Sunday, July 22, 2012

All the Same Song?

The World always changes, doesn't it?
    The world of Nelson Algren's book called "City On the Make," which book I admire just sitting on the shelf, because I have not done a close reading, is one. It is the world of Chicago in the late fifties. The world of three or four hundred years ago is/was another and for that matter what I saw just yesterday is another. That is the world of the area around Damen and North. That is an area of Chicago, which is an ultra-hip, super-cool type area. All these world are so different, noted I. But we all have the same bodies, so if a primitive man of 50,000 years back took his leaves off he would see basically the same difference-sameness that I see when I look at my nakedness.
    Rene Dubos' book -- I wrote about it already -- see below -- makes a point. Our journey as a common, "human" one is a journey wherein we are the species where, unlike other animals, one is not confined to one spot. "Homos"  can change their home zones, can go all over, not be associated with any one "homeland," which is a word that originates with the brilliant George W. Bush of Connecticut, and Texas. So everything always changes. Or else it always stays the same. OK I know I said upon opening this flytrap that it always changes.
    But maybe we should change that, too, as it also always stays the same. Like the body of that man of 50,000 years back. Of course we are going to be "down" (trendy) with the latest news (styles) from our changing species and yet, this does not change the  fact that the matter of same and different always has the two sides of, Well --- same and different (only one of which is particularly trendy).
     There isn't really anything new under the sun.You have the same basic equipment physically that your ancestors did, 40,000 years ago, and hardly much different from say, Australopithecus 1 million years ago. Yet, the World always changes, don't it?




(bibliographic): http://jacksgreatblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/book-review-dubos.html

updated July 25th

1 comment:

  1. http://www.bartleby.com/165/139.html

    THERE are no handles upon a language
    Whereby men take hold of it
    And mark it with signs for its remembrance.
    It is a river, this language,
    Once in a thousand years 5
    Breaking a new course
    Changing its way to the ocean.
    It is mountain effluvia
    Moving to valleys
    And from nation to nation 10
    Crossing borders and mixing.
    Languages die like rivers.
    Words wrapped round your tongue today
    And broken to shape of thought
    Between your teeth and lips speaking 15
    Now and today
    Shall be faded hieroglyphics
    Ten thousand years from now.
    Sing—and singing—remember
    Your song dies and changes 20
    And is not here to-morrow
    Any more than the wind
    Blowing ten thousand years ago.

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