It’s not the risk, which is negligible. It’s the uncertainty, which is high. We’ve reached a liminal state, I like to say, with my hands in my pockets, index fingers obliquely extended. I wheel around in this stance, assuming this or that attitude, allowing the secret thrusting of my fingers to add a hidden vector… Read more The Tears of Caravaggio
Barabbas is late. I had a feeling about Barabbas. I have to admit I was seduced by his resume: Herodic palace guard, Oriental astrologer and, here’s the kicker, a speaking role as Pharisee 2 in Matthew 19:7. But here we are, the masses are screaming, the Son of God’s in shackles, Pontius Pilate has to… Read more Barabbas
Even though there was no more thinking to do, when I’d screwed every atom to the wall and held it there with as much isometric will as I could, the slightest lapse in concentration could shatter my careful derangement of the facts. The problem would start to redraw its lines and the magnificent differential equation… Read more Problem
A spandrel is, in evolutionary biology, a phenotypic trait generated by the appearance of another trait, and whose primary purpose is to ride shotgun for its creator. By an unlicensed coinage, which is maybe itself a spandrel, a spandroid is a humanoid whose constitution and behavior have developed to support another, more important technology. Were… Read more Spandroids
All the while, time was caroming around, looking for its ends, and damaged by loss and panic, it swung wide, screamed west and eventually flung its heels over its own head, gaining momentum in terror of. Gritting its teeth, it pulled its legs in and began to whirl faster, eventually becoming a centrifuge, and this… Read more Continuing Unscientific Postscript on Time
Whether or not the sad clean breath of a new house resists human life (books pots photographs living and dying plants) balks at being used for living rejects all offerings flowers quilts other indignities cutglass vases shrouded dim lamps rich heartwood bookcases glassfronted cabinets containing porcelain and metal artifacts pried from the hot loins of… Read more Four Of Anything Is A Frame