“
How about I take you to my studio? Much less dangerous. Plus, I need a model and you could sit for me."
"You want me to sit for a portrait?" I asked stunned.
"Actually, at the moment I'm concentrating on full-length nudes, in the spirit of Modigliani," Jules said. He was making an effort to keep a straight face. "Just kidding, Kates. You're a lady."
Jules was trying the guilt-trip method of attack. And it was working.
"Ok I'll pose for you," I conceded. "But under no circumstances will any article of clothing leave my body whilst I am in your studio."
"And if you're elsewhere?" he asked, breaking into a sly smile.
I rolled my eyes.
”
”
Amy Plum (Until I Die (Revenants, #2))
“
We pose only those questions whose answers are the pre-given conditions of the questions themselves.
”
”
Alain Badiou (The Concept of Model: An Introduction to the Materialist Epistemology of Mathematics (Transmission))
“
I thought it was for your sake that I came alone, so obviously alone, so vulnerable, that I could in myself pose no threat, change no balance: not an invasion, but a mere messenger-boy. But there's more to it than that. Alone, I cannot change your world. But I can be changed by it. Alone, I must listen, as well as speak. Alone, the relationship I finally make, if I make one, is not impersonal and not only political: it is individual, it is personal, it is both more and less than political. Not We and They; not I and It; but I and Thou. Not political, not pragmatic, but mystical. In a certain sense the Ekumen is not a body politic, but a body mystic. It considers beginnings to be extremely important. Beginnings, and means. Its doctrine is just the reverse of the doctrine that the end justifies the means. It proceeds, therefore, by subtle ways, and slow ones, and queer, risky ones; rather as evolution does, which is in certain senses its model... So I was sent alone, for your sake? Or for my own? I don't know. Yes, it has made things difficult.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness)
“
It does not take the striking pose of a high-fashion model or the strict stance of someone in uniform to earn respect and admiration.
”
”
Cindy Ann Peterson (My Style, My Way: Top Experts Reveal How to Create Yours Today)
“
As for me, I feel myself living and thinking in a room where everything is the creation and the language of lives profoundly different from mine, of a taste opposite to mine, where I find nothing of my conscious thought, where my imagination is excited by feeling itself plunged into the depths of the non-ego; I feel happy only when setting foot—on the Avenue de la Gare, on the Port, or on the Place de l'Eglise—in one of those provincial hotels with cold, long corridors where the wind from outside contends successfully with the efforts of the heating system, where the detailed geographic map of the district is still the sole ornament on the walls, where each noise helps only to make the silence appear by displacing it, where the rooms keep a musty perfume which the open air comes to wash, but does not eliminate, and which the nostrils inhale a hundred times in order to bring it to the imagination, which is enchanted with it, which has it pose like a model to try to recreate it with all the thoughts and remembrances that it contains...
”
”
Marcel Proust
“
I’m an anti model. I’m not posing, I’m imposing.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Seriously delirious, but not at all serious)
“
It was seriously killing me. This gigantic guy carrying an eight pound dog around in his huge arms. God help us. I needed to find some puppies and pay some ripped up models to pose with them. I could make a killing if I put them on calendars.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (The Wall of Winnipeg and Me)
“
In the waiting room, ladies in a picturesque group surrounded a table with magazines. They stood, sat, or half reclined in the poses they saw in the pictures and, studying the models, discussed styles.
”
”
Boris Pasternak (Doctor Zhivago)
“
The very power to make the photograph (to use the model, to tie her in that way) and the fact of the photograph (the fact that someone did use the model, did tie her in that way, that the photograph is published in a magazine and seen by millions of men who buy it specifically to see such photographs) evoke fear in the female observer unless she entirely dissociates herself from the photograph: refuses to believe or understand that real persons posed for it, refuses to see the bound person as a woman like herself.
”
”
Andrea Dworkin (Pornography: Men Possessing Women)
“
I do not know a single woman who has ever thought she looked her best in an amateur snapshot. However, it is her own fault, because in seeking to be a good sport and to behave naturally, she has not been willing to pose like a professional model.
”
”
Geneviève Antoine Dariaux
“
Here was the real scandal of On Our Backs photography: We were women shooting other women — our names, faces, and bodies on the line — and we all brought our sexual agenda to the lens. Each pictorial was a memoir. That is quite the opposite of a fashion shoot at Vogue or Playboy, where the talent is a prop…
When we began our magazine, female fashion and portrait models — all of them — were shot the same way kittens and puppies are photographed for holiday calendars: in fetching poses, with no intentions of their own.
”
”
Susie Bright (Big Sex Little Death: A Memoir)
“
What more can I say: born beneath light bulbs, interrupted my growth at the age of three, was given a drum, sangshattered glass, smelled vanilla, coughed in churches, stuffed Luzie with food, watched ants as they crawled, decided to grow, buried the drum, moved to the West, lost what was East, learned to carve stone and posed as a model, went back to my drum and inspected concrete, made money and cared for the finger, gave the finger away and fled as I laughed, ascended, arrested, convicted, confined, now soon to be freed, and today is my birthday, I’m thirty years old, and still as afraid of the Black Cook as ever—Amen.
”
”
Günter Grass (The Tin Drum)
“
When he was creating this picture, Leonardo da Vinci encountered a serious problem: he had to depict Good - in the person of Jesus - and Evil - in the figure of Judas, the friend who resolves to betray him during the meal. He stopped work on the painting until he could find his ideal models.
One day, when he was listening to a choir, he saw in one of the boys the perfect image of Christ. He invited him to his studio and made sketches and studies of his face.
Three years went by. The Last Supper was almost complete, but Leonardo had still not found the perfect model for Judas. The cardinal responsible for the church started to put pressure on him to finish the mural.
After many days spent vainly searching, the artist came across a prematurely aged youth, in rags and lying drunk in the gutter. With some difficulty, he persuaded his assistants to bring the fellow directly to the church, since there was no time left to make preliminary sketches.
The beggar was taken there, not quite understanding what was going on. He was propped up by Leonardo's assistants, while Leonardo copied the lines of impiety, sin and egotism so clearly etched on his features.
When he had finished, the beggar, who had sobered up slightly, opened his eyes and saw the picture before him. With a mixture of horror and sadness he said:
'I've seen that picture before!'
'When?' asked an astonished Leonardo.
'Three years ago, before I lost everything I had, at a time when I used to sing in a choir and my life was full of dreams. The artist asked me to pose as the model for the face of Jesus.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (The Devil and Miss Prym)
“
We've already seen the attention merchant's basic modus operandi: draw attention with apparently free stuff and then resell it. but a consequence of that model is a total dependence on gaining and holding attention. This means that under competition, the race will naturally run to the bottom; attention will almost invariably gravitate to the more garish, lurid, outrageous alternative, whatever stimulus may more likely engage what cognitive scientists call our ''automatic'' attention as opposed to our ''controlled'' attention, the kind we direct with intent. The race to a bottomless bottom, appealing to what one might call the audience's baser instincts, poses a fundamental, continual dilemma for the attention merchant-just how far will he go to get his harvest? If the history of attention capture teaches us anything, it is that the limits are often theoretical, and when real, rarely self-imposed.
”
”
Tim Wu (The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads)
“
Colonel Race was not good at small talk and might indeed have posed as the model of a strong silent man so beloved by an earlier generation of novelists.
”
”
Agatha Christie (Sparkling Cyanide (Colonel Race, #4))
“
I
Not my best side, I'm afraid.
The artist didn't give me a chance to
Pose properly, and as you can see,
Poor chap, he had this obsession with
Triangles, so he left off two of my
Feet. I didn't comment at the time
(What, after all, are two feet
To a monster?) but afterwards
I was sorry for the bad publicity.
Why, I said to myself, should my conqueror
Be so ostentatiously beardless, and ride
A horse with a deformed neck and square hoofs?
Why should my victim be so
Unattractive as to be inedible,
And why should she have me literally
On a string? I don't mind dying
Ritually, since I always rise again,
But I should have liked a little more blood
To show they were taking me seriously.
II
It's hard for a girl to be sure if
She wants to be rescued. I mean, I quite
Took to the dragon. It's nice to be
Liked, if you know what I mean. He was
So nicely physical, with his claws
And lovely green skin, and that sexy tail,
And the way he looked at me,
He made me feel he was all ready to
Eat me. And any girl enjoys that.
So when this boy turned up, wearing machinery,
On a really dangerous horse, to be honest
I didn't much fancy him. I mean,
What was he like underneath the hardware?
He might have acne, blackheads or even
Bad breath for all I could tell, but the dragon--
Well, you could see all his equipment
At a glance. Still, what could I do?
The dragon got himself beaten by the boy,
And a girl's got to think of her future.
III
I have diplomas in Dragon
Management and Virgin Reclamation.
My horse is the latest model, with
Automatic transmission and built-in
Obsolescence. My spear is custom-built,
And my prototype armour
Still on the secret list. You can't
Do better than me at the moment.
I'm qualified and equipped to the
Eyebrow. So why be difficult?
Don't you want to be killed and/or rescued
In the most contemporary way? Don't
You want to carry out the roles
That sociology and myth have designed for you?
Don't you realize that, by being choosy,
You are endangering job prospects
In the spear- and horse-building industries?
What, in any case, does it matter what
You want? You're in my way.
- Not My Best Side
”
”
U.A. Fanthorpe
“
Many of these omnibuses were driven, oddly enough, by male models who had retired from the business, which meant that Parisians of Manet's day were transported around the city by men who had once posed as valiant biblical heroes or the vindictive deities of classical mythology.
”
”
Ross King (The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism)
“
In spite of this newly developed media literacy, however, I’ve also
noticed that it is now an increasingly sexualized ideal that younger and
younger girls are beginning to feel they must live up to. The notorious
Calvin Klein ad campaigns eroticized sixteen-year-olds when I was a
teenager, then eroticized fourteen-year-old models in the early nineties,
then twelve-year-olds in the late nineties. GUESS Jeans ads now pose
what look like nine-year-olds in provocative settings. And the latest fashions for seven- and eightyear-
olds re-create the outfits of pop stars who dress like sex workers.
Is this progress? I doubt it.
”
”
Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth)
“
Since stone tools were the only technology that survived archaeologically for millions of years and across several hominin species, it was assumed that they were male technology. It said so on the box: man the toolmaker, man the hunter. Women gave birth, cowered in the backs of caves, posed as the model for a Venus figurine occasionally so that Palaeolithic ‘man’ could get his other rocks off, and maybe collected a worthless vegetable from time to time when the mammoth chops were running low. The sometimes openly stated and mostly implicit assumption was that human physical and cultural evolution was driven by male hunting. Was this the best we could do?
”
”
Alice Gorman (Dr Space Junk vs the Universe: Archaeology and the Future)
“
The existing criminal justice model poses two main questions in the face of social harm: Who did it? How can we punish them? (And increasingly, how can we make money from it?). Creating safe and healthy communities requires a different set of questions: Who was harmed? How can we facilitate healing? How can we prevent such harm in the future? --S. Lamble
”
”
Eric A. Stanley (Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex)
“
Every now and then, I'm lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists -
although heavy on the wonder side, and light on skepticism. They're curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I'm asked follow-up questions. They've never heard of the notion of a 'dumb question'.
But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize 'facts'. By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts has gone out of them. They've lost much of the wonder and gained very little skepticism. They're worried about asking 'dumb' questions; they are willing to accept inadequate answers, they don't pose follow-up questions, the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers. They come to class with their questions written out on pieces of paper, which they surreptitiously examine, waiting their turn and oblivious of whatever discussion their peers are at this moment engaged in.
Something has happened between first and twelfth grade. And it's not just puberty. I'd guess that it's partly peer pressure not to excel - except in sports, partly that the society teaches short-term gratification, partly the impression that science or mathematics won't buy you a sports car, partly that so little is expected of students, and partly that there are few rewards or role-models for intelligent discussion of science and technology - or even for learning for it's own sake. Those few who remain interested are vilified as nerds or geeks or grinds. But there's something else. I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. 'Why is the Moon round?', the children ask. 'Why is grass green?', 'What is a dream?', 'How deep can you dig a hole?', 'When is the world's birthday?', 'Why do we have toes?'. Too many teachers and parents answer with irritation, or ridicule, or quickly move on to something else. 'What did you expect the Moon to be? Square?' Children soon recognize that somehow this kind of question annoys the grown-ups. A few more experiences like it, and another child has been lost to science.
”
”
Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark)
“
In the Pandemonium model, control is usurped rather than delegated, in a process that is largely undesigned and opportunistic; there are multiple sources for the design “decisions” that yield the final utterance, and no strict division is possible between the marching orders of content flowing from within and the volunteered suggestions for implementation posed by the word-demons.
”
”
Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained)
“
If language and child care issues posed problems for otherwise solid candidates, the solution was not to reject those candidates but instead to provide them with help—whether English classes or onsite day care—to pull them through. This is a point I’ll be returning to in future chapters: we’ve seen time and again that mathematical models can sift through data to locate people who are likely to face great challenges, whether from crime, poverty, or education.
”
”
Cathy O'Neil (Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy)
“
Smile bigger.” Now I know how to get through photo shoots, because I know every angle they need. I do this super weird thing for my friends where I just slightly move my face to do a speed round of each red carpet pose and photo shoot I’ve done. The big smile, eyes up and then down, the Mona Lisa, the chin-down-lips-parted, the “Oh hi!” . . . My friends scream because I look like a robot model shorting out. But let me tell you, it makes it easy on the photographers.
”
”
Jessica Simpson (Open Book)
“
Every now and then, I’m lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists—although heavy on the wonder side and light on skepticism. They’re curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I’m asked follow-up questions. They’ve never heard of the notion of a “dumb question.” But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize “facts.” By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts, has gone out of them. They’ve lost much of the wonder, and gained very little skepticism. They’re worried about asking “dumb” questions; they’re willing to accept inadequate answers; they don’t pose follow-up questions; the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers. They come to class with their questions written out on pieces of paper, which they surreptitiously examine, waiting their turn and oblivious of whatever discussion their peers are at this moment engaged in. Something has happened between first and twelfth grade, and it’s not just puberty. I’d guess that it’s partly peer pressure not to excel (except in sports); partly that the society teaches short-term gratification; partly the impression that science or mathematics won’t buy you a sports car; partly that so little is expected of students; and partly that there are few rewards or role models for intelligent discussion of science and technology—or even for learning for its own sake. Those few who remain interested are vilified as “nerds” or “geeks” or “grinds.
”
”
Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark)
“
The challenge posed to humankind in the twenty-first century by infotech and biotech is arguably much bigger than the challenge posed in the previous era by steam engines, railroads, and electricity. And given the immense destructive power of our civilization, we just cannot afford more failed models, world wars, and bloody revolutions. This time around, the failed models might result in nuclear wars, genetically engineered monstrosities, and a complete breakdown of the biosphere. We have to do better than we did in confronting the Industrial Revolution
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (21 Lessons for the 21st Century)
“
The challenge posed to humankind in the twenty-first century by infotech and biotech is arguably much bigger than the challenge posed in the previous era by steam engines, railroads and electricity. And given the immense destructive power of our civilisation, we just cannot afford more failed models, world wars and bloody revolutions. This time around, the failed models might result in nuclear wars, genetically engineered monstrosities, and a complete breakdown of the biosphere. Consequently, we have to do better than we did in confronting the Industrial Revolution.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (21 Lessons for the 21st Century)
“
Elizabeth stood in a model pose, whip thin, with a face beside which the faces of angels are coarse and unappealing, in clothes of rags needing to be hauled off and burned, yet somehow arranged into punk couture. Her black pageboy haircut peeked from under a cloche that appeared to have survived the Crash of ’29. She wore a torn black leotard under a skirt of gossamer net, and the exact shoes Boris Karloff had worn in Frankenstein. Two large lean hounds, one black, one black and white, sported, lunged, and whirled around her.
Dave inhaled sharply, in both love and despair.
”
”
Jim Morris (A Battle of Sorcerers)
“
Aoyama was no stranger to auditions, having supervised a number of them for TV commercials and PR videos. Sitting in a studio, sizing up a row of fifteen or twenty swimsuit-clad hopefuls, he'd always found words like 'slave trade' and 'auction block' popping into his mind. Of course they weren't slaves, but there was no denying that the women lined up on that little platform, posing in their bikinis, were trying to sell themselves. Buying and selling was the basis of all social intercourse, and the commodity an actor or model offered for sale was nothing less than her own being.
”
”
Ryū Murakami (Audition)
“
The gestures of models (mannequins) and mythological figures. The romantic use of nature (leaves, trees, water) to create a place where innocence can be refound. The exotic and nostalgic attraction of the Mediterranean. The poses taken up to denote stereotypes of women: serene mother (madonna), free-wheeling secretary (actress, king’s mistress), perfect hostess (spectator-owner’s wife), sex-object (Venus, nymph surprised), etc. The special sexual emphasis given to women’s legs. The materials particularly used to indicate luxury: engraved metal, furs, polished leather, etc. The gestures and embraces of lovers, arranged frontally for the benefit of the spectator. The sea, offering a new life. The physical stance of men conveying wealth and virility. The treatment of distance by perspective – offering mystery. The equation of drinking and success. The man as knight (horseman) become motorist. Why does publicity depend so heavily upon the visual language of oil painting? Publicity is the culture of the consumer society. It propagates through images that society’s belief in itself. There are several reasons why these images use the language of oil painting. Oil painting, before it was anything else, was a celebration of private property. As an art-form it derived from the principle that you are what you have.
”
”
John Berger (Ways of Seeing)
“
With so much knowledge written down and disseminated and so many ardent workers and eager patrons conspiring to produce the new, it was inevitable that technique and style should gradually turn from successful trial and error to foolproof recipe. The close study of antique remains, especially in architecture, turned these sources of inspiration into models to copy. The result was frigidity—or at best cool elegance. It is a cultural generality that going back to the past is most fruitful at the beginning, when the Idea and not the technique is the point of interest. As knowledge grows more exact, originality grows less; perfection increases as inspiration decreases. In painting, this downward curve of artistic intensity is called by the sug- gestive name of Mannerism. It is applicable at more than one moment in the history of the arts. The Mannerist is not to be despised, even though his high competence is secondhand, learned from others instead of worked out for himself. His art need not lack individual character, and to some connoisseurs it gives the pleasure of virtuosity, the exercise of power on demand, but for the critic it poses an enigma: why should the pleasure be greater when the power is in the making rather than on tap? There may be no answer, but a useful corollary is that perfection is not a necessary characteristic of the greatest art.
”
”
Jacques Barzun (From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present)
“
Esperanza Impossible Sonnet 18
Clothes or the lack of it, don't make,
A person obscene, only behavior does.
Who are you to judge someone's expression,
But, here there are plenty grey areas!
Problem is, when obscenity becomes expression,
Misbehavior is deemed declaration of independence.
Too many people confuse attention with admiration,
And a stunt as some wonderful achievement.
Accepting obscenity as freedom of expression,
Is like showing tolerance to intolerance.
Posing butt naked on instagram, unless you're pornstar,
Is like barging into capitol with a flag confederate.
We must find a balance between comfort and conscience.
Civilization falls apart when we can't tell the difference.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Esperanza Impossible: 100 Sonnets of Ethics, Engineering & Existence)
“
One of Sherman’s biographers summarized the man and his unique accomplishments in a remarkable passage. It is why he serves as our model in this phase of our ascent. Among men who rise to fame and leadership two types are recognizable—those who are born with a belief in themselves and those in whom it is a slow growth dependent on actual achievement. To the men of the last type their own success is a constant surprise, and its fruits the more delicious, yet to be tested cautiously with a haunting sense of doubt whether it is not all a dream. In that doubt lies true modesty, not the sham of insincere self-depreciation but the modesty of “moderation,” in the Greek sense. It is poise, not pose.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (Ego Is the Enemy)
“
One model I met through Jerry had been a Playboy playmate. She was tall and gorgeous. Every girl in the world, looking at her, would have been jealous. However, she thought she was too tall. When she would come into a room, she’d be half stooped over. I tried to teach her, when she was posing, to please stand up, because she was so elegant and striking. I finally talked her into that. Then she had another worry: she’s got “dents” near her groin. I have to get out a book of anatomy to show her that it’s the attachment of the muscles to the ilium, and to explain to her that you can’t see these dents on everybody; to see them, everything must be just right, in perfect proportion, like she was. I learned from her that every woman is worried about her looks, no matter how beautiful she is.
”
”
Richard P. Feynman ("Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character)
“
My studio team and I approached the creation of this series with enthusiasm, wit, sincerity and sometimes more than a dash of humour. Is the result just another foray into the clichés of Orientalism? I think not. For the most part the people photographed became co-conspirators in our elaborate game of recreating reality. They enjoyed chai with us and a morning samosa (we most always shoot in the early morning since it is the best time to utilize available light). Our models were indeed “posed and paid”, but they cooperated by suggesting so many things themselves… eagerly grasping the process we were undertaking and joining in the creation of what generally became more than just a photo shoot. Each session in the studio became an “event”…an episode of manufactured expression in which all participated and all remembered.
”
”
Waswo X. Waswo (Men of Rajasthan)
“
All around [the Centre Pompidou and Beauborg Museum], the neighborhood is nothing but a protective zone—remodeling, disinfection, a snobbish and hygienic design—but above all in a figurative sense: it is a machine for making emptiness. It is a bit like the real danger nuclear power stations pose: not lack of security, pollution, explosion, but a system of maximum security that radiates around them, the protective zone of control and deterrence that extends, slowly but surely, over the territory—a technical, ecological, economic, geopolitical glacis. What does the nuclear matter? The station is a matrix in which an absolute model of security is elaborated, which will encompass the whole social field, and which is fundamentally a model of deterrence (it is the same one that controls us globally, under the sign of peaceful coexistence and of the simulation of atomic danger).
The same model, with the same proportions, is elaborated at the Center: cultural fission, political deterrence.
”
”
Jean Baudrillard (Simulacra and Simulation)
“
The dominant philosophical preoccupations of cultures are often a function of tacit assumptions made early in their narratives that are often reflected in their languages. Greek metaphysical presuppositions melded with Judeo-Christian beliefs to produce a “God-model,” where an independent and superordinate principle determines order and value in the world while remaining aloof from it, making human freedom, autonomy, creativity, and individuality at once problematic and of key philosophical interest. On the Chinese side, the commitment to the processional, transformative, and always provisional nature of experience renders the “ten thousand things [or, perhaps better, ‘events’] (wanwu )” which make up the world, including the human world, at once continuous one with another, and at the same time, unique. Thus the primary philosophical problem that emerges from these assumptions is ars contextualis: how do we correlate these unique particulars to achieve their most productive continuities? (This is the underlying general form of “questions” posed to the Book of Changes when casting the stalks.)
”
”
Confucius (The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation)
“
China seems to offer a much more serious challenge than Western social protestors. Despite liberalising its politics and economics, China is neither a democracy nor a truly free-market economy, which does not prevent it from becoming the economic giant of the twenty-first century. Yet this economic giant casts a very small ideological shadow. Nobody seems to know what the Chinese believe these days – including the Chinese themselves. In theory China is still communist, but in practice it is nothing of the kind. Some Chinese thinkers and leaders toy with a return to Confucianism, but that’s hardly more than a convenient facade. This ideological vacuum makes China the most promising breeding ground for the new techno-religions emerging from Silicon Valley (which we will discuss in the following chapters). But these techno-religions, with their belief in immortality and virtual paradises, will take at least a decade or two to establish themselves. Hence at present China doesn’t pose a real alternative to liberalism. For bankrupt Greeks despairing of the liberal model and searching for a substitute, ‘imitating the Chinese’ isn’t a viable option.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow)
“
In 1972, Sara Kapp had been living for some time at Karmê Chöling without daring to ask to speak to Chögyam Trungpa. But when a New York modeling agency wanted to sign her as a model, she decided to ask his advice. Posing in front of the camera all day did not seem appropriate for someone who was trying to cut through her ego.
Chögyam Trungpa asked her why she wanted to become a model. She explained how she had experienced some difficulty in sticking to any one thing after finishing college. So she thought that maybe picking out something for a few years might be beneficial.
If that is the reason, he replied, then there’s no problem. He encouraged her to follow her career, and as she continued to hesitate, he told her: “The only obstacle I can see is if you do this work hoping to earn lots of money or to be on the cover of Vogue. That would be sad, because you’d be losing youself in the future. It’s a real shame when people regret not having enough money, or having missed a career opportunity, because they are then fixing themselves in the past. It’s very, very sad.” Then staring into her eyes, he repeated: “It’s very, very, very sad because that way we miss out on the present, and the present is marvelous.” She went on to become one of the best-known runway models of her day. For a period of time, one could find mannequins of Sara Kapp in Saks and other epxensive department stores throughout the United States. Her last major modeling contract was as the first Princes Borghese for Revlon. She now works behind the scenes in the fashion industry in Milan.
