The Influence of Edgar Allan Poes Life on His Morbid...

Edgar Allan Poe is the most morbid of all American authors. Poe made his impact in Gothic fiction, especially for the tales of the macabre of which he is so renowned for. â€Å"How can so strange so fine a genius so sad a life, be exprest [sic] comprest in on line — would it not be best to say of Poe in a reverential spirit simply Requiescat in Pace [?]† — (Alfred Lord Tennyson’s reply to the Poe Memorial committee, February 18, 1876). Poe’s own life story sheds light on the darkness of his writings. Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809 to David Poe and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins - both of whom died before their son was three. Edgar went to live in Richmond, Virginia with John Allan, a wealthy tradesman, while his†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"Mr. Poe could not possibly send forth a book without some marks of his genius, and mixed up with the dross we find much sterling ore.† — (From a review of Poe’s Tales, September 6, 1845.) In 1845, Poe, 27, and Virginia, 13, married, and were happy for a time. In 1842, Virginia ruptured a blood vessel; the first sign of the ill health that plagued her short life. Poe turned to alcohol to cope with her illness and the stress of his dying wife. Two years later, Virginia died of tuberculosis, and Poe’s own death would follow shortly two years after that. The Raven, published in 1845, brought Poe temporary popular and critical acclaim. The Raven was a personal challenge Edgar imposed upon himself. Poe originally wanted to use a parrot instead of a raven, but he felt it didn’t evoke the right tone. He also wanted to write a 100 line poem, but ended up with 108 lines, which was good enough for Poe. The one and only novel Poe completed, Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, was about these crew members drawing straws for who would be eaten after their boat capsized; they drew straws, and ate Richard Parker. The book flopped. Even though Poe said it was a true story, almost all the critics didn’t believe him. They were right to since at the time Poe’s book wasn’t true, but just five years later a similar wreck happened with the same lead character name Richard Parker, though there was no cannibalism. ButShow MoreRelatedEdgar Allan Poes Impact on American Literature1379 Words   |  6 PagesEdgar Allan Poe is one of the most influential writers of the horror genre in American history. His horror stories have impacted numerous authors and their stories over the years. Various people have tried to copy his way of writing style, but they have failed to achieve the success he did. Even though Poe is no longer living, his impact on American literature can still be felt today. Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809. Even though Edgar Allan Poe did not growRead MoreEdgar Allan Poe and Love 1059 Words   |  5 Pages Edger Allan Poe is one of the most influential authors of his time. Well known for his short storys The Raven and A Tell-Tale Heart, Poe also wrote poems that reflected his struggles through out his life. Poe was born in 1809, Thomas Jefferson was president. Lots of events occurred during Poe’s life with the beginning of the war of 1812, to the writing of â€Å"Frankenstein† by Mary Shelley, and â€Å"The Vampyre† written by John Polidori. Slavery was banned in England in 1833 and a year later, The SpanishRead MoreInfluences And Life Of A Tortured Soul1994 Words   |  8 PagesInfluences and Life of a Tortured Soul â€Å"Although dissolute in his personal life, when Poe touched pen to paper, he became a disciplined craftsman.† (Carnes 300). Edgar Allan Poe cemented his place in American literature by publishing countless poems and short stories, including â€Å"The Raven† and â€Å"Masque of the Red Death.† Poe effectively invented the detective fiction genre and perfected the horror story. His style, visionary as it was, was not with its influences. A life filled with tragedy, disappointmentRead MoreTerm Paper Edgar Allan Poes Infatuation with Death1498 Words   |  6 PagesEdgar Allan Poes Infatuation with Death Ralph Emerson once wrote, Talent alone cannot make the writer. There must be a man behind the book. Edgar Allan Poe acquired the ability to write Gothic horror through the tragedies that existed in his life. At three years old Poe lost his mother and father. Grief and sadness overwhelmed Poes childhood and eventually his literary style. By temperament and mournful personal experience, Poe was drawn into the contemporary cult of death (KennedyRead MoreA Brief Biography of Edgar Allan Poe Essay1001 Words   |  5 Pages Thesis Edgar Allan Poe was a fictional writer that astonished readers with his many mysterious poems and his tales of horror such as â€Å"The Raven†, â€Å"Annabelle Lee†, and â€Å"The Fall of the house of Usher†. Biography Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston Massachusetts. (A-1) His parents were English born actors Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe Jr. (A-2) After his parents died he was raised by his godfather JohnRead MorePoetic Prose Of Edgar Allan Poe1409 Words   |  6 PagesJared Zimmerman 12/04/2014 ENG 112 Mr. Erik Curren Cathartic Prose: A psychoanalysis of Edgar Allan Poe It’s no mystery that the life of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the earliest practitioners of the short story and one of horror’s most revered authors, was full of distress and tragedy. Plagued by family deaths, financial troubles, and little success in writing, Poe’s life certainly had its fair share of ups and downs, but was he the crazy madman that people rumored him to be? It is a common belief thatRead MoreEdgar Allen Poe: His Life and His Work1764 Words   |  8 PagesIn human nature there exists a morbid desire to explore the darker realms of life. As sensitive beings we make every effort to deny our curiosity in the things that frighten us, and will calmly reassure our children that there arent any creatures under their beds each night, but deep down we secretly thrive on that cool rush of fear. Despite our efforts to maintain a balance of respectable emotions, we are a society of people who slow down to look at traffic accidents and find excitement in theRead More Edgar Allan Poes Writing Essay2378 Words   |  10 Pagesincorporate them into his or her works. In the gothic times, dark, threatening, horrific, morbid, depressing, bizarre, bewildering, death and insane are just some words that best describe the popular type of literature at that time. One man’s name can summarize the se words, Edgar Allan Poe. He is considered to be one of the greatest obscure American authors/poets whom many literary scholars still try to make heads or tails of. People throughout the history often wondered why Poe’s writings are so fantasticallyRead MoreThe Cask Of Amontillado By Edgar Allan Poe1555 Words   |  7 PagesIn his writing, Edgar Allan Poe has multiple uses of direct and indirect characterization. In The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor had rules such as â€Å"I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong† (Poe, 2). Poe used indirect characterization to show the reader that Montresor is an unreliable narrator because he justified his actionsRead MoreInfluence Of Writers : Edgar Allen Poe Essay1814 Words   |  8 PagesThe Influence of Writers: Edgar Allen Poe on Charles Baudelair e Poets and writers who lived in America during the 1800’s lived in a time of new beginnings and a time in which they could create their own version of literature. Edgar Allen Poe did that and even more during his lifetime. He put a lot of effort into making his poems memorable to his audience and give them something to think about. During his lifetime not many people took notice of Poe’s genius, but Charles Baudelaire definitely did.

Eng 157 Multicultural Analysis Paper - 1452 Words

The Importance of Multicultural Literature ENG/157 David McCarthy The Importance of Multicultural Literature The introduction to multicultural literature into the broad world of differing walks of life, the reader may be surprised by the similarities between the cultures as well as the differences. Cultures are as eclectic as we are as individuals, each with their own quirks, intricacies, and uniqueness that inspires individuality regarding how the vast differences between cultures correlate to our own. Upon deeper examination of multicultural literature, however; we are also given the privilege to walk the path of the individual from whose perspective we are privy to through the written word. As many have wished at†¦show more content†¦The character represents not only what the people of Africa forced to suffer but also hope that the effect of what transpired can be overcome through perseverance despite devastation endured. The author, Ken Saro-Wiwa, also politically motivated which is a characteristic prominent within his short story â€Å"Africa Kills Her Sun†. Having sided with the minority Ogoni within his homeland of Nigeria, his protests and resistance against the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha led to his imminent execution. Within this particular short story, though, he wrote the character Bana as one who sees his acts of criminality no different from that of those in more prestigious standing. This ultimately leads the reader to question how criminal activity, such as robbery is any different from that of the sly, underhanded actions of a politician or any other individual in a position of power. Readers also develop an emotional attachment to a character, such as the main character in Chitra Divakaruni’s â€Å"Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter†. From the direct perspective of the character, the reader looks through the eyes of an elderly widow from India who struggles to find balance between herShow MoreRelatedThe Effects of Teachers Behavior on Student Performance8134 Words   |  33 Pagesreport card grade, class size, etc.) on students’ subject- specific motivation. Data of 52 third-year EFL-classes (English as a Foreign Language; 1041 students), taught by 32 secondary teachers, were included in the analyses. The study used multilevel analysis of variance to investigate the effect of teaching on motivation and included several covariates as well. For all of the discerned subject-related attitude variables – pleasure, relevance, confidence and effort – a positive and strong effect was foundRead MoreMuseum and Tourism25584 Words   |  103 Pa ges4. CASE STUDIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1. Gà ¶teborgs Stadsmuseum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2. Reykjavik Museum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3. Comparison on GSM and RM. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4. SWOT-analysis regarding the museums and tourism. 5. CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APPENDIX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 34 37 40 43 47Read MoreMuseum and Tourism25591 Words   |  103 Pages4. CASE STUDIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1. Gà ¶teborgs Stadsmuseum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2. Reykjavik Museum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3. Comparison on GSM and RM. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4. SWOT-analysis regarding the museums and tourism. 5. CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pages978-1-4399-0269-1 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-4399-0270-7 (paper : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-4399-0271-4 (electronic) 1. History, Modern—20th century. 2. Twentieth century. 3. Social history—20th century. 4. World politics—20th century. I. Adas, Michael, 1943– II. American Historical Association. D421.E77 2010 909.82—dc22 2009052961 The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials

Heaney as a Modern Poet Essay Example For Students

Heaney as a Modern Poet Essay Seams Haney as a poet of Modern Ireland Seams Haney epitomizes the dilemma of the modern poet. In his collection of essays Preoccupations he embarks on a search for answers to some fundamental questions regarding a poet: How should a poet live and write? What is his relationship to his own voice, his own place, his literary heritage and his contemporary world? In Preoccupations Haney imagines Digging itself as having been dug up, rather than written, observing that he has come to realize that it was laid down In me years ago. In this sense, the poetic act is one of retrieval-of recovering something that already exists-rather than of creating something entirely new from whole cloth. Plagued by the moral dilemma of sympathizing with the school of thought that wanted to destroy the Protestant supremacy, and being a poet, he could not condone violence. This dilemma tore him apart and gave way to a sense of fragmented identity and an inevitable nihilism. It is this sense of the repetition of cycles rooted deep in the past that attracted Haney to Globs book on The Bog People. We will write a custom essay on Heaney as a Modern Poet specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now What Glob offers Is an Image of a pre-Christian, northern European tribal society In which ritual violence Is a necessary part of the structure of life. Most of the Iron-Age bodies recovered from the Jutland Bogs and documented by Glob had been the victims of ritual killings, many of them having served as human sacrifices to the Earth Goddess Nervous. Haney detected a kinship between the Pagan civilizations of Jutland and Irelands own Celtic traditions. Haney in a conversation affirms Irish Catholicism Is continuous with something older than Christianity. Honeys first extended attempt at conflating his understanding of Globs Jutland rituals with his own sense of mythic and modern history comes In the Tolland Man. The Tolland Man is one of the recovered bodies by Glob in this book. He was a victim sacrificed to Nervous, in the hope of securing a good crop from the land, and it is in this sense that he is, as Haney describes him as Bridegroom to the goddess. Haney imagines the killing of the Tolland Man and his subsequent burial in the Bog as a kind of Eileen love making between victim and goddess, In which Nervous , opening her fen preserves the victims body by Immersing It In her sexual dark Juices. When the Tolland Man Is dug up, many centuries later the turf cutters discover HIS last gruel of winter seed/caked in his stomach. Ever since Haney placed as a child in a moss- hole, Haney realized that the Bog represented for him a repository of memories of his childhood. He also recognized the Bog as being literally a storage place which held objects preserved for decades beneath it. Just as Haney believed that Irelands story lay beneath the Bog he also began to use the Bog to project her future. The fact that poetry Is a kind of continuous and complex stream of thoughts, a composite of memories in which what we have experienced in the past is constantly merging with our experience of the moment best embodied by Eliot;s Time present and time past/are both perhaps present in time future/and time future contained in time past. Honeys poems are laced with a strong sense of alienation in the modern world and the need to negotiate the distance between origins and present circumstances. In the poem Digging learning and the privileges to which It provides access are what father working beneath his window. If he cannot literally dig, he can dig metaphorically unearthing the detail of the life of his family and community and honoring them by preserving them in his verse. As Hellene Vender puts it, these early poems memorial a life which the poet does not want to follow, could not follow, but none the less recognizes as forever a part of his inner landscape. .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c , .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c .postImageUrl , .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c , .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c:hover , .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c:visited , .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c:active { border:0!important; } .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c:active , .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .ue69c98d1d0ad7ce0ce5db775bdc7234c:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: What are some important Literary Devices used in the poem "There is no Frigate like a Book" EssayThe language evokes a strong sense of the sight and sound of the world being described which indicates the early influence on Haney of this near contemporary English poet Ted Hughes. Language is thus deployed here with enormous precision in the impressionistic manner in order to evoke a detailed image of a very specific world with Haney describing it as the rustle of language itself. In the true modernist vein Haney takes a descent into his past which becomes analogous to his subconscious, digging out memories. The land of Ireland itself is, the object of resentment for those w ho endured the terrible suffering of the Great Hunger. In Ata Potato Digging the ultra collective of a people hungering from birth takes on a political dimension as well as a purely descriptive one. The degradation of having to grub like plants makes the people seem worth no more than weeds so it is unsurprising that they should feel that their land is the bitchy earth. Honeys subject matter and imagery become stark and astringent filled with death and dying and rooted firmly in his world. However, the irony becomes evident when the essence of profligacy is contrasted with famine victim could afford to throw away tea dregs or crusts. As the workers stretch out in their rest they are describes lying on faithless ground. This reminds us of the fact that nature can set its face against humanity and behave in an unpredictable manner. It can also be argued that although Honeys work is full of images of death and dying, it is at the same time deeply rooted in life endlessly metaphorical. It holds out an offer of endlessness of cynical history of eternity. Honeys poems are ultimately peace poems intensifying the sense of beauty in contrast to the horror of violence and the pathos of needless death.

