Plist ethos (was TIMES article)

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

Currently between teaching terms, I skip around a bit, so forgive redundancies. 
 I have not read the TIMES article, but I assume what Andrew quotes below
 is accurate.  TP, holding a no doubt terrified son to his chest, bellowing in
 the street to a two-bit twit?  Is this a good development?  Has TP gone too
 far in dancing with the devil?  Is even his cloak about to dissolve?  Is it
 all his fault for hubristically thinking he could pull the tiger's tail
 and not get bit?  The Lotion interview, the coy NEW YORK article/ photo,
 signing w/ Holt in the first place . . . .

AND/OR:  Is this list just a teensy bit implicated?
 Are we becoming an invidious force on the person whose 
work we purport to admire and value so much? Y'know, the look alike
 shows, the puppet theaters, the costume parties,the mug hoisting hale-fellow-well-met 
social oleo that gets so much attention? Maybe there are some unwelcome 
consequences to that whole shebang?
 Perhaps, instead of ranting at the morons who, after all, are only
 doing their jobs--as in the TIMES case,  or, worse, sharing little tidbits
and other gossipy smarm among ourselves, or, worst, actively colluding,
 maybe it's time for a different ideology to emerge from this list? Shouldn't
 we all be sated enough by now with the little thrills of general, or  (for the more 
ambitious of us), specific mention in the media (weak orgasm, a 
dry hump, by any standard)?

 So let's stop twittering every time a new piece of trash
 appears, and, further, howzabout any plist
 get togethers, whether in media-glutted NYC or elsewhere, 
 at the very least putting a little sign on their table: "no press
 need join us."  The tricky part is of course that portion of the list
 that faces both ways, as it were. I know it's not too popular among
 the fashionably cynical, esp. the freelance journalistic crowd, but I 
say it's time for a little fucking soul searching, boys and girls.  And
 those whose souls are irremediably mediated, ie. gone, oughtta 
fucking unsubscribe. Forever.

TP obviously wants his work to be read and discussed.  He also wants
 his personal life to be free of media infection.
 We should try to follow suit. Or at least not further Their aims of 
neutralizing him.

Realizing I am setting myself up here.  But no moral paragon I--others I know
feel the same way--I'm just the dummy who says it out loud.

 Appreciations to Andrew and those others 
who don't want to spread the TIMES stuff around.

john (back next week for the return fire) m
*******************************
this in from Andy-acrost-the-sea):

>Was thatthe main feature or the only feature? The article is full of
>the usual personal and literary crap currently doing the rounds,
>including mention of Jules, Lineland and us. Apparently, James Bone is
>the guy from the London Times who talked to Dale Larson in New York at
>the KGB Pynchon look-alike competition. Pynchon's reaction when he was
>snapped and then approached by a Bone with hand extended `to placate
>him, a gesture of reassurance' was `"Get your f***ing hand away from
>me," he bellowed, "I don't like people taking my picture!"'  Well, I
>have access to a scanner but I guess it would not be politic to put
>the thing up on the web. Sorry.