Somebody posted this the other day in a quarrel:



And I wanted to say "Hey, no fair-- we've all done THAT..." but then
I remembered that Ogden Nash says it better. So:
===========================


What is life? Life is stepping down a step or sitting in a chair,


And it isn't there.


Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor,


It is pulling doors marked Push and pushing doors marked
Pull and not noticing notices which say Please Use Other Door.


Life is an Easter Parade


In which you whisper, "No darling if it's a boy we'll name
him after your father!" into the ear of an astonished
stranger because the lady you thought was walking
beside you has stopped to gaze into a window full of
radishes and hot malted lemonade.


It is when you diagnose a sore throat as an unprepared
geography lesson and send your child weeping to
school only to be returned an hour later covered with
spots that are indubitably genuine,


It is a concert with a trombone soloist filling in for
Yehudi Menuhin.


Were it not for frustration and humiliation
I suppose the human race would get ideas above its station.


Somebody once described Shelley as a beautiful and
ineffective angel beating his luminous wings against the void in vain,


Which is certainly describing with might and main,


But probably means that we are all brothers under our pelts,


And Shelley went around pulling doors marked Push and
Pushing doors marked Pull just like everybody else.


-Ogden Nash

Don't worry, that's from The Far Side, and not located anywhere in Utah.

I always thought that was one of Wittgenstein's less good jokes - certainly compared to gems such as Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Well, there IS a service station located in Salt Lake City which has a main door to the office that opens inwards. I once spent some time pulling on it, before seeing the sign. I patiently explained to the owner that doors of business establishments open to the general public must open outwards, according to the fire code, and he patiently explained to me (having done this hundreds of times) that the fire code only applies to buildings built after the code, and the door (and the gas station) dated from the 1930's. Pre-Cocoanut Grove fire, I'm thinking. They keep it for the historical flavor, and also for the pleasure of seeing eggheads pulling on it.

To Grep: nice one on the Wittgenstein.

Is that the philosopher who was at school with Hitler or his brother the pianist who lost an arm in World War I and had to get Ravel to write a concerto for one-armed pianists?

Neither: the youngest brother Gummo Wittgenstein who emigrated to the US and became a cartoonist.

Yep. I just read the WP article on him, and it's really quite good. (I didn't know the Hitler part, but the article notes Hitler was 2 grades behind him-- nobody knows if they ever met, and it would be amusing-- perhaps tragic-- if Wittgenstein bullied him )

It is a Scriabin (not Ravel) nocturn that was written for his brother Paul Wittgenstein.

In fact, everything is on the net, if not Wikipedia (The Scriabin isn't mentioned in the WP piece on the philosopher, in the natural place where it should be, as the brother's loss of his arm IS mentioned, as was the family's love of music. No doubt WP has articles no both the brother and the peice-- I don't even need to look).

"Born less than a week apart, Adolf Hitler and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein attended the institution together. There is a haunting school photograph of the young, complex, Jewish philosopher just one row away from the most politically-controversial figure of the 20th century."

Evening Standard, May 24th 2004, page 15


http://www.classicalarchives.com/work/6807...tracks&tv=about

Yeah you got me on the Ravel. And indeed Hitler and Wittgenstein were the same age, but perhaps W was two years ahead due to grade-jumping. W. was Jewish by herritage, but of course Roman Catholic by training and belief.