Subject: Re: straight faces, chaps
From: Chris Kubica (chriskubica@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Jun 27 2002 - 08:20:44 EDT
Thanks for the reply.
I guess the sass-pants-ness is the basic essense of
Scottie Bowman then, eh, that goes back generations? I
just sometimes wish you weren't QUITE so Andy
Kaufman-ish, i.e., we never ever really know when
you're being tongue in cheek and sometimes it comes
off as insensitive (to me). You're crying wolf
sometimes, I think.
Anyway, I mostly get uncomfortable when we're off
topic on things like politics and religion cuz people
get really incensed (insensed? one is right, one is
funny!) about that stuff and we can quickly go off on
what divides us rather than what brought us all
together in the first place. I'm really not as whiny
as all this recent stuff...how long have I on been on
this list and how much have I complained, eh?
I said the Irish joke thing because I mistakenly
thought due to your e-mail address that you were
Irish-raised. I don't remember reading your discussion
of your Scotts or whatnot because, honestly, Scottie,
I don't usually read most of your posts. They're like
trying to do the New York Times crossword puzzle:
exactly difficult (double or triple meaning intended).
Chris K
--- Scottie Bowman <rbowman@indigo.ie> wrote:
>
> '...is it that you have the inability to be
> serious when
> the situation requires it? ...'
>
> Well, Chris, you're only the latest of many to
> detect
> that very deficiency. It appears to be genetic.
> Although
> my own attempts at wit are, as you imply, rather
> feeble,
> I had one grandfather (dead before my birth), a
> sheep farmer
> who was reported to have the cruellest tongue in
> the County
> of Angus. The other (whom I loved oh so dearly)
> was probably
> the most frivolous-minded man I ever knew: a
> pub-keeper who,
> by combining temperance with light-heartedness,
> eventually
> owned the largest, most hilarious, most
> successful
> hostelery in the same County. Perhaps
> understandably
> & despite my best efforts, triviality keeps
> breaking in.
>
> But, as you say, this situation does require
> seriousness.
> This is, after all, a LISTSERV. And not only
> that, a listserv
> devoted to LITERATURE. And not just any old
> literature
> but the most profound, most moving, most
> exquisite (if
> somewhat exiguous) oeuvre in the whole ambit of
> 20th
> Century Am.Lit. And a man who takes himself so
> seriously
> as to embrace the most highly publicised
> seclusion of
> the period surely deserves some parallel
> seriousness
> from his fans.
>
> Or does he?
>
> I don't know how many other listservs you belong
> to.
> In the ones I've known - nearly all centring
> around
> LITERATURE - there has been the recurring, if
> short-
> lived, phenomenon of the Relevance Freak. She
> (it's
> nearly always a she) whines from the front of
> the class:
> 'Please Miss, can't we stick to the subject?
> I've done
> my homework & it's reely, reely a waste of time
> if all
> Tim O'Connor wants to do is pull my pigtail &
> make
> rude noises.' While the rest of us, thank God,
> have
> managed to move the topic of discussion from
> Parts
> of Speech to the Battle for Iwo Jima.
>
> The most formidable LIT. brain ever to belong to
> this list
> was Matt Kosuzko. I was - & remain - in awe of
> his
> erudition. But I can never forget, either, the
> feeling
> of liberation when he wrote (to the effect) that
> the posts
> he really enjoyed were those firmly off-topic.
> Till then,
> I'd beleived, rather guiltily, I was the only to
> feel that way.
> But just look around. How many threads that came
> to
> really crackling life actually remained centred
> on Salinger?
>
> Incidentally, if you're truly concerned for the
> feelings
> of us violets, how could you think for one
> moment
> that someone who continually refers to his Scots
> provenance & who signs himself 'Scottie', would
> take offence at a joke about the Irish?
>
> That really was hurtful.
>
> Scottie B.
>
>
> -
> * Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with
> the message
> * UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Tue Sep 17 2002 - 16:26:08 EDT