SELECTED LETTERS FROM READERS Postmodern Culture v.6 n.2 (January, 1996) pmc@jefferson.village.virginia.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright (c) 1996 by the authors, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that the editors are notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the authors and the notification of the publisher, Oxford University Press. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The following responses were submitted by PMC readers using regular email or the PMC Reader's Report form. Not all letters received are published, and published letters may have been edited. ----------------------------------------------------------------- PMC Reader's Report on Stephanie Barbe Hammer, "'Just like Eddie' or as far as a boy can go: Vedder, Barthes, and Handke Dismember Mama" (September, 1995) I really appreciated reading your article on Eddie, but some of your information is incorrect. First, Eddie did have a paternal figure during his childhood. His mother was married to a man named Mueller, whom Eddie frequently refers to in many of his earlier songs, even before his times with Pearl Jam. Mr. Mueller is the man who caused the immense troubles in Eddie's and his mother's lives. However, Mr. Mueller was not Eddie's true father, he was actually his "step-father." If you look in the cover sleeve to _TEN_, Eddie's god-given name is listed. It is actually Eddie Louis Severson III, but it was quickly changed to Mueller early in his life. Unfortunately, Eddie did not find this out until age thirteen, hence the line in the song "Alive." When his mother finally divorced Mr. Mueller, his name was changed to Vedder, which was actually his mother's maiden name. Again, I found your article and references to be one of the best I've seen in a long while, but I was unsure if you were aware of the actual background of Eddie's childhood. Therefore, I decided to give you a quick rundown. I think if you would include this info. in your article somehow, it would make it even better. Thanks again, Bill Angione These comments are from: bill The email address for bill is: angionwt@muc.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephanie Hammer responds to Bill Angione: Thanks very much for writing and for your response. Actually, I was aware of Vedder's background, but for the purposes of the essay I am interested in the %imaginaries% (rather than "realities") constructed by the autobiographical material. Likewise, I do not investigate or, for that matter, even mention Barthes' and Handke's "real" relations with their mothers, but rather seek to unpack the twists and tangles that emerge in the texts. Still your point interests me a lot. What is it about Vedder and perhaps about rock in general (and grunge?) that makes us want to get "the facts right"? I think part of Vedeer's fascination as a performer/celebrity lies in his ability to play the border between truth and fantasy, and I also wonder if we don't bring Romantic (rather than modern) expectations to the rock artist -- expecting him/her to be authentic, original, tortured, addicted, and a host of other qualities which western culture first assigned to people like Byron and E.T.A. Hoffmann. I would be curious to know what you and others think about this in conjunction with the "difficulty" of approaching rock from any sort of theoretical-analytical perspective. Really, your comment is very rich and thought-provoking. Thank you again. Stephanie Hammer ----------------------------------------------------------------- PMC Reader's Report on Peter Consenstein, "Memory and Oulipian Constraints" (September, 1995) I've just read Peter Consenstein's text about Oulipo: there are several things that I didn't understand, because I was lacking references or because my English is not good enough, but found it very interesting. I've been interested in the works of Oulipo for a while, and have started making a Web page about it with some friends (the URL is: http://alpha.univ-lille1.fr:28080/~bruhat/oulipo/ but everything still is under construction!). Another aspect of Oulipo which seems interesting to me is its strong link with mathematics (I happen to be a math student, by the way). Francois Le Lionnais who played a very important role in the foundation of Oulipo was a mathematician, as was Roubaud, and Queneau himself was very interested in mathematics (what was said about "Odile" really made me feel like reading it!). In a his latest book, _Poesie etcetera menage_, Roubaud said that when creating Oulipo, they also referred to Nicolas Bourbaki (a collective pseudonym of a group of French mathematician created in the 30's), but in a somewhat parodic, "non-serious" way. They referred as well to the surrealists, but mostly as a "counter-example," because of all the fights and polemics which happened between the surrealists. For example, they decided that all the members of Oulipo were life members, in order to avoid the problems of exclusion, schism, etc. In fact, they ostensibly remained members even after their death, unless they committed suicide after doing a special declarartion about it in front of a lawyer. . . ! Good example of Oulipian humor! Well, . . . it's pleasant to see some things about Oulipo on the Web. I wonder what present members would say about it. (I think Claude Berge, who's a math researcher in Paris, has an email account . . . if you're interested.) Best regards, Estelle Souche These comments are from: Estelle Souche The email address for Estelle Souche is: esouche@ens.ens-lyon.fr ----------------------------------------------------------------- PMC Reader's Report on Phoebe Sengers, "Madness and Automation: On Institutionalization" (May, 1995) I found the article on institutionalisation extremely interesting. What a pity this kind of article never appears in psychiatric journals. Psychiatrists act as if the event of psychiatric hospitalization is value-neutral and benevolent to the client when, as your article shows, the experience for the recipient of such care is more like a trip through a chamber of horrors. More and more patients are objecting to this method of defining and managing madness, yet psychiatry itself seems oblivious to the human rights issues involved in enforced incarceration and treatment. The status of "voluntary hospitalization" is well described in your paper especially its easy conversion to involuntary status. Another ominous development is the advent of the compulsory community treatment order, with which patients can be forced to submit to drug treatment on an out-patient basis, so that the hospitalization can be continued interminably. Since the drugs used are highly brain-damaging, the fear this "treament" instills can be enormous. Thanks again for a most interesting paper, which I will recommend to my clients. These comments are from: L. Achimovich The email address for L. Achimovich is: achimova@cleo.murdoch.edu.au.h.edu.au ------------------END OF LETTERS.196 FOR PMC 6.2-----------------