The Battle Of The Buldge Essays - Battle Of The Bulge, Belgium

The Battle Of The Buldge The Battle of The Bulge As 1945 approached it seemed, to most, that Germany's surrender was only a matter of time. The Allies, having been on the offensive for so long, had an all time high determination and morale. The idea that Germany could muster the supplies, troops, or will to launch an offensive seemed crazy. In fact, many were already asking the questions of when and where the assault on the Rhine should be launched. Hitler, utilizing his talent of strategic vision, noticed a hole in the Allies defenses. He saw the Ardennes Forest of Belgium was lightly defended. The Ardennes Forest had traditionally been thought of as impassible to tanks and there fore not an option for either side. The Allies left only four divisions to defend a front of over eighty miles. Because the Germans had now been pushed back almost to Germany, and in some places were already fighting on German soil, the Allies lost the important intelligence on troop movements provided by French and Belgium residents. As a result Germany was able to do major troop movements and buildups right behind the front lines. Hitler secretly assembled the twenty-one divisions that would later take place in The Battle of The Bulge with out the Allies even knowing. Field-Marshal von Rundsted is generally credited with the plans for the offensive, however in actuality he was strongly opposed to the plan. It was Hitler and his immediate staff who secretly developed the plan, and turned down all requests for changes or revisions. In one of von Rundsted's request for revisions Hitler responded The Plan itself is irrevocable(World War II Trevor Hall and Gerald Hughes, Smithmark Publisher) The plan was actually brilliant in its simplicity, and if Germany had the fuel, men and supplies that Hitler's plan required, it could have succeeded giving Germany a major victory in the west. Fortunately for the Allies, Hitler's idea of the amount of fuel and number of men at his disposal was greatly exaggerated, and his plan did not take into account that three of his Panzer tank divisions were down to roughly 100 tanks per division, less than half the amount in the American armored divisions. At 5:30 in the morning of December 16, 1944 with the benefit of fog and clouds keeping Allied planes on the ground, Hitler attacked a 90 mile American front between Monschau and Echternach using twenty one German divisions high on morale but low on fuel. The first wave of the attack was by the 150th Panzer Brigade, a unit of about 2,000 English speaking Germans who knew American slang and customs. Under command of Colonel Otto Skorzeny, and using captured Jeeps and wearing American combat jackets, the Germans moved through the American lines cutting telephone wires, turning signpost, and setting up false mind field indicators. The 150th was under orders that if captured tell the Americans that thousands of Germans in Jeeps were behind the American lines. This operation was a huge success thirty-two of the forty Jeeps that went in came back, and the ones who did not make it kept their orders and spread rumors of large number of undercover Germans. The Americans took the bait and set u p checkpoints causing massive traffic jams and hundreds of American soldiers were sent to jail if they could not answer check questions such as the height of the Empire State Building. Later the Americans commended these under cover operations as Military Genius. Less respectable were the acts committed by the 1st SS Panzer Brigade known as Battle Group Peiper. This unit captured the city of Stavelot and discovered a group of civilians huddled in a basement, the Germans took them out and shot in cold blood. Later that same day the US 99th Infantry Division retook Stavelot and held their positions until reinforcements arrived. Ironically while Peiper was held up in Stavelot he was with in a mile of a lightly guarded American fuel dump containing 2.5 Million gallons of gasoline. But he did not know that it was there and therefore made no attempt to capture the fuel that could have changed the entire offensive. While Peiper was held up in the

Stag Moose - Facts and Figures

Stag Moose - Facts and Figures Name: Stag Moose; also known as Cervalces scotti Habitat: Swamps and woodlands of North America Historical Epoch: Pleistocene-Modern (2 million-10,000 years ago) Size and Weight: About eight feet long and 1,500 pounds Diet: Grass Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; thin legs; elaborate antlers on the males About the Stag Moose The Stag Moose (which is sometimes hyphenated and capitalized differently, as the Stag-moose) wasnt technically a moose, but an overgrown, moose-like deer of Pleistocene North America equipped with unusually long, skinny legs, a head reminiscent of an elk, and elaborate, branched antlers (on the males) matched only by its fellow prehistoric ungulates Eucladoceros and the Irish Elk. The first Stag Moose fossil was discovered in 1805 by William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, at Big Bone Lick in Kentucky;Â   a second specimen was unearthed in New Jersey (of all places) in 1885, by William Barryman Scott (hence the Stag-Mooses species name, Cervalces scotti); and since then various individuals have been unearthed in states suchas Iowa and Ohio. (See a slideshow of 10 Recently Extinct Game Animals) Like its namesake, the Stag Moose led a very moose-like lifestylewhich, if you dont happen to be familiar with mooses, entailed wandering swamps, marshes and tidelands in search of tasty vegetation and keeping a close eye out for predators (such as the Saber-Toothed Tiger and the Dire Wolf, which also inhabited Pleistocene North America). As for the most distinctive characteristic of Cervalces scotti, its enormous, branching horns, those were clearly a sexually selected characteristic: the males of the herd locked antlers during mating season, and the winners earned the right to procreate with females (thus ensuring a new crop of big-antlered males, and so on down through the generations). Like its fellow plant-eating megafauna mammals of the last Ice Ageincluding the Woolly Rhino, the Woolly Mammoth, and the Giant Beaverthe Stag Moose was hunted by early humans, at the same time as its population was restricted by inexorable climate change and the loss of its natural pasture. However, the proximate cause of the Stag Mooses demise, 10,000 years ago, was probably the arrival in North America of the true moose (Alces alces), from eastern Eurasia via the Bering Land Bridge in Alaska. Alces alces, apparently, was better at being a moose than the Stag Moose, and its slightly smaller size helped it to subsist on rapidly dwindling amounts of vegetation.

Biography of Charles Sheeler, Precisionist Artist

Biography of Charles Sheeler, Precisionist Artist Charles Sheeler (July 16, 1883 - May 7, 1965) was an artist who received acclaim for both his photography and painting. He was a leader of the American Precisionist movement which focused on realistic depictions of strong geometric lines and forms. He also revolutionized commercial art blurring the lines between advertising and fine art. Fast Facts: Charles Sheeler Occupation: ArtistArtistic Movement: PrecisionismBorn: July 16, 1883, in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaDied: May 7, 1965, in Dobbs Ferry, New YorkEducation: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine ArtsSelected Works: Crissed Crossed Conveyors (1927), American Landscape (1930), Golden Gate (1955)Notable Quote: â€Å"I favor a picture which arrives at its destination without the evidence of a trying journey rather than one which shows the marks of battle.† Early Life and Career Born and raised in a middle-class family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Charles Sheeler received encouragement from his parents to pursue art from an early age. After graduating from high school, he attended the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art to study industrial drawing and applied arts. At the academy, he met American impressionist painter William Merritt Chase  who became his mentor and modernist painter and photographer Morton Schamberg who became his best friend. During the first decade of the 20th century, Sheeler traveled to Europe with his parents and Schamberg. He studied painters from the Middle Ages in Italy and visited Michael and Sarah Stein, patrons of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, in Paris. The Cubist style of the latter two had a significant impact on Sheelers later work. When he returned to the U.S., Sheeler knew that he could not support himself with income from his painting alone, so he turned to photography. He taught himself to take photos with a $5 Kodak Brownie camera. Sheeler opened a photography studio in Doylestown, Pennsylvania in 1910 and earned money photographing construction projects of local architects and builders. The wood stove in Sheelers house in Doylestown, Pennsylvania was the subject of many of his early photographic works. In the 1910s, Charles Sheeler supplemented his income by photographing works of art for both galleries and collectors. In 1913, he participated in the landmark Armory Show in New York City that exhibited the works of the most noted American modernists of the time. Painting After the tragic death of his best friend Morton Schamberg in the influenza pandemic of 1918, Charles Sheeler moved to New York City. There, the streets and buildings of Manhattan became the focus of his work. He worked with fellow photographer Paul Strand on the 1921 short film Manhatta. Following its exploration of the urban landscape, Sheeler created paintings of some of the scenes. He followed his usual technique of taking photographs and drawing sketches before committing the image to paint. In New York, Sheeler became friends with poet William Carlos Williams. Precision with words was a hallmark of Williams writing, and it matched Sheelers attention to structure and forms in his painting and photography. They attended speakeasies together with their wives during the Prohibition years. Another important friendship developed with the French artist Marcel Duchamp. The pair shared an appreciation of the Dada movements break from concern about traditional notions of aesthetics. Alfred Eisenstaedt / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images Sheeler considered his 1929 painting Upper Deck a powerful representation of all that hed learned to that point about art. He based the work on a photograph of the German steamship S.S. Majestic. To Sheeler, it allowed him to use the structures of abstract painting to represent something entirely realistic. In the 1930s, Sheeler painted celebrated scenes of the Ford Motor Company River Rouge plant based on his own photographs. At first glance, his 1930 painting American Landscape appears peaceful like a traditional pastoral landscape painting. However, all of the subject matter is the result of American technological might. It is an example of what was called the industrial sublime. By the 1950s, Sheelers painting turned toward abstraction as he created works that featured parts of larger structures like his bright-colored Golden Gate showing a close-up portion of San Franciscos iconic Golden Gate Bridge. Photography Charles Sheeler worked for corporate photography clients throughout his career. He joined the staff of the Conde Nast magazine publishing firm in 1926 and worked regularly on articles in Vogue and Vanity Fair until 1931 when he was offered regular gallery representation in Manhattan. In late 1927 and early 1928, Sheeler spent six weeks photographing Ford Motor Companys River Rouge production plant. His images received strong positive acclaim. Among the most memorable was Crissed Crossed Conveyors. By the late 1930s, Sheeler was so prominent that Life magazine ran a story on him as their first featured American artist in 1938. The next year New Yorks Museum of Modern Art conducted the first Charles Sheeler museum retrospective including over one hundred paintings and drawings and seventy-three photographs. William Carlos Williams wrote the exhibition catalog. Alfred Eisenstaedt / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images In the 1940s and 1950s, Sheeler worked with additional corporations such as General Motors, U.S. Steel, and Kodak. He also worked for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in the 1940s photographing items from their collections. Sheeler cultivated friendships with other renowned photographers including Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. Precisionism By his own definition, Charle Sheeler was part of the distinctly American movement in the arts called Precisionism. It is one of the earliest modernist styles. It is most often characterized by a precise depiction of the strong geometric lines and forms found in realistic subject matter. The works of precisionist artists celebrated the new industrial American landscape of skyscrapers, factories, and bridges. Influenced by Cubism and presaging Pop Art, Precisionism avoided social and political commentary while the artists rendered their image in an exact, almost rigid style. Among the key figures were Charles Demuth, Joseph Stella, and Charles Sheeler himself. Georgia OKeefes husband, photographer, and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz was a strong supporter of the movement. By the 1950s, many observers considered the style outdated. Later Years Sheelers style in his later years remained distinctive. He abstracted subjects into an almost flat plane of lines and angles. In 1959, Charles Sheeler suffered a debilitating stroke which ended his active career. He died in 1965. Legacy Charles Sheelers focus on industry and cityscapes as subjects for his art influenced the Beat movement of the 1950s. Author Allen Ginsberg, in particular, taught himself photography skills to emulate Sheelers groundbreaking work. Sheelers photography blurred the boundaries between commercial and fine art when he eagerly embraced industrial corporations and artistic depictions of their production plants and products. Source Brock, Charles. Charles Sheeler: Across Media. University of California Press, 2006.

Evaluation of Long-Term Finance Alternatives Article

Evaluation of Long-Term Finance Alternatives - Article Example A firm can opt in for any kind of long-term financing like issue of securities, term loans, internal accruals, suppliers' credit scheme and equipment financing. There are also some additional options of funding like deferred credit, unsecured loans and deposits and venture capital financing. Types of Capital: Three types of capital can be issued by firms namely equity capital, preference capital and Debenture capital. All three of them vary in terms of risk, return and the pattern of ownership. Equity Capital - Equity share holders are the actual owners of the business. They enjoy all the profits of the company that are residual in nature and this is after paying the preference shareholders and all the other creditors, if any. The liability restriction of equity share holders is limited to the amount of share capital contributed by them. The cost of equity capital is higher than all other forms of capital. It is to be noted that equity dividends are not tax-deductible expenses and also the costs of issue is very high. Long term financing is essential for any operating firm. Long term finance are necessary for investments such as modernization or expansion of existing firms and also for working capital management. The funding process should be a trade-off between the cost of funding, the risk factor involved and the expected returns. This is in order to maintain a reasonable spread is maintained for the firm. References: 1. Financial Management for Managers, published by ICFAI center for Management Research, Ref no: FMM - 04200405. Preference Capital - Though similar to equity capital, preference capital has no obligatory payment to the preference shareholders. Even the preference dividend is not tax deductible. An advantage that the preference shareholders have is that they earn a fixed rate of return for their dividend payment. Debenture Capital - Debenture is nothing but a marketable legal contract whereby the company promises to pay its owner, a specified rate of interest for a defined period of time and to repay the principal at the specific date of maturity. These are usually secured b y a charge on the immovable properties of the company. A firm can also raise capital from the primary market by way of issuing securities. Different ways of issuing securities exist. Public Issue: Companies issue securities to the general public in the primary market and thereby get them listed in the stock exchange. These securities are then traded in the secondary market. Rights Issue: When a firm issues additional equity capital. It has to first offer such securities to the existing shareholders on a pro rata basis. Such a method of issuing securities is called as Rights Issue. Private Placement: This method of financing involves direct selling of securities to a limited number of institutional or high net worth investors. The delay in going public and also the expenses involved can be avoided in this case. The major advantages here are the easy access to any company, fewer formalities and lower issue cost.

Education in Saudi Arabia Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Education in Saudi Arabia - Research Paper Example As the discussion stresses  after the country was founded in 1932, the education system was not easily accessible and was limited by individual teaching practices at religious schools, mosques, and private homes. The schools were initially focused on teaching Islamic law, recitation of Quran included with basic writing and reading skills. By the end of the century, there were prominent educational reforms in the Ottoman provinces of Hijaz and Al-Ahsa, leading to the beginning of the ‘modern education’. In 1954, the Ministry of Education was established and the first non-wholly religious university, the King Saud University, was opened in 1957. In 1958, a uniform educational system was provided, which consisted of â€Å"a 6-year elementary, a 3-year intermediate and a 3-year secondary cycle with a separate higher education program†.This essay highlights  the goal of the Saudi education system is to ensure that education is provided in a well-organized and effic ient way to meet the religious, social, and economic needs of the nation, as well as to minimize the illiteracy rates within the community. The general objectives of education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are â€Å"to provide the students with the values, teachings and ideals of Islam; to equip them with various skills and knowledge; to develop their conduct in constructive directions; and to develop the society economically and culturally†.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s the Wife of Bath Essay Example for Free

Geoffrey Chaucer’s the Wife of Bath Essay â€Å"The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale explore many aspects of patriarchy – and sometimes reveal surprising attitudes within the tale and prologue.† Discuss. Geoffrey Chaucer’s the Wife of Bath is a text which is interwoven with references to Patriarchy and unanticipated attitudes towards the social backdrop in which it was created. Written in a period where males dominated the hierarchy, Chaucer through the Wife portrays the reversal of traditional roles, and a sense of rebellion and feministic instincts which at the time appeared extraordinary: â€Å"His poetic sensibility, combined with an immense understanding about men and women, enabled him to survey the life about him with such imaginative insight and power. † (Bennet 74) Throughout the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer speaks with remarkable authority on a huge range of subjects. This is perhaps made possible by the assortment of characters from all areas of society which travel on the pilgrimage. Alisoun’s character is perhaps best encapsulated in the manner of her entrance to the Tales. Clothed in the finest garments, her â€Å"hosen weven of fyn scarlet need†, well-travelled and â€Å"carteyn so wroth†, the Wife: â€Å"Strides into the Canterbury Tales on a large horse, spurs jangling, and ready to assert herself in a company made up almost entirely of men†¦ She is a medieval housewife who is not just going to star in a story, she is going to tell it.† (Reading the Wife’s Prologue and Tale) A far cry from the meek and submissive maidens so often portrayed in classic literature and fables prior to this; the Wife is independent, liberated and outspoken. The Wifes’ relationship to the men in her life is often one of total domination and manipulation. She enjoys â€Å"maistyre† over her male counterparts: Unne the mught they the statut holde In which that they were bounden un to me Ye woot wel what I mean of this, pardee! As help me God, I laughe whan I thynke How piteously a- nyght I made hem swynke. The Wife governs many aspects of her husbands’ lives, and rules with special sovereignty in the bedroom. Her sexual powers are and obvious source of seduction and control over her lovers. Very much a humanistic text, the Canterbury Tales constantly remind the reader of the complexity of the human character. One example of this could be the Knight, the embodiment of â€Å"chivalrye, Trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisye† in the hierarchy of society at the time. At first he appears to fit the specification perfectly. The however subtle passing motion which slightly removes the Knight from this brave and righteous tradition is left with us when he is described as â€Å"meke as a mayde†. Chaucer understood the depth of personality in each individual, and that a stereotype is never applicable. His characters almost always only very nearly fit the stereotype, and leave us scope to remain unconvinced about the rest. This refusal to comply with what many would describe as the one dimensional and traditional Fairytale characters allows for the issues of patriarchy to be discusses liberally. Interestingly, even at points of text which reflect a relaxed and conversational tone, the Wife constantly feels the requirement to reemphasise and argue her point with references to astrology and biblical references. These biblical references however are often contorted to suit the Wife’s requirement in the argument. For example the term from Genesis 1:22,28 â€Å"Go forth and multiply† is used as an excuse for the remarriage of the wife. This control and knowledge of the Church’s text represent a disregard to Patriarchal structures at many levels. The male governed Church, with its male oriented texts and belief systems for the Wife especially represent the oppression of men. For Alisoun the structures of literature, religion and authority are connected in that they represent male dominance. The Wife of Bath however cannot be totally classified as a pro feminist character. At many levels her dishonest, manipulative nature reinforces the common negative conceptions of anti- feminism at the time. Hansen (cited in Beidler) claims that this anti-feminist discourse mentioned above is less of a product of archness towards patriarchal literature. â€Å"Instead she is trapped in a ‘prison house’ of anti-feminist discourse. She is unable to see that her tactics simply reinforce all the stereotypical Medival ideas about women as cruel, emotional, and sexually voracious. Chaucer therefore is seen as reinforcing antifeminist views rather than undermining them.† Alisoun provides a vessal through which thousands of years of antifeminist literature are regurgitated with a revised purpose and tone of archness. One example of this method comes in Alisoun’s first words to the group, a repeat of earlier rhetoric (Awkroyd): Expeience, though no autoritee, Were in this world, is right ynogh for me To speak of woe that is in marriage. Peter Awkroyd (2005) believes that Chaucer â€Å"uses much of the antifeminist literature of the period but, by placing it in the Wife’s capacious mouth, he lends it a new and ironic lease of life.† The Wife’s five marriages on the outset portray a sense of calculated systematic marrying for the advancement of wealth and power. However, it could be argued that Alison was more than simply a ruthless professional. There are arguments that the fourth, and especially the fifth husband Jenkin, captured her love and stood in more than equal stead with their spouse: â€Å"That al myn herte I yaf unto his hold/ He was, I trowe, a twenty winter oold, and I was fourty.† Although the true love described by Chaucer at first appears conformal to the description of traditional literature, as often the case in the Tales, there is a cause for disease. In this case the context in which the romance begins, the burial ceremony of husband number four, Alisoun covets the younger page boy and her future husband. In Jankin, Alisoun finds a man to which she is willing to submit. Cruel, abusive, manipulative this husband domineers the relationship, physically, emotionally and sexually. At this stage the once immovable opposition to patriarchy admits that he partner â€Å"so well koude he me glose†. Furthermore the Wife admits that it is this form of denial and subornation in a relationship which causes women to crave what they cannot have: â€Å"wait what†¦crave† The dictatorship of Jenkin is further developed by Minnis, who claims Jenkin: â€Å"read aloud to her (translating from his anthology of antifeminist texts – It could be said then that she has learned at home, from her husband – how acquiescent and submissive can one get?† (Minnis 249) The Wife of Bath’s Tale and Prologue, as a text which attempts to examine Patriarchy, the attitudes portrayed are purposely less definable. Often categorised as either a feminist or anti- feminist text, The Wife of Bath is a complex mixture between the two. Chaucer, as always does not provide specific or obvious attitudes to these hierarchies and relationships. Instead, like his characters he provides us with an insightful cross- section of the Patriarchal society in which he existed. Reference List Awkroyd, Peter. ‘The Tales of Canterbury.’ Chaucer. London: Vintage, 2005. 150 – 53. Beidler, Peter G. Geoffrey Chaucer: The Wife of Bath. New York: Bedford Books, 1996. Bennet, H.S. ‘Chaucer.’ Oxford History of English Literature: Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century. Ed. F.P Wilson and Bonamy Dobrà ©e. London: Oxford, 1947. 74 – 75. Minnis, Alastair. ‘Chapter 4 Gender as Fallibility.’ Fallible Authors: Chaucer’s Pardonerand Wife of Bath. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. 249. ‘Reading the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.’ York Notes Advanced: The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale. London: Longman, 1998. 3 – 10.

