Re: nothing rude, please, we're Americans

Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Fri, 20 Aug 1999 12:11:38 -0400 

At 7:50 AM +0100 on 8/20/99, Scottie wrote:

>     We can ramble on happily about the teaching of English,
>     the comparative merits of 70s as opposed to 30s pop,
>     the urban myths surrounding 4 wheel drives, the theory
>     of group theatre, & so on & so on.  All good Salinger-related
>     material.
>
>     But at the first whiff of cordite, Paul & Camille slink off
>     into the scrub while Tim crosses himself & starts waving
>     the old censer.
>
>     Back to the classroom.  Pity.  Just when I, at least, was
>     starting to look forward to a really envigorating gut fight.

Oh, is this what it comes down to, that you merely want to fight
pointlessly to get away from talking about writing and reading in a
book-related venue?  Hell, then go ahead (using, of course, whatever
reading/writing method you learned).  Do the rest of us the favor of
labeling your message in the subject "[irrelevant]" or (if that word
offends you, Staff Sgt. Scottie) something comparably identifiable.

This is not, it is true, a vehicle for discussing 4-wheel drives, but
I think it's quite relevant to discuss the popular forms of
entertainment as they appear in fiction of the 30s and 40s, and
theatrical methods, and reading techniques, all pretty well in line
with the discussion of a writer and his readers and people interested
in the process of writing and reading.  ANY reader could tell you
that, I think -- any intelligent reader of fiction, anyway.  Arguing
about gun control here is in a league with arguing about religion or
politics.  Maybe it's a line so faint it's hard to express; that's
why I sometimes make polite requests of the sort I did, to get it to
stop.

And PLEASE, dear boy, realize, by now, that it's quite tiring to see
the "American" and "Australian" labels and such being hurled around
as if they were epithets.  If Camille's good humor hasn't already
convinced you, thoughtful people don't usually find this offensive --
amusing, or maybe irritating, but that's all.  But this is all so
much more short-sighted than I would think of a worldly gent like
you.  I, of course, lack Camille's good humor, so I don't find myself
particularly inclined to toss bon mots at you to make you feel fine
about your grouchy persona.

If all you want is to be a numb-nut (sorry, perhaps too colonial an
expression) about your guns, why must you fault being asked to take
it outside?  Or to a gun range?  You want to go bang-bang in your
mail?  Proceed, then, if my reasonable request is beyond your means
-- but please label it in the subject so that I can delete my copies
unread, and so can anyone else who is uninterested in it.

I haven't handled a censer since I was a wee altar boy, if you really
want to hear about that.  And if you heard my opinions on religion in
this forum, you'd know why I said of it what I said above.  And, for
what it's worth, my skill with a rifle, and appreciation for "the
first whiff of cordite," was pretty good the last time I checked.
You'll need to devise more evocative business than that to really
rile me.  I'm more interested in keeping the traffic here flowing in
a useful manner.

(Oy, some days it is like trying to manage a kindergarten here....)

--tim o'connor