I can't sleep…
Rhoades: I’m glad you accepted my offer to drop by. I didn’t like the circumstances you left under.
Howard: Never bad to march with your conscience intact.
Rhoades: Not sure I agree with that. Conscience can be a little bit like those old nonstick pans. It flakes off under heat…what you’re really looking for is a cast iron soul. Durable. Seasoned.
— Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) & Merle Howard (Noah Robbins), Billions, S5-E8: Copenhagen
Photo: Paul Giamatti as Chuck Rhoades in Billions.
~ Antonio Banderas, excerpts from “Antonio Banderas Answers the Proust Questionnaire” Vanity Fair, December 12, 2019
Photo: Actor Antonio Banderas attends the “The Skin I Live In” premiere at the Palais des Festivals during the 64th Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2011 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images)
What do we need to know about a person in order to like them? Before she wrapped her leftover buttered toast inside a paper napkin, I didn’t know whether I liked her or not. Then, when she wrapped up her toast in the napkin, I suddenly loved her. Before she wrapped up her toast, she had been making an effort to show herself to be a sophisticated and an impressive young editor from a respected magazine. Then, when she did that, the performance dropped; not only was she underpaid, the gesture said, but she really liked toast. She liked toast even more than she liked being admired.
~ Sheila Heti, Motherhood: A Novel (Henry Holt and Co., May 1, 2018)
Portrait: Sheila Heti
If you’re gonna lead my country
If your’e gonna say it’s free
I’m gonna need a little honesty
Just a few honest words
It shouldn’t be that hard
Just a few honest words is all I need
I don’t need no handshake
No firm look in the eye
Don’t tell me what you think I ought to hear…
~ Ben Sollee, from “A Few Honest Words.”
The tune was the opening track in his 2008 debut titled “Learning to Bend” which was an open letter to political leaders in the U.S. that perfectly captures what we’ve all been pleading for in a year of national turmoil: the truth. “I try to never be too specific,” Sollee says. “I’m trying to agitate the idea of what is happening. [“A Few Honest Words”] is not directed at one politician, but the culture of politics. (From Team JamBase: A Few Honest Words with Ben Sollee, November 5, 2008)
Ben Sollee, 34, is an American cellist, singer-songwriter, and composer known for his political activism. His music incorporates banjo, guitar, and mandolin along with percussion and unusual cello techniques. His songs exhibit a mix of folk, bluegrass, jazz, and R&B elements. Sollee has also composed longer instrumental pieces for dance ensembles and for film. And don’t miss the video:
Photo of the White House: by kenziemoney15
You can’t transform mountebanks into menschen. Character is like concrete: You can make an impression when it’s freshly poured, in its youth, one could say, but when it sets, it’s impervious to alteration.
~ Charles M. Blow, Satan in a Sunday Hat (NY Times, July 31, 2017)
Notes: Image Credit
Live & Learn 