Re: Old Spencer

TheSecretGoldfish (lime6@rocketmail.com)
Sun, 26 Apr 1998 13:02:06 -0700 (PDT) 

---TheSecretGoldfish <lime6@rocketmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Old Spencer started nodding again. He also started
> picking his nose. He made out like he was only pinch-
> ing it, but he was really getting the old thumb right
> in there. I guess he thought it was all right to do
> because it was only me that was in the room. I didn't
> care, except that it's pretty disgusting to watch
> sombody pick their nose."
> 
> Ch.2, Pg.9
> 
> as winnie-the-pooh said: "think, think, think,
think,"
> paul.
> 

listen to pooh bear. and think critically.
it's fun. it's mental mastubation as someone called it.
critical thinking. literary criticism. it's picking
your nose and then trying to flick it over on the bed
and missing and haveing some redgrey haired kid have
to pick it up and put it on the bed. it's looking the
gift horse in the mouth. and not being satisfied.
cutting the horse open to see how it works. hoarding
all kinds of knowledge and information about livers
and intestines and the gallons per minute of the
heart. it's taxidermy. rip out what's inside. fill it
with fluff and mount the dead horse in your
living-room to make it easier to view. so that you
are not thankful when you gain a glimpse of it's
movements. what use is a living horse? you can't tell
what's inside without ripping it open. or you could
make a dust jacket out of the hyde. or save yourself
with an intestine transplant. but why would we want
the horse alive. to breathe. and grow. cut and rip.
cut and rip. these are the tools of literary
criticism. used by critics who write critical essays
on the excess of critical essay attention that
salinger has received underservedly. a bunch of nose
pickers. like stephen deadalus who proved algebraicly
that hamlet was his own father's ghost even though he
knew hamlet wasn't supposed to be didn't believe that
he was. did that critic really believe that when X
had tea with Esme it was a reference to a buddhist
tea cerimony? mental masturbation. he got the old tip
of the thumb right up there and was didgin around.
"but we can use our knowledge." what happens when you
take the skeleton out of the horse. sure you can
count the bones. it doesn't tell you what kind of
flowers or what part of the meadow that the horse
liked best. all you can do with it is make some kind
of frankenstien horse. a grotesque amalgamation. just
a goddam monster. not a horse.
just this cold thing. without any trace of the
warmthe that had been there. a horse is at least
human for chrissake.

on second thought lets pick apart that early blooming
bouquet of parentheses. and while were at it lets
write fuck you by way of explanation blotting out
every word salinger ever wrote.

but then i can think of a smile. that was a beautiful
and innocent smile. like a child. and forget these
things.

shall never write any salinger critisism,
paul.


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