To telescope is to slide concentric components within themselves, to shrink sequentially, to densen. It is also a means of interstellar discovery, of flooding, of applying pressure. In the succeeding entries, we telescope the weather by precipitating and saturating our memories. Each succeeding memory of a series is composed in exactly half the number of words of the previous. Condense with us.
Take off your underwire bra and your prison tattoos. Thank you. Put in these earplugs please. You’ll hear us; we’ll speak very loudly and with gestures.
I was named in a fit of impatience. My brother Toby was six years old and frustrated that my parents referred to little unborn me only as “the baby.” Inspired by the book he was reading, one day he asked, “Can we just call her Sophie?” And so they did.
You’re in America, you’re busy, you don’t have time to keep up with politics all over the world. There are a lot of parties, a lot of elections. Who can follow all of them?
I don’t like it when you use my Amazon account. My recommendations are getting stranger and stranger and I know it’s because of you. You should remember that it tells me which items are bought together—and, honestly, you have some explaining to do.
Lionel Messi, the star of FC Barcelona and the man widely considered to be the best soccer player in the world, is stepping up to the penalty spot. He stares down the goalkeeper for a moment, takes a few steps back and then slams his left foot into the ball, sending it predictably perfectly into the corner of the goal. 1-0.
Harvey is 82. He is a former member of the Welsh Guard who wears a dandelion on his lapel, and he is “not ready to give up on love or life.” This is why he is here, on my screen, a participant in the British Channel 4 reality show “First Dates.”
President Christopher Eisgruber is reclining in the middle seat of a long table, looking as relaxed as I’ve seen him and wearing a mortarboard with an impressive tassle. Famed history professor Julian Zelizer is here too, sitting with famed improviser Adam Mastroianni ’14, so already the fame count in the room is too high for my personal comfort
