Terrorism Laws Gone Mad; Terry Pratchett

Interesting piece in The Guardian today about an artist questioned by police for painting a watercolour near London City Airport.
Inside half an hour two Metropolitan police officers from the specialist unit based at the airport arrived in a patrol car and demanded to know what he was doing, saying he had been spotted on a CCTV camera.

"I told them, 'I'm hardly a terrorist, I'm watercolouring'. One policeman said, 'you're not painting the airport, are you?' I told him I was painting the sugar factory. He said 'no one paints factories'. I told him Lowry painted loads of factories and made a mint. He got a bit touchy then."

For 15 minutes, O'Farrell said, one officer checked his identification on a radio while another searched his bag. "They said I had 'weird paraphernalia' with me. I said 'it's a flask of coffee and an iPod'."

O'Farrell said he had returned to the same spot a week later to complete the work and was interrogated again, by two other officers.

"I told them I was just doing a watercolour of the sugar factory. One of them said 'no one does watercolours of factories'. I told them about Lowry – it was groundhog day. It was extraordinary.

"Then one said 'I can see what you're doing now, I'd be a bit more concerned if you were painting the airport'. I remember from my art history that centuries ago in China artists were murdered in case they [painted] maps and roads. But in the days of digital photography I hardly think a watercolourist painting an airport would be some sort of international threat." The experience left him baffled. "I've been painting in Moscow, in Vietnam, Ukraine, and all I get round me are bunches of kids. If the police come by they're just curious about the painting. It's extraordinary what happened to me."

Apologies to those who are fans, and his work may be brilliant, but the novelist in this video comes across as obnoxious and stupid, playing up to a crowd of sycophants.

Brighton

I went to Brighton and drank cocktails. I went to a party. Now I'm back.

Christmas shopping, reading, and writing await me.

I'm now reading Schnitzler's La Ronde which, when it first came out, caused riots in his native Vienna. Planning to write a piece about the philosophical implications of the idea that there is a 'God-spot' in the brain.

The Chestnut-Seller

Here's a story by one of my favourite writers. It's called 'The Chestnut-Seller' and it's by Joris-Karl Huysmans.

Choral Evensong

I officiated at Choral Evensong in College on Tuesday evening and m'colleague, Frost, sang. All part of my regular duties. But this time I took a recording device with me. You can listen to a five-minute clip here. The choir were on top form! Responses by Leighton, if anyone's interested.

Kierkegaardian Depression

Thought I would share a rather poignant quotation from Kierkegaard which I found in last Saturday's Guardian Review:

I have just returned from a party of which I was the life and soul; wit poured from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me – but I went away – and the dash should be as long as the earth's orbit and wanted to shoot myself.

Since K is hailed as the Father of Existentialism, it's perhaps not surprising that it has a reputation for being miserable.

AudioBoo

Listen to my AudioBoos here. They are posted to Twitter, as well.

Plan B

I have often considered the possibility of becoming one of those bearded men in pubs who drinks heavily and shouts at anyone who will listen. Seems like a sound Plan B to me. I am much better at drinking and shouting than I am at writing. On second thoughts, that might not be true. But I do the former more regularly.

I need to immerse myself in the double-suicide world of Karl Jaspers. (He had a Jewish wife in Nazi Germany and was prepared to kill himself if anything should happen to her.) Here are some of his words which speak to me:

Never to approach the hidden God directly is the fate which a philosophical Existenz must bear. Only the ciphers speak, if I am ready [...] only seldom will an eye seem to look at me in the dark. Day in, day out, it is as if there were nothing. In his eerie abandonment man seeks a more direct access, objective guarantees, and firm support; he takes God's hand in prayer so to speak turns to authority, and sees the Godhead in personal form - and only in this form is it God at all, while as the Godhead it maintains its indefinable distance . (Philosophy, Vol. 3, p. 133)

However attractive this philosophical world - whose attractiveness is probably enhanced by Redon's hallucinogenic visions - the world of theology imprisons me. S. John will not let me 'scape! B. S. tomorrow. I've also got to write a f*cking sermon for next Sun. Like I say, Plan B seems much more congenial!

