What started as vague curiosity about the game (I’d come across a flyer in a corner of the Wooglin’s bulletin that read, “Play Go Here! The oldest Chinese board game……. All welcome! Fridays 5-9 p.m.”) turned to intrigue when I’d shown up alone to find an eclectic group of men hunched over boards, 18-to-60-year-old versions of high school chess fanatics.
Imagine being the parent of a five-year-old with childhood leukemia. You feel as though the attention you pay to your son’s happiness is more important than your career, your hobbies, or your personal goals. You strive for a balance between carefully managing his health and granting him the freedom to roam and dream. Communicating to him and to others in your life the implications of his cancer—not to mention fielding the sentiment of pity that inevitably comes your way—is a daily task that requires bravery and patience. No matter how much you worry about him, your greatest hope is that he enjoys each new day as it comes.
By creating a town that obsesses over the death of a beautiful young girl, [Twin Peaks] writers Lynch and Frost perpetuate sexist notions of women in a society that preys on them. (Even the title “Twin Peaks” is an insensitive reference to female anatomy and has been used to name a knockoff Hooters restaurant.)
In 1976, a nurse named Karen Quigley walks into a hospital room in Charleston, South Carolina. Her patient is a 26-year old male with thick, bushy brows, blue-green eyes, a wide nose and a head of wavy dark hair. He has a herniated disc, and a pinched spinal nerve is sending sharp pain down his leg. He asks for something to read, so she loans him her pocket Bible. While reading, he has the urge to make marks in it. He asks his mother to buy him another copy, so as not to write in the nurse’s.
About a week later, he is discharged from the hospital, but still has extreme difficulty walking. He sets up a hospital bed in his duplex. His mother stays in town. He continues reading the Bible, and he remembers the nurse’s name.
