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All his life, Rodey McQueen had expected “something special to happen” as a result of his grand-scale finagling, his hotels and his ski valley, his motels and his banking interests and the Dynamite Shrine complex. But a mystical, magical rapport with his realized dreams had failed to materialize. Instead, the rhythms of his work grew more pressing, he felt a more urgent drive to expand, grow, accumulate. It had never been, and was not now, possible to stop, reflect, or really enjoy. The result was an insinuation of frantic feelings, even panic, into his daily labor. Yet McQueen had an honest longing for rest and retirement. He had a longing to cast his arms around a complete experience—his life’s work—and be able to judge it and enjoy it and inspect it much as he might judge and enjoy and inspect a fabulous painting. But he had chosen a métier which allowed no summing up. Capitalism had no limitations: Progress, American-style would sit still for no photographs: the Betterment of Chamisaville condoned no reflection in tranquility upon the meaning and origin of things.

— The Magic Journey by John Nichols (New Mexico Trilogy, #2)

A plague of public and private surveyors, demographers, and hydrologists infested the valley. They hailed form the Bureau of Reclamation, the Bureau of Land Management, the state engineer’s office, the Interstate Streams Commission, the Dynamite Shrine Miracle Development Corporation, the Mosquito Valley Ski Company, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Four Rivers Association, and the Albino Pine Defense Fund. Gardens were trampled, cows frightened while calving; horses bolted through fences, and cattle strayed. A hundred peeping toms were reported to the police, No Trespassing signs went up everywhere, angry shots were fired at the official strangers in puttees and knickers and pith helmets drawing imaginary lines through the locals’ sacred property. Pretty soon Virgil Leyba was defending dozens of penniless small farmers against manslaughter, assault and battery, aggravated injury, even a couple of murder charges, as farmers and ranchers defended their private property against the invasion of menacing officialdom bent on enslaving their land and their water rights in a merciless web of inefficient pork-barrel projects and unfair taxation. Stirred up, off-balance, the valley trembled and a hundred ghosts emerged from the uneasy, tingling woodwork. Despite the odds stacked in their favor, it wouldn’t be that easy, the Anglo Axis discovered, to encourage middle-class outsiders to come in and contend with the old ways of life.

— The Magic Journey by John Nichols (New Mexico Trilogy, #2)

Across the plaza, in Patrocinio Godoy y Godoy’s bucket of blood, the El Gaucho Bar, numerous less-than-upstanding locals had tied their horses to the hitching post outside and gathered to consume vast quantities of cheap beer and wine while awaiting the boardroom meeting’s outcome. Most notable among the boozers ensconced there was Jesus Dolores Martínez Vigil, a short, pudgy man of indeterminate old age sporting an old-fashioned greasy sombrero, a Villa moustache, and a heavy bulletproof vest made of thick hemp wrapped around his torso. Once the leader of an 1880s revolutionary outlaw group known as the Gorras Blancas, a contingent which had waged a guerrilla war against the cattle barons and government sharpies illegally taking over locally owned land grants, Jesus Etcetera was now pushing a hundred, or even more, nobody knew for certain. Some Chamisa Valley amateur historians, who claimed he had died years ago, actually suggested that the robust feisty little man who persisted in haunting the valley was merely Jesus Etcetera’s soul wandering through purgatory. Others believed that Jesus was very much alive and would one day spark a White Cap army renaissance that would banish all the outsiders, newcomers, thieves, cattle barons, land hustlers, and tourist hucksters like Rodey McQueen from the picturesque Midnight Mountain area once and for all.

— The Magic Journey by John Nichols (New Mexico Trilogy, #2)

Ah, h'druk g'har dWatch, Sh'rt'azs!' said Carrot. 'H'h Angua tConstable... Angua g'har, b'hk bargr'a Sh'rt'azs Kad'k... '

Angua appeared to concentrate. 'Grr'dukk d'buz-h'drak...' she managed.

Carrot laughed. 'You just said small delightful mining tool of a feminine nature !'

Cheery stared at Angua, who returned the stare blankly while mumbling, 'Well, dwarfish is difficult if you haven't eaten gravel all your life...'

— Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy (Narrator), and 1 other (Discworld, #19)

'Oh, well, if you prefer, I can recognize handwriting,' said the imp proudly. 'I'm quite advanced.'

Vimes pulled out his notebook and held it up. 'Like this?' he said.

The imp squinted for a moment. 'Yep,' it said. That's handwriting, sure enough. Curly bits, spiky bits, all joined together. Yep. Handwriting. I'd recognize it anywhere.'

'Aren't you supposed to tell me what it says?'

The imp looked wary. 'Says?' it said. 'It's supposed to make noises?'

— Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy (Narrator), and 1 other (Discworld, #19)

Vimes sat back, enjoying a moment's peace.

Something inside his coat went: 'Bing bing bingley bing!'

He sighed, pulled out a leather-bound package about the size of a small book, and opened it.

A friendly yet slightly worried face peered up at him from its cage.

'Yes?' said Vimes.

'11 am. Appointment with the Patrician.'

'Yes? Well? It's five past now.'

'Er. So you've had it, have you?' said the imp.

'No.'

'Shall I go on remembering it or what?'

'No. Anyway, you didn't remind me about the College of Arms at ten.'

The imp looked panic-stricken.

That's Tuesday, isn't it? Could've sworn it was Tuesday.'

'It was an hour ago.'

'Oh.' The imp was downcast. 'Er. All right. Sorry. Um. Hey, I could tell you what time it is in Klatch, if you like. Or Genua. Or Hunghung. Any of those places. You name it.'

'I don't need to know the time in Klatch.'

'You might,' said the imp desperately. Think how people will be impressed if, during a dull moment of the conversation, you could say Incidentally, in Klatch it's an hour ago . Or Bes Pelargic. Or Ephebe. Ask me. Go on. I don't mind. Any of those places.'

Vimes sighed inwardly. He had a notebook. He took notes in it. It was always useful. And then Sybil, gods bless her, had brought him this fifteen-function imp which did so many other things, although as far as he could see at least ten of its functions consisted of apologizing for its inefficiency in the other five.

— Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy (Narrator), and 1 other (Discworld, #19)

Bosses are pioneers in the new search for private assets; so many I spoke with wanted to be bosses—if not for matsutake, for some other product extracted from the countryside. One matsutake boss had a plaque in his living room, awarded by the local government, proclaiming him a leader in making money. Rural bosses are replacements for socialist heroes; they are models for human aspirations. Bosses are embodiments of the entrepreneurial spirit. In contrast to earlier socialist dreams, they are supposed to make themselves, not their communities, wealthy. They dream of themselves as self-made men. Yet their autonomous selves bear comparison to matsutake mushrooms: the visible fruit of unrecognized, elusive, and ephemeral commons.

Bosses privatize the wealth of collaboratively produced mushroom growth and collection. Such privatization of common wealth might characterize all entrepreneurs.

— The mushroom at the end of the world by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Susan Ericksen