HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Subject: Re: Making notations in your books?
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 19:56:03 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.024845.22015@mercury.unt.edu> jacob@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Tom Jacob) writes:
>> What are your feelings about making notes, highlighting, etc., in the
>> books that you own?  Although I wish I could do so in my books (it does

I can't stand books that have been written in, myself.  I find the     
annotations either puerile or incomprehensible, and highlighting and 
underlining fatal to my concentration.  If I mark in my own books, 
and I do, these are only faint vertical pencil lines in the margin 
opposite a passage I want to find again.  I might jot down these page 
numbers on the inside cover.  If I feel compelled to lengthy comment 
I do this on a separate piece of paper. 

I made an exception for THE LITERARY SITUATION by Malcolm Cowley. 
Picking this book up and reading a few pages in a used bookstore 
I was immediately charmed by it, and since the publication date 
was 1958 I had no confidence in finding another, clean copy.  About 
half the sentences had been underlined in pencil.  Sitting at home 
later with a large gum eraser in my hand I paused momentarily, just 
long enough to ask myself if this was really how I wanted to spend 
an hour of my life. 

There are three entertaining sections to this book:  "The Natural 
History of the Writer" (why they drink, why it is unwise for a hopeful 
young writer to snub the writer's wife while visiting his hero, and 
other useful advice); in another he exercises his formidable talent 
for satire by considering the the work of a psychoanalyst who claims
to be able to cure writer's block.  The doctor's theory is that 
writers are sick -- sick, *sick*! -- people, ALL of whom have oral 
fixations.  Words are food: when these folks write they are actually 
chewing and sucking.  He maintains that ALL writers were bottle babies 
(see above, drinking).  Cowley oberves that from he can see in the 
case histories cited that his patients, while they may have yearned 
to be writers, had no talent for actual writing itself and that Dr. X
did the world of literature no favors by "curing" them. 
 
The other section I found absorbing was a history of the paperback 
book trade in the U.S. following WWII.  (He lurks around the University 
of Chicago in grocery and hardware stores where pb racks had been 
put up, and watches the neighborhood folks pick up a wrench, a bunch 
of celery, and, as an afterthought, a twenty-five cent novel.) 

This is my favorite of all the books I've read by Cowley (_And I 
Worked at the Writer's Trade_, _The Dream of the Golden Mountains: 
remembering the 1930s_, _Exile's Return: a literary odyssey of the 
1920s_), and I no longer get him confused with Lionel Trilling. 


--Barbara 


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,misc.books.technical
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: lemurs in literature
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<BzoDuA.4z1@polaris.async.vt.edu> <BzqCLn.EE3@ns1.nodak.edu>
Date: 23 Dec 92 14:30:27

I was puzzled about this sudden interest in lemurs.  Now I understand.
All along it was a shill for the article on lemurs in Madagascar in the
current Scientific American.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Non-rabelaisian farts
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 15:40:53 GMT

In article <BzyK2y.8wz@news.iastate.edu> s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu writes:

>Mike, I'm growing weary of the sheer nonspecificity of your posts on this
>subject.

Does this mean you admire my specificity in other subjects? 

>The humor of "The Miller's Tale," for instance is not "grounded"
>in farts, even though Alison's fart is one of the central *events* of the
>tale.

I disagree. It's *the* central event, and the one you can count on
students to remember if they remember "The Miller's Tale" at all.

>Finally, you might consider
>that the *greater* humor of the story rests not with the simple letting
>loose of a fart in the face, but in its exposure of the folly that
>forever follows human pretention.

Rabelais has larger points to make, too. That's not the issue here.

Thanks for your analysis of the Miller's Tale, but it's inapposite in a
thread that started with my one small comment about the word "Rabelaisian"
in reference to fart humor. 

What I found more helpful were the examples folks gave of stories in which
the farting incident was distinctly non-Rabelaisian (or non-Chaucerian, if you
prefer): I recall at least two examples in which the bodily function is
linked primarily with shame rather than humor. 

It is a source of pleasure to me that you know Chaucer, and I want to
thank you again for sharing that with us.


--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: mdb@netcom.com (Mark Bisgeier)
Subject: dictionary
Summary: **** Wanted:  WEBSTER'S UNABRIDGED (INT'L) 2ND EDITION ****
Keywords: dictionary
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 04:40:52 GMT

I'm looking for a good-condition copy of Webster's Second.

Los Angeles area, hopefully....
-- 

Mark Bisgeier              mdb@netcom.com
       ...Let your mind wander... 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: pnh@panix.com (Patrick Nielsen-Hayden)
Subject: Re: Making notations in your books?
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 20:38:18 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

Books aren't one-offs, but by writing in them we sometimes _create_ unique
objects of value.  One of the most interesting-looking volumes I ever saw
was Joanna Russ's personal copy of Ursula K. Le Guin's THE DISPOSSESSED. 
Notes on every scrap of blank space.  I'd love to have the chance to read
those notes sometime. 

George's comments are spot on, though.  And working writers and editors,
like librarians, frequently run out of patience with The Sanctity Of The
Printed Word.  Print is a tool, not an end.
-- 
Patrick Nielsen Hayden      :     senior editor, Tor Books
pnh@panix.com : CIS 72701,1344 : GEnie PNH : opinions mine
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 04:09:37 GMT

In article <1hdlr6INN152@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>Titania played by the Fair Gaynor , who 
>just recently, in England, still had the breasts of a girl. 

	What did she have when elsewhere?

	And a Merry Frogmas to you, Fido,

	
-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
	"That's a bird bone, chair, Bob.  I don't know if I should sit there."
				Tom Waits
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:23066 sci.philosophy.tech:4611
From: cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Winter Book Recommendation
Date: 28 Dec 92 23:54:12 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <BzrzJw.8vq@srgenprp.sr.hp.com>, blaisec@sr.hp.com (Blaise Cirelli) writes:
#  Larry King's radio talk show had the two American
#  general authors on last evening.
# 
#  WOW! What an interview. 
# 
#  What really got me was the description of their
#  meeting with a North Vietnamese general and opponent.
# 
#  He peeled bananas for his American guests and served them.
#  One of the American generals removed his watch and gave
#  it to the North Vietnamese generals. They all embraced
#  and wept.
# 
#  Quite moving. One caller said that the best anti-war
#  spokespeople were the men who actually faught the wars.
#  I agree.

Recommended: _War Is A Racket!_ by Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler
(USMC).  Published originally in 1935, it occasionally gets
reprinted because it is short and out of copyright.  Butler was
one of the later conservative anti-imperialist political leaders
in the U.S.  He also received the Congressional Medal of Honor
twice.
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
C++ is to C, as lung cancer is to lung.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: Bullshit (was: *Any* kind of r.a.b. split, or at least a *serious*
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 15:59:00 GMT

                                       Thursday, the 24th of December, 1992

Heather writes:
                                        Everyone who reads netnews who's
  interested in something connected to the vague title rec.arts.books should
  feel able to contribute.

No, ma'am. What everyone should feel in regards to contributing here
is not your business. I absolutely refuse to be made guardian of anyone's
feelings. Not here, not in any other aspect of Real Life. Anything less
would be being made to disrespect the moral sovereignty of another human
being's mind.

                   Mike Morris
           (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)
From: jahb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JENNIFER A. HEISE)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age
Date: 23 Dec 92 14:46:17 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <JMC.92Dec22003234@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John Mc
Carthy) writes:
>When some American Indians became Catholic, were they appropriating someone
>else's spirituality?

No, but when Catholics moved the birth of Jesus to the winter solistice (sp?),
and created an "All Saints Day" the day after Samhain (? I can't remember if
that is the name of the Oct 31 holiday), were they appropriating the pagans'
spirituality? How about when they elevated Mary as a Mother Goddess?
P.S. I'm a Catholic (lapsed) myself.

PPS- John, it's he who refuses to do LOGIC who is doomed to talk nonsense.
Case in point.
-- 
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;
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.written,news.answers
From: ah@dunaad.co.uk (Alan Hunter)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Morally good hypertext
Date: 23 Dec 92 11:55:27 GMT
Organization: Johnson Hunter Limited

In article <JMC.92Dec23001836@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:

>Now a plug for studying human nonmonotonic reasoning.  No theory
>can take every social phenomenon into account.  Some are important
>and some are unimportant.  Moreover, some observations are of
>typical phenomena and give rise to correct generalizations and
>others don't.  People disagree about which phenomena are important
>and which observations generalize.  For example, I regard Reagan's
>verbal gaffes as unimportant compared to his being correct on
>a very small number of important issues.

My observations suggest that an important subset is people's differing
opinion on the extent to which ends justify means. Moreover, and
particularly in polical/economic matters, judgement is made on a
perception of the current state; taking little account of the inherent
"quality" or relevance of the actions that produced it or of the
inevitable long term consequences. Political actions are then selected and
promoted as good or evil, more or less at random, to support the apparent
need for an understandable cause for the current state. 
 
>I don't think that this inability of smart people to agree is a
>permanent phenomenon.  The fact is that no correct comprehensible
>theory of economics and politics has been developed.  I hope that some
>day politics and economics will be no more controversial than physics,
>but I don't think we are close.

I think it is permanent. When the day comes that politics and economics
are better understood than they are now that understanding will be outside
the vast majority's concrete daily experience.  More like quantum
mechanics than newtonian.

>What can one recommend in the meantime?
>...
>3. Prefer immediate benefits to hypothetical long range benefits.
>The theory promising the long range benefits may not be that good.

It is that reasoning which causes all political leaders to push each
economic upturn as far as it will go, inevitably giving rise to the next
downturn.

Alan
-- 
Alan Hunter
Johnson Hunter Ltd
Isle of Islay, Scotland
A.Hunter@dunaad.co.uk          fax: +44-496-2336         voice: +44-496-2286
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dsy@psych.toronto.edu (Desiree Sy)
Subject: Conversations in Alice (was Re: 92 in rabreview)
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 17:30:24 GMT

Anne Jessop writes, in response to Dani Zweig's description of
graphic novels:

>I am reminded of the first page of _Alice in Wonderland_:  "Once or twice
>[Alice] had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no
>pictures or conversation in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought
>Alice, 'without pictures or conversations?'"

To which Pam Gurd asks:

>Did you ever wonder what Alice meant by "conversations"?  This was one 
>of the deep mysteries of my childhood, that Alice's sister read books
>with nothing in them at all.

I think by "conversations" Alice means dialogue, as opposed to
expository text.

-desiree
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Celebrating McGonagall
Date: 3 Jan 1993 04:35:09 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Heather Henderson writes:

	John McCarthy writes:

		Certain aspects of McGonagall's verse are bad, 
		his meter, his rhymes and his use of cliches.  
		I think there is something left that is pretty 
		good, but I can't put my finger on it.  

	Sincerity.

There are, perhaps, 100,000 poets in America whose stuff is quite
commendable by any normal measure but who will never, ever be read 
by more than a handful and by those, never, ever given a second thought.
It is a curious feature of MacGonagall that he is unforgetable. He
reminds me of those two Shakespearean actors -- man and wife -- who
started the Renaissance Fayres in California. In their sixty odd years
of living they had never been allowed to play but the most minor roles
and they wanted to star. So, they created a vehicle for themselves and
others of a like spirit and pied-piped their way across the fields of 
Ventura County with a gerzillion traipsing behind. Even the Sheriff
entered into the spirit of the thing and had his men (this was then)
dressed up as Robin Hoods. So with MacGonagall. It is spirit.

						RABworm
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:23112 soc.culture.british:17989
From: ah@dunaad.co.uk (Alan Hunter)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: A fishy tale (was for newbies (was Project B.F.D. (was an apology))
Date: 23 Dec 92 09:34:59 GMT
Organization: Johnson Hunter Limited

The RABworm pleaded:

>
>Do you, by any miracle, export boxes of kippers? I haven't had a
>good one since I got a box of Rumpy Brand from the Isle of Man, and
>that was when Rudge motorcycles could still make a decent showing in
>the Manx Grand Prix.

Nah, don't do kippers here mate, no demand for them.

We have a fish van which brings the fabled Loch Fyne kippers.  I don't
think they are quite as good as the Cley kippers from Norfolk, but I'll
need to check on that.  

As a child I was oft whisked up the Northumberland coast to Craster on
expiditions to purchase large quantities of kippers for the feeding of the
whole family, to include outlying branches. Sunk deep into the back of a
Morris Oxford with heater full blast. A quick pint in a drafty pub then on
to Sea Houses and Holy Island. The safe crossing times to Holy Island (aka
Lindisfarne) were the foundation on which the trips were planned.  My
Grandfather and father were caught by the tide once. They had to be
rescued from an artifice rather like a Canadian forest fire watchers
abode. This involved my Grandfather being carried down to the boat by a
fisherman; or should have done, my grandfather was estimated at 26 stone
(364 pounds) at the time. Nonetheless they later restarted the flooded car
and were all back in reasonably good order for the distribution of the
kippers in the evening to family members far and wide. For reasons of
convenience this was done in a public house. For ultimate convenience it
was often (but by no means always) done in my Grandfather's own public
house. 

Abou three years ago I was in a pub in Co Durham exchanging an occasional
word with an old man. The chat got round to what I was doing there. At
some point in my explanation he exclaimed --- "You're not Bob Hunter's
grandson? Ah mind on when he was caught by the tide up at Holy Island..."
--- and there I was, fixed in time and space for the convenience of the
old man.  

