HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: casey@bright.pfc.mit.edu
Subject: RE: Agnostics and Athiests
Organization: MIT PLASMA FUSION CENTER
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 21:51:57 GMT

In a previous article, Veeramany.Sthanumurthy@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Veeramany Sthanumurthy) wrote:
>In article <1992Aug25.210101.23211@colorado.edu> paulchem@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Icarus) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug25.202645.13056@newshost.lanl.gov> gwr@hedonist-1.lanl.gov (Graham W. Redgrave) writes:
>>>In article <1992Aug25.170508.12071@colorado.edu>, paulchem@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Icarus) writes:
>>>|> In article <1992Aug25.153404.2055@ccs.QueensU.CA> 3005904@jeff-lab.queensu.ca (Colleen Davis (Dexter)) writes:
>>>|> >In article <787@dsbc.icl.co.uk>, sut@dsbc.icl.co.uk (Secure Unix Team KID01) writes:
>>>|> >> 
>>>|> >> In article <1992Aug21.081211.5150@pacifier.rain.com> keithf@pacifier.rain.com (Keith Furrow) writes:
>>>|> >> >In article <g60nbv2z@csv.warwick.ac.uk> csuah@warwick.ac.uk (~WISP at CU~) writes:
>>>|> >> >>In article <1992Aug18.140604.19294@wam.umd.edu> ara@wam.umd.edu (Ford Prefect) writes:
>>>|> >> >>>In article <chris.714120892@rufus> chris@state.COM.AU (Chris Keane) writes:
>>>|> >> >>>>ara@wam.umd.edu (Ford Prefect) writes:
>>>|> >> >>>>
>>>|> >> >>>>>IF THIS DOESN'T STOP, IM GOING TO START THE WORST CASCADE EVER.
>>>|> >> >>>>WHILE EATING THIS SLOP, I SEWED THE FIRST BROCADE BEAVER.
>>>|> >> >>>BILE FITTING RIG STOP, LIE SPEWED THIRST LIVER !!!!
>>>|> >> >>IF YOU MUST CONTRIBUTE, AT LEAST DELIVER...
>>>|> >> >WHO MAY I ATTRIBUTE TO THIS BEASTLY SLIVER?
>>>|> >> TO SPAY A LUTE IN A GREASY RIVER
>>>|> >DAMN CASCADERS THINK YOU'RE SO CLEVER
>>>|> WHY DO ALIEN INVADERS MAKE YOU SHIVER ?
>>>FOR THE SAME REASON AS A MADMAN WITH A CLEAVER!
>>YOU SOUND LIKE QUAYLE WITH A GHASTLY FEVER !
>QUAIL: INDEED MANY AN ARDENT BOOK LOVER!
FRAIL, MISSPELLED POTATOeS AROUND US DO HOVER!
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: stefan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stefan Michalowski)
Subject: Re: Patrick O'Brien vs Horatio Hornblower...
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 92 21:09:49 GMT

In article <10427@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes:
>Someone recently posted a note here on r.a.b. to the effect
>that the Patrick O'Brien books are really good, and that they
>compare very favorably with the Horatio Hornblower series.
>
>Being a devoted Hornblower fan, (as a boy, I used to read the
>stories when they were serialized in the Saturday Evening Post,
>and could hardly stand waiting each week to find out what would
>happen next :-) ), I immediately rushed down to the local Public
>Library and found three books on the shelf by O'Brien.  Pictures
>of sailing ships and such on the cover.  Oh, boy! Couldn't wait!
>
>Well.....I was sadly disappointed
>......

Sorry you were disappointed, but, as you point out, de gustibus...

Aubrey/maturin fans should note that two more titles are now
available in paperback in the USA: "The Letter of Marque" 
(a good one - lots of action at sea) and "The Thirteen Gun
Salute" (don't know - I'm rationing myself).


