HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: r.a.b. threads on late night talk shows.
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 16:49:33 GMT


Watching a late night talk show, I was struck by how many items discussed
on a recent show have been reflected in recent threads in r.a.b.
 
The show is called "Night After Night," is hosted by comedian Alan Havey,
and can only be seen on the Comedy Central Cable Network.  The format
is interesting.  Havey usually starts off the show by telling a few stories,
talking about the news and chatting with the Audience-Of-One.  I particularly
like the concept of having a one person audience, and how it is handled on
the show.  Havey then brings out his guests (one at a time).  He usually
has one or two guests.  The questions are usually well researched, and,
because it is not one of the mainstream shows, he often has people who might
not appear on some of the big name shows.  I think it is the best talk show
on TV, and recommend it to those of you who get the network.  Of course
the only one I know who gets it is Jeff Davis.  I know this, because he
claims to post from The Gizmonic Institute (taken from another Comedy
Central show).
 
At any rate -- the following threads came up on a recent show:
 
 
        1.  Australians taking time to travel abroad.
 
            The Audience-Of-One member was from Australia, and was
            just taking time to travel around.  When asked what she did,
            she responded "I used to be a student, now I'm a traveller."
 
        2.  The New NEW YORKER -- new editor & ads.
 
            Havey mentioned the new format and new editor and then said:
            "But never mind that -- LOOK at this ad!"  He then held up an
            ad for Calvin Klein's OBSESSION, with a scowling Marky Mark
            (no relation) sitting with a naked woman on his lap sticking
            her breast into his throat.  Havey replied that if she were
            on his lap "I wouldn't look like that, I'd look like this:"
            (cut to Havey with shit-eating grin).
 
        3.  Gore Vidal's religion.
 
            Heather recently told the story of Norman Mailer telling
            Gore Vidal that he looked like a dirty old Jew, and then
            hitting him after being insulted back.  Vidal happened
            to be one of the guests on this show.  It came out that
            he was a third-generation atheist, but his family had
            been Episcopalians.  He talked a bit about his role in
            the movie BOB ROBERTS (where he played an aging senator
            who loses the race).  He said that he modelled his part
            after his grandfather (Senator Gore <The FIRST Senatore Gore)
            with whom he lived as a child.  He also talked about his new
            book -- which is about a NBC using a time machine to go back
            to cover the crucifixion in an attempt to boost ratings.
            Apparently, a cyberpunk steals the tapes.
 
 
So, I wonder if the writers of the show are monitoring r.a.b for ideas.
If so, I hope they contact me -- I'd love to be an Audience-Of-One member.
 
Mark
From: mworley@mathcs.emory.edu (Meg Worley)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Talk Of The Town
Date: 3 Oct 92 20:57:25 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: Emory University, Dept of Math and CS

In article <1992Oct3.185532.27042@cactus.org>, kate@cactus.org (Katherine M. Catmull) writes:
 
> I had my ups and downs with Pauline Kael, but what I really hated
> was her penchant for writing reviews in the second person. I
> would find myself shouting at the magazine: "You find yourself
> mesmerized by the sheer brass of it all." "No I DON'T! NO I 
> DON'T! STOP SAYING THAT!"
> 
> I do not understand critics' terror of the word "I."

I agree wholeheartedly.  My peeve with dear PK was (aside from the fact
that she wouldn't let copy editors touch her work even when it ached for
their soft caress) that she constantly dosed us with bizarre similes that
she never troubled to explain.  My mother's house has NYers stacked up
to the eaves (dating back to at least 1965); I'll have to find some
choice Kaelisms when next I visit the Aged P.

PK was trustworthy in one sense where TR & MS are not:  With two
exceptions, if PK liked a film, I was guaranteed not to.

