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Excellent title!
And a thought-provoking premise.
It does raise the question:
Kids nowadays...they ask the strangest things...
And don't get them started on Second Life...
No matter how fantastic and surreal Second Life is, it turns out that women still have lots more to be concerned about than men.
You would be surprised.
The title is beyond brilliant! As for Barbie there wasn't even a pube for hair to be on. Thank god she didn't have nipples either, or else I'd be incarcerated somewhere by now.
ReplyDeleteRanks way up there—along with Claire's knee and Van Gogh's Ear!
DeleteYes, we have gone far since the fifties.
ReplyDeleteQuestion is, is it real public hair or imitation pubic hair on the little dolls? And if they offer an edition with real pubic hair does it cost a great deal more? is it affordable? And can you get it in blond, red hair, or black? Yes, we have gone a long way........
I had never realized before what a prolific (and achieved) novelist Quinty actually is—quite an impressive collection here.
ReplyDelete"Hemingway's Beard" is most certainly a catchy title, something very Pirandello-esque about it: "One, none, and a hundred thousands" comes to mind - though the novel’s story transpires in a pre-digital age, the volatile play of identity has only increased since the advent of online social networks [link].
To see ourselves as others see us? That can indeed upset the apple cart, the personal apple cart, that is, of how we may see ourselves. That person others see may be very foreign to us. And there obviously is no unanimity, since, even within ourselves, we all know there those out there who like and dislike us.
ReplyDeleteOne cannot stand at one's window and observe oneself walking down the street, I suppose.
DeleteOr so says Auguste Comte—a pleasant enough fellow after he's had a drink or two.
And don't get me started on Schrödinger's cat.
Sounds to me like a job for Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.
Turns out the cat was neither alive nor dead, but missing.
The story is that Henry simply had grown tired of being subjected to the experiment and wandered off. Although he did admit later that he had actually been using the experiment as an attempt to determine the mental state of his friend Richard Macduff---Richard's logical arguments about why the experiment was pointless confirming that he was mentally stable.
We live in a world where it is is sane to be crazy and insane to be sane.
ReplyDeleteNow, there's some truth in that, isn't there?
One thing for sure, we are becoming too big for our britches. The whole damn shebang may go what with global pollution, war, and our own damn foolishness.... Ain't that so?
It would appear that many philosophers and poets, the music makers, and "the dreamers of dreams," might be on your side on this, Paul.
DeleteSome days, I am not so sure...
Were the dinosaurs insane?
Is homo sapiens sapiens?
Or does the species simply not have what it takes?
What is the perfect human thinking?
Is he thinking about happiness? Death? Love?
About what he is going to do tonight?
(...)
We want to see what he can do and cannot do.
Is he perfect enough?
Or not entirely?
Is he free?
The perfect human...
that's just something we say...
while hoping he can do what we say he can do.
"Doesn't have what it takes," it seems to me.
ReplyDeleteIt's that simple.
And what's curious is that we're watching ourselves do it. We are our own audience.
Now that may actually be a sign of hope. For we so often imagine the totally unreal that if we believe we are destroying ourselves we may turn out, once again, to be merely wrong. Deluded. Limited and unable to grasp the truth.
Oh, how human!
But what if this time it is real?
If it is, it turns our minds toward metaphysics. For why would we be able to watch ourselves play out this drama if there weren't some form of higher meaning? If we are blind, stupid, foolish, wouldn't it make more sense that we destroyed ourselves without even realizing it?
But to think! That we can actually watch ourselves do it! Awesome!
Who wields the compass?
DeleteGod?
DeleteArchimedes?
John Dee?
Or does the compass wield itself?
Dee, whom I never heard of, seems to still set up the basic model today. With the help of his electronic friends and other modern refinements. He could probably find a career on Wall Street. They're looking for innovative thinking like that. How to balance dimes on the head of a pin...... etc.
DeleteBut I'm surely getting in over my head. All I know is that I won't be around when the end of the story comes around......... At least I hope not.
What if it happens in the next few years?
On the other hand, I don't know about you but I'm kind of curious to see how it will end. To go out knowing the whole story, sort of. Admitting my ignorance, grasping a generalized overall conception of human history. The rise and fall of civilizations. Religious dogmas. Economics, capitalism, exploitation, the whole shebang. Ah, to go out with that in mind. Only to be snuffed. For after the final moment all is......... nothing, isn't it?
Though we don't even know that for sure, do we? Who knows?
"A good thing is not as good as nothing."
DeleteAmen.
DeleteLOL
DeleteWell, they say She is a gambler, you know ;-)
And here is Hemingway's mustache. 1936. No beard, there, yet.
ReplyDeleteComing soon on HBO (synopsis).