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Although it may not warrant an eminent place in the annals of literary mystery, the curious case of Álvaro Rousselot is worthy of attention, for a few minutes, at least.
Keen readers of mid-twentieth-century Argentine literature, who do exist, albeit not in great numbers, will no doubt remember that Rousselot was a skilled narrator and an abundant inventor of plots, a sound stylist in literary Spanish, but not averse to the use of Buenos Aires slang, or lunfardo, when a story required it (as was often the case), though never in a mannered way, at least in our opinion—that is, the opinion of his faithful readers.
But the action of that sinister and eminently sardonic character Time has prompted a reconsideration of Rousselot's apparent simplicity. Perhaps he was complicated. By which I mean more complicated than we had imagined. Or, there is an alternative explanation: perhaps he was simply another victim of chance.
Such cases are not unusual among lovers of literature like Rousselot. In fact, they are not unusual among lovers of anything. In the end, we all outlast the object of our adoration, perhaps because passion runs its course more swiftly than other human emotions, perhaps as a result of excessive familiarity with the object of desire.
In any case, Rousselot loved literature as much as any Argentine writer of his generation, or of the preceding and following generations, which is to say that he loved literature in a reasonably disillusioned manner, like many of his compatriots. What I mean to say is that he was not especially different from the others, from the peers who shared his moments of joy and his suffering, yet nothing even remotely similar happened to any of them.
At this point, it could be objected, quite reasonably, that the others were destined for their own hells, their own singularities. Angela Caputo, for example, killed herself in an unimaginable manner: no one who had read her poems, with their charged and ambivalently childlike atmosphere, could have predicted such an atrocious death, stage-managed down to the finest detail for maximum terrifying effect. Or Sánchez Brady, whose texts were hermetic and whose life was cut short by the military regime in the seventies, when he had passed the age of fifty and lost interest in literature (and in the world in general).
Paradoxical deaths and destinies, yet they do not eclipse the case of Rousselot, of the enigma that imperceptibly enveloped his life, the sense that his work, his writing, stood near or on the edge of something he knew almost nothing about.
His story can be recounted simply, perhaps because, in the final analysis, it is a simple story. In 1950, at the age of thirty, Rousselot published his first book, a novel about daily life in a remote Patagonian penitentiary, under the rather laconic title "Solitude." Naturally, the book relates numerous confessions about past lives and fleeting moments of happiness; it also relates numerous acts of violence. Halfway through the novel, it becomes apparent that most of the characters are dead. With only thirty pages left to go, it is suddenly obvious that they are all dead, except for one, but the identity of that single living character is never revealed. The book was not much of a success in Buenos Aires, selling less than a thousand copies, but, thanks to some friends, Rousselot had the pleasure of seeing a well-respected publisher bring out a French edition in 1954. "Solitude" became "Nights on the Pampas" in the land of Victor Hugo, where it made little impact, except on two critics, one of whom reviewed it warmly, while the other was perhaps excessively enthusiastic. Then it vanished into the limbo of dusty shelves and overloaded tables in secondhand bookstores.
At the end of 1957, however, a film titled "Lost Voices" was released; it was directed by a Frenchman named Guy Morini, and for anyone who had read "Solitude" it was clearly a clever adaptation of Rousselot's book. Morini's film began and ended altogether differently, but its stem or middle section corresponded exactly to the novel. It would be impossible to capture Rousselot's feeling of stunned amazement in the dark, half-empty Buenos Aires cinema where he first saw the Frenchman's film. Naturally, he considered himself a victim of plagiarism. As the days went by, other explanations occurred to him, but he kept coming back to the idea that his work had been plagiarized. Of the friends who were alerted and went to see the film, half were in favor of suing the production company, while the others were inclined to argue, more or less resignedly, that these things happen—think of Brahms. By that time, Rousselot had already published a second novel, "The Archives of Peru Street," a detective story, with a plot that revolved around the appearance of three bodies in three different places in Buenos Aires: the first two victims had been killed by the third, victim in turn of an unidentified killer.
This second novel was not what one might have expected from the author of "Solitude." Still, it was well received, although it is perhaps the least successful of Rousselot's works. When Morini's film came out in Buenos Aires, "The Archives of Peru Street" had already been kicking around the city's bookshops for almost a year, and Rousselot had married María Eugenia Carrasco, a young woman who moved in the capital's literary circles, and he had recently taken a job with the law firm of Zimmerman & Gurruchaga.
Rousselot's life was orderly: he got up at six in the morning and wrote or tried to write until eight, at which time he interrupted his commerce with the muses, took a shower, and rushed off to the office, where he arrived at around ten to nine. He spent most mornings in court or going through files. At two in the afternoon, he returned home, had lunch with his wife, and then went back to the office for the afternoon. At seven, he had a drink with some other lawyers, and by eight, at the latest, he was back home, where Mrs. Rousselot, as she now was, had his dinner ready, after which Rousselot would read, while María Eugenia listened to the radio. On Saturdays and Sundays, he wrote a bit more, and went out at night, without his wife, to see his literary friends.
The release of "Lost Voices" brought him a notoriety that extended, in a modest way, beyond his circle of associates. His best friend at the law firm, who was not particularly interested in literature, advised him to sue Morini for copyright infringement. Having thought it over carefully, Rousselot decided not to do anything. After "The Archives of Peru Street," he published a slim volume of stories, and then, almost immediately, his third novel, "Life of a Newlywed," in which, as the title suggests, he recounted a man's first months of married life, and how, as the days go by, the man comes to realize that he has made a terrible mistake: not only is the woman he thought he knew a stranger; she is also a kind of monster who threatens even his physical safety. And yet the guy loves her (or, rather, discovers that he is physically attracted to her in a way that he wasn't before), so he holds on for as long as he can before fleeing.
The book was, obviously, meant to be humorous, and was embraced by the reading public, to the surprise of Rousselot and his publisher: it had to be reprinted after three months, and within a year more than fifteen thousand copies had been sold. From one day to the next, Rousselot's name soared from comfortable semi-obscurity to provisional stardom. He took it in stride. With the windfall earnings, he treated himself, his wife, and his sister-in-law to a vacation in Punta del Este, which he spent surreptitiously reading "In Search of Lost Time," a book he had always pretended to have read. While María Eugenia and her sister lolled about on the beach, he strove to redeem that lie, but above all to fill the gap left by his ignorance of France's most celebrated novelist.
He would have been better off reading the Cabalists. Seven months after his vacation in Punta del Este, before "Life of a Newlywed" had even come out in French, Morini's new film, "The Shape of the Day," opened in Buenos Aires. It was exactly like "Life of a Newlywed" but better; that is, revised and considerably extended in much the same way that "Lost Voices" had been, compressing Rousselot's plot into the central part of the film, while the beginning and the end served as commentaries on the main story (or ways into and out of it, or dead ends, or simply—and herein lay the charm of this method—delicately filmed scenes from the lives of the minor characters).
This time, Rousselot was intensely annoyed. His case against Morini was the talk of the Argentine literary world for a week or so. And yet, although everyone presumed that he would take swift legal action, Rousselot decided, to the dismay of those who had expected a stronger and more decisive attitude on his part, to do nothing. Few could really understand his reaction. He did not protest, or appeal to the honor and integrity of the artist. After his initial surprise and indignation, Rousselot simply opted not to act—at least, not legally. He waited. Something inside him, which could perhaps, without too great a risk of error, be called the writer's spirit, trapped him in a limbo of apparent passivity, and began to harden or change him, or prepare him for future surprises.
In other respects, his life as a writer and as a man had already changed as much as he could reasonably have hoped, or more: his books were well reviewed and widely read—they even supplemented his income—and his family life was suddenly enriched by the news that María Eugenia was going to be a mother.
When Morini's third film came to Buenos Aires, Rousselot stayed home for a week, resisting the temptation to rush to the cinema like a man possessed. He also instructed his friends not to tell him the plot. At first, he thought he would not go to see the film. But after a week it was too much for him, and one night, having kissed his baby son and entrusted him to the nanny's care, as if he were going off to war and might never return, he stepped out, resignedly, arm in arm with his wife, and went to the cinema.
Morini's film was called "The Vanished Woman," and had nothing in common with any of Rousselot's works, or with either of Morini's previous films. As they left the cinema, María Eugenia said she thought it was bad and boring. Álvaro Rousselot kept his opinion to himself, but he agreed. A few months later, he published his next novel, his longest yet (206 pages), titled "The Juggler's Family," in which he departed from the style that had characterized his work so far, with its elements of fantasy and crime fiction, and experimented with what could, at a stretch, be called the choral, or polyphonic, novel. It was a form that didn't come naturally to him, and seemed forced, but the book was redeemed by the decency and simplicity of its characters, by a naturalism that elegantly avoided the clichés of the naturalist novel, and by the stories themselves: minimalist and resolute, upbeat and gratuitous narratives, which captured the indomitable Argentine spirit.
"The Juggler's Family" was, without doubt, Rousselot's greatest success, the book that brought all the others back into print, and his triumph was consummated by the Municipal Literary Award, presented at a ceremony in the course of which he was described as one of the five brightest stars among the nation's younger writers. But that is another story. Everyone knows that the bright rising stars in the literature of any nation are like flowers that bloom and fade in a day; and whether that day is brief and succinct or extends over ten or twenty years, it must eventually come to an end.
The French, who distrust our Municipal Literary Awards on principle, were slow to translate and publish "The Juggler's Family." By then, French fashions in Latin-American fiction had shifted to warmer climes than Buenos Aires. When the novel came out in Paris, from a different publisher, Morini had already made his fourth and fifth films, a conventional but engaging French detective story and a turkey about a supposedly amusing family vacation in Saint-Tropez.
Both films were released in Argentina, and Rousselot was relieved to discover that neither bore the slightest resemblance to anything he had ever written. It was as if Morini had distanced himself from Rousselot or, under pressure from creditors and swept up in the whirlwind of the movie business, had neglected the relationship. After relief came sadness. For a few days, Rousselot was even preoccupied by the thought that he had lost his best reader, the reader for whom he had really been writing, the only one who was truly capable of responding to his work. He tried to get in touch with his translators, but they were busy with other books and other authors, and replied to his letters with polite and evasive phrases. One of them had never seen any of Morini's films. The other had seen only the film that resembled the book he had not translated (or read, to judge from his letter).
When Rousselot asked his publishers in Paris if Morini might have had access to the manuscript of "Life of a Newlywed" before its publication, they weren't even surprised. They replied indifferently that many people had access to a manuscript at various stages prior to printing. Feeling embarrassed, Rousselot decided to stop annoying people with his letters and suspend his investigations until at last he got a chance to visit Paris.
A year later, he was invited to a literary festival in Frankfurt. The Argentine delegation was sizable, and the trip was pleasant. Rousselot got to know two old Buenos Aires writers whom he considered his masters. He tried to help them in any way he could, offering to render the sorts of little services one might expect from a secretary or a valet rather than a colleague, for which he was reproached by a writer of his own generation, who called him obsequious and servile. But Rousselot was happy and paid no attention. The stay in Frankfurt was enjoyable, in spite of the weather, and Rousselot spent all his time with the pair of old writers.
The slightly artificial atmosphere of happiness was, in fact, largely Rousselot's own creation. He knew that when the festival was over he would go on to Paris, while the others would return to Buenos Aires or take short vacations somewhere in Europe. When the day of departure came and Rousselot went to the airport to see off the members of the delegation who were returning to Argentina, his eyes filled with tears. One of the old writers noticed and told him not to worry; they would see each other again soon, and the door of his house in Buenos Aires would always be open. But Rousselot couldn't understand what anyone was saying to him. He was on the brink of tears because he was afraid of being left on his own, and afraid, above all, of going to Paris and confronting the mystery waiting for him there.
The first thing he did, as soon as he had settled into a little hotel in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, was to call the translator of "Solitude" ("Nights on the Pampas"), unsuccessfully. The phone rang at his apartment, but no one picked up, and when he went to the publishers' offices they had no idea where the translator might be. To tell the truth, they had no idea who Rousselot was, although he pointed out that they had published two of his books, "Nights on the Pampas" and "Life of a Newlywed." Finally, a guy who must have been about fifty, and whose role at the company Rousselot never managed to ascertain, placed the visitor and, changing the topic completely, immediately proceeded to inform him, in an absurdly serious tone, that the sales of his books had been very poor.
Rousselot then visited the publishers of "The Juggler's Family" (which Morini, it seemed, had never read) and made a halfhearted attempt to obtain the address of the translator they had employed, hoping that he would be able to put him in touch with the translators of "Nights on the Pampas" and "Life of a Newlywed." This second publishing house was significantly smaller, and seemed to be run by just two people: a woman who received Rousselot, who he guessed was a secretary, and the publisher, a young guy who greeted him with a smile and a hug, and who insisted on speaking Spanish, although it was soon clear that his grasp of the language was tenuous. When asked why he wanted to speak with the translator of "The Juggler's Family," Rousselot was at a loss for words, because it had just dawned on him how absurd it was to think that any of his translators would be able to lead him to Morini. Nevertheless, encouraged by the publisher's warm welcome (and his readiness to listen, since he didn't seem to have anything better to do that morning), Rousselot decided to tell him the whole story, from A to Z.
When he had finished, the publisher lit a cigarette and paced up and down the office for a long time in silence, walking from one wall to the other, a distance of barely three yards. Rousselot waited, becoming increasingly nervous. Finally, the publisher stopped in front of a glass-fronted bookcase full of manuscripts and asked Rousselot if it was his first time in Paris. Rather taken aback, Rousselot admitted that it was. "Parisians are cannibals," the publisher said. Rousselot hastened to point out that he was not intending to take any kind of legal action against Morini; he only wanted to meet him and perhaps ask him how he came up with the plots of the two films in which he had a particular interest, so to speak. The publisher burst into uproarious laughter. "It's all about money here," he said, "ever since Camus." Rousselot looked at him, bewildered. He didn't know whether the publisher meant that idealism had died with Camus, and money was now the prime concern, or that Camus had established the law of supply and demand among artists and intellectuals.
"I'm not interested in money," Rousselot said quietly. "Nor am I, my poor friend," the publisher said, "and look where it's got me."
They parted with the understanding that Rousselot would call the publisher and arrange to have dinner one night. He spent the rest of the day sightseeing. He went to the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower; he ate in a restaurant in the Latin Quarter and visited a couple of secondhand bookshops. That night, from his hotel, he called an Argentine writer he had known back in Buenos Aires who lived in Paris now. They weren't exactly friends, but Rousselot appreciated the writer's work and had been instrumental in getting a number of his pieces published in a Buenos Aires magazine.
The Argentine writer was called Riquelme and he was happy to hear from Rousselot. Rousselot wanted to arrange to meet up some time during the week, perhaps for lunch or dinner, but Riquelme wouldn't hear of it, and asked him where he was calling from. Rousselot told him the name of his hotel and mentioned that he was just going to bed. But he was not even to think of getting into his pajamas; Riquelme would be right there—the night was on him. Rousselot was overwhelmed, powerless to resist. He hadn't seen Riquelme for years, and while waiting for him in the lobby of the hotel he tried to remember what he looked like. He had blond hair and a round, broad face with a ruddy complexion; he was short. It had been a while since Rousselot had read any of his work.
When Riquelme finally appeared, Rousselot hardly recognized him: he seemed taller, less blond, and he was wearing glasses. The night was rich in confessions and revelations. Rousselot told his friend what he had told his French publisher that morning, and Riquelme told Rousselot that he was writing the great Argentine novel of the twentieth century. He had passed the eight-hundred-page mark and hoped to finish it in less than three years. Although Rousselot prudently refrained from asking about the plot, Riquelme explained several sections of his book in detail. They visited various bars and clubs. At some point during the night, Rousselot realized that both he and Riquelme were behaving like adolescents. At first, this embarrassed him, but then he surrendered to the situation, happy to know that his hotel would be there at the end of the night, his hotel room and the word "hotel," which in that instant seemed a miraculous (that is to say evanescent) incarnation of risk and freedom.
He drank a lot. On waking, he discovered a woman beside him. The woman's name was Simone, and she was a prostitute. They had breakfast together in a café near the hotel. Simone liked to talk, so Rousselot discovered that she didn't have a pimp, because a pimp was always the worst kind of deal, that she had just turned twenty-eight, and that she liked watching movies. Since he wasn't interested in the world of Parisian pimps and Simone's age didn't seem a fruitful topic of conversation, they started talking about movies. She liked French cinema, and before long they got onto Morini. His first films were very good, in Simone's opinion. Rousselot could have kissed her then and there.
At two in the afternoon, they returned to the hotel and didn't reëmerge until dinnertime. It would probably be true to say that Rousselot had never felt so good in his life. He wanted to write, and eat, and go out dancing with Simone, and wander aimlessly through the streets of the Left Bank. In fact, he felt so good that during the meal, shortly before they ordered dessert, he explained the reason for his trip to Paris. Surprisingly for Rousselot, Simone was not at all surprised by the revelation that he was a writer or that Morini had plagiarized or copied his work, or freely adapted two of his novels to make his two best films.
Things like that happen in life, and even stranger things, was her laconic response. Then, point blank, she asked him if he was married. The answer was implicit in the question, and with a resigned gesture Rousselot showed her the gold ring that was constricting his ring finger at that moment as never before. "And do you have children?" Simone asked. "A little boy," Rousselot said, with a tenderness engendered by the mental image of his offspring. And he added, "He looks just like me." Then Simone asked him to keep her company on the way home. In the taxi, neither of them said anything; both looked out their windows at the unpredictable spills of bright and dark which make the City of Light seem like a medieval Russian city, or at least like the images of such cities that Soviet directors used to offer for public consumption every now and then in their films. Finally, the taxi pulled up in front of a four-story building, and Simone invited him to come in. Rousselot wondered whether he should, and then he remembered that he hadn't paid her. Shamefaced, he got out of the taxi without worrying about how he would get back to his hotel (there didn't seem to be many taxis in that neighborhood). Before going into the building, he held out a bunch of uncounted bills, which Simone put into her handbag without counting them, either.
The building didn't have an elevator. By the time they reached the fourth floor, Rousselot was out of breath. In the dimly lit living room, an old woman was drinking a whitish-colored liqueur. In response to a sign from Simone, Rousselot sat down next to the old woman, who produced a glass and filled it with that appalling liquid, while Simone vanished through one of the doors, then reappeared after a while and summoned him with a gesture. What now? Rousselot thought.
The room was small; it contained a bed in which a child was sleeping. "My son," Simone said. "He's lovely," Rousselot said. And so he was, but perhaps that was only because he was asleep. He had blond hair, rather too long, and resembled his mother, although Rousselot noted that there was already something thoroughly manly about his childish features. When Rousselot went back to the living room, Simone was paying the old woman, who then took her leave of Mme. Simone, and even wished her visitor an effusive good night, calling him sir. Rousselot was thinking that the day had been eventful enough and that it was time to leave when Simone said he could spend the night with her, if he liked. "But you can't sleep in my bed," she said; she didn't want her son to wake up and see her in bed with a stranger. So they made love in Simone's room, and then Rousselot went out into the living room, lay down on the couch, and fell asleep.
He spent the next day en famille, so to speak. The little boy's name was Marc; Rousselot found him to be very bright (as well as able to speak better French than he did). The novelist spared no expense: they had breakfast in the center of Paris, went to a park, and had lunch in a restaurant on the Rue de Verneuil that he had been told about in Buenos Aires; then they went rowing on a lake, and finally they visited a supermarket, where Simone bought all the ingredients for a proper French meal. They took taxis everywhere. As they waited for ice creams on a café terrace on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, Rousselot recognized a pair of famous writers. He admired them from a distance. Simone asked him if he knew them. He said no, but he was a passionate reader of their books. "Then go and ask them for an autograph," she said.
At first, it seemed a perfectly reasonable idea, the natural thing to do, but at the last minute Rousselot decided that he didn't have the right to annoy anyone, least of all people he had always admired. That night, he slept in Simone's bed; they covered each other's mouths to stop their moans from waking the child, and made love for hours, violently at times, as if loving each other were the only thing they knew how to do. The next day, he returned to his hotel before the child woke up.
His suitcase had not been put out on the street, as he had feared, and no one was surprised to see him appear out of nowhere, like a ghost. At reception, there were two messages from Riquelme. The first was to say he had found out how to reach Morini. The second was to ask if Rousselot was still interested in meeting him.
