Speaker City Quotes

Hey," said Jace. who was sitting on an overturned speaker, looking at his cellphone, "do you want to see a photo of Alec and Magnus in Berlin?" "Not really," said Simon. "Magnus is wearing lederhosen." "And yet, still no.

What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.

I thought I was hallucinating,” Adam said, next to the lockers, an announcement droning on over the hall speakers. “Ronan Lynch in the halls of Aglionby.” Ronan slammed his locker. He had not put anything in it and had no reason to open or close it, but he liked the satisfying bang of the metal down the hall, the way it drowned out the announcements. He did it again for good measure. “Is this a real conversation, Parrish?” Adam didn’t bother to reply. He merely exchanged three textbooks for his gym hoodie. Ronan wrenched his tie loose. “You working after school?” “With a dreamer.” He held Ronan’s gaze over his locker door. School had improved. Adam gently closed his locker. “I’m done at four thirty. If you’re up for brainstorming some repair of your dream forest. Unless you have homework.” “Asshole,” Ronan said. Adam smiled cheerily. Ronan would start wars and burn cities for that true smile, elastic and amiable.

A Great Rabbi stands, teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine - a Speaker for the Dead - has told me of two other Rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you. The Rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. 'Is there any man here,' he says to them, 'who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?' They murmur and say, 'We all know the desire, but Rabbi none of us has acted on it.' The Rabbi says, 'Then kneel down and give thanks that God has made you strong.' He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, 'Tell the Lord Magistrate who saved his mistress, then he'll know I am his loyal servant.' So the woman lives because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder. Another Rabbi. Another city. He goes to her and stops the mob as in the other story and says, 'Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.' The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. ‘Someday,’ they think, ‘I may be like this woman. And I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her as I wish to be treated.’ As they opened their hands and let their stones fall to the ground, the Rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head and throws it straight down with all his might it crushes her skull and dashes her brain among the cobblestones. ‘Nor am I without sins,’ he says to the people, ‘but if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead – and our city with it.’ So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance. The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis and when they veer too far they die. Only one Rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So of course, we killed him. -San Angelo Letters to an Incipient Heretic

What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad’s voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of “Yellow Submarine,” which is a song by the Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d’être, which is a French expression that I know. Another good thing is that I could train my anus to talk when I farted. If I wanted to be extremely hilarious, I’d train it to say, “Wasn’t me!” every time I made an incredibly bad fart. And if I ever made an incredibly bad fart in the Hall of Mirrors, which is in Versailles, which is outside of Paris, which is in France, obviously, my anus would say, “Ce n’étais pas moi!” What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboard down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.

I would give most anything to hear my father's talk again, the crash and bang and stop of his language, always hurtling by. I will listen for him forever in the streets of this city.

I am a Dalit in Khairlanji. A Pandit in the Kashmir valley. A Sikh in 1984. I am from the North East of India when I am in Munirka. I am a Muslim in Gujarat; a Christian in Kandhamal. A Bihari in Maharashtra. A Delhi-wallah in Chennai. A woman in North India. A Hindi-speaker in Assam. A Tamilian in MP. A villager in a big city. A confused man in an indifferent world. We're all minorities. We all suffer; we all face discrimination. It is only us resisting this parochialism when in the position of majoritarian power that makes us human. I hope that one day, I can just be an Indian in India - only then can I be me.

The Nordic language recognizes four orders of foreignness. The first is the otherlander, or utlänning, the stranger that we recognize as being a human of our world, but of another city or country. The second is the framling—Demosthenes merely drops the accent from the Nordic främling. This is the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another world. The third is the raman, the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another species. The fourth is the true alien, the varelse, which includes all the animals, for with them no conversation is possible. They live, but we cannot guess what purposes or causes make them act. They might be intelligent, they might be self-aware, but we cannot know it.

[The wives of powerful noblemen] must be highly knowledgeable about government, and wise – in fact, far wiser than most other such women in power. The knowledge of a baroness must be so comprehensive that she can understand everything. Of her a philosopher might have said: "No one is wise who does not know some part of everything." Moreover, she must have the courage of a man. This means that she should not be brought up overmuch among women nor should she be indulged in extensive and feminine pampering. Why do I say that? If barons wish to be honoured as they deserve, they spend very little time in their manors and on their own lands. Going to war, attending their prince's court, and traveling are the three primary duties of such a lord. So the lady, his companion, must represent him at home during his absences. Although her husband is served by bailiffs, provosts, rent collectors, and land governors, she must govern them all. To do this according to her right she must conduct herself with such wisdom that she will be both feared and loved. As we have said before, the best possible fear comes from love. When wronged, her men must be able to turn to her for refuge. She must be so skilled and flexible that in each case she can respond suitably. Therefore, she must be knowledgeable in the mores of her locality and instructed in its usages, rights, and customs. She must be a good speaker, proud when pride is needed; circumspect with the scornful, surly, or rebellious; and charitably gentle and humble toward her good, obedient subjects. With the counsellors of her lord and with the advice of elder wise men, she ought to work directly with her people. No one should ever be able to say of her that she acts merely to have her own way. Again, she should have a man's heart. She must know the laws of arms and all things pertaining to warfare, ever prepared to command her men if there is need of it. She has to know both assault and defence tactics to insure that her fortresses are well defended, if she has any expectation of attack or believes she must initiate military action. Testing her men, she will discover their qualities of courage and determination before overly trusting them. She must know the number and strength of her men to gauge accurately her resources, so that she never will have to trust vain or feeble promises. Calculating what force she is capable of providing before her lord arrives with reinforcements, she also must know the financial resources she could call upon to sustain military action. She should avoid oppressing her men, since this is the surest way to incur their hatred. She can best cultivate their loyalty by speaking boldly and consistently to them, according to her council, not giving one reason today and another tomorrow. Speaking words of good courage to her men-at-arms as well as to her other retainers, she will urge them to loyalty and their best efforts.

Frequently I go to conferences and listen to speakers decry the absent father as somehow a new phenomenon. Though their recriminations against absent or emotionally distant fathers are generally meant to help society, at the same time they are built on a lie that evolution disproves generation after generation. Fathers have often gone to war, or the long hunt on the savannah, or to work in another village or city. But only in the last decade or so have manhood and fathering been trashed completely.

Their story begins on ground level, with footsteps. They are myriad, but do not compose a series. They cannot be counted because each unit has a qualitative character: a style of tactile apprehension and kinesthetic appropriation. Their swarming mass is an innumerable collection of singularities. Their intertwined paths give their shape to spaces. They weave places together. In that respect, pedestrian movements form one of these 'real systems whose existence in fact makes up the city.' They are not localized; it is rather they that spatialize. They are no more inserted within a container than those Chinese character speakers sketch out on their hands with their fingertips.

I’d be the first to admit it was a massively screwed-up pattern — when I was truly upset, I reverted to the habits I’d developed during the worst years of my life. When

Why do old memories constantly drift to the surface here In this unfamiliar city? When I go out into the streets, the scraps of conversation that pull into focus when the speaker brushes past me, the words stamped on street and stop signs, are almost all incomprehensible. At times my body feels like a prison, a solid, shifting island threading through the crowd. A sealed chamber carrying all the memories of the life I have lived and the mother tongue from which they are inseparable. The more stubborn the isolation, the more vivid these unlooked-for fragments, the more oppressive their weight. So that it seems the place I flee to is not so much a city on the other side of the world as further into my own interior.

But, among the disciples of Socrates, Plato was the one who shone with a glory which far excelled that of the others, and who not unjustly eclipsed them all. (…) And, as he had a peculiar love for his master Socrates, he made him the speaker in all his dialogues, putting into his mouth whatever he had learned, either from others, or from the efforts of his own powerful intellect, tempering even his moral disputations with the grace and politeness of the Socratic style.

While working with different people in different cities with very different viewpoints, I noticed one very similar theme: The people who blamed everything and everybody else for their lack of success tended to continue to have a lack of success.

All political meetings are very much alike. Somebody gets up and introduces the speaker of the evening, and then the speaker of the evening says at great length what he thinks of the scandalous manner in which the Government is behaving or the iniquitous goings-on of the Opposition. From time to time confederates in the audience rise and ask carefully rehearsed questions, and are answered fully and satisfactorily by the orator. When a genuine heckler interrupts, the orator either ignores him, or says haughtily that he can find him arguments but cannot find him brains. Or, occasionally, when the question is an easy one, he answers it. A quietly conducted political meeting is one of England's most delightful indoor games. When the meeting is rowdy, the audience has more fun, but the speaker a good deal less.

The ballpark is the star. In the age of Tris Speaker and Babe Ruth, the era of Jimmie Foxx and Ted Williams, through the empty-seats epoch of Don Buddin and Willie Tasby and unto the decades of Carl Yastrzemski and Jim Rice, the ballpark is the star. A crazy-quilt violation of city planning principles, an irregular pile of architecture, a menace to marketing consultants, Fenway Park works. It works as a symbol of New England's pride, as a repository of evergreen hopes, as a tabernacle of lost innocence. It works as a place to watch baseball

Despite my attempts to translate some of their lyrics here from Cantonese, the essence of these intimate and exquisite, yet 鳩, lyrics is impossible to capture. They feel like soft inside jokes whispered into your ear just before bed, jokes only Cantonese speakers understand.

Relly fired off the opening riff. Butt laid down the beat, old doom and new joy mixed together. "I wait till I, like fire, shall rise," Jerod sang. And then again, louder, wailing sure and true. I was the last one to join in. I had a bass line all wroked out, of course. I'd been waiting weeks for this momment. My fingers colosed on the strings, pressed them hard to the frets. Butt and Relly were locked in, repeating the four-bar intro. Louder and louder, fierce as a war cry. "Ok," I whispered into the pounding noise. I joined in, doubling Relly at first, then splitting off to coil our riffs together. It was great, it was huge, it was endless. The song rose, churning and sucking everything in like a cyclone. "The will my voice in great goodbyes," Jerod screamed from the speakers. "Join to the chorus of the skies." Silence was inside me, riding the Ghost Metal tornado. Right at the center, at the heart of the song. I didn't need a voice. I had a bass. I didn't need to hear myself talk or sing. Jerod could make the words for me. Or maybe it was Silence herself, pouring out through the PA system. Either way, any way, They were my words. And all the world would hear them.

—so much more opportunity now." Her voice trails off. "Hurrah for women's lib, eh?" "The lib?" Impatiently she leans forward and tugs the serape straight. "Oh, that's doomed." The apocalyptic word jars my attention. "What do you mean, doomed?" She glances at me as if I weren't hanging straight either and says vaguely, "Oh …" "Come on, why doomed? Didn't they get that equal rights bill?" Long hesitation. When she speaks again her voice is different. "Women have no rights, Don, except what men allow us. Men are more aggressive and powerful, and they run the world. When the next real crisis upsets them, our so-called rights will vanish like—like that smoke. We'll be back where we always were: property. And whatever has gone wrong will be blamed on our freedom, like the fall of Rome was. You'll see." Now all this is delivered in a gray tone of total conviction. The last time I heard that tone, the speaker was explaining why he had to keep his file drawers full of dead pigeons. "Oh, come on. You and your friends are the backbone of the system; if you quit, the country would come to a screeching halt before lunch." No answering smile. "That's fantasy." Her voice is still quiet. "Women don't work that way. We're a—a toothless world." She looks around as if she wanted to stop talking. "What women do is survive. We live by ones and twos in the chinks of your world-machine." "Sounds like a guerrilla operation." I'm not really joking, here in the 'gator den. In fact, I'm wondering if I spent too much thought on mahogany logs. "Guerrillas have something to hope for." Suddenly she switches on a jolly smile. "Think of us as opossums, Don. Did you know there are opossums living all over? Even in New York City." I smile back with my neck prickling. I thought I was the paranoid one. "Men and women aren't different species, Ruth. Women do everything men do." "Do they?" Our eyes meet, but she seems to be seeing ghosts between us in the rain. She mutters something that could be "My Lai" and looks away. "All the endless wars …" Her voice is a whisper. "All the huge authoritarian organizations for doing unreal things. Men live to struggle against each other; we're just part of the battlefield. It'll never change unless you change the whole world. I dream sometimes of—of going away—" She checks and abruptly changes voice. "Forgive me, Don, it's so stupid saying all this." "Men hate wars too, Ruth," I say as gently as I can. "I know." She shrugs and climbs to her feet. "But that's your problem, isn't it?" End of communication. Mrs. Ruth Parsons isn't even living in the same world with me.

Imagine this struggle being repeated in every barracks of the city, the district, the whole front, all Russia. Imagine the sleepless Krylenkos, watching the regiments, hurrying from place to place, arguing, threatening, entreating. And then imaging the same in all the locals of every labour union, in the factories, the villages, on the battle-ships of the far-flung Russian fleets; think of the hundreds of thousands of Russian men staring up at speakers all over the vast country, workmen, peasants, soldiers, sailors, trying so hard to understand and to choose, thinking so intensely-and deciding so unanimously at the end. So was the Russian Revolution….

What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time...the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war

Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.” The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I wish to be treated. As they open their hands and let the stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head, and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brains onto the cobblestones. “Nor am I without sin,” he says to the people. “But if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our city with it.

Speaking to a foreigner was the dream of every student, and my opportunity came at last. When I got back from my trip down the Yangtze, I learned that my year was being sent in October to a port in the south called Zhanjiang to practice our English with foreign sailors. I was thrilled. Zhanjiang was about 75 miles from Chengdu, a journey of two days and two nights by rail. It was the southernmost large port in China, and quite near the Vietnamese border. It felt like a foreign country, with turn-of-the-century colonial-style buildings, pastiche Romanesque arches, rose windows, and large verandas with colorful parasols. The local people spoke Cantonese, which was almost a foreign language. The air smelled of the unfamiliar sea, exotic tropical vegetation, and an altogether bigger world. But my excitement at being there was constantly doused by frustration. We were accompanied by a political supervisor and three lecturers, who decided that, although we were staying only a mile from the sea, we were not to be allowed anywhere near it. The harbor itself was closed to outsiders, for fear of 'sabotage' or defection. We were told that a student from Guangzhou had managed to stow away once in a cargo steamer, not realizing that the hold would be sealed for weeks, by which time he had perished. We had to restrict our movements to a clearly defined area of a few blocks around our residence. Regulations like these were part of our daily life, but they never failed to infuriate me. One day I was seized by an absolute compulsion to get out. I faked illness and got permission to go to a hospital in the middle of the city. I wandered the streets desperately trying to spot the sea, without success. The local people were unhelpful: they did not like non-Cantonese speakers, and refused to understand me. We stayed in the port for three weeks, and only once were we allowed, as a special treat, to go to an island to see the ocean. As the point of being there was to talk to the sailors, we were organized into small groups to take turns working in the two places they were allowed to frequent: the Friendship Store, which sold goods for hard currency, and the Sailors' Club, which had a bar, a restaurant, a billiards room, and a ping-pong room. There were strict rules about how we could talk to the sailors. We were not allowed to speak to them alone, except for brief exchanges over the counter of the Friendship Store. If we were asked our names and addresses, under no circumstances were we to give our real ones. We all prepared a false name and a nonexistent address. After every conversation, we had to write a detailed report of what had been said which was standard practice for anyone who had contact with foreigners. We were warned over and over again about the importance of observing 'discipline in foreign contacts' (she waifi-lu). Otherwise, we were told, not only would we get into serious trouble, other students would be banned from coming.

Samuel Gompers, standing at the back of speaker’s wagon No. 5, ask, “Why should the wealth of the country be stored in banks and elevators while the idle workman wanders homeless about the streets and the idle loafers who hoard the gold only to spend it in riotous living are rolling about in fine carriages from which they look out on peaceful meetings and call them riots?” For

That fact forms the center of a slightly racist joke referencing Ritsuko City’s large population of Japanese speakers. And I could certainly have escaped justice indefinitely by crossing the Black. But I’d have to lose my last scrap of self-respect, and in that case I would take up transvestite hooking before piracy. At least that would make for a less awkward conversation with Dad.

Gothos walked into the heart of his city, to where the Jaghut who ruled collectively were all gathered. Among them, to be sure, there were great minds, and many who still held to the ideal of civilization. But then Gothos ascended the central speaker’s dais. He began his oration, and when, at last, he was done, he was met with silence. On that day, the Jaghut civilization ended. And in the days that followed, Gothos was named the Lord of Hate.

That is what makes us love beautiful things: they have a perennial appeal, and hearing about them a second and third time can be even better than the first. The first time you hear it but not all of it. When you hear it again you savor every detail. Thus, when Avraham David spoke about our Master, the distinguished Av Beit Din, he would go on and on about things we already knew, but both the speaker and the listener felt as if they were only now hearing the real gist of it for the first time.

Karen had noticed over the years that whether someone else felt interrupted was an entirely subjective phenomenon. Pauses in conversation were often ambiguous. Karen had noted that laidback people rarely seemed to complain of being interrupted, even when they clearly were. And control freaks constantly claimed they were being interrupted, even after quite luxurious pauses. The whole interruption issue seemed less based on clear-cut behavioral cues and more based on the subjective belief of a given speaker that they should still be in control of the discussion.

