Pyre of wooden pallets ready to become a bonfire on July 11th in Newtownards, Northern Ireland (photo from Belfast Telegraph)
Fire that's closest kept burns most of all.
William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Combustion is the hidden principle
behind every artifact we create.
The making of a fishhook,
manufacture of a china cup,
or production of a television programme,
all depend on the same process of combustion. …
From the earliest times,
human civilization has been no more
than a strange luminescence
growing more intense by the hour,
of which no one can say
when it will begin to wane
and when it will fade away.
W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn
