Activity

Sometimes it felt like everyone was speaking a different language—or the same language with radically different rules. There was no common lexicon. Instead, people used a sort of nonlanguage, which was neither beautiful nor especially efficient: a mash-up of business-speak with athletic and wartime…

“This company is going to be worth a gajillion dollars,” the account manager said, taking a bite of potato salad. “We’re ripping up and to the right. We have the best and the brightest. We’re on an immutable path toward success. We’re all just fucking ready to give whatever needs to be given to mak…

‘Are you all right now?’ she asked as we settled. ‘You look shattered.’

‘No I’m fine,’ I said. But I wasn’t.

I was shattered. I couldn’t get the fucking cummerbund off. Jesus, was that cummerbund ever a bad idea. Under the attendant’s mirthful sneer I had skipped and cursed and twisted. In th…

'Answer me something. Do you sort of set yourself a time to write every day? Or do you just write when you feel like it. Or what.’

He sighed and said, ‘You really want to know? . . . I get up at seven and write straight through till twelve. Twelve to one I read Russian poetry – in translation, a…

‘All the fish respond to the manoeuvres of the alpha fish,’ said Fielding, his valved face reflected in the glass. ‘That’s the alpha fish – there, with the black tail.’ He looked at his watch, and straightened. ‘Now today we cast the girl, the stripper.’

‘The dancer?’ I said. ‘What about Butch?’…