qiao568yu
• 7/12/2010 - And I can quite see that New York must seem dull...
| And I can quite see that New York must seem dull to her, though the family won't admit itI think she's been used to lots of things we haven't got; wonderful music, and picture shows, and celebrities?artists and authors and all the clever people you admireGranny can't understand her wanting anything but lots of dinners and clothes?but I can see that you're almost the only person in New York who can talk to her about what she really cares for
His wise May?how he had loved her for that letter! But he had not meant to act on it; he was too busy, to begin with, and he did not care, as an engaged man, to play too conspicuously the part of Madame Olenska's championHe had an idea that she knew how to take care of herself a good deal better than the ingenuous May imaginedShe had Beaufort at her feet, Mrvan der Luyden hovering above her like a protecting deity, and any number of candidates (Lawrence Lefferts among them) waiting their opportunity in the middle distanceYet he never saw her, or exchanged a word with her, without feeling that, after all, May's ingenuousness almost amounted to a gift of divinationEllen Olenska was lonely and she was unhappy
As he came out into the lobby Archer ran across his friend Ned Winsett, the only one among what Janey called his "clever people" with whom he cared to probe into things a little deeper than the average level of club and chop-house banter
He prada logos had caught sight, across the house, of Winsett's shabby round-shouldered back, and had once noticed his eyes turned toward the Beaufort boxThe two men shook hands, and Winsett proposed a bock at a little German restaurant around the cornerArcher, who was not in the mood for the kind of talk they were likely to get there, declined on the plea that he had work to do at home; and Winsett said: "Oh, well so have I for that matter, and I'll be the Industrious Apprentice too
They strolled along together, and presently Winsett said: "Look here, what I'm really after is the name of the dark lady in that swell box of yours?with the Beauforts, wasn't she? The one your friend Lefferts seems so smitten by
Archer, he could not have said why, was slightly annoyedWhat the devil did Ned Winsett want with Ellen Olenska's name? And above all, why did he couple it with Lefferts's? It was unlike Winsett to manifest such curiosity; but after all, Archer remembered, he was a journalist
"It's not for an interview, I hope?" he laughed
"Well?not for the press; just for myself," Winsett rejoined"The fact is she's a neighbour of mine?queer quarter for such a beauty to settle in?and she's been awfully kind to my little boy, who fell down her area chasing his kitten, and gave himself a nasty cutShe rushed in bareheaded, carrying him in her arms, with his knee all beautifully bandaged, and was so chloe paddington handbag sympathetic and beautiful that my wife was too dazzled to ask her name
A pleasant glow dilated Archer's heartThere was nothing extraordinary in the tale: any woman would have done as much for a neighbour's childBut it was just like Ellen, he felt, to have rushed in bareheaded, carrying the boy in her arms, and to have dazzled poor MrsWinsett into forgetting to ask who she was
"That is the Countess Olenska?a granddaughter of old Mrs
"Whew?a Countess!" whistled Ned Winsett"Well, I didn't know Countesses were so neighbourly
"They would be, if you'd let them
"Ah, well?" It was their old interminable argument as to the obstinate unwillingness of the "clever people" to frequent the fashionable, and both men knew that there was no use in prolonging it
"I wonder," Winsett broke off, "how a Countess happens to live in our slum?"
"Because she doesn't care a hang about where she lives?or about any of our little social sign-posts," said Archer, with a secret pride in his own picture of her
"H'm?been in bigger places, I suppose," the other commented"Well, here's my corner
He slouched off across Broadway, and Archer stood looking after him and musing on his last words
Ned Winsett had those flashes of penetration; they were the most interesting thing about him, and always made Archer wonder why they had allowed him to accept failure so stolidly at an age when most men are fake birkin still struggling
Archer had known that Winsett had a wife and child, but he had never seen themThe two men always met at the Century, or at some haunt of journalists and theatrical people, such as the restaurant where Winsett had proposed to go for a bockHe had given Archer to understand that his wife was an invalid; which might be true of the poor lady, or might merely mean that she was lacking in social gifts or in evening clothes, or in bothWinsett himself had a savage abhorrence of social observances: Archer, who dressed in the evening because he thought it cleaner and more comfortable to do so, and who had never stopped to consider that cleanliness and comfort are two of the costliest items in a modest budget, regarded Winsett's attitude as part of the boring "Bohemian" pose that always made fashionable people, who changed their clothes without talking about it, and were not forever harping on the number of servants one kept, seem so much simpler and less self-conscious than the othersNevertheless, he was always stimulated by Winsett, and whenever he caught sight of the journalist's lean bearded face and melancholy eyes he would rout him out of his corner and carry him off for a long talk
Winsett was not a journalist by choiceHe was a pure man of letters, untimely born in a world that had no need of letters; but after publishing one volume of brief and exquisite literary replica omega seamaster planet ocean appreciations, of which one hundred and twenty copies were sold, thirty given away, and the balance eventually destroyed by the publishers (as per contract) to make room for more marketable material, he had abandoned his real calling, and taken a sub-editorial job on a women's weekly, where fashion-plates and paper patterns alternated with New England love-stories and advertisements of temperance drinks
On the subject of "Hearth-fires" (as the paper was called) he was inexhaustibly entertaining; but beneath his fun lurked the sterile bitterness of the still young man who has tried and given upHis conversation always made Archer take the measure of his own life, and feel how little it contained; but Winsett's, after all, contained still less, and though their common fund of intellectual interests and curiosities made their talks exhilarating, their exchange of views usually remained within the limits of a pensive dilettantism
"The fact is, life isn't much a fit for either of us," Winsett had once said"I'm down and out; nothing to be done about itI've got only one ware to produce, and there's no market for it here, and won't be in my timeBut you're free and you're well-offWhy don't you get into touch? There's only one way to do it: to go into politics
Archer threw his head back and laughedThere one saw at a flash the unbridgeable difference between men like Winsett and the others?Archer's tas hermes |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/12/2010 - And I can quite see that New York must seem dull...
| And I can quite see that New York must seem dull to her, though the family won't admit itI think she's been used to lots of things we haven't got; wonderful music, and picture shows, and celebrities?artists and authors and all the clever people you admireGranny can't understand her wanting anything but lots of dinners and clothes?but I can see that you're almost the only person in New York who can talk to her about what she really cares for
His wise May?how he had loved her for that letter! But he had not meant to act on it; he was too busy, to begin with, and he did not care, as an engaged man, to play too conspicuously the part of Madame Olenska's championHe had an idea that she knew how to take care of herself a good deal better than the ingenuous May imaginedShe had Beaufort at her feet, Mrvan der Luyden hovering above her like a protecting deity, and any number of candidates (Lawrence Lefferts among them) waiting their opportunity in the middle distanceYet he never saw her, or exchanged a word with her, without feeling that, after all, May's ingenuousness almost amounted to a gift of divinationEllen Olenska was lonely and she was unhappy
As he came out into the lobby Archer ran across his friend Ned Winsett, the only one among what Janey called his "clever people" with whom he cared to probe into things a little deeper than the average level of club and chop-house banter
He prada logos had caught sight, across the house, of Winsett's shabby round-shouldered back, and had once noticed his eyes turned toward the Beaufort boxThe two men shook hands, and Winsett proposed a bock at a little German restaurant around the cornerArcher, who was not in the mood for the kind of talk they were likely to get there, declined on the plea that he had work to do at home; and Winsett said: "Oh, well so have I for that matter, and I'll be the Industrious Apprentice too
They strolled along together, and presently Winsett said: "Look here, what I'm really after is the name of the dark lady in that swell box of yours?with the Beauforts, wasn't she? The one your friend Lefferts seems so smitten by
Archer, he could not have said why, was slightly annoyedWhat the devil did Ned Winsett want with Ellen Olenska's name? And above all, why did he couple it with Lefferts's? It was unlike Winsett to manifest such curiosity; but after all, Archer remembered, he was a journalist
"It's not for an interview, I hope?" he laughed
"Well?not for the press; just for myself," Winsett rejoined"The fact is she's a neighbour of mine?queer quarter for such a beauty to settle in?and she's been awfully kind to my little boy, who fell down her area chasing his kitten, and gave himself a nasty cutShe rushed in bareheaded, carrying him in her arms, with his knee all beautifully bandaged, and was so chloe paddington handbag sympathetic and beautiful that my wife was too dazzled to ask her name
A pleasant glow dilated Archer's heartThere was nothing extraordinary in the tale: any woman would have done as much for a neighbour's childBut it was just like Ellen, he felt, to have rushed in bareheaded, carrying the boy in her arms, and to have dazzled poor MrsWinsett into forgetting to ask who she was
"That is the Countess Olenska?a granddaughter of old Mrs
"Whew?a Countess!" whistled Ned Winsett"Well, I didn't know Countesses were so neighbourly
"They would be, if you'd let them
"Ah, well?" It was their old interminable argument as to the obstinate unwillingness of the "clever people" to frequent the fashionable, and both men knew that there was no use in prolonging it
"I wonder," Winsett broke off, "how a Countess happens to live in our slum?"
"Because she doesn't care a hang about where she lives?or about any of our little social sign-posts," said Archer, with a secret pride in his own picture of her
"H'm?been in bigger places, I suppose," the other commented"Well, here's my corner
He slouched off across Broadway, and Archer stood looking after him and musing on his last words
Ned Winsett had those flashes of penetration; they were the most interesting thing about him, and always made Archer wonder why they had allowed him to accept failure so stolidly at an age when most men are fake birkin still struggling
Archer had known that Winsett had a wife and child, but he had never seen themThe two men always met at the Century, or at some haunt of journalists and theatrical people, such as the restaurant where Winsett had proposed to go for a bockHe had given Archer to understand that his wife was an invalid; which might be true of the poor lady, or might merely mean that she was lacking in social gifts or in evening clothes, or in bothWinsett himself had a savage abhorrence of social observances: Archer, who dressed in the evening because he thought it cleaner and more comfortable to do so, and who had never stopped to consider that cleanliness and comfort are two of the costliest items in a modest budget, regarded Winsett's attitude as part of the boring "Bohemian" pose that always made fashionable people, who changed their clothes without talking about it, and were not forever harping on the number of servants one kept, seem so much simpler and less self-conscious than the othersNevertheless, he was always stimulated by Winsett, and whenever he caught sight of the journalist's lean bearded face and melancholy eyes he would rout him out of his corner and carry him off for a long talk
Winsett was not a journalist by choiceHe was a pure man of letters, untimely born in a world that had no need of letters; but after publishing one volume of brief and exquisite literary replica omega seamaster planet ocean appreciations, of which one hundred and twenty copies were sold, thirty given away, and the balance eventually destroyed by the publishers (as per contract) to make room for more marketable material, he had abandoned his real calling, and taken a sub-editorial job on a women's weekly, where fashion-plates and paper patterns alternated with New England love-stories and advertisements of temperance drinks
On the subject of "Hearth-fires" (as the paper was called) he was inexhaustibly entertaining; but beneath his fun lurked the sterile bitterness of the still young man who has tried and given upHis conversation always made Archer take the measure of his own life, and feel how little it contained; but Winsett's, after all, contained still less, and though their common fund of intellectual interests and curiosities made their talks exhilarating, their exchange of views usually remained within the limits of a pensive dilettantism
"The fact is, life isn't much a fit for either of us," Winsett had once said"I'm down and out; nothing to be done about itI've got only one ware to produce, and there's no market for it here, and won't be in my timeBut you're free and you're well-offWhy don't you get into touch? There's only one way to do it: to go into politics
Archer threw his head back and laughedThere one saw at a flash the unbridgeable difference between men like Winsett and the others?Archer's tas hermes |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/10/2010 - Archer, evidently perceiving the uselessness of...
| Archer, evidently perceiving the uselessness of trying to ascribe the actions of foreigners to a sense of delicacy
"I wonder if she wears a round hat or a bonnet in the afternoon," Janey speculated"At the Opera I know she had on dark blue velvet, perfectly plain and flat?like a night-gown
"Janey!" said her mother; and Miss Archer blushed and tried to look audacious
"It was, at any rate, in better taste not to go to the ball," Mrs
A spirit of perversity moved her son to rejoin: "I don't think it was a question of taste with herMay said she meant to go, and then decided that the dress in question wasn't smart enoughArcher smiled at this confirmation of her inference"Poor Ellen," she simply remarked; adding compassionately: "We must always bear in mind what an eccentric bringing-up Medora Manson gave herWhat can you expect of a girl who was allowed to wear black satin at her coming-out ball?"
"Ah?don't I remember her in it!" said MrJackson; adding: "Poor girl!" in the tone of one who, while enjoying prada logos the memory, had fully understood at the time what the sight portended
"It's odd," Janey remarked, "that she should have kept such an ugly name as EllenI should have changed it to Elaine She glanced about the table to see the effect of this
Her brother laughed"Why Elaine?"
"I don't know; it sounds more?more Polish," said Janey, blushing
"It sounds more conspicuous; and that can hardly be what she wishes," said Mrs
"Why not?" broke in her son, growing suddenly argumentative"Why shouldn't she be conspicuous if she chooses? Why should she slink about as if it were she who had disgraced herself? She's 'poor Ellen' certainly, because she had the bad luck to make a wretched marriage; but I don't see that that's a reason for hiding her head as if she were the culprit
"That, I suppose," said MrJackson, speculatively, "is the line the Mingotts mean to take
The young man reddened"I didn't have to wait for their cue, if that's what you mean, sirMadame Olenska has had an unhappy life: that doesn't make her chanel earrings fake an outcast
"There are rumours," began MrJackson, glancing at Janey
"Oh, I know: the secretary," the young man took him up"Nonsense, mother; Janey's grown-upThey say, don't they," he went on, "that the secretary helped her to get away from her brute of a husband, who kept her practically a prisoner? Well, what if he did? I hope there isn't a man among us who wouldn't have done the same in such a caseJackson glanced over his shoulder to say to the sad butler: "Perhaps just a little, after all?"; then, having helped himself, he remarked: "I'm told she's looking for a houseShe means to live here
"I hear she means to get a divorce," said Janey boldly
"I hope she will!" Archer exclaimed
The word had fallen like a bombshell in the pure and tranquil atmosphere of the Archer dining-roomArcher raised her delicate eye-brows in the particular curve that signified: "The butler?" and the young man, himself mindful of the bad taste of discussing such intimate matters in public, hastily branched off into an logo dolce |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/10/2010 - Archer, evidently perceiving the uselessness of...
| Archer, evidently perceiving the uselessness of trying to ascribe the actions of foreigners to a sense of delicacy
"I wonder if she wears a round hat or a bonnet in the afternoon," Janey speculated"At the Opera I know she had on dark blue velvet, perfectly plain and flat?like a night-gown
"Janey!" said her mother; and Miss Archer blushed and tried to look audacious
"It was, at any rate, in better taste not to go to the ball," Mrs
A spirit of perversity moved her son to rejoin: "I don't think it was a question of taste with herMay said she meant to go, and then decided that the dress in question wasn't smart enoughArcher smiled at this confirmation of her inference"Poor Ellen," she simply remarked; adding compassionately: "We must always bear in mind what an eccentric bringing-up Medora Manson gave herWhat can you expect of a girl who was allowed to wear black satin at her coming-out ball?"
"Ah?don't I remember her in it!" said MrJackson; adding: "Poor girl!" in the tone of one who, while enjoying prada logos the memory, had fully understood at the time what the sight portended
"It's odd," Janey remarked, "that she should have kept such an ugly name as EllenI should have changed it to Elaine She glanced about the table to see the effect of this
Her brother laughed"Why Elaine?"
"I don't know; it sounds more?more Polish," said Janey, blushing
"It sounds more conspicuous; and that can hardly be what she wishes," said Mrs
"Why not?" broke in her son, growing suddenly argumentative"Why shouldn't she be conspicuous if she chooses? Why should she slink about as if it were she who had disgraced herself? She's 'poor Ellen' certainly, because she had the bad luck to make a wretched marriage; but I don't see that that's a reason for hiding her head as if she were the culprit
"That, I suppose," said MrJackson, speculatively, "is the line the Mingotts mean to take
The young man reddened"I didn't have to wait for their cue, if that's what you mean, sirMadame Olenska has had an unhappy life: that doesn't make her chanel earrings fake an outcast
"There are rumours," began MrJackson, glancing at Janey
"Oh, I know: the secretary," the young man took him up"Nonsense, mother; Janey's grown-upThey say, don't they," he went on, "that the secretary helped her to get away from her brute of a husband, who kept her practically a prisoner? Well, what if he did? I hope there isn't a man among us who wouldn't have done the same in such a caseJackson glanced over his shoulder to say to the sad butler: "Perhaps just a little, after all?"; then, having helped himself, he remarked: "I'm told she's looking for a houseShe means to live here
"I hear she means to get a divorce," said Janey boldly
"I hope she will!" Archer exclaimed
The word had fallen like a bombshell in the pure and tranquil atmosphere of the Archer dining-roomArcher raised her delicate eye-brows in the particular curve that signified: "The butler?" and the young man, himself mindful of the bad taste of discussing such intimate matters in public, hastily branched off into an logo dolce |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/10/2010 - the anger that all of us feelour hearts go out to...
| the anger that all of us feelour hearts go out to the victim and his family, to the Hamlins, and to an entire community that is trying to understand and to cope with what has happeneda remarkable man and a wonderful physician who touched all our livesa special fund in memory of 'Doctor Fred'to contribute to this memorial, which will help indigent local families in time of medical needin this time of grief, we must rededicate ourselves, in his memory Alongside the editorial is an article headlined "Distance Heals All Wounds," which begins, "We'd all just as soon forgetthat soothing distance will come quicker to some than othersPeter Baliston of the First Congregational Church, in his sermon, sought to find some good in all the tragedywill bring the community closer together in a shared sorrowPatrick's Church gave an impassioned homily Beside that article is a third clipping, one that has no business being there, but he cannot tear that one down any more than he can go ahead and tear down the others, so it, too, hangs there for a yearIt is the interview with Edgar Bartley--both the interview and the picture of Edgar from the paper, showing him standing in front of his family's house with a shovel and his dog and behind him the path to the house freshly bolsas louis cleared of snowEdgar Bartley is the boy from Old Rimrock who'd taken Merry to the movies in Morristown some two years before the bombingHe was a year ahead of her at the high school, a boy as tall as Merry and, as the Swede remembered him, nice enough looking though terrifically shy and a bit of an oddballThe newspaper story describes him as Merry's boyfriend at the time of the bombing, though as far as her parents knew, Merry's date with Edgar Bartley two years earlier was the one and only date she'd ever had with him or with anyoneWhatever, someone has underlined in black all the quotations attributed to EdgarMaybe a friend of his did it as a joke, a high school jokeMaybe the article with the photograph was hung there as a joke in the first placeJoke or not, there it remains, month after month, and the Swede cannot get rid of it"It doesn't seem realI never thought she would do something like thisI knew her as a very nice girlI never heard her say anything viciousI'm sure something snappedI hope they find her so that she can get the help that she needsI always thought of Old Rimrock as a place where nothing can happen to youBut now I'm like everybody, I'm looking over my shoulderIt's going to take time before things return to normalI have to forget lady dior bag about itLike nothing happened
The only solace the Swede can take from the Community Club bulletin board is that no one has posted there the clipping whose headline reads "Suspected Bomber Is Described as Bright, Gifted but with 'Stubborn Streak'" That one he would have torn downHe would have had to go there in the middle of the night and just do itThis one article is no worse, probably, than any of the others that were appearing then, not just in their local weekly but in the New York papers--the Times, the Daily News, the Daily Mirror, the Post; in the Jersey dailies--the Newark News, the Newark Star-Ledger, the Morristown Record, the Bergen Record, the Trenton Times, the Pater-son News; in the nearby Pennsylvania papers--the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Bulletin, and the Easton Express; and in Time and NewsweekMost of the papers and the wire services dropped the story after the first week, but the Newark News and the Morristown Record in particular wouldn't let up--the News had three star reporters on the case, and both papers were churning out their stories about the Rimrock Bomber every single day for weeksThe Record, with its local orientation, couldn't stop reminding its readers that the Rimrock bombing was the most shattering disaster louis vuitton taschen in Morris County since the September 12, 1940, Hercules Powder Company explosion, some twelve miles away in Kenvil, when fifty-two people were killed and three hundred injuredThere had been a murder of a minister and a choirmaster in the late twenties, down in Middlesex County, in a lane just outside New Brunswick, and in the Morris village of Brookside there had been a murder by an inmate who had walked off the grounds of the Greystone mental asylum, visited his uncle in Brookside, and split the man's head open with an ax--and these stories, too, are dug up and rehashedAnd, of course, the Lindbergh kidnapping down in Hopewell, New Jersey, the abduction and murder of the infant son of Charles ALindbergh, the famous transatlantic aviator--that, too, the papers luridly recall, reprinting details over thirty years old about the ransom, the baby's battered corpse, the Flemington trial, reprinting newspaper excerpts from April 1936 about the electrocution of the convicted kidnapper-murderer, an immigrant carpenter named Bruno HauptmannDay after day, Merry Levov is mentioned in the context of the region's slender history of atrocities--her name several times appearing right alongside Hauptmann's--and I yet nothing of what's written wounds him as savagely as miu miu clutch the story about her "stubborn streak" in the local weeklyThere is something concealed there--yet implicit--a degree of provincial smugness, of simplemindedness, of sheer stupidity, that is so enraging to him that he could not have borne to see it hanging up for everybody to read and to shake their heads over at the Community Club bulletin boardWhatever Merry may or may not have done, he could not have allowed her life to be on display like that just outside the school
SUSPECTED BOMBER IS DESCRIBED AS BRIGHT, GIFTED BUT WITH "STUBBORN STREAK"
To her teachers at Old Rimrock Community School, Meredith "Merry" Levov, who allegedly bombed Hamlin's General Store and killed Old Rimrock's DrFred Conlon, was known as a multi-talented child, an excellent student and somebody who never challenged authorityPeople looking to her childhood for some clue about her alleged violent act remained stymied when they remembered her as a cooperative girl full of energy
"We are in disbelief," ORCS Principal Eileen Morrow said about the suspected bomber"It is hard to understand why this happened
As a student at the six-room elementary school, Principal Morrow said, Merry Levov was "very helpful and never in trouble
"She's not the kind of person who would do that," cartier must 21 M |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/9/2010 - the anger that all of us feelour hearts go out to...
| the anger that all of us feelour hearts go out to the victim and his family, to the Hamlins, and to an entire community that is trying to understand and to cope with what has happeneda remarkable man and a wonderful physician who touched all our livesa special fund in memory of 'Doctor Fred'to contribute to this memorial, which will help indigent local families in time of medical needin this time of grief, we must rededicate ourselves, in his memory Alongside the editorial is an article headlined "Distance Heals All Wounds," which begins, "We'd all just as soon forgetthat soothing distance will come quicker to some than othersPeter Baliston of the First Congregational Church, in his sermon, sought to find some good in all the tragedywill bring the community closer together in a shared sorrowPatrick's Church gave an impassioned homily Beside that article is a third clipping, one that has no business being there, but he cannot tear that one down any more than he can go ahead and tear down the others, so it, too, hangs there for a yearIt is the interview with Edgar Bartley--both the interview and the picture of Edgar from the paper, showing him standing in front of his family's house with a shovel and his dog and behind him the path to the house freshly bolsas louis cleared of snowEdgar Bartley is the boy from Old Rimrock who'd taken Merry to the movies in Morristown some two years before the bombingHe was a year ahead of her at the high school, a boy as tall as Merry and, as the Swede remembered him, nice enough looking though terrifically shy and a bit of an oddballThe newspaper story describes him as Merry's boyfriend at the time of the bombing, though as far as her parents knew, Merry's date with Edgar Bartley two years earlier was the one and only date she'd ever had with him or with anyoneWhatever, someone has underlined in black all the quotations attributed to EdgarMaybe a friend of his did it as a joke, a high school jokeMaybe the article with the photograph was hung there as a joke in the first placeJoke or not, there it remains, month after month, and the Swede cannot get rid of it"It doesn't seem realI never thought she would do something like thisI knew her as a very nice girlI never heard her say anything viciousI'm sure something snappedI hope they find her so that she can get the help that she needsI always thought of Old Rimrock as a place where nothing can happen to youBut now I'm like everybody, I'm looking over my shoulderIt's going to take time before things return to normalI have to forget lady dior bag about itLike nothing happened
The only solace the Swede can take from the Community Club bulletin board is that no one has posted there the clipping whose headline reads "Suspected Bomber Is Described as Bright, Gifted but with 'Stubborn Streak'" That one he would have torn downHe would have had to go there in the middle of the night and just do itThis one article is no worse, probably, than any of the others that were appearing then, not just in their local weekly but in the New York papers--the Times, the Daily News, the Daily Mirror, the Post; in the Jersey dailies--the Newark News, the Newark Star-Ledger, the Morristown Record, the Bergen Record, the Trenton Times, the Pater-son News; in the nearby Pennsylvania papers--the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Bulletin, and the Easton Express; and in Time and NewsweekMost of the papers and the wire services dropped the story after the first week, but the Newark News and the Morristown Record in particular wouldn't let up--the News had three star reporters on the case, and both papers were churning out their stories about the Rimrock Bomber every single day for weeksThe Record, with its local orientation, couldn't stop reminding its readers that the Rimrock bombing was the most shattering disaster louis vuitton taschen in Morris County since the September 12, 1940, Hercules Powder Company explosion, some twelve miles away in Kenvil, when fifty-two people were killed and three hundred injuredThere had been a murder of a minister and a choirmaster in the late twenties, down in Middlesex County, in a lane just outside New Brunswick, and in the Morris village of Brookside there had been a murder by an inmate who had walked off the grounds of the Greystone mental asylum, visited his uncle in Brookside, and split the man's head open with an ax--and these stories, too, are dug up and rehashedAnd, of course, the Lindbergh kidnapping down in Hopewell, New Jersey, the abduction and murder of the infant son of Charles ALindbergh, the famous transatlantic aviator--that, too, the papers luridly recall, reprinting details over thirty years old about the ransom, the baby's battered corpse, the Flemington trial, reprinting newspaper excerpts from April 1936 about the electrocution of the convicted kidnapper-murderer, an immigrant carpenter named Bruno HauptmannDay after day, Merry Levov is mentioned in the context of the region's slender history of atrocities--her name several times appearing right alongside Hauptmann's--and I yet nothing of what's written wounds him as savagely as miu miu clutch the story about her "stubborn streak" in the local weeklyThere is something concealed there--yet implicit--a degree of provincial smugness, of simplemindedness, of sheer stupidity, that is so enraging to him that he could not have borne to see it hanging up for everybody to read and to shake their heads over at the Community Club bulletin boardWhatever Merry may or may not have done, he could not have allowed her life to be on display like that just outside the school
SUSPECTED BOMBER IS DESCRIBED AS BRIGHT, GIFTED BUT WITH "STUBBORN STREAK"
To her teachers at Old Rimrock Community School, Meredith "Merry" Levov, who allegedly bombed Hamlin's General Store and killed Old Rimrock's DrFred Conlon, was known as a multi-talented child, an excellent student and somebody who never challenged authorityPeople looking to her childhood for some clue about her alleged violent act remained stymied when they remembered her as a cooperative girl full of energy
"We are in disbelief," ORCS Principal Eileen Morrow said about the suspected bomber"It is hard to understand why this happened
As a student at the six-room elementary school, Principal Morrow said, Merry Levov was "very helpful and never in trouble
"She's not the kind of person who would do that," cartier must 21 M |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/9/2010 - the anger that all of us feelour hearts go out to...
| the anger that all of us feelour hearts go out to the victim and his family, to the Hamlins, and to an entire community that is trying to understand and to cope with what has happeneda remarkable man and a wonderful physician who touched all our livesa special fund in memory of 'Doctor Fred'to contribute to this memorial, which will help indigent local families in time of medical needin this time of grief, we must rededicate ourselves, in his memory Alongside the editorial is an article headlined "Distance Heals All Wounds," which begins, "We'd all just as soon forgetthat soothing distance will come quicker to some than othersPeter Baliston of the First Congregational Church, in his sermon, sought to find some good in all the tragedywill bring the community closer together in a shared sorrowPatrick's Church gave an impassioned homily Beside that article is a third clipping, one that has no business being there, but he cannot tear that one down any more than he can go ahead and tear down the others, so it, too, hangs there for a yearIt is the interview with Edgar Bartley--both the interview and the picture of Edgar from the paper, showing him standing in front of his family's house with a shovel and his dog and behind him the path to the house freshly bolsas louis cleared of snowEdgar Bartley is the boy from Old Rimrock who'd taken Merry to the movies in Morristown some two years before the bombingHe was a year ahead of her at the high school, a boy as tall as Merry and, as the Swede remembered him, nice enough looking though terrifically shy and a bit of an oddballThe newspaper story describes him as Merry's boyfriend at the time of the bombing, though as far as her parents knew, Merry's date with Edgar Bartley two years earlier was the one and only date she'd ever had with him or with anyoneWhatever, someone has underlined in black all the quotations attributed to EdgarMaybe a friend of his did it as a joke, a high school jokeMaybe the article with the photograph was hung there as a joke in the first placeJoke or not, there it remains, month after month, and the Swede cannot get rid of it"It doesn't seem realI never thought she would do something like thisI knew her as a very nice girlI never heard her say anything viciousI'm sure something snappedI hope they find her so that she can get the help that she needsI always thought of Old Rimrock as a place where nothing can happen to youBut now I'm like everybody, I'm looking over my shoulderIt's going to take time before things return to normalI have to forget lady dior bag about itLike nothing happened
The only solace the Swede can take from the Community Club bulletin board is that no one has posted there the clipping whose headline reads "Suspected Bomber Is Described as Bright, Gifted but with 'Stubborn Streak'" That one he would have torn downHe would have had to go there in the middle of the night and just do itThis one article is no worse, probably, than any of the others that were appearing then, not just in their local weekly but in the New York papers--the Times, the Daily News, the Daily Mirror, the Post; in the Jersey dailies--the Newark News, the Newark Star-Ledger, the Morristown Record, the Bergen Record, the Trenton Times, the Pater-son News; in the nearby Pennsylvania papers--the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Bulletin, and the Easton Express; and in Time and NewsweekMost of the papers and the wire services dropped the story after the first week, but the Newark News and the Morristown Record in particular wouldn't let up--the News had three star reporters on the case, and both papers were churning out their stories about the Rimrock Bomber every single day for weeksThe Record, with its local orientation, couldn't stop reminding its readers that the Rimrock bombing was the most shattering disaster louis vuitton taschen in Morris County since the September 12, 1940, Hercules Powder Company explosion, some twelve miles away in Kenvil, when fifty-two people were killed and three hundred injuredThere had been a murder of a minister and a choirmaster in the late twenties, down in Middlesex County, in a lane just outside New Brunswick, and in the Morris village of Brookside there had been a murder by an inmate who had walked off the grounds of the Greystone mental asylum, visited his uncle in Brookside, and split the man's head open with an ax--and these stories, too, are dug up and rehashedAnd, of course, the Lindbergh kidnapping down in Hopewell, New Jersey, the abduction and murder of the infant son of Charles ALindbergh, the famous transatlantic aviator--that, too, the papers luridly recall, reprinting details over thirty years old about the ransom, the baby's battered corpse, the Flemington trial, reprinting newspaper excerpts from April 1936 about the electrocution of the convicted kidnapper-murderer, an immigrant carpenter named Bruno HauptmannDay after day, Merry Levov is mentioned in the context of the region's slender history of atrocities--her name several times appearing right alongside Hauptmann's--and I yet nothing of what's written wounds him as savagely as miu miu clutch the story about her "stubborn streak" in the local weeklyThere is something concealed there--yet implicit--a degree of provincial smugness, of simplemindedness, of sheer stupidity, that is so enraging to him that he could not have borne to see it hanging up for everybody to read and to shake their heads over at the Community Club bulletin boardWhatever Merry may or may not have done, he could not have allowed her life to be on display like that just outside the school
SUSPECTED BOMBER IS DESCRIBED AS BRIGHT, GIFTED BUT WITH "STUBBORN STREAK"
To her teachers at Old Rimrock Community School, Meredith "Merry" Levov, who allegedly bombed Hamlin's General Store and killed Old Rimrock's DrFred Conlon, was known as a multi-talented child, an excellent student and somebody who never challenged authorityPeople looking to her childhood for some clue about her alleged violent act remained stymied when they remembered her as a cooperative girl full of energy
"We are in disbelief," ORCS Principal Eileen Morrow said about the suspected bomber"It is hard to understand why this happened
As a student at the six-room elementary school, Principal Morrow said, Merry Levov was "very helpful and never in trouble
"She's not the kind of person who would do that," cartier must 21 M |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/8/2010 - Welland's own time unprovided for
"Of course...
| Welland's own time unprovided for
"Of course I'll drive with Papa?I'm sure Newland will find something to do," May said, in a tone that gently reminded her husband of his lack of responseIt was a cause of constant distress to MrsWelland that her son-in-law showed so little foresight in planning his daysOften already, during the fortnight that he had passed under her roof, when she enquired how he meant to spend his afternoon, he had answered paradoxically: "Oh, I think for a change I'll just save it instead of spending it?" and once, when she and May had had to go on a long-postponed round of afternoon calls, he had confessed to having lain all the afternoon under a rock on the beach below the house
"Newland never seems to look ahead," MrsWelland once ventured to complain to her daughter; and May answered serenely: "No; but you see it doesn't matter, because when there's nothing particular to do he reads a book
"Ah, yes?like his father!" MrsWelland agreed, as if allowing for an inherited oddity; and after that the question of Newland's unemployment was tacitly dropped
Nevertheless, as the day for the Sillerton reception approached, May began to show a natural solicitude for his welfare, and to suggest a tennis match at the Chiverses', or a sail on Julius Beaufort's cutter, as a means of atoning for her temporary desertion"I shall be back by six, you know, dear: Papa never drives later than that?" and she was not reassured till Archer said that he thought of hiring a run-about and driving up the island to a stud-farm to look at a second horse for sac chloe her broughamThey had been looking for this horse for some time, and the suggestion was so acceptable that May glanced at her mother as if to say: "You see he knows how to plan out his time as well as any of us
The idea of the stud-farm and the brougham horse had germinated in Archer's mind on the very day when the Emerson Sillerton invitation had first been mentioned; but he had kept it to himself as if there were something clandestine in the plan, and discovery might prevent its executionHe had, however, taken the precaution to engage in advance a runabout with a pair of old livery-stable trotters that could still do their eighteen miles on level roads; and at two o'clock, hastily deserting the luncheon-table, he sprang into the light carriage and drove off
The day was perfectA breeze from the north drove little puffs of white cloud across an ultramarine sky, with a bright sea running under itBellevue Avenue was empty at that hour, and after dropping the stable-lad at the corner of Mill Street Archer turned down the Old Beach Road and drove across Eastman's Beach
He had the feeling of unexplained excitement with which, on half-holidays at school, he used to start off into the unknownTaking his pair at an easy gait, he counted on reaching the stud-farm, which was not far beyond Paradise Rocks, before three o'clock; so that, after looking over the horse (and trying him if he seemed promising) he would still have four golden hours to dispose of
As soon as he heard of the Sillerton's party he had said to himself that the Marchioness Manson would white chanel watch ceramic certainly come to Newport with the Blenkers, and that Madame Olenska might again take the opportunity of spending the day with her grandmotherAt any rate, the Blenker habitation would probably be deserted, and he would be able, without indiscretion, to satisfy a vague curiosity concerning itHe was not sure that he wanted to see the Countess Olenska again; but ever since he had looked at her from the path above the bay he had wanted, irrationally and indescribably, to see the place she was living in, and to follow the movements of her imagined figure as he had watched the real one in the summer-houseThe longing was with him day and night, an incessant undefinable craving, like the sudden whim of a sick man for food or drink once tasted and long since forgottenHe could not see beyond the craving, or picture what it might lead to, for he was not conscious of any wish to speak to Madame Olenska or to hear her voiceHe simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty
When he reached the stud-farm a glance showed him that the horse was not what he wanted; nevertheless he took a turn behind it in order to prove to himself that he was not in a hurryBut at three o'clock he shook out the reins over the trotters and turned into the by-roads leading to PortsmouthThe wind had dropped and a faint haze on the horizon showed that a fog was waiting to steal up the Saconnet on the turn of the tide; but all about him fields and woods were steeped in golden miu miu clutch light
He drove past grey-shingled farm-houses in orchards, past hay-fields and groves of oak, past villages with white steeples rising sharply into the fading sky; and at last, after stopping to ask the way of some men at work in a field, he turned down a lane between high banks of goldenrod and bramblesAt the end of the lane was the blue glimmer of the river; to the left, standing in front of a clump of oaks and maples, he saw a long tumble-down house with white paint peeling from its clapboards
On the road-side facing the gateway stood one of the open sheds in which the New Englander shelters his farming implements and visitors "hitch" their "teams Archer, jumping down, led his pair into the shed, and after tying them to a post turned toward the houseThe patch of lawn before it had relapsed into a hay-field; but to the left an overgrown box-garden full of dahlias and rusty rose-bushes encircled a ghostly summer-house of trellis-work that had once been white, surmounted by a wooden Cupid who had lost his bow and arrow but continued to take ineffectual aim
Archer leaned for a while against the gateNo one was in sight, and not a sound came from the open windows of the house: a grizzled Newfoundland dozing before the door seemed as ineffectual a guardian as the arrowless CupidIt was strange to think that this place of silence and decay was the home of the turbulent Blenkers; yet Archer was sure that he was not mistaken
For a long time he stood there, content to take in the scene, and gradually falling under its drowsy spell; but at length he roused himself omega speedmaster day-date to the sense of the passing timeShould he look his fill and then drive away? He stood irresolute, wishing suddenly to see the inside of the house, so that he might picture the room that Madame Olenska sat inThere was nothing to prevent his walking up to the door and ringing the bell; if, as he supposed, she was away with the rest of the party, he could easily give his name, and ask permission to go into the sitting-room to write a message
But instead, he crossed the lawn and turned toward the box-gardenAs he entered it he caught sight of something bright-coloured in the summer-house, and presently made it out to be a pink parasolThe parasol drew him like a magnet: he was sure it was hersHe went into the summer-house, and sitting down on the rickety seat picked up the silken thing and looked at its carved handle, which was made of some rare wood that gave out an aromatic scentArcher lifted the handle to his lips
He heard a rustle of skirts against the box, and sat motionless, leaning on the parasol handle with clasped hands, and letting the rustle come nearer without lifting his eyesHe had always known that this must happen Archer!" exclaimed a loud young voice; and looking up he saw before him the youngest and largest of the Blenker girls, blonde and blowsy, in bedraggled muslinA red blotch on one of her cheeks seemed to show that it had recently been pressed against a pillow, and her half-awakened eyes stared at him hospitably but confusedly
"Gracious?where did you drop from? I must have been sound asleep in the hammockEverybody else has gone to fendi spy bag replica Newpor |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/8/2010 - Welland's own time unprovided for
"Of course...
| Welland's own time unprovided for
"Of course I'll drive with Papa?I'm sure Newland will find something to do," May said, in a tone that gently reminded her husband of his lack of responseIt was a cause of constant distress to MrsWelland that her son-in-law showed so little foresight in planning his daysOften already, during the fortnight that he had passed under her roof, when she enquired how he meant to spend his afternoon, he had answered paradoxically: "Oh, I think for a change I'll just save it instead of spending it?" and once, when she and May had had to go on a long-postponed round of afternoon calls, he had confessed to having lain all the afternoon under a rock on the beach below the house
"Newland never seems to look ahead," MrsWelland once ventured to complain to her daughter; and May answered serenely: "No; but you see it doesn't matter, because when there's nothing particular to do he reads a book
"Ah, yes?like his father!" MrsWelland agreed, as if allowing for an inherited oddity; and after that the question of Newland's unemployment was tacitly dropped
Nevertheless, as the day for the Sillerton reception approached, May began to show a natural solicitude for his welfare, and to suggest a tennis match at the Chiverses', or a sail on Julius Beaufort's cutter, as a means of atoning for her temporary desertion"I shall be back by six, you know, dear: Papa never drives later than that?" and she was not reassured till Archer said that he thought of hiring a run-about and driving up the island to a stud-farm to look at a second horse for sac chloe her broughamThey had been looking for this horse for some time, and the suggestion was so acceptable that May glanced at her mother as if to say: "You see he knows how to plan out his time as well as any of us
The idea of the stud-farm and the brougham horse had germinated in Archer's mind on the very day when the Emerson Sillerton invitation had first been mentioned; but he had kept it to himself as if there were something clandestine in the plan, and discovery might prevent its executionHe had, however, taken the precaution to engage in advance a runabout with a pair of old livery-stable trotters that could still do their eighteen miles on level roads; and at two o'clock, hastily deserting the luncheon-table, he sprang into the light carriage and drove off
The day was perfectA breeze from the north drove little puffs of white cloud across an ultramarine sky, with a bright sea running under itBellevue Avenue was empty at that hour, and after dropping the stable-lad at the corner of Mill Street Archer turned down the Old Beach Road and drove across Eastman's Beach
He had the feeling of unexplained excitement with which, on half-holidays at school, he used to start off into the unknownTaking his pair at an easy gait, he counted on reaching the stud-farm, which was not far beyond Paradise Rocks, before three o'clock; so that, after looking over the horse (and trying him if he seemed promising) he would still have four golden hours to dispose of
As soon as he heard of the Sillerton's party he had said to himself that the Marchioness Manson would white chanel watch ceramic certainly come to Newport with the Blenkers, and that Madame Olenska might again take the opportunity of spending the day with her grandmotherAt any rate, the Blenker habitation would probably be deserted, and he would be able, without indiscretion, to satisfy a vague curiosity concerning itHe was not sure that he wanted to see the Countess Olenska again; but ever since he had looked at her from the path above the bay he had wanted, irrationally and indescribably, to see the place she was living in, and to follow the movements of her imagined figure as he had watched the real one in the summer-houseThe longing was with him day and night, an incessant undefinable craving, like the sudden whim of a sick man for food or drink once tasted and long since forgottenHe could not see beyond the craving, or picture what it might lead to, for he was not conscious of any wish to speak to Madame Olenska or to hear her voiceHe simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty
When he reached the stud-farm a glance showed him that the horse was not what he wanted; nevertheless he took a turn behind it in order to prove to himself that he was not in a hurryBut at three o'clock he shook out the reins over the trotters and turned into the by-roads leading to PortsmouthThe wind had dropped and a faint haze on the horizon showed that a fog was waiting to steal up the Saconnet on the turn of the tide; but all about him fields and woods were steeped in golden miu miu clutch light
He drove past grey-shingled farm-houses in orchards, past hay-fields and groves of oak, past villages with white steeples rising sharply into the fading sky; and at last, after stopping to ask the way of some men at work in a field, he turned down a lane between high banks of goldenrod and bramblesAt the end of the lane was the blue glimmer of the river; to the left, standing in front of a clump of oaks and maples, he saw a long tumble-down house with white paint peeling from its clapboards
On the road-side facing the gateway stood one of the open sheds in which the New Englander shelters his farming implements and visitors "hitch" their "teams Archer, jumping down, led his pair into the shed, and after tying them to a post turned toward the houseThe patch of lawn before it had relapsed into a hay-field; but to the left an overgrown box-garden full of dahlias and rusty rose-bushes encircled a ghostly summer-house of trellis-work that had once been white, surmounted by a wooden Cupid who had lost his bow and arrow but continued to take ineffectual aim
Archer leaned for a while against the gateNo one was in sight, and not a sound came from the open windows of the house: a grizzled Newfoundland dozing before the door seemed as ineffectual a guardian as the arrowless CupidIt was strange to think that this place of silence and decay was the home of the turbulent Blenkers; yet Archer was sure that he was not mistaken
For a long time he stood there, content to take in the scene, and gradually falling under its drowsy spell; but at length he roused himself omega speedmaster day-date to the sense of the passing timeShould he look his fill and then drive away? He stood irresolute, wishing suddenly to see the inside of the house, so that he might picture the room that Madame Olenska sat inThere was nothing to prevent his walking up to the door and ringing the bell; if, as he supposed, she was away with the rest of the party, he could easily give his name, and ask permission to go into the sitting-room to write a message
But instead, he crossed the lawn and turned toward the box-gardenAs he entered it he caught sight of something bright-coloured in the summer-house, and presently made it out to be a pink parasolThe parasol drew him like a magnet: he was sure it was hersHe went into the summer-house, and sitting down on the rickety seat picked up the silken thing and looked at its carved handle, which was made of some rare wood that gave out an aromatic scentArcher lifted the handle to his lips
He heard a rustle of skirts against the box, and sat motionless, leaning on the parasol handle with clasped hands, and letting the rustle come nearer without lifting his eyesHe had always known that this must happen Archer!" exclaimed a loud young voice; and looking up he saw before him the youngest and largest of the Blenker girls, blonde and blowsy, in bedraggled muslinA red blotch on one of her cheeks seemed to show that it had recently been pressed against a pillow, and her half-awakened eyes stared at him hospitably but confusedly
"Gracious?where did you drop from? I must have been sound asleep in the hammockEverybody else has gone to fendi spy bag replica Newpor |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/8/2010 - Well, this is what life smells likeSmell the...
| Well, this is what life smells likeSmell the inside of a brand-new pussy
Her dark child's eyesFull of excitement and funFull of unreasonablenessAnd only half of it was performanceShe was in an altered stateThe genie of disasterAs though in being his tormentor and wrecking his family she had found the malicious meaning for her own existence
"Your physical restraint is amazing," she said"Isn't there anything that can get you off dead center? I didn't believe there were any left like youAny other man would have been overcome by his hard-on hours ago
"You're not a womanThis does not make you a woman in any wayThis makes you a travesty of a woman Rapidly firing back at her like a soldier under attack
"And a man who won't look, what's he a travesty of?" she asked chanel reporter bag him"Isn't it just human nature to look? What about a man always averting his eyes because it's all too steeped in reality for him? Because nothing is in harmony with the world as he knows it? Thinks he knows itTaste it! Of course it's loathsome, you great big Boy Scout--I'm depraved!" and merrily laughing off his refusal to lower his gaze by so much as an inch, she cried, "Here!"
She must have reached inside herself with her hand, her hand must have disappeared inside her, because a moment later it was the whole of her hand that she was extending upward to himThe tips of her fingers bore the smell of her right up to himThat he could not shut out, the fecund smell released from within
"This'll unlock the mysteryYou want to know what this has to do with what saddle christian dior happened?" she said
There was so much emotion in him, so much uncertainty, so much inclination and counterinclination, he was bursting so with impulse and counterimpulse that he could no longer tell which of them had drawn the line that he would not pass overAll his thinking seemed to be taking place in a foreign language, but still he knew enough not to pass over the lineHe would not pick her up and hurl her against the windowHe would not pick her up and throw her onto the floorHe would not pick her up for any reasonAll the strength left in him would be marshaled to keep him paralyzed at the foot of the bedHe would not go near her
The hand she'd offered him she now carried slowly up to her face, making loony, comical little circles in the air as she approached her uhr rolex mouthThen, one by one, she slipped each finger between her lips to cleanse it"You know what it tastes like? Want me to tell you? It tastes like your d-d-d-daughter
Here he bolted the roomWith all his strengthTen, twelve minutes and it was overBy the time the FBI responded to his phone call and got to the hotel, she was gone, as was the briefcase he had abandonedHe'd bolted not from the childlike cruelty and meanness, not even from the vicious provocation, but from something that he could no longer name
Faced with something he could not name, he had done everything wrongIn vain, the Rimrock Bomber's father waits for Rita to reappear at his officeHe did not take her photograph, did not save her fingerprints--no, whenever they met, for those few minutes, she, a old omega child, was bossAnd now she's disappearedWith an agent and a sketch artist to assist him, he is asked to construct a picture of Rita for the FBI, while alone he studies the daily paper and the weekly newsmagazines, searching for the real thingHe waits for Rita's picture to turn upShe is bound to be thereBombs are going off everywhereIn Boulder, Colorado, bombs destroy a Selective Service office and the ROTC headquarters at the University of ColoradoIn Michigan there are explosions at the university and dynamite attacks on a police headquarters and the draft boardIn Wisconsin a bomb destroys a National Guard armory; a small plane flies over and drops two jars filled with gunpowder on an ammunition plantCollege buildings are attacked with bombs at the University of black chanel quilted Wiscons |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/7/2010 - Well, this is what life smells likeSmell the...
| Well, this is what life smells likeSmell the inside of a brand-new pussy
Her dark child's eyesFull of excitement and funFull of unreasonablenessAnd only half of it was performanceShe was in an altered stateThe genie of disasterAs though in being his tormentor and wrecking his family she had found the malicious meaning for her own existence
"Your physical restraint is amazing," she said"Isn't there anything that can get you off dead center? I didn't believe there were any left like youAny other man would have been overcome by his hard-on hours ago
"You're not a womanThis does not make you a woman in any wayThis makes you a travesty of a woman Rapidly firing back at her like a soldier under attack
"And a man who won't look, what's he a travesty of?" she asked chanel reporter bag him"Isn't it just human nature to look? What about a man always averting his eyes because it's all too steeped in reality for him? Because nothing is in harmony with the world as he knows it? Thinks he knows itTaste it! Of course it's loathsome, you great big Boy Scout--I'm depraved!" and merrily laughing off his refusal to lower his gaze by so much as an inch, she cried, "Here!"
