I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
Umberto Eco
********************
"Life's perhaps the only riddle that we shrink from giving up."
(W. S. Gilbert)
Umberto Eco is a great novelist in my opinion. I've read "The Name of the Rose" and "Foucault's Pendulum" (twice). I don't read many novels. But I do read a lot of philosophy, history, psychology and science. Novelists can invent the universe to suit themselves. Philosophers and historians can't. They can only engage in the "mad attempt" to interpret the universe. It is those attempts that make life interesting for me.,
One philosopher attempts to describe the history of the human race through etymology, another through the growth and search for food, another from the perspective of religious beliefs. The future of mankind is perceived in the test tube, or the telescope. Destiny, tautology, or transfiguration. Is the next era defined by robotics or the development of nutrition, or both?
Hanging over the head of all this scholarship is a dilemma. Is there a final answer? Is there a universal law, a universal panacea, a universal equation that explains everything and makes it go away?
It may be a futile search for that "underlying truth" but it is also a "riddle that we shrink from giving up." As long as the search goes on there will be those who write about it, and they are the ones who keep me up at night.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
*********************
This invitation is still open for anyone and everyone to post an entry of their own on my journal, Vagabond Journeys http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/.
The new year is upon us and since it is a time for celebrations, remembrances, resolutions and plans for the future I think people have things to say.
Not to take away from the postings on your own journals, but to add to the joy of my own is why I invite you to write for mine.
I want to read what your thoughts are about this magical time of the year. This invitation is open to everyone: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Agnostics, Atheists and the Uncertain.
Tell me your thoughts on any subject you wish or associate with this new year.
There are no limits in regard to length. The only limitation is that, for reasons so far unexplained to me, my blog does not take photographs, animations, videos or pictures of any kind. I deal in words.
Please accept my invitation. Send your entry to my email address dbdacoba@aol.com I will copy and paste it into my journal and it will be displayed promptly. You may sign your name or not as you wish, and you may leave a link to your blog or your email or not, as you wish. I will do NO editing or censoring. Eloquence is not necessary, mind or heart or both is all.
I have 12 Guest Authors so far. Check them out.
All are welcome. Admission is free.
DB - The Vagabond
***************************
Showing posts with label W. S. Gilbert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label W. S. Gilbert. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Show Them
For he who'd make his fellow creatures wise should always gild the philosophic pill.
W. S. Gilbert
**********************
William Gilbert wrote the book and lyrics for some the most famous musical comedies of all time. Gilbert and Sullivan operettas are still performed the world over. The quote from above is sung by Jack Point, a jester, and probably the one character closest to Gilbert himself.
Years ago I was involved in a project involving theatre in the schools. It was discovered in one state that the students who could not connect one idea with another and follow a thread of logic in any particular subject, history, math, geography, whatever, were able to do it automatically when they saw a play. When subjects were dramatized for them in that way, their learning was fast and correct. Many teachers came to learn the techniques, many refused. Those with ability and an open mind learned it well, others did not.
Unfortunately there is a lot of prejudice against theatre in this country. There are those, some of them intelligent and well educated, who won't go to the theatre, talk to actors or discuss the art of acting. I have heard and read the most ridiculous reasons why one should not pursue anything that smacks of that "devil's workshop known as show business."
When there was a recession happening one year at a local high school they canceled the theatre program to save the electricity, but they retained the basketball program, where all the lights blazed. Though I know there are many, I am not qualified to discuss the merits of basketball. I'll leave that up to the Phys Ed teachers.
But I am qualified to discuss the merits of theatre. Within the context of a play an actor has no limitations of behavior. He is entitled to be the hero, or the villain, the seducer, the victim, the cop or the jester. From all the roles I've played, following the psychological threads that made the man a good man or an evil man, the special theatrical glamorization of ideas, the gilding of the philosophic pill and the thrill of discovery about myself have made me wiser about the human race and many other subjects than if I had shunned "the devil's workshop."
It's called Show Business because we don't lecture you, we show you.
-------------------------
Never give up
DB - Vagabond Journeys
****************************
SUMMER QUESTION
It's a long, hot, sticky summer, so here's a hot, sticky question for you. Don't let the recent New York State decision rob you of your thunder.
Same sex marriage. Should it be legal or not? If so, why? If not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
12 answers so far.
You have until the last day of summer, but don't dally.
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
************************
W. S. Gilbert
**********************
William Gilbert wrote the book and lyrics for some the most famous musical comedies of all time. Gilbert and Sullivan operettas are still performed the world over. The quote from above is sung by Jack Point, a jester, and probably the one character closest to Gilbert himself.
Years ago I was involved in a project involving theatre in the schools. It was discovered in one state that the students who could not connect one idea with another and follow a thread of logic in any particular subject, history, math, geography, whatever, were able to do it automatically when they saw a play. When subjects were dramatized for them in that way, their learning was fast and correct. Many teachers came to learn the techniques, many refused. Those with ability and an open mind learned it well, others did not.
Unfortunately there is a lot of prejudice against theatre in this country. There are those, some of them intelligent and well educated, who won't go to the theatre, talk to actors or discuss the art of acting. I have heard and read the most ridiculous reasons why one should not pursue anything that smacks of that "devil's workshop known as show business."
When there was a recession happening one year at a local high school they canceled the theatre program to save the electricity, but they retained the basketball program, where all the lights blazed. Though I know there are many, I am not qualified to discuss the merits of basketball. I'll leave that up to the Phys Ed teachers.
But I am qualified to discuss the merits of theatre. Within the context of a play an actor has no limitations of behavior. He is entitled to be the hero, or the villain, the seducer, the victim, the cop or the jester. From all the roles I've played, following the psychological threads that made the man a good man or an evil man, the special theatrical glamorization of ideas, the gilding of the philosophic pill and the thrill of discovery about myself have made me wiser about the human race and many other subjects than if I had shunned "the devil's workshop."
It's called Show Business because we don't lecture you, we show you.
-------------------------
Never give up
DB - Vagabond Journeys
****************************
SUMMER QUESTION
It's a long, hot, sticky summer, so here's a hot, sticky question for you. Don't let the recent New York State decision rob you of your thunder.
Same sex marriage. Should it be legal or not? If so, why? If not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
12 answers so far.
You have until the last day of summer, but don't dally.
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
************************
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Clear The Stage
It is always in season for old men to learn.
Aeschylus
**************************
The boards have stories to tell. Great humor and great tragedy have been told on the bare boards of the stages in the world. Those boards have supported the feet of some of the greatest players on earth and some of the worst. Those boards have heard it all. If only those boards could talk.
After the show closes the properties are gathered up, the lights are taken down and the scenery is struck. Nothing is left but the boards, cleared, ready and waiting for the next production to be mounted on them. There's an old saying in show business,"Give me a bare board and a passion." It is a description of the actor's life in it's simplest and most fundamental form.
One thing this old man has learned is the importance of reducing life itself to it's fundamental forms. Most of our lives is lived by obligations. "I gotta do this, I gotta get there, I gotta do that."
"Duty, duty must be done
The rule applies to everyone,
And painful though the duty be
To shirk the task were fiddle dee dee."
(W. S. Gilbert)
We fill our lives with duties and obligations because that's what we're used to. We've been programmed to find things we have to do, deadlines we must meet and tasks that can't wait. And that is accompanied by the horrifying thought that if we didn't fill up our days with things we "gotta do" what would happen to us. It's a void we don't want to face.
The specifications for a healthy, contented life are so much less than the rigors we force ourselves through, the unnecessary knots we tie around our freedoms, freedom to live and to think.
I like being busy. I didn't retire to sit around and do nothing. The freedom of retirement is that I can sit around and do nothing if I want to. But it is also the freedom to busy myself with things that matter to me. When the alarm clock in my mind went off the other day I awoke to two fundamentally important things to do. One, clear the stage. Two, prepare for the next show. To relinquish all the obligations and duties I am not required to perform and to make room for joy.
DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
*************************
SUMMER IS COMING !!!!!
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
Come on. 11 diverse and interesting answers so far. Where's yours?
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
**********************
SUMMER IS COMING !!!!
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
Come on. 11 diverse and interesting answers so far. Where's yours?
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Aeschylus
**************************
The boards have stories to tell. Great humor and great tragedy have been told on the bare boards of the stages in the world. Those boards have supported the feet of some of the greatest players on earth and some of the worst. Those boards have heard it all. If only those boards could talk.
After the show closes the properties are gathered up, the lights are taken down and the scenery is struck. Nothing is left but the boards, cleared, ready and waiting for the next production to be mounted on them. There's an old saying in show business,"Give me a bare board and a passion." It is a description of the actor's life in it's simplest and most fundamental form.
One thing this old man has learned is the importance of reducing life itself to it's fundamental forms. Most of our lives is lived by obligations. "I gotta do this, I gotta get there, I gotta do that."
"Duty, duty must be done
The rule applies to everyone,
And painful though the duty be
To shirk the task were fiddle dee dee."
(W. S. Gilbert)
We fill our lives with duties and obligations because that's what we're used to. We've been programmed to find things we have to do, deadlines we must meet and tasks that can't wait. And that is accompanied by the horrifying thought that if we didn't fill up our days with things we "gotta do" what would happen to us. It's a void we don't want to face.
The specifications for a healthy, contented life are so much less than the rigors we force ourselves through, the unnecessary knots we tie around our freedoms, freedom to live and to think.
I like being busy. I didn't retire to sit around and do nothing. The freedom of retirement is that I can sit around and do nothing if I want to. But it is also the freedom to busy myself with things that matter to me. When the alarm clock in my mind went off the other day I awoke to two fundamentally important things to do. One, clear the stage. Two, prepare for the next show. To relinquish all the obligations and duties I am not required to perform and to make room for joy.
DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
*************************
SUMMER IS COMING !!!!!
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
Come on. 11 diverse and interesting answers so far. Where's yours?
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
**********************
SUMMER IS COMING !!!!
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
Come on. 11 diverse and interesting answers so far. Where's yours?
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)