[lit-ideas] Re: Great Lakes machine guns raise ire in Canada
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 10:21:14 -0700
No, no, no, Irene. You can't say that about Mike's poetry. You can't
reduce it to prose and say the poetic lines "I don't know and I don't care"
mean merely "I don't know and I don't care" in prose. That isn't the way
you read a poem. Actually you can't read tropes that way either. So,
suspend disbelief and ask what Mike means. He has written you this poem.
Arise and leave your pessimism. It isn't good for you. Quit caring about
such negative matters. The world is full of good things. Think upon those
things. You are harming yourself with such negativity.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andy Amago
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 7:04 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Great Lakes machine guns raise ire in Canada
I agree with you completely. Most people do just want to live their lives.
They don't realize that the world is imposing on them an anti-life ethic.
They think it's perfectly normal to celebrate 30 with black balloons and
all the rest of it. Most of life is lived reflexively. It seems to me
that if one lives reflexively, then one smells the roses reflexively and
sits in the park reflexively. Maybe that's why it was so easy to get nice
white boys by the thousands to walk out in front of machine guns, and for a
president to say that 2,700 American deaths and probably hundreds of
thousands of Iraqi deaths are just a comma ... That is not a pro-life
stance flowing from the top down.
Regarding Mike's poetic offering, it was fine. But it said repeatedly, I
don't know and I don't care. I don't know and I don't care means I don't
know and I don't care. I see no beauty in that, no matter how much dancing
is done to it. If we accept Mike's answer, then why is Nero fiddling while
Rome burns so objectionable?
> [Original Message]
> From: Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 9/28/2006 9:23:52 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Great Lakes machine guns raise ire in Canada
>
> This is all so sad for the world. I feel like we're all riding a huge
> downward spiral that no one knows how to stop. As a Canadian, I'm
> offended by the American authorities' ridiculous propaganda about
> terrorists 'flooding' across the Canadian border. But mostly, I'm sad.
>
> And, Irene, while I am suggesting here that the world is going to hell
> in a handbasket, there are really (relatively) few people that are
> steering intentionally in that direction (and even they don't really
> want to destroy the world. They merely don't care if the world stands
> in the way of what they want). The vast, vast majority of people just
> want to live their lives and pass the world on to their children. But
> those few with their hands on the handbasket are so morally bereft that
> they don't care about any of us. The rest of us are hornswoggled and
> boondoggled and stupid to within an inch of our lives.
>
> Anyway, this article made me mad and sad this morning.
>
>
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