Extraordinary Discourse 182

Spoken-Word Shenanigans




Doggie Daddy and Max Weber in the same pot! Or on it. Plus, of course, the unusual suspects.

Title stolen from the intro to Spider Robinson's podcast, Spider on the Web. Go enjoy him!


Everything that gets exchanged between people,
whether it's spoken or not, is a form of such thought. Human beings are
discourse. The rest is blood and bone and nerves. Call it speech, that flowing
between us. Compare it to the sun, which us always warming us, even when we
can't see it. This speech-sun is invisible, except when it takes form in
language.
Coleman Barks,
The Soul Of Rumi



…the Mercurius, the rogue who is sometimes
benevolent and sometimes a trickster, an enemy to the law and the revenue
officers, but a great friend to people of noble spirit, and to lovers. This
Mercurius figure is by no means confined to this play alone: it is part of the
apparatus of melodrama. Not infrequently the part was represented as being an
Irishman, and much of the character that Irishmen have in popular opinion for
being witty and irresponsible is the result of these stage representations.
Robertson Davies,
Jung and the Theatre