Suffering from cabin fever, we went flying again on Sunday, intending to make it to Lachute for lunch, but low clouds hung over the hills north of the Ottawa River and thickened mistily over the flat country to the east of Papineauville, so that made it too risky. We can't penetrate too much cloud in winter for fear of icing. It is springlike at ground level with ice and snow thawing rapidly, but above 2000 ft. the air temperature falls below zero. We circled back and landed at Gatineau for lunch, where a hulking great Hercules dwarfed all the other aircraft on the apron.
Saturday night we had stayed out late at Gareth's and Greta's house, meeting a number theorist (cryptographer) at the dinner party, who with his wife had once entertained the world famous Paul Erdös at their home in California, and later in Calgary. Chris was in awe of this and keeps talking about it. Erdös was a man without possessions, an outsider who "turned caffeine into theorems", living from day to day off other people's charity. When his welcome grew thin he would simply pack his suitcase and move on to the next colleague's house.
That is the single-minded way a genius gets things done.
Yesterday afternoon we met another one-tracked man, an artist who wants to be nothing else and who lives in a laundrette, or buanderie, which he has converted into a studio and filled with his paintings. Marc Brzustowski (we know his parents) has been painting prolifically and the walls of the laundrette are hung with his recent winter landscapes, plus a few that I recognised from last summer at The Cube gallery, of his nightscapes. Marc has also painted more personal, anti war pictures on large canvasses, some of which hung in the foyer of the Great Canadian Theatre Company's premises during a recent performance.
It was most interesting talking to Marc and his parents. We'd spent an hour walking to the rue Frontenac through the showers so appreciated the wine and cheese provided. We bought a sketch in oils of MacGregor Lake, painted in situ north-east of here, the paint on it still not quite dry. Marc paints with gloves on, out of doors, and says the paint becomes more viscous in the extreme cold; he has to be careful not to add too much thinner. I also liked his sketches of the stretch of the Ottawa River under Parliament Hill at night time, featuring the floodlit Supreme Court or Chateau Laurier, the moon in the wintery sky and the reflections of lamplight in the pools of rainwater that sit upon the melting ice. He'd enjoyed painting the tumbling water under the Chaudiere Falls as well.
I can identify with people who live on the outside, looking in.
As non-native Canadians, Chris and I were both amused by how quiet the city became towards the end of the afternoon while everyone else had their eyes glued to various TV screens, watching the Olympic final hockey match between arch-rivals, the Canadians v. the Americans. As we walked home through the empty streets, we could hear from the pubs we passed the cries of GO CANADA! and when the winning goal was scored in extra time at the end of the game the city rang with a great cheer from the fans in the pubs, all on their feet. Then the cars began to roll, honking their horns, and the parties repaired to Parliament Hill to carry on celebrating. I'm not sure they were as patriotic on the Quebec side of the river where we had seen some graffiti saying F... the Olympics!
blending an assortment of thoughts and experiences for my friends, relations and kindred spirit
By Alison Hobbs, blending a mixture of thoughts and experiences for friends, relations and kindred spirits.
6 comments:
Re Erdos: I have been acquainted with a number of people with that life-style pattern, and being a genius doesn't excuse it!
Do you think there's a difference between helping out one of those intellectuals who can't quite manage to tie his own shoelaces and giving alms to Buddhist monks?
Hello Faith,
Have you read "Proofs from THE Book"?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofs_from_THE_BOOK
"Do you think there's a difference between helping out one of those intellectuals who can't quite manage to tie his own shoelaces and giving alms to Buddhist monks?"
Mel wrote:
No. I don't. In each case it is an act of charity.
I think, too, that both the intellectual and the monk, who abdicate the responsibility to live in the world, commit a fault when, cuckoo-like, they prey upon others, who have accepted that duty.
But doesn't being a genius excuse that? Would you prefer Erdos to have spent an hour in the supermarket queuing up to buy a loaf of bread or an hour developing a new theorem? It might have been better for him to be a cloistered environment like Hardy's Cambridge but the end result would have been the same.
The monks deliberately set out to prey on other people whom they have indoctrinated with their irrational, unsupportable and rather ludicrous beliefs. I don't believe that you can accuse Erdos of that.
"But doesn't being a genius excuse that?"
Mel writes:
No, it doesn't. If genius gains insight through parasitisation, it is cheapened because it debilitates others to further itself. It may be that, in Erdos' case, his colleagues were willing hosts to his sadhu-like existence. If so, well and good; all prophets have their disciples.
One might argue that Erdos' aspiration, to decode THE book of God, is not so far removed from that of the monks, and each has skilfully used the shadow of an over-arching deity to justify his own work.
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