HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: brad@optilink.COM (Brad Yearwood)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Date: 3 Jan 93 06:42:44 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1hvt3fINN2os@FUNCTOR.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU>, loosemore-sandra@cs.yale.edu (Sandra Loosemore) writes:
> ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:
> 
>    Speaking of which, another test of biblioholism is: Do you spend more
>    time planning what books to take on a trip than what clothes?
> 
> Not to mention: do you have to think about what *not* to take with so
> you'll have enough room for all the books you'll be coming back with?
> Or, do you spend more time planning what bookstores you'll visit than
> on any other aspect of travel planning?  Or extend business trips by
> two or three days so you'll have time to visit all the local
> bookstores?
> 

Do/have you:

Been pulled aside for a search in a foreign airport, probably because the
large briefcase (full of books) is making you walk funny like maybe you're
carrying a chunk of plutonium or a couple of anti-tank rounds?  Guilty.

Or end up straining your arms and shoulders, and busting seams on your
carry-on bags by unexpectedly encountering a surprisingly good used
bookstore _inside_ an airport (Milwaukee)?  Guilty.

Arrive in a new city, find a specialty used bookstore in the phonebook, call
and ask about a specific title, and have them send it, without seeing either
the book or the store?  Guilty.

While travelling, go into a bookstore, find a bunch of stuff, take it to the
counter, pay for it, and leave with only a receipt, because you had them ship
the books home?  Guilty.

While travelling, buy too many used books, then stick a friend in that city
with the task of packing and shipping them?  Guilty.

Exercise elaborate strategies, like having a larger carry-on bag which on the
way out contains only your usual smaller bag, in case you need the larger
bag to haul books on the way back?  Guilty.

Keep books concurrently in more than one city?  Guilty.

Had a person comment "your place looks like the aftermath of an explosion in
a library, with laundry added"?  Guilty.

Buy $xxx worth of bookshelves, fill them, and find that the place still looks
like the aftermath of an explosion in a library, with laundry added.  Guilty.

Put your bookshelves on the lower floor of the unit, because you're stuck
between two seismically active faults, and are not very confident in the
design floor loading for the upper floor.  Guilty.

Books don't affect my life - books _are_ my life.

Brad Yearwood    brad@optilink.com   {uunet, pyramid}!optilink!brad
Petaluma, CA
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:23528 sci.environment:14124
From: cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.environment
Subject: Re: Education and the Environment by Gregory A. Smith
Summary: y
Date: 31 Dec 92 00:01:53 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <JMC.92Dec29191951@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
> Unable to convince enough adults, this propagandist wants children
> to be indoctrinated.  What he doesn't realize is that such attempts
> at indoctrination have always blown up in the next generation.
> --
> John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305

Alas, I wish that were always true.  But it's true often enough.
I took a class called "Media Ethics" this last semester, taught by the
Philosophy Dept.  The professor is a Marxist, and attempted to per-
suade the class that the First Amendment includes the right of the
government to regulate the contents of news broadcasts, control what
sort of advertising can be refused, and what sort must be refused,
etc. -- the entire liberal agenda, in brief.

Much to my surprise, my attempts to pin him to the wall with the
historical absurdity of his claims received considerable support
from other students, including the first occasion when I have
received applause while haranguing the teacher.  Fortunately, there
were enough self-described conservatives in the class who cherish
free speech -- unlike liberals.


-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
C++ is to C, as lung cancer is to lung.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.culture.ny-upstate,ny.general,capdist.misc
From: kasprj@jec310.its.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak)
Subject: Down From Troy
Followup-To: rec.arts.books,alt.culture.ny-upstate
Reply-To: kasprj@rpi.edu
Organization: The Big Wedge 
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 14:20:34 GMT


 Shortly after I made my lengthy post on alt.culture.ny-upstate about the
merits and drawbacks of Troy, I picked up a copy of the newly published
book _Down From Troy_ by Dr. Richard Selzer. He tells the story of Troy as
seen through the eyes of an adolescent boy in the 1930's, and while much
has changed in this lovely pile of bricks by the Hudson River since that 
time, much has also remained the same. 
 
  "To Troy, then. Troy! Where in October even the dogs in the street
   pause to admire the foliage. Troy! Unfurling down the hillsides like
   the grayish pink tongue of a spaniel to lap the waters of the Hudson
   River."
 
 Dr. Selzer's book, subtitled "A Doctor Comes of Age", mainly deals with
the experiences that shaped his life while growing up - what led him to
become a doctor, and later, an author. But in such a process, Troy is 
revealed as a character second in importance only to Dr. Selzer himself.
Selzer's Troy was a primarily Irish-Catholic industrial city, a railroad
junction and important stop on the route from Montreal to New York. My
Troy is a college town which tries to pretend it isn't one, inhabited 
by Euromix and African-Americans, no longer a very important stop on the
route to anywhere. Most of the churches and the factories are still there,
but neither gets much use any more. Still, Selzer saw the richness in his
Troy just as I do in mine. (He speaks of it more eloquently, though.)
 
 So if you can't bring yourself to visit my Troy, an evening's reading 
will let you visit Richard Selzer's. And some things remain constant 
through both. Oakwood Cemetery and the Gardner Earl Crematorium are as 
haunting and beautiful as ever. And Manory's is still there, and even 
occasionally used as a meeting place between skinny, bookish romantics 
and the beautiful girls whose hearts they will never win.
 
 (Disclaimer, for those weenies who need one: I have no connection with
Richard Selzer or his publishers, except as a satisfied reader.)
------------------------------------------------------------------
     __  Live from Capitaland, heart of the Empire State...
 ___/  | Jim Kasprzak, computer operator @ RPI, Troy, NY, USA
/____ *| Sam Adams,Spaten# Life is too short #Hudson Lager,Beck's 
     \_| Pilsener Urquell#to drink cheap beer#Pete's Wicked Ale
      ====  e-mail: kasprj@rpi.edu or kasprzak@mts.rpi.edu 


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: RE: retraction on education and environment and homeschooling
Organization: Clark University
Date: 1 JAN 93 02:56:53 GMT

s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu (michael bruce mcdonald) writes:

>Reading the various posts on this thread, I've come to cringe at some 
>of the remarks I made (you know, the ones that get quoted over and over 
>again!).  Frankly, I said some foolish and hasty things, and I apologize 
>for stating that the homeschoolers on this list are selfish, for their 
>posts prove quite the opposite 

I appreciate your gracious apology, though I am not a homeschooler, merely a
sympathizer.  Your apology shows respect for the views of your opponents,
which is a rare thing.

Thanks.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
From: scottj@magic.dml.georgetown.edu (John L. Scott)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Mangled song lyrics (was: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age)
Date: 30 Dec 92 13:14:51 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: J. Random Misconfigured Site
X-Posted-From: iamac-1.dml.georgetown.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <30DEC92.04552762@vax.clarku.edu>, hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
wrote:
> Hey, that ain't nuthin'.  Try these on for size (yes, I actually know people
> who have admitted to these):

Okay, I'll actually admit to this.  I spent most of my childhood under the
impression that the witch's name in the movie _The Wizard of Oz_ was
actually "Ding-Dong".  *blush*

To my credit, I never had the same problem with Hark, the herald angel.

John L. Scott
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Wits and Half-Wits (was: *Any* kind of r.a.b. split...)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 19:34:46 GMT

In article <24DEC92.17205268@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:

>Tom wrote:
>
>>    Teach your grandmother to suck eggs.  
>
>Was that -- Wilde?  No -- Parker?  


It should be obvious that Tom is alluding to Shakespeare's highly quotable
play "As You Like It," where Jacques says he can suck melancholy out of a
song as a weasel sucks eggs. Tom is using this allusion to call Dani a
weasel. He does this more directly in his response to Vince Gibboni:

"So might I request that you put some substance into your casual 
slander--i.e., that you put forth some evidence that I habitually chase
newcomers out of r.a.b. by drenching them in obscenities--or else you 
can recant and beg my pardon or show forth as the weasel I suspect you
are."

It should be noted that neither Dani nor Vince is a newcomer to r.a.b.



--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost
From: jwold@meltdown.chi.il.us (Jason Wold)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Date: 3 Jan 93 03:53:20 CST
Organization: The Meltdown - A Team Star BBS

Regarding Reading Lists, I personally liked the ones where we were given say,
twelve books and told to read six of them.  It provided a bit of a choice,
although it's true that you're really exploring the tastes of your professor
(or whoever gives the list) rather than your own.

I think the only problem with reading lists depends on how readily one accepts
authority.  I personally never really paid much attention, but gradually too a
more open minded approach and started giving the books in the curriculum a fair
shake.  Some of them were very good (read:possessed 'Literary Merit' which I
recognized), and the ones that were bad, I simply took as an excercise in
proving to my teachers how horrible their taste in literature was.  My grades
were not the best, but I got alot out of the ensuing dialog.  

