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

  • From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, cblists@xxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:38:26 -0230

Quoting cblists@xxxxxxxx:

> 
> 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)]

W.O. To comment on this quote and provide an exception which proves my rule:
There have been times when I have been gored by the physical beauty of a woman,
and stayed wounded for some time. The cure finally came upon the utterance of
her first sentence in my presence. A Brooklyn telephone operator, at best -
replete with the chewing gum. Verily, some women are to be seen and not heard.

Reduced to crass empiricism in holiday mode,

Walter O.






> 
> 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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