Errors-To: owner-ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu Reply-To: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu Sender: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu From: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu To: ecto-request@ns1.rutgers.edu Bcc: ecto-digest-outbound@ns1.rutgers.edu Subject: ecto #492 ecto, Number 492 Wednesday, 17 March 1993 Today's Topics: *-----------------* [rplumley@vyonous.kennesaw.edu (Ron Plumley): Just a note] Voyager, shamrocks, and hockey I'll beg ya'all forgiveness in advance! ;-) Fuzzy green for 3/17 Hamlet and Shakespeare (was: What a weekend) An appendix in the spirit of the day Voyager, shamrocks, and hockey I Don't Think It's That Simple Hamlet correction re: quote ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 15:38:32 EST From: Greg Bossert Subject: [rplumley@vyonous.kennesaw.edu (Ron Plumley): Just a note] this seemed like something of import to ectophiles everywhere: >From: rplumley@vyonous.kennesaw.edu (Ron Plumley) >Subject: Just a note >To: alliance@ns1.rutgers.edu >Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 10:57:08 EST > >Just thought that I should point out that this is the 148'th anniversary >of the patenting of rubber bands. > >Ron happy snaps and boings to all! -greg -- bossert@vizlab.rutgers.edu -- == i have never been afraid to change == Happy == the circumstances of the world == Rhodes ======================================================================== From: rjk1@cec1.wustl.edu (Bob Kollmeyer) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 13:18:41 -0600 Subject: Voyager, shamrocks, and hockey Just thought I'd note that this past weekend while wandering around Bizmart (a chain of office supply superstores) after picking up a keyboard extention cord (I finally got sick of not being able to set the keyboard on my lap while I lean back and enjoy what seem to be an increasing number of hours of reading...), something in the software section caught my eye. Now available for IBM-type people with CD-ROM drives is... The Voyager Disc. Perusing the back of the box, it claims to have all of the information that went along on Voyager's disk. Music, pictures, etc. Don't know if the disc is gold-colored or not. 8) And as long as I'm here, and since the timing is appropriate (due for the most part to my forgetfulness), I thought I'd enquire as to whether or not anyone here is familiar with the "Thistle and Shamrock" show. I heard it once about 2 months ago while traveling through central Missouri. From what I could gather from the ~30 minutes that I was able to receive the show, it is a syndicated show of Celtic music. Caught my ear and I was wondering if anyone could supply more info... Finally, even though Jeff beat me to the punch, I'd have to cast my vote for Hockey as _the_ winter song. It can send me to the closet for a big fuzzy brown (drat. gotta get a blue one) blanket in the heart of summer. All due respect to the goddess, but this one melts Under Ice (which, don't get me wrong, is wonderful). All in MHO, of course. I can't think of another song that can trigger so many senses and mental images. I can feel and smell the cold. I can see and hear everyone around the pond (okay, for me it was a pond, not a river) and sense (its more than just seeing) the strange color that covers both the sky and snow when night begins to come long before it is wanted. Hockey's music and lyrics just _couldn't_ be any more effective. Hmmm. Perhaps if I went out into my cornfield, dug a pit and filled it with water... "They will come"... Nah. bob ======================================================================== From: "Michael Blackmore" Date: 17 Mar 93 16:22:38 EST Subject: I'll beg ya'all forgiveness in advance! ;-) > >Just thought that I should point out that this is the 148'th > >anniversary > >of the patenting of rubber bands. > > > >Ron > > happy snaps and boings to all! > -greg > Lets band together to celebrate! :-) *************************MICHAEL BLACKMORE************************** "You seem to be deluding yourself that this is a school with a bureaucracy, when actually it's a bureaucracy with a school." - Michael B (michaelb@ksgrsch.harvard.edu) ***************A TRADITIONAL OF EXCELLENCE SINCE 1963*************** ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 16:37:12 EST From: Greg Bossert Subject: Re: I'll beg ya'all forgiveness in advance! ;-) Michael snaps back: >>>Just thought that I should point out that this is the 148'th anniversary >>>of the patenting of rubber bands. > >Lets band together to celebrate! :-) i fear that i must lay text on the fire -- i guess it's just a good year for puns... but let me not stretch my point; i will depart with a last *ick* f**t*h! -greg -- bossert@vizlab.rutgers.edu -- == i have never been afraid to change == Happy == the circumstances of the world == Rhodes ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 14:43:12 CST From: Subject: Fuzzy green for 3/17 WRT Chris's query about Queen Victoria: as far as I can remember reading, her reign lasted until her death in 1901, sometime after January 1, after circa 63 years on the throne. So that quaint oath barely missed being obsolete _ab initio_. This morning on the Boob Tube, Regis and Kathie Lee noted that it was cold in New York, but the snow had been cleared from the St. Patrick's Day parade route, including the piles that had been at the curbs. Early news reports were that the expected confrontation with the gay marchers did indeed come to pass. The number of blizzard-related deaths reported in the national media make Yaz's "Winter Kills" more topical than one might think at first glance. In the spirit of backpedaling from such lugubrity, I'd now like to share witchoo the following, which despite its hemispherist perspective, seems to me the Mother Of All Weather Songs. Our Australian friends, it occurs to me, may well be able to salvage it simply by fiddling the referents for the individual yearparts (and then again, maybe they won't). A SONG OF THE WEATHER Flanders and Swann January brings the snow, Makes your feet and fingers glow February's ice and sleet Freeze the toes right off your feet Welcome March with wintry wind* *[pronounced with long "I"] Would thou wert not so unkind April brings the sweet spring showers On and on for hours and hours Farmers fear unkindly May, Frost by night and hail by day June just rains and never stops Thirty days and spoils the crops In July the sun is hot Is it shining? No it's not August, cold and dank and wet Brings more rain than any yet Bleak September's mist and mud Is enough to chill the blood Then October adds a gale, Wind and slush and rain and hail Dark November brings the fog, Should not do it to a dog Freezing wet's December, then Bloody January again Bob Lovejoy may be interested to learn (as may others of you, I dunno :-) ) tha t Tower's computer lists a 3-CD box set by Jade Warrior--a band appropriately yclept, IMHO WIVH, in view of the Color of the Day (ah there, Judy Collins :-) ). It's called _Autumn's Dream_, and is undoubtedly expensive, by conventional box-set norms, because it's imported. At least some of its component disks can also be got separately. Billy Connolly was a worthy successor to Howard Hesseman on _Head of the Class_ . Too bad the show was cancelled so soon after he took over. Kjetil's quip, "What's wrong with being childish," brings to mind the great words of the fourth Doctor Who (DIV, in Happyspeak), "It's never too late to have a happy childhood." I have read that Tom Baker played Frank in the original London production of _Educating Rita_, so there's another nexus right there between seemingly unrelated parts of the day's ecto yield :-). WRT the "Closer" exegesis thread: The alcoholism interpretation is indeed quite plausible. The lines "you forbade me to love my mom/daddy begged me to keep things calm" reminds me of much theory and research on the long term emotional effects on children of alcoholics--often persisting into adulthood-- stemmming from their being thrust into the role of trying to keep a lid on their often-anomic domestic environments. For all that, I can't totally reject the interpretation that it deals with battered women (cf. the story in yesterday's _Chicago Tribune_), or even with opressive relationships more generally ('Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry" might make a good segue partner for this one). WRT Vickie's vampire musings: I've concluded that my cat isn't one, inasmuch as of all the body parts he's munched on, he's never once gone for my neck. :-) Coincidentally, last night was the first time in a great while that I've succeeded in staying awake through _Forever Knight_, albeit at the cost of zonking out on _World News Now_, so I've no idea what the musical interludes were. WRT Bob Kollmeyer's query on _Thistle and Shamrock_: It's a one-hour weekly show in NPR, devoted to Scotish and Irish music, hosted by one Fiona Richie. It's on the WBEZ schedule on Sunday nights, but I've never heard it. WRT the brain teaser I posted here last week: The problem with the meeting announcement reproduced was that the email address given was on the Internet, rather than on Bitnet as the notice represented. Trust me, the difference is significant. NPR has just reported that 194 members of the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organiza- tion were arrested marching in New York; that Helen Hayes died at 92; and that an California computer firm has come out with a Macintosh clone. Other than their juxtaposition in the newscast, these events are presumably orthog- onal. Off to find a suitable watering hole for a Tall Cold One or N in consideration of what day it is, and to generate warmth on this rather cold afternoon. Happy anniversary to the rubber band. Mitch ---------------------------- "It was very nice yesterday, wasn't it? Spring, I enjoyed it. Missed it last year, I was in the bathroom." --Michael Flanders ======================================================================== From: Scorpii Subject: Hamlet and Shakespeare (was: What a weekend) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 16:54:30 EST > Vickie asked: > > >On Wed, 17 Mar 93 at 0:33:35 EST, WretchAwry wrote: > >> Thank you Jeff-with-the-long-black-hair, for the synopsis of Hamlet. > >> So where does Ophelia fit into it? > > And before I could respond, Steve Fagg gaffed: > > >She's Hamlet's sister. > > Bzzzt. I don't remember any Shakespeare play with incest as a subject... How about as a subtext? Hamlet is full of the Oedipus complex. > Unfortunately, the language (and constant need to check footnotes) is > often troubling to 'newcomers'. And there's a nasty little trade-off > between watching and reading--the movements/expressions of the actors > conveys a lot, but the dialog often goes by so quickly that one doesn't > get a grasp of what's being said. I would recommend reading the play thoroughly, with careful attention to character, structure, and setting, along with a perusal of the language, before watching the adaptation. I often watch Shakespeare (when on video) with a copy of the play in my hand. > > And of course, folks should definitely check out _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ > which is a classic Shakespearean comedy, with all the typical elements.. And a Schnopic delight on all levels. _Othello_ is my favorite of the tragedies I've read thus far, and a brilliant piece of work. Shakespeare isn't that hard, folks, just not immediately accessible. You have to get used to the style and language; find an annotated edition. The uninitiated might want to start with _Romeo_and_Juliet_. It's probably one of the easiest to understand, and it's likely that the story is already familiar. Drewid > > Jeff > ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 15:54:31 CST From: Ancient order of the hibernating Subject: An appendix in the spirit of the day This morning, _Morning Edition_ did a feature on Black 47, an Irish band whose music sounds quite interesting indeed, and whose album will be coming out, at least at Rose Records on Wabash, a week from yesterday. I think it will be a good bet for everyone's collection. Happy St. P 's day to all. Mitch ======================================================================== From: rjk1@cec1.wustl.edu (Bob Kollmeyer) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 13:18:41 -0600 Subject: Voyager, shamrocks, and hockey Just thought I'd note that this past weekend while wandering around Bizmart (a chain of office supply superstores) after picking up a keyboard extention cord (I finally got sick of not being able to set the keyboard on my lap while I lean back and enjoy what seem to be an increasing number of hours of reading...), something in the software section caught my eye. Now available for IBM-type people with CD-ROM drives is... The Voyager Disc. Perusing the back of the box, it claims to have all of the information that went along on Voyager's disk. Music, pictures, etc. Don't know if the disc is gold-colored or not. 8) And as long as I'm here, and since the timing is appropriate (due for the most part to my forgetfulness), I thought I'd enquire as to whether or not anyone here is familiar with the "Thistle and Shamrock" show. I heard it once about 2 months ago while traveling through central Missouri. From what I could gather from the ~30 minutes that I was able to receive the show, it is a syndicated show of Celtic music. Caught my ear and I was wondering if anyone could supply more info... Finally, even though Jeff beat me to the punch, I'd have to cast my vote for Hockey as _the_ winter song. It can send me to the closet for a big fuzzy brown (drat. gotta get a blue one) blanket in the heart of summer. All due respect to the goddess, but this one melts Under Ice (which, don't get me wrong, is wonderful). All in MHO, of course. I can't think of another song that can trigger so many senses and mental images. I can feel and smell the cold. I can see and hear everyone around the pond (okay, for me it was a pond, not a river) and sense (its more than just seeing) the strange color that covers both the sky and snow when night begins to come long before it is wanted. Hockey's music and lyrics just _couldn't_ be any more effective. Hmmm. Perhaps if I went out into my cornfield, dug a pit and filled it with water... "They will come"... Nah. bob ======================================================================== From: Scorpii Subject: I Don't Think It's That Simple Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 17:20:29 EST Ignition. > Satan says, after an involved dictionarial rendering regarding > the English word 'pretentious': As an agnostic, I'll take the misnomer as a compliment. But the true handle is "Drewcifer." > Well, Luke, you're going to get yourself into trouble here. Are you talking to me? I'm confused; how many names do I have? (no irony intended, either...what ARE you on about?) > Well, as many people have defended some 10KM stuff, I feel it my > musical duty to shed a brighter light on Amy and Emily from Athens, You haven't done any such thing. You've just given your opinions, which hardly qualifies as any sort of illumination. > and consistency (the only song I still gag on is Land of Canaan, > much the way I still gag on KT's ExpIV). Putting that aside, what Yeah, well. :) > gives you the right to judge whether they aren't really just telling > it the way they see it? How can you deem their intellectualisms, > as you call them, inappropriate? Sure, you are entitled to your > opinion, but what is pretention to one is insight to another. Any judgement is subjective without some prior agreement. Music fans have none. THAT gives me the right to judge. I find them inappropriate because they are sticking places, flies in the (bitter) ointment, jarring incongruities. If you deem this subjective discussion worth continuation, I can dig out my NIS and quote lyrics to you. > But my point is that they expand this isolated story into a > cause, into a symbol, into a foil for the evils in the world. > There is a dose of hyberbole in play here. And as I said > originally a few days ago, and as Alan repeated, this type of > pretention is virtually unavoidable when you are writing songs, > and you want to impart some theme on your listener and achieve > something meaningful to yourself. It is virtually unavoidable. It is not completely unavoidable. We dub those who can avoid it "genius." And it is my fervent wish that this sort of thing be left to those who are puissant, and that those who are not be sent to do something about it besides write pretentious songs. > > Happy Rhodes elevates her life experience to a wider level as well. > Is it pretentious? Well, no more or less pretentious, I think, > that lots of other songwriters. Now, if the Indigo Girls sing a It's not pretentious at all. It's half of what poetry is all about. Life must never emerge actual size in verse. Expanding or shrinking perception is what poetry is for. The important thing is that a good poet does the expansion or reduction. Happy is an excellent poet. Tori Amos is an excellent poet. Kate Bush is an excellent poet. It is my considered opinion that neither Indigo Girl is an excellent poet. > song about how graduating from and being in College is a metaphor > for life (Closer to Fine), and they have never been to college, > but they are making it sound like they have and have injected > all this importance and inference into the experience, one might > argue, yes, this is pretentious. But don't you think that when Not a bit of it. One need not know the experience firsthand to write about it; if this were not the case poetry would require no imagination and the world would never know fiction. However, if one does NOT know the experience, one must have the ability to write convincingly and well about that experience. > they write about springtime in the south, that they have been > there and really mean it? Similarly, the Storm takes one indirect I'm sure they have. I don't mean to imply that ALL Indigo Girls songs are pretentious. Just most of them. > experience