User:Ssstephen/Reading/Deep Play

Republished in Daedelus, Fall 2005. Originally published in the same journal, Winter 1972.

trapped … look … probing feel … vaguely disembodied … "away" … you are real … bemused … expose … secluded … secrecy … without attracting attention … the superorganism came instantly apart as its components scattered in all directions … everything was dust and panic … northward … looking for … found … seeing … double take … an impassioned description … barely communicated … looking … in the eye … to study culture … to tell … we had not seen … bewildered … no longer invisible … attention … interest … knew … small detail by small detail … only watching … mimicked … the underworld … called … ask us … extraordinariness … accepted … we were quite literally "in." … opened up … informants … caught, or almost caught … rapport … acceptance … penetrate … immediate, inside-view … subjects … emotional explosion, status war, and philosophical drama … inner nature I desired to understand.

There is definitely observation happening in this first section which is good, also awareness of observation from the villagers, the anthropologists and the police towards eachother. Some acceptance on the part of the anthropologists of the effect their presence has on the situation. Although I would like to see this examined in more detail later in the essay.

a well-studied place … microscopically examined … a few passing remarks … noticed … a popular obsession … a revelation … phenomena … surfaces … apparently … actually … deep psychological identification … men with their cocks … conception … the body as a set of separately animated parts … self-operating penises … ambulant genitals … masculine symbols … the language of everyday moralism … 'sabung' the word for cock … appears in inscriptions … to mean … behavious presumes … compared to … likened to … compared to … a good impression … perceived … the intimacy of men with their cocks … gazing at them with a mixture of rapt admiration and dreamy self-absorption … abstract sensuality … get a feel for … high-walled enclosures where the people live … wicker cages … far more care than it is when mere humans are going to eat it … inspected for flaws … squinted concentration of a diamond merchant … "I am cock crazy" … afficianado … "We're all cock crazy" … less visible dimensions … expressions … animality … demons … scripture, dance, ritual, myth … The Powers of Darkness … a blood sacrifice … The Day of Silence … to avoid … the creative power of aroused masculinity and the destructive power of loosened animality fuse in a bloody drama of hatred, cruelty, violence, and death … social embarrassment, moral satisfaction, aesthetic disgust, and cannibal joy.

I was hoping this thick description to be a bit less lyrical, I'm a little disappointed. It is dramatic and drawing big conclusions and I wonder if these conclusions are realistic in any sense of how it is experienced by those more accustomed to the cockfights than a visiting anthropologist. A very big narrative seems to be created in the mind of Cliff and I'm not sure it's basis is very solid. If he were more accepting or up front of this as his own interpretation of culture, in a consistent way I think it would be helpful. Even for example using the first person voice.

seek to find … obsessively deliberate … the lore … sharpened only at eclipses and the dark of the moon … animal fury so pure, so absolute, and in its own way so beautiful, as to be almost abstract, a Platonic concept of hate … to show … demonstrates … he blows in its mouth, putting the whole chicken head in his own mouth and sucking and blowing … make the dead walk … moving their bodies in kinesthetic sympathy with the movement of the animals … turnings of the head … it is said that spectators sometimes lose eyes … being too attentive … they glance off toward another … palm-leaf manuscripts … I have never seen … judgement … nor have I ever heard … decides … a judge, a king, a priest, and a policeman … I saw … I never once saw … I never saw … searching for … something not vertebrate enough to be called a group and not structureless enough to be called a crowd … a "focused gathering" … a set of persons engrossed in a common flow of activity and relating to one another in terms of that flow … they take their form from the situation that evokes them … the focus … duty of citizenship; taxation of fights … the connection between the excitements of collective life and those of blood sport … to expose it … the gambling.

Ok here I'm getting a bit more into his method. More first person descriptions. Relations of individual emotions values and actions with those of others, the group, and bigger social structures. Examination of the crowd present at the event itself and attempts to describe without defining the group dynamics and behaviours. Descriptions of the roles of participants (the umpire, the owner, the man who attaches the spurs); what they do, their beliefs and values, how they are viewed by others in society generally and in specific situations.

<blockqoute>do … do … is … there are … there is … there is … is typically … typically … is … is … as we shall see most revealingly … 'is always' … 'without exception' … 'equally without exception' … 'is never' … what is … is … is … official … a webwork of rules … is made … overseer and public witness … as I say … to show … I have exxact and reliable data … the range … a mean … the distribution … trimodal … percent … percent … percent … the extremes … the normal … the average … if he shouts … if he shouts … indicates … crying out … they unlock gazes and the search goes on … men crying … finding themselves … clearly … the general pattern … nonexistent pole … the overwhelming majority … almost frenzied proportions … to find … the sense that sheer chaos is about to break loose … an effect … an iron rule … reported … critical analytical problem … a theory which sees … suggests … solving … demonstrating … the point that needs to be made … simple considerations of rationality suggest … care is taken … less advantageous angle … more care … genuinely … consciously … approximately equal … what statistics I have … the favourite … the underdog … ratio … the ratios … take the extremes … the ratio … from this proposition … two things more or less immediately follow … the logic … in fact … therefore …

I think a measurement of this technique's efficacy might be: Does this describe in enough detail that I feel confident to recreate the event accurately?