post proelium depression

Daniel A. Foss (U17043@UICVM.BITNET)
Sun, 19 May 1996 23:25:40 CDT

that said post itself wasn't r-e-a-l-l-y necessary, was as elsewhere noted,
necessitated exactly by epistemological considerations exclusive to myself.
Once upon a time, many decades ago, I harboured the ambition of attaining
the blissed state of linear-sequentiality of textual-verbosoid output such
as is your own. Alas, however, the words would not come [would not tumesce]
[would not delimpify] would not *emerge* <ahem> within the Time parameters
allotted by *Them*. Therapeutic measures taken evinced verbiage perhaps in
some sense True; howbeit falling afoul of conventionalized constructions of
Saying Something.

Now, would I rather Say Something, however deficient in the - by my
lights - True, or output verbiage, in whatever sequence, so as to suffice
to the True, yet Say Not A Goddam Thing? The former, of course. I'd live
in your neighbourhood, be Indistinguishable. Period. Normal, my whole life's
ambition. But it cannot happen. And, irrelevant as it seems, read and dead
are not antithetical or mutually exclusive conditions.

In short, how may I establish the Truth of that which is True, and would
be accorded a fair shake as such coming from anyone else? Whereas, prima
facie, it's psychotic gibberish from a drivelling nut case. And would say
so myself, if shown any self-written Thingie wherefor a second draft was
needful or desirable:
"I...wrote...*that*?"

So, thank you all for deleting it unread, or at most, as per directions,
doing a SAVE pending a condition of IN CASE OF EMERGENCY BREAK GLASS. I'd
like to say that I learned a great deal from doing it, but I'm not sure.

Sorry, but I omitted the biblio. Why biblio?
Well, I dragged those bags of books out the house, had to take a cab
to get here, all with the intent of sticking a biblio on it. Partial, of
course. These aren't cited in the post.
G.W. Bowersock, Roman Arabia. Harvard, 1983.
Richard Stoneman, Zenobia's Revolt Against Rome. Michigan, 1994.
Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East, 31BC - AD337. Harvard, 1993.
Romilly Jenkins, Byzantium, The Imperial Centuries, 1966.
Rene Grousset, Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, 1939.
Peter Heather, Goths and Romans, 332-489. Oxford, 1991. [Note: This last
one is invaluable for anyone interested in the Theory of Ethnogenesis. For
those objecting that ethnogenisis hasn't been defined, by the author of
myself, in particular, don't worry about it. We have too few cases
meticulously worked out as is this. For starters, there's the Oral
Tradition set down by a Gothic historian, Jordanes, sixth century;
a Late Roman historian, Cassiodorus, author of a Chronicle based on
Jordanes and composed at the court of Theoderic The Great, King of
Italy, 493-526; and a whole historiographical Tradition based more
or less on the consequences of taking the Goths' word for it, whose
finished product, I'm proud to say I've read it before Heather blew
it up, is H. Wolfram, History of the Goths, Berkeley, 1988. On the
other hand, there's the detailed documentation and archeological finds;
standard historical evidence, needing proper interpretation. Heather
believes that, commencing with two Peoples inhabiting what is now
Romania, Trevisi and Greuthungi, the reshufflings, diversely-sourced
recruits-immigrants to Gothdom, and reconstitutions on migration,
with particular reference to runaway slaves up to one quarter of the
People at any one time, the emergence of "Traditional" Visigoths and
"Traditional" Ostrogoths from the stew *after* ethnogenesis and coercive
mass ethnicization reflective of outcomes of political crises whose resolution
was formerly contingent is coeval with the imparting of "Tradition" and
Time-Immemoriality to the respective Royal Lineages of Balthis and Amals.
The Antiquity whereof and Manifest Destiny as well are both spurious.]
[I wish to thank Peter Heather, once more, if I haven't already, for
iterative use of the word "ethnogenesis," whence mine.]

For those of you who find the note in brackets Unreadable, it is with
great regret that I must announce that, should I wish, as I don't, I could
myself read it. For reason that it's a valid statement in the language of
Ethnogenesis Theory.
I'm reminded of Mike Shupp's failure to encounter a Spanish Conquest
Oral Tradition in any of his students' memories. Mike, in your opinion, is
this more or less plausible than the alleged persistence of the Mexica
Migration, guided by Hizilopochtli, from the Desert/Chichimec Frontier in
the North to their ultimate residence in the Valley of Mexico? Why? Tell
me why they shouldn't have ever gone anywhere or done anything in the former
tale, and the arguments against that. Assess the relative plausibility of
the Mexica migration myth and the Exodus pulled off by the Children of Israel
in the Book Of, and their subsequent forty years' Hanging Out in the Desert.
Which Desert do you find preferable? Do eagles drop snakes on rocks? Are
bears incontinent in dense plastics? There are no right or wrong answers
till 10 years' elapsed time from the publication of Vol I No. 1 of Theoret-
ical Ethnogenesis.

In the event of the relocation of the Capital of the USA to the site
of the present city of Zacatecas, for self-evident reasons of cost-
savings and defensibility, not to speak of the discovery of a motherlode
of Rich Silver Ore all the way down to the conjectural site of Heck, it
will be found that the most natural medium for the expression of the true
armenian essence is the Spanish Language; that Spanish represents an Old-
Old-Older Civilization that the English; that Oldie is Goldie; and that
President is most accurately rendered *basileus*. In the event of doubt
on anyone's part, ther shall be made available a raw carrot, for incentive;
and bastinado, for dys-. For eating-disorder cases, kindly reverse, please.
The Little Engine That Could, Could; but for Iosif V. Stalin it was much
easier. What? Get millions of people to believe that the Bloc of Rights
and Trotskyites was Reality. The preceding is kid stuff, considering.

This is not a flame, honest. It is a mind game. The object, to consider
the capabilities of the Imagination under the spur of Muscle.

Daniel A. Foss