bababada

lgharaghtakamminaron
nonnbronntonnerronn
uonnthunntrobarrhoun
awnskawntoohoohoor
denenthurknuk!

Q Is for Quicken

mock-up after work session 140414 osk + sxw

draft script 2010-2013 Sha Xin Wei

!word

quick

part of speech adjective

definition
A. adj.

I. Characterized by the presence of life.

1. a. Living, endowed with life, in contrast to what is naturally inanimate. Now dial. or arch.
b. Of possessions or property: Consisting of animals; live (stock). Freq. in phrases quick cattle, good(s, stock, etc., and hence, by analogy, quick beast. Obs. Cf. also
OE. cwicht, -feoh.
c. Applied to things properly inanimate in various transf. or fig. uses (cf. II).

2. a. Of persons and animals: In a live state, living, alive. Now dial. or arch.
b. Freq. as complement to the subject of intr. and pass. verbs, or to the object (rarely subj.) of trans. verbs; sometimes with intensive all prefixed.
c. Of the flesh or parts of the body; spec. quick flesh; now also quickflesh.
d. transf. and fig., chiefly of qualities, feelings, etc. (cf. II).

3. a. Of plants or their parts: Alive, growing. See also QUICKWOOD.

b. Composed of living plants, esp. hawthorn, as quick fence, frith, hedge (cf. Du. kwikhaag), mound. Cf. QUICKSET.

4. Constr. with. a. quick with child, said of a female in the stage of pregnancy at which the motion of the f{oe}tus is felt. Now rare or Obs.
b. absol. in same sense. Obs.

II. Of things: Having some specific quality characteristic or suggestive of a living thing.

the quick

noun

quicken
verb

B. Elliptical or absolute uses passing into n.

quicken (verb) [f. QUICK a. + -EN5. Cf. ON. kvikna,
kykna to come to life, come into being, Sw. qvickna;
1. a. pl. (Without article or -s.) Living persons. (Chiefly in echoes of Acts x. Da. dial. kvgne to refresh. In Eng. the trans. sense is
42 or the Apostles' Creed, in phr. quick and dead.)
more usual than the intr.]
b. the quick, the living. Usu. pl., and in conjunction with the dead (cf. 1a). I. Transitive senses.
c. That which is alive. (OE. and early ME. in gen. sing.) Obs.
d. Live stock, cattle. (So OFris. quek, quik, LG. queck, quick, Da. kvg.)
Obs. rare{em}1.
2. With a and pl. A living thing. rare (now only dial.).

1. a. To give or restore life to; to make alive; to vivify or

revive; to animate (as the soul the body).
1. b. fig. in renderings of Biblical passages, or echoes of
these, occas. with ref. to spiritual life.

* In a sound or natural condition; fresh; productive.

3. a. collect. Living plants, spec. of white hawthorn, set to form a hedge. =

QUICKSET 1a.
1. c. to be quickened = 6b. Obs.

5. Of the complexion: Having the freshness of life. Obs. rare.

b. With a and pl. A single plant of this description. = QUICKSET 1b.

6. Of things seen: Lifelike, vivid. Obs. rare.

7.

a. Of rock: Natural, living.

b. Of earth: (see quot. 1620). Obs.

8. a. Mining. Of veins, etc.: Containing ore, productive. (Cf. DEAD a. 10.)

b. Of stock, capital, etc.: Productive of interest or profit.

** Possessed of motion.

9. Of wells, springs, streams, or water: Running, flowing. (Cf. OE. cwicwelle adj.) Now rare. Also transf.

4. a. the quick: The tender or sensitive flesh in any part of the body, as that
under the nails or beneath callous parts; the sensitive part of a horse's foot,
above the hoof; also, the tender part of a sore or wound. Usu. in phr. to the
quick. Also without article (quot. 1562). Also attrib.

2. To give, add, or restore vigour to (a person or thing);

to stimulate, stir up, rouse, excite, inspire.
a. a person.

b. a feeling, faculty, action, course of things, etc. Also

with up.
b. fig. with ref. to persons, chiefly in phrases denoting acute mental pain or
irritation, as touched, galled, stung, etc. to the quick.
absol.

10. Of soil, etc.: Mobile, shifting, readily yielding to pressure. Cf. quick-clay in sense D, QUICKSAND.

*** Having some form of activity or energy.

11. a. Of coals: Live, burning. Obs.

b. Of fires or flames: Burning strongly or briskly. Also of an oven: Exposed to a brisk fire.

