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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (59712)	9/24/2002 4:58:00 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

I do not consider conversing on the threads to be radically different from conversing face to face. In either case, I interact with someone I believe to be a human being, and mostly truthful. I sympathize, I get mad, my curiosity is aroused, I laugh appreciatively, all on that basis. My relationship with Monica caused me to contact people who might not otherwise have heard of her passing in a timely manner, using addresses in one of those forwarded joke e-mails, to let them know what had happened; it caused me to get in touch with the Blue Heron Theater, on whose board she had served, to discuss "naming" possibilities, and to solicit charitable funds from a number of people; it caused me to build a trip to New York around a reception at the theater, to honor donors and announce the gifts. Etc. My relationship with JLA has led to occasional phone calls, Christmas cards, and other things. I have gone out of my way to look up things for people traveling to Washington, or to offer advice. I have sent and received photos by e- mail. I honestly do not know how to relate to a fictional character. I can assume it is a crock, and go on assuming that the persona represents the individual typing, but if I take it seriously, I loss interest, frankly. Considering things like the crap I took for not treating Chris as a complete scoundrel, it is not worth it to me if he is just a literary device. Similarly, I don't need to fight with people who are literary devices, because I am not detached, and it is not a game to me, it bothers me. And so on........

To: epicure who wrote (59712)	9/24/2002 7:17:12 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

I assert that words are interesting enough. I don't care if you have a wife, or a son, or went to St. John's. I really don't. You are interesting whether or not there is any you there. Your posts are ENOUGH.<.i> It just occurred to me that this is a basic argument in literary criticism. Is or was. I've never been much into literary criticism, but I seem to remember reading that, simplistically, there are two schools, one which believes you need to understand the life of the author in order to understand the work, and the other that believes the work stands alone as a piece of work and should be criticized on its own merits without any reference to the life or experiences of the author. Anybody know more about this area than I do?