There are stirrings in connection with Charlotte Gainsbourg's new album, IRM. You can download the first track for free here (perfectly legally, I might add). In my opinion it's a great song. And here is a video insight into the creative process. Better stop now before my better half gets jealous...

Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM from Charlotte Gainsbourg on Vimeo.

Displacement

May the proliferation continue!

I have recently decided that the free OpenOffice programme, though valuable, is not sufficient to my paranoid needs. The programme was never particularly responsive but it was whilst looking into possible alternatives that I read a remark that put the Fear of God into me from the NeoOffice web site.

NeoOffice is not perfect. Although we try very hard to make NeoOffice free of bugs and crashes, our users still find new bugs and new cases that cause NeoOffice to crash. So, if you feel that you need software that has been heavily tested, we recommend that you use a commercially-supported product like Microsoft Office or Apple iWork.

If this is true of NeoOffice, I reflected, so it might be true of OpenOffice. So, with thoughts of losing my entire thesis (thus far) buzzing around in my brain, I heeded their advice. Microsoft or Apple was the choice: Protestant or Catholic? The fact that I already have a Mac, together with the very reasonable cost of iWork (with student discount), led me to choose the latter. And Pages is very nice. I especially like its full-screen feature which, theoretically at least, blacks out all distractions from the almost ritualized colour and movement of one's Mac's display.

Some might wish to accuse me of indulging in displacement activity and, of course, there would be some truth in that. When it is disagreeable to focus on bringing about the ends, why not focus on the means? Form and method instead of content; surface instead of depth.

Lethargy prevented me from going to Hatfield to hear the legendary John Cottingham speak at the University of Hertfordshire. That and the fact that I downloaded a typescript of what he was going to say (I assume this since the paper bears the same title as the talk) from his website. I was in no mood to heckle.

Next week I plan to write up my observations on Karl Jasper's periechontology with a dual focus on his notion of 'ciphers' and his views on the role of the subject-object dichotomy. His ideas on both create ambiguity: on the one hand, ciphers are the 'language of being', they embody what is beyond the subject-object dichotomy to human Existenz - a way of being that is existential, where subject is not separable from object. But he also claims that the subject-object dichotomy is essential to the existence of human consciousness. If we are not in the dichotomy, he argues, we are unconscious. This appears to place equal weight on scientific ways of engaging with the world and 'spiritual', broadly religious, ones. The question is, How do the two relate? His concept of Existenz doesn't seem adequately to bridge the other two categories of his tripartite system: ordinary consciousness (in the subject-object dichotomy) and Transcendence (or God). I hope, at any rate to draw from him a better account of the relation of human consciousness to what is beyond itself than that provided by Tillich's account of symbols which can never escape the subject-object dichotomy. Jaspers provides us with that possibility, though perhaps not without inconsistency or ambiguity.

Why I Don't Trust Wikipedia

The picture speaks for itself.

The number of posts I am making is nearing a proliferation!

So what happened, then? I don't quite know.

So it has been an unconscionably long time since I last made a post: mea maxima culpa! Forgive me, gentle readers.

I spent this afternoon trying to find the source for Heidegger's statment that if he were to write a theology, the word 'being' would not appear in it. If any philosophers are reading this, they may be interested to know that it's in GA15, 436-7. It's his reply to the third question asked after his Zurich seminar in 1951. So it does exist. I suspected (and rather hoped) that it had been made up by theologians.

Then I went to Choral Evensong and dinner in College. As I left College by the back gate, I noticed a chavvy looking car with tinted windows and a loud exhaust go past. I thought nothing of it until, further down the road, I saw it coming towards me again. As it drew level, something was thrown or sprayed at me from the back window. I don't know what even now! A firework? Some kind of liquid? It made a fizzing sound, anyway. And missed. Having recovered from my surprise, I looked after the car as it drove on up the road and noticed it turning left. Thinking it might come round a third time for another pop at me, I started to leg it. Once I was on the path by the river I began to relax but I still wonder what happened. Perhaps I'll never know. I had an umbrella with me and, had I had time, would have put it to good use in deflecting the entity or substance that was directed at me. I'll remember this for the future. An Englishman's umbrella is his castle, or so they say.

So I have polished off the Journals of Sylvia Plath. Beautifully written and surprisingly amusing at times. It appears that, at least as a student, she was an existential humanist.

On to the next!

"They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more."

And a true saying.

German Philosophy and Wax Chandlers

Evening all! It has been an unconscionably long time since I made a post so here we are again.

I have discovered the work of Karl Jaspers. Great stuff but I am presently trying to work out what's wrong with it. He makes a marvellous critique of both organized religion and mysticism forcing one to take a via media - if one dares. Nothing wrong with all that. But the theory of ciphers is doing harm to my brain - 'hieroglyphics of being' and all that. I rather suspect that the problem is that his argument requires him to say that ciphers are both subjective and objective at the same time. The problem being that they can only appear to us within that dichotomy, and therefore as one or other - revealing to us 'the Transcendent' which is beyond it. His position is subtly different from Tillich's but, I suspect, still doesn't quite make sense. If anything comes of his idea of the 'foundering' of ciphers or their 'dissolving' as objects as they become a matter of concern for Existenz, then I'll take that back. You will all, of course, be the first to know.

Disappointed about the recent 'success' of far right parties, including the BNP here. Listened to a good sermon on this by m'colleague as I officiated at Choral Evensong tonight. I also met the master of the Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers. This company apparently gives two scholarships per year to the College. Weird.

Following an exchange I had on Twitter today, let me register my admiration for the former bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway. We are all agnostics. More of us should, like him, have the courage to admit the fact.

Stands Scotland where it did?

So Paris went well. Delivered my paper, answered questions, went to my supervisor's paper, went to look at art. Saw some marvellous Cézannes and Redons in the Musée d'Orsay and something in the region of 100 Kandinsky paintings in the Pompidou Centre. I saw a two-volume Cézanne catalogue raisonné in a Cambridge bookshop today for £80 and am presently trying to justify buying it. It is, unbelievably, a bargain.

Went to Edinburgh, where I stayed with a friend, and thence across to a rather grim part of Glasgow for a workshop on museums. Although I got to see the store 'pods' for all the Glasgow museums, the talks were very pedestrian, despite their titles. But, back in Edinburgh, my friend introduced me to some interesting philosophers and I got to see the library of T. L. S. Sprigge. A real treat! It turns out that he had a shelf-ful of books by Santayana, on whom I may have to read Sprigge himself together with his magnum opus, The Vindication of Absolute Idealism. A far cry from his short Theories of Existence which I remember reading as an undergraduate.

I now ought to be writing my popular essay on Christmas but can't be arsed. That's why I'm writing this instead and listening to Life is Killing Me by Type O Negative to cheer myself up... And I've just bought some monsoon malabar online.

(Navet by Redon.)

Gai Paris

So I'm going to Paris on Thursday to deliver my conference paper. Much good may it do me. I plan to walk one of Beckett's favorite routes, though I shall not visit his grave in Montparnasse - his work is quite depressing enough.

Listened to a sermon at Evensong tonight - God uses people who grumble, I was told. From where I stand he's been working overtime.

Read a short story by Balzac called 'The Atheist's Mass'. Raised some interesting questions but I was expecting more. Something that cut deeper.

Earning a Living by the Pen

I have returned. Loved Edinburgh and would like to live there one day. Had a good trip to Durham and it was great to catch up with friends. The whole trip was pretty tough in some respects, plenty of psychoanalytic material from the depths of my psyche. As Freud once remarked, there is no such thing as an accident. Anyway, I'm back in Cambridge and spent the evening with some friends in a pub drinking some kind of stout identified by a man in a uniform on the label. No, really.

I've had a popular essay accepted, too. It turns out I'll even have a contract from Wiley-Blackwell. I suppose I can now be said, like the characters of Gissing's New Grub Street, to be earning a living by the pen - in the valley of the shadow of books. Though I hope I shall not go the way of Edwin Reardon: depression, marital breakdown, illness and death.

I hope you like my new photo: an actual image of me replaces a homage to Wittgenstein on the ineffability of coffee. The photo was taken on the platform at Edinburgh Waverly railway station by a talented friend whose blog is well worth a read.

Trip

The thesis has, I hope temporarily, ground to a halt.

Off to Edinburgh on Tuesday followed by Durham. I shall be on the look-out for gentlemans' outfitters. I've decided too to have my 'Nietzsche phase' whilst away. I plan to start with an article by my former supervisor followed by The Birth of Tragedy, followed by Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I shall stop short of the advice of this man to read them in the bath.

Lethargy

Hut

I have been reading about Heidegger's hut in a book called Heidegger's Hut. Interesting to read about the supposed relationship between H's mountain shack and his philosophy. Is inspiring me in some inarticulable way. The conference paper on Tillich is going nowhere fast but I don't care. And I've had an article on existentialist aesthetics accepted. Woot!

I plan to have my long-overdue 'Nietzsche phase' in Durham over Easter. In the words of Ian Curtis, [Where] "will it end?"

Test

[Edit: Warning! This is a boring and stupid post. What was I thinking?]

This is not a test. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. For future reference: if only Magritte had had access to the (strike) (/strike) code.

Also links:

One needs to write:
(a href="http://www.my-lovely-website.com/me/how-amazing-i-am")text as which link appears(/a)

Consideration of Blogging

I often wonder why I 'blog' and today is no exception. I can see from my little map (bottom right of the screen) that I have had 'hits' from all over the world. But are such people actively seeking out my mundanities or were they simply looking for their nearest coffee bean supplier in the anticipation of a dark, rich cup of monsoon malabar? Did they then see an apparently relevant Google result only to find themselves perusing these inane ramblings before moving on, dissapointed, disgusted and embittered?

Assuming, on the other hand, that I do have willing readers, it is difficult to know what to write about. I am of the belief that one should write in order to be read so that what one writes is partly determined by what one's readers want to read.

Gentle readers: what shall I write? The things that fill my head are of too bizarre or arcane a character to be of general interest, I fear:

I feel like a stroke victim whose brain's 'God spot' is the seat of the clot. And if that were not enough, these words from Nick Cave have been haunting me ever since I heard the suggestion that with the human capacity for great intelligence goes the tendency towards self-destruction:

Don't it make you feel so sad, don't the blood rush to your feet /
To think that everything you do today, tomorrow is obsolete? /
Technology and women and little children too /
Don't it make you feel blue? Don't it make you feel blue?

It's much better with music so, if you don't already know it, check out the album Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! As the t-shirt has it, humanity is underrated; and a true saying. But for very different reasons, it is overrated. There's plenty of humanism, which is a good thing, but there's also plenty of hubris. If only we could find the via media...

On a completely unrelated subject, I have discovered the meaning of 'cony'. I first came across the word at Ps. 104: 18, which apparently refers to a kind of hyrax (I know, sweet, aren't they?). I gather that in Old English and in some current English dialects it refers to a (sometimes young) rabbit. But cony is also, more rarely, a verb meaning 'to act the rabbit'. The OED quotes Florio in 1611 defining it thus:

Coniglieggiare, to cunnie, to play the cunnie, to bee fearefull and lurke in holes.

I look forward to hearing about what you would like to read here, gentle reader, and whether this post 'hits the spot'. Do leave a some 'remarks' or feel free to e-mail me. I am among you as one who serves.