”
”
Fabrice Midal (Chogyam Trungpa: His Life and Vision)
“
One early terracotta statuette from Catal Huyuk in Anatolia depicts an enthroned female in the act of giving birth, supported by two cat-like animals that form her seat (Plate 1). This figure has been identified as a 'birth goddess' and it is this type of early image that has led a number of feminist scholars to posit a 'reign of the goddess' in ancient Near Eastern prehistory. Maria Gimbutas, for whom such images are proof of a perfect matriarchal society in 'Old Europe' , presents an ideal vision in which a socially egalitarian matriarchal culture was overthrown by a destructive patriarchy (Gimbutas 1991). Gerda Lerner has argued for a similar situation in the ancient Near East; however, she does not discuss nude figurines at any length (Lerner 1986a: 147). More recently, critiques of the matriarchal model of prehistory have pointed out the flaws in this methodology (e.g. Conkey and Tringham 1995; Meskell 1995; Goodison and Morris 1998). In all these critiques the identification of such figures as goddesses is rejected as a modern myth. There is no archaeological evidence that these ancient communities were in fact matriarchal, nor is there any evidence that female deities were worshipped exclusively. Male gods may have worshipped simultaneously with the 'mother goddesses' if such images are indeed representations of deities. Nor do such female figures glorify or show admiration for the female body; rather they essentialise it, reducing it to nothing more nor less than a reproductive vessel. The reduction of the head and the diminution of the extremities seem to stress the female form as potentially reproductive, but to what extent this condition was seen as sexual, erotic or matriarchal is unclear.
....Despite the correct rejection of the 'Mother Goddess' and utopian matriarchy myths by recent scholarship, we should not loose track of the overwhelming evidence that the image of female nudity was indeed one of power in ancient Mesopotamia. The goddess Ishtar/Inanna was but one of several goddesses whose erotic allure was represented as a powerful attribute in the literature of the ancient Near East. In contact to the naked male body which was the focus of a variety of meanings in the visual arts, female nudity was always associated with sexuality, and in particular with powerful sexual attraction, Akkadian *kuzbu*. This sexuality was not limited to Ishtar and her cult. As a literary topos, sensuousness is a defining quality for both mortal women and goddesses. In representational art, the nude woman is portrayed in a provocative pose, as the essence of the feminine. For femininity, sexual allure, *kuzbu*, the ideal of the feminine, was thus expressed as nudity in both visual and verbal imagery. While several iconographic types of unclothed females appear in Mesopotamian representations of the historical period - nursing mothers, women in acts of sexual intercourse, entertainers such as dancers and musicians, and isolated frontally represented nudes with or without other attributes - and while these nude female images may have different iconographic functions, the ideal of femininity and female sexuality portrayed in them is similar.
-Zainab Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia
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Zainab Bahrani
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Except then a local high school journalism class decided to investigate the story. Not having attended Columbia Journalism School, the young scribes were unaware of the prohibition on committing journalism that reflects poorly on Third World immigrants. Thanks to the teenagers’ reporting, it was discovered that Reddy had become a multimillionaire by using H-1B visas to bring in slave labor from his native India. Dozens of Indian slaves were working in his buildings and at his restaurant. Apparently, some of those “brainy” high-tech workers America so desperately needs include busboys and janitors. And concubines. The pubescent girls Reddy brought in on H-1B visas were not his nieces: They were his concubines, purchased from their parents in India when they were twelve years old. The sixty-four-year-old Reddy flew the girls to America so he could have sex with them—often several of them at once. (We can only hope this is not why Mark Zuckerberg is so keen on H-1B visas.) The third roommate—the crying girl—had escaped the carbon monoxide poisoning only because she had been at Reddy’s house having sex with him, which, judging by the looks of him, might be worse than death. As soon as a translator other than Reddy was found, she admitted that “the primary purpose for her to enter the U.S. was to continue to have sex with Reddy.” The day her roommates arrived from India, she was forced to watch as the old, balding immigrant had sex with both underage girls at once.3 She also said her dead roommate had been pregnant with Reddy’s child. That could not be confirmed by the court because Reddy had already cremated the girl, in the Hindu tradition—even though her parents were Christian. In all, Reddy had brought seven underage girls to the United States for sex—smuggled in by his brother and sister-in-law, who lied to immigration authorities by posing as the girls’ parents.4 Reddy’s “high-tech” workers were just doing the slavery Americans won’t do. No really—we’ve tried getting American slaves! We’ve advertised for slaves at all the local high schools and didn’t get a single taker. We even posted flyers at the grade schools, asking for prepubescent girls to have sex with Reddy. Nothing. Not even on Craigslist. Reddy’s slaves and concubines were considered “untouchables” in India, treated as “subhuman”—“so low that they are not even considered part of Hinduism’s caste system,” as the Los Angeles Times explained. To put it in layman’s terms, in India they’re considered lower than a Kardashian. According to the Indian American magazine India Currents: “Modern slavery is on display every day in India: children forced to beg, young girls recruited into brothels, and men in debt bondage toiling away in agricultural fields.” More than half of the estimated 20.9 million slaves worldwide live in Asia.5 Thanks to American immigration policies, slavery is making a comeback in the United States! A San Francisco couple “active in the Indian community” bought a slave from a New Delhi recruiter to clean house for them, took away her passport when she arrived, and refused to let her call her family or leave their home.6 In New York, Indian immigrants Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani were convicted in 2006 of bringing in two Indonesian illegal aliens as slaves to be domestics in their Long Island, New York, home.7 In addition to helping reintroduce slavery to America, Reddy sends millions of dollars out of the country in order to build monuments to himself in India. “The more money Reddy made in the States,” the Los Angeles Times chirped, “the more good he seemed to do in his hometown.” That’s great for India, but what is America getting out of this model immigrant? Slavery: Check. Sickening caste system: Check. Purchasing twelve-year-old girls for sex: Check. Draining millions of dollars from the American economy: Check. Smuggling half-dead sex slaves out of his slums in rolled-up carpets right under the nose of the Berkeley police: Priceless.
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Ann Coulter (¡Adios, America!: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole)
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He recognized her deft hand and eye for detail immediately. He flipped through the pages, past vignettes of the dairymaid and her vague-featured gentleman engaged in a courtship of sorts: a kiss on the hand, a whisper in the ear. By the book’s midpoint, the chit’s voluminous petticoats were up around her ears, and the illustrations comprised a sequence of quite similar poses in varying locales. Not just the dairy, but a carriage, the larder, in a hayloft lit with candles and strewn with…were those rose petals?
I’ll be damned.
Gray was fast divining the true source of the French painting master’s mythic exploits. More unsettling by far, however, as he perused the book, he noted a subtle alteration in the gentleman lover’s features. With each successive illustration, the hero appeared taller, broader in the shoulders, and his hair went from a cropped style to collar length in the space of two pages.
The more pages Gray turned, the more he recognized himself.
It was unmistakable. She’d used him as the model for these bawdy illustrations. She’d sketched him in secret; not once, but many times. And here he’d nearly gone mad with envy over each scrap of foolscap she’d inked for once crewman or another. His emotions underwent a dizzying progression-from surprised, to flattered, to (with the benefit of one especially inventive situation in an orchard) undeniably aroused.
But as he lingered over a nude study of this amalgam of the real him and some picaresque fantasy, he began to feel something else entirely. He felt used.
She’d rendered his form with astonishing accuracy, given that it must have been drawn before she’d any opportunity to actually see him unclothed. Not that she’d achieved an exact likeness. Her virgin’s imagination was rather generous in certain aspects and somewhat stinting in others, he noted with a bitter sort of amusement. But she’d laid him bare in these pages, without his knowledge or consent. God, she’d even drawn his scars. All in service of some adolescent erotic fantasy.
And now he began to grow angry.
He had been handling the leaves of the book with his fingertips only, anxious he might smudge or rip the pages. Now he abandoned all caution and flipped roughly through the remainder of the volume. Until he came to the end, and his hand froze.
There they were, the two of them. He and she fully clothed and unengaged in any physical intimacies-yet intimate, in a way he had never known. Never dreamed. Sitting beneath a willow tree, his head in her lap. One of her hands lay twined with his, atop his chest. The other rested on his brow. The sky soared vast and expansive above, gauzy clouds spinning into forever.
The hot fist of desire that had gripped his loins loosened, moved upward through his torso, churning the contents of his gut along the way. Then it clutched at his heart and squeezed until it hurt. Somehow, this illustration was the most dismaying of all. So naïve, so ridiculous. at least the bawdy situations were plausible, if sometimes physically improbable. This was utterly impossible. To her, he'd never been more than a fantasy.
It occurred to Gray that more secrets might be packed within these trunks. If he sorted through her belongings, he might find the answers to all his questions. Perhaps answers to questions he'd never thought to ask. In spite of this, he let the lid of the trunk clap shut and fastened the strap with shaking fingers. He'd suffered as many of her fantasies as he could bear for one day.
It was time to acquaint her with reality.
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Tessa Dare (Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2))
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In a TED talk watched by over a million people, Wolfram (2010) proposes that working on mathematics has four stages: Posing a question Going from the real world to a mathematical model Performing a calculation Going from the model back to the real world, to see if the original question was answered The first stage involves asking a good question of some data or a situation—the first mathematical act that is needed in the workplace.
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Jo Boaler (Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching (Mindset Mathematics))
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Carl discreetly turned his head to the left and then the right to make sure Mom wasn’t within hearing range.
