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De-centered smiles
James G. Carrier (jgc5p@UVA.PCMAIL.VIRGINIA.EDU)
Mon, 24 Jan 1994 18:17:02 EST
Folks,
On Jan 24, 5:06pm, Economic system wrote:
First comment: In this post-modernist age, with its denial of structures and
meta-narratives, it is refreshing to see my e-mail system confirm my lurking
belief that systems are real, and can even write.
> Subject:
Second comment: The empty subject line looks like a sneaking attempt to
regain po-mo favor not just by de-centering the subject, but abolishing it
altogether. Or, as a poem published in the TLS noted years ago: Do ya wanna
know / the creeda Jacques Derrida? / Their ain't no reeda / And their ain't
no rida / Eida.
[Stuff about the rag trade omitted with regret, as it made a point that had
occurred to me too, pursued implicitly at length in my latest unreadable
tome.]
> I've said it before, and I'll say it again, sarcasm doesn't work well
> electronically. ...
Third comment (and the one I started out with before I got side-tracked):
Makes one wonder how satirists made a living back before the advent of smiley
faces and other icons, not reliably reported in type-setters' fonts before
the later 19th C. I have yet to see a title page for Swift's _A Modest
Proposal_ that reads _A Modest Proposal ;)_. Did they know something we
don't? Or do we know something they don't?
Caveat lector, (that's not a comma, it's me sticking my tongue out
of the corner of my mouth while holding a bag over my eyes and nose)
James G. Carrier
29, University Circle / Charlottesville, Virginia, 22903
(804) 971-2983 / jgc5p@virginia.edu
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