Rat Pack Quotes

Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly.

I guess all I can do is ignore her. If that fails, I have rat poison and a shovel.

I suddenly had an idea of how adults can hold on to a feeling for very long periods of time, long after the event is finished, long after cards have been sent and apologies made and everyone else had moved on. Adults were pack rats of old, useless emotions

Adults were pack rats of old, useless emotions.

All of us carry around countless bags of dusty old knickknacks dated from childhood: collected resentments, long list of wounds of greater or lesser significance, glorified memories, absolute certainties that later turn out to be wrong. Humans are emotional pack rats. These bags define us.

When I went to college, I lived on campus, and the guys I hung out with made the characters in Revenge of the Nerds look like the Rat Pack in 1962. I, myself made that kid Booger look like Remington Steele.

I've been keeping an eye on Henry throughout the fight. I glanced at him just as he stepped onto the mat. "Alpha," he called. "I chal—" He never got the whole word out—because I drew my foster father's SIG and shot him in the throat before he could. For a split second everyone stared at him, as if they couldn't figure out where all that blood had come from. "Stop the bleeding." I said. Though I made no move to do it myself. The rat could die for all I cared. "That was a lead bullet. He'll be fine." But he wouldn't be talking—or challenging Adam—for a while. "When he's stable put him in the holding cell where he can't do any more harm." Adam looked at me. "Trust you to bring a gun into a fist fight." He said with every evidence of admiration. Then he looked at his pack. Our pack. "What she said." He told them.

Sometimes it's good to be the smartest rat in the sewer.

I'm staying right here," grumbled the rat. "I haven't the slightest interest in fairs." "That's because you've never been to one," remarked the old sheep . "A fair is a rat's paradise. Everybody spills food at a fair. A rat can creep out late at night and have a feast. In the horse barn you will find oats that the trotters and pacers have spilled. In the trampled grass of the infield you will find old discarded lunch boxes containing the foul remains of peanut butter sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, cracker crumbs, bits of doughnuts, and particles of cheese. In the hard-packed dirt of the midway, after the glaring lights are out and the people have gone home to bed, you will find a veritable treasure of popcorn fragments, frozen custard dribblings, candied apples abandoned by tired children, sugar fluff crystals, salted almonds, popsicles,partially gnawed ice cream cones,and the wooden sticks of lollypops. Everywhere is loot for a rat--in tents, in booths, in hay lofts--why, a fair has enough disgusting leftover food to satisfy a whole army of rats." Templeton's eyes were blazing. " Is this true?" he asked. "Is this appetizing yarn of yours true? I like high living, and what you say tempts me." "It is true," said the old sheep. "Go to the Fair Templeton. You will find that the conditions at a fair will surpass your wildest dreams. Buckets with sour mash sticking to them, tin cans containing particles of tuna fish, greasy bags stuffed with rotten..." "That's enough!" cried Templeton. "Don't tell me anymore I'm going!

Having a bunch of friends who are rats can actually be a good thing. That's the one fact that I can take to the bank, literally.

You don’t like that? Go Yahoo, Who gives a rat’s ass? I can promise you won’t find my name.

Before I packed up, my best friend told me how her friend had witnessed a rat giving birth on a homeless lady’s lap on the subway. And that single image pretty much sums up New York.

Someone asked why do you want a homestead? To be independent, get out of the rat race, support local businesses, buy only American made. Stop buying stuff I don't need to impress people I don't like. Right now I am working in a big warehouse, for a major online supplier. The stuff is crap all made somewhere else in the world where they don't have child labor laws, where the workers labor fourteen- to sixteen-hour days without meals or bathroom breaks. There is one million square feet in this warehouse packed with stuff that won't last a month. It is all going to a landfill. This company has hundreds of warehouses. Our economy is built on the backs of slaves we keep in other countries, like China, India, Mexico, any third world country with a cheap labor force where we don't have to seem them but where we can enjoy the fruits of their labor. This American Corp. is probably the biggest slave owner in the world.

But when it comes down to actually packing and leaving, I can't bring myself to do it. Can you see what I mean?If the town's really going to die, then the urge to stay on and see the town to its end wins out.

If your voice could overwhelm those waters, what would it say? What would it cry of the child swept under, the mother on the beach then, in her black bathing suit, walking straight out into the glazed lace as if she never noticed, what would it say of the father facing inland in his shoes and socks at the edge of the tide, what of the lost necklace glittering twisted in foam? If your voice could crack in the wind hold its breath still as the rocks what would it say to the daughter searching the tidelines for a bottled message from the sunken slaveships? what of the huge sun slowly defaulting into the clouds what of the picnic stored in the dunes at high tide, full of the moon, the basket with sandwiches, eggs, paper napkins, can-opener, the meal packed for a family feast, excavated now by scuttling ants, sandcrabs, dune-rats, because no one understood all picnics are eaten on the grave?

Frontman looked hit man in the eye as he filled two clear water glasses with the foul hairy mucous. Frontman toasted hit man, held his glass high, and—with the sound system’s re-verb functioning—said, “Rat brew, bro! Bottoms up, m-----f-----r!

As a society we should try to never inhibit another person's creativity. In people like myself, it's all we have.

You just don’t get attacked by packs of rats in your own home.

My mother says I am a pack rat. So what? Pack rats are probably very nice animals. And I bet they’re prepared for anything. I know I am.

packing

People don’t get attacked by packs of rats in their own homes.

All these people talk about [Vivian Maier's] hoarding, the pack-rat way she went through life. Watching, I couldn't help but feel their reactions were at least partly about money and social status; about who has the right to ownership and what happens when people exceed the number of possessions that their circumstance and standing would ordinarily allow. I don't know about you but if I was asked to put everything I own in a small room in someone else's house, I might well look like a hoarder. Although neither extreme poverty nor wealth makes one immune to craving an excess of possessions, it's worth asking of any behaviour presented as weird or freakish whether the boundary being transgressed is class, not sanity at all.

Soon the room had that desolate look that comes from the chaos of packing up to go away and, worse, from removing the shade from the lamp. Never, never take the shade off a lamp. A lampshade is something sacred. Scuttle away like a rat from danger and into the unknown. Read or doze beside your lampshade; let the storm howl outside and wait until they come for you.

Was he a good father?" To their surprise, I shake my head and smile. "No," I reply candidly. "He wasn't a good father, but he was a good man." Where Dad came from, that meant a great deal more.

Cicero himself had large amounts of money invested in low-grade property and once joked, more out of superiority than embarrassment, that even the rats had packed up and left one of his crumbling rental blocks.

Hunter was a deeply sentimental man, and like most sentimentalists, he was a pack rat, because such people, and I am one, confer on objects the essence of a person, place, or event. They are tangible reminders of the good and significant, and they are more than simply reminders, they are talismans, objects consecrated by memory. They have magical properties and they are not to be lightly disposed of or given away, because in losing them we lose a part of our memory, and memories are the bricks of the houses of our selves, our lives.

Montmorency was in it all, of course. Montmorency’s ambition in life, is to get in the way and be sworn at. If he can squirm in anywhere where he particularly is not wanted, and be a perfect nuisance, and make people mad, and have things thrown at his head, then he feels his day has not been wasted. To get somebody to stumble over him, and curse him steadily for an hour, is his highest aim and object; and, when he has succeeded in accomplishing this, his conceit becomes quite unbearable. He came and sat down on things, just when they were wanted to be packed; and he laboured under the fixed belief that, whenever Harris or George reached out their hand for anything, it was his cold, damp nose that they wanted. He put his leg into the jam, and he worried the teaspoons, and he pretended that the lemons were rats, and got into the hamper and killed three of them before Harris could land him with the frying-pan. Harris said I encouraged him. I didn’t encourage him. A dog like that don’t want any encouragement. It’s the natural, original sin that is born in him that makes him do things like that.

Prior to the HD diagnosis, instances of hoarding have also been referred to as Collyer Brothers syndrome, chronic disorganization, pack rat syndrome, messy house syndrome, pathological collecting, clutter addiction, Diogenes syndrome, squalor syndrome, senile recluse syndrome, and syllogomania (stockpiling rubbish). Some of these terms remain in use.

On my second afternoon at Grandma’s, she waved me over from where I was sitting on the front porch, waiting for the mailman. She introduced herself as Roberta and asked me to run to the store for a pack of Newports. When I returned, she waved away the change and proceeded to dazzle me with her exotic life story. She had once been married to a sword swallower who was now in jail where he belonged. Her second husband, the Canuck, God love him, was dead. Roberta had traveled with the Canuck to both Alaska and Hawaii and liked Alaska better. She’d dreamed President Kennedy’s assassination the week before it happened. She had been a vegetarian since the day in 1959 when she opened up a can of beef stew and found a baby rat.

The cellar was straight off the set of a horror film. The floor was packed dirt and littered with the droppings of mice and rats. The worn stone walls were damp with a slick layer of mold. Even the air was heavy and filled with a dark sense of menace. It combined to create an atmosphere that would send most people fleeing in terror. But Edra was made of sterner stuff.

Nothing in my life had prepared me for this.Not one single thing.I feel like a lad rat stuck in some horrible experiment meant to measure how I adapt to brutal forms of social segregation and weirdness.And the sad news is,I'm producing way below average results. I stand to the side of the lunchroom or cafeteria,or whatever they call it.The vegetarian lunch Paloma packed with great love and care tightly clutched in my fist,though I've no clue as to where I'm supposed to go eat it. Having already committed the most heinous crime of all by sitting at the wrong table, I'm not sure I'm up for trying again.I'm still shaken by the way those girls acted-so self-righteous and territorial,so burdened by my presence at the end of their bench. It's the seniors' table, I was told. I have no right to sit there. Ever. And that includes holidays and weekends. "Duly noted," I replied, grabbing my lunch and standing before them. "I'll do my best to steer clear of it on Christmas.Easter as well.Though Valentine's Day is a wild card I just can't commit to." And though it felt good at the time,I've no doubt it was a reckless act that only made things worse.

After what happened when my last—and if I’m being completely honest, my only—real relationship imploded, my focus needs to be on my career. Sex and marriage and a family and all that can fall into place after I’m a top fund manager. Sometime in the mid-nineties, perhaps. But the eighties? The eighties are all about getting ahead in the rat race. And I am determined to be at the front of the pack. Of rats.

Three hundred yards away, a mule deer that had already browsed its fill and been to water, rested in the shelter of a dry wash. Long-eared jack rabbits went about their various affairs. Gophers ventured a few yards from their dens, then squeaked and scurried back. A heavy-bodied rattlesnake, just emerged from its winter’s den, coiled near a clump of cholla cactus and waited for a pack rat to venture from its spiny nest.

The humans would not be a great loss to the earth. The energy or “electricity” of a being’s spirit was not extinguished by death; it was set free from the flesh. Dust to dust or as a meal for pack rats, the energy of the spirit was never lost. Out of the dust grew the plants; the plants were consumed and became muscle and bone; and all the time, the energy had only been changing form, nothing had been lost or destroyed.

Often, when I went out for breakfast on Sunday morning, at the Mediterranean place around the corner, I was seated by a dancer who’d been a year ahead of me at school and waited on by a painter who’d been two years ahead. At night, Don and I could meet Lauren for Thai food, or Leigh and Allison for gin and tonics at the Rat Pack–era bar on Bedford and watch an alternative circus, which involved one college friend of mine eating fire, another clowning in the style of Jacques Lecoq, another riding a unicycle and playing trombone. For me, this was heaven, heaven that could only be improved by Jenny moving in down the street. For Jenny, though, it turned out this was hell. She had cast off such childish things. Heaven was, she told me, eyes shining, driving to a large supermarket and unloading a week’s worth of groceries directly into her apartment from her designated parking spot.

Nature's Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the guests one by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the table-d'hôte shrink pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpets taken up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, en pension, until the next year's full reopening, cannot help being somewhat affected by all these flittings and farewells, this eager discussion of plans, routes, and fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in the stream of comradeship. One gets unsettled, depressed, and inclined to be querulous. Why this craving for change? Why not stay on quietly here, like us, and be jolly? You don't know this hotel out of the season, and what fun we have among ourselves, we fellows who remain and see the whole interesting year out. All very true, no doubt, the others always reply; we quite envy you—and some other years perhaps—but just now we have engagements—and there’s the bus as the door—our time is up! So they depart, with a smile and a nod, and we miss them, and feel resentful. The Rat was a self-sufficing sort of animal, rooted to the land, and whoever went, he stayed; still, he could not help noticing what was in the air, and feeling some of its influence in his bones.

He asked you not to like me, So why did you, Neera? Even now, I perform breaststrokes in caterpillar-stuffed north eastern clouds He didn’t ask me for any poems for 50 years, So why are you asking now, Neera? Even now, standing in 10-foot-deep water, I wield icy rods He wrote an editorial on my sub-judice case, Turning an editor, why are you asking for my writing, Neera? Even now, I love flatbreads stuffed with smoked penguin fat He did not confess to being my anthology’s publisher Why did you confess, Neera? Even now, I have family-pack yawns in the face of families, He didn’t like pronouncing my name So why are you telling it to youths, Neera? Even now, in bloody waters, I join the Bollywood chorus of tiger sharks He had said I have nothing of a true writer So why do you think I do, Neera? At Imlitala, I knew rat roasts don’t taste too good without charcoal smoke He said I have nothing creative in me So why do you think I do, Neera? Having burnt bank notes worth Rs 5,000 crore, I smelt death He said I’ll never write poetry So why do you think I have, Neera? On the banks of Amsterdam’s canals I have heard doddering old men sing limericks He transcended from sorrow to anger and anger to hate Why are you so generous Neera? Please don’t tell my grandmother.

