Boston or thereabouts Reborners!

[Sword]

I have in my possession a ticket to the phantom gourmet food festival on lansdowne street, september 23.
Perhaps we can meet, greet, and eat face to face?

[ow_tiobe_sb]

Thanks for the invitation, Sword, but I must respectfully decline.  I am a firm believer (unfaithfully heterodox, of course--"Firmum in vita nihil.") that our most fascinating qualities are fictions and that our most embarrassing qualities are facts (which are, in their own way, fictive) against which all charming individuals imaginatively rebel.  My supreme fiction is The Phantom Bunburyist, with whom I am perfectly enamoured.  If you could meet him in Boston, I would happily agree to a pleasant rendezvous of your devising; however, because you would be greeted not by a dandy but by a dowdy, dull, dunderhead lacking the authenticity of his avatar, I fear that the romance would die and that TPB's flower would fade.  While it is compelling to hold that "All art is at once surface and symbol" and that both "Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril" and "Those who read the symbol do so at their peril," I find it equally compelling to hold that these actions committed by the spectator also imperil both the surface and the symbol of the spectatorial experience.  When protocol has been breached and the artist reveals himself instead of allowing the art to reveal the spectator, a fatal shade violates the colour of the scene or, if you prefer, the lineaments of the proscenium become visible and dress the stage in all its natural drabness.  Nothing quite survives the encounter without receiving a new, more commonplace mark, and I would not wish TPB to become a marked man.

Again, many thanks for the kind invitation.  I hope you enjoy yourself and that you have a pleasant trip to our curious city. :)

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and The Prat in the Hat

[Sevenforce]

Um...I think that means no :blink: