ADMIN: We'd Like to Pick Your Brains About TBAY

[lucky_kari]

Well, Eileen here. I was TBAYing before there was a TBAY. In fact, I
think I was the third person, after Elkins and Tabouli, to write about
myself wandering about the Bay. 

First of all, I think there should be a note in any welcome to new
HPFGU members. "You are not expected to understand MAGIC DISHWASHER.
No one understands MAGIC DISHWASHER." *ducks*

But seriously, I really would hate people to think they aren't getting
TBAY because they don't get MAGIC DISHWASHER. I don't get MAGIC
DISHWASHER myself, most of the time, whatever format it's being
discussed in. Not that I don't love *trying* to get it. 

On to the questions.
 
> 1. We'd like to know how you perceive TBAY. How would you describe
> TBAY messages? What do you feel is the most important aspect of a TBAY
> message? What does the term 'TBAY theory' mean to you? What, if any, is
> the difference between a TBAY theory and a regular HPfGU theory? 

There's no such thing, really, as a TBAY theory. For example,
Sympathetic!Avery is a TBAY fixture, but he wasn't introduced in TBAY,
and has been discussed in and out of TBAY. Same with MAGIC DISHWASHER.
Hey, even George didn't start in the Bay! 
 
> 2. Do you read TBAY messages? Have you ever posted a TBAY message? If
> you have, what prompted you to do so? Have you ever wanted to respond
> to a TBAY thread but chose not to because of the format? What about the
> TBAY format made you reluctant to post?

Obviously, I both read and write TBAY messages. I actually have never
had a problem with responding to a TBAY message in non-TBAY format,
and am surprised other people have. 

My first TBAY experience involved jumping up and down on a couch
screaming, "Bloody Ambush!" I thought that was very cool, not only
because I liked the idea of couch jumping, but because it said
something that couldn't be said in any other way. It suggested a
connection between reader and text that was closer, I think, to
reality than a cut-and-dry essay does. It gave Theorist!Eileen a
background, a background that went back a few thousand years. Why do I
want a bloody ambush? Well, because of the Njal Saga and Tolkien and
everything else. TBAY is really a place where we explore our affective
fallacies, those things that are supposed to not exist. You can only
go so far doing that in an ordinary exchange, but in TBAY... well, as
Risti quoted me, but I think I was quoting Elkins, it's an extended
metaphor. You can take an extended metaphor very far.

Or not so far. 

Which I'm thinking must be at the root of people saying that TBAY
posts make the same point in 30 lines than a regular post makes in one
line. 

Because, well, the best TBAY posts make points in one line that a
regular post couldn't make in thirty lines. 

I'm beginning to suspect that this isn't some new division here.
There, always will be those who live in symbols, and those who don't.
This just sounds like another version of those late-night arguments
between English Major Eileen and her Mathematics Major brother. 

My brother: "Well, so what if the River in Huckleberry Finn is a
symbol? I can believe that, but how does it enrich the story?"

Eileen: "How can you not see that?" 

Etcetera

Those who don't like TBAY will probably never see any reason to change
their minds, but I would suggest to them that the fact that they can't
see anything in it doesn't mean that there isn't anything in it for a
lot of other people. 

For TBAY, has a long and honoured history. Plato had some TBAY going
when he wrote all about Socrates. Boethius was definitely TBAYing when
he wrote the Consolation of Philosophy, especially that part where
Lady Philosophy chases the Muses out calling them hussies and tells
Boethius to stop sulking about and get a grip on himself. In the
Middle Ages... well, in the Middle Ages, practically every second book
written was TBAY. Dante's "Divine Comedy" has its TBAY aspects. "The
Romance of the Rose" is TBAY. 

(And, of course, JRR Tolkien's "Notion Papers" are definitely TBAY
material....)

Just one more thing. 

Shaun wrote:
>I think the fact that TBAY is allowed on the list under a prefix and
>MOVIES and OT are on separate lists, privileges TBAY posts.

*stares*

ummm... ok.

TBAY posts are posts about canon-based theories. MOVIES and OT have
*nothing* to do with canon-based theories. 

I really should hope that HPFGU priveliges TBAY posts and will
continue to do so. 

Eileen