Date:    Wed, 22 Apr 1998 12:19:18 -0400
<br>From:    Larry Horn <laurence.horn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU>
<br>Subject: Re: Pomo
<br>
<br>At 6:06 AM -0400 4/22/98, Bapopik wrote:
<br>>     Where am I?  New York City?  Must be!
<br>>     I was invited to the 10th anniversary party for New York Press this
<br>>Friday.  This "Best of the Mail" is in New York Press, 10th anniversary issue,
<br>>April 22-28, 1998, page 32, col. 2-3:
<br>>
<br>>Postmodern, to You
<br>>AFTER READING JOHN STRAUSBAUGH'S cover story, "World World" (7/15), I am more
<br>>confused than ever about semiotics, Marshall Blonsky and Strausbaugh.  It is
<br>>written over the head of an average reader like myself with technobabble and
<br>>obfuscation.
<br>>     For example, what is pomo?  I cannot find this word in any of the
<br>>standard dictionaries I consulted.  The article uses the word on page 13,
<br>>column two, and elsewhere.  Even the context does not explain it: "movies, tv,
<br>>magazine ads, pomo art, et al."  What is it--a bird, a plane, an esophagus
<br>>(remember Mark Twain's use of esophagus?)?  Can Blonsky give us an explanation
<br>>in understandable plain English?  And why can't Strausbaugh favor his reader
<br>>with a definition, or is he, too, trying to perplex his readers?
<br>>     I am on the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary.  Unless he can
<br>>explain it, it will never be an English word.  A nonce word, yes, and even
<br>>gibberish, but not English.
<br>>     DAVID SHULMAN, Manhattan
<br>>     Aug. 12, 1992
<br>>
<br>
<br>
<br>I take it Mr. Shulman hasn't caught any performances of the Pomo Afro
<br>Homos. (If he read the Times as well as New York Press, he wouldn't have
<br>needed to ask.)  ANd I must say, he doesn't SOUND like someone on the staff
<br>of the OED.  ("I've never heard it, so it must be gibberish" indeed.)
<br>
<br>Larry
<br>