From: verbit@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Venedikt Erofejev: Moskva - Petushki
Keywords: Moskva, Petushki
Date: 10 Nov 92 23:24:36 GMT
Organization: Sozialistische Patienten Kollektiv


zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu  (Michael Zeleny) writes:

>MZ:
>>>  Once again, you are welcome to your own
>>>reading, as based on your own personal values, however banal they
>>>might be.

>MV:
>>	That's priceless! You are entitled to be the topic
>>	the new issue of my AI exercises, but somehow
>>	I am reluctant to post them. Please clarify
>>	if you have no objections for me to express 
>>	my banality.

>No, Misha, I have no objections to your playing to the canaille.  It
>may sadden me a little, but then, at my old age, I am quite used to
>disappointment.

>>	Misha.

>> 		I know thy works, and where thou 
>>		dwellest, even where Satan's seat
>>		is: and thou holdest fast my name, 
>> 		and hast not denied my faith, even in
>> 		those days wherein Antipas was my 
>>		faithful martyr, who was slain among you,
>>		where Satan dwelleth.

Here you are (and the serious flame is past due,
hope I'll come with it sooner).

-----------------------

All coincidences in the following AI-generated file
are purely accidental. 
Personages are a Netter (imagine your favorite
football star there) and Psychoanalitic - 
a fat balding dweeb who is a computer
program anyways.

-------- BEGIN -------------

Psy: I am the psychotherapist.  Please, describe your problems.

Nttr: I certainly do not care whose life is involved, except to note certain
parallels with, and divergences from, the life of the book's author.

Psy: Is it because to note certain parallels with and divergences from the
life of the book's author that you came to me?

Nttr: This is perfectly understandable, since the writer only has so much
raw material to start with for spinning his lies, excuse me, fictions.

Psy: What happened when the writer only has so much raw material to start
with for spinning his lies, excuse you, fictions?

Nttr: Some of the biographical background will inevitably seep in.

Psy: Maybe your plans have something to do with this.

Nttr: But is he writing an autobiography?

Psy: Does it bother you that is he writing an autobiography?

Nttr: No more so than Henry Miller, who
creates an itchy prick bigmouth.

Psy: Are you afraid of that?

Nttr: He just happens to share one of his
names, and several of his personal traits and biographical peripeties.

Psy: You mentioned that is he writing an autobiography?

Nttr: I am not a lit critter; I don't even play one on TV.

Psy: Are you sure that to note certain parallels with and divergences from
the life of the book's author?

Nttr: In my capacity of a student of philosophy, I have received a
reasonable amount of formal training in literary and linguistic
theory, which at the very least enables me to identify bullshit as
such.

Psy: Possibly any hobbies you have are related to this.

Nttr: My complaint was not at all with non-professionalism.

Psy: You mentioned that is he writing an autobiography?

Nttr: I have absolutely no respect for the free-associated stream of
uncontrolled, politically motivated hermeneutic babble, which passes
for literary scholarship in the vast majority of MLA members.

Psy: Maybe this is related to your inhibitions?

Nttr: My complaint is with the bombastic and categorical, yea, soviet, tone in
which Verbitsky's remarks were delivered.

Psy: Perhaps some problems in your childhood could have caused this.

Nttr: It is not that it takes a professional to judge 
the admissibility of evidence in evaluating or
explicating a literary work.

Psy: Is it because it takes a professional to judge the admissibility of
evidence in evaluating or explicating a literary work that you came to
me?

Nttr: It is that no such task can ever be
accomplished without an argument, which then becomes an integral part
of the conclusion. 

Psy: Are you annoyed that such task can ever be accomplished without an
argument which then becomes an integral part of the conclusion?

Nttr: By contrast, instead of an argument, Verbitsky
offers his say-so; not too impressive.

Psy: You mentioned that is he writing an autobiography?

Nttr: Yes, literary critisism is much less rigorous than mathematics, or
even natural sciences.

Psy: Talk about something about math.

Nttr: However the same is certainly not true of
philology in general.

Psy: When did you first know that the same is certainly not true of philology
in general?

Nttr: To take one example, phonology is at least as
rigorous in its methods as, say, evolutionary biology.

Psy: Possibly this could be the reason for your life?

Nttr: Certain approaches to semantics of natural languages are characterized
by the thesis that their functioning is essentially that of formal
systems, whereby their research methodology becomes identical with
that of pure mathematics.

Psy: I don't know much mathematics, but continue anyway.

Nttr: And yet, so far, even in the foundations of
mathematics the situation is not so certain as to warrant anyone's
claim to ultimate truth. 

Psy: Discuss more about math.

Nttr: Instead, as noted Max Weber, citing, I
think, Helmholtz, the difference between an amateur and a scholar
inheres in the method possessed and deployed by the latter, and
cheerfully ignored by the former.

Psy: Possibly any hobbies you have are related to this.

---------- END ---------

Etc etc (I`m bored, as, sure, all readers are)

Misha V.

		We assume you understand 
		we have the options on your time
		And we'll ditch you in the harbor if we must.
		But if it works out nicely
		you'll get the bonus you deserve
		From doctors we trust.
Xref: sparky soc.culture.soviet:9750 rec.arts.books:19698