[OT] Criticism is Dead.
Fraser
writer's skill, there are some that do nothing much at all for me, and then
there are the odd few that are so far from what I consider to be good or
even marginally competent writing that all I can do is sit there and
dry-hurl in disbelief. Some pre-pubescent sk8r boi or grrrl, whose knowledge
of the world and its workings makes George W. Bush appear positively
erudite, will have posted a piece-of-shit story about Playstation characters
grappling with Issues of Life and Death in post-Britney America, and I can
only stare at the monitor, shaking my head and thinking, "You just don't
have a clue. You don't, and you never will, so fuck off." Fortunately for
me, all I have to do is ignore the story and move on to something else.
That sounds harsh, and it is. So harsh that it started me thinking about how
relative perceptions are, and how unreliable. If I was 16, I'd probably
think that sk8r's story was at the bleeding edge of modern fiction,
addressing Issues of Life and Death through a revolutionary synthesis of
pop=kulcha and alternative spelling, or some such shite. But the only thing
that has changed between 16-year-old- me, and this raddled, addled 35-year
old version is that I'm older, I've made more mistakes and I've learned a
bit more. The problem is, I'll continue to grow older, to make mistakes and
(hopefully) to learn more, so whatever I write or read now (this included)
will, logically, stand a good chance of seeming like shite to the 45-year
old version of me. Or do you eventually reach a point where your mind is no
longer capable of embracing new patterns of thought, and the prejudices and
preferences that you hold at that 'point of stasis' remain with you,
unchanged, for the rest of your life?
It seems that any literary/artistic criticism that is not purely technical
in nature must be based on the latter hypothesis. After all, how could one
pass judgment on a work of fiction (or on anything else) if one was to
accept that the criteria one employs to measure the 'worth' of that fiction
are merely variable functions of one's age and life experience? And if one
further accepts that the 'stasis' hypothesis is fundamentally flawed and
invalid (because human knowledge and experience does indeed continue to
increase, if not on an individual basis then certainly on a
generational/historical one) then it follows that Literary/Artistic
Criticism is itself invalid and fundamentally flawed, an exercise in
temporal arrogance and intellectual masturbation matched only by this entire
post.
The only thing we can be reasonably sure of is the infinite nature of our
own ignorance, and the best any of us can do short of killing ourselves is
to participate in this farcical construct of interpretation and guess-work
that we refer to as reality. Everything we think, say, write and do is
suspect, an instinctive reaction to an existence we do not and cannot
understand.
So this post is bullshit (a lot of better educated people could tell me
exactly why it's bullshit, but that would just be bullshit too). Any comment
that I make on any story posted here is, essentially, bullshit. I know
nothing for certain, and nothing I say makes the slightest bit of real
difference to anything at all.
Two things that surprise me about that conclusion:
1) it was written stone-cold sober <g>
2) it's not nearly as depressing as it should be. Quite cheering, actually.
Thank you, and good night.
Fraser
ejb
> it follows that Literary/Artistic
> Criticism is itself invalid and fundamentally flawed, an exercise in
> temporal arrogance and intellectual masturbation
... unless you're talking to academics who do criticism for a living, in
which case it's the highest calling one can aspire to. One of these
"people" has recently said (in arguing that the English department at a
certain university--which will remain nameless--should focus solely on
criticism/theory and not tolerate a creative writing program): "We don't
need sheep--we already have the shepherds."
-ejb
Harper
wrote:
<snip>
<< Some pre-pubescent sk8r boi or grrrl, whose knowledge
of the world and its workings makes George W. Bush appear positively
erudite,<<
Oh please. Gratuitous. We all know he's a ninny.
>>will have posted a piece-of-shit story about Playstation characters
grappling with Issues of Life and Death in post-Britney America,<<
That sounds like a damn good story. What's inherently wrong with any of it? Who
precisely are you trying to skewer? What would you consider a worthy subject of
a short story? Something more serious-minded? Personally, I wouldn't mind an
airing of "issues of Life and Death" (or some such shite) from any quarter. Why
so disdainful?
<snip>
<< So this post is bullshit >><BR><BR>
Don't be so hard on yourself.
<< (a lot of better educated people could tell me
exactly why it's bullshit, but that would just be bullshit too). >><BR><BR>
You're certain about that? Does that apply only to the better educated, or to
anyone who might have a go?
<< any comment
that I make on any story posted here is, essentially, bullshit. >><BR><BR>
But it's bullshit that, in general, by posting here, I have solicited. I have
always found your bullshit to be of a particularly high order. I love it when
you dispense your unique bullshit upon me. Seriously, you often have great
insight. That it is all, reductively speaking, thoroughly meaningless, is not a
new idea. That it is all thoroughly meaning*ful* is the flipside of the same
coin (and yet another old idea). Meaning is what you make of it. Have you
mislaid your meaning?
<< I know
nothing for certain >><BR><BR>
You seem to be quite certain about that. Whence this sophomoric silliness,
Fraser? Whose bullshit lit theory have you been reading? <g>
<< and nothing I say makes the slightest bit of real
difference to anything at all. >><BR><BR>
You're just coming to this now? Another way of looking at it says it makes a
tremendous difference to just about everything. What would you have people do?
Declare it's all bullshit and stop talking?
<< Two things that surprise me about that conclusion:
1) it was written stone-cold sober <g>
You may regret that confession in morning, lad.
2) it's not nearly as depressing as it should be. Quite cheering, actually.
>><BR><BR>
Sure, don't mind me. It's all bullshit anyway. Thanks for the aggressive
reminder :-(
You say you like Michael Chabon. Have you read _The Amazing Adventures of
Kavalier & Clay_? You might find some comfort there. You're sounding a bit
nihilistic this fine morning. All you all right?
Harper
</disappointed with you, whether or not you're drunk>
--
2004 is going to be an interesting election year.
Harper
wrote:
-ejb
>><BR><BR>
Funny!
But let's face it, academia is an easy target--broad as a barn. What are we
doing when we rail at its excesses, its laughable conceits? We should write our
stories. Otherwise, the academics win :-)
Harper (nice to see you, ebj)
Ejucaided Redneck
I've been part of three "creative writing programs," one at an
undergraduate level, which I finished years ago, and two MFA programs,
out of which I happily dropped, happy _I_ hadn't paid for them. (I was
in the Navy at the time and Uncle Sugar picked up the tab.)
I've also talked to people in other programs at probably half a dozen
other universities and have never been all that impressed with what I
heard. I'll spare you my own stories, and what I've heard from others.
The primary reason for having such programs is they're immensely
profitable for the schools who host them. Collaterally, they provide
day jobs for their graduates, and a few other writers.
Teaching writing is one thing. "Creative writing programs" are quite
another.
I'd never urge a would-be writer to enroll in one, unless they want to
be a career academic.
--
"Everywhere I go I'm asked if
I think the university stifles writers.
My opinion is that they don't stifle
enough of them."
Flannery O'Connor
--
New News: http://www.bobsloansampler.com/news.htm
Fiction, poetry, essays
New MP3: A Ladder Kid to Yell At
http://www.bobsloansampler.com/
Most recent Lexington "Herald-Leader" column: "A Really Decent
President"
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/opinion/5702956.htm
nativelaw
"Fraser" <fra...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b8vciv$dul1a$1...@ID-116198.news.dfncis.de...
> There are always a few stories on AFO that fill me with admiration for the
> writer's skill, there are some that do nothing much at all for me, and
then
> there are the odd few that are so far from what I consider to be good or
> even marginally competent writing that all I can do is sit there and
> dry-hurl in disbelief. Some pre-pubescent sk8r boi or grrrl, whose
knowledge
> of the world and its workings makes George W. Bush appear positively
> erudite, will have posted a piece-of-shit story about Playstation
characters
> grappling with Issues of Life and Death in post-Britney America, and I can
> only stare at the monitor, shaking my head and thinking, "You just don't
> have a clue. You don't, and you never will, so fuck off." Fortunately for
> me, all I have to do is ignore the story and move on to something else.
I like the way you think out loud about something that's bugging you and
reach thoughtful conclusions.
I agree that all we do and say is relative. I sometimes allow myself to
suspend disbelief and imagine, for a moment, that this world that we
perceive is just a perception that someone has given us, and in a moment it
will be taken away and we will see a whole 'nother perception.
But 99% of the time, I deal with what I perceive, because it's what I know.
Taken to extremes, "everything is relative" would go not only for literary
criticism but for every word out of our mouths. "You are very nice," "I
like you a lot," "you interest me" and "you are very attractive" are all
things we love to hear... but they too are so relative, aren't they? We are
all coming just from our own little islands . Doesn't mean you disregard
the intent, though.
Intent is the best possible thing to be able to convey, yet sometimes so
hard. Maybe that's why it's so much more effective sometimes just to act.
A touch, a hand on another. Speech can be such a pathetic substitute at
times, for all of our verbosity. Maybe that's why I too have some resident
disdain for most 'literary criticism'.. its intent has always, to me, seemed
questionable. I don't mind subtlety, but I dislike false pretenses. I
like intent right out in the open.
The nice thing about criticism here at AFO is it's usually not just "I like
it"or "I
don't like it", which you are right, is so relative as to in some cases be
meaningless; but we also get, "you repeated that word three times" and
heads-up regarding misspellings, and comments like "that was vague to me,
can you explain?" Those kinds of things are, I think, helpful for a writer.
I know they are for me. Do you agree that much of the writing you see
around this place gets progressively better (or seems to?) So are we
changing, growing more tolerant, or is the writing improving through the
crit process? And it can be so lonely to write, sometimes. We write in
solitude, most of us, and then we need the audience to tell us whether our
intent stayed in our own heads or managed to make it to the page.
So I note you make exception for technical criticism, and I agree that's the
most helpful. But it's also nice once in a while to hear.... "you moved
me". It may have only been a tiny glimmer of truth, it may have been
relative, it may have only been true for that person for that moment in time
in that location in the universe, like a shard of glass that you catch
glistening on the sidewalk in the sun, but it's the intent that counts and
that makes you feel good.
So it's great, too, that we almost all declare our prejudices up front (I
don't
like Sci Fi; I hate stories with sk8ter girrls; etc.) Good that you skip
that which you are likely to eviscerate. And don't forget that the stories
you skip one day you may have more tolerance for the next. Think of how
you feel after a bad day. Then think of how you feel after you just had
some really good sex <g>. Notice the difference? It's in the connection.
You might not like the sk8ter story any better, but you might like the
person that wrote the sk8ter story enough to try to give them a little bit
of encouragement, to try to find the good in what they wrote. Maybe they
weren't happy with the sk8ter story either. Maybe they had to get through
that piece to write the next good one. If you can connect with the audience
on some level, your words may not be so nearly as important as your intent.
That's probably why literary crit sometimes can seem like 'mental
masturbation' and be so annoying; its intent is masqued as edifying the
audience when it's really just solipsistic self-gratification. Sometimes
it's purposeful; other times benign.
>
> It seems that any literary/artistic criticism that is not purely technical
> in nature must be based on the latter hypothesis.
I agree mostly. I'm usually the last to defend literary critism, literary
theory because of the annoying amount of time and resource that is spent on
it in academia relative to the resources that are thrown at other things.
But what I think I hate most about literary criticism is my perception of it
as lacking clear intent and where it does express intent "my intent in this
piece is to show that..... blah blah blah" it's often something that I feel
wouldn't matter a damn bit to the rotation of the world on its axis so why
are you bothering me? That's most often when my perception is that it's
written by unfeeling 'academics' who look down their noses at persons in the
thick of it, who hide behind a fascist wall of words, who disdain the
masses, who hide their fears and weaknesses in arrogance and platitudes and
proverbial we's.
Apart from that perception, in my opinion, the best literary/artistic
criticism that I have read, *is* to a degree technical in nature and that's
why it goes on, I think, it's often got something to hang its hat on. If it
makes me think of something in a new way or -- draw connections -- then it's
valuable to me. As Grandfather believes in one of my favorite books, "The
Absence of Angels" (W.S. Penn), "all things are connected like dandelions."
(you know how underground, the roots of dandelions are all attached?) It's
the connections that matter to be most when I think, and sometimes even
(bleccchhh) literary criticism can make them.
Since I am just spewing thoughts here I have as usual taken about a thousand
words to say something that I could have said in three: "you moved me."
Your post moved me to write and respond, and you offer interesting
thoughts. I'm glad it cheered you to write it. I too get cheered by
unusual of things, that might otherwise seem depressing -- I guess by
extrapolation that you're tough in the face of hard things. A good person
to have in the lifeboat <g>.
Thanks for posting, Frase.
Andrea
ejb
> We should write our
> stories. Otherwise, the academics win :-)
On the other hand: if the sheep stop writing, the shepherds will be out
of work. ;)
> Harper (nice to see you, ebj)
Likewise, to be sure.
-ejb
Huw Lyan Thomas
> And if one
> further accepts that the 'stasis' hypothesis is fundamentally flawed and
> invalid (because human knowledge and experience does indeed continue to
> increase, if not on an individual basis then certainly on a
> generational/historical one) then it follows that Literary/Artistic
> Criticism is itself invalid and fundamentally flawed, an exercise in
> temporal arrogance and intellectual masturbation matched only by this entire
> post.
Everything has a context that will one day become invalid, including all
art and literature, and this very post.
Oops. Anyone got a tissue? <g>
--
Huw
http://huw.hexlibris.com
Fraser
"Harper" <cinem...@aol.commoner> wrote in message
news:20030503081220...@mb-m15.aol.com...
<snip>
> Harper
> </disappointed with you, whether or not you're drunk>
>
> --
> 2004 is going to be an interesting election year.
Hey Harper.
My apologies for pising you off, if not for what I wrote. There was no
aggressive intent, and I'm sorry you felt there was.
Take it easy,
Fraser
Fraser
"ejb" <smapscree...@XremoveX.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.191e5e79b...@news.ains.net.au...
Nice one!
Fraser
Fraser
"Huw Lyan Thomas" <huwSp...@hexlibris.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.191dd8c3...@192.168.0.1...
Bullshit.
<g>
Fraser
Fraser
"nativelaw" <l...@REMOVEnativelaw.net> wrote in message
news:ZiPsa.3246$a46....@news01.roc.ny.frontiernet.net...
> I agree that all we do and say is relative. I sometimes allow myself to
> suspend disbelief and imagine, for a moment, that this world that we
> perceive is just a perception that someone has given us, and in a moment
it
> will be taken away and we will see a whole 'nother perception.
It is, pretty much. If our eyes and minds had developed slightly
differently, the sky wouldn't be blue any more. Straight lines would be
crooked. I find that kind of shit - how utterly dependent we are on
perception - incredible. We can't possibly know what 'reality' is, because
we're so limited by the input we can receive and by our means of
interpreting it. I know none of this is new, as Harper so kindly pointed
out, but it blows me away when I get to thinking about it.
I think that the best trick in the human bag is the fact that we are capable
of living our lives as if there *is* a meaning to it all, despite having the
ability to work out that, on a larger scale, our little lives are nothing.
That's our triumph, and our downfall. Our triumph because our capacity for
self-delusion is what keeps the species going, our downfall because it's our
fear of that darkness beyond the firelight that causes most of what is wrong
with this world we've made.
But all this meaning-of-life shtuff wasn't what prompted me to start my
original thread anyway. That just crept in as I got warmed up! I think all I
was trying to say way back at the beginning was that today - right now - I
would hate sk8r's story. At a different age, or in a different mood (as you
pointed out), or if I was into Playstation and Britney Spears because of
events in my past (god forbid), I might love sk8r's story. It's all my own
perception, it's all unreliable and constantly changing, and that makes any
non-technical judgment I might pass on a story nothing but a product of my
own preferences and prejudices at a specific point in my life. Bullshit, in
other words, as far as any actual measurement of artistic 'worth' (let's not
get into that) is concerned. If it's bullshit that makes the author happy
then that's great, but it doesn't make it true.
Doesn't mean I'll stop doing it, either, cos I'm as good at deluding myself
as anyone else.
Thanks for your great response, Andrea. Good to have a bit of a bullshit
every now and again. <G>
Fraser
Harper
wrote:
<< "Harper" <cinem...@aol.commoner> wrote in message
news:20030503081220...@mb-m15.aol.com...
<snip>
Hey Harper.
Take it easy,
Fraser >><BR><BR>
My apologies for being snippity. Andrea's post is great, ain't it? She said
what I meant with a cool head. Cheers, Fraser.
Harper
Alaric
> There are always a few stories on AFO that fill me with admiration for the
writer's skill, there are some that do nothing much at all for me, and then
there are the odd few that are so far from what I consider to be good or
even marginally competent writing that all I can do is sit there and
dry-hurl in disbelief. Some pre-pubescent sk8r boi or grrrl, whose knowledge
of the world and its workings makes George W. Bush appear positively
erudite, will have posted a piece-of-shit story about Playstation characters
grappling with Issues of Life and Death in post-Britney America
Finally!!! Some inspiration for a story. Thanks, Fraser. Er. I can nick it,
can't I?
> and I can only stare at the monitor, shaking my head and thinking, "You
just don't have a clue. You don't, and you never will, so fuck off."
Fortunately for me, all I have to do is ignore the story and move on to
something else.
There are two phases of writing. The one most of us are at, where we treat
it as a serious trade, and the adolescent phase, where we treat it VERY
seriously - when we believe that everything we say is of not only interest
but IMPORTANCE to everyone else - that the teen world is the real world -
that our last work is the best work written anywhere by anybody at any time.
Insofar as your argument centres on an adult view of that kind of work, you'
re on point. I look at the angst ridden university stuff that occasionally
appears here and cringe - not only because it's so ineffably bad but because
I wrote such things at fifteen too. As to how to react, well, it's
difficult. You want to encourage the writer, but you don't want to mislead.
I usually answer those stories, but do so bluntly. A little guidance doesn't
help. An entire sea change is needed, a re-evaluation of what's of interest
to others, and it's a disservice not to say so.
> That sounds harsh, and it is. So harsh that it started me thinking about
how relative perceptions are, and how unreliable. If I was 16, I'd probably
think that sk8r's story was at the bleeding edge of modern fiction,
addressing Issues of Life and Death through a revolutionary synthesis of
pop=kulcha and alternative spelling, or some such shite.
You might, but I doubt it. Crap is crap. The only person who doesn't see it
usually is the writer of the crap - look at Johnny. My recollection of those
years is that I couldn't see MY bad writing but I had no difficulty in
seeing everyone else's. Relative is relative.
> But the only thing that has changed between 16-year-old- me, and this
raddled, addled 35-year old version is that I'm older, I've made more
mistakes and I've learned a bit more. The problem is, I'll continue to grow
older, to make mistakes and (hopefully) to learn more, so whatever I write
or read now (this included) will, logically, stand a good chance of seeming
like shite to the 45-year old version of me.
No. It won't. Because it isn't shite. Teen fiction is often shite because it
's callow. The gap that lies between 15 and 27 doesn't lie between 35 and
45. You get better as a writer, sure, but you extend your reach and amend
your ideals. Your Gods are already formed, and don't change overmuch. In the
first gap, you're changing from child to adult. In the second, you're
developing thematically, structurally, grammatically.
> Or do you eventually reach a point where your mind is no longer capable of
embracing new patterns of thought, and the prejudices and preferences that
you hold at that 'point of stasis' remain with you, unchanged, for the rest
of your life?
To a degree, I've just said yes to that. But only to a degree. I've just
changed my politics, insofar as I label them to "party." My world view is
consistent, but it isn't stagnant. I can look at a story I wrote ten years
ago and want to change it's message slightly (certainly I'll want to change
its technical nature), but if I look at something I wrote 25 years ago, it'
ll be unsalvageable because of the attitude and world view I had when I
wrote it.
> It seems that any literary/artistic criticism that is not purely technical
in nature must be based on the latter hypothesis. After all, how could one
pass judgment on a work of fiction (or on anything else) if one was to
accept that the criteria one employs to measure the 'worth' of that fiction
are merely variable functions of one's age and life experience?
Well, those aren't the only criteria. But they do have viability, in the
sense that a broad age range and experience, a homogeneity if you like, is
visible in the book buying public. So a crit based on reaction as a card
carrying member of that group is automatically valuable.
> And if one further accepts that the 'stasis' hypothesis is fundamentally
flawed and invalid (because human knowledge and experience does indeed
continue to increase, if not on an individual basis then certainly on a
generational/historical one) then it follows that Literary/Artistic
Criticism is itself invalid and fundamentally flawed, an exercise in
temporal arrogance and intellectual masturbation matched only by this entire
post.
Now this IS bullshit. The wonderful thing about great writers is that their
essential sharpness in observation of human nature evades erosion by time. I
've said before that many renowned figures fail this test for me - are
trapped within their own age - Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle.
But Melville and Hemingway still speak to the human spirit. Dickens and
Fielding have relevant things to say on poverty and man's inhumanity to man.
The anti-war message of Catch 22 won't fade. The list is huge. And criticism
which focuses on helping an author to achieve the aim of a telling message
cannot, ipso facto, be wasted.
> The only thing we can be reasonably sure of is the infinite nature of our
own ignorance,
And our goodwill.
> and the best any of us can do short of killing ourselves is to participate
in this farcical construct of interpretation and guess-work that we refer to
as reality. Everything we think, say, write and do is suspect, an
instinctive reaction to an existence we do not and cannot understand.
This is deconstructive thinking, to which I often subscribe. Yeah, I might
be asleep in The Matrix. But then again, I may not. Maybe I'm the clever guy
who wrote The Matrix. Maybe what is, is. In the absence of evidence to the
contrary, whatcha gonna do?
> So this post is bullshit (a lot of better educated people could tell me
exactly why it's bullshit, but that would just be bullshit too).
Bullshit is, by definition, unsupported argument. Yeah, you do have a lot of
that in here. <g>
Any comment that I make on any story posted here is, essentially, bullshit.
I know nothing for certain, and nothing I say makes the slightest bit of
real difference to anything at all.
You know you're offering advice based on that experience you talked about
earlier. You know what stuff gets published and what doesn't. More
importantly (at least to me) you know what entertains the dark hours - not
just for you but for that homogenous mass (insofar as taste is concerned)
and what doesn't. Steering a writer in that direction - or away from it if
he's a potentially skilled maverick - is a real service of which you ought
to be proud.
Read my quote.
--
"Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you."
T.S. ELIOT - The Wasteland.
R. Westermeyer
wrote:
Before I venture to lash my mind into responding to this very thought
provoking post of Fraser's, and at the risk of coming across as
concrete doof, who the fuck is "sk8r grrrl"?
--Bob
Opus
> provoking post of Fraser's, and at the risk of coming across as
> concrete doof, who the fuck is "sk8r grrrl"?
>
> --Bob
>
this.
O
--
"I tried cybersex once, but was turned off by the depth of the
illiteracy. Things were going fine until the guy kept telling me he was
fuming, he was fuming, and I didn't know what I'd done to offend him."
--Carla Rene'
nativelaw
"R. Westermeyer" <wst...@cts.com> wrote in message
news:juj8bvgg7o17cufjo...@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 3 May 2003 10:27:37 +0700, "Fraser" <fra...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> Before I venture to lash my mind into responding to this very thought
> provoking post of Fraser's, and at the risk of coming across as
> concrete doof, who the fuck is "sk8r grrrl"?
>
> --Bob
Lol. My 8 year old has her CD. Avril Lavigne, pop starlet, has a song
about a "skater boy" and she or someone has come to write it "sk8ter boy"
and there's also a reference to a "sk8ter girrrllll".
In case you don't know who Avril is... she's Michael's favorite singer as
you may recall from one of his stories <g>.
Longden
Interesting issue you raise. Of course it's not new, and it can
seem naive, but it's a timeless issue, I believe. Looked at from the
outside, what people believe, and believe in and place value on, has little
to do with evidence and everything to do with environment, culture,
accidents of social situation and personal experience, upbringing, personal
advantage, you name it. (At the risk of straying deep into bullshit
territory, there is I believe a deep-logic link between community and
systems of belief; it's one of the fundamental insights of the later
Wittgenstein, and it's what makes explicable the facile and visible
aspects, acculturation and so forth. This though is just the beginning of
something that could be said about this, not the end of anything. Ignore
the parenthesis if you like. It's upshot is this: It's even worse than
that.) The point is that we can turn this perspective on ourselves, we can
look at our own beliefs in that way. But this is at odds with, in tension
with our subjective experience. I have my convictions, and I can justify
every one of them, can't I?
I think your scepticism, your self-doubt is wholly proper. And
should even have practical consequences. If only each one of us, every
adult person in the world, would take just one of their cherished beliefs
or values, and really try to understand why not everyone else shares it.
Does this mean that things like objectivity, truth, insight are
chimerical? I don't think so. They are goals. One would like to say it is
rational to believe that we have methods for approximating to them. But
that is probably wrong too. Rationality is just another goal, like truth
and objectivity; it is not itself either rational or irrational. It is
natural though to believe that by thinking more, seeing more, learning
more, dwelling more on something, whatever it is, one is approaching those
goals, even if there is no test which will tell us when we have attained
them, and give us surety of possession.
That's my slant on it, anyway. 'Course it could be a load of
humanistic bullshit.
Longden
P.S. This was written half-sober, so it is probably my best thinking on the
subject.
Longden
>> Before I venture to lash my mind into responding to this very thought
>> provoking post of Fraser's, and at the risk of coming across as
>> concrete doof, who the fuck is "sk8r grrrl"?
>>
>> --Bob
>>
>Bob, I love ya, man. Bout deposited a lung on my keyboard after reading
>this.
>
>O
He's serious. He is serious, isn't he? Who the blazes is sk8er?
Longden
Opus
But, correct me if I'm wrong, I thought Fraser was being hypothetical in his
reference to sk8ter bitch--kind of, a global figure of speech to represent the
decline of the Gen-D's respect in general for literary prose or fiction in
general.
I dunno, could've read it wrong as I usually do.
O
Longden wrote:
--
nativelaw
"Opus" <opus...@bloomcounty.com> wrote in message
news:3EB466A1...@bloomcounty.com...
> Yes, he is. That's why it was funny.
>
> But, correct me if I'm wrong, I thought Fraser was being hypothetical in
his
> reference to sk8ter bitch--kind of, a global figure of speech to represent
the
> decline of the Gen-D's respect in general for literary prose or fiction in
> general.
>
> I dunno, could've read it wrong as I usually do.
>
> O
We're on Generation D now? Sheesh! Where have I been? I thought we just
past X? Isn't it like hurricanes, it goes alphabetical <g>?
Quadpus
> writer's skill, there are some that do nothing much at all for me, and then
> there are the odd few that are so far from what I consider to be good or
> even marginally competent writing that all I can do is sit there and
> dry-hurl in disbelief. Some pre-pubescent sk8r boi or grrrl, whose knowledge
> of the world and its workings makes George W. Bush appear positively
> erudite, will have posted a piece-of-shit story about Playstation characters
> grappling with Issues of Life and Death in post-Britney America, and I can
> only stare at the monitor, shaking my head and thinking, "You just don't
> have a clue. You don't, and you never will, so fuck off." Fortunately for
> me, all I have to do is ignore the story and move on to something else.
I guess I won't be posting "The Sorrows Of Young Tommy Vercetti" like
I'd been planning, then. Fucking spoilsport.
> That sounds harsh, and it is. So harsh that it started me thinking about how
> relative perceptions are, and how unreliable. If I was 16, I'd probably
> think that sk8r's story was at the bleeding edge of modern fiction,
> addressing Issues of Life and Death through a revolutionary synthesis of
> pop=kulcha and alternative spelling, or some such shite. But the only thing
> that has changed between 16-year-old- me, and this raddled, addled 35-year
> old version is that I'm older, I've made more mistakes and I've learned a
> bit more. The problem is, I'll continue to grow older, to make mistakes and
> (hopefully) to learn more, so whatever I write or read now (this included)
> will, logically, stand a good chance of seeming like shite to the 45-year
> old version of me. Or do you eventually reach a point where your mind is no
> longer capable of embracing new patterns of thought, and the prejudices and
> preferences that you hold at that 'point of stasis' remain with you,
> unchanged, for the rest of your life?
Well, you can just rock me to sleep at night, Fraser. I don't know! Jeez,
why don't we all sit down with our pencils and try to puzzle out Fermat's
Last Theorem, instead? I think that'd be easier.
Okay, kidding aside, the answer to your question is yes. From what I can
tell, people's opinions and attitudes tend to calcify as they approach
middle age. However, I am sure there are exceptions to this rule, and I hope
to meet them someday.
> It seems that any literary/artistic criticism that is not purely technical
> in nature must be based on the latter hypothesis. After all, how could one
> pass judgment on a work of fiction (or on anything else) if one was to
> accept that the criteria one employs to measure the 'worth' of that fiction
> are merely variable functions of one's age and life experience? And if one
> further accepts that the 'stasis' hypothesis is fundamentally flawed and
> invalid (because human knowledge and experience does indeed continue to
> increase, if not on an individual basis then certainly on a
> generational/historical one) then it follows that Literary/Artistic
> Criticism is itself invalid and fundamentally flawed, an exercise in
> temporal arrogance and intellectual masturbation matched only by this entire
> post.
Indeed. But of course, criticism dies on a regular basis, only to have its
corpse eaten by the new dominant paradigm shortly thereafter, and the cycle
repeats itself. Smart writer-types at fancy-ass New York magazines have been
picking at the sinew of Postmodernism for as long as I've been paying
attention to such things. It's only a matter of time before something new
springs up in its place, and it, you can be sure, will be equally arrogant
and masturbatory. But, like Postmodernism, it will probably explain things
just a wee tiny bit better than its predecessor.
Then, someday, we will achieve Literary Nirvana, and we will no longer have
to read books because the Grand Unified Theory of Literary Criticism will
allow us to understand everything that writers and poets and dramatists have
been trying in vain to get through our thick, worldly skulls for the last
3,000 years.
Then we'll have time to concentrate on things like cooking, and photography.
Me, I've always wanted to learn how to play the slide guitar. How about you?
> The only thing we can be reasonably sure of is the infinite nature of our
> own ignorance, and the best any of us can do short of killing ourselves is
> to participate in this farcical construct of interpretation and guess-work
> that we refer to as reality. Everything we think, say, write and do is
> suspect, an instinctive reaction to an existence we do not and cannot
> understand.
Sounds like you need religion, Fraser.
> So this post is bullshit (a lot of better educated people could tell me
> exactly why it's bullshit, but that would just be bullshit too). Any comment
> that I make on any story posted here is, essentially, bullshit. I know
> nothing for certain, and nothing I say makes the slightest bit of real
> difference to anything at all.
Well, that's not necessarily so.
For people who are writing purely as a measure of self-expression, or to
uncover the hidden nature of Truth and Beauty, I can do nothing.
But if they just want to sell a goddamn short to their friendly neighborhood
literary zine, I can tell them what's wrong with their grammar, whether or
not their characters are interesting, how well the plot is structured, what
the story makes me think, and if, in my humble opinion, the story is polished
enough to shop around or not.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, what we do here at AFO is not literary
criticism. It's workshopping. We're a pit crew, trying to get these stories
cleaned off and fueled up and tricked out enough to drive. Because, while I
can't tell a writer whether or not she is properly giving voice to the
unseen demons that torment her soul, and I can't tell a writer if he has
adequately concealed the secret of mankind's heartbreaking incommensurateness
with the Divine beneath enough layers of subtext that only a reader with the
soul of a Romantic poet will be able to recognize and understand it, I can
tell a writer if his or her story is likely to make it past the slush-reader
at Weird Tales.
If we can do this, here, we are performing a valuable service.
> Two things that surprise me about that conclusion:
>
> 1) it was written stone-cold sober <g>
Have a drink, Fraser.
> 2) it's not nearly as depressing as it should be. Quite cheering, actually.
Hey, I enjoyed it.
> Thank you, and good night.
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Longden
>"Fraser" <fra...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<b8vciv$dul1a$1...@ID-116198.news.dfncis.de>...>Then, someday, we will achieve Literary Nirvana, and we will no longer have
>to read books because the Grand Unified Theory of Literary Criticism will
Does that combine gravity and Quadpus Theory?
Oh why am I still up. Makes a change from backgammon.
Great post.
LOngden
Longden
>Yes, he is. That's why it was funny.
Oh good. I wasn't though, I think.
>But, correct me if I'm wrong, I thought Fraser was being hypothetical in his
>reference to sk8ter bitch--kind of, a global figure of speech to represent the
>decline of the Gen-D's respect in general for literary prose or fiction in
>general.
Haven't a clue what the fuck you're on about.
>I dunno, could've read it wrong as I usually do.
I doubt it.
>O
>
Thanks O.
Longden
Fraser
"Alaric" <alar...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:b90utt$rcu$1...@titan.btinternet.com...
Playstation characters
> grappling with Issues of Life and Death in post-Britney America
>
> Finally!!! Some inspiration for a story. Thanks, Fraser. Er. I can nick
it,
> can't I?
It's yours. Just don't post it here!
As to how to react, well, it's
> difficult. You want to encourage the writer, but you don't want to
mislead.
> I usually answer those stories, but do so bluntly. A little guidance
doesn't
> help. An entire sea change is needed, a re-evaluation of what's of
interest
> to others, and it's a disservice not to say so.
I think you have a great deal more patience and tact than most when it comes
to reviewing. I'll add that it's only very occasionally that something will
be anywhere near as bad as I described.
>
> > That sounds harsh, and it is. So harsh that it started me thinking about
> how relative perceptions are, and how unreliable. If I was 16, I'd
probably
> think that sk8r's story was at the bleeding edge of modern fiction,
> addressing Issues of Life and Death through a revolutionary synthesis of
> pop=kulcha and alternative spelling, or some such shite.
>
> You might, but I doubt it. Crap is crap. The only person who doesn't see
it
> usually is the writer of the crap - look at Johnny. My recollection of
those
> years is that I couldn't see MY bad writing but I had no difficulty in
> seeing everyone else's. Relative is relative.
>
Can't agree there. I used to be a huge Wilbur Smith fan when I was that age.
Now I can't get through a page of it.
>
> To a degree, I've just said yes to that. But only to a degree. I've just
> changed my politics, insofar as I label them to "party." My world view is
> consistent, but it isn't stagnant. I can look at a story I wrote ten years
> ago and want to change it's message slightly (certainly I'll want to
change
> its technical nature), but if I look at something I wrote 25 years ago,
it'
> ll be unsalvageable because of the attitude and world view I had when I
> wrote it.
So if you'd been another Martin Amis and held an influential critical
position in your twenties, any negative criticism you'd written at that time
(which might have adversely affected someones writing career) would've
been...er, bullshit? There's a few people on AFO in their early twenties,
I'd guess. Is the criticism they offer (which is undoubtably different to
what they will offer when they're in their forties) an accurate assessment
of the story? I don't think so. It's an accurate 20-year old's assessment,
sure. Your assessment is an accurate 40-ish year old's. But there can be no
*absolute* assessment, because people's perceptions change constantly, even
if the rate of change slows as we get older. Without complete stagnation any
criticism can be no more than a temporal thing, subject to change, and
therefore unreliable.
>
> > It seems that any literary/artistic criticism that is not purely
technical
> in nature must be based on the latter hypothesis. After all, how could one
> pass judgment on a work of fiction (or on anything else) if one was to
> accept that the criteria one employs to measure the 'worth' of that
fiction
> are merely variable functions of one's age and life experience?
>
> Well, those aren't the only criteria. But they do have viability, in the
> sense that a broad age range and experience, a homogeneity if you like, is
> visible in the book buying public. So a crit based on reaction as a card
> carrying member of that group is automatically valuable.
I was meaning that the criteria are changed by age and experience, not that
they are the criteria. But looking at it that way, I think I covered the
point you're making in the para above - you get a representative opinion,
which can be valuable if your aiming at a certain market.
>
> > And if one further accepts that the 'stasis' hypothesis is fundamentally
> flawed and invalid (because human knowledge and experience does indeed
> continue to increase, if not on an individual basis then certainly on a
> generational/historical one) then it follows that Literary/Artistic
> Criticism is itself invalid and fundamentally flawed, an exercise in
> temporal arrogance and intellectual masturbation matched only by this
entire
> post.
>
> Now this IS bullshit. The wonderful thing about great writers is that
their
> essential sharpness in observation of human nature evades erosion by time.
I
> 've said before that many renowned figures fail this test for me - are
> trapped within their own age - Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle.
> But Melville and Hemingway still speak to the human spirit. Dickens and
> Fielding have relevant things to say on poverty and man's inhumanity to
man.
> The anti-war message of Catch 22 won't fade. The list is huge. And
criticism
> which focuses on helping an author to achieve the aim of a telling message
> cannot, ipso facto, be wasted.
>
Hemingway, Dickens and Heller might speak to the things that you hold dear.
They might even speak to things that Western Civilisation (for want of a
better term) holds dear. You feel, perhaps, that these writers identify
timeless, universal truths about human nature? But in different cultures,
with different histories and different day-to-day lives, they might seem
completely out of touch. The idea that you and I might have of what
constitutes 'human nature' is not absolute. Again, it's only our perception.
Hell, even within your own culture there are many who'd have you flogged for
denying Shakespeare's divinity. Who's right?
> > The only thing we can be reasonably sure of is the infinite nature of
our
> own ignorance,
>
> And our goodwill.
I wouldn't put money on that one.
>
> > and the best any of us can do short of killing ourselves is to
participate
> in this farcical construct of interpretation and guess-work that we refer
to
> as reality. Everything we think, say, write and do is suspect, an
> instinctive reaction to an existence we do not and cannot understand.
>
> This is deconstructive thinking, to which I often subscribe. Yeah, I might
> be asleep in The Matrix. But then again, I may not. Maybe I'm the clever
guy
> who wrote The Matrix. Maybe what is, is. In the absence of evidence to the
> contrary, whatcha gonna do?
You carry on carrying on. I know this probably came across as depressive
nihilism or whatever, but I honestly don't find it depressing at all. As I
said in reply to Andrea last night, I think our ability to carry on as if
there is meaning when (to me anyway) it's blatantly obvious that there
isn't, is amazing. It's the crowning achievement of humanity.
>
> > So this post is bullshit (a lot of better educated people could tell me
> exactly why it's bullshit, but that would just be bullshit too).
>
> Bullshit is, by definition, unsupported argument. Yeah, you do have a lot
of
> that in here. <g>
>
Heh. By extension of my argument, any fact used to support it would be
suspect.
> Any comment that I make on any story posted here is, essentially,
bullshit.
> I know nothing for certain, and nothing I say makes the slightest bit of
> real difference to anything at all.
>
> You know you're offering advice based on that experience you talked about
> earlier. You know what stuff gets published and what doesn't. More
> importantly (at least to me) you know what entertains the dark hours - not
> just for you but for that homogenous mass (insofar as taste is concerned)
> and what doesn't. Steering a writer in that direction - or away from it if
> he's a potentially skilled maverick - is a real service of which you ought
> to be proud.
I'm glad if anything I say about a story helps the author get closer to what
they want. But that doesn't make me right.
>
> Read my quote.
>
> --
I have. To me, it's a warning to the arrogant that nothing lasts, that
nothing we poor, deluded creatures consider important actually is. If I've
read it right, I agree with it. If I've read it wrong, it supports my view
that my criticism is bullshit! <g>
> "Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
> Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
> And the profit and loss.
> A current under sea
> Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
> He passed the stages of his age and youth
> Entering the whirlpool.
> Gentile or Jew
> O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
> Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you."
>
> T.S. ELIOT - The Wasteland.
>
>
Thanks for the response, Alaric. I guess these things I toss in the ring
every now and then irritate the hell out of some people, but (and here's a
sad admission) I would struggle to find this type of
preconception-challenging discussion in most other areas of my life.
'Specially here at work, where mentioning anything of even a semi-literary
nature would be seen as social deviancy of the worst kind.
Fraser
Fraser
> wrote:
>
>
> Before I venture to lash my mind into responding to this very thought
> provoking post of Fraser's, and at the risk of coming across as
> concrete doof, who the fuck is "sk8r grrrl"?
>
> --Bob
Generic teeny-scribe, Bob. Just someone whose view/style/attitude is so far
removed from mine that I'd be unwise to attempt comment on the quality of
their work.
Fraser
Quadpus
>
> I've also talked to people in other programs at probably half a dozen
> other universities and have never been all that impressed with what I
> heard. I'll spare you my own stories, and what I've heard from others.
Aw, c'mon, Bob. Those stories are immensely reassuring to those of us
who stopped at four years of state college.
I mean, I know I didn't miss out on anything by not going through an MFA
program, but...it never hurts to be reminded why.
Opus
Fraser wrote:
> Generic teeny-scribe, Bob. Just someone whose view/style/attitude is so far
> removed from mine that I'd be unwise to attempt comment on the quality of
> their work.
>
> Fraser
O
Opus
> Where have I been? I thought we just
> past X? Isn't it like hurricanes, it goes alphabetical ?
>
Heh.
O
Opus
> >reference to sk8ter bitch--kind of, a global figure of speech to represent the
> >decline of the Gen-D's respect in general for literary prose or fiction in
> >general.
> Haven't a clue what the fuck you're on about.
>
was a generic view of what he called teeny boppers. I called it a
global figure of speech.
O
Fraser
<Longden> wrote in message
news:tgm8bv0mt8m0n2ktl...@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 3 May 2003 10:27:37 +0700, "Fraser" <fra...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Interesting issue you raise. Of course it's not new, and it can
> seem naive, but it's a timeless issue, I believe. Looked at from the
> outside, what people believe, and believe in and place value on, has
little
> to do with evidence and everything to do with environment, culture,
> accidents of social situation and personal experience, upbringing,
personal
> advantage, you name it.
Agreed. In my view, it's impossible to reach even the simplest conclusion
(true or false) without having data to process. It's the data we are given,
and the methods we are taught to process it, that determine the conclusions
we reach i.e. what we regard as the truth. If the data is inaccurate, so is
the conclusion, but it will still be regarded as truth by the processor. If
a different method is used to process the data, we have a different
conclusion and, to the individual, a different truth. It is not possible for
us to know the Truth, because we are dependent on unreliable data and flawed
processing techniques.
(At the risk of straying deep into bullshit
> territory, there is I believe a deep-logic link between community and
> systems of belief; it's one of the fundamental insights of the later
> Wittgenstein, and it's what makes explicable the facile and visible
> aspects, acculturation and so forth. This though is just the beginning of
> something that could be said about this, not the end of anything. Ignore
> the parenthesis if you like. It's upshot is this: It's even worse than
> that.)
I'd love to hear more, if you feel up for it. That's the reason I post these
things anyway - free eductaion!
The point is that we can turn this perspective on ourselves, we can
> look at our own beliefs in that way. But this is at odds with, in tension
> with our subjective experience. I have my convictions, and I can justify
> every one of them, can't I?
Yes. It's that dichotomy between how we live and how we are capable of
thinking that I've been rabbiting on about to Andrea and Alaric. That one
can intellectually embrace an atheistic, nihilistic view and yet still
continue to live a happy day-to-day life is fascinating to me.
> I think your scepticism, your self-doubt is wholly proper. And
> should even have practical consequences. If only each one of us, every
> adult person in the world, would take just one of their cherished beliefs
> or values, and really try to understand why not everyone else shares it.
Wouldn't that be a turn up for the books.
> Does this mean that things like objectivity, truth, insight are
> chimerical? I don't think so. They are goals. One would like to say it is
> rational to believe that we have methods for approximating to them. But
> that is probably wrong too. Rationality is just another goal, like truth
> and objectivity; it is not itself either rational or irrational. It is
> natural though to believe that by thinking more, seeing more, learning
> more, dwelling more on something, whatever it is, one is approaching those
> goals, even if there is no test which will tell us when we have attained
> them, and give us surety of possession.
>
I was just about to say that I believe in Reality, in Truth - that on some
almost infinitely sub-atomic level there is a fixed order that we are
prevented from seeing only by our ignorance. A big goal, as you say, a long
way away, which we can work towards in tiny steps. Up until this moment, I
probably accepted that as one of my beliefs. But I can't say that, can I?
Because that would just be my own brand of religion, wouldn't it? My futile
clawing for some eventual meaning. No, I can only take the data available to
me, process it in the way I've been taught/designed to do and hope for best.
> That's my slant on it, anyway. 'Course it could be a load of
> humanistic bullshit.
>
It is, of course. So's mine.
> Longden
Thanks, Longden.
Fraser
"Quadpus" <qua...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7dd67e3a.03050...@posting.google.com...
> "Fraser" <fra...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<b8vciv$dul1a$1...@ID-116198.news.dfncis.de>...
> I guess I won't be posting "The Sorrows Of Young Tommy Vercetti" like
> I'd been planning, then. Fucking spoilsport.
>
Hah! Well, that's my good deed for the day.
> > Criticism is itself invalid and fundamentally flawed, an exercise in
> > temporal arrogance and intellectual masturbation matched only by this
entire
> > post.
>
> Indeed. But of course, criticism dies on a regular basis, only to have its
> corpse eaten by the new dominant paradigm shortly thereafter, and the
cycle
> repeats itself. Smart writer-types at fancy-ass New York magazines have
been
> picking at the sinew of Postmodernism for as long as I've been paying
> attention to such things. It's only a matter of time before something new
> springs up in its place, and it, you can be sure, will be equally arrogant
> and masturbatory. But, like Postmodernism, it will probably explain things
> just a wee tiny bit better than its predecessor.
Indeed. It will be a little better than Postmodernism (were assuming here
that I'd recognize a postmodernist if I found one in my muesli), which
implies that Postmodernism was defective in some small way. Stretch that
process of incrimental 'improvement' out over a few thousand years and we'll
find, one day, that Postmodernism was largely bullshit.
>
> Then, someday, we will achieve Literary Nirvana, and we will no longer
have
> to read books because the Grand Unified Theory of Literary Criticism will
> allow us to understand everything that writers and poets and dramatists
have
> been trying in vain to get through our thick, worldly skulls for the last
> 3,000 years.
Infinity never sleeps.
>
> Then we'll have time to concentrate on things like cooking, and
photography.
> Me, I've always wanted to learn how to play the slide guitar. How about
you?
>
I'd like to grow herbs. Seriously! <g>
> > The only thing we can be reasonably sure of is the infinite nature of
our
> > own ignorance, and the best any of us can do short of killing ourselves
is
> > to participate in this farcical construct of interpretation and
guess-work
> > that we refer to as reality. Everything we think, say, write and do is
> > suspect, an instinctive reaction to an existence we do not and cannot
> > understand.
>
> Sounds like you need religion, Fraser.
>
God no. Religion has got to be the ultimate in narcissism. It's arrogance of
literally super-human extent. It's man the animal, the collection of neurons
and corpuscles and sweat glands, elevating himself to immortality in direct
contradiction to all observable evidence. Makes me sick, in case I've been
too vague. <g>
I can't argue with that. The process works because it's designed to work
within the system we've created. Outside of that construct, I maintain, it
remains bullshit.
>
> > Two things that surprise me about that conclusion:
> >
> > 1) it was written stone-cold sober <g>
>
> Have a drink, Fraser.
>
God, I need one after the mental workout of this thread! Unfortunately, the
nearest beer is about a hundred nautical miles due east...
> > 2) it's not nearly as depressing as it should be. Quite cheering,
actually.
>
> Hey, I enjoyed it.
>
As did I.
> > Thank you, and good night.
>
> And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Angels don't exist.
<g>
Opus
Excellent point here.
> > So this post is bullshit (a lot of better educated people could tell me
> > exactly why it's bullshit, but that would just be bullshit too). Any comment
> > that I make on any story posted here is, essentially, bullshit. I know
> > nothing for certain, and nothing I say makes the slightest bit of real
> > difference to anything at all.
>
> Well, that's not necessarily so.
>
> For people who are writing purely as a measure of self-expression, or to
> uncover the hidden nature of Truth and Beauty, I can do nothing.
>
We have a discussion going right now, very heated I might add, on one of
my acting listservs regarding people's self-awareness/perceptions. "Do
evil people really know they're evil, and if they do, do they derive
pleasure from it?" Since actors need to be trained in observing human
behaviour, these discussions, once fleshed out and the heat dissipated,
sometimes become clear barometers and yardsticks for the human
condition. Thankfully, I was the one to remind everyone that theatre in
this country is not what it used to be, nor does it serve any purpose
for what it was intended: a political mouthpiece for the general
populous. In Russia, at the turn of the century and before, the
political construct was such that the people HAD no voice. So, they
went to the theatre where actors in make-up under lime-lit lighting and
the guise of "art," spoke in safe, controlled environments about topics
they would never be allowed to express a personal opinion on otherwise.
Theatre, many aeons ago, stood for something. Either it was a political
mouthpiece, or, it was all about the artistic vision of the actor.
But not anymore. Why? Because we have political opinion piped in to us
at the instantaneous flick of a clicker or sound-byte. We have no
reason, or motivation to attend theatre because we have a yearning to
get caught up in the political or artistic moment.
Now. Before Longden asks me what the fuck I'm on about again, <g> allow
me to make my point. I think, that with so many publishing houses
giving way to even more competition than we had a mere 10 or 15 years
ago, and with art/politics so compressed from the media in all
directions, I don't think that writers have much of a serious reason, or
rather, compulsion, to write the way they used to. Prose anymore, just
doesn't say anything, imho, and I'm part of the problem by producing the
shite I do. (But at least I know I'm not the level of writer I wish to
be, and I'm trying to change that. Most writers aren't even that
self-aware, imho.) To me and I'll use them as the example since it's a
genre I know and love, writers like Jane Austen, Edith Wharton and
Charles Dickens's works were so popular at their time because they SAID
something. Each of these writers, in their own way, spoke out against
the base human condition, the social dictate of the time, and the
injustices that occur when both are combined with a political monarchy.
They wrote about this social vacuum and how class standing was the
barometer for almost everything that went on.
I believe there are a few writers today who write with such unction, but
I say a few. I don't believe writers OR publishing houses, on the
whole, wish to rock the political/social waters anymore than they have
to. And where does that leave those like yourself who wish for
something more? With a helluva low bar, that's where. Commerce has
lowered the bar for everyone.
Fraser, it's not about art, it's about what it's always about:
commerce, but then you knew that. And Brian nailed it with his next
statement:
> But if they just want to sell a goddamn short to their friendly neighborhood
> literary zine, I can tell them what's wrong with their grammar, whether or
> not their characters are interesting, how well the plot is structured, what
> the story makes me think, and if, in my humble opinion, the story is polished
> enough to shop around or not.
>
> Ninety-nine percent of the time, what we do here at AFO is not literary
> criticism. It's workshopping.
>
Here's to those who keep aspiring for more, and the ones who never give
up until they get it right.
Opus
Fraser
> Oh good, I didn't misread it.
Nodadall.
Dig your sig.
Fraser
Opus
> (true or false) without having data to process. It's the data we are given,
> and the methods we are taught to process it, that determine the conclusions
> we reach i.e. what we regard as the truth. If the data is inaccurate, so is
> the conclusion, but it will still be regarded as truth by the processor. If
> a different method is used to process the data, we have a different
> conclusion and, to the individual, a different truth. It is not possible for
> us to know the Truth, because we are dependent on unreliable data and flawed
> processing techniques.
>
Millions of dollars paid out for an educational guess that eventually
gets printed as gospel. That is, until the church ex-communicates you
for heresy...
O
Quadpus
>
> Indeed. It will be a little better than Postmodernism (were assuming here
> that I'd recognize a postmodernist if I found one in my muesli), which
> implies that Postmodernism was defective in some small way. Stretch that
> process of incrimental 'improvement' out over a few thousand years and we'll
> find, one day, that Postmodernism was largely bullshit.
Postmodernists, ironically enough, are often of the opinion that everything
is bullshit. But if you take literary criticism to its most irreducible
form -- that everything should be taken absolutely literally, and subtext
exists only in the minds of the delusional -- what you have is indeed
bullshit, and yet, it remains a method of interpretation that will grant
you a valid and comprehensible reading of nearly any book you care to pick
up. That Postmodernism -- or, indeed, Queer Theory, Feminism, Marxism, or
any other filter through which you choose to strain your fiction -- can be
placed on a sliding scale of bullshit does not mean that the interpretations
it produces are worthless or wrong; until the debate over whether authorial
intent or the reader's analysis is the ultimate objective indicator of what
a text actually, truly means, is resolved (and how can it ever be resolved?)
no critical theory can establish absolute answers as to whether or not a
particular reading of any given text is right or wrong.
> God no. Religion has got to be the ultimate in narcissism. It's arrogance of
> literally super-human extent. It's man the animal, the collection of neurons
> and corpuscles and sweat glands, elevating himself to immortality in direct
> contradiction to all observable evidence. Makes me sick, in case I've been
> too vague. <g>
Not THAT kind of religion. Me and Fedallah ought to take you out on his
boat for a few days of uninterrupted indoctrination (you bring the herbs).
I don't think it'd take you long to see the light.
> I can't argue with that. The process works because it's designed to work
> within the system we've created. Outside of that construct, I maintain, it
> remains bullshit.
Well, yeah, as we've established, everything's bullshit. So what? Deconstruct
the word "bullshit." Now, we're obviously not talking about male bovine
excrement, what we're referring to is some nebulous quality of pervasive
meaninglessness. Now what we have to do is deconstruct the word "meaning."
What do we mean when we say that something lacks meaning? Who is the arbiter
of meaningfulness? Work on that one for a while and let me know what you come
up with.
> God, I need one after the mental workout of this thread! Unfortunately, the
> nearest beer is about a hundred nautical miles due east...
I don't know where you are, my friend, but it's definitely the wrong place
to be.
> Angels don't exist.
"Everybody ought to be an angel." -- Iggy Pop
Quadpus
>
> Yes. It's that dichotomy between how we live and how we are capable of
> thinking that I've been rabbiting on about to Andrea and Alaric. That one
> can intellectually embrace an atheistic, nihilistic view and yet still
> continue to live a happy day-to-day life is fascinating to me.
If you embrace that view, Fraser, then this life is the only Heaven or
Hell you're going to get. If it seems like Heaven, you're free to kick
back and enjoy it. If it strikes you more as Hell, you can subvert it by
having a good time whenever possible. Then you die, and all this bullshit
becomes a blissfully moot point.
Compared to some of the other belief systems I know about, that's really
not so bad.
We are the pinholes in the construction paper through which the flashlight
of the divine shines, Fraser, and our reality is just projected starlight
on a bare wall.
Fraser
And if there are no absolute answers, how can any critical theory be
anything but an opinion, based on the tenets of that particular school of
thought? Without definable absolutes, that opinion might just as easily be
worthless and wrong as valuable and right. I'm a literal-minded bugger, Q,
and I don't have the knowledge or vocabulary to engage you in a debate on
literary theory - all I'm saying is that, to me, criticism is
interpretation, and interpretation is dependent on factors that are
unquantifiable and inconstant.
>
> > God no. Religion has got to be the ultimate in narcissism. It's
arrogance of
> > literally super-human extent. It's man the animal, the collection of
neurons
> > and corpuscles and sweat glands, elevating himself to immortality in
direct
> > contradiction to all observable evidence. Makes me sick, in case I've
been
> > too vague. <g>
>
> Not THAT kind of religion. Me and Fedallah ought to take you out on his
> boat for a few days of uninterrupted indoctrination (you bring the herbs).
> I don't think it'd take you long to see the light.
>
Gimme a sneak preview? And would you prefer Wormwood or Rosemary?
> > I can't argue with that. The process works because it's designed to work
> > within the system we've created. Outside of that construct, I maintain,
it
> > remains bullshit.
>
> Well, yeah, as we've established, everything's bullshit. So what?
Deconstruct
> the word "bullshit." Now, we're obviously not talking about male bovine
> excrement, what we're referring to is some nebulous quality of pervasive
> meaninglessness. Now what we have to do is deconstruct the word "meaning."
> What do we mean when we say that something lacks meaning? Who is the
arbiter
> of meaningfulness? Work on that one for a while and let me know what you
come
> up with.
>
<groan> My head is starting to hurt. Meaning, eh? Let's see...
Something lacks or possesses meaning depending on whether that 'thing' is
acceptable within the framework of what a particular individual regards as
being true. Truth is variable and unprovable, changing from individual to
individual depending on a myriad of environmental factors. The only possible
arbiter of meaning, therefore, is the individual. Further, since meaning is
defined in terms of an unprovable (truth), meaning itself is unprovable.
