French Model Railway: So much to learn, so little time left to learn it.

Thursday, 27 June 2013

So much to learn, so little time left to learn it.

Yesterday's little shack was completely shut up today so I had to go to the cafe/restaurant next door which had no pains aux raisins (just a mediocre croissant) and a less good cafe creme. However, I enjoyed reading a chapter (well quarter of a chapter, actually) from Iris Murdoch's book on Sartre. The chapter title was "The Sickness of the Language".

That bike in the background has been my constant companion this week.

Murdoch, in this chapter, draws together all of the late19th and 20th Century cultural movements that have wrestled with this problematic connection between words and things - Sartre was not alone in being fascinated by this topic.

This made me realise how many areas of learning I have ignored in the past and now see the relevance of.

Whenever a key idea or artistic movement arises in my reading, I now add it to a list in my Blackberry for further investigation when I get back home and have access to the library once more.

So far, this is the list:

Form over content
Being-in-itself
Contingency
Bad Faith
Symbolist Poets

This reminds me of an amusing piece of graffitti I saw scrawled on the walls in a Glasgow University toilet a few months ago.

"I HATE:

1) Graffitti
2) Lists
3) Irony "

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Currently listening to:

Hugh Laurie's Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 which was almost entirely a collection of Blues records and thus not entirely to my taste.

But a French man, passing our cabin at the time, stopped and blew a kiss with his fingers and said: "Monsieur, your music is perfect!"

I felt like telling him to come back this evening when my choice of music would almost certainly not receive the same accolade.

One of Hugh Laurie's records which did meet with my approval was Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927"

Randy Newman

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Last night's dinner:

Everything purchased at the weekly street market.