Sconic One of a group of Praxic Age theors who gathered at the house of Lady Baritoe. They addressed the ramifications of the apparent fact that we do not perceive the physical universe directly, but only through the intermediation of our sensory organs. ~ From the glossary of 'Anathem' by Neal Stephenson

ecstatic shock n. The surge of energy upon catching a glance from someone you like a thrill that starts in your stomach, arcs up through your lungs and flashes into a spontaneous smile which scrambles your ungrounded circuits and tempts you to chase that feeling with a kite and a key. ~ Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows Shannon Cuthrell

dialogism rhetorical discussion in form of an imaginary dialogue

Why don't you come down from your cross, take the wood, build a bridge, and get over it?

Crater: The heroic captain and the intrepid doctor cross interstellar space to preserve our health! Oh, your sense of duty is overwhelming. Now, will you please go back where you came from and tell whoever issues your orders to leave me and my wife alone?!? "Star Trek: The Original Series: The Man Trap, Season 1"

It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"

Blasphemy has always seemed to require taking things very seriously. I know no better stance to adopt from within the secular-religious, evangelical traditions of United States politics, including the politics of socialist feminism. Blasphemy protects one from the moral majority within, while still insisting on the need for community. Blasphemy is not apostasy. Irony is about contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes, even dialectically, about the tension of holding incompatible things together because both or all are necessary and true. Irony is about humour and serious play. ~ Donna J. Haraway

What you want, what you're hanging around in the world waiting for, is for something to occur to you. -- Robert Frost [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to AST's.]

The courtroom was pregnant (pun intended) with anxious silence as the judge solemnly considered his verdict in the paternity suit before him. Suddenly, he reached into the folds of his robes, drew out a cigar and ceremoniously handed it to the defendant. "Congratulations!" declaimed the jurist. "You have just become a father!"

Progress might have been alright once, but it has gone on too long. -- Ogden Nash

I have an idea that the phrase 'weaker sex' was coined by some woman to disarm the man she was preparing to overwhelm. -- Ogden Nash

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." --Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

Another war ... must it always be so? How many comrades have we lost in this way? ... Obedience. Duty. Death, and more death ... -- Romulan Commander, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2

FEMALE VOICE: 'The truth is people are pushed around by two men who move all the bodies on earth into patterns that please them.' MALE VOICE: 'I love my mind when it is fucking the cracks of events.' MALE VOICE: 'What I give to all the people who do not want to live with me is arithmetic.' FEMALE VOICE: 'Everyday, I do nothing important because I am scared blank and lazy. But then the men come. I put my mouth on them. I spit and write with the wet.' MALE VOICE: 'I was not born live. This body grew but I did not feel cells split. -- Jenny Holzer

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king. -- J.R.R. Tolkien

Take your time today so you won't walk in mud.

There's a way out of any cage. -- Captain Christopher Pike, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown.

Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor. -- Ogden Nash

The Fundamental Truths (1) It Has To Work. (2) No matter how hard you push and no matter what the priority, you can't increase the speed of light. (2a) (corollary). No matter how hard you try, you can't make a baby in much less than 9 months. Trying to speed this up *might* make it slower, but it won't make it happen any quicker.

Randal can write one-liners again. Everyone is happy, and peace spreads over the whole Earth. -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>