LEFEBVRE, OPENING REMARKS:
Don’t know all there is to know about edge. Do know: Misconceptions abound. Fixed? No. Plottable? No. Like line on map, where important things lie on either side? No.
“Sometimes my edge is a round edge.” Now tongue, now groove.
Edge, as in: Lip. Verge. Pungency. To sidle. Advantage. “Near bound of nerves’ end, inside of out.”
(Mutterings.)
Registration packets: Should have been plenty. Ppl. who took more than one should return same.
Armentout, “Edges and Hedges: Things that Get in the Way”:
Ppl. say, “I want to live out there close to the edge. But I don’t want to look funny.”
Cf. Gary Busey. Look at him first time: “Damn, no way that man can be a star.” But: “Sure, the man looks funny at first—anybody they thought of to play Buddy Holly had to look a little funny right off. But next thing you know, hey, he’s out there.” Beyond a star. Where it is. Raising hell in the social notes. “Jumping into people’s sets, man.”
Hully, Perl, Tibbett panel, “Getting Words in Edgewise”:
“Outfit” self for E.? (Figurative goose-down, asbestos.) Whole industry growing up. But is to gear for it to be not out close to it? Or to … temper it? Perhaps.
Out on E. for its own sake, or should we wait until propelled there by just cause? Hard question. Finally unanswerable.
Diff. ppl. higher/lower threshold of E.?
“I mean, I’ll start a sentence sometimes and halfway have to stop—skreek!—not on the edge anymore. But the first half …”
“Would you be interested in approaching the edge again, possibly in a more definitive manner?”
“Well …”
“Or a less definitive one?”
“Ah!”
Diff. cultures, diff. E’s. Navaho: Whole notion of edge as maze. (Maize?)
“Out on E.,” as compared to “hip”:
Rohle: “Yeah, but whoever heard of The Razor’s Hip?”
Many ppl. hip. Well, to be fair, not many—not untold numbers. More aren’t.
Basic point of hip: Certain people know you know what. “You know, it’s a social thing.”
Hip: Pick up on yet unassimilated Black English. “Come on over to the crib and we’ll …” “This Johnson.” Call everything a “Johnson.”
For some ppl., hip not enough.
Van Roud II, on Loss of E.:
“Suddenly this sinking sensation. Put a foot out one way, and … solid ground.
“Put it out the other way, and … solid ground.
“I was in some kind of Kansas of the mind—Sunday afternoon of the soul. I said, ‘Whoa, get back.’ I was upset.”
Stapenink, “Lines: Toward a Definition”:
Where does closeness to E. begin? Is there fine line separating area within which one may be said to be out close to E. from area within which one may be said to be cut off from E.? In that case: Does E. have an e.?
That line past which being close to E. begins. Greater value in being on that line? On edge of that line?
E. an absolute, or gradations? Sort of close to E. Really really close to E. Marginally barely close to E. Nearly close to E.
(Grumblings.)
During mixer, overheard:
“My friend and I were talking. I’m saying like who is your best rock star and who is your best this star and that star and it hits us, all our best ones like live out near the edge. And we’re talking you know and I go, ‘That’s why you like me. I’m out near the edge.’
“And he goes like he’s not believing me, he goes, ‘Yeah?’
“I go, ‘Yeah.’
“‘So what’s it look like over there?’ he goes.
“I go, ‘You put your toes out over it and look out and down and you feel something pressing up evenly on each one of your toes, toe toe toe toe toe, and you see somebody looking out and up at you.’ Because—
“And I don’t know what hit him, he goes like, ‘Yeah! Oh, yeah! Oh yeah, Lori! Sure, Lori!’ and goes out and rents this motel room somewhere and tears it up.”
“Seeing the Humor of It”—Dr. Ardis Wickwire: “How you like yr. edge?” “Which first, chicken or edge?” “Big butter and edge man.”
Ha.
Grosjean, Three types not near edge:
(1) Don’t know where edge is, never will. Don’t even know what direction it’s in. (Voice: “That’s cool.”)
(2) Grew up along the edge, or had one or more parents who were out close to it or named them something like Guava, and now want to spend their adult lives getting far from edges as possible. Beer on table, some art on walls that don’t mess over their relaxation, nobody after them with knife. (Voice: “That’s cool.”)
(3) Don’t believe there even is an edge. So-called “Round-Earthers.” (Voice: “Yeah!”)
Overheard conversation of electricians outside conf. rm.:
“Christ, my mom is dying and getting this SSI. Supplemental Security Income. You can only have fifteen hundred in the bank, so we took the rest of it out for her, put it in the house, and Christ the money come pouring in. For my mom, fine, but Christ how about all these guys who won’t work. There’s a limit. There’s a limit. It’s the middle-income guy—fifteen, eighteen, twenty thou, and you and me are paying for it. Christ my mom is dying and getting this SSI. …”
(Poss. paper for next year: “Middle-Edge Spread”?)
Crits. of conf.:
(1) Missed most fundamental point.
(2) What those splotches up on Vu-Graph?
a. Finger smudges
b. Insect matter
c. Eyesight
d. Weren’t any
(3) Same old crowd running.
(4) Ppl. screaming in ppl.’s ears.
(5) Should have been more registration packets. And more in them.
(6) Not out close to E.
LeFebvre, closing:
Always “same old crowd running things,” because when something has to be done you find out pretty quickly there are only a few people you can call on.
Cutting/leading E. dichotomy? “So fine, can only be palped by surprise.”
(Boos.)
Banquet, installation new officers 8:30 in Ballroom C. (Thing of throwing food: “Just obnoxious.”)
Proposals for new award categories must be in Sept. 1.