Tuesday, September 14, 2010

David Hume could out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel

The Bruces' Philosopher Song



One of the highlights of my trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival lo these three years ago was seeing the statue of David Hume:



But clearly there was some serious flattery going on here. Hume was a tank. I don't doubt he could out-consume Schopehauer and Hegel together.

There's even a page on Facebook called Friends of the Corpulent David Hume.

I didn't see anybody doing it, but apparently it's considered good luck to touch the toe of this Hume statue.

I've been thinking about philosophy alot lately because I finally completed the second act of JULIA AND BUDDY and although I managed to extract Schopenhauer out of act one of the play, for the most part, he's all over act two. I'm doing a reading of the play at tonight's NYCPlaywrights meeting (first one of the season) and I will mainly be listening for whether or not I need to get rid of more Schopenhauer references. I tried to keep the references light and irreverent:


JULIA

I find Schopenhauer a great comfort when I’m depressed. He's one of the very few philosophers who really gets it – how miserable life is.


BUDDY

Come on, he was a weird guy.


JULIA

It isn't just Schopenhauer. The early Hindu philosophers said basically the same thing. The whole pain of desire thing.


BUDDY

Pain of desire. That sounds kinky.


JULIA

Get your mind out of the gutter.


BUDDY

But that is my mind's natural habitat.


JULIA

Schopenhauer used to keep a copy of the Latin translation of the Upanishads next to his bed and read from it every day.


BUDDY

I bet he never got laid.


JULIA

He probably went to prostitutes. That seems to be what all upper-class European men did back then. That’s why they all had syphilis.


BUDDY

He probably went to a dominatrix.


(Schopenhauer impersonation.)

"I haff been a bad bad boy, Mistress Ilsa, I haff za desire uff pain."

It's a work in progress.