Pieces

RIP Bill Walsh.
RIP Ingmar Bergman.
RIP Michelangelo Antonioni.
RIP Dr. Nick Riviera.

George Comstock

RIP.

Tiny nugs

• I was drinking some coffee in the East Village t'other day when I noticed that the guy next to me looked like Vin Diesel. Nah, I thought. Then I figured, yeah, prolly, because Parker Posey and her little annoying white dog came and sat with him after hugs & air kisses. Do all celebrities know one another? Is Buzz Aldrin best buddies with Shia LeBouf?
• I guess I'm kind of like the Jet Li character in "Unleashed." Trained from birth to fly into a violent rage every time I see Robin Williams smiling smugly in bed with a curiously splotched Mandy Moore in the poster for "License to Wed." Except that my violent rages may be better described as impotent whining.
• I really don't understand Tony LaRussa.
• Owsley Stanley once said, "Everything in Cirque du Soleil is wet and French and gay and on fire." The LSD doesn't help, apparently. Or maybe it was Patton Oswalt; whatever.

Peanut shell buffalo

I was hungry, so I decided to eat. There is a good burger place a few blocks away from me called Five Guys. It is a small chain in the Washington - Baltimore area. They make really good burgers.

I walked outside and into the hot soupy evening. It was like walking through a nice split pea, or perhaps potato leek, soup. I did not want soup; I wanted a cheeseburger. I was kind of angry when I got to the restaurant.

I ate my cheeseburger and fries in the air-conditioned restaurant, and my mood improved. It was a really good burger. Then I walked to the door and noticed a sign: "DUE TO SEVERE PEANUT ALLERGIES IN SOME NEIGHBORHOOD CHILDREN, PLEASE DO NOT THROW OR CARRY PEANUTS OR PEANUT SHELLS OUTSIDE THIS RESTAURANT."

Five Guys gives you free peanuts as a snack while you're waiting for your burger. This is pretty nice of them. Peanuts cost money.

I was curious about these neighborhood children, so I tried an experiment. I took a peanut shell outside, and dropped it onto the sidewalk. Nothing happened for a little while. Then I heard a low rumble that grew into a tremendous thundering, like the sound of buffalo hooves in the ears of Lewis and Clark. Around every corner, through every bush, over every rooftop, out of every drainpipe cascaded hundreds of slavering children with peanut allergies. Their eyes were not human. They had only one thing on their minds: peanut. The Peanut Horde approached with the rapidity of an allergic jet plane. Spittle was getting in my eyes. I snatched the peanut shell up off the ground just in time. The children disappeared imperceptibly, disinterestedly, shuffling off to their dens.

3 products that I will not buy

• I was in a bookstore and saw a book called "Punk Marketing."
• I was listening to the radio and heard a commercial for RideAccidents.com, which is a website designed for people who are paranoid about dying on a roller coaster.
• I was in a drugstore and saw a medicine named "666 Cold Preparation."

CC&P answers rock stars' questions

Dear Mr. Jones,
I have considered this for a while, and the answer seems childishly simple in retrospect. If you are correct-- and I have no reason to doubt you-- then, by my calculations, going is half the trouble of staying. So I would say "go." Good luck to you!
Sincerely,
CC&P

Dear Mr. Morrissey,
I think it's best not to take things so literally here. When I say it's going to happen "now," I don't mean that it will happen in a moment that is asymptotically equivalent to the very instant my breath ceases to pronounce the word itself. I guess I sort of meant, "in a reasonably short period of time." I understand that you have waited a long time, and that you are even feeling a bit hopeless. For that, I do apologize. Please try to have a little faith, and in the meantime, take a nice bubble bath.
Sincerely,
CC&P

Dear Mr. Fogerty,
I have, and it was lovely.
Sincerely,
CC&P

Dear Mr. Malkmus,
Not really. I don't expect anyone else's attitudes toward me to change, for that matter. It's not like I'm that immature or deluded. But, you know, sometimes you just need to shake things up a bit. I think Ringo Starr once said something like, "Things got to a point where I had to either kill myself or shave my head. I chose the latter."
Sincerely,
CC&P

