“
you son of a bitch, she said, I am
trying to build a meaningful
relationship.
you can't build it with a hammer,
he said.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
it's good to have things done with
when they don't work
it's also good not to hate
or even forget
the person you've failed with.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
Long ago, among other lies they were taught that silence was bravery.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
I heard the universe as an oratorio sung by a master choir of stars, accompanied by the orchestra of the planets and the percussion of satellites and moons. The aria they performed was a song to break the heart, full of tragic dissonance and deferred hope, and yet somewhere beneath it all was a piercing refrain of glory, glory, glory. And I sensed that not only the grand movements of the cosmos, but everything that had happened in my life, was a part of that song. Even the hurts that seemed most senseless, the mistakes I would have done anything to erase--nothing could make those things good, but good could still come out of them all the same, and in the end the oratorio would be no less beautiful for it.
”
”
R.J. Anderson (Ultraviolet (Ultraviolet, #1))
“
The Violins waltzed. The Cellos and Basses provided accompaniment. The Violas mourned their fate, while the Concertmaster showed off. The Flutes did bird imitations…repeatedly, and the reed instruments had the good taste to admire my jacket. The Trumpets held a parade in honor of our great nation, while the French Horns waxed nostalgic about something or other. The Trombones had too much to drink. The Percussion beat the band, and the Tuba stayed home playing cards with his landlady, the Harp, taking sips of warm milk a blue little cup.
“But the Composer is still dead.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Composer Is Dead)
“
I like to prowl ordinary places
and taste the people-
from a distance.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
love needs too much help, he said.
hate takes care of itself.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
hate contains truth. beauty is a facade.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
I have, he went on, betrayed myself with
belief, deluded myself with love
tricked myself with sex.
the bottle is damned faithful, he said,
the bottle will not lie
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
Where did you say you found that bird again?"
"In my head." Ronan's laugh was a sharp jackal cry.
"Dangerous place," commented Noah.
Ronan stumbled, all his edges blunted by alcohol, and the raven in his hands let out a feeble sound more percussive than vocal. He replied, "Not for Chainsaw."
Back out in the hard spring night, Gansey tipped his head back. Now that he knew that Ronan was all right, he could see that Henrietta after dark was a beautiful place, a patchwork town embroidered with black tree branches.
A raven, of all the birds for Ronan to turn up with.
Gansey didn't believe in coincidences.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1))
“
Julia, hanging back, says, ‘How have you been, Stephen?’
I want to tell her everything. I want to find out what she’s been doing, what she plans to do but, at this fated moment, a vision of my stomach floats before me. It is a soggy marsh, green rushes growing round the edges, gas bubbles surfacing all over and bursting. The bubbling of the marsh is set to the music of creation, the percussive glottal stops of the Big Bang. I realize I have, at best, one complete sentence left in me. ‘Julia,’ I begin, composing in my head a deranged paean of love that I can never utter. ‘I regret that I am not myself today. Terry has poisoned me.’
‘You should go home,’ she says.
”
”
Michael Tobert (Karna's Wheel)
“
I have lost my rhythm.
I can't sleep.
I can't eat.
I have been robbed of
my filth.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
for me
obedience to another is the decay
of self
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
A thousand violins cloy very rapidly without percussion.
”
”
John Fowles
“
for me
obedience to another is the decay of self.
for though every being is similar
each being is different
and to herd our differences
under one law
degrades each self.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
it's so easy to be a poet
and so hard to be
a man.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
I've learned to feel good when
I feel good.
it's better to be driven around in a red porsche
than to own
one. the luck of the fool is
inviolate.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
I like to prowl ordinary places.
I feel sorry for us all or glad for us
all
caught alive together
and awkward in that way.
there's nothing better than the joke
of us
the seriousness of us
the dullness of us
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
there's no defense
except all the errors
made
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
they pulled Ezra through the streets in a wooden cage. Blake was sure of God. Villon was a mugger. Lorca sucked cock. T. S. Eliot worked a teller's cage
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
waiting
in a life full of little stories
for a death to come
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
I care for you, darling, I love you,
the only reason I fucked L. is because you fucked
Z. and then I fucked R. and you fucked N.
and because you fucked N. I had to fuck
Y. But I think of you constantly, I feel you
here in my belly like a baby, love I'd call it,
no matter what happens I'd call it love, and so
you fucked C. and then before I could move
you fucked W., so I had to fuck D. But
I want you to know that I love you, I think of you
constantly, I don't think I've ever loved anybody
like I love you.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
I wait on my fix:
I am a poetry junkie.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
permanent living peace is
permanent living death.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
A volley of hailstones began abruptly, filled the woods with a frenzied percussion & ended on the sudden.
”
”
David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)
“
Say it's true: It is what it is. We're social, tribal, musical animals, walking percussion instruments. Most of us do the best we can. We show up. We strive for gratitude, and try not to be such babies.
”
”
Anne Lamott (Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope, and Repair)
“
we should have known.
maybe we wanted cotton candy luck. maybe we
believed. what trash.
we believed like dogs
believe.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
No one can get reall drunk on a novle or a painting, but who can help getting drunk on Beethoven's night, Bartok's Sonata for two Pianos and percussion or the Beatles' White Album? He loved mozart as much as rock.
He considered music a liberating force, it liberated him from lonliness, introversion, the dust of the library; it opened the door of hi body and allowed his soul to step out into the world to make friends, He loved to dance an regretted that Sabina did not share his passion
”
”
Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
“
meat is cut as roses are cut
men die as dogs die
love dies like dogs die,
he said.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
The wind plays the world like an instrument. Blows through trees like flutes. But trees won’t grow in cement. And as heart beats bring percussion fallen trees bring repercussions. Cities play upon our souls like broken drums.
”
”
Saul Williams (The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop)
“
I hurried to the southern corridor, relieved when I was safe in the blackness there. Relieved and horrified. It was really over now.
I'm so afraid, I whimpered.
Before Mel could respond, a heavy hand dropped on my shoulder from the darkness.
"Going somewhere?"
I was so tightly wound that I shrieked in terror; I was so terrified that my shriek was only a breathless little squeal.
"Sorry!" Jared's arm went round my shoulders, comforting. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."
"What are you doing here?" I demanded, still breathless.
"Following you. I've been following you all night."
"Well, stop it now."
There was a hesitation in the dark, and his arm didn't move. I shrugged out from under it, but he caught my wrist. His grip was firm; I wouldn't be able to shake free easily.
"You're going to see Doc?" he asked, and there was no confusion in his question. It was obvious that he wasn't talking about a social visit.
"Of course I am." I hissed the words so that he wouldn't hear the panic in my voice. "What else can I do after today?It's not going to get any better. And this isn't Jeb's decision to make."
"I know. I'm on your side."
It made me angry that these words still had the power to hurt me, to bring tears stinging into my eyes. I tried to hold onto the thought of Ian - he was the anchor, as Kyle somehow had been for Sunny - but it was hard with Jared's hand touching me, with the smell of him in my nose. Like trying to make out the song of one violin when the entire percussion section was bashing away...
"Then let me go, Jared. Go away. I want to be alone." The words came out fierce and fast and hard. It was easy to hear that they weren't lies.
"I should come with you."
"You'll have Melanie back soon enough," I snapped. "I'm only asking for a few minutes, Jared. Give me that much."
Another pause; his hand didn't loosen.
"Wanda, I would come to be with you."
The tears spilled over. I was grateful for the darkness.
"It wouldn't feel that way," I whispered. "So there's no point.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (The Host (The Host, #1))
“
I remember coming home from school with friends who were startled at the percussive sound of my parents’ typewriters both going at once, pounding away in different rooms.
”
”
Shirley Jackson (The Letters of Shirley Jackson)
“
I adore storms. I love the raw power of the spectacle: Hydraulics! Voltage! Percussion! Mother Nature has dominion and everyone awaits her whim.
”
”
Kathy Reichs (Death du Jour (Temperance Brennan, #2))
“
Back in the Aerie she popped her lips percussively as she examined her booty. 'P-ilfering P-adgett's P-ockets Pr-oduces P-ossible P-ath to... to—' Well, clues and shit.
”
”
Steven Gould (Reflex (Jumper, #2))
“
No matter what time of day or amount of work to be done, someone with Tahiti could close his eyes and the reality of moody lawnmowers, scruffy lawns, threats of termination of employment would recede and in seconds he’d simply be in Tahiti, stark naked and drinking from a coconut, aware only of the percussion of the wind and girlish sighs of the ocean. (Few
”
”
Marisha Pessl (Special Topics in Calamity Physics)
“
It did not occur to me that absence of human companionship does not assure solitude. It may, on the contrary, plunge one into an environment compared with which New York or London would appear deserts. For we take memory and imagination with us. The seabirds that scream overhead or waddle along the margins of the surf; the grotesque forms of twisted cedars; the rustle of sea-grass in the wind; the interminable percussion of the breakers; the dead infinity of the sand itself - there can be no solitude, in the sense of freedom from disturbances of thought, in the presence of such things. They draw us back into the maelstrom. ("Absolute Evil")
”
”
Julian Hawthorne (American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps)
“
the lies of centuries, the lies of love,
the lies of Socrates and Blake and Christ
will be your bedmates and tombstones
in a death that will never end.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
Where did you say you found that bird again?"
"In my head." Ronan's laugh was a sharp jackal cry.
"Dangerous place," commented Noah.
Ronan stumbled, all his edges blunted by alcohol, and the raven in his hands let out a feeble sound more percussive than vocal. He replied, "Not for a chain saw.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1))
“
Great short stories and great jokes have a lot in common. Both depend on what communication-theorists sometimes call “exformation,” which is a certain quantity of vital information removed from but evoked by a communication in such a way as to cause a kind of explosion of associative connections within the recipient. This is probably why the effect of both short stories and jokes often feels sudden and percussive, like the venting of a long-stuck valve.
”
”
David Foster Wallace
“
She ran behind him, letting him set the pace, watching and listening to him like he was a gorgeous musical instrument—the pendulum-like swinging back of his elbows, the rhythmic, airy puffs of his exhales, the percussion of his sneakers on the sandy pavement. Then he spit, and she laughed. He didn't ask why.
”
”
Lisa Genova (Still Alice)
“
That moment, the music screeched to a halt. There was an ungodly collision of brass, reed, and percussion—trombones and piccolos skidded into cacophony, a tuba farted, and the hollow clang of a cymbal wavered out of the big top, over our heads and into oblivion.
”
”
Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants)
“
A Green Song
(to sing at the bottle-bank)
One green bottle,
Drop it in the bank.
Ten green bottles,
What a lot we drank.
Heaps of bottles
And yesterday's a blank.
But we'll save the planet,
Tinkle, tinkle, clank!
We've got bottles -
Nice, percussive trash.
Bags of bottles
Cleaned us out of cash.
Empty bottles,
We love to hear them smash
And we'll save the planet,
Tinkle, tinkle, crash!
”
”
Wendy Cope
“
Number 1 was the hardest to think about now. After. But Blake let himself go there as Chaos pressed into the deepest punctures.
Blake liked the train station because the trains offered reliable percussion for the songs he played in his head. When Livia had first stepped onto the platform, Blake had tried his hardest not to stare. He knew moneyed people didn’t like their women getting ogled by the homeless. But she was so friendly, even in this place where people built their own personal bubbles and stayed in them. When she smiled she looked like a walking ray of the sunshine he had to avoid.
Her eyes had found his and shocked him. Blake was used to the blank, anesthetized eyes of those looking everywhere but at him. Her smile was resuscitation for his soul.
Me! She sees me.
”
”
Debra Anastasia (Poughkeepsie (Poughkeepsie Brotherhood, #1))
“
Tom got out a bit of paper and carefully unrolled it. Huckleberry viewed it wistfully. The temptation was very strong. At last he said: "Is it genuwyne?" Tom lifted his lip and showed the vacancy. "Well, all right," said Huckleberry, "it's a trade." Tom enclosed the tick in the percussion-cap box that had lately been the pinchbug's prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier than before.
”
”
Mark Twain (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)
“
I listened; I wrote; I learned. I do not know why so many women trusted me enough to speak to me, but underneath anything I write one can hear the percussive sound of their heartbeats. If one has to pick one kind of pedagogy over all others, I pick listening. It breaks down prejudices and stereotypes; it widens self-imposed limits; it takes one into another's life, her hard times and, if there is any, her joy too.
”
”
Andrea Dworkin
“
Our bodies moved in harmony with one another. Like a perfect orchestra: strings harmonizing with woodwind, Brass coinciding with percussion. Complete opposites entangling to make beautiful music. Just like us.
”
”
Kay Soletto (The Van Gogh Effect)
“
Today Oskar says simply: The moth drummed. I have heard rabbits, foxes and dormice drumming. Frogs can drum up a storm. Woodpeckers are said to drum worms out of their hiding places. And men beat on basins, tin pans, bass drums, and kettle-drums. We speak of drumfire, drumhead courts; we drum up, drum out, drum into. There are drummer boys and drum majors. There are composers who write concerti for strings and percussion. I might even mention Oskar’s own efforts on the drum; but all this is nothing beside the orgy of drumming carried on by that moth in the hour of my birth, with no other instrument than two ordinary sixty-watt bulbs.
”
”
Günter Grass (The Tin Drum (Vintage War))
“
Weir heard something different in the sounds. Once, during a period of calm, he sat on the firestep waiting for Stephen to return from an inspection and listened to the music of the tins. The empty ones were sonorous, the fuller ones provided an ascending scale. Those filled to the brim produced only a fat percussive beat unless they overbalanced, when the cascade would give a loud variation. Within earshot there were scores of tins in different states of fullness and with varying resonance. Then he heard the wire moving in the wind. It set up a moaning background noise that would occasionally gust into prominence, then lapse again to mere accompaniment. He had to work hard to discern, or perhaps imagine, a melody in this tin music, but it was better in his ears than the awful sound of shellfire.
”
”
Sebastian Faulks (Birdsong)
“
tu figlio di puttana, disse lei, sto cercando di costruire una relazione che abbia senso.
non puoi costruirla con un martello, disse lui
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
I’ll ruin you,” I promised baldly, excitement in my balls, in my chest, a percussion beat like ceremonial drums. “So ruin me,” she agreed. “Pull my hair, bite my neck, leave me bruised and ruined by your love until every inch of my body is singing of you.
”
”
Giana Darling (Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6))
“
...We claim the present as the pre-sent, as the hereafter. We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun.
We are not afraid of the darkness, we trust that the moon shall guide us.
We are determining the future at this very moment. We now know that the heart is the philosophers' stone. Our music is our alchemy. We stand as the manifested equivalent of 3 buckets of water and a hand full of minerals, thus realizing that those very buckets turned upside down supply the percussion factor of forever...
”
”
Saul Williams
“
Music is the art that comes closest to Dionysian beauty in the sense of intoxication. No one can get really drunk on a novel or a painting, but who can help getting drunk on Beethoven's Ninth, Bartók's Sonata for two pianos and percussion, or the Beatles' White album?
”
”
Milan Kundera
“
Noel ducked to the lower cabinets – a percussion of pots and pans clanged into each other.
“Are you intentionally trying not to listen to me?”
His head popped above the counter. “I resent that. I’m a great listener. Just ask the TV.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Alright. I had…”
Noel heard her swallow and he suddenly wanted to knock himself out with the frying pan.
“…relations…with a mortal, Tommy.”
He ducked again, this time from embarrassment. He groaned silently, wishing she’d turn and walk away before she said what he knew was coming.
“It wasn’t quite the same as it was when I was human. It didn’t—”
“Please you, yeah I got it,” he blurted. “Please, for the love of God, stop.
”
”
Devon Ashley (Metamorphosis (The Immortal Archives, #2))
“
The bullets are gun-eggs,” Collingswood said to Baron, looking at Vardy. Farmers squeezing their holy metal beasts to percussive climax, fertilisation by cordite expulsion, violent ovipositors. Seeking warm places full of nutrients, protecting baby guns deep in the bone cages, until they hatched.
”
”
China Miéville (Kraken)
“
Gardener made a bonfire of fallen leaves - just came in from it. The heat on one's face and hands, the sad smoke, the crackling and wheezing fire. Reminds me of the groundsman's hut at Gresham. Anyway, got a gorgeous passage from the fire - percussion for crackling, alto bassoon for the wood, and a restless flute for the flames.
”
”
David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)
“
Listening to the clack clack of the pal fronds form a percussive background to the oboe throb of the sea, he dozed off. An hour later, he woke with a start and, standing up, dusted off the seat of his trousers. White sand, in fine glittering silicon chips, clung to him, catching the sun, turning him into a patchwork fabric of diamonds and ebony.
”
”
Chris Abani (GraceLand)
“
agony can kill or agony can sustain life but peace is always horrifying
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
If the Good Lord meant men to use percussion caps, he wouldn't have strung flint all over the ground.
”
”
Taylor Anderson
“
Destruction is a music all its own. One comprised of drumbeats and a percussion of passion and pain.
”
”
Jessica S. Olson (Sing Me Forgotten)
“
The driver had the radio on low – listening to music that sounded like someone had tied percussion instruments to a cow and set it running down an alley.
”
”
Russell Blake (Jet (Jet, #1))
“
I’d taken to carrying my Hewson percussion pistol with me always. One never knew when one would be kidnapped from the theater by criminals or forced to ride out and save one’s fiancé from bandits.
”
”
Anna Lee Huber (A Study in Death (Lady Darby Mystery #4))
“
Any Greek scholar will tell you the word "blessed" is far too sedate and beatific to carry the percussive force Jesus intended. The Greek word conveys something like a short cry of joy, "Oh, you lucky person!
”
”
Philip Yancey (Grace Notes: Daily Readings with a Fellow Pilgrim)
“
Another analogy he made was comparing the way that light, sound, magnetism, and the percussion reverberations caused by a hammer blow all disseminate in a radiating pattern, often in waves. In one of his notebooks he made a column of small drawings showing how each force field spreads. He even illustrated what happened when each type of wave hits a small hole in the wall; prefiguring the studies done by Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens almost two centuries later, he showed the diffraction that occurs as the waves go through the aperture. Wave mechanics were for him merely a passing curiosity, but even in this his brilliance is breathtaking.
”
”
Walter Isaacson
“
We are all hurting, you said. We are all trying to live, to breath, and find ourselves stopped by that which is out of our control. We find ourselves unseen. We find ourselves unheard. We find ourselves mislabelled. We who are loud and angry, we who are bold and brash. We who are Black. We find ourselves not saying it how it is. We find ourselves scared. We find ourselves suppressed, you said. But do not worry about has come before, or what will come; move. Do not resist the call of a drum. Do not resist the thud of a kick, the tap of a snare, the rattle of a hi-hat. Do not hold your body stiff but flow like easy water. Be here, please, you said, as the young man took a cowbell, moving it in a way which makes you ask, which came first, he or the music? The ratata is perfect, offbeat, sneaking through brass and percussion. Can you hear the horns? Your time has come. Revel in glory for it is yours to do so. You worked twice as hard today, but that isn’t important, not here, not now. All that matters is that you are here, that you are present, can’t you hear? What does it sound like? Freedom?
”
”
Caleb Azumah Nelson (Open Water)
“
They say the eye sees, but there’s a blind place in the mind.” “And I say it is lack of effort. You must hold him to the same standard as everyone else. Because where should it stop, this fashionable clemency, once we allow that there are things we can see and yet be blind to?” The singing voices swelled in the cellar and the bombs gave the percussion, and the great injured city went further into night. “Oh, I don’t know, darling. I don’t know where it will stop.
”
”
Chris Cleave (Everyone Brave is Forgiven)
“
jukeboxes—industry estimates suggest that up to half of all the records sold in the United States in the later 1930s went into commercial music machines—and the early electric speakers were particularly suited to the percussive power of a piano.
”
”
Elijah Wald (The Blues: A Very Short Introduction)
“
MR. BONES KNEW THAT WILLY WASN'T LONG FOR THIS WORLD. The cough had been inside him for over six months, and by now there wasn't a chance in hell that he would ever get rid of it. Slowly and inexorably, without once taking a turn for the better, the thing had assumed a life of its own, advancing from a faint, phlegm-filled rattle in the lungs on February third to the wheezy sputum-jigs and gobby convulsions of high summer. All that was bad enough, but in the past two weeks a new tonality had crept into the bronchial music - something tight and flinty and percussive - and the attacks came now so often as to be almost constant. Every time one of them started, Mr. Bones half expected Willy's body to explode from the rockets of pressure bursting agaisnt his rib cage. He figured that blood would be the next step and when that fatal moment finally occurred on Saturday afternoon, it was as if all the angels in heaven had opened their mouths and started to sing. Mr. Bones saw it happen with his own eyes, standing by the edge of the road between Washington and Baltimore as Willy hawked up a few miserable clots of red matter into his handkerchief, and right then and there he knew that every ounce of hope was gone. The smell of death had settled upon Willy G. Christmas, and as surely as the sun was a lamp in the clouds that went off and on everyday, the end was drawing near.
What was a poor dog to do? Mr. Bones had been with Willy since his earliest days as a pup, and by now it was next to impossible to imagine a world that did not have his master in it. Every thought, every memory, every particle of the earth and air was saturated with Willy's presence. Habits die hard, and no doubt there's some truth to the adage about old dogs and new tricks, but it was more than just love or devotion that caused Mr. Bones to dread what was coming. It was pure ontological terror. Substract Willy from the world, and the odds were that the world itself would cease to exist.
”
”
Paul Auster (Timbuktu)
“
happened. What was it? I knew I’d heard the unmistakable ping after a retaining pin comes out of a grenade and the spoon flies. When the spoon has flown off, having been ejected by the striker spring, it allows the striker to impact the percussion cap. An explosion was imminent. But it didn’t
”
”
Harold Constance (Good to Go: The Life And Times Of A Decorated Member of the U.S. Navy's Elite Seal Team Two)
“
I...I...YOU...SIXTEEN LOG THIRTY-THREE...ALL COSINE SUBSCRIPTS...ANTI...ANTI...IN ALL THESE YEARS...BEAM...FLOOD...PYTHAGOREAN...CARTESIAN LOGIC...CAN I...DARE I...A PEACH...EAT A PEACH...ALLMAN BROTHERS...PATRICIA...CROCODILE AND WHIPLASH SMILE...CLOCK OF DIALS...TICK-TOCK, ELEVEN O'CLOCK, THE MAN'S IN THE MOON AND HE'S READY TO ROCK...INCESSAMENT...INCESSAMENT, MON CHER...OH MY HEAD...BLAINE...BLAINE DARES...BLAINE WILL ANSWER...I...(screaming in the voice of an infant, lapsing into another language, presumably French, as none of the words are familiar to Eddie, beginning to sing when the song Velcro Fly by Z.Z. Top suddenly plays courtesy of its percussion drums)
”
”
Stephen King (Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, #4))
“
The Church undertook many functions that are today absorbed by government, including the provision of public infrastructure. This is part of the way that the Church helped overcome what economists call “public goods dilemmas” in an era of fragmented authority. Specific religious orders of the early-medieval Church devoted themselves to applied engineering tasks, like opening roads, rebuilding fallen bridges, and repairing dilapidated Roman aqueducts. They also cleared land, built dams, and drained swamps. A new monastic order, the Carthusians, dug the first “artesian” well in Artois, France. Using percussion drilling, they dug a small hole deep enough to create a well that needed no pump.36
”
”
James Dale Davidson (The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age)
“
Battle in the Snow has an unusual orchestration calling for five piccolos, five oboes, a battery of eight percussion, two grand pianos, and two or three harps, in addition to the normal orchestral complement,” Williams notes. “This was necessary in order to achieve a bizarre sound, a mechanical, brutal sound for the sequence showing Imperial walkers.
”
”
J.W. Rinzler (The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Enhanced Edition))
“
play the piano she says it’s not good for you not to write.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
I know that I have deserted you, the icecubes pile like fool’s gold in the pitcher and now they are playing Alex Scriabin which is a little better but not much for me.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
you son of a bitch, she said, I am trying to build a meaningful relationship. you can’t build it with a hammer, he said.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
I like to prowl ordinary places and taste the people—from a distance. I don’t want them too near because that’s when attrition starts.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
the generals and the doctors may kill us but we have won.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
I'd finally reached the end of myself, all my self-reliance and denial and pride unraveling into nothingness, leaving only a blank Alison-shaped space behind. It was finished. I was done.
But just as I felt myself dissolving on the tide of my own self-condemnation, the dark waves receded, and I floated into a celestial calm.
I saw the whole universe laid out before me, a vast shining machine of indescribable beauty and complexity. Its design was too intricate for me to understand, and I knew I could never begin to grasp more than the smallest idea of its purpose. But I sensed that every part of it, from quark to quasar, was unique and - in some mysterious way - significant.
I heard the universe as an oratorio sung by a master choir of stars, accompanied by the orchestra of the planets and the percussion of satellites and moons. The aria they performed was a song to break the heart, full of tragic dissonance and deferred hope, and yet somewhere beneath it all was a peircing refrain of glory, glory, glory. And I sensed that not only the grand movements of the cosmos, but everything that had happened in my life, was a part of that song. Even the hurts that seemed most senseless, the mistakes I would have done anything to erase - nothing could make those things good, but good could still come out of them all the same, and in the end the oratorio would be no less beautiful for it.
I realized then that even though I was a tiny speck in an infinite cosmos, a blip on the timeline of eternity, I was not without purpose. And as long as I had a part in the music of the spheres, even if it was only a single grace note, I was not worthless. Nor was I alone.
God help me, I prayed as I gathered up my raw and weary sense, flung them into the wormhole -
And at last, found what I'd been looking for.
”
”
R.J. Anderson (Ultraviolet (Ultraviolet, #1))
“
If you want to think about thinking itself, he told me, you should see it as being like a symphony. “You’ve got two violin sections, violas, cellos, basses, woodwinds, brass, percussion—but it operates as a whole. It has rhythms.” You need space in your life for the spotlight of focus—but alone, it would be like a solo oboe player on a bare stage, trying to play
”
”
Johann Hari (Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again)
“
Invite Wonder What if you bowed before every dandelion you met and wrote love letters to squirrels and pigeons who crossed your path? What if scrubbing the dishes became an act of single reverence for the gift of being washed clean, and what if the rhythmic percussion of chopping carrots became the drumbeat of your dance? What if you stepped into the shower each morning only to be baptized anew and sent forth to serve the grocery bagger, the bank teller, and the bus driver through simple kindness? And what if the things that make your heart dizzy with delight were no longer stuffed into the basement of your being and allowed out to play in the lush and green fields? There are two ways to live in this world: As if everything were enchanted or nothing at all.
”
”
Christine Valters Paintner (The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within)
“
Feynman did have an extraordinary affinity for his friends’ children. He would entertain them with gibberish, or with juggling tricks, or with what sounded to Dyson like a one-man percussion band. He could enthrall them merely by borrowing someone’s eyeglasses and slowly putting them on, taking them off, and putting them on. Or he would engage them in conversation. He once asked Henry Bethe, “Did you know there are twice as many numbers as numbers?” “No, there are not!” Henry said. Feynman said he could prove it. “Name a number.” “One million.” Feynman said, “Two million.” “Twenty-seven!” Feynman said, “Fifty-four,” and kept on countering with the number that was twice Henry’s, until suddenly Henry saw the point. It was his first real encounter with infinity.
”
”
James Gleick (Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman)
“
Ode to the Beloved’s Hips"
Bells are they—shaped on the eighth day—silvered
percussion in the morning—are the morning.
Swing switch sway. Hold the day away a little
longer, a little slower, a little easy. Call to me—
I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock
right now—so to them I come—struck-dumb
chime-blind, tolling with a throat full of Hosanna.
How many hours bowed against this Infinity of Blessed
Trinity? Communion of Pelvis, Sacrum, Femur.
My mouth—terrible angel, ever-lasting novena,
ecstatic devourer.
O, the places I have laid them, knelt and scooped
the amber—fast honey—from their openness—
Ah Muzen Cab’s hidden Temple of Tulúm—licked
smooth the sticky of her hip—heat-thrummed ossa
coxae. Lambent slave to ilium and ischium—I never tire
to shake this wild hive, split with thumb the sweet-
dripped comb—hot hexagonal hole—dark diamond—
to its nectar-dervished queen. Meanad tongue—
come-drunk hum-tranced honey-puller—for her hips,
I am—strummed-song and succubus.
They are the sign: hip. And the cosign: a great book—
the body’s Bible opened up to its Good News Gospel.
Alleluias, Ave Marías, madre mías, ay yay yays,
Ay Dios míos, and hip-hip-hooray.
Cult of Coccyx. Culto de cadera.
Oracle of Orgasm. Rorschach’s riddle:
What do I see? Hips:
Innominate bone. Wish bone. Orpheus bone.
Transubstantiation bone—hips of bread,
wine-whet thighs. Say the word and healed I shall be:
Bone butterfly. Bone wings. Bone Ferris wheel.
Bone basin bone throne bone lamp.
Apparition in the bone grotto—6th mystery—
slick rosary bead—Déme la gracia of a decade
in this garden of carmine flower. Exile me
to the enormous orchard of Alcinous—spiced fruit,
laden-tree—Imparadise me. Because, God,
I am guilty. I am sin-frenzied and full of teeth
for pear upon apple upon fig.
More than all that are your hips.
They are a city. They are Kingdom—
Troy, the hollowed horse, an army of desire—
thirty soldiers in the belly, two in the mouth.
Beloved, your hips are the war.
At night your legs, love, are boulevards
leading me beggared and hungry to your candy
house, your baroque mansion. Even when I am late
and the tables have been cleared,
in the kitchen of your hips, let me eat cake.
O, constellation of pelvic glide—every curve,
a luster, a star. More infinite still, your hips are
kosmic, are universe—galactic carousel of burning
comets and Big Big Bangs. Millennium Falcon,
let me be your Solo. O, hot planet, let me
circumambulate. O, spiral galaxy, I am coming
for your dark matter.
Along las calles de tus muslos I wander—
follow the parade of pulse like a drum line—
descend into your Plaza del Toros—
hands throbbing Miura bulls, dark Isleros.
Your arched hips—ay, mi torera.
Down the long corridor, your wet walls
lead me like a traje de luces—all glitter, glowed.
I am the animal born to rush your rich red
muletas—each breath, each sigh, each groan,
a hooked horn of want. My mouth at your inner
thigh—here I must enter you—mi pobre
Manolete—press and part you like a wound—
make the crowd pounding in the grandstand
of your iliac crest rise up in you and cheer.
”
”
Natalie Díaz
“
selected a disc, and turned the volume up louder than he’d ever pushed it. A gentle guitar riff; a tap-tapping of some percussion instrument—he pictured a man hitting a wooden spoon against his legs; a solid male voice, and the song broke into something more, a beat that filled his head with cool images and colors. “What is it?” “Led Zeppelin,” she said. “‘Ramble On.’” He sat against the wall, his eyes trained on the space in the corner, while she selected more songs, rocking back on her legs and staring at him intently. “Free Bird.” “Roundabout.” “Sympathy for the Devil.” “Time.” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” “Brass in Pocket.” “Bad Company.” “Limelight.” “Crazy on You.” “Voodoo Child.” “Take the Long Way Home.” “Thank you,” he said. “Where have I been hiding all this time?
”
”
James Renner (The Man from Primrose Lane)
“
we are not the only ones who knew a Stone Age: our closest relatives still live in one. To stress this point, a “percussive stone technology” site (including stone assemblies and the remains of smashed nuts) was excavated in a tropical forest in Ivory Coast, where chimpanzees must have been opening nuts for at least four thousand years.31 These discoveries led to a human-ape lithic culture story
”
”
Frans de Waal (Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?)
“
Surely an instrument is neither male nor female—they’re just things that make sound—strings and bows, brass and wood, mallets and cymbals and drumskins and little metal triangles. And yet all you have to do is look around at these musicians to see the way that even sound is gendered. In the middle of the orchestra is the brass section—tubas, trombones, trumpets, French horn, every last one of them played by boys. It’s not all that different in the woodwinds—where the boys play bassoons and clarinets, but all the flutes are played by girls. The strings are even more ridiculous—the deeper the instrument, the more likely it is to be played by a boy. So all the basses? Boys. Most of the cellos? Boys. The violas split half and half. All but one of the violins? Girls. Then there’s the harp, which I guess federal law requires be played by a girl. And the percussion and kettle drums, which are usually played by boys. How weird is this? Most of us decided to play our instruments in third grade, a bunch of little kids who made our choices without even thinking about them. But even at eight years old, we were already running the gender maze that the world had set for us, without even realizing it.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (Mad Honey)
“
The strident chimes of prayer bells from the distant temple resonated in the night air with ritual insistence, and nudged Kamala from her repose. What had once sounded to her like a sharp and persistent call to prayer now, with ceaseless repetition, mellowed to become plaintive and wistful, like one's favourite recording playing in the background to the syncopated percussion of lovemaking. (From the novel Blood & Nemesis by Ben Antao).
”
”
Ben Antao
“
The echoes of our past are the hands that shape our future, ringing out with endless percussion, but returning to us only in silence. No one man can know the road he must take, nor can he know where each choice will lead him. Our end is not determined by knowledge of things to come. It is determined simply by the will to either fight with the fire that burns inside of us, or to sit comfortably by and watch the embers of fear simmer into ashes of regret.
”
”
Angela M. Hudson (Echoes: Part One of Echoes & Silence (Dark Secrets #5))
“
...We claim the present as the pre-sent, as the hereafter. We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun. We are not afraid of the darkness, we trust that the moon shall guide us.
We are determining the future at this very moment. We now know that the heart is the philosophers' stone. Our music is our alchemy. We stand as the manifested equivalent of 3 buckets of water and a hand full of minerals, thus realizing that those very buckets turned upside down supply the percussion factor of forever...
”
”
Saul Williams
“
There's nothing wrong with this. Other than sentimentality, the typewriter offers nothing special to the act of writing. What an author uses to write with is a topic of interest only to children and amatuers, but does not matter in the end. It is quite simply irrelevant; the final product is all that is important. Good riddance to them, I say. However, I do wish I still had mine, if only to use as a wonderful percussion device.
--on the Poets and Writers Facebook page, regarding the last typewriter factory closing in India
”
”
Todd Michael Cox
“
We don't just have equipment to set up, we have a whole stage set: TVs tuned to static, a busted old Moog synthesizer (also tuned to static - it basically just sits onstage, drooling, like a demented robot friend), an ironing board we use as a percussion stand, lamps (because we prefer mood lighting to rock-show lighting), various car parts and kitchen utensils (for hitting), a movie screen we project slides onto and a pair of mannequin legs in a gold lamé miniskirt with a TV for a torso. All this may sound arty, but really, it's just overenthusiastic.
”
”
Kristin Hersh
“
The keyboard is my path to having thoughts, and also my path to sharing them. I can’t play an instrument, but I can bang on this literary piano, and when it’s going well, a certain percussive rhythm develops. Sometimes—not every day, certainly, but sometimes—knowing where the letters are allows me to feel like I know where the words are. I love the sound of pressing keys on a great keyboard—the technical term is “key action”—but what I love most about typing is that on the screen or on the page, my writing is visually indistinguishable from anyone else’s.
”
”
John Green (The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet)
“
We ought to be much more fearful of what we don’t know. We should really be fearful of an unconscious that inhabits us, that guides us, that influences our life and of which we don’t know the face and don’t know the message. Actually I have much less fear since I confronted fears. What’s frightening to me is people whose unconscious leads them, destroys them, and yet they will never stop and look at it. That’s the minotaur in the labyrinth, which many people never come face to face with. There was a very remarkable percussion composer, Edgar Varese, who always mocked psychology, mocked psychoanalysis, mocked psychiatry. He was satirical about it, wouldn’t have any of it. And yet his whole life pattern was self-destructive. He was an innovator and a tremendous musician. But he blocked himself. His biography is out now, and you can see the pattern. You can see this demon that was driving him, the origin of it. He seemed to be a very fearless, strong, tremendous tempered man with great force; he even looked like a Corsican bandit. But he had no power over the forces that were pushing him. That is what frightens me.
”
”
Anaïs Nin (A Woman Speaks: The Lectures, Seminars and Interviews of Anaïs Nin)
“
It’s wonderful,” he choked out. “Absolutely wonderful.” He smoothed his hand over her belly. “I can’t imagine anything better than having a child with you, my love. But are you sure?”
She relaxed. “As sure as anyone can be at this point. Your aunt and I think I may be nearly three months along, so…”
When she trailed off with a blush, he added up numbers in his head, then let out a laugh. “It probably happened that night in the cottage.”
“Or the night in my bedchamber.”
“Then it’s a good thing I came to my senses and gave you that ‘proper proposal’ you demanded. Or I’d be staring down the barrel of your percussion rifle just about now.”
“I doubt that. I would just have married the duke,” she teased.
He scowled. “Over my dead body.”
She laughed. “You know perfectly well you would have proposed long before I knew I was with child.”
“Ah, but would you have said yes? I thought you once told me that a lady never surrenders.”
“She doesn’t.” Eyes sparkling, she buried her fingers in his hair and drew his head down to hers. “Except where love is concerned. I’ve come to realize that in matters of love, a clever lady always surrenders.
”
”
Sabrina Jeffries (A Lady Never Surrenders (Hellions of Halstead Hall, #5))
“
5-4-10 Tuesday 8:00 A.M.
Made a large batch of chili and spaghetti to freeze yesterday. And some walnut fudge! Relieved the electricity is still on.
It’s another beautiful sunny day with fluffy white clouds drifting by. The last cloud bank looked like a dog with nursing pups.
I open the window and let in some fresh air filled with the scent of apple and plum blossoms and flowering lilacs. Feels like it’s close to 70 degrees. There’s a boy on a skate board being pulled along by his St. Bernard, who keeps turning around to see if his young friend is still on board.
I’m thinking of a scene still vividly displayed in my memory. I was nine years old. I cut through the country club on my way home from school and followed a narrow stream, sucking on a jawbreaker from Ben Franklins, and I had some cherry and strawberry pixie straws, and banana and vanilla taffy inside my coat pocket. The temperature was in the fifties so it almost felt like spring. There were still large patches of snow on the fairways in the shadows and the ground was soggy from the melt off.
Enthralled with the multi-layers of ice, thin sheets and tiny ice sickles gleaming under the afternoon sun, dripping, streaming into the pristine water below, running over the ribbons of green grass, forming miniature rapids and gently flowing rippling waves and all the reflections of a crystal cathedral, merging with the hidden world of a child. Seemingly endless natural sculptures.
Then the hollow percussion sounds of the ice thudding, crackling under my feet, breaking off little ice flows carried away into a snow-covered cavern and out the other side of the tunnel. And I followed it all the way to bridge under Maple Road as if I didn't have a care in the world.
”
”
Andrew Neff (The Mind Game Company: The Players)
“
You've made a conquest there, haven't you? He's taken a real shine to you'.
Frences hesitated. Then, 'It's your shine,' she said.
Lilian looker at her. 'What do you mean?'
'He's only taken a shine to me because I've taken a shine to you. It's your shine, Lilian.'
Lilian's expression changed. She dropped her gaze, parted her lips. Her heart beat harder, jumping in the hollow at the base of her throat in that percussive way that Frances had seen once before. And when it had jumped six times, seven times, eight, nine, she looked up into Frances's eyes and said, 'Take me home, will you?
”
”
Sarah Waters (The Paying Guests)
“
You've made a conquest there, haven't you? He's taken a real shine to you'.
Frances hesitated. Then, 'It's your shine,' she said.
Lilian looker at her. 'What do you mean?'
'He's only taken a shine to me because I've taken a shine to you. It's your shine, Lilian.'
Lilian's expression changed. She dropped her gaze, parted her lips. Her heart beat harder, jumping in the hollow at the base of her throat in that percussive way that Frances had seen once before. And when it had jumped six times, seven times, eight, nine, she looked up into Frances's eyes and said, 'Take me home, will you?
”
”
Sarah Waters (The Paying Guests)
“
In America, straightforward talk about class inequality is all but impossible, indeed taboo. Political appeals to the economic self-interest of ordinary voters, as distinct from their wealthy compatriots, court instant branding and disfigurement in the press as divisive “economic populism” or even “class warfare.”39 On the other hand, divisive political appeals composed in a different register, sometimes called “cultural populism,” enlist voters’ self-concept in place of their self-interest; appealing, in other words, to who they are and are not, rather than to what they require and why. Thus, the policies of the 1980s radically redistributed income upward. Then, with “economic populism” shooed from the public arena, “cultural populism” fielded something akin to a marching band. It had a simple melody about the need to enrich the “investing” classes (said to “create jobs”), and an encoded percussion: “culture wars”; “welfare mothers”; “underclass”; “race-and-IQ”; “black-on-black crime”; “criminal gene”; on and on.40 Halfway through the decade, as the band played on, a huge economic revolution from above had got well under way. The poorest 40 percent of American families were sharing 15.5 percent of household income, while the share of the richest 20 percent of families had risen to a record 43.7 percent, and the trend appeared to be (and has turned out to be) more and more of the same.41 The
”
”
Barbara J. Fields (Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life)
“
What started as ways to amuse the Sforza court soon became serious attempts to make better musical instruments. “Leonardo’s instruments are not merely diverting devices for performing magic tricks,” according to Emanuel Winternitz, a curator of musical instruments at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. “Instead, they are systematic efforts by Leonardo to realize some basic aims.” 14 These include new ways to use keyboards, play faster, and increase the range of available tones and sounds. In addition to earning him financial stipends and an entrée at court, his musical pursuits launched him onto more substantive paths: they laid the ground for his work on the science of percussion—how striking an object can produce vibrations, waves, and reverberations—and exploring the analogy between sound waves and water waves.
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Leonardo da Vinci)
“
I can’t believe you know so little about firearms.”
“I can’t believe you know so much,” Devonmont countered. “Never seen a woman as keen on guns as you. It’s rather chilling.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Jackson put in. “Better watch it, Devonmont. Her ladyship is liable to shoot first and ask questions later if she finds you doing anything she doesn’t approve of.”
“I may just take your caution to heart, Pinter.” Devonmont winked at Celia. “Then again, some things are worth risking life and limb for.”
Celia looked startled, then cast Jackson a smug smile. With a snort, he drank more ale. Devonmont was really starting to irk him. They all were.
“So, Lord Devonmont,” Celia said, turning her back on Jackson, “would you like me to show you the difference between a percussion gun and a flintlock?”
“By all means,” Devonmont replied. “Though I can’t promise to remember any of it later, explain away.
”
”
Sabrina Jeffries (A Lady Never Surrenders (Hellions of Halstead Hall, #5))
“
And when they start talking, and they always do, you find that each of them has a story they want to tell. Everyone, no matter how old or young, has some lesson they want to teach. And I sit there and listen and learn all about life from people who have no idea how to live it. Nobody knows how to just shut the fuck up and look out the window anymore. The bathrooms are tiny and filthy and you have no choice but to piss all over yourself when the bus swerves, but the streetlights look like blurred stars exploding in the window when it rains at night, and you can sleep knowing that if there’s an accident and everyone on the bus dies it wasn’t your fault. Someone fat and snoring will sometimes sit beside you and sweat on your shoulder even though it’s twelve degrees outside, and someone else with a big head shaped like an onion and dirty hair that smells like fish sticks will sit in front of you and recline their seat into your lap. And you’ll be trapped and sleepless and sad for the entire ride. But then other times you get two whole seats to yourself, and when that becomes your idea of luxury you know you’ve found something that no one else is even looking for, and if you gave it to them for Christmas they’d return it the next morning as soon as the stores opened. And then you get to think of yourself like the little drummer boy, playing for Jesus even though he’s too young to understand, even though nobody in Bethlehem really likes percussion and they think you’re a cheap ass for not bringing gold or frankincense. And it’s a shame when you realize that you won’t get to be in the Bible, and it doesn’t seem right. But then nobody gets to be in the Bible anymore, no matter who they are or what they do, and the sooner you realize that the easier it all becomes. But it’s still a shame.
”
”
Paul Neilan (Apathy and Other Small Victories: A Novel)
“
face lit up with a glow of gratitude that was prayer, though he did not know it. Then furtively the percussion-cap box came out. He released the tick and put him on the long flat desk. The creature probably glowed with a gratitude that amounted to prayer, too, at this moment, but it was premature: for when he started thankfully to travel off, Tom turned him aside with a pin and made him take a new direction. Tom's bosom friend sat next him, suffering just as Tom had been, and now he was deeply and gratefully interested in this entertainment in an instant. This bosom friend was Joe Harper. The two boys were sworn friends all the week, and embattled enemies on Saturdays. Joe took a pin out of his lapel and began to assist in exercising the prisoner. The sport grew in interest momently. Soon Tom said that they were interfering with each other, and neither getting the fullest benefit of the tick. So he put Joe's slate on the desk and drew a line down the middle of it from top to bottom.
”
”
Mark Twain (Tom Sawyer Collection)
“
You repay the debt,” he said. “That should be more than enough."
“What if I disagree? And what if, after all your trouble, I still say no?”
“I have ways to insist.”
“I have ways to decline.”
“You’ll pay one way or the other,” he said.
“In euros? Dollars? How much do I owe you?”
If he registered the sarcasm, he didn’t react to it. “You pay in the only currency that holds value to you,” he said. “You pay in innocent life.”
The words stung like a hard smack across the face and her eyes smarted as if she’d been physically struck. He should not know these things.
Casual indifference remained plastered on her face while deep below, in that hollow crevice where madness had lain dormant these last nine months, the slow, steady percussion of war tapped out, faint but perceptible.
“Which innocents?” she said.
He waved his hand with that dismissive gesture. “Innocents are innocents,” he said.
“Is one life really valued higher than another?”
From the fear bubbling to the surface, she instinctively knew. Knew that the only way a man in his position could gloat as if he owned her was if he held what she deemed most priceless.
”
”
Taylor Stevens
“
Charlotte had the blondest hair I’ve ever seen. She didn’t shake my hand but gave me a quick little wave and smiled. “Hi, August. Nice to meet you,” she said. “Hi,” I said, looking down. She was wearing bright green Crocs. “So,” said Mr. Tushman, putting his hands together in a kind of slow clap. “What I thought you guys could do is take August on a little tour of the school. Maybe you could start on the third floor? That’s where your homeroom class is going to be: room 301. I think. Mrs. G, is—” “Room 301!” Mrs. Garcia called out from the other room. “Room 301.” Mr. Tushman nodded. “And then you can show August the science labs and the computer room. Then work your way down to the library and the performance space on the second floor. Take him to the cafeteria, of course.” “Should we take him to the music room?” asked Julian. “Good idea, yes,” said Mr. Tushman. “August, do you play any instruments?” “No,” I said. It wasn’t my favorite subject on account of the fact that I don’t really have ears. Well, I do, but they don’t exactly look like normal ears. “Well, you may enjoy seeing the music room anyway,” said Mr. Tushman. “We have a very nice selection of percussion instruments.” “August, you’ve been wanting to learn to play the drums,” Mom said, trying to get me to look at her. But my eyes were covered by my bangs as I stared at a piece of old gum that was stuck to the
”
”
R.J. Palacio (Wonder)
“
St. Lawrence River
May 1705
Temperature 48 degrees
The dancing began. Along with ancient percussion instruments that crackled and rattled, rasped and banged, the St. Francis Indians had French bells, whose clear chimes rang, and even a bugle, whose notes trumpeted across the river and over the trees.
“Mercy Carter!” exclaimed an English voice. “Joanna Kellogg! This is wonderful! I am so glad to see you!” An English boy flung his arms around the girls, embracing them joyfully, whirling them in circles.
Half his head was plucked and shiny bald, while long dark hair hung loose and tangled from the other half. His skin was very tan and his eyes twinkling black. He wore no shirt, jacket or cape: he was Indian enough to ignore the cold that had settled in once the sun went down.
“Ebenezer Sheldon,” cried Mercy. “I haven’t seen you since the march.”
He had been one of the first to receive an Indian name, when the snow thawed and the prisoners had had to wade through slush up to their ankles. Tannhahorens had changed Mercy’s moccasins now and then, hanging the wet pair on his shoulder to dry. But Ebenezer’s feet had frozen and he had lost some of his toes.
He hadn’t complained; in fact, he had not mentioned it. When his master discovered the injury, Ebenezer was surrounded by Indians who admired his silence. The name Frozen Leg was an honor. In English, the name sounded crippled. But in an Indian tongue, it sounded strong.
The boys in Deerfield who were not named John had been named Ebenezer. That wouldn’t happen in an Indian village. Each person must have a name exactly right for him; something that happened or that was; that reflected or appeared.
”
”
Caroline B. Cooney (The Ransom of Mercy Carter)
“
Dès que le brouhaha s’apaise, les premières mesures du morceau suivant s’élèvent, profondes et lentes. Les tintements du triangle et des grelots résonnent, clairs échos du rythme grave des percussions. Alors, Anja se met à chanter.
Tes yeux secs cherchent de l’eau dans cette ville morte
Tes pieds en sang abreuvent la terre assoiffée
Tu tombes et ne peux plus te lever…
Elle vibre, exaltée comme chaque fois par la foule et le chant, flot d’émotions brutes, partagées, échangées avec ses compagnons, avec le public.
Tressaillement soudain.
Sensation moite et glacée.
Un goût âcre envahit sa bouche, un goût de bile et de peur mêlées. Quelqu’un, au milieu de la foule, l’observe. Un regard glisse lentement sur elle, insistant, insidieux, pareil à la langue d’une bête répugnante sur sa peau. Celui qui la traque, l’épie depuis plusieurs semaines se trouve dans la foule ce soir, ombre sournoise et anonyme. La sirène tente d’apercevoir un visage, de surprendre la fixité d’une expression, en vain. Dans la salle, les yeux des spectateurs sont pareilles à des billes de ténèbres opaques, angoissantes. « Qui est-ce ? » « Que veut-il ? » « Est-ce que je le connais ? » « Est-ce lui, le responsable des disparitions ? » « A-t-il un lien avec cette momie ? » « Suis-je sa prochaine cible ? » Ces questions angoissantes, obsédantes, tournent en boucle dans sa tête, brisant la magie du concert. Anja parvient à faire bonne figure, interprète même une mélodie réclamée par le public. Mais se sent terriblement soulagée quand le concert s’achève.
Stein repousse ses percussions dans un coin, salue ses deux amies d’un rapide signe de main et quitte la scène. Fast l’attend à l’autre bout de la salle bondée, accoudé au bar. Celui-ci, une antiquité rescapée du Cataclysme, consolidée par des planches de bois peintes, des plaques de tôles et d’épais morceaux de plastique, est la fierté de Senta, la propriétaire des lieux. Il a résisté aux tempêtes, aux pillards, aux siècles et porte comme autant de cicatrices gravées dans sa surface, les traces de milliers de vies.
”
”
Charlotte Bousquet (Les Chimères de l'aube (La Peau des rêves, #3))
“
SALV. I will now say something which may perhaps astonish you; it refers to the possibility of dividing a line into its infinitely small elements by following the same order which one employs in dividing the same line into forty, sixty, or a hundred parts, that is, by dividing it into two, four, etc. He who thinks that, by following this method, he can reach an infinite number of points is greatly mistaken; for if this process were followed to (37) eternity there would still remain finite parts which were undivided.
Indeed by such a method one is very far from reaching the goal of indivisibility; on the contrary he recedes from it and while he thinks that, by continuing this division and by multiplying the multitude of parts, he will approach infinity, he is, in my opinion, getting farther and farther away from it. My reason is this. In the preceding discussion we concluded that, in an infinite number, it is necessary that the squares and cubes should be as numerous as the totality of the natural numbers [tutti i numeri], because both of these are as numerous as their roots which constitute the totality of the natural numbers. Next we saw that the larger the numbers taken the more sparsely distributed were the squares, and still more sparsely the cubes; therefore it is clear that the larger the numbers to which we pass the farther we recede from the infinite number; hence it follows [83] that, since this process carries us farther and farther from the end sought, if on turning back we shall find that any number can be said to be infinite, it must be unity. Here indeed are satisfied all those conditions which are requisite for an infinite number; I mean that unity contains in itself as many squares as there are cubes and natural numbers [tutti i numeri].
