Mens Day Funny Quotes

Most men would no longer enjoy conversing with most women if they stopped bringing their vaginas along.

That’s the funny thing,” she said. “Men always want to die for something. For someone. I can see the appeal. You do it once and it’s done. No more worrying, not knowing, about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I know you all think it sounds brave, but I’ll tell you something even braver. To struggle and fight for the ones you love today. And then do it all over again the next day. Every day. For your whole life. It’s not as romantic, I admit. But it takes a lot of courage to live for someone, too.

And of course she had studied the civilization that had immediately preceded her own - the civilization that had mistaken the functions of the system, and had used it for bringing people to things, instead of for bringing things to people. Those funny old days, when men went for change of air instead of changing the air in their rooms!

Among other possibilities, money was invented to make it possible for a foolish man to control wise men; a weak man, strong men; a child, old men; an ignorant man, knowledgeable men; and for a dwarf to control giants.

Millions of business people are each constantly forced to choose between their desire to not be a bad person and their desire to be a good business person, that is to say, to make as much money as they possibly can by maximizing their revenue while minimizing the cost of producing whatever it is that they sell.

I’m fifteen and I feel like girl my age are under a lot of pressure that boys are not under. I know I am smart, I know I am kind and funny, and I know that everyone around me keeps telling me that I can be whatever I want to be. I know all this but I just don’t feel that way. I always feel like if I don’t look a certain way, if boys don’t think I’m ‘sexy’ or ‘hot’ then I’ve failed and it doesn’t even matter if I am a doctor or writer, I’ll still feel like nothing. I hate that I feel like that because it makes me seem shallow, but I know all of my friends feel like that, and even my little sister. I feel like successful women are only considered a success if they are successful AND hot, and I worry constantly that I won’t be. What if my boobs don’t grow, what if I don’t have the perfect body, what if my hips don’t widen and give me a little waist, if none of that happens I feel like what’s the point of doing anything because I’ll just be the ‘fat ugly girl’ regardless of whether I do become a doctor or not. I wish people would think about what pressure they are putting on everyone, not just teenage girls, but even older people – I watch my mum tear herself apart every day because her boobs are sagging and her skin is wrinkling, she feels like she is ugly even though she is amazing, but then I feel like I can’t judge because I do the same to myself. I wish the people who had real power and control the images and messages we get fed all day actually thought about what they did for once. I know the girls on page 3 are probably starving themselves. I know the girls in adverts are airbrushed. I know beauty is on the inside. But I still feel like I’m not good enough.

Those funny old days, when men went for change of air instead of changing the air in their rooms! And

Just like how most if not all poor boys look up to and aspire to someday be rich men, most if not all underdeveloped and developing countries look up to and aspire to someday be developed countries.

When selecting a one-night stand, a heterosexual woman who is materialistic is a trillion times more likely to choose a sexually unattractive poor man who seems rich over a sexually attractive rich man who seems poor.

To ask a man whether or not he has a girlfriend is to talk about his sex life. If you disagree with that, then how in the name of God do you differentiate between a man’s girlfriend and a girl that is a friend to the man?

Some men’s chests are more buttlike than some women’s butts.

It was a still night, tinted with the promise of dawn. A crescent moon was just setting. Ankh-Morpork, largest city in the lands around the Circle Sea, slept. That statement is not really true On the one hand, those parts of the city which normally concerned themselves with, for example, selling vegetables, shoeing horses, carving exquisite small jade ornaments, changing money and making tables, on the whole, slept. Unless they had insomnia. Or had got up in the night, as it might be, to go to the lavatory. On the other hand, many of the less law-abiding citizens were wide awake and, for instance, climbing through windows that didn’t belong to them, slitting throats, mugging one another, listening to loud music in smoky cellars and generally having a lot more fun. But most of the animals were asleep, except for the rats. And the bats, too, of course. As far as the insects were concerned… The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh some legislation was passed in a determined attempt to put a stop to this sort of thing and introduce some honesty into reporting. Thus, if a legend said of a notable hero that “all men spoke of his prowess” any bard who valued his life would add hastily “except for a couple of people in his home village who thought he was a liar, and quite a lot of other people who had never really heard of him.” Poetic simile was strictly limited to statements like “his mighty steed was as fleet as the wind on a fairly calm day, say about Force Three,” and any loose talk about a beloved having a face that launched a thousand ships would have to be backed by evidence that the object of desire did indeed look like a bottle of champagne.

Some people would have killed themselves and/or someone else if they were single; and some people would not have done that.

Men come and go. Husbands stay.

Four times during the first six days they were assembled and briefed and then sent back. Once, they took off and were flying in formation when the control tower summoned them down. The more it rained, the worse they suffered. The worse they suffered, the more they prayed that it would continue raining. All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars. All through the day, they looked at the bomb line on the big, wobbling easel map of Italy that blew over in the wind and was dragged in under the awning of the intelligence tent every time the rain began. The bomb line was a scarlet band of narrow satin ribbon that delineated the forward most position of the Allied ground forces in every sector of the Italian mainland. For hours they stared relentlessly at the scarlet ribbon on the map and hated it because it would not move up high enough to encompass the city. When night fell, they congregated in the darkness with flashlights, continuing their macabre vigil at the bomb line in brooding entreaty as though hoping to move the ribbon up by the collective weight of their sullen prayers. "I really can't believe it," Clevinger exclaimed to Yossarian in a voice rising and falling in protest and wonder. "It's a complete reversion to primitive superstition. They're confusing cause and effect. It makes as much sense as knocking on wood or crossing your fingers. They really believe that we wouldn't have to fly that mission tomorrow if someone would only tiptoe up to the map in the middle of the night and move the bomb line over Bologna. Can you imagine? You and I must be the only rational ones left." In the middle of the night Yossarian knocked on wood, crossed his fingers, and tiptoed out of his tent to move the bomb line up over Bologna.

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.

What happened?" Wyatt asked Crystal, and stood back so the two of them could come inside out of the oppressive heat. "Why are you asking her?" Reed thumped past him. "I'm the one on crutches." "She'll tell me the truth," Wyatt said. "You'll just give me some bullshit story that will end with 'You should see the other guy'." "You wound me, bro" [Reed] "He tore his ACL the day before yesterday trying to do a stunt on a skateboard." [Crystal] "Mendoza dared him." [Luke Colter] "No one held a gun to the fool's head" [Mendoza]

Did you want to change into something more comfortable?” Adrian asks with a raise in his eyebrows, breaking me out of my train of thought, but not away from naughty thoughts. I smack his knee. “I'm comfortable, but I know you're not.” He doesn't mind dressing up, but on most days I see him in casual clothes like screen-printed tees and hoodies. “You're right,” he says, tapping my knee lightly, standing up. As he walks toward the hallway, he slips his shirt off the rest of the way. I can't look away from the sight, even if it is only from the back. Damn. What is happening to me? Have I gone mad? Before I can tear my eyes away from him, he turns around. Judging by the look in his eyes, I've been caught. I have so been caught. Damn again. I didn't want him to see me practically drooling. It's too late for that now. He smirks. “You know, I could spend the rest of the night just like this.” He places a hand to the hard muscles of his chest. I clear my throat, trying really hard not to imagine my hand in place of his, and say, “If I'm wearing clothes, you're wearing clothes.” “So if I'm not wearing clothes...” I grab a coaster from the coffee table and fling it at him. He catches it in his hand. “Just remember, all you have to do is say otherwise.

As an unavoidable result of the inevitable loss of some physical and/or some mental abilities, many a man who has been alive for many years has become a boy again.

The sun is setting, Ona reminds us, and our light is fading. We should light the kerosene lamp. But what of your question? asks Greta. Should we consider asking the men to leave? None of us have ever asked the men for anything, Agatha states. Not a single thing, not even for the salt to be passed, not even for a penny or a moment alone or to take the washing in or to open a curtain or to go easy on the small yearlings or to put your hand on the small of my back as I try, again, for the twelfth or thirteenth time, to push a baby out of my body. Isn't it interesting, she says, that the one and only request the women would make of the men would be to leave? The women break out laughing again. They simply can't stop laughing, and if one of them stops for a moment she will quickly resume laughing with a loud burst, and off they'll all go again. It's not an option, says Agata, at last. No, the others (finally in complete accord!) agree. Asking the men to leave is not an option. Greta asks the women to imagine her team, Ruth and Cheryl (Agata yelps in exasperation at the mention of their names), requesting that Greta leave them alone for the day to graze in the field and do nothing. Imagine my hens, adds Agata, telling me to turn around and leave the premises when I show up to gather the eggs. Ona begs the women to stop making her laugh, she's afraid she'll go into premature labour. This makes them laugh harder! They even find it uproariously funny that I continue to write during all of this. Ona's laughter is the finest, the most exquisite sound in all of nature, filled with breath and promise, and the only sound she releases into the world that she doesn't also try to retrieve.

New Rule: Death isn’t always sad. This week, the Reverend Jerry Falwell died, and millions of Americans asked, “Why? Why, God? Why…didn’t you take Pat Robertson with him?” I don’t want to say Jerry was disliked by the gay community, but tonight in New York City, at exactly eight o’clock, Broadway theaters along the Great White Way turned their lights up for two minutes. I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I think we can make an exception, because speaking ill of the dead was kind of Jerry Falwell’s hobby. He’s the guy who said AIDS was God’s punishment for homosexuality and that 9/11 was brought on by pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, and the ACLU—or, as I like to call them, my studio audience. It was surreal watching people on the news praise Falwell, followed by a clip package of what he actually said—things like: "Homosexuals are part of a vile and satanic system that will be utterly annihilated." "If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being." "Feminists just need a man in the house." "There is no separation of church and state." And, of course, everyone’s favorite: "The purple Teletubby is gay." Jerry Falwell found out you could launder your hate through the cover of “God’s will”—he didn’t hate gays, God does. All Falwell’s power came from name-dropping God, and gay people should steal that trick. Don’t say you want something because it’s your right as a human being—say you want it because it’s your religion. Gay men have been going at things backward. Forget civil right, and just make gayness a religion. I mean, you’re kneeling anyway. And it’s easy to start a religion. Watch, I’ll do it for you. I had a vision last night. The Blessed Virgin Mary came to me—I don’t know how she got past the guards—and she told me it’s time to take the high ground from the Seventh-day Adventists and give it to the twenty-four-hour party people. And that what happens in the confessional stays in the confessional. Gay men, don’t say you’re life partners. Say you’re a nunnery of two. “We weren’t having sex,officer. I was performing a very private mass.Here in my car. I was letting my rod and my staff comfort him.” One can only hope that as Jerry Falwell now approaches the pearly gates, he is met there by God Himself, wearing a Fire Island muscle shirt and nut-hugger shorts, saying to Jerry in a mighty lisp, “I’m not talking to you.

One foot in Austria, the other in Italy, it’s funny how man defines borders. An imaginary line is all that is needed to split continents apart, to separate men and cultures, to spark wars and injustices—a line in pencil, drawn on some agreement or a peace treaty ages ago.

Torbert nodded. You and the sheriff goin to come down and get me off of death row? If we cant get you out we’ll get in there with you. You all dont be makin light of the dead thataway, Bell said. Wendell nodded. Yessir, he said. You’re right. I might be one myself some day.

I find that the more I define, the less I know. I spend my days trying to understand how words were used by men long dead, in order to draft a meaning that will suffice not just for our times but for the future.” He took my hands in his and stroked the scars, as if Lily was still imprinted in them. “The Dictionary is a history book, Esme. If it has taught me anything, it is that the way we conceive of things now will most certainly change. How will they change? Well, I can only hope and speculate, but I do know that your future will be different from the one your mother might have looked forward to at your age. If your new friends have something to teach you about it, I suggest you listen. But trust your judgement, Essy, about what ideas and experiences should be included, and what should not. I will always give you my opinion, if you ask for it, but you are a grown woman. While some would disagree, I believe it is your right to make your own choices, and I can’t insist on approving.” He brought my funny fingers to his lips and kissed them, then he held them to his cheek. It had the emotion of a farewell.

You know, it's funny. Talking about passion. Since we lost your dad, I've found passion with men, from time to time. But I'd give it all back for just a few more days with him. For just one more late-night talk. Passion never mattered very much to me. But that type of intimacy that we had? That was what I cherished.

Trying to assassinate the president should not be funny. It really shouldn't. It's not like I was cracking up when we read about Lincoln or JFK. But let's face it, they were real presidents. Gerald Ford ranks right up there with Millard Fillmore and Bush the First on the list of unexciting white men who have run this country, made their way into history books, and otherwise been human sleeping pills. If all the presidents had been television shows, Gerald Ford would probably have been a PBS fund drive. So I'd bet the fact that anyone would try to kill Gerald Ford, Gerald Rudolph Ford, was kind of hard to get excited about, even back in the day.

Anything Bunny wrote was bound to be alarmingly original, since he began with such odd working materials and managed to alter them further by his befuddled scrutiny, but the John Donne paper must have been the worst of all the bad papers he ever wrote (ironic, given that it was the only thing he ever wrote that saw print. After he disappeared, a journalist asked for an excerpt from the missing young scholar's work and Marion gave him a copy of it, a laboriously edited paragraph of which eventually found its way into People magazine). Somewhere, Bunny had heard that John Donne had been acquainted with Izaak Walton, and in some dim corridor of his mind this friendship grew larger and larger, until in his mind the two men were practically interchangeable. We never understood how this fatal connection had established itself: Henry blamed it on Men of Thought and Deed, but no one knew for sure. A week or two before the paper was due, he had started showing up in my room about two or three in the morning, looking as if he had just narrowly escaped some natural disaster, his tie askew and his eyes wild and rolling. 'Hello, hello,' he would say, stepping in, running both hands through his disordered hair. 'Hope I didn't wake you, don't mind if I cut on the lights, do you, ah, here we go, yes, yes…' He would turn on the lights and then pace back and forth for a while without taking off his coat, hands clasped behind his back, shaking his head. Finally he would stop dead in his tracks and say, with a desperate look in his eye: 'Metahemeralism. Tell me about it. Everything you know. I gotta know something about metahemeralism.' 'I'm sorry. I don't know what that is.' 'I don't either,' Bunny would say brokenly. 'Got to do with art or pastoralism or something. That's how I gotta tie together John Donne and Izaak Walton, see.' He would resume pacing. 'Donne. Walton. Metahemeralism. That's the problem as I see it.' 'Bunny, I don't think "metahemeralism" is even a word.' 'Sure it is. Comes from the Latin. Has to do with irony and the pastoral. Yeah. That's it. Painting or sculpture or something, maybe.' 'Is it in the dictionary?' 'Dunno. Don't know how to spell it. I mean' – he made a picture frame with his hands – 'the poet and the fisherman. Parfait. Boon companions. Out in the open spaces. Living the good life. Metahemeralism's gotta be the glue here, see?' And so it would go, for sometimes half an hour or more, with Bunny raving about fishing, and sonnets, and heaven knew what, until in the middle of his monologue he would be struck by a brilliant thought and bluster off as suddenly as he had descended. He finished the paper four days before the deadline and ran around showing it to everyone before he turned it in. 'This is a nice paper, Bun -,' Charles said cautiously. 'Thanks, thanks.' 'But don't you think you ought to mention John Donne more often? Wasn't that your assignment?' 'Oh, Donne,' Bunny had said scoffingly. 'I don't want to drag him into this.' Henry refused to read it. 'I'm sure it's over my head, Bunny, really,' he said, glancing over the first page. 'Say, what's wrong with this type?' 'Triple-spaced it,' said Bunny proudly. 'These lines are about an inch apart.' 'Looks kind of like free verse, doesn't it?' Henry made a funny little snorting noise through his nose. 'Looks kind of like a menu,' he said. All I remember about the paper was that it ended with the sentence 'And as we leave Donne and Walton on the shores of Metahemeralism, we wave a fond farewell to those famous chums of yore.' We wondered if he would fail.

It was so funny, I witnessed this with my own eyes, Andy and the screw were like two WWF wrestlers, we were locked behind the grill gates cheering Andy on, the chants started. The chant was to the tune of Jingle Bells and went like this: Stab a screw, stab a screw, stab a screw today, all that fun it is to stab a screw on New Year’s Day, but it was only 29 December.

From then on, right up to this day, I fear that I walk funny, in other words, that I walk like a woman. When I find myself walking at my own pace, I almost immediately slow down. And I learned what men do not do. They do not wet their dry lips by running their tongues over them. They don’t trot after their mothers into the kitchen. They don’t use face powder. They don’t sit on a motorbike behind a woman. They don’t need mirrors in the rooms where they might change their clothes. On trips, they can go behind a tree. They don’t even need an enclosed space to take a dump; they can do it in the open. They shouldn’t be afraid of other people seeing their bodies. If there’s only one bathroom, they can bathe in the open. When caned in class, they do not cry. They do not buy tamarind from the lady who sells it on the road and they certainly do not sit by her side and eat it.

He got into the tub and ran a little cold water. Then he lowered his thin, hairy body into the just-right warmth and stared at the interstices between the tiles. Sadness--he had experienced that emotion ten thousand times. As exhalation is to inhalation, he thought of it as the return from each thrust of happiness. Lazily soaping himself, he gave examples. When he was five and Irwin eight, their father had breezed into town with a snowstorm and come to see them where they lived with their grandparents in the small Connecticut city. Their father had been a vagabond salesman and was considered a bum by people who should know. But he had come into the closed, heated house with all the gimcrack and untouchable junk behind glass and he had smelled of cold air and had had snow in his curly black hair. He had raved about the world he lived in, while the old people, his father and mother, had clucked sadly in the shadows. And then he had wakened the boys in the night and forced them out into the yard to worship the swirling wet flakes, to dance around with their hands joined, shrieking at the snow-laden branches. Later, they had gone in to sleep with hearts slowly returning to bearable beatings. Great flowering things had opened and closed in Norman's head, and the resonance of the wild man's voice had squeezed a sweet, tart juice through his heart. But then he had wakened to a gray day with his father gone and the world walking gingerly over the somber crust of dead-looking snow. It had taken him some time to get back to his usual equanimity. He slid down in the warm, foamy water until just his face and his knobby white knees were exposed. Once he had read Wuthering Heights over a weekend and gone to school susceptible to any heroine, only to have the girl who sat in front of him, whom he had admired for some months, emit a loud fart which had murdered him in a small way and kept him from speaking a word to anyone the whole week following. He had laughed at a very funny joke about a Negro when Irwin told it at a party, and then the following day had seen some white men lightly kicking a Negro man in the pants, and temporarily he had questioned laughter altogether. He had gone to several universities with the vague exaltation of Old Man Axelrod and had found only curves and credits. He had become drunk on the idea of God and found only theology. He had risen several times on the subtle and powerful wings of lust, expectant of magnificence, achieving only discharge. A few times he had extended friendship with palpitating hope, only to find that no one quite knew what he had in mind. His solitude now was the result of his metabolism, that constant breathing in of joy and exhalation of sadness. He had come to take shallower breaths, and the two had become mercifully mixed into melancholy contentment. He wondered how pain would breach that low-level strength. "I'm a small man of definite limitations," he declared to himself, and relaxed in the admission.

We were always looking for the perfect man. Even those of us who were not signed up for the traditional, heteronormative experience were nevertheless fascinated with the anthropological, unicorn-like search for one. Married or single, we were either searching for him or trying to mold him from one we already had. This perfect specimen would consist of the following essential attributes: He shared his food and always ordered dessert. When we recommended a book, he bought it without needing a friend to second our suggestion first. He knew how to pack a diaper bag without being told. He was a Southern gentleman with a mother from the East Coast who fostered his quietly progressive sensibilities. He said “I love you” after 2.5 months. He didn’t get drunk. He knew how to do taxes. He never questioned our feminist ideals when we refused to squish bugs or change oil. He didn’t sit down to put on his shoes. He had enough money for retirement. He wished vehemently for male-hormonal birth control. He had a slight unease with the concept of women’s shaved vaginas, but not enough to take a stance one way or another. He thought Mindy Kaling was funny. He liked throw pillows. He didn’t care if we made more money than him. He liked women his own age. We were reasonable and irrational, cynical and naïve, but always, always on the hunt. Of course, this story isn’t about perfect men, but Ardie Valdez unfortunately didn’t know that yet when, the day after Desmond’s untimely death, Ardie’s phone lit up: a notification from her dating app.