Dear Mr. Coyne,
Kind of. But I guess I never really thought of it that way. Thanks.
Sincerely,
CC&P

Dear Mr. McCartney,
Do you remember, about ten years ago, how a bunch of rural high school kids were getting killed by lying down in the middle of the road at night, just as the heroes had done in some dumb movie? I'm worried that might happen. Plus I like girls.
Sincerely,
CC&P

Shopping list

Felix Pie
Coco Crisp
Candy Maldonado
Cookie Lavagetto
Tim Salmon
Randy Bass
Steve Trout
Catfish Hunter
Mike Lamb
Rob Deer
Rabbit Maranville
Goose Gossage
Chili Davis
Billy Bean
Zack Wheat
Jim Rice
Peanuts Lowrey
Pepper Martin
Bobby Wine
Chet Lemon
Darryl Strawberry
Rocky Cherry
Dan Quisenberry

The Tokyo-Montana Express

Reggie Jackson once said, “'Articulate' is a word white people use to express their astonishment that black people can speak English.” (Note that this was about 25 years before the Biden-Obama thing. It’s true, I swear, even if The All-Seeing Eye of Google can’t back me up. This may have come from Maury Allen’s “Baseball’s 100,” a book that was my personal Bible when I was a kid. Willie Mays, #1, was my personal Jesus. I guess Napoleon Lajoie was my personal Seth, or something.)

Along those lines, it appears that “imaginative” is a word Westerners use to express their astonishment that Japanese authors are not bland, conformist salarymen whose only outlet for individualism is a creepy connoisseurship of schoolgirls’ underwear. This comes to mind because I’ve been reading a bit of Murakami recently, and every single back-cover-blurb follows an identical template: “East meets West in this imaginative romp joining American pop culture with Japanese spirituality. Careening from Bob Dylan to Gary Cooper to Zen koan, it’s as if contemporary Tokyo were placed in a blender and its intestines & pancreas were spattered all over the walls, creating a Japanese interpretation of Clifford Still etc. etc. etc.”

Well, OK, Murakami is imaginative. But I think we can all agree to ban “East Meets West” from ever appearing again, in any language (except ASL; come on, they’re deaf. Cut them some slack). East met West a long time ago; they became fairly well acquainted in the early 1900s, and despite a nasty spat during the early 1940s, they reconciled and began having casual sex during MacArthur’s occupation. East has a toothbrush & lots of clothes in West’s apartment. West has, like, a lot of its shit over at East’s place (it’s totally gonna want its Monks LP back in the event of a breakup; I’m just saying). Corn on Japanese pizza, made by Iranian immigrants = avocado in American sushi, made by Salvadoran immigrants. I’ve heard there are some feral Eurasian kids roaming free. Lock your doors.

Cognosce veritate; ecce libertas

Corn Chips & Pie has been in rehab for the past month. I'm feeling much better. I realize that I may have made many mistakes, and if anyone feels as if he were hurt by these hypothetical "mistakes," I apologize. Unreservedly.

I have never felt better. I have an odd gleam in my eye, and I don't smell the same way I used to. I kind of smell like arugula. It's not unpleasant; it's just a little strange. Why do I smell like arugula?

My soft, measured, articulate sentences seem rote. There is a hollowness in my gaze. My pre-rehab narcissism has been replaced by a post-rehab narcissism. Rehab helps one to redirect one's narcissism-- it's like a makeover for one's self-regard. The pig now wears Dolce & Gabbana. Whatever.

Oh, and how have you been?

Corn Chips And Pie: don't pull the plug on me like you did to Schiavo, you heartless motherfuckers

This is the way things are going: I just posted a link, considered it for a while, then deleted it.

It may have been funny. It may have provided a distraction from your genital herpes outbreak for, like, 3 minutes. Sure, it wouldn't have saved no baby sea otters or nuthin', but it may have turned your frown upside down. Inverted your frown, so to speak.

But when you don't post for a month, you get a little gun-shy. You want to return triumphantly. This link was not triumphant. It was moderately amusing. But, you know, maybe I should scale back my aims. Stay within myself. Hit the ball where it's pitched.

Whatever. I'm not dead yet, I swear.

Everyone needs a goat to scape

It is yet April. I know. But the confidence limits have narrowed, and loom like Scylla and Charybdis. I can state with some certainty that this San Francisco Giants season will prove to be the worst since 1996, and perhaps even as bad as the Frank Robinson-led squads of ineptitude from the mid-1980s. And all this, dear reader, if you still exist, is the fault of Pedro Feliz.

• Pedro Feliz will flail at sliders twelve feet outside the strike zone until he dies.
• Pedro Feliz cannot advance to third a runner on second with nobody out.
• Pedro Feliz was instrumental in the politically motivated firing of several U.S. Attorneys.
• Pedro Feliz looks at the toilet paper every single time he wipes his ass, even the first time.
• Pedro Feliz is self-righteously indignant that the hoi polloi failed to recognize Joshua Bell playing violin at the L'Enfant Plaza Metro stop in DC.
• Pedro Feliz finds ethnic cleansing "soothing."
• Pedro Feliz has three nipples and smells like fetid bongwater.
• Pedro Feliz is preventing our troops from receiving adequate body armor.
• Pedro Feliz wants to name his son Cody.
• Pedro Feliz has a Chinese character tatooed on the small of his back. He believes that it represents "strength."
• Pedro Feliz refers to Zinfandel as "Zin" and Cabernet as "Cab."
• Pedro Feliz wishes he were a woman so that he could have an abortion.
• Pedro Feliz is a single-stranded RNA retrovirus.
• Pedro Feliz arranges his pubic hair into cornrows.
• Pedro Feliz was totally trying to get with your significant other the other night. Seriously. I saw him. He was really, like, skeezy and shit. He was all, like, "I really think you have amazing eyes," and when he was told about you (you know?) he totally didn't care. He just kept on giving a really sensual massage and surreptitiously adjusting his awkward erection.

Legalize it

Keith Richards snorted his dad.

Humble nuggets

• Life is cruel, but baseball season starts soon.
• The Northeast Market in Baltimore is pretty much a giant public health menace, with disgusting greasy food stalls and vermin &c; armed robberies right outside are alarmingly frequent. But it's cheap. Anyhoo, at the Korean-run "Surf & Wok" you can get a weird amalgam of Mexican and Asian food. For $3 you get the "chicken fajita wrap": teriyaki chicken with Sriracha chili sauce, rice, cheese, sour cream, tomato, and lettuce.
• Which reminds me of the Ruthlessly Efficient Korean Bagelry on the 2100 block of P St. in DC. I can't describe its wonders, other than to say that it is ruthlessly efficient.
• The other day, me & my friend were invited (out of desperation) to attend a fundraising breakfast for the mentoring program in which we lazily participate. I'd kind of like to flesh this story out in its own post, but let me just say that my friend killed at the breakfast. Had the room in the palm of his hand. And it reminded me (because this is really about me) that I really need to practice my anecdotes.
• It hasn't escaped my attention that CC&P is in a bit of a slump. A week without posting. 4 bullet points with no jokes or even points. I'll get my swing back, though. I just need to keep working on fundamentals, and it'll come. Gotta stick my stick up.

cloglog

I'd just like you all to know that the 27 pounds of Argentine beef I consumed are still making their way through my system.

Happy Nightmare Baby.

3 daily sights

• An advertisement on Baltimore city buses, featuring a syringe labeled "HEROIN" being split in twain by a glorious cross. "The ONLY faith-based methadone program! $11/day".
• A giant billboard, featuring a profile of Rodin's The Thinker. "AM I THE DADDY? DNA paternity testing."
• A big armored van parked by route 83, with bright orange and red lettering heralding mobile bail bonds services.

