Click here to read my article in Varsity.
This is, I think, my favourite video on YouTube.
I asked a Kantian, “Does this mean that, if I don’t give myself Kant’s Imperative as a law, I am not subject to it?” “No,” I was told, “you have to give yourself a law, and there’s only one law.” This reply was maddening, like the propaganda of the so-called People’s Democracies of the old Soviet bloc, in which voting was compulsory and there was only one candidate. And when I said “But I haven’t given myself Kant’s Imperative as a law,” I was told “Yes you have.”
(DEREK PARFIT on Kant’s Universal Law)
Thoughts on Steve Jobs
Last night, close to midnight, I heard the news that Steve Jobs was resigning as CEO of Apple. In the subsequent hours there has followed a flurry of articles from people much more important, much more in-the-know and I dare say much more fanboyish than me. Many of those have taken the tone of an obituary, or at the least have been saddled with a grave introspection perhaps rightly ridiculed by those to whom Apple is, shall we say, lower down the Agenda of Life.
Steve Jobs hasn’t passed on, but his passing on the role of CEO does mark the end of an era and a profound change: not just in the internal politics of an important technology company, but in the history of a sector which has changed our lives dramatically, and which Steve Jobs changed dramatically whilst an industry leader at Apple. I don’t claim the importance or the self-importance of a commentator on these matters; a journalist or a tech expert or an overseer of cultural life. But I do count myself among those whose lives have been affected by this man, and I do feel stirred by the occasion, if not on it, to jot a few words about Steve Jobs’ resignation.
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger
At a Baltimore hotel society gath’rin’
And the cops were called in and his weapon took from him
As they rode him in custody down to the station
And booked William Zanzinger for first-degree murder
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain’t the time for your tears
William Zanzinger, who at twenty-four years
Owns a tobacco farm of six hundred acres
With rich wealthy parents who provide and protect him
And high office relations in the politics of Maryland
Reacted to his deed with a shrug of his shoulders
And swear words and sneering, and his tongue it was snarling
In a matter of minutes on bail was out walking
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain’t the time for your tears
Hattie Carroll was a maid of the kitchen
She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children
Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage
And never sat once at the head of the table
And didn’t even talk to the people at the table
Who just cleaned up all the food from the table
And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level
Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane
That sailed through the air and came down through the room
Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle
And she never done nothing to William Zanzinger
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain’t the time for your tears
In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel
To show that all’s equal and that the courts are on the level
And that the strings in the books ain’t pulled and persuaded
And that even the nobles get properly handled
Once that the cops have chased after and caught ’em
And that the ladder of law has no top and no bottom
Stared at the person who killed for no reason
Who just happened to be feelin’ that way without warnin’
And he spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished
And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance
William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence
Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now’s the time for your tears
(BOB DYLAN)
The Voice
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me, Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then, Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness Thus I; faltering forward, (THOMAS HARDY)
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever consigned to existlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward
And the woman calling.
Autobiographia Literaria
When I was a child
I played by myself in a
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.
I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds
flew away.
If anyone was looking
for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out “I am
an orphan.”
And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!
(FRANK O’HARA)
London Snow
When men were all asleep the snow came flying,
In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:
Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
All night it fell, and when full inches seven
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
The eye marvelled—marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.
Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,
They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze
Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;
Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;
Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder,
‘O look at the trees!’ they cried, ‘O look at the trees!’
With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,
Following along the white deserted way,
A country company long dispersed asunder:
When now already the sun, in pale display
Standing by Paul’s high dome, spread forth below
His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.
For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;
And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,
Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:
But even for them awhile no cares encumber
Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,
The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber
At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.
(ROBERT BRIDGES)
The Disciple
When Narcissus died the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort. And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair and cried to the pool and said, ‘We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he.’ ‘But was Narcissus beautiful?’ said the pool. ‘Who should know that better than you?’ answered the Oreads. ‘Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty.’ And the pool answered, ‘But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored.’ (OSCAR WILDE)