Funny thing about Gabby: you wouldn’t know it from looking at him, with his golden halo and platonic beauty, but the guy was something of a pack rat. He’d been collecting little odds and ends since at least the double-digit redshifts. The interior reality of Gabriel’s Magisterium burbled and shifted like convection currents in a star on the zaftig end of the main sequence. Because, I realized, that’s what they were. Dull dim light, from IR to X-ray, oozed past me like the wax in a million-mile lava lamp while carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen nuclei did little do-si-dos about my toes. Every bubble, every sizzle, every new nucleus, every photodissociation tagged something of interest to Gabriel. The heart of this star smelled of roses and musty libraries.

The beatest characters in the country swarmed on the sidewalks—all of it under those soft Southern California stars that are lost in the brown halo of the huge desert encampment LA really is. You could smell tea, weed, I mean marijuana, floating in the air, together with the chili beans and beer. That grand wild sound of bop floated from beer parlors; it mixed medleys with every kind of cowboy and boogie woogie in the American night. Everybody looked like Hassel. Wild Negroes with bop caps and goatees came laughing by; then longhaired brokendown hipsters straight off Route 66 from New York; then old desert rats, carrying packs and heading for a park bench at the Plaza; then Methodist ministers with raveled sleeves, and an occasional Nature Boy saint in beard and sandals.

There were dragons when I was a boy. Ah, there were great, grim sky dragons that nested on the clifftops like gigantic, scary birds. Little, brown, scuttly dragons that hunted down the mice and rats in well-organized packs. Preposterously huge sea dragons that were twenty times as big as the big blue whale. Some say they crawled back into the sea, leaving not a bone nor a fang for men to remember them by. Others say they were nothing but folktales to begin with. I’m okay with that. Legend says that when the ground quakes, or lava spews from the earth, it’s the dragons, letting us know they’re still here, waiting for us to figure out how to get along. Yes, the world believes the dragons are gone, if they ever existed at all. But we Berkians, we know otherwise. And we’ll guard this secret until the time comes when dragons can return in peace.

Someone asked why do you want a homestead? To be independent, get out of the rat race, support local businesses, buy only American made. Stop buying stuff I don’t need to impress people I don’t like. Right now I am working in a big warehouse, for a major online supplier. The stuff is crap all made somewhere else in the world where they don’t have child labor laws, where the workers labor fourteen- to sixteen-hour days without meals or bathroom breaks. There is one million square feet in this warehouse packed with stuff that won’t last a month. It is all going to a landfill. This company has hundreds of warehouses. Our economy is built on the backs of slaves we keep in other countries, like China, India, Mexico, any third world country with a cheap labor force where we don’t have to see them but where we can enjoy the fruits of their labor. This American Corp. is probably the biggest slave owner in the world.

QUOTES & SAYINGS OF RYAN MORAN- THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL MAN Favorite Sayings of Ryan Moran: The World's Most Powerful Man “Sometimes the withholding of a small part of the truth is not only wise, but prudent.” “There is one principle that bars all other principles, and that is contempt prior to investigation.” (Ryan was fond of paraphrasing Herbert Spencer) “What do you mean?”, “How do you know?”, “So what?” “I don’t need much, just one meal a day, a pack of cigarettes and a roof over my head.” “Well…, we must have different data bases, mustn’t we?” “This guy is more squirrely than a shithouse rat” The CIA—you know, the ‘Catholic Irish Alcoholics’ “That dumb fuck.” “Oye! A Jew and an Irishman—what a team!” “Okay, everybody, up and to the right ten thousand feet,” ( If things in general were not going well. Refers to his jet flying days) “Is that what you want to do?.....Are you sure?" “Curiosity is self serving,” “If you don’t know where you’re going, you will end up somewhere else.” “So…, what are you thinking?” “I can do anything that I want, as long as I have the desire and I am willing to pay the price.” (His working definition of honesty) “Well, what did you learn tonight?” “Don’t let your emotions get the best of you, and don’t get too far out into your future.” “If you meet someone in the middle of the desert and he asks you where the next water hole is, you had better tell him the truth. If you don’t, then the next time you meet, he will kill you.” “Damn it!” “And remember to watch your mirrors!” (Refers to the fact someone may be following us in the car) “A person either gets humble or gets humiliated.” “That’s right.” “Oye, Sheldon, a Jew and an Irishman—talk about guilt and suffering!” “Pigs grow fat, but hogs get slaughtered.” “A friend is someone who is coming in, when everyone else is going out.

I Am A God [Intro: Capleton] Blazing, mi don't want them Mi need them Blazing Suh mi tek har outta bugah red and put her in a tall skirt And now she find out what life is really worth No to X rated Yo mi tek har outta bugah red and put her in a tall skirt And now she find out what life is really worth No to X rated [Intro] I am a god I am a god I am a god [Hook] I am a god Hurry up with my damn massage Hurry up with my damn ménage Get the Porsche out the damn garage I am a god Even though I'm a man of god My whole life in the hands of god So y'all better quit playing with god [Verse 1] Soon as they like you make 'em unlike you Cause kissing people ass is so unlike you The only rapper compared to Michael So here's a few hating-ass niggas who'll fight you And here's a few snake-ass niggas to bite you And I don't even wanna hear 'bout what niggas might do Old niggas mentally still in high school Since the tight jeans they never liked you Pink-ass polos with a fucking backpack But everybody know you brought real rap back Nobody had swag, man, we the Rat Pack Virgil Pyrex, Don C snapback Ivan, diamond, Chi-town shining Monop' in this bitch, get a change of climate Hop in this bitch and get the same thing I'm in Until the day I get struck by lightning I am a god So hurry up with my damn massage In a French-ass restaurant Hurry up with my damn croissants I am a god I am a god I am a god AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!! [Verse 2] I just talked to Jesus He said, "What up Yeezus?" I said, "Shit I'm chilling Trying to stack these millions." I know he the most high But I am a close high Mi casa, su casa That's that cosa nostra I am a god I am a god I am a god AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!! [Outro: Justin Vernon] Ain't no way I'm giving up. I'm a god

I also worried about her morale. During Linda’s first season working for Amazon, she had seen up close the vast volume of crap Americans were buying and felt disgusted. That experience had planted a seed of disenchantment. After she left the warehouse, it continued to grow. When she had downsized from a large RV to a minuscule trailer, Linda had also been reading about minimalism and the tiny house movement. She had done a lot of thinking about consumer culture and about how much garbage people cram into their short lives. I wondered where all those thoughts would lead. Linda was still grappling with them. Weeks later, after starting work in Kentucky, she would post the following message on Facebook and also text it directly to me: Someone asked why do you want a homestead? To be independent, get out of the rat race, support local businesses, buy only American made. Stop buying stuff I don’t need to impress people I don’t like. Right now I am working in a big warehouse, for a major online supplier. The stuff is crap all made somewhere else in the world where they don’t have child labor laws, where the workers labor fourteen- to sixteen-hour days without meals or bathroom breaks. There is one million square feet in this warehouse packed with stuff that won’t last a month. It is all going to a landfill. This company has hundreds of warehouses. Our economy is built on the backs of slaves we keep in other countries, like China, India, Mexico, any third world country with a cheap labor force where we don’t have to see them but where we can enjoy the fruits of their labor. This American Corp. is probably the biggest slave owner in the world. After sending that, she continued: Radical I know, but this is what goes through my head when I’m at work. There is nothing in that warehouse of substance. It enslaved the buyers who use their credit to purchase that shit. Keeps them in jobs they hate to pay their debts. It’s really depressing to be there. Linda added that she was coping