The Inspiring Type of French Philosophy

A quotation I came across today which I must share with you all:

"Furthermore, if one remembers the history of the word atheism, and how it has been applied even to Spinoza, the most positive of philosophers, we must admit that all thinking which displaces, or otherwise defines, the sacred has been called atheistic, and that philosophy which does not place it here or there, like a thing, but at the joining of things and words, will always be exposed to this reproach without ever being touched by it."

Marice Merleau-Ponty, In Praise of Philosophy, 46.

I could not have put it better, so I won't try.

Found an interesting clip on youtube. Not sure about the images, but the audio is very interesting indeed.

I waded through the slush that the snow had become this morning to get my hair cut and did some laundry when I got home. I found myself thinking about Van Gogh and his coffee addiction, then I had some coffee. Then I had lunch, and some coffee, and am about to carry on with Gabriel Marcel's autobiography, perhaps over another cup of coffee. He does not, so far, appear to have been convinced by the Roman Catholicism to which he converted. He claimed to be painfully aware of the fact that applying his critical acumen to biblical texts, for instance, would destroy his faith - so he didn't. He rested assured in the knowledge that intelligent friends of his had examined the basis of their religious faith and it was still intact for them.

A deeply fascinating thinker, sadly neglected, whose life and work were of a piece. I toyed with the idea of putting on one of his plays...

P.S. One thing I forgot to mention: I saw a squirrel being bludgeoned to death yesterday. I assume it was injured and not epileptic. I hope so. Imagine being bludgeoned to death in the throes of something from which you would otherwise have recovered. Not a pretty thought for a Thursday afternoon. I think I'll put the coffee on to cheer myself up.

I have discovered the work of PJ Harvey.
Recently been enjoying To Bring you My Love. Good album.

Computing (again)

Partly because I think it's important to keep my readers informed, and partly in order to delay the process of thesis-writing for as long as possible, I take this opportunity to make a post and to inform you all that, further to my previous post, I have inherited a Mac. In case any of you are interested in what it looks like, here's a picture:


And here's my current desktop:

Overall, the switch from a PC has not been too irksome though I have had to convert some music files from .ogg to .mp3. It's nice to use and I have a distinct preference for this machine over the previous one. Today, I discovered growl. Open Office helps keep me as free as I can be from the clutches of Bill Gates.

I've booked tickets for this satirical operetta in London. It will be interesting to see Armando trying his hand at something new. I recall that he used a similar idea in one of his TV shows. Now he's actually written one!

And finally, here is a song by Hugh Laurie (who is apparently now very popular in America (and a Selwyn man - hurrah!)) which will get stuck in your head all too easily. Enjoy:

2009

Happy New Year!

Here beginneth 2009. Thus far I have been getting up not exactly 'early' but in time to listen to Melvyn's In Our Time (Darwin Season). His (Darwin's, I mean) biography is very interesting - not least the time he spent training for the priesthood in Cambridge and the intellectual oppression he must have experienced. Much of this morning's programme was conducted by Melvin in what he called several times "this extraordinary museum" which is just round the corner from my house. I shall have to go and have a look at the bodies of some of the creatures he killed on his various expeditions. I saw Bill Bailey's latest performance in London during the festive period. Focusing on a specific aspect of Darwin's biography, he made us all (by which I mean the audience) say 'barnacles'.

Thinking about when religious people talk about 'the soul' and pray for "all who are ill in mind body or spirit". This must surely be based on a Cartesian view but the puzzle is that Descartes never distinguished between 'mind' and 'soul'. Whatever it was that Descartes thought was distinct from the body and which could potentially survive the destruction of the body was 'thinking substance'. So not only is a questionable dualism built into the fabric of Christianity but a bad version of it, in which a third term is invented, apparently for little more than rhetorical effect. Can anyone out there tell me what a 'soul' is meant to be and how it is supposed to be different from a 'mind'? It's maddening, the degree to which religion depends on bad philosophy.

Very sad to hear of the death of Harold Pinter on Christmas Eve. Bought Michael Billington's biography of him today, together with Wordsworth's Prelude, in all its papery loveliness.