HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: It fills us. We arrange it. It decays.
Summary: the Rilke quotations are from the 8th Duino elegy 
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 01:36:28 GMT

'Funny how when you're reading more than one book at the same time, they
play off each other in interesting patterns.  This evening, I found, within
the space of half an hour's reading, these differing views of Action:

     Action is consolatory.  It is the enemy of thought and
     the friend of flattering illusions.  Only in the conduct
     of our action can we find the sense of mastery over the
     Fates.
                                   --Joseph Conrad, _Nostromo_

     Action...is a blind thing, dependent on external influences,
     and moved by an impulse of whose nature it is unconscious.
     It is a thing incomplete in its essence, because limited
     by accident, and ignorant of its direction, being always
     at variance with its aim.  Its basis is the lack of imagi-
     nation.  It is the last resource of those who know not how
     to dream.
                                   --Oscar Wilde, _The_Critic_as_Artist_
     
I've always admired Conrad for his ability to portray strength as weakness,
and weakness as strength.  I too find action a great solace, especially the
blind, incomplete sort of action that Wilde describes.  I think of being on
night duty in the hospital, pacing the halls and nervous if I don't have
anything to do, but then gleeful with the prospect of action, when my
beeper summons me to the E.R.  Emergency situations are so invigorating--
they wipe the mind clean, like Rilke's "free animal" who never looks Death
in the face, but always moves forward, "like running springs."  Action is
not merely Wilde's "last resource": it's a tonic.  What a relief it is, to
escape, even for a few hours, the ever-beating pulse of the observing mind,
the trap of selfhood in which

          ...wir: Zuschauer, immer, uberall
          dem allen zugewandt und nie hinaus!
          Uns uberfullts.  Wir ordnens.  Es zerfallt.
          Wir ordnens wieder und zerfallen selbst.

          ...we, spectators always, everywhere,
          looking at, never out of, everything!
          It fills us.  We arrange it.  It decays.
          We re-arrange it, and decay ourselves.

And yet for all the existential _douleur_ it entails, that "dream" state
Wilde describes is where I have to make my dwelling-place.  I'm but a
visitor in the realm of action.  (Is this true for many of us booky
people?)  I only wish I could feel so confident as dear Oscar, about the
completion one finds in the realm of imagination.

(Musings on an idle Saturday evening, while lying low and avoiding holiday
parties...)

Say...what do you suppose Wilde is getting at, when he says action is
"ignorant of its direction, being always at variance with its aim"?
I can't quite puzzle that out.

                                                            --Fiona
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: heidi@wales.net.com (Heidi Wolf)
Subject: Re: All I want for xmas
Keywords: Eric Partridge
Organization: N.E.T., Redwood City, CA
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 20:04:23 GMT

In article <9212161527.AA19483@lib.uwo.ca> Margaret Martin Gardiner 
<gardiner@lib.uwo.ca> writes:
>	On my wish list for years:
>
>	_Shakespeare's bawdy: a literary & psychological essay and a
>comprehensive glossary_ by Eric Partridge.
>
>	Actually any book from the many titles by Eric Partridge would
>be welcomed in this household.  [...]


Routledge (of London and New York) recently re-issued SHAKESPEARE'S
BAWDY in paperback:  ISBN 0-415-05076-6.  Their NYC address is:

		29 West 35th Street
		New York, NY  10001
		[tel. number available through Directory Assistance]

and their London address (don't want to be US-centric) is:

		11 New Fetter Lane
		London EC4P 4EE.

The back of my copy mentions a number of other books by Eric Partridge
which Routledge publishes; you might want to ask for a catalogue.


