thank god for funny

bloggers with the strangest preoccupations.

gives me reason to update this otherwise dormant site. just came across a couple of posts taking issue with something someone, a poet/event-organizer, i think, said about some unfavorable comment on the poetry event he organizes. that’s not the funny part. the funny part is how the “critics” took arms, with cries of down! down, with martial rule! screw the establishment! no to censorship! never again to dictatorship! oh my god. i mean, come on! there has got to be a major illogical gap here somewhere. must be the premise? first of all, when and where will you ever encounter a writer who will appreciate criticism, much less ask for it? not even in the most futuristic and speculative of fictions will it ever happen that a writer will say, please, please dear critic, criticize me, say bad things about me and my friends’ works, it would be a huge favor, that is exactly the kind of thing i need to improve my craft, to make me socially responsible, gender-sensitive, etc. secondly, if we readers/critics think the writer should be open to criticism, then shouldn’t critics also be beyond the writers’ responses to the criticism? because that is not our domain, as our friend pierre m. would say. the domain of the critic is the production of meaning; of positive knowledge (or connaissance) about the limits (or the unconscious) of a text; or an understanding of the conditions that result to the possibilities of a literary activity. my personal take on this? go for it, go for each other, guys! amuse me, please!