If one loves Grammaticus so much, why doesn't one marry him?
Sir,
I have taken to writing brief, non-scary fan letters to favoured essayists, largely in the TLS, with a grown up ink pen on non-lined paper. I have received gratifyingly short responses thus far to my letters to the poet Hugo Williams (son of the 30s film star Hugh Williams) who wrote about Mary Plain, from Alan Sillitoe on the romance of maps, particularly those Cold War A-Z maps designed to help the invasion of Grimsby, and from A.S.Byatt discussing the feminist writings of Peter Cheyney.
In this vein (now there's another good example, vane or vein, bear or bare ?), I did enjoy your recent JPT.
I particularly enjoyed [http://www.jptarchives.provincialthought.com/Issue%201%20April%202007/a_intro/index.html "Vertext to Vortext," with Saxo Grammaticus, April 1 2007].
The company Nuclear Safety Principles, a subject on which I am now allegedly familar, were issued with extensive checking and Quality Assurance in 2000. "NSP's" and their parent "SAP's" (HM Government Health & Safety Executive Nuclear Installations Inspectorate - Safety Assessment Principles) appear throughout the company documentation. The aberrant apostrophe strikes again.
I will be using the above page as a lesson in future, since any attempt to refer to Fowler or Partridge has failed thus far.
Keep up the JPT.
--Yours etc.
pp C.W.Fassbinder, Brigadier, QARNNS (ret'd), Leamington Spa
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Indifferent and proud of it
Dear Editor, JPT:
There is no extraordinary leap from skepticism to indifference, Pyrrho being identified with both. Skeptical of any absolute veracity in the impressions of the outside world conveyed to us by our senses, Pyrrho became indifferent to appearances, i.e., to phenomena. His indifference in the absence of knowable Truth refines the "contentment" attitude of Anaxarchus, about whom there exists more speculation than certainty, but whose arguably non-indifferent taste for opulence in the company of Alexander the Great is established in the writings of Plutarch et al. Accounts depicting Pyrrho and Anaxarchus are colored by anecdote. While the precise thought of Anaxarchus is more the mystery, through him the elements of skepticism are said to have passed from Democritus to Pyrrho. Both Pyrrho and Anaxarchus held that truth--reality--is but a construction of convention, therefore lacking inherent (natural) value. Anaxarchus chose to enjoy the fruits of his own value assignments, whereas Pyrrho was interested less in value and experience than in holding to strict indifference. To Anaxarchus the question clearly occurred, why bother with life if but to ignore its gifts? Pyrrho himself was known to wash the occasional pig; it seems less likely an arbitrary act than one in which he found or to which he assigned value of a sort.
--R.M.
Dear editors,
Your inspiring account of Pyrrho of Elis and illumination of indifference as the ideal took me back to heady days in open-window college classrooms where bright-eyed savants competitively modeling perspectives effortlessly transcended convention with shameless disingenuousness-- perfectly all right, as nobody suffered any illusion that the bulk sum of spent words meant anything next to a chilled mug of draft. Thanks for making things a little unreal again.
--Long Sold-Out but Not Gone
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2 b r gnot 2 b an intellectual harrier
[Dear JPT,]
Admonishment #113 RULZ! [Issue 1 April 2007.]
--your friend,
one of the less intelligent (be eversogentle)
[Dear JPT,]
There's no way [a certain JPT editor] had anything to do with Admonishment # 113. The dumb and stupid have their days and we have ours............And isn't Admon. # 113 condescending to dumb/stupid people? Let them be the butt of jokes and putdowns the way everybody else in this place is. Everybody. Humor ( even wicked humor ) connects us. That's a good thing. Now sometimes life is complicated and painful. Degrees of slowness and circumstances and such.....Anybody else seen The Wringer? ["Iron Neck and the Wringer," Film Flam & Flik Flops, Issue 1 April 2007.] I like the site.
--EJF
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Editor, J. Provincial Thought:
I'm setting my heart on getting my poem published for millions of onlookers:
You killed my spouse with laughter and then you turned your guns on me
The Wild-West Comic Cut-Ups is no place I care to be
There's danger in each dirty joke that ricochets around
And Polecat Pete, his aim's so sweet he'll gun your grannie down
"Avoid the tent with bullets spent in teaching folks to dance
It isn't fun to watch your son get dry-gulched in the pants
It's more than bad to see your dad sent toes-up as a joke
And how it haunts to know your aunts in merriment must croak"
Well I'm not laughing at your game, your blood-soaked pseudo-sport
I've half a mind to drag you six-gun sickos into court
A worthy verdict, I shan't doubt, would see your owners swing
For all the trick shots they have pulled, the pain and everything
--J.C. Merit
Dear Mr. Merit, Sir,
Coincidentally enough, JPT has an almost identical piece scheduled for early 2008 and so must decline. We wish you luck in lowering your publishing sights! By the way, it is not easy to know what your version is about.
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So sit the fence and throw bricks
Sirs and Madams,
There are clearly unsettled issues in the formulation of JPT's guiding principles, with official statements loudly contested by rebel elements. I wonder-- if I should throw in my lot prematurely and the opposing faction ultimately prevail, any chance of keeping my head?
--Argonut
Dear Argonut,
Often, one's head is a large part of one's problem. --Why can't you just pick a side?
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Confidential to RA:
Unfortunately, if we used our influence with "the so-called experts at M.I.T." who have "chosen to ignore" your inquiry, we would soon find ourselves without influence altogether. You must furthermore understand that we cannot participate in activities that "threaten the universe."
Copyright 2007 All Rights Reserved
Inutility
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