Thursday, February 19, 2009
The Symmetry of the Contemporary
Symmetry can be so satisfying. 'And yet when you see what technology is doing these days,' writes Andrew Sullivan, 'how can one stay too pessimistic?' Here's how. Yes, Facebook, Twitter etc. cause cancer, strokes, heart disease and dementia. As Christopher Ricks once said to me, 'What you give with one hand, you take away with the other.'
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
What had you given him, and why did you take it back?
ReplyDeleteI revealed knowledge of his wife's occupation and then said I had just found it on the internet
ReplyDeleteFrom Ricks's Wiki entry:
ReplyDeleteFor Ricks, deconstructive technicians who effortlessly conduct such 'unmasking' operations discreetly wig themselves with the fig-leaves of a theory that vaunts a diplomatic immunity to the very order of prejudices otherwise discerned as intrinsically germinal to the art of literary creation itself.
Two cheers and comedy klaxon honk-honk for Wikipedia.
why on earth would a dog wag its tail - what purpose could that have? no, from observation, it seems the tail is attempting to motivate the dog in every case.
ReplyDeleteyes, I'm sure they said the same about telephones (and I'd agree). Despite what quantum mechanics tells us now, you can't break a jaw in Dallas without being in Dallas.
Nevertheless,Ian, for instant corroboration see Bryan Appleyard’s excellentThe digital age is destroying us
ReplyDeleteStoooopid
What can be made of the fact that dogs invariably wag their tales on the way to the veterinary operative, standing at the ready, a brick in each hand, the sole purpose of which is to curtail the pooch's goolies .
ReplyDeleteThis raises another issue, who the hell thought up the phrase "the dogs bollocks" ?
They are never symmetrical, goolies, are they?
They might even wag their tails.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just the symmetry of the dog's bollocks I'd question.
ReplyDeleteThe Net and social networking through it has done some truly wondrous things for people across the globe, not least those older and younger people where geography and infirmity would previously have prevented full-on social interaction of great value to both sides. There is a dark side, of course. But when a man in a white coat is reported as saying that "evidence suggests" deep biological problems to boot my bullshit-alarm is primed to go off.
Before he died Michael Crichton gave an outstanding presentation of how much doommongering during his lifetime turned out to be wholly without foundation. Watching it every month or so would be far more rational and cost-effective than a lot of our other attempts at stress relief. For through YouTube it's free every time. As I say, wondrous.
This Sigman fellow really is talking the most appalling twaddle, isn't he? God it's getting way, way beyond parody.
ReplyDeleteThe real cause of all of "cancer, strokes, heart disease and dementia" is, of course, not dying of something else first.
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ReplyDeletei think i get to have real conversations about once every 3 to 6 months; the rest of the time i exchange bland small talk with co-workers who do nothing but watch TV. i haven't watched TV since 2004 so i don't even recognise the title of most of the latest shows. If it weren't for the internet i would be reduced to creating imaginary friends and i don't reckon that would do anyone much good.
ReplyDelete