Re: piffle

On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 05:55:27 -0600, boots <no@xxxxx> wrote:

Josh Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 31 May 2007 04:50:20 -0600, boots <no@xxxxx> wrote:

Josh Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 30 May 2007 04:08:26 -0600, boots <no@xxxxx> wrote:

Josh Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I deflected nothing.

As you wish.

Seems strange to have to remind an adult that rudeness is not a
virtue.

It's an odd world that manipulates people by scoffing at truth from
the lofty perspective of manners.

Had your interest been in the truth, your reply would not have been
sardonic.

Good for you, made me look up "sardonic" in order to remind myself of
its definition. My reply was not sardonic. It was simple shorthand
for "I don't care enough about this to bother". No scorn or mockery
was explicit or implied, it was basically a statement that since we
are at Burger King you can have it your way. The acronym "LIGAF"
would have been equally correct on my part, but I dislike acronyms
outside of technical manuals.

Then you may want to reread the definition: "LIGAF" is, in this
context, quite sardonic, that is, "expressive of or characterized by
derision or scorn."

Listen up fuckwit: if you go looking for a fight you can always find
one.

LIGAF.

You rambled about your gentle-hearted nature, was that witter supposed
to contain some "points" that I missed?

I'm beginning to wonder whether there are any points that you /don't/
miss.

The onus is always on the writer.

That's like saying that it's the fault of the speaker that a deaf man
can't hear his words.

Conversely you choose to put the onus on the reader, which is like
saying anyone should be able to extract the meaning of whatever
vomitus is entered through a keyboard. Communication is a two-way
street. It is my choice to put the onus on the active participant,
the one who has some control over the activity. In the case of
written material, the writer is the active participant -- the reader
has no control whatsoever over what is written, the writer has some
control over his or her mode of expression. I place the onus
therefore on the writer.

Is Shakespeare the less because not everyone understands him? No
writer can assume that everyone will understand his words. It isn't
realistic: knowledge and intellect vary too widely. The best the
writer can do is try to express himself clearly and effectively.

Shakespeare is not, at least in my opinion, a good example. His works
are archaic in their expression. Some folks don't read the language
spoken 100 years ago very well, some don't read middle english very
well, some don't read sanskrit. If you want to talk about artistry
created more than a couple generations in the past, sticking to the
visual or auditory might make it easier since those languages don't
evolve as quickly as does written language (if in fact they evolve at
all).

Dunno if that's in fact true -- there's a world of difference between
Mozart and Stravinsky. But your overall point is valid. So -- consider
Mozart. "Too many notes, Mozart." Not everyone understands Mozart. And
those who don't should probably be advised to kill themselves out of
despair.



I think your
knowledge exceeds your understanding my a mile though.

Heh, no. You aren't the first Usenetter to get that backwards,
because, well, I'm pretty knowledgeable too.

Huh, I posted a typo. I think you understood "my" should've been "by"
though, you managed to non-sequiter your way out of it. Let me say
this about that, and let me be clear: if you understood all you knew,
you would be rare, possibly unique, within or outside of usenet.

I noticed, and didn't pettifog your typo,

It's nice to have a large vocabulary. Especially if it's not your
only skill. Unfortunately your vocabulary leans toward the obscure
and is thus wasted on the average (and perhaps even the above-average)
reader, but you are unwilling to sacrifice impressiveness for clarity
and conciseness. So it goes. You might have learned to write without
unnecessary <emphasis> but can you muzzle your ego for the sake of a
more perfect craft? Not bloody likely.

For ***'s sake. I'm not writing for dyslexic six-year-olds, but for
people on a /writing/ froup.

I don't think you're writing for them either, I think you're writing
for Joshers.

That's right, you don't think.

Fucksake Josh, get a grip. You claim above that I have no argument,
then you come off with this horse***? I give you credit for more
than that.

What argument can there be here? On one hand, if I were writing solely
for Joshers, I wouldn't bother to post. On the other hand, in some
sense, I /am/ writing solely for Joshers, since if I didn't enjoy the
exercise (or, occasionally, feel it a duty), I wouldn't be doing it.

Of course, your real point was that you think I'm intentionally using
an obscure vocabulary that sacrifices clarity and concision for
impressiveness. But the bottom line is that I'm not. These are just
the words I use, typed as I think them.

Sometimes I edit for sense, but I neither pare down my vocabulary nor
seek to enhance it: I'm not a least-common-denominator type, and even
if I were, this is, as I said, a writing froup, and no one here other
than Stan has ever complained that my words were too big. Consider the
word you were complaining about, "pettifog." A search shows that it
has been used here by me, Gekko, Sal, Stan, and Bill Funke:

http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=pettifog&num=10&scoring=r&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_ugroup=misc.writing&as_usubject=&as_uauthors=&lr=&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=&as_mind=1&as_minm=1&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=31&as_maxm=5&as_maxy=2007&safe=off

Some of those posts refer to my own use of the term, but, at a
minimum, Bill's wasn't.

