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

[Paul Mackin]

On 9/29/2012 11:49 AM, Bled Welder wrote:
> 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.

Once as a child I sat through an I AM meeting. Theosophy.  Back in the 
30s.  It was in an old residential hotel in downtown L.A. where my 
ancient  Great Aunt and her husband lived.  I think it was that building 
you still see in movies and TV with the Big Neon Sign on top.  It seems 
so real.

P
>
> On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 8:31 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net 
> <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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
>>             <mailto: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 <http://www.innergroovemusic.com>
>
>

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