He was the vilest speaker I ever heard: vulgar, ignorant, not seeking to teach his hearers, but rather to stir in men as vulgar as himself the irrational excesses to which such people are prone; a whore among orators. Yet, when he denounced the men who were putting the City in fear, there was a kind of flame in him. He was a man so ignoble that if he remembered anything of the nature of excellence, excellence, I should think it was only so that he could taunt someone with the lack of it. He lived in spite and hate. And now he only invoked the good in the name of hatred; yet for a moment nobility glanced back at him, and made him brave. It was like seeing some mangy cur, who for years has lived on scraps and filth about the market, raising his hackles at a pack of wolves.

In 2004 the comedian Bill Cosby was the featured speaker at an NAACP awards ceremony commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. Cosby used the occasion to offer a stinging critique of contemporary black culture. He said that blacks today are squandering the gains of the civil rights movement, and white racism is not to blame. “We, as black folks, have to do a better job,” he stated. “We have to start holding each other to a higher standard.” Today in our cities, he said, we have 50 percent [school] dropout [rates] in our neighborhoods. We have . . . men in prison. No longer is a person embarrassed because [she is] pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father.

Washington is a city of spectacles. Every four years, imposing Presidential inaugurations attract the great and the mighty. Kings, prime ministers, heroes and celebrities of every description have been feted there for more than 150 years. But in its entire glittering history, Washington had never seen a spectacle of the size and grandeur that assembled there on August 28, 1963. Among the nearly 250,000 people who journeyed that day to the capital, there were many dignitaries and many celebrities, but the stirring emotion came from the mass of ordinary people who stood in majestic dignity as witnesses to their single-minded determination to achieve democracy in their time. They came from almost every state in the union; they came in every form of transportation; they gave up from one to three days' pay plus the cost of transportation, which for many was a heavy financial sacrifice. They were good-humored and relaxed, yet disciplined and thoughtful. They applauded their leaders generously, but the leaders, in their own hearts, applauded their audience. Many a Negro speaker that day had his respect for his own people deepened as he felt the strength of their dedication. The enormous multitude was the living, beating heart of an infinitely noble movement. It was an army without guns, but not without strength. It was an army into which no one had to be drafted. It was white and Negro, and of all ages. It had adherents of every faith, members of every class, every profession, every political party, united by a single ideal. It was a fighting army, but no one could mistake that its most powerful weapon was love.

What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone’s heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone’s hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don’t really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn’t have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.

The problem for him in high school was that debate made you a nerd and poetry made you a pussy – even if both could help you get to the vaguely imagines East Coast city from which your experiences in Topeka would be recounted with great irony. The key was to narrate participation in debate as a form of linguistic combat; the key was to be a bully, quick and vicious and ready to spread an interlocutor with insults at the at the smallest provocation. Poetry could be excused if it upped your game, became cipher and flow, if it was part of why Amber was fucking you and not Reynolds et al. If linguistic prowess could do damage and get you laid, then it could be integrated into the adolescent social realm without entirely departing from the household values of intellect and expression. It was not a reconciliation, but a workable tension. His disastrous tonsorial compromise. The migraines. Fortunately for Adam, this shifting of aggression to the domain of language was sanctioned by one of the practices the types had appropriated: after several hours of drinking, if no fight or noise complain had broken up the party, you were likely to encounter freestyling. In many ways, this was the most shameful of all the poses, the clearest manifestation of a crisis in white masculinity and its representational regimes, a small group of privileged crackers often arrhythmically recycling the genre’s dominant and to them totally inapplicable clichés. But it was socially essential for him: the rap battle transmuted his prowess as a public speaker and aspiring poet into something cool. His luck was dizzying: that there was a rapid, ritualized poetic insult exchange bridging the gap between his Saturday afternoons in abandoned high schools and his Saturday nights in unsupervised houses, allowing him to transition from one contest to the other.

Recently, Amar has begun to feel as though he had been born into a world not made for him. What did it matter that his birth certificate was from a hospital in this very city, that the only house he had ever lived in was here. Where are you from? the kinder question would be. As though he could not possibly be from here. As though it were he and not they who had misunderstood. He had given up trying to explain. India, he would mumble. Even though he had not even been there for more than two weeks total, and that by now both his parents had lived here longer than they had ever lived elsewhere. Sometimes this answer would satisfy them and sometimes he could see their faces twist in confusion, and they might even say, but don’t people from India have darker skin? Even at mosque, when listening to the speaker lecturing from the pulpit, he pulled little threads from the carpet and felt that none of this moved him, or was made to include him.

By the time Sami entered high school Mustafa had grudgingly accepted that the boy needed to know something of the patriarchs. For the sake of Sami’s secular education he gulped back his discomfort. These Semitic myths, after all, were essential to the literary traditions Sami would study. So Mustafa delivered his interpretation of religious pre-history. He explained that, as with Oedipus or Achilles, there was psychopathic drama in the lives of the heroes, a drama in its essence no different from that of today’s Speakers’ Corner soapbox types, or of the schizophrenics following mysterious itineraries through the city’s streets. The scriptural heroes heard the same internal mumblings and insinuations, but as they belonged to an epic age, with epic genres, these were granted mythic status. It was pre-psychological, pre-ironic. There was high seriousness everywhere, blowing out of the desert and rolling up from the sea. There was prophetic articulation of destiny. There was the terror of God’s voice.

At a crucial point of the Battle of Britain, when German warplanes were bombing London daily, every available British aircraft was in the sky to stop the planes from reaching the city. As Churchill sat in a car with his military secretary he said, “Don’t speak to me. I have never been so moved.” Churchill sat quietly for five minutes. He then turned to his secretary and asked him to write down a thought that would become one of the most famous quotes of World War II: “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.”6 Only four words in that sentence are more than one syllable and, in six words, Churchill told the entire story of British courage and what it meant to the rest of the world: so much, so many, so few. Those six words summarize stories that fill entire books. “So much” stands for freedom, democracy, and liberty—much of which would have been eliminated if Hitler had not been stopped. “So many” represents the entire population of the British empire at the time and those who lived in the countries Hitler invaded. “So few” is a reference to a small number of English pilots, many of whom were killed in the skies as they defended their homeland.

They had forgotten the Golden Rule; they did whatever benefited and pleased them. When someone was ill in the street, they looked the other way. They were indifferent to the poor and homeless among them. They only wanted more and more for themselves. The young man was so disturbed that he started to preach on the streets about caring for others. But no one paid attention to him. This went on for years; he became an excellent speaker and was known as "the preacher. " He spoke of the joys of loving everyone and helping the poor. He helped the homeless. He warned of God's wrath. No matter how hard he tried to get them to change, the people of these two cities wouldn't listen.Instead, they thought he was weird. When he was an old man and very tired, a young boy listened to a part of one of his sermons and then shouted, "Why do you preach so much old man? Don't you know people won't change?" The old man said, "Oh, by now, I know that. " "So why do you keep on preaching?" asked the boy."So they won't change me," said the old man. If you really love another properly, there must be sacrifice.-Mother Teresa Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.-Sir James M.BarriePage 48 of 48

Imagine… There’s a roast goose in Hong Kong—Mongkok, near the outskirts of the city, the place looks like any other. But you sink your teeth into the quickly hacked pieces and you know you’re experiencing something special. Layers of what can only be described as enlightenment, one extraordinary sensation after another as the popils of the tongue encounter first the crispy, caramelized skin, then air, then fat—the juicy, sweet yet savory, ever so slightly gamey meat, the fat just barely managing to retain its corporeal form before quickly dematerializing into liquid. These are the kinds of tastes and textures that come with year after year of the same man making the same dish. That man—the one there, behind the counter with the cleaver—hacking roast pork, and roast duck, and roast goose as he’s done since he was a child and as his father did before him. He’s got it right now for sure—and, sitting there at one of the white Formica tables, Cantonese pop songs oozing and occasionally distorting from an undersized speaker, you know it, too. In fact, you’re pretty goddamn sure this is the best roast goose on the whole planet. Nobody is eating goose better than you at this precise moment. Maybe in the whole history of the world there has never been a better goose. Ordinarily, you don’t know if you’d go that far describing a dish—but now, with that ethereal goose fat dribbling down your chin, the sound of perfectly crackling skin playing inside your head to an audience of one, hyperbole seems entirely appropriate.

