HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: snow@netcom.com (Tim Szeliga)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: gold bug variations
Date: 28 Sep 92 13:43:57 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <Bv94Jx.F09@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> ceblair@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Charles Blair) writes:
>   I read the first chapter or so of GOLD BUG VARIATIONS.  The characters
>were interesting, the plot was promising, but I got tired of the author's
>writing style.  He seemed very fond of using what, on first reading, looked
>like the wrong word, but made sense (sort of) after further consideration.

I managed to extract two quotes for .sig files from the book.
It prompted me to get Glenn Gould's recordings of The Goldberg Variations
and listen to it for weeks.  Along with "Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance"
and "Hobson's Choice", Powers reminds me of the early Don Delillo in his 
ability to write masterfully on diverse topics like history, biology and such.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tim Szeliga	 Org:National Weather Service / Hydrologic Remote Sensing
Voice: (612) 725-3259  			NOHRSC BBS:  (612) 725-3230  (8N1)
UUCP:	apple!netcomsv!frost!tim	Internet: tim@snow.nohrsc.nws.gov
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"He needs, without knowing, those old Renaissance formulas equating C-sharp
minor with longing, sudden modulation to E major with a glimpse of heaven.
How dare an obnoxious greaser four years younger than he turn the Civil War
tune "Aura Lee" into the Hit Parade standard "Love Me Tender," without a
wiggle of concern for the underpinning chordal message?  Either this language
~has no content~, or tonal tastes have festered, fixed for 100 years or more.
Both options terrify him."
                           The Goldbug Variations
                           Richard Powers


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tim Szeliga	 Org:National Weather Service / Hydrologic Remote Sensing
Voice: (612) 725-3259  			NOHRSC BBS:  (612) 725-3230  (8N1)
UUCP:	apple!netcomsv!frost!tim	Internet: tim@snow.nohrsc.nws.gov
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"NASA's eyes in the sky determine the vectors on every molecule of atmosphere.
They feed all these numbers into a Cray, and the animal pounds away,  megaflops,
on a simulation that knows everything about adiabatic cooling, turbulence, vapor
pressures, topography, solar radiation.  The machine assembles and delivers a 
perfect prediction of tomorrow's weather.  Only it takes two days to run."
				from "The Goldbug Variations"  by Richard Powers
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: marcy@sqwest.wimsey.bc.ca (Marcy Thompson)
Subject: Re: Transsexualism (was: A Room of One's Own with a View to Kill)
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Surrey, British Columbia, CANADA
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 03:02:11 GMT

In a recent rec.arts.books article,  I wrote:

>In a recent rec.arts.books article, Lauren L. Crawford wrote:
>
>>Barrie Trinkle writes:
>>>
>>>A throwaway reference to Jan (formerly James) Morris, whose
>>>autobiography of the "he-->she" period of her life is titled
>>>_Conundrum_.  Wonderful book.
>>
>>I found reading that book much like watching a car crash.  Horrible, but
>>you can't look away.
>
>There were definitely things about the book which left me feeling
>creepy. Nora Ephrom (sp?) has an essay about the book in her
>collection _Wallflower_at_the_Orgy_ which helped me crystalize
>just what was making my skin crawl in _Conundrum_ (which was
>indeed a compelling read).

I lied. The essay is in _Crazy_Salad_, not _Wallflower_at_the_Orgy_.
It's the last essay in the book. Oh yes, and her name is Nora Ephron.
Bad day yesterday, I guess.

Marcy

-- 

Marcy Thompson		
  SoftQuad (West)			
    marcy@sqwest.wimsey.bc.ca (preferred) or marcy@sq.com (if you must)
From: riff@coos.dartmouth.edu (Christopher P. Riff)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Wodehouse question: Wooster & Jeeves
Date: 6 Oct 92 15:49:09 GMT
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

A few days ago, I posted a list of Jeeves & Wooster stories and
novels in response to a request.  There are two further comments
I'd like to make in reference to what I previously wrote.

1. I said that all the short stories were in "The World of Jeeves."
   This isn't quite true. All the Jeeves short stories are in the
   book, but the 1915 short story "Extricating Young Gussie", which
   features only Bertie, is not.  This story is in the collection of
   short stories "The Man With Two Left Feet."

