text

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a baker’s dozen

twelve, or so, excerpts from the book,

words and ideas that impressed me...

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the first number, below right, is the i.d. number of the background photo, from www.sxc.hu photo

the second number is the page numberof the quote (in the hardback), in case you’d

like to track them down

(you may need to zoom in on the PDF to read the numbers)

photo number 1291358 : page number

When the body is rendered useless, the mind still runs like

a bloodhound along well-worn trails of neurons, tracking the

echoing questions: the confused family of whys, whats, and

whens, and their impossibly distant kin how.

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the snail gets up

and goes to bed

with very little fuss

- kobayashi issa (1761-1828)

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Whereas the future had once beckoned with many

intriguing paths, now there was just one impossible

route. so it was into the past, with its rich sedimentary

layers, that my mind would go instead.

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one evening I put some of the withered blossoms in the dish

beneath the pot of violets. The snail was awake. It made its

way down the side of the pot and investigated the offering

with great interest and then began to eat one of the blossoms.

a petal started to disappear at a barely discernible rate.

I listened carefully. I could hear it eating.

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each evening the snail awoke and, with an astonishing

amount of poise, moved gracefully to the rim of the pot and

peered over, surveying, once again, the strange country that

lay ahead. Pondering its circumstances with a regal air, as if

from the turret of a castle, it waved its tentacles first this way

and then that, as though responding to a distant melody.

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...I was a reminder of all they feared: chance, uncertainty,

loss, and the sharp edge of mortality. Those of us with

illnesses are the holders of the silent fears of those with

good health.

1209370:39

In the fourth century bC, in the History of Animals, aristotle

noted that snail teeth are “sharp and small, and delicate.”

My snail possessed around 2,640 teeth, so I’d add the word

plentiful to aristotle’s description.

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While homo sapiens have internal mucus, and more of it than

we realize, it’s the extravagant nature of the gastropod to be

completely coated externally.

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If we Homo sapiens thought we were in charge of the planet,

here was clear evidence to the contrary. The humble snail

and its clan have a far older, and stickier, foothold on the

earth than we more recent creatures.

...the sentence that best expresses a snail’s way of life:

“The right thing to do is to do nothing, the place to do

it is in a place of concealment, and the time to do it is

as often as possible.”

: Tony Cook, The Biology of Terrestrial Molluscs

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What majesty is in a creeping snail, what reflection, what

earnestness, what timidity, and yet at the same time what

firm confidence! Surely a snail is an exalted symbol of mind

slumbering deeply within itself.

: Lorenz Oken, late nineteenth century German naturalist

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There are times when I wished my viral invader had

claimed me completely. How much better to live an

exhuberant life and then leave as one exits a party,

simply opening a door and stepping out.

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Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other

living creatures, but because knowing them well elevates

the very concept of life.

: Edward O. Wilson, 1984, Biophilia

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the end

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