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Rack rent
The best market rent obtainable.
A landlord may exercise his right to regain possession of premises by peaceable re-entry where there has been a breach of covenant by the tenant.
Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
Close ended companies or trusts that hold, manage and maintain real estate for investment purposes which is leased to tenants.
Converting estate assets into cash.
Reasonable Doubt
The standard of proof in criminal courts in the UK is that the case is proved 'beyond reasonable doubt'. The Crown Prosecutor must prove 'beyond reasonable doubt' that the defendant committed the offence.
The repayment of a mortgage loan.
Termination of employment because a job no longer exists.
Remand (in Custody)
The accused person (defendant) is kept in custody or placed on bail pending further Court appearance(s).
A mortgage which is a replacement loan for another mortgage.
Reward or pay for service.
Renouncing probate
The act whereby a named executor signs a legal document which cancels his/her appointment.
An agreed charge for the use of a capital asset, typically property.
Rent review
Leases generally contain clauses providing for a periodical review of the rent, say at five yearly intervals. The lease will generally specify what the basis of the review is to be: eg the open market rent prevailing at the time of the review.
Rental value
The rent that a property might reasonably be expected to command in the open market at a given time, subject to the terms of the lease.
Repudiatory breach
A fundamental breach of contract by either the employer or the employee that entitles the other party to terminate the relationship without providing notice.
Request for directions
An application to the court for a decree nisi.
Reservation of Title or Retention of Title Agreement
An agreement for the sale of goods to a company under which, if the seller is not paid and the company is wound up, the seller will have priority over all other creditors of the company in respect to the goods.
Residence order
An order determining where a child is to live.
The remainder of the estate after the payment of all debts, taxes, administration expenses, legacies and bequests under the will.
The person against whom relief is sought by the applicant.
Restrictive covenant
A covenant in a lease restricting the tenant in some respect.
Restrictive covenant in employment
A term in the employment contract restricting the employee's activities either during the term of the contact or after termination.
Reverse premium
On assignment, the payment of a sum of money by the assignor to the assignee a sum of money to reflect unfavourable lease terms.
The return of property to the landlord on the expiry of a lease.
Reversionary Interest
Interest in trust property after the expiry of a life interest.
Cancellation by an act, event or order of court.
Right of Audience
The entitlement to appear before a Court and speak on behalf of a party to the proceedings.
A sum payable by a third party to the rightsholder for the right to use their property for the purpose of gain. Royalties are paid generally for the licensing of intellectual property.
Race Relations Act 1976 – prohibits discrimination based on colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origin.


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We are a different kind of housing company with the friendliest relocators in the business
Buying our services will ultimately save
you money, time and headaches
A dedicated relocation agent who knows the local rental market, to save you time, headache and money. You also get the best contract terms and avoid the all too common scams and fraudulent contracts.
You can get a customized home search as well as viewings, lease contract support, rent negotiation and more. We always offer a price guarantee: if you find a professional that can help you at a better price, we will match it!
About Denmark
The market for rental accommodation in the big Danish cities is very challenging. In both Copenhagen and Aarhus our specialist relocation agents will help you navigate through with ease.
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Latest from our Blog
- Fastelavn is a sweet, child-centric holiday celebrated on the Sunday or Monday before Ash Wednesday. It is the Carnival of Northern European, and historically Lutheran. The term Fastelavn comes from Old Danish fastelaghen, which was borrowed from an old German phrase "vastel-avent", meaning "fast-evening", or the day before the Lent. The main tradition of the holiday includes "slå katten af tønden" which means "hit the cat out of the barrel". This tradition consisted of placing a black cat in a barrel and beating the barrel until it broke apart, releasing the traumatized cat. It is believed that this tradition was to remind the children of the pains of Christ on the cross. However, it is important to note that this is not practiced anymore!! These days the barrel is filled with candy and the children, all dressed up, shivering from cold, compete to become either "Queen of the Cats" or "King of the Cats" by breaking the barrel – who is who depends on which practices are followed. To avoid any fighting, the candy is just divided up equally among the children. In addition to the breaking of the barrel, costumed children go rattling "raslen" as a form of trick-or-treat. They sing songs door-to-door and beg for candy, buns or money. And if they don't get what they want, there will be trouble! The best part of Fastelavn, at least for me, is the "Fastelavnsboller". Have you seen these sweet choux buns with thick cream in the middle in the bakeries? They are delicious! They come in a variety of flavors and they are usually for sale throughout the month of February. So make sure to grab a Fastelavnsbolle for yourself before the season is up!...
- Most newcomers to Copenhagen will have a shock when they come across their first 'Copenhagen Bathroom' – a sink, shower and toilet squeezed into an impossibly tiny space. And this often in an otherwise nice, modern, stylish apartment! Ever wondered about this peculiar quirk of Copenhagen architecture? We have the answers to your questions! Back in the day, many apartments in Copenhagen used to have a shared bathroom in the basement or courtyard that the residents of each housing block used. But the demand for higher living standards changed preferences and people started to want their own private bathrooms. Even if that means having the shower and the toilet in less than one square meter! Not many apartments in Copenhagen have the space for a medium or large bathroom, as many apartment buildings were built in the late 19th or early 20th century, before private bathrooms were a popular concept. And baths? Forget about it! Some apartment owners have decided that this set-up is not the right one and have taken a different approach to solving the problem of where to bathe. If there is no room for a shower in the bathroom, then you just need to find somewhere else for it, right? Here at Charlie's Roof we have seen shower cabins in bedrooms, and even in the kitchen! So if you are moving to Copenhagen, leave your bath salts, and inhibitions, behind you – you'll be needing neither!...
- Finding a place to live in Denmark can be quite a hassle, but it is possible. If you want to tackle the market on your own, this blogpost will help you on your way. The Danish rental market Sites such as boligportal.dk and lejebolig.dk show the majority of what is available on the rental market, but also a few things that are not. For instance, ads can be kept online for a long time after they have actually been rented out, in order to encourage people to buy membership to the site. When you are looking at the cheaper end of the market, you would be lucky to get a reply from a landlord once every 10th-20th time. However, this problem is not as extensive with the more expensive rentals which have lower demand. Sometimes, it can help if you are able to communicate to landlords in Danish. While there are scammers, the level of housing fraud in Denmark is generally quite low. In this regard it is usually best just to approach situations with common sense: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. What is permissible? Interestingly, it is often completely legal requests and contract terms which cause new tenants the most concern. For example, having to pay 3 months prepaid rent plus 3 months deposit plus the 1st month of rent upfront is legal and expected in certain cases. Also, being asked to vacate the apartment up to 14 days before the end of the rent period to allow the landlord time to make renovations is, frustratingly, perfectly permissible. Whether "going it alone" or getting professional help, clauses like these are just part and parcel of renting in Denmark. Be aware that sometimes there is room for negotiation, other times it is not possible at all. Big administration companies rarely negotiate rent, while the high demand for cheap rentals makes it mostly impossibly to negotiate for smaller, cheaper apartments as well. Furnished or unfurnished? Even unfurnished rentals in Denmark have functional kitchens with at least basic white goods, and with a trip to IKEA you can easily have a fully furnished rental without spending hundreds of thousands on furniture. Be aware though, that unfurnished long term rentals can almost cost the same as small furnished places, as demand for these is high. Worthy of note The m2 area listed on ads for Danish apartments is almost always gross, and therefore does not represent the actual available living area. This can cause a lot of confusion, as in many other countries it is the net living area which is advertised. Apartment descriptions count the number of rooms in the apartment as being any living, dining and bedrooms. Kitchen and bathroom are not included in this count. This means that it is impossible to tell just from the room count whether an apartment has a stand-alone kitchen, or an open kitchen-living room. A 4-room apartment could be e.g. 3 bedrooms, a living room, a separate kitchen and a bathroom OR a living room, a dining room, two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom OR another set-up. The vast majority of landlords, whether private or professional, use the standard A9 rental contract. There are English translations of sections 1-10 available online, but it is section 11 which is the most important. This is where all of the extra terms and conditions are listed, and this is the section you should read carefully. Google Translate will usually translate it quite well, but ask a Danish friend or colleague to help if there are still parts you don't understand. How can we help? For those who have found a place to rent on their own, but want some assurance from a professional, we have some very affordable services starting from just DKK800. Scam Check – contains: 1) landlord check-up, 2) lease explanation and 3) investigation of whether negotiation of rent and terms is possible (we negotiate on your behalf if possible). Accommodation Already Found – contains: 1) viewing of the property, 2) landlord check-up, 3) lease explanation and 4) investigation of whether negotiation of rent and terms is possible (we negotiate on your behalf if possible). Single Viewing – we will visit a property on your behalf, taking photos and videos in order to document the condition, or doing a live video viewing with you if possible. Lease Contract Explanation – a full translation of your contract from section 1 to 11. Good luck with your home search! ...
- New Year's Eve rituals exist in many parts of the world and Denmark is no different. Here's a short guide to understanding some of the best-known traditions. The Queen Margrethe's New Year's Eve speech at 6pm signals the beginning of a long and festive night. It's a live broadcast from Fredensborg Castle, an annual essential that first started with King Christian XI in the 1880s. The Queen takes this opportunity to summarize the year's main political events, both global and local. The speech always concludes with a salute to the nation with the words "Gud behave Denmark" (God preserve Denmark), which signals the time to begin the meal. Unlike the calorific Christmas dishes consumed just a few days prior, the New Year's Eve menu consists of boiled cod, served with home-made mustard sauce and all the trimmings. However, Danes are less traditionally bound to the food when it comes to New Year. So, many Danes prepare exotic and alternative specialities for their New Year's dinner. For dessert, the famous Kransefagen, a Danish invention from the 1700s. Like champagne, it is one of the fixed elements of New Year's Eve. It's a towering cake made from layer-upon-layer of marzipan rings. The cake's turret-like shape promises happiness and wealth for the coming year. Just before midnight, many Danes gather in front of the television to watch a short movie in black and white from 1963 called "90-års fødselsgaden" ("Dinner for one", also known as "The 90th Birthday"). At the midnight countdown, it is a tradition for everyone celebrating indoors to stand on a sofa or a chair and jump into the new year. It symbolizes the hope for better time/eases the transition and then everyone wishes each other a Happy New Year. At this point a choir performs the Danish anthem and the Danish Monarch song. Shortly afterwards, people gather in the streets to set off fireworks. Danes traditionally celebrate New Year with lots of fireworks. It was only around 1900 that fireworks began to become something that ordinary people could buy. Before that, New Year was celebrated by using guns to fire shots into the air. It was done because of an old belief that loud noises and fireworks keep spirits and negative energies away. However you decide to celebrate New Year's Eve, we wish you a very prosperous 2019 from all at Charlie's Roof!...
- If you are new to Denmark and planning on spending Christmas with the Danes, take a moment to reflect on this quick overview of some of the best known Danish Christmas traditions. Advent Wreath Danish Christmas begins with the advent wreath. The wreath has four candles and one candle is lit every Sunday of December leading up to Christmas Eve. Calendar Candle Another tradition is the calendar candle. This candle is marked with 24 lines, normally decorated with Christmas motives. The candle is lit every day from the 1st of December until the 24th of December. The candle is blown out before it burns down into the next day. Present Calendars Advent calendars, or Christmas calendars, take many forms in Denmark. Mostly they are aimed at children but adults can also join in the fun! Most children in Denmark get a gift calendar consisting of 24 small presents, one for each day until the 24th of December. Each gift is individually bought and wrapped by their parents. There is also a Christmas calendar television series for children and adults alike. Each year, the two big television channels produce a special new Christmas series divided into 24 episodes to entertain children. This year Tuborg is also making an online version, but this one is not for kids! Christmas 'Lunch' Workplaces in Denmark always host an annual Christmas Lunch (meaning party) and guess what the main ingredients are – meat and snaps. Snaps are small shots of a strong alcoholic beverage that are consumed at holidays. Red and vinegar-infused cabbage represent the vegetable part of the Christmas Lunch. Christmas Eve Christmas Eve dinner is all about tradition. Duck or Pork are on the menu, as well as boiled potatoes, caramelized potatoes, brown gravy sauce and pickled red cabbage. It's a heavy, old-fashioned meal that will leave you sleepy but satisfied. Vegetarians and vegans will have to bring their own dish. For dessert, the famous Danish invention but somehow French-named: Ris à l'Amande. It's a cold, creamy rice pudding made with vanilla and almond slivers, topped with hot cherry sauce. The game with Ris à l'Amande is that one whole almond is added to the bowl of pudding and you have to keep eating the pudding until someone finds the almond. The winner gets a prize! Walking around the Christmas tree After dinner and before opening the Christmas presents, you have to join hands and sing Christmas hymns while walking around the tree. To trigger an adrenaline rush, the tree is decorated with actual lighted candles. A little terrifying for newbies like me, but it's fun! Presents after dinner Slowly, the presents are unwrapped. It's a whole tradition in slow motion, a ritual. One package at a time is carefully chosen from underneath the Christmas tree and given to the right receiver to open, until all presents are unwrapped and Christmas is over for another year. So take some inspiration from the above traditions and bring a little Denmark into your Christmas!...
Lorenzo Leandro, PhD, DTU
After months spent looking for a place on my own, hours of work and loads of money wasted, the problem of finding a place in Copenhagen was very clear to me. I am glad I decided to ask the help of Copenhagen Housing, which professionality and quick response have ensured an efficient house search. I… Read more "Lorenzo Leandro, PhD, DTU"
Surya Prayaga, Digital Enterprise Architect
For people moving to Copenhagen for good, if you don't believe in angels, please get in touch with Charlotte and Team, you will change your opinion. Read more "Surya Prayaga, Digital Enterprise Architect"
Thomas Gilormini
The service was very convenient for us as we are not Danish speakers, and furthermore students who do not really know the city very well. Even though there was a change of plans in the middle of the search (first 4 people, then 3), we are still very enthusiastic about the apartment you found for… Read more "Thomas Gilormini"
Nick Ockenden
I just wanted to say a very big thank Maiken Whitebridge for all of you help over the past month – it really made a massive difference and made the process so much easier, so thank you. Please also give my thanks to Lars who was also very helpful in the early stages of our… Read more "Nick Ockenden"
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We have many services that will make your move to Denmark so much easier. You will find detailed information on our Pricing and Services page and in our Webshop.

