HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Reactions to the new New Yorker
Date: 8 Oct 92 13:44:10 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

emzx@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:

>This week's(Oct. 5th) issue's stories, one by Updike and another by someone I'm
>not very familiar with, seem to be a telling duo as far as the future is
>concerned.  The story I'm talking about is "Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz," I
>think is the correct name.  It's a bona fide sci-fi story.  When was the last
>time you saw that in the New Yorker?


     Checking the "originally appeared in" fine print in several Stanislav
Lem sci-fi collections, I see that a good number of these stories were first
published in TNY.

                                              -- jf
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: grant@clarinet.com (Grant Robinson)
Subject: Selected Bibliography for Derek Walcott
Organization: ClariNet Communications Corp.
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1992 19:28:41 GMT

I'm sure you've all heard about the winner of the Nobel prize for
literature by now, thought some might find this selected biblio of 
interest.  Compliments of ClariNet (reprinted with permission from 
ClariNet and UPI):

>From: clarinews@clarinet.com (UPI)
>Newsgroups: clari.news.interest,clari.news.europe,clari.news.books
>Subject: List of Nobel winner's works
>Keywords: international, human interest, books & publishing, media, books
>Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 8:51:30 PDT
>Location: sweden

	STOCKHOLM, Sweden (UPI) -- The following is a selected bibliography of
works by 1992 Nobel Literature laureate Derek Walcott, which Thursday
was released by the Swedish Academy and probably formed the basis of its
decision to award Walcott the prestigious prize.
	Verse:
	25 poems, Port-of-Spain: Guardian Commercial Printery, 1948
	Epitaph for the Young, Xll Canton, Bridgetown: Barbados Advocate,
1949
	Poems, Kingston, Jamaica, City Printery, 1951
	In a Green Night, Poems 1948-60, London: Cape, 1962
	Selected Poems, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1964
	The Castaway and Other Poems, London: Cape, 1965
	The Gulf and other Poems, London: Cape, 1969
	Another Life, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux; London: Cape,1973
	Sea Grapes, London: Cape; New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1976
	The Star-Apple Kingdom, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1979
	Selected Poetry, Ed. by Wayne Brown. London: Heinemann, 1981
	The Fortunate Traveller, New York: Farrar, Starus Giroux, 1981
	The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott and the Art of Romare
	Bearden, New York: limited Editions Club, 1983
	Midsummer, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1981
	The Arkansas Testament, New Yourk, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1987
	Omeros, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1990
	
Drama:
	Harry Dernier, Bridgetown: Barbados Advocate, 1952
	Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays, New Your: Farrar Straus
Giroux, 1970
	The Joker of SEville & O Babylon!, New Youk: Farrar Straus Giroux,
1980
	Three Plays, New York: Farra Straus Giroux, 1986


-- 
Grant Robinson -- ClariNet Communications Corp, Sunnyvale, CA (408)-296-0366
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Piffle
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 9 Oct 92 00:16:57

Alas, all I could think of to say was that the parrot's name was
Polynesia, and then I see that someone beat me to it.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: the Novel of Ideas-- is it a good Idea?
Date: 13 Oct 92 15:29:52 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

In article <1992Oct4.214016.7995@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:

>I started to read _Gravity's Rainbow_ and liked it alot.  It was a copy
>I borrowed from my brother and I forgot it on a 747 flying back from
>Cairo.  I bought him a brand new hardcover to replace his beat-up
>second-hand.  That's the kind of guy I am.  I never finished it.  I
>got up to the part where somebody gets flushed down the toilet and
>ends up in a surreal sewer-system singing "the shit song" or something.
>'Must remember to finish it someday.

My husband had the same sort of experience. He had been not
necessarily zooming along through the book, until he got to the sewer
scene, and some sort of spiritual mal-de-mer set in. He never was able to
persuade himself to finish the book, and remains convinced to this day
(over 15 years later) that the sewer part lasts for about 50 pages or
some such. (Not true. I was somewhat amazed to discover that, strictly
speaking, it only occupies about 4 pages. Such is the power of
remembrance.)  I did finish it, and am amused to note that my
husband's attitude has ever since contained just that extra little
frisson of respect. Or is it genuine awe?


