HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ah@dunaad.co.uk (Alan Hunter)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Title = "The Remains of Our Days", Author = ?
Date: 11 Nov 92 14:00:47 GMT
Organization: Johnson Hunter Limited

In article <matess.721321368@gsusgi1.gsu.edu> matess@gsusgi1.gsu.edu (Eliza Strickler) writes:
>There is a book that has been recommended to me with a title
>something like, "The Remains of Our Days". The author is Japenese.
>Does anyone know the author's name and the exact title of this book?

The 1989 Booker Prize Winner was "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo
Ishiguro published by faber and faber in the UK, a good recommendation.  I
always saw Denholm Elliot playing the lead In the film, but he's gone now:-(

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: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: A Literary Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 5 Nov 92 16:50:42

Gee, wouldn't it be exciting if everybody was like Mishima, ... .
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: Torturing Politicals
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 23:42:46 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <1992Nov11.101846.3221@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
>In article <WARKENT.92Nov9131714@ltisun14.epfl.ch> warkent@ltisun14.epfl.ch (Ken Warkentyne) writes:
>}
>}Other topics not suitable for humourous treatment:
>}
>}  Rape
>}  Incest

	Have you seen some of the cartoons in either Playboy or 
	Penthouse (I forget) concerning those hillbillies and
	their sexual antics?  Oh, well, probably not. :)

>}  Hitler
>
>"Springtime for Hitler and Germany/ Winter for Poland and France... Don't be
>stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi Party..."
>

	This discussion is interesting, as unless I am grossly
	misteakn, it appears to involve a disagreement between
	those who adhere to some absolutist position, and
	those who don't (I'm one of the latter).

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Columbus and the Egg?
Date: 10 Nov 92 20:13:28 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <179690001@hpcndm.CND.HP.COM>, neal@hpcndm.CND.HP.COM (Neal Bauer) writes:
# Last month my book group read _Frankenstein_.  Those of us who read the
# introduction were puzzled by this passage:
# 
# 	Every thing must have a beginning, to speak in Sanchean phrase;
# 	and that beginning must be linked to something that went before.
# 	The Hindoos give the world an elephant to support it, but they
# 	make the elephant stand upon a tortoise.  Invention, it must be
# 	humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but
# 	out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded:
# 	it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring
# 	into being the substance itself.  In all matters of discovery and
# 	invention, even of those that appertain to the imagination, we
# 	are continually reminded of the story of Columbus and his egg.
# 
# If this was a test of cultural literacy, we all flunked.  Can anybody out
# there enlighten us?  What is the story of Columbus and the egg?

Certainly apocryphal (because the roundness of the Earth was not in
dispute at the time), but to the effect that Columbus attempted
to use an egg as an example of the roundness of the Earth.
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!"  It goes on with Columbus' head, and a mallet
to flatten that out, too.
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Racism is "class struggle" applied to ethnicity.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: lew@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (lewis.h.mammel..jr)
Subject: Re: Cormac McCarthy
Organization: AT&T
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 04:01:00 GMT
Summary: rebated heat

In article <!z+q_cf@lynx.unm.edu>, rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires) writes:
> In article <1992Nov4.032908.20635@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
> >>Tom Maddox says:
> >>
> >> 	I've never caught McCarthy in an inarguably inappropriate word
> >>  choice.
> >>	 So, if you have caught him out, I'd be interested in seeing 
> >>  examples.  Without proof, I simply don't believe it.
> >>
> 
> Well, I'll stick my neck out and propose the following passage:
> 
> 	...Below them in the paling light smoldered the plains
> 	of San Agustin stretching away to the northeast,
> 	the earth floating off in a long curve silent under
> 	looms of smoke from the underground coal deposits burning there
> 	a thousand years.  The horses picked their way along the
> 	rim with care and the riders cast varied glances out upon that
> 	ancient and naked land.
> 	   In the days to come they would ride up through a
> 	country where the rocks would cook the flesh from your hand and
> 	where other than rock nothing was.  They rode in a narrow
> 	enfilade along a trail strewn with the dry round turds of
> 	goats and they rode with their faces averted from the rock
> 	wall and the bakeoven air which it rebated, the slant black
> 	shapes of the mounted men stenciled across the stone with a
> 	definition austere and implacable like shapes capable of
> 	violating their covenant with the flesh that authored them
> 	and continuing autonomous across the naked rock without
> 	reference to sun or man or god.
> 
> I'm bothered with his use of 'rebated' here.  He appears to mean
> 'reflected' or 'threw back,' but it just seems odd, since it is
> the rocks themselves which are emitting (not reflecting) heat, 
> though it is the hot air which is mentioned.  Anyway, no big 
> deal, it is a nice passage.

