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Markus in Blank season 3 trailer

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Blank Season 3 Trailer with English Subs

We’re back! Season 3 of Blank returns Monday, October 28th, 2019.

Watch the trailer here!

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The Signature of All Things

“Do you know what I believe, Miss Whittaker? Regarding your question on the origins of human compassion and self-sacrifice? I believe that evolution explains nearly everything about us, and I certainly believe that it explains absolutely everything about the rest of the natural world. But I do not believe that evolution alone can account for our unique human consciousness. There is no evolutionary need, you see, for us to have such acute sensitivities of intellect and emotion. There is no practical need for the minds that we have. We do not need a mind that can play chess, Miss Whitaker. We don’t need a mind that can invent religions or argue over our origins. We don’t need a mind that causes us to weep at the opera. We don’t need opera for that matter – nor science, nor art. We don’t need ethics, morality, dignity or sacrifice. We don’t need affection or love. – certainly not to the degree that we feel it. If anything our sensibilities can be a liability, for they can cause us to suffer distress. So I do not believe that the process of natural selection gave us these minds – even though I do believe that it did give us these bodies, and most of our abilities. Do you know why I think we have these extraordinary minds?”

“I do know, Mr.Wallace,” Alma said quietly. “I’ve read a good deal of your work, recall.”

“I will tell you why we have these extraordinary minds and souls, Miss Whittaker,” he continued, as though he had not heard her. “We have them because there is a supreme intelligence in the universe, which wishes for communion with us. This supreme intelligence longs to be known. It calls out to us. It draws us close to its mystery, and it grants us these remarkable minds, in order that we try and reach for it. It wants us to find it. It wants union with us, more than anything.”

“I know that is what you think,” said Alma, patting his hand again, “and I believe it is quite an inventive notion, Mr Wallace.”

“Do you think I’m correct?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Alma, “But it is a beautiful theory. It comes as close to to answering my question as anything ever has. Yet still you are answering a mystery with another mystery, and I cannot say if I would call that science – though I might call it poetry.”

Elizabeth Gilbert  -  “The Signature of All Things”

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the whole universe

Just across this ocean - which was half the size of Alma’s shawl - she found another continent of moss altogether. On this new continent, everything was different. This corner of the boulder must receive more sunlight than any other, she surmised. Or slightly less rain? In any case, this was a new climate entirely. Here, the moss grew in mountain ranges the length of Alma’s arms, in elegant, pine-tree shaped clusters of darker, more somber green. On another quadrant of the same boulder still, she found patches of infinitesimally small deserts, inhabited by some kind of sturdy, dry, flaking moss that had the appearance of cactus. Elsewhere, she found deep, diminutive fjords - so deep that, incredibly, even now in the month of June - the mosses within were still chilled by the lingering traces of winter ice. But she also found warm estuaries, miniature cathedrals, and limestone caves the size of her thumb. 

Then Alma lifted her face and saw what was before her - dozens more such boulders, more than she could count, each one similarly carpeted, each one subtly different. She felt herself growing breathless. This was the entire world. This was bigger than the world. This was the firmament of the universe, as seen through on of William Herschel’s mighty telescopes. This was planetary and vast. These were ancient, unexplored galaxies, rolling forth in front of her - and it was all right here! She could still see her house from here. She could see the old familiar boats on the Schuylkill River. She could hear the distant voices of her father’s orchardmen working in the peach grove. If Hanneke had run the bell for mealtime at that very instant, she would have heard it. 

Alma’s world and the moss world had been knitted together this whole time, lying on top of each other, crawling over each other. But one of these worlds was loud and large and fast, where the other was quiet and tiny and slow - and only one of these worlds seem immeasurable. 

Alma sank her fingers into the shallow green fur and felt a surge of joyful anticipation. This could belong to her! No botantist before her had every committed himself uniquely to the study of this undervalued phylum, but Alma could do it. She had the time for it, as well as the patience. She had the competence. She most certainly had the microscopes for it…

Recognizing all this, Alma’s existence at once felt bigger and much, much smaller - but a pleasant sort of smaller. The world had scaled itself down into endless inches of possibility. Her life could be lived in generous miniature. Best of all, Alma realized, she would never learn everything about mosses - for she could tell already that there was simply too much of the stuff in the world; they were everywhere, and they were profoundly varied. She would probably die of old age before she understood even half of what was occurring in this one single boulder field. Well, huzzah to that! It meant that Alma had work stretched ahead of her for the rest of her life. She need not be idle. She need not be unhappy. Perhaps she need not even be lonely. 