Rage away,

meg

-- 

 Meg Worley 				Internet:  mworley@mathcs.emory.edu
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: Baseball (was: Re: Attractiveness (was: Re: She's baaaaack)
Organization: Clark University
Date: 5 OCT 92 23:11:21 GMT

nadel@attatash.aero.org (Miriam Nadel) writes:

In article <5OCT92.02580269@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>>Don't worry about it.  No epithets invented by any of you r.a.b.bits
>>will come close to what I was called by the Red Sox fans on rec.sport.baseball
>>when I told them to quit whining about the 1986 World Series and admit
>>that the Mets deserved to win.
>
>But, Heather, what you have to understand is that books are merely frivolous
>pleasures while baseball is important stuff.

Of course, that goes without saying.  Just look at how much of baseball is
beer advertising.

>As I demonstrated in my research on The Grand Unified Theory of
>Politics, Economics and the American League East, there is no better
>determinant of the way the world is going than the fortunes of the Red Sox.

For all our sakes, I hope there are some Twins fans working in your field
of research.

>I do have serious worries about the forthcoming elections given the poor
>showings of both Boston and Kansas City this year.

Well, personally, I feel that Mike Boddicker getting hit in the shin
with a line drive was a clear sign of the coming Apocalypse.  Hal McRae
was tampering with awesome forces beyond his ken when he relegated The Bod
to the bullpen, and now we will all pay.  Mark my words.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu

>Miriam Nadel

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: farrell@coral.cs.jcu.edu.au (John Farrell)
Subject: Re: Literature students
Organization: James Cook University
Distribution: world,local
Date:  2 Oct 92 03:44:37 GMT

In <1992Oct1.190154.20887@grebyn.com> fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:
>Sometimes Mr. E-- writes:
>>>I'm not very average in anything, let alone reading (I do it),

>To which Ron Nadel poses this question:
>>So, for the record, are you above or below the average - or are you
>>above the average on somethings, and below the average on others so
>>that on average you're average, or are you not average that way too?

FW>Maybe what he's saying, Ron, when he says that he's not very average,
FW>is that he *is* very out of the ordinary.  Perhaps he means us to know
FW>that he is an extremely discontinuous point, a freak of Nature, a wonder
FW>so aberrant as to be called "monstrous," or perhaps a black swan, a
FW>_lusus_naturale_, a queer fish, a _rara_avis_, a prodigy, a miracle.
FW>Sometimes Mr. E-- may be, indeed, a veritable salvo of tasty strangeness!


  You forgot to mention that he is a singularity,
has no inverse, second derivative, fixed point or canonical form, causes
floating point exceptions, is a lone wolf, is the black sheep of the family,
and is like a bandicoot on a burnt ridge.

  Gee, I gotta meet this guy.


Friendless
From: eaeg181@orion.oac.uci.edu (John Robinson Dooley)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: WWII Novels?
Date: 29 Sep 92 22:11:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.2AC8D478.5726
Organization: University of California, Irvine

In article <1992Sep26.001252.18026@cs.yale.edu> loosemore-sandra@CS.YALE.EDU (Sandra Loosemore) writes:
>euargb@eua.ericsson.se (Rolf Blom) writes:
>
>   Are Wouk's books contemporary with the war, or are they written long after?
>   (I've only seen the TV-series actually, and it seemed a bit 'softened', like
>    with a perspective to the 'good old days'. Maybe it's intentional.)
>
>They were written in the 1970s.  

Of course, Wouk also wrote "The Caine Mutiny", a WWII novel published 
in the early '50's too.

May I also suggest --- "Catch 22"  -  Joseph Heller.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wwhitman@nevada.edu (MICHAEL WISE)
Subject: Re: Literature students
Organization: University of Nevada System Computing Services
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 08:52:42 GMT

