Saturday, February 16, 2008

Field Notes

1. Field Notes are observations made by behavioral, clinical, and social scientists about on-site activities of the subjects they study, later to be used as supplements to larger studies in progress.

2. Field Notes are observations made by poets and writers who find themselves in the midst of provocative and intriguing behavior, later to be incorporated in poems, essays, memoirs, short stories, novels, and plays.

3. Writers' field notes are often written on napkins which, in turn, are often damp, having resided for a time underneath a glass containing some quantity of spiritus fermenti.

4. Some writers also take notes on three-by-five index cards or Moleskine notebooks.

5. Yet other writers make field notes on the backs of credit card receipts, ATM receipts, and such miscellaneous scraps of paper as find their way into the pockets of said writers, and which are often enigmatic in nature, causing the writer on reencountering them to wonder what they are about and, consequently, what the writer's relative sobriety was at te time of notation.

6. Behavioral, clinical, and social scientist's notes are more likely to be straightforward, objective observations. Dominant male approaches ovulating female, exposes and extends plumage.

7. Writers are more likely to be rhetorical and/or expansive, even going so far as being speculative.

8. From behavioral, clinical, and social scientist's observations, we have learned among other things that animals thought of by us as vegetarians were in fact quite open to meat, that some animals practice cannibalism, that more animals than previously suspected use tools, and that sexual behavior withi some species fits the homo sapien definition of bi- or homosexuality.

9. From poets, writers, and dramatists we have learned among other things that homo sapiens are subject to jealousy, envy, bipolarity, bisexuality, Libertarianism and Republicanism.

10. From both camps we learn that homo sapiens young frequently undergo some ritual expressions of protest and disillusionment toward the culture in which they were raised.

11. We are still waiting for either camp, the scientist or writer, to recognize that young homo sapiens may through their overall behavior and attempts to modify their external appearance, be parodying or satirizing individuals--particularly parents--beyond their own immediate age group.

12. Modes of dress, grooming, bodily decorations, vocabulary, and behavior may be focused on making fun of what is seen as a norm or a series of norms with which young homo sapiens disagree.

13. On one hand, this is not rational behavior.

14. On the other hand, it is.

15. Many poets, writers, and dramatists have observed along with behavioral, clinical, and social scientists that in every culture of mature homo sapiens, there is a percentage that overtly dislikes young homo sapiens; they do not, however, take significant steps to change their appearance; they simply respond with grouchyness.

16. Two segments of society responding to one another, one with satire, the other by being a grouch; take your pick.

17. When I was your age, the oldster begins.

18. Aw, geez, the youngster thinks, do I have to listen to that again?

19. Hillary wants more debates. See Hillary run. Run, Hillary, run.

20. P & S. Parody and satire.

6 comments:

x said...

Field Note: Anything you say about Hilary is now officially categorized as sexist, especially if you are a male, and can and will be held against you.

Unknown said...

I'm laughing at "Run, Hilary! Run!" Somehow my mind immediately jumped to Forrest Gump, before it made the leap to "See Dick and Jane". Abd TIV's comment added to the gales of laughter. Parody and Satire, rhetoric and poetry, it's all relative, or haven't you heard?

R.L. Bourges said...

3-4-5-7...aw, the whole thing. Yes, to go.

lettuce said...

10-16 - most familiar. Satire any time for me.

and when she's feeling too lazy for satire, its sheer bloody-mindedness. which is also good.

re No.8 - there was something in my weekend paper about the discovery that voles (previously identified as models of monogamy) are very sexually promiscuous. Go voles!

Unknown said...

I can't wait to see what will happen fifteen years from now, when the young hipsters with their ink and piercings are parents. Do you think we'll have a horde of teenagers in three-piece suits and crinolines? I kind of think we will.

lowenkopf said...

DR: I think we're much of a mind on this.