“I tried to stick it in er ass once and she didn’t speak to me for a week,” he nearly whispered before belting out a slur of loose chuckles. “And gettin’ ‘er to do ya on top? Forget about it!”
In ways, I morphed into Carl’s description of the ideal woman. Like Mom, physical beauty was my ultimate priority. I spent hours on end stripped naked, posing in front of my full length bedroom mirror at every angle so that each wrinkle, roll, and pinch of fat could receive sharp scrutiny before I strived for complete self annihilation. I made it a habit of studying every Teen magazine model and the skinniest cheerleaders in my middle school yearbook. I observed their arms, legs, and hips. I held their images against mine with a goal for my bones to protrude further and calves spread further apart when standing straight. However, I saw the way Carl bent his head down and lowered his voice when he spoke about Mom, as if it was our job to keep a feisty, barking puppy believing that it was our guard dog.
“Ure mom can’t help she got half ure I-Q,” Carl would chuckle.
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Maggie Georgiana Young (Just Another Number)
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It’s one thing to battle oppression from the outside, but what do you do when the ideas that are attacking you are your own? As with all forms of oppression, sizeism doesn't exist in a vacuum. It interacts with and impacts other forms of oppression, including ableism. For those of us with disabilities where extra weight can make moving around that much harder, the threat of losing what mobility we have can loom over our heads. Ableism tells us that we must walk and become as “independent” as possible; sizeism blackmails us into making sure we stay that way. They both reinforce the man-made idea of an ideal body, one that everyone should aspire to have. Both feed into the capitalist idea that we must pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, that we must fend for ourselves, that we must not be a burden on anyone else. The two work in tandem with sexism as well – a female body should be Barbie doll skinny, sleek and sophisticated, and anything else is just gross.
Our culture's standard definition of beautiful depends on preconceived notions about how the perfect body should be, notions that rely on various forms of oppression to legitimize them. A model body should ideally be white or white-passing, slim and nondisabled. Is it any wonder we don’t see fat, visibly disabled people of color posing on the covers of fashion magazines?"
-Cara Liebowitz, "Palsy Skinny: A Mixed Up, Muddled Journey into Size and Disability," Criptiques, 2014.
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Cara Liebowitz
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sfceww
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Why are They Converting to Islam? - Op-Eds - Arutz Sheva One of the things that worries the West is the fact that hundreds and maybe even thousands of young Europeans are converting to Islam, and some of them are joining terror groups and ISIS and returning to promote Jihad against the society in which they were born, raised and educated. The security problem posed by these young people is a serious one, because if they hide their cultural identity, it is extremely difficult for Western security forces to identify them and their evil intentions. This article will attempt to clarify the reasons that impel these young people to convert to Islam and join terrorist organizations. The sources for this article are recordings made by the converts themselves, and the words they used, written here, are for the most part unedited direct quotations. Muslim migration to Europe, America and Australia gain added significance in that young people born in these countries are exposed to Islam as an alternative to the culture in which they were raised. Many of the converts are convinced that Islam is a religion of peace, love, affection and friendship, based on the generous hospitality and warm welcome they receive from the Moslem friends in their new social milieu. In many instances, a young person born into an individualistic, cold and alienating society finds that Muslim society provides – at college, university or community center – a warm embrace, a good word, encouragement and help, things that are lacking in the society from which he stems. The phenomenon is most striking in the case of those who grew up in dysfunctional families or divorced homes, whose parents are alcoholics, drug addicts, violent and abusive, or parents who take advantage of their offspring and did not give their children a suitable emotional framework and model for building a normative, productive life. The convert sees his step as a mature one based on the right of an individual to determine his own religious and cultural identity, even if the family and society he is abandoning disagree. Sometimes converting to Islam is a form of parental rebellion. Often, the convert is spurned by his family and surrounding society for his decision, but the hostility felt towards Islam by his former environment actually results in his having more confidence in the need for his conversion. Anything said against conversion to Islam is interpreted as unjustified racism and baseless Islamophobia. The Islamic convert is told by Muslims that Islam respects the prophets of its mother religions, Judaism and Christianity, is in favor of faith in He Who dwells on High, believes in the Day of Judgment, in reward and punishment, good deeds and avoiding evil. He is convinced that Islam is a legitimate religion as valid as Judaism and Christianity, so if his parents are Jewish or Christian, why can't he become Muslim? He sees a good many positive and productive Muslims who benefit their society and its economy, who have integrated into the environment in which he was raised, so why not emulate them? Most Muslims are not terrorists, so neither he nor anyone should find his joining them in the least problematic. Converts to Islam report that reading the Koran and uttering the prayers add a spiritual meaning to their lives after years of intellectual stagnation, spiritual vacuum and sinking into a materialistic and hedonistic lifestyle. They describe the switch to Islam in terms of waking up from a bad dream, as if it is a rite of passage from their inane teenage years. Their feeling is that the Islamic religion has put order into their lives, granted them a measuring stick to assess themselves and their behavior, and defined which actions are allowed and which are forbidden, as opposed to their "former" society, which couldn't or wouldn't lay down rules. They are willing to accept the limitations Islamic law places on Muslims, thereby "putting order into their lives" after "a life of in
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Anonymous
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But the current investment banking model—whether applied in a standalone institution such as Goldman or in a broad financial conglomerate such as Deutsche Bank—is at the heart of the problems the finance sector poses for the real economy. Investment banks today engage in securities issuance, corporate advice and asset management; they make markets in equities and FICC, and trade in these markets on their own account. It is only necessary to list these functions to see that each of these activities conflicts with all the others. Each should be undertaken in distinct institutions. And with lower volumes of inter-bank trading, a diminished role for public equity markets and much more direct investment by asset managers the scale of most of these activities should be much reduced. Among all the actors in the finance sector today, only the asset manager, who typically earns a fee calculated as a percentage of funds under management, is rewarded for idleness. The profits of a segregated deposit-taking bank would similarly depend primarily on the scale of the deposit base, and secondarily on its success in making good loans. Dedicated channels of capital allocation have a more appropriate incentive structure than activities focused on trading and transactions. Whenever
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John Kay (Other People's Money: The Real Business of Finance)
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like a person who musts up the courage to take part in a tomahawk throwing competition only for their shoulder to lock into place, straining a vein and looking like you’re posing for a portrait that would probably look even more badass if you had signed up to be the nude model in an art class which takes a lot of courage unless you’re already vain.
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J.S. Mason (The Satyrist...And Other Scintillating Treats)
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Henri Nouwen remains one of the greatest spiritual writers of the twentieth century, and he is a model of how to embody spiritual health....David, a friend of mine, had the opportunity to talk with Nouwen during the final year of his life....David posed a single question to the spiritual giant, "Henri, what is the key to the spiritual life?" Nouwen, with his hands moving from his solar plexus out, stated simply: 'Live from the center. Live from the center.
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Greg Cootsona (Say Yes To No: Using The Power Of No To Create The Best In Life, Work, and Love)
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Earlier, I cited Oswald Spengler’s chilling century-old prophecy that “the era of individualism, liberalism and democracy, of humanitarianism and freedom, is nearing its end. The masses will accept with resignation the victory of the Caesars, the strong men, and will obey them.” This is the real danger posed by Putin: that he will be a model for other national leaders who want to retain their grip on power indefinitely, despite political and legal constraints.
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Madeleine K. Albright (Fascism: A Warning)
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Now, consider how someone more familiar with Islam would have perceived the very same images. Bin Laden wore simple cloth not because he was primitive in terms of intellect or technology, but because he modelled himself on the Prophet. He fasted on the days the Prophet fasted. His poses and postures, which seemed so backward to a Western audience, were those that Islamic tradition ascribes to the most holy of its prophets. The very images that desensitised the CIA to the dangers of bin Laden were those that magnified his potency in the Arab world.
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Matthew Syed (Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking)
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The coach of a college football team can make thousands, hundreds of thousands, and perhaps even millions of people many of them otherwise stable and superficially reasonable adults insanely angry. I experience churning gastrointestinal distress on Saturdays during the season until Michigan has a lead of at least
seventeen points. In my idle moments, when taking showers and driving my three children around northern New Jersey, I spend more time mentally debating self-posed hypotheses such as. "Did Jim Harbaugh corner himself into a no-man's land between the Wisconsin Iowa system development model and the Ohio/Penn State talent acquisition model?" than I do thinking about any other question, including things such as, "Do I have the right career?" and "What are parents' and children's obligations to each other?" and "What happens to our souls when our bodies die?" This kind of fixation, conducive to neither peace of mind nor personal productivity, is very common.
Why are so many people like this?
