Amusement Even writers don't like literature!

Important! A Gentle Reminder - Litopia's Prime Directive

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Marc Joan

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Aug 26, 2014
In reading 'The Aleph', by Jorge Luis Borges, I found this:

"So witless did these ideas strike me as being, so sweeping and pompous the way they were expressed, that I associated them immediately with literature."

Lol! How true! And then, later [ibid.]:

"Perhaps the gods would not deny me the discovery of an equivalent image, but then this report would be polluted with literature, with falseness."

Think Georgy Borgy was feeling a little jaded when he wrote that particular story!
 
In reading 'The Aleph', by Jorge Luis Borges, I found this:

"So witless did these ideas strike me as being, so sweeping and pompous the way they were expressed, that I associated them immediately with literature."

Lol! How true! And then, later [ibid.]:

"Perhaps the gods would not deny me the discovery of an equivalent image, but then this report would be polluted with literature, with falseness."

Think Georgy Borgy was feeling a little jaded when he wrote that particular story!
Maybe he'd just had a rejection saying his submission wasn't literary enough!
 
This is a real bragging point for Latin Americans, though. See the Marquez interview with The Paris Review in which he talks about eradicating the literary from his writing before he could write 100 Years... and Bolano talking in the rudest terms in 2666 about literature and literary people. I think there's another Borges story - can't remember the name - about a dinner party in Buenos Aires where someone starts by confessing they haven't read the latest edition of some literary journal from Paris ... it ends by everyone admitting they've never read the Bible, or Shakespeare. Something like that.

A well-know reviewer was (rightly, imo) pilloried in the Guardian comments section a few years ago for always making references to the most obscure writers possible in their reviews. You know the kind of thing: you might think Rushdie is like Ballard. But that's only because you don't know the work of Rossyin Doitchkov, the fabulous Bulgarian writer of short fiction first published in Instanbul in 1864... etc...
 
Rossyin Doitchkov??! OMG, I love him. But [ahem], I think you''ll find his very first works appeared in the Progressive Journal of Words and Their Arrangements, edited by Max Ernst, and published from a garret in Svalbard in 1859. Just saying.
 
Rossyin Doitchkov??! OMG, I love him. But [ahem], I think you''ll find his very first works appeared in the Progressive Journal of Words and Their Arrangements, edited by Max Ernst, and published from a garret in Svalbard in 1859. Just saying.
I stand corrected, and duly humbled at your intimate knowledge of Doitchkov and his work. PS reminds me of Beckett's invention of "Concentrism", the art movement that didn't exist - he successfully lectured his students in Paris on the movement to demonstrate what "bolleaux" the academic approach can sometimes be....;)
 
Are you a biochemist?
sadly not, though for reasons too complex to explain I do have an invention disclosure related to agonists/precursors for endometreosis. But I saw that you are one from your website - bravo! Holub was as well, among a host of others - it's a great profession, I think.
 
Impressive! I hope you don't have to bear the costs of patent maintenance yourself?
I'm more of a molecular biologist than a biochemist, tbh. Too many sums in biochemistry for my liking!
Last time I looked at endometriosis, there were few drug options; don't know what the situation is today?
 
Impressive! I hope you don't have to bear the costs of patent maintenance yourself?
I'm more of a molecular biologist than a biochemist, tbh. Too many sums in biochemistry for my liking!
Last time I looked at endometriosis, there were few drug options; don't know what the situation is today?
The institution is keeping it up at the moment; one of the reasons we haven't exploited it is the % the institution wants from any commercial exploitation (95% or something; we heard that and didn't bother to negotiate). Very few drug options, yes: this is a naturally-occuring compound that has anti-inflammatory effect against interleukin-8 and prostoglandin-3 (I think) in a lab culture of the endometrial lining. We got positive signs from lab and prepared an n=60 study at five UK centres, and then the institution came in for their pound of flesh, so we've parked it.
 
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Yup, that's how to stifle innovation and entrepreneurialism. Seen it all before. They need a cut of course -- but a fair cut, please.
 
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Important! A Gentle Reminder - Litopia's Prime Directive

Introducing myself

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