Is that what we do? We pitch our tents, do our little clown shows, and then take off up the road to the next town ahead? Leaving our science-fictional debris on the blasted dirt to poison the minds of future generations, like the alien litter in STALKER and ROADSIDE PICNIC. Flying cars rusting out like Saturn Five rockets propped up as roadkill talismans at Kennedy, leaking toxins into the soil. Jetpacks oozing fuel from cracks in their tanks and poisoning the grass. Three-ring moonbases crumbling in the solar wind. Birdshit on the time machines. Big fat rats scavenging broken packs of food capsules, Best Before Date of 1971. A Westinghouse Robot Smoking Companion, vintage of 1931, slumped up against a tree, tin fingers still twitching for a cigarette. Vines growing through a busted cyberspace deck. The shreds of inflatable furniture designed for the space hospitals of 1955. Lizards perched atop a weather control cannon. Atomic batteries mouldering inside the grips of laser pistols abandoned in the weeds.

Among the best shows were these, some of which have attained cult followings: The Most Dangerous Game (Oct. 1, 1947), a showcase for two actors, Paul Frees and Hans Conried, as hunted and hunter on a remote island; Evening Primrose (Nov. 5, 1947), John Collier’s too-chilling-to-be-humorous account of a misfit who finds sanctuary (and something else that he hadn’t counted on) when he decides to live in a giant department store after hours; Confession (Dec. 31, 1947), surely one of the greatest pure-radio items ever done in any theater—Algernon Blackwood’s creepy sleight-of-hand that keeps a listener guessing until the last line; Leiningen vs. the Ants (Jan. 17, 1948) and Three Skeleton Key (Nov. 15, 1949), interesting as much for technical achievement as for story or character development (soundmen Gould and Thorsness utilized ten turntables and various animal noises in their creation of Three Skeleton Key’s swarming pack of rats); Poison (July 28, 1950), a riveting commentary on intolerance wrapped in a tense struggle to save a man from the deadliest snake in the world—Jack Webb stars

The marsh was guarded by a torn shoreline, labeled by early explorers as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” because riptides, furious winds, and shallow shoals wrecked ships like paper hats along what would become the North Carolina coast. One seaman’s journal read, “rang’d along the Shoar . . . but could discern no Entrance . . . A violent Storm overtook us . . . we were forced to get off to Sea, to secure Ourselves and Ship, and were driven by the Rapidity of a strong Current . . . “The Land . . . being marshy and Swamps, we return’d towards our Ship . . . Discouragement of all such as should hereafter come into those Parts to settle.” Those looking for serious land moved on, and this infamous marsh became a net, scooping up a mishmash of mutinous sailors, castaways, debtors, and fugitives dodging wars, taxes, or laws that they didn’t take to. The ones malaria didn’t kill or the swamp didn’t swallow bred into a woodsmen tribe of several races and multiple cultures, each of whom could fell a small forest with a hatchet and pack a buck for miles. Like river rats, each had his own territory, yet had to fit into the fringe or simply disappear some day in the swamp. Two hundred years later, they were joined by runaway slaves, who escaped into the marsh and were called maroons, and freed slaves, penniless and beleaguered, who dispersed into the water-land because of scant options.

The last time I saw Collin was in 1917, at the foot of Mort-Homme. Before the great slaughter, Collin’d been an avid angler. On that day, he was standing at the hole, watching maggots swarm among blow flies on two boys that we couldn’t retrieve for burial without putting our own lives at risk. And there, at the loop hole, he thought of his bamboo rods, his flies and the new reel he hadn’t even tried out yet. Collin was imaging himself on the riverbank, wine cooling in the current his stash of worms in a little metal box and a maggot on his hook, writhing like… Holy shit. Were the corpses getting to him? Collin. The poor guy didn’t even have time to sort out his thoughts. In that split second, he was turned into a slab of bloody meat. A white hot hook drilled right through him and churned through his guts, which spilled out of a hole in his belly. He was cleared out of the first aid station. The major did triage. Stomach wounds weren’t worth the trouble. There were all going to die anyway, and besides, he wasn’t equipped to deal with them. Behind the aid station, next to a pile of wood crosses, there was a heap of body parts and shapeless, oozing human debris laid out on stretchers, stirred only be passing rats and clusters of large white maggots. But on their last run, the stretcher bearers carried him out after all… Old Collin was still alive. From the aid station to the ambulance and from the ambulance to the hospital, all he could remember was his fall into that pit, with maggots swarming over the open wound he had become from head to toe… Come to think of it, where was his head? And what about his feet? In the ambulance, the bumps were so awful and the pain so intense that it would have been a relief to pass out. But he didn’t. He was still alive, writhing on his hook. They carved up old Collin good. They fixed him as best they could, but his hands and legs were gone. So much for fishing. Later, they pinned a medal on him, right there in that putrid recovery room. And later still, they explained to him about gangrene and bandages packed with larvae that feed on death tissue. He owed them his life. From one amputation and operation to the next – thirty-eight in all – the docs finally got him “back on his feet”. But by then, the war was long over.

Little Robin had been brought by Lord Orthallen—although he had the feeling that his lord did not realize it. The boy was a part of his household, though Orthallen seemed to have long since forgotten the fact; and when the order came to pack up the household and move to the Border, Robin found himself in the tail of the baggage train, with no small bewilderment. He'd been at a loss in the encampment, wandering about until someone had seen him and realized that a small child had no place in a camp preparing for warfare. So he was sent packing; first off with Elspeth, then pressed into service by the Healers. They'd set him to fetching and carrying for Dirk, thinking that the child was far too young to be able to pick anything up from the casual talk around him, and that Dirk wouldn't think to interrogate a child as young as he. They were wrong on both counts. Robin was very much aware of what was going on—not surprising, since it concerned his adored Talia. He was worried sick, and longing for an adult to talk to. And Dirk was kind and gentle with him—and had he but known it, desperate enough for news to have questioned the rats in the walls if he thought it would get him anywhere. Dirk knew all about Robin and his adoration of Talia. If anyone knew where she was being kept and what her condition was, that boy would. Dirk bided his time. Eventually the Healers stopped overseeing his every waking moment. Finally there came a point when they began leaving him alone for hours at a time. He waited then, until Robin was sent in alone with his lunch—alone, unsupervised, and more than willing to talk—and put the question to him. Dirk had no intention of frightening the boy, and his tone was gentle, "I need your help. The Healers won't answer my questions, and I need to know about Talia." Robin had turned back with his hand still on the doorknob; at the mention of Talia's name, his expression was one of distress. "I'll tell you what I know, sir," he replied, his voice quavering a little. "But she's hurt real bad and they won't let anybody but Healers see her." "Where is she? Do you have any idea who's taking care of her?" The boy not only knew where she was, but the names and seniority of every Healer caring for her—and the list nearly froze Dirk's heart. They'd even pulled old Farnherdt out of retirement—and he'd sworn that no case would ever be desperate enough for them to call on him.