She must have reached inside herself with her hand, her hand must have disappeared inside her, because a moment later it was the whole of her hand that she was extending upward to himThe tips of her fingers bore the smell of her right up to himThat he could not shut out, the fecund smell released from within
"This'll unlock the mysteryYou want to know what this has to do with what saddle christian dior happened?" she said
There was so much emotion in him, so much uncertainty, so much inclination and counterinclination, he was bursting so with impulse and counterimpulse that he could no longer tell which of them had drawn the line that he would not pass overAll his thinking seemed to be taking place in a foreign language, but still he knew enough not to pass over the lineHe would not pick her up and hurl her against the windowHe would not pick her up and throw her onto the floorHe would not pick her up for any reasonAll the strength left in him would be marshaled to keep him paralyzed at the foot of the bedHe would not go near her
The hand she'd offered him she now carried slowly up to her face, making loony, comical little circles in the air as she approached her uhr rolex mouthThen, one by one, she slipped each finger between her lips to cleanse it"You know what it tastes like? Want me to tell you? It tastes like your d-d-d-daughter
Here he bolted the roomWith all his strengthTen, twelve minutes and it was overBy the time the FBI responded to his phone call and got to the hotel, she was gone, as was the briefcase he had abandonedHe'd bolted not from the childlike cruelty and meanness, not even from the vicious provocation, but from something that he could no longer name
Faced with something he could not name, he had done everything wrongIn vain, the Rimrock Bomber's father waits for Rita to reappear at his officeHe did not take her photograph, did not save her fingerprints--no, whenever they met, for those few minutes, she, a old omega child, was bossAnd now she's disappearedWith an agent and a sketch artist to assist him, he is asked to construct a picture of Rita for the FBI, while alone he studies the daily paper and the weekly newsmagazines, searching for the real thingHe waits for Rita's picture to turn upShe is bound to be thereBombs are going off everywhereIn Boulder, Colorado, bombs destroy a Selective Service office and the ROTC headquarters at the University of ColoradoIn Michigan there are explosions at the university and dynamite attacks on a police headquarters and the draft boardIn Wisconsin a bomb destroys a National Guard armory; a small plane flies over and drops two jars filled with gunpowder on an ammunition plantCollege buildings are attacked with bombs at the University of black chanel quilted Wiscons |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/6/2010 - Look, I've got kids, kids galore--I know what...
| Look, I've got kids, kids galore--I know what kids are like growing upThe black hole of self-absorption is bottomlessBut it's one thing to get fat, it's one thing to let your hair grow long, it's one thing to listen to rock-and-roll music too loud, but it's another to jump the line and throw a bombThat crime could never be made rightThere was no way back for my brother from that bombThat bomb detonated his lifeHis perfect life was overJust what she had in mindThat's why they had it in for him, the daughter and her friendsHe was so in love with his own good luck, and they hated him for itOnce we were all up at his place for Thanksgiving, the Dwyer mother, Dawn's kid brother Danny, Danny's wife, all the Levovs, our kids, everybody, and Seymour got up to make a toast and he said, 'I'm not a religious man, but when I look around this table, I know that something is shining down on me' It was him they vintage gucci bags were really out to getThe bomb might as well have gone off in their living roomThe violence done to his life was awfulNever in his life had occasion to ask himself, 'Why are things the way they are?' Why should he bother, when the way they were was always perfect? Why are things the way they are? The question to which there is no answer, and up till then he was so blessed he didn't even know the question existed
Had Jerry ever before been so full of his brother's life and his brother's story? It did not strike me that all the despotic determination concentrated in that strange head could ever have allowed him to divide his attention into very many partsNot that death ordinarily impinges upon the majesty of self-obsession; generally it intensifies it: "What about me? What if this happens to me?"
"He told you it was horrible?"
"OnceOnly once," Jerry replied"No, Seymour just took it and took itYou miu miu coffer could stay on this guy and stay on this guy and he'd just keep making the effort," Jerry said bitterly"Poor son of a bitch, that was his fate--built for bearing burdens and taking shit," and with his saying this, I remembered those scrimmage pileups from which the Swede would extricate himself, always still clutching the ball, and how seriously I'd fallen in love with him on that late-autumn afternoon long ago when he'd transformed my ten-year-old existence by selecting me to enter the fantasy of Swede Levov's life--when for a moment it had seemed that I, too, had been called to great things and that nothing in the world could ever obstruct my way now that our god's benign countenance had shed its light on me alone"Basketball was never like this, Skip How captivatingly that innocence spoke to my ownThe significance he had given meIt was everything a boy could have wanted in 1943Remember, when we were chloe paddington handbag kids, he joined the marines to fight the Japs? Well, he was a goddamn marineCaved in only once, down in Florida," Jerry said"It just got to be too much for himHe'd brought the whole family down to visit us, the boys and the second superbly selfish MrsThat was two years agoWe all went to this stone-crab placeTwelve of us for dinnerLots of noise, the kids all showing off and laughingThe whole handsome family there, life just the way it's supposed to beBut when the pie and coffee came he got up from the table, and when he didn't come back right away I went out and found himI'd never seen him like thatHe said, 'I miss my daughter' I said, 'Where is she?' I knew he always knew where she wasHe'd been going to see her in hiding for yearsI believe he saw her frequentlyHe said, 'She's dead, Jerry' I didn't believe him at firstIt was to throw me off the track, I thoughtI thought he must have just seen her chanel earrings fake somewhereI thought, He's still going to wherever she is and treating this killer like his own child--this killer who is now in her forties while everybody she killed is still killedBut then he threw his arms around me and he just let go, and I thought, Is it true, the family's fucking monster's really dead? But why is he crying if she's dead? If he had half a brain, he would have realized that it was just too extraordinary to have a child like that--if he had half a brain, he would have been enraged by this kid and estranged from this kid long agoLong ago he would have torn her out of his guts and let her goThe angry kid who gets nuttier and nuttier--and the sanctified cause to hang her craziness onCrying like that--for her? No, I couldn't buy itI said to him, 'I don't know whether you're lying to me or you're telling me the truthBut if you're telling me the truth, that she's dead, it's the best news I ever omega watch orange he |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/6/2010 - Look, I've got kids, kids galore--I know what...
| Look, I've got kids, kids galore--I know what kids are like growing upThe black hole of self-absorption is bottomlessBut it's one thing to get fat, it's one thing to let your hair grow long, it's one thing to listen to rock-and-roll music too loud, but it's another to jump the line and throw a bombThat crime could never be made rightThere was no way back for my brother from that bombThat bomb detonated his lifeHis perfect life was overJust what she had in mindThat's why they had it in for him, the daughter and her friendsHe was so in love with his own good luck, and they hated him for itOnce we were all up at his place for Thanksgiving, the Dwyer mother, Dawn's kid brother Danny, Danny's wife, all the Levovs, our kids, everybody, and Seymour got up to make a toast and he said, 'I'm not a religious man, but when I look around this table, I know that something is shining down on me' It was him they vintage gucci bags were really out to getThe bomb might as well have gone off in their living roomThe violence done to his life was awfulNever in his life had occasion to ask himself, 'Why are things the way they are?' Why should he bother, when the way they were was always perfect? Why are things the way they are? The question to which there is no answer, and up till then he was so blessed he didn't even know the question existed
Had Jerry ever before been so full of his brother's life and his brother's story? It did not strike me that all the despotic determination concentrated in that strange head could ever have allowed him to divide his attention into very many partsNot that death ordinarily impinges upon the majesty of self-obsession; generally it intensifies it: "What about me? What if this happens to me?"
"He told you it was horrible?"
"OnceOnly once," Jerry replied"No, Seymour just took it and took itYou miu miu coffer could stay on this guy and stay on this guy and he'd just keep making the effort," Jerry said bitterly"Poor son of a bitch, that was his fate--built for bearing burdens and taking shit," and with his saying this, I remembered those scrimmage pileups from which the Swede would extricate himself, always still clutching the ball, and how seriously I'd fallen in love with him on that late-autumn afternoon long ago when he'd transformed my ten-year-old existence by selecting me to enter the fantasy of Swede Levov's life--when for a moment it had seemed that I, too, had been called to great things and that nothing in the world could ever obstruct my way now that our god's benign countenance had shed its light on me alone"Basketball was never like this, Skip How captivatingly that innocence spoke to my ownThe significance he had given meIt was everything a boy could have wanted in 1943Remember, when we were chloe paddington handbag kids, he joined the marines to fight the Japs? Well, he was a goddamn marineCaved in only once, down in Florida," Jerry said"It just got to be too much for himHe'd brought the whole family down to visit us, the boys and the second superbly selfish MrsThat was two years agoWe all went to this stone-crab placeTwelve of us for dinnerLots of noise, the kids all showing off and laughingThe whole handsome family there, life just the way it's supposed to beBut when the pie and coffee came he got up from the table, and when he didn't come back right away I went out and found himI'd never seen him like thatHe said, 'I miss my daughter' I said, 'Where is she?' I knew he always knew where she wasHe'd been going to see her in hiding for yearsI believe he saw her frequentlyHe said, 'She's dead, Jerry' I didn't believe him at firstIt was to throw me off the track, I thoughtI thought he must have just seen her chanel earrings fake somewhereI thought, He's still going to wherever she is and treating this killer like his own child--this killer who is now in her forties while everybody she killed is still killedBut then he threw his arms around me and he just let go, and I thought, Is it true, the family's fucking monster's really dead? But why is he crying if she's dead? If he had half a brain, he would have realized that it was just too extraordinary to have a child like that--if he had half a brain, he would have been enraged by this kid and estranged from this kid long agoLong ago he would have torn her out of his guts and let her goThe angry kid who gets nuttier and nuttier--and the sanctified cause to hang her craziness onCrying like that--for her? No, I couldn't buy itI said to him, 'I don't know whether you're lying to me or you're telling me the truthBut if you're telling me the truth, that she's dead, it's the best news I ever omega watch orange he |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/5/2010 - It won't work your way
"That's just the way it...
| It won't work your way
"That's just the way it works
"She killed three other peopleShe has killed four people
"Fuck the four peopleWhat's the matter with you? You're acceding to her the way you acceded to your father, the way you have acceded to everything in your lifeShe's crazy, she's gone crazyYou just look at her and you know it
"What did you think was going to happen? You sound surprised
Of course she got rapedEither get off your ass and do something or she's going to get raped for a third timeDo you love her or don't you love her?"
"How can you ask that?"
"You force me to
"Please, not now, don't tear me prada borse down, don't undermine meI never loved anything more in the world
"What? What is that?"
"As a thing--you loved her as a fucking thingThe way you love your wifeOh, if someday you could become conscious of why you are doing what you are doingDo you know why? Do you have any idea? Because you're afraid of creating a bad scene! You're afraid of letting the beast out of the bag!"
"What are you talking about? What beast? What beast?" No, he is not expecting perfect consolation, but this attack--why is he launching this attack without even the pretext of consoling? Why, when he has just explained to Jerry how everything has turned white chanel watch ceramic out thousands and thousands of times worse than the worst they'd expected?
"What are you? Do you know? What you are is you're always trying to smooth everything overWhat you are is always trying to be moderateWhat you are is never telling the truth if you think it's going to hurt somebody's feelingsWhat you are is you're always compromisingWhat you are is always complacentWhat you are is always trying to find the bright side of thingsThe one with the mannersThe one who abides everything patientlyThe one with the ultimate decorumThe boy who never breaks the codeWhatever society dictates, you doDecorum is what you spit in the logo dolce |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/5/2010 - It won't work your way
"That's just the way it...
| It won't work your way
"That's just the way it works
"She killed three other peopleShe has killed four people
"Fuck the four peopleWhat's the matter with you? You're acceding to her the way you acceded to your father, the way you have acceded to everything in your lifeShe's crazy, she's gone crazyYou just look at her and you know it
"What did you think was going to happen? You sound surprised
Of course she got rapedEither get off your ass and do something or she's going to get raped for a third timeDo you love her or don't you love her?"
