Chavez Ravine

I had a 78 record album by Roy Rogers called Lore of the West. Roy and his buddies sang western songs and told western stories, all much more interesting than my life was at the time. The story had something to do with poor sheep ranchers struggling against a wicked outlaw gang that was backed up by a secret cartel of corrupt politicians, railroad interests, and greedy land speculators. The sheep ranchers lost, but the winners were contaminated and ugly. "A hard-boiled egg's always yellow inside," Roy said. I think "Chavez Ravine" is the same story, something Roy would have understood.

Ry Cooder, liner notes to Chavez Ravine (2005)

Young Skins

'The marriage was insanity.'

'The glory days,' Doran said wistfully. 'You say we had our moments, but not you. You were a good boy for so long. Sensible, abstemious. You were, Eli,sorry, that sounds like an insult but it's not. Only she could turn you out of your equilibrium. She had a knack for it.'

'Not that she meant it, I don't think,' Eli mused. 'But she did make you want to lie down in the middle of traffic, alright.'

'Was that how it felt?' Doran asked.

'That's how it feels how it felt like,' Eli said. 'But I don't know. I don't know how it was for her. At all.'

Eli took a sip of his beer, Doran a deep quaff. The barman showed no signs of resurfacing; the clock ticked on.

Colin Barrett, Young Skins (2014)

The Bill Of The Century

But their commitment would not have been nearly as strong had the civil rights community and the LCCR [Leadership Conference on Civil Rights] not brought constant pressure to act; though Katzenbach then and later railed on the liberals, and though Robert Kennedy repeatedly referred to then as "sons of bitches," their work was absolutely vital in providing political cover for the administration to accept a stronger bill. If the Civil Rights Act is a landmark in the history of racial progress in America, it is also a testament to the power of ordinary citizens to band together and drive their government to move forward.

Clay Risen, The Bill Of The Century: The Epic Battle For The Civil Rights Act (2014)

Marshall Crenshaw

The World Of Raymond Chandler

It was all too much too soon for a town that had no evolved culture of its own. What had emerged, Chandler saw as being just as much the product of bland mass production and advertising. He called it "the culture of the filter-tipped cigarette...leading to a steakless steak to be broiled on a heatless broiler in a non-existent oven and eaten by a toothless ghost."

The World of Raymond Chandler, edited by Barry Day (2014)

I smelled Los Angeles before I got to it. It smelled stale and old like a living room that had been closed too long. But the colored light fooled you.

Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister (1949)

The Short And Tragic Life Of Robert Peace

Yesterday Rob had walked about the same distance from our room to Science Hill for biology class: past Sterling Memorial Library and its four million books, across the marble stones of Beinecke Plaza with its sculpted memorials paying tribute to Yale students lost in both world wars, beneath the forty-foot golden dome of Woolsey Hall, past the university president's mansion on Hillhouse Avenue toward the modernist twenty-storty building around which were clustered eleven different science labs, each of them larger than St. Benedict's. Today, he walked through the network of dealers who governed Vailsburg Park, along Central Avenue, a few blocks from where the Moore sisters had been killed, and then to Chapman Street. Along the way, he passed small houses, tall project towers, struggling businesses gating their doors, and poor people going wherever they were going, heads angled down. And with every step some sector of his consciousness must have wondered how he'd gone from this world to that, why he'd gone, for what larger purpose.

Jeff Hobbes, The Short And Tragic Life Of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark For The Ivy League (2014)

The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened -- Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many. Jim said the moon could a laid them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the nest.

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

Carsie Blanton: Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?

Ashland Coffee & Tea, Ashland Virginia, 2/3/15

Milton

Jason Isbell