The Saunterer

Karl Popper on skepticism

    Skepticism leads to sound knowledge. The information age offers little of either:

    We know nothing-–that is the first point. Therefore we should be very modest-–that is the second. That we should not claim to know when we do not know-–that is the third. This is more or less the approach I should like to popularize. It does not have good prospects.

    (Quoted from page 12 of Popper’s Vienna 1870–1930, by Dario Antiseri. The Davies Group, 2006.)
    For a brief biography of Karl Popper, click here. For images of or relating to Karl Popper, click here.
    For a brief biography of Dario Antiseri, click here. For images of or relating to Dario Antiseri, click here.

Susan Cheever on how to live longer

    In a word, don’t live like many did for the first three-quarters of the twentieth century. She takes E. E. Cummings as an example:

    Behavior that was considered normal in the 1920s, `30s, and `40s when Cummings was alive is now thought to be addictive, self-destructive, racist, or perverted. Behavior that is now considered normal-–in sexual orientation, in marital status-–was then considered addictive, self-destructive, and perverted. For instance, for most of Cummings’s life almost everyone gleefully chain-smoked. No one thought twice about the damage smoking might be doing to lungs and heart. On top of that, most of the writers he knew and most of his friends drank huge amounts of liquor without thinking twice about it. The middle of the twentieth century was the age of literary drunkenness-–a drunkenness so prevalent that even now, when most writers do not drink to excess, many people still link creativity and alcohol. Cummings and his friends and colleagues were almost always drunk or hungover or in that uncomfortable place in between.
    Beginning in the 1940s the discovery of prescription drugs and many doctors’ willingness to prescribe them added another layer of physical change to an already toxic cocktail. Cummings took Miltown, Librium, and Nembutal, and this was never considered a medical problem. He was not alone. The concept of side effects doesn’t seem to have entered the public mind until the end of the twentieth century.
    Furthermore, in those days very few people did any kind of routine exercise. . . . The now proven benefits of exercise-–for the body, for the brain, for mental health-–were unknown.

    E. E. Cummings, lifelong smoker, drinker, sedentary person–-killed instantly by a stroke at 67.

    (Quoted from pages 128-29 of E. E. Cummings, by Susan Cheever. Pantheon Book, 2014.)
    For a brief biography of Susan Cheever, click here. For images of or relating to Susan Cheever, click here.
    For a brief biography of E. E. Cummings , click here. For images of or relating to E. E. Cummings, click here.

Ingrid Newkirk on her credo

    Founder and leader of PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – Ingrid Newkirk tells how her credo came to be:

    When I was sixteen, I met a disciple of the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, who rejected the material world in favor of service to others. I was moved by his profound connection to nature and his encouragement to share what you have with others, in particular the poor. Tagore became my hero. His words still rest upon my desk today:

I slept and dreamt that life was joy
I awoke and saw that life was service
I acted and behold, service was joy.

    (Quoted from page xiv of One Can Make a Difference, by Ingrid Newkirk. Adams Media, 2008.)
    For a brief biography of Ingrid Newkirk, click here. For images of or relating to Ingrid Newkirk, click here.
    For a brief biography of Rabindranath Tagore, click here. For images of or relating to Rabindranath Tagore, click here.

Konrad Lorenz on how the Pope has ruined lives

    Konrad Lorenz gave this deserved admonishment (which holds for all religious leaders):

    I don’t believe that the Pope is infallible. By his indirect demand that the poorest of the poor should bring an unlimited number of children into the world, the Pope has ruined the lives of many of my personal friends who were sympathetic toward Christianity.

    (Quoted from page 312 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of Konrad Lorenz, click here. For images of or relating to Konrad Lorenz, click here.

Sir Francis Palgrave’s advice on ornamentation

    Ornamenting is a thing too easily done, killing artistic taste. In 1840 Sir Francis Palgrave wrote:

    The means of multiplying elegant forms by punches, squeezes, moulds, types, dies, casts and like contrivances, enables us to produce objects with a sufficient degree of beauty to satisfy the general fancy for art or ornament, but so as to kill all life and freedom. A permanent glut of pseudo-art is created; the multitudes are overfed with a superabundance of trashy food, and their appetite will never desire any better nutriment.

