Something I have been struggling to pin down is a clear expression of my thoughts on the oft-quoted dictum of Coleridge, shown in its original context here: ‘it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a … Continue reading Where to Find Talking Bears, or The Needless Suspension of Disbelief
Year: 2015
The Muybridge Moment
The memorable Eadweard Muybridge invented a number of things, including his own name - he was born Edward Muggeridge in London in 1830. He literally got away with murder in 1872 when he travelled some seventy-five miles to shoot dead his wife’s lover (prefacing the act with ‘here's the answer to the letter you sent … Continue reading The Muybridge Moment
The Mechanism of Meaning (it’s all in the mind)
Meaning matters. It is bound up with so many things: understanding and misunderstanding, doubt and certainty, to say nothing of philosophy, poetry, music and art; so it is worth considering the mechanism by which it operates. 'Mechanism' is a useful image here: when mechanisms are hidden - as they generally are - their effects can … Continue reading The Mechanism of Meaning (it’s all in the mind)
Autumn Almanac
It being as fine an Autumn day as you could wish for, I set out on my hundred-year-old bicycle to take a turn about Perth, pausing only to admire the details that never fail to give me pleasure on my 1915 Golden Sunbeam, such as the parallel seat stays, the gold-leaf embellishment, the noble proportions … Continue reading Autumn Almanac
Plucked from the chorus line – a fable
(a racy tale of a manipulative and exploitative relationship, with cross-dressing, starring Speech as Trilby, Writing as Svengali) Trilby by George du Maurier - grandfather of Daphne - has the rare distinction of giving two new words to the English language, one for a type of hat, the other a sort of person. It was … Continue reading Plucked from the chorus line – a fable
Storypower: Quigley’s Ineffable Escapade
‘The solution to the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem. (Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long period of doubt that the sense of life has become clear to them have been unable to say what constitutes that sense?)’ (Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 6.521) That remarkable … Continue reading Storypower: Quigley’s Ineffable Escapade
The True Source: a companion piece
(This piece is the origin of the parable I published yesterday as The True Source. Stories and parables are one of our most ancient ways of expressing ideas, so it seemed natural to use one to try and express what I was trying to say about the relation between preliterate society and our own) Here … Continue reading The True Source: a companion piece
The true source: a parable
Once upon a time there was a farmer who had to travel a long way through desolate country to take his grain to the mill; on the left side of the road that he followed - little more than a track, really - a broad plain spread out, with a long ribbon of mist in … Continue reading The true source: a parable
The End of All Our Exploring
Much has been said of the gallant little spacecraft New Horizons winging its way past Pluto at 14 kms a sec - it’s taken nine and a half years to get there, a journey of some 3 billion miles - and now it is heading off into the farthest and coldest reaches of our solar … Continue reading The End of All Our Exploring
A Fable
A young man goes to a wise woman and says, ‘I am a seeker after truth. Show me what is true.’ So the woman takes him to a bell-foundry. She strikes the first bell, which gives out a beautiful clear note, as does the second; but the third is cracked, and gives a flat, dull … Continue reading A Fable
COMPLEAT TROWZER 