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Ben Mathis-Lilley (The Hot Seat: A Year of Outrage, Pride, and Occasional Games of College Football)
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You like it?” Posing with her free hand on her hip, she gave him her best sultry-model face. If she had to be stuck wearing wet coveralls and too-large rubber boots, then she was going to own the look.
He chuckled, although his gaze heated as he took her in. “Oh yeah. It’s kennel chic.”
“Right.” Dropping the pose, she frowned at him, trying to figure out why he was looking at her like he wanted to eat her.
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Katie Ruggle (On the Chase (Rocky Mountain K9 Unit, #2))
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Accepting obscenity as freedom of expression,
Is like showing tolerance to intolerance.
Posing butt naked on instagram, unless you're pornstar,
Is like barging into capitol with a flag confederate.
We must find a balance between comfort and conscience.
Civilization falls apart when we can't tell the difference.
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Abhijit Naskar (Esperanza Impossible: 100 Sonnets of Ethics, Engineering & Existence)
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Ambrose!” he cried. “Paint Ambrose! For the lid of a chocolate box, I presume. Trivona is paintable, I admit (her bones are good, and the texture of her skin takes the light well). Trivona, I say, is paintable, but what use is that when she cannot pose for two consecutive minutes without fidgeting? Ambrose could pose for an hour but has the face of a Botticelli angel—My God!” said Mr. Marvell, violently, “I could paint Ambrose with my eyes shut. An art school would leap at Ambrose. Here am I, stuck in the depths of the country with no models to be had for love or money, and God afflicts me with Trivona and Ambrose.
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D.E. Stevenson (Miss Buncle Married (Miss Buncle #2))
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Why,” he said at last, “why did you come alone - why were you sent alone? Everything, still, will depend upon that ship coming. Why was it made so difficult for you, and for us?”
“It’s the Ekumen’s custom, and there are reasons for it. Though in fact I begin to wonder if I’ve ever understood the reasons. I thought it was for your sake that I came alone, so obviously alone, so vulnerable, that I could in myself pose no threat, change no balance: not an invasion, but a mere-messenger boy. But there’s more to it than that. Alone, I cannot change your world. But I can be changed by it. Alone, I must listen, as well as speak. Alone, the relationship I finally make, if I make one, is not impersonal and not only political: it is individual, it is personal, it is both more and less than political. Not We and They; not I and It; but I and Thou. Not political, not pragmatic, but mystical. In a certain sense the Eminem is not a body politic, but a body mystic. It considers beginnings to be extremely important. Beginnings, and means. Its doctrine is just the revers of the doctrine that the ends justifies the means. It proceeds, therefore, by subtle ways, and slow ones, and queer, risky ones; rather as evolution does, which is in certain senses its model…So I was sent alone, for your sake? Or for my own? I don’t know. Yes, it has made things difficult. But I might ask you as profitably why you’ve never seen fit to invent airborne vehicles? One small stolen airplane would have spared you and me a great deal of difficulty!”
“How would it ever occur to a sane man that he could fly?” Estraven said sternly.
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Ursula K. Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness)
Douglas Johnson (Art Models Sam074: Figure Drawing Pose Reference (Art Models Poses))
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Analogs, antilogs, and the testing of hypotheses to prove or refute your most crucial leaps of faith can inform all kinds of decisions, including operational and marketing plans, without breaking your piggy bank. And they can provide insights into issues much broader than whether your customer will buy. There’s another role, too, that’s probably even more important, because walking before you decide to run is a very good idea. Testing your leaps of faith early and often helps safeguard your company against risk. Thus, doing so deserves focused managerial attention until the questions you pose and the untested beliefs you hold are convincingly resolved, either proved or refuted.
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John W. Mullins (Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model)
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When I checked myself out in the bedroom mirror, I looked rather suave and primed for action. I performed a few test karate chops and jujitsu kicks, then modeled some debonair poses. “The name’s Ripley,” I purred smoothly. “Benjamin Ripley.” It was at this point that I noticed Erica standing in the doorway.
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Stuart Gibbs (Spy School Secret Service)
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One poster is titled: THE HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS! The odd use of an exclamation mark is what drew my eye. The model hired to pose for the poster is grinning so aggressively that I can see every single one of her enormous teeth. I am staring into her beaming eyes, wondering how I too can achieve happiness. Does living a life unburdened by the fear of catching HPV result in that level of euphoria? If so, shoot me up.
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Emily R. Austin (Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead)
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Uncle Enzo is standing there, not exactly smiling, an avuncular glint in his eye for sure, not posing like a model but standing there like your uncle would,
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Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
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On generative AI, LLMs, etc.
Humans acquire language and communication skills from a diverse range of sources, including raw, unfiltered, and unstructured content. However, when it comes to acquiring knowledge, humans tend to rely on transparent, trusted, and structured sources.
In contrast, ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) use a vast array of opaque, unattested sources of raw, unfiltered, and unstructured content as their means of language and communication training and as the source of information used in their responses.
While this approach has proven to be effective in generating natural language, it has also been inconsistent and, at times, significantly lacking in integrity in its responses. While it may provide information, it does not necessarily provide knowledge.
To be truly useful, generative AI must be able to separate language and communication training from the acquisition of knowledge to be used in its responses. This will allow LLMs to not only generate coherent and fluent language but also to provide accurate and reliable information to users. However, in a culture that values self-proclaimed influencers where transparency and accuracy is secondary, it has become increasingly challenging to separate reliable information from misinformation and knowledge from ignorance. This poses a significant obstacle for AI algorithms that strive to provide accurate and trustworthy responses.
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Tom Golway
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Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)—This New York-set thriller operates on mood and atmosphere and moves so fast, with such delicate changes of rhythm, that its excitement has a subterranean sexiness. Faye Dunaway, with long, thick, dark-red hair, is Laura Mars, a celebrity fashion photographer who specializes in the chic and pungency of sadism; the pictures she shoots have a furtive charge—we can see why they sell. Directed by Irvin Kershner, the film has a few shocking fast cuts, but it also has scabrous elegance and a surprising amount of humor. Laura’s scruffy, wild-eyed driver (Brad Dourif) epitomizes New York’s crazed, hostile flunkies; he’s so wound up he seems to have the tensions of the whole city in his gut. Her manager (René Auberjonois) is tense and ambivalent about Laura—about everything. Her models (Lisa Taylor and Dar-lanne Fluegel), who in their poses look wickedly decadent, are really just fun-loving dingalings.
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Pauline Kael (5001 Nights at the Movies (Holt Paperback))
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She twisted her lips to one side. “No. Not good enough. If I’m right, you pose in some website pictures with my dog satchels. I need a male model.
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Abby Jimenez (The Friend Zone (The Friend Zone, #1))
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The System would tolerate these harmless activities as a means to allow people to go through the Power Process to meet contrived needs which pose no threat to its dominance. For example, rather than directly work towards obtaining food and shelter, one would occupy one’s time with innocuous pastimes like building model ships or cheering for a particular football team, despite the fact that one’s quality of life would not be improved at all even by seeing one’s favourite team win the top championship game. Kaczynski of course calls these surrogate activities.
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Chad A. Haag (The Philosophy of Ted Kaczynski: Why the Unabomber was Right about Modern Technology)
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Pretexting – This approach generally involves an impersonation. Posing as a superior, IT consultant, security guard, or some other authority figure, the hacker gains her access by manipulating the victim into thinking she should have legitimate access. This is the approach Kevin Mitnick used with Nokia.
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Josh Linkner (Hacking Innovation: The New Growth Model from the Sinister World of Hackers)
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Although the once-thriving city is now in ruins, the marble bones tell marvelous stories. We see elegant carvings and dramatic columns and streets and courtyards paved in mosaic tiles. We see the remnants of baths and public toilets. And everywhere among the ruins are sweet, plump cats … stretching out in the sun on slabs of ancient marble, or grooming themselves atop marble posts or broken marble columns or posing like professional models.
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Al Lockwood (Cruising the Mediterranean)
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From the smoothness of their skin, the length of their hemlines, the banality of their song lyrics and sitcom plots, these young stars embody an ideal of teenage innocence that adults are grateful to embrace. For as many seasons as the illusion can be maintained they remain, at least on screen, uncomplicated, untroubled good girls on the verge of, but never actually awakening to, their sexuality.
There is a lot of money to be made and a lot of parental anxiety to be tapped by walking that line.
There is also a lot of fury unleashed at those who step across it. When young stars pose semi-nude or get caught drinking they threaten the notion that our own daughter's coming of age could be effortless. Suddenly the role models, who perpetuated that myth, become the vector of our fears. The betrayal feels personal and cuts deep.
