Good Morning

Lunch Time

Feeling chilly today. Very wintry almost.
Anyway, for lunch I had a tasty veg pakora on a bed of spicy noodles with a bowl of cabbage and greens in a creamy béchamel sauce.





I have a couple of Polish beers to wash it down as well.

Ha!

Planning to fail wildlife

England’s planning system is changing – and not for the better. Development pressure in Sussex is already high and Government proposals will see an even bigger drive for new housing, without taking into account our environmental limits.

The new changes could mean that we lose more of our threatened wildlife, and they make it much harder for people to have a say on planning proposals in their area.

We need a successful planning system to help nature to recover and thrive. But this isn’t the way. It’s not good enough.

Stars

Book 71 - Michael Ondaatje "Coming Through Slaughter"

Michael Ondaatje "Coming Through Slaughter" (Picador)




The cornetist Buddy Bolden (1877-1931) is widely credited as being one of the creators of the music now known as jazz. He was born in New Orleans and formed a band in 1895, which was centered in the red light district known as Storyville and soon became one of the most popular ones in the city (Bolden is seen with his band, standing second from the left in this 1905 photograph). He was influenced by ragtime music, the blues, and music from the church, and combined these elements into a unique form which was later termed "jazz". Bolden was a man of several trades, working as a barber and the publisher of a scandalous paper based on information he received from his customers and friends. Unfortunately, he was also plagued by alcoholism and mental illness, and his health deteriorated in 1906 when his band was at the peak of its popularity. He suffered an acute mental breakdown the following year and was admitted to the Louisiana State Insane Asylum, where he was confined for the remainder of his life.

Michael Ondaatje, a confessed lover of jazz, provides us with a fictionalized account of the life of Buddy Bolden, in the form of an improvised riff led by a childhood friend, who became a police officer outside of town and came back to investigate Bolden's increasingly bizarre behavior and downfall. Ondaatje provides the reader with foggy and staccato-like glimpses of Bolden, his wife and mistress, and several other characters who were close to him, including the photographer E.J. Bellocq, who gained fame and notoriety by photographing the prostitutes of Storyville. Although this was an interesting technique, it did not work for me, as the main character became an elusive spirit who came into and out of focus, which prevented me from understanding the man, his music, or his troubled life. This was a commendable effort, but one which frustrated and will quickly be forgotten by this reader.

Book 72 - Arthur Schopenhauer "Parerga And Paralipomena"

Arthur Schopenhauer "Parerga And Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays" (Oxford Univ. Press)




As Philosophers go, Schopenhauer has a lot of character, and that is highly evident in his writing style. Parerga and Paralipomena essentially refer to the fact that these are Schopenhauer's addendums. His main idea of Will and Representation having already been published as his principle tome, he decided to publish all his ideas on other topics, ranging from color, noise, religion, pedagogy, the futility of living...you know, the basics.

Schopenhauer's tone ranges from the depths of nihilism to just angsty (his two primary emotions?) While some of his essays roll off of Will and Representation, others come out of the blue; his ideas on education and educational institutions are especially interesting and rather timeless.

That said, he isn't free of problems. While as philosophy goes, Schopenhauer tends to be an easier reader (let's not mention Lacan any time soon), but some of his ideas are highly outdated or just wrong, especially his disparaging remarks in "On Women." Even so, his problematic moments can serve as historical relics in the history of thought, and it would be worse if they weren't published at all.

In general, Arthur tends to be a bit of a self-indulgent curmudgeon, but its just fun to read.

Words Of The Day

Today's wonderful words come from the title of a recent book I read -


paralipomena

NOUN
formal
things omitted from a work and added as a supplement.
archaic
(Paralipomenon)
(in the Vulgate Bible and some other versions) the name of the books of Chronicles, regarded as supplementary to the books of Kings.

The other supplementary word is -

parergon


NOUN
parerga (plural noun)
formal
a piece of work that is supplementary to or a by-product of a larger work.
"the second sonata is a parergon to the opera"

archaic
work that is subsidiary to one's ordinary employment.
"he pursued astronomy as a parergon"

The Friday Five

As an atheist I can stake my claim that God does not exist, so deal with it.


Would you find more comfort in the theoretical idea that that we were the most advanced species in outer space or would you find more comfort in the idea that we weren’t?

What would be your thought process if you were presented with irrefutable evidence that a god didn’t exist?

What would be your thought process if you were presented with irrefutable evidence that a god existed?

What is your thoughts about evolution and that we evolved from an common ancestor with apes?

Do you think that we will evolve into homo superior? Or that AI will overtake us?

I know, tough ideas to mull over.