Callas Forever
Peter H.M. Brooks
recommend it, sad as it is, for magnificent acting and beautiful music.
Whilst it was a clever angle from which to view Callas, and it worked simply
as that, I felt that the film covered some interesting themes. The question
of artistic integrity may not be commonly discussed, but it is an
interesting part of aesthetics. Is the original painting intrinsically
different in a meaningful way from an identical copy, a first rate print or,
indeed, from a perfect photograph of the painting - and if so, in what way
and why? The obvious answer is that habit, tradition, existing practice
gives it a higher market value proving that it has intrinsic value isn't
really an answer, but, rather, the reason that the question is asked in the
first place. The film examined this from the point of view of music, and
opera, but it was the same question and it provided an intriguing answer.
I felt that the film also provided powerful perspectives on fame and
meaning. It is pretty obvious how fame can give meaning to the lives of
people who feel that their lives would otherwise have none and how
destructive this ultimately has to be when it is lost - certainly when a
career has a physically imposed limit. It is, for obvious reasons, less
clear how those who choose (or feel forced) to live a solitary existence
after a famous career see the matter. I felt that, though it was fictional,
Callas' choice was portrayed as being redeemed by the course of the plot -
something that rang more truly to me than the idea of being along inevitably
implying being lonely.
As a Prima Donna, Callas certainly lived down to the stereotype, as one
would expect. I think that it was unkind, as was suggested at one point, to
imply that she only knew anything about Faust because he appeared in Opera -
I'm sure she must have spent some time on Onassises yacht reading, if only
to fend of boredom. There was genuine pathos in the wonderful portrayal of
Callas as if revealed, like the Wizard of Oz, to be a smaller person than
her persona, but it was a shared pathos and a profound one - particularly as
she triumphed over it by virtue of her integrity to herself, not to her
persona.
--
I know why I hate integrity. It is nice for those that have it, but utter
hell for those who have to live with them - Larry in 'Callas Forever'
Moira de Swardt
"Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in
> I very much enjoyed seeing this film this afternoon. I would strongly
> recommend it, sad as it is, for magnificent acting and beautiful music.
Thanks. I will make a point of seeing it this week.
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Slow Eddy
> I very much enjoyed seeing this film this afternoon. I would strongly
> recommend it, sad as it is, for magnificent acting and beautiful music.
>
Thanks, Peter. I must keep an eye out for this one. Not being that crazy
about opera, it's something I would otherwise have overlooked in favour of
a ninja movie or something like that. (Well actually something
pornographic, but I don't want people to think poorly of me, so I didn't
mention it).
In spite of the opera, it looks like a movie which covers genuinely
interesting issues (scarce enough as it is) intelligently (hen's teeth).
> Whilst it was a clever angle from which to view Callas, and it worked
> simply as that, I felt that the film covered some interesting themes. The
> question of artistic integrity may not be commonly discussed, but it is an
> interesting part of aesthetics. Is the original painting intrinsically
> different in a meaningful way from an identical copy, a first rate print
> or, indeed, from a perfect photograph of the painting - and if so, in what
> way and why? The obvious answer is that habit, tradition, existing
> practice gives it a higher market value proving that it has intrinsic
> value isn't really an answer, but, rather, the reason that the question is
> asked in the first place. The film examined this from the point of view of
> music, and opera, but it was the same question and it provided an
> intriguing answer.
>
Value is a reflection of conglomerated Values, I always say, if I get the
slightest pretext for harping on about this. It's possible that this is
just a mannered preoccupation with abstract things, which people like me
are supposed to have, but I prefer to think that I've got something simple
yet deep in my sights. Value, ValueS.
So it would be interesting to dig about and discover why an original is
valued more highly than a perfect replica. I envision something fairly
primitive here. Simian, almost. Unfortunately I can't find words adequate
to the task of setting that out in communicable terms. It's to do with
valuing concrete objects - perhaps by people who don't like to read much.
On that piece of material, and with those stains, Van Gogh did his
"Sunflower", so it's that piece that marks the territory. That is the fire
hydrant he pissed on... I give up.
> I felt that the film also provided powerful perspectives on fame and
> meaning. It is pretty obvious how fame can give meaning to the lives of
> people who feel that their lives would otherwise have none and how
> destructive this ultimately has to be when it is lost - certainly when a
> career has a physically imposed limit. It is, for obvious reasons, less
> clear how those who choose (or feel forced) to live a solitary existence
> after a famous career see the matter. I felt that, though it was
> fictional, Callas' choice was portrayed as being redeemed by the course of
> the plot - something that rang more truly to me than the idea of being
> along inevitably implying being lonely.
>
Being in a monitored fish bowl must be infinitely more lonely than being
alone ever can. At least when you're just alone you've got your own
company. A desire for fame, I can understand, but pursuing that after more
careful reflection on what this means has always struck me as
self-destructive initself. No wonder all these famous people finish the job
off somehow, eventually. (Either by imprisoning themselves - much in the
same way as us plebs are, or by means not to be contemplated).
> As a Prima Donna, Callas certainly lived down to the stereotype, as one
> would expect. I think that it was unkind, as was suggested at one point,
> to imply that she only knew anything about Faust because he appeared in
> Opera - I'm sure she must have spent some time on Onassises yacht reading,
> if only to fend of boredom. There was genuine pathos in the wonderful
> portrayal of Callas as if revealed, like the Wizard of Oz, to be a smaller
> person than her persona, but it was a shared pathos and a profound one -
> particularly as she triumphed over it by virtue of her integrity to
> herself, not to her persona.
>
I think you've got the image of life aboard the Onassis yacht about right.
More of a good thing ultimately just debases the coinage. The hundredth
bottle of champagne of the season never tastes as good as the first.
Diminishing marginal utility is a cruel trick our psyches play on us. (For
a dog this doesn't happen, so it's not that "natural". Give your dog his
tennis ball again for the seven hundredth time this evening on the
Fantastic! Walk!!, and the original utility of that ball is fully available
to the dog once again). The thing that always puts me off getting off my
bum, shaving, pushing the beer cans to a corner of the room, and setting
out on my quest for megabillions is the horrible prospect that opens up
down the end of that road. Bloody yachts, bloody polo, bloody boring
looking parties ... (Ja. I'm sure Aesop's fox would've said something
similar).
--
Slow Eddy
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
news:0doucc....@verdun.local...
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>
> > I very much enjoyed seeing this film this afternoon. I would strongly
> > recommend it, sad as it is, for magnificent acting and beautiful music.
> >
> Thanks, Peter. I must keep an eye out for this one. Not being that crazy
> about opera, it's something I would otherwise have overlooked in favour of
> a ninja movie or something like that. (Well actually something
> pornographic, but I don't want people to think poorly of me, so I didn't
> mention it).
>
> In spite of the opera, it looks like a movie which covers genuinely
> interesting issues (scarce enough as it is) intelligently (hen's teeth).
>
delight.
>
> > Whilst it was a clever angle from which to view Callas, and it worked
> > simply as that, I felt that the film covered some interesting themes.
The
> > question of artistic integrity may not be commonly discussed, but it is
an
> > interesting part of aesthetics. Is the original painting intrinsically
> > different in a meaningful way from an identical copy, a first rate print
> > or, indeed, from a perfect photograph of the painting - and if so, in
what
> > way and why? The obvious answer is that habit, tradition, existing
> > practice gives it a higher market value proving that it has intrinsic
> > value isn't really an answer, but, rather, the reason that the question
is
> > asked in the first place. The film examined this from the point of view
of
> > music, and opera, but it was the same question and it provided an
> > intriguing answer.
> >
> Value is a reflection of conglomerated Values, I always say, if I get the
> slightest pretext for harping on about this. It's possible that this is
> just a mannered preoccupation with abstract things, which people like me
> are supposed to have, but I prefer to think that I've got something simple
> yet deep in my sights. Value, ValueS.
>
I know that value isn't what other people, or even the majority, put on
things. Of course, if you wish to possess things for yourself alone, then
you do need to cough up the market value (or as good a deal below it as you
can manage), but you don't need to possess things to enjoy them. I sometimes
wonder how you could enjoy a Faberge egg on your own, anyway - I don't know
many people who'd choose one [honestly] as their single luxury on a desert
island.
>
> So it would be interesting to dig about and discover why an original is
> valued more highly than a perfect replica. I envision something fairly
> primitive here. Simian, almost. Unfortunately I can't find words adequate
> to the task of setting that out in communicable terms. It's to do with
> valuing concrete objects - perhaps by people who don't like to read much.
> On that piece of material, and with those stains, Van Gogh did his
> "Sunflower", so it's that piece that marks the territory. That is the fire
> hydrant he pissed on... I give up.
>
Quite a few sun flowers actually - not just in the bowl in one of the
paintings, but quite a few different sunflower paintings. It seems to me
that, if I won the lottery and fancied one of the Sunflower paintings
(actually there are a couple of van Goghs that I'd prefer) then a perfect
replica would be ideal. Actually, to be quite candid, I particularly like
the painting of the crows over the cornfield (and the avenue at the asylum),
but, if I had the money, I'd like copies made with both paintings about 30%
larger - the originals in the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam are magnificent,
I agree, my only feeling is that they would be better bigger. This
improvement could be achieved for a minute fraction of the cost of the
originals - if they were even for sale.
>
> > I felt that the film also provided powerful perspectives on fame and
> > meaning. It is pretty obvious how fame can give meaning to the lives of
> > people who feel that their lives would otherwise have none and how
> > destructive this ultimately has to be when it is lost - certainly when a
> > career has a physically imposed limit. It is, for obvious reasons, less
> > clear how those who choose (or feel forced) to live a solitary existence
> > after a famous career see the matter. I felt that, though it was
> > fictional, Callas' choice was portrayed as being redeemed by the course
of
> > the plot - something that rang more truly to me than the idea of being
> > along inevitably implying being lonely.
> >
> Being in a monitored fish bowl must be infinitely more lonely than being
> alone ever can. At least when you're just alone you've got your own
> company. A desire for fame, I can understand, but pursuing that after more
> careful reflection on what this means has always struck me as
> self-destructive initself. No wonder all these famous people finish the
job
> off somehow, eventually. (Either by imprisoning themselves - much in the
> same way as us plebs are, or by means not to be contemplated).
>
It is interesting, isn't it, how goals, once attained, almost always turn to
ashes - suggesting that not having them is wise, but then those without them
don't seem that happy either.
You would have thought that, if you had enough money and enough brains then
you could manage to make it all interesting - but it seems that happiness
isn't a matter of money or brains, so you can't.
It's good, really, if it were easy then there wouldn't be much value to
managing to have fun with becoming jaded! Not that I'm suggesting that as a
goal, but it seems a rare achievement.
If you feel that it is a matter of sour grapes, read Ecclesiastes, he had it
all with no reason for sour grapes and explains its emptiness very well.
--
I believe there is no one principle which predominates in human nature so
much in every stage of life, from the cradle to the grave, in males and
females, old and young, black and white, rich and poor, high and low, as
this passion for superiority. -McCullough D. John Adams [1777]. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 20
Jim Purdie
"Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
news:ccuj30$519$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...
I am sure that nearly all of our urge to acquire objects is not a
desire for the objects themselves, but a desire to be seen to possess
them. (Or even a desire to secretly know that you possess them!) If
everyone has enough, the only way to a feeling of superiority is to
have more than enough. Hence the way in which some will pay millions
for a painting, until all the experts, after long and careful study
based on chemical analysis, decide it is a fake. Then suddenly it is
worth nothing. How ridiculous!
But this applies to greater or lesser extent to all human possessions,
from jewellery to real estate. In New Zealand during the 1950's
farmers were making fortunes. One result is that a disprortionately
high number of very expensive 50's and 60's cameras are floating
around the country, in unused condition. In those days it took
knowledge and skill to use an expensive camera, so many were bought as
"The best you've got", and after poor results, put away in a cupboard.
A box camera didn't need all that fiddling with focus, shutter, and
aperture!
Jim Purdie
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Jim Purdie" <jimp...@paradise.net.nz> wrote in message
news:%hHIc.7823$NA1.7...@news02.tsnz.net...
>
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
> news:ccuj30$519$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...
> > I believe there is no one principle which predominates in human
> nature so
> > much in every stage of life, from the cradle to the grave, in males
> and
> > females, old and young, black and white, rich and poor, high and
> low, as
> > this passion for superiority. -McCullough D. John Adams [1777]. New
> York:
> > Simon & Schuster, 20
> >
>
> I am sure that nearly all of our urge to acquire objects is not a
> desire for the objects themselves, but a desire to be seen to possess
> them. (Or even a desire to secretly know that you possess them!) If
> everyone has enough, the only way to a feeling of superiority is to
> have more than enough. Hence the way in which some will pay millions
> for a painting, until all the experts, after long and careful study
> based on chemical analysis, decide it is a fake. Then suddenly it is
> worth nothing. How ridiculous!
>
nothing much has changed there, which is what one would expect. On the other
hand, there is something to be admired in the ingenuity of the fakers who,
if good at their jobs, are, after all, only contributing to increasing the
overall level of human happiness - surely ten people being happy to own an
original Rembrandt must be better than only one.
>
> But this applies to greater or lesser extent to all human possessions,
> from jewellery to real estate. In New Zealand during the 1950's
> farmers were making fortunes. One result is that a disprortionately
> high number of very expensive 50's and 60's cameras are floating
> around the country, in unused condition. In those days it took
> knowledge and skill to use an expensive camera, so many were bought as
> "The best you've got", and after poor results, put away in a cupboard.
> A box camera didn't need all that fiddling with focus, shutter, and
> aperture!
>
who may simply have found that their good intentions to learn were overcome
by the exigency of farming.
It is certainly true, though, that this sort of status based aquisition is
more true of some things than others and not always of more expensive
things - Stephen Hawkins 'A Brief History of Time' is said to be one of the
least read best sellers.
Jewellery is indeed a remarkable instance of this, where the de Beers cartel
has made fortunes simply by controlling supply and, despite first rate
artificial pearls (undistinguishable from real ones by any other than an
expert) having been available for decades, the real ones still cost far more
and are desired for only this reason. Of course there is, in jewellery, the
desire of a woman to test (sometimes to distruction) the wealth of potential
suitors for the important estimation of maximising the social class of her
potential offspring.
Slow Eddy
I suppose "value" has a wider meaning in usage than "market value". Market
value is an emergent property of human behaviour (roughly). It's the
outcome right at the end of a chain of choices determined by values in the
broader, and often the more moral sense. It's market value I'm talking
about when I refer to "value". As an expression of very pragmatic weighings
of relative values, I find it interesting, this market value. It reflects
our "morality" (if you'll allow something like polishing your shoes or
replacing the laces into the province of morality on a transit visa). In
the grand scheme of things, in those parts of living we seldom lie about, a
pair of shoes is generally worth more than a starving orphan on the other
side of the earth. That's what the way we sacrifice our banknotes says.
The relativity of morals (or at least those parts of morality revealed in
the accurate numeric words of our economic behaviour) is something deeper
than a mere weighing of perceived values of the SPCA and a packet of
cigarettes, and comparing these. There's also a value shift with
circumstances to account for. On the desert island you may not eat your
children for dinner, but what seems "valuable" in your lavish salon (an
emerald, perhaps) can be complete junk somewhere else, such as in the
middle of the Sahara when the water's looking low and the camel's starting
to smell tasty. I don't think a Faberge egg would come onto the list of
things I need if I was as rich as Bill Gates, even, but as a single desert
island luxury it wouldn't stand a chance against a dog turd. At least you
can amuse yourself by making little sculptures out of a dog turd, or
throwing these at your desert island companions, whereas the Faberge egg is
a bit hard and odourless for that kind of amusement. I think the luxury I'd
want on a desert island would be a dog.
I would very much like the definition to work out as a recursive one,
regardless of the consequences of that. However, I don't think it is. The
"values" and the "value" referred to are two different things. "Values"
means what it says. Anyone needing to have it explained will never
understand. (I suspect that might be recursive). "Value" is something with
a plain and unambiguous meaning. A number. A number with an arbitrary
currency sign prepended to it. The number is "bad" if it's in the range 0
to .99, "not so good" if it's in the range 1.0 to say 100.0, and pretty
damn good if it transcends the 100 000.0 mark. ... which is beginning to
have a recursive sound to it. No. Not recursive. "Value" is an outcome;
"Values" are rules for making choices.
>>
>> So it would be interesting to dig about and discover why an original is
>> valued more highly than a perfect replica. I envision something fairly
>> primitive here. Simian, almost. Unfortunately I can't find words adequate
>> to the task of setting that out in communicable terms. It's to do with
>> valuing concrete objects - perhaps by people who don't like to read much.
>> On that piece of material, and with those stains, Van Gogh did his
>> "Sunflower", so it's that piece that marks the territory. That is the
>> fire hydrant he pissed on... I give up.
>>
> Quite a few sun flowers actually - not just in the bowl in one of the
> paintings, but quite a few different sunflower paintings. It seems to me
> that, if I won the lottery and fancied one of the Sunflower paintings
> (actually there are a couple of van Goghs that I'd prefer) then a perfect
> replica would be ideal. Actually, to be quite candid, I particularly like
> the painting of the crows over the cornfield (and the avenue at the
> asylum), but, if I had the money, I'd like copies made with both paintings
> about 30% larger - the originals in the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam are
> magnificent, I agree, my only feeling is that they would be better bigger.
> This improvement could be achieved for a minute fraction of the cost of
> the originals - if they were even for sale.
I knew a guy who used to put Van Goghs onto leather jackets, and sell these
for little more than you'd pay for a leather jacket in plain, boring brown.
If you had your Van Gogh put on your tuxedo, or in miniature on one of your
shoes, you'd have the added benefit of being able to share it with whoever
was behind you. And it would'nt become like a piece of furniture, through
hanging in one place for all its days. You could hang your jacket on a
doorknob on one day, drape it over the couch on another, and during the
World Cup soccer final you could even hold it in between the TV set and the
staring faces as a matador holds his cape - and pick up a much better fight
out of it than the average matador does. I agree with you, in other words,
in the most wholehearted manner possible.
>>
>> > I felt that the film also provided powerful perspectives on fame and
>> > meaning. It is pretty obvious how fame can give meaning to the lives of
>> > people who feel that their lives would otherwise have none
>> Being in a monitored fish bowl must be infinitely more lonely than being
>> alone ever can.
> It is interesting, isn't it, how goals, once attained, almost always turn
> to ashes - suggesting that not having them is wise, but then those without
> them don't seem that happy either.
Perhaps it's just a matter of the thought given to considering the side
effects of the goal. ... No. Sadly, all achievement crumbles in the hand.
During the reach, the thing sought maintains an undiminished brightness and
perfection, and this remains for some seconds after you've finally closed
your grasp on it. But then, without fail, it greys and crumbles to ashes
and then nullity. It would seem, then, that those who chase the
will-o'-the-wisp are more sensible than the planners?
>> > I'm sure she must have spent some time on Onassises
>> > yacht
> reading,
>> > if only to fend of boredom.
>> The thing that always puts me off getting off my
>> bum, shaving, pushing the beer cans to a corner of the room, and setting
>> out on my quest for megabillions is the horrible prospect that opens up
>> down the end of that road. Bloody yachts, bloody polo, bloody boring
>> looking parties ... (Ja. I'm sure Aesop's fox would've said something
>> similar).
>>
> You would have thought that, if you had enough money and enough brains
> then you could manage to make it all interesting - but it seems that
> happiness isn't a matter of money or brains, so you can't.
>
My mother has a poem up on her wall which goes something like:
Happiness is something
You create in your mind,
Not something you look for
But can't seem to find -
It's giving up wishing
For things you have not,
And making the best
Of whatever you've got.
It's more a matter of attitude/ wisdom than money or brains. (Brains are as
often as not wasted on foolishness, even when they fill the entire skull
cavity). You can buy the idea of happiness, but this is a bit different
from the article, itself.
> It's good, really, if it were easy then there wouldn't be much value to
> managing to have fun with becoming jaded! Not that I'm suggesting that as
> a goal, but it seems a rare achievement.
>
That would be "value" as "intrinsic worth"? Jadedness would be a more
sensible thing to aim for than fame, I think.
> If you feel that it is a matter of sour grapes, read Ecclesiastes, he had
> it all with no reason for sour grapes and explains its emptiness very
> well.
>
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity ... (My guess is that this is what you're
referring to). No I don't think it's sour grapes (except for the money bit;
I could always do with a bit more dosh). Everything turns to dust in the
end, and a lot of the dust gets dragged down with the rest of the
continental plate and homogenized in the magma flows that the "earth" is
actually composed of. It's attitude again, of course. The demand for
novelty implicitly acts as a consent to the destruction of the perceived
value of the things we have and a raising of the value of that which we
have not to an unreasonable level. Fellow mammals like dogs and dolphins
demonstrate that this is not the way we were meant to be. Bubbles in a wave
zone are always wonderful and should be played in between fish
assassinations. Tennis balls are always fantastic! and chewy!! Those are
the true facts, but we seem to have lost them.
--
Slow Eddy
Peter H.M. Brooks
things - the purpose for the purchase putting different value on the item to
the individual purchasor.
>
> The relativity of morals (or at least those parts of morality revealed in
> the accurate numeric words of our economic behaviour) is something deeper
> than a mere weighing of perceived values of the SPCA and a packet of
> cigarettes, and comparing these. There's also a value shift with
> circumstances to account for. On the desert island you may not eat your
> children for dinner, but what seems "valuable" in your lavish salon (an
> emerald, perhaps) can be complete junk somewhere else, such as in the
> middle of the Sahara when the water's looking low and the camel's starting
> to smell tasty. I don't think a Faberge egg would come onto the list of
> things I need if I was as rich as Bill Gates, even, but as a single desert
> island luxury it wouldn't stand a chance against a dog turd. At least you
> can amuse yourself by making little sculptures out of a dog turd, or
> throwing these at your desert island companions, whereas the Faberge egg
is
> a bit hard and odourless for that kind of amusement. I think the luxury
I'd
> want on a desert island would be a dog.
>
anyway, a special tool for opening Faberge eggs (I'm hypothesising the
existence of such a thing) would be valueless to anybody not a posessor of
such an egg.
>
> I would very much like the definition to work out as a recursive one,
> regardless of the consequences of that. However, I don't think it is. The
> "values" and the "value" referred to are two different things. "Values"
> means what it says. Anyone needing to have it explained will never
> understand. (I suspect that might be recursive). "Value" is something with
> a plain and unambiguous meaning. A number. A number with an arbitrary
> currency sign prepended to it. The number is "bad" if it's in the range 0
> to .99, "not so good" if it's in the range 1.0 to say 100.0, and pretty
> damn good if it transcends the 100 000.0 mark. ... which is beginning to
> have a recursive sound to it. No. Not recursive. "Value" is an outcome;
> "Values" are rules for making choices.
>
one meaning of value. A large part of the reason for disagreement here is
that the OED gives eight major definitions for 'value' and 32 minor
definitions!
>
> >>
> >> > I felt that the film also provided powerful perspectives on fame and
> >> > meaning. It is pretty obvious how fame can give meaning to the lives
of
> >> > people who feel that their lives would otherwise have none
>
> >> Being in a monitored fish bowl must be infinitely more lonely than
being
> >> alone ever can.
>
> > It is interesting, isn't it, how goals, once attained, almost always
turn
> > to ashes - suggesting that not having them is wise, but then those
without
> > them don't seem that happy either.
>
> Perhaps it's just a matter of the thought given to considering the side
> effects of the goal. ... No. Sadly, all achievement crumbles in the hand.
> During the reach, the thing sought maintains an undiminished brightness
and
> perfection, and this remains for some seconds after you've finally closed
> your grasp on it. But then, without fail, it greys and crumbles to ashes
> and then nullity. It would seem, then, that those who chase the
> will-o'-the-wisp are more sensible than the planners?
>
imagined goal on winning the lottery, the notion of making a film of 'Titus
Andronicus' only to find that my film was made for me without any need for
money or effort on my part when 'Titus' came out. It was better even than my
imgining. Incidentally, since this thread started with 'Callas Forever', a
film that unusually managed to portray pathos, so too was 'Titus' unusual in
being a film (and, of course, previously a play) that sought to, and
managed, to portray hatred, both very rare themes.
things that indirectly result in it, at least if you're lucky.
>
> > It's good, really, if it were easy then there wouldn't be much value to
> > managing to have fun with becoming jaded! Not that I'm suggesting that
as
> > a goal, but it seems a rare achievement.
> >
> That would be "value" as "intrinsic worth"? Jadedness would be a more
> sensible thing to aim for than fame, I think.
>
>
> > If you feel that it is a matter of sour grapes, read Ecclesiastes, he
had
> > it all with no reason for sour grapes and explains its emptiness very
> > well.
> >
> Vanity of vanities, all is vanity ... (My guess is that this is what
you're
> referring to). No I don't think it's sour grapes (except for the money
bit;
> I could always do with a bit more dosh). Everything turns to dust in the
> end, and a lot of the dust gets dragged down with the rest of the
> continental plate and homogenized in the magma flows that the "earth" is
> actually composed of. It's attitude again, of course. The demand for
> novelty implicitly acts as a consent to the destruction of the perceived
> value of the things we have and a raising of the value of that which we
> have not to an unreasonable level. Fellow mammals like dogs and dolphins
> demonstrate that this is not the way we were meant to be. Bubbles in a
wave
> zone are always wonderful and should be played in between fish
> assassinations. Tennis balls are always fantastic! and chewy!! Those are
> the true facts, but we seem to have lost them.
>
lost irretrivably, they may not be fashionable, but there is nothing to stop
anybody reclaiming them for themself.
Jim Purdie
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>
> >
> > "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> > news:0doucc....@verdun.local...
> >> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
> >>
> My mother has a poem up on her wall which goes something like:
>
> Happiness is something
> You create in your mind,
> Not something you look for
> But can't seem to find -
> It's giving up wishing
> For things you have not,
> And making the best
> Of whatever you've got.
>
> It's more a matter of attitude/ wisdom than money or brains. (Brains
are as
> often as not wasted on foolishness, even when they fill the entire
skull
> cavity). You can buy the idea of happiness, but this is a bit
different
> from the article, itself.
>
>
> Slow Eddy
Your poem takes it for granted that we have enough, for the moment at
any rate. This is not the universal human condition, whatever the
condition is in "Western" countries. If everyone has enough, the only
route to feeling superior is to have too much. Most of us seem to have
a need to feel superior, or at least to demonstrate superiority.
Jim Purdie
Peter H.M. Brooks
>
> Your poem takes it for granted that we have enough, for the moment at
> any rate. This is not the universal human condition, whatever the
> condition is in "Western" countries. If everyone has enough, the only
> route to feeling superior is to have too much. Most of us seem to have
> a need to feel superior, or at least to demonstrate superiority.
>
Moira de Swardt
> > Your poem takes it for granted that we have enough, for the moment at
> > any rate. This is not the universal human condition, whatever the
> > condition is in "Western" countries. If everyone has enough, the only
> > route to feeling superior is to have too much. Most of us seem to have
> > a need to feel superior, or at least to demonstrate superiority.
> Isn't it easier to feel superior without demonstrating it?
You mean like the bigots?
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Moira de Swardt" <first...@wol.co.za> wrote in message
news:cd825q$280$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...
After all, as the OED has it, a bigot is 'a person obstinately and
unreasonably wedded to a particular religious creed, opinion or ritual.'.
I wouldn't have thought that obstinacy and unreasonableness necessarily
equate to feelings of superiority.
Not that I'm suggesting that bigots necessarily feel inferior, I'd just
expect them to have a similar range of feelings across the scale as other
people. Mostly they have ossified though processes, a condition to be
pitied.
--
Sylvia: "You must think me a stupid American bitch."
Neighbour: "Not at all, I assumed that you were Canadian" - dialogue from
the film 'Sylvia'
Moira de Swardt
> > > Isn't it easier to feel superior without demonstrating it?
> > You mean like the bigots?
> I'm not sure. Do bigots feel superior? I don't quite see why they should.
> After all, as the OED has it, a bigot is 'a person obstinately and
> unreasonably wedded to a particular religious creed, opinion or ritual.'.
I'm giving this one some thought. How do I feel when I find myself being a
bit obstinate and unreasonable? I think I get obstinate and unreasonable
when I'm sure I'm right and I'm told I'm wrong, or the other person won't
listen to me (as in obey me - remember I'm an eight on the enneagramme
system). At those times when I've been aware of my own bigotry, it has
nearly always been through either a feeling of superiority or a sneaky
feeling of inferiority.
> I wouldn't have thought that obstinacy and unreasonableness necessarily
> equate to feelings of superiority.
Perhaps not.
> Not that I'm suggesting that bigots necessarily feel inferior, I'd just
> expect them to have a similar range of feelings across the scale as other
> people. Mostly they have ossified though processes, a condition to be
> pitied.
I think that the whole "point" of being bigoted is a refusal to see, and
recognise as valid, points other than one's own.
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Peter H.M. Brooks
>
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
> > "Moira de Swardt" <first...@wol.co.za> wrote in message
> > > "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
>
> > > > Isn't it easier to feel superior without demonstrating it?
>
> > > You mean like the bigots?
>
> > I'm not sure. Do bigots feel superior? I don't quite see why they
should.
> > After all, as the OED has it, a bigot is 'a person obstinately and
> > unreasonably wedded to a particular religious creed, opinion or
ritual.'.
>
> I'm giving this one some thought. How do I feel when I find myself being
a
> bit obstinate and unreasonable? I think I get obstinate and unreasonable
> when I'm sure I'm right and I'm told I'm wrong, or the other person won't
> listen to me (as in obey me - remember I'm an eight on the enneagramme
> system). At those times when I've been aware of my own bigotry, it has
> nearly always been through either a feeling of superiority or a sneaky
> feeling of inferiority.
>
>
> > I wouldn't have thought that obstinacy and unreasonableness necessarily
> > equate to feelings of superiority.
>
> Perhaps not.
>
> > Not that I'm suggesting that bigots necessarily feel inferior, I'd just
> > expect them to have a similar range of feelings across the scale as
other
> > people. Mostly they have ossified though processes, a condition to be
> > pitied.
>
> I think that the whole "point" of being bigoted is a refusal to see, and
> recognise as valid, points other than one's own.
>
I think that it goes a little further, actually. Mostly the bigots that I've
encountered don't even accept the possibility of arguments that could, in
principle, show that they are wrong.
A good question to distinguish somebody who is persuaded of their point of
view and unimpressed with your arguments against it (a perfectly reasonable
position for somebody to hold, of course!) from a genuine bigot is to ask
what evidence would be required to disprove their point of view. If the
declaration is that there could be no such evidence then you must have a
bigot - or somebody who is correct.
No evidence you could produce would ever convince me that 2+2 = 5, for
example, because that simply is not the case if you accept conventional
symbol interpretation and conventional mathematics - mind you, those
qualifications do show where there is a possibility of being so convinced.
If somebody said that they had, in their new scheme of notation, defined 2
to mean what I understand as 2.5, then I'd have to agree that, given their
notation, the equation is sound. A bigot, on the other hand, wouldn't accept
that - even with the new schema he'd maintain that it wasn't true.
Slow Eddy
>
> "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> news:idk6dc....@verdun.local...
>> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
>> > news:0doucc....@verdun.local...
>> >> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>> >>
>>
>> >> > Is the original painting intrinsically
>> >> > different in a meaningful way from an identical copy, a first rate
>> >> > print or, indeed, from a perfect photograph of the painting - and if
>> >> > so, in
>> > what
>> >> > way and why?
>> >> >
>> >> Value is a reflection of conglomerated Values,<snip snip> I prefer to
think that I've got something
>> >> simple yet deep in my sights. Value, ValueS.
>> >>
>> > Ah, a recursive definition - surely 'values' are things that we
>> > 'value'.
>> >
>> It's market value I'm talking about when I refer to "value".
> Yes, market value is a form of aggregation of different values put on
> things - the purpose for the purchase putting different value on the item
> to the individual purchasor.
To make that more morally meaningful, I'd have to go back to the
morality-as-action position me and Gro Mango seem to be ad idem about.
Market value is the outcome of an aggregation of relatively active choices.
Sometimes the choice is little more than a simple Yes or a simple No (as
Zarathustra would have us approach our choices); sometimes the value is
part of a more articulated weighing between this and that. Often the choice
is quite clearly "moral" in a less extended sense of that term. Moral and
active.
To move beyond meaningfulness and make this interesting as well, it would
seem to me that we can notionally buy ourselves a better world. Actually a
"better world", because aggregation comes into play again, and perhaps I
wouldn't get my perfectly Aryan world with government by the Gestapo
because of all the pinkoliberals we have running about spoiling the fun.
I mean if people really valued ending starvation or birth control or cutting
edge art or and AIDS vaccine for all or good manners, these things would be
traded on the stock market, and individual instances would be at least as
"valuable" as diamonds. If we truly honestly genuinely valued the "good
things", we'd have set up companies to achieve them by now. And perhaps
angling at some future possibility of this happening is where the free
enterprisers, socialists, Jesus freaks, phone phreakers, etc. should be
directing their attention.
Or perhaps we'll always be just buying sedatives for an uneasy conscience/
unsettled empathy, as cheap as we can? (And so must learn to live in a
world where good causes are all contaminated with manipulation).
>>
>> The relativity of morals (or at least those parts of morality revealed in
>> the accurate numeric words of our economic behaviour) is something deeper
>> than a mere weighing of perceived values of the SPCA and a packet of
>> cigarettes, and comparing these. There's also a value shift with
>> circumstances to account for.
> Value in this sense is indeed relative to circumstance, up to a point
> anyway, a special tool for opening Faberge eggs (I'm hypothesising the
> existence of such a thing) would be valueless to anybody not a posessor of
> such an egg.
Even those things we keep because they'll come in handy one day arguably
spend most of their time being completely valueless. In fact, it's a known
fact that if you were to throw away that Faberge egg opener today, tomorrow
your neighbour who has an entire clutch of the these eggs under a hen made
of diamonds and rubies would be at your door asking to borrow the egg
opener, or offering to buy it at Faberge prices.
>>
>> I would very much like the definition to work out as a recursive one,
>> regardless of the consequences of that. However, I don't think it is >>
>> Value" is an outcome; "Values" are rules for making choices.
>>
> The OED has no separate entry for 'values', it simply being the plural of
> one meaning of value. A large part of the reason for disagreement here is
> that the OED gives eight major definitions for 'value' and 32 minor
> definitions!
That's very strange, because in usage people often talk of "values" as
something with a distinct and almost singular meaning. People seldom if
ever use the singular in this particular instance of the word. Maybe the
OED entries for this usage need revision?
Looks like "value" has done a lot of hard work for a lot of different
people. I'd hate to think a special technical term for the intended meaning
in this case was necessary. I despise jargon.
A more peaceful man could, of course, get a great artist to make an accurate
rendition of a Hustler centerfold with big knockers for the jacket, and
interject this image between the viewers and the final penalty shootout so
as simply to deflect attention and change the topic of conversation -
without the usual fisticuffs and stabbings.
>> It would seem, then, that those who chase the
>> will-o'-the-wisp are more sensible than the planners?
>>
> Yes, I think that they are. Sometimes you can be lucky, though, I had, as
> an imagined goal on winning the lottery, the notion of making a film of
> 'Titus Andronicus' only to find that my film was made for me without any
> need for money or effort on my part when 'Titus' came out. It was better
> even than my imgining. Incidentally, since this thread started with
> 'Callas Forever', a film that unusually managed to portray pathos, so too
> was 'Titus' unusual in being a film (and, of course, previously a play)
> that sought to, and managed, to portray hatred, both very rare themes.
There's another thing that complicates issues when the more detailed
economics are examined: You seldom need to own or control something in
order to be able to enjoy it. In fact ownership and control is often just
what it takes to make someone jaded. Had you managed to get to work on your
film and make it, there's a chance that the whole process could've been a
steady attrition of the dream, with actors who didn't understand their
characters, set makers who were blind to your vision of the setting,
cameramen unable to see the angles of the shots, and so on, and so on --
not to mention all the dull, mundane little teatimes, punching in details
of invoices from suppliers, and so on. By having your film "made for you",
it arrived by a kind of magick. Because of this, the script and the
delivery of the lines remained central, as they probably were in your
dream, and could never have been if you'd been the producer. Pathos or
hatred instead of anger at the incompetent bastard who brought red roses
instead of the yellow ones specified. Far preferable.
>>
>> >
>> My mother has a poem up on her wall which goes something like:
>>
>> Happiness is something
>> You create in your mind,
>> Not something you look for
>> But can't seem to find -
>> It's giving up wishing
>> For things you have not,
>> And making the best
>> Of whatever you've got.
>>
>> It's more a matter of attitude/ wisdom than money or brains. (Brains are
> as
>> often as not wasted on foolishness, even when they fill the entire skull
>> cavity). You can buy the idea of happiness, but this is a bit different
>> from the article, itself.
>>
> I'm not even sure that you can create it - at least not directly. You can
> do things that indirectly result in it, at least if you're lucky.
Perhaps it is impossible to create happiness, or even the attitudinal
preconditions for this. However, it's certain that most misery is something
you create, and not something that happens to you.
There's one thing stopping the reclamation (which already puts us behind the
instant reflexes of dog or dolphin): We seek novelty, not the absolutes
that are available to fellow mammals. The only way to reclaim would be to
make new again, and that requires a great capacity for self-deception (not
always the bad thing it's made out to be). Either that or make the
occasional absolute instead of relative judgement. Sometimes this happens
with favourite meals, so I suppose the dividing line between us humans and
them dolphins isn't as sharp as I've drawn it.
--
Slow Eddy
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>
> >
> > "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> > news:idk6dc....@verdun.local...
> >> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >> > "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> >> > news:0doucc....@verdun.local...
> >> >> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
> >> >>
>
> I mean if people really valued ending starvation or birth control or
cutting
> edge art or and AIDS vaccine for all or good manners, these things would
be
> traded on the stock market, and individual instances would be at least as
> "valuable" as diamonds. If we truly honestly genuinely valued the "good
> things", we'd have set up companies to achieve them by now. And perhaps
> angling at some future possibility of this happening is where the free
> enterprisers, socialists, Jesus freaks, phone phreakers, etc. should be
> directing their attention.
>
> Or perhaps we'll always be just buying sedatives for an uneasy conscience/
> unsettled empathy, as cheap as we can? (And so must learn to live in a
> world where good causes are all contaminated with manipulation).
>
>
>
> > Value in this sense is indeed relative to circumstance, up to a point
> > anyway, a special tool for opening Faberge eggs (I'm hypothesising the
> > existence of such a thing) would be valueless to anybody not a posessor
of
> > such an egg.
>
> Even those things we keep because they'll come in handy one day arguably
> spend most of their time being completely valueless. In fact, it's a
known
> fact that if you were to throw away that Faberge egg opener today,
tomorrow
> your neighbour who has an entire clutch of the these eggs under a hen made
> of diamonds and rubies would be at your door asking to borrow the egg
> opener, or offering to buy it at Faberge prices.
>
been truly useful today - don't ask!
>
> >>
> >> I would very much like the definition to work out as a recursive one,
> >> regardless of the consequences of that. However, I don't think it is >>
> >> Value" is an outcome; "Values" are rules for making choices.
> >>
> > The OED has no separate entry for 'values', it simply being the plural
of
> > one meaning of value. A large part of the reason for disagreement here
is
> > that the OED gives eight major definitions for 'value' and 32 minor
> > definitions!
>
> That's very strange, because in usage people often talk of "values" as
> something with a distinct and almost singular meaning. People seldom if
> ever use the singular in this particular instance of the word. Maybe the
> OED entries for this usage need revision?
>
> Looks like "value" has done a lot of hard work for a lot of different
> people. I'd hate to think a special technical term for the intended
meaning
> in this case was necessary. I despise jargon.
>
is vital.
>
> >>
> > If one was not an oil painting onself it would indeed be a good
> > distraction.
>
> A more peaceful man could, of course, get a great artist to make an
accurate
> rendition of a Hustler centerfold with big knockers for the jacket, and
> interject this image between the viewers and the final penalty shootout so
> as simply to deflect attention and change the topic of conversation -
> without the usual fisticuffs and stabbings.
>
experience, dire, so I doubt it being a valuable option.
have been improved upon, practically that is highly unlikely.
I agree that the mire of getting things done can be sapping, but I don't
agree that it can obscure the vision.
> >>
> > I'm not even sure that you can create it - at least not directly. You
can
> > do things that indirectly result in it, at least if you're lucky.
>
> Perhaps it is impossible to create happiness, or even the attitudinal
> preconditions for this. However, it's certain that most misery is
something
> you create, and not something that happens to you.
>
I can't agree completely, children who see their father's humiliated and
killed have a level of misery and anger that leads to suicide bombings and
other atrocities. So misery can certainly be created.
>
> >>
> > Yes, 'all is vainty' is indeed the chap. I don't think that these things
> > are lost irretrivably, they may not be fashionable, but there is nothing
> > to stop anybody reclaiming them for themself.
> >
> There's one thing stopping the reclamation (which already puts us behind
the
> instant reflexes of dog or dolphin): We seek novelty, not the absolutes
> that are available to fellow mammals. The only way to reclaim would be to
> make new again, and that requires a great capacity for self-deception (not
> always the bad thing it's made out to be). Either that or make the
> occasional absolute instead of relative judgement. Sometimes this happens
> with favourite meals, so I suppose the dividing line between us humans and
> them dolphins isn't as sharp as I've drawn it.
>
No, it probably isn't. I forget who said that he'd eat any meals, as long as
they were always the same - probably Diogenes.
--
"No!" she replied proudly and mockingly, "but I have the whip."
She drew it quickly from the pocket of her fur-coat, and struck him
in the face with the handle. He rose, and drew back a couple of paces. -
"Venus in Furs" Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Jim Purdie
>
> No evidence you could produce would ever convince me that 2+2 = 5,
for
> example, because that simply is not the case if you accept
conventional
> symbol interpretation and conventional mathematics - mind you, those
> qualifications do show where there is a possibility of being so
convinced.
> If somebody said that they had, in their new scheme of notation,
defined 2
> to mean what I understand as 2.5, then I'd have to agree that, given
their
> notation, the equation is sound. A bigot, on the other hand,
wouldn't accept
> that - even with the new schema he'd maintain that it wasn't true.
>
By a perfectly conventional and well-used system of symbol
interpretation and mathematics, 2+2 = 5, to one significant figure.
I.e. 2.4+2.3 = 4.7. Is the bigot right or wrong? Be careful what you
say, Peter!
That sort of thing, perhaps not so blatantly, happens all the time in
engineering, and in real life, if not in mathematics.
Jim Purdie
Peter H.M. Brooks
>
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
> news:cd8fp8$817$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...
> >
>
> > No evidence you could produce would ever convince me that 2+2 = 5,
> for
> > example, because that simply is not the case if you accept
> conventional
> > symbol interpretation and conventional mathematics - mind you, those
> > qualifications do show where there is a possibility of being so
> convinced.
> > If somebody said that they had, in their new scheme of notation,
> defined 2
> > to mean what I understand as 2.5, then I'd have to agree that, given
> their
> > notation, the equation is sound. A bigot, on the other hand,
> wouldn't accept
> > that - even with the new schema he'd maintain that it wasn't true.
> >
>
> By a perfectly conventional and well-used system of symbol
> interpretation and mathematics, 2+2 = 5, to one significant figure.
> I.e. 2.4+2.3 = 4.7. Is the bigot right or wrong? Be careful what you
> say, Peter!
>
regarding notation.
2.4+2.3 != 2 + 2 for most values of 2, 2.3, 2.4., !=,+ and good sense.
>
> That sort of thing, perhaps not so blatantly, happens all the time in
> engineering, and in real life, if not in mathematics.
>
It does indeed.
Slow Eddy
Well the first question would be what's "enough"? For most of us (whether
motivated to demonstrate further superiority over lesser mortals or not)
the answer would be "more, more, more". In such a case it doesn't make much
sense to pin your hopes of happiness on getting enough to make you happy,
because the amount that will make you so is "more". Always "more". The
happiness part of life's equation needs to rest on something other than the
superiority part of the equation, otherwise all hope of happiness is lost
from the outset.
--
Slow Eddy
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Jim Purdie wrote:
>
> Well the first question would be what's "enough"? For most of us (whether
> motivated to demonstrate further superiority over lesser mortals or not)
> the answer would be "more, more, more". In such a case it doesn't make
much
> sense to pin your hopes of happiness on getting enough to make you happy,
> because the amount that will make you so is "more". Always "more". The
> happiness part of life's equation needs to rest on something other than
the
> superiority part of the equation, otherwise all hope of happiness is lost
> from the outset.
>
only variety, and not even that always, fails to satiate. Desire for more is
understandable, but futile.
Enough is less than you desire and the discipline of enjoying the knowledge
that you have had an elegant sufficiency but could, if you were not in
control of yourself, have more is the discipline that leads to Epicurean
levels of pleasure.
Quality too, is to be preferred to quantity also in almost all things. To
have a superb meal that leaves you capable of having more, but satisfied
with what you have had, is to be vastly preferred to an indifferent meal
that leaves you feeling unpleasantly full but aesthetically unsatisfied.
The unfortunate consequences of incontinent desire for more are most clearly
seen in the desire for money. A delightful epigram by Dorothy Parker
suggests " If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the
people he gave it to. ". The treadmill that seekers after riches condemn
themselves to toiling at is just as unpleasant and just as just as they
deserve.
--
The ruin of states, the destruction of families, and the perishing of
individuals are always preceded by their abandonment of the rules of
propriety. - Li Chi ~100BC Chinese Book of Rites
Jim Purdie
> Jim Purdie wrote:
>
Yes, that is what I mean. I have been in the position of living for
three weeks totally reliant for food, warmth, and shelter on what I
could carry on my back, about thirty kilograms also including some
climbing gear. That gives a very clear idea of how little is
necessary, and also of how necessary that little is. It is not
sustainable in the long term, of course, since things wear out
rapidly, and we lost weight.
Three chocolate biscuits a day was heavenly luxury, and a couple of
pork chops when we reached civilisation again was absolute bliss.
Jim Purdie
Slow Eddy
>
> "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> news:7sg9dc....@verdun.local...
>> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
>> > news:idk6dc....@verdun.local...
>> >> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >
>> >> > "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
>> >> > news:0doucc....@verdun.local...
>> >> >> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>> >> >>
>>
>> Or perhaps we'll always be just buying sedatives for an uneasy
>> conscience/ unsettled empathy, as cheap as we can? (And so must learn to
>> live in a world where good causes are all contaminated with
>> manipulation).
>>
> It isn't contamination. It is an integral part of the good.
That sounds interesting, but why this should be isn't intuitively apparent.
How does manipulation form part of the good?
>> Even those things we keep because they'll come in handy one day arguably
>> spend most of their time being completely valueless. In fact, it's a
> known
>> fact that if you were to throw away that Faberge egg opener today,
> tomorrow
>> your neighbour who has an entire clutch of the these eggs under a hen
>> made of diamonds and rubies would be at your door asking to borrow the
>> egg opener, or offering to buy it at Faberge prices.
>>
> Oh, quite! I threw away a length of rubber tubing last week that would
> have been truly useful today - don't ask!
My guess is that you caught another burglar and needed an airtight balaclava
to aid in your interrogation. That's what usually happens to lengths of
tubing in South Africa.
>> Looks like "value" has done a lot of hard work for a lot of different
>> people. I'd hate to think a special technical term for the intended
> meaning
>> in this case was necessary. I despise jargon.
>>
> Yes, the word has a lot of value. I too despise jargon - apart from where
> it is vital.
I think in the case of "values", jargon could be avoided. "Value system" or
whaddever has been used enough to have a clear enough meaning.
(Unfortunately, this has been done in books littered with a veritable
mumbo-jumbo of jargon - that or gibberish used to pad the pages out).
>>
>> >>
>> > If one was not an oil painting onself it would indeed be a good
>> > distraction.
>>
>> A more peaceful man could, of course, get a great artist to make an
> accurate
>> rendition of a Hustler centerfold with big knockers for the jacket, and
>> interject this image between the viewers and the final penalty shootout
>> so as simply to deflect attention and change the topic of conversation -
>> without the usual fisticuffs and stabbings.
>>
> Another option to consider indeed - the aesthetics of pornography are, in
> my experience, dire, so I doubt it being a valuable option.
The value would very much depend on the values of the sports fan being
distracted. It's possible that for some, a sub-erotic general interest in
bulbous shapes is of greater value than are a set of more abstract
aesthetic criteria. (Something like Frank Zappa's "Big Bad Leonard" who
ain't no sissy, gotta bigtitty girl by the name of Prissy, who was only
interested in two things: Titties, and beer, and could thus not be
corrupted by the Devil).
(In case you've not heard that particular Zappa tomfoolery, the classic line
in the song is the Devil's, "Blow out your ass, motorcycle man! I am the
Devil; Do you understand?" Very artistic and aesthetic).
>> By having your film "made for
>> you", it arrived by a kind of magick. Because of this, the script and the
>> delivery of the lines remained central, as they probably were in your
>> dream, and could never have been if you'd been the producer. Pathos or
>> hatred instead of anger at the incompetent bastard who brought red roses
>> instead of the yellow ones specified. Far preferable.
>>
> The script was exactly the play by Shakespeare, so, theoretically it could
> have been improved upon, practically that is highly unlikely.
>
> I agree that the mire of getting things done can be sapping, but I don't
> agree that it can obscure the vision.
I suppose that a particularly strong and persistent vision might survive the
process of actualization, but I suspect that your average day-to-day vision
is something that tends to evaporate when burnt with a bit of reality. Part
of this is simply the process of learning to accept realities. The dream
farm with its perfect weed-free rows gains some scruff in the reality of a
world of expensive herbicides, for instance. We tend to get used to the
blemishes that intrude into the perfected details of the vision as we make
do and get by.
>> Perhaps it is impossible to create happiness, or even the attitudinal
>> preconditions for this. However, it's certain that most misery is
> something
>> you create, and not something that happens to you.
>>
> I can't agree completely, children who see their father's humiliated and
> killed have a level of misery and anger that leads to suicide bombings and
> other atrocities. So misery can certainly be created.
