In an only mildly lyrical essay-critical by poet X, I read a sentence full of poorly controlled abstractions marshalled toward a contentious yet unsurprising conclusion, and immediately think of picking it apart in a brief post. But I enjoy some of X's work (without fully understanding it), and have some reason to think I will encounter X in the flesh over the next year; so I refrain. Thus is one compromised. There are only a couple of mildly interesting things about this situation: (1) From a personal p.o.v., it reveals a change in emphasis: a few years ago, similar feelings might have made me balk at going into print "against" some bands I might share bills with, but would hardly have occurred to me with respect to poetry (more properly, poetics). This might be explained by my being less concerned w/ musical doings; though, more happily, it might also reflect feeling a little more secure in my small position in that world. (2) I don't have this sort of impulse to an appreciable degree when it comes to rock criticism. I can and have called even eminences on their b.s. or blindspots w/o being made to suffer much. Philosophy per se is similar in this regard. One must be restrained in style and some extent tone, but disagreement can be near-total, and the precision of the tools involved can produce wounding results; if one does not have reasoned differences from philosophers more eminent than oneself, there's probably no point in publishing at all. I don't have a handy analysis of what features of the various fields produce these differences -- which, again, may just be felt ones, peculiar to my situation. (Oh: the uninteresting conclusions were in re: self, non-existence of any stable. The very fact that this is no hint at all is evidence of the problem.)