HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: elle@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Ellen Keyne Seebacher)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,misc.writing
Subject: Re: Natalie Goldberg & teaching writing
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:20:17 GMT
Reply-To: elle@midway.uchicago.edu
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

Tom Maddox is very amused by my statement that
>>[Natalie Goldberg] makes her living writing poems and doing readings, 
>
>Unless some alternate universe has Taken Over while I was away for the
>weekend, Natalie Goldberg makes a very good living selling copies of her
>books on writing and lecturing to people about the stuff in those books
>and running workshops according to the methods discussed in those books--

Granted that I overstated the case, especially since I didn't mention the
writing workshops.  On the other hand, she has been supporting herself for
fifteen or twenty years, and mostly from some form of writing, I gather;
_Writing Down the Bones_ didn't come out till what, 1986?

>Her poetry may or may not yield car fare; it sure as fuck doesn't earn
>her a living--just ask a few publishing poets about how that one works.

I certainly wouldn't attempt to support myself on poetry.  I wouldn't even
attempt to _publish_ poetry -- the only poets who seem to get any respect
these days are the "poetry slam" participants in cities like Chicago, and
that's a somewhat specialized audience.

>Yeah, well, that may or may not be true, but I'm still more inclined to
>listen to advice about writing from someone whose writing I have read 
>and admire ...

I enjoy a lot of Ray Bradbury's fiction and thought his book on writing
was a waste of paper.  Same goes for James Michener (whose how-I-edit-
manuscripts book currently on bookstore shelves demonstrates that style
has little to do with his reputation).

Someone mentioned John Gardner's works on writing, which they liked,
and novels, which they didn't.  Some of my favorite inspirational
works are by no-name authors (or by writers who've never impressed me
in the least).  I've saved misc.writing articles by James Alan Gardner, 
Bonita Kale, Crawford Kilian, Chuq von Rospach, and the inestimable
Tom Maddox, but it doesn't necessarily mean I care for their fiction.

Your Mileage, of course, May Vary.

--
Ellen Keyne Seebacher            elle@midway.uchicago.edu
  "I've discovered that I can't understand anything I write unless I flip the
   bits.  You may want to do the same." --Melinda Shore (shore@tc.cornell.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jeffy@netcom.com (Jeff Youngstrom)
Subject: Re: Edward Hamilton Bookseller
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Distribution: rec.arts.books
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 02:49:56 GMT

[lots of folks praising ERH, but quietly bemoaning the poor organization
of their catalogs]

I'm sure the folks at ERH could easily produce a lovely infinitely
categorized color glossy catalog with considered reviews of every book,
and a cross-referenced index, and do phone orders, and use fed-ex, and
open chain stores across the nation, but at what cost?

The books are cheap.
The service is excellent.

Don't fix what ain't broke.

I'm willing to wade through the catalog.  In fact, I enjoy it.  I've
found things in there that I had never even considered looking for.  If
you want categories, order books from Barnes & Noble, or go to B.
Daltons, or your friendly local bookseller.  (and pay for the
privilege)  I get catalogs from ERH every month or two, and I detect
very little overlap between catalogs.  We're talking THOUSANDS of books
per month here.  Do YOU want to go through and categorize all those
books?

That address again is:  :-)

Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller
Falls Village, CT  06031-5000

jeffy
--
Jeffrey Youngstrom                                        jeffy@netcom.com
Read it in the books in the crannies and the nooks there are books to read
From: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Enforced Shakespeare?
Date: 30 Sep 92 13:16:14 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:

>Poor Ms. Fysh seems to be taking a lot of heat for her statements.  Statements
>which I assumed were obviously a joke.
> 
>Given that she has an English Department address, I have just got to assume
>that she is joking, and is having quite a laugh at all of us for taking her
>seriously.  After all, what member of an English Department would SERIOUSLY
>consider banning Shakespeare until one was a senior in college.

     It isn't at all obvious that it's a joke.  Vast numbers of people in
the ed biz today are firmly in favor of banning anything that smacks of
education.
                                                 -- jf
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kate@cactus.org (Katherine M. Catmull)
Subject: Re: Subject: Re: Enforced Shakespeare? also Am Lit
Organization: Capital Area Central Texas UNIX Society, Austin, Tx
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 18:42:37 GMT


I'm afraid that even if schools were to follow Tom Moddox's
excellent advice--"give them something difficult and sexy and
disturbing and above all *worth their effort*"--many, many
teachers would still find a way to screw it up.

I thought I hated Robert Frost for years because he was taught
to me in high school as a "nature poet"--oh, his cute little
horse giving those dear little harness bells a shake! 
Valedictorians reading "Two roads diverged in a yellow
wood" as if it were some sort of uncompromising song of
individualism, etc. No hint of the the sly and ambiguous and
disturbing poet that Frost is.

Well, it took me years to recover. Who knows what they'd do to
Chaucer.

Kate
-- 
- - - - - - - -
kate@cactus.org
Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: literature students
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 92 22:56:36 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

barclay@RAIL9000.gatech.edu (Barclay Blanchard):
>...students spout formulae instead of thinking for themselves?...
>Does it take a certain level of experience and maturity for students to 
>begin thinking for themselves?

I think you're being overly harsh.  Yes, it does take a certain level of
experience to analyse a novel.  As the saying goes, experience is what
you're supposed to have coming out, not going in.  These formulae are
some of the tools that students are given along the way, and they
certainly do deserve praise and encouragement for when they start using
them, however clumsily.  What you call "thinking for themselves" is
the stage at which, through this experience, they've acquired enough
finesse to know when the formulae apply and when they do not.

-----
Dani Zweig
dani@netcom.com

   God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endless traine  -- Edmund Spenser
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 26 Sep 92 12:21:03

In article <jyc.717526696@Leland> jyc@leo.Stanford.EDU (Jon Corelis) writes:

      I was going to comment on this thread but then found the following
   paragraph in Rebecca Radner's review of Paglia's new book in the San
   Francisco Chronicle, which I think says it all:

	     Paglia's success demonstrates that anyone with a tiny
	     sense of timing, a willingness for her work to appear
	     in Playboy, a mouth bigger than her brain, a narcissistic
	     disorder, a passion for self-promotion and an atrophied
	     ethical sense can make it big in this country.  

This extract from Radner's review is aimed at rallying her, presumably
feminist, troops rather than at convincing the uncommitted.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: phredd@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Phredd Groves)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: WWII Novels?
Date: 29 Sep 92 23:08:27 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: Klordny   [if ya don't know, don't ask]

In article <75630002@hpcc01.corp.hp.com>, zornow@hpcc01.corp.hp.com
(Claudia Zornow) wrote:

> Can anyone recommend other novels set in or around WWII?
> 
> Thanks,
> Claudia


Two of my favorite novels were set in WWII:

Joeseph Heller's _Catch 22_
and Thomas Pynchon's _Gravity's Rainbow_

Both go their own way quite strongly beyond the setting of the war, but
they both remain consistant with traditional war prose, and twist or
stretch conventions.  Heller actually served in the war, Pynchon just did
LOTS of research.  

Oh, don't forget Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, loosely based around
his experiences while a p.o.w. in Dresden.

And for your WWI reading pleasure, I recommend Robert Graves'  _Goodbye to
All That_ and Remarque's _All Quiet on the Western Front_.

phredd@casbah.acns.nwu.edu

"I am the Rhinestones on the Jumpsuit of Justice!"
                   -Darkwing Duck
From: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Buchan (was: Re: RE: Poll: The Greatest Adventure Story Ever
Date: 25 Sep 92 00:22:24 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

jyc@leo.Stanford.EDU (Jon Corelis) writes:

>   Buchan was a fairly good espionage and adventure writer, but I think
>he also has a significance beyond his place in popular fiction.
>Richard Hanney, his main fictional protagonist, is an exceptionally
>clear incarnation of the popular ideology of British imperialism:  the
>stout fellow, with more character and pluck than cleverness, who
>administered the Empire according to the rules of dedication,
>sportsmanship, and loyalty which he learned on the public school
>cricket field.  This character, of course, is a stereotype -- the very
>phrases I've used to describe him are cliches -- but the very reason he
>is a stereotype is because he embodies what was the standard moral myth
of the Servant of Empire.

     When you get tired of Hannay you can rinse your mind out with a
jolt of Colonel Harry Flashman.

                                                 -- jf
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: Attractiveness (was: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia)
Organization: Clark University
Date: 3 OCT 92 15:05:22 GMT

This is not just a "male thing".  If I had to choose between two
equally qualified candidates, each with perfectly pleasant personalities,
and one of them looked like Mel Gibson and the other like Pete Rose,
I would choose the Mel lookalike.  Who wants to spend 8 hours a day
working with (and looking at) someone who looks like Pete Rose?

On the other hand, if the Mel lookalike were less qualified than
the Pete lookalike, or I had reason to believe that his personality
were such that I might find it difficult to work with him, and I
hired him anyway simply because he was cute, then I would be a fool.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: More Notes from the Decline
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 16:19:41 GMT


                            Thursday, the 1st of October, 1992

On the bus I ride about half of the time up to the university
and back, in a dissipation of attention away from anything
useful, I noticed yesterday, or, really, since I had noticed it before,
I scrutinized one of those cardboard advertisements they mount
on a backlit screen above the heads of passengers on both 
sides of the aisle. Half of these messages usually are public-service
announcements, keeping one dutifully oriented and acknowledged in
the Zeitgeist of all the violence against women and children and
elders and trees and whales, but this one was a harmless little
ad for Encore brand coffee-with-chicory.

The ad begins in big letters asking ``What is mellow?'' Then there's
some smaller text, interleaved with small pictures, offering, then
dismissing, some possible answers. First, it declares, a sailboat
is certainly mellow. But, that's no good unless you have a spare
$100,000. Then there's a picture of a couple sunning themselves on
a beach. But, that's only two weeks out of the year. Of course,
in the end there's a picture of a happy couple in a sunshiny sort of
day-room drinking coffee.

What startled me was, in the sequence of dismissed example mellows,
just before the picture of the spaced-out hippie, who was
deemed ``beyond mellow'', there was a rather busy photograph
I had not before looked closely at. Turned out it was a man, sitting in
a chair beside a fireplace, dog sleeping on the throw-rug at his feet.
He's reading a book. The caption goes ``And this is a little too
mellow even for us. You might want to check for a pulse now and then.'' 

Mind you, the photograph wasn't quite a depiction of the total of my
fantasied happiness. For one thing, his chair was just a stiff chair.
I'd want a recliner and I would be at about half-recline with my legs
out on the rest. I'd also want more books evident in cases on the walls. And
Martha'd be there, too, with a chair of her own. Still, I was
pretty irked.

When I got home, and described the ad for Martha, the first
thing she said was ``No wonder they can't convince
kids to read. It's as if reading were the once removed from death.''

               Mike Morris
         (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)
From: jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Golding's _The Spire_ query
Date: 1 Oct 92 15:28:39 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

In article <0b!p46=@lynx.unm.edu> rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires) writes:

>In article <1992Sep25.221110.43350@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> Ken Miner
writes:

>>Some time ago I read William Golding's _The Spire_.  I want to re-read
>>it but I've been told, or read somewhere, that to really grasp what
>>he's doing you need a knowledge of cathedral architecture.

>	I know zero about this work, but *cathedral architecture?*
>	Do you mean the medieval Notre Dame type of cathedral with
>	lacy light filled vaulted ceiling interiors and exo-skeletal
>	flying buttress exteriors?  In any case, I do recall a PBS
>	series on the building of a medieval cathedral, and there
>	was a companion volume; perhaps this would suit you.  I
>	believe the title is simply _Cathedral_.

David Macauley's book fills the bill. Lovely line drawings, all most
intricate. For some more scholarly stuff in paperback, you might try
Otto von Simson's _The Gothic Cathedral_. And for a rather provocative
thesis on the relationship between architecture and intellectual
history, circa 1200, try Erwin Panofsky's _Gothic Architecture and
Scholasticism_. 

>	And I must ask -- can you give me a two or more line
>	description of the novel?  My interest is piqued.

Second the motion.


-- 
"But there is a limit to human patience; and of research, as of other
carnal pleasures, there cometh satiety at the last." 
                                                  --Bernard Berenson
 ...!cs.utexas.edu!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu!jzimm   
From: bsmith@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM (Brian Smith)
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 22:33:36 GMT
Subject: Re: Poll:  The Greatest Adventure Story Ever Written.
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Loveland, CO
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books

In rec.arts.books, bl959@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Philip G. Terrie) writes:


    Any fans out there of *She* by H. Rider Haggard? It's an early example
    of the genre and established many of the conventions.

Absolutely! When I was a kid, I couldn't read enough of HRH.  "Nada
the Lilly" was my all-time favourite.  I read it again just recently
and I can still see why I thought that way 40 years ago.  

B.S!
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Talk Of The Town
Date: 6 Oct 92 13:19:31 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

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

>>     Who wears Rolex watches and drives Mercedes-Benz cars and carries
>>Lladro leather?  Hollywood producers, dermatologists, congressmen and 
>>successful mobsters, that's who.  The subset of this set which would 
>>vainly pretend to a class above its own is _The New Yorker_'s natural 
>>audience of suckers.
>
>
>Wow, imagine if successful mobsters read the New Yorker!  South Philly
>would never be the same.  "Yo, Antony!  Didja catch E.J. Kahn, Jr.'s profile
>of Richard Evans Schultes last week?  Dat guy did more dope than your
>bruddah Joey!"

     I was thinking more along the lines of successful mobsters like Neil
Bush....
                                                 -- jf
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: Native American Indian novels
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 21:11:23 GMT
Distribution: usa

I wrote:

	 Hobina, Alberta. 
	 ^^^^^^ 

Keith Morgan writes:

	Actually it's Hobbema. Near Wetaskiwin. North of Red Deer.
	North of Calgary. Away from the Owl's Nest. Another world. 


Keith is right, it is Hobbema.  Near Wetaskiwin, just South of Leduc.
South of Edmondton, without an Owl's Nest.  More's the pity.



William Sburgfort Smith
Intel, SSD
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: Virgo Intaglio (Was: 1$a)Re: Stormin' Norman 
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 18:46:42 GMT

I write:

	An interesting thread. Two. Who is the rightful heir to Nietzsche?
	To whom is CM the rightful heir?

I meant " To whom is CP [that is, Camille Paglio] the rightful heir?"

						Fido
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Subject: Re: Dashiell Hammett
Keywords: Red Harvest, "lunger" 
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 03:44:39 GMT

In article <Oct.2.20.50.48.1992.27706@gandalf.rutgers.edu> patricka@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Patrick Anderson) writes:
>
>In Red Harvest, the character Dan Rolff is referred to as a "lunger".
>What does this mean?


A "lunger" (as in "lungs") was a slang term referring to people 
in the terminal stages of tuberculosis.  Maybe Fiona, from her 
med.school days before she went into shrinkage, can address the 
history of the prevalence of the disease -- I get the feeling 
that the term stems from the 20s and 30s, when there was either 
an epidemic of t.b., or else the disease had been clearly identified 
so that it was a term of opprobrium and horror.  

Like AIDS today, tuberculosis was popularly believed to be highly 
contagious, and those who were sick with it were regarded as pariahs.
Subscriptions were taken up in small communities all over the nation
to rid themselves of these plague carriers.  The sick people were 
sent by train to tent camps in California and Arizona, where they were 
isolated on the outskirts of the closest towns, and there they were 
shunned, if not literally "left to die" like lepers in the Bible, 
at least left lonely, friendless, frightened, bereft.  


Katherine Mansfield was a lunger, and so was D.H. Lawrence, who 
wrote her a cheerful note when she was dying saying something like, 
"I hate you, you're loathesome and disgusting, and I hope you die 
soon."  

I always understood this to mean, "I hate and fear you for dying 
of the fatal disease I have myself, and you are my Shadow." 

John Keats would have been a "lunger" had the term existed while 
he lived.  Albert Camus was saved from a fate as a "lunger" only 
by virtue of a few years in his lifespan -- he was born after 
effective methods of treating t.b. were found. 


--Barbara


Oh, the reason the "lunger" camps were in California and Arizona 
was because it was believed that warm dry air was beneficial for 
those with t.b.
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Stormin' Norman (was: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia)
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:02:12 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <28SEP92.15231889@vax.clarku.edu>, hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
# Norman at cocktail party, approaches Gore Vidal.
# 
#         NORMAN:  You look like a dirty old Jew.
# 
#         VIDAL (startled): *YOU* look like a dirty old Jew.
# 
#         (Norman slugs Vidal.)
# 
# Now my point, which you completely missed because you were so eager
# to fling epithets about, is that this kind of idiotic, infantile
# behavior is acceptable from males.  Likewise, relentless egoism like
# Mailer's is acceptable, as a "male" trait.  Norman blunders around
# tootling his own horn and getting into drunken altercations (not to
# mention marrying several women and stabbing one of them), and the
# general opinion is, "Oh, that Norman!  What a wild man!" (affectionate
# pat on the head).

You must hang around the wrong people.  The sort of behavior that
you are describing wouldn't be considered "acceptable" by anyone
that I consider my friend.  Perhaps you spend too much time with
intellectuals and other members of the "culturale elit."

# Heather


-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Bush: War on Drugs, tax cut->bigger deficit.  Clinton: War on Drugs, spending
increase->bigger deficit.  What a great choice.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: Books Reach OUT!  (Was:  Re: Literature students)
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 16:26:58 GMT

In article <1992Sep30.203559.25812@newshost.lanl.gov> gwr@trna.lanl.gov (Graham W. Redgrave) writes:
>I am officially
>now a member of the Sante Fe Monthly Meeting.  Wild.  

	Perhaps so.  Also cryptic.  What is "the Santa Fe Monthly Meeting"?


-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		"The Reptoids eat humans like we eat chickens."
				Alex Alexander
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books