis. It's no coincidence that the worst published writer in the world today is also one of the world's most successful writers... Dan Brown. Now Dan Brown is not a good writer, The Da Vinci Code is not literature. Dan Brown writes sentences like "The famous man looked at the red cup." ...and it's only to be hoped that Dan Brown never gets a job where he's required to break bad news. "Doctor is he going to be alright?" "The seventy five year old man died a painful death on the large green table... it was sad".

A reporter asked me which famous woman was my role model, a question that always leaves me stumped. I know it’s the wrong feminist answer, but most of my role models have been men. They always had the lives I wanted.

On the first landing, Langdon came face-to-face with a bronze bust of Masonic luminary Albert Pike, along with the engraving of his most famous quote: What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.

But as a kid, I preferred the black side, and often wished that Mommy had sent me to black schools like my friends. Instead I was stuck at that white school, P.S. 138, with white classmates who were convinced I could dance like James Brown. They constantly badgered me to do the “James Brown” for them, a squiggling of the feet made famous by the “Godfather of Soul” himself, who back in the sixties was bigger than life. I tried to explain to them that I couldn’t dance. I have always been one of the worst dancers that God has ever put upon this earth.

Most tourists mistranslated Jardins des Tuileries as relating to the thousands of tulips that bloomed here, but Tuileries was actually a literal reference to something far less romantic. This park had once been an enormous, polluted excavation pit from which Parisian contractors mined clay to manufacture the city’s famous red roofing tiles—or tuiles.

I am not so much fun Anymore; Couldn’t carry the role of ingenue In a bucket, you say, laughing. And I want to punch you. I was never innocent, but Thanks to you I know things I wish I did not remember. You don’t like it When I talk to the man myself, Specifying quantities and Give him the money Instead of giving it to you And letting you take care of it. You keep asking me, Where’s the dope? Until I finally say, I hid it. The look you give me is Pure bile. Well, fuck you. This isn’t like Buying somebody a drink. You don’t leave your stash out Where I might find it. Finally I think I’ve made you wait Long enough, So I get out the little paper envelope And hand it to you. You are still in charge of This part, so you relax. Performing your junky ritual with Your favorite razor blade, until I ask you how to calculate my dose So I won’t O.D. when I do this And you’re not around. Then you really flip. You tell me it’s a bad idea For me to do this with other people. ** Was it such a good idea For me to do it with you? Do you wait for me to turn up Once every three months So you can get high? Is this our version of that famous Lesbian fight about Nonmonogamy? Let me tell you what I don’t like. I don’t like it when you Take forever to cut up brown powder And cook it down and Suck it up into the needle And measure it, then take Three times as much for yourself AS you give me. I don’t like it when you Fuck me After you’ve taken the needle Out of my arm. You talk too much And spoil my rush. All I really want to do Is listen to the tides of blood Wash around inside my body Telling me everything is Fine, fine, fine._ And I certainly don’t want to Eat you or fuck you Because it will take forever To make you come, If you can come at all, And by then the smack will have worn off And there isn’t any more. I’m trying to remember What the part is that I do like. I think this shit likes me A lot more than I like it. Now you’re hurt and angry because I don’t want to see you again And the truth is, I would love to see you, As long as I knew you were holding. So you tell me Is this what you want? I bet it was what you wanted All along.

Bhagat Singh revered Lajpat Rai as a leader. But he would not spare even Lajpat Rai, when, during the last years of his life, Lajpat Rai turned to communal politics. He then launched a political-ideological campaign against him. Because Lajpat Rai was a respected leader, he would not publicly use harsh words of criticism against him. And so he printed as a pamphlet Robert Browning’s famous poem, ‘The Lost Leader,’ in which Browning criticizes Wordsworth for turning against liberty. The poem begins with the line ‘Just for a handful of silver he left us.’ A few more of the poem’s lines were: ‘We shall march prospering, not thro’ his presence; Songs may inspirit us, not from his lyre,’ and ‘Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more.’ There was not one word of criticism of Lajpat Rai. Only, on the front cover, he printed Lajpat Rai’s photograph!

FLAMBEAU, once the most famous criminal in France and later a very private detective in England, had long retired from both professions.

Einstein had famously declared: Coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous.

This book is entitled The Year of Reading Dangerously. It is the true story of the year I spent reading some of the greatest and most famous books in the world, and two by Dan Brown.

After listing the vast array of famous composers, artists, and authors who had created works based on Dante’s epic poem, Langdon scanned the crowd. “So tell me, do we have any authors here tonight?” Nearly one-third of the hands went up. Langdon stared out in shock. Wow, either this is the most accomplished audience on earth, or this e-publishing thing is really taking off.

luminary Albert Pike, along with the engraving of his most famous quote: WHAT WE HAVE DONE FOR OURSELVES ALONE DIES WITH US; WHAT WE HAVE DONE FOR OTHERS AND THE WORLD REMAINS AND IS IMMORTAL.

There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the fall mornings. Along the roads, laurel, viburnum, and alder, great ferns and wildflowers delighted the traveler's eye through much of the year. Even in winter the roadsides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall people traveled from great distances to observe them. Others came to fish the streams, which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days many years ago when the first settlers raised their homes, sank their wells, and built their barns. Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens, the cattle, and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients. There had been sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among adults but even among children whoe would be stricken suddently while at play and die within a few hours. There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example--where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh. On the farms the hens brooded, but no chicks hatched. The farmers complained that they were unable to raise any pigs--the litters were small and the young survived only a few days. The apple trees were coming into bloom but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit. The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These, too, were silent, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were not lifeless. Anglers no longer visited them, for all the fish had died. In the gutters under the eaves and between the shingles of the roofs, a white granular powder still showed a few patches; some weeks before it had fallen like snow upon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and streams. No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of life in this stricken world. The people had done it to themselves.

This pointing-hand gesture—with its index finger and thumb extended upward—is a well-known symbol of the Ancient Mysteries, and it appears all over the world in ancient art. This same gesture appears in three of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous encoded masterpieces—The Last Supper, Adoration of the Magi, and Saint John the Baptist. It’s a symbol of man’s mystical connection to God.” As above, so below. The madman’s bizarre choice of words was starting to feel more relevant now. “I’ve never seen it before,” Sato said. Then watch ESPN, Langdon thought, always amused to see professional athletes point skyward in gratitude to God after a touchdown or home run. He wondered how many knew they were continuing a pre-Christian mystical tradition of acknowledging the mystical power above, which, for one brief moment, had transformed them into a god capable of miraculous feats.

He looked up at her, shook his long, David Cassidy hair, and regarded her with those famously soulful brown eyes. He'd evidently just stepped out of the shower, and he smelled amazing - a mix of citrus, cedar, and ex-boyfriend who just worked out.

Flambeau, once the most famous criminal in France and later a very private detective in England, had long retired from both professions. Some say a career of crime had left him with too many scruples for a career of detection. Anyhow, after a life of romantic escapes and tricks of evasion, he had ended at what some might consider an appropriate address; a castle in Spain. [...] Flambeau had casually and almost abruptly fallen in love with a Spanish lady, married and brought up a large family on a Spanish estate, without displaying any apparent desire to stray again beyond its borders.

Down on his luck, [the screenwriter] Michael Arlen went to New York in 1944. To drown his sorrows he paid a visit to the famous restaurant “21.” In the lobby, he ran into Sam Goldwyn, who offered the somewhat impractical advice that he should buy racehorses. At the bar Arlen met Louis B. Mayer, an old acquaintance, who asked him what were his plans for the future. “I was just talking to Sam Goldwyn ...” began Arlen. “How much did he offer you? ”interrupted Mayer. “Not enough,” he replied evasively. “Would you take fifteen thousand for thirty weeks?” asked Mayer. No hesitation this time. “Yes,” said Arlen.

A part of northern Italy called Val Camonica contains about 350,000 petroglyphs that were created nearly 10,000 years ago. Brescia is a famous town at 75 km from there, it is very popular for Beretta arms industry, the oldest in the world, the Garda Lake and also because Carl William Brown was born there.

Amy Bellini and Sasha Tibbles traipsed down the aisle and wriggled into the back seat, Amy right next to me. Her damp brown hair flicked in my face as she turned to make herself more comfortable. I didn’t mind. I wouldn’t admit this to ANYONE, but I think she’s not quite as weird as the rest of the girls.

THE phrase Daring Greatly is from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech “Citizenship in a Republic.” The speech, sometimes referred to as “The Man in the Arena,” was delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on April 23, 1910. This is the passage that made the speech famous: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.…

I see the last two millennia as laid out in columns, like a reverse ledger sheet. It's as if I'm standing at the top of the twenty-first century looking downwards to 2000. Future centuries float as a gauzy sheet stretching over to the left. I also see people, architecture and events laid out chronologically in the columns. When I think of the year 1805, I see Trafalgar, women in the clothes of that era, famous people who lived then, the building, etc. The sixth to tenth centuries are very green, the Middle Ages are dark with vibrant splashes of red and blue and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are brown with rich, lush colours in the furniture and clothing.

But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself.

In those days there was no money to buy books. Books you borrowed from the rental library of Shakespeare and Company, which was the library and bookstore of Sylvia Beach at 12 rue de l’Odéon. On a cold windswept street, this was a lovely, warm, cheerful place with a big stove in winter, tables and shelves of books, new books in the window, and photographs on the wall of famous writers both dead and living. The photographs all looked like snapshots and even the dead writers looked as though they had really been alive. Sylvia had a lively, very sharply cut face, brown eyes that were as alive as a small animal’s and as gay as a young girl’s, and wavy brown hair that was brushed back from her fine forehead and cut thick below her ears and at the line of the collar of the brown velvet jacket she wore. She had pretty legs and she was kind, cheerful and interested, and loved to make jokes and gossip. No one that I ever knew was nicer to me. I was very shy when I first went into the bookshop and I did not have enough money on me to join the rental library. She told me I could pay the deposit any time I had the money and made me out a card and said I could take as many books as I wished. There was no reason for her to trust me. She did not know me and the address I had given her, 74 rue Cardinal Lemoine, could not have been a poorer one. But she was delightful and charming and welcoming and behind her, as high as the wall and stretching out into the back room which gave onto the inner court of the building, were the shelves and shelves of the richness of the library.

With the True and the Beautiful which Keats said were one and the same.' Browning shot me a keen look. 'Bravo. Any friend of John Keats is a friend of mine. But the problem with his famous definition - which, incidentally, I most fervently believe to be as true as it is beautiful - is that like all great truths it balances perilously above an abyss of nonsense, where most of those who quote it quite lose their heads. What did Keats mean? That there is a class of things which we call true because they take after their ideal parent, and which you may recognize by their pretty features? Because in that case he was talking nonsense - and cloying, feeble, wishy- washy nonsense at that.' 'But I believe he was saying something much stronger and stranger. I believe Keats meant that Truth is Beauty: that anything-literally anything- is beautiful, provided only that we are forced to recognize it - at gunpoint, or pen-point! - as true. In that moment of recognition the foulest of passions, the most loathsome cruelties, the dreariest depths of a madman's soul, assume the quality we call Beauty. Not because they cease to be evil, but because they tell us about what it means to be human - about ourselves.

HEART: Let’s try stress and being on the go all of the time. Have you ever thought that you try to fit too many things in one day? Do you know how to relax and do nothing? Do you know how to just be as in human be-ing? LERITA: It seems like I’ve heard this before. HEART: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You need the threat of a damn heart transplant to get your attention, huh? I’ve been trying to get through to you for years, especially since you jumped on that bandwagon in high school. LERITA: What bandwagon? HEART: The “I’ve got to be Miss It… somebody famous… Miss Perfectionist…prove to everyone that I’m at the top” bandwagon.

Just two weeks earlier, Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the National Mall and gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In the following days, Alabama began integrating high schools and elementary schools for the first time in its history. The world was changing, and segregationists who worshipped at the altar of white supremacy could not contain their hatred and frustration. This was the third bombing in just eleven days since the integration order—but the first to prove deadly. White folks were making clear that they would rather see Black people die violent deaths than attend school with their children.

Flush had his two front paws over the window sill, with his ears hanging down, but he confessed at last that he thought they were rather long about it, particularly as it had nothing to do with dinner and chicken bones and subjects of consequence. He is less tormented and looks better; in excellent spirits and appetite always — and thinner, like your Flush — and very fond of Robert, as indeed he ought to be. On the famous evening of that famous day I have been speaking of, we lost him — he ran away and stayed away all night — which was too bad, considering that it was our anniversary besides, and that he had no right to spoil it. But I imagine he was bewildered with the crowd and the illumination, only as he did look so very guilty and conscious of evil on his return,

Bridget had led Emma to a bedroom she seemed to have picked out ahead of time, and Emma soon found out why: There were two height charts scribbled on the plaster, the kind you got by standing someone against a wall and drawing a line just above their head, with the date. One was marked Will Herondale, the other, James Carstairs. A Carstairs room Emma hugged her elbows and imagined Jem: his kind voice, his dark eyes. She missed him. But that wasn't all; after all, Jem and Will could have done their height charts in any room. In the nightstand drawer, Emma found a cluster of old photographs, most dating from the early 1900s. Photographs of a group of four boys, at various stages of their lives. They seemed a lively bunch. Two of them - one blond, one dark-haired, were together in almost every photo, their arms slung around each other, both laughing. There was a girl with brown hair who looked a great deal like Tessa, but wasn't Tessa. And then there was Tessa, looking exactly the same, with a gorgeously handsome man in his late twenties. The famous Will Herondale, Emma guessed. And there was a girl, with dark red hair and brown skin, and a serious look. Therew as a golden sword in her hands. Emma recognized it instantly, even without the inscription on the blade: I am Cortana, of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and Durendal/ Cortana. Whoever the girl was in the photograph, she was a Carstairs. On the back, someone had scrawled what looked like a line from a poem. The wound is the place where the Light enters you. Emma stared at it for a long time.

Hindus who adhere to the caste system believe that cosmic forces have made one caste superior to another. According to a famous Hindu creation myth, the gods fashioned the world out of the body of a primeval being, the Purusa. The sun was created from the Purusa’s eye, the moon from the Purusa’s brain, the Brahmins (priests) from its mouth, the Kshatriyas (warriors) from its arms, the Vaishyas (peasants and merchants) from its thighs, and the Shudras (servants) from its legs. Accept this explanation and the sociopolitical differences between Brahmins and Shudras are as natural and eternal as the differences between the sun and the moon.1 The ancient Chinese believed that when the goddess Nü Wa created humans from earth, she kneaded aristocrats from fine yellow soil, whereas commoners were formed from brown mud.

Near the exit to the blue patio, DeCoverley Pox and Joaquin Stick stand by a concrete scale model of the Jungfrau, ... socking the slopes of the famous mountain with red rubber hot-water bags full of ice cubes, the idea being to pulverize the ice for Pirate's banana frappes. With their nights' growths of beard, matted hair, bloodshot eyes, miasmata of foul breath, DeCoverley and Joaquin are wasted gods urging on a tardy glacier. Elsewhere in the maisonette, other drinking companions disentangle from blankets (one spilling wind from his, dreaming of a parachute), piss into bathroom sinks, look at themselves with dismay in concave shaving mirrors, slab water with no clear plan in mind onto heads of thinning hair, struggle into Sam Brownes, dub shoes against rain later in the day with hand muscles already weary of it, sing snatches of popular songs whose tunes they don't always know, lie, believing themselves warmed, in what patches of the new sunlight come between the mullions, begin tentatively to talk shop as a way of easing into whatever it is they'll have to be doing in less than an hour, lather necks and faces, yawn, pick their noses, search cabinets or bookcases for the hair of the dog that not without provocation and much prior conditioning bit them last night. Now there grows among all the rooms, replacing the night's old smoke, alcohol and sweat, the fragile, musaceous odor of Breakfast:flowery, permeating, surprising, more than the color of winter sunlight, taking over not so much through any brute pungency or volume as by the high intricacy to the weaving of its molecules, sharing the conjuror's secret by which-- though it is not often Death is told so clearly to fuck off--- the genetic chains prove labyrinthine enough to preserve some human face down ten or twenty generations. . . so the same assertion-through-structure allows this war morning's banana fragrance to meander, repossess, prevail. Is there any reason not to open every window, and let the kind scent blanket all Chelsea? As a spell, against falling objects. . . .

When Lizzie Borden was acquitted of her parents’ murder in 1893, the people of New England were outraged — but Lizzie didn’t taunt the public for failing to convict her. She just moved into a nice house with her sister and became a recluse. A century later, Borden is “hated” by no one; anyone captivated by her life is predisposed to think about the murders from her perspective (and to hunt for any clue that might validate her improbable innocence). Over time, the public will grow to accept almost any terrible act committed by a celebrity; everything eventually becomes interesting to those who aren’t personally involved. But Simpson does not allow for uninvolvement. He exceeds the acceptable level of self-directed notoriety and changes the polarity of the event; by writing this book, he makes it seem like the worst part of Brown and Goldman’s murder was what happened to him, and that he perversely wants the world to remember that he killed them (even if he’s somehow internally convinced himself that he did not, which is what I always assumed during the trial). He keeps reminding people that he is famous because two other people are dead.

Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, often regarded as the most famous decorated US army officer of the early twentieth century, wrote a book after World War I aptly called War Is a Racket. Upon retirement in the 1930s, he gave speeches around the country to spread his message—a message that sheds light upon the hidden internal dialogue underlying US military history. In 1935, Butler boldly stated: I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Hilly Brown was trying to cope with the idea that, for the first time in his life, he had failed at something he really wanted to do. He had been pleased with the applause and congratulations, and he was not so self-deprecating as to mistake honest praise for politeness. But there was a stony part of him—the part which, under other circumstances, might have made him a great artist—which was not satisfied with honest praise. Honest praise, this stony part insisted, was what the bundlers of the world heaped on the heads of the barely competent. In short, honest praise was not enough… “What do you want, Hilly!?” [his mother] would have cried, throwing up her hands. “Dis-honest praise?” Ev, who saw much, and David, who saw more, could have told her. He wanted to make their eyes get so big they looked like they were going to fall out. He wanted to make the girls scream, and the boys yell... He would have traded all the honest praise and genuine applause in the world for just one scream, one belly-laugh, one woman fainting dead away like the booklet says they did when Harry Houdini did his famous milk-can escape. Because honest praise means you only got good. When they scream and laugh and faint, that means you got great. But he suspected—no, he knew—that he was never going to get great, and all the want in the world wasn’t going to change that fact. It was a bitter blow—not the failure itself, so much as the knowing it couldn’t be changed. It was like the end of Santa Clause, in a way.

Bruno reappeared with two baskets swathed in white linen napkins and a ramekin of something bright yellow. Thatcher unveiled one basket. "Pretzel bread," he said. He held up a thick braid of what looked to be soft pretzel, nicely tanned, sprinkled with coarse salt. "This is served with Fee's homemade mustard. So right away the guest knows this isn't a run-of-the-mill restaurant. They're not getting half a cold baguette here, folks, with butter in the gold foil wrapper. This is warm pretzel bread made on the premises, and the mustard ditto. Nine out of ten tables are licking the ramekin clean." He handed the bread basket to a waiter with a blond ponytail (male- everyone at the table was male except for Adrienne, Caren, and the young bar back who was hanging on to Duncan's arm). The ponytailed waiter- name?- tore off a hunk of bread and dipped it in the mustard. He rolled his eyes like he was having an orgasm. The appropriate response, Adrienne thought. But remembering her breakfast she guessed he wasn't faking it. "The other basket contains our world-famous savory doughnuts," Thatcher said. He whipped the cloth off like a magician, revealing six golden-brown doughnuts. Doughnuts? Adrienne had been too nervous to think about eating all day, but now her appetite was roused. After the menu meeting, they were going to have family meal. The doughnuts were deep-fried rings of a light, yeasty, herb-flecked dough. Chive, basil, rosemary. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. Savory doughnuts. Who wouldn't stand in line for these? Who wouldn't beg or steal to access the private phone line so that they could make a date with these doughnuts?

It's hard to form a lasting connection when your permanent address is an eight-inch mailbox in the UPS store. Still,as I inch my way closer, I can't help the way my breath hitches, the way my insides thrum and swirl. And when he turns,flashing me that slow, languorous smile that's about to make him world famous,his eyes meeting mine when he says, "Hey,Daire-Happy Sweet Sixteen," I can't help but think of the millions of girls who would do just about anything to stand in my pointy blue babouches. I return the smile, flick a little wave of my hand, then bury it in the side pocket of the olive-green army jacket I always wear. Pretending not to notice the way his gaze roams over me, straying from my waist-length brown hair peeking out from my scarf, to the tie-dyed tank top that clings under my jacket,to the skinny dark denim jeans,all the way down to the brand-new slippers I wear on my feet. "Nice." He places his foot beside mine, providing me with a view of the his-and-hers version of the very same shoe. Laughing when he adds, "Maybe we can start a trend when we head back to the States.What do you think?" We. There is no we. I know it.He knows it.And it bugs me that he tries to pretend otherwise. The cameras stopped rolling hours ago, and yet here he is,still playing a role. Acting as though our brief, on-location hookup means something more. Acting like we won't really end long before our passports are stamped RETURN. And that's all it takes for those annoyingly soft girly feelings to vanish as quickly as a flame in the rain. Allowing the Daire I know,the Daire I've honed myself to be, to stand in her palce. "Doubtful." I smirk,kicking his shoe with mine.A little harder then necessary, but then again,he deserves it for thinking I'm lame enough to fall for his act. "So,what do you say-food? I'm dying for one of those beef brochettes,maybe even a sausage one too.Oh-and some fries would be good!" I make for the food stalls,but Vane has another idea. His hand reaches for mine,fingers entwining until they're laced nice and tight. "In a minute," he says,pulling me so close my hip bumps against his. "I thought we might do something special-in honor of your birthday and all.What do you think about matching tattoos?" I gape.Surely he's joking. "Yeah,you know,mehndi. Nothing permanent.Still,I thought it could be kinda cool." He arcs his left brow in his trademark Vane Wick wau,and I have to fight not to frown in return. Nothing permanent. That's my theme song-my mission statement,if you will. Still,mehndi's not quite the same as a press-on. It has its own life span. One that will linger long after Vane's studio-financed, private jet lifts him high into the sky and right out of my life. Though I don't mention any of that, instead I just say, "You know the director will kill you if you show up on set tomorrow covered in henna." Vane shrugs. Shrugs in a way I've seen too many times, on too many young actors before him.He's in full-on star-power mode.Think he's indispensable. That he's the only seventeen-year-old guy with a hint of talent,golden skin, wavy blond hair, and piercing blue eyes that can light up a screen and make the girls (and most of their moms) swoon. It's a dangerous way to see yourself-especially when you make your living in Hollywood. It's the kind of thinking that leads straight to multiple rehab stints, trashy reality TV shows, desperate ghostwritten memoirs, and low-budget movies that go straight to DVD.

