Splitting Skulls

Subway cognizance 

Sphinx like 

Like the Sphinx, my marine Father spoke in riddles. But rather than devouring the individual incapable of answering, he brought about his birth, and deposited him, garbed in the body of a child and full of questions, on the shore where I first recognized myself as human. —René Daumal, "On the Old Man and the …

Play Already 

We can safely assert, even, that human civilization has added no essential feature to the general idea of play. —Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens, 1949. And facing my other most similar faces, those of men, this despair turns in on itself in one last spasm and, with my nails digging into my palm, my fist clenches so as …

Mudapplications 

The lads is attending school nessans regular, sir, spelling beesknees with hathatansy and turning out tables by mudapplication. Allfor the books and never pegging smashers after Tom Bowe Glassarse or Timmy the Tosser. 'Tisraely the truth! —Joyce, Finnegan's Wake Tisreally the truth Tisrarely the truth... Turning out tables...

Henri & Henri on Movement 

People make gestures: they gesticulate. —Henri Lefebvre, Rhythmanalysis & It follows that sight and touch could not have given us the idea of space without the help of the "muscular sense." Not only could this concept not be derived from a single sensation, or even from a series of sensations; but a motionless being could …

On Philosophy’s Lost Childhood 

One of the tragedies of the grownup is his loss of a sense of wonder, curiosity and playfulness, in short, of childhood. But these emotions are central to philosophical enquiry. Perhaps by starting philosophy earlier and seeing to it that it continues throughout school, grownups will rediscover suppressed reservoirs of playfulness and leisure. —Robert Mulvaney, …

Warning 

Who knew writing a dissertation could be so dangerous?

On Happiness 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. —Thomas Jefferson & There is one fundamental experience that every parent has with their child, and that every school-teacher has …

On Balance 

If a man finds that his nature tends or is disposed to one of these extremes..., he should turn back and improve, so as to walk in the way of good people, which is the right way. The right way is the mean in each group of dispositions common to humanity; namely, that disposition which …

We have never been modern 

More for a series of quotes out of context. Best if you let them breath... ...the hilarity commonly produced by simply imagining TOES. —Georges Bataille, "The Big Toe," Documents & ...the more we forbid ourselves to conceive of hybrids, the more possible their interbreeding becomes—such is the paradox of the moderns... —Bruno Latour, We Have …

the mad ones 

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars …

The Self Winding Boredom Machine 

Since I am busy reviewing a book-I-have-actually-read, I have been negligent of my series of reviews of books-I-haven't-read-yet. Much more time consuming... There is only one thing to do, and that is start another half-baked tradition. Call it, "Quotes Out of Context." All too often, in the act of sharing a striking quote, we find—masked …