Abstraction is an interesting notion. The word itself is derived from the Latin preposition ‘ab’ meaning ‘from’ or ‘away from’ combined with the verb ‘trahere’ ‘to pull or draw’ (which also gives us our word ‘tractor’) - thus it means, literally, ‘to pull or drag away from’ so that it conveys the sense of separation, … Continue reading Why is a raven like a writing desk? The power of abstraction.
Author: jfmward
Author, bicycle enthusiast
An altered landscape
The world is a different place when people you know are gone out of it: it is as if the roads and railways to familiar places had been closed, the towns themselves removed from the map, the landscape changed; the course you took for granted, always assumed would be available to you, is shut off, … Continue reading An altered landscape
A strange and deep-rooted suspicion: why does art make us uncomfortable?
Here is a list of words that all relate to laudable, creative activity - as practised by artists, writers and the like - but what else do they have in common? fabrication fantasy fiction imaginary invention made-up story tale Yes - they can all be used in a pejorative sense, as synonyms for deceit or … Continue reading A strange and deep-rooted suspicion: why does art make us uncomfortable?
Three Misleading Oppositions, Three Useful Axioms
There is an interesting comparison to be made between people and language: we can - especially when we are young and earnest - come to see both as standing in need of improvement, though essentially perfectible (with ourselves as the agents of perfection, naturally); only when we are older do we come to think that … Continue reading Three Misleading Oppositions, Three Useful Axioms
Vanishing Point and the Golden Rule (by way of Immanuel Kant)
I remember once becoming absurdly excited in Princes St. Gardens in Edinburgh - that was just where I chanced to be, not the cause of the excitement - when I realised that an interesting thing happens if you number the dimensions in the reverse of the conventional order. My brother had once explained the concept … Continue reading Vanishing Point and the Golden Rule (by way of Immanuel Kant)
A true likeness?
If you are not familiar with art history, a painting titled ‘nude descending a staircase’ probably conjures an image of a naked person halfway down a stair, poised in the act of moving from one step to another; but what Marcel Duchamp gives us is this: Here, by way of contrast, are two decently-clad Irishmen, … Continue reading A true likeness?
Rage, semiotics and structuralism.
I occasionally allow myself to become exercised about things out of all proportion to their importance. Take, for instance, the signs that have for several months now been on the stretch of the A904 between the Forth Road Bridge and the works for the new additional bridge, which for some reason is called the Forth … Continue reading Rage, semiotics and structuralism.
The Shadow and the Stone: reflections on the mechanism of metaphor
I mentioned elsewhere that there is a puzzle in our use of metaphor to expand our range of thought: if we think of the unknown in terms of the known concrete, as Vita Sackville-West has it, how does that get us anywhere new? I think I have the answer: it is by a process not … Continue reading The Shadow and the Stone: reflections on the mechanism of metaphor
‘With shabby equipment, always deteriorating…’
We live in an age of infrastructure: we take for granted an underpinning layer of nigh-magical technology, much of it electronic, on which our day-to-day lives rely; occasionally we are visited by anxiety lest it should fail - as the result of a solar storm, perhaps, such as a repeat of the Carrington Event of … Continue reading ‘With shabby equipment, always deteriorating…’
An Each Uisge (The Water Horse)
written as a "Fearie Tale" for Pitlochry Festival Theatre's Winter Words Festival 2013 (where it was admirably read by Dougal Lee on 2 February (an auspicious date -James Joyce's birthday)) - Looks as if it was fished out of a canal, I say. He doesn’t like that, the man behind the counter, a big fellow … Continue reading An Each Uisge (The Water Horse)
COMPLEAT TROWZER 