-- 
"Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion
borders on the chaos of memories" 
                                                -- Walter Benjamin
 ...!cs.utexas.edu!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu!jzimm
From: lew@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (lewis.h.mammel..jr)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Kuhn
Summary: Experto credite
Date: 14 Oct 92 18:10:45 GMT
Article-I.D.: cbnewsd.1992Oct14.181045.4681
Organization: AT&T

In article <Bw0H4s.2LI@brunel.ac.uk>, Christopher.Carne@brunel.ac.uk (Christopher J Carne) writes:
> 
> Well, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" may be a landmark, but hey
> its a bit long in the tooth by now, Both the philosophy and sociology of 
> science (my field) have come a long way since Kuhn and I find it rather
> disappointing that in scientists have read one book about their subject that
> it is this one. In general, I find philosophy of science less interesting
> than sociological approaches, when did you last see a philosopher lurking
> round a lab trying to find out what scientist actually do. On the other
> hand us sociologists are sometimes a little too resistant to philosophy.

There was a Kuhn discussion on r.a.b a year ago last August. I'd be
interested in any comment you might have on this excerpt that I posted
then:



Here's an excerpt from the chapter, Social_Construction_and_
Natural_Knowledge in the book The_Great_Devonian_Controversy
by Martin J. S. Rudwick ( CAPS are italics in the original: )

	The opposite extreme has better intellectual credentials but
	is no more credible in the light of this particular case
	study. This is the extreme social constructivism espoused
	by some sociological analysts of modern science. They claim
	to have found, by detailed participatory observation of
	scientific research, that the processes of argument in the
	laboratory are so pervasively agonistic in character, even
	down to the "microprocessing" of instrumental readings and
	so on, that external "reality" cannot be seen to have ANY
	clearly discernible effect on the outcome. The claimed knowledge
	that is the end product of research appears to have been
	"manufactured." A research laboratory is regarded as just
	what the etymology implies, namely, a workshop for the social
	production of deceptively solid "facts." For it is claimed
	that that apparent solidity is ONLY a social construction.
	and that "reality" attributed to previously debatable statements
	when they pass irreversibly through a socially defined point
	of "stabilization" or "inversion" and are adopted into
	routine use. The consensus that establishes that routine use is
	said to depend on the definition, by the WINNING side in the
	controversy, of what COUNTS as a competent experimental result and
	as relevant clinching evidence. The external point of reference
	in this pervasively social process is thus not a world of 
	natural reality, but at most the criterion of technical
	success: the "knowledge" produced cannot claim more than
	instrumental status.


Lew Mammel, Jr.
From: matt@physics2.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Seeking: incisive essayists, any race, creed, or gender
Date: 15 Oct 92 10:06:48
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics2.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: oliver@redwood.CS.Berkeley.EDU's message of 15 Oct 1992 01:47:35 GMT

In article <1biijnINN8c8@agate.berkeley.edu> oliver@redwood.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Oliver Sharp) writes:

> I recently had the pleasure of rereading a book of essays by George Orwell.
> His clear and cogent prose was a welcome antidote to the rhetoric of the
> political campaigns, which have me muttering "cant, cant, cant and vanity"
> under my breath.  It reminded me what a nice vehicle the essay is, and I
> thought I would solicit the net for other suggestions.

I also like Orwell's essays very much; it's a bit surprising that most
people only know him by two of his novels, instead of by "Politics and
the English Language," or _Homage to Catalonia_.

One of my other favorite essayists is Thomas Huxley.  Most of his
essays are either on natural history (he was one of Darwin's
champions) or on religion; in the latter domain, he claimed to have
invented the term "agnostic," to describe his own beliefs.
Unfortunately, I don't think that anything by Huxley is still in
print.  At any rate, everything of his that I've found has been by
sifting through ancient tomes in used bookstores.

And I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but among living writers,
I've found one writer who, in tone, reminds me very much of George
Orwell: Noam Chomsky.  Even if you disagree with his politics (as I
do), I believe he is worth reading.  It took me a while to figure out
just why his essays reminded me of Orwell, but I think I finally did:
he hasn't lost the capacity for moral outrage.  That's rare, nowadays.
It's so easy to bury atrocities under a fog of softening words, and to
complicate every question.  Chomsky, like Orwell, is still able to
say, in clear and precise language, that horrible things are horrible.
--
Matthew Austern                   Just keep yelling until you attract a
(510) 644-2618                    crowd, then a constituency, a movement, a
austern@lbl.bitnet                faction, an army!  If you don't have any
matt@physics.berkeley.edu         solutions, become a part of the problem!
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Once I put this book down, I could not pick it up again.
Date: 8 Oct 92 04:06:08 GMT


 
This is a re-post.  The gateway I usually use doesn't seem to be passing
my articles along.  Please forgive me, if you've already seen this.
 
----------------------------------------
 
Francis Muir writes:
 
        Barbara Hlavin writes (anent Joyce Carol Oates):
 
                But I would stoutly maintain that she is a good writer --
                for someone else.
 
        Now here we have the makings of one of the better threads in years.
        Good books which are just too damn boring to read. I would certainly
        include Charles Prolix Dickens, a lot of the Shagger Pagger, all of
        Milton, &c., &c.
 
The only book which I remember leaving unfinished is THE GROUP by Mary
McCarthy.  It was deadly -- but I really wanted it to be interesting,
since I found her interesting.  I've read through some of her memoirs,
and plan to read more.
 
It took me three or four years to finish Douglas Hofstader's GODEL,
ESCHER, BACH: An Eternal Golden Braid.  I did not find it dull, nor
did I find it difficult.  I kept putting it down to read other books.
I got bored with it because I didn't think he said anything new.
 
 
Mark
From: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Fixing Damaged Books
Date: 16 Oct 92 12:14:29 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens


     A related question:  over the years I have picked up many old
leather-bound books in junk stores, at AAUW book sales and so on.  This
house is extremely dry in the winter and the binding of these old
veterans has become very brittle.  Can someone recommend some substance
that safely re-moisturizes leather bindings?  At the moment I can't even
open many of them to read them without breaking off chunks of spine.
I bought these books to read, not to look at, and were I a zillionaire
I'd simply have them all rebound in cloth.  But I izzn't.  Library
alchemists, help!
                                                -- jf
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: Re: Grendel
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 18:43:08 GMT

James P. H. Fuller asks:
>     Explain Grendel to me.  How can he be so bold and insightful in
>his existential attitude toward the cosmos and his disdain for the 
>retainers in Hrothgar's hall because they are ignorant thugs willingly
>lost in muddy dreams -- and in practically the same breath be so
>stupid and neurotic in disliking Hrothgar's wife just because she is
>female?  Doesn't this ruin his magic?

Gosh, I'm going to have to re-read this book.  It's been twenty years,
now, since I first read it, and my memories are growing dim.  Even
without re-reading it, though, I'm struck by the assumption you appear
to be making in his question--which is, that being "stupid and neurotic"
would "ruin his magic."  I don't know whether you mean magic in the
broader sense of extraordinary charm or power, or magic as an art for
influencing the forces of nature, but either way, why could not Grendel
be "stupid and neurotic" and yet also be able to work magic?  

And then this next comment is also remarkable:
>If the book is merely the tale of Grendel's *own* muddy
>dreams of being ubermensch-Grendel why should we care about him?

Why do we care about Raskolnikov?  Because the author makes him
so goddamn *interesting*!  Speaking with the experience of being
a psychoanalytic therapist behind my words here, I have to say,
twisted souls are no less loveable, and they'reinvariably
fascinating.  

I don't mean to be cantankerous.  I just want the stupid, irrational,
neurotic, psychotic, etc., creatures of the world to get a fair shake.

						--Fiona Oceanstar
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kate@cactus.org (Katherine M. Catmull)
Subject: Re: Attractiveness (was: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia)
Organization: Capital Area Central Texas UNIX Society, Austin, Tx
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 23:09:31 GMT


>
I wrote:
>
>>To concsiously allow good-looks/non-good looks to be one of the
>>deciding factors in hiring an employee seems to me shameful in any
>>real-world situation.
>

Heather replies:
>Ah yes, the Jockey people behaved so shamefully when they hired Jim
>Palmer to pose in his underwear.  
>
>Be careful getting down off the soapbox.
>

Thank you, Heather, but I'm quite comfortable here at the moment. 

We can debate for hours whether it's useful or "good" whatever you'd
like to call it for our Friendly Neighborhood Capitalists to 
encourage an obsession with physical beauty, if you think of
Jim Palmer as beautiful, well good lord, that's a whole new
subject . . .

Let me just say for the sake of this argument, however, that it
_is_ useful, good, moral, sensible to use beautiful people to sell
products.

I suggest that that is a very specific, narrow category of employment
(The Model, or perhaps Model-Spokesperson). If you would like to extrapolate
to other categories of employment, I'd certainly like to hear it.

And I can hear just fine from up here, thanks.

Kate


-- 
- - - - - - - -
kate@cactus.org
Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: basketball books? (was Re: Baseball Books?)
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 18:25:37 GMT

People are always talking about baseball books.  Are there such
things as *basketball* books?  It has never occurred to me before,
to ask such a question, but waiting out what seems like an interminable
football season (and it's always Redskin mania time, in my part of
the world) is making me itchy for something, anything relating to
basketball.  I suppose I could re-read John McPhee's _A_Sense_of_Where_
_You_Are_, but I practically have it memorized, I've plumbed it so many
times.  I've also read the book that "Dollar Bill" Bradley himself
wrote--about his days with the Knicks--which happens to be the only
book I've ever read in galley proofs, because he asked my journalism
class for our opinion of it.  I'm really more interested in *college*
basketball than pro, although I suppose I wouldn't be picky if the
book were well-written.  Also: non-fiction would be better than fiction,
but either would do.

