[Pause. Do.]

"In effect, Roubaud requires us to move beyond the “age of suspicion” that Nathalie..."

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:21:56 +0100

“In effect, Roubaud requires us to move beyond the “age of suspicion” that Nathalie Sarraute declared open in 1946, then to move beyond the age of aesthetics, and to acquire and practice virtues as readers that mirror the spiritual exercise practiced by the author of TGFoL through the rules that govern his writing.”

- David Bellos, “The Pact of London”

"An emotional attachment to an object, place, or person cannot exist without a narrative to go along..."

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:37:45 +0100

“An emotional attachment to an object, place, or person cannot exist without a narrative to go along with it; hence the essentially ethical stance of much metafiction, which makes us consciously aware of how storytelling affects our everyday lives.”

- George Fragopoulos on “I’d Like” by Amanda Michalopoulou at The Quarterly Conversation

"It is useless to appeal to the author’s intention, not because we… are limited to the..."

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:02:47 +0100

“It is useless to appeal to the author’s intention, not because we… are limited to the text, but because [it has] been in a continuous process of translation along with the writing as it evolves.What existed in the beginning, and at every point to [the work’s] completion, is a continuum of difference that moves both forward and back.”

- Jacob Russell via Larval Subjects

"If the character has to duck under a low doorway, my own shoulders sidle through an imaginary frame...."

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:47:28 +0100

“If the character has to duck under a low doorway, my own shoulders sidle through an imaginary frame. A day is a succession of the littler stories we tell ourselves, and those stories make less sense to me without the gestures and grimaces to annotate them, to in some cases produce the meaning in my mind.”

- Sam Kean @ 3QD

Karl Blitz devoted himself to devising a logical system of universal symbols that would make it...

Thu, 21 May 2009 18:02:21 +0100

Karl Blitz devoted himself to devising a logical system of universal symbols that would make it impossible for Hitler-style propaganda to succeed—”inconsistencies and falsehoods would be instantly exposed.” There was no response, and it looked like his life’s work was a failure. Then in the late 1960s Shirley McNaughton, a teacher at the Ontario Crippled Children’s Center who despaired of reaching the children who couldn’t speak, ran across a copy of Bliss’s book and gave it a try: “Kids whose communicative worlds had been defined by the options of pointing to a picture of a toilet, or waiting for someone to ask the right question, started talking about a car trip with a father, a brother’s new bicycle, a pet cat’s habit of hiding under the bed. Kids who were assumed to be severly retarded showed remarkable ingenuity in getting their messages across.”
—Languagehat on In the Land of Invented Languages

"…thereafter, various theorist-adventurers would find what they wanted, asking their question..."

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:08:32 +0000

“…thereafter, various theorist-adventurers would find what they wanted, asking their question into the cave’s echo and receiving their echoing question which they took for an answer. And so with the [critic]: is it not some clue to her- self? As though [those] upon whom she writes were other versions of her, ahead of her.”

- Spurious

"Fiction” is free to distort the “real” in whatever way provides the work its..."

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:47:42 +0000

““Fiction” is free to distort the “real” in whatever way provides the work its integrity, at whatever length, in whatever style or form. [A]t least it could [be] if we didn’t insist “fiction” is “story.” [It] has moved closer to its origins in poetry, away from nar- rative toward other arr- angements and rearr- angements of language.”

- Dan Green, edited as always

"[At this point Ginsberg offers to show Lofton how to meditate. Lofton agrees but asks Ginsberg if he..."

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:02:19 +0000

“[At this point Ginsberg offers to show Lofton how to meditate. Lofton agrees but asks Ginsberg if he plans to take off his clothes. Ginsberg says no. They meditate. They resume the interview.]”

- John Lofton interviews Allen Ginsberg, Harper’s Magazine. H/t: Daily Dish

"Content is wed to form; with each project the shape has to be reinv- ented; this requires the..."

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:50:12 +0000

“Content is wed to form; with each project the shape has to be reinv- ented; this requires the willingness to experim- ent. I am more interested in producing a flawed, mortal document than something that is just a nod to convention. I also tend to favor writing that is an event not just the record of [one].”