Well, the rocks absorbed the heat from the sun, then "rebated" it.
They aren't just reflecting it. Pretty good, really. You could quibble
that "rebate" has the sense of diminishing or muting, whereas the passage
emphasizes the intensity of the heat. Of course, compared to the temperature
of the solar surface from which the heat derives, it is diminished.

Homework problem: Calculate the equilibrium temperature of ...

	No.

> Roger Squires

Lew Mammel, Jr.
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Thanks for the Arthur Ransome Tip
Date: 10 Nov 1992 18:12:01 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Jeff Davis writes:

	Thanks for the discussion about Arthur Ransome's books. Kids'
	books which can draw my son into reading are few and far between.

But, alas, you must remember that it is a world that you may not be able 
to share directly with your son. It is of the essence of Ransome's novels
that the children live their own lives with only marginal contact with
their mothers and even less with their fathers. You will also have to be
prepared for the life-long love affair with water and sailing that these
books may engender in your boy. As I have mentioned before, these books 
are particularly appropriate for young women who will find in Nancy 
Blackett a most unusual hero. They are all available in paperback from 
Puffin Books, and I would order them all and encourage them to be read in 
the order they were published.

							Fido
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Tom Maddox, please keep your sig.
Date: 6 Nov 92 21:19:42 GMT
Organization: Clark University

It's OK, Tom, you can keep your sig., I think I can handle it.
It was just that after I'd seen the word "reptoids" too many times,
I lost control.  Like the woman in this Richard Brautigan short
story:

                       THE SCARLATTI TILT

"It's very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man
who's learning to play the violin."  That's what she told the police
when she handed them the empty revolver.

So feel free to post as often as you like, and even use the word
"reptoids" a lot, because I'm now on special medication.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
From: twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: GENIUS:Life/Science of Richard Feynman
Keywords: Freeman Dyson
Date: 12 Nov 92 16:46:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Nov12.164617.20019
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <28054@castle.ed.ac.uk> jeremy@castle.ed.ac.uk (JHenderson) writes:
>
>Incidentally, I found myself curious to learn more about Freeman Dyson. Any
>biographies about him?

Try his autobiography, _Disturbing the Universe_. 


--Barbara
From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Advice to the World Weary (was Re: The Eudaemonic Pie
Date: 5 Nov 92 19:37:09 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Joann Zimmerman writes:
      
      Marko Amnell writes:
           
            Sheila?  Is she sexy?  Have her e-mail me so I can give her
            directions: West of Moscow, East of Eden.
      
      Sexy? ... All we know is that she can drive a person to distraction,
      like any other stark raving saney. Maybe it's the "stark" part that
      supplies a clue?

Let me guess...  Stark *naked*?  As in nude, unclad, in the buff, bared, 
exposed, unveiled, divested, debagged, stripped, unclothed, undressed,
unattired, d'ecollet'ee, bare, topless, mother naked, in a state of undress,
with nothing on, without a stich, starkers and in her birthday suit?

-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Madonna's new book?
Date: 13 Nov 1992 03:12:51 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Alan Hunter writes:

	Someone from WV writes:

		Can someone send me info on Madonna's new book,
		I am very *curious* as to what it is about?