He found that when the Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team—once described as the national team of French Canada—got knocked out of the playoffs early between 1951 and 1992, Quebecois males aged fifteen to thirty-four became more likely to kill themselves. Robert Fernquist, a sociologist at the University of Central Missouri, went further. He studied thirty American metropolitan areas with professional sports teams from 1971 to 1990 and showed that fewer suicides occurred in cities whose teams made the playoffs more often. Routinely reaching the playoffs could reduce suicides by about twenty each year in a metropolitan area the size of Boston or Atlanta, said Fernquist. These saved lives were the converse of the mythical Brazilians throwing themselves off apartment blocks. Later, Fernquist investigated another link between sports and suicide: he looked at the suicide rate in American cities after a local sports team moved to another town. It turned out that some of the fans abandoned by their team killed themselves. This happened in New York in 1957 when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants baseball teams left, in Cleveland in 1995–1996 when the Browns football team moved to Baltimore, and in Houston in 1997–1998 when the Oilers football team departed. In each case the suicide rate was 10 percent to 14 percent higher in the two months around the team’s departure than in the same months of the previous year. Each move probably helped prompt a handful of suicides. Fernquist wrote, “The sudden change brought about due to the geographic relocations of pro sports teams does appear to, at least for a short time, make highly identified fans drastically change the way they view the normative order in society.” Clearly none of these people killed themselves just because they lost their team. Rather, they were very troubled individuals for whom this sporting disappointment was too much to bear. Perhaps the most famous recent case of a man who found he could not live without sports was the Gonzo author Hunter S. Thompson. He shot himself in February 2005, four days after writing a note in black marker with the title, “Football Season Is Over”:

There’s a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and get lost in a sea of blue. A Jersey-accented voice says, “It’s about time, kid,” and Frank Sinatra rattles the ice in his glass of Jack Daniel’s. Looking at the swirling deep-brown liquid, he whispers, “Ain’t it beautiful?” This is my introduction to the Chairman of the Board. We spend the next half hour talking Jersey, Hoboken, swimming in the Hudson River and the Shore. We then sit down for dinner at a table with Robert De Niro, Angie Dickinson and Frank and his wife, Barbara. This is all occurring at the Hollywood “Guinea Party” Patti and I have been invited to, courtesy of Tita Cahn. Patti had met Tita a few weeks previous at the nail parlor. She’s the wife of Sammy Cahn, famous for such songs as “All The Way,” “Teach Me Tonight” and “Only the Lonely.” She called one afternoon and told us she was hosting a private event. She said it would be very quiet and couldn’t tell us who would be there, but assured us we’d be very comfortable. So off into the LA night we went. During the evening, we befriend the Sinatras and are quietly invited into the circle of the last of the old Hollywood stars. Over the next several years we attend a few very private events where Frank and the remaining clan hold forth. The only other musician in the room is often Quincy Jones, and besides Patti and I there is rarely a rocker in sight. The Sinatras are gracious hosts and our acquaintance culminates in our being invited to Frank’s eightieth birthday party dinner. It’s a sedate event at the Sinatras’ Los Angeles home. Sometime after dinner, we find ourselves around the living room piano with Steve and Eydie Gorme and Bob Dylan. Steve is playing the piano and up close he and Eydie can really sing the great standards. Patti has been thoroughly schooled in jazz by Jerry Coker, one of the great jazz educators at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. She was there at the same time as Bruce Hornsby, Jaco Pastorius and Pat Metheny, and she learned her stuff. At Frank’s, as the music drifts on, she slips gently in on “My One and Only Love.” Patti is a secret weapon. She can sing torch like a cross between Peggy Lee and Julie London (I’m not kidding). Eydie Gorme hears Patti, stops the music and says, “Frank, come over here. We’ve got a singer!” Frank moves to the piano and I then get to watch my wife beautifully serenade Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan, to be met by a torrent of applause when she’s finished. The next day we play Frank’s eightieth birthday celebration for ABC TV and I get to escort him to the stage along with Tony Bennett. It’s a beautiful evening and a fitting celebration for the greatest pop singer of all time. Two years later Frank passed away and we were generously invited to his funeral. A

Spaghetti alla puttanesca is typically made with tomatoes, olives, anchovies, capers, and garlic. It means, literally, "spaghetti in the style of a prostitute." It is a sloppy dish, the tomatoes and oil making the spaghetti lubricated and slippery. It is the sort of sauce that demands you slurp the noodles Goodfellas style, staining your cheeks with flecks of orange and red. It is very salty and very tangy and altogether very strong; after a small plate, you feel like you've had a visceral and significant experience. There are varying accounts as to when and how the dish originated- but the most likely explanation is that it became popular in the mid-twentieth century. The first documented mention of it is in Raffaele La Capria's 1961 novel, Ferito a Morte. According to the Italian Pasta Makers Union, spaghetti alla puttanesca was a very popular dish throughout the sixties, but its exact genesis is not quite known. Sandro Petti, a famous Napoli chef and co-owner of Ischian restaurant Rangio Fellone, claims to be its creator. Near closing time one evening, a group of customers sat at one of his tables and demanded to be served a meal. Running low on ingredients, Petti told them he didn't have enough to make anything, but they insisted. They were tired, and they were hungry, and they wanted pasta. "Facci una puttanata qualsiasi!" they cried. "Make any kind of garbage!" The late-night eater is not usually the most discerning. Petti raided the kitchen, finding four tomatoes, two olives, and a jar of capers, the base of the now-famous spaghetti dish; he included it on his menu the next day under the name spaghetti alla puttanesca. Others have their own origin myths. But the most common theory is that it was a quick, satisfying dish that the working girls of Naples could knock up with just a few key ingredients found at the back of the fridge- after a long and unforgiving night. As with all dishes containing tomatoes, there are lots of variations in technique. Some use a combination of tinned and fresh tomatoes, while others opt for a squirt of puree. Some require specifically cherry or plum tomatoes, while others go for a smooth, premade pasta. Many suggest that a teaspoon of sugar will "open up the flavor," though that has never really worked for me. I prefer fresh, chopped, and very ripe, cooked for a really long time. Tomatoes always take longer to cook than you think they will- I rarely go for anything less than an hour. This will make the sauce stronger, thicker, and less watery. Most recipes include onions, but I prefer to infuse the oil with onions, frying them until brown, then chucking them out. I like a little kick in most things, but especially in pasta, so I usually go for a generous dousing of chili flakes. I crush three or four cloves of garlic into the oil, then add any extras. The classic is olives, anchovies, and capers, though sometimes I add a handful of fresh spinach, which nicely soaks up any excess water- and the strange, metallic taste of cooked spinach adds an interesting extra dimension. The sauce is naturally quite salty, but I like to add a pinch of sea or Himalayan salt, too, which gives it a slightly more buttery taste, as opposed to the sharp, acrid salt of olives and anchovies. I once made this for a vegetarian friend, substituting braised tofu for anchovies. Usually a solid fish replacement, braised tofu is more like tuna than anchovy, so it was a mistake for puttanesca. It gave the dish an unpleasant solidity and heft. You want a fish that slips and melts into the pasta, not one that dominates it. In terms of garnishing, I go for dried oregano or fresh basil (never fresh oregano or dried basil) and a modest sprinkle of cheese. Oh, and I always use spaghetti. Not fettuccine. Not penne. Not farfalle. Not rigatoni. Not even linguine. Always spaghetti.

I stared hard at Suzanne, at her perfect heart-shaped face and reddish-brown skin, feeling comforted somehow by the youthful smoothness of her cheeks and the girlish curve in her lips. She seemed oddly undiminished by the illness. Her dark hair was still lustrous and long; someone had put in two ropy braids that reached almost to her waist. Her track runner's legs lay hidden beneath the blankets. She looked young, like a sweet, beautiful, twenty-six-year-old who was maybe in the middle of a nap. I regretted not coming earlier. I regretted the many times, over the course of our seesawing friendship, that I'd insisted she was making a wrong move, when possibly she'd been doing it right. I was suddenly glad for all the times she'd ignored my advice. I was glad that she hadn't overworked herself to get some fancy business school degree. That she'd gone off for a lost weekend with a semi-famous pop star, just for fun. I was happy that she'd made it to the Taj Mahal to watch the sunrise with her mom. Suzanne had lived in ways that I had not.

Onion Soup Gratinée YIELD: 4 SERVINGS ONE OF MY greatest treats when working in Paris was to go with my fellow chefs and commis to les Halles, the big market of Paris that spreads through many streets of the Châtelet neighborhood. The excitement in the streets and cafés started a little before 3:00 A.M. and ended around 7:00 or 8:00 A.M. Our nocturnal forays would, more often than not, finish at Le Pied de Cochon (The Pig’s Foot), the quintessential night brasserie of les Halles. There, large, vociferous butchers in bloody aprons would rub shoulders with tuxedoed and elegantly evening-gowned Parisians stopping by for late-night Champagne and a meal after the opera or the theater. The restaurant was famous for its onion-cheese gratinée; it was one of the best in Paris, and hundreds of bowls of it were served every night. For this recipe, you will need four onion soup bowls, each with a capacity of about 12 ounces and, preferably, with a lip or rim around the edge that the cheese topping will stick to as it melts to form a beautiful crust on top of the soup. 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 3 onions (about 12 ounces), cut into thin slices About 7 cups good-quality chicken stock, or a mixture of chicken and beef stock About ½ teaspoon salt, more or less, depending on the saltiness of the stock ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 16 slices of baguette, each cut about ⅜ inch thick About 3 cups grated Swiss cheese, preferably Gruyère, Comté, or Emmenthaler (about 10 ounces) Melt the butter in a saucepan, and sauté the sliced onions in the butter over medium to high heat for about 8 minutes, or until lightly browned. Add the stock, salt, and pepper, and boil gently for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Arrange the bread slices in a single layer on a tray, and bake them for 8 to 10 minutes, or until they are nicely browned. Divide the toast among the bowls, and sprinkle ¼ cup of cheese into each bowl. When the stock and onions have cooked for 15 minutes, pour the soup into the bowls, filling each to the top. Sprinkle on the remainder of the cheese, dividing it among the bowls and taking care not to push it down into the liquid. Press the cheese around the rim or lip of the bowls, so it adheres there as it cooks and the crust does not fall into the liquid. Arrange the soup bowls on a baking sheet, and bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until a glorious brown, rich crust has developed on top. Serve hot right out of the oven.

For perhaps a quarter of an hour they stayed like that while he stroked her head, slender neck, and delicate ears. As he did, joy bubbled through him like a fountain of light, and his mind rang with the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous sonnet. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways....

The captain walked the deck at a rapid stride, looked aloft at the sails, and then to windward; the mate stood in the gangway, rubbing his hands, and talking aloud to the ship—“Hurrah, old bucket! the Boston girls have got hold of the tow-rope!” and the like; and we were on the forecastle, looking to see how the spars stood it, and guessing the rate at which she was going,—when the captain called out—“Mr. Brown, get up the topmast studding-sail! What she can’t carry she may drag!” The mate looked a moment; but he would let no one be before him in daring. He sprang forward—“Hurrah, men! rig out the topmast studding-sail boom! Lay aloft, and I’ll send the rigging up to you!”—We sprang aloft into the top; lowered a girt-line down, by which we hauled up the rigging; rove the tacks and halyards; ran out the boom and lashed it fast, and sent down the lower halyards, as a preventer. It was a clear starlight night, cold and blowing; but everybody worked with a will. Some indeed, looked as though they thought the “old man” was mad, but no one said a word.

Pagett is a famous Job’s comforter. He displays a certain gloomy satisfaction that maddens me. Also, he has taken advantage of my perturbation to saddle me with the stationery trunk. Unless he is careful, the next funeral he attends will be his own.

The Gangster Squad, as it is called, was originally formed in 1946 as a response to criminals from back East coming west to shake down local restaurants. The owners of famous L.A. eateries like Mocambo and Brown

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous sonnet. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways....

W.E.B. Du Bois famously asked back in 1897: 'Between me and the other world, there is ever an unasked question: How does it feel to be a problem?' White people are generally allowed to have problems, and they've historically been granted the power to define and respond to them. But people of color-in this 'land of the free' forged through slavery and genocide-are regularly viewed and treated as the problem. This distinction has made all the difference. Once human beings are defined as the problem in the public consciousness, their elimination through deportation, incarceration, or even genocide becomes nearly inevitable. White nationalism, at its core, reflects a belief that our nation's problems would be solved if only people of color could somehow be gotten rid of, or at least better controlled. In short, mass incarceration and mass deportation have less to do with crime and immigration than the ways we've chosen to respond to those issues when black and brown people are framed as the problem. As Khalil Gibran Muhammad points out in The Condemnation of Blackness, throughout our nation's history, when crime and immigration have been perceived as white, our nation's response has been radically different from when those phenomena have been defined as black or brown. The systems of mass incarceration and mass deportation may seem entirely unrelated at first glance, but they are both deeply rooted in our racial history, and they both have expanded in part because of the enormous profits to be made in controlling, exploiting, and eliminating vulnerable human beings.

