Folding Fan Quotes

As he passed me, he leaned to Curran and handed him a paper fan folded from some sort of flyer. Curran looked at the fan. “What?” "An emergency precaution, Your Majesty. In case the lady faints.” Curran just stared at him. Raphael strode toward the Pit, turned, flexed a bit, and winked at me. "Give me that,” I told Curran. “I need to fan myself.” "No, you don’t.

Oh, dear Hazel.” Aphrodite folded her fan. “Such optimism, yet you have heartrending days ahead of you. Of course war is coming. Love and war always go together. They are the peaks of human emotion! Evil and good, beauty and ugliness.

Little things really belong to you,” she said, folding the fan. “They don’t have to be left behind. You can carry them in a shoebox.

TO HIS HEART, BIIDING IT HAVE NO FEAR Be you still, be you still, trembling heart; Remember the wisdom out of the old days: Him who trembles before the flame and the flood, And the winds that blow through the starry ways, Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood Cover over and hide, for he has no part With the lonely, majestical multitude. THE CAP AND THE BELLS The jester walked in the garden: The garden had fallen still; He bade his soul rise upward And stand on her window-sill. It rose in a straight blue garment, When owls began to call: It had grown wise-tongued by thinking Of a quiet and light footfall; But the young queen would not listen; She rose in her pale night-gown; She drew in the heavy casement And pushed the latches down. He bade his heart go to her, When the owls called out no more; In a red and quivering garment It sang to her through the door. It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming Of a flutter of flower-like hair; But she took up her fan from the table And waved it off on the air. 'I have cap and bells,' he pondered, 'I will send them to her and die'; And when the morning whitened He left them where she went by. She laid them upon her bosom, Under a cloud of her hair, And her red lips sang them a love-song Till stars grew out of the air. She opened her door and her window, And the heart and the soul came through, To her right hand came the red one, To her left hand came the blue. They set up a noise like crickets, A chattering wise and sweet, And her hair was a folded flower And the quiet of love in her feet.

objects, including fans and vases and folding chairs and clothes.

As though eavesdropping, the whistling wind refuses to speak above a whisper. The winding road is cut into the side of the mountain in such a way that it seems they are not making any progress; the walk down will require endurance. She looks up at the cluster of clouds which have been pencilled in neatly against the sky, and hopes it doesn’t rain. It occurs rapidly, a geisha brusquely folding shut her fan; the sun sets, and brilliant darkness replaces light.

This afternoon, being on Fair Haven Hill, I heard the sound of a saw, and soon after from the Cliff saw two men sawing down a noble pine beneath, about forty rods off. I resolved to watch it till it fell, the last of a dozen or more which were left when the forest was cut and for fifteen years have waved in solitary majesty over the sprout-land. I saw them like beavers or insects gnawing at the trunk of this noble tree, the diminutive manikins with their cross-cut saw which could scarcely span it. It towered up a hundred feet as I afterward found by measurement, one of the tallest probably in the township and straight as an arrow, but slanting a little toward the hillside, its top seen against the frozen river and the hills of Conantum. I watch closely to see when it begins to move. Now the sawers stop, and with an axe open it a little on the side toward which it leans, that it may break the faster. And now their saw goes again. Now surely it is going; it is inclined one quarter of the quadrant, and, breathless, I expect its crashing fall. But no, I was mistaken; it has not moved an inch; it stands at the same angle as at first. It is fifteen minutes yet to its fall. Still its branches wave in the wind, as it were destined to stand for a century, and the wind soughs through its needles as of yore; it is still a forest tree, the most majestic tree that waves over Musketaquid. The silvery sheen of the sunlight is reflected from its needles; it still affords an inaccessible crotch for the squirrel’s nest; not a lichen has forsaken its mast-like stem, its raking mast,—the hill is the hulk. Now, now’s the moment! The manikins at its base are fleeing from their crime. They have dropped the guilty saw and axe. How slowly and majestic it starts! as it were only swayed by a summer breeze, and would return without a sigh to its location in the air. And now it fans the hillside with its fall, and it lies down to its bed in the valley, from which it is never to rise, as softly as a feather, folding its green mantle about it like a warrior, as if, tired of standing, it embraced the earth with silent joy, returning its elements to the dust again. But hark! there you only saw, but did not hear. There now comes up a deafening crash to these rocks , advertising you that even trees do not die without a groan. It rushes to embrace the earth, and mingle its elements with the dust. And now all is still once more and forever, both to eye and ear. I went down and measured it. It was about four feet in diameter where it was sawed, about one hundred feet long. Before I had reached it the axemen had already divested it of its branches. Its gracefully spreading top was a perfect wreck on the hillside as if it had been made of glass, and the tender cones of one year’s growth upon its summit appealed in vain and too late to the mercy of the chopper. Already he has measured it with his axe, and marked off the mill-logs it will make. And the space it occupied in upper air is vacant for the next two centuries. It is lumber. He has laid waste the air. When the fish hawk in the spring revisits the banks of the Musketaquid, he will circle in vain to find his accustomed perch, and the hen-hawk will mourn for the pines lofty enough to protect her brood. A plant which it has taken two centuries to perfect, rising by slow stages into the heavens, has this afternoon ceased to exist. Its sapling top had expanded to this January thaw as the forerunner of summers to come. Why does not the village bell sound a knell? I hear no knell tolled. I see no procession of mourners in the streets, or the woodland aisles. The squirrel has leaped to another tree; the hawk has circled further off, and has now settled upon a new eyrie, but the woodman is preparing [to] lay his axe at the root of that also.

