Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 1/07/2024
Mod
That would outclass the ground shaking elections of 1906, 1945, 1997 and several others.
One advantage of living in the US is that you don't have to stay up late to get the UK election results.
Bill wrote: "Characterized as a "masterpiece" by both The Development of Arthurian Romance and The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend, I found myself force-marching myself through Parzival in A. T Hatto's prose translation for Penguin (I note that I greatly enjoyed the same translator's version of The Nibelungenlied a number of years ago).The core of the story, Parzifal's education in compassion, is buried in endless jousts (conducted both one-on-one and as parts of tournaments and siege warfare), and padded out with the life story of the titular hero's father and the extensive solo adventures of Gawan, whose story takes up almost half of the book.
The one thing this reading has done is to lead me to even greater respect for the genius of Richard Wagner, who was able to refine and transform this material into a profound and moving work of art..."
I've never had good luck with prose translations of verse narratives, even though I don't think I hold any theoretical prejudices against the idea - after all, there's no guarantee that a verse translation will be able to capture or reproduce the poetic features of the original.
Yet it has worked out in my experience that I almost always prefer an attempt in verse, however far from the original the differences between the two languages may make it. So I'll probably look for something like that if I ever get around to reading Parzifal.
Logger24 wrote: "Labour on track for the largest majority since 1832, says The Times (of London). Could the polls be right??That would outclass the ground shaking elections of 1906, 1945, 1997 and several others...."
I think the exit polls have been pretty accurate at recent elections
Berkley wrote: "I've never had good luck with prose translations of verse narratives, even though I don't think I hold any theoretical prejudices against the idea - after all, there's no guarantee that a verse translation will be able to capture or reproduce the poetic features of the original."I generally avoid verse-to-prose translations as well. But at the time I read The Nibelungenlied, Hatto's was the only readily available version and I found that it worked pretty well (I've since acquired two different versions in rhymed verse as well as the original in Middle High German).
Parzifal is available in several modern English translations, but all of them are prose. The only verse translation I'm aware of is a 1912 version by Jessie L. Weston (she of Eliot's footnotes to The Waste Land fame), available on Project Gutenberg.
Frankly, despite the assurances of its status as a masterpiece, after dragging myself through Hatto's version I cannot imagine the narrative of Parzifal not being fairly tedious going in many places in any form.
Logger24 wrote: "Labour on track for the largest majority since 1832, says The Times (of London). Could the polls be right??That would outclass the ground shaking elections of 1906, 1945, 1997 and several others...."
its amazing how slow the UK count is at elections, the Northern Irish seats are usually only counted by lunchtime on Friday.
i suspect a less massive majority will be the final result, so maybe not 1832 levels but the exit poll at 10-11pm is usually the indicator of scale
We have arranged a minor celebratory meal + champagne for this evening... a bit premature? Well, the polls seem pretty convinced the Tories will be out, and as madame is leaving for Edinburgh in the morning it's our only chance!I'll stay up for the exit polls at 10pm, then bed, then up around 3.30am (happens every day, prostate obliging) to see most results come in between 3-5am.
In the meantime... an emergency read - Playback by Raymond Chandler. I had intended to read a book on the Kindle (backlit, so easy to read last thing in bed) - but the battery was flat. So, found a slim volume on the bookshelf (my 'other book' is too heavy for supine reading; it might hurt if I nod off). I didn't remember anything about it, but the thriller and 'tec elements were pretty good. Much weaker were the 'romantic' interactions - Chandler does a pretty poor job with those in this novel (novella?). Enjoyed it well enough, apart from that.
scarletnoir wrote: "We have arranged a minor celebratory meal + champagne for this evening... a bit premature? Well, the polls seem pretty convinced the Tories will be out, and as madame is leaving for Edinburgh in th..."the end of the tories shambles is always worth a celebration!
i have a heavy cold so dont think i'll' stay up much past 1am, although if the exit poll is close, i may be drawn into watching longer
AB76 wrote: "although if the exit poll is close, i may be drawn into watching longer"I think you will be able to go to bed after the exit polls. It will be interesting to see how the vote goes in Scotland. Also what the turnover will be and Labour's (who will definitely win) share of the vote. Apparently the last time the winning party had over 50% of the vote was before my lifetime!
All votes should be worth the same, right? With First Past the Post votes are not equal. In the last election it took 26,000 votes for the SNP to win a seat compared with over 800,000 for the Green Party.
