Wednesday, July 08, 2009

123, ABC, I'm On LSD

I watch a lot of Sesame Street this days with Bratzo.
The welcome escape from the world of morning
political baby talk (see Joe Scarborough) has had
the added benefit of shining a lapsed light on the
profound mysteries of numbers and the alphabet.

Letters have a kind of genius for showing the sounds
of speech and its seems to me the alphabet is the
supreme human creation. The ability to represent
even the smallest nuggets of sound allows for written
words. And words are magical. They're the alchemical
sleight of hand creating gold from nothing. Like God
did in the beginning.



Numbers are also quite mystical if you have time
to consider them. Bertrand Russell famously said
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth,
but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere,
like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part
of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of
painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a
stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.



So the next time you're bored cuz their aren't
any cool bands playing or no one's invited you
a hip party remember that it was Pythagoras,
the "Father of Numbers," who said "the power
of the number 10 lies in the number 4."
Put
that in your pipe and smoke it. Or come fucking
babysit.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

don't do lsd with your kid, overated

Anonymous said...

turn off the tv

webay said...

thanks for your sharing.

pineapple said...

i'll never feel the same way about the alphabet again.

 

the running mule

the running mule