You are quarter ghost on your mother’s side. Your heart is a flayed peach in a bone box. Your hair comes away in clumps like cheap fabric wet. A reflecting pool gathers around your altar of plywood sub flooring and split wooden slats. You are rag doll prone. You are contort, angle and arc. Here you rot. Here you are a greening abdomen, slipping skin, flesh fly, carrion beetles. This is where bullets take shelter, where scythes find their function, breath loses its place on the page. This is where the page is torn out of every book before chapter’s close, this is slippage, this is a shroud of neglect pulled over the body, this is your chance to escape. Little wraith, bend light around your skin until it colors you clear, disappear like silica in a kiln, become glass and glass beads, become the staggered whir of an exhaust fan: something only noticed when gone. Become an origami swan. Fold yourself smaller than ever before. Become less. More in some ways but less in the way a famine is less. They will forgive you for not being satisfied with fitting in their hands. They will forgive you for dying to be a bird diminutive enough to fit in a mouth and not be crushed.

THREE BUTTERFLIES, AERIAL GEISHAS, DANCED out of the sunshine, into the porch shadows. Their silken kimonos flaring and folding and flaring in graceful swirls of color, as bashful as faces hidden behind the pleats of hand-painted fans, they fled, quick, into the brightness from which they had come.

What's that sound?" Fran said. Then something as big as a vulture flapped heavily down from one of the trees and landed just in front of the car.It shook itself.It turned its long neck toward the car, raised its head, and regarded us. "Goddamn it," I said.I sat there with my hands on the wheel and stared at the thing. "Can you believe it?" Fran said."I never saw a real one before." We both knew it was a peacock, sure,but we didn't say the word out loud.We just watched it.The bird turned its head up in the air and made this harsh cry again.It had fluffed itself out and looked about twice the size it'd been when it landed. "Goddamn," I said again. We stayed where we were in the front seat. The bird moved forward a little.Then it turned its head to the side and braced itself.It kept its bright, wild eye right on us.Its tail was raised, and it was like a big fan folding in and out. There was every color in the rainbow shining from that tail. "My God," Fran said quietly.She moved her hand over to my knee. "Goddamn," I said. There was nothing else to say. The bird made this strange wailing sound once more. "May- awe, may-awe!" it went.If it'd been something I was hearing late at night and for the first time, I'd have thought it was somebody dying, or else something wild and dangerous.

For Mallarmé, the perfect book was one whose pages have never been cut, their mystery forever preserved, like a bird's folded wing, or a fan never opened.

Mike had laughed at the question, and Dad, ever good-natured, smiled. He was a sports fan, an occasional card player. Knew games. Knew when to call or fold. With white people, you always fold.

She knew her death was near because time had begun to fold like a fan so that the past and the present rubbed together in ways that made her feel supple and porous, as if time were moving through her body and not the other way around.

In The Garret Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, All fashioned and filled, long ago, By children now in their prime. Four little keys hung side by side, With faded ribbons, brave and gay When fastened there, with childish pride, Long ago, on a rainy day. Four little names, one on each lid, Carved out by a boyish hand, And underneath there lieth hid Histories of the happy band Once playing here, and pausing oft To hear the sweet refrain, That came and went on the roof aloft, In the falling summer rain. 'Meg' on the first lid, smooth and fair. I look in with loving eyes, For folded here, with well-known care, A goodly gathering lies, The record of a peaceful life-- Gifts to gentle child and girl, A bridal gown, lines to a wife, A tiny shoe, a baby curl. No toys in this first chest remain, For all are carried away, In their old age, to join again In another small Meg's play. Ah, happy mother! Well I know You hear, like a sweet refrain, Lullabies ever soft and low In the falling summer rain. 'Jo' on the next lid, scratched and worn, And within a motley store Of headless dolls, of schoolbooks torn, Birds and beasts that speak no more, Spoils brought home from the fairy ground Only trod by youthful feet, Dreams of a future never found, Memories of a past still sweet, Half-writ poems, stories wild, April letters, warm and cold, Diaries of a wilful child, Hints of a woman early old, A woman in a lonely home, Hearing, like a sad refrain-- 'Be worthy, love, and love will come,' In the falling summer rain. My Beth! the dust is always swept From the lid that bears your name, As if by loving eyes that wept, By careful hands that often came. Death canonized for us one saint, Ever less human than divine, And still we lay, with tender plaint, Relics in this household shrine-- The silver bell, so seldom rung, The little cap which last she wore, The fair, dead Catherine that hung By angels borne above her door. The songs she sang, without lament, In her prison-house of pain, Forever are they sweetly blent With the falling summer rain. Upon the last lid's polished field-- Legend now both fair and true A gallant knight bears on his shield, 'Amy' in letters gold and blue. Within lie snoods that bound her hair, Slippers that have danced their last, Faded flowers laid by with care, Fans whose airy toils are past, Gay valentines, all ardent flames, Trifles that have borne their part In girlish hopes and fears and shames, The record of a maiden heart Now learning fairer, truer spells, Hearing, like a blithe refrain, The silver sound of bridal bells In the falling summer rain. Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, Four women, taught by weal and woe To love and labor in their prime. Four sisters, parted for an hour, None lost, one only gone before, Made by love's immortal power, Nearest and dearest evermore. Oh, when these hidden stores of ours Lie open to the Father's sight, May they be rich in golden hours, Deeds that show fairer for the light, Lives whose brave music long shall ring, Like a spirit-stirring strain, Souls that shall gladly soar and sing In the long sunshine after rain

