Like a cyclist I have to keep pedalling, to keep moving, in order not to fall down

[sovay]

I visited the Million Year Picnic earlier tonight; I had just been discussing Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005–2008) and, being reminded of how much I loved that show, thought I would finally check out some of the comics. Sadly, I cannot afford to buy any of the complete arcs right now, especially not the nice hardcover editions. So I went to browse Raven Used Books to console myself and seem to have ended up with a biography of Wittgenstein.

This is my life.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Have you ever heard the song "Canada Haunts Me," by They Might Be Giants?

For you we need the song "Wittgenstein Haunts Me."

[sovay]

For you we need the song "Wittgenstein Haunts Me."

I could have worse ghosts!

[edit] Monk opens his biography by pointing out that Wittgenstein haunts a lot of people:

"The figure of Ludwig Wittgenstein exerts a very special fascination that is not wholly explained by the enormous influence he has had on the development of philosophy this century. Even those quite unconcerned with analytical philosophy find him compelling. Poems have been written about him, paintings inspired by him, his work has been set to music, and he has been made the central character in a successful novel that is little more than a fictionalized biography (The World as I Found It, by Bruce Duffy)."

(I read that novel, too, in 2010. It's good, but I like Jarman's film—which wouldn't come out until 1993; the copyright on the biography is 1990, which means Jarman may well have read it—better.)

[edit edit] Jarman did read Monk's biography. Hurrah.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

He really *has* had an outsized haunting power. You don't see people creating novels, poems, paintings, and music about other twentieth-century philosophers. The Wittgenstein-Jarman-Taaffe connection is especially excellent.

[sovay]

You don't see people creating novels, poems, paintings, and music about other twentieth-century philosophers.

Bertrand Russell gets a very highly regarded graphic novel: Logicomix (2008), by Apostolos Doxiadis et al. I'm sure I'd find other examples if I thought about it for a moment. But last night I decided to test Monk's assertion against the internet, and even working within the limitations of what has been digitized or published online, there are a lot of Wittgenstein poems. There's even a Wittgenstein ghost poem that I didn't write!

Chris Wallace-Crabbe, "Wittgenstein's Shade"

Guy Davenport, "Wittgenstein"

David Lehman, "Wittgenstein's Ladder"

Richard Murphy, "The Philosopher and the Birds"

Peter Porter, "Wittgenstein's Dream"

Andrew Sofer, "Wittgenstein in Norway"

Rachel Wetzsteon, "Cabaret Ludwig"

David Solway's "Wittgenstein at Chess" is available only incompletely on Google Books, so I'll have to track down the collection itself to read the ending.

Google Books also gave me a tantalizing reference for Niall McDevitt's "Wittgenstein in Ireland," which I cannot get online. It's dedicated to Karl Johnson, Jarman's incredible Wittgenstein (and Ariel, which is another conversation). That really makes me curious.

The Wittgenstein-Jarman-Taaffe connection is especially excellent.

Thank you. It's made me very happy.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

This collection is pretty dang amazing.

[gwynnega]

and seem to have ended up with a biography of Wittgenstein.

I am entirely unsurprised.

[sovay]

I am entirely unsurprised.

It's a good biography of Wittgenstein!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I think you should walk about with it on your head instead of your shoulder. Better for the posture.

[sovay]

Better for the posture.

You may be right.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I do like the comics; they're worth picking up from the library or something if one near you has them available. They do a nice job of showing how "we defeated the bad guy; hurrah" is not the end of the story, and building the peace can be just as difficult and complex a job as winning the war.

[sovay]

They do a nice job of showing how "we defeated the bad guy; hurrah" is not the end of the story, and building the peace can be just as difficult and complex a job as winning the war.

I have heard very good things about them. I just can't afford books that aren't used right now, and not very many of those, either. I'll see what my local library can do.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

If I didn't live literally on the other side of the country, I would happily lend you my copies. :-/

[kraada.livejournal.com]

I've been rewatching it with Addy. We're a dozen episodes in, and she's declared she wants to be a superhero when she grows up. And Zuko is her favorite.

[sovay]

We're a dozen episodes in, and she's declared she wants to be a superhero when she grows up. And Zuko is her favorite.

Wonderful. How old is she now? I watched it the first time through with a four-year-old who also loved it. (Then I rewatched it with my mother, who felt the same way.)

[kraada.livejournal.com]

She's most of the way to 3. She definitely does not get everything, and she's started to show that suspenseful music evokes an emotional response which may be why she doesn't want to watch it all of the time. Figured that out for sure watching Wallace and Gromit yesterday (which she requested!).

Our current mix includes Avatar, Dora, Magic Schoolbus, Daniel Tiger, Word Girl and Peg + Cat. I try to steer her away from Dora though as we've seen all of the ones available on Prime and rewatching them is kinda painful. She doesn't really like old school Sesame Street, and I need to try Reading Rainbow and see how that goes over.

I swear we actually don't watch that much tv with her as it sounds like.

[sovay]

Our current mix includes Avatar, Dora, Magic Schoolbus, Daniel Tiger, Word Girl and Peg + Cat.

I don't know those last three shows at all!

I swear we actually don't watch that much tv with her as it sounds like.

It's more TV than I watched as a kid. Sesame Street, The Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact, Square One TV, Fraggle Rock, The Muppet Show, that's all I can remember. The Children's Television Workshop hit parade, basically.

[kraada.livejournal.com]

I haven't tried Fraggles in a couple of months so it's due up to try again. Square One is available in chunks on YouTube. It has not aged well.

Daniel Tiger is an animated imagining of what's going on in The Land of Make Believe (from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood), from the kids' perspective. So instead of King Friday we're hanging with Prince Wednesday and such. Word Girl is a PBS show about an alien superhero girl who defeats enemies with her powers of language. Peg + Cat is another new PBS show and is the story of a girl and her cat who have various problems they have to solve with math. The animation is notably fun as they fill in all backgrounds with graph paper.

Addy has also declared she's going to have a Magic Schoolbus birthday party this year.