String Join With Quotes

Everyone joins a band in this life. And what you play always affects someone. Sometimes, it affects the world.

Sometimes I felt sure he was—like there was an invisible, unbreakable string that ran between us, stretching vast distances and keeping us joined.

As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it.

Music is in the connection of human souls, speaking a language that needs no words. Everyone joins a band in this life. And what you play always affects someone. Sometimes, it affects the world. Frankie’s

There was a strange but addictive magic to sex. It tied a thin string from his soul to mine with every joining, and I wondered how many times it would take before we were inseparable.

The green garden, moonlit pool, lemons, lovers, and fish are all dissolved in the opal sky, across which, as the horns are joined by trumpets and supported by clarions there rise white arches firmly planted on marble pillars...

Everyone joins a band in this life. One way or another, the band breaks up.

We are the memory keepers and the trappers of time; stealers of stolen glances and breathless lungs from all that have been taken away. We are the noticers of subtle signs hidden in plain sight by a benevolent universe bigger than we'd ever believe...We are the directionless wanderers and the destinationless travelers and we are the crumpled map that never got packed to join us. We are the cinematic lovers and the translucent curtains saturated in light. The soundtrack to the moments without sounds and the swiftness that two bodies can become one in the stillness of a second. We, says the last string pulled out, the final string that kept it all together, balled up tight, filling us after all this time, We, are the chasers of the light.

Come, let's scatter roses and pour wine in the glass... We'll shatter heaven's roof and lay a new foundation, If sorrow raises armies to shed the blood of lovers... I'll join with the wine bearer so we can overthrow them, With a sweet string at hand, play a sweet song, my friend, So we can clap and sing a song and lose our heads in dancing.

EVERYONE JOINS A BAND IN THIS LIFE. You are born into your first one. Your mother plays the lead. She shares the stage with your father and siblings. Or perhaps your father is absent, an empty stool under a spotlight. But he is still a founding member, and if he surfaces one day, you will have to make room for him. As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it. And, as is usually the fate with bands, most of them will break up—through distance, differences, divorce, or death.

Weird. I rang it three times.” – Nekoda “There might be something with out condo.” ‘Other than the fact that it lived under a perpetual dismal cloud and was infested with roaches the size of his fist. It was probably over a hellmouth, too, that didn’t allot for any kind of reception other than two cans joined by a length string.’ – Nick

What time is it?’ ‘Whatever time you want it to be,’ she gave him a cheeky wink. ‘Now be honest, did you ask for free will?’ ‘How did you—?’ Amanita joined Mario beneath the covers. The ethereal Threads tethering her wrists phased through the thick wool blankets like sunlight through a windowpane. ‘The bird that acknowledges its cage only ever sings of freedom,’ she said dreamily.

Everyone joins a band in this life. And what you play always affects someone. Sometimes, it affects the world. Frankie’s symphony ends. And so, at last, we rest.

Angels of highest light and love, Angels that radiate beams of pure energy from the heavens above. Please join us and be with us on this very night, As the soul of our beloved joins you in flight. We pray that you send this soul embraced in your lovely wings, During his journey may he hear harps, and trumpets and strings.

That's why you look so tired, isn't it?" I murmured. "You used up all your magic to find me last night." Owen shrugged as though it was nothing. But it wasn't nothing to me. Besides Finn and the Deveraux sisters, I couldn't even remember the last time someone had cared enough to come looking for me when I was in trouble. I was so used to being on my own for so long, always being the tough, strong, capable one, that I'd forgotten how nice it felt to have someone else look out for me. To have someone else care about me. And just like that, the fragile strings of my feelings for Owen joined together, all the tangled threads wrapping around and weaving their way through my heart. Scary and painful in some ways, but necessary in others too.

It was Buckley, as my father and sister joined the group and listened to Grandma Lynn’s countless toasts, who saw me. He saw me standing under the rustic colonial clock and stared. He was drinking champagne. There were strings coming out from all around me, reaching out, waving in the air. Someone passed him a brownie. He held it in his hand but did not eat. He saw my shape and face, which had not changed-the hair still parted down the middle, the chest still flat and hips undeveloped-and wanted to call out my name. It was only a moment, and then I was gone.

One thing of great importance can affect a small number of people. Equally so, a thing of little importance can affect a multitude. Either way, a happening — big or small — can affect an entire string of people. Occurences can join us all together.

But everyone joins a band in this life. Only some of them play music.

The Work is merely four questions; it’s not even a thing. It has no motive, no strings. It’s nothing without your answers. These four questions will join any program you’ve got and enhance it. Any religion you have—they’ll enhance it. If you have no religion, they will bring you joy. And they’ll burn up anything that isn’t true for you. They’ll burn through to the reality that has always been waiting.

They stopped thinking with an almost painful relief, stopped seeing; they only breathed and sought each other. They were both in the gray gentle world of a mild hangover of fatigue when the nerves relax in bunches like piano strings, and crackle suddenly like wicker chairs. Nerves so raw and tender must surely join other nerves, lips to lips, breast to breast…

One thing of great importance can affect a small number of people. Equally so, a thing of little importance can affect a multitude. Either way, a happening - big or small - can affect an entire string of people. Occurrences can join us all together. You see, we're all made up of the same stuff. When something happens, it triggers something inside us that connects us to a situation, connects us to other people, lighting us up and linking us like little lights on a Christmas tree, twisted and turned but still connected to a wire. Some go out, others flicker, others burn strong and bright, yet we are all on the same line. I said at the beginning of this story that this was about people who find out who they are. About people who are unraveled and whose cores are revealed to all who count. And that all that count are revealed to them. You thought I was talking about Lou Suffern and the Turkey Boy, about Raphie, Jessica, and Ruth, didn't you? Wrong. I was talking about each of us. A lesson finds the common denominatior and links us all together, like a chain. At the end of that chain dangles a clock, and on the face of the clock registers the passing of time. We see it and we hear it, the hushed tick-tock, but often we don't feel it. Each second makes its mark on every single person's life - comes and then goes, quietly disappearing without fanfare, evaporating into air like steam from a piping hot Christmas pudding. Enough time leaves us warm; when our time is gone, it leaves us cold. Time is more precious than gold, more precious than diamonds, more precious than oil or any valuable treasures. It is time of which we do not have enough; it is time that causes the war within our hearts, and so we must spend it wisely. Time cannot be packaged and ribboned and left under trees for Christmas morning. Time can't be given. But it can be shared.

Was it the wicked leaders who led innocent populations to slaughter, or was it wicked populations who chose leaders after their own hears? On the face of it, it seemed unlikely that one Leader could force a million Englishmen against their will. If, for instance, Mordred had been anxious to make the English wear petticoats, or stand on their heads, they would surely not have joined his party -- however clever or persuasive or deceitful or even terrible his inducements? A leader was surely forced to offer something which appealed to those he led? He might give the impetus to the falling building, but surely it had to be toppling on its own account before it fell? If this were true, then wars were not calamities into which amiable innocents were led by evil men.They were national movements, deeper, more subtle in origin. And, indeed, it did not feel to him as if he or Mordred had led their country to its misery. If it was so easy to lead one's country in various directions, as if she was a pig on a string, why had he failed to lead her into chivalry, into justice, and into peace? He had been trying. Then again -- this was the second circle -- it was like the Inferno -- if neither he nor Mordred had really set the misery in motion, who had been the cause? How did the fact of war begin in general? For any one war seemed so rooted in its antecedents. Mordred went back to Morgause, Morgause to Uther Pendragon, Uther to his ancestors. It seemed as if Cain had slain Abel, seizing his country, after which the men of Abel had sought to win their patrimony again for ever. Man had gone on, through age after age, avenging wrong with wrong, slaughter with slaughter. Nobody was the better for it, since both sides always suffered, yet everybody was inextricable. The present war might be attributed to Mordred or to himself. But also it was due to a million Thrashers, to Lancelot, Guenever, Gawaine, everybody. Those who lived by the sword were forced to die by it. It was as if everything would lead to sorrow, so long as man refused to forget the past. The wrongs of Uther and of Cain were wrongs which could have been righted only by the blessing of forgetting them.

Let us watch these mighty ones as they pass silently by. First, Orpheus, playing upon the seven stringed lyre of his own being, the music of the spheres. Then Hermes, the thrice greatest, with his emerald tablet of divine revelation. Through the shades of the past we dimly see Krishna, the illuminated, who on the battlefield of life taught man the mysteries of his own soul. Then we see the sublime Buddha, his yellow robe not half so glorious as the heart it covered, and our own dear Master, the man Jesus, his head surrounded with a halo of Golden Flame, and his brow serene with the calm of mastery. Then Mohammed, Zoroaster, Confucius, Odin, and Moses, and others no less worthy pass by before the eyes of the student They were the Sons of Flame. From the Flame they came, and to the Flame they have returned. To us they beckon, and bid us join them, and in our robes of self-earned glory to serve the Flame they love. They were without creed or clan; they served but the one great ideal. From the same place they all came, and to the same place they have returned. There was no superiority there. Hand in hand they labor for humanity. Each loves the other, for the power that has made them masters has shown them the Brotherhood of all life.

Jutta drags herself closer; she watches her brother with outsize eyes. A piano chases the violins. Then woodwinds. The strings sprint, woodwinds fluttering behind. More instruments join in. Flutes? Harps? The song races, seems to loop back over itself. “Werner?” Jutta whispers. He blinks;

He found himself thinking about his childhood. "Why do you drink so much, Maestro?" "This is not a music question." "Are you sad, Maestro?" "Again, not a music question." "I am sad sometimes, Maestro." "Practice more. Speak less. You'll be happier." "Yes, Maestro." Everyone joins a band in this life. Sometimes, they are the wrong ones.

On the third finger of his left hand there was now a thin red string, carefully tied there by Hua Cheng. The red string extended outward and connected to a red string knotted around Hua Cheng’s finger. Hua Cheng smiled and raised his own hand to show him that they now had identical tiny red butterfly knots on their fingers. “Now we’re joined together.

Just as I was about to close my eyes I saw a faint line connecting the shadows, like string you take into a forest so you don’t lose your way. Everything in the room was joined by one line; the frame to the curtain, the coil to the crack, the belt to the shoe. I closed my eyes and in the vision behind the skin of my lids I saw the line stretch way out to sea, like cobweb blown by the wind, further and further; it crossed the Pacific until the Pacific became the Indian and it found Robby in his ship. It touched his shoulder and moved across the sleeve of his shirt and up to his eyes and across the top of his head and then the line went to all the other men on the ship; then all the way back to me. Everyone was joined.

Agnes shut her eyes, clenched her fists, opened her mouth and screamed. It started low. Plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling. The prisms on the chandelier chimed gently as they shook. It rose, passing quickly through the mysterious pitch at fourteen cycles per second where the human spirit begins to feel distinctly uncomfortable about the universe and the place in it of the bowels. Small items around the Opera House vibrated off shelves and smashed on the floor. The note climbed, rang like a bell, climbed again. In the Pit, all the violin strings snapped, one by one. As the tone rose, the crystal prisms shook in the chandelier. In the bar, champagne corks fired a salvo. Ice jingled and shattered in its bucket. A line of wine-glasses joined in the chorus, blurred around the rims, and then exploded like hazardous thistledown with attitude. There were harmonics and echoes that caused strange effects. In the dressing-rooms the No. 3 greasepaint melted. Mirrors cracked, filling the ballet school with a million fractured images. Dust rose, insects fell. In the stones of the Opera House tiny particles of quartz danced briefly... Then there was silence, broken by the occasional thud and tinkle. Nanny grinned. 'Ah,' she said, 'now the opera's over.

Merrill Hartweiss scales a rocky incline toward Renna. The noon sun bakes the hillside as Merrill's boots dig into the broiling sands. Yet another gypsy tune enters his head. It starts off slowly. A lone guitar, its strings strummed with the lustful passion of a young man brushing his fingertips softly against the breasts of his lover. Another guitar joins, like a second hand, exploring her hot flesh, stroking the side of her bare abdomen, and gradually moving upward toward her chest. Then, a female voice joins the guitars; it is slightly raspy, yet sultry; filled with a fiery allure. The guitars pick up in intensity and tempo. There is a rhythmic clapping now, in synchronization with the strumming. The man has entered his lover. Sweat begins to form on Merrill's forehead, then quickly turns to vapor, dissipating into the blistering heat from the sunlight reflecting off the sands. Steady clapping, louder still. The tempo quickens, progressively and with a vigorous intensity. The man arches his back, cresting then falling; cresting, arching, rising and falling deeper again and again into his lover. The clapping, now faster, still rhythmic, but so much more intense. The guitars keep pace with increasing ferocity. In the woman's voice, short, quick breaths form words as she cries out her lover's name from deep within the throes of a forbidden love

As I ran to join my family for the last stretch of the walk at Glendalough, leaving St Kevin and the blackbird behind, a solar glare draped over us, connected us to the land with invisible strings. A longer, heavier line is about to be cast into the world. My heart is opening. I'm ready.

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.

Even Diotima and Amheim were shy of using it without a modifier, for it is still possible to speak of having a great, noble, craven, daring, or debased soul, but to come right out with "my soul" is something one simply cannot bring oneself to do. It is distinctly an older person's word, and this can only be understood by assuming that in the course of life people become more and more aware of something for which they urgently need a name they cannot find until they finally resort, reluctantly, to the name they had originally despised. How to describe it, then? Whether one is at rest or in motion, what matters is not what lies ahead, what one sees, hears, wants, takes, masters. It forms a horizon, a semicircle before one, but the ends of this semicircle are joined by a string, and the plane of this string goes right through·the middle of the world. In front, the face and hands look out of it; sensations and strivings run ahead of it, and no one doubts that whatever one does·is always reasonable, or at least passionate. In other words, outer circumstances call for us to act in a way everyone can understand; and if, in the toils of passion, we do something incomprehensible, that too is, in its own way, understandable.

The Fury Of Guitars And Sopranos " This singing is a kind of dying, a kind of birth, a votive candle. I have a dream-mother who sings with her guitar, nursing the bedroom with a moonlight and beautiful olives. A flute came too, joining the five strings, a God finger over the holes. I knew a beautiful woman once who sang with her fingertips and her eyes were brown like small birds. At the cup of her breasts I drew wine. At the mound of her legs I drew figs. She sang for my thirst, mysterious songs of God that would have laid an army down. It was as if a morning-glory had bloomed in her throat and all that blue and small pollen ate into my heart violent and religious.

He played the opening bars again, opening a door for her, inviting her to join. She started quietly, almost voiceless, only a thin string of sound weaving herself into his tune, as if her voice were just another string on the guitar between his fingers. She had to be careful, so no one saw the changes on her face. But she didn't want to be careful; she couldn't be careful. He played and she sang to him, and inside her more and more blocks of ice began to melt, cracking and falling into the frozen sea between them. She sang of all the things that were happening to her and him, the world that collapsed over both of them, the things that might be in store, if only they dared to believe it was possible.

The art of sensuality encompassing the exploration and experiencing of all our senses... Those images are being born from and through living the moments of eating favorite chocolate cake with ice-cream, tranquil meditating, walking the beach and feeling the warm breeze on your face and the soothing sand beneath your feet, watching a never repeating its symphony sunset, dancing and feeling your body move through space, smelling flowers in a garden, painting or working with clay, with your fingertips gently touching piano keys or pulling the tense strings of guitar, caressing your ears with the whispers of one's soul, diving into the depth of loving you eyes, and, joining in a passionate kiss of life...the life of the artist...

You have two choices,” Sophie decided, placing her hands on her hips—even though most of her torso was under the mud, so the effect was somewhat muted. “You can wade in now on your own. Or I can have Sandor pick you up and toss you in.” “Everyone votes for option B, right?” Dex asked. The chorus of “yes” was definitely unanimous. “I hate all of you,” Stina informed them as Sandor stalked toward her with a smile that looked downright gleeful. “Fine. I’ll do it on my own—back off!” She moved to the edge of the mud again. And then she just stood there. “Ten seconds,” Sophie warned. “Then it’s Sandor dunk time! Ten… nine… eight…” Biana, Dex, and Wylie joined in the countdown as Stina made a noise that was part growl, part moaning whale. “Four… three…” Stina muttered a string of words that would’ve made Ro proud. Then she shuffled into the mud, trying to move slowly and carefully. But two steps in, she lost her footing and… SPLASH! “For the record,” Dex said as Stina burst back to the surface looking like a sludge beast and screaming like a banshee, “this might be the greatest moment of my life.

Nahuel’s face took on a relaxed expression as his eyes clouded over turning white. “This pairing is blessed by Spirit.” As Sadie and Brett held hands, Nahuel began to braid the four strings together. “I join your souls as one. May you have no secrets from one another. I join your souls as one. May you protect one another until death. I join your souls as one. May you respect each other as equals, regardless of pack rank. I join your souls as one. May fertility be bestowed upon your family. I join your souls as one. May you love each other for the rest of your long, long lives. It is done, so be it.” The braid was complete and the entire altar was coated in fine mist. Sadie and Brett stared into each other’s eyes and silent tears began to fall on their cheeks.

He put his hands on hers. The shadows looked like smoke, in the air, but they pulled back into Cyra’s body like dozens of strings yanked at once. Cyra’s odd smile was gone, and she was staring at their joined hands. “What will happen when you let go?” she said quietly. “You’ll be just fine,” he said. “You’ll learn to control it. You can do that now, remember?” She let out an airy laugh. “I can hang on as long as you like,” he said. Her eyes hardened. When she spoke, it was with gritted teeth. “Let go.” Akos couldn’t help but think back to something he’d read in one of the books Cyra had put in his room on the sojourn ship. He’d had to read it through a translator, because it was written in Shotet, and it had been called Tenets of Shotet Culture and Belief. It said: The most marked characteristic of the Shotet people is directly translated as “armored,” but outsiders might call it “mettle.” It refers not to courageous acts in difficult situations--though the Shotet certainly hold valor in high regard--but to an inherent quality that cannot be learned or imitated; it is in the blood as surely as their revelatory language. Mettle is bearing up again and again under assaults. It is perseverance, acceptance of risk, and the unwillingness to surrender. That paragraph had never made more sense to him than it did right now.

He is about to hand the earphone to Jutta when—clear and unblemished, about halfway down the coil—he hears the quick, drastic strikes of a bow dashing across the strings of a violin. He tries to hold the pin perfectly still. A second violin joins the first. Jutta drags herself closer; she watches her brother with outsize eyes. A piano chases the violins. Then woodwinds. The strings sprint, woodwinds fluttering behind. More instruments join in. Flutes? Harps? The song races, seems to loop back over itself.

At least she was good at archaeology, she mused, even if she was a dismal failure as a woman in Tate’s eyes. “She’s been broody ever since we got here,” Leta said with pursed lips as she glanced from Tate to Cecily. “You two had a blowup, huh?” she asked, pretending innocence. Tate drew in a short breath. “She poured crab bisque on me in front of television cameras.” Cecily drew herself up to her full height. “Pity it wasn’t flaming shish kebab!” she returned fiercely. Leta moved between them. “The Sioux wars are over,” she announced. “That’s what you think,” Cecily muttered, glaring around her at the tall man. Tate’s dark eyes began to twinkle. He’d missed her in his life. Even in a temper, she was refreshing, invigorating. She averted her eyes to the large grass circle outlined by thick corded string. All around it were make-shift shelters on poles, some with canvas tops, with bales of hay to make seats for spectators. The first competition of the day was over and the winners were being announced. A woman-only dance came next, and Leta grimaced as she glanced from one warring face to the other. If she left, there was no telling what might happen. “That’s me,” she said reluctantly, adjusting the number on her back. “Got to run. Wish me luck.” “You know I do,” Cecily said, smiling at her. “Don’t disgrace us,” Tate added with laughter in his eyes. Leta made a face at him, but smiled. “No fighting,” she said, shaking a finger at them as she went to join the other competitors. Tate’s granitelike face had softened as he watched his mother. Whatever his faults, he was a good son.

In string theory, the situation is very different. The law of motion dictates the laws of the forces. This is because all forces in string theory have the same simple origin-they come from the breaking and joining of strings. Once you describe how strings move freely, all you have to do to add forces is add the possibility that a string can break into two strings. By reversing the process in time, you can rejoin two strings into a single string (see Fig. 5). The law for breaking and joining turns out to be strongly prescribed, to be consistent with special relativity and quantum theory. Force and motion are unified in a way that would have been impossible in a theory of particles as points.

This is the work of a lifetime, here on earth: To invent the astral body, to create it. giving it our consciousness. Thus one will survive death. One could also die when one chooses… And on dying, not lose the awareness 'from here.' What has happened to you is a detachment of your astral body while your physical body sleeps. This occurs to vîras; it's an automatic unconscious process. Sometimes, by simple chance, a glimmer of consciousness reaches this fine body and then, on suddenly awakening or the next day, one gets the impression of experiencing something much more real than physical reality. The deja-vu of psychologists has its explanation in this phenomena of detachment. Have you seen those children who elevate a kite and send messages with little rolls of paper that go slowly up to the kite? So it is, more or less, with that other. The astral body breaks away, still attached to the physical body by a string which has been called a 'silver cord' that is only cut at death. Thanks to this cord we can go immeasurable distances without losing the connection with our physical bodies. It always returns. So it reaches consciousness, like those messages of children with their kite. Yes, we must become like children to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven… with our astral bodies. Pay attention to this other analogy: As a child finds itself joined to its mother by the umbilical cord, so the astral body is joined to its father, the physical body, by a silver cord. The child cries and despairs at birth, when the cord connecting him to his mother is cut. He thinks this is death, but it is a new life. The same befalls the vîra when he dies; when the silver cord is cut he enters into another life. Death is a new life. All this is archetypal. Only those events expressing archetypes have ontological reality.

Under Cover Of Darkness" Slip back out of whack at your best. It's a nightmare, So I'm joining the army. No house phones, but can i still call? Will you wait for me now? We got the right to live, fight to use it, Got everything but you can just choose it I won't just be a puppet on a string Don't go that way. I'll wait for you. And I'm tired of all your friends Listening at your door I want, what's better for you, So long, my friend and adversary. But I'll wait for you. Get dressed, jump out of bed and do it best. Are you OK? I've been out around this town Everybody's singing the same song for ten years. I'll wait for you. Will you wait for me too? And they sacrifice their lives In our land are all closed eyes. They've said it a billion times and they'll say it again. So long my adversary and friend. Don't go that way. I'll wait for you. I'm tired of all your friends, Knocking down your door. Get up in the morning, yelling no more, So long, my friend and adversary. I'll wait for you.

When you're responsible for half the planet's military spending, and 80 percent of its military R&D, certain things can be said with confidence: No one is going to get into a nuclear war with the United States, or a large-scale tank battle, or even a dogfight. You're the Microsoft, the Standard Oil of conventional warfare: Were they interested in competing in this field, second-tier military powers would probably have filed an antitrust suit with the Department of Justice by now. When you're the only guy in town with a tennis racket, don't be surprised if no one wants to join you on center court--or that provocateurs look for other fields on which to play. If you've got uniformed infantryman and tanks and battleships and jet fighters, you're too weak to take on the hyperpower. But, if you've got illiterate goatherds with string and hacksaws and fertilizer, you can tie him down for a decade. An IED is an "improvised" explosive device. Can we still improvise? Or does the planet's most lavishly funded military assume it has the luxury of declining to adapt to the world it's living in?

Momo would have been delighted, except that most of the newcomers had no idea how to play. All they did was sit around looking bored and sullen and watching Momo and her friends. Sometimes they deliberately broke up the other children's games and spoiled everything. Squabbles and scuffles were frequent, though these never lasted long because Momo's presence had its usual effect on the newcomers, too, so they soon started having bright ideas themselves and joining in with a will. The trouble was, new children turned up nearly every day, some of them from distant parts of the city, and one spoilsport was enough to ruin the game for everyone else. But there was another thing that Momo couldn't quite understand - a thing that hadn't happened until very recently. More and more often these days, children turned up with all kind of toys you couldn't really play with: remote-controlled tanks that trundled to and fro but did little else, or space rockets that whizzed around on strings but got nowhere, or model robots that waddled along with eyes flashing and heads swiveling but that was all. They were highly expensive toys such as Momo's friends had never owned, still less than Momo herself. Most noticeable of all, they were so complete, down to the tiniest detail, that they left nothing at all to the imagination. Their owners would spend hours watching them, mesmerized but bored, as they trundled, whizzed, and waddled along. Finally, when that palled, they would go back to the familiar old games in which a couple of cardboard boxes, a torn tablecloth, a molehill or a handful of pebbles were quite sufficient to conjure up a whole world of make believe.

This was a new way to do it. We’d just discovered it. Staring into each other’s eyes was another way of keeping them closed, or off the details at hand, anyway. We locked onto each other. Meanwhile the Object was very subtly flexing her legs. I was aware of the mound beneath her cutoffs rising toward me, just a little, rising and suggesting itself. I put my hand on the Object’s thigh, palm down. And as we continued to swing, looking at each other while crickets played their fiddles in the grass, I slid my hand sideways up toward the place where the Object’s legs joined. My thumb went under her cutoffs. Her face showed no reaction. Her green eyes under the heavy lids remained fastened on mine. I felt the fluffiness of her underpants and pressed down, sliding under the elastic. And then with our eyes wide open but confined in that way my thumb slipped inside her. She blinked, her eyes closed, her hips rose higher, and I did it again. And again after that. The boats in the bay were part of it, and the string section of crickets in the baking grass, and the ice melting in our lemonade glasses. The swing moved back and forth, creaking on its rusted chain, and it was like that old nursery rhyme, Little Jack Horner sat in the corner eating his Christmas pie. He stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum . . . After the first roll of her eyes the Object resettled her gaze on mine, and then what she was feeling showed only there, in the green depths her eyes revealed. Otherwise she was motionless. Only my hand moved, and my feet on the rail, pushing the swing. This went on for three minutes, or five, or fifteen. I have no idea. Time disappeared. Somehow we were still not quite conscious of what we were doing. Sensation dissolved straight into forgetting.

Two observations take us across the finish line. The Second Law ensures that entropy increases throughout the entire process, and so the information hidden within the hard drives, Kindles, old-fashioned paper books, and everything else you packed into the region is less than that hidden in the black hole. From the results of Bekenstein and Hawking, we know that the black hole's hidden information content is given by the area of its event horizon. Moreover, because you were careful not to overspill the original region of space, the black hole's event horizon coincides with the region's boundary, so the black hole's entropy equals the area of this surrounding surface. We thus learn an important lesson. The amount of information contained within a region of space, stored in any objects of any design, is always less than the area of the surface that surrounds the region (measured in square Planck units). This is the conclusion we've been chasing. Notice that although black holes are central to the reasoning, the analysis applies to any region of space, whether or not a black hole is actually present. If you max out a region's storage capacity, you'll create a black hole, but as long as you stay under the limit, no black hole will form. I hasten to add that in any practical sense, the information storage limit is of no concern. Compared with today's rudimentary storage devices, the potential storage capacity on the surface of a spatial region is humongous. A stack of five off-the-shelf terabyte hard drives fits comfortable within a sphere of radius 50 centimeters, whose surface is covered by about 10^70 Planck cells. The surface's storage capacity is thus about 10^70 bits, which is about a billion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion terabytes, and so enormously exceeds anything you can buy. No one in Silicon Valley cares much about these theoretical constraints. Yet as a guide to how the universe works, the storage limitations are telling. Think of any region of space, such as the room in which I'm writing or the one in which you're reading. Take a Wheelerian perspective and imagine that whatever happens in the region amounts to information processing-information regarding how things are right now is transformed by the laws of physics into information regarding how they will be in a second or a minute or an hour. Since the physical processes we witness, as well as those by which we're governed, seemingly take place within the region, it's natural to expect that the information those processes carry is also found within the region. But the results just derived suggest an alternative view. For black holes, we found that the link between information and surface area goes beyond mere numerical accounting; there's a concrete sense in which information is stored on their surfaces. Susskind and 'tHooft stressed that the lesson should be general: since the information required to describe physical phenomena within any given region of space can be fully encoded by data on a surface that surrounds the region, then there's reason to think that the surface is where the fundamental physical processes actually happen. Our familiar three-dimensional reality, these bold thinkers suggested, would then be likened to a holographic projection of those distant two-dimensional physical processes. If this line of reasoning is correct, then there are physical processes taking place on some distant surface that, much like a puppeteer pulls strings, are fully linked to the processes taking place in my fingers, arms, and brain as I type these words at my desk. Our experiences here, and that distant reality there, would form the most interlocked of parallel worlds. Phenomena in the two-I'll call them Holographic Parallel Universes-would be so fully joined that their respective evolutions would be as connected as me and my shadow.

Ending the Year in Praise Praise the Lord! Praise God in his heavenly dwelling; praise him in his mighty heaven! Praise him for his mighty works; praise his unequaled greatness! Praise him with a blast of the trumpet; praise him with the lyre and harp! . . . Let everything that lives sing praises to the Lord! Praise the Lord! Psalm 150:1-3, 6 What a way to end the year—praising the Lord for his mighty works, his unequaled greatness. This psalm, also called the last hallelujah, invites us to join the praises to God in the holy place. The praise is not half-hearted; it is full-force praise with musical instruments—tambourine, stringed instruments, the lyre, the cymbals—and dancing, praise from everyone. When we offer God praise, we’re doing what we were created for, even if we’re not the best musician or dancer. All of us can raise our voices singing hymns, choruses, and new songs to the Lord. How has God blessed you, your family, friends, or church this year? What mighty works has he accomplished? What progress have you made in an area in which you’ve struggled? What prayers has God answered? What new attributes or aspects of God have you discovered or experienced in the past year? Lift up your voice or whatever instrument you play, and praise the Lord for these specific things as you pray this psalm aloud.   LORD, I join those in your heavenly dwelling to worship you for your mighty works. I praise your unequaled greatness. I praise you with my whole heart for how you’ve sustained me in the year that is ending, for your faithfulness, love, and provision. Thank you for how you’ll be with me each day in the new year. Let everything that lives sing praises to the Lord!   TO THE EAR OF GOD EVERYTHING HE CREATED MAKES EXQUISITE MUSIC, AND MAN JOINED IN THE PAEAN OF PRAISE UNTIL HE FELL, THEN THERE CAME IN THE FRANTIC DISCORD OF SIN. THE REALIZATION OF REDEMPTION BRINGS MAN BY WAY OF THE MINOR NOTE OF REPENTANCE BACK INTO TUNE WITH PRAISE AGAIN. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

One thing of great importance can affect a small number of people. Equally so, a thing of little importance can affect a multitude. Either way, a happening - big or small - can affect an entire string of people. Occurrences can join us all together. You see, we're all made up of the same stuff. When something happens, it triggers something inside us that connects us to a situation, connects us to other people, lighting us up and linking us like little lights on a Christmas tree, twisted and turned but still connected to a wire. Some go out, others flicker, others burn strong and bright, yet we are all on the same line.

Do you see this string? This string is like an army. Push it from behind, and it doubles up on itself—you get nowhere. To drive it forward you have to pull it from the front, and it will follow you in perfect order.