If I keep my mouth shut people will wither and pine and post messages
lamenting my absence.

Yes Josh, I realize that you are God's Gift to mw, and that if you
were to disappear overnight gum disease would run rampant through our
ranks.

Damn right.

Yes, at least until they realized that they still have Ray to chew on.

Ray is merely trolling, which is to say that he's the circus master.
Flaming him, like fucking a willing punk, is an act of desperation.

Let me attempt to clear this up for you Josh. Consider me capable of
being more ambiguous than Haddad, more literal-minded than gekko, and
fucking autistic on top of it. That will provide the best chance for
communication, should you be so foolish as to desire it.

Yes. But you're an outlier, right?

I wouldn't call myself an "outlier" any more than I'd call myself
"nonadiabatic", mostly because I find the specific vocabularies
involved to be distasteful. But yes, I tend to find myself off the
beaten path.

What's distasteful about "nonadiabatic"?

Just like me.

That would be too stretchy an assumption for me.

I wasn't asking you. Why would I? You aren't in a position to know.

The Myers-Briggs is a standard personality profile based on the
Jungian personality archetypes; I've seen it discussed on Usenet many
times before. In fact, Holly mentioned it here only a few days ago, in
one of those substantive discussions you claim I don't have:

<snip blitzkreig>

I'm an extreme "N" -- intuitive. So I look for, and think in terms of,
underlying concepts, and have little interest in specifics. A love of
music more than literature, if you like.

. . .as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet?s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

I like the airy nothings.

I like things that work, and imo identification with Jungian
archetypes doesn't mean a whole bunch; if it has value to you, swell.

In general, I'm no fan of Jung's, but I don't think one can dismiss
the likes of the sensing-intuitive dichotomy, which has, after all,
been observed by numerous people over the years.

One can dismiss whatever one finds useless Josh, and doing so one
assumes the consequences thereof. Science so dismissed the flat-earth
theory and assumed the consequences of the round-earth theory, not an
entirely bad choice in my view but mileage does vary.

You cannot call it useless, because I've just used it as part of an
attempt to help you understand my manner of thought. The best you can
say is that it had no meaning to you.

I can call it useless, and the implicit qualification is that it is
useless to me. Many people use the useless constantly, to their own
detriment in my view.

You remind me sometimes of one of those kids who won't eat anything
but hamburgers.

I'm no doubt supposed to be ashamed of my ignorance
because I don't know who "Nabokov" is, right?

Supposed to? No, that's your paranoia speaking again. Though it would
never in all the world have occurred to me that someone on a writer's
group wouldn't know the name of one of the 20th century's most famous
novelists.

From this I gather that you think fame implies merit, nyet? James
Joyce is famous, Charles Manson is famous, but I'd not give you a
nickel for the pair of them.

No, fame obviously doesn't imply merit.

Excellent, we agree on at least this!

I did in fact consider writing
"greatest" rather than "most famous," since Nabokov is in fact one the
20th centuries greatest (and most delightful) novelists, and on that
basis alone I'd find it surprising that someone on a writer's group
hadn't heard of never mind read him.

As you yourself point out this is a "writer's group" not a "worship of
literature idols" group. You have now expressed a value judgement
which says "writers must accept what literature is fawned upon". I
consider that to be horse***; writers write, most writers read, their
values are their own.

I didn't say that anyone, on a writers' group or not, had to worship
the idols of literature. I merely said that I am surprised that
someone on a writer's group wouldn't have heard of one of the most
famous (and greatest) novelists of the 20th century. I would be
equally surprised if someone on a physics group hadn't heard of Niels
Bohr, or someone on a rock group hadn't heard of the Sex Pistols.

Which being said, if you assume that the great writers aren't, that
they're the literary equivalent of McMansions and BMW's, you're making
a beeeeg mistake.

I assume that those acclaimed as "great writers" may, or may not, be
great... that their stature is whatever it is, not what it is
popularly asserted to be. If you really want to know whether a writer
is "great" come back in 500 years. Shakespeare qualifies, imo Joyce
does not yet, nor does Nabokov, we won't know for sure for quite a
while yet, and until the test of time shows us with certainty how
enduring their work is, all statements about their "greatness" are
expressions of opinion.

Robert Frost said, "It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if
a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of
a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an
immortal wound--that he will never get over it." The key term here is
"right reader." Posterity merely ratifies the opinions of the right
readers while forgetting the opinions of the wrong ones.

But because of the controversial
Lolita, Nabokov's fame is greater than it would be if he were merely a
great writer, almost a household word. He's known by many who have
never cracked his books. Hence "fame" seemed to me the better, and
less judgmental, choice.