How Ralph and Jack Change :: William Golding Lord of the Flies Essays

How Ralph and Jack Change William Golding wrote the story "Lord of the flies". It is about a large group of schoolboys whose plane has crashed. They get stranded on a desert island. The story is about their survival and how they run their everyday lives. The two main characters Jack and Ralph are both from upper class and they both start off as the leaders. Later on the boys have a vote for leader and Ralph is selected. The first impression we get about Ralph is that he is active and doesn't like authority. When he found out that there were no grown ups on the island he "stood on his head and grinned" Piggy is the first of the other survivors that Ralph meets. Piggy is lower class. Later on in the book it shows that Piggy is really bullied by the upper class boys. Ralph at first seems very unaware of the seriousness of being on a deserted island, but later on he shows his maturity by suggesting a vote for leader. Overall, Ralph is friendly and active. He is not fat or skinny and is easy to get on with. The first impression of Jack that we get is that he is arrogant and dangerous, because the book brings him in as a shadow. He is very different compared to Ralph. He is skinny and has red hair. He is also wearing a black cap. He has freckles, a crumpled up face and his eyes are light blue. Jack does not seem pleasant, but like Ralph he seems to have the role of a leader. From the start Ralph and Jack get on very well. There are very few signs of anger between them. Immediately after Ralph is elected as leader, "Jack and Ralph smiled at each other with shy liking" This shows that they can still be friends even though one of them failed at being elected leader. As they explore later in the chapter, they can agree with each other without any signs of awkwardness. The first sign of conflict between Jack and Ralph started on page 37. Jack took the attention off of Ralph, "Come on. Follow me." It made everyone lose concentration and run from the meeting. Ralph was calling for silence but no one listened to him, and this was the first threat against his authority, and it became an irritation. Even though they argue, there is still agreement between Jack and Ralph. On page 38, they both help each other by moving a large branch. The real disagreement is in chapter 3, when they disagree on priorities.

Why Do Students Cheat?

Professor Anderman’s research shows that eighty-five percent of students have cheated in high school; this drastic number exists due to the fact that students want to attend excellent colleges. The competitive high school environment has constant pressure to succeed; therefore, thus, many students depend on cheating in order to receive the grades that he or she desires. Because cheating has become an ordinary resolution for many students, more and more students do so every day, mimicking the action of their peers.Unfortunately, the eighty-five percent of students who cheat would prefer a higher score than the chance to grow as a learner. All of the cheating boils down to one simple concept: college acceptances. To begin, students cheat in order to get accepted to the college of their choice. As Kolker explains, students believe that, â€Å"College, more than ever, determines success. † As a high school student in 2013, one will constantly hear other students saying, â⠂¬Å"I need to get into a top college, my whole future depends on it! † and â€Å"Oh man, I didn’t do well on that test, now I am not going to get into college.†In this day and age, teenagers have a mind-set that they only attend high school in order to be accepted into a prestigious college, rather than learning and developing as a student. These students only think about what they must do in order for top colleges to choose them; thus, if cheating is the answer, they will cheat to receive the better grade. Anderman’s research discovered that, â€Å"The most impulsive cheaters cheated less often when they believed the point of the test was to help them master the material, not just get a score.†This concept is seen in an AP Calculus class of high school juniors and seniors. The teacher has a policy that quizzes are not factored into the student’s grade; however, tests are a very important factor for the student’s grade. The quizzes are designed to help the students learn, while the tests are designed to test the student’s abilities by receiving a score. In this situation, when there is an upcoming quiz, many students are very lackadaisical and rarely study for the assessment.Conversely, on a test day, the calculus students run around frantically trying to receive questions and answers from students who have already taken the same test, a prime example of cheating. Thus, this proves that students cheat in order to receive a high grade, as they don’t cheat for a quiz that does not determine their final grade. The next criminal in this cheating era is the SAT. Eshagoff, a student who participated in the Long Island SAT scandal, stated, â€Å"By giving him an amazing score, I totally give him †¦Ã‚  a new lease on life,† proving that students view the SAT as determining their future.Evidentially, something in this system is corrupt when one test is what determines whether or not a boy receive s a â€Å"new lease on life. † It is this idea that causes drastic cheating rings. Students believe that their entire life is predestined to failure if they do not succeed on major tests; therefore, they resort to cheating. This relates to Anderman’s theory that, â€Å"If everything is always high-stakes, you’re going to create an environment conducive to cheating.†It is very tempting for a student with awful grades to cheat because he or she knows that he or she has an opportunity to receive an exemplary score on the SAT. This student would consider the fact that without cheating, he or she would most likely go to a below average college which some students view as unacceptable in this college dominating culture, where everyone links the rest of their life to the college they attend. This is why the vast cheating rings occur, such as the Long Island SAT scandal: to enhance ones chances of going to a better college.Unfortunately, cheating will continue as long as it is the social norm. Dan Airley, a Duke social scientist, explains that students are more likely to cheat if everyone else is cheating as well. He explains, â€Å"There is right and wrong, and there is what people around us tell us is right and wrong. The people around us are often more powerful. † If many students are clearly cheating while taking a test, the chances that other students will cheat too increase greatly.This is demonstrated through the Carnegie Mellon experiment, where actors were hired to portray cheating students to see how the actual students would respond. The variable was that in one room, the actor was wearing University of Pittsburgh apparel. However, in the other room, the actor was wearing Carnegie Mellon apparel. The study resulted in more students cheating in the room with the University of Pittsburgh actor than in the room with the Carnegie Mellon actor. This is due to Airley’s idea that, â€Å"The people around us are often more powerful.  Ã¢â‚¬ The Carnegie Mellon students are apart of a community with the Carnegie Mellon â€Å"student† who cheated; consequently, they viewed it as acceptable to cheat because their fellow classmate was cheating. Yet, the University of Pittsburgh â€Å"student† is an outsider and as a result, the other students do not associate themselves with him; thus, fewer students follow his academic dishonest actions. Airley used an excellent analogy to relate this scenario with speeding on the road. He states, â€Å"There’s a speed limit, but you see people around you driving at a certain speed, and you get used to it pretty quickly.†As Airley explains, it is significantly easier to do something that is obviously immoral when everyone else is participating too. The pressure to succeed in high school in order to attend a prestigious university produces an environment where cheating is somewhat acceptable, enough that eighty-five percent of students have admitted to cheating before. This is a never-ending chain, as cheating becomes tolerable to students once everyone else is participating in this unjust act.The preconceived notion that all that matters in a teenager’s life is the colleges they are accepted to has developed a culture in which being academically dishonest has become the standard. Whether it is creating a texting group to distribute test questions and answers, asking friends for help on a test that they already took, or having someone else take the SAT for you, cheating has become an everyday part of high school life. In American culture, a college acceptance letter is far more important to a student than his or her dignity and honesty, something that must change within our society.

Rosalind Franklin Research on the X-ray Diffraction Techniques

Rosalind Franklin lived during an exciting and turbulent era both socially and scientifically. Upon passing the admission examination for Cambridge University in 1938, at fifteen, Franklin was was informed by her affluent family that she would not recieve financial support. Franklins father disapproved of women receiving college educations, however, both Franklins aunt and mother supported her quest for education. Eventually, her father gave in and agreed to pay her tuition. Franklin would later prove to be worth her education. As Rosalind Franklin was pursuing her degree World War II raged. She focused her research on coal, the most efficient use of energy resources. Five papers on the subject were published before Franklins 26th birthday. Further, Franklin had given up her fellowship to become a physical chemist at the British Coal Utilization Research Association at age 22. She was indeed an efficient and driven researcher. Franklin utilized the X-ray diffraction techniques (that she has become most famous for) while working in a Paris laboratory between 1947 and 1950, with crystallographer Jacques Mering. X-ray crystallography helped determined the three dimensional structure of DNA when Franklin returned to England. She became the first person to find the molecules sugar-phosphate backbone while working with a team of scientists at Kings College in London. Unfortunately, leadership misunderstandings and personality conflicts depreciated Franklins effectivness in the laboratory. Maurice Wilkins, the laboratorys second in command, returned from a vacation expecting Franklin to work under him. Franklin came to the laboratory with the understanding that she would be researching alone. While Franklin was direct and decisive, Wilkins tended to be alluding and passive-aggressive. As Franklin made further advances in DNA research, Wilkins secretly shared her findings with the famous duo of Watson and Crick, who were then working at Cambridge. Franklins discoveries fueled their research machine, allowing them to advance beyond others in the field. They would eventually publish on DNA structure in 1953. Due to discriminatory procedures at Kings College, Franklin eventually left to become the lead researcher at Londons Birbeck College–upon agreeing not to work on DNA. She furthered her studies in coal and made significant advances in virology. Franklin died in 1958 of ovarian cancer. She lived 37 monumentally significant years. After researching Rosalind Franklins scientific career, I truly believe that she was a pioneer rather than a follower. Her early coal work is still referred to today; she helped launch the fields of high-strength carbon fibers; and was an integral part of early structural virology. Had it not been for a cruel twist of fate, I believe that Franklin would have published first on DNA structure. She was the best in her field when it came to DNA analysis through X-ray diffraction. Franklin innovatively found a way to isolate an extremely fine X-ray beam and arrange her superfine DNA fibers into parallel bundles. She took her research to a higher level by analyzing molecular properties in adverse conditions such as humidity. Rosalind Franklins individualistic, self-dependent nature made it impossible for her to find satisfaction in following the scientific accomplishments of others.

Brexit and the Fantods

Brexit and the Fantods Brexit and the Fantods Brexit and the Fantods By Maeve Maddox My mistake with the portmanteau word Brexit brought me so many kind corrections that I feel a need to thank the readers who sent them and to apologize for making such a big gaffe. I got my information directly from the Oxford site, so there’s no excuse for such a mistake. Along with my carelessness, my vision was at fault. I took my information from this decorative panel: Never having seen Brexit written in ordinary type, I read the t as an l. The post has been amended to explain that Brexit is a combination of British+exit. Another word in that post that drew emails from readers is fantods. One reader, having pointed out the Brexil/Brexit error, asked me to explain fantods. Fantods is a word I learned from reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Spelled fan-tods by Twain, it’s one of Huck’s words. It occurs in one of the funniest scenes in the book. Huck is looking at pictures in the home of the Grangerford family. Most of the pictures are the work of Emmeline Grangerford, a daughter who has died. They are typical of the morbid mourning portraits favored by Victorian society. Here is an extract that illustrates Twain’s descriptive powers as well as the use of the word fantods: There was some that they called crayons, which one of the daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only fifteen years old. They was different from any pictures I ever see before- blacker, mostly, than is common. One was a woman in a slim black dress, belted small under the armpits, with bulges like a cabbage in the middle of the sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel bonnet with a black veil, and white slim ankles crossed about with black tape, and very wee black slippers, like a chisel, and she was leaning pensive on a tombstone on her right elbow, under a weeping willow, and her other hand hanging down her side holding a white handkerchief and a reticule, and underneath the picture it said â€Å"Shall I Never See Thee More Alas.† [] These was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn’t somehow seem to take to them, because if ever I was down a little they always give me the fan-tods. Everybody was sorry she died, because she had laid out a lot more of th ese pictures to do, and a body could see by what she had done what they had lost. But I reckoned that with her disposition she was having a better time in the graveyard. The OED gives this definition of fantod: fantod noun: A crotchety way of acting; a fad. Merriam-Webster gives a bit more: fantod noun: 1. usually fantods plural: a. a state of irritability, fidget, and tension; sometimes a state of acute worry and distress. b. a state of bodily or mental disorder especially when ill-defined and more or less chronic. 2. sometimes fantods plural a. an instance or occurrence of the fantods. b. a violent or irrational outburst. 3. a fidgety fussy officer of a ship. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Wether, Weather, Whether40 Synonyms for â€Å"Different†English Grammar 101: Prepositions

A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison

A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison The following summarizes one of the best-known  examples of the Indian Captivity Narrative.  It was written in 1823 by James E. Seaver from interviews with Mary Jemison, a Scots-Irish woman who was taken by the Seneca during a raid when she was twelve and adopted by a Native family.  Its important to remember, when reading it, that such narratives were often exaggerated and sensational, but, paradoxically, also depicted Native Americans in more human and humane ways than other documents of the time tended to. The original narrative is available in whole at several other sources: A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary JemisonA Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison - Google BooksA Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison - Project Gutenberg Note: in this summary, words from the original which are now considered disrespectful  are used, to preserve historical accuracy of the book. From the front material: An Account of the Murder of her Father and his Family; her sufferings; her marriage to two Indians; her troubles with her Children; barbarities of the Indians in the French and Revolutionary Wars; the life of her last Husband, c.; and many Historical Facts never before published.Carefully taken from her own words, Nov. 29th, 1823. Preface: The author describes what is for him the importance of biography, then details his sources: mostly interviews with the then-80-year-old Mrs. Jemison. Introduction: Seaver describes some of the history which his audience may or may not have known, including the Peace of 1783, the wars with the French and Indians, the American Revolutionary War, and more. He describes the Mary Jemison as she came to the interviews. Chapter 1: Tells of the ancestry of Mary Jemison, how her parents came to America and settled in Pennsylvania, and an omen foreshadowing her captivity. Chapter 2: Discusses her education, then a description of the raid where she was taken captive and her early days of captivity. It narrates her memories of her mothers parting words, the murder of her family after she was separated from them, her encounter of the scalps of her family members, how the Indians evaded their pursuers, and the arrival of Jemison, a young white man, and a white boy with the Indians at Fort Pitt. Chapter 3: After the young man and boy are given to the French, Mary is given to two squaws. She journeys down the Ohio River, and arrives at a Seneca town where she is officially adopted and receives a new name.  She describes her work and how she learns the Seneca language while preserving knowledge of her own. She goes to Sciota on a hunting tour, returns, and is taken back to Fort Pitt, but returned to the Indians, and feels her hopes of Liberty destroyed.  In time, Mary returns to Sciota then to Wishto, where she marries a Delaware, develops an affection for him, gives birth to her first child who dies, recovers from her own illness, then gives birth to a son she names Thomas Jemison. Chapter 4: Mary and her husband go from Wishto to Fort Pitt. In this section, she contrasts the lives of white and Indian women. She describes interactions with the Shawnees and her travel up the Sandusky. She sets out for Genishau  while her husband goes to Wishto. She describes her relationships with her Indian brothers and sisters and her Indian mother. Chapter 5: The Indians go to fight the British at Niagara, and return with prisoners who are sacrificed. Her husband dies. John Van Cise tries to ransom her.  She narrowly escapes several times, and her brother first threatens her, then brings her home. She marries again, and the chapter ends with her naming her children. Chapter 6: Finding twelve or fifteen years of peace, she describes the life of the Indians, including their celebrations, form of worship, their business and their morality.  She describes a treaty made with the Americans (who are still British citizens), and the promises made by the British commissioners and the reward from the British.  Indians break the treaty by killing a man at Cautega, then take prisoners at Cherry Valley and ransom them at Beards Town.  After a battle at Fort Stanwix [sic], the Indians mourn their losses.  During the American Revolution, she describes how Col. Butler and Col. Brandt used her home as a base for their military operations. Chapter 7: She describes Gen. Sullivans march on the Indians and how it affects the Indians. She goes to Gardow for a time. She describes a severe winter and the suffering of the Indians, then the taking of some prisoners, including an old man, John OBail, married to and Indian woman. Chapter 8: Ebenezer Allen, a Tory, is the subject of this chapter. Ebenezer Allen comes to Gardow after the Revolutionary War, and her husband responds with jealousy and cruelty. Allens further interactions include bringing goods from Philadelphia to Genesee.  Allens several wives and business affairs, and finally his death. Chapter 9: Mary is offered her freedom by her brother, and permitted to go to her friends, but her son Thomas is not permitted to go with him. So she chooses to stay with the Indians for the remainder of my days. Her brother travels, then dies, and she mourns his loss. Her title to her land is clarified, subject to restrictions as Indian land. She describes her land, and how she leased it out to white people, to better support herself. Chapter 10: Mary describes her mostly happy life with her family, and then the sad enmity that develops between her sons John and Thomas, with Thomas considering John a witch for marrying two wives. While drunk, Thomas  often fought with  John  and threatened him, though their mother tried to counsel them, and John finally killed his brother during a fight. She describes the Chiefs trial of John, finding Thomas the first transgressor. Then she reviews his life, including telling how his second son by his fourth and last wife attended Dartmouth College in 1816, planning to study medicine. Chapter 11: Mary Jemisons husband Hiokatoo died in 1811 after four years of illness, estimating him at 103 years of age. She tells of his life and the battles and wars in which he fought.   Chapter 12: Now an elderly widow, Mary Jemison is saddened that her son John begins fighting with his brother Jesse, Marys youngest child and the main support of his mother, and she describes how John comes to murder Jesse.   Chapter 13: Mary Jemison describes her interactions with a cousin, George Jemison, who came to live with his family on her land in 1810, while her husband was still alive. Georges father, had emigrated to America after his brother, Marys father, was killed and Mary taken captive. She paid his debts and gave him a cow and some pigs, and also some tools. She also loaned him one of her son Thomas cows. For eight years, she supported the Jemison family. He convinced her to write a deed for what she thought was forty acres, but she later found out that it actually specified 400, including land that didnt belong to Mary but to a friend. When he refused to return Thomas cow to one of Thomas sons, Mary decided to evict him. Chapter 14: She described how her son John, a doctor among the Indians, went to Buffalo and returned. He saw what he thought was an omen of his death, and, on a visit to Squawky Hill, quarreled with two Indians, starting a brutal fight, ending with the two of them killing John. Mary Jemison had a funeral after the manner of the white people for him. She then describes more of Johns life. She offered to forgive the two who killed him if they would leave, but they would not.  One killed himself, and the other lived in the Squawky Hill community until his death. Chapter 15: In 1816, Micah Brooks, Esq, helps her confirm the title of her land.  A petition for Mary Jemisons naturalization was submitted to the state legislature, and then a petition to Congress. She details further attempts to transfer her title and lease her land, and her wishes for disposal of waht remains in her possession, at her death. Chapter 16: Mary Jemison reflect on her life, including what the loss of liberty meant, how she took care of her health, how other Indians cared for themselves. She describes a time when it was suspected she was a witch.   I have been the mother of eight children; three of whom are now living, and I have at this time thirty-nine grand children, and fourteen great-grand children, all living in the neighborhood of Genesee River, and at Buffalo. Appendix: Sections in the appendix deal with: Devils Hole battle in 1763General Sullivans Expedition in 1779Seneca traditions about their origins and languageIndian religion, feasts, the great sacrificeIndian dances: the war dance and the peace danceIndian governmentthe Six Nationscourtship, marriage, divorcefamily governmentfuneralscredulity: belief in spirits, witches, etc.farming by Indian womenIndian ways of computing time and keeping recordsanecdotesdescription of the Genesee river and its banksa hunting anecdote

Jewish Ghettos Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Jewish Ghettos - Essay Example The Nazis were particularly skilled in manipulating the Jews, who believed that they were merely being transported to other concentration camps or ghettos for work.4 This paper aims to describe the Jewish ghettos during the Holocaust and begins with an overview of its purposes and characteristics. It also describes the transportation to the ghettos, the everyday conditions in it, and its effects on the Jews. The ghettos served to deceive the Jews, as it became the first step of dehumanizing and exterminating the Jewish race, but not all Jews succumbed to despair. Instead, Jewish survivors used hope, faith, ingenuity, and creativity to survive inhumane conditions in the ghettos. The ghettoization of the Jews The ghettos are different from concentration camps in several respects: they were used as temporary Jewish settlements that were prepared for work or death in concentration camps; they served to break the spirits of the Jews, so that they could no longer mount a strong resistance against the Germans; they provided free labor for Germans who needed the workforce to sustain the war; and they supported German plan for the dehumanization and extermination of the Jews.5 The ghettos forced Jews to work in squalid conditions, including the middle class and upper-class, who were professionals, thereby defeating their spirit and ensuring better control over them.6 Though the Nazis ordered self-regulation in the form of Jewish councils, the former still controlled details of everyday life in the ghettos, including forcing the Jews to wear six-pointed stars in their clothing, reducing access to food and other essentials, and controlling their mobility, as well as their access to news outside the ghettos.7 Not every ghetto is the same, however, and conditions varied greatly, depending on the nature and efforts of the ghetto leaders and several economic and social factors. Other ghettos lacked access to basic commodities, such as food and clothing, and services, such as hospitals, schools, and churches. Some examples are the Minsk and Lubcz ghettos.8 Other ghettos fared better, in terms of the Jews having opportunities to continue education and the practice of their religion in varying extents. Several examples are the Warsaw ghetto9 and Jewish ghetto in East Upper Silesia.10 Despite some advantages provided in a number of ghettos, the Jews remained slaves to their German captors. Because of their cramped houses and appalling work conditions, many Jews yielded to hopelessness too, especially after witnessing massive deaths, rapes, and plunder of their homes and communities.11 Transportation to the ghettos The Jews were mostly transported to the ghettos by train.12 When transferred to nearby ghettos, they walked on foot.13 The transportation stage triggered the process of dehumanizing the Jews. In Night, Elie Weisel was only fifteen years old, when he experienced several ghettos and concentration camps. He remembers the cramped conditions of the tra ins that signaled their loss of human rights and liberties. Moreover, the train was a place of violence and despondency: â€Å"Anti-Semitic acts take place every day in the streets, on the trains.†14 Even affluent Jews did not escape the hardships of transportation. As they were forced to leave their homes, they were stripped of their properties. Their relocation to the slums held symbolic meaning: they were no longer human

Latin American Politics - Effect of multiparty system in Colombia Essay

Latin American Politics - Effect of multiparty system in Colombia - Essay Example It also involves the distribution of power as well as resources in the most efficient manner at large for greater effectiveness. It will be crucial if politics or the approaches involved in it differ on the basis of nations and its various regions. The nation of Colombia follows diversified a governance approach, which will be crucial to obtain a comprehensive understanding. In this particular research study, focus has been levied on comprehending the prospect of multiparty system in Colombia. To what extent does multiparty system’s existence affect and contribute to political issues such as democracy and political violence in Colombia? The article intends to determine the impact of the transformations of multiparty system to democracy with a specific focus on Colombia. The main argument is that the multiparty system has aided in the development and growth of democracy in Colombia but it has also resulted into political instability marked by violence and deteriorating democracy. The political change that has been witnessed in Colombia with the transformation from a two party state to a multiparty state has yielded differences with regard to the democracy of the nation at large. It has been observed there are various prevailing studies that are centered towards understanding the relationship amid multiparty state with regard to the general political changes occurring. However, this particular research paper levies considerable attention on determining as well as ana lyzing the relationship between multiparty system and democracy of the nation i.e. Colombia. In addition to the same, the research study will also focus upon comprehending assumption that multiparty system certainly has negative influence on the democratic structure of a particular nation with due regard to the one, prevailing in Colombia1. Notably, though Colombia has remained relatively silent on global or

My Intellectual Development Up Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

My Intellectual Development Up - Essay Example Frankly, my intellectual development up to where I am today would not have been successful without the unreserved guidance and support from my father, a successful businessperson whose relentless passion and dedication for success have always inspired me to achieve and be more like him in future. My own father is my role model and I always look up to him for not only love, guidance, and approval, but for inspiration in life as well, especially because I consider him a significant authority in matters regarding my personal growth and development. In all these years of my growth, from a small boy to the young adult I have become, I owe all gratitude to this amazingly great father, whose kind words of wisdom have catapulted me to where I am today. My father always encourages me to strive to be exceptional because being average alone is not good enough, especially in today’s era of globalization, where opportunities are increasingly becoming scarce by the day. Above all, my father has made it clear that I can always achieve everything I set my eyes upon in life with the right kind of positive attitude, and that nothing can stop me from doing so if I really purpose too. Every day I remember my father’s words that success begins by establishing a positive attitude I feel reinvigorated not just to succeed, but also to succeed exceedingly since nothing can stop me from doing so with the right attitude. Reading this amazing article titled â€Å"Gaining a sense of self-worth† from Deepak Chopra, a spiritual leader who responds to Oprah.com users’ questions with enlightening advice to help them achieve their optimum potential, has  really transformed my sense of self and how I approach life in general (Deepak).

