Joy

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  101 I have restrained my feet from every evil way, That I may keep Your word. [Prov 1:15 ] 102 I have not turned aside from Your ordinances, For You Yourself have taught me. 103 How sweet are Your words to my taste, Sweeter than honey to my mouth! [Ps 19:10 ; Prov 8:11 ] 104 From Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way. נ Nun. 105 Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path. [Prov 6:23 ] 106 I have sworn [an oath] and have confirmed it, That I will keep Your righteous ordinances. [Neh 10:29 ] 107 I am greatly afflicted; Renew and revive me [giving me life], O LORD , according to Your word. 108 Accept and take pleasure in the freewill offerings of my mouth, O LORD , And teach me Your ordinances. [Hos 14:2 ; Heb 13:15 ] 109 My life is continually d in my hand, Yet I do not forget Your law. 110 The wicked have laid a snare for me, Yet I do not wander from Your precepts. 111 I have taken Your testimonies as a heritage forever, For they are the joy of my heart. [Deut 33:4 ] 112 I have inclined my heart to perform Your statutes Forever, even to the end. ס Samekh. 113 I hate those who are double-minded, But I love and treasure Your law. 114 You are my hiding place and my shield; I wait for Your word. [Ps 32:7 ; 91:1 ] 115 Leave me, you evildoers, That I may keep the commandments of my God [honoring and obeying them]. [Ps 6:8 ; 139:19 ; Matt 7:23 ] 116 Uphold me according to Your word [of promise], so that I may live; And do not let me be ashamed of my hope [in Your great goodness]. [Ps 25:2 ; Rom 5:5 ; 9:33 ; 10:11 ] 117 Uphold me that I may be safe, That I may have regard for Your statutes continually. 118 You have turned Your back on all those who wander from Your statutes, For their deceitfulness is useless. 119 You have removed all the wicked of the earth like dross [for they have no value]; Therefore I love Your testimonies. 120 My flesh trembles in [reverent] fear of You, And I am afraid and in awe of Your judgments. ע Ayin. 121 I have done justice and righteousness; Do not leave me to those who oppress me. 122 Be the guarantee for Your servant for good [as Judah was the guarantee for Benjamin]; Do not let the arrogant oppress me. [Gen 43:9 ] 123 My eyes fail [with longing, watching] for [the fulfillment of] Your salvation, And for [the fulfillment of] Your righteous word. 124 Deal with Your servant according to Your [gracious] lovingkindness, And teach me Your statutes. 125 I am Your servant; give me understanding [the ability to learn and a teachable heart] That I may know Your testimonies.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  A small colorless wen was attached to her lower left eyelid and, like a speck in her eye, this slight deformity added—oh, but it’s hopeless for me to work up an inventory of this woman I’ve known now for three decades and whose looks and way of moving have become the argot of my feelings. That night the summer heat did not lift and I lay naked under a wet sheet in a little cabin I’d been assigned on the edge of the woods. I listened to crickets. The sweat poured freely from my body. I was wide awake. The crickets throbbed louder and louder, as though they were rattles on the ankles of approaching dancers. When I closed my eyes, I still could feel the lurching and speeding of the train. The train would delve into a tunnel, then emerge and flirt with a fellow-traveling river that refused to stick to the party line. I was so happy. Since the cabin had no closet, my clothes were hung on hangers along the wall or draped from hooks at different heights, and in the moonlight these shirts and jacket and pants looked like a flight ascending the white wall. I pulled on a pair of shorts and walked barefoot through the dew-squeaky grass down to the shack Maria had called the lithography studio. No one anywhere was awake, not a bird or dog or person. The cabins had no electricity, and even their kerosene lamps had been extinguished. The moon was nearly full and almost directly overhead, like the hole in the Pantheon. But not an absence, rather a presence I’d call human except that it was nobler, at once tender and aloof—not a speaking presence but an intelligence I could address. Two big wooden lawn chairs, painted green, but looking almost blue-black in this light, conversed with one another sporadically like old people. The water scarcely moved but once in a great while lapped, as a sleeping dog will wake and hugely lick its lips before dozing off again. Until now, looking at the night sky had usually made me long to be elsewhere, to escape, and had reminded me that I was alone, but here the night had changed and become friendlier. The moon was not the retreating face of a traveler seen through a veil of smoke but a concentrated attention bearing down on these cabins, these sleeping minds. I could picture the moon’s rays as a protractor slowly turning to encompass us all in a perfect circle. The next morning I had breakfast with Maria at the inn. Solitaire was made up of the paying guests, mostly older Sunday painters who came for a week or two and stayed with their husbands in the inn, and the kids who lived in the cabins for the whole summer and did odd jobs. Maria had befriended two of the older women; we stopped at their table on the way in.