Category: Philosophy
-
L. Snippets of Striving (con’d)
Although not the least interested in home renovation, I paid close attention to last night’s episode of “This old house” on PBS. It featured remedies for upgrading the energy efficacy of heritage homes. In the American can-do spirit, craftsmen breezily showed options for converting drafty old places into modern homes, cozy through the most bitter…
-
L. Snippets of Striving (intro.)
Introduction: In ‘The Happy Isles of Oceania’, Paul Theroux comments on the published diaries of the cultural anthropologist, Bronislaw Malinowski: “…They were harmless enough–– just trivia, ranting, loneliness, insecurity and self-pity…” That comment is surely cautionary advice for anyone who keeps a diary. Even if the only potential reader of one’s words is some great-grandchild…
-
M. A Few Clearings (intro.)
It felt strangely intimate this morning to be lying in a chilly darkened room with a young female technician standing beside me. Her wrists protruding from the long sleeves of a wool jacket looked delicate. With one hand, she tapped a computer keyboard while her other briefly tugged her brown ponytail. On the monitor screen…
-
M. A Few Clearings (con’d)
It was only when we moved from the table to the sofa that the conversation turned to the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life (SETI). I asked my old classmate in his capacity as the acting president of the western chapter of the Canadian UFO Research Centre, if he really believed any claims of direct contacts…
-
Z. Endspec #2:
In the breadth of history, how many humanoids have glimpsed the world from coral reef to mountaintop, dabbled in arts and crafts, gorged on a host of sweetmeats––not to mention having gasped in the fireworks of innumerable orgasms? How many have had second, third, fourth and fifth helpings of such delights? If a person can…
-
Z. Endspec (intro.)
Introduction What did William Blake, Pablo Neruda, Aldous Huxley, Richard Wagner, Louis Armstrong and Lightnin’ Sam Hopkins have in common? Names of the illustrious who share the same commonality also include John Taverner, Louis Leakey, Marshall McLuhan, David Bowie and even Queen Elizabeth the First… Untold millions of ordinary folks could be added to the list. Their commonality…
Coprolites in Amber (etc.) 