2011-03-30
post/4195304009
quote 00:38:09
“ When captured and held e.g. by the tail, [hagfish] secrete the microfibrous slime, which expands into a gelatinous and sticky goo when combined with water; if they remain captured, they can tie themselves in an overhand knot which works its way from the head to the tail of the animal, scraping off the slime as it goes and freeing them from their captor, as well as the slime. ”
2010-06-22
post/724752842
quote 09:11:33
“ Ironically, it was I, and not my German roommates, who suffered from that famous German syndrome: Mauer-im-Kopf, or “wall in the head.” I knew the path the Berlin Wall had traced only two blocks from our Kreuzberg apartment; my roommates did not. They took their out-of-town guests to the natural history museum; I took my bewildered visitors to barren patches of park where the concrete Mauer used to stand. I got the distinct sense during my year in Berlin that the preoccupation with history’s physical imprint on the city was an Auslander phenomenon. ”
Amelia Atlas in n+1’s Berlin Trilogy, a worth-reading review of three books set in (and, more or less, about) the city. I’m definitely keen to read Book of Clouds, and I wish I could read enough German to make sense of Treffen sich zwei.