So when I say it's all bullshit, that's bullshit.
> I don't know where you are, my friend, but it's definitely the wrong place
> to be.
Now THAT is true.
>
> > Angels don't exist.
>
> "Everybody ought to be an angel." -- Iggy Pop
Cheers, Quad.
Fraser
> > In my view, it's impossible to reach even the simplest conclusion
> > (true or false) without having data to process. It's the data we are
given,
> > and the methods we are taught to process it, that determine the
conclusions
> > we reach i.e. what we regard as the truth. If the data is inaccurate, so
is
> > the conclusion, but it will still be regarded as truth by the processor.
If
> > a different method is used to process the data, we have a different
> > conclusion and, to the individual, a different truth. It is not possible
for
> > us to know the Truth, because we are dependent on unreliable data and
flawed
> > processing techniques.
> >
> Welcome to the highly concise world of mathematics and physics.
> Millions of dollars paid out for an educational guess that eventually
> gets printed as gospel. That is, until the church ex-communicates you
> for heresy...
>
> O
It's all bullshit. <g>
And here's another thing! You obviously have some experience of the world of
mathematics and physics. Longden makes casual learned references to
Wittgenstein. Quad discusses Postmodernist lit crit like it's second nature
to him. These are all fields that I'm almost entirely ignorant of. I bet I
know more about drilling oil wells than any of yaz, but the amount I could
still learn about just my own little field is infinite, and you could
probably do the same in yours.
My point is, the amount I don't know about the 'known world' is just fuckin'
staggering. There're whole fields of human endeavour that I've never heard
of; whole sciences and processes that might be having an effect on my life
have somehow escaped my notice. I'm sure that applies in some way or another
to everyone else, so how can anyone feel qualified to say he or she has a
handle on the truth of anything at all? As individuals, we don't even know a
fraction of the known facts, we certainly don't have any inkling of all the
facts yet to be discovered. We don't know shit.
Okay, I've taken up enough bandwidth with my half-baked theories. Many
thanks to those who responded!
Fraser
Fraser
> >
> > Yes. It's that dichotomy between how we live and how we are capable of
> > thinking that I've been rabbiting on about to Andrea and Alaric. That
one
> > can intellectually embrace an atheistic, nihilistic view and yet still
> > continue to live a happy day-to-day life is fascinating to me.
>
> If you embrace that view, Fraser, then this life is the only Heaven or
> Hell you're going to get. If it seems like Heaven, you're free to kick
> back and enjoy it. If it strikes you more as Hell, you can subvert it by
> having a good time whenever possible. Then you die, and all this bullshit
> becomes a blissfully moot point.
>
That's about the size of it. Enjoy the enjoyable, endure the rest, do a
minimum of harm and try to do some good.
> Compared to some of the other belief systems I know about, that's really
> not so bad.
Works for me!
>
> We are the pinholes in the construction paper through which the flashlight
> of the divine shines, Fraser, and our reality is just projected starlight
> on a bare wall.
That's very pretty, Quad. But it's...
Fraser
nativelaw
Hi Fraser,
>
> You carry on carrying on. I know this probably came across as depressive
> nihilism or whatever, but I honestly don't find it depressing at all. As I
> said in reply to Andrea last night, I think our ability to carry on as if
> there is meaning when (to me anyway) it's blatantly obvious that there
> isn't, is amazing. It's the crowning achievement of humanity.
I would agree, but I'd say that our ability to carry on "as if there is"
meaning, is a redundancy because our ability to carry on IS our meaning.
But what is "meaning" for you may be different than what is "meaning" for
me. Just as you say
"I'm glad if anything I say about a story helps the author get closer to
what
> they want. But that doesn't make me right",
I would submit that to being 'right' is not a useful term , because no one
is 'right', we can only intend well, do what is to us the best possible
thing under a given set of circumstances... and for me that means, decisions
that advance and affirm as much as I can understand those concepts.
I would ask the flip question.... "then what DOES make you right?" which I
think highlights the problem there.
Sothere's no universal true or right. For me, there is only better and for
me better means those decisions that tend toward continuation of the
species, in the long run, and making another thing or person feel mostly
good, interested, engaged and wanting to survive in the short (which actions
tend to complement one another.)
For me meaning is context. It's any structure and system of beliefs that
allow people to survive without killing one another and hopefully even help
each other out once in a while (though I am well aware that any act of
kindness and generosity can be said to be simply self-serving with an
altruistic spin on it, or done not from true altruism but for the
continuation of the species in some way. But so what? All I care about are
the results. If I may use a favorite example again maybe the sole reason you
make love to your wife and now have two beautiful parts of Fraser running
around in this world who will live and look at life a little the same but
also with any luck a little differently than you do, is simply adherence to
an evolutionary scheme to ensure the existence and perpetuation of the
species... but who the flock cares? It's a damn effective scheme. You'd
kill for those kids, I have no doubt. Anything, any force of nature, any
element of being whether you call it a 'god' or not, that can come up with
such a scheme and keep things going year after year, has my respect and awe.
Your belief system, like mine, is your religion, in the way I define the
word, which is also I think what Brian has said. It is what allows you to
impart meaning and context to your life. I don't need to believe in a
hereafter, I don't need to be 'saved', I have no desire for any of that, but
I sure do have a desire that my family have the best possible world and in
my way I try to make decisions with a view toward the impact on all of my
relations, and that means ancestors and the unborn, for many generations in
the future. I just hope they (those generations) have their chance, too and
we don't muck it all up for them <g>.
A.
PS to Alaric, your view on Shakespeare continues to blow me away. I just
find it curious that you don't like him because you echo the kinds of
timeless wisdoms he regularly expressed four hundred years ago, almost every
day, in thoughts you express here. You are very shakespearean in your
wisdoms. "Brevity is the soul of wit", "Our remedies oft in ourselves do
lie, Which we ascribe to heaven." "The fool doth think himself wise, but the
wise man knows himself to be a fool", "love all, trust a few, do wrong to
none", "Confusion now hath made me his masterpiece!" (hah) Not to mention
all he said about love. he may not have been the originator of any of these
sentiments but he got them down in a highly imaginative and creative form
with multiple characters in every play that are extremely well characterized
and creative given the limitations of who they had for actors (mostly men),
what they had for props, etc. I can only imagine that it's just that he (his
stuff) is just not sexy enough for you. A.
Alaric
> >
> > Yes. It's that dichotomy between how we live and how we are capable of
> > thinking that I've been rabbiting on about to Andrea and Alaric. That
one
> > can intellectually embrace an atheistic, nihilistic view and yet still
> > continue to live a happy day-to-day life is fascinating to me.
>
> If you embrace that view, Fraser, then this life is the only Heaven or
> Hell you're going to get. If it seems like Heaven, you're free to kick
> back and enjoy it. If it strikes you more as Hell, you can subvert it by
> having a good time whenever possible. Then you die, and all this bullshit
> becomes a blissfully moot point.
>
> Compared to some of the other belief systems I know about, that's really
> not so bad.
It's mine.
--
Ejucaided Redneck
I suspect you're being facetious, but I _will_ tell how I came to
disenroll from one of those programs.
I was, as noted earlier, still in the Navy. The turkey assigned as my
"advisor" was a Canadian national who loathes the American military. We
did not hit it off well. My first workshop in the program was also led
by this guy. He conducted it this way:
1. A student read, out loud, from whatever work was to be critiqued,
and provided copies for everybody else in the workshop. There were ten
of us.
2. When the student stopped reading, there was a long pause, and then
the instructor announced his opinion of the piece, and made suggestions
for improvement.
3. With a couple of exceptions the other students followed suit, and
echoed the instructor's comments. If he thought a piece was good, the
chorus agreed. If he savaged a piece, the amen corner attacked it with
equal vigor. The few of us who might disagree were punished the next
time we read.
One day I read a short story called "Willard's Got a Problem," a slight
slice-of-life piece that wasn't high litter-cheer for the ages, but
satisfied me. It was about two sailors drinking in a joint modeled on a
New Orleans tavern called the Maple Leaf Bar), and focused on the
tendency of one to flirt with married women. Just before class there'd
been a formal full-dress evolution at the Navy base --an admiral's
retirement ceremony-- and I didn't have time to change clothes before
going to the workshop. Showing up in "choker whites with large medals"
may have contributed to the instructor's venomous attack on this story.
It wasn't a story at all, he claimed, because "nothing happens except
these two guys get drunk." (I thought that wasn't true at all, and said
so.)
The dialogue --one of the sailors was from Kentucky, the other from
Tennessee-- was all wrong, because "southerners" didn't talk like that
and besides I didn't really reflect their dialect. ( suggested
"southern" is a whole different thing than "Appalachian,"and writing
dialect like a nineteenth century local colorist wasn't what I wanted to
do.)
The little bit of plot that existed was highly unlikely and
unbelievable. (I didn't bother explaining I'd watched two events
similar to what happened in the story.)
All this took most of an hour, in the course of which I was informed not
to expect any slack in this workshop just because I was from a part of
the country where illiteracy is a problem. Besides which, Raymond
Carver never wrote about sailors drinking, nor did Andre Dubus or Joyce
Carol Oates, and I shouldn't either. The mysogyny exhibited by the
males in the story was disgusting and painful to read. Blah blah blah
blah. And of course the chorus got in a lot of amens.
The piece was unacceptable for inclusion in my "portfolio" and I'd have
to try again.
I tried again, and in the meantime submitted "Willard's Got a Problem"
to _Buffalo Spree_, a sort of _New Yorker_ knock-off that in those days
published fiction. They paid me $ 450 for it. By then I already knew I
wasn't coming back for another year of this guy's abuse --he'd also
deemed a poem I wrote "unaccptable"-- but I decided to fight him about
including "Willard" in my portfolio. That the story had been published
didn't impress him at all, and he stilll refused to accept it.
I scheduled a meeting with the English Department's chair, who told the
instructor the story _would_ be in my portfolio. And I learned in the
course of the meeting that I had more publishing credits than the
instructor. But the chairman of the department wasn't willing to assign
me to another advisor, instead insisted we "work out your differences."
After the year was over I never went back...
--
Ever consider what dogs must think of us?
I mean, here we come back from a grocery
store with the most amazing haul -- chicken,
pork, half a cow.They must think we're the
greatest hunters on earth!
--Anne Tyler
--
New News: http://www.bobsloansampler.com/news.htm
Fiction, poetry, essays
New MP3: Calling Gators
http://www.bobsloansampler.com/
Most recent Lexington "Herald-Leader" column: "A Really Decent
President"
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/opinion/5702956.htm
Alaric
news:T04ta.3367$b%2.2...@news01.roc.ny.frontiernet.net...
>
> PS to Alaric, your view on Shakespeare continues to blow me away. I just
find it curious that you don't like him because you echo the kinds of
timeless wisdoms he regularly expressed four hundred years ago, almost every
wisdoms.
HEY!!! I didn't insult you! <g>
> "Brevity is the soul of wit", "Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which
we ascribe to heaven." "The fool doth think himself wise, but the wise man
knows himself to be a fool", "love all, trust a few, do wrong to none",
"Confusion now hath made me his masterpiece!" (hah) Not to mention all he
said about love.
Yeah, he was good at that fortune cookie stuff.
> he may not have been the originator of any of these sentiments but he got
them down in a highly imaginative and creative form with multiple characters
in every play that are extremely well characterized and creative given the
limitations of who they had for actors (mostly men), what they had for
props, etc. I can only imagine that it's just that he (his stuff) is just
not sexy enough for you.
In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn says that Shakespeare's villains are
mere petty criminals, because it's ideology that "gives evildoing its
long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness
and determination" and Shakespeare had no ideology - he was a relatively
wealthy gentleman with little experience of tribukation and hardship. So
(Solzhenitsyn) since a tragedy such as Macbeth is of limited relevance to a
history that includes the Gulag and the Holocaust. I'm not sure I entirely
go along with that, but its symptomatic of the refusal of Shakespeare's
acolytes to look at his relevance.
Shakespeare was militaristic, racist, anti-Semite, and many English scholars
including me turn against him for having such sentiments shoved down our
throats. His constructs are mainly irrelevant to modern language, modern
thought, modern problems. Unlike many better writers of his time (read
Marlowe's Edward II) he carries little message into the future.
That said, he's been hurt by decades of deification. Up until the nineteenth
century, you know, in England, Ben Jonson and John Fletcher were thought
more than his equals. Bardolatry has distorted Shakespeare's true place in
literary history and set his work on a false pedestal, encouraging reverence
more than understanding. Reading his work or attending performances is
supposed to make you better-more aware, more knowing. He's become Western
culture personified, the embodiment of Tradition and thus a key link to the
"eternal values" that "seem" to be disappearing. His reputation is so
intimidating that people sometimes forget he was an entertainer, not the
author of cultural prescriptions, nor a promoter of values.
He has some good work. And some very bad work.
--
Alaric
> Can't agree there. I used to be a huge Wilbur Smith fan when I was that
age. Now I can't get through a page of it.
That's fair. But I think the Wilburs and the MacLeans are the exception
rather than the rule.
> So if you'd been another Martin Amis and held an influential critical
position in your twenties, any negative criticism you'd written at that time
(which might have adversely affected someones writing career) would've
been...er, bullshit? There's a few people on AFO in their early twenties,
I'd guess. Is the criticism they offer (which is undoubtably different to
what they will offer when they're in their forties) an accurate assessment
of the story? I don't think so. It's an accurate 20-year old's assessment,
sure. Your assessment is an accurate 40-ish year old's. But there can be no
*absolute* assessment, because people's perceptions change constantly, even
if the rate of change slows as we get older. Without complete stagnation any
criticism can be no more than a temporal thing, subject to change, and
therefore unreliable.
Heh. Fraser, I'm disgusted with you. You're using JPD tactics here -
interpreting my argument to demolish it. If I was Martin Amis, yes, you're
right. But I'm not. My point is that some teens get up their own asses with
the self-referential angst-ridden stuff, and I said that I was one of them.
I in no way lump all teens in that bracket - Beethoven and Aris Merquoni
easily escape. But your argument STARTED with that point. I was agreeing on
the phenomenon, not giving you gratuitous ammunition, ya eejit.
> I was meaning that the criteria are changed by age and experience, not
that they are the criteria. But looking at it that way, I think I covered
the point you're making in the para above - you get a representative
opinion, which can be valuable if your aiming at a certain market.
Sure. If you want a literary criticism group, AFO's the wrong place.
> Hemingway, Dickens and Heller might speak to the things that you hold
dear.
No. They speak of essential things. I don't believe human drivers are
influenced by poverty and colour and place of birth. Human thought is.
Specific aims are. If you live on Wall Street, you don't need to worry about
feeding your kids. But drivers - aggression and competition and pride (The
Old Man And The Sea), despair and hopelessness and depression (Catch 22),
shame (A Christmas Carol) live in the human soul.
> Hell, even within your own culture there are many who'd have you flogged
for denying Shakespeare's divinity. Who's right?
Me. See separate post.
> And our goodwill.
> I wouldn't put money on that one.
In AFO criticism (which is the subject here.) Well, it saddens me you feel
that way (argument turned around courtesy of JPD dispute prolongation
class.)
> You carry on carrying on. I know this probably came across as depressive
nihilism or whatever, but I honestly don't find it depressing at all. As I
said in reply to Andrea last night, I think our ability to carry on as if
there is meaning when (to me anyway) it's blatantly obvious that there
isn't, is amazing. It's the crowning achievement of humanity.
I get the impression that your views on the afterlife are in line with mine.
There ain't one. Doesn't that mean that what we do here, in our limited
time, has increased importance, if only (and sadly if this is true) to
ourselves?
> I'm glad if anything I say about a story helps the author get closer to
what they want. But that doesn't make me right.
It makes you useful.
>> Read my quote.
> I have. To me, it's a warning to the arrogant that nothing lasts, that
nothing we poor, deluded creatures consider important actually is. If I've
read it right, I agree with it. If I've read it wrong, it supports my view
that my criticism is bullshit! <g>
Bullshit <g>. It's a warning to use your life wisely.
> Thanks for the response, Alaric. I guess these things I toss in the ring
every now and then irritate the hell out of some people,
Hey, not me. It's a great topic.
--
nativelaw
"Alaric" <alar...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:b9375f$jnr$1...@sparta.btinternet.com...
Interesting. But I read the Gulag Archipelago as I recall when I was 18,
and don't remember much of it other than it depressed the hell out of me and
made me glad I was not Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
> Shakespeare was militaristic, racist, anti-Semite, and many English
scholars
Ooh, them's fightin' words <g>. I saw The Merchant of Venice two summers
ago under a big open tent with straw bales for seating. Shakespeare has
characters that were militaristic, racist, and anti-Semitic. I would duel
you over the man himself feeling that way. Are you every character you
create? He was marketing, pandering to an audience in a way that you might
find unforgiveable, but most of the time, I find there are clues and hints
in the text as to how he himself may have felt and I don't see him as any of
those things.
And as for his breading, wealth, etc... get on rec.arts.shakespeare once in
a while and you will find some lively debates.
> including me turn against him for having such sentiments shoved down our
> throats. His constructs are mainly irrelevant to modern language, modern
> thought, modern problems. Unlike many better writers of his time (read
> Marlowe's Edward II) he carries little message into the future.
Try reading him less as historical fiction and more as a playwright, I'd
suggest. But it's interesting... he is English, so in the US his works may
be regarded differently.
>
> That said, he's been hurt by decades of deification. Up until the
nineteenth
> century, you know, in England, Ben Jonson and John Fletcher were thought
> more than his equals.
I had no idea. interesting.
Bardolatry has distorted Shakespeare's true place in
> literary history and set his work on a false pedestal, encouraging
reverence
> more than understanding. Reading his work or attending performances is
> supposed to make you better-more aware, more knowing.
Nah. I was never taught it that way. I think the real Shakespearean
scholars are a little nuts <g>. See, rec.arts.shakespeare (which I'm
slightly glad is no longer carried by my news server.)
He's become Western
> culture personified, the embodiment of Tradition and thus a key link to
the
> "eternal values" that "seem" to be disappearing.
Not true anywhere I've ever lived.
His reputation is so
> intimidating that people sometimes forget he was an entertainer, not the
> author of cultural prescriptions, nor a promoter of values.
>
> He has some good work. And some very bad work.
True of all of us <g>. Perhaps in England you are forcefed him without
proper context. That wasn't my experience.
Okay, no duel. I will curtsy and bow out now <g>. Thanks for explaining
where you were coming from.
Andrea
Alaric
>
>
> Okay, no duel. I will curtsy and bow out now <g>. Thanks for explaining
> where you were coming from.
>
I'm a Shakespearean ranter.
Hagbar
sermonizing about the downs as Genima Onimusha and pikachu weep.
"This terrible land, this cold oppressive land of rules and lethargy.
Why cant I smoke my joints and drink and do all the fun stuff. Its Fascist
pikachu. . Fascist regime by bush, fascist fascist. . ." Says Genima.
