more 'whole sick crew'

[Eric Rosenbloom]

When I was in college, of course we called ourselves the whole sick
crew. . . .
The wholeness is in the aggregate, and the aggregate in this case is
subversive. Well, that's my take.

Yours,
Eric R

Samuel Moyer wrote:
> This is an interesting point... I thought the name strange when I first read
> it and soon let it go.  It certainly does not seem to mean "the entire sick
> crew," and may just refer to well-being.  In which case there certainly is
> an oxymoron which strikes me as being very funny when I think about it and
> ironic when I think about some of the members of the crew.  Other thoughts?
> 
> sam
> 
> > Has anyone besides me been laboring under the misapprehension that the
> > 'whole' in the phrase refers to entire? As in, the whole shmir, or whole
> > hog, or whole lot of ?  Suddenly the word seems to make more sense as
> > the wholeness of health and well-being. In other words the 'whole sick
> > crew' might be thought of as an outright contradiction or oxymoron.
> > Except of course it's a contraction that a few writers of the last
> > couple centuries have insisted must be factored into our social
> > existence. One such writer much in the news at the time V. was being
> > written. would have been R. D. Laing. Laing was dealing with insanity
> > not soical alienation as such. But there was much crossover in his
> > thinking. Never quite said insanity is health. Wish I could find my copy
> > of The Divided Self so I could quote something. Anyway I feel I must
> > personally go through some minor reevalutation of my V.