The Art of Tetman Callis

“Fish pain is something different from our own pain. In the elaborate mirrored hall that is human consciousness, pain takes on existential dimensions. Because we know that death looms, and grieve for the loss of richly imagined futures, it’s tempting to imagine that our pain is the most profound of all suffering. But we would […]

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“It is prudent to dispense with the conservatism, the emotionalism, and the theological arguments which are currently slowing progress.” – Charles W. Bachman, “The Programmer as Navigator”

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“Thought is the enemy of flow.” – Vinnie Colaiuta (quoted by Rick Beato in “Why Jeff Beck is Uncopyable”)

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“Should a mouse that a cat just swallowed be considered as a part of the cat? The concept of a ‘definite position’ is also only approximately defined: how far should a cat be displaced in order for it to be considered to be in a different position? If the displacement is much smaller than the […]

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“My Mama always said that at a certain age your soul shows on your face.” – nightmoth (@ Wonkette, July 28, 2022)

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“It is consoling to think that the emotions that music arouses in us have something to do with the makeup of the universe.” – David P. Goldman, “The Divine Music of Mathematics”

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A clumsy mistake on my part led to my website having to be restored from backup; hence, the six-week gap that now exists in the posts. But I am here. I have been here all along.

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“Is it forever that the sword must devour? Do you not know that it will be bitter afterward? Until when will you not bid the fighting-people to turn back from going after their brothers?” – II Samuel 2:26 (trans. Everett Fox)

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“Only in a vague way can we conceive the character of ant-society, and the nature of ant-morality; and to do even this we must try to imagine some yet impossible state of human society and human morals. Let us, then, imagine a world full of people incessantly and furiously working,—all of whom seem to be […]

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“The conspiracy plot always has the same logic. The reason no one knows about the conspiracy is because of the conspiracy. Not because it doesn’t exist.” – Reed Berkowitz, “A Game Designer’s Analysis Of QAnon”

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“The Sumerians, according to their own records, cherished goodness and truth, law and order, freedom and justice, mercy and compassion—and abhorred their opposites. The gods, too, preferred the ethical and the moral to the unethical and the immoral. Unfortunately, in their inscrutable fashion, they had created sin, evil, suffering, and misfortune, and there was little […]

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“A good railroad man is ALWAYS ON TIME.” – George H. Baker, Standard Railroad Signals: Fireman’s and Brakeman’s Preparatory Instruction – PART ONE (emphasis in original)

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“Teeth outlast everything. Death is nothing to a tooth. Hundreds of years in acidic soil just keeps a tooth clean. A fire that burns away hair and flesh and even bone leaves teeth dazzling like daisies in the ashes. Life is what destroys teeth. Undiluted apple juice in a baby bottle, sourballs, the pH balance […]

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“I was committed for two weeks to a mental health hospital for depression and suicidal behavior. Two weeks doesn’t sound long, but let me assure you that time is, in fact, relative. Imagine, if you will, being driven off in the middle of the night, poked and prodded by a doctor, having everything about you […]

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“I get a lot of inspiration from just going out and pretending I’ve never been to this planet before. It’s a great way to remember just how absurd, strange, beautiful, and unlikely everything is.” – Brendan Constantine, Rattle 58

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“Even one war in space will create a battlefield that will last forever, encasing the entire planet in a shell of whizzing debris that will thereafter make space near the earth highly hazardous for peaceful as well as military purposes. With enough orbiting debris, pieces will begin to hit other pieces, whose fragments will in […]

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“The noblest question in the world is What Good may I do in it?” – Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard, 1737 (emphasis in original)

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“Then it happened. The lighted end of a cigarette touched me in the fleshy part of my upper left arm. That was all. It just felt like a sudden burn and nothing worse. The burned part did not seem to be any larger in area than that part which could be burned by the lighted […]

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“Bad behavior heralds ruin.” – Jac Jemc, The Grip of It

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“If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.” – Professor Moran Cerf (quoted by Tim Urban in “Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future”)

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“It happened late Friday night. That morning no one suspected anything. I sent my son to school, my husband went to the barber’s. I was preparing lunch when my husband came back. ‘There’s some sort of fire at the atomic station. They’re saying we are not to turn off the radio.’ This wasn’t any ordinary […]

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“We have everything here—graves. Graves everywhere. The dump trucks are working, and the bulldozers. The houses are falling. The grave diggers are toiling away. They buried the school, the headquarters, the baths. It’s the same world, but the people are different. One thing I don’t know is, do people have souls? What kind? And how […]

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“Distributive justice can be reduced to the ideas of equality or equity. From the point of view of epistemology such notions cannot but be regarded as a priori, if by a priori we mean, not of course an innate idea, but a norm, towards which reason cannot help but tend as it is gradually refined […]

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“Cheating is a defensive reaction which our educational systems seem to have wantonly called forth in the pupil. Instead of taking into account the child’s deeper psychological tendencies which urge him to work with others—emulation being in no way opposed to cooperation—our schools condemn the pupil to work in isolation and only make use of […]

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“Before flaws look like style, they look like flaws.” – Maria Adelmann, “Basket Weaving 101”

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“Most problems aren’t rocket science, but when they are rocket science, you should ask a rocket scientist about them.” Captain Scott Kelly, “What I Learned in Space” (emphasis in original)

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“A person’s nose is one eye wide, as is the distance between their eyes. A mouth is two eyes wide. A face is three noses long. A nose is as long as your ear.” – Molly Fitzpatrick, “Faces of Death (And Larry David)”

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“I think that if people began thinking about death sooner they’d make fewer foolish mistakes.” – Dmitri Shostakovich (quoted by David Dubal in The Essential Canon of Classical Music)

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“All I know about method is that when I am not working I sometimes think I know something, but when I am working, it is quite clear that I know nothing.” – John Cage, “Lecture on Nothing”

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“Everybody has a song which is no song at all: it is a process of singing, and when you sing, you are where you are.” – John Cage, “Lecture on Nothing”

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