a question

Mattis Fishman (mattis@argos.argoscomp.com)
Wed, 13 Jan 1999 11:21:12 -0500 (EST) 

    Hello friends,

    As I have perhaps hinted before, I have a habit of going for
    a cup of coffee checking my email, finding nothing, going for another
    cup of coffee, returning, checking my email, finding nothing, going
    for another cup of coffee, by this time decaf, ad infinitum (actually,
    ad lavatorium).  As you can imagine, this has a deleterious effect upon
    the carpeting, my keyboard and my kidneys.

    What can be done about this (all of you muttering "so unsubscribe already",
    shame on you)? Well, I thought that I might try a device to stimulate
    some discussion. We all know about FAQs, those compilations of topics
    consigned to be answered by number: "Was Holden writing from a mental
    health facility?" - "Twenty three!" scream hundreds of subtly
    condescending list members. Actually (I think I overuse this word, no?),
    I picked a poor example, for such a question, as common as it is, has
    no definitive answer, and as such is still a good dancing partner for
    anyone who would like to teach us all some new steps. The problem
    here is that most of us only rehash our first Arthur Murray Dance Studio
    lesson in public while calling "look at me", which does not always
    engender the most fresh and stimulating discussion. So such an issue
    may also be relegated to a closet of frequently addressed questions,
    perhaps to be taken out every so often, but not oftener.

    Yet we sit on an admittedly small but undeniably fascinating opus,
    containing countless opportunities for contemplation, cogitation and
    maybe even an email or two.

    Therefore, I thought that it might be helpful to compile a different
    set of questions. If I were a genealogist I might connect them as second
    cousins to the frequently asked questions, but from the other side of
    the tracks. The Rhode Island Questions, as opposed to the Indiana
    Questions. Namely, the Frequently Unasked Questions.

    I have been thinking about this project for quite a while yet have
    never quite gotten it off the ground for one simple reason: a good
    question is hard to find. As we have a habit of saying, a good question
    is half of an answer, and I, for all of the (half-)witty quips and asides
    with which I am capable of wasting everyone's bandwidth, am simply
    not equal to the task of stalking the wild question in its lair,
    of uncovering the riddle capable of uncovering its own enlightened
    solution.

    But not to despair. I had a teacher once, a saintly, warm, truly
    enlightened, wise man to whom providence introduced me at the right time.
    As we struggled over the large tomes in archaic languages to learn
    what it was we did not understand, he once remarked that if he were rich
    he would take a single page out of one of these volumes and have it
    bound in leather and gold, just to demonstrate the value of mastering
    even so small a portion.

    In that spirit, if in a vastly more mundane context, I offer a single
    question. It's not even my question, it belongs to Eugene Murphy, my
    erstwhile tenth grade English teacher.


	 "Will Holden ever give old Jane a buzz?"


    love,
    Mattis