...In literature. The Trial , for instance, begins with a knock. Anybody? Akthar: The person from Porlock? Hector: Yes. Posner: Don Giovanni :the Commendatore. Hector: Excellent. Scripps: Behold I stand at the...the knights knock at the door of Canterbury before they murdered Beckett? And maybe the person from Porlock never actually knocked but just put his or her head in at the window. Death knocks, ...
... of robust arguments favoring either scientific materialism or theistic revelation and then communicating the salient points to the Martians in their nonlinguistic language, which was apparently deciphered several years ago by a paranoid schizophrenic named Annie Porlock," I told Valerie. "That's not a sentence you hear every day," she replied. --from "The War of the Worldviews" by James Morrow
... began to describe his “vision in a dream” in what has become one of English’s most famous poems: Kubla Khan. Part way through (54 lines in fact) he was interrupted by a “Person from Porlock“. Coleridge returned to his poem but could not remember the rest of his dream. The poem was never completed. Curiously, Robert Louis Stevenson came up with the story of Doctor Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde whilst he ...
... Genius with a Difference Ada Lovelace, the Byronic Woman Lovelace and Babbage vs. the Economy! Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Fanciful Interludes Lovelace and Babbage vs. the Organist Lovelace and Babbage vs. the Salamander People The Person from Porlock Charles Babbage predicts the Future, for BBC's Techlab Babbage and Lovelace (sic) vs. the Client Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
...to be used as a normal wall clockexcept that it has the novel feature of running backwards. When. The Man From Porlock: Running Out the Clock The Man From Porlock: Running Out the Clock Running Out the Clock. Probably it's best to talk now about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, before it...
Kubla Khan (OR, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment.) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree : Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round : And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-...
No Sugar ‘I’ll tell you what worries me, if you like’ said John. There is a segment of humanity, not friend, not foe, nothing so intimate, but slightly more than colleague or workmate, and John Downs is the poster boy for this underclass. Like many in an office, who always seem to be there (though this may be down to his habit of always leaving a jacket on his chair so as to appear...
Someone felt the things unseen, someone thought the things unsaid, someone glimpsed what might have been, someone saw what was instead. Someone left something undone, someone dreamt dreams unfulfilled, someone left a course unrun, someone's thoughts were stirred, then stilled.
One of the things I enjoy about my comedy course module is having ideas about the topic as I teach. Unfortunately I rarely write them down. Yesterday was an exception when I suddenly thought, that's like a definition of the Lacanian Real. And wrote down the word Real. Only I don't remember what was like the Real. I think it's something to do with achieved desired and that which is outside the...
... poet who, one day, was in the right mood. He was high as a satellite on opium and writing a great beginning of a long poem when he was catastrophically interrupted by someone from the town of Porlock . As a result, Coleridge's mood petered out and he was unable to finish his work. I am absolutely not a Coleridge, but I am familiar with being Porlocked. My sister's giant puppy Neil is still ...
