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 Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I shower while he shaves in front of the bathroom mirror and we hurriedly dress and say goodbye, as he heads off to a meeting and I go in search of coffee that will be strong enough to wake me up. * I have always thought that my birthday, which falls over Labor Day weekend, is perfectly placed on the calendar, that I am lucky to celebrate another year of my life in synchronicity with summer getting one last hurrah. Usually we are away on our annual summer vacation in Cape Cod and I wake up to handmade cards and gifts from Michael and the kids: rocks and seashells that have been painted, small gifts wrapped in aluminum foil, breakfasts in bed that the kids eat themselves while I sip from a mug of coffee. Michael would let me sleep late and in the afternoon would corral the kids so that I could have an hour or two to read on the beach by myself, and later, as the sun set, we would eat lobsters and drink cheap white wine at a no-frills clam shack. Summer got a proper send-off while I got another year added to my age, awash in the love of the family I had created. This year, as I turn 48 years old, there will be no family holiday. Daisy is away at school and holidays are from the last era of our family life, but Hudson and Georgia pull through. Hudson gives me a deck of playing cards with a note on the front that says “52 things I love about you”, and every card contains a note scrawled in Sharpie: you laugh at all of my jokes, you laugh at all of your own jokes, you make me food when I’m hungry and even when I think I’m not hungry, you let me play my music in the car, you always listen to me, you are strong, I know how much you love me. It is the best gift I’ve ever received, and I embarrass him and worry Georgia when I start crying as I flip through the deck. This is enough , I think to myself, more than enough . My parents arrive later, bearing a cooler filled with food my mother has cooked for me: an Asian shrimp salad with mint and lime juice, a poached salmon with thin lemon slices lining the top, fresh bread and bright red tomatoes from her garden. For dessert, in another cooler, are four pints of ice cream they procured from my favorite farm stand. There is enough food here for at least a dozen people, but there’s just the five of us. I know my mother is worried about me – her forced cheer is determined not to let in one sad thought of the way things used to be on my birthday – and I am matching her efforts with my own so that she doesn’t have to worry.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  That means, of course, not quite and completely the real and basically maybe just barber Wenzel in papa's fur turned inside out; but as far as a servant Ruprecht is at all possible, he was, and this year Hanno again, genuinely shaken and only interrupted once or twice by a nervous and half-unconscious sob, said his Lord's Prayer, whereupon he reached into the sack for the good children was allowed to do, which the old man then forgot to take with him at all ... The holidays began and the moment passed quite happily when papa read the certificate that also had to be issued at Christmas time ... The large hall was already mysteriously locked, marzipan and brown cakes had already been put on the table, already it was Christmas out in the city. Snow fell, frost came, and in the In the sharp, clear air, the familiar or melancholy melodies of the Italian barrel-organ men, who had come to the festival in their velvet jackets and black mustaches, rang out through the streets. The Christmas exhibitions were resplendent in the shop windows. The colorful amusements of the Christmas market were set up around the high Gothic fountain in the market square. And wherever you went, you breathed in the aroma of the festival with the scent of the fir trees for sale. Then finally the evening of the twenty-third of December came, and with it the giving of presents in the hall at home, in the Fischergrube, a giving of presents in the closest circle, which was only a beginning, an opening, a prelude, because the consul kept Christmas Eve tight Possessed for the whole family, so that in the late afternoon of the twenty-fourth the entire Thursday dinner party, along with Jürgen Kröger from Wismar and Therese Weichbrodt with Madame Kethelsen, gathered in the landscape room. Dressed in heavy gray and black striped silk, with flushed cheeks and flushed eyes, in a delicate scent of patchouli, the old lady received the guests who came in one by one, and her golden bracelets jingled softly at the wordless embraces. She was in unspeakable, silent and trembling excitement that evening. "My God, you're feverish, mother!" said the senator when he arrived with Gerda and Hanno... "Everything can be quite easy." But she whispered, while kissing all three: "In honor of Jesus...

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  In a little dress, whose lavish trimmings with satin bows showed Frau Permaneder's taste, the child sat on the arm of his mother, held his thumbs in his tiny fists, sucked his tongue, stared straight ahead with his eyes protruding slightly and let go now and then a short, creaking sound was heard, whereupon the girl let it rock a little. But Hanno sat quietly on his stool at his mother's feet, looking up at a prism of the chandelier just like her... Christian was missing! Where was Christian? It was only now, at the last moment, that it was noticed that he wasn't there yet. The Consul's movements, the peculiar manipulation with which she used to stroke from the corner of her mouth to her hairdo, as if she were putting a fallen hair back in its place, became even more feverish... She hurriedly instructed Mamsell Severin, and the maid made her way past the choirboys the portico, between the house arms across the corridor, and knocked at Mr. Buddenbrook's door. Immediately Christian appeared. He came very leisurely into the landscape room with his thin, crooked legs, which had become somewhat lame since the joint rheumatism, rubbing his bald forehead with his hand. "Gosh, kids," he said, "I almost forgot!" "You should have..." his mother repeated, and froze... "Yes, almost forgot that it's Christmas today... I was sitting and reading... in a book, a travel book about South America... Good God, I've had other Christmases..." he added, just about to start the tale of one Christmas Eve, which he spent in London in a fifth-order ding-dong, when suddenly the stillness of the church in the room began to have an effect on him, so that he went to his seat with a wrinkled nose and on tiptoe. "Daughter Zion, rejoice!" sang the choirboys, and they, who had just been out there playing allotria so audibly that the senator had had to stand at the door for a moment to command respect, they sang beautifully. These clear voices, carried by the deeper organs, soaring pure, jubilant and praising, drew all hearts with them, softened the old maids' smiles and made the old people look inward and reconsider their lives, while those who were in the midst of life forgot their troubles for a while. Hanno let go of his knee, which he had been hugging so far. He looked quite pale, playing with the fringes of his stool and rubbing his tongue on a tooth, with his mouth half open and an expression as if he were cold. Now and then he felt the need to breathe a sigh of relief, because now, there the singing, this bell -like a cappella song filled the air, his heart clenched in an almost painful happiness. Christmas ...

