In what might have been the world’s first double-blind study, Benjamin Franklin, Antoine Lavoisier, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, and a group of elite French scientists examined the scientific claims of Anton Mesmer  . . . at the express command of Louis XVI, no less.  (That Dr. Guillotin’s humane execution machine later separated both Lavoisier and Louis from […]

Saw an interesting Paris Review interview with French slipstream author (and Lovecraft scholar) Michel Houellebecq.  I was interested in part because the guy’s process is so different from mine. I wake up during the night around one a.m. I write half-awake in a semi-conscious state. Progressively, as I drink coffee, I become more conscious. And […]

Via Janice, a corrective providing reasons not to date a writer: Writers will romance you with words. We probably won’t. We write for ourselves or for money and by the time we’re done we’re sick of it. If we have to write you something there’s a good chance it’ll take us two days and we’ll […]

Today’s New York Times article on 3-D printing brought up an idea I had in this blog some time back— using a big 3-D printer to build a house.  (I was mocked, I do believe.) Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis either read my blog or my mind, or came up with the idea himself— and now I […]