No. Conditions in which misery is easier to find than it usually is (and
it's always easy to find) may arise, but even in the midst of those
conditions, taking on misery is a choice. Bitterness isn't something
someone else brings to you, even if they bring the rationalizations and
conditions to which you respond with bitterness. Sometimes the distinction
becomes difficult to see, but it's always there. And if this is not so,
then peace is impossible. If offence is something that is given rather than
taken, then there can be no escape from it. So to the idea that "misery can
be created" (implicitly by someone else), it's important to say "No, No,
No". Even if you choose the misery available, it's important to see that
this is what you've done. Rather excuse yourself for being hopelessly human
than harbour a poisonous Middle-Eastern style perpetual grudge, and
guarantee a Corsican eternity for all who will follow you.
>>
>> >>
>> > Yes, 'all is vainty' is indeed the chap. I don't think that these
>> > things are lost irretrivably, they may not be fashionable, but there is
>> > nothing to stop anybody reclaiming them for themself.
>> >
>> There's one thing stopping the reclamation (which already puts us behind
> the
>> instant reflexes of dog or dolphin): We seek novelty, not the absolutes
>> that are available to fellow mammals. The only way to reclaim would be to
>> make new again, and that requires a great capacity for self-deception
>> (not always the bad thing it's made out to be). Either that or make the
>> occasional absolute instead of relative judgement. Sometimes this happens
>> with favourite meals, so I suppose the dividing line between us humans
>> and them dolphins isn't as sharp as I've drawn it.
>>
> No, it probably isn't. I forget who said that he'd eat any meals, as long
> as they were always the same - probably Diogenes.
>
And yet there are a thousand who get bored with their same old crappy
porridge for breakfast as for every one Diogenes who starts each morning
with a clean slate, and values things absolutely, just for themselves.
--
Slow Eddy
Slow Eddy
Sounds like a helleva trek, Jim. Sounds like it was pretty wonderful, too.
Did you traverse the Escarpment? -- oh. Correction, later. You could've
been in any wild part of the world with all those groups.
There's a fine way of restoring the value in the things we take for granted.
Reduce your comforts down to the essentials, and head out to somewhere
where the scenery, the quietness, and the achievement of the goal of
putting one foot in front of the other compensate for the discomforts, and
quickly the true value of things is distilled for you to be valued afresh
again.
I like your "how little is necessary, and also how necessary that little
is." Two nicely balanced phrases that say it all. Must remember it so I can
impress someone with my pithiness one day.
--
Slow Eddy
Slow Eddy
>
> "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> news:i3vbdc....@verdun.local...
>> Jim Purdie wrote:
>>
>> Well the first question would be what's "enough"? For most of us (whether
>> motivated to demonstrate further superiority over lesser mortals or not)
>> the answer would be "more, more, more". In such a case it doesn't make
> much
>> sense to pin your hopes of happiness on getting enough to make you happy,
>> because the amount that will make you so is "more". Always "more". The
>> happiness part of life's equation needs to rest on something other than
> the
>> superiority part of the equation, otherwise all hope of happiness is lost
>> from the outset.
>>
> 'Always more' is a recipe for disaster. One is satiated by all pleasures,
> only variety, and not even that always, fails to satiate. Desire for more
> is understandable, but futile.
>
It's that, but this doesn't stop most of the world from trying to cook the
ingredients at every mealtime.
> Enough is less than you desire and the discipline of enjoying the
> knowledge that you have had an elegant sufficiency but could, if you were
> not in control of yourself, have more is the discipline that leads to
> Epicurean levels of pleasure.
>
I'd say that was my Dad's philosophy of life, although he would've bitten
the head off anyone stating it that explicitly and elegantly. There is a
certain risk in this quest for balance, and satisfaction with sufficiency,
though. It rests on assumptions of what is "sufficient", and these
estimates may turn out to be short of the mark. Striving for more, more,
more, is perhaps a mark of a lack of confidence. To rest on sufficiency
requires great confidence that you've assessed that measure accurately.
I had the idea once that the way to live life would be to live stretched in
tension between a contentment with slightly more than nothing of anything,
and an ambition without a ceiling. To just rest content can be a stagnant
thing without something like your Epicurian attitude to go with this; and
to chase goal after goal is to live the life of a hamster that never gets
off its wheel. The most difficult "balance" (more like tensioning/ waveform
management -- something dynamic to be inserted here) would be to insist on
having it all. Contentment and restlessness cohabiting in one psyche.
> Quality too, is to be preferred to quantity also in almost all things. To
> have a superb meal that leaves you capable of having more, but satisfied
> with what you have had, is to be vastly preferred to an indifferent meal
> that leaves you feeling unpleasantly full but aesthetically unsatisfied.
>
My brother's wife's sister-in-law runs the restaurant across the road from
us, and is one of the few people who've ever managed to make me
enthusiastic about food (which I tend to regard as fuel which needs to be
loaded quickly, efficiently, and without any fuss). She has a small menu,
which she changes every three months or so. (This is the only way you can
ensure that all ingredients are fresh, and prepared on the night rather
than frozen then hauled out and nuked). Her portions look small. They're a
bit bigger than they look because she uses huge plates, but they're smaller
than you get at say the other restaurant down the road.
Funny thing is that after eating all courses those small servings turn out
to be completely ample in the end. No bloat. I wouldn't call the grub they
dish up down the road "indifferent", but after a plateful like that you end
up bloated. Bloat destroys the pleasure of the meal, and reinforces people
like me in their utilitarian attitude to food. (I've started drooling over
fillet, lean, with a crust of horse radish and bone marrow in just
sufficient quantity, and of superb quality).
> The unfortunate consequences of incontinent desire for more are most
> clearly seen in the desire for money. A delightful epigram by Dorothy
> Parker suggests " If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look
> at the people he gave it to. ". The treadmill that seekers after riches
> condemn themselves to toiling at is just as unpleasant and just as just as
> they deserve.
>
Sometimes it's a treadmill, and sometimes it's cutting the moral corners and
degrading yourself. I know a wealthy man who ripped off some of his best
friends just to make a buck. Somewhere deep down inside he must surely know
that his friendship is not worth much, then. And if your friendship turns
out to be of low value is that something you can balance out in your
statement of profit or loss? (He stayed friends with these people, and,
strangely, they, with him, but from their side it turned into a slightly
contemptuous kind of friendship).
--
Slow Eddy
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>
> > > The unfortunate consequences of incontinent desire for more are most
> > clearly seen in the desire for money. A delightful epigram by Dorothy
> > Parker suggests " If you want to know what God thinks of money, just
look
> > at the people he gave it to. ". The treadmill that seekers after riches
> > condemn themselves to toiling at is just as unpleasant and just as just
as
> > they deserve.
> >
> Sometimes it's a treadmill, and sometimes it's cutting the moral corners
and
> degrading yourself. I know a wealthy man who ripped off some of his best
> friends just to make a buck. Somewhere deep down inside he must surely
know
> that his friendship is not worth much, then. And if your friendship turns
> out to be of low value is that something you can balance out in your
> statement of profit or loss? (He stayed friends with these people, and,
> strangely, they, with him, but from their side it turned into a slightly
> contemptuous kind of friendship).
>
satisfactorily to square off such a conscience. I think that you'd have to
start of counting your 'friendships' as of no value for it to work.
It is possible to have association with rogues, scroungers, and other
low-life, and sometimes business etiquette requires it, but I don't think
that that sort of relationship has anything to do with friendship. I found
it sad, whilst I was a barman, to see, from he sober side of the counter,
people imagining themselves surrounded by friends when all they had were
drinking companions who would happily do them down if advantage came of it.
Still, we all know that one way to aquire lots of 'friends' is to be rich
and famous. Something of a curse, really, riches, that way.
--
It's not what I share but the way that I share it - That's all, brother,
that's all. - Mae West
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>
> >
> >> Or perhaps we'll always be just buying sedatives for an uneasy
> >> conscience/ unsettled empathy, as cheap as we can? (And so must learn
to
> >> live in a world where good causes are all contaminated with
> >> manipulation).
> >>
> > It isn't contamination. It is an integral part of the good.
>
> That sounds interesting, but why this should be isn't intuitively
apparent.
> How does manipulation form part of the good?
>
>
> (In case you've not heard that particular Zappa tomfoolery, the classic
line
> in the song is the Devil's, "Blow out your ass, motorcycle man! I am the
> Devil; Do you understand?" Very artistic and aesthetic).
>
I haven't heard that particular song.
> >> Perhaps it is impossible to create happiness, or even the attitudinal
> >> preconditions for this. However, it's certain that most misery is
> > something
> >> you create, and not something that happens to you.
> >>
> > I can't agree completely, children who see their father's humiliated and
> > killed have a level of misery and anger that leads to suicide bombings
and
> > other atrocities. So misery can certainly be created.
>
> No. Conditions in which misery is easier to find than it usually is (and
> it's always easy to find) may arise, but even in the midst of those
> conditions, taking on misery is a choice. Bitterness isn't something
> someone else brings to you, even if they bring the rationalizations and
> conditions to which you respond with bitterness. Sometimes the distinction
> becomes difficult to see, but it's always there. And if this is not so,
> then peace is impossible. If offence is something that is given rather
than
> taken, then there can be no escape from it. So to the idea that "misery ca
n
> be created" (implicitly by someone else), it's important to say "No, No,
> No". Even if you choose the misery available, it's important to see that
> this is what you've done. Rather excuse yourself for being hopelessly
human
> than harbour a poisonous Middle-Eastern style perpetual grudge, and
> guarantee a Corsican eternity for all who will follow you.
>
revenge. In general, though, people being people then, of 100 who you
subject to the treatment mentioned, I'd say it is unlikely that more than 50
will decide to avoid misery, revenge, hatred and so forth. So, since that is
the consequence, I see the action as causing it - the fact that people
generally are predictable is not, in itself, an argument against free will
(there are plenty of others!).
> >>
> >> >>
> >> > Yes, 'all is vainty' is indeed the chap. I don't think that these
> >> > things are lost irretrivably, they may not be fashionable, but there
is
> >> > nothing to stop anybody reclaiming them for themself.
> >> >
> >> There's one thing stopping the reclamation (which already puts us
behind
> > the
> >> instant reflexes of dog or dolphin): We seek novelty, not the absolutes
> >> that are available to fellow mammals. The only way to reclaim would be
to
> >> make new again, and that requires a great capacity for self-deception
> >> (not always the bad thing it's made out to be). Either that or make the
> >> occasional absolute instead of relative judgement. Sometimes this
happens
> >> with favourite meals, so I suppose the dividing line between us humans
> >> and them dolphins isn't as sharp as I've drawn it.
> >>
> > No, it probably isn't. I forget who said that he'd eat any meals, as
long
> > as they were always the same - probably Diogenes.
> >
> And yet there are a thousand who get bored with their same old crappy
> porridge for breakfast as for every one Diogenes who starts each morning
> with a clean slate, and values things absolutely, just for themselves.
>
on manners.
--
"That," he said, "is a distinguished civilian, John Stuart Mill. He
was an authority on political economy."
"Why?" asked Bertie.
"Well, he wanted to be; he thought it was a useful thing to be."
Bertie gave an expressive grunt, which conveyed his opinion that
there was no accounting for tastes. - Saki, The Toys of Peace
Jim Purdie
Thank you! It was in New Zealand, actually, through the Olivines,
though that probably won't mean anything. It helps that the only
carnivorous beast is a minute sandfly! I have done a lot of that sort
of thing, many years ago, but that was the only one where we carried
food the whole way. Fifty years ago you had food taken in by
packhorse, and later you could have it flown in, and left at a halfway
point. Ah me, those were the days!
Jim Purdie
Moira de Swardt
"Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> My brother's wife's sister-in-law runs the restaurant across the road from
> us, and is one of the few people who've ever managed to make me
> enthusiastic about food (which I tend to regard as fuel which needs to be
> loaded quickly, efficiently, and without any fuss). She has a small menu,
> which she changes every three months or so. (This is the only way you can
> ensure that all ingredients are fresh, and prepared on the night rather
> than frozen then hauled out and nuked). Her portions look small. They're a
> bit bigger than they look because she uses huge plates, but they're
smaller
> than you get at say the other restaurant down the road.
> Funny thing is that after eating all courses those small servings turn out
> to be completely ample in the end. No bloat. I wouldn't call the grub they
> dish up down the road "indifferent", but after a plateful like that you
end
> up bloated. Bloat destroys the pleasure of the meal, and reinforces people
> like me in their utilitarian attitude to food. (I've started drooling over
> fillet, lean, with a crust of horse radish and bone marrow in just
> sufficient quantity, and of superb quality).
