Party Light Box Quotes

I say is someone in there?’ The voice is the young post-New formalist from Pittsburgh who affects Continental and wears an ascot that won’t stay tight, with that hesitant knocking of when you know perfectly well someone’s in there, the bathroom door composed of thirty-six that’s three times a lengthwise twelve recessed two-bevelled squares in a warped rectangle of steam-softened wood, not quite white, the bottom outside corner right here raw wood and mangled from hitting the cabinets’ bottom drawer’s wicked metal knob, through the door and offset ‘Red’ and glowering actors and calendar and very crowded scene and pubic spirals of pale blue smoke from the elephant-colored rubble of ash and little blackened chunks in the foil funnel’s cone, the smoke’s baby-blanket blue that’s sent her sliding down along the wall past knotted washcloth, towel rack, blood-flower wallpaper and intricately grimed electrical outlet, the light sharp bitter tint of a heated sky’s blue that’s left her uprightly fetal with chin on knees in yet another North American bathroom, deveiled, too pretty for words, maybe the Prettiest Girl Of All Time (Prettiest G.O.A.T.), knees to chest, slew-footed by the radiant chill of the claw-footed tub’s porcelain, Molly’s had somebody lacquer the tub in blue, lacquer, she’s holding the bottle, recalling vividly its slogan for the past generation was The Choice of a Nude Generation, when she was of back-pocket height and prettier by far than any of the peach-colored titans they’d gazed up at, his hand in her lap her hand in the box and rooting down past candy for the Prize, more fun way too much fun inside her veil on the counter above her, the stuff in the funnel exhausted though it’s still smoking thinly, its graph reaching its highest spiked prick, peak, the arrow’s best descent, so good she can’t stand it and reaches out for the cold tub’s rim’s cold edge to pull herself up as the white- party-noise reaches, for her, the sort of stereophonic precipice of volume to teeter on just before the speaker’s blow, people barely twitching and conversations strettoing against a ghastly old pre-Carter thing saying ‘We’ve Only Just Begun,’ Joelle’s limbs have been removed to a distance where their acknowledgement of her commands seems like magic, both clogs simply gone, nowhere in sight, and socks oddly wet, pulls her face up to face the unclean medicine-cabinet mirror, twin roses of flame still hanging in the glass’s corner, hair of the flame she’s eaten now trailing like the legs of wasps through the air of the glass she uses to locate the de-faced veil and what’s inside it, loading up the cone again, the ashes from the last load make the world's best filter: this is a fact. Breathes in and out like a savvy diver… –and is knelt vomiting over the lip of the cool blue tub, gouges on the tub’s lip revealing sandy white gritty stuff below the lacquer and porcelain, vomiting muddy juice and blue smoke and dots of mercuric red into the claw-footed trough, and can hear again and seems to see, against the fire of her closed lids’ blood, bladed vessels aloft in the night to monitor flow, searchlit helicopters, fat fingers of blue light from one sky, searching.

This little colloquy in Adele's box was really the foundation of the secret society of the Luciaphils, and the membership of the Luciaphils began swiftly to increase. Aggie Sandeman was scarcely eligible, for complete goodwill towards Lucia was a sine qua non of membership, and there was in her mind a certain asperity when she thought that it was she who had given Lucia her gambit, and that already she was beginning to be relegated to second circles in Lucia's scale of social precedence. It was true that she had been asked to dine to meet Marcelle Periscope, but the party to meet Alf and his flute was clearly the smarter of the two. Adele, however, and Tony Limpsfield were real members, so too, when she came up a few days later, was Olga. Marcia Whitby was another who greedily followed her career, and such as these, whenever they met, gave eager news to each other about it. There was, of course, another camp, consisting of those whom Lucia bombarded with pleasant invitations, but who (at present) firmly refused them. They professed not to know her and not to take the slightest interest in her, which showed, as Adele said, a deplorable narrowness of mind. Types and striking characters like Lucia, who pursued undaunted and indefatigable their aim in life, were rare, and when they occurred should be studied with reverent affection... Sometimes one of the old and original members of the Luciaphils discovered others, and if when Lucia's name was mentioned an eager and a kindly light shone in their eyes, and they said in a hushed whisper "Did you hear who was there on Thursday?" they thus disclosed themselves as Luciaphils... All this was gradual, but the movement went steadily on, keeping pace with her astonishing career, for the days were few on which some gratifying achievement was not recorded in the veracious columns of Hermione.

