[오늘의 한문장] 대성당

그러나 신이 수많은 모델 중 어떤 모델을 닮았는지에 대한 기록은 없다. 그런데도 화가들은 언제나 가장 안정적인 모델로 알려진 700모델을 토대로 성화를 제작한다. 그래서 신은 늘 전신을 금으로 도금하고, 네 개의 바퀴를 달고, 오른쪽 귀 위쪽과 양 팔목에 700의 일련번호를 새긴 모습으로 그려진다. 화가들은 신을 좀 더 아름답게 묘사하기 위해, 관절마다 전선다발과 신경회로가 슬쩍 드러나게 하거나, 머리와 신체 일부 표피를 투명하게 만들어 정교한 내부구조를 노출하는 수고를 아끼지 않는다.

-알라딘 eBook <종의 기원담> (김보영 지음) 중에서 - P9

Norms imply violation of norm...

Norms imply violation of norms: we call something a ‘norm’ merely because it is more frequent than its opposite (the ‘violation of the norm’). That’s as true for human sexual norms as for other norms. - P5

Thus, even a non-mammalo-centric view reinforces our dog’s interpretation: we are the ones who are bizarre. - P8

Norms imply violation of norms: we call something a ‘norm’ merely because it is more frequent than its opposite (the ‘violation of the norm’). That’s as true for human sexual norms as for other norms. - P5

This book is a speculative ac...

This book is a speculative account of how human sexuality came to be the way it now is.

Sex in social mammals is generally carried out in public, before the gazes of other members of the troop. - P2

Thus, sex is emphatically not just for fun and is rarely divorced from its function of fertilization. This generalization too admits exceptions: sex is flagrantly separated from reproduction in a few species, including bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees) and dolphins. - P3

By menopause is meant a complete cessation of fertility within a time span that is much briefer than the previous fertile career, and that is followed by an infertile life span of significant length. - P4

[오늘의 한문장] 대성당 (무선)

그러니까 맹인이, 아내의 오랜 친구가 하룻밤 묵기 위해 찾아오고 있었다. 그의 아내는 죽었다. 때문에 그는 코네티컷에 사는, 죽은 아내의 친척들을 방문하고 있었다. 처의 친척집에서 그는 내 아내에게 전화를 걸었다. 미리 약속해둘 일들이 있었다. 그가 다섯 시간 동안 기차를 타고 오면, 아내는 역에서 그를 맞이할 예정이었다. 십 년 전 여름, 시애틀에서 그를 위해 일한 뒤로 그녀는 한 번도 그를 만나지 못했다. 하지만 그녀와 맹인은 계속 연락하고 있었다. 그들은 말로 녹음한 테이프를 우편으로 주고받았다. 내게는 그의 방문이 달가울 리 없었다. 나로서는 전혀 모르는 사람이었다. 게다가 눈이 멀었다는 사실도 마음에 걸렸다. 눈이 멀었다는 게 뭘까 생각해보면 영화에서 본 것들만 떠오른다. 영화에서 맹인들은 천천히 움직이고 웃는 법이 없었다. 때로 그들은 맹인 안내견을 따라가기도 했다. 우리집에 맹인이 온다니, 학수고대할 일은 아니었다.

-알라딘 eBook <대성당> (레이먼드 카버 지음, 김연수 옮김) 중에서 - P274

To his tally kept on a piece ...

To his tally kept on a piece of paper in his crew quarters, Roman will add the eighty-eighth line. Not to wish the time away but to try to tether it to something countable. Otherwise – otherwise the centre drifts. Space shreds time to pieces. They were told this in training: keep a tally each day when you wake, tell yourself this is the morning of a new day. Be clear with yourself on this matter. This is the morning of a new day. - P6

There was a lesson at school about the painting Las Meninas, when Shaun was fifteen. It was about how the painting disoriented its viewer and left them not knowing what it was they were looking at. It’s a painting inside a painting, his teacher had said – look closely. Look here. Velázquez, the artist, is in the painting, at his easel, painting a painting, and what he’s painting is the king and queen, but they’re outside of the painting, where we are, looking in, and the only way we know they’re there is because we can see their reflection in a mirror directly in front of us. What the king and queen are looking at is what we’re looking at – their daughter and her ladies-in-waiting, which is what the painting is called – Las Meninas, ‘The Ladies-in-Waiting’. - P8

The earth, from here, is like heaven. It flows with colour. A burst of hopeful colour. When we’re on that planet we look up and think heaven is elsewhere, but here is what the astronauts and cosmonauts sometimes think: maybe all of us born to it have already died and are in an afterlife. If we must go to an improbable, hard-to-believe-in place when we die, that glassy, distant orb with its beautiful lonely light shows could well be it. - P12

They are a choreographing of movements and functions of the ship’s body as it enacts its perfect choreography of the planet. Anton – quiet, and dry in his humour, sentimental, crying openly at films, at scenes outside the window – Anton the spaceship’s heart. Pietro its mind, Roman (the current commander, dextrous and capable, able to fix anything, control the robotic arm with millimetre precision, wire the most complex circuit board) its hands, Shaun its soul (Shaun there to convince them all that they have souls), Chie (methodical, fair, wise, not-quite definable or pin-downable) its conscience, Nell (with her eight-litre diving lungs) its breath. - P29

And the earth, a complex orchestra of sounds, an out-of-tune band practice of saws and woodwind, a spacey full-throttle distortion of engines, a speed-of-light battle between galactic tribes, a ricochet of trills from a damp rainforest morning, the opening bars of electronic trance, and behind it all a ringing sound, a sound gathered in a hollow throat. A fumbled harmony taking shape. The sound of very far-off voices coming together in a choral mass, an angelic sustained note that expands through the static. You think it’ll burst into song, the way the choral sound emerges full of intent, and this polished-bead planet sounds briefly so sweet. Its light is a choir. Its light is an ensemble of a trillion things which rally and unify for a few short moments before falling back into the rin-tin-tin and jumbled tumbling of static galactic woodwind rainforest trance of a wild and lilting world. - P207

There’s his wife at home, herself so long unwell, and he’s told their children he’ll let nothing bad happen to any of them ever, as if such a thing were within his gift. He’s the vehicle that carries them all through darkness, and the weight of that has borne him along for years and years. But he, too, is preyed on by darkness, as we all are. He never knew how to tell them that. He never knew how to say to his wife what he wanted amicably to say: Zabudem, ladno? Let’s forget it, shall we? Let’s call it a day. We don’t love one another any more, why complicate what’s simple? When he found the lump those were the words that came straight to his mind. Zabudem, ladno? They were casual and easy in his head as if he were proposing to end an awkward conversation. They were light words and they ended the decades of struggle inside him, and he feels sure that in the saying of the words they will all be released – he, his wife, their children – they will be released from the darkness he is supposed to and could never save them from. - P140