”
”
Galileo Galilei (Two New Sciences: Including Centres of Gravity and Force of Percussion)
“
During our early years of medical school, my classmates and I were given a course in physical diagnosis. Usually, we practiced on one another. Each of us would percuss a classmate’s chest or listen to his heart with a stethoscope. But some procedures were considered too personal to practice on a classmate. For some of these, we were assigned a “model patient”—someone from the community who was “compensated” in exchange for undergoing an examination. This was how I performed my first rectal exam. A large group of us were led into a room where our model patient was bent over an examining table with his pants around his ankles. One by one, we approached him nervously from behind, inserted a gloved, lubricated finger into his rectum, and felt around for the prostate. “Thank you,” we all said politely to the model patient as we removed our index fingers from his anus. The model patient stared straight ahead, saying nothing. What made the experience oddly disturbing was not just the forced, pseudo normality of the instruction or the fact that the exam could have been done more privately, but the instrumentality of the encounter: a pretend patient bending over naked for anonymous strangers in exchange for money. The fact that the model patient had been paid did not make his work seem any less degrading. (Tipping him would have made it even worse.)
”
”
Carl Elliott (White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine)
“
There were a few words in the song, but they had been passed through filters until they had basically become another instrument. The percussions wove themselves perfectly into the music as well, and allowed the melody to mewl patiently before soaring to softened heights. After every crescendo the song would push itself back down again, and the rhythm’s path would start anew. Davlok couldn’t
”
”
Jonathan Maas (Dead Moon)
“
loved the air after a hard rain, and the way a forest of dripping leaves fills itself with a sibilant percussion that empties your head of words.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (Prodigal Summer)
“
Someone want to tell me where the fuck all the chairs went?” Kellan asked. “And why are we remodeling that wall?” “Percussion therapy,” Milo deadpanned his answer without missing a beat. “I’m working on my feelings. It’s taking some practice.
”
”
Heather Long (Reckless Thief (82 Street Vandals, #8))
“
A shout from far up the river sent a chill across his body and he un-hung the musket from his shoulder. It wasn’t a light firearm, weighing twelve pounds, but with the recently developed percussion lock, it was reliable—which is why it was indispensable for Jean’s expeditions both on the Mississippi and Barataria. It was—like Jean—tall and slender, elegant and yet simple, far-reaching and precise, and requiring particular attention to cleanliness.
”
”
Mirà Kanehl (The Adventuress (One Virtue and a Thousand Crimes))
“
All Americans must know that the momentary collision is not merely the percussion of two bodies: it is a combat between spiritual powers.
”
”
Kazuki Sekida (Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy (Shambhala Classics))
“
Percussive maintenance is the technical term for hitting something until it works.
”
”
Danielle Yarbrough (1,500 FASCINATING FACTS: All the really interesting knowledge around the World (Volume 4))
“
There is musicless
song, down there, atonal, coming
up from salt beating on stone,
beat without melody, mineral percussion,
as matter, like a sadist, played on your darling
bones
”
”
Sharon Olds (Arias)
“
Inside, it’s a cauldron of energy with heads swinging in screw-faced joy to percussive Latin rhythms. The Panamanians are a good-looking, loose-hipped race, and they know it.
”
”
Michael Chapman Pincher (Long Lost Love: Diary of a Rambling Romeo: Outclassing the Men: Fearless females take the lead on this Epic Voyage)
“
Pink electricity snakes out from her fingertips, jumping from the guitar and sending rainbow-hued sparks floating to the ceiling. She leans her hand to the strings and feels the chunky, percussive roar of the palm mute rumble through the amps. It gnaws at her bones, shakes her blood in her veins like some kind of fantastic, terrible cocktail of sound and iron, and she is so desperately happy.
”
”
Addison Lane (Blackpines: The Antlers Witch: The Light in Her Dreams)
“
Acoustician Steven Waller suggests that rock paintings in the southwestern US are often found in places where unusual echoes and reverberations occur. And, Waller suggests, the prevalence of echoes in these sites isn’t a coincidence; sound was the driver for nominating a sacred space. He goes further and proposes that the images depicted often seem to correlate with the kinds of echoes that occur. So in places where percussive echoes can sound like hoof beats, we find petroglyphs of horses, while at other sites that favor longer echoes (as if the rocks are “speaking”) we tend to find images of spirits and mythological beings.
”
”
David Byrne (How Music Works)
“
Do you think the power is going to go out?” Clay thought the day—the smell of yellow sponge, the percussion of the rain—seemed almost unnervingly normal. “It goes out in storms, doesn’t it? Like, downed branches? And if there’s something wrong in the city. And then that noise, whatever that was? I think we’re lucky that it’s still on, but maybe we shouldn’t push our luck.” Amanda looked at her husband. “Go!
”
”
Rumaan Alam (Leave the World Behind)
“
Simply put, Leonardo replaced the mystic black bile, faculties, and spirits that permeated the writings of Galen, Avicenna, de Luzzi, and others, with his physical powers of movement, weight, force, and percussion - the building blocks of mechanics. he further used these mechanical concepts to demystify a whole host of physiological processes.
”
”
Mario Livio (Why?: What Makes Us Curious)
“
As Lydia sat down on the step, wrapping her cardigan round for warmth, it looked as if she might almost have been waiting for Jean.
Jean watched and her heart beat out the seconds like a percussive force. She was unavoidably, unaccountably in love with this woman who sat there on the cold stone, unknowing and unknown.
”
”
Fiona Shaw (Tell It to the Bees)
“
the drawing is poor and I know little of the plot
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
..the drawing is poor and I know little of the plot:
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
...the drawing is poor and I know little of the plot:
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit)
“
Her mother, who made the most delicious pancakes and baked bread from scratch. Her mother, who could identify every bird by name and call. Her mother, who could grow a garden in an eggshell. Her mother, the kindest person she would ever know. Her mother, her mother, her mother, her mother, her mother. Her mother, an animal, whose eyes were filled with blood. PART THREE LEWIS WOODARD and MARGARET C. FINNEGAN MAIN CHARACTERS LEWIS: Carcharodon carcharias; often stubborn, irritable, heartbroken, and homesick, Lewis was formerly a man with an excellent sense of humor. MARGARET C. FINNEGAN: Carcharodon carcharias; chock-full of ocean expertise yet inexperienced in matters of the heart. Raised by a dolphin pod and Billy and Carolyn Finnegan of Dayton, Ohio. Prefers to be called by her full name because it reminds Margaret of her mother, Carolyn, who liked sounding the full percussive nature of Margaret’s name, the reverberations floating like a soft cloud above a spring green meadow in the place Margaret once lived a very long time ago. SETTING Various oceans.
”
”
Emily Habeck (Shark Heart)
“
There we go, percussive engineering for the win!” Dax called out.
”
”
Jonathan Yanez (Starship Bandits)
“
Unlike Granny, who dressed like a very respectable raven, Hilta Goatfounder was all lace and shawls and colours and earrings and so many bangles that a mere movement of her arms sounded like a percussion section falling off a cliff.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Equal Rites (Discworld, #3; Witches, #1))
“
The IT department has asked me to stop slapping my computer when it gives me trouble, but for inanimate objects, I’ve always found percussive maintenance to be the most persuasive. I can't exactly Bcc furniture into submission.
”
”
Kate Prior (The Orc from the Office (Claws & Cubicles, #2))
“
It’s a percussive instrument, cultivator scum—not a pee bucket.
”
”
Haylock Jobson (Heretical Fishing 2 (Heretical Fishing, #2))
“
The walls and windows popped in staccato percussion as they relinquished the heat of the day. The soft chimes of the mantle clock supplied a beckoning melody.
”
”
Laura Rudacille (Late to Breakfast)
“
Godfrey watched helplessly as she crossed the boundary of the property, the lamppost's light extinguishing suddenly as she passed, and continued headlong down the hill; he heard the percussions of her footfalls after she passed from sight, and as those faded the rise of her cry into something horrific and wrathful, a thorn in the paw of the heavens.
”
”
Brian McGreevy (Hemlock Grove)
“
I rapped my knuckles on Malina’s door. The percussive sound seemed to offend the hallway’s sense of decorum, and the quiet chastised me as it dropped into my ears like cotton balls.
”
”
Kevin Hearne (Hexed (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #2))
“
the slight tremble of her hands, the lone indication of her fear. He scanned the firearm and a faint smile touched his lips. In her haste to defend her home, the brazen little madcap had failed to place a necessary percussion cap in front of the firing hammer. An unprimed rifle posed no danger.
”
”
Cindy Nord (No Greater Glory (The Cutteridge Family, #1))
“
St. Lawrence River
May 1705
Temperature 48 degrees
From the river they walked back to the town, and the boy was taken into the fire circle outside the powwow’s longhouse. Here he was placed on the powwow’s sacred albino furs. A dozen men, those who were now his relatives, sat in a circle around him. The powwow lit a sacred pipe and passed it, and for the first time in his life, the boy smoked.
Don’t cough, Mercy prayed for him. Don’t choke.
Afterward she found out they diluted the tobacco with dried sumac leaves to make sure he wouldn’t cough on his first pull.
Although the women had adopted him, it was the men who filed by to bring gifts. The new Indian son received a tomahawk, knives, a fine bow, a pot of vermilion paint, a beautiful black-and-white-striped pouch made from a skunk and several necklaces.
“Watch, watch!” whispered Snow Walker, riveted. “This is his father. Look what his father gives him!”
The warrior transferred from his own body to his son’s a wampum belt--hundreds of tiny shell circles linked together like white lace. The belt was so large it had to hang from the neck instead of the waist.
To give a man a belt was old-fashioned. Wampum had no value to the French and had not been used as money by the Indians for many years. But it still spoke of power and honor and even Mercy caught her breath to see it on a white boy’s body.
But of course, he was not white any longer.
“My son,” said the powwow, “now you are flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone.”
At last his real name was called aloud, and the name was plain: Annisquam, which just meant “Hilltop.” Perhaps they had caught him at the summit of a mountain. Or considering the honor of the wampum belt, perhaps he kept his eyes on the horizon and was a future leader. Or like Ruth, he might have done some great deed that would be told in story that evening.
When the gifts and embraces were over, Annisquam was taken into the powwow’s longhouse to sit alone. He would stay there for many hours and would not be brought out until well into the dancing and feasting in the evening.
Not one of Mercy’s questions had been answered.
Was he, in his heart, adopted?
Had he, in his heart, accepted these new parents?
Where, in his heart, had he placed his English parents?
How did he excuse himself to his English God and his English dead?
The dancing began. Along with ancient percussion instruments that crackled and rattled, rasped and banged, the St. Francis Indians had French bells, whose clear chimes rang, and even a bugle, whose notes trumpeted across the river and over the trees.
”
”
Caroline B. Cooney (The Ransom of Mercy Carter)
“
Before she went to bed, she loaded her Tatham percussion-lock pistol and added its weight to her bounty of spells. One didn’t always need magic to win a fight.
”
”
Charlie N. Holmberg (The Glass Magician (The Paper Magician, #2))
“
Amelia heard an annoying drumming sound, and she thought at first it was the wild percussion of her heart. But as Cam’s leg intruded gently among the folds of her borrowed dress and touched hers, she realized she was doing her blasted foot-tapping again. With an effort, she went still. Sliding one arm around her, Cam picked up her left hand, bringing it to his mouth. His lips brushed over the chafed red patch on her knuckle, where she had tried to pull the ring off. “It’s stuck,” she grumbled. “It’s too small.” “It’s not too small. Just relax your hand and it will come off.” “My hand is relaxed.” “Gadjis,” he said. “You’re all as stiff as amaranth wood. It must be your corsets.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1))
“
Desormie, ahead of me, hummed out a melody with lipfart percussion and aggressively dance-walked and thought it was strutting.
”
”
Adam Levin (The Instructions)
“
I’m afraid I don’t sympathize
with your appeal for compromise.
So instead I’m going to emphasize
some lyrics that you can melodize
with percussions that you can harmonize
with revelations that you “can’t” metricize
due to the immeasurable length of their importance.
However, the verbal is something I specialize in.
So I will optimize the verbalization
during the exportation of the word formation
to make for a clear interpretation
so no thought obstruction will cause a disruption
in the finalization of your rationalization.
”
”
Calvin W. Allison (The Sunset of Science and the Risen Son of Truth)
“
High school marching band was its own little microcosm of the world. More a study in sociology than in woodwinds and brass: There were the band geeks, pimply and a tad too greasy, making out with one another every chance they got. There were the no-nonsense go-getters, eager to fill a line on their college applications, marching without rhythm or passion. There was the percussion section, hipsters-to-be whose arms would be full of tattoos in a few years’ time. And there were the tuba players, chunky and asexual, as if they were slowly morphing into their instrument of choice.
