Re: Cookies
Prufrock33@aol.com
Wed, 15 Jul 1998 10:32:19 -0400 (EDT)
<<<<<"I think your boyfriend may be confusing the term "tossing your cookies,"
which does refer to vomiting with the term "tossing one's salad" which
applies, as you have pointed out, to quite another bodily compulsion. In
the interest of all involved I don't feel it is necessary to go any further
on the subject."
Patrick Flaherty>>>>
I hate to be the bearer of disgusting news, especially considering my lax
posting, as far as I know I have always understood that tossing one's salad is
not a one person act. Well, maybe it can be. I have always taken it as the way
Chris Rock implies, as the backdoor approach to intercourse. I hope I have not
been crude...and certainly hope that I am correct, otherwise I will assume
that the jokes I know of are quite a bit less dirty than I had guessed or I am
more so...
And now on to a somewhat relevant posting (just for fun) may I ask whom do
most of you associate best with in the Salinger novels? (Just wondering...I
hope I do not get all Holden answers...but I imagine he is the easiest to
associate with since his character is so alive and colorful)
And about the whole Universal and Timeless argument we are in the throws of at
the moment...I believe that the IDEA is what is universal. Not many are able
to say that one can understand completely Victorian literature or Elizabethan
literature, or, even literature just as far back as the early 20th century.
Shakespeare is not universal (really) unless you know the background to it.
Unless you know the jokes, and the attitude and slang of the people of that
time. The same idea with any literature. One of my favorite writers is
Michel de Montaigne, and I see his writings as being universal, but I still
get caught sometimes on the wording and the allusions.
A writer often writes what he knows, what is relevant to his time and the
people of that time. Well, this automatically puts a time on his writing, but
the difference between a universal and timeless piece of literature is the
what human emotions and human nature it addresses. Human nature is stubborn,
trust me it hasn't changed much in the years and I cannot imagine in changing
very much in the next couple of hundred. We all have just about the same
needs and desires, the same obsessions. When we are able to read a book that
reminds us of us and how we feel sometimes then we will always enjoy the read.
But will people of years from now be able to understand the slang and
situations in _Catcher_? Well, we have done well so far with Shakespeare and
it is brim full of slang (although most of it we have made common language-
which I believe was a master plan by English teachers everywhere so they would
stop having to explain EVERYTHING to their clueless students). Yes, there
will probably come a time that there will be teachers in classrooms explaining
the text. There will always be Historians (God knows they have to do
something to pass their time) that will be able to explain the times. And
then, depending on how much the students and the teachers love the books will
depend on the Universality of it.
I mean, why do you think we read Romeo and Juliet MacBeth and Hamlet in school
and not King Richard the Second or Cymbeline??
(Answer, I think, the students like it more, and I think that is one reason
why _Catcher_ has had it's staying power. The youth loves it and the youth
are the ones to be the adults...kinda goes that way...)
Well, I hope I have made some sort of sense. I am somewhat just rambling on
what point I thought I was going to make. I haven't posted in so long I think
I need oiled up.
Oh and Patrick...Billy, well, he is a mystery, that is one thing that keeps
him alive. He feeds many occupations, the Historians, the teachers, the
actors, the literary critics, the librarians for God's sake (the have
BOOKSHELVES of just critical analysis of just a few LINES in Hamlet). That
and the fact that MOST of his works deal with human emotions, people are
usually going to associate with the characters somewhat. Plus, when it is
performed, the costumes are always really cool (haha). Honestly, I think it
was just a master plan by all the before-mentioned occupations to keep them in
a stable income for years.
Why not JD...well I think he is for the most part Universal. Nothing can be
completely Universal (different languages, customs, cultures) but I think it
has as good as a chance as any other pieces of fine literature.
Angie
http://members.aol.com/Snang19/Fire.index.html
or for a senseless poem that is not very Universal at all:
http://members.aol.com/UltraVolup/NoSense.index.html