Meridith stepped down from the chair and scooted it a few feet. “Let me.” Jake took the string and looped it over the hooks one at a time. It took him two minutes to finish the porch. “Show-off,” she said. “Being tall has its benefits.” And being strong. Words of gratitude formed in her mind, but it took a moment to order them. “I never thanked you last night.” He scratched behind Piper’s ears. “No need.” He plugged the lights in the wall outlet, and they glowed dimly. “Hopefully there’s a wall switch inside.” “I mean it, Jake. I don’t know what I would’ve done.” Heat worked into her cheeks. She pulled a cornflower blue pail from the box and set it on one of the tables. “Your arms . . .” She looked down, noticing the bruises. Brownish-gray blotches, Sean’s fingerprints on her skin. She rubbed the spots, wishing she could wipe them away. Seeing them there, she could almost feel Sean’s grip on her, feel the helplessness welling up. “I should’ve beat the kid to a pulp.” Jake’s fists clenched. “He’s long gone. That’s all that matters.” “He should’ve been arrested.” “I don’t think he meant to—to attack me that way. We stumbled, and he fell on me.” “You’re wearing evidence that says otherwise.” He had a point. And the night before, sand grinding into her back, she’d been convinced she was in danger. “Don’t like the idea of you and the kids here alone.” “Aren’t you the one who thought the partitions were silly?” “Never said that.” “Didn’t have to.” She gave a wry smile. She was pretty good at reading people. Like just now, he was thinking she was right. “Maybe I did.” He leaned a shoulder on the shingled wall, looking every bit as cocky as he had that first day he’d turned up on her doorstep. It didn’t bother her just this minute. “I know I said I was done with the repairs, but what would you think of finishing the ones that aren’t too costly?” His gaze intensified. “Really?” Meridith collected a basket and began filling it with shells. “You mentioned the fireplace. I’d like to get it working again. We have tree branches hitting the house, a couple trees that a stiff wind would blow over—if you do that kind of work. Not to mention the other things on the list.” Jake walked to the railing, staring out to sea. When Piper joined him, Jake ruffled her fur. Maybe he didn’t want to stay now. Maybe having the kids underfoot all week had been a pain. Maybe he’d been offended at the way she’d confronted him about being alone with Noelle—a notion that now seemed ludicrous in light of the way he’d come to her rescue. “I mean, if you can’t, that’s all right. You probably have other work lined up.” It was only a couple months. They’d be safe that long, right? She saw Sean’s hardened face, heard the bitter slur of his words, and shuddered. “I’ll stay.” “Are you sure?” Her words rushed out. “Glad to.” She smiled. “All right then.” He straightened, winked, and she felt it down to her bones. “Back

Wherefore it is fitting that ye also should run together in accordance with the will of the bishop who by God's appointment [515] rules over you. Which thing ye indeed of yourselves do, being instructed by the Spirit. For your justly-renowned presbytery, being worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. Thus, being joined together in concord and harmonious love, of which Jesus Christ is the Captain and Guardian, do ye, man by man, become but one choir; so that, agreeing together in concord, and obtaining [516] a perfect unity with God, ye may indeed be one in harmonious feeling with God the Father, and His beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord. For, says He, "Grant unto them, Holy Father, that as I and Thou are one, they also may be one in us." [517] It is therefore profitable that you, being joined together with God in an unblameable unity, should be the followers of the example of Christ, of whom also ye are members. [515]

I watched him play every perfect chord as if it were an entire song, every song as if it were a grand sonata. The old man was lost in the captivating music and I was lost too—in his commanding presence, in his seamless movement, in his unmatched talent. His fingers floated effortlessly over the worn strings of the acoustic guitar, each one crossing over the other with calming ease. I found it hard to distinguish where one part ended and another began, inspiring and stirring my soul like a miracle. Elsie watched him with great intent, with great wonder, as did I. Then she got up from her leather armchair in the corner, walked over to the parlor grand piano, and joined in just as the song began to swell to its airy peak. They played together flawlessly, a man and a woman, for what could have been the thousandth time. Yet as I watched them, as the music filled me like the warmth of coming home, I could see it was new to them too, though ancestral and old. I was swept away, amazed at how each part was so distinct, so solitary in and of itself, and how yet it could only capture its full potential, its full beauty, as a part of something greater. I thought of how we are all pieces of music, of how one person would cease to swell without the other, of how the part that moves us the most freely in ourselves might not exist at all. I watched Johnny as he continued to strum, then Elsie as her fingers darted from place to place on the keys of the piano. The music swept over me like a memory of summertime, and I closed my eyes, letting it take me where it would, to a place so strikingly beautiful that everything else was silently perfect, letting the melody lead the moment. The hopeful sound filled my expectant ears and my emotions felt new again, as if I were a child, the moment peacefully pure, like rocking a newborn back to sleep. Wet streams of tears escaped my soft, emotional eyes as I let the notes take their full effect. To Johnny and Elsie, music was a language that didn't require words. In fact, it exceeded them. For what was flowing from the withered hands of the couple before me now was in itself perfection. Words could only ruin a moment this pure. As I watched them, I realized I wanted to care about anything as much as they did about music. A tear ran down my cheek as the last note hung softly, like a butterfly might hang on air. I decided right then that some things in life were much too beautiful not to cry about. This, I now knew, was one of them.

Do you remember,” I said, slowly, “when we were little and Hitomi the kitchen maid told us the story of the red thread? How some people are born tied together by a long scarlet string that no one can see? The red thread is fate. People joined in this way would always be searching for each other, always moving towards each other, even if they never realized it until the moment they met. Remember she said that the red thread may stretch, or tangle, but never, ever break?”   A pained half-smile twitched at one corner of his mouth. “You stole the red silk from your mother’s embroidery box and tied our little fingers together.”   “Which only lasted until bath time, when Father very firmly cut us apart again.” I stroked his left little finger with mine. “I still believe in that thread, Shinobu. I know it’s there. I can feel it, even if I can’t see it. We were always meant to be together. But maybe … maybe we weren’t meant to be together forever.”   “Mio-dono…”   “Shin-chan.” I forced myself to smile into his anguished eyes through the welling tears. “If none of this had ever happened, if Izanagi and the Nekomata had never come to the village, if we had grown old together in my family’s home the way we dreamed, we would have chosen this, wouldn’t we? To be together as long as we could. And, when it was time, to die together. After all these years, we finally get our wish.”   He whispered, “You have already made up your mind, my love.”   “Haven’t you? Where you go…”   He raised my hands and pressed them to his heart, then kissed each palm. “I will follow, always.

I went for a walk behind the studio where I go to write. I have what’s essentially a cupboard in an old farm building, one otherwise populated with visual artists. I can’t really justify any more space. A cupboard is all I need, and a narrow shelf on which to perch my laptop. In any case, I tend to spend more time walking than actually writing, striking off through the farm and into the fields beyond, where I can join onto the North Downs Way and walk to Canterbury in an hour if I want to. If I head the opposite way, there is a string of little country pubs, where I can sit for a while and pretend I’m gathering my wits about me.

Island and Tangerina are joined together by a long string of rocks, but people never go to Wild Island because it’s mostly jungle and inhabited by very wild animals. So, I decided to go across the rocks and explore it for myself. It certainly is an interesting place, but I saw something there that made me want to weep.

Yevgeny Dvoskin – Brighton Beach mobster who became one of Russia’s most notorious ‘shadow bankers’ after moving back to Moscow with his uncle, Ivankov, joining forces with the Russian security services to funnel tens of billions of dollars in ‘black cash’ into the West. Felix Sater – Dvoskin’s best friend since childhood. Became a key business partner of the Trump Organization, developing a string of properties for Trump, all the while retaining high-level contacts in Russian intelligence.

know that going to bed together can seem like no big deal, but what you may not know is that an invisible string forms a tight knot binding people together when they connect in this way. So, every time you get out of that bed belonging to a person you’re not married to, it’s not over when you leave the room. You’ve joined physically, and by default, your thoughts, emotions, and desires have become intertwined. Later on, feelings of guilt and shame might cloud your perception, and the same temptations and urges are bound to return. Maybe you’ve had a lot of sex partners in your life and now are living with a whole bunch of soul ties with these people. Think about what happens when you try to go after God’s purpose for your life. All those strings are pulling and pulling. You’ve got all these ties holding you back.

