(The Football Players by Henri Rousseau) Two people are arguing; one insists that you can score a drop goal in football, the other that you can’t. Eventually it emerges that the first is talking about rugby football, gaelic football and Australian rules; but the other means only association football. So who is right? Once we … Continue reading Can you be offside in chess?
Tag: Plato
Four Myths
(picture: 'la reve' by Henri Rousseau, Museum of Modern Art, NY)I have touched elsewhere on our ambivalence about stories and story-related words, in particular that we use a range of them as synonyms for lying and falsehood. The word ‘myth’ falls into the same category, except that its case is perhaps more extreme: for the majority … Continue reading Four Myths
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?
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)
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
Repentance, or, embracing Subjective Reality
The sun moon and planets are unwitting actors that we have cast in a drama of our own contriving. Wagner’s Lied an den Abendstern (‘O Star of Eve’ - here intriguingly rendered on the musical saw) is not addressed to the second planet from the sun, inhospitably wrapped in clouds of sulphuric acid, but the … Continue reading Repentance, or, embracing Subjective Reality
COMPLEAT TROWZER 