"I became an archaeologist because I wanted to drive around in a big Landrover, smoking, cursing, and finding treasure."
The House of Severata
"From its earliest days, exo-anthropology was an old boys’ club, and people who did not fit the pattern, did not play the game, were shooed out of the profession, set up for failure, or in other ways silenced.”
Apprentice Potter
“Express yourself completely. Then keep quiet. Be like the forces of nature; When it blows, there is only wind; When it rains, there is only rain; When the clouds pass, the sun shines through.”
Sales Brochure
"To be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a program for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make the assumption that technology is always a friend to culture is, at this late hour, stupidity plain and simple."
Alice at Work
"Very few anthropologists opt for the soft life when it comes to their fieldwork. In fact, I know only two—one went to the Vatican to study the domestic economy of a male-dominated society, and the other went to Monaco to study sense of place and permanence amongst tax exiles. Both of these were rather condescended to by their peers later on—they were treated as if they had not really earned their spurs, so to speak, as anthropologists. There were sniffy remarks about doing one's research in a meadow rather than a field—that sort of thing. Not really funny, but very barbed."
The Persistence of Paperwork
“Students concerned about being perceived as less intelligent tend to behave in ways that provide excuses for their poor performances. ‘The struggle to escape looking stupid predisposes some students to engage in strategies . . . that will deflect attention away from their ability should poor performance occur’ (Midgley & Urban, 2001, p. 61). The results of this study suggest that one way children with low family socioeconomic status (SES) and low-achieving adolescents cope with their perceived stigma as ‘dumb’ is by bullying their peers. This way, they hope to deflect contempt production away from their own social vulnerability.”
Remaindered
"There’s no exact formula for the amount of time it takes for a title to be released, returned and remaindered, but most authors would agree that the window publishers allow a book to gain traction in the marketplace before it’s yanked from store shelves is pretty short."
Damn Construction
"Despite its humanistic, universalizing pretensions, however, NewSpace does not benefit humankind as such but rather a specific set of wealthy entrepreneurs, many of them originating in Silicon Valley, who strategically deploy humanist tropes to engender enthusiasm for their activities. We describe this complex as ‘capitalistkind'.
Royal Palace Intrigue
“The prettiest sight in this fine pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges.”
Alice at the Cuttlefish Cafe
“A loaf of bread, a pot of choice Seville marmalade, a knife, fork, and small spoon for stirring, 2 fresh eggs packed with care in unspun wool, a tomato or love-apple, a small frying pan, a small sauce pan, a spirit burner, a chafing dish, a tin box of salted butter of the Italian type, 2 bone china plates. Also a portion of honey comb, as a sweetener, for my breath and for my coffee. Let my readers understand me when I say to them all: A true gentleman should always be able to break his fast in the manner of a gentleman, wheresoever he may find himself.”
Glass Palace
"The Crystal Palace’s supremely rational basis denies all that makes human beings free individuals and will not only be 'terribly boring (because what will there be left to do when everything has been calculated by tables)', but will ultimately lead to slavery, because it can only exist if people’s status is reduced to that of cogs in a machine."
"People who live in glass houses have to wash their windows all the time."
Mound Building
"We are convinced that like DaVinci, the Native American mound builders were far more than laboring drudges piling dirt with minimal effort or intentions. Mound building was an art and a science requiring considerable knowledge, skill and planning, hard work, and impressive aesthetic and symbolic expression."
Bezetta State
"Harassment… has reduced the diversity of our discipline by driving some researchers away from specific areas and topics, and by pushing others out of the field altogether. Consequently, harassment not only affects individual archaeologists but also shapes archaeological research and our interpretations of the past."
Stella and Stilts
The (Illinois Sexual Harassment Myth Acceptance Scale) measures the degree to which people hold attitudes and beliefs that serve to deny and justify sexual harassment (e.g., “Women who claim sexual harassment have usually done something to cause it”).
You Say You Want a Revolution
"'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, stop this warful strife, or Jove will be angry with you.' Thus spoke Minerva, and Ulysses obeyed her gladly. Then Minerva assumed the form and voice of Mentor, and presently made a covenant of peace between the two contending parties."
Cooking A Loft
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also, always, some reason in madness."
Nietzsche, Friedrich. "Reading and Writing." Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, translated by Thomas Common, 1909, http://4umi.com/nietzsche/zarathustra/ https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998-h/1998-h.htm.
Stella and Ooze
"Consumers should be skeptical about any recommendations provided on television medical talk shows, as details are limited and only a third to one-half of recommendations are based on believable or somewhat believable evidence."
The Mundane Marvelous
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle—they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments."
Miscellaneous Papers from Unpromising Students
“Those eccentric English archaeologists who had stumbled into Egyptian tombs had more or less got what they deserved, in von Igelfeld's view, when they were struck down by mysterious curses (probably no more than long-dormant microbes sealed into the pyramids). That would never have happened had it been German archaeology that made the discovery; the German professors would undoubtedly have sent their assistants in first.”
