Obscured Reality

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson? Or, possibly, Jessamyn West?

I've been scouring the internet to find an actual source for the above quote. It appears in numerous quotation references, but they can't agree on who actually said it. In some references it appears twice, attributed to both of them. Probably one of them said it; I haven't found it attributed to any third person—yet. My initial assumption was that it was Emerson as he's older, but take that idea and run with it and one could safely assume that most utterances in the English tongue had originated with Geoffrey Chaucer.

Wikiquote hasn't attributed the statement to either of them, but it does appear on the talk page for Emerson in a long list headed "Unsourced". So nobody seems to have a handle on where this quotation actually comes from. If you happen to stumble across an actual source, please leave me a comment about it. I'll buy you lunch.

Additional reading:

• The New York Times: "Falser Words Were Never Spoken" by Brian Morton
• grammar.ccc.commnet.edu: Quotation Marks (especially read the bit at the bottom about typesetting)

Beware the Ides of March!

Great Caesar's Ghost! That's the last time I check out DVDs for Cleopatra!

Sympathy for the Censors

Back in September, I got involved in a discussion about banned books on Goodreads. I took a strong book-banning is wrong position. As a result, I found myself arguing in favor of Phillip Greaves's The Pedophile's Guide to Love And Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct, the book that unfortunately became the agreed upon example of a text that deserved to be repressed. The group's moderators contacted me and advised me to tread carefully: apparently I was upsetting people and the moderators had concluded there was a need to distance the group from my comments. My last post mentioning Greaves wound up censored itself! I decided I also wanted to distance myself from my previous comments and attempted to approach the issue from a different angle by posting a bit about Tom Clancy.

It's hard to defend a book like The Pedophile's Guide because I'd actually prefer to live in a world where such a book did not exist. Most people laugh at silly attempts to ban, say, the dictionary, or the works of Dr. Seuss, and think themselves superior to the narrow-minded individuals that would suggest such things. The thing to remember, though, is that the people who want to ban the Harry Potter series genuinely believe it to be even more dangerous than a book like the Pedophile's Guide—the later may endanger a child's physical and psychological well-being, but the first has the potential to corrupt an innocent's immortal soul.

Anyone who wants to ban any book probably finds that book at least as disturbing as I found Greaves's suggestion that

You can't unread this—think twice before clicking!

finger cots make excellent substitute condoms for the use of young boys.

I really don't think anyone should read Greaves's book and I certainly wouldn't publish it if I was in the book business. I think it is inappropriate, however, to act to prevent anyone from reading or publishing anything, no matter how disgusting or worthless I may deem it to be. My reason is a desire to adhere to the golden rule: I won't stop you from reading anything because I don't want you to stop me.

Additional reading:

• Note From Lapland: "Is There Ever A Case For Banning A Book?"
• Polk Law Blog: "An Initial Critique of the Greaves Obscene Materials Arrest"
• Snopes.com: "The Banned Book of Dr. Seuss!"

Raptured

The following was intended to be a Facebook status update on 21 October 2011. I spent too long tinkering with it and the moment passed me by (and despite my polishing it never really reached a truly satisfactory shine), but it's somewhat amusing (and probably offensive—I can't seem to help myself).

Extrapolated from Webster's:

One of the synonyms listed for Rapture is Intoxication.

Rapture of the Deep is defined as "a state of euphoria and confusion similar to that of alcohol intoxication which occurs when nitrogen in normal air enters the bloodstream at increased pressure (as in deep-water diving)."

Rapture of the Deep is also known as Nitrogen Narcosis.

Being drunk could be referred to as Alcohol Narcosis.

It would not, therefore, be unreasonable to refer to a state of drunkenness as Rapture of the Party.

Members of some Christian sects consume wine in a ritual believed to transform the wine into the blood of Jesus Christ.

The Rapture might, therefore, be referred to as either The Intoxication or Sanguinis Christi Narcosis.

Stupefacient is a synonym of narcotic; thus, narcosis—"a state of stupor, unconsciousness, or arrested activity"—is synonymous with stupefaction.

Sanguinis Christi Narcosis translates, therefore, as Stupefaction by the Blood of Christ.

The Raptured, it follows, are stupid bloody Christians.