The Universality of Analogy

This reversibility and this polyvalency endow analogy with a universal field of application. Through it, all the figures in the whole universe can be drawn together. There does exist, however, in this space, furrowed in every direction, one particularly privileged point: it is saturated with analogies (all analogies can find one of their necessary terms there), and as they pass through it, their relations may be inverted without losing any of their force. This point is man: he stands in propo...

 The Unlightable Candle

Armen the Acolyte cleared his throat. “The night before an acolyte says his vows, he must stand a vigil in the vault. No lantern is permitted him, no torch, no lamp, no taper... only a candle of obsidian. He must spend the night in darkness, unless he can light that candle. Some will try. The foolish and the stubborn, those who have made a study of these so-called higher mysteries. Often they cut their fingers, for the ridges on the candles are said to be as sharp as razors. Then, with bloo...

 Look for What Makes You Different

“Some of you think your hand in life is all deuces and treys.” At the front of the room were some really dedicated students, not much older than Juan. They were wearing, but they had no clothes sense and had never learned ensemble coding. As Chumlig spoke, you could see their fingers tapping away, searching on “deuces” and “treys.” “But I have a theory of life,” said Chumlig, “and it is straight out of gaming: There is always an angle. You, each of you, have some special wil...

 Ira Remsen Experiments with Nitric Acid

While reading in a textbook of chemistry, ... I came across the statement, 'nitric acid acts upon copper.' I was getting tired of reading such absurd stuff and I determined to see what this meant. Copper was more or less familiar to me, for copper cents were then in use. I had seen a bottle marked 'nitric acid' on a table in the doctor's office where I was then 'doing time.' I did not know its peculiarities, but I was getting on and likely to learn. The spirit of adventure was upon me. Having...

 Post-Symbolic Communication

Post-symbolic communication will be like a shared, waking state, intentional dream. Instead of the word "house", you will express a particular house and be able to walk into it, and instead of the category "house" you will peer into an apparently small bucket that is big enough inside to hold all the universe's houses so you can assess what they have in common directly. It will be a fluid form of experiential concreteness providing similar but divergent expressive power to that of abstraction...

 Dinosauria, We

Born like this Into this As the chalk faces smile As Mrs. Death laughs As the elevators break As political landscapes dissolve As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree As the oily fish spit out their oily prey As the sun is masked We are Born like this Into this Into these carefully mad wars Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness Into bars where people no longer speak to each other Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings Born into this Into hospitals which ...