From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V11 #240 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, July 26 2002 Volume 11 : Number 240 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: words [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Swearing at ships on children's TV [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] legal advice [gSs ] Re: Swearing at ships on children's TV ["matt sewell" ] Re: words [Stewart Russell ] Re: reply-to-all [guapo stick ] This post is an advertisement for itself. [The Great Quail ] Leave Titanic alone! [The Great Quail ] Re: more fucking SF ["Jason R. Thornton" ] Re: words ["Jason R. Thornton" ] Re: more fucking SF [Christopher Gross ] Re: SF (not startrekfucking) ["Jason R. Thornton" ] Re: reply-to-all [Stewart Russell ] No kiddies in room while you read this ["Silver Leaf" ] Re: This post is an advertisement for itself. [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: that burger was tasty ["drew" ] Re: that burger was tasty [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] wendigo ["drew" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 08:47:46 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: words On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Brian Hoare wrote: > The Great Quail: Actually, this was me. I can be The Lesser Quail, perhaps: > >New terms, unless they're commercial, generally get borrowed from older > >linguistic roots; i.e., the scientific tendency to use Latin and Greek > >roots. And even commercial words, which might begin as brand names, try to > >make *some* degree of "sense" having to do w/existing connotations within > >the language. > > The pop-media also likes to take bits off words and use them as > prefixes/suffixes even where there is no etymological history to support it. > A sample of these new suffixes that most western english speakers will > comprehend > > -athon : eg Runathon (running a long way for charity), Marathon (spoiling > lots of things). Which reminds me of a pet peeve: ignorant parents who name their kid "Jonathon" - or worse, "Johnathon." The name "Jonathan" is spelled like that - always has been - and is etymologically unrelated to "John" (except for both being Hebrew). A "Johnathon" is some sort of endurance contest involving portable toilets. > As we get used to a word's abbreviation we are creating new roots that are > the same as old roots but with subtly different meanings > auto/stereo/phone/tele. I have certainly seen stereophile used and phonebook > is making an appearance in place of 'phone book. Good point - since "phonebook" certainly has nothing to do w/*sound*. Although I must say that I've never seen 'phone book with the apostrophe - except in material printed before, say, 1955. What I want to know is why some people insist on writing "fax" in all caps - - it's short for "facsimile," no? > >So if you want to make up a new curse word, it won't do just to throw > >together letters at random, say, "rgavvyq." No way would that ever be a > >naturally occurring English word. > > My brother and I once played a game of inventing "insulting words". Our > conclusion was that the best ones started with a gutteral and were one > syllable long. They need no meaning, their power is due to their ability to > transmit aggressiveness. True - they'd *work* that way. My point, really, was that "rgavvyq" wouldn't be a word because (a) "rg" does not occur at the beginning of English words, (b) the double "v" is very unusual - "navvy" being the only example I can think of - oh wait, "savvy" too, (c) "y" as a vowel is rare except in words borrowed from other languages (or very old, archaic Anglo-Saxon words, like "yclept"), and (d) English does not end words in "q." I confess, my description of the "word" as a "random" collection of letters is wrong - I purposely chose a combination that violated several rules. And if you disagree with any of this, you can go trup yourselves, you bunch of shap-findlers. - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::Drive ten thousand miles across America and you will know more about ::the country than all the institutes of sociology and political science ::put together. __Jean Baudrillard__ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 02:10:40 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Swearing at ships on children's TV >>but beautifully played. In a parallel universe, that song got used >>instead of Celine Dion's in "Titanic". > >In a parallel universe, the movie Titanic wasn't made. In a parallel universe, the Titanic didn't sink! >>>That'd be Lal's scupture "Tea In Bed". For a better view. >> >>you've got to like someone who lists "Blue Peter" as an influence. >> went to an art exhibition the other day where in his blurb, bio, whathaveyou, the artist thanked, among other people "Tony Hart and Vision On". >My brother and I once played a game of inventing "insulting words". Our >conclusion was that the best ones started with a gutteral and were one >syllable long. They need no meaning, their power is due to their ability to >transmit aggressiveness. my high school English teacher taught us (IIRC) that the best swear words are monosyllabic, start with a fricative and end in a plosive. This also goes for many of the euphemisms used to replace them (shoot, drat, etc) James PS - thanks to all of those fegs with both the know-how and savoir faire ;) to explain about the Anglo-Saxon and Norman parts of the language PPS - off to bed. It's 2am, and I've got to vote tomorrow. James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= .-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= You talk to me as if from a distance =-.-=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:17:41 -0500 (CDT) From: gSs Subject: legal advice i live on a couple heavily wooded acres in north texas in an unincorparated area. a developer is trying to strong arm me and some neighbors into letting him survey for a sewage trunk line they want to run through the back of our properties and to giving them a 20 foot easement along the length. this line would run right along a creek and the right through about 15-20 100+ year old oaks. the immediate enviromental impact would be devasting and it looks like they might have to cut through quite a bit of the creeks bedrock to get the pipe deep enough. i talked with the developer this morning and he said that they are filing a restraining order so they could come in and survey. what can i do to stop this, besides feeding him to the crawfish? gSs ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 15:31:07 +0100 From: "matt sewell" Subject: Re: Swearing at ships on children's TV My favourite parallel universe is the one where Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio set sail on Celine Dion who then sinks after hitting an iceberg with the loss of all hands... the theme tune is played on the horns of assorted oil tankers and stays in the charts right up until the world is taken over by the Kate Winslet clones made specially for the film... But then that's just me for you... Cheers Matt >From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) > > >>but beautifully played. In a parallel universe, that song got used > >>instead of Celine Dion's in "Titanic". > > > >In a parallel universe, the movie Titanic wasn't made. > >In a parallel universe, the Titanic didn't sink! > > >>>That'd be Lal's scupture "Tea In Bed". For a better view. > >> > >>you've got to like someone who lists "Blue Peter" as an influence. > >> > >went to an art exhibition the other day where in his blurb, bio, >whathaveyou, the artist thanked, among other people "Tony Hart and Vision >On". > > >My brother and I once played a game of inventing "insulting words". Our > >conclusion was that the best ones started with a gutteral and were one > >syllable long. They need no meaning, their power is due to their ability to > >transmit aggressiveness. > >my high school English teacher taught us (IIRC) that the best swear words >are monosyllabic, start with a fricative and end in a plosive. This also >goes for many of the euphemisms used to replace them (shoot, drat, etc) > >James > >PS - thanks to all of those fegs with both the know-how and savoir faire ;) >to explain about the Anglo-Saxon and Norman parts of the language > >PPS - - off to bed. It's 2am, and I've got to vote tomorrow. > > James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= > .-=-.-=-.-=-.- > .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. > - -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= You talk to me as if from a distance > =-.-=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time > - -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: Click Here ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 11:09:32 -0400 (EDT) From: "Jonathan Fetter" Subject: Re: SF (no fucking) If you like modern "hard" sci-fi that has a classic feel, I'd recommend Greg Bear, specifically "Moving Mars," "The Forge of God" and definitely "Eon." I would mention "Blood Music" too, but I read that so long ago that I can't say it is as good as the aforementioned. Bear also writes a lot of sequels which are usually not as good as the original. He is somewhat predictable in that the earth or some other large object ends up blowing up or being irretrievably changed, which he is very good at describing. Lately he's been missing instead of hitting, so Bear is no longer a sure thing. BTW, in response to the question of what are fegs reading, I'm currently re-reading Brian McNaughton's "Throne of Bones," the best horror/fantasy genre book I've read in the past five years. Jon > > As far as SF recommendations