12. Of speech, writings, etc.: Lively, full of vigour or acute reasoning; smart, sprightly. Obs.

13. Of places or times: Full of activity or business; busy. Of trade: Brisk. Obs.

c. transf. of things (esp. immaterial things): The central, vital, or most

important part.

3. To kindle (a fire); to cause or help to burn up.

d. With a and pl.: A tender, sensitive, or vital part. rare.

4. a. To make (liquor or medicine) more sharp or

stimulant. ? Obs.

5. the quick: The life (see LIFE n. 7). Chiefly in phr. to the quick.

b. To imbue (tin) with quicksilver. rare.

6. = quick-mire (See D.). Obs. rare{em}1.

c. dial. To work with yeast. (Halliwell.)

5. a. To hasten, accelerate, give speed to.

14. Of sulphur: Readily inflammable, fiery. Obs.

b. To make (a curve) sharper or (a slope) steeper.

15. Of wine and other liquors: Brisk, effervescent. Obs.

16. a. Of the voice: Loud, clear. Obs. rare{em}1.

b. Of colour: Vivid, bright, dazzling. rare.

17. Of feelings: Lively, vivid, keen, strongly felt.

18. a. Of a taste or smell: Sharp, pungent; brisk. Also of things in respect of taste or smell (cf. 15). Obs.
b. Of speech or writing: Sharp, caustic. Obs
c. Of air or light: Sharp, piercing. rare.
d. Of what causes pain. Obs. rare{em}1.

( listen to this )
( He spoke to me of Sei Shonagon, a lady in waiting
to Princess Sadako at the beginning of the 11th
century, in the Heian period....[B]y learning to draw
a sort of melancholy comfort from the contemplation
of the tiniest things this small group of idlers left a
mark on Japanese sensibility much deeper than the
mediocre thunderings of politicians. Shonagon had
a passion for lists: the list of elegant things,
distressing things, or even of things not worth
doing. One day she got the idea of drawing up a list
of things that quicken the heart.10 )

III. Having in a high degree the vigour or energy characteristic of life, and hence distinguished by, or capable of, prompt or rapid action or movement.

19. a. Of persons (or animals): Full of vigour, energy, or activity (now rare); prompt or ready to act; acting, or able to act, with speed or rapidity (freq. with
suggestion or implication of sense 23).
b. Of qualities in a person (or animal).
c. Of things (material and immaterial).
d. Cricket. Of a bowler.

20. a. Of the eye, ear, etc.: Keen or rapid in its function; capable of ready or swift perception.
b. So of the senses, perception, feeling, etc.

21. a. Mentally active or vigorous; of ready apprehension or wit; prompt to learn, think, invent, etc.
b. So of mind, wit, etc., and of qualities or operations (cf. 25) of the mind.

22. a. Hasty, impatient, hot-tempered. ? Obs.

b. So of temper, disposition, etc.

23. Moving, or able to move, with speed.

24. Of movement or succession: Rapid, swift.

Quickening conjures the alchemical process of animating non-living matter, infusing mud
and clay with a bubbling burbling vitality. By a number of theoretical-practical means,
such as infusing spirit, or purifying essence, or transmuting essence, a base metal could
become more noble. Thus, dark, dead, sessile metal quickened into liquid vitality and
sheen, could become quicksilver, if an alchemist -- like Maria the Jewess -- prepared herself
well enough.

The most ancient works of the arts of

quickening, that is, of alchemy, came from
China, where they were practiced by not gods
but humans, for instance: Wei Po-Yang (ca.
120), Ko Hung (253-334), and in the ninth
century, the daughter of Keng Chhien -- Keng
Hsien-seng -- a poet and magician who was
challenged by the Emperor to transmute a
substance without fire. She did so by
transmuting mercury to silver in a silk pouch.2

It was typical of alchemical theory to treat the arts of the body and the arts of earth
in the same logic. In the Eighth Key of Basil Valentine:

Quick, adjective.
Quick as quicksilver.
The quick, noun.
Not the quick of the quick brown fox
but the quick of the quick and the dead.
Quicken, verb.
A woman, pregnant,
feels her first child turn inside her
for the first time, like a whale.
It is terrifying, exhilarating.
The earth quickens as well: it quakes.

For if anything is to be generated by putrefaction, the process must be

as follows: The earth is first decomposed by the moisture which it
contains; for without moisture, or water, there can be no true decay;
thereupon the decomposed substance is kindled and quickened by the
natural heat of fire: for without natural heat no generation can take
place. Again, if that which has received the spark of life, is to be stirred
up to motion and growth, it must be acted upon by air. For without air,
the quickened substance would be choked and stifled in the germ.
Hence it manifestly appears that no one element can work effectually
without the aid of the others, and that all must contribute towards the
generation of anything. Thus their quickening cooperation takes the form
of putrefaction, without which there can be neither generation, life, nor
growth. That there can be no perfect generation or resuscitation without
the co-operation of the four elements, you may see from the fact that
when Adam had been formed by the Creator out of earth, there was no
life in him, until God breathed into him a living spirit. Then the earth
was quickened into motion. In the earth was the salt that is, the Body;
the air that was breathed into it was mercury or the Spirit, and this air
imparted to him a genuine and temperate heat, which was sulphur, or
fire. Then Adam moved and by his power of motion, shewed that there
had been infused into him a life-giving spirit. For as there is no fire
without air so neither is there any air without fire. Water was
incorporated with the earth. Thus living man is an harmonious mixture
of the four elements; and Adam was generated out of earth, water, air,
and fire, out of soul, spirit, and body, out of mercury, sulphur, and salt.8
8

But the Fathers of the Catholics christianized those older arts by

incorporating them into the sermons. As St. Augustin wrote:
Then he adds, But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus
from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the
dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that
dwelleth in you. 614614 Rom. viii. 10, 11 Then accordingly
shall the body become a quickening spirit which is now a
living soul...3
The Church added a false bottom to history, called the Creation. At
the beginning of their Old Testament, God moved as wind over the
waters of the world. God parted time into day and night. God
breathed life into the oceans black depths. God parted the world
into land and sea, and brought forth life on land. So they wrote.

More modern humans, creatures of the land, inherited Gods

dominion by further partitioning the world into life, oncelife, never-life, and by naming its parts. Naming became the
foundation of our arts of quickening. From intervening
centuries of work thanks to Jabir ibn Hayyan4, Abu Bakr
Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi5, Abu Alial-Husain ibn
Sina6 and other Islamic masters, the Europeans took back
into their own those alchemical arts by which we gained
power over the quick, the dead, and the non-living, and the
boundaries between them.
But at what cost?

But in Europe, as some of the divine powers became secularized, one of the
enduring debates about alchemical practice was whether it was possible and
non-heretical for mortal humans to aspire to equal or even perfect Nature.
For perfection -- the perfection of the body manifested as immortality, and the
perfection of matter as the transubstantiation of base metals into noble gold -motivated countless alchemists before Paracelsus. One way to answer yes to
that question, and still avoid being burned at the stake, was to reduce
alchemical application to the mundane aspirations of medicine and chemistry.
The other, more radical way was to disenchant the world. Alchemy thrived in a
world in which non-living matter could, through arcane means, acquire vital
qualities, and in which living but mortal bodies could become immortal.
Subjecting the world to rational regard also disenchanted the world as it
disenchanted the art. Thus, the alchemical arts of quickening and quintessential
quickening, became safer for both practitioner and client; alchemy after
Paracelsus was transmuted into chemistry, medicine, economics. The last great
act of alchemical transmutation was the disenchantment of the art itself, and
subsequently, quick became merely mortally speedy.

11

10

We start with a crystal of concepts, that is, the following schema:

World enchanted

God

|
World
disenchanted
(Capitalism)

|
Man

Power to quicken the

World
|
Power to quicken the
Economy

In order to arrogate Gods power to quicken the World, man had to reinvent
the world and his condition in two domains the art of animation, and the art
of cosmology.
Man had to invent an art that imitated Gods power to order and transform the
elements of the world. In place of divine agency, human agency became the
power over body and matter in the mortal sphere, modeled on divine
enlivening, inspiriting power.

12

According to the Fifth Key of Basil Valentine:

The quickening power of the earth produces all things that grow
forth from it, and he who says that the earth has no life makes a
statement which is flatly contradicted by the most ordinary facts.
For what is dead cannot produce life and growth, seeing that it is
devoid of the quickening spirit. This spirit is the life and soul that
dwell in the earth, and are nourished by heavenly and sidereal
influences. For all herbs, trees, and roots, and all metals and
minerals, receive their growth and nutriment from the spirit of the
earth, which is the spirit of life. This spirit is itself fed by the stars,
and is thereby rendered capable of imparting nutriment to all things
that grow, and of nursing them as a mother does her child while it
is yet in the womb. The minerals are hidden in the womb of the
earth, and nourished by her with the spirit which she receives from
above.7
Its important the life-giving quality of the earth lies not in mere matter -mere dirt -- but in a spirit in the earth.

We
return
to the
ocean
because
the
oceans
noise
ravishes
us and
washes
us
away.

Stanislaw Lem, On Solaris

Science fiction almost always assumed the aliens we meet play some kind
of game with us the rules of which we sooner or later may understand (in most
cases the "game" was the strategy of warfare). However I wanted to cut all
threads leading to the personification of the Creature, i.e. the Solarian Ocean, so
that the contact could not follow the human, interpersonal pattern - although it
did take place in some strange manner.
One should not speak of a "thinking" or a "non-thinking" Ocean, however
the Ocean certainly was active, undertook some voluntary actions and was
capable of doing things which were entirely alien to the human domain.
Eventually, when it got the attention of little ants that struggled above its surface, it
did so in a radical way. It penetrated the superficial established manners,
conventions and methods of linguistic communication, and entered, in its own
way, into minds of the people of the Solaris Station and revealed what was deeply
hidden in each of them: a reprehensible guilt, a tragic event from the past
suppressed by the memory, a secret and shameful desire.
The Solarian globe was not just any sphere surrounded by some jelly - it
was an active being (although a non-human one). It neither built nor created
anything translatable into our language that could have been "explained in
translation". Hence a description had to be replaced by analysis - (obviously an
impossible task) - of the internal workings of the Ocean's ego. This gave rise to
symetriads, asymetriads and mimoids - strange semi-constructions scientists were
unable to understand; they could only describe them in a mathematically
meticulous manner, and this was the sole purpose of the growing Solarian library the result of over a hundred years' efforts to enclose in folios what was not human
and beyond human comprehension; what could not have been translated into
human language - or into anything else.

13

We
return
to the
ocean
because
the
oceans
noise
ravishes
us and
washes
us
away.

Stanislaw Lem, On Solaris

Science fiction almost always assumed the aliens we meet play some kind
of game with us the rules of which we sooner or later may understand (in most
cases the "game" was the strategy of warfare). However I wanted to cut all
threads leading to the personification of the Creature, i.e. the Solarian Ocean, so
that the contact could not follow the human, interpersonal pattern - although it
did take place in some strange manner.
One should not speak of a "thinking" or a "non-thinking" Ocean,
however the Ocean certainly was active, undertook some voluntary actions and
was capable of doing things which were entirely alien to the human domain.
Eventually, when it got the attention of little ants that struggled above its surface,
it did so in a radical way. It penetrated the superficial established manners,
conventions and methods of linguistic communication, and entered, in its own
way, into minds of the people of the Solaris Station and revealed what was
deeply hidden in each of them: a reprehensible guilt, a tragic event from the
past suppressed by the memory, a secret and shameful desire.
The Solarian globe was not just any sphere surrounded by some jelly - it
was an active being (although a non-human one). It neither built nor created
anything translatable into our language that could have been "explained in
translation". Hence a description had to be replaced by analysis - (obviously an
impossible task) - of the internal workings of the Ocean's ego. This gave rise to
symetriads, asymetriads and mimoids - strange semi-constructions scientists were
unable to understand; they could only describe them in a mathematically
meticulous manner, and this was the sole purpose of the growing Solarian library the result of over a hundred years' efforts to enclose in folios what was not human
and beyond human comprehension; what could not have been translated into
human language - or into anything else.

15

14

We
return
to the
ocean
because
the
oceans
noise
ravishes
us and
washes
us
away.

Stanislaw Lem, On Solaris

Science fiction almost always assumed the aliens we meet play some kind
of game with us the rules of which we sooner or later may understand (in most
cases the "game" was the strategy of warfare). However I wanted to cut all
threads leading to the personification of the Creature, i.e. the Solarian Ocean, so
that the contact could not follow the human, interpersonal pattern - although it
did take place in some strange manner.
One should not speak of a "thinking" or a "non-thinking" Ocean, however
the Ocean certainly was active, undertook some voluntary actions and was
capable of doing things which were entirely alien to the human domain.
Eventually, when it got the attention of little ants that struggled above its surface, it
did so in a radical way. It penetrated the superficial established manners,
conventions and methods of linguistic communication, and entered, in its own
way, into minds of the people of the Solaris Station and revealed what was deeply
hidden in each of them: a reprehensible guilt, a tragic event from the past
suppressed by the memory, a secret and shameful desire.
The Solarian globe was not just any sphere surrounded by some jelly - it
was an active being (although a non-human one). It neither built nor created
anything translatable into our language that could have been "explained in
translation". Hence a description had to be replaced by analysis - (obviously an
impossible task) - of the internal workings of the Ocean's ego. This gave rise to
symetriads, asymetriads and mimoids - strange semi-constructions scientists
were unable to understand; they could only describe them in a mathematically
meticulous manner, and this was the sole purpose of the growing Solarian library
- the result of over a hundred years' efforts to enclose in folios what was not
human and beyond human comprehension; what could not have been translated
into human language - or into anything else.

16

Michel Serres
multitude is the
Solarian ocean, it
clamors,
sussurates always
and everywhere
densely at the
limits of our
perception, at the
limits
because we can
only read what is
legible, whereas
the multitude is
not the
union of points
but the
multitude of all
multitudes,
illegible....

Catherine Lescault, the river-christened courtesan, is here baptized La Belle Noiseuse. I think I know
who the belle noiseuse is, the querulous beauty, the noisemaker. This word noise crosses the seas.
Across the Channel or the St. Laurence seaway, behind how the noise divides itself. In Old French it
used to mean: noise, uproar and wrangling: English borrowed the sound from us; we keep only the
fury. In French we use it so seldom that you could say, apparently, that our language had been
cleansed of this "noise." Could French perhaps have become a prim and proper language of precise
communication, a fair and measured pair of scales for jurists and diplomats, exact, draftsmanlike,
unshaky, slightly frozen, a clear arterial unobstructed by embolus, through having chased away a
great many belles noiseuse? Through becoming largely free from stormy weather, sound and fury? It
is true, we have forgotten noise. I am trying to remember it; mending for a moment the tear between
the two tongues, the deep sea one and the one from the frost-covered lake. I mean to make a ruckus
[cherche noise] in the midst of these dividing waters.

Michel Serres
multitude is the
Solarian ocean, it
clamors,
sussurates always
and everywhere
densely at the
limits of our
perception, at the
limits
because we can
only read what is
legible, whereas
the multitude is
not the
union of points
but the
multitude of all
multitudes,
illegible....

Sea Noise
There, precisely, is the origin. Noise and nausea, noise and the nautical, noise and navy belong to the
same family. We mustn't be surprised. We never hear what we call background noise so well
established ther for all eternity. In the strict horizontal of it all, stable, unstable cascades are endlessly
trading. Space is assailed, as a whole, by the murmur; we are utterly taken over by this same
murmuring. This restlessness is within hearing, just shy of definite signals, just shy of silence. The silence
of the sea is mere appearance. Background noise may well be the ground of our being. It may be that
our being is not at rest, it may be that it is not in motion, it may be that our being is disturbed. The
background noise never ceases; it is limitless, continuous, unending, unchanging/ It has itself no
background, no contradictory. How much noise must be made to silence noise? And what terrible fury
puts fury in order? Noise cannot be a phenomenon; every phenomenon is separated from it, a
silhouette on a backdrop, like a beacon against the fog, as every message, every call, every signal must
be separated from the hubbub that occupies silence, in order to be, to be perceived, to be known, to be
exchanged. As soon as a phenomenon appears, it leaves the noise; as soon as a form looms up or pokes
through, it reveals itself by veiling noise. So noise is not a matter of phenomenology, so it is a matter of
being itself. It settles in subjects as well as in objects, in hearing as well as in space, in the observers as
well as the observed, it moves through the means and tools of observation whether material or logical,
hardware or software, constructed channels or languages; it is part of the in-itself, part of the for-itslef; it
cuts across the oldest and surest philosophical divisions, yes, noise is metaphysical. It is the complement
to physics, in the broadest sense. One hears its subliminal huffing and soughing on the high seas.
Background noise is becoming one of the objects of metaphysics. It is at the boundaries of
physics, and physics is bathed in it, it lies under the cuttings of all phenomena, a proteus taking on any
shape, the matter and flesh of manifestations.
The noise -- intermittence and turbulence -- quarrel and racket -- this sea noise is the originating
rumor and murmuring, the original hate. We hear it on the high seas.9

Catherine Lescault, the river-christened courtesan, is here baptized La Belle Noiseuse. I think I know
who the belle noiseuse is, the querulous beauty, the noisemaker. This word noise crosses the seas.
Across the Channel or the St. Laurence seaway, behind how the noise divides itself. In Old French it
used to mean: noise, uproar and wrangling: English borrowed the sound from us; we keep only the fury.
In French we use it so seldom that you could say, apparently, that our language had been cleansed of
this "noise." Could French perhaps have become a prim and proper language of precise
communication, a fair and measured pair of scales for jurists and diplomats, exact, draftsmanlike,
unshaky, slightly frozen, a clear arterial unobstructed by embolus, through having chased away a great
many belles noiseuse? Through becoming largely free from stormy weather, sound and fury? It is true,
we have forgotten noise. I am trying to remember it; mending for a moment the tear between the two
tongues, the deep sea one and the one from the frost-covered lake. I mean to make a ruckus [cherche
noise] in the midst of these dividing waters.
Sea Noise
There, precisely, is the origin. Noise and nausea, noise and the nautical, noise and navy belong to the
same family. We mustn't be surprised. We never hear what we call background noise so well
established ther for all eternity. In the strict horizontal of it all, stable, unstable cascades are endlessly
trading. Space is assailed, as a whole, by the murmur; we are utterly taken over by this same
murmuring. This restlessness is within hearing, just shy of definite signals, just shy of silence. The
silence of the sea is mere appearance. Background noise may well be the ground of our being. It may
be that our being is not at rest, it may be that it is not in motion, it may be that our being is disturbed.
The background noise never ceases; it is limitless, continuous, unending, unchanging/ It has itself no
background, no contradictory. How much noise must be made to silence noise? And what terrible
fury puts fury in order? Noise cannot be a phenomenon; every phenomenon is separated from it, a
silhouette on a backdrop, like a beacon against the fog, as every message, every call, every signal must
be separated from the hubbub that occupies silence, in order to be, to be perceived, to be known, to
be exchanged. As soon as a phenomenon appears, it leaves the noise; as soon as a form looms up or
pokes through, it reveals itself by veiling noise. So noise is not a matter of phenomenology, so it is a
matter of being itself. It settles in subjects as well as in objects, in hearing as well as in space, in the
observers as well as the observed, it moves through the means and tools of observation whether
material or logical, hardware or software, constructed channels or languages; it is part of the in-itself,
part of the for-itslef; it cuts across the oldest and surest philosophical divisions, yes, noise is
metaphysical. It is the complement to physics, in the broadest sense. One hears its subliminal huffing
and soughing on the high seas.
Background noise is becoming one of the objects of metaphysics. It is at the boundaries of
physics, and physics is bathed in it, it lies under the cuttings of all phenomena, a proteus taking on any
shape, the matter and flesh of manifestations.
The noise -- intermittence and turbulence -- quarrel and racket -- this sea noise is the originating
rumor and murmuring, the original hate. We hear it on the high seas.9

17

Ulhodturdenweirmudg
aardgringnirurdrmolnir
fenrirlukkilokkibaugim
andodrrerinsurtkrinmg
ernrackinarockar

18

endnotes

Etymologies and definitions from OED. Alchemical quote from The Twelve Keys of
Basil Valentine: ('Ein kurtz summarischer Tractat, von dem grossen Stein der
Uralten...', Eisleben, 1599), translated in 17c.

P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, The Chemical Choir, London: Continuum Books, 2008, p.12-13.

St Augustine http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XIII.23.html Retrieved June

2007.

Eighth century, apocryphally associated with Geber. P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, The

Chemical Choir, p. 47-50.

5
.
6

Known in the West as Razes (865-925). P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, The Chemical Choir, p. 50
Known as Avicenna (980-1037). P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, The Chemical Choir, p. 51.

The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine: ('Ein kurtz summarischer Tractat, von dem grossen
Stein der Uralten...', Eisleben, 1599), translated in 17c.

Ibid.

Michel Serres, Genesis 1995 Gense 1992), p. 12-13.

10

Chris Marker, Sans Soleil (film).

11

Gyorgy Ligeti, String Quartet #2, by the Arditti String Quartet, final bars of final
movement.

12 Thanks to Flower Lunn for creating the plant screen; Tim Sutton for the tie-lapse recording; Oana Suteu for paper art
and historical research; Navid Navab for sound design and programming; Assegid Kidane for electronics; Chris Wood for
20
fabrication.