HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: books to avoid
Date: 9 Sep 92 19:11:13 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <8SEP199212140448@zeus.tamu.edu>, spb0457@zeus.tamu.edu (SubGenius) writes:
> A similar opening can be found in Penelope Ashe's _Naked Came the Stranger_,
> as ludicrous and lurid a novel as has been penned:
> 
> 	Screwed.
> 
> SubGenius

But _Naked Came the Stranger_ was SUPPOSED to be ludicrous and lurid.


-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Alcohol prohibition didn't work; drug prohibition doesn't work; gun
prohibition won't work.
From: lnh@soliton.physics.arizona.edu (sometimes a Wombat)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Oinkies
Date: 6 Sep 92 20:14:20 GMT
Organization: Society for the Appreciation of Janni Lee Simner

mworley@mathcs.emory.edu (Meg Worley) writes:
> 
>> What's next, the CHING of Eeyore?, the Testament of Roo? 
>> The Concordance of Kanga? The Codex of Christopher Robin?
>
>The Rubaiyat of Pippi Longstocking, I should think.  Most enlightening.

The Kama-Sutra of Green-Gables.

	Larry " 'Twould be fun" Hammer
--

                                \  "The work is rather too light, and bright,
LNH@albert.physics.arizona.edu   \  and sparkling; it wants ... a long chapter
The insane don't need disclaimers \ of solemn specious nonsense." --Jane Austen
From: jane@bohra.cpg.oz.au (Jane Lean)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: alliteration
Date: 11 Sep 92 03:02:04 GMT
Organization: Computer Power Software

In article <1992Sep10.155601.19943@nas.nasa.gov> wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith) writes:
>
>
> Lovers of alliteration, nay make that lovers of clever books, should
> check out the children's section of the bookstore next time you're
> in and browse thru the wonderfully illustrated book "Animals" by
> Graheme (buggered the spelling).  Each letter of the alphabet is
> illustrated by an animal and has a wonderful alliteration for what the
> animals are doing in the drawing.

Sounds like you mean Graeme Base's "Animalia".  A wonderful book.

Jane

> William Sburgfort Smith


-- 
Jane Lean                                                 jane@bohra.cpg.oz.au
CP Software Export Pty Ltd                               Phone:  +61-3-8230213
ACN 006 640 133  (A Division         "They're gonna hang some new stars in the 
of the Computer Power Group)          heavens tonight."     -- Laurie Anderson
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rafem@gvlf7-e.gvl.unisys.com (Ralph Marrone)
Subject: Re: utopias and distopias
Organization: Unisys Defense Systems, Great Valley Labs, Paoli, Pa
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 15:20:06 GMT

In article <1992Sep7.135908.10421@newshub.ccs.yorku.ca> tony@nexus.yorku.ca (Anthony Wallis) writes:
>Dani Zweig (dani@netcom.com) wrote:
>> It's harder to write a good Utopian novel than a good Distopian one.
>> .. I can write a book about a society in which everyone amputates an
>> arm at puberty and is happier for it, but that doesn't mean I'm being
>> realistic ..
>
>That reminds me !  Does anybody recall a dystopian novel called
>"Limbo '90" (author forgotten) ?  Written circa 1960 and set 30 years
>into the future (i.e. now), in as much as I can recall (I read it
>30 years ago), it described a society in which females are sexually
>assertive and male agressiveness is anathema.  Male status depended
>on the number of limbs they voluntarially had amputated.  The highest
>status was accorded to those who had all four limbs and ..er.. their
>fifth "limb" cut off.
>
>It must have been a pretty awful book.  I never heard mention of it
>in 30 years, not even from rabid feminists ..
>
>--
>tony@nexus.yorku.ca = Tony Wallis, York University, Toronto, Canada

Would this be _Limbo_ by Bernard Wolfe?  All I know about this book is
that Dave Pringle picked it as one of the best 100 science fiction novels,
and that Carroll & Graf republished it as a paperback 2 or 3 years ago.


Regards,

Ralph Marrone
From: chucks@uars2.acd.ucar.edu (Chuck Smythe)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Wonderful Life (Was : Re: Progress (Was : Re: The Literary Canon))
Date: 9 Sep 92 20:54:53 GMT
Organization: Ntl Center for Atmospheric Research, Atmospheric Chemistry

In article <1992Sep9.180120.7388@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
 >Joel Hanes praised Stephen Jay Gould, and Matt Austern and Chuck Smythe 
 >concurred, citing "Wonderful Life" in particular.  I too was taken
 >with "Wonderful Life," but I heard that since publication, it
 >has been discovered that the odd Burgess Shale creatures were
 >not as odd as Gould thought, significantly undercutting his
 >thesis that rerunning the tape of life could result in entirely 
 >different creatures.  Apparently one of the BS weirdos
 >was reconstructed upside down, and another has been found to
 >fit into a known class.
 >	Can anyone who knows the recent work provide more accurate
 >details?  Thanks!

You have the general story right; two genera that Gould claimed to have died
without issue have been shown to in fact have modern descendents.  

One part of Gould's story was that only a small fraction of the creatures
from the Burgess Shale founded lineages.  He draws the moral that most lines
_do_ die out, appearantly somewhat at random, and therefore that the course
of evolution leading to our noble selves was not inevitable but in fact was
highly improbable: "Wonderful", as the title has it.         

Point the first: even with these two corrections, the basic point seems to
hold. Most of the Burgess genera went extinct well before the Cambrian.  The
point is weakened but by no means contradicted.

Point the second: Gould didn't rely entirely on the Burgess assemblage to
make his point about decimation.  For instance, he argues that evidently
single-celled life constituted the entire biosphere for more than a billion
years before multiple celled creatures appeared.  He suggests that this implies
multiple cells were no more inevitable than intelligence; that if you ran
the experiment of evolution many times, the most common outcome would be 
single-celled forms only, forever.

I am NOT an evolutionary biologist, and have extracted all this from semi-pop
literature.  I have no idea what the professionals think of it.  Is there 
a paleontologist in the house?        

			Chuck Smythe
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: The White Man's Burden of Proof
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.92Sep11221024@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <matthew.716375507@munna>
	<1918spINNt5c@uniwa.uwa.edu.au>
Date: 14 Sep 92 19:32:36

In article <1918spINNt5c@uniwa.uwa.edu.au> wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au (INFIDEL) writes:

   matthew@.cs.mu.oz (Maciek Blasikiewicz) writes:

   Johnno McCarthy writes:


   >>I promise to take a literature
   >>course next year if someone will assure me that after taking it I
   >>will understand what Mark Taranto meant.

   >The benefits you gain from a literature course are your own responsibility. Are you so dependent on your mother's teat that you require another's
   >assurance of your success before stepping out into the big wide world?


   >Endek.

   Here here. 

   Infidel.


Didn't your mother teach you how to recognize insincerity when it
stares you in the face?  Do you really suppose that I, a professor of
computer science just turned 65, am really likely to take a course in
literature on the extremely dubious theory that there is anything
actually to be learned from it about what Mark Taranto could have
meant by "insidious intent" being a literary reference?  Isn't it
perfectly clear that he didn't mean anything by it and can't even
concoct a meaning post facto?

Well, I suppose that when Poles emigrate to Australia, they bump their
heads on the ground a lot for the first few years from walking on
their hands trying to keep upright in the Polish sense.
--
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: books to avoid
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 00:21:33 GMT

In article <27.X92001@ramona.com> jwest@ramona.com (Jim Western) writes:
>mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>
>>Where on earth do you get that idea? I've never owned a copy of the book,
>>nor have I ever even held one in my hand. I simply recalled news stories
>>about the book at the time of its publication (around 20 years ago, I
>>think).
>
>My God! What a specimen you are, sir!

Indeed. I even feel confident of my chances against Crawford Kilian in
a game of Trivial Pursuit. Is that confidence or what?

But, really, it's pretty easy to remember books with titles like 
NAKED CAME THE STRANGER and pen names like "Penelope Ashe." Even
20 years later.


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact 
mnemonic@eff.org| of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, 
(617) 864-0665  | both are transformed."
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Carl Jung
From: Paul Schroeder
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: james joyce
Date: 15 Sep 92 19:54:21 GMT
Organization: BNR

In article <9tzn!hl.snow@netcom.com> snow@netcom.com (Tim Szeliga) writes:
>>>  James Joyce's _Lady Chatterly's Lover_
>
>That's _Finnegans Lover_.
>
>Tim Szeliga  tim@snow.nohrsc.nws.gov
>

I thought it was D. H. Joyce's _Lady Chatterly's Wake_.
From: fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: books to avoid
Date: 10 Sep 92 20:14:25 GMT
Organization: The Gizmonic Institute

Mark Taranto writes:
> 
 [a nice discussion of the various net contributors and their
   "personna" deleted.]
> 
Mark Taranto is as steady and intelligent contributor as r.a.b has, so I 
will accept this [that one of our lot is quite different than his posts
would lead one to believe] on his word. But this whole issue baffles
me: I only have one sound to the words in my head. Occasionally, after 
reading a favorite writer, say Walker Percy, a couple of his pet
phrases or bits of syntactical magic will linger and I'll try to mimic it. 
The results always offer me a bit of immediate satisfaction,
but 20 minutes later, only God knows why...my Percy winds up sounding like 
my Perelman which sounds like my Bellow...i.e. just like me. The depressing 
fact of the matter is that it's all a bit like looking at a mirror in a 
department store versus the one in the bathroom. [Don't ask.] Personna? To 
garble the old joke...  "I don't know I've never Kippled." Does anybody 
out there have a spare personna they can lend me?
-- 
Coach Jeff Davis <davis@keats.ca.uky.edu> 
Season: 0-1 Lifetime: 0-3 
I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you all to repent from your sins.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: M.J.Hunt@lut.ac.uk (Max Hunt) 
Subject: Auster/Music of Chance
Keywords: Auster
Reply-To: M.J.Hunt@lut.ac.uk (Max Hunt)
Organization: Loughborough University, UK.
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 92 11:07:57 GMT

Possibly the best read of the year, I feel I must
share my discovery of Paul Auster, and American writer;
notably of Music of Chance.  A fine novel in parable form
concerning the way we use time, isolation and life chances -
but wrapped up in an enormously readable, gripping and enigmatic
story (sorry, my books have to have a good plot!)

... but can anyone help me understand the ending!!!

Max.

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Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: barger@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (Jorn &)
Subject: Mail order to Sweden (fwd)
Reply-To: martro@jamvax.sunet.se
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 21:24:09 GMT

Can anyone help this fellow in sweden (no news access)?

From: martro@jamvax.sunet.se 
(Mark Troy Hvgskolan i Vstersund E-mail:martro@sh.hos.se Phone:063-155370)

> I need a well-stocked and prompt American bookstore 
> that posts (lit & criticism) 
> books to Europe. I am in an isolated little town up here, 
> and waiting weeks and months for books to 
> arrive from England is immensely frustrating... can you help?

Please reply to him, not me.



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: Natalie Goldberg & teaching writing
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 19:04:19 GMT

Mark Taranto writes:
	
	Re: Natalie Goldberg's WRITING DOWN THE BONES,
	 
	She seems to be popular among Minnesota writers.  I gotta
	get me this book!



She lived in Minneapolis for several years and now (when the books
were published) lives in Taos, New Mexico.  There are some Minnesota
stories in WDtB.



William Sburgfort Smith
Intel, SSD
From: miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Naked Lunch
Date: 14 Sep 92 18:00:31 CDT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <14SEP199213150574@portal.lasc.lockheed.com>, le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel (x2025)) writes:
> I just finished William Burrough's Naked Lunch.  It was a difficult read, 
> and the first "beat" novel I've read.  I found it pretty monotonous in 
> spite its nightmarish quality and sexual/violent goings on.  
> 
> The edition I have has two introductions by Burroughs, the first written 
> around the time the book was published ('59), and the second dated 1991.
> The first "deposition" seemed to plainly be an indictment against drug 
> addictions (the "sickness") and capital punishment (of all things), but 
> the second one repudiates the first one saying that the health problem he 
> referred to in his first deposition was the national hysteria re drug use,
> and the encroachment on personal freedoms by media and law enforcement.  
> What is his background regarding this apparent change?