I know that going to bed together can seem like no big deal, but what you may not know is that an invisible string forms a tight knot binding people together when they connect in this way. So, every time you get out of that bed belonging to a person you’re not married to, it’s not over when you leave the room. You’ve joined physically, and by default, your thoughts, emotions, and desires have become intertwined. Later on, feelings of guilt and shame might cloud your perception, and the same temptations and urges are bound to return. Maybe you’ve had a lot of sex partners in your life and now are living with a whole bunch of soul ties with these people. Think about what happens when you try to go after God’s purpose for your life. All those strings are pulling and pulling. You’ve got all these ties holding you back.

Macon grinned as a white-haired man with pale, bushy eyebrows approached. He was wearing a light-colored suit, like most of the men around him, and there was a black string tie at his throat. His blue eyes were gentle as they moved from Steven’s face to Emma’s, and he extended a hand to her. “Hello, Emma,” he said simply. Emma’s gaze shifted to Steven as he was led away roughly, and tears gathered on her lashes, blinding her. She wanted to scream that he was innocent, but she knew that would only make bad matters worse. While a smug Macon watched Steven disappear, the old man smiled at Emma and offered her his handkerchief. “Since my grandson hasn’t troubled himself to introduce us,” he said, with a sour glance at Macon, “I’ll do the honors. I’m Cyrus Fairfax, and now that you’ve joined the family I consider myself your granddaddy.” Emma dried her eyes and squared her shoulders. She would be no use to Steven if she crumpled into a heap of self-pity and despair. “I’m Emma,” she said, even though she realized he already knew that. “And my husband didn’t kill anyone.” “I tend to agree with you,” Cyrus replied, laying his hand lightly on the small of Emma’s back and steering her toward the steps of the platform. “While we’re waiting for the rest of the world to come around to our way of thinking, we’ll get to know each other.” Emma’s gratitude was almost as overwhelming as her despondency. If it hadn’t been for Cyrus’s appearance at the station, she would have been left alone with Macon. And that was a prospect she certainly didn’t relish. Linking

Among the most prominent under-the-tree drinkers were a pair of characters named Red and Clarence. They were two of the biggest drinking carousers around, but when the spirit hit them, they could get very religious. Once Red had decided he had received the “gift of tongues,” a common practice in our Pentecostal church. He went to church a few times and would, on impulse, stand up and go into seemingly meaningless strings of syllables, to which the believers would respond with “Bless him, Lord.” The story is that one day Red and Clarence were downtown in a truck belonging to one of them, and Red looked out the window and was reading a sign, somewhat haltingly. “E-CON-O-MY-AU-TO-SUP-PLY, Economy Auto Supply,” Red sputtered, to which Clarence, assuming his friend had gone into “tongues,” quickly came back with, “Bless him, Lord.” That story circulated through the ranks of the church membership and was the source of great laughter for a time around the Parton household. It became something of a running joke that would crop up whenever anybody said anything that could be mistaken for “tongues.” Sunday morning, getting ready for church, a brother would say, “Come tie my bow tie,” and some smart-aleck sibling would shout, “Bless him, Lord,” and the rest of us would join in, all pretending to be caught up in the spirit.

Exercise 1.3: Experiment to measure the difference in running time between our potentially inefficient versions and the one that uses strings.Join. (Section 1.6 illustrates part of the time package, and Section 11.4 shows how to write benchmark tests for systematic performance evaluation.)

The Lusty Month of May” continues to develop Guenevere as a heroine of operetta in a lighthearted song, which is both naïve and highly suggestive. With the abundance of “tra-las” and an up-tempo chorus joining in the fun, Knapp’s parallels to operetta are more than apt. The clarity, wide range, and versatility of Andrews’s voice only enhance the effect. Andrews never sacrifices vocal precision or tone despite the focus on clever wordplay and a bouncy, allegretto tune. This tune is more virtuosic than “Simple Joys” with additional melodic leaps and the possibility for displays in a higher range. Loewe uses a C♯ diminished chord to denote Guenevere’s lustful feelings, often punctuating lyrics such as “lusty” or “libelous,” in the otherwise carefree milieu of C major. The generally light orchestration favors the string section, similar to “Simple Joys,” and also features a harp. When woodwinds enter, clarinets tend to dominate. At this point, this instrumentation characterizes Guenevere’s musical self and augments her connection to operetta as it reinforces the sense of frivolity. The call-and-response with the chorus further heightens the sense of abandon, which increases throughout the song. Guenevere has not lost her youthful taste for ribaldry during her marriage with Arthur.

About a mile beyond Tumbleweed he parked in a grove of willow trees beside a narrow stream. The grounds were set with many long wooden tables and benches, and overhead were strings of small electric lights. “Come on, gals,” said Tex. “We’re goin’ to put on a big feed!” He led them toward a long serving table. Four men passed by, each carrying a shovel bearing a big burlap-wrapped package. These were dumped onto the table. “There goes the meat,” said Bud. “It’s been buried in the barbecue pit since last night.” “Cookin’ nice an’ slow over hot stones,” Tex added. “When the burlap fell away, the fragrance of the steaming meat was irresistible. All the girls enjoyed generous servings, with a spicy relish and potato salad. By the time they had finished their desserts of ice cream and Nancy’s chocolate cake, the colored lights overhead came on. A stout middle-aged man mounted the dance platform in the center of the grove and announced that he was master of ceremonies. Seeing Bud’s guitar, he called on him for some cowboy songs. Bud played “I’m a Lonesome Cowboy,” and everyone joined in enthusiastically. He followed with a number of other old favorites. Finally he strummed some Gold Rush songs, including “Sweet Betsy from Pike.

Wanting to use someone he had not worked with before, and who could give him an up-to-date sound, he settled on Tony Visconti, a New Yorker whose work with David Bowie and Marc Bolan’s T. Rex made him one of the hotter producers on the London scene. Laine had worked with Visconti before he joined Wings; Visconti wrote the arrangements for Denny’s classical-rock hybrid, the Electric String Band. And Paul knew him slightly—he had married Mary Hopkin in 1971.

But that is not what causes me to join. When I finally take those steps to the strings, to complete the circle of the Coven slinking along them, it is because I feel drawn to belong. Belong in this moment of time. Belong with my Sisters. To no longer stand aside but be a note in the music. To be more than a receptacle holding on while life rushes through. To not be the Witch’s Harp…but the Witch.

Born close to the water," White wrote, "be it on a coast or the shores of an inland sea, the Blues are known for striking and vivid eye color ranging from silvering indigo to a deep and meditative navy. Prone to song, they are apt to take up the mandolin or ukulele--really, any small, whimsical stringed instrument will do. The Blue, without exception, will be deeply spiritual (see:Rituals [Solstice], Herbology, Volunteerism) though not eager to join standard organized religion, and will draw to herself an eclectic and accomplished circle of artists, musicians, recovering addicts, fallen capitalists, the elderly, the poor, the romantics, seekers of all sorts. This endearing breed is most easily identified by her ability to sync all other women around her to her own monthly cycle, since her fecundity is among the strongest on the planet (though you will almost never find her the wife of any man). Her houseplants are among the healthiest you will find in a home. Catch her feeding them with the water used to rinse clean her cloth menstrual pads, and you are certain to have found a true Blue. Count yourself very lucky indeed.

There, in the center of the chamber, sat a small, golden harp. Cold leached through Nesta, clarifying her thoughts enough to realize where she stood. That the music of the priestesses had lulled her into a trance, that her own bones and the stone of the mountain surrounding her had been her scrying tools, and she had drifted to this place … The Harp gleamed in the darkness, as if it possessed its own sun within the metal and strings. Play me, it seemed to whisper. Let me sing again. Join your voice with mine. Her hand reached toward the strings. Yes. The Harp sighed, a low purr rolling off it as Nesta’s hand neared. We shall open doors and pathways; we shall move through space and eons together. Our music will free us of earthly rules and borders. Yes. She’d play the Harp, and there would be nothing but music until the stars died out. Play. I have so long wished to play, it said, and she could have sworn she heard a smile within the sound. What might my song unlock in here? A cold, humorless laugh skittered along Nesta’s bones. It sang again, Play, play— The song halted, and the vision shattered. Nesta’s knees gave out as the room swept in, and she collapsed onto the pew, earning an alarmed look from Gwyn through the crowd. Her heart thundered, her mouth was dry as sand, and she forced herself to rise to her feet again. To listen to the end of the service as she pieced it all together, realized what she had discovered in her unwitting scrying.