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  Maria laughed at herself, teased me, and liked it when I made jokes at my own expense. The sudden shift of perspective that the long shot of humor required became habitual to me, something I’ve kept, though with less satisfaction than the practice is supposed to bring. That summer, Maria went to Solitaire, an artists’ colony in the Michigan woods, and in August my father let me join her for a week. All of June and July I’d worked as a stockboy for my father’s haberdasher—boxing and mailing garments, waiting on customers when things got busy, making deliveries, and endlessly repolishing showcases and restacking shirts and stockings. Now riding a train by myself through the hot, flat countryside seemed a rare freedom. I was free to eat, read, and doze when I wanted, to watch the afternoon light burn on silver grain elevators, to swoop past airless fields of luxuriant green and gaunt farmhouses or dilapidated barns painted long ago with now-faded Bull Durham chewing tobacco signs. The train hurtled through towns where cars waited at the crossing and a collie peered down its long nose at an alley cat and the sun found over there a single small window to dazzle—just as I imagined God, if He existed, might find in a whole crowd only one soul turned at the right angle to reflect His glory. And there, bordering that two-lane highway, was planted a row of signs that, word by word, asked a question, gave the joking answer, and ended with the name of a shaving soap, Burma Shave. Those were the years, in the late 1950s, when serious literature was teaching the few serious readers that communication between any two individuals is impossible, that we are all isolated and that this isolation is no accident but due to the “human condition” itself. And yet I, who had been isolated, now found such perfect communion with Maria that I couldn’t detect a single gap between us, and I exalted in our closeness. Of course, there were many differences and omissions, but now during the hot windless evening they were forgotten. We went wandering through the woods, great forests of shabby birches unspooling themselves, until we reached the dunes, climbed them, and looked out at the late afternoon sun reflected by Lake Michigan. We took off our shoes and sat on the beach, digging our feet down into a layer of cold, root-thick marl so much blacker than the hot surface sand. We stared into the sun and talked, our words overlapping, our laughter ringing out across the still, orange water. A loon flew overhead, then dove for a fish. We held hands. I was wearing my suit for the train (for in those days Americans still dressed up for travel), but Maria had on white shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers, nothing more, so for once I felt the older, graver one. I was pale from my shopkeeper’s summer, she as tan as she ever became.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  [image file=image_rsrc1CC.jpg] Lou called me one day and said, “Bunny, I want to get married.” “To a woman?” “Misty has moved out. He had a chance to go to Miami with a drag act in some sleazebag hotel. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I want to settle down, and boys are too unreliable. But the real reason is that I want to make more money. I’ve been looking at the guys who break the five-figure barrier in the ad biz and they’re all married.” “It’s not just that easy,” I said, “marriage.” “Sure it is. My shrink says you should always act ahead of your feelings. Do now what you know you’ll be doing six months from now—what’s best for you. But the real question is, how do you get married?” “First you meet a woman,” I said. With Lou I was never certain as to how plain I should make things. “Then you date her. Then you ask her to get married.” Long silence. Low voice: “How sweet …” I promised to take him to a party of “straight people,” kids from my school living in New York. Everyone drank gimlets and the hostess hired an oyster shucker to come up from Baltimore with crates and crates of oysters. The most famous person at the party was the jazz composer Charles Mingus, who was in a fat, paranoid phase. Even so, he talked to us all in his intense, original way. He turned off the music and asked us to listen to the layers of silence. He insisted that total silence didn’t exist and that he could even score all the hums and swishes of the city night. Then the music came back on (it was “My Guy”) and the hostess and I grabbed large wooden ladles from Mexico and held them in front of us like penises and danced our famous spoon dance—you had to be there. We were very drunk. I introduced Lou to Ava, a girl I’d known for years. I’d first met her at Eton; she’d gone to our sister school. A week later Lou called me. “Bunny, Ava and I—hold on,” he clunked the receiver down and mumbled, “baby, give me a banana. Not that one, it’s too brown. If you’re going out, get me Pall Malls.… Hello?” “Yes, what are you up to?” “Marriage! Ava’s going to be my wife.” “Oh, Lou, I’m so happy for both of you.” “Well, you know, you introduced us. We wanted you to be the first to know. Baby, pick up a carton of Cokes, too. Oh, my life is changing. The lonely times are over. Ava’s going to be my wife and cook beautiful food and bear my children. Bye, baby. There goes my wife. My wife! I’m going to be her king. Do you know that wise old saying, ‘A man’s house is his castle’?” “That’s great, just great, I’m so happy for you.”

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  At this time I read James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room , in which Giovanni stops being attractive the moment he abandons his heterosexuality. Against this absolutism of heterosexuality, few merits held up. A large penis or a muscular body or lots of money had some appeal, but they were fraudulent when they belonged to another queer. We would piously list all the great dead fags of history, but if someone mentioned a living conductor or pianist, we’d say contemptuously, “Who, her ?” as though “her” (or “huh” in New Yorkese) homosexuality were instantly disqualifying. Still more damaging to a man’s celebrity was the claim that one had actually slept with him. A New York queen would blow on what he pretended were freshly painted nails and say, “Who? huh ? Had huh.” I had not yet “had” Sean, and I wanted to forestall that inevitable disappointment. Although everyone at the time congratulated me on my new body, contact lenses, and surfer hairstyle, I now wonder whether my transformation wasn’t a capitulation to a dangerous commodity psychology. Of course, it’s better to be handsome than ugly, but I never came to feel good about myself. I had the mole between my shoulder blades burned off, every night I did facial isometrics, I trimmed the hairs around my scrotum to throw my penis into relief and make it look larger, but melancholy self-regard continued to alternate with a generalized guilt as the background to all my feelings. After dinner Sean talked to me about Catullus. He struggled to express himself. Like me, he was a Midwesterner, someone without a