Plate Motion Quotes

We have some nachos left.” Carlos motioned to a plate on the table. “But I don’t suppose you’re interested.” “I already ate.” Ian sat at the end of the table. “Anyone we know?” Carlos’s amber eyes twinkled. “Ouch.” He glared at Toni.

Every morning the maple leaves. Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out You will be alone always and then you will die. So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog of non-definitive acts, something other than the desperation. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party and seduced you and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing. You want a better story. Who wouldn’t? A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing. Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on. What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon. Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere. I can tell already you think I’m the dragon, that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon. I’m not the princess either. Who am I? I’m just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure, I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later. Let me do it right for once, for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes, you know the story, simply heaven. Inside your head you hear a phone ringing and when you open your eyes only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer. Inside your head the sound of glass, a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion. Hello darling, sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. Inside your head you hear a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you’re washing up in a stranger’s bathroom, standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away from the dirtiest thing you know. All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly darkness, suddenly only darkness. In the living room, in the broken yard, in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport bathroom’s gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of unnatural light, my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away. I arrived in the city and you met me at the station, smiling in a way that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade, up the stairs of the building to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things, I looked out the window and said This doesn’t look that much different from home, because it didn’t, but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights. We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too, smiling and crying in a way that made me even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I just couldn’t say it out loud. Actually, you said Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you. Okay, if you’re so great, you do it— here’s the pencil, make it work … If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing river water. Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently we have had our difficulties and there are many things I want to ask you. I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again, years later, in the chlorinated pool. I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have these luxuries. I have told you where I’m coming from, so put it together. I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes. Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you. Quit milling around the yard and come inside.

Karṇa walks, his back is straight, he is lit up by his divine earings; yet his feet drag. He turns into an alley. His head droops and falls to his chest. He stops. Mist swirls around him, becomes motionless, parts. From between his ribs steps a young woman. Her eyes and face and tongue are brown like old blood and she is decked in old things and she wears upon her wrists two burnt black bracelets. She places the point of a knife under Karṇa’s chest plate and cuts, a gentle sawing motion, the blade moving beneath the skin, a slicing of the quick: nerves, blood vessels, sinews. I feel his pain; not a stab; it is insistent, enduring, but sharp nonetheless, as with any loss.

The mishandling of food and equipment with panache was always admired; to some extent, this remains true to this day. Butchers still slap down prime cuts with just a little more force and noise than necessary. Line cooks can't help putting a little English on outgoing plates, spinning them into the pass-through with reverse motion so they curl back just short of the edge. Oven doors in most kitchens have to be constantly tightened because of repeatedly being kicked closed by clog-shod feet. And all of us dearly love to play with knives.

Food”—he motioned to our almost empty plates—“is a work of art. That’s what a perfect meal is—something that you don’t just eat, but something you enjoy. With friends, and family—maybe even with strangers. It’s an experience. You taste it, you savor it, you feel the story told through the intricate flavors that play out across your tongue . . . it’s magical. Romantic.

There were entire days where I did nothing but cry; others where I felt like I’d swallowed a lead plate; some more where I worked really hard at going through the motions of getting dressed and making my bed and studying my vocab words because it was easier than doing anything else.

This was no fruit of such worlds and suns as shine on the telescopes and photographic plates of our observatories. This was no breath from the skies whose motions and dimensions our astronomers measure or deem too vast to measure. It was just a colour out of space - a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.

My whole family used to watch reruns of Walker, Texas Ranger. And I loved it when Walker would kick butt." "As opposed to what? When Walker would hold forth on quantum physics? When he would write haikus? When he would interpret Bach on the harpischord? That show is an infomercial for Chuck Norris kicking people through plate-glass windows in show motion." "So you've seen it.

Border to border, from sea to shining sea, police cars and other government vehicles had for some time been equipped with 360-degree license-plate-scanning systems that recorded the numbers of the vehicles around them, whether parked or in motion, transmitting them 24/7 to regional archives, which in turn shared the information with the National Security Agency’s vast intelligence troves in its million-square-foot Utah Data Center.

But soon the poltergeist ran out of ideas in connection with Aunt Maud and became, as it were, more eclectic. All the banal motions that objects are limited to in such cases, were gone through in this one. Saucepans crashed in the kitchen; a snowball was found (perhaps, prematurely) in the icebox; once or twice Sybil saw a plate sail by like a discus and land safely on the sofa; lamps kept lighting up in various parts of the house; chairs waddled away to assemble in the impassable pantry; mysterious bits of string were found on the floor; invisible revelers staggered down the staircase in the middle of the night; and one winter morning Shade, upon rising and taking a look at the weather, saw that the little table from his study upon which he kept Bible-like Webster open at M was standing in a state of shock outdoors, on the snow (subliminally this may have participated in the making of lines 5-12). I imagine, that during the period the Shades, or at least John Shade, experienced a sensation of odd instability as if parts of the everyday, smoothly running world had got unscrewed, and you became aware that one of your tires was rolling beside you, or that your steering wheel had come off.

After Evie had finished her plate, Sebastian tugged her to the billiards table and handed her a cue stick with a leather tip. Ignoring her attempts to refuse him, he proceeded to instruct her in the basics of the game. “Don’t try to claim this is too scandalous for you,” he told her with mock severity. “After running off with me to Gretna Green, nothing is beyond you. Certainly not one little billiards game. Bend over the table.” She complied awkwardly, flushing as she felt him lean over her, his body forming an exciting masculine cage as his hands arranged hers on the cue stick. “Now,” she heard him say, “curl your index finger around the tip of the shaft. That’s right. Don’t grip so tightly, sweet…let your hand relax. Perfect.” His head was close to hers, the light scent of sandalwood cologne rising from his warm skin. “Try to imagine a path between the cue ball—that’s the white one—and the colored ball. You’ll want to strike right about there”—he pointed to a place just above center on the cue ball—“to send the object ball into the side pocket. It’s a straight-on shot, you see? Lower your head a bit. Draw the cue stick back and try to strike in a smooth motion.” Attempting the shot, Evie felt the tip of the cue stick fail to make proper contact with the white ball, sending it spinning clumsily off to the side of the table. “A miscue,” Sebastian remarked, deftly catching the cue ball in his hand and repositioning it. “Whenever that happens, reach for more chalk, and apply it to the tip of the cue stick while looking thoughtful. Always imply that your equipment is to blame, rather than your skills.” Evie felt a smile rising to her lips, and she leaned over the table once more. Perhaps it was wrong, with her father having passed away so recently, but for the first time in a long while, she was having fun. Sebastian covered her from behind again, sliding his hands over hers. “Let me show you the proper motion of the cue stick—keep it level—like this.” Together they concentrated on the steady, even slide of the cue stick through the little circle Evie had made of her fingers. The sexual entendre of the motion could hardly escape her, and she felt a flush rise up from the neck of her gown. “Shame on you,” she heard him murmur. “No proper young woman would have such thoughts.” A helpless giggle escaped Evie’s lips, and Sebastian moved to the side, watching her with a lazy smile. “Try again.

I swallowed and pushed my plate away. There were no more strawberries, and I was full. “Have you heard it?” I asked, settling back in my chair with my coffee. “I’ve heard it.” Leaving a shallow wedge of waffle uneaten, Trent set his fork down and pushed it symbolically away. His hands went to his tea and he leaned back in his chair. I went to take a sip of coffee, freezing as I realized Trent had mirrored both my posture and my motion. Oh, crap. He likes me. Mirroring motions was classic in the body language of attraction.

Heart Some people sell their blood. You sell your heart. It was either that or the soul. The hard part is getting the damn thing out. A kind of twisting motion, like shucking an oyster, your spine a wrist, and then, hup! it's in your mouth. You turn yourself partially inside out like a sea anemone coughing a pebble. There's a broken plop, the racket of fish guts into a pail, and there it is, a huge glistening deep-red clot of the still-alive past, whole on the plate. It gets passed around. It's slithery. It gets dropped, but also tasted. Too coarse, says one. Too salty. Too sour, says another making a face. Each on is an instant gourmet, and you stand listening to all this in the corner, like a newly hired waiter, your diffident, skillful hand on the wound hidden deep in your shirt and chest, shyly, heartless.

After the plates are removed by the silent and swift waiting staff, General Çiller leans forward and says across the table to Güney, ‘What’s this I’m reading in Hürriyet about Strasbourg breaking up the nation?’ ‘It’s not breaking up the nation. It’s a French motion to implement European Regional Directive 8182 which calls for a Kurdish Regional Parliament.’ ‘And that’s not breaking up the nation?’ General Çiller throws up his hands in exasperation. He’s a big, square man, the model of the military, but he moves freely and lightly ‘The French prancing all over the legacy of Atatürk? What do you think, Mr Sarioğlu?’ The trap could not be any more obvious but Ayşe sees Adnan straighten his tie, the code for, Trust me, I know what I’m doing, ‘What I think about the legacy of Atatürk, General? Let it go. I don’t care. The age of Atatürk is over.’ Guests stiffen around the table, breath subtly indrawn; social gasps. This is heresy. People have been shot down in the streets of Istanbul for less. Adnan commands every eye. ‘Atatürk was father of the nation, unquestionably. No Atatürk, no Turkey. But, at some point every child has to leave his father. You have to stand on your own two feet and find out if you’re a man. We’re like kids that go on about how great their dads are; my dad’s the strongest, the best wrestler, the fastest driver, the biggest moustache. And when someone squares up to us, or calls us a name or even looks at us squinty, we run back shouting ‘I’ll get my dad, I’ll get my dad!’ At some point; we have to grow up. If you’ll pardon the expression, the balls have to drop. We talk the talk mighty fine: great nation, proud people, global union of the noble Turkic races, all that stuff. There’s no one like us for talking ourselves up. And then the EU says, All right, prove it. The door’s open, in you come; sit down, be one of us. Move out of the family home; move in with the other guys. Step out from the shadow of the Father of the Nation. ‘And do you know what the European Union shows us about ourselves? We’re all those things we say we are. They weren’t lies, they weren’t boasts. We’re good. We’re big. We’re a powerhouse. We’ve got an economy that goes all the way to the South China Sea. We’ve got energy and ideas and talent - look at the stuff that’s coming out of those tin-shed business parks in the nano sector and the synthetic biology start-ups. Turkish. All Turkish. That’s the legacy of Atatürk. It doesn’t matter if the Kurds have their own Parliament or the French make everyone stand in Taksim Square and apologize to the Armenians. We’re the legacy of Atatürk. Turkey is the people. Atatürk’s done his job. He can crumble into dust now. The kid’s come right. The kid’s come very right. That’s why I believe the EU’s the best thing that’s ever happened to us because it’s finally taught us how to be Turks.’ General Çiller beats a fist on the table, sending the cutlery leaping. ‘By God, by God; that’s a bold thing to say but you’re exactly right.

