In my last post I wrote: "Why not the gall bladder, that's totally useless anyway."
Actually, it's the appendix that useless (sofar as we know). Remember the joke: "the Polish Academy of Science has announce the first succesfuly appendix transplant." [sorry, all Poles, both north and south].
Mike Geary----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 9:43 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Adam's Navel
Whether Adam was ribbing Eve or Eve, Adam -- we'll never know. Women impress me as having a larger sense of humor than men, so I suspect the latter. Why God would choose to make a person out of a rib seems bizarrely amusing to me. Or why not the little toe? Surely He was just ribbing us all.I do wonder how God spoke to Adam and Eve before Adam had named everything. And what language did the Serpent have? Did he lisp? For some reason I imagine he did -- probably the influence of some cartoon I've seen. I am an anti-representationalist, as you may have guessed. Whether what we talk about really exists is unknowable and irrelevant. But this, at least is knowable: we talk. Some of us seemingly irrepressibly (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). Recently McCreery wanted us to do his homework and find what wind served to advance a pre-linguistic mind to say: "Let there be!" The assumption being, I believe -- though McC would probably deny it -- that the concretization of language into graphemes enhanced the reverence for language. I think the opposite. I believe it made language an everyday artifact and commonplace. "Hocus pocus" loses its magic written out. I can think of some arguments against my position -- one from my own history such as the priest kissing the words of the Gospel after having read it -- but I think these rituals are far less forceful that the ability to own language through literacy.Were Adam and Eve created with language intact? Presumably they were. How else the acquisition? So they must have been talking God's own language. Why then make Adam name everything? Surely God knew what he had made."In the beginning was the Word", which suggests to me that God is female. I mean really. In the beginning of every one of my days is a groan, a grunt, a grumble, a fart, a belch. I never ever wake up talking. I've known women who do. Sweet Jesus, save us. Women weren't made from our manly ribs, but from our vocal cords.Mike Geary Memphis----- Original Message ----- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxxTo: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 10:16 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Adam's NavelI wonder what accent God had when he talked to Adam and Eve? Or to Moses? Or to Mohammed? Is God an omniaccentual being?-- I don't know what language God used, but it is interesting to explore what language Adam used to communicate with Eve (remember she was formerly one of Adam's ribs).I think this is called "Edenic language" and I tend to remember that Umberto Eco, in perhaps "Opera Aperta" analyses this language in terms of a binary code.Geary is of the opinion that Adam spoke "Adamish": 1569 GOLDING tr. Heminge's Postill. 16 Hys newe byrth which sanctifieth the olde Adamishe and corrupt byrthe.One point that Borges liked to discourse upon is that while most pictorial representations show him as displaying a navel, he possibly didn't have one.Cheers, JL See what's new at AOL.com and Make AOL Your Homepage. ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
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