Behind everyone, there are at least two shadows. Some have even more. [...] The shadows on the ground are like folding fans. Looking at them makes me dizzy. [...] It takes a lot of strength for me to focus my eyes enough to pull the doubled shadows into one. Of course, this isn't at all pleasurable. [...] All of you are so smug. It's ridiculous! If I tell the truth, you'll be furious again. You'll think I'm a mayfly. You'll agree with each other by exchanging understanding glances in order to set your minds at ease.

During her life, their mom had been like a folded paper fan to them, and they were slowly starting to unfurl her, fold by fold, to see the delicate, ornate pattern painted on her skin. It was hard to let that go, to simply snap the fan shut once she knew what fascinating complexities were inside.

As he passed me, he leaned to Curran and handed him a paper fan folded from some sort of flyer. Curran looked at the fan. “What?” “An emergency precaution, Your Majesty. In case the lady faints.” Curran just stared at him. Raphael strode toward the Pit, turned, flexed a bit, and winked at me. “Give me that,” I told Curran. “I need to fan myself.” “No, you don’t.

The things we love weave themselves into the framework of our being. They are the trellises on which our thoughts grow; we shape ourselves, our habits, our vocabularies, to accommodate them. If someone asks, “Why do you love this?” the question is as impossible to answer as “Why are you?” You cannot isolate the part of you that loves from the rest of you, or mark its beginning and ending. Old couples grow to look like each other. Old ruins blur into their ivy. Star Wars fans name their kids Luke and Leia and show up at conventions dressed as Jabba the Hutt. At first we loved the Millennium Falcon, so we wanted to build a scale replica in our basement. Now we love the Millennium Falcon because of the scale replica in our basement. Every time I watched Star Wars I used to hold my breath to see if it felt the same. But now I know it won’t. It hasn’t moved, but I have. It’s always there. It’s magic, still, but a different magic every time. I turn off all the lights in the house so there’s no reflection or glare, shut all the doors and windows, and settle in a chair with my arms folded over my knees and wait for takeoff.

...He bade his heart go to her, When the owls called out no more; In a red and quivering garment It sang to her through the door. It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming Of a flutter of flower-like hair; But she took up her fan from the table And waved it off on the air. 'I have cap and bells,' he pondered, 'I will send them to her and die'; And when the morning whitened He left them where she went by. She laid them upon her bosom, Under a cloud of her hair, And her red lips sang them a love-song Till stars grew out of the air. She opened her door and her window, And the heart and the soul came through, To her right hand came the red one, To her left hand came the blue. They set up a noise like crickets, A chattering wise and sweet, And her hair was a folded flower And the quiet of love in her feet...

His gaze ran over her body again, resting on the deepest of the fracture lines in her shields. 'Come here.' Purple feathers fanned around Riana's sides. Sudden tears moistened her eyes at the unexpectedness of what Sier was offering. She sank against him, and his arms folded around her back. Her weight supported, Riana let herself float on the night and tucked her face into his neck. Sier's power closed around her in a violet wave, running into her halo, slipping though her opened shields.

Kore stood amidst the the sheaves of barley to wave Demeter over, then crouched again and poked her finger into the soil. Dark green leaves shot out in every direction, and she circled her wrist upward, raising a stalk out of the earth. She stood slowly. The plant crept toward her hand. Kore splayed her fingers wide and a purple blossom sprang from the thorny stalk. "Oh, Kore, if you grow a thistle in the barley field, someone might prick their finger." "Wait," Kore said, smiling. "Just watch." A fiery copper butterfly fluttered on the warm breeze and alighted on the blossom. Demeter smiled. "You see? I saw her wandering in the barley and made her a home. You don't mind, do you?" "My sweet, clever girl, of course I don't." Demeter hugged Kore. The butterfly folded its wings, fed and content. "My thistle won't interfere with the harvest, will it?" Kore knit her brows. "Not in the slightest." The butterfly spread its wings, sunlight catching them as they fanned. "I don't think she will be alone for long. Surely a good mate will come looking for her.

The past folds accordion-like into the present. Different media have different event horizons—for the written word, three millennia; for recorded sound, a century and a half—and within their time frames the old becomes as accessible as the new. Yellowed newspapers come back to life. Under headings of 50 Years Ago and 100 Years Ago, veteran publications recycle their archives: recipes, card-play techniques, science, gossip, once out of print and now ready for use. Record companies rummage through their attics to release, or re-release, every scrap of music, rarities, B-sides, and bootlegs. For a certain time, collectors, scholars, or fans possessed their books and their records. There was a line between what they had and what they did not. For some, the music they owned (or the books, or the videos) became part of who they were. That line fades away. Most of Sophocles' plays are lost, but those that survive are available at the touch of a button. Most of Bach's music was unknown to Beethoven; we have it all—partitas, cantatas, and ringtones. It comes to us instantly, or at light speed. It is a symptom of omniscience. It is what the critic Alex Ross calls the Infinite Playlist, and he sees how mixed is the blessing: "anxiety in place of fulfillment, and addictive cycle of craving and malaise. No sooner has one experience begun than the thought of what else is out there intrudes." The embarrassment of riches. Another reminder that information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom.

I thought we were meeting by the field house,” I call out as I make my way over. He doesn’t even turn around. “Nah, I’m pretty sure I said the parking lot.” “You definitely said the field house,” I argue. Why can’t he ever just admit that he’s wrong? “Geez, field house, parking lot. What difference does it make?” Mason asks. “Give it a rest, why don’t you.” I shoot him a glare. “Oh, hey, Mason. Remember when your hair was long and everyone thought you were a girl?” Ryder chuckles as he releases a perfect spiral in Mason’s direction. “She’s got you there.” “Hey, whose side are you on, anyway?” Mason catches the ball and cradles it against his chest, then launches it toward Ben. I just stand there watching as they continue to toss it back and forth between the three of them. Haven’t they had enough football for one day? I pull out my cell to check the time. “We should probably get going.” “I guess,” Ryder says with an exaggerated sigh, like I’m putting him out or something. Which is particularly annoying since he’s the one who insisted on going with me. Ben jogs up beside me, the football tucked beneath his arm. “Where are you two off to? Whoa, you’re sweaty.” I fold my arms across my damp chest. “Hey, southern girls don’t sweat. We glow.” Ben snorts at that. “Says who?” “Says Ryder’s mom,” I say with a grin. It’s one of Laura Grace’s favorite sayings--one that always makes Ryder wince. “The hardware store,” Ryder answers, snatching the ball back from Ben. “Gotta pick up some things for the storm--sandbags and stuff like that. Y’all want to come?” “Nah, I think I’ll pass.” Mason wrinkles his nose. “Pretty sure I don’t want to be cooped up in the truck with Jemma glowing like she is right now.” “Everybody thought you and Morgan were identical twin girls,” I say with a smirk. “Remember, Mason? Isn’t that just so cute?” “I’ll go,” Ben chimes in. “If you’re getting sandbags, you’ll need some help carrying them out to the truck.” “Thanks, Ben. See, someone’s a gentleman.” “Don’t look now, Ryder, but your one-woman fan club is over there.” Mason tips his head toward the school building in the distance. “I think she’s scented you out. Quick. You better run.” I glance over my shoulder to find Rosie standing on the sidewalk by the building’s double doors, looking around hopefully. “Hey!” Mason calls out, waving both arms above his head. “He’s over here.” Ryder’s cheeks turn beet-red. He just stares at the ground, his jaw working furiously. “C’mon, man,” Ben says, throwing an elbow into Mason’s side. “Don’t be a dick.” He grabs the football and heads toward Ryder’s Durango. “We better get going. The hardware store probably closes at six.” Silently, Ryder and I hurry after him and hop inside the truck--Ben up front, me in the backseat. We don’t look back to see if Rosie’s following.

Let's not freak out here," Jett said, ever the diplomat in venom green nail polish and little skull earrings. "People aren't going to come until they've had their dinner. Pie is for dessert." Maggie and I stood behind the counter, arms folded, and stared out the display window. Jett shook her head. Leave it to her to be remarkably upbeat while the rest of us were uncharacteristically morose. "Maybe we should open up so that this wonderful pie aroma brings them in," she said brightly. She opened the door and used it to fan the pie air out onto the street. And it worked. Somebody walked in.

She went to the furthest end of the little drawing room and sank into a low chair. Her light, transparent skirts rose like a cloud about her slender waist; one bare, thin, soft, girlish arm, hanging listlessly, was lost in the folds of her pink tunic; in the other she held her fan, and with rapid, short strokes fanned her burning face. But while she looked like a butterfly, clinging to a blade of grass, and just about to open its rainbow wings for fresh flight, her heart ached with a horrible despair.

They exported lumber, pearls, gold, sulfur, painted folded fans, and swords.