A banker’s wife with two children, Woodman undertook the story-gathering pilgrimage and was soon writing one of the most respected dramas of early radio. One of the sponsor’s employees in California, a self-styled “desert rat” named W. W. “Wash” Cahill, was lined up as her guide. Her trips into the desert became annual events, and soon she was well versed in the ways of prospectors, outlaws, and saloon girls. She spent up to two months a year prowling through ghost towns, interviewing oldtimers, sifting through museums, and poring over yellowing newsprint. She packed into the back country, scaled the mountains west of Death Valley, talked with small-town newspaper editors, old men who ran gas stations, lonely wives on the fringes of nowhere, and—when she could get into the saloons—bartenders. Then she returned to New York to write the stories she had gathered, and the next year she did it all again.

Indeed, the nervous system of the octopus, thought to be the most intelligent invertebrate, is comprised of approximately half a billion neurons, more than six times the number in a mouse brain. Additionally, like humans, dolphins, and elephants, octopuses have a brain with a folded surface, ostensibly to pack in more neurons in a confined space, in contrast to the smooth-surfaced brains of other cephalopods, mice, rats, and marmosets. Thus although octopuses don’t have cortical regions associated with ToM, they have an exceptionally large brain capacity and may have evolved to solve the problem of ToM using different anatomical strategies.

Countless studies show that these nightmarish hellholes called “open offices” destroy productivity and make people miserable. Yet companies keep inflicting them on us, coyly pretending that the goal is to “foster collaboration,” when really it is to squeeze pennies out of overhead by packing more people into fewer square feet of floor space.

Were those statues there before?” Buer waves his little cuttlefish tentacles and moves his finger across the paper. “They’re new. A different icon for each of the Seven Noble Virtues.” He’s not lying. They’re all there. All the personality quirks that give Hellions a massive cultural hard-on. Cunning. Ruthlessness. Ferocity. Deception. Silence. Strength. Joy. They’re represented by a collection of demonic marble figures with leathery wings and forked tongues, bent spines and razor dorsal fins, clusters of eyestalks and spider legs. The colonnades look like the most fucked-up miniature golf course in the universe and they’re on what’s supposed to be the new City Hall. “I have an idea. How about instead of the Legion of Doom we put up the Rat Pack and the lyrics to ‘Luck Be a Lady’?” “Excuse me?” says Buer. “What I mean is, it looks a little fascist.” “Thank you.” “That wasn’t a compliment.

Not to be confused with Der Flügel, which is an earlier form of the baby grand piano, the Flugelhorn is a wind instrument akin to the trumpet, but has a wider, conical bore. It is actually a descendant of the valved bugle, which had been developed from a hunting horn known in eighteenth-century Germany as a Flügelhorn. This valved instrument is similar to the B♭pitch of many trumpets and cornets and was actually inspired by the eighteenth-century saxhorn on which the flugelhorn is modeled. The German word Flügel means wing and in the early part of the 18th century Germany the leader or Führer of the hunt was known as a Flügelmeister who issued his orders of the hunt with, you guessed it, a Flügelhorn. Some modern flugelhorns feature a fourth valve that adds a lower range and extends the instrument's abilities, however some players use the fourth valve in place of the first and third valve combination making the instrument somewhat sharper and more confusing. The tone range is "fatter" and usually regarded as more “mellow” and “darker” than the trumpet or cornet. The sound of the flugelhorn has been described as halfway between a trumpet and a French horn and is a standard member of the British-style brass band. Joe Bishop an American jazz musician and composer, not to be confused with Joey Bishop of the Rat Pack, was a member of the Woody Herman band and was one of the earliest jazz musicians to use the flugelhorn.

When the black entertainer and Rat Pack member Sammy Davis Jr. converted to Judaism, a joke went around that Sammy tried to get on a bus in the Jim Crow South and was ordered by the bus driver to get to the back of the bus. “But I’m Jewish,” Sammy pleaded. Whereupon the bus driver said, “Get off the bus.

A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice, lest you jeopardise your chances of self-promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts. And before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit.

To take one example, even a brief exposure to light in a newborn kitten, rat, or monkey can launch a complex cascade of gene expression. The light activates photoreceptors-which send signals-which trigger a pathway-which leads to the expression of neural growth factors and a set of genes known as "immediate early genes" or "early response genes"-each of which, in turn, triggers the expression of many more genes. One study of cichlid fish suggests that a change in social status (from submissive to dominant) is tied to changes in the expression levels of at least fifty-nine different genes-a phenomenon not entirely unrelated to the testosterone rush that Joe-six-pack gets when the home team wins.

tiny seed of doubt sprouting inside her gut. Could this life-altering affair be nothing more than a one-sided mirage? She couldn’t keep her journalistic instincts from attempting to connect dots. She recalled every possible aversion of her lover’s eyes, each word of affirmation that may not have been as sincere and heartfelt as the previous. And now this. Karina released an audible breath and brought her hand to her head. She felt the sharp edge of her one-quarter-karat, pear-shaped diamond engagement ring, and thought about Reinaldo, her Brazilian husband of the last ten years. There had been some good times … moments she’d always remember. But as she recalled the hikes up Pikes Peak, the mountainous bike rides, and games of pool while drinking a few beers, she admitted that Reinaldo had been nothing more than a friend—a convenient friend at that. But one who had helped her produce two kids, two adorable little rug rats. Would they ever look at Mommy the same way, if they found out who the real Karina was? When they found out. Karina couldn’t let her insecurities question her new path in life—a path she’d ignored far too long. Determined to make this relationship work, her mind sharpened, and she leaned over the side of the bed and snatched her smartphone from the back pocket of her khakis. No sweet text messages. She licked her lips, then scrolled to her contacts and tapped the cell number. “Hi, Karina. Miss me already?” the voice on the other end asked. Karina couldn’t help but smile. “I just wanted to hear your voice again before I packed up my things and strolled back into my old life.” “I know what you mean,” Karina’s lover said. “You don’t have a spouse and two kids,” Karina said with a tone more harsh than she’d intended. “Oh, sorry.” “Not a problem. I get it. I really do.” A wave of emotion overcame Karina. A single tear bubbled out of the corner of her eye and she sniffled. “Are you okay, dear?” “I …” “You can tell me, Karina. We share everything.” “I just wanted our evening together to be special. You mean so much to me … how I see myself. How I see our future.” “I’m so sorry my work got in our way. Just know that you hold a special place in my heart.” Karina could hear sincerity, which warmed her heart. “I love you.” “I love you too, Karina.” Muffled sounds broke Karina’s concentration. Was that another person’s voice? “What was that noise? Where are you?” Tension rippled up her spine. “Oh, I just walked in my door. I’m exhausted, dear. Let’s make plans for early next week. We can both relax and have some fun at my new place. We can talk about our future.” The pressure in Karina’s head eased. They kissed into

