On 22/6/05 9:15 AM, "judy prince" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Wasn't it Hitler who said,'if it feels good do it'?
Glen
> To Roger Day from Judy Prince
>
> Roger,
>
> Following are some quotes you may find friendly:
>
> **************************************
> "Follow your bliss" (Joseph Campbell, I think)
>
> "Go with your gut instinct; it will never steer you wrong" (a good friend)
>
> "Ever notice that 'What the hell!' is always the right decision?" (Marilyn
> Monroe)
>
> *************************************
>
> Consider this, Roger: What do you feel that you might lose if you do the
> MA? Are they things that are like cut toenails---happily and unconsciously
> dropped in the wastebasket because still attached they'd cause you no end of
> sharp pain and the eventual near-inability to move forward?
>
> Incidentally, I've an altogether revised life, having uprooted after 34
> years in Chicago. I moved here to Norfolk where I had neither family nor
> friends. No one, during my search for where to live, felt that I was making
> the right choice---to leave Chicago, let alone to go to a place that I
> barely knew! Because I had no way of knowing if they were right, and
> because I knew their concerns for my well being, I suffered greatly in what
> seemed endless tail-chasing to decide my own future.
>
> I've now been in Norfolk for nearly four years and think of it as my
> paradise. Few folks "back home" and even here understand my joy at being
> here. But, then, Roger, those folks must struggle and find their own paths
> and places, mustn't they? The struggle provides a rare opening for
> self-understanding. I don't see any loss in that whatsoever.
>
> Blessings on you as you move through your pathfinding, aided, always by the
> peace of trust-filled prayers,
>
> Judy
> from her paradise
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "roger day" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 11:55 AM
> Subject: Re: TO MY DEAR PETCIES: an explanation
>
>
> I see now that *part* of my motivation in applying for an MA course is
> in some part trying to get this magic. There are other reasons of
> course, some of which are real-world. Another is the fact that I've
> always wanted to take an English qualification ever since I was
> knee-high to a grasshopper. It maybe that I want to be in academia
> (I'll have to think on that).
>
> One course of action open to me is get out of my current job, sit
> there and write.
>
> Any poetecteras views on this quandry? Whether or not is nobler in the
> mind to take an MA or would rather fardles bear and stare at windows
> all the day, keyboard before me?
>
> Roger
>
> On 6/21/05, Ken Wolman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> roger day wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Your play was useful in that it allowed me to expose a little of my
>>> history to the list, so I tips me hat to you, whoever you are!
>>>
>>> Glad to be of service! I hope my bit-part fitted well in your theatre
>>> </bows to rapturous applause>.
>>>
>>> I've thought of taking a Poetry for Dummies course because I've
>>> sometime felt that I've been missing something, something that when I
>>> write goes astray. Of course, books and courses are never the answer.
>>>
>>>
>> And now Dr. Ken's Konfession. For years I believed such a thing
>> existed. Poetry for Dummies. If they can publish books like "Sex For
>> Dummies" ("Oh, THAT's what that's for! Hot damn!") and "Monte Carlo
>> Simulations for Dummies" (not, I assume, how to win at Vingt et Un), why
>> not "Poesie for Dummies" as well?
>>
>> Years ago, feeling that I was cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,
>> having no idea what a poem was, how to write one (even though I had), or
>> how to judge one without some Professor saying it was good, I tried to
>> find the magic book that had all the answers. The book I chose? <sit
>> down> William Empson's _Seven Types of Ambiguity_. No joke. No help.
>>
>> Oh, another plagiarism tale. True story. 1973, I'm a teaching
>> assistant. Three profs and me, the Shakespeare lecture course. I
>> thought I'd died and gone to Heaven. Then some kid in my personal
>> section hands me a paper, I forget on what, but as I'm reading it I'm
>> thinking "This kid writes fantastically, he can think on paper. Oh
>> God--wait a minute." I focus on the kid. The kid is nice, not a doofus
>> but not THAT bright. All of a sudden the writing sounds familiar. I am
>> the guy writing a dissertation on audience/reader response in
>> Shakespeare, and before I dropped him on his Scottish crown, Macbeth was
>> in there. So I knew the classic critical writings: A. C. Bradley, c.
>> 1904. I look at Bradley. I look back at the kid. It's the same
>> words. Bradley didn't plagiarize the kid, I guess. I forget how, but I
>> got a message to the kid to come to the office I was using. He did not
>> seem like a jive-artist, just a jerk. He walks in totally unfraid and
>> totally clueless. I confronted him with his unattributed quotes and
>> Bradley's text. I thought the kid was going to cry, then faint. He had
>> no idea that what he was doing was not kosher. NOBODY had ever taught
>> this kid about plagiarism. He literally did not know he'd done it. It
>> was easier for the teachers along the way to ignore the whole greasy
>> issue until it got to the desk of a 31-year-old teaching assistant. I
>> told him to get back to work, he had something like two days to correct
>> the mess he'd made. The paper turned out to be not too hot but it was
>> at least HIS not too hot.
>>
>> Ken
>>
>
|