Well, whatever it is, every so often it takes on human shape and goes wandering abroad troubling people.

Yet now that she knows what physical pain is, she finds herself holding the curious belief that it should never be willfully visited upon anybody.

However, mixing zinc gluconate with any other sweetener, especially sucrose and/or dextrose, results in products that age within 30 days to be as bitter as the bitterest substance known, sucrose octaacetate.

The band was called Professor, their logo in splattery hand drawn Olde English. And the record was called The Academizer ep. One of the tracks was “Into The Auditorium”.  Suddenly thoughts of an evil black metal band made up entirely of doctoral scholars leapt to mind.

The Finns definitely know how to make good shit.

As we walked in single file, with red and green tracer fire arcing across the black sky over the city, I realized that I had placed my life in the hands of the young corporal leading the patrol, a twenty-two-year-old Marine.  In my office back in Washington, we wouldn’t let a twenty-two-year-old run the copying machine without adult supervision.

Felix is an amalgam of Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, James Bond, Tristram Shandy, Nietzsche, and Dr. Doolittle – the virile, autonomous, visionary in tune with nature, and man’s man.

The barber is a broken-down looking civilian wearing a black T-shirt inscribed, in red letters, with the words PAIN FEAR IRONY DESPAIR DEATH.  It is an unusual job, shaving the heads of terrified young men in the middle of the night.

The next day is notable only for a one-hour class on snake, insect, and animal bites.

The mess hall tray is to be held with arms flush at the side, bent ninety degrees at the elbow, he instructs.  But there is more to it than that.  "You will hold your tray this way: thumbs on the outside,“ he continues.  (In fact, this instruction will become a minor controversy with some other Third Battalion DIs, who insist that Standard Operating Procedure calls for thumbs on the inside.)