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357cd89
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I used to think John Waters movies were on the outlandish side until I came to Maryland. Klam and I stop for lunch at a dark roadside joint that feels like more of a throw-back than the Surratt House ever could. The vegetable of the day is succotash to give you an idea. Technically, it's a family restaurant, but it will only remind you of your family if your mom chain-smoked menthols.
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Sarah Vowell |
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9f8af0d
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and thus ever works the pallid academic mind, denying the real, exalting the fictitious and the false, incapable of adjusting itself to the flow of living things, to the reality and the pathos of man's follies, to the valiant hope that ever causes him to aspire, and again to aspire; that never lifts a hand in aid because it cannot . . . when what the world needs is courage, common sense and human sympathy, and a moral standard that is plain..
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Sarah Vowell |
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7fefe05
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did not hesitate to be disagreeable to preserve my independence"--applied"
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Sarah Vowell |
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9262908
|
The model for South America was Broadway actress Maxine Elliot. North America, a pretty blonde, was modeled on Maud Coleman Woods of Charlottesville, Virginia. (Sadly, she would die of typhoid fever that summer, ten days before McKinley arrived in Buffalo, thereby never living to see herself on a coaster, every southern belle's dream.)
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Sarah Vowell |
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3c8ed66
|
First, from this side of the twentieth century, apres strip malls, fast-food franchises, glass boxes, housing projects, and other architectural gaffes, it's fun to look back on this dilemma of to-column-or-not-to-column, because honestly, the only question most Americans ask about a new building at this point is basically: Is it a soul-sucking eyesore of cheap-ass despair? It's not? Whew.
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Sarah Vowell |
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57f9647
|
After he finishes his song, I ask him, "Sir, were you just playing 'Lean on Me'?" "That's right!" he answers, thrilled. Now, whenever I think of Mudd and his house I hear that song, hear Mudd serenading the limping Booth, taking his arm and helping him up the stairs, singing, "Lean on me, when you're not strong, and I'll be your friend." --
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Sarah Vowell |
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83aadd9
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Of course Americans celebrate Independence Day as opposed to Yorktown Day. Who wants to barbecue a hot dog and ponder how we owe our independence to the French navy? Who wants to twirl sparklers and dwell on how the French government's expenditures in America contributed to the bankruptcy that sparked the French Revolution that would send Rochambeau to prison, Lafayette into exile (then prison), and our benefactor His Most Christian Majesty..
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Sarah Vowell |
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6c4c8ee
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Mutual Criticism required a member of the group to stand up in front of everybody and listen to the enumeration of his or her faults. The bright side of being that night's subject for criticism was the rare treat at Oneida of being the center of attention. The downside was that everyone you knew and loved was allowed, even encouraged, to look into your eyes and ask, "You know what your problem is?"
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Sarah Vowell |
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cdc7718
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The irony of informing nearly naked people in a wilderness setting about the story of naked Adam and Eve eating the fruit of knowledge and inventing the fashion industry due to a sudden need for clothing to hide their shame is not lost on Williams.
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irony
hubris
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Sarah Vowell |
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1f68d6a
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Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests of litera..
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Sarah Vowell |
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e42b7c2
|
As the starstruck Lafayette later described his first glimpse of Washington, "It was impossible to mistake for a moment his majestic figure and deportment; nor was he less distinguished by the noble affability of his manner." What a sweet memory. Still, it does get on my nerves how easy it is for tall people to make a good first impression."
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Sarah Vowell |
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9d4d58e
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I soon figured out that I should keep my qualms to myself. Christianity is no different from any other cult---it isn't about faith. It's about agreement, about like-minded people sitting together in the same room at the same time believing the same thing. That unity is its appeal. Once someone, even a little six-year-old someone wearing patent leather Mary Janes, starts asking questions that can't be answered, the whole congregation's fun i..
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Sarah Vowell |
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ea35b8c
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There are people in this country who will argue that because of the demise of morals in general, and Sunday school in particular, kids today are losing their innocence before they should, that because of cartoons and Ken Starr and curricula about their classmates who have two mommies, youth learn too soon about sex and death. Well, like practically everyone else in the Western world who came of age since Gutenberg, I lost my innocence the o..
