[lit-ideas] Re: Back to Popper (and further back to Hume)

  • From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 22:03:00 -0800


On Nov 27, 2006, at 9:30 PM, Robert Paul wrote:

Robert Paul,
messing about with words, under threatening skies,
somewhere south of Reed College.


Hereabouts I noticed, when I was just walking the dog, that cars are moving very slowly indeed. This may be related to the fact that the roads are unusually shiny. I diagnose a dose of freezing rain, or just plain old ice. Today's lunchtime hailstorm was impressive, loud enough to drown out people discussing their experience of our college's new summer trip to Tokyo. In an art school such drownings are not long mourned; words are ephemeral but visuals are said to linger.

Nowhere was this clearer to me today than in a thesis proposal presentation. Not only did the student talk in half sentences; the interrogating faculty did so too.
"Questioning gender identity issues?"
"The video part and the daguerrotype piece...I don't see how the two connect...Can you comment more?" "In the beginning the daguerrotype idea was important but now with the projection idea, models may not be all that important and it will depend if I explore..."

I wanted to say, "Shouldn't we know exactly who is hitting whom at the outset?" But instead I asked, "In the days of Victorian explorers everyone knew what the expedition's aim was. If you succeed, if you reach your goal, what will you have discovered?" The answer was that gender identity issues will have been questioned.

Let us pray that no teeth are harmed in this coming interrogation.

David Ritchie,
(Founding Member, Society for the Abolition of Acronyms and the Preservation of Spoken Sentences, SAAPSS)
Portland, Oregon

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