The Feminization of American Culture: Ann Douglas: 9780374525583: Amazon.com: Books

Bled Welder bledwelder at gmail.com
Sat Sep 29 10:49:47 CDT 2012


I would think that it does.  One might almost go the way of....how or why
did Wallace end it, and certain gods live?  On?

Paul, am I hallucinating?

Am I?

Or I AM.

On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 8:31 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>wrote:

>  On 9/29/2012 11:19 AM, Keith Davis wrote:
>
> This discussion leads naturally to questions of P's substance use...
>
>
>
> And the difference between alcohol and hallucinogenic substances.
>
> Alcohol can be hallucinogenic too but by that time you're so far gone it
> doesn't matter.
>
>
> P
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 10:47 AM, Bled Welder <bledwelder at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I hate to break this to you, but the gods gave us booze.
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 7:35 AM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> "Whiskey don't make liars, it just makes fools
>>> So I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said" --James McMurtry
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 7:19 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>wrote:
>>>
>>>>  On 9/29/2012 7:41 AM, alice wellintown wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>  The big three of the 30s and 40s, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner
>>>>>> were
>>>>>> all heavy alcohol users.  Was this mainly to fight inner demons, or
>>>>>> was it
>>>>>> integral to their creative powers?  Their writing was so different.
>>>>>> What
>>>>>> were the common elements? Where was the "family resemblance"?
>>>>>> (Wittgenstein)
>>>>>>
>>>>> Looking back, from Wittgenstein, we might say that the idea, a family
>>>>> resemblance, is one that, if only when we look back, peep in the
>>>>> public record, open the old photo albums, watch those old home movies,
>>>>>   generates memories and defeated desires, so Nihilism...
>>>>>
>>>>> and, like the phrase about family resemblance, American Nihilism,
>>>>> while not fathered by Nietzsche, looks a lot like the mustached
>>>>> European madman.
>>>>>
>>>>> We might also photoshop into the portrait, Mr Eliot, who is, after
>>>>> all, as much a part of this American generation of nihilists as the
>>>>> others, though he does find a dead tradition to bury his individual
>>>>> talents in.
>>>>>
>>>>> And there are lotz of others, though not as famous as these members of
>>>>> the family.
>>>>>
>>>>> But what kind of nihilism? There are so many in American fiction.
>>>>>
>>>>> And, we might say that  Pynchon, with his early works, V., and Lot49,
>>>>> is much in the family; no conclusion or final illumination, no Joycean
>>>>> epiphany. The heart is darkness, the bomb is pushed from its precipice
>>>>> by the boys, the island burns, the beasty is in us and we are
>>>>> metaphysically and aesthetically lost; sometimes in the pun house,
>>>>> sometimes in the labyrinth, sometimes in the mundane stranger's
>>>>> murdering meaninglessness under the indifferent sun , sometimes in the
>>>>> grip of Them.
>>>>>
>>>>> Does Booze make this nihilism more intense, release the aesthetic from
>>>>> the metaphysical sickness unto death? Camus talked of suicide and
>>>>> rolling a stone; perhaps this is what the booze soaked nihilism
>>>>> afforded?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  I kind of think it might.  For example Proust and Joyce weren't big
>>>> drinkers, and both  In Search of Lost Time and Ulysses ended quite
>>>> affirmatively.
>>>>
>>>> I wonder if Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights) and Samuel Richardson
>>>> (Clarissa) might not have taken a drop or two to get them into a darker
>>>> view of things.  They were quite the exceptions to their respective eras.
>>>>
>>>> On a personal note I've observed that watching the  PBS nightly news in
>>>> a semi alcoholic haze makes the very serious discussions  appear slightly
>>>>  absurd.
>>>>
>>>> P
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>   --
>>> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
>>> creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust
>>> in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness
>>> groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest
>>> urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> www.innergroovemusic.com
>
>
>
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