Mark, where are you when I need you? I'm almost agreeing with Clayton. It is
true that literature courses are meant to provide students with certain 
tools for the dissection of literature. It is true also that dissection of
literature takes away from the initial impact of reading and loving a work
of fiction. There is something to be said for allowing students to attack
a work in a vacuum (this was my introduction to Faulkner) to allow them
to respond before getting the lowdown on what it MEANS from the teacher.
But the real value for a student is seeing the way we as professionals
can show how the work achieves its effect. That is what we are meant to
teach in these classes. I go into Intro to Lit and try to explain every-
thing, so that students get an idea where are literature comes from, and
so that they can understand where it is going. I do not believe that any
discussion of writing in the twentieth century goes very far without 
discussing Hemingway: his terseness and simplicity, his objectification
of the subjective, his reliance on concrete words and implied feelings
saved us from the Victorian friendly narrator. However, I am pleased to 
say that there are those in my department who vehemently disagree with
me, and teach differently (most of them liked the friendly narrator from
high school on), and, equally pleasantly, some students disagree with
me as well, easy to do since Hemingway is politically incorrect. But
I don't think it hurts for them to know how Hemingway achieves the
effect: after all, it's easy to teach, but opens up a myriad of poss-
ibilities, from symbols to themes to style. 
	I just think they should come away with something. Whether they
memorise it and repeat it as a mantra anytime the discussion turns to
literature, whether they spend their lives trying to disprove it, at 
least you've given them a handle on one big writer, a master, as I call
it, whose well known, widely read, and widely written about. It intro-
duces the idea of criticism as well, something non-DWM authors cannot
do very well since they are not criticised as deeply. I feel sorry
for Maxine Hong Kingston, who is a good writer but gets canonised by
default because she is a female Chinese-American. If there is no one
to compare her with, and no one who criticises her view of the Chinese-
American experience, then how do we assess her writing as literature?
We cannot. We can merely be subjective and superficial about it, and
the students realise this immediately. We tell them they must use auth-
ority to back up what they say, and then we turn the tables on them and
subjectively analyse for them as though we are authorities. Until a
decent body of criticism has been built around minority authors, sub-
jectivity reigns. And what is the purpose of a literature class if 
everyone just reads what they like? 

Michael Wise
UNLV English

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 20:42:18 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.191226.21030@grebyn.com> fi@grebyn.com 
(Fiona Webster) writes:

>Alaynes McGregor writes:
>>Inevitably, I found too much of one category you didn't mention:
>>5. Assertions with no evidence.
>>I'm old-fashioned in that regard. I read non-fiction books for information,
>>not just ill-informed opinions.
>
>But opinions *are* information!  What else could they be?  Fruit?
>Animals?  _Hronir?  Twonkies?

Well, opinions are information about the individual expressing them. 
If you have no reason to care deeply about the individual, then you're 
not going to care deeply about the opinions.  Especially if, like 
Alaynes, you find these opinions ill-informed.  

(I like the idea of calling them "twonkies" though)


--Barbara 



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: The Talk Of The Town
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Distribution: world,local
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 16:23:29 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.061458.43519@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>
>Is it too much to hope that Pauline Kael will be replaced?  (Or has
>she retired...?)

Pauline Kael (whom I loved) has been gone for a long time. When she left
the reviewer's column, she said one of her reasons for leaving was the
prospect of having to review another Oliver Stone movie.


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact 
mnemonic@eff.org| of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, 
(617) 864-0665  | both are transformed."
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Carl Jung 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 04:44:34 GMT

In article <BvIpDt.992@news.cso.uiuc.edu> levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine) writes:
}1. Mr. Baker, if I were applying for some highly technical position,
}   and some woman more attractive by your standards were also
}   applying, who would you hire? 
}
}   Of course, you're going to say, whoever is best qualified. I wouldn't
}   let looks be an issue in that context. And I believe you.
}
}   But there are a lot of people out there who are not like you.
}   Job discrimination on the basis of appearance, even in professional
}   situations, is not uncommon nowadays; there have been many cases
}   related on the net. 
}
}   ...And that's one of the reasons Naomi Wolf wrote her book.

(Above edited)

But this is only pertinent to those who accept the justness of banning job
discrimination.  I don't.  If I had to choose between Elle Macpherson and
someone else (possibly male) who could, for example, type as well, I'd hire
Ms. Macpherson, you'd better believe it!  I should be so lucky...

I might even hire her over someone who typed a bit better than her.  Big deal!
It would be worth a bit to have a pretty employee rather than an ugly one.

