Post by Patricia ButlerPost by TinaPost by manitouPost by b***@yahoo.comPost by Patricia ButlerJust heard that Alan Ball will be talking about the end of SFU on Fresh
Air with Terry Gross today. In the Chicago area, it's on at 11:00 a.m.
on 91.5 FM. If you're not an NPR listener, you can find your local
station and Fresh Air air times at NPR.org.
www.whyy.org/freshair
Amusing to hear him say he finds net comments "confusing" !!!
I thought he said he said he found the *website* that posted the spoilers
confusing.
Tina
No, he was talking about all such forums. He said he doesn't look at
them much because he finds them confusing.
Reminds me of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story, A Study In Scarlet, where
Dr. Watson is musing on meeting Sherlock Holmes. Holmes didn't know (or
care) that the Earth revolved around the Sun. He couldn't name the planets.
"His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary
literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing.
Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he enquired in the naivest way who he
might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when
I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of
the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in
this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round
the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could
hardly realize it.
"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of
surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."
"To forget it!"
"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is
like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as
you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes
across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded
out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a
difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very
careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have
nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these
he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a
mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend
to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition
of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the
highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the
useful ones."
"But the Solar System!" I protested.
"What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say
that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a
pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."