[after reading a letter sent by his mother]
Alexander:
It's a high ransom she charges for nine months lodging in the womb.
Hephaistion:
Bring her to Babylon, Alexander. It'll give her such joy.
Alexander:
Joy! I am the cracked mirror of her dreams... Stay with me tonight Hephaistion.
Hephaistion:
What bothers you?
Alexander:
I see in her everything I fear. Yet I have no idea what it is; this fear. She was always so sure I was born of Zeus. Why, Hephaistion?
Hephaistion:
I think there are things beyond our imagining. Like the lightening. Tales of strange conceptions. I don't doubt it.
Alexander:
What is being told me? What destiny do I have?
Hephaistion:
Well, if I'm Patroclus, I die first. Then you, Achilles. The generals are upset. They question your obsession with Darius. They say it was never meant for you to be king of Asia.
Alexander:
Naturally. They want only to return to their homes rich with gold, but I have seen the future, Hephaistion! I've seen it now a thousand times, on a thousand faces. These people want, need, change. Aristotle was wrong about them.
Hephaistion:
How so?
Alexander:
Look at those we've conquered. They leave their dead unburied, they smash their enemies skulls and drink them as dust, they mate in public! How can they think, or sing, or write when none can read? But as Alexander's army they could go where they never thought possible. They can soldier, or work in the cities. From the Alexandrias, from Egypt to the outer ocean. We could connect these lands, Hephaistion. And the people.
Hephaistion:
Some say these Alexandrias have become extensions of Alexander himself. They draw people into the cities so as to make slaves.
Alexander:
But we've freed them, Hephaistion, from the Persias, where everyone lived as slaves! To free the people of the world! Such would be beyond the glory of Achilles. Beyond Heracles! A feat to rival Prometheus, who was always a friend to man.
Hephaistion:
Remember the fates of these heroes. They suffered, greatly.
Alexander:
We all suffer. Your father, mine. They all came to the end of their time and in the end, when it's over, all that matters is what you've done.
Hephaistion:
You once said the fear of death drives all men. Are there no other forces? Is there not love in your life, Alexander? What would you do if you ever reached the end of the world? I wonder sometimes, if it's not your mother you run from, so many years, so many miles between you, what is it you fear?
Alexander:
Who knows these things? When I was a child my mother thought me divine; my father, weak. Which am I, Hephaistion? Weak or divine? All I know is I trust only you in this world. I've missed you. I need you. It is you I love, Hephaistion. No other.
Hephaistion:
You still hold you head cocked like that.
Alexander:
[laughing] I have to stop that.
Hephaistion:
No, like a dear listening in the wind you strike me still, Alexander. You have eyes like no other. I sound as stupid as a school boy, but you're everything I care for. And by the sweet breath of Aphrodite I'm so jealous of losing you to this world you want so badly.
Alexander:
You'll never lose me, Hephaistion. I'll be with you always. 'Til the end.
President Kennedy:
[addressing the NPIC photograph analyst] Okay - let's have it.
NPIC Photo Interpreter:
Gentlemen, as most of you now know, a U-2 over Cuba Sunday morning took a series of disturbing photographs. Our analysis at NPIC indicates that the Soviet Union has followed up its conventional weapons build-up in Cuba with the introduction of surface-to-surface, medium-range ballistic missiles, or MRBMs. Our official estimate at this time is that the missile system is the SS-4 'Sandal'. We do not believe that the missiles are as yet operational. Iron Bark reports that the SS-4 can deliver a 3-megaton nuclear weapon 1,000 miles. So far we've identified 32 missiles serviced by about 3400 men, undoubtedly all Soviet personnel. Our cities and military installations in the southeast as far north as Washington, D.C., are in range of these weapons, and in the evnt of a launch would have only 5 minutes warning.
General Marshall Carter:
5 minutes, gentlemen.
Gen. Max Taylor:
In those 5 minutes, they could kill 80 million Americans - and destroy a significant percentage of our bomber bases, degrading our retaliatory options. The Joint Chiefs' consensus, Mr. President, is that this signals a major doctrinal shift in Soviet thinking - to a first-strike policy. It is a massively destabilizing move.
Robert Kennedy:
How long until they're operational?
NPIC Photo Interpreter:
General Carter can answer that question better than I can.
Gen. Max Taylor:
GMAC - Guided Missiles Intelligence Committee - estimates 10-14 days. A crash program could limit that time. However, I must stress that there may be more missiles - that we don't know about. We'll need more U-2 coverage.
President Kennedy:
Gentlemen, I want first reactions here. Assuming for the moment that Khruschev has NOT gone off the deep end - and intends to start World War 3 - what are we looking at?
