HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: RE: Celebrating McGonagall
Date: 3 Jan 93 03:25:32 GMT
Organization: Clark University

John McCarthy writes:

>Certain aspects of McGonagall's verse are bad, his meter, his rhymes 
>and his use of cliches.  I think there is something left that is 
>pretty good, but I can't put my finger on it.  

Sincerity.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dsy@psych.toronto.edu (Desiree Sy)
Subject: Re: Celebrating McGonagall
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 22:46:13 GMT

In article <9932npr@rpi.edu> kasprj@rpi.edu writes:
>In article <31DEC92.18501965@vax.clarku.edu>, hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>|> William McGonagall (1825-1902) was one of the
>|> lesser lights of Victorian poetry -- indeed, some would say, among
>|> the very dimmest lights -- a handloom weaver from Dundee who styled
>|> himself a Poet and Tragedian.  Those who have been exposed to his
>|> deathless verse can never quite forget it.
> 
> Many people have achieved immortality by the greatness of their literary
>works. McGonagall, however, made what I would consider an even more difficult
>distinction for himself: he achieved immortality through his works being 
>utterly, irredeemably, uniformly, relentlessly BAD. Any fool can write bad
>verse, but it takes a very special fool to write bad verse which will be 
>remembered for all time. 

Is this the man who wrote those series of (for lack of a better
word) verses on the beautiful bridge on the silvery Tey?  If so,
please *do* list any titles of his collected editions -- I'd love
to get my hands on a set.  This is some of the best bad poetry
I've ever heard (to give you some idea of how memorable his stuff
is, I last heard the beautiful bridge on the silvery Tey stuff
when I was 15).

-desiree
From: pnh@panix.com (Patrick Nielsen-Hayden)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Project B.F.D. (was: An apology)
Date: 21 Dec 92 18:19:37 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

I have to say, the more I read this discussion and others like it in
r.a.b., the more I like the evil elitists and their in-crowd scum friends,
and the less I care for the white knights crusading on behalf of the
downtrodden lurkers and newbies.

Admittedly, there's lots of self-actualization potential in the
shining-armor routine, particularly if you can hoke up a crusade on behalf
of a few never-too-clearly-specified victims.  Drama!  Adventure!  And
best of all, you don't actually have to be fun, witty or entertaining,
which is (after all) a lot of work.  Just clutch those grievances to your
bosom like a long-lost friend, and remember periodically to throw yourself
to the ground while crying "Foul!"  This way people can tell that you're
for Justice and Fair Play.

Signed, An Oppressed, Downtrodden Newbie

-- 
Patrick Nielsen Hayden      :     senior editor, Tor Books
pnh@panix.com : CIS 72701,1344 : GEnie PNH : opinions mine
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: bhanafee@picasso.ads.com (Brian Hanafee)
Subject: Re: Born in Bethlehem?
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mountain View, CA 94043, +1 (415)
	960-7300
	<1992Dec27.010245.15835@lunatix.uucp> <13736@optilink.COM>
	<1992Dec29.215249.16364@lunatix.uucp>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 01:31:29 GMT


In article <1992Dec29.215249.16364@lunatix.uucp> lmollett@lunatix.uucp (Laura Mollett) writes:
>she went into the stable and placed the child in a manager,
>and an ox and a donkey worshiped him.

One of the better typos I've seen this month.

--
Brian Hanafee                         Advanced Decision Systems
bhanafee@ads.com                      1500 Plymouth Street
(415) 960-7300                        Mountain View, CA 94043-1230
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,news.groups
From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: Re: Call For Discussion: rec.arts.books.reviewed
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 15:55:20 GMT

I'm not going to touch the *.chat business with a ten-foot pole,
but this stuff about how talk about words and ideas doesn't belong
in a *.books newsgroup is truly astonishing!  I find it hard to talk
about books without talking about words, and talk about words is
usually relevant to books.  I recall, for example, asking the group
what the word "cratylism" (which I'd run across in a Fredric Jameson
book) could possibly mean, and the thread went on to discuss an author's
name from which "cratylism" could have been derived, and to discuss
Jameson and others of his ilk.  Similarly, the recent discussion
of "goober" arose from its usage in a Robert McCammon novel.  So
we have our occasional frivolities about bimbos or Texan talk--what
of it?

As for saying that *ideas* don't belong here...good grief, how
absurd can you get!  Can you talk about ideas without referring
to books?  Can you talk about books without examining ideas?  A
more impossible split would be hard to imagine.

Books are not made out of ink and paper.  They're made out of words
and ideas.

					--a bit dismayed,

						Fiona
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: Good Westerns
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 92 20:23:24 GMT

Chua HakLien writes:
	After seeing "Unforgiven", a friend asked for some good western
	( pulp or non-pulp.. ) reccomendations. Can anyone help me out?




Several years ago, I enjoyed "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing".  I forget
the author's name.  It answered a question I had about why there are
almost no roads in the southwestern 1/6 of Wyoming.

Most trecherous country.



William Sburgfort Smith
Intel, SSD
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.news-media
From: afcondon@maths.tcd.ie (Andrew Condon)
Subject: Re: Morally good hypertext
Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 10:19:15 GMT

wagner@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu writes:
>The technology in question is the technology which produces apathy, the 
>technology which makes MTV more popular than CNN.  
			^^^		      ^^^
These are the choices?!?!?!?!
--
Andrew
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:22939 news.groups:24766
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,news.groups
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Date: 21 Dec 92 17:10:48 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Dec21.155016.19105@panix.com> mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto) writes:

>I'm doing what you asked:  I'm friendly to a newcomer, I wrote about books,
>I went so far as to invite him out for a beer.  And what happens?  You and
>Paul give me shit, both on the net and in e-mail.  What the hell is wrong 
>with the two of you?

>Due to the recent unpleasantness in this group, I am seriously considering 
>whether it is worth continuing my participation here.


Here's one vote that says stay.  

It's the holidays.  And the flu season.  The shortened daylight hours. 
Madonna's new book.  All in all, a dis-harmonic convergence that one must
simply ride out until better times.  

Besides, if you leave, who will refund my money for that Robertson Davies'
book?  

Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and a wonderful New Year to all.  I'm
going home to try to sleep off this bronchitis.


-- 
The trick of reason is to get the imagination to seize the actual world --
if only from time to time.     -- Annie Dillard, "An American Childhood"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Mangled song lyrics (was: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age)
Date: 30 Dec 1992 13:48:10 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

I like Ronnie Knox's aside to Harold Macmillan at the entre served to
them on a Friday night in Balliol hall:

	"Ah, the piece of cod that passeth all understanding."

							RABworm

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Merry Christmas
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 09:47:38 GMT

	. . . to all you r.a.b.ble,

	and God's mercy on us, every one. 


-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
	"That's a bird bone, chair, Bob.  I don't know if I should sit there."
				Tom Waits
From: jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: need: books on Henri Matisse (was Re: Great gift books for
     me!)
Date: 26 Dec 92 21:20:38 GMT
Organization: UT Art History
X-UserAgent: Nuntius v1.1



In article <1992Dec23.175726.17762@grebyn.com> Fiona Webster,
fi@grebyn.com writes:
>I'm gonna be makin' a trek up to NYC for the Matisse exhibit in
>early January, and I'd very much like to bone up before I go.
>So, I could use some help in my efforts to _chasser_les_fauves_,
>as it were :-)--that is, some recommendations for good books on
>the subject.  Given the source of the suggestion, the Elderfield
>sounds like a good start (could you say a bit more about it, Keith?).
>I'm especially interested in books with more words than pictures--
>those that emphasize art criticism and art history with a special
>focus on Matisse and his influences/followers.  I'd prefer things
>that are easy to find and also in paperback, but rare or expensive
>recommendations are also OK, 

Well, aren't you in luck; my old professor Jim Herbert, now at USC, has
just published a book on this very subject.  (Back to the nether regions
of the house to rummage through the to-be-recycled-stuff for the
Chronicle of Higher Education where I saw this announced.)
Here we are--James D. Herbert, _The Cultural Politics of Fauve Painting_,
Yale; 208 pp., $40, real late 1992. "Focuses on works by Andre Derain,
Henri Matisse and Maurice de Vlaminck in a study of political and
cultural themes in Fauvist art of early 20th-century France," says the
abstract.

I've obviously not had a chance to look at the thing, and I didn't get
very much on Matisse from my course with Herbert, which tried to stay
within the 19th century, but what I did get, combined with what I know of
Herbert's interests and approach, suggests that it will be a very
interesting book indeed, putting some of his dissertation work at Yale
into book form. If you liked T.J. Clark's _The Painting of Modern Life_,
you'll probably like Herbert.


"They like sitting around reading all the books there are. And then they
love 
arguing about them. Some of those arguments go on for millenium after 
millenium. It just seems to keep them young, for some reason, arguing
about 
books." -- Julian Barnes          

Joann Zimmerman (jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 22:31:05 GMT

meltsner@crd.ge.com:
>8. Are you unable to walk through a mall without stopping at a bookstore?

This isn't significant.  Why do you suppose I'm in the mall?

>22. When a stranger walks into your house or apartment, are his or her
>first words usually a comment about your books?

This is frequently a source of embarrassment to me -- on their behalf.
Most of my books are upstairs, so strangers who walk in just see three
relatively small bookcases.  So "Boy, you sure have a lot of books!"
from them means "I don't often see a house with over a hundred books".
How does one answer such a comment?

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

"One of my favorite games when I was a kid was 'murder/suicide.'
 Dad would show us a photo and ask us, "Is it a murder or a suicide?"
	  --  Colleen Doran
From: spb0457@rigel.tamu.edu (SubGenius)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: "Ex" Catholics (was Re: 92 in rabreview)
Date: 1 Jan 1993 16:09 CST
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rigel.tamu.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

> (Francis Muir) writes:
> >BTW, there are no ex-Catholics.
>Being one myself, I prefer the term "recovered Catholic."
>--Barry

+---------------------------------------SubG-----------------------------------+

	You don't have to excuse yourself to me--we're all liberals
	here.  I know many lapsed Catholics.  Some of my best friends
	are lapsed Catholics.
						--More or less what
						  Sir Lawrence Oliver
						  said to Michael Caine
						  in the film version of
						  the play _Sleuth_

Actually, with the exception of Jewish Atheists, I think you'll find that 
reformed Papists are, if one decideds to group it this way, the most
populous creed in the realm of wordsmiths.  That is assuming that you
don't allow them to fill in the `religion' blank of the application form with
`curmudgeon.'







Source of the
closing notwithstanding,
of course,
Yours etc.,





SubGenius
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: No Wise Man here (Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion)
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<1992Dec25.091537.28480@nevada.edu> <1992Dec25.173805.6739@spdcc.com>
Date: 25 Dec 92 11:53:57

Few are the occasions in which I find myself in any kind of agreement
with Steve Dyer.  However, I can't see the relevance of the fact that
Gertrude Stein was fat.  Also for the fact that she was lesbian
to be relevant requires some sort bridge to what she wrote.  Come to
think of it, I suppose an ingenious person might establish some kind
of connection between being fat and what she wrote, although I can't
think of what it might be.  Curiously, the fact that a writer was Jewish
is often considered relevant in terms of the writer's reaction to that
background.

(By the way I am assuming that the previous posters are correct about
all these facts.  My one attempt at reading Gertrude Stein was not
encouraging.)

Still calling someone a `(fat lazy ,X) is a sin of minor proportions.
I expect I have been called fat and lazy, though not to my face.  My
second wife sometimes referred to me as "my fat husband" - most often
when it was a question of climbing some mountain.

Anyway t'is the season of de-escalation of quarrels - if not of actual
peace.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,news.groups
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: RE: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Organization: Clark University
Date: 23 DEC 92 01:53:54 GMT

Michael Wise writes:

>These newbies have been very rude to 
>all concerned. Mark Taranto is a rare breed, a true gentleman, who 
>will often clear his posts with the potential offendees ahead of time. 
>I didn't feel he needed to apologize to Heather (After having her 
>flame me over Gertrude Stein, a pet peeve of mine, I don't care 
>much about Heather's feelings), but he did, and I have a great 
>deal of repect for him doing it. Heather, lacking any sense of 
>decorum or propriety, proceeds to blast him to hell without so much 
>as a 'Humph' at his apology. 
>...
>I don't understand where these people come off. They enter a room and 
>decide that because they don't like it there, so the rest of us just have 
>to stop whatever we were doing and pick up what they want to do. I know 
>what to do with guests like that. Throw them out. 

Excuse me, Michael, but ever since you posted your puerile and ignorant flame
of Gertrude Stein, I have had a low opinion of your intelligence, and an even
lower opinion of your sense of decorum or propriety.  Nothing in this post of
yours has changed my opinions.  If you want to discuss Stein and Hemingway in
an intelligent way, I'll accommodate you, mainly because it would be fun to
see you attempt to weasel out of acknowledging Stein's influence on
Hemingway.  But if you want to whine about the behavior of "guests" as though
rec.arts.books is a private party for you and your friends, you can ram your
inconsequential remarks up your ass.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
From: hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu (Mary Loveless)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age
Date: 24 Dec 92 16:55:32 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Dec24.165532.12640
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <1992Dec24.023537.11215@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>In <1992Dec23.192222.10975@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>
>>	In yuppie shops in Berkeley, you will find "primitive" artwork from
>>Central America, Armenia, and Asia, much of it straightforwardly part of the
>>religious practice of the people who made it (this includes paintings on 
>>leather, cement statuary, tapestries, various icons, etc.).
>
>>	The work is usually divorced entirely from its original context and
>>is in fact being offered for the esthetic pleasure of the urban dweller with
>>(often significant) disposable income.  
>
>The same thing is true of most of the things you see in museums, at
>least the objects made before modern times.  Does that bother you as
>well?
>-- 
>Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
>"Rem tene; verba sequentur."  (Cato)

Mary Loveless  hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All of my opinions are self-righteously my own and **certainly** have
nothing to do with the University of Washington.

"I wonder how I'd look in *Madonna's* underwear."  Zippy the Pinhead
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Michael Feld)
Subject: Re: Is the discussion over?  (Was Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split...)
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 21:34:03 GMT

Dunno; what with the popularity of deconstruction, there's little left
these days but meta-this-and-that.

Still, de Man being dead and all, maybe you have a point.  Let's
therefore not discuss it.
-- 
Michael Feld                  | E-mail: <feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Dept. of Philosophy           | FAX: (204) 261-0021
University of Manitoba        | Voice: (204) 474-9136
Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2M8, Canada
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: Wed, 23 Dec 92 01:21:38 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

> twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin) writes:
>>
>>	You might take a gander at _King Solomon's Ring_,
>>	by Konrad Z. Lorenz.
>
>...how animals and human beings communicate with each other. 
>...different hierarchies communicating among themselves. 
>Which is Lorenz's book about? 
>

	The former.  And no, I don't recall seeing any
	swastikas among the neat drawings, though I'm
	sure you can find them if you look hard enough.

