zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — this one’s strictly for fun ]
.

We have my friend the bead game designer JustKnecht to thank fo passing along this gem:

Dr Fauci has solved Bertrand Russell’s famous paradox.

An immunologist who only quarantines people who don’t quarantine themselves, does he quarantine himself?

If he does, he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, he does. See the problem?

Dr Fauci’s original and elegant solution: Partially. pic.twitter.com/IzfFfMjUf8

— just knecht (@justknecht) May 19, 2020

That’s a screen-grab, it has to be — and it’s pretty astonishing to find the chyron to a screen-grab referencing Bertie Russell, let alone Russell’s paradox. I must have grabbed dozens of chyrons a few months back, when I was looking for game and sports metaphors for warfare — I never saw anything like this!

Kudos!

BTW, it’s an ouroboros paradox too, isn’t it?

[ by Charles Cameron — what’s unprecedented here is and isn’t the serpent biting its tail, depending on which end of the metaphor you’re contemplating ]
.

Here:

We are living through an unprecedented use of the term “unprecedented” pic.twitter.com/JlZlaWQ0y3

— Jay Van Bavel (@jayvanbavel) May 2, 2020

It’s a beauty!

**

And I’m adding a second serpent, as a Sunday Surprise:

Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in the mirror) for Cello and Piano by Arvo Pärt

[ by Charles Cameron — a DoubleQuote that suggested itself to me today, posted here for your contemplative enjoyment ]
.

Stage one was provided by my opening screen, which contained three or four questions against a background of countryside and waterfalls. The question which caught my eye was this one:

I’ve isolated it from a screen grab and placed it in the upper panel of my DoubleQuotes board, leaving the lower panel open for possible answers: Question and Answer, like Call and Response, would seem to be elementary forms of DoubleQuote play, just as DoubleQuotes are the elementary forms of HipBone Game moves, and HipBone Games elementary essays in rendering Hermann Hesse‘s fictional Glass Bead Game playable.

**

I then used Google to find the correct answer to our question, and placed it in the lower panel:

That’s my play.

**

And why do I trouble you with such a trifle?

Because asking a logophile what the word logophile means is an ouroboros — a serpent that bites its own tail — another of the elementary forms of the HipBone Games:

[ by Charles Cameron — following on from this earlier double ouroboros, posted Sunday ]
.

This is such a superb technological ouroboros, delivered by Amazon to our friend, Bryan Alexander, and tweeted by him for our delectation:

I agree, Amazon. This *is* a book I'm interested in: pic.twitter.com/yBFfsNBDJb

— Bryan Alexander (@BryanAlexander) November 26, 2019

With any luck, I’ll get to review Bryan’s book for Zenpundit.

[ by Charles Cameron — A DoubleQuote of ouroboroi ]
.

I wouldn’t trouble you with this DoubleQuote, it’s one that every TV commentator and op-ed writer has picked up on, it’s that obvious — but it’s also a double instance of the ourboros, and that’s worth remarking:

**

Have a supercool Sunday..