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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is indeed making me think. Or, at least, remember. I'm at the part where the recollection of Phaedrus is asking his students in an English class, "What is Quality?".

What I'm remembering are two things from my own English classes. I was good at English, and got a relatively rare A1 in the Leaving Certificate in it. Why in the hells I went into science, I'll never know. Ideas planted in childhood and never really considered, I suppose.

The first one was the first time I ever cracked a poem, the first time I ever realised "This is what this poem is about!", without the aid of the teacher. I did realise that that was the point of the class, for us to gain that ability. But I could not explain that to anyone else in the class. The teacher sort of shrugged, and said, "of course", without noticing that I had realised something the rest of the class apparently didn't.

The second thing is that we were taught this particular essay-question form, "compare and contrast". This is obviously not the point of the question; it's just a method of getting in and examining two poems, using one as a sort of mirror to see the other better. But I know - because I held the belief myself, and because many of the others in the class held it until the end of the curriculum and possibly beyond - that there was some inherent worth in the comparition of and contrast between two poems.

This leads me to conclude that there was something very odd about the class, or possibly about the curriculum. It was never made clear to us that we were being taught these things so that we could understand them. We were being taught them as though comparing two poems were a valuable skill, like tying your laces, or making bread. It's not, it's just a widget, a way to get into the meaning of a poem. The contrast doesn't bloody matter.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if the teachers knew that. I think the English teacher did; he was a good bloke, if jaded by years of trying to teach uncomprehending uninterested teenagers. But I wonder about the Irish teacher who made us rote-learn huge chunks of text, the history teacher who never compared any event in the past with any event in the present - even though we were dealing with both in the class, and the whole missing of the point that there seemed to be. I'm not 100% certain that we were never told "you're here to learn to understand", but if we were, it didn't sink in, or we were told it once on the first day, when we were still staring at the masses of people.

I can't help but wonder if I would have done better if I'd known that.

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inannajones and I are going to hear the 6 Brandenburg Concertos in the National Concert Hall this evening. I'm dressed respeckable for this, causing two of my colleagues to wolf-whistle before wondering sheepishly if I might be going to a funeral. I've been looking up some details on the Concertos, and things like this make me realise that there's a hell of a lot about baroque music that I either never learned, or have forgotten since. I'm looking forward to this; Bach is one of my favourite composers, in one of my favourite kinds of music. And I know Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 fairly well, as that's the one that features the trumpet as the almost-solo, but the others will be fairly new to me. I like going in knowing I'm going to like the music, even if I'm not familiar with it.

(no subject)

Dublin Bus are fuckers. They're on strike for part of today, because the Government, in a rare move of good sense, is intending to break up CIE, the monolithic entity that keeps public transport in this country in its current stunted state. However, they gave times for the strike - and then apparently started early, at least on our bus routes, forcing inannajones to walk into town in boots that aren't suitable for walking, but would have been perfectly suitable for taking a bus in.

I'd go into my usual rant about unions being fundamentally untrustworthy here, but I know that in this case, it's not unions as such, it's the imbeciles, troglodytes and morons who staff Dublin Bus and can't read a watch. Fuckers.

(no subject)

A BBC Design Document: The Glass Wall. It's apparently about the way the BBC website adjusts to a given user. It looks like it may not really be supposed to be on the loose in the wild, so download it while you can if it catches your interest. I'll probably post more about it if I'm impressed with it.

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Happy birthday to morenasangre and kiwitayro!

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Here's an interesting blog entry. Quoting one part: "The invention of the phonetic alphabet changed us from a primarily oral culture to a primarily literate culture (starting in ancient Greek times, and accelerated by Gutenberg). The effect of this transition was, among other things, to create private, silent reading (via books), hence private ideas and therefore personal identity and individuality." (The blogger in question doesn't state this, btw, it's a po statement from a class.)

That seems to imply that personal identity and individuality didn't exist before that. While one part of my mind is calling that nonsense, I'm wary of applying modern ideas to history - we have enough trouble these days thinking in a feudal model, let alone older forms. What do people - particularly the history buffs out there - think of the idea?

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branwynelf noted that there's a release date for the next Harry Potter book. Read about it here. And if you don't like it, you can use it as a doorstop, or possibly a door, given that it's a third again as big as the last one.

It's coming out on the 21st of June - the Summer Solstice. I'm wondering if that's intentional, or accidental...

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News junkies (quidnuncs, I believe?) should very much appreciate Google News. It's changed its look since I last saw it, and I like it. All the news in one place; now all I need is a tailored XML feed from Google News to LJ, and I'll never have to load another page again.

Brandenburg Concertos, Christ Church Baroque

I'm actually going to attempt a review, more or less, of tonight's concert. This is unusual, so pay attention.

( Cut for the Philistines )

It was an excellent evening, and I was really pleased with it. I'm going to follow Christ Church Baroque around in true otaku mode for a bit, I think.