Salammbô

That would be Francis, not me! He's deep and profound and sensitive
and nice...

Actually, going back to his last posting, I do agree: If you believe
in mystery than mystery exists. Flaubert has created this mystery
around Salammbo, and the reader either is drawn into this mesmerizing
fictional character he's created, or (like me) is too rational to appreciate
Salammbo to its fullest extend.

Who has time for mysteries these days? Life consumes us with other
things that are more pressing than lose yourself in mystery, which
makes me a non-believer, I guess. It is sad actually to be this way,
but a byproduct of society, I think.

I must say Calamity, the new avatar, it should attract Spendius. They like the Nora Battie look our friends from Yorkshire.

I don't recall coming across anybody described as looking like that in Salambo!

Didn't you just preach in the other thread that looks
aren't everything? Weren't you holding a torch for the
mature and aging women?

My new avatar shouldn't attract anybody, and I'd be
a far cry from Salammbo, a true godess in her own right.

Salammbo, a figment of the author's imagination my dear Calamity. Must say I chuckled at your jealousy towards 'Cher.' {Well if we are cross threading}

Now just as you were 'tinkering' with the Avatar, I was tinkering with my response. I will always hold a torch for the mature and aging woman, providing she is doing her best to look as good and dress as good as she can. If she wants to wear slippers, shawl, curlers, and a dressing gown, I will buy her some needles to knit with. That is her worth. I saw a very, very, attractive looking woman today who I later found out was 60 yrs of age. She looked bloody great, blonde hair, low top, tight jeans, high heels, nails manicured, having her hair done in an ultra chic style. The hair dresser {a young male} came out with the comment as she stood up from the chair. "Hey you look really funky."

Now I am not to sure of the exact meaning of 'funky' but I could see it was a compliment and the 'old girl' {who looked bloody great} smiled in a very knowing manner. That was a woman.

My apologies to Francis and spendius. Please open a new
thread, this one is hopelessly derailed. I promise I won't
interfere anymore.

------

Mathos, I think you misunderstood: I do agree with you that
older/mature women can be very attractive, as well as
young women too. I however objected to the notion that
only less appealing women develop a personality and are
worthy of marriage, as opposed to attractive women.

Bypassing your comments about Cher doesn't mean I'm
jealous, I just don't see the connection.
Why would anyone be smitten by a women whose
sole purpose in life is the surgical enhancement of her face
and body, so old age won't catch up with her?

So far I have been pleased with my appearence, at any
stage of my life, and I hope this will continue...

This is the most confusing thread that I have ever read.

CalamityJane, where did that pretty woman in your avatar go?

You don't seriously think you can derail this thread do you?If you do you must have a very high opinion of your capacities.Too high.Like a balloon just before it pops.

This is a literary research project which Francis and Lola and I are thinking of involving ourselves in.We,and I'm sure I speak for my colleagues,welcome contribitions from anyone who wishes to join us.Those who simply desire,have a need so to speak,to interfere by shouting from the hall incomprehensible garbage-bites will have Lola set up them and other delights from a range of literary put-downs I have at my command.

So Letty,it is not confusing in the least.Maybe you are confused but what that has to do with us is impossible for me to imagine.One can easily come to think that you were confused with the elementary introductions to the differential calculus but that is not evidence that they were confused.
If you have never even been introduced to the differential calculus,a cultural bedrock,it will be because your teachers thought that it would confuse you.Again,that doesn't prove that the differential calculus was confused.So,to get it clear,it is your confusion and not ours.We three are not confused and neither is our thread.

And Mathos.Dear old Mathos.Listen-we know that Salammbo is a figment of Flaubert's imagination.I would be hard put to think of what else IT could be.
You are not suggesting,I hope,that CJ isn't aware of such a simple fact.She may have produced her new avvie to try to give us a picture of what Hanno looked like.I like to think so anyway.That would be a more gentlemanly way to appraise CJ's intelligence instead of blandly assuming she is stupid enough to benefit from your insight.She does refer earlier to this "mesmerising fictional character" which has sprung from Flaubert's mind.And she does express a degree of humility in relation to it which opens up possibilities for her that a less humble approach cannot embrace.And she is "sad" about it too which she is quite right to be.Negating that sadness might well be justification enough for this thread's existence and prosperity.
But she shouldn't be pushing the blame onto "society".It is too easy to be just a by-product of society.That's totalitarian.

Funky is cowardice wreathed in smoke in the hope it can't be seen.Roughly.Salammbo is never funky.She goes into the mercenaries camp to retrieve the zaimph.Imagine that.She may well have another,more biological motive, but that is something this thread might specualte about at some point.If you want a polar opposite of funky it is our darling Carthaginian girl.That elderly bat Mathos thought he was praising ought to have winged him one with her handbag.And that is assuming that she isn't a figment of the Mathosian imagination.A nice notion to end this post with.

That woman is still here (me), however I felt a need to change the avatar.


I wrote "it is derailed" not "I blame myself".



Yes, I gathered that somewhat too late.

An experiment? So we here are the lab rats? Then you, Spendius, must be a behaviourist but I don't do behaviour shaping. That's rather disappointing to me, frankly. I had hoped to learn something about Flaubert's book and actually did some research. I am quite taken aback that you, Lola, and Francis are engaged in a clockwork orange type thing. Oh, no, that's right, that would be Pavlov.

Yeah when you call my name
I salivate like a pavlov dog
Yeah when you lay me out
My heart is bumpin' louder than a big bass drum, alright

Miss Lettybettyhettygettymarycustislee, do not concern yourself with the ephemra of semiotics . . .


. . . let's dance an' sing . . .

