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Monday 23 August 2010

Hello?


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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Staudammkrone_L%C3%BCnersee_2.JPG

Staudammkrone dam at Lüner Lake, Austria: photo by Friedrich Böhringer, 2010



An image is not a picture, but a picture can correspond to it.

-- Philosophical Investigations, I: Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1945





File:Интернеты!.jpg

Internet service provides dialers prepaid cards, Saint Petersburg
: photo by George Shuklin, 2010

12 comments:

aditya said...

Sigh.

aditya said...

This captures this space/blog in one line Tom. This one line is the image of your blog.

TC said...

Aditya,

You have caught me in the act, for better or worse. Perhaps it was to be a vanishing act. (But I should have known somebody would be out there beyond the fog, and am happy to find it was you. Hello...)

aditya said...

Coincidentally, I had received a call from a Bank going out of its way to serve me with its credit card(s) and home loans a while ago.

I would take this to satiate my curiosity regarding the title of your post and the bottom picture you had put up until you could come up. From the streets/ your bed/ a book/ a plate with food/ the brain of the guy having a fight with a lady in the cab while he walks past you on the sidewalk/ shadows of human beings swallowing up the generosity of lamp posts/your wife ...

Ed Baker said...

sprechen zeeing duetch of
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein
this "comic" book should ...
and does most certainly do:

http://images.textbooks.com/TextbookInfo/Covers/1840460709.gif

check out LW's and his parents friends and teachers...

LW studied UNDER Bertrand Russell who died in 1970

hell, 1970 was just the OTHER day!

TC said...

Ed,

By golly, someone's been writing all over Wittgenstein's face. I've heard of disrespectful graffiti, but this goes too far.

Know what you mean about 1970. Forty years, poof! I can't remember a thing that's happened since. (I mean, I wish I couldn't... and none of it was worth remembering anyway, I'm pretty sure.)


Aditya,

I think I know what you mean. The fog of inanity is closing in on us from all sides at every moment. Merely locking the doors and shutting off the phone are but halfway measures. I have laid abed the past 24 hours nursing my wretched dogbite wounds, and yet, when I arose, found the internet spammers again yapping at my heels, with their pheromone ointments, sexual enhancement formulas and once in a lifetime investment opportunities. Deleting them is currently my only exercise. (But I don't think it's "aerobic"...?)

About that lower image, I must confess it's a case of sentimental kindness on my part. A person from St. Petersburg submitted it to a photographers' peer review and it was summarily and unanimously rejected, on grounds it had "no recognizable subject". I felt bad for the photo. And as a matter of fact I also suspected that though it is not a picture of anything, a picture can correspond to it. And I suppose the picture I had in mind would be a diagram of the mental processes alluded to in this comment.

TC said...

"Upon reflection", the ancient stony heart is touched, and small virtual tears flow, to think that at this late stage in the inexorable decline of the species anyone should care to be nice to poor Wittgenstein (also known as "The Viennese Partykiller", "Ludwig the Killjoy of the Blogosphere", etc.). After all, he was awfully nice to birds, and he was certainly a queer bird, in addition to being a ruddy ineffable genius; so, I thought... let us be nice to him, while we still can. (Or perhaps that should be IF we still can...)

At any rate, credit where due, so in case anyone is actually prepared to click these links that will lead to the meaning of life (at least!), be my guest, and go wild:

Problems of Life: Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein: The Visual Room

Wittgenstein: On the Myth of the Time Goddess

In the World (Wittgenstein)

Feelers: Wittgenstein

ACravan said...

I clicked and thank you for that. Problems Of Life was just what I needed this morning. 1969 was just the other day also.

TC said...

Curtis,

Yes, and that ain't the half of it -- just before that other day there was there was (and I'm fairly sure of the order here, though I haven't looked it up) this one.

TC said...

... and by the way it should probably be pointed out, in fairness to Wittgenstein, that the line of his quoted here has a context, leading us back even beyond another day, to the savannah...

aditya said...

Shall be going by the links later but for now i hope you and Angelica are feeling better. Coincidentally me mentioning her in the comment did surprise me. I hope she's okay now.

There is a Chinese guy/computer/whoever it is who spams me with an aphorism and a link to places with happiness guaranteed. Its tedious to keep a tab deleting its comments from my posts too. And i cannot imagine your travails as you keep shutting off the doors, the phones and the emails.

It is only now in the dead of the night that I realize, out of nowhere you DID appear, in between the comments I had made at this post yesterday.

Not many pictures could deserve a reason this gratifying for being at your blog I suppose. Wonderful. Wholly.

Take care .. you two ..

Anonymous said...

Early morning thoughts and impressions work best for me usually and I think 1968 (with which I was previously unfamiliar; thank you for posting the link) is one of the very best poems I have read on BTP. Poetry (including ekphrastic poetry) is art, not therapy, I know, but “I remained under the illusion I was merely living” both cuts deep and helps me on the surface this morning. The forest photograph is extraordinary somehow (I haven’t been able to form words yet, but it revives very good and uplifting memories). Paired with the goldfinches (we had goldfinches last week in Tuxedo), I think this is a gem. Perfect.