Working Thesis
"Perhaps the West Wing's most famous formal aspect is its use of the "walk-and-talk" (also now known as a "peda-conference"). In this hypertextual dance, individuals walk through the halls of the West Wing, sometimes three and four abreast, briskly speaking about crucial issues in domestic and foreign policy, sprinkling their conversations with essential narrative elements and office gossip."
May the Fred Be With You
“Orson Krennic: We were on the verge of greatness. We were this close to providing peace and security for the galaxy.
Galen Erso: You’re confusing peace with terror.
Orson Krennic: Well, you have to start somewhere."
Alice Meeting Stilts
"I have a very close friend who is a brilliant clown, and I always wanted to do a show with him. So I did one year at La MaMa Theatre. I had not done stilts before that show, and I had about two weeks to learn how to do that, and they were just made with off-off-Broadway money. The ones that I had in Rogue One were made by Industrial Light & Magic. So they were really easy. They were made with actual prosthetic feet on the bottom. They were athletic, in a way. I could run in them. There was a bounce to them that I could use."
Stella in Waiting
"History is not what you thought. It is what you remember. All other history defeats itself."
Alice in Orbit
“U.S. researchers and flight surgeons have acknowledged instances (during space flight) of fear, anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, cognitive changes, somatization, impulsive behaviors, social withdrawal, cultural misunderstandings, interpersonal frictions, and anger directed toward Mission Control.”
Molly and Stilts
"Cook squid briefly (for a few seconds) or braise it long enough for it to toughen and then become tender again."
A Delivery Issue
"Baby, you can drive my car. Yes, I'm gonna be a star! Baby, you can drive my car, And maybe I'll love you. Beep beep, beep beep, yeah!"
Molly in the Palace
"(Our study shows that compared to later children), first-born children are more likely to achieve higher levels of education, better occupations and higher likelihood of receiving financial transfers (from their parents.)"
Alice Out Back
"To survive,
Know the past.
Let it touch you.
Then let
The past
Go."
A Caucus Race
"What is a Caucus-race?" said Alice; not that she much wanted to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
"Why," said the Dodo, "the best way to explain it is to do it." (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle ("the exact shape doesn't matter," it said), and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there.
There was no "One, two, three, and away!" but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over.
However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out "The race is over!" and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, "But who has won?"
Stella Unmoored
“Within the kelped halls of our empire are all too many grotesque goblins who wield their powers over hapless students and junior faculty, academics who are unable to recognize other spheniscidians as other than tools to be used. Such cruelty and malfeasance is a blot on the watery escutcheon of our profession.”
Lucy in Orbit
"But no city-state ever solved the problem of incorporating new territories and new populations into its existing structure, or involving really large numbers of people in its political life."
Molly at Club Sylv
"It is well known that the transition into microgravity can be accompanied by symptoms of the Space Adaptation Syndrome (SAS). Roughly 50% of all space travellers suffer from nausea, dizziness, disorientation and/or visual motion illusions during the first 2-3 days of the flight."
BEE History Sylvan
"Television is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information—misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information—information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing."
Molly and Noodles
"Humans need fantasy to be human… to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.”
Beach Scene
"I’m happy. I’m happy because I’ve just fallen in love—an hour ago. This is the happiest part of a love affair—just after falling in love and just before the problem of money comes up. Aphrodite makes me feel weak and stupid. And the reason she makes me feel weak and stupid is because of my two biggest faults. I’m weak and I’m stupid."
All About Liminal
"The literature of science is filled with answers found when the question propounded had an entirely different direction and end."
Eleni's Plan
"The back region of the human personality is culturally identified with the koi, which refers to the abdominal cavity inside a person where knowledge, thoughts, and emotions are located. If a person is clever, for example, this cleverness is contained in the abdomen (tare kaa ikoii; literally, “cleverness is in your abdomen”; freely, ”you are clever”). The fact that the abdomen is inside the human body means that knowledge can be withheld and remain hidden there, an idea that informs much of the cultural symbolism. For example, the metaphor of corn (gbai) in the following proverb (sag) symbolizes, through contrast, the idea of the hidden dimension in human nature: “A person is not corn that you peel and see the seeds.”’
Playing Hopscotch
"(It) might happen that Traveler's arrival would be like an extreme point from which to try again the jump of one into the other and at the same time of the other into the one, but that jump would be precisely the opposite of a collision..."
Another Fine Plot
Stan: “If I had any sense, I'd walk out on you.”
Ollie: “Well, it's a good thing you haven't any sense.”
Stan: “It certainly is.”
Tinfoil Hats
"Well, we had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect, and had prepared for ourselves a sort of tin pulpit, behind which we could stand while conducting experiments. This, combined with caps of metal foil, enormously reduced the effects on ourselves.”
Disaster Averted
"The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley."
Not Callahans
“But history, real solemn history… tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all — it is very tiresome.”
Hacking History
"The Skylab space station, at 77 tons the largest object ever orbited, flashed through the atmosphere and disintegrated in a blaze of fireworks over the Indian Ocean today, showering tons of debris across the Great Australian Desert, one of the world’s most remote places."
