Subject: straight faces, chaps
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Thu Jun 27 2002 - 04:16:41 EDT
'...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.
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