[3] Trying Crying

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

How's that acid digesting, Andrew?  I'm glad you concluded your previous post by
 acknowledging that the little touch of bile I detect has some external source.  I wouldn't
 want you to think I was trying to--provoke--you or anything.    I agree with you to the
 extent that, if I were faced with the impossible choice  of having to take only one of two
 books in the world onto that desert moon of Jupiter where I was to spend the rest of my
 life, I'd take GR over CL49.  Or if forced at gunpoint to put a little post-it note saying *the
 greater of the two* on one of those books, I'd put it on GR.  The difference between us
 seems to be that these facts don't imply any flaw in CL49 to me.  Or since you admire the
 chauvinist Franz so much, let's say one had to choose, oh, Marilyn Monroe vs. Vivian
 Leigh instead of GR/CL49 as a companion on that desert moon.  One might opt for the
 greater epic scope of Monroe's beauty, but would hardly fault Leigh's more miniaturized
 charms as a consequence.

A couple of points:
 (A) I questioned your claim that CL49 is a *pastiche* of a detective story. Noting that the 
word means either (1) an imitation or parody, or (2) a hodge-podge,  I asked what sense 
you implied, and you snorted back--
>
>In sense (1). If it deosn't make any sense I don't knwo what else to
>try. Anyone speak Pomeranian?

Here you are simply wrong, in English.  There is no attempt in CL49 to parody a detective 
story.  Just because there's a mystery doesn't mean it's a parody.Nor is parody of detective 
story implied just because there is a quest, a search--after all, your favorite reference point 
(besides LudWitt) is that arch-quester the Don of La Mancha.  Would you say the Quixote 
is a *pastiche* of a detective story?  The Firesign Theater's NICK DANGER is a pastiche of 
a detective story.  Do you understand the difference?

(B) I questioned your claim that the greater length of GR implied greater seriousness than 
CL49.  And got this back

>It's not a question of what is serious rather what is not. I am merely
>suggesting that the brevity of TCOL49 should be taken as an indication
>that it's scope is limited. 

So you back off from claiming that we can impute greater seriousness to GR because it's 
longer, and instead claim that we can impute LESS seriousness to CL49 because it's 
shorter.  And then you try to condescend about the workings of logic?  When I apply a 
simple reductio ad absurdum to your notion that length is ANY parameter of seriousness 
(like by asking all disingenuously if that means, say, that Joyce's short *Araby* is therefore 
less serious than, say, the much longer PILGRIM AT TINKER's CREEK), you wheedle
back--
> I notice that
>several times you universalize statements I make about GR and TCOL49
>to be general statements about novels. Not actually implied and
>exactly the reason why I find comparisons so odious - people use local
>distinctions and local analogies as grounds for making general
>distinctions and general analogies.

Please reread your comment above this one, which is exactly typical of how you are 
reasoning in this exchange.  How can you contradict yourself so blithely?  If you claim that 
brevity *indicates* limited scope or seriousness in CL49, how can you NOT be claiming 
that length, universally, is a parameter of scope?

(C) My humorous question in response to this comment of yours
apparently needs further explanation for you, You had said--
>> >TCOL49 is  . . . quite deliberately a far less ambitious piece than GR.

And I playfully replied--
>> Not just *deliberately* but *quite* deliberately?  You have that on
>> good authority I presume?

And you said--
>The authority of the text, perhaps?

And to my question--
>> When did you last speak to him?

You dully replied--
>I need to speak to him? Are you trying to change the rules in
>mid-game?

But of course I was simply tweaking you for presuming to know that anything in or about 
these books is there *deliberately*, since one could only know this by asking the author 
(and even then. who knows?). This is the intentional fallacy with a vengeance.  And a 
scary lack of sense of humor to boot.  

But it's all cleared up when you admit--
>Think of me like that Franz.

Be assured, that's exactly how I think of you.  Doesn't stop me from enjoying this 
exchange, though.

john m