Help, please, froggies!

[ahinton]

"an intellectual is someone who can hear the overture to William Tell without thinking of the Lone Ranger"

But what term might you use to describe one who can hear that overture without thinking of Shostakovich?

[Richard Barrett]

I was reading something which included an interesting quote which I wanted to follow up. The (as it turned out) English translation (passim) is: "The intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself." It was originally written by Albert Camus, and what he wrote was: "L'intellectuel est quelqu'un dont le cerveau s'absente lui-même."

Any ideas for a better translation? What was he getting at?

For what it's worth, as a non-expert on Camus who hasn't read anything of his for many years I would agree with what Alain has to say. However it did strike me that one possible reading of the quote would be that it's aimed against intellectuals with an implied capital "i". To know how plausible that reading is would depend on the context in which the quotation is originally embedded.

[Alain Maréchal]

But what term might you use to describe one who can hear that overture without thinking of Shostakovich?

A Sloane Ranger? (That probably reveals my age. Do they still exist?)

[ahinton]

A Sloane Ranger? (That probably reveals my age. Do they still exist?)

!!!

[Richard Tarleton]

A Sloane Ranger? (That probably reveals my age. Do they still exist?)

A pedant speaks - DSCH15 predates Sloanes by 3 years - I also speak as one who was present for the first perf in the west of DSCH15 (DSCH was in the royal box, Maxim conducting) in the RFH on 20.11.1972 - I have mentioned this before and can hear Caliban grinding his teeth from here

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A pedant speaks - DSCH15 predates Sloanes by 3 years - I also speak as one who was present for the first perf in the west of DSCH15 (DSCH was in the royal box, Maxim conducting) in the RFH on 20.11.1972 - I have mentioned this before and can hear Caliban grinding his teeth from here

Yeh, but - the joke still works, unless you similarly disqualify the original on the grounds that Rossini's overture predates The Lone Ranger by 130 years.

[Alain Maréchal]

A pedant speaks - DSCH15 predates Sloanes by 3 years - I also speak as one who was present for the first perf in the west of DSCH15 (DSCH was in the royal box, Maxim conducting) in the RFH on 20.11.1972 - I have mentioned this before and can hear Caliban grinding his teeth from here

Did not Sloane Rangers exist long before they were labelled as such? Nevertheless that has nothing to do with whether or not a SR, after the western première of the symphony, at which I also was present, would have known it, which my response suggested they would not.

I heard the Russian first performance on the radio, and have 2 LP copies of Maxim's Moscow Radio première recording. I'm feeling slightly smug about that (I trust it shows) - it's not on CD.

We have travelled a long way - from Oran to Moscow via the RFH.

[Richard Tarleton]

at which I also was present

Quite an evening - Oistrach too..... (and a night or two earlier)....

I think the tribe was first described in 1975, by social anthopologist Peter York, so yes I'm sure you're right.

[Serial_Apologist]

Did not Sloane Rangers exist long before they were labelled as such?

All one need do is refer back to many of the b&w movies from the early 1960s such as Darling, or The Servant, to find Sloanes portrayed to perfection in droves, when they weren't being over-portrayed, perhaps. One thinks of Laurence Harvey as the archetypal spoilt, rich young slimeball in many films of that era and slightly earlier.

[jean]

Sloane Rangers existed before the name was coined, and they exist now, even if the name has fallen out of use.

When I was deciding which university to go to, my only criterion was that it should be as far away from my parents as possible.

As a result of omitting so many other important considerations, I always felt out of place. It wasn't until I came across the Official Sloane Ranger Handbook many years later that I understood why.