The Wicked Witch Of Western Literature

Re: # 38
Samina, where do you teach?

Godot, what`s a fourth-rate college anyway? What do you think is the distribution of chowk people by the ``rates`` of the colleges they graduated from?

Re: # 36

Hamid

I don’t know who this “bhaba” is who wrote this crap, nor I care. That is just hogwash. It’s like, “say something no one understands to make me look intelligent”!

Now, compare the above with the following (I was saving this for my iLog, but what the heck!...I would that later.):

“If a writer be conscious that to gain a reception for his favourite doctrine he must combat with certain elements of opposition, in the taste, or the pride, or the indolence of those whom he is addressing, this will only serve to make him the more importunate.”

Ali Rizvi, take a note of what I quoted about a writer.

Re: # 30

I beg your pardon? Do you think that working class, immigrant desis in North America deserve a ``fourth rate`` education? Check the faculty of this ``fourth rate`` college Godot Sahib and the public uni Ivy Leagues they`ve come from and then talk.

Your logic system says, ``oh, if they are teaching immigrant, working class desis, they can`t be decent academics..`` and you couldnt be more clueless. The last three generations of academics at my uni graduated from highly ranked schools and have CHOSEN to teach to an extremely underserved population. Guess you think you are better than working class, immigrant desis....

Re: # 36

Hamid,

Its easy to take shots at Bhaba....but he has made some serious contributions. Given the acontextualized passage you`ve posted, my guess is that the subject is the Bush Administration`s position on Iraq, WMDs and terrorism.

can someone please explain this to me :

``If, for a while, the ruse of desire is calculable for the uses of discipline soon the repetition of guilt, justification, pseudo-scientific theories, superstition, spurious authorities and classifications can be seen as the desperate effort to ``normalize`` formally the disturbance of a discourse of splitting that violates the rational, enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality.``

........... samina ? godot ?..........

who wrote that ?...... homi bhaba, of course ...

Re: # 29

You`ve taken my comments with a dose of good humor and equanimity (sp?) and that I respect. I love satires of academia-and if you`ve read the emails around faculty listservs, you`d wish Kingsley Amis was around to use them in his sequels to Lucky Jim.

In the future, I will desist from commenting. I tend to appreciate people who take the time out to understand what I am trying to do. You may not-fair enough.

looking forward to reading (and not responding) to more.

Re: # 32

Zia

Apology accepted. However, I`m pleased to know your measuring stick. It does say quite a bit about your standards.

Re: # 28

Khamkhwa

When you are on their turf you have to play by their rules. This is Chowk`s territory and you have to play by the rules they have set. Also, since this is their turf, they can amend the rules however they see fit. Either you play by their rules or go back to where you came from.

Re: # 30
Sorry, Godot: my bad.

Samina, you`re better than me.

(We`re talking about writing, of course, not rescuing puppies or kissing babies etc. I hate babies.)

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Re: # 29

Zia

An ESL teacher at a fourth-rate, open-admission college probably is better than you and does know better than you! But please speak for yourself and don’t project your awe on ``the rest of us``.

Re: # 26
Samina, you`re better that the rest of us. Admit it! :)

Ali, you might be upset but it`s criticism from someone who knows what she`s talking about (unlike the rest of us amateurs).

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Re: # 22

Wah bey...even your response is more tired than Sisyphus working a triple shift...sorry, this is more proof that the narrator is a whiny poser.

Hamid,

We`ve gone through this before and you seem to miss the point. Who was the Tom Clancy of Shakespeare`s time and why isnt he part of our canon?

Re: # 24

kham,

.......... i guess you, me and the gipper are real men - a dying breed ......... nowdays they wear eye makeup, watch queer eye and read poems by billy collins ............ sigh !

.......... do you think the marlboro man would write something like this ?

There are many that I miss
having sent my last one out a car window
sparking along the road one night, years ago.

The heralded one, of course:
after sex, the two glowing tips
now the lights of a single ship;
at the end of a long dinner
with more wine to come
and a smoke ring coasting into the chandelier;
or on a white beach,
holding one with fingers still wet from a swim.

How bittersweet these punctuations
of flame and gesture;
but the best were on those mornings
when I would have a little something going
in the typewriter,
the sun bright in the windows,
maybe some Berlioz on in the background.
I would go into the kitchen for coffee
and on the way back to the page,
curled in its roller,
I would light one up and feel
its dry rush mix with the dark taste of coffee.

Then I would be my own locomotive,
trailing behind me as I returned to work
little puffs of smoke,
indicators of progress,
signs of industry and thought,
the signal that told the nineteenth century
it was moving forward.
That was the best cigarette,
when I would steam into the study
full of vaporous hope
and stand there,
the big headlamp of my face
pointed down at all the words in parallel lines.

............. but it is kind of nice