She had a task. She would learn mosses.

“Praise be the labors that lie before me,” she said. “Let us begin." 

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

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“I believe that we are all transient …. I believe that we are half-blind and full of errors. I believe that we understand very little, and what we do understand is mostly wrong. I believe that life cannot be survived—that is evident!—but if one is lucky, life can be endured for quite a long while. If one is both lucky and stubborn, life can sometimes even be enjoyed.”

— Ellizabeth Gilbert (The Signature of All Things)

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“Do you find dignity in your labors?“ he asked. “I do,” Alma said, after considering the question for the moment. “Though sometimes I wonder why. The majority of the world—especially the suffering poor—would be happy, I think, never to work again. So why do I labor so diligently at a subject about which so few people care? Why am I not content simply to admire mosses, or even draw them, if their designs please me so much? Why must I pick at their secrets, and beg them for answers about the nature of life itself? I am fortunate enough to come from a family of means, as you can see, so there is no necessity for me to work at all in my life. Why am I not happy, then, to idle about, letting my mind grow as loosely as this grass?” “Because you are interested in creation,” Ambrose Pike replied simply, “and all of its wonderful arrangements.””

— Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature of All Things

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“I would like to sleep beside you every night for the rest of my life, and listen to your thoughts forever.”

— The Signature of All Things | Elizabeth Gilbert

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“At no moment in history has a bright young girl with plenty of food and a good constitution perished from too much learning.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature of All Things

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A single door separated their two studies- a door that was never closed. All day long, Alma and Ambrose walked back and forth into each other’s rooms, looking in on the other’s progress, and showing each other some item or other of interest in a specimen jar, or on a microscope slide. They ate buttered toast together every morning, had gypsy lunches out in the fields, and stayed up late into the night, helping Henry with his correspondence, or looking over old volumes from the White Acre library. On Sundays, Ambrose joined Alma for church with the dull, droning Swedish Lutherans, dutifully reciting prayers alongside her. They spoke or they were silent- it did not seem to matter much one way or the other- but they were never apart. During the hours that Alma worked in the moss beds, Ambrose sprawled out on the grass nearby, reading. While Ambrose sketched in the orchid house, Alma pulled up a chair beside him, working on her own correspondence. She had never spent much time in the orchid house, but since Ambrose’s arrival, it had been transformed into the most stunning location at White Acre. He had spent nearly two weeks cleaning each of the hundreds of glass planes so that sunlight entered in crisp, unfiltered columns. He mopped and waxed the floors until they glittered. What’s more- and rather astonishingly- he spent another week burnishing the leaves of every individual orchid plant with banana peels, until they shone like tea services polished by a loyal butler. “What’s next, Ambrose?” Alma teased. “Shall we now comb out the hair of every fern on the property?”

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“There is only so long that a person can keep her enthusiasms locked away within her heart before she longs to share it with a fellow soul”

— - The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

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“In all our lives, there are days that we wish we could see expunged from the record of our very existence. Perhaps we long for that erasure because a particular day brought us such splintering sorrow that we can scarcely bear to think of it ever again. Or we might wish to blot out an episode forever because we behaved so poorly on that day - we were mortifyingly selfish, or foolish to an extraordinary degree. Or perhaps we injured another person and wish to disremember the guilt. Tragically, there are some days in a lifetime when all three of those things happen at once - when we are heartbroken and foolish and unforgivably injurious to others, all at the same time.”

— The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert

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Book Review: The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

“It’s a pity we cannot put an old head on young shoulders, or you could be wise, too. But someday you will understand that nobody passes through this world without suffering—no matter what you may think of them and their supposed good fortune.”

