it is also possible to strengthen the ego by creating little dramas with you
as a character and allowing the other characters to bully you, best wishes,
Paul Murphy
>From: tom bell <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
> poetics <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Numbers games
>Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 16:45:42 -0500
>
>Actually in response to your last line I have experimented with writing to
>a
>'you' or about 'he or she or they' to some extent and it has lifted my mood
>when I've done that rather than dwell on my feelings. Ii don't know about
>suicide but I do know I feel better witing about something different than
>my
>I's feelings all the time - this may be the roots of anti-lyricism if such
>an animal exists.
>
>This is also the reverse of the old couple communication therapy technique
>of asking each party to preface all remarks with a statement of feelings,
>as
>in "I feel _______ when you." Uncomfortable, but it sure cuts down on the
>blaming smokescreen.
>
>tom bell
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Dominic Fox" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 5:30 PM
>Subject: Numbers games
>
>
> > Rebecca wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Dominic,
> >
> > > Well, I agree with your sense of computers, in their increasing
> > > subtlety of traction, and with your earlier posts about programming
> > > vis a vis Macs.
> >
> > > My sense is more what is the point beyond an 'interesting
> > > exercise'? The greater subtlety and discernment of which
> > > such a computer program is capable arrives merely at what
> > > is simply and obviously known. The gender of an author is
> > > not usually a mystery,
> > > and so having a computer program that can discern the author's
> > > gender from a text is useful how?
> >
> > It indicates that there is something generic in the text itself. If I
>don't
> > consciously write "as a male author", and don't sign my text, it's still
> > possible for a statistical analysis of my text to produce a guess at my
> > gender that has a pretty good chance of being right. That's
> > an "interesting" fact about gender: that it produces, willy-nilly
>(sorry!),
> > textual effects that can be statistically examined with some degree of
> > pertinence, irrespective of authorial intent.
> >
> > The "interesting exercise" would be the exercise of trying to write in
>such
> > a way as to get the statistical measuring instrument (usually a computer
> > nowadays) to guess wrong - in other words, to bring the gender of the
>text
> > back under conscious authorial control (and from thereon to manipulate
>it).
> >
> > I don't seriously believe this would work in the same way for suicidal
> > tendencies, btw.
> >
> > Dominic
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