tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post8535986302863529566..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Problems of Life: WittgensteinUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-31039237077198034492011-05-08T10:14:09.316-07:002011-05-08T10:14:09.316-07:00Not Lodge, of course, but Nashe:
It was the meri...Not Lodge, of course, but Nashe:<br /><br /><br />It was the merie moneth of Februarie,<br /> When yong men, in their iollie roguerie[2],<br />Rose earelie in the morne fore[3] breake of daie,<br /> 4To seeke them valentines soe trimme and gaie[4];<br /><br />With whom they maie consorte in summer sheene[5],<br /> And dance the haidegaies[6] on our toune-greene,<br />As alas at Easter[7], or at Pentecost,<br /> 8Perambulate[8] the fields that flourish most;<br /><br />And goe to som village abbordring[9] neere,<br /> To taste the creame and cakes[10] and such good cheere;<br />Or[11] see a playe of strange moralitie,<br /> 12Shewen by Bachelrie of Maningtree[12].<br /><br /><br />12] ↑ by Bachelrie of Maningtree, by the bachelours of magnanimity. "Manningtree, in Essex, formerly enjoyed the privilege of fairs, by the tenure of exhibiting a certain number of stage plays yearly. It appears also, from other intimations, that there were great festivities there, and much good eating, at Whitsun ales, and other times."—Nares.Barry Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02121653352771218338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-13277830546390624632011-05-08T07:45:27.492-07:002011-05-08T07:45:27.492-07:00Thanks Tom - that must have been it. 'Forlorn&...Thanks Tom - that must have been it. 'Forlorn' would do very well for that entire coastline from Brictic's almost-island down via Maldon and the Crouch to the heart-stirring Foulness. Excellent moping country. I don't know if you know Denise Levertov's different transatlantic Essex in ' A Map of the Western Part of Essex in the County of England' - this one Epping Forest, the Fenchurch St. line, Lodge's 'A Choice of Valentines', the London rural-mythological borderland:<br /><br />Pergo Park knew me, and Clavering, and Havering-atte-Bower,<br />Stanford Rivers lost me in osier beds, Stapleford Abbots<br />sent me safe home on the dark road after Simeon-quiet evensong ...<br /><br />May we always be alert for opportunities to use the word 'lido'.<br /><br />Thanks as ever.Barry Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02121653352771218338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-64293377051844485572011-05-07T08:28:02.449-07:002011-05-07T08:28:02.449-07:00Barry,
I'm embarrassed to have to say I can&#...Barry,<br /><br />I'm embarrassed to have to say I can't think what post that might have been.<br /><br />The one specific reference to Brightlingsea on the blog that I can recall came toward the latter stages of the comment thread on <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/aram-saroyan-t-c.html" rel="nofollow">Aram Saroyan: T C</a>, where I quoted a poem Aram had written as an introduction to a wee mimeo chapbook I did in 1966; I was then living in Brightlingsea, and that's where the deed in question occurred.<br /><br />But as we're here... I'm sure the world at large will take a keen interest in these few Brightlingsea factoids committed to history by the keeper of the local annals, Edward Percival Dickin, in 1914:<br /><br />"The name Brightlingsea and its informal conversational form<br />Bricklesey have many variants. It would be wearisome to print<br />the 193 forms I have found. Many of them, however, will he found<br />in the text. When the eccentricities of spelling are eliminated,<br />there are only three forms left Brightlingsea, Bricklesey, and<br />Brictriceseia (Domesday). If the Norman scribes did not make a<br />mistake over Brictriceseia, as they often did over Anglo-Saxon<br />names, it means Brictric's island. As this form only appears once,<br />probably it was a mistake.<br /><br />"The parish consists of a peninsula, two small islands, and parts<br />of two creeks and the estuary of the river Colne. It was anciently<br />an island, and was described as such in I295. A map of the<br />second half of the sixteenth century shows it as an island."<br /><br />--<br /><br />I do not alas go quite as far back in the annals as Mr Dickin, but... I do recall the Aldus shipbuilding enterprise was the great firm of the town.<br /><br />In the 1930s more sprats were landed at Brickle or Brittle Sea than anywhere else in the country.<br /><br />From what I can tell by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brightlingsea,_small_beach.jpg" rel="nofollow">recent photographs</a>, seeing the familiar promenade with the familiar shivering bathers and the familiar forlorn rows of Bide-A-Wee cottages, the place has not changed too much.<br /><br />I was interested to learn that the old Brightlingsea Lido is still going strong (as it were), now with two levels.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-45296347313325272732011-05-07T04:59:22.941-07:002011-05-07T04:59:22.941-07:00Alice at Trinity, you at Caius, me at Queens' ...Alice at Trinity, you at Caius, me at Queens' - I think we have the joint covered. While we're in East Anglia, I wondered if you could recall which was the post where you have a reference to sitting on the beach at Brightlingsea. I used to take moody teenage bike-rides around those Essex flatlands, so it caught my eye - then someone distracted me and I can't find my way back (blog-wise, at least).Barry Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02121653352771218338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-18653495679532817832011-05-05T05:49:48.809-07:002011-05-05T05:49:48.809-07:00Lovely to hear from you here, Barry, and fine too ...Lovely to hear from you here, Barry, and fine too to hear you have such a generous source of continuing education (as I believe it is officially termed), in your daughter. As it happens I spent some years at another college situated close enough to Trinity to have allowed me to fling a stone into its great quadrangle, had I so chosen. But there are some things even Americans remain incapable of. My college boasted no one so deep-minded as LW among its scholars, alas. But there was the wonderful doctor who died with Scott at the Pole, Wilson; not to mention Harvey, the fellow who determined that blood does not merely stand still in the veins, but circulates.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-32064529525160176232011-05-04T05:46:43.539-07:002011-05-04T05:46:43.539-07:00Tom - I'm browsing through your backlist, happ...Tom - I'm browsing through your backlist, happy as a kid in high grass, and had to tell you that this post has moved me close to tears. The quotations from Wittgenstein themselves, of course, because it's a voice that seems to speak straight from the quiddity of the man. Then the sequence of words and images, which takes me to regions of feeling even words as packed and pregnant as those can only gesture towards. And then because I owe what I know of L.W to my seventeen year old daughter, who leaves home this Autumn for Trinity, Cambridge, because it was Wittgenstein's college, and that's where she needs to be. I think even she might not be familiar with these particular jewels. These unexpected pathways, leaps, and bridges are a great surprising gift for which I am very grateful.<br /><br />BarryBarry Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02121653352771218338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-90442124533292562722010-08-30T23:23:31.824-07:002010-08-30T23:23:31.824-07:00Each one of them is a delight to read Tom. Read th...Each one of them is a delight to read Tom. Read them over and over. <br />Rightly said. <br />Wishes are useless. Even the keys of this keyboard are better. Atleast they work the way I want them to. <br />And equally easy, is deceiving oneself into enlightenment or ignorance. <br /><i>But the business has to be repeated.</i> <br /><br />Wonderful post.adityahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16078144194220301083noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-44529884759505798132010-04-10T09:01:37.633-07:002010-04-10T09:01:37.633-07:00"...depth and resonance ... almost too much t..."...depth and resonance ... almost too much to bear"<br /><br />"...at every moment former/ experience is present"<br /><br />"Intense, profound, harsh, and yet real."<br /><br />Each of these comments helps me to take the measure of Wittgenstein's private remarks on what most matters. <br /><br />To my mind his notebooks are in some respects akin to Samuel's Johnson's Prayers and Diaries. <br /><br />These deeply meditative works are records of a dialogue between self and soul, never meant to impress or to convince or indeed to be seen by anybody (and so much the more precious for that).TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-29266716751569929292010-04-09T22:08:41.585-07:002010-04-09T22:08:41.585-07:00Intense, profound, harsh, and yet real.Intense, profound, harsh, and yet real.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-33579767490667351252010-04-09T06:17:35.663-07:002010-04-09T06:17:35.663-07:00Tom,
Thanks for all such thoughts -- actually tha...Tom,<br /><br />Thanks for all such thoughts -- actually that "how, at every moment former/ experience is present" is from Merleau-Ponty, something from Heidegger today ("question of whether and how, the letting appear of").STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-5083818810388709312010-04-09T03:30:06.901-07:002010-04-09T03:30:06.901-07:00Tom, like a mini-anthology, such depth and resonan...Tom, like a mini-anthology, such depth and resonance ... almost too much to bear.<br /><br />Many thanks, DonIssa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-85122440652810505002010-04-08T13:14:34.954-07:002010-04-08T13:14:34.954-07:00So much to reflect upon here.
"Before losing...So much to reflect upon here.<br /><br />"Before losing consciousness he said...'Tell them I've had a wonderful life!'"<br /><br />"...the world of the happy man is different from the world of the sad man. This is meant quite 'literally'." <br /><br />__<br /><br />how, at every moment former<br />experience is present<br /><br />(...this, shall we take it, Stephen, from Heidegger? Can we imagine Wittgenstein and Heidegger in the same room, in conversation? I am put in mind of the philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt's great essay "On Bullshit", with his remarks re. Wittgenstein's ever vigilant alertness to efflorescences of the latter: "Wittgenstein devoted his philosophical energies largely to identifying and combating what he regarded as insidious forms of 'nonsense'. He was apparently like that in his personal life as well".)<br /><br />__<br /><br /><br />It is the humility, along with the always disarming honesty, that always stays with me, when I've been reading Wittgenstein's personal notes.<br /><br />"Endurance of suffering isn't rated highly because there is supposed not to be any suffering -- really it's out of date." (1948) <br /><br />__<br /><br />And here is something I have been dwelling upon -- a note from 1950, near the end of his life:<br /><br />"It is an accident that 'fast' rhymes with 'last'. [In German, 'Rast' = 'rest'; 'Hast' = 'haste'.] But it is a lucky accident, and you can *discover* this lucky accident."TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-21230226980545344372010-04-08T07:20:36.128-07:002010-04-08T07:20:36.128-07:00Tom,
Thanks for this great selection of W. thinki...Tom,<br /><br />Thanks for this great selection of W. thinking out loud (so it seems) together w/ such moving pictures. What a way to start the day -- a northeast wind starting up, a sunlit cloud moving across the pale blue sky above the ridge, shadowed green leaves beginning to move (like the trees in Buenos Aires. . . .<br /><br />4.8<br /><br />pale blue whiteness of sky above shadowed<br />green ridge, faint white moon above leaf<br />in foreground, wave sounding in channel<br /><br /> how, at every moment former<br /> experience is present<br /><br /> thing, one given phenomenon,<br /> which means that both<br /><br />cloudless blue sky reflected in channel,<br />cormorants flapping across toward pointSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-88595048118359849062010-04-07T18:28:59.815-07:002010-04-07T18:28:59.815-07:00As gamefaced said, I like this post also. I forwa...As gamefaced said, I like this post also. I forwarded “Problems of Life: Wittgenstein” to a friend in Boston who used to teach Wittgenstein to undergraduates and graduate students before turning his large, highly sensitized brain to the practice of tax law. Chris liked it also and replied: “Lovely pictures. Strangely enough I was just looking at “Remarks on Culture and Value” last night. I have been thinking about his observation -- this was in the Tractatus -- that the world of the happy man is different from the world of the sad man. This is meant quite "literally". It's astonishing how much of an influence he continues to exert on me after all these years.” I thought I’d pass this along. I think what you’ve presented here will stay with me for a long, long time.Curtis Robertsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-42649442010647165462010-04-07T16:55:37.921-07:002010-04-07T16:55:37.921-07:00"Before losing consciousness he said...' ..."Before losing consciousness he said...' Tell them I've had a wonderful life!'"<br /><br />from Ludwig Wittgenstein, "A Memoir" by Norman Malcom, Oxford 1958. P. 180Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com