After Thales

The unreal is uttered, abundantly (a thousand novels, a thousand poems). But the disreal cannot be uttered; for if I utter it (if I lunge at it, even with a clumsy or overliterary sentence), I emerge from it.

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Rules for the Short Story 1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. 2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for. 3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. 4. Every sentence must do one of two things–reveal character or advance the action. 5. Start as close to the end as possible. 6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them–in order that the reader may see what they are made of. 7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. 8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Because he talked so little, his words have a peculiar force; they were not worn dull from constant use.

“And you’ll always love me won’t you?” “Yes.” “And the rain won’t make any difference?” “No.”

Europe is on the cusp of approving a gene therapy for the first time, in what would be a landmark moment for the field. Gene therapies alter a patient’s DNA to treat inherited diseases passed from parent to child. The European Medicines Agency has recommended a therapy for a rare genetic disease which leaves people unable to properly digest fats.

To distinguish the sounds just enough to be relayed to the meaning, to have our attention directed to the things and events referred to, is not to make contact with someone. We hear and obey the instruction on our GPS without making contact with anyone. To our question, the store clerk says “See where it says ‘Men’s Shoes’—turn left there for the exit.” The meaning of the words is anonymous, and they direct our attention to the store exit. The meaning turns our attention to, leads us to the distant. We turn from the clerk to the exit. When someone addresses us, his or her voice makes contact with us. Someone greets us: “Hi!” It doesn’t mean “high” as opposed to “low”—it doesn’t mean anything. “Hello.” “Hey Al, how’s it goin’ man?” How extraordinary—our so sophisticated philosophies of language do not account for it—that this voice aimed at me touches me, makes contact with me, with everything I can mean by “me.” Even if I refuse to respond, or answer with the voice of the role I have assumed—answer as the professor, the father, the busy citizen—I know inwardly that this voice has penetrated through my role, my garb, to make contact with me.