Category: A Rationale
Posted by: Admin
Despite, because of and in tandem with all the change which has accompanied human development, literature remains the dominant record of success, failure, hope, despair, how to and how not to, the would, the could and the should and their negatives along with the entire range of emotions we seek to express and record. Here then, is my on going literary experience - selective, whimsical and entirely subjective but unashamed for all that.....
23/02: Smiley as hero: essay
Category: Modern - le Carre
Posted by: Admin
Geoff Scott's essay......
Cultural Notes No. 28
ISSN 0267-677X ISBN 1 85637 067 4
An occasional publication of the Libertarian Alliance,
25 Chapter Chambers, Esterbrooke Street, London SW1P 4NN
www.libertarian.co.uk email: admin@libertarian.co.uk
© 1991: Libertarian Alliance; Jeff Scott.
Jeff Scott is a rock musician.
The views expressed in this publication are those of its author, and not necessarily those of the Libertarian Alliance, its Committee, Advisory Council or subscribers.
Director: Dr Chris R. Tame
Editorial Director: Brian Micklethwait
Webmaster: Dr Sean Gabb
FOR LIFE, LIBERTY AND PROPERTY
Cultural Notes No. 28
ISSN 0267-677X ISBN 1 85637 067 4
An occasional publication of the Libertarian Alliance,
25 Chapter Chambers, Esterbrooke Street, London SW1P 4NN
www.libertarian.co.uk email: admin@libertarian.co.uk
© 1991: Libertarian Alliance; Jeff Scott.
Jeff Scott is a rock musician.
The views expressed in this publication are those of its author, and not necessarily those of the Libertarian Alliance, its Committee, Advisory Council or subscribers.
Director: Dr Chris R. Tame
Editorial Director: Brian Micklethwait
Webmaster: Dr Sean Gabb
FOR LIFE, LIBERTY AND PROPERTY
or What is Wrong with Modern____ from David Friedman.
Suppose you are the first city planner in the history of the world. If you are very clever you come up with Cartesian coordinates, making it easy to find any address without a map, let alone a GPS—useful since neither GPS devices nor maps have been invented yet.
Suppose you are the second city planner. Cartesian coordinates have already been done, so you can't make your reputation by doing them again. With luck, you come up with some alternative, perhaps polar coordinates, that works almost as well.
Suppose you are the two hundred and ninetieth city planner in the history of the world. All the good ideas have been used, all the so-so ideas have been used, and you need something new to make your reputation. You design Canberra. That done, you design the Combs building at ANU, the most ingeniously misdesigned building in my personal experience, where after walking around for a few minutes you not only don't know where you are, you don't even know what floor you are on.
I call it the theory of the rising marginal cost of originality—formed long ago when I spent a summer visiting at ANU.
It explains why, to a first approximation, modern art isn't worth looking at, modern music isn't worth listening to, and modern literature and verse not worth reading. Writing a novel like one of Jane Austen's, or a poem like one by Donne or Kipling, only better, is hard. Easier to deliberately adopt a form that nobody else has used, and so guarantee that nobody else has done it better.
Of course, there might be a reason nobody else has used it.
Suppose you are the first city planner in the history of the world. If you are very clever you come up with Cartesian coordinates, making it easy to find any address without a map, let alone a GPS—useful since neither GPS devices nor maps have been invented yet.
Suppose you are the second city planner. Cartesian coordinates have already been done, so you can't make your reputation by doing them again. With luck, you come up with some alternative, perhaps polar coordinates, that works almost as well.
Suppose you are the two hundred and ninetieth city planner in the history of the world. All the good ideas have been used, all the so-so ideas have been used, and you need something new to make your reputation. You design Canberra. That done, you design the Combs building at ANU, the most ingeniously misdesigned building in my personal experience, where after walking around for a few minutes you not only don't know where you are, you don't even know what floor you are on.
I call it the theory of the rising marginal cost of originality—formed long ago when I spent a summer visiting at ANU.
It explains why, to a first approximation, modern art isn't worth looking at, modern music isn't worth listening to, and modern literature and verse not worth reading. Writing a novel like one of Jane Austen's, or a poem like one by Donne or Kipling, only better, is hard. Easier to deliberately adopt a form that nobody else has used, and so guarantee that nobody else has done it better.
Of course, there might be a reason nobody else has used it.
29/06: Can you read yourself rich?
With sales of financial self-help books on the rise, we look at five bestsellers and ask the experts to give their verdict
Mark Bridge - The Times......
