[lit-ideas] Re: Two important guys
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 17:17:26 +0000 (UTC)
They are pertinent quotations as Ursula notes, particularly the Huxley (as 'Be
kind' is not a thought new to me): but am surprised Chris did not know the
Aldous Huxley/JFK connection which long ago entered popular culture with Sheryl
Crow where she sings ["Run, Baby, Run"]:-
"She was born in November 1963The day Aldous Huxley died
And her mama believed
That every man could be free
So her mama got high, high, high
And her daddy marched on Birmingham"
This Huxley conceit doesn't work half as well as thinks it does, imo, and that
means it doesn't really work - particularly as it goes nowhere beyond showing
off that the author knows the JFK/Huxley connection. (But others may be too
kind to agree with this assessment.)
Of course others would let their canapes turn to ashes before gleaning
pop-cultural nuggets from Sheryl Crow songs and so may be oblivious to the fact
she was once engaged to Lance Armstrong, though sadly he has not yet been
referenced in her songs. If someone connected to the Huxley estate wants
revenge for "Run, Baby, Run" perhaps they should write a song referencing the
Sheryl/Lance connection or even taking it as its theme ("Pedal, Baby, Pedal").
DnlWho used to be a man who cannot take 'yes' for an answer
On Monday, 24 November 2014, 16:54, Ursula Stange <ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Thank you so much, Chris, for posting these quotations. How did you know I
needed them?
> On Nov 24, 2014, at 9:19 AM, cblists@xxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>
> On 22 Nov 2014, at 23:40, a friend wrote to me privately:
>
>> Nov. 22, 1963 -- two important guys died on this date.
>
> Actually, (at least) three.
>
> Although I did know some of the circumstances surrounding his death, I hadn't
> known that Aldous Huxley died the same day as JFK. And in reading of that, I
> learned that C.S. Lewis died the same day. (Apparently news of both Lewis's
> and Huxley's death was eclipsed by the reporting of the assassination and its
> aftermath.)
>
> Both Huxley & Lewis have been significant authors in my life - indeed I
> characterize myself as Will Farnaby in Huxley's ISLAND did: the kind of man
> who won't take 'yes' for an answer.
>
> And I take guidance for this latter phase in life from a few passages in
> Lewis's OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET:
>
> “And how could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying
> for one day or one year to come back--if we did not know that every day in a
> life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these are that
> day?”
>
> “A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking...as
> if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing...
> what you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure.”
>
> “When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now
> it is growing something as we remember it, what will it be when I remember it
> as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then - that is the
> real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it.”
>
> For most of my adult life I have been attributing some form of "It is a bit
> embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and
> find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to
> be a little kinder'" to H.G. Wells rather than Huxley! I now stand corrected
> (and feel even further in Huxley's debt).
>
> Chris Bruce,
> with his feet firmly planted
> on this brave new world, in
> Kiel,
> Germany------------------------------------------------------------------
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