ref: fd9be2e172be4ae02a18d721a10f6f96ca1c924f
dir: /troff/0109.ms/
.LP .ce .ps 16 .CW DEEP CAPTURE .R .ps 10 .br .ce .ps 10 .B 1 .P .PP .ps 10 .DC 5 Jan 1943 .PP .ps 10 Lunsford's betrayal has not been forgotten. .PP .ps 10 Far from it. .PP .ps 10 Potential for failure was how he got tapped in the first place. .PP .ps 10 Still, Slake's interest in the boy verges on obsession. .PP .ps 10 No access to Europe. Much of what went on there remains obscured to me. Never get to any see cross\-references on the material I turn in. .PP .ps 10 Something untoward is taking place. .PP .ps 10 Nana shows no signs of concern. Assuming she's even noticed. By now, humans in her Basement are the least of her worries. Slake's insistence upon overseas support pushes matters even further beyond the perimeter of her interest. We humans are on our own. .PP .ps 10 For his part, Lunsford continues to churn out reams of commentary on Basement paper. .PP .ps 10 Read through it all, at least once, for my reports. .PP .ps 10 Sometimes, I respond. .ce .ps 10 .B 2 .P .PP .ps 10 One of the commentaries is a doozy. By the time I'm ready to formulate a response it's well out of date\(emtextlag. Still, can't let it just hang in the air. .PP .ps 10 Unwise to reply? .PP .ps 10 Pull out my binder and review the passages underlined using my system of multi\-colored highlighters. Click through the full menu to make sure the formatting is coherent. Refresh my outline and then get down to business. .ce .ps 10 .B 3 .P .LP .CW Dear Al, I've been devoting a great deal of thought to these theories of yours, as of late. I sat down and re\-read the recent installments again, this time in reverse order. Amazingly, the structure held. I resisted the urge to continue all the way back to the beginning of the series, where tangible analogies might overwhelm me with the notion that the Greens were actually receding from prominence. Pious healers who sealed wounds with their ritual blades, casting in their wake a trail of fascinating strips of paper, which, once dispersed, accumulated in value and might be traded interchangeably with (transmuted into?) worthless gold. Temporal dysphoria. Contextual exhaustion. The concepts are quite literally beyond language. And yet, the vestigial associations between slivers of narrative and their Green counterparts are palpable, wind an analogous, residual trail through the clumps of traumatized grey matter that misceginate freely beneath my scalp. I closed my leaf. Developed a headache. I resisted the urge to break into the hallway and declare my appreciation for your work. (I believe your door might have been locked.) Instead, I re\-read pages 266\–276 and started to mentally compose my "go figure" letter, musing on the typical reactions to the latest installment. At that precise moment, with no rational explanation, my leaf powered down. Try as I might, I could not get it to restart. Diagnostics revealed a full charge. Connection was sound. A less practical\-minded correspondent might be forgiven for dwelling on these details, becoming convinced of obvious signs and portents. [REDACTED] .R .EP .ce .ps 10 .B 4 .P .PP .ps 10 Just realized. First instance on record of the impossibility of interacting with Lunsford. Anyway. .ce .ps 10 .B 5 .P .LP .CW I'm writing, now, after almost a year of silent, monthly reflection, to relate a few salient points and to ask a couple of spurious questions. They include: [REDACTED] .R .EP .ce .ps 10 .B 6 .P .PP .ps 10 My correspondence with Lunsford runs to several hundred pages of single\-spaced text. All things considered, it's amazing I have time to wade through the continuous river of new material, much less respond to it in detail. On the other hand, historiography wins wars. .PP .ps 10 Just keep him talking. .ce .ps 10 .B 7 .P .LP .CW Explaining anything is useless. Wilde was onto something with his "When the critics disagree, the Artist is in accord with himself." How this squares with governing the Republic is reflected in the novel invention of the anonymous ballot. Voters at the polls aren't required to qualify their choices (at least, not yet), and such is as it should be. The artistic voice selects raw materials in the same manner as the constituent: By haphazardly aiming at pregnant chads. Does this disturb? "And it harm none...", enlightened self\-interest takes its rightful place subservient to the internal dialogue. It's important to make good choices, or at least ones that you can live with. Reconciling those choices with the distinctive sensibilities of others isn't always desirable, or even possible. And that isn't such a sad fact. Give and take can't balance when the other end won't let go, and there's no reason to push anyone off the merry\-go-round simply because they happen to be swinging out while you happen to be swinging in. Posit a balance that subsumes individual acts and embodies the entirety of human endeavor; literally, beyond good and evil. Many attribute the label "God" to this construct and then happily carry on with their lives, proceeding to ignore the self\-evident wisdom of their discovery. [REDACTED] .R .EP .ce .ps 10 .B 8 .P .PP .ps 10 Pretty sure I copy/pasted that last bit from somewhere else. So far, Lunsford hasn't seemed to notice. .ce .ps 10 .B 9 .P .LP .CW Slake Bottom. Wisdom or Folly? [REDACTED] .R .EP .ce .ps 10 .B 10 .P .PP .ps 10 Matter remains unresolved. .ce .ps 10 .B 11 .P .LP .CW The fact that Sontag alludes to this problem in her September piece would not seem to immediately disqualify her from the larger debate when we're honestly considering the facts (though, other factors could probably be sussed out if the need were to arise). [REDACTED] .R .EP .ce .ps 10 .B 12 .P .PP .ps 10 Lunsford can be evasive when he doesn't want to admit a contradiction. Also, he loves to hate Susan Sontag. .PP .ps 10 I stop writing to him. .PP .ps 10 He no longer shows up at the dinner table. .PP .ps 10 Stalemate?