The economic crisis has prompted many people to seek help from personal finance books, with Amazon reporting a significant uplift in sales. Classics of the genre promise a quick route to riches, while recent examples, written since the start of the downturn, tend to be more cautious and realistic in their claims.
Times Money has looked at the five bestselling financial self-help books at Waterstone’s and asked financial planners for their views on the key ideas, rating the books from one to five stars. All have a snappy style and are accessible to the novice, but some are considerably more helpful than others.
Note that the recommended retail prices shown can be beaten easily. All the books are selling at a discount at Amazon, and the fifth, by Richard Templar, is half price at Waterstone’s.
Deciding Whether to Read a Book: Some Wildly Reductive Heuristics
Merlin Mann | Aug 27 2008 (the pointer from Tyler Cowan's blog)
Smiles! People send me lots of books, so I have to decide rather quickly whether one should be added to the ambitious pile of stuff I already really want to finish reading.
On the off chance that you care or find it useful in developing your own filtering, here’s my insanely reductive, mean-busy-guy way to make a 90-second decision on whether to read a new non-fiction book from an author I’m not familiar with.
It does not matter whether you agree with these; that’s how you know they’re personal heuristics. Also, they are almost uniformly unfair and unkind. So.
For each question, my preferred answer would be “No.” Few of these are dealkillers, but they do quickly aggregate to make the decision easy and obvious for me.
* At the highest level, is this book’s topic based on the typical “zeitgeist” product that gets greenlit by someone who watches lots of golf on TV and who seldom finishes reading the 1,000-word “features” found in in-flight magazines?
* Does the book have one of those irksome, “Everything You Know About Everything is Completely WRONG!” titles?
* Is the author’s large, whitish face the primary feature of the cover?
* Mistral!Does the cover art contain high heels, Mistral, or any reference to either Oprah Winfrey, Joel Osteen, or “Dr. Phil?”
* Can you find the word “secret” anywhere on the cover of the book?
* Is the book published by a company that you’ve never heard of — or, far worse, does that company appear to share the last name of the author or his yacht?
* In the event that this is a book by a “famous” person: if the book were written by someone you’d never heard of, would your interest in the book or its topic wane significantly?
* Sssssssh!Are there a very large number of “intentionally blank” white pages at the beginning and end of the book? Are there an astonishingly large number of pages that have been provided for “Notes?”
* Does the Table of Contents lack at least 10% stuff that sounds kind of familiar to you (and at least 30% stuff that does not)?
* Does the first non-front-matter material in the book (often a “Preface” or “Introduction”) seem like a damp hotel room towel that’s matted with the author’s self-congratulation? Is it primarily a sales tool for persons who will never read any further? Does the author seem more arrogant than confident?
* Does the book’s body or heading text suffer from careless or illegible typesetting? Does the book look like an unfinished government manual? Should the designer be horse-whipped for choosing a bold display face for body text?
* Does the book suffer from the overlarge margins, giant type, two-paragraph pages, and “inspiring quotations” that often suggest a rushed, shoddy, or lazy manuscript?
* Heels!Have you already found erors and misspelings?
* Does the book’s index seem weak or does it not contain entries for the topic or person whom you most associate with the book’s theme or title?
* Does page 69 bore, vex, or annoy you?
* Can you imagine a future in which closing this book on the last page will make you angry that you didn’t just go back and re-read A Confederacy of Dunces instead?
* Now that you know about this book and have thought about all these horribly petty little things, can you imagine not reading it this week?
No on all counts? Good! You’ve found your book. Happy reading.
Merlin Mann | Aug 27 2008 (the pointer from Tyler Cowan's blog)
Smiles! People send me lots of books, so I have to decide rather quickly whether one should be added to the ambitious pile of stuff I already really want to finish reading.
On the off chance that you care or find it useful in developing your own filtering, here’s my insanely reductive, mean-busy-guy way to make a 90-second decision on whether to read a new non-fiction book from an author I’m not familiar with.
It does not matter whether you agree with these; that’s how you know they’re personal heuristics. Also, they are almost uniformly unfair and unkind. So.
For each question, my preferred answer would be “No.” Few of these are dealkillers, but they do quickly aggregate to make the decision easy and obvious for me.
* At the highest level, is this book’s topic based on the typical “zeitgeist” product that gets greenlit by someone who watches lots of golf on TV and who seldom finishes reading the 1,000-word “features” found in in-flight magazines?
* Does the book have one of those irksome, “Everything You Know About Everything is Completely WRONG!” titles?
* Is the author’s large, whitish face the primary feature of the cover?
* Mistral!Does the cover art contain high heels, Mistral, or any reference to either Oprah Winfrey, Joel Osteen, or “Dr. Phil?”
* Can you find the word “secret” anywhere on the cover of the book?
* Is the book published by a company that you’ve never heard of — or, far worse, does that company appear to share the last name of the author or his yacht?
* In the event that this is a book by a “famous” person: if the book were written by someone you’d never heard of, would your interest in the book or its topic wane significantly?
* Sssssssh!Are there a very large number of “intentionally blank” white pages at the beginning and end of the book? Are there an astonishingly large number of pages that have been provided for “Notes?”
* Does the Table of Contents lack at least 10% stuff that sounds kind of familiar to you (and at least 30% stuff that does not)?
* Does the first non-front-matter material in the book (often a “Preface” or “Introduction”) seem like a damp hotel room towel that’s matted with the author’s self-congratulation? Is it primarily a sales tool for persons who will never read any further? Does the author seem more arrogant than confident?
* Does the book’s body or heading text suffer from careless or illegible typesetting? Does the book look like an unfinished government manual? Should the designer be horse-whipped for choosing a bold display face for body text?
* Does the book suffer from the overlarge margins, giant type, two-paragraph pages, and “inspiring quotations” that often suggest a rushed, shoddy, or lazy manuscript?
* Heels!Have you already found erors and misspelings?
* Does the book’s index seem weak or does it not contain entries for the topic or person whom you most associate with the book’s theme or title?
* Does page 69 bore, vex, or annoy you?
* Can you imagine a future in which closing this book on the last page will make you angry that you didn’t just go back and re-read A Confederacy of Dunces instead?
* Now that you know about this book and have thought about all these horribly petty little things, can you imagine not reading it this week?
No on all counts? Good! You’ve found your book. Happy reading.
01/09: Romanticised Romantic Poets
Category: Romantic Poetry
Posted by: Admin
When I studied the Romantics in the mid seventies their work was not a popular genre - perhaps it still isn't - but their colourful characters were at least of passing interest. A recent episode of Lewis (the programme devised and inspired by Colin Dexter's Morse novels and their TV rendition) featured what the Detective Sergeant termed "the guys in the band" - Shelley, Byron, Coleridge et. al.
Of interest was the notion, professed by the Oxford Don who taught the Romantics, that these poet's had no earthly idea what their intention in writing their poetry was. They were merely searching for a "big time" fuelled for the most part by alcohol and various substances.
This stands in stark contrast to the numerous notes I still retain from Canterbury University English 1976 which analyse the Romantic view of nature and imagination.
Whose I wonder was the romanticism?
Of interest was the notion, professed by the Oxford Don who taught the Romantics, that these poet's had no earthly idea what their intention in writing their poetry was. They were merely searching for a "big time" fuelled for the most part by alcohol and various substances.
This stands in stark contrast to the numerous notes I still retain from Canterbury University English 1976 which analyse the Romantic view of nature and imagination.
Whose I wonder was the romanticism?
This is a great quirky look at a variety of dilemmas about drawing racial lines, lines between legal and illegal immigrants, the line between cash bribery and business favours and a real tough one which is left to the film's climax. (Star Starring: Chris Cooper, Matthew McConaughey, Kris Kristofferson, Elizabeth Pena, Miriam Colon , Director: John Sayles, Release Date: June 21, 1996.)
The film has all of the...
The film has all of the...
Category: Shakespeare
Posted by: Admin
The Fortune seldom disappoints and, happily, this proved for me to be the case again in their production of Lear which we attended last Saturday. Youth taste for violence and horror in their adoration of various chainsaw massacres may scorn older generations, but even in this detail - described by my next seated theatre neighbour as "gross" (with a smile of enjoyment) - this interpretation soared.....
Category: Modern theatre
Posted by: Admin
Watching this highly entertaining and professional production (playwright Alison Quigan) at the Fortune theatre Dunedin caused me to ponder on the following possibly peripheral but for me at least significant points.....
Category: Modern - le Carre
Posted by: Admin
Le Carre is a personal favourite author, in part for the brilliance with which he seems able to step outside himself and create extraordinary characters, in part because with the "Fall of the wall" his theatre and market were destroyed.... but he returned in full strength and... simply because of his sheer writing ability..... The character I have learned most from is.... George Smiley.
