sovay: (Sovay: David Owen)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2012-02-29 03:19 am

What advantage would someone have over me who knew a direct route from blue to yellow?

All right. I failed my Wittgenstein save. Let's try this again.

(I seem to have agreed to invent a Wittgenstein drink, although all I know is about it is that it must contain a maraschino cherry in honor of Carmen Miranda and cannot contain anything in honor of all the instant coffee he used to drink. I must research.)

c/o Rhees
96 Bryn Rd.
Swansea
8.9.45


Dear Norman,

You're terrific!—Thanks a lot for the mags. It's nice getting a parcel from you, not only because of its contents.

The one way in which the ending of Lend-Lease really hits me is by producing a shortage of detective mags in this country. I can only hope Lord Keynes will make this quite clear in Washington. For I say: if the U.S.A. won't give us detective mags we can't give them philosophy, & so America will be the loser in the end. See?—I'm still in Swansea & enjoying my absence from Cambridge. My work isn't going well; partly because I've contracted some trouble with one of my kidneys. Nothing serious, but it makes me jumpy & bad tempered. (I've always got some excuse.)—The other day I read Johnson's 'Life of Pope' & liked it very much. As soon as I get to Cambridge I'm going to send you a little book 'Prayers & Meditations' by Johnson. You may not like it at all,—on the other hand you may. I do.

This is all for now. Most of this page & the next page I will leave free in case you want to make any notes. I hope to see you before very long! Good luck! Thanks again!

Affectionately,
Ludwig

. . . I am going to read my magazines.

[identity profile] ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com 2012-02-29 08:23 am (UTC)(link)
That's a charming letter. Thank you for sharing it.

I'm sorry for the failed save. I wish you luck with the drink concocting.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2012-02-29 11:37 am (UTC)(link)
Nothing serious, but it makes me jumpy & bad tempered. (I've always got some excuse.)

Made me laugh. Who knew depressive philosophers had such a great sense of humor.

[identity profile] ashlyme.livejournal.com 2012-02-29 01:07 pm (UTC)(link)
"if the USA won't give us detective mags we can't give them philosophy"

Well, that's an interesting blackmail threat! Wittgenstein certainly had a good sense of humour. I wonder what he might have made of Douglas Adams' striking philosophers?

[identity profile] strange-selkie.livejournal.com 2012-02-29 01:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Tiny R. sent Tiny W. a missive. By e-mail. It is, shockingly, not frontloaded with self-loathing.

It is top-heavy with fruit, though.

In re Wittgencocktailstein, you could use chicory syrup against a maraschino (like, the liqueur) base to make a red-and-black-stripe pousse-cafe kind of thing; garnish with inordinate amounts of the Unspeakable Fruitlike Things and a nice fan-cut slice of roasted pineapple. And then try not to drink it.

[identity profile] cucumberseed.livejournal.com 2012-02-29 02:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Okay, the notion of having to make a Wittgenstein Save amuses me greatly and would make D&D a much more interesting game.

Keeping instant coffee out of the drink is a choice I endorse.

[identity profile] strange-selkie.livejournal.com 2012-02-29 06:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Which, A Very Pleasant Pineapple or Wittgencocktailstein ?

Always happy to be of service, miss. *hat tip*

[identity profile] strange-selkie.livejournal.com 2012-02-29 06:59 pm (UTC)(link)
....We'd have to find a way to draw it on the menu so that it could look, in another light, like a pheasant. (No reason. I just like the way "Pineapple! Pheasant!" scans.)

Have we catalogued the THSPs (Tiny Historical Shoulder Persons) at this point? I don't know if there's anyone to serve as balm to TRH, and I don't want to wish you T. A. M. T. to go with T. Witt, because I think that would be explosively combustive and your head is between your shoulders...

[identity profile] teenybuffalo.livejournal.com 2012-02-29 08:08 pm (UTC)(link)
I haven't read Wittgenstein so I don't get the joke: what does Carmen Miranda have to do with him? Was he a huge fan of hers the way Joanna Russ was reputedly a fan of Buffy?

In any case, I support the idea of a Wittgenstein drink. If I still had the Playboy Cocktail Guide, you could have my copy--probably the same basic recipes as the Savoy book, plus a lot of cartoon women in thigh-high tights and very little else, but it might have ideas of its own.

[identity profile] strange-selkie.livejournal.com 2012-02-29 08:43 pm (UTC)(link)
I've been searching my brain for someone who could offset TRH's unique combination of depressive limpdickery and philandering; I think I might want Tiny RuPaul, but he's still alive and his little spike heels would start to hurt.

[identity profile] ashlyme.livejournal.com 2012-02-29 09:50 pm (UTC)(link)
It's Vroomfondel and Magikthise who threaten Deep Thought with a philosophers' strike:

"Whom would that inconvenience?"

in the first novel. Arthur sees a reconstruction, courtesy of Slartibartfast.

[identity profile] strange-selkie.livejournal.com 2012-02-29 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Holy schnikes, she could keep up with her girlfriend.

SHARESIES.

[identity profile] moon-custafer.livejournal.com 2012-03-01 12:18 am (UTC)(link)
Wait, who's TRH? Because all I'm getting is Tiny Robert Howard, and I suspect his philandering was mostly imaginary.

[identity profile] ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com 2012-03-01 03:59 am (UTC)(link)
Sometimes people send you magazines.

Indeed.

Thank you. It would help if I knew more about the actual theory and practice of mixed drinks . . .

You're welcome. I wish I knew more about it, myself. I'm drinking a Stone Fence right now, myself--a glass of cider with 3/4 ounce of whisky mixed in.

I'm still deciding what I think of it.

The cider is a bottle of Magner's AKA Bulmer's which I unearthed from the pantry and which is probably there some few years, and the whisky is from a bottle of Chivas blended Scotch that someone gave my father ages ago. I should probably try this again sometime with a different cider and a different spirit.

[identity profile] strange-selkie.livejournal.com 2012-03-01 04:31 am (UTC)(link)
Tiny Radclyffe Hall. With her well of loneliness!

(I am not a philanderer -- I am soundly legshackled and I went into it all awares -- but I am a moody old thing and my self-hatred is legion. And I am an invert. Which she was. Read her stuff. She'll tell ya! In depressing, depressing code.)