booze and lit
Shabari Kumar
it's a cliche that many writers were/are drunks, or at least enjoyed a
good tipple, but is there are any good literature about alcohol/drinking?
of course, there is the whole sufi wine as god's love stuff, and
bukowski, as well as my favorite line by claude mckay--gin is more
forgetting than all the waters of lethe. what else?
Robert Teeter
: it's a cliche that many writers were/are drunks, or at least enjoyed a
"Blessings of your house, you brew good ale." --Shakespeare
"Addict [yourself] to sack [sherry]." --Shakespeare
"Oh, many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think." --A.E. Housman
There is an anthology along these lines called, I think,
_The Faber Book of Drinking_.
--
Robert Teeter
rte...@netcom.com
Katherine Catmull
>
>: of course, there is the whole sufi wine as god's love stuff, and
>: bukowski, as well as my favorite line by claude mckay--gin is more
>: forgetting than all the waters of lethe. what else?
"Write drunk; edit sober."
Kate
---
"Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear."
Meg Worley
>"Write drunk; edit sober."
Which begs the question of the rabble, which are you? Those of
us who stab at the S)end key without rereading a word of our
blurtings, then, can be found occasionally passed out in rab's
alleys; the others (Mike Morris, I name you) who vet their
work before committing -- they walk the sober side of the
street.
Before Kate asks, I'll confess that I have posted drunk a
few times, but those were never my most regrettable posts.
Rage away,
meg
--
mwo...@mathcs.emory.edu comparatively literate
Michael Wise
>Kate writes:
>
>>"Write drunk; edit sober."
>
>Which begs the question of the rabble, which are you? Those of
>us who stab at the S)end key without rereading a word of our
>blurtings, then, can be found occasionally passed out in rab's
>alleys; the others (Mike Morris, I name you) who vet their
>work before committing -- they walk the sober side of the
>street.
I would tend to the drunk side--mostly because I rarely, if ever, edit.
However, I find wisdom in Kate's quotation, that one should tap the mine
of inspiration, then temper that steel with an editor's red pen (am I
good at mixing metaphors or what?). Writing is best done in a small bar
on a tiny backstreet somewhere completely out of this world (Beijing,
Granada, Hannover, Johannesburg: Meg, I'm sure, knows whereof I speak).
Samuel Delaney includes authorial asides from unusual locales in
the Einstein Intersection; each one gives a vivid sense of place.
Hemingway said he came to Paris to write about Michigan, that he would
have to go somewhere else to write about Paris. The hard work of editing,
though, is done far from the inspiration of place and drink. It is done
where the light is good, the dictionary's handy, on the desk. What one
thinks sounds really great does not pass the censor at the desk; if it
does, then it really must be great.
>
>Before Kate asks, I'll confess that I have posted drunk a
>few times, but those were never my most regrettable posts.
>
I will admit to the same thing, though my most regrettable posts were
written in the full light of sobriety. Drink softens my harder corners,
and I tend to be less dogmatic and more understanding and sympathetic
when I'm three sheets to the wind. But that's just me.
--
"I dont hate it," Quentin said quickly, at once, immediately; "I dont
hate it," he said. I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air,
the iron New England dark: I dont. I dont. I dont hate it! I dont hate it!
Michael Wise <wwhi...@nevada.edu> Living Hemingwayesque
Rachel Powers
This thread has proven a point that I have maintained for quite some time
(and as the child of Hemmingway-addled foreign correspondants, I speak
with some authority): More than anyone else, writers have the gift of
romanticizing their profession (and its props) to perverse heights, with
the possible exception of gamblers. There seems to be an amusing tendency
to emphasize the bottle of gin, cottony mouth and shadows lengthening on
the study wall in the chinatown apartment, and a proneness to
deemphasizing the _work_.
My opinions make room for many mysteries, but "writing drunk means writing
better" is not one of them.
--
...........................................................................
rac...@netcom.com >> Rachel Elizabeth Powers >> Paxulb
...........................................................................
Meg Worley
>My opinions make room for many mysteries, but "writing drunk means writing
>better" is not one of them.
Okay, aside from taking issued with the polarity of that
inferred proclamation, I'd ask this: Which of the following
premises do you take issue with?
Drinking erodes inhibitions.
Inhibitions are detrimental to creativity.
Creativity is necessary for good writing.
_________________________________________
Drinking is helpful to the writer.
Mind you, I don't believe in that conclusion, as stated, but
I'm curious as to why your opinions can't make room for it.
Francis Muir
Rachel writes:
My opinions make room for many mysteries, but "writing
drunk means writing better" is not one of them.
Okay, aside from taking issued with the polarity of that
inferred proclamation, I'd ask this: Which of the following
premises do you take issue with?
Drinking erodes inhibitions.
Inhibitions are detrimental to creativity.
Creativity is necessary for good writing.
_________________________________________
Drinking is helpful to the writer.
Mind you, I don't believe in that conclusion, as stated, but
I'm curious as to why your opinions can't make room for it.
As an expert in the fields of drinking, not drinking, writing well, and
not writing well, let me present the cornerstone of the Fido belief system,
which is, in effect, that there is absolutely no connection whatsoever
between alcohol intake and the quality of literary output. Meg's statements
are clearly not absolutes and personally I doubt whether any of the three
are very important. Frankly, her line of argument is so sophomoric as to
lead me to suspect a troll. Do real people really talk about "creativity"
outside those creative writing courses? Inhibitions? What are they? Some
great writers have been total screw-ups, others not; there's no connection.
Fido
David J. Loftus
drinking autobiography that also has essays on some of the other famous
drinking writers -- Malcolm Lowry, Faulkner, etc. The book is called
_Those Drinking Days_.
Tom Dardis also wrote a book of portraits of drinking writers called _The
Thirsty Muse_.
Both men basically conclude: Don't drink and write.
David Loftus
Meg Worley
>Donald Newlove, the Canadian novelist, wrote a rather hair-raising
>drinking autobiography that also has essays on some of the other famous
>drinking writers -- Malcolm Lowry, Faulkner, etc. The book is called
>_Those Drinking Days_.
>
>Tom Dardis also wrote a book of portraits of drinking writers called _The
>Thirsty Muse_.
John Crowley (a different one) also wrote something along
the same lines, entitled *White Logic* or something like
that. There are a couple of other titles of studies of
writing and boozing that are floating around in my mind,
but I can't recall them at the moment.
John Camp
>
>Meg Worley writes:
One of the more interesting drinking-writing books of the past few years
is William Styron's "Darkness Visible," which concerns Styron's descent
into a suicidal depression, and the mis-treatment of his malady by certain
medical members. Styron suggests that his problem started when he was
forced to STOP drinking -- that he had been more or less drunk for
several decades when he suddenly developed an intolerance -- essentially,
an allergy -- for alcohol, and could no longer drink. Sober, he really
couldn't face either life or work, and so went off the edge. Styron
liked drinking, enjoyed being drunk; for him, it was a kind of
medication that kept him going for much longer that he might of, had
he been sober...
JC
Rachel Powers
Meg Worley <mwo...@mathcs.emory.edu> wrote:
>Rachel writes:
>
>>My opinions make room for many mysteries, but "writing drunk means writing
>>better" is not one of them.
>
>Okay, aside from taking issued with the polarity of that
>inferred proclamation, I'd ask this: Which of the following
>premises do you take issue with?
>
>Drinking erodes inhibitions.
>Inhibitions are detrimental to creativity.
>Creativity is necessary for good writing.
>_________________________________________
>Drinking is helpful to the writer.
>
>
>Mind you, I don't believe in that conclusion, as stated, but
>I'm curious as to why your opinions can't make room for it.
>
>
I'll see if I can make this a little less simplistic, though perhaps I am
to be blamed for starting it off on that foot:
The types of inhibitions that are lifted when drinking are not exactly the
same that we would choose to banish when we write. Woody Allen claims in
Annie Hall (pretentious reference #1) that he hasn't smoked pot since his
last experience left him trying to take his pants off over his head.
Hell, I don't know if "inhibitions" or "creativity" play _that_ much of a
role in writing. I do know (since I'm Tolstoy's ghost-writer--just
kidding, folks!) that intellect and incisive thought are of the utmost
importance. Sloppy, short-cut thinking is a writer's worst enemy.
Alcohol may unleash a lot of emotion at times, but who cares? We've all
read (maybe even written...) adolescent poetry: high on feeling, low on
exacting thought.
I am not necessarily a big fan of heavy, ponderous "intellectual" works.
Well, yes I am. I can sum my feelings up in one way, however: a work is
going to have to have a lot more that emotion and uninhibitedness if it's
going to sound like something other than a visit to one's shrink.
Meg Worley
>The types of inhibitions that are lifted when drinking are not exactly the
>same that we would choose to banish when we write. Woody Allen claims in
>Annie Hall (pretentious reference #1) that he hasn't smoked pot since his
>last experience left him trying to take his pants off over his head.
>
>Hell, I don't know if "inhibitions" or "creativity" play _that_ much of a
>role in writing. I do know (since I'm Tolstoy's ghost-writer--just
>kidding, folks!) that intellect and incisive thought are of the utmost
>importance. Sloppy, short-cut thinking is a writer's worst enemy.
>
>Alcohol may unleash a lot of emotion at times, but who cares? We've all
>read (maybe even written...) adolescent poetry: high on feeling, low on
>exacting thought.
>
>I am not necessarily a big fan of heavy, ponderous "intellectual" works.
>Well, yes I am. I can sum my feelings up in one way, however: a work is
>going to have to have a lot more that emotion and uninhibitedness if it's
>going to sound like something other than a visit to one's shrink.
I can't disagree with Rachel on any of this, save the universality
of some of the claims. Some writers, by drinking, do unleash
inhibitions that are necessary to their art. Others -- perhaps
a vast majority -- do not. I am put in mind of poor old John
Prine, who in concert had to strike a careful balance of
booze to blood: Too much to drink and he couldn't stand up
or coordinate his movements, but too little and he froze up
with fear and ran offstage. (I haven't seen him in a few years,
so I don't know how he is these days.)
Dave Wells
ry.edu (Meg Worley)
>I am put in mind of poor old [...], who in concert had to strike
>a careful balance of booze to blood: Too much to drink and he
>couldn't stand up or coordinate his movements, but too little and he
>froze up with fear and ran offstage.
This is one of the potentially catastophic effects of habitual heavy
indulgence in alcohol by those who have to perform in public.
Reduction in blood alcohol level can cause desperate anxiety (also a
withdrawal effect with other drugs). This can precipitate a serious
dependency spiral for performers. For example: the well-known British
comedian and impressionist Mike Yarwood suffered a disasterous
collapse after heavy drinking led to "stage fright" which encouraged
him to drink before performances which...
Writers typically have to show themselves in public relatively rarely.
To balance this uncharacteristically gloomy and potentially puritan
commentary, let me share a story from a fascinating book of Richard
Burton anecdotes I leafed through (but stupidly failed to buy) a
couple of years ago. Burton made a bet with one of his fellow
performers that he could perform King Lear (I think) at least as well
after half a bottle of vodka. Dame Peggy Ashcroft was (unwittingly)
used to judge the result. Burton (inevitably) downed the whole bottle.
Dame Ashcroft judged his performance "If anything slightly better than
usual, Darling". Regardless of the effects on his health and craft, I
find it difficult to believe that Burton wasn't having such a good
time that it mattered little.
Dave
Fiona Webster
>Hell, I don't know if "inhibitions" or "creativity" play _that_ much of a
>role in writing.
Inhibitions, especially when they come in the form of neurotic defenses
against self-expression, can indeed get in the way of writing. The question
is, what technique, for any one writer, helps them get rid around those
defenses?
In my own writing, I rely on a circumscribed form of madness. When I'm sane,
I'm neurotic -- and thus restricted in my self-expression. When I'm mad, I
can write -- wildly, effusively, not always to good effect. The mad woman
does the writing. The sane woman does the editing.
--Fiona Webster
Jeff Inman
>Rachel writes:
>
>>My opinions make room for many mysteries, but "writing drunk means writing
>>better" is not one of them.
>Drinking erodes inhibitions.
>Inhibitions are detrimental to creativity.
>Creativity is necessary for good writing.
>_________________________________________
>Drinking is helpful to the writer.
>Mind you, I don't believe in that conclusion, as stated, but
>I'm curious as to why your opinions can't make room for it.
Do you believe it in some unstated way? Nevermind. At the risk of
seeming a prude, I've got a few counter-formulas, for you:
one angle:
- Removing inhibitions with alcohol does more than remove inhibitions
- Some of those other things are detrimental to creativity.
another angle:
- creativity isn't *sufficient* for good writing
I guess those are obvious enough. Not to say that there might not be
some kernel of truth in your formula. Seems pretty obviously
dangerous to me, though.
I can remember a beautiful young woman that I knew casually when I was
a perpetually-stoned adolescent, who said that she preferred to "get
high on life", and how I suddenly knew that she was from a different
universe. Now, I guess things are the other way around. The people I
meet are mostly more interested in making life be comfortable and
entertaining whereas I'm struggling to experience it as fully as I
can. I even quit coffee, three years now, to find out which part of
my experience was the real part, and which part required continual
maintenance from a coffee-urn. (Good news: some of the good part was
real.) But I guess the main thing was my father, who struggled with
trying to be a drinker and a writer at the same time, while I was
growing up. He finally quit drinking and now seems to me to be a
model of focus and discipline. Classic sequence maybe. Well, there's
the other other sequence, too. I've talked with him about it a few
times. Once he mentioned the lure of the drinking writer image, for
him, with Faulkner, etc. But, it turns out that getting drunk doesn't
transform you into Faulkner, with one historical exception.
--
"Milk those poignant thoughts, my sad little clown."
Jeff Inman
j...@santafe.edu
Francis Muir
Inhibitions, especially when they come in the form of neurotic
defenses against self-expression, can indeed get in the way of
writing.
Only if you believe that self-expression is essential to writing.
Fido
Michael Richard
: The types of inhibitions that are lifted when drinking are not exactly the
: same that we would choose to banish when we write.
Then how about this absinthe stuff? Ain't there some worm that
doth prick the muse in there? It's buffed up legends all its own.
the Robot Vegetable
Ted Samsel
: Rachel writes:
: >Alcohol may unleash a lot of emotion at times, but who cares? We've all
: >read (maybe even written...) adolescent poetry: high on feeling, low on
: >exacting thought.
But adolescents tend to write such poetry. Elderly maundering rage is
a whole other critter, especially when larded with some "experience".
: >
: >I am not necessarily a big fan of heavy, ponderous "intellectual" works.
: >Well, yes I am. I can sum my feelings up in one way, however: a work is
: >going to have to have a lot more that emotion and uninhibitedness if it's
: >going to sound like something other than a visit to one's shrink.
I didn't think that therapy was supposed to be "fun". (;-)
: I can't disagree with Rachel on any of this, save the universality
: of some of the claims. Some writers, by drinking, do unleash
: inhibitions that are necessary to their art. Others -- perhaps
: a vast majority -- do not. I am put in mind of poor old John
: Prine, who in concert had to strike a careful balance of
: booze to blood: Too much to drink and he couldn't stand up
: or coordinate his movements, but too little and he froze up
: with fear and ran offstage. (I haven't seen him in a few years,
: so I don't know how he is these days.)
I haven't been mistaken for Prine lately, but he hasn't been in
town. The Mighty Sparrow & Yanni were here last week. No one mistook
me for either of them.
: --
: mwo...@mathcs.emory.edu comparatively literate
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net
"driving a Hudson Hornet on the disinformation triple bypass:
cruising for burgers & garage sales. Hooks baited, lines en-
tangled, roadkill cooked"
S Hampson
Since no one else mentioned it, the booze and lit of American writers
has often been questioned--always left an open question--but it isn't
really about relieving inhibitions while writing but the long extended
and hopeless binges to sustain the craft. As if anyone--or Hemingway,
Faulkner,etc rather--could write drunk or drinking, it was the after
and in between, the dealing with that peculiar misery that writing is.
Jim Hartley
>few times, but those were never my most regrettable posts.
You know, this whole question is quite amenable to empirical analysis,
and thus I propose this little test.
If a panel of impartial judges were presented with say 10 or so posts
penned by Meg while in assorted levels of inebriation, could the
judges tell which ones were written while she was sober?
But, perhaps Meg wouldn't be a fair subject for the test; it does
presume a subject who has some inhibitions while sober...
