Here's Big Frank's latest poem. It harkens back to the discussion on symmetry and the dichotomous view of the world that we all love so much.
Two by Two
By Big Frank Dickinson
Two kinds of universes: you and the rest;
Two kinds of fear: courted - suppressed;
Two kinds of thoughts: welcome and tossed;
Two kinds of hope: realized and lost;
Two kinds of seasons: onward and old;
Two kinds of miracles: humdrum - untold;
Two kinds of journeys: away and return;
Two kinds of memories: savored and burned;
Two kinds of substances: solid and foam;
Two kinds of love: delusion and home;
Two kinds of shouts: yippee and oy;
Two kinds of songs: sorrow and joy;
Two kinds of desire: hidden - disclosed;
Two kinds of past: constructed - imposed.
A flood of confusion predates their arrival.
The neatness of pairs ensures their survival.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Commencement Addresses
We are in the midst of graduation ceremonies. A traditional – necessary part of that is The Commencement Address. Typically a person of some success speaks to the graduates and imparts some wisdom. Many are platitudinously boring and patronizing. Some avoid this, and writers tend to be better than most. Big Frank, who, by the way, has yet to be asked to deliver such an address, shares a few of his favorites below. There are a couple of threads in common among them: learn to express yourself, develop compassion, and choosing to have control over how and what you think. The excerpts are a little on the long side – but they are very good – you won’t regret having read them. When possible I’ve included a website where you can read the entire address. As always, I invite you to send in your favorites.
William Gass "Learning to Talk"
Writer
Washington University, 1979
http://www.humanity.org/voices/commencements/speeches/index.php?page=gass_at_washington
“It can't be helped. We are made of layers of language like a Viennese torte. We are a Freudian dessert. My dinner companion, the lady who lent me her smile, has raised her goblet in a quiet toast. It is as though its rim had touched me, and I try to find words for the feeling, and for the wine which glows like molten rubies in her glass; because if I can do that, I can take away more than a memory which will fade faster than a winter footprint; I can take away an intense and interpreted description, a record as tough to erase as a relief, since without words what can be well and richly remembered? Yesterdays are gone like drying mist. Without our histories, without the conservation, which concepts nearly alone make possible, we could not preserve our lives as were the bodies of the pharaohs, the present would soon be as clear of the past as a bright day, and we would be innocent arboreals again. . . .
To think for yourself -- not narrowly, but rather as a mind -- you must be able to talk to yourself: well, openly, and at length. You must come in from the rain of requests and responses. You must take and employ your time as if it were your life. And that side of you which speaks must be prepared to say anything so long as it is so -- is seen so, felt so, thought so -- and that side of you which listens must be ready to hear horrors, for much of what is so is horrible -- horrible to see, horrible to feel, horrible to consider. But at length, and honestly -- that is not enough. To speak well to oneself . . . to speak well we must go down as far as the bucket can be lowered. Every thought must be thought through from its ultimate cost back to its cheap beginnings; every perception, however profound and distant, must be as clear and easy as the moon; every desire must be recognized as a relative and named as fearlessly as Satan named his angels; finally, every feeling must be felt to its bottom where the bucket rests in the silt and water rises like a tower around it. To talk to ourselves well requires, then, endless rehearsals -- rehearsals in which we revise, and the revision of the inner life strikes many people as hypocritical; but to think how to express some passion properly is the only way to be possessed by it, for unformed feelings lack impact, just as unfelt ideas lose weight. So walk around unrewritten, if you like. Live on broken phrases and syllable gristle, telegraphese and film reviews. No one will suspect . . . until you speak.”
________________________________________________________________________
Martha C. Nussbaum
“Compassion and Global Responsibility”
Commencement address at Georgetown University
Washington D.C.
May 16, 2003
Dr Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago.
http://www.humanity.org/voices/commencements/speeches/index.php?page=nussbaum_at_georgetown
“Compassion is an emotion rooted, probably, in our biological heritage. But this history does not mean that compassion is devoid of thought. In fact, as Aristotle argued long ago, human compassion standardly requires three thoughts: that a serious bad thing has happened to someone else; that this bad event was not (or not entirely) the person's own fault; and that we ourselves are vulnerable in similar ways. Thus compassion forms a psychological link between our own self-interest and the reality of another person's good or ill. For that reason it is a morally valuable emotion - when it gets things right.
To begin extending compassion as best we can, we need to ask how and why local loyalties and attachments come to take in some instances an especially virulent and aggressive form, militating against a more general sympathy. I would suggest that one problem we particularly need to watch out for is a type of pathological narcissism in which the person demands complete control over all the sources of good, and a complete self-sufficiency in consequence. This pathology occurs repeatedly in human life, but perhaps it occurs with particular regularity in America, where young people are brought up to think that they are part of a nation that is on top of the world, and that they should expect to be completely in control of everything important in their lives, in consequence. Recent studies of troubled teens in America, particularly the impressive work of Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, in their book Raising Cain, has given strong support to this idea. Kindlon and Thompson focus on boys, and they do believe that the problems they bring to light have a gendered aspect, but they are also signs of more general cultural problems. The boys that Kindlon and Thompson study have learned from their culture that real men should be controlling, self-sufficient, dominant. They should never have, and certainly never admit to, fear and weakness. The consequence of this deformed expectation, Kindlon and Thompson show, is that these boys come to lack an understanding of their own vulnerabilities, needs and fears, weaknesses that all human beings share. They lack the language in which to characterize their own inner world, and they are by the same token clumsy interpreters of the emotions and inner lives of others. This emotional illiteracy is closely connected to aggression, as fear is turned outward, with little real understanding of the meaning of aggressive words and acts for the feelings of others. It is more than a little unfortunate that the foreign policy of our nation is at times expressed, today, in terms that reinforce these pathologies: we won't let anyone threaten our preeminence, we'll strike first against them, etc.
So the first recommendation I would make for a culture of extended compassion is one that was also made by Rousseau. It is, that an education in common human weakness and vulnerability should be a very profound part of the education of all young people. Especially when they are at the crucial time when they are on the verge of adulthood, young people should learn to be tragic spectators, and to understand with increasing subtlety and responsiveness the predicaments to which human life is prone. Through stories and dramas, history, film, the study of philosophical and religious ethics, and the study of the global economic system, they should get the habit of decoding the suffering of another, and this decoding should deliberately lead them into lives both near and far.”
________________________________________________________________________
David Foster Wallace
Writer
2005 Kenyon Commencement Address
http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html
The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too.
Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realist, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it's so socially repulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.
Please don't worry that I'm getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues. This is not a matter of virtue. It's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default setting this way are often described as being "well-adjusted", which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.
Given the triumphant academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default setting involves actual knowledge or intellect. This question gets very tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about an academic education -- least in my own case -- is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract argument inside my head, instead of simply paying attention to what is going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going on inside me.
As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.
And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know . . .
The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he's in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.
Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.
Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it. Because it's hard. It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat out won't want to.
But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed
_______________________________________________________________________
Joseph Brodsky
Writer – Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
Speech at the Stadium
Now, and in the time to be, I think it will pay for you to zero in on being precise with your language. Try to build and treat your vocabulary the way you are to treat your checking account. Pay every attention to it and try to increase your earnings. The purpose here is not to boost your bedroom eloquence or your professional success – although those, too, can be consequences – nor is it to turn you into parlor sophisticates. The purpose is to enable you to articulate yourselves as fully and precisely as possible; in a word, the purpose is your balance. For the accumulation of things not spelled out, not proplerly articulated, may result in neurosis. On a daily basis, a lot is happening to one’s psyche; the mode of one’s expression, however, often remains the same. Articulation lags behind experience. That doesn’t go well with the psyche. Sentiments, nuances, thoughts, perceptions that remain nameless, unable to be voiced and dissatisfied with approximations, get pent up within an individual and may lead to a psychological explosion or implosion. To avoid that, one needn’t turn into a bookworm. One should simply acquire a dictionary and read it on the same daily basis – and, on and off, books of poetry. Dictionaries, however, are of primary importance. There are a lot of them around; some of them even come with a magnifying glass. They are reasonably cheap, but even the most expensive among them (those equipped with a magnifying glass) cost far less than a single visit to a psychiatrist. If you are going to visit one nevertheless, go with the symptoms of a dictionary junkie. . . .
It is a jungle out there, as well as a desert, a slippery slope, a swamp, etc. – literally – but what’s worse, metaphorically, too. Yet, as Robert Frost has said, “The best way out is always through.” He also said, in a different poem though, that “to be social is to be forgiving.” It’s with a few remarks about this business of getting through that I would like to close.
Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those – in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed. Suffer them if you can’t escape them, but once you have steered clear of them, give them the shortest shrift possible. Above all, try to avoid telling stories about the unjust treatment you received at their hands; avoid it not matter how receptive your audience may be. Tales of this sort extend the existence of your antagonists; most likely they are counting on you being talkative and relating your experience to others. . . .
What your foes do derives its significance or consequence from the way you react. Therefore, rush through or past them as though they were yeloow and not red lights. Don’t linger on them mentally or verbally; don’t pride yourself on forgiving or forgetting them – worse come to worse, do the forgetting first. This way you’ll spare your brain cells a lot of useless agitation.”
William Gass "Learning to Talk"
Writer
Washington University, 1979
http://www.humanity.org/voices/commencements/speeches/index.php?page=gass_at_washington
“It can't be helped. We are made of layers of language like a Viennese torte. We are a Freudian dessert. My dinner companion, the lady who lent me her smile, has raised her goblet in a quiet toast. It is as though its rim had touched me, and I try to find words for the feeling, and for the wine which glows like molten rubies in her glass; because if I can do that, I can take away more than a memory which will fade faster than a winter footprint; I can take away an intense and interpreted description, a record as tough to erase as a relief, since without words what can be well and richly remembered? Yesterdays are gone like drying mist. Without our histories, without the conservation, which concepts nearly alone make possible, we could not preserve our lives as were the bodies of the pharaohs, the present would soon be as clear of the past as a bright day, and we would be innocent arboreals again. . . .
To think for yourself -- not narrowly, but rather as a mind -- you must be able to talk to yourself: well, openly, and at length. You must come in from the rain of requests and responses. You must take and employ your time as if it were your life. And that side of you which speaks must be prepared to say anything so long as it is so -- is seen so, felt so, thought so -- and that side of you which listens must be ready to hear horrors, for much of what is so is horrible -- horrible to see, horrible to feel, horrible to consider. But at length, and honestly -- that is not enough. To speak well to oneself . . . to speak well we must go down as far as the bucket can be lowered. Every thought must be thought through from its ultimate cost back to its cheap beginnings; every perception, however profound and distant, must be as clear and easy as the moon; every desire must be recognized as a relative and named as fearlessly as Satan named his angels; finally, every feeling must be felt to its bottom where the bucket rests in the silt and water rises like a tower around it. To talk to ourselves well requires, then, endless rehearsals -- rehearsals in which we revise, and the revision of the inner life strikes many people as hypocritical; but to think how to express some passion properly is the only way to be possessed by it, for unformed feelings lack impact, just as unfelt ideas lose weight. So walk around unrewritten, if you like. Live on broken phrases and syllable gristle, telegraphese and film reviews. No one will suspect . . . until you speak.”
________________________________________________________________________
Martha C. Nussbaum
“Compassion and Global Responsibility”
Commencement address at Georgetown University
Washington D.C.
May 16, 2003
Dr Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago.
http://www.humanity.org/voices/commencements/speeches/index.php?page=nussbaum_at_georgetown
“Compassion is an emotion rooted, probably, in our biological heritage. But this history does not mean that compassion is devoid of thought. In fact, as Aristotle argued long ago, human compassion standardly requires three thoughts: that a serious bad thing has happened to someone else; that this bad event was not (or not entirely) the person's own fault; and that we ourselves are vulnerable in similar ways. Thus compassion forms a psychological link between our own self-interest and the reality of another person's good or ill. For that reason it is a morally valuable emotion - when it gets things right.
To begin extending compassion as best we can, we need to ask how and why local loyalties and attachments come to take in some instances an especially virulent and aggressive form, militating against a more general sympathy. I would suggest that one problem we particularly need to watch out for is a type of pathological narcissism in which the person demands complete control over all the sources of good, and a complete self-sufficiency in consequence. This pathology occurs repeatedly in human life, but perhaps it occurs with particular regularity in America, where young people are brought up to think that they are part of a nation that is on top of the world, and that they should expect to be completely in control of everything important in their lives, in consequence. Recent studies of troubled teens in America, particularly the impressive work of Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, in their book Raising Cain, has given strong support to this idea. Kindlon and Thompson focus on boys, and they do believe that the problems they bring to light have a gendered aspect, but they are also signs of more general cultural problems. The boys that Kindlon and Thompson study have learned from their culture that real men should be controlling, self-sufficient, dominant. They should never have, and certainly never admit to, fear and weakness. The consequence of this deformed expectation, Kindlon and Thompson show, is that these boys come to lack an understanding of their own vulnerabilities, needs and fears, weaknesses that all human beings share. They lack the language in which to characterize their own inner world, and they are by the same token clumsy interpreters of the emotions and inner lives of others. This emotional illiteracy is closely connected to aggression, as fear is turned outward, with little real understanding of the meaning of aggressive words and acts for the feelings of others. It is more than a little unfortunate that the foreign policy of our nation is at times expressed, today, in terms that reinforce these pathologies: we won't let anyone threaten our preeminence, we'll strike first against them, etc.
So the first recommendation I would make for a culture of extended compassion is one that was also made by Rousseau. It is, that an education in common human weakness and vulnerability should be a very profound part of the education of all young people. Especially when they are at the crucial time when they are on the verge of adulthood, young people should learn to be tragic spectators, and to understand with increasing subtlety and responsiveness the predicaments to which human life is prone. Through stories and dramas, history, film, the study of philosophical and religious ethics, and the study of the global economic system, they should get the habit of decoding the suffering of another, and this decoding should deliberately lead them into lives both near and far.”
________________________________________________________________________
David Foster Wallace
Writer
2005 Kenyon Commencement Address
http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html
The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too.
Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realist, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it's so socially repulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.
Please don't worry that I'm getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues. This is not a matter of virtue. It's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default setting this way are often described as being "well-adjusted", which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.
Given the triumphant academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default setting involves actual knowledge or intellect. This question gets very tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about an academic education -- least in my own case -- is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract argument inside my head, instead of simply paying attention to what is going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going on inside me.
As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.
And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know . . .
The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he's in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.
Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.
Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it. Because it's hard. It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat out won't want to.
But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed
_______________________________________________________________________
Joseph Brodsky
Writer – Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
Speech at the Stadium
Now, and in the time to be, I think it will pay for you to zero in on being precise with your language. Try to build and treat your vocabulary the way you are to treat your checking account. Pay every attention to it and try to increase your earnings. The purpose here is not to boost your bedroom eloquence or your professional success – although those, too, can be consequences – nor is it to turn you into parlor sophisticates. The purpose is to enable you to articulate yourselves as fully and precisely as possible; in a word, the purpose is your balance. For the accumulation of things not spelled out, not proplerly articulated, may result in neurosis. On a daily basis, a lot is happening to one’s psyche; the mode of one’s expression, however, often remains the same. Articulation lags behind experience. That doesn’t go well with the psyche. Sentiments, nuances, thoughts, perceptions that remain nameless, unable to be voiced and dissatisfied with approximations, get pent up within an individual and may lead to a psychological explosion or implosion. To avoid that, one needn’t turn into a bookworm. One should simply acquire a dictionary and read it on the same daily basis – and, on and off, books of poetry. Dictionaries, however, are of primary importance. There are a lot of them around; some of them even come with a magnifying glass. They are reasonably cheap, but even the most expensive among them (those equipped with a magnifying glass) cost far less than a single visit to a psychiatrist. If you are going to visit one nevertheless, go with the symptoms of a dictionary junkie. . . .
It is a jungle out there, as well as a desert, a slippery slope, a swamp, etc. – literally – but what’s worse, metaphorically, too. Yet, as Robert Frost has said, “The best way out is always through.” He also said, in a different poem though, that “to be social is to be forgiving.” It’s with a few remarks about this business of getting through that I would like to close.
Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those – in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed. Suffer them if you can’t escape them, but once you have steered clear of them, give them the shortest shrift possible. Above all, try to avoid telling stories about the unjust treatment you received at their hands; avoid it not matter how receptive your audience may be. Tales of this sort extend the existence of your antagonists; most likely they are counting on you being talkative and relating your experience to others. . . .
What your foes do derives its significance or consequence from the way you react. Therefore, rush through or past them as though they were yeloow and not red lights. Don’t linger on them mentally or verbally; don’t pride yourself on forgiving or forgetting them – worse come to worse, do the forgetting first. This way you’ll spare your brain cells a lot of useless agitation.”
What Do These Songs Mean??
The song – it make no sense. Well maybe not in a typical story kind of way; but in others it makes all kinds of sense. These are those songs that you listen to and say – what a great song . . . what does it mean? You delight in the images, the catchy lines, the confusion, and the feeling – yes the feeling that in the end it makes all kinds of sense. The song is poetry and doesn’t need to tell a story – it rather paints a picture. You remember the picture and the music imprints it in your mind.
Big Frank presents his favorites. First of all the great – “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window”. There is the drama of the entrance – through the bathroom window; probably up to no good. She should have been told – but nobody said anything to her. She depends on him, but he is having trouble delivering. But, wait, he depends on her – and she can’t deliver. Oh woe!
SHE CAME IN THROUGH THE BATHROOM WINDOW
By John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Oh,look out!!...
She came in through the bathroom window
Protected by a silver spoon
But now she sucks her thumb and wonders
By the banks of her own lagoon
Didn't anybody tell her
Didn't anybody see
Sunday's on the phone to Monday
Tuesday's on the phone to me
She said she'd always been a dancer
She worked at fifteen clubs a day
And though she thought I knew the answer
Well I knew, but I could not say
And so I quit the police department
And got myself a steady job
And though she tried her best to help me
She could steal, but she could not rob
Then there is Neil Young’s “Broken Arrow”. Once again a very dramatic beginning; literally some kind of show – or was it. Perhaps it was just a dream. The mysterious “they” waiting at the melancholy stage door with the impressive but ominous “black limousine”. Abrupt switch to a different “them” now at the river with the empty quiver and the Indian, with the broken arrow (we are in a dream now, and as in a dream the scene now abruptly shifts to a kind of family nightmare). Then we are back in the river again but now someone is waving, and the Indian and the quiver are still there with that broken arrow. Then another dream sequence, this time a wedding. However with black caissons?! Not to worry it was for peace and then they were gone. Where to – back to the river, the Indian, the quiver, and that sad broken arrow. What a beautiful sad lament.
"Broken Arrow"
By Neil Young
The lights turned on
and the curtain fell down,
And when it was over
it felt like a dream,
They stood at the stage door
and begged for a scream,
The agents had paid
for the black limousine
That waited outside in the rain.
Did you see them,
did you see them?
Did you see them in the river?
They were there to wave to you.
Could you tell that
the empty quivered,
Brown skinned Indian on the banks
That were crowded and narrow,
Held a broken arrow?
Eighteen years of American dream,
He saw that his brother
had sworn on the wall.
He hung up his eyelids
and ran down the hall,
His mother had told him
a trip was a fall,
And don't mention babies at all.
Did you see him, did you see him?
Did you see him in the river?
He were there to wave to you.
Could you tell that
the empty quivered,
Brown skinned Indian on the banks
That were crowded and narrow,
Held a broken arrow?
The streets were lined
for the wedding parade,
The Queen wore the white gloves,
the county of song,
The black covered caisson
her horses had drawn
Protected her King
from the sun rays of dawn.
They married for peace
and were gone.
Did you see them,
did you see them?
Did you see them in the river?
They were there to wave to you.
Could you tell that
the empty quivered,
Brown skinned Indian on the banks
That were crowded and narrow,
Held a broken arrow?
Finally, there is Paul Simon’s “Senorita With a Necklace”
Here the refrain is “That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way I like” and then finally “that’s the way I want it to be”. So the thread of acceptance winds its way through. But what a wild road it takes: the wisdom tooth, tangled intricacies of reincarnation, the miracles of nature, the amazing contrarieties of humans, the beautiful sad regretful memories, and the perseverance of some – “That’s the way it’s always been, And that’s the way I like it, And that’s how I want it to be.” What a terrific affirming and accepting song about the wonder of this life on earth – wisdom teeth and frogs and all.
Senorita With A Necklace
By Paul Simon
I have a wisdom tooth
Inside my crowed face
I have a friend who is born again
Found his savior's grace
I was born before my father
And my children before me
We are born and born again
Like the waves in the sea
That's the way it's always been
And that's how I want it to be
Nothing but good news
There is a frog in South America
Whose venom is a cure
For all the suffering that mankind
Must endure
More powerful than morphine
And soothing as the rain
A frog in south america
Has the antidote to pain
That's the way it's always been
And that's the way I like it
Some people never say no
Some people never complain
Some folks have no idea
And others will never explain
That's the way it's always been
And that's the way I like it
And that's how I want it to be
That's the way it's always been
And that's the way I like it
And that's how I want it to be
If I could play all the memories
In the neck of my guitar
I'd write a song called
Senorita with a necklace of tears
And every tear a sin I'd committed
Oh these many years
That's who I was
That's the way it's always been
Some people always want more
Some people are what they
Some folks open a door
Walk away and never look back
I don't want to be a judge
And I don't want to be a jury
I know who I am
Lord knows who I will be
That's the way it's always been
And that's the way I like it
And that's how I want it to be
That's the way it's always been
And that's the way I like it
And that's how I want it to be
OK, send in your favorites. What songs on the surface seem nonsensical. Big Frank expect lots of Bob Dylan, there are more Neil Young – what about Leonard Cohen? Send in your favorites and I’ll post them.
Big Frank presents his favorites. First of all the great – “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window”. There is the drama of the entrance – through the bathroom window; probably up to no good. She should have been told – but nobody said anything to her. She depends on him, but he is having trouble delivering. But, wait, he depends on her – and she can’t deliver. Oh woe!
SHE CAME IN THROUGH THE BATHROOM WINDOW
By John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Oh,look out!!...
She came in through the bathroom window
Protected by a silver spoon
But now she sucks her thumb and wonders
By the banks of her own lagoon
Didn't anybody tell her
Didn't anybody see
Sunday's on the phone to Monday
Tuesday's on the phone to me
She said she'd always been a dancer
She worked at fifteen clubs a day
And though she thought I knew the answer
Well I knew, but I could not say
And so I quit the police department
And got myself a steady job
And though she tried her best to help me
She could steal, but she could not rob
Then there is Neil Young’s “Broken Arrow”. Once again a very dramatic beginning; literally some kind of show – or was it. Perhaps it was just a dream. The mysterious “they” waiting at the melancholy stage door with the impressive but ominous “black limousine”. Abrupt switch to a different “them” now at the river with the empty quiver and the Indian, with the broken arrow (we are in a dream now, and as in a dream the scene now abruptly shifts to a kind of family nightmare). Then we are back in the river again but now someone is waving, and the Indian and the quiver are still there with that broken arrow. Then another dream sequence, this time a wedding. However with black caissons?! Not to worry it was for peace and then they were gone. Where to – back to the river, the Indian, the quiver, and that sad broken arrow. What a beautiful sad lament.
"Broken Arrow"
By Neil Young
The lights turned on
and the curtain fell down,
And when it was over
it felt like a dream,
They stood at the stage door
and begged for a scream,
The agents had paid
for the black limousine
That waited outside in the rain.
Did you see them,
did you see them?
Did you see them in the river?
They were there to wave to you.
Could you tell that
the empty quivered,
Brown skinned Indian on the banks
That were crowded and narrow,
Held a broken arrow?
Eighteen years of American dream,
He saw that his brother
had sworn on the wall.
He hung up his eyelids
and ran down the hall,
His mother had told him
a trip was a fall,
And don't mention babies at all.
Did you see him, did you see him?
Did you see him in the river?
He were there to wave to you.
Could you tell that
the empty quivered,
Brown skinned Indian on the banks
That were crowded and narrow,
Held a broken arrow?
The streets were lined
for the wedding parade,
The Queen wore the white gloves,
the county of song,
The black covered caisson
her horses had drawn
Protected her King
from the sun rays of dawn.
They married for peace
and were gone.
Did you see them,
did you see them?
Did you see them in the river?
They were there to wave to you.
Could you tell that
the empty quivered,
Brown skinned Indian on the banks
That were crowded and narrow,
Held a broken arrow?
Finally, there is Paul Simon’s “Senorita With a Necklace”
Here the refrain is “That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way I like” and then finally “that’s the way I want it to be”. So the thread of acceptance winds its way through. But what a wild road it takes: the wisdom tooth, tangled intricacies of reincarnation, the miracles of nature, the amazing contrarieties of humans, the beautiful sad regretful memories, and the perseverance of some – “That’s the way it’s always been, And that’s the way I like it, And that’s how I want it to be.” What a terrific affirming and accepting song about the wonder of this life on earth – wisdom teeth and frogs and all.
Senorita With A Necklace
By Paul Simon
I have a wisdom tooth
Inside my crowed face
I have a friend who is born again
Found his savior's grace
I was born before my father
And my children before me
We are born and born again
Like the waves in the sea
That's the way it's always been
And that's how I want it to be
Nothing but good news
There is a frog in South America
Whose venom is a cure
For all the suffering that mankind
Must endure
More powerful than morphine
And soothing as the rain
A frog in south america
Has the antidote to pain
That's the way it's always been
And that's the way I like it
Some people never say no
Some people never complain
Some folks have no idea
And others will never explain
That's the way it's always been
And that's the way I like it
And that's how I want it to be
That's the way it's always been
And that's the way I like it
And that's how I want it to be
If I could play all the memories
In the neck of my guitar
I'd write a song called
Senorita with a necklace of tears
And every tear a sin I'd committed
Oh these many years
That's who I was
That's the way it's always been
Some people always want more
Some people are what they
Some folks open a door
Walk away and never look back
I don't want to be a judge
And I don't want to be a jury
I know who I am
Lord knows who I will be
That's the way it's always been
And that's the way I like it
And that's how I want it to be
That's the way it's always been
And that's the way I like it
And that's how I want it to be
OK, send in your favorites. What songs on the surface seem nonsensical. Big Frank expect lots of Bob Dylan, there are more Neil Young – what about Leonard Cohen? Send in your favorites and I’ll post them.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Love Poetry
Love Poetry
Big Frank has been reading James Fenton’s excellent anthology of love poetry, entitled "The New Faber Book of Love Poems". It is a hefty tome that arranges the poetry by authors, alphabetically. He included everything from Amercian folk songs (Frankie and Johnny) to blues licks, the usual list of great lyric poets (Burns, Blake, Shakespeare, Rossetti, etc.), and many many new discoveries. What he does especially well is to capture the full scope of love better than most anthologies. Typically you get the ying and yang of love: the wild passion accompanying its birth, and the woe after it has collapsed. Fenton includes the poems reflecting what lies between the 'I love you.”, and the ‘Oh, no; it’s all over now.’ It is this fullness that gives the anthology its richness.
In the introduction Fenton summarizes this quite well: “I love you. You love me. I used to love you. You don’t love me. I want to sleep with you. Here we are in bed together. I hate you. You betrayed me. I’ve betrayed you. I want to kill you. Oh no! I have killed you. Such are the simple propositions on which these lyrics elaborate.”
Perhaps it would do well to start at the end of the progression - an end that becomes a beginning. Here is W.D. Snodgrass on the lingering introspective reflection of lost love. A poem that captures the spurned lover in yet another of his backward glances – his revery of “what if”:
The Last Time
Three years ago one last time, you forgot
Yourself and let your hand, all gentleness
Move to my hair, then slip down to caress
My cheek, my neck. My breath failed me; I thought
It might all come back yet, believed you might
Turn back. You turned, then, once more to your own
Talk with that tall young man in whom you’d shown
In front of all our friends such clear delight
All afternoon. You, recalled then the long
Love you had held for me was changed. You threw
Both arms around him, kissed him, and then you
Said you were ready and we went along.
In Siegfried Sassoon’s poem The Dug-Out we have a different kind of fear expressed than the oft-expressed fear of loss. Here it is not the loss of the lover’s love; it is not the lover going off with someone else, or leaving for loss of feelings. Here it is the fear of the loss of one’s lover through the death of one’s lover. The knowledge that, with certainty it will happen makes it all the more disturbing as Sassoon expresses so well.
The Dug-Out
Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep shadow’d from the candle’s guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head . . .
You are too young to fall asleep forever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.
Don Patterson’s “The Gift” expresses the horrible emerging from the well intentioned gesture – the gift. Here it is almost like Blake’s “The Rose” – love’s fragility and the parallel destroyers that accompany us in life – even when in love:
The Gift
That night she called his name, not mine
and could not call it back
I shamed myself and thought of that blind
girl in Kodiak
who sat on the stoop each night
to watch the daylight fade
and lift her child down to the gate cut
in the palisade
and what old caution love resigned
when through that misty stare
she passed the boy to not her bearskinned
husband but the bear.
Alice Oswald has a sonnet that takes a brighter look at love: love expanding into everything. Here it’s like an inhalation and exhalation; love’s private present luck-blessed alarm that echoes back off everything and is reflective of everything.
Wedding
From time to time our love is like a sail
And when the sail begins to alternate
From tack to tack, it’s like a swallowtail
And when the swallow flies it’s like a coat;
And if the coat is yours, it has a tear
Like a wide mouth and when the mouth begins
To draw the wind, it’s like a trumpeter
And when the trumpet blows, it blows like millions . . .
And this, my love, when millions come and go
Beyond the need of us, is like a trick;
And when the trick begins, it’s like a toe
Tip-toeing on a rope, which is like luck;
And when the luck begins, it’s like a wedding,
Which is like love, which is like everything.
John Fuller captures the ambiguity of love in “Two Voices”. Here is the dichotomous full view of love – a Blakean voice reminiscent of “The Clod and the Pebble” or “Thel’s Motto".
Two Voices
Love is a large hope in what,
Unfound, imaginary, leaves us
With a beautifying presence.
Love always grieves us.’
So sang youth to the consenting air
While age in deathly silence, thus:
‘Love is a regret for what,
Lost or never was, assails us
With a beautifying presence.
Love never fails us.’
James Fenton’s “The Alibi” humorously and poignantly captures the alienation of love and the ridiculousness of haughty smugness:
The Alibi
My mind was racing
It was some years from now.
We were together again in our old flat.
You were admiring yourself adjusting your hat.
‘Oh of course I was mad then,’ you said with a
Forgiving smile,
‘Something snapped in me and I was mad for a
While.’
But this madness of yours disgusted me,
This alibi,
This gorgeous madness like a tinkling sleigh,
It carried you away
Snug in your fur, snug in your muff and cape.
You made your escape
Through the night, over the dry powdery snow.
I watched you go.
Turly the mad deserve our sympathy.
And you were driven mad you said by me
And then you drove away
The cushions and the furs piled high,
Snug with your madness alibi,
Injured and forgiven on your loaded sleigh.
And then we have Robert Burns, he of the “And I will luve thee still, my dear,/ Till a’ the seas gang dry.” Well, maybe not quite that long. For in addition to “A Red, Red Rose” Burns also wrote “Wantonness”.
Wantonness
Wantonness for every mair,
Wantonnes has been my ruin;
Wety for a’ my dool and care,
It’s wantonness for ever!
I hae lov’d the Black, the Brown,
I hae lov’d the Fair, the Gowden:
A’ the colours in the town
I hae won their wanton favour.
W.H. Auden often writes of the grief of love: :”I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.” In “The More Loving One” he confirms his choice to be “the more loving one” even if it be in the indifferent gaze of the loved one.
The More Loving One
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark subline,
Though this might take me a little time.
Well then, not all are as willing to be “the more loving one”. Take Elizabeth Thomas, for example in the aptly titled “The Execration”. This well addresses the “I hate you” – phase of love – not often included in such anthologies.
The Execration
Enslaved by passions, swelled with pride,
In love with one whom all deride;
A carcase well, yet mind in pain,
Reduced to beg, but beg in vain;
To live reserved and free from blame,
And yet incur an evil fame:
Let this! This be the wretched fate
Of Rosalinda, whom I hate.
However, we can't leave the great anthology on such a note. Let's part with an unexpected treat, ironically from the first poet included in this book, Fleur Adcock. This poem speaks well of our time perhaps more than of times past: the emphasis and value of friendship in love.
Happy Ending
After they had not made love
she pulled the sheet up over her eyes
until he was buttoning his shirt:
not shyness for their bodies - those
they had willingly displayed - but a frail
endeavour to apologise.
Later, though, drawn together by
a distaste for such 'untidy ends'
they agreed to meet again; whereupon
as though what they had made was love -
and not that happier outcome, friends.
Big Frank has been reading James Fenton’s excellent anthology of love poetry, entitled "The New Faber Book of Love Poems". It is a hefty tome that arranges the poetry by authors, alphabetically. He included everything from Amercian folk songs (Frankie and Johnny) to blues licks, the usual list of great lyric poets (Burns, Blake, Shakespeare, Rossetti, etc.), and many many new discoveries. What he does especially well is to capture the full scope of love better than most anthologies. Typically you get the ying and yang of love: the wild passion accompanying its birth, and the woe after it has collapsed. Fenton includes the poems reflecting what lies between the 'I love you.”, and the ‘Oh, no; it’s all over now.’ It is this fullness that gives the anthology its richness.
In the introduction Fenton summarizes this quite well: “I love you. You love me. I used to love you. You don’t love me. I want to sleep with you. Here we are in bed together. I hate you. You betrayed me. I’ve betrayed you. I want to kill you. Oh no! I have killed you. Such are the simple propositions on which these lyrics elaborate.”
Perhaps it would do well to start at the end of the progression - an end that becomes a beginning. Here is W.D. Snodgrass on the lingering introspective reflection of lost love. A poem that captures the spurned lover in yet another of his backward glances – his revery of “what if”:
The Last Time
Three years ago one last time, you forgot
Yourself and let your hand, all gentleness
Move to my hair, then slip down to caress
My cheek, my neck. My breath failed me; I thought
It might all come back yet, believed you might
Turn back. You turned, then, once more to your own
Talk with that tall young man in whom you’d shown
In front of all our friends such clear delight
All afternoon. You, recalled then the long
Love you had held for me was changed. You threw
Both arms around him, kissed him, and then you
Said you were ready and we went along.
In Siegfried Sassoon’s poem The Dug-Out we have a different kind of fear expressed than the oft-expressed fear of loss. Here it is not the loss of the lover’s love; it is not the lover going off with someone else, or leaving for loss of feelings. Here it is the fear of the loss of one’s lover through the death of one’s lover. The knowledge that, with certainty it will happen makes it all the more disturbing as Sassoon expresses so well.
The Dug-Out
Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep shadow’d from the candle’s guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head . . .
You are too young to fall asleep forever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.
Don Patterson’s “The Gift” expresses the horrible emerging from the well intentioned gesture – the gift. Here it is almost like Blake’s “The Rose” – love’s fragility and the parallel destroyers that accompany us in life – even when in love:
The Gift
That night she called his name, not mine
and could not call it back
I shamed myself and thought of that blind
girl in Kodiak
who sat on the stoop each night
to watch the daylight fade
and lift her child down to the gate cut
in the palisade
and what old caution love resigned
when through that misty stare
she passed the boy to not her bearskinned
husband but the bear.
Alice Oswald has a sonnet that takes a brighter look at love: love expanding into everything. Here it’s like an inhalation and exhalation; love’s private present luck-blessed alarm that echoes back off everything and is reflective of everything.
Wedding
From time to time our love is like a sail
And when the sail begins to alternate
From tack to tack, it’s like a swallowtail
And when the swallow flies it’s like a coat;
And if the coat is yours, it has a tear
Like a wide mouth and when the mouth begins
To draw the wind, it’s like a trumpeter
And when the trumpet blows, it blows like millions . . .
And this, my love, when millions come and go
Beyond the need of us, is like a trick;
And when the trick begins, it’s like a toe
Tip-toeing on a rope, which is like luck;
And when the luck begins, it’s like a wedding,
Which is like love, which is like everything.
John Fuller captures the ambiguity of love in “Two Voices”. Here is the dichotomous full view of love – a Blakean voice reminiscent of “The Clod and the Pebble” or “Thel’s Motto".
Two Voices
Love is a large hope in what,
Unfound, imaginary, leaves us
With a beautifying presence.
Love always grieves us.’
So sang youth to the consenting air
While age in deathly silence, thus:
‘Love is a regret for what,
Lost or never was, assails us
With a beautifying presence.
Love never fails us.’
James Fenton’s “The Alibi” humorously and poignantly captures the alienation of love and the ridiculousness of haughty smugness:
The Alibi
My mind was racing
It was some years from now.
We were together again in our old flat.
You were admiring yourself adjusting your hat.
‘Oh of course I was mad then,’ you said with a
Forgiving smile,
‘Something snapped in me and I was mad for a
While.’
But this madness of yours disgusted me,
This alibi,
This gorgeous madness like a tinkling sleigh,
It carried you away
Snug in your fur, snug in your muff and cape.
You made your escape
Through the night, over the dry powdery snow.
I watched you go.
Turly the mad deserve our sympathy.
And you were driven mad you said by me
And then you drove away
The cushions and the furs piled high,
Snug with your madness alibi,
Injured and forgiven on your loaded sleigh.
And then we have Robert Burns, he of the “And I will luve thee still, my dear,/ Till a’ the seas gang dry.” Well, maybe not quite that long. For in addition to “A Red, Red Rose” Burns also wrote “Wantonness”.
Wantonness
Wantonness for every mair,
Wantonnes has been my ruin;
Wety for a’ my dool and care,
It’s wantonness for ever!
I hae lov’d the Black, the Brown,
I hae lov’d the Fair, the Gowden:
A’ the colours in the town
I hae won their wanton favour.
W.H. Auden often writes of the grief of love: :”I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.” In “The More Loving One” he confirms his choice to be “the more loving one” even if it be in the indifferent gaze of the loved one.
The More Loving One
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark subline,
Though this might take me a little time.
Well then, not all are as willing to be “the more loving one”. Take Elizabeth Thomas, for example in the aptly titled “The Execration”. This well addresses the “I hate you” – phase of love – not often included in such anthologies.
The Execration
Enslaved by passions, swelled with pride,
In love with one whom all deride;
A carcase well, yet mind in pain,
Reduced to beg, but beg in vain;
To live reserved and free from blame,
And yet incur an evil fame:
Let this! This be the wretched fate
Of Rosalinda, whom I hate.
However, we can't leave the great anthology on such a note. Let's part with an unexpected treat, ironically from the first poet included in this book, Fleur Adcock. This poem speaks well of our time perhaps more than of times past: the emphasis and value of friendship in love.