	The premise of the book was that Lorenz had a
	reputation among his colleages for being able
	to raise and breed rare species that noone else
	had success with, and he tells us his secret...
	the book consists of amusing anecdotes about the
	different animals he raised and related to,
	mostly birds if I remember aright (the drawing of
	the Raven wielding a mean beak on his eyebrows
	springs to mind :) ).  Anyway, certainly not a
	technical book -- for the general reader.

	I recycled this one back to the library thrift
	shop where I got it from, so it didn't make too
	much of an impression on me, but it's certainly
	worth a flip-through at the library.  I'm a 
	sucker for books that have drawings randomly 
	scattered over the page, especially gooseprints
	(which reminds me, I *must* get to the bookstore
	and order a copy of Peterson's Field Guide to
	Animal Tracks, quite a *neat* book).

>
>--Barbara 

rms
From: haynes@cats.ucsc.edu (Jim Haynes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age
Date: 26 Dec 92 06:22:50 GMT
Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: hobbes.ucsc.edu


In article <1992Dec23.192222.10975@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>
>	In yuppie shops in Berkeley, you will find "primitive" artwork from
>Central America, Armenia, and Asia, much of it straightforwardly part of the
>religious practice of the people who made it (this includes paintings on 
>leather, cement statuary, tapestries, various icons, etc.).
>
>	The work is usually divorced entirely from its original context and
>is in fact being offered for the esthetic pleasure of the urban dweller with
>(often significant) disposable income.  

But how does that compare with museum shops selling reproductions of, say,
ancient Egyptian artifacts?

There is a shop here in Santa Cruz that sells imported stuff, including a
lot of Balinese carved wood animals.  I was amused the other day to see
they had a carving of a frog - riding on a skateboard!  So the U.S.
appropriates Balinese art appropriating Bart Simpson!  (I'll have to buy
that piece and send it to my anthropologist cousin.)
-- 
haynes@cats.ucsc.edu
haynes@cats.bitnet

"Ya can talk all ya wanna, but it's dif'rent than it was!"
"No it aint!  But ya gotta know the territory!"
        Meredith Willson: "The Music Man"
From: loosemore-sandra@cs.yale.edu (Sandra Loosemore)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Too generic?
Date: 25 Dec 1992 16:19:54 -0500
Organization: staff hacker @ Yale Haskell project
NNTP-Posting-Host: functor.systemsz.cs.yale.edu
In-reply-to: ac999239@umbc8.umbc.edu's message of Fri, 25 Dec 1992 20:58:06 GMT

ac999239@umbc8.umbc.edu (ac999239) writes:

   rec.arts.books.sci-fi
   rec.arts.books.mystery
   rec.arts.books.drama
   rec.arts.books.nonfiction
   rec.arts.books.misc

   I may have overlooked some ;)

Yes, while we're at it, how about:

rec.arts.books.austen
rec.arts.books.forster
rec.arts.books.rand
....
:-)

Or maybe this kind of division is more appropriate for the alt.fan
hierarchy.  Anybody for alt.fan.trollope?  :-)  

-Sandra

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Subject: Re: 92 in rabreview
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 20:15:17 GMT

Inspired by someone's posting last year of his 1991 reading list, I kept
a similar list for me for 1992, and so know that I read 136 books this year.
The breakdown would be:
	SF/fantasy:	60
	Sherlockiana:	 7
	Other Fiction:	26
	Plays:		 9
	Science:	 8
	Lit Crit:	 5
	History:	 9
	Other non-fic:	12

(I have the same excuse someone else had: it would have been more, but
I was writing also, in my case, over 100,000 words of reviews,
convention reports, and travelogues.)

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: pingleto@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Mike Pingleton)
Subject: re: Stark Naked
Originator: pingleto@pluto.ncsa.uiuc.edu
Organization: Nat'l Ctr for Supercomp App (NCSA) @ University of Illinois
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 18:46:18 GMT

I'm wondering if it mentions my favorite Shakespearian actress, 
Nora Lenderby.

craven kabloona