Movie Tickets Quotes

I'm here to tell you, though, ladies that the term "gold digger" is one of the traps we men set to keep you off our money trail; we created that term for you so that we can have all our money and still get everything we want from you without you asking for or expecting this very basic, instincual responsibility that men all over the world are obligated to assume and embrace. ... KNOW THIS: It is your right to expect that a man will pay for your dinner, your movie ticket, your club entry fee, or whatever else he has to pay for in exhange for your time.

Now I’m gaping at him, because is he for real? “Hey, asshole, you’re filthy rich. If anyone should be paying full price for movie tickets, it’s you.” “I was being nice, asshole. Waiting for the cheap day so you’d be able to afford it.” Then he flashes his trademark grin, the one that makes chicks drop their panties and dive onto his dick. “Don’t give me your sex grin. It’s creeping me out.” His mouth stays frozen in the sex-grin position. “I’ll stop smiling like this if you agree to be my date tonight.” “You’re the most annoying pers—” The grin widens, and he even throws a little wink in there. Ten minutes later, we’re out the door.

Closure is a made-up thing by Steven Spielberg to sell movie tickets.

Elephant, beyond the fact that their size and conformation are aesthetically more suited to the treading of this earth than our angular informity, have an average intelligence comparable to our own. Of course they are less agile and physically less adaptable than ourselves -- nature having developed their bodies in one direction and their brains in another, while human beings, on the other hand, drew from Mr. Darwin's lottery of evolution both the winning ticket and the stub to match it. This, I suppose, is why we are so wonderful and can make movies and electric razors and wireless sets -- and guns with which to shoot the elephant, the hare, clay pigeons, and each other.

So what'd you write about?' 'I wrote about how last weekend my parents and I waited in line at the movies for an hour, and when we finally got up to the ticket booth lady, they were sold out! Isn't that sad?' 'That is super sad,' I said, wishing, hoping, one day that would be my super sad.

Has it ever happened, you’ve seen a striking film, beautifully written and acted and photographed, that you walk out of the theater glad to be a human being and you say to yourself I hope they make a lot of money from that? I hope the actors, I hope the director earns a million dollars for what they’ve done, what they’ve given me tonight? And you go back and see the movie again and you’re happy to be a tiny part of the system that is rewarding those people with every ticket...the actors I see on the screen, they’ll get twenty cents of this very dollar I’m paying now; they’ll be able to buy an ice cream cone any flavor they want from their share of my ticket alone. Glorious moments in art in books and films and dance, they’re delicious because we see ourselves in glory’s mirror.

Destiny, quite often, is a determined parent. Mozart was hardly some naive prodigy who sat down at the keyboard and, with God whispering in his ears, let music flow from his fingertips. It's a nice image for selling tickets to movies, but whether or not God has kissed your brow, you still have to work. Without learning and preparation, you won't know how to harness the power of that kiss.

…Magic is often a tricky thing. Often it is explainable. People fly through the air in planes and live underwater in submarines. Plants grow within weeks and cities operate and sustain millions of people. A person can talk to practically anyone almost anywhere around the world instantly. People’s images are transported by photo in the time it takes to press a button. Dinosaurs seem real, huge apes exist, and other worlds are a movie ticket away.

Wasn’t it wonderful of Angus and Emma to spring for first class tickets?” “Yes.” “It’s an incredibly long flight, you know.” “Yes.” “They’ll show us a movie or two.” “Yes.” She leaned close to him, smiling. “I love traveling with you. You’re so agreeable.” He gave her an annoyed look. “Are you going to talk the whole time?” She smiled sweetly. “Yes.

We're the creators, directors, and stars of our own movies, so you better hurry the hell up and write yourself a damn juicy script because you can't return your tickets when those closing credits start rolling!

Upon its debut, The Room was a spectacular bomb, pulling in all of $1,800 during its initial two-week Los Angeles run. It wasn’t until the last weekend of the film’s short release that the seeds of its eventual cultural salvation were planted. While passing a movie theater, two young film students named Michael Rousselet and Scott Gairdner noticed a sign on the ticket booth that read: NO REFUNDS. Below the sign was this blurb from a review: “Watching this film is like getting stabbed in the head.” They were sold.

―Yeah, but what about the ritual of getting your ticket and your snacks, finding the perfect seat, ―I countered.― All those strangers watching the movie with you, they change how you see it, you know? You should hear their gasps and laughter and sniffling. It’s a communal experience. You can’t get that on your laptop or phone. That sharing, it’s the foundation of storytelling. It reminds us that we’re… ―What? ―Human. Humans who need other humans

...epic, epic love is not about having someone. It's about being willing to give them up. It's sacrifice. It's my mom's theater tickets stuffed down at the bottom of her jewelry box. It's Noah and August. It's my sister and Annabelle. It's Jordan and his mom, the truth he reserves to protect her. And see, that's the thing I didn't understand. The thing no one tells you. That just because you find love doesn't mean it's yours to keep. Love never belongs to you. It belongs to the universe.

every movie theater ticket just to remind me of all the things i've loved and lost and love again unconditionally

I have a whole world tucked away in my closet; sepia colored memories of my parents in the eighties, ticket stubs from movies I don’t remember because I was too busy exploring the mouth of a boy I do, and crinkled petals from a golden sunflower that said you still love me. And though you haven’t come back yet, I know you will, because sunflowers never lie. Sunflowers Never Lie

Incidentally, I spent some time on the Purell website, where you can find a list of ninety-nine places germs lurk (in-flight magazines, movie tickets, gas-pump keypads, hotel room a/c controls, and on and on). It's hilarious and terrifying. The only place they don't mention is the Purell dispensers themselves. You know they're coated with germs. It's one of health's cruelest catch-22s.

A stage adaptation of The Giver has been performed in cities and towns across the USA for years. More recently an opera has been composed and performed. And soon there will be a film. Does The Giver have the same effect when it is presented in a different way: It's hard to know. A book, to me is almost sacrosanct: such an individual and private thing. The reader brings his or her own history and beliefs and concerns, and reads in solitude, creating each scene from his own imagination as he does. There is no fellow ticket-holder in the next seat. The important thing is that another medium--stage, film, music--doesn't obliterate a book. The movie is here now, on a big screen, with stars and costumes and a score. But the book hasn't gone away. It has simply grown up, grown larger, and begun to glisten in a new way.

I’m not sure how the ponies happened, though I have an inkling: “Can I get you anything?” I’ll say, getting up from a dinner table, “Coffee, tea, a pony?” People rarely laugh at this, especially if they’ve heard it before. “This party’s ‘sposed to be fun,” a friend will say. “Really? Will there be pony rides?” It’s a nervous tic and a cheap joke, cheapened further by the frequency with which I use it. For that same reason, it’s hard to weed it out of my speech – most of the time I don’t even realize I’m saying it. There are little elements in a person’s life, minor fibers that become unintentionally tangled with your personality. Sometimes it’s a patent phrase, sometimes it’s a perfume, sometimes it’s a wristwatch. For me, it is the constant referencing of ponies. I don’t even like ponies. If I made one of my throwaway equine requests and someone produced an actual pony, Juan-Valdez-style, I would run very fast in the other direction. During a few summers at camp, I rode a chronically dehydrated pony named Brandy who would jolt down without notice to lick the grass outside the corral and I would careen forward, my helmet tipping to cover my eyes. I do, however, like ponies on the abstract. Who doesn’t? It’s like those movies with the animated insects. Sure, the baby cockroach seems cute with CGI eyelashes, but how would you feel about fifty of her real-life counterparts living in your oven? And that’s precisely the manner in which the ponies clomped their way into my regular speech: abstractly. “I have something for you,” a guy will say on our first date. “Is it a pony?” No. It’s usually a movie ticket or his cell phone number. But on our second date, if I ask again, I’m pretty sure I’m getting a pony. And thus the Pony drawer came to be. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but almost every guy I have ever dated has unwittingly made a contribution to the stable. The retro pony from the ‘50s was from the most thoughtful guy I have ever known. The one with the glitter horseshoes was from a boy who would later turn out to be straight somehow, not gay. The one with the rainbow haunches was from a librarian, whom I broke up with because I felt the chemistry just wasn’t right, and the one with the price tag stuck on the back was given to me by a narcissist who was so impressed with his gift he forgot to remover the sticker. Each one of them marks the beginning of a new relationship. I don’t mean to hint. It’s not a hint, actually, it’s a flat out demand: I. Want. A. Pony. I think what happens is that young relationships are eager to build up a romantic repertoire of private jokes, especially in the city where there’s not always a great “how we met” story behind every great love affair. People meet at bars, through mutual friends, on dating sites, or because they work in the same industry. Just once a coworker of mine, asked me out between two stops on the N train. We were holding the same pole and he said, “I know this sounds completely insane, bean sprout, but would you like to go to a very public place with me and have a drink or something...?” I looked into his seemingly non-psycho-killing, rent-paying, Sunday Times-subscribing eyes and said, “Sure, why the hell not?” He never bought me a pony. But he didn’t have to, if you know what I mean.

Most of the benches bore the names of benefactors—in memory of Mrs. Ruth Klein or whatever—but my mother’s bench, the Rendezvous Point, alone of all the benches in that part of the park had been given by its anonymous donor a more mysterious and welcoming message: EVERYTHING OF POSSIBILITY. It had been Her Bench since before I was born; in her early days in the city, she had sat there with her library book on her afternoons off, going without lunch when she needed the price of a museum pass at MoMA or a movie ticket at the Paris Theatre.

Ron avoids conviction but not divorce. He lives with his parents in Rochester, in upstate New York, and has a job taking tickets at a movie theater.

Responding to non sequiturs—at cocktail parties, on public transportation, in ticket lines at the movie theater—is dicey enough,

I mean, you heard Mark. If you just want to see the new Star Wars movie, you can buy your ticket online and then forget about it until show time. But if you want to wait in line, you wait in line, you know?

Yeah, but what about the ritual of getting your ticket and your snacks, finding the perfect seat. All those strangers watching the movie with you, they change how you see it, you know? You should hear the gasps and laughter and sniffling. It’s a communal experience. You can’t get that on your laptop or phone. That sharing, it’s the foundation of storytelling. It reminds us that we’re…” “What?” “Human. Humans who need other humans.

In Woody Allen movies people stood in line for Ingmar Bergman films or Holocaust documentaries talking up media theory to pass the time. At 16 that was my idea of fun. Now that I live in New York I can tell you that people lined up for tickets don't debate theory. They talk about cute guys at the gym or whether or not they live within walking distance of a Krispy Kreme. I was such a young fogy that growing up involved becoming less mature.

The authors propose “a New Deal for globalization—one thatlinks engagement with the world economy to a substantial redistribution of income.” Remember, this isn’t hippy talk. These are the capitalists who see angry workers with pitchforks loitering outside the gates of a very profitable factory, and they are making a very pragmatic calculation: Throw these people some food (and maybe some movie tickets and beer) before we all end up worse off

I asked a girl out for a movie and asked her to meet me directly at the theatre. I, on purpose, used to be late and would call her when on the way and ask her to buy the tickets. This way, I saved money and I had a theory about paying back.

When the high-speed chases and mandatory shoot-outs become too repetitive, I head over to the revival houses and watch gentler movies, in which the couples sleep in separate beds and everyone wears a hat. As my ticket is ripped, I briefly consider all the constructive things I could be doing. I think of the parks and the restaurants, or the pleasantries I'll never use on the friends I am failing to make. I think of the great city teaming on the other side of that curtain, and then the lights go down, and I love Paris.

Yet in recent years I have witnessed a new phenomenon among filmgoers, especially those considered intelligent and perceptive. I have a name for this phenomenon: the Instant White-out. People are closeted in cozy darkness; they turn off their mobile phones and willingly give themselves, for ninety minutes or two hours, to a new film that got a fourstar rating in the newspaper. They follow the pictures and the plot, understand what is spoken either in the original tongue or via dubbing or subtitles, enjoy lush locations and clever scenes, and even if they find the story superficial or preposterous, it is not enough to pry them from their seats and make them leave the theatre in the middle of the show. But something strange happens. After a short while, a week or two, sometimes even less, the film is whitened out, erased, as if it never happened. They can’t remember its name, or who the actors were, or the plot. The movie fades into the darkness of the movie house, and what remains is at most a ticket stub left accidentally in one’s pocket.

Hee-hee-hee. I'm fine, reeeeally. Wanting to die is starting to be a habit for me. Don't worry about it, okay? Next week there's a sale I've been looking forward to, and I promised some friends that I'd go see a movie with them, and I haven't even used my half-price ticket for griddled monja cakes yet, so I can't die.

The Penny Dreadfuls emerge,pulsating with excitement and energy,from...the staff room. Okay. So it's not as glamorous as emerging from a backstage, but they do look GREAT.Well,two of them do. The bassist is the same as always. Reggie used to come into work, mooching free tickets off Toph for the latest comic book movies. He has these long bangs that droop over half his face and cover his eyes,and I could never tell what he thought about anything. I'd be like, "How was the new Iron Man?" And he'd say, "Fine," in this bored voice. And because his eyes were hidden,I didn't know if he meant a good fine, or a so-so fine,or a bad fine. It was irritating.

I have completed and uncompleted screenplays, but they both fall into the category of “unsold.” I’ve seen quite a few movies where the screenplays seemed to be in the “uncompleted” category yet still got sold and made into movies, so I generally refer too all screenplays as “sold” or “unsold.” But that’s just my own filing system.

There’s our homecoming picture. Last Halloween, when I dressed up as Mulan and Peter wore a dragon costume. There’s a receipt from Tart and Tangy. One of his notes to me, from before. If you make Josh’s dumb white-chocolate cranberry cookies and not my fruitcake ones, it’s over. Pictures of us from Senior Week. Prom. Dried rose petals from my corsage. The Sixteen Candles picture. There are some things I didn’t include, like the ticket stub from our first real date, the note he wrote me that said, I like you in blue. Those things are tucked away in my hatbox. I’ll never let those go. But the really special thing I’ve included is my letter, the one I wrote to him so long ago, the one that brought us together. I wanted to keep it, but something felt right about Peter having it. One day all of this will be proof, proof that we were here, proof that we loved each other. It’s the guarantee that no matter what happens to us in the future, this time was ours. When he gets to that page, Peter stops. “I thought you wanted to keep this,” he said. “I wanted to, but then I felt like you should have it. Just promise you’ll keep it forever.” He turns the page. It’s a picture from when we took my grandma to karaoke. I sang “You’re So Vain” and dedicated it to Peter. Peter got up and sang “Style” by Taylor Swift. Then he dueted “Unchained Melody” with my grandma, and after, she made us both promise to take a Korean language class at UVA. She and Peter took a ton of selfies together that night. She made one her home screen on her phone. Her friends at her apartment complex said he looked like a movie star. I made the mistake of telling Peter, and he crowed about it for days after. He stays on that page for a while. When he doesn’t say anything, I say, helpfully, “It’s something to remember us by.” He snaps the book shut. “Thanks,” he says, flashing me a quick smile. “This is awesome.

And suddenly I knew, as I touched the damp, grainy surface of the seawall, that I would always remember this night, that in years to come I would remember sitting here, swept with confused longing as I listened to the water lapping the giant boulders beneath the promenade and watched the children head toward the shore in a winding, lambent procession. I wanted to come back tomorrow night, and the night after, and the one after that as well, sensing that what made leaving so fiercely painful was the knowledge that there would never be another night like this, that I would never eat soggy cakes along the coast road in the evening, not this year or any other year, nor feel the baffling, sudden beauty of that moment when, if only for an instant, I had caught myself longing for a city I never knew I loved. Exactly a year from now, I vowed, I would sit outside at night wherever I was, somewhere in Europe, or in America, and turn my face to Egypt, as Moslems do when they pray and face Mecca, and remember this very night, and how I had thought these things and made this vow. You're beginning to sound like Elsa and her silly seders, I said to myself, mimicking my father's humour. On my way home I thought of what the others were doing. I wanted to walk in, find the smaller living room still lit, the Beethoven still playing, with Abdou still cleaning the dining room, and, on closing the front door, suddenly hear someone say, "We were just waiting for you, we're thinking of going to the Royal." "But we've already seen that film," I would say. "What difference does it make. We'll see it again." And before we had time to argue, we would all rush downstairs, where my father would be waiting in a car that was no longer really ours, and, feeling the slight chill of a late April night, would huddle together with the windows shut, bicker as usual about who got to sit where, rub our hands, turn the radio to a French broadcast, and then speed to the Corniche, thinking that all this was as it always was, that nothing ever really changed, that the people enjoying their first stroll on the Corniche after fasting, or the woman selling tickets at the Royal, or the man who would watch our car in the side alley outside the theatre, or our neighbours across the hall, or the drizzle that was sure to greet us after the movie at midnight would never, ever know, nor even guess, that this was our last night in Alexandria.

it gets a little tiresome when you’re so high you go to the movies and look up at the marquee and think the starting times are the ticket prices. I mean, I remember standing there going, ‘Ten-fifteen? What kind of price is ten dollars and fifteen cents?’ It’s a hassle.” “Yeah, one time I was putting gas in my car and thought the number of gallons was the price. I even got into an argument with the cashier. It was hilarious.

Ravi buys all four of our tickets, which Peter is really impressed by. “Such a classy move,” he whispers to me as we sit down. Peter deftly maneuvers it so we’re sitting me, Peter, Ravi, Margot, so he can keep talking to him about soccer. Or football, as Ravi says. Margot gives me an amused look over their heads, and I can tell all the unpleasantness from before is forgotten. After the movie, Peter suggests we go for frozen custards. “Have you ever had frozen custard before?” he asks Ravi. “Never,” Ravi says. “It’s the best, Rav,” he says. “They make it homemade.” “Brilliant,” Ravi says. When the boys are in line, Margot says to me, “I think Peter’s in love--with my boyfriend,” and we both giggle. We’re still laughing when they get back to our table. Peter hands me my pralines and cream. “What’s so funny?” I just shake my head and dip my spoon into the custard.

Opportunity to suspend disbelief is often why we watch movies. The stories and images touch us and shift perspectives in ways we may not allow in our daily lives. As readily as you check your “this isn’t real” attitude at the ticket counter – when transformers are defending earth against aliens and 21st century vampires frolic by daylight – on the big screen of your heart and mind train for, run and celebrate finishing your first marathon.

