Extraordinary Discourse Podcast

Defenestrating the Overton Window For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking. Stephen Hawking

Field Notes of a Tenured Autodidact Do I dare set forth here the most important, the most useful rule of all education? It is not to save time, but to squander it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau The salvation of the world lies in the maladjusted. Martin Luther King, Jr.  

Memes in Themes Drunk on the chill whiskey of words. Robert Allen Magellan's Clouds

THIS and THAT and THE OTHER thing Jewish mystics used to believe that the world presents innumerable smashed pieces of vessels with divine light clinging to them. It is each individual's responsibility to rescue the captive sparks. Bonnie Friedman, Surrendering Oz

Orchestrated Polyphrenia Jack is an archetypal Cornish and English hero and stock character appearing in legends, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes, generally portrayed as a young adult. Unlike moralizing fairy heroes, Jack is often portrayed as lazy or foolish, but through the use of cleverness and tricks he usually emerges triumphant. In this way, he may resemble a trickster. Some of the most famous include "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Jack Frost", "Jack the Giant Killer", "Little Jack Horner" and "This Is the House That Jack Built". While these heroes are not necessarily congruous, their concepts are related and in some instances interchangeable. The notion of "Jack" is closely related and sometimes identical to the English hero John. He also corresponds with the German Hans (or Hänsel) and the Russian Iván. … Another definition of “magic tales” is a type of folktale characterized by its performance aspect. Classical...

Small Steps Toward Giant Leaps I got this image of myself as a flock of sparrows, alighting on the pavement, as though they were cast there like two handfuls of dice, landing in some truly ordered randomness and then hopping their hollow-boned selves from morsel to morsel, pecking at crumbs, coins, cigarette butts, the dried poo of other fowl, their multiple hungers combining to form a single feasting beast. Daniel Scot Tysdal Year Zero The Best Canadian Essays 2014

Mots, Bon And Otherwise SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Trying improbable and unprecedented combinations is your specialty right now. You're willing and able to gamble with blends and juxtapositions that no one else would think of, let alone propose. Bonus: Extra courage is available for you to call on as you proceed. In light of this gift, I suggest you brainstorm about all the unifications that might be possible for you to pull off. What conflicts would you love to defuse? What inequality or lopsidedness do you want to fix? Is there a misunderstanding you can heal or a disjunction you can harmonize? Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter September 9, 2015