The egalitarian line is that the ugly have just as much right to a job as the
pretty - I agree.  But I construe that right as freedom of contract, the
libertarian position, whereas some would attack my preference as impermissible,
saying that ugly people have the right not to be judged on their appearance.
An unnatural right, but it is asserted.  Of course, their preference that I
not hire preferentially is a violation of my freedom of contract, but do they
care?  Nope.


Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Germaine de Stael. She's ... Camille Paglia
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 14:43:36 GMT

Tim Starr writes:

	Francis Muir writes:

		Does it make sense to see her [Camille Paglio] 
		wearing Germaine de Stael's cloak?

	I find her somewhat libertarian, but don't know anything about 
	Ms. de Stael, and so am unable to evaluate your comparison.


Not Ms. but, in fact, baronne de Stael-Holstein. I was hoping for a new
thread on a very interesting person. Listen to what George Gordon, Lord
B. had to say about her in the letter he wrote for John Murray to his,
Byron's, personal Physician, John William Polidori.

	A party dines with me today,
	All clever men, who make their way;
	Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and chantrey,
	Are all partakers of my pantry.
	They're at this moment in discussion
	On poor De Stael's late dissolution.
	Her book, they say, was in advance---
	Pray Heaven! she tell the truth of France!
	'Tis said she certainly was married
	To Rocca, and had twice miscarried,
	No---not miscarried, I opine---
	But brought to bed at forty-nine.
	Some say she died a Papist; Some
	Are of opinion that's a Hum;
	I don't know that---the fellow, Schlegel,
	Was very likely to inveigle
	A dying person in compunction
	To try the extremity of Unction.
	But peace be with her! for a woman
	Her talents surely were uncommon.

So, have we read de Stael?

							Fido

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: A pox upon your book (was Re: Dashiell Hammett)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 15:53:35 GMT

In article <ABL.92Oct3213236@cybill.inesc.pt> abl@cybill.inesc.pt (Antonio Leal) writes:

>People who had tuberculosis could stay around and cough into their
>handkerchiefs - the disease was, in the 19th century, known as
>"consumption", and one reads mentions of "consumptive beauties",
>referring to the general palor produced, occasionally combined with
>contrasting rosy cheekbones.

As Woody Allen says in "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex":

"TB or not TB--that is the congestion.

"Consumption be done about it?"



--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"Liberty resides in the rights of that person
mnemonic@eff.org| whose views you find most odious."
(617) 864-0665  | 
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --John Stuart Mill
From: mworley@mathcs.emory.edu (Meg Worley)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: A literary goldmine
Date: 27 Sep 92 00:11:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: emory.9629
Organization: Emory University, Dept of Math and CS

Fiona writes, in response to Barclay, 

> I know just what you mean.  I first read _Lord_Jim_ at 16.  So
> convoluted and emotion-packed are those early descriptions of Jim's
> alleged crime, I couldn't figure out what, during those fateful moments
> when the rusty old bulkhead was threatening to blow, Jim had actually
> done, or not done.  I was fascinated by the mystery of it, though,
> and immediately re-read it after the first reading, in order to
> verify the plot.  (My father reassured me that he, too, had done this
> when *he* read _Lord_Jim_ as a teenager, so I didn't feel quite so
> colossally stupid.)

I remember reading *Streetcar Named Desire* at eight or nine, and,
it will be no surprise, missing it entirely.  My mother was not the
kind of person to make sure that I knew the 'facts of life' one
moment before I needed to, so Blanche and Stanley were a cypher
to me.  The same happened with *Tess of the Baskervilles* (or is 
it *Tess of the Dobermans?*).  There's a lot to be said for not
learning to read too early.

Rage away,

meg



-- 

 Meg Worley 				Internet:  mworley@mathcs.emory.edu		
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jw2b@galen.med.Virginia.EDU (Sara J. Wagner)
Subject: Re: WWII Novels?
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 12:26:05 GMT

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?

Some of Josephine Lawrence's novels were written during the war -- see
especially _There is Today_ and _A Tower of Steel_ for a good look at
the homefront.

--
Jane Wagner, Computer Systems and Publications Assistant
The Claude Moore Health Sciences Library| INTERNET: jw2b@virginia.edu
Box 234, UVA Health Sciences Center	| PHONE:    804-924-0188
Charlottesville, VA  22908 		| BITNET:   jw2b@virginia.bitnet
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Date: 28 Sep 92 03:32:20 GMT
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org

In article <1992Sep27.182846.18896@leland.Stanford.EDU> jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) writes:

>	This is, I think, one of the best things about Paglia-- that she's
>continually being lambasted as a conservative, a reactionary, etc.

As Paglia states herself in the current issue of SPY (her letter appears
in the letter column), she voted for Jesse Jackson in the '88 primary, and
she supports Clinton this year.


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact 
mnemonic@eff.org| of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, 
(617) 864-0665  | both are transformed."
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Carl Jung 
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Date: Sun,  4 Oct 1992 23:18:14 -0400 
From: "Jonathan R. Ferro" <jf41+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Books in the time of school
	<69905@hydra.gatech.EDU>

barclay@RAIL9000.gatech.edu (Barclay Blanchard) writes:
> In article <1992Oct3.175258.25914@cactus.org> kate@cactus.org (Katherine M. Catmull) writes:
> >As for books: I have an old habit of asking people "What's the book
> >that got you through high school?"--you know, the book that kept you
> >going, made you strong; that you re-read when in need of bucking up,
> >perhaps even returned to in college like a teddy bear once in a
> >while, maybe even occasionally now . . .
> 
> For me it was probably _The Once and Future King_ from high school.
> From college, _The Princess Bride_ or _Siddhartha_.

I trust that people will tell me when my perpetual answer of
"The Dispossessed" becomes annoyingly frequent and/or shrill.

-- Jon Ferro               Einsprachigkeit ist heilbar
From: jlpicard@austin.ibm.com (Craig Becker)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Literature of Travel (Was Re: literature students)
Date: 2 Oct 92 20:08:04 GMT
Reply-To: craigb@ot.austin.ibm.com
Organization: IBM Object Technology Products
Originator: jlpicard@woofer.austin.ibm.com


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

> I spent a good part of the last decade living and traveling overseas, and
> am now a confirmed wanderer.  As such, I've become very interested in the
> whole genre in literature and am auditing a course on the literature of
> travel....
...
> Also, any books you can recommend on the whole subject that aren't listed
> above?  Why do people travel, anyway?  I include living overseas for
> periods of time here.  And why does
> the experience clarify and improve some individuals, and destroy others?

In a lighter vein, might I suggest 

	_Holidays in Hell_ by P.J. O'Rourke and, of course,
	_Innocents Abroad_ by Mark Twain

As for India, how about

	_Song of Kali_ by Dan Simmons

While it's a fantasy novel, I believe the background is taken
from the author's travels to Calcutta.

Craig

-- 
-- "You can expect virtually      Craig Becker, Object Technology Products --
--  anything from a people who had      Internet: craigb@ot.austin.ibm.com --
--  nuclear weapons in the early      IBM TR: craigb@woofer.austin.ibm.com --
--  seventeenth century."                           VNET: CRAIGB at AUSVM1 --
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: He's some kind of a Prevert
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 20:33:01 GMT

Barbara found no fans so here is Inventoire dedicated to those simple
souls who have either not attained their sophomore year or who are self
schooled enough to have passed it.

one stone
two houses
three ruins
four grave-diggers
one garden
some flowers

one racoon

a dozen oysters a lemon a loaf of bread
a ray of sunlight
one groundswell
six musicians
on3e door with doormat
one Mister decorated with the Legion of Honour

one more racoon

one sculptor who sculpts napoleons
one yellow flower called care
two lovers on a big bed
one receiver of contributions one chair three turkeys
one cleric one boil
one wasp
one floating kidney
one racing stable
one unworthy son two Dominican brothers three grasshoppers one collapsible
	chair
two whores one amorous uncle
one mater dolorosa three sugar daddies two goats belonging to Mister Seguin
one Louis the Fifteenth heel
one Louis the Sixteenth armchair
one henry the Second sideboard two Henry the Third sideboards three Henry
	the Fourth sideboards
one odd drawer....

				there is much more

								fideau
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books