Chap 17, "the eponymous organ...", read past Spoiler

[Phillip P. Muth]

Mr. Weinstein's poetic response to the Ear is a wonderful,
moving tribute to...what?  Since much of what he has written is
a meloncholy song to the lack in the Other and ourselves I
would simply like to point out that the the letter (word)
always arrives at its destination.  To be pedestrian, the Ear
not only hears but sends on the message, Dixon being the
recepient of the mystic message.  The ear is not simply a hole
through which sounds travel, vibrations move, and Nothing
emerges.  The ear here is a prosthetic device, one of the many
in which man's reach can exceed his grasp, leading to the
cyborg culture in which we currently speak.
The message of return and the return message are also as old as
Homeric epic, tho NBC might not see/hear it that way. Echoes,
internal and otherwise, resound through M&D of Ulysses, MD
(Moby Dick), and the Odyssey.  The Cave of the Cyclops and the
Tunnel of the Ear are but part of the adventure. That the Ear
has been lost through debt and now made into a shrine recalls
the whole Christian desire for parts, body parts of Christ, the
Cross, the Shroud.  Here pigrimmage occurs, the suppliant on
his knees, waiting for revelation, but here the Cry comes
through tho perhaps, like telescope images, inverted, our own
desires through a glass/Ear not darkly, but clear enough to be
heard, mapped and acted upon.Nostos.

Parke Muth