Re: the "Maynard on Salinger" article
Michael Tharp (tharpm@agcs.com)
Fri, 07 Aug 1998 10:44:34 -0700
On Aug 7, 5:33, Andy Wishart wrote:
> Subject: Re: the "Maynard on Salinger" article
>
> [ text/plain
> Encoded with "quoted-printable" ] :
>Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 15:40:34 -0500
> >From: Tim O'Connor <tim@roughdraft.org>
> >To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
> >Subject: Re: the "Maynard on Salinger" article
> >Message-ID: <v04003a04b1efbff0a5e9@roughdraft.org>
>
> Anyone got any clues as to what's causing the odd little additions to
> my messages? I seem to be the only one who gets the figures and
> little equals signs. Cute but unnecessary.
Different computers and word processors and mail programs interpret
characters in different ways. Carriage returns are especially tricky.
I wouldn't worry about it. Just be thankful that people on so many
different systems all over the planet can so easily communicate.
> >> Is there any way to write without ego? I haven't found it.
>
> >I think so. The people writing today, well, we may have years or decades
> >to find out what they have done, but historically, I can think of Emily
> >Dickinson and Franz Kafka. They'd never survive a week in today's
> >publishing business; the shelf life of their work would be shorter than
> >you'd get out of a container of unpasteurized milk in the summertime.
>
> Yes, but why do you feel that they wrote without ego? Without wishing
> that someone would hear their word, would like their stories
I wondered about this when I read _Seymour: An Introduction_ (which alludes
to this concept). Can it be therapy? If one really has, say, a moral
opposition to publishing, can it be theraputic, or liberating, to just
produce OUTPUT? In one sense, I think so. But if the output is purely
egoless, why must the words be written, rather than spoken (or just
thought)? So the author can also be reader?
Seems to me that there's ego inherent in the very act of recording.
--
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