[lit-ideas] Re: Participatory democracy (dancing in the streets)

  • From: cblists@xxxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:19:56 +0200


On 11-Sep-08, at 10:52 PM, Walter (wokshevs@xxxxxx) wrote:
Hypothesis: Lurking deep down in our DNA is the conviction that physically attractive persons are also intellectually endowed.
I'm not sure it's in the DNA. Well, on second thought, maybe in that DNA found predominantly in the Y chromosome. Cf.: 

        I thought that every woman as beautiful as she must
         have a natural capability in life, an access to some
        secret wisdom that lies beyond cleverness. Every
        time she opened that exquisite mouth, I expected
        her to illuminate life. I think I could have spent my
        entire life simply looking at her and waiting for that
        oracle to speak.
[from P.D. James, _An Unsuitable Job for a Woman_ (my translation from the German back into English)]
For some reason, this quote from P.D. James is in my mind juxtaposed with the dialogue on a popular postcard one sees in the racks here in Germany (again, my translation):
[The image is of two aliens in a flying-saucer-type UFO hovering above the earth.] 

First Alien: 'Any intelligent life down there on that planet?'
Second Alien: 'The ones with brains are okay. I'm not sure about the ones with testicles.' 

Chris Bruce,
who, like most men he knows, suffers from the delusion that he NEVER, either literally or figuratively, prances down the street emulating Michael Jackson dance moves, in 
Kiel, Germany

P.S. Now I can't get it out of my mind's ear - or eye:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG5NhkxQJQc

(Sorry about that.) Here's an antidote - go to:

http://www.lisabatiashvili.com/
Click on the 'Recordings' tab at the top. The first CD listed is Beethoven 'Violin Concerto' & Tsintsadze '6 Miniatures'. Turn up the volume: under 'Track Listing' click on Track 1: 'Mzkemsuri' - and get danced around the room by that all-too-short excerpt (without feeling the impulse to clutch your crotch even once). Then go out and buy the CD.
The interpretation of the Beethoven concerto is superb. The Tsintsadze miniatures, based on Georgian folk melodies (which go far in helping relieve one of the current association of that troubled region with nothing but 'wars and rumours of wars'), are much more than a delightful bonus. 

-cb
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