Over 600,000 votes for the Brexit Party won absolutely nothing.
Labour had to gain over 50,000 votes to elect each MP, while the Conservatives needed only 38,000.
Hope the cold is soon better.
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "although if the exit poll is close, i may be drawn into watching longer"I think you will be able to go to bed after the exit polls. It will be interesting to see how the vote goes in..."
it looks the SNP could lose 20 seats and Northern Ireland will be interesting to see if the DUP lose votes.
it doesnt feel a bit like 1997 sadly, i came home from Uni to vote on that Thursday, my first election as a voter and it all felt so positive, the tired, grey tory stagnation was over. WHile its always good to see Tories gone, i am well aware that from the first hour of Sir Keir;s tenure, the right wing press will be on him relentlessly, it will be something else to witness. Constant stories and fake news, labelling him as a socialist and trying to scare people
AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "although if the exit poll is close, i may be drawn into watching longer"I think you will be able to go to bed after the exit polls. It will be interesting to see ..."
You'll have to stick to the Guardian, the Mirror and BBC! 😀
In his review of James in the latest NYRB, Michael Gorra describes the last section of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn pretty much as I remember it from my reading of 40+ years ago: a memory that has made me reluctant to re-read the novel. Nobody is happy with Twain’s conclusion, the dull but jerky chapters in which his characters leave the river, and Huck is mistaken for Tom Sawyer and Tom for somebody else, and Jim is locked up as a runaway, and the boys hatch a plan to spring him—for the fun of it, because Tom knows all along that Jim has already been freed by the will of the now-dead Miss Watson. Some scholars have tried, it’s true, to make a case for that ending, seeing it as a satire on the self-serving intentions of do-good reformers, the kind who hope above all to be admired. Maybe, and Huck does have his doubts about Tom’s plan. Still, nobody ever looks forward to reading those lifeless pages. Nobody has ever quite made them fit the book’s earlier journey, and Jim in particular loses whatever depth Twain has worked to give him.I’ve never understood why the self-evident weakness of that ending hasn’t undermined the book’s status as one of the greatest American novels.
Ah, the glorious Fourth. The English are racing into an election. Their Prime Minister, the Mister Toad of this story, is pip-pip-pipping along toward some unknown (probably uncomfortable) destination.
Meanwhile, a happy Fourth, especially to all those on this side of the pond.
Robert wrote: "Ah, the glorious Fourth. The English are racing into an election. Their Prime Minister, the Mister Toad of this story, is pip-pip-pipping along toward some unknown (probably uncomfortable) destina..."
Happy 4th to you too Robert. I doubt Rishi's destination will be that uncomfortable, given his vast wealth. He may even make use of his Green Card again and return to your side of the Atlantic!
scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "If you're asking about the Court's decision on Presidential immunity, it simply summarizes decades of rulings, going back to Jefferson's time, to clarify the law.I think that the a..."
Official or unofficial? Well, Obama targeted Osama bin Ladin, and Trump targeted a senior Iranian general. and both were acting in their capacities as Commander in Chief, as provided in the US Constitution. No prospect of either being charged with murder.
Likewise, Harry Truman would have immunity for dropping the atomic bomb. On the other hand, HST sent a furious letter to a critic who panned his daughter Margaret's debut as a singer. If Harry hadn't just wanted to punch the critic, but shot him, no immunity.
As for the areas in between, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett have drawn a chart of the factors to be considered and dropped it in the laps of court and counsel. The least frantic analyses I've read suggest that a President giving instructions to a cabinet minister, and sacking a cabinet minister, are core presidential powers, and privileged, so those counts will be dismissed. Much homework on underlying facts for everything else in the indictment.
Bill wrote: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ...I’ve never understood why the self-evident weakness of that ending hasn’t undermined the book’s status as one of the greatest American novels."
I've always felt a little puzzled about its iconic status. I'm not the greatest admirer of Mark Twain's work in the first place but thre are other books of his I rate much higher than Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Life on the Mississippi, for example, and above all his later, anti-imperialist writing.
Mod
And broadly right again this time, by the looks of it. So far, out by two on the total number of Labour seats. Off a bit on the Tories: somewhat fewer seats lost to Reform. Very good night for the Lib Dems.
Rather astonishing that increasing your total vote by 1.6% can bring you 211 extra seats.
More understandable when your main opponents lose 19.9% of their vote.