Heidi Wolf

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.food.historic
From: claird@NeoSoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Subject: Re: Goober, a Southernism??
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 13:38:26 GMT

In article <Bz9BMs.Lvr@icon.rose.hp.com> bobdev@hprpcd.rose.hp.com (Bob Devereaux) writes:
>In Robert R. McCammon's _Boy's Life_, there a graffito referenced, something
>like "Debbie Loves Goober."  The narrator says character X, an adult, most
>likely thought Goober was a person.  I'm McCammon's age or a bit older, 
>but this is a slang expression which I suspect may be Southern.  Can anyone
>enlighten me as to its meaning?
			.
			.
			.
Do folks truly not know this?  "Goober" is a regionalism
for "peanut".  It entered (southeast US) English around
1830, from the Kimbundu word for the legume.
-- 

Cameron Laird
claird@Neosoft.com (claird%Neosoft.com@uunet.uu.net)	+1 713 267 7966
claird@litwin.com (claird%litwin.com@uunet.uu.net)  	+1 713 996 8546
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: gwr@hedonist-1.lanl.gov (Graham W. Redgrave)
Subject: Re: Standard of Living Books?
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 20:35:27 GMT

I goofed:
|> Are there books or online sources that give some comparison of 
|> standards of living for different parts of the country?  This 
|> r.a.b.elaisian may be on the move in the near future and I'd 
|> like to know how the bay area compares to New Mexico (Santa Fe).
|> 

Er, that should be _cost_ of living, not standard of living ....


Yours in typographical embarrasment,


-- 
Graham Redgrave    |    --  I don't speak for the government, 
gwr@life.lanl.gov  |        but I wish the government would speak for me ...  --
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rafem@gvlf7-e.gvl.unisys.com (Ralph Marrone)
Subject: _All The Pretty Horses_
Organization: Unisys Defense Systems, Great Valley Labs, Paoli, Pa
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 17:02:05 GMT

I was about to buy Cormac McCarthy's _All The Pretty Horses_ the other
day until I read the title page and found out that the book is the first 
of a trilogy.  Is this trilogy really just one big book split into
three volumes a la _Lord of The Rings_?  Or will each book be self-
contained?  I've read so much praise for this book in r.a.b. that I'd
love to read it, but not if I have to wait years for the resolution to
appear in the latter novels.


Please help!


Ralph Marrone
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.cult-movies
From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: Re: Buckaroo Banzai novelization
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 21:01:32 GMT

Jonathan Lyness asks about the novelization of "Buckaroo Banzai,"
and The Napoleon of Crime provides some interesting info about it.

For those who crave this item--*I* sure did, 'til I scored my copy (-:--
I recommend DreamHaven Books: 1309 4th St SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.
Their phone/fax number is (612) 379-0657.  I just talked to them today
about some other wish-list items, and since it'd come up on r.a.b.,
I asked about the BB book: unfortunately, they don't have a copy right
now.  They tend to get a copy in about once a month or so--I often
see it offered in their monthly catalog--and the asking price is
usually $10-.  So I suggest that if you want this book, call DreamHaven
around the middle of each month (shortly before their catalog comes
out) and see if they have it.  With a little persistence, you'll find
a copy.

I'm gonna cross-post this to alt.cult-movies as well, since that's
where a lot of the Buckaroo types hang out.

					--"laugha while you can,
					     monkey boy!"

							Fiona
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: sterbenc@ivhs.mot.com (Joe Sterbenc)
Subject: D'Amato's "Beauty"
Organization: MOTOROLA 
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 06:59:58 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.books

Has anyone read this book and _not_ been blown away?

I'm 200 pages into it, and I'm absolutely captivated. What an eerie story.
It's so plausible, too....

One other question: I do have one misgiving. Something about me reading a
male-
written book about a male protagonist shaping and exploiting the changing
"ideal
of female beauty" sets off my men-are-pigs alarm. Any women care to give
their
slant on the book?

=====
Joe Sterbenc - Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems - Motorola
All opinions are my own, but can be rented for reasonable rates
sterbenc@ivhs.mot.com
=====
From: gxs11@po.CWRU.Edu (Gary Stonum)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Eisenhower math (was: Every spinster has her day)
Date: 19 Dec 1992 01:52:22 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: gxs11@po.CWRU.Edu (Gary Stonum)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc12.ins.cwru.edu


Following up Chuck Smythe's School Days report:

I post this because I seem genuinely to have followed him 
[McClatchy High School in Sacramento, graduated 1965, so
4 years and 70 miles away, which means 3 years and 45
miles away from American Graffiti (but my cousin went to
school with him), and thence by statistically unlikely
fate also to Caltech]

Unless it's a rural/urban split, things changed fast.
Three years later than Smythe, 12th grade trig had been
squeezed into a one-semester course you took in 11th grade
along with Algebra 11 if you were college prep.  Senior
year was then reserved entirely for calculus (differentiation
and integration techniques).  And when I got to Caltech,
*everyone* had already taken calculus and more than a few
like me found it no help whatsoever with Math 1 in Pasadena.
(I found it so little help that I actually zeroed one test,
a big factor or felix culpa in my leaving Caltech after a
year.)