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Peggy Orenstein (Don't Call Me Princess: Essays on Girls, Women, Sex, and Life)
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Later Turing proved that Turing machines could compute exactly the same functions as lambda calculus, which proved that all three models of computation are equivalent. This is a truly remarkable result, considering how different the three models of computation are. In Church's 1941 paper he made a statement that is now known as the Church-Turing thesis: Any function that can be called computable can be computed by lambda calculus, a Turing machine, or a general recursive function.
Recall the point that was made about functions describing relationships between numbers and models of computation describing functions. Well, the Church-Turing thesis is yet another level more fundamental than a model of computation. As a statement about models of computation, it is not subject to proof in the usual sense; thus, it is impossible to prove that the thesis is correct. Once could disprove it by coming up with a model of computation over discrete elements that could calculate things that one of the other models could not; however, this has not happened. The fact that every posed model of computation has always been exactly equivalent to (or weaker than) one of the others lends strong support to the Church-Turing thesis.
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Gary William Flake (The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation)
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As a self-confessed Pre-Raphaelite - a term that by the 1880s was interchangeable with ‘Aesthete’ - Constance was carrying a torch whose flame had ben lit in the 1850s by a group of women associated with the founding Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painters. Women such as Elizabeth Siddal and Jane Morris, the wives respectively of the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the poet, designer and socialist William Morris, had modelled for the Pre-Raphaelite artists, wearing loose, flowing gowns.
But it was not just their depiction on canvas that sparked a new fashion among an intellectual elite. Off canvas these women also establised new liberties for women that some twenty years later were still only just being taken up by a wider female population. They pioneered new kinds of dresses, with sleeves either sewn on at the shoulder, rather than below it, or puffed and loose. While the rest of the female Victorian populace had to go about with their arms pinned to their bodies in tight, unmoving sheaths, the Pre-Raphaelite women could move their arms freely, to paint or pose or simply be comfortable. The Pre-Raphaelite girls also did away with the huge, bell-shaped crinoline skirts, held out by hoops and cages strapped on to the female undercarriage. They dispensed with tight corsets that pinched waists into hourglasses, as well as the bonnets and intricate hairstyles that added layer upon layer to a lady’s daily toilette.
Their ‘Aesthetic’ dress, as it became known, was more than just a fashion; it was a statement. In seeking comfort for women it also spoke of a desire for liberation that went beyond physical ease. It was also a statement about female creative expression, which in itself was aligned to broader feminist issues. The original Pre-Raphaelite sisterhood lived unconventionally with artists, worked at their own artistic projects and became famous in the process. Those women who were Aesthetic dress in their wake tended to believe that women should have the right to a career and ultimately be enfranchised with the vote.
[…] And so Constance, with ‘her ugly dresses’, her schooling and her college friends, was already in some small degree a young woman going her own way. Moving away from the middle-class conventions of the past, where women were schooled by governesses at home, would dress in a particular manner and be chaperoned, Constance was already modern.
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Franny Moyle (Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde)
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The Keeling Curve Courtesy the NASA Earth Observatory. NASA graph by Robert Simmon, based on data provided by the NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory. If the scientific story of global warming has one great hero, he is James Hansen, and not only because he is the most important climatologist of his era, whose massive computer models were demonstrating by the early 1980s that increased CO2 posed a dire threat.
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Bill McKibben (The Global Warming Reader: A Century of Writing About Climate Change)
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The more difficult answer - the more courageous one - is to say yes, yes we should be concerned about the behavior of men trapped in ghetto communities, but the deep failure of morality is our own. Economist Glenn Loury once posed the question: 'are we willing to cast ourselves as a society that creates crimogenic conditions for some of its members, and then acts-out rituals of punishment against them as if engaged in some awful form of human sacrifice?' A similar question can be posed with respect to shaming those trapped in ghettos: are we willing to demonize a population, declare a war against them, and then stand back and heap shame and contempt upon them for failing to behave like model citizens while under attack?
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Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
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So ingrained in the Parisian psyche was the connection between posing and prostitution that artist’s models were frequently referred to as grisettes, the name also used to designate working-class girls who supplemented their income through prostitution
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Catherine Hewitt (Renoir's Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon)
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Models posed either for parts (the head, a clothed torso, for example), or, more controversially, for l’ensemble – the full (often nude) figure.
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Catherine Hewitt (Renoir's Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon)
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Piff and his colleagues also have found that wealthier people are more prone to entitlement and narcissistic behavior than poorer ones are. Literally narcissistic! In the classic myth, Narcissus falls in love with his own reflection. In a study of 244 undergraduates, Piff observed that “upper-class” individuals were more likely than their “lower-class” counterparts to regard themselves in a mirror before posing for a photo they were assured nobody would ever see. This was the case even after researchers adjusted the results to account for differences in ethnicity, gender, and the participants’ previously reported levels of self-consciousness. In another memorable experiment, Piff’s team placed a pedestrian at the edge of a busy crosswalk near the Berkeley campus and watched to see which drivers would stop and let the person cross. They recorded vehicle makes and models and estimated ages and genders of the drivers. It was impossible, of course, to know anyone’s true economic circumstances and motivations, but suffice it to say that Fords and Subarus were far more likely to stop than Mercedes and BMWs were. In a related experiment, people driving higher-end cars were more likely to cut off other drivers at a busy intersection.
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Michael Mechanic (Jackpot: How the Super-Rich Really Live—and How Their Wealth Harms Us All)
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In principle – and after Nehru – in practice, the choice came to be posed simply: either democracy had to be curtailed, and the intellectual, directive model of development pursued more vigorously (one of the supposed rationales offered for the Emergency of the mid-1970s); or democracy had to be maintained along with all its cumbersome constraints, and the ambition of a long-term developmental project abandoned. The striking point about the seventeen years of Nehru’s premiership was his determination to avoid this stark choice. Any swerve from democracy was ruled out; the intellectual arguments had, however, to be upheld. The claims of techne, the need for specialist perspectives on economic development, were lent authority by the creation in 1950 of an agency of economic policy formulation, insulated from the pressures of routine democratic politics: the Planning Commission. Discussions of national progress were by now being formulated in the technical vocabulary of economics, which made them wholly unintelligible to most Indians. The task of translation was entrusted to the civil service, and as the algebra of progress moved down the echelons, it was mangled and diluted. The civil service itself provoked deep ambivalence among nationalists: mistrusted because of its colonial paternity, but respected for its obvious competence and expertise. In the 1930s Nehru had called for a radical transformation of the Indian Civil Service in a free India, though by the time independence actually arrived he had become decidedly less belligerent towards it. It was Patel who had stood up for the civil servants after 1947, speaking thunderously in their favour in the Constituent Assembly. But by the early 1950s Nehru had himself turned more wholeheartedly towards them: he hoped now to use them against the obstructions raised by his own party. The colonial civil-service tradition of fiscal stringency was preserved during the Nehru period, but the bureaucracy was now also given explicitly developmental responsibilities.
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Sunil Khilnani (The Idea of India)
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the middle of 2015, it was time to commit. Trump organized an announcement event at his own Trump Tower. In typical Trump fashion, he hired a room full of extras to pose as “supporters” from a New York modeling agency (Extra Mile) who were paid $50 to attend the event.
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Tim Devine (Days of Trump: The Definitive Chronology of the 45th President of the United States)
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Spinoza offers philosophers a new model: the body. He pro poses to establish the body as a model: "We do not know what the body can do . ..