To escape the throngs, we decided to see the new Neil Degrasse Tyson planetarium show, Dark Universe. It costs more than two movie tickets and is less than thirty minutes long, but still I want to go back and see it again, preferably as soon as possible. It was more visually stunning than any Hollywood special effect I’d ever seen, making our smallness as individuals both staggering and - strangely - rather comforting. Only five percent of the universe consists of ordinary matter, Neil tells us. That includes all matter - you, and me, and the body of Michael Brown, and Mork’s rainbow suspenders, and the letters I wrote all summer, and the air conditioner I put out on the curb on Christmas Day because I was tired of looking at it and being reminded of the person who had installed it, and my sad dying computer that sounds like a swarm of bees when it gets too hot, and the fields of Point Reyes, and this year’s blossoms which are dust now, and the drafts of my book, and Israeli tanks, and the untaxed cigarettes that Eric Garner sold, and my father’s ill-fitting leg brace that did not accomplish what he’d hoped for in terms of restoring mobility, and the Denver airport, and haunting sperm whales that sleep vertically, and the water they sleep in, and Mars and Jupiter and all of the stars we see and all of the ones we don’t. That’s all regular matter, just five percent. A quarter is “dark matter,” which is invisible and detectable only by gravitational pull, and a whopping 70 percent of the universe is made up of “dark energy,” described as a cosmic antigravity, as yet totally unknowable. It’s basically all mystery out there - all of it, with just this one sliver of knowable, livable, finite light and life. And did I mention the effects were really cool? After seeing something like that it’s hard to stay mad at anyone, even yourself.

Do you believe in love at first sight?” He made himself look at her face, at her wide-open eyes and earnest forehead. At her unbearably sweet mouth. “I don’t know,” he said. “Do you believe in love before that?” Her breath caught in her throat like a sore hiccup. And then it was too much to keep trying not to kiss her. She came readily into his arms. Lincoln leaned against the coffee machine and pulled her onto him completely. There it was again, that impossible to describe kiss. This is how 2011 should have ended, he thought. This is infinity. The first time Beth pulled away, he pulled her back. The second time, he bit her lip. Then her neck. Then the collar of her shirt. “I don’t know…,” she said, sitting up in his lap, laying her check on the top of his head. “I don’t know what you meant by love before love at first sight.” Lincoln pushed his face into her shoulder and tried to think of a good way to answer. “Just that… I knew how I felt about you before I ever saw you,” he said, “when I still thought I might never see you…” She held his head in her hands and titled it back, so she could see his face. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. Which made him laugh. “Absolutely,” he said. “No, I mean it,” Beth said. “Men fall in love with their eyes.” He closed his. “That’s practically science,” she said. “Maybe,” Lincoln said. Her fingers felt so good in his hair. “But I couldn’t see you, so…” “So, what did you see?” “Just…the sort of girl who would write the sort of things that you wrote.” “What things?” Lincoln opened his eyes. Beth was studying his face. She looked skeptical-maybe about more than just the last thing he said. This was important, he realized. “Everything,” he said, sitting straighter, keeping hold of her waist. “Everything you wrote about your work, about your boyfriend…The way you comforted Jennifer and made her laugh, through the baby and after. I pictured a girl who could be kind, and that kind of funny. I pictured a girl who was that alive…” She looked guarded. Lincoln couldn’t tell from her eyes whether he was pushing her away or winning her over. “A girl who never got tired of her favourite movies,” he said softly. “Who saved dresses like ticket stubs. Who could get high on the weather.. “I pictured a girl who made every moment, everything she touched, and everyone around her feel lighter and sweeter. I pictured you,” he said. “I just didn’t know what you looked like. And then, when I did know what you looked like, you looked like the girl who was all those things. You looked like the girl I loved.” Beth’s fingers trembled in his hair, and her forehead dropped against his. A heavy, wet tear fell onto Lincoln’s lips, and he licked it. He pulled her close, as close as he could. Like he didn’t care for the moment whether she could breath. Like there were two of them and only one parachute. “Beth,” he barely said, pressing his face against hers until their lashes brushed, pressing his hand into the small of her back. “I don’t think I can explain it. I don’t think I can make any more sense. But I’ll keep trying. If you want me to.” She almost shook her head. “No,” she said, “no more explaining. Or apologizing. I don’t think it matters how we ended up here. I just…I want to stay…I want.. He kissed her then. There. In the middle of the sentence.

This mindset, known as loss aversion, the sunk-cost fallacy, and throwing good money after bad, is patently irrational, but it is surprisingly pervasive in human decision-making.65 People stay in an abusive marriage because of the years they have already put into it, or sit through a bad movie because they have already paid for the ticket, or try to reverse a gambling loss by doubling their next bet, or pour money into a boondoggle because they’ve already poured so much money into it. Though psychologists don’t fully understand why people are suckers for sunk costs, a common explanation is that it signals a public commitment. The person is announcing: “When I make a decision, I’m not so weak, stupid, or indecisive that I can be easily talked out of it.” In a contest of resolve like an attrition game, loss aversion could serve as a costly and hence credible signal that the contestant is not about to concede, preempting his opponent’s strategy of outlasting him just one more round.

One common thread ran through the comments: everybody loathes Ticketmaster, for assorted reasons, with the wonderful diversity that makes our country so vibrant. If James Bond movies and other international thrillers weary of their casts of modern stock villains—drug dealers, terrorists, polluting corporations—Ticketmaster is waiting in the wings, universally despised. And if such a movie proved incredibly popular and were then transmuted into a hit Broadway musical, Ticketmaster itself could scalp—sorry, resell—tickets to it.

To dismantle Christianity, one must defy thousands of years of hymns and candles, nativity sets, Madonnas and stained glass windows; prayers, lectures, movies and novels; speeches on battlefields, our Western worldview and the way we see ourselves as individuals. Christianity is a culture, both transcending and inextricably linked with Western culture. One does not simply disprove a culture. The only way to stop this train is to stop buying tickets. To do that, we need better modes of transportation and better destinations. Sherrie was the first to show me another spiritual country, accessible by starship or quantum teleporter—beautiful atheisms, formed when individuals embrace the wildness of an enigmatic, indifferent universe and dare to live compassionately.

Peter and I are standing in line for popcorn at the movies. Even just this mundane thing feels like the best mundane thing that’s ever happened to me. I check my pocket to make sure I’ve still got my ticket stub. This I’ll want to save. Gazing up at Peter, I whisper, “This is my first date.” I feel like the nerdy girl in the movie who lands the coolest guy in school, and I don’t mind one bit. Not one bit. “How can this be your first date when we’ve gone out plenty of times?” “It’s my first real date. Those other times were just pretend; this is the real thing.” He frowns. “Oh, wait, is this real? I didn’t realize that.” I move to slug him in the shoulder, and he laughs and grabs my hand and links my fingers with his. It feels like my heart is beating right through my hand. It’s the first time we’ve held hands for real, and it feels different from those fake times. Like electric currents, in a good way. The best way.

We came to the city because we wished to live haphazardly, to reach for only the least realistic of our desires, and to see if we could not learn what our failures had to teach, and not, when we came to live, discover that we had never died. We wanted to dig deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to be overworked and reduced to our last wit. And if our bosses proved mean, why then we’d evoke their whole and genuine meanness afterward over vodka cranberries and small batch bourbons. And if our drinking companions proved to be sublime then we would stagger home at dawn over the Old City cobblestones, into hot showers and clean shirts, and press onward until dusk fell again. For the rest of the world, it seemed to us, had somewhat hastily concluded that it was the chief end of man to thank God it was Friday and pray that Netflix would never forsake them. Still we lived frantically, like hummingbirds; though our HR departments told us that our commitments were valuable and our feedback was appreciated, our raises would be held back another year. Like gnats we pestered Management— who didn’t know how to use the Internet, whose only use for us was to set up Facebook accounts so they could spy on their children, or to sync their iPhones to their Outlooks, or to explain what tweets were and more importantly, why— which even we didn’t know. Retire! we wanted to shout. We ha Get out of the way with your big thumbs and your senior moments and your nostalgia for 1976! We hated them; we wanted them to love us. We wanted to be them; we wanted to never, ever become them. Complexity, complexity, complexity! We said let our affairs be endless and convoluted; let our bank accounts be overdrawn and our benefits be reduced. Take our Social Security contributions and let it go bankrupt. We’d been bankrupt since we’d left home: we’d secure our own society. Retirement was an afterlife we didn’t believe in and that we expected yesterday. Instead of three meals a day, we’d drink coffee for breakfast and scavenge from empty conference rooms for lunch. We had plans for dinner. We’d go out and buy gummy pad thai and throat-scorching chicken vindaloo and bento boxes in chintzy, dark restaurants that were always about to go out of business. Those who were a little flush would cover those who were a little short, and we would promise them coffees in repayment. We still owed someone for a movie ticket last summer; they hadn’t forgotten. Complexity, complexity. In holiday seasons we gave each other spider plants in badly decoupaged pots and scarves we’d just learned how to knit and cuff links purchased with employee discounts. We followed the instructions on food and wine Web sites, but our soufflés sank and our baked bries burned and our basil ice creams froze solid. We called our mothers to get recipes for old favorites, but they never came out the same. We missed our families; we were sad to be rid of them. Why shouldn’t we live with such hurry and waste of life? We were determined to be starved before we were hungry. We were determined to be starved before we were hungry. We were determined to decrypt our neighbors’ Wi-Fi passwords and to never turn on the air-conditioning. We vowed to fall in love: headboard-clutching, desperate-texting, hearts-in-esophagi love. On the subways and at the park and on our fire escapes and in the break rooms, we turned pages, resolved to get to the ends of whatever we were reading. A couple of minutes were the day’s most valuable commodity. If only we could make more time, more money, more patience; have better sex, better coffee, boots that didn’t leak, umbrellas that didn’t involute at the slightest gust of wind. We were determined to make stupid bets. We were determined to be promoted or else to set the building on fire on our way out. We were determined to be out of our minds.

Waste of what?” “Of you! It seems degrading. Forgive me for saying that. I’ve seen those African movies. The lion makes a kill and then clever animals come in and grab something and run. You’re so bright, Trav, and so intuitive about people. And you have … the gift of tenderness. And sympathy. You could be almost anything.” “Of course!” I said, springing to my feet and beginning to pace back and forth through the lounge. “Why didn’t I think of that! Here I am, wasting the golden years on this lousy barge, getting all mixed up with lame-duck women when I could be out there seeking and striving. Who am I to keep from putting my shoulder to the wheel? Why am I not thinking about an estate and how to protect it? Gad, woman, I could be writing a million dollars a year in life insurance. I should be pulling a big oar in the flagship of life. Maybe it isn’t too late yet! Find the little woman, and go for the whole bit. Kiwanis, P.T.A., fund drives, cookouts, a clean desk, and vote the straight ticket, yessiree bob. Then when I become a senior citizen, I can look back upon …

Why can't we sit together? What's the point of seat reservations,anyway? The bored woman calls my section next,and I think terrible thoughts about her as she slides my ticket through her machine. At least I have a window seat. The middle and aisle are occupied with more businessmen. I'm reaching for my book again-it's going to be a long flight-when a polite English accent speaks to the man beside me. "Pardon me,but I wonder if you wouldn't mind switching seats.You see,that's my girlfriend there,and she's pregnant. And since she gets a bit ill on airplanes,I thought she might need someone to hold back her hair when...well..." St. Clair holds up the courtesy barf bag and shakes it around. The paper crinkles dramatically. The man sprints off the seat as my face flames. His pregnant girlfriend? "Thank you.I was in forty-five G." He slides into the vacated chair and waits for the man to disappear before speaking again. The guy onhis other side stares at us in horror,but St. Clair doesn't care. "They had me next to some horrible couple in matching Hawaiian shirts. There's no reason to suffer this flight alone when we can suffer it together." "That's flattering,thanks." But I laugh,and he looks pleased-until takeoff, when he claws the armrest and turns a color disturbingy similar to key lime pie. I distract him with a story about the time I broke my arm playing Peter Pan. It turned out there was more to flying than thinking happy thoughts and jumping out a window. St. Clair relaxes once we're above the clouds. Time passes quickly for an eight-hour flight. We don't talk about what waits on the other side of the ocean. Not his mother. Not Toph.Instead,we browse Skymall. We play the if-you-had-to-buy-one-thing-off-each-page game. He laughs when I choose the hot-dog toaster, and I tease him about the fogless shower mirror and the world's largest crossword puzzle. "At least they're practical," he says. "What are you gonna do with a giant crossword poster? 'Oh,I'm sorry Anna. I can't go to the movies tonight. I'm working on two thousand across, Norwegian Birdcall." "At least I'm not buying a Large Plastic Rock for hiding "unsightly utility posts.' You realize you have no lawn?" "I could hide other stuff.Like...failed French tests.Or illegal moonshining equipment." He doubles over with that wonderful boyish laughter, and I grin. "But what will you do with a motorized swimming-pool snack float?" "Use it in the bathtub." He wipes a tear from his cheek. "Ooo,look! A Mount Rushmore garden statue. Just what you need,Anna.And only forty dollars! A bargain!" We get stumped on the page of golfing accessories, so we switch to drawing rude pictures of the other people on the plane,followed by rude pictures of Euro Disney Guy. St. Clair's eyes glint as he sketches the man falling down the Pantheon's spiral staircase. There's a lot of blood. And Mickey Mouse ears. After a few hours,he grows sleepy.His head sinks against my shoulder. I don't dare move.The sun is coming up,and the sky is pink and orange and makes me think of sherbet.I siff his hair. Not out of weirdness.It's just...there. He must have woken earlier than I thought,because it smells shower-fresh. Clean. Healthy.Mmm.I doze in and out of a peaceful dream,and the next thing I know,the captain's voice is crackling over the airplane.We're here. I'm home.

Why would intelligent, capable British and French government officials continue to invest in what was clearly a losing proposition for so long? One reason is a very common psychological phenomenon called “sunk-cost bias.” Sunk-cost bias is the tendency to continue to invest time, money, or energy into something we know is a losing proposition simply because we have already incurred, or sunk, a cost that cannot be recouped. But of course this can easily become a vicious cycle: the more we invest, the more determined we become to see it through and see our investment pay off. The more we invest in something, the harder it is to let go. The sunk costs for developing and building the Concorde were around $1 billion. Yet the more money the British and French governments poured into it, the harder it was to walk away.3 Individuals are equally vulnerable to sunk-cost bias. It explains why we’ll continue to sit through a terrible movie because we’ve already paid the price of a ticket. It explains why we continue to pour money into a home renovation that never seems to near completion. It explains why we’ll continue to wait for a bus or a subway train that never comes instead of hailing a cab, and it explains why we invest in toxic relationships even when our efforts only make things worse. Examples

Dear KDP Author, Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year. With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion. Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive. Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette’s readers. The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books. Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive. Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.

Why, he asked, do all of our policing efforts have to be so reactive, so negative, and so after the fact? What if, instead of just focusing on catching criminals—and serving up ever harsher punishments—after they committed the crime, the police devoted significant resources and effort to eliminating criminal behavior before it happens? To quote Tony Blair, what if they could be tough on crime but also tough on the causes of crime?3 Out of these questions came the novel idea for Positive Tickets, a program whereby police, instead of focusing on catching young people perpetrating crimes, would focus on catching youth doing something good—something as simple as throwing litter away in a bin rather than on the ground, wearing a helmet while riding their bike, skateboarding in the designated area, or getting to school on time—and would give them a ticket for positive behavior. The ticket, of course, wouldn’t carry a fine like a parking ticket but instead would be redeemable for some kind of small reward, like free entry to the movies or to an event at a local youth center—wholesome activities that also had the bonus of keeping the young people off the streets and out of trouble. So how well did Richmond’s unconventional effort to reimagine policing work? Amazingly well, as it turned out. It took some time, but they invested in the approach as a long-term strategy, and after a decade the Positive Tickets system had reduced recidivism from 60 percent to 8 percent. You might not think of a police department as a place where you would expect to see Essentialism at work, but in fact Ward’s system of Positive Tickets is a lesson in the practice of effortless execution. The way of the Nonessentialist is to go big on everything: to try to do it all, have it all, fit it all in. The Nonessentialist operates under the false logic that the more he strives, the more he will achieve, but the reality is, the more we reach for the stars, the harder it is to get ourselves off the ground. The way of the Essentialist is different. Instead of trying to accomplish it all—and all at once—and flaring out, the Essentialist starts small and celebrates progress. Instead of going for the big, flashy wins that don’t really matter, the Essentialist pursues small and simple wins in areas that are essential.

I lift the lid of the chest. Inside, the air is musty and stale, held hostage for years in its three-foot-by-four-foot tomb. I lean in to survey the contents cautiously, then pull out a stack of old photos tied with twine. On top is a photo of a couple on their wedding day. She's a young bride, wearing one of those 1950's netted veils. He looks older, distinguished- sort of like Cary Grant or Gregory Peck in the old black-and-white movies I used to watch with my grandmother. I set the stack down and turn back to the chest, where I find a notebook, filled with handwritten recipes. The page for Cinnamon Rolls is labeled "Dex's Favorite." 'Dex.' I wonder if he's the man in the photo. There are two ticket stubs from 1959, one to a Frank Sinatra concert, another to the movie 'An Affair to Remember.' A single shriveled rosebud rests on a white handkerchief. A corsage? When I lift it into my hand, it disintegrates; the petals crinkle into tiny pieces that fall onto the living room carpet. At the bottom of the chest is what looks like a wedding dress. It's yellowed and moth-eaten, but I imagine it was once stark white and beautiful. As I lift it, I can hear the lace swishing as if to say, "Ahh." Whoever wore it was very petite. The waist circumference is tiny. A pair of long white gloves falls to the floor. They must have been tucked inside the dress. I refold the finery and set the ensemble back inside. Whose things are these? And why have they been left here? I thumb through the recipe book. All cookies, cakes, desserts. She must have loved to bake. I tuck the book back inside the chest, along with the photographs after I've retied the twine, which is when I notice a book tucked into the corner. It's an old paperback copy of Ernest Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises.' I've read a little of Hemingway over the years- 'A Moveable Feast' and some of his later work- but not this one. I flip through the book and notice that one page is dog-eared. I open to it and see a line that has been underscored. "You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another." I look out to the lake, letting the words sink in. 'Is that what I'm trying to do? Get away from myself?' I stare at the line in the book again and wonder if it resonated with the woman who underlined it so many years ago. Did she have her own secret pain? 'Was she trying to escape it just like me?

