Re: green ink
Matthew_Stevenson@baylor.edu
Thu, 11 Mar 1999 14:46:13 -0600
It's posts like these that keep me stuffing my fish face...Thanks, Scottie,
for the wit, and Camille and Abra for the information...Truly, Matt Stevens=
on.
On Thu, 11 Mar 1999 16:15:20 +0000 rbowman@indigo.ie (Scottie Bowman) wrote=
:
> You know me. I'm the last person on earth to upset
> anyone - least of all such decent old sticks as Rick
> or Tim, or an enchantress like Meredith. But I'm afraid,
> yes, the green ink will have to go.
>
> Purple ink, of course, was always known as bad news.
> Any editor will tell you that a letter in purple invariably
> calls for the advice of the libel lawyers. And any shrink
> worth his salt recognises it as one of the really reliable
> secondary indicators of paranoid schizophrenia.
>
> Green, on the other hand, is pathognomonic not so much
> for the paranoid as for the kind of narcissistic individual
> who is aware of others only insofar as they serve his own needs.
>
> I remember the first two characters I knew well who were
> devoted to green ink.
>
> One was the absolutely marvellous headmaster for much
> of my schooldays. He was unusually youthful, innovative,
> liberal & spectacularly effective in attracting large sums
> of money to his school. It remains something of a mystery
> how, at the end of his career, he (only JUST) managed
> to escape a long term of imprisonment for misappopriation
> of funds.
>
> The other was a Friend of My Youth. He wrote everything
> in a tiny, bright emerald green hand. He looked rather like
> Lord Byron was much adored by the lady teachers &
> a large group of aspiring mothers in law. He finished up
> as a Very Senior Official of the United Nations. Before
> his premature, yet long awaited demise, he was responsible -
> through incompetence & high ideals - for the deaths of
> countless numbers of helpless & innocent refugees.
>
> They were simply the first two green ink men in my life.
> But they set the pattern for all who came later.
> You could always tell. Whenever I saw that fresh, vernal
> writing my heart began to sink - & with every justification.
>
> (Incidentally, Meredith, a 'yuppie' would NEVER use
> green ink - seeing in it the kind of eccentricity fatal to
> anyone seriously concerned with the acquisition of a grip
> on the central levers of power & wealth.)
>
> Scottie B.
Camille wrote:=20
> BTW - the real Daumier, if you're interested to know, was originally a
> satirical cartoonist and caricaturist in France
Paul McCartney is a fan of him, and used a drawing of his as coverpic of=20
his 1989 single "Figure of Eight"... I have an edition where the same pic=
=20
is etched 8 times in the vinyl on the b-side...=20
Paul also produced a short film based on his work, and wrote the score for=
=20
that... The film is called "Daumier=B4s Law"...=20
Abra,=20
Beatle-fan