HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: vince@cadence.com (Vince Gibboni)
Subject: Re: Dictionary question?
Organization: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 22:44:28 GMT

kabir@kabir.Eng.Sun.COM writes:
> I just saw the American Heritage Dictionary, 3d Edition, at
> Printer's Inc Bookstore and it looked very nice. What do people
> think of it?

    Well, yes, it _looks_ very nice....

    Personally, I think of it the USA Today of dictionaries or sort 
    of a McDictionary (but, of course, that's just my personal bias). 
    It's definitely of the permissive, if-people-use-it-so-it-must-be-okay
    school, and it leans somehat precariously toward the politically
    correct. They did stop short of including such painful neologisms as
    "womyn", but only just barely, and for all the wrong reasons
    (lack of citations rather than because it's an unspeakably cruel
    of abuse of the language). On the other hand it is accessable, 
    progressive (in both the good and bad sense of the word) and,
    well, somewhat cute. Some people like it. (But then some people 
    like smurfs...)
>
> If this is not considered to be a good dictionary, what would
> be a reasonable alternative? (Is the compact edition of OED out of
> print?)

    Well, there's a new edition in print but it's _really_ compact
    (nine pages to a page, compared to four for the previous edition)
    and rather expensive (around $250). For a basic, everyday,
    general-purpose, reasonably-priced (but damn-good) dictionary you 
    can't beat Merriam-Webster's _Webster's Ninth New Collegiate 
    Dictionary_ (for around $20). The only complaint I have about it is
    that it hasn't (I believe) been updated since 1983 (i.e. it's
    about time for the tenth edition), but this generally isn't a 
    problem. If you're looking for something unabridged (and still
    in print), your best is, I think, the Random House dictionary
    (whose title I forget) which came out a couple of years ago.
    

--
    "Good night, Wesley. Good work. I'll probably kill you in the morning."
        - The Dread Pirate Rogers

Disclaimer: I have the world's wonkiest newsfeed.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: Advice to the World Weary (was Re: The Eudaem
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 18:01:22 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.020209.17156@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>>It is not enough to conquer; one must know how to seduce.
>>	--Voltaire
>
>My mother taught me that.

	This explains a lot.
-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		"The Reptoids eat humans like we eat chickens."
				Alex Alexander
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: RE: Film of A Thousand Acres
Organization: Clark University
Date: 9 NOV 92 17:07:31 GMT


mgrimes@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Michael Grimes) writes:

>This month's Premiere magazine mentions that Jessica Lange and MIchelle 
>Pfeiffer have bought the rights to Jane Smiley's beautiful Pulitzer Prize 
>novel A Thousand Acres.  Lange and Pfeiffer will co-star.  Can any other 
>readers of his book share what they think of this casting? I can see Lange 
>as the oldest sister, but who will Pfeiffer play?  I love both these 
>actresses, but never would have thought of casting them in this film version.

I found A THOUSAND ACRES very disappointing -- I still don't understand
why Smiley felt she had to rip off all that stuff from King Lear.
But I agree with you, I would not pick these two actresses for this
film.  Lange seems to have done a lot of stalwart-farm-women roles
lately ("O Pioneers" etc.) but I can't see her as any of the sisters.
Pfeiffer definitely not.  I would think actresses like Christine Lahti
or Amy Madigan would be better suited to the roles -- less Hollywood
glamour, more of an edge of realism.  Anyway, the hardest role to
cast is that of the father.  I can't even imagine who they'd pick
for that.  

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: Re: The Truth According to Mickie Medved
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 22:28:09 GMT

Mike Morris writes:
>...there unfortunately exist in this our sublunar sphere some realities
>which are no joking matter.

There are things that can't be laughed at?  Topics that contain no
raw material for humor?  Like what?

				--the woman who thinks it's hilarious
				  that a city official of New York City
				  says garbage disposals are illegal
				  there in order that "people won't put
				  babies down them"

						      Fiona
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: Columbus and the Egg?
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 23:27:16 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <13139@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>
>One of the Warner Bros. cartoons that I grew up with shows Columbus
>saying to Ferdinand, "The Earth is round, like this egg!"
>Ferdinand then flattens the egg, and says, "The Earth is flat, 
>like this egg!"
>-- 

	You might want to take a gander at a short, interesting
	book called _Inventing the Flat Earth_, which discusses
	this early 20th century characterisation of Columbus' role.

>Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: sheilah@wam.umd.edu (Sheila Herndon)
Subject: Re: A rose is a rose is a rose.
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 18:51:09 GMT

In article <9211041512.AA29814@cfdev1.shearson.com> 
mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>
>
>Damn you, Marko!
>
>Now I've got Irish songs abour roses swimming around in my head,
>and not a Guinness in sight!
>
>It could be worse -- it could be "The Yellow Rose of Texas."
>
>Mark
>
>


Damn! "The Yellow Rose of Texas" neither a Shiner nor a Celis
in sight.




-- 
I am always wrong. Don't believe me ever.
stark raving sane  sheilah@wam.umd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: careful handling required?
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 04:50:18 GMT


alison@wsrcc.com (Alison Chaiken) writes:
 
> I think _Something Happened_ actually has a lot in common with
> _Remains of the Day_ by Ishiguro.  Both are very carefully written,
> slowly developed portraits of rather unsympathetic people.  And both
> books have tragic endings which serve to suddenly draw you into
> identifying with the narrator.
 
I hadn't thought about these similarities -- and I suppose that they 
are mostly true.  But I was less impressed with SOMETHING HAPPENED than
Alison is, while I think THE REMAINS OF THE DAY is an incredible book.
The narrative style is very different.  Ishiguru's narrator misleads us,
but without malice.  He tells us much by what is left out.  I don't have
that sense with Heller.
 
The narrator in SOMETHING HAPPENED is unsympathetic, and unlikable.  I'm
not convinced that the narrator in REMAINS is completely unsympathetic.
He is certainly a very sad character.
 
Mark


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: sheilah@wam.umd.edu (Sheila Herndon)
Subject: Re: What do you all think of the Situationists?
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 14:28:36 GMT

In article <1992Nov10.140805.18460@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> ashall@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Andrew S Hall) writes:
>Several people have posted notes about the Situationists.
>The most acessible and comprehensive book has been ignored.
>The Situation Internationale which is edited by Raoul Vaneigm
>(maybe, I am not sure) is a large collection of S.I. writings,
>communiques, rants etc. This is an absolutely essential work
>if you want to study S.I.
>                                 Andrew Hall
># Humanity won't be happy until the last capitalist is hung  #
># with the guts of the last bureaucrat.                      #


How do I know if I want to study S.I. if I don't know what S.I. is?



I assume that if I don't know enough to know what S.I. is then I don't
want to know. How do I learn enough to know if I want to know what
S.I. is in order to know if I want to study it?




Does it have anything to do with linguistics? 



(not that linguistics has anything to do with it. so cross it out and
put ________. That would be a lot of help. thanks)

(these ideas stolen from someone named doug, not doug. someone named doug.
not someone either. get it right. that isn't original either.)
-- 
I am always wrong. Don't believe me ever.
stark raving sane  sheilah@wam.umd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.horror
From: tsm@access.digex.com (The Secret Man)
Subject: Re: Algernon Blackwood
Organization: The Quiet Room
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 05:49:37 GMT

newt@ais.org (Heather Darling) writes:
>I recently came across a volume of short horror fiction by Algernon
>Blackwood. I'm wonderuing if anyone can give me any background on him or his
>writing since I know nothing about it?

Well, first off, he's dead.  But he did most or all of his writing while he
was still alive....



