HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: alison@wsrcc.com (Alison Chaiken)
Subject: Re: Literary SF, Nabokov's _Ada_
Organization: W S Rupprecht Computer Consulting, Fremont CA
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 06:28:14 GMT

I, on the other hand, thought _Lolita_ was boring, and trash besides.
Did anyone really enjoy the second half, where Q. is leaving clues for
poor Humbert to track down?  What did all the obscure word games have
to do with the other primary themes of the book, namely the
innocence/shame dichotomy and the difficulty that teens and adults
have in understanding one another?  I thought _Lolita_ was one of the
worst "classics" I have ever read, and only finished it because I kept
thinking that something wonderful must be right around the corner.

Shocking in its time, II: _Portnoy's Complaint_, on the other hand, is
a fairly entertaining coming-of-ages-Jewish tale.  I'd take it over
_Catcher in the Rye_ any day.  I consider CitR to be quite dated,
whereas the experiences of Alexander Portnoy are universal enough to
last for a few more decades.  Is there an equivalent book for young
women?


-- 
Alison Chaiken 				alison@wsrcc.com
(510) 422-7129 [daytime] 		or chaiken@cmsgee.llnl.gov
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.config
From: jfurr@nyx.cs.du.edu (JKF)
Subject: Re: alt.fan.catch-22 (Was: Re: PROPOSAL: alt.fan.anne-rice)
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 18:24:09 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.144837.27394@crd.ge.com> kassover@rumsey.crd.ge.com (David Kassover) writes:
>In article <1992Dec14.051755.9983@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> jfurr@nyx.cs.du.edu (JKF) writes:
>...
>>
>>It's _more_ than a religion.
>
>I used to think Catch-22 was funny.  Then I got a job that took
>me to an Air Force Base.

Right.  And then you found out how true it all was.  (I'm curious.  What
Catch-22's did you personally encounter?  Are the Air Force brass still
modeling themselves on Generals Dreedle and Peckem?)
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:22782 talk.philosophy.misc:3030 sci.philosophy.tech:4589
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Counterpart Theory (was re: The word "homophobic")
From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Date: 18 Dec 92 11:58:07 EST
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1grsg8INN563@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU>
jcollier@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU (John Donald Collier) writes:

>zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

MZ:
>>If you seriously believe that Dennett is to be preferred to Spinoza on
>>*any* reasonable account, you are far beyond any help I can offer.  On
>>the other hand, on the slim chance that you might be jesting, a good
>>antidote to the ludicrous theses of _Elbow Room_ is to be found in Van
>>Inwagen's essay, "The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism",
>>in _Philosophical Studies (1975), and reprinted in Gary Watson's
>>Oxford Readings in Philosophy collection, _Free Will_.

JDC:
>And a good antidote to _that_ bullshit (VI doesn't even understand
>why David Lewis uses counterparts rather than trans-world identity), 
>can be found in the writings of John Bishop, od Auckland.

Two comments.  First of all, I would like you to humor me by explaining
the dependence of van Inwagen's argument on the counterpart theory.
Secondly, I would like you to explain the mathematical rationale behind
Lewis' approach to modal logic.  From where I stand, there are exactly
two possible approaches to the model theory of modality: Kripke models,
and Church's Logic of Sense and Denotation, Alternative (2), according
as your metaphysical preferences are (individual) haecceitist, or
anti-haecceitist; furthermore, as has been shown by David Kaplan and
Charles Parsons, the former is equivalent to a special case of the
latter.  If you can find a way to slice up the universe, so as to make
up a mathematically reasonable notion of counterparts, I can't wait to
see the results.  You may start with defining a working notion of
similarity to supercede the hoary old trans-world identity.

>-- 
>John Collier 			Email: jcollier@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au
>HPS -- U. of Melbourne		  	Fax:   +61 3 344 7959
>Parkville, Victoria, AUSTRALIA 3052

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: gwr@hedonist-1.lanl.gov (Graham W. Redgrave)
Subject: Re: Cormac McCarthy's language (was Re: recent books)
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 20:42:04 GMT

Fiona Webster writes of Cormac McCarthy's _Suttree_:
|> 
|> In _Suttree_, I was astonished by McCarthy's use of language as
|> not only a descriptive window, but as a surface, a texture that
|> carries meaning through its form as much as through its content--
|> as if language were a thick paint he applies to the canvas in
|> ridges and swirls with a palette knife. 
|> 

Fiona, your description reminds me of Flaubert's _Un Coeur Sample_,
where the language is so rich, you can not only see the finished
picture, but you can see the paint go on as you read (heh, maybe
that's 'cause I read French a l i t t l e   s l o w l y .  .   .)

In other words, "ditto, with a different book."


Yours in simplicity,


-- 
Graham Redgrave    |    --  I don't speak for the government, 
gwr@life.lanl.gov  |        but I wish the government would speak for me ...  --
From: annie@garnet.berkeley.edu  (Anne Jessop)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Git (was re: Et in Arcadia ego)
Date: 13 Dec 1992 06:36:05 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu
Originator: annie@garnet.berkeley.edu

>Graham Redgrave writes: [I think... if I've got the attribution right...]
>>What if Adam, naming the animals as they proceeded by him,
>>could only think of names like "tall motherfucker," "slimy
>>bastard," etc.

Well, indeed, what if?  And so what?  In such a case, "tall motherfucker"
and "slimy bastard" would be on the descriptive cards in zoos and in
encyclopedic indices, and "giraffe" and "snake" would probably be lowbrow
epithets, usually used to describe one's opponent's mother.  You're
operating from a standpoint which assumes the universal and a priori
offensiveness of terms which are not used in modern "polite company"
(whatever _that_ may be).  Presuming there was an Adam, what if he
actually used words like motherfucker (or tall) in a non-disparaging way,
and a subsequent faulty translation or interpretation missed the "correct"
meaning?  And all of _this_ is predicated on the assumption that Adam spoke
English.  I think it's unlikely that he did; if he didn't, what if the
phonemes of the words he actually used _sounded_ remarkably like the
English words "tall motherfucker" and "slimy bastard," but actually meant
something entirely different in his own "language," and some future
English-speaking translator came along and said something like, "Whoa!
None of that in a family Bible! Better replace it with a nice _English_
word like snake or giraffe!" 
Anyway, please forgive me if this is an unfair, out-of-context flame.  I
got this above quote from Fiona, who quoted it and then went on to talk
about different kinds of scotch. But the quote by itself is amusing. 
Reminds me of true stories my boyfriend tells about growing up in the
South, where, when the concept of bilingual education started to
infiltrate, his redneck father said, "Dammit, if English was good enough
for Jesus, it's good enough for those [pick your favorite
non-native-English-speaking racial epithet of choice]."  
Think about it.

Annie
   

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.comedy.british,soc.culture.british,alt.fan.monty-python
From: sue@netcom.com (Sue Miller)
Subject: Re: Git (was re: Et in Arcadia ego)
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 21:10:05 GMT

In article <Bz3vzD.JM0@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU> streater@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Tim Streater) writes:
>In article <1992Dec11.130826.15919@abekrd.co.uk> graeme@abekrd.co.uk (Graeme Griffiths) writes:
>>
>>Thank you for referring to my last post as "_very_ British". In a country
>>that is rapidly becoming just another state in the union I do try and do
>                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>                                             |
>                                             |
>                         Fuck that. >--------+
>

Indeed.  I don't remember UK statehood being on offer.  

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller)
Subject: Esquimaux Nell
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 15:23:13 GMT

ercn72@festival.ed.ac.uk (R.J.Hare) writes:

>Kipling, of course wrote the much better known 'Eskimo Nell' first published
>in 'Plain Tales from the Locker Room'.


     Hope makes me ask for improbabilities.  Does the Ballad of Eskimo Nell
actually exist?

                                              -- jf

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: Wandering through a bookstore at lunchtime.
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 22:10:49 GMT

In article <9212091913.AA20124@cfdev1.shearson.com> mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>I also noticed that the paperback version of HALO, by Tom Maddox was
>on the shelves.  It had the same error on the cover as the hardback
>(four spokes to the space station, rather than six) . . .

	Everyone I've spoken to in the publishing biz assures me that if
that's the worst error on the cover, God's in His Heaven and all's right with
the World.

>But there was no teddy-bear like picture of Tom, like there is in the
>hardback.

	I refused to be marketed as a children's toy.

-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		"The Reptoids eat humans like we eat chickens."
				Alex Alexander
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Books as presents & RE: Books with a sense of humor
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 21:42:09 GMT


hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu (Heather) writes:
 
> How about books by witty women?  THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
> by Gertrude Stein, for example.  Especially fun if you dislike Hemingway,
> as I do.
 
Or, perhaps books about witty women.  I just bought WRITING DANGEROUSLY,
a biography of Mary McCarthy for a Christmas present for a friend.  I'm
hoping that she will lend it to me when she is done.
 
Mark
From: kassover@rumsey.crd.ge.com (David Kassover)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Tintin
Date: 14 Dec 92 14:45:29 GMT
Organization: nope

In article <#3_rrxf@lynx.unm.edu> lazlo@triton.unm.edu (Lazlo Nibble) writes:
...
>
>Re: Herge's "collaboration" -- according to Peeters,  the limit of Herge's
>cooperation with the Nazis was his continuing to produce Tintin strips for
>the newspaper 'Le Soir' during the Occupation. 

yah.  Even Theodore Seuss Geisel was worse than that.


-- 
David Kassover             "Proper technique helps protect you against
uupsi!khazad!kassover	          sharp weapons and dull judges."
kassover@aule-tek.com                   F. Collins
kassover@ra.crd.ge.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: recent books
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 17:52:24 GMT

Roger Squires posts  some welcome thoughts on various books, one of
which is Cormac McCarthy's *Blood Meridian*:

>Hum.  I'm not sure where to start.  Someone has posted a blurb on
>_All the Pretty Horses_, with someone else's comment that the
>real hero of the novel is the language, and my variation on this
>would be that in BM the real focus is the southwestern landscape: 
>The arid deserts which soon erase your tracks as if you had never
>been, the other-worldly forests of giant agaves, the volcanoes,
>bare mountains, the ruins, lightning on the horizon (how many
>different ways McCarthy evokes the lightning!

	I think that McCarthy has a complementary concern with
language and landscape. Steve Cisler's long quote from *Horses* shows
McCarthy describing the ghosts of history proceeding across the
landscape. The section I mentioned in a followup was meant to
illustrate a great piece of character/dialogue (p. 110-111), yet in
*Horses* the landscape is important in the way it affects the
characters.

	BTW, Steve's comment on *Horses* came with a comment from
Shelby Foote. Anyone know if this was a review or just a sales blurb?

	Keith



--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Morgan		 	|A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu  	|		Jonathan Swift
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.comedy.british,soc.culture.british,alt.fan.monty-python
From: wwhitman@nevada.edu (MICHAEL WISE)
Subject: Re: Git (was re: Et in Arcadia ego)
Organization: University of Nevada System Computing Services
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 18:49:31 GMT

>>In article <1992Dec11.130826.15919@abekrd.co.uk> graeme@abekrd.co.uk 
  (Graeme Griffiths) writes:
>>>
>>>Thank you for referring to my last post as "_very_ British". In a country
>>>that is rapidly becoming just another state in the union I do try and do
>>                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>                                             |
>>                                             |
>>                         Fuck that. >--------+
>>
>

What precisely do you mean by that? Do you mean that you deny Mr Griffiths
point that Britain is becoming more like a colony, a poor relation of the
United States? Do you mean you object to the assimilation of the British
into a world-wide culture dominated by the Americans? Do you mean England
on applying for statehood, would be instantly and ruthlessly turned away,
and you're in favor of that? 

Your ability to fuck in front of everyone serves its purpose as shocking
and offensive, but does nothing to clarify the issues you are discussing.
And I believe that was Mr Griffiths point about the use of fuck.

Not to mention that many Americans would find the word's use quite 
offensive.

The language is better employed in genuine vituperation.

***Warning! the language in the following paragraph may be offensive
to some***












For example: I wish the fucking prescriptive grammarians in this news-
group would stop fucking telling me every time I get a fucking period
out of place or a fucking semicolon wrong. I wish they would mind their
own fucking business about the fucking dialectical variations I use, and
stop telling that there own fucking dialect is so fucking superior to 
mine. I wish they'd take a fucking class in fucking History of the English
Language, or work for several fucking years writing dictionary 
definitions for fucking dialect variations, or fucking join the fucking
American Dialect Society before they start fucking spouting off on what
the fuck they think I meant to say, but was too fucking ignorant to express
myself properly.
___________________________________________________________________________
Michael Wise 	(wwhitman@nevada.edu)	UNLV English

"Now I want you to tell me just one thing more. Why do you hate the South?"
"I dont hate it," Quentin said quickly, at once, immediately; "I dont
hate it," he said. I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, 
the iron New England dark: I dont. I dont. I dont hate it! I dont hate it!
				--William Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom!



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Project B.F.D. (was: An apology)
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 15:51:27 GMT


Heather (HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu) writes:

> Mark, don't apologize for calling me a hypocrite.  Apologize for missing my
> point and for being so quick to attack.  I'm sure that you, at heart, don't
> want to discourage the participation of others in the group.  I think you'd
> be more comfortable if, instead of criticizing my "gunslinger" persona, you
> found yourself a deputy's badge.
 
I did not miss your point, I simply do not agree with it.
 
I suggest that you follow your own advice about being quick to attack.
 
I doubt that I would be more comfortable as your deputy.
 
As for improving the friendliness of the net, a gracious "Thank you" for
an apology will go a lot farther than telling me how I should feel,
or what I thought.
 
 
Mark
From: spb0457@rigel.tamu.edu (SubGenius)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Backhanded compliments and other things I get
Date: 18 Dec 1992 00:46 CST
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rigel.tamu.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

>>(Actually, this makes a charming break from the usual comparisons people make  
>> of me, sending the Ancient Bearded Myth to make bail for their veracity--
>> Neil Young is a common comparison, although I, not knowing what Mr. Young
>> looks like, am not sure how to take it;  Gilligan is another prominent figure 
>> (if prominent is indeed the word) that is mentioned to me, although I think
>Mr. Young is average height and build, with sideburns that were
>on a sheep yesterday, and buys his razors from the same place
>Don Johnson does (shaves closer than a lawnmower, or your money
>back!).
>I would consider the description to be "compliment-neutral".
>- David

+---------------------------------------SubG-----------------------------------+
Ah!  Obviously a reference to my handsome whiskers, although I'm sure if my
contemporaries and collegues weren't such cultural illiterates, they'd recall
Admiral Burnsides' admirable adornments, or opine that they were `Asimovian' 
at very least.







-SubG

Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:22855 misc.books.technical:1799 alt.internet.services:2064 comp.org.eff.talk:7831
From: betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,misc.books.technical,alt.internet.services,comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: The Online BookStore Announcement: The Internet Companion
Date: 19 Dec 92 18:16:38 GMT
	<1992Dec18.220916.21674@netcom.com> <BzH9Fs.95u@world.std.com>
Organization: University of Massachusetts at Boston

I was describing the LaQuey book to my father, who was on his way out
to a new bookstore.
   "Spell the author's name for me" 
   "L-A-capitol-Q-U-E-Y"
   "What's the publisher?"
   "Addison-Wesley"
   "What's the year?"
   "lessee-- 1993"
   <pause>
   "What do you people know that we don't?"
--
System Administrator                  Internet: betsys@cs.umb.edu
MACS Dept, UMass/Boston               Phone   : 617-287-6448
100 Morrissey Blvd                    Staccato signals
Boston, MA 02125-3393                      of constant information....
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: All I want for xmas (Was: something by MMGardner, before that, KMorgan)
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 02:30:44 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

> mworley@mathcs.emory.edu (Meg Worley) writes:
>
>I want the 11th edition of Britannica, or, failing
>that, any other edition.
>

	Curiously enough, I came across a reference to this 
	edition today, in Richard B. Sewall's essay, "The Tragic Form":
		A discussion of tragedy is confronted at the 
		outset with the strenuous objections of Croce,
		who would have no truck with the genres.
		"Art is one," he wrote in his famous Britannica
		article,[1] "and cannot be divided."

		[1] Eleventh edition, article "Aesthetics."


>Let's hear everybody else's.
>

	I want a complete set of Aristotle, with notes,
	a copy of Stephen Daitz's cassette set
	_The Pronunciation and Reading of Ancient Latin_,
	a full-size classical dictionary, and French and
	Italian <-> English dictionaries.
		
>meg

rms
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.comedy.british,soc.culture.british,alt.fan.monty-python
From: jyc@leo.Stanford.EDU (Jon Corelis)
Subject: Re: Get fucked. Was: Re: Git (was re: Et in Arcadia ego)
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: 13 Dec 92 22:35:28 GMT

francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:

>In Oz there are persons for whom it is not enough to sprinkle fucks
>but must include intersyllabic ones too. Thus:

>	A bleedin' Eye fuckin' Tie.

>Someone of Italian descent who has irritated you in some way.

   This indeed seems to be a popular Australianism, as also with
"bloody."  I once read a delightful poem by an Australian author -- I
can't now recall who, but perhaps some one can tell us -- about
"shooting kanga-bloody-roos," in which this means of expression reached
its zenith when the author remarked that he and his mates had shot
twenty four of the creatures, "and that's e-bloody-nough."

   I believe the rhetorical technical term for this trope is tmesis. 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: daveh@Morgan.COM (David Haan)
Subject: Re: question for Arabian Nights fans
Organization: Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc., NY NY
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 22:13:49 GMT


Apologies. Ambiguity on the Burton bio was unintended. I vaguely recall 
hearing about McLynn but had not seen his book. Rice was the author I had 
in mind; it seemed an imposing tome; of course, it was an imposing life. 

Let me rephrase:
	Anyone out there have thoughts on the recent Burton bios?

;Dave
(close, but no .sig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rjwill6@PacBell.COM (Rod Williams)
Subject: Re: All I want for xmas 
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, California
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 16:09:57 GMT

> hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu (Mary Loveless) writes:

>~a hardbound single volume set of E.F. Benson's Lucia series.  
>~the same for Jane Austen's novels, maybe with a glossary in the back.
> (what *is* a haha!?)

It's a fiendishly clever landscaping device to keep the
cattle off your lawn.  At the rear edge of your lawn,
there's a drop-off of a few feet to the cow pasture.
From your 'drawing-room windows, there's a glorious,
uninterrupted vista of English greensward, but the cows
are presented with an insuperable obstacle: the haha.
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
rod williams -=- pacific bell -=- san ramon, ca -=- rjwill6@pacbell.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu (Mary Loveless)
Subject: Re: Books for Christmas
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 20:24:40 GMT

In article <BzF02x.Lnn@mach1.wlu.ca> dmccrea6@mach1.wlu.ca (doug mccready F) writes:
>There is a lady who writes books about a business man who solves mysteries,
>mostly in New England settings. I can't remember her name which I do
>remember is a pseudenym - I would like to get some of her books for Xmas if
>somebody would remind me of whom I am thinking.

Sounds like Emma Lathan, whose detective, John Putnam Thatcher, is a
mucky-muck with the Sloan Guaranty Trust on Wall Street.  "Go for the
Gold" is a banking mystery set at the winter Olympics.  The setting varies
from Manhattan to Puerto Rico, and I have read some set in New England. 
Let me know if this is it!

Mary Loveless