Gardener Funny Quotes

A forty-foot worm?" Will muttered to Jem as they moved through the Italian garden, their boots - thanks to a pair of Soundless runes - making no noise on the gravel. "Think of the size of the fish we could catch." Jem's lips twitched. "It's not funny, you know." "It is a bit.

David tells me that fairies never say 'We feel happy': what they say is, 'We feel dancey'.

It is easier to tell a person what life is not, rather than to tell them what it is. A child understands weeds that grow from lack of attention, in a garden. However, it is hard to explain the wild flowers that one gardener calls weeds, and another considers beautiful ground cover.

As she came closer to him she noticed that there was a clean fresh scent of heather and grass and leaves about him, almost as if he were made of them. She liked it very much and when she looked into his funny face with the red cheeks and round blue eyes she forgot that she had felt shy.

Excellent,” said Lupin, looking up as Tonks and Harry entered. “We’ve got about a minute, I think. We should probably get out into the garden so we’re ready. Harry, I’ve left a letter telling your aunt and uncle not to worry —” “They won’t,” said Harry. “That you’re safe —” “That’ll just depress them.” “— and you’ll see them next summer.” “Do I have to?

This...this...thing?" "A parsnip?" Jem suggested "A parsnip planted in satan's own garden," said Will. He glanced about. "I dont suppose there's a dog I could feed it to?" "There dont seem to be any pets about," Jem-who loved animals, even the inglorious and ill-tempered Church-observed. "Probably all poisened by parsnips," said Will.

The very second the door closed behind them, Nicholas started shouting. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. 'I can't believe you did that!' he railed. 'After the field party, the vamps in the garden. Didn't you hear a single word I said?' 'No why don't you yell a little louder?' 'This isn't funny, Lucy.

Somewhere, in some shadowy bedroom of a leaf-strewn town, a father bolts the door to a child's room, then steps closer to the bed. In a neighbor's garden lurks a weed with a funny, blade-petaled flower, its poison choking the red roses. Somewhere a car is crashing; a phone is ringing in the center of night. The spider waits poised in the slipper. The bird swoops headlong into glass it thought was farther air. The strangler envisions a neighborhood of throats. The head finds the noose; the foot kicks the chair.

It's spider season. Every year, right about now, thousands of the godless eight-legged bastards emerge from the bowels of hell (or the garden, whichever's nearest) with the sole intention of tormenting humankind.

Professor Milligan will now play his tree! The composition is in A Minor, the tree is in A garden.

She wished she could talk as he did. His speech was so quick and easy. It sounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and with a funny face and a rough, rusty-red head.

I love you, Tess McGee. I don’t do big funny or heartfelt speeches in front of people at birthday parties, but I’m excellent in private alcoves in beer gardens.” He paused. “Okay, that sounded really bad, what I mean is …” I kissed him into silence. I pressed my forehead against his with a sigh. “I love you, too, Toby. In fact, that’s what I was going to tell you before we walked into the beer garden. Right before the really bad singing started.” Toby chuckled. He let out a sigh of relief. “Ready to reminisce?” I whispered my final word before he closed the distance. “Always.

Jonquil went by with a full plate of food, and Petunia reached out and tried to snag a small cream puff from it. Jonquil lifted it over Petunia's head before she could, and clucked her tongue. "These are for Lily," she said. "Oh really?" Petunia gave her a look. "And possibly some are for that Analousian duke Jacques invited," Jonquil said with a sparkle in her eye. "But none are for you." Then she flipped one to Oliver. "You can have one, my lord earl," she said, and twirled away. "These are excellent," Oliver said, eating half of it in one bite. He fed Petunia the other half so she wouldn't get cream on her knitting. Oliver was just leaning in to steal a kiss - "I hope this means you're planning on marrying her, boy," barked King Gregor. Oliver leaped to his feet. "Sire! Yes! I mean ... I ... sire!" "I didn't pardon you and restore your earldom so that you could loll around my gardens flirting with my daughters," King Gregor said. Then he bent down and gave Petunia a kiss on the cheek. "I like him," he whispered loudly in her ear. "Me too," she whispered back, blushing.

I sometimes think drivers don't know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly," she said. "If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! he'd say, that's grass! A pink blur? That's a rose-garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows. My uncle drove slowly on a highway once. He drove forty miles an hour and they jailed him for two days. Isn't that funny, and sad, too?

And a beautiful garden, not far from a beautiful lake, and I said it sounded perfectly perfect.

Like the garlic mustard in my garden and the roses on my fence, love has a funny way of blooming after years of being buried.

Well," he said, "I think we've found our way in. We just wait until they're duking it out, but trust me, these Humans First types don't have a lot of staying power or they'd have been at the gym with me before. I doubt Grandma Kent there is going to do a lot of damage." He pointed at a gray-haired, hunched lady in a shawl, carrying what looked liked a gardening tool. "It's like Plants Versus Zombies, and I'm not rooting for the zombies, weirdly enough.

Mi bella Princesa, your funny little dwarf will never dance again. It is a pity, for he is so ugly that he might have made the King smile.' 'But why will he not dance again?' asked the Infanta, laughing. 'Because his heart is broken,' answered the Chamberlain. And the Infanta frowned, and her dainty rose-leaf lips curled in pretty disdain. 'For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts,' she cried, and she ran out into the garden.

If a wizard should take up residence in your garden and requests food, you are obliged to feed him.

It was nice to call my parents and proudly tell them, "My lady garden is going viral." In hindsight, that may have been a poor choice of phrasing.

Someone once said writing and gardening are similar pursuits. Tell you what, I'd have one fucked up garden if that were the case.

But though it had prevailed against such fierce adversaries as fire and flood, it had fallen victim softly and swiftly to television in the 1960's.

How funny we are, I thought, the way we dance about each other, each afraid of being hurt by the other.

That I have no idea what good old Dr. Ha-ha-so-fucking-funny Bradley is thinking when he touches your back? When he kisses your hand, pretending it’s just a joke, you think I don’t know what he’s thinking? When he stands close to you, looks into your nice red lips as you talk, when his eyes shimmer at the mention of your name? He’s gone soft in the head, you think I don’t know? I was the one with the hat in my hands, standing for hours waiting for you to get out of Kirov. What,” said Alexander.

Suzanne glanced over at her, eyebrow raised. “Is there an anaconda?” she asked, like it had suddenly occurred to her she could be totally wrong. Tamara should only be so lucky. “No, there’s no anaconda, I can promise you that.” Not even a garden snake.

Funny thing about those Middle Ages,” said Joseph. “They just keep coming back. Mortals keep thinking they’re in Modern Times, you know, they get all this neat technology and pass all these humanitarian laws, and then something happens: there’s an economic crisis, or science makes some discovery people can’t deal with. And boom, people go right back to burning Jews and selling pieces of the true Cross. Don’t you ever make the mistake of thinking that mortals want to live in a golden age. They hate thinking.

Okay, but would you say between us we have the combined IQ of at least a garden slug?

It goes without saying that even those of us who are going to hell will get eternal life—if that territory really exists outside religious books and the minds of believers, that is. Having said that, given the choice, instead of being grilled until hell freezes over, the average sane human being would, needless to say, rather spend forever idling in an extremely fertile garden, next to a lamb or a chicken or a parrot, which they do not secretly want to eat, and a lion or a tiger or a crocodile, which does not secretly want to eat them.

She was an original ... She was an eccentric. She'd come alive like a fire, telling funny stories and entertaining everyone, then she'd suddenly run out of fuel, make her excuses and leave. You always knew when she'd had enough. Those that didn't would find themselves talk to the walls.

So where does the name Adam's apple come from? Most people say that it is from the notion that this bump was caused by the forbidden fruit getting stuck in the throat of Adam in the Garden of Eden. There is a problem with this theory because some Hebrew scholars believe that the forbidden fruit was the pomegranate. The Koran claims that the forbidden fruit was a banana. So take your pick---Adam's apple, Adam's pomegranate, Adam's banana. Eve clearly chewed before swallowing.