”
”
Leah Konen (The Romantics)
“
Epic, adult and widescreen in its ambitions, the beefed-up Comeback version of 'Let Yourself Go' sounded almost violent in its execution, with Elvis's raw and desperate vocals every match for the gargantuan, aggressive horns and percussion that dominated the mix. A big, sweaty, dusty monster of a take towered over the Culver City version, and perfectly captured the tumultuous social and political strife of its era in dissonant musical form. This new version of 'Let Yourself Go' was unfailingly magnificent in its vision.
”
”
Mark Duffett (Counting Down Elvis: His 100 Finest Songs)
“
Between the percussion of the musical raindrops and the rhythmic swipe of wipers across the windshield, I fall into a hypnotic state, thinking nothing. I'm a blank slate. A refreshing simplicity that has eluded me for months.
”
”
Dave Cenker (Second Chance)
“
tape on and the car trembled with percussion all the way to Saugus, where Hawk pulled into a Martignetti’s off Route 1 and bought three
”
”
Robert B. Parker (Early Autumn (Spenser, #7))
“
Heaven would be a comfy armchair….You’d get a great, private phonograph, and all of eternity to listen to your life’s melody. You could isolate your one life out of the cacophonous galaxy—the a cappella version—or you could play it back with its accompaniment, embedded in the brass and strings of mothers, fathers, sisters, windfalls and failures, percussion cities of strangers. You could play it forward or backward, back and back, and listen to the future of your past. You could lift the needle at whim, defeating Time.
”
”
Karen Russell (Swamplandia!)
“
Denny and McDaniel go into the percussion room and grab a bizarre metal contraption. Denny lifts it over his head and I give him a strange look, to which he responds like I’m a five year old, “Carr-i-er.
”
”
Courtney Brandt (Confessions of a Teenage Band Geek)
“
A physics student who taught himself programming, Horne was more self-consciously artistic than anyone else on the NT team. He worked as a radio reporter after college and once wrote a science-fiction novel over a weekend. He played percussion in an orchestra and hoped to conduct one day. Oddly, he fell in love with the maligned OS/2 after attending a conference and pursued a job at Microsoft as a programmer. He was hired in the summer of 1988, then joined NT two years later with a flood of newcomers who swelled the team’s ranks of code writers to about one hundred. His
”
”
G. Pascal Zachary (Showstopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft)
“
Ndani ya gruneti kuna vitu kumi vyenye uwezo na visivyokuwa na uwezo wa kulipuka kama vile pini, mtaimbo, springi ya mtaimbo, tundu la kuingizia baruti, baruti, fataki, fyuzi, utambi, wenzo na ganda la chuma la pingili kama vipande vya risasi. Pini inapochomolewa, na bomu kurushwa kuelekea kwenye shabaha au kuelekea sehemu nyingine yoyote, wenzo wa usalama huchomoka pia na kuachana na bomu moja kwa moja. Wenzo wa usalama unapochomoka huruhusu mtaimbo ugonge fataki ya kuwashia fyuzi kwa nguvu na kasi kubwa. Fyuzi itawaka kwa sekunde nne kabla ya kuwasha utambi, ambao utawasha baruti ndani ya sekunde moja, kabla ya baruti kulipuka – na kusambaza vipande vya bomu katika kila sehemu ya shabaha.
”
”
Enock Maregesi
“
Interestingly, bonobo percussionists prefer a tempo of 280 beats per minute, the syllabic rate at which most humans speak.
”
”
Dr Susan Block
“
The devil steps up to the podium, clears his throat and taps out time with his baton: in come the monstrous iron kettle drums of artillery, joined by a woodwind section of whistling bullets and shrieking shells, the ever-crackling light percussion of rifle fire.
”
”
Matthew De Abaitua (If Then)
“
... It strikes me that if I'm in such a febrile and imaginative mood I ought to take advantage of it with some serious writing exercises or at least a few ideas for stories, if only to demonstrate that I'm not treating this here commonplace book solely as a journal to record my most recent attacks of jitters! Maybe I should roll my sleeves up and attempt as least an opening practice paragraph or two of this confounded novel I'm pretending to be writing. Let's see how it looks.
Marblehead: An American Undertow
By Robert D. Black
Iron green, the grand machinery of the Atlantic grates foam gears against New England with the rhythmic thunder of industrial percussion. A fine dust of other lands and foreign histories is carried in suspension on its lurching, slopping mechanism: shards of bright green glass from Ireland scoured blunt and opaque by brine, or sodden splinters of armada out of Spain. The debris of an older world, a driftwood of ideas and people often changed beyond all recognition by their passage, clatters on the tideline pebbles to deposit unintelligible grudges, madnesses and visions in a rank high-water mark, a silt of fetid dreams that further decompose amid the stranded kelp or bladder-wrack and pose risk of infection. Puritans escaping England's murderous civil war cast broad-brimmed shadows onto rocks where centuries of moss obscured the primitive horned figures etched by vanished tribes, and after them came the displaced political idealists of many nations, the religious outcasts, cults and criminals, to cling with grim determination to a damp and verdant landscape until crushed by drink or the insufferable weight of their accumulated expectations. Royalist cavaliers that fled from Cromwell's savage interregnum and then, where their puritanical opponents settled the green territories to the east, elected instead to establish themselves deep in a more temperate South, bestowing their equestrian concerns, their courtly mannerisms and their hairstyles upon an adopted homeland. Heretics and conjurors who sought new climes past the long shadow of the stake; transported killers and procurers with their slates wiped clean in pastures where nobody knew them; sour-faced visionaries clutching Bunyan's chapbook to their bosoms as a newer and more speculative bible, come to these shores searching for a literal New Jerusalem and finding only different wilderness in which to lose themselves and different game or adversaries for the killing. All of these and more, bearing concealed agendas and a hundred diverse afterlives, crashed as a human surf of Plymouth Rock to fling their mortal spray across the unsuspecting country, individuals incendiary in the having lost their ancestral homelands they were without further longings to relinquish. Their remains, ancient and sinister, impregnate and inform the factory-whistle furrows of oblivious America.
”
”
Alan Moore (Providence Compendium by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows Hardcover)
“
... It strikes me that if I'm in such a febrile and imaginative mood I ought to take advantage of it with some serious writing exercises or at least a few ideas for stories, if only to demonstrate that I'm not treating this here commonplace book solely as a journal to record my most recent attacks of jitters! Maybe I should roll my sleeves up and attempt as least an opening practice paragraph or two of this confounded novel I'm pretending to be writing. Let's see how it looks.
Marblehead: An American Undertow
By Robert D. Black
Iron green, the grand machinery of the Atlantic grates foam gears against New England with the rhythmic thunder of industrial percussion. A fine dust of other lands and foreign histories is carried in suspension on its lurching, slopping mechanism: shards of bright green glass from Ireland scoured blunt and opaque by brine, or sodden splinters of armada out of Spain. The debris of an older world, a driftwood of ideas and people often changed beyond all recognition by their passage, clatters on the tideline pebbles to deposit unintelligible grudges, madnesses and visions in a rank high-water mark, a silt of fetid dreams that further decompose amid the stranded kelp or bladder-wrack and pose risk of infection. Puritans escaping England's murderous civil war cast broad-brimmed shadows onto rocks where centuries of moss obscured the primitive horned figures etched by vanished tribes, and after them came the displaced political idealists of many nations, the religious outcasts, cults and criminals, to cling with grim determination to a damp and verdant landscape until crushed by drink or the insufferable weight of their accumulated expectations. Royalist cavaliers that fled from Cromwell's savage interregnum and then, where their puritanical opponents settled the green territories to the east, elected instead to establish themselves deep in a more temperate South, bestowing their equestrian concerns, their courtly mannerisms and their hairstyles upon an adopted homeland. Heretics and conjurors who sought new climes past the long shadow of the stake; transported killers and procurers with their slates wiped clean in pastures where nobody knew them; sour-faced visionaries clutching Bunyan's chapbook to their bosoms as a newer and more speculative bible, come to these shores searching for a literal New Jerusalem and finding only different wilderness in which to lose themselves and different game or adversaries for the killing. All of these and more, bearing concealed agendas and a hundred diverse afterlives, crashed as a human surf on Plymouth Rock to fling their mortal spray across the unsuspecting country, individuals incendiary in that having lost their ancestral homelands they were without further longings to relinquish. Their remains, ancient and sinister, impregnate and inform the factory-whistle furrows of oblivious America.
”
”
Alan Moore (Providence Compendium by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows Hardcover)
“
Shiva raised both his arms in an elegant circular movement to the sides to bring them in line with his shoulder. His right hand was holding an imaginary dumru, a small, handheld percussion instrument. His left hand was open with its palm facing upward, almost like it was receiving some divine energy. He held this pose for some time; his glowing face indicated that Shiva was withdrawing into his inner world. His right hand then moved effortlessly forward, almost as if it had a mind of its own. Its palm was now open and facing the audience. Somehow, the posture seemed to convey a feeling of protectiveness to a very surprised Sati. Almost languidly, his left arm glided at shoulder height and came to rest with the palm facing downwards and pointing at the left foot. Shiva held this pose for some time. And then began the dance. Sati stared in wonder at Shiva. He was performing the same steps as her. Yet it looked like a completely different dance. His lyrical hand movements graced the mystical motion of his body. How could a body this muscular also be so flexible? The Guruji tried helplessly to get his dhol to give Shiva the beats. But clearly that wasn’t necessary. As it was Shiva’s feet which were leading the beat for the dhol! The dance conveyed the various emotions of a woman. In the beginning it conveyed her feelings of joy and lust as she cavorted with her husband. The next emotion was anger and pain at the treacherous killing of her mate. Despite his rough masculine body, Shiva managed to convey the tender yet strong emotions of a grieving woman. Shiva’s eyes were open. But the audience realised that he was oblivious to them. Shiva was in his own world. He did not dance for the audience. He did not dance for appreciation. He did not dance for the music. He danced only for himself. In fact, it almost seemed like his dance was guided by a celestial force. Sati realised that Shiva was right. He had opened himself and the dance had come to him. After what seemed like an eternity the dance came to an end, with Shiva’s eyes firmly shut. He held the final pose for a long time as the glow slowly left him. It was almost as if he was returning to this world. Shiva gradually opened his eyes to find Sati, Krittika and the Guruji gaping at him wonder-struck.
”
”
Amish Tripathi (The Immortals of Meluha (Shiva Trilogy, #1))
“
We have absolutely no need, however, to choose between culture and biology. The only plausible position is to be an interactionist. Interactionism assumes a dynamic interplay between genes and the environment. Genes by themselves are like seeds dropped onto the pavement: they can’t produce anything on their own. Similarly, the environment by itself is hardly relevant because it requires an organism to act upon. The interplay between these two is so intricate that most of the time we are unable to disentangle their contributions.22 Hans Kummer, a Swiss primatologist, came up with a helpful analogy to explain why this is so. Asking if an observed behavior is due to nature or nurture, he said, is like asking whether the percussion sounds we hear in the distance are produced by a drummer or the drum. It’s a silly question because, on their own, neither one makes any noise. Only if we were to hear distinct sounds on different occasions could we legitimately ask if the difference was owing to a change in the drummer or the instrument. Kummer concluded, “Only a difference in traits, not a trait as such, can be called innate or acquired.”23
”
”
Frans de Waal (Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist)
“
It is quite improbable, I think, that we should be here to-day, or, indeed, have an existence as a society largely devoted to the consideration of diseases of the chest, were it not for the methods of thoracic examination which Auenbrugger and Laennec have given us in their discoveries of percussion and auscultation.
”
”
James Joseph Walsh (Makers of Modern Medicine)
“
Instead, a backbeat starts up in my clit—full percussion. It’s like a deejay made a home in my underwear, and my vagina’s where all the bass resides. Fuuuuuck. Why does he have to be so hot? Why was I such an asshole last time I saw him? The tiny flutter in my stomach turns into a tornado of hummingbirds. Heat lasers from my vagina through my body, exploding in my cheeks.
”
”
Helena Hunting (Pucked Over (Pucked, #3))
“
You’ve got two violin sections, violas, cellos, basses, woodwinds, brass, percussion—but it operates as a whole. It has rhythms.” You need space in your life for the spotlight of focus—but alone, it would be like a solo oboe player on a bare stage, trying to play Beethoven. You need mind-wandering to activate the other instruments and to make the sweetest music. I thought I had come to Provincetown to learn to focus. I realized that, in fact, I was learning to think—and that required much more than the spotlight of focus.
”
”
Johann Hari (Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again)
“
the unfolding waves of sound are like an underwater orchestra or the endless improvisation of a jazz band. On the Great Barrier Reef, the humpback whales sing the soprano melody. Fish supply the chorus: whooping clownfish, grunting cod, and crunching parrotfish. Sea urchins scrape, resonating like tubas. Percussion is the domain of chattering dolphins and clacking shrimp, who use their pincers to create bubbles that explode with a loud bang. Lobsters rasp their antennae on their shells like washboards. Rainfall, wind, and waves provide the backbeat. To get the best seat, you would have to attend the concert in the middle of the night at the full moon, when fish chorusing typically crests. But you wouldn't necessarily need to have a front row seat: mass fish choruses can be heard up to 50 miles away, and whale sounds resonate for hundreds of miles.
”
”
Karen Bakker (The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants)
“
their medals and shoes played percussion
”
”
Scott Adams (The Religion War)
“
Taking this enthusiastic exhortation as a model, here we see the divine endorsement of sensible pleasures, that is, things that we enjoy through our bodily senses.
Things we see-the brilliant purples, reds, and oranges of a sunset; the diamond blanket of stars arrayed every night; the panoramic glory of a fertile valley seen from the top of a mountain; the majesty of a well-cultivated garden in early summer.
Things we hear-the steady crashing of waves on a shoreline; the songs of birds in early spring after the long silence of winter; the soul-stirring harmony of strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion; the innocent refreshment of laughter of children.
Things we smell-the fragrance of roses, the aroma of pine, the delightful odor of cedar, the scene of a home cooked meal.
Things we taste-the warm sweetness of chocolate chip cookies, the puckering sour of a glass of lemonade, the heavenly savoriness of a plate piled high with bacon, the surprising ye delightful bitterness of herbs, the piercing saltiness of well-seasoned meat.
And things we touch-the cool smoothness of cotton bedsheets, the warm comfort of a wool blanket, the reassuring strength of a hug from a friend, the soft tenderness of a kiss from your spouse.
All of these are gifts from God for our enjoyment.
”
”
Joe Rigney
“
In the 1830s, Professor Pierre Adolphe Piorry, the inventor of topographic percussion taught that there were nine distinct percussion sounds, which he used to outline the patient’s liver, heart, lungs, stomach, and even individual heart chambers or lung cavities.
”
”
Steven McGee (Evidence-Based Physical Diagnosis E-Book)
“
Dan had brought a Casio CZ series portable and an amp to play it through. Carla had a kobassa. “It’s the only hand percussion in the house,” she said ruefully. She gave it a quick slap-and-slide, rattle-and-hiss, across her hand. “I could have brought the snare, I guess, but that just makes me wish for the whole kit.”
Eddi shook her head. “Violent Femmes used to use a washtub.”
“I don’t have a washtub. Maybe I’ll bear on your head, instead.”
“It’s a thought. I’m not using it for anything.”
Carla looked curious, but Eddi turned quickly to unpack her guitar. Dan gave her an E to tune to. Now why did I say that? she wondered v I didn’t mean it. Did I? She remembered suddenly, unbidden, the phouka saying love made mortals stupid. Damn phouka.
”
”
Emma Bull (War for the Oaks)
“
Pierre wakes up for good. As he's lying there yawning, he vaguely remembers a couple of false starts inspired by a ringing phone. He looks to his left. It's eleven. Next thing, he's stumbling down the hall toward his phone machine. 'Wait. Coffee,' he whispers in a shredded voice, veering back into the kitchen. He does what he has to, then plays back the messages, sips.
Beep. 'It's Paul at Man Age. Appointment, twelve-thirty P.M., hour, Gramercy Park Hotel, room three-forty-four, name Terrence. Later.' Beep. 'Paul again. Appointment, two P.M., Washington Annex Hotel, room six-twenty, a play-it-by-ear, name Dennis, I think the same Dennis from last night. Check with us mid-afternoon. You're a popular dude. Later.' Beep. 'P., it's Marv, you there? . . . No? . . . Call me at work. Love ya.'
On his way to the shower Pierre makes a stop at the stereo, plays side one of Here Comes the Warm Jets, an old Eno album. It's still on his turntable. It has this cool, deconstructive, self-conscious pop sound typical of the '70s Art Rock Pierre loves. He doesn't know why it's fantastic exactly. If he were articulate, and not just nosy, he'd write an essay about it.
Instead he stomps around in the shower yelling the twisted lyrics. ' "By this time / I'd got to looking for a kind of / substitute . . ." ' It's weird to get lost in something so calculatedly chaotic. It's retro, pre-punk, bourgeois, meaningless, etc. ' ". . . I can't tell you quite how / except that it rhymes with / dissolute." ' Pierre covers his ears, beams, snorts wildly.
Tying his sneakers, he flips the scuffed-up LP, plays his two favorite songs on the second side, which happen to sit third and fourth, and are aurally welded together by some distorted synthesizer-esque percussion, maybe ten, fifteen seconds in length. Pierre flops back in his chair, soaks the interlude up. It screeches, whines, bleeps like an orgasming robot.
”
”
Dennis Cooper (By Dennis Cooper Frisk (First Edition, First Printing) [Paperback])
“
At Vicksburg 31,600 prisoners were surrendered, together with 172 cannon about 60,000 muskets and a large amount of ammunition. The small-arms of the enemy were far superior to the bulk of ours. Up to this time our troops at the West had been limited to the old United States flintlock muskets changed into percussion, or the Belgian musket imported early in the war—almost as dangerous to the person firing it as to the one aimed at—and a few new and improved arms. These were of many different calibers, a fact that caused much trouble in distributing ammunition during an engagement. The enemy had generally new arms which had run the blockade and were of uniform caliber. After the surrender I authorized all colonels whose regiments were armed with inferior muskets, to place them in the stack of captured arms and replace them with the latter. A large number of arms turned in to the Ordnance Department as captured, were thus arms that had really been used by the Union army in the capture of Vicksburg.
”
”
Ulysses S. Grant (Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant)
“
A circle chorus of primal drums begins beating and lays the foundations for the universal heartbeat of spirit and planet earth to sing. Lightning crackles with loud percussion, and brilliant flashes of electrons explode with god-like fire. The consciousness of creation has been laid upon the universe through charged particles and elemental chemistry bonds. All that remains is a reason for creativity to begin. This dormancy remained quiet for billions of years in a timeless dimension.
”
”
Jeff Layton (I Am but a Dream)
“
when my own headache started to bear slightly less resemblance to a percussion class for spastic orangutans,
”
”
Mike Reeves-McMillan (Ghost Bridge (Auckland Allies #2))
“
Two appendages lowered from a port in the ceiling and passed a few feet from his face: they were complex, robotic hands, a left and a right. They were sleek in design, and had a flat-black finish. One of them positioned itself near Will's outstretched hand, and a glistening, curved blade popped out of one of its fingertips—the thumb. It moved in slowly, and all Will could do was watch as it approached. He felt cold metal touch his skin, and the blue-metallic blade slowly sliced its way under his left thumbnail, vibrating as it moved. It dug in about half way to the cuticle, and stopped. His thumb throbbed and burned at the same time, and the pressure mounted even though the blade remained still. After about five minutes, it continued on its path to the nail bed, and paused. His legs and arms twitched uncontrollably, but the blade remained stationary. A few minutes later, another blade popped out from the mechanical hand, and slowly carved a path under his left index fingernail. It took another five, long minutes to reach the nail bed. Will screamed sporadically, his voice diminishing to a raspy whisper, as the procedure was repeated for each of his fingers. After about two hours, the machine had finished inserting blades into the ten nail beds, and the program paused as the pressure in his fingertips increased. The fluid that oozed from under his nails had gone from blood to a clear liquid, and he heard it drip on the floor. Just as Will's nerves were beginning to settle, the bladed, mechanical fingers started to tap. Tap tap tap ... the machine played a tune of pain. Every muscle in his body convulsed with each minute percussion of the blades. After what seemed like an eternity, the program reached a final phase: the twisting of the blades. Will whimpered pitifully, continually on the verge of passing out.
”
”
Shane Stadler (Exoskeleton)
“
He recognized the distinctive percussion of the goblet-shaped drum, the dumbek. The kanun was a stringed instrument that produced beautiful sounds much like a harp. There was a ney, a flute that had an amazing tone to it.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Reckless Road (Torpedo Ink, #5))
“
It leaves me breathless, numb, like his heart’s percussion shakes my whole being, quivering warmth into me from head to toe. I stretch his shirt with how hard I curl my fingers, but I can’t let go. His hand presses the small of my back in answer. Lightning flares between us, and maybe he’s got the hypnotic eyes of a serpent but right now...holy God.
”
”
Nicole Snow (Damaged Grump)
“
Percussion is my religion, and the band room is my cathedral. Inside this holy place, I don’t believe in anything more than myself.
”
”
Patrick R.F. Blakley (Drummond: Learning to find himself in the music)
“
To furnish one hundred and fifty thousand men, on both sides of the Mississippi, in May, 1861, there were no infantry accoutrements, no cavalry arms or equipments, no artillery and, above all, no ammunition; nothing save arms, and these almost wholly the old pattern smooth-bore muskets, altered to percussion from flint locks.
”
”
Jefferson Davis (The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government)
“
The horses picked up speed, and Adam bounced from side to side on the planks. The percussion of the horses’ hooves and the squeak of the wagon on its struts was all he could hear. The wind from the wagon’s movement had a chill. He turned his head to face it, letting the tears from his watering eyes stream along his cheeks.
”
”
Julia Merritt (horse/man)
“
For biting, there are two corrections that work extremely well. In most cases, the ssssst! that imitates Mom-cat stops young kittens cold. Make the sound very percussive.
”
”
Amy Shojai (Complete Kitten Care)
“
Rule number one, in general visual design, is to create an exceptional listening environment.
”
”
Patrick R.F. Blakley (The Field Percussion User Manual)
“
Learn with your group. Take as much information away from this season as possible to start the next one with momentum.
”
”
Patrick R.F. Blakley (The Field Percussion User Manual)
“
The on-field warmup should invoke confidence in the members, don’t have them play something that isn’t ready, or above
their level here. Remind them to listen to the environment while playing to understand as much as they can about the overall listening situation. You might try ending the field warmup session with a very loud single note from everyone in order to listen specifically to the reverb and echo of the stadium.
”
”
Patrick R.F. Blakley (The Field Percussion User Manual)
“
The on-field warmup should invoke confidence in the members, don’t have them play something that isn’t ready, or above their level here. Remind them to listen to the environment while playing to understand as much as they can about the overall listening situation. You might try ending the field warmup session with a very loud single note from everyone in order to listen specifically to the reverb and echo of the stadium.
”
”
Patrick R.F. Blakley (The Field Percussion User Manual)
“
He stood up and stayed there for a minute, silent, and then he left, and I thought about what it meant to still be alive, and then huge walls of earth began rising in formation inside me, spewing clouds of dust as they rose, right angles like dominos leaning against one another but refusing to fall, six or seven layers of ground beneath each rail buckling until they hit bedrock with a long, rolling, decisive thud, a chain reaction rippling out with great percussive power, the mud walls banding together for miles into a structure gigantic enough to be seen from space, a star-shaped beacon in the gray distance.
”
”
John Darnielle (Wolf in White Van)
“
Mistakes made in the down portion of the stroke are usually of the "Goodness me, I've gone and hit the wrong bloody note!" variety.
”
”
Leigh Howard Stevens (Method of Movement for Marimba)
“
The mistakes made in the up portion of the stroke fall into two basic categories: the "Foul invective! I seem to have strayed from the righteous path on the preparation. If I don't mend my ways forthwith, I'll soon tap the wrong slat." type, and the "Oh imminent impotence! I have pruned the recovery unripe. Now how shall I reap the fortissimo for which the audience verily drools?" brand.
”
”
Leigh Howard Stevens (Method of Movement for Marimba)
“
No one can get really drunk on a novel or a painting, but who can help getting drunk on Beethoven’s Ninth, Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, or the Beatles’ White Album?
”
”
Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
“
We like a joke in the percussion section. Percussion and brass players are pretty uncomplicated types. Lots of noise—no refinement.
”
”
Alexander McCall Smith (The Conditions of Unconditional Love (Isabel Dalhousie, #15))
“
Unlike Granny, who dressed like a very respectable raven, Hilta Goatfounder was all lace and shawls and colors and earrings and so many bangles that a mere movement of her arms sounded like a percussion section falling off a cliff. But Esk could see the likeness. It was hard to describe. You couldn’t imagine them curtseying to anyone.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Equal Rites (Discworld, #3; Witches, #1))
“
Quentin had told Spike that inking ‘percussion’ across your
knuckles was kind of lame. It takes more than ten letters to make
a badass knuckle tattoo. That was the problem with drummers.
They didn’t listen. But they always seemed to get laid anyway.
”
”
Ros Baxter (Numbered)
“
¡Zape! (Shoo!) Go away, go away, espíritu maligno (bad spirit)!” they sang. “Go back to where you came from!”
The festive musical celebration combined the prayers and songs with expressive dancing to the rhythm of percussion and string instruments, which accompanied the child’s ascent into heaven, where she would become an angel. Women, men and children ate, drank, prayed, sang and danced. They also played games like la gallina ciega (the blind chicken) where children tried to escape the touch of a blindfolded child who would walk around trying to feel for them. Whoever she touched was disqualified from the game.
The baquiné lasted throughout the night.
In a time when so many children perished to disease, this was a way for the child’s loved ones to say good-bye and endure the painful loss. But when all were gone, the crude reality set in.
Manuel will never forget the image of those poor parents, devastated, sitting alone right next to the altar where their child lay dead, weeping desperately at her loss.
He prayed for Ana’s soul. He prayed for those parents.
And he prayed that he would never have to suffer the agony of losing a child.
”
”
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini (Antonio's Will)
“
Most people believe that the piano is a stringed instrument, but though there are more than 200 strings inside, the sound is actually made when the hammer hits them, making it a percussion instrument.
