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GODBODY

                                       June 13, 1992

Lying naked in the sun 
in the one small private spot 
on the roof of our house, 
I finish reading _Godbody_,     
Theodore Sturgeon's last novel. 

As I'm reading, I note resemblences
to other things Sturgeon has
written, that I read when I was
younger.  This detail about
Lieben-tote, that was used in
another story.  The basic idea is
fairly similar to "The Skills of                 GOODMAN      

When I take on someone on
the net, sometimes it seems like
things get away from me.  I start  
out intending to get at the truth  
of things, to try to apply some  
insight and express what I find in
a tight, entertaining way.  But
instead it comes out sarcastic and
negative, and whatever I was trying
to say gets lost in the hassles of
dealing with people wriggling on
the hook, complaining about things
that are irrelevant, trying to come
up with a snarl, a shot, a way to strike
back.  Once it gets to this             
level, any hope of proceeding to  
something like an understanding is
long gone.                        
                                             
     And this is not                      There was some magic in this    
     only a problem                       chain of thought, but        
     with the net.                        I feel like I'm losing it...
                                                                          
                                                                      
                                          Sturgeon himself, was a master
                                          of the sense of magic...
                                          Like in _Silken Swift_, where 
                                          unicorns are not just 
                                          horses with horns, but a special 
                                          thing.  Or _A Touch of Strange_
                                          with mermaids that are both more 
                                          down to earth, and yet more 
                                          spiritually uplifting than any 
                                          cutesified Disney creation...  
                                                    
                                                                 STURGEON
 
                                 
        From Paul Goodman's                          GOODMAN
        _Five Years: Thoughts During a      
        Useless Time_                 
                                        
        It is an annoying style in argument to listen     
        intently until you catch the crux and then cut him
        off, saying, "Yah!  I see your point, but it's    
        besides the point.  The point is this-- " Most    
        often you have grasped the point correctly--      
        sometimes not-- but your opponent is annoyed at   
        being interrupted, and it doesn't help if you have
        caught his point correctly on the fly.            
        Nevertheless, though annoying, this style is      
        necessary, for if you hold your water you cannot  
        keep paying attention: you can't pay attention to 
        what is beside the point, or to a point once you  
        have grasped the point.  You become bored and     
        surly.  This is therefore a bad dilemma.  Here is 
        a possible solution: Attend to the _speaker_ even 
        after you have got the point, he does hold and    
        advance and expand (!) this point.  Listen to the 
        tone of his voice, his syntax, the wrinkles on his
        brow and mouth.  Intuit, while you are waiting,   
        his psychosexual nature and the incidents of his  
        childhood.  And when it comes again your turn to  
        speak, you will have become concerned with _this_ 
        complex object; and it is to this, rather than to 
        the original point of argument, that you will now 
        address yourself.  Thus you will have acquired a  
        style of argument that is still more annoying.    
                                                       



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