From: Colin Bartlett <colinb2r@...>
Date: 2010-07-10T00:31:44+09:00
Subject: Re: Happy Intransition Day!

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On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 3:10 PM, Eleanor McHugh <
eleanor@games-with-brains.com> wrote:

> On 9 Jul 2010, at 13:00, J=F6rg W Mittag wrote:
> > Interesting. I never thought about it as a "dick behavior". But then,
> > I never thought about _why as an online *persona*, I thought about
> > _why as a piece of online *performance art*. And it is in the very
> > nature of performance art that (unlike all other art) it only lasts as
> > long as the performance. And the very abrupt end of said performance
> > was actually itself an integral part of the performance; after all, we
> > know how much _why loved the meta and what could be more meta than
> > making the end of the performance a piece of performance art in
> > itself?
>
> I also share that view. _Why's body of work has that special blend of
> genius and hubris which marks all great art and all great hacks,

In "A Mathematician's Apology" G H Hardy says something to the effect that
one should think more of one's own work than is strictly justified, and the=
n
says that the really difficult bit is not over-exaggerating the quality of
one's own work too much.
Karl Kraus (in english translation): Artists have a right to be modest and =
a
duty to be vain.
http://www.memorablequotations.com/kraus.htm
http://www.poemhunter.com/quotations/famous.asp?people=3DKarl%20Kraus&p=3D1


> but it's so much less as a fossilised artefact than the performance which
> gave rise to it. I understand the motivation for an annual celebration as
> clearly that performance was something in which many of us played walk-on
> roles and remembering those times brings back fond memories. I'd never ha=
ve
> started speaking at conferences if Camping hadn't coincided with my own
> half-baked experiments in web framework design, so when I think of _why I
> think of all the conferences I've attended since and all the fiendishly
> clever people I've had the pleasure of meeting. Performance art has
> resonance long beyond its moment.
>
> But it's also transient - and thankfully so! The raging fire clown inciti=
ng
> the masses to throw rules and convention to the wind in pursuit of beauty
> soon become the respectable old master, a dead weight preventing the very
> experimentation he so dearly cherished in his youth. I'm glad that's not =
the
> fate _why's suffered.
>
Becoming a "respectable old master" and avoiding experimentation isn't
inevitable - in fact, I can think of quite a few who didn't, for example:
Erdos, Shakespeare, Vaughan Williams, Faure, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov (I'm
being intentionally provocative, as he's thought of as being conservative
musically, but the late Symphonic Dances are Rachmaninov doing something
new), Verdi, Minna Keal, Feynman, maybe Niels Bohr? (I seem to recall you
have a physics background, so you're probably better placed than me to
decide on Bohr: one reason I have a maths degree is that I found physics to=
o
difficult!)
http://www.musicweb-international.com/keal/index.htm

>
> And in leaving so abruptly he reminded the community of life's deepest an=
d
> most significant truth: mortality. Nothing can last forever nor should we
> expect it to.
>
> As to Ryan's suggestion, that young man clearly needs a nice cup of tea a=
nd
> a sit-down. It does wonders for balancing the humours - especially when
> accompanied by a half-dozen Jammie Dodgers[tm]
>
I think the Ruby community needs an Aunt Eleanor, and I think you may have
just volunteered!
(Schoenberg, on being asked by an Austrian army sergeant if he was *the*
"notorious Schoenberg": yes, someone had to be, and nobody else
volunteered.)

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