sophistry | (no subject)

I have been unconscionably sappy these past two weeks and more; it started with a vague, private semi-resolution, in the early days of February, to post either something good or something giving every day until Valentine's Day - and whilst I didn't quite succeed (I am an inveterate crank), the spirit of it has stayed with me. Admittedly, these-such heights are usually, as in this case, the flip-side of emotional downers, but there's a certain sublime sweetness to these moments of optimism such that I'm loath to question them. I keep wanting to compose a post - outside my head, and in words that other human beings will actually understand - about interconnectedness, and what we all owe each other as members of a species that has concepts like 'beauty' and 'poetry' and 'love', but I tend to find that Alan Moore has usually done it for me. And that's part of it, too:

The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.
- The History Boys

See what I did there? (I haven't seen The History Boys, film or play; perhaps I should. History, too, holds my heart and tells me these things.)

A thought for the day: scientists, like Patrick O'Brian's esteemed Dr. Maturin, used to be known as 'philosophers'. Here is the double helix of DNA, the secret code of life itself; here is Hermes' caduceus and the rod of the healer-god Asklepios, set in stone before the birth of Christ, and symbols of alchemy and the medical profession since the middle of the last millennium. The Milky Way is twice the size we thought it was, and Oxford is taking three years to study whether belief in the divine is a basic part of man's make-up. I wonder why the two need be such different things.

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The History Boys is so, SO worth seeing -- I've seen the film and play and it's just fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. ♥ (That's also my favourite quote from it, the one you've quoted.)

Definitely see The History Boys in either incarnation. :D

I almost titled my last entry with a title that matched your tag exactly. I must have seen your tag before or something - I actually typed it out and then I realized I'd spent more of the entry ranting about the book than the actual happy story. But it's all doing the same thing, imho. Booooook.

I should see The History Boys, too.

Eez possible! Realising that I have a mild habit of making the occasional post of this nature, I tagged a few pre-Valentine's posts with it, if - in one or two cases - retrospectively. I am pretty awful about tagging things, it's like some sort of mental block or something. That or... my posts just don't fit into your restrictive and unimaginative labels. Yeah. ¬_¬

Maybe that's why - I do have a tendency to pick up things of utter random and then wonder afterward why they're familiar.

If you use Firefox and your computer will not hate you, the little script that shows all a journal or community's tags on the 'compose entry' page has helped me a lot with condensing - I have one tag called 'photos,' another called 'pics,' another called 'picspam' etc. which are all the same damn thing. It has also made me realize that most of my tags are boring as hell. I mean restrictive and unimaginative. Yes.

*adds 'You're Nothing Without Me' to R's playlist instead of going to work*

:/ I should go to work.

*googles lyrics*

...what...

*_* It's from the musical City of Angels which... I don't know a lot about it except that it's set in LA in the 50s or so and has both author(s?) and characters. And all the real people are in normal clothes and all the characters are dressed and lit in black and white. And in that song an author and a character (a detective, heh) argue about which of them is more important. And at the end I think the author kills off the character, or has him stabbed, at least. But I bet he feels badly afterward. ;) I should look up the rest. *suddenly very invested*

You absolutely should see The History Boys. See both versions, in fact, because the play and the film are a bit different in what I (though not, apparently, Alan Bennett) think are significant ways.

Also:

(I am an inveterate crank)

Saying things like that is why you are awesome.