So you have wandered into the realm of Alan Watts. Good for you.
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Louanne Learning
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I'm reading all over the place these days. One thing leads to another.
This morning I was reading Alexander Pope's An Essay on Man (1733) and appreciate his call for rationality:
Take Nature's path and mad Opinion's leave;
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive;
Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell;
There needs but thinking right and meaning well:
My favorite Alexander Pope poem was one that was commissioned by the Queen, who wanted one that was short enough to be engraved on the collar of one of the dogs she kept at Kew Gardens. It ran:
"I am Her Majesty's dog at Kew
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?"
"I am Her Majesty's dog at Kew
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?"
This footnote perfectly captures the absurdity, hilarity, and philosophy of Ankh-Morpork in general and the Patrician in particular. (From Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms).
"Probably no other world in the multiverse has warehouses for things which only exist in potentia, but the pork futures warehouse in Ankh-Morpork is a product of the Patrician’s rules about baseless metaphors, the literal-mindedness of citizens who assume that everything must exist somewhere, and the general thinness of the fabric of reality around Ankh, which is so thin that it’s as thin as a very thin thing. The net result is that trading in pork futures—in pork that doesn’t exist yet—led to the building of the warehouse to store it in until it does."
It also perfectly portrays the absurdity of stock trading in general. Reminds me of the tulip economic panic in Holland in ye olde days of economic trial and extreme error.
Investing in its most basic form, of course, makes a lot of sense: I give someone money to develop and sell a product and they pay me back and give me some of the profit. Then we decide that we want to do this on a large scale so rather than hoping that one person will invest a million dollars to start my company I get 10,000 people to buy a share for $100 each. But when you start getting into futures trading and short markets, that's when it starts to get absurd.
Terry simply took that absurdity to its logical conclusion.
"Probably no other world in the multiverse has warehouses for things which only exist in potentia, but the pork futures warehouse in Ankh-Morpork is a product of the Patrician’s rules about baseless metaphors, the literal-mindedness of citizens who assume that everything must exist somewhere, and the general thinness of the fabric of reality around Ankh, which is so thin that it’s as thin as a very thin thing. The net result is that trading in pork futures—in pork that doesn’t exist yet—led to the building of the warehouse to store it in until it does."
It also perfectly portrays the absurdity of stock trading in general. Reminds me of the tulip economic panic in Holland in ye olde days of economic trial and extreme error.
Investing in its most basic form, of course, makes a lot of sense: I give someone money to develop and sell a product and they pay me back and give me some of the profit. Then we decide that we want to do this on a large scale so rather than hoping that one person will invest a million dollars to start my company I get 10,000 people to buy a share for $100 each. But when you start getting into futures trading and short markets, that's when it starts to get absurd.
Terry simply took that absurdity to its logical conclusion.
For Christmas that year, Julian gave Sissy a miniature Tyrolean village. The craftsmanship was remarkable.
There was a tiny cathedral whose stained-glass windows made fruit salad of sunlight. There was a plaza and tin Biergarten. The Biergarten got quite noisy on Saturday nights. There was a bakery that smelled always of hot bread and strudel. There was a town hall and a police station, with cutaway sections that revealed standard amounts of red tape and corruption. There were little Tyroleans in leather britches, intricately stitched, and, beneath the britches, genitalia of equally fine workmanship. There were ski shops and many other interesting things, including an orphanage. The orphanage was designed to catch fire and burn down every Christmas Eve. Orphans would dash into the snow with their nightgowns blazing. Terrible. Around the second week of January, a fire inspector would come and poke through the ruins, muttering, "If they had only listened to me, those children would be alive today."
