06.29.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:59 am by Miracle ♪♫
It has been a year or so since I was ushered into this
superb sphere called blogging. Within that span of time, I have been led to the depths of many minds, and in turn some have been patient enough to delve into my own abyss.
A myriad of friends have surprised me with their diligence, intellect, abstractions, vocabulary, and amusing material. Unfortunately, on the other limb, some have startled me for contrapositive reasons, shallowness and plagiarism being the main causes.
In my perspective, the most successful blogs are those whose words come from the very core of the author’s heart and soul, the same words that are the plasma that stream through their veins… and their blogs being the gushing open wounds that become the outlet for such. If everyone wrote that way, there would be no more imitations, no literary theft, no more clichés*, no shallowness, nobody to try to impress, no writer’s block. There would only be passion, a heart, a brain, guts, literary DNA – allow me to deem that there is such, and there would only be your own rare blood and blog, coexisting with millions of other unique living bloggers in the bloggalaxy.
Redundant it may sound, but I have to say that through blogging I have learned much. Through blogging, I have witnessed manifold breeds of writing, mentalities, priorities, emotional states, and even oddities, and through blogging I have beheld humanity’s literary anatomy.
May we all continue to bleed and live.
May we endure writing. Hail Blogger!
*No More Cliches
is a phrase not plagiarized, but embraced.
From incredible writers Octavio Paz and Franz.
Permalink
Posted in Musicalia Miscellanea at 3:58 am by Miracle ♪♫
Tori Amos speaks about the piano the way i want to.
“I’ve been a musician before I was a human.”
“Since I was a little girl, I’ve been a
musician first. I wasn’t just an
extension of the piano; I was the piano.
That’s how people looked at me.”
“You see, I’m not music theory smart. To
me, it’s an internal, instinctive thing.”
“I’ve never felt anything that moves me
as much as my piano. I’m an emotional
player. I prefer my piano to people.
It’s totally reliable and it’s alive. I
can hear what it’s saying.”
“It’s a passionate instrument…a
sensual instrument…and um, you can
hide men in it…”
(Hahaha… Dandi’s gonna start checkin
our pianos everyday from now on.)
“I don’t play the piano, the piano plays
me.”
“The reason I love to play Bosendorfers
is because I think their whole
manufacturing process is trying to keep
them as unmechanical, as unfactorized as
possible, so that the soul of everybody
who touches one or works with it is in
there.”
(Waaaahhhh!!! She’s got a Bose!!!)
“A piano is alive because of all the
feeling the men working on it put into it.”
“Pianos are like people; every piano has
a completely different personality.”
“I felt so intertwined with it that I
had no identity except the girl at the
piano”
“I wanted to have a marriage with the
instruments in a way that I never really
have.”
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06.26.07
Posted in Musicalia Miscellanea at 2:23 am by Miracle ♪♫
I love coffee.
So did Johann Sebastian Bach and other Lutherans in his time. In fact, Bach once wrote a cantata about coffee! Not many people are aware of this, but due to my devotion to “The Bean”, I chanced upon this on one of my caffeine web sprees.
Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Kaffee Kantate)
or “Be quiet, do not chat” (Coffee Cantata) BWV 211.
According to a Mr. John L. Hoh, Jr., to understand the cantata, one must understand the times in which Johann lived and what he must have felt in a coffee-hating society as a lover of the aromatic bean juice.
In Germany, coffee was not accepted in the home until the second half of the 18th century. This was due to a mixture of factors: a long standing fondness for local beer, a general distrust of things considered “un-German,” as well as
ongoing prohibition, taxes & libel specifically directed against coffee.
This trend was reflected in Bach’s Coffee Cantata of 1732, a satirical
operetta which provides a musical insight into some of the prevailing
attitudes. It tells of the efforts of a stern father to check his daughter’s
propensity for coffee-drinking by threatening to make her choose between a
husband and coffee. Unperturbed, the daughter sings an aria which begins,
“Ah, how Sweet coffee tastes - lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter
far than muscatel.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give thee Bach’s amusing Coffee Cantata with the libretto text written by Christian Friedrich Henrici.
(Recitative) Narrator
Be quiet, stop chattering, and pay attention to what’s taking place: here comes Herr Schlendrian with his daughter Lieschen; he’s growling like a honey bear. Hear for yourselves, what she has done to him!
(Aria) Schlendrian
Don’t one’s children cause one endless trials & tribulations! What I say each day to my daughter Lieschen falls on stony ground.
(Recitative) Schlendrian
You wicked child, you disobedient girl, oh! When will I get my way? Give up coffee!
Lieschen
Father, don’t be so severe! If I can’t drink my bowl of coffee three times daily, then in my torment I will shrivel up like a piece of roast goat.
(Aria) Lieschen
Mm! how sweet the coffee tastes, more delicious than a thousand kisses, mellower than muscatel wine. Coffee, coffee I must have, and if someone wishes to give me a treat, ah, then pour me out some coffee!
(Recitative) Schlendrian
If you don’t give up drinking coffee then you shan’t go to any wedding feast, nor go out walking. Oh! when will I get my way? Give up coffee!
Lieschen
Oh well! Just leave me my coffee!
Schlendrian
Now I’ve got the little minx! I won’t get you a whalebone skirt in the latest fashion.
Lieschen
I can easily live with that.
Schlendrian
You’re not to stand at the window and watch people pass by!
Lieschen
That as well, only I beg of you, leave me my coffee!
Schlendrian
Furthermore, you shan’t be getting any silver or gold ribbon for your bonnet from me!
Lieschen
Yes, yes! only leave me to my pleasure!
Schlendrian
You disobedient Lieschen you, so you go along with it all!
(Aria) Schlendrian
Hard-hearted girls are not so easily won over. Yet if one finds their weak spot, ah! then one comes away successful.
(Recitative) Schlendrian
Now take heed what your father says!
Lieschen
In everything but the coffee.
Schlendrian
Well then, you’ll have to resign
yourself to never taking a husband.
Lieschen
Oh yes! Father, a husband!
Schlendrian
I swear it won’t happen.
Lieschen
Until I can forgo coffee? From now on, coffee, remain forever untouched! Father, listen, I won’t drink any.
Schlendrian
Then you shall have a husband at last!
(Aria) Lieschen
Today even dear father, see to it! Oh, a husband! Really, that suits me splendidly! If it could only happen soon that at last, before I go to bed, instead of coffee I were to get a proper lover!
(Recitative) Narrator
Old Schlendrian goes off to see if he can find a husband forthwith for his daughter Lieschen; but Lieschen secretly lets it be known: no suitor is to come to my house unless he promises me, and it is also written into the marriage contract, that I will be permitted to make myself coffee whenever I want.
Trio
A cat won’t stop from catching mice, and maidens remain faithful to their coffee. The mother holds her coffee dear. The grandmother drank it also. Who can thus rebuke the daughters?
Permalink
06.24.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:35 pm by Miracle ♪♫
"Not a Day Without a Line"
Starting today, June 25, 2007 The Daily Pliny
will be an attempt to discipline my writing
habits the Older Pliny way.
As you may have surmised, the title is
a nutty variant of The Daily Planet.
Until I reach another inevitable writing fermata,
I shall do my best to update this post everyday.
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June 25, 2007
Monday, Monday
Although Sunday is the decreed alpha of a week, Mondays have
always been a week’s commencement for me – just like the preponderance of the
earth’s population. The thing that might
however set me apart from the same majority is the fact that I like
Mondays.
Monday means another start of my daily regimen, and regardless
of the actuality that some people cannot find anything exciting about that, I still
look forward to it weekly. As much as I
delight in closures, resolutions, and satisfying endings, I equally hanker for
beginnings… and I have to say that Today began satisfactorily with Rachmaninov’s
Variations on a theme of Paganini.
My schedule was in disarray last week, but for a respectable
reason. We had visiting artist/photographers
from Manila and the reading and practicing schedules were superseded for augmented
hours at the espresso machine, ginataang crabs almost every night (Yipee! I’m
reminded of Jeremiah), eating out (which was also a good thing since it saved
me from an ample amount of dish washing), and simply observing and listening to
these lovely people. Last week turned
out to be another example of an oxymoron; it was a hectic vacation. To top it
off, if I am allowed to consider yesterday part of last week, our family took a trip to Ozamis along with Lester and Haidee. Like impulsive kids with ADHD, we left at thirty minutes past four in
the afternoon – which is normally regarded too late for a three-hour
drive. Yet, off we went and ended up
having a delectable dinner at Dewberry Coffee and arrived home at nearly twelve
midnight. We went to Ozamis just to eat, and we’ve done that twice already, the first time with Achi Joy’s family - how wacky is that?
Today is Monday, June 25, 2007 and the clock in the nearby
church is striking twelve noon. I still
have half a day to go… who knows what today may bring? All I know is that it
started just pleasantly, and I am happy.
—
June 25, 2007 Continued
My heart got introduced to a witty heart for the first time.
The skies are impartial today, rightly apportioning sunshine in the morning and gentle showers in the afternoon.
Mama’s freshly-baked wheat bread with my espresso for post meridian break… hmm…
I love my life.
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June 26, 2007
I Can’t See You
Dreamland seemed amply lifelike last night - much too
realistic, in fact.
I am one prone to dreams both diurnal and nocturnal, and
usually in my waking moments, am aware of what subconsciously motivated each
specific mental image. Last night was
different. The colors, sensations,
dialogue, and emotions, can still be remembered succinctly, but I am continued
to be baffled by its antecedent and the dream itself.
I was married to a young university professor. Not a music professor as anyone might have conjectured.
He was a very intelligent man whose face my dream successfully concealed.
They were warm, his hands. I remember holding them. My own
seemed like a child’s in his large hands. I loved him with all my heart. I
was dedicated in caring for him, and my heart went out to him…he was blind.
The unseen narrator of the dream abstractly explained that
the young professor and I had been married very recently, but he was involved
in an accident a few weeks after our wedding and tragically never regained
his sight.
He was nearly forced to surrender his professorship, but I knew
by heart how much he loved teaching that I proposed to become his assistant and
aid him, and wholeheartedly “become his eyes.”
In an empty classroom just before the dream ended, birds
were chirping outside the window. It was
the magic hour. It was the
gloaming.
The sky cast an ethereal hue.
He covered his face with his hands.
“I can’t see you,” he sobbed.
I whispered, “You see me more than anyone else does.”
Then I woke up…and spent nearly an hour staring at the
ceiling.
Dear me, what was that all about?
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June 27, 2007
Climbing a Portion of Parnassus
…and so my day began.
We had Popped Gradus ad Parnassum for breakfast, courtesy of my friend
David. (Fortunate are you who understand.) Gramercy to David, for because of him I was led to finally scrutinize what Gradus ad Parnassum meant. I admit how pathetic it must seem to have
said that phrase oftentimes, and play Debussy’s composition repeatedly
without even having an inkling of what it connotes. (Oh great teachers of music, latin, and
literature, I deserve an F.)
Well, permit me a cliché this time – better late than
never. This is what I learned;
Gradus ad Parnassum literally means “Steps to Parnassus,” and
since Mount Parnassus happened to be the home of the
nine goddesses of the arts in Greek mythology, the phrase has been adopted to
associate or indicate books of instruction, or guides to making progress in arts
including literature, and music. In
addition to that, ever accessible Wiki presents us with a brief presentation of
how the phrase has been used in history.
Gradus ad Parnassum is the name of a seminal textbook on counterpoint
written by Johann Joseph Fux in 1725, but used well into the 20th century for
instruction in musical theory and composition. Leopold Mozart is said to have
taught his son Wolfgang from its pages. Bach and Beethoven both held it in great esteem, and Haydn meticulously
worked out each of its exercises.
Gradus ad Parnassum is also a collection of instructional piano
pieces by Muzio Clementi.
Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum is a satirical piano composition by Claude
Debussy, from his suite Children’s Corner,
poking fun at Muzio Clementi’s collection.
Yes sir, Dibid Tsin! This is what I
grasped this morning other than the realization that you are one brilliant
composer.
———————————————————————-
June 28, 2007
Inhale, Exhale
The internet connection ebbed away for hours today.
*Chants*
I should not grumble.
I should not be dependent on the internet.
I should not be enslaved to Friendster, Multiply, or YM.
*Inhale, Exhale*
I just had a lesson with Mariel.
Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata…
and after the last note,
that last sigh,
that last zephyr after the tempest,
I am content.
I adulate Beethoven…
I hold my students dear…
I thank God for this life.
Yes… of course, there’s much, much more to life than just the internet!
Note: This portion is an indirect message for Mae to ease her despair
for the meantime of not having internet connection at home.
*teasing
grin*
———————————————————————-
June 29, 2007
Hail to the Blogger: To Us Who Bleed
Click Here to Read
———————————————————————-
June 30, 2007
Consenting Tonsils
My tonsils cooperated very well with my students
today. The tonsils somehow foreknew that the kids were not able to
practice the past week thus inflaming themselves today so that I could maintain
a sweet voice despite my students’ “malpractice”. I should still accept
it as a blessing – I’m positive my students did! Hu hu hu… It sure hurts.
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Permalink
06.18.07
Posted in Jest for Pun at 1:28 am by Miracle ♪♫
Permalink
Posted in Jest for Pun at 1:23 am by Miracle ♪♫
Now… most of us know what a “Platonic” kiss is. But have you heard of an Aristotelian, Hegelian, Wittgensteinian, or Godelian kiss?
Aristotelian kiss:
Kiss performed using techniques gained solely from theoretical speculation untainted by any
experiential data by one who feels that the latter is irrelevant anyway.
Hegelian kiss:
Dialiptical technique in which the kiss incorporates its own antithikiss, forming a
synthekiss.
Wittgensteinian kiss:
The important thing about this type of kiss is that it refers only to the symbol (our internal
mental representation we associate with the experience of the kiss–which must necessarilly
also be differentiated from the act itself for obvious reasons and which need not be by any means the same or even similar for the different people experiencing the act) rather than the act itself and, as such, one must be careful not to make unwarranted generalizations about the act itself or the experience thereof based merely on our manipulation of the symbology therefore.
Godelian kiss:
A kiss that takes an extraordinarilly long time, yet leaves you unable to decide whether you’ve
been kissed or not.
(This is by no means an exhaustive list–here are
some more of the classic kisses.)
Socratic kiss:
Really a Platonic kiss, but it’s claimed to be the Socratic technique so it’ll sound more
authoritative; however, compared to most strictly Platonic kisses, Socratic kisses wander around a lot more and cover more ground.
Kantian kiss:
A kiss that, eschewing inferior “phenomenal” contact, is performed entirely on the superior
“noumenal” plane; though you don’t actually feel it at all, you are, nonetheless, free to declare
it the best kiss you’ve ever given or received.
Kafkaesque kiss:
A kiss that starts out feeling like it’s about to transform you but ends up just bugging you. (This one’s good.heeü)
Sartrean kiss:
A kiss that you worry yourself to death about even though it really doesn’t matter anyway.
Hertzsprung-Russellian kiss
Oh, Be A Fine Girl/Guy, Kiss Me.
Pythagorean kiss:
A kiss given by someone who has developed some new and wonderful techniques but refuses to use them on anyone for fear that others would find out about them and copy them.
Cartesian kiss:
A particularly well-planned and coordinated movement: “I think, therefore, I aim.” In general,
a kiss does not count as Cartesian unless it is applied with enough force to remove all doubt that one has been kissed. (cf. Polar kiss, a more well-rounded movement involving greater
nose-to-nose contact, but colder overall.)
Nietzscheian kiss:
“she/he who does not kiss you, makes your lust stronger.”
Epimenidian kiss:
A kiss given by someone who does not kiss.
Grouchoic kiss:
A kiss given by someone who will only kiss those who would not kiss him or her.
Harpoic kiss:
Shut up and kiss me.
Zenoian kiss:
Your lips approach, closer and closer, but never actually touch.
Don’t ask me about the Procrustean and
Russell-Whiteheadian kiss…
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Permalink
Posted in Jest for Pun at 1:21 am by Miracle ♪♫
Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
Plato: For the greater good.
Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.
Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken’s dominion maintained.
Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas.
Timothy Leary: Because that’s the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.
Douglas Adams: Forty-two.
Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.
Oliver North: National Security was at stake.
B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will.
Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual
chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.
Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The possibility of “crossing” was encoded into the objects “chicken” and “road”, and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence.
Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.
Aristotle: To actualize its potential.
Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.
Howard Cosell: It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history. An historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurence.
Salvador Dali: The Fish.
Darwin: It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.
Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.
Epicurus: For fun.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn’t cross the road; it transcended it.
Johann von Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it.
Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.
Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.
David Hume: Out of custom and habit.
Jack Nicholson: ‘Cause it (censored) wanted to. That’s the (censored) reason.
Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road?
Ronald Reagan: I forget.
The Sphinx: You tell me.
Henry David Thoreau: To live deliberately … and suck all the marrow out of life.
Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.
Zeno of Elea: To prove it could never reach the other side.
Chaucer: So priketh hem nature in hir corages.
Wordsworth: To wander lonely as a cloud.
The Godfather: I didn’t want its mother to see it like that.
Keats: Philosophy will clip a chicken’s wings.
Blake: To see heaven in a wild fowl.
Othello: Jealousy.
Oscar Wilde: Why, indeed? One’s social engagements whilst in town ought never expose one to such barbarous inconvenience - although, perhaps, if one must cross a road, one may do far worse than to cross it as the chicken in question.
Kafka: Hardly the most urgent enquiry to make of a low-grade insurance clerk who woke up that morning as a hen.
Swift: It is, of course, inevitable that such a loathsome, filth-ridden and degraded creature as Man should assume to question the actions of one in all respects his superior.
Macbeth: To have turned back were as tedious as to go o’er.
Whitehead:Clearly, having fallen victim to the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.
Freud: An die andere Seite zu kommen. (Much laughter)
Hamlet: That is not the question.
Donne: It crosseth for thee.