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Then she pushed the glasses on her nose, She read the familiar words slowly, with a simple, heartfelt intonation, in a voice that was clear, moving, and serene against the reverent silence. "And goodwill to the people!" she said. But she had scarcely been silent when the three voices in the columned hall rang out "Silent Night, Holy Night," which the family joined in in the landscape room. One went to work a little cautiously, because most of those present were unmusical, and here and there one heard a deep and quite inappropriate tone in the ensemble ... But that did not affect the effect of this song ... Frau Permaneder sang it with trembling lips, because the cutest and it touches his heart most painfully, who has had an eventful life behind him and looks back in the brief peace of the ceremony... Madame Kethelsen wept quietly and bitterly, although she heard almost nothing of anything. And then the Consul rose. She took the hand of her grandson Johann and that of her great-granddaughter Elisabeth and walked across the room. The old gentlemen followed, the younger ones followed, in the columned hall the servants and the house poor joined them, and while everyone chanted "O Tannebaum" in unison and Uncle Christian in the front made the children laugh by lifting his legs as he marched like a jumping jack and sillyly singing "O Tantebaum," blinded eyes and a smile on your face, you were pulled through the wide-open, tall double doors straight into the sky. The whole hall, filled with the scent of singed fir branches, shone and glittered with innumerable small flames, and the sky-blue wallpaper with its white statues of gods made the large room appear even brighter. The flames of the candles that covered the huge fir tree between the dark red curtained windows, which, adorned with silver tinsel and large white lilies, a shimmering angel at its top and a plastic nativity scene arrangement at its feet, towered almost to the ceiling, flickered in the general flood of light like distant stars. For on the white-covered table, which stretched long and wide, laden with gifts, from the windows almost to the door, a row of smaller trees hung with sweets continued, which also shone with burning wax lights. And the arms of gas that came out of the walls were burning, and the big candles were burning on the gilded candelabra in all four corners. Large objects, gifts that didn't fit on the table, stood side by side on the floor. Smaller tables, also covered in white, with gifts and decorated with burning trees, were located on the sides of the two doors: these were the presents for the servants and the house poor.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Singing, dazzled and completely alienated from the familiar room, one walked around the hall, filed past the manger in which a wax Child Jesus seemed to be making the sign of the cross, and then, after one had caught a glimpse of the individual objects, remained silent in one's place stand. Hanno was completely confused. Soon after entering, his feverishly searching eyes had caught sight of the theatre... a theatre, which, as it was emblazoned up there on the table, seemed of such extreme size and breadth as he had never dared to imagine. But his place had changed, he was in the opposite place from the previous year, and this caused Hanno, in his amazement, to seriously doubt whether this fabulous theater was meant for him. On top of that, at the foot of the stage, on the floor, was something large and strange, something that wasn't on his wish list, a piece of furniture, a dresser-like object... was it for him? "Come here, child, and look at this," the Consul said, opening the lid. "I know you like to play chorales... Herr Pfühl will give you the necessary instructions... You always have to pedal... sometimes lighter and sometimes harder... and then don't raise your hands, just change fingers bit by bit..." It was a harmonium, a small, pretty harmonium, polished brown, with metal handles on both sides, brightly colored pedal bellows, and a dainty swivel chair. Hanno struck a chord...a soft organ sound broke out, making the bystanders look up from their presents...Hanno hugged his grandmother, who tenderly hugged him and then left him to accept the thanks of the others. He turned to the theater. The harmonium was an overwhelming dream, but he hadn't yet had time to deal with it more closely. It was the abundance of happiness, in which one, ungrateful to the individual, only touches everything briefly in order to first learn to survey the whole... Oh, there was a prompter box, a shell-shaped prompter box, behind which the curtain rolled up, wide and majestic in red and gold. The scenery of the last Fidelio act was set up on the stage. The poor prisoners folded their hands. Don Pizarro, with his sleeves enormously puffed, paused somewhere in a terrible attitude. And from behind the minister approached at a rapid pace and all in black velvet, to sweep everything for the best. It was like the Stadttheater and almost even nicer. The chorus of jubilation, the finale, resounded in Hanno's ears, and he sat down in front of the harmonium to play a piece of it that he kept... But he got up again to pick up the book, the desired book of the Greek mythology, bound all red and bearing a golden Pallas Athena on the lid.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  He ate from his plate of confectionery, marzipan and brown cake, Now Mamsell Severin and the maid went about with tea and biscuits, and while Hanno was diving he found a little leisure to look up from his seat. People stood at the table or walked back and forth, chatting and laughing while showing each other gifts and admiring those of the other. There were objects of all materials: porcelain, nickel, silver, gold, wood, silk and cloth. Large brown cakes, symmetrically decorated with almonds and sweets, lay in long rows on the table, alternating with solid marzipan loaves, which were wet inside with freshness. The gifts that Mrs. Permaneder had made or decorated, a work bag, a stand for leafy plants, a foot cushion, were adorned with large satin bows. Now and then you would visit little Johann, put your arm around his sailor's collar and examine his gifts with the ironically exaggerated admiration with which one is wont to marvel at the glories of children. Only Uncle Christian knew nothing of this grown-up arrogance, and his Enjoying the puppet theater as he strolled past Hanno's place with a diamond ring on his finger that his mother had given him was no different from his nephew's. "Gosh, that's funny!" he said, raising and lowering the curtain and stepping back to study the scene. "Is that what you wished for? - So, that's what you wanted," he said suddenly, after letting his eyes wander for a while with strange seriousness and full of restless thoughts. "Why? How do you get the idea? Have you ever been to the theatre?… At Fidelio? Yes, that is given well... And now you want to imitate it, eh? imitate, perform operas yourself?... Did it make such an impression on you?... Listen, child, let me advise you, just don't get your thoughts too attached to such things... Theater... and stuff like that... That's no good, believe your uncle. I've always been way too interested in these things, and that's why I didn't become much. He pointed this out to his nephew seriously and urgently, while Hanno looked up at him curiously. Then, however, after a pause, during which his bony and wasted face brightened in contemplation of the theatre, he suddenly caused a figure to move forward on the stage, and sang in a hollow, croaking and trembling voice, "Ha, what a dreadful crime!" whereupon he pushed the armchair of the harmonium in front of the theater, sat down and began to perform an opera by alternately performing the movements of the conductor and the actors, singing and gesticulating. Several family members gathered behind his back, laughing, shaking their heads and enjoying themselves. Hanno watched him with genuine pleasure. But after a while, quite surprisingly, Christian broke off. he fell silent "Yes, you see, it's over now," he said; “Now comes the punishment again. It always takes revenge immediately when I allow myself a joke. It's not pain, you know, it's torment...

