Category: Blague

Frederick Amrine, a university professor who has published extensively on Goethe’s scientific works, makes what seems at first a startling observation but, once understood, it seems as obvious as a Zen koan: whenever there is progress in science, “It is not the data that change in a ‘Gestalt switch.’ Rather, it is we who change.”1… Continue reading An Early Cubist Sketch by Pierre Picasseau

James Joyce was having fun with language in Ulysses when he has the consciousness of Stephen Dedalus stream over the five vowels: 　A.E.I.O.U.1 “A.E.” refers to George Russell, the Irish poet and essayist, and “I.O.U.” to the rumor that Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s alter ego in Ulysses, owes him money. Are the five vowels also an… Continue reading A.E.I.O.U.

“All shall be well.” This is from a famous saying by Julian of Norwich (1342-1416), one of England’s most venerated Christian mystics. Here’s the saying, as she wrote it, in the language of her time: “But alle shalle be wele, and alle shalle be wele, and alle maner of thynge shalle be wele.” I’ve known… Continue reading The Lowdown from Highup: “All Shall Be Well”

On March 13, 1601, John Manningham recorded an event in his diary concerning Shakespeare and his friend, the great actor Richard Burbage. Here’s a slightly embellished version that I turned in, as a joke, in a college journalism class I took many years ago. LONDON (UP) — John Manningham, local gossip, reports that when Burbage… Continue reading Laughing Out Loud with Shakespeare

There was a time, not so long ago, when it was almost universally believed that the myriad species of the animal and vegetable kingdoms were created in the beginning and were thereafter permanently fixed once and for all. Today it is commonplace that even the prototypical individuals of the mineral kingdom enjoyed some measure of… Continue reading The Subject Is a Verb!

James Joyce’s masterwork Ulysses has been called a book of many happy returns and I’ve been returning to happily savor its pages for more than fifty years. My appreciation of the works of the great Irish writer was enhanced by the good fortune of attending the University of Tulsa, a center for Joyce studies. While… Continue reading Laughing Out Loud with James Joyce and Tom Staley

　Curves of Thought It seems natural, and valid, to assume that there are twice as many whole numbers as even numbers. But, as the following table clearly shows, there is a unique one-to-one correspondence between the two sets of numbers. Ergo . . . 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 .… Continue reading Laughing Out Loud with Mathematics

Over his long and productive life of 103 years, Charles Hartshorne wrote more than twenty masterful books and . . . published a new book in his hundredth year! How can you possibly top that? One way would be to publish a new book posthumously, and Hartshorne (with a little help) has done just that… Continue reading Laughing Out Loud With Hartshorne

In 1939 William Sutherland, a practicing Doctor of Osteopathy, announced his discovery that the structures of the central nervous system, like the heart or like the way we breathe, expand and contract in rhythmic motion. He called it “primary respiration” and claimed that the proper functioning of this pulsation was essential to life and health.… Continue reading The Deepest Rhythms in Your Body

Evolutionary theology, a new post-Darwinian way of thinking about God, proposes two ideas: first, God does not create all at once, or once and for all. God creates through a process that meanders over vast stretches of time: by evolution. And, second, rather than creating directly by divine fiat, God co-creates through persuasion or evocation—by… Continue reading God Makes Makers