Greg Proops presents a BBC review of Kerouac’s influential 1957 book, with interviews with the survivors. (The 127 foot continuous roll manuscript was real, auctioned recently, but being the product of the single benzedrine trip is apocryphal, apparently – several edits too before publication, already ten years old when first pubished. Interesting that Jack was a misunderstood US patriot despite close association with Ginsberg and Burroughs before the book, and King of the Beats afterwards during the peace, love and revolution of the 60’s. Drove him to drink and death. What’s so funny ’bout …)
Words + Enthusiasm = Erinaceous
Plenty more TEDTalks here.
Including the delicious Erin McKean. Next time someone quotes a dictionary definition at me as part of an argument, I will be pointing them at this one.
And given that I’ve recently reported on reading “Breaking The Spell”, here is a link to Dan Dennett speaking on dangerous memes – ideas to die for. Just a fluke 😉 and on religions as natural phenomena.
And lots more; E.O.Wilson, Steven Pinker – and Eddi Reader sings too.
David Deutsch on TEDTalks
This is from 2005 but a good excuse to update the link to TED.
They Hadn’t Thought of That.
RTFM
Think I’ve seen this before, but picked-up this link from Anecdote.
How Many Holes To Fill The Albert Hall ?
…. well, to fill the turbine hall anyway ?
Blog Template Fixed (Hopefully ?)
A minor variation on the previous Zen-Minimalist known as Moonlight, with upper-case capitalisation restored, and with the header, footer and extensive side-bar links restored.
Phew !
Blog Template Error
Ooops sorry folks, I seem to have an error with my template – lost most of my header and side-bar information. Unfortunately I’m on my travels, so it will be next weekend before I can fix.
In Vino Veritas
As you will have noticed I’m a big fan of the BBC, and regularly pick-up stories from there, as well as referring to Melvyn Bragg’s incomparable “In Our Time” series. I only recently came across Laurie Taylor’s “Thinking Allowed” series on social science subjects, and I’ve been listening to old editions. Too many good topics to list.
Today I saw this news story and listened to this edition of “Thinking Allowed” from 20th June this year. The importance of alcohol (and other stimulants) to intellectual endeavours of times past and present was interesting enough, the association of beer with agricultural settlement too, and the unlikely British accented Felipe Fernandez-Armesto bemoaning sherry being forbidden at student tutorials at Tufts in the US positively surreal.
The Bavarian Oktober-(well September to avoid beer during Ramadan)-Fest in a Palestinian West-Bank village was heartwarming enough but this quote especially interesting …
At one point, a young man who has come from Ramallah confides to me that he is a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant offshoot of the Fatah faction.
This shy young man tells me why he – a Christian – wanted to join the quasi-Islamist group, branded a terrorist organisation by Israel and its allies for a string of suicide bombings in Israeli cities.
Then he looks down at the glass of beer in his hand, and around at the smiling crowds, and says it is the first day he has been truly happy for many years.
Same day as this happens of course. Slow progress.
Crisis what Crisis
Couldn’t resist commenting on this post on Joel Martin’s blog “Insights into Cultural Understanding“. Thanks for the reciprocal link Joel.
The Future Approaches from Behind
Picked-up this collection of quotes from Tim O’Reilly via Sean Murphy, cross-linked because he refers to this quote from Pirsig talking about his ZMM, (and he uses a link to my Pirsig pages and bio timeline).
This book has a lot to say about Ancient Greek perspectives and their meaning but there is one perspective it misses. That is their view of time. They saw the future as something that came upon them from behind their backs with the past receding away before their eyes.
When you think about it, that’s a more accurate metaphor than our present one. Who really can face the future? All you can do is project from the past, even when the past shows that such projections are often wrong. And who really can forget the past? What else is there to know?
Ten years after the publication of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance the Ancient Greek perspective is certainly appropriate. What sort of future is coming up from behind I don’t really know. But the past, spread out ahead, dominates everything in sight.
The past, spread out ahead, dominates everything in sight; Plus ca change; ‘Twas ever thus.
The other quote I liked is from John Andrew Holmes
“It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.”