That's interesting info, TR.  Thanks for it.  I'm certain that Zane
Grey's dentistry was less than painless, anesthetics being what they
once were.

Oh my God! -- I just realized something: anesthetic is an an-aesthetic,
dulling the senses, perhaps dulling "beauty" along the way.  Perhaps
there's something valuable about that which diminishes our capacities
to feel pain & beauty.  Now all we need is an anpolitic, and we'll be
blissful and fine, secure in the homeland of the lotus eaters.  Or
maybe we've already been anesthetized and anpoliticized.  The only
question now is whether they're one and the same.

Sorry - no direct Pound content here (except obliquely.)

-Jon

On Thursday, January 2, 2003, at 10:44 AM, Kate Cone wrote:

> Jon:
>
> As usual, you a the voice of reason. I have 2 professors in the
> American &
> New England Studies Program here at Univ. Southern Maine who are
> knowledgable about Western Studies. Joe Conforti teaches a "West"
> class that
> everyone raves about. He might have some ideas for you. He's at
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Kent Ryden teaches more from a cultural geography/nature
> writer/ecocriticism
> angle. He teaches Wallace Stegner, though, so he might have some ideas
> about
> Zane Grey. Mostly Joe and Kent would probably put Grey's popularity
> into
> context for you. Kent is [log in to unmask]
>
> Kate
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jon & Anne Weidler" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 11:30 AM
> Subject: A complete (ly welcome) change of subject
>
>
>> I have nothing to say about whether or not Pound would e-mail to a
>> list
>> purporting to discuss his work.  The notion is absurd and misleading,
>> in my opinion, and a poor use of our collective gray matter.
>>
>> So I'm about to begin teaching next semester, in about two weeks.  The
>> first novel I'm teaching (like three other novels I'll be teaching) is
>> one I've never read before, The Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane
>> Grey.
>>   I've been told that this book was a massive bestseller in the teens
>> and twenties, and that it is something of a standard bearer for the
>> Western novel at large.  Does anyone have any excited or exciting
>> opinions about this book, its genre, or the possible relationships
>> between it and the modernisms flourishing at the time?  I have no idea
>> myself, though I imagine I'll develop a number of opinions as I read
>> the damn thing.  Oh yes, and does anyone (preferably educators) have
>> any opinions about teaching books one has never read?  I seem to be
>> drawn inexorably towards the new read whenever I'm designing a class,
>> and have convinced myself that my inclination has some pedagogical
>> justification.  Of course, I'm blind to much about myself.  Who after
>> all is not?
>>
>> Speaking of which, the internet doesn't just suck because you can't
>> see
>> the asshole on the other end.  You also can't see the people who read
>> your screed, and since you can't recognize or accomodate their
>> responses, you also can't see the asshole on your own end.  So hah.
>> Not only does everyone have an asshole, everyone in some respect is
>> one.  Let's be polite, productive, and entertaining assholes, shall
>> we?
>>
>> One other thing: what's the point of distinguishing between poetics
>> and
>> politics, when any inclined reader can find that they're implied in
>> one
>> another?  I'm sure that the teenager writing the broken hearted poem
>> in
>> his Trig class doesn't think much about its socio-political sources,
>> consequences, and subterranean content.  Does that mean one couldn't
>> read it as a document that emerges from a socially pressurized
>> evnironment?  Maybe you wouldn't want to disillusion (or discourage or
>> confuse) the Noble Teenager by telling him what it was that he REALLY
>> said, but that's not really the point.
>>
>> This seems like a fight about what's REALLY being said in a given
>> verse, and that by itself begs the question.  The political seems more
>> materially grounded as a concept than does "the poetic", but that's a
>> dead end: neither concept, the political or the poetic, rests on some
>> permanent or secret foundation that makes one more real than the
>> other.
>>   After all, they're concepts, not colors or quantities (which I know
>> are also concepts, but hopefully you get my drift.)  And as concepts,
>> we can recognize when they apply and when they don't, when they're
>> gateways to interesting discussion and when they're just ideological
>> toys.  Pound certainly did not consider the political disposable, and
>> neither did he dismiss the poetic.  Partially, what he did was to set
>> the stage for the difficulties we're having, implicating the lofty
>> traditions of fossilized poetries within the sordid ethical
>> complexities of modernizing humanity.  And vice versa.  I realize that
>> what I've written says very little that is substantive, merely that
>> there are connections between poetry and politics that Pound makes
>> active problems of, but perhaps it can clear the way for a more
>> interesting dialogue, and a little less of an
>> "I'm-astounded-by-that-asshole-over-there" polemical clearing house.
>>
>> There's no need to save Pound from anyone.  He's already dead.
>>
>> Respect,
>> Jon Weidler
>>
>