Familiar was good. Unfamiliar was bad. A soft scuffing came from beyond the old female’s crate. Maggie instantly lifted her head, and cocked her ears toward the sound. She recognized human footsteps, and understood two people were coming up the drive. Maggie hurried to the French doors and pushed her nose under the curtain. She heard a twig snap, brittle leaves being crushed, and the scuffing grow louder. Tree rats stopped moving to hide in their stillness. Maggie walked quickly to the side of the curtains, stuck her head under, and sampled more air. The footsteps stopped. She cocked her head, listening. She sniffed. She heard the soft metal-to-metal clack of the gate latch, caught their scent, and recognized the intruders. The strangers who had entered their crate had returned. Maggie erupted in a thunder of barking. She lunged against the glass, the fur on her back bristling from her tail to her shoulders. Crate in danger. Pack threatened. Her fury was a warning. She would drive off or kill whatever threatened her pack. She heard them running. “Maggie! Mags!” Scott came off the couch behind her, but she paid him no mind. She drove them harder, warning them. “What are you barking at?” The scuffing faded. Car doors slammed. An engine grew softer until it was gone. Scott pushed aside the curtains, and joined her. The threat was gone. Crate safe. Pack safe. Alpha safe. Her job was done. “Is someone out there?” Maggie gazed up at Scott with love and joy. She folded her ears and wagged her tail. She knew he was seeking danger in the darkness, but would find nothing. Maggie

The sled runners had been replaced by wheels and they traveled on a rutted, muddy road that formed a dark line between two fields of snow that occasionally showed a patch of matted, tangled weeds. Seeing them got her thinking. She wiped her face with the blanket and, digging her brush out of a nearby pack, began the arduous process of clearing the snarls from her hair. She pulled, grunted, and then sighed. Modina looked over with a questioning expression, and Arista explained by letting go of the brush and leaving it to hang. Modina smiled and crawled over to her. “Turn around,” she said, and taking the brush, the empress began working the back of Arista’s head. “You have quite the rat’s nest here.” “Be careful one doesn’t bite you,” Arista replied.

Henry has an attachment disorder. He doesn’t even like it when I cut my hair. If my mom had allowed it, he would be the biggest pack rat in the world. But hoarding and blindness don’t mix. Everything has to be in its place or the house becomes a landmine. So he wears the same clothes until they’re threadbare, won’t cut his hair, still sleeps with his Dragon Ball Z sheets he got for his eighth birthday, and has every toy he has ever been given stored in plastic bins in the basement. I don’t think he’ll go through with the hair cut. He’s only let Robin cut it twice since my mom died, and both times he cried the entire time, and she had to put the clippings in a Ziplock bag and let him keep them, just to get him to calm down.” I was slightly repulsed, and I was glad Millie couldn’t see my expression. “So he has bags of hair in his room?” “I’m assuming he does though he won’t tell me where. I pay my next-door neighbor to come in and clean once a week, and she hasn’t found it either

In the Tel Aviv study, a group of formerly sedentary rats of varying ages ran on a treadmill for 20 minutes daily for 13 weeks. Another pack of rats was the control group. The control group was allowed to remain sedentary—that is, those rats’ muscles were mainly not used. As you might expect from everything you’ve read so far, the exercisers increased their number of stem muscle cells, with the total increase dependent on age—but not in the way you would expect. The younger rat runners saw an increase of 20 to 35 percent in their stem repair cells. The older rats, however, experienced an even greater proliferation—a 33 to 47 percent increase. That’s right: The percentage increase in stem muscle cells was greater in the older subjects than in the younger ones. On the other hand, the nonexercising rats lost stem cells by lying around, eating and sleeping as they aged.

I always used to hear Mom say Grandma Dotty was a big pack rat. And to be honest, I never really thought about what that meant. I just thought:

We are, at our core, information pack rats and inveterate correlators.

Unlike Dede, Auntie was a pack rat who crammed every space in her house with some object or another, and she was constantly rearranging. She had a large collection of mammy dolls and darkie memorabilia from the 1930s and 1940s, watermelon-eating and big-lipped reminders of the times she’d grown up in. Better for me to collect it than those other folks, she always said.

A perfect stack of unread mail sat on a side table in the corner next to what looked like a music box and some sort of blacksmith’s puzzle, which rested in perfect alignment with the stack and the box. Ceony had never known a pack rat to be so . . . tidy. It disturbed her.

Sands.

Imagine you have a messy room and you set a goal to clean it. If you summon the energy to tidy up, then you will have a clean room—for now. But if you maintain the same sloppy, pack-rat habits that led to a messy room in the first place, soon you’ll be looking at a new pile of clutter and hoping for another burst of motivation. You’re left chasing the same outcome because you never changed the system behind it. You treated a symptom without addressing the cause.

The very idea of purging source data appalls me. I suppose if I were human, I'd be a pack rat. I'd probably end up as a little old lady who gets crushed to death beneath the weight of her lifetime collection of National Geographics.

I stopped by the kitchen on my way out, only to find that the cats had eaten all my food before they’d ordered the pizza. And this was after Muffin had presumably had some ham with Mayhem. Even a bottle of cheap champagne was open and empty. I glared at Muffin. He glared back. Is this how you treat your guests? I sighed. “Just try to clean up after yourself, okay?” There was no point in sticking around to hear his response. He was a cat. He was going to do whatever the heck he wanted. Lachlan was waiting for me down in the main entry hall, but my stomach was still grumbling. “You hungry?” “I could eat.” “Good. Let’s grab something from the kitchen real quick.” I led him down the stairs into the kitchen, the domain of Hans, the chef. Hans’s mustache quivered with delight when he saw us. He loved guests. “Food!” he cried. “You must eat!” “Could we have something quick to go, please? Something that won’t put you out.” “But it never puts me out, ma cherie!” He darted about the kitchen like a ballet dancer, quick and determined. A little brown rat sat on the counter, a platter of cheese in front of him. “How are you doing, Boris?” I asked. The rat nodded, looking happy. Bree had rescued him from a crazy healer about a month ago, and now he spent his days either in the kitchen, mooching off of Hans, who was only too happy to oblige, or hanging out with Hedy while she created the spells and potions that we used so often. Hans piled us high with sandwiches wrapped in paper, then he shoved a six-pack of juice boxes at Lachlan. “You must drink your juice!” For whatever reason, Hans was utterly obsessed with giving people juice. It was the strangest thing, but he clearly felt strongly about it. Since my sisters and I hadn’t had anyone caring for us since our mother’s death when we were thirteen, I really didn’t mind. “We’ll drink it. Thank you, Hans.