    (Quoted from page 416 of The Collected Historical Works of Sir Francis Palgrave. Volume X. Cambridge University Press, 2014.)
    For a brief biography of Sir Francis Palgrave, click here. For images of or relating to Sir Francis Palgrave, click here.

David Bowie on Hitler as a great rock star

    In a recent library Sauntering we discovered Jonathan Gottschall’s book The Storytelling Animal, and on page 154 photographs of Hitler captioned:

    Adolf Hitler practicing theatrical poses for use in speaking performances. Hitler once called himself “the greatest actor in Europe.” Frederic Spotts agrees, arguing that Hitler’s mastery of public theater helped him mesmerize and mobilize the German people. After watching the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will (1935) fifteen times, the singer David Bowie said, “Hitler was one of the first great rock stars. He was no politician. He was a great media artist. How he worked his audience! He made women all hot and sweaty and guys wished they were the ones who were up there. The world will never see anything like that again. He made an entire country a stage show.”

    For images of Hitler’s theatrics, click here.
    For a brief biography of David Bowie , click here. For images of or relating to David Bowie, click here.
    For a brief biography of Jonathan Gottschall, click here. For images of or relating to Jonathan Gottschall, click here.

Charles Mackay on why so many get it so wrong

    If you’ve wondered what was behind the housing bubble, the stock market crash, or the 19th century’s spiritualism craze, Charles Mackay had the answer:

    Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

    (Quoted from page 3 of Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, Volume 1, by Charles Mackay. London; Richard Bentley, 1841.)
    For a brief biography of Charles Mackay, click here. For images of or relating to Charles Mackay, click here.

E. E. Cummings on spring and childhood

    Some poems are time machines. Let E. E. Cummings transport you back to days of spring and age five.

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

    (Quoted from page 26 of Tulips & Chimneys by E. E. Cummings. Liveright Publishing, 1996.)

    For a brief biography of E. E. Cummings, click here. For images of or relating to E. E. Cummings, click here.

W. H. Auden on collaboration in the arts

    Here is W. H. Auden’s idea of collaboration (from which, we think, is a short step to thinking that a strong marriage is a collaboration):

    The first time I collaborated with Isherwood must have been in `33 or `34-–The Dog Beneath the Skin. I’ve always enjoyed collaborating very much. It’s exciting. Of course, you can’t collaborate on a particular poem. You can collaborate on a translation, or a libretto, or a drama, and I like working that way, though you can only do it with people whose basic ideas you share--each can then sort of excite the other. When a collaboration works, the two people concerned become a third person, who is different from either of them in isolation.

    (Quoted from "W. H. Auden, The Art of Poetry No. 17," Paris Review, Spring 1974.)
    For bibliographic information on W. H. Auden, click here. For images of or relating to W. H. Auden, click here.

John Wayne and Cary Grant on how glamour deceives

    The movies make flawed actors appear as ideal people. Even actors in real life cannot match their screen selves. Writes Peter Bogdanovich:

    John Wayne may have been a major star and audience favorite from 1939 till his death, but in fact his popularity continued long after: 20 to 30 years later he remained among the top five American film stars of all time. On one occasion, he said, “I’ve played the kind of man I’d like to have been.” Which is very close to a remark made by another superstar from the Golden Age of Hollywood; Cary Grant said more than once: “Everybody wants to be Cary Grant. Even I’d like to be Cary Grant.”

    (Peter Bogdanovich quoted from page 13 of the March 30, 2014, issue of The New York Times Book Review.)
    For a brief biography of Peter Bogdanovich, click here. For images of or relating to Peter Bogdanovich, click here.
    For a brief biography of John Wayne, click here. For images of or relating to John Wayne, click here.
    For a brief biography of Cary Grant, click here. For images of or relating to Cary Grant, click here.