HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Novel set in Montreal?
Date: 6 Jan 1993 11:42:52 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Daniel Richler (Mordecai's son) wrote KICKING TOMORROW. Takes
place in '70s Montreal in early punker times.. It does have a
sense of place but it may be too "smart-alecky".
-- 
Ted....
From: jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:23:24 GMT
Organization: UT Art History
X-UserAgent: Nuntius v1.1



In article <13797@optilink.COM> Clayton Cramer, cramer@optilink.COM
writes:
>In article <86052@ut-emx.uucp>, jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann
Zimmerman) writes:
>> I've noticed one other interesting phenomenon. I'm unable to be in a
new
>> town without opening up the Yellow Pages to the "book dealer" section.
>> Points assigned on proportion of proper book shops to those "Christian"
>> places that sell more prayer books and fishy bumper stickers than
>> anything else. Oh, the terror of being in a place with five Bible Book
>> Stores and no Den of Novels. I start feeling very itchy, and become
>> desirous of leaving. I also begin to suspect, rightly, the quality of
the
>> cuisine.
>> --
>> Joann Zimmerman (jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu)
>
>I guess you haven't been in any of those stores, then.  I don't 
>spend a lot of time in such stores, but there is a variety of
>books there, not just Bibles.  You'll find books on a variety of
>topics, including the morality of war, environmental stewardship
>(from a Christian perspective), abortion (covering a number of 
>different opinions) and even, shock of shocks, novels!  Novels 
>with a different perspective than you are used to, for sure,
>but novels nonetheless.

You'd be wrong. There used to be such a beast right next to campus. I
went in occasionally because it was, at the time, the only place which
could reliably be counted upon to have traditional Christmas (or
no-message) cards from the Met or the National Gallery (either one) or
wherever. The book selection reminded me strongly of the Baptist church
library I patronized as a child.

You seem to have missed my main point (or maybe I missed making it!),
which is my objection to these places being taken as acceptable
substitutes for Real Bookstores. I just don't feel that they should be
listed in the same section of the Yellow Pages. Perhaps they should have
their own section: Book Dealers--Religious.
--

"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: wetering@sea.com (B. Van de Wetering)
Subject: Re: Dickinson (was Re: Paglia)
Organization: Systems Engineering Associates
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 18:02:08 GMT

In article <9JAN93.14544648@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
       ... "Because I could not stop for Death/He kindly stopped for me",
>which every disruptive high school student knows can be sung to the tune of
>"The Yellow Rose of Texas".


I think you'll find that nearly every Dickinson poem can be sung to this tune.
Recently, while browsing through a local bookstore with a friend, I amazed
him, and amused/annoyed many of the other customers, by opening a collection
of Dickinson poems at random and beginning to sing.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Van de Wetering INTERNET:wetering@sea.com 
		      UUCP:...!ucsd!soledad!wetering 
		      VOICE:619/581-6181 x307
Systems Engineering Associates, 2204 Garnet Ave Suite 303, San Diego CA 92109
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Paul Johnson (was Paglia)
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 03:04:30 GMT

In article <JMC.93Jan8162455@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>It seems to me that when someone writes about how people ought to
>live, how he lives is relevant to evaluating the ideas.  In particular,
>Rousseau's life is relevant to evaluating his work, and Russell's life
>is relevant to evaluating that part of his work which concerns how
>people ought to live.

>Let us assume that the writers were sincere in their advice.  It says
>something if they are incapable of living as they advise others to live.

>Consider Rousseau saying that people are born free but live in chains
>and his proposed remedies for that.  Did he include by not living in
>chains not being obliged to take care of one's children.  Most people
>would not take that as part of his meaning just from reading his
>writings.

Well?  Did he include that?  You tell me, John.  

I suspect that, if confronted with this contradiction, he would have 
admitted that he had acted imporperly, even vilely, or at least pointed
out that circumstance can make people do things other than the optimum.

But so what?  Suppose he *hadn't* lived that way!  Would his comments 
be more valid?  

Yes, people don't live the way they say one ought to.  But that's why they
publish books -- to reach a wide audience.  If an idea spreads, perhaps
it will become possible to live another way; making the break by oneself
is not particularly easy.  

Paul Johnson seems to consider dreaming a crime...

Roger

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Cross-Writing (was: Books I Got For Xmas)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 18:35:40 GMT

	John McCarthy inquires:

	Mr. Bennet seems like a sensible fellow.  What's absurd about him?

Francis Muir replies:

Good sense without sensibility. If the ladies were as flat as Mr. Bennet
(have you noticed that he does not have a Christian name?) then Jane
Austen would be responsible for the best-organized mass yawn in the history
of literature. But you are right on one score. There is nothing absurd about
Mr. Bennet; would that there were.


	I can't see this as mattering much to the novel. Mr Bennet is
as he is,  good sense without sensibility, and so the story
progresses. If he had been absurd, would that have not altered his
character in a way that would have affected the novel? Reverse your
characterization - sensibility without good sense - and what kind of a
novel would we have? Surely, it's not the one we have and that, I
think, is a good thing.

	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
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: sfysh@epas.utoronto.ca (Stephanie Moskal Fysh)
Subject: Re: academic settings
Organization: University of Toronto - EPAS
Distribution: rec
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 16:01:18 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.1479.24625@channel1> "john lovett" <john.lovett@channel1.com> writes:
>I just finished David Lodge's hilarious book 'Small World', based on a
>recommendation in a recent post, and have started 'Changing Places',
>also by Lodge.

No additional recommendations (it's a Mushy Brain Day).  But I just
came back from the MLA Convention in NYC and IT'S TRUE! IT'S TRUE!
-- 
Stephanie Moskal Fysh    |   "Today an eighteenth-century scholar may well
Dept. of English         |   be Jewish, female, or generally irreverent."
Univ. of Toronto         |                             - Lawrence Lipking
(sfysh@epas.utoronto.ca) |
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Cross-Writing (was: Books I Got For Xmas)
Date: 5 Jan 93 02:48:14 GMT
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org

In article <5JAN93.00195577@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>I wrote:
>
>>>Maybe.  I'm not so sure.  I think people are more demanding of a
>>>female writer writing from a male point of view. 
>
>One idea would be to look at the "canon" and see how many female
>authors' books have male points of view, and how many male authors'
>books have female points of view.  That would give you a fair idea
>of how well-accepted "cross-writing" is for men as opposed to
>women.  

Perhaps so, but while these data would be interesting, it seems to me they
wouldn't directly address the issue we've raised in this thread:
namely, whether "people are more demanding of a female writer writing
from a male point of view."  

The statistics on use of the opposite gender's point of view wouldn't
really tell us how well the writers' efforts were received.


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: academic settings
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Distribution: rec
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 19:15:47 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.1479.24625@channel1> "john lovett" <john.lovett@channel1.com> writes:
>I just finished David Lodge's hilarious book 'Small World', based on a
>recommendation in a recent post, and have started 'Changing Places',
>also by Lodge.
>
>Can anyone recommend other books set in academia? Any genre will do.
>I'll post the list.

some favorites:

Malcolm Bradbury: Eating People is Wrong
		  History Man
		  Mensonge: My Search For Structuralism's Hidden Hero

Robertson Davies: Rebel Angels
		  What's Bred in the Bone	
		  Lyre of Orpheus
		  Tempest Tost

Sophie Belfort: The Marvell College Murders

Jane Langton: The Memorial Hall Murders

Dorothy Sayers: Gaudy Night
 
BTW, Lovers of Lodge (tm) should look at *Write On: Occasional Essays,
1965-1985* There's an essay called "Robertson Davies and the campus
novel." Also some other good stuff: "The Art of Ring Lardner", on
America, and another good one, a structuralist analysis of the movie
"The Dam Busters".

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
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 04:40:04 GMT

In article <C0pu55.83@panix.com> mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto) writes:

>meltsner@crd.ge.com (Kenneth J. Meltsner) writes:

>> My wife and I made the mistake of only taking 10 books on our
>> week-long honeymoon and were reduced to reading Joan Collins's
>> autobiography.  It was pretty grim, although it was pretty good trash
>> if you like that sort of thing.  Now we pack 10-15 books for a long
>> weekend trip.

>I didn't read one damn book on my 10 day honeymoon, and had no problems
>figuring out what to do with my free time.

Yeah, that Pebble Beach is a killer, I tellya.

Roger
From: pas@kepler.unh.edu (Paul A Sand)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Date: 10 Jan 1993 14:24:46 GMT
Organization: University of New Hampshire
NNTP-Posting-Host: kepler.unh.edu

rl: Roger Lustig
mm: Mike Morris

rl: So they have the right to punish employees for freedom of
    association, punishment that, if carried out generally enough, leads
    to starvation.

mm: Yes, and musicology, if carried out generally enough, leads to
    starvation, too.

lr: More evidence of interest in serious discussion, eh?

Given Roger's previous comment of "Sieg heil to you too, pal," I think
it's obvious that he's far less interested in serious discussion than
is Mike Morris.
-- 
-- Paul A. Sand                | Question Authority. 
-- University of New Hampshire | Why? Because I say so, that's why.
-- pas@kepler.unh.edu          |
From: jahb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JENNIFER A. HEISE)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Surprised at ISBN response
Date: 7 Jan 93 14:12:56 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <1993Jan5.212725.29922@rtsg.mot.com>, bukovins@rtsg.mot.com (Dave Buk
ovinsky) writes:
>
>I am a little surprised at the responses I have received to my request for
>an ISBN database...
>
>What I am ideally looking for are CD-Roms from book publishers, etc that
>have the ISBN databases on them, so that I can perform the indexing
>on my own PC. Another alternative would be database files that I could
>ftp to my PC and manipulate there...
>
>PS. Pleeeaaassseee - no more suggestions to check with my local library ;-)

What you want, Dave, is the Books in Print CD-ROM. We're telling you to check
with your local libraries to see if they have it, because it is PRICEY.
However, it is available from R.R. Bowker for IBM or Mac. Price for a 1-year
subscription (you have to send it back at the end of the year) is $995.
Call Bowker at 800-323-3288 and ask about Books in Print & Books in Print Plus
on CD.
-- 
Jennifer Heise                           Net: jahb@lehigh.edu
Reference Dept.,                         Phone: (215) 758-3072
Fairchild-Martindale Libraries #8A,  Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015
My opinions are my own. No one else would HAVE them anyway.

"The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth-point goes;
The butterfly upon the road Preaches contentment to that toad."  Kipling
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Het Girl
Date: 11 Jan 1993 11:47:22 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Wasn't Marlo Thomas in that show??
-- 
Ted....
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rafem@gvlf8-k.gvl.unisys.com (Ralph Marrone)
Subject: Re: REQUEST: book title
Organization: Unisys Defense Systems, Great Valley Labs, Paoli, Pa
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 12:34:49 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.224843.28153@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com> westphal@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com (Dorothy Westphal) writes:
>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!   %


This sounds like _Time And Again_ by Jack Finney.  I, also, found it 
engrossing.  



Regards,

Ralph Marrone
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis)
Subject: Re: Legal theory, Homophobia, and the Bible
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:34:25 GMT
Organization: Austerlitz, Gershovitz, and Carmichael

Tom Maddox writes:
>Is there any way of establishing that a meme is in fact "unwanted"?  Also,
>what are the early warning signs of memetic infection?  And, what is the
>net.equivalent of lots of fluids, aspirin, and bed rest?
>

Take a KillFile (tm) and call me in the morning. It's important though
to use KillFile early...as soon as you suspect that The Usual Symptoms
are present. Otherwise, you...and yes you know who you are...become 
a vector. 

-- 
Jeff Davis <davis@keats.ca.uky.edu> 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu (michael bruce mcdonald)
Subject: Paglia
Reply-To: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 07:34:51 GMT

I would like to thank those of you who have recently discussed the
aspects of *Sexual Personae* that have been especially meaningful
for you, for you have reminded me that I need to return to this 
book and read much more of it than I have, and perhaps even read it
cover to cover.  I do wonder, though, whether her subsequent work,
now that she's famous, will be very good.  Having seen her on several
TV programs, I must say that I find her less than impressive.  Her
public discourse is so intractably narcissistic that the only *subject*
she strikes me as being in any way articulate about is that of  . . .
Camille Paglia.  As someone having difficulty gaining a foothold in
academia, I can understand her frustration with the manner in which her
career was sabotaged (in her view), but to blame the initial career problems
she experienced on a conspiracy of arch-feminists strikes me as both
irresponsible and immature.  Moreover, given the fact that she has *now*
achieved a rare level of success and notoriety, her constant whining is
undignified.  (She'd probably say, trotting out one of her pet
stereotypes, that Italians don't care about having a dignity defined in
that way . . .)

michael mcdonald
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Cross-Writing (was: Books I Got For Xmas)
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:17:58

In article <1993Jan5.183540.12868@athena.mit.edu> kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan) writes:
   References: <1ic22aINNcdj@morrow.stanford.edu>
   Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
   Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
   Lines: 31
   Nntp-Posting-Host: alfredo.mit.edu


	   John McCarthy inquires:

	   Mr. Bennet seems like a sensible fellow.  What's absurd about him?

