I'm afraid I don't fm.
Did I ought to?
I always add impersanations to whomever Im reading on A2k. It makes it more fun for me. With you, whenever you say stuff like "Faustians act they dont think" I hear W C Fields.
That was merely a line from A WC Fields mini sketch. Forget it, its a philadelphia thing. We never forgave the British for occupying that city.
Isnt it about 2:30 AM at your place?
I do believe we are surrounded, they are on all three sides of us.
There I waaaas charging up SAn Juan Hillll, when I was struck by a projectiiiile. Fortunately it was deflected by my bandolier of Budweiser.
-The BAnk Dick
fm-
Saw half of Bank Dick the other week.
You are an hour fast on our time.
Quote:bandolier of Budweiser.
The beer coat. I'm surprised it works with Bud.
Im sure he chose budweiser only for the alliteration. Although, Ive been told that, in the early days , when budweiser wasnt considered a chemical product, it was actually not that bad. Its success is only based on advertising rather than quality of product.
That's amazing judging by the ads they are running during the World Cup.
One supposes that the insult to our artistic sensibilities is deliberate. They certainly won't sell any beer here with them.
BTW- My three predictions for the World Cup are all running a profit. Did you miss them fm?
sorry, Ive been listening to my lawn growing.
Surely you can do more than one thing at once fm?
Sitting on ones ass watching sports on the tube is hardly "doing something" . Why not just dose up on 20 mikes of Diazepam and sleep through a couple hours. All sports (IMHO) are a waste of my time. Ill get cauight up in some ouche bag football game and the day is shot. RRight now, Im plotting a course to Grand Manaan Island and talking to you. Its no problem, doing more than one thing. I just need to perceive some value in the tasks.
Im addcited to tv as much as the next person , but I cannot watch sports,, all sports. Like Veblen, I abhor the vicarious.
Yes fm-
I am aware that Vebbie was not averse to a few snipes at sport but he had never seen a World Cup Finals as we see it today. Miss a thing like that and you miss many opportunities to study human behaviour when operating without a script or chances of a re-take.
Salinger had the same view as you I think but not Veblen's wit.
But I can understand. I've tried watching your stuff and it is pathetic. It isn't the sportsmen that's the problem; I'm sure they are more or less as good as anybody else's per million. It's the rules and the nature of those who have control of them. There's no subtleties that I can see and no love.
Even your horseracing is relatively boring.
When crowd shots are done the people look like being at the game is just being there for some other purpose than the love of the game. They never look "into it". They always look a bit into themselves. Like a little girl who's Mum has got her all primped up to recite a poem at the PTA Christmas Oh Aren't We Such Wonderful People Bash.
And basketball!! Oh my goodness me.
BTW-if you want to get your litotes into gear cast your eyes over Gibbon.
You mean "Rise and FAll"...Ginnon? or " Stalking the Wild"...Gibbon
spendi and farmerman,
Your little cultural exchange is truly adorable.
We dont see eye to eye on soccer and Veblen, thats fer sure.
Soccer. Like NBA, we only need watch the last 2 minutes of a game.
Veblen, I found him pretentious not deep. He was the "master of the obvious" Like some of these social evolution journals who state that ,"Through human evolutionary development and until fully settled communities, humans ate only when nutritionally motivated"... What a load , almost as bad as geojabber of one Manik Talwani
wandel, I guess I could be actually doing something in the boat but its too foggy even for radar.
Well, 30 minutes later and its all cleared out. Maybe well g do some fishing off Grand Manaan
Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was a scholarly masterpiece, and one of the worst examples of personal preference mascarading as historical analysis which it is possible to imagine. He traces the Empire from the Antonine to the final fall of Constantinople in 1453, and takes note of the Holy Roman Empire (leaving out "of the German Nation") along the way. He does not miss a jot or tittle of imperial minutiae . . . and his Protestant Monrarchical Republicanism is on display from the first page.
He is disgusted by the Antonines because of their "depravity"--which i guess means he was appalled at a people who would be obsessed with making money hand over fist without benefit of clergy. His contempt for primitive Christianity almost makes his history of the early church useless. He makes no effort to hide his contempt of Roman and Byzantine Catholicism. His constant condemnation of the institutions of empire are so transparently based in his religious and political prejudice as to be embarrassing.
Well worth the read, and not to be taken without a generous portion of salt.
set, Ive had the pleasure of Gibbons. I just wanted to see whther spendi wasnt talking about Ewell Gibbons.
A bit of salt improves either Gibbons' recipes.
Now for absolute spectacle in sport, its hard to beat seeing a few million dollars worth of equipment abruptly go from delicately dicing close together at around 200MPH into a chaotic, expanding tangle of spinning, flipping, flying, tumbling, parts-shedding, turf-tossing mechanical mayhem, all while creating a shroud of thick white smoke which covers an acre or two.
It is possible to read both Veblen and Gibbon without giving a damn about the subject they are discussing.
That applies particularly to Gibbon. The real subject matter of both authors is human nature and the inculcation of an attitude towards it which steps outside of it. This is conveyed by the verbal expression employed which is admittedly of an elitist nature and thus not to everyone's taste. Both present human nature as absurd as, of course, do all those artists who are worth giving the time of day to.
They are an infallible cure for narcissism which, as the myth teaches, is a deadly disease only mitigated by medical advances which restrict its effects to what Illich termed "sub-lethal illness".
One does rather get the impression on some of these threads that if one mentions an author it is taken to mean that he is the only author one has ever read. Gibbon is excellent on extended litotes and I don't care one jot for his history.Any Protestant Monarchical Republicanism he may be said to embrace, assuming he so did, is neither here nor there.
He,and the others, teach "cool". There is nothing less Faustian than thrumming indignation.
"Houston-we have a problem" with no exclamation mark. That was cool.
Gibbon doesn't even get close to tracing " the Empire from the Antonine to the final fall of Constantinople in 1453,". He uses a vague outline of it to hang a lot of good jokes on for those who like a bit of gallows humour for bedtime reading with the Horlicks. Veblen just shits all over the petit bourgeois goodstyle and invites his readers to avoid it.
I once loaned a paperback of Leisure Class to a lady and she was so enraged after 10 pages that she ripped it into little pieces. Loved it I did.
