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From: ednschmi@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (John Schmidt)
Subject: Re: speed read this
Organization: ITC, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
Date: 27 Aug 92 01:51:43 GMT

MM <mbm@PACSCL.UARC.UPENN.EDU> writes:

>To discern this relevance, we need only recall, first of all, that within that
>theory the placing, naming, and motivating functions of the proairetic, and
>its predominance in conventional narrative, are held to be defining symptoms
>of the constitutive *oedipality* of such narrative energies and desires, or
>perhaps more precisely of the binding, sublimation and cntainment of such
> desire;
>just as the atemporal and never-fully-repressible bursts and upswellings of
>the semic are identified with the carnivalesque freedom of the unregulated,
> post-,p
>post-, pre-, or even anti-Oedipal society and individual body.  Then all we
>have to do is notice how insofar as such definitions and categories do hold
>water for us, __Blue Velvet__ gets them--though once again, only sort of--
>wrong from the get-go, observing this oppositional distinction and flouting
>it at the same time by reversing what might have thought was their "natural"
>order: for what kind of narrative text is it, after all, in which the fall
>of the father is *preceded* by an image-flow predominantly semic in nature,
>but *followed* by one that more or less falls obediently into story-plotting
>line?


>	Somewhat easier in context, but still hard to take in at a glance.
>For graduate school these days, as lots of you out there are well aware,
>this is about average difficulty. There's other stuff with less jargon but
>more difficult concepts. Things that have to be read ten or more times and
>thought over before they might dawn on one--or at least me. Only to point out
>some constraints on speed.

Great example!!

>	I was also thinking how, as Chris points out, sentences are written
>to be experienced sequentially: the cadences are carefully measured out, and
>the experience is meant to be sequential, not spatial and simultaneous. And
>in poetry, one comma can make an enormous amount of difference, and poets
>have crafted carefully on that level. I'm willing to grant that much of the
>kind of appreciation I speak in favor of is in fact being accomplished by
>fast readers in a way I do not understand, but even after all of our dis-
>cussion, it remains a mystery how so much can be absorbed so quickly. Doesn'
>comprehension sometimes ask for pauses? Michael B.

I think that the contribution of modern analyses of the reading process is
to demonstrate that reading is less sequential than we had thought
(post-McLuhan), but there are aesthetic issues that would be interesting to
explore.

John Schmidt

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Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 02:50:54 EDT
From:         MM <mbm@PACSCL.UARC.UPENN.EDU>
Subject:      confessions
Comments: To: literary@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.



I have not read the prophetic books of William Blake.

That's not a real confession.  Ok. Since I quit smoking a can't keep my mine
on a page. Concentration is blown to the winds. Books picked up and set aside
and scattered around the room, long daydreams upon a paragraph I find I have
been reading and re-reading for some time, and I get slower all the time.
There are THINGS TO DO, you see, which now find their way into consciousness
and destroy the absorbtion in the book. I don't think it's only my personal
time sense; I gather it's speeded up for a number of people. I never could
get my mythology straight, and what I don't know about Greek drama took
a real chunk out of my GRE score, as well as makes me unfit to participate
fully in Western Culture. Doesn't traditional knowlege ever change? For
example, for an artist now, couldn't you argue that the basics are abstraction,
and that only in a rebellion against or rejection of abstraction would this
artist turn to representation. Don't even try representation until you are
accomplished as an abstract artist. This makes some sense. I'm trying to argue
my way out of the Greek plays, which I'm sure I'd like if I could, if I were
not such a waterspider reader, all over a lot of surface but not plumbing
enough depth. Only three or four authors in all I've read most of their work.
And I don't retain a great deal. I share this with the great Montaigne, who
found it a pleasure, because after a couple of years had gone by, ye could
read the books as though for the first time. My mind is built on shifting
sand; I shall not confess any more. Michael Brennan.
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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 11:07:21 -0400
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Babble about Byatt's book.

        I half agree with Tim's point about Byatt that the point of the book
is that it's supposed to be trivia about minor people.  The point I disagree
with is that *why* the book is about them . . . rather than just an intellec-
tual joke (although that may be present), you might ask whether they really are
trivial, minor people.  Their loves and pursuits were as important to them as
those of Wellington or Newton.  One thing about Ashe that, I think, is made
very clear is that - no matter how the 20th century regards him, he wasn't
a fraud. He was sincere in his writing and his beliefs, and - all in all -
he was a pretty nice guy.  Why shouldn't that be treated with respect?
        Ian
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Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 02:39:00 CDT
From:         S1MBM@ISUVAX.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Hirsch

Tim, how on earth can you argue that Hirsch doesn't offer prescriptive lists
for cultural literacy when the book of that title *has* such a list, and when he
has published a dictionary under that rubric?  You can dance around the word
"prescriptive" if you want to, but I think that such a move would be a bit
disingenuous.  As for teaching minorities rudiments of "common culture," who
advocates *not* doing this, and where on earth do you think it not done?  I
far prefer Ralph Ellison's assertion that we have all along failed to realize
the strong presence of minority, especially African-American culture as a
shaping force within mainstream, "common" culture.  Ellison argues quite
persuasively that American folklore always already bears the traces of the
African-American elements that have primordially shaped it.  And I would want
to contest the hell out of any "neutral" connotation of the word common.

mbmcdonald
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Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 20:18:00 EDT
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      New Yorker

        Well, I think I can honestly say that, although I am worried about
the editorial change at the NY, it is nothing to do with the fact that the
new editor is female.  (Probably it is mostly because of fear of change.)
One of the things I like most about the NY is the way it takes esoteric or
trivial subjects - unpopular by their nature - and makes them interesting.
I worry that any editor who is thinking about sales - about popularity -
will demand articles on the "relevant", the "important": the things everyone
else talks about.  As far as I'm concerned, the formula in place now works
just fine.      Ian
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Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 16:25:15 EDT
From:         Tim Johnson <PH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Well, it isn't quite Kundera

  but it is graphomania.

  from yesterday's Calvin and Hobbes:

  Calvin:  I feel I have an obligation to keep a journal
           of my thoughts.
  Hobbes:  Oh?

  Calvin:  Being a genius, by ideas are naturally more
           important and interesting than other people's,
           so I figure the world would benefit from a
           record of my mental activities.

  Hobbes:  How philanthropic of you.
  Calvin:  Well, the world isn't going to get it cheap.

  Hobbes:  So what are you writing today?
  Calvin:  I couldn't really think of anything, so I'm
           drawing some Martians attacking Indianapolis.


                                -Tim
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Date:         Mon, 31 Aug 1992 11:51:59 EDT
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From:         "Lana Brown, VIARC, IRD" <VIAEM105@SIVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: speed read this

From:    Lana Brown, VIARC, IRD
The reason that I read material like the lit. theory example given slowly is so
 I don't have to read it 5 or 6 times.  I chew it, Bacon-wise, like jerky, mayb
e even stopping every couple of paragraphs to write something of my own reflect
ions down or just stare at the wall and let it all fall into place.  Doesn't an
yone else do it this way with material of this nature?  Oh, sure, once I've rea
d a few works with simmilar "hooks", I can shift into fifth gear and skim the 1
00 or more other pieces of fat I have to read till I find the meat I need to fu
el whatever it is I'm doing the reaseach for.
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Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 20:16:00 CDT
From:         TB0WDB1@NIU.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Mark Twain Quote

You might also see EB White's introduction to _A Subtreasury of
American Humor_ in which he says "Humor can be dissected, as a frog
can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discour-
aging to any but the pure scientific mind." (xvii)
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Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 11:23:26 EDT
From:         Tim Johnson <PH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Dostoyevskian translations

>I really like Garnett's translation of, at least, _Crime &
>Punishment_ (the only one I remember well enough to comment on).
>Perhaps it's (inevitably) old-fashioned in some ways, but I think
>there are more important things to look for in translations.
>Something about the tone just seems right.

  I didn't like her translation of _A Raw Youth_.  The
tone was completely wrong.  And I've read her Karamazov -
or at least the revised Norton Edition which is based
largely on her translation and don't like it as well as
others.

  The phrase I remember best from _A Raw Youth_ - the
Garnett translation - is when our disaffected young
russian man exclaims "oh bother Tatyana, and bother
her flat.  But you're looking jolly well today."
How *terrible*.  He's not an English gentleman -
or an English spinster aunt, for that matter.

  I don't know Garnett's _Crime and Punishment_.

  The first Dostoevsky I read was _The Possessed_,
on a whim, from a library copy.  It had the magic.
One of those books that I could tell right away
would change the way I read.  So, I returned it
after reading a few chapters, and ran out and bought
my own copy (so I could mark it up).  I got the
Magarshak translation, and it took some of the
excitement out of the book.  Not enough to be
a let down, but enough that I never bought another
Magarshak translation (though I have read several
others, including his _Crime and Punishment_.)

                              -Tim
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Date:         Tue, 1 Sep 1992 16:53:27 CDT
From:         Richard Scott - Metro CC <rscott@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Foreign Language Dictionaries Online
Comments: To: LITERARY@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

>
> Please reply directly to the author.
>
> I am seeking information on foreign language dictionaries available
> through the Internet. If you know of any, please send e-mail to:
>
> Dale Foster
> Coordinator of Online & CD-ROM Search Services
> University of South Alabama Library
> ULDF@USOUTHAL.BITNET
>
Indeed if anyone has such information, please post to the list as I would
be interested in finding out about this.

Richard Scott
Metropolitan Community College, Omaha
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Date:         Tue, 25 Aug 1992 08:29:27 PDT
From:         LITERARY <LITERARY@CLOVIS.FELTON.CA.US>
Subject:      Re: Speed Reading

Reply-to: Tim.Bowden@p0.f509.n216.z1.fidonet.org (Tim Bowden)
Fido-To: ednschmi@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au

EU> In other words, lots of practice does eventually make "perfect".


I began reading like a kid in a candy store, awed by gumballs,
savoring licorice as a concept.  As I grew old, I slowed
considerably from that pace, reminiscing about all the last
great gumball days of my youth.


As you might suspect, I am a dropout from the `Reading as a
Treadmill' school...
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Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 20:28:43 EDT
From:         shelly25@AOL.COM
Subject:      usnsubscribe
Comments: To: literary@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

I'm really sorry to use up band width to do this, but I've sent over half a
dozen requests to the list server, and still am getting inundated with mail
from this group.  I just can't keep up.

So, PLEASE, whomever is in charge of such things, REMOVE ME FROM THIS LIST!!

shelly25@aol.com
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Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 07:38:08 PDT
From:         LITERARY <LITERARY@CLOVIS.FELTON.CA.US>
Subject:      Re: The Rooshians

Reply-to: Tim.Bowden@p0.f509.n216.z1.fidonet.org (Tim Bowden)
Fido-To: s1mbm@isuvax.bitnet

ST>   It's real fashionable not to like Dickens these days, but
ST> I'll take him over the brilliant but boring George Eliot
ST> any day.


A very eminent stylist, and I do enjoy his manner, image,
humor, but isn't he sort of awash in bathos?  And don't
his characters come right out of central casting?  And
does not he abuse coincidence slightly?  And can it not
be said his nifty clean-up happy endings where all the
good guys settle down to live on the same street stretch
your credulousity just a tad?

Whereas I found _Middlemarch_ to be a realistic picture
of a gone world I would like to visit...
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Date:         Tue, 1 Sep 1992 09:08:22 -0400
From:         "NAME 'Anne McKeage, Archivist, x2928'" <MCKEAGE@MCMASTER.BITNET>

set literary mail
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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 11:50:00 CDT
From:         S1MBM@ISUVAX.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Graham Greene, modern poetry

Bravo Millie!  I too scoff at poetry that is essentially prose that has
been *broken up* into poetic looking lines, rather than discourse which
*uses* the line itself as a structural principle from the onset.  Too
much contemporary poetry is precisely such prose attending the costume
ball of contemp. culture as poetry, but most people have learned not to
see through the disguise.

One quibble:  the problem you allude to is *not* one of modern, but of
contemporary poetry.  I know that modern is often used synonomously with
contemporary, but Modernists such as Hart Crane, Cummings, Stein, Yeats,
Williams and Moore experimented with the poetic line as no generation
before or since.

Thanks,
michael bmc
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Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 02:30:00 CDT
From:         S1MBM@ISUVAX.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Relevance, Buffoons, and Fyodors

Tim, I knew you'd come through!  Thanks for all the quotes; you've made me
want to reread the great *Brothers K*.  Presumably, the quotes you offer
come from a translation you *do* like; why not recommend one, rather than
just putting down the translations you don't care for?  (or did you translate
the passages in question yourself?)

not a russianist, not mbmccoll
mbmcdonald
From: KGODDEN@cmsa.gmr.com
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
Subject: Re: Foreign Language Dictionaries Online
Date: 3 Sep 92 13:49:37 GMT
Organization: GM Research Labs

