Pin Board Quotes

She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.

I KNEW IT WAS OVER when tonight you couldn't make the phone ring when you used to make the sun rise when trees used to throw themselves in front of you to be paper for love letters that was how i knew i had to do it swaddle the kids we never had against january's cold slice bundle them in winter clothes they never needed so i could drop them off at my mom's even though she lives on the other side of the country and at this late west coast hour is assuredly east coast sleeping peacefully her house was lit like a candle the way homes should be warm and golden and home and the kids ran in and jumped at the bichon frise named lucky that she never had they hugged the dog it wriggled and the kids were happy yours and mine the ones we never had and my mom was grand maternal, which is to say, with style that only comes when you've seen enough to know grace like when to pretend it's christmas or a birthday so she lit her voice with tiny lights and pretended she didn't see me crying as i drove away to the hotel connected to the bar where i ordered the cheapest whisky they had just because it shares your first name because they don't make a whisky called baby and i only thought what i got was what i ordered i toasted the hangover inevitable as sun that used to rise in your name i toasted the carnivals we never went to and the things you never won for me the ferris wheels we never kissed on and all the dreams between us that sat there like balloons on a carney's board waiting to explode with passion but slowly deflated hung slave under the pin- prick of a tack hung heads down like lovers when it doesn't work, like me at last call after too many cheap too many sweet too much whisky makes me sick, like the smell of cheap, like the smell of the dead like the cheap, dead flowers you never sent that i never threw out of the window of a car i never really owned

Many of us learn to construct a clear and precise vision of what we want, but we’re never taught how to enjoy what we actually have. There will always be more victories to strive for, more strangers to charm, more images to collect and pin to our vision boards. It’s hard to want what we have; it’s far easier to want everything in the world.

The office Halloween party was at the Royalton last week and I went as a mass murderer, complete with a sign painted on my back that read MASS MURDERER (which was decidedly lighter than the sandwich board I had constructed earlier that day that read DRILLER KILLER), and beneath those two words I had written in blood Yep, that's me and the suit was also covered with blood, some of it fake, most of it real. In one fist I clenched a hank of Victoria Bell's hair, and pinned next to my boutonniere (a small white rose) was a finger bone I'd boiled the flesh off of. As elaborate as my costume was, Craig McDermott still managed to win first place in the competition. He came as Ivan Boesky, which I thought was unfair since a lot of people thought I'd gone as Michael Milken last year. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about Home Abortion Kits.

Gratitude means you stop focusing on what you don’t have and start focusing on what you do have.

Your life tomorrow will be determined by the words you speak today.

If you believe in your heart, and do not doubt in your mind.

I AM ALWAYS DOING THAT WHICH I CANNOT DO, IN ORDER THAT I MAY LEARN HOW TO DO IT. –PABLO PICASSO

All the reading of weight-loss books and purchasing of fitness equipment won’t change a thing until you first guard your words.

turn your complaints into praise and watch what God can do!

As Joyce Meyer candidly puts it, “Complain and Remain.

Get into a habit of literally saying out loud or quietly under your breath, “Thank You, Jesus,” and say it for everything.

Was it more obscene to say it, to write it, or to set it in type? On the breath it could taken by a breeze or crowded out by chatter; it could be misheard or ignored. On the page it was a real thing. It had been caught and pinned to a board, its letters spread in a particular way so that anyone who saw it would know what it was.

There was a world beyond her world, Florence knew, that was entirely foreign to her. Every once in a while, someone took this other world in their hands and rattled it, dislodging a small piece that fell at her feet with a plink. She gathered up these fragments like an entomologist gathers rare bugs to pin to a board.

Heroes in fact die with one's youth. They are pinned like butterflies to the setting board of early memories—the time when skies were always blue, the sun shone and the air was filled with the sounds and scents of grass being cut. I find myself still as desperate to read the Sussex score in the stop-press as ever I was; but I no longer worship heroes, beings for whom the ordinary scales of human values are inadequate. One learns that as one grows up, so do the gods grow down. It is in many ways a pity: for one had thought that heroes had no problems of their own. Now one knows different!

Change What You’re Saying and You’ll Change What You’re Seeing

He’d looked at us like we were butterflies he was pinning to a board.

Please try to understand this: I have always thought that if there was a big corkboard and on that board was a pin for every person who ever lived, there would be no pin for me.

YOU WILL NEVER LEAVE WHERE YOU ARE UNTIL YOU SEE WHERE YOU’D RATHER BE! –

Spending a lifetime pinned, like a butterfly to a board, seems like a waste when i was made to fly.

I strip myself emotionally when I confess need – that I would be lost without you, that I am not necessarily the independent person I have tried to appear, but am a far less admirable weakling with little clue of life’s course or meaning. When I cry and tell you things I trust you will keep for yourself, that would destroy me if others were to learn of them, when I give up the game of gazing seductively at parties and admit it’s you I care about, I am stripping myself of a carefully sculpted illusion of invulnerability. I become as defenseless and trusting as the person in the circus trick, strapped to a board into which another is throwing knives to within inches of my skin, knives I have myself freely given. I allow you to see me humiliated, unsure of myself, vacillating, drained of self-confidence, hating myself and hence unable to convince you [should I need to] to do otherwise. I am weak when I have shown you my panicked face at three in the morning, anxious before existence, free of the blustering, optimistic philosophies I had proclaimed over dinner. I learn to accept the enormous risk that though I am not the confident pin-up of everyday life, though you have at hand an exhaustive catalogue of my fears and phobias, you may nevertheless love me.

I felt, suddenly, pinned in place. Without breath. Without time or motion - like a butterfly stuck to a board with a needle through its thorax. What is anger, anyway? What does anger do? My mother was not an angry person. Or at least I don't think she was. My aunt was so angry that it became too much for her own body. It destroyed her house and swallowed her husband and left a broken family behind. I didn't want that, but I didn't know what to do with my anger. I felt the wold shake, and I felt my skin burn, and I let out a volcano of words that rattled my teeth as they came out.

Elizabeth hadn’t killed herself. She’d been murdered. Women were butterflies to be pinned against a board. Poor child, she couldn’t know her fate yet.

It isn’t really possible for men to understand how much the world doesn’t want women to be complete people. The most important thing a woman can be, in our society—more important, even, than honest or decent—is identifiable. Even when Libby’s evil—perhaps most of all when she’s evil—she’s easy to categorize, to stick to a board with a pin like some scientific specimen. Those men in Stillwater are terrified of her because being terrified lets them know who she is—it keeps them safe. Imagine how much harder it would be to say, yes, she’s a woman capable of terrible anger and violence, but she’s also someone who’s tried desperately to be a nurturer, to be a good and constructive human being. If you accept all that, if you allow that inside she’s not just one or the other, but both, what does that say about all the other women in town? How will you ever be able to tell what’s actually going on in their hearts—and heads? Life in the simple village would suddenly become immensely complicated. And so, to keep that from happening, they separate things. The normal, ordinary woman is defined as nurturing and loving, docile and compliant. Any female who defies that categorization must be so completely evil that she’s got to be feared, feared even more than the average criminal—she’s got to be invested with the powers of the Devil himself. A witch, they probably would have called her in the old days. Because she’s not just breaking the law, she’s defying the order of things.

soldering himself. When they completed a board, they would hand it off to Wozniak. “I would plug each assembled board into the TV and keyboard to test it to see if it worked,” he said. “If it did, I put it in a box. If it didn’t, I’d figure what pin hadn’t gotten into the socket right.” Paul Jobs suspended

Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes" First, her tippet made of tulle, easily lifted off her shoulders and laid on the back of a wooden chair. And her bonnet, the bow undone with a light forward pull. Then the long white dress, a more complicated matter with mother-of-pearl buttons down the back, so tiny and numerous that it takes forever before my hands can part the fabric, like a swimmer’s dividing water, and slip inside. You will want to know that she was standing by an open window in an upstairs bedroom, motionless, a little wide-eyed, looking out at the orchard below, the white dress puddled at her feet on the wide-board, hardwood floor. The complexity of women’s undergarments in nineteenth-century America is not to be waved off, and I proceeded like a polar explorer through clips, clasps, and moorings, catches, straps, and whalebone stays, sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness. Later, I wrote in a notebook it was like riding a swan into the night, but, of course, I cannot tell you everything— the way she closed her eyes to the orchard, how her hair tumbled free of its pins, how there were sudden dashes whenever we spoke. What I can tell you is it was terribly quiet in Amherst that Sabbath afternoon, nothing but a carriage passing the house, a fly buzzing in a windowpane. So I could plainly hear her inhale when I undid the very top hook-and-eye fastener of her corset and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed, the way some readers sigh when they realize that Hope has feathers, that Reason is a plank, that Life is a loaded gun that looks right at you with a yellow eye.

I feel vaugely that you're paying me a compliment', returned Mrs. Crowley, 'but it's so elusive that I can't quite catch it.' 'The best compliments are those that flutter about your head like butterflies around a flower.' 'I much prefer to fix them down on a board with a pin through their insides and a narrow strip of paper to hold down each wing.

I propose that English poetry and biology should be taught as usual, but that at irregular intervals, poetry students should find dogfishes on their desks and biology students should find Shakespeare sonnets on their dissecting boards. I am serious in declaring that a Sarah Lawrence English major who began poking about in a dogfish with a bobby pin would learn more in thirty minutes than a biology major in a whole semester; and that the latter upon reading on her dissecting board That time of year Thou may’st in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold— Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang. might catch fire at the beauty of it.

The past lived on in her hands, the way they'd shaken when Mitzi took her first DAT into a pitch. The memory lived as pain in her scalp, the old tug of her hair. She'd such long hair back then. High school-long hair, she'd pulled it tight, knotting it into a French braid she'd pinned down. Her French braid pinned to the back of her head, pinned as cruelly as any butterfly or scarab beetle pinned to the board in freshman-year Biology of Insects.

I do not understand how men can kill such beauty. There can be no joy, surely, in capturing such a masterpiece of evolution, gassing it with chloroform or squeezing its thorax until it is dead, setting it on a cork board until rigor mortis is advanced then pinning it, frozen by death, in a glass-topped case, hung over with a curtain to keep the light from fading the colours. To me, this is the height of frivolous insanity.Nothing can be gained from killing a butterfly. Killing a man is a different matter.

It starts with a craving to fill the long evening downslant. There will be whole wide days of watching winter drag her skirts cross the mud-yard from east to west, going nowhere. You will want to nail down all these wadded handfuls of time, to stick-pin them to the blocking board, frame them on a 24-stitch gauge. Ten to the inch, ten rows to the hour, straggling trellises of days held fast in the acreage of a shawl. Time by this means will be domesticated and cannot run away. (In Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting)

By the close of the nineteenth century her studies with her father were being supplemented by tuition in the classics from Dr Warr of King’s College, Kensington, and from Clara Pater, sister of the English essayist and critic Walter Pater (1839–94). Woolf was very fond of Clara and an exchange between them later became the basis for her short story ‘Moments of Being: Slater’s Pins Have No Points’ (1928). Thoby boarded at Clifton College, Bristol, Adrian was a dayboy at Westminster School, and Vanessa attended Cope’s School of Art. Thoby, and later Adrian, eventually went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and Vanessa undertook training in the visual arts (attending the Slade School of Fine Art for a while). From 1902 Virginia’s tuition in classics passed from Clara Pater to the very capable Janet Case, one of the first graduates from Girton College, Cambridge, and a committed feminist. The sisters visited Cambridge a number of times to meet Thoby, whose friends there included Clive Bell 1881–1964), Lytton Strachey (1880– 1932), Leonard Woolf (1880–1969) and Saxon Sydney-Turner.

I had thought, in going to Oxford, that what I wanted to do was study books, pin their pages to the bulletin board like a butterfly collector and analyze the patterns in their wings. But I realized—that wasn’t it. And while I feel extraordinarily satisfied when I find the right word for the right occasion, I don’t think my future lies in being an author. No. I don’t want to be the creator or the scientist. I want to be the shepherd, the person who knows books so well that he can help make books even better than they were when they came out of the author’s mind.

a small but functional kitchen which seemed overwhelmed by the sheer volume of assorted cookware. Pots, pans, cutting boards, strainers, even a damn rolling pin lay strewn about—as if at any moment Suzy Homemaker might burst in to bake us a fucking souffle. Now, before you start defending your God-given right to bear Teflon, keep in mind I have nothing against people who religiously cook their own meals—I simply don’t understand them. Especially my fellow city dwellers. I mean, why waste all that time preparing dinner when you live in a town chock full of restaurants and bars that deliver damn near 24/7?

... They're really going to mash the world up this time, the damn fools. When I read that description of the victims of Nagasaki I was sick: "And we saw what first looked like lizards crawling up the hill, croaking. It got lighter and we could see that it was humans, their skin burned off, and their bodies broken where they had been thrown against something." Sounds like something out of a horror story. God save us from doing that again. For the United States did that. Our guilt. My country. No, never again. And then one reads in the papers "Second bomb blast in Nevada bigger than the first! " What obsession do men have for destruction and murder? Why do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled "enemy?" Weren't the Russians communists when they helped us slap down the Germans? And now. What could we do with the Russian nation if we bombed it to bits? How could we "rule" such a mass of foreign people - - - we, who don't even speak the Russian language? How could we control them under our "democratic" system, we, who even now are losing that precious commodity, freedom of speech? (Mr. Crockett," that dear man, was questioned by the town board. A supposedly "enlightened" community. All he is is a pacifist. That, it seems, is a crime.) Why do we send the pride of our young men overseas to be massacred for three dirty miles of nothing but earth? Korea was never divided into "North" and "South." They are one people; and our democracy is of no use to those who have not been educated to it. Freedom is not of use to those who do not know how to employ it. When I think of that little girl on the farm talking about her brother - "And he said all they can think of over there is killing those God-damn Koreans." What does she know of war? Of lizard-like humans crawling up a hillside? All she knows is movies and school room gossip. Oh, America's young, strong. So is Russia. And how they can think of atom-bombing each other, I don't know. What will be left? War will come some day now, with all the hothead leaders and articles "What If Women are Drafted?" Hell, I'd sooner be a citizen of Africa than see America mashed and bloody and making a fool of herself. This country has a lot, but we're not always right and pure. And what of the veterans of the first and second world wars? The maimed, the crippled. What good their lives? Nothing. They rot in the hospitals, and we forget them. I could love a Russian boy - and live with him. It's the living, the eating, the sleeping that everyone needs. Ideas don't matter so much after all. My three best friends are Catholic. I can't see their beliefs, but I can see the things they love to do on earth. When you come right down to it, I do believe in the freedom of the individual - but to kill off all the ones who could forge a strong nation? How foolish! Of what good - living and freedom without home, without family, without all that makes life?

We need to talk about that comment you just made. Something about how you won't attract notice?" "Yes. Well, what of it?" He put his hands on the dressing table, one on either side of her hips. His blue eyes pinned her, as surely as if she'd been a butterfly pinned to a board. "Like hell you won't attract notice," he said. "You have my notice." Maddie squirmed, trying to escape. "Really, we'll be late. We should be leaving." He didn't budge. "Not just yet." "But I thought you were in a hurry." "I have time for this." The words were a low growl that sank to her belly and simmered there. He leaned close enough that she could breathe in the scent of his clean hair and skin, along with the faint aromas of soap and starched linen. She'd never drawn a more arousing breath. "You may say you dinna want to attract notice. Well, I notice all of you." He tipped his head, letting his gaze saunter down her body. "In fact, I'm starting to fancy myself a sort of naturalist. One with verra particular interests. I'm becoming quite the expert in Madeline Eloise Gracechurch." "Logan..." "And lass, you canna stop me.

5236 rue St. Urbain The baby girl was a quick learner, having synthesized a full range of traits of both of her parents, the charming and the devious. Of all the toddlers in the neighbourhood, she was the first to learn to read and also the first to tear out the pages. Within months she mastered the grilling of the steaks and soon thereafter presented reasons to not grill the steaks. She was the first to promote a new visceral style of physical comedy as a means of reinvigorate the social potential of satire, and the first to declare the movement over. She appreciated the qualities of movement and speed, but also understood the necessity of slowness and leisure. She quickly learned the importance of ladders. She invented games with numerous chess-boards, matches and glasses of unfinished wine. Her parents, being both responsible and duplicitous people, came up with a plan to protect themselves, their apartment and belongings, while also providing an environment to encourage the open development of their daughter's obvious talents. They scheduled time off work, put on their pajamas and let the routines of the apartment go. They put their most cherished books right at her eye-level and gave her a chrome lighter. They blended the contents of the fridge and poured it into bowls they left on the floor. They took to napping in the living room, waking only to wipe their noses on the picture books and look blankly at the costumed characters on the TV shows. They made a fuss for their daughter's attention and cried when she wandered off; they bit or punched each other when she out of the room, and accused the other when she came in, looking frustrated. They made a mess of their pants when she drank too much, and let her figure out the fire extinguisher when their cigarettes set the blankets smoldering. They made her laugh with cute songs and then put clothes pins on the cat's tail. Eventually things found their rhythm. More than once the three of them found their faces waxened with tears, unable to decide if they had been crying, laughing, or if it had all been a reflex, like drooling. They took turns in the bath. Parents and children--it is odd when you trigger instinctive behaviour in either of them--like survival, like nurture. It's alright to test their capabilities, but they can hurt themselves if they go too far. It can be helpful to imagine them all gorging on their favourite food until their bellies ache. Fall came and the family went to school together.