THAT DAY, while we were in school, four men in a jeep came to visit Ghosh. They took him away as if he were a common criminal, his hands jacked up behind his back. They slapped him when he tried to protest. Hema learned this from W. W. Gonad, who told the men they were surely mistaken in taking away Missing’s surgeon. For his impertinence W.W. got a boot in his stomach. Hema refused to believe Ghosh was gone. She ran home, certain that she’d find him sunk into his armchair, his sockless feet up on the stool, reading a book. In anticipation of seeing him, in the certainty that he would be there, she was already furious with him. She burst through the front door of our bungalow. “Do you see how dangerous it is for us to associate with the General? What have I been telling you? You could get us all killed!” Whenever she came at him like that, all her cylinders firing, it was Ghosh’s habit to flourish an imaginary cape like a matador facing a charging bull. We found it funny, even if Hema never did. But the house was quiet. No matador. She went from room to room, the jingle of her anklets echoing in the hallways. She imagined Ghosh with his arm twisted behind his back, being punched in the face,

Shall we go," he said, "from the woods that all folk know, and the pleasant ways of the Land, to see a new thing, and be swept away by time?" And there was a murmur among the trolls, that hummed away through the forest and died out, as on Earth the sound of beetles going home. "Is it not to-day?" he said. "But there they call it to-day, yet none knows what it is: come back through the border again to look at it and it is gone. Time is raging there, like the dogs that stray over our frontier, barking, frightened and angry and wild to be home." "It is even so," said the trolls, though they did not know; but this was a troll whose words carried weight in the forest. "Let us keep to-day," said that weighty troll, "while we have it, and not be lured where to-day is too easily lost. For every time men lose it their hair grows whiter, their limbs grow weaker and their faces sadder, and they are nearer still to to-morrow." So gravely he spoke when he uttered that word "to-morrow" that the brown trolls were frightened. "What happens to-morrow?" one said. "They die," said the grizzled troll. "And the others dig in their earth and put them in, as I have seen them do, and then they go to Heaven, as I have heard them tell." And a shudder went through the trolls far over the floor of the forest. And Lurulu who had sat angry all this while to hear that weighty troll speak ill of Earth, where he would have them come, to astonish them with its quaintness, spoke now in defence of Heaven. "Heaven is a good place," he blurted hotly, though any tales he had heard of it were few. "All the blessed are there," the grizzled troll replied, "and it is full of angels. What chance would a troll have there? The angels would catch him, for they say on Earth that the angels all have wings; they would catch a troll and smack him forever and ever." And all the brown trolls in the forest wept.

I reach out and squeeze her hand, and remember everything we’ve lived through together. The normal things we endured as we grew from girls to women. The days in school where boys would line us up in order of our fuckability. The parties where it was normal to lie on top of a semi-conscious girl, do things to her, then call her a slut afterwards. A Christmas number-one song about a pregnant woman being stuffed into the boot of a car and driven off a bridge. Laughing when your male friends made rape jokes. Opening a newspaper and seeing the breasts of a girl who had only just turned legal, dressed in school uniform to make her look underage. Of the childhood films we grew up on, and loved, and knew all the words to, where, at the end, a girl would always get chosen for looking the prettiest compared to all the others. Reading magazines that told you to mirror men’s body language, and hum on their dick when you went down on them, that turned into books about how to get them to commit by not being yourself. Of size zero, and Atkins, and Five-Two, and cabbage soup, and juice cleanses and eat clean. Of pole-dancing lessons as a great way to get fit, and actually, if you want to be really cool, come to the actual strip club too. Of being sexually assaulted when you kissed someone on a dance floor and not thinking about it properly until you are twenty-seven and read a book about how maybe it was wrong. Of being jealous of your friend who got assaulted on the dance floor because why didn’t he pick you to assault? Boys not wanting to be with you unless you fuck them quickly. Boys not wanting to be with you because you fucked them too quickly. Being terrified to walk anywhere in the dark in case the worst thing happens to you, and so your male friend walks you home to keep you safe, and then comes into your bedroom and does the worst thing to you, and now, when you look him up online, he’s engaged to a woman who wears a feminist T-shirt and isn’t going to change her name when they get married. Of learning to have no pubic hair, and how liberating it is to pay thirty-five pounds a month to rip this from your body and lurch up in agony. Rings around famous women’s bodies saying ‘look at this cellulite’, oh, by the way, here is a twenty-quid cream so you don’t get

We ride hard each day,” Draven barked. “We don’t dawdle or take breaks. We don’t stop to sightsee.” “I’d never dream of asking you to sightsee,” Vesper said with an impressively straight face. “A man like you? Never.” “Fine,” Drave said darkly. “Since you won’t leave when asked and as my only other option is to kill you, which I know she won’t like…” “Your sister?” “My companion,” Draven growled. “Since my companion would evidently prefer I didn’t kill you.” “That would be very nice,” I said, as calmly as I could, my heart beating fast. “Especially when he’s so talented with breakfast.” Were they really going to come to blows? I imagined exaggerating the story when I retold it to Galahad and saying two half-naked griddle-cake-scented, dazzlingly handsome men had been fighting over me.

BROADBENT [stiffly]. Devil is rather a strong expression in that connexion, Mr Keegan. KEEGAN. Not from a man who knows that this world is hell. But since the word offends you, let me soften it, and compare you simply to an ass. [Larry whitens with anger]. BROADBENT [reddening]. An ass! KEEGAN [gently]. You may take it without offence from a madman who calls the ass his brother--and a very honest, useful and faithful brother too. The ass, sir, is the most efficient of beasts, matter-of-fact, hardy, friendly when you treat him as a fellow-creature, stubborn when you abuse him, ridiculous only in love, which sets him braying, and in politics, which move him to roll about in the public road and raise a dust about nothing. Can you deny these qualities and habits in yourself, sir? BROADBENT [goodhumoredly]. Well, yes, I'm afraid I do, you know. KEEGAN. Then perhaps you will confess to the ass's one fault. BROADBENT. Perhaps so: what is it? KEEGAN. That he wastes all his virtues--his efficiency, as you call it--in doing the will of his greedy masters instead of doing the will of Heaven that is in himself. He is efficient in the service of Mammon, mighty in mischief, skilful in ruin, heroic in destruction. But he comes to browse here without knowing that the soil his hoof touches is holy ground. Ireland, sir, for good or evil, is like no other place under heaven; and no man can touch its sod or breathe its air without becoming better or worse. It produces two kinds of men in strange perfection: saints and traitors. It is called the island of the saints; but indeed in these later years it might be more fitly called the island of the traitors; for our harvest of these is the fine flower of the world's crop of infamy. But the day may come when these islands shall live by the quality of their men rather than by the abundance of their minerals; and then we shall see. LARRY. Mr Keegan: if you are going to be sentimental about Ireland, I shall bid you good evening. We have had enough of that, and more than enough of cleverly proving that everybody who is not an Irishman is an ass. It is neither good sense nor good manners. It will not stop the syndicate; and it will not interest young Ireland so much as my friend's gospel of efficiency. BROADBENT. Ah, yes, yes: efficiency is the thing. I don't in the least mind your chaff, Mr Keegan; but Larry's right on the main point. The world belongs to the efficient.

It is now time to face the fact that English is a crazy language — the most loopy and wiggy of all tongues. In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway? In what other language do people play at a recital and recite at a play? Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall? Why is it that when we transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship, it’s called cargo? Why does a man get a hernia and a woman a hysterectomy? Why do we pack suits in a garment bag and garments in a suitcase? Why do privates eat in the general mess and generals eat in the private mess? Why do we call it newsprint when it contains no printing but when we put print on it, we call it a newspaper? Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people who ride bikes called cyclists? Why — in our crazy language — can your nose run and your feet smell?Language is like the air we breathe. It’s invisible, inescapable, indispensable, and we take it for granted. But, when we take the time to step back and listen to the sounds that escape from the holes in people’s faces and to explore the paradoxes and vagaries of English, we find that hot dogs can be cold, darkrooms can be lit, homework can be done in school, nightmares can take place in broad daylight while morning sickness and daydreaming can take place at night, tomboys are girls and midwives can be men, hours — especially happy hours and rush hours — often last longer than sixty minutes, quicksand works very slowly, boxing rings are square, silverware and glasses can be made of plastic and tablecloths of paper, most telephones are dialed by being punched (or pushed?), and most bathrooms don’t have any baths in them. In fact, a dog can go to the bathroom under a tree —no bath, no room; it’s still going to the bathroom. And doesn’t it seem a little bizarre that we go to the bathroom in order to go to the bathroom? Why is it that a woman can man a station but a man can’t woman one, that a man can father a movement but a woman can’t mother one, and that a king rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom? How did all those Renaissance men reproduce when there don’t seem to have been any Renaissance women? Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane: In what other language do they call the third hand on the clock the second hand? Why do they call them apartments when they’re all together? Why do we call them buildings, when they’re already built? Why it is called a TV set when you get only one? Why is phonetic not spelled phonetically? Why is it so hard to remember how to spell mnemonic? Why doesn’t onomatopoeia sound like what it is? Why is the word abbreviation so long? Why is diminutive so undiminutive? Why does the word monosyllabic consist of five syllables? Why is there no synonym for synonym or thesaurus? And why, pray tell, does lisp have an s in it? If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry? If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume? If pro and con are opposites, is congress the opposite of progress? ...

From then on, write up to this day, I fear that I walk funny, in other words, that I walk like a woman. When I find myself walking at my on pace, I almost immediately slow down. And I learnt what men do not do. They not wet their dry lips by running their tongues over them. They don't trot after their mothers into the kitchen. They don't use face powder. They don't sit on a motorbike behind a woman. They don't need mirrors in the rooms where they might change their clothes. On trips, they can go behind the tree. They don't even need an enclosed space to take a dump; they can do it in the open. They shouldn't be afraid of other people seeing their bodies. If there is only one bathroom they can bathe in the open. When caned in class, I do not cry. They do not buy tamarind rom the lady who sells it on the road and they certainly do not sit by her side and eat it.

Graduation (Friends Forever)" And so we talked all night about the rest of our lives Where we're gonna be when we turn 25 I keep thinking times will never change Keep on thinking things will always be the same But when we leave this year we won't be coming back No more hanging out cause we're on a different track And if you got something that you need to say You better say it right now cause you don't have another day Cause we're moving on and we can't slow down These memories are playing like a film without sound And I keep thinking of that night in June I didn't know much of love But it came too soon And there was me and you And then we got real blue Stay at home talking on the telephone And we would get so excited and we'd get so scared Laughing at ourselves thinking life's not fair And this is how it feels As we go on We remember All the times we Had together And as our lives change Come whatever We will still be Friends Forever So if we get the big jobs And we make the big money When we look back now Will our jokes still be funny? Will we still remember everything we learned in school? Still be trying to break every single rule Will little brainy Bobby be the stockbroker man? Can Heather find a job that won't interfere with her tan? I keep, keep thinking that it's not goodbye Keep on thinking it's a time to fly And this is how it feels La, la, la, la: Yeah, yeah, yeah La, la, la, la: We will still be friends forever Will we think about tomorrow like we think about now? Can we survive it out there? Can we make it somehow? I guess I thought that this would never end And suddenly it's like we're women and men Will the past be a shadow that will follow us around? Will these memories fade when I leave this town I keep, keep thinking that it's not goodbye Keep on thinking it's a time to fly

Thus far, four men had asked for her hand, but when Daphne had thought about living the rest of her days in the company of any of them, she just couldn’t do it. There were a number of men she thought might make reasonably good husbands, but the problem was— none of them was interested. Oh, they all liked her. Everyone liked her. Everyone thought she was funny and kind and a quick wit, and no one thought her the least bit unattractive, but at the same time, no one was dazzled by her beauty, stunned into speechlessness by her presence, or moved to write poetry in her honor. Men, she thought with disgust, were interested only in those women who terrified them. No one seemed inclined to court someone like her. They all adored her, or so they said, because she was so easy to talk to, and she always seemed to understand how a man felt. As one of the men Daphne had thought might make a reasonably good husband had said, “Deuce take it, Daff, you’re just not like regular females. You’re positively normal.

❝ ‘I find that the more I define, the less I know. I spend my days trying to understand how words were used by men long dead, in order to draft a meaning that will suffice not just for our times but for the future.’ He took my hands in his and stroked the scars, as if Lily was still imprinted in them. ‘The Dictionary is a history book, Esme. If it has taught me anything, it is that the way we conceive of things now will most certainly change. How will they change? Well, I can only hope and speculate, but I do know that your future will be different to the one your mother might have looked forward to at your age. If your new friends have something to teach you about it, I suggest you listen. But trust your judgement, Essy, about what ideas and experiences should be included, and what should not. I will always give you my opinion, if you ask for it, but you are a grown woman. While some would disagree, I believe it is your right to make your own choices, and I can’t insist on approving.’ He brought my funny fingers to his lips and kissed them, then he held them to his cheek. It had the emotion of a farewell. ❞

Eleanor is one of the most unusual protagonists in recent fiction, and some of her opinions and actions are very funny. What were your favorite moments in the novel? “Did men ever look in the mirror, I wondered, and find themselves wanting in deeply fundamental ways? When they opened a newspaper or watched a film, were they presented with nothing but exceptionally handsome young men, and did this make them feel intimidated, inferior, because they were not as young, not as handsome?” (p. 74). Eleanor’s question is rhetorical and slightly tongue-in-cheek, but worth answering. What are your thoughts? If men don’t have this experience, why not? If they do, why is it not more openly discussed? Eleanor is frightened that she may become like her mother. Is this a reasonable fear? What is the balance of nature and nurture? Is it possible to emerge from a traumatic childhood unscathed? Eleanor says, “If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn’t spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say” (p. 226–227). Why is this the case?

When it begins it is like a light in a tunnel, a rush of steel and steam across a torn up life. It is a low rumble, an earthquake in the back of the mind. My spine is a track with cold black steel racing on it, a trail of steam and dust following behind, ghost like. It feels like my whole life is holding its breath. By the time she leaves the room I am surprised that she can’t see the train. It has jumped the track of my spine and landed in my mothers’ living room. A cold dark thing, black steel and redwood paneling. It is the old type, from the western movies I loved as a kid. He throws open the doors to the outside world, to the dark ocean. I feel a breeze tugging at me, a slender finger of wind that catches at my shirt. Pulling. Grabbing. I can feel the panic build in me, the need to scream or cry rising in my throat. And then I am out the door, running, tumbling down the steps falling out into the darkened world, falling out into the lifeless ocean. Out into the blackness. Out among the stars and shadows. And underneath my skin, in the back of my head and down the back of my spine I can feel the desperation and I can feel the noise. I can feel the deep and ancient ache of loudness that litters across my bones. It’s like an old lover, comfortable and well known, but unwelcome and inappropriate with her stories of our frolicking. And then she’s gone and the Conductor is closing the door. The darkness swells around us, enveloping us in a cocoon, pressing flat against the train like a storm. I wonder, what is this place? Those had been heady days, full and intense. It’s funny. I remember the problems, the confusions and the fears of life we all dealt with. But, that all seems to fade. It all seems to be replaced by images of the days when it was all just okay. We all had plans back then, patterns in which we expected the world to fit, how it was to be deciphered. Eventually you just can’t carry yourself any longer, can’t keep your eyelids open, and can’t focus on anything but the flickering light of the stars. Hours pass, at first slowly like a river and then all in a rush, a climax and I am home in the dorm, waking up to the ringing of the telephone. When she is gone the apartment is silent, empty, almost like a person sleeping, waiting to wake up. When she is gone, and I am alone, I curl up on the bed, wait for the house to eject me from its dying corpse. Crazy thoughts cross through my head, like slants of light in an attic. The Boston 395 rocks a bit, a creaking noise spilling in from the undercarriage. I have decided that whatever this place is, all these noises, sensations - all the train-ness of this place - is a fabrication. It lulls you into a sense of security, allows you to feel as if it’s a familiar place. But whatever it is, it’s not a train, or at least not just a train. The air, heightened, tense against the glass. I can hear the squeak of shoes on linoleum, I can hear the soft rattle of a dying man’s breathing. Men in white uniforms, sharp pressed lines, run past, rolling gurneys down florescent hallways.

BEST FRIENDS SHOULD BE TOGETHER We’ll get a pair of those half-heart necklaces so every ask n’ point reminds us we are one glued duo. We’ll send real letters like our grandparents did, handwritten in smart cursive curls. We’ll extend cell plans and chat through favorite shows like a commentary track just for each other. We’ll get our braces off on the same day, chew whole packs of gum. We’ll nab some serious studs but tell each other everything. Double-date at a roadside diner exactly halfway between our homes. Cry on shoulders when our boys fail us. We’ll room together at State, cover the walls floor-to-ceiling with incense posters of pop dweebs gone wry. See how beer feels. Be those funny cute girls everybody’s got an eye on. We’ll have a secret code for hot boys in passing. A secret dog named Freshman Fifteen we’ll have to hide in the rafters during inspection. Follow some jam band one summer, grooving on lawns, refusing drugs usually. Get tattoos that only spell something when we stand together. I’ll be maid of honor in your wedding and you’ll be co-maid with my sister but only cause she’d disown me if I didn’t let her. We’ll start a store selling just what we like. We’ll name our firstborn daughters after one another, and if our husbands don’t like it, tough. Lifespans being what they are, we’ll be there for each other when our men have passed, and all the friends who come to visit our assisted living condo will be dazzled by what fun we still have together. We’ll be the kind of besties who make outsiders wonder if they’ve ever known true friendship, but we won’t even notice how sad it makes them and they won’t bring it up because you and I will be so caught up in the fun, us marveling at how not-good it never was.

Violet’s not getting out of our sight,” Arion adds. There’s a moment of just staring…like everyone is trying to silently argue. “No one naked in my car,” Mom states when I just stand in my spot, waiting on them to hurry through the push and pull. You really can tell how thick the air is when too many alphas are in the room at one time, but weirdly it never feels this way when it’s just the four of them. Unless punches are thrown. Then it gets a little heavier than normal. Arion pulls on his clothes, and threads whir in the air as I quickly fashion Emit a lopsided toga that lands on his body. Everyone’s gaze swings to him like it’s weird for him and normal for me to be in a toga. Awesome. Damien muffles a sound, Emit arches an eyebrow at me, and Arion remains rigid, staying close to me but never touching me. All of us squeezing into a car together while most of them hate each other…should be fun. The storm finally stops before we board the elevator, and it’s one of those super awkward elevator moments where no one is looking at anyone or saying anything, and everyone is trying to stay in-the-moment serious. We stop on the floor just under us, after the longest thirty-five seconds ever. The doors open, and two men glance around at Emit and I in our matching togas, even though his is the fitted sheet and riding up in some funny places. He looks like a caveman who accidentally bleached and shrank his wardrobe. I palm my face, embarrassed for him. The next couple of floors are super awkward with the addition of the two new, notably uncomfortable men. Worst seventy-nine seconds ever. Math doesn’t add up? Yeah. I’m upset about those extra nine seconds as well. Poor Emit has to duck out of the unusually small elevator, and the bottom of his ass cheek plays peek-a-boo on one side. Damien finally snorts, and even Mom struggles to keep a straight face. That really pisses her off. “You’re seeing him on an off day,” I tell the two guys, who stare at my red boots for a second. I feel the need to defend Emit a little, especially since I now know he overheard all that gibberish Tiara was saying… I can’t remember all I said, and it’s worrying me now that my mind has gone off on this stupid tangent. I trip over the hem of my toga, and Arion snags me before I hit the floor, righting me and showing his hands to my mother with a quick grin. “Can’t just let her fall,” he says unapologetically. “You’re going to have to learn to deal with that,” she bites out. She has a very good point. I don’t trip very often, but things and people usually knock me around a good bit of my life. The two guys look like they want to run, so I hurry to fix this. “Really, it’s a long story, but I swear Emit—the tallest one in the fitted-sheet-toga—generally wears pants…er…I guess you guys call them trousers over here. Anyway, we had some plane problems,” I carry on, and then realize I have to account for the fact we’re both missing clothing. “Then there was a fire that miraculously only burned our clothes, because Emit put all my flames out by smothering me with his body,” I state like that’s exactly what happened. Why do they look so scared? I’m not telling a scary lie. At this point, I’ve just made it worse, and fortunately Damien takes mercy, clamping his hand over my mouth as he starts steering me toward the door before I can make it…whatever comes after worse but before the worst. “Thank you,” sounds more like “Mmdi ooooo,” against his hand, but he gets the gist, as he grins. Mom makes a frustrated sound. “Another minute, and she’d be bragging about his penis size in quest to save his dignity. Did you really want to hear that?” Damien asks her, forcing me to groan against his hand.

I was a little scared of her. Even when she said she’d been harming herself there was still a little bit of Claire in her, some of the humor and charm, as though depression was something she could slip out of when she needed to engage with the world. When she needed to protect me from seeing it. But now she was clearly gone. I wondered if it really had to do with David or Trent or any of the men, or if the two just coincided. This seemed so much greater than men. “You’re going to be okay,” I said. But I wasn’t convincing. “I’m gutted. I really just don’t see the point of going on living,” she said. “It just seems so insane. Like, why would you?” “I don’t know,” I said, because truthfully I didn’t. “I’m probably not the best person to talk you out of suicide.” I was trying to make her laugh but she didn’t. Suicide was one of those things that, having been suicidal, in retrospect, I felt like I could talk about without being judgmental. But at the same time, there was no rational reason I could give her to live. Could I say that I was glad I lived? The thing was, I hadn’t really known I was suicidal until I woke up with the doughnuts. Also, even if things were better now, were they ever permanently better? Who was I to put that pressure on her to stay alive? But what kind of person didn’t try to talk their friend out of killing herself? I didn’t want to tell her that she had to live for her children. I knew she felt bad enough about them already. I could have told her what an amazing and fun and funny personality she was, but I knew that right now it all felt to her like just a performance. Her charming personality was only more heaviness—another mask she was going to have to pick up again to prove she hadn’t lost it in the depression. The only reason to put it on again was out of fear that she might never get it back. Otherwise, there was no real reason to have to put on a heavy costume every day. It was too tiring.

