That was a quote from Joe Blitman in the comments.

I think I forgot to mention that. I wonder if it comes through in my posts, sometimes. Does it?

In general, volume is a good indication of enjoyment--or else bitter disgust. The deeper it moves me, the harder it thrusts me out of my chair to share it.

Enthralled tonight, start to finish.

Next week I'm setting up the VCR in the Chicago apartment, and putting it on "Save Until I Delete" back here on the Tivo. And a few more shows need to lose that status. Like the Gilmore Girls. I have not been able to go through with my promise to quit watching it--I gave it one last chance and it miraculously perked up a bit--but it mostly gets monitor-while-doing-other-activities status, or watch during quick snacks, but broken up into six to ten viewing chunks over several nights. The best shows all get straight-through status: start to finish, FFing through all the commercials, for full dramatic effect. The lesser shows can be cut up any way that's convenient. It's very much a lesser show now, just barely on the dave schedule at all.

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So what happened to the coup?

Who the hell knows. They're going to try again next week, but those coups that don't materialize when they first get the chance, they never seem to pull it off. It's always week after week of "next week we're really going to have to do something."

Maybe this band of freaks can be different. I'm just bitter they let my Pretty Ryan go before the got it together.

Maybe they thought Krista wasn't worth it. Terrified to bring down the wrath of Rupert without actually taking out Rupert. And they might be right. Lill sure would have caved. No way she would have survived out in the open against him.

So why didn't the fuckheads take him out when they had a chance in the immunity challenge?

Because they couldn't take him out as a group there. They had to stick their head out one by one, and Sandra was the only one with balls enough for even a token effort. He sneered, and nobody followed. (And every time I say that, I have to wonder if the dictator strategy is working for him, but I sincerely doubt it. He's got a long way to go, and he can't keep winning everything. They'll get their moment and his throat will be sliced.)

---

Now about those finals. I had this horrible image in my head tonight: If Lill Abner and Jon both join the same alliance, and everybody else kills each other off because they want to face the jury with a loser, what if we end up with a Jon/Lill final? Mass suicide? Worse, what if it comes down to Jon, Lill and Burton in the final three. I might even root for a Jon/Lill final, just so that arrogant bastard get what he's so sure should have been delivered on a silver platter.

---

By the way, the weekly recap is up on the CBS site now here, and Pretty Ryan Opray's full final words are up here. You can always get to the old ones and the new ones (recaps and final words) at my Survivor Pearl Islands page here.

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Well, my favorite is gone. (This is still Survivor time.) Pretty Ryan (aka Ryan Opray). Really came to adore that smile. Would take watching that over Burton's incredible body.

And my two favorite moments of the show came out of him. When he rolled his eyes clear back into his head when Lill Abner droned on about finding a new family . . . I watched that about eight times. Still laughing my ass off typing this in. And I loved the way he told that bitch Krista off with his vote. Especially coming from a guy that sweet, you know that bitch deserved it.

I also liked that he was the first Survivor in memory to react as the votes went against him. They all try to sit there stone-faced, like the Academy Awards, when the other person wins and you have to pretend you're happy for them. He just let it all out every vote announced agaisnt him. Love that. Loved his little speech about all the crap he was taking, how it gets to him. Just wanted to wrap that little boy up in my arms and take care of him. Seriously. I'd make a great husband for that boy.

Only bright spot, I finally get to see him in a fresh reality on The Early Show tomorrow. I'll be sure to have a full report on that boy.

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Worst possible moment for the show-your-hand immunity challenge. They had to come out and admit they were after Rupert. Moment of truth: show your hand--or just a little of it--or let the dictator live.

Weanies! They didn't even have to show their hand, all they had to do was throw an occasional one in his bin. They were terrified of him!

And you can see why. The menacing chastize he threw at Sandra when she had the nerve to drop one in. The intimidation campaign won this battle, but it's surely going to cost him the war. It's why they were after him in the first place. Even if their plans fall apart tonight and a new alliance doesn't rise up against him, they're never going to let him get to the finals. That man is doomed, and he's doing everything in his power to slap more paint on his target.

The most priceless moment so far tonight was the look Burton made when Rupert whipped his ass at the reward challenge. Just could not handle getting beaten by that fatass. Just galls him. And Rupert has no idea how badly it makes Burton want to crush him. It wasn't even when Burton was in the competition that he was most steamed, it was after he was eliminated, standing there on the sidelines watching Rupert collect his rightful glory.

(And Burton loses another challenge. Bet he never thought he'd have a chance to eat those "final" words the first time he got voted off, when he said:

There's no doubt in my mind that any Challenge, physical or mental, when it came to individual Immunity, I would have won hands-down. No doubt in my mind.

(The final words they show over the credits are an edited version. The full text is available on the CBS site here, and excerpts, with my take on the overwhelming arrogance of his disgraceful speech here.)

Now the question is (for me, as the Immunity Challenge concludes), will they pull off the coup and vote off Christa?

I sure hope so. I'm about 50/50 on believing it, but I'm going to say yes.

But if this coup doesn't come off, those little pansies have no one to blame but themselves. Especially Pretty Ryan and Tijuana. They must have figured the plot would fail and one of them was going, so they had to make sure the other was available for sacrifice.

Those two better not vote against each other. That would be really pathetic, if they lined up a coup and could have pulled it off, but one or both of them didn't trust it and screwed the group by voting against themselves. Didn't that exact scenario play out once before on a previous Survivor? They all run together.

---

And one other thing. Lill putting all those coconuts in Burton's bin: was that his plan to convince everyone no scheming went on over breakfast? Pretty slick, but how did he have time to give her the direction? Surely she didn't think of it all on her own. Maybe he gave her the general instruction to play up animosity toward him, and she actually took it up of her own initiative.

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Wow, they've got scheming going on all over the place. Never seen so many different alliances shifting around this late in the game. Almost never has the winning team not stuck together after the merge.

And a woman's alliance? It would be a first. I kept expecting it so many times in the previous seasons, they had so many good opportunities, but the men have stuck together before, but the women never do. Even when they started them out in all-gender teams. That was the season with the least loyalty to the original tribes, but the first switch incredibly early (after three castouts?) and they pretty much stuck to the second team, at least one group of them did, some of the other group (of men) stuck to the first and got hacked to death.

Very, very interesting.

Which way will Lill be pulled when two different alliances try to grab her? Will spill all the beans and expose all the plotting to everyone?

They should cast a borderline retarded person every season. No telling what that Martian is going to do.

(God, I'm going to get hammered for my treatment of her. I'm sorry, she just bugs me so bad. I know, I know, she's a nice person. I'm not saying she's not. It's just like watching an NFL game where an 80-pound twelve-year-old has suited up and taken on one of the positions. She's just in way out of her league. Or out of her species, or something. There I go again. Mean bastard.)

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I like it, I like it. When the time came, that boy finally stood up and grabbed for control. Good plan, too, and well-executed, so far. He sure seems to have convinced Burton. I sure hope it works.

And they sure make a striking pair, walking down the beach bare-chested and hairy.

Maybe Lill Abner can perform successfully in her self-appointed position of lemming. Is that woman retarded? Seriously, sort of--and what word are we supposed to use for that these days? She seems capable of basic motor functions, but she she really speaks like a 3-year-old kid or a mentally retarded person sometimes. Like when they arrived at the breakfast island, "Ohhhhh! Look at the flowers!"

I'm not trying to make fun of her, just trying to understand what we're dealing with, here. What's the IQ cutoff for retardation, 60 or 70? She seems like maybe ten points above that. Clearly out of the category, but not so far off.

She's a dangerous person to make an alliance with, I think, because she's so unpredictable. One minute all she wants is a hug and she's Rupert's little playtoy for life, two hours later Rupert's telling her three people are going to stick together to the end and must be split up--who? She's highly confused, Who are these people you're talking about? I'm so confused by the thundering masses of people on this island, there must be at least eight or nine of us. He clarifies the people. Then they must go!

The best head-shaker came when she headed for the breakfast island with Burton. "I'm anxious to talk more than eat. Cause I need to know what's going on." No clue whatsoever. She's not even playing this game, she's just along for the ride.

I'd be scared shitless to let her in on the plan more than five minutes before the vote. Tweny-five minutes into this episode, I'm wagering that if Rupert doesn't go home tonight, it's cause Lill Abner spilled the beans.

That woman is not to be trusted because there is so little there to trust. I would not want her on my alliance for long.

---

And on a Rupert note, that guy just seems determined to get himself voted out immediately. Why not just pick up the slingshot and knock all three out with three shots, and do it like you were born with a sling in your hand and could whip all their asses at anything they tried their hand at?

Does he ever think? He seems to be yet another Survivor befuddled into believing he can stay in the game by keeping them fed. What do they have left, 12 more days? Now that Osten's gone, every single person on that island would go without a single other meal if it meant winning the game. Who is he kidding?

So it appears it's in Burton's hands now, and Pretty Ryan's assuming Burton is on the level. And it mostly comes down to convincing Lill Abner, and keeping her mouth shut. I have my doubts about that trap.

Update: Had to come back for just one more Lill Abner Quote: "I have to believe this young man. And I am going to put everything that I have into what he wants me to do."

For 15 minutes.

It's not pathetic enough that she would say that. Watch how worthless she is at performing it. This one I'm taking bets on. She'll be around awhile, because everyone will convince themselves they're the one that can control her, and mark my words, she is going to bounce around all over the place.

Update 2: Wow, thirty seconds later, I finally got some respect for her. Burton's laying out the plan, and she stops him, "Now see I'm starting to lie, and I'm going to have a problem with that." (That quote might not be exact.)

I highly respect anyone who knows their limitations, and doesn't try to hide them. Impressive. And then Burton didn't get two words out of his mouth responding, and she cut him off again: "I know I know I know!" Huh. The lady can stick up for herself. She knows what she has to do, and at least she's going to warn you where she's going to fuck up, and then take no shit about it.

But watch her fuck up.

(And I am thinking Rupert probably wins immunity. I just can't believe he would get kicked off after the previews suggested it and the whole show seems to be heading that way.)

Update: 

Favorite Lill comment from the comments thread--from Joe Blitman:

And although I love Lill sometimes, her scouts-tell-the-truth hand-wringing ("spoon-feed me the serpentine plot points, Ryan baby - spoon feed me") makes me think she would have blurted out to that young Nazi in The Sound of Music" that the Von Trapps went that-a-way, up into the mountains.

Exactly! Thank you. Giving up the Von Trapp family, that was just the image I was searching for. Or Ann Frank to the Nazis--"Check the attic! Check the attic!"--Dorothy to the wicked witch of the West . . . take your pick, she's your girl.

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God, thirty seconds watching L'ill Abner, aka Lill Morris, and I take back everything I said about a Burton/Lill master plan. That woman is so fucking stupid. OK, OK, not stupid, just simple.

How could I forget. I can only imagine the fun those little weeblos have with that poor little lady from Mars.

Burton, I'm sure, is chock full of schemes. But she wouldn't even be able to follow them.

Actually, I didn't even need thirty seconds. Just the clips from last week was all it took. Sorry, I missed last week. And I drifted right off to dreamland.

So Pretty Ryan it is tonight? I sure hope not. Love that guy, and not just to look at.

And speaking of looking, man Burton is looking fine. Redhot before, but down to his fighting trim. Yow. Can't take my eyes off him. It's going to be painful, first time he acts like a total prick. How long can that be?

OK, thirty seconds down, 3570 to go. So exciting just hearing the music again this week. Sure do love this show.

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Couldn't help it, stuck at work. Starting now, reactions soon.

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Historically--if I can use that word for a TV show, and you bet your ass I will--tonight should be the easiest prediction of the season. One team always grabs control on the first merge vote--if they didn't already have it--always votes off the losing team's strongest player and/or leader, then boots the runnerup to that position the following week. That would probably mean Pretty Ryan. (Or outside chance Tijuana.)

Normally it's one-two-three for the rest of the losing team. Occasionally, there's a little intra-alliance rivalry and one of the insiders gets dumped before all the losers, and occasionally someone like that bitch from hell Jerri, is so despicable they can't bear to have her around one day longer, and boot her off before all the losers are gone. But they never, ever do that the first week after the merge. They wait until they consolidate their position just a little before they start getting cocky.

But the two outcasts do present a few wrinkles, don't they?

I missed last week's ep, and who knows if Mark Burnett would have revealed it, but what if Lill was more angry and Andrew Savage personally than her entire old tribe collectively. What if she and Burton had a little alliance to each avenge themselves by voting off Andrew and then Rupert?

