[lit-ideas] Re: Milton translated (as prose?)


On Dec 1, 2008, at 9:26 PM, Eric Yost wrote:
>>Aren't the facts of the matter that very few Americans will ever read Milton and that Milton's world and language are slipping beyond the same sort of horizon that now separates most of us from Beowulf, the Canterbury Tales, even a lot of Shakespeare? 



Milton, schmilton.
Sitting in my severalth thesis proposal today, drifting into dark thoughts of slaughter, I came to my senses 'mid burble about Rilk, who was a German poet. "Got Rilk?" I asked myself, as one does when coming to. I blinked and scanned for further information about my environment. It turns out that we live in a symbolic exchange culture. I thought I might mention this next time I was in Safeway. "Do you take symbols?" 

"No," I imagine them saying, "we only take money."
The most annoying thing about having thoughts in an interior monologue is you miss the exterior links; the next thing I heard was, "like Lacan and the mirror-stage." I have no idea what was appearing on the mirror stage, or who the featured star was. Liberace perhaps? Did he ever appear with Lacan?
As I was pondering further, a colleague asked, "Is this kind of sexual dimorphism always operational in some kind of way?"
"Boy," I thought, "or girl. That's a tough one. I should probably e mail Mr. Bachelard. He'll know."
I think the point of one presentation was that a person's childhood might make good material for contemporary art, beginning somehow with collage and possibly ending with soft sculpture of some sort, which probably involves sewing. And I recall someone was going to "intervene" while "referencing" Banksy and a fellow in Malaysia. One bit I carefully noted: "I want to make art," someone said, because "I'm constipated with information and have to let it out."
Now there's an outcome someone will have to assess with considerable caution. 

David Ritchie,
c/o Social Practice Vista,
Aisle Twelve, OR

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