Birth of the Postmodern: 3:32pm, July 15, 1972
Mic...@www.chonju-tc.ac.kr
Postmodernism was born in St. Louis and not in Peoria. When the
Pruitt-Igoe housing project was dynamited- once called the perfect
machine for living- it was now considered an uninhabitable environment
for low income people--when it collapsed so did the aspirations of high
modernism. There could be no agreement between the parties. So people
just opened up a smorgasbord and everyone came in.
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Puss in Boots
Mic...@www.chonju-tc.ac.kr:
> Postmodernism was born in St. Louis and not in Peoria. When the
> Pruitt-Igoe housing project was dynamited- once called the perfect
> machine for living- it was now considered an uninhabitable environment
> for low income people--when it collapsed so did the aspirations of high
> modernism. There could be no agreement between the parties. So people
> just opened up a smorgasbord and everyone came in.
The High Modernist from St. Louis that I think of is Eliot --
I don't think he had any aspirations for housing projects. (It
would have been very out-of-character if he _had_.) I doubt if he
liked smorgasbords much, either; but that's just a guess.
-- Moggin
Mic...@www.chonju-tc.ac.kr
In article <moggin-ya02408000...@news.mindspring.com>,
>>> try to be serious once in awhile? For example reading Sarfatti-Larson's
>>> book on architecture reveals a different cast of characters, those seldom
>>> seen in any English department, whether modernist or antiquarian. Page 34:
>>> Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Aalto. Last
>>> and least the American, Frank Lloyd Wright. Now if this be not high
>>> modernism I don't know what is. And guess what Moggin, you are right
>>> about something: Eliot had little or no taste for low income people.
>>> Why was that? Well being the rich snob that he was, pampered and all,
>>> he was hell bent on trying to become an Englishman in the Church of England.
>>> No LESS??!! That's America's contribution to poetic modernism: a snob
>>> trying to be High Church. Are you smiling too, Moggin? You should.I'll
>>> settle for the Fascist sympathizer and rustic Ezra Pound. At least he
>>> had enough class to live in Italy, a country that far exceeds England
>>> in the knowledge it takes to live a decent life.
-Michael Greer
lee
On Tue, 09 Sep 1997 21:51:43 -0600 Mic...@www.chonju-tc.ac.kr wrote in
<8738591...@dejanews.com>:
-Michael Greer
Why resort to such useless over-generalised opinion, Micheal? You were making so
much sense before.
Fascist Italy is a better place than snobbish England? Care to enlarge upon
that?
-Lee Goddard
Mic...@www.chonju-tc.ac.kr
In article <5v64dj$7i8$2...@despair.u-net.com>,
>>>>me. Why? I really don't know because I don't know the guy well enough
>>>>to be angry at him but I am anyway. So blame Moggin for my rage.
>>>>Or blame my wife. Either will do. Now as for your question and my return
>>>>to sanity, Fascism is better because both are evil(the alternative is the
>>>>aristocratic nonsense we see in England)but Fascism is not exclusionary
>>>>at birth. You see in England you are either born common or born noble.
>>>>Thank God I'm a (AMERICAN) country boy. I am a democrat in Whitman's sense
>>>>of that term. I know some English people can "earn" nobility. I think the
>>>>the Beatles are now entitled to call themselves Sir George and Sir Ringo.
>>>>Right?? But Fascism is clearly an everyone phenomenon; you could be a
>>>>fascist if you wanted to be, but you couldn't be an aristocrat from
>>>>desire alone. I settle for the brutality of fascism over the brutality
>>>>of snobbery. I think I have Dickens on my side too.
>
> Not that I need Dickens you understand.
Puss in Boots
Mic...@www.chonju-tc.ac.kr:
>>> Postmodernism was born in St. Louis and not in Peoria. When the
>>> Pruitt-Igoe housing project was dynamited- once called the perfect
>>> machine for living- it was now considered an uninhabitable environment
>>> for low income people--when it collapsed so did the aspirations of high
>>> modernism. There could be no agreement between the parties. So people
>>> just opened up a smorgasbord and everyone came in.
Moggin:
>> The High Modernist from St. Louis that I think of is Eliot --
>> I don't think he had any aspirations for housing projects. (It
>> would have been very out-of-character if he _had_.) I doubt if he
>> liked smorgasbords much, either; but that's just a guess.
Michael:
>>>> See there you go again Moggin, playing around with the language. Why not
>>>> try to be serious once in awhile?
Terribly sorry. Don't know what came over me. Won't happen again.
>>>> For example reading Sarfatti-Larson's
>>>> book on architecture reveals a different cast of characters, those seldom
>>>> seen in any English department, whether modernist or antiquarian. Page 34:
>>>> Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Aalto. Last
>>>> and least the American, Frank Lloyd Wright. Now if this be not high
>>>> modernism I don't know what is. And guess what Moggin, you are right
>>>> about something: Eliot had little or no taste for low income people.
>>>> Why was that? Well being the rich snob that he was, pampered and all,
>>>> he was hell bent on trying to become an Englishman in the Church of
>>>> England. No LESS??!! That's America's contribution to poetic modernism:
>>>> a snob trying to be High Church. Are you smiling too, Moggin? You
>>>> should.
Naturally -- Eliot's contribution is in his poems and essays, not
in the details of his biography (interesting as they are). For what
it matters, he wasn't rich. He worked at a bank, then later got a job
in publishing. Agreed on the trying to be an Englishman business.
>>>> I'll
>>>> settle for the Fascist sympathizer and rustic Ezra Pound. At least he
>>>> had enough class to live in Italy, a country that far exceeds England
>>>> in the knowledge it takes to live a decent life.
It's not as though you've got to choose -- but Brer Rabbit shared
your opinion of the Ole Possum. By 1938 Pound is writing, "Waal
Possum, my fine ole Marse Supial: thinking about passing over several
pejorative but Possumable -- oh quite possumbl -- interpretations of
selected passages in yr. ultimate communication, wot I sez appealin to
you for the firm's interest, on your return from your Pasqual
meddertashuns iz..." (letter of April 16). Then, a bit later, he says,
"Speaking of pussydonyms:
Sez the Maltese dawg to the Siam cat
'Whaar'z ole Parson Possum at?'
Sez the Siam cat to the Maltese dawg
'Dahr he sets lak a bump-onna-log.'"
-- Moggin
Mic...@www.chonju-tc.ac.kr
In article <moggin-ya02408000...@news.mindspring.com>,
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots) wrote:
>
>>> Well yes the poems and the essays. Shall we begin with one "contribution":
>>> I mean we have to start somewhere: Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
>>> Being read to by a boy, waiting for the
>>> rain
>>> ...My house is decayed And the Jew squats
>>> on the window sill, the owner...
>>> Is that a contribution Moggin?
>
>
>
>> >>>> I'll
> >>>> settle for the Fascist sympathizer and rustic Ezra Pound. At least he
> >>>> had enough class to live in Italy, a country that far exceeds England
> >>>> in the knowledge it takes to live a decent life.
>
>
>>>> are our choices?
> It's not as though you've got to choose -- but Brer Rabbit shared
> your opinion of the Ole Possum. By 1938 Pound is writing, "Waal
> Possum, my fine ole Marse Supial: thinking about passing over several
> pejorative but Possumable -- oh quite possumbl -- interpretations of
> selected passages in yr. ultimate communication, wot I sez appealin to
> you for the firm's interest, on your return from your Pasqual
> meddertashuns iz..." (letter of April 16). Then, a bit later, he says,
> "Speaking of pussydonyms:
>
> Sez the Maltese dawg to the Siam cat
> 'Whaar'z ole Parson Possum at?'
> Sez the Siam cat to the Maltese dawg
> 'Dahr he sets lak a bump-onna-log.'"
>
> -- Moggin
>
> I think it was a cage.
> -- Michael