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July 18, 2005
Wabi-Sabi
My mother has a book called Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers. What got me reading it was the back cover claiming the author, Leonard Koren, got his start with a magazine about gourmet bathing. Koren's also apparently written a short treatise on How to Rake Leaves.
My encounter with Koren's book was like Dylan's Mr. Jones showing up at a party. It's tough to leave that experience without thinking of Russell and Whitehead, who on p. 362 of Principia Mathematica finally arrived at the staggering conclusion that, "From this proposition it will follow, when arithmetical addition has been defined, that 1+1=2."
We certainly have enough earnestness to attain enlightenment. Is enlightenment close to seeing all the levels of irony superimposed?
Posted by Mark at July 18, 2005 03:42 PM