Each scenario is about fifteen million years into the future, and each assumes that the Pacific Plate will continue to move northwest at about 2.0 inches per year relative to the interior of North America. In scenario 1, the San Andreas fault is the sole locus of motion. Baja California and coastal California shear away from the rest of the continent to form a long, skinny island. A short ferry ride across the San Andreas Strait connects LA to San Francisco. In scenario 2, all of California west of the Sierra Nevada, together with Baja California, shears away to the northwest. The Gulf of California becomes the Reno Sea, which divides California from Nevada. The scene is reminiscent of how the Arabian Peninsula split from Africa to open the Red Sea some 5 million years ago. In scenario 3, central Nevada splits open through the middle of the Basin and Range province. The widening Gulf of Nevada divides the continent form a large island composed of Washington, Oregon, California, Baja California, and western Nevada. The scene is akin to Madagascar’s origin when it split form eastern Africa to open the Mozambique Channel.

She leaned over the basket again, taking in the mouthwatering aromas wafting out of it. "Fried chicken? Oh, I'm thinking buttermilk fried chicken?" Dylan was once again amused. "How do you do that?" "I like food." "You don't say." "And I love Southern fried chicken." She tried to open the basket, and he tapped her hand jokingly. "Sit," he said. And she did, crossing her legs and plopping down on the blanket. Opening the basket and playing waiter, Dylan began removing flatware and plates and red-checkered napkins, and then wrapped food. "For lunch today in Chez Orchard de Pomme, we have some lovely cheese, made from the milk of my buddy Mike's goat Shelia." He removed the plastic wrap, which covered a small log of fresh white cheese on a small plate, and handed it to her. Grace put her nose to the cheese. It was heavenly. "Oh, Shelia is my new best friend." "It's good stuff. And we have some fresh chili corn bread. The corn, I think, is from Peter Lindsey's new crop, just cut out from the maze, which is right down this hill." He motioned with his head toward the field, and then he handed her a big loaf of the fresh corn bread wrapped loosely in wax paper. "It's still warm!" Delighted, she held it to her cheek. Then he pulled out a large oval Tupperware container. "And, yes, we have Dolly's buttermilk fried chicken." Grace peeled open the top and smelled. "Fabulous." "It is!" He also pulled out a mason jar of sourwood honey, a sack of pecans, and a couple of very cold bottles of a local mountain-brewed beer.

Agitated, he hooked a finger under his neck cloth and pulled it loose. “Care for her,” he muttered. “How could that be possible? I’ve scarcely gone near the woman in weeks.” “I don’t know how it’s possible, but it seems to be true. In fact, I think you’re half in love with her. More than half, perhaps.” Rising from his chair, Gray straightened to his full height. “Now wait. I’m half out of my mind with lust, I’ll grant you that. More than half, perhaps. But I’m certainly not in love with that girl. Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Joss. I keep my conscience in my bank account, remember? I don’t even know what love looks like.” Joss paused over his desk. “I know what love looks like. Using up all those Portuguese on one meal, killing a valuable goat, bringing out porcelain from the cargo hold…Crack one plate, and you’d lose half the set’s price. Serving meat onto a lady’s plate.” He shrugged. “Love looks something like that.” Gray ran his hands through his hair, shaking off the lunatic notion before it could take root in his brain. “I’m telling you, I’m not in love. I’m just too damned bored. I’ve nothing to do on this voyage but plan dinner parties. And it’s about to get worse. No chance of cracking a plate tonight.” He jerked his chin at the lamp dangling from a hook, which on any normal night would have been swaying in time with the waves. “If you hadn’t noticed, we’re becalmed.” “I’d noticed.” Joss grimaced and motioned for the flask. Gray tossed it to him. “Good thing we’ve given the men a fine meal and grog tonight. Becalming’s never good for the crew’s morale.” “Not good for the investor’s morale, either.” Gray rubbed his temples. “Let’s hope it doesn’t last.

Three dominant hypotheses explain what drives plate tectonic motion. Each one relies on the convention of the mantle — the movement of heated rock materials beneath earth’s crust — but each one focuses on a different piece of the cycle: Mantle convection hypothesis: This hypothesis proposes that heated materials inside the earth move up and down in a circular motion (like the wax in a lava lamp) and the continental plates resting on this mat-erial are moved in the direction of the circular motion. Ridge-push hypothesis: This hypothesis states that the creation of new rock materials along mid-ocean ridges continually pushes oceanic crustal plates upward and outward, so that the far edges are forced into collisions with other plates. Slab-pull hypothesis: This hypothesis is the opposite of the ridge-push model. It proposes that the heavy, dense outer edges of crustal plates sink into the mantle at plate boundaries and pull the rest of the plate along with them.

Santa, himself, was sitting behind his desk when I walked in. "Hello," he greeted me. He looked exactly as one would expect. Long white beard and a thick head of white hair. His cheeks were rosy and he truly did look jolly when he smiled at me. "You're the new Karma." "Yes," I smiled back all the while waiting for the scolding. "Would you care for a cookie?" He motioned to the heaped plate on the corner of his desk. "No thanks." I didn't want to get thrown out mid-bite. He was Santa. He knew everything. Any second, he'd tell me to get the hell out of his office, throwing coal at me as I ran. He stood up from his chair and walked around to the fireplace that blazed in the corner, lending the space a warm light. "Would you like to sit?" He motioned to the two well-stuffed chairs in front of it. "I don't want to take up too much of your time. I can see you're busy." I made a step backward toward the door. "I got time for you." Guess I was going to have to see this thing out until the coal started flying. I watched as he sat. He was still smiling. I took the seat across from him. Maybe he didn't know. "I know why you're nervous." Well, there went that. "Karma, sometimes there are gray areas in life. Things that don't fit neatly into wrong vs right.

After seeing Dylan with the redhead, I sunk deeper into a depression. Even working at Lark’s house did nothing to distract me. I simply went through the motions. Fortunately, Lark was especially tired and slept most of the day, so she never noticed my bad mood. Harlow wasn’t as oblivious as we washed dishes after dinner. “What’s up, stinky pup?” I rolled my eyes at her nickname for me. “Nothing.” “She doesn’t want to deal with the leaves,” Jace said from behind us. Our ten year old brother crossed his arms like Dad often did when suspicious. “See, she got spooked last night and bailed on raking the leaves. They ended up blowing around the yard and now she’s trying to get out of raking them again.” “That’s not it.” “Sure, it is,” he said, his dark hair covering his narrowed eyes. “What else could it be?” Grumpy, I decided to punish him. “It’s about a sexy guy.” Jace’s face twisted into horror. “Eww!” he cried, running out of the room. Harlow and I laughed at the sound of him telling on me to Mom. “In a few years, girls will be all he thinks about,” I said, returning to the dishes. Harlow leaned her head against my shoulder. “Sexy guy, huh?” “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your fight?” Harlow glanced at the clock. “Yeah. When I get back, I want to hear about the sexy guy making you sigh so much.” As my sister dressed to go, I finished the dishes and struggled to stop sighing. I was still grumpy when Dad got home. In this living room, he told Harlow to be careful. She said something and laughed. When Harlow started fighting at the Thunderdome, she called herself Joy and hid it from our parents. She didn’t think they’d approve and she was right. Harlow and I were naïve to assume they wouldn’t find out long before she told them the truth though. Dad might be a pastor, but he learned about the Lord in prison. As a member of the Reapers, Dad had eyes and ears all over Ellsberg. He likely knew Harlow was fighting before she threw her first punch. Entering the kitchen, Dad smiled at me. “Stop talking about cute boys around your brother. He has a sensitive gag reflex.” I laughed as he got himself a beer and joined me at the sink. “Mom said we have leftovers. Mind warming them up for me?” Shaking my head, I filled a plate and set it in the microwave. “Are you okay?” Dad asked, frowning at me. “You look worn down.” “I had a long day.” “You sure that’s it?” We watched each other and I remembered the first time he asked if I was okay. Five years earlier when I was brought to this house and met my new family. I didn’t remember a lot from that day besides thinking these people were too good to be true. I figured they’d wait until Kirk was gone then hurt me. I couldn’t remember when I knew Dad was a good man who loved me. Not like my real dad loved me. Tad felt the kind of love a person died to protect. I saw the love in his eyes as he waited for his food to finish warming. “I wish I was stronger.” “So do I,” he said softly. “Everyone does. They just don’t admit it. That’s what makes you so brave. You can admit your fears.” Even thinking he was full of shit, I smiled. “Thanks, Dad.” Taking his plate out of the microwave, he inhaled. “Mom makes the best meatloaf.” “I made it.” Grinning, Dad nudged me with his hip. “If you make this meatloaf for the boy you’re hung up on, you’ll own him.” “I’ll remember that.

returned to find Murphy motioning me into the captain’s office. “Sit down, Pat. I want to talk to you guys a minute.” Domagalski told us the medical examiner identified the individually wrapped pieces of flesh as biceps, thighs, livers, and hearts. The utensils, plates, and broiler adapter all pointed to the conclusion that Dahmer must have been eating his victims.

HEART Some people sell their blood. You sell your heart. It was either that or the soul. The hard part is getting the damn thing out. A kind of twisting motion, like shucking an oyster, your spine a wrist, and then, hup! it's in your mouth. You turn yourself partially inside out like a sea anemone coughing a pebble. There's a broken plop, the racket of fish guts into a pail, and there it is, a huge glistening deep-red clot of the still-alive past, whole on the plate. It gets passed around. It's slippery. It gets dropped, but also tasted. Too coarse, says one. Too salty. Too sour, says another, making a face. Each one is an instant gourmet, and you stand listening to all this in the corner, like a newly hired waiter, your diffident, skilful hand on the wound hidden deep in your shirt and chest, shyly, heartless.

Among astronomers Ritchey was known for his fierce concentration and what one colleague called “the temperament of an artist and a thousand prima donnas.” Ritchey would sometimes spend hours on a single photograph, setting and resetting the focus until it was exactly right, waiting for the perfect seeing conditions, then concentrating so intensely on guiding the fine motions of the telescope that an explosion nearby would not have distracted him. The resulting photograph would be an artistic masterpiece—except when Ritchey, lost in his concentration, neglected to record the date, time, or sky conditions, so that the plate was useless for scientific purposes.

