I could have sworn Bruce Lee used a yo-yo in one of his kung-fu movies, a sign that the yo-yo moved across the colored world in impressive fashion. But Lee did not use it and the Filipinos never killed either Spanish or American soldiers with it. It has always been a toy. I loved Duncan yo-yos as a kid. I still have one. In times of stress, it is better than a glass of wine.
The mentalist’s tone matters: an offhand, “Oh, and did you want to change that?” is less likely to elicit a change than a slow dangling of the temptation to change the card.
Why did people act like passing gas was rude? (And why did they use “pass,” the verb of death?) Bodies have air inside, sometimes too much air. It is not our fault that this air smells like a rind of Limburger dunked in a sewer.
I was too late. A young woman had run at top speed from the back of the café and was already outside, capably administering the Heimlich on a guy who was a foot taller and fighting to resist her. While I was busy giving up on the next generation, they had been responding to the problem.
We can only reclaim our attentional power with “the carving out of spaces in the world where it can survive and thrive.” Physical spaces, designed with that purpose in mind. Psychological spaces, within us and between us.
Dogs need structure; without it, they run amok. We humans are convinced that we crave freedom and self-determination, but we run amok, too.
Escapism brings up biases I had not reckoned with. Why should I be so resistant? I am not picky about the relationships in my mysteries: a hard-won romance is a lovely distraction from murder, but a witty and well-seasoned marriage is just as much fun, as is the glum frustration of someone who is lonely but at least has buddies at work to commiserate with.
Scabs were cool. And until this weekend, I believed they were necessary.
Because we were vast, spacious, and buffered by oceans, we were relatively safe from the encroachments and surprise attacks of conventional warfare. We made it fashionable to question authority and reject hierarchy. Other countries, squeezed tight and facing constant threats, developed rigid sets of rules and norms that kept their population cohesive and, well, safe.
This is silent disco. Forgive me if it feels like a metaphor. It is not new: The first headphone concert was by the Flaming Lips in Dallas in 1999, although they also used a normal speaker so the sound could be felt—a nicety soon dropped.