I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought

"There's always something real in what happens, no avoiding that." —César Aira (as translated by Katherine Silver), The Literary Conference

Getting from A to B in Katsuhito Ishii's The Taste of Tea 

 

"The alphabet is all around us—not only in books." —My ABC's  

"A legend is also a habit." —César Aira (as translated by Katherine Silver), The Literary Conference

"The aim of our secret society must be to scare.  Not evil, because that's necessary for producing good (evil is, so to speak, the midwife of good)—no, we want to scare away stupidity.  Is the devil stupid?  Certainly not.  The devil is evil, evil is creative.  Stupidity, on the other hand, is the death of all creativeness.  The worst of all sins!  And it's all-powerful.  Accident and crime can both be laid to its account.  Stupidity means a lack of the most important quality of all—not reason, because stupid people are quite capable of being reasonable—no, stupidity means a complete lack of imagination." —Ernst Kreuder, The Attic Pretenders

On a lark, we tried reading Silence and Other Stories aloud, though the results were nothing to shout about.

We were accused of writing fairy tales this week, which was the basis of a hearty laugh, for "Fairy tales tell the truth" as Italo Calvino reminds us in his 1967 essay "Cibernetica e Fantasmi." Their narrative construction and plot weaving are "the irreducible essence of all epistemological activity and therefore the ground for whatever truth may be available to man.  Fairy tales 'tell the truth'" (Lucia Re, Calvino and the Age of Neorealism: Fables of Estrangement, 1990).

From the wise-dome of Gary Barwin (whose 2016 novel Yiddish for Pirates casts everything in a new light [and things do seem mysteriously different lately, don't they?  That's because, to paraphrase Powys, if a book's illumination precedes, the unknown future into which it advances will luminesce]):

Q: Is two spaces after a period standard?

A: Thoughe suche standerds dost applye as have inne truthe beene borne from these oure moderne tymes withe its interynettes and wordly processores, I beliefe thate in one's owne hande and indeede in the londe of one's owne paypr, one canne scribe and thinke and write as thou doste wish. No dominione shalte have the grande hyghe worde auto correcte. The space tween fulle stoppe and firste letter whene the wordes againe beginne ist its owne a to izzard, ist thate bryghte espace tween sheepe and field, between star and earthe, thougyhte and possibilitie, bodye, soule, beloved, and tongue. Ist thate sweete silence when we holde our breathe in thee stilleness of wonder, inspiration, glee, or joye or greate sadnesse. In oure owne booke let thynges bee as we most wish, and damn thee the house style or moderne conventione. If I shalte desyre my bluebirds shalle have three winges in mine owne garden.

"People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels." —the great Charles Fort, whose legacy is examined over at The Secret Sun.

They say money doesn't grow on trees, but if time is money, then … From Mechanics for Young America, 1905.

We're delighted to have provided a vintage illustration of a tiny ghost fairy for Long-Forgotten's research into the "Little Leota" figure at Disneyland's Haunted Mansion.

From our outpost at Tumblr:

This is a nifty 8-page satirical story by Jonny Chance about a fictionalized doppelgänger of comedian Paul Lynde who is not an alcoholic but rather "save[s] alcohol for occasions catered by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."  At first I thought the book was presented as a Burroughs-style cut-up, but the top of each page features commentary by the author about what inspired the story, trying to handle the delicate balance of mocking Christianity when religion isn't technically the subject, and the goal of shattering illusions in a truly challenging way without merely congratulating the already-converted (à la The Matrix and Fight Club).  At the bottom of each page is the Paul Lynde story itself.  The Clarion Journal will take you to a page with a link to the pdf, which is here: http://www.clarion-journal.com/files/paullynde.pdf.

I'm nearing the point of obsession.  I can’t look away, and don’t want to.  Like Tarot cards, but with built-in illumination, and much more fun. Brilliant, says I! —Jeff Hawkins 

A few years ago, we collaborated on a deck of "wide-awake dreaming" cards for the celebrated mentalist Kenton Knepper.  Kenton occasionally demonstrated this deck at gatherings of the magical underground in Las Vegas, and that's how the cards got the street names of "Waking Dream Cards," "Metaphor Cards," "Subconscious Communication Cards," "Transformation Cards," and "K-Kards."  But their official name is "[Self-Intuiting] Polarity Cards."  The deck long-remained one of Kenton's best-kept secrets, but we can now reveal that they're finally available to anyone who wishes to experience a mind-blowing insight that they verifiably didn't have before.  Unlike Tarot cards or other well-known reading decks, Polarity Cards are wholly free of dogma and therefore allow for fresh, intuitive understandings that are neither influenced nor hindered by preconceptions.  Deeply rooted in coded principles from the Mystery traditions, the cards also work as powerful meditational tools, unlocking a greater sense of harmony and well-being.  Lots more information about the deck is at TheGameCrafter.

How's this for a concept: the book of Genesis turned the past into a mental construct.  "If not for its intercession, today we would perhaps be dealing with the past as simply one more reality, like any other object of perception" (César Aira, The Literary Conference).  Aira also says of Genesis: "The mere idea of Adam and Eve's existence, of humanity (the species) retroactively reduced to a single couple, gives rise to genetics.  I would even say that it is as far as the imagination can go in this field.  Genetics is the genesis of diversity.  But if diversity has nobody on whom to spread itself out, it turns on itself, gets tangled up in its own general particularity, and therein the imagination is born."

Here are two classic Egyptian symbols as letters (from Un Tour de Méditerranée, de Venise à Tunis, par Athènes, Constantinople et le Caire by Paul Jousset, 1893), but did you know we uncovered a way to decode Egyptian symbols in the letters of any name?  We share the discovery in the The Egyptian Secrets in Your Name. Our system includes an exclusive technique for automatically reciting an Egyptian poem as you gaze upon the letters of anyone's name (seriously), as if channeling a spirit from antiquity.  We only belatedly learned that our system was hailed as one of the top mentalism innovations of 2012 ... but you don't have to be a magician to use it, and it's actually not a trick.

"A simple example taken from the world of culture (and what other world should we take it from?) ..." —César Aira (as translated by Katherine Silver), The Literary Conference

It's quite the New Age thing to be present in the moment, to "be here now" as Ram Dass teaches.  But is that wise?  Consider: "Believe me, remembrance is the lesser evil.  Let no one trust the happiness of the moment; there is in it a drop of gall." —Machado de Assis, Epitaph of a Small Winner

The Latin phrase says that times change, and we change with them.  But the illustration reminds us that we can face backwards and might even gain an umbrella along the way.  This illustration encapsulates our Oddfellow approach to life.  We're reminded of a moment in childhood, when the family car was passing by a horrendously stinky paper manufacturing plant.  We suggested that everyone breathe through their mouths until we moved out of range of the stench.  Our kid brother — with all the wisdom of the eternal twelve-year-old — sneered derisively, announcing what was obvious to him, that we'd be inhaling the fumes either way.  We remained silent, too dumbfounded to communicate what was obvious to us, that just because one has to breathe it doesn't mean one can be forced to smell it.  So, too, in this illustration — just because the pony is charging ahead doesn't mean we can't look whichever way we choose and keep an eye out for an umbrella and medicine bag to make the journey more bearable.

From St. Nicholas, 1897.

Perhaps Andy Warhol Was Wrong, For a Fascinating Variety of Reasons

[Updated with new wrongness!]

Andy Warhol famously predicted that in the future, everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes.  Now that the future is already here, there are those who beg to differ with Andy, and for a fascinating variety of reasons!

In his novel Rant (2007), Chuck Palahniuk suggests that "Andy Warhol was wrong.  In the future, people won't be famous for fifteen minutes.  No, in the future, everyone will sit next to someone famous for at least fifteen minutes."

Movie critic Frank Schneck posits that the word should be film, not fame: "Andy Warhol was wrong.  It's not just that everyone is going to have 15 minutes of fame.  In the not-so-distant future, every person on the planet is going to have a film made about him or her" (Hollywood Reporter, 2000).  Others seem to agree, in a roundabout way:

Then there are those who argue that the 15 minutes are recurring:

Not fame, but Hitler:

Not fame, but privacy:

Not fame, but Colorado citizenship:

Not fame, but hostage crisis:

"In the future, everyone will be a hostage for fifteen minutes." —William Keckler

Fame, yes, but in the past, not in the future:

Fame, yes, but not 15 minutes exactly:

Fame, yes, but for more like 15 seconds:

Fame, yes, but for more than 15 minutes:

Fame, yes, but "in" 15 minutes, not "for" 15 minutes:

Fame, yes, but without measure:

The opposite of fame:

Fifteen, yes, but not minutes:

Fame, yes, but perhaps 30 minutes:

Just plain wrong:

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Stefan writes:

Awesome post on Warhol. I never really liked the guy and his art, but I give credit where credit is due, he was a great coordinator and inspiration for other better artists and musicians. Much like Sex Pistols, I don’t find them good but they did inspire much better bands to get together and create wonderful albums. So I agree he was wrong however he didn’t anticipate the connectivity and subcultural activity we have today which shatters his definition and value of fame. Also nowadays with youtube clips and Jersey Shores fame and infamy seem to be interchangeable. But what I liked about the article was how Warhol’s idea was refuted from different perspectives. Here’s mine: "Warhol was wrong about his theory on the 15 minutes of fame. The time frame is the maximum length of a video you can post on YouTube.” Mine is of course valid for today, just like Warhol’s and those quoted in your post are valid in their own cultural Zeitgeists.