From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Thu 31 Oct 2002 - 06:40:53 GMT
On Wednesday, October 30, 2002, at 05:31 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> But you cannot define 'not walking' as a specific performance type, or
> even a specific performance, because any other behavior, or lack of
> any behavior at all, qualifies.
Hmmm, well, I'm not trying to define specific behavior types, beyond
being memetic or not. I'm not, personally, (as opposed to intentionally,
as regards the beme stance) the type of person who enjoys cataloguing
distinctions.
But, the conditions required to make 'not walking' a meme are not
stringent or difficult to arrange. But, in all of this, the only
priority or constraint upon a memetic performance is the willingness of
another to replicate it. The conditions required to make a specific and
unaccompanied (by extraneous gesture or speech, for instance), meme of
'not walking' magnetic enough to create a crowd of stillness is beyond
my immediate imagination to stage. The ever-present 'living statues' in
city squares all over the world do not gather immotive satellites and
create gridlock throughout the sidewalk.
And those in their cars during 'rush' hour, while embroiled in gridlock,
are not beme-ing anything- they are just unable to move.
- Wade
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