Maybe it's farfetched, but presumably the outcasts had time alone together to plot and scheme. If they did that, the game would then be back to a four-four tie between the old teams with the two of them are right back in the swing position. Both teams would need to lure the two of them to stay alive. And they would be two votes closer to victory. If the two had a pact--and they would be smart to work together regardless--they would make up two out of five a of a new alliance, instead of two out of six. Just one vote shy of a majority--a far cry from where they started.

Plus, they would be rid of the two most powerful players in the game.

God, the more I think about this, the more crazy they would be not to. They get to avenge themselves and advance significantly in the game to boot.

But the players never seem to follow the little schemes I have concocted for them. So I'm predicting they go the historical route and knock off Pretty Ryan.

Plus, the previews look like Rupert is in danger, so that means he must not be. This week. I think that guy is leaving here pretty soon--before the final three or four, at least--but this week is a minor long shot. I'd peg it at 30%. Higher if the previews hadn't suggested it.

What do you guys think?

We'll use this as the Survivor Comment Thread all week.

Post away.

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Anderson.

Someone on the Warren Zevon lyrics site just brought up this line: "I never liked the way he cut your hair." Apparently the last straw before he dumped her, when everything about the person you thought you were so wild about suddenly seems defiled.

Don't know the song, and don't can't say I love the line out of context, but it dredged up a Laurie Anderson fave I hadn't heard of in years.

Starts out, "I no longer love your mouth. I no longer love your eyes. . . " works her way down to no longer loving the color of your sweaters, and finally, "I longer love the way you hold your pans and pencils." 
 
Funniest lines ever, or easily in the running.

Full lyric:

Sweaters (from Big Science)

I no longer love your mouth. i no longer love your eyes. i no longer love your eyes. i no longer love the color of your sweaters. i no longer love it. i no longer love the color of your sweaters.

i longer love the way you hold your pans and pencils. i no longer love it. your mouth. your eyes. the way you hold your pens and pencils. i no longer love it. i no longer love it.

Lengthy piece by Joanna Weiss in today's Boston Globe:

Late entry, strong start, long haul

Clark searching for momentum

It's thoughtful, insightful and nicely balanced. The good news for Wes Clark:

Events of the past week present an opportunity for Clark. As Dean consolidates support, his opponents within the party leadership might be moved to settle on an alternative they deem more electable. And as Senator John F. Kerry's campaign struggles to find a footing, Clark, with his southern roots and foreign policy background, could be in a position to fill that role.

Yup. That's definitely his opening. And that's why I've been so gleeful about Kerry's fade. I'm a big Howard Dean supporter as you probably noticed by now, but the guy needs to be tested, needs to be toughened up as much as possible. The last year and a half of campaigning have made him so much stronger than he started out, but he's going to need all he can get going up against Karl Rove.

And I love Wesley Clark, too, and I'd like to see the two go head to head, and may the strongest challenger win. All those other guys I've had a look at: they're way too weak to take on an incumbent. So let's duke it out boys, let's get those dwarves out of the way so Dean and Clark can mix it up one on one.

Back to the Globe piece: Nice capsule of the current strategy, which you're probably aware of:

Aides hope to finish third or a close fourth in New Hampshire, where they will start running their first television ads within weeks. But they see their make-or-break day a week later, on Feb. 3, when seven states will hold primaries. Some of Clark's staffers are dispersing to the states he mentioned, hoping to establish him as an alternative to Dean, whose Yankee demeanor could play poorly in the South and West.

The problem with the strategy:

But some political analysts say the Feb. 3 strategy is a gamble, because the primary process relies on momentum: Strong finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire could propel Dean toward success down the line.

The real challenge:

The rigors of a three-decade Army career might color Clark's public persona, as well. He's no firebrand on the stump. His debate performances have been cautious. By nature, he is inclined to long answers instead of digestible soundbites. Aides have dubbed his town hall meetings "Conversations with Clark," but they can be one-sided; at a Georgia event last week, Clark talked for so long that there was time for only two questions from the audience.

And some Clark supporters say they ache to see more personality and humor in Clark's earnest public appearances.

"I just think he's so cerebral that it's hard for him," said Ostroy, the Manhattan supporter. "Sometimes people like that, they never turn it off. They're always being that bright guy, and they never just get down and dirty and yuk it up. . . . You just want to put your arm around him and say, `Wesley! Lighten up, dude!' "

That's what it's all about. All the damn beltway boys always get so damn bogged down in the process. All that takes care of itself if somebody really sparks the public imaginaton. Or it can.

Perhaps the most irritating man in all of journalism--worst because he's the media apologist masquerading as the watchdog--has another ridiculous column today.

Though it's unlikely he wrote the head or subhead, they sum up his thesis well:

Howard Dean's Media Landslide
Pundits Call a Winner, a Bit Prematurely

Yet he cites quote after quote supposedly documenting the media prematurely calling Dean the winner, but when you read them, not one says the race is decided yet, and every single example is a pretty fair assessment of the current state of the race:

If he wins the Iowa caucuses," Al Hunt declared on CNN's "Capital Gang, he may indeed be unstoppable."

Brit Hume on "Fox News Sunday": "You look at the field, you can't figure out who can beat him."

Washington Times Editorial Page Editor Tony Blankley, on CNN's "Crossfire": "I think he's going to win, because he's too smart for them."

Carl Quintanilla, "NBC Nightly News": "The man to beat as New Hampshire approaches."

Those are the most over the top quotes? Especially that last one. He's got a double-digit lead in New Hampshire: who the hell is would be the one to beat there?

Is he just trying to be contrarian? It has taken the beltway boys months and months and months to gradually wake up to the Dean phenom, and some of them are still way behind the curve, but this is just too much.

Howie Kurtz, biggest beltway boy of all. Isn't his job to be the opposite?

Yeaaaaa!!!

Justice comes slowly, sometimes, but it does come.

Sort of a judicial coup in Alabama this morning. If I read the story correctly, the eight junior members of the state supreme court kicked out their sort-of boss, the chief justice. That would be the dick who disobeyed the federal courts and the constitution to keep that stupid Ten Commandments monument in the state courthouse rotunda.

Some people just can't separate a healty belief in God from imposition of their own God.

For me.

God, I've been in withdrawl. Never missed an episode before, but joe2, aka lumberjackjoe has kindly offered to send a tape.

Can't wait to see it again, though. And to experience the brain squeeze of the cognitive dissonance of admiring Burton's luscious . . . everything . . . while despising his blackened soul.

More in a few hours on predictions for tonight, and I'll create an open thread soon for your comments.

Eight hours to go.

And I will be on-time, and I will blog my way through it. Promise.

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Well I got started on Warren, and God knows I can't let go.

Just found this wonderful thread on the official Warren Zevon site where people are sharing their favorite Warren lyrics. Some of the most memorable lines of my life.

And as luck would have it, Jean Genet led me to Nabokov, which led me to check out my little Nabokov page to see what I had quoted from him there, and that landed me back on that wonderful Shakespeare passage I transcribed a few months ago (. . . Would through the airy region stream so bright / That birds would sing and think it were not night.), that got me thinking about that boy I broke up with this spring, and of course all the tragic Warren Zevon songs are running through my head, cause did he write any other kind?

Still waking up in the mornings with shaking hands
And I'm trying to find a girl who understands me
But except in dreams you're never really free
Don't the sun look angry at me

That was my favorite song of his, Desperados under the Eaves. Don't the sun look angry at me.

But here's the one really stuck in my head at the moment. I've been wrestling with it for weeks, interweaving the lyrics with some other song, couldn't find a solid way in.

But then somebody on the Zevon site posted half a verse and it all came back. And then I looked it op on the web, and here's the whole thing. (Try picturing Linda Ronstandt singing the Descant in the most angelic voice she ever summoned, while he lamets throwing down diamonds in the sand over and over again.)

Empty-Handed Heart

All these empty places
I try so hard to fill
Will I find another love?
I pray to God I will
Girl, we had some good times
But time does not stand still
It's rolling like a rockslide down a hill

I've met someone I care for
I know she cares for me
Will I fall in love again?
It's a possibility
Girl, we had some good times
That time cannot undo
No one will ever take the place of you

Heart jinxed condition
Never sure how I feel
Trying to separate the real thing
From the wishful thinking
Sometimes I wonder
If I'll make it without you
I'm determined to
I'll make my stand
And if after all is said and done
You only find one special one
Then I've thrown down diamonds in the sand
Then I've thrown down diamonds in the sand
Then I've thrown down diamonds in the sand
Then I've thrown down diamonds in the sand

Descant:
Remember when we used to watch the sun set in the sea
You said you'd always be in love with me
All through the night, we danced and sang
Made love in the morning while the church bells rang

Leave the fire behind you and start
I'll be playing it by ear
Left here with an empty-handed heart

___

So hard to pick out my favorites from this guy's career. Sometimes I love Warren cause he takes me places I've never been, sometimes I love him for taking me right where I spend my whole life.  "Trying to separate the real thing from the wishful thinking?" Me too, buddy. Me too.

