cataloguist

[cataloguist]

“We wanted to create a language that is aesthetically interesting, says production designer Patrice Vermette. But it needed to be alien to our civilisation, alien to our technology, alien to everything our mind . . . “

Nerdwriter has a little discussion of the film Arrival (15, II, 2017 (now ancient by Internet standards)) and how language affects us: https://youtu.be/z18LY6NME1s

[cataloguist]

Either Learn or Leave

Aut disce, aut discede (Professor Richard A. LaFleur would keep this note pinned to his office door) is exactly the sort of Latin that would pepper the viewer in the 1993 The Man Without a Face ( Writers: Isabelle Holland (novel), Malcolm MacRury (screenplay) ). 

Justin McLeod: Now, I'd like you to write an essay. Any topic you'd like. Chuck Norstadt: Why? It's not on the exam. Justin McLeod: Why did you come here? Quickly, don't think, just answer. Why? Chuck Norstadt: For s-some help, you know. Justin McLeod: No, I don't know. Do you want help or not? Chuck Norstadt: Yeah, I guess so, if you're really a teacher. Justin McLeod: "Yeah, I guess so", SIR. Chuck Norstadt: Yes, I guess so, sir. Justin McLeod: Good. This is the way it works. Aut disce aut discede - learn or leave. Because it's of no consequence to me, one way or the other. Understood?

A maxim often associated with Johann Trithemius, though unlikely to have been his own, Scientia latet in cucullis (that is, “knowledge lurks under a monkish hood”).

The connection here for me is that the disfigurement of Justin McLeod and his ostracism from his community create the perfect formula for learning and teaching: Solitude.  Not only is it learn or leave but it is leave and learn.  That is, leave the World for the sake of Solitude to learn in cucullis.

[cataloguist]

Diagram of the trade winds. Johnson’s natural philosophy. 1872. 

[cataloguist]

Projection of microscopic plate. Unidentified creatures in attendance. Amusement microscopique, v.3. 1768.