Son Of A Beach Quotes

I love you Rush Finlay. You are going to be the best husband and father the world has ever known. One day our son’s wife will be thankful that her husband will have had you for a role model. She’ll be lucky because of you. Because you will have raised our son to be the man that you are. He’ll love her completely because he’ll know how.

I love you, Blaire. I’m so damn proud of the fact you’re going to be the mother of my son. I want everyone to know. Never doubt that.

Before she climbed into the car, I kindly let her know my back seats were very hard and very cold. Dead Eye Red responded, “Son, when I was your age, I would sit on a seat like this and smoke would appear!” Somewhat surprised and tickled, I said, “Ma'am, no one will ever look under your car to see if it’s washed.” I really should have known better before I opened my big fat mouth. She said, “Son, no one is looking at my butt, but I wash it anyway!

Don't miss out on the love of a good women,son. No matter what that old man of yours tells you,love is real.I'd have never had the success in my life without the women right there.She's been my backbone.She's been my reason for everything I've ever done.One day your drive to make a name for yourself will begin to drift away. It won't be that important anymore.But when you're doing it for someone else, someone you would move heaven and earth for then you never lose the desire to succeed.I can't imagine this world without her in it.I don't ever want to.

A man goes out on the beach and sees that it is covered with starfish that have washed up in the tide. A little boy is walking along, picking them up and throwing them back into the water. “What are you doing, son?” the man asks. “You see how many starfish there are? You’ll never make a difference.” The boy paused thoughtfully, and picked up another starfish and threw it into the ocean. “It sure made a difference to that one,” he said.

No, you love to confuse me and drive me crazy. You don't really love me. You don't know what love is." "Yeah, I think I do." His brows lowered, and he took a step toward her. "I have loved you my whole life, Delaney. I can't remember a day when I didn't love you. I loved you the day I practically knocked you out with a snowball. I loved you when I flattened the tires on your bike so I could walk you home. I loved you when I saw you hiding behind the sunglasses at the Value Rite, and I loved you when you loved that loser son of a bitch Tommy Markham. I never forgot the smell of your hair or the texture of your skin the night I laid you on the hood of my car at Angel Beach. So don't tell me I don't love you. Don't tell me--" His voice shook and he pointed a finger at her. "Just don't tell me that.

I love you, Blaire. I'm so damn proud of the fact you're going to be the mother of my son. I want everyone to know. Never doubt that." - Rush

Rush walked into the room with Nate in his arms and a baby bag over his shoulder. That was funny shit. Rush Finlay, badass rock star’s son, had a baby bag and a baby in his arms.

His mother had stayed with his father, no matter the cost, and part of that had been her son learning to hate his own name.

You caught me, I was definitely dreaming of you. If I remember correctly, you were frolicking on a beach, wearing a pretty skimpy red bikini and some kind of flower in your hair. Gotta say that was the best dream I’ve ever had.” ~Bryan

You’re seriously not joking?” – Sundown “Really? How many more times are you going to ask me that? I could be on a beach right now with my wife, son, and daughter, baking in the sun while they frolic and play. Am I? No. I’m here, and I want nothing more than to yank you around with bullshit ’cause this gets me off more than my wife running in a bikini.” – Zarek

Don’t miss out on the love of a good woman, son. No matter what that old man of yours tells you, love is real. I’d have never had the success in my life without that woman right there. She’s been my backbone. She’s been my reason for everything I’ve ever done. One day your drive to make a name for yourself will begin to drift away. It won’t be that important anymore. But when you’re doing it for someone else, someone you would move heaven and earth for then you never lose the desire to succeed. I can’t imagine this world without her in it. I don’t even want to.

She saw her sitting with her son in the window and the cloud moving and the tree bending, how life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach.

We teach our children to study hard, to strive to succeed but do we teach them that it's okay to fail? That life is about accepting yourself? That there is no stigma in seeking help? Our Indian culture is based on worshipping our parents. We grow up listening to words like respect, obedience and tradition. Can we not add the words communication, unconditional love and support to this list? I look at the WHO research. The highest rate of suicide in India is among the age group of 15 to 29. Do we even talk to our teens about this? That evening, I am standing in the balcony, sipping some coffee and looking at the sunset. The children have taken the dogs and gone down to play on the beach. I spot my son. He is standing on the sand, right at the edge of the ocean and is flying a blue kite. The kite goes high and then swings low till it almost seems to fall into the water and all I want to say to him is that soon he will see that life is just like flying a kite. Sometimes you have to leave it loose, sometimes you have to hold on tight, sometimes your kite will fly effortlessly, sometimes you will not be able to control it and even when you are struggling to keep it afloat and the string is cutting into your hand, don't let go. The wind will change in your favour once again, my son. Just don't let go..

And what really struck me was that the woman still meant so much to Grandad after all of those years. She burned in his memory in a way that she never would have if he’d left his wife and sons for her. It got me thinking about how sometimes it’s the people we don’t get to have who stay with us the most.

There is no stronger brotherhood than between two boys who discover that both were born to fathers who waged war on their sons.

For the woman you love, you should be willing to pick up and go anywhere. You aren't defined by your job, son, but by what you make of your life.' If only any of it were that simple.

Among rocks, I am the loose one, among arrows, I am the heart, among daughters, I am the recluse, among sons, the one who dies young. Among answers, I am the question, between lovers, I am the sword, among scars, I am the fresh wound, among confetti, the black flag. Among shoes, I am the one with the pebble, among days, the one that never comes, among the bones you find on the beach the one that sings was mine

We have one collective hope: the Earth And yet, uncounted people remain hopeless, famine and calamity abound Sufferers hurl themselves into the arms of war; people kill and get killed in the name of someone else’s concept of God Do we admit that our thoughts & behaviors spring from a belief that the world revolves around us? Each fabricated conflict, self-murdering bomb, vanished airplane, every fictionalized dictator, biased or partisan, and wayward son, are part of the curtains of society’s racial, ethnic, religious, national, and cultural conflicts, and you find the human ego turning the knobs and pulling the levers When I track the orbits of asteroids, comets, and planets, each one a pirouetting dancer in a cosmic ballet, choreographed by the forces of gravity, I see beyond the plight of humans I see a universe ever-expanding, with its galaxies embedded within the ever-stretching four-dimensional fabric of space and time However big our world is, our hearts, our minds, our outsize atlases, the universe is even bigger There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on the world’s beaches, more stars in the universe than seconds of time that have passed since Earth formed, more stars than words & sounds ever uttered by all humans who have ever lived The day we cease the exploration of the cosmos is the day we threaten the continuing of our species In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource-hungry people & nations would be prone to act on their low-contracted prejudices, and would have seen the last gasp of human enlightenment Until the rise of a visionary new culture that once again embraces the cosmic perspective; a perspective in which we are one, fitting neither above nor below, but within

Self-sacrifice isn’t like you at all. Where’s that annoying, cocky-as-fuck demon I love to hate?” “He died that day on the beach when you held a blade to his throat,” I said. “I still remember the way you looked, covered in blood and sweat. Messy bangs falling into your face. You were beautiful and devastating. I knew right then you’d be my undoing.

My mom’s smile is genuine, A lilac beaming In the presence of her Sun. Indentions in the sand prove Time’s linear progression, Her hair yet unblighted, Carrying midnight’s consistency. Clear tracks fading as the Movement slips further In the past. Cheekbones High, soft, In summer’s hue, Hopeful. Each step’s unknown impact, A future looking back. My father’s strength: One whose Life is in his arms. Squinting past the camera, He rests upon a rock Like caramel corn half eaten, Just to the left Of man-made concrete convention Daylight’s eraser Removing color to his right. Dustin sits In my father’s lap, Open mouth of a drooling Big mouth bass; Muscle tone Of a well exercised Jelly fish, He looks at me Half aware; His wheelchair Perched at the edge Of parking lot gravel grafted Like a scar on nature’s beach, Opening to the ironic splendor Of a bitter tasting lake. I took the picture. Age 11. Capturing the pinnacle arc Of a son To my lilac Who Outlived him and weeps, Still. Their sky has staple holes – Maybe that’s how the Light Leaked out.

Without rich people who want it done now, who would animate the free world? In theory, you want everyone to live peacefully according to their needs, along the banks of a river. In fact, you worry that you'd die of boredom there. In fact, you get a buzz from someone like Carole Potter, who keeps prize chickens and could teach a graduate course in landscaping; who maintains a staff of four (more in the summers, during High Guest Season); a handsome, slightly ridiculous husband; a beautiful daughter at Harvard and an incorrigible son doing something or other on Bondi Beach; Carole who is charming and self-deprecating and capable, if pushed, of a hostile indifference crueler than any form of rage; who reads novels and goes to movies and theater and yes, yes, bless her, buys art, serious art, about which she actually fucking knows a thing or two.

Word of my arrival spread as soon as I walked out of the ocean. Our beach is on the North Shore of Long Island, and it’s enchanted so most people can’t even see it. People don’t just appear on the beach unless they’re demigods or gods or really, really lost pizza delivery guys. (It’s happened—but that’s another story.) Anyway, that afternoon the lookout on duty was Connor Stoll from the Hermes cabin. When he spotted me, he got so excited he fell out of his tree. Then he blew the conch horn to signal the camp and ran to greet me. Connor had a crooked smile that matched his crooked sense of humor. He’s a pretty nice guy, but you should always keep one hand on your wallet when he’s around, and do not, under any circumstances, give him access to shaving cream unless you want to find your sleeping bag full of it. He’s got curly brown hair and is a little shorter than his brother, Travis, which is the only way I can tell them apart. They are both so unlike my old enemy Luke it’s hard to believe they’re all sons of Hermes. “Percy!” he yelled. “What happened? Where’s Beckendorf ?

He was bad with me too, but it was a little more random. If the phone rang and woke him up, he'd hit me, or if he had plans to go out but had to cancel for snow, he'd knock me around to burn off his anger. I was always looking for the secret code, the rules I could follow so he wouldn't freak out. That's how you keep yourself safe, you know? You pay attention to how the world works. But there was no secret code for him. It was like our actions were entirely detached from his reaction to us.

Running up out of the surf on to the beach at St. Tropez I thought I was shot. I looked down and saw red all over my uniform. I hollered for the medic and Lieutenant Kavota from Hazelton, Pennsylvania, came running over to me and shouted, “You son of a bitch, that’s wine. You ain’t shot. Get up and get going. They shot your canteen.

A veces nuestras imperfecciones son lo que nos hace especiales

A person must have goals or ambitions to live, otherwise, he is like a ship without a rudder, drifting forever, and will only reach the beach of disappointment, failure, and frustration.

While they were spreading their ass cheeks for strangers on a nude beach, I was busy scrubbing skid marks out of my son’s Batman underwear. I hope whoever wound up blowing them had thrush and beard crabs.

He woke up hours later, head on his desk. Ben went and dragged a blanket out of Owen's room. He stopped by the closet for a second to hear his son breathing in the dark. At Owen's age, Ben was still living in Iowa and had lived there most of his life. He was twenty years old before he ever saw the ocean. Owen's breathing always reminded him of the distant sea and deep restful nights at the beach house. Tonight, it just reminded him of breathing.

Percy gripped his leather necklace. " I started to remember in Portland, after the gorogon's blood. It's been coming back to me slowly since then. There is another camp __ Camp Half-Blood." Just saying the name made Percy feel warm inside. Good memories washed over him: the smell of strawberry fields in the warm summer sun, fireworks lightning up the beach on the Fourth of July, satyrs playing panpipes at the nightly campfire, and a kiss at the bottom of the canoe lake

It was only in the mid-1970s, after Ted Bundy started abducting and killing middle-class white college girls at schools, shopping malls, ski chalets, national parks and public beaches, that the media suddenly began paying close attention.

Perhaps he’d tell the world about the look on the Captain’s face as they motored south past the wide, empty beaches of Wonsan, which is where all the bureaucrats in Pyongyang are told they will go when they enter the paradise of retirement.

As a young father it's important to remember that, when you're at the beach, there's a BIG difference between telling your five year old son to just go pee in the ocean and telling him to get in the water at least waist deep and then pee in the ocean.

A flush came into the sky, the wan moon, half-way down the west, sank into insignificance. On the shadowy land things began to take life, plants with great leaves became distinct. They came through a pass in the big, cold sandhills on to the beach. The long waste of foreshore lay moaning under the dawn and the sea; the ocean was a flat dark strip with a white edge. Over the gloomy sea the sky grew red. Quickly the fire spread among the clouds and scattered them. Crimson burned to orange, orange to dull gold, and in a golden glitter the sun came up, dribbling fierily over the waves in little splashes, as if someone had gone along and the light had spilled from her pail as she walked.

The summer my daughters were six and four, we were at the beach one day and went for a long walk. It was astonishingly hot, and the sun, bouncing off a clear sea and blinding sand, was relentless. Wearing bikini bottoms but no tops, my children alternated between making sandpiles and running into the sea to cool off. The beach was empty. Eventually a woman and her son appeared in the distance, moving lazily in our direction. The boy seemed to be around the same age. Eventually the children came together, playing in the water with on another but not talking. His mother and I, farther back in each direction, waved and smiled. I thought we would just keep walking, but when we got close to the children, she said loudly, 'You really should put tops on them.' At first, I didn't understand her. 'Thanks,' I replied. 'They're covered in sunscreen.' 'They're girls,' she said. It wasn't until she was near my daughters that she'd realized this. I was dumbfounded. She might have been equally dumbfounded if I had taken the time to explain that her statement was an overtly sexist sexualization. The four children were physically indistinguishable, physically active on a hot beach. When I made no move toward shielding her son from the girls' scary, tempting, and corrupting bodies, she pulled him out of the water by the arm. They rushed down the beach before it crossed my mind to whip off my own top. Aggression takes many forms.

«Estimada señora Zott: Soy vegetariana. No es por motivos religiosos, es sólo que no me parece bien alimentarse de seres vivos. Mi marido dice que son tonterías mías, que nuestro cuerpo necesita carne, pero es que me parece horrible que un animal haya dado su vida por mí. Lo mismo hizo Jesucristo y fíjese cómo terminó. Atentamente, Sra. Nanette Harrison, Long Beach, California».

The Toys My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, I struck him, and dismiss'd With hard words and unkiss'd, —His Mother, who was patient, being dead. Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, I visited his bed, But found him slumbering deep, With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet From his late sobbing wet. And I, with moan, Kissing away his tears, left others of my own; For, on a table drawn beside his head, He had put, within his reach, A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone, A piece of glass abraded by the beach, And six or seven shells, A bottle with bluebells, And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, To comfort his sad heart. So when that night I pray'd To God, I wept, and said: Ah, when at last we lie with trancèd breath, Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say, 'I will be sorry for their childishness.

But you were brave, eh, Granda, charging up that beach, ye must have been brave.’ ‘I was scared, son,’ he’d telt me, his face sombre. ‘But most of all ah wis angry; angry at being there. Really angry. I wanted tae take it out on somebody, then go hame.’ ‘But that man hud tae be stoaped though, Faither,’ my dad had implored, ‘ye said so yirsel!’ ‘Ah know that. Ah wis angry that he wis allowed tae git started in the first place.

Antidepression medication is temperamental. Somewhere around fifty-nine or sixty I noticed the drug I’d been taking seemed to have stopped working. This is not unusual. The drugs interact with your body chemistry in different ways over time and often need to be tweaked. After the death of Dr. Myers, my therapist of twenty-five years, I’d been seeing a new doctor whom I’d been having great success with. Together we decided to stop the medication I’d been on for five years and see what would happen... DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN!! I nose-dived like the diving horse at the old Atlantic City steel pier into a sloshing tub of grief and tears the likes of which I’d never experienced before. Even when this happens to me, not wanting to look too needy, I can be pretty good at hiding the severity of my feelings from most of the folks around me, even my doctor. I was succeeding well with this for a while except for one strange thing: TEARS! Buckets of ’em, oceans of ’em, cold, black tears pouring down my face like tidewater rushing over Niagara during any and all hours of the day. What was this about? It was like somebody opened the floodgates and ran off with the key. There was NO stopping it. 'Bambi' tears... 'Old Yeller' tears... 'Fried Green Tomatoes' tears... rain... tears... sun... tears... I can’t find my keys... tears. Every mundane daily event, any bump in the sentimental road, became a cause to let it all hang out. It would’ve been funny except it wasn’t. Every meaningless thing became the subject of a world-shattering existential crisis filling me with an awful profound foreboding and sadness. All was lost. All... everything... the future was grim... and the only thing that would lift the burden was one-hundred-plus on two wheels or other distressing things. I would be reckless with myself. Extreme physical exertion was the order of the day and one of the few things that helped. I hit the weights harder than ever and paddleboarded the equivalent of the Atlantic, all for a few moments of respite. I would do anything to get Churchill’s black dog’s teeth out of my ass. Through much of this I wasn’t touring. I’d taken off the last year and a half of my youngest son’s high school years to stay close to family and home. It worked and we became closer than ever. But that meant my trustiest form of self-medication, touring, was not at hand. I remember one September day paddleboarding from Sea Bright to Long Branch and back in choppy Atlantic seas. I called Jon and said, “Mr. Landau, book me anywhere, please.” I then of course broke down in tears. Whaaaaaaaaaa. I’m surprised they didn’t hear me in lower Manhattan. A kindly elderly woman walking her dog along the beach on this beautiful fall day saw my distress and came up to see if there was anything she could do. Whaaaaaaaaaa. How kind. I offered her tickets to the show. I’d seen this symptom before in my father after he had a stroke. He’d often mist up. The old man was usually as cool as Robert Mitchum his whole life, so his crying was something I loved and welcomed. He’d cry when I’d arrive. He’d cry when I left. He’d cry when I mentioned our old dog. I thought, “Now it’s me.” I told my doc I could not live like this. I earned my living doing shows, giving interviews and being closely observed. And as soon as someone said “Clarence,” it was going to be all over. So, wisely, off to the psychopharmacologist he sent me. Patti and I walked in and met a vibrant, white-haired, welcoming but professional gentleman in his sixties or so. I sat down and of course, I broke into tears. I motioned to him with my hand; this is it. This is why I’m here. I can’t stop crying! He looked at me and said, “We can fix this.” Three days and a pill later the waterworks stopped, on a dime. Unbelievable. I returned to myself. I no longer needed to paddle, pump, play or challenge fate. I didn’t need to tour. I felt normal.

I thought of myself, in those days, as someone in disguise—beneath the obedient son, beneath the straight-A student, the agreeable well-brought-up boy with his friends and his ping-pong and his semiofficial girlfriend, there was another being, restless, elusive, mocking, disruptive, imperious, and this shadowy underself had nothing to do with that other one who laughed with his friends and went to school dances and spent summer afternoons at the beach.

Like gamblers, baseball fans and television networks, fishermen are enamored of statistics. The adoration of statistics is a trait so deeply embedded in their nature that even those rarefied anglers the disciples of Jesus couldn't resist backing their yarns with arithmetic: when the resurrected Christ appears on the morning shore of the Sea of Galilee and directs his forlorn and skunked disciples to the famous catch of John 21, we learn that the net contained not "a boatload" of fish, nor "about a hundred and a half," nor "over a gross," but precisely "a hundred and fifty three." This is, it seems to me, one of the most remarkable statistics ever computed. Consider the circumstances: this is after the Crucifixion and the Resurrection; Jesus is standing on the beach newly risen from the dead, and it is only the third time the disciples have seen him since the nightmare of Calvary. And yet we learn that in the net there were "great fishes" numbering precisely "a hundred and fifty three." How was this digit discovered? Mustn't it have happened thus: upon hauling the net to shore, the disciples squatted down by that immense, writhing fish pile and started tossing them into a second pile, painstakingly counting "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven... " all the way up to a hundred and fifty three, while the newly risen Lord of Creation, the Sustainer of all their beings, He who died for them and for Whom they would gladly die, stood waiting, ignored, till the heap of fish was quantified. Such is the fisherman's compulsion toward rudimentary mathematics! ....Concerning those disciples huddled over the pile of fish, another possibility occurs to me: perhaps they paid the fish no heed. Perhaps they stood in a circle adoring their Lord while He, the All-Curious Son of His All-Knowing Dad, counted them all Himself!

Okay, the kingdom is like a monkey.” Joshua was hoarse and his voice was breaking. “How?” “A Jewish monkey, right?” “Is it like a monkey eating a mustard seed?” I stood up and went to Joshua and put my arm around his shoulder. “Josh, take a break.” I led him down the beach toward the village. He shook his head. “Those are the dumbest sons of bitches on earth.” “They’ve become like little children, as you told them to.” “Stupid little children,” Joshua said.

You know (to adopt the easy or conversational style) that you and I belong to a happy minority. We are the sons of the hunters and the wandering singers, and from our boyhood nothing ever gave us greater pleasure than to stand under lonely skies in forest clearings, or to find a beach looking westward at evening over unfrequented seas. But the great mass of men love companionship so much that nothing seems of any worth compared with it. Human communion is their meat and drink, and so they use the railways to make bigger and bigger hives for themselves.

Don't count on me to take you in because I'm angry. I'm angry at you for leading us on such a song and dance all these years, not just these few years but all the years, skipping all those holidays and staying away from beach trips and missing Mom and Dad's thirtieth anniversary and their thirty-fifth and Jeannie's baby and not attending my wedding that time or even sending a card or calling to wish me well. But most of all Denny, most of all: I will never forgive you for consuming every last little drop of our parents' attention and leaving nothing for the rest of us.

I particularly love when Spirit sends signs that make us laugh. I know a woman who lost her husband to cancer at a young age. A year later, she was in Miami with her friends during a much-needed girls’ weekend. They were lying on the beach, when she began talking about her mother-in-law. She was saying that it had been a hard relationship to negotiate without her spouse, since each woman dealt with losing the son/husband differently. Well, right in the middle of this, a seagull pooped on the wife’s arm. I have a hunch it was her husband’s soul telling her, Stop gossiping about my mom, already!

When Harper was in among the stones she could see brass plaques screwed into the towering pillars of granite. One listed the names of seventeen boys who had died in the mud of eastern France during the First World War. Another listed the names of thirty-four boys who had died on the beaches of western France during the Second. Harper thought all tombstones should be this size, that the small blocks to be found in most graveyards did not even begin to express the sickening enormity of losing a virgin son, thousands of miles away, in the muck and cold. You needed something so big you felt it might topple over and crush you.

I stared at the little white agates in my hand, delicate as moon drops. The mystery of God's love as I understand it is that God loves the man who was being mean to his dog just as much as he loves babies; God loves Susan Smith, who drowned her two sons, as much as he loves Desmond Tutu. And he loved her just as much when she was releasing the handbrake of her car that sent her boys into the river as he did when she first nursed them. So of course, he loves old ordinary me, even or especially at my most scared and petty and mean and obsessive. Loves me; chooses me. Remembering this helped, but here is what in fact saved me: Sam came over to see what I held in my palm, glared contemptuously at my small white pebbles, and then without missing a beat slapped the bottom of my hand so that the agates scattered. He ran off down the beach, laughing with glee. It surprised me so, this small meanness, that it made me catch my breath. Boy, I thought, is he going to be hard to place. When I was young I would have felt, What’s the point of trying to be good if the people who aren’t even trying get to be equally loved? Now I just picked up my pace and tried to catch up with that rotten Sam, because I don’t know much of anything for sure. Only that I am loved – as is

I love birds, she says dreamily into her son's ear, or maybe she just thinks it, she the one who taught him to name and spot the rare ones-the bar-tailed godwit, the whimbrel and Blackburnian warbler-just as her father had taught her, first from the fields and beach, then from inside, his wheelchair by the window, Petersons and binoculars in his lap, and she'd bike to the salt creek or climb to the top of the Teal Rock and sit there waiting, then ride back and drop her bike on the grass and go inside, to where the names flew from her mouth into her father's ears, a gift for both of them. "I love birds." She says it again, or maybe for the first time. "I know," Charlie says.

few years later, Demeter took a vacation to the beach. She was walking along, enjoying the solitude and the fresh sea air, when Poseidon happened to spot her. Being a sea god, he tended to notice pretty ladies walking along the beach. He appeared out of the waves in his best green robes, with his trident in his hand and a crown of seashells on his head. (He was sure that the crown made him look irresistible.) “Hey, girl,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. “You must be the riptide, ’cause you sweep me off my feet.” He’d been practicing that pickup line for years. He was glad he finally got to use it. Demeter was not impressed. “Go away, Poseidon.” “Sometimes the sea goes away,” Poseidon agreed, “but it always comes back. What do you say you and me have a romantic dinner at my undersea palace?” Demeter made a mental note not to park her chariot so far away. She really could’ve used her two dragons for backup. She decided to change form and get away, but she knew better than to turn into a snake this time. I need something faster, she thought. Then she glanced down the beach and saw a herd of wild horses galloping through the surf. That’s perfect! Demeter thought. A horse! Instantly she became a white mare and raced down the beach. She joined the herd and blended in with the other horses. Her plan had serious flaws. First, Poseidon could also turn into a horse, and he did—a strong white stallion. He raced after her. Second, Poseidon had created horses. He knew all about them and could control them. Why would a sea god create a land animal like the horse? We’ll get to that later. Anyway, Poseidon reached the herd and started pushing his way through, looking for Demeter—or rather sniffing for her sweet, distinctive perfume. She was easy to find. Demeter’s seemingly perfect camouflage in the herd turned out to be a perfect trap. The other horses made way for Poseidon, but they hemmed in Demeter and wouldn’t let her move. She got so panicky, afraid of getting trampled, that she couldn’t even change shape into something else. Poseidon sidled up to her and whinnied something like Hey, beautiful. Galloping my way? Much to Demeter’s horror, Poseidon got a lot cuddlier than she wanted. These days, Poseidon would be arrested for that kind of behavior. I mean…assuming he wasn’t in horse form. I don’t think you can arrest a horse. Anyway, back in those days, the world was a rougher, ruder place. Demeter couldn’t exactly report Poseidon to King Zeus, because Zeus was just as bad. Months later, a very embarrassed and angry Demeter gave birth to twins. The weirdest thing? One of the babies was a goddess; the other one was a stallion. I’m not going to even try to figure that out. The baby girl was named Despoine, but you don’t hear much about her in the myths. When she grew up, her job was looking after Demeter’s temple, like the high priestess of corn magic or something. Her baby brother, the stallion, was named Arion. He grew up to be a super-fast immortal steed who helped out Hercules and some other heroes, too. He was a pretty awesome horse, though I’m not sure that Demeter was real proud of having a son who needed new horseshoes every few months and was constantly nuzzling her for apples. At this point, you’d think Demeter would have sworn off those gross, disgusting men forever and joined Hestia in the Permanently Single Club. Strangely, a couple of months later, she fell in love with a human prince named Iasion (pronounced EYE-son, I think). Just shows you how far humans had come since Prometheus gave them fire. Now they could speak and write. They could brush their teeth and comb their hair. They wore clothes and occasionally took baths. Some of them were even handsome enough to flirt with goddesses.

Family is everything to him. When he was a young boy, he lost his mother and four sisters to scarlet fever, and was sent away to boarding school. He grew up very much alone. So he would do anything to protect or help the people he cares about." She hefted the album into Keir's lap, and watched as he began to leaf through it dutifully. Keir's gaze fell to a photograph of the Challons relaxing on the beach. There was Phoebe at a young age, sprawling in the lap of a slender, laughing mother with curly hair. Two blond boys sat beside her, holding small shovels with the ruins of a sandcastle between them. A grinning fair-haired toddler was sitting squarely on top of the sandcastle, having just squashed it. They'd all dressed up in matching bathing costumes, like a crew of little sailors. Coming to perch on the arm of the chair, Phoebe reached down to turn the pages and point out photographs of her siblings at various stages of their childhood. Gabriel, the responsible oldest son... followed by Raphael, carefree and rebellious... Seraphina, the sweet and imaginative younger sister... and the baby of the family, Ivo, a red-haired boy who'd come as a surprise after the duchess had assumed childbearing years were past her. Phoebe paused at a tintype likeness of the duke and duchess seated together. Below it, the words "Lord and Lady St. Vincent" had been written. "This was taken before my father inherited the dukedom," she said. Kingston- Lord St. Vincent back then- sat with an arm draped along the back of the sofa, his face turned toward his wife. She was a lovely woman, with an endearing spray of freckles across her face and a smile as vulnerable as the heartbeat in an exposed wrist.

The day after I turn pro, Philly gets a call from Nike. They want to meet with me about an endorsement deal. Philly and I meet the Nike man in Newport beach, at a restaurant called the Rusty Pelican. His name is Ian Hamilton. I call him Mr. Hamilton, but he says I should call him Ian. He smiles in a way that makes me trust him instantly. Philly, however, remains wary. Boys, Ian says, I think Andre has a very bright future. Thank you. I'd like Nike to be a part of that future, to be a partner in that future. Thank you. I'd like to offer you a two-year contract. Thank you. During which time Nike will provide all your gear, and pay you $20,ooo. For both years? For eacvh year. Ah. Philly jumps in. What would Andre have to do in exchange for this money? Ian looks confused. Well, he says, Andre would have to do what Andre has been doing, son. Keep being Andre. And wear Nike stuff.

That evening after tea the four children all managed to get down to the beach again and get their shoes and stockings off and feel the sand between their toes. But the next day was more solemn. For then, in the Great Hall of Cair Paravel--that wonderful hall with the ivory roof and the west door all hung with peacock’s feathers and the eastern door which opens right onto the sea, in the presence of all their friends and to the sound of trumpets, Aslan solemnly crowned them and led them onto the four thrones amid deafening shouts of, “Long Live King Peter! Long Live Queen Susan! Long Live King Edmund! Long Live Queen Lucy!” “Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen. Bear it well, Sons of Adam! Bear it well, Daughters of Eve!” said Aslan. And through the eastern door, which was wide open, came the voices of the mermen and the mermaids swimming close to the castle steps and singing in honor of their new Kings and Queens.

The page begins with the person’s picture. A photo if we can find it. If not, a sketch or painting by Peeta. Then, in my most careful handwriting, come all the details it would be a crime to forget. Lady licking Prim’s cheek. My father’s laugh. Peeta’s father with the cookies. The color of Finnick’s eyes. What Cinna could do with a length of silk. Boggs reprogramming the Holo. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like a bird about to take flight. On and on. We seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well to make their deaths count. Haymitch finally joins us, contributing twenty-three years of tributes he was forced to mentor. Additions become smaller. An old memory that surfaces. A late primrose preserved between the pages. Strange bits of happiness, like the photo of Finnick and Annie’s newborn son. We learn to keep busy again. Peeta bakes. I hunt. Haymitch drinks until the liquor runs out, and then raises geese until the next train arrives. Fortunately, the geese can take pretty good care of themselves. We’re not alone. A few hundred others return because, whatever has happened, this is our home. With the mines closed, they plow the ashes into the earth and plant food. Machines from the Capitol break ground for a new factory where we will make medicines. Although no one seeds it, the Meadow turns green again. Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.

How I Got That Name Marilyn Chin an essay on assimilation I am Marilyn Mei Ling Chin Oh, how I love the resoluteness of that first person singular followed by that stalwart indicative of “be," without the uncertain i-n-g of “becoming.” Of course, the name had been changed somewhere between Angel Island and the sea, when my father the paperson in the late 1950s obsessed with a bombshell blond transliterated “Mei Ling” to “Marilyn.” And nobody dared question his initial impulse—for we all know lust drove men to greatness, not goodness, not decency. And there I was, a wayward pink baby, named after some tragic white woman swollen with gin and Nembutal. My mother couldn’t pronounce the “r.” She dubbed me “Numba one female offshoot” for brevity: henceforth, she will live and die in sublime ignorance, flanked by loving children and the “kitchen deity.” While my father dithers, a tomcat in Hong Kong trash— a gambler, a petty thug, who bought a chain of chopsuey joints in Piss River, Oregon, with bootlegged Gucci cash. Nobody dared question his integrity given his nice, devout daughters and his bright, industrious sons as if filial piety were the standard by which all earthly men are measured. * Oh, how trustworthy our daughters, how thrifty our sons! How we’ve managed to fool the experts in education, statistic and demography— We’re not very creative but not adverse to rote-learning. Indeed, they can use us. But the “Model Minority” is a tease. We know you are watching now, so we refuse to give you any! Oh, bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots! The further west we go, we’ll hit east; the deeper down we dig, we’ll find China. History has turned its stomach on a black polluted beach— where life doesn’t hinge on that red, red wheelbarrow, but whether or not our new lover in the final episode of “Santa Barbara” will lean over a scented candle and call us a “bitch.” Oh God, where have we gone wrong? We have no inner resources! * Then, one redolent spring morning the Great Patriarch Chin peered down from his kiosk in heaven and saw that his descendants were ugly. One had a squarish head and a nose without a bridge Another’s profile—long and knobbed as a gourd. A third, the sad, brutish one may never, never marry. And I, his least favorite— “not quite boiled, not quite cooked," a plump pomfret simmering in my juices— too listless to fight for my people’s destiny. “To kill without resistance is not slaughter” says the proverb. So, I wait for imminent death. The fact that this death is also metaphorical is testament to my lethargy. * So here lies Marilyn Mei Ling Chin, married once, twice to so-and-so, a Lee and a Wong, granddaughter of Jack “the patriarch” and the brooding Suilin Fong, daughter of the virtuous Yuet Kuen Wong and G.G. Chin the infamous, sister of a dozen, cousin of a million, survived by everbody and forgotten by all. She was neither black nor white, neither cherished nor vanquished, just another squatter in her own bamboo grove minding her poetry— when one day heaven was unmerciful, and a chasm opened where she stood. Like the jowls of a mighty white whale, or the jaws of a metaphysical Godzilla, it swallowed her whole. She did not flinch nor writhe, nor fret about the afterlife, but stayed! Solid as wood, happily a little gnawed, tattered, mesmerized by all that was lavished upon her and all that was taken away!

I was 18 wen I started driving I was 18 the first time I was pulled over. It was 2 AM on a Saturday The officer spilled his lights all over my rearview mirror, he splashed out of the car with his hand already on his weapon, and looked at me the way a tsunami looks at a beach house. Immediately, I could tell he was the kind of man who brings a gun to a food fight. He called me son and I thought to myself, that's an interesting way of pronouncing "boy," He asks for my license and registration, wants to know what I'm doing in this nieghborhood, if the car is stolen, if I have any drugs and most days, I know how to grab my voice by the handle and swing it like a hammer. But instead, I picked it up like a shard of glass. Scared of what might happen if I didn't hold it carefully because I know that this much melanin and that uniform is a plotline to a film that can easily end with a chalk outline baptism, me trying to make a body bag look stylish for the camera and becoming the newest coat in a closet full of RIP hashtags. Once, a friend of a friend asked me why there aren't more black people in the X Games and I said, "You don't get it." Being black is one of the most extreme sports in America. We don't need to invent new ways of risking our lives because the old ones have been working for decades. Jim Crow may have left the nest, but our streets are still covered with its feathers. Being black in America is knowing there's a thin line between a traffic stop and the cemetery, it's the way my body tenses up when I hear a police siren in a song, it's the quiver in my stomach when a cop car is behind me, it's the sigh of relief when I turn right and he doesn't. I don't need to go volcano surfing. Hell, I have an adrenaline rush every time an officer drives right past without pulling me over and I realize I'm going to make it home safe. This time.

-1 PETER 5:3 Over and over I have attempted to be an example by doing rather than telling. I feel that God's great truths are "caught" and not always "taught." In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses (the author) says the following about God's commandments, statutes, and judgments: "You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up" (6:7). In other words, at all times we are to be examples. It is amazing how much we can teach by example in every situation: at home, at the beach, while jogging, when resting, when eating-in every part of the day. It's amazing how often I catch our children and grandchildren imitating the values we exhibited in our home-something as little as a lighted candle to warm the heart, to a thank you when food is being served in a restaurant. Little eyes are peering around to see how we behave when we think no one is looking. Are we consistent with what we say we believe? If we talk calmness and patience, how do we respond when standing in a slow line at the market? How does our conversation go when there is a slowdown on Friday evening's freeway drive? Do we go by the rules on the freeway (having two people or more in the car while driving in the carpool lane, going the speed limit, and obeying all traffic signs)? How can we show God's love? By helping people out when they are in need of assistance, even when it is not convenient. We can be good neighbors. Sending out thank you cards after receiving a gift shows our appreciation for the gift and the person. Being kind to animals and the environment when we go to the park for a campout or picnic shows good stewardship. We are continually setting some kind of example whether we know it or not. PRAYER Father God, let my life be an example to those around me, especially the little ones who are learning the ways of faith. May I exhibit proper conduct even when no one is around. I want to be obedient to Your guiding principles. Thank You for Your example. Amen.

LXXII In sooth, it was no vulgar sight to see Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee, And as the flames along their faces gleam’d, Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free, The long wild locks that to their girdles stream’d, While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half scream’d: Tambourgi! Tambourgi! thy ’larum afar Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war; All the sons of the mountains arise at the note, Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote! Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, To his snowy camese and his shaggy capote? To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock, And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock. Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live? Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego? What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe? Macedonia sends forth her invincible race; For a time they abandon the cave and the chase: But those scarves of blood-red shall be redder, before The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o’er. Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves, And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves, Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar, And track to his covert the captive on shore. I ask not the pleasure that riches supply, My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy; Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair, And many a maid from her mother shall tear. I love the fair face of the maid in her youth, Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soothe; Let her bring from her chamber the many-toned lyre, And sing us a song on the fall of her sire. Remember the moment when Previsa fell, The shrieks of the conquer’d, the conquerors’ yell; The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared, The wealthy we slaughter’d, the lovely we spared. I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear; He neither must know who would serve the Vizier: Since the days of our prophet, the Crescent ne’er saw A chief ever glorious like Ali Pasha. Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped, Let the yellow-haired Giaours view his horsetail with dread; When his Delhis come dashing in blood o’er the banks, How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks! Selictar, unsheath then our chief’s scimitar: Tambourgi! thy ’larum gives promise of war; Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore, Shall view us as victors, or view us no more!

Gentile’s office in downtown Las Vegas, I got on the elevator and turned around and there was a TV camera. It was just the two of us in the little box, me and the man with the big machine on his shoulder. He was filming me as I stood there silent. “Turn the camera off,” I said. He didn’t. I tried to move away from him in the elevator, and somehow in the maneuvering he bumped my chin with the black plastic end of his machine and I snapped. I slugged him, or actually I slugged the camera. He turned it off. The maids case was like a county fair compared with the Silverman disappearance, which had happened in the media capital of the world. It had happened within blocks of the studios of the three major networks and the New York Times. The tabloids reveled in the rich narrative of the case, and Mom and Kenny became notorious throughout the Western Hemisphere. Most crimes are pedestrian and tawdry. Though each perpetrator has his own rap sheet and motivation and banged-up psyche, the crime blotter is very repetitive. A wife beater kills his wife. A crack addict uses a gun to get money for his habit. Liquor-store holdups, domestic abuse, drug dealer shoot-outs, DWIs, and so on. This one had a story line you could reduce to a movie pitch. Mother/Son Grifters Held in Millionaire’s Disappearance! My mother’s over-the-top persona, Kenny’s shady polish, and the ridiculous rumors of mother-son incest gave the media a narrative it couldn’t resist. Mom and Kenny were the smart, interesting, evil criminals with the elaborate, diabolical plan who exist in fiction and rarely in real life. The media landed on my life with elephant feet. I was under siege as soon as I returned to my office after my family’s excursion to Newport Beach. The deluge started at 10 A.M. on July 8, 1998. I kept a list in a drawer of the media outlets that called or dropped by our little one-story L-shaped office building on Decatur. It was a tabloid clusterfuck. Every network, newspaper, local news station, and wire service sent troops. Dateline and 20/20 competed to see who could get a Kimes segment on-air first. Dateline did two shows about Mom and Kenny. I developed a strategy for dealing with reporters. My unusual training in the media arts as the son of Sante, and as a de facto paralegal in the maids case, meant that I had a better idea of how to deal with reporters than my staff did. They might find it exciting that someone wanted to talk to them, and forget to stop at “No comment.” I knew better. So I hid from the camera crews in a back room, so there’d be no pictures, and I handled the calls myself. I told my secretary not to bother asking who was on the line and to transfer all comers back to me. I would get the name and affiliation of the reporter, write down the info on my roster, and

RULES TO TEACH YOUR SON 1. Never shake a man’s hand sitting down. 2. Don’t enter a pool by the stairs. 3. The man at the BBQ Grill is the closest thing to a king. 4. In a negotiation, never make the first offer. 5. Request the late check-out. 6. When entrusted with a secret, keep it. 7. Hold your heroes to a higher standard. 8. Return a borrowed car with a full tank of gas. 9. Play with passion or don’t play at all… 10. When shaking hands, grip firmly and look them in the eye. 11. Don’t let a wishbone grow where a backbone should be. 12. If you need music on the beach, you’re missing the point. 13. Carry two handkerchiefs. The one in your back pocket is for you. The one in your breast pocket is for her. 14. You marry the girl, you marry her family. 15. Be like a duck. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like crazy underneath. 16. Experience the serenity of traveling alone. 17. Never be afraid to ask out the best looking girl in the room. 18. Never turn down a breath mint. 19. A sport coat is worth 1000 words. 20. Try writing your own eulogy. Never stop revising. 21. Thank a veteran. Then make it up to him. 22. Eat lunch with the new kid. 23. After writing an angry email, read it carefully. Then delete it. 24. Ask your mom to play. She won’t let you win. 25. Manners maketh the man. 26. Give credit. Take the blame. 27. Stand up to Bullies. Protect those bullied. 28. Write down your dreams. 29. Take time to snuggle your pets, they love you so much and are always happy to see you. 30. Be confident and humble at the same time. 31. If ever in doubt, remember whose son you are and REFUSE to just be ordinary! 32. In all things, give glory to God.

Explaining racial segregation to your five-year-old son is a very, very hard thing to do. When we would bring Elston Jr. down to spring training, Elston struggled to find the right words, the right way to tell our son about the difference between North and South, right and wrong, and black and white; that because of his skin color he had to use a different public rest room or was not allowed to eat a hamburger at certain restaurants. Beaches and swimming pools were off limits. “It’s like a private club,” Elston would say, “and we aren’t members.

Ancient Ways The Greek Isles are divided into several major chains lying in the Aegean, the Mediterranean, and the Ionian seas. The Cyclades chain alone includes more than two hundred islands clustered in the southern Aegean. In the southeastern Aegean, between Crete and Asia Minor, there are 163 islands known as the Dodecanese chain. Only 26 of these are inhabited; the largest of them is Rhodes, where the world-famous Colossus once stood. The Ionian chain of western Greece (named for the eponymous sea) includes the large island of Corfu. Cyprus lies in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey. Today, Cyprus stands politically divided, with Turkish rule in the north, and a government in the south that remains independent from Greece. However, the island has always been linked culturally and linguistically to Greece, and it shares traditions and ways of life with the smaller islands scattered to its south and west. In the Greek Isles, history blends myth and fact. Historians glean information about the early days of the Greek Isles from the countless ancient stories and legends set there. According to Homer, battleships sailed from the harbors of Kos and Rhodes during the Trojan War. A well-known legend holds that the Argonauts sought refuge from a storm on the island of Anafi in the southeastern Cyclades. The lovely island of Lésvos is mentioned throughout the Homeric epics and in many ancient Greek tales. Tradition has it that the god Helios witnessed the island of Rhodes rising mystically from the sea, and chose it for his home. The ill-fated Daedalus and his son, Icarus, attempted to soar through the skies over the magical island of Crete, where the great god Zeus was born in a mountaintop cave. Villagers still recount how Aphrodite emerged from the sea on a breathtaking stretch of beach near the village of Paphos on Cyprus. Visitors must actually lay eyes on a Greek island to gain a full appreciation for these ancient stories. Just setting foot on one of these islands makes you feel as if you’ve stepped into one of the timeless tales from ancient Greek mythology.

Mickey and Minnie, Disney’s King and Queen, were there to greet us on the fifth floor of the Grand Floridian Beach Resort when we arrived on that afternoon. Harry’s face lit up. Not that he was interested in being cuddled by people dressed as two giant cartoon characters – he wanted to get to the rides. Diana was thrilled too, but for different reasons. Her sons, instead of being at Balmoral with their father, as they usually were in August, were free, free to do what other children did on holiday. My reconnaissance some weeks earlier had proved invaluable. I advised Diana in my briefing memo that the fact that Disney is spread over 43 square miles was to our advantage in our habitual battle to outwit the media because Disney, unlike any other theme park, has a VIP package which uses reserved routes to rides and attractions, along a predetermined course. A network of restricted paths and tunnels, not accessible to the public, enabled special guests literally to pop up at the front of queues and go straight on the ride without anyone elsewhere in the park knowing which attraction they were on. Moreover, conscious of Diana’s fear of being criticised for using her royal status to secure star treatment, my memo, dated 2 August 1993, reassured her because I had recommended the VIP package for security reasons: ‘At this time of the year up to 1 million people could be using the complex. Many rides and attractions will have queues of 2 to 3 hours’ waiting. The VIP method is not queue jumping, and will not be seen by others so to be.’ The note was returned with a huge tick from her pen through that section.

It didn’t necessarily mean that he’d been awake all night washing away his mother’s blood. She looked under the bed and felt behind the wardrobe. No porn. No girlie posters on the walls. In fact there were no pictures on the walls at all, only a framed certificate from his catering course. What did he do for sex? Probably used the Internet, like most of the UK’s male population. It came to Vera that more than likely he was a virgin. In contrast, Miranda’s room was surprisingly big. Opulent and glamorous in an old-fashioned way. It held a double bed, piled with pillows and silk-covered cushions, in various shades of purple. These seemed to have been artfully arranged – another sign, Vera thought, that Miranda hadn’t been to bed the night before. There was a small wrought-iron grate, just for decoration now. Where the fire would once have been laid stood a candle in a big blue candle-holder, identical to the one on the table on the terrace. Was that significant? Vera tried to remember if she’d seen one like it in the main house. On one side of the chimneybreast, bookshelves had been built into the alcove, and on the other stood a big Victorian wardrobe. There was a dressing table with an ornate framed mirror under the window, and an upholstered stool in front of it. No PC. So what did Miranda do for sex? The question came, unbidden, into her head. Vera sat on the stool and gave a wry smile into the mirror. She knew her team had sometimes asked the same question about her. But not recently. As you got older, folk seemed to think you could do without. This is where Miranda would have sat to prepare herself to meet the residents. Again Vera was reminded of an ageing actress. Her dressing table was scattered with make-up. The woman hadn’t shared her son’s obsession with order and cleanliness. And beyond the mirror there was a view to the coast. It wasn’t possible to see the terrace from here – it was in the shadow of the big house. But the beach was visible. What had Miranda been thinking as she put on her face, as she brushed her hair and held it in place with spray? That her life as a writer was over? Or did she still hope for the big break, the posters on the Underground and the reviews in the Sunday papers? Was she still writing? It seemed to Vera that this question was so important, so fundamental, that she’d been a fool not to consider it before. If Miranda had written a new book, and Tony Ferdinand had offered to help her find a home for it, of course Miranda would be shattered to find him dead. The stabbed body would symbolize her shattered dreams. It wouldn’t be easy for a middle-aged

wonder if there’s a way we can sue the town,” said his dad, Max. “I’m not paying two million dollars for my beach house, plus fifty thousand in property taxes, for my son to find a corpse. Someone needs to pay for this.

Don't give me anything Even if it's your attention Even if it's your love Even if it's your tears Don't give me your sadness Don't give me your anger Don't give me your thirst Don't give me anything Because I still scramble the sky to find all traces of you, Mother." But son, how can you say something like that? Have I not given you flowers? I have given you the sun. I have given you grass and leaves. I have given you the sea and the sand of the beach. Why still? Isn't it enough for you to drink milk from my loneliness? You taste the pain from my wound, as you used to feel the happiness under my stomach like the scratch of a knife that welcomes your presence. How everything is still, I give you a warm fire, I give you a touch of the morning, I give you a gentle song from my heart that you know holds a million worries. How do you still say things like that? I still give you a light until half of my age. I give you laughter from half of my death. I give you eternal memories and eternal dreams at the same time. I give it all, even if it's just a simple box of lunch that you may receive to sate your hunger. How I always wanted to be there for you, son. Because my only request is nothing more. Let me be your traveling companion, a friend in your troubled times. As I used to rock you and put you in my lap. Let me be the bread that fills your hunger, the consolation of your heart when you are tight, the heat when you are sick. Wasn't I there when you were learning to stand and I was there when you fell? I faithfully wait for you while you run after the moon and sun. And even though time creeps up on me with the strains of age that I may no longer be able to stand up straight as I used to. I will never give up on you son. No, mother will never give up. Because for me, you are enough just yourself. However, can you fill yourself with all the pride? Be content with what you have. Suffice yourself with all the prayers I never stop saying from the corner of my heart which may be the most heavenly hope. Your heaven, son. Even though I know it will disturb your restful sleep. Although it will add to your restless working time. Because I know how hard you struggle. For every drop of sweat that you shed when you have to run to catch the bus that comes to pick you up. When your mind can't escape from your laptop screen that keeps flashing. When morning comes and busy work comes like rain that never ends whacking. Suffice yourself with Mother's love. Even though later, there will be no more cynical words rolling from Mother's lips which are starting to wrinkle. Rest assured, the door to the house of Mother's heart will always be open for you, whenever you want to go home.

Though Christ no longer visibly moves among us, we minister to Him in the ragamuffins within reach. Each encounter with a brother or sister is a mysterious encounter with Jesus Himself. In the upper room, the Man like us in all things but ungratefulness spelled out the game plan of gratitude: “Love one another as I have loved you.” To Peter on the beach along the Sea of Tiberias, He said, “If you love me, Simon, Son of John, tend my sheep.” Quite simply, our deep gratitude to Jesus Christ is manifested neither in being chaste, honest, sober, and respectable, nor in churchgoing, Bible-toting, and Psalm-singing, but in our deep and delicate respect for one another.

Rising after a few moments onto my elbows, I looked, for the first - and probably last - time in my life, at something I'd never seriously imagined I'd cast my eyes upon: a hundred miles of sand in every direction, a hundred miles of absolutely gorgeous, unspoiled nothingness. I wiggled my bare toes in the sand and lay there for a long time, watching the sun drop slowly into the dunes like a deflating beach ball, the color of the desert quickly transforming from red to gold to yellow ochre to white, the sky changing, too. I was wondering how a miserable, manic-depressive, overage, undeserving hustler like myself - a utility chef from New York City with no particular distinction to be found in his long and egregiously checkered career - on the strength of one inexplicably large score, could find himself here, seeing this, living the dream. I am the luckiest son of a bitch in the world, I thought, contentedly staring out at all that silence and stillness, feeling, for the first time in a while, able to relax, to draw a breath unencumbered by scheming and calculating and worrying. I was happy just sitting there enjoying all that harsh and beautiful space. I felt comfortable in my skin, reassured that the world was indeed a big and marvelous place.

Ideally my penultimate day would be spent attending a giant beach party thrown in my honor. Everyone would gather around me at sunset, and the golden light would make my skin and hair beautiful as I told hilarious stories and gave away my extensive collection of moon art to my ex-lovers. I and all of my still-alive friends (which, let’s face it, will mostly be women) would sing and dance late into the night. My sons would be grown and happy. I would be frail but adorable. I would still have my own teeth, and I would be tended to by handsome and kind gay men who pruned me like a bonsai tree. Once the party ended, everyone would fall asleep except for me. I would spend the rest of the night watching the stars under a nice blanket my granddaughter made with her Knit-Bot 5000. As the sun began to rise, an unexpected guest would wake and put the coffee on. My last words would be something banal and beautiful. “Are you warm enough?” my guest would ask. “Just right,” I would answer. My funeral would be huge but incredibly intimate. I would instruct people to throw firecrackers on my funeral pyre and play Purple Rain on a loop.