The difference in what the two of us experienced, as well
as presumably others of our respective ilks, I would 
attribute primarily to Sputnik shock and the time it took
for Catching Up With the Russkies to percolate through
public school curricula.

Gary Stonum
From: callahan@biffvm.cs.jhu.edu (Paul Callahan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: "The Making of the Atomic Bomb"
Date: 20 Dec 92 21:46:47 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: Johns Hopkins Computer Science Department, Baltimore, MD

stefan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stefan Michalowski) writes:

>Sandra Loosemore writes:
>>A few months ago, I picked up a copy of Richard Rhodes' "The Making of
>>the Atomic Bomb" at a remainder sale, and I've finally gotten around
>>to reading it.  This has to be the best book about the history of
>>science that I've ever encountered...

>An excellent book. It won all sorts of awards, too. 

Agreed.  This book was how *I* learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.

I found my copy among several nearly mint editions at a used bookstore.  I 
wonder if this mean the trade paperback didn't sell as well as they hoped.  
Reading this also inspired me to read some related biographies, among them 
_Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg_ by David Cassidy.   

I would recommend the latter book, but not as highly.

--
Paul Callahan
callahan@cs.jhu.edu
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:22841 news.groups:24678 alt.config:8044
From: jaapjl@tab00.larc.nasa.gov (J Lee Jaap)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,news.groups,alt.config
Subject: Re: 'alt' group proposed - alt.quotations
Followup-To: alt.config
Date: 19 Dec 1992 02:21:15 GMT
Organization: AS&M Inc
Reply-To: J Lee Jaap <J.L.Jaap@larc.nasa.gov>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cmb00.larc.nasa.gov
In-reply-to: mgm@world.std.com's message of 16 Dec 92 06:52:21 GMT


alt.config is where alt groups are discussed.  I notice that it's
absent from the newsgroups line.  Followups are directed there.
--
J Lee Jaap <J.L.Jaap@LaRC.NASA.Gov> +1 804/864-2148
    employed by, not speaking for, AS&M Inc, at
         NASA LaRC, Hampton VA 23681-0001
From: das@voodoo.boeing.com (Deb Schwartz)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: question for Arabian Nights fans
Date: 18 Dec 92 00:06:21 GMT
Organization: Yet Another Graphics Project, Bellevue, WA

[talking about Sinai Tapestry and Jerusalem Poker by Edward Whittmore]

In article <BzEKIK.E0x@dunaad.co.uk> ah@dunaad.co.uk (Alan Hunter) writes:
>                                         ^^^^^^^^^
>Whittemore.
>   
Erk.  Thank you.

>>(The third in the series, 'Nile Shadows', was disappointing.)
>
>No it wasn't, read it again! Where's the fourth?
>
I did!  Let me rephrase that to 'I was disappointed'.  I wish I knew where
the fourth was.  I also wish I knew why these books aren't more popular.
I was working in a bookstore when the first two were published, and they
just did not sell.  Everyone I persuaded to read them loved them, but
no one wanted to buy them of their own volition.

------
Debbie Schwartz // das@voodoo.ca.boeing.com  // ....uw-beaver!bcsaic!voodoo!das
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:22395 alt.politics.homosexuality:7975
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Making a virtue of complacency
Date: 14 Dec 92 21:24:28 GMT
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <JMC.92Dec14095813@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
|> In article <1992Dec14.153150.26361@athena.cs.uga.edu> fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller) writes:
|> 
|>    References: <1992Dec10.013400.18340@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Dec10.173005.4176@spdcc.com> <1992Dec13.121550.18454@husc3.harvard.edu>
|>    Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 15:31:50 GMT
|>    Lines: 14
|> 
|>    zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
|> 
|>    >hurts the willing participants.  Should you try to seek refuge in the
|>    >hospitable lap of that profligate liberal nanny, Tolerance, I would
|>    >remind you that, by your own lights, you have no ground for appealing to
|>    >that whore of dead white heterosexual males, while rejecting the rest of
|>    >their baggage.  
|> 
|> 
|> 	Ah there, Michael.  No, they just *can't* seem to grasp that if they
|>    believe in Tolerance they have to tolerate toads like us.
|> 
|> 						   -- jf
|> 
|> There is tolerance and there is tolerance.