Great are the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight in them. —Psalm 111:2 (NIV) The church I attend recently celebrated its 150th anniversary. It’s been a festive year, replete with special dinners, panel discussions, and a book on the church’s history. But what amazed me even more were all the little stories that formed the big story—those quiet, individual witnesses of faith who, taken together, made up this grand sweep of 150 years. One woman has been a member for nearly half the church’s life. Fifty-two Sundays times seven decades is how many church services? “You’ve heard thousands of sermons!” I said. “What do you remember about the best ones?” She smiled. “The best sermons are the ones I think about all week. Because then I know God is working in me.” That simple lesson of faith was the start of a new practice for me. When I hear a phrase or sentence in a sermon that especially strikes me, I’ll write it down on the bulletin or on whatever I have handy. (Once it was the palm of my hand!) Then I pin that phrase to the bulletin board behind my computer. This week’s was: May God give me the grace to understand that the world is too small for anything but Love. I see it every day, reminding me to ponder how I might live that message. Like my friend at church, I’ve been able to see in a new way how God is working in my life—all week long. Guide my life, God, by Your Words; that in hearing them, I may live according to Your wishes. —Jeff Japinga Digging Deeper: Pss 105, 111, 119:18; 1 Pt 2:2

He went to look closely at the painting, which portrayed a parade of fat white geese strolling past the doorway of a cottage. "Someday I'll be able to afford real art," Garrett said, coming to stand beside him. "In the meantime, we'll have to make do with this." Ethan's attention was drawn to the tiny initials in the corner of the work: G.G. A slow smile broke over his face. "You painted it?" "Art class, at boarding school," she admitted. "I wasn't bad at sketching, but the only subject I could manage to paint adequately was geese. At one point I tried to expand my repertoire to ducks, but those earned lower marks, so it was back to geese after that." Ethan smiled, imagining her as a studious schoolgirl with long braids. The light of a glass-globe parlor lamp slid across the tidy pinned-up weight of her hair, bringing out gleams of red and gold. He'd never seen anything like her skin, fine and powerless, with a faint glow like a blush-colored garden rose. "What gave you the idea to paint geese in the first place?" he asked. "There was a goose pond across from the school," Garrett said, staring absently at the picture. "Sometimes I saw Miss Primrose at the front windows, watching with binoculars. One day I dared to ask her what she found so interesting about geese, and she told me they had a capacity for attachment and grief that rivaled humans. They mated for life, she said. If a goose was injured, the gander would stay with her even if the rest of the flock was flying south. When one of a mated pair died, the other would lose its appetite and go off to mourn in solitude.

Fifty miles out of Prague, the halved carcass of a freshly killed hog hangs, still steaming in the cold, from what looks like a child’s swing set. It’s a wet, drizzling morning and your feet are sopping and you’ve been warming yourself against the chill by huddling around the small fire over which a pot of pig parts boils. The butcher’s family and friends are drinking slivovitz and beer, and though noon is still a few hours off, you’ve had quite a few of both. Someone calls you inside to the tiled workspace, where the butcher has mixed the pig’s blood with cooked onions and spices and crumbs of country bread, and he’s ready to fill the casings. Usually, they slip the casing over a metal tube, turn on the grinding machine, cram in the forcemeat or filling, and the sausages fill like magic. This guy does it differently. He chops everything by hand. A wet mesa of black filling covers his cutting board, barely retaining its shape—yet he grabs the casing in one hand, puts two fingers in one open end, makes the “V” sign, stretching it disturbingly, and reaches with the other—then buries both his hands in the mix. A whirlwind of movement as he squeezes with his right hand, using his palm like a funnel, somehow squirting the bloody, barely containable stuff straight into the opening. He does this again and again with breathtaking speed, mowing his way across the wooden table, like a thresher cutting a row through a cornfield, a long, plump, rapidly growing, glistening, fully filled length of sausage engorging to his left as he moves. It’s a dark, purplish color through the translucent membrane. An assistant pinches off links, pins them with broken bits of wooden skewer. In moments, they are done.

They're really going to mash the world up this time, the damn fools. When I read that description of the victims of Nagasaki I was sick: "And we saw what first looked like lizards crawling up the hill, croaking. It got lighter and we could see that it was humans, their skin burned off, and their bodies broken where they had been thrown against something." Sounds like something out of a horror story. God save us from doing that again. For the United States did that. Our guilt. My country. No, never again. And then one reads in the papers "Second bomb blast in Nevada bigger than the first! " What obsession do men have for destruction and murder? Why do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled "enemy?" Weren't the Russians communists when they helped us slap down the Germans? And now. What could we do with the Russian nation if we bombed it to bits? How could we "rule" such a mass of foreign people - - - we, who don't even speak the Russian language? How could we control them under our "democratic" system, we, who even now are losing that precious commodity, freedom of speech? (Mr. Crockett," that dear man, was questioned by the town board. A supposedly "enlightened" community. All he is is a pacifist. That, it seems, is a crime.) Why do we send the pride of our young men overseas to be massacred for three dirty miles of nothing but earth? Korea was never divided into "North" and "South." They are one people; and our democracy is of no use to those who have not been educated to it. Freedom is not of use to those who do not know how to employ it. When I think of that little girl on the farm talking about her brother - "And he said all they can think of over there is killing those God-damn Koreans." What does she know of war? Of lizard-like humans crawling up a hillside? All she knows is movies and school room gossip. Oh, America's young, strong. So is Russia. And how they can think of atom-bombing each other, I don't know. What will be left? War will come some day now, with all the hothead leaders and articles "What If Women are Drafted?" Hell, I'd sooner be a citizen of Africa than see America mashed and bloody and making a fool of herself. This country has a lot, but we're not always right and pure. And what of the veterans of the first and second world wars? The maimed, the crippled. What good their lives? Nothing. They rot in the hospitals, and we forget them. I could love a Russian boy - and live with him. It's the living, the eating, the sleeping that everyone needs. Ideas don't matter so much after all. My three best friends are Catholic. I can't see their beliefs, but I can see the things they love to do on earth. When you come right down to it, I do believe in the freedom of the individual - but to kill off all the ones who could forge a strong nation? How foolish! Of what good - living and freedom without home, without family, without all that makes life?

People used to recordings believed every piece of music had a definitive sound, its emotional context trapped in amber, a butterfly pinned to a board; beautiful, but dead. Live music was just that. Alive.

her on the dorm board. We had only twenty girls in a batch of two hundred. Goodlooking ones were rare; girls don't get selected to IIM for their looks. They get in because they can solve mathematical problems faster than 99.99% of India's population and crack the CAT. Most IIM girls are above shallow things like makeup, fitting clothes, contact lenses, removal of facial hair, body odour and feminine charm. Girls like Ananya, if and when they arrive by freak chance, become instant pin-ups in out testosterone-charged, estrogen-starved campus.

There’s a primer,” continued Lightfoote. “I know it. I just can’t figure it out. There’s a measuring stick in this mess!” Lopez sighed. “So you’ve been saying since dawn. But it’s a quarter to five and there hasn’t been anything more. Don’t you get hangovers?” “Cyborg.” “Right. I’d forgotten.” They’d been staring at the reconstructed image for hours, assembled on the computer from several photos Houston had taken, completing the half obtained from Fawkes’s file. “What do you make of it, Francisco?” Houston had asked after they stitched the images together. “Nothing,” he’d sighed. “Just more crazy.” But from early on Lightfoote had disagreed. As the night had limped by, she continued staring at the news clippings, scrap paper, words and diagrams, equations and images John Nash had taped and pinned together across the giant poster board. “Look. This isn’t coincidence. Numbers!” she gestured to

You can map out a whole city according to the weight of memory, like pins on the homicide board tracking the killer's movements. But the connections get thicker and denser and more complicated all the time.

There's an old Army officer tradition. When you leave a post, you write 'ppc' on the back of your business card and pin it to the officers' club bulletin board or similar public place. 'Ppc' is an acronym for a French term pour prendre conge, in English, 'to take leave.' It was our final departing courtesy

and egg from her fingers she wiped her hands and went out to the café. ‘You’re not running in this hideous weather, are you?’ She took in her friend’s running gear, the autumn long-sleeved top now with the addition of a body warmer, a knitted hat, and gloves. ‘Can’t always use weather as an excuse,’ she puffed, a faint sound still coming from the earbuds that hung waiting around her neck. ‘I’d get far too lazy if I did.’ ‘Well, I’m in awe,’ Jo admitted. ‘It’s so cosy in here.’ Jess took in the twinkly lights which stood out all the more when it was so miserable outside. ‘And the tree smells beautiful.’ She sniffed in the scent that would soon be mingled with the smell of baking. ‘I almost don’t want to venture outside again, but I must, so it’s a banana smoothie to go for me, please.’ ‘Coming right up.’ Jo went out to the kitchen and chopped the fruit, poured milk, drizzled honey and had the takeaway drink whizzed up in no time. Jess was perusing the postcards board by the time Jo came out with her smoothie and a paper straw to push through the lid on top. She was repinning the card that had come today. Locals were invited to read the cards at their leisure – it was a big part of the community feel in the café. ‘Harry seems to be having fun,’ she said, closing her eyes briefly at the refreshing first sip of her drink. ‘It was sitting on the mat this morning when I got here.’ It had fallen through the letterbox at the bottom of the door and landed writing side up and Jo’s heart had skipped a beat when she unlocked the door to the café, hoping with everything she had that the card was from her secret admirer, but when she’d seen Harry’s name she’d shaken away the thought, glad she could pin up a card from someone who would always be a friend. She was so pleased he’d found a fresh start and seemed happy and she was even happier she hadn’t let nostalgia

apple turnovers Ingredients for Turnovers 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt ¾ cup shortening ½ cup whole milk 6 medium baking apples, peeled, cored, and cut into quarters 6 tablespoons sugar Ground cinnamon Ground nutmeg Ingredients for Syrup 2 cups granulated sugar ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg 2 cups water ¼ cup unsalted butter Directions for Turnovers Preheat the oven to 375°F. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the shortening until crumbly. Add the milk and stir until all of the flour is moistened. Form the dough into a ball. Using a floured rolling pin, roll two-thirds of the dough into a 14-inch square on a generously floured, cloth-covered board. Cut into 4 squares. Roll the remaining dough into a 14 × 7-inch rectangle. Cut into 2 squares. Place 4 apple quarters on each pastry square. Sprinkle each square with 1 tablespoon sugar and a sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg. Bring the corners of each pastry up over the apple quarters and press together. Directions for Syrup In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and water to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter. Assembly Place the turnovers in a buttered 9 × 13-inch baking dish. Pour the syrup over the turnovers (reserve some for later). Bake about 45 minutes, until the crust is golden and the apples are tender. Spoon the remaining syrup over the turnovers. Serve warm with Heavenly Homemade Whipped Cream (recipe follows). Serves 6

The mind flies out to objects of its love And finds impenetrable forms and shapes That you can formulate when you pin down Each butterfly of thought upon your board. from “Letter to an Imaginary Brazil

He heard them crying the news in the street. And shrugging his shoulders applied himself to the great green board on which were pinned sheets of symbols: a frolic of xs controlled by ys and embraced by more cryptic symbols still: which, if juggled together would eventually, he was sure, positive, produce the one word, the simple, the sufficient the comprehensive word which will solve all problems forever. It was time to begin. He began.”26

