Originally Posted by
Standalone
Sigurd and Gudrun was pretty lame, I just took it back to the library. I think its publication was mainly about making money for Christopher. I enjoyed the Beowulf-style meter, but the work got shakier the further I read. Wagner did it better, anyway. So are you trying to prove how smart you are? Do you want my SAT score or something?
Uh, yeah, Christoper Tolkien is a professional author and he does indeed write for money. Sorry you did not like his Father's telling of the old Norse legend. If you liked Wagner's version then I suppose there is some hope for your redemption. The two works are in vastly different modes of expression so comparing the one to the other is pointless other than to say that both are high art and exceedingly well done. If you can't see that of the Tolkien work, well, as much as I love Wagner's orchestral passages I really don't care much for the fat lady's singing so I only accept on faith that Wagner's operas and operas in general are as good as people say they are, and so I can hardly criticize you overly much if you don't appreciate Old Norse poetic conventions.
Uh, I wasn't trying to impress you. I thought I was responding to someone who previously said "I like matches. I like computers. I like first, second, and third class levers. I like gears. I like bikes. I like typewriters. I like buttons and zippers too. I like woven cloth.
I like books. I like..." so I came up with a bookish example to illustrate my point, thinking that someone who likes books could identify with it. And it was a real life example, one morning I was sitting in the train station
reading a book and waiting for some associates and I read one too many references to the
Volsunga Saga. So I looked it up on my phone (dear me, I probably used Google) and within a few minutes I was reading the source material right on my phone. Now, I thought this was a pretty impressive example but then I really do like books and the knowledge they impart and the interconnections between sources of knowledge that the internet, on a good day, can provide. Both of those books are available from that bastion of high toned, self important, utterly elite literary snobs, Border's Books. If you haven't got an IQ of 230 they don't let you in the door. I don't need your SAT score, it is highly unlikely it is high enough....
Yo dawg. I herd you like English so I put an auxiliary verb next to your dependent verb so you caqn make sense while you make sentences.
On second thought, what was your SAT score again???
Tell me how your fancy pants posts about how much Tolkein you've read are NOT intellectual posturing. Ever read Hamlet? Your posts seem fit for Polonius. "what is it to be mad but mad? Pity 'tis, tis true... but let that go." "Teeth..." good one.
Mentioning one Tolkien book, and one that was prominently placed recently in popular bookstores, amounts to fancy pants intellectual posturing? And this from someone who claims to be a teacher? Why in my day teachers actually encouraged reading and a love of books, in my day if I mentioned that I had read a Tolkien book they would have asked was it just the one then, dear? Do teachers not do this anymore? Are you really a teacher? Do you really like books? Your anti-cell phone/internet stance is a fear based intellectual posture and one that is at least as old as the Luddites. If you really want to know I have read almost all of Tolkien (both of them) and Shakespeare. One of the things I like about the train portion of my bike/train commute is that it gives me a
lot of time for reading books. Sorry if you find that offensive or uppity,
Mr. teacher.
I think it's better to live w/o a cell phone. Any smugness on my part is all in your head. It sure is getting a lot of peope worked up!
I'm not worked up, just trying to have an intelligent conversation with someone who only responds with chest banging and head butting. I'm actually getting quite bored with this.
Google is worthless compared to a decent library. The internet is vulnerable to cyber attack, to corporate or g'vt manipulation... any number of things. I grew up in the 2m volume library where my father has worked my whole life. I value any one floor of that library over all the data servers in the world. But there's no accounting for taste....
Did Google frighten your mother when she was carrying you? Is that why you are so hung up on Google? You are the one who is all Google this, Google that. To the rest of us Google is just a tool, not even my goto search engine, and a small part of the internet. Your father's library could burn down tomorrow. Much of the internet content exists on multiple servers and is at least somewhat immune to attacks and failures. For all you or I know your father's library is also partly online now. This is the wave of the future. I don't see how someone who claims to teach and to like books can object to having any knowledge available, any where, any time. That is where the internet is heading, I can't wait. You evidently like science fiction. One of the staples of science fiction is instant access to knowledge akin to that the internet is beginning (and it is only a beginning) to provide. Do you read science fiction out of fear of the future? Or can you only see the value of a thing when it is fully fledged and served up to you on a golden platter? Some of us are pioneers, we can see the potential of a New Thing even if it is more potential that reality right now.
About the "dogs do what works..." That's kind of my point. They abase themselves for treats. I think that our society's devotion to the cellular phone is a bit slavish-- we have come to do rediculous things for the small rewards offered by Nextel or whatever. I'd bet you that that the neural pathways that light up when the lights start blinking and the buzzer starts vibrating are the same neural pathways that fire off when a gambling addict sits in front of a blinking ringing slot machine.
Dogs run after rabbits under tractor trailer tires. I'd like to retain my humanity, thanks.
I've driven a lot of miles and I've see a lot of road kill. Dogs and rabbits are both rare casualties of motorist mayhem. People who study urban dogs (who knew) say that dogs are actually smarter about crossing streets than humans. Dogs do what works and if they can cleverly trick you out of a tasty treat by doing something you consider abasing themselves, they consider it a losing trade for you. I never ask my dogs to abase themselves but I do let them think they have tricked me on occasion because it pleases them so and once in a while they actually manage to do it for real. Canine persistence is greater than human vigilance.
I also see a lot of people using cell phones and none of them look afraid, none of them look like zombies, none of them look like they are slaves of an evil empire, none of them look anything like what you try to portray them as. They are just people using a tool, they look no different from the people reading books or listening to Wagner.
On my way home tonight I will carry my phone in my briefcase turned off as I pedal since I can't really answer it while riding. When I have folded/bagged my bike I will turn it on in case my wife needs to discuss our evening plans, in case there is an emergency (does that offend you), in case the woman sitting next to me wants to see some information about my Dahon (happened just last week),.... Mostly though I will sit there quietly reading
The Literature of Ancient Sumer, just the book that happened to percolate to the top of the stack this month, and I won't turn to the phone at all unless a question in the text happens to pop up. If that happens a Google (queue scary music) search might help, an email to one of the authors might help, or even a quick call to a researcher at the Oriental Institute (must remember to join first though) could give me an answer. I am sorry if this seems too high falutin' for you. I'm not trying to impress anyone but I will admit to being addicted to human knowledge. I would think you would be too since it was your profession that inspired this love of learning in me. That does not mean that you yourself should use a phone but it does make it so very odd that you rail against them so loudly and inexpertly.
Ken