[D-G] Books after 2000/behavior

[Socha, Donald]

I deeply appreciate what you are saying, Julia.  And recently I've had sharp examples of what unfortunately remain perhaps missed opportunities along these lines: friends I don't know how to relate to, questions about how I might act when meeting someone I admire for the first time, and so on. 

As recently as yesterday evening, for example, I went to a poetry reading in a venue I've been attending for a couple of decades now. The point is, I know most of the old timers and count personal 'friends' among them. 

Still, after the reading, during which, by the way, I caught compelling allusions to the prospects of becoming-giraffe and becoming-grasshopper, as usual in my case, I felt quite awash with conflicting impulses and emotions. Importantly, the rather brilliant poetry had something to do with this, although I thought both then and now that I could have been still more affected, honestly and if not rewardingly, then in a way that could certainly have been more relaxing, casual and appreciative. 

Mind you, I felt this even as I practiced honest discourse with the poet in question, but while he, on the other hand, at least on a molecular level, clearly indicated if not rode the occasional line of flight, I dithered, oozed incomplete and flat out wrong observations and perhaps even lied, not to make myself look good though, mind you, but to rescue myself from my own partially formed ruminations! 

The point is that while I don't know what I could have done differently, I knew, know, and have always known in such circumstances on some level, that I need to do things differently, I need to be less of a slave to whatever it is that either holds me back or shoves me forward if I'm only going to regret feeling insecure about it on any level. 

Mind you again, I'm no wall-flower. Just the other day I announced to anyone I thought might listen, that I was the self-appointed president of the Society for the Unpredictable Movement of Pedestrians.  I have a whole monologue on that.  

And the question I am most proud of putting to the poet that evening was, if you could, what three poetic things would you do tomorrow, and why? 

And in the book I bought, he wrote, "beware the goat-man!"  What was that about??? 

Best wishes, 
Don Socha


-----Original Message-----
From: deleuze-guattari-bounces at lists.driftline.org [mailto:deleuze-guattari-bounces at lists.driftline.org] On Behalf Of Julia Barclay
Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2011 4:28 PM
To: deleuze-guattari at lists.driftline.org
Subject: Re: [D-G] Books on Deleuze and Guattari after 2000

I think we are beaten into submission into the idea that the day-to-day lives of people and our interest in that is de facto jejeune.  I am beginning to re-become an old-fashioned feminist on this point I think (very 2nd wave!) as I believe more and more how people act is as important if not more so than what they say or even write.  This is not to say someone 'bad' can't write something 'good', etc...but I do think people, especially people like D&G who were so innovative in the way they thought, wrote and collaborated are of interest as human beings.  I mean, they are in fact pointing to new ways to live, create and act in their books, don't you think?

Any thoughts on this in general?

But, having said all that, I'm also aware as CJ Stivale said, the biography is of course an approximation, so we can't be sure how anyone acted... Still, I don't think interest in the specific is jejeune.

Best,
Julia