B Is for Beer

by Tom Robbins

The Chinese word for beer means ‘liquid bread.’”

Chu, your drink

(You know what the game of golf is, don’t you? It’s basketball for people who can’t jump and chess for people who can’t think.)

Have you ever felt—or imagined—that there is more than one world? Does it sometimes seem to you that there is the familiar world you wake up in every morning and another world to the right or the left of this one, just out of reach, where interesting things (some wonderful, some rather creepy) are occurring that you can’t quite describe or put your finger on:

that very same penetrating drizzle has the ability to melt the shadow between Our World and the Other World. At least, some people think so, although to be truthful, most of those people are old Indians, hippies, mushroom hunters, or children such as Gracie Perkel.

magic gods, or half-invisible wild fox spirits.

Yes, fox is my spirit animal

Madeline has a way of kissing that could give a bald man a Mohawk.”

I can see this in a cartoon

Gracie’s dad had to go to Tucson on urgent business. Mrs. Perkel rolled those big blue eyes of hers, eyes that her daughter had inherited, and remarked that he was probably playing “urgent golf” with a bunch of Arizona lawyers. Gracie was sure it was a business trip, though, because otherwise why would he have taken his secretary along?

in a voice as shaky as a wet chihuahua at a fireworks show.

“Every time a person goes to the mall, she loses a little piece of her soul.”

When civilized people dance they reconnect with their old animal nature. It reminds them that they aren’t mechanical chess pieces or rooted trees, but free-flowing meat waves of possibility.”

what he called the “lawyer kick.” It was a way to kick an opposing player in the leg so hard she’d topple over and have to leave the game, yet was so sneaky that most of the time the referee would fail to notice it, so wouldn’t assess a penalty.