Inertia/despair

[gurdonark]

Bodies in motion, bodies at rest, co-efficients of friction, mass/energy, the constant chaos of thermodynamics. But all the science rules don't explain the day to day, or the life within us.
We keep hunting formulae, but all we experience is a kind of longing, and, if we find it, perhaps a moment of peace. I am a huge fan of simple solutions and simple formulae. But I believe that sometimes one has to recognize that it isn't always easy, but the game is still worth keeping the candle burning.

Comments

[insanity-burst.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read GUT Symmetries By Jeanette Winterson? The way you write really reminds me of her. If not, I have an extra copy I can give to you this weekend when we all meet up. :) She's really great.

Jeanette Winterson, woohoo!

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

Yes, please give gurdonark your extra copy! That's one of my current favourite books and authors, and I'd just love to hear your take on it/her, Robert. I can see you enjoying the theories presented in 'Art and Lies' by the same author, too. I would quote one of my favourite quotes from 'GUT' here, but I already did quite recently in onesoul's LJ. :/ But here's a bit (of a bigger good bit - trying to be selective!) you might like:

'I know I am a fool, hoping dirt and glory are both a kind of luminous paint, the humiliations and exaltations that light us up. I see like a bug, everything too large, the pressure of infinity hammering at my head. But how else to live, vertical that I am, pressed down and pressing up simultaneously? I cannot assume you will understand me. It is just as likely that as I invent what I want to say, you will invent what you want to hear. Some story we must have. Stray words on crumpled paper. A weak signal into the outer space of each other.

'The probability of separate worlds meeting is very small. The lure of it is immense. We send starships. We fall in love.'

And Kalah, if you're reading this, I have a bit you might like too : )

So Sarie, what made you pick up a Jeanette Winterson book the first time?

Re: Jeanette Winterson, woohoo!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

This does sound like a really interesting author.

Re: Jeanette Winterson, woohoo!

[insanity-burst.livejournal.com]

Just about 4 months ago I was hanging out in Houston with a friend, and all of a sudden she picked up Written On the Body and started reading to me. I was hooked. I was in love. I was enthralled. Since that moment I have read everything she's written and I'm starving for more. She blows my mind on every page!

Re: Jeanette Winterson, woohoo!

[insanity-burst.livejournal.com]

What got you interessted in her? I'm always curious...

Affect of vision

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

I too am always curious. Or so they tell me : )

I'm the sort of person who gets something out of the blurb on a cereal packet... but JW's books have interesting titles and great artwork, so that makes them immediately attractive to me. I often feel that I am compelled to read certain things by some kind of synchronicity or serendipity, and perhaps it was so with Jeanette Winterson. The book 'Hyperspace' by Michio Kaku preceded my current five-year-long Winterson kick. I bought it at a school fete, and it was there I first discovered GUT and other broad concepts which helped me make sense of my place in the universe at this time. It was a natural progression, then, to be drawn to a book with the title 'GUT Symmetries', although to be honest I am not sure if that was the first novel of hers I read, and I imagine I would still have been attracted to that title even if I didn't know its scientific connotations.

The Winterson story for me goes deeper than that, which I started to get into in onesoul's journal too, but she didn't find it interesting and maybe Robert doesn't either? Should I go on? Should we relocate this exchange? Apologies to anyone waiting for this rant to end, I do tend to get carried away by my enthusiasms.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I've never read her...I'll have to give her a try!

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

Robert Frost again (though I had to sing it):

Oh Star (the fairest one in sight)
Oh Star (we grant your loftiness the right)
To some obscurity of cloud.



Say something to us we can learn by heart -
And when alone repeat
Say something!
And it says I burn.

But say with what degree of heat
Talk fahrenheit
Talk centigrade
Use language we can comprehend
Tell us what elements you blend.
It does say something in the end.

(snip)

Badly transposed, but worth looking up for the original, I think.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I don't know my Frost as well as I should. Thanks for sharing that.

Re:

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed singing the version I was taught. So much I went to look it up. It was one part of a seven part 'Frostiana: Seven Country Songs which was originally presented in 1959 as part of the 200th anniversary of Amherst MA. The others are "The Road Not Taken", "The Pasture", "Come In", "The Telephone", "A Girl's Garden" and "Stopping by Woods." The music is done by Randall Thompson.

I have done badly by the poem above, because the verse in music is not exactly the poem.

It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may chose something like a star
To stay our minds on, and be staid.

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

Poems set to music are often delightful.

Did you sing these with a choir? I would have liked to have been in the audience.

Re:

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was part of a choir singing them. But I was in high school - more years ago than I like to recall. If you search for the Frostiana peices there are some quibs on the web to listen to.

Re:

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

Thanks : )