Letty wanted to know every detail of Laura's going. As she asked and listened, her heart beat uncomfortably fast and she felt that, if she did not take care, she would burst into tears. Laura had gone; she had broken away. 'It's not fair! It's not fair!' Letty cried to herself. Laura had got what she wanted; whatever happened to her afterwards she had got, once, what she wanted. She had had the courage to take it. 'Not that I ever wanted to go off with a man,' Letty had thought on the way to Greenbanks with Ambrose. No, she had never seen anyone she wanted to go off with. When she thought of going, it was never with a man. Once she had indulged in wild dreams. For years after she was married she felt that someone would one day come, someone she could love with all her heart, with that high, free elation and that deep satisfaction she could imagine. She would be able to share everything with him; her fears in the night about loneliness, death, the end of things. He would understand, she felt, but he would not explain, for after all there is no explanation. He would laugh, too, at what she laughed at; he would enjoy shop incidents, tram incidents, street incidents - all the queer, funny things that go to make up every day. Letty felt, for years, that someone like this would come before it was too late. 'It's not really me, having the children and living with Ambrose,' she would think in bewilderment. 'This isn't my life really; it will all be different soon. I shall begin to live as I want to - soon.' But the years went on and now she was over forty and looked for nobody to rescue her as if she were a damsel in distress. She no longer expected to be loved by any man. Men wanted youth and beauty; no matter how old and ugly they were themselves, they felt entitled to youth and beauty in women. She had missed the great love she had dreamed of as a girl, but she thought about it no more. Her wishes had changed as she grew older; she now only wanted to get away by herself, to enjoy life in her own way. [...] She knew what she wanted, but could not have; it was freedom.

I see many so-called conservative commentators, including some faith leaders, focusing on favorable policy initiatives or court appointments to justify their acceptance of this damage, while de-emphasizing the impact of this president on basic norms and ethics. That strikes me as both hypocritical and wrong. The hypocrisy is evident if you simply switch the names and imagine that a President Hillary Clinton had conducted herself in a similar fashion in office. I've said this earlier but it's worth repeating: close your eyes and imagine these same voices if President Hillary Clinton had told the FBI director, 'I hope you will let it go,' about the investigation of a senior aide, or told casual, easily disprovable lies nearly every day and then demanded we believe them. The hypocrisy is so thick as to be almost darkly funny. I say this as someone who has worked in law enforcement for most of my life, and served presidents of both parties. What is happening now is not normal. It is not fake news. It is not okay. Whatever your politics, it is wrong to dismiss the damage to the norms and traditions that have guided the presidency and our public life for decades or, in many cases, since the republic was founded. It is also wrong to stand idly by, or worse, to stay silent when you know better, while a president so brazenly seeks to undermine public confidence in law enforcement institutions that were established to keep our leaders in check...without these checks on our leaders, without those institutions vigorously standing against abuses of power, our country cannot sustain itself as a functioning democracy. I know there are men and women of good conscience in the United States Congress on both sides of the aisle who understand this. But not enough of them are speaking out. They must ask themselves to what, or to whom, they hold a higher loyalty: to partisan interests or to the pillars of democracy? Their silence is complicity - it is a choice - and somewhere deep down they must know that. Policies come and go. Supreme Court justices come and go. But the core of our nation is our commitment to a set of shared values that began with George Washington - to restraint and integrity and balance and transparency and truth. If that slides away from us, only a fool would be consoled by a tax cut or different immigration policy.

The best advice came from the legendary actor the late Sir John Mills, who I sat next to backstage at a lecture we were doing together. He told me he considered the key to public speaking to be this: “Be sincere, be brief, be seated.” Inspired words. And it changed the way I spoke publicly from then on. Keep it short. Keep it from the heart. Men tend to think that they have to be funny, witty, or incisive onstage. You don’t. You just have to be honest. If you can be intimate and give the inside story--emotions, doubts, struggles, fears, the lot--then people will respond. I went on to give thanks all around the world to some of the biggest corporations in business--and I always tried to live by that. Make it personal, and people will stand beside you. As I started to do bigger and bigger events for companies, I wrongly assumed that I should, in turn, start to look much smarter and speak more “corporately.” I was dead wrong--and I learned that fast. When we pretend, people get bored. But stay yourself, talk intimately, and keep the message simple, and it doesn’t matter what the hell you wear. It does, though, take courage, in front of five thousand people, to open yourself up and say you really struggle with self-doubt. Especially when you are meant to be there as a motivational speaker. But if you keep it real, then you give people something real to take away. “If he can, then so can I” is always going to be a powerful message. For kids, for businessmen--and for aspiring adventurers. I really am pretty average. I promise you. Ask Shara…ask Hugo. I am ordinary, but I am determined. I did, though--as the corporation started to pay me more--begin to doubt whether I was really worth the money. It all seemed kind of weird to me. I mean, was my talk a hundred times better now than the one I gave in the Drakensberg Mountains? No. But on the other hand, if you can help people feel stronger and more capable because of what you tell them, then it becomes worthwhile for companies in ways that are impossible to quantify. If that wasn’t true, then I wouldn’t get asked to speak so often, still to this day. And the story of Everest--a mountain, like life, and like business--is always going to work as a metaphor. You have got to work together, work hard, and go the extra mile. Look after each other, be ambitious, and take calculated, well-timed risks. Give your heart to the goal, and it will repay you. Now, are we talking business or climbing? That’s what I mean.

An unexpected sight opens in front of my eyes, a sight I cannot ignore. Instead of the calm waters in front of the fortress, the rear side offers a view of a different sea—the sea of small, dark streets and alleys—like an intricate puzzle. The breathtaking scenery visible from the other side had been replaced by the panorama of poverty–stricken streets, crumbling house walls, and dilapidated facades that struggle to hide the building materials beneath them. It reminds me of the ghettos in Barcelona, the ghettos I came to know far too well. I take a deep breath and look for a sign of life—a life not affected by its surroundings. Nothing. Down, between the rows of dirty dwellings stretches a clothesline. Heavy with the freshly washed laundry it droops down, droplets of water trickling onto the soiled pavement from its burden. Around the corner, a group of filthy children plays with a semi–deflated soccer ball—it makes a funny sound as it bounces off the wall—plunk, plunk. A man sitting on a staircase puts out a cigarette; he coughs, spits phlegm on the sidewalk, and lights a new one. A mucky dog wanders to a house, lifts his leg, and pisses on it. His urine flows down the wall and onto the street, forming a puddle on the pavement. The children run about, stepping in the piss, unconcerned. An old woman watches from the window, her large breasts hanging over the windowsill for the world to see. Une vie ordinaire, a mundane life...life in its purest. These streets bring me back to all the places I had escaped when I sneaked onto the ferry. The same feeling of conformity within despair, conformity with their destiny, prearranged long before these people were born. Nothing ever changes, nothing ever disturbs the gloomy corners of the underworld. Tucked away from the bright lights, tucked away from the shiny pavers on the promenade, hidden from the eyes of the tourists, the misery thrives. I cannot help but think of myself—only a few weeks ago my life was not much different from the view in front of my eyes. Yet, there is a certain peace soaring from these streets, a peace embedded in each cobblestone, in each rotten wall. The peace of men, unconcerned with the rest of the world, disturbed neither by global issues, nor by the stock market prices. A peace so ancient that it can only be found in the few corners of the world that remain unchanged for centuries. This is one of the places. I miss the intricacy of the street, I miss the feeling of excitement and danger melted together into one exceptional, nonconforming emotion. There is the real—the street; and then there is all the other—the removed. I am now on the other side of reality, unable to reach out with my hand and touch the pure life. I miss the street.

Until three weeks before,Lu Xin had lived on her family's millet farm on the banks of the Huan River. Passing through her river valley on his shining chariot one afternoon,the king had glimpsed Lu Xin tending the crops.He had decided that he fancied her. The next day,two militiamen had arrived at her door.She'd had to leave her family and her home. She'd had to leave De, the handsome young fisherman from the next village. Before the king's summons, De had shown Lu Xin how to fish using his pair of pet cormorants,by tying a bit of rope loosely around their necks so that they could catch several fish in their mouths but not swallow them. Watching De gently coax the fish from the depths of the funny bird's beaks,Lu Xin had fallen in love with him.The very next morning,she'd had to say goodbye to him. Forever. Or so she'd thought. It had been nineteen sunsets since Lu Xin had seen De,seven sunsets since she'd received a scroll from home with bad news: De and some other boys from the neighboring farms had run away to join the rebel army, and no sooner had he left than the kind's men had ransacked the village,looking for the deserters. With the king dead,the Shang men would show no mercy to Lu Xin,and she would never find De,never reunite with Daniel. Unless the king's council didn't find out that their king was dead.

After Natalie [Wood] and I got back from our honeymoon, I began The Hunters, with Robert Mitchum, directed by Dick Powell. I adored both of them. Powell was one of the great guys of all time, and Mitchum and I became fast friends. He insisted that I call him "Mother Mitchum." One day we cooked up a juvenile practical joke—we hired a girl to sit on a bench at lunchtime without any underpants on. We were in Arizona, at an Air Force base, and from the reaction you'd have thought the men of the United States Air Force had never seen a woman's private parts before. As word spread, we gradually brought the entire base to a halt. The fact that it was juvenile didn't make it any less funny; actually, it made it funnier.

Like speaks to like, I guess. I’m bisexual but in the closet too. I guess I just felt it. That and college is the perfect time to figure yourself out, so I took a stab in the dark. Don’t worry though. I know I said you’re pretty, but I’m a chubby chaser. I like my men with something to grab onto, you know?” Braedon stared at Dane, but cracked up laughing not long afterward. “What’s so funny?” Dane asked. “A big jock like me can’t like chubbies?” “I just didn’t expect to ever have a conversation like this with you. Do you also prefer chubby women?” “You bet your ass I do. Women are supposed to be soft.” Dane flashed a grin and Braedon chuckled, preparing his bag for the day.

