We should have scant notion of the gardens of these New England colonists in the seventeenth century were it not for a cheerful traveller named John Josselyn, a man of everyday tastes and much inquisitiveness, and the pleasing literary style which comes from directness, and an absence of self-consciousness.
Foot-binding is said to have been inspired by a tenth-century court dancer named Yao Niang who bound her feet into the shape of a new moon. She entranced Emperor Li Yu by dancing on her toes inside a six-foot golden lotus festooned with ribbons and precious stones.
Accompanied by an Australian photographer named Nigel Brennan, I'd gone to Somalia to work as a freelance journalist, on a trip that was meant to last only ten days.
When my mother was born on 14 April, he named her after a Latin American holiday, the Day of Americas, that nobody knew about. My due date also happened to be 14 April.
All my shoes are named after poisonous flowers, so since the beginning I've had the idea of doing something with danger in it.
There's a teacher at the Renzo Gracie Academy in New York named John Danaher. He's leading this whole group of fighters named the Danaher Death Squad, and they're revolutionizing how that world works. I actually went and signed up for classes mostly because, man, if there's innovation like that happening in New York, I want to be around it.