Cherry Cream Cheese Surprise Recipe   Ingredients: From Scratch Pie Crust: (8 or 9 inch pie crust) 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon shortening (Crisco) OR 1/3 cup lard 1 cup all-purpose flour ½ teaspoon salt 2 to 3 tablespoons cold water Steps: Cut shortening into flour and salt until particles are the size of small peas.  Sprinkle in water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing with a fork until all flour is moistened and pastry almost cleans side of bowl (1 to 2 tablespoons water can be added, if needed.) Gather pastry into a ball.  Flatten the ball on a lightly floured cloth-covered board. (A hard, floured surface will also work.) Roll pastry 2 inches larger than inverted pie plate using floured rolling pin.  (Note: I use a lightly floured spatula to loosen the piecrust from the surface.) Fold pastry into quarters, unfold and ease into lightly greased pie plate, pressing firmly against bottom and sides of plate.  Trim overhang excess and then press fork tines along rim of pie plate.  Cream Cheese Layer: 8 ounces whipped cream cheese ½ cup white sugar ½ tsp. vanilla extract Mix ingredients and spread on the bottom and sides of the piecrust. Mix 1 tablespoon brown sugar and ½ teaspoon cinnamon together and sprinkle over top of cream cheese mixture.   PREHEAT OVEN TO 375 DEGREES. Cherry Pie Filling: 4 cups fresh or frozen cherries, thawed (if frozen, make sure to drain juice after thawing) ¾ cup sugar 3 tbsp cornstarch or Mix ingredients and pour on top of cream cheese/brown sugar and cinnamon mixture. Topping: 2/3 cup packed brown sugar ½ cup all-purpose flour ½ cup oats ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon ¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg ½ cup margarine or butter, softened Mix ingredients and sprinkle over top of cherry mixture.   Bake 30 minutes at 375 degrees.  *For a quicker, easier version, substitute with a refrigerated (ready-to-bake) pie crust and 2 cans of cherry pie filling. *Serve warm with ice cream…or eat a piece for breakfast with a fresh cup of coffee .

at dizzying speed, shifting her unsettled stomach into epic nausea. I didn’t have that much to drink. She’d been at the bar for less than an hour, waiting with her friends from the hostel for the legendary lady boys to appear. The thought that the bartender had spiked her beer skated across her mind, but she rejected the idea. Why drug a customer who was obviously part of the backpacking crowd and wouldn’t have much money? The motorized rickshaw turned down an unfamiliar street, heading in the opposite direction from the hostel. “Wait—where are we going?” she asked, her breathing shallow. The words echoed in her brain, like she was standing in a hole.  Slowly, she swiveled her head. Alak, the guy she’d been talking to who worked at the hostel, sat across the seat studying her closely, as though she were an insect pinned to a bug board. Frowning, she glanced in the rearview mirror. The driver was watching

Richard had sold Gillian's piano. He'd offered to ship it out to California, but neither Jess nor Emily played. Emily had quit her lessons at "Streets of Laredo" and Jess only got as far as "The Teddy Bears' Picnic." They had Gillian's jewelry, but she hadn't collected much. She had never liked necklaces or earrings. In fact, she'd never pierced her ears. She'd preferred a rosebush or two for her birthday, or a standing mixer. "This is very sticky dough," she would tell Emily as she rolled it out. "It's very difficult to work with this dough, because it's so short. You see?" She dusted the rolling pin and board with more flour and rolled briskly, as if to tame the stiff pastry, which she then cut into circles with an overturned teacup, or filled with honeyed poppy seeds, or spread into a glass pan to bake a cake with luscious prunes, their sweetness undercut with lemon. Nothing too sweet. That was the secret. Gillian said as much to Emily in her "Sixteenth Birthday" letter. 'Don't doctor recipes. More is less, and sugar will only get you so far.

An official Taliban gazette published a week before the September 11 attacks clarified the following list of items formally banned in the Islamic Emirate: “The pig itself; pork; pig fat; objects made of human hair; natural human hair; dish antennas; sets for cinematography and sound recording projectors; sets for microphotography, in case it is used in the cinema; all instruments which themselves produce music, such as the piano, the harmonium, the flute, the tabla, the tanbour, the sarangi; billiard tables and their accessories; chess boards; carom boards; playing cards; masks; any alcoholic beverage; all audio cassettes, video cassettes, computers and television which include sex and music; centipedes; lobsters (a kind of sea animal); nail polish; firecrackers; fireworks (for children); all kinds of cinematographic films, even though they may be sent abroad; all statues of animate beings in general; all sewing catalogues which have photos of animate beings; published tableaus (photos); Christmas cards; greeting cards bearing images of living things; neckties; bows (the thing which strengthens the necktie); necktie pins.

Danger to her was just another game that her smarts and good looks and privelege would see her through safely, but danger is not a game. Danger is a casually violent Viking. It doesn’t care about motivation or intention or explanations. When it sits opposite and offers you the cup and dice, you either walk away or play full throttle. Danger, with its well-used axe and huge ham hands, is out to take you for all you’re worth. Luck can work for or against you, but danger loads the dice, it cheats, and when it does have to pin its hard to the boards with a knife, no hesitation. She wasn’t ruthless enough, she didn’t understand enough.

What does 'chef' mean?" "Uh, 'chief,'" he replies. "That's right. Chief. The person in charge. I have just been appointed executive chef, which means I'm the number one in charge here, and I'm now announcing that a few things are going to change. First off- Paul, listen up here- we will treat each other with respect. So that means no more names that you pretend to think are cute and funny but that we all know are incredibly shitty. If I hear anyone throwing around racial or ethnic or sexist slurs, there will be consequences. And those consequences may or may not include me pinning your willie to that bulletin board." She gestures to the corkboard where schedules and messages are posted. A few of the men in the crowd wince.

The Polite Wassermann. Margaret Trabert lay on the blood-shot candlewick of the bedspread, unsure whether to dress now that Trabert had taken the torn flying jacket from his wardrobe. All day he had been listening to the news bulletins on the pirate stations, his eyes hidden behind the dark glasses as if deliberately concealing himself from the white walls of the apartment and its unsettled dimensions. He stood by the window with his back to her, playing with the photographs of the isolation volunteers. He looked down at her naked body, with its unique geometry of touch and feeling, as exposed now as the faces of the test subjects, codes of insoluble nightmares. The sense of her body’s failure, like the incinerated musculatures of the three astronauts whose after-deaths were now being transmitted from Cape Kennedy, had dominated their last week together. He pointed to the pallid face of a young man whose photograph he had pinned above the bed like the icon of some algebraic magus. ‘Kline, Coma, Xero - there was a fourth pilot on board the capsule. You’ve caught him in your womb.

