dennis scharnberg

life and limb

Here is a haunting thought:  that the robots we construct (including computers) can only ever be robots.  Not very exciting, is it?

Jonathan Arness,  More Sing-Song Science.

tune turn drop

It is beginning—and only beginning—to appear as though the information technology experts are not very smart.  It seems impossible.

Roger Hedgecook, Stolen and Sold for Parts.

a far cry

There was a (relatively) big bang.  The universe was created.  It began to accelerate.  And so forth.

Jason Starling, ed.,  Adventures in Narrative Parsimony.

count your spoons

dictate or ship

Andrew Tertullian,  Pandora’s Ponderous Puns.

a ringside seat

We must remind ourselves continually of just how crucial naming is (and renaming).  Nomenclature is a form of magic.

Hildegard Spengler,  Asymptotic Processes in History.

explore your madness

Genuine guilt is individual.  It is personal.  Attributing guilt on a collective (or historical) level is a sort of game.  This marks the shift from morals to aesthetics.

Benjamin Alexis,  Thriving Under the Influence.

purity of essence

A bumper sticker:

Hate SPEECH!!!

Todd Lapidus,  Headlines, Captions, and Other Schemes.

legend has it

One gets past the coarseness of it—how vile it is.  And one is left with a sense of how dreary it all is.  Pornography is vapid.

Melanie George,  A Phenomenology of Porn.

save our ship

Of course, the statement that the literary text in question is “unstable” is not itself unstable.

Tobias Esterhase,  Codes and Encoding.

set a goal

We need more things that keep us awake.  Or that awaken us.  It is somnolence that threatens all.  We desperately need an irritant.

Clifford Parkening,  How the Moon Doth Sway.