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Anonymous
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Andy’s Message Around the time I received Arius’ email, Andy’s message arrived. He wrote: Young, I do remember Rick Samuels. I was at the seminar in the Bahriji when he came to lecture. Like you I was at once mesmerized by his style and beauty, which of course was a false image manufactured by the advertising agencies and sales promoters. I was surprised to hear your backroom story of him being gangbanged in the dungeon. We are not ones to judge since both of us had been down that negative road of self-loathing. This seems to be a common thread with people whom others considered good-looking or beautiful. In my opinion, it’s a fake image that handsome people know they cannot live up to. Instead of exterior beauty being an asset, it often becomes a psychological burden. During the years when I was with Toby, I delved in some fashion modeling work in New Zealand. I ventured into this business because it was my subconscious way of reminding me of the days we posed for Mario and Aziz. It was also my twisted way of hoping to meet another person like me, with the hope of building a loving long-term relationship. It was also a desperate attempt to break loose from Toby’s psychosomatic grip on my person. Ian was his name and he was a very attractive 24 year old architecture student. He modeled to earn some extra spending money. We became fast friends, but he had this foreboding nature which often came on unexpectedly. A sentence or a word could trigger his depression, sending the otherwise cheerful man into bouts of non-verbal communication. It was like a brightly lit light bulb suddenly being switched off in mid-sentence. We did have an affair while I was trying to patch things up with Toby. As delightful as our sexual liaisons were there was a hidden missing element, YOU! Much like my liaisons with Oscar, without your presence, our sexual communications took on a different dynamic which only you as the missing link could resolve. There were times during or after sex when Ian would abuse himself with negative thoughts and self-denigration. I tried to console him, yet I was deeply sorrowed about my own unresolved issues with Toby. It was like the blind leading the blind. I was gravely saddened when Ian took his own life. Heavily drugged on prescriptive anti-depressant and a stomach full of extensive alcohol consumption, he fell off his ten story apartment building. He died instantly. This was the straw that threw me into a nervous breakdown. Thank God I climbed out of my despondencies with the help of Ari and Aria. My dearest Young, I have a confession to make; you are the only person I have truly loved and will continue to love. All these years I’ve tried to forget you but I cannot. That said I am not trying to pry you away from Walter and have you return to me. We are just getting to know each other yet I feel your spirit has never left. Please make sure that Walter understands that I’m not jeopardizing your wonderful relationship. I am happy for the both of you. You had asked jokingly if I was interested in a triplet relationship. Maybe when the time and opportunity arises it may happen, but now I’m enjoying my own company after Albert’s passing. In a way it is nice to have my freedom after 8 years of building a life with Albert. I love you my darling boy and always will. As always, I await your cheerful emails. Andy. Xoxoxo
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Young (Unbridled (A Harem Boy's Saga, #2))
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To do things differently, we need to perceive things differently. In discussing where we want to be, breakthrough ideas often come when people look at the world through a fresh lens. One of the most important design challenges I pose in this book is to make the processes and systems that surround us intelligible and knowable. We need to design microscopes, as well as microscopes, to help us understand where things come from and why: the life story of a hamburger, or time pressure, or urban sprawl. Equipped with a fresh understanding of why our present situations are as they are, we can better describe where we want to be. With alternative situations evocatively in mind, we can design our way from here to there.
Macroscopes can help us understand complex systems, but our own eyes, unaided, are just as important. All over the world, alternative models of organizing daily life are being tried and tested right now. We just need to look for them. When Ezio Manzini ran design workshops in Brazil, China, and India to develop new design ideas for an exhibition about daily life, he encountered dozens of examples of new services for daily life he had never thought of before-and also new attitudes. In many different cultures, he discovered, "an obsession with things is being replaced by a fascination with events." Both young and old people are designing activities and environments in which energy and material consumption is modest and more people are used, not fewer, in the ways we take care of people, work, study, move around, find food, eat, and share equipment.12
In a less-stuff-more-people world, we still
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John Thackara (In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World (The MIT Press))
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A similar question can be posed with respect to shaming those trapped in ghettos: are we willing to demonize a population, declare a war against them, and then stand back and heap shame and contempt upon them for failing to behave like model citizens while under attack?
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Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
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All the models were preening and posing while Mario clicked away, twisting this way and that, upward, downward and every which way in order to capture the perfect shot. Not surprisingly, Andy was a natural in this modeling game. Like a well-trained Bahriji grad, he worked his seductive charms while posing with the three females, exuding an unmistakable flair and panache at every turn. Viewing the photographs later, I was definitely fooled by Andy playing the role of a 'straight’ man. It was strange for me to see how photographs trick the eye. I saw, until I analyzed it, exactly what the creator wanted me to see, and believe.
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Young (Initiation (A Harem Boy's Saga Book 1))
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Simplicity, balance, character, direction and relation of the limbs to each other, with their proportions and general symmetry of the whole, must be apprehended in a flash and put down in long lines, without lingering on less important details of form, for there is little time to hesitate in making a ten-minutes sketch. The quicker we draw, the better, so long as we can keep up the tension of our eyes, brain and hand all working together at the same time. The moment one of these three faculties gets out of gear or tired, the vitality of the drawing is lost. An intelligent model in a good pose inspires us enormously to produce an artistic and living drawing. A drawing done in a few minutes, in a red-hot fever of excitement and with concentrated observation, following the contour of the form from start to finish, is far more living than the often elaborated drawings of a cataleptic, relaxed figure, dumped upon the traditional throne, so often seen in art schools ; for the essence of life figure drawing lies in the outline. There is no short cut, no royal road to excellence : the only way is by persistent study and cultivation of visual memory.
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Borough Johnson (The Technique of Pencil Drawing (Dover Art Instruction))
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MARIE He’s gotta take off his clothes. LOLA Huh? (Closes door) MARIE These drawings are for my life class. LOLA (Consoled but still mystified) Oh. MARIE (Sits on couch) Turk’s the best male model we’ve had all year. Lotsa athletes pose for us ’cause they’ve all got muscles. They’re easier to draw. LOLA You mean … he’s gonna pose naked? MARIE (Laughs) No. The women do, but the men are always more proper. Turk’s going to pose in his track suit. LOLA Oh. (Almost to herself) The women pose naked but the men don’t. (This strikes her as a startling inconsistency) If it’s all right for a woman, it oughta be for a man.
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William Inge (Picnic plus 3)
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I'm in a group that puts up statues in Austin, and our most recent work was a bronze Willie, holding Trigger, that now graces the entry to the Austin City Limits studio. I got to pose for that statue, holding a Martin guitar of the same model, N-20. Clete Shields, of Philadelphia, was our sculptor. In 2011, when the statue was cast and delivered to Austin, we covered it with a parachute and stored it in a movie studio until it could be installed. One night, Willie came by for a private unveiling. He was gracious but a little overwhelmed as he exchanged a long look with himself. Bill Wittliff, who is on our committee, explained that what we liked about this piece was its engagement with the audience. "People will come to you," he said. "Little children will touch your knee and seek your counsel."
"Do what I say and not what I do," Willie advised.
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Lawrence Wright (God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State)
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It’s not a purse—it’s a satchel. And if this were entirely dignified, don’t you think all the guys would be doing it? It’s a core part of the strategy. Men don’t own dogs like this. They own dogs like that.” She pointed to my phone. “It’s adorable. Trust me. You’ll be a chick magnet.”
I didn’t care about being a chick magnet, but I liked the idea of having an inside joke with her for some reason. “Okay. You’ve piqued my interest. I’ll test your theory.”
“And if I’m right?”
“Then I’ll tell you that you were right.”
She twisted her lips to one side. “No. Not good enough. If I’m right, you pose in some website pictures with my dog satchels. I need a male model.”
Oh God, what have I gotten myself into?“Somehow this whole deal feels like I’m the loser.” I chuckled. Whatever. I was a good sport.
“How are you the loser? I’m giving you the opportunity to use my highly trained hunting dog to lure scores of women into your bed.”
I smirked. “You know, without sounding like an asshole, I don’t really have a hard time getting women.”
She tilted her head. “Yeah, I can see that. You have the whole sexy fireman thing going for you.” She waved a hand over my body.
I took a drink of my soda and grinned at her. “So you think I’m sexy, huh?”
She pivoted to face me full on. “There’s something you should know about me, Josh. I say what I think. I don’t have a coy bone in my body. Yes, you’re sexy. Enjoy the compliment because you won’t always like what I say to you, and I won’t care one way or the other if you do or don’t.
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Abby Jimenez (The Friend Zone (The Friend Zone, #1))
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Determining the proper relationship between universal morality and historically particular ethics poses a particularly acute problem in the postmodern era. The question that has remained with us since the end of World War II is how to overcome the paralysis of Auschwitz – how to acknowledge the necessary deferral of reciprocity without condoning genocide. If we hold history’s institutions to the touchstone of the moral model, they will always be found wanting, yet this historical experience tells us that if we do not so hold them, anything is possible. The fact that accusations of Nazism (or “fascism”) continue to be made today – notably against Israel itself – is a sign that the moral dilemma hos not yet been resolved. But unlike metaphysical thought, originary thinking takes the Holocaust as sign not of the need to construct a social model that will resolve this dilemma, but of the inapproapriateness of confronting it directly. Making the world a better place not only does not require but is in fact incompatible with a prior image of the world made good.
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Eric Gans
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There are so many small moments, or as I call them, little things, that have inspired and continue to inspire me as a teacher. I draw so much inspiration from the many inquisitive and creative minds as well as the infinite amount of questions posed by children. They ask us questions we do not have the answers to. Children remind me how each and every single day is filled with so much to discover about the world and ultimately about ourselves. A butterfly or an ant becomes a marvelous creature that we wonder in awe at or even pretend to be by flying or crawling together. Children make me dig deep and model how to treat and take care of one another, our environment, and ourselves. Children teach me what taking care of each other looks like and what sticking together like peanut butter and jelly is all about, especially during the most challenging of times. We breathe together, we talk and work out problems together, and we move together. In the midst of it all, we meet one another where we are and support one another to where we are going. Each and every day I am filled and inspired by our children. For that, my heart and my brain are full with love and memories.
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Jill Telford