[MD] Code of Art

[squonkmuse at talktalk.net]

Hi Marsha,
You may be interested in the following from Mon May 24 1999:

Mr. Pirsig writes, 


?????"Making people laugh sympathetically about other people's disabilities 
is an enormous accomplishment. 
?????The fact that you are doing so well at it indicates that the phenomena 
that you experienced back in your 'insane' days may have been a kind of an 
enlightenment as well as an insanity. The two tend to overlap. 
?????...Prior to enlightenment there is often a huge opening of the mind to 
the 'mythos' which in this case means more than just legends. It means the 
main stream, the whole body of every idea that ever existed or can exist 
which each culture selects from, calling its own selection 'reality.' At 
this time there is an abandonment of normal channels of cultural selectivity 
over thought. The selection goes sort of crazy and you can think of any damn 
thing and think it is real and in a sense it is. When you start wandering in 
this mythos all rules are off and so you can pick up on strange things. I 
think your mind wanderings about me and the ideas in ZMM and Lila probably 
had less to do with me personally than with this phenomenon. 
?????...Just before entering the University of Chicago... I experienced a 
similar pickup on the film 'Orpheus' by Jean Cocteau. I lived inside that 
film and it had the same sort of effect on me that my book seems to have had 
on you. 
?????...I'm certainly proud that ZMM has had a similar function for you and 
that you are a part of the crowd of people working to diminish the misery of 
the world rather than add to it or just ignore it. As I'm sure you know, 
it's not as easy as it may look."

http://www.moqtalk.org/archivedata/moq_discuss/1998%20-%202002/9905/0117.html

Thu May 27 1999:
http://www.moqtalk.org/archivedata/moq_discuss/1998%20-%202002/9905/0161.html