Sometimes Partridge imagines that this isn't real, that, instead, it's just some elaborate reenactment of destruction, not the actual destruction itself. He remembers once being in a museum on a class trip. There were miniature displays with live actors in various wings, talking about what things were like before the Return of Civility. Each display was dedicated to a theme: before the impressive prison system was built, before difficult children were properly medicated, when feminism didn't encourage femininity, when the media was hostile to government instead of working toward a greater good, before people with dangerous ideas were properly identified, back when government had to ask permission to protect its good citizens from the evils of the world and from the evils among us, before the gates had gone up around neighborhoods with buzzer systems and friendly men at gatehouses who knew everyone by name. In the heat of the day, there were battle reenactments on the museum's wide lawn that showed the uprisings waged in certain cities against the Return of Civility and its legislation. With the military behind the government, the uprisings - usually political demonstrations that became violent - were easily tamped down. The government's domestic militia, the Righteous Red Wave, came to save the day. The recorded sounds were deafening, Uzis and attack sirens pouring from speakers. The kids in his class bought bullhorns, very realistic hand grenades, and Righteous Red Wave iron-on emblems in the gift shop. He wanted a sticker that read THE RETURN OF CIVILITY - THE BEST KIND OF FREEDOM written over a rippling American flag, with the words REMAIN VIGILANT written beneath it. But his mother hadn't given him money for the gift shop, no wonder. Of coarse, he knew now that the museum was propaganda.

contextualization is inevitable. As soon as you choose a language to speak in and particular words to use within that language, the culture-laden nature of words comes into play. We often think that translating words from one language to another is simple — it’s just a matter of locating the synonym in the other language. But there are few true synonyms. The word God is translated into German as Gott— simple enough. But the cultural history of German speakers is such that the word Gott strikes German ears differently than the English word God strikes the ears of English speakers. It means something different to them. You may need to do more explanation if you are to give German speakers the same biblical concept of God that the word conveys to English speakers.

first is the otherlander, or utlänning, the stranger that we recognize as being a human of our world, but of another city or country. The second is the framling—Demosthenes merely drops the accent from the Nordic främling. This is the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another world. The third is the raman, the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another species. The fourth is the true alien, the varelse, which includes all the animals, for with them no conversation is possible. They live, but we cannot guess what purposes or causes make them act. They might be intelligent, they might be self-aware, but we cannot know it.

Snacks? What kind of snacks?” I asked. “Something called chips, which are made from potatoes, and different kinds of candies.” “Oh, you’re gonna sell candy, too?” “Yeah, but totally different from the candy shop.” “I see.” “I hope you’ll come by for the grand opening.” “When is it?” “Hopefully, next week. I’ll let you know.” I nodded. “Okay, I’ll try to make it, Tes.” “Cool. Thank you. Alright, I’m going to get some more food,” he said and left. A few minutes later, Maky got on the microphone and announced that the dancing portion of the night was going to start soon. “Woohoo! It’s dancing time,” said Arthur excitedly. “You know who I’m going to ask to dance with me?” “Who?” I asked. “Autumn,” answered Pierce. “Yup! Hopefully, she’ll agree.” “What about you, Pierce? Are you gonna ask anyone to dance?” “Um, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just dance by myself or with a group of friends,” the knight answered. “Cool…” I said sadly because I felt a little bit left out. “Or you know, maybe I’ll just hang out with you.” “Naw, I’m fine. You don’t have to keep me company.” Then suddenly, music started playing from the speakers that were set up at all the four corners of the city square. “Oh, here we go! I’ll be back later,” said Arthur as he took off to find Autumn. As the music played, I looked around for Maky’s band, but they were nowhere in sight. “Hm. This music must be coming from the jukebox,” I said. “Yeah, I don’t think Maky is playing tonight,” said Pierce. “She’s not? Why not? They’re super good.” “I don’t know, Steve.” “Hm. Oh, look. People are starting to take to the dance floor.” Slowly, a couple of villagers made their way toward the center of the city square. They were nervous about being the first ones, but soon after, many others followed their lead. Before I knew it, there were a ton of villagers in the middle, jumping up and down and dancing to the music. “That looks like fun…” I said. “Yeah…” said Pierce. “You should go join them.” “N-nah. I like sitting here.” Right when Pierce said that, someone came by and grabbed his hand and pulled him to the dance floor. “Come on, Pierce, let’s show them how it’s done,” said Leila. “B-but I’m not that good!” said Pierce. I tried my best to smile and said, “Have fun…” With my fake smile on, I watched as Pierce was dragged into the middle. Leila had stolen my only company away from me, and that made me feel super left out. I sighed and thought to myself, I wish I was out of this chair already. But I knew I didn’t have a choice, so I just sat in my chair and nodded along to the music. A few minutes later, the first song ended and the next one came on. I just continued sitting there while watching my friends have fun. In the middle, I could see Arthur dancing with Autumn, Cindy dancing with Arceus, and Leila dancing with Pierce. Shortly after, someone came by to talk to me. “Hey, Steve! How ya doing?” Maky asked while breathing hard. “Maky? Why aren’t you playing tonight?” I asked. “Oh, because I wanted to dance and have fun tonight. I mean, playing my instrument is fun, too, but dancing is a different kind of fun.” “I see.” “So, what are you doing over here? You don’t want to join the fun?” “Uh, there’s not much fun to be had when I’m stuck in a wheel chair.” “Oh, that’s nonsense!” Then she ran behind my chair, tilted it slightly backwards and pushed me off toward the middle of the dance floor. “Whoa! What are you doing?!” “We’re going to dance!” “Huh?!

In February 1939, a Bund rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City drew 20,000 supporters. Marching to the beat of snare drums, men in Nazi uniforms carrying American flags and swastikas had paraded into the Garden where they were greeted by rally organizers. In front of a towering portrait of George Washington, a speaker exhorted the crowd to “protect ourselves . . . against the slimy conspirators and the parasite hand of Jewish Communism.” Meanwhile, a newsreel camera chronicled Nazi guards beating a lone man who dared to protest.

Unlike most of the other London trades, women were not barred from becoming ‘freemen’ of their chosen trade, so they could work within the City walls without prejudice. Elinor James was the widow of printer Thomas James but published a broadside under her own name circa 1715, titled Mrs. Elinor James’s Advice to All Printers in General and starting 'I have been in the element of printing for above forty years, and I have a great love for it.’ During her printing career, Elinor published around fifty pamphlets. Some transcripts of speeches she gave, including Mrs. Elinor James’s Speech to the Citizens of London at Guildhall (1705), show that she was not only politically active as a publisher, but also as a speaker. She addressed everyone from the King down, with what she believed was the correct way to carry on. More than once, Elinor’s efforts would lend her in Newgate 'for dispersing scandalous and reflecting papers’.

I typed the winery address into the GPS and then proceeded to pull out of the rental company driveway. I screeched and slammed on the brakes every four feet until I got out onto the street. There was going to be a learning curve. The GPS lady successfully got me over the Golden Gate, but I didn’t get to enjoy one minute of it. Paranoid that I was going to hit a pedestrian or a cyclist or launch myself off the massive bridge, I couldn’t take my eyes off of the car in front of me. Once I was out of the city, I spotted a Wendy’s and pulled off the highway. GPS lady started getting frantic. “Recalculating. Head North on DuPont for 1.3 miles.” I did a quick U-turn to get to the other side of the freeway and into the loving arms of a chocolate frosty. “Recalculating.” Shit. Shut up, lady. I was frantically hitting buttons until I was able to finally silence her. I made a right turn and then another turn immediately into the Wendy’s parking lot and into the drive-thru line. I glanced at the clock. It was three forty. I still had time. I pulled up to the speaker and shouted, “I’ll take a regular French fry and a large chocolate frosty.” Just then, I heard a very loud, abbreviated siren sound. Whoop. I looked into my rearview mirror and spotted the source. It was a police officer on a motorcycle. What’s he doing? I sat there waiting for the Wendy’s speaker to confirm my order, and then again, Whoop. “Ma’am, please pull out of the drive-thru and off to the side.” What’s going on? I quickly rolled the window all the way down, stuck my head out, and peered around until the policeman was in my view. “Are you talking to me?” To my absolute horror, he used the speaker again. “Yes, ma’am, I am talking to you. Please pull out of the drive-thru.” Holy shit, I’m being pulled over in a Wendy’s drive-thru. “Excuse me, Wendy’s people? You need to scratch that last order.” A few seconds went by and then a young man’s voice came over the speaker. “Yeah, we figured that,” he said before bursting into laughter and cutting the speaker off. The policeman was very friendly and seemed to find a little humor in the situation as well. Apparently I had made an illegal right turn at a red light just before I pulled into the parking lot. After completely and utterly humiliating me, he let me off with a warning, which was nice, but I still didn’t have a frosty. Pulling my old Chicago Cubs cap from my bag, I decided that nothing was going to get in the way of my beloved frosty. Going incognito, I made my way through the door. Apparently the cap was not enough because the Justin Timberlake–looking fellow behind the counter could not contain himself. “Hi,” I said. “Hi, what can I get you?” he said, and then he clapped his hand over his mouth, struggling to hold back a huge amount of laughter and making gagging noises in the back of his throat in the process. “Can I get an extra-large chocolate frosty please, and make it snappy.” “Do you still want the fries with that?” There was more laughter and then I heard laughter from the back as well. “No, thank you.” I paid, grabbed my cup, and hightailed it out of there.