Kensi Gounden writing the biography of famous American lawyer Thurgood Marshall, originally Thorough good Marshall, (born July 2, 1908, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.—died January 24, 1993, Bethesda), lawyer, civil rights activist, and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court’s first African American member. As an attorney, he successfully argued before the Court the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which declared unconstitutional racial segregation in American public schools.

The second strategy is also simple. I carry a small sheet of paper in my wallet that has written on it the names of people whose opinions of me matter. To be on that list, you have to love me for my strengths and struggles. You have to know that I’m trying to be Wholehearted, but I still cuss too much, flip people off under the steering wheel, and have both Lawrence Welk and Metallica on my iPod. You have to know and respect that I’m totally uncool. There’s a great quote from the movie Almost Famous that says, “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.

From the Saturday afternoon Piper and her mother had gone to the animal shelter and spotted the little white dog with the floppy ears and a big brown patch around his left eye, they were goners. Piper had still been working on A Little Rain Must Fall, and it was the week before she attended her first---and last---Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony. She'd named the terrier Emmett in honor of the occasion, only later realizing how appropriate the moniker would be. The dog could just as easily have been named for world-famous clown Emmett Kelly. Happy-go-lucky and friendly, Emmett was very smart and responded exceptionally well to the obedience training Piper's father had insisted upon. But it was Piper's mother who cultivated the terrier's special talents, teaching him a series of tricks using food as a reward. The dog had already provided the Donovan family and their neighbors with hours and hours of delight and laughter when Terri came up with the idea of having Emmett featured in commercials for the bakery, which ran on the local-access cable channel. As a result, Emmett had become something of a celebrity in Hillwood.

Madame Egloff, who stood, hands held out in front of her, expressing her admiration. ‘Please make the alterations, Madame, and have the gowns sent round to Brown’s Hotel by the weekend.’ Half an hour later, when they left Madame Egloff’s salon, Sophie had been dressed and pinned into each of the garments Matty had chosen, and promises had been made to deliver the clothes to the hotel by Saturday morning at the latest. * Monday morning saw them at Paddington Station being conducted to a private compartment on the train. Sophie had never travelled in such style before, being more used to the uncomfortable rowdiness of a third-class carriage, but Matty had insisted. ‘I always travel this way,’ she said. ‘The journey is quite tiring enough without being crammed in next to crying children and shrill women.’ Having directed the porter to place their luggage in the guard’s van, Matty had settled herself into their compartment with a copy of the new Murray’s Magazine, which she had bought from a news-stand at the station. Beside her on the seat was a hamper, provided by Brown’s, with the food and drink they would need for the journey. As the train drew out of the station and started its long journey west, Sophie felt keyed up with anxious anticipation and was grateful for the comforting presence of Hannah, ensconced on the other side of the compartment. Dressed in her new plaid travelling dress, with a matching hat perched on her head, Sophie knew she was a different person from the one who had sat at her dying mother’s bedside, holding her hand. No longer a young girl on the brink of adulthood... but who? There had been too much change in her life in the past weeks that she still had to come to terms with. Who am I? she wondered. I don’t feel like me! She looked across at Hannah, so familiar, so safe, huddled in a corner, her eyes shut as she dozed, and Sophie felt a wave of affection flood through her. Dear Hannah, she thought, I’m so glad you came too. When they had left Madame Egloff, Matty had taken Sophie for afternoon tea at Brown’s. Looking round the famous tea room, with its panelled walls, its alcoved fireplace and its windows giving onto Albemarle Street, Sophie

This hardened response to those on the “other team” is not an invention of modern American politics. It seems to be hardwired into the circuitry of our brains. The Old Testament is filled with stories of sometimes deadly tribalism, and scientific data gives us insight into why that happens. In 1968, elementary school teacher Jane Elliott conducted a famous experiment with her students in the days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She divided the class by eye color. The brown-eyed children were told they were better. They were the “in-group.” The blue-eyed children were told they were less than the brown-eyed children—hence becoming the “out-group.” Suddenly, former classmates who had once played happily side by side were taunting and torturing one another on the playground. Lest we assign greater morality to the “out-group,” the blue-eyed children were just as quick to attack the brown-eyed children once the roles were reversed.6

As soon as we’d arrived as close to the house as we were allowed to get, a brief Latin phrase came to me. I pronounced it as best I could, and when I saw him staring at me, I explained, “It’s in the tiles above the entryway. It means something like ‘Everyone is welcome here.’” He asked how I knew about that, since I’d never been to the house before, and I told him. “Marilyn’s telling me.” It was a nice surprise. She was definitely on the Other Side, she definitely had a lot to say, and she was ready to say it to me without preferring to talk through Francine. I can’t judge or comment on its accuracy. I’ll just report what she passed along and leave the rest to you. She was adamant about the fact that she did not commit suicide. She described being alone in her bedroom that night, taking too many pills and making some blurry phone calls. But she had a clear memory of a man coming in and sticking a needle of what she believed to be Nembutol into her heart.

Bark is a waterproof skin of dead cells that protects a tree's interior plumbing. The furrows in bark are essentially stretch marks that appear as the tree expands. On some trees, like the giant sequoia, bark can be 12 or more inches thick--good insulation from wildfire. Other species, like birch and aspen, have skins just 1/4 inch thick. In the famously exquisite bark of paper birch, cells are laminated on top of one another in layers, so the bark can stretch without furrowing. Microscopic air spaces riddle the outer layers, reflecting light in all directions and making the bark appear white. Should the inner, re4ddish brown bark be exposed, a black scar develops.

In a survey, it was found that 7% of American adults think chocolate milk comes from brown cows

In the lively town of Sunnyside, there lived a dog that was famous for his dazzling smile. Buddy was a lovable Labrador with soft black and brown fur and a kind heart. His smile was so big and bright that it could light up any room, and it brought

For a while Stanley Lambchop was a famous name.

I love you," I told the library, staring at the mezzanine level with its intricate gold railings, marble columns, and marble busts of famous authors and poets—I spotted Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Rudyard Kipling, and Emily Dickinson.

The Lottery by Stewart Stafford It was New York, 1984, The AIDS tsunami roared in, Friends, old overnight, no more, Breathless, I went for a check-up. A freezing winter's dawn, A solitary figure before me, What we called a drag queen, White heels trembled in the cold. "Hi, are you here to get tested?" Gum chewed, brown eyes stared. This was not my type of person, I turned heel and walked away. At month's end, a crippling flu, The grey testing centre called, Two hundred people ahead of me; A waking nightmare all too real. I gave up and turned to leave, But a familiar voice called out: "Hey, you there, come back!" I stopped and turned around. The drag queen stood there in furs, But sicker, I didn't recognise them, "Stand with me in the line, honey." "Nah, I'm fine, I'll come back again." "Support an old broad before she faints?" A voice no longer frail but pin-sharp. I got in line to impatient murmurs: "If anyone has a problem, see me!" Sylvester on boombox, graveyard choir. My pal's stage name was Carol DaRaunch, (After the Ted Bundy female survivor) Their real name was Ernesto Rodriguez. After seeing the doctor, Carol hugged me, Writing down their number on some paper, With their alias not their real name on it: "Is this the number of where you work?" "THAT is my home number to call me on. THAT'S my autograph, for when I'm famous!" "I was wrong about you, Carol," I said. "Baby, it takes time to get to know me!" A hug, shimmy, the threadbare blonde left. A silent chorus of shuffling dead men walking, Spartan results, a young man's death sentence. Real words faded rehearsal, my eyes watered. Two weeks on, I cautiously phoned up Carol. The receiver was picked up, dragging sounds, Like furniture being moved: "Is Carol there?" "That person is dead." They hung up on me. All my life's harsh judgements, dumped on Carol, Who was I to win life's lottery over a guardian angel? I still keep that old phone number forty years on, Crumpled, faded, portable guilt lives on in my wallet. © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.

George Spencer Brown has famously said about Sir Isaac Newton that to arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is that one needs to know. To idle, but not to be in a state of idleness..Glander is what children without soccer moms do when they are out of school. I glander whenever I am bored and I come up with some awesome ideas.

want you to be famous as hell,” Melina said. “I want your stories out there, about people I’m not, and lives I’ll never live. But I want my work out there, too. Yes to Black theater and brown theater and playwrights with disabilities and queer musicals. Yes to all of it. But… I’m still here. I feel like I keep getting told: Step aside, it’s not your time yet.” Melina twisted her hands in her lap. “I was thinking so much about me, I forgot to think about you… or anyone else who’s still trying to make a place for themselves in this industry. I don’t know how to be ambitious and be an ally, Andre,” she said. “I don’t know how to advocate for myself as a woman without sounding petty or entitled. I just know that theater is about as postfeminist as it is postracial.

A landing place is a famous thing, but it is only enjoyable for a time by any mortal who deserves one at all.

I weave through LA's famous Farmers Market, which is really more of an outdoor food court, and now I'm a few minutes late. And the place is packed and there's still the uncertainty about where to meet when I look down and realize I'm wearing yellow pants. Yellow pants. Really? Sometimes I don't know what I'm thinking. They're rolled at the cuff and paired with a navy polo and it looks like maybe I just yacht my yacht, and I'm certain to come off as an asshole. I thin about canceling, or at least delaying so I can go home and change, but the effort that would require is unappealing, and this date is mostly for distraction. And when I round the last stall--someone selling enormous eggplants, more round than oblong, I see him, casually leaning against a wall, and something inside my body says there you are. 'There you are.' I don't understand them, these words, because they seem too deep and too soulful to attach to the Farmers Market, this Starbucks or that, a frozen yogurt place, or confusion over where to meet a stranger. They're straining to define a feeling of stunning comfort that drips over me, as if a water balloon burst over my head on the hottest of summer days. My knees don't buckle, my heart doesn't skip, but I'm awash in the warmth of a valium-like hug. Except I haven't taken a Valium. Not since the night of Lily's death. Yet here is this warm hug that makes me feel safe with this person, this Byron the maybe-poet, and I want it to stop. This--whatever this feeling is--can't be a real feeling, this can't be a tangible connection. This is just a man leaning against a stall that sells giant eggplants. But I no longer have time to worry about what this feeling is, whether I should or shouldn't be her, or should or should't be wearing yellow pants, because there are only maybe three perfect seconds where I see him and he has yet to spot me. Three perfect seconds to enjoy the calm that has so long eluded me. 'There you are.' And then he casually lifts his head and turns my way and uses one foot to push himself off the wall he is leaning agains. We lock eyes and he smiles with recognition and there's a disarming kindness to his face and suddenly I'm standing in front of him. 'There you are.' It comes out of my mouth before I can stop it and it's all I can do to steer the words in a more playfully casual direction so he isn't saddled with the importance I've placed on them. I think it comes off okay, but, as I know from my time at sea, sometimes big ships turn slowly. Byron chuckles and gives a little pump of his fist. 'YES! IT'S! ALL! HAPPENING! FOR! US!' I want to stop in my tracks, but I'm already leaning in for a hug, and he comes the rest of the way, and the warm embrace of seeing him standing there is now an actual embrace, and it is no less sincere. He must feel me gripping him tightly, because he asks, 'Is everything okay?' No. 'Yes, everything is great, it's just...' I play it back in my head what he said, the way in which he said it, and the enthusiasm which only a month had gone silent. 'You reminded me of someone is all.' 'Hopefully in a good way.' I smile but it takes just a minute to speak. 'In the best possible way.' I don't break the hug first, but maybe at the same time, this is a step. jenny will be proud. I look in his eyes, which I expect to be brown like Lily's but instead are deep blue like the waters lapping calmly against the outboard sides of 'Fishful Thinking.' 'Is frozen yogurt okay?' 'Frozen yogurt is perfect.

