Not Crazy Enough?
Some children of the sixties may feel that today's previous two entries, on Syd Barrett, the Crazy Diamond, are not crazy enough. Let them consult the times of those entries– 2:11 and 8:15– and interpret those times, crazily, as dates: 2/11 and 8/15.
This brings us to Stephen King territory– apparently the natural habitat of Syd Barrett.
See Log24 on a 2/11, Along Came a Dreamcatcher, and Log24 on an 8/15, The Line.
From 8/15, a remark of Plato:
"There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods going on…"
(Compare with the remarks by Abraham Cowley for Tom Stoppard's recent birthday.)
From 2/11, two links: Halloween Meditations and We Are the Key.
From Dreamcatcher (the film and the book):
For Syd Barrett as Duddits,
see Terry Kirby on Syd Barrett
(edited– as in Stephen King
and the New Testament—
for narrative effect):
"He appeared as the Floyd performed the song 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond.' It contains the words: 'Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond. Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.'
But this was the 'crazy diamond' himself: Syd Barrett, the subject of the song….
When Roger Waters saw his old friend, he broke down….
Rick Wright, the keyboards player, later told an interviewer:
… 'Roger [Waters] was in tears, I think I was; we were both in tears. It was very shocking… seven years of no contact and then to walk in while we're actually doing that particular track. I don't know – coincidence, karma, fate, who knows? But it was very, very, very powerful.'"
Remarks suitable for Duddits's opponent, Mister Gray, may be found in the 1994 Ph.D. thesis of Noel Gray.
"I refer here to Plato's utilisation in the Meno of graphic austerity as the tool to bring to the surface, literally and figuratively, the inherent presence of geometry in the mind of the slave."
Shine on, gentle Duddits.