A dozen notes and quotes #5
December 18th 2008 06:40
More quotes than notes in this one...
"You hate to watch another tired man lay down his hand like he was giving up the holy game of poker." -- Leonard Cohen, "The stranger song"
"... from an editor of The New York Times Book Review, recently surveying the classical works of American history: '[H]istory is not the benign story of inexorable progress Americans like to believe in. Rather, it’s a record of unjustified suffering, irreparable loss, tragedy without catharsis. It’s a gorgon: stare at it too long and it turns you to stone.'"
-- Gorman Beauchamp, "Apologies all around", The American Scholar, 2007
A terrible thing about Lovecraft, as Wikipedia puts it, is that his universe is one of "cosmic indifference".
"Ralph Ellison died leaving four decades' worth of scribbled notes, thousands of typed pages and 80 computer disks filled with work on an ambitious second novel... In the 41 years since Invisible Man won the National Book Award, the author had made it clear to all that he was working on something that would be grander, more ambitious even, than his acknowledged masterpiece. In 1967, 14 years into his struggle, Ellison lost pieces of the manuscript in a New England house fire. Scholars have since largely dismissed the significance of the loss, about 200 pages, mostly revisions, most of which Ellison was able to retrieve. But he allowed the fire to take on psychological weight through the years and would talk of the loss as if it had caused an ever-deepening wound upon his artistic focus. More years passed, then decades."
-- Wil Haygood, "The Invisible Manuscript", Washington Post, Sunday 19 August 19 2007
The main thing evident on watching Norm Gunston is how celebrities date -- that is, how dated they become -- these names we know not at all now, or barely.
... the story of a friend of mine, IW. Before the class, he instructed the students to smile whenever the teacher stood in a certain corner. So they did so, and the teacher naturally gravitated towards that spot.
A baby on a train, screaming and clapping, then pausing, then screaming and clapping again. Inexplicable pattern, fury then silence. The people sitting opposite were confused.
What they didn't recognize was their role, though they thought they were only observing. The baby enjoyed the attention. Without any concept of psychology, or of people as people, she realized, without putting words to the thought, that whenever they looked away, and she screamed, they would look back again...
The Daily Telegraph mentions: "The highest penalty for urinating in public was dealt to Pierre Pinoncelli, a Frenchman who was fined 45,122 euros ($A71,300) in 1998 for relieving himself into artist Marcel Duchamp’s million-dollar modern art urinal, called Fountain. He described his 'attack' as a surrealist act."
Compare the Jackass stunt.
Zizek comments: I can't make myself sit down to write, so I use a trick. I say, "now I'm just jotting down some ideas", then "now I'm just editing" -- and I thereby skip the writing completely.
I need a keyboard to think with.
... she was moving house, and in her garage were boxes and boxes, still unopened from the last time she moved, a decade ago. So she threw them away without looking inside them. There could have been family heirlooms, expensive works of art... who knows?... but if she hadn't used them in a decade, she could live without them, was better off without them.
I take the opposite route. I keep everything.
But how liberating to discard... and perhaps, similarly, one should get rid of friends one hasn't used in a while, families....
The most important thing, in doing philosophy, is to practise it without ego -- to genuinely ask questions, be excited, follow people up.
Without that sort of interest, is there any point?
"A ball flying through space has an inherent mystery: it replicates our lonely and insecure position in the universe."
-- Jon Rose, "Sphere of Influence: An interactive ball game"
***
"You hate to watch another tired man lay down his hand like he was giving up the holy game of poker." -- Leonard Cohen, "The stranger song"
***
"... from an editor of The New York Times Book Review, recently surveying the classical works of American history: '[H]istory is not the benign story of inexorable progress Americans like to believe in. Rather, it’s a record of unjustified suffering, irreparable loss, tragedy without catharsis. It’s a gorgon: stare at it too long and it turns you to stone.'"
-- Gorman Beauchamp, "Apologies all around", The American Scholar, 2007
***
A terrible thing about Lovecraft, as Wikipedia puts it, is that his universe is one of "cosmic indifference".
***
"Ralph Ellison died leaving four decades' worth of scribbled notes, thousands of typed pages and 80 computer disks filled with work on an ambitious second novel... In the 41 years since Invisible Man won the National Book Award, the author had made it clear to all that he was working on something that would be grander, more ambitious even, than his acknowledged masterpiece. In 1967, 14 years into his struggle, Ellison lost pieces of the manuscript in a New England house fire. Scholars have since largely dismissed the significance of the loss, about 200 pages, mostly revisions, most of which Ellison was able to retrieve. But he allowed the fire to take on psychological weight through the years and would talk of the loss as if it had caused an ever-deepening wound upon his artistic focus. More years passed, then decades."
-- Wil Haygood, "The Invisible Manuscript", Washington Post, Sunday 19 August 19 2007
***
The main thing evident on watching Norm Gunston is how celebrities date -- that is, how dated they become -- these names we know not at all now, or barely.
***
... the story of a friend of mine, IW. Before the class, he instructed the students to smile whenever the teacher stood in a certain corner. So they did so, and the teacher naturally gravitated towards that spot.
***
A baby on a train, screaming and clapping, then pausing, then screaming and clapping again. Inexplicable pattern, fury then silence. The people sitting opposite were confused.
What they didn't recognize was their role, though they thought they were only observing. The baby enjoyed the attention. Without any concept of psychology, or of people as people, she realized, without putting words to the thought, that whenever they looked away, and she screamed, they would look back again...
***
The Daily Telegraph mentions: "The highest penalty for urinating in public was dealt to Pierre Pinoncelli, a Frenchman who was fined 45,122 euros ($A71,300) in 1998 for relieving himself into artist Marcel Duchamp’s million-dollar modern art urinal, called Fountain. He described his 'attack' as a surrealist act."
Compare the Jackass stunt.
***
Zizek comments: I can't make myself sit down to write, so I use a trick. I say, "now I'm just jotting down some ideas", then "now I'm just editing" -- and I thereby skip the writing completely.
***
I need a keyboard to think with.
***
... she was moving house, and in her garage were boxes and boxes, still unopened from the last time she moved, a decade ago. So she threw them away without looking inside them. There could have been family heirlooms, expensive works of art... who knows?... but if she hadn't used them in a decade, she could live without them, was better off without them.
I take the opposite route. I keep everything.
But how liberating to discard... and perhaps, similarly, one should get rid of friends one hasn't used in a while, families....
***
The most important thing, in doing philosophy, is to practise it without ego -- to genuinely ask questions, be excited, follow people up.
Without that sort of interest, is there any point?
***
"A ball flying through space has an inherent mystery: it replicates our lonely and insecure position in the universe."
-- Jon Rose, "Sphere of Influence: An interactive ball game"
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