Happy Ending
After they had not made love
she pulled the sheet up over her eyes
until he was buttoning his shirt:
not shyness for their bodies - those
they had willingly displayed - but a frail
endeavour to apologise.
Later, though, drawn together by
a distaste for such 'untidy ends'
they agreed to meet again; whereupon
as though what they had made was love -
and not that happier outcome, friends.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Bifurcation
One looks at the world and is immediately struck by the image of bifurcation, symmetry, and duality. You see things are set up pretty much with one side balanced by the other. Look at yourself – at your body: you have a right arm and a left arm; you have ears on either side of your head; a left eye and a right eye. Similarly with trees, the moon, birds, crystals, seashells, crosses, the Star of David, pottery, quilts, musical scales, tit for tat, the Golden Rule, etc. etc. In all these cases we broadly see that one side is equal to the other; however, a closer view reveals that, in fact, the two are not equal. In all cases at the macro-level the symmetry is only approximate. Side A is different from side B. Look at your right arm and you will see that it differs in many respects from your left arm. Similarly your right eye from you left; one side of the moon from the other, the top of the quilt from the bottom, etc. etc. Without getting into great detail, which would take us beyond Big Frank’s capabilities, symmetry is exact at the micro level, where quantum mechanics kicks in; it is approximate at the macro level.
What does this mean? It means that at the micro level where there is exact symmetry that those objects, those particles are exact duplicates of each other – and as such are better viewed as waves rather than as particles. Think of the waves of the ocean, or of sound waves and how they duplicate each other. They can do this because, in a sense, they are the same – just in different places. At the macro level there cannot be exact symmetry because the two sides are two not one – as a wave is.
OK, so what does this mean for the proverbial man in the street. Well, that’s what this entry is all about. Note that it is called bifurcation; it is not called symmetry. And. . . the reason for that is that what we think of as symmetry is better expressed as a kind of duality, and forked separation. And here is where Big Frank strikes out on his own. He thinks that because of this pervasive bifurcation: symmetry just ever so slightly off that people have taken this imbued duality of existence and they have expressed in the way that they see the world. There are two kinds of everything that hing on a single category, but they swing apart at that hinge into not close approximations of each other, but radically different approaches to the category in question. What we are talking about here is the ever present: “There are two kinds of people in the world – those who ________ and those who ________.”
A cursory examination of any dictionary of quotations reveals a rich mine of such quotations:
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who walk into a room and say, "There you are" and those who say, "Here I am"”
Abigail Van Buren
There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating—people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.
Oscar Wilde
There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
Charles Mingus
There are two kinds of people in the world, those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
Clint Eastwood aka Blondie in “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”
At every party there are two kinds of people—those who want to go home and those who don’t. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other.
Ann Landers
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matters; second, telling other people to do so.
Bertrand Russell
In all the above we note that at a certain simplistic level we can agree with all of the above. At another level, however, we note that this simplification is ridiculous and so we chuckle. This leads into the whole rich field of jokes that start: “There are two kinds of .. .
There are two kinds of lawyers. Those who know the law, and those who know the judge.
There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.
There are two kinds of people: those who blog and those who don’t.
There are two kinds of people: those who are from North Dakota and those who wish they were.
OK, so these are not so funny. You can probably make up better ones yourself. Give it a whirl and send in as comments. Big Frank will then compile and post in one long list. There are two kinds of ________: _________ and _________. That’s the formula and the inclination is built in – so go with the flow. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who will respond and write in and . . . . those who won’t. Be of the first group.
What does this mean? It means that at the micro level where there is exact symmetry that those objects, those particles are exact duplicates of each other – and as such are better viewed as waves rather than as particles. Think of the waves of the ocean, or of sound waves and how they duplicate each other. They can do this because, in a sense, they are the same – just in different places. At the macro level there cannot be exact symmetry because the two sides are two not one – as a wave is.
OK, so what does this mean for the proverbial man in the street. Well, that’s what this entry is all about. Note that it is called bifurcation; it is not called symmetry. And. . . the reason for that is that what we think of as symmetry is better expressed as a kind of duality, and forked separation. And here is where Big Frank strikes out on his own. He thinks that because of this pervasive bifurcation: symmetry just ever so slightly off that people have taken this imbued duality of existence and they have expressed in the way that they see the world. There are two kinds of everything that hing on a single category, but they swing apart at that hinge into not close approximations of each other, but radically different approaches to the category in question. What we are talking about here is the ever present: “There are two kinds of people in the world – those who ________ and those who ________.”
A cursory examination of any dictionary of quotations reveals a rich mine of such quotations:
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who walk into a room and say, "There you are" and those who say, "Here I am"”
Abigail Van Buren
There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating—people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.
Oscar Wilde
There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
Charles Mingus
There are two kinds of people in the world, those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
Clint Eastwood aka Blondie in “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”
At every party there are two kinds of people—those who want to go home and those who don’t. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other.
Ann Landers
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matters; second, telling other people to do so.
Bertrand Russell
In all the above we note that at a certain simplistic level we can agree with all of the above. At another level, however, we note that this simplification is ridiculous and so we chuckle. This leads into the whole rich field of jokes that start: “There are two kinds of .. .
There are two kinds of lawyers. Those who know the law, and those who know the judge.
There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.
There are two kinds of people: those who blog and those who don’t.
There are two kinds of people: those who are from North Dakota and those who wish they were.
OK, so these are not so funny. You can probably make up better ones yourself. Give it a whirl and send in as comments. Big Frank will then compile and post in one long list. There are two kinds of ________: _________ and _________. That’s the formula and the inclination is built in – so go with the flow. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who will respond and write in and . . . . those who won’t. Be of the first group.
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