subset: commoncrawl


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TDD Teaser #1 - Do you know the answer?
I recently concluded a TDD with ASP.NET presentation in Cleveland with several TDD Teaser problems for the audience. The idea proved to be a lot of fun so I decided to repost the problems on my blog.
The Rules:
- Prize (a Thycotic keyring light) to be mailed to the first comment with the correct answer on this blog post with valid contact information.
- My definition of the problem is the correct one. :) Other answers might be right but won't win the prize.
- I will post the answer within a few days.
What is wrong with the following code?
1using NUnit.Framework;Winner: Roy Osherove
3namespace UnitTests.BadCode
5 [TestFixture]
6 public class Problem1
7 {
8 [Test]
9 public virtual void TestSomething()
10 {
11 MyClass a = new MyClass();
12 TestAmount(a);
13 }
15 public virtual void TestAmount(MyClass a)
16 {
17 Assert.AreEqual(2500, a.Amount);
18 }
19 }
Answer & Discussion (click and drag your mouse to see the answer)
|Kirk - you are right. It doesn't compile the return type on TestAmount should have been void (Note to self: make sure your teaser compiles!). Unfortunately that wasn't the one I was looking for. I have changed the return type to void as it should have been.
Dean - virtual methods and inheritance can be quite useful in tests - you should refactor your tests as judiciously as your production code and this may result in inherited tests. I often use inheritance when writing validity checks for different scenarios. I agree with your comments about TestAmount being poorly designed.
NUnit, for backwards compatibility to 1.0, will identify TestAmount as a test due to the "Test" prefix on the method name. This results in an error since Tests may not have parameters. Why did NUnit 1.0 look for the Test prefix rather than use attributes? - because it was ported from JUnit which uses naming conventions since Java doesn't have attributes.
Well done Roy! (your keyring light is on its way)
Thanks to everyone for participating! :-)


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artisan retreat Tiny Home - SOLD - 8.5' x 24'
This tiny home was created by the Handcrafted Movement team of Craftsmen. Since every tiny home we build is a one of a kind we will not be creating this exact model again. Future creations with similar design elements will be listed on the For Sale tab.
Exterior Features
Industry leading dedicated PAD Tiny House Trailer rated to 14,000 GVWR
Built in leveling jacks, Sealed aluminum floor pan
Board & Batten siding with Pacific Red Cedar T&G accents
Light-weight high wind resistant eco-friendly roofing tiles
Prewired for necessary road legal lighting
Six-lite Craftsman style exterior door with illuminated keyless entry
Entry lighting fixture above door and utility power outlet
Mini garden planter station at rear of home
Dedicated propane storage unit with (2) 30 lb propane tanks
6" Rigid foam insulated floor
2x4 wall construction with R-15 recycled denim insulation
Closed cell roof insulation
Interior Features
¾" solid Fir Hardwood flooring
22 energy efficient LED ambient lights
Double wall layer of NGBS Green Certified RevolutionPly wall paneling
Extensive use of salvaged old growth timbers throughout
Kitchen butcher block countertops from salvaged Willamette Valley Walnut
Eating nook constructed from salvaged Willamette Valley Walnut
Full size (30") 4 burner LP range with warming drawer
Multi speed kitchen vented hood fan with LED lighting
Integrated coffee and tea station with walnut shelving and lightweight concrete counter.
27" Farmhouse style apron ceramic sink with copper faucet
Integrated pullout drawer with garbage and recycle receptacles
Large capacity 2 door energy efficient refrigerator
42" wide wardrobe closet under stairs
70 sqft loft with 4' headroom at peak.
Memory foam RV Queen mattress
Full size couch that becomes a bed with large built in storage underneath
Two USA Made E-Heat wall mounted heater with built in unit thermostat
3' deep Entry closet with hanging rod and 2 shoe storage boxes
Overhead LED bath lighting with fan
Built in medicine cabinet with LED accent lighting
3' shower with rain shower head
32" wide bath cabinet with 2 large pullout drawers for storage
Ceramic 1 piece bath countertop with copper faucet
TOTO Premium energy efficient bath toilet
LP tankless water heater with 6 gallon per minute capacity
Significant integrated storage shelving throughout


