Re: <documenta X><blast> public disasters (virtual mood)
Morgan Garwood (mgarwood@inch.com)
Mon, 07 Jul 1997 17:45:58 -0400
Arnold Toynbee had a special fondness for ATE, as he spelled it; disaster.
One of the essential dramatic scripts of the human condition was
koros-hubris-ate, or surfeit (having more than you need, more than you have
any use for, and still demanding more; see related greek concept
*pleonexia*, a condition of the diseased soul that insists on more than
its' due; also se R. Crumb's character that allegorizes the spirit of
rampant consumption for consumption's sake, aptly named Bludney Plud),
hubris (we all know that one, a the contemptuous overestimation of one's
place in the universe), and night following on day, ate, disaster, divine
retribution, having one's ass whipped. The old Persians had a saying about
something akin to *ate*; "when fortune turns aagainst you, even jelly will
break your tooth".