Ironically, the tattoo represents the opposite for me today. It reminds me that it's important to let yourself be vulnerable, to lose control and make a mistake. It reminds me that, as Whitman would say, I contain multitudes and I always will. I'm a level-one introvert who headlined Madison Square Garden—and was the first woman comic to do so. I'm the ‘overnight success’ who's worked her ass off every single waking moment for more than a decade. I used to shoplift the kind of clothing that people now request I wear to give them free publicity. I'm the SLUT or SKANK who's only had one one-night stand. I'm a ‘plus-size’ 6 on a good day, and a medium-size 10 on an even better day. I've suffered the identical indignities of slinging rib eyes for a living and hustling laughs for cash. I'm a strong, grown-ass woman who's been physically, sexually, and emotionally abused by men and women I trusted and cared about. I've broken hearts and had mine broken, too. Beautiful, ugly, funny, boring, smart or not, my vulnerability is my ultimate strength. There's nothing anyone can say about me that's more permanent, damaging, or hideous than the statement I have forever tattooed upon myself. I'm proud of this ability to laugh at myself—even if everyone can see my tears, just like they can see my dumb, senseless, whack, lame lower back tattoo.

You're not very fond of your room by day. You never think about it. You're in and out, the door opens and slams, the cupboard creaks. You sit down on the side of your bed, change your shoes and dash out again. A dive down to the glass, two pins in your hair, powder your nose and off again. But now–at night time- it's suddenly dear to you. It's a darling little funny room. It's yours. Oh, what a joy it is to own things!

The things you remember about a person when they're gone are funny. No two people will feel the same way, though usually it has to do with scent, or expression, the sound of a voice, an unusual gesture. For me, I can still see the colors of Keiko; the black of her hair against creamy pale skin, her dark blue kimono with white circles, the deep orange persimmons falling from the brown basket she carried. The ache in my heart grows larger every time I think of these colors, and how as each day passes they continue to fade from my eyes.

‘And what about a [band] name?’ said Tony [Iommi]. The three of us looked at each other. ‘We should all take a couple of days to think about it,’ I said. ‘I dunno about you two, but I’ve got a special place where I go to get ideas for important stuff like this. It’s never failed me yet.’ Forty-eight hours later I blurted out: ‘I’ve got it!’ ‘Must have been that dodgy bird you poked the other night,’ said Geezer. ‘Has your whelk turned green yet?’ Tony and Bill snickered into their plates of egg and chips. We were sitting in a greasy spoon caff in Aston. So far, everyone was getting along famously. ‘Very funny, Geezer,’ I said, waving an eggy fork at him. ‘I mean the name for our band.’ The snickering died down. ‘Go on then,’ said Tony [Iommi]. ‘Well, I was on the shitter last night, and...' ‘That’s your special place?’ spluttered Bill, blobs of mushed-up egg and HP sauce flying out of his mouth. ‘Where the f**k did you think it was, Bill?’ I said. ‘The hanging gardens of f**king Babylon?

Which made me laugh, of course. If you ever want to get truly hysterical, just get really, really scared, and then have somebody say something funny. You get caught between the laugh and the sob, and it’s hard to find your way out.

They arrived home again to a most peculiar sight. The small garden at the front of the Banana House had been transformed. A tidal wave of cushions, beanbags, quilts, hearth rugs, and sleeping bags appeared to have swept up the lawn and broken at the wall. From Indigo's window a multicolored rope of knotted bedsheets came snaking out and ended among the cushions. As Micheal and Caddy watched, a mattress emerged and fell to the ground, followed by a rain of pillows. "Indigo!" shouted Caddy, jumping out of the car. Indigo's and Rose's heads appeared in the window above. "It's all right, Caddy!" Indigo called cheerfully. "We've been doing it all the time you've been gone." "We keep finding more stuff to land on!" added Rose. "Look!

I have lived my life in the shelter of too many northern alliances. I have made alliance with the gentle cow, the health department, the local policeman. In the shelter of such alliances I have got out of bed in the morning with moderate assurance that I shall still be alive at bedtime. But south of the moon my allies vanish, and I have an emptiness in my stomach. I fear the cobras in the garden. I lack a treaty with the lioness. I dread the crocodiles of Lake Victoria, the tsetse fly in the Tanganyika bush, the little airplane with the funny engine, and the mosquito in the soft evening air. But most of all, I am afraid of the African street.

I work with funny and cute gossipy filmmakers, that are smart and nice like little garden gnomes (tho not Jena, she's tall, lean and more like Glenda the Good Witch, tho in a more judgey way), and who NOTICE THINGS LIKE LOVE! So they can gossip about it when not working on their movie!

By morning, Adelaide was beginning to understand why she'd never completely understood how God worked. Given that He had made the bewildering, maddening, incomprehensible species that was man from His own image, it stood to reason that the Creator would be a complicated mass of logic never meant to be understood by the female mind. That, or the fall of man in the Garden of Eden had taken them even further off the path than she'd ever realized

... something in the back of her mind whispered that there was no help coming and if she ran out of money, she had no real way to earn more. Her only skills were embroidery and weeding gardens. I suppose I could sell my body, but I'm not sure how one does that, either. It seemed like it would be a lot more complicated than getting a seat on a coach. Dis you approach people, or did they approach you, and how did you start a conversation that ended in money for sex? Was there an etiquette? This was not the sort of thing one was taught at convents. It was easier just to sleep in the coaches.

Just like an angel, the lovely one and the cute All the beauty together in your funny sulky looks Innocent, like the kids, like the pigeons in my garden Magnetic attraction, awesome, amazing and the super astute Immortal charming, like the moon and the stars Elegant, stylish, you must be very tasty, fruit

You should have seen the costumes for the last few prom themes: Pimps and their srteet ho's; CEOs and their office ho's; GI Joes and their combat ho's; Gardeners and their garden hose;Firemen and their fire hose... If you ask me, a 'masquerade' theme isn't flattering for anyones features, nor does it define the apppropriate gender roles very clearly.

Jenna, standing in the doorway with her mouth and hand full of shelled pistachios, says, '"Real' is a dirty word in this place'.

The last time they had been together, they'd waltzed in a winter garden. Now, they were de-lousing a pestilent street urchin.

Well, it is half an hour yet before prayer-meeting time, so I am going around to the kitchen garden to have a little evening hate with the weeds.

Odd lair for a dragon", Darnak said, "and I've seen one or two in my times." "Do all dragons own flower gardens?" "This is the first one I've come across.

With the long hours of daylight in the Alaska summers, the gardens served up a cornucopia of amazing and extra-large produce.

She loved “their funny stiff dancing, listening to their incomprehensible and guttural tongue, and watching their simple gestures, natural behavior and childlike eagerness for life.

Goddamn golf shirts and gym memberships and fake muscles and tans and cell phones and new cars. Trevor didn't care about any of that garbage. All he wanted was a garden. Isn't that funny?

It's a queer thing is a man's soul. It is the whole of him. Which means it is the unknown him, as well as the known. It seems to me just funny, professors and Benjamins fixing the functions of the soul. Why, the soul of man is a vast forest, and all Benjamin intended was a neat back garden. And we've all got to fit into his kitchen garden scheme of things. Hail Columbia ! The soul of man is a dark forest. The Hercynian Wood that scared the Romans so, and out of which came the white- skinned hordes of the next civilization. Who knows what will come out of the soul of man? The soul of man is a dark vast forest, with wild life in it. Think of Benjamin fencing it off! Oh, but Benjamin fenced a little tract that he called the soul of man, and proceeded to get it into cultivation. Providence, forsooth! And they think that bit of barbed wire is going to keep us in pound for ever? More fools they. ... Man is a moral animal. All right. I am a moral animal. And I'm going to remain such. I'm not going to be turned into a virtuous little automaton as Benjamin would have me. 'This is good, that is bad. Turn the little handle and let the good tap flow,' saith Benjamin, and all America with him. 'But first of all extirpate those savages who are always turning on the bad tap.' I am a moral animal. But I am not a moral machine. I don't work with a little set of handles or levers. The Temperance- silence-order- resolution-frugality-industry-sincerity - justice- moderation-cleanliness-tranquillity-chastity-humility keyboard is not going to get me going. I'm really not just an automatic piano with a moral Benjamin getting tunes out of me. Here's my creed, against Benjamin's. This is what I believe: 'That I am I.' ' That my soul is a dark forest.' 'That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.' 'Thatgods, strange gods, come forth f rom the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back.' ' That I must have the courage to let them come and go.' ' That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.' There is my creed. He who runs may read. He who prefers to crawl, or to go by gasoline, can call it rot.

But, yes, I'm hungry." "Well, there's an Olive Garden next door." My face twisted up. "An olive garden? Like... we go and pick olives? I mean, I'm going to need more sustenance than that. What's so funny?

they gave him power to fly was this: They all tickled him on the shoulder, and soon he felt a funny itching in that part and then up he rose higher and higher and flew away out of the Gardens and over the house-tops. It

And God was like, “It’s not a tumor. That’s your appendix. Appendixes go at the end. Read a book, dude.” Then Adam was all, “Really? Because I don’t want to second-guess you but it seems like a design flaw. Also that snake in the garden told me it doesn’t even do anything.” And God shook his head and muttered, “Jesus, that fucking snake is like TMZ.” And then Adam was like, “Who’s Jesus?” and God said, “No one yet. It’s just an idea I’m throwing around.” And

At school Amar was valued for the very qualities that were looked down upon in his house. There he was not disrespectful but funny. There it was good that he was interested in English class, in the poems and stories his teachers assigned.As far as he was aware, none of his school friends knew what it was like to come home to a house that is quite the way his was, where everything was forbidden to them—loud music or talking back, wearing shirts with band logos printed on them. The father who yelled, a mother who looked out the window and spent the day praying or tending her garden. A family that wanted him to change who he was, to become a respectable man who obeyed his father’s every word, and followed every command given by his father’s God. Or what it was like to live with the knowledge that his father would disown him if he found something as harmless as a packet of cigarettes under his mattress. To not have that kind of love. To not even believe in it.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and the tea-cosy. I can't say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring - I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn't a very good poem. I have decided my best poetry is so bad that I mustn't write any more of it. Drips from the roof are plopping into the water-butt by the back door. The view through the windows above the sink is excessively drear. Beyond the dank garden in the courtyard are the ruined walls on the edge of the moat. Beyond the moat, the boggy ploughed fields stretch to the leaden sky. I tell myself that all the rain we have had lately is good for nature, and that at any moment spring will surge on us. I try to see leaves on the trees and the courtyard filled with sunlight. Unfortunately, the more my mind's eye sees green and gold, the more drained of all colour does the twilight seem. It is comforting to look away from the windows and towards the kitchen fire, near which my sister Rose is ironing - though she obviously can't see properly, and it will be a pity if she scorches her only nightgown. (I have two, but one is minus its behind.) Rose looks particularly fetching by firelight because she is a pinkish person; her skin has a pink glow and her hair is pinkish gold, very light and feathery. Although I am rather used to her I know she is a beauty. She is nearly twenty-one and very bitter with life. I am seventeen, look younger, feel older. I am no beauty but I have a neatish face. I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic - two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud. I must admit that our home is an unreasonable place to live in. Yet I love it. The house itself was built in the time of Charles II, but it was grafted on to a fourteenth-century castle that had been damaged by Cromwell. The whole of our east wall was part of the castle; there are two round towers in it. The gatehouse is intact and a stretch of the old walls at their full height joins it to the house. And Belmotte Tower, all that remains of an even older castle, still stands on its mound close by. But I won't attempt to describe our peculiar home fully until I can see more time ahead of me than I do now. I am writing this journal partly to practise my newly acquired speed-writing and partly to teach myself how to write a novel - I intend to capture all our characters and put in conversations. It ought to be good for my style to dash along without much thought, as up to now my stories have been very stiff and self-conscious. The only time father obliged me by reading one of them, he said I combined stateliness with a desperate effort to be funny. He told me to relax and let the words flow out of me.

Despite all their surface diversity, most jokes and funny incidents have the following logical structure: Typically you lead the listener along a garden path of expectation, slowly building up tension. At the very end, you introduce an unexpected twist that entails a complete reinterpretation of all the preceding data, and moreover, it's critical that the new interpretation, though wholly unexpected, makes as much "sense" of the entire set of facts as did the originally "expected" interpretation. In this regard, jokes have much in common with scientific creativity, with what Thomas Kuhn calls a "paradigm shift" in response to a single "anomaly." (It's probably not coincidence that many of the most creative scientists have a great sense of humor.) Of course, the anomaly in the joke is the traditional punch line and the joke is "funny" only if the listener gets the punch line by seeing in a flash of insight how a completely new interpretation of the same set of facts can incorporate the anomalous ending. The longer and more tortuous the garden path of expectation, the "funnier" the punch line when finally delivered.

«Dashenka, sister, Dasha?» «Yes?» She sounded so sad. Tatiana swallowed. «Want to hear a funny story?» «Oh, yes, please: I need a funny story to cheer me up. Tell me, darling». «Stalin as Chairman of the Presidium went in front of the House of Parliament to make a short speech that lasted maybe five minutes. After the speech there was applause. The plenum stood on its feet and applauded. For a minute. Then another minute. They stood and applauded. But – Another minute. Still applauded. They were standing up, and still applauding, as Stalin stood in front of the lectern and listened with a humble smile on his face, the epitome of humility. Another minute. And still applauded. No one knew what to do. They waited for a signal from the Chairman to cease, but no such signal came from the humble and diminutive man. Another minute went by. And still they stood and applauded. It had now been eleven minutes. And no one knew what to do. Someone had to stop applauding. But who? Twelve minutes of applause. Thirteen minutes of applause. And still he stood there. And still they stood there. Fourteen minutes. Fifteen minutes. Finally, at the fifteen-minute mark, the man in the front, the Secretary of Transportation, stopped. As soon as he stopped, the entire auditorium fell mute. The following week the Secretary of Transportation was shot for treason». «Tania!» exclaimed a startled Dasha. «That was supposed to be funny?» «Yes», said Tatiana. «Funny, as in, cheer up, things could be worse. You could be the Secretary of Transportation».

Each person if he was lucky found the place where he could shine, and the person he could shine on. At Cranley Gardens Johnny had been audience, to Evert, to Ivan, to the whole clever, memoir-swapping gang. But with Pat he was a closely attended performer - he was funny, almost articulate, and rich in things worth saying.

You told me that I didn’t know what I had done You said I don’t know who I am But I do know who I am. I love Rose Gardens I buy violets every time someone leaves me I love the great sequoias of Yosemite and if you asked my sister to describe the first thing she thinks of when she thinks of me she would say woodsmoke I’m gentle I’m funny when I’m drunk though I haven’t been drunk for 14 years

She was convinced the country was about to succumb to revolutionary socialism. Her own circumstances encouraged this belief: just on the edge of the really rich country set, she shared their views and opinions but lacked the financial and architechtural insulation from real or imagined political troubles. She found crushed larger cans and cigarette packets in her front garden and interpreted these as menacing signals from the Perthshire proletariat. Every flicker and dim of electric light was a portent of class war.

I realize that it’s weird that this appendix is in the middle of the book instead of at the end where appendixes are supposed to be, but it works better here, and technically your appendix is in the middle of your body so it sort of makes sense. Probably God had the same issue when Adam was like, “I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but it sort of hurts when I walk. Is that normal? Is this thing on my foot a tumor?” And God was like, “It’s not a tumor. That’s your appendix. Appendixes go at the end. Read a book, dude.” Then Adam was all, “Really? Because I don’t want to second-guess you but it seems like a design flaw. Also that snake in the garden told me it doesn’t even do anything.” And God shook his head and muttered, “Jesus, that fucking snake is like TMZ.” And then Adam was like, “Who’s Jesus?” and God said, “No one yet. It’s just an idea I’m throwing around.” And then God zapped Adam’s appendix off his foot and stuck it in Adam’s midsection instead in case he decided to use it later. But the next day Adam probably asked for a girlfriend and God was like, “It’s gonna cost you a rib,” and Adam was all, “Don’t I need those? Can’t you just make her out of my appendix?” And the snake popped out and hissed, “Seriously, why are you so attached to this appendix idea? Don’t those things occasionally explode for no reason whatsoever?” and God was like, “THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, JEFFERSON. I’M STARTING TO QUESTION WHY I EVEN MADE YOU.” And Adam was like, “Wait … what? They explode?” And God was all, “I’M NOT NEGOTIATING WITH YOU, ADAM.” And that’s why appendixes go in the middle and should probably be removed.

Barbara and I had arrived early, so I got to admire everyone’s entrance. We were seated at tables around a dance floor that had been set up on the lawn behind the house. Barbara and I shared a table with Deborah Kerr and her husband. Deborah, a lovely English redhead, had been brought to Hollywood to play opposite Clark Gable in The Hucksters. Louis B. Mayer needed a cool, refined beauty to replace the enormously popular redhead, Greer Garson, who had married a wealthy oil magnate and retired from the screen in the mid-fifties. Deborah, like her predecessor, had an ultra-ladylike air about her that was misleading. In fact, she was quick, sharp, and very funny. She and Barbara got along like old school chums. Jimmy Stewart was also there with his wife. It was the first time I’d seen him since we’d worked for Hitchcock. It was a treat talking to him, and I felt closer to him than I ever did on the set of Rope. He was so genuinely happy for my success in Strangers on a Train that I was quite moved. Clark Gable arrived late, and it was a star entrance to remember. He stopped for a moment at the top of the steps that led down to the garden. He was alone, tanned, and wearing a white suit. He radiated charisma. He really was the King. The party was elegant. Hot Polynesian hors d’oeuvres were passed around during drinks. Dinner was very French, with consommé madrilène as a first course followed by cold poached salmon and asparagus hollandaise. During dessert, a lemon soufflé, and coffee, the cocktail pianist by the pool, who had been playing through dinner, was discreetly augmented by a rhythm section, and they became a small combo for dancing. The dance floor was set up on the lawn near an open bar, and the whole garden glowed with colored paper lanterns. Later in the evening, I managed a subdued jitterbug with Deborah Kerr, who was much livelier than her cool on-screen image. She had not yet done From Here to Eternity, in which she and Burt Lancaster steamed up the screen with their love scene in the surf. I was, of course, extremely impressed to be there with Hollywood royalty that evening, but as far as parties go, I realized that I had a lot more fun at Gene Kelly’s open houses.

Later, some evil-disposed person invented Kodaks, and Begglely went everywhere slung on to a thing that looked like an overgrown missionary box, and that bore a legend to the effect that if Begglely would pull the button, a shameless Company would do the rest. Life became a misery to Begglely’s friends. Nobody dared to do anything for fear of being taken in the act. He took an instantaneous photograph of his own father swearing at the gardener, and snapped his youngest sister and her lover at the exact moment of farewell at the garden gate. Nothing was sacred to him. He Kodaked his aunt’s funeral from behind, and showed the chief mourner but one whispering a funny story into the ear of the third cousin as they stood behind their hats beside the grave.

One afternoon they were in the garden, where Seb was telling her about the agonies of withdrawal he had suffered when he gave up cigarettes, when he suddenly broke off talking and grabbed Polly and kissed her. It was the first time anyone had done that to Polly. She should have asked Nina about it, she thought wryly, as Seb’s face met hers and their noses seemed to get tangled up. It was not much fun. She wondered whether to wriggle loose, but See was breathing heavily and passionately and seemed to be enjoying it so much that it brought Polly’s annoying soft-heartedness out. She stood there and let him lay his mouth against hers, and tried to decide if you kept your eyes open or shut them, and in the end she settled for one of each. What a funny thing to invent to do! she thought. What do people see in it? (p. 271)

Look at that, Kovacs. We’re drinking coffee so far from Earth you have to work hard to pick out Sol in the night sky. We were carried here on a wind that blows in a dimension we cannot see or touch. Stored as dreams in the mind of a machine that thinks in a fashion so far in advance of our own brains, it might as well carry the name of God. We have been resurrected into bodies not our own, grown in a secret garden without the body of any mortal woman. These are the facts of our existence, Kovacs. How, then, are they different, or any less mystical, than the belief that there is another realm where the dead live in the company of beings so far beyond us we must call them gods?” I looked away, oddly embarrassed by the fervor in Hand’s voice. Religion is funny stuff, and it has unpredictable effects on those who use it. I stubbed out my cigarette and chose my words with care.

• “It was the rose hour, just before dawn.” 35 “I can feed him the plot of it, bit by bit. Keep him alive in this cage of boredom with morsels of Robert Louis Stevenson.” 70 “Sorry her lot who loves too well, Heavy the heart that hopes but vainly…Dark is the night to earth’s poor daughters. Heavy the sorrow that bows the head When love is alive and hope is dead! When love is alive and hope is dead.” 101 “April! Her dear author friend had planned this moment before Kaiulani had even left Hawaii! In that instant she prayed for him, prayed that anticipating the surprise had given him as much pleasure as she had received from it.”131 “Her holiday wardrobe was a flower garden of velvets and silks.” 169 “Color seeped through the predawn mist. Daybreak, like a flame on the wick of a candle, danced on a jagged peak. Light flowed like water down the verdant green folds of the pali. Foamy breakers, churning in the shadow at the base of the rocky cliffs, glowed with rose and gold and violet reflections of the sky.” 287

Marcus took a deep breath. “Alex, what happened exactly?” “I’ve already told you everything. I ran into her in the garden. She was talking one second and the next, she just sort of poofed—” “She poofed?” Seth laughed. He lounged in the corner, arms folded across his chest, and that damn smile plastered across his face. “Seriously?” “Yes, she poofed. Like she was there one second and the next she was a pile of dust.” “We just don’t poof, Alex. That doesn’t happen.” “Well, it did. She poked me in my chest with her bony fingers and said some crazy stuff. Then she poofed!” Seth’s brows flew up and he laughed again. “What have you been doing today? Smoking something?” Addressing Marcus, I threw up my hands. I had no idea why Seth was being such a jerk to me. He’d started in the moment he’d stepped into this room, and now I wanted to kill him. “Does he have to be here?” “He is where I need him to be,” Lucian answered instead. “And I need him here.” “Can he shut up, at least?” I missed the more charming version of Seth. This version sucked. “There’s no valuable need for him to comment on everything that comes out of my mouth!

And immediately we rushed like horses, wild with the knowledge of this song, and bolted into a startingly loud harmony: 'Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves; Britons, never-never-ne-verr shall be slaves!' and singing, I saw the kings and the queens in the room with us, laughing in a funny way, and smiling and happy with us. The headmaster was soaked in glee. And I imagined all the glories of Britannia, who, or what or which, had brought us out of the ships crossing over from the terrible seas from Africa, and had placed us on this island, and had given us such good headmasters and assistant masters, and such a nice vicar to teach us how to pray to God - and he had come from England; and such nice white people who lived on the island with us, and who gave us jobs watering their gardens and taking out their garbage, most of which we found delicious enough to eat...all through the ages, all through the years of history; from the Tudors on the wall, down through the Stuarts also on the wall, all through the Elizabethans and including those men and women singing in their hearts with us, hanging dead and distant on our schoolroom walls; Britannia, who, or what or which, had ruled the waves all these hundreds of years, all these thousands and millions of years, and kept us on the island, happy - the island of Barbados (Britannia the Second), free from all invasions. Not even the mighty Germans; not even the Russians whom our headmaster said were dressed in red, had dared to come within submarine distance of our island! Britannia who saw to it that all Britons (we on the island were, beyond doubt, little black Britons, just like the white big Britons up in Britannialand. The headmaster told us so!) - never-never-ne-verr, shall be slaves!

Now I myself, I cheerfully admit, feel that enormity in Kensington Gardens as something quite natural. I feel it so because I have been brought up, so to speak, under its shadow; and stared at the graven images of Raphael and Shakespeare almost before I knew their names; and long before I saw anything funny in their figures being carved, on a smaller scale, under the feet of Prince Albert. I even took a certain childish pleasure in the gilding of the canopy and spire, as if in the golden palace of what was, to Peter Pan and all children, something of a fairy garden. So do the Christians of Jerusalem take pleasure, and possibly a childish pleasure, in the gilding of a better palace, besides a nobler garden, ornamented with a somewhat worthier aim. But the point is that the people of Kensington, whatever they might think about the Holy Sepulchre, do not think anything at all about the Albert Memorial. They are quite unconscious of how strange a thing it is; and that simply because they are used to it. The religious groups in Jerusalem are also accustomed to their coloured background; and they are surely none the worse if they still feel rather more of the meaning of the colours. It may be said that they retain their childish illusion about their Albert Memorial. I confess I cannot manage to regard Palestine as a place where a special curse was laid on those who can become like little children. And I never could understand why such critics who agree that the kingdom of heaven is for children, should forbid it to be the only sort of kingdom that children would really like; a kingdom with real crowns of gold or even of tinsel. But that is another question, which I shall discuss in another place; the point is for the moment that such people would be quite as much surprised at the place of tinsel in our lives as we are at its place in theirs. If we are critical of the petty things they do to glorify great things, they would find quite as much to criticise (as in Kensington Gardens) in the great things we do to glorify petty things. And if we wonder at the way in which they seem to gild the lily, they would wonder quite as much at the way we gild the weed.

The Pakistani film International Gorillay (International guerillas), produced by Sajjad Gul, told the story of a group of local heroes - of the type that would, in the language of a later age, come to be known as jihadis, or terrorists - who vowed to find and kill an author called "Salman Rushdie" . The quest for "Rushdie" formed the main action of the film and "his" death was the film's version of happy ending. "Rushdie" himself was depicted as a drunk, constantly swigging from a bottle, and a sadist. He lived in what looked very like a palace on what looked very like an island in the Philippines (clearly all novelists had second homes of this kind), being protected by what looked very like the Israeli Army (this presumably being a service offered by Israel to all novelists), and he was plotting the overthrow of Pakistan by the fiendish means of opening chains of discotheques and gambling dens across that pure and virtuous land, a perfidious notion for which, as the British Muslim "leader" Iqbal Sacranie might have said, death was too light a punishment. "Rushdie" was dressed exclusively in a series of hideously coloured safari suits - vermilion safari suits, aubergine safari suits, cerise safari suits - and the camera, whenever it fell upon the figure of this vile personage, invariably started at his feet and then panned [sic] with slow menace up to his face. So the safari suits got a lot of screen time, and when he saw a videotape of the film the fashion insult wounded him deeply. It was, however, oddly satisfying to read that one result of the film's popularity in Pakistan was that the actor playing "Rushdie" became so hated by the film-going public that he had to go into hiding. At a certain point in the film one of the international gorillay was captured by the Israeli Army and tied to a tree in the garden of the palace in the Philippines so that "Rushdie" could have his evil way with him. Once "Rushdie" had finished drinking form his bottle and lashing the poor terrorist with a whip, once he had slaked his filthy lust for violence upon the young man's body, he handed the innocent would-be murderer over to the Israeli soldiers and uttered the only genuinely funny line in the film. "Take him away," he cried, "and read to him from The Satanic Verses all night!" Well, of course, the poor fellow cracked completely. Not that, anything but that, he blubbered as the Israelis led him away. At the end of the film "Rushdie" was indeed killed - not by the international gorillay, but by the Word itself, by thunderbolts unleashed by three large Qurans hanging in the sky over his head, which reduced the monster to ash. Personally fried by the Book of the Almighty: there was dignity in that.

Funny how what's good for the gander is good for the goose...until it's your goose ~ The Duke of Lancaster

Appreciation is one of those funny things that you have to just allow it to blend together on its own. Past reveals all as they say. You will indefinitely know when the time comes to leave a crappy relationship. There's just no mistaking it. There comes a time when no more growth can come to a union for many folks. Well then go plant your seeds into your own garden before you come invest your time into another person again. Whatever you need to connect with will come and go as necessary.

When Cloud Yabuki-Varma takes off her heart-shaped glasses all manner of items disappear, and when she puts them on they come back, and when she holds them out in front of her nose she can see stuff in the lenses but not around the edges. Spooky. The dinosaurs in Reptile Republic, the instruments in Music Corner, the entirety of Cupcake Garden, the floating mathematical models that can be manipulated to score points: now you see it, now you don’t; now you see it, now you don’t. People do look silly in mesh when you are real world. Her classmates interact with invisible beasts, gesticulate at empty space, laugh in unison when nothing funny has happened. Some big trick. Every child is wearing i-specs in various designs

Funny thing about those Middle Ages,” said Joseph. “They just keep coming back. Mortals keep thinking they’re in Modern Times, you know, they get all this neat technology and pass all these humanitarian laws, and then something happens: there’s an economic crisis, or science makes some discovery people can’t deal with. And boom, people go right back to burning Jews and selling pieces of the true Cross. Don’t you ever make the mistake of thinking that mortals want to live in a golden age.

And so you are here to, what, grant mercy?” I closed my eyes and groaned. “Tamara. No one knows I’m here, and if you don’t like my idea, then no one will know I was here unless you blab. I won’t. I just wondered, if I invite you to come with me to Savona’s picnic this afternoon, think you things might just go back to how they were?” She flushed right up to her hairline, a rose-red blush that made her suddenly look like a young girl. “As his supplicant? I bow to your expertise in wielding the hiltless knife.” And she swept a jerky curtsy, her hands shaking. “Life! I didn’t mean that,” I said hastily. “Yes, I think I can see it’s a bad idea. All right, how’s this: You and I go out for a walk. Right now. You don’t even have to talk to me. But wouldn’t that shut up all the gossipmongers--leastwise pull the teeth of their gossip--if we seem to be on terms of amity, as if last night was just a very good joke?” Again her posture eased, from anger to wariness. “And in return?” “Nothing. I don’t need anything! Or what I need no one can give me, which is wisdom.” I thought of my mistakes and winced. Then said, “Just let things go back to the way they were, except you don’t have to think of me as an enemy. I’m not in love with Savona any more than he is with me, and I don’t see myself changing my mind. If I did, I don’t believe he’d like it,” I added, considering the elusive Duke. “No, I don’t think I could fall in love with him, handsome though he is, because I don’t accept any of that huff he gives me about my great beauty and all that. I’d have to trust a man’s words before I could love him. I think.” She took a deep, slightly shaky breath. “Very well.” And so we went. It wasn’t a very comfortable walk. She hardly exchanged five words with me; and every single person who saw us stared then hastily recovered behind the remorselessly polite mask of the true courtier. It would have been funny if I had been an observer and not a participant, an idea that gave me a disconcerting insight into gossip. As I walked beside the silent Tamara, I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt. When we were done with a complete circuit of the gardens and had reached her house again, I said, “Well, that’s that. See you at the ball tonight, right?” She half put out a hand, then said, “Your brother’s wedding is nearing.” “Yes?” “Did you know it is customary for the nearest relation to give a party for the family that is adopting into yours?” I whistled. “No, I didn’t. And I could see how Nee would feel strange telling me. Well, I’m very grateful to you.” She curtsied. Again it was the deep one, petitioner to sovereign, but this time it was low and protracted and wordlessly sincere.

You’re really going to kick me out?” “Yes, I really am.” Mrs. Wattlesbrook folded her arms. Jane bit her lip and bent her head back to look at the sky. Funny that it looked so far away. It felt as if it were pressing down on her head, shoving her into the dirt. What a mean bully of a sky. Much of the household was present now. Miss Heartwright was huddled with the main actors, whispering, like rubberneckers shocked at a roadside accident but unable to look away. A couple of gardeners strolled up as well, tools in hand. Martin wiped his brow, confusion (sadness?) heavy on his face. Jane was embarrassed to see him, remembering how she’d ended things, and feeling less than appealing at the moment. The whole scene was rather Hester Prynne, and Jane imagined herself on a scaffold with a scarlet C for “cell phone” on her chest. She realized she was still holding her croquet mallet and wondered that no one felt threatened by her. She hefted it. Would it be fun to bash in a window? Nah. She handed it to Miss Charming. “Go get ‘em, Charming.” “Okay,” Miss Charming said uncertainly. “If you would be so kind as to step into the carriage,” said Mrs. Wattlesbrook. Curse the woman. Jane had just started to have such fun, too. Why didn’t one of the gentlemen come forward to defend her? Wasn’t that, like, their whole purpose of existence? She supposed they’d be fired if they did. The cowards. She stood on the carriage’s little step and turned to face the others. She’d never left a relationship with the last word, something poetic and timeless, triumphant amid her downfall. Oh, for a perfect line! She opened her mouth, hoping something just right would come to her, but Miss Heartwright spoke first. “Mrs. Wattlesbrook! Oh dear, I have only now realized what transpired.” She lifted the hem of her skirts and minced her way to the carriage. “Please wait, this is all my fault. Poor Miss Erstwhile was only doing me a favor. You see, the modern contraption was mine. I did not realize I had it until I arrived, and I was so distressed, Miss Erstwhile kindly offered to keep it for me among her own things where I would not have to look upon it.” Jane stood very still. She thought to wonder what instinct made her body rigid when shocked. Was she prey by nature? A rabbit afraid to move when a hawk wheels overhead? Mrs. Wattlesbrook had not moved either, not even to blink. A silent minute limped forward as everyone waited. “I see,” the proprietress said at last. She looked at Jane, at Miss Heartwright, then fumbled with the keys at her side. “Well, now, ahem, since it was an accident, I think we should forget it ever happened. I do hope, Miss Heartwright, that you will continue to honor us with your presence.” Ah, you old witch, Jane thought. “Yes, of course, thank you.” Miss Heartwright was in her best form, all proper feminine concern, artless and pleasant. Her eyes twinkled. They really did. Everyone began to move off, nothing disturbing left to view. Jane caught a glimpse of Martin smiling, pleased, before he turned away. “I’m so sorry, Jane. I do hope you will forgive me.” “Please don’t mention it, Miss Heartwright.” “Amelia.” She held Jane’s hand to help her descend from the carriage. “You must call me Amelia now.” “Thank you, Amelia.” It was such a sisterly moment, Jane thought they might actually embrace. They didn’t.

Why do you always garden at the night? I mean, isn’t it a day job? Oh I wish I could. The thing is every time my wife sings in bed; I go out to garden so my neighbors don’t get the idea that I indulge in domestic violence.

Meredith Etherington-Smith Meredith Etherington-Smith became an editor of Paris Vogue in London and GQ magazine in the United States during the 1970s. During the 1980s, she served as deputy and features editor of Harpers & Queen magazine and has since become a leading art critic. Currently, she is editor in chief of Christie’s magazine. She is also a noted artist biographer; her book on Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, was an international bestseller and was translated into a dozen languages. Her drawing room that morning was much like any comfortable, slightly formal drawing room to be found in country houses throughout England: the paintings, hung on pale yellow walls, were better; the furniture, chintz-covered; the flowers, natural garden bouquets. It was charming. And so was she, as she swooped in from a room beyond. I had never seen pictures of her without any makeup, with just-washed hair and dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt. She looked more vital, more beautiful, than any photograph had ever managed to convey. She was, in a word, staggering; here was the most famous woman in the world up close, relaxed, funny, and warm. The tragic Diana, the royal Diana, the wronged Diana: a clever, interesting person who wasn’t afraid to say she didn’t know how an auction sale worked, and would it be possible to work with me on it? “Of course, ma’am,” I said. “It’s your sale, and if you would like, then we’ll work on it together to make the most money we can for your charities.” “So what do we do next?” she asked me. “First, I think you had better choose the clothes for sale.” The next time I saw her drawing room, Paul Burrell, her butler, had wheeled in rack after rack of jeweled, sequined, embroidered, and lacy dresses, almost all of which I recognized from photographs of the Princess at some state event or gala evening. The visible relics of a royal life that had ended. The Princess, in another pair of immaculately pressed jeans and a stripy shirt, looked so different from these formal meringues that it was almost laughable. I think at that point the germ of an idea entered my mind: that sometime, when I had gotten to know her better and she trusted me, I would like to see photographs of the “new” Princess Diana--a modern woman unencumbered by the protocol of royal dress. Eventually, this idea led to putting together the suite of pictures of this sea-change princess with Mario Testino. I didn’t want her to wear jewels; I wanted virtually no makeup and completely natural hair. “But Meredith, I always have people do my hair and makeup,” she explained. “Yes ma’am, but I think it is time for a change--I want Mario to capture your speed, and electricity, the real you and not the Princess.” She laughed and agreed, but she did turn up at the historic shoot laden with her turquoise leather jewel boxes. We never opened them. Hair and makeup took ten minutes, and she came out of the dressing room looking breathtaking. The pictures are famous now; they caused a sensation at the time. My favorite memory of Princess Diana is when I brought the work prints round to Kensington Palace for her to look at. She was so keen to see them that she raced down the stairs and grabbed them. She went silent for a moment or two as she looked at these vivid, radiant images. Then she turned to me and said, “But these are really me. I’ve been set free and these show it. Don’t you think,” she asked me, “that I look a bit like Marilyn Monroe in some of them?” And laughed.

William asked Diana if she’d seen the portrait of the Queen in yesterday’s papers. “Her hands looked like she’d been in the garden all day; they were all big and dirty,” he laughed. Diana giggled instinctively, then stopped herself. “William, please, don’t say that.” “Sorry, Mummy, but it’s true: Granny did look really funny.” Granny. How odd it sounded. “Can I have some wine, Mummy?” “No, William! Whatever are you thinking?” “But Mummy, I drink it all the time.” “Erm, no, you don’t actually, and, well, you can’t have any.” “Yes, I can,” he replied with a mischievous but determined grin. And he did. A small but interesting piece of power play to observe. William knew what he wanted, and Diana was a soft touch with her boys. —Piers Morgan

He had been shuffled out so quickly he didn’t even realize what he was wearing, like a King of Spades who wanted to file a complaint to the playing card company manufacturer for not drawing him a garden tool like he specifically asked for.

This is how a great short piece of comedy works: The reader feels as though the writer is taking them on a leisurely stroll along a simple garden path, parasol in hand, and in a careful and measured way, pointing out all the funny and wonderful things in this hilarious comedy world. Showing them too much, or veering off the path by introducing concepts unrelated to your title, or racing through, introducing hard-to-understand concepts too quickly, you’ll give the reader more than they bargained for. They’ll get scared and abandon the journey.

You think about having sex with me while you murder people?” I clarified as we returned to the market. The Baroness shrugged. “Between tasks, yes. I spent over an hour stalking a young lord around Serin, so I had little else to think about.” “I see,” I muttered. “And what happened?” “You pinned me on my knees like the first time you fucked me at the Oculus, and every time I moaned for more, you choked me a little tighter. It was fantastic.” My eyebrows shot up as I quickly glanced around. “Okay, I meant what happened after you stalked the lord, but good to know I need to choke you more often.” “Oh,” the Baroness chuckled. “I killed him, of course. The poor man took an unexpected fall into the canal, and it didn’t seem to matter how much I prodded him with a post, he just stayed beneath the surface until there was nothing to be done.” “Fucking hell,” I snorted a I steered us to a less crowded part of the lane. “What did he do to deserve that?” “I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the man who paid me to do it,” Nulena sighed. “I was too annoyed during our meeting because he kept staring at my breasts every three seconds. So, I decided to go back and kill him once I finished with the lord. He certainly wasn’t staring at my breasts after I gouged his eyes out with a broken ink bottle and shoved a letter opener through his neck.” I took a steadying breath while I tried not to envision any of this. “Well, I’m glad you had a nice time at work.” “I did,” Nulena purred as she sent me a glittering smile. “Not the most satisfying endeavors, but I’m making do with what I have. The best part is the ink bottle man owned seven of the markets in Serin, and no one will find where I hung his body for at least three days. Shipments will be missed, wages will be disrupted, and we can only hope lives are lost over an inheritance battle. The filthy swine had eleven children. Can you believe the gall of him? I did find a moment to steal several nice things for Deya from a line of carriages at the castle, though, and only two footmen died in the process.” “That’s sweet,” I chuckled. “Out of curiosity, where did you hang the ink man’s body?” Nulena sent me a devious grin as we crossed my bridge. “At the sacred garden of the gods, of course. Right above the ceremonial altar.” “Nulena,” I groaned. “Come on, it’s funny!” the Baroness laughed. “The next ritual gathering is in three days, and thanks to me, it will be supremely uncomfortable.” “Alright, but don’t be surprised if the gods end up smiting you for this one,” I mumbled

I COME BEFORE DAWN Muhammad says, “I come before dawn to chain you and drag you off.” It’s amazing, and funny, that you have to be pulled away from being tortured, pulled out into this Spring garden, but that’s the way it is. Almost everyone must be bound and dragged here. Only a few come on their own. Children have to be made to go to school at first. Then some of them begin to like it. They run to school. They expand with the learning. Later, they receive money because of something they’ve learned at school, and they get really excited. They stay up all night, as watchful and alive as thieves! Remember the rewards you get for being obedient! There are two types on the path. Those who come against their will, the blindly religious people, and those who obey out of love. The former have ulterior motives. They want the midwife near, because she gives them milk. The others love the beauty of the nurse. The former memorize the prooftexts of conformity, and repeat them. The latter disappear into whatever draws them to God. Both are drawn from the source. Any movings from the mover. Any love from the beloved.

Education was still considered a privilege in England. At Oxford you took responsibility for your efforts and for your performance. No one coddled, and no one uproariously encouraged. British respect for the individual, both learner and teacher, reigned. If you wanted to learn, you applied yourself and did it. Grades were posted publicly by your name after exams. People failed regularly. These realities never ceased to bewilder those used to “democracy” without any of the responsibility. For me, however, my expectations were rattled in another way. I arrived anticipating to be snubbed by a culture of privilege, but when looked at from a British angle, I actually found North American students owned a far greater sense of entitlement when it came to a college education. I did not realize just how much expectations fetter—these “mind-forged manacles,”2 as Blake wrote. Oxford upholds something larger than self as a reference point, embedded in the deep respect for all that a community of learning entails. At my very first tutorial, for instance, an American student entered wearing a baseball cap on backward. The professor quietly asked him to remove it. The student froze, stunned. In the United States such a request would be fodder for a laundry list of wrongs done against the student, followed by threatening the teacher’s job and suing the university. But Oxford sits unruffled: if you don’t like it, you can simply leave. A handy formula since, of course, no one wants to leave. “No caps in my classroom,” the professor repeated, adding, “Men and women have died for your education.” Instead of being disgruntled, the student nodded thoughtfully as he removed his hat and joined us. With its expanses of beautiful architecture, quads (or walled lawns) spilling into lush gardens, mist rising from rivers, cows lowing in meadows, spires reaching high into skies, Oxford remained unapologetically absolute. And did I mention? Practically every college within the university has its own pub. Pubs, as I came to learn, represented far more for the Brits than merely a place where alcohol was served. They were important gathering places, overflowing with good conversation over comforting food: vital humming hubs of community in communication. So faced with a thousand-year-old institution, I learned to pick my battles. Rather than resist, for instance, the archaic book-ordering system in the Bodleian Library with technological mortification, I discovered the treasure in embracing its seeming quirkiness. Often, when the wrong book came up from the annals after my order, I found it to be right in some way after all. Oxford often works such. After one particularly serendipitous day of research, I asked Robert, the usual morning porter on duty at the Bodleian Library, about the lack of any kind of sophisticated security system, especially in one of the world’s most famous libraries. The Bodleian was not a loaning library, though you were allowed to work freely amid priceless artifacts. Individual college libraries entrusted you to simply sign a book out and then return it when you were done. “It’s funny; Americans ask me about that all the time,” Robert said as he stirred his tea. “But then again, they’re not used to having u in honour,” he said with a shrug.

It still seemed a bit funny to me that we stayed armed with garden tools. One would have thought we’d of come across weapons. Guns? Machetes? Harpoons? Anything. Guns had to be out there. It’s all that was in the news as of late. Civilians and their personal armory stashes. I loved my shovel, felt good in my hands, and now I had one of Josh’s hand shovels in my back pocket, too. Dave’s pitchfork was tough. He had Josh’s other hand shovel. And Allison seemed to have mastered the multitude of hedge clipper uses. We must have resembled crazed farmers scampering between trees and out into the back parking lot of the Distillery.

You want to hear me tell a funny and romantic story about us at a dinner party that you’ve heard a thousand times before. You want me to stop running the lawnmower and look over at you, hard at work in the garden—stained jeans; dirty hands; sweaty face—and hear me tell you that I love you, and that you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life, even though I’d said it just ten minutes before. “You want to hear these things again and again because they make you feel safe and cherished. And that’s something you only realize when those words aren’t spoken for a while. “So my repetition may appear to be a necessity, but it’s always genuine, always sincere. And I’ll never get tired of telling you. And I’ll never let you feel what it’s like to miss those words.

Ruby leaned in and kissed me. A big movie kiss that should have had swelling music and soft lighting and a torrential downpour. But it happened in a garden, in broad daylight, and then Oliver turned the hose on us. "Does that count as kissing in the rain?" Ruby asked. "Let's debate that after we murder him.

It looks like some... giant evil garden gnome. When garden gnomes go bad.” “Gnomes have beards,” I said. “Maybe the ones without beards are evil. That's how you can tell.

went back out to the garden at the side of the cottage where she grew vegetables: peas, beans, and cabbages. As she dug at the sturdy deep roots of a dock leaf, her hens saw her, and came rushing up from the shoreline. They scratched companionably, looking for worms and little insects in the turned earth, clucking contentedly at Alinor, and she scolded them gently. “You go down to the shore, don’t you scrape up my plants.” One copper-brown hen pecked up a little worm and made a funny grunting noise of appreciation.

Are you mad?” Briar gasped. “I’m not going to marry either of you!” She shook her head frantically. “I have no plans to marry in the immediate future. I most certainly will not limit my prospects to… to… Well, I’m sorry Percy, but…” “Me?” Percy retorted. He pointed across the carriage. “What about him? He’s a gardener! You can’t tell me you prefer him to me.” “Neither of us are ideal suitors,” Wren said firmly. “I am sure on that Percy and I can agree.” “Well, I certainly—” Percy began, only to be silenced by a glare from Wren. He pursed his lips. “But yer prospects, I’m afraid, Lady Briar, are limited to the men in this carriage. Or I suppose ye could extend yer field of choice to the men riding with us. Though some are sure to be married already. Angus, for one.” “Angus!” Briar exclaimed. “I have no wish to marry Mr. Macleod, thank you very much. Not that he isn’t a good man in his way, I’m sure,” she added hastily. “Oh, yes,” Percy said dryly. “He has only kidnapped you and Mr. Spencer here, then gone back on his word to me. He’s sure to make you a wonderful husband.” “Shut up, Percy,” Briar snapped. “I am not taking a husband.” “Ye shall, and ye must,” Wren said tersely. “It’s no’ a matter of wanting or no’ wanting. Ye’ve been placed in a terrible position, Lady Briar. What would yer brother say?” “He’d likely just shoot first and talk later,” Briar said sweetly. “And in this case, I might not blame him. I have reached the point in our journey where I should like nothing more than to be taken back home. Preferably immediately.