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In August 2014 I attended the Omi International Dance Residency in Ghent, NY, one of just nine artists from around the world selected to participate in this three-week collaborative residency. With a focus on process and collaboration rather than product and performance, attendees were invited to investigate new ways to create, rehearse, talk about and present our work, all in the idyllic setting of the Catskill mountains. The grounds included a converted farmhouse and barn, open fields, and a 300-acre sculpture park, all of which were available to us as creative spaces. Other participants came from Argentina, Italy, Japan, Russia, Togo and around the US, with movement backgrounds ranging from traditional dance forms to ballet, contact improvisation and multimedia performance art.
Throughout my time at the residency I was struck by how familiar it was to be working with folks from different places, who together spoke a mix of English and body language to articulate an idea, and who were quick to laugh at the heavily accented mispronunciation of words learned and exchanged on the spot. I realized that I felt at home in this environment due in large part to my work with Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, where most recently I was the only American dancer in a cast of 11 to perform Bound at the Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival in April 2014. The rest of the dancers were all from the Arab world, but with varied movement, education and personal backgrounds that resulted in a diverse mix of abilities and languages, including the participation of one deaf dancer who's unique sign language first had to be translated into Arabic and then to English for my benefit. In this process the entire cast came together for just two weeks of rehearsals, after working remotely for several months in different parts of the globe. Although I met many of the dancers for the first time during this intensive rehearsal period, we quickly developed a closeness and camaraderie that I can only attribute to our common dedication to the work, and to a shared vision of the performance at hand. Dancing in close physical proximity, partnering one another in complex and physically risky situations, necessitated a certain trust and intimacy that rapidly overcame any cultural or linguistic divisions between us.
Drawing on this experience, I was even more eager to discover what would reveal itself over three weeks with a diverse group of international artists. What surprised me was how in the atmosphere of abundance afforded by the residency- where all of our logistical and daily needs were provided for- there was a lack of urgency to the investigation. With plenty of physical room to retreat, artists often kept to themselves, returning at the end of the day to their own spacious rooms and thoughts. With no final performance on the line or shared vision to unite us, the group felt disparate, allowing for small pockets of exchange and closeness, that never quite encompassed the entire group, never made us bigger than the sum of our parts.
Of course there is no accounting for personality, or the chemistry within a group, but it made me wonder if there is something to the friction of conflict- the tension that arises out of the struggle to create an ideal vision rubbing up against the political, economic, and logistical realities of the world as it is- that actually allows for a deeper or more rich creative process. In Palestine we shared meals and living spaces, in some cases because the artists didn't have the visas or means to travel back and forth across check points, which created a relationship beyond the studio walls. Of course creating under occupation is an opposite extreme to the expansive freedom of a US-based residency such as Omi, but somewhere between there lies the balance of resistance and release, tension and ease, that cultivates the creative spark, like the moment, after rubbing and rubbing two sticks together, you create a flame.
by Zoe Rabinowitz


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Carlos Ramirez was born in Cuba. For political reasons his family moved to the United States when he was a child. His family's story is like that of many immigrants, and he recalls those early days in New York:
My parents came to this country with nothing but the clothes in their suitcase. They gave up a comfortable life that was deteriorating in hopes of a safe future. As an adult I can now admire their courage and determination. In their late thirties they landed in a country where they didn't speak the language, had no financial resources, and a small child.
Ramirez always drew and painted, but as the only child of an immigrant family, his parents were concerned that he have a structured profession, rather than take a chance on a career as an artist. In college he focused on drawing and drafting in the hopes of pursuing an architectural degree, but at the last minute, due to the prodding of his father, he applied to law school.
He received a full scholarship to the University of Miami Law School, where he excelled but soon realized his heart was not in it. In his last year he left the program to follow a vision of putting a fashion collection together. "I applied all of my drawing, sketching and design skills to this new endeavor," he notes. At age 23, he established the label Liancarlo, and today he is a highly recognized designer in the fashion world. The label has dressed dozens of celebrities, and his work has been featured in countless fashion magazines.
Throughout the years of growing his business, he became a designer by day, painter by night, taking workshops with such greats as painter Wolf Kahn—making time to pursue this passion with the same detailed study and commitment that he brought to building a business.
In 2014, he was accepted into the prestigious Master Artists Series workshops for abstract painters with nationally known teacher, Steven Aimone, at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida. His paintings have grown over the years from representational work to the large and ambitious abstractions of today.
Line, color, and shape are at the core of both his designs and paintings. They are not separate but have cohabited for many years—one being a natural outgrowth of the other. Ramirez continues to paint daily out of his cottage studio in Coral Gables, Florida.


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This morning I opened a new box (tube, actually) of Kleenex and as I was looking at the design I thought "I could stamp that!" So I set to work on it. On my first try I sponged the purple ink, but I thought it was too light. So I tried again but this time I used my aqua painter with refill ink and painted the background. (Both times I had first embossed the leaves with clear embossing powder on cream paper.) The painted version was just what I hoped for so I proceeded to make a card. I am pleased with the result!
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Interesting Inspiration
at 2:15 PM
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s the Lord leads, pray for what He lays upon your heart; for our world, our nation, our community, our church, our families, spiritual growth, evangelism and your own personal prayers and praises. Enrich your life and awaken the power of communicating with God during the 40 days of prayer.
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Go Deep with Restorative Yoga: 3 Postures to Nurture your Spirit
When I first started doing yoga back in 1998, I never even knew restorative yoga existed. I was an aspiring actress, therefore my mission in life was to impress everyone I saw, feel important, and become a size zero (last being most important). I was indeed doing a ton of yoga, but it was all about how much I could sweat in a class or how sore my muscles felt the next day. I never stopped to realize there was so much more to the world of yoga than this small town girl from Pennsylvania even knew. Then one day I had a teacher who showed us a few "relaxing poses'" toward the end of class. I remember thinking as I left, Wow I seriously feel amazing. I didn't leave sweating, or sore, or counting calories in my mind, I just felt alive in a different way than I ever had. The feeling was difficult to describe but it was somewhere around the place where a calm mind and invigoration meet. Where peanut butter and jelly come swirling together in between two warm beautiful pieces of bread. The peanut butter all sticky and grounding and the jelly all whimsical and refreshing. My thoughts had disappeared and I was left with the moment. During shavasana, I felt like I was looking down at myself on my mat with my eyes closed, smiling because I was completely at peace. I didn't care about looking amazing, or impressing anyone. I didn't even care that one of my eye-lash extensions got stuck in my eye and that I left my "good jeans" at home in the drier too long. Whatever this relaxation stuff was, I wanted more of it.
This task, however, was a bit tricky because back in the early 2000's in Los Angeles, it was all about power yoga, spinning classes, and splenda-filled carbo-lite. There was no talk of silly things like relaxation, at least not in my circles. I don't even think my husband and I were drinking green smoothies yet so I know I wasn't particularly concerned with well-being. Naturally, after a while, I fell back to my old routine, experiencing some gentle poses here and there as teachers at my studio came and went, and it always felt nice, though peace and comfort were never feelings I thought I'd need on a daily basis.
Until more of life happened.
A few years later I was faced with problems in my personal life that lead me down a scary path. Being an aspiring actress living 3000 miles away from home can definitely take its toll. This is in no way an excuse or even an explanation for the events that followed, it's just what was happening at the time. Then at some point, I started taking the "acting thing" a bit too seriously. I'd have some bit parts on tv and soaps, but my favorite was acting in the short films because they were such an escape for me. I got to be someone else for awhile. Was that such a bad thing? The Hollywood world swallowed me up pretty fast. So fast that I was starting to forget who I was. In my mind, I totally understood what an addict felt like. A complete yearning to be outside myself; a sudden need to escape. No concern for consequences or life-changing aftermath. As months went my, it became my survival.
I was losing myself...or more accurately, the ability to trust myself. I started lying, and drinking too much. I lost the ability to communicate with my husband because I didn't know how to truly state my needs. I turned my back on my friends and family in hopes of "finding myself". Chasing some sort of high I thought someone or something new can bring me, but it was always temporary.
So my thought was to flee. Surely if I leave my life behind here in California I will find it.
I moved across the country trying to find it.
I am reminded of a quote that says, "Wherever you go there you are." I built myself a brand new life that was genuine and spectacular in its own right, but still something was missing. I was dealing with tremendous guilt and remorse for what I left behind, and though talk therapy was insanely helpful, I needed more.
What I was missing was a sense of who I really was, and what I needed from the universe, and because I was so concerned with the wrong things for so long, (ie what I looked like, how smart I was, how quickly I can impress people), I slowly lost touch with my true self-worth and the inner wisdom that was buried deep. Way too deep to even access.
Then there was the month that spun me back around. I attended an intensive yoga teacher training in my new city of Boston. I can literally do a whole post on this experience alone but let's just say 200 hours, a few pulled muscles, and buckets (literally) of tears later, I was reminded again of my restorative practice. Simplicity in its most astounding form. The act of taking a breath, surrendering to the earth, and letting it take on my weight was the feeling I had been chasing all along. I then started practicing this type of yoga more at home with some pillows and blocks, or sometimes just some old blankets I had lying around. A newly found connection to the present moment had finally come.
The funny thing is, it was the restorative yoga that actually propelled my vinyasa and advanced classes to "crazy spiritual". Because the obstacles were taken away, I had the ability to recharge and find a rhythm of breath that worked for me. There was enough time for me to accept my thoughts as they came, and release them when I was ready. It helped me get in touch with my deeper needs and desires and not feel apologetic about them. Funny how yoga can fill such a longing you never even knew you had.
From a physical standpoint, restorative poses are all about letting the props doing the work. It's about making yourself as comfortable as possible so you can truly take in the benefits of the pose. Faster paced classes are great, but you know when they're even better? ......When you know what the hell is going on in your heart. Deep at your core. (and I'm not talking about your six pack)......;)
Here are 3 of my favorite restorative yoga poses to try at home. If you don't have a bolster, a few pillows will do. Give yourself the time to go in and create some space for yourself, on all levels. It really can be a life-saver.
The Poses
Side-Lying Savasana
I give my body to the earth. I am deeply rested.
This pose provides the same deep relaxation as shavasana but nice and easy on the back body. There's a reason so many people sleep on their side; its a comforting and beautiful place to be. It's also a popular option in many trauma-sensitive yoga classes since it provides a feeling of control and groundedness contributing to a state of safe surrender and calm.
Come to your right side and lie down with 2 pillows or bolsters. One rests comfortably underneath your head, the other lengthwise in between your legs (between the knee and the foot, or wherever it feels most comfortable). Let your arms extend out in front of you resting on a blanket for extra elevation.
Stay in this pose for 8-10 minutes, then switch sides.
For Pregnancy- always lie on your left side to avoid compression on the vena cava vein.
Salamba Balasana (supported child's pose)
I feel supported by all those around me.
This is one delicious pose. I did this during my pregnancy and just kept adjusting the amount of pillows as I got bigger. A great release for the lower back, and a nice stretch for the hip flexors.
Using 2 bolsters, (or pillows) set up a T-shaped incline with the vertical bolster on top. Lie on your belly with the navel centered over the top bolster and let the knees float to either side.. Turn your head to the right and relax from your neck muscles all the way down to your hips. Close your eyes and allow the support of your props to carry the weight of both your physical and emotional body.
Stay in this pose about 5 minutes, turning your head half way through.
Legs over chair pose: or as I call it Half Viparita Karani
Mantra: I feel cleansed by the universe
Taking pressure off of the lower half of your body is so cleansing, especially when you're running around on your feet all day. This has all the benefits of an inversion with the blood flowing in the opposite direction, relaxed back body, and nervous system completely at ease.
Set up 2 bolsters (or pillows) in a T shape with the vertical bolster once again on top. Sit down at the base of the vertical bolster and slowly roll your back down so you're completely supported by your props. Next, gently float your legs up onto a chair or large cushion. Let the chair hug comfortably against your knees. Relax your arms to your sides with the palms facing upwards. Allow gravity to hold the space for you, giving you more and more time to be quiet with your breath. Think of each breath as a gentle ocean wave cleansing your entire body.
Stay in this pose about 10 minutes


