Goodwill and better friendships

[Mark Kohut]

Mr. Smallwood, (can I call you Raphael?)---

You have won me over and let's do it. All, jump in and line up.

Mark



On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 12:25 AM Raphael Saltwood <
PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com> wrote:

>
> Mr Mark Kohut, p-list mainstay & much appreciated commentator, expatiated
> as excerpted in the following manner. Replies inline.
>
>
> Smallwood,
>
>
> - that'd be "Saltwood, purveyor of small topics": although the idea of
> Smallwood suggesting a "salty topics" read does hold some appeal. Everybody
> pick their favorite x-rated passages & go from there.
>
>
> ————-
>
> I like your enthusiasm and your originality. I think it overtakes me with
> my pedestrianism. I Know we've all
> read Vineland at least once, but I do not think I could answer decently
> into your list of questions until I had read it again
> anew. Which I can't understand as a way for another group read.
>
>
> - B-but it's a great thing, a pedestrian view. Rhizomic, non-linear, or at
> least no more linear than you want it to be, clumpy, low speed, variable
> involvement.
>
> Topics that you don't have to know the whole book right away to pose,
> answer, and build upon.
>
> Things that stuck in your mind from before.
>
> Stopping for a coffee on the boulevard, smelling the flowers...
>
>
> ———
>
> Mr Kohut went on thusly:
>
> All I can see is From the Beginning again. Bringing what we think we know
> or believe into new eyes focusing on every sentence
> like we are reading in Braille. (in War & Peace, Tolstoy describes Prince
> Andrew as starting to read something "only with his eyes"
> until something grips him...and he slows and enters. )
>
>
> - which is great, no question. Why do I want to do something different?
>
> Also that is a great song, “From the beginning”
>
> https://youtu.be/UtGjJVcrKQU
>
>
> ——————
>
>
> Self-deprecatingly, Mark continued:
>
> My unimaginativeness can only see you doing what we do here outside of a
> group read. That is riffing on whatever hits us in and because
> of one of P's books. A laudable thing for the Plist.
>
>
> - well, if one person poses a bunch of small VL topics, answers a couple,
> and walks out, they'll think he or she is crazy, and they won't take him.
>
> But if 2 people pose a bunch of small VL topics, answer a couple, comment
> on the other topics and walk out, they'll think they're bonded in an
> unusual way and they won't take either of them.
>
> And if 3 - can you imagine 3 people posing a small finite number of small
> topics, answering  a couple others, commenting on still others, and
> interjecting some wacky theories or personal sharing, or intertextual
> matter of their own?
>
> why, they may think it's a group read -
>
> the love is strange, small and/or salty topics, pandemic, epizootic,
> Vineland read,
>
>  and all ya gotta do to join it is to post a small topic, a response, a
> meander, or any combination (linked loosely or tightly to VL) the next time
> you get a notion.
>
>
> —————-
>
>
> With a (quite reasonably qualified) offer to host, he concludes:
>
>
> So, let me ask again, I count you and two others, and Jerky as a
> non-hosting contributor to something like a group read, is that correct?
>
> As I have said before, I am not going to host one all
> alone....again.......where no one responds.
>
>
> - I love linear group reads.
>
> If the liss/stpevgr really doesn't work for anyone else, (Bueller?) please
> count me in.
>
> What say you, Mark?
>
>
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>
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