I have one A–Z alphabetical physical filing system for general reference, not multiple ones. My e-mail reference folders are also organized this way. People have a tendency to want to use their files as a personal management system, and therefore they attempt to organize them in groupings by projects or areas of focus. This magnifies geometrically the number of places something isn’t when you forget where you filed it. Once you have filtered all the reminders for actions into your next-action lists, this kind of data is simply the content of your personal library. You should have the freedom to be as much of a pack rat as you wish. The only issue you need to deal with is how much room you have for storage, and how accessible the information is when you need it. One simple alpha system files everything by topic, person, project, or company, so it can be in only three or four places if you forget exactly where you put it. You can usually put at least one subset of topics on each label, like “Gardening—pots” and “Gardening—ideas.” These would be filed under G.

To my delight, the man undies are a jumbled mess. They aren’t folded or rolled or placed in the drawer in any sort of organized way. Which means the entire drawer is basically just like a cozy, squishy, surprisingly nice-smelling bed. I just want to curl up and take a nap in here. My rat dive-bombs into it like she’s swimming in a pool, tunnels through one, and pops back up with a pair wrapped around our body. Pleased, my rat starts climbing out. Oh, okay. I guess we’re stealing a pair of boxers. Lovely.

A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.”  —Stephen Crane

It’ll be like my very own knapsack. A ratsack? A knaprat? Whatever. The point is, I’m like Santa Claus—if Santa Claus was a rat and carried all his toys in a pair of boxers that he stole for himself.

It is normal for us, love. We can shape-shift whenever we like.” She made a face. “You mean all those hideous stories are true? Rats and bats and slimy worm things?” “Now, why would I want to be a slimy worm thing?” He was openly laughing. The sound startled him; he couldn’t remember laughing aloud. “Very funny, Jacques. I’m so glad you find this amusing. Those people actually formed themselves out of fog, like something in a movie.” She gave a punch to his arm for emphasis. “Explain it.” “Shape-shifting is easy once you are strong. When I said we run with the wolf, I meant it literally. We run with the pack. We can fly with the owl and become the air.

He felt her open to him, her mind and heart and soul, softly feminine, exquisitely woman, all his. Her pleasure matched his own beat for beat, shudder for shudder. He had to hold her to keep himself on his feet, and they collapsed together into the soaked vegetation. Holding each other, the rain cooling their bodies, they laughed like children. “I expected steam this time,” Jacques said, crushing her to him. “Can you do that?” Shea fit the back of her head into the niche of his sternum. One hand idly slid over the heavy muscles of his chest. “Make us so hot we turn the rain to steam?” He grinned boyishly down at her, for the first time so carefree that he forgot for a moment the torment he had suffered. She made him invincible. She made him vulnerable. Most of all, she made him alive. “No, really--what they did, those others. They were like fog or mist. Can you really do that?” Shea persisted. “I mean, you said you could, but I thought maybe you were delusional.” His eyebrows shot up. “Delusional?” Jacques flashed a cocky grin, held out his arm, and watched as fur rippled along the length of it, as the fingers curved and extended into claws. He had to make a grab for Shea as she scrambled away from him, her eyes enormous. Jacques was careful not to hurt her with his strength. “Stop laughing at me, you brute. That’s not exactly normal.” A slow smile was beginning to curve her soft mouth. She couldn’t help but be happy for the innocent joy he found in each piece of information that came to him, each new memory of his gifts. “It is normal for us, love. We can shape-shift whenever we like.” She made a face. “You mean all those hideous stories are true? Rats and bats and slimy worm things?” “Now, why would I want to be a slimy worm thing?” He was openly laughing. The sound startled him; he couldn’t remember laughing aloud. “Very funny, Jacques. I’m so glad you find this amusing. Those people actually formed themselves out of fog, like something in a movie.” She gave a punch to his arm for emphasis. “Explain it.” “Shape-shifting is easy once you are strong. When I said we run with the wolf, I meant it literally. We run with the pack. We can fly with the owl and become the air.

All of us carry around countless bags of dusty old knickknacks dated from childhood: collected resentments, long lists of wounds of greater or lesser significance, glorified memories, absolute certainties that later turn out to be wrong. Humans are emotional pack rats. These bags define us. My baggage made me someone I did not want to be: a cringing girl, a sensitive plant, a needy greedy sort of thing. I began, at an early age, to try to rid myself of my bags. I began to construct a new role. I made a plan. When I was six, I wrote it down with my green calligraphy pen and buried it in the backyard. My plan: To get thin. To be great. To get out.

Capitalism always needs a hero. It needs a Pied Piper who can rally others into living better lives. Capitalism always has a star fronting it. It needs a Pied Piper exhorting everyone to pretty themselves up. Oh, play the pipe, Pied Piper! Play us the pipe! It's in the back of the pack where the chase and competition begin. The pushing, the shoving, and the stampeding occur at the back. None of the rats can ever overtake Pied Piper.

The inside of the tavern was well lit and filled with men and women in plain but sturdy clothes, most covered with some kind of fur, as though everyone worked with animals. They didn’t have the look of farmers. An odd stink rode under the scents of roasted meat and bread, but the food made his stomach grumble loudly. It was all he could do to keep from launching himself onto the nearest plate. Conversation died as everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him. “Ah, hello.” He gathered his courage. This was just like reading poetry, but subtract poems and add people casually placing hunting knives and daggers on their tables. One of the women was filing her fingernails into sharp points, like claws. Just like reading poetry. G regathered his courage and strode to the far end of the room, toward the bar. He had to squeeze in between two burly men with tear-shaped scars on their faces. They all smelled vaguely like wet dog. A young man at the end of the bar leaned forward and smirked at him in a decidedly unpleasant manner. The bartender eyed him. “What do you want?” “I—” G had never needed to admit to not having money before. “I don’t suppose you have any work that needs doing around here?” “Work?” This fellow clearly had not so much brain as ear wax. “I could clean the tables or scrub the floor.” The bartender pointed to a haggard-looking serving wench, who scowled at him. “Nell here does that.” “Or I could peel potatoes. Or carrots. Or onions. Or any root vegetable, really.” G had never peeled anything before, but how hard could it be? “We have someone who does that, too,” the man said. “Why don’t you push off. This isn’t the place for you.” G would have suggested yet more menial tasks he’d never attempted, but at that moment, he put together the hints: the wet-dog smell; the fur on everyone’s clothes; the defensive/protective behavior when he, a stranger, entered. That, and they were eating beef. Cow. Possibly that village’s only cow. All at once, he knew. This was the Pack. “Er, yes, perhaps I should be pushing off, as you suggest—” he started to say. “Rat!” Someone near the door lurched from his chair, making it topple over behind him. “There’s a rat!” It couldn’t be Jane, he thought. He’d told her to stay put. “It’s not a rat, you daft idiot,” cried another. “It’s a squirrel!” “It’s some kind of weasel!” Bollocks. It was his wife. “It’s dinner, that’s what it is.” That was the man directly to G’s right. “And he’s a spy. Asking all those questions about vegetables.” “She’s clearly a ferret!” G yelled as he lunged toward the dear little creature dashing about on the floor. 

