self help reading + music

from Terrorist, John Updike

There is an endearing self confidence in how compactly her brown roundedness fill her clothes, which today are patched and sequined jeans, worn pale where she sits and a reddish-ribbed shorty top both lower and higher than it should be. Blue plastic barrettes pull her glistening hair back as straight as it will go; the plump edge of her right ear holds along its crimp a row of little silver rings. She sings in assembly programs, songs of Jesus or sexual longing, both topics abhorrent to Ahmad. Yet he is pleased that she notices him, coming up to him and now and then like a tongue testing a sensitive tooth.

johnny kidd & the pirates - shaking all over