My biggest problem during the postwar period was the doom and gloom of its most celebrated thinkers. I didn’t share their negativity about the human condition. I had studied how primates resolve conflicts, sympathize with each other, and seek cooperation. Violence is not their default condition. Most of the time, they live in harmony. The same applies to our own species. I was shocked, therefore, in 1976 when Dawkins asserted in The Selfish Gene, “Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature.”6 I’d argue quite the contrary! Without our long evolution as intensely social beings, we’d be unlikely to care for our fellow humans. We have been programmed to pay attention to each other and offer help when needed. What else would be the point of living in groups? Many animals do, and they do so only because group life, which includes giving and receiving assistance, yields tremendous advantages over a solitary life. One time Dawkins and I politely disagreed in person. On a cold November morning, I took him and a cameraman up a tower at the Yerkes Field Station. It overlooked the chimps that I knew so well. I pointed out Peony, an old female. Her arthritis was so acute that we had seen younger females hurry to fetch water for her. Instead of letting Peony slowly trek to the water faucet, they’d run ahead of her to suck up a mouthful and return to spit it into her mouth, which she opened wide. They also sometimes placed their hands on her ample behind to push her up into the climbing frame so that she could join a cluster of grooming friends. Peony received this aid from individuals unrelated to her, who surely couldn’t expect any favors in return because she was not in a condition to deliver them. How to explain such behavior? And how to explain all the acts of kindness that we ourselves engage in every day, sometimes with complete strangers? Dawkins tried to salvage his theory by blaming genes, saying that they must be “misfiring.” Genes, however, are little strings of DNA devoid of intentions. They do what they do without any goals in mind, which means that they can’t be selfish or unselfish. They also can’t accidentally miss any goals.

On a frosty December morning, with her best handbag, hat, and a small suitcase she handed over the keys to their flat to her maid and asked her to keep their most precious belongings safe there... Then she joined the disorderly progression of Jews heading for the Veletržní palác. Instead of taking something necessary and useful like tinned fish or packet soup, Anka carried a large hat box tied with string. In it were three dozen of her maid's delicious sugar-coated donuts, [her husband's] favorite treat... The young bride kept brushing her hair and reapplying her makeup. [The people around her] were even more intrigued when she knelt on the floor in her fine stockings to use her eyelash curlers. "I just wanted to look my best for the man I loved." A passage about Anka Bergman, a Czech Holocaust survivor, being transferred to the Theresienstadt ghetto

On a frosty December morning, with her best handbag, hat, and a small suitcase she handed over the keys to their flat to her maid and asked her to keep their most precious belongings safe there... Then she joined the disorderly progression of Jews heading for the Veletržní palác. Instead of taking something necessary and useful like tinned fish or packet soup, Anka carried a large hat box tied with string. In it were three dozen of her maid's delicious sugar-coated donuts, [her husband's] favorite treat... The young bride kept brushing her hair and reapplying her makeup. [The people around her] were even more intrigued when she knelt on the floor in her fine stockings to use her eyelash curlers. "I just wanted to look my best for the man I loved." A passage about Anka Bergman, a Czech Holocaust survivor, being transferred to the Theresienstadt ghetto.

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Einstein solved the puzzle by playing the same great trick that Newton and Galileo had originally played to establish the relativity of motion. He realized that the distinction between electrical and magnetic effects depends on the motion of the observer. So Maxwell's unification was deeper than even Maxwell had suspected. Not only were the electric and magnetic fields different aspects of a single phenomenon, but different observers would draw the distinction differently; that is, one observer might explain a particular phenomenon in terms of electricity, while another observer, moving relative to the first, would explain the same phenomenon in terms of magnetism. But the two would agree about what was happening. And so Einstein's special theory of relativity was born, as a joining of Galileo's unification of rest and motion with Maxwell's unification of electricity and magnetism.

Jimmy’s goal since childhood, he explained to Siegel, had been to join the cast of Saturday Night Live. He was endearing. After a two-hour call, Siegel offered to represent him. She had one question, however. “Why don’t you stay and graduate?” Jimmy was a semester shy of a degree. Siegel suggested that they get started in the summer, so he’d have a bachelor’s degree to fall back on, just in case. “No, no,” Jimmy insisted. “I need to get on Saturday Night Live, and you’re going to make it happen, because you know Adam Sandler! I don’t want to do anything else.” Siegel knew this was a long shot—and a long-term endeavor—especially for an out-of-town kid with zero acting credits. But for some reason, she couldn’t turn him down; she had never met someone as focused and passionate about a single dream as this grinning bumpkin from the tiny town of Saugerties, New York. And though his skills were rough, given some time in the industry, she thought he might just make it. “OK, let’s do this,” she said. So, in January 1996 Jimmy quit college and moved to Los Angeles. For six months, Siegel booked him gigs on small, local stand-up comedy stages. Then, without warning, SNL put a call out for auditions; three cast members would be leaving the show. Having worked with one of the departing actors, David Spade, Siegel pulled a few strings and arranged a Hail Mary for the young Jimmy Fallon: an audition at The Comic Strip. SO HERE HE WAS. Fresh-faced, sweating in his light shirt, holding his Troll doll. In front of Lorne Michaels and a phalanx of Hollywood shakers. When Jimmy ended his three-minute bit, the audience clapped politely. True to his reputation, Michaels didn’t laugh. Not once. Jimmy went home and awaited word. Finally, the results came: SNL had invited Tracy Morgan, Ana Gasteyer, and Chris Kattan, each of whom had hustled in the comedy scene for years, to join the cast. Jimmy—the newbie whose well-connected manager had finagled an invite—was crushed. “Was he completely raw? A hundred percent,” Siegel says. But, the SNL people said, “Let’s keep an eye on him.

Cyra was screaming. Akos’s hands were shaking from the landing, but still undoing the straps that held him in place, almost without his permission. Right when Akos was free he launched himself from his seat and slid to his knees in front of Cyra. The shadows had pulled away from her body in a dark cloud, the same way they had when Vas forced her to touch him, down in the amphitheater’s prison where she had almost lost her life. Her hands were buried in her hair, clenched. She looked up at him, and a strange smile twisted her face. He put his hands on hers. The shadows looked like smoke, in the air, but they pulled back into Cyra’s body like dozens of strings yanked at once. Cyra’s odd smile was gone, and she was staring at their joined hands. “What will happen when you let go?” she said quietly. “You’ll be just fine,” he said. “You’ll learn to control it. You can do that now, remember?” She let out an airy laugh. “I can hang on as long as you like,” he said.

tie fastening and flared sleeves. Very boho. Mo was right, she had lost weight; the top used to be snug on her arms and across her shoulders but now skimmed her shape nicely. With a white vest underneath and two strings of multi-coloured glass beads that she had picked up in Primark, she knew she would pass muster. ‘Well, look at you!’ Mo beamed. ‘You look lovely.’ ‘I don’t feel it, not really.’ She felt sick at the prospect of going to a social event without Phil. It wasn’t that they stuck together, joined at the hip, but she always took great comfort from knowing he was close by, just in case. ‘You’re going to be fine. The first time for anything is always the worst. Just take a deep breath.’ Rosie did just that and Mo disappeared into the kitchen and emerged with her mixing

Where is the shop?” she asked. “South of San Giovanni,” Falco said. “There is a string of palazzos just across the water. Perhaps we can go there?” They weren’t likely to stumble across the masked man just out wandering the streets of the city, and Cass wasn’t even sure she would recognize him; she had seen nothing but the hardness of his eyes. All she’d had was a feeling about him--that something was off, dangerous. She remembered how he’d spoken of the beauty of war. But it meant a long gondola ride with Falco, and with the threat of her wedding looming closer and closer, she was willing to go just about anywhere with him. Before she could agree, the door to the taverna creaked and Falco moved away from her. She whirled around. Paolo’s dark eyes gleamed with amusement. “Signorina. It appears we have a mutual friend,” he said. “You should join us.” “This isn’t really the place for a lady,” Falco said. His voice was light, but contained a bit of an edge. “Something tells me you can protect her, Falco.” Paolo held open the door of the taverna. “I insist. What harm can one drink do?” Falco arched an eyebrow at his roommate. “Fine. One drink. Then Signorina Cassandra and I have some plans of our own.” “I can only imagine.” The tall boy’s eyes glittered like black glass. “I take it I shouldn’t expect you home tonight then.” Heat surged through Cass’s cheeks. She prayed that no one could see her blushing in the dim light.

