official exegesis of thursday's post

Daniel A. Foss (DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU)
Sat, 18 Dec 1993 23:14:01 EST

or suppositious International Pomo Conspiracy possessed of any more objective
reality than the International Templar Conspiracy whereof many more facts
were divulged than will actually ever exist in Umberto Eco's novel, Foucault's
Pendulum."

Foucault, the early-nineteenth-century scientist who is said in the novel
in question to have built the pendulum in question which, in the novel, is
said to have been housed in a Paris museum which is represented as some French
imitation of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry: Noninhabitants of
the USA should be apprised of the fact that everything which has become part
of the way of life we call Modern was at one time or another exclusively
invented by inhabitants of the USA; and that all claims of inhabitants of
the quondam USSR to have invented everything were unofficially disallowed
as of 1989 and officially erased from storage as of 1991. The Foucault in
question, however, is universally regarded by critics who should know about
these things as a stand-in for Michel Foucalt (n.), Foucauldian (adj.). That
the latter was even prior to his untimely death from AIDS universally taken
by many of the same people as Postmodern is entirely beside the point,
whatever their point in that regard actually is.

There occured in close proximity by my bedside Wednesday night the following
objects: (1) An envelope with a return address comprising an unreadable scrawl
plus the legend TEMPLE UNIVERSITY A Commonwealth University Philadelphia
Pennsylvania 19122 the contents of which were laserprinted e-mail addressed
to PERICLES@VM.TEMPLE.EDU or PERICLES@TEMPLEVM, both postings to CLASSICS@
UWAVM or offline letters, regarding a controversial book on archeology and
ancient history, the recipient being known today as PERICLES@ASTRO.OCIS.TEMPLE.
EDU; (2) a book, Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars, Cambridge, 1978;
(3) The New Yorker, Dec. 20, 1993, featuring "Zappa: Appreciations by Vaclav
Havel and Matt Groening/Photographs by Richard Avedon."

Those who revere the immortal but regrettably dead Frank Zappa recall
that his debut album with the Mothers of Invention, FREAK OUT! will recall
the song "Losing Status At The High School," which began,
I'm losing status at the high school
Used to think that it was my school
I'm handsome and I'm charming, I belong to DeMolay....

And right there, on the cover of the book, was a medieval painting,
"Jacques DeMolay Burned At The Stake, 1314." There took shape a posting
which unfortunately could not be written, wherein Temple University was
an institution allegedly dedicated to the training of....

Why should any Paranoid refrain from writing such a posting and instead
writing the garbage actually written? Because the former or perhaps even
current ANTHRO-L subscriber "deb of the jungle" <SIEGEL52@SNYBUFVA.BITNET>
who has become "deb of the desert" <dvorah@triton.unm.edu> has a good friend,
<schwing@picasso.ocis.temple.edu>, on another network; wherefore, should
anything get Taken The Wrong Way, and you know how readily anything out of
my mouth or any other organ gets Taken The Wrong Way, it would represent
the better part of Reason not to take unnecessary risks and, instead, be
the usual offensive clown you have come to expect.

The foregoing has come to you in lieu of watching Saturday Night Live
due to nonownership of television; and, because I had it up to here with
writing for a serious purpose earlier this evening, specifically, for the
Progressive Sociologists Network. Amazing what kind of ignorant idiots can
get jobs and make good money in sociology these days (provided they can do
just a couple of simple things I can't do, like speaking English, and
coherently, too).

As for your current hot discussion, just take this hint: Anybody at all,
even Bob Graber, can in some context, denounce "the fetishism of scientific
objectivity" whilst taking scientific objectivity for granted. If you didn't
do the latter, you wouldn't bother sending e-mail, since you couldn't expect
it to get where you sent it, correct?

And another thing. Lay off Clifford Geertz, okay? He's my *role model* for
*writing 300-word sentences*. Got that?

Daniel A. Foss
<who is promising better quality control, and
reminding you that <The price of Paranoia is
eternal vigilance.>>