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
M.A. Powe
: Okay, aside from taking issued with the polarity of that
: inferred proclamation, I'd ask this: Which of the following
: premises do you take issue with?
: Drinking erodes inhibitions.
: Inhibitions are detrimental to creativity.
: Creativity is necessary for good writing.
: _________________________________________
: Drinking is helpful to the writer.
The first logical error is the assumption that the term "inhibitions" in
the first premisse is equivalent to the term "inhibitions" in the middle
premisse.
The second is that the middle premisse assumes something not proven. Or,
perhaps more precisely, the term "inhibitions" refers to a wide range of
behaviors which have no obvious relation to creativity. Was Jane Austen
sexually inhibited? As far as we know. Was she creative? Yes.
I'm reminded of a comment by Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelof regarding
inspiration. He told an interviewer that inspiration was not measured in
time -- it might take one second to find the right word, or twelve years,
but in both cases the successful search was "inspiration." When
considering the role of creativity in writing, we might take Ekelof's
point to heart. "Inhibitions" do not prevent a writer from writing, nor
do they prevent a writer from writing well. Talent and method are
probably the mix which is being ignored here. "Any man may write, if he
will but set himself doggedly to it," said Samuel Johnson. That's method.
It also strikes me that the "drunken writer" is pretty much of a 20th
Century phenomenon. Perhaps this is the outcome of the lamentable impact
of psychology on modern writing -- the objectification of "creativity" so
aptly demonstrated in this discussion.
At any rate, the physiologically destructive effects of extreme alcohol
consumption are now so well documented, we might ask rather how much
<better> Faulkner would have been if he had not been a heavy drinker.
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
do...@teleport.com Michael Powe
"What hath night to do with sleep?" --Milton
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
John Camp
of quality) is simply to slow him down. Editing a piece of fiction,
after the basic writing is done, is not only tedious, but demands a
certain incisive quality of mind that, IMHO, would be difficult to
achieve when drunk or suffering the after affects of a drunk. I'm not
referring to anything massively creative, here, but simply the smoothing
of sentences, and remembering that this action took place on a Monday,
not a Tuesday, and that minor character's name is Joe so you don't want
to have any other Joes mentioned, or that this character rode to town
with that one, so he wouldn't later be getting his car out of the
parking garage...A writer who is drinking can do this (an editor can't,
by the way, if someone should think it's the duty of an editor to do it),
but it would take much longer than if he were sober and feeling well...
(An editor can't do it because style is still involved; if an editor does
it, he/she will ALWAYS pick the wrong words.)
A particularly interesting drinking/writing question involves Poe:
could he have written some of the things he did if he weren't feeling
fairly snaky? Then there's Sam Coleridge, who smoked a pipe and
(supposedly) conceived Kubla Khan, started to put it down when he awoke,
but when he was interrupted, and then went back to it, found that it
had disappeared; that sobriety couldn't assemble the words...
JC
M.A. Powe
> I was trolling when I laid out that sophomoric argument. As,
> for that matter, Rachel may have been when she cast out the
> bait I snapped at -- that her 'opinions could not make room
> for drunkenness in writers'.
<cough><cough> I think I've got something caught in my throat.
Considering the popularity of the "drunken writer" image, and the extent
to which it has become the focus of the image of some famous writers; I'm
struck in fact that your little syllogism actually reflects popular
mythology. That's how I interpreted it, anyway.
I've never read a bio of Faulkner. I wonder how often he really was
drunk in front of the typewriter.
My image of the writer is rather focussed on Trollope and George Eliot.
The one rising and writing for 2 hours before breakfast, every day for
over twenty years; the other, researching and travelling and making notes
about all the structural matters for months before commencing writing.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Michael Powe do...@teleport.com
"Want of tenderness is want of parts, and is no less a proof of
stupidity than depravity." --S. Johnson
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Alison Chaiken
connection between creativity and drunkeness. It's my understanding
that the two phenomena simply often occur in the same people, namely
that very creative people have a higher prediliction towards
alcoholism. High creativity and left-handedness also often occur in
the same people, but in that case noone has suggested that the
phenomena are causally related. Therefore it's probably reasonable to
guess that alcoholism is a problem for writers as it is for other
creative people (i.e. musicians).
It's certainly my belief both from personal experience and anecdotal
evidence that creative people of all types (dancers, literati,
scientists, musicians) are more likely to be addictive personalities
than the average population. A friend of mine who unfortunately has
since died told me that you can tell if you are an addictive
personality by answering (among many possible questions) the following
question(s):
Do you read compulsively? Do you read cereal boxes? Would you never
go into the bathroom without something to read? Do you feel unhappy,
restless, even desperate if you are caught without something to read?
According to my late friend, compulsive reading is a neurotic behavior
found often among artists. I think that alcoholism is another such
behavior, but that it may not be causally related to anyone's ability
at writing.
--
Alison Chaiken ali...@wsrcc.com
(510) 422-7129 [daytime] <http://www.wsrcc.com/>
I can't be out of electrical current: I still have plenty of outlets!
Meg Worley
>On Sat, 22 Jul 1995, Meg Worley wrote:
>
>> I was trolling when I laid out that sophomoric argument. As,
>> for that matter, Rachel may have been when she cast out the
>> bait I snapped at -- that her 'opinions could not make room
>> for drunkenness in writers'.
Um, that was e-mail.
16b...@waikato.ac.nz
>
> John Crowley (a different one) also wrote something along
> the same lines, entitled *White Logic* or something like
> that. There are a couple of other titles of studies of
> writing and boozing that are floating around in my mind,
> but I can't recall them at the moment.
>
That wouldn't be down to short term memory loss now
would it, Meg, dear?
- pleb retort
Francis Muir
Michael Powe writes:
On Sat, 22 Jul 1995, Meg Worley wrote:
I was trolling when I laid out that sophomoric
argument. As, for that matter, Rachel may have
been when she cast out the bait I snapped at --
that her 'opinions could not make room for
drunkenness in writers'.
Um, that was e-mail.
And it is clear that Michael Powe understood his source. This is probably as
good a time as any to remind one and all that private mail is the property of
the sender, not the receiver, and it is quite improper to repost it publicly.
Phew. That's better.
Fido
Robert Teeter
: I'm surprised that everyone is taking so seriously a putative
: connection between creativity and drunkeness. It's my understanding
: that the two phenomena simply often occur in the same people, namely
: that very creative people have a higher prediliction towards
: alcoholism. High creativity and left-handedness also often occur in
: the same people, but in that case noone has suggested that the
: phenomena are causally related. Therefore it's probably reasonable to
: guess that alcoholism is a problem for writers as it is for other
: creative people (i.e. musicians).
You're right, of course, that alcoholism and creativity may not
be related causally (i.e., the first causing the second), but they may
have a common root cause. Same with creativity and left-handedness; many
people *have* suggested that the two are related in that both seem to
be caused by a dominant right brain. That doesn't mean, however, that
all left-handed people are creative or that all creative people are
left-handed.
--
Robert Teeter
rte...@netcom.com
Victoria Smallman
Doornails_, an autobiographical portrait of life in the artistic
community of Dublin in the 50s and 60s. It's mostly about Cronin and his
drinking buddies, Brendan Behan, Flann O'Brien, Patrick Kavanaugh and a
few others. Pretty interesting. Cronin's biography of Flann O'Brien,
_No Laughing Matter_, talks alot about the relationship between
O'Brien/O'Nolan's alcoholism and his creativity. It's pretty clear that
it was no help to him, in the end.
Vicky
--
____________
Victoria Smallman, Department of English, McMaster University
e-mail: g912...@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca
Brian Pickrell
: fairly snaky? Then there's Sam Coleridge, who smoked a pipe and
: (supposedly) conceived Kubla Khan, started to put it down when he awoke,
: but when he was interrupted, and then went back to it, found that it
: had disappeared; that sobriety couldn't assemble the words...
I've always believed this episode was overplayed. I've woken up
many times with the belief that I'd just conceived something fab-
ulous, if only I could write down the words before I forgot them...
I think the subconscious is adept at producing the feeling that you've
conceived something fabulous, more so than at conceiving fabulous things.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Pickrell
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Pickrell
Michael Wise
>
>It also strikes me that the "drunken writer" is pretty much of a 20th
>Century phenomenon. Perhaps this is the outcome of the lamentable impact
>of psychology on modern writing -- the objectification of "creativity" so
>aptly demonstrated in this discussion.
Actually, I believe that the link between drunkenness and poetic
inspiration goes back quite a lot further than that. The T'ang dynasty
poet Li Bai is as widely known for his drunkenness as for his poetry.
Drink figures heavily in the short life of Christopher Marlowe (who was
killed in a barfight), Richard Savage (bio'ed by Samuel Johnson, himself
not a teetotaller), and Percy Shelley. The French poets of the nineteenth
century spent much time wasted on absinthe; Oscar Wilde gushed over the
stuff. I don't think the point you're making can be supported on any
grounds, unless you meant something different.
>
>At any rate, the physiologically destructive effects of extreme alcohol
>consumption are now so well documented, we might ask rather how much
><better> Faulkner would have been if he had not been a heavy drinker.
>
One might just as realistically ask if Faulkner would have written
anything at all if he had not been a heavy drinker. After all, perhaps he
would have had a brilliant career as the postmaster of Oxford if he
hadn't lost so much mail. It is unfair to assume that if the great writer
had lived a life of virtue, his prose would have been much better. The
better part of writing is anguish, not necessarily at writing, but at the
rejection, the unfairness of the publishing world. One might as easily
say that Van Gogh would have been a better painter if he hadn't been mad.
--
"I dont hate it," Quentin said quickly, at once, immediately; "I dont
hate it," he said. I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air,
the iron New England dark: I dont. I dont. I dont hate it! I dont hate it!
Michael Wise <wwhi...@nevada.edu> Living Hemingwayesque
Michael Wise
drinking hardly, writing well. For some inexplicable reason, I do some
good writing in bars and cafes; the darker and sleazier the better,
though I will venture to an outside table if and only if it is dark
outside. While I work in the above-mentioned dive, I partake in whatever
happens to be pouring out the tap. If it's coffee, it's coffee; if it's
beer, it's beer. Like Francis, I've done some great writing when it was
beer, but I've also done some poor writing; same with coffee.
Perhaps I am romanticizing the locale, but I do not go to dives for any
other reason than to write. I enjoy the activity going on around, and the
noise, as long as I am not drawn in. It helps me to concentrate. I also
don't find myself on a clock or figeting around looking for something to
do in a bar, like I would at work or at home. People in the bar think I
am strange, because to them a bar is a place to meet people, or to have a
drink and relax... "and you're workin'?" they say. Well, I don't meet
people in bars. My friends gave up the bar scene, actually, we
collectively gave up the bar scene, with three of us having spent a night
in jail, but I believe we individually, furtively, secretly, still frequent
bars closer to home (i.e. within walking or driving-quietly-though-dark-
neighborhoods distance). So I go to a bar, sit in a dark corner, and ask
the waitress to bring me one and run a tab, light a cigarette, fire up
the notebook, and concentrate on what I am trying to say, and how I want
to say it.
I noticed that only one person seemed to catch what truly seems to be the
problem of the phenomenon of drunkenness and writers. Creativity is
linked to compulsive or addictive behavior, not in a positive, creative
sense, as the mythology of "inspiring drink" would have us believe, but
often in negative, unfortunate ways. However, the two tendencies do seem
to co-exist. It would be wrong to say that drinking makes one a better
writer, or that it keeps one from being a better writer. The causal link
is fallacious; one could postulate that being a good writer makes one a
better drunk. Correlation does not imply causation.
SubGenius
: Meg Worley (mwo...@mathcs.emory.edu) wrote:
: : Okay, aside from taking issued with the polarity of that
: : inferred proclamation, I'd ask this: Which of the following
: : premises do you take issue with?
: : Drinking erodes inhibitions.
: : Inhibitions are detrimental to creativity.
: : Creativity is necessary for good writing.
: : _________________________________________
: : Drinking is helpful to the writer.
: The first logical error is the assumption that the term "inhibitions" in
: the first premisse is equivalent to the term "inhibitions" in the middle
: premisse.
: The second is that the middle premisse assumes something not proven. Or,
: perhaps more precisely, the term "inhibitions" refers to a wide range of
: behaviors which have no obvious relation to creativity. Was Jane Austen
: sexually inhibited? As far as we know. Was she creative? Yes.