Buffalo gals, won't ya come out tonight
Come out tonight
Come out tonight
Buffalo gals, won't ya come out tonight
And dance by the light of the moon

Very sorry
I'm very sorry if in any way my posting interrupted everyone's line of thought. I was just interested in the subject.

Letty, should I just post bookmarked, like I see others do? Is that what that means? I have seen others do it.

Again very sorry,

AE

Well, Set, you sent me back to do more research. Semiotics is about as foreign to me as Greek. I'll sing and dance later, honey. Just a little unnerved at the moment.

Angel, you did absolutely nothing wrong. I'm beginning to believe that's what I should have done, my friend.

Letty:-

Now I am confused.I didn't speak of experiments.I had no thought of you as lab rats.I said that we three had been thinking of research into the book.
I'm not a behaviourist in the strict sense of that term which is obviously a sense you don't know.If I was wouldn't I give you little rewards.

But the idea that you don't do behaviour shaping is ridiculous.From your post I anticipate you are casting yourself as the shaped like a dog would be.But surely you do a fair bit of shaping yourself and vote for experts at it as well.You are shaped goodstlye like all of us and in turn a shaper again like all of us.

The thread is not that serious.We are simply using one of the best books,there are others,to try to improve our literary appreciation.That's about the size of it as I understand it and I think Francis and Lola will agree that that is all it is.

We are thrashing about getting started.We may not even get started.If you have a little more patience you might learn something.You might also not but the fact that you have taken some trouble already suggests the former.If we are good enough.

The idea stemmed from Francis being French and thus possibly able to grant us insights we cannot get from English translations.

I have Clockwork in book and film form and we are a very long way from that.Pavlov was a scientist of the front rank and the truths he showed are used on your TV set all the time.His results do not scare me in the least.Burgess was a bit,how shall we say....?Barmey might approximate.

It started on another thread which you may not have read and I am just holding the fort because Francis and Lola have been away.When they come back I expect they will inform me if anything I have said doesn't meet with their approval.

When we get going,if we do,you might learn something.It will be up to you.

Letty:-

Sorry.I'm not that well trained yet.

It is important to Spendius that he be permitted some authority in life. He is talking to the ladies with fervour regarding his stance of ill behaviour.

'She understood how much louder a cock can crow
in its own farmyard than elsewhere.'

Do you wanna be in my gang?

I'm the leader of the pack!

I could go on all night Spendius.

Better I use 'Hamlet.'

I must be cruel only to be kind.

Spendius, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.

You need to change tactics Spendius, your upsetting the intelligent, whilst attempting to control the Salammbo Pilgrim's.

All of us are guinea pigs in lifes cycle, humanity is simply a working schedule of progress. There is Spendius, a mere cauliflower in life. A cauliflower, albeit a cabbage with ideas of grandeur.

The 'clockwork orange type thing' as mentioned by Letty being a superb description of The Tykes meanderings especially.

You are being monitored Spendius, so that we can be sure you do not run from the log cabin to The White House.

Settie:-

Maybe you are trying to keep everybody as dumb as possible so you can lord your how to run the country whooshers over them.

There's a spirit to this thread.If it isn't your cup of tea okay.We don't mind but we would rather you put your spoon in your own.You are welcome to join in but if the spirit is alien to you what's the point?We are only trying to pass the time a little more gracefully.We won't be arguing.We seek to admire Flaubert more than we already do.It is a humble thread.

Your being rather contradictory in your postings Calamity, a woman has that peculiarity though, and she won't back down into accepting it either.

Never thought of surgical enhancement myself, not really a 'man's thing.'
However, there are some in the regular 'spot light' who appear to have been there. Male side of it makes no impression though. But for the ladies, yes, if they can afford it, or are prepared to borrow the cost of it, why not?

As for yourself and others like you, who are able to keep back the years by sensible living, I admire and salute you. However, those who are sufficiently stalwart to go for it under the scalpel ! They are pioneers.

Spendius

First, my name is not Setanta, which is suspect you knew, although, of course, that is only an assumption on my part. Second, it is even less Settie, and i would appreciate the courtesy of not again addressing me with such a name.

This: "Maybe you are trying to keep everybody as dumb as possible so you can lord your how to run the country whooshers over them."--is simply an invidious smear. How very unnecessary, and how ill-expressed it was.

There was a spirit to my Spoonerisms thread, which you and Mathos sneeringly laughed to ridicule. It is more than a little hypocritical of you to now protest your humble thread. Having "put your spoon" into the teacup of others, you hardly merit a consideration you have not shown.

This should not, however, be construed as having been a vengeful act on my part. I like Miss Lettybettyhettygetty a very great deal. I am always delighted to see that she has posted, and try to "say hey" whenever i notice her, and to regale her with a bit of silliness that we both might enjoy. It is in keeping with my love of anarchy that had i known you consider this a sacred grove, i would have made a more sincere effort to disrupt it. I have, however, simply been following this thread, reading along, and have reserved any comment, as it is not, indeed, necessarily my cup of coffee (i happen to find tea to be an insipid drink). As i have never read the work in question, i had hoped to gain some insight--alas, that has not been. I only sought to greet someone whom i would be honored to consider a friend.

In which context, you may note that i made no effort to greet you.

Mathos:-

I am talking to whoever is listening.Francis is not a lady and I didn't think you were until now.Lola is a lady.C.J. and Angel also.Settie is no lady.I am talking to Salammbo fans hopefully.

Who are you talking to?Do not your strictures apply to yourself.

You cannot upset an intelligent person with words.

We are guinea pigs are we?Fancy that!

Humanity is simply a WHAT?That's frightful.