text: Lilly Piri studied fine art and illustration at the Arts Academy in Brisbane, Australia. She has been illustrating since 2006, and is represented by the Jacky Winter Group. Some of her clients have included Saatchi and Saatchi, Harpers Bazaar, Frankie and Poketo. Her artwork has been exhibited at Thinkspace Gallery in Los Angeles, Lamington Drive in Melbourne, Bourgeois Pig in Heidelberg and many more. Lilly hails from Queensland and lives with her husband, and fellow illustrator, Heiko Windisch.


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I received the 4 pack of the recordable answer buzzers. These buzzers are made with a different color base each. You can record any sound, song, or saying you want up to 7 seconds. It is simple to record, just press the button and hold it down while you play the sound and release. Then the buzzer is ready to be used. Just press the black button on top and the buzzer will sound. These are really light weight and easy to use.
The Learning Resources Recordable Answer Buzzers were fun and helpful for our game. The high schoolers loved them and I am sure preschoolers and all those in between would also like them. Check out all the great new products for 2014 at Learning Resources.
Enter in the Giveaway Tools form below! This giveaway will be open until 3/16 at 11:59PM (MST). Open to US. NOTE: If you have won a Learning Resources giveaway on any BLOG during the past 6 months, you are ineligible to win this giveaway! Once 6 months have passed, you can enter again. Thanks!


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Some Solutions to a slow computer
Upgrade the memory
This is a relatively simple process that many think is difficult. The first thing you need to do if you havent already, is find how much memory you have. For XP users, go to control panel, then select the system icon. You will get a box that pops up that tells you how much memory your system has (among other information). In general, the more memory you have the better. For XP, you should have an absolute minimum of 512 MB or RAM, if you do not, that is the primary cause for the sluggishness of your computer, even if it completely clean of malware. See this link for a basic tutorial on how to install RAM.
In order to determine what kind of memory your system requires check out Crucial. This site has an advisory tool that will tell you how much memory your system was equipped with from the manufacturer, how much more it can take and how many RAM modules you will need to buy and in what combination, if applicable.
Clean the Dirt
Head out to your local Wal-mart, Office Depot or the like and buy a can of compressed air. Take your computer outside, or any well ventilated area. Open the side of your computer. You typically will have thumb screws or regular screws that you take out and a side panel will come off. Generally after a long period of time, you will see layers of dust inside your system. It will look similar to lint you find in a dryer. It is important that you take the computer outside because when you blast this dust away, you will find that it is a very fine dust that goes everywhere. Best to be outside unless you want to clean it up again off of your furniture. Simply blast air off of the components that it has accumulated on. This dust can impact performance as it can hinder proper air flow inside your case. Typically your processor is impacted the most as it may not be able to cool properly. If you are a smoker, this dust may be especially thick.
Hard Drive Failure
This is why it is important that you have a proper backup strategy in place. Some hard drive failures can be predicted and dealt with. Many times you can rescue your data before the drive completely dies. Often the drive dies quickly, in that instance, you may not be able to recover data from it. In this case, a backup can save you heartache and headache. If you have a recovery CD/DVD, replacing your hard drive is simple. Simply install it, boot the recovery disc and you are on your way back to life as normal. If you do not have a disc, you have a problem, but one that can be quickly dealt with.
Easeus ToDo Backup Home or Acronic True Image are two programs that can save you. Both are Hard Drive Imaging programs, Easeus is free, Acronis is not. They will make an exact copy of your system and allow you to copy it to an external drive. If a hard drive starts to die, you can simply take a copy of the drive when it was healthy and copy it to another, new, hard drive. A windows install disc is not necessary because it will simply be using the existing Windows installation present on the dying hard drive.
One of the biggest scams are registry cleaners. True, the registry tends to be a problem over time, but registry cleaners do not do what they advertise and in many cases, make the problem worse. Windows expert Ed Bott explains why they are bad in this great article. If you must use anything that purports to address your registry issues, use CCleaner. It does all the things that a registry cleaner would do, except it will not screw up your system.
There are other programs you can use that will essentially clean the garbage on your system. You can use Microsoft's built in Disk Cleanup tool. Go to Start-All Programs-Accessories-Disk Cleanup to get to it.
Defragment your hard drive with Windows Disk Degragmenter. It is located in the same Accessories folder as the Disk Cleanup. In Windows 7, defragging your hard drive is automatic each week by default, but you can do it more often if you find it useful.
Unneeded Background Services
For each program you install, it is highly likely that it will install some sort of service in the background. The services installed are intended to help the program you installed with it or it may be an advertisement for some unwanted program. These services take up memory and bog your system down. I had one customer that had so many background services starting that it took her system 45 minutes to boot. She had over 500 services starting. You need to turn off all unneeded services. There are two free solutions that you can choose from
Soluto is a program specifically designed to address the problem of unwanted startup programs services starting on your system. It is free. The utility contains a database of known boot applications and can tell you whether or not it is wise to disable them. In general, the only startup program that should start is your anti virus programs. Most all others are wasting system resources.
CCleaner has a section that will shut off startup programs as well. Open CCleaner and you will see a "Tools" Icon on the left, click on that and you will see for boxes, one labeled "Startup". You will then see all the programs that are designated to start with your computer and whether they are enabled to do so. CCleaner does not give any advice on what you should or should not disable, so you may want to research what is listed to see if it is safe. One tool you can use is a website called Startup. It is a site dedicated to collecting information about every startup program in existence. As of the date of this article, there are 22, 983 entries of startup programs in their database. It will tell you what it is and whether or not it is safe to disable. When you get to the site, click on the database link at the top. You will find a search box on the next page. Simply enter the name of the service and search.
Unused Programs
Quite simply, if you have software on your system that you no longer use or want, uninstall it. Windows has a built in uninstaller, but I would recommend Revo Uninstaller. It does a more complete job at uninstalling programs. When you download, choose the freeware version and not the paid version, of course, unless you want to pay for it!


text: Do I want to spend it being afraid taking timid steps? No I do not! Today is my birthday and this morning I asked myself what I wanted to do with my day and this is the answer I received. And this time I listened to it and was rewarded for my willingness to push past the fear, play and experiment.


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Nakata, the pastor of Kahaluu United Methodist Church, is a former state senator and representative.
He has been a leader in community, environmental and social justice activism for 30 years, said Mike Compton, chairman of the awards committee.
The 7 p.m. event was to also celebrate King's achievements in the 1960s civil rights struggle.
Nakata was involved in last year's successful effort to get state funding to retain some of Kukui Gardens as affordable housing.
He is the incoming president of Faith Action for Community Equity, FACE, which led the Kukui Gardens effort.
Previously he was involved with Waiahole-Waikane residents in a 1980s land struggle that had a lasting effect on Windward development and state water policies.
He was a member of Kokua Kalihi Valley, former executive director of the Kualoa-Heeia Ecumenical Youth Project, and was a State Water Commission member from 1987 to 1995.


