Errors-To: ecto-owner@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 #841 ecto, Number 841 Wednesday, 3 November 1993 Today's Topics: *-----------------* HELP! Re: Sarah Beats Kate :-).... Re: anti-SF non-SF Stuff that occurred to me late last night and other stories the New KaTe/klausing about heinlein/sf/gorey/and fripp only knows what else A lurker un-lurks ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1993 17:28:41 -0500 (EST) From: MMCQUAD1@ithaca.edu Subject: HELP! Hi everyone! I just subscribed to this list and, frankly, I'm a bit overwhelmed!! Is there a digest form of this list so I won't be quite so flooded with mail! Drowning in e-mail, Michelle ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1993 17:36:40 -0500 From: gmcdonald@zdi.ziff.com (glenn mcdonald) Subject: Re: Sarah Beats Kate :-).... >This is easily the best year as far as new releases I've ever lived. My list is different from Mike's, but I whole-heartedly agree that 1993 is the best year for new music since I began paying enough attention to have an opinion. If the next Tori Amos, Marillion and Richard Thompson albums were due a month earlier, my year-end top-ten list would probably be completely unmakable. glenn ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 17:40:23 EST From: jessica Subject: Re: HELP! Michelle, I have moved you over to the digest list! jessica || falafel, || It is this || Don't try to tell me there's no reason for || || falafel, || that brings || any moment in time, every memory of mine. || || falafel, || us together. || Those years are lines of color on my face, || ||BaBaGanough|| --Kate || the past is warpaint. --Happy Rhodes || ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1993 17:42:20 -0500 From: gmcdonald@zdi.ziff.com (glenn mcdonald) Subject: Re: anti-SF Don't short-change Heinlein as a writer and a provocative thinker. His ideas may not be the same as your ideas, but he *has* given his ideas a lot of thought, and I'd rather have someone try, carefully, to convince me of something I *don't* believe, than listen to someone I already agree with preach sloppily. glenn ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 14:47:39 PST From: "John Relph" Subject: non-SF But have you ever read any of the Jack Aubrey / Stephen Maturin novels written by Patrick O'Brian? They are very well written, highly detailed, historically accurate nautical adventures with interesting characters, insidious humour and high drama, not to mention romance and intrigue. Oh yes, and did I mention natural history and medicine? -- John ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1993 14:35:51 CST From: Subject: Stuff that occurred to me late last night and other stories While watching _World News Now_ report on yesterday's election results, the thought somehow came to me that no matter what one thinks about the whole thing politically, it somehow seems fitting for the home state of this list-- ecto being, in an elemental sense, an apotheosis of the female voice--to have elected a woman to the governorship. And so it somehow seems fitting to me, in commemoration of Gov.-elect Whitman, to revisit the following spoof on the traditional Scottish song "The Rolling Hills of the Border," which many of you may remember from the filler section of the recent HBP tapes. THE ROLLING MILLS OF NEW JOISEY John Roberts and Tony Berend [sp.?] [start with chorus:] When I die, bury me low Where I can hear the petroleum flow A sweeter sound I never did know The rolling mills of New Joisey In Hoboken there will be Trash as far as the eye can see Enough for you, enough for me The garbage cans of New Joisey [repeat chorus] Down in Trenton, there is a bar Where the bums come from near and far They come by truck, they come by car The lousy bums of New Joisey [repeat chorus] When foist I started to roam I traveled far away from Bayonne Then I sat down and wrote this poem I wrote an ode to New Joisey [repeat chorus] When this ditty first came to my attention over the summer, it was immediately apparent to me that it completely ignored the most important entity to be found in the entire Garden State. However, I found myself incapable of adding to the song in any manner remotely approaching the consciousness which pervades the original. For all that, I was at least able to come up with the following codicil: Ecto at ns1 No finer mailing list ever was done The fuzzy blue postings one by one Come emailed out of New Joisey On the other hand, once I got going I found it no obstacle that the ultimate _raison d'etre_ of the list was on the wrong side of the Hudson: Write to Bearsville, goils and boys To order Happy's joyful noise on HR5 and Equipoise >From the state next door to New Joisey At that time, of course, those were the latest releases. Given the closeness of the election, one wonders if it was the votes of irate egg lovers that made the difference. Would radical feminists term the outcome "ovular," I wonder? :-) While playing Loreena McKennitt's "All Souls Night" in commemoration of the celebration of the same name, I found the verse "Standing on the bridge that crosses/The river that crosses to the sea/The wind is full of a thousand voices /They pass by the bridge and me" evoking mental images of, of all things, the Michigan Avenue bridge over the Chicago River. This bridge is more or less on the site of old Fort Dearborn, one of Chicago's precursor settlements after non-native Americans began moving in among the Indians who were then the prin- cipal population. Somehow, the recognition of this triggered an association with the song's opening verse, "Bonfires dot the rolling hillsides/Figures dance around and around/To drums that pulse out echoes of darkness/Moving to the pagan sound/Somewhere in a hidden memory/Images float before my eyes/ Of fragrant nights of straw and bonfires/And dancing until the next sunrise." This, in turn, reminded me of J.T. McCutcheon's 1910 art-with-words piece in the _Chicago Tribune_, "Injun Summer," in which an old raconteur is explaining to his grandson that the color changes of fall foliage are functions of the ghosts of Indians that still hang out in the open spaces. Red leaves are due to warpaint rubbing off said ghosts, piles of fallen leaves are really ectoplasmic teepees, the ghosts use the piles of burning leaves for ritual campfires, etc. (All this, in turn, is probably why the song also reminds me of the Robert Bly branch of the men's movement :-). ) Is Kafkaesque, yes?, what can be linked to local history with a little imagin- ation. Wonder what numbers in Loreena's discography could be linked to the interminable Jersey chemical plants? :-) I have just subscribed to the mailing list folk_music, which seems to have much that may be of interest to readers of this list. Apparently a lot of well-know n artists are contributors; today's incoming included a post by Christine Lavin . To subscribe, send email to listserv@nysernet.org with the line: subscribe folk_music your name A query for our Bay Area readers: how did the dummy referendum turn out? Mitch ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 18:15:21 EST From: mojzes@monet.rutgers.edu (brni) Subject: the New KaTe/klausing about heinlein/sf/gorey/and fripp only knows what else aaaarrrghhhh. there is something terribly wrong with the mailer. it lets mail into my mailbox, but refuses to send anything i write. sigh. started on friday, when the system crashed suddenly, and then when it came up, everything i wrote just disappeared. it got spooled somewhere, tho, and reappeared this morning or so. but now, everything i send just gets bounced as "host not known". at this rate, this is gonna be a very very long post by the time it makes it out of this corner of the net... --------------------------- hi all, i've been listening to the New Kate nonstop since i got it yesterday. i like it a lot. i was kinda worried by what i'd heard over the phone way back when, since i disliked every song except for "rubberband girl." i had hoped that when i had the cd in my gubbly little cd- player, things would sound better, and that all the stuff that made kate special would appear. i think that, for the most part, that has happened. while i don't actively dislike "eat the music," however, i'm not too far off from that sentiment. so far my favorite tracks are "rubberband girl," "big stripy lie," and "you're the one." "rg" is, i think, one of the best pop songs i've heard in a long long time. strangely, i don't like this song for any of the reasons that i like kate. i like it for the reasons that i like prince's better stuff, and thomas dolby. "bsl" has the sonic intensity that i loved of our kate of yore, the intensity that fills _the dreaming_ and _the ninth wave_, and which led a friend of mine to comment that she wasn't playing just music, she was playing emotions. "yto" stands out as a nigh-perfect ballad. something about "yto" keeps bugging me tho (not in a bad way). i had the same feeling about rem's "ignoreland" until i figured out that it reminded me of joy division's "dead souls" sped up and with different lyrics. something about the chord progression in the chorus (notably, the chord right before the phrase resolves) reminds me very strongly of some other song, but i don't know what it is. if anyone can help me with this i'd me much appreciative. "song of solomon" and "lily" have also started to stand out. i haven't listened to the album nearly enough yet (only for about4 hours straight through several times since 3pm tuesday) to really get a feel for it, since it is SO different from what i'm used to. i'd also like to echo woj's and other's complaints about the packaging. i almost feel like i should photocopy the lyrics before it's too late! hey. thats an idea!! well, on to klausing..... ---------------------- >It is entirely legal and feasible for the United States to actually become >a communist state should enough of the citizens of the U.S. ever decide >that is the form of government they want. All that is needed is to call a >constitutional convention and rewrite the Constitution. Lord knows, we're >well on our way to becoming a socialist state without even resorting to >that method. > side point: communism is not (and never has been) a form of government. it is an economic system. there are many communist groups in the united states, and in the world ingeneral, the most prominant of which are monestaries and convents. communism is an economic system where "the workers control the means of production," which is to say: the people who do the work own the business and get the profits. what existed in the ussr was not properly communist, but rather, a "state capitalism," a situation where, rather than private individuals or groups of wealthy individuals owning businesses, the state controls and owns the businesses. >scasterg@delphi.com == Stuart Castergine --- ------------------------ >brni (perhaps if you were a person tired of the Fantasy books discussion >[not that I suspect that you are], then you could be the anti-elves] >>>does anyone know if the cd set has