BANG! (a rim shot)

That Yanomamo really nose how to party.

Someone call the Harvard Business Review, I think Dr. Chop is really on to something (it jibes with my 40+ years experience - never having stayed anywhere moer than 5 years!)

BTW, just how do you get to the Yanomamo's place?

I don't think I've ever shared with the DD board my Schmuck Trickle Up Theory of Bureaucracy, which I think is what we're dealing with in the article Ho shared:

Anyone with some competence at an institution or organization that uses a hierarchical structure at some point in their career moves on either because they know they're worth more and are looking for something better (perhaps even to work for themselves), quitting after getting fed up with the system, or being fired after attempting to change or overthrow the system. Over time, of course, this only leaves the incompetent employed at the institution, the sure choice for a raise. The incompetent employee starts to climb the corporate ladder and holds onto the job for dear life, ecstatically being "successful" at something for once. This of course triggers off an adrenaline-like rush to their egos, making them position themselves in a place where no one beneath them can cut them down, better known as the beginnings of becoming a schmuck. And so, as competent people beneath them come and go and more potential schmucks build up under them, they make their way up and up and up, with each step marking a greater need to feed the ego and therefore, a greater need to prove to anyone competent underneath them that they know nothing at all (afterall, if they proved otherwise, the competent person under them might just stay on, endangering their incompetency that they worked so hard for). Basically, what we're talking about here is capitalism's amazing reversal of Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

This of course leaves those with any competence to make one of four choices:

1. They can work for themselves.
2. They can find a company to work for that is small enough that no hierarchical structure is needed or at least matters very little.
3. They can grin and bear their schmuck boss because they're being paid gobs and gobs of money.
4. They can go live with the Yanomamo Indians and snort Yopo all day [link]

Interesting about that teacher (took 27 years to find out she was "insubordinate!). There is more of this around than gets enough publicity. Our own school system did not renew the contract this year (the equivalent of being fired) of a very popular and efffective choral teacher. Again, a single school board member objected to some of his performances' content (I saw virtually all of them, having a son in his group, and they were great, creative and widely appreciated by audiences and students). This teacher breathed life into a formerly dull and dwindling group. School boards seem to try hard to keep teachers, content, etc very middle of the road, stifling innovation and teaching that really can cut through and reach students, especially those "bored of education". Risk taking - where much good stuff is to be found - is verboten. And we ask why our education system ain't do good!
And welcome back Mr. Ho!

I can't see much of a debate there, Ho. It's another example of the numbnuttery to be found anyplace inhabited by our species. On the positive side, now they'll be able to make a feel-good movie about this teacher who fought against a suppressive educational system in order to save her students. Hollywood needs to put one of these out about every 5 years, so we should be right on pace for that.

Wotcha, not been around for a while, promise to do better.

Just seen this in the Guardian thought it would stoke some debate about teaching. Don't know the book of which they speak but seems like an injustice has been done.

[link]

How did you guys sneak in those messages while the girl was still talking from last night!
Mr. Multrum, the first album I ran into is Blood, Sweat & Tears 3. If you have it, check out the instruments played by Dick Halligan...kitchen sink must be a joke, but who knows since the album must be from the 70s. Replacing the tons of albums here would cost a mint; so guess it's time for a new turntable. I don't have the album with the song you mentioned, but want to check it out on amazon for the CD. Thanks for keeping us up-to-date.

Father Hubert, if there is a heaven and I am allowed in, let the hugs continue!!! Hopefully musicians and painters get a free pass no matter our behaviors here on the planet:)

Happy 4th Everyone!

Why is the code one letter different than QUIET. Have a good day y'all!

And a candle is always lit for you PS Art

Dear Ms. Art - that I would ever be of the caliber to play with BS&T's horns would require more practice years than I have left on this particular orb. It's like the difference between a pick up softball game and the NY Yankees. But thnaks for the fantasy (we all need 'em). Do you have the album with them doing Erik Satie's "Gymnopedie"? What range these cats have!
Happy 4th to all!

While understanding Gilligan, or not; These questions remain in my mind: Do we want what we are lacking; Or, do we gravitate towards more of what we have already become.
Dear Father Hubert, life is too short to not express this...along with saying prayers for everyone on the board, and local friends, I always say a special good-nite to you. It's a selfish thing in the end, as it might not fit your wonderful committments. It feels beautiful from here and only takes a few seconds...count count count.

Happy 4th to everyone!!! Mr Multrum, a friend from Niagara Falls is attending a concert tonight with David Clayton Thomas (right name?) from Blood Sweat and Tears. If you are one of his new horn players and didn't tell us, you are in deep trouble:)

Maybe "Leaving Denmark". Or, "On the Road to Zimbabwe".
See following:

updated 12:57 a.m. ET, Tues., July. 1, 2008
WASHINGTON - Denmark, with its democracy, social equality and peaceful atmosphere, is the happiest country in the world, researchers said on Monday.

Zimbabwe, torn by political and social strife, is the least happy, while the world's richest nation, the United States, ranks 16th.

Overall, the world is getting happier, according to the U.S. government-funded World Values Survey, done regularly by a global network of social scientists.

How about "No Child Left Unprovoked: An Educator's Memoir"?

I knew it! I knew it! Maybe I got the title wrong, but Mr. Brown is engaging in an "ambitious project".
Fun time: let the DD board folks come up with title suggestions for Mr. Brown's new play. How about "The Agony and The Agony"?

Okay, today is Monday, 30 June 2008.

NOTA BENE, Delicious Demon Message Board posters, one and all: if Ken Brown is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature this fall, I get credit for exactly half of it, since I have so graciously helped inspire his efforts.

We shall hope for the best, indeed.

N

As anyone with teaching experience will tell you, provocation is often a useful tool in evoking thought and the carefully wrought expression thereof. I am pleased to have woven that fabric here, and I am happy with the results. The extensive contribution of Hecate (Nemesis) in "dismissing my views" may be a contradiction in terms, but I appreciate the work that went into it and always feel a sense of accomplishment when my utterances inspire such effort. No doubt many of you will be pleased when I say that school is out for the summer. I have been engaged to participate in an ambitious project the particulars of which I will reveal when I return in the fall. Such endeavors are always in danger of disintegrating, but we will hope for the best.

My theory ... Mr. Brown is just doing this to collect content for his next play! No doubt his title will be "Ten Reasons to Love Message Boards"! So be nice to him or you won't get a major role. Or maybe it works the other way, be nasty and you will!

Hey Gilligan, who you calling "old"? You got some kind of complex or something? I'll give you a complex, young whippersnapper ...

The medium of message board communication leaves so much room for variance in interpretations that I want to be especially clear here. Ken, my intention below is genuinely to invite you to post your 5 most influential texts lists and not to rebuke you for being inconsistent.

You can't be that much against participating in "These lists," which you have recently called "the most futile of all pursuits," because you have already posted one such list to this message board, maybe 4 or 5 months ago. Don't you remember? It was a list of your favorite 5 or 10 (can't remember) films of all time.

Don't make Pork Chop dig through the archives! Instead, just give it a go and tell us your favorites. I'd like to know what they are. You can still regard the act as futile. There's nothing that isn't futile from some point of view.

Sorry to interrupt the ass-whooping. Just want to throw in a couple of cents and then post my lists.

While we're flexing our critical muscles here, let's not forget that lit crit and other pursuits in the humanities have continued to develop to today. The idea of an essential "self" that stands apart from perceptions (outer and inner) is currently highly debatable--at least among scholars who debate such theories. Like it or not, this general (if begrudging) consensus does spare us from having to be absolute, for instance, regarding expressions as either indicating how one "wishes to be perceived" or "revealing [something] substantive about [one]self." Is one so separable from one's desires? Couldn't supposedly insubstantial expressions reveal substantive things about a person? In fact this line of reasoning isn't all that avant-garde; even old Freud would agree.


Movies:
1) Tous les Matins du Monde - b/c it's an intense, moving, and artful rendering of my favorite subjects: human relationships, togetherness and separateness, the question of meaning, love, ethics, etc.
2) Wings of Desire - same reason
3) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - same reason, plus some humor
4) Lost in Translation - same reason, with some humor too
5) Casablanca - same reason

Books: (I limited my answers to prose fiction)
1) Steppenwolf, by Hesse - same reason
2) Nausea, by Sartre - same reason, plus absurdity
3) Nine Stories, by Salinger - same reason, plus Salinger's own brand of absurdity and his exquisite style
4) Tortilla Flat, by Steinbeck - same reason, plus perhaps the best apotheosis of wine since Omar Khayyam
5) To Kill a Mockingbird, by Lee - same reason; maybe the best American novel (it's been a long time since I read Gatsby. Maybe that should go here instead.)

Classic I haven't read:
Tale of Two Cities

Classic I returned to and felt disappointed with:
On the Road (I still love this book. I wouldn't call the feeling disappointment, but it was a very different text fifteen years after my first reading. I should say I was a very different person. The book was mainly exciting to me at 18. It was sad at 33.)

Seeeshhh!

Dear Ken Brown:

As long as you are content with being perceived as an indefatigable windbag and a pompous ass, I'd say your position has served you quite well indeed. A marvel of self-deprecation is Ken H. Brown.

In point of fact, I am no more curious about how you wish to be perceived than I am curious about perceiving you. Horace had a good line for you: "tempus abire tibi est".

"I cannot comment on your description of Shaw as stale." --your immediate preface to an encomium for Shaw. How witty, how entertaining! And you accuse me of skirting logic, KHB? Granted, you're allowed to change tack in mid-thought; but only after that does it dawn on you that I have sympathy for the absurd (although I confess to being dismissive of your bumbling style of absurdity). Did your otherwise faultless logic fail to reveal to you that by implication I find you more stale than G. B. Shaw? (If YOU carefully examine MY earlier post, I claimed staleness only for "Shavian exhalations", meaning exactly the derivative, unwholesome sputterings of well-meaning epigones as yourself.)

Let us pause briefly, KHB: am I having fun?

Me, an utterer of vituperative comments? Moi? I post as curt and concise a dismissal of your views as I am capable of, and you reproach me for vituperation! --Awww, you noticed!

Your suspicious regard of my repeated references to constipation is all your own. From the use of it in my first riposte to you, it bore a plainly figurative meaning. But you missed that, KHB, thereby betraying the sensibilities of a naive literalist (naive literalism is an authentic handicap among practitioners of absurdism, KHB, and is instead an inviting target). And although you may only with great difficulty process figurative speech, still, since you are such a well-informed personage when it comes to literary history, you might reflect that others can have literary mentors hailing from Dublin who are named Swift, not Shaw. If your very proper sensibilities are not attuned to the use of scatological locutions to make figurative points (a hallowed tradition in the Western Literary Canon, I argue--Rabelais comes instantly to mind, and he was a more substantive writer than you, me, and G. B. Shaw combined), then you might at least take a break and [re-?]read Voyage IV of Gulliver's Travels. (I'm re-reading the Voyage to Brobdingnag presently--oh yes, I know it was actually "Brobdingrag" as Swift penned it, but the printer wasn't squinting hard that day.)

In summary, KHB: would you fault the most vacuous pop singer for not having the gravitas, the power, the extensive training, or the raw talent of an authentic opera diva? On the basis of your whining (for such it is) about perceived superficiality in simple posts of personal preference lists, I suspect you would. The perception you fuel, then, is that you lack a dependable sense of proportion. If you must parade yourself in all of your magnificent glory, can't you attend the meetings of a local literary debating society and leave us to our poverty? Surely, they will be favorably impressed; the impression you seem to have made with more than only a couple of DDMB posters is that you are exactly an indefatigable windbag and a pompous ass, little more and nothing less. But if you're satisfied with the perception you've ably engendered here, pray, keep coming back for more.

Do I nurse grudges, KHB? Sometimes; but in your case, I've sat by silently for months watching you unload pound after pound of leaden ideas encased in wooden prose. I do entertain doubts about your ability to indulge in simple fun, when you so abruptly dismiss others' labors in that department, as you showed yourself ready to do this weekend. --Would a drowned cat help your digestive function, I wonder?

As a further sign of my regard for strict adherence to logic (a support you cling to quite tenaciously, though the force of gravity is responsible for all those splinters in your extremities), I hereby change my name to one better suiting my present mood.

Deliciously and vituperatively yours,

Nemesis

Ken Brown: Thankfully the others have more patience than I do. My opinion is this: You enjoy the roller coaster of riling, then backing down... The same old story to the point of being too boring to read any of it. Your time would have been better spent by writing one list. Cooperating must be Hell for you. God help those you counseled...like that was true. If you are delusional, my apologies; otherwise, suck it!

Hecate: What on Earth are you talking about? This is fun and games here. To allude to an obviously superficial practice as being superficial is not in the least pompous. It is merely a statement of fact. Your opinion of my posts is your business, and needless to say I do not share in them. As for verbal diarrhea, you seem to be at least as proficient at it as I am, and the anal reference was made by you in the first place, not by me, and your repeated reiteration of it is suspicious indeed. Something, perhaps a strange and unwarranted anger, seems to be distorting your logic. I never said that the lists were meant to provoke discussion and analysis. My point, in fact, is that they provoke exactly the opposite, and that does not mean that I have any objections to fun for the hell of it (which is precisely my motivation in writing all of this stuff). In that light, I have no idea what signifies to you that I am whining (perhaps another failure of logic?). As for my observations being artless, I grant you the right to your opinion, but there is considerable evidence to the contrary which I suggest you consider and weigh against the vituperative spirit of your comments concerning me. I cannot comment on your description of Shaw as stale. He is certainly one of the most brilliant writers that the English language has produced, and the idea is just too absurd. To satisfy your curiosity about how I wish to be perceived, I have never in my life given that idea a second thought. It is completely out of my control and no concern of mine at all. In the end, it can be said that such a position has served me very well, don't you think?

