John Archibald Wheeler - Sophocles - Miguel Syjuco - Mark Twain - May Sarton - William Shakespeare - The Doors - How to be a Surrealist with Philippa Perry TV -
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. John Archibald Wheeler
Stranger in a strange [land] country. Sophocles & Robert A Heinlein novel, attributions & variations & viz Exodus 2:22
It kills me how these days everyone has clinical justification for their strangeness. Miguel Syjuco, Ilustrado
It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense. Mark Twain
We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be. May Sarton
Now, by two-headed Janus,
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time;
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes
And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper,
And other of such vinegar aspect
That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile.
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable. William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice I i 50-56, Solanio to Antonio & Salerio
This bodes some strange eruption to our state. William Shakespeare, Hamlet I i 69
These are not natural events; they strengthen
From strange to stranger. William Shakespeare, The Tempest V i 230-231, Alonso
... with strange and several noises
Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains,
And more diversity of sounds, all horrible,
We were awaked. ibid. V i @235, Boatswain
This is as strange a maze as e’er men trod,
And there is in this business more than nature
Was ever conduct of. ibid. V i @245, Alonso
Do not infest your mind with beating on
The strangeness of this business. ibid. V i 249-250, Prospero
People are strange when you’re a stranger
Faces look ugly when you’re alone
Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted
Streets are uneven when you’re down
When you’re strange faces come out of the rain
When you’re strange no one remembers your name
When you’re strange, when you’re strange
When you’re strange. The Doors, People Are Strange
It’s a hundred years since the word surreal was first used, and now you hear it everywhere. For many people surreal just means bizarre. If you think of surrealist art at all, you’ll maybe think of those lonely landscapes littered with melting clocks, floating businessmen in bowler hats, a woman who looks like a violin, a lobster where a telephone should be, but surrealism didn’t start out like that. How to be a Surrealist with Philippa Perry, BBC 2022
I’m going to take you back to the beginnings of the surrealist movement and trace how their interest in the unconscious mind sparked an explosion of revolutionary ideas that transformed art and cinema and the world around us. ibid.
[Andre] Breton had his reasons for wanting to rearrange world order. Breton had been a medical student in the First World War … He set out his ideas in a sort of handbook, the Surrealist Manifesto. ibid.