Not the last words he uttered, or even the last words I heard from him, but definitely the last ones that mattered. I finally watched the second half of the tragic VH1 "Inside Out" special on Warren Zevon getting his death sentence from his oncologist and rushing into the studio to make one last album.

I watched the first half the night it aired, and sobbed uncontrollably every two to three minutes. They chose all the right songs to play in the background, lot of brilliant counterpointing: Warren would be saying or doing one thing, usually with at least a whiff of sarcasm or irony, and a stunning Zevon song with a wickedly different take on the same subject would keep in to sweetly heckle him. No words, but if you grew up on those songs like I did, all it takes are few notes to bring back the rush of feelings they provoked. Sometimes a few words, but never all the way to the climax. I've quoted this one before, but it may be the alltime greatest title, so how can I stop myself:

The phone don't ring
And the sun refused to shine.
Never thought I'd have to pay so dearly,
For what was already mine.
For such a long, long time.

We made mad love
Shadow love
Random love
And abandoned love.
Accidently like a martyr.
The hurt gets worse
And the heart gets harder.

Loses something without the music, but go find it yourself if you're so damn dismissive. "Accidently Like a Martyr." Just one title like that, that's all I ask for.

Oh, so the show was just tearing my heart out, so I decided I had to share it with someone, and that should be my ex, but he doesn't come round here much anymore, so I had to wait a couple months, and I started it back at the beginning, but it didn't make much of an impression on him, cause he was only moderately aware of the music, from the times I forced it on him on long drives. And I don't think he liked some of the violence. Read off a list of titles and I'd be hard pressed to supress a smile at "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," but he would just furrow his brow and wonder why he was dating me.

So it's been weeks since he was here and I decided I wouldn't torture him with the rest of it. Dissappointing ending, because they spent so much of the last quarter on "Dirty Life and Times," a really lame rocker from the last album. I don't care if Bruce Springsteen sang it with him, it's completely uninspired, the worst example of the biggest problem with the album. But at least they finished with the last song he ever recorded--at home, because he was too weak to get to the studio. "Keep Me in Your Heart." Hard to listen to that one without breaking down.

And in those final minutes, they also played a glimpse of "Accidently Like a Martyr," and in minute 46, I heard what I think I'll remember as Warren Zevon's final words:

He's sitting in a chair, lamenting: "I haven't been reading at all lately, since my diagnosis." He pauses a moment, starts again. "You know, my (candywife?), Schopenhauer, said 'We love to buy books, because we believe we're buying the time to read them.' Isn't that grand?"

Extremely. That explains why I've got two or three hundred of them stacked up all around this apartment. I believe that's exactly how I delude myself each time I purchase one.

So they weren't even Warren's words, nor were they his last, or even the last to me, but none of that will matter in another ten or twenty years when I look back fondly on Warren shattering one of my great illusions with his dying words.

I've learned one thing about memory: only the strong stuff survives, and 14 minutes more blather on the making of one of his unmemorable songs will slowly evaporate and that quote will be the last thing I ever heard from him.

Not for you, though, because I'll keep on quoting him incessantly on this blog, someday maybe I'll retitle after his album title that first woke me up to who I was, shortly before I turned 18. It was his second album and his second best, (Dead or Alive doens't count--it was just a stack of shitty demo tapes, released later over his objections), but he'll never top the title.

He's just an Excitable Boy. Me too.

Speaking of Nabokov, I've been incredibly delinquent, haven't I?

Here's a brief passage. I always underline the physical descriptions when a character is first introduced, because it remains my greatest weakness. I flipped for a moment through Conclusive Evidence to find one, and this one jumped out at me:

Nominally, the housekeeping was in the hands of her former nurse, at that time a bleary, incredibly wrinkled old woman (born a slave around 1830) with the small face of a melancholy tortoise and big shuffling feet. She wore a nunnish brown dress and gave off a slight but unforgettable smell of coffee and decay.

 If Jean Genet could write like that! If I could. Someday.