Tom Robbins - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
There was a tiny cathedral whose stained-glass windows made fruit salad of sunlight. There was a plaza and tin Biergarten. The Biergarten got quite noisy on Saturday nights. There was a bakery that smelled always of hot bread and strudel. There was a town hall and a police station, with cutaway sections that revealed standard amounts of red tape and corruption. There were little Tyroleans in leather britches, intricately stitched, and, beneath the britches, genitalia of equally fine workmanship. There were ski shops and many other interesting things, including an orphanage. The orphanage was designed to catch fire and burn down every Christmas Eve. Orphans would dash into the snow with their nightgowns blazing. Terrible. Around the second week of January, a fire inspector would come and poke through the ruins, muttering, "If they had only listened to me, those children would be alive today."
Tom Robbins - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
“It is unfortunate, however, that even a well-ordered life can not lead anybody safely around the inevitable doom that waits in the skies. As F. Hopkinson Smith long ago pointed out, the claw of the sea-puss gets us all in the end.”
James Thurber, My LIfe and Hard Times
James Thurber, My LIfe and Hard Times
With love, there is nothing in between heart and heart.
Words are born from longing,
Truth is born from the real taste.
And one who tastes it, knows it;
One who tries to explain it, lies.
—Rābiʼa al-ʼAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya
Words are born from longing,
Truth is born from the real taste.
And one who tastes it, knows it;
One who tries to explain it, lies.
—Rābiʼa al-ʼAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya
"...May I read you my latest oeuvre?"
"Egg?" said Rincewind, who wasn't following this.
Creosote thrust out one pudgy hand and declaimed as follows:
'A summer palace underneath the bough,
A flask of wine, a loaf of bread, some lamb couscous
with courgettes, roast peacock tongues, kebabs, iced
sherbet, selection of sweets from the trolley and
choice of Thou,
Singing beside me in the Wilderness,
And Wilderness is—”
He paused, and picked up his pen thoughtfully.
'Maybe cow isn’t such a good idea,' he said. 'Now that I come to look at it—'
(Sourcery, Terry Pratchett. Compare and contrast Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaïyat of Omar Khayyam, specifically the famous quatrain XI).
"Egg?" said Rincewind, who wasn't following this.
Creosote thrust out one pudgy hand and declaimed as follows:
'A summer palace underneath the bough,
A flask of wine, a loaf of bread, some lamb couscous
with courgettes, roast peacock tongues, kebabs, iced
sherbet, selection of sweets from the trolley and
choice of Thou,
Singing beside me in the Wilderness,
And Wilderness is—”
He paused, and picked up his pen thoughtfully.
'Maybe cow isn’t such a good idea,' he said. 'Now that I come to look at it—'
(Sourcery, Terry Pratchett. Compare and contrast Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaïyat of Omar Khayyam, specifically the famous quatrain XI).
This excerpt, from the book Up Front, where Bill Mauldin tries to describe a combat soldier's life in terms that an American reader at home would understand, is one of the finest descriptive passages I've ever read:
This gem of a book also contains a quote that I've thought about a lot:
If you want to know more about this book, a classic of World War Two literature, you can check out this essay I wrote some years back:
jayeltee.blogspot.com
This gem of a book also contains a quote that I've thought about a lot:
If you want to know more about this book, a classic of World War Two literature, you can check out this essay I wrote some years back:
UP FRONT and Bill Mauldin
©2019 by John LaTorre (This is an expanded version of something I posted on Facebook. I thought it deserved a more detailed review, so...
jayeltee.blogspot.com
Louanne Learning
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From Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man (1733) –
Take Nature's path and mad Opinion's leave;
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive;
Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell;
There needs but thinking right and meaning well:
Poets' Corner - Alexander Pope - Essay on Man
Take Nature's path and mad Opinion's leave;
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive;
Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell;
There needs but thinking right and meaning well:
Poets' Corner - Alexander Pope - Essay on Man
Louanne Learning
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Member
New Member
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Winner: 4th Contest August
Winner: June Flash Fiction
Quoted from - Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology
Tibia and Fibula meowed happily when I arrived. They were undaunted by my ensuing stupor. In fact they were delighted; suddenly I had become a human who didn’t shout into a small rectangle of lights and plastic in her hand, peer at a computer, or get up and disappear from the vicinity, only to reappear through the front door hours later. Instead, I was completely available to them at all times. Amazed by their good luck, they took full feline advantage. They asked for ear scratches and chin rubs. They rubbed their whiskers along my face. They purred in response to my slurred, affectionate baby talk. But mostly they just settled in and went to sleep. Fibby snored into my neck. Tibby snored on the rug nearby. Meanwhile I lay awake, circling the deep dark hole of depression.
