Kevin's Watch

Cruising (or trawling ) through the Watch as I occasionally do it occurs to me that amongst our ranks we have some serious 'polymaths' (defn. 'A person of great and varied learning) amongst our ranks. Some people crop up making salient and erudite posts in all manner of subject areas and I think to myself 'My God - how does this person know all this stuff'. The idea of sugesting a 'Renaissance man of the Watch' award occured to me and then I thought "Hang on - Will I be subjected to a harrangue of criticism for not adopting the PC version of 'Renaissance Person of the Watch' ". But the problem is I know what a Renaissance man is. It sounds right. And by it I mean to include all of our ladies too. I want to say Renaissance Man, but I feel I should say Renaissance person.

Oh Dear.......It was never meant to be this complicated!

You may have missed this thread

I agree with your sentiment. The Watch is blessed with an abundance of gifted people who contribute to its richness and its almost addictive atmosphere. I was never a part of an Internet forum until I came across the Watch last summer simply because any I ever lurked on were riddled with rancour, flaming and trolls. The Watch is moderated by great people and thus populated by great people. One of its real strengths is that it's like a microcosm of the 'Net. Just about anything I am interested in is here for me to comment on and if it's not then I can introduce it myself

It's a great place. Long may it last!

u.

I agree, KW is like

While other forums are like or

One Tolkien discussion forum I used to enjoy is now like (the only viable one out there is populated by people with usernames like I<3LEGOLAS!!!!)

so I am glad for the refuge of the Watch.

I'm going to have to think before nominating... there are several I could suggest.

Yeah - this award (above) would definitely be my nominated catagory for the 'Watchies' (is that what they were called?).

Could I broaden my base for this thread and ask readers if they would post the names of the author who has most impressed them (in a single work if possible but not exclusively so) by the bredth of their knowledge. My selection would probably be Arthur Koestler, whose series 'The Sleepwalkers', 'The Ghost in the Machine' and 'The act of Creation (well - not exactly a series but three parts of the same story I think) just blew me away in the bredth of it's learning. Koestler is a problematic figure in that there are some sugestions that his treatment of women was 'beyond the pale' at times (I have not studied his 'history' so don't know much about this) but he certainly led a life full of incident and drama. Koestler and his wife commited joint suicide at their home on the 1st March 1983.

I have been meaning to read Koestler for quite some time.

You won't be dissapointed. I have just learned that he wrote a book entitled 'The Thirteenth Tribe' in which he puts forward the theory that the ashkenazi jews of eastern Europe are not in fact descended from the hebrew stock of Israel but rather from the C10. turkish peoples the Khazars who it is believed were converts to Judeism - but then promptly dissapeared from the pages of history. By chance I have long (reading) connections with these people and so am pretty exited by the combination of Koestler and the Khazars

peter wrote:You won't be dissapointed. I have just learned that he wrote a book entitled 'The Thirteenth Tribe' in which he puts forward the theory that the ashkenazi jews of eastern Europe are not in fact descended from the hebrew stock of Israel but rather from the C10. turkish peoples the Khazars who it is believed were converts to Judeism - but then promptly dissapeared from the pages of history. By chance I have long (reading) connections with these people and so am pretty exited by the combination of Koestler and the Khazars

I would love to be of Turkish stock.

Agreed Holesty - and not just Turkish, Khazar to boot. The Jewish story is already one of the most fantastic histories to be found; put the khazar connection in as well and you couldn't make it up if you tried.

(Can I suggest a book - Milorad Pavic's "Dictionary of the Khazars". There is a thread on it somewhere on the Watch that gives some detalis of this strange, exotic reading experience.)