a hello, thoughts on fav. words, and etc.

[m. powers]

hallo.

well, there. there's the introduction gotten over with. ..oh, okay,
okay. hey folks. I've been enjoying lurking about the list for awhile
now and, as I've been awake way too long (geez, it's nearly sunup) and
thinking too much in no particular constructive direction as usual it
felt like a good time to chime in with something or other. so, here it
is - sorry if it seems a bit late to pick up on this tangent, but..

anyone run across a collection of "talk poems" by David Antin called
_what it means to be avant-garde_ ? definitely worth a read IMHO
despite the title, by the way, but anyway.. one piece in it tells the
tale of a linguist who embarks on a quest to, essentially, boil all
the world's major languages down to a vocabulary of pure phonemes
which he believed to convey a form of meaning in and of themselves and
give the theory form by writing (composing?) an epic, narrative poem
entirely in nonsense syllables. I couldn't help but be reminded of
this piece when looking over the lists of favorite words, and
thinking about my own favorite words.. got my mind spinning about the
origins of language, somewhat. ahwell, I did warn ya that I tend to
think too much.

on a more relevant note, though, I'd be interested in what folks would
have to recommend for a companion to CoL49.. It seems to be time for
another, maybe more studious read and any pointers would be greatly 
appreciated. :)

(due to a fairly heavy course load this year I'm afraid I'll have to
put off  my planned rereading of GR until I'm able to give it my
more or less undivided intention, which will be awhile yet. sigh.)

						       - m. p.