{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4121", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 4121, "subject": "For Josh: Apology for (apparent) Unintended Offence", "messages": 4, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-07-28T16:50:01+00:00", "last": "2003-07-28T18:13:15+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "katbarx at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-07-28T16:50:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) For Josh: Apology for (apparent) Unintended Offence", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "While I would very much like to be a part of something like this, and in\nfact live in the right part of the world - the east bay to be \nsemi-precise\n-- in fact, my beloved Spousal Overunit went to hiskul in East San\nJose - I do not believe it likely to happen." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For your information, I live in a three bedroom house with a big yard\nand garden in a very nice, very middle class, very quiet neighborhood.\n\nThere are rough neighborhoods in East San Jose, some of them not too\nfar away. Mine, however, is very quiet and peaceful." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Josh,\n\nI'm not sure what, in the above-quoted passage, gave you to think\nthat I was putting down either yourself or East San Jose, but whatever\nit was, I apologize, in front of the same group before which I apparently\noffended you. I intended nothing of the sort.\n\nH'mmm. Parsing carefully.\n\n\"right part of the world\" -- meaning not too far from your proposed\nlocation. If you took the word \"right\" as implying that I regard the\nEast Bay as somehow superior to East SJ, well, all I can say to that is,\nthe East Bay has Milpitas; how can it be suprior to anything?\n\n\"my beloved Spousal Overunit went to hiskul in East San Jose\" -- if\nyou read that as meaning \"Some of my best friends ...\", well, no,\nthat _wasn't_ what I meant; what I meant is that I'd spent a fairly\nsignificant amount of time in East SJ myself, visiting my inlaws (before\nthey moved out-of-state). We still go down there occasionally to do\nrandom bits of maintenance on the house my beloved SO grew up\nin, which is -- incidentally -- a three-bedroom house with a small yard,\nbut with a swimming pool, in a very nice, very quiet, very middle class\nneighborhood.\n\n(If you took offense at my misspelling of \"high school,\" well I won't\napologize for that, but it had nothing to do with East San Jose, it\nhad to do with my experiences with the California public school\nsystem in the 1970s.)\n\nNor does my dubiousness that such a thing is likely to happen have\nanything to do with the location, other than it being quite a long ways\naway from Chicagoland. I know for a fact that Wolfe has attended at\nleast two conventions in San Jose." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I am sorry. There really is no polite way to say 'fuck you, white boy'." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There probably is, but that isn't one of them.\n\nNonetheless, I have to say that nothing I've said in this conversation up\nto the last paragraph has anything to do with \"race.\" I don't think the\nconcept of \"race\" is particularly useful or meaningful, except as a way of\ndividing people up and setting them at each others' throats so that the\ntwo-headed one-party system in this country can stay in power.\n\nBased on your comment, I presume that you are not a \"white boy.\"\nThis is the first inkling I had that it might be so -- if pressed to guess,\nbased on your name I would have supposed you to be Jewish -- nor\nwould I have given a rat's backside if I had known. All I knew -- and\nall I know _now_ really -- was that the person posting under that name\nwas an intelligent person with an interesting email persona, and a lot\nof knowledge about esoteric subjects, some of which I also know\nsomething about, others of which I would like to know something\nabout, and a few of which just sort of go right past me (like I said about\nalchemy).\n\nGiven that, it's interesting to me that you assumed me to be white.\nProbably a safe assumption, based on my own persona. And yu're right,\nI am in fact of Euro descent, and don't even have the decency to be\nashamed of it. Nor am I excessively proud of it; nothing my ancestors\ndid is any credit or blame to me, though I suppose that, as a white\nAmerican, I can take a little comfort in knowing that none of them came\nto this country any earlier than the 1880's, and thus they not only\ncannot have owned slaves, but are also extremely unlikely to have taken\npart in any of the major slaughters of this continent's prior inhabitants.\nDespite my British-Irish name, my ancestry is overwhelmingly Eastern\nEuropean, mostly Slavs and Ashkenazim, with a bit of Brit on my father's\nside. The Irish part of the name comes from the Spousal Overunit." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I am ashamed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm sorry. I don't know what you have to be ashamed of, but if my\nwriting gave you something to be ashamed of, I apologize." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "My expectation is that, confronted with the suggestion of such a thing, \nMr.\nWolfe is likely to regard it as the concoction of a gaggle of\nhero-worshippin fanboys (and -girls)," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thank you for your encouragement and support." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The phrase I would use is \"realism tinged with pessimism.\" One thing writers\nand artists express over and over again is a fear of fans who want more of\nthem than their work, who want a piece of _them_. Approaching Wolfe with\na proposal of this sort would, I think, need to be done in a way that would\novercome a great deal of natural suspicion that this was precisely what was\ngoing on here -- and \"We will listen to whatever _you_ want to talk about\"\nseems likely to arouse suspicion that this is precisely that sort of fans.\n\n_I_ know it isn't. But to convince _him_ that it isn't, is going to require\nsomething -- either an approach from someone he knows and trusts, or\nelse an extremely _professional_ approach. Something to convince him that\nthis is in fact worthwhile -- not merely in terms of money, but in terms of\nthe disruption it will necessarily entail to his work schedule, his home \nlife,\netc.; how is this better from _his_ point of view than the several days' \ntime\nit will take away from working on his current novel?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In either case you will have the same chance as everybody else to\nparticipate." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thank you.\n\n--Dan'l" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Josh Geller", "address": "brunians at brunians.org" }, "date": "2003-07-28T17:23:53+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) For Josh: Apology for (apparent) Unintended Offence", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OK, Dan, apparently I misread what you were saying. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "You wrote:\n-- in fact, my beloved Spousal Overunit went to hiskul in East San\nJose - I do not believe it likely to happen." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which I misinterpreted. Everyone out here is a bit sensitive about this\nissue. Lots of people, especially in the whiter parts of the South Bay,\nsneer at East San Jose, and I jumped to the conclusion that you were\ndoing the same. On a second reading, I see no justification for that\nconclusion, and am sorry I said 'fuck you, white boy' to you. I get a\nlittle hot under the collar sometimes.\n\nI would, however, still like to thank you for all of the encouragement\nand support you are giving me with my little almost-project.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "katbarx at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-07-28T17:43:49+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) For Josh: Apology for (apparent) Unintended Offence", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Which I misinterpreted. Everyone out here is a bit sensitive about this\nissue. Lots of people, especially in the whiter parts of the South Bay,\nsneer at East San Jose, and I jumped to the conclusion that you were\ndoing the same. On a second reading, I see no justification for that\nconclusion, and am sorry I said 'fuck you, white boy' to you. I get a\nlittle hot under the collar sometimes." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I can understand that. My Spousal Overunit has also been known to\njump down the throats of jerks who treat ESJ as a huge undifferentiated\nslum/barrio. I don't do that, but I also know better than to think that\nway.\n\nOh, and gracious apology noted and accepted." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I would, however, still like to thank you for all of the encouragement\nand support you are giving me with my little almost-project." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As for that: I do not intend to be coldwatering it. I have a personal\napproach of looking for rocks and shoals long before the shore is even\nvisible, which leads people to think I'm a naysayer. I'm really not; I'm\nreally hoping to avoid the rocks and shoals and get to shore safely.\nWhich is a lousy metaphor because I'm not even comfortable on boats,\nbut there it is.\n\nJust call me the white boy who cried \"Wolfe.\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Josh Geller", "address": "brunians at brunians.org" }, "date": "2003-07-28T18:13:15+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) For Josh: Apology for (apparent) Unintended Offence", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OK then.\n\n\nJ.\n\n___" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Mon, 2003-07-28 at 10:43, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nWhich I misinterpreted. Everyone out here is a bit sensitive about this\nissue. Lots of people, especially in the whiter parts of the South Bay,\nsneer at East San Jose, and I jumped to the conclusion that you were\ndoing the same. On a second reading, I see no justification for that\nconclusion, and am sorry I said 'fuck you, white boy' to you. I get a\nlittle hot under the collar sometimes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I can understand that. My Spousal Overunit has also been known to\njump down the throats of jerks who treat ESJ as a huge undifferentiated\nslum/barrio. I don't do that, but I also know better than to think that\nway.\n\nOh, and gracious apology noted and accepted." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I would, however, still like to thank you for all of the encouragement\nand support you are giving me with my little almost-project." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As for that: I do not intend to be coldwatering it. I have a personal\napproach of looking for rocks and shoals long before the shore is even\nvisible, which leads people to think I'm a naysayer. I'm really not; I'm\nreally hoping to avoid the rocks and shoals and get to shore safely.\nWhich is a lousy metaphor because I'm not even comfortable on boats,\nbut there it is.\n\nJust call me the white boy who cried \"Wolfe.\"\n\n--Blattid\n\n_________________________________________________________________\nSTOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* \nhttp://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail\n\n\n-- " } ] } ] }