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  a vague torment, because all the nerves are short here. They're all just too short..." But the relatives took these complaints just as little seriously as his jokes and hardly answered. They scattered indifferently, and so Christian sat silently in front of the theater for a while, looked at it with quick, thoughtful blinks, and then got up. "Well, kid, have fun with that," he said, stroking Hanno's hair. 'But not too much . . . and don't forget about your serious work, do you hear? I've made a lot of mistakes... But now I want to go to the club... I'm going to the club for a bit!' he called to the adults. “They celebrate Christmas there too. Goodbye.” And with stiff, crooked legs he walked away through the portico. Everyone had lunch earlier than usual today and therefore helped themselves extensively with tea and biscuits. But one was hardly done when large crystal bowls filled with a yellow, grainy porridge were passed around for snacking. It was almond cream, a mixture of eggs, ground almonds, and rose water, which tasted wonderful, but which, if you took a spoonful too much, caused the most terrible stomach trouble. Nevertheless, and although the consul asked "to leave a small hole open" for supper, there was no compulsion. As for Klothilde, she performed miracles. Silently and gratefully, she spooned up the almond cream as if it were buckwheat groats. For refreshment there was also wine jelly in glasses, which was eaten with English Plumkake. Hanno was left alone in the hall because little Elisabeth Weinschenk had been taken home, while he was allowed to stay in Mengstrasse for supper for the first time this year; gifts, and Ida Jungmann chatted with Riekchen Severin in the columned hall, although, as a governess, she usually kept a strict social distance from the maid. The lights of the great tree had burned down and were extinguished, so that the crib now lay in darkness; but a few candles on the small trees on the table were still burning, and here and there a twig came within reach of a little flame, scorched and crackled, and intensified the scent that pervaded the hall. Each breeze that touched the trees made the pieces of tinsel gold attached to them tremble with a delicate metallic sound. It was now quiet enough again to hear the faint sounds of a barrel organ coming from a distant street through the cold evening. Hanno enjoyed the Christmas scents and sounds with devotion. He read his mythology book with his head in his hand, ate mechanically and because it was necessary, confectionery, marzipan, almond cream and plumkake, and the anxious trepidation of a full stomach mingled with the sweet excitement of the evening to a wistful bliss.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Finally, one of the most effective ways for couples to expand their knowledge about what turns them on is to remind each other of past encounters together that were particularly pleasing. There’s only one pitfall to avoid. If your reminiscences come primarily from an earlier, more passionate phase in your relationship, you might set yourselves up for unfavorable comparisons with your current sex life. Make a point of emphasizing specific recent encounters. With rare exceptions, even couples who think their sex lives are a complete mess can point to at least some pleasurable moments, thereby highlighting the fact that they have a positive foundation on which to build. CULTIVATING WARM SEXMy observations have consistently revealed an apparent contradiction: to preserve opportunities for lusty, passionate sex, most successful long-term couples develop the ability to enjoy “warm sex.” Rather than emphasizing focused intensity, warm sex revolves around calmer experiences of sensuality, affection, pleasure, and playful fun. Although warm sex usually includes genital stimulation, its goals are neither high arousal nor orgasm. Especially during periods when desire is relatively low, warm sex allows couples to maintain a physical bond and helps them to continue perceiving each other in a sexual light. In my work, I have regularly been reminded of how crucial this is. In fact, I haven’t seen a couple—nor have any of the colleagues I’ve informally surveyed—who were able to rebuild a sexual connection after they had stopped thinking of each other in an erotic way for five or more years. Some people have great difficulty learning to enjoy warm sex, while others gravitate to it naturally. As a sex therapist I often encounter men and women who think of warm sex as boring sex—or no sex at all—and therefore avoid it or become frustrated when it doesn’t always lead to intercourse. Men are often troubled by warm sex because it doesn’t necessarily generate sufficient erotic energy to produce or sustain an erection. Unfortunately, heterosexual and gay male couples typically think the firmness of the penis is the indicator of how well things are going, an idea inimical to enduring sexual satisfaction. In addition to its other rewards, warm sex maintains an erotic playground. The passion of new love is typically an automatic catalyst for sex. As the urgency calms, however, seasoned lovers make time for sex, an obvious fact proclaimed so often by marriage counselors that it now borders on cliché. But if you want to sustain a happy sex life over time, this is one cliché you can’t afford to ignore. When erotic couples evolve out of the heat of limerence, it’s crucial that they find ways of keeping sex a priority—not just in concept but in fact.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  An excellent example of this can be seen in the recent phenomenon of the Indian spiritual teacher Amma, who is known as the "hugging saint." Literally thousands of people in locations around the world wait for as long as ten hours to receive a three-second hug from her, and sometimes also a few flower petals or a Hershey's chocolate kiss shoved into their hands.' Amma is considered by her devotees to be an avatar, a deity come to Earth, a once-in-a-thousand-year occurrence. Estimates are that she has hugged "somewhere between 25 and 30 million people so far."9 After the fleeting hug, devotees leave in tears. Whether they are crying from ecstasy or exhaustion, many believe they have had a spiritual experience. Charisma, of course, is not necessarily nefarious. Famous actors and musicians have charisma, as do many athletes and business leaders as well. Charisma is a fascinating phenomenon that often evokes positive responses. Corrupt charismatic cult leaders, however, will use this complex interpersonal phenomenon in ways that are self-serving and, at times, destructive to others. The combination of charisma and certain personality disorders (such as sociopathy) is a lethal mixture-perhaps it is the very recipe used at the Cookie-Cutter Messiah School. For a cult leader, charisma is perhaps most useful during the early stages of cult formation. It takes a strong-willed and persuasive leader to convince people of a new belief, and then gather the newly converted around him as devoted followers. A misreading of a cult leader's so-called personal charisma will foster his adherents' belief in his divine or messianic qualities. Charisma is indeed desirable for someone who wishes to attract a following. However, like beauty, charisma is in the eye of the beholder. Mary, for example, may be completely taken with a particular workshop leader, practically swooning at his every word, while her friend Susie doesn't feel the slightest tingle. When a person is under the sway of charisma, the effect seems quite real. Yet charisma is nothing more than a worshipful reaction to an idealized figure in the mind of the smitten. When just one person is smitten, a charismatic leader is born. When more than one person feels that same way, a charismatic group may begin to take shape. In the long run, persuasive skills (which may or may not be charismatic) are more important to the longevity of a cult than is the leader's charisma. The power and hold of cults is dependent on the environment or social system shaped by the thought-reform program, the influence and control mechanisms, and the captivating tenets of the belief system-all of which are usually conceptualized and put in place by the leader. The leader's trusted inner circle or top lieutenants, of course, aid in this process. Some inner-circle members achieve "charisma by proxy"; that is, because they are the leader's confidantes, they carry the authority of the leader.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Some parents feel guilty if they take time away from the kids to focus on their relationship. Couples need to remind themselves that their connection is the core of the family and cultivating it is, in the long run, one of the best things they can do for their children. By the time kids are able to entertain themselves with a minimum of supervision they should also be able to grasp the concept of Mom and Dad having private times when they are not to be interrupted (except, of course, for emergencies). A lock on the bedroom door is essential. A playful sign such as, “Do not disturb. Mommy and Daddy snuggling” is not only a practical help but also communicates positive messages about sensuality and affection—the best sex education there is. SUSTAINING AND BUILDING ATTRACTIONOne of the key challenges of long-term loving is how to keep attraction alive. Attraction tends to be stimulated most strongly by the new, the unfamiliar, or the unattainable—all features that decrease with day-to-day living. How then do erotic couples maintain their mutual appeal? Years of observing and questioning have led me to conclude that, while no simple answers exist, there are two basic strategies. The first is to stay in touch with the original attractions that brought you together in the first place. The second involves recognizing new sources of attraction as the relationship evolves. Most erotic couples rely on a combination of both. Regardless of the specific problems that bring them to therapy I always ask couples what first drew them to each other. Not only does the ensuing discussion provide me with valuable background information, it also gives them an opportunity to focus on crucial memories that may have been overshadowed by more recent conflicts and concerns. Erotic couples make a point of remembering their original attractions because they realize that even small remnants of these attractions can be powerful aphrodisiacs. For instance, passionate lovers focus on specific physical features that continue to be arousing, even when both of their bodies may have seen better days. This is a positive manifestation of the lusty objectification many people find objectionable. Erotic couples are also aware that attraction is inspired by much more than the physical, so they also pay careful attention to the behaviors and attitudes that turn them on. At least as important as recognition of attractive features is the ability to bolster your partner’s sense of attractiveness by making affirmative statements about him or her and to accept and value your partner’s perceptions of you. Thelma and Max: That look

• From My Secret Garden (1973)

  IIThere are some types of fantasies that I’ve shared with others that have not found their way into print. This is no criticism of this book, for it does not claim to be a definitive encyclopedia of female sexual fantasies, but rather an attempt to show the range and variation of such material. One common fantasy left out is that in which the fantasizer thinks of herself as part of a machine, as an animal, as having the body of a man, as some creature from another world, as insect, or as God, or a part of the Buddha, or the petal on a lotus. Many fantasies of this type occur under the influence of psychedelic agents (marijuana, hashish, mescaline, psilocybin) and are accompanied by exquisite sexual pleasure. So “real” are these fantasies that one truly becomes them—is not aware enough of “self” to realize that a fantasy is occurring until after the orgasm, which is often explosive and felt, seemingly, in every cell of the body. IIIWhile I feel quite strongly that the fantasizer ought to allow herself to accept, enjoy, and fully give herself over to her reverie, I also feel a word is in order lest non-fantasizers feel self-conscious over their lack of reverie. One should no more feel pressured to produce fantasies than be encouraged to avoid them. It is, for example, quite possible and quite “normal” to be totally free of fantasy while making love. There are states in which a man or a woman may be so lost in bodily sensations that not only are daydreams absent but such people could not tell you where or who they are at that moment. This is not to say that such sexual experiences are better or worse—merely that they are different. Finally, it is my belief that our interest in matters sexual—be it as critic or defender—is related to something far more basic and inclusive than deciding whether stimuli are “decently erotic,” “pornographic,” “perverse,” “scientific,” and so on. Whatever we are attracted by, we are always looking, exploring, thinking. These are the constants. And these three constants have to do, I think, with the never-ending, unsolvable, and therefore always intriguing questions of creation and ego transcendence. How is it that motion and friction upon a small part of the body can make people for a moment oblivious of themselves, can cause—what the French refer to the orgasm as—le petit mort (the little death)? If we are intrigued by the sexual appendages of the world, what could be more natural? We were all sired by an ejaculating penis, grew in the womb, passed through the vaginal vault, emerged between the labia, were nourished at a breast, and will most likely re-create again when we perform the rites of procreation ourselves. That the mysteries of life, death (ego transcendence), and intense pleasure are so closely linked with our sex organs is what, to my mind, makes these organs objects of perpetual curiosity. My Secret Garden allows an important aspect of this natural curiosity to emerge from a locked closet. The bigger “secret,” however, remains. Endnotes1 Hari Dass Baba2 The 400-odd biographies and descriptions of the women do seem rather “average.” No social or economic groups predominate. Ms. Friday has gotten a balanced sampling with the one exception that her subjects admit that they fantasize.

