Topic: Bill Ellis' Dissertation on Rev. Gary Davis

[Mr.OMuck]

Strictly out of curiosity, who is your idea of a good writer if Joyce is an overrated sacred cow?

[Rivers]

I don't believe I care to go there, since it's not on topic, and because you seem to be in a mood to lecture, and I do not care to be lectured.

[Gumbo]

Happy Bloomsday!   

[Rivers]

I have given this some thought and realized my discomfort is with the thread in general, it's nothing to do with discussions of literary giants.

While the points made are valid, they take on a more personal aspect for me since I happen to have met Bill Ellis, albeit briefly. He's a good player and performer, and seemed quite pleasant and unaffected, although he does hold some strong opinions on the music, as do we all. I'm not sure how he himself would view what he wrote back then, and I'm damn sure I'd be unimpressed to be critiqued on my 'get out of jail' dissertations many years later.

As I say it was a brief meeting, after he had played a set at the Auckland Folk Fest a few years ago.

As for great writers, I recommend the 'Biggles' series by Capt. W.E. Johns, particularly 'Biggles Flies Again'. Now there's a writer!

[Stuart]

He wrote it for his committee (the one that granted his degree) to demonstrate that he can think and work at the Ph.D. level--and indirectly for the committee that hired him at St. Mike's. He was successful on both counts. The next task is to rewrite it and have it published as a book, one that will earn him tenure. Hopefully, he'll be successful at that as well.

There's an old saying, "He who tries to please everybody labors in vain," but so far he's pleased the people that count. Maybe in the future he'll have a chance to demonstrate his stylistic and literary chops in a way that meets with everyone's approval.