On Beyond Zarathustra

by John Holbo on May 24, 2016

[UPDATE March 21, 2021]: Looking for the latest On Beyond Zarathustra? It’s here. I’m updating old posts with outdated links.

{ 17 comments }

1

Adam Roberts 05.24.16 at 10:18 am

“Green Eggs and Human All-Too-Human”

2

Adam Roberts 05.24.16 at 10:19 am

“Thus Spake Cat-in-Hatstra”

3

Jim Buck 05.24.16 at 11:09 am

“Ecce Pussy”

4

oldster 05.24.16 at 11:54 am

You are prodigiously talented, John.

5

Val 05.24.16 at 12:42 pm

It’s beautiful. Perhaps I could learn to like Nietzsche. I have one tiny criticism though:
“Z. quit macramé, backgammon,
Shoemaking too!
Bid adieu to his elephant
Who played kazoo”

Don’t you think that would scan a little more nicely if you said ‘played the kazoo’. (I’m sorry if changing it is too difficult now. Maybe you don’t even want to. Maybe you prefer that scansion, which sounds awkward to me. I guess if the elephant is playing kazoo to honour his leaving, it possibly works better that way, with more of a fall on the oo)

6

Melody 05.24.16 at 1:58 pm

I loved your Plato book. I hope this graphic works out well too. I love when philosophers meld talents (like your artistic ones and their passion for philosophy), bringing philosopher to a wider audience. Good luck! Keep us posted.

7

Niall McAuley 05.24.16 at 2:24 pm

One Amphibian, Two Amphibian, Apollonian, Dionysian

8

AB 05.24.16 at 2:25 pm

Nice to see that kazooistry isn’t just for Jesuits.

9

John Holbo 05.24.16 at 2:36 pm

Glad everyone likes it. I thought about your kazoo scanning issue, Val. It reads ok either way, I think. It would be easy enough to edit. It’s all Photoshop.

I’m waiting for someone to tell me ‘ ’til ‘ isn’t a word. I should use ’till’. But somehow ’til seems more American. Just like Seuss. I dunno.

Fun fact. Tonight I decided to celebrate finishing this first bit by NOT drawing any more Seuss. I’m trying to sketch some other stuff and all the figures are coming out … Seuss. It’s gotten into my wrist.

10

Bill Benzon 05.24.16 at 3:01 pm

Wonderful stuff, John. Are you using a graphics tablet for sketching?

11

William Berry 05.24.16 at 4:25 pm

@JH:

Some usage mavens dislike “till” (naked “though” falls into this category of standard, but disliked, words as well), preferring “until” in all cases. This seems to suggest that “til, a properly formed contraction of “until”, ought to be preferred to “till”.

Maybe.

12

Ken MacLeod 05.24.16 at 7:07 pm

In the 1970s a Kurdish exile told me he’d read Thus Spake Zarathustra.

‘It was all lies. Zarathustra taught nothing like this!’

13

AB 05.24.16 at 7:48 pm

Did your Kurd drive a Mazda?

14

js. 05.24.16 at 7:50 pm

I wouldn’t describe myself as a usage maven, but I heartily agree with the usage mavens mentioned by William Berry. “Till” is something you might do to a bit of earth, “’til” is what you want when you want to make a temporal reference.

15

bartkid 05.26.16 at 11:04 pm

The abyss hears Horton.

16

John Holbo 05.27.16 at 2:28 am

bartkid wins the thread!

17

ZM 05.28.16 at 5:23 am

This did make me laugh. I hope if you are doing a series of these you compile them all at the end as a Kindle ebook and sell them on Amazon. This would help your place as a philosophy author in the Amazon philosophy sales charts ;-)

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