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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 16 of 16. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by alexandra_k on February 4, 2005, at 3:16:44
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someon else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not speciallly want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.In Brueghel's *Icarus,*(2) for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.W. H. Auden December 1938.
(1) "Museum of Fine Arts" The reference is to the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, which contains Brueghel's *Icarus*.
(2) Icarus was the son of Daedalus, the cunning craftsman of ancient legend. Together they flew on artificial wings fastened to their shoulders with wax, but Icarus ventured too near the sun, which melted the wax, and he fell and perished. The painting of the fall of Icarus is by the Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel (ca. 1520-1569): Icarus' legs are disappearing into the sea in one corner of the picture, the rest of which has nothing to do with him.Taken (including footnotes) from "The Norton Anthology of English Literature" (6th Ed. Vol. 2) p. 2266.
- No Amazon link to that ed and vol.
Posted by Susan47 on February 5, 2005, at 23:08:41
In reply to Musee des Beaux Arts(1), posted by alexandra_k on February 4, 2005, at 3:16:44
Alexandra,
there's so much beauty and you appreciate it so well. You're totally amazing, giving some of us an education when we need it .. by "us" I mean me, of course.
Posted by alexandra_k on February 6, 2005, at 0:55:26
In reply to Re: Musee des Beaux Arts(1) » alexandra_k, posted by Susan47 on February 5, 2005, at 23:08:41
Ah Susan, when it comes to poetry I will always be a thief. Don't have the gift for that myself. You, and others here do, on the other hand, and that is something that gives me much pleasure even though I find it hard to know what to say sometimes...
Unless, of course I'm boring y'all with logic and stuff...
Though Smokey tolerates me pretty well :-)
I am lucky there :-)
Posted by Susan47 on February 6, 2005, at 18:37:29
In reply to Re: Musee des Beaux Arts » Susan47, posted by alexandra_k on February 6, 2005, at 0:55:26
I don't do poetry. Don't know the least little thing about it, I'm ashamed to say. But I enjoy writing straight from my heart, flawed though it be. That, like insanity, is transporting. It lifts me from my depression.
Posted by alexandra_k on February 6, 2005, at 19:05:20
In reply to Re: Musee des Beaux Arts » alexandra_k, posted by Susan47 on February 6, 2005, at 18:37:29
> I don't do poetry. Don't know the least little thing about it, I'm ashamed to say. But I enjoy writing straight from my heart, flawed though it be. That, like insanity, is transporting. It lifts me from my depression.
Ah, but it is poetry Susan.
Beautiful poetry :-)
Posted by zeugma on February 7, 2005, at 14:24:11
In reply to Re: Musee des Beaux Arts » Susan47, posted by alexandra_k on February 6, 2005, at 19:05:20
But in the evening the oppression lifted;
The peaks drifted into focus; it had rained;
Across the lawns and cultured flowers drifted
The conversation of the highly trained.The gardeners watched them pass and priced their shoes;
A chaffeur waited, reading in the drive,
For them to finish their exchange of views;
It seemed a picture of the private life.Far off, no matter what good they intended,
The armies waited for a verbal error
With all the instruments for causing pain:And on the issue of their charm depended
A land laid waste, with all its young men slain,
The women weeping, and the towns in terror."In Time of war," sonnet XIX.
Auden, so ominious and true.
-z
Posted by alexandra_k on February 7, 2005, at 14:28:48
In reply to Auden, posted by zeugma on February 7, 2005, at 14:24:11
Thats great :-)
I hadn't heard that one.
Posted by zeugma on February 7, 2005, at 15:02:23
In reply to Re: Yay, it's Zeugma!, posted by alexandra_k on February 7, 2005, at 14:28:48
A pot of coffee and alexandra k
are two things that never fail me
if I am obsessing over functionalism
I can contemplate her postings, and if I trip over my Auden in the morning
I can quote him in the afternoon
I will make another pot of coffee
and stay awake long enough to say helloo again
to alexandra k.
-z
Posted by Susan47 on February 7, 2005, at 15:15:37
In reply to Auden, posted by zeugma on February 7, 2005, at 14:24:11
Dark and beautiful, and too short .. keep going ....
Posted by alexandra_k on February 7, 2005, at 15:56:29
In reply to ((alexandra k)), posted by zeugma on February 7, 2005, at 15:02:23
I love functionalism!
I used to say I was an instrumentalist (of the Dennetian variety) - but I took what I found plausible and ignored the rest. And peoples told me that what I had derived was functionalism! So there it is...
Peoples don't look at me so strangely now that I have stopped proclaiming I am an instrumentalist...
But I think functionalism is more popular in Australasia (courtesy of Frank Jackson) than in other parts of the world....?
Fodor, (for example) doesn't like it... He prefers his innate language of thought (mentalese) which doesn't allow for indeterminacy of intentional state. :-(
:-(
Posted by zeugma on February 7, 2005, at 16:40:56
In reply to Re: Auden, posted by Susan47 on February 7, 2005, at 15:15:37
Ah, Auden...he is so much better than his editors, who don't generally share his poetic conscience (read: reverence for truth) and like a snappy line better than a "true" one. Well, I'm oversimplifying... but I'll take an example. "Setempber 1, 1939" is one of his most famous poems, containing the famous line "We must love one another, or die." Sometime later, he realized that we would die anyway, and changed it to the far less resonant "We must love one another, and die." This is sad stuff :-( So he ditched the poem altogether, and it was this cleaned-up Auden that I first encountered in a hardcover edition in my parents' collection. The sonnet I quoted was included under the title "Embassy." His dark, beautiful vision comes through more clearly, I think, for his restless dissatisfaction with his most famous poems. That edition has as epigraph
In a hard land, where eggs are dear,
And climbing to harder by a stonier
Track- we hear it: the right song
For the wrong time of year.I'd like to know where these lines come from- i assume they're by auden himself, though not from any poem included in that edition.
I feel like right now is the wrong time of year for anything, indeed.
-z
Posted by zeugma on February 7, 2005, at 16:47:12
In reply to Re: ((zeugma)), posted by alexandra_k on February 7, 2005, at 15:56:29
Almost anything is preferable, in my book, to fodor's methodological solipsism.
jackson is the one who likes qualia, isn't he? I have to say: Ask me about qualia when I'm on a lot of Ritalin. Otherwise I don't notice them.-z
Posted by alexandra_k on February 7, 2005, at 17:48:37
In reply to Re: ((zeugma)) » alexandra_k, posted by zeugma on February 7, 2005, at 16:47:12
> jackson is the one who likes qualia, isn't he? I have to say: Ask me about qualia when I'm on a lot of Ritalin. Otherwise I don't notice them.
heh heh.
Jackson doesn't like qualia, he doesn't like them at all any more.
Everyone remembers him for 'black and white mary' and they think he is a qualia freak (aka dualist). The argument has been appropriated by dualists as one of their better arguments. But he isn't a dualist! But people think he must be! He loathes and detests it when people go up to him and say 'I loved your black and white mary argument'. You can see him grit and gnash his teeth. I learned this the hard way. He most sincerely regrets having written that and he has been trying to trash the darned thing ever since.
I'll tell him to stay away from ritalin...
;-)
Posted by Susan47 on February 7, 2005, at 19:37:24
In reply to the right song » Susan47, posted by zeugma on February 7, 2005, at 16:40:56
"This is sad stuff :-( "
Okay, now I'm in love with you.
"...the right song
For the wrong time of year."I'm a poetry ignoramus but really those lines, when I read those words, my heart leapt. It was exciting. Hmh.
Posted by alexandra_k on February 8, 2005, at 0:39:56
In reply to Re: the right song » zeugma, posted by Susan47 on February 7, 2005, at 19:37:24
You will fall in love again
:-)
:-)
:-)
Posted by zeugma on February 8, 2005, at 18:27:41
In reply to Re: see Susan » Susan47, posted by alexandra_k on February 8, 2005, at 0:39:56
yes, you will most assuredly fall in love again Susan. I myself would love to fall in love again. As for those lines
"the right song
For the wrong time of year",they elicit pure magic for me.
-z
This is the end of the thread.
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