Without my cats, I would have fallen right in.
Tibia and Fibula meowed happily when I arrived. They were undaunted by my ensuing stupor. In fact they were delighted; suddenly I had become a human who didn’t shout into a small rectangle of lights and plastic in her hand, peer at a computer, or get up and disappear from the vicinity, only to reappear through the front door hours later. Instead, I was completely available to them at all times. Amazed by their good luck, they took full feline advantage. They asked for ear scratches and chin rubs. They rubbed their whiskers along my face. They purred in response to my slurred, affectionate baby talk. But mostly they just settled in and went to sleep. Fibby snored into my neck. Tibby snored on the rug nearby. Meanwhile I lay awake, circling the deep dark hole of depression.
Without my cats, I would have fallen right in.
I'm going to forward this to my wife, who survived many a moment of depression by having cats sit on her.
Of course, cat's aren't like that all the time. There were times in past summers that were so hot that I closed my (non-air-conditioned) shop around noon and went home. When I walked through the door, the cats stared at me as if to say, "Why are you here? We're not hungry yet."
"These White folks love me like a Starbucks."
-- Wu Tang Clan
-- Wu Tang Clan
"Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance."
Rabindraneth Tagore, Bengali poet
Rabindraneth Tagore, Bengali poet
It is said that someone at a party once asked the famous philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle 'Why are you here?' and the reply took three years.
("The Light Fantastic", Sir Terry Pratchett)
("The Light Fantastic", Sir Terry Pratchett)
Whereas Mark Vonnegut did it in only a dozen words:
"We're here to get each other through this thing, whatever it is."
This is one of the things I both "show" and "tell" in my current late-historical work in progress. It's one of the lesser thematic elements.
----------------
A generation ago, a quiet moment was a chance for contemplation. Now, some default mode in the mind constantly scans for the right photo angle. Instead of taking refuge within, the mind turns outward, composing captions for an invisible audience.
----------------
A generation ago, a quiet moment was a chance for contemplation. Now, some default mode in the mind constantly scans for the right photo angle. Instead of taking refuge within, the mind turns outward, composing captions for an invisible audience.
The best account of deference to royalty that I have ever read: a story from Toby Faber's Violin Dreams, about Johann Salomon, who was hired by none other than King George III to teach the king how to play the violin:
When the king asked his teacher how he was doing, Salomon is said to have replied, "There are three levels of skill in violin playing: an inability to play, the ability to play badly, and the ability to play well. Your Majesty, I am pleased to say, has already reached the second level."
When the king asked his teacher how he was doing, Salomon is said to have replied, "There are three levels of skill in violin playing: an inability to play, the ability to play badly, and the ability to play well. Your Majesty, I am pleased to say, has already reached the second level."
There's another level: the ability to play well, but the choice to play badly -- for comedy. (This is even harder to do than "just" playing well).
There are many endearing stories about George III. The harsh treatment he received in his madness was a sad reflection of the general treatment of the insane in eighteenth-century England. Once his mind had gone, he received few special favours from his doctors. Consequently, it is pleasing - if mischievous - to rejoice when his jailers got a taste of their own medicine. Once, when straitjacketing the king, the doctor released his arm to feel his pulse, whereupon King George punched him in the head and knocked him to the ground. Free for a moment, the king lifted his chamber pot and emptied it on the doctor's head, saying, 'Arise, Sir George, knight of the most ancient, most puissant Order of Cloacina, Goddess of Privies.'
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