the white tents. 17. Two views of The Wild West in Paris, igo5. Colonel Cody, a Hawkeye by birth, is personally lionized by the Parisians, and his unique exhibition, so full of historical and dramatic interest, made a wonderful impression upon the susceptible French public. The twenty lessons I took in French, at the Berlitz School of Languages, London, only gave me a faint idea of what the language was like, but as I was required to make my lectures and announcements in French, I had my speeches translated, and was coached in their delivery by Monsieur Corthesy, editeur, le journal de Londres. Well, I got along pretty fair, considering that I did not know the meaning of half the words I was saying. Anyway it amused them, so I was satisfied. I honestly believe that more people came in the side show in Paris to hear and laugh at my "rotten" French than anything else, and when I found that a certain word or expression excited their risibilities, I never changed it. I can look back now and see where some of my own literal translations were very funny. Colonel Cody's exhibition is unique in many ways, and might justly be termed a polyglot school, no less than twelve distinct languages being spoken in the camp, viz.: Japanese, Russian, French, Arabic, Greek, Hungarian, German, Italian, Spanish, Holland, Flemish, Chinese, Sioux and English. Being in such close contact every day, we were bound to get some idea of each other's tongue, and all acquire a fair idea of English. Colonel Cody is, therefore, entitled to considerable credit for disseminating English, and thus preserving the entente cordiale between nations. 18. Entrance to the Wild West, Champs de Mars, Paris, Igo5. The first place of public interest that we visited in Paris was the Jardin des Plantes (botanical and zoological garden) and le Musee d'Histoire Naturelle. The zoological collection would suffer in comparison with several in America I might mention, but the Natural History Museum is very complete, and is, to my notion, the most artistically arranged of any museum I have visited. Le Palais du Trocadero, which was in sight of our grounds and facing the

It was a civics lesson which cities across the northern tier of the country would all learn in similar fashion. Dzink and his Polish supporters had, in good American fashion, convinced their elected representatives of the justice of their cause, only to have the federal government countermand their efforts with a combination of black intelligence operations directed against American citizens and overwhelming military force. The government’s actions in the Sojourner Truth case would also establish a precedent in both housing and racial matters for the post-war period. Whenever blacks claimed discrimination, they could be sure of the federal government’s concern. Whenever the Catholic ethnics would claim that their neighborhoods were being targeted for destruction, they were written off as racists suffering from paranoid delusion. No matter how much clout the ethnics could muster locally, it could always be countered by some judge, appealing to higher moral principles. The same was true of Poles in Detroit, where “vested powers might have considered Polish Detroiters and neighborhood brokers expendable.” One year later when the worst race riot in the history of the country broke out in Detroit, the Poles again were blamed, but with the experience of Sojourner Truth behind them, Detroit’s residents were skeptical. “After the street battles of 1943,” Capeci writes, “Conant Gardens residents remembered ‘something funny’ about the 1942 housing controversy, something phoney that seemed to come from outside the neighborhood.” Residents of Chicago would soon notice the same thing.

Keep calm and garden on! -Oliver

Being in a garden makes we want to dance! -Laney

The member of Abou el Heiloukh has remained erect for thirty days without a break, because he did eat onions

Funny thing about those Middle Ages,” said Joseph. “They just keep coming back. Mortals keep thinking they’re in Modern Times, you know, they get all this neat technology and pass all these humanitarian laws, and then something happens: there’s an economic crisis, or science makes some discovery people can’t deal with. And boom, people go right back to burning Jews and selling pieces of the true Cross.

You mean you have to pay money to go in these old places?" marveled Michael. "Of course," said Jo Dee. "That's how they help pay for the restoration of the houses, silly." "Let's go," Brian said. "I know a shortcut." He turned quickly and led them through the backyard past an old stone well, the kitchen building, a gnarled scuppernong grapevine that looked as if it were as old as the house itself, the herb garden, and a small outbuilding. "Maybe the head's in here," Michael said, giving the door a shove. Jo Dee and Brian laughed. "Why don't you see?" said Brian in an I-dare-you voice. "Ok," Michael said bravely, shoving the door open as the others snickered louder. He pranced inside, then turned around in the doorway and shrugged his shoulders. "There's nothing in here but three dumb holes in a long board." Jo Dee and Brian burst into laughter. Michele joined them in spite of herself. Michael's tiny brown freckles were turning pink. "They're small, medium and large—kind of like for the three bears," he said, his face growing redder with a combination of confused anger and embarrassment. Now the others were falling on the grass giggling. "What's so funny?" Michael demanded. "Can't you even guess what that building is for?" Brian asked. "It's the necessary house," Jo Dee hinted. "Necessary for what?" Michael said, coming back down the steps. "For something very necessary!" Brian said. Michael looked totally confused, his face puckered like a little pink prune. Michele figured he'd had all the teasing he could take for one morning. "This was their bathroom!" she told him. Michael's mouth fell open. "You mean outside? Out here? And they sat on . . . oh, brother!

She had those funny, little toes. She has small feet in which she walks on the path, next to the garden.

Unfortunately, Beck and Adrian weren’t allowed to sleep, either. Maybe two minutes after they’d snuggled into each other, and Adrian was about to get his nap on, there was a relentless pounding on Beck’s door. Beck grabbed something and threw it at the door. Not the lube, Adrian hoped. Whatever it was made a satisfactory thud. “Go the fuck away," Beck bellowed. “What the hell is going on in there? Half the frat is complaining you woke them up. The other half is bitching that you’re having way too much fun and it’s rude to not share with everyone.” Adrian recognized the voice. It was Travis, the frat President, and he sounded super butthurt. “No sharing,” Beck bellowed. “Get your own twink.” “What?” Travis yelled back. Beck got out of bed and flung open the door. On the other side was Travis, and behind him was an assortment of other brothers. Most of them Adrian knew by sight but couldn’t put names to the faces. “Go away,” Beck snarled at Travis. “You’re harshing my afterglow.” “You’re naked,” Travis pointed out. He seemed confused as he looked over Beck’s shoulder and saw Adrian in Beck’s bed. Adrian gave Travis a little wave with his fingers. “And there’s a dude in your bed.” “Thank you, Captain Observation. Go. Away.” “But you’re not gay.” Travis glanced at some of the brothers who stood behind him like he was searching for moral support. “Right?” “None of your fucking business. In future, we’ll try to keep down the noise. I think I need to muzzle the kid. Or maybe just keep my dick in his mouth.” Adrian grinned. He had no idea how long Beck’s attraction would last, but he decided he was gonna ride that gravy train as long as possible. “But then you couldn’t fuck my tight ass, Daddy,” he called out. The brothers outside the room looked shocked, like they were a bunch of middle-aged white women who’d been shown porn for the first time. It was fucking hilarious and Adrian couldn’t help but giggle. Beck turned back to him. “This is true, and your ass is very fine. Ball gag it is.” He turned back to Travis. “Does a ball gag work for you?” “I… what?” Travis’ voice had gone weak and plaintive. It was clear he no longer wished to be a part of the conversation. “A. Ball. Gag. Used for stifling the noises made by twinks who are apparently screamers. I had no idea the kid was gonna be a screamer, Travis. Hell, I had no idea he was hiding in my bathroom, spying on me. But thanks to that glory hole bullshit, I did know that the kid could suck a golf ball through a garden hose and that’s not a skill I think should go to waste. So he’s mine now. He’s gonna move his shit out of the basement and into my room. And he’s mine, you get me? No one lays even the tiniest finger on him. Fuck. Don’t even look at him cross-eyed. Mine. Get your own twinks.

The beauty isn’t in the jewel itself, but in the way the light shines through it. Emmy, on the other hand, was a cutie, with a thick mop of curls just like Little Orphan Annie in the funny papers, and we all loved her. “I’m happy they’ve fed you,” Mrs. Frost said. “You have a very busy day ahead.” I reached out to tickle Emmy. She stepped back, giggling. I looked up at her mother and shook my head sadly. “Mr. Volz told me. I’m working Bledsoe’s hayfields.” “You were going to work for Mr. Bledsoe. I’ve managed to get your assignment changed. You’ll be working for me today. You and Albert and Moses. My garden and orchard need seeing to. Mr. Brickman just gave me approval to use all three of you. Finish your breakfast and we’ll be off.” I gulped down what was left and took my bowl to the kitchen, where I explained to Mr. Volz what was up. He followed me back to the table. “You got Brickman to change his mind?” the German said, clearly impressed. “A little flutter of the eyelashes, Mr. Volz, and that man melts like butter on a griddle.” Which might have been true if she’d been a beauty. I