They Call Me Bruce Quotes

Over the weekend, Bruce introduced me to the game of backgammon, which was enjoying almost cult-like popularity in Los Angeles. He told me about a private club called PIPS that held tournaments on the weekends and was all the rage. Though I had never played the game before, something about backgammon brought the two hemispheres of my brain together, as Stuart had described. To win at backgammon, one needs strategy and luck. Bruce reveled in the role of playing teacher, and I knew if I put my mind to it, I could learn the game and become a fierce opponent, which I hoped would amuse Bruce and help keep a roof over my head. We stayed awake until dawn, snorting coke and playing backgammon. I don’t know if it was the game or the cocaine, but something made me intent on becoming the best.

Part of me shall dwell in my daughter to call upon in times of need of course.

This isn't about weakness and strength anymore. I know I've made it about that because of what Bruce drilled into my head, but what this girl went through, it has nothing to do with her being weak. I've only talked to her two days out of the last four and I know she's stronger than all of the people I call friends. I know it because she's stronger than me.

Quantum physicists discovered that physical atoms are made up of vortices of energy that are constantly spinning and vibrating; each atom is like a wobbly spinning top that radiates energy. Because each atom has its own specific energy signature (wobble), assemblies of atoms (molecules) collectively radiate their own identifying energy patterns. So every material structure in the universe, including you and me, radiates a unique energy signature. If it were theoretically possible to observe the composition of an actual atom with a microscope, what would we see? Imagine a swirling dust devil cutting across the desert’s floor. Now remove the sand and dirt from the funnel cloud. What you have left is an invisible, tornado-like vortex. A number of infinitesimally small, dust devil–like energy vortices called quarks and photons collectively make up the structure of the atom. From far away, the atom would likely appear as a blurry sphere. As its structure came nearer to focus, the atom would become less clear and less distinct. As the surface of the atom drew near, it would disappear. You would see nothing. In fact, as you focused through the entire structure of the atom, all you would observe is a physical void. The atom has no physical structure—the emperor has no clothes! Remember the atomic models you studied in school, the ones with marbles and ball bearings going around like the solar system? Let’s put that picture beside the “physical” structure of the atom discovered by quantum physicists. No, there has not been a printing mistake; atoms are made out of invisible energy not tangible matter! So in our world, material substance (matter) appears out of thin air. Kind of weird, when you think about it. Here you are holding this physical book in your hands. Yet if you were to focus on the book’s material substance with an atomic microscope, you would see that you are holding nothing. As it turns out, we undergraduate biology majors were right about one thing—the quantum universe is mind-bending. Let’s look more closely at the “now you see it, now you don’t” nature of quantum physics. Matter can simultaneously be defined as a solid (particle) and as an immaterial force field (wave). When scientists study the physical properties of atoms, such as mass and weight, they look and act like physical matter. However, when the same atoms are described in terms of voltage potentials and wavelengths, they exhibit the qualities and properties of energy (waves). (Hackermüller, et al, 2003; Chapman, et al, 1995; Pool 1995) The fact that energy and matter are one and the same is precisely what Einstein recognized when he concluded that E = mc2. Simply stated, this equation reveals that energy (E) = matter (m, mass) multiplied by the speed of light squared (c2). Einstein revealed that we do not live in a universe with discrete, physical objects separated by dead space. The Universe is one indivisible, dynamic whole in which energy and matter are so deeply entangled it is impossible to consider them as independent elements.

Across the gently rolling hills, Beyond high mountain peaks, Along the shores of distant seas, There's something my heart seeks. But there's no peace in wandering, The road's not made for rest. And footsore fools will never know What home might suit them best. But, oh, the things that I have seen, The secret paths I've trod, The hidden corners of the world Known to none but me and God. Yes, the world was meant for knowing, And feet were meant to roam. But one who's always going Will never find a home. Oh, where's the thread that binds me, The voice that calls me back? Where's the love that finds me— And what's the root I lack?

Another result of the War of 1812 was the loss of part of our history. As historian Bruce Johansen put it, "A century of learning [from Native Americans] was coming to a close. A century and more of forgetting--of calling history into service to rationalize conquest--was beginning." After 1815 American Indians could no longer play what sociologists call the role of conflict partner--an important other who must be taken into account--so Americans forgot that Natives had ever been significant in our history. Even terminology changed: until 1815 the word Americans had generally been used to refer to Native Americans; after 1815 it meant European Americans.

Matthew, this is Bruce Willis. Call me back, or I'll burn your house down and break both your knees and arms and you'll be left with just the stubs for hands and feet for the rest of your life.

There was so much to do...so many things that Christ had called me to do. It would take more pain, more loneliness. Maybe death. Why was it so hard? Why? Then I saw Jesus. He was struggling up a hill with a great burden. His face was lined with grief, His back bent.

This style of teaching reflects the business community,” one fifth-grade teacher in a Manhattan public school told me, “where people’s respect for others is based on their verbal abilities, not their originality or insight. You have to be someone who speaks well and calls attention to yourself. It’s an elitism based on something other than merit.” “Today the world of business works in groups, so now the kids do it in school,” a third-grade teacher in Decatur, Georgia, explained. “Cooperative learning enables skills in working as teams—skills that are in dire demand in the workplace,” writes the educational consultant Bruce Williams.

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

I’ve sprained it.” “Oh no! Let me see.” The receptionist jumped up from behind her desk. As she bent over Bess’s ankle, she didn’t notice Bess wink at Nancy. “If I could just get some ice,” Bess said, with a weak smile that looked totally convincing. The receptionist nodded. “Of course. We’ve got ice in our break area at the back of the office,” she said. “Here, let me help you.” Great! thought Nancy. Now, if I can just sneak into Bruce’s office . . . “I’ll use my cell phone to call the doctor,” she fibbed. She pulled her cell phone from her backpack. As the receptionist helped Bess down the hall, Nancy slipped quietly into the office. Quick, she thought. Shoving the phone back in her pack, she closed the door behind her and inspected the room. There’s not much time. She saw a candy-filled bowl on the desk. Each candy had a bright red wrapper marked with a distinctive and familiar white zigzag. That clinches it, Nancy thought. Bruce had to be the person she and Bess had chased the night before. Still, she knew she had to find more concrete proof linking him to the vandalism. She set her pack on the floor next to the desk and

…She had been perfectly happy before she had met him; indeed she had been even slightly happier then. So the inscription might more accurately have read: “To remind you of how happy you’ve been in Edinburgh, in spite of the memories of me.” But people never wrote that sort of brutally honest thing in books, largely because people very rarely have a clear idea of the effect that they have on other people, or can bring themselves to admit it. And Bruce, as Sally had discovered, lacked both insight into himself and an understanding of how somebody like her might feel about somebody like him…

I was greeted by the Ulmers’ eleven-year-old daughter, a girl of remarkable poise. Mrs. Ulmer was busily typing a manuscript that needed to make the evening mail and after welcoming me, in a very friendly manner, she returned to work. There were two other children and Mr. Ulmer, who was writing the manuscript just as his wife was typing it. The youngest child, who could have been no more than five or six, had the task of relaying the handwritten pages from his father to his eldest sister, who would quickly scan them for errors, and from her to his mother. The middle child, a little girl of seven or eight, lay on the floor with a large dictionary and would look up words when called upon by her parents or sister.