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1. Lift one foot & you have to trust something else to hold you.
2. Tree pose where I can see the April gingko leaves unfolding out the corner of my eye.
3. Is that work, the breath & the tiny precarious adjustments, the sweat rolling down my cheek.
4. Is that memory, shifting away from the bruised place on the precarious planted foot, without remembering where the bruise came from.
5. & is it gravity or something else winning then when you fall.
6. 3 people in 3 different languages on Twitter aka in Birdland mentioning holding our breath as we watched the French elections.
7. Election Day on a Sunday, not a work day, imagine that.
8. How it makes my stomach turn now to walk past the school where I voted, across the street from the 201 Varick detention center.
9. Is that work, the mind-flickers in tree pose that make me waver, the mind-flicker to try to flick the flickers away, which doesn't work, or the breathing, which sometimes does.
10. What is work. Marx's question: What is a working day.
11. Whose working day. Who's a worker. Who isn't.
12. Raise your hand if you sell your labor to live.
13. Is the head of JP Morgan's bonus a wage. Is he a worker because he works.
14. & is the woman nodding out in Penn Station not because she doesn't.
15. & who's hungriest for the new day.
16. Francisco-Luis White in Birdland just now: "We have to always be thinking about how we validate this system that really depends on some folks not eating."
16a. If you see some folks not eating as a regrettable accident or as the part of the garden that blooms only at night.
16b. In my $150 sneakers & my $200 headphones running past the man with white hair & not quite enough spring blankets under the gazebo at the end of the Christopher Street pier, where people tango on summer nights, lying on his left side so his view over the river to the Statue of Liberty may be unobstructed.
16c. The men in my neighborhood who look like grown versions of the boys I grew up with, doing the carpentry work renovating the townhouse apartments on the street where I live.
16d. The graffiti on the Barrow Street construction site, Union Pride, This Is A Scab Job!, 4 blocks north of the big Local 157 Carpenters Union building
16e. & the man with an African accent I stopped to talk to because he was carrying one of those circular watchclocks I used to carry when I was 18 & a temporary construction site security guard for Pinkerton's.
16f. How my mother grew up in western Pennsylvania & told me they still called them 'the Pinks,' since Henry Clay Frick hired them to help break the 1892 Homestead steelworkers' strike against Andrew Carnegie
16g. & I read that they fought against the West Virginia miners' union at Blair Mountain in 1921, & that the union men of different races & nationalities wore red bandanas & they called them 'the Red Neck Army.'
16h. "Henry Clay Frick (December 19, 1849 – December 2, 1919) was an American industrialist, financier, union-buster, and art patron."
16i. How I sat around a construction site reading Tillie Olsen's "Tell Me A Riddle," about a dying Russian revolutionary, in the Pinkerton's uniform my mother said made me look like a 12-year-old policeman.
16j. How you had to walk around to various construction site points every hour & punch the clock with a key, to prove they weren't paying you minimum wage to sit around reading Tillie Olsen's "Tell Me A Riddle." They're digital now, the man on Barrow Street told me, but you still have to walk around.
16k. On the Local 157 blog: "Is NYCDCC a real union anymore? I have a brother-in-law that works for Verizon and I have to tell you they fight for their members. Verizon is the company the members work for and the union is the one that fights Verizon to make sure the union members get fair wages, medical, vacation and their rights are protected. A union should be an adversary to the company. With us it feels like the NYCDCC is our company and I need to join a union to protect me from them."
& 16l. "It's fully detailed w/ all the necessary precedent citations you will need to oppose the never ending McCarron raping of Trust Fund Monies & ongoing Criminal RICO Racketeering & extortion rings he's got going under Obama's DOJ, DOL, NLRB & FBI; so we hear - right Doug. Say drywall sheet-counter & throw Momma off the Train & Brother Mike off the bus; what are you gonna do when Ron Tutor dumps your ass when the Federal indictments come down?
"No wonder you are so darn busy pissing away all kinds of money sending out multiple Mass Mailings supporting Hillary Clinton and door knocking & harassing the electorate. Otherwise; God forbid Donald Trump gets in and tears down all those phony bought & paid for walls you've built within the aforementioned phony justice system."
16m. From the college where I work: "As part of our commitment to an open consultation process, three community discussions were held during the week of March 6th for faculty, staff and students to comment on two options for awarding sub-contracts for construction: allowing both union and non-union firms to bid on sub-contracts, with a commitment to award a majority to union firms or, alternatively, permitting only union firms to bid."
16n. @frinklin in Birdland in February: "With Puzder's withdrawal the Trump Administration is expected to go w their second choice, the reanimated corpse of Henry Clay Frick."
16o. How my stomach turns when I pass the Riviera, where I looked in early on Election Night & saw on the tv where Kentucky, Indiana & West Virginia had gone.
16p. & no it wasn't Frick who claimed he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other, that was someone else.
16q. How Nick who I grew up with posted that quote after Micah Xavier Johnson who'd served in the Army Reserve in Afghanistan shot 5 policemen in Dallas at the end of a Black Lives Matter protest & at the end of a standoff police killed him with a robot. In the Army Reserve he was a carpenter. How in Birdland they joked that the robot's name was Jack Ruby.
16r. Frick was the one who said, when Andrew Carnegie wanted to meet with him, "Tell him I'll see him in Hell, where we both are going."
16s. Where my daughter lives, at the edge of Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, with an Apple Store at one end & white policemen with unholstered tasers asking Black mothers' children if they want to ride the lightning at the other.
16t. The dizziness when I was 18 & first read Eduardo Galeano's sentence: "Underdevelopment is not a stage of development. It is its consequence."
17. Raise your other hand if you are now or have ever been someone who works for free: have you raised a child, taken care of somebody sick &/or dying, have you cooked a meal or washed a toilet for no money, are you descended from slaves, have you brought a raincoat to your grandson in prison.
18. Raise one leg if that's all you have.
19. How if that's all you have you're precarious.
20. Note from a French professsor, re the 2 candidates the French elections have now left standing: Jeter des millions de travailleurs dans l'extrême précarité, ça serait un barrage contre le fascisme? To throw millions of workers into extreme precarity, that's a wall against fascism?
21. It's the fascist vs. the neoliberal now, does this sound familiar.
22. Daily practice acquaintance with the edge, the verge, the brink. Good morning, brink, Brink how do you do.
23. & with what Bergson called "counterfeit immobility," does this explain atoms aka reality: "The living are relatively stable, & counterfeit immobility so well that we treat each of them as a thing rather than as a progression, forgetting that the very permanence of their form is only the outline of a movement."
24. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Berlin, 1932: "The great disintegration of our ideals, of our human systems of order & social structures, puts the question before us anew every day: What should we do?"
24a. His text: "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you."
25. That feeling lately of tipping out of a balance that was itself a tipping out of a balance, & back & back like that to the appearance in these Américan harbors of those first white sails.
26. Where you're standing if it seems that going backward would put things right, & where if it seems that the only hope is going where no one's yet been.
27. The complex task of figuring out who you might go with, & who might go with you.
28. Unamerican Egyptian proverb: First choose your traveling companion, then choose the road.
29. proletariat. n. The group of people at the bottom of the Roman hierarchies who had no property, who had nothing to offer the state but their babies, as per the division of the people by Servius Tullius, son of a court slave.
30. One of those rare words that's the same in almost all the languages: brulitariya in Arabic, proletariaat in Estonian, proletariaatti in Finnish, proletariáto in Greek, proletariat in Polish & Swedish & Indonesian
31. --except Scots Gaelic, where it's mòr-sluagh, which means a multitude.
32. Late 1970s share of total household wealth owned by the wealthiest tenth of a per cent of the people: 7%. As of 2012: 22%.
33. Since the 1970s, average pre-tax income increase for wealthiest 10%: 121%. For top 1%: 205%. For top 0.001%: 636%. For the least wealthy 50%: 0.
34. Equal in wealth: 160,000 richest US families & 145 million poorest, would that be a multitude.
35. Like the conquista replaying over & over. How the repetitions depend on force but also on the words used to frame them.
36. Marx on the primacy of material conditions. Is a word material. Is a mind.
37. How they brought us every year to Plymouth Rock for white settler orientation, the boulder surrounded by a wall so you had to tip yourself over the edge & look down, as if the settlers had arrived via the bottom of a well, or via the pit where they told us Joseph in the Bible had been imprisoned by his brothers.
38. Genesis: "Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams."
39. False flag measures for dreamers, chapter 1.
40. From Mahmoud Darwish's "Eleven Stars Over Andalusia": "Here, on our last evening,/we look closely at the mountains besieging the clouds: a conquest, & a counter-conquest,/& an old time handing this new time the keys to our doors."
41. Raise your hand if you own your doors.
42. Raise your other hand if you can narrate how came they yours.
43. Raise one leg if you own nothing but your labor & 2 computers & a bicycle, a skillet & a pasta pot & a saucepan your friend Shahnaz gave you, 8 cups & 8 plates, a bed & 2 changes of sheets, a chair & a couch & a lot of books, & after 24 years of full-time work at the same place, & 19 years of scattered work before that, enough in a retirement account to provide $10K a year as long as you don't live past 80, about the cost of 4 months' rent now.
44. If you're not part of the 22% of US workers 55 & older who've managed to save $250K or more for retirement, raise the other leg.
45. The plunge of the retirement fund graphs during the looting of 2008, but I avoid the bruise of that, I can't remember the years of labor lost (note the frame: 'lost' vs. 'stolen'), I shift away.
46. How when I see those other graphs with a similar shape, that drop in inequality that begins in 1929, when they built a seawall of benefits to keep back the revolution flood, & then in the 1970s it starts to climb again, & I wonder in my multitude of ignorances, What happened in the 1970s? & think of Chile & Argentina.
47. Allende to the UN, December 1972, on how he came from a country "where universal secret suffrage is the means of defining our multiparty regime, with a Parliament functioning uninterrupted since its creation 160 years ago."
48. How living in Cuba made me feel their fear & trepidations for the precarious Chilean experiment: to try to make a revolution not with guns but with votes.
49. What my country tried to teach them & the world about how that works out.
50. Allende on revolution, as per his UN talk: the transformation of multinational copper profits into food for children. Into 'proteins.' "Only a small part of this amount would assure proteins for all the children in my country once and for all."
51. Was this what David was dreaming of when he sang, Thou spreadest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
52. Marx in a letter: "The world has long had a dream of something which it only has to conceptualize consciously to possess in actuality."
53. Democracy as a precarious balance, vs. as a splayed eagle with olive branches in one claw & arrows in the other.
54. & wouldn't Usahn democracy in particular have to begin with the eagle flying over a burning village, dragging someone in chains.
55. --as the white Englishmen we're supposed to call our fathers make the laws & the patterns of conduct within them that will frame the lives of generations
56. --in a room like that church on Gorée, did I dream this or is it there, with a slave cell in the basement where the light between the church floorboards seeps through.
57. How I was taught to fear not the men burning & dragging & legislating & lying aka obeying the laws of civil liberal discourse, but the people in the cell in the basement.
58. When I was in college in Massachusetts & used to do anti-racism workshops for white students, in the days when they yelled USA! USA! for the national hockey team, the way the fascists yelled it two weekends ago in Berkeley while giving Nazi salutes: what I used to call 'the ooga-booga implant,' like a chip under your skin, so power can push a button & you're terrified, of the wrong people, for the wrong reasons.
