On the beach.

[S Johnson]

In my euphoria last week, at actually having got a post in just before 
the GRGR8 came down, I seem some how to have sent the message winging off 
into the aetherless void instead of to WASTE. My apologies. I here resend
and hope it won't distract too much your contemplation of GRGR9.

First an aside to the DECD passage. The description of Mrs Quoad 
and her associated ailments of the skin brought to my mind an American 
painting by a one Ivan Albright titled 'Into the World There Came a Soul 
Called Ida (The Lord in His Heaven and I in My Room Below) from 1929-30. 
Anyone know it? Lit by an eerie glow, an old lady sits at her dressing 
table, examing her ageing lot in a mirror. The picture is made all the 
more disturbing by the realism and detail with which her decaying flesh, 
ravaged by time and a variety of diseases, is portrayed.

A whole strand of thought, I feel, is being neglected from the discussion
so far. Or is everyone else assuming the references to relativity theory and
Einstein are too obvious to mention?

p.126 'seen himself a point on a moving wavefront' is just too
close to being a direct quote of Einstein on how relativity was
conceived that I couldn't let it pass by wihtout mention.
Einstein on the Beach, anyone! It was also brought to mind, much
earlier, during the session with the medium, the Ouspenskian
nonesense, and the mention of last century's scientists and the
aether. Or perhaps this is just my physicists head connecting
whats not there. But there must be lots, causality and all that....


stuart johnson
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stj at holyrood.ed.ac.uk       http://www.ed.ac.uk/~stj/homepage.html