"How can you ask that?"
"You force me to
"Please, not now, don't tear me prada borse down, don't undermine meI never loved anything more in the world
"What? What is that?"
"As a thing--you loved her as a fucking thingThe way you love your wifeOh, if someday you could become conscious of why you are doing what you are doingDo you know why? Do you have any idea? Because you're afraid of creating a bad scene! You're afraid of letting the beast out of the bag!"
"What are you talking about? What beast? What beast?" No, he is not expecting perfect consolation, but this attack--why is he launching this attack without even the pretext of consoling? Why, when he has just explained to Jerry how everything has turned white chanel watch ceramic out thousands and thousands of times worse than the worst they'd expected?
"What are you? Do you know? What you are is you're always trying to smooth everything overWhat you are is always trying to be moderateWhat you are is never telling the truth if you think it's going to hurt somebody's feelingsWhat you are is you're always compromisingWhat you are is always complacentWhat you are is always trying to find the bright side of thingsThe one with the mannersThe one who abides everything patientlyThe one with the ultimate decorumThe boy who never breaks the codeWhatever society dictates, you doDecorum is what you spit in the logo dolce |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/4/2010 - This is what Mario was showing you this...
| This is what Mario was showing you this morningWhen you're cutting a fourchette or a thumb or anything, you got to pull it straightIf you don't pull it straight, you're going to have a problemIf he pulled that fourchette crookedly on the bias, then when it's sewn together the finger is going to corkscrew just like thisThat's what your mother is looking forBecause remember and don't forget--a Levov makes a glove that is perfect Whenever his mother found something wrong she gave the glove to the Swede, who stuck a pin where the defect was, through the stitch and never through leather"Holes in leather stay," his father warned him"It's not like fabric, where the holes disappearAlways through the stitch, always!" After the boy and his mother had inspected the gloves in a lot, his replica omega seamaster planet ocean mother used special thread to tack the gloves together, thread that breaks easily, his father explained, so that when the buyer pulls them apart the knots sewn on each side won't tear through the leatherAfter the gloves were tacked, the Swede's mother tissued them--laid a pair down on a sheet of tissue paper, folded the paper over, then over again so that each pair was protected togetherA dozen pairs, counted out loud for her by the Swede, went into a boxIt wasn't a fancy box back in the early days, just a plain brown box with a size scale on the end showing the sizesThe fancy black box with the gold trim and the name Newark Maid stamped in gold came along only when his father landed the breakthrough Bamberger's account and, afterward, the account with Macy's Little lady dior bag Accessory ShopA distinctive, attractive box with the company name and a gold and black woven label in every glove made all the difference not only to the shop but to the knowledgeable upscale customer
Every Saturday when they drove Down Neck to collect that week's finished gloves, they'd bring along the gloves the Swede had marked with a pin where his mother had discovered a defectIf a glove bristled with three pins or more, his father would have to warn the family who had made it that if they wanted to work for Newark Maid, sloppiness would not be tolerated"Lou Levov doesn't sell a table-cut glove unless it is a perfect table-cut glove," he told them"I'm not here to play gamesI'm here like you are--I'm here to make money'Na mano lava 'nad, and don t forget it
"What is calfskin, omega watch orange Seymour?"
"The skin from young calves
"What kind of grain?"
"It has a tight, even grain
"What's it used for?"
"Mostly for men's gloves
"What is Cape?"
"The skin of the South African haired sheep
"Cabretta?"
"Not the wool-type sheep but the hair-type sheep
"From where?"
"South America
"That's part of the answerThe animals live a little north and south of the equatorAnywhere around the worldA band across Africa--"
"We got ours from BrazilI'm only telling you they come from other countries tooWhat's the key operation in preparing the skin?"
"Stretching
"And never forget itIn this business, a sixteenth of an inch makes all the difference in the worldStretching! Stretching is a hundred percent rightHow many parts in a pair of gloves?"
"Ten, twelve if tas hermes there's a binding
"Six fourchettes, two thumbs, two tranks
"The unit of measurement in the glove trade?"
"Buttons
"What's a one-button glove?"
"A one-button glove is one inch long if you measure from the base of the thumb to the top
"Approximately one inch longWhat is silking?"
"The three rows of stitching on the back of the gloveIf you don't do the end pulling, all the silking is going to come right outI didn't even ask you about end pullingWhat's the most difficult seam to make on a glove?"
"Full pique
"Why? Take your time, son--it's difficultSeamless knitted woolCut-and-sewed knitted wool
As they drove back and forth Down Neck, it never stoppedEvery Saturday morning from the time he was six until he was nine and Newark Maid became a company with its own saddle christian dior |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/4/2010 - This is what Mario was showing you this...
| This is what Mario was showing you this morningWhen you're cutting a fourchette or a thumb or anything, you got to pull it straightIf you don't pull it straight, you're going to have a problemIf he pulled that fourchette crookedly on the bias, then when it's sewn together the finger is going to corkscrew just like thisThat's what your mother is looking forBecause remember and don't forget--a Levov makes a glove that is perfect Whenever his mother found something wrong she gave the glove to the Swede, who stuck a pin where the defect was, through the stitch and never through leather"Holes in leather stay," his father warned him"It's not like fabric, where the holes disappearAlways through the stitch, always!" After the boy and his mother had inspected the gloves in a lot, his replica omega seamaster planet ocean mother used special thread to tack the gloves together, thread that breaks easily, his father explained, so that when the buyer pulls them apart the knots sewn on each side won't tear through the leatherAfter the gloves were tacked, the Swede's mother tissued them--laid a pair down on a sheet of tissue paper, folded the paper over, then over again so that each pair was protected togetherA dozen pairs, counted out loud for her by the Swede, went into a boxIt wasn't a fancy box back in the early days, just a plain brown box with a size scale on the end showing the sizesThe fancy black box with the gold trim and the name Newark Maid stamped in gold came along only when his father landed the breakthrough Bamberger's account and, afterward, the account with Macy's Little lady dior bag Accessory ShopA distinctive, attractive box with the company name and a gold and black woven label in every glove made all the difference not only to the shop but to the knowledgeable upscale customer
Every Saturday when they drove Down Neck to collect that week's finished gloves, they'd bring along the gloves the Swede had marked with a pin where his mother had discovered a defectIf a glove bristled with three pins or more, his father would have to warn the family who had made it that if they wanted to work for Newark Maid, sloppiness would not be tolerated"Lou Levov doesn't sell a table-cut glove unless it is a perfect table-cut glove," he told them"I'm not here to play gamesI'm here like you are--I'm here to make money'Na mano lava 'nad, and don t forget it
"What is calfskin, omega watch orange Seymour?"
"The skin from young calves
"What kind of grain?"
"It has a tight, even grain
"What's it used for?"
"Mostly for men's gloves
"What is Cape?"
"The skin of the South African haired sheep
"Cabretta?"
"Not the wool-type sheep but the hair-type sheep
"From where?"
"South America
"That's part of the answerThe animals live a little north and south of the equatorAnywhere around the worldA band across Africa--"
"We got ours from BrazilI'm only telling you they come from other countries tooWhat's the key operation in preparing the skin?"
"Stretching
"And never forget itIn this business, a sixteenth of an inch makes all the difference in the worldStretching! Stretching is a hundred percent rightHow many parts in a pair of gloves?"
"Ten, twelve if tas hermes there's a binding
"Six fourchettes, two thumbs, two tranks
"The unit of measurement in the glove trade?"
"Buttons
"What's a one-button glove?"
"A one-button glove is one inch long if you measure from the base of the thumb to the top
"Approximately one inch longWhat is silking?"
"The three rows of stitching on the back of the gloveIf you don't do the end pulling, all the silking is going to come right outI didn't even ask you about end pullingWhat's the most difficult seam to make on a glove?"
"Full pique
"Why? Take your time, son--it's difficultSeamless knitted woolCut-and-sewed knitted wool
As they drove back and forth Down Neck, it never stoppedEvery Saturday morning from the time he was six until he was nine and Newark Maid became a company with its own saddle christian dior |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/3/2010 - Always had to be ready to do ten more push-ups...
| Always had to be ready to do ten more push-ups than any of the recruitsThey'd challenge me, but I was in shapeGetting on the bus going to play ballThe long distances we flewBob Collins on the team, the big Stgot drunk for the first time in my life, talked for two hours nonstop about playing ball for Weequahic and then threw up all over the deckIrish guys, Italian guys, Slovaks, Poles, tough little bastards from Pennsylvania, kids who'd run away from fathers who worked in the mines and beat them with belt buckles and with their fists--these were the guys I lived with and ate with and slept alongsideEven an Indian guy, a Cherokee, a third basemanCalled him Piss Cutter, the same as the name for our capsNot all of them decent people but on the whole all rightLots of organized grabassPlayed against Fort BenningCherry Point, North Carolina, the marine air cartier pasha watch baseBeat Charleston Navy YardWe had a couple of boys who could throw that ballOne pitcher went on to the TigersWent down to Rome, Georgia, to play ball, over to Waycross, Georgia, to an army baseCalled the army guys doggiesSaw things I never sawSaw the life the Negroes liveMet every kind of Gentile you can think ofMet beautiful southern girlsSkinned 'er back and squeezed 'er downSat in a rundown slopchute in Mobile, Alabama, where I was damn glad the shore patrol was just outside the doorPlaying basketball and baseball with the Twenty-second Regiment
Got to be a United States MarineGot to wear the emblem with the anchor and the globe"No pitcher in there, Ee-oh, poke it outta here, Ee-oh--" Got to be Ee-oh to guys from Maine, New Hampshire, Louisiana, Virginia, Mississippi, Ohio--guys without an education from all over America calling me Ee-oh and nothing louis vuitton mahina moreJust plain Ee-oh to themDischarged June 2, 1947Got to marry a beautiful girl named DwyerGot to run a business my father built, a man whose own father couldn't speak EnglishGot to live in the prettiest spot in the worldHate America? Why, he lived in America the way he lived inside his own skinAll the pleasures of his younger years were American pleasures, all that success and happiness had been American, and he need no longer keep his mouth shut about it just to defuse her ignorant hatredThe loneliness he would feel as a man without all his American feelingsThe longing he would feel if he had to live in another countryYes, everything that gave meaning to his accomplishments had been AmericanEverything he loved was here
For her, being an American was loathing America, but loving America was something he could not let go of any more than he could have let go chanel pearl necklace of loving his father and his mother, any more than he could have let go of his decencyHow could she "hate" this country when she had no conception of this country? How could a child of his be so blind as to revile the "rotten system" that had given her own family every opportunity to succeed? To revile her "capitalist" parents as though their wealth were the product of anything other than the unstinting industry of three generationsThe men of three generations, including even himself, slogging through the slime and stink of a tanneryThe family that started out in a tannery, at one with, side by side with, the lowest of the low--now to her "capitalist dogs There wasn't much difference, and she knew it, between hating America and hating themHe loved the America she hated and blamed for everything that was imperfect in life and wanted violently to overturn, fendi b bag he loved the "bourgeois values" she hated and ridiculed and wanted to subvert, he loved the mother she hated and had all but murdered by doing i'f what she didIgnorant little fucking bitch! The price they had paid! Why shouldn't he tear up this Rita Cohen letter? Rita Cohen! They were back! The sadistic mischief-makers with their bottomless talent for antagonism who had extorted the money from him, who, for the fun of it, had extracted from him the Audrey Hepburn scrapbook, the stuttering diary, and the ballet shoes, these delinquent young brutes calling themselves "revolutionaries" who had so viciously played with his hopes five years back had decided the time had again rolled around to laugh at Swede Levov
We can only stand as witnesses to the anguish that sanctifies herThe Disciple Who Calls Herself "Rita CohenThey were laughing at himThey had to be white chanel purse laug |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/3/2010 - Always had to be ready to do ten more push-ups...
