special thanks to Martha Sharpe and everyone at Anansi; to Mandy Barber, for the use of her stunning visual art; to Karen Mac Cormack, for her advice during the early stages of this project; and to David Bromige (weaver of radhats), for his enthusias...
I discovered at an early age that I was - shall we be kina and say different? It's a better, more general word than the other one... I got sick... It was the feeling that the great, deadly pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me - and the g...
SUN, MOON, AND STARRY SKY Early summer evenings, when the first stars come out, the warm glow of sunset still stains the rim of the western sky. Sometimes, the moon is also visible, a pale white slice, while the sun tarries. Just think -- all the cel...
So asking you to take a moonlit walk with me, that would totally not work?" "What?" Again that glare. "Go away. Stop being an idiot. I don't even know you." "You're healing my little brother Bowie." "Yeah, that doesn't make us friends, kid." "So no m...
In the early days of the December that my father was to die, my younger brother brought me the news that I was a Jew. I was then a transplanted Englishman in America, married, with one son and, though unconsoled by any religion, a nonbelieving member...
Sandrine opened her eyes to the soft gray light of early dawn. Recollections of sensual pleasure seemed to caress her body, bringing a smile to her lips. She lay back in the pillow and listened to the breathing of Philippe beside her. She lingered in...
Modern history, both early and late, was made by Europeans, who "built a world around Europe", as historians "know", according to Braudel. That is indeed the "knowledge" of the European historians who themselves "invented" history and then put it to ...
Well, I've always read in bed, in early years by candlelight, succeeded by lamplight, gaslight, and now electric light, and I'll probably be found dead there with some ponderous tome or book of poems on my chest and a seraphic smile of peace and cont...
Night is irregular. What is not done in the daytime becomes possible at night: murder and sex and thought. Simple men are driven to early beds by tomorrow's daytime demands and by fear of the dark, and never dream of the irregular world outside. And ...
Early on in the Bible story, we will discover the devil taking on the form of an animal. At the center of the Bible story, we will find God taking on the form of a man. The Son of God is the image of God, and so when He took flesh, it was in the form...
Young children begin very early to internalize information that either encourages or discourages self-disclosure. Cues are intuitively understood. Most of what we feel is unexamined and articulated. Cultural norms are unwittingly absorbed. We learn w...
If there was one thing I learned from all my research, it was that the majority of the early pioneers didn’t dwell on the hard times; they indeed related every aspect of their lives to their relationship with God, specifically in regards to this di...
In many ways, the steamships of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries had become the secular equivalent of medieval cathedrals. They were the source of endless pride to the communities and nations that built them, and were just as much an...
...early medieval Ireland sounds like a somewhat crazed Wisconsin, in which every dairy farm is an armed camp at perpetual war with its neighbors, and every farmer claims he is a king.
I love even to see the domestic animals reassert their native rights — any evidence that they have not wholly lost their original wild habits and vigor; as when my neighbor's cow breaks out of her pasture early in the Spring and boldly swims the...
Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to that culture which is exclusively an int...
An oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a scientist has; and so it it is reasonably certain that this one jumped to the conclusion that the nineteen million years was a preparation for him; but that would be just like an oyster, which is t...
I had a dream about you. We were playing table tennis, which angered my family because they were trying to enjoy their Thanksgiving dinner on it. They thought we were selfish, and we thought they were two months too early. Seriously, Thanksgiving is ...
Food is, for me, for everybody, a very sexual thing and I think I realised that quite early on. I still cannot exaggerate how just putting a meal in front of somebody is really more of a buzz for me than anything. And I mean anything. Maybe that goes...
My father started growing very quiet as Alzheimer's started claiming more of him. The early stages of Alzheimer's are the hardest because that person is aware that they're losing awareness. And I think that that's why my father started growing more a...
Some changes occur suddenly like a brilliant flash of lightning striking across a dark sky. These changes are stunning, exciting but can be quickly forgotten. Other changes happen slowly, gradually, like a flower blooming in early spring, each day un...
