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We come fresh to the different stages of life, and in each of them we are quite inexperienced, no matter how old we are. Rochefoucauld
The brighter you are, the more you have to learn. Don Herold
Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. Ernest Hemingway
Architecture is frozen music. Hegel
We make our buildings. Thereafter they make us. Churchill
At bottom [inclusiveness is] an attempt to do away with forms of social organization other than global markets and transnational expert bureaucracies. James Kalb
I don't want the past back, I just think we chose the wrong future. Peter Hitchens
I agree with all these but, a propos of the last one, even I, reactionary though I am, am not happy to think that had the Sixties social revolution not happened The Sound of Music would be considered an iconic Sixties film.
John Kersey tells me that 'Architecture is frozen music' was said 'by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quoted in Peter Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe [The phrase had been used earlier, by Friedrich von Schelling, in Philosophie der Kunst: “[Architecture] is music in space, as it were a frozen music.”]." His source is the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I find it is attributed to both Goethe and Hegel on the net but I suspect it does indeed belong to Schelling. I read Eckermann's very dull book in my early twenties when one is still young enough to read everything, before life begins. I love table talk but this is not a good example at all, almost as dull as Hitler's, which at least has this fascinating remark:
Had Charles Martel not been victorious at Poitiers — already, you see, the world had fallen into the hands of the Jews, so gutless a thing is Christianity! — then we should in all probability have been converted to Mohammedanism, that cult which glorifies heroism and which opens up the Seventh Heaven to the bold warrior alone. Then the Germanic races would have conquered the world. Christianity alone prevented them from doing so.
Adolf Hitler, the Islamist. Had he invaded the Middle East instead of the USSR who knows how history might have read.
The ducks come from the trucks. Ion Iliescu
ReplyDeleteWhat does that mean? Please.
DeleteWhat does that mean, please?
DeleteP.V.E. Hobson's choice. Lesser of two evils. Republicans and Democrats. Bleak.
DeleteI said, Hobson's Choice. Lesser of two evils. Republicans and Democrats. Hippydom and Sound of Music.
DeleteWe ended up with both. Bleak.
Vali will you explain the Ducks and the Trucks? I don't understand why Mr. Iliescu is disliked for not speaking English well - there are many far better reasons to dislike him.
DeleteIliescu wanted to say that the Dacians originate from the Thracians.
DeleteMore than 2,000 years ago, the territory that is now Romania was inhabited by the Dacians (or Getae as they were known by the Greeks), a branch of the Thracians.
In Romanian, "Dacian" is "dac" and is pronounced exactly like "duck" in English. Similarly, "Thracian" is "trac" and is pronounced exactly like "truck" in English.
Iliescu (who was president of Romania at the time) made the headlines when he said "The dacs come from the tracs". He simply added an "s" to form the plural, but used the Romanian terms... so the result was pretty hilarious.
I don't think that Iliescu is disliked more than basescu, or Boc, or Antonescu etc. for not speaking English well (actually, basescu seems to have improved his English a bit). I don't understand why Romanian politicians feel the need to speak in English during official meetings, instead of using Romanian and the official translator, who is attending anyway (certainly nobody expects president Obama or PM Cameron to try to talk in Romanian...). I guess the only reason must be the same one that makes them "improve" their CVs with non-existing titles, plagiarized PhD thesis and so on.
DeleteYou're right, Paul, Iliescu is disliked for many other, more important reasons. Actually, I think his poor English is simply a reason to make fun of him, not to dislike him. I am sure he is an expert in Russian language, by the way.
I heard Crin and Ponta speak in English at the Queen's Birthday Party on Tuesday night. I thought Crin could not speak English but he can. Both have much thicker accents than most Romanians as did - I recall - Adrian Nastase. I thought Nastase a very sinister figure when he was PM until I heard him speak English and theh he seemed very diminished and no longer sinister. No doubt this is prejudice on my part.
DeleteI think Ponta's English sounds ok. Crin, however, should better refrain from speaking English, I think. I don't know about Nastase, never heard him.
DeleteHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Of course, on the flip side, the 60's could have been seen as the high point of the Western film as well, although as bizarre as it may sound, a lot of those Westerns were actually used to spread leftist propaganda. In particular, they made the Old West seem like some horrible place to live where no one was safe et cetera et cetera et cetera when in reality people who acted like the characters in Gunsmoke usually didn't live very long in the West.
ReplyDeleteIt was precisely BECAUSE the West was so violent that it became so peaceful and civilized, because not being in control of yourself and not understanding where other people were coming from and living liberally and nihilistically had disastrous consequences on the frontier, for you and sometimes your entire family. Lets face it, if the protesters who had charged the Duchesses car had been mowed down with Machine Guns, giving the Thames a new tributary of pure mongrel blood, there would be a little more civility in Cockneyland.
Far from creating some "great misunderstading," people would've understood that such guards were acting to protect the Duchess and would've accepted it as "if you don't want to be killed, don't act like those protestors," especially if you honor their right to bear arms too.
Now don't forget, machine guns were a Chicago thing and
Deletewould be still if they weren't illegal. But you are right that the west became more peaceful and civilized in relatively short order because everyone had guns thus
rationally became a deterrent to those who would misuse
them.
I had a telephone conversation with Peter Hitchens once, for some reason. He told me that evolutionary theory was not scientific because it concerned processes that couldn't be observed directly because they take too long. This is not obviously unlike geology, astronomy, or indeed physics which can't possibly model anything as large as a star's nuclear reactions.
ReplyDeleteBravo. Theory is not fact. And very many people know it.
DeleteWhy do very intelligent people try to dupe less intelligent people?
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." - Laurie Anderson.
ReplyDeleteI would just say to Hegel, depends on what kind of architecture.
DeleteAnd to James Kalb I would say, right.
Dancing about architecture sounds like a great idea, so I guess I'm ok with writing about music, too.
DeleteThe closest I think Hegel gets is in saying of the Romantic building, "in its grandeur and sublime peace it is lifted above anything purely utilitarian into an infinity in itself."
ReplyDeleteI hear music as kinetic sculpture. No, really, I do.
ReplyDeleteI really can't refrain from saying this. The Catholic Church
ReplyDeletetoday has no political power but the Jewish uh Church has a lot.
I will check back to see if you read this comment. If this one is published I will know. The political power that Jewish persons have is not only in Foreign
DeletePolicies but very much in Domestic Policies too. You and your visitors here talk often about these topics. The State of neither is good. People who don't know need to
and people who do know should quit denying some unpleasant facts. The tearing down of Christian societies
is due to one force more than to any one other. People should stop lying about this. Though the statistics are not published, most Jews are not religious and do not act with religious minds. Perhaps people don't need to know
as it can be very disturbing, upsetting. And I don't know
that anything can be done to begin to reverse it. It seems to be among the TOO Big To Fail Entities.
Perhaps the Catholic Church no longer has political power
and the love of Monarchs because despite the sins of men the Catholic Church truly is The Church of Jesus Christ The King and His Kingdom and this world should really be of little conecern for those who with earnest hearts live in and for Christ.
Thank you P.V.E. for allowing me. Of course I meant this world should be of little concern..etc. in the sense of political powers
ReplyDeleteand intrigues. The Church cannot stop secular governments from
legalizing drugs, divorce, abortion, same sex indulgence, euthanasia, eugenics,war, and every kind of cruelty, ill and sins that are and will be. The Church
can't save the whole world but if a remnant of the Church remains true to Christ, the Church can and will save pieces of it. And ease some suffering along the way.
If you will, please look at pauleisen.blogspot. Churchill's
ReplyDeleteMistake, Eric Margolis.
I never tire of your Quotes for Today and Thoughts for today.
ReplyDeleteIt's a nice feature.
Thanks.
Delete:) ..
Delete