Yes, Virginia

[Kyburz at asu.edu]

On Mon, 11 Nov 1996, David Casseres wrote:

> [Paul Mackin sez]
> 
> >But it seems to me we don't need a genius of Pynchon quality to tell us 
> >brainwashing is wrong (not to say genocide and all the rest). But he
> >does serve to drive home the essential truth of that old Murphy's Law.
> >
> >And Pynchon makes life more pleasant for us while we await our preterite
> >doom. So ho, ho, ho.
> 
> Well yeah.  But isn't it true that any time you take a work of literature 
> and boil it all the way down, you get truisms?  My own boildown of 
> Pynchon is that he is telling us Everything Is Connected.  We knew that, 
> right?
> 
> So I'm not sure I'd call it "making life more pleasant," but goddamn, the 
> fellow can WRITE like an angel and he can invent a whole narrative style 
> of his own as he goes along, in little bits and flashes until you realize 
> suddenly he's the most innovative storyteller around as well as one of 
> the best prose-makers.
> 
> And by doing all that he can wind up showing us, instead of just telling 
> us, that brainwashing is wrong and everything is connected and things go 
> wrong usw, and show us in such a way that maybe we find ourselves 
> thinking about those things in new ways.
> 
> Cheers,
> David
> 
> 
And with my current career crisis, I wonder what I'm doing teaching . . .
or, "teaching," brainwashing, etc.  I'm presently conflicted 'bout the 
old nature of academic discourse (nothing to do with Sokal here), it's 
construction as elitist and its necessary maintenance as the same.  Don't 
talk to me of "logic" either;  maybe I'm just disgruntled about the 
diss., but I think it's more.  Community College is looking pretty good 
these days.  So is fashion journalism (a secret dream of banality, for 
sure, yet, I am serious).  Selling cosmetics.  Going back into the hair 
industry.  urgh.



Bonnie L. Kyburz, Instructor
Department of English			(602) 965-7756 (office)
Arizona State University		kyburz at asu.edu
Tempe, AZ  85287-0302			*or* surfus at chuma.cas.usf.edu