go, William Gibson has long been a favorite > of mine, more for his prose style, visual sense, and characterization than > for his SF-specific characteristics. I'd also recommend Bruce Sterling, > especially _Heavy Weather_ and _Holy Fire_, plus his short story > collections. I second the recommendation for Robinson's Mars books, but > be warned that this is definitely one of those series that goes steadily > downhill as it progresses. But these are all fairly recent. When you > said "classics," did you mean the old classics of SF's Golden Age? > > > --Chris ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 11:11:19 -0400 From: Stewart Russell Subject: Re: words Brian Hoare wrote: > > -athon or the locally spotted 'saleathon'; obviously, the room in which Francophone Fric would keep his tuna. > -a/oholic esp the idiot 'shopaholic'; one does not nip down to the shopahols for a bag* of milk, does one? Stewart * they sell milk in bags in Canada. Must... resist... urge... to drop one off a high building (heh). ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 11:17:08 -0400 From: guapo stick Subject: Re: reply-to-all when we last left our heroes, Ken Weingold (hazmat@hellrot.org) exclaimed: >Guys, could we please stop these group replies/reply-to-all's? We >really don't need two copies of each mail. is your name Eb? ;) woj p.s. agreed! if you're posting to the list, no need to cc the poster -- they'll get a copy though the list. careful with those replies, eugene! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 11:25:29 -0400 From: The Great Quail Subject: This post is an advertisement for itself. Drew writes, > One of the bits in Minority Report that really impressed me > was the "precrime works" promo video. Usually those things > come off as really, really fake, and I could believe in Spielberg's. Yeah, I thought that was cool too -- better than Verhoeven's, which to be fair, are more satirical. But it reminds me of the DNA cartoon form Jurassic Park, which was one of my favorite parts of that movie -- it seemed very authentic. > Before you sneer at the latter, consider that > band t-shirts are as much about displaying your love of a cool > band as having the name of the band you love draped across > your nipples. True: but advertising an artist seems to me more a conscious, self-directed statement than wearing a Sean John shirt that only advertises itself. Reminds me of an idea me and a friend once had: Self-Reflexivity.com. A Web site that does one thing and one thing only: sells T-shirts that read, "Self-Reflexivity.com" > I dislike heavy-handed, overdone, distancing cinematography, > too, but what I saw in AI and Minority Report really worked for me. Me, too. I loved the cinematography on MR -- it didn't look washed-out to me at all; I thought it was beautiful. All charcoal and glass and cobalt. - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 11:30:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: more fucking SF On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, Marcy Tanter wrote: > Maybe this will help: > > The Middle English Period > (1066-1500) [snip] > http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/english/fajardo/teaching/eng520/mideng.htm Cool! It's always nice to get independent confirmation that my memory still (sometimes) functions correctly. Almost makes up for all the embarrassing typos in my last post.... Speaking of memory, can someone remind me of the title of the story "Minority Report" was based on? It was a short story, right? If you can tell me what book(s) it can be found in, that would be even cooler. Thanks! - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 11:34:26 -0400 From: The Great Quail Subject: Leave Titanic alone! Stewart gripes, >> In a parallel universe, the movie Titanic wasn't made. > > there are, thankfully, an infinite number in which it wasn't. Oh for heaven's sake! It was just a movie. It didn't hurt anyone, it didn't cause any wars, it didn't herald loud the death of man -- it was just a popular movie with stilted dialogue and a fantastic last hour rarely matched in the annals of film spectacle. Was it "Wings of Desire" or "The Bicycle Thief?" Of course not; but it didn't aim to be. So the establishment is corrupt and truly artistic works have difficulty getting made -- that's the state of popular art from the time of the Romans, and probably earlier. You want to blame someone, blame me. I saw Titanic twice in the theaters and bought the DVD. I for one don't want it exiled to a parallel nonexistence, I liked the damn movie. I also shop at the GAP, drink Coke, and God forbid, I *like* the taste of a MacDonald's cheeseburger. U2 is my favorite group, I love Spielberg movies, and I watch the Fox network. God, ye Fegs: popular culture is not always something that must be reviled, shat upon, and trampled into the dust. Why must it be used as a negative barometer to measure coolness? If Robyn suddenly became as popular as Pearl Jam, I wonder how many of you would think he sold out and abandon the List? No offense, Stewart, your comment was just the trigger for my growing ire to vent itself. Don't take it personally! - --Qranky Quail ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 08:35:05 -0700 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Re: more fucking SF At 11:30 AM 7/26/2002 -0400, Christopher Gross wrote: >Speaking of memory, can someone remind me of the title of the story >"Minority Report" was based on? "The Minority Report." >It was a short story, right? If you can >tell me what book(s) it can be found in, that would be even cooler. >Thanks! "The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories." - --Jason "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples." - Sherwood Anderson ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 08:49:19 -0700 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Re: words At 01:32 PM 7/26/2002 +0000, Brian Hoare wrote: >The pop-media also likes to take bits off words and use them as >prefixes/suffixes even where there is no etymological history to support it. >As we get used to a word's abbreviation we are creating new roots that are >the same as old roots but with subtly different meanings >auto/stereo/phone/tele. I have certainly seen stereophile used and >phonebook is making an appearance in place of 'phone book. One that REALLY bugs me is the new word 'morph,' shortened from 'metamorphosis,' being used to mean 'transform.' It's the 'meta' from 'metamorphosis' that means to change or transform. 'Morph' simply refers to something having a particular shape or form. - --Jason "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples." - Sherwood Anderson ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 11:51:44 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: more fucking SF On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Jason R. Thornton wrote: > >Speaking of memory, can someone remind me of the title of the story > >"Minority Report" was based on? > > "The Minority Report." Are you serious? While I couldn't remember the story's title, I would have *sworn* I remembered it was something different than the movie's title. So much for pride in my special power of remembering things correctly.... On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, The Qranky Quail wrote: > >> In a parallel universe, the movie Titanic wasn't made. > > > > there are, thankfully, an infinite number in which it wasn't. > > Oh for heaven's sake! It was just a movie. It didn't hurt anyone, it ... Actually, it did -- the first half was bad enough to cause at least mild pain and nausea. However, I agree that the second, action-oriented half of the movie was great. As soon as the ship started to go down, the quality started to go up. And while we'd be better off if Celine Dion's theme song didn't exist, it wasn't nearly as painful as Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You" from "The Bodyguard," still my most hated song of all time. If you average over the whole movie, "Titanic" might merit as much as an Ebbish B-. BTW, can you tell me what real-life ship "Titanic" was based on? - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:10:34 -0700 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Re: SF (not startrekfucking) At 11:09 AM 7/26/2002 -0400, Jonathan Fetter wrote: >If you like modern "hard" sci-fi that has a classic feel, I'd recommend >Greg Bear, specifically "Moving Mars," "The Forge of God" and >definitely "Eon." I thought 'Anvil of Stars,' the sequel to 'Forge of God,' was a lot better than its predecessor, and likely his best novel. It was a lot darker and stranger, more ambiguous, than 'Forge of God. >I would mention "Blood Music" too, but I read that so >long ago that I can't say it is as good as the aforementioned. 'Blood Music' is set right here in La Jolla (as is Gregory Benford's 'Timescape', another hard-SF author & novel I'd recommend). That'll probably only interest gNat. As far as Delaney goes, am I the only person that favors 'Stars in my Pocket, Like Grains of Sand'? - --Jason "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples." - Sherwood Anderson ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 12:15:36 -0400 From: Stewart Russell Subject: Re: reply-to-all guapo stick wrote: > > p.s. agreed! if you're posting to the list, no need to cc the poster the trick is remembering to furtle the headers correctly when in an insufficiently caffeinated state. Mea culpa several times, but Mozilla Mail is currently the least-worst of a terrible bunch for me right now. Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 16:26:32 +0000 From: "Silver Leaf" Subject: No kiddies in room while you read this Drew: >(it's all about Cherokee jersey boxer shorts, nothing else will do) Jersey boxer shorts? Damn(in a good way.) - ----------- Brian: >I wonder if Robyn used to get "desk tidies" at Christmas? OK, inevidable Yank question -- what -is- a desk tidy? >David Lindsay also invented a pronoun for the chararcter Leehallfae >("neither man nor woman, nor anything between the two, but was unmistakably >of a third positive sex") in Voyage to Arcuturus which after it has been >introduced, in a clumsy "note to reader" manner reads effectively from then >on. Id forgotten that. Its early SF too. But then everything Ive ever read by Lindsey has a really odd feel to it. Somehow people like him, Blackwood and Machen wrote stuff that wasnt so much "scary" as discobobulating. Which when you're young is quite powerful. >My brother and I once played a game of inventing "insulting words". Our >conclusion was that the best ones started with a gutteral and were one >syllable long. They need no meaning, their power is due to their ability to >transmit aggressiveness. Yup. Fuck, cunt, cock, suck, even crotch all have a nice throaty rumble. Cocksucker and motherfucker, the two most-used 2-word swear words, have multiple throuty rumbles. Shit and bitch are obviously not as obscene as the above, because of the i sound. Pussy is not as obscene as cunt, the p and s sounds mitigate the deep vowel. Yes, Ive actually thought about all this before, and came to (worded that way for TC, although by this theory came isn't as obscene as come(and well, somehow its not)) a similar conclusion. I think its partialy because the o and u vowel tones need an open throut, plus they can involve the stomach muscles, making them very basic, physical sounds, sorta like those humans make when they, well, fight or come. Sounds have character and the most effective words are those were the characters invoked best fit the meaning, or plot, of the word. Some words seem insubstantial, but some have weight and shape like rocks. - ---------- Godwin: >"The Wendigo" is the best Blackwood story I've read. In the same >second-rate category is William Hope Hodgson of "House on the Border >Line". But neither is in the same league as "The Treasure of the Abbot >Thomas" by M R James, or E F Benson's short but nasty "The >Face". I >recommend the long but fascinating "The Beckoning Fair One" by Oliver >Onions. New stories = good dessert, so thank you. But even better than Blackwood's "The Wendigo" is "The Willows." That ones decievingly simple but so utterly weird its perfect. >My impression of Keith's objective is that everything has to MESHright in >the middle range so that you can hardly distinguish one >instrument from >another without a conscious effort. Is Robyn partially heir to that? I remember reading some article on the Edgyptians where Robyn keeps telling the sound guy to make the middle stronger. >disentangle it all until it sounds like a Don Henley record ... Eeek! That is -not- not not why God created the Rolling Stones;-) - ----------------------------- Once upon a time the only initials Id wear were my own, discretely embroidered on in the same color as the shirt(e.g. white on white (but stripes were a challange.)) Now that I thrift I like wearing other peoples' initial's, as long as they're other anonymous peoples' initial's. Except for the very occaisional beloved band T shirt Ive always steared clear of of logos, initials, messages, etc. They seem vulgar, not because they offend "good taste" but because they are insufficiently self-possesing. Occasisionally now I'll break down for an 2 dollar nice oxford cloth that unfortunetly has some wanker playing polo on its breast pocket. I mean, -I- don't play polo. - -------------------- Kay _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 12:16:31 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: words On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Jason R. Thornton wrote: > One that REALLY bugs me is the new word 'morph,' shortened from > 'metamorphosis,' being used to mean 'transform.' It's the 'meta' from > 'metamorphosis' that means to change or transform. 'Morph' simply refers > to something having a particular shape or form. That's cuz we speak English, not Greek - and we abbreviate from the accented syllable. I doubt there's anything new about this...I suspect that there are Greek roots that originated from (the wrong) half of Phoenician words... - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::Never drive a car when you're dead:: __Tom Waits__ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 12:20:49 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: This post is an advertisement for itself. On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, The Great Quail wrote: > > Before you sneer at the latter, consider that > > band t-shirts are as much about displaying your love of a cool > > band as having the name of the band you love draped across > > your nipples. > > True: but advertising an artist seems to me more a conscious, self-directed > statement than wearing a Sean John shirt that only advertises itself. I guess it's less offensive that someone knowingly, willingly attempts to elevate their cool by displaying, say, The Obscure Argonauts' logo on their t-shirt than attempting to be cool by displaying the same logo as on millions of other shirts - all the while adding to the already bloated profits of Hilfiger et al., even though if they paid the people who made the shirts decent money it would cost less than a quarter per shirt. As if anyone would notice if the price of a shirt went up fifty cents. > Reminds me of an idea me and a friend once had: Self-Reflexivity.com. A Web > site that does one thing and one thing only: sells T-shirts that read, > "Self-Reflexivity.com" Sorta like running an ad promising to reveal the secrets of easy wealth for only $10. The answer? Run an ad promising to reveal the secrets of easy wealth for only $10... - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::"Shut up, you truculent lout, and let the cute little pixie sing!":: ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 10:25:01 -0700 (PDT) From: "drew" Subject: Re: that burger was tasty Sebastian Hagedorn said: > --On Thursday, July 25, 2002 20:10:09 -0700 drew > wrote: >> I loved _Candide_ but never got into any of his other works. > > Me neither. But apart from Leibnitz getting what was coming to him, > wouldn't you agree that the idea of the book is better than the > execution? Not without rereading it -- it's been a while. Maybe I just enjoyed it because I was in high school. > Maybe it's not fair to use modern-day expectations, but to > me the characters lacked depth. It's not so much "modern-day expectations" as a fairly narrow (IMO) criterion for prose excellence. I don't think the book was intended as a probing and complex character study. The characters were supposed to be types, and representative of attitudes on the world, or at least that's how I remembered it. It's a satire, not a Jane Austen novel. Deep and interesting characters are good, but to me they belong to a very specific mode of writing that is relatively young and vastly overrated. Drew ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 12:35:19 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: that burger was tasty On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, drew wrote: > Deep and interesting characters are good, but to me they > belong to a very specific mode of writing that is relatively > young and vastly overrated. Could be - I read an essay recently (in _Harper's_, perhaps?) noting that the apparent requirement for writers to create characters readers can "relate" to inevitably leads to audience-pandering, the creation of vicariously lived avatars of who readers want to be... It's only when characters are meant to be deep and interesting but aren't that it's a problem. - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey, having just eaten a Subway sub, now drinking a diet Pepsi, and looking forward to a handful of TV shows on Fox, the WB, and UPN next season. (Gee, really hard to guess which shows on those last two networks, isn't it...) J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::Californians invented the concept of the life-style. ::This alone warrants their doom. __Don DeLillo, WHITE NOISE__ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 10:39:35 -0700 (PDT) From: "drew" Subject: wendigo > From: Christopher Gross > > As far as SF recommendations go, William Gibson has long been a favorite > of mine, more for his prose style, visual sense, and characterization > than for his SF-specific characteristics. Yes -- I've read all of his stuff, and though I like him less than I used to, I do still appreciate his skill. I've never read Sterling, but I might. > When you > said "classics," did you mean the old classics of SF's Golden Age? Well, sort of, but really anything pre-1980. My tolerance for space opera has gone way downhill, so I'm not really looking for spaceward-ho! astronautical yarns. But, for example, I've never read a single Asimov novel. Strange but true; I always thought I was a sci-fi fan, but I'm not sure I qualify anymore. > From: Jill Brand > > In a parallel universe, the movie Titanic wasn't made. In mine it was a porno. > From: Michael R Godwin > > "The Wendigo" is the best Blackwood story I've read. Is that the one where the kid finds this mummified bird-looking thing? The story I have in mind had that title and it was one of the scariest stories I've ever read. I like horror a lot. Drew ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V11 #240 ********************************