Tag Archives: book

21-OCT

Oceanography

Out of the Deeps by John Wyndham
(1st published 1953 England as The Kraken Wakes)

In this novel forty-one million Englishmen die, but it is only suggested through the hardships of one couple.”

Richard H. Tyre – emphasising that effective writing involves understatement.

Men will gain infinitely more knowledge, insight, and eventually more products, from mastering the depths of the sea than from spending billions more trying to achieve conquest of sterile space.”

Jacques Yves Cousteau [all wet]

Haunting the seas from Norway through Iceland and all the way to Greenland, the Kraken would attack vessels with its strong arms, and having a taste for human flesh would devour the ship’s entire crew at once.

Release The Kraken!

21-SEP

Do Not Disturb

Where’s that smile?

Where the Wild Things Are

Now that phenomenal existence is no more bolstered by impressions from within or without, we feel the need to lean on something that abides, that will never play us false – a reality, an absolute and everlasting truth: the perfect animal.

12-AUG

Psychosis

Faked or Flawed

“Computer,” said Zaphod, “tell us again what our present trajectory is.”

“A real pleasure, feller,” it burbled, “we are currently in orbit at an altitude of 300 miles around the legendary planet of Magrathea.”

“Proving nothing,” said Ford. “I wouldn’t trust that computer to speak my weight.”

“I can do that for you, sure,” enthused the computer, punching out more tickertape. “I can even work out your personality problems to 10 decimal places if it will help.”

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)

28-MAR

Bibliotheca

Reading Books by Roz Chast

Things form in my brain. They get bigger & bigger until I must write them down to free up some space in my head.

It’s the same way a chicken lays an egg. When people eat that egg, the chicken is probably thinking, Really? You like that? It just came out of my butt.

Mike Reiss in Springfield Confidential

13-MAR

Sniffing

Make Planning a Habit

Every day at 1:15 pm, write down three tasks even if you don’t plan to do them right away. Notice the pattern.

Journal Entry (3/3/23): One whole week (so far) with Covid-19, which up until now, had been avoided.

I’m grateful to modern medicine for keeping me alive; but humanity gets the blame for spreading this disease.

17-XPAN

Wilderness

Out here by myself in 2016 at a place almost totally inaccessible to normal people; motorcycle stuck on that hill for several hours. There’s no water! Nowadays I stay home, look at the picture.

Trinity College Library, Dublin (abundant resources and signs of humanity)

He turned to Stephen and said:

—Seriously, Dedalus. I’m stony. Hurry out to your school kip and bring us back some money.

—That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your national library today.

—Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said.”

Ulysses by James Joyce