Americanah; Ayad Akhtar, American Dervish; Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents; Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street; Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Teju Cole, Open City; William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; Nell Freudenberger, The Newlyweds; Cristina García, Dreaming in Cuban and King of Cuba; Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker.

I blew into L.A. streaking down the freeway, the song "L.A. Woman" blasting out of the car speakers, the wind in my hair, the music in the wind. The first thing you notice about L.A. is that it’s overflowing with people, tourists, the homeless, the starstruck, it was like an old fashioned boom town, a few ghosts wandered it’s streets but it was still booming, if L.A. lived off the people that were successful, the city would be awfully empty.

The feature of programs, that they are defined purely formally or syntactically, is fatal to the view that mental processes and program processes are identical. And the reason can be stated quite simply. There is more to having a mind then having formal or syntactical processes. Our internal mental states, by definition, have certain sorts of contents. If I am thinking about Kansas City or wishing that I had a cold beer to drink, in both cases my mental state has certain mental content in addition to whatever formal features it might have. That is, even if my thoughts occur to me in strings of symbols, there must be more to the thoughts then the abstract strings, because strings by themselves can't have any meaning. If my thoughts are to be about anything, then the strings must have a meaning which makes the thoughts about those things. In a word, the mind has more than syntax, it has semantics. The reason that no computer program can ever be a mind is simply that a computer program is simply syntactical, and minds are more than syntactical. Minds are semantical, in the sense that they have more than a formal structure, they have a content. To illustrate this point, I have designed a thought experiment. Imagine a bunch of computer programmers have written a program that will enable a computer to simulate the understanding of Chinese. So for example, if the computer is given a question in chinese, it will match the question against its memory or data base, and produce appropriate answers to the questions in chinese. Suppose for the sake of argument that the computer's answers are as good as those of a native Chinese speaker. Now then, does the computer on the basis of this literally understand Chinese, in the way that Chinese speakers understand Chinese? Imagine you are locked in a room, and this room has several baskets full of chinese symbols. imagine that you don't understand a word of chinese, but that you are given a rule book in english for manipulating these chinese symbols. The rules specify the manipulations of the symbols purely formally, in terms of syntax, not semantics. So the rule might say: take a squiggle out of basket 1 and put it next to a squoggle from basket 2. Suppose that some other chinese symbols are passed into the room, and you are given futhter rules for passing chinese symbols out the room. Suppose, unknown to you, the symbols passed into the room are called 'questions' and your responses are called answers, by people outside the room. Soon, your responses are indistinguishable from native chinese speakers. there you are locked in your room shuffling symbols and giving answers. On the basis of the situation as it parallels computers, there is no way you could learn chinese simply by manipulating these formal symbols. Now the point of the story is simply this: by virtue of implementing a formal computer from the point of view of an outside observer, you behave exactly as if you understood chinese, but you understand nothing in reality. But if going through the appropriate computer program for understanding CHinese is not enough, then it is not enough to give any other computer an understanding of chinese. Again, the reason for this can be stated simply: a computer has a syntax, but no semantics.

He didn't say anything and just helped me to my room...He gently patted my back and then left the house and drove off to one of his stores in the city.

A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife’s adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. (There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine, a speaker for the dead, has told me of two other rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I’m going to tell you.) The rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears, and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. “Is there anyone here,” he says to them, “who has not desired another man’s wife, another woman’s husband?” They murmur and say, “We all know the desire. But, Rabbi, none of us has acted on it.” The rabbi says, “Then kneel down and give thanks that God made you strong.” He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, “Tell the lord magistrate who saved his mistress. Then he’ll know I am his loyal servant.” So the woman lives, because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder. Another rabbi, another city. He goes to her and stops the mob, as in the other story, and says, “Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.” The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I wish to be treated. As they open their hands and let the stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head, and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brains onto the cobblestones. “Nor am I without sin,” he says to the people. “But if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our city with it.” So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance. The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him.

People think it’s a fortune, but they don’t reckon on, well, it’s not pensionable, there’s all the medical expenses, you’ve got to buy and maintain your own gear—‘ ‘—wear and tear on virgins—‘ nodded a small fat hunter. ‘Yeah, and then there’s…what?’ ‘My specialty is unicorns,’ the hunter explained, with an embarrassed smile. ‘Oh, right.’ The first speaker looked like someone who’d always been dying to ask this question. ‘I thought they were very rare these days.’ ‘You’re right there. You don’t see many unicorns, either,’ said the unicorn hunter. Vimes got the impression that, in his whole life, this was his only joke.

If she's not trying to hide in my bushes, playing nineties RnB through a speaker once we are done, I didn't do my job.

she's not trying to hide in my bushes, playing nineties RnB through a speaker once we are done, I didn't do my job.

I want this house. I really want this house.” Everything in this world is an exchange. Isaac knew this all too well. To shapeshift into a new person, you had to abandon the person you were. To bullet into a foreign, fresh, thrumming city, you had to turn your back on whatever city you came from. All we’re ever doing is bartering one precious thing for another. It’s commerce, plain and simple—though Isaac preferred to think of it as a conversation. Life as give-and-take, a listener for every speaker. Without this balance, the universe wouldn’t hold together right. It was why Isaac kept a pocketful of train-flattened nickels: the piper must, eternally, be paid. In short—no one gets something for nothing.

The Federal Reserve System was created by Congress on December 23, 1913, and began operating on November 16, 1914. Twelve regional banks were set up across the country to provide liquidity to their regions. The state of Missouri was lucky enough to be granted two district banks in their state (St. Louis and Kansas City) because, well, the Speaker of the House was from Missouri. All federally chartered banks were required by law to become members.

By the fourteenth century, Romance dialects belonged to two broad categories. Those in which “yes” was pronounced oc—mostly south of the Loire River—were called langues d’oc (oc languages). Those in which speakers said oïl for “yes”—in the north—were called langues d’oïl, a term which came to be used interchangeably with Françoys. Oïl and oc are both derivatives of the Latin hoc (this, that), which at the time was used to say yes. In the south they simply chopped off the h. In the north, for some reason, hoc was reduced to a simple o, and qualifiers were added—o-je, o-nos, o-vos for “yes for me,” “yes for us” and “yes for you.” This was complicated, so speakers eventually settled for the neutral o-il—“yes for that.” The term was used in the dialects of Picardy, Normandy, Champagne and Orléans. Other important langues d’oïl were Angevin, Poitevin and Bourguignon, spoken in Anjou, Poitiers and Burgundy, which were considerably farther south of Paris. Scholars debate who created the designations langues d’oïl and langues d’oc. The poet Dante Alighieri, in his De vulgari eloquentia of 1304, was one of the first to introduce the term langue d’oc, opposing it to the langue d’oïl and the langue de si (Romance from Italy). A fifth important langue d’oïl was Walloon, the dialect of the future Belgium. The langues d’oc attained their golden age in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when groups of wandering musicians, or troubadours, travelled from city to city spreading a new form of sung poem that extolled the ideal of courtly love, or fin’amor. This new poetry was very different from the cruder epic poems of the north, the chansons de geste, and it enjoyed great literary prestige that boosted the influence of two southern rulers, the Count of Toulouse and the Duke of Aquitaine. Even many Italian courts adopted the langue d’oc, which is also known today as Occitan. Wandering poets of the north, the trouvères of Champagne, also borrowed and popularized the song-poems of the south.

Congressman Diggs introduced the main speaker. The arena roared with shouts and applause. King, at five-seven, stepped up on a small box to reach the bank of microphones placed before him on the podium. “God didn’t make me tall enough,” he said. The large room grew close, bathed in shadows and light. “My good friend, the Reverend C. L. Franklin,” he began, “I cannot begin to say to you this afternoon how thrilled I am, and I cannot begin to tell you the deep joy that comes to my heart as I participate with you in what I consider to be the largest and greatest demonstration for freedom ever held in the United States.