• From The Argonauts (2015)

  I didn’t have a real or fake animal, and so I just sweated as we went around the room. When it got to me, I burped out otter. Which was a form of true. It was important to me back then to feel, to be wily. To feel small, slick, quick, amphibious, dexterous, capable. I didn’t know then Barthes’s book The Neutral, but if I had, it would have been my anthem—the Neutral being that which, in the face of dogmatism, the menacing pressure to take sides, offers novel responses: to flee, to escape, to demur, to shift or refuse terms, to disengage, to turn away. The otter was thus a complex sort of stand-in, or fake-out, another identity I felt sure I could shimmy out of. But whatever I am, or have since become, I know now that slipperiness isn’t all of it. I know now that a studied evasiveness has its own limitations, its own ways of inhibiting certain forms of happiness and pleasure. The pleasure of abiding. The pleasure of insistence, of persistence. The pleasure of obligation, the pleasure of dependency. The pleasures of ordinary devotion. The pleasure of recognizing that one may have to undergo the same realizations, write the same notes in the margin, return to the same themes in one’s work, relearn the same emotional truths, write the same book over and over again—not because one is stupid or obstinate or incapable of change, but because such revisitations constitute a life. “Many people doing all kinds of work are able to take pleasure in aspects of their work,” Sedgwick once wrote, “but something different happens when the pleasure is not only taken but openly displayed. I like to make that different thing happen.” One happy thing that can happen, according to Sedgwick, is that pleasure becomes accretive as well as autotelic: the more it’s felt and displayed, the more proliferative, the more possible, the more habitual, it becomes.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Proof that a romantic temperament can take root anywhere, because the only dancers I had seen were believers who jigged in the spirit. The men rolled out sections of canvas over the horizontal poles, attaching the cutout pieces to the base of the now-raised center poles. They laced the sections together and swarmed the flattened tent like a team of tiny tailors stitching a ball gown for a female colossus. With the sewing finished, a man was stationed at the winch attached to each of the seven center poles. Someone shouted, “Go!” and the men cranked in unison. The canvas rose around them, and when it reached waist height, crew members hunched over like gnomes, scrambled underneath, and pushed up the secondary poles. A few more cranks and the peaks billowed thirty feet in the air.With the tent secured, the crew hung spotlights and secondary lighting from the poles, hammered together the sections of the platform, unloaded the Hammond organ, and positioned the amplifiers and speakers. The expanse of the tent posed a challenge for the sound system, so it was important that the speakers be positioned in just the right places. The tent families unloaded stacks of wooden folding chairs and arranged them in orderly sections that fanned outward from the platform. Twenty-five hundred chairs for the first night, with a thousand more stacked in the truck to be squeezed in as needed throughout the revival. Long one-by-one boards were placed between the chairs’ legs to connect them and keep the rows uniform.By seven o’clock on opening night, a dusty brown canvas and a collection of scuffed-up poles had been transformed into an ad hoc cathedral. People came from near and far. Black and white, old and young, poor and poorer. Women with creased brows and apologetic eyes as faded as their cotton dresses, clutching two and three children who looked almost as worn out as their mothers. Men, taut as fiddle strings, hunch-shouldered in overalls or someone else’s discarded Sunday best, someone taller and better fed. They came to find a sense of purpose and a connection to God and one another. They came because the promises of the beatitudes were fulfilled for a few hours under the tent, and the poor were truly blessed. They came for miracles, answers, and salvation. They came to see the show.It was our first night in Chattanooga. Up on the platform, Mama pulsed out a bass line on the organ and Brother Cotton swung his arm through the air like a metronome as he led the audience through another chorus of “Jesus on the Mainline.” He yelled, “Call him up and call him up” into the microphone and the audience screamed back, “Tell him what you want.” Brother Cotton’s job as song leader and front man was to warm up the audience for Brother Terrell. Sometimes the crowd was cold and unresponsive, and he sweated through his undershirt and dress shirt just trying to get them to say amen.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  I had my shorts on, but I didn’t want her to see me. My cock stuck out straight as a tentpole. We still had our ’51 Ford half-ton pickup then, so we set the tent and sleeping bags and mason jars that we had to take back to Aunt Lola and ax and shovel and tarp and first-aid kit in the back since it wasn’t going to rain. It was an incredibly beautiful morning, which is the way most summer mornings are around Spokane. There wasn’t a sound and the only smell was freshness. The streetlights were still on and the sky was graying into blue. I was stretching and yawning and growling and about fixing to give the neighborhood my Mountain Man good-morning yell when eleven-year-old Dwight Thuringer came whistling down the sidewalk with his newspapers. My hiding was totally unpremeditated. I just whipped into the big shrubs before he saw me. I didn’t decide to scare him until he got right to the porch and banged his paper off the screen door. I leaped out and threw my arms in the air and bellowed like a Sasquatch. Little Thuringer screamed and fell back on the lawn in a storm of neatly folded newspapers. He twitched a little and gurgled in his throat. I was rolling on the lawn, laughing out of control. Dwight was throwing papers at me as hard as he could when Carla came out. I was still laughing, rolling around, but I was trying to cover up my tender spots. Those square-folded papers hurt. When he got me right at the base of the skull, it sobered me up and I got to my feet and ran around behind the house. I heard Carla ask Dwight what happened. “Goddamn Louden jumped out and scared me,” he said. He sounded like he was ready to cry. I had climbed over the fence and come through the breezeway and out onto the lawn again. “God, I’m sorry, Dwight,” I said. “I just couldn’t help myself.” And then I started to laugh again. But then I saw he had peed his pants and it made me feel ashamed. Finally Dwight started to laugh, too. He began to pick up his papers and I helped him. “You really scared me,” he said. “I must have looked funny.” “You flew through the air,” I said, starting to guffaw again. Carla and I lifted his double bag over his head and brushed the dewy grass off him, ignoring the pee smell, and waved him good morning. I brushed the wet grass off my front and turned for Carla to brush my back. “You’re really a bastard,” she said, refusing to brush me. I asked her if she wanted to drive and she said she did. The old Ford had to be double-clutched, and Carla took a while to get the hang of the shifting. But once we got out on 395 she didn’t have to shift, so the ride was smoother.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  To help you decide if you have one or many CETs, ask yourself some questions: Might there be a common thread you haven’t yet recognized that subtly links the varied partners and situations that arouse you? Is it possible, for example, that your love of variety is itself a key feature of your CET? Might you be saying through your behavior, “I’m a sex fiend who can’t be controlled”? My favorite sex scene—which has to do with “servicing” someone who is completely indifferent to me except for my genitals—is obvious to me in casual sex and fantasy but seems totally irrelevant with my girlfriend. Could I have a part-time CET? This is an extremely important point: sexual scenarios, even well-established ones, may be activated only under certain conditions. You’ve mentioned the three situations that are most likely to elicit noticeably different responses: fantasy, casual encounters, and intimate involvements. Like you, many men and women report that the CETs that are obvious during fantasy or in purely lusty encounters seem to disappear when they become emotionally involved. This effect is particularly evident during early limerence, when the joy of the romantic bond becomes the ultimate aphrodisiac. Later on, however, as romantic passions cool, many find themselves missing the intensity. Some return to their CET in fantasy, either during masturbation or possibly while having sex with their lovers. But some find this awkward, especially if the flavor of the CET seems incompatible with tender feelings—which appears to be the case for you. Consider yourself fortunate that you are able to enjoy the theme of turning on an indifferent lover without having to find that lover in real life. Sometimes I’m so horny that any halfway attractive woman will do. But if I get what you’re saying, my CET should make me more selective than I am. Surely I’m not the only horny guy out there. Rest assured you’re in good company. Your CET outlines a framework for special turn-ons, not all turn-ons. Many people, especially men, would agree with you that their selectivity declines noticeably as horniness increases. There’s no denying that some encounters are simply a means of releasing pent-up sexual tension, almost like scratching an itch. But haven’t you come across women who stir qualitatively different passions in you? If you have, I bet you suddenly become far more selective, no matter how horny you are. I used to have a thing for aggressive, cold men, but now they bore me. Did my CET change? Perhaps. I agree with Simon and Gagnon when they say, “Few individuals, like few novelists or dramatists, wander far from the formulas of their most predictable successes?”16 On the other hand, people definitely grow. The change in your attractions away from aggressive men may represent a shift in your attitudes toward yourself and a corresponding adjustment in your CET. Or maybe you’ve been hurt too many times by cold men and are determined to protect yourself.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  179.Besides family and doctors you are the only person I’ve ever told this to : Ibid., p. 259.“With her own children, Judy Blume concedes” : Joyce Maynard, “Coming of Age with Judy Blume,” New York Times , December 3, 1978.“During a particularly rough time for our family my daughter, Randy” : Judy Blume, Letters to Judy , p. 10.Chapter Seventeen Fame“One day, there’s going to be Judy Blume tampons” : Barbara Karlin, “Blume Speaks Out on Speaking Out,” Los Angeles Times , October 18, 1981, p. E6.“The book struck me as incredibly candid” : Telephone interview with Dean Butler, April 5, 2023.“Oh come on,” Michael says in an early sequence : John Korty, director, Forever , 1978.“She was resolute about that,” he remembered : DB to RB, April 5, 2023.“I see a bright young girl with a full life ahead of her” : John Korty, director, Forever , 1978.Judy loved the adaptation : Box 34 of the Judy Blume Papers at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Accessed April 28, 2022.“I remember my father looking at me afterwards” : DB to RB, April 5, 2023.which she’d been calling “After the Sunset” : Box 115 of the Judy Blume Papers at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Accessed April 28, 2022.“I love to make kids laugh, and I laugh a lot myself” : Jennifer Hooker, Eileen Duffy, Kristen Pfeffer, and Jamie Liguiori, “Talking with Judy Blume,” Newsday , November 10, 1980, p. B16.Blume received a reported $500,000 advance for Superfudge : N. R. Kleinfeld, “Young Readers: A Good Market,” New York Times , March 27, 1981, p. D1.A rep for Jordache jeans got in touch : Box 10 of the Judy Blume Papers at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Accessed April 28, 2022.In December of 1980, six of her books topped the bestsellers list at B. Dalton : Box 25 of the Judy Blume Papers at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Accessed May 11, 2022.Chapter Eighteen Gatekeepers“Perhaps the best thing to do with Ms. Blume would be to ignore her altogether” : David Rees, “Not Even For a One-Night Stand: Judy Blume,” The Marble in the Water (Boston: The Horn Book, 1980), pp. 173–84.“a scatological and soft-porn cinema verité of childhood, of puberty, of growing up” : Sandy Rovner, “Talking It Out with Judy Blume,” Washington Post , November 3, 1981, p. B1.asserting that she “may never win any prizes for literary quality” : Patricia O’Brien, “Judy Blume—Banned Again,” Hartford Courant , March 12, 1980, p. 15.“He really hated stuffy children’s books” : PS to RB, May 27, 2022.“shopping list… entirely forgettable, drab, flat” : David Rees, “Not Even For a One-Night Stand: Judy Blume,” The Marble in the Water (Boston: The Horn Book, 1980), pp.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Then she’d sit on the edge of the tub in the dark, smelling Rusty’s bath salts—lavender, citrus, musk—listening to Mason’s breaths and her own, until she could feel him breathing into her ear right through the phone. After they’d said goodnight, she’d turn on the bathroom light and look at herself in the mirror on the medicine chest. Her face was always pink and warm. She’d splash it with water to take away the blush. Then she’d flush the toilet for no reason except to announce she’d finished in case anyone was interested, return the phone to the hall table and run down the stairs to catch the rest of whatever TV show they’d been watching. Irene wouldn’t say anything. Neither would Rusty. But Miri was sure they’d had plenty to say while she was gone, unless it was Wednesday and they’d been watching Kraft Television Theatre. Then they wouldn’t have talked at all except during commercials. —EVERY OTHER SUNDAY NIGHT Miri and Suzanne babysat for the Fosters, seven-year-old Penny and four-year-old Betsy. Mr. Foster managed an appliance shop on Route 22 and Saturdays left him too tired to go out. It was okay with Rusty and Suzanne’s mother as long as they had their homework finished and were home by ten-thirty. The girls liked it because it left them free on Saturday nights. Mrs. Foster had an impressive collection of hand-knit cardigan sweaters to wear over crisp white shirts, and this night her cardigan was in a cobalt blue and had brass buttons. She wore the same shoes every time they babysat, black pumps with medium heels. She was usually easygoing but tonight she went over everything with Miri and Suzanne two or three times before leaving, while Mr. Foster, annoyed, checked his watch. She handed them lists with numbers of who to call in an emergency, including the Branford Theatre in Newark, where Bright Victory was playing, and the Weequahic Diner, where they always stopped for supper after the movie. Mrs. Foster felt more secure knowing Suzanne’s mother was a nurse. And she liked having two of them babysit, not just because she got two for the price of one. She said it was a comfort to her. “Let’s go, Jo!” Mr. Foster called. Penny and Betsy loved that. “Let’s go, Jo!” they squealed. Mrs. Foster didn’t find that funny. “I’ll be right there, Monty.” “I’ll be right there, Monty,” the little girls sang, mimicking their mother. “Stop that right now,” Mrs. Foster told them. And this time they did. “Suzanne and Miri have heard the spiel before,” Mr. Foster called, tapping his watch. “All right, Monty!” Mrs. Foster said. Then, quietly, to Suzanne and Miri, “Betsy has sniffles. It could be the beginning of something, or nothing. But check on her every half hour after she goes to sleep, okay?” “Okay, sure,” Miri said and Suzanne nodded. Mrs. Foster kissed Penny and Betsy. “You girls be good.” “Joanne!” Mr. Foster called, and this time Mrs.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Stein’s bedroom—was bigger than Miri’s living room and bedroom combined, with a chaise longue and two chairs grouped around a coffee table stacked with books and magazines spilling onto the floor, waiting to be read. At the other end of the room were two beds pushed together, attached to a single carved wooden headboard. Mrs. Stein disappeared into a walk-in closet behind the bed and came out with a small white box tied with a slender pink satin ribbon. She handed it to Miri. “Happy birthday.” Miri was embarrassed. “Open it,” Mrs. Stein sang. Miri half expected her to clap her hands and jump up and down, she seemed so pleased. Miri opened the box. Inside was a bracelet. Gold with—were they garnets, her birthstone? “But you can’t give this to me. You should save it for your daughter.” “Her birthstone is opal,” Mrs. Stein said. “Mine is garnet, like yours. And I’ve got more garnet bracelets than I can count. I want you to have this one. It’s delicate, like you.” Miri had never thought of herself as delicate and wasn’t sure she wanted anyone else to, either. She supposed that next to Mrs. Stein, with her ample bosom, wide hips and plump arms, she could seem delicate, but she wasn’t. “Thank you,” Miri said. “It’s beautiful.” “So are you,” Mrs. Stein said. No one outside the family had ever told her that. “Have a wonderful birthday.” Mrs. Stein leaned in and kissed her cheek. Fred barked until Mrs. Stein turned her attention to him. —MIRI WAS ALMOST SURE Rusty wouldn’t approve of Mrs. Stein giving her a gold bracelet with garnets, so at first she didn’t show it to her. But what was the point of having it if she could never wear it? That night she waited until after Rusty’s bath, when Rusty seemed relaxed and happy, humming to herself. “Mrs. Stein gave me a bracelet for my birthday. She said it doesn’t fit her anymore and she has more birthstone bracelets than she can possibly use.” “Let me see that.” Miri passed her the bracelet. Rusty turned it over in her hand, studying it the way an appraiser might. “Which Mrs. Stein?” “Phil’s mother. They live on Westminster.” “Who is Phil?” “Phil Stein. He’s Steve Osner’s best friend. He was at the New Year’s Eve party.” “And what’s the connection between you and Mrs. Stein?” “I drop Fred off at the Steins’ house a couple of days a week.” “Fred?” “Fred. Mason’s dog.” Rusty breathed deeply through her nose. “So this is about the dog?” “Yes. Mrs. Stein likes having Fred around. They had a dog, Goldie, but she died.” “Does that make Mrs. Stein a better mother than me?” “What? No.” This wasn’t going well. “Mrs. Stein probably doesn’t go to business,” Rusty said. “She doesn’t.” “You see?” Sometimes no matter what Miri said or didn’t say, Rusty acted as if it reflected on her as a mother. She should have told Rusty that Mrs.