Chryselephantine

"Ovid is, I think, the last great tragic and epic poet of that era because he tells the story of a..."

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 01:12:32 -0600

“Ovid is, I think, the last great tragic and epic poet of that era because he tells the story of a world where metamorphoses happen all the time—but then stop. The stories he tells are stories of a girl becoming, for instance, a tree or a plant, but not reverting to being a girl. She remains a tree, and that, of course, is tragic.”

- Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 217, Roberto Calasso

I have distilled the many interrelatednesses,...

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 14:15:41 -0500

I have distilled the many interrelatednesses, interconnectednesses, and intersubjectivities of language, linguistics, and everything into a concise graphical form. Any practitioner of the science of linguistics should be familiar with the usual formalisms and symbologies that make for such a compact depiction. This simple illustration serves as representation of and roadmap to the under-understood underlying underpinnings of language as a science, and of the mind as the seat of language. Without further ado, I present my life’s work to and for the benefit of the worldwide community of linguists. (via SpecGram—G.U.I.L.T.y Pleasures—A Complete and Comprehensive Theory of Language, Linguistics, and Everything—Jäger Haumichblau)

Many old photographs and film mistakenly identify Titanic but...

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 14:44:35 -0500

Many old photographs and film mistakenly identify Titanic but are in fact Olympic. The way to tell the difference between the two is the open promenade deck (below the boat deck) as seen here on the Olympic, which was enclosed on Titanic after Olympic customers had complained of the cold there. (via S.S. Olympic: 1911 | Shorpy Historical Photo Archive)

Wound Man is an illustration which first appeared in European...

Wed, 16 May 2012 15:10:49 -0500

Wound Man is an illustration which first appeared in European surgical texts in the Middle Ages. It laid out schematically the various wounds a person might suffer in battle or in accidents, often with surrounding or accompanying text stating treatments for the various injuries. (via Wound Man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Atlantic Ocean, Toscanelli, 1474

Mon, 14 May 2012 12:23:00 -0500

Atlantic Ocean, Toscanelli, 1474

centuriespast: ClubARTIST:probably Anishinaabe (Ojibwe)DATE:c....

Tue, 08 May 2012 00:24:56 -0500

centuriespast:

Club
ARTIST:probably Anishinaabe (Ojibwe)
DATE:c. 1750-1800

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts

The French called these casse-tête.

invisiblestories: Tree representing the embedding of the...

Tue, 08 May 2012 00:15:14 -0500

invisiblestories:

Tree representing the embedding of the parentheses in Raymond Roussel’s Nouvelles Impressions D’Afrique, Canto 1 (from Oulipo : a primer of potential literature) (via gilliflower)

Before or after macroexpansion?

"One question we often receive is usually framed more or less in the form: “what is the single-most..."

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 12:53:06 -0600

“One question we often receive is usually framed more or less in the form: “what is the single-most common question that SpecGram receives from its readers?” The answer to this question may surprise you! The single-most commonly-submitted question is this very question itself. We like to think that it thus achieves a sort of self-referential, self-actuating interrogation, and thereby attains to a state of Language which most mere human languages never even approach.”

- SpecGram—Epistulae ad Percontatores—A Letter from Editor Curmudgeon H.D. Onesimus

(via Effigies and Brasses: Sir Roger de Trumpington (1289)) Now...

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 12:36:00 -0600

(via Effigies and Brasses: Sir Roger de Trumpington (1289))

Now that I think about it, of course dogs would chew sheaths.

"This Malbolge program displays “Hello world!”, with full capitalization and exclamation..."

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:15:35 -0600

“

This Malbolge program displays “Hello world!”, with full capitalization and exclamation mark at the end.

('&%:9]!~}|z2Vxwv-,POqponl$Hjig%eB@@>}=

”

- Malbolge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"INTERCAL has many other features designed to make it even more aesthetically unpleasing to the..."