I turned just in time to witness closing time on a vine of moonflowers. Their bright-white petals glowed under moonlight and shut down at the first hint of daylight. I stood there mesmerized, watching their twelve-inch-wide dinner-plate-sized flowers simultaneously folding up to nothing, like hundreds of slamming doors. I'd always thought of flowers as still and beautiful. It was strange to see them in such a blur of self-generated motion. Sonali had mentioned the moonflower. She'd told me if I ever came across one not to cut it or take it out of the earth. I remembered her exact words: The vine of the moonflower is an umbilical cord connecting all women to the moon. Take special notice of the plants, such as this one, that jump out at you in the moonlight, lost in the daytime to louder, more vibrant types. They are females. They will help heal the female parts of you that have been hurt.

Superstring theory in the thirteenth century?!” Katherine wasn’t buying it. “Come on!” Superstring theory was a brand-new cosmological model. Based on the most recent scientific observations, it suggested the multidimensional universe was made up not of three . . . but rather of ten dimensions, which all interacted like vibrating strings, similar to resonating violin strings. Katherine waited as her brother heaved open the book, ran through the ornately printed table of contents, and then flipped to a spot near the beginning of the book. “Read this.” He pointed to a faded page of text and diagrams. Dutifully, Katherine studied the page. The translation was old-fashioned and very hard to read, but to her utter amazement, the text and drawings clearly outlined the exact same universe heralded by modern superstring theory—a ten-dimensional universe of resonating strings. As she continued reading, she suddenly gasped and recoiled. “My God, it even describes how six of the dimensions are entangled and act as one?!” She took a frightened step backward. “What is this book?!” Her brother grinned. “Something I’m hoping you’ll read one day.” He flipped back to the title page, where an ornately printed plate bore three words. The Complete Zohar. Although Katherine had never read the Zohar, she knew it was the fundamental text of early Jewish mysticism, once believed so potent that it was reserved only for the most erudite rabbis. Katherine eyed the book. “You’re saying the early mystics knew their universe had ten dimensions?” “Absolutely.” He motioned to the page’s illustration of ten intertwined circles called Sephiroth. “Obviously, the nomenclature is esoteric, but the physics is very advanced.” Katherine didn’t know how to respond. “But . . . then why don’t more people study this?” Her brother smiled. “They will.” “I don’t understand.” “Katherine, we have been born into wonderful times. A change is coming. Human beings are poised on the threshold of a new age when they will begin turning their eyes back to nature and to the old ways . . . back to the ideas in books like the Zohar and other ancient texts from around the world. Powerful truth has its own gravity and eventually pulls people back to it. There will come a day when modern science begins in earnest to study the wisdom of the ancients . . . that will be the day that mankind begins to find answers to the big questions that still elude him.

I’m having to question all my assumptions on this voyage.” She nodded and motioned to the plates. “It’s good for ya.

For many geologists, the most important consequence of the recognition of plate tectonics was that it brought confirmation of continental drift. As important, plate tectonics allowed continental drift to be determined with considerable precision. This became immediately clear to Clark Burchfiel, now at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who in 1968 had carried out fieldwork in Yugoslavia, and returned home to discover Le Pichon’s paper. By knowing the relative motions between Africa and North America and between Europe and North America, Le Pichon had predicted the motion between Africa and Europe for the previous 80 million years, a history that included not only the present-day convergence between Africa and Europe, but also periods when these two regions moved in different directions relative to one another, including a period when they diverged from one another. This history of relative plate motion wrote a complex history on the rock record of the region affected by the relative movement of Africa and Europe. Nevertheless, Burchfiel had inferred from the geologic history of this rock the times of major changes and had inferred what tectonic processes (convergence, divergence, and directions of relative movement) might be occurring at these times. Le Pichon’s calculated plate motions, from data solely in the Atlantic Ocean, predicted many of Burchfiel’s observations and inferences. A new idea becomes believable when it predicts something that has not yet been measured or explained, especially when the idea is really trying to explain other facts.

When we’re done, he motions toward my plate. “Are you doing better with your hypoglycemia?” I pause. We’ve never discussed the details of what happened last May, but he must have overheard me talking to the paramedics that day. “Is that why you always try to feed me? First the pizza and now waffles.” He gives me a sheepish smile. “I don’t know. Maybe. Is that wrong?” “No, it’s sweet. But I’m doing better. I haven’t had any episodes since the night we found Poppy. That was the last time I felt dizzy. I went too long without eating. It was an accident, really.” “What happened?” “A bad date.” “That dick Jason didn’t feed you?” I laugh at Rider’s intensity. “Jason’s idea of dinner was nachos from that gas station, which I passed on. That’s how I ended up light-headed later. But unless you’re planning on taking me on a bad date, we should be good.” Rider gives me a wolfish grin. “I plan on doing a lot of things with you. Bad dates aren’t one of them.

