From: n2412@cray.com (Joe Green)
Subject: Re: the business of poetry
Keywords: condolences
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 15 Apr 92 14:37:20 CDT

In article <3542@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us> jjwebb@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us writes:
>
>
>Joe Green writes:
>
>>Yeah?  Prove to me that this is anything other than what it
>>insists something else is.
>
>Gee, that might take some thought ... well, I'll need a little time,
>so, while we're waiting, why don't you tell us about ... VIETNAM! 
>
>Yeah, Vietnam ... there's a fresh subject ... you were there, huh?
>it was horrible, huh? war's bad, huh?   
>
>I know joe, I know ...

No, you don't.  You think you do, of course, because you can write
those little sentences.  You require so much attention because you are
so persistently part of the problem.


>
>>Are you so used to submission that this is your view of anything that
>>might disturb you?
>
>Just chalk it up to my frontier mentality ...
>
>Ya piss me off joe! I think it's your patronizing style ... although
>your dishonesty and hypocrisy contribute some.

It's difficult not to patronize you, John Jacob.  What else am I to do
with a fellow who figures that there is no difference between songs
for singing pimples and poetry -- and thinks that the assertion that
there is a difference is pointy headed elitism? 


>
>You're going to get the black man into the room, huh? ... talking about
>Rilke, Goethe, and Foucault? How about Gil Scott Heron, Le Roi Jones and 
>Ferlinghetti?
>
>(Oh, I remember, you asked for poems for Fidel. When did Ferlinghetti do that? 
>early sixties, right? Somehow joe, it just doesn't have as much impact today.)

You've lsot me here.  Le Roi hasn't been Le Roi for some time. Did
I ever insist that I was going to bring the black man to dinner or
that I would do this by chatting about Rilke etc?  No.  And my little
chats about Rilke, Goethe, and Foucault have questioned this and that
about them.  I guess you mean that no black man is going to come into
the room when we are talking about such hoity toity guys.  That's
not a very nice implication to make about black men, John Jacob. 


>
>Score another one for JG's "just talk" box. 
>
>>Make the effort to separate what you do and are able to do from
>>what can be done.  Also make an effort to see that there
>>might be something outside your world view.  
>
>Like maybe, your world view? And your means of addressing it?
>You've missed the point again joe ... that's just the means I'm
>using ... and if you can't recognize its reflection then I know
>why you piss in your kitchen instead of your bathroom, where you
>might encounter a mirror.

I don't piss in the kitchen, John Jacob.  That was a fiction --
and a pretty funny one.  Can you tell a joke?  What I mean here
is that you are an example of someone who seems to me to be
without individuality -- your volkish persona seems entirely
a cultural artifact -- you manage to embody the vast inane.



>
>There are lots of world views joe ... those from the mountains ...
>and those from the bowels of a computer controlled world ... to name two.
>Whose dog are you?

Again a bit of derivative wit.  Yes, it was funny and clever when
I introduced it.  Your own world view is everywhere -- that is 
what is so disgusting.

>
>>Of course what you indulge in is a commodity.  That is my point.  You may
>>not be able to see the possibility of something else -- much
>>less enact that possibility.
>
>You haven't a clue as to what I may or may not be able to see ...
>and what's more, you couldn't care less. As long as I can't see you,
>that's all you really care about ...

I can only go by what you write.  Perhaps a skilled exegete might detect
a fragment that is interesting in more than a clinical way.  


 well, you've succeeded. The only 
>picture I have of joe green is that of a bored and bitter egomaniac who
>likes to ridicule people, who plays 'Shock Theater' whenever the urge
>to turn the gun to his temple becomes overpowering, and who pretends
>that the bullshoi he spews on whim is well thought out opinion.

Oh, I am actually a modest fellow who now and then writes a poem or
ventures an opinion and thinks that now and again deprecating
the usual banality and murderous inanity might be the thing to
do.  You should attempt to refute my opinions.  It will be more
interesting to everyone.  This means you will have to do better
than assertions such as the pimple singing assertion you recently
made. 


>
>Must be wonderful to be so smart and so misunderstood ... Aren't you 
>a bit old for this game though? Just asking ... I don't mind if you
>continue playing ... (actually, I DO mind ... there's just nothing
>I can do to get you to stop).

No __ I am understood as much as anyone.  All kinds of complications.
No, I am not too old.  I feel quite vigorous and think it a discourtesy
to leave the playing to fellows like you.  In fact, you have
encouraged me to play harder.

>
>>>Poetry? Not here either .. but at least it's a labor of love
>>>(or nagging agony, the itch that never quite subsides).
>
>>No -- this kind of poetry a labor for a machine -- the itch
>>you feel may have another origin -- you may want to get outside --
>
>I don't think that's it ... ya see joe, I am outside ... I don't have to
>throw a stone to hit the Santa Cruz Mountains. All I need do is drop the
>stone. Those chains are heavy, huh joe? You can get lighter ones you know 
>... you do, I know ... but it would ruin the image, huh? 


No, you wear the chains forged for you.  It doesn't matter where
you are or if you hunt coyotes or have a "woman" or can sport
about in the mountain gloom living god knows what primitive
fantasy.  What counts is your ability to see why you are chained
and to try to do something about it.  You should also attempt
to discover if you are limiting the liberty of others.  You
probably are.  The sheer Volkishness of your persona and your
rather overdetermined and unmotivated hatred recall the images
of great parades of guys like you -- I don't mean the Shriners.

>>but this kind of thinking (((hey, everything is a commodity
>>anyway) is what keeps you in that machine.
>
>More dishonesty ... aren't you the guy that bemoans the fate of the
>small press publications? Ironwood, Hambone, Bronte Street and others
>that us 'Mericans just don't support well enough? A noble sentiment,
>if you really mean it ... you don't suppose those pubs use that silly
>copyright symbol do you? Here, let me go inside and check ....

No dishonesty.  One expresses a wish that the property sigel didn't
exist, however one also hopes that voices other than the voices
of the Bandar-Log be heard.  You are being ridiculous, John Jacob.


>
>Hey joe, I got news for ya joe ... and a question ... you ever found
>anybody as smart as you joe? I didn't think so.

Yes.  Or smarter. Many of them here on the "Net."  But I am indulging
you.  I don't think in terms of smart and smarter.  I do think in
terms of funny and funnier.  


>
>>You think that the "control freak" is someone who suggests that poetry 
>>might be a gift instead of a commodity?  
>
>No, I think the "control freak" mouths the words with some other motivation
>in mind ... and I don't mean the theft of intellectual property, so spare
>me the obligatory remark about not having anything worth taking ... This
>posturing of yours, you've got it down real well, are your robes equally
>impressive? And I've forgotten my lines in the litany ... you say
>"You are ALL .. slaves!" And our response is? "Oh, all knowing father,
>SAVE us!" Those the right words? 

No.  My comment was directed at you.  Again, your overdetermined
Volkishness and unmotivated hatred and the fact that you almost beg
me to respond to you made me tell you what I think is the truth.
You can change.  Maybe this will help.



>
>>Think about it.  Perhaps the real control is whatever it is that makes 
>>you think of poetry in the same terms as writing a song for a pimple or 
>>the scratching of an itch.
>
>More dishonesty ... God, it's staggering ... I know you know how to read. 
>
>I write songs for myself ... I've written PRESS RELEASES for teenagers 
>that couldn't do it for themselves (and yeah, sometimes they made me mad 
>enough to refer to them as pimples. And I'm sure that on more than one 
>occasion, they thought of me as 'that damned old man' that just didn't 
>understand). 

No -- you intended to classify all kinds of writing as commodity and
sneered at any suggestion that wasn't true.  You are indicted by
your own poor writing skills if you meant something else.

>
>And joe green writes for the enlightenment of mankind, not for anything
>as crass and human as an ITCH! MY God no! joe's far more nobler than that!
>Tell me joe ... does the throne room ever get claustrophobic?

No, this is merely your characterization. You think in cliches. 
There are many other possibilities -- just because someone doesn't
want to cut farts with you doesn't mean that they think of themselves
as bodiless and noble spirits.  It means simply that they  do not
want to indulge in boring vulgarity.


>
>>I don't have any poets.  
>
>Only yourself ... and that IS sad ... all that reading, and not
>a tinge of humanity filters through that ego ... nothing, no one
>can see you ...  and most everything you read is depressing ...

Now here is a bit of dishonesty.  You accuse me of owning poets.
I reply that I don't have any and you twist that reply into
the above.  Many things i read are not depressing.  Not much
depresses me as much as reading what you write -- or responding
to it.  

>
>While I, in my ignorance, am caught humming by everyone, have many,
>many poets, and am as depressed by the stuff YOU claim as poetry as
>you are depressed by Frost, Tennyson, Sandburg and the stuff I claim 
>as poetry. Better songs for pimples than blueprints for 21st century 
>fascists.

 I like Frost, Tennyson and Sandy -- their poetry soars above
anything you write.  Where did you get the curious idea that
I didn't?  The answer of course is that you pulled this from
you banal image of the hoity toity elitists you believe
gossip about you.  Are you certain that you are not related
to Agnew?
 


>
>>Then there is the fact (which I have been kind enough not to
>>mention) that there is no need to copyright your stuff
>>since no-one would want to copy it.  Dull.  Dumb.
>
>Now here's a surprise ... Joe! You don't like what I write!? ...
>Now, I really AM hurt ... this wouldn't have anything to do with,
>nah ... 

Yes -- so far I have been kind enough to neglect your efforts or
even treat them with a certain largesse -- however you demand
my opinion (probably to confirm your prejudices) and I am kind
enough to provide them.  I hope that this will not cause any
wild dogs to die unnecessarily. 


>
>>Hope this helps.
>
>Sure you do ... we've all seen what a sweet guy you are ... but
>you'll just have to think of me as a lost cause ... I'm sure you
>already do.

The truth is that I don't think of you at all except when you
demand attention and I have a little work to do chatting with
you.  I wouldn't mind driving out into the country and letting you
go if you promise not to come home again.



>
>


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