HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: The Wall Street Journal
Organization: The Inner Clique
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 04:23:32 GMT


Heather Henderson writes:

> Miriam Nadel writes:

>> Some of us find the stock market intriguing.  

> I guess that's true.  I worked for a Wall Street investment banking 
> firm for four years, and dang, those Big Swinging Dicks sure found the
> stock market interesting.  I didn't, though, and still don't.

Nor do I.  The mathematics of the Bond Market are much more interesting.

Incidentally, I've been working on Wall Street since 1985, and with the 
exception of the book that Heather (obliquely) refers to (yes, there was 
a book reference), I've never heard anyone on the street use the "big 
swinging dick" expression.

Prior to my jobs on Wall Street, I worked in Princeton for Dow Jones & Co -- 
publishers of the Wall Street Journal.  The comments I've heard here 
about the paper, and about the company are all true.  It is an exceptionally 
well run company (with the exception of the guy whom I reported to :-).

The Wall Street Journal also has some great puns -- almost as good as Mike 
Godwin's.




Mark
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Paul Johnson (was Paglia)
Date: 11 Jan 93 19:51:03 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

ashall@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Andrew S Hall) wrote:
> The "left" has enaged in the ad hominem style of argument for some time.
> Ezra Pound has been bounced from the English canon by many.

Who are these "many" who have done this?  Can you name even one?  Such
attacks on Pound as I've seen have been on aesthetic grounds, not ad
hominem biographical ones.

> Other conservative like Evelyn Waugh are ignored not for their lack of
> literary abilities, but because of their staunch conservative and religous
> values.

Surely Waugh *is* ignored for his lack of abilities?  Those abilities are
much the same of those of his contemporary Aldous Huxley, who was about as
far to the left as Waugh was to the right.  Huxley is pretty much forgotten
by academia now as well, and for the same reason: he was second rate.  And
neither has had the sort of historic or continuing influence on the
literary tradition that would compel academia to go on teaching their stuff
regardless, in the way they teach Beowulf despite it being a mediocre epic.
Lawrence survives pretty well despite being a near-fascist: he was a darn
sight more original.

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
From: yarnot@babbage.csus.edu (Jan Yarnot)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Read in 1992
Date: 12 Jan 93 19:44:20 GMT
Organization: Moi?

In article <1993Jan12.112544.12646@jussieu.fr> hars@skolem.logique.jussieu.fr (Harold Shellinx) writes:
[a fascinating posting, and one about books, of all things.]
>
>Following Eijgenraam I use my ratings to find the 'pleasure-index'
>("plezierfactor") of my reading, which is given by calculating for each title
>the product of its rating and its number of pages, taking the sum of all these,
>and then dividing the number found by the total number of pages. Of course it
>will thrill you to know my present "pleasure-index". And gladly I will satisfy
>your curiosity: it is 0.96 !! ;-)
>
I'm not sure I understand what that means... that you're easily pleased?
That you're picky?  Or is it how much pleasure reading gives you?  I'm not
clear on what this tells us about you, and if your pleasure-index changes,
is that good or bad?
>As to my 1992 statistics, past year's list contains 89 titles (21446
>pages), divided over four languages as follows:
>
>        * Dutch         43      (8755 pp)
>        * English       24      (9554 pp)
>        * German         5      (668 pp)
>        * French        17      (2469 pp)
>
*sigh*.  I'm reminded of the joke, "One who knows three languages is trilingual,
one who knows two languages is bilingual, one who knows one language is
American."  I've dabbled in French, Spanish, and Japanese (as well as American
Sign Language) but I am not conversant enough in any of them to attempt reading
in the original language.  Impressive.
>
>
>        - Gerrit Krol           "De weg naar Sacramento"        [1]

What is this?  Is it about Sacramento, California?  If so, is there an
English translation?  (Heck, is it fiction or non-?)
>
>
>
>        =================================
>                "More, in
>                1994." ;-)
>        =================================
>        Harold Schellinx, Amsterdam/Paris

Please.


--
---Jan Yarnot, net.grandma.-- | When you go out into the world,
			      | watch out for traffic, hold hands,
                              | and stick together.
CSUS depends on my every word.|             --Robert Fulghum    
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 17:59:15 GMT

jahb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JENNIFER A. HEISE):
>Quite honestly, the librarian is doing what I hope I would do myself.  She
>feels slightly uneasy about Amanda's choice of what are, to put it kindly,
>fluff books-- marshmallow of the mind... So, she offers to point out...

Our neighborhood library had an ingenious solution.  Until grade five you
had to use the children's library (which was very good, btw), and in
grade seven you could use the adults' library.  Grade sixers, however,
were eligible for a 'juniors' card, which gave them access to the children's
library and to the young-adults collection -- which was about 50% canon.
I spent that year reading all the Dumas books, all the Verne books, etc.

>This may come of my mother's ambition: that we both read all the Newbery 
>Award winners.  She's still at it.

You're not because you gave up on them or because you're a faster reader?

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

  Watership Down:  
  You've read the book.  You've seen the movie.  Now eat the stew!


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: lew@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (lewis.h.mammel..jr)
Subject: Re: _Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus_ (was Re: Self-knowledge of bookstore workers & others
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 23:41:39 GMT
Summary: Gardner's literary theory
Keywords: curious areas of ignorance

In article <1993Jan5.190613.14022@blaze.cs.jhu.edu>, callahan@biffvm.cs.jhu.edu (Paul Callahan) writes:
> 
> Also, from Martin Gardner's description of Arthur Conan Doyle (see
> _Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus_), I get the distinct impression that
> the author wasn't overly clued-in about that sort of thing himself. 

I guess you're referring to The_Irrelevance_of_Arthur_Conan_Doyle,
in which MG advances the theory that Doyle COULDN'T have written
the Holmes stories because he's so obviously undevoted to rationality.

Is this as crackpot as it seems ? I've never heard of this elsewhere.
Also, MG notes that it is commonly accepted that Cervantes didn't
actually write Don Quixote. Is this true ?

As to his Doyle thesis, it seems to me sufficient to note
how superficial the rationality in the Holmes cases is. Devotees
of the occult generally maintain that logic supports their conclusions,
so I don't see the clash between the obeisances made to logic and
Doyle's occultism that Gardner evidently does.

Gardner definitely goes way overboard as an anitirrationalist - to
the point of irrationality, I would say. Cf. his rant against
Close Encounters ( the movie ) in S:G,B&B. Also, note his religious
views as expounded in The_Whys_of_a_Philosophical_Scrivener. Nevertheless,
I remain a fan.


Lew Mammel, Jr.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Shouting at robots
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:33:10

Maybe people didn't pay attention to what they quoted of what I wrote.
The robot was designed to obey, "Stop" provided it was said in the
manner prescribed in the instructions.  It also was supposed to
understand "Turn left", etc.  It was just that shouting didn't help.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: jjh00@diag.amdahl.com (Joel Hanes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: RE: Cross-Writing (was: Books I Got For Xmas)
Date: 6 Jan 93 20:29:08 GMT
Reply-To: jjh00@diag.amdahl.com
Organization: Amdahl Corporation  Sunnyvale California


 hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>
> maybe *you* can think of more female authors who have written from
>a male point of view.  I'm stuck at three right now, and there must
>be more.

Ursula K. LeGuin, in _The_Left_Hand_Of_Darkness_, writes not
only from the viewpoint of the male major narrator, but also
a little from the viewpoint of the cyclic hermaphrodite
"hero".  IMHO, she does both exceedingly well.

In _The_Word_For_World_Is_Forest_ (what a clumsy title!
Try to say *that* three times, fast.) she writes from
the viewpoint of at least three males: one sensitivea, 
scientific, and reticent; one blusteringly macho and
ultimately psychotic; and one of an alien species with
a culture similar in some ways to that of the Australian
aborigine.

In _The_Dispossessed_, again, she writes mainly from the
viewpoint of the male scientist, Shevek.

Ms. LeGuin is the _only_ SF-genre write that I routinely
recommend to readers who don't normally read SF.
(Sorry, Tom)

---
Joel Hanes
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmm@cs.brown.edu (T. M. Murali)
Subject: Re: "Jeeves and Wooster"
Organization: Brown Computer Science Dept.
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 21:22:59 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.192601.8794@leland.Stanford.EDU>, stefan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stefan Michalowski) writes:
|> Tom Maddox writes:
            <stuff deleted>
|> The series is great, although Jeeves IS too young and he mugs too much
|> and rolls his eyes. I especially like Gussie - "that horrid Spinkbottle".
|> I thought I'd mention the WORST Wodehouse adaptation I ever saw: an old
|> movie with Arthur Treacher as Jeeves and William Powell as Bertie.
|> Treacher was about 6'9" and looked, walked and talked (?) like the
|> Frankenstein monster. Bertie seemed to be on PCP. Wait a minute - did 
|> I really see that movie, or I am making this up?
|> 
I once saw a movie called `Thank You, Jeeves' starring David Niven as Bertie and
Arthur Treacher as Jeeves. It was quite awful. Bertie is made out to be a
playboy. Jeeves actually sings and even swings his arms while doing so. The final
straw is when he saves Bertie from a military-secret stealing gang by actually
FIGHTING with them! And then Bertie gets engaged. The only thing good about this
was that it was less than an hour long.


|> My unrelated note: why is it that the Brits can do such a fantastic
|> job adapting "Jeeves" (or the old "Forsythe Saga" - best thing I ever 
|> saw on TV), and then can proceed to absolutely butcher Simenon's 
|> Maigret. They made the lugubrious detective into a sprightly British 
|> gentleman, and MMe. Maigret into a svelte beauty. Gendarmes! Au secours!
|> 
|> 
|> Stefan
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: olsen@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Diane Olsen)
Subject: Women Writers (was: Cross-Writing)
Keywords: women writers
Organization: The Pickett Home for Wayward Grandmothers
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 21:00:32 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.184008.8142@unet.net.com> heidi@wales.net.com (Heidi Wolf) writes:
>I should like to recommend a book by Joanna Russ entitled HOW TO SUPPRESS
>WOMEN'S WRITING.  It covers the topics mentioned above, and some
>others, with insight, scholarship, and humour.  There is also
>an extensive bibliography in the back, for those interested
>in further study of women's writing and writings about women.
>
>Russ's book was published five years ago or more, so if you want
>to read it, try the library before trying the bookstore.

Russ's book is still in print, at least in paperback.  I picked up a
copy about a year ago after reading a library copy and deciding that 
I had to own it.

Here are some other worthwhile books, more about women writers than 
women's writing per se.  I forget who the compilers of the last three 
are, but all are relatively new and definitely in print.  By the way, 
the first two are small, inexpensive paperbacks, while the other three 
are impressive tomes in the $30-$50 range.

Ellen Moers, _Literary Women:  The Great Writers_
Dale Spender, _Mothers of the Novel:  100 Women Novelists before Jane Austen_

The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature (?)
Daughters of Africa:  Women Writers of the African Diaspora (?)
The Feminist Companion to Literature in English

Also, the Oxford University Press has recently begun reprinting hundreds of 
early (mostly British) women novelists such as Fanny Burney, who was arguably 
Jane Austen's greatest influence.  (Her _Evelina_ is a hoot.  _Cecilia_,
which I haven't read yet, is supposed to have supplied the title and 
inspiration for _Pride and Prejudice_.)  There is also (by some other 
publisher) a reprint series of 19th-century African American women 
novelists, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

--Diane

P.S. -- Speaking of cross-writing, I'm nearly finished Richardson's 
_Pamela_.  Does anyone else find the plot in this book just a little,
uh, implausible?

-- 
Diane L. Olsen		"A woman with a mind is fit for all tasks."
olsen@csli.stanford.edu		--Christine de Pizan (c.1363-c.1431)
From: twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Het Boys (was: Homophobia)
Date: 11 Jan 1993 02:05:17 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: milton.u.washington.edu

In article <1993Jan11.003610.12046@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>In article <1993Jan9.213239.9674@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
>
>>Scorn for the attitude of most white het boys 
>
>What about calling someone a "boy"?
>
>I seem to recall another group that has found the term "boy" to represent
>contempt.
>
>I note that you criticize the attitude of "most white het boys." This
>suggests that even those white male heterosexuals who agree with you are
>still only "white het boys."

--Mike>
>

I'm a white heterosexual woman ["female"], and I don't like 
the use of the term "het" any more than I like the use of the 
term "homo." 

Both are clearly meant to express contempt and dismissal. 

"Tant pour tant" is not good policy if you want to hold a 
conversation.





Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: ashall@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Andrew S Hall)
Subject: Re: Paul Johnson (was Paglia)
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 16:47:24 GMT

A couple of things on Johnson

1) There was a hilarious piece in Spy about issues ago (I will cite
specifics if anyone asks) about the writer's attempt to interview him.
Evidently Johnson is a total flake and curmudgeon. The interview
(conducted in Johnson's house) ended when Johnson got up and went
upstairs and didn't return.


2) Personally, I loved Intellectuals. I even Xeroxed the chapter on
Sartre to send to a friend. (He and I used to have a Sartre cult at one
time.) We loved it. The chapter made us love Sartre more because he
was such a shit.

3) I think Johnson is responding more to the cult of personality
that "left" intellectuals have. Too often I have heard "liberal"
educators, psychologists, etc. cite Rousseau with an air of reverence.
These people don't rely on the ideas to stand alone and be tested/argued.
They cite various thinkers as scripture. Johnson points out that these
gods do have feet of clay (mud?).

4) I agree that Shelley's personal life has little to do with
his artistic capabilities. The same holds for the other artists.
It is fun (in a sleazy way) to revel in their exploits though.

5) As a caveat to 4), artists that do step into the political
realm deserve what they get. If one accepts that just because someone
is a great artist, that they're contributions in a political
arena are somehow more valid, then they are as wrong as accepting
personal life as a criteria for evaluating ideas. Someone like
Brecht is exposed as on opportunist and manipulator not to degrade
their artist output, but to point out that such a person's political
pronouncements should be taken with a grain of salt.

6) The "left" has enaged in the ad hominem style of argument for
some time. Ezra Pound has been bounced from the English canon by
many. Other conservative like Evelyn Waugh are ignored not for
their lack of literary abilities, but because of their staunch
conservative and religous values.

7)  Whereas Johnson's book may not be the nicest book, and it is
certainly not the most reasoned and valid critique of anything,
it is a necessary book. The ideas of any thinker need to be evaluated
independantly of their life, but their lives are a necessary component
to understanding the history of their ideas.

Andrew Hall... also a fan of Camille Paglia
From: isaacs@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Stan Isaacs)
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 01:01:22 GMT
Subject: Re: _Stark Naked_
Organization: the HP Corporate notes server
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books

My aunt used to (and perhaps still does) give out an elegantly printed
card:


		Pressprich, Farkas, Funt & Goodykoontz, S.A.

				Nouveautes


She claims all the names are real, she just brought them together.

  -- Stan Isaacs
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: 92 in rabreview
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 16:17:11 GMT

Meg Worley writes:
	
	Are we to assume, then, that your shopping list is very,
	very long but your refrigerator empty?  Quick, somebody,
	stock the man's cupboards!




No, my to-read stack grows mightily.  Unlike other r.a.b.ble, my
xmas haul was bountiful.  I got 

	_The Third Chimpanzee_ by Jared Diamond
	_Channeling, The Intuitive Connection_ by William Kautz
	_Cheap Eats in Paris_ by Sandra Gustafson
	_Ragtime_ by E.L. Doctrow
	_A Yellow Raft in Blue Water_ by Michael Dorris
	_Blood Game_ by Chelsea Quinn Yarbo
	_Drawing Down the Moon_ by Margot Adler
	_Sherwood_ by Parke Goodwin
	_Writing the Natural Way_ by Gabriele Rico
	_Suttree_ by Cormac McCarthy
	_What the River Knows_ by Wayne Fields


AND, listen up Cap'n Fido, I found a new copy of _The Curve of Time_
by Muriel Wylie Blanchet.  Its a paper back 30th Anniversary edition,
so its definately in reprint.  Found it a Powell's, of course, and
bought the only copy they had.  I'm about a third of the way through
it.  It has a slow, leisurely pace that matches the summer trips she
and her children took on a 25 foot motor launch around the inlets of
the British Columbia coast in the 30's.

In the same section of Powell's, one I hadn't visited before, was
_Steaming to Bamboola_ by Buckley.  The previously unvisited section
is all nautical non-fiction and its quite large.  One whole case of
how-to books on navigation, sailing, knots, etc, etc.  Another, larger
case with stories about sailing and things wet and watery.


Slowly sinking in unread books,


William Sburgfort Smith
Intel, SSD
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Date: 8 Jan 1993 14:18:34 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Tim Starr writes:

	Mike Godwin writes:

		Tim Starr writes:

			It seemed to me much more that Johnson wished to 
			expose some corruption in Western intelligentsia 
			on the theory that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

		Oh, this is nonsense, Tim. The scandals of Bertrand 
		Russell's life give us absolutely nothing useful in 
		evaluating his work. Ditto for everyone else Paul 
		Johnson sets out to trash. 

Time and distance have a way of smoothing things out. In the days of my 
youth, and unless you were a true believer in all that Victor Gollancz
put out, Russell was a laughing-stock of his owm making. His very public
personal life just seemed too much at odds with his comments on morality. 
Of course, I'm not saying this had any effect on persons reading the 
*PRINCIPIA*, but even here there was a feeling that Whitehead was the 
brains and Russell the guy you got on to the talk show.

		Johnson makes clear that he hopes to diminish the influence 
		of his subjects by exposing their personal lives. It is an 
		unprincipled tactic.

	I may have easily missed where he makes this clear, as it wouldn't 
	interest me very much.  As for the principle of it, I see the book 
	as an extended circumstantial ad hominem that is sometimes 
	successful, sometimes not.

I must confess that I did not understand Mike's "unprincipled tactic." If
he means that Johnson's methods are at odds with his, Mike's, ethical
standards, fine, but Johnson is entitled to define his own principles. In
fact, I have never quite understood the automatic horror that ad hominem
attacks generate. Fashion, I suppose. There is a rich tradition of personal
attack which has even led some -- e.g. the Brothers Hunt -- to gaol. The 
trick that I was taught was to reserve these big guns for worthy targets. 

						RABworm	
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: westphal@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com (Dorothy Westphal)
Subject: REQUEST: book title
Organization: Lockheed Missiles and Space Co.
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 22:48:43 GMT

Years ago I had a novel that dealt with time travel.
It may have been hard to swallow the methods, but I found it
engrossing reading. I cannot recall the name of book or author, 
and hope someone can help me.

The method was first total immersion in a setup simulating
the place and period the traveler was aiming for, and eventually
just "thinking" his way to that time while asleep. 

The main character was sent back to find out the meaning of an old letter, 
and the time and place were 1890's New York. It was planned that he would
start and finish in a room in the Dakota building that was known to be 
vacant on the night the transfer was to take him to. 
Another effect that may help jog your memory was his seeing the 
statue of liberty in pieces on the ground, not yet assembled.

Any help out there?

-- 
Dorothy Westphal, Sunnyvale, Calif. % Just when things are going your way...%
westphal@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com   %               they get even better!   %
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books