[-empyre-] -empyre- pyres and family romances

[Johannes Birringer]

dear all

I am also confused about the less than moderate comments received, and I had already exchanged a puzzled letter with Simon Taylor down at Waiheke Island, who I felt was insulted, and feeling ashamed a bit that I am/I was not more outspoken to express my discomfort with this list that had given great impetus, many times, and also caused disappointment at other times.

That was really what I tried to say, I was not advocating passivity at all, dear Renate, I was suggesting (and yes, I am older and perhaps, like Ana, tired of lists and social media, or like Simon wonder, @youtoo, about the interesting and puzzling rejections that are floating, around the field, before 7th Seal, or death’s chess player interrupts as it happened last week, unpoetically but terminally; having wanted, in my last post, to pay my respects and gratitude to Melinda and Christina and the earlier artistic and vibrant intellectual exchanges here and on other lists that I like (un-moderated, like Netbehavior, without the need of “editorial boards”, a need never brought forward for discussion here to us who own this list and ought to have a say whether we want it) – so not having actually wanted to say I am overburdened by emails, or having no more time for this – on the contrary:

I was trying to ask, others here, whether we can eventually stop fooling ourselves, about the 5775 or 2175 followers or subscribers or reactors not reacting, if in fact this month only a handful of subscribers bothered to write, what nine, or twelve?  so why ask about a listserv and how to justify itself for a “new era,” when Simon’s or Christina’s brilliant posts simply end up in an empty chamber, without echo. If Ana suggest that she has given up waiting for reactions.  If there is not need for echo,  resonance, other than self-congratulation, no need for sharper critique and honesty, then I’d say, forget the era, it’s over, you (the pyre) were rejected, it burnt up. (And yes, a four-year lag is fine, for me, the letter I received was personal and never needed to be public.)

respectfully, and without regret,
thanking many and all here with whom I corresponded
over the years on discussions that moved me,
not backwards into a lost era of flaneurs, but forward,.

Johannes Birringer
dap-lab

________________________________________
[Simon schreibt]

I am confused about your introduction to my post: I am verbose? I am 
 also to the point. I am incomprehensible? I am also direct. I am 
 powerfully political. I am nonsensical. Poetic.
 
 ... I write to you as a recent PhD. in the job market, transcendent uber 
 alles. (Perhaps there is a market for the qualities you list? Please let 
 me know.)
[...]