ready way of discussing ideas. If the New York style was nonchalance toward the topic and aggressiveness toward the listener, our Midwestern way was to assume the listener was neutral and to burrow relentlessly into the question. Sean was serious, very serious, and when he spoke he winced. He led me to his bed. He undressed me and lit a candle and put it beside a mirror on the floor. I looked at myself in the mirror. I was perfect now except for the white silk stitches along my side, the stretch marks where I’d been fat. My vision of us, of Sean and me, was so large that it belittled our gestures or any moment we lived through as though our proper medium was myth, not history. We couldn’t stop smiling at each other. I was so happy. Gratitude and love burned in my heart. I felt Sean was a superior being who was lifting me up and placing me on a throne beside him. Perhaps because I’d never lived with a happy couple, I had no notion of domestic love; dailiness even threatened what I knew about, which was ecstasy. I was ecstatic now, but the feeling wasn’t a crisis, rather a slow turning in the amber crosslight.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  “I was in for a year. That’s why I don’t want to sleep with you right away. I’m very tender, just like a crayfish between shells.” We both laughed at the image. Our remarks slowed and scattered; a composer wouldn’t have had an easy time scoring them. My feet were warming up. Fred seemed really perfect because he needed me. I had a function to serve. Ordinarily I couldn’t imagine what use I could be to anyone. I asked him what he was studying. He said he was finishing a degree in English. “I’m writing on Herrick, on his ‘Corinna’s Going a-Maying,’ which is odd to think of in the snow.” A long sighing silence, the sigh of contentment. “What does ‘green-gown’ mean?” I asked. “A ‘green-gown’ is a tumble in the grass. I suppose it’s like a birthday suit.” And we both laughed together. “But surely you already knew that. You had to know it in order to ask,” and we both laughed harder. I liked the way our laughs sounded, although I still cringed at the sound of my speaking voice. I couldn’t lower it. Physically I could, but psychologically it felt presumptuous, as though it were arrogant to sound like a man instead of a boy. He told me his story. When I glanced over at him, his Adam’s apple was as prominent as his chin and nose. The idea that his voice resided in this box intrigued me. I wanted to touch it. I told him I needed to sleep with him because my insecurities were sexual. “But then you might not see me again. And that could be a little … risky for me.” He said he thought gay men lost interest after they did the “deed of darkness.” I said I wasn’t a generic gay man. “I certainly don’t want to be in the absurd position of rejecting you,” he said, “because to me you’re a wonderfully romantic young man, so tense. Intense. That’s the word.” And he opened the wet papaya pulp of his kiss to me. We kissed and undressed. The sheets smelled freshly ironed and felt as flimsy as rose petals. We kept stopping to talk, which at first vaguely irritated me, who thought sex was a crime to be committed as quickly as possible. Perhaps I’d been conditioned by the toilets. But then the realness of what we were doing touched me. I was here in a bed with cool sheets we were heating up, and each part of my body he stroked released some new thought in him and feeling in me. The heroics of sexual frenzy had been replaced by this voice, confiding secrets to me in the dark, lit by reflections off the deep lovely miles of snow outside.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  1 I T IS a good and delightful thing to give thanks to the LORD , To sing praises to Your name, O Most High, 2 To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning And Your faithfulness by night, 3 With an instrument of ten strings and with the harp, With a solemn sound on the lyre. 4 For You, O LORD , have made me glad by Your works; At the works of Your hands I joyfully sing. 5 How great are Your works, O LORD ! Your thoughts are very deep [beyond man’s understanding]. 6 A senseless man [in his crude and uncultivated state] knows nothing, Nor does a [self-righteous] fool understand this: 7 That though the wicked sprout up like grass And all evildoers flourish, They will be destroyed forever. 8 But You, LORD , are on high forever. 9 For behold, Your enemies, O LORD , For behold, Your enemies will perish; All who do evil will be scattered. 10 But my horn [my emblem of strength and power] You have exalted like that of a wild ox; I am anointed with fresh oil [for Your service]. 11 My eye has looked on my foes; My ears hear of the evildoers who rise up against me. 12 The righteous will flourish like the date palm [long-lived, upright and useful]; They will grow like a cedar in Lebanon [majestic and stable]. 13 Planted in the house of the LORD , They will flourish in the courts of our God. 14 [Growing in grace] they will still thrive and bear fruit and prosper in old age; They will flourish and be a vital and fresh [rich in trust and love and contentment]; 15 [They are living memorials] to declare that the LORD is upright and faithful [to His promises]; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. [Rom 9:14 ] Psalm 93 The Majesty of the LORD . 1 T he LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty and splendor; The LORD has clothed and encircled Himself with strength; the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved. 2 Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting. 3 The floods have lifted up, O LORD , The floods have lifted up their voice; The floods lift up their pounding waves. 4 More than the sounds of many waters, More than the mighty breakers of the sea, The LORD on high is mighty. 5 Your precepts are fully confirmed and completely reliable; Holiness adorns Your house, O LORD , forever. Psalm 94 The LORD Implored to Avenge His People. 1 O LORD God, You to whom vengeance belongs, O God, You to whom vengeance belongs, shine forth [in judgment]! 2 Rise up, O Judge of the earth; Give to the proud a fitting compensation. 3 O LORD , how long will the wicked, How long will the wicked rejoice in triumph?

