Dreaming of a white Christmas present

When we were in Brunel, it only used to snow when Freddie had so much coursework due that he had to make all nighters in the library. He practically looked as pale as the streets and didn't seem to enjoy the weather at all. However, the first time Cardiff was covered in snow this winter, he texted me: “Come out and play!”
Thinking of all the snowball fights we've had and the snowmen we've built, I'm convinced he loves the snow to bits. It must have been torture for him not to have the time to play with it during previous years!

Since he loves the snow so much, it wasn't difficult for me to think of a Christmas present this year. I took him to the Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead for his first ski lesson ever....



As you can see in the video, he's a natural born skier. He didn't fall once, but soon started helping others get up and racing up the button lift to use his time on the slope to the max! His instructor said he has never experienced a student picking up on it this quickly: after one hour, he was ready to go on the main slope!

It's going to be hard to top this Christmas present in 2011!

PS. This video is my first attempt at video editing. My notebook runs on Ubuntu and I used Kino. It's not a very elaborate software package, so editing took about as much time as it took me to upload it on youtube. Bloody hell, about 70 minutes! If you've got any video editing tips for Linux users or any advice on how to make uploading video's onto youtube quicker, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Fresh soil

From crazy Halloween house parties in Notting Hill to sipping free champagne at Proud Camden's second birthday party; from shopping for second hand silk at Bricklane Market to drinking free cocktails at the Paramount bar on the top floor of Centre Point; from camping in Epping forest when it was snowing in January to indulging in free drinks on the roof terrace of club Aqua; from writing a novel in a pub on Portobello road to working full time as a copywriter on Tottenham Court Road – yes, over the last two years, I've seen many different sides of London (and had a fortune worth of free drinks). I didn't always have the time to blog about my experiences, but I can assure you: Debbie Did London.

London was fabulous, but it's time for fresh soil. I quit my job and moved to Cardiff last Saturday, to write my second novel. And yes, I've seen a lot of sheep and mountains already (drove up to the Brecon Beacons twice), but I've also spotted lots of students, cool clubs, fancy restaurants, cosy pubs and art centrers. I'm sure there will be plenty of interesting people, places and parties to write about. That's why I updated the header of my blog: Debbie Does Britain!

The first interesting place I would like to introduce to you is, of course, my new house. My garden, to be precise. Perhaps you remember that my mansion in Uxbridge had a lush lawn, a massive fig tree and tomatoes growing out of the cracks in pavement. I was a bit disappointed when I found out that my garden in Harrow mainly consisted of brambles and nettles overgrowing slabs of concrete, but Freddie and I found one spot that seemed suitable for growing vegetables, and worked hard to prepare it for our tomato and pepper seedlings. I even remember some crazy night gardening...
I don't know why, but the first batch of toms that I planted out there didn't survive. I watered them often enough, but the soil only seemed suitable for nettles. Because I didn't want to kill all my other seedlings, I planted them in beer cans, yoghurt pots and butter tubs and started giving them away to friends. I even left two pepper plants in the office in Central London!

When Freddie and I took most of our things to Wales with the van (I'll write about driving in Britain some other time), there were only a few tomato and pepper plants left. They'd been in their beer cans for way too long and most of the poor things didn't have enough root space to start growing fruits, but they were alive and, with some extra care and Welsh rain, there's still hope for them. In my new garden, I've got a huge pear tree and a lot of space for barbecuing or playing football, but there are no patches of soil suitable for growing vegetables. So I went to the local gardening centre to buy two sacks of compost and found myself some bigger plant pots...

Where I come from 6: It makes me wonder

Would you be surprised, Freddie, if this were my last letter to you about Led Zeppelin? Relieved perhaps? After exactly two minutes, the song ain't nowhere near over.

I'm quite sure I could say something relevant with regards to “it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune / Then the piper will lead us to reason”. And though I'm not so sure I could make something of the “bustle in your hedgerow” and the “spring clean for the May queen”, I don't think I have to. If I stood any chance of opening up an insight towards philosophy, this is where it should happen:

“Ooh... it makes me wonder.”

