From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V8 #244 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, July 12 1999 Volume 08 : Number 244 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: 100 'Best'Novels [Joel Mullins ] House of Blues ["Linnig" ] Re: 100 'Best'Novels ["Livia" ] Re: 100 'Best'Novels ["Livia" ] Re: 100 'Best'Novels [Joel Mullins ] Re: top 100 books [MAustin802@aol.com] NASA clapping/musicians ["Russ Reynolds" ] this is dedicated... ["Russ Reynolds" ] poor stanley? [BLATZMAN@aol.com] Re: poor stanley? ["D B" ] Re: top 100 books ["D B" ] JfS advance-image ["Russ Reynolds" ] Re: poor stanley? [Ethyl Ketone ] Re: top 100 books ["Capitalism Blows" ] Re: top 100 books [Terrence M Marks ] Re: South Pork ["Capitalism Blows" ] Re: top 100 books [Christopher Gross ] Distinction [Knaurr ] Re: A child was graphically incinerated by igniting his anal wind...(NR) [Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programmer Subject: Re: 100 'Best'Novels jbranscombe@compuserve.com wrote: > > Two deeply poor lists. Yay, Ayn Rand - simplistic Commie hater on High > School reading lists. Propaganda masquerading as philosophy. Matched on the > posh parade by ludricrous placings for Nabokov. Gosh, you Americans love > an emigre Russki aristo.... I'll agree that the lists were pretty poor. I do like Ayn Rand, but I wouldn't put all 4 of her novels in the top 10. Basically, you're right about the high school reading list thing. It seemed that both lists were just a bunch of novels you're supposed to read in high school. For example, F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby is a wonderful book, but not even close to as spectacular as Tender is the Night and This Side of Paradise. And of course The Grapes of Wrath was the only Steinbeck listed. What about East of Eden? And Kerouac: does everyone just read On The Road and then never consider that he might have other good novels as well? Desolation Angels is at least as good as On The Road, as is Big Sur and the often overlooked The Town and the City. And what about Tom Robbins, Thomas Wolfe, Paul Auster, and Edward Abbey? And as far as the whole BraveNewWorld-Anthem-futuristic-moralistic-type novel goes, Burgess' The Wanting Seed is definitely the tops. For the most part, they picked the right authors, but the wrong books. Joel ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 19:23:53 -0700 From: "Linnig" Subject: House of Blues I was reminiscing recently about past concerts. Several years ago I saw Robyn at the House of Blues in Chicago (Tim Keegan opened). I remained sober so these memories should be semi-accurate. I was right against the stage when a woman lugging a video camera asked for my spot for a moment. She taped the entire show. Does anyone know if this video has surfaced? (T.O.T) The Other Terry ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 19:27:54 -0700 From: "Livia" Subject: Re: 100 'Best'Novels > jbranscombe@compuserve.com wrote: > > > > Two deeply poor lists. Yay, Ayn Rand - simplistic Commie hater on High > > School reading lists. Propaganda masquerading as philosophy. Matched on the > > posh parade by ludricrous placings for Nabokov. Gosh, you Americans love > > an emigre Russki aristo.... > > I'll agree that the lists were pretty poor. I do like Ayn Rand, but I > wouldn't put all 4 of her novels in the top 10. Basically, you're right > about the high school reading list thing. It seemed that both lists > were just a bunch of novels you're supposed to read in high school. > > For example, F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby is a wonderful book, > but not even close to as spectacular as Tender is the Night and This > Side of Paradise. And of course The Grapes of Wrath was the only > Steinbeck listed. What about East of Eden? > > And Kerouac: does everyone just read On The Road and then never consider > that he might have other good novels as well? Desolation Angels is at > least as good as On The Road, as is Big Sur and the often overlooked The > Town and the City. And what about Tom Robbins, Thomas Wolfe, Paul > Auster, and Edward Abbey? And as far as the whole > BraveNewWorld-Anthem-futuristic-moralistic-type novel goes, Burgess' The > Wanting Seed is definitely the tops. > > For the most part, they picked the right authors, but the wrong books. > > Joel i haven't seen the list, but from the sample above it certainly seems to have a lot of americans. to please me, it would have to have things like anthony powell's music of time, muriel spark (memento mori, maybe?), kingsley amis (plenty to choose from there too, but good old lucky jim probably has the best name recognition and longest history). and maybe even a bit of more-recent sf/f -- it's not like the century stopped after brave new world and 1984, or that imaginary worlds aren't at least as worthwhile as future-projection ones. (for me, that would boil down to le guin, tanith lee, maybe zelazny, the strugatskys, lem, silverberg, bradbury...well, ok, maybe it doesn't boil down. but i don't like heinlein, find asimov mostly shallow (though very fond of the city and the stars), and have a strong antipathy toward mister i'm-a-genius himself, harlan ellison.) hmm, maybe i'll actually go look now. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 19:45:33 -0700 From: "Livia" Subject: Re: 100 'Best'Novels oops. i thought it was just 20th-c novels. seeing butler there gave me a major double-take, though also a pleasant surprise. and i'm sorry i left out forster and naipaul before. shit, and evelyn waugh! how could i not have put him right up there with the big three? (and maugham, green, etc with forster, a sort of secondary tier as far as my tastes go. and even kipling, who wrote about creating a phonetic alphabet [just-so stories] a long time before that sheila finch babe in F&SF with her silly guild of "lingsters", cliched characters given depth by alcoholism or dead girlfriends, and stereotypically male-dominated societies (though she did pull one nice trick out there by letting the drunken deluded lingster get all shocked by discovering that old women were behind a lot of the alien society, as in that amazing le guin story about the three xenologists who slowly realize that while the world they're on is actually the creation of some adolescent boy back on earth, all nubile young women and virile spear-throwing men, it is also evolving on its own, via the old people in caves and lodges, the ones that young Bill K. back in Ohio or wherever doesn't give a shit about because he's far too busy imagining himself killing animals, dueling enemies, and fucking whichever simpering babe takes his fancy.) 43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) Anthony Powell cool. though it should have been in the top 10. 76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE Muriel Spark that was the one i actually figured it would be, being best-known, made into a movie (with maggie smith!), et al. what, no kingsley? henry green made it in, and the pretentious old bag iris murdoch, and even booth tarkington (who i do quite like), and waugh, forster, naipaul etc TWICE, but no kingsley amis, margaret drabble, elisabeth jabe howard, etc? and how the fuck could they do best novels of all time and leave out jane austen? i think i'll go throw up now or something. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 23:34:22 -0700 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: 100 'Best'Novels Livia wrote: > > oops. i thought it was just 20th-c novels. > seeing butler there gave me a major double-take, > though also a pleasant surprise. I thought it *was* just this century. If the list is supposed to be "all-time," then where the hell is Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell? I think it must be just this century. Joel ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 07:34:06 EDT From: MAustin802@aol.com Subject: Re: top 100 books In a message dated 7/10/99 2:03:07 PM Central Daylight Time, etews@hotmail.com writes: << URL:http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100best/novels.html >> Sorry, had to come out of watcher mode. as someone within the book industry (quite the cold unhuman term) having that many Hubbard titles in the top anything makes me raise an eyebrow (or two). Especially Fear, which really wasn't a literary event on anyone's scale. excepting the Scientologist's. this reminds me of the mid 80's where people of that following would buy up copies from national chains and resell them back to the publisher to keep Dianetics on the top of the best sellers. when you consider how many copies would need to be sold nationally to topple people like King and Clancy and Steel, the whole thing seemed kind of odd. then they started editing the list to not include it and boom, it went away. only what i had heard, could be unfounded rumours,etc. battlefield earth certainly was a blockbuster hit, in any standard. and there was that huge 10 book series that dominated every bit of space in stores for a couple of years. that was huge, but those were not on the list. hmmmm. Hubbard's followers stacking the odds on their hero. maybe, maybe not. just raised a couple of eyebrows. as for the other list, it's put out by a Book Publisher. perhaps their choices were based more on marketing than artistic content? again just a jaundiced observation. M ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 08:32:14 -0700 From: "Russ Reynolds" Subject: NASA clapping/musicians ET (CB): >a little birdie sent me a copy of JEWELS. thanks, little birdie!!! i'm >only to Elizabeth Jade. so far, i like it more than i like most robyn >albums upon first listen, so i think that's a pretty good sign. NASA >Clapping is killer, without a doubt. hey, it sounds like he says, "all >right, morris" during that. I'm pretty sure he says "Alright Buzz", which I figure is a Buzz Aldrin reference. Could be another one o'them bee references though, eh? I think CD Now lists the musicians but I'm not sure if it's a complete list. No Morris or Andy listed, and I'm sure if either of them had worked on JfS we'd have heard about it ages ago. Anyone come across any cover art yet? - -rUss ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 08:39:46 -0700 From: "Russ Reynolds" Subject: this is dedicated... >By the way, I also have a copy of "Venus 13", Ray Hitchcock's follow up to >Percy (and dedicated to Robyn). Could you pass along the exact inscription? And what year was this published? thanky. - -rUss ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 13:09:18 EDT From: BLATZMAN@aol.com Subject: poor stanley? Kubrick okayed the cuts to his own film. Why come down on the studio execs? The MPAA was going to give the film an NC-17. We all know how successful those films are!!! American audiences don't exactly flock to NC-17 films. I'm sure Kubrick made the right decision in altering the American print. More people will see it as a result. You can blame the public just as much as the studios or the MPAA . That is all, just lurking about till the new album comes out. I got sour after the last album and stopped posting. I guess I was pouting. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 10:56:50 PDT From: "D B" Subject: Re: poor stanley? >Kubrick okayed the cuts to his own film. Can somebody verify this? I haven't heard anything about it. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 08:58:27 PDT From: "D B" Subject: Re: top 100 books Almost anything by Huxley other than BNW could/should have been there, not to mention J.M. Coetzee, or Patrick White. "Voss" equals anything on either of the two lists. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 12:10:49 -0700 From: "Russ Reynolds" Subject: JfS advance-image you can take a look at the "odd shaped jewel case" on eBay... http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=129099807 - -rUss, thinking that July 20 would be a fitting release date for a "NASA Clapping" single. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 12:40:24 -0700 From: Ethyl Ketone Subject: Re: poor stanley? At 10.56 AM -0700 7/11/99, D B wrote: >>Kubrick okayed the cuts to his own film. > >Can somebody verify this? I haven't heard anything about it. I've heard this is true as well. I also heard it's about a 65 second cut. Heard it from a couple of sources. Be Seeing You. "Questions are a burden for others. Answers are a prison for oneself." **************************************************************************** M.E.Ketone/C.Galbraith meketone@ix.netcom.com carrieg@blueplanetsoftware.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 13:37:52 PDT From: "Capitalism Blows" Subject: Re: top 100 books <> the imdb, and it's supposed to come out next year, with john travolta in the role of terl! i've no idea what to make of that. John's a member of the Church of Scientology. Nuff said?> yes, i think we all know *why* he was chosen. but i *still* don't know what to make of it. okay, we're talking about two different lists here. well, four, actually. there's a category for the 100 best *novels* and a category for the 100 best *nonfiction* books, with each separated into two lists --one for the board, and one for the readers. Dianetics is indeed #1 in the nonfiction category (as chosen by the readers), but, not being a novel, is not listed among the 100 best novels of all time (as chosen by the readers). Battlefield Earth, Mission Earth, and Fear, all being novels, *are* listed among the 100 best novels of all time (as chosen by the readers). yes, i'm guessing that's exactly why hubbard and rand have a combined seven out of the top ten (as chosen by the readers). they've both got huge cult followings. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 16:52:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Terrence M Marks Subject: Re: top 100 books On Sun, 11 Jul 1999, Capitalism Blows wrote: > > > yes, i'm guessing that's exactly why hubbard and rand have a combined seven > out of the top ten (as chosen by the readers). they've both got huge cult > followings. Definitely. An internet-based "best of" poll is, almost by definition, rigged. cf. John Flansburgh and Ravishing Rick Flair winning People's Most Beautiful People poll and several other examples I can't think of presently. And, unrelatedly, my comic strip is #47 on the WorldCharts top 100 homepages list. We passed Michael Moore on the listings today. You can vote for me at