Introduction Of Swot Analysis Marketing Essay

Introduction Of Swot Analysis Marketing Essay SWOT analysis is approach for auditing a business organization and its environment where it operates. Generally SWOT analysis is the initial stage of planning that helps policy makers and marketers to identify and focus on key issues. The acronym for SWOT is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal SWOT factors (MarketingTeacher.Com, 2013). Opportunities and threats are external SWOT factors. A strength is considered as positive internal factor. A weakness is considered as a negative internal factor. Similarly, an opportunity is considered as a positive external factor and finally a threat is known as a negative external factor (Ireland, Hoskisson, Hitt, 2008). Apart from understanding the business environment, another function of SWOT analysis is to turn companys weaknesses into strengths and threats into opportunities. Moreover it allows management to integrate internal strengths with external opportunities. Theoretically SWOT analys is is that simple. It is expected from SWOT analysis that the outcome should create value for customers and help to get competitive advantage (MarketingTeacher.Com, 2013). C:UsersKhayyamDesktopSWOT_MAS_NaifSWOT intro.jpg Figure: SWOT analysis framework, Data Source: (MarketingTeacher.Com, 2013) 3.1 Strengths: Strengths refer to those characteristics of a particular business which are unique and give the company advantage over competitors (Ireland, Hoskisson, Hitt, 2008). For example, a company might have specialist marketing expertise or the company produces new and innovation product and services e.g. Apple I phone, the company might be strategically located, the company may produce best quality and top value for money products or services e.g. Rolls Royce cars, or any other aspect of business which is unique and hard to imitate for competitors would be considered as an strength of the company. If the company has special capabilities, powerful human resource e.g. Google employees, Unique Selling Point e.g. Google Nexus 7- best hardware releases on a tablet PC, powerful financial position e.g. Wal-Mart financial capabilities, economy of scale and global reach e.g. McDonalds and KFC etc. above mentioned qualities can be termed as strengths of a company. Each of these strengths creates pri ce inelasticity and generate loyal customer base (MarketingTeacher.Com, 2013) (Ireland, Hoskisson, Hitt, 2008). 3.2 Weaknesses: Weaknesses refer to those characteristics that creates completive disadvantage situation for the business (Ireland, Hoskisson, Hitt, 2008). For example a company may produce good quality products but due to lack of marketing expertise the company may suffer e.g. in February 2011, HOME DEPOT had to close operation in China (Bhasin, 2012), the company may offer undifferentiated products or services e.g. PC hardware market, the company may be located in inappropriate location, the company may produce poor quality goods or services e.g. Chinese brand-less electronics companies which produces inferior goods, damaged reputation e.g. Dominos you tube scandal 2009 (Clifford, 2009). These negative internal factors can be termed as weaknesses of a company. These factors often play a negative role in companys performance and achievements. A company should continuously try to convert its weaknesses to strengths. Sometimes big successful businesses suffer due to inappropriate market strategies a nd damaged reputations (MarketingTeacher.Com, 2013) (Ireland, Hoskisson, Hitt, 2008). 3.3 Opportunities: Opportunities are positive external factors which a company can capitalize to gain competitive advantages (Ireland, Hoskisson, Hitt, 2008). For example a company can explore a developing market such as internet e.g. UK retailer predicted that online shopping would be a popular choice in near future so they respond to this change of need (CIPS 2010). Mergers, joint ventures or strategic alliances help a company to generate bigger financial resources and allow the companies to explore more markets e.g. the merger of GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK), the company can find out new market segments that offer greater profits e.g. McDonalds targeted children to market its product which was unique marketing strategy at that time. The company can explore a new international market for further expansion. These external factors are known as opportunities which allow a company to integrate its internal strengths with external opportunities for greater profitability (MarketingTeacher.Com, 2013) (Ireland , Hoskisson, Hitt, 2008). 3.4 Threats: Threats are considered those external elements which may generate trouble for the business. A company should apply its strengths or try to build new strengths to minimize the risks of external threats. For example a new competitor in the existing market e.g. entrant of Google in electronics gadget manufacturing market possesses threats for existing market leaders like Samsung, Apple or HTC. Price war is a common practice in extreme competitive businesses where switching cost is very low e.g. fast food industry. When a competitor launches new and innovative products that possesses threats for others e.g. innovation of Windows by Microsoft. Additionally competitors access to superior supply channels, financial distress situation new tax and legislative changes are considered as threats (MarketingTeacher.Com, 2013) (Ireland, Hoskisson, Hitt, 2008). Bibiliography: Bhasin, K. (2012). Home Depot Gives Up And Closes The Last Of Its Big Box Stores In China. Retrieved 3 14, 2013, from Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/home-depot-gives-up-and-closes-the-last-of-its-big-box-stores-in-china-2012-9 CIPS. (2010). Case Study Analysis Marks Spencer (MS). Retrieved 3 14, 2013, from CIPS: http://profex.co.uk/secureassets/files/MS Analysis.pdf Clifford, S. (2009). Video Prank at Dominos Taints Brand. Retrieved 3 14, 2013, from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/business/media/16dominos.html?_r=0 Ireland, R. D., Hoskisson, R. E., Hitt, M. A. (2008). The Management of Strategy Concepts and Cases. Canada: Cengage- Learning. MarketingTeacher.Com. (2013). SWOT Analysis. Retrieved 3 14, 2013, from MarketingTeacher.Com: http://www.marketingteacher.com/wordpress/swot-analysis/

Billy Budd Essay: Comparing Christ to Billy -- Billy Budd Essays

Comparing Christ to Billy of Billy Budd      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   "I stand for the heart. To the dogs with the head!" wrote Herman Melville in his June 1851 letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne (Davis and Gilman 3). Yet, by the time he began writing Billy Budd, Sailor in 1888, Melville must have tempered this view, for Billy Budd depicts the inevitable destruction of a man who is all heart but who utterly lacks insight. Melville no doubt intends for his reader to connect this tale with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Billy Budd endures a persecution similar to Christ's; he is executed for like reasons, and he eventually ascends, taking "the full rose of the dawn" (BB 376). Yet, in creating Billy Budd, Melville forms a character who is but a half-Christ, more like the Child than the Man. Indeed, a number of characteristics and circumstances sharply distinguish Billy Budd from the complete Christ. These differences ultimately work to support Melville's (now refined) philosophy that innocence, unaccompanied by wisdom, must inevitably meet wi th destruction and that only when a man balances the "spontaneous impulses of [his] 'heart'" against the experiential "wisdom of [his] 'head'" (Howard 328) can he prevail in a fallen world.    Critics often connect Billy Budd with the Christ Child. Richard Chase, for instance, writes that Billy Budd is the realization of Melville's "fresh commitment to the infantile Christ" (267), and Milton Stern claims that Billy's behavior represents an "ideal Christliness" because he accepts "everything with animal insightlessness and the childlike faith of innocence" (216). Christ taught that to enter heaven, one must become like a little child (Matt. 18:2-3). Many have inferred from this that, from a Christian perspective, ... ...W.H. Gilman, eds. The Letters of Herman Melville. New Haven: Yale UP, 1960. Online. Internet. 29 July 1998. Available HTTP: www.melville.org Howard, Leon. Herman Melville: A Biography. Berkley: U of California P, 1951. Melville, Herman. Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories. Ed. Frederick Busch. New York: Penguin, 1986. - - -. Moby Dick. Ed. Charles Child Walcutt. New York: Bantam, 1981. Richards, Lawrence O. The Bible Reader's Companion. Wheaton: SP Publications, Inc., 1991. Sten, Christopher W. "Vere's Use of the 'Forms': Means and Ends in 'Billy Budd.'" On Melville: The Best from American Literature. Ed. Louis J. Budd and Edwin H. Cady. Durham: Duke UP, 1988. 188-202. Stern, Milton R. The Fine Hammered Steel of Herman Melville. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1968. The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Dallas: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1979.

Theories Actually Seen in Practice in Ojt

Assessment of the OJT/Practicum Program A. New knowledge, attitudes, and skills acquired I learned the flows and transaction in the Government process. Though, most of the work involves papers in procedural ways. The receiving and releasing of memorandum is very essential in a way that affects the flow of the work and it should be submitted on or before deadline, so as the require data. As I was expose to this environment, it not much different with the projects at schools, terms papers that have deadline and of course you must know what you have on those papers because you might be question for it. B. Theories actually seen in practice In Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), the community and client service exists in theory, but in practice there are few officials who work in it. They have philanthropy theory and giving good intensions for the good but some of it lacks of practice because of its manpower. Though, they have a good goal towards it. C. Feedback that can be given to the company or institution The mission and vision of the company is great, it really reflect the needs of the Filipino citizen especially to the youth. It offers vocational courses that can help the youth to find work or build up their own business. In that way, it will lessen the population of unemployed individuals. But as I observe, the processing of its transaction and others are sometimes delayed due to many unfinished transaction. The workers are minimal, and the works are exceeding its normal worker. It leads to unbalanced ratio of work, they lack of manpower. If only they have much worker or officials that only work to specific job at a time, they can render its service with utmost confidentiality and transactions will be process on time. And also with their worker, some of the workers don’t do immediately their work, they will just wait until the deadline is near. And when it is almost the deadline, that’s the time they will tend to the work, sometimes lead to many erasure and errors of data they put on their reports. The result, some of the transaction will be delayed because the worker will be invalid at the moment. D. Benefits gained The things or knowledge that I gained from working in Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) is that the government work is not that easy. It has many structure and procedures that must be followed before it is done or implemented. It will go under observation and studies before it is approved from the head of the agency. That’s why, it will takes months or even years before it is practice, some of us citizen’s complain why it’s not implemented directly, or done immediately. The cash flows, the money that are allotted to its specific project. It must liquidate thoroughly, because they will question it, even a single cent that is missing to data. They are very careful with it, especially when the heads of the agency will conduct unnoticed visit to conduct inspection for the cash flows report they have. E. Problems encountered They are various problems that I encounter within the first month I work in, but most of them are repeated actions; error in logging the receiving letters and releasing, error in checking the database in the enrollment and terminal report against the database, error in answering the telephone and mistakes in putting some data in the records room. But I overcome these problems, because it’s just the same old routine every day, so I easily adjust and remember my errors.