all the same pieces that the >>>4-tape set contains? just curious... > the anti-elves? never. my D&D character is an elf (an elven thief/ magic user/ping pong champ, to be exact). however, i have been skimming the sf/fantasy books thread since i have a hard time actually reading most of them, due to the poor quality of writing that infests most of them. my general procedure to determine readablility is to read the 1st couple of chapters and see if the number of cliche's falls within reason. if it is a borderline case, i open to a random page and read another paragraph. if it isn't better (beginnings are always harder to write than middles), then i don't bother with the book. oh, if anyone is really interested in strange tenses and etc, try italo calvino's _if on a winter's night a traveller_. it ranges from 1st person narrative, to 2nd person dialogs between author and reader, to dialogs about the author, and about writing etc., between the reader and "I," the mysterious narrator of the narrative (who is not the author, but whom the author and the reader, in fact, cannot but help identify with, "I" is quick to point out). >put them away, and now just listen to the discs.) If you cared enough to >tell me what is on the tapes, I'd compare them, but I fit the records on >4 90-minute tapes, so I doubt anything is lost. Hmmm, maybe some things >were added? > i don't think that i care enough to type everything in to the machine. thanks tho. :). >neal -------------------- >Samuel R. Delaney is one of my favorite sci-fi authors (along with John Varley >and Roger Zelazny). I used to be really into sci-fi, but got somewhat >burnt out on it because you could never read a single book, every book >published in the sci-fi genre seems to be part of a never-ending series. >Just when you think you're caught up on a series, you find out that >three more are coming out (like what happened with the Dune series, >the Foundation Trilogy, the Xanth novels, the Amber series, etc, etc, etc.) > yup. i know the feeling. and, like movies, the sequals are rarely as good as the initial edition. roger zelazny has, i think, stagnated greatly since about 1980. it is unfortunate, since he was a highly innovative and masterful stylist until then. the major problem i have with zelazny nowadays is that he really only has one character, with lots of different bodies. i haven't read john varley since high school, and should reread him, since i remember him standing out above others in the genre. >Anyone else find albums to be seasonal? > a friend of mine claims that rem albums are highly seasonal; not that they work for some season and not others, but that they actually mean different things at different times of the year. >Jeff ---------------------- >...is there any human on the planet besides me who found Robert Heinlein's >_Stranger_In_A_Strange_Land_ to be one annoying, pretentious, repellent, >cardboard piece of shit? I *hated* that book, and here's why: > i hated it and loved it at the same time, for many reasons that you listed below. >- The characters were all just brilliant, and clever, and perceptive, and >witty, and wise, and I just wanted to turn their faces inside out. Ugh. If >there's one thing I can't stand, it's an author who makes every character a >prodigy and basically neglects real characterization. These authors are >usually subtly sexist as well. Heinlein does not disappoint in this regard. > heinlein's sexual politics was notoriously backward. even philip k. dick (who cannot be said to have had particularly healthy relations with women) was appalled at heinlein's politics, but said that as a person he was really warm and kind. dick's writing often investigates such apparant contradictions. however, we should all realize by now that people tend to hang out with others of roughly equivalent intelligences, and that, in the context of the story, the characteristics that you mentioned are what brought them together (rather than it being just a coincidence). >- There was a slight disdain for homosexuality going on in what was >apparently a parable about sexual openness. That was simply inexcusable. > there was more than slight disdain. i cringed whenever they would talk about the "wrongness" of male homosexuality. heinlein was, after all, a military man. >- The conceptualization partially dissed laughter. Laughter is lovely. > "laughter: n. an interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the reatures and accompanied by inarticulate noises." --ambrose bierce :) sorry, i couldn't resist. laughter is not, i think, always lovely (although it can be). i think that heinlein was thinking only of the less lovely aspects of laughter in his stance against it. i think that he has ignored some important aspects of the phenomena, because he generalized laughter to be the sort of thing produced by the ignorance necessary to laugh at racial slurs. >- Pretentious, pretentious, pretentious. At the time, I'm sure it was a >rather groundbreaking book, but that doesn't change its essential nature. >It's an incredibly unpopular view, I know, but I also detest Shelley's >_Frankenstein_. Yeah, it was important to what came after, but that doesn't >make it a good book, just an influential one. > well, i've mentioned this before: just because something is pretentious doesn't mean it's bad. in the context of its time, it was rather revolutionary to voice these sorts of things in a mainstream arena. incidentally, i don't know which version of the book you read, but he'd been forced to eliminate some 60000 words by his editors, and recently his wife released the complete book. it is *so much* better and makes a lot more sense this way. >- It was too bloody feelgood. If I want to feel good, I'll read A.A. Milne, >damn it! > hey, no one *forced* you to read it... :) try reading _flow my tears, the policeman said_, _ubik_, or _the three stigmata of palmer eldritch_ (all by philip dick, btw) if you want to read non-feel-good books. i think that it really is, in a sense, exactly the same things that made _siasl_ great that made it bad, as well. i don't think that in a text produced at that time, in that environment, it was possible to separate the two. >Although I'd classify myself as a writer of speculative fiction (which >includes SF and fantasy), I have little respect for the majority of SF or >fantasy. But then, "as you know, Bob," at least 90% of everything is crap. > not everything... (leaves open the speculation of what isn't....) >Hell week in the theater. Sorry. We open this weekend and I'll be fluffy >again. > good luck. >Oh. Would someone remind me what "Bob's your uncle" means? > i'd like to, and will attempt to do so, for a mere $20... >Drewcifer -------------------------- >Well, I'm back from my sojourn into the land of Tori (North Carolina). There >were a couple of pretty good record stores where I was, so now, at long last, >I have heard Happy Rhodes. > curious...why is NC the "land of Tori"? is that where she lives? whereat in NC, if so (my parents have a beach house there...) >remember. I blew the rest of my money on some signed Edward Gorey stuff. >BTW, if you know of any place that has some neat Gorey stuff, let me know, OK? there is Libris Bookstore in philadelphia. i don't know if they have any signed stuff, but they carry a lot of gorey, and lots of other good stuff. definitely one of the places i stop before hitting borders if i'm looking for a book. > Greg O'Rear E-mail: orear@ise.ufl.edu gads, enough already. c y'all later brni (who has been having tragic internet mailing difficulties :( ) addendum: SIGNED EDWARD GOREY STUFF?! gently? I *love* Edward Gorey. I'd also like to know if anybody knows where to get nifty Edward Gorey stuff besides the Wireless or the Signals catalogues. I have _Amphigorey I_ and _Amphigory II_ and _Amphigorey Also_, and I have a tee-shirt with the "Mystery!" logo on it. I don't know whence cometh my Edward Gorey goodies as they were happily received birthday presents. well, i hate to say this, but many a border's books has his stuff. but the more obscure stuff will be found in "yuppie intellectual" (for lack of a better term--i don't mean it as an insult, really) book stores, like Libris in philadelphia. I've heard that Edward Gorey designed the set and costumes for a production of "Dracula" somewhere. The set and the costumes and makeup were all done in black and white, and the only things that had any color to them were red wine and blood. If I had a grandfather, I would have sold him for a chance to see that production. if you ever get a chance, see the edward gorey production of amphigorey. it was *fabulous*--he did the script and choreography, as well as the set and costume design. i think that someone else did the music. it was a musical rendition of a number of the stories that appear in the books. the t-shirt never fails to make me popular at parties, among all the right people, i might add! I want Edward Gorey to do my interior decorating. nah. i want to do my own interior decorating. (i can be at *least* as twisted as EG.) Holly ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 15:14 PST Subject: A lurker un-lurks From: sullivan@fa.disney.com Well, my birthday is coming up in a few days so I figure it's about time I introduce myself. I got introduced to Happy via Tori Amos. I'm a Tori Amos fan and I ended up subscribing to RDT. I kept hearing alot of talk about this Happy Rhodes person so I thought I'd subscribe to ecto. I read, and read, and read. I finally decided to take the big plunge and, for the first time in my life, buy an album by an artist I had never heard before. I took someone's advice and bought _Warpaint_. Good stuff. Then I bought _I_. Good stuff. I used bonus money to buy the rest of the catalog from AG. Good stuff (though I am disappointed with Equipoise). As for me personally, well, I'm 30 (soon to be 31), 6'1", brown long hair, size 13 shoes. As for music taste, here's something I posted to another group a while back when somebody asked what the list members listened to: Tori Amos Black Sabbath Candlemass Danielle Dax Emerson, Lake & Palmer Fairport Convention Ian Gillan Richie Havens Infectious Grooves Judas Priest Kiss Living Color Malhavoc Nirvana Oingo Boingo Sam Phillips Queensryche Happy Rhodes Slayer Testament U.D.O. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble Warlock X Yes Frank Zappa ...just to name a few. I'm a lurker. Why am I a lurker? Well, don't have much to say about the Hapster, I guess. That and I get so far behind in the digests that I don't stay current. I'm content just to listen, I suppose. And I sure haven't seen her live. Someday, perhaps. That's all for now. I've been on the list for quite a while and I've made the occasional contribution. Even sent mail to a few people. Just thought I'd pipe up and say "hello". Michael Sullivan sullivan@fa.disney.com Walt Disney Feature Animation +1 818 544 2683 (voice) Glendale, CA +1 818 544 4579 (fax) ======================================================================== 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)