   Francis Muir replies:

   Good sense without sensibility. If the ladies were as flat as Mr. Bennet
   (have you noticed that he does not have a Christian name?) then Jane
   Austen would be responsible for the best-organized mass yawn in the history
   of literature. But you are right on one score. There is nothing absurd about
   Mr. Bennet; would that there were.


	   I can't see this as mattering much to the novel. Mr Bennet is
   as he is,  good sense without sensibility, and so the story
   progresses. If he had been absurd, would that have not altered his
   character in a way that would have affected the novel? Reverse your
   characterization - sensibility without good sense - and what kind of a
   novel would we have? Surely, it's not the one we have and that, I
   think, is a good thing.

	   Keith
   Keith Morgan kamorgan@athena.mit.edu

The flightier ladies bounce off Mr. Bennet's good sense.  His
down-to-earth character is essential to the story.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: Homophobia
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 15:34:46 GMT

                                        Monday, the 11th of January, 1993

Mike Godwin writes:
  I may be corrected on this, but it seems appropriate, when one is
  justifying laws that support the practice of anti-Semitism, to refer to a
  period when anti-Semitism received the full support of the state.

Say rather ``refusing to justify laws that punish some practices
of anti-Semitism'', and you will be being fair to my position.

MG:
  You may be sure that, precisely because I prefer not to be another data
  point in support of Godwin's Rule, I don't make such a comparison lightly.

It's such a comfort to know that you are not now instantiating your
Rule lightly. (No doubt you will claim that on previous occasions
of applying your Rule you have only done so where you have judged
the instantiation to be a light one?) 

I said:
  Personally, I think the claim of this warrant for some out
  of the whole package of non-discrimination and civil rights
  laws, has guaranteed an extra twenty years of racial tension
  in the States.

Mike responds:
 Yes, now that we've had laws on the books for years that bar
 anti-Semitic employment practices, Jews and non-Jews are at each other's
 throats.

Did you read the word ``some'' in what I wrote, or no?

MG:
  I think you should look a little deeper than the civil rights laws for
  sources of today's racial tensions.

I think you should consider the possibility that some civil rights
laws are part (a big part) of the problem.

We are *not* talking about killing here, but about hiring and firing.

By the way, Mike, do you not also understand that, as these laws
are often used (in practice, I mean, in reality) we are talking
about prosecuting employers for a thought crime in which presumption
of innocence is thrown out the window? I mean how in the heck are
you going to *prove* discriminatory hiring or firing? I suppose
you can videotape the employer saying ``We don't like your kind here,''
if he's stupid that is, or you've got only numbers of minorities
hired and fired left to go on. What if every employee in a 30-man firm is
a white het boy? Do you think that'd make your case of discriminatory
hiring practices? Do you think it ought to?

                  Mike Morris
          (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Cross-Writing (was: Books I Got For Xmas)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 06:05:47 GMT

In article <405@uiunix.ui.org> donz@uiunix.ui.org (Don Zirilli) writes:

>Regardless of what you and Heather are talking about, I still think your
>statement about statistics does not make sense unless you were not 
>equating "statistics" with the canon, which is what it seemed you were 
>doing, since you put one statement right after the other.

My own point, to which I thought Heather was responding, had to do with a
categorical rather than a quantitive distinction.

>Have you already forgotten that I have gazed upon thy features and
>thus could never understimate the grandeur of your mind?

You went from "thy" to "your" pretty fast there, bub.


--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.written
From: heidi@wales.net.com (Heidi Wolf)
Subject: Re: Forever War and Starship Troopers
Organization: N.E.T., Redwood City, CA
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 18:53:47 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.194109.10066@beaver.cs.washington.edu> barring@cs.washington.edu
(David Barrington) writes:
>Haldeman's "Forever War" had a coed infantry.  I recall hearing that
>Heinlein liked the book, and a remark to the effect that "if Starship
>Troopers were written today (1970's) the MI would be coed", but I don't 
>recall who made the remark (don't think it was RAH).


Don't forget, though, that in STARSHIP TROOPERS the infantry may have been
all-male... but the *pilots* were female.  Remember the hero's high-school
friend, with her shaved head so her hair won't be in the way in null-gravity?
(The reason given in the novel for female pilots is "faster reflexes.") 

Heinlein knew just what would jolt his readers' prejudices; recall also
that the hero of STARSHIP TROOPERS is *not* Caucasian.


Heidi Wolf

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books