You probably know that in one of Plato's later dialogues, Socrates says that all philosophy originates in wonder. And though I would love to give Charlie the benefit of the doubt, he didn't seem to question anything. He wasn't baffled, surprised or taken aback by anything. Nothing made him wonder – because he kept piling up fairy tales and far fetched explanations instead. His attitude is the exact opposite of wonder, of not understanding and not knowing a way out of it.

I hope I've showed that it does happen in the first two minutes of Stairway to Heaven. Plant has touched on the pragmatic and the semantic theory of language and finds himself not able to ignore the musical aspect of language. And that makes him wonder.

He doesn't articulate “it makes me wonder what language is”, he doesn't say “it makes me wonder about language” - but that doesn't take away that admits he doesn't have a clue, doesn't know, isn't sure – and wonders. Unlike the lady who knows all that glitters is gold; unlike Charlie, who is convinced that God spoke to him when he was in prison and that Jesus joined the Hells Angels in Essex soon afterwards.

And in case you're still wondering what I did those six years in uni: I learned to focus on a text and suspend judgement; to admit that I don't understand something, that I don't know what's going on, without covering it up and without turning away from it either. By not waffling my way out of every tight spot, I try to give a wide berth, try to allow something relevant to reveal itself.

Deborah

Where I come from 5: Dead end routes

Dear Freddie,

More than a month ago, I poked at the first words of Stairway to Heaven and found that the opening paragraph told me a lot less than it seemed to do at first glance, and definitions of the words wouldn't help me reveal what has kept this song alive for over half a century. I was left wondering about the line “with a word she can get what she came for”. This line seemed to favour a pragmatic approach to words over a semantic one, focussing on the relation between signs and their effects rather than the relation between signs and the things to which they refer. Interestingly, the second verse continues where the first left off.

There's a sign on the wall, but she wants to be sure

'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.

In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings,

Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.

This paragraph is crowded with language-related words: sign, words, meanings, songbird, sings, thoughts.

A sign on the wall

To avoid going down the mystical route, I will not elaborate on the biblical origin of the expression “sign on the wall” (Daniel 5, in case you've given up on our quest for philosophy). Instead, I will focus on the words that are so significant throughout these lyrics.

Is it an unconditional statement that there is a sign on the wall, or are these words part of a construction that started in the previous paragraph? The latter interpretation says that the lady knows that, when she gets to heaven, there will be a sign on the wall. In her book In the houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the power of rock music, Susan Fast is surprised that Plant begins a new stanza of poetry with this phrase, despite the fact that the instrumental part continues with the fourth phrase of the music. “In other words, the text seems to begin anew but the music does not.”(Oxford University Press US, 2001, p. 61) To me, this is a clear sign that Plant doesn't start a new sentence.

Either way, whether there's a sign to tell her the directions when she is buying the stairway to heaven, or whether she knows that there will be a sign on the wall when she gets to there – after having been certain about so many falsehoods, she is unsure now, despite the sign. Why? Because “you know, sometimes words have two meanings”.

According to the semantic theory, words are signs referring to designata (e.g. meaning, definition or objects to which words refer). Traditionally, 'sign' and 'meaning' are two words that go together like neighbouring jigsaw puzzle pieces – mentioning the one is asking for the other. It's no surprise they show up together in this song.

This is the first time in the song that the lady is not sure about something. Though I'm supposed to know sometimes words have several meanings, personally, I find it incredibly difficult to grasp how exactly a sign can even have one meaning. Does the word 'tree' have something in common with a plane tree in Hyde Park? Do they resemble each other? Or is the link quite random, a convention? But then why can't we simply replace it with the Dutch word 'boom'? Buy some space on the front page of the Metro to let everyone know that from now on we will only refer to trees with the word 'boom' and abandon the word 'tree' completely. Do you think it would be a smooth transition? I expect that no root-killer will be strong enough to exterminate the word 'tree'.

It's just as mind boggling as the question what connects the spoken word 'tree' to the written version. In what way are they the same? And when two people say the word 'tree', what is it that connects the first sound to the second?

You may think the last question is obvious, because “they sound the same”. But what is that sameness? How can we recognize two sounds as the same word, even when one is pronounced with a lovely Dutch “trrrr” and the other with a west-London twang?

“The written and the spoken word have the same meaning”, you say? But again: what is 'meaning' and in what way is it 'the same'?

Especially when a word is supposed to refer to a mental concept or idea, it completely eludes me what is going on. What are concepts, ideas, definitions, other than the words themselves? What is 'the semantic theory', without the words that are supposedly 'used' to 'express' it? Talking about the semantic theory doesn't clarify anything about words.

A songbird who sings

But I digress. Back to the song. For now, all I know is that the lady finds it problematic to pinpoint definitions of words. The next phrase doesn't seem to have much to do with the beginning of the story: “In a tree by the brook (what brook) is a songbird who sings...”

But as I noticed earlier, this line contains two language-related words, so it's not completely out of the blue: songbird and sings. While 'sign' and 'meaning' brought me to the semantic theory of language, this phrase points in a different direction: language as music. I don't have a definition or logically sound theory ready to explain what this entails – but if I did, that would defeat the whole point, don't you think? It would close the route Plant pointed out even before I embarked on it, and it would send me right back to the theoretical, unmusical way of thinking ABOUT language, rather than allowing musical language to happen.

Which is exactly what's happening in Stairway to Heaven. Not only because it's a musical masterpiece. But perhaps you remember how in my previous letter, it emerged that Plant isn't consciously choosing words because of their definition, but accepts them as they come – as they are given.

Perhaps you think I'm reading a bit too much into “there's a songbird who sings”?

I don't. The next line says it all: “Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.”

I won't go on about the fact that, grammatically, it could be a line that the bird is singing, because that would be rather silly.

What this line says is that we don't choose our own words; they are given to us. And sometimes, all of our words are mis-given. All that glitters is gold. The routes of thinking that we are forced down by words such as 'sign' and 'meaning' might be erroneous, dead end trails. No matter how many people have tread them happily and without noticing throughout the ages.

Read the next installment:

Where I come from 6: It makes me wonder 

Where I come from 4: Words that pay the bills

There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she’s buying a stairway to heaven
When she gets there, she knows,
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for
Ooh, ooh, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven

Dear Freddie,

The words came to Robert Plant while he stood and listened to the other Led Zeppelin members who were trying to compose Stairway to Heaven – this contrast between how the music and the lyrics came about is relevant, by the way.

The first words that came to Plant still open the song and describe a woman in the third person. Plant calls her a lady, which means she's not just any woman, but a woman of superior social position. She is certain about something: namely that all that glitters is gold. This conviction makes this lady seem like a bit of a fool: everybody knows all that glitters is NOT gold! Even water, a slug or a fresh dog turd can glitter in the sun shine. (I wonder whether the social status of this woman has anything to do with the way she perceives valuable things.)

While the lady is sure about this falsehood, my first uncertainty crops up. What is the grammatical status of the next line, “and she's buying a stairway to heaven”? Is she sure that she's 'buying' this interesting stairway (just like she is sure about all glittery things being gold) or does Plant say that she's actually buying it?
Putting it like that brings forward another aspect of the word buying. When one teenager tells another how she lied to her parents about her nocturnal whereabouts so that she could stay out longer, it’s not unusual for the other party to ask: “Did they buy it?” to which the answer usually is: “Hell yeah, they bought every word of it!” When you buy a lie, it means you've fallen for it, you believe it. The lady, who is sure that all that comes across as valuable actually is valuable, is buying a “stairway to heaven”. She’s falling for this trickery too.

Only now, it occurs to me that Plant doesn’t describe what this woman looks like, nor what she does; he purely describes what we usually call her ‘mental state’. She is sure about something, she’s buying trickery, and in the next line she knows something. What does she know? That when she gets to heaven – whatever that may be – she can get what she came for with a word if the stores are all closed.

The first question I would like to ask is: what about if the stores are opened? But that would be a silly thing to ask. First of all: I don’t know what heaven is, nor whether there ARE shops there. What’s more: Plant doesn’t claim either that heaven exists, nor that there are shops there. Plant is only telling me, from a distance, that this lady ‘knows’ something. There’s no point in pretending to believe that there are shops in a place called heaven in order to investigate the imaginary opening hours, especially not when I don’t even know what they’re supposed to sell. For now, this line is a dead end street.

The second question I could ask is: what does ‘to know’ entail? During my first year of philosophy, I learned that knowledge is ‘justified, true belief’. This definition can lead to quite a lot of interesting debates – but I shouldn’t allow those distractions to lead me away from the lyrics. Plant says she knows that, WHEN she gets there, she can get what she came for. Even if Plant subscribes the aforementioned definition of knowledge, it’s not logically impossible that this woman knows she can get what she came for if she gets there, but also knows she’ll never get there because the place doesn’t exist. Plant doesn’t claim nor deny the existence of heaven and its local shops. Trying to determine which definition of ‘to know’ he had in mind would merely distract from the song – the more so because Plant didn’t cunningly compose the text, picking words because of their definitions. We don’t choose words because of their definitions – they just roll out of our mouth or fingers, present themselves. It often feels as if I don’t have much to do with which words I utter at all.

What I’m trying to do is trace the way the words presented themselves to Plant, in order to catch a glimpse of where they come from, what made them come forward, and hopefully learn something about my relationship with these words.

Now, the last thing I’d like to mention about this first paragraph is that – although I don’t know what she’s after – the woman knows she can get it with a word. She sees words as an economic currency with which she can pay, even when the stores are closed. This line has fascinated me ever since I first heard it, though I don’t know why exactly yet. It’s not a deep insight: of course words are a currency. Every toddler knows he has to say “please” if he want a sweet, and with the years we learn that other words can get us other things. (e.g. “you look lovely today”, “I’m so stressed!” or “your food smells delicious. What is it?”). It doesn’t matter what the words mean; we use them to get a specific reaction in return. Hopefully, the rest of the lyrics will make things more clear.

Best, Deborah


Read the next installment here:
Where I come from 5: Dead end routes


Or read the first posts in this series:

Where I come from 1: Pub Talk Philosophy

Where I come from 3: The Words, the Wonderful Words

Dear Freddie,

I think John Paul Jones, the Led Zeppelin bassist, describes the origin of Stairway to Heaven very poetically: “Page and Plant would come back from the Welsh mountains with the guitar intro and verse. I literally heard it in front of a roaring fire in a country manor house.”

The story goes that the song was conceived in Bron-Yr-Aur, an 18th century cottage in South Snowdonia. It was the year 1970 and guitarist Jimmy Page was trying to join together a number of acoustic and electric sections. Page remembers how he was instructions the rest of the band while Robert Plant, the lead singer, was leaning against the wall, listening and writing. “And all of a sudden he got up and started singing in, along with another run-through, and he must have had 80% of the words there.”

It all adds to the myth that Plant described what came over him as “my hand was writing out the words, 'There's a lady who’s sure, all that glitters is gold, and she's buying a stairway to heaven'. I just sat there and looked at them and almost leapt out of my seat.”

No doubt this origin story helped the song to its legendary status. But if I want to be able to take the song seriously, the image of Page and Plant returning from the Welsh mountains like Zarathustra, bringing Stairway to Heaven to the people... well.... it just makes me laugh. I can’t learn anything while being overwhelmed with pathetic, mystical obscurity.

It seems like quite a challenge to avoid being dazzled like that when a song is called “Stairway to Heaven”. What on earth is heaven? I don’t believe there’s a place above the clouds where good folks go when they die to sit by champagne fountains for the rest of eternity. Nor do I think interpreting the word ‘heaven’ as that imaginary place will help me understand the song.