Dean Rusk:
Mr. President, I believe my team is in agreement. If we permit the introduction of nuclear missiles to a Soviet satellite nation in our hemisphere, the diplomatic consequnces will be too terrible to contemplate. The Russians are trying to show the world they can do whatever they want, wherever they want, and we're powerless to stop them. If they succeed...
Robert Kennedy:
It'll be Munich all over again.
Dean Rusk:
Yes. Appeasement only makes the aggressor more aggressive. And the Soviets will be emboldened to push us even harder. Now we must remove the missiles one way or another. Now it seems to me the options are either some combination of international pressure & action on our part, until they give in - or - we hit them. An air strike.
Salim Abu Aziz:
[his message to the United States] You have murdered our women, and our children, and bombed our cities from afar, like cowards, and you dare to call "us" terrorists?Now, we have the ability to strike back at our enemies. Unless "you" "America" pull all military forces out of the Persian gulf area, immediately, and forever, Crimson Jihad will rain fire on one major U.S. city each week, until our demands are met. First, we will detonate one nuclear weapon on this uninhabited island as a demonstration of our power. But, if these demands are not met, Crimison Jihad will rain fire on one major U.S. city each week.
Joe:
[after Lucas enters] Lucas!
Lucas:
Joe!
Joe:
Where's the money?
Lucas:
Joe, the money is gone.
Joe:
Yeah, I know it's gone... but where's it gone to?
Lucas:
Atlantic City.
Joe:
Atlantic City?... Is it coming back from Atlantic City?
Lucas:
[nervous laugh] Oh, I don't think so, Joe.
Joe:
What's it doing in Atlantic City, Lucas?
Lucas:
...Recirculating.
Joe:
Recirculating?
Lucas:
Yeah. [Joe knocks the donation cup that Lucas was carrying out of his hands and grabs his arm]
Joe:
Lucas, listen to me. I told Mitchell Beck that you forgot to deposit the money. I told Mitchell that the money was still here.
Lucas:
Joe, that's not true. It's in Atlantic City... I swear.
Joe:
Shut up, sit down, and don't you move.
Lucas:
[sitting down] It could be in other cities by now...
Joe:
Oh, shut up! Under no circumstances do I want you to leave that couch... unless it's to get me $9000, and then you bring it here to me, okay?
Lucas:
Okay. You know, I think things are gonna be all right now, Joe.
Joe:
Oh? And what makes you think that.
Lucas:
Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear. [nodding]
Lucas:
Mmhmm!
Joe:
...What a moron.
Katie:
I want to go to Chow Funs
Ben:
I thought we agreed we couldn't really talk at Chow Funs
Katie:
I know
Ben:
Are you saying Chow Funs because you can't face telling the kids? Because if that's why you're saying Chow Funs, don't say Chow Funs
Katie:
That's not why I'm saying Chow Funs. Funs, I'm saying Chow Funs because we're an us. There's a history here, and histories don't happen overnight. In Mesopotamia or Ancient Troy there are cities built on top of other cities, but I don't want another city, I like this city. I know what kind of mood your in when you wake up by which eyebrow is higher, and you know I'm a little quiet in the morning and compensate accordingly, that's a dance you perfect over time. And it's hard, it's much harder than I thought it would be, but there's more good than bad and you don't just give up! And it's not for the sake of the children, but God they're great kids aren't they? And we made them, I mean think about that! It's like there were no people there, and then there were people and they grew, and an an an I won't be able to say to some stranger Josh has your hands or remember how Erin threw up at the Lincoln Memorial And I'll try to relax, let's face it, anybody is going to have traits that get on your nerves, I mean, why shouldn't it be your annoying traits, and I know I'm no day at the beach, but I do have a good sense of direction so I can at least find the beach, which isn't a weakness of yours, it's a strength of mine. And God your a good friend and good friends are hard to find. Charlotte said that in Charlottes Web and I love how you read that to Erin and you take on the voice of Wilber the Pig with such dedication even when your bone tired. That speaks volumes about character! And ultimately, isn't that what it comes down too? What a person is made of? That girl in the pin helmet is still here 'bee boo bee boo' I didn't even know she existed until you and I'm afraid if you leave I may never see her again, even though I said at times you beat her out of me, isn't that the paradox? Haven't we hit the essential paradox? Give and take, push and pull, the yen the yang. The best of times, the worst of times!I think Dickens said it best, 'He could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean', but, doesn't really apply here does it? What I'm trying to say is, I'm saying Chow Funs because, I love you
Ben:
Did you hear that kids? Mom wants to go to chow Funs!
