One suggestion for the Group Read

[Monte Davis]

This pre-Webster fondly remembers the section structure of CompuServe (CIS)
forums. I started using the service in 1980-81, mostly for the PC hardware
and software discussion/support forums. I became a regular visitor (later a
sysop) on WordPerfect and TapCIS forums -- the latter an automated
navigator/downloader app that kept the metered logon time and telephone
line usage as $hort as possible. It would collect message headers and
abstracts of new stuff in the forums' file libraries, then disconnnect...
you'd tag what you wanted at leisure... and it would reconnect and pull the
full message texts and chosen files much faster than you could by hand.

Both forums became very active social hangouts, with abundant discussion of
books/movies/TV, politics and current affairs, running in-jokes, people
arranging meatspace get-togethers, etc. etc. Those came to outnumber Q&A
about, and discussion of, the software that was those forums' reason for
being -- *BUT* they were in separate sections which you could ignore (or
choose to not even see) if/when not interested. That formal section
structure, plus occasional reminders (or message moving to the appropriate
section) by the sysops, worked much better than "please prepend 'NP' " has
ever worked here.

I'm not a sysop any more, don't like playing net nanny, and understand why
spending vs. wasting time on the Internet 2016 is psychologically as well
as economically different from CIS in the 1980s. I spend most of my
"hangout" online time elsewhere, and go to more specialized venues to
discuss the Ukraine, or current global economics, or terrorism, or refugees
in Cologne, or books/movies/TV that have no connection to Pynchon beyond "I
like Pynchon and I like X."

So, like many of you, I tap-tap past a lot of posts here, skim a lot, and
filter trolls and fools. For me the P-list isn't the pleasure it once was,
and I'm sure some prefer it this way, and communities evolve, and most
nostalgia is boring, and no, I'm not 100% consistent in my own "NP" usage,
and all that's fine. I'm free to unsubscribe, as have some of my favorite
contributors who've formed overlapping e-mail circles instead. But I do
miss a lot of other people I don't know: the Pynchon readers who visit a
few times, see the low signal-noise ratio or a moribund group read, and
never come back.

The only consolation is the high comedy, in these prospective discussions
of a group read, of remarks about how *hard to keep up with* a high message
rate count is... from those who (1) rarely have much to say about Pynchon's
work or (2) have ten times as much to say about everything else. Si
monumentum requiris, circumspice.

On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 12:19 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> JB  describes the totality of P list interactions!
>
> On Saturday, January 23, 2016, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Wise words by Ish. The last few group reads have seen me try to keep
>> up early on but inevitably there comes a time when work or life is
>> pressing and I delete a bunch of posts unread. From there comes the
>> creeping feeling that anything I might add will be redundant as it was
>> probably hashed out in those deleted emails, and then there's already
>> a bunch more arriving, and it gets too much to bother...
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 9:10 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Thanks Ish. Experience and wisdom and a fine argument, so nicely
>> written.
>> > I can be a  major offender and have talked like I will be, so I will
>> try not
>> > to be. I guess I was feeling neglected since about no one says anything
>> > about these story and
>> > Lot 49 bits, so I am projecting my continued soloing. (OK, whining, but
>> I
>> > stopped now. No one else is
>> > reading Lot 49 and the stories right now and I am focusing on stuff ya
>> gotta
>> > know cold--I didn't--or look up.
>> > Won't be that way with GR Group Read)
>> >
>> > I have a lot of notes for GR already so I will prioritize and won/t,
>> > as I wrote, try to get
>> > every little thought on the record as I indicated.
>> >
>> > Smart commentary means judicious triage of comments I now accept as
>> better.
>> >
>> >  I will send my posts around separated in time during the day, rather
>> than
>> > most in the early morning as I do now.
>> >
>> > (At the moment, I save most that I write and send the next morning. I
>> need
>> > something to make me jump out of bed.)
>> >
>> > I'm just impatient today, with the snow.
>> >
>> > On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 3:41 PM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>  You open your email and find you have 200 emails on day one and this
>> >> keeps up for a week, then tapers a bit, explodes again and again, then
>> >> it thins to near silence and the group read fails.
>> >>
>> >> This is not what happened way back in the beginning or for a decade or
>> >> more as folks worked through book after book with creative generosity,
>> >> and, with only the occasion flame war or heavy duty fight,  did some
>> >> remarkable reads,  but it is what happened to several more recent
>> >> attempts, despite herculean efforts by one or two individuals to keep
>> >> the ball bouncing.
>> >>
>> >> There is so much stuff we can all toss into the discussion daily. And
>> >> that's fun and beautiful and who needs any rules or regulations. This
>> >> is, as advertised, a fabulous orgy.
>> >>
>> >> But, my grama's giant but, but can we maybe keep the volume down in
>> >> the first few sections just because we will lose too many people if we
>> >> stuff them with 300 a day.
>> >>
>> >> Not suggesting any limits or rules or editing or monitoring but just
>> >> that we all recognize that if we flood the space early we may not have
>> >> any human voices left to awaken to when the mermaids arrive to waft us
>> >> all to shore.
>> >> -
>> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> >
>> >
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>
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