It's great to have you back, DJ (speaking as one who came here way after you). Yes, it's about the listwriter. And, maybe something that hits a common chord too.
1. All That Jazz. about Bob Fosse...one big chance taker with the exhaustion of drugs and creativity gallore.
2. Anne Hall. ya gotta see it for many reasons
3. The Deer Hunter. thanks for the reminder DJ
4. Goodfellas. (ditto)
5. Diner. it's Fun and the ending is so bittersweet. stick around for the credits...the comments are great.

Dear KHB:
My mistake: To decry message board postings in an online forum for their "superficiality" is not to risk pomposity or constipation--it is flatly to engage in pomposity and to suffer from a form of constipation not afflicting the gut but the mind or soul. Such pomposity and such constipation do not preclude verbal diarrhea, however, as this and so many of your long-winded and overblown posts amply demonstrate.

Whatever gave you the idea that the lists being solicited were meant to provoke searching "discussion and analysis" (your words, in which I clearly detect the affix "anal-")? As Punk DJ intimated, these lists were solicited roughly as an entertainment for message board contributors, not as grist for 300-word essays invoking G. B. Shaw. (Maybe part of your trouble is that you do in fact breathe stale Shavian exhalations that have made their way around the globe a few times since his day.)

Id est, if you're whining about any lack of substantive literary analysis or discussion following from message board posts of simple lists of personal preferences, I suggest you came to the wrong place to whine. And if you care to vent suspicions about posters' motives, we can certainly wonder (if we care to) just how it is you wish to be perceived, since your posts often reveal much less substance about literature than they testify to your ample accomplishments.

The one thing you did get right is that my interpretation of your remarks amounts to no interpretation at all; but that is owing to your artlessness, not mine.

Delightedly and strangely yours,
Hecate

Fun stuff!
Hecate: Very strange comments. Read over my post. I espouse no "high seriousness of art" whatsoever, nor do I purport to elevate criticism to the level of literature. As Shaw once said, criticism will always be as bad as it possibly can be, and he was one of the best critics ever to engage in the practice. There is all the difference between discussion/analysis (my words) and criticism as you have characterized it in your comments. Like myself (although I do not claim to breathe the same air), Shaw and I have both practiced playwriting and critical writing in our lives, and my opinion of criticism is much the same as his. The "binding" of your next to last sentence would suggest that notions of constipation more readily apply to you than me. It is my good fortune that restricted bowel movement has never been one of my problems. In the same vein, I was merely pointing out the superficiality of lists of favorite things and aligning them with the superficiality of award shows. In short, your interpretation of my remarks is no interpretation at all. It is rather another matter entirely on which, I suspect, we agree and which was never brought into question by me. Talk about apples and oranges and making mountains out of molehills. Sheesh!
Punk DJ: Contrary to your view, I am having a bit of fun here rather than seeing past it, and the sound and fury signifying nothing seems to me much more your making than mine. Perhaps you might think further about lists indicating info about their creators. Such complilations, I suggest, more often indicate how the listwriter wishes to be perceived rather than revealing anything substantive about him or her self.

The purpose of these lists is to share; something you know nothing about. The value is to learn from others.
Try this : HELP THE ORIGINAL POSTER.

Suggestions:
1. Label your messages as fiction or non-fiction. Like Bobby Kennedy needed you. What a "friendship".
2. Have respect for board members. You might learn something.
3. Consider this: sneaking in O'Neil every 3 days could have been part of your list.
4. Believe that None here are as stupid as you think.
5. Take Five to think about why beating up and being beaten brings so much pleasure.
Dave Brubeck here. Never met you, happy to say.

The purpose of these lists is to provide the other members of the board with additional info about you, the listwriter. Father Hubert includes Debbie does Dallas - a comedian who sticks to his chosen character. I include Godwin, establishing credentials as an educated anarchist. Ken, you attack the lists for being superficial, thereby establishing your ability to see straight past a bit of fun and blow every statement anyone makes up into some "the world is rubbish" post.

