#which was more of augustus william’s thing but whatever

[micromegazz]

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! ^_^

[catilinas]

I'm currently reading lattimore's iliad, and I'm planning to read an oresteia translated by Anne Carson. What are some other works you'd recommend/love? And the translation you like. I want to read up on the classics as I didn't really go to school past 14, and I love how passionate you are about them, so I thought I'd ask, thanks either way!

hi! sorry for taking one million years to reply to this :/ every time i try to make a Brief list of my fave texts i explode. also please bear in mind that this is a list of Texts I Personally Really Like and not a list of Texts That Are The Hashtag Classical Canon.

if you enjoy(ed. it's been a while) the iliad and An Oresteia then probably try the odyssey? i like emily wilson's translation and also ive said this before but her introduction is soooooo good. she has a translation of the iliad coming out next year and i'm probably more excited to read her introduction to it than like. the actual translation

also in the genre of epic (the best genre) i actually prefer latin epic so. definitely the aeneid (post on different translations here!) which is also very uhhh foundational for so so much of subsequent latin literature. including my other favourite epic poem, lucan's pharsalia (post on translations again!) which is a historical epic about the civil war between caesar and pompey.

this is where the list gets very much into things i personally like. the pharsalia is so cool to me because it's not a history/historiography but it Does do weird things To history and gets away with them because of its genre. veryyy similarly, aeschylus' persians is a tragedy (the only surviving tragedy based on historical events!) about the persian response to defeat at the battle of salamis. i don't have a preferred translation for this one just read whatever! but definitely read some sort of introduction or the wikipedia page because it's weird for a Lot of reasons. also necromancy happens. and there's boats. what more can anyone want!

i've also been really into livy's ab urbe condita atm. it's a history of rome but the first 5 books especially are very. well i just don't think that actually happened. BUT the early roman like. political myth making is cool actually! (if only because if you read it then when lucan is like oh and the ghost of curius dentatus was there you can be like oh i know who that guy is! a Lot of latin lit involves invoking historical exempla and livy is a major source for a Lot of those.) i actually care very little about greek myth (and the take that the romans just 'stole' greek religion. like what) because i think the romans' mythologisation of e.g. lucius junius brutus is way more fun. but ALSO livy was writing a history starting from the Foundation of rome at a time when augustus was 'ReFounding' rome so you're always a bit like. hmmmmmm. or like you read about coriolanus in livy and you're like oh wow foreshadowing of the political situation that would later lead to the civil wars! but then you remember that livy was writing it After the civil wars and then you fall into the livian timeloop and then you explode.

ok now ignore livy because my favourite historian is actually sallust. would recommend william batstone's translation of (and introduction to) the bellum catilinae. Catilina Is There. sallust's catiline is soooooo sexy like his countenance was a civil war itself! enough eloquence but not enough wisdom! animus audax subdolus varius! he's haunted by sulla's ghost! he's didn't cause the fall of the republic so much as he was a symptom of it! he's an antihero! he's cicero's mimetic double! he probably doesn't drink blood! he would have died a beautiful death IF it had been on behalf of his country (except that quote is actually from florus maybe via livy lol)! He Did Nothing Wrong. you want to read the bellum catilinae soooooo bad. also it is v fun to read alongside with cicero's catilinarian orations (the invective speeches against catilina). i think i read the oxford world's classics translation of those but i Cannot remember who it is by.

also you know what i really like what i've read of florus' epitome of roman history which is maybe kind of a summary of livy but also florus is totally doing his own thing (he is sooo influenced by lucan! nice!) highly recommend the (relatively brief) section on the first punic war. it does cool things with boats.

i also love plutarch's life of cato the younger!!! one of my favourite ancient texts of all time ever. like a) it's plutarch and he is fun. would recommend the life of alexander the great as well tbh. and b) it's cato the younger and he is so so so fucked up.

finallyyyyyy bcs this is getting long. the poetry of catullus (and a post on translations is here!) like It's Catullus. the original poor little meow meow. what more can i say

[tabellae-rex-in-sui]

I was just wondering, do you know anything about johann Joachim Quantz’s relationship with fritz? That lit ass hoe who blazed on the flute and hid in a closet?

So Fritz met Quantz at Augustus the Strong's court at Dresden in 1728. They met again shortly after during Augustus's visit to Prussia a few months later. Frederick's mother, Sophia Dorothea, then made arrangements for Quantz to come to Prussia twice a year to give Fritz flute lessons. In secret of course, since Frederick William didn't want his son playing music. The closet thing you mention (for those who don't know) refers to a famous incident where Fritz was having a secret flute lesson with Quantz, with Katte posted outside of the room to warn them if the king was coming. Then, Katte did exactly that. The three of them quickly hid the sheet music and flute and Fritz took off his red french dressing gown, hiding it under the bed and putting on his uniform. Katte and Quantz both hid in the closet. Unfortunately, when FW came into the room, he noticed Fritz' hair, which was curled and styled instead of in a military queue. He searched the room and found the dressing gown which he threw into the fireplace, and french books which he confiscated and sold. And he beat Fritz. The only good thing here is that he didn't think to look in the closet where Katte and Quantz were hiding and, I assume, horrified.

After Frederick's ascension to the throne, Quantz formally became his music teacher as well as composer and flutemaker. They were very close as even as king, Fritz still saw himself as his student and let himself be instructed and criticized by Quantz. At this point Quantz was married, but it was said to be an unhappy marriage and that his wife was very controlling of him. Which lead to the rumor that Prussia was actually ruled by "Mrs Quantz' lapdog" (meaning Quantz himself, teasingly saying Fritz would do whatever Quantz told him to do, band Quantz would do whatever his wife told him to do). Like I said, Quantz was allowed to criticize Fritz' music. He did so by quietly coughing whenever Fritz played the wrong note. On one occasion, Quantz was coughing throughout the whole performance which led Fritz to joke "What are we to do about Quantz' cold?". Quantz was also known to shout "Bravo!" when Fritz did well in a performance.

That's the gist of what I know. They were obviously very close since Quantz had known him since his teen years. Of anyone else knows more, please add lol.

[chaoswillfallrpg]

WALBURGA BLACK (née ABBOTT) is SIXTY-TWO YEARS OLD and a SOCIALITE amongst THE SACRED TWENTY-EIGHT in LONDON. She looks remarkably like ANDY MACDOWELL and considers herself aligned with THE DEATH EATERS. She is currently TAKEN.

→ OVERVIEW:

The matriarch of the Black family and it’s strongest addition for centuries, Walburga Black may have been born an Abbott but she was most certainly designed for a position on the Black family tree. The only daughter of WILIAM ABBOTT and his wife KATRIANE PREWETT, Walburga was born of two noble households with the weight of both resting firmly on her shoulders. The second son of the Abbott family, William was given the summer manor near the town of Bournemouth to raise Walburga’s childhood, her childhood was one spent by the sea, her home perched on top of a cliff and shrouded by magic to prevent Muggles from disturbing them. Walburga’s earlier years were fairly solitary and spent walking the dark wood halls of conversing with the paintings that hung on the walls, whispering to them as she went. They told her tales of her family, of duels that had been hard fought and advantageous marriages that strengthened their family lines. The Abbott family had remained strong as they had for generations by keeping their heads high and soldiering on above the rest and Walburga Abbott was no different. Although she had cousins on either side of her family who were able to carry on her family name, Walburga had learned at an early age to never trust a man alone with any important task. 

Furthering their line and upholding the Abbott name was clarified as of high importance from the day Walburga was born and from the moment she could sit up in a chair, Katriane and William began preparing her for coming out into society. By the time Walburga began attending Hogwarts she knew exactly who to befriend, was trained in the art of manipulation and had cited the exact circles she would insert herself into to achieve her ends. Sitting under the sorting hat it had barely grazed her head before she was announced Slytherin, a departure from her ancestors who had mainly been sorted in Hufflepuff. Walking to the Slytherin table, Walburga calmly placed herself next to ORION BLACK and began to ignore him, her nose in the air and her gaze trained ahead, beginning their game of cat and mouse. When Walburga had dreamed of her life beyond Overlook House, walking the halls, one dainty hand touching each painting- she saw herself hanging amongst them. The Abbott name had power, as did the Prewett one, but other families within The Twenty-Eight had more and the Black family had always been long established as one of the most noble and ancient of all within the wizarding world. Walburga had never fancied a seat of power for herself, behind most strong people was a stronger spouse and the position of matriarch for a noble family and finding a man who she could control and pull at the strings of was the life she’d always wanted. 

She wanted to be famous and feared by name alone with an unshakable reputation that could withstand even the worst of scandals. Orion Black was a self-invested boy who had been raised to believe that those he encountered would dance to his tune simply because he was the heir of the Black family. Whilst everyone bent to his will, Walburga refused, driving him mad with jealousy. Entering society post-Hogwarts it was clear Walburga was one of the most desired women in Wizarding Britain, a torturous notion for someone like Orion who famously wanted the one thing they couldn’t have. The day of Walburga’s twenty-first birthday the pair were married, her family grinning with pride as the houses of Abbott and Black were finally united. Although Walburga’s aspiration in life was to be a mother, she waited some years before finally having her children. Married life before children was different for Walburga, adjusting to life within the Black family and assessing her husband over a number of years in order to ensure she moulded him to perfection. By the time SIRIUS BLACK was laid in her arms her husband had an enviable position in the Ministry where they could influence power in government and Walburga had decorated and enchanted the entirety of 12 Grimmauld Place to her exact specifications. 

The moment her hazel eyes met the pale blue of her son’s Walburga felt true love for the first time. A mixture of great pride and awe washed over her as she held her son. Sirius was her greatest achievement, cementing her place within her new family by ensuring the Black name would last for generations. A year later REGULUS was born and her vision was truly complete. The early years of motherhood were most enjoyable for Walburga. With Orion away working she spent the majority of her time alone with her sons, watching them play and lecturing them about the world. The two raven haired boys were devoted and dependent on her, wide eyed and innocent as they absorbed whatever she told them. Whilst she saw a lot of Orion in her youngest child, accepting, entitled and committed, Walburga saw much of herself within Sirius. He absorbed, he watched, learned and questioned- though the questions he asked she would never want to answer. Walburga tried to tell herself that being inquisitive was normal for children and that despite how much his questions on Muggles churned her stomach she felt she owed him an answer. Each year those questions became more complex, until finally as she stood opposite her son and looked into those very same pale eyes she’d stared into for sixteen years and found she no longer recognise him. 

Walburga had raised Sirius and Regulus just as she had been raised, though she had shown them more love than her own parents had. She stroked their heads, kissed them softly, held them close as they cried and viciously protected them against all outsiders. Rumours had began to circulate the moment Sirius had been sorted into Gryffindor that he was different, but Walburga had refused to believe it until the moment it had become unavoidable. Blasting her first born son from their family tree had ripped a gaping hole in her heart she knew would never heal and those closest to her might remark that she was much changed the day her eldest son went to sit at the Potter’s table instead of her own, though they were too scared to say it aloud. But Walburga Black was a survivor. Sirius has broken her heart but Walburga didn’t have time to grieve, she and Orion had much bigger things on the horizon and not even severing ties with her eldest son could distract her from her aims. Walburga had always craved power and as Orion and her brother-in-law CYGNUS BLACK had begun forming new friendships amongst other members of The Sacred Twenty-Eight, Walburga saw an opportunity to cement their family in history and have them rise high above the ranks above mudbloods and blood traitors, creatures and Muggles where they truly belonged. 

She wasted no time instructing her family to align themselves with THE DARK LORD, advising Cygnus and his wife DRUELLA to introduce their daughter BELLATRIX early to one another. Walburga had fancied The Dark Lord’s right hand as one of her own children, but knowing those at the top had harder to fall she was concerned over the prospect of losing a second son. Such a position required a diligent hand of which she knew Bellatrix was more than capable, seeing more of herself within her eldest niece of whom she was incredibly fond of. Pleased with her position within The Dark Lord’s movement, Walburga is doing what she has always done best and pulling the strings of her family from a safe distance away of her house in London, hiding in plain sight in wizarding high society. To the untrained eye Walburga is simply another Pure-Blood woman meddling in the lives of the members of The Pura Sorores society, which she chairs alongside her sister-in-law Druella. With the coming out season approaching, Walburga’s attentions have shifted towards planning The Summer Solstice Ball and securing suitable matches for her nieces ANDROMEDA and NARCISSA BLACK at the request of Druella. Though Walburga has much more than prospective marriages on her mind as the longest day of the year draws ever closer, plotting quietly with her eldest niece to ensure that the Black family are the undisputed first family in the new world The Dark Lord is creating. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Blood Status → Pure-Blood

Pronouns → She/Her

Identification → Cis Female

Sexuality  → Up to Roleplayer

Relationship Status → Married to Orion Black

Previous Education →  Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Slytherin)

Societies → Pura Sorores (co-chair)

Family → William Abbott (father), Katriane Abbott (mother), Orion Black (husband/close friend), Sirius Black (estranged son), Regulus Black (son), Cygnus Black (brother-in-law/close friend), Druella Black (sister-in-law/close friend), Bellatrix Black (niece), Andromeda Black (niece), Narcissa Black (niece), Albert Abbott (cousin), Philip Abbott (cousin), Adger Prewett (cousin)

Connections  → Cecily Greengrass (best friend), Ismena Yaxley (close friend), Vivienne Travers (close friend/rival), Ilar Travers (friend), Luella Prewett (friend), Corban Yaxley (friend), Augustus Rookwood (friend), Eelis Burke (friend), Kratista Burke (friend), Alicia Avery-Jones (acquaintance)

Future Information → N/A

WALBURGA BLACK IS A LEVEL 5 WITCH.

[one-leaf-grimoire]

Black Clover Week 2020, Day 4: Role Reversal

So I thought long and hard about what I wanted this to be and I finally decided what the obvious answer is. Behold: "Sexy Evil Julius Novachrono"

Warning: oops kind of angsty lol, ended up kind of long, also slight spoilers for the Spade Arc

"I didn't want it to be like this..."

Julius knew he was backed into a corner. He did his best for six months to hide his condition from the King, but the truth eventually slipped out. Was it one of the Captains? Or more likely Damnatio... but it didn't matter. Julius was dragged out into the light, where Augustus and the entire Kira family laughed at him.

"Look at you! Once, you claimed that your power rivaled mine, but now you're nothing but a weak child!" Augustus taunted as his infuriatingly slow light magic pushed Julius around. "Obviously, you can't be Wizard King any more, can you? And for lying to me for so long..."

Julius was stripped of everything he had worked so hard to achieve. He had hoped that everything would settle down after the defeat of the Spade Dark Triad, but now here he was, banished from the noble realm, with nothing but the body of a child, a single page of his grimoire, his former advisor, Marx.

And last he heard, Augustus was planning to appoint a new Wizard King, to add to Julius's humiliation. He didn't know who it would be, but he knew one thing:

It should still be me. I'm not ready to give it up yet. I'm not done.

There were parts of his dream yet to fall into place, and Julius wouldn't let anyone take hold of the future he fought for.

So, this desperation lead him all over the continent, Marx at his side, searching for ways to bring him back to his full power. It lead them into some pretty dangerous places, but eventually they ended up near a being who might just be able to help him. You see, after the last fight with the Dark Triad, the fabric between this world and the underworld of Devils had been thinned drastically, which was the only reason why Julius found himself face to a Devil with the same powers as him. A rare and interesting opportunity... Julius couldn’t help but think about Asta. How did Asta even manage to get a Devil in his Grimoire? I guess it doesn’t matter now... I’m about to walk down that same path. The Devil was eager for a chance to enter the living world, and willing to let Julius use his powers to do whatever he wanted. Maybe the Devil could sense the malice to come.

But, this was potent, forbidden magic, the kind that required the sacrifice of someone’s life to complete. Luckily, there was a volunteer there, ready to do what it took to help his King.

“I wish I could see this to the end,” Marx told Julius, a smile on his face despite the fear that trembled through his hands. “Promise me you’ll make it back, and fulfill your dream... and try not to get so distracted so much! Seriously, without me there, it’s going to be much worse, isn’t it?”

Julius couldn’t help but laugh at those long-passed memories. “I promise, Marx... I’ll never take my eyes off my goal again.”

And so, Marx’s life ended, and Julius’s began once again.

“J-JULIUS?! What is the meaning of this?!”

To say that Augustus was surprised was an understatement. He stared in shock as the man he banished walked right towards him, in all his former glory. His Swallowtail mark was back, but it was red instead of blue. The bright look that always used to be in Julius’s eyes was gone, replaced with a dark purpose that scared Augustus. The King frantically waved his staff as Julius continued to approach without a word. “Guards! Stop him!”

Four guards ran at Julius, who didn’t even slow down. He just raised his hands, letting off two beams of blinding red light. Screams filled the room as the smoke cleared and there was absolutely no sign of the attackers.

Panic started to fill Augustus as Julius climbed up the stairs to his throne. Maybe it was his imagination, but he swore he could see a little smile on the man’s face. “Julius!!! I’ll kill you myself!” A giant, golden monarch of light rose up behind Augustus, brandishing it’s staff. Julius recognized it as the same spell that held him down when Augustus humiliated and banished him. He felt more angry now than even when Yami and William were kidnapped, but none of it showed on his face.

Augustus... this is the only time I’ve ever been happy to see you. The day I kill you.

He wanted to see the same fear that once plagued him on Augustus’s face, so Julius let his Devil out. From his Swallowtail mark, pitch-black magic pervaded his body, staining his hair and his skin down to his hands. Just as he intended, a look of pure fear covered Augustus’s face as Julius’s own Weg appeared, a sharp, dangerous onyx antler.

Goodbye, your majesty.

More screams filled the room, and Augustus’s Golden Monarch melted away. Julius let himself smile genuinely before turning back to the others. “You’re all from the Kira family, yes?” he asked, remembering how they all laughed at him. Maybe I can get a little more revenge today... but first... “Tell me... who’s the new Wizard King?”

“I am.”

Julius and everyone else turned to the side entrance to see none other than Fuegoleon Vermillion walk in. Hmm, I should have expected that. This might be tricky. “It’s good to see you again, Fuegoleon,” Julius told him with a little wave, not moving from his place up by the throne. “As you can see, I’m back, so would you be okay with waiting your turn a little while longer?”

Fuegoleon’s eyes darted down to the ground, where several scorch marks already stained the marble. “I can’t do that, sir... you just killed our King.”

“I know it must be shocking to see, but don’t pretend you wouldn’t do the same thing. Or,” Julius narrowed his eyes. “Maybe you wouldn’t... maybe you still think of him as family.”

“Family or not, as the Wizard King, I have the Kingdom’s best interest in mind. And right now...” Fuegoleon opened his Grimoire, flames already roaring to life around him. “I don’t think you’re included in those interests.”

“Ah, that’s a shame.” Julius’s smile faded. It was starting to look like he’ll have to kill another friend today. “Well, if you’re so quick to defend a man who deserved to die... I guess we have no choice. Thank you, Fuegoleon. I admire your virtue.”

...

...

“Julius! Julius-”

Yami and William ran to the Castle as soon as they heard the rumors. It can’t be true... Master William would never do such a thing, William thought to himself in a panic. 

That old man... so the moment he comes back, he takes everything out on the Kira family? But if the rumors are true, then also... 

Yami skidded to a stop, William running into him. They peered into the great hall to see the horrible sight. Smoke drifted through the air, the last remaining dregs of flame mana. Mixed in was a horrible, unnatural magic, but unfortunately magic that they recognized all too well. Members of the Kira family were scattered everywhere, but among all of them.

“No... Fuegoleon...” 

William ran to the body and fell to his knees. Yami felt numb as he followed. William felt for a pulse, but couldn’t find it. “So... it’s true. Master Julius is here, somewhere...” His eyes darkened. “We have to stop him.”

They caught up to Julius just as he was about to step out of the castle and reclaim his title. “Ah, you two... I’m glad you’re here-” Julius cut himself off when he saw that Yami and William were ready to attack, grimoires and sword at the ready. “I see... well, before you blindly attack me, why don’t you listen to my speech?”

“What are you going to tell them?” Yami growled, hiding his fear and confusion. “Make promises you can’t keep?”

“What do you mean? I’ve always kept my promises.” Julius’s smile faded a little. “And I made one recently... I promised to never take my eyes off my goal again.” He clenched his fist. “I won’t step down... not until I’ve brought peace and equality back into this kingdom. While there’s still discrimination, I can’t stop.”

“Listen to you...” Yami let his sword lower. “A regular people’s man... you, who’s never faced discrimination in your life. Don’t you think it’s time to hand your job to someone else? We weren’t going to let you get killed, we were trying to find you when you came back here. You did so much for this kingdom already. You should have just gone and found a peaceful life somewhere, instead of crawling back up here, committing murder, and whatever the other shit is you have planned.”

Julius’s smile was completely gone now, just a look of disappointment on his face. “Well... why don’t we see what they think?”

Julius knew that he was beloved by the kingdom. And he knew that love was very much still alive as he walked out to greet the crowd, cheers and cries of his name filling the air. Yami and William could do nothing but watch as he proclaimed himself King and, once again, Wizard King. The crowd ate it all up, this was what they wanted for so long, for Julius to just take the power for himself. They didn’t understand the cost at the time. “Together... we’ll dismantle the system that’s oppressed you for so long. The nobility must go... and that future is in your hands.”

Julius turned back to look at Yami and William as the crowd cheered once again. One read of his Ki, and Yami could tell. Julius had no intention of fighting them, or even defending himself. The message was clear: Yami... are you really going to strike down a beloved monarch in front of the people who love him? 

No... I can’t. Yami grit his teeth. Dammit, Julius...

Julius was filled with nothing but confidence. The confidence of a man with nothing to lose and the entire world to gain.

William stared at the ground, clenching his fists, as Julius came back to join them. “Well, I’m glad you two came around. Now-” Both of the younger men looked up as their friend, mentor, and now King took their hands with his usual smile on his face. But today, that gentleness was a lie. Maybe Julius truly believed in what he was doing, but Yami had a bad feeling that a storm was just around the corner. “Will you help me rebuild this kingdom in our image?”

OUR image? You mean... your image.

“...yes, sir.”

Yami followed him, unable to look into the eyes of anyone as one thought plagued his mind.

I didn’t want it to be like this...

[beerandpresentdanger]

Great Scots

Everyone in Edinburgh looks like a solicitor.

Something about the serious grey-black stone of the buildings, the weight of the masonry or the angle of the streets -  whatever it is, it seems to cast everyone in a suit and tie, smart glasses, a briefcase stuffed with case files and legal briefs.

It can’t be true, of course. Edinburgh is a bustling city, full of bus drivers, footballers, street sweepers and accountants - some solicitors, sure, but not nothing but solicitors. The solicitor thing is a mirage, a sense impression, a residual feeling that arises from the seriousness of the city - a city of statues and statutes, museums and monuments, colleges and kirkyards. There’s an elegance to Edinburgh, a certain refinement. Maybe that’s only shown off to tourists like me - Trainspotting would suggest that it’s not all Georgian architecture and Harry Potter tours - but there seems to a be a dignified streak that runs through the capital, as wide as the Royal Mile.

The Stockbridge Tavern

There are still pubs though. Some might have distilled the elegance of the city they inhabit, but lots are just pubs, a place beyond elegance, where what matters is proper patter - and beer of course. I had a couple of days in the city to try and explore some of city’s beer. For most of it I was accompanied by an energetic toddler, which did prove to be something of a spoiler. The first few places I tried to visit - on a sunspolied, taps aff Friday afternoon - didn’t allow children (I’m not writing this to complain - I understand why pubs may want to be child-free) so I had to skip a few spots through my compiled list of best places to drink in town. Thankfully, a place at the top of many lists - The Hanging Bat - was happy to let me stow a pushchair in the corner, and I was glad they did. A few choice lines of local cask ales and a DEYA tap takeover of the keg lines meant this was a fine place to spend some time. It’s cosier than your average modern beer bar, with deep red sofas and lots of wood - a nod to the city’s elegance, but filled with edgier delights.

Trekking back to the hotel, arcing around the city’s central cliffside, thrusting its castle aloft like Simba atop Pride Rock, I impulsively stopped at the Innis & Gunn taproom I passed. It’s been years since I drank their “barrel-aged” ale, though there was a time, pre-craft revolution, when I loved it. At the bar, I got drawn in by the tank-fresh lager, but I should have gone old school - the lager was bland, fizzy, freezing cold. I saw four-packs alongside Tennent’s in every supermarket, and I’d choose the Tennent’s every time (and indeed, I did). Still, they had high chairs, which I appreciated.

Fierce Beer Bar

A bit later, I was able to sample some places sans toddler, which gave me a slightly deeper appreciation for Edinburgh’s pubs. I got the range too, starting in the Stockbridge Tavern, a sunlit corner pub filled with a Friday night post-work crowd, a real mix of ages and genders and beverages crowded around well scrubbed tables and a bustling bar. I’d planned to drink local, but when I saw North’s Transmission on cask, a 6.9% west coast IPA, I couldn’t resist, and I didn’t regret my lack of impulse control. It was a proper “wow” pint, with huge citrus rolled around a subtle cask haze. I almost had a second, when I spotted a Cross Borders Heavy on keg, and knew I had to oblige - it was everything I expect a heavy to be, bristling with toffee apple brittleness.

I finished the evening with a quick visit to the newly opened Fierce Beer Bar in the New Town. A third of Barrel Aged Very Big Moose - 12.5% and wearing it well - was a lovely way to round out an evening, still warm and light enough to sit out past 9pm.

And so to Glasgow. It wasn’t until the train slunk through the city’s grey and rainy edgelands and the carriages began to fill up with men in green and white shirts that I realised it was a match day (Celtic and Hearts - plus a rugby game to boot), but luckily I hadn’t been planning to hit the pubs - or sit atop a traffic light getting cans lowered down to me. As it turned out, we couldn’t have gone out if we wanted - when we tried to walk into Shilling Brewing Co, we were met with another “no kids allowed” (as an aside - is Scotland particularly adverse to letting kids in drinking establishments, or is London the outlier in letting them in?)

The Wellpark Brewery from the Necropolis

For the first evening I sampled some supermarket staples instead, with a couple of Williams Bros beers. Joker, their IPA, was bland and unfocused - perhaps it had lost a little something on a warm shelf, perhaps it never had it. Caesar Augustus, their IPL, was a more intriguing affair, with a brash, grassy nose, and a pleasing floral flavour.

The next day, after wandering the coal-smoke scented galleries of the Kelvingrove museum, I popped into Grunting Growler (again, no kids allowed, except to watch me choose something from the fridge - Tempest Mexicake, a vat of red chilli flakes, powdery chocolate and moist sponge - to take away). In the end, it was BrewDog which was happy to host the whole family, and a pint of Zombie Cake, with it’s neat nutty nose, was a nice way to break the duck.

Scotland’s favourite beer

On the last day, we walked out to St Mungo’s Cathedral and the Necropolis, that glowering townscape of tombs that overpeers the beloved Wellpark Brewery, the source of every golden drop of Tennent’s. It was hard to imagine, on a rainswept day, watching the facility contribute its own clouds to the crowded sky, that the Necropolis didn’t have some strange relationship with the brewery; that the rain water didn’t flow down through the burial mounds and terraces, through the dark, stony earth, and into the deep, unseen spring that gave Wellpark its name, and impart something particular into the water - not just the minerals and nutrients and pH level, but a distinct spirit and character - the very atoms of William Motherwell and Archibald Douglas Monteath, Walter Macfarlane and Andrew McCall, all the authors and lawyers and engineers and explorers that made Glasgow and Scotland the engine of an Empire. They don’t put this stuff on the Tennent’s marketing copy, but maybe they should.

Nightmare of Cake

Escaping down the hill we took shelter in the Drygate Brewery, an offspring of Tennent’s and Williams Bros, focussed on modern beers alongside a good menu and comfortable taproom slash restaurant. It was an impressive set-up, and the beers stood up well for the most part. Crossing the Rubicon, an IPA, was an overly sweet candied mess, but the Seven Peaks session IPA was much better, dry, and with a peach-driven Mosaic character. But the real standout was my third “cake” beer of the weekend, Nightmare of Cake, a gloopy, unctuous mess of a beer, overstuffed with marshmallow and raspberry and milk chocolate and all things nice - “Made from chemicals by sick bastards” as the menu had it, and every ridiculous element from each corner of the periodic table only made it better.

