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" ...
In the sharp valley of his lap, Eberhardt, his old,
long-haired dachshund,
lies sleeping. The table is covered with two dozen medicine bottles,
though Mack has now taken himself off all drugs except cough syrup
and something for heartburn
... " (p. 36)
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" ...
more unorthodox remedies - herbal brews, ultrasound, lemon juice,
urine, even penicillin. And, in a ceramic dish next to these, a small,
waxy envelope that contains "ash" - a very fine, grey-white, spiritually
powder materialized out of thin air by
Swami Lahiri Baba
... " (p. 37)
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" ...
What Mack means by "back then" is our college days, in
Santa Cruz,
when we judged almost everything in terms of how freshly it rejected the status quo:
the famous professor who began his twentieth century philosophy class by tossing
pink rubber dildos [:-)]
in through the classroom window;
Antonioni and
Luis Buñuel
screened each weekend in the dormitory basement
... " (p. 37)
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" ...
We lived with thirteen other students, in a rented Victorian mansion at
West Cliff Drive,
and at night the yellow beacon from
the nearby lighthouse
invaded our attic windows
... " (p. 37) How seagulls see the lighthouse...
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" ...
he´s too weak even for a flu shot. Later today, he will go to the hospital for another
bronchoscopy;
they want to see if there´s anything they can do to help him,
though they have already told him there isn´t
... " (p. 37)
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" ...
he´s in a healthy period now. He´s tall, thin, and bearded, a devotee of
the writings of Shirley MacLaine -
an unlikely guru, if you ask me
... " (p. 38)
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" ...
They are only cards, with short notes inside, both from
Des Moines.
Mack´s mother says it just makes her sick that he´s sick, wants to know if
there´s anything he needs
... " (p. 38)
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" ...
Lester shrugs his shoulders, and after another moment I say,
"I´m going to the
K mart.
Mack needs a padded toilet seat. You want anything?"
... " (p. 40)
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" ...
At the moment, a shop-at-home show is on, but he changes channels,
and an announcer says, "When we return, we´ll talk about
tree pruning,"
and Mack changes the channel again
... " (p. 40)
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" ...
You got your alcoholics in the bars. Your food addicts sucking it up at
Jack-in-the-Box -
you ever go in one of those places and count the fat people?
... " (p. 40)
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" ...
Mack rails against the moratorium on
fetal-tissue research,
the most promising avenue for a cure. "If it was the
Legionnaires
dying, we wouldn´t have any moratorium," he says
... " (p. 40) Legionnaires Disease
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" ...
I mean we all come from families, don´t we? The dizziest queen
comes from a family. The axe-murderer. Even
Dan Quale
comes
from a family of some kind
... " (p. 41)
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" ...
He begins to compose himself almost at once. "This is
what Jane Alexander did when she played Eleanor Roosevelt"
he says. "... When she needed to cry she´d go
in the bathroom and turn on the water, so nodody could hear her. Remember?
... " (p. 43)
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