Nun: Do you ever wake up scared in the early hours of the morning?

Me (the cop): Almost every night.

Nun: And does this fear originate somewhere in the area of the navel.

Me: Above the navel, somewhere between the navel and the solar plexus.

Nun: And what do you do about it?

Me: My mind finds specific things to worry about, and the fear gets absorbed.

Nun: These things you worry about, are they to do with recent acts, statements, events you have set in motion?

Me: Always.

Nun: Good.  You’re not going to understand immediately, but this vulnerable area around your navel is the only thing about you that is fully human.

— John Burdett

“When Hemos Johnson (hereditary Hahwannis chief of Kingcome) was an old man visiting his daughter at Comox she took him to Elk Falls, a place he had heard much about but had never seen.  He stood where he could behold the raging torrent in all its splendour, gazing in silent wonder at the majestic sight and when he came away he announced, “It gave me a new song.”

It had all come to him there, the words and music straight from the Master of all harmony - a song that would always be his alone.”

– Mildred Valley Thornton

Potlatch People: Indian Lives and Legends of British Columbia

 

In the past much of the Yakama tribe’s history was passed down from generation to generation by the women of the tribe using an oral tradition known as the time ball. New brides used hemp twine to record their life history starting with courtship. They tied different knots into the twine for days and weeks and added special beads for significant events. They then rolled the twine into a ball known as the “ititamat,” which means “counting the days” or “counting calendar.” The ball of twine grew in size as time passed and as events occurred…

When the women were very old, they could use the knots and beads of their time balls to recall not only what happened in their lives but when the events occurred...When a woman died, her “ititamat” or time ball was buried with her.

— Bonnie M. Fountain

“It’s going to be a total bummer,” Saenz said. “It made me wish I had shopped there more.”

– A Quarter-million People Without One Bookstore

The Associated Press, December 19, 2009

 

“It’s the life you live, not what you say/”

– Bishop Grace C. Osborne

 

My friend, Fisher, his buddy Dave and I moved me into a little gray house on Bend’s West Side on June 1. I ate my first meal in Bend at Jackson’s, came home, set up my computer on the old roll-top desk I’d faithfully lugged from Rochester, N.Y. to Flagstaff, Ariz. to Twentynine Palms, Calif. to Luna Mesa in the ravaged and glorious Mojave Desert to here. I looked out my west window to the top of a little fir and sky the exact blue of lapis.

Nightlight

By The Harvard Lampoon
Vintage Books

 

Nightlight, The Harvard Lampoon’s parody of the Twilight series, opens when Belle Goose first meets her dad at the airport when arriving in Switchblade, Oregon. She trips over a toddler, runs into a keychain rack, falls down the escalator and somersaults over her rolling luggage. “I get my lack of coordination from my dad, who always used to push me down when I was learning how to walk,” explains Belle.

This is just a sample of the ridiculousness the writers of one of the country’s oldest humor magazines employ as they mock both the writing style and the plot twists of Stephanie Meyer’s best-selling four-part saga.

West Coasters might not be drawn to a novel that takes place exclusively on Manhattan, well actually a specific part of the island, but what if this Manhattan isn’t the real Manhattan? That’s essentially what Jonathan Lethem has done with Chronic City.

The book is strangely fantastical, taking place in Lethem’s custom-crafted Manhattan – a city where an escaped tiger demolishes city blocks, the New York Times publishes a “War-Free” edition, snow falls in August and Marlon Brandon just might be alive. Chase Insteadman, a child actor turned B-list celebrity, serves as our narrator, leading us through his chance friendship with Perkus Tooth, a lazy-eyed former gonzo artist and rock critic who now spends his time battling cluster headaches, pontificating about old films and smoking marijuana…incredible amounts of marijuana.