Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0020.  Monday, 10 January 1994.
 
(1)     From:   Steve Urkowitz <SURCC@CUNYVM>
        Date:   Sunday, 09 Jan 94 21:02:25 EST
        Subj:   Re: SHK 5.0014  Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium?
 
(2)     From:   William Godshalk <GODSHAWL@UCBEH>
        Date:   Sunday, 09 Jan 1994 21:49:13 -0500 (EST)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 5.0017  Re: Thinness
 
 
(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Steve Urkowitz <SURCC@CUNYVM>
Date:           Sunday, 09 Jan 94 21:02:25 EST
Subject: 5.0014  Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium?
Comment:        Re: SHK 5.0014  Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium?
 
----------hmmmmm--------a thin communication medium.  Seems like what we used
to call "a script."  Seems like those old players used to have their writers
sit down with them and read the scripts out loud, all the way through, maybe
to avoid confusion in the distribution system when all networks were down.  One
way to thicken communication, whether face-to-face or in the thin atmosphere of
scripted transmission, is to offer a quizzical "hey, wha'?"  And then the
script writer tries again, louder, or clearer, or different.  Sometimes we call
that second shot "revision."  Or sometimes, without the listeners' prompts, we
can think of it as a recursive or redundant style, as the writer or speaker
listens to herself and goes back over the same ground.  You might like to look
at a neatly scripted instance: the line where the gravedigger scans the thin
medium of Yorick's skull, trying to find its wit.  It and its context appear
three different ways in Q1, Q2 and F HAMLET, and I'd argue that we'd get a
"thicker" experience of HAMLET if editors would think to lay these redundancies
out for us to see .  But that would be asking editors to open up multiple
possibilities where they instead feel obliged to present straight and narrowly
unambiguous text, authoritative text.  Ah, well.
 
                           Joy of the New Year to all,
                               Steve Urthickowitz SURCC@CUNYVM
 
(2)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:           William Godshalk <GODSHAWL@UCBEH>
Date:           Sunday, 09 Jan 1994 21:49:13 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 5.0017  Re: Thinness
Comment:        Re: SHK 5.0017  Re: Thinness
 
Jim McKenna reminds me of Walker Percy. Need we be reminded that we are all
Lost in the Cosmos, and that the person we know best in this world remains the
primary mystery for us? If we were to live inside Jonson's skin, inside Joyce's
brain, what would we know that we don't already know? The question is only one
half rhetorical.
 
Yours, Bill Godshalk

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