If you feel genuinely impelled to vote the Republican ticket, that's not my affair, of course. Indeed, the Socialist party of this country constitutes only one branch of international socialism. But I do demand of you that you try to think for yourselves, if you are going to have the nerve to vote at all — think of it — to vote how this whole nation is to be conducted! Doesn't that tremendous responsibility demand that you do something more than inherit your way of voting? that you really think, think hard, why you vote as you do?... Pardon me for getting away from the subject proper — yet am I, actually? For just what I have been saying is one of the messages of Shaw and Wells.

Oh," I answered vaguely, "there are still reformers of all sorts in the world." "Reformers!" he cried, his face lighting up with a new interest. "Ah! you mean those profound thinkers who seek to cure every disease of the social body by means of legislation. Yes, yes! tell me about them! Society still believes in them?" "Believes in them!" I cried indignantly. "Surely it does. Why, the great political parties are responding to the cry of the downtrodden masses, and—" "Oh," he said dreamily, "they are still responding?" "What do you mean by still responding?" I demanded curtly. "Why, I remember that in my time, too, the people always responded. The party leaders would say to them that they were in a bad way and needed help. The people would cry out in joy to think their leaders had discovered this. Then the leaders would wink at each other and jump upon the platforms and explain to the people that what was needed was a new law of some sort. The people would weep for happiness at such wisdom and would beg their leaders to get together and make the law. And the law that the leaders would make when they got together was one that would put the people still more in their power. So that is still going on?" I recognized that he was ironical, but I answered with a sneer: "The people get what they deserve, and what they wish. They have only to demand through the ballot box, you know." "Ah, yes," he murmured with a grin, "I had forgotten the ballot box. Dear me! how could I have forgotten the ballot box?" Providentially the keeper came to notify me that my time was up, and I turned away. "One thing more," cried the prisoner; "is it still the case that the American people enjoy their freedom best when they are enslaved in some way?" "You are outrageous," I exclaimed; "the American people are not enslaved in any way. It is true they are restricted for their own good by those more capable of judging than they. That must always be the case." "I don't know about must," he sighed, "but I am sure it will always be the case as long as a man's idea of freedom is his ability to impose some slavish notion on his brother.

Precious to the Lord are the death of His saints." DEATH IS NOT FINAL. God has set eternity in the hearts of men. Why would you want there to be nothing at the end of life? DEATH IS A MYSTERY. Death is not a secret but a mystery. Solomon asked so long ago if animals will be in heaven. And how do people get there. NO ONE KNOWS WHEN THEY WILL DIE. We should then live everyday to God's glory. So make haste to be right with God. DEATH IS THE ULTIMATE LEVELER. Mourning makes people think about mortality. It helps reveal what is important in life more than a party ever could. The king and the pawn go back in the same box. Rich or poor - are we ready to meet God? Do we have faith in Him and His son whose very name is love? Without Him, without love what else matters? We need to love others and love God. The importance of this can become clear in mourning. Are you ready? WE TAKE NOTHING WITH US. Except that done in love for the glory of Jesus. Though these things won't save us, it is His merit alone that can do that, these things give an abundant entry into eternity. Solomon in the end hated what he couldn't take with him. He was the richest man on earth leading a vast empire, surrounded by wives and servants. Jesus asks what good would it do to gain the whole world and lose ones own soul? Therefore store up treasures in heaven. AFTER DEATH COMES JUDGEMENT. It is uncomfortable to think on, but needed. Will we be with Christ on that day or lost in sin? Even if you are a follower of Jesus consider that if we do the things Jesus told us in secret and it comes out it will be nice, but the bad stuff we shouldn't do that we did anyway coming out would be unpleasant. Therefore walk in the light as He is in the light. Shine like the stars in the heavens. Love Him who first loved us. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16 KJV (Refs: Eccl 2:18, Eccl 12:13, Ps 115, Eccl. 3:11, Eccl 3:21, Eccl 8:7,8, Eccl 7:2).