Making dinner for Wayne is either the easiest thing or the hardest thing on the planet, depending on how you look at it. After all, Wayne's famous Eleven are neither difficult to procure nor annoying to prepare. They are just. So. Boring. Roasted chicken Plain hamburgers Steak cooked medium Pork chops Eggs scrambled dry Potatoes, preferably fries, chips, baked, or mashed, and not with anything fancy mixed in Chili, preferably Hormel canned Green beans Carrots Corn Iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing That's it. The sum total of what Wayne will put into his maw. He doesn't even eat fricking PIZZA for chrissakes. Not including condiments, limited to ketchup and yellow mustard and Miracle Whip, and any and all forms of baked goods... when it comes to breads and pastries and desserts he has the palate of a gourmand, no loaf goes untouched, no sweet unexplored. It saves him, only slightly, from being a complete food wasteland. And he has no idea that it is strange to everyone that he will eat apple pie and apple cake and apple charlotte and apple brown Betty and apple dumplings and fritters and muffins and doughnuts and crisp and crumble and buckle, but will not eat AN APPLE.

Then let me ask you this famous question: would you rather live in a world without technology ... or in a world without religion? Would you rather live without medicine, electricity, transportation, and antibiotics ... or without zealots waging war over fictional take us an imaginary spirits? - Winston

Schools, in a noble effort to interest more girls in math and science, often try to combat stereotypes by showing children images of famous female scientists. “See, they did it. You can do it, too!” Unfortunately, these attempts rarely work, according to the research. Girls are more likely to remember the women as lab assistants. This is frustrating for those of us who try to combat gender stereotypes in children.

I would be over the moon if you'd make me one of your famous apple cakes." Portia stared at the ingredients her sister had lined up with perfect precision on the scratched countertop. Apples. Butter. Brown sugar. Cordelia cocked her head. "What is it?" "Nothing," Portia said, her voice weak. "It's just that I'm not in the mood to bake, is all." That was a lie. Her fingers itched to dive in, peel, and core, sift the flour, fold in the softened butter and brown sugar. Again and again since moving into the apartment she'd had to ignore her tingling fingertips and the smells of chocolate and vanilla that didn't really exist. She had thrown every bit of food in the apartment away, and it still hadn't helped. "I don't believe you," Cordelia said. "You want to bake like nobody's business. I can see it in your eyes.

No?” Winston’s voice remained flat. “Then let me ask you this famous question: Would you rather live in a world without technology…or in a world without religion? Would you rather live without medicine, electricity, transportation, and antibiotics…or without zealots waging war over fictional tales and imaginary spirits?

They stand in casual order around a fourteen-pointed ivory star with a pegasus galloping at its center—held aloft by the famous Thraxa au Telemanus. The Hammer. After losing her left arm to Atalantia au Grimmus’s razor, she had it replaced by a metal prototype appendage from Sun Industries. Wild gold hair flutters behind her head, garlanded with white feathers given to her by Obsidian admirers. In her mid-thirties, a stout woman with thighs thick as water drums and a freckled, bluff face. She grins past the shoulders of the Obsidians and Golds around her.

Race-ism: a religion where the pious practitioners walk faithfully in the dogma of social categorization. Often leading to a rise in violence, race-ism promotes the idea that men with an excess of brown pigment in their skin, a type of natural sunblock, and men who are lacking in this pigment, are as opposed to one another, and different from each other as cats and dogs, or birds and monkeys. Today, race-ism is preached from every available media outlet, flooding the hearts and minds of our youth with a false idea, one that's fueled by self hatred, and insecurity. Much like all faiths, the racists put on smiling faces, and tout the good causes of social justice, and equality, in a disguised attempt to dominate the world, and form it to their own perceptions. Race-ism is a meme, the offspring of the 'tree of knowledge', also known as men, or males. There is no "coexist" in the world of memes. They, the memes, although delusional, consider themselves vitally important, motivated by the most basic of instincts and desires, the desire to "be fruitful and multiply". There are many memes that humans have been trodden under. The most famous is the one in the book of Genesis. Adam and Eve's invention of the word 'naked', resulted in the faith that our entire civilized world is but a product of. The faith that one should be "ashamed" of one's self, just for simply existing. In other words, the faith in 'good enough', and not 'good enough'. The fruits of which, continue to curse every fiber of our existence. We have become so embarrassingly desperate in our need to conquer our faith, that churches have evolved into universities, where, for a price, professors preach divine instruction in the difficult path of attaining that most longed for goal, 'good enough'. Knowing that memes are so dangerous, and that they desire our worship, our belief, the taste of our blood, as well as our undivided attention, this is why I'm a member of the only denomination of race-ism that preaches the gospel. The church of One Race. The human race.

Missy: Great Mother-in-Law, Great Friend I learned 90 percent of what I know about cooking from watching Kay. At my wedding shower, I received a recipe card set. I took that set of blank cards and headed straight for Miss Kay’s kitchen. I pulled them out, took the first one, got a pen, and asked her to start giving me recipes for the things Jase liked to eat best. She happily obliged. There was only one problem. Miss Kay had no idea what any measurement was for any of her ingredients. She would say, “One shake of this” or “Two scoops of that.” Since I had no knowledge of cooking, I was looking for exact measurements. I did not want to mess up Jase’s favorite recipes. I had some big shoes to shill, for goodness’ sake! Miss Kay tried to give me her best directions while she was busy around the house. At that time she didn’t understand how little I knew, and we both became frustrated. One example of this was when she told me how to make mashed potatoes. She said to cut up four or five large potatoes and boil them. I asked, “How long do you boil them?” She replied, “Until they’re done.” “How many minutes does that take?” I asked, thinking I could set a timer. She said, “You can’t go by time.” “Then how do you know when they’re done?” “They’re done when they’re soft,” she answered. Thinking about how much I did not want to stick my hands in boiling water to see when they turned soft, I asked, “How do you know when they are soft?” At that point, Miss Kay had become completely frustrated at this whole ridiculous line of questioning on my part. She said rather abruptly, “You stick a fork in them!” I apologized for my ignorance, and Miss Kay realized I needed special attention. She then pulled up a chair, put her hand on my arm, and said, “Okay, let’s start from the beginning.” The next few minutes consisted of her gently instructing me in the ways of heating canned corn in a skillet, browning hamburger meat for her homemade spaghetti, making her famous homemade white sauce, and creating many other dishes I still make for my family on an almost daily basis.

Justice John Marshall Harlan, who famously admonished his fellow jurists and the nation as a whole: “Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful.” More than a half century later, the Supreme Court would validate Harlan’s humanity with a unanimous decision in Brown v.

Leonard Ravenhill: The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history. He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow. He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead! He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with epitaphs when dead. He is friendless while living and famous when dead. He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint by posterity.1

By 1750, Rhode Island was recognized as the nation’s most active trading center for slaves.7 In 1774, Newport was declared the most active city in the slave trade of any town on the continent.8 From 1725 to the end of 1807, it can be proven that Rhode Island was the most important base for American carriers of African slaves.9 While a number of Rhode Island families participated in the trade, including the famous Brown family of Providence, among the most successful was the DeWolf family.10 Their longevity in the trade was predicated on the lasting participation of central figure James DeWolf, who did almost anything to continue amassing economic and political power. The DeWolf story begins in 1744 with Simeon

with Ernestito riding on the front of his father’s saddle; and river excursions aboard the Kid, a wooden launch with a four-berth cabin that Ernesto had built at the Astillero San Isidro. Once, they traveled upriver to the famous Iguazú falls, where the Argentine and Brazilian borders meet, and watched the clouds of vapor rise from the brown cascades that roar down from the virgin jungle cliffs.

It is somewhat ironic to have us so deeply disturbed over a program where race is an element of consciousness, and yet to be aware of the fact, as we are, that institutions of higher learning, albeit more on the undergraduate than the graduate level, have given conceded preferences up to a point to those possessed of athletic skills, to the children of alumni, to the affluent who may bestow their largess on the institutions, and to those having connections with celebrities, the famous, and the powerful.

Following the Civil War, Americans began to perceive it new version of the earlier land-population-wealth crisis as an alarming trend of land consolidation and enclosure threatened the small landholders of the West. Henry George of San Francisco, later to be famous as the author of Progress and Poverty, articulated the new perception. George's social philosophy was moored in it deep belief in the homestead ethic.

Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard, a world-famous physician who practiced in France, England, and the United States in the mid-1800s. He claimed that he “rejuvenated sexual prowess after eating extracts of monkey testis.” Those who adhere to Mark Twain’s suggestion that you should eat a live frog for breakfast, because nothing worse can then happen to your day, clearly haven’t reckoned with Brown-Séquard’s approach to self-improvement!

Brené Brown the professor of sociology famous for her powerful TED talk on vulnerability, said in an interview that upon her return to church she had assumed that the church would help to numb the pain that comes with life. But she discovered that the church was more like a midwife, one that helped you sit through the pain and bear it.3

So foolish was I; and ignorant…. —Psalm 73:22 (KJV) LORNE GREENE, ACTOR I was a very new, very inexperienced writer, just arrived in California on my first Guideposts assignment. I was checking into my hotel when my editor phoned with another story lead: “I’ve got you an interview with Lorne Greene!” Lorne Greene? I’d never heard of him, but from the excitement in the editor’s voice, I knew it must be someone famous. And rather than expose my ignorance, I said, “Great!” “He’ll meet you on the Bonanza set.” He gave me a TV studio address. We didn’t yet own a TV, but I’d read about the new quiz shows offering big prizes. Bonanza, I decided, must be one of those. I’d interview Mr. Greene about competitiveness! I spent two hours writing out a long list of questions. The next day I stood in the wings of the soundstage, staring at a log cabin, a covered wagon, a backdrop of Ponderosa pines…I crumpled my sheet of questions. We sat at a table while I fumbled for a question. Beneath his broad-brimmed hat, smiling brown eyes met mine. He must have perceived immediately that a novice writer had asked a busy man for his time and then arrived unprepared. He took pity on my floundering efforts. “I was a radio interviewer in Canada before I got into acting,” he said. “I think I have a story you’ll like.” No thanks to me, I flew home with a wonderful piece. And a new petition for my daily prayers: Father, grant me the grace to say, “I don’t know.” —Elizabeth Sherrill Digging Deeper: Prv 22:4; Jas 4:6

Langdon’s eyes found the word, which he had skimmed over on his first pass. It was the name of one of the most spectacular and unique cities in the world. Langdon felt a chill, knowing it also happened to be the city in which Dante Alighieri famously became infected with the deadly disease that killed him.

SURE? The Case of the Knockout Artist Bugs Meany’s heart burned with a great desire. It was to get even with Encyclopedia. Bugs hated being outsmarted by the boy detective. He longed to punch Encyclopedia so hard on the jaw that the lump would come out the top of his head. Bugs never raised a fist, though. Whenever he felt like it, he remembered Sally Kimball. Sally was the prettiest girl in the fifth grade—and the best fighter. She had done what no boy under twelve had dreamed was possible. She had flattened Bugs Meany! When Sally became the boy detective’s junior partner, Bugs quit trying to use muscle on Encyclopedia. But he never stopped planning his day of revenge. “Bugs hates you more than he does me,” warned Encyclopedia. “He’ll never forgive you for whipping him.” Just then Ike Cassidy walked into the detective agency. Ike was one of Bugs’s pals. “I’m quitting the Tigers,” he announced. “I want to hire you. But you’ll have to take the quarter from my pocket. I can’t move my fingers.” “What’s this all about?” asked Encyclopedia. “Bugs’s cousin, Bearcat Meany, is spending the weekend with him,” said Ike. “Bearcat is only ten, but he’s built like a caveman. Bugs said he’d give me two dollars to box a few rounds with Bearcat. “Bearcat tripped you and stepped on your fingers?” guessed Encyclopedia. “No, he used his head,” said Ike. “I gave him my famous one-two: a left to the nose followed by a right to the chin. I must have broken both my hands hitting him.” “You should have worn boxing gloves,” said Sally. “We wore gloves,” said Ike. “Man, that Bearcat is something else!” “Did he knock you out?” asked Encyclopedia. “He did and he didn’t,” said Ike. “His first punch didn’t knock me out and it didn’t knock me down. But it hurt so much I just had to go down anyway.” “Good grief!” gasped Encyclopedia. “H-he licked you with one punch?” “With two,” corrected Ike. “When I got up, he hit me again. I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move enough to fall down.” “Bearcat sounds like a coming champ,” observed Sally. “He’s training for the next Olympics,” said Ike. “Isn’t he a little young?” said Sally. “You tell him that,” said Ike. “He hurt me when he breathed on me.” The more Encyclopedia heard about Bearcat, the unhappier he became.