Constable: To get a better view.
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Permalink
Posted in Jest for Pun at 1:20 am by Miracle ♪♫
Beatles Philosophy
The Beatles’ talents were not confined to music. Collectively they display a philosophical understanding that rivals the greats. This is dedicated to the exegesis and deconstruction of Fab-four-philosophy. Feel free to read this if you are a fellow Beatles scholar. hehe =)
Song: All you need is love
Quote from the song: “There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known”
The Philosophy: John Lennon advocates metaphysical anti-realism and endorses the conclusion of Fitch’s paradox.
Song: Yesterday
Quote from the song: “I believe in yesterday”
The Philosophy: Paul McCartney “refutes” presentism
Song: Maxwell’s silver hammer
Quote from the song: “Joan was quizzical, studied metaphysical* science in the home. Late nights all alone with the test-tubes. Whoa, oh oh oh.”
The Philosophy: In response to the anti-metaphysical skepticism of the logical empiricists, McCartney invents a strange new practical and empirical method for discovering metaphysical truths.
Song: Her Majesty
Quote from the song: “Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl, but she changes from day to day.”
The Philosophy: McCartney advocates stage theory.
Song: Taxman
Quote from the song: “If you walk around, I’ll tax your feet”.
The Philosophy: Harrison advances neo-Lockean critique of the state: taxation as
cannibalism.
Song: Nowhere man
Quote from the song: “Doesn’t have a point of view, knows not where he’s going to, Isn’t he a bit like me and you?”
The Philosophy: Lennon takes issue with Nagel
Song: All you need is love
Quote from the song: “There’s nothing you can say that you can’t learn how to play the game”
The Philosophy: Lennon advocates a broadly Davidsonian theory of interpretation
Song: The Inner Light
Quote from the song: “Without going out of my door I can know all things of earth.”
The Philosophy: Harrison defends the synthetic a priori
Song: All You Need is Love
Quote from the song: “All you need is love”
The Philosophy: Lennon refutes Empedocles’ cosmological account
Song: Drive My Car
Quote from the song: “I got no car and it’s breaking my heart”
The Philosophy: Lennon endorses Meinongianism
Song: I am the Walrus
Quote from the song: “I am he, as you are he, as you are me, and we are all together.”
The Philosophy: Lennon endorses Spinoza’s monism
Song: Rocky Raccoon
Quote from the song: “Her name was Magil, and she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Nancy”
The Philosophy: McCartney elaborates Frege’s sense/reference distinction
Song: Strawberry Fields Forever
Quote from the song: ” Always, no sometimes, think it’s me, but you know I know when it’s a dream.”
The Philosophy: Lennon denies the certainty of Descartes’ cogito; but argues that it doesn’t matter because he rejects the skeptical argument from the possibility that one is asleep
Song: Come Together
Quote from the song: “Hold you in his arms, yeah, you can feel his disease”
The Philosophy: Lennon promoting Guru Osho’s thoughts: “PHILOSOPHY is a disease, and not an ordinary one either. It’s not a common cold. It is cancer - Cancer of the soul. Once a person is lost in the jungle of philosophy he becomes more and more entangled in words, concepts, abstractions and there is no end to it. One can go on and on for lives together.”
Song: While my Guitar Gently Weeps
Quote from the song: “For every mistake we must surely be learning.”
The Philosophy: Harrison resists the pessimistic meta-induction.
Song: Penny Lane
Quote from the song: “Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes”
The Philosophy: McCartney endorses a rather extreme form of anti-realism.
Song: Strawberry Fields Forever
Quote from the song: “I mean it must be high or low”
The Philosophy: Lennon denies the possibility of a borderline case.
Song: Nowhere Man
Quote from the song: “He’s as blind as he can be, just sees what he wants to see.”
The Philosophy: There’s an implicature that there are some things he wants to see, and so Lennon is here endorsing a rather strange essentialist claim: the Nowhere man is essentially not completely blind.
Song: Tomorrow Never Knows
Quote from the song: “that you may know the meaning of within: it is being, it is being.”
The Philosophy: Lennon nods in the direction of Plotinus’ One/Buddhist nirvana.
Song: I’m only sleeping
Quote from the song: “Please don’t wake me, no don’t shake me, leave me where I am, I’m only sleeping.”
The Philosophy: Lennon advocates the Cartesian method.
Song: Dig A Pony
Quote from the song: “You can indicate anything you see.”
The Philosophy: Lennon’s advocation of the demonstrative concepts reply to richness, and fineness of grain objections to the view that all perceptual content is conceptual content.