				--a woman who saw Michael Jordan when
				   he was a mere frosh with the Tarheels,

							Fiona
From: llawson@blandings.llnl.gov (Len Lawson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Copyright
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:09:18 GMT
Followup-To: Copyright
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Originator: llawson@blandings.llnl.gov


The following table is from _The Copyright Handbook_ by attorney Stephen
Fishman.
                             
                    Copyright Duration Chart

------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date of Work               |         Copyright Terms
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Created during or after 1978       |  Single term of life plus 50 years
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published before 1978 but less     |  28-year initial term from date of
than 28 years ago.                 |  publication; 47-year renewal term
                                   |  if renewal registration was timely
                                   |  filed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published more than 28 years but   |  28-year initial term from date of
less than 75 years ago.            |  publication: 47-year renewal term
                                   |  if renewal registration was timely
                                   |  filed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published more than 75 years ago.  |  The work is now in public domain.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Created but not published or       |  Single term of at least life plus
registered before 1978.            |  50 years, but cannot expire before
                                   |  12/31/2002 (if work remains unpub-
                                   |  lished) or 12/31/2027 (if work is
                                   |  published by the end of 2002).
------------------------------------------------------------------------

This information shows that any work published before 1917 is in the
public domain which would indicate that most of the Sherlock Holmes
stories are not covered by copyright. However those published during or
after 1917 are still in copyright.

Len Lawson
llawson@blandings.llnl.gov
From: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Once I put this book down, I could not pick it up again.
Date: 9 Oct 92 12:38:32 GMT
Reply-To: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com

In article <1992Oct7.162338.1031@galileo.physics.arizona.edu>  
lnh@soliton.physics.arizona.edu (sometimes a Wombat) writes:
> Francis Muir writes:
> >
> >Now here we have the makings of one of the better threads in  
years.
> >Good books which are just too damn boring to read. I would  
certainly 
> >include  ...  all of Milton, &c., &c.
> 
> You got *that* right.
> 
> Faulkner, as well.
> 

Faulkner boring?  Gee, he's probably my favorite American
writer.  I've read several of his novels 3 or 4 times, and have
never found him boring. Many of this works are actually
rather exciting and, in some cases, are rather funny.

--
Jim Mann            
Stratus Computer   jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com  
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jciliber@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jon Ciliberto)
Subject: Re: Once I put this book down, I could not pick it up again.
Organization: University of Hawaii
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 15:30:10 GMT

A wonderful thread, allowing as it does the release of guilt over not having
measured up to this supposed Great Books. I at least feel a bit of guilt
when i don't actively choose to stop reading a book and it just sorta sits
on a shelf or next to the bed for months unopened, until i sheepishly re-
move the mid-placed book mark some time later. it seemed damned unkind and cold
to the book, like not answering someone's letter for several months. One book
that has foiled me several times is ULYSSES. Since DUBLINERS and PORTRAIT went
down so nicely i just thought, well, I'll read THIS now. hummm. anyway, it has
been a series of starts, go back an re-read those other tow, re-started, re-
go back and re-read them, and now I am almost through ULYSSES onthis third
run through. it seems there are some unreadable classics that really have to
be worked into, but it is very satisfying when they are unlocked, mainly be-
cause anything THAT difficult to read, which is also generally acclaimed by 
smart folks all over the place MUST be pretty good.

--
Don't be a slyboots           |					  Jon Ciliberto
Cunning, shrewd, a rogue      |			jciliber@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.edu
Don't be a shyboots,          |________________________________________________
Nobody likes a slyboots.   - "Things Not to Be", Steve Martin
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Date: 8 Oct 92 04:03:40 GMT


 
This is a re-post.  The gateway I usually use doesn't seem to be passing
my articles along.  Please forgive me, if you've already seen this.
 
----------------------------------------
 

mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
 
> cruz@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Nancy Cruz) writes:
 
>> I think the point is "who cares?"  It doesn't exactly make for a
>> profound read...
 
> I don't think Paglia meant for her Madonna pieces to be "profound reads."
 
Oh, I don't think so, either.  I don't hate Madonna as much as I might have
indicated (although she is a little too working class for my tastes <this
is not a value judgement -- just a statement that there are differences>).
 
But Paglia is being passed of as someone who has profound ideas stuck
in among her other stuff.  My earlier comment about not wanting to
wade through the shit is exactly because I have no interest in wasting
my time with something that does not interest me in order to find
the one or two pearls of wisdom hidden inside.
 
Heather has suggested that I might want to look at what she says about
Emily Dickenson -- and I might just do that.
 
Mark

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books