"pro-conlang attitudes" (wasRe: Conlangs in the press!)

In a message dated 2004:02:20 10:21:57 AM, ijzeren_jan@YAHOO.CO.UK writes:

re: "pro-conlang attitudes"

>I don't know. Perhaps a certain [Polish] fondness for curiosities? With the
>average Pole, something unknown and not understood will evoke curiosity
>rather than disgust.
    Reminds me of the Curious George attitude my Houston, TX junior high
school pal Pernoski (sp?) had in Aces... Oh the trouble he'd gleeful get into all
in the name of "findin' things out"... Latest I heard about him was that he-
as an investigator for certain law firm (and agent provocateur for the
"intelligence agency without a country", the AIN [Anarchist Intel. Network])- went
undercover as a neo-Nazi "Konfederate Hammerhead" skinhead Boot-boy... and he was
kicked out for his violent tendencies towards his "fellow skins" from _that_
particular organization notorious for mindless thrashpit/street violence! LOL

back to the "pro-conlang attitudes" subject underfoot:
>> You'd think the Swiss would be more like this...
>
>Or the Czechs. To quote from Prof. Tilman Berger's article about Slavic
>conlangs: "... aber die Ballung im tschechisch-slowakischen Bereich ist
>trotzdem auffÀllig und könnte mit dem von Macura (1983)
>beschriebenen "Linguozentrismus" der tschechischen Kultur >zusammenhÀngen."
    Ja. *GoogolGekicherByte!* OH! Ich werde ganz nervös, wenn ich Deutsch
einschreiben und lesen. Ich "Linguozentrismus" verfremdungeffekten, eh o_0?
Wieder...Entschuldigen Sie mein schlechtes Deutsch...

    I had a Czech friend named Buzz Aldrin Zzyxzz in high school. With a
sirname like that, similar and whatnot, Czechs must be natural-born
langamangalers...


>> AFAIK the Dutch are pretty close to having a "pro-conlang attitude" ;)
>
>I don't know. I'd rather say that they do not have an "anti-conlang
>attitude". It's rather like: "You do whát? Well, I don't understand you
>and I can't see the point of what you're doing, but after all that's your
>problem, not mine. So go ahead with it, but please do it out of my sight!"
    *goegolgiechelbijt  - of - met een vette megagrijns!*

    Sounds more like one of the uptight, puritannical monocultural East
Germans than the widely liberal polyglot/polycultural Dutch to me...

    But if the Dutch Co. here on this here list - as well as wack-cases like
my friend Yuri the List Lurker, the Russian who could "pass" for being Dutch
pretending to be Russian - are any measure of things, there has to be a fairly
sizeable, linguistically playful subculture at least (which is to say, for
such a small nation it sure has more langamangalers-at-large than the US of A in
terms of proportional percentages...)
    Christophe G., he of the French persuasion who lives in "self-imposed
exile" in the Lowlands, has said that there is a definite love of word-play in
Dutch culture numerous times... with ample detailed examples as he has observed
and not taken for granted.
    And Yuri is also heavily addicted to Dutch word-game books and
magazines... When we were housemates in Houston, TX and he did not get his "Dutch
treats" via his Dutch anarcho-squatter penpals, he'd get all stressed out, complain
about "the undisciplined squatter rabble" ... and then fiercely home[land]sick
and maudlin - Russian-style - sing, er, belt out old Soviet Army, Cossack,
and Ukrainian folk songs... Vodka, lemon, salt and raw onion at the ready to
lubricate his singing voice, rippin' out rough-as-hell riffs on MY poor battered
guitar.

* sorry, Yuri, but you _do_ get that...

    When it comes to housemates, nothing beats a drunk, homesick Russian
Afghan War defector/veteran to make your own depressing sense of "exile" (and
various other psych problems) worse...[Yuri, you can laugh it up now, but back
then it wasn't fun{ny} at ALL - esp'ly at 3 frikkin a.m. on a workday night!]

    Apologies to the list - & to Yuri - for airing this... these still
smoldering resentments... & for goin' oh so so off-freakin'-subject.

---  º°`°º ø,¸¸,ø º°`°º ø,¸¸,ø º°`°º ø,¸¸,ø º°`°º  º°`°º ø,¸~->

Hanuman "Mister Sinister" Zhang, Sloth-Style Gungfu Typist
- "the sloth is a chinese poet upsidedown" --- Jack Kerouac {1922-69}

"We don't read & write poetry because it's cute. We read & write poetry
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& medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits & necessary
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alive for." - Robin Williams, _Dead Poet's Society_

"Chance is the inner rhythm of the world, & the soul of poetry." - Miguel de
Unamuno

    "One thing foreigners, computers, & poets have in common
is that they make unexpected linguistic associations." --- Jasia Reichardt

    "There is no reason for the poet to be limited to words, & in fact the
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"La poésie date d' aujour d'hui."   (Poetry dates from today)
"La poésie est en jeu."             (Poetry is in play)
                --- Blaise Cendrars