In article <9209012153.AA02105@cwis.unomaha.edu>
rscott@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU (Richard Scott - Metro CC) writes:
>>
>> I am seeking information on foreign language dictionaries available
>> through the Internet. If you know of any, please send e-mail to:
>>
>Indeed if anyone has such information, please post to the list as I would
>be interested in finding out about this.
>
At approx. the end of this month I will be releasing for beta-test a
German->English lexicon that is a Hypercard stack for the Mac.
It has about 4K German words/phrases (commercial stacks I've seen offer only
about 1500)  and MANY features, including drill exercises for noun gender and
plural forms, irregular verb forms, and recognition of G. word based on
English translation.  Cross-references are supported, several different
kinds of search, and it is user-updatable (there's an ugly term).
Also, if the user enters a new word that is a noun, the program is often able
to predict and insert the correct gender and plural forms.  There's more,
but that's the most important stuff.

I'm in the process of testing it now, and also adding additional words daily.
I estimate it will be about 1Mbyte in size when it's ready for beta, about
half that size in compressed format.  It didn't occur to me that anyone on
this list might be interested in it, but I will post an announcement when
it is ready.  You will not be able to FTP it, but there will be a way for you
to get it.  I am willing to email a compressed and binhex'd version (using
Stuffit) to you if you send me email and request it.

         It will be completely free to you as a beta-tester.  I'm asking for
a $10 shareware fee after I release it for general use.  Version 2.0, which
I plan for release in the future (maybe next year) will have even MORE
features, as well as MANY more words (8K-10K perhaps!).

I hope this is of interest to some of you.

-Kurt
-------------------
"I distrust a research person who is always obviously busy on a task."
-Robert A. Frosch, VP, GM Research
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Posted-Date: Sun, 23 Aug 92 17:37:23 EDT
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Date:         Sun, 23 Aug 1992 17:37:23 EDT
From:         MM <mbm@PACSCL.UARC.UPENN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Trollope
Comments: To: literary@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

Grace: No, you're not the only one. There is no way that I would even con-
fess to all of the important books I haven't read. And there are more
professors than you might imagine who have missed more than a couple along
the line. Michael McColl
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From:         Pauline Hodges --D65 x2701-- <PRH65@CAS.BITNET>
Subject:      Re(2): Changes at the New Yorker
Comments: To: LITERARY <LITERARY@clovis.felton.ca.us>

Obviously, I've been raised with the New Yorker a LONG time--I remember when it
didn't even HAVE a table of contents, and mourned with others when it bowed to
convention and added one.  Used to be fun to read a story without knowing who
the author was until the end.  Helped to see the writing with unbiased eyes.

By the way, you who haven't been reading it much lately:  there have been
wonderful articles in the last few years, my favorite being the one about the
two Russian brothers who have built their own supercomputer in their cramped NY
apartment for the purpose of pursuing prime numbers.

--Polly H.
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Date:         Tue, 25 Aug 1992 18:25:00 EDT
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Confession, speed reading, et al.

Kurt brought up 1 1/2 points I'd like to respond to (he brought up more than
that but there were only 1 1/2 I can comment on right now)
1.  Steinbeck:  We had a discussion of him a little while ago.  My point then
was not that he wasn't technically very good, even great, but that the content
and depth of his work had problems.  I feel that he is overly romantic (think-
ing particularly of Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday here, but applicable to G
of W and others as well); and also, I think that most of his books have a
definite and rather obvious theme; lacking subtlty, I guess, is concept I'm
incoherently trying to get across.  Do you agree?  Do you like Steinbeck
in spite of this?  (I definitely like his work, don't get me wrong; but
I wouldn't put him in the "great" category.)
2. re economics: . . . if we want to win. . .  Why is economics always treated
like a zero-sum game?  And who's this "we". Yankee?  [just kidding]
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Name: Christopher Mark Conn
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Date:         Tue, 1 Sep 1992 09:59:21 CDT
From:         Christopher Mark Conn <sascmc@UNX.SAS.COM>
Subject:      Mark Twain Quote
Comments: To: literary <literary%ucf1vm.bitnet@unx.sas.com>

Can somebody dig this up for me?

I'm looking for a quote by Mark Twain in which he says
something to the effect of: you can kill a frog to find
out how it works but then it would be dead.

Thanks for any help!
  ___                          ___
//               ||\  /|     //
||               || \/ |     ||
\\___ hristopher ||    | ark \\___ onn                       sascmc@unx.sas.com
_______________________________________________________________________________
Dead Runners Society
PO Box 202292 Austin, Texas 78720-2292 (512) 258-5171 X3369 FAX: (512) 258-3906
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