Choose your battles wisely, because otherwise you produce only sound and fury, but signify nothing.

And what merit attaches to the reading of your posts, Ken Brown? The "High Seriousness of Art" position you espouse, while exposing you to the risk of terminal or interminable pomposity, purports to elevate criticism to the level of literature itself, and no single work of lit crit has ever risen to the level of any great work of imagination, in poetry or in prose. Do you really propose binding works of imagination to the arbitrary strictures and categories of aesthetics? Lighten up and loosen up, or risk further constipation.

Would someone please let me know the value and purpose of these lists? The analysis/discussion of a work of art is a worthy pursuit in that it provides both insight into the author's work and the effect upon those in receipt of it. This stuff, like award shows and "100 best" prognostications, are, it seems to me (like self-justification), the most futile of all pursuits. I am reminded of the fact that Dave Brubeck could not possibly win on American Idol, but that does not suggest that he is not one of the greatest jazz musicians who ever lived.

Books:
1. The Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis
2. Enquiry concerning Political Justice by William Godwin
3. No Logo by Naomi Klein
4. It by Stephen King
5. Lies and the lying liars who tell them by Al Franken

Movies:
1. Scarface. The world is yours
2. Goodfellas. Scorseses greatest moment
3. Metropolis
4. The deerhunter
5. The wizard of Oz

Movies:
1)The Fisher King. Terry Gilliam does love, insanity and redemption.
2)Dial M for Murder. Hitchcock never misses.
3)It Happened One Night.
4)To Kill a Mockingbird. Just perfect.
5)The Best Years of Our Lives. Painful and joyous.

Books: (or short stories)
1)Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Heartbreaking and compelling
2)The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. See above
3)My Favorite Murder by Ambrose Bierce. Wicked black humor
4)Home Before Morning by Lynda Van DeVanter. An Army nurse in Vietnam
5)The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair by Ray Bradbury. Sweet and bittersweet

darn it all Pork Chop, can you delete that huge space? think I fell asleep during my list:) Learning so much here, BTW! When thinking back, though maybe ok at the time, The Sound of Music might put you to sleep! Julie Andrews, too much perfection compared to Hair anyway. Popsicle can give you the best advice. In fact, delete this too...it's friday for god's sake. Thanks much!

Books:
1)Travels with Charlie/Steinbeck's dog helping him meet people across America
2)An Unquiet Mind/understanding bi-polar disorder by Jamison
3)Dry/humor while dealing with a gay lifestyle, loss and quitting booze...erg. by A. Burroughs
4)The Right Words at the Right Time/by Marlo Thomas and 100 friends including: Muhammad Ali, Tom Brokaw, Steven Spielberg, Toni Morrison, and Tom Wolfe. Also advice for Ruth Bader Ginsburg from her mother-in-law on her wedding day that helped her on the Supreme Court.
5)Any book recommended by a friend; something about feeling close and being on the same page. Thanks Father Hubert for recommending "Siddartha", and helping with the end of it. Never read the end at 2 a.m.? Thanks Marilyn Rogers for sending "Strangers on a Train" by Diski...great conversations with Americans while the English author travels here.













The Right Words at the Right Time/

Have to say, great lists Chopy! Made me rethink my own. Thanks!

Movies:
1. La Strada, Federico Fellini
Just for the ending! I want to paint that ending.
2. Unknown White Male, Rupert Murray
By no means my favorite movie, but for some reason it came to mind-- a documentary about a man who woke up on the NYC subway with complete amnesia.
3. The Bishop's Wife, Henry Koster
I just love the story-- makes life seem so sweet.
4. Tous les Matins du Monde, Alain Corneau
It gave me a new definition for "passion."
5. The Razor's Edge, John Byrum
(Based on the equally good novel by Somerset Maugham)
It just doesn't matter.

Classic I've never seen - The Sound of Music
Classic I was disappointed with - none come to mind...

Books:
1. Summerhill, A Radical Approach to Child Rearing, A.S. Neill
Changed my perception of how and why we learn.
2. Tortilla Flat, John Steinbeck
It describes a beautiful friendship and a great life.
3. Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
It is my bible.
4. Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
Each one is a beautiful insight into our own minds.
5. Tristessa, Jack Kerouac
Just a great story.

Classic I've never read - would Ulysses (James Joyce) count?
Classic I was disappointed with - The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne (zzzzzzz)

A happy weekend to all! And don't forget church on Sunday (St. Viagra's Chapel of the Risen is having a special service, altar wine will be doubles! Weeee!)