Wednesday, February 13, 2019

FREE ASSOCIATION


Unknown responds to my lighthearted post NUMBER CRUNCHING with the comment, "Very nice. So enjoyably snarky. Further evidence that your back pains have subsided.”  The reference to my back pains, which happily have all but disappeared, put me in mind of a famous line from a June 22, 1867 letter from Marx to Engels in which Marx writes, “I hope the bourgeoisie will remember my carbuncles all the rest of their lives.”  Marx was much afflicted with carbuncles, and it is said that when they tormented him so much that he could not sleep, he would try to take his mind off the pain by reading economic statistics.  That was one of the many hints that persuaded me I did not have what it took to be Karl Marx.

1 comment:

  1. Not wanting to be anonymous, "Unknown" twas I. My wife was using my google account. Who knew?

    I also read somewhere that Marx would turn to reading Laplace transforms to sooth his pain. Go figure.

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