His book For Whom the Bell Tolls was an instant success in the summer of 1940, and afforded him the means to live in style at his villa outside of Havana with his new wife Mary Welsh, whom he married in 1946. It was during this period that he started getting headaches and gaining weight, frequently becoming depressed. Being able to shake off his problems, he wrote a series of books on the Land, Air and Sea, and later wrote The Old Man and the Sea for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in May 1954. Hemingway on a trip to Africa where he barely survived two successive airplane crashes. Returning to Cuba, Ernest worked reshaping the recovered work and wrote his memoir, A Moveable Feast. He also finished True at First Light and The Garden of Eden. Being security conscious, he stored his works in a safe deposit box at a bank in Havana. His home Finca Vigía had become a hub for friends and even visiting tourists. It was reliably disclosed to me that he frequently enjoyed swinger’s parties and orgies at his Cuban home. In Spain after divorcing Frank Sinatra Hemingway introduced Ava Gardner to many of the bullfighters he knew and in a free for all, she seduced many of hotter ones. After Ava Gardner’s affair with the famous Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín crashed, she came to Cuba and stayed at Finca Vigía, where she had what was termed to be a poignant relationship with Ernest. Ava Gardner swam nude in the pool, located down the slope from the Hemingway house, after which he told his staff that the water was not to be emptied. An intimate friendship grew between Hemingway’s forth and second wife, Mary and Pauline. Pauline often came to Finca Vigia, in the early 1950s, and likewise Mary made the crossing of the Florida Straits, back to Key West several times. The ex-wife and the current wife enjoyed gossiping about their prior husbands and lovers and had choice words regarding Ernest. In 1959, Hemingway was in Cuba during the revolution, and was delighted that Batista, who owned the nearby property, that later became the location of the dismal Pan Americana Housing Development, was overthrown. He shared the love of fishing with Fidel Castro and remained on good terms with him. Reading the tea leaves, he decided to leave Cuba after hearing that Fidel wanted to nationalize the properties owned by Americans and other foreign nationals. In the summer of 1960, while working on a manuscript for Life magazine, Hemingway developed dementia becoming disorganized and confused. His eyesight had been failing and he became despondent and depressed. On July 25, 1960, he and his wife Mary left Cuba for the last time. He never retrieved his books or the manuscripts that he left in the bank vault. Following the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban government took ownership of his home and the works he left behind, including an estimated 5,000 books from his personal library. After years of neglect, his home, which was designed by the Spanish architect Miguel Pascual y Baguer in 1886, has now been largely restored as the Hemingway Museum. The museum, overlooking San Francisco de Paula, as well as the Straits of Florida in the distance, houses much of his work as well as his boat housed near his pool.

Getting It Right" Your ankles make me want to party, want to sit and beg and roll over under a pair of riding boots with your ankles hidden inside, sweating beneath the black tooled leather; they make me wish it was my birthday so I could blow out their candles, have them hung over my shoulders like two bags full of money. Your ankles are two monster-truck engines but smaller and lighter and sexier than a saucer with warm milk licking the outside edge; they make me want to sing, make me want to take them home and feed them pasta, I want to punish them for being bad and then hold them all night long and say I’m sorry, sugar, darling, it will never happen again, not in a million years. Your thighs make me quiet. Make me want to be hurled into the air like a cannonball and pulled down again like someone being pulled into a van. Your thighs are two boats burned out of redwood trees. I want to go sailing. Your thighs, the long breath of them under the blue denim of your high-end jeans, could starve me to death, could make me cry and cry. Your ass is a shopping mall at Christmas, a holy place, a hill I fell in love with once when I was falling in love with hills. Your ass is a string quartet, the northern lights tucked tightly into bed between a high-count-of-cotton sheets. Your back is the back of a river full of fish; I have my tackle and tackle box. You only have to say the word. Your back, a letter I have been writing for fifteen years, a smooth stone, a moan someone makes when his hair is pulled, your back like a warm tongue at rest, a tongue with a tab of acid on top; your spine is an alphabet, a ladder of celestial proportions. I am navigating the North and South of it. Your armpits are beehives, they make me want to spin wool, want to pour a glass of whiskey, your armpits dripping their honey, their heat, their inexhaustible love-making dark. I am bright yellow for them. I am always thinking about them, resting at your side or high in the air when I’m pulling off your shirt. Your arms of blue and ice with the blood running to make them believe in God. Your shoulders make me want to raise an arm and burn down the Capitol. They sing to each other underneath your turquoise slope-neck blouse. Each is a separate bowl of rice steaming and covered in soy sauce. Your neck is a skyscraper of erotic adult videos, a swan and a ballet and a throaty elevator made of light. Your neck is a scrim of wet silk that guides the dead into the hours of Heaven. It makes me want to die, your mouth, which is the mouth of everything worth saying. It’s abalone and coral reef. Your mouth, which opens like the legs of astronauts who disconnect their safety lines and ride their stars into the billion and one voting districts of the Milky Way. Darling, you’re my President; I want to get this right! Matthew Dickman, The New Yorker: Poems | August 29, 2011 Issue

Normalcy?” I ask, louder than is probably necessary, surprising myself with the unusual amount of animated expression in my voice. “A regular human being? Jesus, what the fuck is there in that? What does that even mean? Credit card debt, a mortgage, a nagging spouse and bratty kids and a minivan and a fucking family pet? A nine-to-five job that you hate, and that’ll kill you before you ever see your fabled 401k? Cocktail parties and parent-teacher conferences and suburban cul-de-sacs? Monogamous sex, and the obligatory midlife crisis? Potpourri? Wall fixtures? Christmas cards? A welcome mat and a mailbox with your name stenciled on it in fancy lettering? Shitty diapers and foreign nannies and Goodnight Moon? Cramming your face with potato chips while watching primetime television? Antidepressants and crash diets, Coach purses and Italian sunglasses? Boxed wine and light beer and mentholated cigarettes? Pediatrician visits and orthodontist bills and college funds? Book clubs, PTA meetings, labor unions, special interest groups, yoga class, the fucking neighborhood watch? Dinner table gossip and conspiracy theories? How about old age, menopause, saggy tits, and rocking chairs on the porch? Or better yet, leukemia, dementia, emphysema, adult Depends, feeding tubes, oxygen tanks, false teeth, cirrhosis, kidney failure, heart disease, osteoporosis, and dying days spent having your ass wiped by STNAs in a stuffy nursing home reeking of death and disinfectant? Is that the kind of normalcy you lust for so much? All of that—is that worth the title of regular human being? Is it, Helen? Is it?

Bud Light?” she asks in a distasteful tone. “Did you think you would be getting a microbrew? It’s a college house.” “Still”—she takes a sip and cringes—“I thought you’d have a little more class.” “You’re giving me too much credit.” I nod my head toward the corner of the loft where there are less people. When she doesn’t initially follow me, I turn back around, grab her hand like I had to in class, and pull her across the loft until we’re settled in the corner. I lean against the wall and prop one leg behind me. She eyes me, giving me a full once-over. I do the same. She’s damn hot, and I’m regretting my actions last Saturday, passing out mid grope. Finally she says, “You seem to have lost your shirt.” She motions with her finger over my bare chest. I look down at her legs and reply, “Must be where the other half of your skirt is.” “Think they’re making out in a laundromat somewhere?” She takes a sip of her beer and cringes again. A few more sips and she’ll get used to it; always happens for me. “If they are, I hope they use the gentle cycle.” Her brow pulls together. “Not sure if that makes sense.” “Oh, because half of a skirt and a shirt making out in a laundromat does?” “In children’s books, sure.” “What kind of perverted children’s books did you read growing up?” I counter. “You know, the classics,” she answers causally. “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and Skirt and Shirt, Lovers for Life.” “Ah, yes, I forgot about that passionate yet eye-opening youth literature that took the New York Times by storm.” “I have five signed first-edition copies in a box in my parents’ attic. Banking on them to clear out my student loans.” She sips her beer, flips her hair behind her shoulder, glances at my chest again. “Five?” I answer sarcastically. “Damn, forget college loans, you’re set for life.” “You think?” She glances around. “What the hell am I doing here then?” “To see me of course,” I answer with a smile. She rolls her eyes. “More like dragged to this party because my roommate has a crush on one of your freshmen.” “Yeah, which one?” I look over her head, eyeing all the partygoers. “No idea, but apparently he has amazing blue eyes.” “Amazing, huh? Has to be Gunner. I was even stunned by his eyes when he was recruited.” No joke, the dude won the lottery for irises. I’m even jealous with how . . . aqua they are. “Not ashamed to admit that?” she asks, shifting on her heels. “Not even a little.

You have to pretend, when speaking to the ladies in the cake store, that the cake is for a friend, pretend that you’re giving a big party so you need the cake that serves twenty, and you sit at the kitchen table with this enormous and elaborate cake for twenty with your name written in fondant on the top, and you feel worse about yourself than you ever have in your life, but, after the sushi box has been thrown out and the stray drops of soy sauce have been wiped from the Formica table top and the dishes, what few there are, have been washed and put away because you have to hold on to some kind of order or you are lost altogether, you sit down and put a single candle on the cake you bought for yourself and light it and make a wish before blowing it out, and then you cut a big piece of the immense cake and you eat it and you sob as the too-sweet dessert goes into your mouth.

TWO YEARS AGO I FOUND AN IMAGE OF A KID WITH HER HANDS COVERING HER FACE. A SEATBELT REACHED ACROSS HER TORSO, RIDING UP HER NECK AND A MOP OF BLONDE HAIR STAYED SWEPT, FOR THE MOMENT, BEHIND HER EARS. HER EYES SEEMED CLEAR AND CALM BUT NOT BLANK, THE ROAD BEHIND HER SEEMED THE SAME, I PUT MYSELF IN HER SEAT THEN I PLAYED IT ALL OUT IN MY HEAD. THE CLAUSTROPHOBIA HITS AS THE SEATBELT TIGHTENS, PREVENTING ME FROM EVEN LEANING FORWARD IN MY SEAT, THE PRESSING ON INTERNAL ORGANS. I LEAN BACK AND FORWARD TO RELEASE IT, THEN BACKWARDS AND FORWARD AGAIN. THERE IT IS I GOT FREE. HOW MUCH OF MY LIFE HAS HAPPENED INSIDE OF A CAR? I WONDER IF THE ODDS ARE THAT I'LL DIE IN ONE, KNOCK ON WOOD-GRAIN. SHOULDN'T SPEAK LIKE THAT. WE LIVE IN CARS IN SOME CITIES, COMMUTING ACROSS SPACE EITHER FOR OUR LIVELIHOOD, OR DEVOURING FOSSIL FUELS FOR JOY. IT'S CLOSE TO AS MUCH TIME AS WE SPEND IN OUR BEDS, MORE FOR SOME. THE FIRST TIME I DID SHROOMS, MY MANAGER HAD TO COME RESCUE ME FROM CALTECH'S 'TRIP DAY. AS I GOT INTO HER CAR, I SWEAR TO GOD THE ALUMINUM CENTER CONSOLE IN HER PORSCHE TRUCK LOOKED LIKE IT WAS BREATHING, LIKE THE THROAT OF SOMETHING. ON THE FREEWAY, LEAVING PASADENA, WE SPOKE AND I LOOKED AWAY, OUTSIDE, AT THE WHEELS AND TIRES OF CARS DOING THAT OPTICAL ILLUSION THING THEY DO WHERE IT LOOKS LIKE THEY'RE SPINNING BACKWARDS, WHICH, ACCORDING TO GOOGLE, HAPPENS BECAUSE OUR BRAINS ARE ASSUMING SOMETHING COMPLETELY WRONG AND SHOWING IT TO US. STARING, I WAS TRANSFIXED BY ALL THE INDICATOR LIGHTS OSCILLATING AND THROBBING AGAINST THE WIND. WE DROVE THRU DOWNTOWN LA HEADED WEST, FLYING ON THE SAME FREEWAYS I USED TO RUN OUTTA GAS ON. WELCOMED IN BY THE PERENNIAL CREATURES, IMPERIAL PALM TREES AND CLIMBING VINES LIVING THEIR LIVES OUT JUST OFF THE SHOULDER. THE FEELING OF FAMILIAR ENHANCED, ON THE 10. I USED TO RIDE AROUND IN MY SINEWY CROSSOVER SUV, SMOKE AND LISTEN TO ROUGH MIXES OF MY OLD SHIT BEFORE IT CAME OUT, OR WHATEVER SOMEONE WANTED TO PLAY WHEN THEY HOOKED UP THEIR IPHONE TO THE AUX CORD A FEW YEARS AND A FEW DAILY-DRIVERS LATER I'M NOT DRIVING MUCH ANYMORE, IT'S BEEN A YEAR SINCE I MOVED TO LONDON, AT THE TIME OF WRITING THIS, AND THERE'S NO PRACTICAL REASON TO DRIVE IN THIS CITY. I ORDERED A GT3 RS AND IT'LL KEEP LOW MILES OUT HERE BUT I GUESS IT'S GOOD TO HAVE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY :) RAF SIMONS ONCE TOLD ME IT WAS CLICHE, MY WHOLE CAR OBSESSION MAYBE IT LINKS TO A DEEP SUBCONSCIOUS STRAIGHT BOY FANTASY. CONSCIOUSLY THOUGH, I DON'T WANT STRAIGHT A LITTLE BENT IS GOOD. I FOUND IT ROMANTIC, SOMETIMES, EDITING THIS PROJECT. THE WHOLE TIME I FELT AS THOUGH I WAS IN THE PRESENCE OF A $16M MCLAREN F1 ARMED WITH A DISPOSABLE CAMERA. MY MEMORIES ARE IN THESE PAGES, PLACES CLOSEBY AND LONG ASS-NUMBING FLIGHTS AWAY. CRUISING THE SUBURBS OF TOKYO IN RWB PORSCHES. THROWING PARTIES AROUND ENGLAND AND MOBBING FREEWAYS IN FOUR PROJECT M3S THAT I BUILT WITH SOME FRIENDS. GOING TO MISSISSIPPI AND PLAYING IN THE MUD WITH AMPHIBIOUS QUADS. STREET-CASTING MODELS AT A RANDOM KUNG FU DOJO OUT IN SENEGAL. COMMISSIONING LIFE-SIZE TOY BOXES FOR THE FUCK OF IT SHOOTING A MUSIC VIDEO FOR FUN WITH TYRONE LEBON, THE GENIUS GIANT. TAKING A BREAK-SLASH-RECONNAISSANCE MISSION TO TULUM, MEXICO, ENJOYING SOME STAR VISIBILITY FOR A CHANGE. RECORDING IN TOKYO, NYC, MIAMI, LA, LONDON, PARIS. STOPPING IN BERLIN TO WITNESS BERGHAIN FOR MYSELF, TRADING JEWELS AND SOAKING IN PARABLES WITH THE MANY-HEADED BRANDON AKA BASEDGOD IN CONVERSATION, I WROTE A STORY IN THE MIDDLE-IT'S CALLED 'GODSPEED', IT'S BASICALLY A REIMAGINED PART OF MY BOYHOOD. BOYS DO CRY, BUT I DON'T THINK I SHED A TEAR FOR A GOOD CHUNK OF MY TEENAGE YEARS. IT'S SURPRISINGLY MY FAVORITE PART OF LIFE SO FAR. SURPRISING, TO ME, BECAUSE THE CURRENT PHASE IS WHAT I WAS ASKING THE COSMOS FOR WHEN I WAS A KID. MAYBE THAT PART HAD IT'S ROUGH STRETCHES TOO, BUT IN MY REARVIEW MIRROR IT'S GETTING SMALL ENOUGH TO CONVINCE MYSELF IT WAS ALL GOOD. AND REALLY THOUGH... IT'S STILL ALL GOOD.