59. The MK-ULTRA official after the war who said that the goal of the human experiments was to find the behavioral modification or drug that would make all US adversaries fling down their arms & start singing the Star Spangled Banner.
60. 'ooga-booga' with that puerile echo of the racist British schoolboy slang it is, soldiers referring to the people of Sudan.
61. Winston Churchill, The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan, on "the Arab-negro" : "The qualities of mongrels are rarely admirable, and the mixture of the Arab and negro types has produced a debased and cruel breed, more shocking because they are more intelligent than the primitive savages."
& 61a., on Islam, as forwarded happily around by US Congressmen these days: "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity...were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."
62. Marion Le Pen, Marine's niece: "We are facing a global menace, Islamism."
63. Times headline as the Weimar brawls in Berkeley unfolded: Concern That Aides Have Nazi Leanings Clouds Le Pen in France
64. Marine Le Pen to Christiane Amanpour: "Some of them would steal your wallet and brutalize your wife...On top of that, they start to remove the wallpaper!"
65. How we on the college basketball team laughed & rolled our eyes & paid no attention, drunk with our arms around each other's shoulders, singing We Are the Champions, the way the Proud Boys did up the street at the Gaslight on election night, when someone not drinking said That's a fascist song, You guys are singing a fascist song.
66. The implant made from jokes & books & movies & tv shows & whispers, privileges & exclusions, generations of thefts & lies & projections. Made of words, of mind, of narrative, implanted in your intimacies, where it grows, & you start to replicate it, & pass it on.
67. The power of it, when someone presses the button.
68. How my uncle & my beloved grandmother pressed it in 1966, when my brothers & I marched in a circle in her living room in New Jersey while the Ballad of the Green Beret played, from the cabinet speaker I used to lean my forehead against to feel the drums, when I was five, wearing a velvet dress, was it Easter.
69. How Bill Clinton pressed it when he posed in front of rows of mostly black prisoners at the Stone Mountain Correctional Facility in Georgia in 1992.
(69a. The new day a candidate who wants to be seen as tough on crime stands in front of Langley & the Pentagon & the Stock Exchange.)
70. How my city pressed it in the spring of 1989, when a white investment banker was raped & beaten almost to death & 5 black teenagers were arrested for something they didn't do
71. & the real estate developer who recommended their execution, & who still insists they're guilty, even after a confession & DNA evidence to the contrary, pressed it again to become president, was that yesterday or 100 years ago.
72. Our current Attorney General to Alabama radio last November: "Trump has always been this way. People say he wasn't a conservative, but he bought an ad 20 years ago in the New York TImes calling for the death penalty. How many people in New York, that liberal bastion, were willing to do something like that?"
72a. "He believes in law and order and he has the strength and will to make this country safer. And the biggest benefits from that, really, are poor people in the neighborhoods that are most dangerous, where most of the crime is occurring. And I think people can understand that if the message continues to pound away."
72b. Jefferson as in "July 18, 1817: Thomas Jefferson assigns ten slaves to clear what had once been James Monroe's cornfield. This marks the beginning of what will become the University of Virginia."
& as in Confederate President Jefferson Davis, sworn in on the Capitol steps in Montgomery, Alabama, who "operated a large cotton plantation in Mississippi but never owned more than 74 slaves" #Heritage
& Beauregard as in PGT the Confederate General who commanded the assault on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, who owned someone who waxed his mustache every day
& Sessions maybe as in the slightly mysterious ancestor described in Miss Ellen Washburn Sessions's 1891 letter to FC Sessions: "I inclose you an account of our ancestor, the 'Black Sessions,' as he was afterward called probably from the blackness of his crime...I think his name was John. He was also a judge of the county courts.
"The grandfather was a man of much eminence, living in Westminster, Vt., a member of the Continental Congress, and a deacon in the Congregational church. In a time when provisions were very scarce in that section of the country, when they had little to eat but potatoes and salt, the good deacon saw a deer come out of the woods near his house late Sunday afternoon; he seized his gun and shot the deer. For this the church brought him up for discipline. He pleaded that it was both a work of necessity and of mercy, and that he was justified in killing this game, so providentially brought within range of his trusty gun, even if it were before sunset on Sunday. The church, however, instructed the pastor to read the sentence of excommunication on the following Sabbath. The deacon was asked to rise in his pew while the sentence was read severing his relation to the church for Sabbath breaking. He arose, and as the pastor was about to read, reaching behind him, he took his gun which he had carried to the meeting-house, levelled it at the minister's head, and in the most determined tone said, 'I forbid that paper being read from the pulpit.' The pastor quietly remarked, 'All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient, and I do not think it expedient to read this paper.' The deacon not only lived but died a member and deacon of the church."
73. Some pedagogical game at the Congregational church in Scituate, the Sunday night youth group meeting, & for some reason my brother & his friend on the football team were there, was this penance for something--how the game involved several teams, each with a ball & a series of complex choices, & my brother & his friend stole all the balls & kept them & that was the end of the game. How I can still see the faces of the other kids hesitating, uneasy, trying to be polite, & the junior minister in charge trying to permit all the liberal freedoms, & can still hear my brother & his friend unable to stop laughing.
74. How little we learned to move together except in competitions, & how detailed the obfuscations & instructions re force & theft. How it comes back to me lately especially, the remembered childhood pleasure of a solidly landed punch, of taking one & living, of the solid illusory complexity-erasing weight of a cap gun in the palm of your hand.
75. How many torment questions would be answered if only fascism could be fought with more killing. The amount of energy my country has devoted to the colonial question of how to kill better.
76. The US machine guns & ammunition shipped to Chile in the diplomatic pouch after Allende was elected in 1970, & the murder of the commander-in-chief of Chile's armed forces soon after, 48 hours before the Chilean Parliament confirmed Allende's election. Cable to CIA station chief in Santiago: IMMEDIATE SANTIAGO (EYES ONLY) SUB-MACHINE GUNS AND AMMO BEING SENT BY REGULAR COURIER LEAVING WASHINGTON 0700 HOURS 19 OCTOBER.
(76a. The rueful incredulous Latin American laughter at the idea of a USA outraged that another country may have influenced our election, by pouring money into it or publicizing emails pertaining to it or spreading lies about it on the internet.)
76b. William Broe, who lived in Scituate, where I grew up, whose grandparents were born in Ireland, whose daughters worked with my mother at a store in the harbor, whose house was on Indian Trail, who helped arrange that Che Guevara would die like Metacomet aka King Philip of the Wampanoag, re his work as deputy chief of the Western Hemisphere Division of the CIA: "I have never gone through a period as we did on the Chilean thing. I mean it was just constant, constant...just continual pressure...from the White House."
76c. The Havana stencil graffiti with Che's clear-eyed face & his arms bleeding from where his hands were amputated by the Americans. How William Broe who lived into his 90s & raised roses & went to church in Cohasset was probably among those who reviewed that package when it arrived in Washington.
76d. Andad con cartas, the conquistadores said to the Native people whose hands they cut off & hung around their necks, Go to the rebels in the mountains & carry these letters. #ColonialGestures
77. William Broe's face a little like McGeorge Bundy's, who died the same week as Tupac Shakur 21 Septembers ago, both their faces on the Times front page.
78. Emanuel Levinas: "The face as the extreme precariousness of the other. Peace as awakeness to the precariousness of the other."
79. The frames--
a. McGeorge Bundy Dies at 77; Top Adviser in Vietnam Era
b. Tupac Shakur, 25, Rap Performer Who Personified Violence, Dies
--to tell you of whom you should be afraid.
80. Bundy responsible for the deaths of millions: "My own view of bombing of the north was uh, in a sense never the majority view. Uh, I believed in a policy of uh, what I think we then called sustained reprisal, in which the level of bombing would be very, quite explicitly related to the level of Communist activity in the south."
81. Tupac, "So Many Tears": "Inside my mind I couldn't find a place to rest/Until I got that Thug Life tatted on my chest."
82. Air Force General Curtis LeMay, George Wallace's running mate in 1968, who once killed more than 100,000 people in one night of coordinated firebombing in Japan, re Korea: "Over a period of three years or so, we killed off--what--20 percent of the population."
82a. When he died: Gen. Curtis LeMay, an Architect Of Strategic Air Power, Dies at 83
83. The CNN banner with the MOAB bomb drop on top & the dragging of a bleeding Asian man off an airplane just beneath.
84. Airplanes as messengers of what's to come: Reagan breaking the air traffic controllers' union in 1981, after the post-Blair-Mountain New Deal union protections, to open the door to those no-gain income graphs mentioned earlier, & Save up to 70% on Labor Cost With Our Virtual Workforce Solutions! Click Here!
85. Allende at the UN: "In a word, the entire political structure of the world is being undermined."
86. NYT: "Responding to Dr Allende at a press conference immediately after the speech, George Bush, the United States representative, said that the investment of American capital abroad was not intended to exploit foreign countries, but rather was of mutual benefit to the investor and to the people of the country in which the investment is made."
"We don't think of ourselves as imperialists," Mr Bush said. "Foreign trade is not necessarily evil."
87. From Bundy's obituary: "His prominent family had a long tradition of public service."
88. Which of our long traditions resulted in the fact that no one stood up & blocked the aisle of that plane.
89. & which resulted in the helpless joy of the pilot in Peter Davis's 1974 "Hearts & Minds," watching the results of his napalm drop: "Absolutely outstanding. Look at them run. Look at it burn."
90. & which is waiting under Peter Dale Scott's Coming to Jakarta description:
There must be two of me
I remember the surge
of almost too vivid pleasure
when the sheriffs lined up
their faces and numbers masked
The streetlights' reflections
caught in the burnish
of their identical helmets
and we found we could hold our terrain
the smoking canisters
of tear gas hurled back
There were so many more of us
91. State Department report to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, July 1976, on what would happen when the killing finished in Argentina: "What will remain is a chain of governments, started by Brazil in 1964, whose origin was in battle against the extreme left."
92. The documents released in 2004, 40 years after the Brazilian coup, LBJ: "I think we ought to take every step that we can, be prepared to do everything that we need to do." US ambassador to Brazil, Lincoln Gordon: "If our influence is to be brought to bear to help avert a major disaster here—which might make Brazil the China of the 1960s—this is where both I and all my senior advisors believe our support should be placed," recommending "that measures be taken soonest to prepare for a clandestine delivery of arms of non-US origin, to be made available to Castello Branco supporters in Sao Paulo," delivered via "unmarked submarine to be off-loaded at night in isolated shore spots in state of Sao Paulo south of Santos."
93. Emily's note that the church I was remembering wasn't on Gorée but on the coast of Ghana, just south of Accra, El Mina, built by the Portuguese, the oldest European building south of the Sahara, one Columbus visited. Its door of no return, through which passed the people in chains bound for Brazil, its private staircases directly from the Governor's chamber to the cell where the women were imprisoned, the church on the second level & a thousand Africans below.
94. The El Mina Castle quarters for the soldiers, the traders, & the pastors. Acronym for the coalition that just overthrew the government of Brazil: BBB, for Bullets, Beef, & Bibles.