with racism, and in a sense make claims about all > racism and the evils of the world in general (implicitly). > Pretentious? Sure. Allowable? Why not? Tolerable? Heck, > it's a song, and if it works for them, then sure. It doesn't Allowable, indeed. Palatable...well, that depends on how strong of a stomach one happens to possess. For me, the difference between palatable and nauseating is illustrated by the difference between Natalie Merchant and Indigo Girls. Some have considered Blind Man's Zoo pretentious; I disagree. The difference lies entirely in the execution. > make me any more nauseous than Kate Bush singing about nuclear > war or dead soldiers. Again, the difference lies in the execution. Kate Bush's music is untouchable by IG, period. Kate has, to the best of my knowledge, never been in a nuclear war or any sort of war for that matter. She can, however, still give us an artistically laudable song about war. You're focussing on the "ignorance" component of pretentiousness, and forgetting the much-more-important "inadequacy" component. > > > My point here is that addressing philosophical or weighty topics does > > not make one pretentious. Addressing them from a position of ignorance > > or inadequacy does. > > How do you judge whether an artist is *qualified* to address a topic? By the songs produced. The same way anyone else does. > This is utter nonsense. If I want to write a song about Chinese > pole-vaulting, am I being pretentious? Was Kate Bush in Vietnam? > Is she a Buddhist? I don't find Pulling Out The Pin pretentious. Neither do I. Perhaps, lacking a neon sign, I should have called your attention to "inadequacy" by placing it in an asterisked box. And to be strictly accurate, let me replace "ignorace or inadequacy" in the above with "ignorance AND inadequacy." I think you've missed most of my point. We do agree on one thing: all this is subjective. I never claimed that it wasn't, and I hope we're not so pedantic that I will in future be obligated to place "I believe" in front of every critical opinion I offer. Drewcifer ======================================================================== Date: 17 Mar 1993 17:32:01 -0500 (EST) From: Sam Warren Subject: Hamlet correction > So where does Ophelia fit into it? >>She's Hamlet's sister. No, Ophelia was Laertes' sister, and Polonius' daughter. She was, in a sense, Hamlet's girlfriend, although he acted rather discourteously towards her in the course of the play. Of course, this was primarily because Hamlet knew Ophelia was helping Polonius to spy on him for the benefit of the King and Queen. P.S. As an aside to Jeff: You mention in your synopsis that Hamlet wanted to kill both the King (his uncle) and the Queen (his mother) to avenge his father's murder. I disagree. I don't believe he ever intends to kill Gertrude. The only scene that comes close to making this statement is the one in which he forces her to look at the two lockets (his [of his father], and hers [of Claudius]). Some say he rapes his mother in this scene, some say he's violent with her. At the very least, it's open to interpretation. However, he doesn't murder her, and I don't believe he ever intends to. I only mention this because there's been so much implied regarding his "Oedipal" relationship with his mother. For the most part, I find this interpretation lacks validity. ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 17:16:27 CST From: lusky@sol.hc.ti.com (Steve Lusky) Subject: re: quote Brian, As a bike commuter, I wear shorts into TI regularly though I do change into casual clothes including long pants after I cool down. I hear that lycra shorts are not allowed, but "Remember it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission", one of Gifford Pinchot`s Intrapraneur's Ten Commandments. I don't have any recommendations for the other Happy albums. Consider the recommendations from others. You may borrow VI, Ecto and Equipoise from me. Or just order all 5! Unfortunately I lost Vickie's list of quotes. As I recall, one of Happy's lines most notable for me was not on the list: "I can't read your mind, I can't even read my own." BTW, the Latin for "god from a machine" is "deus ex machina", which is in Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary. Ciao, Steve ======================================================================== The ecto archives are on hardees.rutgers.edu in ~ftp/pub/hr. There is an INDEX file explaining what is where. Feel free to send me things you'd like to have added. -- jessica (jessica@ns1.rutgers.edu)