She was not alone. “There’s a definite panic on the hip scene in Cambridge,” wrote student radical Raymond Mungo that year, “people going to uncommonly arduous lengths (debt, sacrifice, the prospect of cold toes and brown rice forever) to get away while there’s still time.” And it wasn’t just Cambridge. All over the nation at the dawn of the 1970s, young people were suddenly feeling an urge to get away, to leave the city behind for a new way of life in the country. Some, like Mungo, filled an elderly New England farmhouse with a tangle of comrades. Others sought out mountain-side hermitages in New Mexico or remote single-family Edens in Tennessee. Hilltop Maoists traversed their fields with horse-drawn plows. Graduate students who had never before held a hammer overhauled tobacco barns and flipped through the Whole Earth Catalog by the light of kerosene lamps. Vietnam vets hand-mixed adobe bricks. Born-and-bred Brooklynites felled cedar in Oregon. Former debutants milked goats in Humboldt County and weeded strawberry beds with their babies strapped to their backs. Famous musicians forked organic compost into upstate gardens. College professors committed themselves to winter commutes that required swapping high heels for cross-country skis. Computer programmers turned the last page of Scott and Helen Nearing’s Living the Good Life and packed their families into the car the next day. Most had no farming or carpentry experience, but no matter. To go back to the land, it seemed, all that was necessary was an ardent belief that life in Middle America was corrupt and hollow, that consumer goods were burdensome and unnecessary, that protest was better lived than shouted, and that the best response to a broken culture was to simply reinvent it from scratch.

As a GP and former parliamentarian, [Former Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown]'s seen the costs of trying to artificially bring on that most basic of human functions. Brown was famously on duty at London's St Mary Abbot's Hospital on 18 September 1970 when Jimi Hendrix, aged twenty-seven, was brought in having died in his sleep after a cocktail of red wine and sleeping pills.

… I loved those shopping trips. After a couple of weeks, people stopped recognizing me as the richest little girl in the world. Actually, I never caused much of a commotion but that one time. I guest that’s when I first began to realize the truth about being famous. Up until then I thought people became famous. You know, because of what they did. Oh, I know people can become famous for a short while, like war heroes and people who climb mountains for the first time, but I didn’t realize you had to work full-time at being famous, and work hard. You’ve got to keep your name before the public all the time. That’s why some people who do really important things soon get forgotten, while big showoffs who run around working to get their names in the papers stay famous.

… I loved those shopping trips. After a couple of weeks, people stopped recognizing me as the richest little girl in the world. Actually, I never caused much of a commotion but that one time. I guess that’s when I first began to realize the truth about being famous. Up until then I thought people became famous. You know, because of what they did. Oh, I know people can become famous for a short while, like war heroes and people who climb mountains for the first time, but I didn’t realize you had to work full-time at being famous, and work hard. You’ve got to keep your name before the public all the time. That’s why some people who do really important things soon get forgotten, while big showoffs who run around working to get their names in the papers stay famous.

The phrase Daring Greatly is from Theodore Roosevelt's speech "Citizenship in a Republic." The speech, sometimes referred to as "The Man in the Arena," was delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on April 23, 1910. This is the passage that made the speech famous: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly..." The first time I read this quote, I thought, This is vulnerability. Everything I've learned from over a decade of research on vulnerability has taught me this exact lesson. Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it's understanding the necessity of both; it's engaging. It's being all in.

His ancestors had formed a small but deadly army to defend themselves. The army became famous across the land as protectors—skilled executioners who wandered the countryside slaughtering any of the enemy they could find. They were renowned not only for their brutal killings, but also for celebrating their slayings by plunging themselves into drug-induced stupors. Their drug of choice was a potent intoxicant they called hashish. As their notoriety spread, these lethal men became known by a single word—Hassassin—literally “the followers of hashish.” The name Hassassin became synonymous with death in almost every language on earth.

Pariva was a small village, unimportant enough that it rarely appeared on any maps of Esperia. Bordered by mountains and sea, it seemed untouched by time. The school looked the same as she remembered; so did the market and Mangia Road---a block of eating establishments that included the locally famous Belmagio bakery---and cypress and laurel and pine trees still surrounded the local square, where the villagers came out to gossip or play chess or even sing together. Had it really been forty years since she had returned? It seemed like only yesterday that she'd strolled down Pariva's narrow streets, carrying a sack of pine nuts to her parents' bakery or stopping by the docks to watch the fishing boats sail across the glittering sea. Back then, she'd been a daughter, a sister, a friend. A mere slip of a young woman. Home had been a humble two-storied house on Constanza Street, with a door as yellow as daffodils and cobblestoned stairs that led into a small courtyard in the back. Her father had kept a garden of herbs; he was always frustrated by how the mint grew wild when what he truly wanted to grow was basil. The herbs went into the bread that her parents sold at their bakery. Papa crafted the savory loaves and Mamma the sweet ones, along with almond cakes drizzled with lemon glaze, chocolate biscuits with hazelnut pralines, and her famous cinnamon cookies. The magic the Blue Fairy had grown up with was sugar shimmering on her fingertips and flour dusting her hair like snow. It was her older brother, Niccolo, coaxing their finicky oven into working again, and Mamma listening for the crackle of a golden-brown crust just before her bread sang. It was her little sister Ilaria's tongue turning green after she ate too many pistachio cakes. Most of all, magic was the smile on Mamma's, Papa's, Niccolo's, and Ilaria's faces when they brought home the bakery's leftover chocolate cake and sank their forks into a sumptuous, moist slice. After dinner, the Blue Fairy and her siblings made music together in the Blue Room. Its walls were bluer than the midsummer sky, and the windows arched like rainbows. It'd been her favorite room in the house.

John Tradescant the Younger in 1638 were improved upon by Lancelot “Capability” Brown in 1753 with the addition of an artificial lake featuring an island. Brown is also responsible for constructing the hill at the edge of the garden which is crowned with the famous Pineapple Pavilion folly.’ 

I pop into Barrett's, ducking beneath the bright-red awning into the tiny shop, which is packed with fresh cuts of everything, from delicate lamb chops to meaty pork roasts covered in thick layers of fat. Mountains of fat sausages beckon from within the glass case, in more varieties than I could ever imagine---wild boar and apple, venison, chicken and sage, beef and garlic. A musty funk fills the store, giving the place an air of rustic authenticity. I order three Cornish hens (or, as the British call them, poussin) and then head back toward Pomona, the small food shop I visited this morning, remembering the fresh, crusty loaves of bread on their shelves. I grab a loaf of challah, its braided crust shiny and golden brown, along with some celery, an onion, some mushrooms, and a few spices. Before I pay, I also throw a bunch of speckled bananas, a pot of Greek yogurt, and some flour and sugar into my basket. The ingredients are slightly different here than they are back home---"self-raising flour," "caster sugar"---but I'm sure I can re-create the banana bread I developed for a famous morning-show host back in Chicago. It's one of my most popular recipes to date, and I'm sure it would taste great with a cup of tea.

It didn't last long—I wasn't famous enough. But it felt like forever to me. So now, I guess, I'm a bit... private." That wasn't the full story, just a fraction of it. Because the press had left Zaf alone eventually, but grief hadn't. Not for a long, long time. He wasn't going to tell her about the heights his anxiety had reached, or how it turned out depression could fuel rage like nothing else, or how bleak it felt when the fire ran out and the demons were all you had left. Not right now, anyway.

I make my way into the kitchen and peek into the oven, where the chicken sits on a bed of onions and carrots, the skin puffing up and sputtering as it turns a deep golden brown. Roast chicken was one of my favorite meals growing up and a dish my mom often made on Sunday night, along with her famous crispy roasted potatoes. Libby liked her roast chicken flavored with lots of lemon and a little garlic, but I preferred mine with lots of garlic, no lemon, and a little bit of paprika under the skin. In an unusual meeting of the minds, that's how my mom preferred it too, so that's how she made it most often. I loved that Sunday night dinner. I loved how it made me feel closer to her for once.

And then there was his famous underlook – his inimitable way of lounging against a wall and keeping his head slightly lowered while lifting his blue eyes to look at whoever had caught his interest across the room.

The Times celebration of Brown as confirming constitutional color blindness was widely shared in America. In the debates over the Kennedy-Johnson civil rights bill in 1963 and 1964, the bipartisan congressional leadership appealed to the classical liberal model of color-blind justice, leaning over backwards to deny charges by southern opponents that the law could lead to quotas or other forms of preference for minorities. Indeed, the legislative history of the Civil Rights Act shows what John David Skrentny, author of The Ironies of Affirmative Action, called “an almost obsessive concern” for maintaining fidelity to a color-blind concept of equal individual rights. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the majority (Democratic) whip behind the bill, explained simply: “Race, religion and national origin are not to be used as the basis for hiring and firing.” Title VII required employers to treat citizens differing in race, sex, national origin, or religion equally, as abstract citizens differing only in merit. Section 703(j) of the Civil Rights Act states: “Nothing contained in this title shall be interpreted to require any employer… to grant preferential treatment to any individual or to any group because of the race, color, religion, sex, or national origin of such individual or group on account of an imbalance which my exist with respect to the total number or percentage of persons of any race, color, religion, sex, or national origin employed by an employer.” The syntax was classic legalese, but the meaning was unambiguous. The Senate’s floor managers for Title VII, Joseph S. Clark (D-Pa.) and Clifford P. Case (R-N.J.), told their colleagues, “The concept of discrimination… is clear and simple and has no hidden meanings. …To discriminate means to make a distinction, to make a difference in treatment or favor, which is based on any five of the forbidden criteria: race, color, religion, sex, or nation origin.” They continued: There is no requirement in Title VII that an employer maintain a balance in his work force. On the contrary, any deliberate attempt to maintain a racial balance, whatever such a balance may be, would involve a violation of Title VII because maintaining such a balance would require an employer to hire or refuse to hire on the basis of race. It must be emphasized that discrimination is prohibited to any individual. Humphrey, trying to lay to rest what he called the “bugaboo” of racial quotas raised by filibustering southerners in his own party and by some conservative Republicans as well, reaffirmed the bill’s color-blind legislative intent: “That bugaboo has been brought up a dozen times; but it is nonexistent. In fact the very opposite is true. Title VII prohibits discrimination. In effect, it sways that race, religion, and national origin are not to be used as the basis for hiring and firing.” Humphrey even famously pledged on the Senate floor that if any wording could be found in Title VII “which provides that an employer will have to hire on the basis of percentage or quota related to color, … I will start eating the pages [of the bill] one after another.

Excuse me but where are the dryers?' Alice asked. 'Erm, the sun.' Molly pointed out of the window at several long clotheslines. 'What, we have to carry our wet clothes all the way out there and hang them up ourselves?' 'Yes, you do.' 'That's an outrage; I am from the famous Smithers family, I can't be expected to do such a thing. I insist that the servants do my washing for me and carry it outside.' Molly waved her wand in the air and pointed it at Alice as she said, 'Strideo!' Alice immediately shrunk down, and her clothes fell into a pile on the floor.  A squeaking sound came from within the pile of clothes and a white mouse with brown patches on it scurried out by Stef's feet, causing her to let out a shriek and jump back. 'I probably shouldn't have done that, but she was driving me crazy.' Molly shrugged, and all the other girls looked at her…shocked. Charlotte bent down and picked up Alice, cupping her in her hands.

