Re: [F_MINOR] A Gouldian game

[Jost Ammon <jost.ammon@GMX.DE>]

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 13:24:01 -0500
Mary Jo Watts <mwatts@EDEN.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:

> Happy new year!  (I got an I-Pod for X-mas so I've been smiling for
> days!!!)

I have installed a wonderful Mandrake Linux system which was/is piece of cake 
> 
> Somebody play this game with me, please???!!!

GG (via phone), Platon, Escher, Goedel, Bach, Lyle Mays, Denis Diderot, Friedrich II of Prussia (the Great), Stanley Kubrik, Fernand de Saussure, Chomsky, Claude Monet, Richard Meier, Einstein, D. Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Doktor Faustus, Hamlet

Of course the guests will talk about recognition and recombination of patterns and meaning. 

Goedel, Escher and Bach will debate with each other and with Hofstädter about the patterns underlying their particular forms of art. Mays deducts how these ideas generally underly any composed art, which connections of dichotomies are demonstrated by Meier's presentation of his buildings. De Saussure and Chomsky try to trace back the structuralist approach to carve out patterns in general, discover that 230 years haven't substantially changed the procedure, while Einstein proves the contrary. Platon exemplifies why this didn't surprise him and asks why obvious things like this have to be discussed. 

GG talks about what is not and launches a discussion about the German lust for the dialectic procedure, represented by Luther's protestantism, Bach's counterpoint, Marx antithetic approach and Thomas Mann resumes all this as a person, Doktor Faustus. The door opens and Dr. Faustus and Hamlet enter amidst of a hot argument about fate and will. Friedrich II advocates the power of fate, the uselessness of action as much as the uselessness of inaction and calls Diderot to back his position. Meanwhile the latter has apparently left, but Shakespeare nods grimly and engages Fritz to further this notion. 

During all this Kubrick and Monet have been quietly sitting in a remote corner, sipping a good glass of an old red wine, the second bottle just opened, getting enthusiastic about recombination patterns in paintings as well as in movies, creating sense by adding and recombining layers of meaning which engender new meaning. Now they all chime in and celebrate the hidden obvious.

Jost

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