Maybe others have a more thorough explanation, but in 1959 (when I
lived in NYC in the East Village and actually published a poem in the
Village Voice against Burroughs beginning "Get him out of my city" --
know where he is now?  Here in Lawrence, Kansas!) not only was there
no drug war, but drug use was pretty hot and heavy among the
intellectuals.  Now things have swung the other way and I guess
Burroughs wants to swing with them.

> Once you get the hang of his writing and can discern the hallucinations of 
> the addict protagonist from his brief moments of lucidity, the novel gets
> somewhat repetitive.  I've heard this book described as a masterpiece, a
> search for truth and a ridicule of violence, materialism, hero worship, and 
> hypocrisy.  

In an age when the word "important" isn't very important, _Naked
Lunch_ I suppose counts as important.  But IMHO, anybody who would
call this book a *masterpiece* is hopelessly lost in the world of literature.

> I'm afraid the boat left the dock without me.  What are the impressions of
> those of you who have read this novel (not just seen the movie)?

Mine are like yours--though I didn't have the patience to read it all.
Even though the author lives here I don't know anyone who has actually
read his stuff.
-- 
********************************** +.............................+
*- Ken <miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>* :All opinions expressed herein:
*There is no privileged position.* :are my own and are not to be :
*	-God, Derrida, others    * : attributed to my employer   :
********************************** +.............................+

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,soc.history
From: cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster)
Subject: Re: The Civil War
In-reply-to: fehr@ms.uky.edu's message of 14 Sep 92 16:41:38 GMT
Organization: pubs
Distribution: usa
Date: 15 Sep 92 12:08:58 CDT


Jeff Davis reviewed the PBS Civil War series in rec.arts.books (was the
series run recently?).  I'd like to add a couple of comments.

Jeff didn't mention that Shelby Foote also wrote one of the really big
(I'd say 20 pounds worth) multi-volume Civil War sets.  I haven't read
it but it's well thought of.  The recent standard book on the subject is
James MacPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom.  Although Ken Burns's series
is one of the best uses to which television has been put, its twelve
hours of material are amazingly sketchy even compared with what
MacPherson's single volume tells (although MacPherson can't show you
what the light looked like on the morning of the Battle of Gettysburg).

The now-famous letter that they read on the series was written by a
Rhode Island officer named Sullivan Ballou, who got killed in the first
battle.  He was mentioned in a soldier's diary that was published last
year.  The musical theme for the series is "Ashokan Farewell", by Jay
Ungar.  Ungar wrote it about ten years ago, and the name Ashokan is
unrelated to the Civil War.

Chris Brewster
cb@cray.com
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Progress (Was : Re: The Literary Canon)
Date: 8 Sep 92 20:57:51 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Sep4.140215.1437@athena.cs.uga.edu>, fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller) writes:
> heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath) writes:
# #	Allow me to offer a differenct scenario (one that has happened
# #before), in which this black man might be be pulled over by your
# #average city cop. (Perhaps after running a stop light or something.)
# #Now, the cops don't know anything about the man, except that he's
# #black. One thing leads to another, perhaps he resents being stopped
# #and resists being arrested. Now the cops think he's probably on drugs
# #or something. Judging from the looks of his clothes and his car (very
# #expensive, very nice), he might even be a drug dealer, or a drug lord.
# #Next thing you know, the man is on the ground, being beaten rather
# #severely by cops who are afraid he might be on PCP or something.
# #Well, its easy to see how things might go from there, and all from
# #something as simple as being pulled over by a cop.
# 
#      Person A recounts a true story.  Person B counters by inventing
# a "scenario" and then gets all indignant about the story he made up.
# Heh heh heh.

Unfortunately, Mr. Heath's "scenario" is a little too common a
real-world event to call it "made up."

#                                                 -- jf


-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Alcohol prohibition didn't work; drug prohibition doesn't work; gun
prohibition won't work.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: NPR & Freedom of the Press: Part I
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 19:46:27 GMT

In article <CB.92Sep8130439@tamarack13.timbuk> cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster) writes:

>Same thing applies to the two versions of Wolfe's _Sister_Carrie_.

Ah, but does the same thing apply to both versions of *Dreiser's*?


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact 
mnemonic@eff.org| of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, 
(617) 864-0665  | both are transformed."
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Carl Jung 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: books to avoid
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 22:35:16 GMT


Francis Muir writes:
 
        Mike Godwin writes:
 
                Francis Muir writes:
 
                        Jeremy, the Law is a Ass. Leave legal matters to
                        the assinine.
 
                Quite right. Similarly, one should leave geological matters
                to the oily.
 
        Unctuous might sound a little better, I believe.
 
Quite right!  Mike's joke was crude, Fido refined it.
 
Well, I better slip on out of here.
 
Mark
From: lnh@soliton.physics.arizona.edu (sometimes a Wombat)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Editors other than Bowdler...
Date: 7 Sep 92 19:18:52 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Society for the Appreciation of Janni Lee Simner

mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>[Ezra edits, and Eliot agrees]
>
>There were one or two pages crossed out before we encounter "April is the
>cruelest month . . . ."
> 
>This method of writing poetry continued into the next generation.  The
>young Auden would send poems off to Isherwood, who would cross out complete
>lines, and suggest changes.

This is a problematic method of compostion?

	<memo to lnh:  to wordy>

You got a problem with that?

	Larry "Freeback is the best defence" Hammer
--

LNH@physics.arizona.edu          \  "What can be seen, heard, and learned, 
The insane don't need disclaimers \  this I prize." -- Heraclitus, #13
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Identification of author of a quotation
Date: 15 Sep 92 03:27:51 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <1992Sep15.022709.27349@riacs.edu> shafer@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer OFA) writes:
>Can anyone tell me who said/wrote "Millions long for immortality who
>don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon"?
>

	A screen capture from info.rutgers.edu:

Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Copyright 1991 Oxford Univ. Press
ertz1

Susan Ertz 1894-1985

Someone has somewhere commented on the fact that millions long for
immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday
afternoon.
Anger in the Sky (1943) p. 137

Word (? for help):

>
>(Why ask on rec.arts.books?  Well, I'm pretty sure I read it in
>a book!  Besides, this is about the only group that I think is
>broadly literate.)
>

	Hopefully using 'telnet info.rutgers.edu' will be added to
	the FAQ; it's online quote book has found all the 
	quotes that people wanted IDs on lately.

>Mary Shafer  DoD #0362  NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From:  (jmhodapp@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu)
Subject: Re: books to avoid --You CAN judge a book by its cover
Organization: haphazard, at best
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 12:30:46 GMT

In article <1992Sep7.122135.21030@cs.yale.edu>, loosemore-sandra@CS.YALE.EDU (Sandra Loosemore) writes:
> 
> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
> 
> 	   Actually, I have trouble believing that any of the distinguished
>    r.a.b.ble are foolish enough to judge books by their covers.  Do remember
>    that writers have *no* say 99.n% of the time about what does and doesn't go
>    on the cover--whether idiotic words or phrases or pink & heaving bosoms.
> 
When I library/book store browse, I can ususally tell whether I'll like the book by
its cover art and the typefont.  Many of my favourite books are typeset in
Janson, and have a minimalist cover (not stark, just not baroque).  I will
never turn away a book because of font, (generally) but it seems that a lot
of 'insight/emotion/churn the inner spirit' books are in a mock-sloppy
font.  Or just poorly printed.

One case wher this did work was Furst's Night Soldiers, a story
set in the world of espionage in the mid 1930's.  Great cover, good font,
and maps on the inside  covers, as well as an intelligent blurb on the
dust cover.  It didn't appear to be techno-thriller (from the blurb, though
mapos tend to be a bad sign) so I picked it up and loved it.

Jon   jmhodapp@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu
================================
This message was originally in New Baskerville. Your system may vary.


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