Sublime

the first story that, as he later put it, “rang his cherries” was Donald Barthelme’s “The Balloon.”

he wasn’t yet able to see Josie separately from the other humans, some of whom had angered him very much on account of their Pollution and inconsideration, and

bêtes noires).

Something huge and heavy and slow and far away and altogether unknown to him begins to say what it might mean. And then he proceeds to show her. . . .

Roy and the old couple, Harvey and Rita, were the only ones left. They brought Roy to New York when he was barely twenty-five and set him up running “errands” now and again for some heavy people in Brooklyn. As a rule, they didn’t trust him with anything too complicated, on account of they didn’t think Roy was all that bright. Outside of Albert, no

watch the romances and comedies of his mind projected onto his face,

epigram

In fact, it’s Douggie’s growing conviction that the greatest flaw of the species is its overwhelming tendency to mistake agreement for truth.