Wanted: Zeleny Archive
Philip Nikolayev
Tushar Samant <scri...@pobox.com> writes:
> Perhaps Zeleny is not worth Prof McCarthy's time, but he is just
> about the only poster who has consistently been worth mine.
Same here, and that's based on about seven years of following
Mikhail's postings, in addition to my great luck of knowing him
personally. I'm very glad you say this, Tushar.
> Anyway, I thought it was time for some public praise of Michael
> Zeleny. I would also like to set up a Zeleny archive, since I
> have some web space to spare. Unfortunately I have lost the old
> Zeleny posts I had saved. Perhaps Zeleny has them? Anyway, whoever
> has them is urged to mail me at <scri...@pobox.com>.
Bravo! I have a fair amount saved over a long time, and will gladly
send it to you if that's OK with the Zman.
But more important are of course his more systematic writings; and it
is my strong impression that these need to be saved from himself: he
has a bad habit of destroying these when he is no longer satisfied
with them, i.e. oftentimes very quickly. (The Zeleny I know is the
modestest scholar in the world, his apparent arrogance
notwithstanding.) So it is these that I think we need to worry about
most. I wonder, e.g., if any copies of Zeleny's extremely brilliant
(and nearly 600-page long) undergraduate thesis, _Representation and
Modernity_, survive to date, besides the one copy kept at the Harvard
University Archives. (This is an old gripe: I was once promised a copy
by never received it in spite of repeated reminders.)
Screw institutional death, now that there's the Internet. Now
everybody is immortal, but some still more immortal than
others. Thanks for you exhilarating post, Tushar!
Cheers,
Philip Nikolyev
p.s. tumhare liye bhi ek yadi hai, bhai sahab: tum tumhari apni
kavitaen apni ganD se nikal kar sahityak patrikaon ko jaldi bhej
do. garmiyon men bahut patrikaen band hoti hain; is liye tumhare paas
samay bohot kam hai.
Torkel Franzen
Philip Nikolayev <nik...@login5.fas.harvard.edu> writes:
>I wonder, e.g., if any copies of Zeleny's extremely brilliant
>(and nearly 600-page long) undergraduate thesis, _Representation and
>Modernity_, survive to date, besides the one copy kept at the Harvard
>University Archives.
That is indeed a remarkable piece of windbaggery! Please post it
forthwith.
Michael Zeleny
Many thanks to Tushar Samant, Tom Chance, Sayan Bhattacharyya, Phil
Nikolayev, Lew Mammel, Jr., and Torkel Franzen for their thought-
provoking appreciation of my Usenet ephemera. Herewith a few words
to the subject matter.
Tushar, Tom, Phil, and Sayan: please accept my humble gratitude for
your undeservedly kind words. Alas, I do not keep an archive and my
thesis no longer exists. Whenever I feel an urge to revisit my own
words, I try to rethink them anew. As a concession to my indolence,
Deja News has been of great help.
Lew: my sphinx-like silence was entirely due to sublime ignorance of
the UCLA news server. Cartesian discontinuity between full-fledged
cognition and passive information processing depends on being the
locus of responsibility for one's own cognitive states. By empirical
accounts, the higher primates come awfully close, though probably not
close enough, to evincing grubby eagerness for knowledge, the hallmark
whereof is the ability and willingness to change one's mind out of
deference to the authority of demonstrative argument and manifest
evidence.
Torkel: of innumerable things I wish I had learned from you over our
many years of Internet propinquity, the foremost is your proud ability
to form, propound, maintain, embellish, defend, and cherish a panoply
of pithy opinions. Please share your gift with the rest of mankind.
Cordially -- Mikhail Zel...@math.ucla.edu * M...@ptyx.com ** www.ptyx.com
God: "Sum id quod sum." ** 7576 Willow Glen Road, Los Angeles, CA 90046
Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum." * 213.876.8234 (fon) * 213.876.8054 (fax)
Popeye: "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum." **** www.alonzo.org
established on 2.26.1958 ** itinerant philosopher * will think for food
Philip Nikolayev
Rajappa Iyer <r...@lucent.com> writes:
> Philip Nikolayev <nik...@login5.fas.harvard.edu> writes:
>
> > p.s. tumhare liye bhi ek yadi hai, bhai sahab: tum tumhari apni
> > kavitaen apni ganD se nikal kar sahityak patrikaon ko jaldi bhej
> ^^^^
>
> Without questioning the value of `kavitaen' stored in the `ganD',
> shouldn't you write it as `GhaanD'? ;-)
Of course, Tushar and I habitually use 'gaanD' as shorthand for 'mez
ki daraaz,' as poets oftentimes do.
Yours,
PN
Tushar Samant
nik...@login5.fas.harvard.edu writes:
>Bravo! I have a fair amount saved over a long time, and will gladly
>send it to you if that's OK with the Zman.
My basic assumption was that the postings made by the ZMan (especially
those expiring 1999 ...) were fair game, but the more extended writings
would need some sort of permission.
>Screw institutional death, now that there's the Internet. Now
>everybody is immortal, but some still more immortal than
>others.
More precisely, we are immortal for so long as our cheap rented web
spaces remain on par with the Sonys and the CNNs. But why not try.
What do you say to a picture of Superman on the front page, digitally
altered to say "Z"? No? Oh well...
>Cheers,
>Philip Nikolyev
>
>p.s. tumhare liye bhi ek yadi hai, bhai sahab: tum tumhari apni
>kavitaen apni ganD se nikal kar sahityak patrikaon ko jaldi bhej
>do. garmiyon men bahut patrikaen band hoti hain; is liye tumhare paas
>samay bohot kam hai.
tang aa chuke hai kashmakash-e-zindagi se hum
Thukraa na de jahaan ko kahi bedili se hum ...