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Sarah Vowell |
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fef5c47
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mania for exact change can be off-putting for a traveler, what with getting yelled at by cashiers and cab drivers all day long for the crime of paying a sixteen-euro fare with a twenty-euro note. She said that it was nothing personal, that the French are naturally aggressive, especially with one another. Which I suppose is a form of equality, but not the sweet kind experienced by Lafayette.
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Sarah Vowell |
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c05c573
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there is anything to be learned from the conspiracy--other than when in doubt, bet on George Washington--it is to beware the pitfalls of certainty.
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Sarah Vowell |
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62018df
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The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave," he wrote. "It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."
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Sarah Vowell |
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88a551a
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Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont, had previously served France as both a male soldier in the Seven Years' War and a female secret agent who infiltrated the Russian monarchy, successfully befriending and convincing a Russian czarina not to become an ally of France's enemy Great Britain. No one was entirely sure of his/her gender, and he/she kept them guessing.
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Sarah Vowell |
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abc0557
|
Experience is terribly important. You'll notice that the congressmen who want to hold up the government are all junior people and new to the game. And of course they will say, 'Oh, it's Washington cynicism, where they all compromise and work out backroom deals.' But that's actually how democracy works." Which"
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Sarah Vowell |
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aac93a0
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But there's still this combination of governmental ineptitude, shortsightedness, stinginess, corruption, and neglect that affected the Continentals before, during, and after Valley Forge that twenty-first-century Americans are not entirely unfamiliar with. While
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Sarah Vowell |
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16cf6a1
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In the first summer of the Iraqi war, on the crabby, sweaty second day of a blackout that shut down the northeast's power grid, I stood in line for questionable foodstuffs in my dark neighborhood deli. It reeked of souring milk. An annoyingly upbeat fellow-shopper chirped, "Cheer up, everybody, we're part of history!" Maybe because I was suffering the effects of allergy eyes brought on the night before by trying to read by the light of lila..
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Sarah Vowell |
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3934f15
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Oh, if only that was the last time in America that the extreme left and extreme right broke down and made a mess of things, leaving everyone in the center to suffer.
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Sarah Vowell |
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f695c6e
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If this fails to convince, I being out my secret weapon, announcing with portentous deliberation that Barbara. Damn. Walters. Does. Not. Drive. Heard of her? This sort of accusatory conversion of course almost never goes down with native New Yorkers, people who, like Barbara Walters, live in that barbaric third world country that is Manhattan, and thus have yet to hear of newfangled American Advances like automobiles, happiness, and yards.
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humor
new-york-city
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Sarah Vowell |
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15dfb7d
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And all they see is a mash-up of naked prisoners and an American girl in fatigues standing there giving a thumbs-up. As I write this, the United States of America is still a city on a hill; and it's still shining--because we never turn off the lights in our torture prisons. That's how we carry out the sleep deprivation.
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abu-ghraib
city-on-the-hill
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Sarah Vowell |
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e3c53fa
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a man without birth, without courage, without conduct. For my part, I declare, sir, it shall never be said that I made such a man my master.
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leadership-traits
self-respect
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Sarah Vowell |
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8520d73
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Freedom of the press, the surest guaranty of the rights of man.
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Sarah Vowell |
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487548c
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As if I was never nicknamed 'Wednesday' as in 'Adams'.
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Sarah Vowell |
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1c759ce
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I have this recurring nightmare in which I have to move back in with my old college roommates. I'll admit, that's what I was expecting to find at Oneida. The 19th century equivalent of sharing a house with the friend who brought home a crazy drifter to sleep on our couch - a man who claimed the local car dealership was built out of 'needles nourishing the earth'. The week before I went to Oneida, I had that claustrophobic dream again - that..
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recurring
muffin
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Sarah Vowell |
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23c1d13
|
No one recorded what those marches were, though decades later there was an apocryphal and later-debunked story the one of the songs the British played was the on-the-nose "The World Turned Upside Down."
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hamilton
american-revolution
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Sarah Vowell |
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6bc6937
|
You think this is a mess? New York is a mess! Why should it matter if I spill anything inside? The whole city is a dump! I'm not pretending the inside is any different from the outside anymore!
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Sarah Vowell |
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10f8298
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His pictures of this region summarize the soulful emptiness of a country where, as Gertrude Stein observed, 'there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is.
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Sarah Vowell |
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0992a98
|
The whole reason I wanted to take Owen to Disney World is that I fear that someday he's going to look through his childhood photo album and wonder why all his vacations with his aunt took place at places like the McKinley Memorial and Wounded Knee. And yet here we are. Powell's cemetery was just too close to Cinderella's Castle for me to pass up.
