Alpha males Cutting noses and spiteing faces

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

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From: "Terrance Flaherty" <lycidas at worldnet.att.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: sailing to [serVANteez]
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 23:33:05 -0400

At times, an interesting and perhaps important thread
decays, decomposes
and spontaneously combusts. Not wanting to fan the flames
and singe our
brows we take a deep breath, appeal to reason, plead with
the pyromaniacs,
piss on the embers, hand out white nose rags, cut the
throats of fatted
goats and await the intervention of the gray-eyed goddess.
Isaac.  While
waiting I saw Ryan, had flashbacks of the horror, the
horror, and as those
rows of white crosses turned black I had a vision of my soul
amidst some
58,000 shades with a grievance haunting the polished black
surface of my
skull. Or is it, that I have been haunting them? As we visit
Mason's grave
with Cherrycoke and peruse the papered remains of J&C,
perhaps we had
better take Munchausen as our guide. Factitiously
disordered, stoven,
dismasted, Broken. Perhaps  Palamedes will expose our deceit
and we will
avoid the fiery flames of Troy. I hope we can. I tied myself
to the mast
and sailed the archives of p-list august 1998. True, some
when they List
their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of
wretched straw
and combustion seems inevitable. However, sometimes a
siren's song is
silenced by those that have not sense enough to feign
insanity or stop up
their mouths with wax. According to legend, the sirens
drowned themselves
after Odysseus escaped.

      Many a newbie or whatever, has been silenced or turned
lurker by this alpha male nonsense.

Sometimes strains in a dialogue reflect real differences
between people: they
are angry at each other; they really are at cross purposes.
But sometimes
strains and kinks develop when there really are no basic
differences of
opinion, when everyone is sincerely attempting to get along.
This is the type
of miscommunication that drives people nuts. And it is
usually caused by
difference in conversational  style. A perfectly tuned
discussion is a vision of sanity--a ratification of one's
way of being human and one's place in the world. Continuous
failure in this regard, can undermine one's feeling of
psychological well-being.
I have said it before and I repeat now, this form of
communication requires
that we give others the benefit of the doubt. The danger of
misinterpretation
is greatest, of course, among speakers who actually speak
different native
tongues, or come from different cultural backgrounds and
since we are a global
bunch we need to keep this in mind.

In any event, I am sorry to soap-box again, I am not
pointing fingers. I would love to discuss Melville on
Ishmail.com--some beautiful sirens over there, but too much
alpha male and cute insults, and my Moby's bigger than yours
has destroyed that opportunity. Let's not do that here.

Terrance