A Dirty Job Chapter 21

21 COMMON COURTESY Charlie was torn – he really wanted to take his sword-cane, but he couldn't carry it while using the crutches. He considered duct-taping it to one of the crutches, but he thought that might attract attention. â€Å"You want me to go with you?† Ray asked. â€Å"I mean, you okay to drive, with your leg and all?† â€Å"I'll be fine,† Charlie said. â€Å"Someone needs to watch the store.† â€Å"Charlie, before you go, can I ask you something?† â€Å"Sure.† Don't ask, don't ask, don't ask, Charlie thought. â€Å"Why did you need me to find these two women?† You robot-necked bastard, you had to ask. â€Å"I told you, estate stuff.† Charlie shrugged. No big deal, let it go, nothing to see here. â€Å"Yeah, I know you told me that, and normally that would make sense, but I found out a lot about these two while looking for them – no one in either of their families has died recently.† â€Å"Funny thing,† Charlie said, juggling his keys, the cane, his date book, and his crutches by the back door. â€Å"Both bequests were from nonrelatives. Old friends.† No wonder women don't like you, you just won't leave things alone. â€Å"Uh-huh,† Ray said, unconvinced. â€Å"You know, when people run, when they go as far as faking their own death to get away, they are usually running from something. Are you that something, Charlie?† â€Å"Ray, listen to yourself. Are you back on your serial-killer thing? I thought Rivera explained that.† â€Å"So this is for Rivera?† â€Å"Let's say he's interested,† Charlie said. â€Å"Why didn't you just say so?† Charlie sighed. â€Å"Ray, I'm not supposed to talk about this stuff, you know that. Fourth Amendment and all. I came to you because you're good, and you have contacts. I depend on you and I trust you. I think you know that you can depend on me and trust me, right? I mean, in all these years, I've never put your disability pension in jeopardy by being careless about our arrangement, have I?† It was a threat, however subtle, and Charlie felt bad for doing it, but he just couldn't let Ray continue to push on this, particularly since he was in unexplored territory himself – he didn't even know what kind of bluff he was covering. â€Å"So Mrs. Johnson isn't going to end up dead if I find her for you?† â€Å"I will not lay a hand on Mrs. Johnson or Mrs. Pojo†¦Mrs. Pokojo – or that other woman either. You have my word on it.† Charlie raised his hand as if swearing on a Bible and dropped one of his crutches. â€Å"Why don't you just use the cane?† Ray said. â€Å"Right,† Charlie said. He leaned the crutches on the door and tried his weight on the bad leg and the cane. The doctors had, indeed, said that it was just a flesh wound, so there was no tendon damage, just muscle, but it hurt like hell to put any weight on that foot. The cane would work, he decided. â€Å"I should be back to relieve you before five.† He limped out the door. Ray didn't like being lied to. He'd had quite enough of that from his desperate Filipinas and was becoming sensitive about being taken for a fool. Who did Charlie Asher think he was fooling? As soon as he got the store squared away, he'd give Rivera a call and see for himself. He went out into the store and did a little dusting, then went to Charlie's â€Å"special† rack, where he kept the weird estate items that he made such a fuss about. You were only supposed to sell one to each customer, but Ray had sold five of them to the same woman in the last two weeks. He knew he should have said something to Charlie, but really, why? Charlie wasn't being open with him about anything, it seemed. Besides, the woman who bought the stuff was cute, and she'd smiled at Ray. She had nice hair, a cute figure, and really striking light blue eyes. Plus there was something about her voice – she seemed so, what? Peaceful, maybe. Like she knew that everything was going to be okay and no one needed to worry. Maybe he was projecting. And she didn't have an Adam's apple, which was a big plus in Ray's book lately. He'd tried to get her name, even get a look at something in her wallet, but she'd paid in cash and had been as careful as a poker player covering her cards. If she'd driven, she'd parked too far away for him to see her get into her car from the store, so there was no license number to trace. He resolved to ask her name if she came in today. And she was due to come in. She only came in when he was working alone. He'd seen her check through the window once when he was working with Lily, and only came into the store later when Lily was gone. He really hoped she'd come in. He tried to calm himself down for his call to Rivera. He didn't want to seem like a rube to a guy who was still on the job. He used his own cell phone for the call so Rivera would see it was him calling. Charlie didn't like leaving Sophie for this long, given what had happened a few days ago, but on the other hand, whatever might be threatening her was obviously being caused by his missing these two soul vessels. The quicker he fixed the problem, the quicker the threat would be diminished. Besides, the hellhounds were her best defense, and he'd given express instructions to Mrs. Ling that the dogs and Sophie were not to be separated for any amount of time, for any reason. He took Presidio Boulevard through Golden Gate Park into the Sunset, reminding himself to take Sophie to the Japanese Tea Garden to feed the koi, now that her plague on pets seemed to have subsided. The Sunset district lay just south of Golden Gate Park, bordered by the American Highway and Ocean Beach on the west, and Twin Peaks and the University of San Francisco on the east. It had once been a suburb, until the city expanded to include it, and many of its houses were modest, single-story family dwellings, built en masse in the 1940s and '50s. They were like the mosaics of little boxes that peppered neighborhoods across the entire country in that postwar period, but in San Francisco, where so much had been built after the quake and fire of '06, then again in the economic boom of the late twentieth century, they seemed like anachronisms from both ends of time. Charlie felt like he was driving through the Eisenhower era, at least until he passed a mother with a shaved head and tribal tattoos on her scalp pushing twins in a double stroller. Irena Posokovanovich's sister lived in a small, one-story frame house with a small covered porch that had jasmine vines growing up trellises on either side and springing off into the air like morning-after-sex hair. The rest of the tiny yard was meticulously groomed, from the holly hedge at the sidewalk to the red geraniums that lined the concrete path up to the house. Charlie parked a block away and walked to the house. On the way he was nearly run over by two different joggers, one a young mother pushing a running stroller. They couldn't see him – he was on track. Now, how to go about getting in? And then what? If he was the Luminatus, then perhaps just his presence would take care of the problem. He checked around back and saw that there was a car in the garage, but the shades were drawn on all the windows. Finally he decided on the frontal approach and rang the doorbell. A few seconds later a short woman in her seventies wearing a pink chenille housecoat opened the door. â€Å"Yes,† she said, looking a little suspicious as she eyed Charlie's walking cast. She quickly flipped the lock on the screen door. â€Å"Can I help you?† It was the woman in the picture. â€Å"Yes, ma'am, I'm looking for Irena Posokovanovich.† â€Å"Well, she's not here,† said Irena Posokovanovich. â€Å"You must have the wrong house.† She started to close the door. â€Å"Wasn't there a death notice in the paper a couple of weeks ago?† Charlie said. So far, his awesome presence as the Luminatus wasn't having much of an effect on her. â€Å"Well, yes, I believe there was,† said the woman, sensing an out. She opened the door a little more. â€Å"It was such a tragedy. We all loved Irena so much. She was the kindest, most generous, most loving, attractive – you know, for her age – well-read – â€Å" â€Å"And evidently didn't know that it's considered common courtesy when you publish a death notice to actually die!† Charlie held out the enlarged driver's-license picture. He considered adding aha! but thought that might be a little over-the-top. Irena Posokovanovich slammed the door. â€Å"I don't know who you are, but you have the wrong house,† she said through the door. â€Å"You know who I am,† Charlie said. Actually, she probably had no idea who he was. â€Å"And I know who you are, and you are supposed to have died three weeks ago.† â€Å"You're mistaken. Now go away before I call the police and tell them that there's a rapist at my door.† Charlie gagged a little, then pushed on. â€Å"I am not a rapist, Mrs. Poso†¦Posokev – I'm Death, Irena. That's who I am. And you are overdue. You need to die, this minute if possible. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's like going to sleep, only, well – â€Å" â€Å"I'm not ready,† Irena whined. â€Å"If I was ready I wouldn't have left my home. I'm not ready.† â€Å"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I have to insist.† â€Å"I'm sure you're mistaken. Perhaps another Mrs. Posokovanovich.† â€Å"No, here it is, right here in the calendar, with your address. It's you.† Charlie held his date book turned to the page with her name on it up to the little window in the door. â€Å"And you say that that is Death's calendar?† â€Å"That's correct, ma'am. Notice the date. And this is your second notice.† â€Å"And you are Death?† â€Å"That's right.† â€Å"Well, that's just silly.† â€Å"I am not silly, Mrs. Posokovanovich. I am Death.† â€Å"Aren't you supposed to have a sickle and a long black robe?† â€Å"No, we don't do that anymore. Take my word for it, I am Death.† He tried to sound really ominous. â€Å"Death is always tall in the pictures.† She was standing on tiptoe, he could tell the way she kept bouncing up by the little window to get a look at him. â€Å"You don't seem tall enough.† â€Å"There's no height requirement.† â€Å"Then could I see your business card?† â€Å"Sure.† Charlie took out a card and held it against the glass. â€Å"This says ‘Purveyor of Fine Vintage Clothing and Accessories.'† â€Å"Right! Exactly!† He knew he should have had a second set of business cards printed up. â€Å"And where do you think I get those things? From the dead. You see?† â€Å"Mr. Asher, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.† â€Å"No, ma'am, I'm going to have to insist that you pass away, this instant. You're overdue.† â€Å"Go away! You are a charlatan, and I think you need psychological help.† â€Å"Death! You're fucking with Death! Capital D, bitch!† Well, that was uncalled for. Charlie felt bad the second he said it. â€Å"Sorry,† he mumbled to the door. â€Å"I'm calling the police.† â€Å"You go ahead, Mrs. – uh – Irena. You know what they'll tell you, that you're dead! It was in the Chronicle. They hardly ever print stuff that's not true.† â€Å"Please go away. I practiced for a long time so I could live longer, it's not fair.† â€Å"What?† â€Å"Go away.† â€Å"I heard that part, I mean the part about practicing.† â€Å"Never you mind. You just go take someone else.† Charlie actually had no idea what he would do if she let him in. Maybe he had to touch her for his Death abilities to kick in. He remembered seeing an old Twilight Zone as a kid, where Robert Redford was Death, and this old lady wouldn't let him in, so he pretended to be injured, and when she came to help him†¦ALA-KAZAM! She croaked, and he peacefully led her off to Hole in the Wall, where she helped him produce independent movies. Maybe that would work. He did have the cast and the cane going for him. He looked up and down the street to make sure that no one could see him, then he lay down, half on the little porch, half on the concrete steps. He threw his cane against the door and made sure that it clattered loudly on the concrete, then he let out what he thought was a very convincing wail. â€Å"Ahhhhhhhhh, I've broken my leg.† He heard footsteps inside and saw gray hair at the little window, bouncing a little so she could see out. â€Å"Oh, it hurts,† Charlie wailed. â€Å"Help.† More steps, the shade in the window to the right of the door parted and he saw an eye. He grimaced in fake pain. â€Å"Are you all right?† said Mrs. Posokovanovich. â€Å"I need help. My leg was hurt before, but I slipped on your steps. I think I've broken something. There's blood, and a piece of bone sticking out.† He kept his leg below the level where she could see it. â€Å"Oh my,† she said. â€Å"Give me a minute.† â€Å"Help. Please. The pain. So – much – pain.† Charlie coughed the way cowboys do when they are dying in the dirt and things are getting all dark. He heard the latch being thrown, and then the inner door opened. â€Å"You're really hurt bad,† she said. â€Å"Please,† Charlie said, holding his hand out to her. â€Å"Help me.† She unlatched the screen. Charlie suppressed a grin. â€Å"Oh, thank you,† he gasped. She threw open the screen door and blasted him in the face with a stream of pepper spray. â€Å"I saw that Twilight Zone, you son of a bitch!† The doors slammed. The latch was thrown. Charlie's face felt like it was on fire. When he could finally see well enough to walk, as he limped back to his van, he heard a female voice say, â€Å"I'd have let you in, lover.† Then a chorus of spooky-girlish laughter erupted from the storm sewer. He backed against the van, ready to draw the sword from the cane, but then he heard what sounded like a small dog barking in the sewer. â€Å"Where did he come from?† said one of the harpies. â€Å"He bit me! You little fucker!† â€Å"Get him!† â€Å"I hate dogs. When we take over, no dogs.