rubrics (I like that word), wrecking crews and hugfests

[Robin Landseadel]

On Dec 1, 2009, at 10:42 AM, David Morris wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 12:29 PM, Robin Landseadel
> <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>> On Dec 1, 2009, at 10:11 AM, David Morris wrote:
>>>
>>> Mr Tracey,
>>
>> sic
>>
>> Of maybe there's more than enough of the Hippie/Freak in our  
>> illustrious
>
> sic yourself, bub.

So it's perfectly polite to misspell someone's name, even if it's in  
the  header of your post? Seems rude, if you ask me.

> Pretty juvenile rejoinder, but that's understandable coming from a  
> believer.

Believer? Doesn't really work like that. Participant? Sure, been  
there, done that, doing something else right now. I'm enough of a  
participant-witness to be able use Occam's Razor and figure that if it  
quacks like a duck . . .

Belief ? I've known people who believed in the received wisdom of  
their childhood—James Bond, Tom Swift, Big Science, The Tube, "The  
Future"—majored in subatomic physics at Stanford, dropped massive  
loads of acid, realized they were on a one-way ticket to Peenemünde,  
Hiroshima, total annihilation. They dropped out, got into Crowley, the  
B.O.T.A. and Robert Anton Wilson, Alan Watts, the  Bhagavad Gītā,  
Blavatsky, also the Grateful Dead, T.S. Monk & Duke Ellington. It  
happens all the time, hang out in a college town like Berkeley long  
enough, listen to a few monologues, you'll recognize the voice— 
Pynchon sounds like one of "them.". They're more like to write poetry  
or song lyrics, get into the minutiae of literature, speak of world- 
wide conspiracies, smoke a joint. You find "them" all over all of  
Pynchon's books. One doesn't get into these sorts of things in this  
way without getting far enough inside as it makes no difference what a  
person "believes" at the bottom of it all—it's a collection of  
behaviors that pretty much signifies a certain "tribe."