His … but … Ron, you’re not …?’ Ron held up his badge. Mrs Weasley let out a shriek just like Hermione’s. ‘I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! Oh, Ron, how wonderful! A prefect! That’s everyone in the family!’ ‘What are Fred and I, next-door neighbours?’ said George indignantly, as his mother pushed him aside and flung her arms around her youngest son. ‘Wait until your father hears! Ron, I’m so proud of you, what wonderful news, you could end up Head Boy just like Bill and Percy, it’s the first step! Oh, what a thing to happen in the middle of all this worry, I’m just thrilled, oh, Ronnie –’ Fred and George were both making loud retching noises behind her back but Mrs Weasley did not notice; arms tight around Ron’s neck, she was kissing him all over his face, which had turned a brighter scarlet than his badge. ‘Mum … don’t … Mum, get a grip …’ he muttered, trying to push her away. She let go of him and said breathlessly, ‘Well, what will it be? We gave Percy an owl, but you’ve already got one, of course.’ ‘W-what do you mean?’ said Ron, looking as though he did not dare believe his ears. ‘You’ve got to have a reward for this!’ said Mrs Weasley fondly. ‘How about a nice new set of dress robes?’ ‘We’ve already bought him some,’ said Fred sourly, who looked as though he sincerely regretted this generosity. ‘Or a new cauldron, Charlie’s old one’s rusting through, or a new rat, you always liked Scabbers –’ ‘Mum,’ said Ron hopefully, ‘can I have a new broom?’ Mrs Weasley’s face fell slightly; broomsticks were expensive. ‘Not a really good one!’ Ron hastened to add. ‘Just – just a new one for a change …’ Mrs Weasley hesitated, then smiled. ‘Of course you can … well, I’d better get going if I’ve got a broom to buy too. I’ll see you all later … little Ronnie, a prefect! And don’t forget to pack your trunks … a prefect … oh, I’m all of a dither!’ She gave Ron yet another kiss on the cheek, sniffed loudly, and bustled from the room. Fred and George exchanged looks. ‘You don’t mind if we don’t kiss you, do you, Ron?’ said Fred in a falsely anxious voice. ‘We could curtsey, if you like,’ said George. ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Ron, scowling at them.

What this amounts to, and what makes the critic with his nose for genre and structure so nervous, is that by all accounts this shouldn’t be a good book at all, should in fact be a really terrible book, and the Quartet a rambling, self-indulgent mess. It’s too clogged up with words to be straight forward action adventure, it’s too in love with the power of old-fashioned story telling to be a safe member of any experimental literary camp, it’s too bawdy to be a tastefully controlled work of the intellect (what other work about the primacy of Man’s soul contains a sizable section on the history and art of prostitution?), and it’s combination of travel and digression, action and introspection, while they remind one in flashes (those comparisons again) of writers like Chatwin and Theroux, are too loose, too much under the sway of Whittemore’s pack-rat, all-encompassing, constantly changing focus of attention. In the end, against all odds, the book works because something binds together its lofty ambitions and disparate parts and makes it, if not a whole, then at least the tantalizing shape of something about to come into being at any moment. That something is the force of Whittemore’s integrity of vision. Ben Gibberd New York City, 2002

Here was this high school kid, and he came out dressed as if he were a member of the Rat Pack,” recalled ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap, who was present. “What the heck was going on? He wore sunglasses. Sunglasses! And they may well have been drugstore shades, but they looked Armani on him. It was hard to accept the total lack of humility and the sort of Hollywood quality to it. I’d been around Michael Jordan, I’d been around Charles Barkley, but I’d never seen anything so show-offish.

Terror was always just behind her shoulder: she was wasted by the effort of not turning round. She dressed up her fear, so that she could look at it—in the form of fever, rats, unemployment. The real thing was taboo—death coming nearer every year in the strange place: everybody packing up and leaving, while she stayed in a cemetery no one visited, in a big aboveground tomb.

Later, I sat down drunk on the corner of Carondelet and Canal Streets, listening for the rumble of the streetcar that would take me back uptown to my apartment, watching the evening sun bleed from the streets, the city shifting into night, when it truly became New Orleans: the music, the constant festival, the smell of late evening dinners pouring out, layering the beer-soaked streets, prostitutes, clubs with DJs, rowdy gay bars, dirty strip clubs, the insane out for a walk, college students vomiting in trash cans, daiquiri bars lit up like supermarkets, washing-machine-sized mixers built into the wall spinning every color of daiquiri, lone trumpet players, grown women crying, clawing at men in suits, portrait painters, spangers (spare change beggars), gutter punks with dogs, kids tap-dancing with spinning bike wheels on their heads, the golden cowboy frozen on a milk crate, his golden gun pointed at a child in the crowd, fortune-tellers, psycho preachers, mumblers, fighters, rock-faced college boys out for a date rape, club chicks wearing silver miniskirts, horse-drawn carriages, plastic cups piling against the high curbs of Bourbon Street, jazz music pressing up against rock-and-roll cover bands, murderers, scam artists, hippies selling anything, magic shows and people on unicycles, flying cockroaches the size of pocket rockets, rats without fear, men in drag, business execs wandering drunk in packs, deciding not to tell their wives, sluts sucking dick on open balconies, cops on horseback looking down blouses, cars wading across the river of drunks on Bourbon Street, the people screaming at them, pouring drinks on the hood, putting their asses to the window, whole bars of people laughing, shot girls with test tubes of neon-colored booze, bouncers dragging skinny white boys out by their necks, college girls rubbing each other’s backs after vomiting tequila, T-shirts, drinks sold in a green two-foot tube with a small souvenir grenade in the bottom, people stumbling, tripping, falling, laughing on the sidewalk in the filth, laughing too hard to stand back up, thin rivers of piss leaking out from corners, brides with dirty dresses, men in G-strings, mangy dogs, balloon animals, camcorders, twenty-four-hour 3-4-1, free admission, amateur night, black-eyed strippers, drunk bicyclers, clouds of termites like brown mist surrounding streetlamps, ventriloquists, bikers, people sitting on mailboxes, coffee with chicory, soul singers, the shoeless, the drunks, the blissful, the ignorant, the beaten, the assholes, the cheaters, the douche bags, the comedians, the holy, the broken, the affluent, the beggars, the forgotten, and the soft spring air pregnant with every scent created by such a town.

You just stood there while Brody called me a bog rat, and he said you were test driving my pussy, and he asked if you left any virgin holes, and I was literally puking in the grass, and you didn’t say anything.