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Wednesday, February 12, 2014

The Return of Tamtam

Ladies and gentlemen,

After a nearly three-year hiatus, filled with much change, growth, and challenge, I have returned to the world of blogging at long last.

To commemorate my return, I will post this poem that a friend of mine sent to me a few years ago. I believe it's called The Logical Conclusion, but I've also seen it listed as The Ass Shall Sigh Uninstructed.

When earth's last thesis is copied 
From the theses that went before, 
When idea from fact has departed 
And bare-boned factlets shall bore,
When all joy shall have fled from study 
And scholarship reign supreme; 
When truth shall "baaa" on the hill crests 
And no one shall dare to dream; 

When all the good poems have been buried 
With comment annoted in full 
And art shall bow down in homage 
To scholarship's zinc-plated bull, 
When there shall be nothing to research 
But the notes of annoted notes, 
And Baalam's ass shall inquire 
The price of imported oats; 

Then no one shall tell him the answer 
For each shall know the one fact 
That lies in the special ass-ignment 
From which he is making his tract. 
So the ass shall sigh uninstructed 
While each in his separate book 
Shall grind for the love of grinding 
And only the devil shall look. 

Against the "germanic" system of graduate study and insane specialization in the Inanities. 

-Ezra Pound

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