I just finished the latest book by Dan Brown last night, "The Lost Symbol". In this third instalment of his Robert Langdon series, Brown explored the mysteries of the Masonic Order, religion, and the notion of beauty.
With out going into details of the book and it's story, let me just say that if you liked the first two, you will like this one. The main difference is that he spends even more time talking about the religious aspect of symbols and the human condition than he does in the other books, if you can imagine that.
My only point about story specifics is that Brown makes the quasi-love-interest an attractive woman of the grand old age of 50. I don't' know how old of an actress they will get to play her in the Ron Howard adaptation, but I hope it's a woman close to that age. I say kudos to you, Mr. Brown. I have no difficulty imagining the heroine to be a half century old and beautiful. Thanks for giving this image to the popular culture.
I'm mostly concerned about this book as a philosophical text. I at first think of Albert Camus (see previous posts) and while the philosophy is not the same, wonder if Mr. Brown will ever write any non-fiction books that explore the religious and philosophical aspects of the Robert Langdon seriece. My thoughts also turn to Pullman and his "His Dark Materials" series as a better example of what Brown is doing.
It seems that there are many fine authors who are concerned with religion and philosophy, but not concerned as being labelled philosophers. I think this is sad in a way, not that they are unconcerned, but that modern Western culture is lacking in philosophers. Don't get me wrong, as a student of philosophy, I have read the work of many excellent philosophers who are alive and writing today, it's just that they are not known to mainstream culture. Religious leaders and quasi-religious leaders and political pundits are all known, and someitmes it's hard to tell which of the things I mentioned that they actually are, but our culture seems to be lacking popular thinkers that engage in the public discourse for the sake of furthering knowledge and not some personal agenda.
But, maybe it's all a matter of perspective. It may be that in a few years I will comem to realize that Brown, Pullman and others really are shaping the national discourse and that the philosophers of old go by a different name now. It may well be that modern media and the vast size of our society compared to the ancient or even more recent history means that the popular thinkers are not known to all because they have never been known to all. I think of an old addage "fools names and fools faces always appear in public places". I am after all, not looking for the fool, unless it is the fool that I need to see. :)
Perhaps this blog entry is the modern equivalent of a student sitting in a bath house asking questions of the philosopher who is their teacher in all respects. And while the answer may never come back to me from Brown himself, it is possible that others may give me answers or opinions or ask more questions, and in the end the same is achieved.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Not-so-guilty pleasures
I guess adults don't talk much about putting a movie on and interacting with it, or if they do it's about them ovserving children. I'm happy to say that I recently put on a favorite musical of mine and sang along with every song and even pranced about as if I were a deformed manikin in an earthquake.
The caveat is that I did this while the family was away for the weekend. I waited for that opportunity partly out of a bit of embarrassmentr, hence the title of this entry, but partly out of a sense of the sacred.
The embarrassing side comes out of my immediate companions, the people I live with, not understanding. I'm a very musical person and I love to sing. I do my best to sing well, but if I can't make the notes, I generally don't worry about it as my audience is myself. I am very self-conscious of my singing, however, as I've been told at key points through out my life by people that are important to me that I don't have a very good singing voice. Yeah, that hurt just a little. But, on the other hand, my brother and his family, who I ws staying with at the time couldn't carry a tune to save their life.
When I think about it deeper as I am wont to do lately, that is think about things deeper, I realize that there is a certain stigma in mainstream America that is absolutely ridiculous; the only men who can enjoy musicals are gay men. What a crock of shit. I think the only men who like musicals are the men who like musicals. If some of those men are gay, or Republican, or thespians, then so be it. But, me thinks the lady doth protest too much. Perhaps. One of the first weekends I was living with my brother and his family and we watched a movie together, my nephew, a 13 year old who is basically a good kid, made an off-hand comment about the "homos". The movie was stopped and his dad told him he was not to talk like that, his step-mom told him she had lots of gay friends and he asked, "what did I say that was wrong?" His dad told him to stop it and then started the movie up again. I was flabbergasted, particularly because my nephew was mad at me about this and I didn't even get to say a thing, though I certainly would have had a dialogue with him about the term he used and the context which he used it being a term of derision and hate. I was mostly just shocked that my brother and his wife were so ready for this event to occur. I can safely say after having lived with them for 10 months that they were ready not because they were morally offended, but because it was one of those terms that was to be used only at home when only was present, and family doesn't include uncles. A monsth or so before I move out, I finally found out why, that my brother and his wife suspect that her brother, also named Erik (though I'm with a 'c') may be gay because he doesn't tell them about his girlfriends and he's an artist. I guess that means they think I"m gay as well, even though they know I've been married.
The other reason taht I wanted to experience my musical the way that I did is a notion of the sacred. The musical is a mainstream, cheeze-fest "Moulin Rouge" by Baz Luhrmann. But I love it. I think Ewen McGregor is so handsome and Nicole Kidman so beautiful in this romp. The supporting cast are also quicky as to remain memorable long after the credits role.
The theme of this movie is that love conquers all, with a secondary theme of loving and losing is better than never loving at all. I don't really think of myself as a romantic, but perhaps I'm an intellectual romantic, though my wife will probably agree on the first and disagree on the second point. But, that is the problem in a nutshell. I'm going through a divorce right now, that while amicable is long and rawn out because she is in charge of the paperwork and waited to file the final papers until a week and a half before the deadline, though she had months and months to do it. I of course could not file them, because I don't want to be divorced from her. I haven't lived with her in about ten and a half months now and it will be another two and a half before the divorce is final.
Singing along with Ewen and Nicole is great therapy I suppose. For two solid hours I sang my heart out about love, all the while knowing that it didn't apply to my own life, at least not in teh literal reading of the songs. There were lots of joy and lots of tears. I think you can understand why I would want to experience this by myself, or at the very least not in front of my brother and his family.
The caveat is that I did this while the family was away for the weekend. I waited for that opportunity partly out of a bit of embarrassmentr, hence the title of this entry, but partly out of a sense of the sacred.
The embarrassing side comes out of my immediate companions, the people I live with, not understanding. I'm a very musical person and I love to sing. I do my best to sing well, but if I can't make the notes, I generally don't worry about it as my audience is myself. I am very self-conscious of my singing, however, as I've been told at key points through out my life by people that are important to me that I don't have a very good singing voice. Yeah, that hurt just a little. But, on the other hand, my brother and his family, who I ws staying with at the time couldn't carry a tune to save their life.
When I think about it deeper as I am wont to do lately, that is think about things deeper, I realize that there is a certain stigma in mainstream America that is absolutely ridiculous; the only men who can enjoy musicals are gay men. What a crock of shit. I think the only men who like musicals are the men who like musicals. If some of those men are gay, or Republican, or thespians, then so be it. But, me thinks the lady doth protest too much. Perhaps. One of the first weekends I was living with my brother and his family and we watched a movie together, my nephew, a 13 year old who is basically a good kid, made an off-hand comment about the "homos". The movie was stopped and his dad told him he was not to talk like that, his step-mom told him she had lots of gay friends and he asked, "what did I say that was wrong?" His dad told him to stop it and then started the movie up again. I was flabbergasted, particularly because my nephew was mad at me about this and I didn't even get to say a thing, though I certainly would have had a dialogue with him about the term he used and the context which he used it being a term of derision and hate. I was mostly just shocked that my brother and his wife were so ready for this event to occur. I can safely say after having lived with them for 10 months that they were ready not because they were morally offended, but because it was one of those terms that was to be used only at home when only was present, and family doesn't include uncles. A monsth or so before I move out, I finally found out why, that my brother and his wife suspect that her brother, also named Erik (though I'm with a 'c') may be gay because he doesn't tell them about his girlfriends and he's an artist. I guess that means they think I"m gay as well, even though they know I've been married.
The other reason taht I wanted to experience my musical the way that I did is a notion of the sacred. The musical is a mainstream, cheeze-fest "Moulin Rouge" by Baz Luhrmann. But I love it. I think Ewen McGregor is so handsome and Nicole Kidman so beautiful in this romp. The supporting cast are also quicky as to remain memorable long after the credits role.
The theme of this movie is that love conquers all, with a secondary theme of loving and losing is better than never loving at all. I don't really think of myself as a romantic, but perhaps I'm an intellectual romantic, though my wife will probably agree on the first and disagree on the second point. But, that is the problem in a nutshell. I'm going through a divorce right now, that while amicable is long and rawn out because she is in charge of the paperwork and waited to file the final papers until a week and a half before the deadline, though she had months and months to do it. I of course could not file them, because I don't want to be divorced from her. I haven't lived with her in about ten and a half months now and it will be another two and a half before the divorce is final.
Singing along with Ewen and Nicole is great therapy I suppose. For two solid hours I sang my heart out about love, all the while knowing that it didn't apply to my own life, at least not in teh literal reading of the songs. There were lots of joy and lots of tears. I think you can understand why I would want to experience this by myself, or at the very least not in front of my brother and his family.
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