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:10:55 -0600

“INTERCAL has many other features designed to make it even more aesthetically unpleasing to the programmer: it uses statements such as “READ OUT”, “IGNORE”, “FORGET”, and modifiers such as “PLEASE”. This last keyword provides two reasons for the program’s rejection by the compiler: if “PLEASE” does not appear often enough, the program is considered insufficiently polite, and the error message says this; if too often, the program could be rejected as excessively polite.”

- INTERCAL - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"A previously identified linguist who, when asked, “How many languages do you speak?”, replies,..."

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:46:01 -0600

“A previously identified linguist who, when asked, “How many languages do you speak?”, replies, “That’s like asking a doctor how many diseases they have.””

- SpecGram—How Linguistics Got Her Groove Back—Gunnr Guðr Entgegenlächeln

"It can surely be no coincidence that this phenomenon first appeared at a time when those languages..."

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:43:00 -0600

“It can surely be no coincidence that this phenomenon first appeared at a time when those languages spoken in what are now these United States were as far different as those same languages are now from those in current use and previously. And this process is by no means complete but continues until this very day, so much so that it is impossible to say what might have been—or indeed what might be in the future.”

- SpecGram—The Great Clouseau Vowel Shift—Tel Monks

(via Tonic sol-fa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:18:06 -0600

(via Tonic sol-fa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

"If World War I snapped, as we hear tell, the threads of civilization except where it continued..."

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:30:57 -0600

“If World War I snapped, as we hear tell, the threads of civilization except where it continued briefly to baste the memories of men like Valéry and Joyce, the next generation’s problem was to create works whose resonance lasted more than a season. A culture without Greek or Latin or Anglo-Saxon goes off the gold standard. How to draw upon the treasure?”

- Merrill on Puns

"Shakespeare wrote Moby-Dick, using Melville as a Ouija board."

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:26:38 -0600

“Shakespeare wrote Moby-Dick, using Melville as a Ouija board.”

- Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 203, Ray Bradbury

"We use certain authors at certain times of our lives, and we may never go back to them again."

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:22:08 -0600

“We use certain authors at certain times of our lives, and we may never go back to them again.”

- Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 203, Ray Bradbury

"Something of the awe and terror of crime itself should cling round the figure of the detective: a..."

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:58:06 -0600

“

Something of the awe and terror of crime itself should cling round the figure of the detective: a grim shadow behind a curtain, who might himself be a criminal. Let the author invest him with this sense of gloom and the dark places of the brain, and we may safely leave all the wholesomeness to the murderer.

It will thus be apparent why, in all annals of detective fiction, there has been only one man. The lean hawk-faced gentleman from Baker Street—Sherlock Holmes of the evil laughter and the hypodermic needle—beside him, the rest of them are pygmies. It was not alone that with one glance he could tell that you were left-handed, asthmatic, henpecked, and a retired sergeant of marines from Afghanistan. It was rather the sense of overshadowing knowledge that emanated from him—and you understood that eerie power when night after night you saw the gaunt shadow pass the lighted window. In his efforts to convince you of a cold thinking machine, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle convinced you of a living man. He caught from the London fog a terrible ghost of retribution, and in this day of “significant novels” and “memorable portraits,” it is well to remember just who has created the one character that can never be forgotten.

”

- John Dickson Carr, “The Detective in Fiction,” 1932.

America's First Jet Flight, October 1942 - Videos - AircraftOwner Online

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 12:32:12 -0600

America's First Jet Flight, October 1942 - Videos - AircraftOwner Online

"Agatha Christie was not cozy. She earned the title the Queen of Crime the old-fashioned way — by..."

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:42:50 -0600

“Agatha Christie was not cozy. She earned the title the Queen of Crime the old-fashioned way — by killing off a lot of people. Although never graphic or gratuitous, she was breathtakingly ruthless. Children, old folks, newlyweds, starlets, ballerinas — no one is safe in a Christie tale.”

- ‘Agatha Christie: An Autobiography’: The Reading Life - latimes.com