The Valve - A Literary Organ | Aeroplanes, the Boarding Of

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Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Aeroplanes, the Boarding Of

Posted by John Holbo on 04/26/06 at 02:10 AM

Having to make two 24 hour plane trips in a five day period can really scrape the smarts off your brain. In my case, the damage has been especially severe. I’ve lost everything! Oh, well. The weird thing is that I actually browsed all the Long Sunday Spivak posts, albeit briefly, before getting on the plane for the last time. So reading Adam’s triumphalist wrap-up sort of gave me that ‘looking out the window - whoa dinosaurs!‘ “Odyssey of Flight 33” feeling. Not the world I thought I’d left. Anyway, I had an interesting time in LA. I was glad finally to meet our occasional contributor Kathleen Fitzpatrick, among others. As soon as I can think again, I’ll post again. (Yeesh. “Dismissive polemics based on lazy stereotypes.” Now there’s a phrase to cut your own throat with, if you like that sort of thing.)

Comments

Sorry—you didn’t realize that it was a contest?

By Adam Kotsko on 04/26/06 at 04:55 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Adam, what has gotten into you, if I may inquire? Did the collective hydraulic pressure of the Valve pee in your cornflakes? If so, I am sure we are very sorry for cornflakes spoiled. Does this ‘answering a question with a question’ style work for you? I am at a loss as to how to do better because I am at a loss as to what the hell your post is on about. No, really. What is bothering you so much?

By John Holbo on 04/26/06 at 05:14 PM | Permanent link to this comment

I actually would normally eat frosted mini-wheats for breakfast.

But anyway, try not to worry about my post too much. Things will be fine in the medium- to long-term, I’m sure.

By Adam Kotsko on 04/26/06 at 06:09 PM | Permanent link to this comment

OK, forget about “The Twilight Zone”, now it’s a bloody episode of “The Office”. David Brent screws someone over in superlatively thoughtless yet clearly premeditated and characteristically petty fashion; then, by way of apology/explanation when confronted: “Things will be fine in the medium-to long-term.” The fact that this is probably true really only accentuates the situation comedy, if you see what I mean. “Things will be fine in the medium-to long-term,” would also work as the repetitively morose mantra of a Kafka story or Beckett play; as the protagonist lives out the plangent counterpoint consideration that, “life is always, in fact, lived in the short-to immediate-term”. And intellectual life is sort of like life that way.

By John Holbo on 04/26/06 at 11:35 PM | Permanent link to this comment

When do you want to do the Quine symposium?

By Adam Kotsko on 04/27/06 at 01:57 PM | Permanent link to this comment

It’s almost Friday, so here: I confess that my tone was needlessly triumphalist in that post.

I still think that the concept of “the Higher Eclecticism” is basically a non-starter, at least if you hope to talk to people who are basically sympathetic to Theory. (I have given a brief analysis of this in the other thread.) And I think that if the concept of “Higher Eclecticism” had been really central to the Spivak event, that event would have totally sucked.

I do maintain that a lot of interesting stuff has happened on The Valve—the book events other than Theory’s Empire were excellent, for example. But this “Higher Eclecticism” thing drags the tone down whenever it comes up. Some (like maybe Rich) might say that that’s because of those Long Sunday people and Kotsko, who come over here and behave badly. Some might say, however, that it’s because the way you talk about “Higher Eclecticism,” although tonally very charming, etc., is substantively very aggressive and alienating.

By Adam Kotsko on 04/27/06 at 10:00 PM | Permanent link to this comment

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Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Aeroplanes, the Boarding Of

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