I have always experienced great delight in eating good food. However, I
have shared on this forum, and elsewhere, my general disdain for those "eat
as much as you like buffets" on the grounds that the food is never as good
as a portion prepared to order. It's almost as if the over-abundance itself
spoils the dish, yet even quite large portions of individually prepared food
don't spoil the appetite.
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Moira de Swardt
"Jim Purdie" <jimp...@paradise.net.nz> wrote in message
> Yes, that is what I mean. I have been in the position of living for
> three weeks totally reliant for food, warmth, and shelter on what I
> could carry on my back, about thirty kilograms also including some
> climbing gear. That gives a very clear idea of how little is
> necessary, and also of how necessary that little is. It is not
> sustainable in the long term, of course, since things wear out
> rapidly, and we lost weight.
> Three chocolate biscuits a day was heavenly luxury, and a couple of
> pork chops when we reached civilisation again was absolute bliss.
I always wanted bread when I returned from a hike. I got very bread hungry,
which is odd, because especially back then I ate very little bread in my
daily diet. I suppose it's availablity was enough, or maybe I really ate
more bread than I thought I did. I find that it is easy to "forget" the
bread one has eaten (when counting calories for example) because it is
"invisible" food in the sense that one does not order it - it just arrives.
This is especially true for me in winter when I tend to order soup at
restaurants as well as making it at home.
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Slow Eddy
I don't think people like that square off their consciences. That would
rashly presuppose the that they have such a thing. In this particular case,
it was two wealthy families, and they all went away together on holiday
every year. (This is a friendship going back to early in life, so perhaps
that had something to do with its continuing). I suppose the fact that it
was a family friendship also counted. The rest of the family weren't party
to the fraud, so perhaps that's what kept it together.
--
Slow Eddy
Slow Eddy
>
> "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> news:noredc....@verdun.local...
>> Jim Purdie wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
>> > news:i3vbdc....@verdun.local...
>> >> Jim Purdie wrote:
>>
>> Sounds like a helleva trek, Jim. Sounds like it was pretty
> wonderful, too.
>> I like your "how little is necessary, and also how necessary that
> little
>> is." Two nicely balanced phrases that say it all. Must remember it
> so I can
>> impress someone with my pithiness one day.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Slow Eddy
>
> Thank you! It was in New Zealand, actually, through the Olivines,
> though that probably won't mean anything. It helps that the only
> carnivorous beast is a minute sandfly! I have done a lot of that sort
> of thing, many years ago, but that was the only one where we carried
> food the whole way. Fifty years ago you had food taken in by
> packhorse, and later you could have it flown in, and left at a halfway
> point. Ah me, those were the days!
>
> Jim Purdie
A few years ago I did a bit of something similar, but on a smaller scale,
and sticking to the foothills of the South African Drakensberg. If I had to
be honest about it, I spent the daylight hours cursing my way along as I
tried to move my blisters within sight of my companions (who graciously
never once told me to hurry up). It hurt. The blisters hurt, the cramps
hurt, the gammy knee hurt. And yet even before the hindsight had washed
away the little aches and pains it was worth it. There's nothing like
looking out over land spread all around below from the top of a cliff.
And more importantly, there's nothing quite as wonderful as a chocolate
biscuit.
Your Olivines sound more like expedition territory than what I plucked up
the courage to attempt. Packhorses! I remember some of the guys arranging
donkeys for a day hike once, but that was just for the hell of it.
--
Slow Eddy
Slow Eddy
>
> "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> news:t1hedc....@verdun.local...
>> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >> Or perhaps we'll always be just buying sedatives for an uneasy
>> >> conscience/ unsettled empathy, as cheap as we can? (And so must learn
> to
>> >> live in a world where good causes are all contaminated with
>> >> manipulation).
>> >>
>> > It isn't contamination. It is an integral part of the good.
>>
>> That sounds interesting, but why this should be isn't intuitively
> apparent.
>> How does manipulation form part of the good?
>>
> You make the same point later by saying how reality alters a vision.
Sorry I'm having a bit of a stupidity attack over this one. Have looked
blindly and thus seen nothing. The "contamination of manipulation" I was
whingeing about is the way that bad people, greedy people, and especially
power-mad people tend to hitch a ride on good causes, and then hijack
these, and transform them in such a way as to make the cause serve them.
Perhaps we have crossed wires, then?
>>
>> (In case you've not heard that particular Zappa tomfoolery, the classic
> line
>> in the song is the Devil's, "Blow out your ass, motorcycle man! I am the
>> Devil; Do you understand?" Very artistic and aesthetic).
>>
> I'm fond of Uncle Frank, and was sorry when he died, but I must confess
> that I haven't heard that particular song.
I had a friend years back who sang it all the time.
It was the blackest night/ There was no moon in sight/ And the stars weren't
shining/ 'Cause the sky was so tight/ I saw some weird things/ I saw some
ugly trees/ There was a werewolf walkin' 'longside of me/ Big Bad Leonard,
he ain't no sissy/ Got a big-titty-girl by name of Prissy/ Talkin' about it
in the magazines/ We were walkin' up there in the Mountains of Mystery,
mystery.
<missing fragment of the mental manuscript. Leonard mysteriously loses his
titties and beer, and complains>
"Where are those titties that I love so well?/ And my goddam beer," is what
I started to yell/ ... / Then up jumped the Devil/ (He's about this tall)/
... /"Gimme back my titties, an' gimme back my beer"/ ... /"Blow it out
your ass, motorcycle man; I am the DEVIL, do you understand?"/ ...
And then I really lose the thread. Turns out that there are only two things
Big Bad Leonard is interested in, and these are: Titties and Beer. As such
he's beyond temptation, and incorruptible, so eventually the Devil relents
and gives Leonard back his titties and beer. You may have noticed that I
probably missed out the most important parts of the story. Funny thing,
memory.
>> >> Perhaps it is impossible to create happiness, or even the attitudinal
>> >> preconditions for this. However, it's certain that most misery is
>> > something
>> >> you create, and not something that happens to you.
>> >>
>> > I can't agree completely, children who see their father's humiliated
>> > and killed have a level of misery and anger that leads to suicide
>> > bombings
> and
>> > other atrocities. So misery can certainly be created.
>>
>> So to the idea that "misery can
>> be created" (implicitly by someone else), it's important to say "No, No,
>> No". Even if you choose the misery available, it's important to see that
>> this is what you've done. Rather excuse yourself for being hopelessly
> human
>> than harbour a poisonous Middle-Eastern style perpetual grudge, and
>> guarantee a Corsican eternity for all who will follow you.
>>
> I agree that you don't have to select misery as your option - nor even
> revenge. In general, though, people being people then, of 100 who you
> subject to the treatment mentioned, I'd say it is unlikely that more than
> 50 will decide to avoid misery, revenge, hatred and so forth. So, since
> that is the consequence, I see the action as causing it - the fact that
> people generally are predictable is not, in itself, an argument against
> free will (there are plenty of others!).
The trouble with that attribution of causation is it's exactly what those
who live off this misery use to sustain it and create more of the same. You
have the poor old normal ordinary Palestinian who loses someone more
precious than life itself in the crossfire, whose sustained anger over this
is understandable (and attributable, even). Next to that Palestinian you
have the PLO seeker after power, glory, testosterone-produced-aggression
outlet. And what does this fighter-politician do? Stokes up further hatred
as if it's a good thing. And why's it supposedly a good thing? Because
there's someone to blame. It's just so much of a human failing, this
insistence on having someone to blame for everything, that though there's
some measure of causal connection between the action of the combatant on
the other side of the war and the anger and blame, it's something to be
resisted. It's even something it's best to refuse to understand except in
private. I'll even understand Mugabe in private, but in public life where
we all persuade each other to points of view that sometimes lead us to go
and explode in school buses, understanding is too easily taken for
acceptance of all that follows.
There's blame, often in this world, but because we're inclined to make too
much of it, it's unacceptable. Trouble is that the person directly affected
gets another fifty joining in sympathy/ looking for an excuse to be angry.
Too many of those claiming a share of the misery have very poor claims on
it.
--
Slow Eddy
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Jim Purdie wrote:
> > >
> > Thank you! It was in New Zealand, actually, through the Olivines,
> > though that probably won't mean anything. It helps that the only
> > carnivorous beast is a minute sandfly! I have done a lot of that sort
> > of thing, many years ago, but that was the only one where we carried
> > food the whole way. Fifty years ago you had food taken in by
> > packhorse, and later you could have it flown in, and left at a halfway
> > point. Ah me, those were the days!
> >
> > Jim Purdie
>
> A few years ago I did a bit of something similar, but on a smaller scale,
> and sticking to the foothills of the South African Drakensberg. If I had
to
> be honest about it, I spent the daylight hours cursing my way along as I
> tried to move my blisters within sight of my companions (who graciously
> never once told me to hurry up). It hurt. The blisters hurt, the cramps
> hurt, the gammy knee hurt. And yet even before the hindsight had washed
> away the little aches and pains it was worth it. There's nothing like
> looking out over land spread all around below from the top of a cliff.
> And more importantly, there's nothing quite as wonderful as a chocolate
> biscuit.
>
the mountains themselves before you have to start walking. I climed to the
top of Mont aux Sources many years ago, it was pleasant pain, as you
describe, made much better by a whisky in the tent that night - the whole
trip, though, only took two days, with a night at the top. The view from
there is quite remarkable - it is claimed that you can see the sea, over
fifty miles away, on a clear day, though I doubt that it is literally true,
you do see a very long way.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>
> >
> > "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> > news:t1hedc....@verdun.local...
> >> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >> >> Or perhaps we'll always be just buying sedatives for an uneasy
> >> >> conscience/ unsettled empathy, as cheap as we can? (And so must
learn
> > to
> >> >> live in a world where good causes are all contaminated with
> >> >> manipulation).
> >> >>
> >> > It isn't contamination. It is an integral part of the good.
> >>
> >> That sounds interesting, but why this should be isn't intuitively
> > apparent.
> >> How does manipulation form part of the good?
> >>
> > You make the same point later by saying how reality alters a vision.
>
> Sorry I'm having a bit of a stupidity attack over this one. Have looked
> blindly and thus seen nothing. The "contamination of manipulation" I was
> whingeing about is the way that bad people, greedy people, and especially
> power-mad people tend to hitch a ride on good causes, and then hijack
> these, and transform them in such a way as to make the cause serve them.
> Perhaps we have crossed wires, then?
>
that I think has to have negative connotations) is necessary - your point
that it is bad when manipulated in the way you describe certainly still
stands.
exclusive interest in titties and beer would render one immune to other
temptation. The surreal shaggy-dog story nature of the song reminds me of
'Billy the Mountain' whose concluding line always appealed to me in some
remarkably deep way 'Oh, fuck, I'm going to need a truss'.
that 'shit happens'.
Sadly it has been observed by many that knowing this is bad is unlikely to
make it better - Arnold has it when he talks of the 'turbid ebb and flow of
human misery' in Dover Beach and then:
"
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night
"
And Owen echoes similar sentiment in 'Strange Meeting':
"
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
"
--
As wicked dew e'er my mother brushed
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both!...And blister you all o'er! - Caliban
Jim Purdie
> > Three chocolate biscuits a day was heavenly luxury, and a couple
of
> > pork chops when we reached civilisation again was absolute bliss.
>
> I always wanted bread when I returned from a hike. I got very bread
hungry,
> which is odd, because especially back then I ate very little bread
in my
> daily diet. I suppose it's availablity was enough, or maybe I
really ate
> more bread than I thought I did. I find that it is easy to "forget"
the
> bread one has eaten (when counting calories for example) because it
is
> "invisible" food in the sense that one does not order it - it just
arrives.
> This is especially true for me in winter when I tend to order soup
at
> restaurants as well as making it at home.
>
> Moira, the Faerie Godmother
>
I suppose we are getting some distance from Callas, but what the hell!
I have found that it depends on what you have used for a bread
substitute on the hike. One year we used Ryvita, and found we might
just as well have taken the packets it came in. After ten days, we met
a party that had just flown in to a remote air-strip, and had lots of
fresh bread. They gave us a large loaf, between six of us. We waited
until we were out of sight, then sat in a circle and demolished it in
nothing flat. Later I used home-made oatmeal biscuits, which were
quite satisfying. Known as Tararua biscuits, after the club that
started it all in New Zealand, and their home range.
But in NZ it is well recognised, or was in my day, that the main
deficits in tramping rations were fat, and vitamin C. The vitamin C is
easy to fix, as tablets are light, and there is a powdered fruit drink
here which has a lot (water is seldom a problem in NZ), but the main
wish of most people at the end of a long trip is a large helping of
fish and chips, or some greasy pork chops.
Jim Purdie
Lance
"Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote:
> I mean if people really valued ending starvation or birth control or
cutting
> edge art or and AIDS vaccine for all or good manners, these things would
be
> traded on the stock market, and individual instances would be at least as
> "valuable" as diamonds.
There have been attempts to test ideas by putting them on markets and
letting people beton them. The New Scientist had an article on these ideas
not so long ago.
> >> The relativity of morals (or at least those parts of morality revealed
in
> >> the accurate numeric words of our economic behaviour) is something
deeper
> >> than a mere weighing of perceived values of the SPCA and a packet of
> >> cigarettes, and comparing these. There's also a value shift with
> >> circumstances to account for.
>
> > Value in this sense is indeed relative to circumstance, up to a point
> > anyway, a special tool for opening Faberge eggs (I'm hypothesising the
> > existence of such a thing) would be valueless to anybody not a posessor
of
> > such an egg.
>
> Even those things we keep because they'll come in handy one day arguably
> spend most of their time being completely valueless. In fact, it's a
known
> fact that if you were to throw away that Faberge egg opener today,
tomorrow
> your neighbour who has an entire clutch of the these eggs under a hen made
> of diamonds and rubies would be at your door asking to borrow the egg
> opener, or offering to buy it at Faberge prices.
Values are also relative to internal states. Cigarettes are valuale when you
crave one, and afterwards you may go and buy a cure for smoking (i.e.
cigarettes are not valuable anymore).
Lance
Moira de Swardt
"Jim Purdie" <jimp...@paradise.net.nz> wrote in message
> I suppose we are getting some distance from Callas, but what the hell!
Threads evolve.
> I have found that it depends on what you have used for a bread
> substitute on the hike. One year we used Ryvita, and found we might
> just as well have taken the packets it came in. After ten days, we met
> a party that had just flown in to a remote air-strip, and had lots of
> fresh bread. They gave us a large loaf, between six of us. We waited
> until we were out of sight, then sat in a circle and demolished it in
> nothing flat. Later I used home-made oatmeal biscuits, which were
> quite satisfying. Known as Tararua biscuits, after the club that
> started it all in New Zealand, and their home range.
I used "Protons" which the army types would recognise as "dog biscuits".
The first time I tasted one only the fact that I was keen on one of the guys
kept the thing in my mouth, but a second bite was out of the question.
After a year or so of hiking I ate them at home with peanut butter, but they
never replaced bread satisfactorily.
> But in NZ it is well recognised, or was in my day, that the main
> deficits in tramping rations were fat, and vitamin C. The vitamin C is
> easy to fix, as tablets are light, and there is a powdered fruit drink
> here which has a lot (water is seldom a problem in NZ), but the main
> wish of most people at the end of a long trip is a large helping of
> fish and chips, or some greasy pork chops.
When I hike in winter I take bacon and salami. It really does help. I try
to avoid hikes in summer. Too many creepy crawlies and I don't enjoy
sweating. Having said that I have done Drakensburg hikes in summer, but
those are usually just one night out things.
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Moira de Swardt
"Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> Your Olivines sound more like expedition territory than what I plucked up
> the courage to attempt. Packhorses! I remember some of the guys arranging
> donkeys for a day hike once, but that was just for the hell of it.
I did a donkey trek down into the Tugela Falls in the late 80s, just for
fun!.
I was scheduled to hike the next day. I was too sore and we had to postpone
for a day while I limped around painfully every time my muscles got cold.
Six hours on a donkey is for the really young or really fit. I was more
than a little unhappy.
I did think the whole thing was worth it in retrospect.
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Moira de Swardt
"Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
> The nice thing about the Drakensberg is that you can get relatively close
to
> the mountains themselves before you have to start walking. I climed to the
> top of Mont aux Sources many years ago, it was pleasant pain, as you
> describe, made much better by a whisky in the tent that night - the whole
> trip, though, only took two days, with a night at the top. The view from
> there is quite remarkable - it is claimed that you can see the sea, over
> fifty miles away, on a clear day, though I doubt that it is literally
true,
> you do see a very long way.
I've done Mont aux Sources twice, once just after the Tugela Falls donkey
trip, and once again a year later. The sea is more than fifty miles away
from the Drakensburg, though, isn't it? It is certainly still another two
or three hours to Durban from most of the main roads through to the
Drakensburg between Johannesburg and Durban from almost anywhere in the
Drakensburg. I have only approached Mont aux Sources through the Harrismith
side because my father grew up in Harrismith and I always hiked it with him.
His ashes are scattered in the Drakensburg as he requested.
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Peter H.M. Brooks
from PMB to the 'berg, so it would be at least 100 miles!
Last year, when we went for a week to Royal National Park, I spent most of a
day in Harrismith on the way back, waiting for them to repair our exhaust.
I can't say that it was that exciting, we visited all the museums (two of
them) which were about the Boer War, then went for a very ordinary lunch at
the 'Boer and Brit' - it seemed that the Boer war was the last interesting
thing to happen to Harrismith! When I was a schoolboy I hitched to Cape Town
to visit my brother and spent one night at Harrismith Police Station cells
and another at Colesburg Police Station cells - if you asked they put you up
and it was infinitely cheaper than any other form of accomodation - I
remember both experiences vividly for their bitter cold, the top of Mont aux
Sources was warmer....
Moira de Swardt
"Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
> Last year, when we went for a week to Royal National Park, I spent most of
a
> day in Harrismith on the way back, waiting for them to repair our exhaust.
> I can't say that it was that exciting, we visited all the museums (two of
> them) which were about the Boer War, then went for a very ordinary lunch
at
> the 'Boer and Brit' - it seemed that the Boer war was the last interesting
> thing to happen to Harrismith! When I was a schoolboy I hitched to Cape
Town
> to visit my brother and spent one night at Harrismith Police Station cells
> and another at Colesburg Police Station cells - if you asked they put you
up
> and it was infinitely cheaper than any other form of accomodation - I
> remember both experiences vividly for their bitter cold, the top of Mont
aux
> Sources was warmer....
One while I was there over Christmas and New Year two tourists died
somewhere on the Berg. Seems as if one cannot get tourists to understand
that cold is cold - even in Africa. But it was unusually chilly for summer.
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Peter H.M. Brooks
the mist and falling off a cliff, the winter is better as there is less
mist, though the grass isn't as green, it is still beautiful.
I've found it odd to learn that there's been snow in the mountains in the
Eastern Cape during the past ten days or so - we've been having hot sunny
weather with no wind (very unusual, particularly the last bit) so the air
pollution has got really bad. We are hoping that the rain forecast for the
rest of this week actually materialises - it is overcast today, well a bit,
which is promising.
--
Obscurantism in an academic subject expands to fill the vacuum of its
intrinsic simplicity. - Dawkins' Law of the Conservation of Difficulty,
stated in 'A Devil's Chaplain'
Moira de Swardt
> > One while I was there over Christmas and New Year two tourists died
> > somewhere on the Berg. Seems as if one cannot get tourists to understand
> > that cold is cold - even in Africa. But it was unusually chilly for
> summer.
> Still, that is unusual. In the summer the main problem is getting lost in
> the mist and falling off a cliff, the winter is better as there is less
> mist, though the grass isn't as green, it is still beautiful.
Being badly prepared, no food, no warm clothes, sunburned and lost up on the
mountains during a shower followed by a day or two of cold weather and one
can actually die up there quite easily, especially as they wouldn't have
planned to sleep up there so there'd be no sleeping bag and no fire making
stuff. I've been cold in my superdown sleeping bag in summer, and that's
when I've been well clothed and well fed.
> I've found it odd to learn that there's been snow in the mountains in the
> Eastern Cape during the past ten days or so - we've been having hot sunny
> weather with no wind (very unusual, particularly the last bit) so the air
> pollution has got really bad. We are hoping that the rain forecast for the
> rest of this week actually materialises - it is overcast today, well a
bit,
> which is promising.
It's been cold up here some days.
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Slow Eddy
>
> "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
>
>> up bloated. Bloat destroys the pleasure of the meal, and reinforces
>> people like me in their utilitarian attitude to food. (I've started
>> drooling over fillet, lean, with a crust of horse radish and bone marrow
>> in just sufficient quantity, and of superb quality).
>
> I have always experienced great delight in eating good food. However, I
> have shared on this forum, and elsewhere, my general disdain for those
> "eat as much as you like buffets" on the grounds that the food is never as
> good
> as a portion prepared to order. It's almost as if the over-abundance
> itself spoils the dish, yet even quite large portions of individually
> prepared food don't spoil the appetite.
>
My dad came from a Natal farming family. Gran had every meal ready exactly
on time, and there was always plenty of food. There was enough breakfast to
provide the fuel for a hard morning's work, followed by tea and biscuits to
top up, then back to the fields. The old people ate like horses, but then
they did a lot of physical work.
After the farming days ended, the eating continued unabated. Plates were
filled to the edge, and as high as it could be piled on; and everyone was
expected to eat every scrap of food on the plate. I can still remember my
Grandad scraping the last remains off his plate with his knife. When he was
finished the plate just about didn't need washing. (I think this might have
been to do with the poverty they endured during the Depression, but I think
they always had plenty of food on the farm. Nothing else, but at least
plenty of food).
I think a lot of us have essentially similar roots in this regard, so
perhaps that's where the expectation of the overflowing plate comes from?
--
Slow Eddy
Moira de Swardt
"Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> My dad came from a Natal farming family. Gran had every meal ready exactly
> on time, and there was always plenty of food. There was enough breakfast
to
> provide the fuel for a hard morning's work, followed by tea and biscuits
to
> top up, then back to the fields. The old people ate like horses, but then
> they did a lot of physical work.
> After the farming days ended, the eating continued unabated. Plates were
> filled to the edge, and as high as it could be piled on; and everyone was
> expected to eat every scrap of food on the plate. I can still remember my
> Grandad scraping the last remains off his plate with his knife. When he
was
> finished the plate just about didn't need washing. (I think this might
have
> been to do with the poverty they endured during the Depression, but I
think
> they always had plenty of food on the farm. Nothing else, but at least
> plenty of food).
> I think a lot of us have essentially similar roots in this regard, so
> perhaps that's where the expectation of the overflowing plate comes from?
Perhaps. I know that Mark complains that the portions I serve are too big.
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Slow Eddy
>
> "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> news:vltjdc....@verdun.local...
>> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
>> > news:t1hedc....@verdun.local...
>> >> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>> >>
>> >> How does manipulation form part of the good?
>> >>
>> > You make the same point later by saying how reality alters a vision.
>>
>> Sorry I'm having a bit of a stupidity attack over this one. Have looked
>> blindly and thus seen nothing. The "contamination of manipulation" I was
>> whingeing about is the way that bad people, greedy people, and especially
>> power-mad people tend to hitch a ride on good causes, and then hijack
>> these, and transform them in such a way as to make the cause serve them.
>> Perhaps we have crossed wires, then?
>>
> Yes, I think so! I was making the simple point that manipulation (not a
> word that I think has to have negative connotations) is necessary - your
> point that it is bad when manipulated in the way you describe certainly
> still stands.
OK, I think I got it. ... er ... No, not really. I still don't get what
kinds of manipulations you may be referring to. Perhaps a more specific
illustration would help. (Possibly I'm just fixated on the negative
connotations of the word).
I think knowing the danger of our tendency to seek out someone to blame for
just about any bad thing that happens, does help a little to correct
individual errors connected with this. Until the awareness is more
widespread (that's optimistic, eh?) the prognosis for mass blame-seeking
being moderated is not so good. I still think there's a prospect of it,
though. It's largely a matter of finding very simple ways of putting these
things. For one thing the statement must have the breath of only a single
attention-span. Not very wide at all.
--
Slow Eddy
Slow Eddy
>
> "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote:
>> I mean if people really valued ending starvation or birth control or
> cutting
>> edge art or and AIDS vaccine for all or good manners, these things would
> be
>> traded on the stock market, and individual instances would be at least as
>> "valuable" as diamonds.
>
> There have been attempts to test ideas by putting them on markets and
> letting people beton them. The New Scientist had an article on these ideas
> not so long ago.
>
As soon as anything has been traded for money, it gets a money value which
reflects to some extent its value to us, internally. Sell a book to a few
people, and more people are drawn by the buying behaviour of those first
few. I suppose the book trade is a trade in ideas.
But what about those things currently covered by charity? Where people feel
they're sacrificing something, rather than gaining something, when they put
money towards them. Is it possible to transform the donation enterprise
into one people send their money at without the kinds of conflicts that go
into the donation or the sponsorship?
>> >> The relativity of morals (or at least those parts of morality revealed
> in
>> >> the accurate numeric words of our economic behaviour) is something
> deeper
>> >> than a mere weighing of perceived values of the SPCA and a packet of
>> >> cigarettes, and comparing these. There's also a value shift with
>> >> circumstances to account for.
