RAT Re: "Dancing Bear" posts

[NOMADMONAD@aol.com]

At 09:18 AM 10/25/99 -0700, William Houts wrote:
>
>By the way, how can I dig up the original "Dancing Bear" posts? I believe it 
involved a tussle with my pal Susannah Birney (who was astonishing as Tycho 
Brahe in Bret Fetzer's "Mars Is A Star..." a couple of months ago.)
>
>

Bill,

If you go to the Web site at:

http://www.ratconference.com/ 

Link on the star and you can search the RatBase for related "ideas" and 
eventually find the exchange by going to the email source.  We deliberately 
didn't enable other methods of search.  The philosophy being that even 
opinions stripped of the author and/or any immediate reference to a source 
authority has a better chance of being elevated into the world of ideas.  
This complicates, sometimes even frustrates a search such as the one you're 
attempting because there is no guarantee the exchange ever entered past the 
editor into the RatBase.  However, the Dancing Bear exchange is there, but 
where I don't know offhand.

The Chinese have a term for history before records were kept that translates 
"wild history."  The rat-list prior to its contemporary archives belong at 
least in part to wild history.  Richard Schechner once said "history is he 
who writes it."  He's wrong.  History is she who edits it.  The Editor is a 
complex being now that our media is so present and freely accessible through 
the Web, Internet, and other manifestations of the digital revolution.  We're 
revisiting the Gutenberg era in many ways. The "history of ideas" is in 
search of new Editors.

Best,
Nick