Year: 2010

Gabba Gabba Hey

In the last week of four here in Brisbane, and I think I’ve blogged only once about the music.

In the three bars on/off Brunswick and Ann in “the valley”, that is Step Inn, Ric’s and Zoo, I must have seen 35 bands. Apart from Friday before last at Step Inn which had three separate stages until 2am, the standard seems to be 2 or 3 acts per night, but short sets, all over by 10:30 / 11:00 pm. Mixed genres, and mixed quality, naturally, but refreshingly young, live and original on the whole.

The best had to be experienced and from outta town; The Toot Toot Toots, from Melbourne last Wednesday supported by The Sulphur Lights. The latter three-piece had a guitarist I’d seen with another band the previous week (?). Twangy reverb guitar a la Shadows meets thrash punk a la Ramones, fun even if the earnest vocals were lost in the mix. Fun and a little not-taking-ourselves-too-seriously experience was the name of the Toot Toot Toots game. Understated but important guitar a la Chilli Peppers in a 6 piece featuring additional percussion, trombone and melodica, and a manic front man. They were the only band that I saw get an encore out of the crowd / management. Worth seeing for the guitar / trombone duets alone, but a lot of fun besides.

[Post Note – last Sunday in town I saw Floating Bridges at Ric’s Bar – funky fun 6 piece, back in 2011.]

Metaphorical Mash-Up

Disappointed listening to Melvyn Bragg’s recent In Our Time on Metaphor. Makes the introduction referring to metaphor being as old as story telling – earliest writings in Gilgamesh we hear – as well as being a topic of interest to modern “thinkers”, promising.

The contributors give us the benefit of their literary knowledge, though fail to make any distinction between simile (explicitly signalled as “like”), metaphor (metaphorically implicit), allegory (extended metaphor across a whole narrative), and meta-metaphor (counter-metaphor for dramatic effect within the extended allegory) … though they stumble across all of these in the process. And continuing the literary angle, take us into metaphorical treatise which enable politically incorrect (or unthinkable) narrative to be disguised for publication – Spenser, Swift etc … and later metaphysical and romantic poets, up to say, Blake.

But. Science as real truth, rejecting the metaphors of the romantics ! Pot and kettle. Dickens non-self-conscious reinvention (improvisation) of metaphor (eg in Bleak House). Reality as cliche, but no mention of memes ? Mythology as a “disease” of language – forgotten metaphor. In fact metaphor is fundamental to the relation between language and the world, not an embellishment of language. Only get to close the point in their closing remarks … the silo-ed literary view looking out at the rest of the thinking world.

Another massive opportunity missed to join up some dots Melvyn. Reality and truth the victims again.

Wind, the New Oil

I remembered noting this before driving through south Texas, the irony of seeing large wind-farms in the centre of the world of oil. (In memory only those around Bakersfield California seemed bigger.)

I mentioned the irony here, seeing the huge wind farm at Sinton when I visited Port Aransas on Mustang Island, near Corpus Christi, TX. (Oh and there’s a meme, I mentioned the nodding donkeys in my diary blog, and the BBC piece includes an image of one.)

Logic is Autism

Not a new concept, but a very interesting NYT piece by Andy Martin. (Thanks to Steve Peterson on MD for the link).

Thank you, gentlemen, for raising the issue of understanding here. The fact is, I don’t expect people in general to understand what I have written. And it is not just because I have written something, in places, particularly cryptic and elliptical and therefore hard to understand, or even because it is largely a meta-discourse and therefore senseless, but rather because, in my view, it is not given to us to achieve full understanding of what another person says. Therefore I don’t expect you to understand this problem of misunderstanding either. (Paraphrase of Wittgenstein).

Having read The Philosophical Investigations as well as Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, I have no doubt Wittgenstein knew what he was doing in his earlier work aimed primarily at inveterate logician Bertrand Russell.

I therefore believe myself to have found, on all essential points, the final solution of the problems [of philosophy]. And if I am not mistaken in this belief … it shows how little is achieved when these problems are solved.

Wittgenstein and the Art of Car Maintenance.

Love it. Wittgenstein and the Allusion to Robert Pirsig.
Priceless comment also, from Alan Lamb in the comment thread, hilarious, hopefully tongue firmly in cheek:

Autism as a topic is an interesting launching pad for a discussion of philosphical questioning as you have introduced it but your thesis is certainly not either necessary nor sufficient to conclude that current medical theory explains philosophy away.

Hofstadter would love the strange loop. (And the comment thread is full of people defending Wittgenstein and those with autism … talk about missing the point, being autistic.)

(And thanks to JC also on MD for this link to LogiComix – comic book story of the life of Russell and the failure of logic.)

Karen Armstrong

Linked to Karen Armstrong previously – her “Charter for Compassion” campaign was the subject of her TED talk. She ends up pretty campaigning and preachy in that piece, but she shows a sophisticated position in the God vs Science wars. Not surprising given her history and the enormous number of books she has written on religious history. The History of God and The War for God amongst them.

I started reading her The Case for God at least a month ago, but had a chance to finish it today after a break in which, ironically, I had also read The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

Can’t do a review justice here, but The Case for God is excellent. Dense with research, quotes and references. Starting out with Joe Campbell and George Steiner, she ends on a Buddhist koan, taking in every philosophical and scientific source I’m aware of (Socrates to Wittgenstein, Tillich and Toulmin to the PoMos and the new-Atheists, too many to mention.)

West Over East

Just finished The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Mohsin Hamid), so was taken with this perspective on the British PM visit to China. The east has been the dominant economic culture for 18 of the last 20 centuries.

Lots of irony in the book, and the core metaphor is a bit thin / naive, a young author I guess, but a page-turning story about Eastern rejection of Western presumption and Western paranoia of the motives for such rejection. Won’t spoil the ending. 9/11 was the wake-up call / turning point for many.