The other benefit of a reading list is that it gives you a sample of just who
your Teacher is, and what type of literature he believes have merit.  I tend to
see all relationships, be they authoritarian or otherwise, as merely a personal
interaction.  Some people will throw the rules in your face, but what can you
do except comment on their obsession with power.   The point I've been trying
to make for the past couple paragraphs and haven't managed to fit in, is that a
reading list can, possibly, by some stroke of luck, introduce you to things
that enrich your life, that you may have never even heard of otherwise. Things
that you like, I mean, and didn't realize you liked them because you've limited
yourself to other channels of exploration.  

<I simply must learn to write more structured paragraphs on the fly..>
J. 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: staffan@ca.serum.kodak.com (Kenneth Staffan (x37507))
Subject: Is the discussion over?  (Was Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split...)
Organization: Clinical Products Division, Eastman Kodak Company
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 15:33:26 GMT

>>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.
>
>EXCUSE ME? 
>	 'these people'?  'guests'?  Who died and made you king?

This argument misses the point.  Nobody is saying that anybody has to
stop what they are doing (or at least, not everyone is saying that :-).
The gist of the original posts (before it deteriorated into yet another
spat) was to suggest possible ways to improve the organization of the
r.a.b so that all could benefit.  It's a high-volume newsgroup, and
people are just looking for ways to filter out what they do and don't
want to follow.  Not everybody has hours to weed through tons of messages.
Kill files are only of marginal use - subject lines continually change,
and the kill parsing itself takes time, which is one of the problems in
the first place.

Don't pay any attention to these tangential arguments.  Does anyone
else have constructive suggestions for organizing the group?

Ken
---
staffan@serum.kodak.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Subject: Re: 92 in rabreview
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 17:49:16 GMT

In article <1hpt8dINNiv5@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>BTW, there are no ex-Catholics.
>Its just that one gives up practising. Popery is more like bicycle-riding
>than piano-playing. Once learnt, never forgotten, and practise may make
>perfect, but perfection is best left to the perfectionists.

I had a delightful conversation a few years ago with an acquaintance
discussing the persistence of Catholicism in nominal ex-Catholics, using
myself as an example.  He remarked: "You've lost your faith, but not your
parochialism."  Bingo.

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
From: cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Born in Bethlehem?
Date: 29 Dec 92 00:42:47 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Dec27.010245.15835@lunatix.uucp>, lmollett@lunatix.uucp (Laura Mollett) writes:
> In article <1992Dec26.132402.7206@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
# #A. N. Wilson says in "Jesus: A Life" that it is extremely unlikely
# #that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  Even if one takes everything in
# #the Bible as literally true, the birth in a stable remains pure
# #myth.  It is not mentioned in any of the Gospels.
# 
# Some of the (fairly) early apocraphal works portray Jesus' birth as in a 
# cave.  This corresponds to some "pagan" belief myths and are quite interesting.

Buildings constructed in caves (natural or artificial) aren't unknown
in that part of the world.  Not necessarily contradictory.

# 				Laura Mollett 


-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
C++ is to C, as lung cancer is to lung.
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:23350 misc.books.technical:1832
From: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,misc.books.technical
Subject: bookstores on the net
Date: 28 Dec 1992 03:47:47 GMT
Organization: Msen, Inc. -- Ann Arbor, Michigan
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.msen.com
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

I am looking for some reasons to recommend that a local used book shop
get a connection to the net.  The obvious things that come to mind
are the on-line library catalogs, the sparkling conversation in 
rec.arts.books and the science fiction groups, the good sized 
collection of academic librarians on the net, and a general sense
that more literate people on the net is a good thing.  A couple of
FAQs on a floppy and some general guidelines as to where they might
start browsing is the plan of action.

The one obvious thing that I'd like to tell them is that there are already
a number of used and rare book shops on the net, and that they would 
have a very straightforward and already existing group of their peers
on line with which they could talk shop.  

Any hints, suggestions, recommendations etc. much welcomed.  I know of
a few technical book stores (Quantum, Cucumber) who take orders over the
net, but the idea is to try to locate something other than strictly
technical materials.

  Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, Msen Inc. emv@Msen.com
        Msen Inc., 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor MI  48103 +1 313 998 GLOB
From: dh0a@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (DONALD L. HARDY)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Bimbos I have known (Was re: is the bimbo...)
Date: 23 Dec 92 16:02:38 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

>hoosiers@carson.u.washingto n.edu (Mary Loveless) writes:
>>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305 says:
>>I'm beginning to get it.  Is a bimbo what a Valley girl become when
>>she drops out of high school?
>>>It seems that the use of bimbo to refer to males is not in popular
>>use.
>How true, as the Valley girl would say in the margin of her Harlequin
>Romance.  But couldn't Joseph Andrews or Candide be referred to as Bimbos,
>if such were accepted usage?

PG Wodehouse uses the term "bimbo" primarily to refer to men.  I fact, I
don't recall him ever using it about a woman.  It is generally an older
fellow, given to pottering about in a cheerful and absent minded fashion.

D.
-- 

******************************************************************************

Donald L. Hardy                                    Office of Physical Planning
Project Planner                                    Lehigh University
dh0a@lehigh.edu                                    (215) 758 5110
From: byron@wet.COM (Byron C. Go)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Use of "mot" in Roddy Doyle books
Date: 23 Dec 92 11:42:52 GMT
Organization: The Delirium Fan Club


Okay, I've read _The Van_ and am currently working on _The Snapper_.  (Yes,
I know I'm going in reverse order here.)  What I want to know is, well,
just what *is* a mot, anyway?  I take it (from context), that it may mean
SO, girlfriend, or just plain gal.  Could someone who knows the word and
its connotation or etymology tell me?

thanks,

     byron  (:

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Morally good hypertext
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.92Dec23001836@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
	<Bzptus.AKy@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca>
Date: 23 Dec 92 09:30:10

I agree with Mike Morris's identification of the propositions on
which he and I disagree.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: saleem@facl.lan.mcgill.ca (Saleem Ahamed)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Wanted: Enderby!
Date: 23 Dec 92 17:47:52 GMT
Followup-To: poster
Organization: McGill University

I am looking for a copy of "The Clockwork Testament, or Enderby's End" by
Anthony Burgess, which is currently out of print in N.A..  If you have a
copy that you would like to part with, please give me a shout.  By the way,
I am also interested in any other "Enderby" titles.  Thanks!

Cheers, 

Saleem
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: A holiday reading
Date: 25 Dec 1992 17:16:59 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Mark Taranto writes:

	There is more than one man who changed this world, and who's 
	birthday is celebrated on December 25.  I just spent some time 
	reading selections from the work of Isaac Newton, who was born 
	350 years ago, today.

	Perhaps he can be remembered as well.

Not difficult to forget. I am still pissed of with Izzy 'cos he did not
see that mass density, in an elastic world, is a second-order tensor and
not a scalar. On the other hand, he did leave me something to write about 
in the columns of GJI, the Green 'Un from the Royal Astronomical Society.

							RABworm
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: Books I Got For Xmas
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 01:19:25 GMT

                                   Sunday, the 3rd of January, 1993

Heather Henderson writes:
  My cookbook collection had several items added to it.  Of
  particular interest was _The South American Cook Book_, by Cora,
  Rose, and Bob Brown (originally published in 1939, and reprinted by
  Dover).  It contains a recipe for Stuffed Parrot.

Guess I'll need to find a copy of _The Australian Cook Book_ by the
same authors. For the Stuffed Cockatiel recipe.

             Mike Morris
       (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: QPB Blurbs
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 01:21:27 GMT

The Quality Paperback Book Club is often its own worst enemy.  It's often
hard to guess whether a book will be as bad as the blurb suggests.

William Manchester's 318-page history of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
"A World Lit Only by Fire" seemed more likely to be entertaining than 
informative, but there's nothing wrong with that.  Besides, His Bicentennial
effort, "The Glory and the Dream", is one of my favorite social histories.
So QPBC had a sale -- until I got to the part of the blurb about "Lucrezia
Borgia, the bastard daughter of a pope, whose hedonistic reputation
survives to this day; and Ferdinand Magellan, "the era's greatest hero,"
who disproved the medieval notion that the world's flat."  Do I want to
pay $12.95 plus shipping to find out whether that's a fair reflection
of the book?

Then there's "Ask Your Angels", whose blurb ends with "...the authors
of Ask Your Angels set out to show how we can draw on the power of
angels to reconnect to our lost inner selves and to achieve our
goals, whether they be better relationships, healing an illness or
recovery from addiction... From the archangel Gabriel to the Earth
Angel to your own companion angel, Ask Your Angels shows how these
celestial beings can be a doorway to the divine."  Did someone
really sit down and say "this blurb will motivate a reasonable 
number of QPBC subscribers to buy this book"?  Maybe appropriating
other cultures' spirituality isn't such a bad idea.

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

   If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down.  It's going to be the
   best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills
   you! -- Dorothy Parker
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE
Date: 2 Jan 1993 13:35:01 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Meg W. asks if the book is *good*... I don't know... I don't
eat cookbooks...snarf...
(It's a good book reading wise...)
-- 
Ted....