I know that ‘buying a stairway into heaven’ is a standing expression for being generous only in order to achieve salvation. But come on, I don’t know what salvation is either. So rather than pretend I know what Plant means, I should accept that I don’t know what he’s trying to say. Instead, I will have to stick to the words in the song and look for clues that might tell me more.

The title alone tells me heaven is a destination. When looking closely at these three words, I notice that Plant doesn’t tell me whether this destination can be reached, has been reached or even exists. I don’t know whether it’s a place I should try to reach, or that I should try to postpone finding it. For now, I only know Plant mentions that there is a stairway that leads towards heaven, whatever it is. So, all I know is that, from where Plant was standing, he’d have to ascend or descend in order to get there. No more and no less.

Next time, I’ll try to find out more by looking closely at the first lyrics.

Yours,

Deborah

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Read the next installment here:
Where I come from 4: Words that pay


Or read the previous posts in this series:

Where I come from 1: Pub Talk Philosophy and Where I come from 2: MA in Pedantry.

Where I come from 2: MA in Pedantry

Oh Freddie, what have I got myself into? Why did I have to put the first installment of my attempt to let philosophy emerge on my blog? It has been a pain in the arse ever since I uploaded it, knowing that, now that it was public, I could not back out of it again. I felt the urge to write and upload numerous other stories, but wouldn’t allow myself to follow up the first installment of my English attempt at philosophy with the review of a cocktail bar. So I actually started exploring other platforms to post my writings. Why was I trying to avoid getting on with it and writing installment number two? I’m afraid that right now, even trying to find an answer to that question would be avoidance behaviour, but hopefully it will become clear on the way.

Charlie was right about one thing: academic performance is irrelevant.

Charlie’s ideologies reminded me of the last story in Chuck Palahniuk’s Haunted, but when I asked him whether he’d heard of Palahniuk, he said he found reading extremely difficult and wasn’t well read. Now, as a writer, I would say that a writer who doesn’t read shows lack of interest in his own trade and since he doesn’t know what his competitors are doing he probably won’t be able to match them.

Philosophy, however, is not a trade, and though a philosopher is not immune to ‘petty’ issues such as competition, a real philosopher won’t just indulge in intellectual contests and win, but rather experience that he is compelled to do so and wonder why it is that he cannot resist.

Now, universities are full of people who show off their mental capacities without thinking, always have been. Especially Philosophy MA’s & PhD’s are a breeding ground for top notch brain wrestlers. But Charlie was right: having read a vast amount of philosophical works, knowing everything there is to know about Schleiermacher, Hegel and Gadamer and being able to refute the works of Kant, Descartes and Plato doesn’t make them philosophers.

I can’t tell you what philosophy is, Freddie, nor what makes a philosopher. But I can tell you that academic high performance isn’t it. All those academics who, despite their success, never wrote or said a relevant word are not philosophers. I honestly can’t see why and how anyone could stick the same tag on them and the people whose work they study: Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Heidegger.

Again, I can’t tell you what philosophy is, but I’ve got a suspicion it’s something that takes place in the words of those philosophers. And every time I listen to Stairway to Heaven, I can’t help but think it happens there too. But if I fail to show you what happens in that song, I won’t know whether that is because

a) I am not sensitive enough to see something taking place in an English text

b) Nothing philosophical takes place in Led Zeppelin’s words

c) I’m rubbish at pointing out to you what’s taking place

d) You aren’t sensitive enough to see it.

Scientifically speaking it’s a useless experiment. That being said, let’s shut up and listen to the song.

Deborah

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Continue readingWhere I come from 3: The Words, The Wonderful Word.

Or go back and read Where I come from 1: Pub Talk Philosophy.

Where I come from 1: Pub Talk Philosophy

Dear Freddie,

The first time we talked about philosophy, we had a big fat fight. We’d been together for over a year, and so far I’d managed to escape serious conversations that had anything to do with philosophy. I’d told you from the start that I had left Holland in order to get away from philosophy and that I’d chosen Great Britain because, as far as I knew, the language didn’t allow any fallbacks. That was fine with you because you didn’t enjoy talking about matters that were beyond your capacity to change and put to good use anyway – aka philosophical conversations did your nut in.

But a couple of weeks ago, you introduced me to Charlie at the Portobello Gold. “Charlie’s writing a book,” you said. It turned out to be a book about how God spoke to Charlie when he was in prison, about how he saw Jesus when he got out, about Americans coming to London to look for Jesus, who would be ‘amongst Angels on Earth’, and about two skinned bears that were found in the snow in London in the winter of 1983 without any blood or foot prints in the vicinity. I was being playfully cynical, asking questions such as “are you sure those voices you heard had nothing to do with the brain injury you just mentioned?” , “and you think Jesus dumped those bears there?”, “oh, now I get it, you think Jesus is Bigfoot!”

When you told me, later that night, that Charlie used to be the head of the Essex Chapter of the Hells Angels, I said I felt like an idiot for being so cheeky towards possibly one of England’s most dangerous men.

"But at the same time, I know I would have felt just as foolish if I would have agreed with him. I mean, come on, it was a big load of bollocks.”

"It wasn’t all nonsense,” you said, “I think his philosophy was quite interesting.”

And that’s how it started. I said as far as I could tell his book in the making was very interesting, but not philosophical. You demanded a definition of philosophy.

“I can’t give you one, but I can assure you I didn’t spend six years in university studying pub talk and the ramblings of a retired Hells Angel with a brain injury. Thank you very much.”

“Very impressive, you spent six years in university studying something and you can’t even tell me what. At least Charlie’s trying to improve the world.”

“Yes, he is trying to make the world a better place, but that doesn’t make him a philosopher. So are you, but you’re an aerospace engineer. If anything, the fact that he’s trying to manipulate the world shows that he’s NOT a philosopher.”

“Well, then tell me what a philosopher does.”

I tried to explain that philosophers try to find words or truths that they can’t deny, and wonder why. But, as was to be expected, I failed to make you understand. I argued that I couldn’t show you what it’s like to discover a philosophical necessity in a language that wasn’t my mother tongue – because it’s all about finding nuances of words as they come naturally - not artificially (the way I learned it at school). When speaking English, I get it wrong all the time. Without making myself incomprehensible, I disobey the rules of British English all the time, in ways that are actually impossible for a native like yourself. You couldn’t make my mistakes, even if you tried.

That’s because you’re hardwired with the language, whilst I am not. I said I was hardwired with a language that was possibly more suitable for the deeper insights as well. But by neglecting Dutch, I was turning myself away from all that. So I didn’t want to talk about it.

You didn’t take my inability – interpreted as unwillingness – to explain what philosophy is well. We had a serious argument the other day, and you brought it up again. You called me a philosopher for being argumentative, for arguing for the sake of arguing – which I was, but that doesn’t make me a philosopher.

“Bloody philosophy,” you said, “it’s a waste of time. Doesn’t have a point.”

“It is,” I said, “it is useless. But that doesn’t make everything that’s useless philosophical.”

“I only said that to wind you up. It’s not useless.”

“NOW you’re winding me up. It bloody is.”

“I’ve asked a girl at Phoebe’s party for a definition of philosophy, and she agreed with me. And she was pretty smart too.”

“Was she English?”

“That’s beside the point. But yes, she was English, and she was doing a degree in Philosophy.”

“If some clever bird wants to do a degree in pub talk, that’s fine with me. Though personally, I think that art is much more enjoyable with a pint in a local. Without having to write an essay about it afterwards.”

But I love you and I don’t want you to think that I’m being selfish and just don’t want to share my background with you. So I promised to give it a go: I’ll attempt to write something that might give you a glimpse of what I’ve been doing in university for six years. I can’t promise I’ll manage. I never had any guarantee ‘philosophy would happen’ while I was in uni either. And even if, for a moment, I think my text opens up an insight, I can’t promise you’ll be capable of seeing it. I can’t do that for you. But I’ll do my best to show you that philosophy is taking place in Stairway to Heaven. If it is.

Deborah

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Continue readingWhere I come from 2: MA in Pedantry.