>>
>> > Value in this sense is indeed relative to circumstance, up to a point
>> > anyway, a special tool for opening Faberge eggs (I'm hypothesising the
>> > existence of such a thing) would be valueless to anybody not a posessor
> of
>> > such an egg.
>>
>> Even those things we keep because they'll come in handy one day arguably
>> spend most of their time being completely valueless. In fact, it's a
> known
>> fact that if you were to throw away that Faberge egg opener today,
> tomorrow
>> your neighbour who has an entire clutch of the these eggs under a hen
>> made of diamonds and rubies would be at your door asking to borrow the
>> egg opener, or offering to buy it at Faberge prices.
>
> Values are also relative to internal states. Cigarettes are valuale when
> you crave one, and afterwards you may go and buy a cure for smoking (i.e.
> cigarettes are not valuable anymore).
>
> Lance
I suppose that where they become realities instead of ideas or laws, values
*are* internal states. So are all our firm beliefs really volatile things
that change from moment to moment, depending more on something like hormone
balances than on "the good" or something like that?
How valuable is kindness? Or an act of kindness? Kindnesses are the kind of
thing we just give away for free as a rule. Would it be possible in a more
avidly kind world for people to buy and sell kindnesses? If that were so,
the world would be permanently kind, and people wouldn't hold back on their
kindly impulses.
--
Slow Eddy
Slow Eddy
Go from the KZN side, and there's a walk up a gorge in Royal Natal National
Park (named "The Gorge", I think) which leads right up to the base of the
escarpment wall. From its foot, a mountain is orders of magnitude more
imposing than it is from even just a few km away. And most of that gorge
walk is on a path you could take a wheelchair up. (I think that they
perhaps had this in mind when preparing that particular trail).
Last time I took whisky up a mountain, my fellow hikers took revenge for the
loss of sleep me and my drinking partner caused - first by rowdiness, and
then by loud snoring, and sleepwalking, forcing rescue missions to the
cliff edge - by sneaking stones into our packs. You tend to think it's just
the hangover that's making your pack feel so heavy...
--
Slow Eddy
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Peter
> >
> Go from the KZN side, and there's a walk up a gorge in Royal Natal
National
> Park (named "The Gorge", I think) which leads right up to the base of the
> escarpment wall. From its foot, a mountain is orders of magnitude more
> imposing than it is from even just a few km away. And most of that gorge
> walk is on a path you could take a wheelchair up. (I think that they
> perhaps had this in mind when preparing that particular trail).
>
The shorter walk to the Tiger Falls is also worth while.
>
> Last time I took whisky up a mountain, my fellow hikers took revenge for
the
> loss of sleep me and my drinking partner caused - first by rowdiness, and
> then by loud snoring, and sleepwalking, forcing rescue missions to the
> cliff edge - by sneaking stones into our packs. You tend to think it's
just
> the hangover that's making your pack feel so heavy...
>
--
What was adult life but one moment of weakness piled on top of another? Most
people ust fell in line like obedient children, doing exactly what society
expected of them at any given moment, all the while pretending that they'd
actually made some sort of choice - Tom Perrotta, 'Little Children', St.
Martin's Press
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
> > > Yes, I think so! I was making the simple point that manipulation (not
a
> > word that I think has to have negative connotations) is necessary - your
> > point that it is bad when manipulated in the way you describe certainly
> > still stands.
>
> OK, I think I got it. ... er ... No, not really. I still don't get what
> kinds of manipulations you may be referring to. Perhaps a more specific
> illustration would help. (Possibly I'm just fixated on the negative
> connotations of the word).
>
good one, can be delightful. Manipulation only means to manoever, to move,
to change to massage, to adjust, all of these can indeed be negative, but
can also be good.
>
> I think knowing the danger of our tendency to seek out someone to blame
for
> just about any bad thing that happens, does help a little to correct
> individual errors connected with this. Until the awareness is more
> widespread (that's optimistic, eh?) the prognosis for mass blame-seeking
> being moderated is not so good. I still think there's a prospect of it,
> though. It's largely a matter of finding very simple ways of putting these
> things. For one thing the statement must have the breath of only a single
> attention-span. Not very wide at all.
>
simple - it is a mark of having understood them so to do.
Slow Eddy
>
> "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
>
>> Grandad scraping the last remains off his plate with his knife. When he
> was
>> finished the plate just about didn't need washing. (I think this might
> have
>> been to do with the poverty they endured during the Depression, but I
> think
>> they always had plenty of food on the farm. Nothing else, but at least
>> plenty of food).
>
>> I think a lot of us have essentially similar roots in this regard, so
>> perhaps that's where the expectation of the overflowing plate comes from?
>
> Perhaps. I know that Mark complains that the portions I serve are too
> big.
>
You'll probably find he also had a granny who expected him to eat the mouldy
biscuits not to be wasted at afternoon teatime, and every scrap on an
overfull plate. From such things come lifelong aversions.
--
Slow Eddy
Moira de Swardt
did a fabulous job as Callas.
I loved the music but it reminded me that Callas, even at her best,
often had a shrill tone in her singing. I was trying to describe
the magic of Callas to Mark. He came up with "presence". I denied
it in terms of the fact that I have never, of course, seen Callas or
Sutherland or Tebaldi, but perhaps he is correct in a way.
Sutherland certainly made the most beautiful sound of all the greats
of the fifties and sixties (and she still makes beautiful sounds, I
should imagine). However, Callas had a charisma which is in the
voice and which still excites and stirs. Not as beautiful as the
others, but vibrant, even sexy in a raw, but not unrefined way.
I can hear why so many people don't like Callas, but I can also feel
why so many people regard her as the greatest opera singer of the
20th century. Perhaps the phrase "terribly beautiful" makes sense.
I remember listening to the radio as a small child and hearing
Callas sing, and my father telling me that Callas was the best opera
singer in the world. Perhaps it is that comment which has always
coloured my view of her. I much admired my father and his opinions.
If he believed she was the best opera singer in the world who am I
to argue?
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Moira de Swardt" <moira.d...@wol.co.za> wrote in message
news:k9Odnd0xJr3...@is.co.za...
> Back on subject, I saw the movie last night. I thought Fanny Ardant
> did a fabulous job as Callas.
>
> I loved the music but it reminded me that Callas, even at her best,
> often had a shrill tone in her singing. I was trying to describe
> the magic of Callas to Mark. He came up with "presence". I denied
> it in terms of the fact that I have never, of course, seen Callas or
> Sutherland or Tebaldi, but perhaps he is correct in a way.
> Sutherland certainly made the most beautiful sound of all the greats
> of the fifties and sixties (and she still makes beautiful sounds, I
> should imagine). However, Callas had a charisma which is in the
> voice and which still excites and stirs. Not as beautiful as the
> others, but vibrant, even sexy in a raw, but not unrefined way.
>
sensous tone - otherwise, as you say, her voice might border on the harsh in
the higher register.
>
> I can hear why so many people don't like Callas, but I can also feel
> why so many people regard her as the greatest opera singer of the
> 20th century. Perhaps the phrase "terribly beautiful" makes sense.
>
today.
>
> I remember listening to the radio as a small child and hearing
> Callas sing, and my father telling me that Callas was the best opera
> singer in the world. Perhaps it is that comment which has always
> coloured my view of her. I much admired my father and his opinions.
> If he believed she was the best opera singer in the world who am I
> to argue?
>
made. I was enjoying listening to Caruso on the radio this afternoon, also
an interesting voice.
--
The great majority of investors aren't stupid, their error is to believe
that those 'in the know' in finance have more information than they do,
which is true, but that this makes them savvier, which is a joke. - Bedlam
July newsletter
Slow Eddy
>
> "Slow Eddy" <notmyrea...@sillyboy.co.ru> wrote in message
> news:8r4pdc....@verdun.local...
>> Peter
>> >
>> Go from the KZN side, and there's a walk up a gorge in Royal Natal
> National
>> Park (named "The Gorge", I think) which leads right up to the base of the
>> escarpment wall. From its foot, a mountain is orders of magnitude more
>> imposing than it is from even just a few km away. And most of that gorge
>> walk is on a path you could take a wheelchair up. (I think that they
>> perhaps had this in mind when preparing that particular trail).
>>
> It is probably my favourite walk anywhere - beauty and grandeur all the
> way. The shorter walk to the Tiger Falls is also worth while.
>>
One thing, though. I wouldn't like to be in that gorge during a flash flood.
There's no escape, and I would guess that the water comes at quite a pace
when it does come. Spent a night sleeping in a cave once, only to hear from
other hikers that earlier that same year some other hikers had slept there
and been drowned in a flash flood that filled the cave. It was quite close
to the stream bed, but not that close. Drakensberg storms must put out a
lot of water.
Best thing is finding Bushman paintings. The fundis who know about these
things keep all the sites secret, so it takes a lot of luck. I remember
stopping at a roadside in Lesotho once to go for a pee on a rockslide, and
something made me inspect the underside of the fallen rock I'd been
standing on. There, in what had become a snake hole, was a painting of an
eland. Felt like something ought to be done to recover and protect it.
--
Slow Eddy
Moira de Swardt
> > I loved the music but it reminded me that Callas, even at her
best,
> > often had a shrill tone in her singing. I was trying to
describe
> > the magic of Callas to Mark. He came up with "presence". I
denied
> > it in terms of the fact that I have never, of course, seen
Callas or
> > Sutherland or Tebaldi, but perhaps he is correct in a way.
> > Sutherland certainly made the most beautiful sound of all the
greats
> > of the fifties and sixties (and she still makes beautiful
sounds, I
> > should imagine). However, Callas had a charisma which is in the
> > voice and which still excites and stirs. Not as beautiful as
the
> > others, but vibrant, even sexy in a raw, but not unrefined way.
> I think that there is an element of controlled vibrato that adds a
warm
> sensous tone - otherwise, as you say, her voice might border on
the harsh in
> the higher register.
I'm not a fundi when it comes to voices. I have heard, though, that
Callas was probably a mezzo-soprano who "forced" her voice into the
higher register, so both damaging it and never sounding "perfect" in
that register. I'm not sure how that would work, though. I'm an
alto and I just simply can't reach beyond my register - only thin
cracked sounds come out when I try the mezzo and soprano upper
ranges. I'm not talking about moving into a falsetto, which women
can do as well (or badly) as men can.
> > I can hear why so many people don't like Callas, but I can also
feel
> > why so many people regard her as the greatest opera singer of
the
> > 20th century. Perhaps the phrase "terribly beautiful" makes
sense.
> I'm sure she was utter hell to work with - much as it seems
Madonna is
> today.
The film created that picture.
> > I remember listening to the radio as a small child and hearing
> > Callas sing, and my father telling me that Callas was the best
opera
> > singer in the world. Perhaps it is that comment which has
always
> > coloured my view of her. I much admired my father and his
opinions.
> > If he believed she was the best opera singer in the world who am
I
> > to argue?
> He was probably right if qualified by singers of whom recordings
have been
> made. I was enjoying listening to Caruso on the radio this
afternoon, also
> an interesting voice.
I have heard recordings of Caruso, but the recording quality is
always so poor. The digitally remastered series has made some that
are tolerable. It must have been very exciting to hear him live.
It would have been fabulous to hear him as he would have been
recorded today. They even manage to make very ordinary voices sound
fabulous today. Modern technology is wonderful. I have a shrill
tone to my spoken voice, particularly if I'm nervous or stressed. I
simply wander over to the sound people and explain my problem, ask
them to give me a deep sexy voice and voila! - I have a deep (well,
maybe not deep, but certainly richer than my nervous squawk) sexy
voice when I speak in public. :-)
Moira, the Faerie Godmother
Peter H.M. Brooks
>
>>
> I'm not a fundi when it comes to voices. I have heard, though, that
> Callas was probably a mezzo-soprano who "forced" her voice into the
> higher register, so both damaging it and never sounding "perfect" in
> that register. I'm not sure how that would work, though. I'm an
> alto and I just simply can't reach beyond my register - only thin
> cracked sounds come out when I try the mezzo and soprano upper
> ranges. I'm not talking about moving into a falsetto, which women
> can do as well (or badly) as men can.
>
what affected her voice.
>
> > > I can hear why so many people don't like Callas, but I can also
> feel
> > > why so many people regard her as the greatest opera singer of
> the
> > > 20th century. Perhaps the phrase "terribly beautiful" makes
> sense.
>
> > I'm sure she was utter hell to work with - much as it seems
> Madonna is
> > today.
>
> The film created that picture.
>
voices when talking powerfully in public...
--
'Happiness lies in conquering one's enemies, driving them in front of
oneself, in taking their property, in savouring their despair, in outraging
their wives and daughters.' - Genghis Khan