From: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org (idealcopy-digest) To: idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Subject: idealcopy-digest V5 #338 Reply-To: idealcopy@smoe.org Sender: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk idealcopy-digest Friday, October 4 2002 Volume 05 : Number 338 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [idealcopy] Re: Long Books [Michael Flaherty ] Re: [idealcopy] [OT] Re: Long Books ["k erickson" ] [idealcopy] Moz on R2 ["Keith Astbury" ] Re: [idealcopy] Coil..formerly:Wire man spotted at Sigur Ros gig ["Keith ] Re: [idealcopy] OT Belgian mannekens! ["Keith Knight" ] Re: [idealcopy] Re: Long Books ["dan bailey" ] Re: [idealcopy] OT Alee Belgian mannekens! [Bart van Damme Subject: [idealcopy] Re: Long Books I've read the following from your list: >James Joyce: Ulysses (5 times) >Marcel Proust: Remembrance of Time Lost (Better known as In Search of Lost Time--originally mistransllated as "Remembrance of Things Past) :) >Vladimir Nabokov: Ada Not having time to read long books is understandable. But yes, these books (and many more are worth the time. Stopping just as I'm about to hit the soapbox, Michael Flaherty ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2002 18:03:40 -0400 From: "k erickson" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] [OT] Re: Long Books Ulysses only five times? why, you're just starting to scratch the surface....not sure how many times i've read it. i tend to go back to it in random places, which works because the book is so rich & dense. anyone considering reading it should do so! speaking of long books, what about The Man Without Qualities? anyone? - -kristoph - ---------- >From: Michael Flaherty >To: idealcopy@smoe.org >Subject: [idealcopy] Re: Long Books >Date: Thu, Oct 3, 2002, 16.44 > >I've read the following from your list: > >>James Joyce: Ulysses (5 times) >>Marcel Proust: Remembrance of Time Lost >(Better known as In Search of Lost Time--originally mistransllated as >"Remembrance of Things Past) :) >>Vladimir Nabokov: Ada > >Not having time to read long books is understandable. But yes, these books >(and many more are worth the time. > >Stopping just as I'm about to hit the soapbox, > >Michael Flaherty ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 00:10:39 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: [idealcopy] Yes! The Pop-pickers here might be interested in the following... Went to see McAlmont & Butler last night at Liverpool Uni. Although I went predominantly because my girlfriend loves McAlmont, the way that Butler immediately bowed to the audience and McAlmont sauntered on with such star qulaity was genuinely spine-tingling. These are genuinely charismatic guys! The set was mainly new stuff - basically Motown influenced soul/pop with McAlmont's beautiful Chi-lite vocals (boy! Can he sing! He's not one of my fave artists, but if we're talking about great *singers*, then he's up there with Scott, Billy and Tim IMO!). And then there's Butlers post-modernist guitar heroics and funky mother struts. Admittedly it flagged a little mid-way for me material wise, but they were such great performers it hardly mattered. The encore was something else though - the duo (minus their band) played several acoustic numbers (including a fab version of Fat Larry's Bands Zoom!) seated on the speakers on the edge of the stage, legs dangling over the edge. This was a tiny venue anyway, and to see these chaps so close (5-6 ft away) and obviously pleased to be back, was pretty incredible. The rest of the band then came back to perform their track from the new War Child compilation - a nifty cover of Take That's one pop-tastic moment, Back For Good! This was followed - inevitably - by the wonderful Yes, a true pop classic by anyone's standards, during which McAlmont pulled the set list up off the stage and threw it into the audience, where all those tenth rate cricket matches I've partaken in finally proved useful as I was able to clutch it out of the air in a way that Robert Key could have only dreamt about in the recent test series! It mightn't have made me want to rush out for the new album (though I'll have to get it for my girlfriend), but it was a truly excellent performance. See 'em if you get the chance - they're *stars*! Keith ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 00:16:50 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: [idealcopy] Moz on R2 For the Morrissey fans here who missed him on Janet Long last night, you = may be interested in the link below (you'll be able to hear it soon!).=20 He sounded on good form - he certainly came across much better than the = recent Observer interview where he seemed a right bitter and twisted old = gitt. And there were three new tracks - a bit Moz by numbers maybe, but = I liked one a lot on first hearing... Keith http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/janicel_show/ [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/octet-stream which had a name of BBC - Radio ;2 - Janice Long Show Homepage.url] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 00:57:46 +0100 From: "Keith Knight" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Coil..formerly:Wire man spotted at Sigur Ros gig Coil were really dull at the RFH. I don't know their recorded work - and have no compunction to do so on this evidence. A bunch of overweight middle age blokes (and I speak as one) dressed in white boiler suits making a dull synth noise with large screen video backing (again, dull as this sort of thing often is) and two naked males down the front, standing stock still for the first half and then moving among the audience handing out fruit. They were neither provocative from an art attack perspective (Faust for example are *much* more interesting) nor at all interesting musically. The best song they played was Cher's 'Bang, Bang', which it was good to hear but should not really be the highlight of anyone's set. another the Keith - ----- Original Message ----- From: To: ; Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2002 4:00 PM Subject: [idealcopy] Coil..formerly:Wire man spotted at Sigur Ros gig > In a message dated 10/3/02 9:18:01 AM Central Daylight Time, > andrew-wire@lexical.org.uk writes: > > << Dunno Coil, but Sigur Ros are great, IMO. Maybe he wanted to see both? > > (What are Coil like?) > > - Andrew >> > > > Coil are beyond explanation...they simply must be heard.....i read a review > in Wire magazine once that explained them as "one of the few groups that > manage to be scary and funny at the same time"..but alas, they are so much > more...In January of 2003 there is a book coming out: England's Hidden > Reverse. This book will take a look at groups such as Coil, Nurse With > Wound, and Current 93.... > > suggestions for Coil listening: > > the first 3 albums (Scatology...Horse Rotorvator...Love's Secret Domain) have > all been reissued recently...somewhat unfairly, they used to get lumped into > the "industrial/goth" catagory..... > > Unnatural History vol. 1,2,3, compile all the odds and ends: collaborations, > b-sides, soundtrack material, rarities > > How To Destroy Angels is a reissue of the first Coil EP of the same name > along with drastically different versions of the 17 minute long track...it > sounds like swords being rubbed together..great meditative music... > > Gold is the Metal With the Broadest Shoulders is a companion piece to the > first three albums especially Love's Secret Domain and Horse > Rotorvator...outtakes and unused songs...also different versions of album > tracks > > the Angelic Conversation is a soundtrack to the Derek Jarman film...almost a > classical sound on this one...Coil also contributed to the soundtrack of > Jarman's film: Blue > > Worship the Glitch marked a turning point in Coil's music...one where they > became more interested in electronic sound fields and a much more > experimental attitude..Coil were way ahead of the times on this > release...Many people credit the Beautyon album: "The Ultimate Mediterranean > Savage" as the first album obsessed with mistakes in computer composing, i.e. > "glitch music" but in my opinion it was Worship the Glitch which preceded > everything else by a couple of years... > > Time Machines is an album concerned with drugs time travel ....drone > soundscapes to facilitate time travel...very Eno-esque at times... > > Black Light District, Astral Disaster, Musick to Play in the Dark 1 & 2, are > THE high points in Coil's music for me...they are fine mixtures of the > earlier "song" based material and the glitch and soundscape > pieces..thoroughly intoxicating and great headphone music to play in the > dark....strange references in the lyrics...pagan poetry if you will... > > Queens of the Circulating Library and Constant Shallowness Leads to Evil are > trials by sound/noise.....confrontational and noisy/droney (especially > Constant Shallowness) these cds were given out at live shows and are > sunsequently difficult to find..... > > i hope this rambling skeletal outline helps anyone who is interested in > exploring something different....now get out there and find some Coil.. > > > Robert Lynn ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 01:07:48 +0100 From: "Keith Knight" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] OT