Leon The Professional Quotes

Johann Clement watched the blows fall. First there had been wild talk and then printed accusations and insinuations. Then came a boycott of Jewish business and professional people, then the public humiliations: beatings and beard pullings. Then came the night terror of the Brown Shirts. Then came the concentration camps. Gestapo, SS, SD, KRIPO, RSHA. Soon every family in Germany was under Nazi scrutiny, and the grip of tyranny tightened until the last croak of defiance strangled and died.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—Following the company’s announcement that it would discontinue public sales of the wearable technology, Google officials confirmed Monday that all unsold units of Google Glass would be donated to underprivileged assholes in Africa. “We are committed to positively impacting the lives of poverty-stricken smug pricks by distributing the surplus inventory of Google Glass to self-important fucks throughout sub-Saharan Africa,” a statement released by the company read in part, adding that the program will provide the optical head-mounted technology, as well as professional training sessions, to destitute communities of conceited dicks from Sierra Leone, to Somalia, to Botswana. “This gesture will help tens of thousands of poor and needy men, women, and children across the continent who have never had the opportunity to walk around looking like a pompous jackass all day long. From the moment they turn on their new Google Glass in clear view of others, they’ll immediately start experiencing the undeserved sense of superiority currently lacking in their lives.” At press time, Google confirmed that the first devices had been presented to an indigent family of complete fucking jerkoffs from the Republic of Guinea.

Flotsam Some people figuratively, although sometimes literately, washed up on the barren beaches of West Africa because they were unwelcome in most other countries. Adventurers, seamen, construction contractors, military mercenaries, as well as missionaries and professional government employees, found themselves here. Money was frequently the motivating factor for people who came to this third world country and most of the typical tropical tramps I knew were involved in the many unsavory activities going on. The dank weather which is usually heavy with moisture from May until October, with a short reprieve of a week or two in July or August, contributed to the bleak attitude people had. What passes for a dry season lasts from November through April with the least likely chance of rain in December and January. The frequent heavy showers and rainstorms make Liberia and Sierra Leone the wettest climatic region in Africa. One way or another, everyone was always wet…. This in turn attributed to the heavy drinking and it was said that if the moisture didn't come from the sky it certainly came from the pores... Generally speaking in West Africa near the Equator the climate is tropical, hot and humid all year round! There were numerous meeting places or drinking holes for the expats. Guaranteed, there was no way any of us would be able to survive the conditions of West Africa without occasionally imbibing, which in reality we did constantly. The most popular bars for Europeans, which in Liberia included Americans, were run by foreigners to the country and these included the more upscale American Hotel and the old Ducor Hotel, near the Cape Mesurado Lighthouse on Mamba Point.

Leon Theremin. He’d invented it in 1920, and by 1927 he was barnstorming through Europe with his electrical marvel, leaving a trail of headlines and press hysteria—“the greatest musical wonder of our time.”13 Theremin sailed for New York later that year, mesmerizing capacity audiences who thought he was a magician, conjuring music from the air with nothing but his hands. At the same time, the strange electrical voice was unlike anything people had ever heard. The instrument came to be known simply as “the theremin,” and a handful of musicians—amateur and professional—took it up seriously.

To Isabella, Leon was only a good friend providing a fringe benefit, like a company car or expense account. The arrangement between Leon and Isabella had comfortably (at least in her professional opinion as a lawyer) developed into one where she, always the workaholic with no time for serious relationships, had chosen him as her “love” interest. Despite Leon a few pay grades lower, she did found him fit and proper to share body fluids with from time to time. She found him an amusing toy, like a mouse where she was the cat, glutted with food that just wanted to play and not necessarily wanting to kill her prey.

[...] One chief difference between the medieval "scientist" and the scientist of to-day[1948] lies in the nature of the first principles accepted and in the attitude adopted toward them. The modern scientist has seen the breakdown of too many first principles to accept any as eternal truths. He proceeds inductively, building up slowly on the basis of observed facts. His attitude to his own (or at least to his brother's scientist) first principles is one of hesitation, even suspicion. He looks on them as "working hypotheses" to be modified or changed in the light of further experience. The older scientist, although he too realized that his function wa to explain facts, closed the door on fresh evidence too soon. The modern, at least in theory, keeps it always open. But there is a further and perhaps more interesting difference between them. The medieval thinker aimed at comprehensiveness. he seems not to be satisfied with anything short of the whole. The modern thinker is more modest and seeks the key not to the universe but to one group of facts within it. He likes to break problems up and resolve them bit by bit. He is not interested (that is professionally speaking) in the world as a whole, but only in one small corner of it. Herein lies the traditional distinction between "science" and "philosophy." both science and philosophy try to discover principles and interpret detail in their light; but whereas science tries to clear up small areas of the world, philosophy aims at the world as a whole. it stands in relation to the various sciences much as each science stands in relation to the various sciences much as each science stands in relation to its particular subject-matter. It is the science which seeks to reduce to the scientific unity and order the results of the various sciences. [...]

He had learned over the years that most professional and social situations were pretty much like water on uneven ground: sooner or later, they would work themselves level. People, over time, generally decided who was the Alpha and who the Beta. Higher rank sometimes helped with the determination, but not always.