Song: I Want To Tell You
Quote from the song: “It’s only me, it’s not my mind”
The Philosophy: Harrison on personal identity
Song: A Little Help From my Friends
Quote from the song: “What do you see when you turn out the light? I can’t tell you, but I know it’s mine.
The Philosophy: “Ringo asserts the ineffability and privacy of the sensuous given.
Song: Come Together
Quote from the song: “Come together, right now, over me”
The Philosophy: Lennon and McCartney point towards the unification of concepts under broadly Platonic universals
Song: Come Together
Quote from the song: “One thing I can tell you is you got to be free”
The Philosophy: Lennon and McCartney agree with the Libertarians that freewill is a
necessary component of the human experience
Song: We Can Work It Out
Quote from the song: “Life is very short, and there’s no time”
The Philosophy: According to McCartney everyday temporal discourse is in good standing even though time itself is an illusion.
Song: When I’m 64
Quote from the song: “Indicate precisely what you mean to say”
The Philosophy: McCartney objects to conversational implicature.
Song: I got a feeling
Quote from the song: “I got a feeling, a feeling deep inside”
The Philosophy: McCartney disagrees with Dennett concerning qualia realism.
Song: I got a feeling
Quote from the song: “I got a feeling, a feeling I can’t hide”
The Philosophy: McCartney turns behaviourist.
Song: Fixing a Hole
Quote from the song: “Where I belong, I’m right”
The Philosophy: Lennon and McCartney endorse contextualism
Song: Tomorrow Never Knows
Quote from the song: “That you may see the meaning of within: It is speaking, it is
speaking”
The Philosophy: Lennon disagrees with Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, strongly asserting that the self can have knowledge of itself as a thing in itself
Song: Strawberry Fields Forever
Quote from the song: “Nothing is real”
The Philosophy: …but they don’t tell us whether or not it Noths!
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Permalink
06.16.07
Posted in 2007 Mosaic at 7:05 pm by Miracle ♪♫
How is it possible for you to sing the saddest words of love
in a major key?
No, really, this is an innocent question.
Please do not misreckon my intentions for I assuredly do not
doubt your musical abilities. I esteem
this distinct song very much. Nevertheless, Out
of My League left me in an honest state of perplexity and bewilderment. I am torn between the desire to call you brilliant or insane.
At first hearkening, who would have thought that those
catchy and charming introductory notes on the piano would lead to the most
woeful phrase? “Out of my league.”
Spasmodically, “out of my league” foretells resignation; it
means cowardliness, when one is no longer willing to travel the road to be
where you are. There are also instances
when “out of my league” suggests flattery and insult together; this is when it
means that one is simply too nice to slap rejection on your face. “Out of my league” adds that the worlds of
the twain shall never meet.
“It could have been” are the most tragic words in love, they
claim. I say no, “it could have been”
can miraculously still be, but “out of my league” is terminal.
I have been out-of-my-leagued for a number of times in my
life already, and have done some out-of-my-leaguing myself. (Boo! Coward!) I don’t know with you but when I listen to myself
or someone else say “out of my league…”
I hear it in a minor key.
Click Here
for Out of My League sung to video clips from Pride and Prejudice
But then again… “Out of My League” in a major key… hmm…
the song’s contrasting formula is what makes it such a lovely sensation.
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06.13.07
Posted in Life Betwixt Book Covers at 12:15 am by Miracle ♪♫
Don Marquis…
May he not be erringly confused with the Marquis de Sade… Don’s surname is pronounced MAR-kwiss, not Mar-KEE. Don himself said it’s so.
Don Marquis… is an intellectually groovy man whom Franz introduced me to. (Thank you, Franz… though they be six feet under, through literature you have acquainted me with wonderful people.)
Here are some of the serious topics disguised in witty verses that make him stirring, grin-and-nod-inducing, and just philosophically marvelous.
“The humorist is a philosopher who breaks the sad news gently because he is so sorry for the world.”
Aren’t the Russians Marvelous People!
By Don Marquis, in “Hermione and Her Little Group
of Serious Thinkers,” 1916
We’re been taking up Diaghileff in a serious way–our little group, you know-and really, he’s wonderful!
Who else but Diaghileff could give those lovely Russians things the proper accent?
And accent–if you know what I mean-accent is everything!
Accent! Accent! What would art be without accent?
Accent is coming in–if you get what I mean –and what they call “punch” is going out. I always thought it was a frightfully vulgar sort of thing, anyhow–punch!
The thing I love about the Russians is their Orientalism.
You know there’s an old saying that if you find a Russian you catch a Tartar…or something like that.
I’m sure that is wrong… I get so mixed on quotations. But I always know where I can find them, if you know what I mean.
But the Russian verve isn’t Oriental, is it?
Don’t you just dote on verve?
That’s what makes Bakst so fascinating, don’t you think?–his verve!
Though they do say that the Russian operas don’t analyze as well as the German or Italian ones–if you get what I mean.
Though for that matter, who analyzes them?
One may not know how to analyze an operate, and yet one may know what one likes!
I suppose there will be a frightful lot of imitations of Russian music
and ballet now. Don’t you just hate imitators?
One finds it everywhere–imitation! It’s the sincerest flattery, they say. But that doesn’t excuse it, do you think?
There’s a girl–one of my friends, she says she is–who is trying to imitate me. My expressions, you know, and the way I walk and talk, and all that sort of thing.
She gets some of my superficial mannerisms… but she can’t quite do my things as if they were her own, you know… there is where the accent comes in again!
Thoughts on Heredity and Things
By Don Marquis, in “Hermione and Her Little Group
of Serious Thinkers,” 1916
Isn’t Heredity wonderful, though!
We’ve been going into it rather deeply–My little Group of Serious, you know.
And, really, when you get into it, it’s quite complicated. All about
Homozygotes and Heterozygotes, you know.
The Homozygotes are–well, you might call them the aristocrats, you know; thoroughbreds.
And the Heterozygotes are the hybrids.
Only, of course, they don’t need to be goats at all.
Not but what they could be goats, you know, just as easily as horses or cows or human beings.
But whether goats or humans, don’t you think the great lesson of Heredity is that Blood will Tell?
Really the farther I go into Philosophy and Science and such things the more clearly I see what a fund of truth there is in the old simple proverbs!
People used to find out great truths by Instinct, you know; and now they use Research–vaccinate guinea pigs, you know, and all that sort of
thing.
Instinct! Isn’t Instinct wonderful!
And Intuition, too!
You know, I have the most remarkable intuition at times! Have I ever told you that I’m frightfully psychic?
Mr. Finch, the poet–you know Fothergil Finch, don’t you?–he writes
vers libre and poetry both–Mr. Finch said to me the other evening, “You are extremely psychic!”
“How did you know it?” I asked him.
“Ah!” he said, “how does one know these things?”
And how true that is, when you come to think it over! How does one know?
He has the great magnetic eyes! I could feel them drawing my thoughts from me as we talked.
“You have a Secret,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. And to myself I added, “Alas!”
“Your secret is,” he said, “that there is a difference between you and the other girls.”
It was positively uncanny! I’ve felt that for years! But no one else had ever suspected it before.
“Mr. Finch,” I said, “I must have told you that–or else it was just a wild guess. You couldn’t have gotten it psychically. How did you know it?”
“One knows these things,” he said–a trifle sadly, I thought. “They come to one–out of the Silences; one knows not how. It is better not to ask how! It is better not to question! It is better to accept! Do you not feel it so?
Sometimes I think that Fothergil Finch is the only man who has ever understood me.
You see, I am Dual in my personality.
There is the real Ego, and there is the Alter Ego.
And, besides these, I have so many moods which do not come from either one of my Egos! They come from my Subliminal Consciousness!
Isn’t the Subliminal Consciousness wonderful; simply wonderful?
How Suffering Purifies One
By Don Marquis, in “Hermione and Her Little Group
of Serious Thinkers,” 1916
Oh, to go through fire and come out purified! Suffering is wonderful, isn’t it? Simply wonderful!
The loveliest man talked to us the other night–to our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know–about social ideals and suffering.
The reason so many attempts to improve things fail, you know, is because the people who try them out haven’t suffered personally.
He had the loveliest eyes, this man.
He made me thin. I said to myself, “After all, have I suffered? Have I been purified by fire?”
And I decided that I had–that is spiritually, you know.
The suffering–the spiritual suffering–that I undergo through being misunderstood is something frightful!
Mamma discourages every Cause I take up. So does Papa.
I get no sympathy in my devotion to my ideals. Only opposition!
And from a child I have had such a high-strung, sensitive nervous organization that opposition of any sort has made me ill.
There are some temperaments like that.
Once when I was quite small and Mamma threatened to spank me, I had
convulsions.
And nothing but opposition, opposition, opposition now!
Only we advanced thinkers know what it is to suffer! To go through fire for our ideals!
And what is physical suffering by the side of spiritual suffering?
I so often think of that when I am engaged in sociological work. Only the other night–it was raining and chilly, you know–some of us went down in the auto to one of the missions and looked at the sufferers who were being cared for.
