Mood 2 (Feeling This Way)

  


There's not a lot to say
When you're feeling this way
And you don't listen Anyway
You've got your own problems.

Listen to me Just this time
It's something yours & It's something mine
We must be close to the end of the line:
Let's try and get there together.

She said you have to learn 
(She said, she said)
To find somewhere outside of your head
I said that would be fine (I said)
But I'd rather be with You instead.

'Cause when you're up, they'll love you to death
& when you're down, they'll steal your last breath
They say goodbye, You say hello:
Ask how you're doing
You just don't know.

There's not a lot to say
When you're feeling this way
And you don't listen Anyway
You've got your own problems.


Kevin Ayers: Feeling This Way (link)

NOTE:  Feeling This Way, the first song on Still Life With Guitar, is a little masterpiece, not a word or note out of time or place (although the song's protagonist is clearly a man excised from both dimensions). 

Mornings I torture myself watching segments of “Limousine Liberal Joe” (aka "Lord Haw-Haw's Return") featuring the most important person ever to serve in the United States Congress, his  brassy ball & chain, and their replicant/revenant brood of liars, sneaks, cheats, bores and boors.  I think I do this to remind myself that for so long as the cliché catechism repeats and recycles ad nauseum, on schedule, it proves I Still Exist.  I wonder what non-New Yorkers make of the broadcast.  I know what the broadcasters make of non-New Yorkers.

I’m about to miss the Zbigniew Brzezinski/Al Sharpton cooking segment.  I think you'll like the song. Excuse me.

Mood 1 (link)

 

Something In Between

To say that things happen in time means in part that they happen in a certain order.  To say that things are located in space implies that they have a certain position vis-à-vis each other.

The following statements all refer to temporal and spatial relations:

(          (1) The abdication occurred between the two world wars.

            (2) The Napoleonic wars were followed by a period of relative calm.

(          (3) Belgium is east of England and north of France. 

            (4) The table stands between the chair and the window.

With respect to time, some of the basic relations are simultaneous, before,  and between.   Whether this list is essentially complete, or perhaps redundant in some respects, are questions that we shall not try to answer at this point.  (The answers may seem obvious to the reader now, but that impression may change as we follow the history of the problem.)  At least, a theory of time must give an account of these relations and thus explicate such common assertions as (1) and (2).

     With respect to space, it is not easy to make even a plausible preliminary list of basic relations.  It is hard to believe that such relations as north of and east of – though they are clearly spatial relations – can be in any way basic to the subject.  For these relations concern entities on the earth primarily; we may say that Polaris is north of any point on earth, because a sighting of Polaris indicates the northerly direction.  But this seems already to some extent an analogical extension of the term “north,” and it would certainly not make obvious sense to ask whether Polaris is north of the sun or the star Alpha Centauri.  Moreover, is Asia Minor east or west of North America?  The relation between of example (4),  however, is not subject to these restrictions and ambiguities.  Thus, a theory of space must at least give an account of the spatial betweenness  relation.

Now, relations give rise to order.

Text:  Bas C. van Fraassen, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Time and Space, New York,  Random House, 1970, pp. 3-4.

Illustrations: (1)  Sara Rubinow, They All Agreed Something Was Missing, 2010; (2) Dolphin pod (unknown photographer); (3) Daniel Maclise, Lawn Before The Duke’s Palace, Orlando About to Engage with Charles the Wrestler (scene from As You Like It), oil on canvas, 1854; (4)  Framed passport photo of F. Scott Fitzgerald inscribed to his Princeton roommate, J. Biggs, "Yours in ironic humor, F. Scott Fitzgerald" and counter-inscribed "Recieved (sic) as given in gentle humor, J. Biggs"; this photograph later served as frontispiece illustration for Fitzgerald's "This Side Of Paradise"; (5) Albrecht Dürer, St. Jerome In His Study, engraving, 1514.

Music Link:  Kevin Ayers -- Something In Between (from Still Life With Guitar)