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cincinnatus_c
Currently at Toronto Pearson: 6. Interesting temperature stuff going on over the last 36 hours across southern and central Ontario. We're into one of the fighting seasons now. Here's Waterloo airport's hourly temperatures from 6 p.m. to midnight last night: -5, -7, -8, -10, -9, -11, -9. Here's Bancroft from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.: -11, -15, -13, -12, -13, -14, -15, -12. In London, there was none of the zig-zagging, but they went up five degrees between 10 and 11 p.m. No zig-zagging in Toronto, either, but it's four degrees warmer than both EC and the Weather Network were calling.
I just happened completely accidentally across Elizabeth Bishop's "Suicide of a Moderate Dictator" a couple of days ago. Apt enough, I guess.
I think I might like Schubert now, I don't know. I wonder what I would have felt about this, and when, if ever, I would've arrived at it, if not for this. And now I've just discovered that that Schubert piano trio movement is in the soundtrack of the one Kubrick film I've never seen. (I'd love to see a catalogue of Kubrick's music collection.) I wonder how differently I would've heard Tielli's "The House with the Laughing Windows" if I'd seen Barry Lyndon first....
A couple of days ago I was thinking I might make you a poll. Yes, a poll. (No, not really.) But I don't remember what about. Here is a poll: what was I going to make you a poll about? Ticky-ticky, probably.
The whole Egypt business makes me think of the idea I picked up from the Republic that sovereignty always lies in the thumotic class (even if, in liberal democracies, it takes something like a G20 to see it). What it makes me think about more than that idea is the temptation to "apply" ideas like that, and what the difference is between applying an idea and using an idea to see phenomena that you might otherwise miss. (Well, you just have to pay as much attention to the phenomena as you can, and avoid inference as much as you can....) It also makes me think how the idea is too simple (in ways that the Republic acknowledges): the mass of "ordinary" people can become thumotic, a mass of chanting people is well on its way to becoming thumotic--would they storm the palace? It never seemed that they would--the amazing thing about the whole business was that the protestors and Mubarak seemed, in a crude sense, to want to reason with each other; neither seemed about to resort decisively to force at any point--but you never know. And the generals: why did they ultimately make Mubarak go? Because the protests were damaging the economy? Well, but ... it's their moment now, indefinitely; they can rule, and they can be honoured for giving the people what the people want ... whatever that is.
I just happened completely accidentally across Elizabeth Bishop's "Suicide of a Moderate Dictator" a couple of days ago. Apt enough, I guess.
I think I might like Schubert now, I don't know. I wonder what I would have felt about this, and when, if ever, I would've arrived at it, if not for this. And now I've just discovered that that Schubert piano trio movement is in the soundtrack of the one Kubrick film I've never seen. (I'd love to see a catalogue of Kubrick's music collection.) I wonder how differently I would've heard Tielli's "The House with the Laughing Windows" if I'd seen Barry Lyndon first....
A couple of days ago I was thinking I might make you a poll. Yes, a poll. (No, not really.) But I don't remember what about. Here is a poll: what was I going to make you a poll about? Ticky-ticky, probably.
The whole Egypt business makes me think of the idea I picked up from the Republic that sovereignty always lies in the thumotic class (even if, in liberal democracies, it takes something like a G20 to see it). What it makes me think about more than that idea is the temptation to "apply" ideas like that, and what the difference is between applying an idea and using an idea to see phenomena that you might otherwise miss. (Well, you just have to pay as much attention to the phenomena as you can, and avoid inference as much as you can....) It also makes me think how the idea is too simple (in ways that the Republic acknowledges): the mass of "ordinary" people can become thumotic, a mass of chanting people is well on its way to becoming thumotic--would they storm the palace? It never seemed that they would--the amazing thing about the whole business was that the protestors and Mubarak seemed, in a crude sense, to want to reason with each other; neither seemed about to resort decisively to force at any point--but you never know. And the generals: why did they ultimately make Mubarak go? Because the protests were damaging the economy? Well, but ... it's their moment now, indefinitely; they can rule, and they can be honoured for giving the people what the people want ... whatever that is.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-15 05:11 am (UTC)a poll about: how shocked am I that you didn't love that Schubert piano trio since always, since before birth, and also that you haven't seen Barry Lyndon, the greatest film ever with the greatest soundtrack ever (am I reading that correctly, have you really never? I have a heavy sense of deja vu suggesting that I have been shocked about this before. Although I don't remember making remarks about it, I am sure that if I was, I did, and they were probably exactly like these.) On a scale of one to ten.
A. one
B. ten
C. a billion
(I pick C)
Ticky-ticky
Date: 2011-02-16 06:49 am (UTC)I actually never particularly cared about any chamber music until a year ago when I happened across this Dvorak piano quintet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG2BbRV5438&) amongst a barrage of Naxos historical CDs I ordered.
I have no specific recollection of your having ever said anything about Barry Lyndon to me, but I did have a vague feeling that Barry Lyndon had something to do with you. ;)
Mostly I've never watched it out of fear of disappointment. (But, I don't know, if I hadn't seen Eyes Wide Shut when it came out, I might still be avoiding it for fear of disappointment, too.) It's actually sitting a couple of feet away from me right now....