Elizabeth Gilbert once again takes us on a journey of self-discovery with her book The Signature of all Things. In it we follow Alma Whittaker, a botanist, through her trials and tribulations of life in the nineteenth century Americas. During her early years, despite being born in America, she was raised strictly by rough English father Henry and shrewd Dutch mother Beatrice, both of whom are botanists. We are with Alma through her righteous childhood, her confusing and lovestruck teens and her even more confusing adulthood when she meets her first husband, Ambrose Pike, a man who believes in a world that Alma thinks is “nonsense.” However, she still struggles to understand everything about it from him. When the marriage is ruined because of indisputable differences, Alma’s world is no longer the same. Time moves on and life around her changes at an unnoticeable, yet blinding speed. When her pressing taste for curiosity takes her to Tahiti, Alma will discover more than she bargained for.

The Signature of All Things isn’t a book about a girl in search for love. Gilbert has opened our eyes to the truth of life and maturity. Because of the events taking place in Alma’s life, she is literally forced out of her naïve mentality in order to see things for what they truly are. We are given a girl—a woman who is described as not beautiful, not even pretty, but simply intelligent beyond measure. We are with her as she feels her way through unrequited love, a broken marriage, death of loved ones and a search that leads her across the world for the truth about her husband who in many ways changed her life with his beliefs.

What I loved most about the book is the characters. You have Alma Whittaker, this woman who since her birth was described as plain, but in actuality is brilliant and inquisitive. We are shown that the words of her appearance hurt her once, but she grew to work around it and focus on her work. By contrast, her sister Prudence Whittaker is breathtakingly beautiful but the readers can see that she seems almost empty inside, withdrawn and almost mute. Then we have Hanneke de Groot, a stern but homely woman who treats Alma as her own and helps her throughout her life. Then there’s Retta, an eccentric young woman who looks at life through childlike eyes, and Ambrose who is a very spiritual human and the very antithesis of everything Alma’s mother and father raised her to be. I think these characters are so different from the ones you’d find in other books. Each one is striking, three dimensional, and stands out on their own. I felt like, through my read, Gilbert has taught me many lessons of life with her words: to enjoy the people around you because before you know it they can be gone. Enjoy your youth while it’s still clutched in your hands. To never judge those you don’t know, because everyone has a past they don’t speak of. That despite what you think, you never know everything that’s going on around you.

Moreover, I think that despite having the same theme of self-discovery as some of Gilbert’s books contain there is a sense of curiosity within The Signature of All Things that makes this book stand out. Alma Whittaker could’ve been fine living in life in America, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to search for the truth knowing it could possibly ruin her. She didn’t go away to find herself, because she already knew who she was, she left because she needed to quench an inquisitive feeling she had and change found her unexpectedly on her journey.

Check out The Signature of All Things:

https://www.amazon.com/Signature-All-Things-Novel/dp/0143125842

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17465453-the-signature-of-all-things

Article by: Toni Benjamin

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“But if the end result is only to drown in words, and never to hear…”  Ambrose trailed off. “To hear what?” “Each other, perhaps. Not each other’s words, but each other’s thoughts. Each other’s spirit. If you ask me what I believe, I shall tell you this: the whole sphere of air that surrounds us, Alma, is alive with invisible attractions - electric, magnetic, fiery and thoughtful. There is universal sympathy all around us. There is a hidden means of knowing. I am certain of this, for I have witnessed it myself. <…>”

- Gilbert, E., 2013. The Signature of All Things. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 242.

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“Take me someplace where we can be silent together, Alma,” Ambrose said, leaning in to her. “I trust you so thoroughly, and I believe that you trust me. I do not wish to quarrel with you any longer. I wish to speak to you without words. Allow me to try to show you what I mean.”

- Gilbert, E., 2013. The Signature of All Things. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 242.

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“Listen for my question,” Ambrose said, holding Alma’s hands lightly. “And then ask me your own. There will be no further need to speak. We shall know when we have heard each other.” Ambrose closed his grip gently around her hands. The sensation that this provoked up her arms was beautiful.

- Gilbert, E., 2013. The Signature of All Things. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 246.

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“But it did hold her up just a little while longer.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert, from The Signature of All Things

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“Take me someplace where we can be silent together.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature of All Things