Perhaps it had some dead Scottish solicitors in it too. The quest for pastry stout novelty continues.

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Americans might not recognize James Norton without his vicar’s collar. The British actor rose to prominence stateside for his portrayal of Sidney Chambers, a vicar turned amateur detective in 1950s Cambridgeshire on Grantchester on PBS (originally on ITV in the U.K.). Now on AMC’s new mini-series McMafia, Norton is trading in his cleric’s robes for designer business suits and a place on the wrong side of the law as Alex Godman, the son of a Russian crime family who finds himself dragged back into the family business when tragedy strikes. If you think it sounds an awful lot like The Godfather, only set in the present day and with Russian mobsters, you’d be right. Norton says he drew upon Michael Corleone and that epic series for inspiration throughout filming. But McMafia is also a lot more prescient for modern-day audiences, telling the tale of shadowy, corrupt global organizations that trade in blood money and influence driven by avarice and a lust for power. Produced by AMC and BBC, the series is based on Misha Glenny’s nonfiction book of the same name and created by Hossein Amini (Drive) and James Watkins (The Woman in Black). It also stars David Strathairn (The Bourne Ultimatum, Good Night, and Good Luck), Juliet Rylance (The Knick, Frances Ha),  and a wide-reaching international cast that includes Aleksey Serebryakov (The Method, Leviathan), and Mariya Shukshina (Yolki 3, Terrorist Ivanona).

Ahead of its Feb. 26 premiere on AMC (10 p.m.), EW called up Norton to get the rundown on playing the reluctant heir to a mafia family, why he’s fascinated by stories of the criminal underworld, and what it was like making a series that felt almost prophetic in light of recent world events.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You’ve done several lengthier mini-series, including War and Peace and Death Comes to Pemberley – what is it about mini-series that keep you coming back for more? JAMES NORTON: The U.K., in recent times, has really nailed that mini-series format. It wasn’t an active choice. There are quite a lot of those in this country, and there are some fantastic writers and directors of the mini-series. We’ve kind of nailed the medium. From the point of a view of an actor and a storyteller, it is wonderful to have six hours to really settle into that headspace and flex the muscles…[Co-creator] James [Watkins] was always saying we’re going to make an 8-hour movie. It’s wonderful to have six or eight hours because you’re so much more in control, and you have time to really indulge in those moments, which in the movies would probably end up on the cutting room floor…As an actor, I’ve never felt so confident. That’s a really empowering feeling when you feel you know someone so well you can put them in any situation you like and you know ostensibly how they would react.

What was it specifically about McMafia that drew you in? The world of the mafia is really compelling. We’re all into it and series like The Sopranos and The Godfather and things. There’s something about the modern-day mafia, which Misha Glenny’s book so clearly portrays as something very different, but it kind of maintains whatever it is — that compelling, anarchic nature. There’s a certain romance attached to the mafia in the past. What differentiated our story is that that romance is gone and it’s a very brutal, financial money-driven world, which lacks the honor and the sort of family which those previous portrayals have focused in on. I’ve never felt like a show has been so much on the zeitgeist. We were virtually on set and the [rumored] collusion between the White House and the Kremlin was breaking – we felt like we were on a show which was, in some ways, prophetic. So, that was a huge draw. As far as the character, he’s a gift — because he has this wonderful complex mix of conflict and contradiction. You never quite know where he stands. I don’t think he quite knows where he stands. He’s constantly explaining to himself that his motivation is honorable and worthy, and it’s all about family and protecting his family and his girlfriend who he loves. Of course, like the most interesting characters, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather or Walter White in Breaking Bad, there is a whole myriad of motivations, whilst the audience perhaps are more aware. Alex is kind of the last to realize he’s being seduced and he’s in it for other reasons — less worthy reasons of avarice, greed, [and] out for power, revenge. To have all those to play with and never quite land on an answer is the kind of role I love. It’s true to life. People never really fundamentally know themselves – they try and that’s what life is about, trying to know and understand yourself, but never quite getting there. Hossein and James wrote a beautiful, textured character in that regard. We never ever lost interest in his journey and his motivation. We would constantly spend lots of time on set mining where he is in the story, why he’s choosing this, how much he’s aware of his true motivation. When you are able to mine a character to that extent, it’s really a testament to how wonderfully written they are, and how much of a joy it is to play for sure.

This series has strong Godfather vibes with its tale of the son of a crime family trying to go straight and getting pulled back in because of family tragedy – was that something you actively discussed on set or that played a hand in your research? For sure. We definitely had our main resources. The John Williams book, Augustus, was also a resource which we talked about. James recommended it because it’s about a young man who very slyly and quietly and innocuously manipulates his way to the top of the pile. Michael Corleone was definitely a source, just because it has a similar-ish structure to The Godfather story and a bit like what I was alluding to before about motivation. What is it that’s driving Michael’s demise into the underworld of corruption? He’s constantly saying it’s “family, family, family,” but early on, somewhere in Part Two when he kills his brother, you realize it’s gone way beyond just protecting family because it’s come down to killing family. We definitely drew on him. And we had other resources — we had Gomorrah, the Italian [film], as far as the authenticity and grittiness of the mafia we wanted to portray. We wanted to show the cost of these incredibly lavish lifestyles, what it is which facilitates that type of lifestyle…Michael Corleone was definitely the most useful for tracking the conflict of the worthy, honorable motivations and the self-interested greed and avarice and power motivation. There’s no one else who does that journey better I don’t think. Perhaps Walter White is the next one, but both of them were certainly kind of the focus for us.

What do you make of the timing of this series, given the heightened presence of Russians and Russian crime in the news of late?   It’s been very, very exciting…What’s wonderful about a show like McMafia is it really has an incredibly real and intact social conscience. It really felt like it mattered. Since the conception of the show and then the making of it, the amount of conversation around corruption and transparency has exploded. The further we move into a populist, right world, which seems to be afflicting many, many countries right now, the power is taken away from the people and the government and put in the hands of the corporations. If you don’t have legislation in place to control those corporations, McMafia happens. Not only is it a sort of warning sign to people, saying “This is what corruption at this level will look like if we don’t make a real stand against it and lobby government, particularly in America and the U.K., to stand up against it,” it also gives them a chance to see what at this point in time that state-level corruption looks like. It’s really hard if you’re not in the world of finance to understand a lot of jargon. Yet, you want to, because you know how important it is. So sitting down and reading all the speculation about the collusion between Trump and Putin, you read articles about these types of things, and it’s quite hard to really engage and follow. What we’ve hopefully done is made a drama which is accessible. It allows people to have a little look behind the curtain to see what this kind of corruption looks like. A show like this, it couldn’t be more timely. It feels great to be part of the conversation. The more we can be a catalyst for that very, very important conversation about transparency and corruption the better.

Did you learn Russian for the role?   I didn’t learn Russian, per se. I only learned it phonetically…It’s quite challenging learning a language like that, which has very little crossover with the Western romantic languages. The sound is so different, so I had to spend a long time learning it by rote, phonetically, endless repetition. Lots of walking around London streets mumbling to myself. It was a wonderful part of the preparation to be able to express yourself in Russian and other languages. It really tapped into something important in Alex. His relationship with Russia is two-fold and very polarized. On the one hand, he’s compelled by it and that’s why he goes to Systema classes, which I did. I went and learned this very bizarre, Russian martial art, which is fascinating to get into the sort of inner psyche and what it is to be Russian. We decided he reads Dostoyevsky and he’s always compelled by his Russianness. But he’s also afraid of it because he feels like a lot of the world has this misconception that being Russian you have a predisposition towards corruption, which is absurd, but because of the world, currently, the word Russian and corruption are often used in the same sentence. Alex is afraid of his Russianness, and whether or not it’s that which is his vulnerability. Is it that which makes him more disposed to being a gangster in the first place? Is it in his Russian genes? So to tap into that was really exciting, and the language was definitely one way in.

How much research or interaction did you have with real members of organized crime? As far as meeting proper gangsters, we had Misha Glenny. He basically knows every gangster under the sun — he wrote the original piece of nonfiction, the book McMafia. He interviews masses of people in organized crime and so he introduced James and Hoss in the writers’ room to some pretty intense, shady characters. I did meet a couple in Zagreb — some interesting characters who I was later told were pretty high up in businesses which perhaps aren’t whiter than white. But I didn’t ask them any questions because my general gangster acumen was pretty shallow. I’m definitely still the actor, not the gangster.

The series is so international, from its exotic locales to its diverse cast. What was that experience like? It was such a joyous job to film, partly because we had so many different, international actors coming on set and they all had different energies and different approaches to the craft. It was a really, truly international gig, more so than anything else I’ve ever done and I’m not sure many other shows can claim to have been shot in 12 different countries, with 150 different actors in massively different countries. It was wonderful to have Merab Ninidze, who was the Georgian actor who played Vadim, and Aleksey Serebryakov, who was Russian, and their energies were so different, yet they were speaking Russian to each other. Then you had the Israelis and the Brits. It was magic in that effect. Most of it was filmed in Croatia, U.K., London, and then Serbia and a bit of Slovenia, but that was wonderful to be able to explore…The Dalmatian coast is just ridiculous. There were a couple of lunches I remember where it was beautiful sun; we were outside standing on a villa; and most of the crew sacked off lunch in order to take off their clothes and swim at the lunch break. A couple of times I was able to join them. It’s rare that you get such extraordinary locations to be able to jump in the water. It was so glamorous because we had yachts and beautiful villas. We filmed in one location in Croatia which was [authoritarian Yugoslavian leader Josip Broz] Tito’s old villa — lavish beyond lavish, quite dark because it was paid for with blood money and dirty money, but it was extraordinarily beautiful and again, how often do you spend shooting days jumping in the water and going for a swim outside this sensational villa in Croatia? It’s pretty special.

Additionally, it seemed like you often were shooting in places like the Victoria and Albert Museum or the British Museum – what was that experience like as a Brit? I’m a Londoner and I love this city, and to show London in all its glory really was wonderful. By definition when you show a tale of gangsters and very wealthy people you get to show their incredibly lavish lifestyle. As I said, we were very keen to show the other end of the spectrum and the cost of what it is to facilitate that kind of lifestyle. For every day in the V&A, we had other scenes that were, on the whole, more shocking scenes, but it was great to show London in all its glory.

[networkingdefinition]

Cities Quotes

Official Website: Cities Quotes

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• A city is a place where there is no need to wait for next week to get the answer to a question, to taste the food of any country, to find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to again. – Margaret Mead • A city must be a place where groups of women and men are seeking and developing the highest things they know. – Margaret Mead • A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one. – Aristotle • A great city is that which has the greatest men and women. – Walt Whitman • A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art. – Benjamin Disraeli • A large city cannot be experientially known; its life is too manifold for any individual to be able to participate in it. – Aldous Huxley • A portrait of the young Charlie Parker with a degree of vivid detail never before approached. . . [Kansas City Lightning is] a deft, virtuosic panorama of early jazz. . . This is a mind-opening, and mind-filling, book. – Tom Piazza • A suburb is an attempt to get out of reach of the city without having the city be out of reach. – Mason Cooley • A tranquil city of good laws, fine architecture, and clean streets is like a classroom of obedient dullards, or a field of gelded bulls – whereas a city of anarchy is a city of promise. – Mark Helprin • A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! – Charles Dickens • All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim. – Christopher Morley • All inquiry into antiquity, all curiosity respecting the Pyramids, the excavated cities, Stonehenge, the Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis,–is the desire to do away this wild, savage, and preposterous There and Then, and introduce in its place the Here and Now. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • All things atrocious and shameless flock from all parts to Rome. – Tacitus • America is a nation with no truly national city, no Paris, no Rome, no London, no city which is at once the social center, the political capital, and the financial hub. – C. Wright Mills • And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us. – Pablo Neruda • Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another. – Plato • As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means. – Albert Camus • As I criss-cross the city hurrying, I feel always the unchanging cold beneath the pavement. – Mason Cooley • As our boys and men are all expecting to be Presidents, so our girls and women must all hold themselves in readiness to preside inthe White House; and in no city in the world can honest industry be more at a discount than in this capital of the government of the people. – Jane Swisshelm

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Cit', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_cit').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_cit img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Buffalo is one of America’s great designed cities. The interweaving of great architecture, landscape architecture and important historic sites makes Buffalo a must see destination for preservationists, designers, history buffs, and anyone wishing to see an inspiring example of American design. – Richard Moe • But look what we have built … This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities. – Jane Jacobs • But look what we have built low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace. Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums. Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities. – Jane Jacobs • Chicago is an October sort of city even in spring. – Nelson Algren • Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It’s the most theatrically corrupt. – Studs Terkel • Chicago is the great American city, New York is one of the capitals of the world, and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic; San Francisco is a lady – Norman Mailer • Chicago is unique. It is the only completely corrupt city in America. – Charles Edward Merriam • Chicago seems a big city instead of merely a large place. – A. J. Liebling • Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse. One comfort we have – Cincinnati sounds worse. – Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. • Cities are 2% of the earths crust, but they are 50% of the worlds population. – Carlo Ratti • Cities are distinguished by the catastrophic forms they presuppose and which are a vital part of their essential charm. New York is King Kong, or the blackout, or vertical bombardment: Towering Inferno. Los Angeles is the horizontal fault, California breaking off and sliding into the Pacific: Earthquake. – Jean Baudrillard • Cities are obvious metaphors for life. We call roads arteries and so forth. – Geoffrey West • Cities are the abyss of the human species. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Cities give us collision. ‘Tis said, London and New York take the nonsense out of a man. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Cities have to realize that whatever the federal government is going to do, its not going to be enough. And cities that proactively take control of their own quality of life initiatives are going to be the cities that ultimately attract the highly talented young people and create the jobs. – Mick Cornett • Cities tolerate crazy people. Companies don’t. – Geoffrey West • Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night. – Rupert Brooke • City and country — each has its own beauty and its own pain. Some of the smallness of small towns — cattiness, everybody knowing everybody’s business — that can be challenging. And cities can be challenging, because no one can connect except electronically. – William P. Young • City life is millions of people being lonesome together. – Henry David Thoreau • City of prose and fantasy, of capitalist automation, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar. New York impressed me tremendously because, more than any other city, it is the fullest expression of our modern age. – Leon Trotsky • City of rest! – as it seems to our modern senses, – how is it possible that so busy, so pitiless and covetous a life as history shows us, should have gone to the making and the fashioning of Venice! – Mary Augusta Ward • City wits, country humorists. – Mason Cooley • Dinocrates did not leave the king, but followed him into Egypt. There Alexander, observing a harbor rendered safe by nature, an excellent center for trade, cornfields throughout all Egypt, and the great usefulness of the mighty river Nile, ordered him to build the city of Alexandria, named after the king. This was how Dinocrates, recommended only by his good looks and dignified carriage, came to be so famous. – Marcus Vitruvius Pollio • During my eleven years as a New York City public school teacher, I saw firsthand the impact that poverty has on the classroom. In low-income neighborhoods like Sunset Park, where I taught, students as young as five years old enter school affected by the stresses often created by poverty: domestic violence, drug abuse, gang activity. – Sal Albanese • Even cities have their graves! – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Eventually, I think Chicago will be the most beautiful great city left in the world. – Frank Lloyd Wright • Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and, in this, hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman. – John Berger • Every city is a living body. – Saint Augustine • Everything is real, except Beika City – Gosho Aoyama • Fields and trees are not willing to teach me anything; but this can be effected by men residing in the city. – Plato • First in violence, deepest in dirt, lawless, unlovely, ill-smelling, irreverent, new; an overgrown gawk of a – village, the “tough” among cities, a spectacle for the nation. – Lincoln Steffens • Great Homer’s birthplace seven rival cities claim, Too mighty such monopoly of Fame. – Thomas Seward • He [Caesar Augustus] found a city built of brick; he left it built of marble. [Lat., Urbem lateritiam accepit, mamoream relinquit.] – Suetonius • Hog butcher for the world, Tool maker, stacker of wheat, Player with railroads and the nation’s freight handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of big shoulders. – Carl Sandburg • How well does your experience of the sacred in nature enable you to cope more effectively with the problems of mankind when you come back to the city? – Willi Unsoeld • I am going to St. Petersburg, Florida, tomorrow. Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best they can. I’m sick of the job-it’s a thankless one and full of grief. I’ve been spending the best years of my life as a public benefactor. – Al Capone • I dreamed in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth; I dreamed that was the new City of Friends; Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest; It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city, And in all their looks and words. – Walt Whitman • I get out of the taxi and it’s probably the only city which in reality looks better than on the postcards, New York. – Milos Forman • I grew up in suburban New York City and London, England, where my dad was working. – J. C. Chandor • I have an affection for a great city. I feel safe in the neighborhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of the streets. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities contract not only an effeminacy of habit, but of thinking. – Oliver Goldsmith • I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all. – Michelangelo • I have struck a city – a real city – and they call it Chicago… I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages. – Rudyard Kipling • I know this year hasn’t gone as we’d all like it. But please, please, everyone do not forget about that 2013 season – the worst to first, the tragedy of the Boston Marathon, everyone rallying around the city, the finish line, the duck boats, everything, celebrating at home. Might be down a little bit in the win/loss column right now, but do not let that erase any of those memories from last year that I get to wear a ring on my finger for. I’m proud to be a Red Sox for those times. – Jonny Gomes • I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me: and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum of human cities torture. – Lord Byron • I personally object to the veil on aesthetic as well as other grounds; but I must admit that, for instance in the suburbs of American cities, I have often seen women attired more sloppily than our Persian women normally are. – Mohammed Reza Pahlavi • I really like Kansas City Royals stadium – Kauffman Stadium. – Bert Blyleven • I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. – Charles Dickens • I see less difference between a city and a swamp than formerly. – Henry David Thoreau • If a city has a 30% Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas. – Martin Luther King, Jr. • If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it’s found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don’t care, but they’re massively outnumbered by the people who do. – Andy Weir • If we tire of the saints, Shakspeare is our city of refuge. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city. – Charles Caleb Colton • I’m not defending what Cory Booker said. I’m saying I understand why he has to kiss the asses of the rich people on Wall Street, because there’s no other way to keep his city afloat. – Bill Maher • In a strange city, I connect through food and fantasy. – Mason Cooley • In the Big City a man will disappear with the suddenness and completeness of the flame of a candle that is blown out. – O. Henry • In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any person should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged to all who could behold it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • It is the city of mirrors, the city of mirages, at once solid and liquid, at once air and stone. – Erica Jong • It’s an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world – Oscar Wilde • It’s one of the most progressive cities in the world. Shooting is only a sideline. – Will Rogers • I’ve lived in London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, New York, and Turin. But New York is my favorite city. It has so much energy, so much toughness. – Lapo Elkann • I’ve never seen a tornado and I’ve lived in Oklahoma City basically my whole life. It’s not like we’re infested with them on a continual basis. But you learn to live with the warnings. And you learn what to do if one is coming your way. And then you cross your fingers and make the best judgments you can. – Mick Cornett • I’ve reported murders, scandals, marriages, premieres and national political conventions. I’ve been amused, intrigued, outraged, enthralled and exasperated by Chicago. And I’ve come to love this American giant, viewing it as the most misunderstood, most underrated city in the world. There is none other quite like my City of Big Shoulders. – Irv Kupcinet • I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and heart to get there. That’s how I saw it, and see it still. – Ronald Reagan • Just as language has no longer anything in common with the thing it names, so the movements of most of the people who live in cities have lost their connection with the earth; they hang, as it were, in the air, hover in all directions, and find no place where they can settle. – Rainer Maria Rilke • Kansas City Lightning succeeds as few biographies of jazz musicians have. . . This book is a magnificent achievement; I could hardly put it down. – Henry Louis Gates • Knowledge and power in the city; peace and decency in the country. – Mason Cooley • Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Life is a journey, not a home; a road, not a city of habitation; and the enjoyments and blessings we have are but little inns on the roadside of life, where we may be refreshed for a moment, that we may with new strength press on to the end – to the rest that remaineth for the people of God. – Horatius Bonar • Man is the end of nature; nothing so easily organizes itself in every part of the universe as he; no moss, no lichen is so easilyborn; and he takes along with him and puts out from himself the whole apparatus of society and condition extempore, as an army encamps in a desert, and where all was just now blowing sand, creates a white city in an hour, a government, a market, a place for feasting, for conversation, and for love. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Man’s course begins in a garden, but it ends in a city. – Alexander MacLaren • Marshes that are stagnant and have no outlets either by rivers or ditches, like the Pomptine marshes, merely putrefy as they stand, emitting heavy, unhealthy vapors. A case of a town built in such a spot was Old Salpia in Apulia … Year after year there was sickness, until finally the suffering inhabitants came with a public petition to Marcus Hostilius and got him to agree to seek and find them a proper place to which to remove their city. – Marcus Vitruvius Pollio • Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact. – Nicolas Chamfort • Most human beings have enough sense to know that if they work in a city that has a serious smog problem, it’s wise to either stay indoors or at least wear a mask that will filter out the poison. But cigarette smokers have their own little concentrated toxic smog pack that they don’t avoid. – Ray Comfort • Most inspiration still comes from bicycling around San Francisco. This city never fails to inspire me. It is one of the most vibrant cities – especially visually – with a constant influx of young energy arriving daily. I love it. – Barry McGee • Movement was the essence of Manhattan. It had always been so, and now its sense of flow, energy, openness, elasticity as Charles Dickens had called it, was headier than ever. Half the city’s skill and aspirations seemed to go into the propagation of motion. – Jan Morris • My first day in Chicago, September 4, 1983. I set foot in this city, and just walking down the street, it was like roots, like the motherland. I knew I belonged here. – Oprah Winfrey • New Orleans is a city of paradox. Sin, salvation, sex, sanctification, so intertwined yet so separate. – Harry Connick, Jr. • New York is full of abandoned churches. A Godless city, but full of superstitions on every subject–art, money, sex, food, health. – Mason Cooley • New York now leads the world’s great cities in the number of people around whom you shouldn’t make a sudden move. – David Letterman • New York… is a city of geometric heights, a petrified desert of grids and lattices, an inferno of greenish abstraction under a flat sky, a real Metropolis from which man is absent by his very accumulation. – Roland Barthes • No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning. – Cyril Connolly • No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • Not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all alike, boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities and towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school – John Amos Comenius • Not to find one’s way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance – nothing more. But to lose oneself in a city – as one loses oneself in a forest – that calls for a quite different schooling. Then, signboard and street names, passers-by, roofs, kiosks, or bars must speak to the wanderer like a cracking twig under his feet in the forest. – Walter Benjamin • One of the things is that the good intentions of Prohibition, from reading over the years and from becoming obsessed with the research of gangs in New York City, seems to have allowed crime figures at the time, like Luciano, Capone, Torrio and Rothstein, to organize to become more powerful, which pulled all the way through until the ’70s. – Martin Scorsese • One who is unassuming in dealing with people exhibits his arrogance all the more strongly in dealing with things (city, state, society, age, mankind). That is his revenge. – Friedrich Nietzsche • Our world is evolving without consideration, and the result is a loss of biodiversity, energy issues, congestion in cities. But geography, if used correctly, can be used to redesign sustainable and more livable cities. – Jack Dangermond • Overcome the Empyrean; hurl Heaven and Earth out of their places, That in the same calamity Brother and brother, friend and friend, Family and family, City and city may contend. – William Butler Yeats • Reclusive? The inner city will secure your privacy better than any desert cave. – Mason Cooley • Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans. – John Steinbeck • Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning. – Giotto di Bondone • Society’ in America means all the honest, kindly-mannered, pleasant- voiced women, and all the good, brave, unassuming men, between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Each of these has a free pass in every city and village, ‘good for this generation only,’ and it depends on each to make use of this pass or not as it may happen to suit his or her fancy. – Henry Adams • Suicide by carbon monoxide used to be done in the garage. Now, all you have to do is go to Mexico City and inhale. – Richard Bayan • That is the way to lay the city flat, To bring the roof to the foundation, And bury all, which yet distinctly ranges, In heaps and piles of ruin. – William Shakespeare • That’s great advertising when you can turn Chicago into a city you’d want to spend more than three hours in. – Jerry Della Femina • The bottom line is that we have entered an age when local communities need to invest in themselves. Federal and state dollars are becoming more and more scarce for American cities. Political and civic leaders in local communities need to make a compelling case for this investment. – Mick Cornett • The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born. When the forms exhaust their variety and come apart, the end of cities begins. – Italo Calvino • The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity. – Lewis Mumford • The cities drain the country of the best part of its population: the flower of the youth, of both sexes, goes into the towns, andthe country is cultivated by a so much inferior class. The land,–travel a whole day together,–looks poverty-stricken, and the buildings plain and poor. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • The cities of America are inexpressibly tedious. The Bostonians take their learning too sadly; culture with them is an accomplishment rather than an atmosphere; their Hub, as they call it, is the paradise of prigs. Chicago is a sort of monster-shop, full of bustles and bores. Political life at Washington is like political life in a suburban vestry. Baltimore is amusing for a week, but Philadelphia is dreadfully provincial; and though one can dine in New York one could not dwell there. – Oscar Wilde • The cities of the world are concentric, isomorphic, synchronic. Only one exists and you are always in the same one. It’s the effect of their permanent revolution, their intense circulation, their instantaneous magnetism. – Jean Baudrillard • The city an epitome of the social world. All the belts of civilization intersect along its avenues. It contains the products of every moral zone. It is cosmopolitan, not only in a national, but a spiritual sense. – Edwin Hubbel Chapin • The city as a center where, any day in any year, there may be a fresh encounter with a new talent, a keen mind or a gifted specialist-this is essential to the life of a country. To play this role in our lives a city must have a soul-a university, a great art or music school, a cathedral or a great mosque or temple, a great laboratory or scientific center, as well as the libraries and museums and galleries that bring past and present together. A city must be a place where groups of women and men are seeking and developing the highest things they know. – Margaret Mead • The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind. – Lewis Mumford • The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo. – Desmond Morris • The City is what they want it to be: thriftless, warm, scary and full of amiable strangers. No wonder they forget pebbly creeks and when they do not forget the sky completely think of it as a tiny piece of information about the time of day or night. – Toni Morrison • The conditions of city life may be made healthy, so far as the physical constitution is concerned; but there is connected with the business of the city so much competition, so much rivalry, so much necessity for industry, that I think it is a perpetual, chronic, wholesale violation of natural law. There are ten men that can succeed in the country, where there is one that can succeed in the city. – Henry Ward Beecher • The country is the place for children, and if not the country, a city small enough so that one can get out into the country. – Theodore Roosevelt • The first requisite to happiness is that a man be born in a famous city. – Euripides • The government burns down whole cities while the people are forbidden to light lamps. – Mao Zedong • The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman: if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world. – Walt Whitman • The human race will have no respite from evils until those who are really philosophers acquire political power or until, through some divine dispensation, those who rule and have political authority in the cities become real philosophers. – Plato • The last copy of the Chicago Daily News I picked up had three crime stories on its front page. But by comparison to the gaudy days, this is small-time stuff. Chicago is as full of crooks as a saw with teeth, but the era when they ruled the city is gone forever. – John Gunther • The life of our city is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects. We are enveloped and steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvelous; but we do not notice it. – Charles Baudelaire • The most delicate beauty in the mind of women is, and ever must be, an independence of artificial stimulants for content. It is not so with men. The links that bind men to capitals belong to the golden chain of civilization,–the chain which fastens all our destinies to the throne of Jove. And hence the larger proportion of men in whom genius is pre-eminent have preferred to live in cities, though some of them have bequeathed to us the loveliest pictures of the rural scenes in which they declined to dwell. – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton • The outline of the city became frantic in its effort to explain something that defied meaning. Power seemed to have outgrown its servitude and to have asserted its freedom. The cylinder had exploded, and thrown great masses of stone and steam against the sky. – Henry Adams • The people are the city. – William Shakespeare • The screech and mechanical uproar of the big city turns the citified head, fills citified ears – as the song of birds, wind in the trees, animal cries, or as the voices and songs of his loved ones once filled his heart. He is sidewalk-happy. – Frank Lloyd Wright • The smaller the town the more important the ball club was. But if you beat a bigger town they’d practically hand you the key to the city. Any if you lost a game by making an error in the ninth or something like that, well, the best thing to do was just pack your grip and hit the road, because they’d never let you forget it. – Smoky Joe Wood • The spoiled superstar brat wouldn’t get far in Oklahoma City. We’re very value-conscious. Our city was settled in a land run. Those 10,000 people were desperate for a better life. – Mick Cornett • The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extra human architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. – Federico Garcia Lorca • The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils. – Henry David Thoreau • There are almost no beautiful cities in America, though there are many beautiful parts of cities, and some sections that are glorious without being beautiful, like downtown Chicago. Cities are too big and too rich for beauty; they have outgrown themselves too many times. – Noel Perrin • There is a time of life somewhere between the sullen fugues of adolescence and the retrenchments of middle age when human nature becomes so absolutely absorbing one wants to be in the city constantly, even at the height of summer. – Edward Hoagland There’s nothing that builds up a toil-weary soul Like a day on a stream, Back on the banks of the old fishing hole Where a fellow can dream. There’s nothing so good for a man as to flee From the city and lie Full length in the shade of a whispering tree And gaze at the sky. . . . . It is good for the world that men hunger to go To the banks of a stream, And weary of sham and of pomp and of show They have somewhere to dream. For this life would be dreary and sordid and base Did they not now and then Seek refreshment and calm in God’s wide, open space And come back to be men. – Edgar Guest • This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are. – Plato • This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie Open unto the fields and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. – William Wordsworth • To look at the cross-section of any plan of a big city is to look at something like the section of a fibrous tumor. – Frank Lloyd Wright • To one who has been long in city pent, ’Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven, — to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament. – John Keats • Tower’d cities please us then, And the busy hum of men. – John Milton • Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents. – Italo Calvino • Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm. – John F. Kennedy • We are animals, born from the land with the other species. Since we’ve been living in cities, we’ve become more and more stupid, not smarter. What made us survive all these hundreds of thousands of years is our spirituality; the link to our land. – Sebastiao Salgado • We are in danger of making our cities places where business goes on but where life, in its real sense, is lost. – Hubert H. Humphrey • We can change the world one thought at a time, one child at a time, one family at a time, one community at a time, one city, one state and one country at a time. – Bryant H. McGill • We did such a great job of creating the interstate highway system in Oklahoma City that we don’t have traffic congestion. You can actually get a speeding ticket during rush hour in the city. That’s how great our traffic flows. – Mick Cornett • We do not look in great cities for our best morality. – Jane Austen • We form cities in order to enhance interaction, to facilitate growth, wealth creation, ideas, innovation, but in so doing, we create from – from a physicist’s viewpoint, entropy, meaning all of those bad things that we feel are engulfing us. – Geoffrey West • We had a branding problem. We have allowed ourselves to be branded by our tragedies. If you said ‘Oklahoma City,’ chances are the next word out of your mouth was ‘bombing.’ – Mick Cornett • We must have an America in which White men and women can live and work, in their homes and in the streets of our cities, without fear. – George Lincoln Rockwell • We thought of universities as the cathedrals of the modern world. In the middle ages, the cathedral was the center and symbol of the city. In the modern world, its place could be taken by the university. – Roger Revelle • We will neglect our cities to our peril, for in neglecting them we neglect the nation. – John F. Kennedy • We’re crazy about this city. Los Angeles? That’s just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger for the trip to San Francisco. – John Lennon • We’re here because we want to go to the Orient House. We’re here because this is our city. It’s an occupied city, I know. They have arms, they have weapons, they have police, they have mortar guns, but it is Palestinian and it is under occupation. – Hanan Ashrawi • What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness. – Joseph Brodsky • What is the city but the people? – William Shakespeare • Whatever events in progress shall disgust men with cities, and infuse into them the passion for country life, and country pleasures, will render a service to the whole face of this continent, and will further the most poetic of all the occupations of real life, the bringing out by art the native but hidden graces of the landscape. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • When the Spirit came to Moses, the plagues came upon Egypt, and he had power to destroy men’s lives; when the Spirit came upon Elijah, fire came down from heaven; when the Spirit came upon Gideon, no man could stand before him; and when it came upon Joshua, he moved around the city of Jericho and the whole city fell into his hands; but when the Spirit came upon the Son of Man, He gave His life; He healed the broken-hearted. – Dwight L. Moody • When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. – Thomas Jefferson • When you look at a city, it’s like reading the hopes, aspirations and pride of everyone who built it. – Hugh Newell Jacobsen • When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not. – Georgia O’Keeffe • White swan of cities slumbering in thy nest . . . White phantom city, whose untrodden streets Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting Shadows of the palaces and strips of sky. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Years ago, as I was beginning my professional career on Wall Street, I volunteered as a Big Brother in New York City. – Gerald Chertavian • You could not have evolved a complex system like a city or an organism – with an enormous number of components – without the emergence of laws that constrain their behavior in order for them to be resilient. – Geoffrey West • You gotta constantly purify yourself, living in the city, around human beings. There might be people close to you who affect you inside yourself in such a corrupt way that it screws with your ability to do what you do. But if you make sure that the people who are close you are good people who are there for you and love you, you can create your temple everywhere you go. – John Frusciante • Your city is remarkable not only for its beauty. It is also, of all the cities in the United States, the one whose name, the world over, conjures up the most visions and more than any other, incites one to dream. – Georges Pompidou • Your machinery is beautiful. Your society people have apologized to me for the envious ridicule with which your newspapers have referred to me. Your newspapers are comic but never amusing. Your Water Tower is a castellated monstrosity with pepperboxes stuck all over it. I am amazed that any people could so abuse Gothic art and make a structure not like a water tower but like a tower of a medieval castle. It should be torn down. It is a shame to spend so much money on buildings with such an unsatisfactory result. Your city looks positively dreary. – Oscar Wilde

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Cities Quotes

Official Website: Cities Quotes

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• A city is a place where there is no need to wait for next week to get the answer to a question, to taste the food of any country, to find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to again. – Margaret Mead • A city must be a place where groups of women and men are seeking and developing the highest things they know. – Margaret Mead • A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one. – Aristotle • A great city is that which has the greatest men and women. – Walt Whitman • A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art. – Benjamin Disraeli • A large city cannot be experientially known; its life is too manifold for any individual to be able to participate in it. – Aldous Huxley • A portrait of the young Charlie Parker with a degree of vivid detail never before approached. . . [Kansas City Lightning is] a deft, virtuosic panorama of early jazz. . . This is a mind-opening, and mind-filling, book. – Tom Piazza • A suburb is an attempt to get out of reach of the city without having the city be out of reach. – Mason Cooley • A tranquil city of good laws, fine architecture, and clean streets is like a classroom of obedient dullards, or a field of gelded bulls – whereas a city of anarchy is a city of promise. – Mark Helprin • A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! – Charles Dickens • All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim. – Christopher Morley • All inquiry into antiquity, all curiosity respecting the Pyramids, the excavated cities, Stonehenge, the Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis,–is the desire to do away this wild, savage, and preposterous There and Then, and introduce in its place the Here and Now. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • All things atrocious and shameless flock from all parts to Rome. – Tacitus • America is a nation with no truly national city, no Paris, no Rome, no London, no city which is at once the social center, the political capital, and the financial hub. – C. Wright Mills • And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us. – Pablo Neruda • Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another. – Plato • As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means. – Albert Camus • As I criss-cross the city hurrying, I feel always the unchanging cold beneath the pavement. – Mason Cooley • As our boys and men are all expecting to be Presidents, so our girls and women must all hold themselves in readiness to preside inthe White House; and in no city in the world can honest industry be more at a discount than in this capital of the government of the people. – Jane Swisshelm