Looking back, Colleen and Neal have somewhat different perspectives. . . . She remembers she "was impressed that he seemed to have so much charisma. People were looking to him for answers and just had a great regard for him." Then Neal adds, "So much charisma [that] she turned me down when I first asked her for a date." Fortunately for both, he called again, and this time she said yes. . . . Colleen found herself increasingly drawn to him. She found him "really cute and interesting," even if he did lack just a little social polish. He didn't care for dancing and didn't like small talk, both of which were more important to other people than they were to her. He "was so knowledgeable and such a good speaker, even though he did talk fast. But if you could listen fast you could learn a lot." As Neal came to know her better, he was impressed with her maturity, her sensitivity to other people, and the depth of her spiritual convictions. He began feeling a "spiritual impetus that this was a young woman out of the ordinary." . . . Emma remembered, "Our first introduction to Colleen was when you came home one night and said, 'I've got to see more of that girl. She has some thinking under her hood.'" . . . "I knew I was not dealing with an eighteen-year-old co-ed who was so anxious to please me that I'd have my way when I shouldn't," he said. "We hadn't been married long before I knew I had a kind of Gibraltar--someone who would be tough and strong in the storms of life.

New Rule: Democrats must get in touch with their inner asshole. I refer to the case of Van Jones, the man the Obama administration hired to find jobs for Americans in the new green industries. Seems like a smart thing to do in a recession, but Van Jones got fired because he got caught on tape saying Republicans are assholes. And they call it news! Now, I know I'm supposed to be all reinjected with yes-we-can-fever after the big health-care speech, and it was a great speech--when Black Elvis gets jiggy with his teleprompter, there is none better. But here's the thing: Muhammad Ali also had a way with words, but it helped enormously that he could also punch guys in the face. It bothers me that Obama didn't say a word in defense of Jones and basically fired him when Glenn Beck told him to. Just like dropped "end-of-life counseling" from health-care reform because Sarah Palin said it meant "death panels" on her Facebook page. Crazy morons make up things for Obama to do, and he does it. Same thing with the speech to schools this week, where the president attempted merely to tell children to work hard and wash their hands, and Cracker Nation reacted as if he was trying to hire the Black Panthers to hand out grenades in homeroom. Of course, the White House immediately capitulated. "No students will be forced to view the speech" a White House spokesperson assured a panicked nation. Isn't that like admitting that the president might be doing something unseemly? What a bunch of cowards. If the White House had any balls, they'd say, "He's giving a speech on the importance of staying in school, and if you jackasses don't show it to every damn kid, we're cutting off your federal education funding tomorrow." The Democrats just never learn: Americans don't really care which side of an issue you're on as long as you don't act like pussies When Van Jones called the Republicans assholes, he was paying them a compliment. He was talking about how they can get things done even when they're in the minority, as opposed to the Democrats , who can't seem to get anything done even when they control both houses of Congress, the presidency, and Bruce Springsteen. I love Obama's civility, his desire to work with his enemies; it's positively Christlike. In college, he was probably the guy at the dorm parties who made sure the stoners shared their pot with the jocks. But we don't need that guy now. We need an asshole. Mr. President, there are some people who are never going to like you. That's why they voted for the old guy and Carrie's mom. You're not going to win them over. Stand up for the seventy percent of Americans who aren't crazy. And speaking of that seventy percent, when are we going to actually show up in all this? Tomorrow Glenn Beck's army of zombie retirees descending on Washington. It's the Million Moron March, although they won't get a million, of course, because many will be confused and drive to Washington state--but they will make news. Because people who take to the streets always do. They're at the town hall screaming at the congressman; we're on the couch screaming at the TV. Especially in this age of Twitters and blogs and Snuggies, it's a statement to just leave the house. But leave the house we must, because this is our last best shot for a long time to get the sort of serious health-care reform that would make the United States the envy of several African nations.

Open All Night" (originally by Bruce Springsteen) I had the carburetor cleaned and checked With her line blown out, she's hummin' like a turbojet Propped her up in the backyard on concrete blocks For a new clutch plate and a new set of shocks Took her down to the carwash, check the plugs and points I'm goin' out tonight, I'm gonna rock that joint Early north Jersey industrial skyline I'm a all-set cobra jet creepin' through the nighttime Gotta find a gas station, gotta find a payphone This turnpike sure is spooky at night when you're all alone Gotta hit the gas, baby, I'm runnin' late This New Jersey in the mornin' like a lunar landscape The boss don't dig me, so he put me on the nightshift It takes me two hours to get back to where my baby lives In the wee wee hours, your mind gets hazy Radio relay towers, won't you lead me to my baby? Underneath the overpass, trooper hits his party light switch Goodnight, good luck, one two powershift I met Wanda when she was employed Behind the counter at the Route 60 Bob's Big Boy Fried chicken on the front seat, she's sittin' in my lap We're wipin' our fingers on a Texaco roadmap I remember Wanda up on scrap metal hill With them big brown eyes that make your heart stand still 5 A.M., oil pressure's sinkin' fast I make a pit stop, wipe the windshield, check the gas Gotta call my baby on the telephone Let her know that her daddy's comin' on home Sit tight, little mama, I'm comin' round I got three more hours, but I'm coverin' ground Your eyes get itchy in the wee wee hours Sun's just a red ball risin' over them refinery towers Radio's jammed up with gospel stations Lost souls callin' long distance salvation Hey Mr. DJ, won't you hear my last prayer? Hey ho rock 'n' roll, deliver me from nowhere Ryan Adams, Nebraska (2022)

