Thursday, July 16, 2009

Read My Lips

Communitas

Most people prefer to make love than watch
I’m pretty sure & ugly people take as much
pleasure in it as pretty I bet: old people as
much as young, considering the differentials,
so watching generally doesn’t have the status;
people would rather do it than talk about it, &
that’s why I pay more attention to my own
stuff: pictures, stories, aggravations, business
deals, ideas, insomnia, trips to market, cup of
coffee on the terrace, wind in the willows, causes
& because’s than any body else’s except I want
some attention to my own pleas: not watching
the making of love but the products: all my
children, consider them in the corner: consider
them in the spotlight; let me show you mine
don’t have to show me yours – pretty, smart,
young, well- traveled makes no never mind as
far as making is concerned & liking it feels just
as good to every one though maybe you’re not
everyone & don’t want to watch or show off
but look: let me show you mine.

Steven Pinker in The Stuff of the Mind says
every utterance has two agenda:

1) taking care of business
2) negotiating relationship

#2 amounts to something like hey, how you doing,
‘Ssup, what’s going on
of the type exchanged on
the bridge, say— where mutual existence is
acknowledged
(I’m walking here)
and inquiries are phatic: no one expects response
beyond OK, fine thank you, and you? I may be
proclaiming e = mc squared, or advancing re-
configuration of hire education, asking directions
to San Jose, interpreting Hawthorne to a captive
audience, proclaiming the importance of public
options: taking care of business, sure—obtaining
advanced degrees measurable, assessable &
accountable but really: a cover for my hidden agenda,
vehicle: the media for.

see me
hear me
touch me
feed me—

what Pinker calls Negotiating Relationship.
Poor Me— with you always.

This can’t be said however. If you accused me of
Negotiating Relationship I’d deny it. Health care I
care for, peace in the near east, chimpanzees, who
gets Paris & Prince & Blanket, emergent values &
properties, the ability of a Latino woman to judge
my pursuits of happiness under a strict unbiased
interpretation of the law and constitution: taking
care of business is taking care of business and
it’s not "this" or "that" that counts: it’s always
the principle of the thing.

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