EARTHLY POWERS (ANTHONY BURGESS) AND INERTIA

We were all still standing up, but now Carlo sat down. The whisky in his glass tried to stay where it was and splashed his black jacket. He ignored this, looking, frowning, up at his brother.

I wrote inertia, but, which is the real cause of the whisky falling? Is it maybe because it´s a more complex particles system than the glass itself?If it´s actually the inertia, Burgess describes the phenomenon perfectly: the whisky tries to remain where it was or the way it was, we could also say

I took out this book from the library. It was at the middle of the novel that I realized that I was reading the second volume. I thought a novel starting about page four hundred was a excentric and modern thing that I tolerated

1984 (GEORGE ORWEL) AND A PESSIMISTIC PROPHECY ABOUT THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE

In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science'. The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery. But in matters of vital importance— meaning, in effect, war and police espionage—the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated.

Even darker texts than this one appear in the novel. There are always people who think that we are close to the commented situation, like Thomas Pynchon in tHe epilogue. From my point of view, there is something in which the book is right. It´s in an annex , a Newspeak treatise, which seems to inspire the literary style of thousands of pedagogues.

In the videoclip you can discover (time 1:20) that the elegance and glam that are attributed to David Bowie were indeed developed early in some discos from Spanish villages

THINKS… (DAVID LODGE) AND LAUGHTER AND CRY FROM AN EVOLUTIVE POINT OF VIEW

- It´s a passage from the 1838 notebook. Darwin is thirty. The voyage on the Beagle is two years behind him. He has the idea of evolution firmly by the tail. Hah, no pun intended...He´s convinced taht man is decended from apes, but he hasn´t gone public yet- he knows all too well what an uproar it will cause. He´s been thinking about laughter- that when humans laught they expose their canine teeth, just like baboons. He speculates that our laughter and smiling might be traced back to the way apes communicate the discovery of food to the rest of their tribe- Ralph underlines the quotation with his finger as he reads aloud: “This way of viewing the subject important, laughing modified barking, smilin modified laughing. Barking to tell other animals in associated kinds of good news, discovery of prey- no doubt arising from want of assistance”. The comes the afterthought. He can´t think what crying might be a modification of. “Crying is a puzzler”

- “Sunt lacrimae rerum”, says Helen

- My Latin´s a tad rusty- Ralph says

- “There are tears of things”. Virgil. It´s almost untranslatable, but one knows what he means. Somethin like, “Crying is a puzzler”

- Actually laughter is a puzzler too- says Ralph- Darwin´s explanation doesn´t really cut it

It´s a pity that animals lack A sense of humour, because it would be very useful for them to kill time. All the animals, from the wildest to the most domesticated , waste boring hours and hours which could be spent among laughter and jokes. I don´t know in which sense could crying be useful for animals, because Crying is a puzzler, as Darwin and Virgil said.

I remember in my neighborhood a dog died, the owners of this dog used to say that their dog, Ron, could smile. They buried it next to a wall in which they wrote: “Ron, the dog with an unforgettable smile” . Some creative scoundrel retouched the epitaph, which became :”Ron, the dog with an unforgettable smell”