Logger24 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I think the exit polls have been pretty accurate at recent elections."And broadly right again this time, by the looks of it. So far, out by two on the total number of Labour s..."
More amazing Labour only got about 34% of the vote
Mod
Yes, very, very low, the lowest share of the vote for the winning party since 1850s (if we ignore MacDonald’s minority government of 1923).
I get this info from wikipedia’s page on UK general elections, a good tabular presentation.
One other observation, which is not facetious: Labour win big when led by lawyers.
With a non-lawyer as leader they have not won since 1974.
The lawyers seem to do a better job of quelling the nutcases on the far left, and as a result Labour look a serious viable alternative to the long-standing Conservative governments.
Of course we won't know how many votes the parties would have got if Reform had not stood. Although most of their votes will have come from the Tories, I guess not all. It makes you question the opinion polls which were giving Labour a 20% lead over the Tories when the results show 10%. Apparently some countries ban opinion polls within one month of an election. Perhaps there is something to be said for it as plenty of voters will think it is not worth turning out.
I have just had my comment on WWAR modded. It always happens when I mention Israel it seems. Well it has happened both times I have mentioned Israel. Alas they modded Glads comment as well!... which I was replying to... Apologies Glad... I'll see if I can remember/reconstruct.I'll have to either never mention the I word again or learn to make a copy of what I have written and post it elsewhere... https://i.postimg.cc/Hk2fR88J/banksy-...
Tam wrote: "I have just had my comment on WWAR modded. It always happens when I mention Israel it seems. Well it has happened both times I have mentioned Israel. Alas they modded Glads comment as well!... whic..."I gave up even trying to post on the Guardian website as a result of their odd attitude to free speech.
giveusaclue wrote: "Tam wrote: "I have just had my comment on WWAR modded. It always happens when I mention Israel it seems. Well it has happened both times I have mentioned Israel. Alas they modded Glads comment as w..."To be fair to them I guess it was a bit personal, in that I said it is probably quite hard, on the domestic front, to make critical political comments about Israeli government policies when your wife is Jewish, perhaps?
stayed up till 1am, some of the nieces stayed up later on a diet of hot choclate and curly wurls, since they are all between aged 5-10, the interest in the election was lovely to see. (methinks being allowed to stay up late may have been more of am motivating factor)Low turnout and in my area both seats remain Tory, after looking like they were going LibDem from week one of the election
Nationwide...glad to see Labour back in power
An interesting election night... I watched the exit poll as we opened the champagne, then stayed up until around 11.30. Got up at 3am for a 'call of nature' (lovely phrase, don't you think? :-) and then stayed up... every time I was about to go back to bed, another prominent Tory bit the dust. It was a very enjoyable watch. Most bizarre of all was Liz Truss (she always seems a bit... odd), who disappeared for a while when the returning officer was ready to announce the result... the crowd started a slow hand-clap and eventually she turned up, but ungraciously declined to congratulate her successful rival and scuttled away after the result was given.
The Tories are in an odd situation, now. They lost a whole heap of votes to the barely disguised racism of "Reform" (ha!), but they also lost many of the 'Aryan' (!... no offence intended, except to the party) MPs who might have stood for leader - Mordaunt, Shapps etc. They are mainly left with... people whose ancestors rather obviously came to these islands from 'somewhere else'*. Badenoch and Cleverly - African descent. Patel and Braverman - Asian...
I just wonder how having one of these will play in an attempt to get the Reform voters back in the fold. Will/can it work, or will those voters - in public or private - have a similar attitude to that Reform canvasser who referred to Sunak as a f******g P**i?
*I am uncertain whether the ancestors came to the UK directly from 'somewhere' or via one of the colonies. I could not care less, myself - I'll vote for a person on the basis of competence, but never for these as they're Tories!
Therefore the question is... will the Tories try to win back the extreme right voters from Reform, and if so how do they propose to do it (they have already drifted pretty far right themselves). Or will they aim towards the centre ground with a 'one nation Tory' approach designed to appeal to Lib Dem and Labour voters? The party has been split down the middle - ironically, Brexit had a lot to do with it, IMO.
In the meantime... being a bit brain-dead from lack of sleep, I shall be re-reading another old Chandler - The High Window - until I can catch up and the old noggin returns to something approaching its usual state.
scarletnoir wrote: "An interesting election night... I watched the exit poll as we opened the champagne, then stayed up until around 11.30. Got up at 3am for a 'call of nature' (lovely phrase, don't you think? :-) and..."Still trying to weigh it up. Huge number of seats from the lowest %age of votes ever(?)
giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "An interesting election night... I watched the exit poll as we opened the champagne, then stayed up until around 11.30. Got up at 3am for a 'call of nature' (lovely phrase, don'..."its a worry, FPTP was probably never any Guardian readers bag and this highlights it. I would say it looks like Labour targeted well the seats they needed to win but actually were aided, this is the bad thing, by Reform splitting the Tory vote in almost every seat
The Brexit legacy seems to have given Reform their millions of votes, so we get that mad figure that the Labour vote was only 2% up
as for lowest % and huge seats, turnout will play a part, so that many of the seats were won with maybe a stronger labour turnout than anyone else. So Labour stay at homes was probably 5-10%, as opposed to maybe 20% with Tories, leaving labour winning probably 60-80 seats with a tight margin, that in a high turnout election may have been lost....so still a labour victory but with a 110 or 100 majority
i liken it in a mad sleep deprived way to wind in the willows.its like all the good riverside progressives voted in the election and maybe only 40% of the weasels. if the weasels had ALL voted, it could be a very tight win for the riverside progressives....
Mod
Joan Mitchell. La fureur de peindre. Joan Mitchell was an artist I vaguely knew about, there was an exhibition in Paris not long ago, but I didn't see it. Then I picked up this book from the library.Florence Ben Sadoun (a journalist) fell in love with one of her paintings and set out to find out about her life and work. Mitchell mostly painted abstracts, oil on canvas. She hated having her work labelled, for example as abstract expressionism. She was American, lived many years in France.
If you want to see some of her work:
https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.or...
I enjoyed the book, though was a little perturbed in a section on couples of artists to see that Barbara Hepworth was married to "Dan" Nicholson.
Mod
Another Ngaio Marsh revisit (staving off election worries), Death at the Dolphin is one of her mysteries in a theatrical setting. Theatre was very important to her. She went to art school, became an actress, later producer and director.
In this book, an old theatre is brought back to life, a glove belonging to Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, accompanied by a handwritten note inspire a new play, and murder and mayhem ensue.
The Glass Pearls by Emeric Pressburger started a little slowly and seemed to be the work of a non-writer dabbling but the last 20 pages have started to introduce the mystery of who "Braun" is and its a really good readHe poses as a piano tuner but we al;ready know he has a Nazi past and unlike his fellow foreign bedsitters in London, was very much on the other side, as they sought refuge from Hitler, he was serving him
Secrets are kept, vigilance is exemplary, he knows he is on many lists but as yet, is just the humble Herr Braun, tuning pianos in 1960s London
My review of Semir Zeki's book ‘Inner Vision - An exploration of Art and the Brain’ at last... Alas I seem to be running in the 'slow lane' of life, at the moment...Inner Vision - An exploration of Art and the Brain, by Semir Zeki
A Review - of Sorts
An odd thing I have learnt today, from reading ‘Inner Vision - An exploration of Art and the Brain’, by Semir Zeki, a Professor of Neurobiology at ‘The University of London’ in his book, or as his web site says, ‘University College, London’, is that the comprehension of sight involves many different regions of the brain. It isn’t just all done in the same site in the brain, which is what I previously believed. There are different parts of visual acuity sites spread throughout the brain, that are responsible for receiving different types of visual information. One part of the brain is responsible for perceiving movement. If this part of the brain is damaged a person can see anything that is perfectly still, but as soon as an element is moving, whatever the object that was being looked at, vanishes. This is called akinetopia. One sufferer of this was unable to pour a cup of tea. As soon as she poured it, she was no longer able to see it, and so no longer knew when to stop pouring.
Zeki is very determined on his theory that the brain is always sorting out visual imagery by running historic comparisons of differing ‘views’ of objects. He says that the brain is interested in particularities, but only in terms of categorising them into the general scheme of the history of the stated object. In this way the brain is constantly sifting out imagery by dumping the extraneous visual information that doesn’t fit in with the object being categorised. He uses the image of a couch, as an object that people have numerous stored memories of, that are built up into a sort of ‘couch’ bank, over time. He sums up this idea, and paraphrases Gertrude Stein, in saying that to the brain ‘a couch, is a couch, is a couch’, just as ‘a rose, is a rose, is a rose’. Personally, I have reservations about his statement that the brain is preoccupied with so much dumping of superfluous visual information, in the process of just honing in, a particular ‘memory’ cataloguing system, for certain objects.
https://i.postimg.cc/dVT81KpG/jug-and... Pablo Picasso, Jug and Fruit Dish, 1908
Why would the brain pare down the amount of information received when that extraneous information might become useful at a much later, unknown, date? But I did get a distinct sense of ‘déjà vu’ reading this book. It reminded me of an article that I had written about Cubism, many years ago when I was studying ‘Modernism’, but I could not recall much about what I had written in this article, other than the artists that I had chosen to feature in it.
But there was something, curiously, familiar about his particular ‘couch’ story. I eventually found it, and it has become the basis of this month’s blog. In my ancient article I find myself having said a phrase that is very similar to Zeki’s ‘couch’ phrase, only my version uses ‘jugs’ as the object example. ‘One man’s couch is another person’s jug’ perhaps? Why was the humble jug such a popular image to the Analytical Cubist mind set?
https://i.postimg.cc/7PR8zpmK/images-... Pablo Picasso, Reclining Nude, 1932
The couch is slightly more understandable, as an example, as it’s commonly a place to put the artists model, in those times. Male artists were far more common than female ones, so perhaps a more erotic motif to play with, than a jug. Still, I will lay the jug/couch thing to one side, with a slight pondering on the nature of why certain images are stored in the mind, in a more concrete, lasting kind of way, than the actual words that are written about them at the time, and return to the book.
The one thing that I find a bit lacking in Zeki’s book is that he
seldom references the importance of time in his portrayal of
‘Cubist’ Art - what Henri Bergson called ‘la durée’ (the duration). Zeki uses, and talks about, many of the paintings that I myself studied, either at Art College, or later whilst I was studying Modernism, but he seems to gloss over the powerful influence that mathematicians such as Henri Bergson and Henri Poincaré had in the ‘salon-life’ of ‘fin de siècle’ Parisian culture, of the early 1900’s. I remember being fascinated by Picasso’s ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ (1907), and spending a fair amount of time (pre-internet days, when I was at Art College) tracking down their history, as to which came first. That is Picasso’s painting, or Einstein’s ‘Theory of Relativity’? Well Einstein’s ‘Special theory of Relativity’ which includes his theory on ‘simultaneity’ (see later* Robert Delaunay) comes first, Sep. 1905.
I have always been interested in how much cross-fertilisation there is in terms of ideas across different disciplines, such as science v’s art. And so, I am using/comparing some of Zeki’s theories in ‘Inner Vision’ to my own essay written many years ago. A typical Tam ‘mash-up’, perhaps! In the hope it might shed some more light on the matter of how the human brain perceives art, and the meaning and purpose of quite why, and how, it might do so. Though from this distance I find myself quite surprised as to how seriously I treated the world of Art History, in those times.
It has made me think quite a bit, reading the book, which is a big plus for me. One thing I didn’t realise is the importance of babies being introduced to new experiences. I took it for granted that it was a good idea, but I didn’t think that early visual experience is so crucial to language ability in later life. Those that have been neglected at an early age have huge problems with language. He uses, as an example, Jean Jacques Rousseau’s ‘Le Savage de L’Aveyron’ about a boy that was found, totally isolated in a forest, aged 12, in 1797. He was studied and well cared for afterwards but never learnt to speak more than a few words. I assume here that Zeki, from his professional background, had more evidence to back up this observation, to include other cases. I used to think that taking the sprog to interesting events in his babyhood was more for me, as he probably wouldn’t remember it. Which is sort of true. He seems to remember stuff from around 3 years old, but it now seems that he was, crucially, all that time building up the resources, and ability, of future comprehension of language...
And this is another thing for me, we can change our ideas. This time I have left the references in, as I feel that they are a part of the whole story, for those that are interested. I am no longer working within the fringes of academia, so now, as a retired ‘elder’, I believe that knowledge should just be a good, and freely available thing, to everyone. I also still know that younger people have to make a living from their scholarship, abilities and application. They should have their hard work and effort rewarded, so it’s perhaps a luxury of the retired, to be able to share their back catalogue of study, just for its own sake. Or maybe it’s just a question for me, and my peer group, at our own particular time in life.
Only for the curious possibly, but here is the whole July blog for anyone interested, which includes this review but is basically a look at the Cubist Art Movement, and how the human mind perceives and processes aesthetic ideas and information and what is the mechanism/inspiration for possibly understanding the role of intuition in the human mind. https://jediperson.wordpress.com/2024...
scarletnoir wrote: "Logger24 wrote: "I feel very out of touch with French politics. Whatever happened to the centre-right bloc of voters who sustained Chirac and Sarkozy? Has Macron really been that terrible?.."GP h..."
Thanks for the explanation. DeGaulle would be astounded that the Communists would vanish along with the Gaullists.
giveusaclue wrote: "Still trying to weigh it up. Huge number of seats from the lowest %age of votes ever(?)The electorate know very well how the system works. They absolutely hated what the Tories had done to the country over the last 14 years, and voted accordingly... so 72 Lib Dems got elected as opposed to 5 "Reform" (I think "Regress" would be a more appropriate name) on a lower % of the vote.
The LIb Dems got a referendum on FPTP during their coalition years - the Tories campaigned against, and it was defeated.
Be careful what you wish for?
AB76 wrote: "lowest %..."Not lowest ever, but low-ish. However, I think that is misleading... it was lower in Wales - where everyone was sick of the Tories, but enthusiasm for Labour was not that high given the problems at the Senedd, especially WRT Gething's £200k donation from a dodgy businessman.
It looked to me as if turnout was much higher in seats where people sensed a chance to make a difference - or, conversely, where abstention reflected dissatisfaction with the incumbent... Liz Truss, maybe? Lost a 26,000 majority.
Edit: I may have misunderstood your point - I thought you were referring to % turnout. My point about the electorate beginning to understand about how tactical voting works holds, however.
I am hoping that will also work in France today, to keep the dreaded National Front (or whatever they call themselves now) out of power.
Gpfr wrote: " Joan Mitchell. La fureur de peindre. Joan Mitchell was an artist I vaguely knew about, there was an exhibition in Paris not ..."Had a look at the link - although I didn't remember the name, I'm pretty sure I have seen some of Mitchell's paintings somewhere, sometime...
Unfortunately, I don't like them much - they just look like a mess to me. I have no problem with abstraction, or whatever it is, but they don't appeal. Fortunately, since everyone has different tastes I'm sure Mitchell has her admirers, and why not?
Gpfr wrote: " Another Ngaio Marsh revisit (staving off election worries), Death at the Dolphin is one of her mysteries in a theatrical setting. Theatre ..."
I read some Of Ngaio M's work when I was in my early teens, along with a shedload of Christies... it seems to me that her books weren't all that easily available then (I only read a small number), but maybe they just weren't in the library. I rarely read these puzzle whodunits now, but they can be entertaining. Bought a few of Marsh's audio books for Mam a few months ago, but she prefers Christie and Dick Francis.
Mod
Very interesting, Tam, thank you – amusing too. Based on your discussion, I think Robert Delaunay deserves to be better known. On the Zeki theory of visual memory, does he say anything about what happens to the images that are sifted out? If his idea is that they get permanently deleted, I doubt that this fits with the common experience of most of us. More plausible would be the notion that there is another area of the brain where sensations go for eventual retrieval. This happens all the time with, say, sounds and tastes and smells which you can’t immediately place but later do. Even in the particular field of visual memory I wonder how he accounts for what happens a million times over in painting – the unseen, subconscious influence of images drawn by earlier artists.
Robert wrote: "DeGaulle would be astounded that the Communists would vanish along with the Gaullists."iirc, the Communists have not featured as a major force in France since the days of Georges Marchais (absurdly, I initially typed "Guy Marchand" - same initials - a different kettle of fish!) in the 1980s.
French political parties seem to dissolve/amalgamate/split/ rename themselves at the drop of a hat. What seems to matter more than anything is to have a significant - and convincing - public profile. Becoming Prime Minister is often - but not always - a route to becoming President. What is concerning is that Marine Le Pen is very well known, as she's 'inherited' her party from her father and has made it marginally more 'respectable' by toning down the rhetoric - slightly. The left has struggled for a number of years to find a charismatic figure who can convince (Mélenchon prefers to rant and is a bloviator). The centre right has plumped for Macron, who because of his arrogance has alienated a lot of voters. He can't stand again; even if the uneasy coalition between the left and centre right keep the extreme right out of power in these parliamentary elections, can they keep Le Pen out of the presidency next time around?
We'll see - but I am worried.
