August 2009
22 posts
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August 26, 2009. 8:31 pm. Packing, from the...
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August 25, 2009. 8:26 am. Commuting to work....
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August 24, 2009. 9:20 pm. Sewing. Columbia...
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August 23, 2009. 6:20 pm. A walk around the...
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By Mind Alone Larry Niven, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, June, 1966.
part 4
I said, “Doctor Larsen, could that be dangerous?” He shook his head. “She’s right. From the campus to San Diego was much further.” “But we did that under supervised conditions.” “How do you supervise teleportation?” Larsen smiled like a child...
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Desire Song
The graspy heart, that lobster of ours that wants, and wants, and is evolved to lust for one grain shat by a swallow in flight as much as the whole packed four-story silo. There’s a cloud across the moon tonight like the skin boiled milk gets cooling—slightly blue and slightly wrinkled. I want the glass of warm milk from my childhood carried up to the crib by a living Grandma Nettie...
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Letter from the Earth
THE Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before him rose the black night of Space, like a wall. His mighty bulk towered rugged and mountain-like into the zenith, and His divine head blazed there like a distant sun. At His feet stood three colossal figures, diminished by extinction, almost, by...
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Poetry
The only way to be quiet is to be quick, so I scare you clumsily, or surprise you with a stab. A praying mantis knows time more intimately than I and is more casual. Crickets use time for accompaniment to innocent fidgeting. A zebra races counterclockwise. All this I desire. To deepen you by my quickness and delight as if you were logical and proven, but still be quiet as if I were used to you; as...
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Total Breakdown
By Mind Alone Larry Niven, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, June, 1966.
part 3
He looked like the melancholy farmer with the pitchfork in American Gothic would look if you gave him a loud sports coat and a yellow tie and poured three martinis into him. “It means the total breakdown of physics,” he roared, jabbing a grinning sophomore in the chest with a...
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Understanding Architecture from the Inside
Omnivoracious: The wider culture tends to tell stories about architecture that are organized around the Great Creators: the Gehrys, the Wrights, the Pianos (the Howard Roarks). Your stories, by contrast, are much more impersonal—if there are any heroes they are as much the people who explore their environment—the Michael Cooks. Where do people fit into your designs?
Geoff Manaugh:...
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Rain
Suddenly this defeat. This rain. The blues gone gray And the browns gone gray And yellow A terrible amber. In the cold streets Your warm body. In whatever room Your warm body. Among all the people Your absence The people who are always Not you. I have been easy with trees Too long. Too familiar with mountains. Joy has been a habit. Now Suddenly This rain. — Jack Gilbert. Views of Jeopardy....
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Rubber Foot*
Photo courtesy of SimplyAdore on Flickr.
Song, ‘Rubber Foot’ by Scientist from his 1980 album, The Best Dub Album in the World.
* for Steven. It was good having you in DC for the last month. Enjoy your fall classes… just one more semester!
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UPDATE: NEW URL!
Overnight I will be updating the URL for this site. Starting tomorrow — Tuesday 8.11.09 — you can find Knock Twice’s Scrapbook at: http://scrapbook.knock-twice.com.
If you subscribe to the feed, you will need to update your aggregator. Here is the new feed address: http://scrapbook.knock-twice.com/rss
Photo courtesy of Stitch on Flickr.
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Confound
the space you displace—
storm hail 2/4” plus wind 50 knots static flash with deep resonant
sounds—
this change in pressure pulls me
in.
— 2004.
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One Strange Party
By Mind Alone Larry Niven, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, June, 1966.
part 2
It was one strange party, all right. Just to get you placed, it all took place six years ago, in July of 1972, during the four-day weekend break in the summer semester at UCLA. The oil companies were rich then, and General Motors was worth three times what it is now. We changed all that. We knew it...
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Photo courtesy of jamesmellor on Flickr.
Song, ‘We Shall Not Go to Market Today,’ by Andy Sheppard. This song appeared on Sheppard’s 2009 record, Movements in Color.
Andy Sheppard, saxophone | John Parricelli, guitar | Eivind Aarset, guitar | Arild Anderson, bass | Kuljit Bhamra, tabla
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The Sciences Sing a Lullabye
via whathappened:
Physics says: go to sleep. Of course you’re tired. Every atom in you has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes nonstop from mitosis to now. Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance inside themselves without you. Go to sleep. Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch by inch America is giving itself to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness lap at your sides. Give darkness an...
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By Mind Alone
By Mind Alone Larry Niven, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, June, 1966.
part 1
From the blue water and crowded pines of Lake Arrowhead to the rectangular citrus orchards around San Bernardino is a drop of nearly a mile as the crow falls. The road down is hours longer. It falls gently, in looping curves and in sharp, neck-cracking twists, joins a four-lane highway without...