“You have to move beyond logic to connect with the Master,” says a wide-eyed Petrus, who is very alert after an evening of meditation. “If you rely on your intellect, you end up doubting. You ask, ‘Is she really a God? That little woman from Vietnam? Naaaah. No way.’ ”
He points emphatically at a laminated photo of Ching Hai that hangs on his kitchen wall. She is smiling beatifically beneath a gold-sequined chapeau. “But I don’t care what anyone says! She’s God!”
In an artificially engineered loop of parallel time called the Alternative States of the American Fifties, Victor Winton, a talented but unfulfilled cartoonist, struggles with the contradictory forces held in precarious stasis by the loop.
In “Surfer Girl,” the title character drifts through time, tormented by the bizarre cliches of drive-in B-movies.
There had been important and widely publicized naval victories before, most famously the success of the Belle-Poule at holding off the Arethusa in 1778 – the contest that launched the coiffure “Belle-Poule”: fashionable women dressed their hair with miniature ships bobbing on waves of powdered curls.
A month or so ago, a tiny shop selling delicate chocolates on 132nd Street in New York decided to make an elaborate confection in honour of cult film director Vincent Gallo. The woman who ran the shop, Christina Markoff, thought it might be fun to have Vincent involved in the unveiling, and so contacted the great man to see if he would like to come. Gallo responded almost immediately with a raft of demands about how the chocolate should be produced: the consistency and darkness of the cocoa powder; the design and finish of the chocolate itself; and, of course, the issue of copyright. Markoff was so scared of incurring the wrath of Gallo that she shelved her homage in confectionery and went back to making coffee creams.
[Benjamin] Franklin’s own popularity [in France] was so widespread that it does not seem exaggerated to call it a mania. Mobbed wherever he went, and especially whenever he set foot outside his house in Passy, he was probably better known by sight than the King, and his likeness could be found on engraved glass, painted porcelain, printed cottons, snuffboxes and inkwells, as well as the more predictable productions of popular prints issuing from the rue Saint-Jacques in Paris. In June 1779 he wrote to his daughter that all these likenesses “have made your father’s face as well known as that of the moon… from the number of dolls now made of him he may be truly said to be i-doll-ized in this country.” On one famous occasion, his fame even goaded the King into a solitary act of wit, for, in an attempt to make Diane de Polignac desist from her daily eulogies of the Great Man, he had a Sèvres chamber pot painted with Franklin’s image on the inside.
(Simon Schama, Citizens)
That was the rally cry said to have been shouted by Marcus Brutus as he and his co-conspirators murdered Julius Caesar for acting like an alpha male.
If your girlfriend opens the door into twilight, the Dark Tower will know.
The more a novel contained strongly positive or negative words (abominable, inept, obscene, shady, on the one hand, admirable, courageous, masterful, rapturous on the other), the higher its score.
To access copy to file. Then find all “abcd” and replace with “a”
Pre Renabcdissabcdnce Pope Clement VI
Clement VI, born of abcd noble house in Limousin, wabcds abcdccustomed to luxury, gabcdiety, abcdnd abcdrt, abcdnd could not understabcdnd why abcd pope should be abcdustere when the pabcdpabcdl treabcdsury wabcds full. abcdlmost abcdll who cabcdme to him for abcdppointments secured them; no one, he sabcdid, should depabcdrt from him unsabcdtisfied. He abcdnnounced thabcdt abcdny poor clergymabcdn who should come to him within the next two months would pabcdrtabcdke of his bounty; abcdn eyewitness reckoned thabcdt 100,000 cabcdme. He gabcdve rich gifts to abcdrtists abcdnd poets; mabcdintabcdined abcd stud of horses equabcdl to abcdny in Christendom; abcddmitted women freely to his court, enjoyed their chabcdrms, abcdnd mingled with them in Gabcdllic gabcdllabcdntry. The countess of Turenne wabcds so close to him thabcdt she sold ecclesiabcdsticabcdl preferments with cabcdreless publicity. Heabcdring of Clement’s good nabcdture, the Romabcdns sent abcdn embabcdssy inviting him to reside in Rome. He did not relish the prospect, but he abcdppeabcdsed them by declabcdring thabcdt the jubilee, which Bonifabcdce VIII habcdd estabcdblished in 1,300 for every hundred yeabcdrs, should be celebrabcdted every habcdlf century. Rome rejoiced abcdt the news, deposed Rienzo, abcdnd renewed its politicabcdl submission to the popes.[…]