In hundreds of lectures around the world, I’ve done most of the scary, tragic, embarrassing things that terrify people. I’ve been heckled by drunken crowds in a Boston bar. I’ve lectured to empty seats, and a bored janitor, in New York City. I’ve had a laptop crash in a Moscow auditorium; a microphone die at a keynote speech in San Jose; and I’ve watched helplessly as the Parisian executives who hired me fell asleep in the conference room while I was speaking. The secret to coping with these events is to realize everyone forgets about them after they happen — except for one person: me. No one else really cares that much.

D. H. Lawrence saw a very different México and had very different ideas about race. Unlike the others, the British writer spoke only rudimentary Spanish and had very little contact with even English speaking Mexicans. With his wealthy wife’s money, Lawrence toured the country in a rented limousine, looking at archaeological sites and visiting other English speakers. He then holed up in the Hotel Monte Carlo in Mexico City to write a novel about México that propounded his racist theories.

I usually disliked whatever was being played on a music store’s speakers. It spoiled the pleasure of thinking about other music. Record shops, I felt, should be silent spaces; there, more than anywhere else, the mind needed to be clear.

ON APRIL 27, 1970, WALTER BRENNAN WAS INDUCTED INTO THE HALL of Great Western Actors at the Cowboy Hall of Fame’s annual awards ceremony in Oklahoma City. After listening to several speakers lavish praise on him, he stood up and said, “Other than that, I’m a dirty old man.” He often liked to undercut a compliment with a self-directed jibe. But as his son Andy said, his father was thrilled with the honor. Later Brennan donated his papers to what is now the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

It can be a mean world; sadly, there is no shortage of rude people. Throughout my travels, I pleasantly discovered that if you are friendly to others, they will usually mirror the same in return. Regardless of which cities or countries I visit, the majority of people I encounter tend to be friendly, personable, and caring.

When there wasn’t a speaker, he often organized round robins. One such evening, a woman from Lead and Asbestos Information Center, Inc., had started off by announcing, “There is money to be made on lead,” to a room of landlords who more often lost money trying to abate it. One landlord asked whether he would have to report the presence of asbestos to the city or the tenants if he tested for it. “No, you don’t,” the woman had said.

Atatürk was the first president of the newly proclaimed Republic of Turkey, established in 1923. Ankara was chosen as the capital and Constantinople’s name was officially changed to Istanbul (it’s thought that the name comes from Greek speakers referring to visits as eis ten polin – ‘into the city’ – which transmuted into Istanbul).

I remember one time, when members of a particular sect of Christian Protestant came to our house on a Sunday afternoon, my father asked them to describe their concept of the kingdom of heaven. A well-groomed man with a Ned Flanders mustache said, sipping some coffee, “Well, sometime in the near future, there will be a great rumbling from above, lightning will strike, and there will be terrible storms. The sky will open up, and down will come Jesus Christ on a cloud with a great trumpet blast. There will be an incredibly beautiful city with gold and silver turrets that descends with angels on it, and this is the kingdom of God. The good Christians will get into the city, and it will float away with Jesus to be with God, the Father, and the rest of the people will be left behind, left on earth to perish.” And then he politely responded with something to the effect of, “What is the Baha’i concept?” My dad, a wise spiritual teacher and public speaker, responded, “Well, in a lot of ways, it’s very similar. There will be great storms and lightning and thunder, and the skies will open up. Down from a hole in the clouds doesn’t come a city or Jesus or anything but rather a bunch of bags of cement. Some shovels and hammers. Bricks and mortar and nails and lumber. And finally, at the very end, a note floats down on the breeze and lands on top of all the supplies. It reads: ‘Kingdom of God on Earth: Build-It-Yourself Kit.

My dad, a wise spiritual teacher and public speaker, responded, “Well, in a lot of ways, it’s very similar. There will be great storms and lightning and thunder, and the skies will open up. Down from a hole in the clouds doesn’t come a city or Jesus or anything but rather a bunch of bags of cement. Some shovels and hammers. Bricks and mortar and nails and lumber. And finally, at the very end, a note floats down on the breeze and lands on top of all the supplies. It reads: ‘Kingdom of God on Earth: Build-It-Yourself Kit.

The tentacles of the Southern Baptist Convention reach long. Its influence pervades not only all of evangelicalism but also school boards, city councils, and state houses across the country. As I was finalizing this manuscript, the US House of Representatives elected a Southern Baptist as speaker. Mike Johnson, widely described as an election denier and Christian nationalist, is now second in line to the presidency. So, no one should underestimate the impact of this faith group’s theologies and ideologies.

Peace. Warm yourself, warrior, while I tell you of peace. History is unerring, and even the least observant mortal can be made to understand, through innumerable repetition. Do you see peace as little more than the absence of war? Perhaps, on a surface level, it is just that. But let me describe the characteristics of peace, my young friend. A pervasive dulling of the senses, a decadence afflicting the culture, evinced by a growing obsession with low entertainment. The virtues of extremity — honour, loyalty, sacrifice — are lifted high as shoddy icons, currency for the cheapest of labours. The longer peace lasts, the more those words are used, and the weaker they become. Sentimentality pervades daily life. All becomes a mockery of itself, and the spirit grows… restless. Is this a singular pessimism? Allow me to continue with a description of what follows a period of peace. Old warriors sit in taverns, telling tales of vigorous youth, their pasts when all things were simpler, clearer cut. They are not blind to the decay all around them, are not immune to the loss of respect for themselves, for all that they gave for their king, their land, their fellow citizens. The young must not be abandoned to forgetfulness. There are always enemies beyond the borders, and if none exist in truth, then one must be fashioned. Old crimes dug out of the indifferent earth. Slights and open insults, or the rumours thereof. A suddenly perceived threat where none existed before. The reasons matter not — what matters is that war is fashioned from peace, and once the journey is begun, an irresistible momentum is born. The old warriors are satisfied. The young are on fire with zeal. The king fears yet is relieved of domestic pressures. the army draws its oil and whetstone. Forges blast with molten iron, the anvils ring like temple bells. Grain-sellers and armourers and clothiers and horse-sellers and countless other suppliers smile with the pleasure of impending wealth. A new energy has gripped the kingdom, and those few voices raised in objection are quickly silenced. Charges of treason and summary execution soon persuade the doubters. Peace, my young warrior, is born of relief, endured in exhaustion, and dies with false remembrance. False? Ah, perhaps I am too cynical. Too old, witness to far too much. Do honour, loyalty and sacrifice truly exist? Are such virtues born only from extremity? What transforms them into empty words, words devalued by their overuse? What are the rules of the economy of the spirit, that civilization repeatedly twists and mocks? Withal of the Third City. You have fought wars. You have forged weapons. You have seen loyalty, and honour. You have seen courage and sacrifice. What say you to all this?" "Nothing," Hacking laughter. "You fear angering me, yes? No need. I give you leave to speak your mind." "I have sat in my share of taverns, in the company of fellow veterans. A select company, perhaps, not grown so blind with sentimentality as to fashion nostalgia from times of horror and terror. Did we spin out those days of our youth? No. Did we speak of war? Not if we could avoid it, and we worked hard at avoiding it." "Why?" "Why? Because the faces come back. So young, one after another. A flash of life, an eternity of death, there in our minds. Because loyalty is not to be spoken of, and honour is to be endured. Whilst courage is to be survived. Those virtues, Chained One, belong to silence." "Indeed. Yet how they proliferate in peace! Crowed again and again, as if solemn pronouncement bestows those very qualities upon the speaker. Do they not make you wince, every time you hear them? Do they not twist in your gut, grip hard your throat? Do you not feel a building rage—" "Aye. When I hear them used to raise a people once more to war.

The opening notes of the Guns N’ Roses hit “Welcome to the Jungle” began to echo from the buildings behind us, Slash’s guitar sending those tones bouncing around the concrete and towers, somehow resonating with the steel and stone of the streets and buildings of the city. Chicago herself became the speaker, music ringing off every surface, setting the ground to quivering in resonance.

The speaker held a finger up. “I know what some of you are thinking—because it was once my opinion: what does population matter? So what if we have fewer people?” He shrugged theatrically. “Well, consider your own experiences. Consider the towns and cities in your life that have seen gradual population declines. Consider the loss of tax base. The aging population and the lack of resources to deal with those people. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Fury flicked buttons on the switchboard. “Copy Asterian Units One, Two, and Three, this is Fury Axtar speaking. Pull back.” No answer. “I repeat, pull back. Abort mission.” Nothing. Declan said, “They’re the Asterian Guard. They won’t answer to you.” The Autumn King’s voice crackled through the speakers. “No one at Imperial Command is answering our calls.

I am a descendant of Ranthia Drahl, Queen of Embers. She is with me now and I am not afraid.” Lehabah glowed, bright as the heart of a star. “My friends are behind me, and I will protect them.” The top of the bathroom door began to curl open. And Lehabah unleashed her power. Three blows. Perfectly aimed. Not to the bathroom door and Archangel behind it. No, Lehabah couldn’t slow Micah. But a hundred thousand gallons of water would. Lehabah’s shimmering blasts of power slammed into the glass tank. Right on top of the crack that Bryce had made when the nøkk threw her into it. The creature, sensing the commotion, rose from the rocks. And recoiled in horror as Lehabah struck again. Again. The glass cracked further. And then Lehabah hurled herself against it. Pushed her tiny body against the crack. She kept whispering the words over and over again. They morphed together into one sentence, a prayer, a challenge. “My friends are with me and I am not afraid.” Hunt wrested control of his body enough that he was able to put a hand over his heart. The only salute he could make as Lehabah’s words whispered through the speakers. “My friends are with me and I am not afraid.” One by one, the angels in the 33rd rose to their feet. Then Ruhn and his friends. And they, too, put their hands on their hearts as the smallest of their House pushed and pushed against the glass wall, burning gold as the nøkk tried to flee to any place it might survive what was about to come. Over and over, Lehabah whispered, “My friends are with me and I am not afraid.” The glass spiderwebbed. Everyone in the conference room rose to their feet. Only Sandriel, her attention fixed on the screen, did not notice. They all stood, and bore witness to the sprite who brought her death down upon herself, upon the nøkk—to save her friends. It was all they could offer her, this final respect and honor. Lehabah still pushed. Still shook with terror. Yet she did not stop. Not for one heartbeat. “My friends are with me and I am not afraid.” The bathroom door tore open, metal curling aside to reveal Micah, glowing as if newly forged, as if he’d rend this world apart. He surveyed the library, eyes landing on Lehabah and the cracked tank wall. The sprite whirled, back pressed against the glass. She hissed at Micah, “This is for Syrinx.” She slammed her little burning palm into the glass. And a hundred thousand gallons of water exploded into the library.

Once again, the Empire of Russia has defeated the nation. It is important to recognize it now, when Russia is suffering a moral, military and, broadly speaking, civilizational defeat in Ukraine. The attack on Ukraine is a fiasco of the still-born idea of ‘the Russian world,’ russky mir, as one lot of Russian speakers bomb, torture and shoot other Russian speakers; as they burn Orthodox churches and demolish Russian-speaking cities of Mariupol and Kherson. This is not a war for Russia but for the re-establishment of the Empire, a war of revenge on Ukrainians (it is even crueller, because they are considered ‘one of us,’ ‘our brothers’) for daring to think that they could break away and follow their own path.

In Xenophon's summary of the allegory [Prodicus' "Choice of Heracles'' ] the young Heracles has sat down at a crossroads, not knowing which path to follow through life. As he sits deliberating, two women appear to him. Their physical appearance is a study in contrasts, and they are clearly villainness and heroine. Evil (Kakia) is overfed, plump, rouged, and all powdered up. She wears revealing clothes and is vain, viewing herself in a mirror and turning around to see if she is being admired. Virtue (Arete), on the other hand, wears simple white; her only adornments are purity, modesty, and temperance. These apparitions proceed to give speeches in praise of the life that they can give Heracles. Evil speaks first-an ominous choice, since in such debates, the first speaker typically loses. She offers Heracles a life of free, effortless pleasure. There will be no delights that he will not taste, no difficulties that he will not avoid. He need never worry about wars and affairs. All he need trouble himself about will be what food or drink to take; what to look at, hear, smell or touch for his pleasure; what partner he might enjoy, how he might sleep softest, and how he can obtain all these with the least toil (aponOtata). If ever there are shortages, he will not suffer ponos or hardship either in body or soul. Rather "you will enjoy those things that others work to produce, and you will not hold back from profiting everywhere." Evil tells Heracles her name, but adds confidentially that to her friends she is known as Happiness (Eudaimonia). Very different is the tone and substance of Virtue's argument. For while Evil would have Heracles live for himself alone and treat others as means to his self-gratification, Virtue begins by saying that she knows Heracles' parents and nature: Heracles must live up to his Olympian heritage. Therefore she will not deceive him with "hymns to pleasure." Evil's enticements are in fact contrary to the divine ordering, "for the gods have given men nothing good without ponos and diligence." There follows a series of emphatic verbal nouns to hammer home this truth: if you want divine favor, you must worship the gods; if you want to be admired, you must do good works for your friends; if you want to be honored, you must benefit your city and Greece; if you want the earth to bear crops, you must cultivate the land. Flocks require tending, war demands practice. And if you want strength (Heracles' trademark), you must accustom your body to serve your will, and you must train "with ponoi and sweat:' At this point, Evil bursts in to deplore such a harsh lifestyle. She is immediately silenced, however, as Virtue argues that duality is essential to a sense of fulfillment and even to pleasure itself. For paradoxically, ponos (pain, struggle) makes pleasure pleasurable. Evil's vision of happiness is one of continual and languid orgy-food without hunger, drink without thirst, sex without desire, sleep without weariness. But as experience shows, continual partying soon loses its zest, even if one goes so far as to cool expensive drinks "with snow" in summertime. By contrast, Virtue's own followers have no real trouble in satisfying their desires. They do so not by committing violence against others or living off others' labor, but by simply "holding off until they actually do desire" food or drink. Hunger is the best sauce, and it is free. Furthermore, Virtue appeals to Heracles' native idealism. What hedonists have ever accomplished any "fine work" (ergon kalon)? None, for no beautiful or divine deed is ever done "without me [Virtue] ." Therefore, wherever there are energetic, effective people, Virtue is present: she is a helper to craftsmen, a guard of the household, a partner in peacetime ponoi, an ally for the works (erga) of war, the best support of friendship. To choose Evil would be shameful and not even extremely pleasurable, while with Virtue one will lead the most varied and honorable life.

The speaker onstage was a French actor Sydney didn’t recognize, but when he finished, the crowd cheered. “I don’t know what he said, but it must’ve been good,” she told Mother. “Maybe I should give my speech in French too.” “I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” he replied. “Especially since you only know about a dozen French words.” “Good point,” she said. “Although, on the plus side, I could say them all and still finish under my time limit.

Belgium’s chequered linguistic history shows that neither principle, even when sensitively applied, is without difficulties. Dutch speakers resent the fact that French now dominates in the capital, a city squarely in the Dutch-speaking zone. They also complain of the tache d’huile (oil slick) effect, in which Brussels-based francophones take residence in officially Dutch-speaking suburbs, and turn them into de facto francophone areas. French speakers, on the other hand, resent being required to use Dutch in areas where they have become the majority language group.

We convinced EarthLink to pay us $125,000 to become “the official Internet Service Provider of the Parks Department.” We used that money to pay to build a new website to help New Yorkers take advantage of everything offered at their parks. We owed EarthLink attention and media coverage in return. So we built a forty-foot-by-forty-foot giant spiderweb of rope in Times Square. We dressed Henry in a sequined silver suit and top hat, put him on a riser obscured by dry ice, and blasted the theme song to 2001: A Space Odyssey out of the giant speaker they use for New Year’s Eve as he ascended the web to launch the new Parks Department website, paid for by EarthLink. The same approach worked for policy initiatives. We staged elaborate funerals for trees murdered by people (cut down illegally by construction crews or poisoned by people who thought their views were obstructed by trees). One time, Henry chained himself to a tree in Union Square Park to try to prevent its demise. This all helped fuel legislation through the city council making arborcide a crime.

He was how I imagined a Korean would be, at least one living in any renown. He would stride the daises and the stages with his voice strong and clear, unafraid to speak the language like a Puritan and like a Chinaman and like every boat person in between. I found him most moving and beautiful in those moments. And whenever I hear the strains of a different English, I still shattter a little inside. Within every echo from a city storefront or window, I can hear the old laments of my mother and my father, and mine as a confused schoolboy, and then even the fitful mumblings of our Ahjuhma, the instant American inventions of her tongue. They speak to me, as John Kwang could always, not simply in new accents or notes but in the ancient untold music of a newcomer's heart, sonorous with longing and hope.

