I don't understand why A.E is an ugly term. Although it evokes an easy analogy to sexual pleasure, as Cheerskep demonstrated, we should not be adverse to an equivocation between the carnality and elevated thought. The Puritans saw sexual pleasure and orgasm as excellent, analogous approximations of their spiritual union with Christ and the Holy Spirit. See Richard Godbeer's book, Sexual Revolution in Early America.
Of course, being just a studio artist by trade, I suppose I shouldn't be reading deeply in American History. But I can't help this devious habit because my education and my muses awakened interest and I just don't have the integrity to stick to the public concept of the artist as a thickheaded artisan doing skilled handiwork. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected]; [email protected] Sent: Sat, February 27, 2010 4:56:45 PM Subject: Re: N.K. Smith's "Here I stand" In a message dated 2/27/10 4:47:12 PM, [email protected] writes: > I use the meatless scription 'a.e.' as solely a > kind of arrow, a pointing finger. Everyone on this list is acquainted with > > "that feeling", but every label I've seen used here has drawn fire. So I > try to > avoid the spelled-out label - - ya know what I mean? > > I didn't mean that you were literally too lazy to spell it out,it was more a sort of summing up. "A.e." is still very ugly. KAte Sullivan
