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2001-02-12 || 1.20a I'd like to change my voice, my laugh, and my eyes. Anyone want to trade? Anyway, Wit was a terrific play. We all went to a friend's loft afters with several bottles of d�panneur wine and snacks (note: Both the Centaur theatre and J's loft are in Old Montr�al. 'D�panneur wine' in Old Montr�al includes things like Jackson Triggs and Mo�t & Chandon...), where everyone discussed the play, the symbolism of each r�le, and all things artsy and pretentious 'til the wee hours. I'd forgotten what an evening with the Academics was like. It's amazing how easy it is to cross that monofilament between intelligence and pretention. I spent most of my time listening and trying to keep a straight face. There was one Modernist American Lit major with a labret and a tattoo who I kept imagining moaning in the throes of unholiness, which helped somewhat, and at the end of the night I crawled sleepily into bed, glad that I'd gone out with them, no longer thinking of them as ivory-towered recluses, though I have it on *very* good authority that they are. Every last one. ********** I was reading an essay by John Ralston Saul (or, His Excellency John Ralston Saul, CC, as he is called these days), and I came across a passage that really grabbed me, simply because it seemed to be a bit contrary to what we are taught in school these days (It also made me think of DLand's resident philosophy major in a big way): 'There are many ways of looking at the opposition between the oral and the written. What I see is a tension laid out in the West by Socrates and Plato, a tension from which we really haven't escaped, and a tension we have to deal with every time we address public policy. On one side there is Socrates -- oral, humanist, inclusive, doubt-filled, essentially democratic and citizen-oriented. On the other there is Plato -- written, rational, esclusive, essentially �litist, with a contempt for the citizen whicih made him anti-democratic. Socrates -- profoundly anti-ideological. Plato -- the source of what would later becomescholasticism, ideology, and corporatism. 'One of the most important things we can do today is to try to separate in our minds Socrates and Plato. Because if we can't separate them and recognize the completely different strands they represent, in spite of the fact that one man wrote both of them, we won't be able to deal with our contemporary problems. The lies within today's language can be traced in good part to the running together of these two approaches towards civilization. 'The official view subsumes Socrates into Plato. But for those who look carefully it can be seen that Plato failed in his intellectual takeover. For one thing, at the time he wrote, there were still witnesses around who remembered what Socrates had really said and what he stood for. Besides, Plato, whatever his ideas, was too great a genius to simply lie. What's more, Socrates was even morebrilliant than his false disciple, therefore it was impossible for Plato to obscure completely what the older man had said. In that sense, Socrates' message was uncontrollable. For these three reasons it is still possible to separate the two thinkers. But it has to be done very consciously, and I don't think it is done very much in the universities.' ********** I feel fat these days. I think I'm going to eat nothing but worms... Blech!
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shite One last little note... - 09.21.2006 de-stressing, biking and terrorism - 06.06.2006 Mildly stressed... - 05.29.2006 More crime stupidity - 05.28.2006 Scary stuff - 05.25.2006
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