|
Grex > Poetry3 > #245: The Spring Mysterious Quote item |  |
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 215 responses total. |
md
|
|
response 175 of 215:
| 
May 23 03:17 UTC 2001 |
"colleague of Darwin's" = T.H. Huxley, ancestor of Aldous, who wrote
Brave New World and The Doors of Perception. I pass.
|
brighn
|
|
response 176 of 215:
|
May 23 03:29 UTC 2001 |
(and also Eyeless in Gaza, from which the quote came)
the floor is open to any entrant
|
remmers
|
|
response 177 of 215:
|
May 23 16:44 UTC 2001 |
Guess I'll go next. I feel morally justified, since I would
have guessed it also on the basis of brighn's hints in #174.
By a living American writer:
This incompatibility between classical color theory and
reality struck Goethe in the late eighteenth century.
Intensely aware of the phenomenal reality of colored
shadows and colored afterimages, of the effects of
contiguity and illumination on the appearance of
colors, of colored and other visual illusions, he
felt that these must be the basis of a color theory
and declared as his credo, "Optical illusion is
optical truth!" Goethe was centrally concerned with
the way we actually see colors and light, the ways in
which we *create* worlds, and illusions, in color.
This, he felt, was not explicable by Newton's physics,
but only by some as-yet unknown rules of the brain.
He was saying, in effect, "Visual illusion is
neurological truth."
|
orinoco
|
|
response 178 of 215:
|
May 23 19:05 UTC 2001 |
Oh, I _read_ this one. I remember what class I read it for, but not which
of the books it was in. I'm gonna guess Oliver Sacks' _The Man Who Mistook
His Wife For A Hat,_ since that's the only one whose author I remember, but
I'm pretty sure that's not it.
|
remmers
|
|
response 179 of 215:
|
May 23 21:33 UTC 2001 |
Curse you! Oliver Sacks it is. Thought this would be harder.
It's from _An Anthropologist on Mars_. But you're not required to
guess the work, only the author, so you're up.
|
orinoco
|
|
response 180 of 215:
|
May 24 22:02 UTC 2001 |
Each thought has a size, and most are about three feet tall, with the
level of complexity of a lawnmower engine, or a cigarette lighter, or those
tubes of toothpaste that, by mingling several hidden pastes and gels, create
a pleasantly striped product. Once in a while, a thought may come up that
seems, in its woolly, ranked composure, roughly the size of one's hall closet.
But a really *large* thought, a thought in the presence of which whole urban
centers would rise to their feet, and cry out with expressions of gratefulness
and kinship; a thought with grandeur, and drenching, barrel-scorning
catarsacts, and detonations of fist-clenched hope, and hundreds of cellos;
a thought that can tear phone books in half, and rap on the iron nodes of
experience until every blue girder rings; a thought that may one day pack
everything noble and good into its briefcase, elbow past the curators of
purposelessness, travel overnight toward Truth, and shake it by the
indifferent marble shoulders until it finally whispers its cool assent -- this
is the size of thought worth thinking about.
I have wanted for so long to own and maintain even a few huge,
interlocking thoughts that, having exhausted more legitimate methods, I have
recently resorted to theoretical speculation. Would it be possible to list
those features that, taken together, confer upon a thought a lofty
magnificence? What *makes* them so very large? My idle corollary hope is
that perhaps a systematic and rigorous codification, on the model of
Hammurabi's or Napoleon's, might make large thoughts available cheap, and in
bulk, to the general public, thereby salvaging the nineteenth-century dream
of a liberal democracy. But mainly I am hoping that once I can coax from
large thoughts the rich impulses of their power, I will be able to think them
in solitude, evening after evening, walking in little circles on the carpet
with my arms outspread.
|
aruba
|
|
response 181 of 215:
|
May 24 22:11 UTC 2001 |
The first paragraph sounds like it has to be Douglas Adams.
|
orinoco
|
|
response 182 of 215:
|
May 24 22:30 UTC 2001 |
Interesting guess, but no. (Keep an eye on that first paragraph, though.
