To many minds there’s rest and there’s satisfaction in that expression “absolutely identified.” Absoluteness, or the illusion of it–the universal quest. If chemists have identified substances that have fallen in Europe as sand from African deserts, swept up in African whirlwinds, that’s assuasive to all the irritations that occur to those … [Read more...] about To many minds
quotations
I am a collector of notes
I am a collector of notes upon subjects that have diversity–such as deviations from concetricity in the lunar crater Copernicus, and a sudden appearance of purple Englishmen–staionary meteor-radiants, and a reported growth of hair on the bald head of a mummy–and “Did the girl swallow the octopus?” But my liveliest interest is not so much in things, … [Read more...] about I am a collector of notes
Damn the particle
Damn the particle, but there is salvation for the aggregate. A gust of wind is wild and free, but there are handcuffs on the storm. During the World War, no course of a single bullet could have been predicted absolutely, but any competent mathematician could have written the equations of the conflict as a whole. This is the attempt by the theologians of science to admit the … [Read more...] about Damn the particle
I like best the super wolves
I like best the super-wolves that were seen to cross the sun during the earthquake at Palermo. They howled. Or the loves of the worlds. The call they feel for one another. They try to move closer and howl when they get there. The howls of the planets. I have discovered a new unintelligibility. Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned, p. 242 (The Complete Books of Charles … [Read more...] about I like best the super wolves
I don’t know to just what degree
I don’t know to just what degree my accusation, in these matters, is of the laziness and feeble-mindedness of scientists. Or, instead of accusing, I am simply pointing out everybody’s inability seriously to spend time upon something which, according to his preconceptions, is nonsense. Scientists, in matters of our data, have been like somebody in Europe, before the … [Read more...] about I don’t know to just what degree