Christopher reached out to pet Hector, who nuzzled against his hand. His gentleness with the animal was reassuring. Perhaps, Beatrix thought hopefully, he wasn’t as angry as she had feared Taking a deep breath, she said, “The reason that I named him Hector--” “No,” Christopher moved with startling swiftness, trapping her against the post of the stall. His voice was low and rough. “Let’s start with this: did you help Prudence to write those letters?” Beatrix’s eyes widened as she looked into his shadowed face. Her blood surged, a flush rising to the surface of her skin. “No,” she managed to say, “I didn’t help her.” “Then who did?” “No one helped her.” It was the truth. It just wasn’t the entire truth. “You know something,” he insisted. “And you’re going to tell me what it is.” She could feel his fury. The air was charged with it. Her heart thrummed like a bird’s. And she struggled to contain a swell of emotion that was almost more than she could bear. “Let me go,” she said with exceptional calm. “You’re doing neither of us any good with this behavior.” His eyes narrowed dangerously. “Don’t use your bloody dog-training voice on me.” “That wasn’t my dog-training voice. And if you’re so intent on getting at the truth, why aren’t you asking Prudence?” “I have asked her. She lied. As you are lying now.” “You’ve always wanted Prudence,” Beatrix burst out. “Now you can have her. Why should a handful of letters matter?” “Because I was deceived. And I want to know how and why.” “Pride,” Beatrix said bitterly. “That’s all this is to you…your pride was hurt.” One of hands sank into her hair, gripping in a gentle but inexorable hold. A gasp slipped from her throat as he pulled her head back. “Don’t try to diver the conversation. You know something you’re not telling me.” His free hand came to the exposed line of her throat. For a heart-stopping moment she thought he might choke her. Instead he caressed her gently, his thumb moving in a subtle swirl in the hollow at the base. The intensity of her own reaction astonished her. Beatrix’s eyes half closed. “Stop,” she said faintly. Taking her responsive shiver as a sign of distaste or fear, Christopher lowered his head until his breath fanned her cheek. “Not until I have the truth.” Never. If she told him, he would hate her for the way she had deceived and abandoned him. Some mistakes could not be forgiven. “Go to hell,” Beatrix said unsteadily. She had never used such a phrase in her life. “I am in hell.” His body corralled hers, his legs intruding amid the folds of her skirts. Drowning in guilt and fear and desire, she tried to push his caressing hand away from her throat. His fingers delved into her hair with a grip just short of painful. His mouth was close to hers. He was surrounding her, all the strength and force and maleness of him, and she closed her eyes as her senses went quiet and dark in helpless waiting. “I’ll make you tell me,” she heard him mutter. And then he was kissing her. Somehow, Beatrix thought hazily, Christopher seemed to be under the impression she would find his kisses so objectionable that she would confess anything to make him desist. She couldn’t think how he had come by such a notion. In fact, she couldn’t really think at all.

Once upon a time, there lived a man who had a terrible passion for baked beans. He loved them, but they always had an embarrassing and somewhat lively reaction on him. One day he met a girl and fell in love. When it was apparent that they would marry, he thought to himself 'She'll never go for me carrying on like that,' so he made the supreme sacrifice and gave up beans, and shortly after that they got married.      A few months later, on the way home from work, his car broke down and since they lived in the country, he called his wife and told her he would be late because he had to walk. On his way home, he passed a small cafe and the wonderful aroma of baked beans overwhelmed him. Since he still had several miles to walk he figured he could walk off any ill affects before he got home. So he went in and ordered, and before leaving had three extra-large helpings of baked beans. All the way home he farted. He 'putted' down one hill and 'putt-putted' up the next. By the time he arrived home he felt reasonably safe.      His wife met him at the door and seemed somewhat excited. She exclaimed, 'Darling, I have the most wonderful surprise for you for dinner tonight!' She put a blindfold on him, and led him to his chair at the head of the table and made him promise not to peek. At this point he was beginning to feel another one coming on. Just as she was about to remove the blindfold, the telephone rang. She again made him promise not to peek until she returned, and she went to answer the phone.       While she was gone, he seized the opportunity. He shifted his weight to one leg and let go. It was not only loud, but *ripe* as a rotten egg.        He had a hard time breathing, so he felt for his napkin and fanned the air about him. He had just started to feel better, when another urge came on. He raised his leg and 'rrriiiipppp!' It sounded like a diesel engine revving, and smelled worse. To keep from gagging, he tried fanning his arms a while, hoping the smell would dissipate. Things had just about returned to normal when he felt another urge coming. He shifted his weight to his other leg and let go. This was a real blue ribbon winner; the windows rattled, the dishes on the table shook and a minute later the flowers on the table were dead. While keeping an ear tuned in on the conversation in the hallway, and keeping his promise of staying blindfolded, he carried on like this for the next ten minutes, farting and fanning them each time with his napkin.      When he heard the 'phone farewells' (indicating the end of his loneliness and freedom) he neatly laid his napkin on his lap and folded his hands on top of it. Smiling contentedly, he was the picture of innocence when his wife walked in. Apologizing for taking so long, she asked if he had peeked at the dinner. After assuring her he had not, she removed the blindfold and yelled, 'Surprise!'      To his shock and horror, there were twelve dinner guests seated around the table for his surprise birthday party.

George Washington so liked Edward Savage’s painting of “The President and His Family, the full size of life,” that he ordered “four stipple engravings” in “handsome, but not costly, gilt frames, with glasses,” and hung one of his purchases over the fireplace mantel in the small dining room at Mount Vernon. As the Washington family—George and Martha, and two of Martha’s orphaned grandchildren, George Washington (“Washy”) and Eleanor (“Nelly”) Custis—took their daily repast, Edward Savage’s tableau of “The President and His Family” looked down upon them. It is likely that Washington favored the portrait above many others because of its intimacy and its affirmation of the future. The family gathers about a table at Mount Vernon, George seated at the left, opposite his wife, Martha. Washy, the younger of the two grandchildren, stands in the left foreground, while Nelly stands at the right in the middle ground. Washington rests his right hand upon the boy’s shoulder; Washy, in turn, holds a compass in his right hand, which he rests upon a globe, in a stance suggesting that succeeding generations of the family were destined to spread the ideals of liberty and democracy around the world. In the background, framed by large pillars and a swagged curtain, Savage presents a glimpse, as he said in a note, of “a view of thirty miles down the Potomac River.” On the table at the portrait’s center rests Andrew Ellicott’s map of the new federal seat of government. The family appears to be unrolling the document; Washington holds it flat with his left arm and sword, while Nelly and Martha steady it on the right. With her folded fan, Martha gestures to “the grand avenue,” as Savage called it, that connects the Capitol with the White House. In the right middle ground stands one of the chief contradictions of the new democracy, a nameless black male servant, part of the retinue of more than three hundred slaves the Washingtons depended upon for their comfort, security, and prosperity. Dressed in the colors of Mount Vernon livery, a gray coat over a salmon red waistcoat, he possesses an almost princely quality. His black, combed-back hair frames his dark face with its prominent nose. His unknowable eye impassively takes in the scene. He keeps his left hand enigmatically concealed in his waistcoat; his collar flamboyantly mirrors Washington’s across from him. The slave must remain a shadow, unobtrusive, unassuming, unremarkable, almost a part of the frame for the Potomac. Only the slave’s destiny seems apart from those gathered about the table examining the plans, yet from the beginning the fates of both slavery and the new city were inextricably intertwined. The nameless man’s story, along with the stories of tens of thousands of others, was very much a part of the plot unfolding on the Potomac in the 1790s. The consequences of involuntary servitude would affect and effect Washington’s development to the present day.

This isn’t good,” Win said. Myron nodded. Two white men show up at your house. You don’t know either one. You don’t ask for ID. You just show them in and leave them out back. Something was definitely not right here. “Let’s just see how it plays out,” Myron said. It did not take long. Eight large men came from three different directions. Two burst through the back door. Three circled in from the right side of the house. Three more from the left. They all carried aluminum baseball bats and let’s-kick-some-ass scowls. They fanned out, encircling the yard. Myron felt his pulse race. Win folded his arms; only his eyes moved. These

Some instinct told Steven who the ladies’ man was even before Chloe spoke. “You’ve been so curious about Mr. Fairfax, Fulton,” she said, in an idle tone. “Here he is.” The banker. Steven got to his feet, not as a gesture of courtesy, but so the man couldn’t look down on him. “Fulton Whitney,” the banker said by way of introduction. His tone was grudging. Steven didn’t put out his hand, or speak. He was wondering what kind of polecat would cozy up to a woman like Emma, then spend a sunny April morning rolling in the sheets with a couple of floozies. Whitney cleared his throat and shifted awkwardly on his feet, while Chloe left the sofa where she’d been sitting, her fan still fluttering. “I’d better see how things are going downstairs,” she said, and then she was gone. “So you’ll be leaving now, I suppose,” the banker said, breaking the strained silence. “I don’t imagine a man like you cares to stay in one place too long.” Steven folded his arms. “Until just a few minutes ago, I figured on riding out,” he answered. “Now I’m not so sure.” Color blossomed in Whitney’s pasty cheeks. “What possible reason could you have to stay?” “Just one. Her name is Emma.” The banker stared at him with undisguised contempt, and Steven figured he must look pretty seedy, all things considered. It had been days since he’d shaved, and two months since he’d had a haircut. “You aren’t good enough to lick her shoes.” Steven indulged in a slow, obnoxious smile. “Let me understand this,” he drawled. “I’m not good enough for Emma, but you, her fiancé, just crawled out of bed with two whores?” Again, Whitney’s face flooded with blustery color. “I don’t have to explain anything to you,” he rasped. And then he started to walk away. Steven was possessed of a rage nobody but Macon had been able to arouse in him before. He grasped the banker by the arm, whirled him around, and threw his fist into the middle of the bastard’s face. Fulton gave a startled yelp as he struck the wall, then slowly slid down it, one hand to his bleeding mouth. “Now,” Steven said calmly, “we know exactly where we stand, you and I.

Once the apartment was ready, Portia had begun to plan out what foods they would showcase in this little glimpse into a Glass Kitchen world. Her sisters couldn't help her with this part. Portia had let go, and dishes had come to her, all of which she wrote down and prepared to make. Then, at eight that morning, she got to work. Olivia and Cordelia served as sous-chefs; they started by making a decadent beef bourguignon. Olivia and Cordelia washed and chopped as Portia browned layer after layer of beef, bacon, carrots, and onion, folding in the beef stock and wine, then putting it in to slow bake as they dove into the remaining dishes. They opened all the windows and ran four swiveling fans Portia had bought and found that pushed the scent of the baking and cooking out onto the sidewalk. Then they had put up a fairly discreet sign in the window, hand-painted by Olivia: THE GLASS KITCHEN. Portia had gotten the idea while walking down Broadway and passing the French soap store. Scents had spilled into the street from the shop- lavender and primrose, musk and sandalwood- luring passersby inside. Portia had realized that the best way to get investors interested was to show them a version of The Glass Kitchen. The food. The aromas. She had realized, standing there on Broadway, that she needed to create a mini version of her grandmother's restaurant to lure people in.

On an early morning scouting trip in the foothills north of Los Angeles, two van-loads of crew people fan out over an area that the production designer wants to make into a guerrilla army encampment. I stay close to the vans, keeping an overview of the area and waiting for the director to emerge. It’s a warm sunny day. Most of the crew is wearing shorts and running shoes. The director is another story. He climbs out of his van wearing a location-specific hunter-outdoorsman khaki outfit complete with an impressive pair of lug-sole hiking boots and walks off in the general direction the crew has taken, thumbing through some script notes. A few seconds later he steps squarely into a pile of dog-doo that everyone else has successfully navigated. I watch, transfixed, as he leaps back in horror and freezes. He does not spot me as he quickly looks around to see if anyone has noticed his predicament. No one else has. He hurriedly examines the bottom of his now-disgusting hiking boot. I take a deep breath and step from beside the van, pretending I am deeply involved in a conversation on my walkie-talkie. As I walk toward him, I pull a little folding penknife from my pocket and flip the blade open. I hand it to him without a word as I pass and continue on toward the location, still pretending to be talking into the radio. I round the corner of a building and find a vantage point. The director is hopping up and down on one foot, hurriedly scraping the bottom of his boot with the tiny knife. He finishes the messy job, pulls himself together, and strides purposefully around the building and toward a clearing where the crew has gathered, waiting for his comments. I quickly take my place as the director approaches. He walks briskly past me and without looking, hands the little knife back to me with the dog-doo-covered blade still open. He continues on to the front of the group and with complete authority runs through his ideas for the scene. Over the next few months of filming, neither of us ever mentions the incident.

Think of a folding fan. When it's closed, the two ends are all we see. When we open it up, there's a lot more inside. As a matter of fact, a wide range of responses always exists between the extreme ends in any conversation.

In the garden the lovely flycatcher perches, watching as I deadhead the roses, plucking wilted petals in fistfuls and letting them float like messages to the dirt. The little bird casually studies my hand as it folds into a ball then fan-fingers out into some kind of idea perhaps. All the airish signic of her dipandump helpabit, and I have finally accepted her seat there on that spindly branch, her assiduous presence. She stretches out her wings, letting the sun bathe them, so that I can see her breast, see that her chest is clean of graffiti, clear of symbols, free of meaning.

The tram was mostly empty. It climbed steadily up a slope of tilted plain, stopping to pick up or drop off a few travellers. Those that saw Tefwe all stopped and stared at her for a few moments, then ignored her. Nobody chose to sit close to her. The sound built very slowly; it would have been hard to know when it first started to become distinct from the noises of the rattling, swaying tram and the wind moving over the surrounding fields of tall, bronze-coloured grasses and occasional thick-trunked coppery trees. She became aware of the sound when she realised that she’d been assuming for a while that somebody was humming monotonously just behind her, only there was nobody there. “Is that… the sound?” she sub-vocalised to the suit. “Yes.” The tram clattered to a stop at another station, and now she could hear the sound properly, distinctly; it was a low booming collection of tones like very distant and continuous thunder, all the individual claps rolled together and coming and going on the wind. She got up out of the uncomfortably tilted seat and went to the front of the tram’s middle carriage, heading upstairs to get a better view. There were more of the locals here; they parted as though to let her through to the front, but she bowed, gestured, hung back. She could see well enough. The mountains rose out of the hazy plain ahead like a dark storm of rock, the higher massifs draped with cloud, the highest peaks capped in orange-white ice and snow. The sound swelled and fell away with a sort of tantalising grace, its strength implicitly influenced not just by the light breezes circling round the tram but by mightier winds blowing tens of kilometres away towards the far horizon and kilometres further into the sky. The sound, she thought, was like something you might have heard from an enormous choir of basses singing a slow, sonorous hymn in a language you would never understand. The tram station in the foothills possessed a sort of modest, ordered busyness to it, full of the dark folds moving about it with their odd, side-to-side, flip-flopping walk. The station connected with a whole fan of cogged funicular lines, winding up into the mountains like something being unravelled. The sound here was a little louder, still coming and going on the wind.

Dumplings Serves: 30-40 Preparation Time: 2 hours Total Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes Ingredients 3 pounds bok choy, washed 1 ½ pounds ground pork ⅔ cup rice wine ½ cup vegetable oil 3 tablespoons sesame oil 1 tablespoon salt 3 tablespoons soy sauce ¼ teaspoon white pepper ⅔ cup water 3-4 packages dumpling wrappers Dipping sauce ½ cup soy sauce ½ tablespoon rice vinegar 1 dash hot chili sauce 1 green onion, sliced thinly Directions Cut the bottoms off the bok choy, and blanch it in boiling water. Transfer it immediately to ice cold water. Drain, squeeze the water out gently, and wipe it dry with paper towels. Chop the bok choy finely and place it in a large bowl. Add the ground pork, rice wine, vegetable oil, sesame oil, salt, soy sauce, white pepper, and water, and mix thoroughly. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and set it aside. Place a wrapper on a clean surface and spoon about a tablespoon of filling into the center. Moisten the edges with water and fold the circle over, in half. Press the edges together to seal. Fold the edges to get a fan-like shape (about 4 folds). Arrange the dumplings on the baking sheet, not too close so they don’t stick to each other. To store, cover with cling wrap and freeze overnight. Transfer the frozen dumplings to another container or to Ziploc bags and replace in the freezer. The dumplings may be boiled or fried. When boiled, cooked dumplings float to the top when ready. To fry, deep fry until golden brown or pan fry Serve with a dipping sauce made of ½ cup of soy sauce, ½ tablespoon if rice vinegar, and a dash of chili sauce. Add green onions and mix well

