#ban

Planning is for the world's great cities, for Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some level, to culture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so design had given way to expediency. ↗

— Jeffrey Eugenides

#design #detroit #london #money #paris

No surprises" is the motto of the franchise ghetto, its Good Housekeeping seal, subliminally blazoned on every sign and logo that make up the curves and grids of light that outline the Basin. The people of America, who live in the world's most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto. Follow the loglo outward, to where the growth is enfolded into the valleys and the canyons, and you find the land of the refugees. They have fled from the true America, the America of atomic bombs, scalpings, hip-hop, chaos theory, cement overshoes, snake handlers, spree killers, space walks, buffalo jumps, drive-bys, cruise missiles, Sherman's March, gridlock, motorcycle gangs, and bun-gee jumping. They have parallel-parked their bimbo boxes in identical computer-designed Burbclave street patterns and secreted themselves in symmetrical sheetrock shitholes with vinyl floors and ill-fitting woodwork and no sidewalks, vast house farms out in the loglo wilderness, a culture medium for a medium culture. The only ones left in the city are street people, feeding off debris; immigrants, thrown out like shrapnel from the destruction of the Asian powers; young bohos; and the technomedia priesthood of Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong. Young smart people like Da5id and Hiro, who take the risk of living in the city because they like stimulation and they know they can handle it. ↗

— Neal Stephenson

#design

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked, I cried to dream again. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#dreams

Things began to go wrong when I was seventeen. My band’s twenty-year-old lead guitarist earned seven years in jail for a drug-fuelled spree of violence. The other band members were quick to let go of their musical dreams, but I never did. They did the ‘mature’ thing: after writing off the band as a teenage fantasy, they got real jobs and made some money. They called it growing up. I called it giving up. ↗

— Mark Rice

#dreams #drugs #fantasy #guitar #heavy-metal

I was eleven when my father left, so neither of us really knew our fathers. I’d met mine of course, but then I only knew my dad as a child knows a parent, as a sort of crude outline filled in with one or two colors. I’d never seen my father scared or cry. I’d never heard him admit to any wrongdoing. I have no idea what he dreamed of. And once I’d seen a smile pinned to one cheek and darkness to the other when my mum had yelled at him. Now he was gone, and I was left with just an impression—one of male warmth, big arms, and loud laughter. ↗

— Lloyd Jones

#fathers #dreams

So you're my boss now," I snap. "Technically, I'm you're boss's boss's boss." "And technically, it's gross moral turpitude- the fact that i am fucking my boss's boss's boss." "At the moment, you're arguing with him." Christian scowls. ↗

— E.L. James

#boss #fifty-shades #christianity

He is a Shadowhunter,” said Jocelyn. “His loyalty will be to Clave and Covenant.” “He’s my friend,” said Magnus coldly. “His loyalty is to me. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#loyalty #magnus-bane #lost

The first thing I saw was blue. Blue sweater, blue eyes. Blue. Beautifully blue. Then I saw red as I recognized who belonged to the blue. “Fucking Wallbanger,” I hissed, frozen on the spot. His grin slid off as well as he played place-the-face for a moment. “Fucking Pink Nightie Girl,” he finally concluded. He grimaced. We stared, seething as the air literally turned electric between us, snapping and crackling. The four behind us had fallen silent, listening to this little interchange. Then they caught up. “That’s Wallbanger?” Sophia screeched. “Wait a minute, that’s Pink Nightie Girl?” Neil laughed, and Mimi and Ryan snorted. My face flamed bright red as I processed this information, and Simon’s sneer became that damnable smirk I’d seen that night in the hallway—when I’d banged on his door and made him quit giving it to the Giggler and yelled at him. When I’d been wearing… “Pink Nightie Girl. Pink Nightie Girl!” I choked out, beyond pissed. Beyond angry. Well into Furious Town. I stared at him, pouring all of my tension into that one look. All of the sleepless nights and lost Os and cold showers and banana thrusting and merciless wet dreams went into that one look. I wanted to level him with my eyes, make him beg for mercy. But no…Not Simon, Director of the International House Of Orgasms. He Was Still Smirking. ↗

— Alice Clayton

#pink-nightie-girrl #wallbanger #dreams

I never arrive unannounced without something big and juicy in hand. - Simon Hunt ↗

— Dannika Dark

#humor #hunt #juicy #mage #paranormal

I think of it often and imagine the scene clearly. Even if they come to kill me, I will tell them what they are trying to do is wrong, that education is our basic right. ↗

— Malala Yousafzai

#taliban-treatment-of-women #education