"Pika? Pikachu. . ." says Pikachu in agreement, weeping aswell. .
pulling at clumps of yellow mold (or fur) as Madden sermonizes about the
downs.
Tony Hawk rolls up.
"What's up yall?"
"The world sucks man" says Genima.
"Pikachu" says Pickachu.
"Its gonna be a Hail Mary" says Madden.
"Well fuck me with a blowtorch. . .your right"
And they sit beneath the save point weeping still. . .weeping for it
all.
I want a car and my girlfriend sucks. She wont put out.
"Pickachu. . ."Cries in the unyielding darkness from the soul.
(Its a work in progress. Needs more character development.)
"Harper" <cinem...@aol.commoner> wrote in message
news:20030503081220...@mb-m15.aol.com...
> << "Fraser" fra...@hotmail.com >><BR><BR>
> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> << Some pre-pubescent sk8r boi or grrrl, whose knowledge
> of the world and its workings makes George W. Bush appear positively
> erudite,<<
>
> Oh please. Gratuitous. We all know he's a ninny.
>
> >>will have posted a piece-of-shit story about Playstation characters
> grappling with Issues of Life and Death in post-Britney America,<<
>
> That sounds like a damn good story. What's inherently wrong with any of
it? Who
> precisely are you trying to skewer? What would you consider a worthy
subject of
> a short story? Something more serious-minded? Personally, I wouldn't mind
an
> airing of "issues of Life and Death" (or some such shite) from any
quarter. Why
> so disdainful?
>
> <snip>
> << So this post is bullshit >><BR><BR>
>
> Don't be so hard on yourself.
>
> << (a lot of better educated people could tell me
> exactly why it's bullshit, but that would just be bullshit too).
>><BR><BR>
>
> You're certain about that? Does that apply only to the better educated, or
to
> anyone who might have a go?
>
> << any comment
> that I make on any story posted here is, essentially, bullshit. >><BR><BR>
>
> But it's bullshit that, in general, by posting here, I have solicited. I
have
> always found your bullshit to be of a particularly high order. I love it
when
> you dispense your unique bullshit upon me. Seriously, you often have great
> insight. That it is all, reductively speaking, thoroughly meaningless, is
not a
> new idea. That it is all thoroughly meaning*ful* is the flipside of the
same
> coin (and yet another old idea). Meaning is what you make of it. Have you
> mislaid your meaning?
>
> << I know
> nothing for certain >><BR><BR>
>
> You seem to be quite certain about that. Whence this sophomoric silliness,
> Fraser? Whose bullshit lit theory have you been reading? <g>
>
> << and nothing I say makes the slightest bit of real
> difference to anything at all. >><BR><BR>
>
> You're just coming to this now? Another way of looking at it says it makes
a
> tremendous difference to just about everything. What would you have people
do?
> Declare it's all bullshit and stop talking?
>
> << Two things that surprise me about that conclusion:
>
> 1) it was written stone-cold sober <g>
>
> You may regret that confession in morning, lad.
>
> 2) it's not nearly as depressing as it should be. Quite cheering,
actually.
> >><BR><BR>
>
> Sure, don't mind me. It's all bullshit anyway. Thanks for the aggressive
> reminder :-(
>
> You say you like Michael Chabon. Have you read _The Amazing Adventures of
> Kavalier & Clay_? You might find some comfort there. You're sounding a bit
> nihilistic this fine morning. All you all right?
>
> Harper
> </disappointed with you, whether or not you're drunk>
>
> --
> 2004 is going to be an interesting election year.
Hagbar
"Hagbar" <cole...@onlinehome.de> wrote in message
news:b93avo$eo7$1...@online.de...
> Needling about in the cold depravity of Abe's World, Madden is calmly
> sermonizing about the downs as Genima Onimusha and pikachu weep.
> "This terrible land, this cold oppressive land of rules and lethargy.
> Why cant I smoke my joints and drink and do all the fun stuff. Its Fascist
> pikachu. . Fascist regime by bush, fascist fascist. . ." Says Genima.
> "Pika? Pikachu. . ." says Pikachu in agreement, weeping aswell. .
> pulling at clumps of yellow mold (or fur) as Madden sermonizes about the
> downs.
> Tony Hawk rolls up.
> "What's up yall?"
> "The world sucks man" says Genima.
> "Pikachu" says Pickachu.
> "Its gonna be a Hail Mary" says Madden.
> "Well fuck me with a blowtorch. . .your right"
> And they sit beneath the save point weeping still. . .weeping for it
.pause for this enternity of grief brought on by the man. Big brother
Bowser. . .Bush, the undefeatable big boss of the final level.
Wind River
>
> We are the pinholes in the construction paper through which the flashlight
> of the divine shines, Fraser, and our reality is just projected starlight
> on a bare wall.
Sometimes when that paper is held at a certain angle at just the right
moment, one can see a miniature solar eclipse on the wall.
-Sue
Alaric
--
"Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you."
T.S. ELIOT - The Wasteland.
"Hagbar" <cole...@onlinehome.de> wrote in message
news:b93avo$eo7$1...@online.de...
Huw Lyan Thomas
> In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn says that Shakespeare's villains are
> mere petty criminals, because it's ideology that "gives evildoing its
> long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness
> and determination" and Shakespeare had no ideology
Of course he didn't. Ideology hadn't been invented yet ;-)
> Shakespeare was militaristic, racist, anti-Semite, and many English scholars
> including me turn against him for having such sentiments shoved down our
> throats.
I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?
Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
senses, affections, passions?
fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
--
Huw
http://huw.hexlibris.com
Wind River
>
> Needling about in the cold depravity of Abe's World, Madden is calmly
> sermonizing about the downs as Genima Onimusha and pikachu weep.
> "This terrible land, this cold oppressive land of rules and lethargy.
> Why cant I smoke my joints and drink and do all the fun stuff. Its Fascist
> pikachu. . Fascist regime by bush, fascist fascist. . ." Says Genima.
> "Pika? Pikachu. . ." says Pikachu in agreement, weeping aswell. .
> pulling at clumps of yellow mold (or fur) as Madden sermonizes about the
> downs.
> Tony Hawk rolls up.
> "What's up yall?"
> "The world sucks man" says Genima.
> "Pikachu" says Pickachu.
> "Its gonna be a Hail Mary" says Madden.
> "Well fuck me with a blowtorch. . .your right"
> And they sit beneath the save point weeping still. . .weeping for it
> all.
> I want a car and my girlfriend sucks. She wont put out.
> "Pickachu. . ."Cries in the unyielding darkness from the soul.
A thunderstone appears in the hand of Ash which he gives to his beloved Pikachu.
"Raichu," says the now evolved Pikachu.
nativelaw
"Huw Lyan Thomas" <huwSp...@hexlibris.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.191f4ac92...@192.168.0.1...
Great, Huw. Exactly right. Merchant of Venice?
Hagbar
"Wind River" <wind...@voyager.net> wrote in message
news:3EB53F17...@voyager.net...
Thusly appears one of the Killer Instinct girls fresh from her volleyball
turney all a glimmer with pixilated sweat in a polka dot bikini plus thong.
She approaches the now evolved "Raichu" ,but because of her non evolved
perception, she feels a gusto of fear at what appears to be a malformed
teddy bear of death. She removes Katanas from her dubious cleavage and
begins wrenching the Pika Guts (Now evolved Raichu guts) from the
electricity spewing mass of multicolored fur. Her job done, she strikes a
pose, does a victory dance (Somewhat reminiscent of her Majesty Spears circa
"I'm a Slaaaave For you") then gleefully bellows "Yea!"
Withering before Genima, staring nonplused into his weeping eyes:
"Ninja man, what's the sauce?" she eruditely queries.
"Blah. . I say blah. Sex would make this all better."
And Tony hawk agrees as synth saxophone tones now come from somewhere as
the great one from beyond has entered the ubiquitous yet terribly hard to
locate Porn Code.
"Touchdown!" bellows Pimp Madden.
Power Up!!
Huw Lyan Thomas
> > I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?
> > Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
> > senses, affections, passions?
> > fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
> > subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
> > warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?
> > If you prick us, do we not bleed?
> > If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
> > If you poison us, do we not die?
> > and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
>
> Great, Huw. Exactly right. Merchant of Venice?
Yep. Still remember the feelings that scene evoked when I first read it,
and they weren't anti-semitic.
--
Huw
http://huw.hexlibris.com
Alaric
"Huw Lyan Thomas" <huwSp...@hexlibris.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.191f4ac92...@192.168.0.1...
> alar...@btinternet.com wrote:
>
Well, exactly.
>
> I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?
> Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
> senses, affections, passions?
> fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
> subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
> warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?
> If you prick us, do we not bleed?
> If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
> If you poison us, do we not die?
> and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
Spoken self-servingly by the abominable Shylock.
Wind River
>
> Thusly appears one of the Killer Instinct girls fresh from her volleyball
> turney all a glimmer with pixilated sweat in a polka dot bikini plus thong.
> She approaches the now evolved "Raichu" ,but because of her non evolved
> perception, she feels a gusto of fear at what appears to be a malformed
> teddy bear of death. She removes Katanas from her dubious cleavage and
> begins wrenching the Pika Guts (Now evolved Raichu guts) from the
> electricity spewing mass of multicolored fur. Her job done, she strikes a
> pose, does a victory dance (Somewhat reminiscent of her Majesty Spears circa
> "I'm a Slaaaave For you") then gleefully bellows "Yea!"
> Withering before Genima, staring nonplused into his weeping eyes:
> "Ninja man, what's the sauce?" she eruditely queries.
> "Blah. . I say blah. Sex would make this all better."
> And Tony hawk agrees as synth saxophone tones now come from somewhere as
> the great one from beyond has entered the ubiquitous yet terribly hard to
> locate Porn Code.
> "Touchdown!" bellows Pimp Madden.
> Power Up!!
And Yugi powers up his blue-eyed white dragon only to discover tears in
the eyes of Sailor Jupiter. Tony Hawk skates in to the rescue and sweeps
Sailor Jupiter into his arms.
"My hero," Sailor Jupiter exclaims.
"Bwahahah," Tony says as he pulls off his disguise to reveal his true
identity.
"Weird Al?" Yugi questions.
At that point, Alaric and Buffy appear, stake in hand.
Hagbar declares, "A vampire lurks in the dark regions of AFO."
Shaman Soo is beside herself, "He's simply an innocent creature of the
dark with animal instincts!"
"That's the problem," says Buffy.
Alaric's eyes are glazed, "Isn't she wonderful?"
Soo pulls a scarf up around her neck, "You must not destroy the vampire.
He can't help it if he lives in a time zone where he writes while we all sleep."
Fedallah makes an unscheduled appearance, "Wait, the original intent of
this story no longer exists; therefore, we no longer exist, or something
like that."
Buffy whispers to Al, "I think I'm in the wrong story."
"NO, please stay," he screams, but she's left.
Hagar rubs his eyes to clear the sleep. "Man, what a crazy dream."
A wooden stake is next to him on the bed along with a plush pikachu.
Hagbar
"Yea!"news:3EB54881...@voyager.net...
Wind River
>
> and that's life and death for you.
> "Yea!"
Pitiful, ain't it?
Hagbar
Alaric
--
"Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you."
T.S. ELIOT - The Wasteland.
"Wind River" <wind...@voyager.net> wrote in message
news:3EB54980...@voyager.net...
Alaric
"nativelaw" <l...@REMOVEnativelaw.net> wrote in message
news:7nbta.3868$W62....@news02.roc.ny.frontiernet.net...
But every other Shylock quote shows him as acquisitive and conspiring - the
qualities men of Shakespeare's time - who hadn't seen a Jew for 300 years -
associated with them.
Wind River
>
> This DOES NOT get included in the Review. RIGHT????
A bit testy today, Alaric?
Huw Lyan Thomas
> > I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?
> > Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
> > senses, affections, passions?
> > fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
> > subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
> > warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?
> > If you prick us, do we not bleed?
> > If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
> > If you poison us, do we not die?
> > and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
>
> Spoken self-servingly by the abominable Shylock.
It's an interpretation :-)
--
Huw
http://huw.hexlibris.com
Hagbar
Its art!
(blorch pithy malcontenty)
You de boss Alaric, though I'd say it be a bad week if ye had to siphon so
for stories oh. . .
Like the talky meat thing I saw before.
Haggy (caffeinated haggy anyway.)
"Alaric" <alar...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:b93hrj$t99$1...@hercules.btinternet.com...
nativelaw
"Alaric" <alar...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:b93hvs$6g4$1...@sparta.btinternet.com...
Its portrayal of the times and the historical anti semitism, not necessarily
what Shakespeare believed. That he was wrestling and pained with it is
clear to me from the soliloquy.
For that matter, you quote Marlowe as a better writer... what of Marlowe's
"The Jew of Malta" and Barabas? You want to talk about a writer vilifying a
Jew <g>?
With all due respect, m'lord <g>.
Wind River
>
> but, but
> Its art!
and therefore, sadly, it exists. We should be ashamed subjecting the
world to our disgusting musings. Ignore it, Alaric, unless you think
it's worthy of Story of the Week. :)
-Sue
Alaric
--
"Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you."
T.S. ELIOT - The Wasteland.
"Wind River" <wind...@voyager.net> wrote in message
news:3EB551CE...@voyager.net...
Alaric
"nativelaw" <l...@REMOVEnativelaw.net> wrote in message
Oh, I can defend Barabbas on any number of grounds, given the nature of
Henry's legacy.
<skilfully avoids picking up the reference to The Jew Of Malta in the hope
that he can get away with selective defence like Fraser does <vvvbg>.>
nativelaw
<G> You're so cute.
Opus
> what Shakespeare believed. That he was wrestling and pained with it is
> clear to me from the soliloquy.
>
Shakespeare was BRILLIANT at taking a play and using it to mirror the
idiocies of man at the time. He was a cocky sonuvabutch. I contend,
he's so high-profile because the level of his language hasn't been
duplicated since, since, "The Mistress of Mince...?"
A, did you not see my post above to Fraser in which I said exactly the
same thing? Of course, being a playwright means you've given yourself
the perfect mouthpiece, but I think you're only seeing a shallow view of
Shakespeare, the man. Part of what makes him brilliant, is that he was
able to take any subject and MOCK THE FUCK OUT OF IT, while those being
mocked were unaware. Which is what good comedy will do. And it's for
THOSE reasons people are encouraged to understand him; those ways he
seamlessly combined those anti-semitite characters with Catholicism.
You said he was good at fortune cookie stuff. But that's a
misinterpretation too, for it's only AFTER a work has been published
that the masses raise it to something other than prose--that they begin
to deify it, that they begin quoting it as a personal banner, TALKY
MEAT. Fame is something that other people hoist upon you, not the other
way around.
> Reading his work or attending performances is
> supposed to make you better-more aware, more knowing.
>
READING Shakespeare is the quickest way to misinterpretation that
exists. It was *never* written to be read, it's not reader's theatre
and never was; it was written for actors to perform and breathe life
into. I get sick and tired of people bard-mouthing that they "cain't
git no nevermind unnerstannin whenevers they read it." Put his words
into the mouth of a person trained to interpret them and add their own
understanding to them, and you've got an entirely other literary work
than what's on the printed page.
And for you to ascribe this downfall to only Shakespeare is also
limited, imho. Attending ANY theatre is *supposed* to make you more
knowing.
Shakespeare had so many layers that frankly, aren't apparent until you
get in there and study the hell out of it, like Andrea said. But then
this leads right back to Fraser's argument on interpretation and
criticism, so it's back to a 'he said, she said' pissing contest and
useless.
However, it surprises me that you don't see how flawed characters do not
necessarily reflect the flaws of the writer.
> His reputation is so
> intimidating that people sometimes forget he was an entertainer, not the
> author of cultural prescriptions, nor a promoter of values.
>
But then again, we're all *just* entertainers and not really worthy or
qualified to reflect cultural perceptions, promote values or come up
with a (god forbid) original idea on our own, now, are we? Nope, we're
all stupid performers who needn't bother entering a building any other
place than the rear door...
You are SO blind-sided in that view that it's staggering. From his day
on up, especially to the turn of the century, as I've already stated,
the theatre was EXACTLY the promoter of values and cultural
prescriptions. Hell, that's why people attended. They needed a
cultural and political mouthpiece. Russian playwrights such as Chekhov,
Vakhtangov and Stanislavski himself were aware of the power the stage
possessed and they took advantage of it by using it to speak for the
politically castrated. So don't kid yourself about what theatre
*should* or *shouldn't* be, or that entertainers are getting above their
raisings by pretending to be authors of values in anyway, nor include
Shakespeare in that group, because, and I never say this, you're just
wrong, wrong, wrong.
Respectfully,
Opus
--
"I tried cybersex once, but was turned off by the depth of the
illiteracy. Things were going fine until the guy kept telling me he was
fuming, he was fuming, and I didn't know what I'd done to offend him."
--Carla Rene'
http://www.carlarene.com
http://www.opusgraphics.net
Opus
> mathematics and physics. Longden makes casual learned references to
> Wittgenstein. Quad discusses Postmodernist lit crit like it's second nature
> to him. These are all fields that I'm almost entirely ignorant of. I bet I
> know more about drilling oil wells than any of yaz, but the amount I could
> still learn about just my own little field is infinite, and you could
> probably do the same in yours.
>
Definitely. I double majored in computer science/mathematics while
minoring in physics, before I changed to performance, so that stuff is
embedded in my blood. LOVE it.
> My point is, the amount I don't know about the 'known world' is just fuckin'
> staggering.
>
When I read this I was shaking my head so hard in agreement something
came loose. And my dichotomy comes in that I don't possess even a third
of the brain power needed to even BEGIN seeking out or understanding
that knowledge I long to possess. I love knowledge, the world and its
mysteries. I have three posters on my wall right now (Still waiting for
my Nickelback poster to arrive. HEH!): Monty Python and the Holy
Grail, Roland Orzabal of Tears for Fears, and Einstein: "I want to know
God's thoughts, the rest are details." That poster variety kind of sums
me up, I guess. I love it ALL. And I'll never have it all, or
understand it all, or process it all, and it's fucking staggering. Good
word, staggering. Implies a force so magnanimous upon you so as to sway
your entire being. And that's the way I feel about the world and its
mysteries.
> I'm sure that applies in some way or another
> to everyone else, so how can anyone feel qualified to say he or she has a
> handle on the truth of anything at all?
>
Qualified? Who said any of the aforementioned geniuses felt qualified
to forge ahead in their studies? Who said Nostradamus felt qualified to
make pronouncement upon the twentieth century that he knew would deeply
affect them one way or the other, whether the quatrains came true or
not? Who said Martin Luther King felt qualified when he fought so
valiantly for civil rights? These men weren't anymore qualified to do
the things they did than you or I to do the things we're doing, if you
look at it in a vacuum, apart from training, cultural biases and
opportunity. What we ALL have, however, is the same fire in our bellies
that leads us to believe in a truth for ourselves and therefore take it
to its uppermost extreme limits, approaching the Event Horizon at
breakneck speeds, not because we're qualified, but because we're
impassioned.
I was reading "The Shifting Point" by Peter Brook this morning at 5
before I fell asleep, and I saw a quote in it that's perfect for you. I
thought of you when I read the book in general, because just the forward
of the book talks about how when he was a young, green director, his
view of approaching directing was a certain way that he felt to be
gospel. Then as he continued to direct and learned more, switching from
television to theatre, he suddenly realised his view had shifted.
Didn't make it wrong, just, different. Anyway, here's the passage I
wanted you to see:
"I remember a trip to Dublin at about this time, where I had heard of an
Irish philosopher who was very fashionable in university circles. I had
not read the book he had written, and I hadn't even met the man, but I
remember a phrase of his, quoted by someone in a bar, which struck me at
once: it was the theory of the "shifting viewpoint." It didn't mean a
fickle point of view, but the exploration as made in certain types of
x-rays, where changing perspectives give an illusion of density. I
still remember today the impression that made on me."
And the final one that I think applies to writing in general
brilliantly, so I'll throw it in for free:
"I believe we are here to receive influences. We are constantly being
influenced and in turn we influence other people. That is why, in my
opinion, there can be nothing worse than giving oneself a trademark,
acquiring a particular signature, getting known for certain
characteristics. A painter comes to be recognised for his particular
style, and it becomes his prison. He cannot assimilate anyone else's
work without losing face. This does not make sense in the theatre. We
work in a field that must be one of free exchange."
Anyway, not sure I agree that an established painter NEEDS to
assimilate, but that's another talk show. I guess I'm trying to say not
to fret over the place you're in philosophically--you're in a good
place, for it means you're not stagnating; you're trying to move ahead
and keep learning, keep re-evaluating yourself and what you think, and
that ALONE, Fraser, is the mark of an excellent critical thinker.
This entire thread has got my juices going. I'm SO glad you posted it,
dood. And from the number of responses, it looks like I wasn't the only
one. I know AFO is the place for original fiction and it's a workshop
to post such, but don't ya feel that sometimes, I dunno, it's tiring,
like, what's it all for? I think it's conversations like these that
keep us thinking, keep us on our toes, and maybe that's from whence your
original sprang. Anyway, I'm loving this. SO many new ideas being
exchanged so that our own viewpoints may shift.
Cheers,
Opie
Alaric
news:3EB55A56...@bloomcounty.com...
> But then again, we're all *just* entertainers and not really worthy or
qualified to reflect cultural perceptions, promote values or come up
with a (god forbid) original idea on our own, now, are we?
Well..
> Nope, we're
all stupid performers who needn't bother entering a building any other
place than the rear door...
Well..
> You are SO blind-sided in that view that it's staggering.
Well, I wasn't intending this to get adversarial or to insult the entire
acting profession. It was just a friendly exchange of views.
Every artist SHOULD reflect cultural perceptions and can choose to promote
values. Where the original idea thing comes from, I don't know, and I'm not
going to waste time arguing something I didn't say. Your personalisation of
my view on Shakespeare is noted. Just for the record, I wasn't attacking
you. I can distinguish. Shakespeare would be older than you if he was still
alive.
> YES, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!! Finally, someone nailed it.
There is no doubt in my mind that, given the historical context, the appeal
of anti-Semitism at the time to which both Shakespeare and as Andrea rightly
points out at the time Marlowe pandered, Shakespeare "set up" The Merchant
Of Venice to appeal to that prejudice. The speech can't be isolated from the
play without a hidden agenda. It's the comedy villain appealing to the hero
at the end of the movie - "I'm a nice guy. I had bad parents." Shylock is a
shyster, a villainous panderer. A single speech doesn't save him.
Shakespeare was going for pantomime laughs.
> Shakespeare was BRILLIANT at taking a play and using it to mirror the
idiocies of man at the time.
That's your view. To me, it's Bardolatry. He wrote for his time, and he had
competition. He's famous because of Francis Bacon.
> Part of what makes him brilliant, is that he was
able to take any subject and MOCK THE FUCK OUT OF IT, while those being
mocked were unaware.
He served his patrons. We owe our unjustified hate of Richard III to
Shakespeare, who cravenly invented a tale of betrayal to suit his monarch.
> Which is what good comedy will do. And it's for
THOSE reasons people are encouraged to understand him; those ways he
seamlessly combined those anti-semitite characters with Catholicism.
No. Sorry. No offence, but you're on the wrong track on both sides of that
scale in glorious Protestant England.
> You said he was good at fortune cookie stuff. But that's a
misinterpretation too, for it's only AFTER a work has been published
that the masses raise it to something other than prose--that they begin
to deify it, that they begin quoting it as a personal banner, TALKY
MEAT. Fame is something that other people hoist upon you, not the other
way around.
Check around the net, and see how many of these "turns of phrase" can be
traced back to Virgil, Sophocles, Plato.
> I get sick and tired of people bard-mouthing that they "cain't
git no nevermind unnerstannin whenevers they read it."
By the same standard, you're ignorant if you don't understand Chaucer's
Middle English.
> And for you to ascribe this downfall to only Shakespeare is also
limited, imho. Attending ANY theatre is *supposed* to make you more
knowing.
Sorry, but that's - whatever the word Fraser used was. I'm educated
by pantomime? By farce?
> Shakespeare had so many layers that frankly, aren't apparent until you
get in there and study the hell out of it, like Andrea said.
By READING it, presumably?
> But then
this leads right back to Fraser's argument on interpretation and
criticism, so it's back to a 'he said, she said' pissing contest and
useless.
That's why it was friendly.
> However, it surprises me that you don't see how flawed characters do not
necessarily reflect the flaws of the writer.
It surprises me that you don't read the whole play for context.
From his day
on up, especially to the turn of the century, as I've already stated,
the theatre was EXACTLY the promoter of values and cultural
prescriptions. Hell, that's why people attended. They needed a
cultural and political mouthpiece.
You conveniently ignore the other theatre "tradition" of creating what the
masters pay for. Russian playwrights who don't survive the test of time were
great culprits. Chekhov wasn't innocent. But the test of time isn't relevant
in this argument. It was bums on seats, and the non-revisionist dramatists
got plenty, a tradition that went through to McCarthyism and beyond.
> So don't kid yourself about what theatre
*should* or *shouldn't* be, or that entertainers are getting above their
raisings by pretending to be authors of values in anyway, nor include
Shakespeare in that group, because, and I never say this, you're just
wrong, wrong, wrong.
And you're wrong to create your own argument in order to knock me over. I
said Shakespeare was not an author of values. I didn't say writers or
playwrights or (God forbid) actors shouldn't present values. And I made
ABSOLUTELY NO COMMENT about what the theatre should or shouldn't be.
Sometimes an argument doesn't attack you or your profession. Sometimes a
rose is just a rose.
I'm sorry, O, but this high-handed injured "I know better than you do"
response just irritated the hell out of me. We're talking about a long-dead
playwright, for God's sake. Show a little control.
Tell ya what. Let's leave this one lie. We're clearly polarised, and you're
entitled to your opinion.
Quadpus
>
> And if there are no absolute answers, how can any critical theory be
> anything but an opinion, based on the tenets of that particular school of
> thought? Without definable absolutes, that opinion might just as easily be
> worthless and wrong as valuable and right. I'm a literal-minded bugger, Q,
> and I don't have the knowledge or vocabulary to engage you in a debate on
> literary theory - all I'm saying is that, to me, criticism is
> interpretation, and interpretation is dependent on factors that are
> unquantifiable and inconstant.
But that's just it -- what the varying forms of literary criticism produce
ARE only opinions, and any self-respecting English lit. major, no matter
how firmly his or her head is wedged up the crack of some particularly
beloved variant of critical theory, will admit that.
> Gimme a sneak preview? And would you prefer Wormwood or Rosemary?
Eh, if you didn't like my flashlight analogy, maybe we'd better let Rick
do the talking.
> <groan> My head is starting to hurt. Meaning, eh? Let's see...
>
> Something lacks or possesses meaning depending on whether that 'thing' is
> acceptable within the framework of what a particular individual regards as
> being true. Truth is variable and unprovable, changing from individual to
> individual depending on a myriad of environmental factors. The only possible
> arbiter of meaning, therefore, is the individual. Further, since meaning is
> defined in terms of an unprovable (truth), meaning itself is unprovable.
>
> So when I say it's all bullshit, that's bullshit.
Exactly! Valid meaning is generated from within the observing parties, not
imposed from without.
This is the best OT thread we've had in ages!
Opus
writing course, because if the truth be known, most of the instructors are idiots who lack not only the
talent, but good sense and tenacity to be published. Who needs a mentor like that?
Opus
Ejucaided Redneck wrote:
> I suspect you're being facetious, but I _will_ tell how I came to
> disenroll from one of those programs.
>
> I was, as noted earlier, still in the Navy. The turkey assigned as my
> "advisor" was a Canadian national who loathes the American military. We
> did not hit it off well. My first workshop in the program was also led
> by this guy. He conducted it this way:
>
> 1. A student read, out loud, from whatever work was to be critiqued,
> and provided copies for everybody else in the workshop. There were ten
> of us.
>
> 2. When the student stopped reading, there was a long pause, and then
> the instructor announced his opinion of the piece, and made suggestions
> for improvement.
>
> 3. With a couple of exceptions the other students followed suit, and
> echoed the instructor's comments. If he thought a piece was good, the
> chorus agreed. If he savaged a piece, the amen corner attacked it with
> equal vigor. The few of us who might disagree were punished the next
> time we read.
>
> One day I read a short story called "Willard's Got a Problem," a slight
> slice-of-life piece that wasn't high litter-cheer for the ages, but
> satisfied me. It was about two sailors drinking in a joint modeled on a
> New Orleans tavern called the Maple Leaf Bar), and focused on the
> tendency of one to flirt with married women. Just before class there'd
> been a formal full-dress evolution at the Navy base --an admiral's
> retirement ceremony-- and I didn't have time to change clothes before
> going to the workshop. Showing up in "choker whites with large medals"
> may have contributed to the instructor's venomous attack on this story.
>
> It wasn't a story at all, he claimed, because "nothing happens except
> these two guys get drunk." (I thought that wasn't true at all, and said
> so.)
>
> The dialogue --one of the sailors was from Kentucky, the other from
> Tennessee-- was all wrong, because "southerners" didn't talk like that
> and besides I didn't really reflect their dialect. ( suggested
> "southern" is a whole different thing than "Appalachian,"and writing
> dialect like a nineteenth century local colorist wasn't what I wanted to
> do.)
>
> The little bit of plot that existed was highly unlikely and
> unbelievable. (I didn't bother explaining I'd watched two events
> similar to what happened in the story.)
>
> All this took most of an hour, in the course of which I was informed not
> to expect any slack in this workshop just because I was from a part of
> the country where illiteracy is a problem. Besides which, Raymond
> Carver never wrote about sailors drinking, nor did Andre Dubus or Joyce
> Carol Oates, and I shouldn't either. The mysogyny exhibited by the
> males in the story was disgusting and painful to read. Blah blah blah
> blah. And of course the chorus got in a lot of amens.
>
> The piece was unacceptable for inclusion in my "portfolio" and I'd have
> to try again.
>
> I tried again, and in the meantime submitted "Willard's Got a Problem"
> to _Buffalo Spree_, a sort of _New Yorker_ knock-off that in those days
> published fiction. They paid me $ 450 for it. By then I already knew I
> wasn't coming back for another year of this guy's abuse --he'd also
> deemed a poem I wrote "unaccptable"-- but I decided to fight him about
> including "Willard" in my portfolio. That the story had been published
> didn't impress him at all, and he stilll refused to accept it.
>
> I scheduled a meeting with the English Department's chair, who told the
> instructor the story _would_ be in my portfolio. And I learned in the
> course of the meeting that I had more publishing credits than the
> instructor. But the chairman of the department wasn't willing to assign
> me to another advisor, instead insisted we "work out your differences."
>
> After the year was over I never went back...
>
> --
> Ever consider what dogs must think of us?
> I mean, here we come back from a grocery
> store with the most amazing haul -- chicken,
> pork, half a cow.They must think we're the
> greatest hunters on earth!
> --Anne Tyler
> --
> New News: http://www.bobsloansampler.com/news.htm
>
> Fiction, poetry, essays
> New MP3: Calling Gators
> http://www.bobsloansampler.com/
>
> Most recent Lexington "Herald-Leader" column: "A Really Decent
> President"
> http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/opinion/5702956.htm
nativelaw
"Alaric" <alar...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:b93p3d$hiu$1...@sparta.btinternet.com...
> "Opus" <opus...@bloomcounty.com> wrote in message
> news:3EB55A56...@bloomcounty.com...
>
> That's your view. To me, it's Bardolatry. He wrote for his time, and he
had
> competition. He's famous because of Francis Bacon.
Who, as we know, invented the beloved bacon sandwich.
Alaric
--
"Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you."
T.S. ELIOT - The Wasteland.
"nativelaw" <l...@REMOVEnativelaw.net> wrote in message
news:bSdta.3972$Ob5....@news01.roc.ny.frontiernet.net...
Ejucaided Redneck
> This is a very cool story, Bob. I'm glad you shared it. Just another reason I wouldn't pay for a creative
> writing course, because if the truth be known, most of the instructors are idiots who lack not only the
> talent, but good sense and tenacity to be published. Who needs a mentor like that?
There's a difference between paying for a creative writing course and
enlisting in an MFA program. With the former, as a rule you have some
control over which instructor you'll encounter, and you're not immersed
in whatever literary party line the department is following, if there is
one.
A good creative writing course with a competent instructor ought to
teach basic skills that anybody can learn, but the learning curve might
be steeper, and take considerably longer if one does it independently.
If such a course can be found --and one usually _can_ be found in any
metropolitan area-- it's worth every penny.
"Majoring" in creative writing on an undergraduate level --which is what
I did-- or jumping through the hoops to get a "Master of Fine Arts"
degree doesn't seem to me to be a particularly effective way to become a
writer, unless the intent is to be hired by some other writing program
as an instructor. But that's entirely different from "paying to take a
course."
I'd encourage the latter, discourage the former.
--
Odd, how these people seem
to think that writing is some
kind of miraculous gift endowed
by a kindly god just on themselves
because they deserve it so.
--- R. J. Maughan, in alt.writing
nativelaw
"Ejucaided Redneck" <rls...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:3EB56DCB...@mindspring.com...
> Opus wrote:
>
> > This is a very cool story, Bob. I'm glad you shared it. Just another
reason I wouldn't pay for a creative
> > writing course, because if the truth be known, most of the instructors
are idiots who lack not only the
> > talent, but good sense and tenacity to be published. Who needs a mentor
like that?
>
> There's a difference between paying for a creative writing course and
> enlisting in an MFA program. With the former, as a rule you have some
> control over which instructor you'll encounter, and you're not immersed
> in whatever literary party line the department is following, if there is
> one.
>
> A good creative writing course with a competent instructor ought to
> teach basic skills that anybody can learn, but the learning curve might
> be steeper, and take considerably longer if one does it independently.
> If such a course can be found --and one usually _can_ be found in any
> metropolitan area-- it's worth every penny.
>
> "Majoring" in creative writing on an undergraduate level --which is what
> I did-- or jumping through the hoops to get a "Master of Fine Arts"
> degree doesn't seem to me to be a particularly effective way to become a
> writer, unless the intent is to be hired by some other writing program
> as an instructor. But that's entirely different from "paying to take a
> course."
>
> I'd encourage the latter, discourage the former.
>
I was one of the lucky ones as far as stories went. I majored in creative
writing also, but I had a fiction professor that was a Bob Sloan sort rather
than a Canadian National Turkey sort <g>. The poetry professor on the other
hand was ALL over himself, and he published a book on poetic structure that
was oft cited in the art world so he looked down his nose at me all the big
old time. He also HATED the fiction professor who was a friend. Had the
poetry guy for poetry AND journalism. Yuck. So key, I think, would be to,
somehow, investigate who's teaching the program.
Opus
of what I meant, and some of what I said.
> > But then again, we're all *just* entertainers and not really worthy or
> qualified to reflect cultural perceptions, promote values or come up
> with a (god forbid) original idea on our own, now, are we?
>
> Well..
>
> > Nope, we're
> all stupid performers who needn't bother entering a building any other
> place than the rear door...
>
>
> Well..
>
Okay, I know what you're implying here, and it goes right through me,
but so be it. NO sense in arguing over it. It's how you feel. So
noted.
> Well, I wasn't intending this to get adversarial or to insult the entire
> acting profession. It was just a friendly exchange of views.
>
I clearly understood what it was, and wasn't personally offended, so you
need to cool it. But when you used the global term ENTERTAINER, well,
I'm sorry, but that encompasses playwrights, actors and anyone else who
entertains for a living. And you did say entertainer.
> Every artist SHOULD reflect cultural perceptions and can choose to promote
> values.
>
Then I'm not sure why you said what you did and the way you said it.
> Where the original idea thing comes from, I don't know, and I'm not
> going to waste time arguing something I didn't say. Your personalisation of
> my view on Shakespeare is noted.
>
You're right. I said it because when someone introduces cultural
perceptions, original ideas usually go hand in hand with it. I'm sorry,
tried to think for myself there for a minute.
> Just for the record, I wasn't attacking
> you. I can distinguish.
>
NOR WAS I PERSONALLY OFFENDED! Sheesh. So can I.
And I have no idea what the hell you're on about with comparing my age
to his if he were alive.
> There is no doubt in my mind that, given the historical context, the appeal
> of anti-Semitism at the time to which both Shakespeare and as Andrea rightly
> points out at the time Marlowe pandered, Shakespeare "set up" The Merchant
> Of Venice to appeal to that prejudice. The speech can't be isolated from the
> play without a hidden agenda. It's the comedy villain appealing to the hero
> at the end of the movie - "I'm a nice guy. I had bad parents." Shylock is a
> shyster, a villainous panderer. A single speech doesn't save him.
> Shakespeare was going for pantomime laughs.
>
Of course he was, but it's also a limited view. If you watch the play
without blinders, then you see that there was much more to this than
meets the eye. He wouldn't be "deified" so much if all there were to
him was his ability to go for laughs, now, would he? We both know the
public is too fickle to allow anything such popularity as to be so
shallow. If you'll notice, no one from SNL is deified on such a level,
and it's because they may have the ability to go for a laugh, but
they're certainly no Shakespeare.
> That's your view. To me, it's Bardolatry. He wrote for his time, and he had
> competition. He's famous because of Francis Bacon.
>
He wrote for his time, yes, but your original argument had to do with
why he was still popular and that you didn't agree with those who held
that view. He's FAMOUS because people today who don't know who the hell
Bacon is, view his work in many undulating layers with awe.
> He served his patrons. We owe our unjustified hate of Richard III to
> Shakespeare, who cravenly invented a tale of betrayal to suit his monarch.
>
And that's your opinion. I don't agree.
> > Which is what good comedy will do. And it's for
> THOSE reasons people are encouraged to understand him; those ways he
> seamlessly combined those anti-semitite characters with Catholicism.
>
> No. Sorry. No offence, but you're on the wrong track on both sides of that
> scale in glorious Protestant England.
>
This illustrates my point beautifully, in that this is exactly the
reason he's so popular. Because one group views him one way, gleaning
what they will from his text, and another gleans something entirely
different.
> Check around the net, and see how many of these "turns of phrase" can be
> traced back to Virgil, Sophocles, Plato.
>
I don't doubt that, but they are never quoted in THOSE contexts, are
they?
> > I get sick and tired of people bard-mouthing that they "cain't
> git no nevermind unnerstannin whenevers they read it."
>
> By the same standard, you're ignorant if you don't understand Chaucer's
> Middle English.
>
I agree. That's another one I get tired of hearing complaints about.
> Sorry, but that's - whatever the word Fraser used was. I'm educated
> by pantomime? By farce?
>
Of course you are, and to think differently is just silly. You watch
that TV as much as the next guy, and no offence, but it's not entirely
because Sarah is so cute. Television took over where theatre left off
politically. Episodic television writers are shoving their political
views at you with every flick of the clicker, and you can't deny it.
You may not realise it's happening at the time it is, but it is.
> > Shakespeare had so many layers that frankly, aren't apparent until you
> get in there and study the hell out of it, like Andrea said.
>
> By READING it, presumably?
>
Um, no. The most effective way, is to listen to it being performed, as
we did in English lit class. Don't think I ever had a professor that
actually made me read it, because they knew it wasn't meant to be read.
> > But then
> this leads right back to Fraser's argument on interpretation and
> criticism, so it's back to a 'he said, she said' pissing contest and
> useless.
>
> That's why it was friendly.
>
And my zeal over the topic in general should not be gleaned as some
personal attack on you. What? I'm not allowed to hold an opinion that
I get excited about without *someone* becoming personally offended?
Please.
> > However, it surprises me that you don't see how flawed characters do not
> necessarily reflect the flaws of the writer.
>
> It surprises me that you don't read the whole play for context.
>
Now this to me, is just silly. How can you glean that a character is
flawed without the entire context there to give you the relevance? I
don't see how you can.
> You conveniently ignore the other theatre "tradition" of creating what the
> masters pay for. Russian playwrights who don't survive the test of time were
> great culprits. Chekhov wasn't innocent. But the test of time isn't relevant
> in this argument. It was bums on seats, and the non-revisionist dramatists
> got plenty, a tradition that went through to McCarthyism and beyond.
>
I don't conveniently ignore anything, A. I took the aspect of theatre
that you broached and reminded you of the historical facts that backed
it up.
> And you're wrong to create your own argument in order to knock me over. I
> said Shakespeare was not an author of values. I didn't say writers or
> playwrights or (God forbid) actors shouldn't present values.
>
I didn't create anything. You said Shakespeare's reputation was so
intimidating that people forgot he was an entertainer and not the author
of values, etc. I don't know how you can see that the two are mutually
exclusive. And once again, playwrights, actors and theatre all has to
do with entertainment. You introduced the term, not I.
> And I made
> ABSOLUTELY NO COMMENT about what the theatre should or shouldn't be.
>
You can't separate Shakespeare from the theatre, because in some regards
he WAS theatre, wasn't he? If you attack his worth as an author of
values and leave out theatre tradition and what it was at the time, then
you've separated him from his context, and you can't do that and say you
understand him.
> Sometimes an argument doesn't attack you or your profession. Sometimes a
> rose is just a rose.
>
My god, I didn't reply as if it were a personal attack on anything,
Alaric. Whatever.
> I'm sorry, O, but this high-handed injured "I know better than you do"
> response just irritated the hell out of me. We're talking about a long-dead
> playwright, for God's sake. Show a little control.
>
Well. This irritated the hell out of me, too, but I'm not going to go
there, Alaric. I respect what you have to say, I respect your opinions,
but I find it horribly distasteful that *I* am not allowed to get
excited or zealous or fired up about something that excites me without
being told to show control, cool it, or whatever other thing you want to
insert.
I signed my reply "respectfully," in hopes of showing you I wasn't
offended, but I guess it didn't work. I thought I would be afforded the
right to express myself in opposition to you, without getting some
weird-ass backlash. I was wrong.
For the record: I was not personally or professionally offended. I was
not angry, nor was I having a meltdown when I wrote that. I was quite
enjoying the vehement exchange of ideas, but if that's not the way you
see it, then there's nothing more to say.
Carry on.
--
"I tried cybersex once, but was turned off by the number of bad typists.
Opus
> I did-- or jumping through the hoops to get a "Master of Fine Arts"
> degree doesn't seem to me to be a particularly effective way to become a
> writer, unless the intent is to be hired by some other writing program
> as an instructor. But that's entirely different from "paying to take a
> course."
>
creative arts field. It isn't going to serve to make you better at your
craft, but it WILL make you a more-rounded human being, which hopefully,
if applied right, WILL make you better at your craft, as you won't be so
narrow-minded.
Opus
--
"I tried cybersex once, but was turned off by the number of bad typists.
Anopheles
"Alaric" wrote:
> "nativelaw" <l...@REMOVEnativelaw.net> wrote in message
> >
> > PS to Alaric, your view on Shakespeare continues to blow me away. I
just
> find it curious that you don't like him because you echo the kinds of
> timeless wisdoms he regularly expressed four hundred years ago, almost
every
> day, in thoughts you express here. You are very Shakespearean in your
> wisdoms.
>
> HEY!!! I didn't insult you! <g>
>
> > "Brevity is the soul of wit", "Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which
> we ascribe to heaven." "The fool doth think himself wise, but the wise man
> knows himself to be a fool", "love all, trust a few, do wrong to none",
> "Confusion now hath made me his masterpiece!" (hah) Not to mention all he
> said about love.
>
> Yeah, he was good at that fortune cookie stuff.
>
> > he may not have been the originator of any of these sentiments but he
got
> them down in a highly imaginative and creative form with multiple
characters
> in every play that are extremely well characterized and creative given the
> limitations of who they had for actors (mostly men), what they had for
> props, etc. I can only imagine that it's just that he (his stuff) is just
> not sexy enough for you.
>
> In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn says that Shakespeare's villains
are
> mere petty criminals, because it's ideology that "gives evildoing its
> long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary
steadfastness
> wealthy gentleman with little experience of tribukation and hardship. So
> (Solzhenitsyn) since a tragedy such as Macbeth is of limited relevance to
a
> history that includes the Gulag and the Holocaust. I'm not sure I entirely
> go along with that, but its symptomatic of the refusal of Shakespeare's
> acolytes to look at his relevance.
>
> Shakespeare was militaristic, racist, anti-Semite, and many English
scholars
> including me turn against him for having such sentiments shoved down our
> thought, modern problems. Unlike many better writers of his time (read
> Marlowe's Edward II) he carries little message into the future.
>
> That said, he's been hurt by decades of deification. Up until the
nineteenth
> century, you know, in England, Ben Jonson and John Fletcher were thought
> more than his equals. Bardolatry has distorted Shakespeare's true place in
> literary history and set his work on a false pedestal, encouraging
reverence
> more than understanding. Reading his work or attending performances is
> supposed to make you better-more aware, more knowing. He's become Western
> culture personified, the embodiment of Tradition and thus a key link to
the
> "eternal values" that "seem" to be disappearing. His reputation is so
> intimidating that people sometimes forget he was an entertainer, not the
> author of cultural prescriptions, nor a promoter of values.
>
I agree with this summation. Bill has suffered by becoming a pop star while
Jonson and Marlowe are neglected.
Anopheles
nativelaw
"Anopheles" <hi...@jeack.com.au> wrote in message
news:b9405r$f410h$1...@ID-34438.news.dfncis.de...
<snip>
> I agree with this summation. Bill has suffered by becoming a pop star
while
> Jonson and Marlowe are neglected.
>
> Anopheles
Well, don't blame my pal Bill for that. He can't help it if he was the
Steven Spielberg of the 17th century. I think Chris Marlowe came first,
too, so he'd already had his chance at fame and fortune <g>.
Unrelated: Just got back from dinner at "The Outback" Steakhouse. My hub
loves that place. Talk about pop culture. I swear what most visitors to
Outback Restaurant know about your country is that the men are tanned and
wrestle alligators, Australian food comes in very large manly portions, men
drink Fosters, women are called Sheilas, you like big things grilled on the
barbie and you all have sexy accents. Tell me there are not actually any
"Outback" Restaurants in Australia? What's the most popular American chain
restaurant you have the misfortune to have?
Alaric
> No, I won't leave this one lie because I think you misinterpreted some
of what I meant, and some of what I said.
After reading this, most definitely ditto.
> > But then again, we're all *just* entertainers and not really worthy or
qualified to reflect cultural perceptions, promote values or come up
with a (god forbid) original idea on our own, now, are we?
> Well..
> > Nope, we're
all stupid performers who needn't bother entering a building any other
place than the rear door...
>
> Well..
Okay, I know what you're implying here, and it goes right through me,
but so be it. NO sense in arguing over it. It's how you feel. So
noted.
No. You quite clearly DON'T understand what I'm implying. What I'm implying
is NOTHING to do with the worth of actors. I'm implying that you're going
off on one, that you're interpreting things that were never said, then using
those things to support your argument and to belittle. How does a view on
Shakespeare imply all entertainers shouldn't express values? Where did the
original idea thing come from - you never answered that? How does a view
SPECIFICALLY on Shakespeare imply that all actors should use the back door?
And with that in mind, how can you say you responded reasonably and in a
controlled manner to the post?
> I clearly understood what it was, and wasn't personally offended, so you
need to cool it. But when you used the global term ENTERTAINER, well,
I'm sorry, but that encompasses playwrights, actors and anyone else who
entertains for a living. And you did say entertainer.
I used the word entertainer in this context:-
> His reputation is so
intimidating that people sometimes forget he was an entertainer, not the
author of cultural prescriptions, nor a promoter of values.
Shakespeare was an entertainer because of the demands he faced in the way
the theatre was organised in London at the time. A competitor, too. A
fighter for a bigoted and demanding audience. There's some of that today,
but thankfully there's room for contrariness and even orneriness. There is
no way that my comment on Shakespeare's position in his time had the
remotest relevance to anyone else but Shakespeare.
> Then I'm not sure why you said what you did and the way you said it.
With the above explanation, hopefully now you do.
> You're right. I said it because when someone introduces cultural
perceptions, original ideas usually go hand in hand with it.
Actually, I'd say quite the reverse.
> I'm sorry, tried to think for myself there for a minute.
I honour that. But in this particular case, I think you wanted to make a
point and didn't want what I'd actually said to get in the way of it.
> NOR WAS I PERSONALLY OFFENDED! Sheesh. So can I.. And I have no idea
what the hell you're on about with comparing my age to his if he were alive.
An unwise attempt at a meaningless joke.
> Of course he was, but it's also a limited view. If you watch the play
without blinders, then you see that there was much more to this than
meets the eye.
Explain. Apart from that speech, and you've accepted that it can't be taken
in isolation, how is a view derivable from The Merchant Of Venice, from
someone without blinders, that Shylock is not a racial stereotype pantomime
villain.
> He wouldn't be "deified" so much if all there were to
him was his ability to go for laughs, now, would he? We both know the
public is too fickle to allow anything such popularity as to be so
shallow. If you'll notice, no one from SNL is deified on such a level,
and it's because they may have the ability to go for a laugh, but
they're certainly no Shakespeare.
No. Bacon had his own reasons for squeezing Shakespeare into the light.
Additionally Shakespeare has the advantage over his peers of surviving
manuscripts. Even most of Marlowe's work is lost. When you're the only game
in town, you start with an advantage.
> He wrote for his time, yes, but your original argument had to do with
why he was still popular and that you didn't agree with those who held
that view. He's FAMOUS because people today who don't know who the hell
Bacon is, view his work in many undulating layers with awe.
Most people who adore Shakespeare would be remiss, then, because Bacon's
presentations and arrangements are as much a part of the dramatic success as
the words - more so, in fact, for many of the great actors. And there are
even suspicions about the attribution of some of the words.
> And that's your opinion. I don't agree.
Why not? Shakespeare had no evidence of the crimes he attributes to Richard,
who had every reason to believe himself rightful King. The murder of the
princes has never been logically laid at his feet. He was, by historical
evidence, a reasonable monarch.
>> No. Sorry. No offence, but you're on the wrong track on both sides of
that
scale in glorious Protestant England.
> This illustrates my point beautifully, in that this is exactly the
reason he's so popular. Because one group views him one way, gleaning
what they will from his text, and another gleans something entirely
different.
No. You MISS the point. Shakespeare's father was Catholic (maybe even one of
Catesby's persecuted) and there's a discredited theory that Shakespeare sent
for a Catholic priest on his death bed, but England was a Protestant nation,
and as a careful man he made sure his plays reflected that,
> I don't doubt that, but they are never quoted in THOSE contexts, are
they?
Quoted or not, it doesn't affect my counter to your point that Shakespeare
was so clever for coining them.
>> By the same standard, you're ignorant if you don't understand Chaucer's
Middle English.
> I agree. That's another one I get tired of hearing complaints about.
Or high Latin.
> Of course you are, and to think differently is just silly. You watch
that TV as much as the next guy, and no offence, but it's not entirely
because Sarah is so cute. Television took over where theatre left off
politically. Episodic television writers are shoving their political
views at you with every flick of the clicker, and you can't deny it.
You may not realise it's happening at the time it is, but it is.
Yep. Star Trek has an agenda. So does Buffy. George Burns in Jack And The
Beanstalk doesn't.
> Um, no. The most effective way, is to listen to it being performed, as
we did in English lit class. Don't think I ever had a professor that
actually made me read it, because they knew it wasn't meant to be read.
You're probably right. You are right. It makes NO difference to my view of
him, but yes.
> And my zeal over the topic in general should not be gleaned as some
personal attack on you. What? I'm not allowed to hold an opinion that
I get excited about without *someone* becoming personally offended?
Please.
Of course you are. But look at the paras of yours I quoted at the start of
my first response, and tell me (a) that they represent what I said and (b)
that they are not aggressive.
>> It surprises me that you don't read the whole play for context.
> Now this to me, is just silly. How can you glean that a character is
flawed without the entire context there to give you the relevance? I
don't see how you can.
Exactly. So I repeat. Apart from that speech, and you've accepted that it
can't be taken in isolation, how is a view derivable from The Merchant Of
Venice, from someone without blinders, that Shylock is not a racial
stereotype pantomime villain.
> I don't conveniently ignore anything, A. I took the aspect of theatre
that you broached and reminded you of the historical facts that backed
it up.
No. You broached this. You said, and I quote:-
> From his day
on up, especially to the turn of the century, as I've already stated,
the theatre was EXACTLY the promoter of values and cultural
prescriptions. Hell, that's why people attended.
I'm answering you, and saying no, with honourable exceptions, people
attended to have their views reinforced.
> I didn't create anything. You said Shakespeare's reputation was so
intimidating that people forgot he was an entertainer and not the author
of values, etc. I don't know how you can see that the two are mutually
exclusive. And once again, playwrights, actors and theatre all has to
do with entertainment. You introduced the term, not I.
No. I'm talking about Shakespeare. Not all playwrights, actors and the
theatre. By this logic, if I hate Jim Carrey (which I do) I hate all movies,
TV and dog food adverts.
> You can't separate Shakespeare from the theatre, because in some regards
he WAS theatre, wasn't he?
No. He was one of very many, even in his own time, even in England, even in
London.
If you attack his worth as an author of
values and leave out theatre tradition and what it was at the time, then
you've separated him from his context, and you can't do that and say you
understand him.
I'm placing him IN his context. You're placing him in Hollywood.
> Well. This irritated the hell out of me, too, but I'm not going to go
there, Alaric. I respect what you have to say, I respect your opinions,
but I find it horribly distasteful that *I* am not allowed to get
excited or zealous or fired up about something that excites me without
being told to show control, cool it, or whatever other thing you want to
insert.
It isn't unreasonable to ask that you don't attack me for things I haven't
said.
> I signed my reply "respectfully," in hopes of showing you I wasn't
offended, but I guess it didn't work. I thought I would be afforded the
right to express myself in opposition to you, without getting some
weird-ass backlash. I was wrong.
That's self-serving and unfair. I respect your views on anything, as you
know. I'm happy to debate with you on anything. I merely ask that I debate
what are my views, and not extrapolations of them.
> For the record: I was not personally or professionally offended. I was
not angry, nor was I having a meltdown when I wrote that. I was quite
enjoying the vehement exchange of ideas, but if that's not the way you
see it, then there's nothing more to say.
You know how hard it is for me to be annoyed. You've known me a very long
time. Isn't it possible, then, that there might be something in this?
Fraser
You two just SO don't get it. You don't, and you never will, so fuck off.
<moves on, with evil grin>
"Wind River" <wind...@voyager.net> wrote in message
news:3EB54881...@voyager.net...
> Hagbar wrote:
Fraser
"Quadpus" <qua...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7dd67e3a.03050...@posting.google.com...
> "Fraser" <fra...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<b92foi$ega4o$1...@ID-116198.news.dfncis.de>...
> >
> > And if there are no absolute answers, how can any critical theory be
> > anything but an opinion, based on the tenets of that particular school
of
> > thought? Without definable absolutes, that opinion might just as easily
be
> > worthless and wrong as valuable and right. I'm a literal-minded bugger,
Q,
> > and I don't have the knowledge or vocabulary to engage you in a debate
on
> > literary theory - all I'm saying is that, to me, criticism is
> > interpretation, and interpretation is dependent on factors that are
> > unquantifiable and inconstant.
>
> But that's just it -- what the varying forms of literary criticism produce
> ARE only opinions, and any self-respecting English lit. major, no matter
> how firmly his or her head is wedged up the crack of some particularly
> beloved variant of critical theory, will admit that.
Right. So, what was it we were arguing about again? <g>
>
> > Gimme a sneak preview? And would you prefer Wormwood or Rosemary?
>
> Eh, if you didn't like my flashlight analogy, maybe we'd better let Rick
> do the talking.
I loved the analogy, for the imagery. The problem I have with it (although
this could just be another too-literal reading on my part) is that it's
based on accepting the existence of the divine. If by 'divine' you mean the
unknown, instead of a god-like being or force, then I'm with you. One is
predicated on wishful thinking that there's a design, that somewhere there
is something who knows what it's doing, and the other on the acknowledgement
that we can't know what, if any, entity/phenomenon is running the Big Show.
imbo.
Where is Rick when you need him, anyway?
>
> > <groan> My head is starting to hurt. Meaning, eh? Let's see...
> >
> > Something lacks or possesses meaning depending on whether that 'thing'
is
> > acceptable within the framework of what a particular individual regards
as
> > being true. Truth is variable and unprovable, changing from individual
to
> > individual depending on a myriad of environmental factors. The only
possible
> > arbiter of meaning, therefore, is the individual. Further, since meaning
is
> > defined in terms of an unprovable (truth), meaning itself is unprovable.
> >
> > So when I say it's all bullshit, that's bullshit.
>
> Exactly! Valid meaning is generated from within the observing parties, not
> imposed from without.
>
> This is the best OT thread we've had in ages!
It's been a lot of fun.
Opus
> is NOTHING to do with the worth of actors. I'm implying that you're going
> off on one, that you're interpreting things that were never said, then using
> those things to support your argument and to belittle. How does a view on
> Shakespeare imply all entertainers shouldn't express values?
>
as if you were lumping ALL entertainers together. I'm sorry, but the
way you said, "His reputation is so intimidating that people sometimes
forget he was an entertainer, etc.," is as if to imply that entertainers
just aren't capable of being authors of cultural prescriptions and
promoters of values. And then you clearly say something similar again
later down, by asking sarcastically, "I'm educated by pantomime? by
farce?" Most CERTAINLY, especially by farce, but I won't go into the
social constructs of that one.
I won't relent on this, Alaric, but I'm not going to fight anymore
either. You say you didn't mean it a certain way, I interpret it that
you did, and I guess we're at an impasse. It happens.
> Shakespeare was an entertainer because of the demands he faced in the way
> the theatre was organised in London at the time. A competitor, too. A
> fighter for a bigoted and demanding audience. There's some of that today,
> but thankfully there's room for contrariness and even orneriness. There is
> no way that my comment on Shakespeare's position in his time had the
> remotest relevance to anyone else but Shakespeare.
>
Well then you'll have to forgive my interpretation, because it most
certainly came across that way.
> > You're right. I said it because when someone introduces cultural
> perceptions, original ideas usually go hand in hand with it.
>
> Actually, I'd say quite the reverse.
>
And I'm not going to touch this one.
> I honour that. But in this particular case, I think you wanted to make a
> point and didn't want what I'd actually said to get in the way of it.
>
Again, not the case.
> And I have no idea
> what the hell you're on about with comparing my age to his if he were alive.
>
> An unwise attempt at a meaningless joke.
>
Ah. I thought it was funny, but I just couldn't put it in context.
> Explain. Apart from that speech, and you've accepted that it can't be taken
> in isolation, how is a view derivable from The Merchant Of Venice, from
> someone without blinders, that Shylock is not a racial stereotype pantomime
> villain.
>
Now who's taking comments to support arguments I never presented? Dear,
I didn't even BEGIN to deny that Shylock wasn't a racial stereotype.
That wasn't my point. My point, in response to the topic you broached,
was that for you to ascribe this as a personal trait of Shakespeare
himself was just wrong. I suppose it overly surprised me that you are a
writer and creator of characters, too. I guess in truth neither one of
us know what the man was really like, but it's still nonetheless
staggering.
> Even most of Marlowe's work is lost. When you're the only game
> in town, you start with an advantage.
>
That's actually a good point.
> Most people who adore Shakespeare would be remiss, then, because Bacon's
> presentations and arrangements are as much a part of the dramatic success as
> the words - more so, in fact, for many of the great actors. And there are
> even suspicions about the attribution of some of the words.
>
I had hoped you wouldn't go there. That's another whole ball of wax.
Even when I frequented a Shakespeare listserv, I *never* touched that
argument. <G>
> Of course you are. But look at the paras of yours I quoted at the start of
> my first response, and tell me (a) that they represent what I said and (b)
> that they are not aggressive.
>
I still see them as representing what you said. I have no personal axe
to grind with you--you know how I feel about you. But as to whether
they are "aggressive" or not, well, I guess only Ruby Wax can tell us
that.
> Apart from that speech, and you've accepted that it
> can't be taken in isolation, how is a view derivable from The Merchant Of
> Venice, from someone without blinders, that Shylock is not a racial
> stereotype pantomime villain.
>
Not my point. My point was that you said Shakespeare's flawed
characters were a natural derivation of himself, and I just can't agree
that that statement may even have a small inkling of truth. I have no
argument as to the personal level of evil Shylock had. I do have
argument that you can clearly link that character to Shakespeare's
personal character.
> I'm answering you, and saying no, with honourable exceptions, people
> attended to have their views reinforced.
>
Then you missed the part of Russian history in which theatres were
literally the cause of rioting and governments finally had to step in
and intervene to shut them down. Hell, it got to the point in most
cases where they had to begin meeting underground like some cult of
castrated christians. I think I disagree, respectfully, with your use
of the term "Honourable exceptions." They were the majority, not the
exception from my own study of it.
> No. I'm talking about Shakespeare. Not all playwrights, actors and the
> theatre. By this logic, if I hate Jim Carrey (which I do) I hate all movies,
> TV and dog food adverts.
>
If you had said that Jim Carrey was so intimidating that people forgot
he was an entertainer and not an author of values, then I would've been
all over it in the same way. It was the way in which you worded the
sentence so as to make your biases appear. And those were what I was
addressing.
> > You can't separate Shakespeare from the theatre, because in some regards
> he WAS theatre, wasn't he?
>
> No. He was one of very many, even in his own time, even in England, even in
> London.
>
One, many, what's it matter? They were ALL theatre. And to me, you
just can't separate the two. He and Marlowe WERE theatre. Period.
> I'm placing him IN his context. You're placing him in Hollywood.
>
Now that's not what I said at all. The only time I alluded to Hollywood
was with that Sarah comment and how TV took up politically where theatre
left off. I wasn't placing Shakespeare in Hollywood or comparing him to
those standards. To remove him from theatre is to remove him from his
context, and that context happens to have a history steeped rich in
Russian politics in its embryonic stage.
> It isn't unreasonable to ask that you don't attack me for things I haven't
> said.
>
Of course it isn't but that's not what happened. I didn't *attack* you
to begin with, and I still see things the way I see them. I attacked
your ideas. Difference.
> That's self-serving and unfair.
>
Oh, really. Well, thank god we're not attacking each other...
> I respect your views on anything, as you
> know. I'm happy to debate with you on anything. I merely ask that I debate
> what are my views, and not extrapolations of them.
>
And again, unless I've just really missed something, I don't see them as
extrapolations. I still see you as having set Shakespeare up equal with
the characters he created and then attacking him for it. That's what
you said initially, yes? Wasn't that the original point?
> You know how hard it is for me to be annoyed. You've known me a very long
> time. Isn't it possible, then, that there might be something in this?
>
I think what there is to this, is two people separated by 5000 miles of
cold, dark ocean, working through an impaired medium, attempting to
debate a century's old topic in the time span of a few minutes with no
coffee or bagel or cafe table in between them, each one misinterpreting
the other's intent.
And so to save our friendship, I will say, thank you for the debate.
Opus
Anopheles
Not one Outback restaurant this side of Cloud Cuckoo Land, m'dear. The
reality is we all eat in other people's food type restaurants.
Unfortunately, we have all the bad things about the USA here, Maccas, KFC,
et al, and don't the kiddies love 'em.
We have a new Sushi house locally, as usual, run by Chinese. Unlike other
Japanese restaurants, they serve extremely large proprotions. I'm frightened
they'll go broke.
Anopheles
Quadpus
>
> I suspect you're being facetious, but I _will_ tell how I came to
> disenroll from one of those programs.
No, I was being completely serious. Thanks for posting this one. Got
any more?
Quadpus
>
> Right. So, what was it we were arguing about again? <g>
I think there's a point at which we stopped arguing, or perhaps we never
were at all. Of course, that's a matter of interpretation.
> I loved the analogy, for the imagery. The problem I have with it (although
> this could just be another too-literal reading on my part) is that it's
> based on accepting the existence of the divine. If by 'divine' you mean the
> unknown, instead of a god-like being or force, then I'm with you. One is
> predicated on wishful thinking that there's a design, that somewhere there
> is something who knows what it's doing, and the other on the acknowledgement
> that we can't know what, if any, entity/phenomenon is running the Big Show.
> imbo.
Well, of course, we're all most familiar with the paternalistic Judeo-
Christian sky god, but "the divine" comes in more flavors than Jelly Belly
jelly beans. Remember, whenever a word or term gives you problems, just
deconstruct it!
> Where is Rick when you need him, anyway?
I dunno. At sea?
Fraser
> > My point is, the amount I don't know about the 'known world' is just
fuckin'
> > staggering.
> >
> When I read this I was shaking my head so hard in agreement something
> came loose.
Heh! Hope it was nothing important.
And my dichotomy comes in that I don't possess even a third
> of the brain power needed to even BEGIN seeking out or understanding
> that knowledge I long to possess.
I'm well aquainted with the feeling. Every time I try programming the VCR...
<snip good quotes>
> This entire thread has got my juices going. I'm SO glad you posted it,
> dood. And from the number of responses, it looks like I wasn't the only
> one. I know AFO is the place for original fiction and it's a workshop
> to post such, but don't ya feel that sometimes, I dunno, it's tiring,
> like, what's it all for? I think it's conversations like these that
> keep us thinking, keep us on our toes, and maybe that's from whence your
> original sprang. Anyway, I'm loving this. SO many new ideas being
> exchanged so that our own viewpoints may shift.
>
Glad to hear it, O. I think OT and semi-OT threads definitely have their
place, if things are kept reasonably civil and restricted to one easily
ignorable thread. I've been forced to do a lot of thinking over the last two
days I certainly wouldn't have done otherwise, and I've read points of view
I'd never normally encounter. Can't be bad. Hell, even the full-on flame
threads are useful in that they teach you to take a lot of care with how you
put thoughts into words. If you don't, you get your ass back on a plate.
Fraser *hides plate*
Fraser
> > So if you'd been another Martin Amis and held an influential critical
> position in your twenties, any negative criticism you'd written at that
time
> (which might have adversely affected someones writing career) would've
> been...er, bullshit? There's a few people on AFO in their early twenties,
> I'd guess. Is the criticism they offer (which is undoubtably different to
> what they will offer when they're in their forties) an accurate assessment
> of the story? I don't think so. It's an accurate 20-year old's assessment,
> sure. Your assessment is an accurate 40-ish year old's. But there can be
no
> *absolute* assessment, because people's perceptions change constantly,
even
> if the rate of change slows as we get older. Without complete stagnation
any
> criticism can be no more than a temporal thing, subject to change, and
> therefore unreliable.
>
> Heh. Fraser, I'm disgusted with you. You're using JPD tactics here -
> interpreting my argument to demolish it. If I was Martin Amis, yes, you're
> right. But I'm not. My point is that some teens get up their own asses
with
> the self-referential angst-ridden stuff, and I said that I was one of
them.
> I in no way lump all teens in that bracket - Beethoven and Aris Merquoni
> easily escape. But your argument STARTED with that point. I was agreeing
on
> the phenomenon, not giving you gratuitous ammunition, ya eejit.
You really think? Looking back, I postulated (ahem) that criticism was bs
because it was based on perceptions that change with time and circumstance.
Right? You replied:
"My world view is consistent, but it isn't stagnant. I can look at a story I
wrote ten years
ago and want to change it's message slightly (certainly I'll want to change
its technical nature), but if I look at something I wrote 25 years ago, it'
ll be unsalvageable because of the attitude and world view I had when I
wrote it."
To which I replied as above.
To me, you plainly say that you'd no longer agree or identify with something
you'd written 25 years ago because your views have changed so much. Which I
agree with - that's my whole argument. But that must surely include any
criticism you may have written (or even just thought) at that time, no? That
criticism would now be invalid. The Amis comparison was simply to illustrate
that a phenomenon which affects all of us can have real, damaging effects
which will later prove to be unjustified.
I'm probably missing something because I'm too involved in this and my brain
is smouldering and fritzing away here, but I don't see how I've manipulated
your reply or engaged in 'selective defence' (grrr) here.
Educate me, magister.
>
> > Hemingway, Dickens and Heller might speak to the things that you hold
> dear.
>
> No. They speak of essential things. I don't believe human drivers are
> influenced by poverty and colour and place of birth. Human thought is.
> Specific aims are. If you live on Wall Street, you don't need to worry
about
> feeding your kids. But drivers - aggression and competition and pride (The
> Old Man And The Sea), despair and hopelessness and depression (Catch 22),
> shame (A Christmas Carol) live in the human soul.
Agree that the human animal is driven by the same basic
urges/instincts/whatever, but maintain that the level of importance attached
to those issues will change depending on circumstance. A poor man with a
starving family to feed attaches no great importance to pride. Competition
is largely meaningless to someone living in a communal tribal society (and
they do still exist). They would not identify with these things to the same
extent as you or I would. Valid point, or am I doing the JPD thang again?
>
> > Hell, even within your own culture there are many who'd have you
flogged
> for denying Shakespeare's divinity. Who's right?
>
> Me. See separate post.
>
I did. The jury's still out. <g>
> > And our goodwill.
>
> > I wouldn't put money on that one.
>
> In AFO criticism (which is the subject here.) Well, it saddens me you feel
> that way (argument turned around courtesy of JPD dispute prolongation
> class.)
>
Aargh. *Intentional* misunderstanding is a little bit different.
> > You carry on carrying on. I know this probably came across as depressive
> nihilism or whatever, but I honestly don't find it depressing at all. As I
> said in reply to Andrea last night, I think our ability to carry on as if
> there is meaning when (to me anyway) it's blatantly obvious that there
> isn't, is amazing. It's the crowning achievement of humanity.
>
> I get the impression that your views on the afterlife are in line with
mine.
> There ain't one. Doesn't that mean that what we do here, in our limited
> time, has increased importance, if only (and sadly if this is true) to
> ourselves?
>
To the extent that it makes us feel better about being alive, strengthens
our ability to ignore the obvious end and keeps us all from killing
ourselves, it's important for the continuation of the species. I wouldn't
put any more 'romantic' emphasis on it than that.
> > I'm glad if anything I say about a story helps the author get closer to
> what they want. But that doesn't make me right.
>
> It makes you useful.
>
> >> Read my quote.
>
> > I have. To me, it's a warning to the arrogant that nothing lasts, that
> nothing we poor, deluded creatures consider important actually is. If I've
> read it right, I agree with it. If I've read it wrong, it supports my view
> that my criticism is bullshit! <g>
>
>
> Bullshit <g>. It's a warning to use your life wisely.
>
Because it's all you've got.
Nice chat, Al. The final word is yours.
Fraser
Fraser
>
> <skilfully avoids picking up the reference to The Jew Of Malta in the hope
> that he can get away with selective defence like Fraser does <vvvbg>.>
>
Hah! Selective defence indeed! This to the guy who's just spent two days
attempting to fairly answer every single challenge presented to his original
post. I dunno, Al, maybe I'll have to ask you for some lessons in selective
reading...
ooooh
Seym...er, Fraser
Opus
>
> Seym...er, Fraser
>
Funniest damn thing I've read all night.
O
--
"I tried cybersex once, but was turned off by the number of bad typists.
Hagbar
its the bleeding edge of modern fiction!
the BLEEDING edge.news:b94mdc$fb4qh$1...@ID-116198.news.dfncis.de...
Hagbar
I just cracked my back and got a rush of spinal fluid to the brain that has
unalterably changed my conception of life and the world.
THE ABOVE POST (The story) Is bullshit.
I've so much new clarity. . .
"Hagbar" <cole...@onlinehome.de> wrote in message
news:b95e2t$18o$1...@online.de...
nativelaw
"Anopheles" <hi...@jeack.com.au> wrote in message
news:b94mts$f3qvp$1...@ID-34438.news.dfncis.de...
Here the "Chinese Buffet" is all the rage. If ever a restaurant was going
to go broke from serving too much, you'd think it would happen there. I
don't know how they do it because there are an awful lot of people that come
and park for the afternoon or evening. The kids love the buffet too. My
daughter loves it, it's where she wants to go for her birthday and (gulp) my
inlaws love it too. I end up paying $9.00 for a plate of MSG'd veggies. I
don't care since it makes her happy, but it makes me crazy. Took two
neighbor's kids last week no bigger than pints and they systematically
filled their plates with food, then deserts, then food, then deserts, for
about five trips. Not a healthy trend.
We went to a trendy All Things Asian kind of restaurant about a month ago
with an indoor rainforest. They dripping water to the bar area. It did
tend to make one thirsty.
Never tried Sushi or Sashimi. I tried a nice wrap one day with smoked
salmon and dill and thought it would be great because I love salmon, till I
found out smoked means notcooked. Can't do it. Hub eats raw clams and
oysters all the time. Can't. Need non-vegetable food cooked. My male
ancestors invented fire so they didn't have to listen to women say....
"ewwwwwww!" at dinnertime.
nativelaw
"nativelaw" <l...@REMOVEnativelaw.net> wrote in message
news:m5rta.4448$J46....@news02.roc.ny.frontiernet.net...
>
>
>
> "Anopheles" <hi...@jeack.com.au> wrote in message
> news:b94mts$f3qvp$1...@ID-34438.news.dfncis.de...
> >
> > "nativelaw" wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > "Anopheles" <hi...@jeack.com.au> wrote in message
> > > news:b9405r$f410h$1...@ID-34438.news.dfncis.de...
>
> filled their plates with food, then deserts, then food, then deserts, for
> about five trips. Not a healthy trend.
make that desserts. I wouldn't have let them eat too much sand.
Michael
would be that the "meaning" of any story is created by a synthesis of
text and reader. That is to say that people don't react to the
stimulus of a story or film or book or piece of music in a uniform
manner, contrary to the so-called "hypodermic needle" theories of mass
communication that were spawned in the 1920's. These theories posited
that each "consumer" was passive in the process of creating meaning,
and that a uniform reaction could be expected - that is to say,
veryone has the same response and feelings toward a piece of
art/culture.
This is obviously nonsense, and in the 1960's, the rise of
Interactionism as
a strain of sociological thinking led to a number of theories
stressing the
importance of the consumer as a "tool" in creating meaning. From there
perspective, cultural products are best viewed as a dialogue or
interaction
between the text and the consumer, where "meaning" is created by the
collision of the two.
But what does all this have to do with Fraser's post? Well, maybe
nothing,
but I think he's right to an extent. "Criticism" of a story is, per
se, one
person's opinion. How valid is it? Well, that's impossible to quantify
or
measure. There was an argument in the 1970's in the world of
Interactionism
about something called "cultural relativism", which, taken to its
logical
conclusion, effectively states that everybody's opinion is as valid as
each
others. I struggle with this idea. To say that a binman from Grimsby
holds
the same weight of opinion as the Prime Minister is, to me, stretching
it.
But there we go.
But then again, the review of a story has to be interpreted, assessed
and
acted upon by the author. So the same applies to reviews as applies to
the
stories that spawn them.
And now I'm confused and I'm going for a lie down because I don't
think I've
added anything to the debate other than to showcase my tenuous
knowledge of
"Communication theory through the ages". God bless pointless
University
degrees!
Oh. The way I deal with opinions? Reviews of my writing that are
positive
get priority... ;-)