Logger24 wrote: "Tam wrote: "My review of Semir Zeki's book ‘Inner Vision - An exploration of Art and the Brain’ at last ..."Very interesting, Tam, thank you – amusing too. Based on your discussion, I think Rober..."
Yes interesting points. He doesn't directly state a particular theory but the assumption seems to be that it is tied into the separate areas of the brain that record different factors from the image. Such as the bit of the brain that records lines that point in a particular direction, for instance. There are separate receptors for lines going diagonally left, and diagonally right, for example. I must admit that his numerous diagrams tended to lose me a bit sometimes. I'd be interested in what a neuroscientist might make of the book!. Where the smells are stored is a fascinating question which perhaps we might have to make do with Proust's 'A la recherche du temps perdue' as the best explanation of a possible answer. I have vaguely tried before to look into it, on my blog, in 'Epigenetics'. https://jediperson.wordpress.com/2021... ... and Epigenetics
Of course other artists versions of couches, or jugs, that had been looked at, would be included in any particular persons categorised memory chain. My own particular interest, as I hope I indicate, is what form and where 'feelings, emotions and intuition' might be stored. I guess you could include 'beliefs' in there as well. And the amazing thing is how the brain, on the whole, manages so well with the complex connectivity that is required to keep the system working in good order.
I don't think that he is saying that the superfluous stuff is deleted, rather that the extraneous stuff is stripped away, and gets stored elsewhere, in different formats maybe, or even separated out so that a diagonal line, for instance, comes to its 'diagonal' brain home, and the smell goes to a separate 'smell' home in the brain? Perhaps this is the part that makes up 'all the stuff that dreams are made on'? This would make sense to me given the surreal nature and non-conventional rationality of quite a few of my and many other people's dreams. As an odd aside, or digression, the film 'The Endless Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal... is an entertaining 'playing' with the idea of whether unwanted historic brain experiences/feelings can be successfully deleted, or not! Worth a look, to me...
Mod
Ah, that does explain things. If the assumption is correct, we have a part of the brain which stores what we each think conforms to “couch” or “jug”, and another part (or parts) where we store anything “non-couch” or “non-jug”. Must be quite a clutter in there!
I’m guessing his diagonal lines will extend out from the image to embrace feelings, emotions and intuitions, and beliefs, since we will all have complex thoughts, beyond the visual, about a couch – I certainly do – and objects that are more prosaic like a jug.
I think I will ask the library to find a copy of Zeki’s book. I don’t at all expect to read the whole book but it would be interesting to dip into.
Time to watch Endless Sunshine again, sad as it is. Jim Carrey shows he can play a part other than comical goofs.
a very wet family weekend, 3 generations present and 3 chickens purchased, the delight on the kids faces was superb as we picked them and they walked back to the car with their boxes containing the chickensjust checked and looks like the Left-Green Alliance won round 2, phew....a huge phew....after the joy of THursday and the end of Truss etc, i was worried France may go other way and little ones have kept me off the news most of last 48 hrs!
Mod
Gpfr wrote: "Well, so far the election results are a relief, even if what comes next is not clear."Yes I can understand that, and the relief, but you might also be in the new era of being forced into the old Chinese curse, of 'may you live in interesting times'. Still I for one, would be very impressed if the unexpected conglomerate got it together and just got on with doing /passing good laws, for the benefit of the majority of the peoples...
https://i.postimg.cc/L5KBCg4T/The-Pil...
Gpfr wrote: "Well, so far the election results are a relief, even if what comes next is not clear."such good news for the great nation that is France!
I've heard that the turnout in France is much higher than last time. People don't normally turn out in large numbers to vote for the status quo...
The literary corners of X-Twitter and Bluesky are blowing up today over an article in the Toronto Star My stepfather sexually abused me when I was a child. My mother, Alice Munro, chose to stay with him
https://archive.is/2024.07.07-111321/...
Gpfr wrote: "Well, so far the election results are a relief, even if what comes next is not clear."
Good news, Gp. 🤞🏻
Good news, Gp. 🤞🏻
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1984 (other topics)The Three-Body Problem (other topics)
Frankenstein (other topics)
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (other topics)
The Employees (other topics)
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Hanya Yanagihara (other topics)Michael Gorra (other topics)
i am proxy voting for a neighbour who is away, so hoping that goes smoothly. My area is too close to call right now, which is fustrating as it finaly ..."
I guess it's going to cost the tax payers lots of money in severance payments for all the tories who are going to lose their seats!