50 Brilliant Minds of the Last 100 Years?

I came across a new book of “50 Brilliant Minds of the Last 100 Years”; any one can come up with one’s own list. Besides, how one defines “brilliant” mind?

I agree with many of the choices, the likes of Max Planck, Einstein, Thomas Edison, Enrico Fermi, Stephen Hawking, Niels Bohr, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.  But, I would remove as many.

I have a neutral position on many, too. Noam Chomsky is on the list, I am sure, for his achievement on linguistics.  Only Edwin can appreciate him.  Understanding is the thing, one can only love and appreciate one understands.  Understanding intensifies and enhances the enjoyment.  I don't know enough linguistics to say whether Chomsky deserves on the list or not.

Chomsky is also one of the most famous and most radical American dissenters.  But that was not why he is on the list.

I have been talking about Lady Ottoline Morrell since I “bumped into” her house at Gower Street in London. Three of her frequent visitors are also on the list: D.H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes.  Pictures were taken by Lady Ottoline.

To say her house was the most intellectual salon is not an over statement.

Ottoline's house we bumped into

D.H. Lawrence

No country for old men: W.B. Yeats, Murray Gell-Mann, Cormac McCarthy and Ottoline

In the spirit of reading book whose author is still living I read Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men this week.  He was recommended to me by Janice last year.  I regret I cannot sing my high praise.  Knowing who McCarthy is; I wonder the problem probably lies in me.  Either I have to re-read or better yet try his “All the Pretty Horses”.

I have to say he writes well; the style reminiscent to Hemingway’s, using subject and verb only, let out adjective.  The plots are good in the first three-quarters, but the end disappoints me.  He leaves the psychopath Chigurh still at large and Sheriff Bell retires, sort of a symbol of “defeat”.

The plots and endings in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms are much more intrigue and powerful.

The book title of “No Country for Old Men” comes from W.B. Yeats’s famous poem, Sailing to Byzantium (by the way, Yeats—another Nobel laureate in Literature also frequented Ottoline Morrell’s house).  Nothing in plot, theme or ending fits the line of “No country for old men”—the opening line for the poem.  Philip Roth’s “The Dying Animal” also comes from the line of this poem, as does a book called “The young in one another’s arms”.

Cormac McCarthy and particle physicist Murray Gell-Mann are longtime friends, so he must be a man of something.  Gell-Mann was awarded Germany’s most prestigious Helmholtz Medal in September 2014.  Following the presentation at Santa Fe Institute, the toast was led by Cormack McCarthy.  Reading my post about Gell-Mann will be worth your while.

“Quark and Murray Gell-Mann, a Renaissance man in science”

http://doctorjytsai.blogspot.com/2012/01/quark-and-murray-gell-mann-renaissance.html

Murray Gell-Mann on 9/26/2014

 

Parliament, Banqueting House, Richard the Lionheart, Virginia Woolf and Ottoline

While waiting on the long line to enter the Palace of Westminster (House of Parliament) on September 21, I kept watching the statue of Richard I, Richard the Lionheart, in the old Palace Yard.  I wonder why, among so many kings over the ages, he was picked for this honor?

The statue (installed there in 1860) shows Richard I lifting his sword on horseback, an image consistent with this warrior king who is known as the Lionheart.  I didn’t watch the movie “Richard the Lionheart”, but then again I do not learn history by watching movie.

What is the irony to me is that Richard I only spent less than 6 months in his 10-year reign (1189-1199) residing in England; he was basically busy with the Crusade (the third one) and he probably didn’t even speak English.  He used England as the source of his taxing revenue to sponsor his crusade.  He reportedly said, “I would sell London if I could find a buyer.”

Yesterday news report the renovation of the Palace of Westminster may cost more than £3 billion.  The England kings had conducted the business of governing at this site since 11^th century, although the medieval parliament was destroyed by fire in 1834, only the Great Hall survived (we visited on September 21).  The current building that we saw was built 1840-1870.

Upon hearing the abdication of Edward VIII, Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary on December 10, 1936,

“. . . I will go to Westminster.  A bus took me to the top of Whitehall. . . Whitehall was full of shuffling & trampling.  People going both ways. . . A very beautiful yellow brown light: dry pavements: still lamps lit.   Lines of light at Parliament Squr. & the houses of Parliament in silhouette.  The lamp burning in the watch tower. Opposite the House Guards there was Ottoline, black, white, red lipped coming toward me. . .That’s the window out of which Charles the First stepped when he had his head cut off said Ottoline, pointing to the great lit up windows in their frame of white stone.  So my mother always told me.  I felt I was walking in the 17^th century with one of the courtiers [Ottoline]; & she was lamenting not the abdication of Edward but the execution of Charles.  It’s dreadful, dreadful, she kept saying. . .”

If you read this post; my sentiment is the same as that of Ottoline.
http://doctorjytsai.blogspot.com/2014/11/lady-ottoline-morrell-literary-hostess.html

We spent our first day (September 21) in the area where Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary.  She went to “Westminster” (the Parliament, where the action was), not the Abbey (to pray).  Whitehall used to be the Palace, which was destroyed in the Great London Fire, only the Banqueting House survived, in front of which Charles I was executed.

On the margin Virginia Woolf wrote, “Under which king, Bezonian? speak, or die”, which is from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2.  With the kingship changing hand, she was thinking about the lines in the Bard’s play.

 

 

Seeing Eiffel Tower every where in Paris

We saw Eiffel Tower practically every day during our 3-day visit to Paris.  It seems you will see it wherever you are in Paris; from street or roof top; far and near; day and night.  Turn around, there it is; no escape.  But, it was September 25 that we actually walked underneath it. 

The Tower puts on the sparkling evening gown when the sun goes to sleep.  It shines and sparkles seductively for 5 minutes every hour on the hour, just like a beautiful lady winking at me.  We watched it afar from Arc de Triomphe at 11PM before we called it a day in Paris.