Stanley Cunningham:
Philadelphia is one of the oldest cities in this country. A lot of generations have lived here and died here. Almost any place you go in this city has a history and a story behind it. Even this school and the grounds it sits on. Can anyone guess what this building was used for a hundred years ago, before you went to this school, before I went to this school? Yes, Cole?
Cole Sear:
They used to hang people here.
Stanley Cunningham:
No, uh, that, mm-mm, that's not correct. Uh, where'd you hear that?
Cole Sear:
They'd pull the people in, crying and kissing their families 'bye. People watching would spit at them.
Stanley Cunningham:
Uh, Cole, this, this building was a legal courthouse. Laws were passed here. Some of the very first laws of this country. This whole building was full of, uh, lawyers, uh, lawmakers.
Cole Sear:
They were the ones that hanged everybody.
A city street equipped to handle strangers, and to make a safety asset, in itself, our of the presence of strangers, as the streets of successful city neighborhoods always do, must have three main qualities:
First, there must be a clear demarcation between what is public space and what is private space. Public and private spaces cannot ooze into each other as they do typically in suburban settings or in projects.
Second, there must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.
And third, the sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce the people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers. Nobody enjoys sitting on a stoop or looking out a window at an empty street. Almost nobody does such a thing. Large numbers of people entertain themselves, off and on, by watching street activity.
(2002) In Rome, month upon month, I struggled with how to structure the book about my father (He already had the water, he just had to discover jars). At one point I laid each chapter out on the terrazzo floor, eighty-three in all, arranged them like the map of an imaginary city. Some of the piles of paper, I imagined, were freestanding buildings, some were clustered into neighborhoods, and some were open space. On the outskirts, of course, were the tenements--abandoned, ramshackled. The spaces between the piles were the roads, the alleyways, the footpaths, the rivers. The bridges to other neighborhoods, the bridges out...In this way I could get a sense if one could find their way through the book, if the map I was creating made sense, if it was a place one would want to spend some time in. If one could wander there, if one could get lost.
As children get older, this incidental outdoor activity--say, while waiting to be called to eat--becomes less bumptious, physically and entails more loitering with others, sizing people up, flirting, talking, pushing, shoving and horseplay. Adolescents are always being criticized for this kind of loitering, but they can hardly grow up without it. The trouble comes when it is done not within society, but as a form of outlaw life.
The requisite for any of these varieties of incidental play is not pretentious equipment of any sort, but rather space at an immediately convenient and interesting place. The play gets crowded out if sidewalks are too narrow relative to the total demands put on them. It is especially crowded out if the sidewalks also lack minor irregularities in building line. An immense amount of both loitering and play goes on in shallow sidewalk niches out of the line of moving pedestrian feet.
In Chloe, a great city, the people who move through the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping.
A girl comes along, twirling a parasol on her shoulder, and twirling slightly also her rounded hips. A woman in black comes along, showing her full age, her eyes restless beneath her veil, her lips trembling. At tattooed giant comes along; a young man with white hair; a female dwarf; two girls, twins, dressed in coral. Something runs among them, an exchange of glances link lines that connect one figure with another and draws arrows, stars, triangles, until all combinations are used up in a moment, and other characters come on to the scene: a blind man with a cheetah on a leash, a courtesan with an ostrich-plume fan, an ephebe, a Fat Woman. And thus, when some people happen to find themselves together, taking shelter from the rain under an arcade, or crowding beneath an awning of the bazaar, or stopping to listen to the band in the square, meetings, seductions, copulations, orgies are consummated among them without a word exchanged, without a finger touching anything, almost without an eye raised.
A voluptuous vibration constantly stirs Chloe, the most chaste of cities. If men and women began to live their ephemeral dreams, every phantom would become a person with whom to begin a story of pursuits, pretenses, misunderstandings, clashes, oppressions, and the carousel of fantasies would stop.
Supermarkets this large and clean and modern are a revelation to me. I spent my life in small steamy delicatessens with slanted display cabinets full of trays that hold soft wet lumpy matter in pale colours. High enough cabinets so you had to stand on tiptoes to give your order. Shouts, accents. In cities no one notices specific dying. Dying is a quality of the air. It's everywhere and nowhere. Men shout as they die to be noticed, remembered for a second or two. To die in an apartment instead of a house can depress the soul, I would imagine, for several lives to come. In a town there are houses, plants in bay windows. People notice dying better. The dead have faces, automobiles. If you don't know a name you know a street name, a dog's name. 'He drove an orange Mazda.' You know a couple of useless things about a person that become major facts of identification and cosmic placement when he dies suddenly, after a short illness, in his own bed, with a comforter and matching pillows, on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, feverish, a little congested in the sinuses and chest, thinking about his dry cleaning.
