robert graves.

Just came across Robert Graves. Fascinating man. I love this poem. More of the sort here.

TO AN UNGENTLE CRITIC

The great sun sinks behind the town
Through a red mist of Volnay wine….
But what’s the use of setting down
That glorious blaze behind the town?
You’ll only skip the page, you’ll look
For newer pictures in this book;
You’ve read of sunsets rich as mine.

A fresh wind fills the evening air
With horrid crying of night birds….
But what reads new or curious there
When cold winds fly across the air?
You’ll only frown; you’ll turn the page,
But find no glimpse of your “New Age
Of Poetry” in my worn-out words.

Must winds that cut like blades of steel
And sunsets swimming in Volnay,
The holiest, cruellest pains I feel,
Die stillborn, because old men squeal
For something new: “Write something new:
We’ve read this poem—that one too,
And twelve more like ‘em yesterday”?

No, no! my chicken, I shall scrawl
Just what I fancy as I strike it,
Fairies and Fusiliers, and all
Old broken knock-kneed thought will crawl
Across my verse in the classic way.
And, sir, be careful what you say;
There are old-fashioned folk still like it.

when in doubt, turn to him.

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Sonnet 24, William Shakespeare

Moiré.

just remembered that today. overlay of perspectives creates depth.

In physics, a moiré pattern (pronounced /mwɑːˈreɪ/ or /ˈmɔəreɪ/ in English; [mwaˈʁe] in French) is an interference pattern created, for example, when two grids are overlaid at an angle, or when they have slightly different mesh sizes.

In textiles, a moire (pronounced /mwɑː/) is a fabric with a wavy (watered) appearance, caused by varying the tension in the warp and weft of the weave.

see wikipedia and bateson.

hopefully it will help re-write chapter 4.

little miss tut and the object of tz.

i thought this was one of the OED’s less skillful descriptions:

tut, n

also tutt, -e, 9 Sc. tuts.

. 9 Sc. toot, tout; toots. [A natural utterance; the spelling tut sometimes represents the palatal click (also spelt TCHICK, TCK). Cf. also hut tut, hoot toot, hout tout s.v. HOOT int.] 

An ejaculation (often reduplicated) expressing impatience or dissatisfaction with a statement, notion, or proceeding, or contemptuously dismissing it. (The Sc. toot, toots, expresses mild expostulation.)

weaving rainbows?

just finished reading richard dawkins’s ‘unweaving the rainbow’ (1998) and have had very strong reactions to it of which i am still trying to make sense. All that follows is not meant as a discouragement from reading the book.

the first feeling that comes from it is that it can tell me things about biological processes (co-evolution, the idea that organisms are made up of other organisms, and feedback mechanisms in human consciousness and perception to mention but a few) that are quite fascinating and rich material of how animals live in their environments. I have to say that I was more impressed the more I read of it, and the last chapter truly resonated with resonate with some of the ideas that i’ve encountered in anthropology interested in biological processes and how the metaphors used to describe them might go some way towards describing social phenomena. he is also somewhat keen on reacting to what i suppose then was a long string of reactions and polarisations of ‘the selfish gene’, his earlier book that he kind of revisits in a chapter called the ’selfish cooperator’. the last chapter in particular goes some way towards dealing with the idea of subjective consciousness and mind-brain patterning understanding.

while the whole book goes some way towards dissolving strict oppositions of science versus poetry, it does not stand away from its pedestal of authority and trashes anything that is remotely ‘religious’ (my use of this term being closer to an anthro use of it, as describing phenomena of social efficacy and meaning? — his examples often deriding the patterning processes that people resort to in explanatory frameworks such as astrology or other ‘nonsense’ acc to him).

i am guessing from the tack of this book that he is taking issue with ‘creationists’ (also much more dogmatically in ‘god delusion’ – a more recent work which has not been received well by reviewers). he also takes issue with ‘relativist’ frameworks, and quotes some, to be honest, quite unfortunate instances of anthropology-in-destructive-mode, aka po-mo utterances that, taken out of context, are pretty easy to be misread and twisted. these type of attacks happen mostly at the beginning of the book, as a ‘positioning’ device of sorts. they are like this one, that quotes an anthropologist matt cartmill who writes in Discover magazine in 1998 in an article that whistleblows a book by gross and levitt on ‘higher superstition: the academic left and its quarrel with science’ (1994) to illustrate the general jist of those Dawkins attacks here:

‘anybody who claims to have objective knowledge about anything is trying to control and dominate the rest of us… There are no objective facts. all supposed ‘facts’ are contaminated with theories, and all theories are infested with moral and political doctrines… Therefore, when some guy in a lab coat tells you that such and such is an objective fact… he must have a political agenda up his starched white sleeve.’

cartmill is a respectable biological anthropologist in ‘evolutionary anthropology’ at duke. he then goes and follows the quote by

There are even a few vocal fifth columnists within science itself who hold exactly these views, and use them to waste the time of the rest of us. Carmill’s thesis is that there is an unexpected an pernicious alliance between the know-nothing fundamentalist religious right and the sophisticated academic left. A bizarre manifestation of the alliance is their joint opposition to the theory of evolution. The opposition of the fundamentalists is obvious. That of the left is a compound of hostility to science in general, of ‘respect’ (weasel word of our time) for tribal creation myths, and of various political agendas. Both these strange bedfellows share a concern for ‘human dignity’ and take offence at treating humans as ‘animals’. … Purveyors of cultural relativism and the ‘higher superstition’ are apt to pour scorn on the search for truth. This partly stems from the conviction that truths are different in different cultures… and partly from the inability of philosophers of science to agree about truth anyway. There are, of course, genuine philosophical difficulties. Is a truth just a so-far-unfalsified hypothesis? What status does truth have in the strange, uncertain world of quantum theory? Is anything ultimately true? On the other hand, no philosopher has any trouble when suspecting his wife of adultery. ‘Is it true?’ feels like a fair question, and few who ask it in their private lives would be satisfied with logic-chopping sophistry in response.

I am not too sure how to respond to this bunch of statements, which, to me muddle certain (interweaving) things:

1. relativism does not equal relativity, relativity does not mean anything goes, it means awareness of positioning
2. epistemological truth-claims are themselves embedded in systems of validation and power, i.e. asking ‘what is truth’ is not the right question in this context

However, the bunching of left-wing academics (including social anthros) with fundamentalist right-wing religious arguments is a cause for alarm. I believe that a lot of anthro that attempts to be radical in its treatment of subjects gets misunderstood, and labelled ‘po-mo’ in the process.

Anthros are really bad at PR, and sometimes we get caught up in so much complicated social life that we cannot think about them properly and our accounts are incredibly rich, but incredibly un-appealing to larger audiences. We tend to excuse this as ‘complexity’.

photo: slain’s castle

areyouspeakingmy?

in a discussion (it felt more like i was refusing to have the discussion, actually) with greeeni i found myself saying something like ‘there is no language’ and had to laugh at my own utterance. geez, nutshell! what are you on about?

‘t was not actually what i meant.

what i wondered about is the following idea:

familiarity with various clusters of language that different groups of people use every day, i.e. the ’speech communities’ however temporary or contestable they may be of civil servants, anthropologists, dock workers, mothers, Fort McPherson Gwichin, Russian Israeli, people from one village…

+

the way in which the evocation of specific words trail a whole lot of others with them, both denoting and connotating. so the image this conjured up in my head was the following: word rings your door bell. as you answer you find not just that word has arrived, but with him/her/it an entire clan tucked in a caravan, with various objects dangling from either side, and drawn by a supersized penguin. this has all kinds of effects on different people.

+

i wonder then how it is possible bar in philosophy or linguistic seminars [which are highly specialised speech communities] to speak about something called ’semantics’ – and i still don’t buy the idea that context is considered here – that purports to be universal knowledge. and the thing is that it is circular: to understand it you have to submit to it, which makes you understand it, which in turn makes you part of the speech community, up to some degree. notwithstanding whether saussure and structural linguistics are pretty exceptional cases.

or am i just brainwashed by anthropology? which defeats the point in arguing with me anyways.

i think i need some sun to get these thoughts in boots to lighten up and dance naked.

i also need some convincing that it is entirely unnecessary for me to read up on the entire history of western philosophy since parmenides in order to be able to finish this chapter. no violence please.

cat’s cradle.

also learnt the meaning of ‘cat’s cradle’ today in the context of bateson’s metaphors.

i think it’s a lovely word.

along the lines of ‘cradle’ this is its origin: ORIGIN Old English cradol, of uncertain origin; perhaps related to German Kratte ‘basket.’

1 an infant’s bed or crib, typically one mounted on rockers.
• figurative a place, process, or event in which something originates or flourishes : he saw Greek art as the cradle of European civilization.
• figurative infancy; childhood : a society that would secure the welfare of its citizens from cradle to grave.
2 a framework resembling a cradle, in particular
• a framework on which a ship or boat rests during construction or repairs.
• the part of a telephone on which the receiver rests when not in use.
• a frame put over a hospital bed to prevent the bedclothes from touching a patient’s injury.
• Mining a trough on rockers in which auriferous earth or sand is shaken in water to separate the gold.
verb [ trans. ]
1 hold gently and protectively : she cradled his head in her arms.
• figurative be the place of origin of : the northeastern states cradled an American industrial revolution.
2 place (a telephone receiver) in its cradle.

i don’t think anyone would now use the last meaning ‘to cradle’ the phone receiver. technology making words redundant, inventing others, displacing other.

painting from here by baila goldenthal

fieldtrip.

did a fieldtrip to the math department. these guys have a huge whiteboard in their kitchen.

they also have a wicked sense of humour as the coffee scheme from winter term ‘71 proves.

1 weekly coffee unit = 5p.

pew (noun and verb).

NOUN.

[< Old French, Middle French (north-eastern) puie, also poie, poiye, poye (feminine) parapet, balustrade, balcony, parapet of a bridge, platform (late 12th cent.; compare also Middle French poye back of a chair, and also Old French pui, French puy (masculine) hill) < classical Latin podium PODIUM n. The word is apparently not attested in Anglo-Norman (although compare Anglo-Norman pewe stake (early 15th cent.), apparently ultimately of the same origin). As regards the sense development, it is uncertain whether in English sense 2 developed from sense 1 or (in spite of the chronology) vice versa, or whether both may have been borrowed. In addition to the senses attested in French, compare (in addition to the senses of classical Latin podium listed s.v. PODIUM n.) post-classical Latin podium in sense ‘raised choir in a church’ (6th cent.), and also (< French) Middle Dutch poye, poy, peye raised area or step in front of a house, raised area (especially in front of a town hall) for making announcements, speeches, etc. (1291; Dutch pui lower part of front of a building, shop front).
N.E.D. (1905) gives the following quotation under sense 3b with the definition ‘station, situation; allotted place’; however, Middle Eng. Dict. s.v. peue n.(2) interprets this as a borrowing from Old French pui (masculine) hill and takes the sense to be ‘a hill or knoll’.

1. a. In a church: a place where seating, often enclosed, is reserved for the use of a particular (often distinguished) worshipper or group of worshippers; (more generally) any enclosure or compartment in which worshippers may be seated. Also in extended use. b. A bench with a back, of a type commonly placed in rows in the main part of a church or chapel to seat the congregation. c. The place of the congregation in a church or chapel. Contrasted with pulpit, as the place of the priest, preacher, etc. Hence: (with the and sing. or pl. concord) the people who occupy pews collectively; the congregation of a church; the lay people as opposed to the clergy..

2. A raised standing-place or desk in a church or chapel, to enable a preacher, reader, etc., to be seen and heard by the congregation. Freq. with modifying word, as minister's pew, praying pew, reader's pew, pew for penance, etc. Now only in reading pew shriving pew: see shriving pew n. at SHRIVING n. c.

3. a. A raised seat or bench for people sitting in an official capacity; a rostrum used by public speakers, academic disputants, etc.; a stand for people doing business in a public place; a box in a theatre. In later use fig. with sense overlapping with sense 1. rare after 17th cent. b. fig. An allotted place. Obs.

4. colloq. (orig. Brit.). A seat. Chiefly in friendly invitations to be seated, esp. in take a pew.

VERB.

1. intr. Of a bird, esp. a kite: to cry in a plaintive manner. Obs.

2. intr. Sc. a. Of smoke, vapour, etc.; to stream or puff out; to rise in the air like exhaled breath.

b. To breathe. Sc. National Dict. (1968) records this sense as still in use in Shetland in 1965.

in other words something that raises in all kindsa ways.

poem of the day.

Friends,
Our ancient word is dead.
The ancient books are dead.
Our speech with holes like worn-out shoes is dead.
Dead is the mind that led to defeat  . . . . .

Our shouting is louder than actions,
Our swords are taller than us,
This is our tragedy.

In short we wear the cape of civilization
But our souls live in the stone age . . . . .

Don’t curse circumstances. . . . .

It’s painful to listen to the news in the morning.
It’s painful to listen to the barking of dogs. . . . .

Our enemies did not cross our borders
They crept through out weaknesses like ants. . . . .

We are a thick-skinned people
With empty souls.
We spend our days practising witchcraft,
Playing chess and sleeping . . . . .

We praise like frogs,
Swear like frogs,
Turn midgets into heroes,
And heroes into scum:
We never stop and think.

[Nizar Qabbani's 1967 banned poem, Footnotes to the Book of the Setback. heard in an IR seminar, quoted by the amazing Michael McKinley]