I like planned parenthood. I support the woman's right to choose if she wants to murder her future baby. I do feel for the janitor though, this one time he was taking out the trash filled with all of the dead baby bodies... (I mean let's face it, that's where they put them. So let's be mature about this please. No laughter or funny comments. These are dead babies we’re talking about,) Anyways, the bag ripped, and squish! All the heads, torsos, everything oozed out of the bag. He was trying to mop up all the placenta juices and bodies when he slipped. It looked like a 3-Stooges bit. He had stepped on one skull for traction, and had another foot jammed so far up a stillborn's ribcage, it looked like he was wearing a shoe. He was mopping it up when someone's dog broke its leash and came running to slurp up the mess. Oh the horror! That dog must have ate at least 3 or 4 babies that day. Talk about a sticky situation! Rape is bad... But... Sometimes girls rape guys too. I'll give you an example. Anytime a guy wants to have sex, and the girl says no, she's raping the guy into not having sex. See if you can follow me here, the guy doesn't want to not have sex, but he's forced... Against his will... To not fuck her. If that's not reverse rape I don't know what is. And nobody is talking about it! Obviously it is a less extreme form of rape, but it's equal because it's much more common. You know who I feel sorry for? You guessed it: White men.

I don't know, John. Yesterday was a pretty embarrassing day in my career. I don't want to repeat it with one of the most powerful men on the planet." "Really?" Wilkie chirped. "I kind of enjoyed it!" "John, you left Thomas Edison in tears for no other reason than your own amusement." "That's not true," Wilkie corrected. "Dr. Tesla thought it was funny as hell.

father’s men had pursued. Lad, don’t want you dying like your brother, you’re the last son of the Storm family lineage, and all.  Finding nothing all day, he scanned the muddy ground for tracks, kicking away needles and sticks. Off to the corner of his eye he spotted an indentation in the wet leaves. He strode over and bent down, flipping his hair away from his eyes for a better look. A thrill raced through him at the sight of fresh tracks. He raised his head and studied a sloshing stream blanketed with a soft mist, and squinted at a path illuminated by the four moon sisters. This was his kill.  “Did you find something?” said Mara, his best friend. She wore sage-green hunting pants and a ridiculously frilly white lace top, why, he had no idea. She was funny like that. As she came alongside, she raised her big brown eyes in concern, and glanced at the tracks. She chewed a cinnamon stick and frowned.  He grunted in response and pointed a short

So after I got Jamie’s address, I wrote to her every day. Every night after I put the kids to bed, I would write. I would tell her about everything that had happened--what I did, what the kids did, something funny one of them said. I just wrote as much as I could for several pages. Every night I wrote her novels and every morning I mailed them to her. That was all well and good until I found out I’d addressed all of the envelopes incorrectly! I’d left out one digit of the zip code on every single letter I’d written. I was devastated. Even though I had put a return address on them, I was sure they were stuck in post office limbo. I had this realization the same day I got my first letter from Jamie. I ripped it open and read it through gripped fingers. She told me all about her first few days in basic training, and at the bottom she added the most heartbreaking line, “I wish you’d write me. I know you’re busy and I know you don’t like to write, but I wish you would.” I couldn’t believe it. She thought I hadn’t written at all. I called a buddy of mine who is now Command Sergeant Major Phil Blaisdell, a battalion sergeant major at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. “Phil, I’m in trouble. Man, I’ve been sending her letters and I was putting the wrong zip code on them and I got a letter from her and she thinks I’m not sending her letters and I know she needs that.” “All right, let me call you back.” A little while later my phone rang. “I’m Command Sergeant Major Duncan. I am the battalion sergeant major of Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. First of all, I’d like to tell you that I know who you are and I appreciate your service and what you’ve done. I’ve seen your Men’s Health issue and you are an inspiration. I understand you know a Specialist Boyd,” she said. “Yes, Sergeant Major, I do.” “Well, I’ve got her standing in front of me right now. Would you like to talk to her?” “Yes, Sergeant Major, I would.” So she handed the phone to Jamie. Jamie was a little stressed out because she had been called to the sergeant major’s office and thought, What have I done? The conversation was rushed and she was speaking in a hushed tone. “Hey, I miss you, I love you.” “Hey, me, too, baby. Let me tell you real quick, I’ve been sending you letters--” “I got them all today. Thank you.” “I miss you, and I hope that you can tell.” “Look, I want to keep talking but they’re watching me.” “Okay, we’re good. Just wanted to make sure you got the letters. I love you and we’ll talk later.

Let’s put it this way,” he retorted. “My future wife’s idea of a good time is sitting in Soldier Field in January with the wind blowing in off the lake at thirty knots. She can feed half a dozen college athletes a spaghetti dinner with no warning and play eighteen holes of golf from the men’s tees without embarrassing herself. She’s sexy as hell, knows how to dress, and thinks fart jokes are funny. Anything else?” “It’s just so darned hard to find women who’ve had lobotomies these days. Still, if that’s what you want…

And yet I’d read only recently how their generation were riddled with self-doubt and the pressures of social media. How they worried about everything, the planet, global warming, their relationships, money, war, cosmetic surgery. Were their bottoms too big or not big enough? (Thanks Kardashians.) How very sad. So perhaps the perceived advantages between ‘us’ and ‘them’ were not quite so one-sided as I had thought. I couldn’t remember a single occasion when I had worried about photoshopping or being ‘beach ready’ in January. I’d only had my top lip waxed once – never again. And never any other bit of me either, for fear of the pain (if the lip experience was anything to go by). We hadn’t grown up with so many gadgets or television channels as the younger generations. Which in itself was a blessing. How many crime dramas did we actually need to watch, how many reality shows, how many un-funny comedies? We’d had to do our research in libraries, but now they had limitless information at the touch of a keyboard. In my day, if the school bullies had wanted a target, they did it out in the open. These women had to deal with faceless trolls. They had security worries, all sorts of privacy issues. So who really had the better experience of being a woman? Or had it always just been difficult for everyone? And what about men, come to think of it… If one believed the newspapers, it seemed half of the human race was being summarily dismissed as idiots or fiends.

It's like playing the lottery. It doesn't matter how extremely low the chances are of winning. You gotta be in it to win it. Hitting on every girl in sight is like buying a whole lot of lottery tickets. You never know, one day one of them might actually pay off.

Hello, ladies, I’m your uncle Devlin. Has Westhaven scared you witless with his fuming and fretting?” This fellow looked to be great fun, with a nice smile and kind green eyes. “Mama and Papa didn’t say anything about getting uncles for Christmas,” Amanda observed, but she was smiling back at the big uncle. The biggest uncle—they were all as tall as Papa. “Well, that’s because we’re a surprise,” the other dark-haired fellow said. “I’m your uncle Valentine, and we have an entire gaggle of aunties waiting out in the coach to spoil you rotten. Westhaven here is just out of sorts because Father Christmas gave him a headache for being naughty yesterday.” “I was not naughty.” The other two uncles thought this was quite funny, judging by their smiles. “There’s your problem,” said Uncle Devlin. “I’m thinking it’s a fine day for a pair of ladies to join their aunts for a ride in the traveling coach.” Uncle Gayle—it didn’t seem fair to call him by the same name as Fleur’s puppy—appeared to consider this. “For what purpose?” “To keep the peace. Emmie and I never haul out our big guns around the children,” said Uncle Devlin, which made no sense. “Do you like to play soldiers?” Fleur asked. Amanda appeared intrigued by the notion. She was forever galloping up hills and charging down banisters in pursuit of the French. Uncle Devlin’s brows knitted—he had wonderful dark eyebrows, much like Papa’s. “As a matter of fact, on occasion, if I’ve been an exceedingly good fellow, my daughter lets me join her in a game of soldiers.” “I’m not exactly unfamiliar with the business myself,” said Uncle Valentine. “I excel at the lightning charge and have been known to take even the occasional doll prisoner.” “Missus Wolverhampton would not like being a prisoner,” Fleur said, though Uncle Valentine was teasing—wasn’t he?” “Perhaps you gentlemen can arrange an assignation to play soldiers with our nieces on some other day,” Westhaven said. He sounded like his teeth hurt, which Fleur knew might be from the seasonal hazard of eating too much candy. “You can play too,” Fleur allowed, because it was Christmas, and one ought to be kind to uncles who strayed into one’s nursery. “We’ll let you be Wellington,” Amanda added, getting into the spirit of the day. “Which leaves me to be Blucher’s mercenaries,” Uncle Devlin said, “saving the day as usual.” “Oh, that’s brilliant.” Uncle Valentine wasn’t smiling now. “Leave your baby brother to be the infernal French again, will you? See if I write a waltz for your daughter’s come out, St. Just.” Uncle Gayle wasn’t frowning quite so mightily. In fact, he looked like he wanted to smile but was too grown-up to allow it. “Perhaps you ladies will gather up a few soldiers and fetch a doll or two. We’re going on a short journey to find your mama and papa, so we can all share Christmas with them.” Fleur noticed his slip, and clearly, Amanda had too—but it was the same slip Amanda had made earlier, and one Fleur was perfectly happy to let everybody make. Uncle Gayle had referred to their papa’s new wife not as their stepmama, but as their mama. What a fine thing that would be, if for Christmas they got a mama again for really and truly. Amanda fetched their dolls, Fleur grabbed their favorite storybook, and the uncles herded them from the nursery, all three grown men arguing about whose turn it was to be the blasted French. ***

See, I have this theory that humans are just living, breathing, talking forms of art, each crafted with a different technique and carved out of different materials. Each beautiful in their own way. And sure, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and totally subjective, and changes depending on your circumstance, yada-yada-yada… but most of the time, it’s pretty easy to classify people. Like, okay, you know those women who are gorgeous and never know it? Or the men who pass quietly through life, handsome and unnoticed, never begging for attention or crying out for recognition? Those are your watercolors. And the loud, vivacious, gorgeous-and-they-know-it creatures, with bright lipstick and closets full of bold colors and outfits they never wear twice? Acrylics. The graceful, elegant, aging beauties you pick out in the crowd, or across the cafe, the lines on their faces telling a story you just know you’d want to hear, with so many layers and smudges, twists and turns, you’re not even sure where they begin? Charcoals. Then, you’ve got the big-picture-beautiful people, with the collection of interesting features that together make a beautiful face. They’re your oil paintings — best from ten feet away and, at the end of the day, kind of funny looking if you lean closer and analyze all their elements separately. But I’m quickly learning that Chase Croft doesn’t fit any of my categories. He isn’t a brushstroke on canvas, or bumpy layers of paint on a palette, or imperfect lines scratched inside a sketchbook. His features aren’t just gorgeous as a collective — he’s one of those annoyingly attractive people whose every feature is equally stunning. He’s a sculpture.