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Cit', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_cit').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_cit img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Buffalo is one of America’s great designed cities. The interweaving of great architecture, landscape architecture and important historic sites makes Buffalo a must see destination for preservationists, designers, history buffs, and anyone wishing to see an inspiring example of American design. – Richard Moe • But look what we have built … This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities. – Jane Jacobs • But look what we have built low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace. Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums. Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities. – Jane Jacobs • Chicago is an October sort of city even in spring. – Nelson Algren • Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It’s the most theatrically corrupt. – Studs Terkel • Chicago is the great American city, New York is one of the capitals of the world, and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic; San Francisco is a lady – Norman Mailer • Chicago is unique. It is the only completely corrupt city in America. – Charles Edward Merriam • Chicago seems a big city instead of merely a large place. – A. J. Liebling • Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse. One comfort we have – Cincinnati sounds worse. – Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. • Cities are 2% of the earths crust, but they are 50% of the worlds population. – Carlo Ratti • Cities are distinguished by the catastrophic forms they presuppose and which are a vital part of their essential charm. New York is King Kong, or the blackout, or vertical bombardment: Towering Inferno. Los Angeles is the horizontal fault, California breaking off and sliding into the Pacific: Earthquake. – Jean Baudrillard • Cities are obvious metaphors for life. We call roads arteries and so forth. – Geoffrey West • Cities are the abyss of the human species. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Cities give us collision. ‘Tis said, London and New York take the nonsense out of a man. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Cities have to realize that whatever the federal government is going to do, its not going to be enough. And cities that proactively take control of their own quality of life initiatives are going to be the cities that ultimately attract the highly talented young people and create the jobs. – Mick Cornett • Cities tolerate crazy people. Companies don’t. – Geoffrey West • Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night. – Rupert Brooke • City and country — each has its own beauty and its own pain. Some of the smallness of small towns — cattiness, everybody knowing everybody’s business — that can be challenging. And cities can be challenging, because no one can connect except electronically. – William P. Young • City life is millions of people being lonesome together. – Henry David Thoreau • City of prose and fantasy, of capitalist automation, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar. New York impressed me tremendously because, more than any other city, it is the fullest expression of our modern age. – Leon Trotsky • City of rest! – as it seems to our modern senses, – how is it possible that so busy, so pitiless and covetous a life as history shows us, should have gone to the making and the fashioning of Venice! – Mary Augusta Ward • City wits, country humorists. – Mason Cooley • Dinocrates did not leave the king, but followed him into Egypt. There Alexander, observing a harbor rendered safe by nature, an excellent center for trade, cornfields throughout all Egypt, and the great usefulness of the mighty river Nile, ordered him to build the city of Alexandria, named after the king. This was how Dinocrates, recommended only by his good looks and dignified carriage, came to be so famous. – Marcus Vitruvius Pollio • During my eleven years as a New York City public school teacher, I saw firsthand the impact that poverty has on the classroom. In low-income neighborhoods like Sunset Park, where I taught, students as young as five years old enter school affected by the stresses often created by poverty: domestic violence, drug abuse, gang activity. – Sal Albanese • Even cities have their graves! – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Eventually, I think Chicago will be the most beautiful great city left in the world. – Frank Lloyd Wright • Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and, in this, hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman. – John Berger • Every city is a living body. – Saint Augustine • Everything is real, except Beika City – Gosho Aoyama • Fields and trees are not willing to teach me anything; but this can be effected by men residing in the city. – Plato • First in violence, deepest in dirt, lawless, unlovely, ill-smelling, irreverent, new; an overgrown gawk of a – village, the “tough” among cities, a spectacle for the nation. – Lincoln Steffens • Great Homer’s birthplace seven rival cities claim, Too mighty such monopoly of Fame. – Thomas Seward • He [Caesar Augustus] found a city built of brick; he left it built of marble. [Lat., Urbem lateritiam accepit, mamoream relinquit.] – Suetonius • Hog butcher for the world, Tool maker, stacker of wheat, Player with railroads and the nation’s freight handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of big shoulders. – Carl Sandburg • How well does your experience of the sacred in nature enable you to cope more effectively with the problems of mankind when you come back to the city? – Willi Unsoeld • I am going to St. Petersburg, Florida, tomorrow. Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best they can. I’m sick of the job-it’s a thankless one and full of grief. I’ve been spending the best years of my life as a public benefactor. – Al Capone • I dreamed in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth; I dreamed that was the new City of Friends; Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest; It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city, And in all their looks and words. – Walt Whitman • I get out of the taxi and it’s probably the only city which in reality looks better than on the postcards, New York. – Milos Forman • I grew up in suburban New York City and London, England, where my dad was working. – J. C. Chandor • I have an affection for a great city. I feel safe in the neighborhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of the streets. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities contract not only an effeminacy of habit, but of thinking. – Oliver Goldsmith • I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all. – Michelangelo • I have struck a city – a real city – and they call it Chicago… I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages. – Rudyard Kipling • I know this year hasn’t gone as we’d all like it. But please, please, everyone do not forget about that 2013 season – the worst to first, the tragedy of the Boston Marathon, everyone rallying around the city, the finish line, the duck boats, everything, celebrating at home. Might be down a little bit in the win/loss column right now, but do not let that erase any of those memories from last year that I get to wear a ring on my finger for. I’m proud to be a Red Sox for those times. – Jonny Gomes • I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me: and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum of human cities torture. – Lord Byron • I personally object to the veil on aesthetic as well as other grounds; but I must admit that, for instance in the suburbs of American cities, I have often seen women attired more sloppily than our Persian women normally are. – Mohammed Reza Pahlavi • I really like Kansas City Royals stadium – Kauffman Stadium. – Bert Blyleven • I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. – Charles Dickens • I see less difference between a city and a swamp than formerly. – Henry David Thoreau • If a city has a 30% Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas. – Martin Luther King, Jr. • If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it’s found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don’t care, but they’re massively outnumbered by the people who do. – Andy Weir • If we tire of the saints, Shakspeare is our city of refuge. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city. – Charles Caleb Colton • I’m not defending what Cory Booker said. I’m saying I understand why he has to kiss the asses of the rich people on Wall Street, because there’s no other way to keep his city afloat. – Bill Maher • In a strange city, I connect through food and fantasy. – Mason Cooley • In the Big City a man will disappear with the suddenness and completeness of the flame of a candle that is blown out. – O. Henry • In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any person should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged to all who could behold it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • It is the city of mirrors, the city of mirages, at once solid and liquid, at once air and stone. – Erica Jong • It’s an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world – Oscar Wilde • It’s one of the most progressive cities in the world. Shooting is only a sideline. – Will Rogers • I’ve lived in London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, New York, and Turin. But New York is my favorite city. It has so much energy, so much toughness. – Lapo Elkann • I’ve never seen a tornado and I’ve lived in Oklahoma City basically my whole life. It’s not like we’re infested with them on a continual basis. But you learn to live with the warnings. And you learn what to do if one is coming your way. And then you cross your fingers and make the best judgments you can. – Mick Cornett • I’ve reported murders, scandals, marriages, premieres and national political conventions. I’ve been amused, intrigued, outraged, enthralled and exasperated by Chicago. And I’ve come to love this American giant, viewing it as the most misunderstood, most underrated city in the world. There is none other quite like my City of Big Shoulders. – Irv Kupcinet • I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and heart to get there. That’s how I saw it, and see it still. – Ronald Reagan • Just as language has no longer anything in common with the thing it names, so the movements of most of the people who live in cities have lost their connection with the earth; they hang, as it were, in the air, hover in all directions, and find no place where they can settle. – Rainer Maria Rilke • Kansas City Lightning succeeds as few biographies of jazz musicians have. . . This book is a magnificent achievement; I could hardly put it down. – Henry Louis Gates • Knowledge and power in the city; peace and decency in the country. – Mason Cooley • Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Life is a journey, not a home; a road, not a city of habitation; and the enjoyments and blessings we have are but little inns on the roadside of life, where we may be refreshed for a moment, that we may with new strength press on to the end – to the rest that remaineth for the people of God. – Horatius Bonar • Man is the end of nature; nothing so easily organizes itself in every part of the universe as he; no moss, no lichen is so easilyborn; and he takes along with him and puts out from himself the whole apparatus of society and condition extempore, as an army encamps in a desert, and where all was just now blowing sand, creates a white city in an hour, a government, a market, a place for feasting, for conversation, and for love. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Man’s course begins in a garden, but it ends in a city. – Alexander MacLaren • Marshes that are stagnant and have no outlets either by rivers or ditches, like the Pomptine marshes, merely putrefy as they stand, emitting heavy, unhealthy vapors. A case of a town built in such a spot was Old Salpia in Apulia … Year after year there was sickness, until finally the suffering inhabitants came with a public petition to Marcus Hostilius and got him to agree to seek and find them a proper place to which to remove their city. – Marcus Vitruvius Pollio • Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact. – Nicolas Chamfort • Most human beings have enough sense to know that if they work in a city that has a serious smog problem, it’s wise to either stay indoors or at least wear a mask that will filter out the poison. But cigarette smokers have their own little concentrated toxic smog pack that they don’t avoid. – Ray Comfort • Most inspiration still comes from bicycling around San Francisco. This city never fails to inspire me. It is one of the most vibrant cities – especially visually – with a constant influx of young energy arriving daily. I love it. – Barry McGee • Movement was the essence of Manhattan. It had always been so, and now its sense of flow, energy, openness, elasticity as Charles Dickens had called it, was headier than ever. Half the city’s skill and aspirations seemed to go into the propagation of motion. – Jan Morris • My first day in Chicago, September 4, 1983. I set foot in this city, and just walking down the street, it was like roots, like the motherland. I knew I belonged here. – Oprah Winfrey • New Orleans is a city of paradox. Sin, salvation, sex, sanctification, so intertwined yet so separate. – Harry Connick, Jr. • New York is full of abandoned churches. A Godless city, but full of superstitions on every subject–art, money, sex, food, health. – Mason Cooley • New York now leads the world’s great cities in the number of people around whom you shouldn’t make a sudden move. – David Letterman • New York… is a city of geometric heights, a petrified desert of grids and lattices, an inferno of greenish abstraction under a flat sky, a real Metropolis from which man is absent by his very accumulation. – Roland Barthes • No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning. – Cyril Connolly • No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • Not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all alike, boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities and towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school – John Amos Comenius • Not to find one’s way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance – nothing more. But to lose oneself in a city – as one loses oneself in a forest – that calls for a quite different schooling. Then, signboard and street names, passers-by, roofs, kiosks, or bars must speak to the wanderer like a cracking twig under his feet in the forest. – Walter Benjamin • One of the things is that the good intentions of Prohibition, from reading over the years and from becoming obsessed with the research of gangs in New York City, seems to have allowed crime figures at the time, like Luciano, Capone, Torrio and Rothstein, to organize to become more powerful, which pulled all the way through until the ’70s. – Martin Scorsese • One who is unassuming in dealing with people exhibits his arrogance all the more strongly in dealing with things (city, state, society, age, mankind). That is his revenge. – Friedrich Nietzsche • Our world is evolving without consideration, and the result is a loss of biodiversity, energy issues, congestion in cities. But geography, if used correctly, can be used to redesign sustainable and more livable cities. – Jack Dangermond • Overcome the Empyrean; hurl Heaven and Earth out of their places, That in the same calamity Brother and brother, friend and friend, Family and family, City and city may contend. – William Butler Yeats • Reclusive? The inner city will secure your privacy better than any desert cave. – Mason Cooley • Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans. – John Steinbeck • Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning. – Giotto di Bondone • Society’ in America means all the honest, kindly-mannered, pleasant- voiced women, and all the good, brave, unassuming men, between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Each of these has a free pass in every city and village, ‘good for this generation only,’ and it depends on each to make use of this pass or not as it may happen to suit his or her fancy. – Henry Adams • Suicide by carbon monoxide used to be done in the garage. Now, all you have to do is go to Mexico City and inhale. – Richard Bayan • That is the way to lay the city flat, To bring the roof to the foundation, And bury all, which yet distinctly ranges, In heaps and piles of ruin. – William Shakespeare • That’s great advertising when you can turn Chicago into a city you’d want to spend more than three hours in. – Jerry Della Femina • The bottom line is that we have entered an age when local communities need to invest in themselves. Federal and state dollars are becoming more and more scarce for American cities. Political and civic leaders in local communities need to make a compelling case for this investment. – Mick Cornett • The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born. When the forms exhaust their variety and come apart, the end of cities begins. – Italo Calvino • The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity. – Lewis Mumford • The cities drain the country of the best part of its population: the flower of the youth, of both sexes, goes into the towns, andthe country is cultivated by a so much inferior class. The land,–travel a whole day together,–looks poverty-stricken, and the buildings plain and poor. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • The cities of America are inexpressibly tedious. The Bostonians take their learning too sadly; culture with them is an accomplishment rather than an atmosphere; their Hub, as they call it, is the paradise of prigs. Chicago is a sort of monster-shop, full of bustles and bores. Political life at Washington is like political life in a suburban vestry. Baltimore is amusing for a week, but Philadelphia is dreadfully provincial; and though one can dine in New York one could not dwell there. – Oscar Wilde • The cities of the world are concentric, isomorphic, synchronic. Only one exists and you are always in the same one. It’s the effect of their permanent revolution, their intense circulation, their instantaneous magnetism. – Jean Baudrillard • The city an epitome of the social world. All the belts of civilization intersect along its avenues. It contains the products of every moral zone. It is cosmopolitan, not only in a national, but a spiritual sense. – Edwin Hubbel Chapin • The city as a center where, any day in any year, there may be a fresh encounter with a new talent, a keen mind or a gifted specialist-this is essential to the life of a country. To play this role in our lives a city must have a soul-a university, a great art or music school, a cathedral or a great mosque or temple, a great laboratory or scientific center, as well as the libraries and museums and galleries that bring past and present together. A city must be a place where groups of women and men are seeking and developing the highest things they know. – Margaret Mead • The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind. – Lewis Mumford • The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo. – Desmond Morris • The City is what they want it to be: thriftless, warm, scary and full of amiable strangers. No wonder they forget pebbly creeks and when they do not forget the sky completely think of it as a tiny piece of information about the time of day or night. – Toni Morrison • The conditions of city life may be made healthy, so far as the physical constitution is concerned; but there is connected with the business of the city so much competition, so much rivalry, so much necessity for industry, that I think it is a perpetual, chronic, wholesale violation of natural law. There are ten men that can succeed in the country, where there is one that can succeed in the city. – Henry Ward Beecher • The country is the place for children, and if not the country, a city small enough so that one can get out into the country. – Theodore Roosevelt • The first requisite to happiness is that a man be born in a famous city. – Euripides • The government burns down whole cities while the people are forbidden to light lamps. – Mao Zedong • The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman: if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world. – Walt Whitman • The human race will have no respite from evils until those who are really philosophers acquire political power or until, through some divine dispensation, those who rule and have political authority in the cities become real philosophers. – Plato • The last copy of the Chicago Daily News I picked up had three crime stories on its front page. But by comparison to the gaudy days, this is small-time stuff. Chicago is as full of crooks as a saw with teeth, but the era when they ruled the city is gone forever. – John Gunther • The life of our city is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects. We are enveloped and steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvelous; but we do not notice it. – Charles Baudelaire • The most delicate beauty in the mind of women is, and ever must be, an independence of artificial stimulants for content. It is not so with men. The links that bind men to capitals belong to the golden chain of civilization,–the chain which fastens all our destinies to the throne of Jove. And hence the larger proportion of men in whom genius is pre-eminent have preferred to live in cities, though some of them have bequeathed to us the loveliest pictures of the rural scenes in which they declined to dwell. – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton • The outline of the city became frantic in its effort to explain something that defied meaning. Power seemed to have outgrown its servitude and to have asserted its freedom. The cylinder had exploded, and thrown great masses of stone and steam against the sky. – Henry Adams • The people are the city. – William Shakespeare • The screech and mechanical uproar of the big city turns the citified head, fills citified ears – as the song of birds, wind in the trees, animal cries, or as the voices and songs of his loved ones once filled his heart. He is sidewalk-happy. – Frank Lloyd Wright • The smaller the town the more important the ball club was. But if you beat a bigger town they’d practically hand you the key to the city. Any if you lost a game by making an error in the ninth or something like that, well, the best thing to do was just pack your grip and hit the road, because they’d never let you forget it. – Smoky Joe Wood • The spoiled superstar brat wouldn’t get far in Oklahoma City. We’re very value-conscious. Our city was settled in a land run. Those 10,000 people were desperate for a better life. – Mick Cornett • The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extra human architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. – Federico Garcia Lorca • The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils. – Henry David Thoreau • There are almost no beautiful cities in America, though there are many beautiful parts of cities, and some sections that are glorious without being beautiful, like downtown Chicago. Cities are too big and too rich for beauty; they have outgrown themselves too many times. – Noel Perrin • There is a time of life somewhere between the sullen fugues of adolescence and the retrenchments of middle age when human nature becomes so absolutely absorbing one wants to be in the city constantly, even at the height of summer. – Edward Hoagland There’s nothing that builds up a toil-weary soul Like a day on a stream, Back on the banks of the old fishing hole Where a fellow can dream. There’s nothing so good for a man as to flee From the city and lie Full length in the shade of a whispering tree And gaze at the sky. . . . . It is good for the world that men hunger to go To the banks of a stream, And weary of sham and of pomp and of show They have somewhere to dream. For this life would be dreary and sordid and base Did they not now and then Seek refreshment and calm in God’s wide, open space And come back to be men. – Edgar Guest • This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are. – Plato • This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie Open unto the fields and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. – William Wordsworth • To look at the cross-section of any plan of a big city is to look at something like the section of a fibrous tumor. – Frank Lloyd Wright • To one who has been long in city pent, ’Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven, — to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament. – John Keats • Tower’d cities please us then, And the busy hum of men. – John Milton • Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents. – Italo Calvino • Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm. – John F. Kennedy • We are animals, born from the land with the other species. Since we’ve been living in cities, we’ve become more and more stupid, not smarter. What made us survive all these hundreds of thousands of years is our spirituality; the link to our land. – Sebastiao Salgado • We are in danger of making our cities places where business goes on but where life, in its real sense, is lost. – Hubert H. Humphrey • We can change the world one thought at a time, one child at a time, one family at a time, one community at a time, one city, one state and one country at a time. – Bryant H. McGill • We did such a great job of creating the interstate highway system in Oklahoma City that we don’t have traffic congestion. You can actually get a speeding ticket during rush hour in the city. That’s how great our traffic flows. – Mick Cornett • We do not look in great cities for our best morality. – Jane Austen • We form cities in order to enhance interaction, to facilitate growth, wealth creation, ideas, innovation, but in so doing, we create from – from a physicist’s viewpoint, entropy, meaning all of those bad things that we feel are engulfing us. – Geoffrey West • We had a branding problem. We have allowed ourselves to be branded by our tragedies. If you said ‘Oklahoma City,’ chances are the next word out of your mouth was ‘bombing.’ – Mick Cornett • We must have an America in which White men and women can live and work, in their homes and in the streets of our cities, without fear. – George Lincoln Rockwell • We thought of universities as the cathedrals of the modern world. In the middle ages, the cathedral was the center and symbol of the city. In the modern world, its place could be taken by the university. – Roger Revelle • We will neglect our cities to our peril, for in neglecting them we neglect the nation. – John F. Kennedy • We’re crazy about this city. Los Angeles? That’s just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger for the trip to San Francisco. – John Lennon • We’re here because we want to go to the Orient House. We’re here because this is our city. It’s an occupied city, I know. They have arms, they have weapons, they have police, they have mortar guns, but it is Palestinian and it is under occupation. – Hanan Ashrawi • What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness. – Joseph Brodsky • What is the city but the people? – William Shakespeare • Whatever events in progress shall disgust men with cities, and infuse into them the passion for country life, and country pleasures, will render a service to the whole face of this continent, and will further the most poetic of all the occupations of real life, the bringing out by art the native but hidden graces of the landscape. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • When the Spirit came to Moses, the plagues came upon Egypt, and he had power to destroy men’s lives; when the Spirit came upon Elijah, fire came down from heaven; when the Spirit came upon Gideon, no man could stand before him; and when it came upon Joshua, he moved around the city of Jericho and the whole city fell into his hands; but when the Spirit came upon the Son of Man, He gave His life; He healed the broken-hearted. – Dwight L. Moody • When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. – Thomas Jefferson • When you look at a city, it’s like reading the hopes, aspirations and pride of everyone who built it. – Hugh Newell Jacobsen • When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not. – Georgia O’Keeffe • White swan of cities slumbering in thy nest . . . White phantom city, whose untrodden streets Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting Shadows of the palaces and strips of sky. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Years ago, as I was beginning my professional career on Wall Street, I volunteered as a Big Brother in New York City. – Gerald Chertavian • You could not have evolved a complex system like a city or an organism – with an enormous number of components – without the emergence of laws that constrain their behavior in order for them to be resilient. – Geoffrey West • You gotta constantly purify yourself, living in the city, around human beings. There might be people close to you who affect you inside yourself in such a corrupt way that it screws with your ability to do what you do. But if you make sure that the people who are close you are good people who are there for you and love you, you can create your temple everywhere you go. – John Frusciante • Your city is remarkable not only for its beauty. It is also, of all the cities in the United States, the one whose name, the world over, conjures up the most visions and more than any other, incites one to dream. – Georges Pompidou • Your machinery is beautiful. Your society people have apologized to me for the envious ridicule with which your newspapers have referred to me. Your newspapers are comic but never amusing. Your Water Tower is a castellated monstrosity with pepperboxes stuck all over it. I am amazed that any people could so abuse Gothic art and make a structure not like a water tower but like a tower of a medieval castle. It should be torn down. It is a shame to spend so much money on buildings with such an unsatisfactory result. Your city looks positively dreary. – Oscar Wilde

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

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jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

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jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[statebeggar70-blog]

The Rev. C. F. Frey House - 266 Bleecker Street

Charles Oakley was perhaps responsible for the erection of more houses and shops during the Greenwich Village building boom of the 1820's and '30's than anyone else.  A Village native, he was both an attorney and merchant; but it is his development of scores of middle-class structures for which he is remembered.

Around 1833 he completed a row of five houses on the west side of Bleecker Street between Morton and Leroy Streets, each with a shop on the ground floor.  (Four years earlier he had petitioned the Common Council of the City of New York to rename Herring Street to Bleecker Street.)

No. 250, like its identical neighbors, was three-and-a-half stories tall, including the store.  It was faced in Flemish bond red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  A single dormer pierced the roof, and a simple wooden fascia board ran below the cornice.

At least by 1841 the ground floor held the drugstore of Joseph M. Frey.  He lived upstairs with his father, Rev. Joseph Samuel C. F. Frey, a fascinating figure in religious history.  The men shared the upper floors with William S. Woodward, who ran the hardware store at No. 201 Greenwich Street.

Rev. C. F. Frey (he rarely used his two first names) was born on September 21, 1771 in Maynstockheim, Germany to strict Jewish parents.  He and his brothers were schooled at home by a tutor.  Frey later wrote "My mother herself narrowly watched us, and would never suffer us to read any book but in the Hebrew language, lest we should read any thing about the christian religion."  He added "Our tutor took every opportunity to impress us with prejudices and hatred against the christian religion."

But all the precautions fell short.  As a young adult Frey embraced Christianity, and convinced German ministers to give him instruction.  His arduous quest took him to Berlin, then to London, and finally, in 1816, New York City.  His purpose in coming to New York was to set up a branch of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews.  By the time he moved into the Bleecker Street house, he was a member of the Baptist Church of Christ on Mulberry Street, and the author of several books and treatises.

Of the five 1833 houses, three survive incredibly intact.  A floor has been added to No. 268 (right).

Frey arrived in his new country armed with a packet of letters of recommendation from clergymen in London.  He would need a position and funds, after all, if he were to establish the society.  Typical was the introductory letter fro David Bogue:

The Rev. C. F. Frey, of the seed of Abraham, was a student of the seminary at Gosport, upward of three years.  I believe him to be a true disciple of Christ; I consider him well qualified to teach the Hebrew tongue in any of the schools or colleges of the United States; and I cordially recommend him to the kindness and patronage of the friends of religion in America.

It is unclear how long Joseph Frey maintained his drugstore here.  His father left New York in 1843 to make a nine-month tour of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky on behalf of the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews.

The occupants of the upper floors had changed by 1846 when Jacob L. Dodge and James B. Dupignac lived here.  Dodge was a butcher with two shops, one at No. 32 Cornelia Street and the other at No. 236 Bleecker Street--both conveniently steps away from No. 250.  Dupignac was a publisher with offices at No 55 Reade Street.  In 1842 he was voted a Commissioner of Common Schools in the First School District, as well.

Dodge,too, was a well-rounded man whose interests went far beyond the butcher business.  In 1847 he was elected to the Board of Aldermen.  He additionally held at least two patents for "hats."  But it was politics, not pork chops or headwear, for which New Yorkers recognized Dodge's name.

In October 1854 he fired off an angry letter to the editor of The New York Times which read:

DEAR SIR:  Having noticed the publication of my name in several journals of this City, as being an independent candidate for the office of Commissioner of Streets and Lamps, I desire to inform the public through your valuable paper, that I am not a candidate for any office whatever; and, in conclusion, I most cheerfully recommend to the Whigs of the City and County of New-York, to cooperate with me in the support of the regular nominated candidate of the Democratic Whig party, Christian W. Schaffer, Esq. Dodge was correct that he was not a candidate for Commissioner of Streets and Lamps.  He appeared on the ticket for Commissioner of Repairs and Supplies.

In the meantime, Dodge had new neighbors upstairs at No. 250 by 1849.  Benjamin Herman, a painter, was also living here that year, as was Charles P. Lindley.  Lindley was a partner with Aaron Mundy in Lindley & Mundy, the drygoods store that now occupied the ground floor.  The proprietors' interests were philanthropic as well as commercial.  The store was listed as a supporter of the New-York Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor.

Lindley & Mundy made way for another dry goods store, J. & S. Langstadter, in 1850.  It was run by brothers Jacob and Samuel, both of whom lived upstairs.  Jacob was also a partner with Bernhard Langstadter in the J & B Langstadter store at No. 268 Bleecker Street.   The two stores do not seem to have competed with one another, J & S Langstadter being described as "drygoods," and J & B Langstadter as "hosiery."

Jacob L. Dodge does not appear in city directories as living here in 1859 when Bleecker Street was renumbered, giving the building the new address of No. 266.  The Langstadters were still here, along with Anne Hare, a widow, and her two grown sons, Frederick W. and George R. Hare, both clerks.  Whether he lived here or not, Dodge nevertheless purchased the building in 1862.

By 1865 Ernest Albrecth's "book and shoe store" occupied the ground floor.  That year, on March 15, one of the upstairs tenants, J. Spear, was drafted into the Union Army.

The continuous turnover in upper floor occupants continued.  Augustus and Guidia Stoppelkam anticipated a new member of the family in March 1867.  But infant mortality, especially among the working class, was high in the mid-19th century.  Tiny Charles A. Stoppelkam lived only briefly.  The infant died on April 7 and his funeral was held in his parents rooms here two days later.

The remainder of the century saw significant changes to Greenwich Village.  Poets, musicians and artists were drawn to its winding streets, creating Manhattan's Bohemia.  Bleecker Street became an even more important shopping street, filled by the end of the century with Italian bakeries, butcher shops and similar stores.

On August 28, 1921 The New York Herald reported that Mrs. G. Montante had purchased No. 266, which she "intends to alter and occupy."  It was most likely Montante who converted the upper floors into a single residence.

The upper portion, once home to several families, is now an inventively-designed duplex. photo via www.prestonny.com

In 1950 Books-By-Mail moved into the store, starting a long tradition of book sellers in the space.  After being at the corner of Bleecker and 11th Streets since 1984, Biography Bookshop moved to No. 266, changing its name to Bookbook.  The shop remains there.  In the meantime, the time-worn house still retains much of its appearance from a time when a renowned Jewish-born Christian evangelist lived here.

photographs by the author

Source: http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-rev-c-f-frey-house-266-bleecker.html

[christinaepilzauthor-blog]

Two ladies, two crowns - of Jeanne de Dammartin and Eleanor of Castile

by Anna Belfrage

Henry on his way to France

In 1234, Henry III of England was in his twenties and ready to wed. It was his obligation to marry a fertile wife, someone who would present him (and his kingdom) with a lusty, squalling heir. It was also his obligation to marry a woman who would bring other benefits, like a nice chunk of land or extremely valuable connections. It went without saying that a royal bride also had to be of high birth with a nice line-up of illustrious ancestors. After some consideration, Henry decided that the woman best placed to become his wife was a certain Jeanne de Dammartin. The lady came with various benefits, the principal one being that she stood to inherit not only the county of Ponthieu but also Aumale, thereby giving Henry III a foothold in Normandy and an opportunity to recoup on everything his father, King John had lost. Further to this, Jeanne also came with an impressive pedigree, being the granddaughter of the princess Alys, that unfortunate woman who was promised to Richard Lionheart as his wife, raised in England where she purportedly was seduced by her future father-in-law, Henry II, returned as soiled goods to France where her brother, King Philippe Augustus, hastily married her off to the much, much younger William of Ponthieu. Not that Henry III cared all that much about Alys' unhappy life: the important thing was that little Jeanne had Capet blood in her veins.

Jeanne's uncle on his way to his prison

On her father's side Jeanne was a Dammartin. Probably made Henry nod in approval, as the Dammartins had proved themselves to be loyal to the Angevin kings. So loyal, in fact, that after the Battle of Bouvines in 1214 (where Philippe Augustus crushed the English and their allies) Jeanne's uncle, Renaud de Dammartin had been dragged off to captivity, fated to spend the rest of his life chained to the wall. A harsh punishment meted out by Philippe Augusts who considered Renaud's decision to support the Angevin to be doubly treasonous: not only had Renaud sworn to serve Philippe Augustus, but he was also one of Philippe's oldest and best friends. Well, until Bouvines. Afterwards, that friendship was as dead as a rock. Renaud's brother (Jeanne's father), Simon, had fought with his brother at Bouvines. After the battle, he fled and spent a number of years in exile. His wife, Marie of Ponthieu, was left holding the can, so to say. Philippe Augustus had had it with the Dammartins, and when Simon's father-in-law passed away, he therefore denied Marie her inheritance, which seems rather unfair as Marie's father had fought for Philippe Augustus. Fortunately for Marie (and, indirectly, for Jeanne) Philippe died in 1223. His son proved easier to negotiate with, so Marie was recognised as countess of Ponthieu and after a further few years of negotiation, Simon was allowed to come back home. To show his goodwill, Simon made a promise that he would not marry off any of his daughters without the consent of the French king. As an aside, it is interesting to note that his daughters were all born in the 1220s when Simon officially was exiled. I'm guessing that old adage "distance makes the heart grow fonder" was valid for Simon and his Marie as well, ergo a certain willingness to take risks to meet and hold each other.

By the time Henry III decided to pay court to Jeanne, twenty years had passed since the Battle of Bouvines. So maybe Henry was hoping that bygones were bygones – or maybe he didn't know that the Dammartin daughters could not be wed without royal French consent. Whatever the case, negotiations started in secret in 1234. Simon and Marie were likely delighted at the idea that their eldest would become queen consort of England, their grandson a future king.

Queen Blanche

However, early in 1235 rumours about the proposed match reached Paris and the ears of Queen Blanche. This formidable lady was the widowed mother and regent of the young French king Louis IX and being a most conscientious and capable ruler, she wasted no time in informing Papa Simon that he could forget about marrying his daughter to Henry. The French king would not consent. Neither, it turned out, would the pope. Swayed by Blanche, he refused the dispensation Henry had asked for.

Eleanor of Provence

Henry soon found a new bride. I am sure Blanche was delighted by the fact that Henry chose to marry Eleanor of Provence as this meant the new English queen was also the sister of the future French queen, Marguerite. But Blanche had one remaining headache: she somehow had to compensate Jeanne de Dammartin for the lost opportunity of becoming a queen. Queen Blanche was Castilian by birth, daughter of Alfonso XIII and Eleanor of England. Eleanor was Henry III's aunt, so Blanche and Henry were cousins, albeit Henry was close to two decades younger than Blanche and thereby of an age with Blanche's precious son, Louis. He was also of an age with King Fernando of Castile, Blanche's nephew. (It all gets a bit complicated here: Fernando and Louis were first cousins, Henry was first cousins with both Blanche and Berenguela, Fernando's mother) In 1235, Fernando's first wife, Elizabeth of Hohenstaufen, known as Beatriz in Spain, died. By all accounts, Fernando and Beatriz had enjoyed a happy—and fruitful—marriage. Now, the Castilian kings had a bit of a reputation when it came to women, but as long as Fernando had been married to Beatriz, he'd shown little inclination to stray. This may have been because Fernando spent most of his life fighting the Moors, women and leisure being something he rarely had time for. His mother Berenguela decided it was better to be safe than sorry and started looking for a new wife for her son. Blanche was quick to suggest Jeanne and Berenguela approved.

Fernando

Instead of marrying an English king, Jeanne was now set to marry a Castilian king. Was she thrilled to bits? No idea. Rarely did anyone ask a young bride for her opinion in matters of dynastic importance, but I suspect the Dammartins weren't too happy with this new marriage for their eldest daughter. After all, Fernando's first wife had left him with at least nine surviving children of which seven were sons. It was therefore highly unlikely that any son of Jeanne's would become king. Also, Jeanne was of an age with her eldest stepson, Fernando being close to twenty years her senior. Whether she objected or not, in 1237 Jeanne and Fernando were wed in Burgos. In 1239 she gave birth to a son, Fernando, who would go on to become Count of Aumale. Some years later, she gave birth to a daughter, Leonor. Three more sons followed of which two died very young. In 1252, Jeanne became a widow, her dying husband entreating his eldest son and heir to treat his stepmother fairly and with kindness. Not much of that around, as Alfonso never warmed to Jeanne whom he found severely lacking compared to his own saintly mother. Even worse, Jeanne conspired with Alfonso's younger brother Enrique when this disgruntled gent threatened rebellion. There were even rumours that Jeanne and Enrique were lovers, but that should probably be treated as salacious gossip. Upon his deathbed, Fernando also commended the care of his younger children to his eldest son, and while Alfonso may have had issues with his stepmother, he seems to have genuinely cared for his half-siblings. Especially for Leonor. While Jeanne had been in Spain birthing babies, Henry and his Eleanor had been in England doing the same. Well, not Henry, obviously, but he was more than delighted when his eldest son, Edward, was born in 1239, interestingly enough at almost the same time as Jeanne's first boy was born. Some years down the line and Henry started looking for a bride for his son. As always, a royal marriage was a negotiating tool, and in this case Henry wanted to come to some sort of accord with Alfonso X of Spain, this related to a dispute involving Gascony going back to the wedding between Eleanor of England and Alfonso VIII.

