Sunday Stories: a long life

Her hands were still trembling. She had already forgotten why she panicked. She looked into the comforting eyes of an older woman who had held her hand and now dropped it, being met by her mechanical stare. She knew she knew that woman but had no idea who it was. “It’s all right, Ida.”, the older woman said and so she knew she was Ida and the lady speaking to her a person she must have known well.

“Don’t you recognize me?”, the woman asked, smiling at Ida in the way you smile at a child that, for good reason, pretends to be ill. “I’m Elsa.”, said Elsa patiently. Ida recognized the sentences more than she recognized Elsa.

I Smell a New York Rat

What the hell?! I woke up and wondered how markets around the world were finding some way to rebound. It looks like the Fed has figured out a way to get all $700B without congressional approval. Excerpted from the NYT here:

With money markets around the world seizing in fear, the Fed on Monday announced that it would provide an extra $150 billion through an emergency lending program for banks, and an additional $330 billion through so-called swap lines with foreign central banks to help money markets from Europe to Asia.

…

That was on top of the $230 billion the Fed borrowed last week so it could finance its previous efforts to prop up the American International Group and other institutions.

In other words, either the money is completely and totally funny money, or they just flat out stole it. Which one it turns out to be probably depends on the reaction of the people they lifted it from.

So Sad

This just in … David Foster Wallace is dead. This depresses me more than I would’ve imagined.