Hannah tells me that you helped protect her from the Hispanics during the riot.” “The Hispanics? Oh, the protest, right.” “Call it what you like, son. This place was crawling with spics, and I am grateful that you took care of my only child.” “Well,” I shrugged. “I guess that’s what boyfriends do.” Spics?? “Only good boyfriends,” Hannah said, still tightly holding my left hand. I could never predict when she’d pour on the affection and when she’d act distant. Were all girlfriends this complicated? “I helped pass that law, you understand,” Mr. Walker said. “I’m an advisor to the senator, and it’s about time someone notable, someone of prestige, took a stand on the influx of hispanics into our once great city. The Hispanics were rioting because of that law, because they’re afraid of justice.” “Oh yeah?” I said. I knew nothing about politics or laws. But I had a feeling I disagreed with him. “But I’ll discontinue this tangent before I begin to preach,” he smiled. “Hannah is giving me the warning look.” “Thank you, Daddy,” Hannah said. “The spics destroyed your car,” he said. “Hannah informed me, and then I read the report in the newspaper.” “That was a good car,” I nodded. “I will miss it.” “Well, let me see what I can do to help,” he said. “I’m a financial consultant to many of our nation’s finest automobile manufacturers, including Mission Motorcycles. You have heard of them?” “I don’t know much about any cars. Or motorcycles,” I admitted. “Well, it just so happens, they owed me a favor and agreed to give me a short-term loan on one of their new electric bikes,” he said. And it was then that I realized we were standing beside a gleaming black, silver, and orange motorcycle. I hadn’t noticed before because our school parking lot always looks like a luxury car showcase, and I’d grown numb to the opulence. A sleek black helmet hung from each handle. Mr. Walker placed his palm on the seat and said, “This bike is yours. Until you get a new car.” “Wow,” I breathed. A motorcycle!! “Isn’t it sexy?” Hannah smiled. “It looks like it’s from the future.” “It does,” I agreed. “I’m almost afraid to touch it, like it’ll fly off. But sir, there’s no way…” “Please don’t be so ungrateful as to refuse, son. That’s low class, and that’s not the Walkers. You are in elite company. Dating my daughter has advantages, as I’m sure she’s told you. You just keep performing on the football field.” “Oh…right,” I said. “I’m gratified I can help,” Mr. Walker said and shook my hand again. “I’m expecting big things from you. Don’t let me down. It’s electric, so you’ll need to charge it at night. Fill out the paperwork in the storage compartment and return them signed to Hannah tomorrow. If you wreck it, I’ll have you drowned off Long Beach. I wish I could stay, but I’m late for a meeting with the Board of Supervisors. Hannah, tell your mother I’ll be out late,” he said and got into the back seat of a black sedan that whisked him away.

Looking incredibly dashing as he bent his head toward the oh-so-fashionable Miss Kasson was none other than Mr. Edgar Wanamaker—her best friend from childhood, and . . . the very first gentleman to ever offer her a proposal of marriage. She and Edgar had met when they’d been little more than infants, that circumstance brought about because their parents owned adjacent summer cottages on Long Island. Wilhelmina had spent every childhood summer with Edgar by her side, enjoying the sandy beaches and chilly water of the Atlantic from the moment the sun rose in the morning until it set in the evening. Even when Edgar had been away at school, being a few years older than Wilhelmina, they’d spent every possible minute they could with each other during the holidays. He’d even made certain to be in the city the night of her debut ball, waiting for her at the bottom of her family’s Park Avenue mansion as she’d descended the grand staircase on her father’s arm. As she’d stepped to the highly polished parquet floor, she’d caught his gaze, the intensity of that gaze causing her heart to fill with fondness for her oldest and dearest friend. That fondness, however, had disappeared a few hours later when Edgar had gone and ruined everything by asking her to marry him. She’d been all of seventeen years old the night of her debut—seventeen years old with the world spread out at her feet. Add in the notion that the whispers stirring around the ballroom were claiming she was destined to be a diamond of the first water, and the last thing she’d wanted that particular evening was a marriage proposal extended to her from her very best friend. Edgar, no matter the affection she held for him, was only a second son. Paired with the pesky fact he’d had no idea as to what he’d wanted to do with the rest of his life—except, evidently, to marry her—and she’d been less than impressed by his offer. What

Despite the early hour U.S. Attorney Joan Thurston looked resplendent in a charcoal gray business suit that seemed to have been tailored by the gods. Thurston was mid-forties and, in Loren’s view, excessively attractive. She had auburn hair, broad shoulders, tapered waist. She had two sons in their early teens. Her husband worked at Morgan Stanley in Manhattan. They lived in ritzy Short Hills with a vacation home on Long Beach Island. In short: Joan Thurston was what Loren wanted to be when she grew up.

Don’t get old, son. You only wind up one of two ways—bitter asshole or sentimental fool. And the hell of it is, you never even get to choose.

Time! Time is mine, and so is the night. Day will end, must end. And at that time comes night. Enjoy your days in the sun you cannot see, for though centuries pass, though the sons of those centuries pass, I will wait, and remember. Remember till the day when night will fall, and so will you!” This time, this one time, Martel does not release his darkness to let it disperse. Instead, he lets it break, in waves, away from him, and in breaking that dark washes around Aurore so that all on Aurore behold a moment of night. That darkness flies across Sybernal, across Jsalm, across Pamyra, on across the White Cliffs, across a certain white villa, across beaches, and across vacant golden waters. That instant of night wings over the lands and waters like a night eagle whose shadowed pinions cover but briefly the ground beneath.

and carefree. It is so good to have Greg back with us again, breathing the salty air, experiencing the breeze on his face. We spend at least an hour on that beach. Almost back at the car, Greg stops at a wooden bench that looks out onto the strand. ‘Let’s sit for a while.’ My stomach tightens. Greg settles at one end of the bench, Toby on his lap, Rachel next to them. I’m at the other. Bookends. ‘Guys,’ Greg says. ‘I want to explain why I’m in hospital.’ ‘It’s OK, Dad. We know,’ says Toby. ‘You’re exhausted.’ ‘Well, it’s a little more than that.’ He takes a breath. ‘I have a sickness that makes me sad sometimes. Other times it makes me very excited.’ They take time to digest that. Toby is first to speak. ‘But it’s OK to be sad, Dad. You said.’ He looks at Greg for confirmation. ‘I did. And it’s OK to cry when something happens to make you sad.’ ‘Yeah, you’re always telling us that.’ ‘It’s just that if there’s no reason to be sad and you’re sad anyway – all the time – well, that’s not good, is it?’ Toby shakes his head wildly. ‘No, that’d be…sad.’ ‘And not good,’ says Greg. ‘No,’ agrees Toby. Rachel’s quiet. Taking it all in. ‘And it’s OK to get excited too,’ continues Greg. ‘Lots of things are exciting…’ ‘Like Christmas and birthdays and fireworks and when you get onto the next level in a game.’ ‘Exactly.’ Greg smiles. ‘But being hyper isn’t good.’ ‘No.’ Toby shakes his head again. ‘When you have Coke or Skittles or something you get hyper. And that’s not good ‘cause you go bananas. Isn’t that right, Dad?’ ‘Yes, son.’ Greg kisses the top of his head. ‘But you eventually go back to normal, don’t you?’ ‘Yeah.’ Rachel, eyes fixed on her father, is oblivious to the breeze whipping her hair across her face. ‘Well,’ says Greg. ‘I have a sickness that makes me hyper for weeks. And that’s not good.’ ‘No.’ Toby squints. ‘Why not, again?’ ‘Well, it can make me do silly things, and can make

A man and his young son crouched in the woods just before sunset, out where Palm Beach County meets the Everglades. Their eyes focused on the train tracks a few yards away, a tight bend just past the clearing where Pratt & Whitney tests its jet engines. A shiny new Lincoln penny sat on one of the rails. “Why are we doing this, Daddy?” “To get a flat penny.” “What for?” “Because it’s fun!” A train whistle blew in the distance. “Here she comes! Get down!” The pair crouched and waited, the train growing closer. It was in sight before they knew it, nothing but a blur as it entered the bend and hit the penny. There was a harsh grinding of metal. The father and son watched in astonishment as The Silver Stingray jumped the tracks and twenty cars jackknifed down the embankment toward the swamp. “Daddy? Did we do that?” “How’d you like some ice cream?

The choice the wealthy man offered his two sons is the same choice the world offers every one of us at every moment of our lives. A rich and growing circle of friends, or deepening loneliness and alienation. Vibrant and abundant vitality, or progressively declining health. Success or failure, happiness or misery, fulfillment or despair. Millionaire or beach bum. You are making that choice, every day, every hour, and the impact of those choices—for better or for worse—will spread out over the surface of your life like

One night a man dreamt that he was walking along the beach with God. Scenes from his life flashed in the sky as they walked. For each scene, the man noticed two sets of footprints (his and God’s) in the sand. On careful observation, he noticed that there was only one set of footprints at the saddest times of his life. He asked: God, why did You abandon me when I needed You most?’ God whispered, ‘My son, I was carrying you during the saddest times of your life; hence your footprints are missing.’ Lucky people seem to create an alternative support system—faith, prayer, hobbies, meditation, friends—to tide over their bad phases and are thus able to use such periods to the best of their abilities.

I lived inscrutable hours, a succession of disconnected moments, in my night-time walk to the lonely shore of the sea. All the thoughts that have made men live and all their emotions that have died passed through my mind, like a dark summary of history, in my meditation that went to the seashore. I suffered in me, with me, the aspirations of all eras, and every disquietude of every age walked with me to the murmuring shore of the sea. What men wanted and didn’t achieve, what they killed in order to achieve, and all that souls have secretly been – all of this filled the feeling soul with which I walked to the seashore. What lovers found strange in those they love, what the wife never revealed to her husband, what the mother imagines about the son she didn’t have, what only had form in a smile or opportunity, in a time that wasn’t the right time or in an emotion that was missing – all of this went to the seashore with me and with me returned, and the waves grandly churned their music that made me live it all in a sleep. We are who we’re not, and life is quick and sad. The sound of the waves at night is a sound of the night, and how many have heard it in their own soul, like the perpetual hope that dissolves in the darkness with a faint plash of distant foam! What tears were shed by those who achieved, what tears lost by those who succeeded! And all of this, in my walk to the seashore, was a secret told me by the night and the abyss. How many we are! How many of us fool ourselves! What seas crash in us, in the night when we exist, along the beaches that we feel ourselves to be, inundated by emotion! All that was lost, all that should have been sought, all that was obtained and fulfilled by mistake, all that we loved and lost and then, after losing it and loving it for having lost it, realized we never loved; all that we believed we were thinking when we were feeling; all the memories we took for emotions; and the entire ocean, noisy and cool, rolling in from the depths of the vast night to ripple over the beach, during my nocturnal walk to the seashore …

I sighed as I worried about that and Thick asked sympathetically, “You got a gut ache?” “No. Not exactly. Worrying about Hap. My son back in Buckkeep Town.” “Oh.” He did not sound very interested. Then, as if this was a thing he had pondered for a long time, he added, “You’re always somewhere else. You never do the music where you are.” I looked at him for a moment, and then lowered my perpetual guard against his music. Letting it in was like letting the night into my eyes when twilight came over the land and it was a good time to hunt. I relaxed into the moment, letting the wolf’s enjoyment of the now come into me, as I had not for far too long. I had been aware of the water and the light wind. Now I heard the whispering of blowing sand and snow, and deep behind it, the slow groaning creak of the glacier across the land. I could suddenly smell the salt of the ocean and the iodine of the kelp on the beach and the icy breath of old snow. It was like opening a door to an older place and time. I glanced at Thick and suddenly saw him complete and whole in this setting, for he gave himself to it. While he sat here and enjoyed the night, he lacked nothing. I felt a smile bend my mouth. “You would have made a good wolf,” I told him.

At school, Pablo found it hard to concentrate. Rather than completing classwork, he filled the margins of his notebook with pencil sketches of animals, birds, and people. His teacher grew exasperated with his lack of attention. She wrote a note to his mother saying: “Pablo should stop drawing in class and pay attention to his lessons.” It was clear that Pablo hated rules, and he took every opportunity to disobey them. When adults told him what to do, he did the opposite. He once got in trouble for coloring the sky a bright red instead of the “normal” blue. Pablo was often banished to the “calaboose,” a bare cell with white walls and a bench, which served as a holding pen for unruly students. “I liked it there, because I took along a sketch pad and drew incessantly,” Pablo later said. “I could have stayed there forever drawing without stopping.” He even began misbehaving on purpose so that he would be sentenced to detention and sent to the calaboose. The one person who understood that Pablo wasn’t acting out for no reason was his father. One day when Pablo’s mother caught him drawing on the wall with a nail, Don José took him to the beach to blow off steam. As Don José stretched out to take a nap, Pablo sat beside him and drew a dolphin in the wet sand. When Don José awoke, he was astonished by the beauty of his son’s drawing. “Could it be Pablo who drew this?” he wondered. That afternoon, Don José took a closer look at the image Pablo had drawn on their living room wall. What at first looked like random scratches soon took shape. Don José recognized a reindeer and a bison running away from a group of men on horseback who were armed with bows and arrows. At that moment, Don José knew what to do to get Pablo to stop misbehaving. He decided to take him into his studio and teach his son how to paint. From that day onward, Pablo and his father were inseparable art partners. In search of new subjects to portray, they began going to the bullfights. Pablo was mesmerized by the sight of the brave picadors as they charged ferocious bulls. He saw El Lagartijo—“The Lizard”—one of the most famous bullfighters in Spain, and he met Cara Ancha,

The minute I set foot in that house, I knew I was born to live there. The ocean called to me. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore lulled me into drugging bliss. Everything was open and beautiful and new. The air felt lighter and crisp. The four of us walked in—Emilia, me, Vaughn, and his father—and the second I stood in the center of the living room, I knew it was my new home. I turned to Vaughn with a smile. “Let’s keep it.” Without a thought, he turned straight to his parents and narrowed his eyes at them. “Is it too late to rebel against your asses? Because you fucked me over real nice and good this time.” His father patted his shoulder with a patronizing smirk. “Watch and learn, son.” “Not sure I’d be dedicating my life to screwing over my imaginary kids, if we wanted to have them,” Vaughn countered. He still thought I wasn’t into the idea of kids. My silly, silly hubby.

A self important college freshman was walking along the beach philosophizing to anyone who would listen, when he came across an old man minding his own business in the shade. He made it clear to the old man that it was impossible for the old man's generation to understand the new regime. The new generation, the young Turks. You grew up in a different world, the student said, and a pretty primitive one. The youth of today grew up with television, jet speed travel, space travel, man walked on the moon. We have nuclear energy, super tankers, and smartphones, broadband internet systems, and so much more. The old man thought for a second, and then responded, you're right son, we didn't have those things when we were young, that's why we invented them, for arrogant little shits like you. What have you got planned for the next generation?

How they changed the concept of drawing ‘fun on the beach’ to drawing about the ‘futility of life and nihilism’ left him absolutely speechless. The father-daughter duo were really in-sync. The drawing they produced in the end, was incredible but oh so dark. The concept creeped people out and made some depressed about life itself.

Throughout the war, media reports of the growing number of GI casualties troubled those who were still fighting to no end. men objected to the anonymity the term “GI” conveyed “When we think of GI we think of items of issue, nut we are not issued,” Sergeant Frank Turman explained. “When we walk over our dead buddies we wouldn’t refer to them as dead GIs. And when we get home again, and see our buddies’ loved ones, we just couldn’t say: ‘Your son died a GIs death.’” Any body can be a Gl,” Sergeant Turman said, “but it takes a man to be a soldier, sailor or marine.” For those who were fighting on the frontlines, the dead were not nameless or faceless. The war claimed men they knew and loved, and it was torture. The pilot who negotiated, his plane through storms of flak knew the crew member who wis fatally struck; when the Marines charged a beach in an amphibious landing and enemy snipers opened up on them, they knew which of their friends had fallen; and when Japanese pilots swung their planes into Allied ships, damaging and destroying them, the sailors who survived knew who had perished. For the men at war, death was agonizingly personal. Yet they rarely talked about it

he never could resolve the divinity of Jesus. Bill just debated that until he died. It wasn’t as sudden as that out in Akron, where on your first day, you were taken up to the bedroom upstairs with three guys who’d go, Do you believe in God? Get on your knees. Hey, we’re going to pray. Nice job, son. Done.

His father was named Bob Beckett Sr. He used to live with him in Torrance—down by Redondo Beach and Palos Verdes. His father was an artist. He ran a rinky-dink art school and made extra cash as a strongarm enforcer. He collected money for some mob-connected guys in San Pedro. His father was 6′4″, 270. His father knew karate. His father was in the Society for Creative Anachronisms—this group where people acted out this weird medieval shit. His father hung out with a faggy guy named Paul Serio. Paul Serio was a big shot in that weird society. His father was 45 years old now. His father was a baaad son-of-a-bitch.

This year Britain has become our last stronghold. A fortress defended with small aircraft flown by these strange, unknown young men.’ His glance flicked over Andrew and Bryan. ‘But are they unknown? Look at them and you will realise you do know them. They are our sons, our nephews, friends of our sons and daughters. Each a vibrant spark of God’s beloved humanity. All of them welcome in our houses and at our tables. ‘Cast your mind back a few short years. We watched them in those summer days when our stronghold was nothing but their playground. They picnicked on the village greens amongst the sweet bird-chatter. They laughed and played on the beaches, kicking the water with bare toes. And later they watched and then loved the young girls dressed in coloured frocks like the most wonderful of God’s flowers. ‘Now the flowers have faded to khaki and the bird-chatter is stilled under the clattering machines of war. These young men have stepped forward, separated in their blue, to become the winged warriors at the end of the trails that track the vaults above our heads. ‘George has gone, but he is not so far away that he cannot still see England’s face. The woods he played in, the fields he crossed, the town where he grew up and the prettiest flowers that remain unpicked. ‘He has flown on English air to a new world. But he can still see the world he knew just a few days past. And, in our hearts, we may yet see his frozen trail looped white across the heavens. For the air was his kingdom and he was a shield for those who lived under his wings. ‘His brief life has been given up as a ransom, that we might one day be free again. He has given up the richness of days not yet lived, the chance to hear his child’s voice and the solace of true love to ease his years of frailty. All this lost in a moment of willing sacrifice. ‘No thanks we may give him can weigh sufficiently against what he gave. But the clouds in our English skies can entwine with our eternal remembrance and together we may bind a wreath of honour that is worthy for his grave.’ ◆◆◆

As it turned out, Moss and the Patriots were hotter than the game-time temperature of 84 degrees. They ran the Jets off the field in a 38–14 rout highlighted by Moss’s 51-yard touchdown against triple coverage and 183 receiving yards on nine catches. “He was born to play football,” Brady said of his newest and most lethal weapon. The quarterback had it all now. He was getting serious with his relatively new girlfriend, Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen (his ex-girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan, had just given birth to their son, Jack), and now he was being paired on the field with a perfect partner of a different kind. Brady wasn’t seeing the Oakland Randy Moss. He was seeing the Minnesota Moss, the vintage Moss, the 6´4˝ receiver who ran past defenders and jumped over them with ease. Brady had all day to throw to Moss and Welker, who caught the first of the quarterback’s three touchdown passes. He wasn’t sacked while posting a quarterback rating of 146.6, his best in nearly five years. Man, this was a great day for the winning coach all around. On the other sideline, Eric Mangini had made a big mistake by sticking with his quarterback, Chad Pennington, a former teammate of Moss’s at Marshall, when the outcome was no longer in doubt, subjecting his starter to some unnecessary hits as he played on an injured ankle. Pennington was annoyed enough to pull himself from the game with 6:51 left and New England leading by 17. “That was the first time I’ve ever done that,” Pennington said. Mangini played the fool on this Sunday, and Belichick surely got the biggest kick out of that. But the losing coach actually won a game within the game in the first half that the overwhelming majority of people inside Giants Stadium knew absolutely nothing about. It had started in the days before this opener, when Mangini informed his former boss that the Jets would not tolerate in their own stadium an illegal yet common Patriots practice: the videotaping of opposing coaches’ signals from the sideline. The message to Belichick was simple: Don’t do it in our house. It was something of an open secret that New England had been illegally taping opposing coaches during games for some time, and yet the first public mention of improper spying involving Belichick’s Patriots actually assigned them the collective role of victim. Following a 21–0 Miami victory in December 2006, a couple of Dolphins told the Palm Beach Post that the team had “bought” past game tapes that included audio of Brady making calls at the line, and that the information taken from those tapes had helped them shut out Brady and sack him four times. “I’ve never seen him so flustered,” said Miami linebacker Zach Thomas.

Aristotle, we must remember, was a doctor’s son. Although he was very young when his father died, his family were longtime members of the medical guild of the Asclepiades. Using one’s eyes and ears and sense of touch to diagnose ailments and complaints, and judge the course of a disease or its cure, was in a sense a family tradition. According to the great Greek doctor Galen,‡ Asclepid families also taught their sons dissection.8 So those walks along the beach were not idle time. They must have confirmed for Aristotle what he already suspected, that reason must be linked to the power of observation. Reason steps in after, not before, experience; it sorts our observations into meaningful patterns and arrives at a knowledge as certain and exact as anything in Plato’s Forms. Aristotle’s term for this knowledge of the world was episteme, which later Latin commentators translated as scientia, or science. Aristotle is the true father of science and scientific method, by which we still mean a methodical process of observation, classification, and discovery.

Playlist You’re Mine - Phantogram Animal - Caroline Rose Journal of Ardency - Class Actress Hurts Like Hell - Fleurie So Good - Warpaint Mad About You – Hooverphonic Daft Pretty Boys – Bad Suns Blue Obsession – Geographer Fight or Flight Club – Madge Bending Back – Art School Girlfriend Fall In Love – Phantogram Golden Boy – Bryce Fox American Money – BØRNS Want You So Bad – The Vaccines Swoon – Beach Weather The Love Club – Lorde Affection – BETWEEN FRIENDS striptease – carwash Guilty Pleasures – Georgi Kay Mistakes Like This – Prelow Electric Love – BØRNS The Fool You Need – Son Lux iloveyou – BETWEEN FRIENDS

Stuck on "on": how to manage a Sympathetic response 1. Say to yourself, "I am having trauma response. This is a physiological process. I'm not crazy." 2. Make a list of people, places, and things that you love. Notice how your body feels as you think about hugging your best friend, sitting on a beach, or curling up with your favorite book. 3. Use your senses. Weighted blankets. Essential oils. Soft music. Warm tea. These can all help your nervous system come back down. 4. Count backward from the number 31. 5. Notice 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can touch, and 1 thing you can taste. 6. Push as hard as you can against a door or a wall. Notice your muscles firing. Step back, take a break. Repeat three times. 7. Do simple math problems in your head. Simple thinking tasks will help your brain reorientate itself. 8. Name the sensations inside your body. Say to yourself out loud, "I feel tension in my neck. I feel tightness in my stomach. I feel he at in my face." Then look for one place in your body where you feel neutral or calm. Most people can access neutral by noticing random areas like their left knee cap or right ring finger. Focus your attention first on the neutral area, then on the tense area, then on the neutral area. Do this for four minutes. 9. Don't ask why you feel panic. Do ask who or what will help you feel safe. 10. If you have a dog or a cat, gently put your hand on their heart and count their heartbeat for three minutes. Stuck on "off": how to manage a high tone dorsal vagal state. 1. Remind yourself that you are not lazy or unmotivated. Tell yourself, "I am having a trauma response. This is a thing. I am not crazy." 2. Get cold. Splash ice-cold water on your face. Hold ice cubes in your hand. Put an ice pack on your neck. Or jump into the coldest possible shower you can stand. 3. Hum or sing. There's a reason people have changed "Ommm" since the 6th century. 4. Social connection is powerful medicine. Connect with a human over the phone: good. Over video chat: better: In person: best. 5. Don't ask why you're feeling frozen. Do ask who or what might help you feel safer. 6. Don't use hyperbolic exaggerated language like "I feel buried" or "I'm drowning." This language reinforces the stress response. Instead, get really specific." I need to call my son's teacher, pick up my prescription and finish a proposal for work." Write down the specific tasks. This will help your brain click back into solution mode. 7. Suck on a lemon. This sounds weird, but it can help suck your brain out of shutdown mode. 8. Open and close your mouth. Then move your head. Then stretch your arms and legs. 9. Grab both ends of a blanket and wring it out as you would if it was soaking wet. Notice your muscles firing as you do this. Take a break. Repeat three times. 10. If you have a safe and willing friend or partner, make eye contact with them for 2-3 minutes. It's super awkward, but you will get a bonus dose of energy if you both end up laughing.

he was a bossy son-of-a-bastard (literally) and enjoyed no walks on the beach, dinners in front of his computer with zero candles, and bringing up uncomfortable subjects that were certain to start an argument.

Journalist Beatrix Campbell interviewed one British woman who thought of herself as a member of the Conservative Party, the party of Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister who was a chief backer of the U.S. base and its nuclear-headed missiles. But when this woman began thinking about the Greenham women’s peace camp, she recalled that she had developed another sort of political understanding. She had cut her hair short to make it clear to her husband and sons that she identified with the Greenham women: “Before Greenham I didn’t realize that the Americans had got their missiles here. Then I realized. What cheek! It was the fuss the Greenham Common women made that made me realize. . . . The men in this house [her husband and two sons] think they’re butch, queers.” Did she? She thought for a moment. “No.” Would it have bothered her if they were butch or if they were lesbians? She thought again. “No.” Women irritated her men anyway, she said, not without affection. “They never stop talking about Land Rovers and bikes, and they’ve not finished their dinner before they’re asking for their tea.

It’s 1968, and Aiken Day’s life is in chaos. Living in Windsor, Ontario, he suffers bleak visions and nightmares—flashbacks to the killing, the slaughter of the Essex Scottish Regiment on the shale beaches of Dieppe. His wife, the elegant former professor Paris Day, has run off with a civil rights group whose members have traded peaceful protests for violent bank heists, and their son Adam, a young black man in a white, white world, seems ready to follow in her footsteps. While Aiken sets off to discover the truth behind an FBI story about his wife, Bobby Kennedy and his team criss-cross the US on his run for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, campaigning to end racial discrimination and the Vietnam war. A sprawling, Pynchonesque novel that spans Canada and the US, Pushing Bobby’s Cadillac explores the hope and anguish spawned by the year 1968.

Dad," Stephen said. "What, son?" "Remember when we used to walk along the beaches—when you would buy all those shells for me to find?" His father smiled. "I remember." "Well, I was thinking about that beach we went to, the one where there were thousands of starfish that were stranded at low tide. Starfish dying as far as we could see. Seagulls snatching them up, dropping them on the rocks, and eating them. Remember all the starfish in that hot sun?" "Sure," his father said. "You insisted on taking one of them and throwing it back into the water." "I remember you telling me that it didn't make any difference," Stephen said. "Did I say that?" "Yes." "I don't remember." "I do," Stephen said. "Well, I've been thinking about it." "About that starfish?" "Yeah. I was thinking that it did make a difference. At least to that one starfish." His father said nothing for a while. "Maybe you're right... I hope so," he said finally, and put his arm around Stephen's shoulder.

«DEMOSTRACIÓN INTERPOLATIVA DEL HECHO DE QUE NO EXISTE UN LENGUAJE PRIVADO A veces resulta tentador imaginar que puede existir un lenguaje privado. Muchos de nosotros tenemos tendencia a filosofar, sin ser expertos en la materia, sobre la extraña privacidad de nuestros estados mentales, por ejemplo. Y a partir del hecho que cuando me duele la rodilla yo soy el único que lo siente es tentador sacar la conclusión de que para mí la palabra «dolor» tiene un significado interno subjetivo que solamente puedo entender yo. Esta línea de pensamiento se parece al terror que siente el fumador adolescente de marihuana a que su experiencia interior sea al mismo tiempo privada y no verificable, un síndrome que se conoce técnicamente como Solipsismo Cannábico. Mientras come galletas Chips Ahoy! y sigue con mucha atención un campeonato de golf por la tele, al fumador adolescente de marihuana se le ocurre la posibilidad aterradora de que, p. ej., lo que él percibe como el color verde y lo que el resto de la gente llama «color verde» puedan de hecho no ser la misma experiencia de color en absoluto: el hecho de que tanto él como otra persona digan que son verdes los carriles del campo de golf de Pebble Beach y la luz verde de un semáforo parece garantizar únicamente que existe una consistencia semejante en sus experiencias de los colores de los carriles de los campos de golf y de las luces verdes de los semáforos, no que la cualidad subjetiva real de esas experiencias de color sea la misma. Podría ser que lo que el fumador de marihuana experimenta como verde lo experimenten todos los demás como azul, y que lo que «queremos decir» con la palabra «azul» a lo que «quiere decir» él cuando dice «verde», etcétera, etcétera, hasta que da la línea de pensamiento se vuelve tan controvertida y agotadora que termina repantingado bajo un manto de migas de galleta y paralizado en su sillón. Lo que quiero decir con esto es que la idea de un lenguaje privado, igual que la idea de los colores privados y todas las demás presunciones solipsistas que este mismo reseñista ha sufrido en varias ocasiones, es al mismo tiempo producto de una ilusión y demostrablemente falsa.»

I feel like a tourist in my own country,” I said, taking in a goatherd leading a half-dozen emaciated goats along the side of the road. Farid snickered. Tossed his cigarette. “You still think of this place as your country?” “I think a part of me always will,” I said, more defensively than I had intended. “After twenty years of living in America,” he said, swerving the truck to avoid a pothole the size of a beach ball. I nodded. “I grew up in Afghanistan.” Farid snickered again. “Why do you do that?" “Never mind,” he murmured. “No, I want to know. Why do you do that?” In his rearview mirror, I saw something flash in his eyes. “You want to know?” he sneered. “Let me imagine, Agha sahib. You probably lived in a big two- or three-story house with a nice backyard that your gardener filled with flowers and fruit trees. All gated, of course. Your father drove an American car. You had servants, probably Hazaras. Your parents hired workers to decorate the house for the fancy mehmanis they threw, so their friends would come over to drink and boast about their travels to Europe or America. And I would bet my first son’s eyes that this is the first time you’ve ever worn a pakol.” He grinned at me, revealing a mouthful of prematurely rotting teeth. “Am I close?” “Why are you saying these things?” I said. “Because you wanted to know,” he spat. He pointed to an old man dressed in ragged clothes trudging down a dirt path, a large burlap pack filled with scrub grass tied to his back. “That’s the real Afghanistan, Agha sahib. That’s the Afghanistan I know. You? You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.

Another friend told me of the cheers he and his siblings let loose as they finally crossed the state line into sunny Florida. After being cooped up together in a car for two and a half days, they were eager to finally spend a day frolicking on the beach. Instead, upon seeing a billboard, my friend’s dad impulsively pulled over in St. Augustine to tour the home of Prince Achille Murat, the son of the brother-in-law of Napoleon. I’ll say that again: the home . . . of the son of the brother-in-law of Napoleon.