I almost wish they’d called us something rude like “crazy fuckin’ Mexicans” because that’s acknowledging something about us beyond our usefulness—we’re crazy, we’re Mexican, we’re clearly unwanted!—but to describe all of us, men, women, children, locally Instagram-famous teens, queer puppeteers, all of us, as workers in order to make us palatable, my god. We were brown bodies made to labor, faces pixelated.

Walker, Texas Ranger" when she was 14 years old and she learned how to throw a punch from Chuck Norris.

Austin smiles at me while Leah argues with Hazel. Now that I know he’s Ezra’s new maybe-special friend, I pay a little more attention to him than I would have before. He kind of reminds me of a golden retriever, with his floppy blond hair and blue eyes. The first time I saw him in acrylics class, I kind of immediately hated the guy. He’s the sort of person the world adores, just based on the way he looks, a little like the way people obsess over men like Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans and Chris Pine and all the other famous Chrises, plus Ryan Gosling, claiming that they’re liberal and that they aren’t racist and that they’re feminists, but not really thinking about why they’re so obsessed with white men, and why they don’t love any people of color the same way. I love that I have brown skin. I love that I’m queer, and that I’m trans. But sometimes, I can’t help but think how much easier my life would be if I was someone like Austin.

Browning, whose verse is famously obscure, was once approached by a woman who asked the meaning of a particular stanza. “Madame,” he answered, “when I wrote that only God and I knew what it meant. Now, only God knows.

Who-ever you've been since time began and wherever your passions lie on the Other Side, where you live your real life, are all a part of who you are right now, whether or not you're consciously aware of your wealth of accumulated knowledge.

Abraham Lincoln on October 1, 1858, less than four months after his famous “House Divided” speech.

famous modern art gallery in Hobart.

She understood that becoming a nun was a lifetime commitment. Testing her daughter’s resolve was wise. The Koehler family together, 1923 First Homes As an adult, I visited Rosie’s first home at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, to get a sense of her early life and that of her famous family. The compact Victorian residence stands three stories tall on a small lot in the Boston suburb. It was easy to picture the young Kennedy children playing in the back yard. Rose Kennedy wrote in Times to Remember, her 1974 autobiography: “It was a nice old wooden-frame house with clapboard siding; seven rooms, plus two small ones in the converted attic, all on a small lot with a few bushes and trees . . . about twenty-five minutes from the center of the city by trolley.” 5 The family home on Beals Street is now the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site, run by the National Park Service. From the deep browns and reds of the rugs on the hardwood floors to the homey couch and chairs, the home felt warm and comfortable to me. I suppressed a desire to kick off my sandals and flop on the sofa. The Kennedys’ house on Beals Street, Rosie’s first home But my perspective as a child would have triggered a different impression. I would have whispered to my mother, “They’re rich!” (I’ve since discovered that money isn’t the only measure of wealth. There’s wealth in memories, too.) A lovely grand piano occupies one corner of the Kennedys’ old living room. It was a wedding gift to Rose Kennedy from her uncles, and she delighted in playing her favorite song, “Sweet Adeline,” on it. Although her children took piano lessons, Mrs. Kennedy lamented that her own passion never ignited a similar spark in any of her daughters. She did often ask Rosemary to perform, however. I see an image of Rosemary declaring she couldn’t, her hands stretching awkwardly across the keys. But her mother encouraged Rosie to practice, confident she’d

Ringo Star's, real name is Richard Starkey.

Much of this pattern of thought finds its echo in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood – who were young enough to be Carlyle’s sons. The ‘brotherhood’ began in 1848 at 83 Gower Street, when a group of art students vowed ‘to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues’. Of the original seven, three members of the PRB – Dante Gabriel Rossetti, aged twenty, John Everett Millais, aged nineteen, and William Holman Hunt, aged twenty-one – went on to be famous artists. Other painters whom we think of as ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ – such as Ford Madox Brown himself – never in fact joined the Brotherhood, which was never a very tightly knit guild, and which dissolved with the years. One sees the way in which these

The list of luminaries receiving Medici patronage ranged from da Vinci to Galileo to Botticelli—the latter’s most famous painting, Birth of Venus, the result of a commission from Lorenzo de’ Medici, who requested a sexually provocative painting to hang over his cousin’s marital bed as a wedding gift. Lorenzo de’ Medici—known in his day as Lorenzo the Magnificent on account of his benevolence—was an accomplished artist and poet in his own right and was said to have a superb eye.

Ragnar Lothbrok, the famous Viking, is still a mysterious historical figure, hidden in myths and links to a few chieftains. He was the father of legendary figures such as Ivar the Boneless, Halfdan Ragnarsson, Bjorn Ironside, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, and Ubba.

While so many people floated on the sea, dying, most of the lifeboats did not sit idly by. They had to confront the excruciating moral question of whether to put their own lives at risk and row back to pick up survivors, or whether to preserve their safety at a distance, and either hope that a ship would arrive soon (doubtful, since none appeared to be on the horizon), or let the others die. Most opted for the latter. Famously, Margaret Brown (discussed above) forced her boat to return, but by the time she had taken charge, they were only able to pull a few people from the icy water. The rest had already perished.

The perspection of your perception brings about a precision in you as a person

Philip Knight, who founded Nike, famously paid Carolyn Davidson just $35 to design their now-famous Swoosh logo.

In 1968, elementary school teacher Jane Elliott conducted a famous experiment with her students in the days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She divided the class by eye color. The brown-eyed children were told they were better. They were the “in-group.” The blue-eyed children were told they were less than the brown-eyed children—hence becoming the “out-group.” Suddenly, former classmates who had once played happily side by side were taunting and torturing one another on the playground. Lest we assign greater morality to the “out-group,” the blue-eyed children were just as quick to attack the brown-eyed children once the roles were reversed.6 Since Elliott’s experiment, researchers have conducted thousands of studies to understand the in-group/out-group response. Now, with fMRI scans, these researchers can actually see which parts of our brains fire up when perceiving a member of an out-group. In a phenomenon called the out-group homogeneity effect, we are more likely to see members of our groups as unique and individually motivated—and more likely to see a member of the out-group as the same as everyone else in that group. When we encounter this out-group member, our amygdala—the part of our brain that processes anger and fear—is more likely to become active. The more we perceive this person outside our group as a threat, the more willing we are to treat them badly.

Ida’s World Famous Maple Bacon Fudge 1 cup white sugar 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup heavy cream 1/3 cup of butter 1/4 cup of pure maple syrup 5 slices of thick cut bacon, cooked and crumbled 2 teaspoons of vanilla 1/4 teaspoon of salt In a large heavy bottom saucepan, add brown sugar, white sugar, butter, cream, and maple syrup. Stir until well blended and place over medium heat.  Bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly.  Lower heat to medium and continue to stir for about 7-9 minutes or until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage (drop a small amount of mixture into cold water and form to a ball with your fingers). Remove from the heat.  Add vanilla and crumbled bacon and let sit without stirring for about 10 minutes. After mixture has cooled, stir vigorously until mixture begins to thicken and loses its gloss.

by refusing to repeat it, much to the despair of their record companies. Both wrote gorgeous sci-fi ballads blatantly inspired by 2001—“Space Oddity” and “After the Gold Rush.” Both did classic songs about imperialism that name-checked Marlon Brando—“China Girl” and “Pocahontas.” Both were prodigiously prolific even when they were trying to eat Peru through their nostrils. They were mutual fans, though they floundered when they tried to copy each other (Trans and Tin Machine). Both sang their fears of losing their youth when they were still basically kids; both aged mysteriously well. Neither ever did anything remotely sane. But there’s a key difference: Bowie liked working with smart people, whereas Young always liked working with . . . well, let’s go ahead and call them “not quite as smart as Neil Young” people. Young made his most famous music with two backing groups—the awesomely inept Crazy Horse and the expensively addled CSN—whose collective IQ barely leaves room temperature. He knows they’re not going to challenge him with ideas of their own, so he knows how to use them—brilliantly in the first case, lucratively in the second. But Bowie never made any of his memorable music that way—he always preferred collaborating with (and stealing from) artists who knew tricks he didn’t know, well educated in musical worlds where he was just a visitor. Just look at the guitarists he worked with: Carlos Alomar from James Brown’s band vs. Robert Fripp from King Crimson. Stevie Ray Vaughan from Texas vs. Mick Ronson from Hull. Adrian Belew from Kentucky vs. Earl Slick from Brooklyn. Nile Rodgers. Peter Frampton. Ricky Gardiner, who played all that fantastic fuzz guitar on Low (and who made the mistake of demanding a raise, which is why he dropped out of the story so fast). Together, Young and Bowie laid claim to a jilted generation left high and dry by the dashed hippie dreams. “The

After a while I got in past the velvet rope and ate one of Rudy's "world-famous" Salisbury steaks, which is hamburger on a slab of burnt wood, ringed with browned-over mashed potato, supported by fried onion rings and one of those mixed up salads which men will eat with complete docility in restaurants, although they would probably start yelling if their wives tried to feed them one at home.

Much ink has been spilled over whether fascism represented an emergency form of capitalism, a mechanism devised by capitalists by which the fascist state—their agent—disciplined the workforce in a way no traditional dictatorship could do. Today it is quite clear that businessmen often objected to specific aspects of fascist economic policies, sometimes with success. But fascist economic policy responded to political priorities, and not to economic rationale. Both Mussolini and Hitler tended to think that economics was amenable to a ruler’s will. Mussolini returned to the gold standard and revalued the lira at 90 to the British pound in December 1927 for reasons of national prestige, and over the objections of his own finance minister. Fascism was not the first choice of most businessmen, but most of them preferred it to the alternatives that seemed likely in the special conditions of 1922 and 1933—socialism or a dysfunctional market system. So they mostly acquiesced in the formation of a fascist regime and accommodated to its requirements of removing Jews from management and accepting onerous economic controls. In time, most German and Italian businessmen adapted well to working with fascist regimes, at least those gratified by the fruits of rearmament and labor discipline and the considerable role given to them in economic management. Mussolini’s famous corporatist economic organization, in particular, was run in practice by leading businessmen. Peter Hayes puts it succinctly: the Nazi regime and business had “converging but not identical interests.” Areas of agreement included disciplining workers, lucrative armaments contracts, and job-creation stimuli. Important areas of conflict involved government economic controls, limits on trade, and the high cost of autarky—the economic self-sufficiency by which the Nazis hoped to overcome the shortages that had lost Germany World War I. Autarky required costly substitutes—Ersatz— for such previously imported products as oil and rubber. Economic controls damaged smaller companies and those not involved in rearmament. Limits on trade created problems for companies that had formerly derived important profits from exports. The great chemical combine I. G. Farben is an excellent example: before 1933, Farben had prospered in international trade. After 1933, the company’s directors adapted to the regime’s autarky and learned to prosper mightily as the suppliers of German rearmament. The best example of the expense of import substitution was the Hermann Goering Werke, set up to make steel from the inferior ores and brown coal of Silesia. The steel manufacturers were forced to help finance this operation, to which they raised vigorous objections.

Thomas a Kempis? — the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: “Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.

Maggie had drawn nearer and nearer; she must see it too, though it was bitter to her, like everything else, since Tom did not care about her seeing it. At last she was close by Lucy; and Tom, who had been aware of her approach, but would not notice it till he was obliged, turned round and said — “Now, get away, Maggie; there’s no room for you on the grass here. Nobody asked you to come.” There were passions at war in Maggie at that moment to have made a tragedy, if tragedies were made by passion only; but the essential τι μεγεθως which was present in the passion was wanting to the action; the utmost Maggie could do, with a fierce thrust of her small brown arm, was to push poor little pink-and-white Lucy into the cow-trodden mud.

Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale — young clergyman, who had come from one of the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild forest land. His eloquence and religious fervour had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow; large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self restraint. Notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholarlike attainments, there was an air about this young minister — an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look — as of a being who felt himself quite astray, and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own. Therefore, so far as his duties would permit, he trod in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept himself simple and childlike, coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said, affected them like the speech of an angel.

Mama Jean’s Banana Pudding Yield: 6–8 servings I’ve been hearing about Mama Jean’s banana pudding since the day I married my husband. His grandmother was famous for this Southern delight, and my mother-in-law was tickled pink for me to share it with all of you. You can top it with a baked meringue topping or a simple swirl of whipped cream. 1 cup sugar 1/3 cup all-purpose flour 2 cups whole milk 3 egg yolks, beaten 2 tablespoons butter 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 4 ripe bananas, sliced 1 (11-ounce) box vanilla wafer cookies In a large saucepan, add sugar to flour and mix well. Gradually add milk. Place saucepan on stove and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. When heated well, add egg yolks. Cook until thickened and remove from stove. Immediately stir in butter and vanilla. Immediately stir in butter and vanilla. If serving in individual portions, as shown, layer each serving dish with pudding, banana slices, and vanilla wafer cookies. Top with whipped cream and keep chilled until ready to serve. For a baked meringue topping, layer pudding with banana slices and vanilla wafer cookies in an 8–10-inch oven-safe baking dish. Top with Meringue Topping. Meringue Topping 3 egg whites 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract Meringue Topping Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add sugar and vanilla. Spread over banana pudding and bake for 5–6 minutes or until lightly browned on top.

The sentence “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy brown dog” is famously used as a training tool in typing classes because it uses every letter of the English alphabet in one sentence and with the minimum number of characters. But did you know that this string of words is also useful in cryptography for testing out the effectiveness of code-breaking algorithms?

The men here tonight are workers. For many years when I have heard nice people try to be respectful about describing undocumented people, I’ve heard them call us “undocumented workers” as a euphemism, as if there was something uncouth about being just an undocumented person standing with your hands clasped together or at your sides. I almost wish they’d called us something rude like “crazy fuckin’ Mexicans” because that’s acknowledging something about us beyond our usefulness—we’re crazy, we’re Mexican, we’re clearly unwanted!—but to describe all of us, men, women, children, locally Instagram-famous teens, queer puppeteers, all of us, as workers in order to make us palatable, my god. We were brown bodies made to labor, faces pixelated. And here they are now, the workers. Some are very young, just past their teens, and some are quite old, around seventy. They are all wearing dirty work boots, but carefully kept. You know how jeans come pre-ripped? That’s how their boots look. Dirty from work, pristine from care. The workers are very brown, brown from their moms, browned from the sun. They are short. But they are built. They look like they can walk on burning coal, build a house, and open a bottle of beer with their wedding rings.

Ibn Hisham (d. 833), the Egyptian scholar whose edition of the Prophet’s biography is most famous, concluded that Muhammad married thirteen women in all, consummated his marriage with eleven of them (two he divorced before consummation), and was married to at most nine at one time. He also had two concubines.

MONAD. The term monad is a Greek word for “one.” It is prominent in the writings of Plotinus and occurs in the works of various Neo-platonists such as Giordano Bruno and in kabbalistic writers such as Francis Mercury van Helmont. It has been claimed that Leibniz derived the term from one or the other of these, or from another Platonist such as Henry More or Ralph Cudworth. Leibniz, however, had some tendency to concoct Greek-derived neologisms (“theodicy” is the most famous example) and to use existing Greek words for his own purposes. His own use of the word monad seems to have been mostly derived from its use in Greek philosophy, particularly by Pythagoras. Though he must have been aware of its use by other philosophers, he presents it as if it were new to his system, explaining simply that the term meant “one” and never connecting his use of the term with anyone else’s. Leibniz had long required that substances be genuine unities, in principle indivisible. He began, around 1690, to use the word monad as an alternative for substance or true unity. Monads are conceived in Leibniz’s writings as souls or forms and, in some cases, minds. But they are always united to a body of some kind, even in the case of angels, who need bodies to communicate with one another. Only God, according to Leibniz, is wholly without a body of any kind. God, angels, and humans are, as rational souls, at the top end of Leibniz’s hierarchy of monads. At the lower end are the souls of the infinitely small creatures that constitute the physical universe. In Leibniz’s monadology, the higher monads rule over the lower ones. The relation between mind and body is the same as that between a unified center and the collection of monads it brings together and governs. A composite substance such as a human being or an animal consists of a dominant monad and what would, if not for their connection to the dominant monad, be a mere aggregate of monads. The connection is a causal one and needs to be understood in terms of Leibniz’s theory of causality, that is, the dominant monad will have more clear and distinct perceptions when it produces some “effect” on the others than do those others.

An actress dressed as a black angel often stood in the square, spreading her dark wings in front of the Hotel U Prince and ushering guests inside to the hotel’s famous basement grotto—Black Angel’s Bar.

This box, as it turned out, entombed a famous “king” who was never actually king, but rather a good-hearted prince mistakenly immortalized as a king in a popular English Christmas carol. Katherine was pleased to read that the resting place of Good King Wenceslas also served as the gateway to the priceless Bohemian Crown Jewels…secured in a vault accessible only through a famous door with seven locks.

Timor mortis est pater religionis, Langdon mused, recalling the ancient saying made famous by Upton Sinclair. Fear of death is the father of religion.

Because we were on a reality show, we also had to watch out for people pretending to be our friends because they thought they could become famous through us.

Gaudí’s famous Barcelona Panots—

Whenever I go online, I can count on being confronted with a recipe that I never asked for and which, the moment I see it, I kind of want to eat. Recently it was 'Herby Chicken Caesar Schnitzel', which was accompanied by the kind of video that's carefully calibrated to stoke a craving. Here's the schnitzel being caressed by soft, amber bubbles in the pan. Here's a money shot, when a knife rasps demonstratively over the crust. Here's a green salad being twisted through a slippery dressing. It is slung on top of the schnitzel like a satin quilt on an unmade bed. 'She's crispy, saucy, cheesy and a little bit spicy,' the recipe developer, Jodie Nixon, explains in the voiceover. It was posted by Mob-- a hugely successful British recipe platform with an ensemble cast of recipe developers, popular on social media and among younger cooks. Another day, it'll be an unsolicited close-up of a chicken thigh, fresh out of the pan, with tortoiseshell caramelized skin. 'They're crunchy, they're juicy,' Jordan Ezra King-- the cook-- says on the voiceover. 'Gonna do it with herby rice, and some nice pickle-y fresh crunchy salad.' Again, it was a recipe from Mob. Or how about those few weeks when my For You pages were hacked by an Instagram-famous sausage and gochujang rigatoni? You crumble and fry sausage meat until it's lightly browned, in pieces the size of granola clusters, then add gochujang, cream, shallot, Parmesan, breadcrumbs and a few other things. You can tell it's going to be aggressively pleasing in the same way as a McDonald's double cheeseburger. The recipe developer, Xiengni Zhou, narrates the video. 'It's quick, creamy, and kind of spicy,' she says, and the dish looks so good that you don't even care that you're getting déjà vu. The video has tens of thousands of likes, and it is also, unsurprisingly, from Mob.

How am I the final girl right now?” I complain. “The final girl is never brown. Everybody knows that!

Einstein had famously declared: Coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous

Immortality through fame, Langdon mused as he took photographs, recalling that Shakespeare, Homer, and Horace had all opined that the uniquely human desire to be “famous” was, in fact, the symptom of another uniquely human trait—our fear of death. To be famous meant you would be remembered long after you died…fame a kind of eternal life.

I’m in a dream. Unable to change the forces that move around me. To stop the sand from slipping through my fingers. I set this into motion but didn’t have the heart or strength or cunning or whatever the hell I needed to stop it. No matter what I do or say, Roque was lost to me the moment he discovered what I am. I step toward him, thinking I can take his razor from his hand without killing him, but he knows my intention and he holds up his off hand plaintively. As if to comfort me and beg me the mercy of letting him die as he lived. “Be still. Night hangs upon mine eyes.” He looks to me, eyes full with tears. “Keep swimming, my friend,” I tell him. With a gentle nod, he wraps his razor whip around his throat and stiffens his spine. “I am Roque au Fabii of the gens Fabii. My ancestors walked upon red Mars. They fell upon Old Earth. I have lost the day, but I have not lost myself. I will not be a prisoner.” His eyes close. His hand trembles. “I am the star in the night sky. I am the blade in the twilight. I am the god, the glory.” His breath shudders out. He is afraid. “I am the Gold.” And there, on the bridge of his invincible warship as his famous fleet falls to ruin behind him, the Poet of Deimos takes his own life. Somewhere the wind howls and the darkness whispers that I’m running out of friends, running out of light. The blood slithers away from his body toward my boots. A shard of my own reflection trapped in its red fingers.

The father of American psychology, William James, had famously said: In order to disprove the assertion that all crows are black, one white crow is sufficient. As Katherine described in her manuscript, an entire flock of white crows had now been flushed out…by noetic science, by quantum physics, and by the work of an impressive cadre of academics who were vocal advocates of nonlocal consciousness. Respected minds like Harold Puthoff, Russell Targ, Edwin May, Dean Radin, Brenda Dunne, Robert Morris, Julia Mossbridge, Robert Jahn, and many others had made astounding findings in diverse fields like plasma physics, nonlinear mathematics, and consciousness anthropology, all of which supported the notion of nonlocal consciousness. Their popular books bore titles like Limitless Mind, Remote Perceptions, The Seventh Sense, Anomalous Cognition, and Real Magic. Katherine had not heard about any of these other titles getting pushback from the CIA. And why would they? The notion of “mind separated from body” was not nearly as exotic as most imagined. The millions of people who practiced meditation were in fact already flirting with the peripheries of this world, focusing their minds until their physical bodies seemed to evaporate and they perceived themselves as only mind—a consciousness no longer located inside the body. From there, a small percentage of skilled meditators achieved “projection,” a state in which consciousness was perceived as moving away from one’s physical location. This was the same detached sensation described by many epileptics and survivors of near-death experiences. The closest Katherine had ever come to projecting was the occasional “lucid dream”—a bizarre experience wherein she “woke up” inside her dream, realized she was dreaming, and was able to do whatever she wanted within her dream.

was most common in women and often arose as a coping mechanism for repeated physical or sexual abuse. Most frequently, the second identity manifested for the purpose of absorbing the host’s pain by enduring the trauma in her place—a kind of proxy victim—sustaining the anguish, blocking all memory of it, and enabling the host to “disassociate” from her own suffering. The secondary personality was known as the alternate or “alter” and typically appeared in an abrupt schismatic break during acute trauma. Having manifested, the alter could then take up permanent residence in the host, lingering for years or a lifetime as a kind of guardian, even subsuming the subject’s darkest memories in a kind of selective amnesia—providing a clean slate with which to move forward. It was not uncommon for a protective alter to assume control of the body and become the dominant personality, deciding when and how the traumatized subject could safely “surface.” Dissociative identity disorder had first been diagnosed in the 1800s under the name “double consciousness”—a kind of waking sleepwalking in which an individual seemed to be taken over by another consciousness, who then carried out actions without the permission, knowledge, or recollection of the individual. Two of the most extraordinary cases in history were so meticulously documented that they became the basis for the bestsellers The Three Faces of Eve, Strangers in My Body, and Sybil. Of course, the most famous book of all time on the condition was Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Katherine knew that many instances of DID involved multiple alters—some with more than a dozen identities living in one host body. Incredibly, the alters all had different voices, accents, handwriting, skill sets, food preferences, and even gender identities. They walked differently, preferred different living spaces, suffered different physical ailments, and even had different IQs and eyesight. One radio receiving multiple distinct stations… Psychiatrists diverged wildly over how these stark dissimilarities between alters could be possible, and some skeptics even accused DID patients of being skilled actors looking for attention. However, when patients submitted to rigorous testing involving MRIs, lie detectors, and sophisticated lines of interrogation, the results were always the same—there were indeed multiple discrete individuals existing within one body. Some of the alters were aware of the others living with them in what was known as “the system.” These alters were called “co-conscious.” In contrast, some alters were oblivious that the system even existed, believing instead that they were alone in the body. They often suffered memory gaps when stronger alters blocked them out, taking over the forefront of the mind in an action known as “fronting.