"To some extent punctuation is sound that you do not hear, a pause that implies the presence of withheld sound.  To some extent, then, language is as dependent upon the unspoken as the spoken, and the rhythm of silence as well as of sound.  In that context, however, silence involves merely a pause of sound in which sound is implied but withheld.  Inner sound deals primarily with that kind of relationship.  Language is meaningful only because of the rhythm of silence upon which it rides." —Jane Roberts, The Nature of the Psyche

(Thanks, Tamara!)

Though Frederic Tuten is correct when he says, "It's always meanly satisfying to blame the young for the darkening of the culture," here's an exception: it's impossible not to blame the young fiends Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei for darkening the culture by driving a violin prodigy to suicide.  The following curse is less judgmental than their inhuman punishment of their gay roommate: may they be neutered by jackals as they choke on violin strings.

The immortal Charles Fort likens Big Science to a vacant-minded larva that spins its suffocating web over any non-conventional ideas:

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

"Science is a turtle that says that its own shell encloses all things." —Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned

"Every science is a mutilated octopus.  If its tentacles were not clipped to stumps, it would feel its way into disturbing contacts.  To a believer, the effect of the contemplation of a science is of being in the presence of the good, the true, and the beautiful.  But what he is awed by is Mutilation.  To our crippled intellects, only the maimed is what what we call understandable, because the unclipped ramifies away into all other things."
—Charles Fort (Wild Talents), on every science's propensity to dismiss anything that doesn't fit its dogma

"Every conversation is a conflict of missionaries, each trying to convert the other, to assimilate, or to make the other similar to himself.  If no progress be made, mutual repulsion will follow."
—Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned

Interrobangs ensure streamlined punctuation bursts.  Compare the original (left, via Frog Blog) to our concise version (right).  Three interrobangs communicate the excited disbelief of six traditional punctuation marks.

Is modern science even more bewildered than religion?  Here's Charles Fort's incisive take:

Vladimir Nabokov: "I confess I do not believe in time. I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another. Let visitors trip. And the highest enjoyment of timelessness -- in a landscape selected at random -- is when I stand among rare butterflies and their food plants. This is ecstasy, and behind the ecstasy is something else, which is hard to explain. It is like a momentary vacuum into which rushes all that I love. A sense of oneness with sun and stone. A thrill of gratitude to whom it may concern -- to the contrapuntal genius of human fate or to tender ghosts humoring a lucky mortal."  (via SocialFiction)

We're honored to be referenced in an article about "A Surprising Historical Source of Sustainability":

See the entire article here.

One of the most interesting themes in David Cronenberg's film adaptation of William Burrough's Naked Lunch: every act of creation murders the muse who inspired it.

Ironically, most people shout "Eureka" when they're not in Kansas anymore.

The sleep inducement surrounding Michael Jackson's death unmasked him as Osiris, the dying and resurrected god.  MJ wasn't addicted to plastic surgery per se but rather to being "put under" and rising again with a new face.  As Carl Jung explained, "the dying and resurgent god ... expresses a transformation of attitude by means of which a new potential, a new manifestation of life ... is created."  MJ's sequence of reincarnation was y=sin(x^2), with each vacillation of increasing frequency, to the point that he died nightly.  By the physical incarnation we came to know, MJ's spirit was too refined to operate within the mundane, just as a distilled spirit is so volatile as to hazard combustion.  The jokes about MJ's nose falling off were unwitting retellings of the Osiris myth; this time, the general public embodied Isis, putting the pieces back together while singing the magical incantation: "Ma ma say, ma ma sah, ma ma koo sah."

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

An associate was worried about an "unexpected big drop" in his Web traffic.  "Unexpected big drop?" I mused.  "That sounds like the perfect epitaph!"

Our friend Jason disagrees with President Obama's chilling decree that information "becomes a distraction."  Indeed, Jason suggests that information ranks only fourth in terms of distraction:

1. Cleavage
2. House flies
3. Shiny objects
4. Information

Thanks to the Presurfer and Daily Fix blogs for showcasing our interactive Breathing Circle.

While geometers continue to puzzle over "squaring the circle," Prof. Oddfellow has circled the square with an interactive mandala for four-square breathing.  Tackle stress, anxiety, or panic attacks.  Click the image to load the page.