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The Romans Tried Aquaducts
"Trish Brown" wrote in message
... Mind you I have great respect for the Mind of the Kid and believe they can suck up anything you throw at them (within reason, of course). But as you say, everyone seems to want schools to be all things and it's just not possible! yes, i'm sure they're all right for now, but we have to draw the line somewhere!! (and we need to stop it with the stupid criticism, too). it used to particularly outrage me when ignoramuses such as the ex-p.m. were having a go. boring and tiny-minded ideologues should stay out of public debates until they show they have a passing acquaintence with what they're talking about!!! I'm not sure that they do. But equally, we can't know our history through literature particularly well anyway - it was all written by white men. :-) Much as I might love for it to be otherwise, my history was white anglo-celtic. My ancestors came to N'cle in 1835 and lived within the confines of the towns. (snip) There are a few tragic, tragic stories about atrocities that happened a bit farther away from here (Lake Macquarie area), but precious little about the tribes or how and where they lived. but i didn't ONLY mean aboriginal history, but non-white-male histories in general - women, children, other immigrants, etc etc. people are now very interested in non-white-male histories, but there aren't many to be had because nobody thought these people were important or interesting. so as a historical device, white mens' stories are of interest, but they also highlight other stuff we can't know. all that man-from-snowy-river stuff is considered "important" here in australia, but it leaves the lives of 99% of people unrecorded entirely, iyswim! that's all. so therefore, i don't think it's worth getting too sentimental about, really. It's "Wuthering Heights". Now shaddup & stop laughing g Not me! I love it too! all right then - friends for life! ;-) Just listened to the Talking Book of it a few weeks ago (bloody rotten eyesight!) Have you ever looked at 'Hornblower' or 'Master and Commander' or any of the Wilbur Smiths? ah, no :-) Nah! Most people (like me) who whinge are getting old enough to loathe change for its own sake. At a certain point in life (probably around middle-age), you start looking back as well as forward. Suddenly, history becomes more important to you as you begin to put your own life into context. Next, you try to assist younger folk to see the history with the same scale-free eyes that you do (my poor, *poor* kids!) And do be fair! People who have lived a long time *do* know more in many areas than those who haven't. Wisdom! It's a wonderful thing! If you can acquire that along the way, then you're rich indeed! i'm not having a go at old people!!!! i'm not sure why you thought that. i do think you're right in that many have a tendency to whinge pointlessly just because things are different with time (but it's always been that way). er, if that's what you were saying, that is ;-) i rather hope that when i'm old i'll be able to see the good as clearly. there WERE no "good old days", there just never have been! every time has it's good & bad, life's just like that. _that_ is what wisdom is - the ability to see clearly & use & share knowledge (without feeling the urge to moan on about everyone else who is younger than oneself ;-) apparently, it's a necessary phase of life to be looking back in one's dotage (in the same way the very young only look forward) but really, some people take that much too far & it just becomes whingeing. i find camera phones unspeakably loathesome in every way, but badgering everyone i know with that opinion would not get me very far, would it? :-) i was born in 1970, which means ALL MY LIFE i've had to sit by rolling my eyes while people blah on about how fabulous the 1960s were & how anyone younger than that has missed everything worthwhile and rah rah rah. god, it's so boring!!!!!! but mostly, it's demonstrably untrue - you can't make that claim of any era & it's foolish to even get started. if a person wants to be a bore, they should at least aim to be a bore with a balanced viewpoint ;-) I rather do like classical ballet although not to the point of going to see it. I approve of its existence :-) ROTFL! I don't go because I couldn't afford to in a pink fit! well, exactly! I've loved the ballet all my life and have never ever seen one performed live. i've only ever seen one, as a kid (a local production, so it probably wasn't even all that good, although i thought it was wonderful!). still, it was a very special experience! i feel a bit mortified that we can't take the kids to more erm "high culture" stuff, but it's beyond the price range of almost everyone, isn't it? Please don't slag Rammstein! I'm a groupie! ;- and i think it's nice that there is something out there for everyone! I think poetry appreciation is a learned art. An elderly schoolmistress who was a friend of our family had me reciting Tennyson when I was only four. She pointed out things like alliteration, onomatopeia and imagery to me (in a very basic way, of course). And she read poetry to me in a voice that made it all clear. This set me up for life! I've been a poetry junkie for fifty years now and for me, poetry, art, dance and music have very fuzzy lines between them. They capture our culture (such as it is) and each of us can interpret the message in his own way. That's the point of this whole discussion, though. You don't just read a poem or look at a painting or hear a symphony in isolation. You need to know the history it's depicting. I mean, how can you compare, say, Bach and Rachmaninoff? Different! Ages apart! But both magnificent! Same with Banjo Paterson and P!nk (another modern poet I'm rather fond of). as they say - comparisons are odious. (not to mention the fact that many things are incomparable.) do you read the smh? if not, the other week, grown-up adults were getting all bothered in trying to compare "high" culture with "pop" culture & everyone convinced they alone are right (really, beatles fans have a great deal to answer for when it comes to de-braining cultural debates!! ... and yes, i think the beatles are dreadfully overrated, too g.) anyway, simon tedeschi who is a lovely young man who is very "high culture" without feeling that that makes him superior in any way, made the best contribution on that score (which in effect was, "these things are too different to try to compare, so talk yourselves down!") Um, I'd just say that Tolkein just isn't that good & be done with it. :-) I wouldn't consider it a modern classic whatsoever. LOTR does have mass nerd-appeal, though. Some things just do - it defies explanation & is hard to pick. ROTFLMAO!!! I used to say that. However, better minds than mine seem to think it's the equivalent of the Highly Boble - if so many others get so much out of it, then who am I to say it's $#!+? ;- well you can if you like, it's a free society g i don't think mass appeal means something is "good", though. the sales figures that the top-selling mills & boon (etc) titles get is enough to make literary novelists howl at the moon, but again there wouldn't be any "comparison". i did like "the hobbit" though. perhaps lotr is just a plot idea stretched too far? i think the author, and those readers, like the aspects of a fully-formed imaginary world with maps & languages etc etc a bit more than they like the literary aspects? (just guessing). The others? Shakespeare - excellent. Dickens - infantile. Dostoyevsky - actually pretty readable if that's your thing. We could go on. I'm sure we agree that there's something for everyone out there! :-) Of course! Mind you, I watched 'Bleak House' on the ABC and then, fired with enthusiasm, read the book. It was great! Maybe I'm nearly old enough to read Dickens...? :-D maybe - but wasn't he a best-seller in his own time? there's no reason that one should now have to be older to like it, necessarily. Well, you too!! We are very on-topic here, as a rule!! Well... it started out with Oz poetry and it does say 'aus' in the ng title. I've put OT in the header, though. :-D nature is a poem, the magnificence of which words couldn't begin to replicate!!!!!!! :-D on that pompous note.... (no, i really do believe that, but it's not a big deal, & i doubt anyone else cares :-) kylie |
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