Push and Pull

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Begegnung_im_Haus_(Werwolf_von_Neuses).png

In short, there appears to be something paradoxical about the horror genre. It obviously attracts consumers; but it seems to do so by means of the expressly repulsive. Furthermore, the horror genre gives every evidence of being pleasurable to its audience, but it does so by means of trafficking in the very sorts of things that cause disquiet, distress, and displeasure. So different ways of clarifying the question ‘Why horror?’ are to ask: ‘Why are horror audiences attracted by what, typically (in everyday life), should (and would) repel them?,’ or ‘How can horror audiences find pleasure in what by nature is distressful and unpleasant?’

— Noël Carroll, “Why Horror?” in Alex Neill and Aaron Ridley, eds., Arguing About Art, 1995

| Art

Between the Lines

In 1979, the California Court of Appeal reversed the conviction of a California man for possessing obscene films. Justice L. Thaxton Hanson wrote a long dissent implying that his colleagues favored pornography. In return, Justice Robert Thompson added a footnote to the majority opinion:

We feel compelled by the nature of the attack in the dissenting opinion to spell out a response:

1. Some answer is required to the dissent’s charge.
2. Certainly we do not endorse ‘victimless crime.’
3. How that question is involved escapes us.
4. Moreover, the constitutional issue is significant.
5. Ultimately it must be addressed in light of precedent.
6. Certainly the course of precedent is clear.
7. Knowing that, our result is compelled.

Read the first letter of each line.

John Peale Bishop (1892-1944) composed this acrostical poem, entitled “A Recollection”:

Famously she descended, her red hair
Unbound and bronzed by sea-reflections, caught
Crinkled with sea-pearls. The fine slender taut
Knees that let down her feet upon the air,

Young breasts, slim flanks and golden quarries were
Odder than when the young distraught
Unknown Venetian, painting her portrait, thought
He’d not imagined what he painted there.

And I too commerced with that golden cloud:
Lipped her delicious hands and had my ease
Faring fantastically, perversely proud.

All loveliness demands our courtesies.
Since she was dead I praised her as I could
Silently, among the Barberini bees.

I haven’t been able to learn anything more about it.

| Language

Urban Contemporary

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21788347/Martin-Gardner-Time-Travel-and-Other-Mathematical-Bewilderments

In 1939, Heitor Villa-Lobos composed a piano piece by superimposing the New York skyline on a piece of graph paper.

Five years later he used a similar method to compose his sixth symphony, finding a melodic line in the mountain peaks of his native Brazil.

| Art

Bang!

If Brown hopes to throw a six in a game of dice and succeeds, we wouldn’t say he threw the six intentionally. If Brown puts his last cartridge into a six-chambered revolver, spins the chamber as he aims it at Smith, his archenemy, pulls the trigger, and kills Smith, we’d say he killed him intentionally. Does that make sense? In both cases Brown hoped for a certain result, in both cases the probability of that result was the same. If Brown didn’t intentionally throw a six, why did he intentionally shoot Smith?

— Leo Katz, Bad Acts and Guilty Minds, 1987

| Science & Math · Society

Rimshot

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1215011

A husband and wife are killed in an accident and find themselves in heaven. It’s an immaculate golf course with a beautiful clubhouse and handsomely landscaped greens, and they have it to themselves. They gape at it for a while, and then he asks her if she’d like to play a round.

As they’re teeing up for the first hole, she says, “What’s wrong?”

He says, “We could have been here years ago if it weren’t for your stupid oat bran.”

| Humor

Youth Club

The same Dr. Webb was on one occasion counsel for Peter Mulligan, who made an application before the Recorder of Dublin for a license for a public-house. The applicant was only twenty-five years of age, and the police objected on account of his youth.

‘He is very young for so responsible a position,’ quoth the Recorder.

Dr. Webb instantly rose to the occasion:

‘My lord,’ he said, ‘Alexander the Great at twenty-two years of age had–had crushed the Illyrians and razed the city of Thebes to the ground, had crossed the Hellespont at the head of his army, had conquered Darius with a force of a million in the defiles of Issus and brought the great Persian Empire under his sway. At twenty-three René Descartes evolved a new system of philosophy. At twenty-four Pitt was Prime Minister of the British Empire, on whose dominions the sun never sets. At twenty-four Napoleon overthrew the enemies of the Republic with a whiff of grape-shot in the streets of Paris, and is it now to be judicially decided that at twenty-five my client, Peter Mulligan, is too young to manage a public-house in Capel Street?’

The license was hurriedly granted.

— Matthias M’Donnell Bodkin, Recollections of an Irish Judge, 1915

| Society

Misc

  • What time is it on the sun?
  • PATERNAL, PARENTAL, and PRENATAL are anagrams.
  • If forecastle is pronounced “fo’c’sle,” should forecast be pronounced “folks”?
  • A clock’s second hand is its third hand.
  • “The religion of one seems madness unto another.” — Thomas Browne

Bonus poser: In what sport does only the winning team travel backward?

| Language · Quotations · Science & Math

No Exceptions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wilson_Mizner.jpg

In 1907, Wilson Mizner ran a theatrical hotel in New York.

He posted two rules:

“Carry Out Your Own Dead”

“No Opium Smoking in the Elevator”

“Be nice to people on the way up,” he once said, “because you’ll meet them on the way down.”

| Entertainment

Going Ashore

In February 1820, Connecticut sealer John Davis sailed south past Hoseason Island in the Southern Ocean and spied a peninsula there. He wrote in his log:

Commences with open Cloudy Weather and Light winds a standing for a Large Body of Land in that Direction SE at 10 A.M. close in with it our Boat and Sent her on Shore to look for Seal at 11 A.M. the Boat returned but found no sign of Seal at noon our Latitude was 64°01’ South. Stood up a Large Bay, the Land high and covered intirely with snow. … I think this Southern Land to be a Continent.

He is believed to be the first man to set foot on Antarctica.

| History