Remark from Havelock Ellis
“The kiss is not only an expression of feeling; it is a means of provoking it. Cataglottism is by no means confined to pigeons” (OED, “cataglottism”).
The Living Klein Bottle House of Time
Is the title of a painting by Paul Laffoley. One of its features is the Agnosticon, described in Laffoley’s The Phenomenology of Revelation (Kent Fine Art, 1989) this way:
The purpose of this device is to allow its user to engineer their doubt or faith processes. In my opinion, it is necessary to engineer doubt and faith in relation to accelerated space-time frames of reference that would be encountered with the time machine, in order to survive and perceive these unfamiliar world-views. The basis of the Agnosticon is the heptahedron, which is a seven-sided convex polyhedron made from a piezoelectric crystal shaped like an octahedron an electromagnetically charged along its major axes and surfaces. As a structured singularity, the heptahedron is kept isolated from other singularities so that it can function specifically in relation to human beings. (20)
Discovery
Brian Cox starred in a German adaptation of The Invention of Morel. Perhaps I can succeed in tracking it down. Perhaps not in this case a “promoter of the first fucking degree.”
Speaking of Deadwood, it’s worth pointing out–and perhaps the coda will address this–but it’s worth pointing out that the historical Seth Bullock was not consistently a friend of the working man, using sulpherous fumes to disperse striking miners at one point.
From the Department of Puzzling Hyperbole
“Every school boy in the streets of Gottingen understands more about four-dimensional geometry than Einstein. Yet , in spite of that, Einstein did the work and not the mathematicians.” So Palle Yourgrau quotes David Hilbert in A World without Time (Basic, 2005: p. 6).
Or is there something about Gottingen I’m missing?
Also, Bertrand Russell on Princeton: “full of new Gothic, and [. . .] as much like Oxford as monkeys can make it” (89). That’s somewhat unpleasant, isn’t it?
Wrangling Schools
I have to admit that I’m looking forward to the new Thomas Harris. The Silence of the Lambs, to be conventional, is a much better book than Hannibal, but I think the early Lecter promises to be good material.
I’d recommend to all students of The Day the Earth Stood Still Paul Laffoley’s essay on the subject, “Disco Volante,” available in The UFO Show (University Galleries, 2000): 24-37. Yes, there is some business about an alien nanotechnological implant being discovered near his pineal gland. Treat that as you must.
From the Diary of Harold Nicolson
“‘Are you,’ I say to Joyce, hoping to draw him into conversation, ‘are you interested in murders?’ ‘Not,’ he answers, with gesture of a governess shutting the piano, ’not in the very least.’” (July 30, 1931)
From the fascismo period, I should note.
John Sutherland--The Literary Detective
I just picked up the Oxford World Classics omnibus edition of this in our Greenville-area megabook-jobber for what turned out to be about $3.33 (and The Meaning of Everything and an unambitious cookbook).
I’d–surprisingly, given my natural interest–not read any of these brieflets before, and I’ve amused myself thus far with the Fanny Hill (the proposed efficacy of his scenario invites skepticism) and the two Dracula entries. It’s hard not to appreciate an essay that unashamedly mentions recovering the author’s intent.
Bloch and Goldmann
I’ve personally always found more interesting than Lukacs and Gramsci, despite Tony Judt’s claim claim here that they are only of antiquarian interest. Several people I knew in graduate school were avid readers of The Spirit of Utopia, though I think I might have been the only person I knew to be interested in Goldmann’s transformational concepts.
I once suggested that Lem was more–or at least as–deserving of general acclamations and prizes than Kolakowski, and Judt’s essay has not exactly changed my mind. Here’s another questionable bit:
Oblivion
As I finally read the title story in Wallace’s recent collection last night, I noticed a reference to Kurt Eichenwald’s Serpent on the Rock that I couldn’t quite place. I thought of an experimental or symbolist Austrian writer, perhaps, one whom the precious narrator might choose for his livre de chevet. The actual book was, of course, even more suitable; but these hyperintellectualized interior portraits (think of the last brief interview with a hideous man, the law student) seem comments only on the impossibility of narrative projection or empathy. I am reminded of the voluntary autistics from Greg Egan’s Distress.
The Burial Ground
I’ve just skimmed over The Shining, and it seems to be the case that the haunted Indian burial ground origin was added by the film, and later borrowed, farcically, in Poltergeist.
The transformation of topiary (but see Zork II) into labyrinth, ostensibly a matter of economy, is hard to avoid; but I was interested in, while reviewing the novel, the ultimate stupidity of the haunting contrasted to the hints of menace in Shockley’s reaction to Jack’s research plans, which seem to go beyond any self-interest.