The station agent was a barrel-shaped man deep in his middle age, pasty-complected and soft.

After the Celtic invasion of Greece and the subsequent removal of some Celts (the Galatians) to Asia Minor in the 270s, Greek light troops seem to have stopped using the pelta, and adopted instead the large, oval Celtic shield with a central spine.

He said that my essence was grotesque, that I would be a part of the clown world naturally, that I could organically belong to a circus or any other environment, because the grotesque is not limited to or contained in one genre – it has no boundaries.

Mayor Bloomberg and Ms. Wittenberg had repeatedly stood behind the plan, insisting it was best for the city.