What a coincidence!    This is exactly what my old grandmother said
the first time that a black family moved into our neighbourhood.

|> 
|>      You ought certainly to forgive them as a christian, but
|>      never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to
|>      be mentioned in your hearing. - Pride and Prejudice

But she didn't say this.    I guess she didn't have the advantages of your
education.

jon.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Great gift books for me!
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 18:40:00 GMT

In article <1992Dec20.092250.28065@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>In article <1992Dec20.041607.25848@athena.mit.edu> kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan) writes:
>>The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and Diana Cooper ed. Atremis Cooper
>
>	And there's the second volume of what's his name's biography of
>Waugh, published this fall.
>
>	Oh bugger, I thought I'd remember his name and don't.

Martin Stannard. Yeah, I want this too but I haven't read vol. 1 yet.
Of course, that's no reason for not wanting it. Right, I'll put it
down too.




--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Morgan		 	|A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu  	|		Jonathan Swift
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Making a virtue of complacency
Date: 15 Dec 92 19:47:46 GMT
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org

In article <1992Dec11.173832.21056@athena.mit.edu> kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan) writes:

>If this is so, is there an implicit obligation on the part
>of lovers of reasoned and varied discourse to *immediately* change the
>subject whenever Hitler and the Nazis come up. This would not be a
>evasion of the necessity of confronting the evils of fascism but
>rather an opportunity to discuss other subjects before the inevitable
>return to the original subject line.

I think there is an implicit obligation of this sort even if the
Gordon/Newman Corollary applies only to Libertarianism.

In fact, it was to promote a sense of this obligation that I first
promulgated Godwin's Rule.


--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"Everything one invents is true."
mnemonic@eff.org| 
(617) 864-0665  |                           --Flaubert
EFF, Cambridge  |
From: prmiskel@apgea.army.mil (Patricia R. Miskelly <prmiskel>)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Ngaio Marsh info requested
Date: 17 Dec 92 14:52:40 GMT
Organization: Edgewood

In article <BzCs0p.59F@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk> jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:
>
>If this leads to utter incomprehension on the part of bookshop and library
>staff when you try to get her books, you should be grateful.  There are
>dozens of good writers from NZ to read before you start scraping the bottom
>of the barrel with hacks like Marsh.  For a Christmas (or perennial)
>recommendation: the Collected Stories of Frank Sargeson - obviously
>influenced by Hemingway in their laconic style but a *lot* better - or
>"Tama" by Bruce Stewart - an angry collection about Maori life on the
>receiving end of institutional racism.
>

Bottom of the barrel?  Hack? 

Does all reading need to be intellectual and/or serious?  Why not enjoy
a mystery every now and then?  I do, and Marsh is quite engrossing.

Pat Miskelly

-- 
Pat Miskelly
pmiskel@dan.apgea.army.mil
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: Margaret Martin Gardiner <gardiner@lib.uwo.ca>
Subject: All I want for xmas
Organization: Relayed-by-Sendmail
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 15:27:33 GMT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
To: rec.arts.books@julian.uwo.ca

	On my wish list for years:

	_Shakespeare's bawdy: a literary & psychological essay and a
comprehensive glossary_ by Eric Partridge.

	Actually any book from the many titles by Eric Partridge would
be welcomed in this household.  I have only managed to pick up one at
a second-hand bookshop (saw others when visiting in England a few
years ago, but could not afford them) _A Charm of Words: Essays and 
Papers on Language_.  

Margaret  

	
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: yarnot@babbage.csus.edu (Jan Yarnot)
Subject: xmas list
Organization: Moi?
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 02:50:39 GMT

January's _Good HOusekeeping_ (the US one) has Lois Wyse's column, "The Way
We are", and in this one she comes up with her booklist, her best-of-92.

Helene Hanff, _Letter from New York_.  [I loved _84, Charing Cross Road_. 
I went looking for it all over England 20 years ago and had to order it
from a Cambridge bookshop.]

Robert James Waller, _The Bridges of Madison County_.

Neil Bantock, _Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence_
              _Sabine's Notebook: In which the Extraordinary Correspondence
                        Continues_
[I saw the second of these at our local Art Museum and might have bought it
with the first.  I would also like _The Jolly Postman_ which these resemble.]

Lillian Hellman, _Pentimento_.

Edith Wharton, _House of Mirth_
               _The Custom of the Country_
[_Ethan Frome_ is all of Wharton I've read.  In fact (mother of HS lit students
here!) I didn't know she'd written anything else!]

Wyse mentions Robertson Davies, one of my r.a.b.ble-inspired finds, but no 
specific work.

Jack Finney, _Time and Again_.

Amy Tan, _Joy Luck Club_.  [I gave a copy away: time I got my own.]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, _Love in the Time of Cholera_.

Betty Rollins, _First You Cry_
               _Last Wish_

Russell Baker, _Growing Up_

Elisabeth Forsythe Hailey, _A Woman of Independent Means_

A. S. Byatt, _Possession_ [Personally, I loved this book, but I got it from
the library, and this is one I would like to own...]

Herman Wouk, _The Winds of War_
             _Marjorie Morningstar_

[Wyse draws a gender-line here, but I've read the first and not the second.]

--
---Jan Yarnot, net.grandma.-- | Peace on Earth
                              | to people of goodwill.

CSUS depends on my every word.
From: spb0457@rigel.tamu.edu (SubGenius)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: A hearty auld Anglicsh "phuque" to thee!
Date: 18 Dec 1992 23:58 CST
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rigel.tamu.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    


Being far from prudish, staunch in my opposition of censorship and firm in my
conviction that flagrant profanity is the last and only refuse...appy polly
loggies, refuge...of the narrow mind, I would ask that the gentle folk 
engaging in the exchange of explelitives to go entertain the notion that the
bulk of us in r.a.b. don't give an aerial intercourse how sodding clever
you apparently think you're being, but repeating "fuck" and "cunt" ad nauseam 
is neither amusing or edifying so please stop it or take it elsewhere.

Thank you.








Yours etc.,





SubGenius


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hiroki@limerick.cbs.umn.edu (Hiroki Morizono)
Subject: Re: Robertson Davis [sic]
Reply-To: hiroki@limerick.cbs.umn.edu
Organization: University of Minnesota
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 21:38:31 GMT

Are all Davies' books about celibate/near celibate  protagonists? 
Seemed to notice this in (something something) malice and the 
Deptford trilogy. This was probably reinforced because I had read
A Prayer for Owen Meany by Irving(?) in which Davies' is mentioned, first,
and also is, in my mind a similar, uh, environment.  

Hiroki

hiroki@limerick.cbs.umn.edu
From: bz754@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Derek J. Wojciech)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Need info on illus. children's book about recipies for mudpies
Date: 14 Dec 1992 22:55:47 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


I posted this question here before, but I'm still trying to find information
about this certain book.  A friend of mine who collects children's book
saw this book at a store, but did not get the author or title.  I'm trying
to find it and have gathered a little bit info.  The book is a fun, illustrated
cute book about how children can make mudpies.  The simple dirt, sand muddy
mudpies.  I believe it has different 'recipies.'  I believe it is hardcover.
A person who works in a local children's bookstore remembers seeing the book
and the cover had a group of children encircling a big mudpie.  That is my
biggest lead so far.  If anyone has seen a book like this please reply.
I would appreciate any leads!
 
					Thanx!
						Derek
 

-- 
'Fire and Love, the two extremes |  wojciech@ossek.nrl.navy.mil /    ***.
that we live between, Fire and   |-----------------------------/    **   '
Love, there's more to life than  | Surfing or Snowboarding         ****
the eye can see.'  Guardian      |      ridin' the Wave........._-*********
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,news.groups
From: sbrock@teal.csn.org (Steve Brock)
Subject: Re: Call For Discussion: rec.arts.books.reviewed
Keywords: reviews books
Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc.
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 21:03:57 GMT

Sounds good to me, I'll contribute my reviews.  -- Steve Brock

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books