[ExI] outing myself

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 7:25 PM spike jones via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat
>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] outing myself
>
> On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 3:37 PM Dave Sill via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 5:36 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >> To Dave and Dan and whoever:  it was a sendup, a parody, a satire -
> overstating indeed!  Sorry if you are miffed.
> >
> > We're cool. I was just a bit surprised.
>
> >...We're cool too. (I mean Bill W and I. No conflict with you, Dave.:) No
> need to worry about me being thin-skinned.
>
> >...Regards,  Dan
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> The joke's on me!  I totally fell for it, and I am still down there: I agree
> with the literal commentary of BillW's parody.  I really do think Finnegan's
> Wake is a literary joke.  It's a novel-length version of Jabberwocky, but
> far less clever and less meaningful that Lewis Carroll's popular poetic
> wordspew.  Joyce played a big practical joke on the literature professor
> class, and the silly goofs took the bait.
>
> The above isn't satire or parody, or even self-effacing humor (ja I know, I
> do stuff like that all the time (but not this time.))  I really am calling
> bullshit on James Joyce.  I am really claiming that book is almost entirely
> meaningless, and if literature professors wish for me to slog thru it to try
> to find meaning, I will cheerfully wordspew back to them that Finnegan's
> Wake is a brilliant vision of the future where confusion mingles with hope
> for uploading into a silicon-based simulated existence, cleverly disguised
> as utter nonsense.

No one's forcing you to read it -- much less interpret it. :)

My guess is it's not a literary joke in any sense you or others here
mean. That said, Joyce's work abounds in humor, sometimes dark, and
jokes. It's not like he's hidden that.

But Bill W's joke wasn't merely to attack _Finnegan's Wake_ -- which
is apparently the go to whipping boy for serious literature here --
but all modernism, postmodern, pre-modernism... And he went on to
attack poetry and music too. (With music, I kind of subscribe to the
'if it sounds good, it is good' view. But what doesn't sound good to
me I can sometimes be brought around to with the proper attention and
'training.') But he admits now that this was all just a 'sendup' or
'parody' or 'satire' now. But of whom?

If you parody or sendup someone, that means you imitate them in a
mocking manner, no? Just holding forth on views they disagree with
without being serious isn't a sendup or a parody as such. Instead it's
better to call it a 'put on' or teasing. At least that's how I would
classify what Bill W says he did. (I usually avoid doing this online
because it's too easily misinterpreted. And teasing can cross the line
for some people. I try not to be a bully online or in person. I'm not
saying Bill W did that, though some teasing often seems to aim at and
achieve just that. I've had a lot of caffeine today...:)

Regards,

Dan
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http://author.to/DanUst