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Accordingly, on the morrow, towards dinner-time, Tedaldo's four brothers, clad all in black as they were, came, with sundry of their friends, to the house of Aldobrandino, who stayed for them, and there, in the presence of all who had been bidden of him to bear them company, cast down their arms and committed themselves to his mercy, craving forgiveness of that which they had wrought against him. Aldobrandino, weeping, received them affectionately, and kissing them all on the mouth, despatched the matter in a few words, remitting unto them every injury received. After them came their wives and sisters, clad all in sad-coloured raiment, and were graciously received by Madam Ermellina and the other ladies. Then were all, ladies and men alike, magnificently entertained at the banquet, nor was there aught in the entertainment other than commendable, except it were the taciturnity occasioned by the yet fresh sorrow expressed in the sombre raiment of Tedaldo's kinsfolk. Now on this account the pilgrim's device of the banquet had been blamed of some and he had observed it; wherefore, the time being come to do away with the constraint aforesaid, he rose to his feet, according as he had foreordained in himself, what while the rest still ate of the fruits, and said, 'Nothing hath lacked to this entertainment that should make it joyful, save only Tedaldo himself; whom (since having had him continually with you, you have not known him) I will e'en discover to you.' So saying, he cast off his palmer's gown and all other his pilgrim's weeds and abiding in a jerkin of green sendal, was with no little amazement, long eyed and considered of all, ere any would venture to believe it was indeed he. Tedaldo, seeing this, recounted many particulars of the relations and things betided between them, as well as of his own adventures; whereupon his brethren and the other gentlemen present ran all to embrace him, with eyes full of joyful tears, as after did the ladies on like wise, as well strangers as kinswomen, except only Madam Ermellina. Which Aldobrandino seeing, 'What is this, Ermellina?' quoth he. 'Why dost thou not welcome Tedaldo, as do the other ladies?' Whereto she answered, in the hearing of all, 'There is none who had more gladly welcomed and would yet welcome him than myself, who am more beholden to him than any other woman, seeing that by his means I have gotten thee again; but the unseemly words spoken in the days when we mourned him whom we deemed Tedaldo made me refrain therefrom.' Quoth her husband, 'Go to; thinkest thou I believe in the howlers?[188] He hath right well shown their prate to be false by procuring my deliverance; more by token that I never believed it. Quick, rise and go and embrace him.' [Footnote 188: Lit. barkers (_abbajatori_), _i.e._ slanderers.]

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She got up abruptly and went to the telephone on her desk. Glancing at his letter, she rang up a number. ‘ Hallo — yes? ’ She recognized his voice at once. “Is that you, Martin? It’s Stephen speaking.’ ‘Stephen . . . oh, I’m so glad! But where on earth are you?’ ‘ At my house in Paris — 35, Rue Jacob.’ ‘ But I don’t understand, I thought . . .’ ‘ Yes, I know, but I’ve lived here for ages — since before the war. I’ve just got your letter, sent back from England. Funny, isn’t it? Why not come to dinner to-night if you’re free — eight o'clock.’ | ‘I say! May I really? ° ‘OF course . . . come and dine with my friend and me.’ THE WELL OF LONELINESS 475 ‘What number? ’ * Thirty-five — 35, Rue Jacob.’ ‘PI be there on the actual stroke of eight! ’ ‘ That’s right — good-bye, Martin.’ “Good-bye, and thanks, Stephen.’ She hung up the receiver and opened the window. Mary saw her and called: ‘ Stephen, please speak to David, He’s just bitten off and swallowed a crocus! Oh, and do come here: the scyllas are out, I never saw anything like their blue ness. I think I shall go and fetch my birds, it’s quite warm in the sun over there by the wall. David, stop it; will you get off that border! ’ David wagged a bald but ingratiating tail. Then he thrust out his nose and sniffed at the pigeons. Oh, hang it all, why should the coming of spring be just one colossal smell of temptation! And why was there nothing really exciting that a spaniel might do and yet remain lawful? Sighing, he turned amber eyes of entreaty first on Stephen, and then on his goddess, Mary. She forgave him the crocus and patted his head. ‘ Darling, you get more than a pound of raw meat for your dinner; you mustn’t be so untruthful. Of course you’re not hungry — it was just pure mischief.’ He barked, trying desperately hard to explain. ‘It’s the spring; it’s got into my blood, oh, Goddess! Oh, Gentle Purveyor of all Good Things, let me dig till Pve rooted up every damned crocus; just this once let me sin for the joy of life, for the ancient and exquisite joy of sinning! ’ But Mary shook her head. ‘ You must be a nice dog; and nice dogs never look at white fantail pigeons, or walk on the borders, or bite off the flowers + do they, Stephen? ’ Stephen smiled. ‘I’m afraid they don’t, David.’ Then she said: ‘ Mary, listen — about this evening. I’ve just heard from a very old friend of mine, a man cailed Hallam that I knew in England. He’s in Paris; it’s too queer. He wrote to Morton and his letter has been sent back by Puddle. I’ve rung him up, and

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  At the dinner, Kay decided to test how gullible and distracted a friend of hers, a Chinese grad student in physics, actually was. As we listened, she phoned him at his apartment, where she knew he’d be lost in calculations. She told him she was the operator calling to test his “unit” and, despite her heavy Chinese accent, he believed her. “I want you to walk across the room and put your unit in the top drawer of your walnut dresser, close the drawer, return to your present position, and say, ‘Wong, wong.’ ” The physicist’s compliance, coupled with the fact that dogs in China say wong-wong instead of bow-wow, made us sick with laughter. Soon Kay had him whistling, hooting, and grunting at his unit. Betty was at the same time quickly loading the table with dishes. We were drinking beers, and the cold imperious Kay had turned bright red from drink: “Autumn Moon” became her new name. Then it was Betty’s turn to be teased. She’d made the mistake of complaining that she felt fat, though she carried no more excess weight than a cricket. Kay told us how she’d recently called an exercycle company in Detroit and, in Betty’s name, asked for a free demonstration. One afternoon while Betty was deep in her chemistry book, a big blonde in black high heels clomped-clomped up the wooden fire escape, rising into Betty’s view like a sea monster. “Are you Betty Wong?” she demanded. “Yes.” “One minute please while I assemble the horse.” Before Betty could say ee, erh, san, which is one, two, three in Chinese, she’d been strapped, all eighty-five pounds of her, onto the weight-reducing demon. “That night,” Kay was saying, “when she asked me in tears how they’d come up with her name, I told her they go through the infirmary files and approach anyone who’s overweight.” The two other male guests were Chinese in white shirts, sober ties, and gray suits, smiling and nodding, knees together, hands to either side flat against the chair seat as though ready to spring up at any moment. Before long I’d grasped the underlying idea. The girls were supposed to have all the personality, but everyone, men included, was meant to be a “character”—Betty a cheerful but driven maniac; Kay the severe kidder, until she became “Autumn Moon”; the men polite and neat, but each harboring his secret though innocuous foible: gluttony for cherries, passion for Elvis. This jokey, satirical style was far more pointed than the mirthless Midwestern joshing I was used to, the flaccid wordplay, and the tiresome envisioning of dull improbabilities (“Wouldn’t it be really neat if the moon really was made of green cheese?”)

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  Lou called me one day and said, “Bunny, I want to get married.” “To a woman?” “Misty has moved out. He had a chance to go to Miami with a drag act in some sleazebag hotel. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I want to settle down, and boys are too unreliable. But the real reason is that I want to make more money. I’ve been looking at the guys who break the five-figure barrier in the ad biz and they’re all married.” “It’s not just that easy,” I said, “marriage.” “Sure it is. My shrink says you should always act ahead of your feelings. Do now what you know you’ll be doing six months from now—what’s best for you. But the real question is, how do you get married?” “First you meet a woman,” I said. With Lou I was never certain as to how plain I should make things. “Then you date her. Then you ask her to get married.” Long silence. Low voice: “How sweet …” I promised to take him to a party of “straight people,” kids from my school living in New York. Everyone drank gimlets and the hostess hired an oyster shucker to come up from Baltimore with crates and crates of oysters. The most famous person at the party was the jazz composer Charles Mingus, who was in a fat, paranoid phase. Even so, he talked to us all in his intense, original way. He turned off the music and asked us to listen to the layers of silence. He insisted that total silence didn’t exist and that he could even score all the hums and swishes of the city night. Then the music came back on (it was “My Guy”) and the hostess and I grabbed large wooden ladles from Mexico and held them in front of us like penises and danced our famous spoon dance—you had to be there. We were very drunk. I introduced Lou to Ava, a girl I’d known for years. I’d first met her at Eton; she’d gone to our sister school. A week later Lou called me. “Bunny, Ava and I—hold on,” he clunked the receiver down and mumbled, “baby, give me a banana. Not that one, it’s too brown. If you’re going out, get me Pall Malls.… Hello?” “Yes, what are you up to?” “Marriage! Ava’s going to be my wife.” “Oh, Lou, I’m so happy for both of you.” “Well, you know, you introduced us. We wanted you to be the first to know. Baby, pick up a carton of Cokes, too. Oh, my life is changing. The lonely times are over. Ava’s going to be my wife and cook beautiful food and bear my children. Bye, baby. There goes my wife. My wife ! I’m going to be her king. Do you know that wise old saying, ‘A man’s house is his castle’?” “That’s great, just great, I’m so happy for you.” “Yeah, isn’t it?

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  9 “Shall I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?” says the LORD . “Or shall I who gives delivery shut the womb? ” says your God. Joy in Jerusalem’s Future 10 “Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her; Rejoice greatly with her, all you who mourn over her, 11 That you may nurse and be satisfied with her comforting breasts, That you may drink deeply and be delighted with her bountiful bosom.” 12 For the LORD says this, “Behold, I extend peace to her (Jerusalem) like a river, And the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; And you will be nursed, you will be carried on her hip and [playfully] rocked on her knees. 13 “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; And you will be comforted in Jerusalem.” 14 When you see this, your heart will rejoice; Your bones will flourish like new grass. And the [powerful] hand of the LORD will be revealed to His servants, But His indignation will be toward His enemies. 15 For indeed, the LORD will come in fire And His chariots will be like the stormy wind, To render His anger with rage, And His rebuke with flames of fire. 16 For the LORD will execute judgment by fire And by His sword on all mankind, And those slain by the LORD will be many. 17 “Those who [vainly attempt to] sanctify and cleanse themselves to go to the gardens [to sacrifice to idols], Following after b one in the center, Who eat swine’s flesh, c detestable things and mice, Will come to an end together,” says the LORD . 18 “For I know their works and their thoughts. The time is coming to gather all nations and languages, and they will come and see My glory. 19 “I will set up a [miraculous] sign among them, and from them I will send survivors to the nations: Tarshish, Pul (Put), Lud, Meshech, Tubal and Javan, to the distant islands and coastlands that have not heard of My fame nor seen My glory. And they will declare and proclaim My glory among the nations. 20 “Then they shall bring all your countrymen (children of Israel) from all the nations as a grain offering to the LORD —on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules and on camels—to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” says the LORD , “just as the sons of Israel bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD . 21 “I will also take some of them as priests and Levites,” says the LORD . 22 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth Which I make will remain and endure before Me,” declares the LORD , “So your offspring and your name will remain and endure.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  Just as music is invisible but suggests motion, in the same way our muscles generated a sort of music we could see in the candlelight. His shoulders were broad, too broad given his slender torso, as though a man were climbing up out of the adolescent. We looked down at ourselves in the mirror, not as one might watch pornography starring oneself but to confirm the happy fiction that we were in each other’s arms. The commotion of happiness ringing in my head was so loud I could scarcely hear what was happening. Such moments in a whole long life are neither as rare as one fears at first nor as frequent as later one hopes. His penis was crooked when erect. It was big and veered off to one side. The next day I said, “Lou says it’s wrong to see each day as a separate beginning. It’s wrong to divide time up into days and weeks. He says you should live as though time is one unbroken flow.” “Is that right?” Again that look of anxiety, that wincing look of concentration. “Yes, and I have no