my favorite Coltrane song

That would be “Satellite,” supposedly a version of “How High the Moon,” but so Coltranized that it’s beautifully, barely recognizable. In my estimation it has both the weirdest head and most satisfying solo in all of the magnificent Coltrane corpus. If you only download one song on iTunes this Christmas Day, let it be that one.

For what it’s worth, I also think Coltrane does the best version of “Summertime,” and his rendition of that classic is in much the same vein as his “Satellite.”

parody in progress

I’ve also been working intermittently on a piece called Dialogue on a Forest Path Between a Dragon, a Snake, and a Puppy. This new Heidegger volume puts me in the mood to resume work on it.

The dragon and the puppy do most of the heavy lifting. For the most part the snake just hisses, in the closest approximation to Meno that an animal can make.

As recently as June of 1999 I had no intention of following an academic career, and if I had pursued the planned other options, you’d have seen more of these sorts of things from me much earlier. Now that I’m probably never going to be fired by anyone, there’s more freedom to experiment with genres again. What it means is that I’ve resurrected a number of incomplete manuscripts from around 1997-98 recently (Circus Philosophicus will merely be the first of them to go into print). There’s another fairly outrageous one set at DePaul and entitled Gallagher’s Grill and Tavern. I had to put all that stuff aside as an Assistant Professor, but now there’s more room for fun with the philosophy.

Socrates without Socrates

By now, most of you have probably seen the hilarious GARFIELD WITHOUT GARFIELD site, in which that annoying cat is happily airbrushed from the strips that bear his name. It lends a certain strange interest to the comics that I have never found there otherwise. (Remember the David Letterman parody in which Paul Shaffer, dressed as Garfield, said: “Boy, I sure do like food.”)

It’s fun to do the same thing with Platonic dialogues sometimes– airbrushing the words of Socrates and obtaining only the compliant responses of his interlocutors. Here’s one example (this is actually Young Socrates talking with the Stranger in the Statesman, but it’s the same thing as the real Socrates and almost anyone else).

Yes.

None.

It makes no difference.

Manifestly.

Yes.

Certainly.

Good.

Tell me where it is.

Yes.

Of course.

No.

Yes.

True.

He might indeed.

That is so.

This is clearly the difference between them.

Yes– I would agree to it at any rate.

Indeed it is.

Yes.

Of course he is in the second group.

How so?

Quite so.

Very true.

Exactly.

We must look for one.

Where is the division?

Of course.

How?

Yes.

How?

Yes, it does.

Everyone knows about the famous ELIZA from an earlier era of computing. It might be fun to have a comparable program called MENO, in which you could put in a paragraph of philosophical ideas and it would give you the sorts of responses that Socrates generally receives.

continuing the analogy

A couple of weeks ago, I tried to show the comic absurdity of the staging of Plato’s Theaetetus (257d-258a) by plugging in contemporary names. Just to follow up, here is the passage in the Statesman where Socrates shows his awareness of the strange set of conversationalists which include a young Socrates lookalike (Theatetus) and another young character who happens to be named Socrates.

Socrates: Furthermore, sir, they might both be said to have some sort of kinship with me. Theatetus, according to you, is like me in looks and Socrates bears the same name. Sharing a name entails kinship in some sense, and, of course, we ought always to seize opportunities of discovering those who may be our kinsfolk by conversing with them. Yesterday I joined in discussion with Theaetetus; today I have listened to him answering you. I have not heard Socrates speak either in discussion or in reply. He too must be tested. So he shall reply to me another time, but this afternoon let him answer you.

Changing this into the terms of our earlier thought experiment…

Heidegger: Furthermore, sir, they might both be said to have some sort of kinship with me. Agamben, according to you, is like me in looks and Heidegger bears the same name. Sharing a name entails kinship in some sense, and, of course, we ought always to seize opportunities of discovering those who may be our kinsfolk by conversing with them. Yesterday I joined in discussion with Agamben; today I have listened to him answering you. I have not heard Heidegger speak either in discussion or in reply. He too must be tested. So he shall reply to me another time, but this afternoon let him answer you.

Santa Claus

And yes, Santa Claus did come through Peking, handing out bonbons even to us adults.

It was a nice effort, though this was the least convincing Santa Claus I’ve seen in years: a skinny 25-year-old Egyptian guy with the fake beard taped a bit askew to his chin. He did have the right jovial attitude, at least.

Christmas

Merry Christmas to all readers. It starts in three minutes here, and though the Coptic Orthodox Christmas is actually on January 7, even the obvious Muslims in Peking restaurant were clearly in the mood for the holiday tonight. And one of my dinner guests, an Iranian, said that Christmas is big in Iran now, even– or at least Santa Claus is big. It was news to me.

I probably won’t be checking in tomorrow here– busy day, as you can imagine.

The best Christmas present I ever received, from my famously insightful parents (who are very good gift givers) was THIS BOOK for the Christmas of age 16. And I still enjoy it very much to this day, and have given it to others of that age and older as a gift as well.

The best Christmas experience was probably the midnight mass at an extremely old church in Italy. Though my background is Protestant rather than Catholic, it was too good an opportunity to miss.

a false saying

Of all recent American folk wisdom, I find none more off the mark than the trite old adage that “there’s never a cop around when you need one.” My own experience has been precisely the opposite. On those rare occasions when I’ve been doing something marginally counter to law, no police have ever materialized even when the location made it likely that they soon would. By contrast, in every case where I have needed police assistance, law enforcement officers have appeared as instantly as genies from bottles, without my lifting a finger. But perhaps I’m just lucky.

Euthydemus

It may be the funniest of Plato’s “sophistry” dialogues. At least Gorgias and Protagoras are somewhat plausible interlocutors. The characters in the Euthydemus, by contrast, are just hilarious hacks at the art, and their arguments are patently and even amusingly absurd.

second blog in operation

It’s still raw, and it’s not philosophy-related. But I’m now running a second blog, qua ASSOCIATE VICE PROVOST FOR RESEARCH AT AUC.

We’re an inherently intriguing university, and some readers of this blog may be interested. Indeed, some may eventually wish to apply for studentships or jobs here. I would encourage such efforts: it’s worth it to be here for awhile.

Christmas Eve tradition

We were always a restaurant-going family. And what sorts of restaurants are open in Iowa on Christmas Eve? In my younger years, only the Chinese places were.

And so began this strange family tradition that Christmas Eve requires going out for Chinese food. Even when we are scattered across the globe, we are expected to observe it. And even in the great Chicago blizzard of Christmas Eve 1997, I managed to pull it off with the help of a brave takeout driver.

This year it’s simple, and already planned.