Raising the Elephant in the Room

Raising the Elephant in the Room

IN class, I tie myself up in Gordian
naughts trying to talk about stuff that
can’t be talked about, oh sure: it can
be talked about but the talk is not
what-it-is the talk is talking about
and actually eclipses with its clarity
what-it-is it’s talking about—which
is why-it-is this stuff can NOT be
talked about damnit; and yet we must:
we must be talking about the very
things we must not and yet preserve
the not-talking-about-ness so as to do
it justice and not diminish the what-it-is
that can’t (must not) be talked about
while still talking about it! Know what
I’m saying?

& you guys in your other disciplines
(the rigorous ones) probably don’t find
your self in this kind of pickle & can
celebrate clarity & eschew contra-
diction & paradox & apply full cost
account ability so to speak to what-it-is
you examine without concern as to what
you’re omitting in your tight consistent
& coherent commensuration, scrutiny &
predict ability.


See: something like this is why we call
ourselves a Humanities Di-vision, bracing
our doppelganger double-double doubt &
troubling dubious duplicity: embracing
ambiguities, & ambi-valences: moving
as it were like clods of unknowing—blind
& deaf, sure we are and not denying it either:
you got a problem with that? Our mode of
thinking:

not to be
collapsed
conflated &
confused with
those singularly
effective spot-on
accountable assess-
ability experts south
of Glad down in Wither
Spoon: ratio-analyzing like
anything because they CAN !

Not that there’s anything
wrong with THAT, either...



ELEPHANT!
A consummation devoutly to be desired!
Every one hold tight to the place where
you stand and DECLARE!

(Don’t be swayed by rhetoric, fashion,
glamour, charisma, instrumental utility
& seemingly practical accountability,
timeliness spiritus mundi, weltan-
schauungian ex-officious authority,
chronicles of hire education, or the
permeate amniotic fluid we all swim
in soaking wet full of song and
furry theories about DRY
(ab-solut).

I’d be more specific about IT if I could
but this stuff can’t be talked about—well,
it CAN, but the talk is not the what-it-is
it’s talking about & that can be troubling
for many. Tell all the troops, but tell them
slant, says Emily D.: success in circuitry
lies.