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| The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine |
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~ Amorphous Apparitions ~ 
Portrait from Memoir of Reverend David Tappan Stoddard.
“But are we still confident there is, in the language of a modern philosopher, a ‘ghost in the machine’?” —George F. Will
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 "This may surprise you — China has influenced certain Mexican arts and crafts. Mexican lacquer ware, for example, follows the designs and techniques brought from China in 16th-century Spanish galleons that sailed the Pacific." — Popular Mechanics, Nov. 1947
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 "'Yes, I know,' she went on; 'you are one of the people that believe that a rose is a rose. It is so many drachms of so many sorts of chemicals, and that's the end of it. But brother Jim and I—we don't think so. A rose is a great deal more than a rose; and the rose you see is a great deal less than the rose; and there's a conundrum for you.'" —Saxe Holm, "My Tourmaline," The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (1875)
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| The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine |
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~ Amorphous Apparitions ~ 
Portrait from An Autobiography by Hugh Miller.
“It was very dark, and the stone was only a ghostly blur.” —John Buchan, Witch Wood
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 Momus
suggests that there are "few tales which would not be improved by the
addition of the phrase 'suddenly, a shot rang out.'" What about the following variation, which we quote in our dictionary of magic words: "‘Abracadabra,’ Charlene murmured to herself as she crossed against the traffic in the rain, ‘that’s an exotic word.’ Somewhere in the distance a bomb exploded softly.” — Kate Atkinson, Not the End of the World (2003)
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"Believe it or not, there exists in the Anyplace a solitary chicken whose sole mission in life is to get to the other side of the road." — Peter David, Tigerheart
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 "Please don't take this the wrong way, but ... do you ... do you have anything that would tend to prove your innocence?" — Gerald Petievich, The Sentinel
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| The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine |
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~ Amorphous Apparitions ~ 
Portrait from The Life of John Milton.
“Enter the ghost in the machine.” —Igor Aleksander, Impossible Minds
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From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:
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Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle. |
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| The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine |
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~ Amorphous Apparitions ~ 
Portrait from A Memoir of Mrs. Susanna Rowson.
“The wraith of her face faded altogether.” —J. R. Cain
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"Words too silly to be said should be sung." — Oscar Wilde [via DJMisc] |
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From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:
On a related note, here's the circular eddy resulting from a perfect spoon in a perfect cup, from Lectures in Magnetohydrodynamics by Dalton D. Schnack (in other words, we didn't make up this next diagram): |
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"The surprising truth is that, historically speaking, payola has often fostered musical diversity, rather than squelching it." —James Surowiecki, The New Yorker (July 12, 2004)
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| The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine |
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~ Amorphous Apparitions ~ 
Portrait from The Life of Samuel Johnson.
“It was hard to make him out in the poorly reproduced photocopy.” —Robert Harris, The Ghost
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"If you must pray, then pray to your invisible self; it is the only god that answers your prayers, other gods give you stones instead of bread. Unhappy are they who pray to an idol and their prayers are heard: they lose their own selves, since they are no longer capable of believing that it was they themselves that answered their prayers." —Gustav Meyrink, The Green Face
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| Who is your favorite imaginary saint? Do share! |
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| I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought |
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What does a ringing bell communicate? " come to me, come to me." —Jean Ray, Malpertuis [emphasis ours, if we may be so bold]
Jozé Donoso's The Obscene Bird of the Night offers a different answer: "So let the churchbells ring, and the cattle bells / To let you know this love that in me wells."
However, Thomas Mann would seem to disagree: Bells, bells, they swing and sway, they wag and weave through their whole arc on their beams, in their seats, hundred-voiced, in Babylonish confusion. Slow and swift, blaring and booming—there is neither measure nor harmony, they talk all at once and all together, they break in even on themselves; on clang the clappers and leave no time for the excited metal to din itself out, for like a pendulum they are already back at the other edge, droning into its own droning; so that when echo still resounds: " In te Domine speravi" [In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped], it is uttering already " Beati quorum tecta sunt peccata" [Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven] into its own midst. — Thomas Mann, The Holy Sinner [emphasis ours] Mann adds a delicious tidbit. Who is ringing the bells? "It is the spirit of story-telling" [italics his]. |
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| The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine |
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~ Amorphous Apparitions ~ 
Portrait from The Life of Thomas Jefferson.
“His amorphous face full of amorphous thought.” —Austin McGiffert Wright
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"A rose is a rose is a rose. That is a quote. But what is a rose? A rose is a rose is a rose tells you nothing. My mother is a rose and what is my mother?" — Madeleine L'Engle, Camilla
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"Let's stay in this semidarkness while it lasts. Notice how people and objects all look more mysterious in this dim light. It's the phantoms of people and things we see, phantoms which, once light arrives, disappear into their unknown kingdom." —Giorgio de Chirico, Hebdomeros |
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"My pen, animated in part by itself and animated in part by all the rest, flies into the lambent paper sky. My pen is a wing and every word, borne by it and by its shadow on the paper, rushes towards either catastrophe or apotheosis." — Robert Desnos, Liberty or Love! |
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"Here the answer is simple. Nobody has such a right.”
—Life Magazine (Jan. 12, 1948)
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| The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine |
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~ Amorphous Apparitions ~ 
Portrait from Samuel Daniel.
“His pale face visible as only a white smudge.” —Peter Straub, Ghost Story
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From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:
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Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle. |
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| The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine |
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~ Amorphous Apparitions ~ 
Portrait from Memoir of Josiah White.
“He felt himself transparent, insignificant, a shade of his former self.” —Dorothy West
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 "[Robert] Frost writes that a 'rose is a rose, / And was always a rose.' He then goes on to explain that the 'theory now' is that it is not only the rose that is a rose, but the apple and pear and plum, too." — Deirdre J. Fagan, Critical Companion to Robert Frost
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"The small is what allows for the transformative." — Geof Huth |
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| The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine |
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~ Amorphous Apparitions ~ 
Portrait from The Autobiography of Arthur Young.
"Although aspects of the ghost image can be reproduced through classical approaches, several features of the effect are purely quantum mechanical.” —Mark E. Brezinski, Optical Coherence Tomography
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Quill & Quire, Canada's magazine of book news and reviews, notes my latest collaboration: Franzlations (New Star Books, $19 pa., Oct.), the new collaboration from Gary Barwin, Hugh Thomas, and Craig Conley, has nothing to do with Jonathan Franzen. Instead, it’s a reinterpretation and reinvention of the parables and aphorisms of Franz Kafka.
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"Riding a Black Unicorn Down the Side of an Erupting Volcano While Drinking from a Chalice Filled with the Laughter of Small Children" is the applause-worthy title of Aurelio Voltaire Hernandez's new album. |
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An illustration from a 1910 issue of Hampton's magazine. The caption reads: "Who can ever doubt the magic potency of black?"
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Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle. |
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Original Content Copyright © 2013 by Craig Conley. All rights reserved.
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![The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine](/weblog/images/covers/ghost-scanning-machine.png)
"This idea bears repeating often. If you let one actor arrive late, soon most of them will."
Yes, you may . . . on one condition:
