Notes by David McElroy
Gathering of the Nortons
- Gathering of interesting motorcycles
- BMW with horizontal cylinders — very smooth
- Older Tiger Cub — parts in different places, points in particular in very different place, shift the whole housing to adjust timing
Updates
- Ricky, Noelle, and Alex: figuring out batteries and battery box, figuring out cover and other pieces to add to the battery assembly
- David and Alex K: tried to put the cover on the case;
- Brendan and Jake: putting things through the frame, putting fork tubes in, et, finished fixing the other motorcycle
- Julianne and Charlie: assembling top end, practicing putting in the items — very finicky operation
- Eric: Made progress on wheels, but they’re very difficult to deal with
Reading
Major theme: being the master of one’s own stuff
Chapter 4 for Tuesday, chapter 5 for Thursday About 50 pages
Chapter 29
- The example of the welder — very skilled at doing something
- Chapter content mostly about Aristotle and Plato — and Phaedrus’ thoughts about them
- All philosophy is footnotes to Plato; Aristotle had a lot of interesting perspective but wasn’t a great leader
- Difference between truth and good
- Pursuit of truth and goodness are two different pursuits
- In some senses, the narrator is an Aristotelian (breaking down the motorcycle into its very small parts
- He starts to reject the Aristotelian, picks up more Quality stuff
- Also integrates the Dao
- In the classroom, he has his breakdown
- Phaedrus’ birth at the end, we follow the narrator, it is a birth, or rebirth
- His professional relationships
- Professor takes command of the classroom, saves Phaedrus (from public embarrassment)
- Relationship with Chris
- Chris is frustrated with his current dad, saying Phaedrus was “fun”
- He’s starting to come back into his own self, but how much of the younger him was in there?
- Strange narration — undeveloped
- He and his wife get divorced, but not until after the novel
- Nevertheless, strange dynamic, with Chris not having anywhere to go
- Chris learns of family history of mental illness
- There is a reckoning between the two characters
- They arrive in California
- The narrator is becoming Phaedrus
- We see Phaedrus’ special font used more and more
What did we think of this book?
- Did we like it? Yes, seems the class consensus
- Most useful parts were in the beginning, some say
- Philosophy background would be rewarding, others say
- Comparing and contrasting it with typical analytic philosophy
- But he covers a lot of breadth in terms of philosophy
- We liked going to the end! Get a nice sense of finishing it, getting closure.