Mighty winds

A week in Buenos Aires, and every observation I have about the place is grounded in cliché. It is very European. There is lots of tasty beef. There is some tango, which is very sexxxy. Emaciated over-surgified women run rampant. I failed to spot any Nazi war criminals. I hopscotched through no infinite libraries. I drank good, inexpensive, red wine.

I am a failure as a blogger and as a human being.

The week's love affairs

I am SO SORRY for being out of touch. I love you all,

• Athens, Georgia
• Mr. Wayne Thiebaud
• Joni Mitchell
• Jack Clark
• Patrick Fitzgerald
• Joanathan Didion
• The brave marine biologists dedicated to ferreting out the Giant Squid
• Mel Blanc
• Samantha Power
• Chet Lemon
• Lisa Nowak
• Sam Flanagan, whose merging of Lily Allen's "LDN" and the Stone Roses' "Waterfall" overwhelmed any possible objections
• Omar Vizquel
• Patterson [duckpin] Bowling Center, Baltimore, MD

In Buenos Aires (I am so goddamned fancy) until next week. Stay sweet.

3 things and a picture of Kent Tekulve

• Baltimore would do well to change its slogan from "BELIEVE" to "GIVE UP."


• Do you have this problem? I often forget to set Itunes to shuffle, and as a consequence, I've heard the opening bars of the 13th Floor Elevators' "Slip Inside This House" about 5000 times.


• Great quote from John Ashbery, via the Dust Congress: "I often wonder if I am suffering from some mental dysfunction because of how weird and baffling my poetry seems to so many people and sometimes to me too."


• happy birthday kenton tekulve

What's in the box?

Once my friend and I found a dead osprey on a street corner in Baltimore. It was very large, flawless, and still warm. This seemed strange at the time. We wrapped it in a discarded fleece blanket and put it in a cardboard box. This seems strange in retrospect. We carried it down the street, intending to give it a Viking funeral (set box afire & set it adrift in the harbor). A homeless man asked, "What's in the box?" We said, "Dead osprey." He said, "You mean that bird? Oooooooh, I saw him hit the window. Smack!" As often happens, we were distracted by a bar. We entered the bar and drank, using the mysterious box rather successfully as a conversation piece. We were asked to leave the bar.

This reminds me (for no reason) of a homeless guy in San Francisco who would exhort passers-by to take a bag that was sitting on the sidewalk. "Take the bag. Aren't you curious? It's yours. Take the bag. There is two million dollars in that bag. I am conducting a social experiment. Take the bag. Take the bag!" Nobody would ever take the bag. There was a pair of tennis shoes and a hoodie in the bag.

Artyfactual nuggets

• R.E.M. (the tantalizingly mysterious Michael Stipe wears his perm well) plays "Radio Free Europe" on David Letterman in 1983. Here.
• I have lived in San Francisco and New York; both cities rightfully honor the Brunch. (You know, brunch. It's not quite breakfast, it's not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end. The meal favored by louche pussies.) Kate's Kitchen, Miss Millie's, Dottie's True Blue, M's Cafe, Prune, Clinton St. Bakery, 9th St. Market, etc. etc. But after extensive research and careful review, I have concluded that the best place for brunch in the world is the Blue Moon Cafe in Baltimore. Aliceann St., one block west of Broadway. I will not sully its perfection with logorrhea. They just need stronger coffee, is all.
• This is pretty horrible. Drug counterfeiters are not only forging packaging with breathtaking virtuosity, but are including subclinical doses of life-saving medications to minimize the chances that patients will realize they're taking fakes. For example, Chinese manufacturers of fake malaria drugs have included acetaminophen to temporarily lower fever & a little bit of real arteminisin (just enough to foster drug resistance). This is genoslaughter, or something. Reader: what can you do? Strap on an AK-47 and head into China. Go nuts, buddy. Tell 'em CC&P sent you.