Belgian mannekens! Indeed Bart (thanks for the dEUS reminder - I'm a big fan) and I didn't even mention the great art legacy - Magritte alone justifies the country. My wife's cousin lives in Antwerp which is a fine city with one of the greatest bars I've ever been to - Die Groote Witte Arend (excuse the spelling). Alistair - if you don't know this bar I can give you directions. another the Keith - ----- Original Message ----- From: Bart van Damme To: wire-news Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2002 10:45 AM Subject: Re: [idealcopy] OT Belgian mannekens! > Keith [another the] > > As there don't appear to be any Belgians on this list > > No, but both Miles and I have proper Belgian names. And our friend Glenn > used to live there for some time. > > > because any country with > > great beer, chocolate, suburbs (every house is different in a suburban > > street, which makes the UK for one look pretty drab in > > comparison ), chips with mayonnaise, mussels and Plastic Bertrand deserves > > to be recognised. > > Don't forget Tintin, dEUS [& co... how was Dead Man Ray Jan?] and most of of > all my very own halfwit uncle Jean Claude! > > Also, on topic again, [and as I've said earlier] "Mannequin" is derived from > the Flemish "manneken" [little man]. > > Alistair: > > (who's got his tickets for the Antwerp gig) > > Antwerp must be the greatest city of the low countries! [wich hotel did you > choose Alistair?] > > > Bart [van Damme - the muscles from ehm... Groningen! Darn, doesn't rhyme] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 01:19:12 +0100 From: "Keith Knight" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Michel Faber? and long books Nope, not read any of those although I've started some but never finished. I'll be looking to start 'The Corrections' shortly but that looks a stripling compared to some of the others. I've started Peter F Hamilton's SF 'Night's Dawn Trilogy' which weighs in at 3,000+ pages but despite enjoying the first 250 pages or so have ground to a halt simply because of the commitment required to complete the thing. I've read Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Mars Trilogy' recently however, which covers about 1700 pages, and is *dense*, so I could probably commit if I had the will and made the time. The inability to read more books is one aspect of my life which gives me grief. I keep looking forward to a golden age in the future (post retirement?) when I will be able to read loads. This will never come. If I live to 70 I will read about another 500 books on present form. Which is nothing. another the Keith (depressed now and about to go to sleep) - ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2002 3:27 PM Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Michel Faber? and long books > What books would one invest any time into? It was a fashion to read long > books, doorstops, in the 1970s, with authors like John Barth and Thomas > Pynchon writing books that were 800+ pages. Has anyone read any of the > following: > > James Joyce: Ulysses > Marguerite Young: Miss Mackintosh My Darling > Marcel Proust: Remembrance of Time Lost > Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain > William Gaddis: The Recognitions > John Barth: Giles Goat-Boy > Joseph McElroy: Women and Men > Thomas Pynchon: Gravity's Rainbow > Julian Rios: Larva > Arno Schmidt: Zettels Traum > Alexander Theroux: Darconville's Cat > Vladimir Nabokov: Ada > Don DeLillo: Underworld > Gilbert Sorrentino: Mulligan Stew > David Foster Wallace: Infinite Jest > William Gass: The Tunnel > Jonathan Franzen: The Corrections > > I have read or attempted to read most of these. Last year I actually read The > Magic Mountain twice just because I never read much of Mann before. I try to > read one older book, sometimes a long book, of the past. A few years ago I > was really obssessed by Manuscript Found At Sargossa by Jan Potocki which I > read a few times over three years. But besides Mason & Dixon and some books > by Zadie Smith, very few books that I have read are more than 300 pages, and > very few of them follow more than one character. > > Alexander Laurence ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 01:02:21 +0100 From: "Keith Knight" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Re: Mrs Mills/Shaggs -OT Howard, if I ever query to myself or others why I'm on this list then I shall use your paragraph below as evidence - where else would I be in touch with someone who has information on Mrs Mills and can comment on her position in respect of the phenomenon we know as post-punk? another the Keith - ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2002 10:21 AM Subject: [idealcopy] Re: Mrs Mills/Shaggs -OT > I raised the subject of Mrs Mills here a while back - was trying to get her > into the Dictionary of National Biography (on which I was working until last > Monday). You'll all be pleased to know that I found someone to write on her. > First name was Gladys - she got rapped over the knuckles by her first piano > teacher for putting 'twiddly bits' into the classics - then made a career out > of this after Billy Cotton (bandleader) discovered her. She died in about > '78, so failed to cash in on post-punk. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 01:45:29 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Michel Faber? and long books another the keith... > I've started Peter F Hamilton's SF 'Night's Dawn Trilogy' which weighs in at > 3,000+ pages but despite enjoying the first 250 pages or so have ground to a > halt simply because of the commitment required to complete the thing. The last novel I read (Rain by Kirsty Gunn) was only 90-odd pages long, but it still took me ages to read it. It might have been a very slim novella, but it felt very weighty...hard bloody going in fact. It definitely seems harder to put the effort in nowadays... Keith ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 20:34:53 -0500 (CDT) From: voyteck@webtv.net Subject: [idealcopy] The Finest Pages Having just read Eric in Toronto's query of who might have Kevin Eden's book "Everybody Loves A History", and just seeing it available somewhere in cyberspace, I just did a Kevin Eden / ELAH search with these resulting links: http://www.stereosociety.com/wirhistory.html http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0946719071/qid=1033691635/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/002-2337781-3999205?v=glance http://www.saf.mcmail.com/SAFwire.html http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=3RHGDL86C1&isbn=0946719071 Here's Stereo Society's "Exploded Views" link for the Wire compleatest: http://www.stereosociety.com/wiritalybk.html Kevin's ELAH surprisingly also listed at http://www.walmart.com (since when mainstreamed?). Hope it's in stock 4 u, voyteck ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 22:04:36 EDT From: Superflyww9@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Re: Long Books In a message dated 10/3/02 12:44:36 PM, mflaher3@triton.edu writes: << Not having time to read long books is understandable. But yes, these books (and many more are worth the time. >> Sounds like you read most of Joyce too. What attracted you to his work? Most Irish think he's pretentious. Alexander ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 22:06:55 EDT From: Superflyww9@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] [OT] Re: Long Books In a message dated 10/3/02 2:06:07 PM, saintgermain@earthlink.net writes: << speaking of long books, what about The Man Without Qualities? anyone? - -kristoph >> Oh yeah! That was a big book about five years ago. It came in the big box with the two books. Did anyone ever get to the second book? It was great as far as I remember. I like The Magic Mountain was better. Alexander ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 19:45:47 -0700 (PDT) From: rayographique Subject: Re: [idealcopy] [OT] Re:(Intemninably)Long Books Gravity's Rainbow anyone New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2002 09:07:22 +0200 From: Bart van Damme Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Re: Long Books >> Not having time to read long books is understandable. But yes, these books >> (and many more are worth the time. > Sounds like you read most of Joyce too. What attracted you to his work? Most > Irish think he's pretentious. Joyce imo is the greatest writer of the 20th century, but I think I liked Finnegan's Wake better than Ullyses. I suppose it all depends on what you're looking for. I'm a sucker for these big visionary schemes [like Nietzsche's deliciously trippy Also sprach Zarathustra]. It seems there's a major link [I believe it was Carola Giedion-Welcker who first noticed resemblances] between Joyce and painter Paul Klee wich I've been wanting to look in further. Anyone know anything about that? Talking about visionaries, has any of you ever read anything by John Cowper Powys? Wolf Solent? Maiden Castle? Porius? [all BIG books btw]. Imo he's right up there with Joyce and Mann. Only once I've met someone who's read him. Bart PS - My brother loved Finnegan's Wake so much he named his firstborn Finn [wich is a quite unusual name in Holland]. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 02:24:45 -0500 From: "dan bailey" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Re: Long Books given my undoubtedly pitiable disinterest in virtually all non-genre fiction, probably the only 800-plus-page works of fiction i've ever read are stephen king's the stand & it. as for nonfiction, william manchester's the glory & the dream, a survey of u.s. history from '32-'72, is 1,594 pp. in the 2-volume hardcover edition (crowding a few more words per page in the subsequent 1-volume trade-paper edition brought the page count down by a couple of hundred, i think), & i somehow managed to read it 5 times in high school, & did so a 6th time 2 years ago. that tome gets a lot of the credit/blame for my eventual specialization in post-depression u.s. history ... it also introduced me to the first few lines of what are probably my 2 favorite poems ever, gregory corso's "marriage" & allen ginsberg's "america." dan >I've read the following from your list: > >>James Joyce: Ulysses (5 times) >>Marcel Proust: Remembrance of Time Lost >(Better known as In Search of Lost Time--originally mistransllated as >"Remembrance of Things Past) :) >>Vladimir Nabokov: Ada > >Not having time to read long books is understandable. But yes, these books >(and many more are worth the time. > >Stopping just as I'm about to hit the soapbox, > >Michael Flaherty ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2002 09:49:45 +0200 From: Bart van Damme Subject: Re: [idealcopy] OT Alee Belgian mannekens! > My wife's cousin lives in Antwerp which is a fine city with one of the > greatest bars I've ever been to - Die Groote Witte Arend (excuse the > spelling). Alistair - if you don't know this bar I can give you directions. Dunno that one, but I'm curious. As I said to Alistair earlier there's a fabulous pub next to the Our Lady cathedral with an excellent cuisine called "Het Elfde Gebod" [the 11th Commandment] wich is absolutely stuffed with catholic statues. http://www.sengers.ch/usland/pages/elfdegebod.html Though of course Antwerp is the major attraction there are many more very pleasant cities in Belgium. Leuven, Gent en Brugge [and next to it it's smaller cousin - and my namegiver Damme] come to mind. I don't if, as a Dutchman, I'm biased, but I like the Flemish site of Belgium more than the Waloon [ish?]. Brussels's being a mix of course. Btw did you know the word "Walloon" originates from the same prehistoric Germanic word as English "Welsh"? Inbred eurotrash us! ;-) Bart NP: [back on topic & very, very loud] Read & Burn 02! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 04:01:25 EDT From: Superflyww9@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Re: Long Books In a message dated 10/3/02 11:10:44 PM, bartvandamme@home.nl writes: << right up there with Joyce and Mann. Only once I've met someone who's read him. Bart PS - My brother loved Finnegans Wake so much he named his firstborn Finn [wich is a quite unusual name in Holland]. >> I am really into Finnegans Wake too. I have memorized parts of Anna Livia Plurabelle. I have a tape with Rovbert Anton Wilson talking about FW. Some of those authors that I mentioned before, Arno Schmidt, they call him the German Joyce, and Julian Rios' Larva is very Joycean. Alexander ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 04:11:21 EDT From: Superflyww9@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Re: Long Books In a message dated 10/3/02 11:27:48 PM, dpbailey@worldnet.att.net writes: << given my undoubtedly pitiable disinterest in virtually all non-genre fiction, probably the only 800-plus-page works of fiction i've ever read are stephen king's the stand & it. >> These books are not even in the same category. S. King's are long books and they are pageturners. But they are all conventional narratives. At some point the 19th century novel was perfected in the work of Dickens, Hardy, and Henry James. What Modernist authors added was another dimension. Ideas of Einstein and Freud were around. With Proust there was memory and psychology, Joyce, history and literature, Pynchon, science and technology, Joseph McElroy, systems theory and biology. All these books are not only narratives about characters, but in the case of Joyce, they are books about all books that came before them. In "Ulysses" the chapter referred to as "Oxen in the Sun" the whole history of novels is the very material of the chapter, and all writing from the Bible to Dickens is parodied. All these books are long books, but they are written for an audience who is familar with 100 other books. They are long books but there are also hundreds of references on each page. Alexander ------------------------------ End of idealcopy-digest V5 #338 *******************************