-- 
The Secret Man                                            tsm@access.digex.com
"Well, I've never been to Spain
  but I kind of like the music..."
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Private lives, public persons
Date: 8 Nov 1992 14:54:15 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

In discussing a recent biography of the poet, Anne Sexton, Mark Taranto
raised concerns over the use of her psychotherapist's notes and recordings
of conversations that took place in the course of treatment. It seems to 
me that the questions of legality and propriety should give way to the
wider question of privacy. An author publishes stuff, not herself. 

The matter was nicely discussed some 150 years ago by Peacock (*Memoirs 
of Percy Byshhe Shelley* in Volume VIII of the Halliford Edition of The
Works of Thomas Love Peacock. Constable & Co. London. MCMXXIV) after Hogg 
and some others (Middleton, Trelawney) had published biographies on Shelley. 

Here, then, are some sample extracts from Peacock's introductory essay:

	"No man is bound to write the life of another. No man who
	does so is bound to tell the public all he knows. On the
	contrary, he is bound to keep to himself whatever may injure
	the interests or hurt the feelings of the living...Neither
	if there be in the life of the subject of the biography any
	event which he himself would willingly have blotted from
	the tablet of his own memory, can it possibly be the duty of
	a survivor to drag into the daylight..."

	"I have been considered to have some peculiar advantages for
	writing his life, and have often been requested to do so; but
	for the reasons above given I have always refused."

	"Wordsworth says to the Cuckoo:-

		O blithe new-comer! I have heard,
		I hear thee, and rejoice.
		O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
		Or but a wandering Voice?

		.	.	.	.	.

		Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
		Even yet thou art to me
		No bird, but an invisible thing,
		A voice, a mystery.

	"Shelley was fond of repeating these verses, and perhaps were
	not forgotten in his poem *To a Skylark*:-

		Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
		Bird thou never wert,
		That from heaven, or near it,
		Pourest thy full heart,
		In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

		.	.	.	.	.	

		The pale purple even
		Melts around thy flight:
		Like a star of heaven,
		In the broad daylight,
		Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

	"Now, I would have wi shed that, like Wordsworth's Cuckoo,
	he had been allowed to remain a voice and a mystery: that,
	like his own Skylark, he had been left unseen in his congenial
	region,

		Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
		Which men call earth.

	and that he had been only heard in the splendour of his song."

Why not grant Anne Sexton the same favor?

							Fido
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: entpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Subject: Re: _MERCY_ by David L. Lindsey (& other police proceedurals?)
Reply-To: entpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 03:26:37 GMT

In article <BxBKnz.J9o@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, escr@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (elizabeth) writes:
>I just finished reading MERCY by David L. Lindsey and it was absolutely
>marvelous...The story, about a serial killer, was incredibly interesting
>and the writing is exquisite.  After finishing it I realized that I really
>like a good police proceedural, for example I also really enjoyed THE
>SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.  I was wondering if anyone knows of any other books
>that are police proceedurals ( I especially like ones about the FBI)?
>I was also wondering if anyone has read any other Lindsey? The end paper
>says that he's written 5 novels but it only lists one other, IN THE LAKE
>OF THE MOON.  If anyone can give me information on any of this, I'd really
>appreciate it...
>Thanks
>elizabeth ruby

Betcha a silk pajama you'd like the police procedurals of Per Wahloo
and his wife, whose name, I think, is Maj Sowall.  They are set in
Sweden and feature a detective named Martin Beck.  The onliest title
I can recall is "The Laughing Policeman."  This book was made into
a not real good American movie--but Walter Matthau WAS Martin Beck.

Erik Timmerman
From: br105@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey A. Del Col)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Tsvetaeva mediocre?
Date: 13 Nov 1992 13:24:19 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: br105@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey A. Del Col)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a recent posting someone referred to Marina Tsvetaeva as a "rather mediocre
poetess." 
 