	Madonna's Anatomy Diagrams, Desultory Onanists' Newest Accessory

Phew! For a golden moment I read Diaphragms and Obanists. You, Alan, of
all people would know the one about the diaphragm under a small rock at
the top of the hill with a note attached "...and don't forget to put
it back -- it belongs to the Oban Olympians Cycling Club".

							Fido
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: sjk@netcom.com (Shel Kaphan)
Subject: Re: The Cairo Trilogy
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 02:02:47 GMT

crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:

	...
> He's rare in that he doesn't pass judgment on his characters; he
>just presents them in all their complexity and humanity and lets the
>reader like and dislike whom he will.  It's also rare to find a writer
>with such a profound understanding of a wide variety of personalities. 
	...
>  Really, really good stuff.

Yes, the character development was certainly one of the strong points.
I had the impression of one of those watercolor paintings where the image
is built up out of dozens of layers of almost transparent paint.  With
each scene you get just a little more detail about the characters' natures.

Of course there is also a lot more in these books: the depiction of
traditional Islamic family life especially under the stress of contact
with the modern west, and Egyptian politics between the wars, to name
a couple.  That would have been interesting even if not embedded in a
finely crafted novel.  As you said, really, really good stuff.

	--Shel
From: srubio@garnet.berkeley.edu (Steven Rubio)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: a posting about BOOKS (LONG but meaty)
Date: 6 Nov 1992 06:42:32 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu
Summary: Movie of "Sometimes a Great Notion"

There *was* a movie made of "Sometimes a Great Notion."  The title was
changed for television to "Never Give a Inch," which may explain why it's
hard to find.  It's available on video, as far as I know.

Not that you want to see it.  Paul Newman plays Hank (he also directed),
Henry Fonda plays the old man, Lee Remick is wasted as the wife, Michael
Sarazin is Lee, and best of all, Richard Jaeckel plays Joe Ben.  Not sure
this needs a spoiler warning, so I'll be subtle and just say that Jaeckel
and Newman have one terrific scene together in the water.

The movie is pretty dull.  The comicbook superhero stuff in the novel gets
translated (barely) into King Kong metaphors, if I remember correctly. 
It's a waste of time for the most part.  I've always thought it ironic
that Kesey to this day refuses to watch the movie version of "Cuckoo's
Nest."  He feels that the removal of the psychedelic fog stuff, and the
foregrounding of McMurphy over the Chief, bastardizes the original source,
but I think if Kesey ever saw the movie he'd realize that the great
dignity that Will Sampson brings to the Chief more than compensates for
any misgivings Kesey might have had.  Meanwhile, Kesey says nothing about
the perfectly pedestrian film of "Notion."

-- 
Steven who will be disappointed if the Sex Pistols do a reunion tour
From: proberts@informix.com (Paul Roberts)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: maddona's [sic] new book [sic]?
Date: 12 Nov 92 17:34:43 GMT
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

In article <9211120531.AA07635@cfdev1.shearson.com> mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>
>onda@ab.wvnet.edu (jason) writes:
> 
>>       can someone send me info on maddona's new book
>>       i am very *curious* as to what it is about?
>>       thanks in advance.
> 
>As with everything else that she does, and in spite of the books's title,
>Madonna's new book is about one thing: Madonna
> 
>Mark
> 
> 

But is there anything for a book about Madonna to actually be about?
Is she an actual person at all, or rather just a name and a picture
owned by a fabulous successful publicity machine?

Heard on the BBC this morning that Japan's cutesy-mega-star put out
a book a year ago, the book consists of picture of her posing naked
at famous tourist sites in Japan. So even the marketing ploys are
not original.
From: ah@dunaad.co.uk (Alan Hunter)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Et in Arcadia ego
Date: 12 Nov 92 10:24:05 GMT
Organization: Johnson Hunter Limited

In article <1992Nov11.215221.2973@black.ox.ac.uk> microsoc@black.ox.ac.uk
(Microsoc) writes: 

>Or
>are you interested in the details of the evolution of Britain's second
>oldest place of learning?

I hate to be disruptive, but I can not help sharing with you the heresy that
there is an outside possibility of the existence of places where people
learnt even before Oxon & Cambs came into existence. 

Having said that, I think the idea of rounding the buggers up so that we
can keep an eye on them was a major advancement for civilisation as we
know it.

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: joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields)
Subject: Re: The Truth according to Mickie Medved
Organization: UNC-CH School of Medicine
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 14:04:57 GMT

In article <1992Nov4.043722.15719@u.washington.edu> twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin) writes:

>Francis says: 

>>It is a commonplace that most parents in this culture follow convention 
>>and screen their children's reading. I am neither for nor against the 
>>practise but merely note it and ask the question, How would the generic 
>>child -- labelled Joan Shields -- grow up if her reading was not controlled
>>in any way?

>She might be me.

Then again, I might be you already.  But if I weren't I think that being
Barbara would be a very good thing, for a while.  In the meantime though,
who would be me?  I'd vote for Fiona or Rita or, perhaps "be" dangerously
and ask Infidel.

>But then... who would *I* be?  

Well, you could be me or you could cross genders and be Joe Green for a
while, that might be fun.  

>I don't want to be Mable, I do hope I don't have to be Mable and go live 
>in that stuffy little house and not have any lessons. 

No, you don't have to be Mable.  

Mabel clutched at her throat and collapsed on the table
Moaning and thrashing and clawing at the cable.
I pulled it tight round her sweet neck and cooed in her ear,
"Mable, my darling, you have nothing to fear."

>--Barbara (Mable?  Alice?) 

Yours in wet fishes,

Joan
:)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten)
Subject: Re: The Truth According to Mickie Medved
Summary: Torture
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 16:24:01 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.052908.29199@eff.org>, mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
> In article <1992Nov5.222809.10131@grebyn.com> fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:
> 
> >There are things that can't be laughed at?  Topics that contain no
> >raw material for humor?  Like what?
> 
> Torturing political prisoners to death. To name one thing.
> 

What about Woody Allen's Bananas where they use rock music to
wear down a prisoner, and consider "bringing out the Leroy Neiman
paintings" as the coup de grace?

marc colten

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields)
Subject: Re: Advice to the World Weary (was Re: The Eudaemonic Pie
Organization: UNC-CH School of Medicine
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 19:07:47 GMT


Being a kind of feminist (the most dangerous kind: I have a sense of
humor) I think I'm qualified to reply to this.

In article <1992Nov5.174644.8705@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:

>Brisk Confidence still best with woman copes:
>Pique her and soothe in turn -- soon Passion crowns thy hopes.
>	--Byron

Well, Byron was good at the start but I'm not sure how strong a finisher
he was.  The above will work but after a while the woman catches on and
the man may find himself getting piqued more than he'd like.

>Every man is to be had one way or another, and every woman
>almost any way.
>	--Lord Chesterfield

I think the truth is in the reverse, at least in my experience.

>Every maiden's weak and willin'
>When she meets the proper villian.
>	--Clarence Day

Nice guys finish last and, my heavens, does the finish last and last and
last!

>To win a woman in the first place one must please her, then undress her,
>and then somehow het her clothes back on.  Finally, so that she will
>allow you to leave her, you've got to annoy her.
>	--Jean Giraudoux

The whole of it is true - the first appreciated but the latter cheap and
easy.  Then again, is he sure he's actually annoying her or is she getting
rid of him in a sneaky subtle way?

>All really great lovers are articulate, and verbal seduction is the
>surest way to actual seduction.
>	--Marya Mannes

Good one!!!  YES!!!

>Women can always be caught; that's the first rule of the game.
>	--Ovid

In Ovid's case he probably had to use a net :).

>Venus yields to caresses, not to compulsion.
>	--Publilius Syrus

Another good one.

>Women sometimes forgive those who force an opportunity, never those
>who miss it.
>	--Talleyrand

Very true.