For the Athenians, he says boldly, are so envious that they would reject what is manifestly the best advice for the city if they suspected a speaker of giving this good advice for the sake of gain. A speaker, therefore, who wants to lead the city for its good must first overcome its suspicions of him, and this task is apparently impossible by straightforward means alone. For Diodotus concludes that even a speaker who wants to say what is better must lie to the multitude in order to be trusted, and that it is impossible to benefit the city—and the city alone—without deceiving it (III 42–43). With remarkable frankness, Diodotus tells the Athenians that he will deceive them. And this admission leaves us with the following questions. Why is it impossible to earn the city’s trust without lying to it? And how, precisely, does Diodotus lie? Diodotus’ lie would appear to be his claim that he will not even consider the question of justice, i.e., whether the Mytileneans were unjust, but only that of whether it is in Athens’s interest to kill them all. It is true that the bulk of his argument against these killings is a hard-headed analysis in terms of Athenian self-interest; yet one feels that he is not so simply heartless as he pretends. Moreover, he does not, as we shall see, wholly disregard considerations of justice. Diodotus begins by claiming that even the most severe punishments cannot deter all rebellions, and that Athens should therefore be prepared to try to end any rebellion that does occur with as little cost as possible. Athens can do this, he says, by exploiting the division of classes among the rebels and by giving the multitude the prospect of leniency for themselves if they should willingly hand over the city, as the multitude within Mytilene had done, more or less, once they had received heavy arms. But then, surprisingly, Diodotus adds that it would now be unjust to kill the multitude, as distinct from the oligarchs, at Mytilene, since they had been the Athenians’ benefactors. So in spite of his original claim, Diodotus does argue explicitly in terms of justice. Moreover, there is much in his speech that has subtly been leading up to this argument from justice.

On 14 September 1869, one hundred years after his birth, Alexander von Humboldt’s centennial was celebrated across the world. There were parties in Europe, Africa and Australia as well as the Americas. In Melbourne and Adelaide people came together to listen to speeches in honour of Humboldt, as did groups in Buenos Aires and Mexico City. There were festivities in Moscow where Humboldt was called the ‘Shakespeare of sciences’, and in Alexandria in Egypt where guests partied under a sky illuminated with fireworks. The greatest commemorations were in the United States, where from San Francisco to Philadelphia, and from Chicago to Charleston, the nation saw street parades, sumptuous dinners and concerts. In Cleveland some 8,000 people took to the streets and in Syracuse another 15,000 joined a march that was more than a mile long. President Ulysses Grant attended the Humboldt celebrations in Pittsburgh together with 10,000 revellers who brought the city to a standstill. In New York City the cobbled streets were lined with flags. City Hall was veiled in banners, and entire houses had vanished behind huge posters bearing Humboldt’s face. Even the ships sailing by, out on the Hudson River, were garlanded in colourful bunting. In the morning thousands of people followed ten music bands, marching from the Bowery and along Broadway to Central Park to honour a man ‘whose fame no nation can claim’ as the New York Times’s front page reported. By early afternoon, 25,000 onlookers had assembled in Central Park to listen to the speeches as a large bronze bust of Humboldt was unveiled. In the evening as darkness settled, a torchlight procession of 15,000 people set out along the streets, walking beneath colourful Chinese lanterns. Let us imagine him, one speaker said, ‘as standing on the Andes’ with his mind soaring above all. Every speech across the world emphasized that Humboldt had seen an ‘inner correlation’ between all aspects of nature. In Boston, Emerson told the city’s grandees that Humboldt was ‘one of those wonders of the world’. His fame, the Daily News in London reported, was ‘in some sort bound up with the universe itself’. In Germany there were festivities in Cologne, Hamburg, Dresden, Frankfurt and many other cities. The greatest German celebrations were in Berlin, Humboldt’s hometown, where despite torrential rain 80,000 people assembled. The authorities had ordered offices and all government agencies to close for the day. As the rain poured down and gusts chilled the air, the speeches and singing nonetheless continued for hours.

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One of the reasons we don’t listen well is that we tend not to apply all our brainpower to the exercise. Sullivan and Thompson, who conducted a study with Carnegie Mellon University on the nature of digital distractions, point out that “the human brain has the capacity to digest as much as 400 words per minute of information. But even a speaker from New York City talks at around 125 words per minute. That means three-quarters of your brain could very well be doing something else while someone is speaking to you.

In The Circle Game, Margaret Atwood explores the fallibility of human perception and the concomitant dangers of the egocentric self. Whether in our use of language, our relationships with others, or our understanding of history and place, we distort and delimit life; our eyes are “cold blue thumbtacks”, our love affairs are joyless circle games, our words are barriers, and our cities are straight lines restraining panic. Freedom, these poems proclaim, is both necessary and dangerous. Consolation is possible via touch and physical objects, but in order to find that “place of absolute/ unformed beginning” for which the speaker longs in “Migration: C.P.R.”, we must return ourselves to fragments, bones, and salt seas.

According to a Jesuit priest who passed through in 1643, New Amsterdam had speakers of no fewer than 18 different languages, and half of the population of New Netherland may have been non-Dutch.  Along with the previously mentioned Walloons, many residents were Germans and French Huguenots, and a fair number were Scandinavians.  Around the mid-17th century, the first Jews arrived in New Amsterdam from Brazil, becoming the earliest Jews in any of the colonies that would go on to become states in the United States.  The 1639 map shows an encampment on Manhattan for black slaves, and, after mid-century, the numbers of slaves greatly increased as ships brought more to the colony directly from Africa.  New York would subsequently have the largest urban population of African-Americans in the northern English colonies.

Freya told me Caul has dreams about this place every night,” said Tom. “He dreams about Uncle’s voice, whispering to him the way it used to when he was a child. Why would Uncle keep talking to them all, over the speakers, even while they were asleep?

A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife’s adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. (There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine, a speaker for the dead, has told me of two other rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I’m going to tell you.) The rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears, and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. “Is there anyone here,” he says to them, “who has not desired another man’s wife, another woman’s husband?” They murmur and say, “We all know the desire. But, Rabbi, none of us has acted on it.” The rabbi says, “Then kneel down and give thanks that God made you strong.” He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, “Tell the lord magistrate who saved his mistress. Then he’ll know I am his loyal servant.” So the woman lives, because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder. Another rabbi, another city. He goes to her and stops the mob, as in the other story, and says, “Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.” The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I wish to be treated. As they open their hands and let the stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head, and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brains onto the cobblestones. “Nor am I without sin,” he says to the people. “But if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our city with it.” So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance. The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him. —San Angelo, Letters to an Incipient Heretic,

A discourse delivered by Elder Orson Pratt, in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, August 29, 1852 JD 1:53, Orson Pratt, August 29, 1852 It is quite unexpected to me, brethren and sisters, to be called upon to address you this forenoon; and still more so, to address you upon the principle which has been named, namely, a plurality of wives It is rather new ground for me; that is, I have not been in the habit of publicly speaking upon this subject; and it is rather new ground to the inhabitants of the United States, and not only to them, but to a portion of the inhabitants of Europe; a portion of them have not been in the habit of preaching a doctrine of this description; consequently, we shall have to break up new ground. It is well know, however, to the congregation before me, that the Latter-day Saints have embraced the doctrine of a plurality of wives, as a part of their religious faith. It is not, as many have supposed, a doctrine embraced by them to gratify the carnal lusts and feelings of man; that is not the object of the doctrine. We shall endeavour to set forth before this enlightened assembly some of the causes why the Almighty has revealed such a doctrine, and why it is considered a part and portion of our religious faith. And I believe that they will not, under our present form of government, (I mean the government of the United States,) try us for treason for believing and practising our religious notions and ideas. I think, if I am not mistaken, that the constitution gives the privilege to all the inhabitants of this country, of the free exercise of their religious notions, and the freedom of their faith, and the practice of it. Then, if it can be proven to a demonstration, that the Latter-day Saints have actually embraced, as a part and portion of their religion, the doctrine of a plurality of wives, it is constitutional. And should there ever be laws enacted by this government to restrict them from the free exercise of this part of their religion, such laws must be unconstitutional.

The pub off George Square is a tourist trap. Inside it’s all tartan upholstery and claymores on the walls. Soft rock music is playing slightly too loud from tiny white speakers screwed into the ceiling. Giant blackboards show the menu of steak and chips, haggis and whisky-flavoured ice cream. It seems very expensive to Margo but that’s probably because it serves visitors to the city who don’t know that better food is available two streets away for half the price. It’s quiet. The five o’clock rush is over but the evening hasn’t begun. There are only two other customers: men sitting away from each other in the far corners of the L-shaped room, pretending to read newspapers but really just killing themselves with drink.

Natural gas reduced Pittsburgh coal consumption from three million tons annually in 1884 to one million tons later in the decade. Nearby gas supplies were limited, however, and as gas fields depleted, smoke pollution once again choked the city. “We are going back to smoke,” a speaker told the Pittsburgh Engineering Society in 1892. “We had four or five years of wonderful cleanliness in Pittsburgh, and we have all had a taste of knowing what it is to be clean.