Group Read Headcount

[Paul Mackin]

On Wed, 2003-06-11 at 13:55, pynchonoid wrote:
> --- David Morris <fqmorris at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > 
> > --- Toby G Levy <tobylevy at juno.com> wrote:
> > > I vote for Vineland.
> > 
> > Have at it!  I think you make number three.  It'll
> > be real interesting to see
> > how far you continue.
> 
> 
> That's pretty funny coming from the guy who says he
> hears the poem isn't essential to Pale Fire.  (And
> that's OK, fq, you go ahead and enjoy that novel
> however it best makes sense to you, bless your heart.)
> 
> fq's outburst is also an excellent example of the
> groupuscule mentality that has fragmented the
> Pynchon-L community and set one side officially at
> odds with the other -- one effect of the otherwise
> silly spectacle of first one and then another, Keith
> then fq & etc,  of this Group of Five adding or
> subtracting from or otherwise massaging this
> "headcount" list, establishing hierarchies and
> categories and otherwise mobilizing/manipulating other
> P-listers, willing or not, for their cause.  It's like
> watching kids choose up sides on the playground,
> deciding who can play and who can't. 
> 
> fq's response here also underscores the decline in
> civility on Pynchon-L since 9-11. Insult what you
> don't agree with or understand, or smother it in
> irrelevancies -- as in the recent discussion that Paul
> N offered here, only to be clubbed by jbor, T, and the
> rest of that little group in turn, who rewrote his
> posts and distorted his arguments beyond all
> recognition, shutting down the discussion of the 1984


it's probably just one's imagination but does Doug seem even more
twitchy than usual about today's p-list discussion?

P.