Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0017403, Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:01:00 +0000

Subject
Re: The singing gives birth to light
Date
Body
Jansy/Victor: Brits seeking help igniting their ciggies ask ³Do you have a
LIGHT, please?² while the French ask ³Avez-vous du FEU?² The French are more
accurate, since a flame is more effective than a lamp in ³lighting² a
cigarette.

The early Greeks gave priority to FIRE as one of the four basic elements of
their physical cosmos: Earth, Fire, Air, Water. Light was considered a
secondary entity, a byproduct of Fire. Consider the word TORCH! Much has
CHANGED!! Fire in the familiar form of flickering flames plays no role in
the Standard Model of elementary particles. PALE FIRE, indeed! What we have
is HEAT as a form of energy, visible only in a very narrow frequency range.

PS: Will we see any write-ups of Prof Blackwell¹s Symposium on VN the
Scientist?

CTaH

On 27/11/2008 00:11, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:

>
> Victor Fet [Following Shimanovich's comment] yes, Lermontov could not find
> right grammar for "fire" to fit it in Russian line with "light"[...] it is
> probably important that VN's novel is NOT called "Pale Light"[...] Are there
> cultures which have different terms for celestial lights than earthly ones
> [...]Fire is source of light, not the other way round, but why we refer to
> sunlight - not sunfire? Still brimming with intellectual-emotional-fire-light
> charge from this week's Stephen-Blackwell's[...] hyperwonderful symposium at
> Knoxville, TN.
>
> JM:Just for the fun (in the mood of your observation on "Pale Light"), here is
> the image of a box of "safe" matches produced by "Fiat Lux"( Thomas A. Edison
> should have kept these in his pockets).
> On the issue of "earthly lights", I often hear "fireflies" in Brazil being
> referred to as "vagalumes" (wandering-lights) and "pirilampos" ( "piri"
> probably indicates fire) - but I think this popular designation is
> entomologically incorrect.
>


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