He showered, shaved, brushed his teeth (a horrifying experience), put on clean clothes, and called Riquelme. They talked for a long time. Riquelme told him that a friend of his, a Spanish journalist, knew another journalist, a Frenchman, who was a freelance movie, theatre, and music critic. The French journalist had been a friend of Morini's and still had his telephone number. When the Spaniard had asked for the number, the Frenchman had given it to him without a second thought. Then Riquelme and the Spanish journalist had called Morini's number without getting their hopes up, and were amazed when the woman who answered told them that they had indeed reached the director's residence.
Now all they had to do was set up a meeting (at which Riquelme and the Spanish journalist wanted to be present) on some pretext, whatever—for example, an interview for an Argentine newspaper, with a surprise ending. "What do you mean, a surprise ending?" Rousselot shouted. "The surprise ending comes when the bogus journalist reveals his true identity to the plagiarist," Riquelme replied.
That night, as Rousselot was taking photographs more or less at random on the banks of the Seine, a bum came up and asked him for some change. Rousselot offered him a bill if he would consent to be photographed. The bum agreed, and for a while they walked along together in silence, stopping every now and then to allow the Argentine writer to move off to an appropriate distance and take a photo. On the third such occasion, the bum suggested a pose, which Rousselot accepted without quibbling. The writer took eight photos in all: the bum on his knees with his arms stretched out to the sides, and in other poses, such as pretending to sleep on a bench, thoughtfully watching the river flow by, or smiling and waving his hand. When the photo session was over, Rousselot gave him two bills and all the coins in his pocket, and then the pair of them stood there together, as if there were something more to be said but neither of them dared say it. "Where are you from?" the bum asked. "Buenos Aires, Argentina," Rousselot replied. "What a coincidence," the bum said, in Spanish. "I'm Argentine, too." Rousselot was not at all surprised by this revelation. The bum began to hum a tango, then told him that in Europe, where he'd been living for more than fifteen years, he had found happiness and even some wisdom now and then. Rousselot realized that the bum had started using the familiar form of address, which he hadn't done when they were speaking in French. Even his voice, the tone of his voice, seemed to have changed. Rousselot felt a deep sadness overwhelming him, as if he knew that, come the end of the day, he would have to look into an abyss. The bum noticed and asked him what he was worried about.
"Nothing, a girl," Rousselot said, trying to adopt the same tone as his compatriot. Then he said a rather hurried goodbye, and as he was climbing the stairs from the quai to the street he heard the bum's voice telling him that death was the only sure thing: "My name is Enzo Cherubini and I'm telling you that death is the only sure thing there is." When Rousselot turned around, the bum was walking off in the opposite direction.
He called Simone that night, but she wasn't home. He talked for a while with the old woman who looked after the child, then hung up. At ten, Riquelme came visiting. Reluctant to go out, Rousselot said he felt feverish and nauseated, but his excuses were futile. Sadly, he came to the realization that Paris had transformed his friend into a force of nature that would brook no opposition. That night, they dined in a little restaurant with a charcoal grill in the Rue Racine, where they were joined by the Spanish journalist, Paco Morral, who liked to imitate the Buenos Aires accent, very badly, and believed that Spanish cinema was far better than French cinema, much more dense, an opinion shared by Riquelme.
The meal went on much longer than anticipated, and Rousselot began to feel ill. When he returned to his hotel at four in the morning, he had a fever and began vomiting. He woke shortly before midday with the feeling that he had lived in Paris for many years. He went through the pockets of his jacket looking for the cell phone that he had managed to extract from Riquelme, and called Morini. A woman—the one who had previously spoken to Riquelme, he supposed—answered and told him that M. Morini had left that morning to spend a few days with his parents. Rousselot's first thought was that she was lying, or that before his hurried departure the director had lied to her. He said he was an Argentine journalist who wanted to interview Morini for a well-known magazine with a big circulation, widely read all over Latin America, from Argentina to Mexico. The only problem, he alleged, was that he had limited time, since he had to fly home in a couple of days. Humbly, he asked for the address of Morini's parents. He didn't have to insist. The woman listened politely, then gave him the name of a village in Normandy, a street, and a number.
Rousselot thanked her, then called Simone. No one was home. Suddenly, he realized that he didn't even know what day it was. He thought of asking one of the hotel staff, but felt embarrassed. He called Riquelme. A hoarse voice answered. Rousselot asked him about the village where Morini's parents lived: did he know where it was? "Who's Morini?" Riquelme asked. Rousselot had to remind him and explain part of the story again. "No idea," Riquelme said, and hung up. After feeling annoyed for a while, Rousselot told himself that it was better that way, if Riquelme had lost interest in the whole business. Then he packed his suitcases and went to the train station.
The trip to Normandy was long enough for him to go back over what he had done since arriving in Paris. An absolute zero lit up in his mind, then delicately disappeared forever. The train stopped in Rouen. Other Argentines, and Rousselot himself in other circumstances, would have set off at once to explore the town, like bloodhounds on Flaubert's trail. But he didn't even leave the station; he waited twenty minutes for the train to Caen, thinking of Simone, who personified the grace of French women, and of Riquelme and his odd journalist friend, both of whom were, in the end, more interested in rummaging through their own failures than in anyone else's story, however singular, which, come to think of it, was not so unusual—normal, in fact. People are only interested in themselves, he concluded gravely.
From Caen, he took a taxi to Le Hamel. He was surprised to find that the address he had been given in Paris corresponded to a hotel. The hotel had four stories and was not without a certain charm, but it was closed for the winter. For half an hour, Rousselot walked around in the vicinity, wondering if the woman who lived with Morini had sent him on a wild goose chase, until eventually he began to feel tired and headed for the port. In a bar, he was told that he'd be very lucky to find a hotel open in Le Hamel. The owner, a cadaverously pale guy with red hair, suggested he go to Arromanches, unless he wanted to sleep in one of the auberges that stayed open all year round. Rousselot thanked him and went looking for a taxi.
He booked himself into the best hotel he could find in Arromanches, a pile made of brick, stone, and wood, which creaked in the gusting wind. Tonight I will dream of Proust, he thought. Then he called Simone and talked to the old lady who looked after her child. "Madame won't be home until after four. She has an orgy tonight," the woman said. "A what?" Rousselot asked. The woman repeated the sentence. My God, Rousselot thought, and hung up without saying goodbye. To make things worse, that night he didn't dream of Proust but of Buenos Aires, where thousands of Riquelmes had taken up residence in the Argentine branch of PEN, all armed with tickets to Paris, all cursing or shouting a name, the name of someone or something that Rousselot couldn't recognize, a tongue-twister, perhaps, or a password they were trying to keep secret, although it was gnawing at their insides.
The next morning at breakfast, Rousselot was stunned to discover that he had no money left. Le Hamel was three or four kilometres from Arromanches; he decided to walk. To raise his spirits, he told himself that on D Day the Allied soldiers had landed on these beaches. But his spirits remained as low as could be, and although he had thought it might take half an hour, in the end it took him more than twice that time to reach Le Hamel. On the way, he started adding things up, remembering how much money he had brought with him to Europe, how much he'd had left when he arrived in Paris, how much he had spent on meals, on Simone (quite a lot, he thought, melancholically), on Riquelme, on taxis (they've been ripping me off the whole time!), and wondering whether he could have been robbed at some point without realizing it. The only people who could have done that, he concluded gallantly, were the Spanish journalist and Riquelme. And the idea didn't seem absurd in those surroundings, where so many lives had been lost.
He observed Morini's hotel from the beach. Anyone else would have given up by now, he thought. For anyone else, circling around that hotel would have been as good as admitting to idiocy, or to a sort of degeneration that Rousselot thought of as Parisian, or cinematic, or even literary, although for him the word "literary" retained all its original lustre, or some of it, at least. In his situation, anyone else would have been calling the Argentine Embassy, inventing a credible lie, and borrowing some money to pay the hotel bill. But, instead of gritting his teeth and making the phone call, Rousselot rang the hotel's doorbell and was not surprised to hear the voice of an old woman who, leaning out of one of the windows on the second floor, asked him what he wanted and was not surprised by his reply: "I need to see your son." The old woman disappeared, and Rousselot waited by the door for what seemed like an eternity.
He kept checking his pulse and touching his forehead to see if he had a fever. When the door finally opened, he saw a lean, rather swarthy face, with large bags under the eyes; it was, he judged, the face of a degenerate, and it was vaguely familiar. Morini invited him in. "My parents have been working as caretakers of this hotel for more than thirty years," he said. They sat down in the lobby, where the armchairs were protected from dust by enormous sheets embroidered with the hotel's monogram. On one wall, Rousselot saw an oil painting of the beaches of Le Hamel, with bathers in Belle Époque costumes, while on the opposite wall a collection of portraits of famous clients (or so he supposed) observed them from a zone taken over by mist. He shivered. "I am Álvaro Rousselot," he said, "the author of 'Solitude'—I mean, the author of 'Nights on the Pampas.' "
It took a few seconds for Morini to react, but then he leaped to his feet, let out a cry of terror, and disappeared down a corridor. Such a spectacular response was the last thing Rousselot had been expecting. His reaction was to remain seated, light a cigarette (the ash fell steadily onto the carpet), and think moodily of Simone and her son, and a café in Paris that served the best croissants he had ever tasted. Then he stood up and started calling Morini. "Guy," he called, rather hesitantly. "Guy, Guy, Guy."
Rousselot found Morini in an attic where the hotel's cleaning equipment was piled. He had opened the window and seemed to be hypnotized by the garden that surrounded the building, and by the neighboring garden, which belonged to a private house and was visible, in part, through dark latticework. Rousselot walked over and patted him on the back. Morini seemed smaller and more fragile than before. For a while, they both stood there looking at one garden, then the other. Then Rousselot wrote the address of his hotel in Paris and the address of the hotel where he was currently staying on a piece of paper and slipped it into the director's trouser pocket. He felt as if he had committed a reprehensible act, executed a reprehensible gesture, but then, as he was walking back to Arromanches, everything he had done in Paris, every gesture and action, seemed reprehensible, futile, senseless, and even ridiculous. I should kill myself, he thought as he walked along the seashore.
Back in Arromanches, he did what any reasonable person would have done as soon as he discovered that his money had run out. He called Simone, explained the situation, and asked her for a loan. The first thing Simone said was that she didn't want a pimp, to which Rousselot replied that he was asking for a loan, and that he was planning to repay it with thirty-per-cent interest, but then they both started laughing and Simone told him not to do anything, just stay put in the hotel, and in a few hours, as soon as she could borrow a car from one of her friends, she'd come and get him. She also called him chéri a few times, to which he responded by using the word chérie, which had never seemed so tender. For the rest of the day, Rousselot felt that he really was an Argentine writer, something he had begun to doubt over the previous days, or perhaps the previous years, partly because he was unsure of himself, but also because he was unsure about the possibility of an Argentine literature. ♦
(Translated, from the Spanish, by Chris Andrews.)


