Subject: random gleanings from the treasure trove
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Tue Jul 31 2001 - 03:05:29 GMT
It may be that Speedy Baader can discern the unconsious
intentions of a writer after one, possibly two, of her gimlet
eyed readings. I can only report that to achieve not even
a comparable but still very tentative hunch, it takes me
years & years & years - as the leaves through the study window
unfurl through countless springs & wither through countless
autumns - of chat, jokes, tears, abuse, questions, reproaches,
ponderings, accusations ...
A brilliant & highly lucrative career awaits her in psychoanalysis.
Though I’m not so sure about her past incarnation as a mediaeval
scholar - & at this point I’m reelly reelly chancing my arm;
but may I suggest that ‘pulcra sunt quae visa placent’ could be
better translated, simply, as: ‘the beautiful is [are] what [those
sights
that] give[s] pleasure.’
Nothing there of the emphasis on the individually subjective
which seems to me to be inherent in ‘the eye of the beholder’.
I’m not altogether clear where that gets us - except that it tends
away from the implications of her last sentence (‘most meaning is
in the hands of the reader ...’) which I find so repulsively & smugly
presumptuous as to drive all breath from my body.
_______________
Which was, of course, her intention all along. This is what
Stephen Potter first identified as Gamesmanship: ‘how to win
at games without actually cheating’ ... how to disconcert & destroy
your opponent with unusual courtesy or an excessive & spurious
concern for his wellbeing.
Because we already know that like 97% of the membership of
this list, old Cec is a games enthusiast. All that hearty joviality
about teams - the Cubs, the Bulls, the Penguins, whatever -
they’re all at it: Will, Tim, The Man from the Frozen North
& now even, God help us, the hitherto urbane & unillusioned Sean.
Well, count me out, chaps. Here’s my latest aphorism for you
to ponder: Original insight is born of play. And when play dies
it becomes a game.
Scottie B.
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