>Dreadful is just the right word!
>What's an MOR? Who's this Phiber guy?
MOR is Middle Of the Road... I find the sight terribly white bread even
though it's pretending to be something a little more "open" or
"radical" than the usual political magazine. Maybe. Its voice seems to
me to pretend to some sort of smartass criticism and just doesn't. I
guess it's directed at the hip Washington crowd or something. [which
begs the question: how can one be truly hip in an armani suit?]
Phiber Optik, a few years ago, was a celebrated hacker kid who went to
jail for his efforts. He was released (last year?) and I guess is now
working full time for a respectable firm, writing CGIs or something. I
guess you know the jail stuff already if you followed the link Arthur
provided.
Speaking of whom, Congratulations! are in order on both becoming a
grandfather and on the Wired article! Whee, Arthur!
>Sorry to hear about your paper from Hell. I had one mere weeks ago,
>and thus can sympathize. Good luck,
> Tony :)
Oh, that paper [massive frustration]. My god, I've never had so much
trouble trying to write a little something for a course. The easy part
is that I'm comparing a scene in _Paradise Lost_ (The Fall) with a
scene in _Moby Dick_(ch 94), using the difficulties of muteness
(essentially, silence as a form of discourse and representational
language... that content of representational passages has meaning
without saying precisely whatever) as my theoretical position.
If the course were on Milton rather than Melville, I could just spend
some time ranting about how much of a copy cat Melville was and how he
just _cannot_ compare with the brilliance of Milton -- Melville, for
all his trying, simply doesn't compare to Milton's brilliant word play.
The requirement is that I write something on _Melville as a gay male
reading_ which, considering that that's a considerable appropriation of
voice, makes my task somewhat difficult (hence the subject I've
chosen... figgering that I can at least speak on silence/muteness and
make it seem that this is a gay reading). Not to mention that I have
tons more to say about Milton than Melville... At least there's lots of
Foucault on the subject of silence and discourse and sexuality; all the
same, this whole thing is a monumental pain in the ass.
Oh well... we're off to visit family for the holidays tomorrow. if
[hell spawn] is not in transit via fedex by tomorrow afternoon, I may
be screwed. Cross your fingers for me and hope the prof doesn't mind
too much that he'll get [serpentine garbage] nearly two weeks later. I
wouldn't want to hand in _complete_ shit, afterall.
I'll be offline for a week, in any case, beginning tomorrow night.
So... The Happiest of whichever denominational and non-denomenational
Midwinter Holidays to you all!
fran, babbling procrastinator.
______________
Satan as serpent first presents himself to Eve. Brilliant...
[...] He with Olympias, this with her who bore
Scipio the height of Rome. With tract oblique
At first, as one who sought access, but feared
To interrupt, sidelong he works his way.
As when a ship by skilful stearsman wrought
Nigh river's mouth or foreland, where the wind
Vers oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her sail;
So varied he, and of his tortuous train
Curled many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve [...]
(_PL_ IX.509-517)