Is there not in every human soul, was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular, a first spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in the other, which good can develop, fan, ignite, and make to glow with splendor, and which evil can never wholly extinguish? Grave and obscure questions, to the last of which every physiologist would probably have responded no, and that without hesitation, had he beheld at Toulon, during the hours of repose, which were for Jean Valjean hours of revery, this gloomy galley-slave, seated with folded arms upon the bar of some capstan, with the end of his chain thrust into his pocket to prevent its dragging, serious, silent, and thoughtful, a pariah of the laws which regarded the man with wrath, condemned by civilization, and regarding heaven with severity. Certainly,—and we make no attempt to dissimulate the fact,— the observing physiologist would have beheld an ir- Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 159 remediable misery; he would, perchance, have pitied this sick man, of the law’s making; but he would not have even essayed any treatment; he would have turned aside his gaze from the caverns of which he would have caught a glimpse within this soul, and, like Dante at the portals of hell, he would have effaced from this existence the word which the finger of God has, nevertheless, inscribed upon the brow of every man,—hope. Was this state of his soul, which we have attempted to analyze, as perfectly clear to Jean Valjean as we have tried to render it for those who read us? Did Jean Valjean distinctly perceive, after their formation, and had he seen distinctly during the process of their formation, all the elements of which his moral misery was composed? Had this rough and unlettered man gathered a perfectly clear perception of the succession of ideas through which he had, by degrees, mounted and descended to the lugubrious aspects which had, for so many years, formed the inner horizon of his spirit? Was he conscious of all that passed within him, and of all that was working there? That is something which we do not presume to state; it is something which we do not even believe. There was too much ignorance in Jean Valjean, even after his misfortune, to prevent much vagueness from still lingering there. At times he did not rightly know himself what he felt. Jean Valjean was in the shadows; he suffered in the shadows; he hated in the shadows; one might have said that he hated in advance of himself. He dwelt habitually in this shadow, feeling his way like a blind man and a dreamer. Only, at intervals, there suddenly came 160 Les Miserables to him, from without and from within, an access of wrath, a surcharge of suffering, a livid and rapid flash which illuminated his whole soul, and caused to appear abruptly all around him, in front, behind, amid the gleams of a frightful light, the hideous precipices and the sombre perspective of his destiny. The flash passed, the night closed in again; and where was he? He no longer knew. The peculiarity of pains of this nature, in which that which is pitiless—that is to say, that which is brutalizing—predominates, is to transform a man, little by little, by a sort of stupid transfiguration, into a wild beast; sometimes into a ferocious beast. Jean Valjean’s successive and obstinate attempts at escape would alone suffice to prove this strange working of the law upon the human soul. Jean Valjean would have renewed these attempts, utterly useless and foolish as they were, as often as the opportunity had presented itself, without reflecting for an instant on the result, nor on the experiences which he had already gone through. He escaped impetuously, like the wolf who finds his cage open. Instinct said to him, ‘Flee!’ Reason would have said, ‘Remain!’ But in the presence of so violent a temptation, reason vanished;

The brain’s most distinct neurons are cerebellar Purkinje cells (fig. 6.2) whose fan-shaped dendritic tree is the recipient of a staggering 200,000 synapses. Purkinje cells have complex intrinsic electrical responses and their axons convey the cerebellum’s output to the rest of the brain. They are stacked, like books on a shelf, within the folds making up the cerebellar sheet. Collectively, Purkinje cells receive excitation from a mind-blowing 69 billion granule cells—four times more than all the neurons in the rest of the brain combined!4

On one side were the Odessa High fans, dressed in red, ready for this to be the year when the jinx was finally broken, when they joyously shed the yoke of football famine that had caused them so much embarrassment and so many feelings of inferiority. On the other side were the Permian fans, dressed in black, arms folded, looking like highland-mighty music teachers listening to the annual school recital, so used to superlative achievement from their star pupils that only the most flawless performance would break their cold impassivity.

Mrs. Jones asked me to think up a few gadgets for our agents out here in the East,” Smithers replied. He lifted the fan. “This is one of them. It’s very simple, but I rather like it. You see, it looks like an ordinary fan, but actually there are very thin plates of galvanized steel hidden under the silk. And when you bring them together…” He folded the fan, then brought it smashing down onto the desk. The wood shattered. “…it becomes a useful weapon. I call it…” “…the fan club?” Alex suggested.