And the thought came to me all of a sudden: “Yes, physical suffering may be relieved–but what is there to relieve spiritual suffering like mine?”
Though, of course, it improves one.
I think it is beginning to show in my eyes.
I looked at them for nearly two hours in the mirror last evening, trying to be quite certain.
And, you know, there’s a kind of look in them that’s never been there until recently. A kind of a–a—-
Well, it’s an intangible look, if you get what I mean.
Not exactly a hungry look, more of a yearning look!
Thank heaven, though, I can control it–one should always be captain of one’s soul, shouldn’t one?
I hide it at times. Because one must hide one’s suffering from the world, mustn’t one?
But at other times I let it show.
And, really, with practice, I think I am going to manage it so that
I can turn it off and on-if you get what I mean–almost at will.
Because, you know, in certain costumes that look will be quite unbecoming.
Quite out of Harmony. And Inner Beauty only comes through Inner Harmony, doesn’t it?
Harmony! Harmony! Oh, to be in accord with the Infinite!
Nearly every night before I go to bed I ask myself, “Have I vibrated in tune with the Infinite today, or have I failed?”
Permalink
06.09.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:28 pm by Miracle ♪♫
I think,
therefore I write
I am vulnerable to inspiration,
therefore I write
I dream,
therefore I write
My mind pulsates,
therefore I write
I see,
therefore I write
I have a silent voice,
therefore I write
I may scream,
but I choose to write
I feel,
therefore I write
I sigh,
therefore I write
I inhale and exhale,
therefore I write
I am able to move and be moved,
therefore I write
My heart hums,
therefore I write
I am naked
to pain, therefore I write
I am sensitive to joy,
therefore I write
I exist,
therefore I write
I live,
therefore I write
I love,
therefore I write
No office superior assigns me what to write,
therefore I write
I am not after a salary,
therefore I write
My words are not numbered,
therefore I write
I do not have to consider what is appealing,
therefore I write
I have no market in mind,
therefore I write
No boss can hinder my personal opinion,
therefore I write
God gave me the chance to write freely,
therefore I write
…and this is why I do not work for the political and crippling media.
…and people ask what I am doing throwing away my journalism course.
Two words for them…
I Write.
*smiles and retreats*
Permalink
06.08.07
Posted in Jest for Pun at 4:00 am by Miracle ♪♫
Courtesy of JaPoSarte
Thanx,
SomeoneDaBuBu =D
Permalink
06.06.07
Posted in Unauthored by Me at 3:38 am by Miracle ♪♫
*Hums and taps keyboard in rhythm to
Sound of Music’s My Favorite Things*
“Raindrops on roses and more raindrops please…
Raindrops on tin roofs and on window sills…”
Uh… what? These are not the correct lyrics?
Sorry, this is not the Maria version, it is the Mira adaptation and raindrops are indeed among my favorite things!
Raindrops… dainty tears… ripples… my liquid being is forevermore charmed and drawn to them.
After the trips, the distressing election, the recitals, the outings, the sweating, I have said goodbye to hot and exciting May, and now it is time to welcome back rainy June. It is once again season for operatic arias, Rachaminov’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Bell’s music when they dip their bows in honey… dancing in the rain like a little girl… getting a cold… wearing over-sized sweatshirts… my spinster schedule… my daily practice regimen… teaching my darling students… having lessons with Misha… reading a book without interruptions… hiding and painting inside my room so that Papa will see my work only when it is nearly done… ahh… cozy, familiar, rainy, June… and I’m home… I love it…
June Thunder
by Louis Macniece
The Junes were free and full,
driving through tiny
Roads, the mudguards brushing the cowparsley,
Through fields of mustard and
under boldly embattled
Mays and chestnuts
Or between beeches verdurous and voluptuous
Or where broom and gorse
beflagged the chalkland–
All the flare and gusto of the un-enduring
Joys of a season
Now returned but I note as more appropriate
To the maturer mood impending thunder
With an indigo sky
and the garden hushed except for
The treetops moving.
Then the curtains in my room
blow suddenly inward,
The shrubbery rustles,
birds fly heavily homeward,
The white flowers fade to nothing
on the trees and rain comes
Down like a drop scene.
Now there comes catharsis,
the cleansing downpour
Breaking the blossoms of our over-dated fancies
Our old sentimentality and whimsicality
Loves of the morning.
Blackness at half-past eight,
the night’s precursor,
Clouds like falling masonry
and lightning’s lavish
Annunciation, the sword of the mad archangel
Flashed from the scabbard.
If only you would come and dare the crystal
Rampart of the rain and
the bottomless moat of thunder,
If only now you would come I should be happy
Now if now only.
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