I think we all collectively have gone a little crazy. We worry about the wrong things. I have an acquaintance, Christy, whose twelve–year–old son managed to get into a very violent PG–13 movie. I don’t know how many machine–gunnings, explosions, and killings this boy wound up witnessing. As I recall, the boy had nightmares for a week afterward. That disturbed his mother—but not as much as if her son had stumbled into a different kind of movie. “At least there wasn’t any sex,” she said with dead–serious concern. “No,” I said, “probably not a single bare breast.” I didn’t add that most societies do not regard the adult female breast as being primarily an object of sexual desire. After all, it’s just a big gland that makes milk in order to feed hungry babies. “You know what I’m talking about,” she snapped. “I mean graphic sex.” We were sitting in a café drinking tea. She cut off the volume of her speech at the end of her sentence, whispering and exaggerating the consonants of S–E–X as if she needed me to read her lips—as if giving voice to this word might disturb our neighbors and brand her as a deviant. “I don’t think children should see that kind of thing,” she added. “What should children see?” I asked her. I am not arguing that we should let our children buy tickets to raunchy movies. I never let my daughters bring home steamy videos or surf the Internet for porn. But something is wrong when sex becomes a dirty word that we don’t even want our children to hear. Why must we regard almost anything sexual as tantamount to obscene? I think many of us are like Christy. We wouldn’t want our children—even our very sexual teenagers—to see certain kinds of movies, even if they happened to be erotic masterpieces, true works of art. It wouldn’t matter if a movie gave us a wonderful scene of a wife and a husband very lovingly making love with the conscious intention of engendering new life. It wouldn’t matter that sex is life, and therefore must be regarded as sacred as anything could possibly be. It wouldn’t even matter that not one of us could have come into the world but for the sexual union of our fathers and our mothers. If a movie portrayed a man and woman in the ecstatic dance of love—actually showed naked bellies and breasts, burning lips and adoring eyes and the glistening, impassioned organs of sex—most people I know would rather their children watch the vile action movie. They would rather their “innocent” sons and daughters behold the images of bloody, blasted bodies, torture, murder, and death.

You don’t know me! You know Miss Erstwhile, but--” “Come now, ever since I witnessed your abominable performance in the theatrical, it’s been clear that you can’t act to save your life. All three weeks, that was you.” He smiled. “And I wanted to keep knowing you. Well, I didn’t at first. I wanted you to go away and leave me in peace. I’ve made a career out of avoiding any possibility of a real relationship. And then to find you in that circus…it didn’t make sense. But what ever does?” “Nothing,” said Jane with conviction. “Nothing makes sense.” “Could you tell me…am I being too forward to ask?...of course, I just bought a plane ticket on impulse, so worrying about being forward at this point is pointless…This is so insane, I am not a romantic. Ahem. My question is, what do you want?” “What do I…?” This really was insane. Maybe she should ask that old woman to change seats again. “I mean it. Besides something real. You already told me that. I like to think I’m real, after all. So, what do you really want?” She shrugged and said simply, “I want to be happy. I used to want Mr. Darcy, laugh at me if you want, or the idea of him. Someone who made me feel all the time like I felt when I watched those movies.” It was hard for her to admit it, but when she had, it felt like licking the last of the icing from the bowl. That hopeless fantasy was empty now. “Right. Well, do you think it possible--” He hesitated, his fingers played with the radio and light buttons on the arm of his seat. “Do you think someone like me could be what you want?” Jane smiled sadly. “I’m feeling all shiny and brand new. In all my life, I’ve never felt like I do now. I’m not sure yet what I want. When I was Miss Erstwhile, you were perfect, but that was back in Austenland. Or are we still in Austenland? Maybe I’ll never leave.” He nodded. “You don’t have to decide anything now. If you will allow me to be near you for a time, then we can see.” He rested his head back, and they looked at each other, their faces inches apart. He always was so good at looking at her. And it occurred to her just then that she herself was more Darcy than Erstwhile, sitting there admiring his fine eyes, feeling dangerously close to falling in love against her will. “Just be near…” she repeated. He nodded. “And if I don’t make you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world every day of your life, then I don’t deserve to be near you.” Jane breathed in, taking those words inside her. She thought she might like to keep them for a while. She considered never giving them up. “Okay, I lied a little bit.” He rubbed his head with even more force. “I need to admit up front that I don’t know how to have a fling. I’m not good at playing around and then saying good-bye. I’m throwing myself at your feet because I’m hoping for a shot at forever. You don’t have to say anything now, no promises required. I just thought you should know.” He forced himself to lean back again, his face turned slightly away, as if he didn’t care to see her expression just then. It was probably for the best. She was staring straight ahead with wide, panicked eyes, then a grin slowly took over her face. In her mind was running the conversation she was going to have with Molly. “I didn’t think it was possible, but I found a man as crazy intense as I was.

But they {journalists} are still viewed as a rather privileged category. True, they no longer can ride buses free or go to the movies for free as was the case in Mussolini’s day. But they can still get into most museums or exhibitions without paying. If you’re a smooth operator you can get complimentary tickets for shows or the opera. Until recently, you could get a 30% discount on all domestic flights (now it’s 15%). And if you have trouble with any of your utilities,the utility company’s press office will be glad to give you a have in working things out. In addition, since many Italian journalists have a different sense of what constitutes a conflict of interest from what we do in the United States, they often accept any manner of gifts or paid vacations from companies they regularly cover.

The irony I’ve always found most haunting about Grizzly Man was how close it came to avoiding its ending, thus never being made at all. How close Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard came to going home. They’d called it a season, packed up their gear, and got as far as the airport ticket counter before deciding to return to the Alaskan bush awhile longer. As if they’d heard a call to go back. Had Lydia seen this, and never told me? She would know I had. And trusted I would understand exactly what it meant when, after a trip to the bathroom at Vancouver International, I found her seat in our gate’s waiting area empty. Or if not right away, I’d get the message eventually. When I missed our flight, too, I couldn’t say if it was because I was still waiting for her to come back. Or because I wasn’t aware of when everyone else started to board. Or because I was trying to work up the courage to go after her, but couldn’t get past my fear of the mess that might be waiting. Mostly I wished I’d paid more attention to how much of herself Lydia must have seen in Stefan—alive in the wrong time, unable to see anything more ahead for her. All I’d ever wanted was someone to watch movies with, and talk about what they meant before we went to bed. Profound ones. Silly ones. All the ones in between. It seemed so simple, so little to ask for. So why couldn’t I have reached out a hand’s length farther, and accepted it? But as I sat transfixed by the sky, by the clouds and all they concealed, the maker of teeth made it clear. That’s not how this universe works. That’s not how any of this works.

Brainstorm about all the recurring expenditures that you could eliminate or reduce to cut your expenses. Car insurance, cell-phone bills, lunch money, movie tickets. Think about where you can make changes.

A post-movie dance: [You walk out of the theatre. You stretch. You toss your popcorn in the trash bin and wonder if it’s recycling. You pretend to be a slow walker on your way to the exit so you don’t appear too close to the stranger in front of you. You walk to the bathroom. You wait in line. You piss. You hold your fart. You come out. You walk to the parking garage. You walk back to the theatre because you forgot to validate your ticket. You come back to your car. You leave the garage. You get a phone call from mom and talk to her. Then you turn on the radio in traffic. Then you come home and respond to e-mails and go back to sleep. And soon, a movie has died.]

Claudia clicked her tongue. “Girl, hush. That ain’t none of our business. Besides, we all know you’d suck a dick for a movie ticket and a combo meal. Don’t hate the hustle. Did you see what that boy looked like when he got here? Somebody needed to take care of him.

producer Toshio Suzuki had no idea during production that Spirited Away would break record after record at the box office. In Japan, it became the most watched movie at theaters with over 23 million tickets sold, surpassing Titanic’s record which had beaten the record set by Princess Mononoke.

Wait for me honey, I’m just finishing my make-up. You don’t need make-up, Jane. Oh, Richard…. really? That is so sweet of you! You need plastic surgery. # Joke .. 2 Do you know why women aren’t allowed in space? To avoid scenarios like: "Houston, we have a problem!" "What is the problem?" "Yeah, great, pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about!" # Joke .. 3 Wife: Today, I want to relax, so I have brought three movie tickets. Husband: why three tickets?

Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave. —BLADE RUNNER (MOVIE, 1982)

I call them “the movies.” Never indefinite — “I’m going to a movie” — but instead, a stipulated and familiar certainty: the movies. I do it, perhaps, as a nod to my childhood; to preserve my capacity for dupable wonder. Or possibly, to modify with the slightest article shift, the casual nature of going to a Cineplex, buying my ticket, a soda, some snacks maybe, riding the escalator, and invariably forgetting what theater I’m looking for — was it 9 or 6? I choose to observe these steps as more than just a series of small, unremarkable transactions.

FINALLY—YOU ARE A SWEEPSTAKES WINNER! I don’t know about you, but I enter all those darned magazine company sweepstakes. I go for the Reader’s Digest sweepstakes and I buy my weekly lottery tickets—after all, as a character in the movie Let It Ride said, “You could be walking around lucky and not know it.” In a lot of years, though, I have gone winless. The guys with the balloons and the giant-sized check have not shown up at my door. So the headline FINALLY—YOU ARE A SWEEPSTAKES WINNER! got me. I read that letter. And if you send a letter to every one of your customers with that headline on it, every one of them will read it. What should the letter say? Here’s an example, courtesy of the late, great copywriter, my friend Gary Halbert: Dear Valued Customer:    I am writing to tell you that your name was entered into a drawing here at my store and you have won a valuable prize.    As you know, my store, ABC Jewelry, specializes in low-cost, top-quality diamond rings and diamond earrings. Well, guess what? The other day we got in a small shipment of fake diamonds that are made with a new process that makes them look so real they almost fooled me!    Anyway, I don’t want to sell these fakes because they could cause a lot of trouble for the pawnbrokers around town. So I’ve decided to give them away to some of my good customers whose names were selected at random by having my wife, Janet, put all the names in a jar and pull out the winners.    So, you’re one of the winners—and all you’ve got to do is drop in sometime before 5:00 P.M. Friday and you’ll have a 1-karat “diamond” that looks so good it’ll knock your eyes out! Sincerely, John Jones P.S.: After 5:00 P.M. Friday, I reserve the right to give your prize to someone else. Thank you.

