Archive of things to do with 'language'

• 11.27.07 Message in a bottle:

  Listening to the radio the other day I heard a program (sort of) about the 1977 Voyager spacecraft, launched into space with a golden record and other goodies; the hosts of the show talked to several moderately well-known people and asked what they would include. Philip Glass, for instance, would include Bach and Tuvan throat-singing (details unspecified); Neil Gaiman would include the The Wizard of Oz, among other things. Several of the folks interviewed included things it would be difficult to include on a gold record: mandarin oranges in syrup, or an entire meal at Chez Panisse. Naturally, this got me thinking…

  
  Tags: self, reading, personality, change, taste, travel, detail, project, boredom, philosophy, thinking, water, fear, library, future, letters, language, context, value, music, unfinished, rhythm, mood, pace, time, smell, idle, anxiety, performance, perception, concept, kaleidoscope, level, character, arrogance, navigation, politics, cicada, memory, dream.
• 04.03.07 Levelling:

  What strikes me more and more now as I am rereading this book is how many different ways it finds to reflect its facets on each other. I’m not sure where to find the point of origin of any of its themes. Or are they themes, like melodies in a piece of music, subject to repetition, variation, and inversion? - or are they more like the instruments, themselves invariant, producing the infinite variety of melody?

  
  Tags: personality, psychology, regression, travel, detail, language, levi-strauss, Tristes Tropiques, perception, concept, kaleidoscope, level.
• 04.01.07 Those magic caskets:

  I wished I had lived in the days of real journeys, when it was still possible to see the full splendour of a spectacle that had not yet been blighted, polluted and spoilt; I wished I had not trodden that ground as myself, but as Bernier, Tavernier or Manucci did … Once embarked upon, this guessing game can continue indefinitely. When was the best time to see India? At what period would the study of the Brazilian savages have afforded the purest satisfaction, and revealed them in their least adulterated state? Would it have been better to arrive in Rio in the eighteenth century with Bougainville, or in the sixteenth with Léry and Thevet? For every five years I move back in time, I am able to save a custom, gain a ceremony or share in another belief.

  
  Tags: reading, personality, change, travel, detail, dialogue, philosophy, thinking, nationalism, fear, research, ghost, letters, language, context, rhythm, mood, time, levi-strauss, Tristes Tropiques, fatigue.
• 03.25.07 On board ship:

  One of the things I like best about Tristes Tropiques is the pleasure it takes in getting the sensuous detail right. There’s a kind of knowledge muscle it likes to flex as well…

  
  Tags: reading, travel, detail, art, irritation, language, rhythm, levi-strauss, Tristes Tropiques, smell.
• 03.24.07 The nature of the beast:

  Having read the first two chapters of Tristes Tropiques, I can only say that I like how Levi-Strauss fleshes out his narrative…

  
  Tags: reading, personality, change, travel, detail, dialogue, composition, thinking, translation, research, ghost, letters, language, context, value, mood, time, levi-strauss, Tristes Tropiques.