2. The 1959 short story "Jeeves and the Stolen Venus" is also in the
   collection "English Country House Murders", edited by Thomas 
   Godfrey.  This book is a collection of various mystery short
   stories set in English Country Houses.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: baker@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Andrew Baker)
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 23:10:50 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.221548.5855@speedy.aero.org> nadel@attatash.aero.org (Miriam Nadel) writes:
>In article <1992Sep28.234626.11769@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> baker@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Andrew Baker) writes:
>>And what does Naomi Wolf have to say that is at all interesting?
>>Oh how horrible it is that some women are prettier than others, that
>>men notice this, and that women notice men noticing this.  What is there
>>to discuss?  It is just not an issue at all for people who don't start
>>off with Wolf's leftist egalitarian premises.
>
>Of course, if one actually reads Wolf's book, one might realize that this
>isn't what it's about at all.  Where she does a good job is in documenting
>the conflicting messages about appropriate appearance that women are given.
>For example, in one chapter she discusses court cases regarding harassment
>where judges dismissed the notion a woman could have received unwanted
>attention because she dressed in a feminine manner.  Then she talks about
>other court cases where allegations of harassment were dismissed because the
>woman bringing charges was unattractive.  
>
>Wolf's other major point that I think worth considering is her notion of
>a "third shift," of the time women are expected to put in on their
>appearance.
>
>I disagree with her about several other issues (she seems to take a 
>pro-censorship view of pornography, which disturbs me) but it's hardly fair
>to say that there's nothing to discuss.  
>
>One might note that other authors have addressed the same issues Wolf
>discusses (e.g. Wendy Chapkis in _Beauty Secrets_ and Nancy Baker in _The
>Beauty Trap_ or one might even dig out that old Communist Party document
>titled _Cosmetics, Fashion and the Exploitation of Women_) but none have
>received the same attention from the world at large as Wolf has.  
>
>I also find it interesting that an awful lot of the commentary I've read in
>the general press about Wolf's book makes a point of discussing her
>appearance.  If she weren't conventionally attractive, they'd say she was
>whining about not being beautiful, but instead they say they don't get
>what she's complaining about.
>
>Miriam Nadel
>

I don't see how your message contradicts mine.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: Re: Books in the time of Love
Keywords: Flaubert, fairs, fair ladies
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 23:38:40 GMT

Barbara Hlavin relates a charming tale of matchmaking via _The_Tempest_:
>They later married, and every year for the rest of his life he received 
>a Christmas card from them.  The card was always addressed to "Prospero," 
>and signed "Ferdinand and Miranda." 

I grew quite besotted with the fair island of Oahu, during my month
there in August, and while love for a place may not quite belong in
this thread, my passion for Kailua, Hawaii, where I was all alone with
the blue Pacific, got me thinking about Propero's isle.  One day I
was being irrationally fretful over the tiny dimensions of my corrugated
tin shack (no kidding) on the beach.  And then I recalled, in a giddy rush,
these lines: 

		  All corners else o' th' earth
	Let liberty make use of.  Space enough
        Have I such a prison.

Ah, indeed--that's just how I felt.  And to think that Fido would
even jokingly recommend that Americans be deprived of learning Shakes-
peare during their formative years...hmmph!

				--dreaming of magnificent frigate birds,

						Fiona
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 08:13:26 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.160926.43425@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
}In article <1992Sep28.045006.12800@genie.slhs.udel.edu>, starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
}> In article <JMC.92Sep26122103@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
}> }This extract from Radner's review is aimed at rallying her, presumably
}> }feminist, troops rather than at convincing the uncommitted.
}
}[...]
}
}> Robin Lakoff issued a
}> missive from her exalted position in UCB's Linguistics department calling
}> Paglia a neoconservative 
}Linguists aren't known for their political acumen.  
}
}Consider Chomsky.