Naskar is made by Naskar alone, not an industry or benefactor - or more importantly, by family wealth. I had a roof over my head, food on the table, and clothes on my back - that was more than enough. I started writing with literally zero dollar in my pocket. Let me tell you how it began, because for some reason, I completely forgot a crucial event of my life when I wrote my memoir Love, God & Neurons. I once met an American tourist at a local train in Calcutta. The first thing he asked me was, had I lived in the States? I said, no. Then how come you have an American accent - he asked. Watching movies - I said. We got chatting and he told me about a book he had recently published, a memoir. I believe, this was the cosmic event that planted the thought of writing my own books in my head - I had already started my self-education in Neurology and Psychology, and I was all determined to publish research papers on my ideas, but not books. Meeting the person somehow subconsciously shifted my focus from research papers to books. So the journey began. And for the first few years, I made no real money from my books. Occasionally some of my books would climb the bestsellers list on amazon, like my very first book did, and that would keep the bills paid for several months. Then the invitations for talks started coming, but they too were not paid in the beginning. The organizers made all the travel arrangements, and I gave the talks for free. It's ironic and super confusing really - I remember flying business class, but I didn't have enough money to even afford a one way flight ticket, because I had already used up my royalties on other expenses. Today I can pick and choose which speaking invitations to accept, but back then I didn't have that luxury - I was grateful for any speaking gig and interview request I received, paid or not. One time, I gave an interview to this moderately popular journalist for her personal youtube channel, only to find out, she never released the video publicly - she posted an interview with a dog owner instead - whose dog videos had gained quite a following on social media. You could say, this was the first time I realized first hand, what white privilege was. Anyway, the point is this. Did I doubt myself? Often. Did I consider quitting? Occasionally. But did I actually quit? Never. And because I didn't quit, the world received a vast never-before seen multicultural humanitarian legacy, that you know me for today. There is no such thing as overnight success. If you have a dream, you gotta work at it day in, day out - night after night - spoiling sleep, ruining rest, forgetting fun. Persist, persist, and persist, that's the only secret - there is no other. Remember this - the size of your pocket does not determine your destiny, the size of your dedication does.

Colonel Sanders, who made Kentucky Fried Chicken famous, pitched his idea more than 80 times before anyone bought the concept. It took Stallone only three days to write the script for Rocky, and the movie grossed $200 million, but when he wrote it, he had no money to his name, couldn't afford to heat his apartment, and even had to sell his dog for $50 just to be able to buy food. Walt Disney was laughed at for his idea of an amusement park, and yet now people all over the world spend $100 a ticket and save up their whole lives just to have a family vacation at Disney World.

Going out on a date was very cheap in those days [1962]. I borrowed my father's station wagon, put in a gallon of gas for 29 cents, went to the movies for 50 cents a ticket, bought a pack of cigarettes for 25 cents, and had a McDonald's hamburger for 19 cents apiece. It was very doable.

It’s our first date. I text to say I’m running really late. Do you: a. Wait longer (+3) b. Take the opportunity to retouch your makeup and hair. Then wait longer (+5) c. Suggest that we reschedule (0) d. Tell me the date is off (-1) When you cook our first meal, it is: a. A traditional recipe passed down from your grandmother (+5) b. A recipe from your library of cookbooks (+3) c. Reheated (0) d. I can’t/won’t/don’t cook (-1) What is the first thing you buy for me? a. A night of drinks so you can get me drunk and trick me into your bed (+5) b. Tickets to a date movie so you can get me feeling romantic and trick me into your bed (+3) c. An expensive cool gadget so you can get me excited and trick me into your bed (+1)

A girl who never got tired of her favorite movies,” he said softly. “Who saved dresses like ticket stubs. Who could get high on the weather …

In America, my father began working as a clerk for a government agency. He rented an apartment in a place called Queens, New York. A year after he left us, he sent airplane tickets. The Delhi of the seventies is hard to imagine: the quietness, the streets empty of traffic, children playing cricket in the middle of the street and rarely having to move out of the way to let cars by, the vegetable vendors who came pushing their carts down the streets in the late afternoon, crying out their wares in tight, high-pitched voices. There weren't VCRs back then, let alone cable channels. A movie would play for twenty-five or fifty weeks in huge auditorium theaters, and then once the movie was gone, it was gone forever. I remembered feeling grief when the enormous billboards for Sholay at the end of our street were taken down. It was like somebody had died. It is also hard to remember how frugal we were. We saved the cotton that comes inside pill bottles. Our mothers used it to make wicks. This frugality meant that we were sensitive to the physical reality of the world in a way most people no longer are. When my mother bought a box of matches, she had my brother sit at a table and use a razor to split the matches in half. When we had to light several things, we would use the match to set a twist of paper on fire and then walk around the apartment lighting the stove, the incense stick, the mosquito coil. This close engagement with things meant that we were conscious that the wood of a match is soft, that a bit of spit on paper split on paper slows down how it burns. By the time our airplane tickets arrived, not every family hired a band to play outside their house on the day of the departure to a foreign country. Still, many families did.

We want the kind of love that sells movie tickets.

Polticians associate to social causes to get votes, filmstars associate to social causes to sell tickets. Former disappear after election, the later disappear after movie release. What's the difference?

I think we’ve seen every movie Cary Grant ever made a dozen times.” She widened her eyes. “Me too. Nanna adored Cary Grant.” “‘Everybody wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.’” “I love that line.” “How about this one. ‘Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.’” “Arsenic and Old Lace.” “That’s one point for you.” “My turn. ‘Not that I mind a slight case of abduction now and then, but I have tickets for the theater this evening.’” “Too easy.” AJ smirked. “North by Northwest.” “We’re tied. One point each.” “So it’s a competition now?” “For biggest Cary Grant fan.” “Okay. Try this one. ‘There must be something between us, even if it’s only an ocean.’” “Every woman in the world knows that one.” “Then what is it?” “An Affair to Remember.” Shelby sighed dreamily. “And you can’t watch that one without watching Sleepless in Seattle.” “Another of Gran’s favorites.” “Did you really watch all those movies with her?” “Sure did. About once a month or so on a Sunday afternoon, we’d have a movie marathon.” His eyes softened as he revisited the past, then he grinned. “Sometimes I drifted off to sleep. So did she, but we both pretended we didn’t.” “Sounds like a pleasant way to spend a Sunday.” “It was.

contacts list. Unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of online info about the former pastor turned college professor. A grainy photo on the Eastern Michigan University website, a brief and seemingly outdated bio of Dr. Neal Townsend, and the words “associate professor” underneath. Luke had even pushed the boundaries on crazy and paid for a background check, but the guy was a saint. Not even a traffic ticket. The mystery of Maranatha House was all but over. This Neal still bothered Luke though. He couldn’t put his finger on why, but it did. Luke scanned the sandwich shop for Felicity. They were meeting for dinner and a movie, and he was so nervous he’d ended up getting there early. This was their third official date, not counting the cinnamon rolls in her office. It wasn’t until halfway through their

Ahem,” he said carefully. “Since we’re all here, um. So anyway.” He nodded at Deborah. “Morgan,” he said, and he looked at me. “And, uh—Morgan.” He frowned, as if I had insulted him by choosing a name for myself that he’d already said, and the beautiful woman snickered in the silence. Captain Matthews actually blushed, which was almost certainly something he hadn’t done since high school, and he cleared his throat one more time. “All right,” he said, with massive authority and a sidelong glance at the woman. He nodded at the man in the impressive suit. “Mr., ah, Eissen here represents, um, BTN. Big Ticket Network.” The man nodded back at Matthews with a very deliberate display of patient contempt. “And, um. They’re here, in town. In Miami,” he added, in case we’d forgotten what town we lived in. “They want to shoot a movie. A, um, TV show, you know.” The man in the sunglasses spoke up for the first time. “A pilot,” he said, without moving his face, parting his lips only enough to reveal a blinding set of perfect teeth. “It’s called a pilot.” The beautiful woman rolled her eyes and looked at me, shaking her head, and I found myself smiling eagerly back at her, without any conscious decision to do so.

The movie marketing paradigm says throw an expensive premiere and hope that translates into ticket sales come opening weekend. A growth hacker says, “Hey, it’s the twenty-first century, and we can be a lot more technical about how we acquire and capture new customers.” The start-up world is full of companies taking clever hacks to drive their first set of customers into their sales funnel. The necessity of that jolt—needing to get it any way they can—has made start-ups very creative.

Hey,” I say. “I want to take you somewhere special with me.” “Where?” she asks over the rush of the water. “My dad used to take me to this old movie theater. It’s closed down now, but it’s my favorite place in the whole world. We would have to break in, but the last time I did it, the projector still worked. We would just have to turn it on.” She sticks her head out of the curtain. “I’ve never heard you say anything nice about your dad before.” I shrug. “It’s just a movie theater.” “No, it’s not,” she calls back. “I guess we could go one day. Is it the one with the old ticket booth out front.” “Yes.” “I’d like to go there.” My heart warms. “Good.” Her voice jerks me out of my thoughts. “Can you pass me a towel?” she asks. I open the cabinet and get out the biggest and fluffiest one I can find. It must be hers, because none of what I have is this nice. She reaches around the curtain, her skinny little tatted arm waving impatiently at me. God, she makes me laugh. That’s the best thing about Friday. She makes me laugh. I don’t know why, but just seeing her can get me out of a funk.

Why go to the movie theater at all, audiences have asked over the past few years, when movie tickets, snacks, and a babysitter can easily cost a hundred bucks and there is so much good TV to watch and so many apps on their tablets to interact with? Moviegoing is no longer a habit the way it used to be, particularly for people ages eighteen through forty-nine. They saw two fewer films per year on average in 2016 than they did in 2012. When they do go to the cinema, modern consumers increasingly prefer to know what they’re in for, which means a brand-name franchise. Even big-budget, star-driven action movies with stellar reviews, like Tom Cruise’s excellent Edge of Tomorrow, have struggled. And in the same year, Star Wars: The Force Awakens destroyed box-office records by essentially re-creating a movie from forty years ago.