They heard Hugo ask if the plan for the hors d'oeuvres was still in operation, and they heard Colette ask about plucking the feathers off crows, and they heard Kevin complain that he didn't know whether to hold the birdpaper in his right hand or his left hand, and they heard Mr. Lesko insult Mrs. Morrow, and the bearded man sing a song to the woman with the crow-shaped hat, and they heard a man call for Bruce and a woman call for her mother and dozens of people whisper to and shout at, argue with and agree upon, angrily accuse and meekly defend, furiously compliment and kindly insult dozens of other people, both inside and outside the Hotel Denouement, whose names the Baudelaires recognized, forgot, and had never heard before. Each story had its story, and each story's story was unfathomable in the Baudelaire orphans' short journey, and many of the stories' stories are unfathomable to me, even after all these lonely years and all this lonely research. Perhaps some of these stories are clearer to you, because you have spied upon the people involved. Perhaps Mrs. Bass has changed her name and lives near you, or perhaps Mr. Remora's name is the same, and he lives far away. Perhaps Nero now works as a grocery store clerk, or Geraldine Julienne now teaches arts and crafts. Perhaps Charles and Sir are no longer partners, and you have had the occasion to study one of them as he sat across from you on a bus, or perhaps Hugo, Colette, and Kevin are still comrades, and you have followed these unfathomable people after noticing that one of them used both hands equally. Perhaps Mr. Lesko is now your neighbor, or Mrs. Morrow is now your sister, or your mother, or your aunt or wife or even your husband. Perhaps the noise you hear outside your door is a bearded man trying to climb into your window, or perhaps it is a woman in a crow-shaped hat hailing a taxi. Perhaps you have spotted the managers of the Hotel Denouement, or the judges of the High Court, or the waiters of Cafe Salmonella or the Anxious Clown, or perhaps you have met an expert on injustice or become one yourself. Perhaps the people in your unfathomable life, and their unfathomable stories, are clear to you as you make your way in the world, but when the elevator stopped for the last time, and the doors slid open to reveal the tilted roof of the Hotel Denouement, the Baudelaires felt as if they were balancing very delicately on a mysterious and perplexing heap of unfathomable mysteries.

There’s a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and get lost in a sea of blue. A Jersey-accented voice says, “It’s about time, kid,” and Frank Sinatra rattles the ice in his glass of Jack Daniel’s. Looking at the swirling deep-brown liquid, he whispers, “Ain’t it beautiful?” This is my introduction to the Chairman of the Board. We spend the next half hour talking Jersey, Hoboken, swimming in the Hudson River and the Shore. We then sit down for dinner at a table with Robert De Niro, Angie Dickinson and Frank and his wife, Barbara. This is all occurring at the Hollywood “Guinea Party” Patti and I have been invited to, courtesy of Tita Cahn. Patti had met Tita a few weeks previous at the nail parlor. She’s the wife of Sammy Cahn, famous for such songs as “All The Way,” “Teach Me Tonight” and “Only the Lonely.” She called one afternoon and told us she was hosting a private event. She said it would be very quiet and couldn’t tell us who would be there, but assured us we’d be very comfortable. So off into the LA night we went. During the evening, we befriend the Sinatras and are quietly invited into the circle of the last of the old Hollywood stars. Over the next several years we attend a few very private events where Frank and the remaining clan hold forth. The only other musician in the room is often Quincy Jones, and besides Patti and I there is rarely a rocker in sight. The Sinatras are gracious hosts and our acquaintance culminates in our being invited to Frank’s eightieth birthday party dinner. It’s a sedate event at the Sinatras’ Los Angeles home. Sometime after dinner, we find ourselves around the living room piano with Steve and Eydie Gorme and Bob Dylan. Steve is playing the piano and up close he and Eydie can really sing the great standards. Patti has been thoroughly schooled in jazz by Jerry Coker, one of the great jazz educators at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. She was there at the same time as Bruce Hornsby, Jaco Pastorius and Pat Metheny, and she learned her stuff. At Frank’s, as the music drifts on, she slips gently in on “My One and Only Love.” Patti is a secret weapon. She can sing torch like a cross between Peggy Lee and Julie London (I’m not kidding). Eydie Gorme hears Patti, stops the music and says, “Frank, come over here. We’ve got a singer!” Frank moves to the piano and I then get to watch my wife beautifully serenade Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan, to be met by a torrent of applause when she’s finished. The next day we play Frank’s eightieth birthday celebration for ABC TV and I get to escort him to the stage along with Tony Bennett. It’s a beautiful evening and a fitting celebration for the greatest pop singer of all time. Two years later Frank passed away and we were generously invited to his funeral. A

I’ll give you a ten-thousand-dollar bonus if you can get them to stop calling me the ‘Boy Billionaire.’ It makes me feel like Bruce Wayne without the Batmobile. And I did just turn thirty-two. I hardly qualify as a ‘Boy’ anything.

Full of manic energy, I burst past him and skittered around in the house, leaping over furniture. I spotted Smokey and took off in pursuit, chasing him up the stairs and barking when he dove under Mom and Dad’s bed. “Bailey!” Mom called to me sternly. “Bad dog, Bailey,” the boy said crossly. I was astounded at this false accusation. Bad? I’d been accidentally locked in the garage but was more than willing to forgive them. Why were they scowling at me like that, shaking their fingers at me?

There was something wrong with this man. He didn’t call me Toby. He didn’t even talk to us. I thought of my first mother, the very last time I saw her, escaping the Yard because she couldn’t live with humans, not even with someone as loving as Senora. But the man didn’t love us at all.

The way he was speaking to me reminded me of the first time Senora called me Toby. I instantly understood what was happening—just as the men had pulled my first family from the culvert, this man had taken me from the grass. And now my life would be what he decided it would be.

Both ‘Childhood’ and ‘Smile’ were recorded live with an orchestra at the Hit Factory on the same day, with the majority of Michael’s live vocals from the sessions used on the final versions. But Michael was so unhappy with his vocals for ‘Smile’ that he recorded over a dozen takes. “Michael did a bunch of takes live with orchestra that would be called amazing by most standards,” Rob Hoffman said. “He then did more later that day, and I think some the next as well. In all I think there were 14 takes.” Michael may not have been satisfied, but the orchestra was blown away by the performance. “When we finished recording with the orchestra, Michael asked me if he could go out in the studio and meet the musicians,” Bruce Swedien said. “During the recording, the entire orchestra had been listening to Michael sing through their individual headphones. When Michael walked out in the studio to meet the orchestra, they gave him a standing ovation. Every member of the 50-piece orchestra stood up and tapped their music stands with their bows, as loud as they could! Michael was thrilled.

Oh, that’s just great, Alan. You come into my head, you start calling me “we,” when I sleep at night you’re driving around in my truck, and you think it’s a bad idea to mess with other people’s lives?

We all seemed to be playing a game called Let’s-Follow-Brewster. That was okay with me! I ran along behind him. Big flakes of snow fell on my face, and I kept blinking to keep them away from my eyes. Brewster didn’t seem to care about the snow at all. He just headed straight toward a building with a set of steps up to a door. “He’s got the scent!” Bryan said excitedly. There was a door at the top of the steps. Brewster stood by it and gave Bryan an expectant look and waited. “That’s my office,” Dusty Pants said as he climbed the steps. “I don’t think the foxes could possibly be in there.” He opened the door. Brewster headed in. I trotted up the steps to see Brewster shake snow from his fur, look around, spy a couch in a corner, and hop up for a nap. All the grown-ups laughed.

Memory Recognizing the value of an alert mind and an alert memory, I will encourage mine to become alert by taking care to impress it clearly with all thoughts I wish to recall and by associating those thoughts with related subjects which I may call to mind frequently. Subconscious Mind Reorganizing the influence of my subconscious mind over my power of will, I shall take care to submit to it a clear and definite picture of my major purpose in life and all minor purposes leading to my major purpose, and I shall keep this picture constantly before my subconscious mind by repeating it daily! Imagination Recognizing the need for sound plans and ideas for the attainment of my desires, I will develop my imagination by calling upon it daily for help in the formation of my plans. Emotion Realizing that my emotions are both positive and negative, I will form daily habits which will encourage the development of the positive emotions and aid me in converting the negative emotions into some form of useful action. Reason Recognizing that my positive and negative emotions may be dangerous if they are not guided to desirable ends, I will submit all my desires, aims, and purposes to my faculty of reason, and I will be guided by it in giving expression to these. Conscience Recognizing that my emotions often err in their over-enthusiasm, and my faculty of reason often is without the warmth of feeling that is necessary to enable me to combine justice with mercy in my judgments, I will encourage my conscience to guide me as to what is right and wrong, but I will never set aside the verdicts it renders, no matter what may be the cost of carrying them out. Willpower The power of will is the supreme court over all other departments of my mind. I will exercise it daily when I need the urge to action for any purpose, and I will form habits designed to bring the power of my will into action at least once daily.

Chemistry From the middle Dutch boele, which means lover, bully was a term of endearment in the sixteenth century, which meant that a feudal lord could take the hand of his love under the apple trees in spring and exclaim: my bully, feeling adrenaline flood his body as his heart rate tripled and his palms began to release water mixed with urea, ammonia, salt. Essentially, he could feel what I felt over four centuries later when Ian Starkey called me a fag. I was fourteen, and the next day he kicked me twice, spat in my face, took my glasses and wouldn't give them back. And the whole time sweat glands were developing in our armpits and genitals, and our adrenals were releasing corticosteroids, and something about testosterone was why, though I hated him, I kept imagining him with his shirt off. True, Ian Starkey knew how to hurt me, but I doubt he knew why he was doing it or that we feel pain when neurons in the brain convert an electrical signal to a chemical signal and back again, which is also what allows us to feel a kiss or my brain to take strange comfort imagining all the boys of the world leaning into the strong arms of their tormentors in spring under the apple blossoms, saying I forgive you, saying: I can never forgive you, saying, my enemy, my bully, my love.

I think back to that moment and I realize that I’m still here because of my mother. Of course that’s who I have to thank, and I never thanked her for it. She’s the one who kept a lid on all of this, who parried me away from the path that led to delinquency, danger, and violence, to the needle, that lethal delight called heroin that killed my three closest friends. Petey, Cliffy, Bruce—they all died from drugs. I was not exactly under strict surveillance, but my mother paid attention to where I was in a way that my friends’ families didn’t, and we all knew it. I believe she saved my life.

In Iowa, the American Future Fund began airing an ad created by Larry McCarthy that Geoff Garin, the Democratic pollster, described as perhaps “the most egregious of the year.” The ad accused the then congressman Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat and a lawyer, of supporting a proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, which it misleadingly called a “mosque at Ground Zero.” As footage of the destroyed World Trade Center rolled, a narrator said, “For centuries, Muslims built mosques where they won military victories.” Now it said a mosque celebrating 9/11 was to be built on the very spot “where Islamic terrorists killed three thousand Americans”; it was, the narrator suggested, as if the Japanese were to build a triumphal monument at Pearl Harbor. The ad then accused Braley of supporting the mosque. In fact, Braley had taken no position on the issue. No surprise for a congressman from Iowa. But an unidentified video cameraman had ambushed him at the Iowa State Fair and asked him about it. Braley replied that he regarded the matter as a local zoning issue for New Yorkers to decide. Soon afterward, he says, the attack ad “dropped on me like the house in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ ” Braley, who won his seat by a margin of 30 percent in 2008, barely held on in 2010. The American Future Fund’s effort against Braley was the most expensive campaign that year by an independent group.

In Iowa, the American Future Fund began airing an ad created by Larry McCarthy that Geoff Garin, the Democratic pollster, described as perhaps “the most egregious of the year.” The ad accused the then congressman Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat and a lawyer, of supporting a proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, which it misleadingly called a “mosque at Ground Zero.” As footage of the destroyed World Trade Center rolled, a narrator said, “For centuries, Muslims built mosques where they won military victories.” Now it said a mosque celebrating 9/11 was to be built on the very spot “where Islamic terrorists killed three thousand Americans”; it was, the narrator suggested, as if the Japanese were to build a triumphal monument at Pearl Harbor. The ad then accused Braley of supporting the mosque. In fact, Braley had taken no position on the issue. No surprise for a congressman from Iowa. But an unidentified video cameraman had ambushed him at the Iowa State Fair and asked him about it. Braley replied that he regarded the matter as a local zoning issue for New Yorkers to decide. Soon afterward, he says, the attack ad “dropped on me like the house in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ ” Braley, who won his seat by a margin of 30 percent in 2008, barely held on in 2010. The American Future Fund’s effort against Braley was the most expensive campaign that year by an independent group. After the election, Braley accused McCarthy, the ad maker, of “profiting from Citizens United in the lowest way.” As for those who hired McCarthy, he said, they “are laughing all the way to the bank. It’s a good investment for them…They’re the winners. The losers are the American people, and the truth.

The trouble with women is, they all become bossy in the end, like they think they own you. There's nothing I loathe more than a bossy woman. Hell, there have been times I made up my mind to give up women completely-go cold turkey. Fortunately the rest of my body never agrees. That demon pow-whammy keeps calling me back.

