Baseball has been very, very good to me

From: Reed Konsler (konslerr@mail.weston.org)
Date: Thu 15 May 2003 - 20:01:58 GMT

  • Next message: Wade T. Smith: "Re: transmission"

    > There is...another information ...the performance
    > of the teacher, recounting, as best she tries, the performance of the
    > artifact of the book.

    I don't understand what you mean by "the performance of the artifact of the book". Is the book, itself, performing? What performance connects the larger culture of baseball to the micro-culture on the island.

    Maybe this would be a better gedanken to help me understand you:

    Let's say that on an island called "First Base" they perform a game called baseball. On another island called "Third Base" they don't play the game. All the islands share the same language. An expedition from First Base lands on an island called "Second Base" and, after a little exploring, returns to First leaving behind a bunch of junk they don't need. Among this junk is the rules of baseball.

    Lots of time passes. During this intervening period, people on First grow tired of baseball. They stop playing, forget about it, and all records of the game on First are lost.

    A little while later, an expedition from Third lands on Second and uncovers evidence of the previous explorers. This includes the rules to baseball. They return to Third and the game becomes identified with these mysterious First Basers that no-one has ever seen nor heard from. It becomes a fad and eventually everyone on Third is playing baseball all the time.

    The questions I have are:

    1) What performance or performances allowed the game of baseball to replicate? 2) Where was the baseball meme when no one was playing baseball?

    Best,

    Reed

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