[Newspoetry] my two cents (depending on how you count it)

[sigfried at shout.net]

andy gricevich said:
> <P>c) comfortable--because of its dismissiveness, this irony ensures that no further thought or worry need by expended on the subject. This also, I would argue, produces a false sense of effectiveness. A rhetorical victory has been won. Something has been dismissed. Which feels good, of course. (Somewhat like the small satisfaction I feel writing the rather mild (and probably more sarcastic than ironic) sentence:&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;Sigfried's asinine, regressive posting probably isn't worth the fifteen words it took to dismiss it.&quot;)</P>
> <P>obviously I just wanted to say that.</P>

Though your mild sentence is not sarcastic, ironic, nor mild, I am very glad
that writing it has given you some small satisfaction.

The writing of my earlier posting certainly cheered me up.  I was
unhappy that day, feeling knocked around by the world; a little verbal
wrangling was exactly what I needed to put me on my feet again.  I might wish
that the light of literary criticism had discovered the metaphor I was
actually engaging rather than the always-noticed argument-is-war one.  I was
employing the metaphor argument/battle-is-restorative-release.  It's one of my
favorites.  Catharsis, getting the pent-up anger out of one's system, all
that.  It's a mechanism that you make such good use of in the quoted section
above that I expect you are feeling as refreshed and chipper as I am.

Of course, this sort of sparring does constitute a rather rough and tumble 
approach to psychological restoration.  If I've used it in a way that
interferes with anyone's feminist critique of masculine discourse, please
accept my apologies.

Best regards,

Sigfried