Maudit Anglais
by Dr. Electolux
sibling rivalry sucks
wycliff chicken’s clucks
pounding rain on ducks
fighter planes called fukes
simpson shows have yucks
heroes men with plucks
ford 250 trucks
yours electrolux
Is it swearing when said, by myself, in a language I do not understand? This—this sentence—would be a profound start to any serious investigation by a pre modernist, modernist or postmodernist work of fiction or poetry. I do not care about the answer. I do not wish to answer the question. I do not wish to ask it either. But I wish to examine the asking of it, or of any question that is asked in order to be answered or in order to mock the question and the answer or the question or the answer. This exegesis of the question above, this interpretation, is what fledgling philosophers mean when they say (displaying their wisdom), “Today, after Auschwitz, philosophy’s purpose can only be to question the possibility of the question.” In strong contrast to my feelings on the matter, Philosophy’s spokeswomen mean, “If only there was an answer” when they state aloud that there can be no questions. They are saying in fact that there are no discoveries that matter. The world—science, philosophy, agriculture, history – says the opposite. The profound desires in the breasts of philosophers Tate in York University, Braddigan at Stanford, Williams of Connecticut College, Smith at Harvard, Wayland at Oxford, Morrissette in Calcutta, and Smudgedigit in Edinburg are that a world of meaning be restored, found, sought, plied, worked, willed, wanged, split open, forged, jerked into being, discovered, fine-tuned, lamented, praised, scrounged, fought for, converged upon, analyzed, credited, raised, magnified, transcended, looked at and so on. Thus, “there is no question “is greeted by the only emotion allowed, despair, but unspoken of as such. “Let us never say ‘I despair,’ but keep searching,” is the agreement between all of this latter group of philosophers. ‘Let us find meaning’ is their bureaucracy, their jobs depending on it. Meaning, and the search for it, are economic. Prevailing hierarchies depend on the pull and push of meaning. Ms. Jane Scott, PhD, assistant professor of continental philosophy, would never, despite her three decades of studying Derrida, and thus, of course, Heidegger, admit that she was in any way clodded into a spectacularity of meaning’s thrusts and that she would defend the presence of the absence of meaning with her very life, until she nearly lost it (life and job at the Univ. of British Columbia) and then give up on it as easily as she gave up on her kid when it became plain that he was actually going to be a serious alcoholic and she could not fix him at all. The questions’ presence or absence matters not a bit. It is inconsequential in the absolute. What matters to me is the fact that those who lament its absence want it to be the point of discussion. After this short and stupid piece, I will never again bother with “the question.”
Who am I? I will tell you by telling you a story about myself. I am now 56. When I was 23 I got married to a very pretty 19-year-old. I asked her if she would be my bride. She agreed. We were married six months later on a very hot day when the suits of those attending the wedding were soaked with sweat, and perspiration ran down the inside of the bride’s dress, front and back, in rivulets. A male attendant fell fainting to the floor before the minister. He chipped a tooth. I was almost as shortsighted then as I am now. My parents drove up from Abbotsford, 1500 miles away. They were too poor to come to the affair but they did so anyway. My father is/was a proud man. My mother is a proud woman. What she said did not always go. I do not recall any of the music that was played at the event. Muchachoes. The minister droned on and on. After the ceremony, everyone ate and opened presents and shook hands many times and laughed and felt terrible in the heat, and then my bride and I left for Mexico in my Volkswagen bug. The first night we drank wine, loved once, and fell asleep. In the morning I noticed that the room was neat and had been vacuumed and purified by the order of some good management, even though it had cost us very little. The next day we drove all the way to the Grand Canyon and looked down into it through a pay telescope. Then we made the fateful decision to hike down into the canyon along one of its many trails. We did that and after 6 miles in the 110° conditions, we arrived at the bottom and were soon sitting and lyi g beside the Colorado as it flowed past. We went on our honeymoon into Mexico as far south as cChiquaqua and visited Mennonite villages in the western hills before returning home to Winnipeg. We are still married some 35 years later. My wife will retire from teaching primary school in two years. I will continue to teach at the University of Manitoba for another six or seven years, and then we will see. What do you make of that?
by Dr. Electolux
sibling rivalry sucks
wycliff chicken’s clucks
pounding rain on ducks
fighter planes called fukes
simpson shows have yucks
heroes men with plucks
ford 250 trucks
yours electrolux
Is it swearing when said, by myself, in a language I do not understand? This—this sentence—would be a profound start to any serious investigation by a pre modernist, modernist or postmodernist work of fiction or poetry. I do not care about the answer. I do not wish to answer the question. I do not wish to ask it either. But I wish to examine the asking of it, or of any question that is asked in order to be answered or in order to mock the question and the answer or the question or the answer. This exegesis of the question above, this interpretation, is what fledgling philosophers mean when they say (displaying their wisdom), “Today, after Auschwitz, philosophy’s purpose can only be to question the possibility of the question.” In strong contrast to my feelings on the matter, Philosophy’s spokeswomen mean, “If only there was an answer” when they state aloud that there can be no questions. They are saying in fact that there are no discoveries that matter. The world—science, philosophy, agriculture, history – says the opposite. The profound desires in the breasts of philosophers Tate in York University, Braddigan at Stanford, Williams of Connecticut College, Smith at Harvard, Wayland at Oxford, Morrissette in Calcutta, and Smudgedigit in Edinburg are that a world of meaning be restored, found, sought, plied, worked, willed, wanged, split open, forged, jerked into being, discovered, fine-tuned, lamented, praised, scrounged, fought for, converged upon, analyzed, credited, raised, magnified, transcended, looked at and so on. Thus, “there is no question “is greeted by the only emotion allowed, despair, but unspoken of as such. “Let us never say ‘I despair,’ but keep searching,” is the agreement between all of this latter group of philosophers. ‘Let us find meaning’ is their bureaucracy, their jobs depending on it. Meaning, and the search for it, are economic. Prevailing hierarchies depend on the pull and push of meaning. Ms. Jane Scott, PhD, assistant professor of continental philosophy, would never, despite her three decades of studying Derrida, and thus, of course, Heidegger, admit that she was in any way clodded into a spectacularity of meaning’s thrusts and that she would defend the presence of the absence of meaning with her very life, until she nearly lost it (life and job at the Univ. of British Columbia) and then give up on it as easily as she gave up on her kid when it became plain that he was actually going to be a serious alcoholic and she could not fix him at all. The questions’ presence or absence matters not a bit. It is inconsequential in the absolute. What matters to me is the fact that those who lament its absence want it to be the point of discussion. After this short and stupid piece, I will never again bother with “the question.”
Who am I? I will tell you by telling you a story about myself. I am now 56. When I was 23 I got married to a very pretty 19-year-old. I asked her if she would be my bride. She agreed. We were married six months later on a very hot day when the suits of those attending the wedding were soaked with sweat, and perspiration ran down the inside of the bride’s dress, front and back, in rivulets. A male attendant fell fainting to the floor before the minister. He chipped a tooth. I was almost as shortsighted then as I am now. My parents drove up from Abbotsford, 1500 miles away. They were too poor to come to the affair but they did so anyway. My father is/was a proud man. My mother is a proud woman. What she said did not always go. I do not recall any of the music that was played at the event. Muchachoes. The minister droned on and on. After the ceremony, everyone ate and opened presents and shook hands many times and laughed and felt terrible in the heat, and then my bride and I left for Mexico in my Volkswagen bug. The first night we drank wine, loved once, and fell asleep. In the morning I noticed that the room was neat and had been vacuumed and purified by the order of some good management, even though it had cost us very little. The next day we drove all the way to the Grand Canyon and looked down into it through a pay telescope. Then we made the fateful decision to hike down into the canyon along one of its many trails. We did that and after 6 miles in the 110° conditions, we arrived at the bottom and were soon sitting and lyi g beside the Colorado as it flowed past. We went on our honeymoon into Mexico as far south as cChiquaqua and visited Mennonite villages in the western hills before returning home to Winnipeg. We are still married some 35 years later. My wife will retire from teaching primary school in two years. I will continue to teach at the University of Manitoba for another six or seven years, and then we will see. What do you make of that?
No comments:
Post a Comment