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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

I like to see where I've been so I can bury the past. Also, the forward looking game is edited with hypnotic distractions. I want the future to be a brave new world.
 
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Mythopoeika said:
Depends what you mean by 'brave new world'. Have you read the book by Aldous Huxley? That is a scary future to wish for.
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An unfortunate choice of words. What I mean is something adventurous. Who wants this kindergarten reality that takes all the magic from life. Hollywood subliminal programming has given us politicians who are nothing more than characters from our childhood. For example, if you are my age, by now you have recognized that Bush and Cheney are Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob. Clinton and Gore were Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, two rednecks from the South. Got a big Hollywood dose of those two when I was a kid. Carter was Mr. Green Jeans on Captain Kangeroo, Obama was the only black guy allowed in Chicagos "Our Gang" clubhouse "Buckwheat Obama" How exciting. I think Trump is Crusty the Clown.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Depends what you mean by 'brave new world'. Have you read the book by Aldous Huxley? That is a scary future to wish for.
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The phrase 'brave new world' comes originally from The Tempest, spoken by Miranda when she meets and falls in love with the first young man she's ever seen. She says

Oh, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in ’t!

Huxley meant it ironically. While his Brave New World is peopled with specimens of beauteous mankind, they are artificially bred without any maternal or family input and many lead unproductive lives of pleasure and consumption. Manual work is done by humans who are doomed to be too unintelligent for anything better by being poisoned at the embryo stage.
(This is referred to in Westworld, where one worker says to another something like 'You were destined to do this work from when you were an embryo!' I did wonder if this was a joke or a reference to what really went on.)



I do love me Shakespeare, and me Huxley. :cool:
 
"To be or not to be?" Is that a question? Sounds like a statement to me.:huh:
You wacky British.
 
Elsupremo said:
"To be or not to be?" Is that a question? Sounds like a statement to me.:huh:
You wacky British.
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Of course it's a question! It offers a choice of two alternatives.

And the real clincher - it ends in a question mark! :twisted: :p
 
There is no question mark in Q2 or F1.

Modern writers are tempted to use the query in similar circumstances, especially when a w-word is used. Rhetorical questions seem to demand it. Hamlet, however, is only posing the question indirectly; his immediate purpose is to define it, expand it and subject it to further scrutiny. It is the object of his enquiry first and foremost. :cooll:
 
JamesWhitehead said:
Hamlet, however, is only posing the question indirectly; his immediate purpose is to define it, expand it and subject it to further scrutiny. It is the object of his enquiry first and foremost. :cooll:
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Cor! You ruddy intellectuals baffle me! :(
 
"To have chips or a salad, that is the question."

The word "whether," is implied at the start. It's not the question a waiter would ask.

An abrupt and modern waiter would bark, "Chips or salad?"
An abrupt and modern God might demand, "Exist or die? your choice, Hamlet!"

Hamlet will ruminate all day on the nature of chips and salads, so the question is less pressing than it seems. :)
 
Yes, of course it's a question. Hamlet says it is. It's a question which is asked without a question mark. Questions were being asked before punctuation was invented.
 
This morning my bedside lamp turned its self on twice and I've had two odd phone calls to the landline phone from a mobile number I don't recognise. Whoever is calling doesnt say anything when i answer and say hello. :confused:
 
I just had an odd experience. I was watching Bargain Hunt, and the auctioneer was commenting on the items the teams had bought. Being very tired, I nodded off, but when I came round again I found I couldn't make any sense of what he was saying...

Then I realised this was not the auctioneer speaking but a lookalike expert explaining something in the BBC news studio. What I thought had been a micro-sleep must have lasted about 20 minutes! :eek:
 
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"To be or not to be" is equivalent to saying "black or white". Is that a question? It's only a question if I make it one. By making the unnecessary additional statement, "That is the question" Where one to simplify things, one might simply state, "Should I or shouldn't I"
 
escargot1 said:
Yes, of course it's a question. Hamlet says it is. It's a question which is asked without a question mark. Questions were being asked before punctuation was invented.
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CarlosTheDJ said:
He also directly follows it up with "that is the question."
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I've always interpreted the famous passage as invoking 'question' not in the sense of a grammatical form (i.e., not directly referring to the preceding phrase as an expressed query), but rather in the sense of:

2. A matter requiring resolution or discussion:

‘the question of local government funding worried ministers’

(Synonyms):

subject, subject matter, theme, issue, matter, point, talking point, concern, argument, discussion, thesis, text, concept, field, area, keynote, leitmotif

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/question
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Elsupremo said:
Yes, of course but what is it by itself, taken out of context?
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Okay - my take on it.

to exist, or to decide and act on whether to stop existing...

does it take more guts to slog it out, day after day, knowing that my life is not going to change because of where I am now, because of who I am - and all that it involves, or does it take more ticka to top myself, and by doing so, leave all this behind finally, and in doing so having the last and final word on everything that surrounds me...

And then to sleep - and hopefully wake up somewhere, somewhen else.



I reckon it's a pertinent question that transcends time.
 
Elsupremo said:
View attachment 3775 "To be or not to be" is equivalent to saying "black or white". Is that a question? It's only a question if I make it one. By making the unnecessary additional statement, "That is the question" Where one to simplify things, one might simply state, "Should I or shouldn't I"
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In this case El, it warrants a decision - even a rhetorical question has a persuasion, which would lead to a decision of sorts, which in its self is an answer.
 
MungomanII said:
Okay - my take on it.

to exist, or to decide and act on whether to stop existing...

does it take more guts to slog it out, day after day, knowing that my life is not going to change because of where I am now, because of who I am - and all that it involves, or does it take more ticka to top myself, and by doing so, leave all this behind finally, and in doing so having the last and final word on everything that surrounds me...

And then to sleep - and hopefully wake up somewhere, somewhen else.



I reckon it's a pertinent question that transcends time.
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The conclusion he comes to in the end is what if what awaits us is even worse than living. It's that knowledge (or lack of) that stops us.

Of course the best Helmet line is ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Which brings us back nicely to all the Fortean things.
 
Hamlet is asking the rhetorical question "To be or not to be a man" Avenge his father by killing his uncle is the background for that so-called question. Now, confronting the world as a man, instead of as a coward, is dangerous or as one person put it,"Being true to oneself is literally more dangerous than being a soldier in a battle."
 
It's funny that Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" ponders and answers the same question a century later.
 
rynner2 said:
I thank you kindly for all your support.

Wm. Shakspear

:)
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Elsupremo said:
It's funny that Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" ponders and answers the same question a century later.
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The sense of the entire speech, which runs to 33 lines before he changes the subject, is that he is considering two courses of action: suicide, which sounds at first rather pleasant in comparison with his current situation, or remaining alive and dealing with the situation (uncle killed father and married mother before funeral baked meats were cold, etc). Suicide sounds more restful until he starts to consider "the dread of something after death," which "makes us rather bear those ills we have/Than fly to others that we know not of.."

I don't see any relationship with If, by another great writer, which deals in the here and now and has to do with what some would call resisting attachment and maintaining equanimity . Could we take this discussion to a "not fortean but really interesting" thread?
 
No. A failed attempt at humor. I was paraphrasing a line from "If".
 
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