Honus was a wonderful fellow, so good-natured and friendly to everyone. Gee, we loved that guy. And the fans were crazy about him. Yeah, everybody loved that old Dutchman! If anyone told a good joke or a funny story, Honus would slap his knee and let out a loud roar and say, “What about that!” So

At about ten Paige swam through the smoke and tapped Preacher on the shoulder. He folded his hand, having nothing anyway, and said, “Be right back.” “God, it’s weird, seeing Preach act like the little husband,” Stephens said. “Little husband?” “You know what I’m saying. All Paige has to do is lift her pinkie finger and he’s on his knees.” “How are your eyes, man? She can lift that little finger my way and I’d get on my knees,” Joe said. “The little husband might pound you into sand,” Jack said. “I meant if she weren’t married. You old farts are starting to act real whipped.” “That’s because we are,” Jack said. “And it’s good. It’s very, very good.” Preacher came back, lifted his cigar and took a pull. “I’m not hunting tomorrow,” he said. “I’m going to have to stay here.” “Why?” “It’s ovulation day,” he said with a straight face. “It’s what?” three men asked in unison. “It’s frickin’ ovulation day, jag-off. We’re trying to make a baby and if I miss ovulation day, who knows how long I’ll have to wait. I don’t feel like waiting. I’ve been waiting.” His explanation was met with completely nonplussed silence—no one at the table knew about this quest, including Jack. And after a moment of stunned silence, laughter erupted that was so loud and wild, the men were nearly falling off their chairs. When the group got a little under control, Preacher asked, “Is there something funny about ovulation day? Because I don’t think it’s funny.” “Nah, it’s not funny, Preach,” Joe said. “It’s cute, that’s what it is.” “But really, Preach, you should hunt and leave me home—I’d probably make a better-looking baby than you, anyway,” Zeke said. “You’ve made enough frickin’ babies, jag-off,” Preacher said. “Your wife sent you up here to hunt so she can catch a break. Whose deal is it anyway?” While

Jazz was the opposite of everything Harry Anslinger believed in. It is improvised, and relaxed, and free-form. It follows its own rhythm. Worst of all, it is a mongrel music made up of European, Caribbean, and African echoes, all mating on American shores. To Anslinger, this was musical anarchy, and evidence of a recurrence of the primitive impulses that lurk in black people, waiting to emerge. “It sounded,” his internal memos said, “like the jungles in the dead of night.”94 Another memo warned that “unbelievably ancient indecent rites of the East Indies are resurrected”95 in this black man’s music. The lives of the jazzmen, he said, “reek of filth.”96 His agents reported back to him97 that “many among the jazzmen think they are playing magnificently when under the influence of marihuana but they are actually becoming hopelessly confused and playing horribly.” The Bureau believed that marijuana slowed down your perception of time98 dramatically, and this was why jazz music sounded so freakish—the musicians were literally living at a different, inhuman rhythm. “Music hath charms,”99 their memos say, “but not this music.” Indeed, Harry took jazz as yet more proof that marijuana drives people insane. For example, the song “That Funny Reefer Man”100 contains the line “Any time he gets a notion, he can walk across the ocean.” Harry’s agents warned: “He does think that.” Anslinger looked out over a scene filled with men like Charlie Parker,101 Louis Armstrong,102 and Thelonious Monk,103 and—as the journalist Larry Sloman recorded—he longed to see them all behind bars.104 He wrote to all the agents he had sent to follow them, and instructed: “Please prepare all cases in your jurisdiction105 involving musicians in violation of the marijuana laws. We will have a great national round-up arrest of all such persons on a single day. I will let you know what day.” His advice on drug raids to his men was always “Shoot first.”106 He reassured congressmen that his crackdown would affect not “the good musicians, but the jazz type.”107 But when Harry came for them, the jazz world would have one weapon that saved them: its absolute solidarity. Anslinger’s men could find almost no one among them who was willing to snitch,108 and whenever one of them was busted,109 they all chipped in to bail him out.

In [James Kelman's story] 'The Third Man, or Else the Fourth,' four men stand around a fire, on a freezing day. They appear to be out of work, and very poor. They talk about politics, about an old man who was recently found dead in a cold tenement building, about prison. One of the men, Arthur, starts describing a dream he had. Like most dreams, it is incomprehensible; it gathers pace, and we are drawn into it, and then it fizzles out. Kelman makes a funny, implicit connection between maintaining the fire (the narrator goes off to get "burnables") and maintaining a story: everything is potentially burnable, everything can be used.

Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!…” —Matthew 21:8–9 (RSV) PALM SUNDAY: REMAINING FAITHFUL It’s graduation day at the University of Pittsburgh. It’s thrilling, watching the young men and women I’ve taught go forth and do all of the world’s work, but there’s a nagging disquiet. Like many weighty truths, their education is accompanied by an equally weighty lie. I’ve told my students they’re unique and capable of wonderful things (true); I didn’t warn them of the attendant difficulties that lay ahead. I’ve long stopped betting on their futures. Who am I to tell them about the odds of a successful life, the weird dance of hard work and good luck, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? Luckily, today is filled with smiles, flowing robes, hugs, funny hats. In ancient times such celebrations would be marked by palm fronds, like Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. And then is no different from now, where celebration can suddenly turn to trepidation, where young lives quickly discover that speaking the truth may lead to trouble, betrayal, or worse. But today they’ll throw their hats into the air with faith in the future. And when asked, I’ll pose with them for photos. Years from now they’ll wonder about the teacher with the gray hair and wan, anxious smile, who looks as if he might be praying. Lord, we often praise You one day, then betray You the next. Let us overcome our fickle nature and be faithful companions to You and our brothers and sisters. —Mark Collins Digging Deeper: Mt 21:1–11

Dorm Rules It was the first day of the new year at a college and the dean was addressing the freshman class. “We have very strict rules here regarding the dormitories,” the dean explained.  “The female dorms are not to be visited my any male student and the men dorms are off limits to the female students.” “Anyone caught breaking this rule will be fined $50 for the first time.” “Anyone caught breaking this rule a second time will be fined $100,” he added. “Breaking the rule three times will cost you $200.  Any questions?” the dean asked the students. One male student in the back raised his hand and spoke out, “How much for a season pass?

SpottieOttieDopaliscious [Hook] Damn damn damn James [Verse 1: Sleepy Brown] Dickie shorts and Lincoln's clean Leanin', checking out the scene Gangsta boys, blizzes lit Ridin' out, talkin' shit Nigga where you wanna go? You know the club don't close 'til four Let's party 'til we can't no more Watch out here come the folks (Damn - oh lord) [Verse 2: André 3000] As the plot thickens it gives me the dickens Reminiscent of Charles a lil' discotheque Nestled in the ghettos of Niggaville, USA Via Atlanta, Georgia a lil' spot where Young men and young women go to experience They first li'l taste of the night life Me? Well I've never been there; well perhaps once But I was so engulfed in the Olde E I never made it to the door you speak of, hardcore While the DJ sweatin' out all the problems And the troubles of the day While this fine bow-legged girl fine as all outdoors Lulls lukewarm lullabies in your left ear Competing with "Set it Off," in the right But it all blends perfectly let the liquor tell it "Hey hey look baby they playin' our song" And the crowd goes wild as if Holyfield has just won the fight But in actuality it's only about 3 A.M And three niggas just don' got hauled Off in the ambulance (sliced up) Two niggas don' start bustin' (wham wham) And one nigga don' took his shirt off talkin' 'bout "Now who else wanna fuck with Hollywood Courts?" It's just my interpretation of the situation [Hook] [Verse 3: Big Boi] Yes, when I first met my SpottieOttieDopalicious Angel I can remember that damn thing like yesterday The way she moved reminded me of a Brown Stallion Horse with skates on, ya know Smooth like a hot comb on nappy ass hair I walked up on her and was almost paralyzed Her neck was smelling sweeter Than a plate of yams with extra syrup Eyes beaming like four karats apiece just blindin' a nigga Felt like I chiefed a whole O of that Presidential My heart was beating so damn fast Never knowing this moment would bring another Life into this world Funny how shit come together sometimes (ya dig) One moment you frequent the booty clubs and The next four years you & somebody's daughter Raisin' y'all own young'n now that's a beautiful thang That's if you're on top of your game And man enough to handle real life situations (that is) Can't gamble feeding baby on that dope money Might not always be sufficient but the United Parcel Service & the people at the Post Office Didn't call you back because you had cloudy piss So now you back in the trap just that, trapped Go on and marinate on that for a minute

Across the Reich, the Gestapo recorded increased the activity of anti-state elements. It’s kind of a helpless protest by those wretches against our celebration of victory. They organize bomb attacks against representatives of the Reich or against the civilian German population. We’ve also noticed murder-suicides. Eighty-seven civilians killed have been reported during the last week. From the Protectorate of Bohmen und Mahren, the destruction of Peter Brezovsky’s long-sought military cell was announced. From Ostmark…” “Enough,” Beck interrupted him, “I’m interested only in Brezovsky.” That name caused him discomfort. In his mind, he returned to the Bohemian Forest in 1996. It was in a different dimension, before he had used time travel. At the time, Peter Brezovsky was the only man who had passed through the Time Gate. He’d offered him a position by his side during the building of the Great German Reich. He’d refused. Too bad, he could have used a man like him. These dummies weren’t eager enough to fulfill his instructions. He also remembered Werner Dietrich, who had died in the slaughter during an inspection in the Protectorate. “… in the sector 144-5. It was a temporary base of the group. There were apparently targeted explosions of the surrounding buildings,” the man continued. “This area interests me. I want to know everything that’s happening there. Go on,” he ordered the man. He was flattered at the leader’s sudden interest. Raising his head proudly, he stretched his neck even more and continued, “For your entertainment, Herr Führer, our two settlers, living in this area from 1960, on June the twenty first, met two suspect men dressed in leather like savages. The event, of course, was reported to the local department of the Gestapo. It’s funny because during the questioning of one of Brezovsky’s men we learnt an interesting story related to these men.” He relaxed a little. The atmosphere in the room was less strained, too. He smiled slightly, feeling self-importance. “In 1942, a certain woman from the Bohemian Forest made a whacky prophecy. Wait a minute.” He reached into the jacket and pulled out a little notebook. “I wrote it down, it’ll certainly amuse you. Those Slavic dogs don’t know what to do, and so they take refuge in similar nonsense.” He opened the notebook and began to read, “Government of darkness will come. After half a century of the Devil’s reign, on midsummer’s day, on the spot where he came from, two men will appear in flashes. These two warriors will end the dominance of the despot and will return natural order to the world.” During the reading, men began to smile and now some of them were even laughing aloud. “Stop it, idiots!” screamed Beck furiously. In anger, he sprang from behind his desk and severely hit the closest man’s laughing face. A deathly hush filled the room. Nobody understood what had happened. What could make the Führer so angry? This was the first time he had hit somebody in public. Beck wasn’t as angry as it might look. He was scared to death. This he had been afraid of since he had passed through the Time Gate. Since that moment, he knew this time would come one day. That someone would use the Time Gate and destroy everything he’d built. That couldn’t happen! Never! “Do you have these men?” he asked threateningly. Reich Gestapo Commander regretted he’d spoken about it. He wished he’d bitten his tongue. This innocent episode had caused the Führer’s unexpected reaction. His mouth went dry. Beck looked terrifying. “Herr Führer,” he spoke quietly, “unfortunately…” “Aloud!” yelled Beck. “Unfortunately we don’t, Herr Führer. But they probably died during the action of the Gestapo against Brezovsky. His body, as well as the newcomers, wasn’t found. The explosion probably blew them up,” he said quickly. “The explosion probably blew them up,” Beck parodied him viciously, “and that was enough for you, right?

