Https://www.vogue.com/article/serena-williams-retirement-in-her-own-words

Bob Hicok, from “The Days Are Getting Longer”, Elegy Owed

Virginia Woolf, from a diary entry, September 1st 1938.

"I could fix him," "I could make him worse." Well, honey, I could give him consistent characterization.

When Homer said, "Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again." I felt that.

Ladies, I am holding out my hand. Do you trust me?

I need you to open Google Maps. Locate your nearest mall. Get in your car. Drive to Yankee Candle.

Past the seasonal pumpkin display, near the back of the store, you will find a trash pile Man Candle section. You will see candles called MMM, Bacon!. Riding Mower. Man Town. (I’m not kidding. Man Town.) Stay strong. Not in this section, but likely very near this section, you will find a candle called Mountain Lodge.

Hold this jar in your hands like a talisman. Close your eyes and picture a man.

I want to be clear: I’m not talking about a Hugh Dancy. Or an Andrew Garfield, a Ben Whishaw, even a Tom Hiddleston. This exercise requires someone in the Chris Evans weight class. The Richard Armitage department. Someone with smile lines around his eyes who could chop the cedar for your bower with his own hands, strangle an alpha wolf, carry you home when you sprain your ankle in the woods, bench press your entire body. Picture this man in your mountain home with a full beard, a slightly grimy white henley, a fond half smile he reserves only for you. Now open the lid and smell Mountain Lodge.

Steady yourself on the man candle display. Give yourself a second. No, you’re not wrong. Yes, the Yankee Candle Company has just eliminated the need for men. This medium tumbler Mountain Lodge candle jar is now your boyfriend. The Yankee Candle Company has effectively replaced the need for contact with the male half of our species with a compact and clean-burning candle in a jar.

“Do you like this one?” the cashier asked, ringing me up. “Every man should be required by law to smell like what this candle smells like,” I replied intensely. “That’ll be $12.01,” she said.

MOUNTAIN LODGE

Avengers: Endgame (2019)  dir. Anthony and Joe Russo

Mutaz Essa Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi decided to share the title in the men’s high jump.

you HAD to make it weird.

“Angry, and half in love with you, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby