HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: Re: Self-knowledge of bookstore workers
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 19:16:23 GMT

Keith Morgan writes:
> ... I was reminded of Fiona's thread suggestion of appalling
>ignorance on the part of bookstore people. Was
>it Francis who amended the idea to amazing knowledge?

Yes, it was Francis, and a welcome wintertime thought it was,
too.  "Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty,"
I heard yesterday.  It inspired me to buy extra copies of the
Maurice Sendaks I was getting for my nephew, and drop them off at
a hostel for HIV-infected kids.  (I mention this because if you're
still divided about what act of charity to perform this holiday,
giving books is personally satisfying on the snob-appeal level. (-:)

Anyhoo...I can easily see how, in the recent bout of r.a.b. blustering
and flustering (which oddly corresponded with all those killer storms
blasting about this continent), my proposed thread got misunder-
stood, Keith, so no big deal...but...I'm still intrigued by the
whole notion of patterns of ignorance that are "curious" (that
was my word--not "appalling").  Maybe we can do that thread some
other time--I'm sure everyone has packages to mail and other things
to do of more pressing importance.  Nonetheless, what struck
me about the bookstore owner I mentioned--and we needn't restrict
this line of thought to bookstore owners/factoti either--was the
way her areas of ignorance were so widely scattered across the
map.  My impression is, most educated people have large identifia-
ble areas of ignorance--e.g., one of mine is the history of politics,
wars, and potentates--in which the separate items of ignorance
cluster together.  No one should be surprised to find, for example,
that I don't know what country Ruler X belongs to, what dates corres-
pond to the birth of parliamentary democracies, and so on.  Even if I
didn't know who Henry the VIIIth was, you might be astonished, but
it would still fit in with the general scheme.  But what of those
interesting, curious, perhaps even admirable, souls whose patterns
of ignorance are more like small isolated spots here and there, rather
than one all-encompassing blob?  That's what intrigued me about the
women who knew of neither "Hellraiser," nor Katherine Anne Porter,
nor Joe McGinnis' _Fatal_Vision_.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming...

							--Fiona
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu (Mary Loveless)
Subject: Re: A modest proposal (was: Git)
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 00:43:08 GMT

In article <9212161632.AA12675@cfdev1.shearson.com> mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>
>
>hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu (Heather) writes:
> 
>> "Knickers in an uproar": what a splendid phrase!!  Even though we Yanks
>> would use the word "panties"...
> 
>I've always heard it as "Don't get your panties in a bunch."
> 
>Mark

------------------------------------------------------------------------------>
And I've seen "Don't get your knickers in a knot."  Probably *not* in E.F.
Benson's Lucia novels.  Perhaps in _Mansfield Park_? ;)

Mary Loveless

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: The Lay of the Li'l Minstrel
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 19:04:59 GMT

The Dec. 7th New Yorker has the peerless Roger Angell's survey of
baseball's past, present, and future. In the article he notes the
"affectless condition of dissociation or pixillation that steals over
me after two or three innings of [Phil Rizzuto's] logic and
loquations, as injected via WPIX." But Roger has discovered that there
is nothing wrong with him, or with his "Phil-receptors", or with the
Scooter. "What's been coming out of the booth all these years has been
poetry - an explanation that has not dawned on me until I recently
read some transcripts of his game-work set down into its natural
vers-libre lines and stanzas." 

	... from a May 5, 1987, game against the White Sox, as Joe
Niekro pitched to Carlton Fisk in the second inning, with no outs and
the bases empty:

			THE BRIDGE

	
	Two balls and a strike.
	You know what they had on TV today, White?
	"Bridge on the River Kwai."
	Everbody should have gotten an Academy Award for that movie.
	I don't know how many times I've seen it.
	About forty times.
	Alec Guinness!
	William Holden!
	Three and one on the count.
	I just heard somebody whistle
	You know that song?
	That's what they whistle.
	Nobody out.
	And he pops it up.

From the forthcoming *O Holy Cow! The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto*
ed. Hart Seely and Tom Peyer.

Keith
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Morgan		 	|A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu  	|		Jonathan Swift
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Subject: Re: Call For Discussion: rec.arts.books.reviewed
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 13:34:45 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.233839.27168@golem.waterloo.on.ca> davidf@golem.waterloo.on.ca (David J. Fiander) writes:
> According to ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper):
> >
> >I used to post more reviews here.  Now that they go to
> >rec.arts.sf.reviews, a moderated group,
> 
>                                                       as one of
> the people that enjoyed your reviews (thank you very much for
> reviewing _Tales of the Wandering Jew_) and wondering where
> they went, I am glad to find out.

I should also note that the rec.arts.books FAQ does mention
rec.arts.sf.reviews as a place to find book reviews.

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908 957 2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
--
"God does not play dice with the universe."  --Albert Einstein
"Albert, stop telling God what to do."  --Niels Bohr
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: Re: Out of the pigeonhole (was: Poe's other stuff)
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 13:52:12 GMT

Gary Stonum writes:
>>.....(thinking about the counterfactuals:  Henry James's
>>lost science-fiction novel, Toni Morrison's unproduced
>>musical-comedy, Harry Crews's treatise on properly enjoying
>>fine wines . . . .)

I just posted a breezy review of Harry Crews' _Body_, and while
agreeing with the thrust of Roger Squires' somewhat disparaging
comment about this novel, I'm curious to know about Crews' other
stuff.  (_Body_'s principal interest was in the subject matter,
but it was a yummy hors d'oeuvre before an evening of more sub-
stantive reading.)  'Care to recommend, or anti-recommend, any?

							--Fiona
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis)
Subject: Re: decline in SAT scores very little genetic
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 14:49:11 GMT
Organization: Austerlitz, Gershovitz, and Carmichael

kasprj@rpi.edu writes:
>Jeff Davis writes:
>
> [several suggestions, ranging from the common-sense reasonable to
>  the well-intentioned unfeasible]
> 
> This one, however, strikes me as particularly out-of-touch.
>
>|> 6) Don't track younger kids. Let the smart ones go off in
>|>    a corner to help the slower ones. Knowing a subject well
>|>    enough to teach it to a peer increases mastery waaaay
>|>    beyond the usual level needed to pass a test, so putting a 
>|>    smart kid in with a slower one doesn't have to hold back the
>|>    smarter one.
> 
> I think that whoever came up with this one never spent any time in an
>actual primary school classroom. The smart kids will not go off in a 
>corner to help the slower ones on their own - the smart kids will go
>off in one corner and learn at their pace, while the slow ones will go
>off in a different corner and do something else. Both will wind up 
>ignoring the regular curriculum, for reasons of their own. 

No. Where this has been tried, it has had fine success. The old
one-room-schoolhouse model. And, truth be told, me. I was not as
sharp in math as some, and as a wispy lunged little geek was often
out of school with pneumonias and psitticoses and such. My 5th grade teacher 
pulled aside one of the brainier lads and told him to teach me fractions. 
And, voila...  

You are right, though, that these actions can't be voluntary and the
teacher has to use discretion about whom she chooses, but modified forms
of this -- study groups, where the grades are dependent upon the
success of all, are already in place in some class rooms and
doing fine. 

But as Jack "The Just Judge" Campin has suggested -- these non-book
discussions have been getting out of hand. If anyone wants to 
discuss this w/ me, I'll be glad to manage it via e-mail.

-- 
Jeff Davis <davis@keats.ca.uky.edu> Don't be a stranger.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: It fills us. We arrange it. It decays.
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 12 Dec 92 20:47:42

Fiona includes:

Action is consolatory.  It is the enemy of thought and
     the friend of flattering illusions.  Only in the conduct
     of our action can we find the sense of mastery over the
     Fates.
                                   --Joseph Conrad, _Nostromo_

     Action...is a blind thing, dependent on external influences,
     and moved by an impulse of whose nature it is unconscious.
     It is a thing incomplete in its essence, because limited
     by accident, and ignorant of its direction, being always
     at variance with its aim.  Its basis is the lack of imagi-
     nation.  It is the last resource of those who know not how
     to dream.
     
At first I asked whether what Wilde said about action could have
been triggered by Conrad's statement, but then I bestirred myself
and looked them up in the Britannica.  Conrad's _Nostromo_ was
published in 1904 after Wilde's death in 1900.  Actually, the
reverse question is more interesting.  Did Conrad express opinion
about Wilde's ideas or about Wilde as a person?
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: ogil@quads.uchicago.edu (Brian W. Ogilvie)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Good bookstore (for a change)
Date: 19 Dec 92 04:18:24 GMT
Reply-To: ogil@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Morris Fishbein Center for the History of Science and Medicine

In article <BzCxM8.C56@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk> jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:

>There *must* be real (i.e. non-chain) bookshops in Chicago, surely?

Dozens. My favorite is the Seminary Cooperative Bookstore, near the
University of Chicago, which is one of the best academic bookstores in
the world. Over a hundred thousand titles in stock. Better than
Heffers (and I lived across the street from them for a year). The
Seminary's 57th Street Books arm stocks about 50,000 non-academic
titles.

Also near the University of Chicago are Powell's, O'Gara and Wilson's
(Chicago's oldest bookstore), Louis Kiernan Books, and Ex Libris
Theological Books, all used bookstores.

The days when I had time for a leisurely Saturday browsing the North
Side used bookstores are gone, alas, but there are a number of
excellent new and used bookstores up there. Chicago also has a good
number of specialty bookshops--cookbooks (and one which specializes in
Asian cookbooks, I think), travel books, art books, occult books, &c.

Waterstone's was rather pathetic for a place with so much shelf space.
The new Barnes & Noble superstore was also rather disappointing; I
visited over a month after it opened and they hadn't reordered any of
the history stock they had sold in that period. The Border's branch in
Oak Brook isn't bad, though.
-- 
Brian W. Ogilvie           DISCLAIMER: You think I have time to
b-ogilvie@uchicago.edu       think about everything I post?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: excellent reading!
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 22:22:20 GMT

In article <11DEC92.12080999@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>Why Tom, you're so cute when you're mad!

>Sorry to get you in such an agitated state, but really, if you're not prepared
>to have people react to your statements, kindly keep them to yourself.  

	Fuck off and die, Heather.


-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		"The Reptoids eat humans like we eat chickens."
				Alex Alexander
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: The Devil's Dream
Date: 16 Dec 1992 13:39:47 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


I know, I know. All you literarios will scoff but this novel by
Lee Smith is quite an accomplishment. It takes off from the 
roots of what is now country music by following several families
who parallel the actual development of this genre of music.
(I.e. medicine shows, the Jimmy Rogers Bristol Tennessee 
recordings, the Carter family (& I don't mean Jimmy, Roslyn &
Amy), etc.).
  I've been out of academia for a good long while so  I won't
make any references to deconstruction or Edmund Hussrl. So there.
-- 
Ted....
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: It fills us. We arrange it. It decays.
Date: 14 Dec 1992 19:04:05 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Fiona's thread (usw.)
 Jim K opines:
 With attitudes like this being taught to our future psychotherapists,
I can easily see the whole society going insane.

I thought the society already was insane.......so what's new?

(harrumph)
-- 
Ted....
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: gwr@hedonist-1.lanl.gov (Graham W. Redgrave)
Subject: Re: Git (was re: Et in Arcadia ego)
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 22:03:36 GMT

Anne Jessop flames me unfairly and out-of-context and then goes on:
|> 
|> Anyway, please forgive me if this is an unfair, out-of-context flame.  

You are forgiven.  What I was saying was that using foul language is 
often the result of verbal laziness, and the world would be a more boring
place if the only names for animals were built of words like fuck and shit.

|>                              But the quote by itself is amusing. 
|> Reminds me of true stories my boyfriend tells about growing up in the
|> South, where, when the concept of bilingual education started to
|> infiltrate, his redneck father said, "Dammit, if English was good enough
|> for Jesus, it's good enough for those [pick your favorite
|> non-native-English-speaking racial epithet of choice]."  
|> Think about it.

I did; and I posted my cogitations.  I was trying to make a point not
unrelated to the above sanctimony, but without the attitude.


Yers in grittin' and grinnin',


-- 
Graham Redgrave    |    --  I don't speak for the government, 
gwr@life.lanl.gov  |        but I wish the government would speak for me ...  --
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: stame@emunix.emich.edu (Stewart Tame)
Subject: Re: Esquimaux Nell
Organization: Eastern Michigan University
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 20:32:00 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.152313.25908@athena.cs.uga.edu> fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller) writes:
>ercn72@festival.ed.ac.uk (R.J.Hare) writes:
>
>>Kipling, of course wrote the much better known 'Eskimo Nell' first published
>>in 'Plain Tales from the Locker Room'.
>
>
>     Hope makes me ask for improbabilities.  Does the Ballad of Eskimo Nell
>actually exist?
>

Yup.  I have a copy I got from the net saved somewhere.  I've also seen
it (I think.  Been a while since I read the book) in a wonderful book
titled _The Erotic Muse_.  Alas, the author's name escapes me for the
moment . . . 

****************************************************************************
 I understand it's obligatory to mention Kibo somewhere in one's postings.
****************************************************************************
		Email:  stame@emunix.emich.edu
****************************************************************************
Disclaimer:  Not only do my opinions represent those of Eastern Michigan
University, but also those of Dan Quayle, Richard Nixon, Frank Zappa,
Pee-wee Herman, Bart Simpson, Tipper Gore, Murphy Brown, Maggie Thatcher,
and the Easter Bunny.
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Notice of address change
Date: 17 Dec 92 16:13:13 GMT
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway


I may be away from the net for a short time.
 
Tomorrow (Friday, December 18) will be my last day at Lehman Brothers.
I have accepted a job elsewhere, and will start at the beginning of
January.
 
Lehman is located right next door to where I live, and I often came
in on weekends or late at night to read r.a.b.  My new job is close
enough to walk, but far enough so that I won't go in on a whim
to catch up on the late breaking news.
 
Instead, I am setting up an account with PANIX (Public Access Network unIX),
so that I can get r.a.b in the comfort of my home.
 
 
My new account may or may not be set up today.  My new e-mail
address will be:
 
 
        mtaranto@panix.com
 
 
 
If mail to this address bounces, I can also get mail at:
 
        mtaranto@echo.panix.com
 
 
This account is set up now, but I would prefer not to get mail there.
When I get an e-mail address at my new job, I will post that address, too.
 
When I leave here, I will set up a .forward file, so I should still receive
mail until the account is dismantled.
 
I expect to be back before the holidays -- if not, I wish you all well.
 
Mark
 
 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.comedy.british,soc.culture.british,alt.fan.monty-python
From: streater@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Tim Streater)
Subject: Re: Git (was re: Et in Arcadia ego)
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 17:45:13 GMT

In article <1992Dec11.130826.15919@abekrd.co.uk> graeme@abekrd.co.uk (Graeme Griffiths) writes:
>
>Thank you for referring to my last post as "_very_ British". In a country
>that is rapidly becoming just another state in the union I do try and do
                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                             |
                                             |
                         Fuck that. >--------+

Tin.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kate@cactus.org (Katherine M. Catmull)
Subject: Re: Backhanded compliments and other things I get
Organization: Capital Area Central Texas UNIX Society, Austin, Tx
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 22:38:55 GMT

>spb0457@rigel.tamu.edu (SubGenius) writes:
> 
>> Which, belatedly, brings me to the point of my commentary, the crux of my
>> query--can anyone else think of, or has anyone else been the subject of
>> comparisons that could be interpreted as either praise or condemnation?
> 
> 

(from someone who has just seen me on stage) "Say, you should work in    
films!"