Stars Fall on Sylvan
"We lived our little drama, we kissed in a field of white
And stars fell on Alabama that night
I can't forget the glamour, your eyes held a tender light
And stars fell on Alabama last night."
Currant and Cattle
"(Speaker A) A sleeping woman is an inactive thing. (Speaker B) I agree. (A) But when she is awake, her ‘hors d'oeuvres' are a much better route to pleasure than the main course. (B) Then my question to you is: are there ‘hors d'oeuvres' of sex?"
Reports from Generally
"Never give up! Never surrender!"
Alice Among the Canes
"The na losa falaya... is of about the size of a man and walks upright, but its face is shriveled, its eyes are very small and it has quite long, pointed ears. Its nose is likewise long. It lives in the densest woods, near swamps, away from the habitations of men. … Often when hunters are in the woods, far from their homes, late in the day when the shadows have grown long beneath the pine trees, a na losa falaya will come forth. Getting quite near a hunter, it will call in a voice resembling that of a man. And some hunters… are so affected that they fall to the ground and even become unconscious. And when the hunter is thus prostrated on the ground, the na losa falaya approaches and sticks a small thorn into his hand or foot, and by so doing bewitches the hunter…"
Miscellaneous Papers
"Those eccentric English archaeologists who had stumbled into Egyptian tombs had more or less got what they deserved, in von Igelfeld's view, when they were struck down by mysterious curses (probably no more than long dormant microbes sealed into the pyramids). That would never had happened had it been German archaeology that made the discovery; the German professors would undoubtedly would have sent their assistants in first."
Bozartene Molting Festival
"Based on centuries of cross-cultural research across multiple star systems, feasting is a deeply rooted behavior in all sentient beings, as well as many semi-sentient fauna and flora. In whatever form feasting occurs—tearing into the flesh of a hard-earned prey, diving in tandem to lay waste to a densely packed swarm of krill, or attending a stately dinner with ambassadors and chandeliers—people instinctively gather together to share sustenance and practice the art of intraspecies detente."
The Sea Turtle and the Octopus
"What do you seen now? …
Light, just light, making everything below it a toy world.
Very well, we’ll make the glasses accordingly."
Epeius Discovered
"As soon as they had had to eat and drink, Ulysses said to Demodocus, 'Demodocus, there is no one in the world whom I admire more than I do you. You must have studied under the Muse, Jove's daughter, and under Apollo, so accurately do you sing the return of the Achaeans with all their sufferings and adventures. If you were not there yourself, you must have heard it all from someone who was. Now, however, change your song and tell us of the wooden horse which Epeius made with the assistance of Minerva, and which Ulysses got by stratagem into the fort of Troy after freighting it with the men who afterwards sacked the city. If you will sing this tale aright I will tell all the world how magnificently heaven has endowed you.'"
Alice in the Outback
"The process of writing Ancient and Modern: Time, Culture and Indigenous Philosophy changed my thinking to the point where I thought some aspects of the liberal critical agenda will have to go. I can name them: the moral high ground; weak cultural relativism; utopian, redemptive, and apocalyptic storytelling; moral judgment. In their place, I suggest a renewed and radical empiricism (interrogating facts until they tell us their values); negotiation and collaboration; essaying and experimenting; and, finally, protecting our institutions, including the government, from postmodern politicians who have no regard for truth."
Stella Altered
"Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore chuse to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them."
The Myth of Communication
"Ethnography of rock art through the content of accompanying inscriptions… sometimes provides not only reliable interpretations. It also imbues the rock art with a human dimension; it lets its producers communicate their thoughts, concerns, priorities and desires to us. They, as actors in deep history, become individuals through the contents of their messages."
Memoirs of BobbyMacFlee
"Misunderstanding is my cornerstone. It's everyone's, come to think of it. Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization."
Stella on Ice
"Certainly no other race from temperate climates is likely to try to colonise the Arctic, since the Nordics alone show that distaste for gregariousness and that capacity for enduring solitude which are essential for the task. We may even grant them a greater measure of physical enterprise and love of wandering than other people."
Minnie Knows Swimming
“When targeting krill, (Macaroni penguins at Cape Cotter) dived more than 40 meters (mean 42.9±0.4 m) and were observed to travel through the patch, rapidly capturing large numbers of single prey items (max 153 krill within a dive), with individual captures lasting under a half-second in duration.”
Transcendental Buffoonery
"(Transcreation is) translation that unsettles the single reference, the logocentric tyranny of the original, translation that has the devilish dimension of usurpation; translation that disturbs linear flows and power hierarchies—daemonic dimensions that coexist with the a priori gesture of tribute to the other inherent in translating and the giving of one’s own vitality to the other. Transcreation—the poetics that disrupts the primacy of the one model—a rupture and a recourse to the one and the other."
