Sunday, June 29, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Existentialism
Someone died, said Camus' grandmother, "Well, he'll fart no more."
But that was it. It was not a matter of ignorance. She had seen many die around her, two of her children, her husband, all her nephews in the war. But that was just it: she was as familiar with Death as she was of work or poverty. She did not think about it as much as she lived it.
Existentialism
Someone died, said Camus' grandmother, "Well, he'll fart no more."
But that was it. It was not a matter of ignorance. She had seen many die around her, two of her children, her husband, all her nephews in the war. But that was just it: she was as familiar with Death as she was of work or poverty. She did not think about it as much as she lived it.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Monday, June 09, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Other important matters: recently a book on boxing was written in England. Joyce Carol Oates reviewed it in the New York Review and she mentioned something similar. You may not be aware of this but Oates is an expert on boxing and a fan. I heard her several years ago, with supralapsarian Mike Tyson (also an authority on the history of boxing) and the Amazin' Mazur, a sports announcer with an encyclopedic memory. She fit right in. And Tyson was pretty good too!
This is Oates writing:
"The symbolism of boxing does not allow for ambiguity: it is as middleweight Albert Camus put it, 'utterly Manichean.' The rites of boxing 'simplify' everything. Good and evil, the winner and the loser. "
Later she writes,: Here's "a quote attributed to Sonny Liston: ' It's always the same story--the good guy verses the bad guy.' "
What strikes me here is not so much that Camus and Liston arrive at the same conclusion, but rather that Liston's expression is so perfect, so succinct. The simple use of the five cent word instead of the two dollar word.
Other important matters: recently a book on boxing was written in England. Joyce Carol Oates reviewed it in the New York Review and she mentioned something similar. You may not be aware of this but Oates is an expert on boxing and a fan. I heard her several years ago, with supralapsarian Mike Tyson (also an authority on the history of boxing) and the Amazin' Mazur, a sports announcer with an encyclopedic memory. She fit right in. And Tyson was pretty good too!
This is Oates writing:
"The symbolism of boxing does not allow for ambiguity: it is as middleweight Albert Camus put it, 'utterly Manichean.' The rites of boxing 'simplify' everything. Good and evil, the winner and the loser. "
Later she writes,: Here's "a quote attributed to Sonny Liston: ' It's always the same story--the good guy verses the bad guy.' "
What strikes me here is not so much that Camus and Liston arrive at the same conclusion, but rather that Liston's expression is so perfect, so succinct. The simple use of the five cent word instead of the two dollar word.
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894), The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, 1858
Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894), The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, 1858
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