She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds, we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.

I have always thought that if there was a big corkboard and on that board was a pin for every person who ever lived, there would be no pin for me. I feel invisible is what I mean.

My Pinterest includes boards of my future wedding, my dream house, and pins of random babies dressed up for Halloween. Basically, all my deepest desires.

I could have explained that I wanted to walk without Doofus and get some air. But it would be pretty unusual—one might even go so far as to say unheard of—for me to take a hike on a winter night when I was exhausted from boarding all day. I could also come right out and tell both of them that Nick had fallen on the slopes today and I wanted to check on him. But then Mom would suggest I take the car to his house. And then I could never pull off the charade that I just happened by his mansion while walking my dog. Besides, it was the principle of the thing—the very idea that Josh saw I wanted to walk Doofus and he was going out of his way to foil me, like a normal little brother. This made me angry. Did he want Nick to die on the floor of his bathroom from an overdose of mentholated rub? Did he want me to spend the last eighty years of my lifespan in a convent? Maybe he was mad that I was trying to sneak out of the house wearing his jeans for the third day in a row. “I am taking Doofus for another walk,” I said clearly, daring him to defy me. “That would not be good for Doofus.” Josh folded his arms. “Mom, that would not be good for Doofus.” Oh! Dragging Mom into this was low. Not to mention Doofus. “Since when is going for a walk not good for a dog?” I challenged Josh. “He’s an old dog!” Josh protested. “He’s four!” I pointed out. “That’s twenty-eight in dog years! He’s practically thirty!” “Strike!” Mom squealed amid the noise of electronic pins falling. Then she shook her game remote at both of us in turn. “I’m not stupid, you know. And I’m not as out of it as you assume. I know the two of you are really arguing about something else. It’s those jeans again, isn’t it?” She nodded to me. “I should cut them in half and give each of you a leg. Why does either of you want to wear jeans with ‘boy toy’ written across the seat anyway?” “I thought that was the fashion,” Josh said. “Grandma wears a pair of sweatpants with ‘hot mama’ written across the ass.” “That is different,” Mom hissed. “She wears them around the kitchen.” I sniffed indignantly. “I said,” I announced, “I am going for a walk with my dog. My beloved canine and I are taking a turn around our fair community. No activity could be more wholesome for a young girl and her pet. And if you have a problem with that, well! What is this world coming to? Come along, dear Doofus.” I stuck my nose in the air and stalked past them, but the effect was lost. Somewhere around “our fair community,” Mom and Josh both had lost interest and turned back to the TV. Or so I thought. But just as I was about to step outside, Josh appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the mud room. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. I said self-righteously, “I am taking my loyal canine for a w—” “You’re going to Nick’s, aren’t you?” he whispered. “Do you think that’s a good idea? I heard you yelled at him for no reason at the half-pipe, right before he busted ass.” I swallowed. Good news traveled fast. “So?” “So, why are you going over there? Best case scenario, you make out with him again and then have another fight.” Good news about everything traveled fast.

Behind the glass, dozens of butterflies were pinned to a board, cocoons beside them, stunted. Although their patterns were pretty and the metallic colours glorious, they were sad little specimens, dead and still.

Third, the idea that venture capitalists get into deals on the strength of their brands can be exaggerated. A deal seen by a partner at Sequoia will also be seen by rivals at other firms: in a fragmented cottage industry, there is no lack of competition. Often, winning the deal depends on skill as much as brand: it’s about understanding the business model well enough to impress the entrepreneur; it’s about judging what valuation might be reasonable. One careful tally concluded that new or emerging venture partnerships capture around half the gains in the top deals, and there are myriad examples of famous VCs having a chance to invest and then flubbing it.[6] Andreessen Horowitz passed on Uber. Its brand could not save it. Peter Thiel was an early investor in Stripe. He lacked the conviction to invest as much as Sequoia. As to the idea that branded venture partnerships have the “privilege” of participating in supposedly less risky late-stage investment rounds, this depends from deal to deal. A unicorn’s momentum usually translates into an extremely high price for its shares. In the cases of Uber and especially WeWork, some late-stage investors lost millions. Fourth, the anti-skill thesis underplays venture capitalists’ contributions to portfolio companies. Admittedly, these contributions can be difficult to pin down. Starting with Arthur Rock, who chaired the board of Intel for thirty-three years, most venture capitalists have avoided the limelight. They are the coaches, not the athletes. But this book has excavated multiple cases in which VC coaching made all the difference. Don Valentine rescued Atari and then Cisco from chaos. Peter Barris of NEA saw how UUNET could become the new GE Information Services. John Doerr persuaded the Googlers to work with Eric Schmidt. Ben Horowitz steered Nicira and Okta through their formative moments. To be sure, stories of venture capitalists guiding portfolio companies may exaggerate VCs’ importance: in at least some of these cases, the founders might have solved their own problems without advice from their investors. But quantitative research suggests that venture capitalists do make a positive impact: studies repeatedly find that startups backed by high-quality VCs are more likely to succeed than others.[7] A quirky contribution to this literature looks at what happens when airline routes make it easier for a venture capitalist to visit a startup. When the trip becomes simpler, the startup performs better.[8]

Creationism, though not a science, is of interest to science. Just as a dead frog pinned to a dissecting board is a legitimate object of study (and once done in schools when real science, rather than its sociological shadow, the scientific method, was studied), so Creationism can be pinned down and studied. Instead of the frog’s entrails, we need to study the psychological and cultural viscera of faith’s attack on reason. What drives individuals away from rational investigation? What drives whole groups of individuals to embrace faith, and specifically this peculiar distortion of faith, in place of the intellectual appreciation of the cosmos? How is it that faith can overpower intellect? Maybe it is fear; maybe it is cultural conditioning; maybe it is simple mental laziness; whatever, it is something not particularly admirable in the psyche.