”
”
Diane Greenwood Muir (Moments and Milestones (Bellingwood, #26))
“
In North Pittman is a particularly striking theology. There, one church memorably teaches that if all the trains were to be still, together, for one moment, if there were no rails percussing the iron road, all human life would wink instantly out. Because such noises are the snoring, the sleep-breathing of a railsea world, & it is the rails that dream us. We do not dream the rails.
”
”
China Miéville (Railsea)
“
But no. The two young men have just got out of prison. The black bags contain their personal effects. I can actually hear myself swallowing then – a rush of fluid suddenly filling the back of my throat and my pulse now unwelcome percussion in my ear. The pause button is pressed, but not for long enough. Much too quickly, the girls are regrouping. ‘You having us on?’ No. The boys are not having them on. They have decided to be straight with people. Have made their mistakes and paid their dues but refuse to be ashamed.
”
”
Teresa Driscoll (I Am Watching You)
“
Look, that moss there, it hums. Listen to it." Jen listened and heard. "Now the trees," Kira told him. "It's something like a whistle, or a sigh. And you see the bubbles on the water. Listen to them, Jen. You must always listen. There is always music to be heard. You can hear the percussion of the water rippling. The music we make is only a part of it.
”
”
A.C.H. Smith (The Dark Crystal)
“
Unfolding according to the contemplative logic of their lyrical orbits, Astral Weeks’s songs unhooked themselves from pop’s dependence on verse/chorus structure, coasting on idling rhythms, raging and subsiding with the ebb and flow of Morrison’s soulful scat. The soundworld – a loose-limbed acoustic tapestry of guitar, double bass, flute, vibraphone and dampened percussion – was unmistakably attributable to the calibre of the musicians convened for the session: Richard Davis, whose formidable bass talents had shadowed Eric Dolphy on the mercurial Blue Note classic Out to Lunch; guitarist Jay Berliner had previous form with Charles Mingus; Connie Kay was drummer with The Modern Jazz Quartet; percussionist/vibesman Warren Smith’s sessionography included Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Nat King Cole, Sam Rivers and American folk mystics Pearls Before Swine. Morrison reputedly barely exchanged a word with the personnel, retreating to a sealed sound booth to record his parts and leaving it to their seasoned expertise to fill out the space. It is a music quite literally snatched out of the air.
”
”
Rob Young (Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music)
“
Worst-case scenario: malevolent spirits have appeared. Low-level spirits will likely be at least temporarily dispersed by: • Bells and chimes • The presence of iron • Firecrackers and other sudden loud noises, like the shattering of pottery and plates • Clattering metal percussion instruments: castanets, cymbals, sistrums, or tambourines. If you have no such instruments, then bang metal pots and pans. • Peals of sincere, hearty laughter Amulets,
”
”
Judika Illes (Encyclopedia of Spirits: The Ultimate Guide to the Magic of Fairies, Genies, Demons, Ghosts, Gods & Goddesses - Unveiling the Mysteries of Supernatural ... on Our Lives (Witchcraft & Spells))
“
Holy hell,” said Mal, breaking off from the song with a clatter of percussion, and pointing
at us with a drum stick. “Did you guys see that? It’s like he’s the Martha Whisperer. Could have
sworn she was going to go off and he just totally talked her down. Not even you used to be able
to do that, Davie.”
“Malcolm,” said Sam sternly.
“Sorry, sorry. I’m totally minding my own business.”
“That’ll be the day,” said Ben. “Can we get back to work now?
”
”
Kylie Scott (Strong (Stage Dive, #4.5))
“
The only acceptable form of “music” was religious anasheed, a form of a cappella chanting that occasionally included a bit of percussion to keep the words on a consistent beat. The themes centered on the tragedies Muslims faced around the world.
”
”
Manal Al-Sharif (Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening)
“
At their invitation we crowded into the spacious control cabin of the great airship, where scientific gear occupied every available cubic—perhaps hypercubic—inch. Among the fantastical glass envelopes and knottings of gold wire as unreadable to us as the ebonite control panels scrupulously polished and reflecting the Arctic sky, we were able here and there to recognize more mundane items—here Manganin resistance-boxes and Tesla coils, there Leclanché cells and solenoidal magnets, with electrical cables sheathed in commercial-grade Gutta Percha running everywhere. Inside, the overhead was much higher than expected, and the bulkheads could scarcely be made out in the muted light through three hanging Fresnel lenses, the mantle behind each glowing a different primary color, from sensitive-flames which hissed at different frequencies. Strange sounds, complex harmonies and dissonances, resonant, sibilant, and percussive at once, being monitored from someplace far Exterior to this, issued from a large brass speaking-trumpet, with brass tubing and valvework elaborate as any to be found in an American marching band running back from it and into an extensive control panel on which various metering gauges were ranked, their pointers, with exquisite Breguet-style arrowheads, trembling in their rise and fall along the arcs of italic numerals. The glow of electrical coils seeped beyond the glass cylinders which enclosed them, and anyone’s hands that came near seemed dipped in blue chalk-dust. A Poulsen’s Telegraphone, recording the data being received, moved constantly to and fro along a length of shining steel wire which periodically was removed and replaced. “Ætheric impulses,” Dr. Counterfly was explaining. “For vortex stabilization we need a membrane sensitive enough to respond to the slightest eddies. We use a human caul—a ‘veil,’ as some say.” “Isn’t a child born with a veil believed to have powers of second sight?” Dr. Vormance inquired. “Correct. And a ship with a veil aboard it will never sink—or, in our case, crash.” “Things have been done to obtain a veil,” darkly added a junior officer, Mr. Suckling, “that may not even be talked about.
”
”
Thomas Pynchon (Against the Day)
“
Contrast this with the word “discussion,” which has the same root as “percussion” and “concussion.” It really means to break things up. It emphasizes the idea of analysis, where there may be many points of view, and where everybody is presenting a different one – analyzing and breaking up. That obviously has its value, but it is limited, and it will not get us very far beyond our various points of view. Discussion is almost like a ping-pong game, where people are batting the ideas back and forth and the object of the game is to win or to get points for yourself. Possibly you will take up somebody else’s ideas to back up your own – you may agree with some and disagree with others – but the basic point is to win the game. That’s very frequently the case in a discussion.
”
”
David Bohm (On Dialogue (Routledge Classics) (Volume 76))
“
Here, with the ticking percussion of rain at work on the rooftop and the unmoving air of the stable cool and redolent of damp horsehair and dry hay, there is simply no way to watch this girl shedding her boots, pulling her camisole over her head, and to see her in terms of anything other than the startlingly novel and incomparable vision that she is.
”
”
Bruce Machart (The Wake of Forgiveness)
“
I could hear the music as we trailed our way up the broad, winding stairs—engrossing melodies with dozens of harmonies and heavy, methodic percussion. It was the sort of music that could coax life into even a slow-beating heart like mine, the kind you could taste just by breathing.
”
”
Charlie N. Holmberg (Followed by Frost)
“
Le tango est à nous. Rappelle-toi ça, rappelle-toi d'où il vient. Pour chaque personne qui connaît ses racines, il y en a cent qui ne les connaissent pas. Et peut-être qu'un jour ceux qui savent auront tous disparu. Mais le secret vivra toujours, son coeur bat dans les percussions et dans son rythme syncopé.
”
”
Carolina De Robertis (The Gods of Tango)
“
Nowhere in the world is there music less catchy than the Balinese and Javanese gamelan. The gamelan utilizes only percussion instruments. Gongs, muffled drums (the tredang), metal kettles (trompong), metal disks (the gender). Never do these instruments tell or take hold. But they are not so much percussion instruments as instruments of emerging sound; the sound emerges, a round sound that comes to pay a visit, floats around, then disappears. The resonance is stopped by the fingers, feeling their way, seriously, attentively, in the great carcass of sound.
”
”
Henri Michaux (A Barbarian in Asia)
“
Generally speaking, helicopters produce a distinctive percussive chop-chop rotor sound caused by the positioning of the blades. Adjust the blade angle, increase the number of blades in the main and tail rotors from four to five or six, and the noise diminishes, blending into the background sounds. Moreover, these Sikorsky Black Hawks had been re-engineered and reimagined with swept stabilizers and a noise suppressing “dishpan” cover over the tail rotor. Further refinements included reducing the rpm, especially in forward flight below maximum speed. To the untrained ear, it appeared that the helicopters were much farther away, not heading in, but away from a target. There were also changes that reduced the chances of returning radar signals. Retractable landing gears and fairings over the rotor hubs cut down the radar cross-section (RCS). And sharp edges, standard on the UH-60s, were replaced with curved surfaces coated in a special silver-loaded infrared skin. These important
”
”
Gary Grossman (Executive Command)
“
It would be foolish to say that the mutiny that led to the massacre of hundreds, their limp bodies lying across Matilda's corridors, began with Aster, who after all was only a woman, a small and largely unliked woman, whose heart was no more prone to thoughts of violence than any other who'd endured the decades of trauma that characterize all who lived in the low decks. She was stubborn and recalcitrant, but so were many. Like any tidal matter, a mutiny only had a middle.
The night in question, the night a storyteller might falsely call the beginning, Matilda percussed. Aster couldn't shut away the ship's metallic effervescence as she traveled back to her quarters from the Bowels, so instead she feed off the resultant overstimulation. There were worse things than being a motherless child. Without a past, Aster was boundless. She could metamorphose. She could be a shiny, magnificent, version of herself.
”
”
Rivers Solomon (An Unkindness of Ghosts)
“
Hip-Hop, the whole chemistry of that came from Jamaica, cause I'm West Indian. I was born in Jamaica. I was listening to American music in Jamaica and my favorite artist was James Brown. That's who inspired me. A lot of the records I played were by James Brown. When I came over here I just had to put it in the American style and a drum and bass. So what I did here was go right to the “yoke.” I cut off all anticipation and played the beats. I'd find out where the break in the record was at and prolong it and people would love it. So I was giving them their own taste and beat percussion wise. Cause my music is all about heavy bass.66
”
”
DeForrest Brown Jr (Assembling a Black Counter Culture)
“
distorted in metallic sludge sluggishly warns at the beginning of the album 1999 (1982) and its titular radio single. Draped over the cyber-sexual percussive synths and guitar licks are lyrics that translate fears of communal death due to the quickening pace of technological growth: “I was dreamin’ when I wrote this / Forgive me if
”
”
DeForrest Brown Jr (Assembling a Black Counter Culture)
“
Daivi Astra: Daivi = Divine; Astra = Weapon. A term used in ancient Hindu epics to describe weapons of mass destruction Dandakaranya: Aranya = forest. Dandak is the ancient name for modern Maharashtra and parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. So Dandakaranya means the forests of Dandak Deva: God Dharma: Dharma literally translates as religion. But in traditional Hindu belief, it means far more than that. The word encompasses holy, right knowledge, right living, tradition, natural order of the universe and duty. Essentially, dharma refers to everything that can be classified as ‘good’ in the universe. It is the Law of Life Dharmayudh: The holy war Dhobi: Washerman Divyadrishti: Divine sight Dumru: A small, hand-held, hour-glass shaped percussion instrument Egyptian women: Historians believe that ancient Egyptians, just like ancient Indians, treated their women with respect. The anti-women attitude attributed to Swuth and the assassins of Aten is fictional. Having said that, like most societies, ancient Egyptians also had some patriarchal segments in their society, which did, regrettably, have an appalling attitude towards women Fire song: This is a song sung by Guna warriors to agni (fire). They also had songs dedicated to the other elements viz: bhūmi (earth), jal (water), pavan (air or wind), vyom or shunya or akash (ether or void or sky) Fravashi: Is the guardian spirit mentioned in the Avesta, the sacred writings of the Zoroastrian religion. Although, according to most researchers, there is no physical description of Fravashi, the language grammar of Avesta clearly shows it to be feminine. Considering the importance given to fire in ancient Hinduism and Zoroastrianism, I’ve assumed the Fravashi to be represented by fire. This is, of course, a fictional representation Ganesh-Kartik relationship: In northern India, traditional myths hold Lord Kartik as older than Lord Ganesh; in large parts of southern India, Lord Ganesh is considered elder. In my story, Ganesh is older than Kartik. What is the truth? Only Lord Shiva knows Guruji: Teacher; ji is a term of respect, added to a name or title Gurukul: The family of the guru or the family of the teacher. In ancient times, also used to denote a school Har Har Mahadev: This is the rallying cry of Lord Shiva’s devotees. I believe it means ‘All of us are Mahadevs’ Hariyupa: This city is currently known as Harappa. A note on the cities of Meluha (or as we call it in modern times, the Indus Valley Civilisation): historians and researchers have consistently marvelled at the fixation that the Indus Valley Civilisation seemed to have for water and hygiene. In fact historian M Jansen used the term ‘wasserluxus’ (obsession with water) to describe their magnificent obsession with the physical and symbolic aspects of water, a term Gregory Possehl builds upon in his brilliant book, The Indus Civilisation — A Contemporary Perspective. In the book, The Immortals
”
”
Amish Tripathi (The Oath of the Vayuputras (Shiva Trilogy #3))