Friday, 27 June 2008

I never got much further than this when I started on it 30 years ago - David Harvey's lectures on Capital

Introduction
Chapters 1 and 2

and more I hope to come: I really want to know what happens in the end.

Drinky Crow

Drinky Crow is right as always.

Monday, 23 June 2008

Birds and Beasts

Wile away an idle hour with the Medieval Bestiary.

Here is a Medieval Bloke slinging a stone at a Cinnamologus, an Arabian bird which nests in cinnamon trees. Won't do him any good, you are supposed to use lead-tipped arrows.

Thursday, 19 June 2008

GB















25: And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.
26: This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.
27: TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
28: PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.


And so...

30: In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.

(Daniel 5)

We can only live in hope.

Tuesday, 17 June 2008

Sunday, 15 June 2008

The Tragic Muse


















Buffalo Billy
Had a ten-foot willy

And he showed it to the girl next door.

She thought it was a snake
And she hit it with a rake

And now it's only two foot four.

As Aristotle said in his Poetics, "Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its katharsis of such emotions. . . . Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality—namely, Plot, Characters, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Melody." (Trans S. H. Butcher)