HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Confirmed Biblioholics
Date: 3 Jan 93 20:17:32 GMT
Organization: UT Art History
X-UserAgent: Nuntius v1.1



In article <1993Jan3.005531.23650@unislc.uucp> Robert Despain,
rod@unislc.uucp writes:
>> 24. Do you have at least six books next to your bed?
>
>CBs have headboards that are bookcases.  (Went into the bedroom
>and counted: 6 on the floor next to the bed, 28 on the bed, 40 in
>the headboard bookcase.)

Super-CBs, alert to their comfort while reading in bed, eschew
headboards. (If you are short, your head will barely reach the top of the
headboard, and you will get a profound crick in your neck.) Instead, they
have proper bookcases in the bedroom.

>25. When a bookstore clerk has been unable to locate a certain book in
>the stacks, have you ever been able to find that book?
>
>CBs rarely consult with bookstore clerks.   (When I go to the
>local B&N, I sneak back to where they have their inventory stored
>on a PC and look up what I'm after.  Not about to ask the clerks
>if that's OK; they might say no.)

Amen to all that. But there is also the problem of standing around
looking blankly into space, consulting and interpreting the contents of
one's memory palace ("Now what else was it  that I had promised myself to
look for?"), and having this profound concentration being mistaken for
total confusion. The last three times I've been in one of the local
Bookstops, the same clerk has come up to me, and inquired in tones of
gentle pity if he could help me in any way. I've turned him down all
three times, and now I'm sure he regards me as a hopeless case who
doesn't even know when she needs expert help.
--

"They like sitting around reading all the books there are. And then they 
love arguing about them. Some of those arguments go on for millenium 
after millenium. It just seems to keep them young, for some reason, 
arguing about books." -- Julian Barnes          

Joann Zimmerman (jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 01:23:38 GMT

Dani Zweig on question 22:

22. When a stranger walks into your house or apartment, are his or her
first words usually a comment about your books?

This is frequently a source of embarrassment to me -- on their behalf.
Most of my books are upstairs, so strangers who walk in just see three
relatively small bookcases.  So "Boy, you sure have a lot of books!"
from them means "I don't often see a house with over a hundred books".
How does one answer such a comment?

	I would think that you would have no reason to be embarassed,
other than at the pervasive vulgarity of visitors in noticing your
things. Miss Manners, in her latest book, reprints a letter in which
she is asked if it is considered vulgar to compliment a recent
acquaintance on his or her possessions. The reader quotes Mrs. Rumpole's
reaction (out of earshot) to a guest who admired Mrs R.'s wine
glasses: "The very idea! Noticing people's things!." Miss M. agrees
with Mrs. R while noting that the only change is that it is now all
right to admire the food since your hosts now probably cooked it
themselves. As to the comments about the hundred books, wouldn't
something along the lines of "yes, and they're such a bother to dust"
suffice. 

	In an exchange with, I believe, Ron Nadel several months ago I
made the point that some people consider books as trophies. That is,
books are displayed precisely for people to admire (and, of course, by
extension, the owner/reader of the books). Ron didn't buy my point,
which was made in the context of difficult/great/easy/forgettable
books. Still, I think that some people get caught in the concept of
books as symbols of the intellectual life rather than as means to
something higher/better/nobler/entertaining/consoling.

	Keith




--

Keith Morgan kamorgan@athena.mit.edu
In the end nothing could be said of his work except that it was
preposterous and true and totally unacceptable. Edward Whittemore
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:23752 rec.arts.sf.written:16911
From: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Date: 4 Jan 1993 02:40:39 GMT
Organization: UC Berkeley CS Dept.
NNTP-Posting-Host: cobra.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <C08G8v.GJK@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:
|                                        Saturday, the 2nd of January, 1993
|
|Curtis Yarvin writes:
| "Because it makes really really cool people like Ezra Pound and
| Mortimer Adler and Allan Bloom and Kenneth Rexroth smile, and tap a
| little jig," is not, in my perhaps-jaundiced opinion, the best approach.

|For starters, they are simply better read than most other people. It's
|exactly the reason I weigh some people's opinions here more than others.
|Those who've read an awful lot are simply going to be in a position to know.

If taste were knowledge, chefs would be savants.

c
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields)
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Organization: UNC-CH School of Medicine
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 20:29:31 GMT


I haven't the foggiest idea how many books I've read this past year - I
have no intention of trying to figure it out either.  It would be a lost
cause since I would invariably forget to include some and accidentally 
put others in I read in 1991.  Maybe one of these days but certianly not
today.

In regards to this biblioholic stuff in reference the alcoholism - maybe
that's not such a good analogy since if you're an alcoholic and you don't
stop you end up dead or crazy (not a very pleasent thought) but is it
necessarily bad or deliterious to be a "biblioholic"?  I mean, unless you
steal books or maybe the bookshelf falls on you or you're pummeled by an
encyclopedia salesman or you read too much Rand - what terrible things
will befall you if you read a lot?

Just a thought.

One last thing before I go - I moved in September, from a house with two
huge bookcases to a small trailer with no bookcases.  A number of books
went due to the divorce (my ex-husband's Kafka... :( ), I ended up having
to sell quite a few and donate the rest to a library.  I ended up with a
small fraction that fit into three medium sized boxes.  I sold most of my
books to a used book dealer - I got quite a nice price for my mystery
collection - seems they were the ones he was most interested in.

Yours in wet fishes,

Joan
From: jeremy@castle.ed.ac.uk (Jeremy Henderson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: What Santa brought -
Date: 31 Dec 92 13:09:56 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University


A pre-publication copy of Elisabeth George's new book "Missing Joseph" -
jolly good, despite the virtual absence of Havers.

Intro to Percolation Theory - the revised expanded second edition, if you
care.

A pretty picture book of Paris, to whet my appetite for moving there next
month.



"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."

This isn't in my "Dictionnaire des citations francaises", for some reason.
Where is it from?





-- 
===Jeremy Henderson===jeremy@castle.ed.ac.uk=          

This message cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
Bloody good value if you ask me.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: breitfeld@asterix.ISD.Uni-Stuttgart.DE (Thorsten Breitfeld esq.)
Subject: NYC Bookstores
Organization: ISD, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 14:52:04 GMT

This is probably a FAQ, but here goes nonetheless:

Could someone please tell me where I can find the
list of New York City Bookstores that pops up on this
group once in a while ?

Or, e-mail me...

Thanks, and have a very merry christmas !!

Thorsten

------------------------------------------------------------
                     Thorsten Breitfeld             
            ZFS // University of Stuttgart // ISD 
e-mail:       breitfeld@isd.uni-stuttgart.de 
voice :         xx49-711-1316224 (Germany)
------------------------------------------------------------
       All extremists should be taken out and shot.
From: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Encyclopedia Help
Date: 29 Dec 1992 14:12:00 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer Inc, Marlboro MA
Distribution: usa
Reply-To: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: gondolin.pubs.stratus.com

In article <1hpkq4INN7ne@transfer.stratus.com>  
lmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Laurie Mann) writes:

> Your best bet may be to call the local EB office and explain what  
you want to  
> do.  There are discounts if you are a teacher, and these discounts  
may well
> extend to grad students and the like.  Since we bought our set when  
Jim was
> a teacher, our set has the cheaper "educator" binding, which has  
held up fine  
> over the last 15 years of frequent use.

One correction: our set does not have the cheaper educator binding.
We paid for the set with the cheaper binding, but, a few days
after we ordered, Britannica called to say that they were
out of the cheap edition, and would we be willing to take the
more expensive binding at no additional charge.

A friend of ours bought his Britannica the correct way: when
the salesman arrived, he said: "Don't say anything about it
or I won't buy. I know I want one. I just want to know how
much it costs, then I'll sign."  The salesman agreed not
to go into his normal sales talk.

------------
Jim Mann
Stratus Computer   jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Date: 25 Dec 1992 00:49:42 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Mike Godwin writes:

	Dani Zweig writes:

		You shouldn't offend people unintentionally.

	I think that offending people unintentionally is part of the 
	human condition.

		It suggests an incomplete mastery of the medium.

	If this is true, then I have yet to encounter anyone with a 
	*complete* mastery.

Indeed, the Bard himself knew that his mastery was incomplete. You all
will remember:

		If we shadows have offended,
		Think but this, and all is mended,
		That you have but slumbered here
		While these visions did appear.

The Dream, of course. One magic night and many, many years ago upon the 
lawns of Worcester College was Titania played by the Fair Gaynor , who 
just recently, in England, still had the breasts of a girl. Such is life
still sometimes perfect.

							RABworm


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Self-knowledge of bookstore workers
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 19:02:31 GMT

	I received the attached as email. This was accidental so I am
reposting it to r.a.b. This is the 2nd time I've done this so
apologies if you have seen this before. The post is a followup to
Fiona Webster's inquiry on areas of ignorance in bookstore workers.

Keith

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 11:52:08 EST
From: arc2@Lehigh.EDU (AMY CHARLES)
Subject: Re: Self-knowledge of bookstore workers

Read something interesting recently in a book by Eric Schiller, to the effect
that the endless sea of info is useless to any who don't know what they're
looking for.  Much akin to Neil Postman's point in Amusing Ourselves to Death
that news etc, despite its aura of urgency, is merely entertainment.

The breathy discussion of ignorance is a little precious, though, don't you
think?  Look, Fiona, I'm a bookseller.  I've worked for chains, independents,
publishers.  Here's a sweeping generalization for you:  We know our own love
best, whether it's history, science, modern American fiction, whatever.  The
rest we know superficially: bestsellers, big authors, light v. serious.
Likewise we know a fair bit about publishers, talk show circuits, imprints,
pricing schemes -- everything pertaining to the trade.  We know about so many
different subjects because there are customers who buy books about them.  We
stock the books, we handle and shelve them, we flip through them to see if
they're suitable gifts for Uncle Ned who's read everything or Aunt Millie who
likes cute photos.
A happy New Year to all.  Buy from your independent bookseller first; preserve
freedom in publishing.
--

Keith Morgan kamorgan@athena.mit.edu
In the end nothing could be said of his work except that it was
preposterous and true and totally unacceptable. Edward Whittemore
From: nichael@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: _Stark Naked_
Date: 23 Dec 92 10:04:08
Organization: BBN, Cambridge MA
Distribution: world
Reply-To: ncramer@bbn.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: kariba.bbn.com


Way back, lo these many years, I saw a book called, of all things,
_Stark Naked_.  It was a collection of "funny" overly-appropriate
names.  (For example, the weatherman N. Clement Weather or the
inebriated lounge singer Butch Yourarmsaroundmehoney.)  As I recall it
was illustrated by Searles[?].  It may have been written by him, too,
but that's just speculation.

Anyway, does anyone know this book or, preferably, know where I can
find a copy?

I have no idea why the book was called _Stark Naked_.  It turns out,
moreover, that there are several books with this title, which has
tended to make book searches through normal channels a little
difficult.

BTW, the subtitle is "A [?????] Fantasy"; does anyone know a name for
this type of pun/joke?

Nichael               "...and they opened their thesaurus and offered
ncramer@bbn.com                him gold and frankincense and myrrh."
From: ah@dunaad.co.uk (Alan Hunter)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Police Procedural  (Was Re: Sjowall & Wahloo)
Date: 29 Dec 92 16:21:35 GMT
Organization: Johnson Hunter Limited

Miriam Nadel writes:

>(re Reginald Hill)
>What I find most enjoyable 
>about the series is the way Dalziell has gotten depth, instead of just
>being a slob and a boor.  

Persistenly finding ways for him to act entirely in character, yet against
characterature. Just like a human being.

>I was sorry that Sergeant Wield was almost
>invisible in the most recent book in the series, since he's one of the
>better fleshed out secondary characters around.

I like him too. 

>Hill also has written a number of suspense novels under the name "Patrick
>Ruell" which are well-plotted but have less humor.  

Thanks, I didn't know that.

Alan


-- 
Alan Hunter
Johnson Hunter Ltd
Isle of Islay, Scotland
A.Hunter@dunaad.co.uk          fax: +44-496-2336         voice: +44-496-2286
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian)
Subject: Re: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 17:41:52 GMT

This thread is threatening to take a digression into religion, which I
hesitate to encourage, but for what it's worth I think the issue is who is to
be master. Native Indians (and other non-Europeans in colonial societies)
can't be said to "appropriate" a religion imposed on them...except as a
political stratagem to minimize damage to the original culture. For example,
native tribes in Mexico and Central America adopted Catholicism but adapted
it to include many of the old rituals; gods became saints, but their original
functions stayed largely the same. Christians themselves had done something
like that by "appropriating" pagan holidays and converting them to Christian
purposes.

Much more concern, however, now arises over appropriation as a kind of
plagiarism against the poor by the rich. If we take something from another
culture not to enrich and complicate our own, but simply to affirm our own,
then we may indeed be plagiarizing. That can run both ways, however.

A more sensible attitude to take might be simply to recognize that no culture
is hermetically sealed, and every culture is amazingly persistent. Rome fell,
but Roman culture thrives today in everything from architecture to
bullfights. Any truly alive culture is aggressive, always on the lookout for
something it can incorporate into itself (English and Japanese, for example,
are great absorbers of foreign words). Does this mean eventual loss of
identity as the culture transforms itself out of recognition? No more than a
child loses its identity in the process of growing up. Africa didn't lose its
identity by adopting American maize as a staple crop, any more than the
Mohawks stopped being Mohawks by going into high-steel construction work.

It may well be that far from being spiritually deficient by appropriating
from other cultures, a culture may be spiritually paralyzed if it fails to do
so. The consequences can be disastrous: early British Arctic explorers, for
example, never even *thought* to learn about survival techniques from the
Inuit, so the Brits suffered and died from inappropriate clothing and diet
while the bemused Inuit watched and wondered.


--
Crawford Kilian   Communications Department   Capilano College
North Vancouver BC Canada V7J 3H5
Usenet: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca
Internet: ckilian@first.etc.bc.ca
From: dac@prolix.apana.org.au (Andrew Clayton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Sports. Opiate. Damning.
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1993 13:39:31 GMT
 <C074v4.90I@panix.com> <1993Jan2.043744.15110@eff.org>
Organization: More like Dis~, really.
X-Newsreader: Arn V1.00

In article <1993Jan2.043744.15110@eff.org>, Mike Godwin writes:

> In article <C074v4.90I@panix.com> mls@panix.com (Michael Siemon) writes:
> 
> >But why watch TV (especially, for sports) when there are so many
 
> I confine my sports-watching to Usenet. 

Noam Chomsky would approve.

Dac
--
dac@prolix.apana.org.au              David Andrew Clayton.           // _| _  _
dac@prolix.sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au      Canberra, Australia           \X/ (_](_](_
                    <Using ARN on an Amiga 4000. Yay!>
From: hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu (Mary Loveless)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Mangled song lyrics (was: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age)
Date: 31 Dec 1992 00:21:30 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: carson.u.washington.edu

In article <1992Dec30.223330.19793@lunatix.uucp> lmollett@lunatix.uucp (Laura Mollett) writes:
>In article <sph0301.133.725726470@utsph.sph.uth.tmc.edu> sph0301@utsph.sph.uth.tmc.edu writes:
>>
>> ...and in the holiday spirit, GOOD KING WESCES CAR BACKED OUT, ON A
>>PIECE OF STEPHEN...
>>
>>kate
>
>This one is so good, I'd like to hear the whole song <grin>.
>			Laura
>
>
Am I channeling this or do I remember the following line (I did *not*
create it, assure you!):

All the scones splayed on the trout, round and crisp and pleasin'.