Waldo Incorporated
“Each mass of them turned, wheeled, reversed the order of their flight, changed in one shimmer from brown to grey, from dark to light, as though all the individuals composing them had been component parts of an individual organism.” British ornithologist Edmund Selous (1857-1934, quoted in Vallee and elsewhere)
- Schrire, Carmel. Digging through Darkness: Chronicles of an Archaeologist. University Press of Virginia, 1996.
The House of Severata
"From its earliest days, exo-anthropology was an old boys’ club, and people who did not fit the pattern, did not play the game, were shooed out of the profession, set up for failure, or in other ways silenced.”
- Roggerta, Severata. Mischief. Bozart University Press.
Apprentice Potter
“Express yourself completely. Then keep quiet. Be like the forces of nature; When it blows, there is only wind; When it rains, there is only rain; When the clouds pass, the sun shines through.”
- Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 4th century BCE.
Sales Brochure
"To be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a program for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make the assumption that technology is always a friend to culture is, at this late hour, stupidity plain and simple."
- Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Penguin Random House, 1986.
Alice at Work
"Very few anthropologists opt for the soft life when it comes to their fieldwork. In fact, I know only two—one went to the Vatican to study the domestic economy of a male-dominated society, and the other went to Monaco to study sense of place and permanence amongst tax exiles. Both of these were rather condescended to by their peers later on—they were treated as if they had not really earned their spurs, so to speak, as anthropologists. There were sniffy remarks about doing one's research in a meadow rather than a field—that sort of thing. Not really funny, but very barbed."
- McCall Smith, Alexander. Love over Scotland. Anchor Books, 2006.
The Persistence of Paperwork
“Students concerned about being perceived as less intelligent tend to behave in ways that provide excuses for their poor performances. ‘The struggle to escape looking stupid predisposes some students to engage in strategies . . . that will deflect attention away from their ability should poor performance occur’ (Midgley & Urban, 2001, p. 61). The results of this study suggest that one way children with low family socioeconomic status (SES) and low-achieving adolescents cope with their perceived stigma as ‘dumb’ is by bullying their peers. This way, they hope to deflect contempt production away from their own social vulnerability.”
- Dietrich, Lars and Ronald F. Ferguson. "Why Stigmatized Adolescents Bully More: The Role of Self-Esteem and Academic-Status Insecurity." International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, vol. 25, no. 1, 2020, pp. 305-18, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2019.1622582
Remaindered
"There’s no exact formula for the amount of time it takes for a title to be released, returned and remaindered, but most authors would agree that the window publishers allow a book to gain traction in the marketplace before it’s yanked from store shelves is pretty short."
- Nawotka, Edward. "Are Publishers Too Quick to Remainder Titles?" Publishing Perspectives. 11 August 2010 https://publishingperspectives.com/2010/08/are-publishers-too-quick-to-remainder-titles/
Damn Construction
"Despite its humanistic, universalizing pretensions, however, NewSpace does not benefit humankind as such but rather a specific set of wealthy entrepreneurs, many of them originating in Silicon Valley, who strategically deploy humanist tropes to engender enthusiasm for their activities. We describe this complex as ‘capitalistkind'.
- Shammas, Victor L. and Tomas B. Holen. "One Giant Leap for Capitalistkind: Private Enterprise in Outer Space." Palgrave Communications, vol. 5, no. 1, 2019, p. 10, doi:10.1057/s41599-019-0218-9.
Royal Palace Intrigue
“The prettiest sight in this fine pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges.”
- Cukor, George. "The Philadelphia Story." Loew's Inc, 1940. Producer, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, writers: Donald Ogden Stewart and Philip Barry. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032904/
Alice at the Cuttlefish Cafe
“A loaf of bread, a pot of choice Seville marmalade, a knife, fork, and small spoon for stirring, 2 fresh eggs packed with care in unspun wool, a tomato or love-apple, a small frying pan, a small sauce pan, a spirit burner, a chafing dish, a tin box of salted butter of the Italian type, 2 bone china plates. Also a portion of honey comb, as a sweetener, for my breath and for my coffee. Let my readers understand me when I say to them all: A true gentleman should always be able to break his fast in the manner of a gentleman, wheresoever he may find himself.”
- Gaiman, Neil and Terry Pratchett. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. Workman Publishing Company Inc., 1990.
Glass Palace
"The Crystal Palace’s supremely rational basis denies all that makes human beings free individuals and will not only be 'terribly boring (because what will there be left to do when everything has been calculated by tables)', but will ultimately lead to slavery, because it can only exist if people’s status is reduced to that of cogs in a machine."
- Young, Sarah J. "The Crystal Palace." Dostoevsky in Context, edited by Deborah A. Martinsen and Olga Maiorova, Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 176-84. Literature in Context, Cambridge Core, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/dostoevsky-in-context/crystal-palace/965D65296F6B67B1216CAF14CFC73CCB
"People who live in glass houses have to wash their windows all the time."
- Buchwald, Art. You Can Fool All of the People All of the Time. Fawcett Books, 1986.
