“Today I wear these chains, and am here! Tomorrow I shall be fetterless! —but where?”
Closing lines of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Imp of the Perverse”. Just thought they’d look good on the blog, and I don’t have a separate “Quotes” section so...
Hello Jai, nice blogging. And since this is a Godsend opportunity to quote something said by others (and not to have to think of something original, which is what we have learnt in school anyways) here goes...
Nice one, hitchhiker! Your 42 reference in conjunction with the mention of unoriginality in schools reminds me of one of my very favourite Calvin & Hobbes strips. I wonder if you've seen it - it's the one where Calvin is day-dreaming about dinosaurs whose shapes roughly resemble the numbers 2 and 3, and we learn at the end of the strip that his classteacher has asked him 2+3=? I think that comic said more about the arrested development fostered by formal education than a hundred essays ever could.
Impressive, Jai. Very impressive. Either you have a terrific memory, or H2G2 captivated you as much as it did me.
Yes, I do remember that comic. My fave strip of classroom daydreaming was the one where Calvin imagines himself in a fierce battle with aliens and shoots at them with his "death-blaster" while shouting "krakov! krakov!" in conjuction with his shots, which turns out to be the RIGHT answer for the question posed by Ms. Wormwood - What is the capital of Poland. :))
Well, I am interviewing a lot of people for some positions these days, supposedly well educated engineers from good colleges, and the lack of imagination and originality is depressing me more than Marvin. I have started writing something about it on my blog, but haven't finished it yet (brain the size of a palnet and I have to write blogs...).
A quote (not exactly) from a Led Zep song would be a nice reply to your original quote by Poe:
your 'through the looking glass' nugget got me all homesick for lewis carroll and his brand of madness. finally, i set everything else aside and snuggled into 'the collected works of'. i think it was the "beamish boy" that definitely decided me :)
i've been dropping in every other day or so to see what you've been up to. and been going over old posts that i like the titles of. it's always good to find someone so keen on his books, movies and misc. reading matter. the delhi times type goof-up you quoted is so despairingly common these days that i mightn't even have noticed it, skimming as i do in self-defense.
and it's gooder still to have one more person with whom to laugh at the smug crap that is journalism today
Hello Jai, nice blogging. And since this is a Godsend opportunity to quote something said by others (and not to have to think of something original, which is what we have learnt in school anyways) here goes...
ReplyDelete42!
Nice one, hitchhiker! Your 42 reference in conjunction with the mention of unoriginality in schools reminds me of one of my very favourite Calvin & Hobbes strips. I wonder if you've seen it - it's the one where Calvin is day-dreaming about dinosaurs whose shapes roughly resemble the numbers 2 and 3, and we learn at the end of the strip that his classteacher has asked him 2+3=? I think that comic said more about the arrested development fostered by formal education than a hundred essays ever could.
ReplyDeleteImpressive, Jai. Very impressive. Either you have a terrific memory, or H2G2 captivated you as much as it did me.
ReplyDeleteYes, I do remember that comic. My fave strip of classroom daydreaming was the one where Calvin imagines himself in a fierce battle with aliens and shoots at them with his "death-blaster" while shouting "krakov! krakov!" in conjuction with his shots, which turns out to be the RIGHT answer for the question posed by Ms. Wormwood - What is the capital of Poland. :))
Well, I am interviewing a lot of people for some positions these days, supposedly well educated engineers from good colleges, and the lack of imagination and originality is depressing me more than Marvin. I have started writing something about it on my blog, but haven't finished it yet (brain the size of a palnet and I have to write blogs...).
A quote (not exactly) from a Led Zep song would be a nice reply to your original quote by Poe:
Over the hills and far away...
your 'through the looking glass' nugget got me all homesick for lewis carroll and his brand of madness. finally, i set everything else aside and snuggled into 'the collected works of'. i think it was the "beamish boy" that definitely decided me :)
ReplyDeletei've been dropping in every other day or so to see what you've been up to. and been going over old posts that i like the titles of. it's always good to find someone so keen on his books, movies and misc. reading matter. the delhi times type goof-up you quoted is so despairingly common these days that i mightn't even have noticed it, skimming as i do in self-defense.
and it's gooder still to have one more person with whom to laugh at the smug crap that is journalism today
You are reading Poe? Well, that explains your "irrational homicidal fantasies" at the barber shop!
ReplyDeleteUh-huh. Read this earlier post and all will be clear: http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2004/12/poe-in-barbershop.html
ReplyDelete