 That judgment would have been greeted with derision by Akhmatova, Mandelstam 
and Rilke who along with Tsvetaeva have joined the shades of Virgil, 
Homer, etc. in Dante's First Circle. ( I hope that's a suitably Christian
context)

J. Del Col
   

-- 
Jeff Del Col      *   DECONSTRUCTION--- the critical method invented      
A-B College       *                      by Procrustes  
Philippi, WV      *                             
                  *         
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:20119 alt.postmodern:2703
From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.postmodern
Subject: Re: [UPI] Library attacked for buying Madonna's Sex book
Date: 14 Nov 92 22:18:39 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

In article <1e1luvINNee2@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
| Barbara Hlavin writes:
| 
| 	Carl M. Kadie writes:
| 
| 		The libaray ordered four copies of the book at $49.95 
| 		each with money provided by an anonymous donor. Two 
| 		of the copeis will be used for general circulation in 
| 		the Fine Arts section and two will be used in the
| 		Reference section
| 
| 	Reference?? Is this the same library that shelved Adrienne 
| 	Rich's _An Atlas of the Difficult World_ in Geography? 
| 
| If Ms Rich and her publisers are stupid enough to come up with such 
| a title for what? a novel? then why are you going after the Huston
| Librarians for misplacing it? 

That's cute.  You gotta admit.

| 					Fido

Woof!


-- 

 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: The Truth According to Mickie Medved
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 08:39:53 GMT

In article <9211061736.AA25767@cfdev1.shearson.com> mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
}A few years ago, I saw someone on a talk show who said that anything can
}be funny, but sometimes we need time to distance ourselves from the pain.
}I think it was Terry Gilliam, or one of the other Pythons.
} 
}To illustrate this, I will say that I found a scene in THE LIFE OF BRIAN
}funny, which involved the torturing of political prisoners.  In it, a
}number of people are hanging on crosses.  Eric Idle, who is one of those
}being crucified, starts singing a song with a very happy melody, which
}all the others join.  The words went "Life's a piece of shit/When you
}look at it."  Some people might find this offensive -- I did not.

Then, of course, there's the "Torturer's Aprentice" song in "The Adventures of
Baron Munchausen," directed by Gilliam, I believe, and starring that selfsame
Idle, who wrote the song.

The song you're thinking of is "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," and
has a nice whistling bit in it.  And the record's on sale in the lobby.

}Whenever there is a disaster (the Challenger exploding, Bhopal,
}Madonna publishing a new book) there are always jokes.  It is part
}of the healing process, and does not mean that we do not feel the
}pain.

Madonna publishing a book IS a joke :-).

}Humor is an important tool, as well.  I think that a large part of
}the reason that the ERA failed is that feminists were incorrectly
}perceived as being humorless, giving rise to the "angry lesbian feminist"
}stereotype.  With this, I will leave Mike with two lightbulb jokes.
}I just made up the second one:

My impression was that too many feminists were incorrectly humorless, thus
giving rise to the misleading stereotype that all of them are.

}        2.  How many tortured political prisoners does it take
}            to change a lightbulb?
} 
}            None, those sockets are for the prisoners.
} 
}I don't think either joke is that great, just posting them because I
}want to show that there is al least raw material to do so.

I like it...


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: jeremy@castle.ed.ac.uk (Jeremy Henderson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Red Beans and Rice
Date: 9 Nov 92 11:48:38 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <6NOV92.02023628@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:

~  Miss Ruby brought me Dixie beer

~ the beer itself is pisswater

Metaphorically and literally in this case.



-- 
===Jeremy Henderson===jeremy@castle.ed.ac.uk=          

"I have to scan these posts in case Jeremy includes some line
out of context in his .sig" - FriendOfFernandoKhomeini.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: galina@watson.ibm.com (Galina Kofman :-)_
Subject: Re: A rose is a rose is a rose.
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 1992 18:54:14 GMT
News-Software: IBM OS/2 PM RN (NR/2) v0.14 by O. Vishnepolsky and R. Rogers
Reply-To: galina@watson.ibm.com (Galina Kofman :-)_
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

The slender acacia would not shake
  One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake
  As the pimpernel dosed on the lea;
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
  Knowing your promise to me;
The lilies and roses were all awake,
  They sighed for the dawn and thee.

