Tall and blond, he had an easy laugh, played on the lacrosse team and liked to dance.

Then, for reasons that seem to have something to do with making a lot of money, he made the unusual decision to go to work as a minion of Lucifer.

"At least we would have a direction."

If there were any purists on hand who were unhappy, their voices were drowned out in the cheers.

Unfortunately, this is a predictable outcome of a system driven by competing entrepreneurs rather than by reasoned policy.

"Normally you get only one chance in a lifetime to do something really special and meaningful, and that’s if you’re lucky."

"Everything just fell into place," Mr. Boucher said.

"Since there are people on both sides who don’t like it, maybe it’s the right thing."

And like the most fulfilling rituals, it involves a fantastic fetish.

What fabulous freedom there is in just giving something a try, with no expectations.

They were driving down to Texas in a converted school bus to a nudist festival called Rainbow. We were invited, and of course we went.

Officials say resistance from families is a major recruiting obstacle.

"It’s very different," Mr. Azar said. "It’s like making love to a rubber doll."

Several hours later, the Nissan was still in the street, and the driver’s door was open, revealing blood, scattered bills, a black bra and a gold stiletto pump inside.

He was charged with conspiring to cause explosions.

"There are two schools of thought on this."

But rational analysis doesn’t hold sway with the pregnancy police.

He did not want to resemble a refrigerator or Jabba the Hutt, he said, but Sophia Loren with a couple of hundred extra pounds.

An ideal cocktail should be a bit naughty. "You don’t want it to be straight out of a doctor’s office."

I turned to the Internet, hoping to find some clarity.

There is something inexplicably soothing about rocking gently above the ground while encompassed in a web of ropes.

The emergence of the Internet age has been accompanied, in general, by a steady devaluing of expertise.

We’re just looking for data, more and more data, the more raw the better.

"To be successful, you now needed vision, lateral thinking, courage and an ability to see things, not the way they were but how they might be."

From his work in the rented villas of the San Fernando Valley, where hard-core sex films are shot, he has moved just a short distance west, to the Church of the Epiphany, which is guiding his transformation from pornography star to preacher.

Readers with any sense are supposed to recognize its strategic function but otherwise acknowledge it as a lie.

The truth is, many consumers bemoan the incessant rush of innovation that pushes manufacturers to tamper with products the consumers feel are already perfect.

"The reality was tragic, but there was also something comic about it, and I wanted to capture those extremes."

... chaotic places where people complain, stagger, bleed, soil themselves and wait, often impatiently ...

Just when you thought you had arrived, there’s always another code to crack or level to reach.

"It’s something different, people get behind it and if you say something bad about it -- well, by gosh you’re wrong."

They don’t mean to offend or discomfit; they’re just saying what they see as true, which might happen to be offensive or discomfiting.

The temperament of our people seems to be, "You must get excited, get passionate, fight it, get it over with or we must pull out."

"I think there are people, including myself at certain times in my career," Mr. Hindery said, "who because of their uniqueness warrant whatever the market will bear."

"We did a total 180 on ourselves," Diamond says, tugging on his polyester lapels.

I wonder whether there is some well-organized human being in the government or private sector who could create an organization that would go into schools on a continuing basis and teach people how careers are made.