Flash Mob Quotes

If someone invited you to a flash mob, would you wear a bra?

Sometimes I feel like New Yorkers do New York wrong. Where are the people swinging from subway poles and dancing on fire escapes and kissing in Times Square? The post office flash mob proposal was a start, but when’s the next big number? I pictured New York like West Side Story plus In the Heights plus Avenue Q—but really, it’s just construction and traffic and iPhones and humidity.

Rocketing fears for Grandfather aside, the whole music puzzle starts to make sense. “It’s more than a flash mob,” I insist. “Ask Professor Walker, this is Grandfather’s exit song. It’s like his portal of departure.” But Mom’s not listening. She’s preoccupied, apparently puzzled by Dad’s astonishment. Why isn’t anyone listening to me?

Xie Lian whipped his head over, and a biting chill flashed before his face. He straightened and stated solemnly: “You ask who I am? LISTEN WELL! ——I, AM THE EMINENT HIGHNESS THE CROWN PRINCE! You riotous radicals, BOW DOWN BEFORE ME!” His voice boomed like thunder in clear skies. There were actually a few who almost dropped to their knees, and didn’t snap out of it until their companions pulled them up. “What are you doing? Are you actually kneeling?” “Th-that’s weird, I did it before I realized it…” Xie Lian proclaimed sharply: “I, AM OVER EIGHT HUNDRED. OLDER THAN ALL OF YOU COMBINED. I’VE CROSSED MORE BRIDGES THAN ALL THE ROADS YOU’VE WALKED. “I, POSSESS SHRINES AND TEMPLES ACROSS THIS LAND; MY DEVOTEES AND WORSHIPPERS ARE SPREAD TO ALL FOUR SEAS. IF YOU DON’T KNOW MY NAME, IT’S BECAUSE YOU ARE IGNORANT AND UNLEARNED OF THE WORLD! “I, DO NOT WORSHIP GODS. “I, AM GOD!” When the mob heard this speech, that was so shameless yet spoken with an incomparably impressive air, they were all stunned, and dropped their jaws. “…HUH???” Xie Lian made up all that nonsense because he was waiting for this very moment. He flung that plate in his hand, and all those little white meatballs shot out through the air like iron pellets, scattering in all directions. Without any misses, they were hurled right into the open mouths of all those people in shock. Then he wiped away his sweat. “Will everyone please forget everything I just said? I’m actually only just a scrap collector!

What I especially love about Kmart is the ambience. I always feel like I’ve entered a store that was just attacked by a flash mob. Everything always looks and feels a little disheveled.

One picks one's way about through the glass and aluminum doors, the receptionists' smiles, the lunches with too much alcohol, the openings with more, the mobs of people desperately trying to define good taste in such loud voices one can hardly hear oneself giggle, while the shebang is lit by flashes and flares through the paint-stained window, glimmers under the police-locked door, or, if one is taking a rare walk outside that day, by a light suffusing the whole sky, complex as the northern aurora.

It’s funny,” John says, “how piano keys are black and white, yet they play a thousand different colors.” “‘Cept there ain’t no piyana,” Captain Clark shushes. John’s face goes blank. “Really? I thought I heard one.” Captain Clark looks at me, almost apologetically. “He’s got Van Gogh’s ear fer music.

than individual inventions or amendments. That is not to say that all demotic innovations are benevolent. But if you listen to many voices and stories and discern a deep and complex pattern emerging, you can usually determine what is real and what has been airbrushed for questionable agendas or corrupted by flash mobs of narcissists.

As I exited the car, I glanced over at Henry. "Should I call Asher and tell him we won't be needing that getaway distraction?" Before Henry could reply, pop music reverberated off the building. Asher jogged into the middle of a large crowd and struck a dramatic pose. "You say distraction," Henry deadpanned, "Asher hears 'flash mob'." Five seconds later, Vivvie danced wildly past and gave me a questioning look. I nodded. "The possum has fallen on the nun!" Vivvie called to Asher. Asher didn't miss a beat of choreography. He shimmied and punched a fist into the air. "Long live the possum!

The internet, although beloved by all including Al Qaeda, went straight from barbarism to decadence without ever encountering a civilisation. It was never utopian, although it was free. Its lawyers are patent trolls. Its political parties are flash mobs in the streets. Its wealthy are nouveau-rich cranks. Its poor are a tidal wave of Third World young people. The Twenty-Teens are quite an interesting cultural period.

I don't know. Sometimes I feel like New Yorkers do New York wrong. Where are the people swinging from subway poles and dancing on fire escapes and kissing in Times Square? The post office flash mob proposal was a start, but when's the next big number? I pictured New York like West Side Story plus In the Heights plus Avenue Q--but really, it's just construction and traffic and iPhones and humidity. They might as well write musicals about Milton, Georgia. We'd open with a ballad: 'Sunday at the Mall.' And then 'I Left My Heart at Target,' If Ethan were here, he'd have the whole libretto written by the time we stepped out of the car.

Social media is good for collective sharing, but not always so great for collective building; good for collective destruction, but maybe not so good for collective construction; fantastic for generating a flash mob, but not so good at generating a flash consensus on a party platform or a constitution.

The contemporary West is the most individualistic era of all time. Its central values are in ethics, autonomy; in politics, individual rights; in culture, postmodernism; and in religion, ‘spirituality’. Its idol is the self, its icon the ‘selfie’, and its operating systems the free market and the post-ideological, managerial liberal democratic state. In place of national identities we have global cosmopolitanism. In place of communities we have flash-mobs. We are no longer pilgrims but tourists. We no longer know who we are or why.

The core of the problem comes back to the same inescapable fact that has both blocked climate action and accelerated emissions: all of us are living in the world that neoliberalism built, even if we happen to be critics of neoliberalism. In practice that means that, despite endless griping, tweeting, flash mobbing, and occupying, we collectively lack many of the tools that built and sustained the transformative movements of the past.

Della sank down beside the creek, waiting for the flash of white fur that would herald Tidda's arrival. The first time she'd come across Tidda she'd been no more than a joey hardly big enough to be out of her mother's pouch. Perhaps because she was different, with her strange lack of color and red eyes, the mob had rejected her. Charity reckoned it was the sign of the devil, a punishment or a curse from the Darkinjung ancestral spirits. That was nothing but a load of rubbish. Tidda was more beautiful than most because of the strange trick natures had played upon her.

Martin Luther King Jr. was the greatest movement leader in American history. But, as Hillary Clinton once correctly pointed out, his efforts would have been futile without those of the machine politician Lyndon Johnson, a seasoned congressional deal maker willing to sign any pact with the devil to get the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act passed. And the work doesn’t stop once legislation is passed. One must keep winning elections to defend the gains that social movements have contributed to. If the steady advance of a radicalized Republican Party, over many years and in every branch and at every level of government, should teach liberals anything, it is the absolute priority of winning elections today. Given the Republicans’ rage for destruction, it is the only way to guarantee that newly won protections for African-Americans, other minorities, women, and gay Americans remain in place. Workshops and university seminars will not do it. Online mobilizing and flash mobs will not do it. Protesting, acting up, and acting out will not do it. The age of movement politics is over, at least for now. We need no more marchers. We need more mayors. And governors, and state legislators, and members of Congress . .

Physical deprivation and hunger are one thing; the poverty of the mind and psyche is quite another. Crashing Costco to find bulk beans and rice is not the same as flash-mobbing for Air Jordans and iPhones. How odd that our cultural elite and our dependent poor are somewhat alike, in a symbiotic relationship in which the latter guilt-trip the former for entitlements, with the assurance that the top of the pyramid is safe and free to fritter about far from those they worry about. No wonder those in between who lack the romance of the poor and the privileges and power of the elite are shrinking. We are entering the age of the bread-and-circuses Coliseum: luxury box seats for the fleshy senatorial class, free food and tickets for the rest—and the shrinking middle out in the sand of the arena providing the entertainment.

We have nothing!” Bree reached out and slapped him with all her might. He couldn’t know the baby she carried was his. Not ever. Alessandro’s dark eyes flashed angrily at her for a split second, making Bree’s insides tense in anticipation of his rage, but then he smiled at her, his hand going to her thigh. “Well, I was hoping we’d get to know each other a little better before delving into S & M, but I’m game if you are, sunshine.” “I want you to get out,” “And I want you naked screaming my name, now that you know it,” Alessandro growled, leaning in so that his breath brushed across her face in a tantalizing caress.

He’s a murdering chud,” Zil was yelling. “What do you want to do? Lynch him?” Astrid demanded. That stopped the flow for a second as kids tried to figure out what “lynch” meant. But Zil quickly recovered. “I saw him do it. He used his powers to kill Harry.” “I was trying to stop you from smashing my head in!” Hunter shouted. “You’re a lying mutant freak!” “They think they can do anything they want,” another voice shouted. Astrid said, as calmly as she could while still pitching her voice to be heard, “We are not going down that path, people, dividing up between freaks and normals.” “They already did it!” Zil cried. “It’s the freaks acting all special and like their farts don’t stink.” That earned a laugh. “And now they’re starting to kill us,” Zil cried. Angry cheers. Edilio squared his shoulders and stepped into the crowd. He went first to Hank, the kid with the shotgun. He tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Give me that thing.” “No way,” Hank said. But he didn’t seem too certain. “You want to have that thing fire by accident and blow someone’s face off?” Edilio held his hand out. “Give it to me, man.” Zil rounded on Edilio. “You going to make Hunter give up his weapon? Huh? He’s got powers, man, and that’s okay, but the normals can’t have any weapon? How are we supposed to defend ourselves from the freaks?” “Man, give it a rest, huh?” Edilio said. He was doing his best to sound more weary than angry or scared. Things were already bad enough. “Zil, you want to be responsible if that gauge goes off and kills Astrid? You want to maybe give that some thought?” Zil blinked. But he said, “Dude, I’m not scared of Sam.” “Sam won’t be your problem, I will be,” Edilio snapped, losing patience. “Anything happens to her, I’ll take you down before Sam ever gets the chance.” Zil snorted derisively. “Ah, good little boy, Edilio, kissing up to the chuds. I got news for you, dilly dilly, you’re a lowly normal, just like me and the rest of us." “I’m going to let that go,” Edilio said evenly, striving to regain his cool, trying to sound calm and in control, even though he could hardly take his eyes off the twin barrels of the shotgun. “But now I’m taking that shotgun.” “No way!” Hank cried, and the next thing was an explosion so loud, Edilio thought a bomb had gone off. The muzzle flash blinded him, like camera flash going off in his face. Someone yelled in pain. Edilio staggered back, squeezed his eyes shut, trying to adjust. When he opened them again the shotgun was on the ground and the boy who’d accidentally fired it was holding his bruised hand, obviously shocked. Zil bent to grab the gun. Edilio took two steps forward and kicked Zil in the face. As Zil fell back Edilio made a grab for the shotgun. He never saw the blow that turned his knees to water and filled his head with stars. He fell like a sack of bricks, but even as he fell he lurched forward to cover the shotgun. Astrid screamed and launched herself down the stairs to protect Edilio. Antoine, the one who had hit Edilio, was raising his bat to hit Edilio again, but on the back swing he caught Astrid in the face. Antoine cursed, suddenly fearful. Zil yelled, “No, no, no!” There was a sudden rush of running feet. Down the walkway, into the street, echoing down the block.

Lieutenant Thomas R. Gilligan, thirty-seven, was off duty and out of uniform, checking out TVs in an electronics store. He went to investigate the commotion and stopped James Powell, a ninth grader who had joined the mob of angry students. Powell was unarmed, according to witnesses. Gilligan maintained that the boy flashed a knife. He shot him three times. Two days later, Harlem erupted. Pierce told Carney, "You have the people who are angry. Justifably so. And then there's the police force. How are they going to defend this shit? Again! And city hall and the activists. And in the way back of the room, you can barely hear a little voice, and that's the family. They've lost a son. Somebody has to speak for them." "They're going to sue?" "Sue and win. You know they ain't going to fire the bastard." Sermon crept into his voice here. "What kind of message will that send--that their police force is accountable? We'll sue, and it will take years, and the city will pay because millions and millions are still cheaper than putting a true price on killing a black boy.

It was on one of these walks that Kicky performed his famous rescue act for which afterwards he was unmercifully teased by his family. The whole crowd of them had been for the usual Sunday walk, Kicky, Pem, and the children, and were returning home by the White Stone Pond. It was winter, and the ice frozen upon it about an inch thick, and as they came to the pond they noticed a mob of people shouting and pointing to the centre, where a miserable dog was slowly drowning, the ice having given way beneath him. Nobody was making the slightest attempt to save the wretched animal. Kicky, short-sighted without his glasses, was only aware that a dog was in difficulties in the water—he could not even see the ice. Stripping himself dramatically of his coat, his eyes flashing, he ran a few paces back and then took an enormous header on to a thin layer of ice that barely covered two foot of water. It was a tremendous sight! Cheered and applauded by the crowd, he plunged to the centre of the pond (still only three foot deep) and rescued the yelping dog, which covered his face with licks of gratitude.

Vern did not trust humans was the long and short of it. Not a single one. He had known many in his life, even liked a few, but in the end they all sold him out to the angry mob. Which was why he holed up in Honey Island Swamp out of harm's way. Vern liked the swamp okay. As much as he liked anything after all these years. Goddamn, so many years just stretching out behind him like bricks in that road old King Darius put down back in who gives a shit BC. Funny how things came back out of the blue. Like that ancient Persian road. He couldn't remember last week, and now he was flashing back a couple thousand years, give or take. Vern had baked half those bricks his own self, back when he still did a little blue-collar. Nearly wore out the internal combustion engine. Shed his skin two seasons early because of that bitch of a job. That and diet. No one had a clue about nutrition in those days. Vern was mostly ketogenic now, high fat, low carbs, apart from his beloved breakfast cereals. Keto made perfect sense for a dragon, especially with his core temperature. Unfortunately, it meant that beer had to go, but he got by on vodka. Absolut was his preferred brand. A little high on alcohol but easiest on the system.

Bells Screamed all off key, wrangling together as they collided in midair, horns and whistles mingled shrilly with cries of human distress; sulphur-colored light ex-ploded through the black windowpane and flashed away in darkness. Miranda waking from a dreamless sleep asked without expecting an answer, “What is happening?” for there was a bustle of voices and footsteps in the corridor, and a sharpness in the air; the far clamour went on, a furious exasperated shrieking like a mob in revolt. The light came on, and Miss Tanner said in a furry voice, “Hear that? They’re celebrating . It’s the Armistice. The war is over, my dear.” Her hands trembled. She rattled a spoon in a cup, stopped to listen, held the cup out to Miranda. From the ward for old bedridden women down the hall floated a ragged chorus of cracked voices singing, “My country, ’tis of thee…” Sweet land… oh terrible land of this bitter world where the sound of rejoicing was a clamour of pain, where ragged tuneless old women, sitting up waiting for their evening bowl of cocoa, were singing, “Sweet land of Liberty-” “Oh, say, can you see?” their hopeless voices were asking next, the hammer strokes of metal tongues drowning them out. “The war is over,” said Miss Tanner, her underlap held firmly, her eyes blurred. Miranda said, “Please open the window, please, I smell death in here.

Immediately after leaving the gate we encountered a bunch of raggedly dressed street kids. They blinked sad brown eyes and held out their hands begging for money, but we ignored them. Dan flashed us an accusing look, as if we were heartless bastards. He fished some coins out of his pocket, and tossed them to the children. A frantic mob of kids immediately overwhelmed Dan, hopping up and down, clamoring for money. Dan finally broke free from the grasping children, and we set off down the street. Suddenly, Dan stopped dead in his tracks, belatedly realizing his expensive scuba diving watch was missing. While we laughed and said, “I told you so!” Dan rubbed his naked wrist and stomped around the street in disbelief, bemoaning the loss of his watch. Then an innocent looking little boy timidly approached Dan. Obviously feeling sorry for the kind-hearted American, the cute little ragamuffin timidly spoke, “Mister, I know who stole your watch. Give me a hundred pesos and I’ll get it back for you.” Dan breathed a sigh of relief, thanked the little angel profusely, and gave him a hundred pesos worth eight American dollars. The little boy quickly scuttled into the crowd never to be seen again. We laughed so hard we were choking. Dan had just set a new chump record, losing an expensive watch and a hundred pesos all within minutes of leaving the base. We dragged him into the nearest bar to console him with cold San Miguel beer.

Stop it! Just give me a second!” “Alright, alright, everyone—” Hank flashed his palms like stop signs and then waved them around as if he were a city flagman exercising his authority to halt traffic. “Stand back, stand back—hands to yourself... in your pockets… there you go.” Hank loved the spotlight and demanded it whenever opportunity presented itself. For once, I actually welcomed his inflated need for attention. The pressing against my back let up, and my friends stepped aside. Pausing first for dramatic effect (typical Hank) he drew in a deep breath and delivered an improvised monologue (also typical Hank.) “People, people, people… look at what you’re doing. Can’t you see the effect you’re having on this sweet, innocent frightened child? I mean, what is up with the sudden aggressive-mob behavior here? Remember, people, this is our friend! Our colleague! Our schoolmate, chum, pal, our number-one supporter most days! Does she deserve this kind of peer pressure? …this group coercion? …this physical harassment? I say nay! Nay, I tell you! Now I know how excited you are to see her fi~nal~ly agree—after many, many grueling months of relentless persuading—to become one of us. To attempt a mad stab at initiation. To feel what it is to be spectacular! But give the girl some room to breathe! If you push a frightened lamb, she’s gonna turn tail and scamper off in the opposite direction, baaaahhing all the way. Then what will our efforts be for? For naught, I say! For naught! So the question here isn’t will she move or not move, but rather will she dare or not dare?” “The actual question is: are you gonna shut it or have us shut it for you?” Cory piped in with a pantomimed zip of the lip. Hank scoffed, blowing his bangs out of his face with a contrary huff, but he didn’t say another word.

«Ho immaginato di non averti con me e ovviamente ero triste.» «Quale uomo non lo sarebbe?» ribatté Angel. «Ho capito che avevo trovato il mio posto infelice. Stare senza di te, quello è il mio posto infelice.» Quando in un primo momento Angel non rispose, Corey aggrottò la fronte. «L’ho detto male, vero?» Il ragazzo non aveva parole, o meglio, nessuna che avesse senso. Quando guardò dritto nelle orbite cerulee di Corey, fu sopraffatto dall’amore e solo allora seppe esattamente cosa dire. «E stare con te, Corey, è il mio posto felice.» Corey annuì, l’espressione seria. «Esattamente. Ecco perché...» Si alzò, sparì in camera da letto e tornò tenendo qualcosa dietro la schiena. Poi, con un gesto rapido, porse ad Angel ciò che stava nascondendo. Una scatolina di velluto. «Non so quale sia il modo migliore per chiedertelo, forse avrei dovuto organizzare un flash mob o qualcosa del genere come mi aveva suggerito Scott, ma Angel, vuoi sposarmi?» Angel guardò Corey, la certezza nei suoi occhi, il sorriso che prometteva tutto. Lo fece sedere accanto a sé. «Sì,» disse. «Corey Dixon, ti amo.» Il ragazzo lo baciò e Corey sorrise sulle sue labbra. Poi disse: «Ti amo anch’io. Ogni giorno.» Angel gli prese il volto tra le mani. «Ogni. Singolo. Giorno.»

And people protested. They protested the bans and they protested and they protested the Cad and they mobbed anyone with tattoos of leaves or ferns or cephalopods. No one realized that the infection was cryptic, then dormant, then heritable from either parent. And so it spread, named and considered an epidemic at first- a flash in the pan, like Ebola or Zika or Covid, that would eventually burn-out – and near the end more or less endemic.

Mayim Bialik: It was really fun to see the looks on Chuck’s face and our writers and producers when we did those flash mobs. I loved that Kaley initiated that as a surprise and a gift to them and to our audience. It was just so much fun. And those songs are forever burned into my head.

It’s a damn shame this book doesn’t have a “play video” option because they are truly a sight to behold. However, you can watch rough videos of them in all their glory on YouTube by searching for “Big Bang Theory flash mobs.” You’ll never listen to the Backstreet Boys’ “Larger Than Life” the same way again.

They say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Since Americans spent centuries failing to learn from history, we get to repeat it all at once. The year is 2021 and we are living through simultaneous revivals of the worst of the American past: the Civil War, the Spanish Flu, the white mob violence of the 1919 Red Summer, the extreme wealth disparity of the Gilded Age, the fascist movements of the 1930s and 1940s, the Jim Crow era of voter suppression, the riots of the 1960s, the corruption of Watergate, the cover-ups of Iran-Contra. In August 2021, Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. One month before the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, the Taliban retook Afghanistan dressed in US military uniforms abandoned in the hasty retreat from the quagmire war. It’s like America is on its deathbed, watching its life flash before its eyes.

Between the smoke, sensory overload, and mobs of raucous tourists pledging to create memories worthy of the Vegas namesake, the place should have been repulsive. Yet I loved every damn thing about it. The bright colors and flashing lights. The excess and indulgence. Luxury and opulence. The intense emotions that saturated the air and electrified my skin, making my heart skip and flutter in my chest. It was all magnified to a point of bursting by the throngs of people who flocked to this den of debauchery from all over the world. Rich people, poor people, people of every ethnicity and culture all crammed together and given license to act out their wildest fantasies. To drop social constructs and expectations and let their freak flags fly. It was magnificent.

After class, Frankie offered to buy her a freshly-squeezed carrot juice at the smoothie bar across the street. It was a timid offer that Katie politely declined, then surprised Frankie by grabbing her hand and asking, “How about a margarita and some queso instead? I’ve had a day.” That’s when Frankie knew she’d found her person.

I kiss Orion deeply, one last time. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in with me?” I ask.               “I don’t think it’s going to help your case,” the raptor replies. “I mean, some people just don’t understand that love is real. You’ve gotta put yourself in there position. They’re so used to everything working a certain way, women kissing men, men kissing men… not men kissing dinosaurs.”               I want to protest but I know that he’s right. Even the most liberal of juries is going to have a hard time with this muscular dinosaur sitting there in the courtroom while I argue my case. It’s better if we part ways here.               “I’ll see you soon.” I tell him, my voice quaking. We both know that’s not going to happen, but we’re trying our best to pretend.               “I love you,” Orion says to me one last time.               “I love you, too” I assure him.               We kiss again and then I finally muster up the discipline to pull away and push out through the car’s door. I stand up on the sidewalk before the courthouse as flash bulbs burst with blinding luminescence. I shield my eyes, stunned for a moment as I struggle to collect my bearings.               “Mr. Tanner!” someone interjects, shoving a microphone in my face. “Is it true you hate unicorns?”               “What?” I stammer.               “We understand that your mission was funded off the profits of illegally traded unicorn tears, do you have anything to say to that?”               “I mean…” I’m still trying to collect my bearings, struggling to sort through her words. “No, wait, yeah I do. That’s really bad, I didn’t know anything about it.”               The reporter nods and repeats my words back to me. “Really bad… so you’re saying it’s not awful? Is that what you’re saying?”               “No, I just…” I start.               “Because it sounds like you’re not really coming out against the illegal trade of unicorn tears,” the reporter continues.               “I literally heard about it five seconds ago,” I counter. “That sounds terrible, I don’t really know anything about it but it sounds really bad and I don’t support that.”               The reporter nods. “Okay it’s really hard to understand you when you speak in code like this. Can you just answer the question? Do you or don’t you support bad guys doing bad things? Because you haven’t really come out against them.”               “I don’t support bad guys,” I try to say as clearly as I possibly can.               The reporter just stares at me blankly. “So you’re not going to come out against them?”               Suddenly, someone from the mob pushes me from behind and I stumble forward. The entire gang of hungry journalists and newscasters has reached a tipping point and I realize now that if I don’t continue onward there is going to be a problem.               I

Wednesday- Use Your Powers for Good   We all stayed inside the tower last night, eating cake and listening to the rain. We could hear all kinds of mobs outside, but so high up and all of us being together, we never felt in danger.   A few times Courtney noticed the Weather Master had wandered off and was sitting by himself. She always brought him back to the group. Eventually he stayed with us. Once he even smiled.   I snuck away from the group as soon as the sun began to rise. If we were going to stay here, we needed shelter. All of us trying to share the tower wasn’t going to work…Charles snores.   “What are you doing up and about so early?” the Weather Master asked me as he approached from behind. I had already started gathering wood from nearby trees. Courtney and Charles and Dog had come down a little while after me and were off searching for more.   “Building myself a tree house,” I said. “Give me a hand?”   He hesitated. “I’m not sure I could be of much help…”   “I meant stop the rain,” I corrected. “Just for a little while, until I finish the roof.”   He didn’t look like he liked that idea very much. “I’m not sure…”   “Hey now,” I said, putting down my ax and looking him in the eye. “The whole reason we said we’d stay is so we can help you learn to use your powers for good…not evil.”   He thought about that long and hard. “You really think someone like me could learn to use a power like this to…help people?”   “Everybody has something to give,” I said, shrugging. Just then, Charles and Courtney emerged from the trees, both carrying wood and sugarcane, a few small slimes bouncing along behind Courtney as she walked. “Go on. Give it a try.”   We watched through the rain as the Weather Master bounced back up to the top of the tower. Slowly the rain stopped, the clouds cleared, and the sun shone down on us from above.   “Well?” Courtney said. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get these tree houses built before the sun goes down.”   And we did. We’re all sitting in our own houses now, since it’s mostly dark out. The rain hasn’t come back yet, but I can tell the Weather Master is still up there messing with the controls. Lightning flashes across the sky, I realize, in patterns. A light show before bed. For us.   Have you ever crafted something so big and complicated and awesome that you just stand there afterward, in awe of what you have just created with just the materials around you? I have. But definitely nothing as cool and bright as this.   I never thought a slime could change my life, but it did. It brought me and my friends here. We turned a monster into someone good.     How awesome is that???

You say ‘distraction,’” Henry deadpanned, “Asher hears ‘flash mob.

People always hide things in sock drawers, which is odd when you think about how often socks get lost.

A low-key distraction,” I rush to add. “No glitter. Or dildos.” “You’re leaving too much off that list, David,” Sam admonishes, turning to Alistair. “No smoke, bubble, or laser light machines. No flash mobs. No fireworks or explosives of any kind.

