VMs: re: Jandek and the Asteraceae family

[Wayne Durden <wdurden@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear M.J. Murphy:

I apologize for any confusion I may have caused, I have no information about
Jandek reading the VMS.  The subject matter became such because I was
floating an interpretation I am working on where I believe that the
overarching theme of the VMs is a treatise on primarily Asteraceae family
plants (i.e., Asters, starworts, Daisy, Chamomile and the relatives).  The
academic family of taxonomy does not seem to be fully developed at the
likely time frame, but there is suggestion of an understanding at the likely
time from the histories of plant taxonomies I am able to find.  Some of the
suggestions in my first post, including the suggestion of some line end
rhyme, raised the response that it was equally plausible with Jandek lyrics
transcribed via time travel.  Thus some humorous banter and the misleading
subject.  I do apologize.

In a more serious tone, I do suggest that there is positional order in
portions of the text inconsistent with hoax text produced randomly via
grille methods.  This was my starting point because I was introduced tothe
VMs via the article re: Rugg in December 2004 Wired.  I was hoping my
suggestion of this qualitative appearance might turn up responses from some
who have done this analysis quantitatively via computer.  I cited
principally two folios I had immediately at hand, and am going back and
adding others such as folio 19, etc., etc. to make a proper case as the
suggestion did not raise the voice of anyone who has already done so.

I suspect that the VMs, even in the more fantastical sections, actually
describes Greek and Roman mythology related to the Aster and bodily affects
and methods of decoction.  I believe the text to be a plaintext phonetical
take down of information captured in France (D'oil region?) by one who
travelled from a region which at the time retained a more formal Latin base
with Germanic influence.  I believe the transcriber(s) did not actually read
or write the more correct Latin based dialect which he spoke, but learned an
alphabet to capture the sound of the language dictated to him on his
travels.

I suspect an alphabet closer to Bennet than the more recent suggestions and
accept the m and n instead of aii phoneme endings at least as those letters
would suggest a pronunciation used in modern times.  I am trying to track
down the appearance of the relative frequency of the "j" sound in French as
in "Jean", and suspect unlike Bennet that the letter which appears
frequently as a "g" on word endings in the text is a capture of the j sound
as in menage, etc. which is frequent in modern French, but I can't yet
ascertain from the review of the earliest French texts if the sound was
pronounced as such in earlier times, i.e. Le Serment de Strasbourg (not as
many phonetic J's but also way too early).  The old French texts do seem to
be phonetic captures after the collapse of proper Latin, but with much much
better understanding of underlying words compared to the phonetic take down
I am exploring for the VMs.  I suspect that after I properly put together a
case for the revised alphabet, and show some actual translation which is the
thing that really counts, Jacques Guy might immediately be able to inform me
why such suppositions are ridiculous.

  These suspicions are arrived at in part on the belief that ordinary
options should be weighted over extraordinary if no other factors
predominate and especially if there is some correlating quantitative
analysis that bolsters the same.  I.e., real information in the text versus
randomly created words, some form of plaintext representation over cipher, a
text of more ordinary subject matter versus witch's manual, fantastic
pictures representing known mythology dating to Greek and Roman times
related to the aster and of legendary goddesses leaving earth incident
thereto, rather than such fanstastic images representing original fiction or
hallucinations by the scribe.

I hope than some of these suggestions might generate interest in just a few
others whose opinions, suspicions, research and evidence coincide and who
might wish to create a proper smaller active study group to develop and in
all likelihood disprove such an idea.

This subject of course attracts (or creates nutcases) and I certainly don't
want to burden this list with the ravings of a new one.  By the same token I
don't wish to spend effort advancing an idea of which a proper scholar like
jacques or Rene could immediately disprove beyond reproach, hence I floated
the original fanciful supposition...

Again, I apologize for the confuson.

WLD

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