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Premier League: Wigan comeback denies Stoke at the Britannia Stadium
Wigan produced an impressive comeback to secure a 2-2 draw against Stoke at the Britannia Stadium.
Last Updated: 30/01/13 6:53am
Ryan Shawcross opened the scoring for Stoke and the game looked over when Peter Crouch added a second after the break but goals from James McArthur and Franco Di Santo earned Wigan a point.
The Latics deserved their rewards for a high-tempo second half display but Roberto Martinez will surely be alarmed by the defending that saw his side go behind.
Jean Beausejour could only head his attempted clearance from a free-kick against team-mate James McCarthy and the ball looped over both men to allow Shawcross to volley home from close range.
That breakthrough came midway through the first half and was befitting of the scrappy start to the game.
But it was Stoke applying the bulk of the pressure early on with Charlie Adam going close to doubling the lead shortly afterwards with a rare right-footed effort from distance.
And it was a driving run from Adam that led to Stoke's second goal in the early stages of the second half.
The Scot broke and was given freedom to get a shot off from the edge of the box that Ali Al-Habsi could only parry into the path off the advancing Crouch who tucked the ball away.
Just as the home fans were expecting a comfortable evening, Wigan scored the goal of the night - Roger Espinoza threading a pass through to McArthur who finished expertly with the outside of his boot.
Espinoza was fast becoming the pivotal figure with his passes finally finding their range and the Honduran combined with McArthur again to help haul the visitors level.
He curled in an angled ball from the left that McArthur headed back across goal for Di Santo to volley cleanly past Asmir Begovic and earn Wigan an unlikely equaliser.
Cameron Jerome came off the bench to fire wide but neither side could find a fifth goal and the point is enough to move Wigan out of the drop zone and above Aston Villa and Reading into 17th spot.