can also be very cost effective. Such channels include flash mobs and public art

There are halibut as big as doors in the ocean down below the town, flapskimming on the murky ocean floor with vast skates and rays and purple crabs and black cod large as logs, and sea lions slashing through the whip-forests of bull kelp and eelgrass and sugar wrack, and seals in the rockweed and giant perennial kelp and iridescent kelp and iridescent fish and luminous shrimp too small to see with the naked eye but billions of which feed the gray whales which slide hugely slowly by like rubbery zeppelins twice a year, north in spring and south in fall. Salmonberries, thimbleberries, black raspberries, gooseberries, bearberries, snowberries, salal berries, elderberries, blackberries along the road and by the seasonal salt marshes north and south. The ground squirrels burrow along the dirt banks of the back roads, their warren of mysterious holes, the thick scatter of fine brown soil before their doorsteps, the flash of silver-gray on their back fur as they rocket into the bushes; the bucks and does and fawns in the road in the morning, their springy step as they slip away from the gardens they have been eating; the bobcat seen once, at dusk, its haunches jacked up like a teenager's hot-rodding car; the rumor of cougar in the hills; the coyotes who use the old fire road in the hills; the tiny mice and bats one sometimes finds long dead and leathery like ancient brown paper; the little frenetic testy chittering skittering cheeky testy chickaree squirrels in the spruces and pines - Douglas squirrels, they are, their very name remembering that young gentleman botanist who wandered near these hills centuries ago. The herons in marshes and sinks and creeks and streams and on the beach sometimes at dusk; and the cormorants and pelicans and sea scoters and murres (poor things so often dead young on the beach after the late-spring fledging) and jays and crows and quorking haunted ravens (moaning Poe! Poe! at dusk) especially over the wooded hills, and the goldfinches mobbing thistles in the meadowed hills, and sometimes a falcon rocketing by like a gleeful murderous dream, and osprey of all sizes all along the Mink like an osprey police lineup, and the herring gulls and Caspian terns and arctic terns, and the varied thrushes in wet corners of thickets, and the ruffed grouse in the spruce by the road, and the quail sometimes, and red-tailed hawks floating floating floating; from below they look like kites soaring brownly against the piercing blue sky, which itself is a vast creature bluer by the month as summer deepens into crispy cold fall.

I already told you, I was at death’s door! Besides, I was trying to hold back.” “Oh, give it up! You call that holding back?! I saw my life flash before my eyes!

I suggest that the crisis of scuttling memory is a two-step maneuver among us. First is to recognize that market ideology, which is now totalizing among us, specializes in amnesia and in the ready use of the delete button. Money is readily transportable, places are virtual, community consists in flash mobs, and we live in a fast network of surface relationships. Such a way of life is inimical to memory and wants to empty memory of its staying power. But the second step in an ideology of commoditization is to fill the space of deleted memory with universal claims and uncontested offers for the maintenance of beauty, youth, wealth, control, security, and limitless well-being. The double process of emptying memory and generating ersatz memory is vigorous among us.

An organization without leadership is like a flash mob, going on impulse and having no sense of vision or direction

A memory comes back to him of the cover of a book he used to own, a popular edition of Play. It showed a chariot drawn by two steeds, a black steed with flashing eyes and distended nostrils representing the base appetites, and a white steed of calmer mien representing the less easily identifiable nobler passions. Standing in the chariot, gripping the reins, was a young man with a half-bared torso and a Grecian nose and a fillet around his brow, representing presumably the self, that which calls itself I. Well, in his book, the book of him, the book of his life, if that ever comes to be written, the picture will be more humdrum than in Plato. Himself, the one he calls Paul Rayment, will be seated on a wagon hitched to a mob of nags and drays that huff and puff, some barely pulling their weight. After sixty years of waking up every blessed morning munching their ration of oats, pissing and shitting, then being harnessed for th day's haul, Paul Rayment's team will have had enough. Time to rest, they will say, time to be put out to pasture. And if rest is denied them, well, they will just fold their limbs and settle down in their traces; and if the whip starts to whistle around their rumps, let it whistle.

Dante, as you might know, had originally titled his book The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, A Florentine by birth but not in character. The title Divine Comedy only came later, when the book became regarded as a masterpiece. It’s a work that can be approached in a thousand different ways, and over the centuries it has been,” he said, his voice gaining strength once he was on firm and familiar ground. “But what we’re going to focus on today is the use of natural imagery in the poem. And this Florentine edition which was recently donated to the Newberry collection—and which I think most of you have now seen in the central display case—is a particularly good way to do that.” He touched a button on the lectern’s electronic panel and the first image—an etching of a deep forest, with a lone figure, head bent, entering a narrow path—appeared on the screen. “ ‘In the middle of the journey of our life,’ ” he recited from memory, “ ‘I came to myself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost.’ ” Looking up, he said, “With the possible exception of ‘Jack and Jill went up the hill,’ there is probably no line of poetry more famous and easily identifiable than that. And you will notice that right here, at the very start of the epic that is to follow, we have a glimpse of the natural world that is both realistic—Dante spends a terrible night in that wood—and metaphorical.” Turning to the etching, he elaborated on several of its most salient features, including the animals that animated its border—a leopard with a spotted coat, a lion, and a skulking wolf with distended jaws. “Confronted by these creatures, Dante pretty much turns tail and runs, until he bumps into a figure—who turns out of course to be the Roman poet Virgil—who offers to guide him ‘through an eternal place where thou shalt hear the hopeless shrieks, shalt see the ancient spirits in pain so that each calls for a second death.’ ” A new image flashed on the screen, of a wide river—Acheron with mobs of the dead huddled on its shores, and a shrouded Charon in the foreground, pointing with one bony finger at a long boat. It was a particularly well-done image and David noted several heads nodding with interest and a low hum of comments. He had thought there might be. This edition of the Divine Comedy was one of the most powerful he had ever seen, and he was making it his mission to find out who the illustrator had been. The title pages of the book had sustained such significant water and smoke damage that no names could be discerned. The book had also had to be intensively treated for mold, and many of the plates bore ineradicable green and blue spots the circumference of a pencil eraser.