† The barking faded away, followed by the voices of the sewer harpies. Charlie took a deep breath and tried to blink the pain out of his eyes. He needed to regroup, but then he was taking the old lady down, pepper spray or not. It took him the better part of an hour to get into position, but once he was ready, he put down the cinder block, flipped open his cell phone, and dialed the number he'd gotten from information. A woman answered. â€Å"Hello.† â€Å"Ma'am, this is the gas company,† Charlie said in his best gas-company voice. â€Å"My grid is showing pressure loss at your address. We're sending a truck right out, but you need to get everyone out of the house, right now.† â€Å"Well, I'm the only one here right now, but I'm sorry, I don't smell gas.† â€Å"It may be building up under the house,† Charlie said, feeling proud of himself for being quick on his feet. Is there anyone else in the house?† â€Å"No, just me and my kitty, Samantha.† â€Å"Ma'am, please take the cat and go out by the street. Our truck will meet you there. Go right now, okay?† â€Å"Well, all right.† â€Å"Thank you, ma'am.† Charlie clicked off. He could feel movement inside of the house. He moved right to the edge of the porch roof and raised the concrete cinder block over his head. It'll look like an accident, he thought, like a cinder block fell off the porch roof. He was glad that no one could see him up here. He was sweating from the climb, his armpits stained, his trousers wrinkled. He heard the door open and got ready to throw the cinder block as soon as his target emerged from under the roof. â€Å"Good afternoon, ma'am.† A man's voice, out by the street. Charlie looked down to see Inspector Rivera standing at the sidewalk, having just climbed out of an unmarked car. What the hell was he doing here? â€Å"Are you the gas company?† said Mrs. Posokovanovich. â€Å"No, ma'am, I'm from the San Francisco police.† He flashed his badge. â€Å"They told me there was a gas leak,† she said. â€Å"That's been taken care of, ma'am. Could you step back inside and I'll check with you in a minute, okay?† â€Å"Well, okay, then.† Charlie heard the doors open and close again. His arms were trembling from holding the cinder block over his head. He tried to breathe quietly, thinking that the sound of his wheezing might attract Rivera's attention, make him visible. â€Å"Mr. Asher, what are you doing up there?† Charlie nearly lost his balance and went over. â€Å"You can see me?† â€Å"Yes, sir, I certainly can. And I can also see that cinder block you're holding over your head.† â€Å"Oh, this old thing.† â€Å"What were you planning on doing with that?† â€Å"Repairs?† Charlie tried. How could Rivera see him when he was in soul-vessel-retrieval mode? â€Å"I'm sorry, but I don't believe you, Mr. Asher. You're going to have to drop the cinder block.† â€Å"I'd rather not. It was really hard getting it up here.† â€Å"Be that as it may, I'm going to have to insist that you drop it.† â€Å"I was planning on it, but then you showed up.† â€Å"Please. Indulge me. Look, you're sweating. Climb down and you can sit in my air-conditioned car with me. We'll chat – talk about Italian suits, the Giants – I don't know – why you were about to brain that sweet old lady with a cinder block. Air-conditioning, Mr. Asher – won't that be nice?† Charlie brought the cinder block down and rested it on his thigh, feeling his trousers snagging beyond repair as he did so. â€Å"That's not much of an incentive. What am I, some primitive Amazon native? I've had air-conditioning before. I have air-conditioning in my own van.† â€Å"Yes, I'll admit it's not exactly a weekend in Paris, but the next choice was that I shoot you off the roof, and they put you in a body bag, which is going to be sweltering on a warm day like this.† â€Å"Oh, well, yes,† Charlie said. â€Å"That does make air-conditioning sound a lot more inviting. Thanks. I'm going to toss my brick down first, if that's okay?† â€Å"That would be great, Mr. Asher.† Disillusioned with DesperateFilipinas, Ray was browsing through the selection of lonely first-grade teachers with master's degrees in nuclear physics on when she came through the door. He heard the bell and caught her out of the corner of his eye, and forgetting that his neck vertebrae were fused, he sprained the left side of his face trying to turn to see her. She saw him looking and smiled. Ray smiled back, then, out of the corner of his eye, saw the monitor with the photo of the first-grade teacher holding her breasts, and sprained the right side of his face trying to turn in time to punch the power button before she passed the counter. â€Å"Just browsing,† said the love of his life. â€Å"How are you today?† â€Å"Hi,† Ray said. In his mental rehearsals, he started with â€Å"hi,† and it just sort of burped out of him before he realized that it put him behind a beat. â€Å"I mean, fine. Sorry. I was working.† â€Å"I can see that.† Again the smile. She was so understanding, forgiving – and kind, you could just tell that by her eyes. He knew in his heart that he would even sit through a hat movie for this woman. He would watch A Room with a View AND The English Patient, back-to-back, just to share a pizza with her. And she would stop him from eating his service revolver halfway through the second movie, because that's just how she was: compassionate. She made a show of browsing the store, but two minutes hadn't passed before she made for Charlie's special shelf. Even the sign said SPECIAL ITEMS – ONE PER CUSTOMER, but it didn't say if that was a per-day policy, or one per lifetime. Charlie hadn't really specified, now that Ray thought about it. Sure, Lily had yammered on about how important it was that they adhere to the policy, but that was Lily, she might have grown up some, but she was still disturbed. After a short time she picked up an electric alarm clock and brought it over to the counter. This was it. This was it. Ray heard the back door open. â€Å"Will this be everything?† he said. â€Å"Yes,† said the future Mrs. Ray Macy. â€Å"I've been looking for one like this.† â€Å"Yep, you can't beat a Sunbeam,† Ray said. â€Å"That's two-sixteen with tax – aw, heck, call it two even.† â€Å"That's very nice of you,† she said, digging into a small purse woven from colorful Guatemalan cotton thread. â€Å"Hi, Ray,† Lily said, suddenly standing there beside him like some evil phantom who appeared out of nowhere to leech every potentially joyous moment out of his life. â€Å"Hi, Lily,† he said. Lily clicked some keys on the computer. Slowed down by his freshly sprained face, Ray wasn't able to turn before she'd hit the power button on the monitor. â€Å"What's this?† asked Lily. With his free hand, Ray thumped Lily in the thigh under the counter. â€Å"Ouch! Freak!† â€Å"I'm sure you'll enjoy waking up with that,† Ray said, handing the alarm clock to the woman who would be his queen. â€Å"Thank you so much,† said the lovely brunette goddess of all things Ray. â€Å"By the way,† Ray said, pushing on, â€Å"you've been in a couple of times, I was wondering, you know, because I'm curious that way, uh, what's your name?† â€Å"Audrey.† â€Å"Hi, Audrey. I'm Ray.† â€Å"Nice to meet you, Ray. Gotta go. Bye.† She waved over her shoulder and headed out the door. Ray and Lily watched her walk away. â€Å"Nice butt,† Lily said. â€Å"She said my name,† Ray said. â€Å"She's a little bit – I don't know – unimaginary for you.† Ray turned to the nemesis Lily. â€Å"You have to watch the store. I have to go.† â€Å"Why?† â€Å"I have to follow her, find out who she is.† Ray began to gather his stuff – phone, keys, baseball cap. â€Å"Yeah, that's healthy, Ray.† â€Å"Tell Charlie I – don't tell Charlie.† â€Å"Okay. So is it okay if I switch the computer from the UGLY Web site?† â€Å"What are you talking about?† Lily stepped back from the screen and pointed to the letters as she read, â€Å"Ukrainian Girls Loving You – U-G-L-Y, ugly.† Lily smiled, a perky, self-satisfied smile, like that kid who won the spelling bee in third grade. Didn't you hate that kid? Ray couldn't believe it. They weren't even being subtle about it anymore. â€Å"Can't talk,† he said. â€Å"Gotta go.† He ran out the door and headed up Mason Street after the lovely and compassionate Audrey. Rivera had driven up to the Cliff House Restaurant overlooking Seal Rocks and forced Charlie to buy him a drink while they watched the surfers down on the beach. Rivera was not a morbid man, but he knew that if he came here enough times, eventually he'd see a surfer get hit by a white shark. In fact, he sorely hoped that it would happen, because otherwise, the world made no sense, there was no justice, and life was just a tangled ball of chaos. Thousands of seals in the water and on the rocks – the mainstay of the white shark diet – hundreds of surfers in the water, dressed like seals, well, it just needed to happen for all to be right with the world. â€Å"I never believed you, Mr. Asher, when you said that you were Death, but since I couldn't explain whatever that thing was in the alley with you, didn't want to explain, in fact, I let it slide.† â€Å"And I appreciate that,† said Charlie, showing a little discomfort at drinking a glass of wine with handcuffs on. His face was candy-apple red from having been burned by the pepper spray. â€Å"Is this normal procedure for interrogations?† â€Å"No,† Rivera said. â€Å"Normally the City is supposed to pay, but I'll have the judge take the drinks off your sentence.† â€Å"Great. Thanks,† Charlie said. â€Å"And you can call me Charlie.† â€Å"Okay, and you can call me Inspector Rivera. Now, braining the old lady with the cinder block – just exactly what were you thinking?† â€Å"Do I need a lawyer?† â€Å"Of course not, you're fine, this bar is full of witnesses.† Rivera had once been a by-the-book kind of cop. That was before the demons, the giant owls, the bankruptcy, the polar bears, the vampires, the divorce, and the saber-clawed woman-thing that turned into a bird. Now, not so much. â€Å"In that case, I was thinking that no one could see me,† Charlie said. â€Å"Because you were invisible?† â€Å"Not really. Just sort of not noticeable.† â€Å"Well, I'll give you that, but I don't think that's any reason to crush a grandmother's skull.† â€Å"You have no proof of that,† Charlie said. â€Å"Of course I do,† Rivera said, holding up his glass to signal to the waitress that he needed another Glenfiddich on the rocks. â€Å"I saw pictures of her grandchildren, she showed me when I went in the house.† â€Å"No, I mean you have no proof that I was going to crush her skull.† â€Å"I see,† said Rivera, who did not see at all. â€Å"How did you know Mrs. Posokovanovich?† â€Å"I didn't. Her name just showed up in my date book, like I showed you.† â€Å"Yes, you did. Yes, you did. But that doesn't really give you a license to kill her, now does it?† â€Å"That's the point, she was supposed to be dead three weeks ago. There was even a death notice in the paper. I was just trying to make sure it was accurate.† â€Å"So in lieu of having the Chronicle print a correction, you thought you'd bash in granny's brains.† â€Å"Well, it was that or have my daughter say ‘kitty' at her, and I refuse to exploit my child in that way.† â€Å"Well, I admire your taking the high ground on that one, Charlie,† Rivera said, thinking, Who do I have to shoot to get a drink around here? â€Å"But let's just say that for one millisecond I believe you, and the old lady was supposed to die, but didn't, and that because of it you were shot with a crossbow and that thing I shot in the alley appeared – let's just say I believe all that, what am I supposed to do about it?† â€Å"You need to be careful,† Charlie said. â€Å"You may be turning into one of us.† â€Å"Pardon?† â€Å"That's how it happened to me. When my wife passed away, in the hospital, I saw the guy that came to collect her soul vessel, and wham, I was a Death Merchant. You saw me today, when no one else could, and you saw the sewer harpy, that night in the alley. Most of the time, I'm the only one who can see them.† Rivera really, really wanted to turn this guy over to a psychiatrist at the hospital and never see him again, but the problem was, he had seen the woman-thing, that night and another time on his own street, and he had seen reports of weird stuff happening in the City over the last two weeks. And not just normal San Francisco weird stuff, but really weird stuff, like a flock of ravens attacking a tourist in Coit Tower, and a guy who slammed his car through a storefront in Chinatown, saying that he had swerved to miss a dragon, and people all over the Mission saying that they'd seen an iguana dressed like a musketeer going through their garbage, tiny sword and all. â€Å"I can prove it,† Charlie said. â€Å"Just take me to the music store in the Castro.† Rivera looked at the sad, naked ice cubes in his glass and said, â€Å"Anyone ever tell you that it's hard to follow your train of thought, Charlie?† â€Å"You need to talk to Minty Fresh.† â€Å"Of course, that clears things up. I'll have a word with Krispy Kreme while I'm there.† â€Å"He's also a Death Merchant. He can tell you that what I'm telling you is true and you can let me go.† â€Å"Get up.† Rivera stood. â€Å"I'm not finished with my wine.† â€Å"Leave the money for the drinks and get up, please.† Rivera hooked his finger in Charlie's handcuffs and pulled him up. â€Å"We're going to the Castro.† â€Å"I don't think I can work my cane with these things on,† Charlie said. Rivera sighed and looked down on the surfers. He thought he saw something large moving in a wave behind one surfer, but as his heart leapt at the prospect, a sea lion poked his whiskered face out of the curl and Rivera's spirits sank again. He threw Charlie the handcuff keys. â€Å"Meet me in the car, I have to take a leak.† â€Å"I could escape.† â€Å"You do that, Charlie – after you pay.†