http://www.worldcharts.com/hvote.html?add=[1541] or him at...well, I can't get at it right now, but you can vote for both of us. (And I only bring this up because we're speaking of internet-based popularity contests and because I've been climbing 20 slots a week, so I need your help) Terrence Marks Unlike Minerva (a comic strip) http://grove.ufl.edu/~normal normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 14:11:41 PDT From: "Capitalism Blows" Subject: Re: South Pork i thought they were trying to poke fun at the ridiculousness of saddam hussein's status as hitler du jour. you know, he is, practically, portrayed as more demonic even than satan, while those responsible for the killing of 4,500 children per month can go on teevee and tell the american people that the price "is worth it." (madeleine albright said this. i don't even know what in the fuck it's supposed to mean, to tell the truth. how can she possibly be competent to make such a judgement? it's kind of like robert mcnamara going on charlie rose and bawling his head off because some people called him some bad names during the war.) anyhow, i thought it was a brilliant bit, saddam being so fucking evil that he was pyschaelogically abusive to *satan*. as for the homosexuality, well, they're both males. so if they're to have sexual relationship, it'd have to be homosexual. and i don't think it would've been nearly as effective had it just been some sort of "professional" relationship. in fact, i don't see how it could've worked at all. moreover, i'm sure they wanted to have a graphic homosexual relationship in the movie, just to piss off the christians. and taking it as far over the top as its possible to take it --a relationship between satan and saddam hussein-- was, as i say, in my opinion stunningly brilliant. i think some movies are just perfect for intellectually analyzing, and looking for meanings, and interpretations, etc. witness our previous discussion of Bridge On The River Kwai. but some movies hit you on a visceral level. The Adjuster is one of these, i think. as is Barton Fink, for example. if you asked me to explain what the HELL Barton Fink meant to me, i probably couldn't. but i do know that; one, it's consummately watchable/entertaining; and two, the cumulative effect is positively gut-wrenching. that final sequence: "what's in the box?" "i don't know." "isn't it yours?" "i don't know." followed by the bird falling out of the sky into the ocean, then the cut to black with the sound of the waves lingering under the closing credits for a while before the piano comes in, just knocks me for a fucking loop. taken out of context, it wouldn't have this effect, naturally. but the coen's manage to involve you in these characters' lives in such a way that it's completely mesmerising and effecting. even though i don't have any idea what it *means*. The Adjuster is much the same. oh, i suppose egoyan's got a message in there somewhere. something about the detachment inherent in modern consumer culture, probably. but again, that's not what draws me to watching the movie again and again. it's the entertainment/watchability, coupled with the huge emotional whallop as bubba sneers, "are you in, or, are you out?" then noah, whose family has just left him, watching his own house burn to the ground, recalls the circumstances that had brought the family together in the first place. for me, it's devastating, even though i've no clue what it's supposed to mean. and that's one great thing about movies: they effect us all so differently. so if it didn't get its hooks into you initially, michael, perhaps it never will. and instead of getting together to watch it someday, we'll just have to go over to quail's and watch Excalibur. you're probably correct about that. the other thing i was thinking after i'd sent that post is, the christians are probably as much opposed to the percieved *lifestyle* of homosexuals, quite apart from the sex, that they feel a need to distinguish it. (and this would help explain cap's horror of big gay al emceeing a uso show.) though if this is the case, it should probably have been given its own category altogether, rather than lumped in with sex in general. KEN "Charles Bukowski never stole my car and crashed it and left it running" THE KENSTER _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 18:09:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: top 100 books Gee, now that I know L Ron Hubbard is so good, I regret not snagging all those Battlefield Earth sequels that the Quail tried and failed to give away at the Feg Hootenanny.... Not only is every internet poll likely to be rigged, but in this case the voters are probably voting for different things. When someone chooses the "best novel of the twentieth century," do they mean that it's the best crafted as a work of literature, the most important in the development of the literary art, or just that they enjoyed it the most? Or just that someone told them they could purge negative engrams by voting for Battlefield Earth? On Sun, 11 Jul 1999, Capitalism Blows wrote: > okay, we're talking about two different lists here. well, four, actually. > there's a category for the 100 best *novels* and a category for the 100 best > *nonfiction* books, with each separated into two lists --one for the board, > and one for the readers. Note that the readers' poll for best nonfiction is still open. If everyone votes, maybe we can knock Howard Stern's book out of the top 100! I, being an ignorant buffoon, haven't read a large majority of any of the lists. Interestingly (well, to me), I've read 19 of the board's novels and 29 of the readers' novels, roughly a 2:3 ratio, whereas on the nonfiction list I've read 8 of the board's choices and a mere 6 of the readers' choices, a 4:3 ratio. Does this discrepancy mean I'm more in touch with the people in novel reading than in non-fiction tastes? Or is it just the result of a lifetime of avoiding libertarian propaganda? The Modern-Library-in-the-news page has a good quote: lain de Botton: "[A]n unintended and wonderful side effect of these authoritarian lists of great books may simply be to remind us of what works we genuinely like. In disagreeing with the judges' choices, we define our own identities as readers. Perhaps the best lists should annoy us most." In The New York Times on July 22. On the other hand, there's also an irritating quote, where some moron refers to Evelyn Waugh as a "minor satirist." - --Chris, trying to choose a work of non-fiction to vote for -- Battle Cry of Freedom? Great War and Modern Memory? The Call of Cthulhu? ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 18:51:30 -0500 From: Knaurr Subject: Distinction Forgive me, but as a bisexual Christian, I feel the urge to comment. I'll try to keep it light, but the intro sentence should give everyone who wants to delete this ample warning. <> While any Christian who actually has their head on straight will tell you that all sins are weighed equally, the Christians who would be offended by South Park (and who get such wonderful media coverage for doing things like bombing abortion clinics and gay-pride marches) have it a little differently in their heads. My thought is that Mr. Capalert belongs to the aforementioned group. Due to a few Scriptures where it is said (by an apostle, not by Christ or God) that homosexuality is "an abomination before the Lord", these militant groups of Christians have put it in its own little category, weighing it much more heavily than mere fornication. Even though later on, the same apostle says that "....sodomizers.....and fornicators" (with a whole bunch o' other nasty folk) are the inheritors of Hell, that seems to get rather glossed over. So while aforementioned militant Christians preach against both, they do seem to draw a distinction between sex and homosexual sex, the latter being the "worse" sin of the two. *inserts tongue into cheek* But you know, I would think that having Satan and Saddam Whoo-sane in a gay relationship would be a PLUS for South Park, since it obviously equates homosexuality with evil, eh? But basically, yes, the big to-do is that homosexuality is a =lifestyle=, not just a one-time thing, and that by living that lifestyle, you are turning your back on God, since He sees it as an abomination. That's really the root of the view, but most of these bleating-sheep Christians have it boiled down to "Fags are bad" and then will quote some out-of-context Scripture at you to support their view. While a "serial monogamist" may have a worse lifestyle than two homosexual partners for life, well, I don't know. We'll just have to ask the closest member of the Christian Coalition. We now return you to your regularly scheduled light and witty feg banter. La Rebecca Knaur http://www.bonni.net/becca that makes her email address becca@bonni.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 12:20:11 +0100 (BST) From: Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programmer Subject: Re: A child was graphically incinerated by igniting his anal wind...(NR) >>>>> "Livia" == Livia writes: Livia> . . . while "trash", far from the "cak" that steward Livia> russell (if i remember correctly) called it here a few Livia> years ago Hey, how dare you cast nasturtiums at me! I like 'Trash', and sing it out loud in my more misanthropic moods (like when in company of Beatles/Star Wars bigots). - -- Stewart C. Russell Analyst Programmer, Dictionary Division stewart@ref.collins.co.uk HarperCollins Publishers use Disclaimer; my $opinion; Glasgow, Scotland ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V8 #244 *******************************