My young son asks me: Must I learn mathematics?

Lego: it's a way of life. Home, June 2010.

Those of you who keep an eye on my reading list on the right [there… →→→ over there… →→→] will have noted that I have recently gone back to one of my all time favourite writers, Graham Greene. I read most of his ‘literary’ novels in the period 1996–99 (the undergraduate life is a good setting for catching up with the canon), and have determined that now might be a good time to revisit an author I haven’t read in a while and reflect on whether time (and experience) changes my assumptions of the work.

Well, The End of the Affair and The Quiet American later, he’s even better. It is odd how an observer of human behaviour manages to quite so efficiently and effectively nails it. Honestly, his observations from 1951 on US ambitions in (then) French IndoChina could be applied across the board right up until today. The jaundiced European post-colonial malaise-influence rejoinder also resonates today. On top of it, we get a cracking good yarn as well!

Seriously, do yourself a favour and get down the library.

NOW!

My young son asks me..., Bertolt Brecht

My young son asks me: Must I learn mathematics?
What is the use, I feel like saying. That two pieces
Of bread are more than one's about all you'll end up with.
My young son asks me: Must I learn French?
What is the use, I feel like saying. This State's collapsing.
And if you just rub your belly with your hand and
Groan, you'll be understood with little trouble.
My young son asks me: Must I learn history?
What is the use, I feel like saying. Learn to stick
Your head in the earth, and maybe you'll still survive.

Yes, learn mathematics, I tell him.
Learn your French, learn your history!

Comments

Carola said…

While we are travelling my three year old son likes to play with LEGO. Great toys! His other toys are sticks and stones and sand and all what nature has to give.
We are in Germany, but still on our way. The last leg is on the river Rhein in a canoe.

27 July 2010 at 20:36

Kris McCracken said…

LEGO is great fun.

4 August 2010 at 17:53

Lost inside an adorable illusion and I cannot hide, I'm the one you're using, please don't push me aside, we could've made it cruising, yeah.

Yes it is Theme Thusday again, and today we are talking GLASS . I've three possible hooks to hang my [glass] hat on with this theme. First, the photo! Yes, it is the river again from an odd angle in an interesting light. You can just make out the bottom, which should tell you that I'm right on the shore. In some ways, the distortion of the stones below the surface reminds me of ye olde glass windows, what they call "cylinder blown sheet glass". You can still find some of this around Hobart these days. Thw second link comes from a trip I took to Venice a few years back. You're probably aware that Venice was (is?) a glass-making centre of excellence. If you have ever been there and taken the tour of the glass factories, you might be familiar with the sheer amount of coloured glass that sits at the bottom of the water there. These fragments of glass have been worn down and had their edges dulled by their time in the water, which makes them ample keepsakes for the ...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

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Happy anniversary baby, got you on my mind

No it is not a webcam, but this photograph was taken a mere forty-five ago on my way in to work. Here you can see a good old fashioned Hobart autumn morning, with the rain pelting down and me getting drenched. This one was taken on the corner of Macquarie and Elizabeth, while I was waiting for the lights to change. Come on Ampelmännchen ! Today is my wedding anniversary, an apparently I need to be showering Jen with leather -related goodies. Va-va-vaVOOM! To you Jennifer, here is a poem I wrote this very morning. Anniversary I love you i love you iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou I LOVE you I love YOU iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou I LOVE YOU iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou Happy anniversary

This will hurt me...

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