Matheny time to take those two steps up the third-base line and set up in a stoic crouch. It’s going to be a wreck at home plate, a serious wreck. Sosa, due up next, leaves the on-deck circle and, like a bystander vainly trying to ward off a car crash, motions to Glanville with his hands to get down, get down. But the throw is too far ahead of Glanville, his only choice to go for the high-impact head-on collision. He barrels into Matheny, using his forearm to hit him in the face. He uses the rest of his body to try to flatten him. Matheny does a full 360-degree pirouette. His glove goes flying, and if the ball is still in there, Glanville is safe, and the Cubs will win because there’s

I’m alright, darling. Just took a tumble. See?” she says, motioning toward the bottom of her dress. He nods and then slips his red sticky hand into her other hand. “That’s okay, I fell too,” he says, pointing to his soiled socks. “And know what?” he asks. “What?” “The grass stains match your eyes too.” I don’t think I ever saw a smile that looked so sad.

Food”—he motioned to our almost empty plates—“is a work of art. That’s what a perfect meal is—something that you don’t just eat, but something you enjoy. With friends, and family—maybe even with strangers. It’s an experience. You taste it, you savor it, you feel the story told through the intricate flavors that play out across your tongue . . . it’s magical. Romantic.

Tectonic plates are in constant motion. Much of North America is moving west, relative to the rest of the Earth, at about an inch per year.

Until this night, this awful night, he’d had a little joke about himself. He didn’t know who he was, or where he’d come from, but he knew what he liked. And what he liked was all around him-the flower stands on the corners, the big steel and glass buildings filled with milky evening light, the trees, of course, the grass beneath his feet. And the telephones-it didn’t matter. He liked to figure them out, master them, then crush them into tiny hard multicolored balls which he could then juggle or toss through plate glass windows when nobody was about. He liked piano music, the motion pictures, and the poems he found in books. He also liked the automobiles that burnt oil from the earth like lamps. And the great jet planes that flew on the same scientific principles, above the clouds. He always stopped and listened to the people laughing and talking up there when one of the people laughing and talking up there when one of the planes flew overhead. Driving was an extraordinary pleasure. In a silver Mercedes-Benz, he had sped on smooth empty roads from Rome to Florence to Venice in one night. He also liked television-the entire electric process of it, with tiny bits of lights. How soothing it was to have the company of the television, the intimacy with so many artfully painted faces speaking to you in friendship from the glowing screen. The rock and roll, he liked that too. He liked the music. He liked the Vampire Lestat singing “Requiem for the Marquise”. He didn’t pay attention to the words much. It was the melancholy and the dark undertone of drums and cymbals. Made him want to dance. He liked the giant yellow machines that dug into the earth late at night in the big cities with men in uniforms, crawling all over them; he liked the double-decker buses of London, and the people-the clever mortals everywhere-he liked, too, of course. He liked walking in Damascus during the evening, and seeing in sudden flashes of disconnected memory the city of the ancients. Romans, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians in these streets. He liked the libraries where he could find photographs of ancient monuments in big smooth good-smelling books. He took his own photographs of the new cities around him and sometimes he could put images on those pictures which came from his thoughts. For example, in his photograph of Rome there were Roman people in tunics and sandals superimposed upon the modern versions in their thick ungraceful clothes. Oh, yes, much to like around him always-the violin music of Bartók, little girls in snow white dresses coming out of the church at midnight having sung at the Christmas mass. He liked the blood of his victims too, of course. That went without saying. It was no part of his little joke. Death was not funny to him. He stalked his prey in silence; he didn’t want to know his victims. All a mortal had to do was speak to him and he was turned away. Not proper, as he saw it, to talk to these sweet, soft-eyed things and then gobble their blood, break their bones and lick the marrow, squeeze their limbs to dripping pulp. And that was the way he feasted now, so violently. He felt no great need for blood anymore; but he wanted it. And the desire overpowered him in all its ravening purity, quite apart from the thirst. He could have feasted upon three or four mortals a night.

... the cylinder itself has only just begun its revolutions ... as it gathers speed the objects grouped around its fulcrum assume, collectively ... no ... as it gathers speed the whole intricate system of cords, weights, metal spikes and rods, brass plates engraved with labyrinthine patterns, bricks, scraps of fabric, paper, canvas, unmarked sheets ... the entire elaborate network of components begins to shudder into wild spasmodic motion, rattling almost farcically within the framework of the machine.

I have never before gathered eggs from under a hen. Fernando has never before seen a hen. We bend low into the shed where perch a dozen or so fat lady birds. There's no shrieking or fluttering at all. I approach one and ask if she has an egg or two. Nothing. I ask in Italian. Still nothing. I ask Fernando to pick her up but he's already outside the shed smoking and pacing, telling me he really doesn't like eggs at all and he especially doesn't like frittata. Both bold-faced lies. I start to move the hen and she plumps down from her perch quite voluntarily, uncovering the place where two lovely brown eggs sit. I take them, one at a time, bend down and nestle them in my sack. I want two more. I peruse the room. I choose the hen who sits next to the docile one. I pick her up and she pecks me so hard on my wrist that I drop her. I see there is nothing in her nest and apologise for my insensitivity, thinking her nastiness must have been caused by embarrassment. I move on to another hen and this time find a single, paler brown-shelled beauty, still warm and stuck all over with bits of straw. I take it and leave with an unfamiliar thrill. This is my first full day in Tuscany and I've robbed a henhouse before lunch. Back home in the kitchen I beat the eggs, the yolks of which are orange as pumpkin, with a few grindings of sea salt, a few more of pepper, adding a tablespoon or so of white wine and a handful of Parmigliano. I dig for my flat broad frying pan, twirl it to coat its floor with a few drops of my tourist oil, and let it warm over a quiet flame. I drop in the rinsed and dried blossoms whole, flatten them a bit so they stay put, and leave them for a minute or so while I tear a few basil leaves, give the eggs another stroke or two. I throw a few fennel seeds into the pan to scent the oil, where the blossoms are now beginning to take colour on their bottom sides. Time to liven up the flame and add the egg batter. I perform the lift-and-tilt motions necessary to cook the frittata without disturbing the blossoms, which are now ensnared in the creamy embrace of the eggs. Next, I run the lush little cake under a hot grill to form a gold blistery skin on top before sliding it onto a plate, strewing it with torn basil. The heat of the eggs warms the herbs so they give up a double-strength perfume. Now I drop a thread of find old balsamico over it. And finally, let it rest.

We should probably get some things out of the way,” I say, wincing as the words come out of my mouth. “Like dinner?” he says. He fills my plate with food. “Yeah, let’s get dinner out of the way.” He grins. He jabs his fork toward my plate. “Eat.” “But I feel like there’s this thing between us.” He nods and takes a bite of his chicken. He chews with one eye closed, and watches me with the other. After he swallows, he says, “There’s definitely something between us.” He takes another bite of his dinner. “But…” I sniff the dinner in front of me. My mouth is watering. But I’m afraid to take a bite. “But what?” “But while I’m here, I think it’s best if you go on with life as normal.” He looks around the room. “This is my normal life.” He points to his shin. “I’m injured, remember? No training for me. No football.” He makes a motion that encompasses his apartment. “This is my life.” He reaches over and squeezes my good hand. “I’m really glad you’re here. I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks.” “Why?” I want to bite it back right away, but can’t. He chokes on his food. “Why what?” he asks when he can finally get a breath. “Why have you been trying to talk to me?” “I missed you.” “You don’t even know me.” “Whose fault is that?” I sigh. “Sam…” He mocks me. “Peck…

Other than the external threat of asteroid and comet strikes (a common hazard throughout the solar system), all Earth’s natural hazards go hand in hand with its habitability. Indeed, Earth seems to be constructed almost perfectly to create calamities, with an outer shell thick enough to be rigid but thin enough to be breakable. Earthquakes, tsunamis, and extreme volcanic transformations are the price we pay for the life-sustaining gift of plate tectonics. Likewise, Earth’s atmosphere is primed to do damage by just the same qualities that make it so nurturing. Sun-animated, water-saturated, and seasonally shifting, our dynamic atmosphere maintains our comfortable climate. Its motions feed and water us, but can also swirl into violent storms that flood villages and splinter cities. Tornadoes, floods, blizzards, and climate shifts are collateral damage from life-enabling flows of energy, water, and chemical elements. All are also symptoms of Earth’s destructive/creative energy flows.*

A race car driver. How exciting.” For once, her mother didn’t begin to pass food immediately. “How fast do you drive?” “I’ve been clocked at over two hundred miles an hour.” He picked up his glass and took a sip. “Wow.” Her mother looked impressed and motioned to Beth. “My sweet daughter was clocked at just over a hundred.” Beth clattered her fork on the plate, while Eric choked on his water—Beth suspected because he was trying not to laugh. Setting down his glass, he raised an eyebrow at her.

He breathed and settled into the ground, feeling Earth’s motion in his bones, the slow spin of the planet, ponderous on its axis, traveling in its accustomed arc around the sun. Continental plates ground and shattered. Far away the sun lifted water from the oceans and rained it back onto the land. Life squirmed and sprouted, inhaling, exhaling, it spoke and wept, hatched and died.

Society’s shifting tectonic plates pose a challenge. The individual lives in a state of continually becoming. Constant motion is necessary to achieve balance and progression. Simone de Beauvoir touched on this in The Ethics of Ambiguity, observing that: ‘life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying’. When our worldview and what we hold to be true is challenged, we experience a sense of disorientation, a culture shock. In Buddhism, the term dukkha describes this state of being. Dukkha is the pain we experience when we cannot figure out how to let go of what no longer exists. It is usually translated into English as suffering but it also means temporary, limited and imperfect.

UV/IR vision: use AI to make sense of light invisible to humans • Perfect sound memory: every sound you hear is catalogued forever and searchable with a query • Sound triangulation: when you hear a boom or a pop, your visor or glasses will light up and tell you exactly where it is happening • Perfect recall of imagery: when you take a passing glance at a license plate, its numbers and letters will be permanently captured and searchable • Prompting: AI is always in your head suggesting ideas and integrated into a device like a Fitbit to augment physical goals • “God’s Eye” view: satellite imagery and completely autonomous pocket drones that can feed images directly to your headset, effectively giving you a pair of disembodied eyes in motion • LIDAR (light detection and ranging) sensing: remote-sensing methods that can use light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges • Ability to predict exact motion and speed of any object nearby • Ability to see and detect radio waves: pull a radio wave that you perceive out of the ether with the gesture of a swipe and then decode it and catalog it permanently • X-ray vision: Look inside a building through the eyes of your autonomous robotic appendage to see if there is a leak or other technical malfunction