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history
sightseeing
vacations
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sarah vowell |
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ed51983
|
Lafayette took umbrage - just gobs and gobs of umbrage - at the patriots' vilification of his countrymen for leaving Newport.
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newport
umbrage
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Sarah Vowell |
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ddcb491
|
In the first summer of the Iraqi war, on the crabby, sweaty second day of a blackout that shut down the northeast's power grid, I stood in line for questionable foodstuffs in my dark neighborhood deli. It reeked of souring milk. An annoyingly upbeat fellow-shopper chirped, "Cheer up, everybody, we're part of history!" Maybe because I was suffering the effects of allergy eyes brought on the night before by trying to read by the light of lila..
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Sarah Vowell |
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32eca53
|
The neighborhood of Gramercy Park, where Edwin used to live, was built to look like London, which is to say that its considerable beauty is skin deep while its heart beats with the ugliness of monarchy. And at its very center, inside the gates keeping out the riffraff that is all New York, stands the statue of the sad and fancy Edwin Booth, dressed as Hamlet, his signature role.
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Sarah Vowell |
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a2a96a1
|
Yes, they're a little biased there," I agree. Mike smiles at this understatement, knowing as I do that saying they're a little biased in Mudd's favor at the Mudd-family-run Mudd home in Maryland is like saying cheese steaks are kind of associated with Philadelphia."
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Sarah Vowell |
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a1a19d0
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After Hymns and tears, they boarded the brig Thaddeus, a vessel so crappy, it made the Mayflower look like the QE2.
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mayflower
thaddeus
missionary
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Sarah Vowell |
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1290af7
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A gifted violin player in danger of becoming a virtuoso and thus too attached to his instrument handed it over to the Oneida authorities and never played again. When a visiting Canadian teacher complained that the community did not foster "genius or special talent," Noyes was delighted, replying, "We never expected or desired to produce a Byron, a Napoleon, or a Michelangelo." You know you've reached a new plateau of group mediocrity when e..
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individuality
oneida
talent
mediocrity
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Sarah Vowell |
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07244ea
|
on the illusive "Monsieur Hortalez." When my friend Steven and I went looking for the building one afternoon, we came to the address at 47 rue Vieille-du-Temple and realized we had been there before."
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Sarah Vowell |
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b589301
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Jeff Davis's name they'll proudly praise, ah ha, ah ha And Lincoln's tomb will be disgraced, ah ha, ah ha The nation's flag will lose its stars The stripes they'll change to rebel bars And we'll all wear gray if the Johnnies get into power
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Sarah Vowell |
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f2b880f
|
One of the slight variances between the Stalwarts and their fellow Republicans the Half-Breeds is that the Half-Breeds, partly out of frustration with the Civil War sainthood of Grant, were clean-shirt guys more interested in stumping for mild civil service reform--a platform whose merit would make for a less stirring campaign song. A bureaucrat should pass a test, hurrah, hurrah!
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Sarah Vowell |
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489144d
|
In the forensics novels the contents of a victim's pockets on the night of her death Say Something about her character. My Ford's Theatre ticket stub and Jimmy Carter key chain say that I am the corniest, goody-goody person in town. Luckily, I survived the evening unscathed so no one will ever find out about that losery Jimmy Carter key chain.
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Sarah Vowell |
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b6699d0
|
Back inside, I'm shown an antique cabinet in which members of the community, famous for their homegrown produce, dried herbs. The Oneida Community was an upstate tourist attraction right from the start, second, Valesky says, to Niagara Falls. I'm taking the same guided tour offered a hundred and fifty years ago to prim rubbernecks who came here to peep at sex fiends. I wonder how many of my vacationing forebears went home disappointed? Th..
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oneida
herbs
odor
selfishness
smells
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Sarah Vowell |
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4d5581f
|
Before the verb "to electrocute" came to define death by electricity, Edison advocated that the verb be named for his nemesis, that a person who had been electrocuted would have been westinghoused instead. I bet Westinghouse came up with some possible definitions of what it meant to be edisoned himself."
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Sarah Vowell |
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492291f
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In his reply, Washington acknowledged his fellow Americans' "fatal tendency of disunion." The"
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Sarah Vowell |