Wednesday, 15 September 2010

Solidarity, Sibling

Reg: We, we need doers in our movement, Brian. But before you join us, know this: There is not one of us here who would gladly suffer death to rid this country of the Romans once and for all.

Rebel: Uh.. well one.

Reg: Oh yeah, yeah. There's one. But otherwise, we're solid. Are you with us?

Tuesday, 14 September 2010

Intellectual Property

Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.
— Marshall McLuhan

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are that good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
— Howard Aiken

Monday, 13 September 2010

Q.E.D.

A witty saying proves nothing.
— Voltaire

Saturday, 11 September 2010

Bliss


On a summer's evening Mr Curly arrives at the Hiatus Hotel for a night of amusement and romance. The duckherd waves … the palms rustle in the balmy breeze … a mandolin plays … glasses tinkle … laughter … kisses … on and on … over and over … life is joyous.
— Michæl Leunig

Friday, 10 September 2010

Green … and Blue


The Owl and the Pussy Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat
— Edward Lear 'The Owl And The Pussy Cat'

They sailed away in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they sailed so fast,
With only a beautiful pea-green veil
Tied with a riband by way of a sail,
To a small tobacco-pipe mast …
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
— Edward Lear 'The Jumblies'

But before he touched the shore,
The shore of the Bristol Channel,
A sea-green porpoise carried away
His wrapper of scarlet flannel.
— Edward Lear 'The Pobble Who Has No Toes'

And at night by the light of the Mulberry moon
They danced to the flute of the Blue Baboon
— Edward Lear 'The Quangle Wangle's Hat'

Saturday, 4 September 2010

Paradigmatic

"Talking of axes," said the Duchess, "chop off her head!"
— Lewis Carroll

Thursday, 2 September 2010

Being Is Difference

Space is boundlessness by re-entrant form not by great extension. That which is is a shell floating in the infinitude of that which is not.
Arthur Eddington 'The Nature of The Physical World'

The first phase of the cosmogonic cycle describes the breaking of formlessness into form …
— Joseph Campbell 'The Hero With A Thousand Faces'

The Breaking Of The One Into The Manifold
— Joseph Campbell 'The Hero With A Thousand Faces'

Wednesday, 1 September 2010

Unspeakable

In today’s modern Galaxy there is, of course, very little still held to be unspeakable. Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and, in extreme cases, shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech is seen as evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed, and totally unf [bleep!] ked-up personality.

But though even words like “juju-flop,” “swut,” and “turlingdrome” are now perfectly acceptable in common usage, there is one word that is still beyond the pale. The concept it embodies is so revolting that the publication or broadcast of the word is utterly forbidden in all parts of the galaxy except one - where they don’t know what it means. That word is “Belgium”.

A Poor Second To Belgium

Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I want to be
Pony trekking or camping
Or just watching TV
Finland, Finland, Finland
It's the country for me

You're so near to Russia
So far from Japan
Quite a long way from Cairo
Lots of miles from Vietnam

Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I want to be
Eating breakfast or dinner
Or snack lunch in the hall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all

You're so sadly neglected
And often ignored
A poor second to Belgium
When going abroad

Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I quite want to be
Your mountains so lofty
Your treetops so tall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all

Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I quite want to be
Your mountains so lofty
Your treetops so tall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all

Finland has it all

Monday, 30 August 2010

Dutiful Pursuits

Duty largely consists of pretending that the trivial is critical.
— John Fowles 'The Magus'

Wednesday, 25 August 2010

Sensitive Dependence On Initial Cultural Conditions

Just as an initial “choice” in the biological evolution of a species can be binding upon its entire future, so the choice of scientific practice, an unconscious choice in the beginning, has launched the evolution of culture on a one-way path…
— Jacques Monod 'Chance And Necessity'

Monday, 23 August 2010

Viscous Circles

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.
— Kurt Vonnegut

Why Are We Here?

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.
— Kurt Vonnegut 'A Man Without a Country'

Sunday, 22 August 2010

Coalition

Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
— Ambrose Bierce

"Let ME buy you!" spruiked the politician.

"Buy me!"
"Buy me!" yelled the products,
but he couldn't hear them anymore.

"Watch me!" cried the television.
"Read me!" cried the magazines
but he couldn't hear them anymore.

"Drive me!" screamed the car.
"Notice me!" shrieked the celebrity
but he couldn't hear them anymore.

— Michæl Leunig 'The Old, Old Dog'

Mid–Life Crisis

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
— Kurt Vonnegut

Electile Dysfunction

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.
— Albert Camus

Dumocracy

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
— HL Mencken

Saturday, 21 August 2010

The Use Of A Book

"and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"
— Lewis Carroll 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'

Wednesday, 18 August 2010

The Evolutionary Horizon

In a vivid insight, a flash of black lightning, he saw that all life was parallel: that evolution was not vertical, ascending to a perfection, but horizontal.
— John Fowles 'The French Lieutenant's Woman'

Tuesday, 17 August 2010

Dam Anagram


Literally!

The strangest thing that human speech and human writing can do is create a metaphor.
That is an amazing leap, is it not?
— Dennis Potter

Friday, 13 August 2010

Frig!

The fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia, frigga, meaning "Friday" and triskaidekaphobia, or paraskevidekatriaphobia, a word derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (Παρασκευή, meaning "Friday"), and dekatreís (δεκατρείς, meaning "thirteen"), attached to phobía (φοβία, from phóbos, φόβος, meaning "fear"). The word was derived in 1911 and first appeared in a mainstream source in 1953.

Thursday, 12 August 2010

Personæ

Be careful what you pretend to be
because you are what you pretend to be.
— Kurt Vonnegut 'Mother Night'

Wednesday, 11 August 2010

The Shape Of Things To Come

Be there or be square.
— John Cooper Clarke (c1979)

Tuesday, 10 August 2010

For Life Is Quite Absurd, And Death's The Final Word

Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true,
You'll see it's all a show,
Keep 'em laughing as you go.
Just remember that the last laugh is on you!
— Monty Python 'Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life'

Friday, 6 August 2010

Pottery

Potter = shaper of clay;
Abrahamic Mythology: God as shaper of man from clay.

Tom Riddle (cryptic crossword clue) = mot (French) = word;
Abrahamic Mythology: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Tom Riddle — an anagram of 'mi toddler' — represents Harry Potter’s accompanying childish self, the self to be transcended through the maturation rituals symbolised in each of the seven volumes.

One Academic Technique

Find a proposition, invert it, then look around for proofs.
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

This is the technique used, for example, by the philosopher David Chalmers, who inverts what neuroscientists see as the "easy" and "hard" problems of consciousness. It has gained him a lot of attention, not least because he offers hope to those who need to believe in 'life after death' (which is itself an inversion).