| Always had to be ready to do ten more push-ups than any of the recruitsThey'd challenge me, but I was in shapeGetting on the bus going to play ballThe long distances we flewBob Collins on the team, the big Stgot drunk for the first time in my life, talked for two hours nonstop about playing ball for Weequahic and then threw up all over the deckIrish guys, Italian guys, Slovaks, Poles, tough little bastards from Pennsylvania, kids who'd run away from fathers who worked in the mines and beat them with belt buckles and with their fists--these were the guys I lived with and ate with and slept alongsideEven an Indian guy, a Cherokee, a third basemanCalled him Piss Cutter, the same as the name for our capsNot all of them decent people but on the whole all rightLots of organized grabassPlayed against Fort BenningCherry Point, North Carolina, the marine air cartier pasha watch baseBeat Charleston Navy YardWe had a couple of boys who could throw that ballOne pitcher went on to the TigersWent down to Rome, Georgia, to play ball, over to Waycross, Georgia, to an army baseCalled the army guys doggiesSaw things I never sawSaw the life the Negroes liveMet every kind of Gentile you can think ofMet beautiful southern girlsSkinned 'er back and squeezed 'er downSat in a rundown slopchute in Mobile, Alabama, where I was damn glad the shore patrol was just outside the doorPlaying basketball and baseball with the Twenty-second Regiment
Got to be a United States MarineGot to wear the emblem with the anchor and the globe"No pitcher in there, Ee-oh, poke it outta here, Ee-oh--" Got to be Ee-oh to guys from Maine, New Hampshire, Louisiana, Virginia, Mississippi, Ohio--guys without an education from all over America calling me Ee-oh and nothing louis vuitton mahina moreJust plain Ee-oh to themDischarged June 2, 1947Got to marry a beautiful girl named DwyerGot to run a business my father built, a man whose own father couldn't speak EnglishGot to live in the prettiest spot in the worldHate America? Why, he lived in America the way he lived inside his own skinAll the pleasures of his younger years were American pleasures, all that success and happiness had been American, and he need no longer keep his mouth shut about it just to defuse her ignorant hatredThe loneliness he would feel as a man without all his American feelingsThe longing he would feel if he had to live in another countryYes, everything that gave meaning to his accomplishments had been AmericanEverything he loved was here
For her, being an American was loathing America, but loving America was something he could not let go of any more than he could have let go chanel pearl necklace of loving his father and his mother, any more than he could have let go of his decencyHow could she "hate" this country when she had no conception of this country? How could a child of his be so blind as to revile the "rotten system" that had given her own family every opportunity to succeed? To revile her "capitalist" parents as though their wealth were the product of anything other than the unstinting industry of three generationsThe men of three generations, including even himself, slogging through the slime and stink of a tanneryThe family that started out in a tannery, at one with, side by side with, the lowest of the low--now to her "capitalist dogs There wasn't much difference, and she knew it, between hating America and hating themHe loved the America she hated and blamed for everything that was imperfect in life and wanted violently to overturn, fendi b bag he loved the "bourgeois values" she hated and ridiculed and wanted to subvert, he loved the mother she hated and had all but murdered by doing i'f what she didIgnorant little fucking bitch! The price they had paid! Why shouldn't he tear up this Rita Cohen letter? Rita Cohen! They were back! The sadistic mischief-makers with their bottomless talent for antagonism who had extorted the money from him, who, for the fun of it, had extracted from him the Audrey Hepburn scrapbook, the stuttering diary, and the ballet shoes, these delinquent young brutes calling themselves "revolutionaries" who had so viciously played with his hopes five years back had decided the time had again rolled around to laugh at Swede Levov
We can only stand as witnesses to the anguish that sanctifies herThe Disciple Who Calls Herself "Rita CohenThey were laughing at himThey had to be white chanel purse laug |
Permanent Link
|
• 7/2/2010 - But to raise a Jew? That's a whole other bag of...
| But to raise a Jew? That's a whole other bag of tricksYou have a shiksa wife, Swede, but you didn't get a shiksa daughterMiss New Jersey is a bitch, SwedeMerry would have been better off sucking the cows if she wanted a little milk and nurturanceAt least the cows have maternal feelings
He had allowed her to talk, he had allowed himself to listen, only because he wanted to know; if something had gone wrong, of course he wanted to knowWhat is the grudge? What is the grievance? That was the central mystery: how did Merry get to be who she is? But none of this explained anythingThis could not be what it was all aboutThis could not be what lay behind the blowing up of the buildingA desperate man was giving himself over to a treacherous girl not because she could possibly begin to know what went wrong but because there was no one else to give himself over toHe felt less like someone looking for an answer than like someone mimicking someone who was looking for an answerThis whole exchange had been a ridiculous mistakeTo expect this kid to talk to him truthfullyShe couldn't insult him enoughEverything about chanel top their lives transformed absolutely by her hatredHere was the hater--this insurrectionist child!
"Where is she?"
"Why do you want to know where she is?"
"I want to see her," he said
"Why?"
"She's my daughterMy daughter is being accused of murder
"You're really stuck on that, aren't you? Do you know how many Vietnamese have been killed in the few minutes we've had the luxury to talk about whether or not Dawnie loves her daughter? It's all relative, SwedeDeath is all relative
"Where is she?"
"Your daughter is safeYour daughter is lovedYour daughter is fighting for what she believes inYour daughter is finally having an experience of the world
"Where is she, damn you!"
"She's not a possession, you know--she's not propertyShe's not powerless anymoreYou don't own Merry the way you own your Old Rimrock house and your Deal house and your Florida condo and your Newark factory and your Puerto Rico factory and your Puerto Rican workers and all your Mercedes and all your Jeeps and all your beautiful handmade suitsYou know what I've come to realize about you kindly rich liberals who own the zucca spy fendi bag world? Nothing is further from your understanding than the nature of reality
No one begins like this, the Swede thoughtThis can't be what she isThis bullying infant, this obnoxious, stubborn, angry bullying infant cannot be my daughter's protectorMerry with all her intelligence under the spell of this childlike cruelty and meannessThere's more human sense in one page of the stuttering diary than in all the sadistic idealism in this reckless child's headOh, to crush that hairy, tough little skull of hers--right now, between his two strong hands, to squeeze it and squeeze it until all the vicious ideas came streaming from her nose!
How does a child get to be like this? Can anyone be utterly without thoughtfulness? The answer is yesHis only contact with his daughter was this child who did not know anything and would say anything and more than likely do anything--resort to anything to excite herselfHer opinions were all stimuli: the goal was excitement
"The paragon," Rita said, speaking to him out of the side of her mouth, as though that would make it all the easier to wreck his life"The cherished and gucci backpacks triumphant paragon who is in actuality the criminalThe great Swede Levov, ail-American capitalist criminal
She was some clever child crackpot gorging herself on an esca- pade entirely her own, a reprehensible child lunatic who'd never laid eyes on Merry except in the paper; some "politicized" crazy was what she was--the streets of New York were full of them--a criminally insane Jewish kid who'd picked up her facts about their lives from the newspapers and the TV and from the school friends of Merry's who were all out peddling the same quotation: "Quaint Old Rimrock is in for a big surprise From the sound of it, Merry had gone around school the day before the bombing telling that to four hundred kidsThat was the evidence against her, all these kids on TV claiming they heard her say it--that hearsay and her disappearance were the whole of the evidenceThe post office had been blown up, and the general store along with it, but nobody had seen her anywhere near it, nobody had seen her do the thing, nobody would have even thought of her as the bomber if she hadn't disappeared"She's been tricked!" For days Dawn relojes omega went around the house crying, "She's been abducted! She's been tricked! She's somewhere right now being brainwashed! Why does everybody say she did it? Nobody's had any contact with herShe is not connected with it in any way at allHow can they believe this of a child? Dynamite? What does Merry have to do with dynamite? No! It isn't true! Nobody knows a thing!"
He should have informed the FBI of Rita Cohen's visit the day she'd come to ask for the scrapbook--at the very least should have demanded proof from her of Merry's existenceAnd he should have taken into his confidence someone other than Dawn, formulated strategy with a person less likely to kill herself if he proceeded other than as her desperation demandedAnswering the needs of a wife incoherent with grief, in no condition to think or act except out of hysteria, was an inexcusable errorHe should have heeded his mistrust and contacted immediately the agents who had interviewed him and Dawn at the house the day after the bombingHe should have picked up the phone the moment he understood who Rita Cohen was, even while she was seated in his mulberry vintage office |
Permanent Link
|
|
|
|
|