I got the flavor

• I don't really like them, but I think Skittles have umami. You know what I mean?
• It is weird that oak has a recognizable flavor.
• Sodium lauryl sulfate's inhibitory effect on sweet-sensing taste buds is the reason orange juice tastes bad after brushing your teeth.
• The Special Lady (blindfolded) can distinguish between various brands of bottled water. I learned this the hard way. As the loser of our bet a couple of years ago, I had to dress in an adult diaper & pacifier & bow, and strut around Manhattan for several hours. (Prada store, subway, Times Square, Baby Gap, LES, etc.) Did I mention I had to carry around a little boombox playing, on infinite loop, "Who Let The Dogs Out"? There are photographs.

Last bit on Imam Musa

I guess I ran out of narrative steam. I'm not quite sure what happened; I must have been distracted by a shiny bauble-- a colorful little gewgaw-- and I just love gewgaws. Love them! I apologize for losing focus.

Anyhoooo. So Big Hank dealt dope the JC Penney way. Big Hank moved from pot to harder drugs. Big Hank made a killing. At one point, Big Hank looked in the mirror of a nightclub and thought to himself, "Man, I look mean. I look like a drug dealer. I'm sitting there thinking, 'this guy, that guy owes me money.'"

Big Hank kept dealing drugs. Big Hank got involved with "fake Islam"; i.e., the Nation Of Islam. Big Hank started to associate with the Black Panthers. Big Hank fled to Algeria, where he presumably consorted with Eldridge Cleaver and the hanger-on, Timothy Leary. Big Hank changed his mind and turned himself in, eventually doing time in federal prison.

Big Hank had one of those slow-motion epiphanies. There was no one moment, he says. But he converted to Islam (Sunni, though he abhors the exaggerated divisions between Sunnis and Shi'as that prevail these days). Big Hank became Abdul Alim Musa. Abdul Alim Musa became the imam of a major mosque in Washington.

So that's his basic story. I had a wonderfully entertaining conversation with the man; we talked about drugs quite a bit. Although he travels the world to preach the evils of drug use, and exudes a convincing moral opposition to getting high (he is an advocate of legalization, tho), I can't help but suspect that he's a little nostalgic. His stories were just a little too colorful. Anyway, he seemed kind & tolerant & open-minded, despite his apparent reputation as Radical Terrorist Agitator. Now, I can't judge simply based on evidence from a 3-hour Amtrak conversation. But if asked, I will argue that his reputation comes from his rhetoric, and that his rhetoric comes from his formative years in '60s radical Oakland. If you see him on Fox News as a straw man someday, take his rhetoric & his stubborn unwillingness to categorically deny, say, hating America, as the American anti-authoritarianism that it is.

Origami Hank

It's not like I'm a scholar of the Black Power movement or anything. I will force you to admit (through sophistry and karate chops), however, that it is a pretty fascinating topic. I come from a nice, liberal, 1960s-SF-State household in which the Black Panthers etc. were alluded to in tones of nostalgic awe. Huey Newton, H. Rap Brown, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver... two of these guys are dead, and I'll probably never meet the other two.

This is why I was so impressed by my Amtrak seatmate, Imam Abdul Alim Musa (née Clarence Reams, or Big Hank). The setup (curious whitish wiseass meets black revolutionary intellectual) led to an interesting conversational dance. His favorite topics were 1) the US government's conspiracy behind September 11th, 2) general lefty firebrand rhetoric, and 3) the new moon. My favorite topics were 1) his drug-dealing past, 2) the arc of his life, and 3) his sparring with Sean Hannity.

So you can kind of imagine how it went down. It's the sort of situation where you agree with the guy's general stance on everything, and yet agree with none of the particulars. I did a lot of subject-changing during our 3-hour talk. His warm heart + his hatred of authority + the instinct of an impish provocateur = the potential for some serious hot air. This equation also explains why he's a telegenic straw man for right-wing news channels.

I'm busy and it's getting late, so I'll delay the last portion of this serial until tomorrow. But this is what struck me the most: the man has led several different, full lives. He reminds me of this article on origami: the finite square of a life, folded into an inexhaustible series of complex patterns.

Imam Musa

I have some astounding luck when it comes to Amtrak seatmates. Yesterday, on the train from New York to Baltimore, I sat next to a kind-eyed, pleasant fellow who asked me where I was going. Was I born in Baltimore? No. Where was I born? Oakland, I replied. Where? East 33rd and Fruitvale. Ah, he said, I know that neighborhood very well; I'm from East Oakland myself.

Thus began a pretty goddamned fascinating conversation with Abdul Alim Musa, who is the face of radical Islam in America (to Fox News, anyway). He was fresh from an interview-- literally hours ago-- with Sean Hannity, who kept asking him "Do you hate America?"

Mr. Musa is the imam of a major mosque in Washington, D.C., but he began his career as a drug dealer in Oakland known as "Big Hank." Big Hank was fascinated by American entrepreneurs like J.C. Penney, and quickly rose up the Oakland drug ladder through innovation. "I was one of the first-- if not the first-- to make a lot of money (I mean a lot of money) selling smoke." Formerly a small-time drug with a casual economy in Oakland, marijuana got the J.C. Penney treatment from Big Hank.

I have just done some breathtakingly extensive research on J.C. Penney, and discovered a Wikipedia entry on the man. It includes this quotation: "Business is no longer a matter of profits alone. Profits must come through public confidence, and public confidence is given to any merchant in proportion to the service which he gives to the public." That's pretty much how Big Hank approached it. He attained public confidence through a number of familiar measures: branding, attractive and standard packaging, and quality standardization. Random spot-checks and customer follow-up helped ensure the latter. I dunno if he got to the level of Six Sigma, but this is weed we're talking about.

More tomorrow.

Ice nuggets

Some blogs foster the illusion of intimacy; here, it's no illusion. It really is just you and me. Maybe all those Boswell posts sloughed off the dead skin of the CC&P readership. Leaving only you, dear reader, as the shiny pink skin underneath. Shiiiiny pink skin.

• What sound do you think it would make if Robert Novak's skull collided with Ari Fleischer's skull at 194 mph? I think it would make a pleasant chime, rather like a glockenspiel.
• Opal's Early Recordings is one of my favorite albums, and I'd long despaired of finding any further material from that Kendra Smith & David Roback collaboration. But I just found their cover of Syd Barrett's "Jugband Blues" on a compilation; good stuff.
• Which reminds me-- soon I'll post some mp3s for you and your loved ones.
• Post hoc, I was just informed that I'd hung out with a guy from OK Go (friend of a friend). I had no idea I was this close to YouTube celebrity. It's as if I'd shared a blintz with LonelyGirl. Or played dominoes with a lonely Asian kid singing along to his video game theme music.
• 'Twas a Snow Day today in Baltimore. Joyous, feral epidemiology doctoral students celebrated the closing of Johns Hopkins by, uh, studying epidemiology.

Boswell's Gonorrhea: Epilogue

As you can certainly guess, I've long loved that episode from Boswell's diaries. (Please start here if you missed it.) It's got all the ingredients: extravagant self-praise, adolescent classical allusion, and burning upon urination.

The comic pacing is almost too perfect to be nonfiction. Intrigue, fluttering heart, overweening braggadocio, completely insufferability-- and then, at the periphery of his senses, a faint itching and burning...

I love how he saved face by bullying the poor pseudonymous Louisa (Anna Lewis). As Dr. D.W. Purdie describes*, she "could honestly assure him that she was free of all signs of infection yet conceal, unknown to herself, gonococci... Boswell was unlucky." I wouldn't go that far. The guy screwed prostitutes all over London and, eventually, the continent. He usually didn't use the sheepgut "armour" of the time. And he died ridden with probably about 55,273 different sexually transmitted infections.

It would have been great to drink with Boswell. I really like the guy. It's probably not an accident that one of my favorite novels is Pale Fire; that book begins with an epigraph from Boswell's Life:

"This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. ‘Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.’ And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favorite cat, and said, ‘But Hodge shan’t be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.’"

I never really understood why Nabokov chose that particular epigraph. Boswell, sure; our honest narrator Kinbote is similar to Boswell in some of the obvious ways, but dissimilar in that I wouldn't want to drink with the guy. As much. Although I do like the line, "I laconically suggested that he 'try the pork.'"

*A pretty fascinating article, as far as articles in medical journals go.

Lost VU acetate

You may already know about this, but I didn't. On the WFMU website, you can download every track from the Velvet Underground's lost "Scepter Studio sessions," which features alternate takes and alternate mixes of the songs on the Andy Warhol LP.

It's fantastic. The story of how the acetate came to be found is fairly interesting too, so it's worth a read.

[Via Detailed Twang.]

Tracklist:
European Son (alternate take)
Black Angel's Death Song (alternate mix)
All Tomorrow's Parties (alternate mix)
I'll Be Your Mirror (alternate mix)
Heroin (alternate take)
Femme Fatale (alternate mix)
Venus In Furs (alternate take)
I'm Waiting For The Man (alternate take)
Run Run Run (alternate mix)

All tracks are complete with hissy crackly record pops.

It's the last one percent that's the toughie

The Reverend Ted Haggard is now 100% heterosexual. He was merely "acting out" when he had repeated sex with his male prostitute & meth buddy.

Boswell Discharges His Frustrations: Part III of III

January 20, 1763

I then went to Louisa. With excellent address did I carry on this interview, as the following scene, I trust, will make appear.

LOUISA: My dear sir! I hope you are well today.
BOSWELL: Excessively well, I thank you. I hope I find you so.
L: No, really, Sir. I am distressed with a thousand things. (Cunning jade, her circumstances!) I really don't know what to do.
B: Do you know that I have been very unhappy since I saw you?
L: How so, Sir?
B: Why, I am afraid that you don't love me so well, nor have not such a regard for me, as I thought you had.
L: Nay, dear Sir! (Seeming unconcerned.)
B: Pray, Madam, have I no reason?
L: No, indeed, Sir, you have not.
B: Have I no reason, Madam? Pray think.
L: Sir!
B: Pray, Madam, in what state of health have you been in for some time?
L: Sir, you amaze me.
B: I have but too strong, too plain reason to doubt of your regard. I have for some days observed the symptoms of disease, but was unwilling to believe you so very ungenerous. But now, Madam, I am thoroughly convinced.
L: Sir, you have terrified me. I protest I know nothing of the matter.
B: Madam, I have had no connection with any woman but you these two months. I was with my surgeon this morning, who declared I had got a strong infection, and that she from whom I had it could not be ignorant of it. Madam, such a thing in this case is worse than from a woman of the town, as from her you may expect it. You have used me very ill. I did not deserve it...
L: Sir, I will confess to you that about three years ago I was very bad. But for these fifteen months I have been quite well. I appeal to G-D Almighty that I am speaking true; and for these six months I have had to do with no man but yourself.
B: But by G-D, Madam, I have been with none but you, and here I am very bad.
L: Well, Sir, by the same solemn oath I protest that I was ignorant of it.
B: Madam, I wish much to believe you. But I own I cannot upon this occasion believe a miracle.
L: Sir, I cannot say more to you. But you will leave me in the greatest misery. I shall lose your esteem. I shall be hurt in the opinion of everybody, and in my circumstances.
B (to himself): What the devil does the confounded jilt mean by being hurt in her circumstances? This is the grossest cunning. But I won't take notice of that at all. -- Madam, as to the opinion of everybody, you need not be afraid. I was going to joke and say that I never boast of a lady's favours. But I give you my word of honour that you shall not be discovered.
L: Sir, this is being more generous than I could expect.
B: I hope, Madam, you will own that since I have been with you I have always behaved like a man of honour.
L: You have indeed, Sir.
B (rising): Madam, your most obedient servant.

[from Boswell's London Journal.]

Temporary break in the Boswell action

This you gotta read.