Does This Literary Quote Aid Our Grail Quest?

[JMEvensky]

A P, RG do you mean a  ?? I am emoticon impoverished but re Troon food-stained ties I do have. In abundance. So I'm good there.

JME the joke's on me as I'm not sure if the Patsy Cline thing is metaphor or metonymy. Probably neither. Well, I'm pretty sure the Fitz Breasts are metonymy. You'd have to play the entire body to hole out, right?

Mark,in my part of the world(Tennessee),PC is neither metaphor nor metonymy--she's a legend.

You may be right about FSF and playing the entire body to hole out.This will make the Jordan Baker scenes a lot more interesting.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Mark (and JM)

It could be that Ronald is describing a Patsy Cline moment vis a vis Arcadia Bluffs ("I fall to pieces, each time I see you again") whereas I am channeling Joyce's passion when he wrote, in effect:  "The CBM-huggers on GCA did not throw Hugh Wilson to the wolves; they tore him to pieces themselves."

Rich

Ah. Tyop.

Well, I guess we'll have to wait for para bamba la bamba's answer to be sure but following this fall to pieces + bluff thing: maybe Jesus rid Wilson of the demon Macdonald but then Mac's spirit flew into Hills who ran off Arcadia Bluffs into the lake. (Luke 8:32-36)

Where he floated for a minute before sinking. You know, like very small rocks.

[Norbert P]

" . . .But it was not till I had visited the same spot a dozen times, that I came to a right comprehension of the grandeur of the scene."




  Perhaps this is what goes through the mind of a stalker? That obsession for discovering and rediscovering the purity of a place when the soul aligns with the values of cosmic belonging.  What a repetitious activity golf is to swing, hit, walk, repeat, repeat, repeat, yet, what an immeasurable delight it can be with all its encompassing variables life, Earth and humanity coming together at that rare immaculate focal point of enlightenment.  The waking edge.  Hold onto your epiphanies as long as you can, boy, 'cause Mr. Peabody's coal train will haul them away.



Pardon the meandering verbosity.

[Garland Bayley]

"Here I caught the first glimpse of the object I had so long wished to behold, and felt myself amply repaid at that moment for all the trouble I had experienced in coming so far; and stood looking at the XXXXXX YYYYYY past till it was too dark to distinguish anything. But it was not till I had visited the same spot a dozen times, that I came to a right comprehension of the grandeur of the scene."

I had this moment when I looked out over Arcadia Bluffs in Michigan. Seeing the vast majority of the entire property from one vantage point allowed me to experience this sense of rapture.

Translation: It looks like a Doak 2, maybe 3 to me.

[Peter Pallotta]

Well, since I can't make this thread any worse (or is it, any better?) I will inject two literary not-metaphor-metaphors:

King Lear (Act 5, Scene 3): with Cordelia dead in his arms:

Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there!

Moby Dick:

All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.

[BCrosby]

Bewilderd, all I can think to add is:

"Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew."

Bob

[Rich Goodale]

I'm having an epiphany right now.  Please continue without me.....

[Peter Pallotta]

I'm having an epiphany right now.  

Me too -- I think at least one of us smokes a lot of pot.  

[Colin Macqueen]

I know this is a heresy but threads like these thrill me!  And Slag Bandoon comes out of the woodwork with  meandering verbosity. How good is that!

Cheers Colin

[David Kelly]

"Here I caught the first glimpse of the object I had so long wished to behold, and felt myself amply repaid at that moment for all the trouble I had experienced in coming so far; and stood looking at the XXXXXX YYYYYY past till it was too dark to distinguish anything. But it was not till I had visited the same spot a dozen times, that I came to a right comprehension of the grandeur of the scene."

I had this moment when I looked out over Arcadia Bluffs in Michigan. Seeing the vast majority of the entire property from one vantage point allowed me to experience this sense of rapture.

With all the threads on course greatness, is this quote one of the rails on the tracks that lead us to an understanding of authentic architectural magnificence?

Rapturous views notwithstanding, the proof of "authentic architectural magnificence" is how the course plays.

So while looking out over Arcadia Bluffs probably shows off the course to its best advantage,  it's in the actual playing of golf that Arcadia Bluffs suffers.

[BCrosby]

Or better yet -

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

[JMEvensky]

Or better yet -

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

No fair.

I can handle Hamlet,but you gotta at least provide the English translation if you're going to quote Wittgenstein.

[Peter Pallotta]

Actually, David's right: authentic quality is not necesssarily related to aesthetic/emotional delight. (heck, it may not even be observable).  David is not smoking pot....

JM - With Wittgenstein, I never found it made much of a difference whether I read him in English or German  (or some made-up language like something from Star Trek-The Next generation).   To quote Shakespeare again "It's all Greek to me!"

Peter

[BCrosby]

To give some context to the Wittgenstein quote, Ludwig was walking down the 10th fairway at ANGC (a big golfer, Ludwig) and saw for the first time the old Mack bunkers stretching out below him. Startled, he grabbed Rich Goodale's arm (friends from childhood in Vienna; don't ask, I'm on a roll here), paused for for a moment and finally said:

"As for the things I am unable to talk about, I must remain silent."

They continued on down the hill to the concession stand next to the 10th green, bought beers and pimento cheese sandwiches, and sat for a while on a nearby hillside. Still speechless Wittgenstin pondered how good the hole would be if Mack's original design were to be restored.

Bob

P.S. The famous quote sounds pretty silly if you don't know some of the background to what he meant by "talk about". Truth tables and all that. The import of the statement was in saying there are things that philosphy ought to worry about getting right and other things it has no business getting into at all. Perhaps more than anyone wants to know.

  

[JMEvensky]

BCrosby,thanks for the explanation--context is everything.

Had I known LW and Rich Goodale used to hang out together,it would have made more sense.

How does one spell tyop in German?

[Ronald Montesano]

To those who understand that the thread is about the quote and the individual experience, bravo. To those who misinterpret it as a thread about a specific course, pack it in.

I like the Ludwig quote, as it embellishes the spirit of the thread. In an era of ranking systems, the unspoken and the reawakened ultimately define greatness (our grail quest, absent Rich) of golf.

To those/he who say that greatness is in the playing of the course, I ask, completely? If their/his answer is yes, I disagree. The degree/percentage to which GIITPOTC is held, is an individual arrival. There can be a rough consensus, methinks, but not a precise and final one.