enough rand...

[pynchonoid]

--- davemarc <davemarc at panix.com> wrote:
> 
> It's probably safe to say that most subscribers sign
> up on this list
> expecting a Pynchon discussion.  

That may be true of some newcomers, but I wonder how
many are attracted by this, at the Pynchon-L site:

About Pynchon-L

Welcome aboard, gee, it's a fabulous or-gy
That you just dropped in on, my friend--
We can't recall just how it start-ted,
But there's only one way it can end!
The behaviour is bestial, hardly Marie-Celestial,
But you'll fit right in with the crowd,
If you jettison all of those prob-lems,
And keep it hysterically loud!
http://waste.org/pynchon-l/


"The behaviour is bestial" -- a good description of a
lot of what gets posted here by, borrowing davemarc's
phrase, "a certain number" of "the totality of
subscribers", the same group that manages to keep
pumping the persiflage no matter what (here's a nice
example,http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0210&msg=71967&sort=date,
that combines just about all of one unenviable
P-lister's many obsessions).  On the rare occasions
when that crowd choose to focus on something other
than me, they have no problem finding other,
non-Pynchon-related topics. You could look it up and
see what happens when I back away from the discussion.

There have always been at least two ways that people
use Pynchon-l:  as a forum for a discussion closely
focused on Pynchon's works (people who take seriously
the suggestion that the discussion range "from Pynchon
apocrypha through light discussion of our favourite
passages, to litcrit as heavy as you want") to those
who make of it "a fabulous or-gy ..... bestial ....
hysterically loud."  Several of the longtime
participants move from one camp to the next, while a
few manage to stay in one or the other.  

I filter the  voices I find most obnoxious from my
email box, and have discovered what a pleasant change
it is to enjoy Pynchon-L without that drumbeat of hate
and obscenity.  I doubt that the people responsible
for the posts I don't particularly enjoy will go away,
so it's nice to have a way to avoid what they have to
say.  I also have a DELETE key and know how to use it.


-Doug





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