It's hard to believe it, but it's the more typical of the two. This is an
author who knows how to go overboard.)
|
brighn
|
|
response 183 of 215:
|
May 24 23:56 UTC 2001 |
I could also see Gaiman writing this
|
arianna
|
|
response 184 of 215:
|
May 25 17:11 UTC 2001 |
ditto. whoeevr wrote it, it sounds worth reading.
|
aruba
|
|
response 185 of 215:
|
May 25 18:39 UTC 2001 |
I'll guess Neal Stephenson then, though Scott just used him so that's
probably wrong.
|
raven
|
|
response 186 of 215:
|
May 29 20:20 UTC 2001 |
Tom Robins
|
lynne
|
|
response 187 of 215:
|
Jun 5 14:28 UTC 2001 |
could we get another hint here? this item seems to need a kickstart again.
|
orinoco
|
|
response 188 of 215:
|
Jun 5 19:29 UTC 2001 |
Not Gaiman, Stephenson, or Robbins.
This author seems to be best known for a very slightly notorious novel about
phone sex, and for a few articles and a recent book in which he rants about
library science. Eccentric tastes, I guess.
|
janc
|
|
response 189 of 215:
|
Jun 5 22:14 UTC 2001 |
Too big a clue. Nicholson Baker.
|
orinoco
|
|
response 190 of 215:
|
Jun 8 17:43 UTC 2001 |
Yeah, it probably was too big. Then again, I'd thought Baker's writing style
would be too big a clue all by itself.
Jan is up.
|
janc
|
|
response 191 of 215:
|
Jun 12 03:59 UTC 2001 |
On the crest behind them I saw a sudden tumult of movement, and thought,
ah, yes, those are mounted Sioux--by Jove, there are plenty of them, and
tearing down like those Russians at Campbell's Highlanders. Lot of
war-bonnets and lance-heads, and how hot the sun is, and me with no hat.
Elspeth would have sent me indoors for one. Elspeth . . .
"Hoo'hay, Lacotah! It's a good day to die! Kye-ee-kye!"
"You bloody liars!" I screamed, and all was fast and furious again, with
a hellish din of drumming hooves and screams and war-whoops and shots crashing
like a dozen Gatlings all together, the mounted horde charging on one side,
and as I wheeled to flee, the solid mass of red devils on foot racing in like
mad things, clubs and knives raised, and before I knew it they were among us,
and I went down in an inferno of dust and stamping feet and slashing weapons,
with stinking bodies on top of me, and my right hand pumping the Bulldog
trigger while I gibbered in expectation of the agony of my death-stroke. A
moccasined foot smached into my ribs, I rolled away and fired at a painted
face--and it vanished, but whether I hit it or not God knows, for directly
behind it Custer was falling, on hands and knees, and whether I'd hit *him*,
God knows again. He rocked ack on his heels, blood coming out from his mouth,
and toppled over, and I scrambled up and away, cannoning into a red body,
hurling my empty Bulldog at a leaping Indian and closing with him; he had a
sabre, of all things, and I closed my teeth in his wrist and heard him shriek
as I got my hand on the hilt, and began laying about me blindly. Indians and
troopers were struggling all around me, a lance brushed before my face, I was
aware of a rearing horse and its Indian rider grabbing for his club; I slashed
him across the thigh and he pitched screaming from the saddle; I hurled myself
at the beast's head and was dragged through the mass of yelling, stabbing,
struggling men. Two clear yards and I hauled myself across its back, righting
myself as an Indian stumbled under its hooves, and then I was urging the pony
up and away from that horror, over grassy ground thatt was carpeted with still
and writhing bodies, and beyond it little knots of men fighting, soldiers with
clubbed carbines being overwhelmed by Sioux--but here was a guidon, and a
little cluster of blue shirts that still fired steadily. I rode for them
roaring for help, and they scrambled aside to let me through, and I tumbled
out of the saddle into Keogh's arms.
"Where's the General?" he yelled, and I could only shake my head and point
dumbly at the carnage behind me.
|
bru
|
|
response 192 of 215:
|
Jun 12 12:29 UTC 2001 |
Louis Lamour
|
mary
|
|
response 193 of 215:
|
Jun 12 14:20 UTC 2001 |
_Little Men_, Louisa May Alcott
|
janc
|
|
response 194 of 215:
|
Jun 12 17:21 UTC 2001 |
Not Louis Lamour. Not Louisa May Alcott.
|
janc
|
|
response 195 of 215:
|
Jun 12 21:16 UTC 2001 |
"But I don't speak Danish, dammit!"
"But you have a gift for languages, remember? In the few weeks available,
you can be given a smattering. No more than that will be necessary, for His
Highness speaks German indifferently well, as you will before you take his
place. You have a tolerable fluency as it is."
"But ... but ... well, how the devil do you propose that I *should* take
his place? Go to Denmark, I suppose, and present suitable references!
Balderdash!"
"You need not go to Denmark. I have been in constant communication with
Prince Carl Gustaf. Naturally, he does not know of our plan, but he does
have great faith in me. One of the ministers I mentioned is in my employ.
Through him, all has been arranged. The Prince will set out from Denmark
when the time comes with his retinue; he has been led to believe I have found
a way out of his difficulties. He is rather a simple fellow, although
amiable, and supposes that I can arrange matters. In that belief he will
come to Holstein, en route to Strackenz, and in Holstein the substitution
will take place. The mechanics you may leave to me."
It was like listening to some grotesque fairy-tale. The cool, precies
way in which he told it was staggering.
"But ... but this retinue -- his people, I mean...."
"The minister who is my agent will accompany the Prince. His name is
Detchard. With him at your side, you need have no fears. *And no one
will suspect you*: why should they?"
"Because I'll give myself away in a hundred things, man! My voice, my
actions--God knows what!"
"That is not so," said Bismarck. "I tell you, I know the Prince, his
voice, his mannerisms--all of it. And I tell you that if you shave your
head and upper lip, your own mothers would not know you apart."
"It's true," says Rudi, from the fireplace. "You aren't just alike;
you're the same man. If you learn a few of his habits--gestures, that
sort of thing--it can't fail."
"But I'm not an actor! How can I--"
"You wandered in Afghanistan disguised as a native, did you not?" says
Bismarck. "I know as much about you as you do yourself, you see. If you
can do that, you can easily do this." He leaned forward again. "All this
has been thought of. If you were not a man of action, of proved resource
and courage, of *geist und geschicklichkeit*, with and aptitude, I would
not have entertained this scheme for a moment. It is because you *have*
all these things, and have proved them, that you are here now."
Well, that was all *he* knew. God help him, he believed the newspapers,
and my huge overblown reputation--he thought I was the daredevil _____
_______ of popular report, the Hero of Jallalabad, and all that tommy-rot.
And there was no hope that I could persuade him otherwise.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 196 of 215:
|
Jun 12 22:24 UTC 2001 |
I've not read this, but I'm willing to bet the quotes are from two different
books. Books that are on my list to read, when, if I'm right, I finish the
author's Arthur books.
|
janc
|
|
response 197 of 215:
|
Jun 13 02:17 UTC 2001 |
The quotes are from two different books (although the main character is the
same). To the best of my knowledge, the author has written no Arthur books.
|
aruba
|
|
response 198 of 215:
|
Jun 13 04:03 UTC 2001 |
Jules Verne? (Shot in the dark.)
|
mdw
|
|
response 199 of 215:
|
Jun 13 04:33 UTC 2001 |
Er, uh, that's got to be Flashman! Wish I could remember the author...
|