Novelties Quotes

“So it was that the Red Tower put into production its new, more terrible and perplexing, line of unique novelty items. Among the objects and constructions now manufactured were several of an almost innocent nature. These included tiny, delicate cameos that were heavier than their size would suggest, far heavier, and lockets whose shiny outer surface flipped open to reveal a black reverberant abyss inside, a deep blackness roaring with echoes. Along the same lines was a series of lifelike replicas of internal organs and physiological structures, many of them evidencing an advanced stages of disease and all of them displeasingly warm and soft to the touch. There was a fake disembodied hand on which fingernails would grow several inches overnight and insistently grew back should one attempt to clip them. Numerous natural objects, mostly bulbous gourds, were designed to produce a long, deafening scream whenever they were picked up or otherwise disturbed in their vegetable stillness. Less scrutable were such things as hardened globs of lava into whose rough, igneous forms were sent a pair of rheumy eyes that perpetually shifted their gaze from side to side like a relentless pendulum. And there was also a humble piece of cement, a fragment broken away from any street or sidewalk, that left a most intractable stain, greasy and green, on whatever surface it was placed. But such fairly simple items were eventually followed, and ultimately replaced, by more articulated objects and constructions. One example of this complex type of novelty item was an ornate music box that, when opened, emitted a brief gurgling or sucking sound in emulation of a dying individual's death rattle. Another product manufactured in great quantity at the Red Tower was a pocket watch in a gold casing which opened to reveal a curious timepiece whose numerals were represented by tiny quivering insects while the circling 'hands' were reptilian tongues, slender and pink. But these examples hardly begin to hint at the range of goods that came from the factory during its novelty phase of production. I should at least mention the exotic carpets woven with intricate abstract patterns that, when focused upon for a certain length of time, composed themselves into fleeting phantasmagoric scenes of a kind which might pass through a fever-stricken or even permanently damaged brain.”
― Thomas Ligotti, Teatro Grottesco

“All human progress is in a circle; or, to use a more accurate and beautiful figure, in an ascending spiral curve. While we fancy ourselves going straight forward, and attaining, at every step, an entirely new position of affairs, we do actually return to something long ago tried and abandoned, but which we now find etherealized, refined, and perfected to its ideal. The past is but a coarse and sensual prophecy of the present and the future.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables

“Just because humans have become "advanced" enough to vaccinate their young, write histories, and speculate about our origins, this does not mean that evoutionary processes have ceased to operate.”
― Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding

“We are still evolving. Right now, however, the most potent form of evolution is not biological evolution of the sort described by Darwin, but cultural evolution, in which we develop and pass new ideas and behaviors to our children, friends and others. Some of these novel behaviors, especially the foods we eat and the activities we do (or don't do), make us sick.”
― Daniel E. Lieberman, The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease

“A related reason to consider the human's body evolutionary story is to help understand whay our bodies are and are not adapted for.”
― Daniel E. Lieberman, The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease

“We have conquered or quelled many diseases that used to kill people in droves: smallpox, measles, polio and the plague. People are taller, and formerly life-threating conditions like appendicitis, dysentery, a broken leg or anemia are easily remedied. To be sure, there is still too much malnutrition and disease in some countries, but these evils are often the result of bad government and social inequality, not a lack of food or medical know how.”
― Daniel E. Lieberman, The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease

“A related reason to consider the human's body evolutionary story is to help understand why our bodies are and are not adapted for.”
― Daniel E. Lieberman, The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease

“Just because humans have become -advanced- enough to vaccinate their young, write histories, and speculate about our origins, this does not mean that evolutionary processes have ceased to operate.”
― Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding