straight faces, chaps


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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