Re: ::scr doesn't have the morlocks

[Simon Wistow <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Mar 28, 2002 at 03:35:31AM -0800, matt jones said:
> I remember sitting on top of castle hill with the SWCG[0] on a bright and
> sunny afternoon, discussing this subject. My views have changed a bit
> since then. Simon was asserting that in life, you have Morlocks and
> Eloi[1], and that people are predisposed towards being one or the
> other. At the time, I agreed with him. I thought of all the people I know
> who blanche at the idea of using a computer, who actually feel terror at
> the prospect. But now I'm not so sure that it's that simple. In short, I
> think that while nurture may be crucial in this regard, nature has very
> little to do with it.
> 
> I'd be interesting in hearing Simon reiterate why he has his Morlock/Eloi
> throry again - I forget most of his reasoning now.


For those of you who haven't read The Time Machine - the Eloi were
beautiful creatures who lived above ground and basically had a grand old
time whilst the Morlocks were ugly and lived below ground in mines and
worked hard. The Traveller (the protagonist of the book) eventually
discovers however that the Eloi are not the superior race but are
actually kept as food by the Morlocks.

We are supposed to draw something from this.

However, on that heady day perched on the top of the hill drinking
Stella and watching the sun go down over the Yorkshire Dales what I was
rambling incohrently about was aesthetics. Aesthetes. Whatever.

Essentially what I said was that some people were Morlocks and some were
Elois. I just used those words because they sounded right and because
they sort of convery what I was getting at but what I really meant was
that there are some people who are creative - who seem to have a knack
of making things look 'nice', for want of a better word. And there are
some of us who don't. 

I was feeling maudlin (magdalene?) that day.

Some people just seem to have a knack of creating something beautiful -
whether that's how they arrange their house or draw or take a photograph
or whatever there's some inbuilt thing that infuses the creation with a
certain je ne sais quoi.

A while ago I was thinking about this again. 

It was photographs that did it. I was looking at this 

http://london.pm.org/nx_meetings/2000_may/jpeg-mac-gamma/2small/b3000504-03%5Bjbcd2-IMG_003-londonpm%5D0256.jpeg

which was from a London Perl Mongers meeting.

I wondered if the photographer (Jeff Moore) got a feeling when he had
taken a shot the same way you get a feeling when you've taken a shot in
pool and you *know* it's going in. Or when you take a free throw in
basketball or a swing in golf or kick a football or ... and it just
*feels* right. Or a writer who rewrites a sentence a few times and it
just feels right one of those times. The shape and the texture and the
rhythmn of the words just clicks together. 

I'm a deep person, no, really,

This is an incoherent mumbling and I'm not really sure if I've got the
point across. Eloi and Morlocks was a bad, nay terrible, metaphor but it
just kind of stuck :)
 



-- 
: square failure, cubic wildcard