There must be more to it than this!

 Mary Loveless  hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All of my opinions are self-righteously my own and **certainly** have
nothing to do with the University of Washington.

"Too much of a good thing can be *wonderful*."  Mae West

"I wonder how I'd look in *Madonna's* underwear."  Zippy the Pinhead
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: Ngaio Marsh info requested
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 92 02:30:33 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>
>I'm trying to think of some non-Rabelaisian pieces about farting. Are
>there any?
>

	*Are* there any?  Ha!

	[in the middle of necromantic summoning of the devils,
	who are crowding in among them]
	...I looked at Agnolino Gaddi, whose eyes were starting from
	their sockets in his terror, and who was more than half
	dead, and said to him: "Agnolo, in time and place like this
	we must not yield to fright, but do the utmost to bestir
	ourselves; therefore, up at once, and fling a handful of
	that asafetida upon the fire."  Agnolo, at the moment when
	he moved to do this, let fly such a volley from his breech,
	that it was far more effectual than the asafetida.[1]
	The boy, roused by that great stench and noise, lifted his
	face a little, and hearing me laugh, he plucked up courage,
	and said the devils were taking to flight tempestuously. ...
		-- The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, Chapter LXIV
	[1] Fece una istrombazzata di coregge con tanta abundanzia
	di merda.

>--Mike

rms
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu (Mary Loveless)
Subject: Re: Deck us all with Boston Charlie
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 19:55:36 GMT

In article <1992Dec24.173301.18857@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>Does anyone know if Walt Kelly wrote more than one verse?
>
>	Deck us all with Boston Charlie
>	Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!
>	Nora's freezing on the trolley,
>	Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!
>	Don't we know archaic barrel,
>	Lullaby Lilla Boy Louisville Lou?
>	Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
>	Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

When I see my friends over the holidays, I will check and see if they
still have "Songs of the Pogo" - a collection of *all* the fractured song
lyrics from the comic strips, circa mid '60s.  If they still have it I
will be sure to look up the lyrics.  I am already in friendly debate with
another Pogo fan about whether it is alley-garoo or wallygaroo (Wally
Guru?  That would be a great character for the current strip, maybe to do
a little spoof on a New Age Sage?)

Mary Loveless  hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All of my opinions are self-righteously my own and **certainly** have
nothing to do with the University of Washington.

"I wonder how I'd look in *Madonna's* underwear."  Zippy the Pinhead
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 01:27:54 GMT

twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin):
>It would seem to me to be impossible to *avoid* offending them, and 
>therefore a waste of one's time to try. 

I agree that there's not much point in bending over backwards to
try to molify the Lost Causes, but there's a great deal of easily
avoidable offense that people give by not adapting their style to
the quirks of the medium.

>>It's a commonplace that...language that's appropriate in one medium
>>may be inappropriate in another (eg, written English should *not*
>>generally be identical to spoken English)
>
>Sez who?

:-)  

Well, *I* said it.  How much commoner do you want?

>People who engage in what passes for communication here have to 
>understand that we, collectively, form a brand-new culture, one 
>that has a life of its own.  Not everyone is comfortable with its 
>manners and rituals as they've more or less evolved...

I like it.  But we needn't pretend that we aren't still learning
what works and what doesn't.

>Maybe we need a net anthropologist.  Or sociologist.  Or psychiatrist. 

I volunteer for the latter:  I have a primary reference on Psychobabycraft.
(The important thing is to get them when they're young enough.)  Umm...
do you have teeth?

-----
Dani Zweig
dani@netcom.com

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
 Are full of passionate intensity." -- W.B. Yeats
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books