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Sadly, when it comes to ... such borderline theories, I have no spiel to offer, and sometimes revert to being a jerk. In this case, I suggested that they both might be magnetized. As an experiment, I said, he and his wife should float on their backs in their swimming pool to see if they both pointed north. I was guessing that they had a pool. I was right. They never came back. [p. 102]
There are some fascinating case studies here (ovarian teratoma, motor neurone disease, Parkinson's) and Ropper stresses the importance of listening to the patient's account of their problem, as well as observing the physical signs of it. Unfortunately Ropper presents as rather arrogant( Read more... )
What faces a young swift is a metamorphosis no less than if it were a larval insect bursting from the chrysalis as a winged imago. What hatched as a toad-mouthed lizard has already morphed to a light-wreathed angel, but now it must go from a condition of complete reliance upon parents to independence, instantly and without alternative. It must launch itself from a dusty, dark roof and fly out to the Sun. There are no second chances. It is a one-shot deal. It must fly, but fly perfectly, having never done so. It must simultaneously learn to feed and do so immediately... [loc. 2361]
Mark Cocker frames his narrative as a single summer day, from dawn to dusk. He draws on history, physics and anecdote to support his hypothesis that 'it takes a whole universe to make just one small black bird', and his account is nature writing at its best -- discursive, poetic, emotional, scientific, full of anecdotes and unexpected facts. ( Read more... )
You couldn’t get hot for handwriting. And yet he had ... [loc. 1329]
Set in London in 1924. Detective Sergeant Aaron Fowler, of the Metropolitan Police, is approached by his slimy cousin Paul to sort out a graphologist who's wrecked Paul's engagement by accurately reporting, to his fiancee, his infidelity. Fowler drops in on the graphologist, one Joel Wildsmith, expecting to find a con artist of some variety: but he's disturbed, and impressed, by the accuracy of Joel's analyses. (And by Joel himself: but Aaron never acts on his desires, times being what they are.) He devises a scientific test, presenting Joel with a set of handwriting samples -- and Joel's gift reveals a sociopath.
( Read more... )... this new queer writing was all about using language to weave connections: to a place (San Francisco’s Bay Area) and between people (real or imagined). All in the service of queer community politics. In the late 1970s, [Bruce] Boone and [Robert] Glück thought about calling it something. ‘How about New Narrative?’ Boone suggested as a joke. [p. 287]
Hester starts off at Prospect Cottage, Derek Jarman's house at Dungeness, with the vague notion of 'a larger project I had in mind, which would examine the importance of queer places in the history of arts and culture' [p.7].( Read more... )