HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu
Subject: Re: _Dog Soldiers_ by R. Stone, a wild ride!
Reply-To: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 10:01:10 GMT

In article <BzL9xt.6Gt@wsrcc.com>, alison@wsrcc.com (Alison Chaiken) writes:
>A few weeks ago someone requested names of books that could be
>described as "a wild ride," where the reader feels helplessly drawn
>into a breathless adventure.  At the time I couldn't think of anything
>appropriate, but I think _Dog Soldiers_ fits the bill.  The plot
>concerns two ex-Marines who try to make some money selling heroin in
>the U.S. at the height of the Vietnam War.  The setting is the streets
>and backwaters of the Bay Area and L.A., and the characters are
>desperate in an intriguing way.  The book is pretty much a road story,
>but even though there's a lot of "action," the prose is beautiful, and
>there's a lot more to think about than in _Thelma and Louise_.
>
>By the way, does anyone on this group ever read NON-fiction?   I read
>non-fiction about 50% of the time, but I would guess that I am in the
>minority here.
>-- 
>Alison Chaiken 				alison@wsrcc.com
>(510) 422-7129 [daytime] 		or chaiken@cmsgee.llnl.gov
>Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
>

Alison, thanks for the tip on *Dog Soldiers*.  Since there was a recent
thread on Harry Crews in this group, it seems appropriate to mention
*A Feast of Snakes* as a book that eminently, frighteningly fulfills
the notion of reading as a "wild ride."  This is scary, powerful stuff,
a bit like Flannery O'Connor in the sheer strangeness of the characters
(and in the depiction of the South), a bit like Faulkner in the violent
energy of the prose and story itself; like Faulkner, Crews writes about
Southerners whose aspirations are remarkably frustrated, yet whose
unrepressed energies resist the self-repression required by civilization
(thinking of Freud here, of course), till the whole facade bursts and
the pent-up energies come raging forth.  This book has one of the most
amazing endings ever to have passed before my startled eyes.  As a teacher,
this book presents me with an intriguing dilemma:  I admire it, but am not
at all sure that I'd ever have the guts to teach it; it's that disturbing.

michael mcdonald
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Good Westerns
From: stoddard@milori.ccit.arizona.edu (MJ STODDARD)
Date: 23 Dec 1992 13:38 MST  
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

Wister's The Virginian is excellent, and has that great scene "Smile
when you call me that!".

Shane by ?--- is a good gunfighter-theme book.

Louis L'Amour is, to put it mildly, less intense than
Grey/Wister/Shane, but his books are canonical (IMHO).
	-- MJ

In article <1ha6otINNdk5@FUNCTOR.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU>, loosemore-sandra@cs.yale.edu (Sandra Loosemore) writes...
>chuahl@ocf.berkeley.edu (Chua HakLien) writes:
> 
>   After seeing "Unforgiven", a friend asked for some good western
>   ( pulp or non-pulp.. ) reccomendations. Can anyone help me out?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: non-fiction reading (was Re: _Dog Soldiers_ by R. Stone, a wild ride!)
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 18:31:19 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <1992Dec21.175019.5560@u.washington.edu> twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin) writes:
>
>ADAM'S TASK: CALLING ANIMALS BY NAME, Vicki Hearne.
>.  This book is her attempt to share her perception 
>of how humans and other animals communicate with each other,

	You might take a gander at _King Solomon's Ring_,
	by Konrad Z. Lorenz.

>--Barbara 

rms
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: John Sayles
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 21:15:14 GMT
Organization: The Inner Clique


Heather (HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu) writes:

> I've also decided to read some of Sayles' fiction, something I've 
> been postponing for a while.  I'm not sure why I've been
> postponing it.  Several times I've had a book of his in my hand, right
> on the verge of buying it, when I've changed my mind.  Perhaps it's
> because I read an excerpt from _Pride of the Bimbos_ once, and didn't
> like it; but then, it's unfair to judge based on an excerpt, and I
> loved Sayles' essay on Dick Stuart in _Cult Baseball Players_, so I
> know I like his writing.  I'm going to give _Pride of the Bimbos_
> another chance.  Has anyone read Sayles' other novels, and if so, which
> would they recommend?  How about his short stories?


The only Sayles that I have read is PRIDE OF THE BIMBOS, which I mentioned 
last week.  I thought it a very good book, funny and sad.  I think you will 
enjoy it.  Being a baseball fan and a sayles fan, you might also want to
read Asinov's EIGHT MEN OUT, and then rent the Sayles movie -- if you 
haven't already done so.


Mark



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: sfysh@epas.utoronto.ca (Stephanie Moskal Fysh)
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Organization: University of Toronto - EPAS
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 14:12:36 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.113349.5259@panix.com> mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>I fully support Heather's campaign to make r.a.b a friendlier place
>where one can post varied views without fear of reprisal.
>
>Where do we start?

Hear, hear!  Real "communities" don't flame "newbies" for disagreeing
with the views and practices of those already there.


-- 
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) |                            
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: pingleto@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Mike Pingleton)
Subject: A Lurker Speaks
Originator: pingleto@troon.ncsa.uiuc.edu
Organization: Nat'l Ctr for Supercomp App (NCSA) @ University of Illinois
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 20:31:32 GMT


Psuedo-Intellectual Twaddle.  Some people won't read it.  Others are afraid
to find their posts attacked by vicious swarms of it.  I choose to embrace
it.  I can find twaddle anywhere on the net, but only here can I find
P-IT in all glorious varieties.  The folks down here on the Circle Eight
Ranch throw the best electronic cocktail party anywhere on the 'bone.  

Yeah, you say, but what about the dick-waving fatheads?  Well, I run across
plenty of them in the real world, so why should it be any different here in
cybernull?  On Monday I wade through maybe four hundred messages, and if I
get something out of even a quarter of them, I won't complain.  I've been 
jacked in to this group for over a year, and it has never been dull, not even
when the Rio Rand threatens to burst it's banks and drown us in old hats.

To the faint-hearted and thin-skinned I say Post!  And to the Doggery, I say
God bless you, one and all.

Mike Pingleton
crypto-kabloona
From: jahb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JENNIFER A. HEISE)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age
Date: 29 Dec 92 17:27:26 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

Someone or other wrote:
>
>>Why is it somehow bad to borrow sacred or culturally important
>>visual or narrative artforms and good to borrow similar musical
>>artforms? Is George Harrison bad for sticking "hari krsna hari rama"
>>into the song "my sweet lord"?
>
>       A different situation:  Harrison was to some extent a believer; i.e.,
>he hadn't simply appropriated "hari krsna . . ." because he liked the
>sound of the words--like the Hare Krishnas themselves, he thought that
>chanting the words was a good thing to do.
>

Question: Are the author and singer(s) of the pop song "Kyrie Eleison"(Sp?)
committing cultural appropriation?  ("Kyrie Eleison"- greek for "Lord, have
mercy." Often used in that form in the Catholic Mass. Many people had no idea
of the significance of the phrase, notably my boyfriend, who insisted that the
lyric was "Carry a laser."  This sort of thing is a strain on relationships...)

-- 
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
From: lsmith@peca.cs.umn.edu (Lance "Squiddie" Smith)
Subject: Re: Shouting at robots
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 23:12:20 GMT

In <JMC.93Jan2141039@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:

>I hear my 7 year old son shouting "Stop! Stop!" at his robot.  You
>might consider shouting at a toy robot a singularly futile exercise.
>However, the robot, manufactured in China for a Japanese company and
>sold at Radio Shack, uses voice recognition technology licensed from an
>American company.

>It just isn't very obedient when shouted at.

Hmmm,

 Never shout at a robot
 Not even once or twice
 The robot will not notice
 and shouting isn't nice

----------------------------
  Lance "Cr2O3.2H2O" Smith | "He is an aristocrat and a peanut. Citizen 
    (lsmith@cs.umn.edu)    |  St Just says that is enough to warrant his 
    Reynard and Tybert's   |  death. I do not wish to argue with St Just."
        Biggest Fan        |             _Mr Peanut and the Reign of Terror_
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu (michael bruce mcdonald)
Subject: *Impromptu*
Reply-To: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 07:50:42 GMT

Francis, thanks for mentioning this film, which is one that I dearly 
love.  In fact, I highly recommend everything with Judy Davis in it
(*Passage to India*, *Kangaroo*, *Naked Lunch*, *Barton Fink*, *Husbands
and Wives*, and I'm sure there are more . . .).  Something there is about
Judy Davis that absolutely drives me wild, not so much with lust, but with
sheer desire for her presence . . . yet I remain a

happily married man,
michael mcdonald
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:23545 alt.fan.lemurs:272
From: jfurr@polaris.async.vt.edu (J. Furr)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.fan.lemurs
Subject: Re: lemurs in literature
Date: 31 Dec 92 10:59:41 GMT
Organization: Virginia Center for Lemur Fandom (subscribe to alt.fan.lemurs TODAY)

In article <1992Dec23.195049.12591@athena.mit.edu> kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan) writes:
>
>Lemurs in literature? Egad sir, a central and important contribution
>to literature: see, for example:
>
>*The literary outlaw and the lemurs: William S. Burroughs among the
>prosimians*  by Tom Patterson
>
>* Adventures of Cuddles and Chuckles* by Elsie Lewis Rawson.
>
>and lemurs wax philosophic in Sartre's *Le mur* 

The local university library has never heard of *Le mur*.  Can someone
type the entire contents of this work in and post it to the net?
From: libwca@emory.edu (Bill Anderson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Sjowall & Wahloo and other series
Date: 30 Dec 92 15:39:45 GMT
Organization: Emory University, Atlanta, GA
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3

joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields) writes:
: 
: 	I recently started rereading the Martin Beck books by
: Maj Sjowall and Per Whaloo.  They are ten books, a series of police
: procedurals set in Sweden.  Not only are they good mysteries (in the
: police procedural sub-genre of mysteries) they also chart the life of
: Martin beck as he goes through some major life changes.  There are two
: threads I'd like to propose: the first is does anyone know of other books
: that do this (ie: Janwillem Van der Wetering's police procedurals set in
: Amsterdam and perhaps Nicholas Freeling's books as well) and do it
: particularly well (I realize that Sayer's did it but I would like to avoid
: the obvious ones and look for series that aren't as well known) and how
: this adds or subtracts from the books as a whole.
: 
: The second thread would be a discussion of the Sjowall/Whaloo books
: themselves.
: 
: Anyone interested?
: 
: Wet fishes and stolen kisses, 
: 
: Joan         

Ed McBain's 87th Precinct books are a lot of fun.  He's been 
writing about the same handful of cops for, jeez, I guess over
thirty years now, and he's kept them as realistic as possible,
considering that they age at a rate of about 1 year for every
four.  There are several zillion of these books, and some of    
them are crap, and some of the early ones haven't dated well,
but on the whole I recommend them heartily.

Bill   
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Cc: minsky
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 06:49:15 GMT

In article <1992Dec24.012754.12446@netcom.com> dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:
>twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin):
...
>>Maybe we need a net anthropologist.  Or sociologist.  Or psychiatrist. 
>
>I volunteer for the latter:  I have a primary reference on Psychobabycraft.
>(The important thing is to get them when they're young enough.)  Umm...
>do you have teeth?

Maybe leave things as they are.  I just cancelled (with "u") my
subscription to this group:

 
********   9 unread articles in clari.local.massachusetts--read now?
[ynq]
  594 Lawrence blockades high-crime neighborhood
  595 Police hunt for rapist
  596 Weld calls for passage of recovery legislation
  597 Bulger amendment adopted in close vote
  598 Court reform proposal approved by Senate panel
  599 Massachusetts Zones
  600 Cab driver charged with assault and civil rights violations
  601 Bruins 5, Lightning 3
  602 Town police chief arrested on child sex charges
What next? [npq] u
 
Here's a (commercial, I think) service to provide us with news about
what's important in Massachusetts.  I live within a mile or so of at
least 5 great universities.  New genes discovered every week.  New and
unexpected mappings of n-spheres onto m-spheres.  New AI developments.
New theories about spontaneous creation of universes from vacuum
instabilities.  New proofs of things like thatt the solar system is chaotically
unstable appear every day around here.  Bruins 5, Lightning 3, indeed.
I'd rather read r.a.b just as it is, anytime.

(But I won't publish my Kill list unless you do first.)

 -- Words should be our servants, not our masters.
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homeschooling (was Re: Education and the Environment by Gregory A. Smith)
Date: 1 Jan 93 00:41:52 GMT
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences

In <1hvedcINNdg4@agate.berkeley.edu> spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope) writes:

>And what really bugs me is that the people who are killing
>public education by pulling their kids out of public
>schools have the audacity to blame the problem on 
>"liberal educators with their social agendas" and
>other imagined demons.

Your view that it is the parents who are pulling their children out of
public school who are causing problems with public education is
surprising.  Parents who don't want to rely on the public schools have
the choice of private schools, which are enormously expensive, or
homeschooling, which is enormously time-consuming.  Do you think
parents would be making those choices unless they thought they had
very good reasons?

The problem with public schools is not too little financial support --
from 1960 to 1980 constant-dollar expenditures per pupil doubled
(source: National Center for Educational Statistics, _Digest of
Educational Statistics: 1983-1984).  So it appears to be the way the
resources are being used that is at fault.  If that's right, the view
that professional educators may be among the ones creating the
problems may be less of a fantasy than you seem to think.
-- 
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Rem tene; verba sequentur."  (Cato)
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:23078 misc.books.technical:1815 alt.internet.services:2105 comp.org.eff.talk:7964
From: aegl@ossi.com (Tony Luck)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,misc.books.technical,alt.internet.services,comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: The Online BookStore Announcement: The Internet Companion
Date: 22 Dec 1992 15:37:49 -0800
Organization: Open Systems Solutions Inc.
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: nym.ossi.com

gt1293c@cad.gatech.edu (Scott Radeker) writes:
>Most likely, he wrote it as Senator Al Gore in August, but by the time the
>book went to print, he had won the election and it would no longer have been
>accurate to call him anything but VP.

Huh, I'm only a dumb foreigner, so maybe the subtleties of the American
political system are beyond me ... but isn't Danny still VP for a few
more days ... Al Gore won't be VP until he gets sworn in January '93.
(Not to mention that in many states there is no vote for VP, so Al didn't
actually "win the election" ... Bill did the winning thing, Al just comes
with the package).


-Tony Luck <aegl@ossi.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,misc.books.technical,alt.internet.services,comp.org.eff.talk
From: phoffman@orac.holonet.net (Paul E. Hoffman)
Subject: Re: The Online BookStore Announcement: The Internet Companion
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 19:56:19 GMT

jmacphai@cue.bc.ca (James MacPhail) writes:

>The best-seller part is no mystery. They just go out and buy their own book
>in sufficient quantity to hit the volume mark. (Then re-sell them, I guess?)

That's plain ridiculous. No publisher does that. The word "best-seller"
has no real meaning, so anyone can call any book that.
-- 
||  Why quote someone else?  ||
From: rachel@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us (Rachel M. Kadel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Stark Naked
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 21:57:23 EST
Organization: Princeton High School, Princeton, New Jersey

nichael@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer) writes:

> 
> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Our Buddy Francis) 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.
> 
> BTW as listeners know, C&C (who, as a point of trivia, actually _are_
> my real-life auto mechanics) have recently moved their center of
> operation to Harvard Sq.  A couple of floors up over the heart of the
> Square (across from the Out of Town News kiosk) can be seen the window
> of their studio, emblazoned --in gold letters-- with the name of that
> famous law firm:
>        
> 			   =============
> 			   |           |
> 			   |   DEWEY   |
> 			   |  CHEATEM  |
> 			   |  & HOWELL |
> 			   |           |
> 			   |-----------|
> 			   |           |
> 			   |           |
> 			   |           |
> 			   |           |
> 			   |           |
> 			   =============

Are you sure it's not Dewey Cheatham & Howe?  Makes more sense that way.
But I haven't seen the sign.

                              Apologies,
                                         Rachel Meredith Kadel

There's an infinite number of monkeys at the door wanting to show us the 
script to Hamlet they've worked out...The school won't even LISTEN to me 
, much less let me speak for it...rachel@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us
From: twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Date: 1 Jan 1993 21:50:05 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: milton.u.washington.edu

In article <1992Dec31.191350.2498@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:
>In article <1992Dec31.183207.25805@crd.ge.com> meltsner@crd.ge.com
>writes:
>> [test deleted] 
>> [Janice's note: I scored 17. Can anyone beat me?]
>
>I scored 19.  (The reprimand was in school though, not work.)
>
Twenty-two.  <splat> 

Just last week I triumphantly carried a copy of Daniel Dennett's 
_Consciousness Explained_ downstairs to put on the shelves, only 
to find the copy I bought a few days earlier on the table. 

I must really want to read that book.

--Barbara 

"When your mother says 'I'm going to clean house,' all the little 
hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  She means she's going to 
roll up the carpets, paint the living room, defrost the refrigerator, 
and reline all the shelves.  When *I* say 'I'm going to clean house,' 
I mean I'm going to pick the books up off the floor." --my aunt
From: loosemore-sandra@cs.yale.edu (Sandra Loosemore)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: 92 in rabreview
Date: 30 Dec 1992 09:21:52 -0500
Organization: staff hacker @ Yale Haskell project
NNTP-Posting-Host: functor.systemsz.cs.yale.edu
In-reply-to: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu's message of Wed, 30 Dec 1992 03:12:31 GMT

kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan) writes:

		   Jan Yarnot writes:

		   I've had an eventful r.a.b. year.  I read some 220
		   books     	[....]

   Whoa, hold on just a minute. 220? That's incredible, I am in awe.

Yes, that's a lot of books, but not beyond the bounds of credibility.
I think my own total for this year is around 130 or 140, but I've been
reading a higher proportion of history and other nonfiction and less
lightweight genre stuff than I've done in past years when my total
has also topped 200.  

(If you're the sort of person who can check out half a dozen mysteries
from the library and read them all in a single weekend, or who tries
to set aside an hour or two for reading every evening, all those
books can add up pretty quickly.)

-Sandra
From: srubio@garnet.berkeley.edu (Steven Rubio)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: 92 in rabreview
Date: 31 Dec 1992 03:51:41 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu
Summary: Graphic Novels (i.e. comic books) Do Count

(Hi Annie!)

I teach first-and-second year composition at Cal.  My reading lists tend
to the "easy" ... for next semester, as an example, we will be reading
_Rubyfruit Jungle_, _Bless Me, Ultima_, _Slaves of New York_, and
_Generation X_ while watching the movies _Boyz in the Hood_ and _Sid and
Nancy_.

One semester I taught the comic book (I don't like fancy-schmancy titles
like "graphic novels") _Batman: The Dark Knight Returns_ to a first-year
class.  We also read the aforementioned _Rubyfruit_, Frederick Douglass'
autobiography, and material on Elvis Presley and Madonna, while watching
the first Tim Burton _Batman_ movie and _Madonna: Truth or Dare_.  Without
exception my students found _Dark Knight_ to be the hardest text of the
semester.  Granted, the competition wasn't necessarily stiff, but if one
requirement of taking a book "seriously" is that it can't be too "easy"
than I agree with Annie that many (most?) "graphic novels" are indeed
dense and difficult.  Me, I like easy and admit I was surprised at how
much "work" my students had to put into the comic.

Steven
From: rickk@emu.com (Rick Kleffel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Search for Whittemore's Jerusalem Poker and Jericho Mosaic
Date: 27 Dec 92 18:07:11 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.book
Organization: E-Mu Systems

I'm looking for the following books by Edward Whittemore:

Jerusalem Poker
Jericho Mosaic

I'd prefer hardcovers, but will take either PB or HC.

I'm looking for the hardcover editions of:

Quin's Shanghai Circus
Sinai Tapestry

The publisher was (I think Holt Rhineheart) and now they're something
else who publish only non-fiction.  Teh fictional titles were sold to
Henry Holt, and they haven't got them either.  Any help in finding these
books would be greatly appreciated.  Please email me, unless it's pertinent
to the group.  

Thanks,

Rick Kleffel 
-- 
Rick Kleffel*System Administrator*E-Mu Systems, Scotts Valley, Ca*rickk@emu.com*
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books