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454d76d
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gentlemen's clubs--now there was a ridiculous euphemism
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Chris Bohjalian |
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b0b2861
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So you're positive the killer is a man." "Yes, I think my gender can take responsibility for this one. Women don't cut out other women's hearts." "We can."
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hearts
women
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Chris Bohjalian |
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3c19ec2
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Fletcher Free Library. (Supposedly,
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Chris Bohjalian |
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4a3531d
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You know the type--will give herself to the first nobleman in a uniform who comes calling with a couple of eggs and a piece of rat meat." "You're selling yourself short." "I've just sold myself for rat meat," she said, and she turned from him and lit the stove."
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Chris Bohjalian |
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892d1ec
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She did it because it was, like so much else that made her happy, dangerous and self-destructive and just a little bit sick.
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Chris Bohjalian |
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bcc860e
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She needed water, but it would take a tsunami to avert the hangover that awaited. She needed Advil, but she feared the red pills that she popped like M&M's at moments like this were distant. They were in the medicine bag in her own hotel room. In her own hotel.
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Chris Bohjalian |
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ec14880
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During the war, I promised the dead I would never forget them. I stared at them, barely able to move myself. Pretended I was one of them. To this day I can recall the light in the ruins.
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ruins
war
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Chris Bohjalian |
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f4c552f
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And just as there is random horror-murder,suicide,child abuse,car accidents.......there is also indiscriminate kindness. Not merely miracles,though I have experienced them.But simple human connection,either brokered by an angel or sourced by one. That is why I try to encourage people to be receptive to that new person who seems to have appeared in their life out of nowhere.
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you-never-know
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Chris Bohjalian |
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c876dda
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but my biggest worry was that he would
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Chris Bohjalian |
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plant. Some girls started crying and asking me what was going on, like I'd actually have a clue, and whether the worst reports we were reading or watching on our phones were the accurate ones. But how could I know? I called my mom to see what was going on, but she never picked up. I sent her a text and never heard back. Same with my dad, but I never really expected to hear from him. I figured he was up to his ass in whatever nightmare was g..
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Chris Bohjalian |
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215a806
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be wary of what I might learn. "No. Do you think I should?" "I don't know. Maybe," she replied, and in my mind I saw her in her high-backed bar stool at the island in the kitchen where the kids scarfed down their Lucky Charms before walking down the hill to school. Then, before I could answer, she went on, "It will be weird if we're related to the woman in the photo." "In what way?" "She's so ..." "Go ahead," I said. "She's not like us. Eve..
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Chris Bohjalian |
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9c5c094
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months earlier with Kristin,
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Chris Bohjalian |
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a2c91f5
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vernissage
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Chris Bohjalian |
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8b38543
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cerulean.
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Chris Bohjalian |
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299c908
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A smart girl is nobody's pushover and nobody's foe. A smart girl is both sword and smile.
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woman
women
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Chris Bohjalian |
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7c84e6d
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are an Armenian," says the Turk with the handgun. "I am." "Where are you going?" "Damascus." "Why?" "My sister lives there." "What do you do?" "I'm an engineer. I'm working on the Baghdad Railway--the spur from Aleppo to Nusaybin." "The British have captured Nasiriyah." "I hadn't heard that." He nods. "Had you heard that an Armenian murdered a Turkish"
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Chris Bohjalian |
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c9e9d70
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crime? I was in trouble because a man had said I was not clean there. He was lying. He only said that because he was not clean there and I told him we should shower before we fucked.
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Chris Bohjalian |
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42ffe2d
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Some are just businessmen.
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Chris Bohjalian |
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The Beatrice that obsessed Dante was a Florentine named Bice di Folco Portinari. Envision this moment (and, in all fairness, I am envisioning it the way Henry Holiday did in his exquisite nineteenth-century painting): Bice is walking beside the Arno River, dressed in white, the fabric clinging to her legs and outlining her slender thighs, and there is Dante. He meets her at the corner of one of the bridges that span the river. His left hand..
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Chris Bohjalian |
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b3e3bf8
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ontological
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Chris Bohjalian |
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4cc00a4
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Tsunamis. School shootings. Syria. We watch it, we read about it, and then we move on. As a species, we're either very resilient or super callous. I don't know which.
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Chris Bohjalian |
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4185fbb
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My dad and Patricia viewed my decision to become a vegetarian largely in terms of the way it seemed to complicate their dinner menus.
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Chris Bohjalian |
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f1570c3
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But if you are a person who needs no one's approval, you are probably crazy and live alone on an island or the top of a mountain somewhere.
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Chris Bohjalian |
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2031efe
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A term came to her that they used on occasion at the shelter: the double bind...They used the expression in much the same way that they would use a term like catch-22.
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double-bind
schizophrenia
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Chris Bohjalian |
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f933429
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Elena believed that reportage like that might be compelling and beautiful, but it would never gain traction in the Age of the Troll. In the Age of Mass Shootings. In the Age of the Suicide Bomb in the Crowd.
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Chris Bohjalian |
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a559682
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If you were Bill Clinton, how did you justify Monica Lewinsky to Chelsea? What did you say about the cigar and the beret and the little blue dress? If you were Anthony Weiner, how in the world did you explain to your daughter your apparently insatiable need to text pictures of your junk to strange women?
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Chris Bohjalian |
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83b08bc
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Stories, after all, are merely memories given a certain tangibility with words, and it only takes a few words to subsume a memory completely.
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Chris Bohjalian |
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a34ff09
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Allah dwells in all men, even the infidel," he says."
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Chris Bohjalian |
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ab1b62f
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You want to know the definition of a consultant? A guy who borrows your watch to tell you what time it is.
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Chris Bohjalian |
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69a0b9c
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Did you ever read Carlo Levi?" "No." "You should--if you like Tolstoy. He wrote beautifully about Italian peasants. My people, once. He had a soul like Tolstoy. 'The future has an ancient heart.' I think I have that right." --
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Chris Bohjalian |
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1886603
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Pain came in all colors and sizes, much of it far worse than the pricks and aches and fever dreams that affected the body
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Chris Bohjalian |
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933e9f8
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This was the pain that gouged out great holes in the soul, hollowing out self-esteem and cratering a person's self respect
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self-esteem
self-respect
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Chris Bohjalian |
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9ea282d
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Seriously," the banker went on, "what do you investigate? I have a feeling you do more than find stray kittens and bring home lost babies." "Murder."
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murder
stray-kittens
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Chris Bohjalian |