Kent asked me to forward the following.
>From: "KENT JOHNSON" <[log in to unmask]>
>Organization: Highland Community College
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 22:52:48 -0500
>Subject: note
>Priority: normal
>X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c)
>
>Mark,
>
>Would you do me a favor and post this for me? I am at work, and,
>in any case, I fear lots of people won't read it under the
>circumstances if it is sent by me.
>
>thanks,
>Kent
>
>-----------
>
>David Hess has put on quite a show, just as I warned the list he
>would. Part of his show has been to create a Hotmail account
>under my name, presenting a number of posts as if they were
>mine. (I had thought the content of the posts would make quite
>evident to anyone reading that they were his, but I seem to have
>been mistaken). The only posts I have written are under the
>kljohnson45 address. That's said for what it's worth; some on the
>list seem to have made up their minds about my acts and
>intentions, and I see that elaborate proposals are now being made
>to ban me from the list.
>
>I assume David has been writing under my name with the intent of
>making a symbolic statement about "my project," as he puts it.
>Fine. But there is really no parallel between playing sophomoric
>games with Hotmail aliases and the seriously relevant issues
>concerning authorship that projects like Motokiyu's or Pessoa's
>raise-- exactly to the contrary, as I point out in the section of the
>interview I shared with the list, where I discuss the Luther Blissett
>and Karen Elliot phenomena. David's madly energetic
>performance is a minor instance of the spirit of these anarchic
>virtual projects. And with his "nutshell" dismissal in a recent post of
>the Yasusada writings, he shows himself to have some more
>thinking to do about the question, which is not a bad thing, of
>course: Its aesthetic complexity is why Doubled Flowering has
>been so widely discussed and debated, and why it will be into the
>future. David enters that debate in his own inimitable and
>poignantly angry way.
>
>My response to David during his jihad against me has been pretty
>reasonable, I think. He's brought fairly harsh personal insults into
>play, even calling into question my relationship to my family. I
>assume there was almost no response to his over-the-top uncivility
>because of the diversion caused by his two addresses. But I will
>say, if at risk of seeming like I think I'm the victim, which I don't,
>feeling quite at ease with how I've dealt so far with David, that I *do*
>feel a bit badly that I've gone from having put forward what I thought
>were some interesting ideas for discussion in the past few days
>(and there *was* some very interesting discussion that ensued), to
>being the object of such condemnation on the part of some of you.
>
>In any case, I now hand it back to David Hess. He'll no doubt go on
>for a while longer, and under different @Hotmails. You go, David.
>And as I said earlier, I'm eager to have a conversation with you. But
>I'm still waiting for you to drop the clown-act and adopt an approach
>that is conducive to real exchange. You could start by
>acknowledging to the list who has sent what, and then extend an
>apology to me (back channel is fine) for the personal slander.
>
>But I'll converse with you even if you don't do this. All you have to
>do is take a fresh breath and begin.
>
>Kent
>
>
>
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