Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 83

CarrollBlog 6.4

Carefully watch the look on peoples' faces one moment after they say goodbye to each other. That first look "alone" tells you a lot about the dynamic of their relationship. That hand holding couple kissing and then walking off in different directions: the man's expression is all happily in love and he misses her already. But the woman's look is pure relief-- you can plainly see she's glad to be by herself once more. The boy and his mother saying goodbye. She takes two steps away, then looks over

CarrollBlog 6.3

There was a haunting detail on TV last night about that plane crash in Brazil. They were interviewing the wife of one of the victims, an English woman. She couldn't keep her hands still as she spoke and kept repeating this one detail-- "I keep calling his cell phone and it rings! That means something don't you think? I mean if he's at the bottom of the sea, his cell phone wouldn't ring, would it? He never has his cellphone on, but now it is on and keeps ringing!"

CarrollBlog 6.2

In the subway station the old nun is sitting by herself on a bench. She's smiling like a sunbeam and it's hard not to smile too once you see her. When she sees me looking, she gestures me over with a quick urgent wave of her hand. I walk nearer and she points to what she's holding on her lap. At first I can't make out what's there other than a large wicker basket-- the kind you take to market-- covered with a cloth. But what's beneath the cloth is what she wants me to see. She pulls it back and

CarrollBlog 5.31

For fans of THE LAND OF LAUGHS:

http://bit.ly/vbJ04

CarrollBlog 5.30

'The Uncanny Valley' is a concept developed by the Japanese robot scientist Masahiro Mori. It concerns the design of humanoid robots. Mori’s theory is relatively simple. We tend to reject robots that look too much like people. Slight discrepancies and incongruities between what we look like and what they look like disturb us. The closer a robot resembles a human, the more critical we become, the more sensitive to slight discrepancies, variations, imperfections. However, if we go far enough away

CarrollBlog 5.28

a reader's response to an article in the GUARDIAN newspaper:

Paustovsky has a wonderful story of seeing a whole heap of drafts on the desk of his friend Isaac Babel, the minimalist short-story writer, and thinking: good heavens, Babel's writing a novel! But he wasn't. Babel's method was to write it long and then start cutting ruthlessly. He said he knew a story was finished when the only words left were the ones he couldn't do without.

CarrollBlog 5.27

One of many good reasons not to eat family members:

Laughing Death

Laughing Death, more commonly known as Kuru, was exclusive to the tribal Fore people of New Guinea. The disease, which was characterized by sudden bursts of maniacal laughter, hit the headlines in the 1950s, and drew in doctors from around the world.

U.S. and Australian physicians observed men and women with shaking limbs, which subsided with rest, but a month to three months later sufferers would begin to sway and stumble, l

CarrollBlog 5.26

ON German TV there was a short documentary about the man who invented the silhouette figures on traffic lights: The little walking man on the green "GO!" light, the standing still man on a red "STOP!" light. The inventor described how difficult it was to come up with just the right balance between the static figure and the moving, fluid one. He went on and on, delighted to be interviewed about what he said was his most important invention, one that most of humanity could care less about. Yet wha

CarrollBlog 5.25

The old woman recently lost her husband. That's what the waitress tells me. I used to see them together in the cafe almost every day around four o'clock. Both of them handsome, well dressed, obviously happy in each other's company. They talked a lot and you often saw them laughing at something the other said. You could tell they'd had a nice long life together. He would always have coffee and some kind of big sweetie-- a slice of chocolate cake with a side order of whipped cream or the wonderful

CarrollBlog 5.24

Last night I was reminded again of the great, long lasting power of books and it was a very heartening experience. The school where I taught for many years is having its fiftieth anniversary. Lots of gatherings, parties, memories this weekend as the tribe from days past assembled. I went to one of these events and talked for hours with old students. Again and again they said things like, "I'll never forget that book we read in 10th grade," or "Reading ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE in