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no. 13, september 2006 |
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SO
ADMIT TWO IS NOW OFFICIALLY TWO
and continues to grow and multiply, propagate and propagandize. If it
ever appeared that it’s merely a fluke, at this point it should be
clear that it is a chronic condition, a chronic fluke. It should also be
clear that its purpose is not to set standards, norms, or definitions of
what literary collaboration is or should be, but rather to provide
space, virtual as it may be, for the discussion of literature as a
collaborative endeavor. Think
of it as table. Everybody’s invited. The
idea we want to throw at this table is that literature has been
kidnapped: It has been abducted by a preposterous and dangerous notion
that literature should be created in isolation, by a secluded,
individual, singular genius. It has been seized by the notion that in
the era of new technologies literature has lost its purpose and meaning.
It has been hijacked by the proposition that it must be marketable. It
has been crafted and designed as a name, a brand name, a trademark, a
corporate logo, and then distributed in small boxes of specified genres,
sentenced to borders. Whereas what it really should be perceived as is
– a verb, an active force. Our
suggestion is simple: The function of language is communication.
Literature is artistic creation by means of language. Therefore, the
function of literature is also communication. People communicate in
order to connect, relate to each other, in order to shape the world and
shape themselves, in order to discern the boundaries between the self
and the other, boundaries that should serve as stitches, scars marking
the manner in which each individual gets grafted into the world. In
other words, literature is a dialogue. In fact, it is the
dialogue, one and the same that had been initiated at the very moment
when the first self recognized the first other. And, again,
everybody’s invited. What’s more, everybody is obliged to
participate, everybody is free to share, no one is allowed to
exclusively own. If
you’re still not convinced, try composing a work of art in a language
no one but you speaks, and have that work mean nothing, even by meaning
nothing; make it with no purpose, not even the purpose of not having a
purpose; have it not say anything, not even by not saying anything, and
try, just try calling it literature, in a language that no one, not even
you, speaks.
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by Daniel S. Irwin & Ronald D. Irwin
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by Kevin Eberhardt & Kevin Eberhardt
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by Papa Osmubal & Susanna Lei Kam Sio
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two Fridays, Tuesday, and a poem
by S. B. Smith & Kathy Ireland Smith
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Little Golden America: Chapter Six: Papa and Mamma
by Ilya Ilf & Eugene Petrov
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