Some of the contentions lately have seemed a little fast and loose. Specifically:
 
1. The Williams vs. Keats thread seems to miss the point. First, why Williams *or*
Keats? Shouldn't we be reading both, especially since the young Williams wrote a
long poem that was influenced by Keats?
 
2. In general, I'm tired of the "students these days" slags, especially since (as
Jonathan Morse noted) they're rarely backed up with any factual evidence. But
blaming Kerouac or the computer for the perceived lack of quality in writing is
especially bizarre on a Pound list. To cite one example, James Laughlin has
indicated that some of the odd indentations in the Cantos are there because Pound
couldn't wait for the typewriter carriage to return. And while Kerouac gets blamed
for spontaneous prose, there were similar movements in abstract expressionism, at
a variety of arts at Black Mountain, and of course in jazz. Daniel Belgrad (if I'm
remembering the name right) has a new book which discusses this reasonably well,
although his readings are usually pretty commonplace.
 
3. C. Brandon Rizzo wrote "I suspect that if the books are selling and the ticket
sales are up, then the content is rather thin, easily digestible and ultimately
disposable, as most things in popular culture are." Would this include
_Underworld_ or _Mason and Dixon_? How about Scorsese's _Casino_? Branagh's
_Hamlet_? How about the whole slew of inventive new movies: American Beauty, Fight
Club, Magnolia? Yeah, there's a lot of bad entertainment out there, but I'd argue
that popular culture is more sophisticated than ever. And remember Pound's
celebration of Disney? How about Eliot's fan letter to Groucho Marx? Crane's
"Chaplinesque?"
 
4. I'm puzzled by Rosalie Gancie's claim that studies of Italian Futurism usually
avoid discussing the links to fascism. Every one I've read has discussed those
links extensively.
 
 
Bill Freind