To try to establish whether these qualities are present in an individual, the first thing Tara does is to take the person in question out to lunch, and then, once the food arrives, to offer to share a bite of hers. Some people will, in effect, say, “No thanks, I ordered what I want and I’m sticking to it.” Others will gladly accept the bite Tara offers and proffer one from their plate in return. Guess which one is the cross-pollinator? Tara in fact finds a high correlation. “People who won’t share food don’t do well with us,” says Tara. “It’s a brutal indicator.”6 (Though she’s learned that this test doesn’t always extend across cultures and nationalities. The British, in her experience, simply don’t like to share food.) “People who share food tend to be less territorial. They’re less likely to say, ‘I ordered that. That’s what I wanted. I got exactly what I wanted,’ and more likely to say, enthusiastically, ‘Hey, what’s the table ordering? I want to try a little of everything.’ Those folks tend to have a lot more ease in our working process.

I went through all the motions of the meal, sending out the slaves with the food when the courses dictated. I sent the entertainment in- flutists, harpists, and singers. I sent the girls, the boys, all dressed in ever-amazing costumes, some like birds and animals, some like monsters, some like heroes, and some like nymphs. And oh, the food was magnificent! I had re-created all the old stories of the gods. Venus carved from a gourd, emerging from her shell. Fantastic Roman triremes made from hollowed cucumbers and holding tiny white carrot men fought battles across an ocean of cold beet juice. A platter of cheese and figs shaped into Cerberus and his double heads. And the dishes! Only the finest delicacies were served, with the pinnacle of each course flavored with the few dried sprigs of silphium I had been hoarding for a year- there was no fresh silphium to be had. Plate after plate of marinated mushrooms, Baian beans in mustard sauce, pork meatballs, honey melons, stuffed boiled eggs, fried veal slices, crunchy duck and flamingo tongues, pork pastries stuffed with figs, pear patinae, steamed lamb, soufflés of little fishes... even now my mouth salivates thinking back to that meal.

They reached down for their three armloads of debris. Steve scooped up his first load, flung it out, and gathered his second. Suddenly, Wes slammed into the fence with such force that his body was driven in an arc right over the top of Steve. It only took a split second for Steve to realize what had happened. As Wes had bent over to reach for an armload of debris, he had been hit from behind by more than twelve feet of reptile, weighing close to nine hundred pounds. Graham grabbed Wes, his top teeth sinking into Wes’s bum, his bottom teeth hooking into the back of Wes’s thigh, just above his knee. The croc then closed his mouth, exerting that amazing three thousand pounds per square inch of jaw pressure, pulling and tearing tissue as he did. The croc hit violently. Wes instinctively twisted away and rolled free of Graham’s jaws, but two fist-sized chunks were torn from his backside. The croc instantly swung in for another grab. Wes pushed the lunging croc’s head away, but not before Graham’s teeth crushed through his finger. They crashed back down into the water. Wes screamed out when he was grabbed, but no one could hear him because of the roar of the storm. In almost total darkness, Steve seized a pick handle that rested near the fence. He turned toward the croc as Graham was lining Wes up for another bite. Wes was on his side now, in water that was about three feet deep. He could see the crocodile in the lights of a Ute spotlight that shone over the murk--the dark outline of the osteodermal plates along the crocodile’s back. As Graham moved in, Wes knew the next bite would be to his skull. It would be all over. Wes braced himself for the inevitable, but it didn’t come. Steve reached into the water and grabbed Graham’s back legs. He didn’t realize that Graham had released Wes in preparation for that final bite. He thought Graham was holding Wes under the water. Steve pulled with all his strength, managing to turn the crocodile around to focus on him. As Graham lunged toward Steve, Steve drove the pick handle into the crocodile’s mouth and started hammering at his head. Wes saw what was happening and scrambled up the fence. “I’m out mate, I’m out,” Wes yelled, blood pouring down his leg. Steve looked up to see Wes on the top of the fence. He realized that even though Wes was wounded, he was poised to jump back down into the water to try to rescue his best mate. “Get out,” Steve shouted. “I’m all right.” Wes scrambled over the fence as the croc turned again to grab Steve. Steve and Wes both toppled over the fence and crashed down. In the dim light, Steve could see how badly Wes had been torn open. “Mate, I’ll give you a hand,” Steve said. “Let me carry you back to the compound.” “It’s okay!” Wes yelled through the downpour. “I can make it myself.” Both men pushed their way through the water toward the compound. No one else even knew what had happened. We continued working in the rain. Somehow Frank got word to the dingo enclosure. “You’d better get to the compound,” came the message. “Graham grabbed Wes.” I felt cold chills go down my arms into my fingers. Graham was a large enough crocodile that he could easily kill prey the size of a man. I struggled through the water toward the compound. This is a nightmare, I thought. It felt like a bad dream, trying desperately to run in the waist-deep water, and yet feeling like I was in slow motion, struggling my way forward. When I got to the compound, I was shocked. Wes was conscious and standing up. I had a look at his wounds. The gaping holes torn out of his bottom and the back of his leg were horrifying. Both wounds were bigger than my fist. He was badly torn up. We discussed whether or not to call an ambulance, and then decided we would take Wes to the hospital ourselves. Wes was fluctuating between feeling euphorically happy to be alive and lashing out in anger. He was going into shock and had lost a lot of blood.