True.  There's actually a bit of a connection here I hear: Robin's ex-husband,
the other Lakoff (George?  I can't recall.  He wrote "Metaphors We Live By"
and "Fire, Women, and Dangerous Things," one of my favorite titles, though I
haven't read either book) used to be a student of Chomsky's, and Robin may
have been one as well.  Apparently he or they broke with Chomsky a while back
in the manner so characteristic of collectivists - like the Kruschev divorces.

The funny thing about Chomsky is that he's a rare breed, an anarco-syndicalist.
Whenever he stays away from the syndicalist side of things, he's been known
to make a decent point or two.


Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire
From: ncramer@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Steve Levy Query
Date: 2 Oct 92 08:13:05 GMT
Reply-To: ncramer@labs-n.bbn.com (Nichael Cramer)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Interzone Office
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com

Does anyone happen to have handy an address [email?] for the author Steve
Levy (of "Hackers", "Artificial Life" fame)?

Email preferred.

Thanks
Nichael
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: loosemore-sandra@CS.YALE.EDU (Sandra Loosemore)
Subject: Re: Literature of Travel (Was Re: literature students)
Organization: staff hacker @ Yale Haskell project
	<9650@emory.mathcs.emory.edu> <91006@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 13:22:01 GMT

crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:

   The final project will be a paper in which we compare our own experience
   in a certain country with another writer's experience in that same
   country.  I'd like to choose India.  Anyone have any suggestions for
   possibly appropriate books that aren't written by Forester or Jabvahl?

Maybe "The Deceivers", by John Masters?  It's about a British officer
who inflitrates the Thugs, the roving gangs of bandits who murdered
travellers and stole their money.  Maybe you didn't encounter anything
quite that bad in India, though.  :-)  Masters wrote several other
books set in India, as did Paul Scott.  And of course, a considerable
part of Verne's "Around the World in 80 days" takes place in India.

   Also, any books you can recommend on the whole subject that aren't listed
   above?

Well, many (most? all?) of Verne's other works ("The Fur Country",
"Michael Strogoff", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", etc).  Melville
wrote several ("Typee", etc).  Henry James wrote some incredibly
boring :-) novels about Americans touring Europe.  Frances Trollope
wrote about British views of America.  Anthony Trollope wrote about
Australia and South Africa.  There's about a zillion others....

-Sandra
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Native American Indian novels
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 17:32:00 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.211723.29804@nas.nasa.gov> wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith) writes:

>For great fun and some spiritual material read the "Fencepost Chronicles"
>by William Kinsella.  He's better known for the book made into "Field of
>Dreams".  The Fencepost stories are in three or four volumes of short stories
>about the Ermineskin tribe in Hobina, Alberta. 
                               ^^^^^^ 
	Actually it's Hobbema. Near Wetaskiwin. North of Red Deer.
North of Calgary. Away from the Owl's Nest. Another world. 

	Keith


>William Sburgfort Smith
>Intel, SSD



--
Keith Morgan		 |I've always had a secret desire to harangue
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu  |a crowd of people for 10 hours in the
		         |sweltering heat. It's the origin of my
		         |fascination with public language.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: steve@fulcrum.oz.au (Steve Taylor)
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Organization: The Fulcrum Consulting Group
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 01:41:09 GMT

In <25SEP92.21331152@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:

>I love and adore Camille.  I disagree with most of what she says,
>including her excoriations of "feminists" (she *is* one, and should
>admit it) but I admire her intelligence and bravery, and the fact that
>she takes no crap from anyone.  Viva Paglia!
Granted, she takes no crap from anyone, but the same could be said for
many of our own beloved net.crazies, such as Ed Nilges or Hassan Mutlu.
I am fascinated by her, but it's bad for my stress levels to read her,
as I start grinding my teeth at her appalling egotism and intelectual
dishonesty. Every words she says is aimed at showing us her brilliance,
with truth and coherence coming a poor second.

>"Intellectual vampire bitch" is a rather sexist characterization.
>I mean, Norman Mailer is a pompous, dick-waving fathead, but I haven't
>heard anyone come right out and say it in those words.  Let's try not
>to slip into sexism, conscious or unconscious. 
I take your point on sexism, but at the same time I'm quite tickled to
hear Mailer called a "pompous dick-waving fathead". Seems like a good
description.

>See Michiko Kakutani's
>review of Paglia's new book for some slyly offensive remarks -- the
>stress placed on Paglia's "arrogance" and "conceit", words describing
>the same qualities that, in a male author, would probably be called
>confidence and authority.
Well, I've only read Sexual Personnae, so I can't comment on the new 
book, but I beg you to believe that I'd think Paglias words were
conceited whether they came from St Francis of Assisi or from a
talking wheelbarrow.


>Heather
>HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu



						Steve
						steve@fulcrum.oz.au
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fletch@camelot.bradley.edu (Alan Lurie)
Subject: Wild Cards Volume XI
Organization: Bradley University
Date:  1 Oct 92 23:23:23 GMT


	Does anyone know when WILD CARDS XI: DEALER'S CHOICE will be
released???  I've heard rumors that it will be in November, but I'd appreciate
a definite answer.  Thanx in advance...

--

______________________________________________________________________________
fletch@camelot.bradley.edu - Alan S. Lurie, Esq. - Marquis de Sade's assistant
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
			DEATH - THE ETERNAL REPO MAN!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: entpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Subject: Re: Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller
Reply-To: entpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 22:52:00 GMT

Edward R> Hailton is tops.  They ship the same day or the next
day after receiving the order.  They have never failed to honor
their guarantee about refunding for any reason, and they have
always replaced damaged books without any questions.--Now, if
only someone could get them to layout their catalogue other
than in phone book style.

Erik Timmerman
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: gwr@hedonist-1.lanl.gov (Graham W. Redgrave)
Subject: Re: Books in the time of Love
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 21:22:04 GMT

Barbara Hlavin confesses to a somewhat more adventurous youth than 
Slick Willy and then:
|>
|> Sitting in the kitchen at 2 a.m. reading _Four Saints in 3 Acts_, I 
|> heard the sound of fire's distinctive crackle.  I looked up and through 
|> two solid walls to see flames blazing at the bedside of my blissfully 
|> somnolent lover.  (He said he enjoyed his hallucinations more in a 
|> dreaming state.) 
|> [...] 
|> I didn't quite manage to catch it in mid-air, but snatched it up with 
|> such alacrity that it didn't even leave a singe mark on the (highly 
|> combustible) cheap nylon carpeting. 
|> [...]
|> --Barbara 
|> 

Heh, heh, heh ... we were so drugged on each other that when I sat on the
zipper of the sleeping bag cum comforter and felt it to be warm, neither
I nor my girlfriend-now-wife wondered why, not, that is, till the flames 
were two feet high behind me ... still bear the scar on my wrist where a 
piece of highly combustible [sic] sleeping bag landed burning on my skin 
as I wrestled the thing onto the balcony of the dorm.  

We stopped putting the candle on the floor at the head of the bead after 
that.

Lots of cummings and Rilke (Poems from the Book of Hours, mostly) to 
flame that fateful passion ... and even some awful poetry of me own 
(set to music (worse, guitar chords!!!)) from my usually silent pen.

That was/is the good story.  The bad story began earlier when a psycho-
(vampire?)-bitch seductress got me to read Marcel Pagnol's L'eau
des Collines (I think) as we tumbled into the Night of the Blackened
Soul (Sole?  mine with new potatoes, please), and ended when, as the
affair pfizzled, _Pride_and_Prejudice_ (both mine, though not a word
about any remaining Self-Esteem) guided me back to the mundane world
of my suburban-valued upbringing.  Thank you, Ms. Austen.  And thank
you, Mr. Taranto, for making me dredge up the charred remains of 
_that_ experience.  Still, I look at the scar on my wrist and smile...

Yours in gratuitously ugly exhibitionism,

Graham

-- 
Graham Redgrave    |    --  I don't speak for the government, 
gwr@life.lanl.gov  |        but I wish the government would speak for me ...  --
From: lnh@soliton.physics.arizona.edu (sometimes a Wombat)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Literature of Travel (Was Re: literature students)
Date: 4 Oct 92 17:26:46 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Society for the Appreciation of Janni Lee Simner

craigb@ot.austin.ibm.com writes:
>
>_Innocents Abroad_ by Mark Twain

Bloudie 'ell.  How could I 'ave forgotten this un?