Queen rose of rosebud garden of girls,
  Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
  Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
  To the flowers and their sun.

There has fallen a splendid tear
  From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
  She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near;'
  And the white rose weeps, 'She is late;'
Teh larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear;'
  And the lily whispers, 'I wait.'

She is coming, my own, my sweet,
  Were is ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
  Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat;
  Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
  And blossom in purple and red.

from In Memorian
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
From: klier@iscsvax.uni.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Censorship in the Wilson Library Bulletin
Date: 5 Nov 92 15:07:43 -0600
Organization: University of Northern Iowa

In article <81#q-5d@lynx.unm.edu>, lazlo@triton.unm.edu (Lazlo Nibble) writes:
> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
> 
>> As a matter of interest, what is the attitude of the American Library
>> Association and its members to all this? 
> 
> Manley's column now appears in the ALA journal 'American Libraries'.

My recollection is that _American Libraries_  also reprinted Manley's
original article.  Actually, I found it quite mild, but then I specialize
in the perverted sex lives of plants...

Kay Klier  Biology Dept  UNI
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields)
Subject: Re: Torturing Politicals
Organization: UNC-CH School of Medicine
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 13:44:04 GMT

>In article <WARKENT.92Nov10123947@ltisun14.epfl.ch> warkent@ltisun14.epfl.ch (Ken Warkentyne) writes:

>   In article <JMC.92Nov9170105@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) wrote:
>   > [punny cannibal poem deleted]

>   Would you recite that poem to someone whose mother was eaten by
>   cannibals?  To someone whose mother, a victim of child abuse, was
>   eaten by cannibals after being raped by Genghis Khan's horde and
>   tortured to death by the Spanish Inquisition following her escape
>   from Dachau?  I think not.

>   Ken Warkentyne - warkent@ltisun.epfl.ch
>		    Laboratoire de Teleinformatique, EPFL, Suisse.


What many who are offended by these sorts of remarks forget is the very
common form of humor called "gallows humor" or "dark humor".  More often
than not the people who can come up with the cruelest sounding jokes are
the people who have actually gone through these horrors.  It's a way of
dealing with the horror and the pain - it's a way of keeping human in the
face of it.  Some of the better parapalegic jokes I've heard have come
from the imagination and lips of friends rolling about in wheelchairs.
There is a cartoonist, I think his name is John Callahan, who uses a
wheelchair.  One of his cartoons shows a desert scene with a posse
looking at an overturned wheelchair.  The caption reads "Don't worry,
fellas, he can't have gone far" (paraphrased).  There's also one that
shows a family scene - father, mother, and kids all in robes and wings and
one of the kids says "Come on, Dad, tell us about the time you cut us all
up with a chainsaw in a fit of insanity" (again, paraphrased).  

A funny thing, I've noticed that most of those most offended by these
jokes are those who are the furthest away from the realities of the jokes.
This isn't always the case, I mean a tasteless joke is a tasteless joke no
matter what the subject matter - but let those that hear the joke decide
that for themselves. 

Besides, everybody needs to be deeply offended from time to time.  It's
good for the soul.

Perhaps a list of books that deal with or are full of gallows humor?

Best of wet fish kisses,

Joan
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:19708 rec.arts.poems:11044 soc.culture.french:8344 talk.religion.misc:20705 alt.feminism:3999
From: walker@Ingres.COM (Lynn Walker)
Subject: are magazines discussed here?
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Keywords: so much to read, so little time...
Organization: ASK Computer Systems, Ingres Product Division
Date: 12 Nov 92 19:05:14 GMT

I've just started reading this group, and wondered if magazine articles,
writers, etc. are discussed here? Perhaps there is an FAQ for this group?
If so, please post.

	Thanks.

		-- Lynn --

 *****************************************************************************
  Lynn Walker		+ "When you think about it, the whole idea of two guys
  Toronto, Canada	+  making decisions for twenty million people--that's
  walker@ingres.com	+  pretty funny."		-- The Candidate
 *****************************************************************************