[lit-ideas] Re: Cheap nano geese
- From: Andy <min.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 10:51:13 -0700 (PDT)
Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: AA:
>> I am not sure I'm as crazy about Mary Oliver as others are on this list.
She evokes for me a bare canvas with some lines on it in colors I don't like. <<
A bare canvas? YOU complain of a bare canvas??????? Oh, wait -- you're
joking.
Andy: I guess I am complaining. Maybe one bare canvas recognizes another.
But I'm not joking. I never joke.
Here's one, Andy, it's right down your alley, one you're bound to love.
Andy: This is, like, bizarre. Maybe you love it and are dumping it on me?
I sure don't love it. I don't even like it. In fact, I hate it. Let me
guess. Road Warrior is your favorite movie. You mouth the words when you
watch it, right? In case you're wondering, my favorite movie is Road Worrier.
?After Experience Taught Me ...? by W. D. Snodgrass
After experience taught me that all the ordinary
Surroundings of social life are futile and vain;
I?m going to show you something very
Ugly: someday, it might save your life.
Seeing that none of the things I feared contain
In themselves anything either good or bad
What if you get caught without a knife;
Nothing?even a loop of piano wire;
Excepting only in the effect they had
Upon my mind, I resolved to inquire
Take the first two fingers of this hand;
Fork them out?kind of a ?V for Victory??
Whether there might be something whose discovery
Would grant me supreme, unending happiness.
And jam them into the eyes of your enemy.
You have to do this hard. Very hard. Then press
No virtue can be thought to have priority
Over this endeavor to preserve one?s being.
Both fingers down around the cheekbone
And setting your foot high into the chest
No man can desire to act rightly, to be blessed,
To live rightly, without simultaneously
You must call up every strength you own
And you can rip off the whole facial mask.
Wishing to be, to act, to live. He must ask
First, in other words, to actually exist.
And you, whiner, who wastes your time
Dawdling over the remorseless earth,
What evil, what unspeakable crime
Have you made your life worth?
****************
Good hymn, don't you think?
Mike Geary
Memphis
----- Original Message -----
From: Andy
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 8:38 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Cheap nano geese
Eric: I was objecting to the comparison of plants and animals to machines.
Maybe life is its own category, and can't be compared to human artifacts
without a significant loss of meaning or content?
Why? They have chemical and physical properties just like the much more
simplified man-made machines. Animate and inanimate are moving closer in any
case as computers shrink to virtually nano size. Maybe the day will come when
nano computers do what the original substrates in the primeval soup did, bond
together and start reproducing into a new life form. There's got to be a
science fiction book out there on this already. I am not sure that plants and
animals 'mean' anything. They just are. It seems a moot point since humans
don't respect plants and animals anyway. All they do is talk a good line about
how important and wonderful life.
For Julie: Wild Geese Chase
I think I'll put her one notch above Muriel Rukeyeser. Wild Geese might
make a decent hymn, though. Maybe that's what is appealing about it to those
who like her.
For Lawrence: I think Lawrence wants to believe that this is the same
country that implemented the Marshall Plan. He wants to believe we're wealthy
instead of trillions in debt. It might be interesting if Lawrence were to do a
research project and take a virtual $750 and theoretically spend it. Maybe
post the results. Details would be appreciated (i.e., where and how much for
an apartment, each grocery item, etc.)
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