Monkey Slayer-in-Chief (Read 1766 times)

Jeff: Everybody looks goofy in race pictures. Especially marathon pictures. Especially pictures taken towards the end. And especially on cold days, for some reason. I think it's in the Constitution somewhere. You'll notice I declined to post my own goofy pictures ... ------------------------- Modified to add: and yet I noticed you're using your victory pic as your avatar. You *are* goofy, aren't you? Modified again to add: speaking of goofy - I'm currently sitting here wearing a t-shirt that says "It's all fun and games until the flying monkeys attack ..." Modified one last time to add: your pictures - and those of all the "elites" - do have one big advantage: at least you look like you're RUNNING. Ever notice that us mid-to-back packers always look like we're out for a stroll? We're really running. I swear.

Jeff: Modified one last time to add: your pictures - and those of all the "elites" - do have one big advantage: at least you look like you're RUNNING. Ever notice that us mid-to-back packers always look like we're out for a stroll? We're really running. I swear.

I dunno, JK. You're looking pretty tough here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mduncan36/FlyingMonkey1A1/photo#4999699856086794258

I so deserved that.

Sheesh. http://picasaweb.google.com/mduncan36/FlyingMonkey1A1/photo#4999700284558082066

Jeff & JN, make sure to fill this out http://www.marathonguide.com/races/racereview.cfm?MIDD=2539061119

Already did. 5 stars across the board.

You da man! Have you started reading your prize yet?

It's a gorgeous book, and I've long been a Wizard of Oz fan. I actually used a quote from it in one of my term papers last year on Hegel. Like I said on the striders board--best prize I've ever gotten. Here's the passage from the paper. Beware. The intellectual, academic, out of context, and slightly pompous humbuggery of a philosophy grad student are about to follow. Not meant to compete with mikeymike's ode to running on a different thread: Faced with the pain and loss involved in life’s contradictions, Hegel responds with an imaginative striving for unity. He wants to keep everything, to develop a system, a science, that would allow us to live once and for all without loss. In this moment, Emerson uncovers Hegel’s humanity: his greatness and his weakness. Hegel’s logic is an achievement, but it is a human achievement. Like all human achievements, it involves loss—which means something more may be found. When Emerson writes in “Circles” about a “tower of granite,” I cannot help but imagine Hegel’s pencil: You admire this tower of granite, weathering the hurts of so many ages. Yet a little waving hand built this huge wall, and that which builds is better than that which is built. The hand that built it can topple it down much faster. Better than the hand, and nimbler, was the invisible thought which wrought through it; and thus ever, behind the coarse effect, is a fine cause, which, being narrowly seen, is itself the effect of a finer cause. Every thing looks permanent until its secret is known. Emerson reminds us that Hegel’s books were built by “a little waving hand.” He exposes Hegel’s secret: that behind the Logic is a human being, sitting at a desk, waving words onto the page. Yet, behind this “coarse effect,” this material waving, is perhaps an effect of a wavering, a “fine cause, which, being narrowly seen, is itself the effect of a finer cause.” The secret of Hegel’s thinking is revealed here to be his imagination. Like Dorothy in Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Emerson looks behind the curtain of spirit and reveals a little man imagining grand things. Baum’s imagination portrays this moment beautifully. Baum writes, “No; you are all wrong,” said the little man [Hegel] meekly. “I have been making believe.” “Making believe!” cried Dorothy. “Are you not a great Wizard?” “Hush, my dear,” he said; “don’t speak so loud, or you will be overheard—and I should be ruined. I’m supposed to be a great Wizard.” “And aren’t you?” she asked. “Not a bit of it, dear; I’m just a common man.” “You’re more than that,” said the Scarecrow, in a grieved tone; “you’re a humbug.”… “But I don’t understand,” said Dorothy in bewilderment. “How was it that you appeared to me as a great Head?” (WWO, 121) Hegel’s identity has been unmasked—the movement of Spirit has been revealed to be the mere workings of his imagination. At this moment of unmasking we are faced with a choice. We could reject Hegel in disappointment as the Scarecrow rejects the Wizard. We could go out in search of a philosophy that was not a mere concoction of the human imagination. But should this realization necessarily lead to disappointment? Should we reject Hegel completely as a massive fraud? I don’t think so. There is another option, and I’ll let Baum dramatize this choice. We pick up the story with Dorothy at her most disappointed: “I think you are a very bad man,” said Dorothy [to the little man]. “Oh, no, my dear; I’m really a very good man; but I’m a bad Wizard I must admit.” “Can’t you give me brains?” asked the Scarecrow. “You don’t need them. You are learning something every day. A baby has brains, but it doesn’t know much. Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get.” “That may all be true,” said the Scarecrow, “but I shall be very unhappy unless you give me more brains.” The false Wizard looked at him carefully. “Well, he said, with a sigh, “I’m not much of a magician, as I said; but if you will come to me tomorrow morning, I will stuff your head with brains. I cannot tell you how to use them, however; you must find that out for yourself.” “Oh, thank you—thank you!” cried the Scarecrow. I’ll find a way to use them, never fear!” (WWO, 124) At the moment the Wizard’s magic is revealed to be humbuggery, an ethical choice appears. Having been found out, the “false wizard” could have rejected his imaginary gift. Instead, however, he turns the power of imagination from manipulation to service. His is still humbuggery, but the use of the humbuggery has been reversed. The wizard has put his imagination into the service of happiness, rather than using it as an escape from responsibility. He has lost his magic, but not his good will. He is a bad Wizard, but a good man. This human wizard takes advantage of the Scarecrow’s disorientation to trick him, imaginatively, into believing in himself. It is just this way that we could begin to look at philosophy. The choice we could make is to embrace philosophy as an activity of the imagination. It is, perhaps, humbuggery, but it can be useful humbuggery—imagination in the service of life...