(my own brother, too)

Kate




-- 
- - - - - - - -
kate@cactus.org
Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Backhanded compliments and other things I get
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 15:39:02 GMT



spb0457@rigel.tamu.edu (SubGenius) writes:
 
> Which, belatedly, brings me to the point of my commentary, the crux of my
> query--can anyone else think of, or has anyone else been the subject of
> comparisons that could be interpreted as either praise or condemnation?
 
I've been called "nice."
 
Mark
 
 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Is a bimbo the modern name for hussy?
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 17 Dec 92 13:41:01

I should begin with a confession of having led a sheltered life.  I
have never heard one human refer to another as either a bimbo or
as a hussy.  Having just bought _Bimbos of the Death Sun_ and having
read a posting from one of the ladies of the group referring to
herself as a hussy, I wondered if the terms are equivalent, bimbo
being much more recent.

My literary experience suggests that the word hussy was used only
by women whereas bimbo is used by both sexes today.  Is this impression
correct?  Would the lady who referred to herself as a hussy, in
jest I assume, be equally inclined to refer to herself as a bimbo?
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:22423 alt.politics.homosexuality:7981
From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Making a virtue of complacency
Summary: consider the source ...
Date: 15 Dec 92 01:58:36 GMT
Organization: AT&T

In article <1992Dec14.193305.10410@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
>In article <JMC.92Dec14095813@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>>There is tolerance and there is tolerance.
>>     You ought certainly to forgive them as a christian, but
>>     never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to
>>     be mentioned in your hearing. - Pride and Prejudice

>Dear Jane was never faced with USENET, and a good thing, too. :-)

She was, however, setting up the sleaziest character of the book
for our judgment with these lines.  I *do* wonder what point Prof.
McCarthy thought to make with the quotation.  The Rev. Mr. Collins
shares a general moral virtue with Mikhail, but has little of the
latter's pretense to intellectualism.
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		   "Oh, stand, stand at the window,
					As the tears scald and start;
mls@panix.com			   You shall love your crooked neighbor
(please note address)			With your crooked heart."
From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Books on urban riots
Date: 19 Dec 92 16:38:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Dec19.113802.18698
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1992Dec18.234425.26757@netcom.com> 
tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:

>	I am looking for a history of urban riots worldwide, the more
>comprehensive in space and time the better.

As much as I would like to see a book like that myself, I would also
mistrust anything that treated an urban riot as a natural kind.
Consider the spectrum of "rioting" in recent French history:

(i)	The Paris Commune;
(ii)	The fall of monarchy in the February of 1848;
(iii)	The June insurrection of the same year;
(iv)	The student riots in May of 1968.

The last item seems impossible to classify as anything but a riot; yet
its political effects were not dissimilar from those of (ii), which
seems like so much more than one.  If one wishes to construe a riot as
spontaneous, unorganized, bereft of a viable political purpose, and
unsuccessful in its immediate aims, it would be hard not to regard (iii)
as one; yet such classification would surely be wrong, for reasons far
too numerous and obvious to mention.  By contrast, it would be similarly
impossible to view anyone who would classify the Paris Commune as an
extended riot, as anything but a raving right-wing loony.

To get more appreciation of this point, you might read the following
classic books:

(i)	The Jules Vall\`es trilogy;
(ii)	Flaubert's _L'Education sentimentale_ and Marx's journalism;
(iii)	Georges Duveau's _1848_ and anything by Maurice Agulhon;
(iv)	The Situationist publications.

Similar comparisons could be made with examples drawn from Russian
history.  In short, I would be inclined to question the motives of any
self-professed rioting expert.

>	Thanks,

Please summarize the email replies.

>-- 
>				Tom Maddox
>		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
>	"That's a bird bone, chair, Bob.  I don't know if I should sit there."
>				Tom Waits

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."