>Don't fear to pledge.  By winds the perjuries of love
>Are blown, null and void, across the land and farthest seas.
>	--Tibullus

A woman NEVER forgets what is said to her in the midst of passion.

>It is not enough to conquer; one must know how to seduce.
>	--Voltaire

I really like this one.  I've written it down in my little notebook and
will use it soon.

>Now, where is all my feminist hate mail?  I can't wait, flood that
>old mail-box, and we'll see what happens.  I stand guilty as charged,
>Ms. PC-police-person!

I think you may get more hate mail in regards to your assumtion that feminists 
are "Ms. PC-police-persona" than with the above quotes.

Yours in wet fishes,

Joan
From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Advice to the World Weary (was Re: The Eudaemonic Pie
Date: 6 Nov 92 11:32:28 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In <1992Nov5.232525.5557@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:

>[Taranto responds]: 
>>World weariness is nothing new.  Housman is full of it:

>	As are many self-important adolescents, those in the actual physical
>state and those emotionally arrested there.

Is this a trick question, Tom?  Which might I be?  What can I say, you
got me where I live.  How dare I ever post to the net again?  --after
this fixing in a formulated phrase, sprawling on a pin.  Why does 
every post to this group make me feel more and more like Klaus von B"ulow?
Now, where did I leave that insulin?

-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: A rose is a rose is a rose.
Date: 5 Nov 92 17:49:36 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman) wrote:
> jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:
>> Classical Ottoman Turkish poetry is *full* of rose quotes.  The conventions
>> of the genre made it difficult for a poet to avoid mentioning roses or
>> nightingales in nearly every work.  Read enough of them and you start to
>> get the claustrophobic sensation of the walls of the Sultan's palace
>> closing around you, the roses only camouflaging the iron bars.  The
>> classical Ottoman musical settings heighten this to the point of delirium.
> Which raises a few questions. Was it just classical Ottoman poetry, or
> did it derive from an earlier tradition, mostly Persian I think?

Yes, I think that's where the formalism came from; earlier Turkish poetry,
like Yunus Emre, doesn't have this obsessionally symbolic character, and
neither does stuff written under the Ottomans but outside the Persian-
influenced court culture, like Pir Sultan Abdal (who was more or less
Turkey's answer to William Blake).  Turkish has the advantage that "rose"
and "nightingale" rhyme - I'm not sure if they do in Persian.


> Also: how's about some references, both for the poetry and the music? 

The Penguin Book of Turkish Verse (ed. Nermin Menemencioglu and Fahir Iz,
1978) has some translations, as well as a good introduction.  I think Ocora
has recorded some of the music; I mainly know it from radio and TV
broadcasts in Turkey, and one unforgettable live performance.  It uses a
lot of very precise word-colouring, so make sure you get complete
translations with any recording; it won't make much sense if you can't
match the words to the music.

Ottoman classical music is very much a minority interest, even in Turkey.
Not quite as terminally ill as gagaku but not filling stadiums either.

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: sanjiva@ecrc.de (Sanjiva Prasad)
Subject: Prejudice (was Re: Florence King)
Reply-To: sanjiva@ecrc.de (Sanjiva Prasad)
Organization: European Computer-Industry Research Centre, Munich
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 19:26:32 GMT


John McCarthy wrote about Florence King's prejudices, their being
morally no better than other kinds of bigotry, and asked whether
readers concurred with her because she massaged their prejudices.

Professor McCarthy,

	Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
	With foreign quarrels?

Of course, all of us are prejudiced (and proud of it).  The importance is
whether we channel our prejudice to being discriminatory or discriminating.

Florence King's views?  They're a foreign quarrel to me.
--
Sanjiva Prasad,  Guest Magus				E-mail: sanjiva@ecrc.de
European Computer Industry Research Centre		Off: +49 89 92 69 91 58
Arabellastrasse 17					Fax: +49 89 92 69 91 70
8000 Muenchen 81, Germany				Res: +49 89 16 33 59