Tessa Dahl A daughter of famed British novelist Roald Dahl, Tessa Dahl was a good friend of Diana’s and her colleague at several successful charities. A prolific writer and editor, Tessa is a regular contributor to many important British newspapers and magazines, including the Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, Vogue and the Tatler. The only part that marred the night was, typically, my dad, Roald Dahl, who left at the interval. I was devastated, but that was his modus operandi. I wanted him to see me in the Royal Box. I fear most of the post-party was spent with me on the phone crying to him, after Diana had left and we had done the royal lineup. Gosh, she was always so good at that. Talk about doing her homework. Every single performer, she had time for, even knowing a little bit about each one. We didn’t see each other again until Bruce Oldfield’s ball. Diana had come with Prince Charles and looked really miserable. Beautiful, in a gold crown (with Joan Collins trying to outdo her--good luck, Joan), but still, she had a new aura of hopelessness. Although she did dance with Bruce to KC and the Sunshine Band’s “That’s the Way I Like It.” We stopped to talk. “How’s Daisy?” she asked kindly. She obviously knew that I had been having my baby down the hall in the same hospital and at the same time as she had had Prince Harry. “Actually, it’s a different bovine name. She’s called Clover.” I was touched that she had remembered that we had had our babies around the same time and that my little girl did have a good old-fashioned cow’s name. I asked, “Wasn’t it fun at the Lindo? I do love having babies.” “I’m afraid I find it rather disgusting,” she revealed. This, of course, was the famous time when Prince Charles had been so disparaging about Harry’s being a redhead.

Try to reserve judgment—as I have learned to do for the most part. Unless you’ve walked in that person’s shoes, you don’t know what you would do in any given circumstance. I was too desperately, devotedly, blindly in love to say no and move on. I understand better now why some people stay on in relationships that might not be healthy or fulfilling. There are so many things that keep you there, not the least of which is the deep, abiding love you feel for that person, the history you share, and the hope that things will get better. Today I am far more realistic, seasoned, and decidedly stronger and more independent, and I would never stay in a relationship that caused me such pain again. But

Still, my heart broke a little bit every time I suspected him of spending time with another woman. And yet, I stayed. I stayed because I loved him. I stayed because I couldn’t imagine my life without him. I stayed because the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. And most of all, I stayed because I knew how much he needed me—whether he always knew it or not.

Australia was not what I was expecting. Sure, I hadn’t even made it out of the airport, but still, where were the kangaroos? The koalas? Where were the hot guys walking around in Speedos? Where were the Tim Tams? Didn’t those delicious chocolate cookies fall from the sky over here? I’m sure I’d read that somewhere? Or maybe I’d dreamt it. … I’d been experience weird dreams about Australia. In one, I was dating a kangaroo that sounded like Chris Hemsworth. I remember waking in the morning stroking my pillow with the words “You had me at g’day,” whispering through my head. In another dream, a shark called Bruce kept trying to take a bath with me.

Because you’re a straight, Laura.” “Stop calling me that!” Laura said. “What makes you so different?” “Look at you,” Carlotta said. “You’re educated. You’re smart. You’re beautiful. You’re married to a goddamn architect. You have a wonderful baby and friends in high places.” Her eyes narrowed; she began to hiss. “Then look at me. I’m a cracker. Ugly. No family. Daddy used to beat me up. I never finished school—I can’t hardly read and write. I’m diselxic, or whatever they call it. You ever wonder what happens to people who can’t read and write? In your fucking beautiful Net world with all its fucking data? No, you never thought of that, did you? If I found a place for myself, it was in the teeth of people like you.

[S]lowly, unwillingly, I began to see what God had been trying to teach me. He hadn't called me, really, to be a missionary... He had called me to Himself, to be like His Son, Jesus Christ. And He wanted me to follow Him to South America. Now." -

Sister Lucy once told me that Bruce and the others stood as a warning against becoming that which we might abhor. They have warned us against great evil, to be sure; but what of insipid evil? What of the simple evil of a lethargy of calling? Of settling for the mere tasks that must be done, rather than striving for that which could be done through His power? Out of fear that maybe He won’t actually do what He promised, out of the name of ‘prudence,’ we choose the safe road, the predictable road, instead of the road that surrenders all control.” I paused, shaking my head. “For too long all I wanted was acceptance, a place to stay where people might love and care for me. Our Father has already provided that place, and it is in Him, and He is wherever He sends us. Oh, please, stay and be diligent if He has called you here. But don’t damn as evil that which makes you merely uncomfortable or doesn’t fit your mold. Or that which upsets you because it strikes your conscience.

In the midst of the riot, I noticed a young, blond American couple wearing Bermuda shorts and golf shirts, and holding hands, immobilized by the fights raging around them. The referee, a quiet little fellow called Hammer, was also fighting for his life, blindly swinging a steel chair, deflecting unidentified flying objects and attacking fans. He was backing his way toward the two Americans. My first instinct was to intervene, but they were more than thirty feet away, and I would never have made it. Hammer swung full force as he turned, smashing his chair over the blond man’s head. The man fell to the floor, his girl beside him, helpless and terrified. Now I understood why Bruce had stayed home. Back in the hotel room, Smith was sick too, and we took turns racing to the toilet and sweating on our grungy beds. My shoulder was killing me, and I couldn’t raise my arm. Tiny gnats landed on us incessantly; they seemed harmless enough, so we just rubbed them out. The street sounds filtered up, sirens wailed, and it turned out the little gnats weren’t so harmless after all: For weeks we were covered in festering boils. Smith and I took turns with a pair of tweezers plucking at the eruptions on our arms and chests, leaving big pink craters.

Hey, there, little fella!” he called. I looked at him uncertainly. What kind of a person was this? What would those hands be like? Would they push me aside, like the first man I had known? Or would they be patient and gentle? “You lost, fella? You lost?” I wasn’t sure about the hands yet, but the voice was kind. And he was talking right to me. The first man had never done that. And he’d never kneeled down so that he was close to my level, either.

And he’s hardly more than a puppy. He didn’t know what he was doing. Tell him … tell him he’s a doodle. That’s what my mother always called me when I was a little girl and I did something wrong.” The boy faced me sternly. “Bailey, you are a doodle. You are a doodle, doodle dog.” And then he laughed and Grandma laughed, but I was so miserable I could barely move my tail. Just to show that skunk, I was going to ignore her. That would serve her right, after everything she’d put me through.

supposed to stay in a box with a bunch of baby birds called goslings. I nudged a few of them aside and lay down and at once they were huddled all around me, trying to cuddle right up to my nose. I was worried that if I yawned they might try to climb into my mouth!