every hunting trip his father’s men had pursued. Lad, don’t want you dying like your brother, you’re the last son of the Storm family lineage, and all.  Finding nothing all day, he scanned the muddy ground for tracks, kicking away needles and sticks. Off to the corner of his eye he spotted an indentation in the wet leaves. He strode over and bent down, flipping his hair away from his eyes for a better look. A thrill raced through him at the sight of fresh tracks. He raised his head and studied a sloshing stream blanketed with a soft mist, and squinted at a path illuminated by the four moon sisters. This was his kill.  “Did you find something?” said Mara, his best friend. She wore sage-green hunting pants and a ridiculously frilly white lace top, why, he had no idea. She was funny like that. As she came alongside, she raised her big brown eyes in concern, and glanced at the tracks. She chewed a cinnamon stick and frowned.  He grunted in response and pointed a short spear with a menacing, curved blade at the stream. This was his hunt and even though he’d failed to even bag anything as big as a deer, he swore he’d do whatever it took to bring it back home to father. Mara shook her head, the movement stubborn and terse, her short, brown hair slashing along her neck. “It’s too late. I’m serious, don’t look at me with those oh-please-Mara eyes of yours.”   “But the prints are fresh, an hour old at the most—”  “What are you trying to prove? We’ve been

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.

Are you hungry?” I blurt out. “Dinner is almost ready.” She glances toward the kitchen. You cooked? She looks…amused? Yeah, that’s definitely amusement. “Real men cook,” I say defensively, and I stand a little straighter. You don’t have to defend your masculinity, you know? she signs, but she’s grinning. God, she’s pretty on a normal day. But when she smiles, she could knock me to my knees if I wasn’t held up by crutches. I lean against the doorjamb. “My masculinity is intact, thank you very much,” I say. Her gaze runs slowly up and down my body, and she stops at my most vital parts, her eyes lingering. Did she seriously just do that? Or am I just wishing she would? Your manhood is safe, she signs. Then her cheeks redden like she just realized what she said, and she looks away. I laugh, because good God that shit’s funny.

Then, with great relish, Lyndon Johnson spun a Texas tale. It was his pièce de résistance, the crescendo of an expansive, four-hour performance. “When I got [Kennedy] in the Oval Office,” Johnson began, “and told him it would be ‘inadvisable’ for him to be on the ticket as the Vice President-nominee, his face changed, and he started to swallow. He looked sick. His adam’s apple bounded up and down like a yo-yo.” For effect, the president gulped, audibly, at the reporters. He mimicked Bobby’s “funny voice” and proceeded to tell, in lavish detail and with evident delight, his version of the meeting. Finally, LBJ ran down a list of possible running mates and explained the ways each would hurt his chances. “In other words,” recalled Folliard, “he would do better in the November election if he had no running mate. This left Wicker, Kiker and me baffled—and that is just what the man evidently wanted us to be.” Within days Johnson’s story was the talk of Washington. His portrait of RFK as a “stunned semi-idiot” left columnist Joseph Alsop and other Washington insiders feeling rather stunned themselves. It was not long before the gossip found its way to Bobby Kennedy, who stormed back to the White House and accused the president of mistruths and a violation of trust. I knew the meeting was taped, he said, but I never expected this. Wasn’t our talk a matter of confidence? Aren’t we honorable men? LBJ was unrepentant: I’ve revealed nothing, he assured Kennedy, gesturing wanly at an empty page in his appointment book. He promised to check his notes for any conversations that might have slipped his mind. Bobby stalked out, seething, and caught a plane to Hyannis Port. “He tells so many lies,” Kennedy said of Johnson the next week, echoing the words of George Reedy, “that he convinces himself after a while he’s telling the truth. He just doesn’t recognize truth or falsehood.

Then one magical day, the actress and fitness instructor Jane Fonda wore a pair of Reeboks in her popular series of aerobics videos—and sales went crazy! First in the women’s market but then the men wanted in on the action too. In five years, they went from $9 million in sales to almost $900 million. It’s funny how even in the days before social media, influencers could still make a difference for your business. What’s old is new again.

You know what’s funny about black women?” Blue asked gently. “What’s that?” “They’re the only women in the world that you have to talk into letting you protect them.” “Maybe we’ve just forgotten how.” “Exactly,” he said. “And that’s why I’m here.” “Why?” “To help you remember.” The idea of protection is so central to everything that goes on between men and women, even when we don’t admit it. Probably especially when we don’t admit it. Blue’s decision to take matters into his own hands and create a safe environment for people to live their normal, ordinary, everyday lives seemed so extraordinary in the face of the chaos we routinely accept as a community that I didn’t quite know what to say. His unequivocal acceptance of the traditional male role appealed to me on a truly visceral level, but did that mean I had to become a more traditional female to balance things out? My mind was already on overload, but I thought I understood something I hadn’t before. Something personal. “Is that why you stopped singing?” He smiled. “I didn’t stop singing. I stopped recording.” The distinction was, I’m sure, crucial to a singer the same way a writer will always separate the act of writing from the choice to publish. “Is that why you stopped recording?” “That’s part of it.” “What’s the other part?” “The other part is a conversation for another day,” he said, standing up and buttoning his coat. “I’ve taken up enough of your time.” “No problem,” I said, walking him to the door. “But what did you come over here to tell me?” “Whatever you wanted to know,” he said, turning to face me. The truth sounds funny sometimes when you just say it right out. “I see.” “So how’d I do?” I opened the door and looked right into his eyes. “So far, so good.

But, why is it funny?” This show was such an obvious play on queerness, on transphobia, but also the showcasing of women. Women as items, women as entertainment, women as commodities. Men as women as sexualized jokes.

Three men were standing in line to get into heaven one day. Apparently it had been a pretty busy day, though, so Peter had to tell the first one, "Heaven’s getting pretty close to full today, and I’ve been asked to admit only people who have had particularly horrible deaths. So what’s your story?" So the first man replies: "Well, for a while I’ve suspected my wife has been cheating on me, so today I came home early to try to catch her red-handed. As I came into my 25th floor apartment, I could tell something was wrong, but all my searching around didn’t reveal where this other guy could have been hiding. Finally, I went out to the balcony, and sure enough, there was this man hanging off the railing, 25 floors above ground! By now I was really mad, so I started beating on him and kicking him, but wouldn’t you know it, he wouldn’t fall off. So finally I went back into my apartment and got a hammer and starting hammering on his fingers. Of course, he couldn’t stand that for long, so he let go and fell, but even after 25 stories, he fell into the bushes, stunned but okay. I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I ran into the kitchen, grabbed the fridge and threw it over the edge where it landed on him, killing him instantly. But all the stress and anger got to me, and I had a heart attack and died there on the balcony." "That sounds like a pretty bad day to me," said Peter, and let the man in. The second man comes up and Peter explains to him about heaven being full, and again asks for his story. "It’s been a very strange day. You see, I live on the 26th floor of my apartment building, and every morning I do my exercises out on my balcony. Well, this morning I must have slipped or something, because I fell over the edge. But I got lucky, and caught the railing of the balcony on the floor below me. I knew I couldn’t hang on for very long, when suddenly this man burst out onto the balcony. I thought for sure I was saved, when he started beating on me and kicking me. I held on the best I could until he ran into the apartment and grabbed a hammer and started pounding on my hands. Finally I just let go, but again I got lucky and fell into the bushes below, stunned but all right. Just when I was thinking I was going to be okay, this refrigerator comes falling out of the sky and crushes me instantly, and now I’m here." Once again, Peter had to concede that that sounded like a pretty horrible death. The third man came to the front of the line, and again Peter explained that heaven was full and asked for his story. "Picture this," says the third man, "I’m hiding inside a refrigerator..." A

Do you know why fire trucks are red? Jerry: No why? Cynthia:  Fire trucks have 4 wheels. They can hold.8 men. 4 plus 8 Is 12. There are 12 inches in a ruler. Queen Elizabeth was a ruler. There was a ship called the Queen. Cynthia: Elizabeth. That ship sailed the seas. There are fish in the seas. Fish have fins: People from Finland are called fins. Finland and Russia had a war a long time. Cynthia: Ago. Russia has red on its flag. That’s why there red, cause there always Russian around. Jerry: Lol that just made my day.

Death sends a radiogram every day: When I want / you I'll drop it - and then one day he comes with a / master-key and lets himself in and says: We'll go now. (Carl Sandberg, 'Death Snips Proud Men')

Not married. Mostly because no one has ever asked me,” Leah said lightly. Izzy pulled a disbelieving face. “Are the men in Melbourne blind?” she said. “You’re hot. If all doctors looked like you, my boyfriend would be at the local clinic every second day, begging for a prostate exam or something equally perverted.” “Well, thanks. I think,” Leah said.

There are those sweet moments in your life where you realize that tings could be infinitely worse; that though you feel it's the end of the world, it is in fact simply a set back and you're being melodramatic. Usually, these moments are painfully pointed out by your best friends: those two funny women who make your day brighter simply because they exist in your world. Those women, who despite all of your many, many, flaws love you regardless and who know way too much about your stupidity when it comes to men and never once have said, "I told you so"...at least to your face. Those women are what make this world bearable when it is too cold to shoulder alone and it is because of them I was able to get up and carry on after something we will from henceforth refer to as "the event.

The coach has a little boy, must be about three. And one day last week when I went overtown to pick Ned up, I saw him down on one knee, playing toss with that little boy in left field. And I fell in love with my kid all over again, Sandy. As strong as when I first held him in my arms, wrapped in a blanket. Isn’t that funny?” Sandy doesn’t think it’s funny. He thinks it’s maybe all the truth the world needs about men.