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Quit her job and spend the rest of her life taking care of Miri, or would Irene have to “step up to the plate” again? Both scenarios filled her with dread. But Miri and her friends survived and arrived cold, wet and happy at Miri’s house, where Natalie joined them. They changed into their nightgowns, leaving on their underwear since they weren’t going to sleep for hours, and enjoyed pizza from Spirito’s, thanks to Uncle Henry, who brought three large pies home for them. Only Natalie resisted. She’d given up sweets and bread for dancing. “Something every dancer has to do,” she told them. “And I don’t mind. I’ve never had a sweet tooth and bread just leaves me feeling bloated.” Robo told them her mother goes to a diet doctor every week, Dr. Kalb, who gives her pills. “It’s like a candy shop at his office. Except instead of candy the bins are filled with different-colored pills. He scoops them into a brown paper bag and tells my mother how many she should take a day, and what colors. Some of them give her diarrhea.” “Ew…” Suzanne said. “Not while we’re eating.” “I don’t need pills,” Natalie said. “I have willpower.” “Too bad you can’t bottle that,” Eleanor said. “You could make a fortune.” “Mmm…” Natalie said, concentrating on her salad of iceberg lettuce and green grapes. Miri prayed Natalie wouldn’t act weird tonight, and she didn’t, except for not even tasting Irene’s delicious birthday cake, Miri’s favorite, dark chocolate with mocha frosting. Miri wrapped a piece for Mason. She would bring it to him Monday after school. Later, they went down to Irene’s to watch Your Hit Parade. Eddy Howard sang the number three song, “It’s No Sin.” “Now, that’s a beautiful song,” Natalie said. “If we’re lucky we won’t have to hear ‘Slow Poke’ or ‘Shrimp Boats’ again.” Miri agreed. She imagined dancing with Mason to “It’s No Sin.” The thought was enough to give her shivers. Back upstairs in Miri’s room, the girls gave her their present. Her first cashmere sweater from the cashmere sweater lady, in a beautiful shade of aqua. “It’s from my mom, too,” Natalie said. Miri understood. Corinne had shelled out whatever extra the sweater cost after the girls had pooled their money. “Try it on,” Robo told her. “Now?” Miri asked. “Yes, now!” the other girls sang. She stepped behind her closet door, let her nightgown drop from her shoulders, pulled the sweater on, then gathered the nightgown around her waist so she could model the sweater for them. They whooped and cheered. Robo and Suzanne whistled. She couldn’t wait to wear it for Mason. “Wait until Mason feels how soft it is!” Robo said, as if she knew what Miri was thinking. It used to be Natalie who knew what Miri was thinking, but not anymore. Natalie was distant now, living in her own world. The other girls laughed until Robo switched gears.

• From Naked Ambition

  It was always sort of like a playful sense of herself in those images. That's one of the things I loved about her, and I think that made her so memorable. Not the nudity aspect, but the fact that everything she did was sort of in a light, playful manner, and she made it all seem fun. [pleasant music] - For all of Bunny's photos, I find that there's a kind of joyousness to them, a celebratory quality. - That attitude in the 1950s was unthinkable, and approaching it with that kind of innocence is one of the common connections that Marilyn Monroe shares with Bettie Page. [pleasant music] - A flood tide of filth is engulfing our country in the form of newsstand obscenity. - That is directly responsible for a substantial amount of juvenile delinquency and child crime. - This continues to increase for one reason, it is big business. [pleasant music] - You're really looking at a choice that women were making to get involved with pinup photography at the time. That was a lot more complicated than just, I'm willing to take my clothes off in front of a camera, yes or no. [pleasant music] Playboy was this magazine that, sure it was about sex, but it was also about jazz and it was about fashion, and it was about who you should think the cool new writers are. - The names of the writers that came to us as a result of their wanting to appear in our pages, there was no other magazine at the time with that kind of a mix. First issue came out in December of 1953, and we sold out. And then we proceeded to staff up. - And then we started purchasing from independent photographers before we began shooting our own, and it was how I became familiar with Bunny Yeager. And Bunny Yeager then became a regular contributor to Playboy and a good friend. - Bunny had a style of her own, and she really captured that girl next door quality. And that is one of the things that Hefner felt was so valuable. [upbeat jazz music] - [Diane] She was a little adventuresome, so she was the girl you could marry who would do fun stuff in the bedroom. It wasn't really an easy thing to accomplish back then, because we had strong moral restrictions in America. - [Narrator] Love seemed to be all that really mattered, but each of them knew deep down that they wanted their marriage vows to have real meaning. - [Diane] It was easy to get a bunch of strippers, it was very hard to get an ordinary secretary. The idea that a woman would want to be involved in it, would wanna produce material for it was perfect. It was something they could advertise, it was something that could bring in readers. - But the suggestion back then, that sex was simply a natural, normal part of life, was very revolutionary.