tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post712559943301097681..comments2024-03-27T01:28:28.346-07:00Comments on False Machine: Murder, Murder, Dinnerparty.pjamesstuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-56752608041414986982014-05-02T08:03:20.878-07:002014-05-02T08:03:20.878-07:00To a degree that is true, but Rand and Friedman ar...To a degree that is true, but Rand and Friedman are known for their bombastic writing while Sagan is full of wonder and Krugman has a bit of liberal arrogance. I suspect someone on the opposite side of the ideological divide would find them equally distinct.<br /><br />Agree that Rand was terrible - followers are more attracted by her ideology than her prose.Tedankhamenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00181643018957592969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-83529236317422915662014-05-01T07:32:56.622-07:002014-05-01T07:32:56.622-07:00I think the main thing to take from it is that goo...I think the main thing to take from it is that good poets choose their meter carefully according to what they're trying to convey - or, perhaps, they just intuit it. It's hard to tell whether Tennyson deliberately used "loud" meter for the Charge of the Light Brigade because it's an action poem or it just came to him that way simply because of what he was trying to express. And in the Lotos Eaters his meter is "quiet" because the mood is melancholic and dreamy, but did he choose it that way or did it just turn out to be the case organically during the writing process?noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-84962236055106910652014-05-01T07:22:59.284-07:002014-05-01T07:22:59.284-07:00I think that analogy is too simplistic to be meani...I think that analogy is too simplistic to be meaningful - I suspect you find the writing of Keynes or Krugman mellifluous, erudite and cultured because you agree with it. And I suspect Ayn Rand sounds strident and muscular and bombastic because she was mental and also a really bad writer. noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-12983358735380633272014-05-01T01:31:19.367-07:002014-05-01T01:31:19.367-07:00I got the stuff about Miton and Wordsworth out of ...I got the stuff about Miton and Wordsworth out of a bokk, but I don't have it any more and had to replicate it from memory. There was a lot more in there about what Wordsworth does with the quiet tone of voice but I forgot most of it, regrettably. And the name of the book too.pjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-62008270903524257092014-05-01T01:29:23.458-07:002014-05-01T01:29:23.458-07:00Thats interesting.Thats interesting.pjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-21532780104286725032014-04-30T23:19:22.596-07:002014-04-30T23:19:22.596-07:00I've somehow found myself transitioned from an...I've somehow found myself transitioned from an MA in English lit (OE, colonialism, and grammar) into a PhD in Global Studies (depictions of Lost Japan by Neoliberals in US economic discourse) and see this same clash of quiet and loud in Keynesian/saltwater economists vs Friedman/monetarists. At a dinner party with Ayn Rand, the 'undertaker' Greenspan, Hayek and Friedman you bring your own cutlery, elbow others aside for the choice of meat, with no recriminations or cries of injustice, but rather the solidarity of the mosh pit. Prose is strident and muscular and bombastic:<br /><br />“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.” <br /><br />Eating with Keynes, Krugman, and Carl Sagan, you line up, chat pleasantly, excuse yourself if you've butted in, and keep an eye to make sure all get enough food. Prose is mellifluous yet erudite and cultured:<br /><br />“We inhabit a universe where atoms are made in the centers of stars; where each second a thousand suns are born; where life is sparked by sunlight and lightning in the airs and waters of youthful planets; where the raw material for biological evolution is sometimes made by the explosion of a star halfway across the Milky Way; where a thing as beautiful as a galaxy is formed a hundred billion times - a Cosmos of quasars and quarks, snowflakes and fireflies, where there may be black holes and other universe and extraterrestrial civilizations whose radio messages are at this moment reaching the Earth. How pallid by comparison are the pretensions of superstition and pseudoscience; how important it is for us to pursue and understand science, that characteristically human endeavor. ” <br /><br />The clash comes when these two types dine together, when we ask them to choose the menu, or distribute the food. It is a cacophony that had drowned out thought these past few years.Tedankhamenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00181643018957592969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-79757221325928558122014-04-30T16:11:31.143-07:002014-04-30T16:11:31.143-07:00Jesus fucking fuckhat! That is brilliant.
Looking...Jesus fucking fuckhat! That is brilliant.<br /><br />Looking at not just the type of meter but the relative intensity of the meter. Did you ken to that on your own or is this just an normally considered element of prosody I wasn't aware of or is it from some obscure branch of Russian Formalism or something?<br /><br />Then you went loosely tied it to language typically categorized as feminine/masculine. Which is something I'd intuited but had never been able to fully realize into rational statements.<br /><br />Thank you! I haven't been this excited about literary analysis in a while.<br /><br />As you pointed out, the quiet and the loud don't necessarily have to annihilate each other, as long as there is at least a semblance of a barrier (different characters, different stanzas). It can in fact give you another sort of rhythm to exploit, the flow from quiet to the loud stanza to stanza. <br /><br />Like in Swinburne's "Dolores" some stanzas have soft, sibilant quiet meters while others are declamatory and LOUD. It leaves one the opportunity to observe (or possibly craft) a sort of meta-rhythm into a work.<br /><br />Dinner Parties and Games are both composed of structures. And when you set up an abundance of structures, it automatically makes doing things outside or against those structures very LOUD. It can be fun and loud, like using barely modded dnd rules for a cyberpunk game. Or it can be annoying and LOUD, the guy that always goes lone-wolf and doesn't really do anything but skulk about.<br /><br />Anyway, I'm gonna reign in this rant now.Evey Lockharthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01813833983204101337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-86156216671057213952014-04-30T14:24:24.983-07:002014-04-30T14:24:24.983-07:00You're not wrong, I thinkYou're not wrong, I thinkZak Sabbathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08812410680077034917noreply@blogger.com