95. 1976 State Department memo on what the Condor regime offered, in addition to anti-Communism: "There is also an ideology that is more positive in origin: that of national development."
95a. "National developmentism has obvious and bothersome parallels to National Socialism. Opponents of the military regimes call them fascist. It is an effective pejorative, the more so because it can be said to be technically accurate."
but/& 95b. "...some of these regimes are producing really solid economic successes."
95c. State Department meeting with the Argentine Foreign Minister on the joint struggle against terrorism, June 1976:
The Secretary
The private sector can be of greatest assistance. I will call David Rockefeller.
Undersecretary Rogers
Yes, Chase could be very helpful.
The Secretary
And I will call his brother, the Vice President.
95d. Kissinger: "We understand you must establish authority."
& : "If there are more things that have to be done, you should do them quickly."
96. To frame 'communism' as a race, as a gender, as a class, as a sexuality, to provoke those same useful levels of feudal vassal court-slave hatred. To plant under your skin the idea that the king's interests & yours are the same.
96a. State Department memo on this version of the ooga-booga implant: "Fighting the absent pinkos remains a central goal of national security." "Long after left-wing threats are squashed, the regimes are still terrified of them."
96b. To frame democracy this way. Easter tweet from Action Française: Democracy, The System That Chose Barabbas Instead of Jesus.
96c. To frame the precariat this way, the hoi polloi, the rabble, the riffraff, trash, dregs, scum, the obstacle to social happiness, the filth that must be cleansed, the peril that must be eliminated. How in Argentina they called the people 'perejil,' 'parsley,' because you throw it away.
97. How many friends 'national developmentism' may have when it's focused on lifting trade restrictions & making a more corporate-friendly tax code, on 'austerity,' to let the rising tide of profit that lifts all boats seek its own sacred level
97a. & how many to serve as the tide's conduit, as in its mysterious & inevitable benevolences it figures out how to go where it wants, without archaic impediments, into the public schools, the public clinics & hospitals, the housing, the systems of food distribution & transportation, the legislatures & judicial & executive chambers, sluicing through the hallways, spreading free speech & enlightenment wherever it goes
97b. & how many willing to make the sacrifice of persuading journalists & elementary school teachers & historians to frame murder & theft as misunderstood manifestations of this heroism, to ensure the maintenance of the proper perspective
97c. & others to sponsor professorships & cancel the search when the 3 economist candidates haven't demonstrated proper team-player project understanding, & others to keep this from being discussed
97d. & others to pay off the doctors who provide human subjects for drug experiments, to promise patriotic professional silence when some of them die
97e. & sometimes, in crisis, as in Argentina in the 70s, others to arrest a generation objecting to these arrangements, & disfigure & destroy them, in pop-up prisons on the outskirts of the capital
97f. & seal their bodies in 200-liter barrels with sand & cement & throw them in the canal or bury them
97g. --for another generation to find 37 years later, while playing in a field, a rusted barrel with an anticapitalist bone sticking out
97h. --one like those that surfaced soon after manufacture, in 1976, with the son of the great poet of anticapitalist grief & fury, of tenderness & persistence, Juan Gelman, inside
[ deshijándome, a word he invented: 'unsonning me' ]
[ Cornel West at the Coltrane documentary Q & A on Easter Sunday : To be hated & to teach people how to love. To be dehumanized & teach people how to be human. ]
97i. & sometimes the patient skilled forensic anthropologists, parts of the state not murderous now, reclaimed from necrophilia, intent on reclamation, can make an earthmover's work be gentle, delicate, & find another barrel nearby
97j. : a barrel surrounded by a cloud of bees, who've made honey inside it
97k. & they call in the bee man who sets up a house like the one on calle 13 in Havana that lives near the Chinese embassy in the roots of a tree, its trays smeared with honey
97l. --near the booth with the guard who tells every woman passing she's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen
97m. & the bees move to the new place, so the drum can be lifted & transported & opened, to reveal the man inside, Jesús, the Cuban diplomat kidnapped & tortured & murdered in the middle of Buenos Aires by national developmentism in 1976.
97n. How in June 2013 they brought him home: Jesús Cejas Arias, pinareño, from Pinar del Río, the oldest of 9
97o. --the age of my youngest child now when he was a Cuban diplomat in Argentina in 1976, kidnapped in broad daylight in the middle of the street by men in a Ford Falcon
97p. & interrogated & tortured by 2 CIA agents, one who arrived from Santiago & one from Miami for the occasion
97q. --from Santiago Michael Townley, born in Waterloo, Iowa, whose father was a Ford executive in Chile, who killed Orlando Letelier in Washington & maybe Pablo Neruda too
97r. --& from Miami Guillermo Novo Sampol, an accomplice of Luis Posada Carriles, who that same year blew up an airplane carrying the Cuban fencing team, who the cubanos like to call the American Osama bin Laden
97s. & forged an unsigned letter from Jesús & his colleague: "We (Jesús Cejas Arias y Crescencio Galañena) both Cubans address ourselves to you to communicate that we've deserted from the Embassy to enjoy the liberty of the western world."
97t. Townley living somewhere secret under witness protection & Novo Sampol & Posado Carriles celebrating the birthday of another FBI-supported Alpha 66 socio Reinol Rodríguez at Finca Media Luna in Miami in 2015 & discussing Cuba & Venezuela.
97u. How once Allende was dead the Chilean economy magically stopped screaming.
97v. @ericgarland in Birdland: "The men and women safeguarding western democracy are people content to seek knowledge tirelessly and without glory for the good of all."
97w. Claude Taylor, former Clinton White House staff @TrueFactsStated: "So grateful to IC of many nations that have come together and are helping do what the Republicans failed to do--rid us of Trump. Thank you!"
97x. @InDaZone replying to @ericgarland: "I consider the men and women of the IC our only hope."
97y. Beautiful otherwise clarion Masha Gessen, to In These Times: "If suddenly, tomorrow, there's a military coup, that may not be a horrible thing. I sort of agree with people who say, 'Anything is better than him.'"
97z. @joshuamanning23 retweeting @ericgarland: "They are great people who know how to speak truth to power."
98. How you can't take the implant out, but you can retranslate its transmissions.
99. & turn your fear & fury into something else, would the anthem of the precariat be Coltrane's "My Favorite Things," "The Sound of Music" dismantled & put back together in the soprano voice of the colonized world, or would it be "Alabama," after the murders of those 4 Birmingham girls, following the cadences of MLK's voice.
100. If the refusal to let them make you their accomplice in murder is the last thing you let them take from you.
101. Cornel West after the Coltrane movie: "You don't lose sight of the humanity even of the gangsters who killed your precious child."
102. Víctor Dreke, Che's second in command in Angola, talking to students in Havana last May re the Colombia peace talks, calling la lucha armada una locura. Eso ya pasó. The armed struggle as insanity. That's over now.
(Note: The courses of action which follow are a preliminary submission suitable only for planning purposes. They are arranged neither chronologically nor in ascending order. Together with similar inputs from other agencies, they are intended to provide a point of departure for the development of a single, integrated, time-phased plan. Such a plan would permit the evaluation of individual projects within the context of cumulative, correlated actions designed to lead inexorably to the objective of adequate justification for US military intervention in Cuba).
1. Since it would seem desirable to use legitimate provocation as the basis for US military intervention in Cuba, a cover and deception plan, to include requisite preliminary actions such as has been developed in response to Task 33 c, could be executed as an initial effort to provoke Cuban reactions. Harassment plus deceptive actions to convince the Cubans of imminent invasion would be emphasized. Our military posture throughout execution of the plan will allow a rapid change from exercise to intervention if Cuban responses justifies.
2. A series of well coordinated incidents will be planned to take place in and around Guantanamo to give genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban forces.
a. Incidents to establish a credible attack (not in chronological order):
(1) Start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio.
(2) Land friendly Cubans in uniform "over-the-fence" to stage attack on the base.
(3) Capture Cuban (friendly) saboteurs inside the base.
(4) Start riots near the entrance to the base (friendly Cubans).
(5) Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires.
(6) Burn aircraft on airbase (sabotage).
(7) Lob mortar shells from outside of base into base. Some damage to installations.
(8) Capture assault teams approaching from the sea of vicinity of Guantanamo City.
(9) Capture militia group which storms the base.
(10) Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires -- napthalene.
(11) Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims (may be lieu of (10)).
b. United States would respond by executing offensive operations to secure water and power supplies, destroying artillery and mortar emplacements which threaten the base.
c. Commence large scale United States military operations.
3. A "Remember the Maine" incident could be arranged in several forms:
a. We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.
b. We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters. We could arrange to cause such incident in the vicinity of Havana or Santiago as a spectacular result of Cuban attack from the air or sea, or both. The presence of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of the vessel could be fairly compelling evidence that the ship was taken under attack. The nearness to Havana or Santiago would add credibility especially to those people that might have heard the blast or have seen the fire. The US could follow with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to "evacuate" remaining members of the non-existent crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.
4. We could develop a Communist Cuba terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington.
103a. But these documents invisible until many years later, long after you've heard your gutted city's Assistant Commissioner of the Fire Department say, "You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw. And I didn't broach the topic to him, but he asked me. He said I don't know if I'm crazy, but I just wanted to ask you because you were standing right next to me. He said did you see anything by the building? And I said what do you mean by see anything? He said did you see any flashes? I said, yes, well, I thought it was just me. He said no, I saw them, too."
& after you've watched the videos anyone can watch, of the north tower & the flashes from the floors far below the plane & the cutter charges pop pop popping on the undoctored sound track.
& after you've heard the warporn swoon in the voice of George Bush II announcing "The first war of the 21st century."
103b. From Harold Pinter's Nobel speech: "The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."
104. Coltrane in a train car by himself during his Japan tour in 1966, the year before he died, asked why he was playing the flute: "I was searching for the sound of Nagasaki."
105. Ruth when my daughter was little & wanted to know why no one killed Hitler: "It's not a man, it's a system."
106. Could it be overturned by the dictatorship of the first lilacs since last May, come back in spite of everything, of the cherry blossoms opening near the West 4th Street basketball court
107. --where I stood on September 12, 2001, listening to an argument between 2 precarious soldier-age young Black men: the one on the outside yelling about wiping cockroaches off the face of the earth, the other on the inside, his hands in the meshes, yelling Okay, I know who killed my cousin. I know where his family lives. Should I go find him? Should I go get him myself? Should I go get all of them?
108. How he reminds me when I waver, re whose tools will & will not dismantle the master's house, & who'll be holding them this time: the ones who see the patterns, who don't buy the bullshit, who retranslate the implant's orders, who don't sell themselves or anyone else--the ones who balance on what looks like nothing, who know that part of every dialogue is a love-close look in a stranger's face--whose movements argue with gravity & whose skilled fingers argue with chain link, the ones rubbing their beautiful eyes from nearness to the smoke. "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you."