subset: commoncrawl


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HALIFAX — In eight hours in Halifax, MK Einat Wilf made quite an impression.
A dynamic speaker, oozing with confidence and intelligence and freely offering well-considered opinions, Wilf met with close to 50 Jewish community members and separately with local politicians and the media, each time stressing the importance of women in political life and decision-making, and touching on foreign policy and education.
Wilf's first stop on a whirlwind Canadian trip was Halifax, followed by engagements in Montreal, Quebec City and Ottawa. She arrived April 2 and returned to Israel April 5 in time for Pesach with her family. She was invited by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and was hosted in Halifax by the Atlantic Jewish Council.
Elected to the Knesset 18 months ago, Wilf noted that there are 24 women in Israel's parliament – representing 20 per cent of the Knesset's 120 members – which exceeds the proportions in similar bodies in the United States, Britain, and France, and is close to Canada's 25 per cent ratio.
"It's no longer unique in Israel to have women in stronger positions, although the business sector still lags behind in female leadership… but it's improving," she said.
Wilf said she's a feminist, but added she didn't realize she had those leanings until attending university and then working in the United States after her mostly Israeli upbringing.
"My home was egalitarian [both her parents were teachers], and I was allowed to let my ambitions take me as far as I wanted. I served four years in the army, in intelligence, where brains were more important than brawn and had more equality [as a woman] than in many other units."
But when she studied at Harvard University and then worked in New York, "I sensed the cusp of women moving forward very quickly. When I came back to Israel in 1998, I didn't feel the same. I considered us more 20th century rather than moving into the 21st century."
Now, 14 years later, she said Israel has caught up and is doing well. "It's a good time to be a woman in Israel," she said. "I think we're in the 21st century in seeing women's role in leadership grow, but still in the 20th as far as equal pay, ability to balance home and career, and sexual harassment. Yet strides are being made.
"Of course, we're still in the 10th century when you look at the way women are treated in the Arab minority and the ultra-Orthodox minority, both of whom see themselves threatened by the majority culture. That's certainly a challenge for feminists."
Women's issues, education and foreign policy have been main interests for Wilf, who said that as a teenager, she dreamed of being Israel's ambassador to the United Nations.
"I haven't given up that dream yet," she smiled. "But to do what I wanted to do, I had to get into politics."
She joined the Labour party and moved up the party list, and by February 2009, she was 14th. Labour won 13 seats in elections that year, so "I was the lady-in-waiting. I watched the swearing in from home but, when a member resigned soon afterward, I was moved into a seat."
Now, as a member of the recently formed Independent Party headed by Defence Minister Ehud Barak, Wilf is one of five party members in the Knesset, of whom two are female. She fights for women's rights and better educational opportunities. In May, she will become chair of the Knesset's education committee.
"I think I've had some influence in education, which is now the second largest budget item, after defence. Yet I think we have a long way to go in building a good education system."
Her efforts in foreign policy focus on building present and future alliances, as she did on her Canadian trip, and helping build a positive image of Israel in the world.
"I'm not the official spokesperson for the government, but in Israel, I'm among the top three who are not men who engage in foreign affairs for the government," she said. "I'm able to articulate the classical Zionist position, which, sadly, needs that articulation. I believe in partition. Jews and Arabs both have claims to the land, but while Jews have acknowledged it, the Arabs have never been willing to accept that Jews have claims [as well]. The fundamentals are attacked, distorted and lied about.
"This is a war fought with words," she continued. "In op-ed pieces, and by academics and in supermarkets, not with guns and tanks. We need to fight this war and win it – and I think we can. We can't just be nice and think the truth will come out. We have to fight back and meet the lies head-on."


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Three bedroom self catering cottage with outdoor hot tub in Perthshire, Scotland
Isla View has a large secluded garden with lawns sloping down to the River Isla and an outdoor hot tub which has a spectacular view over the River. The garden is home to a wonderful array of wildlife including the resident Red Squirrels who visit the feeders on a daily basis.
Isla View comfortably sleeps six people and is well appointed with a master en-suite, a bathroom featuring an original roll top bath and a shower room. The en-suite master bedroom, on the first floor, provides flexibility for guests with a king sized double bed and double sofa bed, there is a further double bedroom on the first floor and one twin room on the ground floor (located next to a shower room/wc). A cot is also available upon request (although cot bedding is not supplied and we ask guests to supply this).
Isla View benefits from three public rooms - the beautiful sun room which looks down over the garden and to the river and is an excellent vantage point for watching the resident Red Squirrels, abundent bird life, Roe Deer on the hill and even the occasional Osprey. There is also a separate dining room with a table for 6 and woodburning stove. The spacious living room also benefits from another woodburning stove and large french doors which open out onto the patio and provides wonderful views to the River Isla and surrounding countryside.
The modern kitchen is extensively equipped with a six-ring gas stove, dishwasher, microwave, and utility room with large freezer and washing machine. To find out more about the accommodation at Isla View click here.
We do accept one dog per booking at Isla View - there a few house rules for four-legged friends which we ask guests to adhere to.
Beautiful Gardens Leading to the River Isla


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If you've followed the Minnesota Vikings as long as I have, you know that the team has been clamoring for a new stadium since the 1990s. And the Minnesota legislature, bless its bureaucratic heart, has managed to drag its feet on the issue all the way up until now, the final year of the team's lease with the Metrodome. The attitude in Minnesota has always been, "Oh, a deal will get done AT SOME POINT." Yet, virtually every announced plan for a new Vikings stadium over the past decade has been made without securing full financing, which is like announcing your wife is pregnant prior to conception.
Well, after years and years of empty threats to leave, Vikings spokesman Lester Bagley says the team really means business this time, throwing down the gauntlet and telling the press that they have a mystery suitor. OOH! SECRET ADMIRER!
Spokesman Lester Bagley said another U.S. city other than Los Angeles has contacted the team about possibly relocating.
Bagley wasn't pressed by legislators during the hearing to elaborate on his claim, and he afterward declined to identify the city that had called the Vikings.
"We would let that city speak for themselves," said Bagley, who added the city had approached the team over the past year. "I don't think it's our place to say who it is."
First of all, I love that legislators didn't ask Bagley to elaborate on his claim, which ANY SANE PERSON would do. What is wrong with these people? "Oh hey, another city wants to have us!" "That's nice, let's move on." Idiots.
It's more than possible that Bagley is simply making this supposed mystery city up to use as leverage. Anyone who's seen "Slap Shot" knows it's a winning strategy. But let's take Bagley at his word and assume this second city is real. Which city would be willing to take on a 2-10 team with a long and storied history of coming up small at the worst possible time?
U.S. & World
Here are your odds (NOTE: Odds reflect chances of the city being a suitor, NOT whether or not the Vikings will actually end up there):
SAN ANTONIO (3/1): Former owner Red McCombs was rumored to want to bring the team here, and San Antonio has a recent history of hosting NFL games, with the displaced Saints relocating there for a few games in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. This city has secretly coveted an NFL franchise for years, so it wouldn't surprise me if they were the ones trying to lure the Vikes away.
TORONTO (10/1): I've counted on the Bills moving to Canada for so long now that it never occurred to me that some OTHER team would end up there. But maybe that's the case. Maybe the Bills have dragged their feet for too long, and Toronto is willing to dump them for someone willing to get married right now.
LONDON (17/1): Outside of LA, this is the city that Roger Goodell most wants to have an NFL team. A London team would be Goodell's legacy: The first North American sports commissioner to expand his league across an entire ocean. That moment still feels far away, but something tells me that will always be the case until someone has the stones to up and move a team there.
NEW JERSEY (40/1): Remember, owner Zygi Wilf is from Jersey (he grew up a Giants fan), and Wilf was never greeted warmly by the people of Minnesota, whose distrust of outsiders borders on straight-up xenophobia. The New York area could easily support three NFL teams, but the problem is that both New York teams already play in Jersey. That's why I think the New Jersey Vikings should play in Manhattan, just to keep things consistently mislabeled.
SALT LAKE CITY (50/1): Okay, now I'm just looking at a map and picking cities at random.
MEXICO CITY (100/1): They already have a team. It's called the Dallas Cowboys.
DULUTH (1,000/1): Because why not emulate the Packers and build your stadium in the middle of a sparsely populated frozen wasteland? Everyone will adore the Duluth Vikings.


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The challenge of raising children is a lot like gardening . . . weeds and all.
No results found in .
Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.


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Think of crème fraîche as the perfect love child of conservative, stodgy sour cream and plain ol' whipped cream. It has the tanginess of one with the lighter creaminess of the other. And you can make it at home easily!
While the literal French translation means "fresh cream," crème fraîche is actually a soured or cultured cream—originally made with fresh, raw cream naturally ripened to a thick, tangy, spoonable loveliness. Devonshire clotted cream, American sour cream, Italian mascarpone, and even cultured butter are all relatives of crème fraîche (though the French might dispute this).
Homemade crème fraîche is not only a bargain but also a versatile addition to any kitchen. It can serve as a refreshing alternative to sour cream in both sweet and savory recipes. Whisked to stunning peaks and sweetened, it can serve as a more flavorful stand-in for whipped cream. And when made from the thickest, best-quality cream, crème fraîche can masterfully take the place of butter as a spread. It is very much a product of the cream you use— a superior cream skimmed from the fresh milk of a Jersey cow will yield crème fraîche that's amazingly different from that made with a standardized heavy whipping cream purchased from the grocery store. So be prepared to adjust your expectations accordingly, while at the same time enjoying the cultured fruits of your labor.
Makes about 8 ounces
- 1 pint (2 cups) heavy cream *
- Culture—choose one of the following:
- 3 tablespoons buttermilk with active cultures (it should be labeled as such)
- 3 tablespoons yogurt with active cultures (slightly different directions in step 4)
- 3 tablespoons sour cream with active cultures (hard to find)
- 1 packet direct-set crème fraîche starter**
- ¼ teaspoon flora danica starter culture**
- Pint canning jar with lid
Step 1
Sanitize the pint jar and lid by submerging them in boiling water. (Jar must be designed for canning or it might crack when the boiling water fills it.)
Step 2
Warm the cream in a stainless steel saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until it reaches 86°F (30°C). Remove the warmed cream from the heat, add in your culture of choice, and stir until evenly mixed.
Step 3
Pour the mixture into the jar, seal, and let set at about 72°F (22°C) for 12 hours. (If using yogurt as a culture, incubate at a warmer temperature of 85 to 95°F [29–35°C].) To help maintain the temperature, you can set the jar inside a larger jar filled with warm water and place in an insulated cooler.
Step 4
After 12 hours, check the consistency and flavor. When ready, it will have a gravylike consistency and a tangy taste. The pH (if you have a meter) will be about 4.5.
Step 5
If you are satisfied with the flavor, place the jar in the refrigerator for 24 hours. During this time it will thicken to a sour cream or thick yogurt texture.
Step 6
Crème Fraîche is now ready to use! If you desire a bit fluffier consistency, simply pour into a bowl and whisk to thick peaks. You can sweeten or flavor the crème fraîche as well. Store in your refrigerator. It will keep (even after being whisked) for about three weeks, provided you made it with fresh cream.
* Choose the purest, freshest possible pasteurized heavy cream. Most commercially available cream has added thickeners, stabilizers, and sweeteners. If you only have access to those with a few additives (that's what I made mine from), you can still make great crème fraîche. Many heavy creams are also ultrapasteurized, but don't try to use these; they will not thicken properly.
** Purchase at home cheese supply company such as New England Cheesemaking Supply Company or Leeners


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Giant spaceships come down out of the sky over Los Angeles and begin harvesting humans via a massive tractor beam.
We don't waste our time on anything not worth your time. We celebrate the best of what's coming on film and TV. We cheer when our expectations are met and criticize when we're let down.


text: Apparently, the folks in Japan are suckers for snake oil tourmaline trinkets like this bra that was recently unveiled at the Beauty World Japan exhibition in Tokyo. If you are not familiar, tourmaline is thought of as a "miracle electric stone" capable of blocking harmful radiation from cellphones, improving moods and reducing stress. Apparently, the manufacturers behind the "La-la" tourmaline-embedded bustier believe that their product can have the same positive effects—or, more accurately, that is what they want you to believe. [Beauty World Japan via 3Yen]


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It's been a splendid year for horror comics, but two works towered above the rest in terms of high-profile discussion: Emily Carroll's Through the Woods and this English translation of a 2009 album from cartoonist/animators Kerascoët and veteran scenarist Fabien Vehlmann, who's carved himself a comfortable niche in the French-language industry scripting one of the venerable children's bande dessinée series, Spirou et Fantasio. There's quite a few youth comics licks in Beautiful Darkness too – characters are drawn so as to caricature their personalities, archetypes run rampant, and the story proceeds with a sense of inevitability, as if the reader is meant less to be absorbed than to jump on the couch and shout along with the action.
But the inevitability here is not that of commercial devices clicking into place, or even a folkloric moral calculus; instead, the book's unforgettable six opening pages flatly state that all social comforts and humane graces will be undermined in favor of decay. Fleeing their home inside the liquefying corpse of a young girl left dead and forgotten in the forest, a community of tiny people struggle to maintain decorum and pursue their desires out in the wild – each of them seems to represent an aspect of the dead girl's personality or subconscious, or maybe the stories she has heard and taken to heart. Perhaps they are her soul, fragmented at the moment of death like a cut diamond and made horribly autonomous. These little elves do not get along, and poor Aurora -- a quintessential Disney princess, preoccupied with prettiness and romance and the ineffable promise of a prince becoming her forever love -- suffers a rash of Sadian affronts at the hands of her more controlling (or easily led) peers, the woods standing high above as a biological machine for the stripping of naiveté.
All is rendered by Kerascoët as ravishing cartoon illustration, like production art from a Studio Ghibli movie playing exclusively in Hell. It's all quite arch, even reductive, yet totally compelling - especially once the reader understands that removing the blind trust from an idealist like Aurora doesn't destroy the idealism, it makes it dangerous. There WILL be a happy ending... at least for her!


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Top Central City Land Use & Zoning Lawyers - Nebraska
For more than 60 years Abrahams Kaslow & Cassman LLP has been one of Omaha's most respected business law firms. The firm was established in 1944 when Creighton University law school graduates, Milton R. Abrahams and Ben E. Kaslow, combined their legal practices. Harvard law school graduate, Frederick S. Cassman, joined the firm in 1949. These three original partners and their successors have...
Croker, Huck, Kasher, DeWitt, Anderson & Gonderinger, L.L.C.
Land Use & Zoning Lawyers Serving Central City, NE (Omaha)
The law firm of Croker, Huck, Kasher, Dewitt, Anderson & Gonderinger, L.L.C. is located in Omaha, Nebraska. We represent clients in every level of the Nebraska state court system....


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Anne Hathaway Is NOT Pregnantby Amy Sciarretto | PopCrush
With a Best Supporting Actress Oscar on her mantle, Anne Hathaway has moved on to her next big life project – motherhood. The actress, who wed Adam Shulman last year, is reportedly pregnant.
Ehh… not so fast.
Rumors claimed that the actress' younger brother Tom Hathaway slipped the baby news during a comedy routine on Oct. 30 at the Tandem Bar in Brooklyn.
But Hathaway's rep quickly squashed those rumors, stating that it was a joke taken out of context. "She is not pregnant,' her rep stated. "The joke her brother said was one day his sister will have a baby, and he will then be Uncle Tom."
Apparently when he called himself "Uncle Tom," he was merely referencing the Harriet Beecher Stowe' novel 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'
This seems a bit far-fetched… referencing Harriet Beecher Stowe in a comedy segment?
Plus, there were audience members who stated he said something along the lines of, "My sister got married last year, and now she is about to be a new mom!"
We want to hear from audience members to find out what really happened during his act.
We also wonder what Anne, who will turn 31 later this month, thinks about her brother using her life as source material and fodder for a comedy act.


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So for all you men out there who are contemplating having an affair, particularly if you are a celebrity, I offer you the following tips on how to properly choose a mistress -- so your text and voice mail messages** won't wind up being published by TMZ or US Weekly or being broadcast on CNN, Fox, or MSNBC, and your wife won't receive any embarrassing letters describing your anatomy.
How to Choose a Mistress
1. Avoid women who seem way too eager to get in your pants (or vice versa) -- especially those who show or offer you their panties. (See "Monica Lewinsky.")
2. Never have sex with a woman who has been on a reality show, who wants to be on a reality show, or for whom reality shows are considered "must-see" TV.
3. Avoid nightclub managers, waitresses, and/or aspiring models, actresses, and singers -- or anyone who offers you her 8 x 10 glossy.
4. Similarly, steer clear of name droppers, celebrity seekers, and star f_ckers, or anyone who has ever dated a celebrity, professional athlete, famous figure, or titan of industry, especially if she has dated more than one of these (or claims to have).
5. Do not have sexual relations with women who are your direct reports or who stand to gain or lose position or salary from getting it on with you (unless you are David Letterman).
6. And whatever you do, do NOT mess around with your wife's best friend, sister, or that neighbor she's always chatting with.
7. Make sure your ho is not on any prescription medication -- or should be.
8. Avoid single women and/or women with nothing to lose. And while you're at it, avoid married women with husbands bigger, richer, or meaner than you.
9. Steer clear of women who are always texting. (What exactly is it you think they are texting all their friends? The weather report?)
10. Similarly, steer clear of women with Facebook and/or Twitter accounts, or who have their own blog, or who can type for that matter.
Other helpful hints:
* Always wear a condom.
* Never leave a paper or electronic trail.
* Don't cheat in the first place.
** Herewith, Tiger Woods' voicemail message to his mistress, asking her to take her name off her phone, set to music:
Bonus video: Stephen Colbert on Tiger Woods and his lack of respect for the sanctity of mistress:
|The Colbert Report
|Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
|Tiger's Tale


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Proven fact: everything's better in slooooow mooootion. For some more evidence, the ZPZ Equipment team has posted test footage using the Sony NEX-FS700, a camera that will be used in filming Parts Unknown, Anthony Bourdain's new show for CNN.
The footage—clearly made more dramatic by the background music—was shot at ISO 500 at 480 frames per second. The camera itself is fairly new, and made a big splash for doing super slow motion at 1080p for under $10,000. Obviously the video is pretty mesmerizing, and now that No Reservations has wrapped, we're ready to fill the void with Bourdain's new show. Especially if it includes many, many slow-mo shots. [@Bourdain]


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A line-up of TV's finest Paranormal Investigators!
From: A&E, FOX, SyFy, VH1, Travel Channel, Court TV and Radio
Keith Age, Steve Gonsalves, Dave Tango, Carmen Reed, Patrick Burns, Tim & Trish Yancey, Tiffany Johnson, Father Andrew Calder, Beth Brown and more!
We are also please to have the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) as part of this event!!
3 Event Rooms * Vendors * 2 Ghost Hunt's with Steve Gonsalves or Dave Tango
Concert/jam session with Richard Shulman & Friends...
Learn the 'tricks of the trade' from over 30 speakers!!
Whether you are new to Ghost Hunting or a seasoned professional.
LS-PIC has the right programs for you!!
LS-PIC is where you'll find the pro's and 'the tools the pro's use'
New technology will be introduced at this event!! With Special Event Prices!
* Broadcasting Live all weekend Para-X Radio with Tom & Dave & 18 Para-X Show Host
* Streaming Pay-Per-View by PTN (Paranormal TV Network)
Nov. 6-8 Charlotte, NC * Limited Tickets... Be sure to register early!! Come spend the weekend with us!!
Reserve your hotel room early - see website for special room rate.
LEARN MORE AT: LightStream Paranormal Investigators Convention


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The lives of urbanites intertwine in a world where anything can happen at any time.
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|Home >> Course Descriptions >> College of Arts and Sciences
|American National Government
|Three semester hours.
A survey of national government in the United States with emphasis upon the Constitution, government structure, and processes. European background; federal, state, and interstate relations; rights and obligations of citizens; political parties; group organization; the legislative process; and the executive, judicial, and administrative functions in federal government. See Texas Success Initiative in the section entitled UNIVERSITY COLLEGE.
Home - General Information - Student Services -
Academic Undergraduate Regulations -
Undergraduate Degrees - Academic Graduate Regulations -
Graduate Degrees - Course Descriptions - Faculty -
Appendix A - Appendix B - Appendix C - Appendix D


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Roy Brown Jr., proud designer of the Ford Edsel, dies at 96
Roy Brown Jr., the defiantly proud designer of the Ford Edsel, the chrome-encrusted, big-grilled set of wheels that went down as one of the worst flops in automotive history, died Feb. 24 at a hospice in Ann Arbor, Mich. He was 96.
He had pneumonia and Parkinson's disease, said his wife, Jeanne Brown.
More than five decades after Brown's creation debuted and promptly vanished from dealerships across the United States, the term "Edsel" remains practically synonymous with failure.
Among auto enthusiasts, however, the car generates deep nostalgia for a bygone era of American motoring -- and a degree of affection that perhaps has proved Brown right in the end.
He was a veteran automotive designer in the mid-1950s when the Ford Motor Co. put him in charge of overseeing a new car. It was to be more sophisticated than the standard Ford, less expensive than the Mercury and so distinctive, he once said, as to be recognized "from a block away."
The new design was named the Edsel in honor of Henry Ford's late son, and only after executives rejected suggestions solicited from poet Marianne Moore, including Intelligent Whale, Ford Faberge, Mongoose Civique and Utopian Turtletop.
In the era of conspicuous consumption, Brown did not build a car for the motorist who drove. He made a behemoth for the driver who cruised -- with room enough for five friends in tow.
What Brown's design lacked in aerodynamics it boasted in flourish. External features included scalloped sides and showy taillights. In a bold departure from the prevailing fashion, he nixed tail fins. "I hated the bloody fins on the Cadillac," he once said. "They were dangerous, too."
The Edsel's most recognizable attribute was its vertical grille, a design throwback. Brown recalled the applause from company President Henry Ford II -- Edsel Ford's eldest son -- when he first saw the design. The company's enthusiasm proved out of sync with American consumers.
"It's almost grotesque," automotive industry analyst Maryann Keller said of the Edsel, citing among the vehicle's flaws its "hundreds of pounds of unnecessary weight in bumpers."
"Obviously it was an attempt by Ford to make a statement," she said, "but I think it was the wrong statement."
After the car was released in 1957, the grille drew comparisons to an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon, a toilet seat and other cruder images. "There are people that have toilet-seat minds," Brown once told the Sun Sentinel in Florida.
Ford had invested $250 million in the venture, according to Automotive News. The original design was altered because of its expense and after engineers warned that the grille might inhibit ventilation.
Marketers were accused of overhyping the car, which sold for $2,300 to $3,800 and which was designed around out-of-date consumer research. By the time Edsels rolled into dealerships, American tastes had shifted and the economy had entered a period of recession.
Ford had hoped to sell 200,000 but ended production by 1960 after the sale of about 118,000. The company lost more than $300,000 a day during the period when the Edsel was in production.
Brown said he "cried in my beer for two days" but then returned to his work with vigor. He attributed the failure to "bad timing."
After the Edsel debacle, Ford transferred Brown to the company's office in England. He was the chief designer of the Consul and the compact Cortina, which Automotive News described as "one of the company's most successful products in Europe" and the best-selling car in Britain in the 1970s.
Before his retirement in 1975, he helped design Thunderbirds and Econoline vans. Besides those vehicles, his credits from earlier in his career include a show car that helped inspire the Batmobile.
Roy Abbott Brown Jr. was born Oct. 30, 1916, in Hamilton, Ontario. The son of a Chrysler engineer, he moved to Detroit at 15. Brown became a U.S. citizen and graduated from an art academy in Detroit before serving in the Army during World War II.
He began his career as a designer in the General Motors Cadillac studio and later oversaw design of the Oldsmobile. He joined Ford in 1953.
His first marriage, to Emily Roberts, ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 42 years, Jeanne Feciashko Brown of Brooklyn, Mich.; four children from his first marriage, Jan Byron of Fenton, Mich., Reg Brown of Charleston, S.C., Penny Beesley of Milton, Ga., and Mark Brown of Norcross, Ga.; a sister; five grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandchildren.
Until the end of his life, Brown expressed pride in the Edsel. Almost until the end, he drove one, his son said.
He told the Sun Sentinel that in later years, by which time his model had become a collector's item, people would occasionally ask to buy his car from him.
He would reply, "Where the hell were you in 1958?"