business saying this now, after I’ve just met you, but I feel that you’re going to turn my life into something like that. Today, all day at the office, I was so full of expectation.” Sean nodded. We ate our salad out of a battered saucepan, sharing Sean’s only fork. “Tell me about Lou,” Sean said. What a fool I am, I thought. “Oh, he’s terrific; I love him very much.” “Were you and he ever lovers?” “Yes.” “When?” “About a hundred years ago. The best friends are old lovers, don’t you think?” “I don’t know. I never had a lover.” “I can’t believe that.” “Well,” Sean said, “I had an affair with this guy Ted. But we’re not friends now. He drove me nuts. He’s a professional broken heart. Moons around all the time, threatens suicide, calls me up when he’s drunk.” Sean leapt up and opened the refrigerator. Staring into it he said, “I guess that’s what I think. That’s what my friend Julio says. It sounds right.” “You don’t know?” He sank back down. “I don’t know anything. Tell me anything and I’ll believe it. And that’s not even true.” “Who’s Julio?” “Oh, this great guy I met through Ted. You’ll meet him. He’s a famous dress designer.” All evening long I questioned Sean about every detail of his life. I memorized each name. I wanted to know all of Sean’s history right away. Every word he uttered either raised or dashed my hopes. “I’m very tired tonight”—bad, he wants to get rid of me. “But who needs sleep? It’s more important to talk to you and” (radiant smile) “more fun”—good, very, very good. “I should study some Latin”—bad. “Can you read while I work? I don’t want you to go. I like you here” (pats the couch deliberately, looking me in the eye)—good. Excellent.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  6 The [malevolent] words of the wicked lie in wait for [innocent] blood [to slander], But the mouth of the upright will rescue and protect them. 7 The wicked are overthrown [by their evil] and are no more, But the house of the [consistently] righteous will stand [securely]. 8 A man will be commended according to his insight and sound judgment, But the one who is of a perverse mind will be despised. 9 a Better is he who is lightly esteemed and has a servant, Than he who [boastfully] honors himself [pretending to be what he is not] and lacks bread. 10 A righteous man has kind regard for the life of his animal, But even the compassion of the wicked is cruel. [Deut 25:4 ] 11 He who tills his land will have plenty of bread, But he who follows worthless things lacks common sense and good judgment. 12 The wicked desire the plunder of evil men, But the root of the righteous yields richer fruit. 13 An evil man is [dangerously] ensnared by the transgression of his lips, But the righteous will escape from trouble. 14 A man will be satisfied with good from the fruit of his words, And the deeds of a man’s hands will return to him [as a harvest]. 15 The way of the [arrogant] fool [who rejects God’s wisdom] is right in his own eyes, But a wise and prudent man is he who listens to counsel. [Prov 3:7 ; 9:9 ; 21:2 ] 16 The [arrogant] fool’s anger is quickly known [because he lacks self-control and common sense], But a prudent man ignores an insult. 17 He who speaks truth [when he testifies] tells what is right, But a false witness utters deceit [in court]. 18 There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, But the tongue of the wise brings healing. 19 Truthful lips will be established forever, But a lying tongue is [credited] only for a moment. 20 Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil, But counselors of peace have joy. 21 No harm befalls the righteous, But the wicked are filled with trouble. [Job 5:19 ; Ps 91:3 ; Prov 12:13 ; Is 46:4 ; Jer 1:8 ; Dan 6:27 ; 2 Tim 4:18 ] 22 Lying lips are extremely disgusting to the LORD , But those who deal faithfully are His delight. [Prov 6:17 ; 11:20 ; Rev 22:15 ] 23 A shrewd man is reluctant to display his knowledge [until the proper time], But the heart of [over-confident] fools proclaims foolishness. [Is 32:6 ] 24 The hand of the diligent will rule, But the negligent and lazy will be put to forced labor. 25 Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down, But a good (encouraging) word makes it glad. [Ps 50:4 ; Prov 15:13 ] 26 The righteous man is a guide to his neighbor, But the way of the wicked leads them astray.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  At this time I read James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, in which Giovanni stops being attractive the moment he abandons his heterosexuality. Against this absolutism of heterosexuality, few merits held up. A large penis or a muscular body or lots of money had some appeal, but they were fraudulent when they belonged to another queer. We would piously list all the great dead fags of history, but if someone mentioned a living conductor or pianist, we’d say contemptuously, “Who, her?” as though “her” (or “huh” in New Yorkese) homosexuality were instantly disqualifying. Still more damaging to a man’s celebrity was the claim that one had actually slept with him. A New York queen would blow on what he pretended were freshly painted nails and say, “Who? huh? Had huh.” I had not yet “had” Sean, and I wanted to forestall that inevitable disappointment. Although everyone at the time congratulated me on my new body, contact lenses, and surfer hairstyle, I now wonder whether my transformation wasn’t a capitulation to a dangerous commodity psychology. Of course, it’s better to be handsome than ugly, but I never came to feel good about myself. I had the mole between my shoulder blades burned off, every night I did facial isometrics, I trimmed the hairs around my scrotum to throw my penis into relief and make it look larger, but melancholy self-regard continued to alternate with a generalized guilt as the background to all my feelings. After dinner Sean talked to me about Catullus. He struggled to express himself. Like me, he was a Midwesterner, someone without a ready way of discussing ideas. If the New York style was nonchalance toward the topic and aggressiveness toward the listener, our Midwestern way was to assume the listener was neutral and to burrow relentlessly into the question. Sean was serious, very