Stefan Michalowski
stefan@sunrise.stanford.edu
From: lnh@soliton.physics.arizona.edu (sometimes a Wombat)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Dragonbone Chair / Tad Williams
Date: 3 Sep 92 02:41:58 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Society for the Appreciation of Janni Lee Simner


According to LOCUS, it is scheduled for a March '93 release.

	Larry "I read rec.arts.sf.written, so I know" Hammer
--

LNH@albert.physics.arizona.edu   \  "People ought to fight for their law as
The insane don't need disclaimers \  for a wall."  -- Heraclitus, #100
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 04:33:22 GMT

                         Wednesday, the 26th of August, 1992

Crawford Kilian points to the gravamen of my own complaint
about Virginia Woolf's Shakespeare's Sister Argument.

Assuming that, say, the relative lack of canonical Elizabethan
women writers is due to Elizabethan social discrimination against
women being writers (and not due to us wittingly or unwittingly
ignoring a large body of work by Elizabethan women), I think Woolf's
argument then tries to depict the unjust horror of this discrimination
by imagining that Shakespeare had a sister, equally as talented,
but because society affords her no education, no opportunity for
independent means, no outlet for her talents, she ends up
committing suicide.

My complaint is that I think this over-romanticizes being a
writer, as though one were completely born to such a talent. I think
one can see the absurdity if one imagines instead that she commits
suicide really because she was born with a genius for sitar playing and
she has been frustrated by having no outlet for this talent.

It may be true (my own belief) that a modern egalitarianism of social
expectation is to be preferred to earlier discrimination. But that
does not mean the earlier society's discrimination felt as horribly
unjust to the members of that society as it might feel to a modern
transplanted into that society.

                  Mike Morris
         (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Why I read the Economist
Date: 4 Sep 92 16:09:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: cfdev1.9209041609.AA23925


wwhitman@nevada.edu (MICHAEL WISE) writes:
 
> Here's a partial copy of the letter I sent to Mark Toronto
 
When I described Joe Green as looking like a younger Robertson Davies,
he responded with "What! I look like a damn Canadian!"  I can only quote
Joe.
 
> (sorry if I spelled that wrong, Mark. I deleted my lines before
> double-checking)
 
Several years ago, I was sitting in Harry's New York Bar (then on Central
Park South) when Liza Minnelli sat down at the table next to me.  When
her friend went to the men's room, the man on the other side of her said:
"You know Lisa, we came to New York from Spokane to avoid Mt. St. Helen's."
Ms. Minnelli started to ask them about the explosion, and stopped --
midsentence.  She leaned over, touched the man on the hand and said
"Actually, it's Liza, but don't worry -- everyone gets it wrong."  
 
I tell this story for no other reason than that I like to tell stories,
and to say that I'll try to be as gracious.  My name is frequently
mis-spelled -- don't think twice, it's alright.
 
I would like to thank Michael for giving me a serious response to a question
which might appear to be a wisecrack.
 
Mark
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Art History
Date: 3 Sep 92 04:13:28 GMT
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)

In article <1992Sep2.220033.27286@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:

>Provenance.

	Gesundheit.
-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		   "I swear I never heard the first shot"
                Wm. Gibson, "Agrippa:  a book of the dead"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: ve3pak@micor.ocunix.on.ca (Alayne McGregor and Brett Delmage)
Subject: Re: Query: describing the condition of second hand books
Organization: M.B. Cormier INC., Orleans (Ont)
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 02:09:39 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.173421.9638@hippo.ru.ac.za> ccfj@hippo.ru.ac.za (F. Jacot Guillarmod) writes:
>I have inherited large numbers of what appear to be valuable natural
>history books, and am putting together a list describing them.
>Obviously the potential price of the book depends on the condition, and
>I'm looking for some guidelines on this - something a bit more
>meaningful than "buggered" or "looks OK to me".  I'm aware that there
>are terms such as "foxing", but am not too clear on what this
>translates to in the flesh, as it were.
>
>Any other tips on what sort of information should be included in a
>list?  Other than the usual title, author, publisher, date?

1. Dustjacket (does it have one?) Any tears? Any rubbing? Any fading?

2. Is the cover of book new-looking? Are there any spots (spine, corners)
   that look rubbed? Any fading?

3. Is the binding tight or loose? Any pages missing or loose?

4. Any writing in the book? Is it signed by a previous owner -- a detriment
   unless the owner was Winston Churchill or the equivalent? Is it signed
   by the author (a very definite plus)?

5. Which edition (first is best)? Which printing of the first edition?
   If first edition, American or British?

6. Are the pages yellowed? Any tears? Any corners turned down?

The general terms for a book's condition are (in order): mint, fine/excellent,
very good, good, fair, poor.

Alayne McGregor
alayne@ve3pak.ocunix.on.ca
From: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Why I read the Economist
Date: 1 Sep 92 22:52:47 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

I would be more impressed with Clayton Cramer's comments if he got his grammar
right. When he says "Their coverage of Florida's 1987 revisions...were severely
in error..." he commits a pretty obvious subject-verb disagreement. I realize
that online composition makes it easy to slip up, but when one is assuming the
Mantle of Superiority one had better make sure it covers one's bare
backside...not to mention one's holster and capgun.
From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 30 Aug 92 20:51:11 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Another excellent book by a contemporary woman writer is A.S.Byatt's 
_Possession_ (1990).  It's one of the best novels I've read in ages.
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: ENTROPY & IRONY
Date: 26 Aug 92 22:53:05 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: richh@netcom.com (richh)

In article <33bnf2l.richh@netcom.com>, richh@netcom (richh) writes:
>All right, *you* come up with a better title for a biography of 
>Thomas Pynchon.

MINDFUL PLEASURES
THE SECRET LIFE OF J D SALINGER
BEEN UP SO LONG IT LOOKS DOWN TO ME
THOMAS PYNCHON: A PAGE OF INFORMATION
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: ENTROPY & IRONY
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 11:07:42 GMT

In article <52541@dime.cs.umass.edu> fawcett@unix1.cs.umass.edu (Tom Fawcett) writes:

>Francis writes:
>
>>*THOMAS PYNCHON: A Biography*? But i suppose in your world information
>>content will always lose out to the cutesy poo.
>
>Mike Godwin offers:
>
>>GRAVITY'S RIMBAUD.
>
>
>Mike, meet Francis. 
>Francis, meet Mike.


Tom, meet a joke. You may be sure that Francis knew it was a joke.



--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact 
mnemonic@eff.org| of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, 
(617) 864-0665  | both are transformed."
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Carl Jung
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Patrick O'Brien vs Horatio Hornblower...
Date: 1 Sep 92 16:26:21 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1992Aug28.210852.21507@brtph560.bnr.ca> Paul Schroeder writes:
>In article <25322@castle.ed.ac.uk> pws@castle.ed.ac.uk (P W Stephenson) writes:
>>Paul Schroeder writes:
>>
>>>First, IMHO a comparison between O'Brian and Forester is not appropriate. 
>>
>>I don't think they're quite in the same game, either.  One point which
>>hasn't been made yet, which I think is instructive even if it's not true
>>(:-) is that Forester was a modern novelist whereas O'Brian is a
>>historical novelist: by which I really mean Forester wrote more from a
>>present-day point of view while O'Brian writes as if he was a
>>contemporary of his characters.  (Insert `in a sense' into the last
>>sentence as many times as necessary.)  This perhaps explains why some
>>people find his prose strange.

>I agree that O'Brian is more of an historical novelist, and he uses a style
>that borders on arcane.

Now wait just a minute.  I have recently read all (so far as I know)
of the Aubrey/Maturin novels, I have a fairly good memory of what
they're like, and I think this is very misleading.

I was bothered by the style in the first one I read (Post Captain),
but it was a relatively minor detail that (consciously) bothered me.
(A complete change of location could occur between one paragraph and
the next without any transition.)  I wasn't bothered by anything
in the style of the later ones I read.  I just don't see how anyone
can say his style is "arcane".  (Maybe I'm just missing something?)

I think there may be a style issue.  That's one reason why I think
someone who tries O'Brien ought to start with two books.  But I
didn't find anything about them hard to read.

-- jd
From: fawcett@unix1.cs.umass.edu (Tom Fawcett)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: ENTROPY & IRONY
Date: 27 Aug 92 02:39:42 GMT
Reply-To: fawcett@unix1.cs.umass.edu (Tom Fawcett)
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

RICHH writes:

>	All right, *you* come up with a better title for a biography 
>	of Thomas Pynchon.

Francis writes:

>*THOMAS PYNCHON: A Biography*? But i suppose in your world information
>content will always lose out to the cutesy poo.

Mike Godwin offers:

>GRAVITY'S RIMBAUD.


Mike, meet Francis. 
Francis, meet Mike.
From: jeffy@netcom.com (Jeff Youngstrom)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Douglas Coupland, who is he?
Date: 25 Aug 92 17:04:43 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) writes:

>In article <6438@kielouta.fi> tipenu@uta.fi (Petteri Numminen) writes:
>>I am currently reading Generation X by Douglas Coupland (sp?). Nice book
>>with some wonderful new words like bambification.
>>I'd like to know more about the author. Who is he? Has he written any other
>>books?
>I think he's a Canadian from Vancouver, B.C. in his late twenties...
>his second book has just been released in Canada...the title escapes
>me for the moment as I noticed it on display in the bookstore last
>weekend.

The book is called Shampoo Planet.  I got and read it last week on a
whim based on the dust-jacket blurbs.  I enjoyed it enough to hunt down
Generation X, but it's a strange book.  I sort of expected it to offer
a view of idealistic youth coming up against the hard realities of the
real world, but there're just enough departures from reality in the
story to make it have the opposite effect (i.e. If I believe my view of
reality enough, then reality will do what I expect.)

jeffy  -- having a bad hair day. %:-)
--
Jeffrey Youngstrom                                        jeffy@netcom.com
        "I watch the sky instead of television." -- Marilyn Hacker
From: ekrausse@sunsrv1.awi-bremerhaven.de (Elke Krausse)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: I'm looking for a children's book
Date: 2 Sep 92 10:52:35 GMT
Organization: Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum GmbH

Hello!

 I don't know if my message bounced or if nobody knew an answer. So I'll try it
once again:

 I'm looking for a children's book of which I know neither titel nor author(ess?).
It's the story of a girl and her seal Laura and it takes place at the beginning
of the century somewhere in the (canadian?) wilderness. The seal lives as a pet
in the house together with some other animals. Apart from the girl there is an
aunt who works at some part of the story as an illustrator for a young biologist
and of course they fall in love.

 As far as I know this story is supposed to be true. Thanks for the help in
advance,
          Elke
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mikulska@bessel.Princeton.EDU (Margaret Mikulska)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 15:30:28 GMT

In article <94417@bu.edu> manes@bass.bu.edu (Michelle Manes) writes:
>
>I had the priveledge (?)

Um, if you want to know the spelling, "spell" and /usr/dict/words may
help you.  They come with every Sun system, and "bass.bu.edu" is a Sun.
Just a suggestion.

>of checking out the new Encyclopedia
>Brittanica during an annoyingly hard-sell two days ago.  It now
>comes with a series of "Great Books."  By my count:
>women represented with their own book: 0
>women who share a book with only one other author: 1 (Austen)
>nonwhite males who weren't ancient Greeks: 1 (Cervantes)

Hm.  You mean Cervantes wasn't a _white_ male?  White Caucasian male?
What race was he, then?


-Margaret
mikulska@astro.princeton.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 20:15:02 GMT


                               Friday, the 28th of August, 1992

Terrance Heath calls me on it:
  Upon reading Mike's response, I was at first taken aback until I
  remembered what he said in some earlier posts.  If I were translated
  the above line, I would translate it to read "Maybe they have, but
  there hasn't been a sufficient passage of time for us to be sure." 
 
  Is that close, Mike?

Actually, Terrance, since I can't figure out what I meant, I think I
was being extreme and getting carried away.

There's a sense, if one is going to complain about no nonwhites
in the Great Books set, then I think it's true no nonwhites have
written Great Books, and I've said that I think this selection is
reasonable for what it really pretends to do. ``great'' books are
a different story.  Yeah, there's certainly a measure of time (so
that I'd have real problems with calling Hemingway great or anybody
newer), and though I think it's quite clear that nonwhites have written
in the very first rank of modern literature, have written books
that are destined to survive, I'm simply prejudiced (and insisting
that it's a reasonable prejudice) against modern literature. On the
other hand, I was neglecting to shift myself from the specifically
Western context of the Great Books set. It is clear to me that nonwhites
have written great books (like Genji and the Ramayana), in one sense
I do use ``great''. These would be great works of world literature
as well as being at the top of a list of great books of Eastern lit,
though I do not think their influence is such that they are now great
works of Western literature. I meant something like that.

It is also clear to me that nonwhites have already written Western works which
will become probably judgeable as great after more time has passed. It's
also interesting to wonder how much works like Genji and the Ramayana will flow
into becoming Western great works, or, that is, how much the Westerness
fence will matter into the future.

If there's a lesson, it's that we should all be careful defining what we mean
by ``great''. ``great'' in what sense? ``great'' for what purpose?
What claims are actually being made? To know this, we have to read the
fine print.

                     Mike Morris
             (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: loose literary canons
Date: 31 Aug 92 19:23:02 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <7857@public.BTR.COM>, grady@btr.BTR.COM (Grady Ward  grady@btr.com) writes:
# Clayton, I think the problem is not that
# your answer to questions as "what color were
# the ancient Greeks?" or "is this a liberal
# objection?" are necessarily wrong,                            
# it's that formulating such stereotyped
# questions demonstrates a limiting world-view.

Yet I was responding to someone who felt that the race of the
Greeks was an important issue -- and who was wrong about it
anyway.

I don't particularly care what race the Greeks were or are.
I don't particularly care what race a writer is -- except if
it helps me to understand why he writing what he writing.
It doesn't affect the validity of the writer's ideas.

But I do care when reality is twisted, bent, and then altered
to suit the needs of the moment -- especially by someone
who purports to be an "academic."

# One point of being a voracious reader                   
# (and of being educated in general) is
# to Damascene both the _approach_ as
# well as the _content_ of a mind, which
# for a well-educated person more likely
# resembles a Symposium of friends arguing
# rather than an Oracular disquisition.
#                       
# This kind of fexibility and "community
# of mind"  is the kind of "liberalism" that
# most readers in this group pursue; not the
# kind of straw dog liberalism that you are
# busy kicking.

There's nothing "straw dog" about what has been demonstrated
on this issue.
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Alcohol prohibition didn't work; drug prohibition doesn't work; gun
prohibition won't work.
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: New book by SNL's Father Guido Sarduce (sp?) ?
Date: 26 Aug 92 00:16:24 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Aug24.152328.25303@eff.org>, mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
> In article <1684D8743.KGODDEN@cmsa.gmr.com> KGODDEN@cmsa.gmr.com writes:
# #Was that Letterman show that you saw a re-run?
# #It must have been, because the Good Father Guido published a book under his own
# #(real) name quite some time ago called "The Lazlo Letters".  His last name
# #is Lazlo.  I've forgotten the first.
# 
# The first name is Don. The last name is not Lazlo--it's Novello. Don
# Novello is the creator of the characters Lazlo Toth and Father Guido
# Sarducci.
# 
# Mike Godwin,    |"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact 

And brother-in-law to the U.S. Surgeon-General, Dr. Antonia Novello.
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Alcohol prohibition didn't work; drug prohibition doesn't work; gun
prohibition won't work.