Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.55.0307201739320.8577@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Ex-tasis
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 17:39:42 -0400 (EDT)
Ex-tasis "Why is it that one who is having sexual intercourse, and also a dying person, casts his eyes upwards, while a sleeper casts them downwards? It is because the heat going out in an upward direction makes the eyes turn in the direction in which it is itself traveling, whereas during sleep the heat collects in the lower part of the body and so inclines the eyes downwards? The eyes close because there is no moisture left in them." (Aristotle, Problems, IV, 1, trans. Forster.) "At Scotussae in Thessaly they say there is a little fountain from which flows water of such a kind that in a moment it heals wounds and bruises both of men and of beasts of burden; and if any one throws wood into it, without having quite broken it, but having merely split it, this unites, and is restored again to its original state." (Aristotle, On Marvellous Things Heard, 117, trans. Dowdall.) "The bird-fly of Florida, for similar reasons, prefers the vignonia. This is a creeping plant, which finds its way to the tops of the highest trees, and frequently covers the whole trunk. He builds his nest in one of its leaves, which he rolls into the form of a coronet; he finds his food in its red flowers, which resemble those of the fox-glove: he plunges his little body into them, which appears in the heart of the flower like an emerald set in coral; and he gets in sometimes so far, that he suffers himself to be surprised there and caught." (Williams, The Vegetable World.) "dictation n. pat-a-ssu-gi" (Underwood, English-Korean Dictionary.) "Since each step in the food chain involves a loss of energy, if one is interested in an end product such as fish it is obviously important to have a short food chain in order to utilize the maximum amount of energy in synthesizing the desired product." (Brock, Biology of Microorganisms.) "From all we have said, it becomes more and more clear that science is fundamentally a well-organized aggregate of ideas, a theoretical structure, and that the scientist is basically a thinker, a theorist, and only secondarily an observer. All that precedes this state of theoretical organization of phenomena is pre-scientific." (van Kaam, Existential Foundations of Psychology.) "Before refrigeration, when seafood might be kept a few days in a chilly basement, this phenomenon of glowing decay was observed and noted. Charles Dickens, in A Christmas Carol (1852), likens Marley's face in the knocker of Scrooge's door to a glowing lobster: 'Marley's face...had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.' How may nonmicro- biologists have passed over that line unable to decipher what image Dickens had in mind?" (Dyer, A Field Guide to Bacteria.) "So much for worldly things, for the pleasures of vanity; I went into detail because they are very rare for me, who have a sensitive soul and an avaricious father, and because I have need of being disgusted with them in order to give myself up entirely to my love for Victorine and THE FAME; but that will come, I'm sure." (Stendahl, Private Diaries, trans. Sage.) "Your form is now ready to be wired, meaning that the user interface is in place." (Davis, Visual Basic for Windows.) "QueryUnLoad First event in the death sequence; gives the programmer a chance to put in code cancelling the unload." (Davis, Visual Basic for Windows.) __