Alfonso

In 1254, Henry and Alfonso reached an agreement over Gascony. According to the treaty, Henry's eldest son would marry Leonor (or Eleanor), at the time thirteen or so. Jeanne's opinion in the matter was never asked for. After all, Leonor was an Infanta of Castile and it was her royal brother, not her mother, who had the right to arrange her life as it suited him. Besides, by 1254 Jeanne was no longer in Castile, having returned to France with her eldest son. Late in 1254, Leonor married the recently knighted Prince Edward. They would go on to have a long and happy marriage, albeit marred by all those babies who died. Something of a full circle, one could say, the son of Henry marrying the daughter of Jeanne. While Leonor—oops, Eleanor—adapted to her new life, Jeanne was enjoying the relative freedom of being a widow with a steady income. As Countess of Ponthieu in her own right she had the wherewithal with which to spoil herself and others. Truth be told, Jeanne had quite the indulgent side to her, so she happily spent far more than her income. Soon enough, the title passed to her son, but this did not stop Jeanne's lavish spending and I am guessing her son was more than relieved when dear mama married again. Jeanne's eldest son died in 1265, the title of Count of Aumale passing to his young son. The title of Count of Ponthieu passed to Jeanne's second surviving son, Louis, but he too was destined to die relatively young and due to the customs of Ponthieu, his children could not inherit the title. Instead it reverted to Jeanne. Upon Jeanne's death in 1279, Ponthieu—and Jeanne's huge debts—passed to Eleanor (and Edward).  That piece of land which the French had been so determined to keep from the English king now became an English fief and would remain so until 1369. I wonder what Queen Blanche would have thought of that! All pictures in public domain and/or licensed under Wikimedia Creative Commons ~~~~~~~~~~~ Had Anna Belfrage been allowed to choose, she'd have become a professional time-traveller. As such a profession does not exist, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests, namely history and writing.

Presently, Anna is hard at work with The King's Greatest Enemy, a series set in the 1320s featuring Adam de Guirande, his wife Kit, and their adventures and misfortunes in connection with Roger Mortimer's rise to power. And yes, Edmund of Woodstock appears quite frequently. The first book, In The Shadow of the Storm was published in 2015, the second, Days of Sun and Glory, was published in July 2016, and the third, Under the Approaching Dark, was published in April 2017.

When Anna is not stuck in the 14th century, she's probably visiting in the 17th century, specifically with Alex(andra) and Matthew Graham, the protagonists of the acclaimed The Graham Saga. This is the story of two people who should never have met – not when she was born three centuries after him. The ninth book, There is Always a Tomorrow, was published in November 2017.

Hat Tip To: English Historical Fiction Authors

[cocacolacherryzero-blog]

Thoughts reading John Williams

Sometimes i worry about what i’ll be remembered for. Not in a literal sense though, just a passing thought, the way you miss a dead relative. What brings it up is a movie i just watched Dark Places, it was good. I enjoy the genre and i enjoyed the plot but what stood out to me was the mother being in such a desperate place that when presented with an absolute option she felt the need to accept it. I cant say that i am without bias and sentimentality here though as the movie took place in Kansas.

The current book I’m reading takes place in Kansas too, so far at least. It’s Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams. I read the back cover which was a mistake as it gave away the entire plot. However, after feeling angry at myself for reading that cover i realized i’m not reading Williams for the plot. Im reading Williams for the writing and the familiarity i will feel with his characters. The other books i’ve read of his are Augustus, Nothing but The Night, and Stoner. Of which Stoner was my favorite.

The novel, as i usually describe it to people who ask what my favorite book is, goes like this. It’s a book about a young man (Stoner) sent to college to learn agricultural work who soon falls in love with literature and goes on to simply live his life, but its not an exceptional life. A simple life with highs, lows, and regrets.

The problem with my synopsis is that i leave out one of the most memorable qualities of the book and what makes it resonate with me so much. Stoner’s parents who live a hard life off the land in Missouri, and who are very stoic but never read any Marcus Aurelius (I have never read him either). I seem to have a problem coming to grips with people living and working to actually LIVE. 

When i read these books and watch these movies i am reminded these people exist and are the 99.9% . It seems easy to forget with constant consumption from famous authors/directors/youtubers/thinkers that not everyone will “find their calling” and become perfectly happy.

Everywhere around us are the people who maybe haven’t become content with their reality, but have an inkling that this is all there is. I think of my grandmother still paying off credit cards with her 20 years at Wal-Mart pay and my grandfather still working at 66 worried that “if i stop there’s no going back”. My grandfather told me that the other day. On my 23rd birthday he sent me a picture of a piece of paper in his wallet with my time of birth and room number on it, said he’s had it in there since i was born.

The parents in Stoner remind me of my grandparents. It makes me feel prideful. But at the back of my mind even now i think “this is how they get you, this is how you get trapped being a wageslave, this is how you become a tool of the system, how you DON’T leave a mark” but isn’t having a family and continuing on leaving enough of a mark?

Of course i’d want to raise them (my children) to be smarter than me, to learn quicker and be able to apply that knowledge more broadly. I’d want to be remembered fondly, to be toasted on my birthday when i’m gone. But even if i’m not remembered my grandparents legacy will carry on with my children. Does it worry my grandfather that he may never see my children? I don’t think i’ve ever truly disappointed him in my life but if he dies not seeing children of mine will he wish he had? Will i wish that i’d settled down younger? Is this how i should measure the use of my time, in my grandfathers final years terms?

I think, if i’m being honest, that if i asked him these questions he would tell me to go at my own pace, and that whatever i do is the way it was meant to be done. He’ll probably tell me if i have kids at 35, “that’s the way i should’ve done it way back when, it’d been a whole lot easier.” and if the next day you asked him if he would change anything about his life he’d say, quickly as if he’d thought about it a lot before, “Nope, not a thing”

[chaoswillfallrpg]

ALECTO CARROW is TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD and a BARMAID at THE GRAVE AFFAIR in KNOCKTURN ALLEY. She looks remarkably like ABIGAIL COWEN and considers herself NEUTRAL. She is currently TAKEN.

→ OVERVIEW:

tw: death

An agent of chaos, Alecto Carrow is the kind of witch who likes to keep people guessing. The youngest of the Carrow twins by a few minutes, Alecto grew up shielded by her brother AMYCUS who took the brunt for a lot of their shared schemes. A mischievous child, Alecto was the bane of her mother’s existence. IRIS HOOKUM had married into the Carrow family with the best intentions, pouncing on EROS CARROW who had recently been bereaved. The only Carrow left as Dragon Pox had taken his family, his parents had made him promise to carry forth their family name and keep their line pure. Iris certainly took advantage of his grief and although she wasn’t his ideal choice she was the perfect Pure-Blood wife. Laughing  with the likes of DRUELLA BLACK and MARIE LESTRANGE, cutting off her family before her husband and throwing such splendid parties it would have been easy to mistake her for a member of the Twenty-Eight since birth. Only Alecto spoiled her mother’s aspirations. Alecto enjoyed doing things for shock value, which only worsened as her powers began to spiral out of control. When she was seven she watched as a cake floated across the room and landed on NARCISSA BLACK, spoiling her beautiful white dress which was stained cherry red from the garnishing. Arguments with her mother sometimes resulted in the chopping up of her favourite handmade spider silk gowns and Merlin bless anyone who tried to force her into a dress.

Unsuspecting victims were always the favourite target of Alecto, but poor house elves who would attempt to make her presentable were also unsafe from her fury. When it came to her father, Alecto often came out unscathed. A gleaming little grin on her porcelain features. Iris Carrow knew her daughter was the devil incarnate, but to Eros she could do no wrong, mostly because her brother often took ownership for her wickedness. As the slightly older twin, Amycus was always very happy to say he had dared his sister to do things or had held something over her head to behave the way she did. Iris knew he was only doing it to be kind to his sister but despite their mother’s protests Eros took his confession at face value and so Iris and Eros believed they had brought two very naughty children into the world who egged the other one on. They were not completely wrong. Although Alecto was often the instigator, Amycus was more than happy to go along with anything she proposed and did also suggest people to torment or new ideas for them to try. The main difference between Alecto and Amycus was a small but vital one. Alecto was a better liar and was sneaky enough to not get caught unless it was what she intended. Amycus loved her enough to take the hit and whilst she loved him deeply, Alecto Carrow would always love herself more than anyone else. At Hogwarts, Alecto’s chaotic ways followed her. She spent the majority of her time irritating others rather than actually focusing on her education.

Sorted into Slytherin she was the favourite of mischievous boys. WILLIAM GOYLE in particular was always happy to run away with her on her schemes, whist VICTOR YAXLEY was happy to involve himself in anything that involved targeting his sister ELEANOR. Despite making new friends, Amycus was still her best friend and the pair stuck together through thick and thin, sitting at the back of PROFESSOR BINNS’ classroom, chewing sweets and spitting them out at unsuspecting mudbloods, MEAGHAN MCCORMACK and ARASH MORADI. Out of all those she terrorised, TILDEN TOOTS was someone who intrigued Alecto. Tilden would always fight his own corner, hurling insults and hexes her way that gave her the biggest thrill. Alecto respected Tilden, though she would never admit it to him. Her targeting of him at school made her a number of enemies. SAOIRSE MACMILLAN, SYBILL TRELAWNEY, EVE DIGGORY, EDGAR BONES and AUGUSTUS ABBOTT made it their mission to spoil her fun, though Alecto didn’t let them get in the way all that much. Frequently in dentition, Alecto eft Hogwarts with very minimal qualifications and not a lot of prospects. Arriving back at her family home, Alecto was ready to enjoy the rest of her life as a socialite in London, causing trouble at large gatherings and living at Carrow House on the outskirts of South West London but Iris had other ideas. No sooner had the twins turned twenty-one and they were out into society with their mother working hard to procure them marriage contracts. 

Eros had little interest in interfering in the affairs of his wife and children, as long as they eventually came to marry into Pure-Blood families and ensured at least one of them had an heir to one day inherit their house he was completely uninterested. A carousel of people would come to Carrow House to attend events held there, all thrown in the hopes of attracting someone to take on Alecto. When she was all finished and dressed in her finery, Alecto Carrow was so beautiful that her flaming red hair and piercing green eyes could rival that of Narcissa’s widely discussed good looks. But finding someone to handle Alecto would be her mother’s biggest fear. With no sorcerer seemingly up to the task it was Iris instruction that Eros begin playing cards with other notable families, in the hopes of getting into the good books of someone who would hopefully not have heard of Alecto’s wickedness enough to consider her a potential daughter-in-law. With EELIS BLACK in attendance at the bequest of his wife with no interest in gambling away any of his hard earned money, he was quite quick to offer up his son CAIUS BURKE to Alecto’s father, having seen a photograph of her and knowing her last name were enough to please both his wife and son. Alecto’s mother was overjoyed. Alecto on the other hand was less than impressed. A very self-assured and independent witch, the fact she had been offered up to a boy without her say had bothered her immensely, but instead of arguing with her mother she decided to do things her way and drive Caius away herself.

To her surprise, Alecto found that Caius had as much self-confidence as she did, was a terrible flirt and was so intent on pleasing his mother he was willing to marry her despite her horrid personality. Except to Caius she wasn’t horrid at all, she was a mysterious challenge he wanted to figure out like the artefacts which sat in his family shop. The more Alecto tried to outwit him, the more he surprised her and somewhere along the way she began to feel some genuine attraction toward him. Suddenly becoming Alecto Burke didn’t seem like the worst idea in the world, she liked Caius far more than anyone else her mother had attempted to throw her together with, but just as she found a prospect she was pleased with fate pulled out the rug from under her. Eros’ gambling was the reason her marriage contract had been drawn up and it was the reason it was also ripped apart. It seemed her father had enjoyed gambling a little too much and had found himself in a considerable amount of debt and the deed to their home in the hands of CECCILY GREENGRASS Due to her fondness for gossip and a tip off to RITA SKEETER it soon became known the Carrow family were broke. Iris had no money from the Hookum family as a result of her cutting them off and their father had gambled away whatever else they had. Iris was outraged and Amycus and Alecto who had never worked a day in their lives were promptly turned out into London to attempt to find work with their pitiful grades and notoriety as purists.

The only people who would take any pity on them were ANDRESSA and CHRISTIANO PARKINSON who saw something in the twins they thought was worth nurturing. What Alecto lacked in ability as a witch she made up for in intellect, tact and manipulation. Alecto Carrow had a way of reading people, she knew what they wanted, what they liked and what to say to get people to part with information and with their money. Twirling her long red hair around her pale finger, Alecto is known to be able to get high profile people into The Grave Affair and set them on a course of ordering the most expensive things on the menu. When she gets bored, Alecto and her brother fill their time by pickpocketing easy targets, making bets with one another as to who can get the most money at the end of the evening they then tell the Parkinson twins they earned in tips. It was a simple life for two people who thought they’d be sipping champagne in paradise for the rest of their lives, but strangely Alecto was happy. There was only one thing bothering her, something she didn’t know she wanted until she was told by his mother she couldn’t have it. Caius Burke. Alecto has overheard it being talked about that Caius’ mother is set to marry him off to ADRASTEIA GREENGRASS who curates the menu and creates the cocktails for The Grave Affair and currently holds the deeds to her house. Intent on reinstating their family name, wealth and wiping Adrasteia off the face of the earth, Alecto is determined to ensure she is once again given her rightful place in society. Whatever it takes.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Blood Status → Pure-Blood

Pronouns → She/Her

Identification → Cis Female

Sexuality  → Up to Roleplayer

Relationship Status → Single

Previous Education →  Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Slytherin)

Societies → Pura Sorores

Family → Amycus Carrow (brother/best friend/colleague), Primrose Jorkins (estranged cousin), Daisy Hookum (estranged cousin), Poppy Hookum (estranged cousin/adversary)

Connections  → William Goyle (best friend), Victor Yaxley (close friend), Lucie Hollow (close friend), Persephone Wilkes (close friend), Beatrice Davies (close friend), Violet Bulstrode (friend), Eleanor Yaxley (friend/colleague), Narcissa Black (friend), Rabastan Lestrange (friend), Caius Burke (friend/object of interest), Andressa Parkinson (boss), Christiano Parkinson (boss), Adrasteia Greengrass (colleague/adversary), Cecily Greengrass (adversary), Rita Skeeter (adversary), Tilden Toots (adversary), Saoirse MacMillan (adversary), Augustus Abbott (adversary), Eve Diggory (adversary), Sybill Trelawney (adversary), Edgar Bones (adversary)

Future Information → Eventual Death Eater, Muggle Studies Teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

ALECTO CARROW IS A LEVEL 3 WITCH.