Rick Barry 📚

The mummied dead were everywhere. The flesh cloven along the bones, the ligaments dried to tug and taut as wires. Shriveled and drawn like latterday bogfolk, their faces of boiled sheeting, the yellowed palings of their teeth. They were discalced to a man like prilgrims of some common order for all their shoes were long since stolen. CORMAC McCARTHY, The Road

Just as blue pigment spread on canvas may help a painter accurately represent nature or give to his work the aforesaid melancholy cast, enhance a pivotal pink patch, or signify the qualities of heavenly love, so our blue colors come in several shades and explanations. Both Christ and the Virgin wear mantles of blue because as the clouds depart the Truth appears. WILLIAM H. GASS, On Being Blue

She ignored the white afternoon sun which was creeping behind a ragged wall of cloud as if it pretended to be an intruder and cast her gaze down the red clay road that turned off the highway. FLANNERY O'CONNOR, "The Displaced Person"

Aljaz found his fear overwhelmed by a feeling of enchantment as he watched her emerge from that treacherous surf. There was something so desolate in her that it was akin to a magnificence, and he was filled with awe at her wildness. RICHARD FLANAGAN, Death of a River Guide

The myth of the cowboy grew purer every year because there were so few actual cowboys left to contradict it. LARRY McMURTRY, "A Preface," In a Narrow Grave

#WhitmanWednesday In vain do we march with unprecedented strides to empire so colossal, outvying the antique, beyond Alexander's, beyond the proudest sway of Rome. In vain have we annex'd Texas, California, Alaska, and reach north for Canada and south for Cuba. It is as if we were somehow being endow'd with a vast and more and more thoroughly-appointed body, and then left with little or no soul. WALT WHITMAN, Democratic Vistas

#TolstoyReadalong RESURRECTION (P2, C10) His [Nekhlyudov's] thoughts were full of the peasants in the country – women, children, old men – and the poverty and suffering which he seemed to have for the first time, especially the smiling baby like a little old man, kicking with its skinny legs what had no calves, and he could not help comparing their lot with that of the townsfolk. As he passed the butchers', fishmongers', and ready-made clothiers' he was struck again, as though he saw it for the first time, by the well-fed appearance of such an immense number of clean, fat shopkeepers, the like of whom simply did not exist in the country. These people were obviously firmly convinced that their efforts to cheat the ignorant who knew nothing about the quality of their wares was a very useful occupation, certainly not an idle one.

The obsession of putting ourselves at the centre of everything is the bane not only of theologians but also of zoologists. YANN MARTEL, Life of Pi

He looked at her and for a moment she lived in the bright blue worlds of his eyes, eagerly and confidently. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, Tender Is the Night

I'd like to shout down through a hole in the ceiling of time and advice the people of a hundred years ago: if you want your secrets kept, whisper them into the ear of your dearest, most trusted friend. Do not trust the keyboard and screen. If you do, we'll know everything. IAN McEWAN, What We Can Know.

#TolstoyReadalong RESURRECTION (P2, C9) Next day the peasants did not go to work but spent their time discussing the master's offer. The village was split into two factions: those who saw the offer as a profitable one which could do them no harm, and those who thought there was a catch in it, which they could not detect and therefore feared all the more. By the third day, however, they all agreed to accept the proposal made to them and came to Nekhlyudov to announce their decision. The village had been much influenced by the opinion of an aged woman, which the old men accepted and which did away with all fear that they were being cheated, that the master was acting so because he had begun to be anxious about his soul and was doing this in the hope of salvation. This explanation was further confirmed by the generous alms which Nekhyludov had distributed whild in Panovo.

His fiction is rich with the history of America's greed and violence, its spiritual yearnings, its stewardship of the earth's elements, and, most consistently, its linguistic paradoxes. "The truth is what happened. It aint what come out of somebody's mouth," one of his characters says. "[I]ntelligence is numbers. It's not words. Words are things we've made up," says another. TERRY DAUGHERTY, Cormac McCarthy: A Legacy Revisited

The bar of the Hotel Astor, heart of Times Square not so long ago. Scene of many misadventures owing to double doses of the Manhattan cocktail, wrongly named because of its sweetness. ELIZABETH HARDWICK, "Back Issues"

[Sixteen Years] One of the greatest, luckiest breaks in our whole history as a nation is that George Washington was our first president, because he set the example of integrity, strength of purpose, and devotion to the country, Patriotism—not just the flag-waving kind, but real love of country. Keep in mind too that he was our chief executive, he was our commander in chief, for sixteen years, because we had no president during the war, and he was the commander. — David McCullough DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN, The American Story

This is a fascinating subject with an authoritative author, featuring many prominent figures, highly detailed, a mainstream publisher (William Morrow), released nearly three weeks ago. Yet I can't find any reviews from leading print media, pro or con. 👽