MIT Love 'em or Hate 'em

Asa, all "I"(as he can and did speak for himself) think that Zaikesman is trying to say, may be that this is a place where audiophiles come to share ideas. (and yes sometimes we do fight)In general we are a plain spoken bunch.

It's not that most of us on Audiogon are as dumb as unclecrusty makes us out to be, it's just sometimes language can be a hurdle to comunication.

I mentioned Derrida, feeling quite sure you would know what I was getting at in a more indirect way than maybe Zaikesman put it. Sometimes less, IS, more. What I think he is saying is that when he, or I, for that matter, read some of your posts, it is like what you described in yourself reading Derrida. This is not a knock on you or what you have to say. It's just that it can seem as surreal and out of context as a flaiming girraff in a Salvador Dali painting.

I hope that this is taken in the spirit that it is intended.

Asa, thanks for the measured response - never let it be said you're anything less than a real gentleman. However, I did expect a somewhat more accurately targeted riposte on your part. I never took shots at the use of long words, or claimed irrelevency. To say that your excursions are frequently digressive and rambling is not necessarily a kiss-off (been known to do it myself, long words included, believe it or not), but it is pretty darn factual. And trust me, I'm not so much the babe in the woods that I'm actually in danger of taking them to be as profound that you need protest to the contrary (nor do I merely crave simplistic entertainment, or just-the-facts-mister, lowest-common-denominator blandness).

You are correct though, in guessing that I sometimes no longer read them completely, but that's not due to their length, something of which I've also been chastised for being excessively fond of from time to time. Rather, it's that you have reiterated your superimposed musings, with little apparent variation or call to do so, on so many threads by now, that I find I can't look foward to or profit from them anymore. I know what's coming, as I believe you yourself once referred to. Many threads seemingly present you with nothing more or less than the next opportunity for exercising yet another philosophical takeover attempt. It gets kinda old, my friend.

Yes, there is a small but dedicated coterie of fine worthies who seem not to groan, and indeed to take genuine pleasure, in joining the merriment you typically introduce. (And FWIW, these orgies do tend to take place more toward the bitter end of threads that have long since burned themselves out.) But when I listen to good music through my system, music I enjoy, and really experience it, such thoughts cannot possibly even enter my mind - go downstairs now and try it, and see if you don't agree. I'm absolutely as guilty as the next guy (and maybe the next two guys) of writing here, in part, because of a love for the sound of my own voice. However, I do try to listen as much or more than I speak, and I try not to drag everthing over in my preferred direction each time out of the gate.

So, while I will always defend your right to make me slump in my chair if you want and can (and I consider that to actually be something of a backhanded compliment, given that there are many posters on A'gon who could not engage me enough to get any reaction at all!), the next time I encounter you coining the phrase 'rearranged matter' for the eleventieth time, you will forgive me if I do my best to hold my piece/peace, and remember what it was you truly taught me about philosophy (especially as it fails to apply to audio in particular): What is the sound of one lip flapping?

Asa, I think that your thoughts on the thinking by the thinkers here provides thought for thinking.

Unsound, very nice and very true. You put it in a nutshell. It sure works like that for me. Cheers,

This thread went about as I had expected.

I will say, as for my own participation in this "drive by" of a thread, that I did, TRY, to stay out of it after my initial post for some time. I admit to a case of "thread rage". Having been tailgated by unclekrusty in his huge Cadillac SUV, cut off, and then given the finger after the tried to run me off the road,I returned the favor by flipping him off and showing him my Glock. Guilty!

As usual, in a thread of this nature no real good comes of it. It just seems to be the nature of this and few other topics that come up around here. It was all too predictable though.