Mound Building
"We are convinced that like DaVinci, the Native American mound builders were far more than laboring drudges piling dirt with minimal effort or intentions. Mound building was an art and a science requiring considerable knowledge, skill and planning, hard work, and impressive aesthetic and symbolic expression."
- Sherwood, Sarah C. and Tristram R. Kidder. "The ))DaVincis)) of Dirt: Geoarchaeological Perspectives on Native American Mound Building in the Mississippi River Basin." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, vol. 30, no. 1, 2011, pp. 69-87, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2010.11.001
Bezetta State
"Harassment… has reduced the diversity of our discipline by driving some researchers away from specific areas and topics, and by pushing others out of the field altogether. Consequently, harassment not only affects individual archaeologists but also shapes archaeological research and our interpretations of the past."
- Voss, Barbara L. "Documenting Cultures of Harassment in Archaeology: A Review and Analysis of Quantitative and Qualitative Research Studies." American Antiquity, vol. 86, no. 2, 2021, pp. 244-60, Cambridge Core, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/aaq.2020.118
Stella and Stilts
The (Illinois Sexual Harassment Myth Acceptance Scale) measures the degree to which people hold attitudes and beliefs that serve to deny and justify sexual harassment (e.g., “Women who claim sexual harassment have usually done something to cause it”).
- Peixotto, Becca et al. "Rethinking Research Sites as Wilderness Activity Sites: Reframing Health, Safety, and Wellness in Archaeology." Advances in Archaeological Practice, vol. 9, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-9, Cambridge Core, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/aap.2020.50
You Say You Want a Revolution
"'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, stop this warful strife, or Jove will be angry with you.' Thus spoke Minerva, and Ulysses obeyed her gladly. Then Minerva assumed the form and voice of Mentor, and presently made a covenant of peace between the two contending parties."
- Homer. Book XXIV. "The Odyssey." edited by Daniel C. Stevenson, translated by Samuel Butler, Internet Classics Archive, 2000. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2199/2199-h/2199-h.htm
Cooking A Loft
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also, always, some reason in madness."
Nietzsche, Friedrich. "Reading and Writing." Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, translated by Thomas Common, 1909, http://4umi.com/nietzsche/zarathustra/ https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998-h/1998-h.htm.
Stella and Ooze
"Consumers should be skeptical about any recommendations provided on television medical talk shows, as details are limited and only a third to one-half of recommendations are based on believable or somewhat believable evidence."
- Korownyk, C. et al. "Televised Medical Talk Shows—What They Recommend and the Evidence to Support Their Recommendations: A Prospective Observational Study." BMJ, vol. 349, 2014, p. g7346, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g7346
The Mundane Marvelous
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle—they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments."
- Whitehead, Alfred North. An Introduction to Mathematics. Edited by Andrew D. Hwang, Project Guttenberg, Williams & Norgate, 1911.
Miscellaneous Papers from Unpromising Students
“Those eccentric English archaeologists who had stumbled into Egyptian tombs had more or less got what they deserved, in von Igelfeld's view, when they were struck down by mysterious curses (probably no more than long-dormant microbes sealed into the pyramids). That would never have happened had it been German archaeology that made the discovery; the German professors would undoubtedly have sent their assistants in first.”
- McCall Smith, Alexander. "On Being Light Blue." At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, Anchor Books, 2004.
Working Thesis
"Perhaps the West Wing's most famous formal aspect is its use of the "walk-and-talk" (also now known as a "peda-conference"). In this hypertextual dance, individuals walk through the halls of the West Wing, sometimes three and four abreast, briskly speaking about crucial issues in domestic and foreign policy, sprinkling their conversations with essential narrative elements and office gossip."
- Finn, Patrick. "The West Wing's Textual President: American Constitutional Stability and the New Public Intellectual in the Age of Information." The West Wing: The American Presidency as Television Drama, edited by Peter O. Rollins and John E. O'Connor, Syracuse University Press, 2003, pp. 101-24.
May the Fred Be With You
“Orson Krennic: We were on the verge of greatness. We were this close to providing peace and security for the galaxy.
Galen Erso: You’re confusing peace with terror.
Orson Krennic: Well, you have to start somewhere."
- Edwards, Gareth, director. "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story." Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2016, Lucasfilm.
Alice Meeting Stilts
"I have a very close friend who is a brilliant clown, and I always wanted to do a show with him. So I did one year at La MaMa Theatre. I had not done stilts before that show, and I had about two weeks to learn how to do that, and they were just made with off-off-Broadway money. The ones that I had in Rogue One were made by Industrial Light & Magic. So they were really easy. They were made with actual prosthetic feet on the bottom. They were athletic, in a way. I could run in them. There was a bounce to them that I could use."
- Zuckerman, Esther. "Alan Tudyk on Making Moana’s Chicken Noises and His Fear of Becoming Rogue One’s Jar Jar." Film, AV Club: Pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed, 7 December 2016. https://www.avclub.com/alan-tudyk-on-making-moana-s-chicken-noises-and-his-fea-1798255485
Stella in Waiting
"History is not what you thought. It is what you remember. All other history defeats itself."
- Sellar, Walker Carruthers and Robert Julian Yeatman. 1066 and All That. Methuen, 1930.
Alice in Orbit
“U.S. researchers and flight surgeons have acknowledged instances (during space flight) of fear, anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, cognitive changes, somatization, impulsive behaviors, social withdrawal, cultural misunderstandings, interpersonal frictions, and anger directed toward Mission Control.”
- Harrison, Albert A. and Edna R. Fiedler. "Behavioral Health." Psychology of Space Exploration: Contemporary Research in Historical Perspective, edited by Douglas A. Vakoch, vol. 4411, US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2011, pp. 17-60. Nasa Special Publications.
Molly and Stilts
"Cook squid briefly (for a few seconds) or braise it long enough for it to toughen and then become tender again."
- "A Guide for Buying and Cooking Squid." Recipes. https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/articles/a-guide-for-buying-and-cooking-squid
A Delivery Issue
"Baby, you can drive my car. Yes, I'm gonna be a star! Baby, you can drive my car, And maybe I'll love you. Beep beep, beep beep, yeah!"
- Lennon, John and Paul McCartney. "Drive My Car." Rubber Soul, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd, 1965. https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/819430/The+Beatles/Drive+My+Car https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfSQkZuIx84
Molly in the Palace
"(Our study shows that compared to later children), first-born children are more likely to achieve higher levels of education, better occupations and higher likelihood of receiving financial transfers (from their parents.)"
- Mechoulan, Stéphane and François-Charles Wolff. "Intra-Household Allocation of Family Resources and Birth Order: Evidence from France Using Siblings Data." Journal of Population Economics, vol. 28, no. 4, 2015, pp. 937-64, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00148-015-0556-x
Alice Out Back
"To survive,
Know the past.
Let it touch you.
Then let
The past
Go."
- Clip from "Earthseed: The Book of the Living," written by Lauren Oya Olamina, the fictional hero of Octavia Butler's novel Parable of the Talents. Warner Books, 1998.
A Caucus Race
"What is a Caucus-race?" said Alice; not that she much wanted to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
"Why," said the Dodo, "the best way to explain it is to do it." (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle ("the exact shape doesn't matter," it said), and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there.
There was no "One, two, three, and away!" but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over.
However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out "The race is over!" and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, "But who has won?"
- Carroll, Lewis. "A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale." Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Pan Macmillan, 1865, http://www.authorama.com/alice-in-wonderland-3.html.
Stella Unmoored
“Within the kelped halls of our empire are all too many grotesque goblins who wield their powers over hapless students and junior faculty, academics who are unable to recognize other spheniscidians as other than tools to be used. Such cruelty and malfeasance is a blot on the watery escutcheon of our profession.”
- Severata Roggerta Mischief.
Lucy in Orbit
"But no city-state ever solved the problem of incorporating new territories and new populations into its existing structure, or involving really large numbers of people in its political life."
- Strayer, Joseph R. On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State. Princeton University Press 2005.
Molly at Club Sylv
"It is well known that the transition into microgravity can be accompanied by symptoms of the Space Adaptation Syndrome (SAS). Roughly 50% of all space travellers suffer from nausea, dizziness, disorientation and/or visual motion illusions during the first 2-3 days of the flight."
- Nooij, S. A. E. et al. "Space Sickness on Earth." Microgravity Science and Technology, vol. 19, no. 5, 2007, pp. 113-17, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02919464
BEE History Sylvan
"Television is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information—misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information—information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing."
- Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Penguin Random House, 1986.
Molly and Noodles
"Humans need fantasy to be human… to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.”
- Pratchett, Terry. Hogfather. HarperTorch, 1996.
Beach Scene
"I’m happy. I’m happy because I’ve just fallen in love—an hour ago. This is the happiest part of a love affair—just after falling in love and just before the problem of money comes up. Aphrodite makes me feel weak and stupid. And the reason she makes me feel weak and stupid is because of my two biggest faults. I’m weak and I’m stupid."
- Shulman, Max. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Doubleday, 1951.
All About Liminal
"The literature of science is filled with answers found when the question propounded had an entirely different direction and end."
- Steinbeck, John and Edward Flanders Ricketts. The Log from the Sea of Cortez. Penguin Books, 1951 (1995).
Eleni's Plan
"The back region of the human personality is culturally identified with the koi, which refers to the abdominal cavity inside a person where knowledge, thoughts, and emotions are located. If a person is clever, for example, this cleverness is contained in the abdomen (tare kaa ikoii; literally, “cleverness is in your abdomen”; freely, ”you are clever”). The fact that the abdomen is inside the human body means that knowledge can be withheld and remain hidden there, an idea that informs much of the cultural symbolism. For example, the metaphor of corn (gbai) in the following proverb (sag) symbolizes, through contrast, the idea of the hidden dimension in human nature: “A person is not corn that you peel and see the seeds.”’
