[Beyle]

Dear Queentess:

"What we have here is (I think) a failure to communicate (Cool Hand Luke)."
You will probably seen my riposte - not a rant - to Elfwreck. Let me preemmpt you and anyone else, there are several mispelled words aboard that I regret but cannot with this technology and my wounded brain amend.

Now, as to your concerns, I would never under any circumstances say or even think of any woman as a "moron." That may b e sexist to you but it's how I was raised. Men? I knew a pudgy guy with glasses who went arouind to various bars in order to get into fights. Something about wanting to know he was alive. Now that's a moron. Harlan Ellison, and I understand he's a big deal in that world, is very pugnacious but never has understood that being five-foot-three and six-feet-five are different in many ways.
Hospitals love him. Women are never that dumb. In John Ford movies, of all places, I learned that women are civilizaton.

I think I'm wandering. But I didn't want you to think that i thought you were less than intellligent. As for the "passive-aggressiive" turn, I don't deal well with pop-psych, but think of it this way, who wants a passsive writer? Wan't it Flaubert who said, "Be bourgeois in your personal life so you can be adventuresome in your art?" Or something like that. As far as degrees go, I don't doubt you at all; myself, I wa a lousy student in one high school and five colleges.

A couple more points. If I said that the predominent office building in America was a big cheesebox,would you say that I had offended hundreds of architects. I wish someone would.; our cities already look like Leggoland.
As far s comic books go, I still think they're for children who are less verbal. Turgenev is better for the soul. And the world "geezer"? is still a pejorative equivilent to any other racial , rellgous, gender slu r -I think you know them all - where I live.

As far as "my dear" goes, I never meant to hurt, I was simply exercising a little sellf-mockery, playing into your conception of me as an elderly gent. Perfectly undestood in England. Perhaps overly subtle, too playful, but the revolution is over and victory won, time to throw off the ancillary sensitivities. The women I know are acheiving like crazy and stilll wsnt the door opened when they go out for an evening. Vive la difference. I'm sure you'll agree that's enough and more. I've got to get back to writing now, God Knows. Have a good year.