Multicolored rock strata at Zhangye National Geopark, 張掖國家地質公園, China
Strativarius
Tag Archives: Geology
Crowley on Crystals
The first thing to meet our eyes [on a Himalayan expedition in 1902] was what, suppose we had landed in the country of Brobdignag, only more, so, might have been the lace handkerchief of a Super-Glumdalclitch left out to dry. It was a glittering veil of brilliance of the hillside; but closer inspection, instead of destroying the illusion, made one exclaim with increased enthusiasm.
The curtain had been formed by crystalline deposits from a hot spring (38.3° centigrade). The incrustation is exquisitely white and exquisitely geometrical in every detail. The burden of the cynicism of my six and twenty years fell from me like a dream. I trod the shining slopes; they rustled under my feet rather as snow does in certain conditions. (The sound is strangely exhilarating.) It is a voluptuous flattery like the murmurous applause of a refined multitude, with the instinctive ecstatic reverence of a man conscious of his unworthiness entering paradise. At the top of the curtain is the basin from which it proceeds, the largest of several similar formations. It is some thirty-one feet in diameter, an almost perfect circle. The depth in the middle is little over two feet. It is a bath for Venus herself.
I had to summon my consciousness of godhead before venturing to invade it. The water steams delicately with sulphurous emanations, yet the odour is subtly delicious. Knowles, the doctor and I spent more than an hour and a half reposing in its velvet warmth, in the intoxicating dry mountain air, caressed by the splendour of the sun. I experienced all the ecstasy of the pilgrim who has come to the end of his hardships. I felt as if I had been washed clean of all the fatigues of the journey. In point of fact, I had arrived, despite myself, at perfect physical condition. I had realized from the first that the proper preparation for a journey of this sort is to get as fat as possible before starting, and stay as fat as possible as long as possible. I was now in the condition in which Pfannl had been at Srinagar. I could have gone forty-eight hours without turning a hair. — The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography (1929)
He Say, He Sigh, He Sow #44
H. Rider Haggard describes fractals:
Out of the vast main aisle there opened here and there smaller caves, exactly, Sir Henry said, as chapels open out of great cathedrals. Some were large, but one or two — and this is a wonderful instance of how nature carries out her handiwork by the same unvarying laws, utterly irrespective of size — were tiny. One little nook, for instance, was no larger than an unusually big doll’s house, and yet it might have been a model for the whole place, for the water dropped, tiny icicles hung, and spar columns were forming in just the same way. — King Solomon’s Mines, 1885, ch. XVI, “The Place of Death”
Performativizing Papyrocentricity #50
Papyrocentric Performativity Presents:
• Life Locomotes – Restless Creatures: The Story of Life in Ten Movements, Matt Wilkinson (Icon 2016)
• Heart of the Mother – Journey to the Centre of the Earth: A Scientific Exploration into the Heart of Our Planet, David Whitehouse (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2015)
• Lepidopterobibliophilia – British Butterflies: A History in Books, David Dunbar (The British Library 2012)
• Minimal Manual – Georgisch Wörterbuch, Michael Jelden (Buske 2016)
Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR
Performativizing Papyrocentricity #48
Papyrocentric Performativity Presents:
• Vois la Reine – Philip’s Moon Observer’s Guide, Peter Grego (Philip’s 2015)
• Gods of Fire – Volcano Discoveries: A Photographic Journey around the World, Tom Pfeiffer and Ingrid Smet (New Holland 2015)
• Chemical Tales – Rocks and Minerals, Ronald Louis Bonewitz (Dorling Kindersley 2012)
• Knyghtes of the Royalme – Malory: Works, ed. Eugène Vinaver (Oxford University Press 1977)
• Alfredo to Zinedine – Football’s Great Heroes and Entertainers, Jimmy Greaves with Norman Giller (Hodder & Stoughton 2007)
Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR
Performativizing Papyrocentricity #46
Papyrocentric Performativity Presents:
• Machina Mundi – The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution, David Wootton (Allen Lane 2015)
• Wandering Wonders – Plankton: Wonders of the Drifting World, Christian Sardet (The University of Chicago Press 2015)
• Love Buzz – A Buzz in the Meadow, Dave Goulson (Jonathan Cape 2014)
• Quake’s Progress – The Million Death Quake: The Science of Predicting Earth’s Deadliest Natural Disaster, Roger Musson (Palgrave Macmillan 2012)
• Sin after Cin – Gargoyle Girls from Beelzebub’s Ballsack: The Sickest, Sleaziest, Splanchnophagousest Slimefests in Scum Cinema, Dr Joan Jay Jefferson (TransToxic Texts 2016)
Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR
Performativizing Papyrocentricity #35
Papyrocentric Performativity Presents:
• Volc-Lore – Volcanoes: A Beginner’s Guide, Rosaly Lopes (Oneworld 2010)
• Stokes’ Strokes – Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers: The Ideas That Have Shaped Our World, Philip Stokes (Arcturus Publishing 2012)
• Art of Darkness – Doubled Slaughter: Barbarism, Brutalism and Bestial Bloodlust in the Music of Simon and Garfunkel, Dr Miriam B. Stimbers (Serpent’s Tail 2007)
Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR
Performativizing Papyrocentricity #16
Papyrocentric Performativity Presents:
• Brit Grit – Granite and Grit: A Walker’s Guide to the Geology of British Mountains, Ronald Turnbull (Francis Lincoln 2011)
• Singh Summing Simpsons – The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, Simon Singh (Bloomsbury 2013)
• Go with the Quo – Status Quo: Still Doin’ It – The Official Updated Edition, compiled by Bob Young, edited by Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt (Omnibus Press 2013)
• Breeding Bunnies – The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the Extraordinary Number of Nature, Art and Beauty, Mario Livio (Headline Review 2003) (posted @ Overlord of the Über-Feral)
• Brit Bot Book – Reader’s Digest Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of Britain, J.R. Press et al, illustrated Leonora Box et al (1981) (@ O.o.t.Ü.-F.)
Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR
