Today's Topics:
Re: los and women
Hearn post?
Re: los and women
RE: los and women
Pizza, Mr Blake?
Dickinson's "Chemical Wedding"
Re: "Hi, in your Utopia would you have parties?"
tu quoque?
party afterthoughts
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 11:05:32 -0600 (MDT)
From: bigley@selway.umt.edu (Bruce Bigley)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: los and women
Message-Id: <199809171705.LAA31599@selway.umt.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
In a way, I think this is a non-question (Similar to my students' eternal
question, "Is Blake talking about God or Man in this Passage?" to which the
answer is "YES". The or presumes a difference that is an illusion.)
"Everything possible to be believed is an image of the truth." (If we can
believe the devil at this point). But no single statement is the TRUTH. At
least a statement from Generation, where most of us spend our time. When we
attain Eternity and converse in Visionary Forms Dramatic, rather than words,
we will also be in a place where we are gendered, and must speak from a male
or female position. Since Blake is male, he generally speaks from a male
position and has a number of things to say about the female (many, but not
all, of them negative) from various of his voices or personae, who as mostly
male, have difficult conflicts with the female. Sometimes, however, he
seems to speak from a female position quite eloquently (Oothoon
particularly), and I wish there were more passages like this. It is easier
to see that Blake is heterosexist, I think.
My "Blakeian" answer to Rob's question is, it depends on which Milton, the
Urizenic one who wrote the doctrine or the imaginative one who protrayed an
exciting, but flawed Satan? Both are parts of Milton. He contains, like
Blake and Whitman, multitudes.
Bruce Bigley
>This is quite helpful (and a wonderful passage), but I wonder--and have
>wondered for some time--if we can be as sure about Milton differing from
>what God says in PL as we are about Blake differing from, say Los, or "the
>Voice of the Devil"? I think _The Marriage_ makes it difficult to credit
>any of the speakers as Blake's mouthpiece, or at least it makes it clear
>that even if Blake were speaking directly in it, that is not an
>authoritative voice, but a force of imposition. I am not enough of a
>scholar of Milton to convince myself one way or the other of Milton's
>resistance to imposing.
>
>Rob Anderson
>At 09:47 AM 9/17/1998 -0500, you wrote:
>>This is in response to Bruce Bigley's response to my question about Los and
>>women. I think Blake's attitude women and sex in general is pretty
>problematic,
>>especially if you take the long view of his career as a whole. I tend to
>think
>>that he confronts this issue finally at around plates 87-88 in *J*. Los has
>>just sung his song to Jerusalem -- a wonderful song that is sung in a
>universal
>>moment of pause (J 85:14-21 for that moment of pause). In *The Continuing
>>City* Morton Paley sees this song as the climactic triumph for Los, a point
>>that I think is not supported by the text. Los goes home only to find that
>>Enitharmon is not happy about all the time he has been spending thinking
>>about Jerusalem and Vala, and they have a big fight, apparently about sex
>>(87:3-6). Essentially Enitharmon insists on the value of her own creative
>>impulses:
>> Enitharmon answerd: No! I will sieze thy Fibres & weave
>> Them: not as thou wilt but as I will, for I will Create
>> A round Womb beneath my bosom lest I also be overwoven
>> With Love; be thou assured I never will be thy slave (87:12-16).
>>>From there it only gets worse. Clearly Enitharmon does speak "in scorn &
>>jealousy," but she does have a point as well, and Los's response doesn't
>help
>>the situation -- "Los answerd sighing like the Bellows of his Furnaces / I
>care
>>not!" (88:1-2). Los then tries to get back to work and Enitharmon goes to
>>sit by the beach in Sussex. This scene culminates in what is usually seen as
>>one of Blake's most sexist comments: "The Man who respects Woman shall be
>>despised by Woman . . . " (88:37ff.).
>>
>>But we should recognize that these are not "Blake's" words, but the words of
>>Los's Spectre, and herein lies the way, I think, to deal with so many
>>problems in Blake, and that is to recognize that these characters are not
>>"mouthpieces" for Blake as they are so often characterized. Los is *not*
>Blake,just as Enitharmon, the Spectre, Oothoon, Bromion and all the rest
>are not
>>Blake. They are characters in his visionary dramas. In order to dramatize
>>these confrontations, Blake must be distinct from them. Robert Gleckner told
>>me one time that he didn't think that Blake spoke in his own person at all
>>in the *Marriage*, and I would like to extend that insight to all of the
>>illuminated
>>books. People quote Blake's poetry all the time -- Blake says this and Blake
>>says that. Well, maybe Blake wrote that, but does he agree with everything
>>his characters say? Do we think that Milton agrees with everything Satan,
>>or Adam or Eve, or even God says? Of course not. The sexism we may see in
>>Blake is there, but it is not necessarily Blake's. It is rather Blake's
>>dramatization of these issues as they relate to the characters he has
>created.
>>
>>I'm sitll thinking through lots of this myself, but try this out on your
>class.
>>
>>Paul Yoder
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 12:29:00 -0500
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Hearn post?
Message-Id: <98091712290069@wc.stephens.edu>
Sometime during the past couple of weeks, there was a post about
Lafcadio Hearn's essays on Blake. I seem to have deleted it
inadvertently. Would the person who posted it (or someone else who
still has it) be kind enough to forward it to me? Many thanks and
appreciations.
Tom Dillingham (tomdill@wc.stephens.edu)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 12:12:16 -0600 (MDT)
From: bigley@selway.umt.edu (Bruce Bigley)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: los and women
Message-Id: <199809171812.MAA03763@selway.umt.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Sorry, rereading this I see a confusing misstatement
>In a way, I think this is a non-question (Similar to my students' eternal
>question, "Is Blake talking about God or Man in this Passage?" to which the
>answer is "YES". The or presumes a difference that is an illusion.)
>"Everything possible to be believed is an image of the truth." (If we can
>believe the devil at this point). But no single statement is the TRUTH. At
>least a statement from Generation, where most of us spend our time.
The following When should be Until.
When we
>attain Eternity and converse in Visionary Forms Dramatic, rather than words,
>we will also be in a place where we are gendered, and must speak from a male
>or female position. Since Blake is male, he generally speaks from a male
>position and has a number of things to say about the female (many, but not
>all, of them negative) from various of his voices or personae, who as mostly
>male, have difficult conflicts with the female. Sometimes, however, he
>seems to speak from a female position quite eloquently (Oothoon
>particularly), and I wish there were more passages like this. It is easier
>to see that Blake is heterosexist, I think.
>
>My "Blakeian" answer to Rob's question is, it depends on which Milton, the
>Urizenic one who wrote the doctrine or the imaginative one who protrayed an
>exciting, but flawed Satan? Both are parts of Milton. He contains, like
>Blake and Whitman, multitudes.
>
>Bruce Bigley
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>This is quite helpful (and a wonderful passage), but I wonder--and have
>>wondered for some time--if we can be as sure about Milton differing from
>>what God says in PL as we are about Blake differing from, say Los, or "the
>>Voice of the Devil"? I think _The Marriage_ makes it difficult to credit
>>any of the speakers as Blake's mouthpiece, or at least it makes it clear
>>that even if Blake were speaking directly in it, that is not an
>>authoritative voice, but a force of imposition. I am not enough of a
>>scholar of Milton to convince myself one way or the other of Milton's
>>resistance to imposing.
>>
>>Rob Anderson
>>At 09:47 AM 9/17/1998 -0500, you wrote:
>>>This is in response to Bruce Bigley's response to my question about Los and
>>>women. I think Blake's attitude women and sex in general is pretty
>>problematic,
>>>especially if you take the long view of his career as a whole. I tend to
>>think
>>>that he confronts this issue finally at around plates 87-88 in *J*. Los has
>>>just sung his song to Jerusalem -- a wonderful song that is sung in a
>>universal
>>>moment of pause (J 85:14-21 for that moment of pause). In *The Continuing
>>>City* Morton Paley sees this song as the climactic triumph for Los, a point
>>>that I think is not supported by the text. Los goes home only to find that
>>>Enitharmon is not happy about all the time he has been spending thinking
>>>about Jerusalem and Vala, and they have a big fight, apparently about sex
>>>(87:3-6). Essentially Enitharmon insists on the value of her own creative
>>>impulses:
>>> Enitharmon answerd: No! I will sieze thy Fibres & weave
>>> Them: not as thou wilt but as I will, for I will Create
>>> A round Womb beneath my bosom lest I also be overwoven
>>> With Love; be thou assured I never will be thy slave (87:12-16).
>>>>From there it only gets worse. Clearly Enitharmon does speak "in scorn &
>>>jealousy," but she does have a point as well, and Los's response doesn't
>>help
>>>the situation -- "Los answerd sighing like the Bellows of his Furnaces / I
>>care
>>>not!" (88:1-2). Los then tries to get back to work and Enitharmon goes to
>>>sit by the beach in Sussex. This scene culminates in what is usually seen as
>>>one of Blake's most sexist comments: "The Man who respects Woman shall be
>>>despised by Woman . . . " (88:37ff.).
>>>
>>>But we should recognize that these are not "Blake's" words, but the words of
>>>Los's Spectre, and herein lies the way, I think, to deal with so many
>>>problems in Blake, and that is to recognize that these characters are not
>>>"mouthpieces" for Blake as they are so often characterized. Los is *not*
>>Blake,just as Enitharmon, the Spectre, Oothoon, Bromion and all the rest
>>are not
>>>Blake. They are characters in his visionary dramas. In order to dramatize
>>>these confrontations, Blake must be distinct from them. Robert Gleckner told
>>>me one time that he didn't think that Blake spoke in his own person at all
>>>in the *Marriage*, and I would like to extend that insight to all of the
>>>illuminated
>>>books. People quote Blake's poetry all the time -- Blake says this and Blake
>>>says that. Well, maybe Blake wrote that, but does he agree with everything
>>>his characters say? Do we think that Milton agrees with everything Satan,
>>>or Adam or Eve, or even God says? Of course not. The sexism we may see in
>>>Blake is there, but it is not necessarily Blake's. It is rather Blake's
>>>dramatization of these issues as they relate to the characters he has
>>created.
>>>
>>>I'm sitll thinking through lots of this myself, but try this out on your
>>class.
>>>
>>>Paul Yoder
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 15:14:55 -0500
From: RPYODER@ualr.edu
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: RE: los and women
Message-Id: <980917151455.20c2edd9@ualr.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
About whether Milton agrees with what God says: I knew this point was if-y
when I wrote it, but if you look at Milton scholarship, especially concerning
the issue of predestination in Milton, you'll see that there is quite a bit
of question about how closely Milton may or may not agree with the Father's
position on the implications of foreknowledge and free will. Moreover, Milton
's God does have a sense of humor -- he has the Son in stitches (so to speak)
at times with the irony of his statements. Unfortunately God's irony is often
overlooked, in which case, he apparently says some pretty outrageous things.
About why we so often hear negative comments about women in Blake: the problem
is that Blake recognizes that the world is in the hands of the Spectre. "I am
God" the Spectre tells Albion in Chapter 3 of *J*, and unfortunately that is
what most people seem to believe, so they spout the Spectre's doctrine and
think that is religion. As Ralph and the Devil in *MHH* point out, it is a
waste of time to try to talk them out of that. The question is, can we do
anything to change the situation besides preserve the divine vision in time of
trouble? Deep dissimulation may be the only refuge a good person has left,
but what does that mean? Do we live our lives in disguise while we chip away
at Albion's "foundation and certainty and demonstrative truth" (J 28:11)?
We seem to have reached a point in the US of A where "every Act [is] a crime"
and ***** (fill in your own blank here) is the "punisher and judge" (J 28:4).
So-called "family values" is the biggest Spectral scam yet.
Blake knew that 200 years ago.
Paul Yoder
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 22:04:50 +0100
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Pizza, Mr Blake?
Message-Id: <199809172104.WAA25967@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>I suppose what really interests me about your view of Blake Tim is
>that you consciously place yourself in a contrary position as far as
>Blake himself would have been concerned. Imagine what he would
>have thought of you if you'd told him to his face that his visions were
>the result of altered brain chemistry and that infact he was wrong in
>much of what he thought. Imagine the notebook poems.
In some senses we have already seen them (cf the remarks about blockheads)
since many people did precisely this. To be honest, I'm not all that
bothered about offending the sensibilities of someone who has been dead for
170 years, and of course it is quite possible that were I able to somehow go
back in time and talk with him, I might reach different conclusions (I
should certainly buy a great deal of his work first though). What interests
me is the truth, or at least what seems likely on the balance of probability
to be the truth, bearing in mind that Blake is and will remain enigmatic
because he sits on the cusp between the practical pragmatic world of a
journeyman engraver and the wild mystical existence of the visionary,
between the rationalism of the industrial revolution, and the superstition
of previous centuries. We have all the evidence we will ever have about him:
conjecture is all that remains.
You might note though that Blake's closest friends were all very much
contrary to Blake in one area or another. Fuseli, despite superficial
stylisic similarity, was at the heart of the art establishment which
rejected Blake so totally. Butts was a clergyman, casting his nets of
religion upon all and sundry. Varley spent long hours arguing with Blake in
favour the somewhat Newtonian concept of predestination as demonstrated by
astrology. Linnell was at the time he knew Blake a fervent naturalist and a
Baptist dissenter, which creed put great stress on the accurate
dissemination of astronomical and scientific knowledge as revealing of God's
purpose. Palmer and Richmond were very 'high church' indeed, about as far
from Blake philosophically as it is possible to be. Apart from the fact they
all had something they could argue with Blake about, the common thread which
allowed such different men to become Blake's friends was their genuine love
of the man and his work and their refusal to judge him spitefully, or to
label him as insane.
Which leads us back to the point in which I lobbed in my grenade a couple of
weeks ago. Neither I nor Friedlander (as far as I understand him) have ever
done - mental abnormality is not madness, and schizophrenia does not, as
Hollywood would have us believe, necessarily lead to axe wielding maniacs in
ice hockey masksd disemboweling teenagers. We do ourselves no favours by
summarily disregarding the possibility as a taboo subject, even if it is
only to be eliminated on closer examination.
Much of Blake's imagery is recognizable in the experiences of hallucinogenic
drugs (which is one reason he is popular with members of this subculture) or
in the accounts of shamen using trance or drugs to induce altered states.
Some, according to Friedlander (e.g. 'The fluid influence of Prince Hal')
are similar to statement of schizophreniacs. But only Blake was capable of
mixing this subconscious imagery with the contents of his own fantasic
conscious imagination so that it became unsurpassed art and literature. It
is all his creation, wherever it came from, and I love it.
Tim
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 16:07:29 -0500
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Dickinson's "Chemical Wedding"
Message-Id: <98091716072898@wc.stephens.edu>
Nathan is right that the recent Bruce Dickinson album, "Chemical Wedding"
includes several songs relevant to Blake. One, "Jerusalem," uses the
familiar words of the prologue to _Milton_, with some added lines and
shrieks; the opening section of the piece is surprisingly tame and
almost reverent to the words, but it "takes off" in standard metal
style later on. The other songs with Blake-ish overtones include
"The Book of Thel" (which is at least thematically similar to some
elements of that poem), "Gates of Urizen" (which begins, "As above,
so below, all things come from the one" and includes an anaphoric
reference to "At the gates of Urizen" and possibly "Trumpets of Jericho,"
though that is a stretch.
There is more. The back of the album does reproduce the Tate Gallery
version of Satan Striking Job with Boils" and the front of it
shows a somewhat distorted version of "Ghost of the Flea." Inside,
we find "Nebuchadnezzar" and the so-called "Good and Evil Angels."
On the back of the booklet, "The Four and Twenty Elders Casting
their Crowns Before the Divine Throne"--that being a considerably
less familiar image from Blake's oeuvre.
I am neither a fan of heavy metal nor competent to judge its
quality, but as compared with some other musical settings of Blake,
this is not one I would recommend. But metal fans might well find
it engaging.
Tom Dillingham
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 16:26:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: "Hi, in your Utopia would you have parties?"
Message-Id: <2.2.16.19980917191853.3faff618@pop.igc.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 06:00 PM 9/17/98 +0100, Paul Tarry wrote:
>I wonder if Ralph holds similar views in the sense of consciously
>disagreeing with Blake? Tim seems openly, well he actually says that
>"Blake was wrong" about many things. With Ralph the things that
>Blake is actually saying seem to be read markedly differently. Ralph
>objects strongly to a mother saying her dead son "had gone to a
>better place." In my reading of Blake, the man who sung himself to
>death, I would have usually seen him saying similar things to the
>mother.
This is a fair question. When I am in a more leisurely frame of mind, I'll
have to make a mental inventory of what I agree with and disagree with.
Obviously, as a secular humanist, there are some things I will have to
disagree with. More importantly are the explanations for the differences.
As per the recent discussion over deism and unbelief, the real issue is
unearthing the operant meanings of these words more than just agreeing or
disagreeing with them. For example, R. Albright always finds himself amazed
at Blake's dismissal of liberalism, Rousseau, Voltaire, parliamentarianism,
etc. Aside from the actual ambiguities in Blake's position, Blake's
condemnation of liberalism, which wasn't so liberal after all when you
consider slavery, genocide against the peasantry, terrorizing of the working
class, empire-building, etc., may lack his usual appreciation of dialectical
contradictions that move history onward, but they are not a mystery. Minna
Doskow has pretty convincingly explained Blake's position, so it need not
remain an enigma to bang one's head against the wall over for all eternity.
I'll have to give more thought about where I disagree with Blake. You might
have asked where I agree with him, given my alleged extreme unspirituality.
Well, I think Blake had a deeper understanding of the fundamental
assumptions underlying human behavior and how it is distorted by the
limitations of environment and social institutions than just about anybody
in human history. There is nobody who goes to the bottom of things like Blake.
You're completely wrong about Blake spouting such nonsense to the mother in
question nor would he accept her attempts to rationalize such a needless
death, a death for which patriarchy was directly responsible as well as the
exigencies of pure accident that may occur when one speeds down a road at
100 miles an hour. The meaning of the mother's statement is not an abstract
proposition that belongs in the perennial philosophy of Kathleen Raine. How
many times must I repeat the obvious? This woman has no self-esteem; all
that she says is a manifestation of the slave mentality, of a repressed and
psychologically debilitated person, the very mentality that Blake set his
whole life to opposing. There is no truth more plain than this.
This is really where the disputes over Blake come in. There are many
mysteries in this world, and in Blake's work as well. But there are also
many things in this world and in Blake's world which are not mysteries at
all, not in the least mysterious except to those who want to mystify them
because they can't deal with reality. This is at the heart of the
acrimonious bickering that occurs here. There are people who think that
there is something spiritual about being a vacuous airhead and never being
held accountable to any reality. I find such people loathsome. Now I don't
pretend to duplicate the philosophy of Blake in my own person, which would
be impossible in any case. One learns and grows not by trying to imitate
somebody else, but by strictly comparing and contrasting what you stand for
with what someone else stands for, so that you can learn more about their
assumptions and yours, and this be true to yourself while benefiting from
the wisdom of others. I don't care whether Blake saw angels in trees, nor
do I dismiss others as deranged because they converse with the dead. I
lived through the 60s' and '70s, what do I care about such minor
eccentricities? Fact is, Blake was no airhead; he was an acute, critical
and uncommonly rational observer of what was going on around him, with some
very definite and determinate things to say about human behavior and
society. If you can't see this, you're wasting everybody's time, and all of
your esoteric folderol won't help you. I've spoken plainly and plainly
again, and I can't make it any plainer. Whereof one cannot further speak,
thereof one must remain silent.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 22:42:31 -0500
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: tu quoque?
Message-Id: <98091722423122@wc.stephens.edu>
I do not intend, of course, to quote Ms. Van Schaik's words as
evidence, since it has never occurred to me to archive them as
treasures to be cherished. Like many on the list, I suppose I
would rather let the ongoing debate die out, but since silence
is too often mistaken for assent, I am unwilling to let it be
thought that Ms. Van Schaik's canards are worthy of approval.
Ms. Van Schaik appears to deny the existence of the "tu quoque"
argument in her endless posts. I can only suggest that anyone
who has been reading her for the past few weeks must surely have
noticed the frequency with which she has insisted that challenges
or criticisms of her posts have been "really," in her terms,
descriptions of the posters. It is all reminiscent of a
child in a schoolyard squealing "takes one to know one!" and
insisting that her adversary is "a bigger nasty [whatever]".
Probably Ms. Van Schaik will deny that she has been doing this,
but I doubt that anyone else on the list can have missed her
display of this tired evasion of discussion.
As for illogic, the persistence with which Ms. Van Schaik offers
fervent testimonials to her "evidence" and then reversed herself
when challenged has already been demonstrated by Tim Linnell.
For an example that I can at least paraphrase accurately, Ms.
Van Schaik has repeatedly suggested that I "create an edition"
that eliminates all the spiritual elements in Blake. This
begs so many questions that it is indeed typical of the
illogic and irrationality of her posts. It is also a "tu
quoque," since it is, in fact, her response to my consistent
position that her theosophical/spiritualistic readings of
not only Blake but other literature (some may remember her
nearly hysterical reaction to a historicist reading of
Shakespeare's _Tempest_--really a virtuoso display of its
kind) is reductive and simplistic. Her question begging
is obvious in that she suggests that I have denied there
are spiritual elements in Blake. In fact, she cannot possibly
support such a statement. Only a fool would deny the
spiritual elements in Blake. What I deny is not Blake's
spirituality, which is all too evident, but the validity
of the *spiritualism*--the table-tapping theosophical
mumbojumbo that Ms. Van Schaik regularly offers as her
intepretations of Blake and then, when challenged,
spins about and tries to pretend is not what she really
has meant.
Ms. Van Schaik's "thanks for the party" posting (there, I did
quote some of her words) is the most recent example of her
efforts to obscure or reconfigure the record of her many
years of posting to this list. (In my memory, the whole
conflict with her began years ago during a discussion of
The Book of Thel, to which she applied her same spiritualistic
reading and became extremely exercised against those who
posed other versions.) I cannot agree with Tim Linnell
that this post represents a new stage in Ms. Van Schaik's
participation, since the insistence on the special brand
of spirituality Ms. Van Schaik chooses to peddle is still
prominent, at least in the second half of the post. Of
course we can all see the "Blake" she constructs in the
first half, and could not disagree with much of that
section, but she still is trying to be and not to be,
simultaneously, to affirm and to pretend not to affirm.
I fully intend not to pay any further attention to Ms. Van
Schaik and her spirits, but I do not care to leave her
ridiculous misrepresentations of my views or of my
discourse with her unchallenged. Perhaps she can
find happiness with her version of Thel in her
version of the Vale of Har. Who knows? Maybe that
"book" she has been advertising to us for lo, these
many years, will actually find a publisher in Har?
I would be fascinated to read it (really!).
Tom Dillingham
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 98 15:58:11 -0700
From: Seth T. Ross
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: party afterthoughts
Message-Id: <9809182258.AA01805@albion.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
I didn't mean to single anyone out in my "party" post. Nor was I asking
anyone to leave -- the unsubscribe instructions are posted for the benefit of
those who want out but can't find the door.
Further, I wish to state that I value all your contributions to the Blake
List. I am pleased to see notes of reconciliation pass as well as a return to
substantive posts. I request that we stick substance and refrain from
name-calling. Attack the message, not the messenger; if all else fails, learn
to ignore what you can't abide.
Finally, I ask that you be considerate of Albion.com's bandwidth. The party
metaphor was dead-on in the sense that the list is run from my home office.
The systems here are old ... ancient by Internet standards. Please consider
that each flurry of messages brings the mail server to its knees for a few
moments ... a handful of high-quality, well-conceived messages is better from
this perspective than the scattershot approach.
Onward,
Seth
"We're all going to fairyland, to fairyland, to fairyland we go
Pixies and gnomes and fairies abound
Over the hill and down by the well ..." -- Kula Shaker
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End of blake-d Digest V1998 Issue #69
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