- Carol Maso, h/t The Existence Machine, edited

Be patient. It may take you a while to see this. Block out the...

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:19:00 +0000

Be patient. It may take you a while to see this.

Block out the head’s “hair.” That’s just a collection of foliage in the background. The “eye” is the face the child, shadowed by a large white bonnet. The “nose” is the sleeve of the child’s shirt. And the “mustache” is the child’s arm, bent at the elbow.

Un message qui s’affiche toutes les 12 heures grâce à plus...

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:09:49 +0000

Un message qui s’affiche toutes les 12 heures grâce à plus de 500 horloges. Il s’agit du projet de Nadine Grenier, étudiante à l’Esad : un élégant travail autour du temps qui passe, à l’occasion de la Biennale internationale Design à Saint-Etienne.

H/T: today and tomorrow

"[Magnifying] a limb [to] look bigger than it actually is increases the pain and swelling evoked by..."

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 12:51:00 +0000

“[Magnifying] a limb [to] look bigger than it actually is increases the pain and swelling evoked by movements and…, conversely, making a limb look smaller than it is reduces that pain.”

- Distorting the body image affects perception of pain, Neurophilosophy

"Looking back over [life], [it] seems so foreshortened that I scarcely understand, for instance, how..."

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:43:43 +0000

“Looking back over [life], [it] seems so foreshortened that I scarcely understand, for instance, how a young man can decide to ride over to the next village without being afraid that— not to mention accidents— even the span of a normal happy life may fall far short of the time needed for such a journey.”

- “The Next Village” by Kafka .

"Writing, I catch traces of [my father’s] hands in mine, they sneak up through my fingers as..."

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:51:55 +0100

“Writing, I catch traces of [my father’s] hands in mine, they sneak up through my fingers as particles, the short, light hairs above my knuckles, part of my inheritance from him. I have short hands, too, or small hands. Actually, my hands are more like my mother’s.”

- from “An Impossible Man,” The Broad Picture: Essays by Lynne Tillman

"We can choose to be aware that no one exists in an existential void; we live and love within..."

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 01:11:19 +0100

“We can choose to be aware that no one exists in an existential void; we live and love within frameworks; rejection doesn’t free us. Free verse hasn’t liberated itself from form, but merely cast away that of which it is aware and rendered itself oblivious to that which still surrounds it.”

- Will @ PomoCon, heavily ‘concised’ to fit

“…A symmetry-breaking event was revealed. Before...

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:38:53 +0100

“…A symmetry-breaking event was revealed. Before this event, the embryo…is said to be radially symmetrical. When broken, the bilaterally symmetrical body plan begins to emerge and the orientation of the future body axes can be accurately predicted.” - Zebrafish embryonic development, via Neurophilosophy

"As he does this, he intones, “I dip the head in the boa’s water.” The warriors in turn respond, “He..."

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:23:15 +0100

“As he does this, he intones, “I dip the head in the boa’s water.” The warriors in turn respond, “He is boiling the head.” … Interestingly, once made, the heads are usually discarded as the significance lies in the process rather than the product.”

- The Science of Shrinking Human Heads, via Mind Hacks

Fischerspooner - Get Confused

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:49:45 +0100

Fischerspooner - Get Confused

"A good play can change not just a man’s life but his identity, but only if he “believes”..."

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:30:00 +0100

“A good play can change not just a man’s life but his identity, but only if he “believes” it in a very particular way. He can’t really believe it, but neither can he keep in the front of his mind that it’s just his friend in an Oedipus mask. That’s the kind of belief I have in my traditions, especially those that can’t be traced back to divine revelation.”

- from Helen at PomoCon, in response to Freddie

"I think most atheists think like the religious, because they have not yet begun to imagine the..."

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:35:15 +0100

“I think most atheists think like the religious, because they have not yet begun to imagine the wasteland of meaning that the death of God has left us in. For all of our failings, we existentialists have [a compassionate] understanding that comes from really believing in the human animal lost at sea.”

- Freddie at L’Hôte