Batty Nietzsche

Flying foxes in Sydney

I meant to tackle my 'Dali and Film' visit tonight, but I'm exhausted, so no go I'm afraid.

Not too far off the end of 'No Country for Old Men'. For the bus though, I've started reading Nietzsche's 'Twilight of the Idols'. For the laugh. My Nietzsche phase has been and gone many years ago. There's no doubt he sets you thinking and has some good points (Plato is the Great Deceiver!), but all too often it's childish ranting and unrealistic prescription. He is best when he is being critical, though the criticisms he levels at Socrates in 'Twilight' are absurd (though, honestly, good for a laugh). On the plus side, it is easy to see how a whole generation of phenomenolgists might have come out of his dismissal of 'Being' and espousal of appearance. However, it's also somewhat ironic that in lumping mathematics in with metaphysics in order to dismiss them both, he compromises his ready advocacy of empirical science (the result of our heightened reliance on the senses), surely something heavily indebted to maths. (And then Democritus with his silly 'atomic' theory!) His diehard advocats might defend his inconsistencies and contradictions with some claim to artistic license, or by claiming that his truth must encompass all such oppositions. I just think he was finally starting to suffer from his syphilis (his earlier 'The Birth of Tragedy' is just as artistic, but more finely argued). And please don't try to explain Nietzsche's problems by pointing out how he pooh-poohed reason and so naturally wouldn't abide by reasoned argument! Puh-lease!

All the same, it brings me right back to my old days.

Just came across this picture of an iceberg in Antarctica (ultimately from Abroad: Irish Photographer Dave Walsh's weblog
). As much as I wish I had of taken the photo, I really wish I had of seen the iceberg itself. And he's right, it does put one in mind of 'Isle of the Dead' by Bocklin.