- Murphy, William P. "The Rhetorical Management of Dangerous Knowledge in Kpelle Brokerage." American Ethnologist, vol. 8, no. 4, 1981, pp. 667-85, doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1981.8.4.02a00010
Playing Hopscotch
"(It) might happen that Traveler's arrival would be like an extreme point from which to try again the jump of one into the other and at the same time of the other into the one, but that jump would be precisely the opposite of a collision..."
- Cortázar, Julio. Hopscotch. translated by Gregory Rabassa, Random House, 1966.
Another Fine Plot
Stan: “If I had any sense, I'd walk out on you.”
Ollie: “Well, it's a good thing you haven't any sense.”
Stan: “It certainly is.”
- Parrott, James (director). "Helpmates." Starring Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Bobby Burns, 1932. Writers: H.M. Walker and Stan Laurel, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022994/
Tinfoil Hats
"Well, we had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect, and had prepared for ourselves a sort of tin pulpit, behind which we could stand while conducting experiments. This, combined with caps of metal foil, enormously reduced the effects on ourselves.”
- Huxley, Julian. "The Tissue-Culture King: A Biological Fantasy." Amazing Stories, vol. 2, no. 5, 1927, pp. 451-59, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?57847 http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?56223
Disaster Averted
"The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley."
- Burns, Robert. "To a Mouse: On Turning Her up in Her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785." Poetry Foundation, 1785. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43816/to-a-mouse-56d222ab36e33
Not Callahans
“But history, real solemn history… tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all — it is very tiresome.”
- Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. John Murray, 1818.
Hacking History
"The Skylab space station, at 77 tons the largest object ever orbited, flashed through the atmosphere and disintegrated in a blaze of fireworks over the Indian Ocean today, showering tons of debris across the Great Australian Desert, one of the world’s most remote places."
- Lyons, Richard D. "Skylab Debris Hits Australian Desert; No Harm Reported." The New York Times, 12 July 1979, A. https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/12/archives/skylab-debris-hits-australian-desert-no-harm-reported-president.html
Stars Fall on Sylvan
"We lived our little drama, we kissed in a field of white
And stars fell on Alabama that night
I can't forget the glamour, your eyes held a tender light
And stars fell on Alabama last night."
- Perkins, Frank S. and Mitchell Parish. "Stars Fell on Alabama." 1934. https://www.jazzstandards.com/compositions-2/starsfellonalabama.htm
Currant and Cattle
"(Speaker A) A sleeping woman is an inactive thing. (Speaker B) I agree. (A) But when she is awake, her ‘hors d'oeuvres' are a much better route to pleasure than the main course. (B) Then my question to you is: are there ‘hors d'oeuvres' of sex?"
- From a fragment of Plato’s Europa, cited in Hadjittofi, Fotini. "Sleeping Europa from Plato Comicus to Moschus and Horace." The Classical Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 1, 2019, pp. 264-77, Cambridge Core, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0009838819000545
Reports from Generally
"Never give up! Never surrender!"
- Parisot, Dean. "Galaxy Quest." translated by Tim Allen et al., 1999. general editor, David Howard and Robert Gordon, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ2hJezvd2I
Alice Among the Canes
"The na losa falaya... is of about the size of a man and walks upright, but its face is shriveled, its eyes are very small and it has quite long, pointed ears. Its nose is likewise long. It lives in the densest woods, near swamps, away from the habitations of men. … Often when hunters are in the woods, far from their homes, late in the day when the shadows have grown long beneath the pine trees, a na losa falaya will come forth. Getting quite near a hunter, it will call in a voice resembling that of a man. And some hunters… are so affected that they fall to the ground and even become unconscious. And when the hunter is thus prostrated on the ground, the na losa falaya approaches and sticks a small thorn into his hand or foot, and by so doing bewitches the hunter…"
- Pisatuntema, Emma. "Na Losa Falaya." Choctaw Tales, edited by Jim Mould, University Press of Mississippi, 2004, pp. 113-14.
Miscellaneous Papers
"Those eccentric English archaeologists who had stumbled into Egyptian tombs had more or less got what they deserved, in von Igelfeld's view, when they were struck down by mysterious curses (probably no more than long dormant microbes sealed into the pyramids). That would never had happened had it been German archaeology that made the discovery; the German professors would undoubtedly would have sent their assistants in first."
- McCall Smith, Alexander. "On Being Light Blue." At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, Anchor Books, 2004.
Bozartene Molting Festival
"Based on centuries of cross-cultural research across multiple star systems, feasting is a deeply rooted behavior in all sentient beings, as well as many semi-sentient fauna and flora. In whatever form feasting occurs—tearing into the flesh of a hard-earned prey, diving in tandem to lay waste to a densely packed swarm of krill, or attending a stately dinner with ambassadors and chandeliers—people instinctively gather together to share sustenance and practice the art of intraspecies detente."
- Roggerta, Severata. “Cross-Cultural Currents: Investigating the Root Realities of Life as it Exists in the Universe” Boxford University Press, 3582
The Sea Turtle and the Octopus
"What do you seen now? …
Light, just light, making everything below it a toy world.
Very well, we’ll make the glasses accordingly."
- Masters, Edgar Lee. "Dippold the Optician." Spoon River Anthology, The Macmillan Company (1916) Bartleby.com (1999), 1916, https://www.bartleby.com/84/178.html
Epeius Discovered
"As soon as they had had to eat and drink, Ulysses said to Demodocus, 'Demodocus, there is no one in the world whom I admire more than I do you. You must have studied under the Muse, Jove's daughter, and under Apollo, so accurately do you sing the return of the Achaeans with all their sufferings and adventures. If you were not there yourself, you must have heard it all from someone who was. Now, however, change your song and tell us of the wooden horse which Epeius made with the assistance of Minerva, and which Ulysses got by stratagem into the fort of Troy after freighting it with the men who afterwards sacked the city. If you will sing this tale aright I will tell all the world how magnificently heaven has endowed you.'"
- Homer. "The Odyssey." edited by Daniel C. Stevenson, translated by Samuel Butler, Internet Classics Archive, 2000. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2199/2199-h/2199-h.htm
Alice in the Outback
"The process of writing Ancient and Modern: Time, Culture and Indigenous Philosophy changed my thinking to the point where I thought some aspects of the liberal critical agenda will have to go. I can name them: the moral high ground; weak cultural relativism; utopian, redemptive, and apocalyptic storytelling; moral judgment. In their place, I suggest a renewed and radical empiricism (interrogating facts until they tell us their values); negotiation and collaboration; essaying and experimenting; and, finally, protecting our institutions, including the government, from postmodern politicians who have no regard for truth."
- Muecke, Stephen. "Australian Indigenous Philosophy." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, vol. 13, no. 2, 2011, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1741
Stella Altered
"Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore chuse to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them."
- Joseph Addison. The Works of the Late Right Honorable Joseph Addison, Esq. edited by Thomas Tickell, vol. 3, John Baskerville, 1761.
The Myth of Communication
"Ethnography of rock art through the content of accompanying inscriptions… sometimes provides not only reliable interpretations. It also imbues the rock art with a human dimension; it lets its producers communicate their thoughts, concerns, priorities and desires to us. They, as actors in deep history, become individuals through the contents of their messages."
- Robert G. Bednarik. "Ethnographic Interpretation of Rock Art through Rock Inscriptions." Rock Art Research, vol. 38, no. 1, 2021, pp. 70–83, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3316/informit.039831624986349
Memoirs of BobbyMacFlee
"Misunderstanding is my cornerstone. It's everyone's, come to think of it. Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization."
- Barbara Kingsolver. The Poisonwood Bible. Harper, 1998.
Stella on Ice
"Certainly no other race from temperate climates is likely to try to colonise the Arctic, since the Nordics alone show that distaste for gregariousness and that capacity for enduring solitude which are essential for the task. We may even grant them a greater measure of physical enterprise and love of wandering than other people."
- Scottish explorer Robert Rudmose Brown, quoted in Wråkberg, Urban. "A. E. Nordenskiöld in Swedish Memory: The Origin and Uses of Arctic Heroism." Acta Borealia, vol. 36, no. 2, 2019, pp. 166-82, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08003831.2019.1680511.
Minnie Knows Swimming
“When targeting krill, (Macaroni penguins at Cape Cotter) dived more than 40 meters (mean 42.9±0.4 m) and were observed to travel through the patch, rapidly capturing large numbers of single prey items (max 153 krill within a dive), with individual captures lasting under a half-second in duration.”
- Sutton, G. J. et al. "Fine-Scale Foraging Effort and Efficiency of Macaroni Penguins Is Influenced by Prey Type, Patch Density and Temporal Dynamics." Marine Biology, vol. 168, no. 1, 2021, p. 3, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-03811-w
Transcendental Buffoonery
"(Transcreation is) translation that unsettles the single reference, the logocentric tyranny of the original, translation that has the devilish dimension of usurpation; translation that disturbs linear flows and power hierarchies—daemonic dimensions that coexist with the a priori gesture of tribute to the other inherent in translating and the giving of one’s own vitality to the other. Transcreation—the poetics that disrupts the primacy of the one model—a rupture and a recourse to the one and the other."
- Vieira, Else Ribeiro Pires. "Liberating Calibans: Readings of Antropofagia and Haroldo De Campos' Poetics of Transcreation." Post-Colonial Translation: Theory and Practice, edited by Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi, Routledge, 1999, pp. 95-113.
Waldo Incorporated
“Each mass of them turned, wheeled, reversed the order of their flight, changed in one shimmer from brown to grey, from dark to light, as though all the individuals composing them had been component parts of an individual organism.” British ornithologist Edmund Selous (1857-1934, quoted in Vallee and elsewhere)
- Vallee, Mickey. "Animal, Body, Data: Starling Murmurations and the Dynamic of Becoming in-Formation." Body & Society, vol. 27, no. 2, 2021, pp. 83-106, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1357034x21992846