She pictured that notebook, the X-marks Cassie had made. All Cassie’s belongings had been boxed up after seven years, the day the “presumed dead” ruling came. Mumma had made a ritual of it, calling Lily home from college to see the packing and taping and the final discarding. Lily was still heartbroken by the memory of her grieving mother, thinner than ever and brittle around the edges, eyes permanently red-rimmed and bereft. Mumma always seemed to blame herself, which was still a puzzle. And then she died, too. Lily had kept only the one scallop-edged photo, the one she now pinned to her bulletin board.

Please try to understand this: I have always thought that if there was a big corkboard and on that board was a pin for every person who ever lived, there would be no pin for me. I feel invisible, is what I mean. But I mean it in the deepest way. It is very hard to explain. And I cannot explain it except to say—oh, I don’t know what to say! Truly, it is as if I do not exist, I guess is the closest thing I can say. I mean I do not exist in the world.

To do that right, you have to prototype the whole experience—give every part the weight and reality of a physical object. Regardless of whether your product is made of atoms or bits or both, the process is the same. Draw pictures. Make models. Pin mood boards. Sketch out the bones of the process in rough wireframes. Write imaginary press releases. Create detailed mock-ups that show how a customer would travel from an ad to the website to the app and what information they would see at each touchpoint. Write up the reactions you’d want to get from early adopters, the headlines you’d want to see from reviewers, the feelings you want to evoke in everyone. Make it visible. Physical. Get it out of your head and onto something you can touch. And don’t wait until your product is done to get started—map out the whole journey as you map out what your product will do.

To do that right, you have to prototype the whole experience—give every part the weight and reality of a physical object. Regardless of whether your product is made of atoms or bits or both, the process is the same. Draw pictures. Make models. Pin mood boards. Sketch out the bones of the process in rough wireframes. Write imaginary press releases. Create detailed mock-ups that show how a customer would travel from an ad to the website to the app and what information they would see at each touchpoint. Write up the reactions you’d want to get from early adopters, the headlines you’d want to see from reviewers, the feelings you want to evoke in everyone. Make it visible. Physical. Get it out of your head and onto something you can touch. And don’t wait

His biggest hit so far is making the first investment in Pinterest, the popular social network used to share photos, organized as collections of pictures on a pin board. Launched in March 2010, it has become one of the most visited sites, with 23 million users in 2012 and a valuation of over $1.5 billion. Pinterest was founded in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley, by three youngsters under 30. “I helped them start and guided them as a mentor to become what they are,” says Cohen. “With this single investment I’m done. As soon as I get my liquidity event I will party like there’s no tomorrow.” All the angels dream of “the big hit,” says Cohen, who has written a book on the subject.[24] They are the ones providing 90% of startup capital, by writing checks out of their own pocket. But they don't do it just thinking of financial returns. “I think we do it because it’s fun. There’s no question that everyone thinks he or she is smarter than everyone else,” the Chairman of the New York Angels says half-jokingly. “In reality no one makes money, although some are luckier and hit the jackpot. Then there is the fashion factor. Everyone today wants to be an angel because it is cool. In other words, we are the prima donnas; we have a big ego. But there is also the idea of doing good, to have the satisfaction of helping start new emerging companies.” The pleasure of giving back: an important part of Jewish culture, and of American culture in general.

Thomasplitzchen Buns Mom always said these could make your enemies your friends or your friends your enemies. I put on five pounds every St. Thomas Day because of them, so I’d say they’re my friendly enemies. Too good to eat just one. 2 cups all-purpose flour ½ teaspoon salt ½ cup butter ½ cup sugar or brown sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder ½ cup milk Filling 3 teaspoons melted butter 1 cup currants, raisins, cranberries, or whatever small, dried fruit you have on hand ¼ cup sugar Icing 3 tablespoons melted butter Few drops vanilla extract 2 cups powdered sugar Mix up all the ingredients for the buns. Get a rolling pin and press out the dough to one-eighth-inch thick on a floured board. Mix together the filling: butter, dried fruit, and sugar. Spread it on the dough. Roll it up like a fat sausage, and make one-inch slices. Put them pinwheel side up on a greased cookie sheet and bake off in a pre-heated 350°F oven until barely suntanned on top. For me, that’s about 12 minutes on a hot day and 15 on a cold one. To make the icing, mix together butter, vanilla extract, and powdered sugar. When the buns are out of the oven, give them a good sugar smothering and let cool.

God, who is himself uncreated, creates everything. Gathering no materials, pinning no swatches to mood boards, consulting no color wheels, God speaks, and the universe leaps into being.

I tap my toes on the floor, admiring the boots from this vantage, and open up my laptop. I’ll just take a quick peek at my Pinterest board first to see what else these boots would look good with. Everything. They look good with everything, I decide after a half hour of pinning. Which somehow ended with me pinning knitting patterns. I don’t knit, but Pinterest is a bitch that way.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Once upon a time our politicians did not tend to apologize for our country’s prior actions! Here’s a refresher on how some of our former patriots handled negative comments about our great country. These are quite good JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60’s when De Gaulle decided to pull out of NATO. De Gaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk’s response: “Does that include those who are buried here?” De Gaulle did not respond. You could have heard a pin drop. When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of ‘empire building’ by George Bush. He answered by saying, “Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.” You could have heard a pin drop. There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, “Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?” A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: “Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?” You could have heard a pin drop. A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Germany and France. At morning tea the Frenchman complained that the conference should be conducted in French since it was being held in Paris. The German replied that, so far as he could see, the reason that it was being held in English was as a mark of respect to the other attendees, since their troops had shed so much blood so that the Frenchman wouldn’t be speaking German.

Your child is not a Notice Board. Stop pinning all your hopes on him/her. Thank you.

Human minds are built to see a world of objects, but you are not an object, Gwenna. You are a process. You are the change taking place inside you. The woman at the end of this conversation will not be the woman who began it. The Gwenna who wakes up in the morning will not be the same Gwenna who went to sleep. It is impossible to fix a person in time. I could not pin you like a butterfly to a board any more than I could pin down a piece of music. Your essence lies in your unfolding.