The party of technocrats and consultants—of calculating triangulators and fans of the smoke-filled rooms—must eventually give way to the populism that we must have. Thus will the Democratic Party learn once again to breathe hope into those who despair. The populism I am describing is not formless anger that might lash out in any direction. It is not racism. It is not resentment. It is not demagoguery. It is, instead, to ask the most profound question of them all: “For whom does America exist?” I take that question from the culture critic Gilbert Seldes, who saw it as the great unanswered demand of the 1890s Populist revolt. The question was raised again in 1936, the year when Seldes wrote those words. It came up again in the 1960s. And here we are, asking it again today.8 For whom does America exist? Its billionaires? Its celebrities? Its tech companies? Are we the people just a laboring, sweating instrument for the bonanza paydays of our betters? Are we just glorified security guards, obeying orders to protect their holdings? Are we nothing more than a vast test market to be tracked and probed and hopefully sold on airline tickets, fast food, or Hollywood movies featuring some awesome new animation technology?

Can you give him a break with the ticket? He bought that car with his first paycheck when he became a medical intern and drove it straight home to show his dad that all the sacrifices he'd made to give his son a better life were worth it. One minute he was #desiproud and the next, Bambi gets revenge Thumper style." "I never liked that movie," Officer Pataudi said. "Of course you didn't, because you have a heart. You feel for the little guy, for all the Bambis who lost their moms and all the immigrants who came here for the American dream only to be crushed by the cruel deer of fate.

Video-on-demand rentals and digital downloads helped a bit as the years went on, but the movie business never fully recovered. Annual home-entertainment revenue, and the studio profits that follow from it, fell by nearly half between 2004 and 2016, from nearly $22 billion to $12 billion. At the same time, Americans became much less important to the American movie business. As the economies of developing nations throughout Latin America and Asia grew, theater construction surged and the rising middle class spent their newfound wealth on what was to them the novel and luxurious experience of a night out to see the latest Hollywood flick. International box office exploded, from $8.6 billion in 2001 to $27.2 billion in 2016. The biggest driver of growth in recent years has been China; its box office grew from $2 billion in 2011 to $6.6 billion in 2016 and is expected to surpass U.S. box office before the end of the decade. Domestic box office, meanwhile, grew by only 40 percent between 2001 and 2015, to $11.4 billion—reflecting a slight decline in attendance, once you factor in ticket price increases. Both trends were like a siren’s wail to studio executives, urging them to make fewer, bigger, louder movies. DVD sales declines were smallest for movies with budgets of more than $75 million, and as studios tried to cut costs in response to plummeting home-entertainment revenues, risky original scripts and adaptations of highbrow books were the first to go. Annual movie releases by major studios were 139 in 2016, down 32 percent

Why would anyone want movie-goers to pay eighteen dollars when they might pay twenty-seven dollars?’ he finally asked, his face still betraying nothing. Everyone tried to process what he was saying. Why were they talking about ticket prices? Had they started their own game of riddles? ‘So I don’t get this at all,’ Shaye continued, ‘why would you make two films when there are three books?

grand final had faded into the background of my brain and I was starting to get excited about going on the roller coaster and the Batman ride. The last time we had gone to Movie World I was only a toddler and had been too little to go on anything scary. They had little statues of movie characters next to each ride and if you weren’t as tall as they were, you couldn’t go on the ride. To be honest, back then I was too scared to go on anything anyway. Mom said when they tried to get me on the Scooby Doo ride, little China men would have heard me screaming in China. I think the only ride I went on all day was the merry-go-round. Even then I didn’t dare go on top of a horse that bobbed up and down. I sat in the safety of a stationary boat.              But this time I was going to go on everything. Mom said because it was a school day there might not be many queues so we could have as many turns as we wanted on everything. When we were finally at the ticket box I felt a stray smile sneaking up all over my face and taking over my grumpy frown. I tried to keep feeling sad about the playoffs, but the lure of Movie World was starting to take over me like a parasitic alien dominating his victim. No matter how I tried to fight the betrayal, the feelings of thrilling

Phone world is the place you go when you want to find someone to see a movie with. It’s where you go to decide what movie to go see. It’s where you buy the tickets. It’s where you let your friend know you have arrived at the theater. It’s where your friend tells you, “Shit, I’m at the wrong theater,” and where you say, “What the fuck, man? You always do this. Fine. I’m off to see G.I. Joe: Retaliation alone, AGAIN.” And now that our phone worlds are integral to even the most mundane of tasks, of course, they are also a big part of where we live our romantic lives.

Sony paid both stars handsomely for their consistent success: $20 million against 20 percent of the gross receipts, whichever was higher, was their standard compensation. They also received as much as $5 million against 5 percent for their production companies, where they employed family and friends. Sony also provided Happy Madison and Overbrook with a generous overhead to cover expenses—worth about $4 million per year. To top it off, Sandler and Smith enjoyed the perks of the luxe studio life. Flights on a corporate jet were common, with family members and friends often invited along. On occasion, Smith’s entourage and its belongings necessitated the use of two jets for travel to premieres. Knowing that Sandler was a huge sports fan, Sony regularly sent him and his pals to the Super Bowl to do publicity. In addition to enjoying the best tickets and accommodations, they had a private basketball court to play on, which the studio rented for them. Back at the Sony lot, the basketball court was renamed Happy Madison Square Garden in the star’s honor. When anybody questioned the wide latitude and endless indulgence given to Sandler and Smith, Sony executives had a standard answer: “Will and Adam bought our houses.

A few months later, Sandler got word that Netflix, newly interested in movies, had set its sights squarely on him. Using data gathered from Sony movies that Netflix had played through its Starz deal, Sarandos’s team knew that even as his box-office power waned, Sandler remained one of the most popular stars on the streaming service. His aging audience might be less likely to pay to see him in a theater, but they still loved laughing at his antics at home. “We knew he was popular in markets where his movies had never even opened,” Sarandos said. The mid-budget star vehicle, in other words, still worked great for Netflix. When people went to theaters, they preferred brand-name franchises. But when they were browsing for something to stream rather than pay fifty dollars for a night out, a familiar face doing the familiar shtick was perfect. Movies without massive visual effects were just as enjoyable at home, after all, if not more so. And if the stars had chosen to stretch their wings and you didn’t like the movie you clicked on, you could turn it off immediately. You lost a little bit of time, but not any money. And though there may not be as many fans of Adam Sandler, or any movie star, as there used to be, that didn’t necessarily matter to Netflix. All studios care about is how many people buy tickets or DVDs. They get their money whether you loved the movie or hated it. But Netflix measures success by how many people finish a movie and are satisfied enough to keep subscribing as a result, or who sign up just in order to watch it. Adam Sandler’s fan base may have shrunk, but those who remained were loyal and they were global—just what Netflix wanted. Additionally, Netflix wouldn’t have to spend millions of dollars on billboards and TV ads to market each film. Its algorithm would prominently suggest each Sandler movie to his fans on their home screen the moment it was available.

A decent signal an industry is vulnerable is the presence of pseudo innovation—the addition of features that add no real value to the product; membership clubs that don’t deliver any real savings or convenience; movie theaters whose online ordering is more of a hassle than buying the ticket at the venue; colleges investing in luxury accommodations instead of educational resources. Those are the home remedies of a management team that knows the patient requires surgery but doesn’t want to endure real cost and pain.

i have a safe i call the boyfriend box and in it every saved receipt every movie theater ticket just to remind me of all the things i’ve loved and lost and loved again unconditionally

Building a Blockbuster How to write compelling content that sells The term “blockbuster” has unsettling military origins, but is now used to mean a film that has blown the box office away. It usually has high production costs and budget, but (hopefully) earns it all back and more with ticket sales. Blockbusters are usually BIG movies, large in scope, scale, and budget. They tell a big story, and reach a big audience. They’re also usually “high concept,” meaning that they can be described in a single sentence. (The most famous high concept pitch was for the movie Alien which they pitched as, “Jaws in space.”)

American Airlines Reservations+1-855-653-5006 American Airlines Reservations Selected a vacation spot, but unsure about which airline to go with? Look no further and book your tickets with American airlines Book Flight as soon as possible. Now you must be thinking, why only American Airlines? So, let’s look at why choosing American Airlines as your travel partner is beneficial in every way. When it comes to airline reservations, travelers always seek two things: budget and comfort—understanding the needs of travelers, the American airline knows how to keep its customers happy. The airline is low-cost and provides award-winning customer service. Furthermore, offers various deals and discounts that suit travelers preferences and budget. Continue to look for the best deal on the airline’s official website to obtain the best price on time. However, you may contact aviation experts to get the best pricing for your journey. Call American Airlines booking phone number and speak with the airline’s executives directly. Travelling with American Airlines is going to be a worthwhile experience for you owing to the amenities and facilities you will be offered online. You will be treated with customized and exclusive boarding experience, free entertainment, complimentary snacks, spacious seats, and much more. Let’s explore these incredible services. On most of American Airlines flights, you are allowed to stream TV shows, music, movies, and more to your phone, tablet, and laptop. You are not even required to purchase the on-board Wi-Fi, just download the American Airlines mobile app on your device. Go for American Airlines flight reservations and leave all your boredom away. American keeps updating its entertainment content in different languages and genres.

Take a simple example: lottery tickets. Americans spend more on them than movies, video games, music, sporting events, and books combined. And who buys them? Mostly poor people. The lowest-income households in the U.S. on average spend $412 a year on lotto tickets, four times the amount of those in the highest income groups. Forty percent of Americans cannot come up with $400 in an emergency. Which is to say: Those buying $400 in lottery tickets are by and large the same people who say they couldn’t come up with $400 in an emergency. They are blowing their safety nets on something with a one-in-millions chance of hitting it big. That seems crazy to me. It probably seems crazy to you, too. But I’m not in the lowest income group. You’re likely not, either. So it’s hard for many of us to intuitively grasp the subconscious reasoning of low-income lottery ticket buyers. But strain a little, and you can imagine it going something like this:

What some may not know is that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t originally arrested for killing the president. He was first arrested for shooting and killing Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit. Oswald’s arrest came about on November 22, 1963, when a shoe store manager named John Brewer noticed him loitering suspiciously outside his store. Brewer noted that Oswald fit the description of the suspect in the shooting of Officer Tippit. When Oswald continued up the street and slipped inside the Texas Theater without paying for a ticket, Brewer called a theater worker, who alerted authorities. Fifteen Dallas police officers arrived at the scene. When they turned on the movie house lights, they found Lee Harvey Oswald sitting towards the back of the theater. The movie that had been airing at the time was War is Hell. When Lee Harvey Oswald was questioned by authorities about Tippit’s homicide, Captain J. W. Fritz recognized his name as one of the workers from the book depository who had been reported missing and was already being considered a suspect in JFK’s assassination. The day after he was formally arraigned for murdering Officer Tippit, he was also charged with assassinating John F. Kennedy. Today, the Texas Theater is a historical landmark that is commonly visited by tourists. It still airs movies and hosts special events. There’s also a bar and lounge.    The Texas Theater was the first theater in Texas to have air conditioning. It was briefly owned by famous aviator and film producer, Howard Hughes. Texas’s Capitol

Take a simple example: lottery tickets. Americans spend more on them than movies, video games, music, sporting events, and books combined. And who buys them? Mostly poor people. The lowest-income households in the U.S. on average spend $412 a year on lotto tickets, four times the amount of those in the highest income groups. Forty percent of Americans cannot come up with $400 in an emergency. Which is to say: Those buying $400 in lottery tickets are by and large the same people who say they couldn’t come up with $400 in an emergency. They are blowing their safety nets on something with a one-in-millions chance of hitting it big.

American Airlines Reservations Phone Number-+1-855-653-5006 American Airlines Reservations Phone NumbeSelected a vacation spot, but unsure about which airline to go with? Look no further and book your tickets with American airlines Book Flight as soon as possible. Now you must be thinking, why only American Airlines? So, let’s look at why choosing American Airlines as your travel partner is beneficial in every way. When it comes to airline reservations, travelers always seek two things: budget and comfort—understanding the needs of travelers, the American airline knows how to keep its customers happy. The airline is low-cost and provides award-winning customer service. Furthermore, offers various deals and discounts that suit travelers preferences and budget. Continue to look for the best deal on the airline’s official website to obtain the best price on time. However, you may contact aviation experts to get the best pricing for your journey. Call American Airlines booking phone number and speak with the airline’s executives directly. On most of American Airlines flights, you are allowed to stream TV shows, music, movies, and more to your phone, tablet, and laptop. You are not even required to purchase the on-board Wi-Fi, just download the American Airlines mobile app on your device. Go for American Airlines flight reservations and leave all your boredom away. American keeps updating its entertainment content in different languages and genres. If you are a guest of First Class, then you have access to various unparalleled amenities such as amenity kit, more privacy, fully-flat bed, flagship lounge, and much more. The airline offers different travel classes so passengers can choose as per their budget.

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There are people who can’t afford to buy a book or a movie ticket, but this high and mighty society thinks it’s morally wrong that piracy makes cultural products available for free. Fucking assholes, güey. Fucking slave world. Supposedly it’s taboo to talk about this stuff because it implies the negation of the legal system, the pornography of the market, but I don’t give a fuck what defenders of intellectual property say, because, of course, they defend the inanest concept ever invented. Because copyrighting ideas and artistic creations is a repulsive kind of elitism, truth be told. I’m not saying we should deny authorship to authors, but we should think about what piracy does for the people. The siblings once told me that filmmakers in Ecuador make a deal with the pirated-DVD sellers to pirate their movies, and that’s super cool, right, because the world is horribly unequal and we, the third-world simpletons, know that better than anyone. I write and hope I’ll be able to publish someday, but not because I want to make a show of my intellectual property or restrict the circulation of whatever I make to the little group of people who can pay for it. I want to publish because when an editor takes a risk on your work, others are more likely to read you, and I write to be read, dude, not to go around playing the part of the tortured writer-type. In fact, I’d love if someone pirated my work once it’s published. The day I’m pirated I’ll celebrate for real, I swear.

I never let doubt get in my way. Doubt is a decision people make to avoid risk. I always move toward my fears rather than run away from them. If I don’t want to do something, the better part of me says, “Go on, do it!” I always pay more attention to the side that encourages me to take a chance. The greatest opportunities are behind the doors you think are closed to you.

The Year Of The Cat" On a morning from a Bogart movie In a country where they turn back time You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre Contemplating a crime She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running Like a watercolor in the rain Don't bother asking for explanations She'll just tell you that she came In the year of the cat She doesn't give you time for questions As she locks up your arm in hers And you follow till your sense of which direction Completely disappears By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls There's a hidden door she leads you to These days, she says, "I feel my life Just like a river running through" The year of the cat Why she looks at you so coolly? And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea She comes in incense and patchouli So you take her, to find what's waiting inside The year of the cat Well morning comes and you're still with her And the bus and the tourists are gone And you've thrown away your choice you've lost your ticket So you have to stay on But the drumbeat strains of the night remain In the rhythm of the new-born day You know sometime you're bound to leave her But for now you're going to stay In the year of the cat Year of the cat

The man in the rail uniform spoke. His voice was thin, emphysemic. ‘They’re accusing you of being . . .’ Alina groped for the word, came up with something she must have remembered from movies. ‘Stowaways?’ ‘Fare dodgers,’ I said. ‘But we had tickets. Ordinary tickets. They were stolen. Please tell them we’re sorry, we know we shouldn’t have come into the sleeper carriage. But we bought tickets. We’re the victims of a crime.’ She nodded and, I assumed, relayed this to the men. The bald guard exclaimed a universal word: ‘Hah!

I enjoyed the movies but did not like the restrictions on watching them. A relative and I devised a clever way to watch movies. If we were away from the shop or home for three hours, there were questions to be answered. How could we stay away and still watch a movie? I collaborated with Satya Narain. He was my age, even though he was my father’s cousin. We would buy one movie ticket and watch one half at a time. I would watch the first half and return home after oneand-a-half hours. He would watch the second half. The next day we would swap the roles and watch the other halves. This way we would not be away long enough to attract suspicion. There were only two cinema halls and both were less than ten minutes’ cycle-ride away. We could return to work quickly since the halls were so close.

Srinagar is a city of bunkers. Of the world’s cities, it has the highest military presence. But Srinagar is also a city of absences. It has lost its nights to a decade and a half of curfews, and de facto curfews. It has lost its theatres. Regal, Shiraz, Neelam, Broadway — magical names I longed for throughout my childhood. They were closed before I had grown up enough to walk to a ticket counter on my own, to watch a bad Hindi movie. Srinagar has also lost its multi- religious character, with the migration of the Kashmiri Pandits in the early nineties.

They became indignant over the living images that the preposterous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears of affliction had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many felt that they had been the victims of some new and showy gypsy business and they decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings.

And the main thing that was wrong was that everything seemed to have gotten just a little worse, or at best remained the same. You would have predicted that at least a few facets of everyday life would improve markedly in twenty-two years. Her father contended the War was behind it all: any person who showed a shred of talent was sucked up by UNEF; the very best fell to the Elite Conscription Act and wound up being cannon fodder. It was hard not to agree with him. Wars in the past often accelerated social reform, provided technological benefits, even sparked artistic activity. This one, however, seemed tailor-made to provide none of these positive by-products. Such improvements as had been made on late-twentieth-century technology were—like tachyon bombs and warships two kilometers long—at best, interesting developments of things that only required the synergy of money and existing engineering techniques. Social reform? The world was technically under martial law. As for art, I’m not sure I know good from bad. But artists to some extent have to reflect the temper of the times. Paintings and sculpture were full of torture and dark brooding; movies seemed static and plotless; music was dominated by nostalgic revivals of earlier forms; architecture was mainly concerned with finding someplace to put everybody; literature was damn near incomprehensible. Most people seemed to spend most of their time trying to find ways to outwit the government, trying to scrounge a few extra K’s or ration tickets without putting their lives in too much danger. And in the past, people whose country was at war were constantly in contact with the war. The newspapers would be full of reports, veterans would return from the front; sometimes the front would move right into town, invaders marching down Main Street or bombs whistling through the night air—but always the sense of either working toward victory or at least delaying defeat. The enemy was a tangible thing, a propagandist’s monster whom you could understand, whom you could hate. But this war...the enemy was a curious organism only vaguely understood, more often the subject of cartoons than nightmares. The main effect of the war on the home front was economic, unemotional-more taxes but more jobs as well. After twenty-two years, only twenty-seven returned veterans; not enough to make a decent parade. The most important fact about the war to most people was that if it ended suddenly, Earth’s economy would collapse.