>Postscriptum. And a Merrie Christmas to you and everyone else on my
>second favorite Isle.

Thank you, I'll pass it along as I get opportunities. The real point of
living in places like this is, as it used to be everywhere, you still know
where you are. 

OBbook, don't have one, let me off, it's Christmas (or Xmas if you so choose).

Alan


-- 
Alan Hunter
Johnson Hunter Ltd
Isle of Islay, Scotland
A.Hunter@dunaad.co.uk          fax: +44-496-2336         voice: +44-496-2286
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Date: 31 Dec 1992 12:49:09 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Tom Maddox writes:

	That I or anyone else falls short of Wilde's or Parker's 
	wit is hardly surprising, and even to ask the question is 
	disingenumous.

Nevertheless, Tom does demonstrate a humungous ingenuity for neologs.

						RABworm

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Sjowall & Wahloo and other series
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 00:21:43 GMT

In article <jyc.725825365@Leland> jyc@leo.Stanford.EDU (Jon Corelis) writes:
>lc1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Lori Cole) writes:
>
>>Is anyone familiar with K.C. Constantine's books ...          
>
>   I've several times mentioned Constantine here as being one of the
>best novelists around.  One of his most powerful books, and perhaps a
>good place to start, is the early The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes. 

This C.K. Chesterton fan wonders whether "K.C. Constantine" is a nom de
plume. Is it?


--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,news.answers
From: heidi@wales.net.com (Heidi Wolf)
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Keywords:  frogs, flights thereof
Organization: N.E.T., Redwood City, CA
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 21:51:17 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.191329.10077@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) 
writes [re: frog metaphor for r.a.b interactions]:
>
>	Or, put it another way, any frog that dies from the stones thrown
>on r.a.b. is at the very least taking itself far too seriously.
>
>	An overwrought frog, as it were.  
>
>	Sprout virtual wings, Mr. Mammel, and you perhaps will you will no
>longer bump your froggy posterior.



There's a book about this (she says, ducking warily under the
crossed glares of Messrs. Maddox and Mammel):  TUESDAY, by a
fellow named Wiesner.  It's a picture book for children --
no text, just a series of watercolor pictures of the nocturnal
adventures of a group of frogs who float quietly through the
(apparently Midwestern) night air, each on a lilypad.  The lack
of text seemed to me to add an eerie but enjoyable sense of
the silence with which the frogs travel.  The final page has
a wonderful visual punchline, as the local pigs rise from
their pens for their own tour of town.

Wishing each of us some like-minded folk with which to roam,
be they airborne, terrestrial, pink or green,


H. "Seasonal Good Will To All" Wolf

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Subject: Re: Stark Naked
Keywords: I've got Bright's Disease and he's got mine!
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 18:02:54 GMT

In article <1992Dec24.112458.22930@ms.uky.edu> fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis) writes:
>Miriam Nadel writes:
>>Francis Muir writes:
>>>Click & Clack, the Tappet Bros., of Car Talk have a list of these names
>>>which grows increasingly excruciating as the weeks go by. Their book,
>>>*CAR TALK*, may include a list.
>>
>>It doesn't - the book is much more to the point than the show.  
>>
>>But Herb Caen's column in the San Francisco Chronicle used to be full of
>>real-life examples and may well still be.  I believe he referred to them
>>as "namephreaks."


Local Seattle columnist Jean Godden refers to those as aptonyms. 

When I was a child, our cat's veterinary firm was Pickney and Peckinpaw. 
Returning from a fishing holiday in Westport, where my papa had caught 
enough salmon to provide us with salmon loaf weekly throughout the long 
dreary winter, we went to reclaim our cat only to be told there was no 
boarder under the name Hlavin. 

Much consternation.  They eventually located Topsy under my father's 
middle initial, O (for Oscar), transforming his good Czech name into 
a weirdly Celtic O'Hlavin.  No, sirs; not related to the Chicago 
O'Learys. 

>
>I love both Car Talk and the list of names. I read _The Vale of Laughter_
>(Peter DeVries) at a too impressionable age. Finding a real life
>R.U. Upjohn has been a quest for me like finding the last surviving
>ivorybill woodpecker.

One of my favorite puns is from a DeVries book:  leaving a party, 
the suburban householder says to his hostess that he regrets departing 
so early, but "I have premises to keep, and miles to mow before I 
sleep." 

--Barbara