“A surprising fact about the magician Bernard Kornblum, Joe remembered, was that he believed in magic. Not in the so-called magic of candles, pentagrams, and bat wings. Not in the kitchen enchantments of Slavic grandmothers with their herbiaries and parings from the little toe of a blind virgin tied up in a goatskin bag. Not […]
“Freedom was a debt that could be repaid only by purchasing the freedom of others.” ––The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon, pg. 131 “For centuries the writ of empiricism has been spreading into the ancient domain of transcendental belief, slowly at the start but quickening in the scientific age. The […]
“‘To all those who toil in the bonds of slavery and, uh, the, the shackles of oppression, he offers the hope of liberation and the promise of freedom!’ His delivery grew more assured now. ‘Armed with superb physical and mental training, a crack team of assistants, and ancient wisdom, he roams the globe, performing amazing […]
“Kornblum told them that his time with Josef had come to an end. He had never had so naturally gifted a student, but his own discipline––which was really an escape artist’s sole possession––had not been passed along. He didn’t tell them what he now privately believed: that Josef was one of those unfortunate boys who […]
“‘I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where––wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be the way guys yell when they’re mad an’––I’ll be in the way kids laugh […]
“The brain constantly searches for meaning, for connections between objects and qualities that cross-cut the senses and provide information about external existence. We penetrate that world through the constraining portals of the epigenetic rules. As shown in the elementary cases of paralanguage and color vocabulary, culture has risen from the genes and forever bears their […]
“The key functions of the three successive divisions––the hind-plus midbrain, limbic system, and cerebral cortex––can be neatly summarized in this sequence: heartbeat, heartstrings, heartless.” ––Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, by Edward O. Wilson, pg. 117 “And always, if he had a little money, a man could get drunk. The hard edges gone, and the […]
“Dreaming is a kind of insanity, a rush of visions, largely unconnected to reality, emotion-charged and symbol drenched, arbitrary in content, and potentially infinite in variety. Dreaming is very likely a side effect of the reorganization and editing of information in the memory banks of the brain. It is not, as Freud envisioned, the result […]
“The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.” ––Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, by Edward O. Wilson, pg. 59 “‘Never seen such tough mountains. This here’s a murder country. This here’s the bones of a country. Wonder if we’ll ever get in a place where folks […]
“‘They’s stuff goin’ on and they’s folks doin’ things. Them people layin’ one foot down in front of the other, like you says, they ain’t thinkin’ where they’re goin’, like you says––but they’re all layin’ ’em down the same direction, jus’ the same. An’ if ya listen, you’ll hear a movin’, an’ a sneakin’, an’ […]