He had his back to Cass, his face resting against a carved cherub as he absentmindedly plucked various strings. Cass stared, watching the movement of his neck and back and shoulders: pieces of motion that were discrete, yet interconnected. She remembered his words from the graveyard. The human form, it’s a symphony. Tiny interlocking movements that join together in song. “It’s about time,” he said, without turning around. He turned slowly, then. The blue eyes. The crooked grin. Cass started to greet him, but her voice stuck in her throat. She reached out for the curlicue bottom of the stairway banister, gripping the bronze for a second, reminding herself that there were no feelings. No. Feelings. She flicked her eyes back up at him, felt her lips forming a smile independent of any command by her brain. Falco cocked an eyebrow. “A beautiful woman who doesn’t speak. Every man’s dream.” “I see you’ve made yourself comfortable,” Cass shot back. “I wasn’t expecting you tonight.” Or ever. “I’d thought you might have learned that with me, you must expect the unexpected.” Falco got up from his seat in front of Agnese’s harp, and it was Cass’s turn to raise an eyebrow. Falco was wearing a flowing white chemise overlaid with an embroidered black and silver doublet and knee-length breeches. His hair still curled forward toward his face, but it looked sleeker than usual, as if he had attempted to tame it with some kind of paste. “Why are you dressed like that?” she asked. “Are you going to Mass?” Not likely since Falco professed not to even believe in God.

My siblings are my friends because we are joined by birth, the bond strong and unbreakable, but there is freedom in having a friend with whom I can be myself, without the expectations and strings of family dynamics and drama.

When Lombardi joined the Green Bay Packers in 1959, the team had gone eleven straight seasons without a winning record, and after winning only one of twelve games the previous year, the team fired Lombardi’s predecessor. Upon arriving at training camp as their new head coach, Lombardi made an immediate and indelible first impression on Bart Starr, a struggling third-string, fourth-year quarterback. After leading the players to a meeting room, Lombardi waited in front of a portable blackboard as the players sat down. He picked up a piece of chalk and began to speak. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we have a great deal of ground to cover. We’re going to do things a lot differently than they’ve been done here before . . . [We’re] going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because perfection is not attainable. But we are going to relentlessly chase it because, in the process, we will catch excellence.”6 He paused and stared, his eyes moving from player to player. The room was silent. “I’m not remotely interested in being just good,” he said with an intensity that startled them all.

I reach up to my hair, lifting it, squeezing water out of it down my back, and I know that the movement summons Luca’s attention back to me. I can feel his eyes on me now as I move closer to Evan on the lounger, looking at his hands moving on the strings, the typical girl admiring a boy playing a guitar. Evan flashes me a smile and keeps strumming away, quite unaware of the little drama being enacted around him. “Don’t forget, Vio-let,” he croons softly. And though I can’t really sing, not properly, I know the tune now, and my head leans in toward his as I join in on the last two words: “Dive in!” He finishes on a last, rising chord and lifts his head, our faces close now. The sunshine beats down on us; the blue water of the swimming pool glints brightly in the heat, the breeze raising tiny ripples on the surface. Evan’s eyes are as clear and blue as the water, with no hidden currents, no unexpected, dangerous undertow. The rosemary and lavender bushes planted around the verge are wafting a lovely, sun-warmed scent, bees buzzing in the lavender. It’s paradise. It should be paradise. In the parking lot below, tires screech. We all jump. Luca must be executing the tightest, sharpest three-point turn in history: the car scrapes, churns, tears up the gravel, and shoots out of the lot and down the drive so fast we wince. It snaps back and forth like Road Runner as he speeds downhill. Only a very good driver could make those switchback turns so fast without crashing--and he’s very lucky he didn’t meet anyone coming up. “Wow! I guess they have somewhere they really need to be,” Paige observes. “More like someone to get away from,” Kelly says dryly under her breath, so only I can hear her.

Harvey didn’t set his phone to beep or buzz or vibrate like a normal person. Harvey’s phone screeched with a string piece from the Hitchcock movie Psycho, the scene with Janet Leigh in the shower, the knife rising and falling, the string section shrieking with short, staccato stabs, the lone violin slashing through the fermata with discordant glissandos, more violins joining the first, violas adding their teeth, mad strings schooling like orchestral sharks at a blood-drunk feast.

Oh, Matthew," she whispered, moved to tears. "I called it Grace. I hope you don't mind." For the first time, his manner held a hint of shyness, disconcerting in a man who had just made love to her without hesitation or reticence. Gently, she curled her hand around what was inside the box and lifted it to the light. "It's your rose." "No, it's your rose." A heady fragrance filled the air. With one shaking finger, Grace touched a flawless pink petal. The color was unforgettable. It was the most beautiful rose she'd ever seen. Impossible to credit that those unpromising stalks in his courtyard had produced this exquisite bloom. "It's perfect," she whispered. "It's a miracle." He was a miracle. How could she not love the man who conjured this beauty with hands and imagination? The faint smile broadened. Had he worried that she'd reject his gift? Foolish, darling Matthew. The question was whether the rose was a promise of a future or a token of parting. "I worked on it whenever I could. This last year has been busy." An understatement, she knew. The Marquess of Sheene had been a ubiquitous presence in London since his release. Everywhere he went, society feted him as a hero. She'd read of the string of honors he'd received, the friendship with the king, the invitations to join scientific boards and societies. Echoing her gesture, he reached out to touch the petals. The sensitivity of his fingers on the flower reminded her of his hands on her skin. "I did most of the basic experiments when I was a prisoner, but I couldn't get it right." He glanced up with an expression that combined pride and diffidence in a breathtakingly attractive mixture. "This is the first bud, Grace. It appeared almost a year to the day after I promised to wait. It seemed a sign." "And you brought it to me," she said softly, staring at the flower. The anniversary of his release didn't occur for two more days. That date was etched on her longing heart. Then she noticed something else. "My glove," she said blankly. With unsteady hands, she reached in and withdrew a light green kidskin glove from a recess carved away from the damp. The buttery leather was crushed and worn from incessant handling. "Have you kept it all this time?" "Of course." He wasn't smiling anymore and his eyes deepened to a rich, rare gold. Beautiful, unwavering, somber. "You make me want to cry." Her voice emerged so thickly, she didn't sound like herself. She laid the box on the bench and tightened her grip on the soft leather until her knuckles whitened. What was he trying to tell her? What did the rose mean? The glove? Had he carried her glove into his new life like a knight wore his lady's favor into battle? The thought sent choking emotion to her throat.

The story of Jesus became to me a story about a soul waking up, up and out of the prisons we’ve built around ourselves with our minds, with our fear, our greed, and our hate. Jesus died to the illusion of separateness and woke up to the reality of interconnectedness, remembering his place in what mystics call divine union and physicists call the unified field. It is a story of Jesus seeing the code in the Matrix, a man at a puppet show seeing the strings. And all the time He’s pointing and saying, “Don’t you see? This is what-this-is. This is how energy moves in the world. Don’t just celebrate my crossing over, come and join me.