J. H. Prynne

[Benny Bunter]

My human side has been boiled down to an engram and then redeployed as a protocol.

 

[luka]

stan wont understand that hes not clever enough.

 

[luka]

it's sad but prynne is only for clever people that can work on boats

 

[luka]

if you cant hold your own on a boat environment throwing ropes you're not a real human and you can't read prynne

 

[Benny Bunter]

I'd like to see him have a go cos he said:

engram
/ˈɛnɡram/

noun

1. a hypothetical permanent change in the brain accounting for the existence of memory; a memory trace.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I posted that poem because @Clinamenic (I think) unwittingly nailed its content in a single word - and, even better, a word I could easily imagine Prynne himself using.

The next question is of course, why is it a poem? Maybe you need to be a real human being who works on a boat to work that bit out.

 

[Clinamenic]

stan wont understand that hes not clever enough.

Ever wonder why nobody has ever seen Prynne and me together, at the same place?

 

[Clinamenic]

Prynne = me

Only I reserve that alias for my lower-quality writings.

 

[sus]

Can we talk about stoned modernism, and how it compares to psychedelic fascism?

 

[sus]

I highly recommend this https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/documents/jhp13

Particularly his tips for reading which are here

https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/reading.pdf

Reading tips are insane insane insane:

Different kinds and powers of attention suit different tasks; also, concurrent but separate continuities of attention will need to be kept running in separate channels, so that one train of reading and thought over a run of sessions will not blur across into another. With practice you will learn to adjust and keep control over attention, and maintain several distinct layers and channels at once.

Which is completely bizarre to me given his antipathy and mockery of modernist engineering culture, because his vision of proper reading is tyrannically modernist engineering—all about purity and discipline and avoiding blurring and blending

 

[sus]

Everything smart I've ever thought or said was a result of blurring the trains of attention/reading/thought between simultaneous works and noticing the resonances, echoes, contrasts

 

[sus]

His syllabi are all absurdly long, with absurd redundancies, and I am more or less bet-my-life positive he has not read, or even substantially sampled, from every text he recommends Cambridge undergrads read. Insane insane insane. I can only believe that they are part of a performance of intimidation tactics, a means of tyrannically wielding authority and expertise over hapless teenagers in order to terrify and bully them into proper respect for English literature. Insanity.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Reading tips are insane insane insane:

Which is completely bizarre to me given his antipathy and mockery of modernist engineering culture, because his vision of proper reading is tyrannically modernist engineering—all about purity and discipline and avoiding blurring and blending

Surely it's just practical advice for students with a high reading load and limited time to organise their reading. He's not saying you shouldn't notice echoes, resonances and contrasts is he?

 

[Benny Bunter]

His syllabi are all absurdly long, with absurd redundancies, and I am more or less bet-my-life positive he has not read, or even substantially sampled, from every text he recommends Cambridge undergrads read. Insane insane insane. I can only believe that they are part of a performance of intimidation tactics, a means of tyrannically wielding authority and expertise over hapless teenagers in order to terrify and bully them into proper respect for English literature. Insanity.

Of course he's read it all. Standards have dropped massively in universities. Harold Bloom''s talked about this too, how the students he had in the latter part of his life were very clever, but nowhere near as well read as those he had at the beginning of his teaching career in the what? 50s/60s.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Prynne and Bloom are both freakishly well read though, they weren't normal. They would read through entire libraries.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I don't understand what "tyrannically modernist engineering culture" is though and why you think Prynne was mocking it.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Also, isn't it the case that in university they give you these ridiculously long reading lists but you're not expected to read ALL of it? Rather, you're encouraged to read what you can in the time you have and be selective?

 

[Benny Bunter]

It's literally a Cambridge university syllabus, what do you expect? It was his job, he was a teacher and librarian for 40 years.

 

[sus]

Of course he's read it all. Standards have dropped massively in universities. Harold Bloom''s talked about this too, how the students he had in the latter part of his life were very clever, but nowhere near as well read as those he had at the beginning of his teaching career in the what? 50s/60s.

No, I really think he hasn't.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I think he probably has, but even if you don't believe it, how are those reading lists any different from any other university reading list? They're supposed to be comprehensive.