serious, and when he spoke he winced. He led me to his bed. He undressed me and lit a candle and put it beside a mirror on the floor. I looked at myself in the mirror. I was perfect now except for the white silk stitches along my side, the stretch marks where I’d been fat. My vision of us, of Sean and me, was so large that it belittled our gestures or any moment we lived through as though our proper medium was myth, not history. We couldn’t stop smiling at each other. I was so happy. Gratitude and love burned in my heart. I felt Sean was a superior being who was lifting me up and placing me on a throne beside him. Perhaps because I’d never lived with a happy couple, I had no notion of domestic love; dailiness even threatened what I knew about, which was ecstasy. I was ecstatic now, but the feeling wasn’t a crisis, rather a slow turning in the amber crosslight. Just as music is invisible but suggests motion, in the same way our muscles generated a sort of music we could see in the candlelight.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  12 They entered into a covenant (solemn agreement) to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and soul; 13 and that whoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman. 14 They swore an oath to the LORD with a loud voice, with [jubilant] shouting, with trumpets, and with horns. 15 All Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and had sought Him with their whole heart, and He let them find Him. So the LORD gave them rest on every side. 16 He also removed Maacah, King Asa’s mother, from the position of queen mother, because she had made a repulsive image for [the goddess] Asherah. Asa cut down her idol, crushed it, and burned it at the Brook Kidron. 17 But the high places [of pagan worship] were not removed from Israel. Nevertheless Asa’s heart was blameless all his days. 18 He brought the things that his father [Abijah] had dedicated and those things that he had dedicated into the house of God—silver and gold and utensils. 19 And there was no war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign. 2 Chronicles 16 Asa Wars against Baasha 1 I N THE a thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah and fortified Ramah in order to prevent anyone from going out or coming in to [meet with] Asa king of Judah. 2 Then Asa brought out silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the LORD and from the king’s house, and sent them to Ben-hadad king of Aram (Syria), who lived in Damascus, saying, 3 “Let there be a treaty between you and me, as there was between my father and your father. Look, I am sending you silver and gold; go, break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me.” 4 Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel; and they attacked and conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all the storage cities of Naphtali. 5 When Baasha heard about it, he ceased fortifying Ramah and stopped his work. 6 Then King Asa brought all Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber with which Baasha had been building, and with them he fortified Geba and Mizpah. Asa Imprisons the Prophet 7 At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Aram (Syria) and did not rely on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Aram (Syria) has escaped out of your hand. 8 “Were not the Ethiopians and Lubim a huge army with a great number of chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the LORD , He placed them in your hand.

• From Vox (1992)

  We were both stroking ourselves, and I could feel against the back of my hand the blanket pulling with her little movements as I made mine. I sort of clamped the blanket against the top of my cock with my thumb so that I’d stay decent and yet have my left hand free, and I looked over at Emily’s face, and watched her eyes traveling over those double-cock images, and I looked down at her breasts. I wanted to touch them, but I knew this would complicate things, it would have been a mistake. I could have come anytime. But suddenly the scene ended—one man suddenly comes on the woman’s face and breasts, the other pulls out and comes on her bush, with strikingly white sperm. Emily wasn’t fazed. She said, ‘Do you mind if I rewind a little?’ I said no, so she rewound it and replayed some of the two cocks. When it started playing, she said, kind of softly, ‘I think I want to come to this scene.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ But again the scene ended too quickly for her, and she had to rewind it a third time. This time, I just looked at her, she was flushed, her cheeks were shiny, she looked so transformed and sexual and elegant, and I looked down and both her hands were converging under the blanket, both wrists arched, so that her arms sort of pushed her breasts in from the sides, and I said, ‘Can I touch your arm?’ and she nodded, and I put my fingertips very lightly on the inside of her forearm, just above her wrist, and I felt her tendon going and going as she stroked herself, and this indirect feeling of being able to take the pulse of her masturbating was too much, I said, ‘I think I’m going to come,’ and I started to come into the blanket, and when the first guy in the movie came on the heroine, Emily closed her legs and started to come herself, and when the second guy came on the heroine, Emily was still coming, but not with any thrashing around, very focused, but I could hear the shaking of her legs slightly in her breathing. It was really a wonderful experience. She picked up her panty hose and after I’d stowed myself away she wrapped the blanket around herself and I escorted her to the bathroom, holding the spermy corner like a footman so that it wouldn’t fall against her skirt. Then I drove her back to her car. We kissed ceremonially, and she said, ‘Thanks, Mario.’ I sent her an asterisk memo the next day. And that was it. A perfect evening, perfect.” “Not to be repeated, or to be repeated?” “Not to be. A work friendship probably can’t handle more than one evening of parallel blanket masturbation without things flying out of control.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  The school year was winding down by then. She and Robert texted each other through finals, went for a couple of walks, made out. She had no interest in anything more; she was just enjoying his company. One night, after midnight, they snuck into an academic building and hooked up in a classroom. She’d had two beers, but said she wasn’t particularly drunk. Neither was he. Again, they did “everything but intercourse,” though this time it was mainly because he didn’t have a condom. “Weirdly enough, I really wanted to have sex with him,” Holly said—perhaps because he was the first guy who seemed authentically invested in her physical pleasure. “It was good that we didn’t, though,” she continued, “because I would have hated myself. I would’ve thought, ‘Look, you’ve only started to get to know this guy. You need to know him better.’” Over the summer, Holly tried to talk to her mom about birth control. She wanted to go on the Pill. “I told her it was safer in the social environment that I was in to have it, in case something happened. But she said, ‘Well, you shouldn’t want to be having sex. You’re not in a relationship. You’re nineteen years old.’ And in my head I was thinking the opposite: ‘I’m nineteen years old, I’m not in a relationship, and I want to be having sex!’ She has no idea. If I told her what I’ve told you, she wouldn’t let me come back to college. She’d say I was ‘one of those girls.’” Something else happened that summer, too. Holly had never before masturbated—it wasn’t something she thought girls did. A few of her sorority sisters, as a joke, had given her a vibrator for her last birthday. One day, home alone and bored, she decided to give it a try, and she had her first orgasm. She spent the rest of the summer exploring her body. “It was cool!” she said. “I was able to learn all about myself without having to feel the awkwardness of trying to direct someone else.” Girls often told me their first orgasm was transformative, whether they experienced it alone or with a partner. Why wouldn’t it be, given their dearth of education on the subject? “The first time I had an orgasm I cried,” one high school senior told me. “I cried! It was so powerful. I think it really helped me grow as a person.”

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  2 As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; As wax melts before the fire, So let the wicked and guilty perish before [the presence of] God. 3 But let the righteous be glad; let them be in good spirits before God, Yes, let them rejoice with delight. 4 Sing to God, sing praises to His name; Lift up a song for Him who rides through the desert— His name is the LORD —be in good spirits before Him. 5 A father of the fatherless and a judge and protector of the widows, Is God in His holy habitation. 6 God makes a home for the lonely; He leads the prisoners into prosperity, Only the stubborn and rebellious dwell in a parched land. 7 O God, when You went out before Your people, When You marched through the wilderness, Selah. 8 The earth trembled; The heavens also poured down rain at the presence of God; Sinai itself trembled at the presence of God, the God of Israel. 9 You, O God, sent abroad plentiful rain; You confirmed Your inheritance when it was parched and weary. 10 Your flock found a dwelling place in it; O God, in Your goodness You provided for the poor. 11 The Lord gives the command [to take Canaan]; The women who proclaim the good news are a great host (army); 12 “The kings of the [enemies’] armies flee, they flee, And the beautiful woman who remains at home divides the spoil [left behind].” 13 When you lie down [to rest] among the a sheepfolds, You [Israel] are like the wings of a dove [of victory] overlaid with silver, Its feathers glistening with gold [trophies taken from the enemy]. 14 When the Almighty scattered [the Canaanite] kings in the land of Canaan, It was snowing on b Zalmon. 15 A mountain of God is the mountain of Bashan; A [high] mountain of many summits is Mount Bashan [rising east of the Jordan]. 16 Why do you look with envy, mountains with many peaks, At the mountain [of the city of Zion] which God has desired for His dwelling place? Yes, the LORD will dwell there forever. 17 The chariots of God are c myriads, thousands upon thousands; The Lord is among them as He was at Sinai, in holiness. 18 You have ascended on high, You have led away captive Your captives; You have received gifts among men, Even from the rebellious also, that the LORD God may dwell there. [Eph 4:8 ] 19 Blessed be the Lord, who bears our burden day by day, The God who is our salvation! Selah. 20 God is to us a God of acts of salvation; And to d GOD the Lord belong escapes from death [setting us free]. 21 Surely God will shatter the head of His enemies, The hairy scalp of one who goes on in his guilty ways.

• From Vox (1992)

  34 think I've ever called this very number before—2vox." "What do you mean by 'success'?" "No women with any kind of spark. Or, actually, hon estly, few women at all, period, except the ones who are paid by the phone service to make mechanical sexual small talk and moan occasionally. It's mostly just men saying 'Hey, any ladies out there?' But then once in a while a real woman will call. And at least with this, as opposed to pictures, at least there's the remote possibility of something clicking. Perhaps it's presumptuous of me to say that we, you and I, click, but there is that possi bility." "Yes." "In a way it's like the radio. Do you know that I've never actually gone to a store and bought a record? That's probably why I never learned to appreciate the fade-out, as you describe it, since on the radio, one song melts into the next. But it seems to me that you really need the feeling of radio luck in listening to pop music, since after all it's about somebody meeting, out of all the zillions of people in the world, this one other nice person, or at least several adequate people. And so, if you buy the record, or the tape, then you control when you can hear it, when what you want is for it to be like luck, and like fate, and to zoom up and down the dial, looking for the song you want, hoping some station will play it—and the joy when it finally rotates around is so intense. You're not hearing it, you're overhearing it."