Kat

“Excuse me, madam.” He wasn’t used to approaching women by himself, let alone well-dressed white women. He saw apprehension flash across her face. Maybe she thought he was trying to sell magazines or candy bars, but he steeled himself. He explained that he was building a robot for an underwater contest sponsored by NASA, and his robot was leaking. He wanted to soak up the water with tampons but didn’t know which ones to buy. “Could you help me buy the most best tampons?” The woman broke into a big smile and led him to feminine hygiene. She handed him a box of o.b. ultra-absorbency. “These don’t have an applicator, so they’ll be easier to fit inside your robot.” He stared at the ground, mumbled his thanks, and headed quickly for the checkout. “I hope you win,” she called out, laughing.”
― Joshua Davis, Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream

“The image was like finding an automobile factory in your closet.”
― Bill Buford, Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking

“Fredi had always focused on getting kids excited to learn. He cared less about covering the required curriculum and more about finding hands-on projects. To many students, school felt sterile and bureaucratic. Fredi’s music was just one way he tried to change the ambience. It didn’t necessarily matter if they liked it. It was enough to be different. He also fought for unstructured time in the school day. When he arrived at Carl Hayden in 1987, he started a class called Science Seminar. There was no curriculum. Fredi just told students to find something fun to build or an idea to test. Over the years, students had embarked on a variety of unusual projects. One student tried to teach color-blind rats the differences among colors. Another student constructed a 1:60 clay model of downtown Phoenix, placed it in a wind tunnel, and blew carbon dioxide across it. The goal: determine how architecture could be used to increase air circulation and help dissipate trapped air pollution. Fredi’s room became the refuge of tinkerers, inventors, and frustrated dreamers.”
― Joshua Davis, Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream

“Saint Sulpice had only been granted protective status as a national treasure in 1994. But it was now officially a monument, in the fullest sense of the word: It marked a place where something happened which now was gone.”
― Bill Buford, Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking