These games are marvelous," Amanda said. "I like them especially because they are so meaningless and boring, and trivial. These qualities, once regar… - Donald Barthelme

MAGGIE: Did you have a good time? HILDA: The affair ran the usual course. Fever, boredom, trapped. MAGGIE: Hot, rinse, spin dry.

As a magician works with the unique compressibility of doves, finding some, losing others in the same silk foulard, so the rebels fold scratchy, relaxed meanings into their smallest actions.

True dragons are Danish and speak Danish, a tongue that the Danes themselves describe as less a language than a throat disease. To attract a dragon, one chains a naked maiden to a rock. The maiden must be chained to the rock in such a way that every part of her is visible to the dragon. Many famous paintings demonstrate the technique; Ingres's Angelica Saved by Ruggiero is an example. After the dragon has inspected your maiden to its heart's content, you issue one of the conventional formal challenges, in Danish—'Jeg udfordre dig til ridderlig camp' is the way one usually puts it—and then the fight begins.