On Fri, 15 May 1998, Pete Smith & Lyn Richards Wool wrote:
> it's fine by me to
> get reports of these events so far away, eg the Cork Conference (is
> there more of that report perhaps to come soon?), svp readings, 6 Towns
> would be lovely to hear about.
- good idea, Pete, and while we're on, let's keep them open and
informative, rather than in-jokey, however obvious the in-jokes are. That
way we contribute to the breaking down of barriers which might - despite
our very best intentions - have been growing up. Let's keep those
reporting channels open, by all means. Good to get the Ginsberg Memorial
report, frinstance.
Strange the heat that any adverse comment on Cambridge generates "from
within" as it were, the oppressive irony which has to be used to defend
that poor, shy CCCP (with its laudable structure and ambitions, which I'm
sure everyone recognises and approves) which wasn't under attack anyway.
Just the dialogue around it, which remains pretty inward-looking at best.
If people (a few) tell me they felt excluded or whatever at those fine
events, then, that's what they tell me. The Jacket review, (which an
earlier comment - perhaps ironically, in accordance with the spirit of the
place - described as "completely stupid and irritating. It's just smug fly
nonsense") with its combination of heavy humour and nudge-winkiness, and
the correspondence round it, do nothing to shift such a view. I could now
say to The Excluded that The Scoutmaster says they're just being silly, so
jolly well snap out of it, but in context I doubt the effectiveness of
such a response.
But I risk prolonging a thread which as I've already said I think has
passed its sellby date.
RC
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