	Larry "Criminy" Hammer
--

LNH@physics.arizona.edu          \   Hidden harmony is better than
The insane don't need disclaimers \  manifest.  -- Heraclitus, #47
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster)
Subject: Re: The Talk Of The Town
In-reply-to: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu's message of 2 Oct 92 14:14:54 GMT
Organization: pubs
Date: 2 Oct 92 11:13:34 CDT

James P. H. Fuller writes:

   I know that magazines and newspapers pretend there is an unbridge-
   able gulf between Upstairs and Downstairs (the editorial and the adver-
   tising sides of the publication) but it's a self-delusion.  If you're
   constantly surrounded by pretentious vulgarity you are yourself going to
   become pretentious and vulgar at some point, and that's that.  Objection-
   able changes have appeared in great numbers in TNY lately, or so I'm told,
   but the seeds of its destruction were already sprouting happily during
   William Shawn's tenure and were in fact planted by Ross. ...

One part of me agrees with all this, but another part is saying, Hold it:
the New Yorker was founded to be hip and sassy (in an intelligent way,
natch), not elegant and precious, as it became in recent decades.  I
don't want it to move too much toward Vanity Fair style, but I think it
needed a shaking-up.  Anyone who considers the Shawn era the magazine's
golden age, just think of Ved Mehta's Proust-but-without-the-talent
endless cataloguing of dust specks in his navel.

Chris Brewster
cb@cray.com

Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:17680 alt.horror:4321
From: cs177wbd@sdcc5.ucsd.edu (Eddie the 'ead)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.horror
Subject: New King Book - Dolores Claiborne
Date: 6 Oct 92 04:08:15 GMT
Followup-To: poster


This is from a friend of mine (XSSTUART@FULLERTON.EDU) Shaun Stuart:

Just got an ad from Betts Bookstore. They say Dolores Claiborne will be 
released on Nov. 23rd. They say it "will be the most talked-about King book
since The Stand." They give a summary, probably from the jacket copy:
 
"Dolores Claiborne...foul temper, foul mouth, foul life. Folks on Littlt
Tall Island have been waiting thirty years to find out just what happened
on the eerie dark day her husband Joe died - the day of the total eclipse.
The police want to know what happened uesterday, when Dolores's long-time
employer died suddenly in her care. With no choice but to talk, Dolores
Claiborne talks up a storm..this spellbinding novel is at once her 
confession and her defense. It shows how fierce love can be, how dreadful
the cosequences. And how the soul, harrowed by the hardest life, can 
achieve a kind of grace."
 
 
There is a small copy of the cover of the book. It is a picture taken from
the perspective of a person at the bottom of a well looking up. There is
someone looking down into the well. To me, it looks like a little girl, but 
then the copy is small and dark.
 
If you order from them by Nov. 20th, they will put your name in a drawing
for a set of the three hardbacks of the Dark Tower series, signed to you by
SK. They want $23.50 plus $4.00 shipper per book. You will also win three 
issues of Castle Rock (their choice of issues). I think this is very misleading
since it kinda implies that Castle Rock is still around. (The front of the
mailer says "News from Castle Rock.") 
 
They say his next book is called Nightmares & Dreamscapes (working title
was Dreams of Nightmares) and that Wizards & Glass may be delayed into 1994.



-- 
   /\__Edwin Nomura -- enomura@ucsd.edu__________.:___________.____________/\
  / \\        .:.         .                      : .         :            / \\
 /  \\\   :  .::     :     :  Fire walk with me  :..        : .     :    /  \\\
/   \\\\..::..:::.:::::.:.:.....:::::...::..:...:::::.:.:::::.:....::.../   \\\\
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel)
Subject: Re: literature students as furniture...
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. - Rye Canyon
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 15:51:59 GMT

In article <69321@hydra.gatech.EDU>, barclay@RAIL9000.gatech.edu (Barclay Blanchard) writes...

>Thanks.  I think I expect the world to pander to my needs when I should be 
>finding my own way to get them met.
> 
Un-hunh.

Ron