I read "Lolita" when I was about 14, did Nabokov write that drooling
twattery? Wait a minute, maybe I'm thinking of "Candy".

That's a bit like confusing Picasso with Keane . . .

Isn't Picasso the one who painted dogs with three tits? I always
confuse Picasso and VanGogh too. *** me if I can remember names,
dates, names of places, or half the other useful stuff there is to be
remembered... but sometimes I'll recall what my telephone number was
in 1967, and I can recall the specifics of machine instructions that I
haven't used since the early '70s. It's a memory roulette wheel.

I can't remember anything anymore. Not infrequently, I'll remember
something one moment and forget it the next. Some of it has to do with
sleep apnea -- the more sleep deprived I am, the less I remember.

Sometimes I'll catch scent of an odor, like when it's foggy in the
mountains (more often than you'd expect when you're at cloud level)
and I'll recall having smelled the same scent at another time and
place and know exactly when and where. All I can do is shrug and move
on.

Scents are like that. The connections to memory are very direct.
Now allow me flip this on his head. Do you think the the fact that you
wouldn't give a nickel for James Joyce means that he lacks merit?

In my view Finnegans Wake lacks all merit. After that, I'll not waste
my time with Ulyses or whatever else he wrote. Does that imply that
you should accept my valuation as your own? Horse***, you're a big
person and are responsible for the consequences of your choices so you
best make your own.

As long as we're clear that it's your own view we're talking about.

Joyce's other works aren't Finnegans Wake, BTW. You can't judge what
you haven't read, even as a matter of personal taste.

I realize that. But as said above, after Finnegans Wake being utter
rubbish in my view, I'm not going to spend a second giving Joyce a
second chance. Other authors receive the same consideration.

I haven't found that to be a very good choice when artists widely held
to be great are concerned. That's because I've found that when I
dismiss out of hand something widely held to be great, something I did
fairly often in my callow youth, I find more often than not that I'm
wrong when I come back to it. The work is the same: my ability to
understand and appreciate it has improved.

Which isn't to say that there isn't bull*** out there, even in the
canon, or that you have to like everything.

Or
does it merely mean that you don't understand him, or that you do
understand him but don't happen to find his work to your liking?

I found Finnegans Wake to be a waste of paper. If you choose to call
it "great literature" you are certainly free to do that. It could
even make it great literature since you call it that, LIGAF since I am
only the rudest of trailer trash bumpkins.

What I say makes no difference: a work is great or it isn't.

Indeed, and what the community of critics says likewise makes no
difference, and what the writerly oddfellows association says makes no
difference; a thing is what it is, and "greatness" may be indicated
yet not obvious until time has passed.

That last, I quibble with. For one thing, great artists have an
excellent record when it comes to recognizing the ability of other
great artists, that is, a record which posterity confirms. When you
get to the point where you can hear or read or see something
unidentified and usually say "Wow" and then you look and discover that
posterity also said "Wow," you're a good critic. And that's a rarity,
at least among those who make a living at it..

From out here you seem like an unthinking quoter of authorities.

Yes, people on Usenet sometimes believe that at first. I'm an outlier,
and people base their guesses on probability.

Some do, some start from nada and binary-search based on data as it
arrives; some even poke a snake with a stick to see whether it'll bite
the stick or try to hump it.

Which is kinda why I said "sometimes," isn't it?

How would I know "why" you say anything unless you state your
motivation?

Because the initial "sometimes" in my first sentence tells the reader
that there's an ellipsis, "tend to," in the second: "I'm an outlier,
and people [tend to] base their guesses on probability."

I don't base my guesses on probability because I think probability
theory is faulty. I simply eliminate possibilities and observe what
remains.

Life doesn't have frets.

And different bugs on top of an architecture that relies on misuse of
memory mapping hardware and thus encourages new and more virulent
exploits? If I had the bucks unallocated I'd buy a Mac laptop. If
this thing I've been using forever quits whining about an imminent
hard-drive failure and goes tits-up, I'll have an excuse to see about
buying one anyway. Talk about mixed emotions, eh?

Have you tried running OS X on your current machine? There are some
modified versions that will work even with earlier IA32 processors if
the motherboard and peripherals are reasonably compatible:

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Erm... given that my current machine's bios is pitching a fit over the
hard drive's apparent status, how could the time and effort of
installing OS X on top of a working Windoze system possibly be of
value? Given that the hardware is in a near-failure state, one
couldn't even draw valid conclusions about the installation process.
It may be crap but it works, when it stops working I'll move forward
to something non-crap, that pretty much summarizes it for me.

Or you could just replace or fix the drive.

--
Josh

"See spot run. Run, spot, run." - William S. Gray
.