By 2006, they had created an international exemplar of interconnectedness. Estonian software engineers had not only created Skype; they were helping to build a new society, where the only rituals requiring you to show up in person and present a document were marriage, divorce, and buying property. Everything else was online—government, banking, finance, insurance, communications, broadcast and print media, the balloting for elections. Wi-Fi was strong, ever present, and free. People began to call their homeland e-Estonia. They had created the first country whose political and social architectures were framed by an internet infrastructure—and perhaps the most technologically sophisticated nation on earth. In April 2007, the authorities in Tallinn decided to move the Bronze Soldier from its pedestal to a military cemetery. Estonian patriots found it offensive, Russian nationalists came to Estonia to rally around it, and the statue became a flash point of confrontation. Russia’s foreign affairs minister, Sergey Lavrov, called the decision disgusting; he warned of serious consequences for Estonia. An angry mob of Russians ran riot in the capital. In Moscow, young thugs laid siege to the Estonian embassy and forced it to shut down. And then Putin waged political warfare in a way that made Estonia’s strength its weakness.

Pray for those who have allowed themselves to be whisked away/whittled away, their freedoms denied them, their hopes dashed. “Pray for those who have lost their voice amidst the clashing of ideologies. “Pray for everyone who has seen this season (riots in England, flash mobs here) of unrest and violence. “Pray for the children who will grow up with this fighting. “Pray for those who are tiny and weak. “Pray for those who do not know the heavens above their heads, who think this earth is the be all and end all of civilization. They aren’t following the right path; they are leaderless. “There are now burdens which must be carried, which must be lifted and carried. They are encumbered in the extreme, and it will only get worse and more wearisome. “Pray for the fathers who have seen their children taken away from them as you have. “Pray for the children living without a stable home, and what it will do to them. “Pray for the (I could see a fountain gushing up) outpouring of life that is stilled/corked. (I saw parched desert rocks). Moses of old could strike the rock and bring forth water; you can merely speak to the rock and produce the desired effect. Use your voice to water the land with freedom and dignity and hope, which springs eternal.

Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books. Roman tyrants invented a further refinement. They often provided the city wards with feasts to cajole the rabble, always more readily tempted by the pleasure of eating than by anything else. The most intelligent and understanding amongst them would not have quit his soup bowl to recover the liberty of the Republic of Plato. Tyrants would distribute largess, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: and then everybody would shamelessly cry, “Long live the King!” The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them. A man might one day be presented with a sesterce and gorge himself at the public feast, lauding Tiberius and Nero for handsome liberality, who on the morrow, would be forced to abandon his property to their avarice, his children to their lust, his very blood to the cruelty of these magnificent emperors, without offering any more resistance than a stone or a tree stump. The mob has always behaved in this way---eagerly open to bribes that cannot be honorably accepted, and dissolutely callous to degradation and insult that cannot be honorably endured. Nowadays I do not meet anyone who, on hearing mention of Nero, does not shudder at the very name of that hideous monster, that disgusting and vile pestilence. Yet when he died---when this incendiary, this executioner, this savage beast, died as vilely as he had lived---the noble Roman people, mindful of his games and his festivals, were saddened to the point of wearing mourning for him.

Wow, kitty, you look just like a ninja,” Misa said. “When did that happen?” In response, the catgirl drew her dagger, crouched, and silently approached the lone guard. The other three members of The Mob Squad exchanged bewildered glances. “She’s not going to …?” Riley began. “Oh, no chance in hell, not our big-eyed people-charmer,” Misa said. “I don’t know …” Fox said, “she’s never shied away from combat.” “It’s not the same as–” Riley said, but he stopped abruptly, his eyes widening as the girl reached her target from behind and with a practiced motion slit his throat while covering his mouth with her other hand. “Oh, bloody hell.” Misa covered her own mouth. “She just murdered him in cold blood.” Raystia turned, flashed a mischievous grin at her friends, and then disappeared before their astonished eyes. “That girl is full of surprises,” Fox said. “When she gets back, we’re going to have a long conversation about hiding things from her party.” Riley swallowed hard. “You’re going to have to be the one doing the questioning. After what I’ve seen, I’m just going to stand back, nod, and smile.