text:
One teen's funny tactic to try to buy alcohol
Teenagers may try to buy alcohol despite being underaged. They could get a fake ID -- or go to a store known not to check ID. One teen in particular, however, had a slightly different trick in mind.
Scottish comedy and parody site, The Glasgow Gospel, posted a photo of this teen on their Facebook page:
In an attempt to buy alcohol, he used someone else's ID -- his mom's, in fact. He also dressed up as her to complete the effect.
RELATED: See US liquor laws by state
See Gallery
Judging by the two bottles in the final picture, his ruse went off without a hitch. This unorthodox way to get alcohol quickly gained traction online, garnering thousands of likes and shares.


text:
I love bananas. And I love singing. So when I found a banana (and an orange and a pear) fruit shaker at a demo session I sang for the other day, I was in weird/silly heaven.
I must incorporate these into my daily life.
Why did the banana have to go to the doctor? Because he wasn't PEELING very well!
Why did the banana go out with the prune? Because he couldn't find a date!
Okay... I'm done, I swear...


text:
Condition: Standard
All Product Details
One fine evening the no less fine office manager Ivan Dmitrich Cherviakov1 was sitting in the second row of the stalls, watching The Bells of Corneville2 through opera glasses. He watched and felt himself at the height of bliss. But suddenly . . . This "but suddenly" occurs often in stories. The authors are right: life is so full of the unexpected! But suddenly his face wrinkled, his eyes rolled, his breath stopped . . . he put down the opera glasses, bent forward, and . . . ah-choo!!! As you see, he sneezed. Sneezing is not prohibited to anyone anywhere. Peasants sneeze, police chiefs sneeze, sometimes even privy councillors sneeze. Everybody sneezes. Cherviakov, not embarrassed in the least, wiped his nose with his handkerchief and, being a polite man, looked around to see whether his sneezing had disturbed anyone. And now he did become embarrassed. He saw that the little old man sitting in front of him in the first row of the stalls was carefully wiping his bald head and neck with his glove and muttering something. Cherviakov recognized the little old man as General Brizzhalov,3 who served in the Department of Transportation.
"I sprayed him!" thought Cherviakov. "He's not my superior, he serves elsewhere, but still it's awkward. I must apologize."
Cherviakov coughed, leaned forward, and whispered in the general's ear:
"Excuse me, Yr'xcellency, I sprayed you . . . I accidentally . . ."
"Never mind, never mind . . ."
"For God's sake, excuse me. I . . . I didn't mean it!"
"Ah, do sit down, please! Let me listen!"
Cherviakov became embarrassed, smiled stupidly, and began looking at the stage. He looked, but felt no more bliss. Anxiety began to torment him. In the intermission he went up to Brizzhalov, walked around him, and, overcoming his timidity, murmured:
"I sprayed you, Yr'xcellency . . . Forgive me . . . I . . . it's not that I . . ."
"Ah, come now . . . I've already forgotten, and you keep at it!" said the general, impatiently twitching his lower lip.
"Forgotten, but there's malice in his eyes," thought Cherviakov, glancing suspiciously at the general. "He doesn't even want to talk. I must explain to him that I really didn't mean it . . . that it's a law of nature, otherwise he'll think I wanted to spit. If he doesn't think so now, he will later! . . ."
On returning home, Cherviakov told his wife about his rudeness. His wife, it seemed to him, treated the incident much too lightly. She merely got frightened, but then, on learning that Brizzhalov served "elsewhere," she calmed down.
"But all the same you should go and apologize," she said. "He might think you don't know how to behave in public!"
"That's just it! I apologized, but he was somehow strange . . . Didn't say a single sensible word. And then there was no time to talk."
The next day Cherviakov put on a new uniform, had his hair cut, and went to Brizzhalov to explain . . . Going into the general's reception room, he saw many petitioners there, and among them was the general himself, who had already begun to receive petitions. Having questioned several petitioners, the general raised his eyes to Cherviakov.
"Yesterday, in the Arcadia, if you recall, Yr'xcellency," the office manager began, "I sneezed, sir, and . . . accidentally sprayed you . . . Forg . . ."
"Such trifles . . . God knows! Can I be of help to you?" the general addressed the next petitioner.
"He doesn't want to talk!" thought Cherviakov, turning pale. "That means he's angry . . . No, it can't be left like this . . . I'll explain to him . . ."
When the general finished his discussion with the last petitioner and headed for the inner rooms, Cherviakov followed him and murmured:
"Yr'xcellency! If I venture to trouble Yr'xcellency, it's precisely, I might say, from a feeling of repentance! . . . It wasn't on purpose, you know that yourself, sir!"
The general made a tearful face and waved his hand.
"You must be joking, my dear sir!" he said, disappearing behind the door.
"What kind of joke is it?" thought Cherviakov. "This is no kind of joke at all! A general, yet he can't understand! If that's the way it is, I won't apologize to the swaggerer any more! Devil take him! I'll write him a letter, but I won't come myself! By God, I won't!"
So Cherviakov thought, walking home. He wrote no letter to the general. He thought and thought, and simply could not think up that letter. So the next day he had to go himself and explain.
"I came yesterday to trouble Yr'xcellency," he began to murmur, when the general raised his questioning eyes to him, "not for a joke, as you were pleased to say. I was apologizing for having sneezed and sprayed you, sir . . . and I never even thought of joking. Would I dare joke with you? If we start joking, soon there won't be any respect for persons . . . left . . ."
"Get out!!" barked the general, suddenly turning blue and shaking.
"What, sir?" Cherviakov asked in a whisper, sinking with terror.
"Get out!!" the general repeated, stamping his feet.
Something in Cherviakov's stomach snapped. Seeing nothing, hearing nothing, he backed his way to the door, went out, and plodded off . . . Reaching home mechanically, without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa and . . . died.
July 1883
1. The name Cherviakov comes from the Russian word cherviak ("worm").
2. A popular operetta by French composer Robert Planquette (1843-1903).
3. The name Brizzhalov suggests a combination of bryzgat ("to spray") and briuzzhat ("to grumble").


text:
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text:
I Share My Unbeing With You • Rajesh Kumar
Brett Rawson
Rajesh Kumar is the co-founder of the Twin City Poets Meetup Group in Hyderabad, India, which consists of 380 poets. He is an HR professional, avid blogger, poet, and dabbler of prose. He loves the handwritten word and keeps its grace alive through a big collection of fountain pens