Subject: Re: eggheads
From: William Hochman (wh14@is9.nyu.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 19 2000 - 16:54:10 EDT
ahhh Scottie, you're chumming and I just want you to know I'll always be
your dumb white american shark! You really characterize your own
intellecutal persona nicely, and I must right off admit that I'm old
enough to still love Hemingway, and reader at heart enough to respect the
silent love of literature (a la your idea of Esme, of course!) as the
proper way to eclipse critical dialogs...but not only are Frogs
intellectual, their ideas have influenced Americans...amphibians we
are, I suppose, since we use the English language to understand french
thinking, but I don't think origins of ideas marks intellectualism...just
the opposite, it's how we use ideas that marks intellectuals, but I
think you already know that.
In fact, I'm not at all surprised that you were one of the early
psychology folks experimenting with hallucinagenic therapies...I have to
admit many of my books are in boxes and I would have rushed to some of
them to check your timing since I thought LSD came in with the 60s, but
the more I think about it the more it makes sense of how I'd imagine you
in any case! HAT'S OFF my bananafish brother!
Ok, I'll bite and admit that I can call myself an intellectual. I have
lots of
noun tags and that's an ok one from my point of view. I like the play of
ideas...maybe we might agree that the best play happens when curled up
with Esme, but that doesn't mean other word games mean nothing...in other
words, reading a fine piece of whatever is the quintessential literary
experience (or perhaps writing a fine piece?), but the fun doesn't have to
stop there. Intellectuals need to negotiate ideas and that transaction can
be satisfying. I like having a reading and writing life with differing
dimensions and challenges. I admit that I love to write criticism with a
feeling not that far from my John Coltrane forgive me love supreme of
writing poetry...I read just as eclectically, and if I step back from
being a poet, critic, professor, tutor, creative writer, text book
reviewer, scholar and other tags I've worn around my collar, I might have
to howl as an intellectual dog who keeps heart and spirit strongly
playing ideas into life.
woof, will
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