Re: RAT Words

[Jeffrey Jones <Diogenes_@compuserve.com>]

The trouble with language (speaking as a writer) is that it allows one to
make statements that are sufficiently compelling--qua  language--that one
neglects to ask whether they are,  in fact, the case.

Case in point:

When our daughter was born eight years and seven days ago, the first thing
she did after she stopped crying (which she did rather quickly) was to look
around. The literature (there's that @#$%^& word again) would have you
believe that newborns "can't see." Camila put the lie to that. When babies
are born, they are typically extremely alert for about an hour before
falling into a prolonged sleep. Camila lay on the warming tray and looked
at me with enormous eyes and I looked back. Her curiousity and calm were so
striking that I made  mental note of it, thinking these might prove to be
permanant characteristics (which they are, given a harum-scarum kid). Late
that afternoon, I carried her from the nursery into Page's room on the top
floor of the hospital; it was a glorious sunset, and rich golden light came
streaming through the windows. And Camila turned to look at the light
("more light" was it Goethe?).  To look at light with wonder--now that
rings true.

This terror and trembling business is an "artistic" exaggeration, you see.
Compelling, until you remember anything about mammals and parenting. Now
the next sentence posits "terror" before the "uncontrollable chaos" of the
universe. OK.... So what about curiosity? Is terror really the only, or
even the default, reaction to the chaos of the universe? If it is, people
sure are good at concealing it. The term I prefer for this nexus of ideas
is "strangeness" (a wonderful old Anglo-Saxon word; treat yourself to the
OED's definition). Strangeness is the palpable, "in the gut" (for we have
stomach-brains as well, like dinosoars. Fact.) response to an experience
that does not fit our mental maps. Strangness can be terrifying, but it can
also be alluring or enlightening or profoundly religious or  ... strange.

What is at the heart of this overheated trope is recognition of the fact
that knowledge is central to the human experience. We are, par exellence,
the creatures on this planet driven to know. And the curious--truly truly
strange--fact of the "chaotic" universe is that it CAN be known. This is
the deep strange mystery of mathematics (and many other things as well, but
none stranger than mathematics): ponder, friend, why it should be that
phonomena can be measured with numbers. How is it possible that the
solution to an integral function should describe the path of a body in
motion? What's up with the Pythagorean theorem?  Who ordered this? And as
surely everyone who reads must know, even chaos has a (very simple) set of
formulas. "Uncontrollable chaos" is just sloppy thinking. Sounds good;
ain't true. And let us not even mention Spooky Action At A Distance.

Yes, we do label. But in order not to fear it? Surely because, through
language as through math, we elaborate a thought-structure which not only
models the world but even, to an extent, REPLACES the world. Magic, Anne.
Language kills mystery? Excuse me, read any Shakespeare lately? Keats
milton hopkins pound (okay, I'm faking it with milton)... The idea that
language kills mystery is so blatantly dopey that I'm almost embarassed to
have to point out its absurdity. Language is the pre-eminent tools for
defining mystery. So pooo to you, sez I.

OK, call me an Anglo-Saxon crank in the fine tradition of Dr. Samuel ("I
refute it thus") Johnson, but he (and I) would dismiss the esteemed Ms.
Bogart's orphic sententiae as so much cant. (And before you succumb to
despair over the fate of truth in our mediated culture, friend, look that
fine old 18th century word up in the dictionary). Like the good ("none but
a blockhead") doctor, I humbly submit that the artist's only
responsibilities are (in no particular order) to get ahead,  get laid, get
paid, get happy, get a life, get high, get home safely, get wisdom,  get
with child, get a good job, get more, get out of town, get lost and have a
nice day. 

For sheer devilish fun, however, it's hard to beat making an audience
tremble. 





Message text written by INTERNET:rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
>"We are born in terror and trembling. In the face of our terror before the

uncontrollable chaos of the universe, we label as much as we can with 
language in the hopes that once we name something, we no longer fear it.
This 
labeling enables us to feel safer but kills the mystery in what has been 
labeled, removing the life and danger out of what's been defined. The 
artist's responsibility is to bring the potential, the mystery and terror, 
the trembling, back." -- Anne Bogart 

--Aileen McCulloch,
Vagabond Acting Troupe (the VAT)
Philadelphia, PA<