Indigenous Lives Holding Our World Together, by Brenda J. Child American Indian Stories, by Zitkala-Sa A History of My Brief Body, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert Apple: Skin to the Core, by Eric Gansworth Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot The Blue Sky, by Galsan Tschinag Crazy Brave, by Joy Harjo Standoff, by Jacqueline Keeler Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie Spirit Car, by Diane Wilson Two Old Women, by Velma Wallis Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School, by Adam Fortunate Eagle Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq Walking the Rez Road, by Jim Northrup Mamaskatch, by Darrel J. McLeod Indigenous Poetry Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, by Joy Harjo Ghost River (Wakpá Wanági), by Trevino L. Brings Plenty The Book of Medicines, by Linda Hogan The Smoke That Settled, by Jay Thomas Bad Heart Bull The Crooked Beak of Love, by Duane Niatum Whereas, by Layli Long Soldier Little Big Bully, by Heid E. Erdrich A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation, by Eric Gansworth NDN Coping Mechanisms, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Invisible Musician, by Ray A. Young Bear When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, edited by Joy Harjo New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich The Failure of Certain Charms, by Gordon Henry Jr. Indigenous History and Nonfiction Everything You Know About Indians Is Wrong, by Paul Chaat Smith Decolonizing Methodologies, by Linda Tuhiwai Smith Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862, edited by Gary Clayton Anderson and Alan R. Woodworth Being Dakota, by Amos E. Oneroad and Alanson B. Skinner Boarding School Blues, edited by Clifford E. Trafzer, Jean A. Keller, and Lorene Sisquoc Masters of Empire, by Michael A. McDonnell Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, by Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior Boarding School Seasons, by Brenda J. Child They Called It Prairie Light, by K. Tsianina Lomawaima To Be a Water Protector, by Winona LaDuke Minneapolis: An Urban Biography, by Tom Weber

Jack's eyes were huge, he was nervous and excited at the idea of fighting off so many blazes. “There were that many?”  Dad nodded, a frown on his face. “Yeah, I saw some other things in there, too. In the few seconds before they poofed me, anyway. Some skeletons that had dark gray bones. I hadn’t seen those before, but there weren’t nearly as many. Only a handful. I also saw some regular skeletons. But the sheer number of blazes was just...It was impossible to count.”  Mom huffed. “Well, that is not at all what I was hoping for. What are we going to do now?”  Dad opened his shulker box and pulled out his stronger set of iron enchanted armor, and a gold helmet, and put it all on. Then he took out two tower shields, equipping one in each hand. “Well first off, I should have gone in more prepared.”  Mom snapped her fingers. “Speaking of prepared, that reminds me.” She pulled out potions from her inventory, handing everyone a few. Then gave out stacks of golden apples and cooked pork, followed by healing potions. “This should help a lot for when we go in.”  “Wait,” Dad said. “You still want to go in after what I told you is behind that portal?”  Mom opened her shulker box, also getting dressed in her enchanted iron armor. “Yes, dear. We will not let some floating fire monsters stop us from reaching our goal.”  Kate grinned. “Go Mom! I have an idea too. STOMPY!” she called over to the huge ravager.  “What are you doing?” Jack asked. He had put on his enchanted iron armor, while handing Bruce some diamond armor and diamond sword, and some golden boots, just in case. Bruce ate them up, his entire body turning the blue of diamond, and his claws growing longer and sharper and shinier, piercing through his new, golden paws.  “I think we should have Stompy charge through and open a path for us. He’s perfect for the job,” Kate said as Stompy stomped up to them. She patted his neck lovingly.  “Aren’t you worried about him getting hurt?” Mom asked.

you have a chance. It’s . . . it’s rather important. Bye.” She was about to reach for the receiver when the phone rang. “Hello?” “Hello, Sara? It’s Jennifer Riker.” “Hello, Jennifer. How are you?” “Fine, thanks.” Pause. “Sara, have you heard anything . . . ?” “Nothing,” she said quickly. “I wish there was something I could do.” “He’ll be fine.” “I hope the package I sent Harvey will help.” “What package?” “Hasn’t Harvey called you?” “He left a message for me on my machine, but I haven’t had a chance to call him back yet. What package, Jennifer?” “Bruce mailed a package to his California P.O. box the same day he committed suicide. It probably means nothing—” “What kind of package?” “It had all kinds of medical

ask the next, highly personal question on his mind. Sensing his indecision, Ryan smiled and took pity on him. “Not yet,” he said. “What?” “The answer to your question is, ‘not yet’,” Ryan repeated. “Anna and I are looking forward to being parents, one day, but there isn’t any mad rush. Also—” He hesitated, unsure whether to discuss matters that were so close to the heart. Then again, Frank was more than just his sergeant, or his friend. He was family. “The fact is, Frank, we’re not sure whether Anna will be able to have children.” Phillips put a hand on his friend’s arm in silent support. “I’m sorry, lad,” he said quietly. “It was insensitive of me to ask. I never thought—” “No, neither did we,” Ryan said, and his lips twisted. “Keep your fingers crossed for us.” “Fingers, eyes and toes,” Frank promised. Ryan nodded, and let out the breath he’d been holding. “Right, shall we get this over with?” “Howay then,” Phillips said, reaching for the door. “Age before beauty.” * * * Margaret Bruce had the hollow-eyed look of a woman who hadn’t slept in four years. When she answered the door, she looked between the two detectives and clutched a hand to her throat. They knew, Ryan thought. Mothers always knew, long before he said the words “Mrs Bruce?” “Stuart!” she called out to her husband, who’d been sitting reading a paper in the living room.

Nineteen eighty-two is as good a year as any to mark the threshold of a future we're still negotiating. It's been called the information age, the digital age, the new media age. It was the beginning of the "digital turn" that would, in fits and starts, transform music culture . . . .

Last night's harsh phone call seemed to be a distant memory as we spent the day in the snow with my new fake friends, going for one last turn on the mountain while I drank boiled wine at the bottom of the ski lift at the hutte. I honestly told Anette in the ski lift during the day what Sabrina had told me on the phone the night before, but she remained silent and didn't seem surprised for some reason. I didn't think Anette would conspire with Betty to test me or win me. I didn’t think they would conspire with Sabrina but perhaps I didn’t know her well enough to assume what she was capable of when jealous, mad, sad, confused or in love. Perhaps they did not. Everything I don't know. I try to write here all that I know and have managed to figure out, taking a long time. I try to share what I have been through because I am sure that others will find it useful to learn from my mistakes, faults, sins, virtues, and so on. Perhaps only my luck, good or bad, I don't know. I could not have figured out what happened if I had not written down exactly how things unfolded in order to be able to see through it all and comprehend what really happened since I bought that Roberto Saviano book and met Sabrina. Perhaps the women had been conspiring for one reason or another; perhaps they had not. Nonetheless, it was odd. „Water is wet, the sky is blue, women have secrets. Who gives a f..k?” – Joe Hallenbeck Do all men have to be natural-born and supernatural detectives like Bruce Willis in all his movies, or in The Last Boy Scout? I'm not sure how many coincidences can fit so strangely into reality by chance, or is it all manipulation? Is it all because of the story of Eve and the snake and the apple?

the commanding officer took to the barracks loudspeaker one night and began calling out names. “Everybody’s looking at one another, like, What the fuck?” One by one, he called each woman into his office and asked her to name who they thought was gay. When Laura refused, he said that someone had identified her. “It was 1993. Bill Clinton had just signed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ I said, ‘We’re in a barracks with twenty-eight women. We’ve had no days off. What are you talking about?’ ” He didn’t care. Based on one accusation, Laura was charged with an Article 15 offense and thrown into the stockade. She was given an ultimatum: Accept a dishonorable discharge or face court martial and up to five years in jail. “I chose the latter. Because one, I’m bullheaded, and two, I had no place to go. They gave me one phone call a week, and I didn’t even use it, because I could never call my family.” Still imprisoned two months later, Laura changed her mind. She signed a confession, was stripped, given civilian clothes, and handed a manila envelope with the word homosexual stamped on the front.

You were supposed to leave tonight,” I remind her when we get through the door. Sam’s already here, and I lock the deadbolt behindus. “I’ll stay tonight,” she mumbles, eyelids heavy. “Do you need to call about your flight?” “No. I never scheduled a return flight. I was going to today. The driver…no, the flyer…the…the…” “Pilot.” “Yeah. That guy. He was going to pick me up whenever I was ready.” She scrunches up her nose. “I sound like a rich asshole, don’tI?” “You’re basically Bruce Wayne when he’s trying to convince the world he’s still a billionaire playboy and not a superhero.” “Damn,” she says, not missing a beat. “Hopefully I’m giving more of a Christian Bale performance over Ben Affleck.” “It’s Oscar-worthy.

My girl was shivering. “You’re okay. You’re okay,” Dad told her. “Lily’s okay, too.” “I was scared,” Maggie Rose replied weakly. “Lily just sank. I thought she’d dog paddle.” “Not all dogs can swim,” Dad told her. “Lily’s a pit bull mix, and pits are pretty heavy. All that muscle. They can’t float, so some of them can’t doggy paddle. Don’t go in after her again, Maggie Rose, hear me? Call for me. Got it?

For it was while Jesus was at home "in His own city," as Capernaum came to be called, that the palsied man was brought to Him to be healed; and from all the evangelists we learn that it was on His way out from the house where that miracle was wrought that He saw Matthew, and spoke to him the word, "Follow Me.

Usefulness does not necessarily imply goodness, according to the teaching of Christ Himself. "Many," He declares in the Sermon on the Mount, "will say unto me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by Thy name, and by Thy name cast out devils, and by Thy name do many wonderful works?" And mark the answer which He says He will give such. It is not: I call in question the correctness of your statement--that is tacitly admitted; it is: "I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

In response to the shooting, Bruce Springsteen released “American Skin (41 Shots),” a minor-key ballad, more anguished than angry, which applied the balms of empathy and narrative economy to a raw social wound. The central verse dramatizes what African American families call “the talk.” As a mother, Lena, prepares her son, Charles, for school, she reminds him: “You’ve got to understand the rules / if an officer stops you, promise me, you’ll always be polite / and that you’ll never ever run away / and promise mama you’ll keep your hands in sight.

Here we are,” said Mallory, running up to me, pulling Margo along. “Oh, thank goodness.” Mary Anne and I counted the Pikes about five times before we were satisfied that they were all safe and sound. “I want to see the shark!” cried Nicky, jumping up and down. So did I. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s walk down the beach, away from this crowd.” Mary Anne and the other kids followed us. When we had a little space, we held our hands to our eyes, blocking the glare of the sun, and stared out to sea. “I think I see something!” exclaimed Byron. “Where?” we all asked. He pointed. “See? Sort of over to the left?” I could make out a faraway shape, but it looked like a seagull bobbing on the waves. Later, Adam swore he could see five fins circling around, but nobody else saw them. At last we gave up. We walked back to the lifeguard stand. The crowd was dispersing. Scott and Bruce were back on duty. I saw a good opportunity to ask Scott a question. “Hi,” I said to him, leaning against the base of the stand and squinting up. “Hi, love.” Love! Scott had called me love! Of course, he meant his love. When I recovered, I managed to say, “So were there really sharks?” “It looked that way. Sometimes it’s hard to tell, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.” “I’ll say.” Scott wiped his brow. “It’s going to be a hot one.” “So you want a soda or something?” I asked eagerly. “You

Our film had also received rave reviews and many “pull quotes” that could be used for marketing. Nick Digilio of WGN Radio, who also happened to be a longtime Phantasm fan, gave us a sensational quote in which he called Bubba Ho-tep “an important piece of American cinema.” And in David Hunter’s review of our film in the Hollywood Reporter, he celebrated our star’s work by writing, “Bruce Campbell in a performance for the ages.” It all looked quite promising, and then Shultz mentioned just one more item—we would need some money to launch this endeavor. The roughed-up budget for this independent Bubba Ho-tep theatrical release came in at about a hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Yikes! But Dave Shultz firmly believed that if luck was with us, we could easily gross multiples of that number and actually turn a profit. For me it was an extremely tough decision. I had made a huge investment from my savings to pay for the production costs of Bubba Ho-tep. My dad in loyal fashion had also kicked in a chunk of change. With his background in financial planning he had always taught me that the best investments are when you invest in yourself and the principles you believe in.

It was when they had dined that Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him; it was after they had supped Jesus gave His disciples His new commandment of love, and that Peter made his vehement protestation of devotion to his Master's cause and person. The name by which the risen Lord addressed His disciple--not Peter, but Simon son of Jonas--was fitted to remind him of his weakness, and of that other occasion on which, calling him by the same name, Jesus warned him that Satan was about to sift him as wheat. The thrice-repeated question, "Lovest thou me?" could not fail painfully to remind Peter of his threefold denial, and so to renew his grief.

Brian Wecht was born in New Jersey to an interfaith couple. His father ran an army-navy store and enjoyed going to Vegas to see Elvis and Sinatra. Brian loved school, especially math and science, but also loved jazz saxophone and piano. “A large part of my identity came from being a fat kid who was bullied through most of my childhood,” he said. “I remember just not having many friends.” Brian double majored in math and music and chose graduate school in jazz composition. But when his girlfriend moved to San Diego, he quit and enrolled in a theoretical physics program at UC San Diego. Six months later the relationship failed; six years later he earned a PhD. When he solved a longstanding open problem in string theory (“the exact superconformal R-symmetry of any 4d SCFT”), Brian became an international star and earned fellowships at MIT, Harvard, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He secured an unimaginable job: a lifetime professorship in particle physics in London. He was set. Except. Brian never lost his interest in music. He met his wife while playing for an improv troupe. He started a comedic band with his friend Dan called Ninja Sex Party. “I was always afraid it was going to bite me in the ass during faculty interviews because I dressed up like a ninja and sang about dicks and boning.” By the time Brian got to London, the band’s videos were viral sensations. He cried on the phone with Dan: Should they try to turn their side gig into a living? Brian and his wife had a daughter by this point. The choice seemed absurd. “You can’t quit,” his physics adviser said. “You’re the only one of my students who got a job.” His wife was supportive but said she couldn’t decide for him. If I take the leap and it fails, he thought, I may be fucking up my entire future for this weird YouTube career. He also thought, If I don’t jump, I’ll look back when I’m seventy and say, “Fuck, I should have tried.” Finally, he decided: “I’d rather live with fear and failure than safety and regret.” Brian and his family moved to Los Angeles. When the band’s next album was released, Ninja Sex Party was featured on Conan, profiled in the Washington Post, and reached the top twenty-five on the Billboard charts. They went on a sold-out tour across the country, including the Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas.

Our ongoing Hollywood education included the lesson that moviemaking is not finished once you actually make the movie. After that, you have to promote the movie, because if the audience doesn’t show up, all your hard work is a bit pointless. But before we could sell Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course to audiences, we had to sell it to the theater owners who were going to show it to the public. So the first stop for our promotional efforts was a gathering of movie theater exhibitors called Show West, in Las Vegas. We would team up there with Bruce Willis, who had an interest in producing our movie. Bindi and I had been in Oregon for a few days, visiting family, and we planned to catch up with Steve in Las Vegas. But she and I had an ugly incident at the airport when we arrived. A Vegas lowlife approached us, his hat pulled down, big sunglasses on his face, and displaying some of the worst dentistry I’ve ever seen. He leered at us, obviously drunk or crazy, and tried to kiss me. I backed off rapidly and looked for Steve. I knew I could rely on him to take care of any creep I encountered. Then it dawned on me: The creep was Steve. In order to move around the airport without anyone recognizing him, he put on false teeth and changed his usual clothes. I didn’t recognize my own husband out of his khakis. I burst out laughing. Bindi was wide-eyed. “Look, it’s your daddy.” It took her a while before she was sure. Our Show West presentation featured live wildlife, organized wonderfully by Wes. Bruce Willis spoke. “I sometimes play an action hero myself,” he said, “but you’ll see that Steve is a real-life action hero.” Bindi brought a ball python out on stage. Backstage, she and Bruce hit it off. He has three daughters of his own, and he immediately connected with Bindi. They wound up playing with the lion cubs and the other animals that Wes had organized there.

Someone Knocks on a Door in the State Where I Was Born Take me back where hag moths feed on sweet gums, threshers crushing wild grapes. Where fields curb the slaughterhouse, tractors weighted with wheat. Take me where cars feed turnpikes, and bones break down in their graves. Where roads pass smokestacks; steel pipes scored on the lathe. Apricots sleep inside branches as the hunters slip deep into spring. And a hog drowns in the culvert. And the muskrat gives over its skin. Where dirt calls to the ash roots, the screech owl calling to rain. Where a boy leans on a headstone, pretending not to hear his name.

In this way we give our lack, we give what we do not have, Aristophanes’ claim that such a thing is impossible notwithstanding. Men in Western culture generally seem to have a harder time than women do admitting to lack, a harder time verbally admitting that they are missing something, incomplete in some respect, limited in some way – in a word, castrated. (The reader will, I hope, allow me to momentarily associate men with obsession here, and women with hysteria, in a way that vastly overgeneralizes things, in order to highlight something schematically at first.) I do not mean simply admitting that they do not actually know how to drive somewhere in particular or that they do not know some specific fact about something that has come up in a conversation – I mean a lack that is more far-reaching than that! To love is to admit to lack (Soler, 2003, p. 243), and Lacan even goes so far at one point – and here I am jumping ahead some 15 years in his work – to suggest that when a man loves, it is insofar as he is a woman (Lacan, 1973–4, class given on February 12, 1974). Insofar as he is a man, he can admit to desiring the so-called partial objects he sees in his partner, but he generally feels that perfectly good partial objects of much the same kind can be found in many different partners. Insofar as he is a man, he contents himself with the enjoyment he derives from the partial objects he finds in a whole series of interchangeable partners, and avoids like the plague showing that he lacks.But unlike desire, “Love demands love,” as Lacan (1998a, p. 4) puts it in Seminar XX; love insistently requests love in return. When one is fascinated by or lusts after a sexual partner, one’s desire does not necessarily wither or disappear if one does not feel desired in return. Even if “desire is the Other’s desire” (a claim often repeated by Lacan; see, for example, Lacan, 2015, p. 178), in the sense that we wish to be desired in return by the object of our desire, desire can do just fine without being requited. But “to love is to want to be loved” (Lacan, 2006a, p. 853): to love – at least in our times – is to implicitly ask the beloved for love that can make good or somehow compensate one for one’s own lack, the hollow or emptiness one feels inside. In this sense, all love seems to constitute a request for love in return. (In Alcibiades’ case, this takes the form of a pressing demand for Socrates to prove that he returns Alcibiades’ passion for Socrates.) Since to love is to show and declare one’s lack, love is feminine, as Colette Soler (2003, p. 97) says, following Lacan’s statements to their logical conclusion.

If the analysand becomes a lover, it is because he comes to believe that something in us corresponds to the lack in him. And like Alcibiades, he may even come to see still more in us, what Lacan calls object a, just as Alcibiades sees what he calls the precious, shiny agálmata in Socrates. Indeed, it is precisely these agálmata that first allow Lacan to formulate the notion of object a as we find it in all of his later work, the object that makes one person incommensurate with all others, nonfungible, irreplaceable. Alcibiades says, “I had a glimpse of the figures (agálmata) Socrates keeps hidden within: they were so godlike – so bright and beautiful, so utterly amazing – that I no longer had a choice – I just had to do whatever he told me” (216e). We analysts, however, realize that it is love for object a that we have managed to incite, not love for ourselves as living, breathing human beings with our own personalities. We do not seek to be loved “for ourselves” in analysis: we seek to set the analysand ablaze so that he will do the difficult work of analysis.