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
And the `logical error' in your critisism is assuming that all
disagreements in the usage of a word are `logical errors'. Also the
presumtion that accepting a contrafactual notion as axiomatic is a
`logical error'.
Do you also label spelling mistakes as `logical errors'?
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
: It also strikes me that the "drunken writer" is pretty much of a 20th
: Century phenomenon. Perhaps this is the outcome of the lamentable impact
: of psychology on modern writing -- the objectification of "creativity" so
: aptly demonstrated in this discussion.
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
Nuts.
Unpack that `pretty much' and perhaps I'll buy it, otherwise this sounds
like a pernicious load of codswallop deserving of punishment by getting
walloped upside the head with a copy of the works of Rabelais.
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
: At any rate, the physiologically destructive effects of extreme alcohol
: consumption are now so well documented, we might ask rather how much
: <better> Faulkner would have been if he had not been a heavy drinker.
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
Exercises in the contrafactual conditional, apparently offered as
probabilistically enhancing the negation of some statement, in the
same post as a couple logic flamelings. What fun. We might rather
ask how much better Faulkner would ahve been if he had been a Japanese
woman living in the Eighteenth Century. Or if he had been a big,
dumb fish several millenia ago. Whee!
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
Jeff Inman
: Alison Chaiken (ali...@wsrcc.com) wrote:
: > I'm surprised that everyone is taking so seriously a putative
: > connection between creativity and drunkeness. It's my understanding
: > that the two phenomena simply often occur in the same people, namely
: > that very creative people have a higher prediliction towards
: > alcoholism. High creativity and left-handedness also often occur in
: > the same people, but in that case noone has suggested that the
: > phenomena are causally related.
Perhaps that's because you can get alcohol, but you can't get
left-handed.
: You're right, of course, that alcoholism and creativity may not
: be related causally (i.e., the first causing the second), but they may
: have a common root cause. Same with creativity and left-handedness; many
: people *have* suggested that the two are related in that both seem to
: be caused by a dominant right brain. That doesn't mean, however, that
: all left-handed people are creative or that all creative people are
: left-handed.
Just the good ones.
Francis Muir
Rachel Powers writes
The types of inhibitions that are lifted when drinking are
not exactly the same that we would choose to banish when we
write.
Then how about this absinthe stuff? Ain't there some worm that
doth prick the muse in there? It's buffed up legends all its own.
As I understood it, the legend was that absinthe made the heart grow fonder.
Sorry, sorry. This is re.arts.books, so let me point you in the direction
of Marie Corelli's WORMWOOD. Mizz Corelli is a ghastly writer and this may
well be the one that sealled her fate. Stanford has a First Edition in their
Special Collection and one would wish that it was also the Last Edition and
that entry to the Special Collection is as difficult as it ever was.
Basically Mizz Corelli is agin it. She is also agin pretty much everything:
Paris, men, &c. I acquired my copy at a RABfest swapmeet where I left the
CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE on the table. A fair trade; it's important to know
that there are writers infinitely worse than Bulwer-Lytton.
Fido
Postscript. Last I heard Absinthe could not legally be made in France, but
that Pernod had a manufactory in Spain. The only time i ever used it was
to freshen the taste of water in those goatskin water-carriers we slung
alongside the Berliet trucks on our way South across the Sahara to Fort
Polignac.
Lisa Chabot
in its wit and weight, humming along with it, and press send with triumph!
If I were to wait until cold, gray morning, my head pounding with
embarassment and rationality, I'd certainly flinch, delete the file
with a groan, and spend the rest of the day purging myself with
technical manuals and clear water. As it is, the day dawns, somebody
reads it, and I spend the day under my desk, pretending nothing has happened,
that these little postings are not mine but somebody else's kids.
How much better to at least first revel in the creations! toss them in the
air, bite their heads off and drink their intoxicating blood; tomorrow,
we'll die the weakling deaths of disapproving or non-existent followups.
Also, my service provider logs me off if I don't type beaverishly for
fifteen minutes.
But, other than that, the only artificial stimulant I use to get going
is boredom, with an occasional lack of sleep chaser.
Some editing jobs, however, seem to cry out for strong drink and much
maudlin behavior. (Particularly editting other people's work.)
--
All women become like their mothers: that is their tragedy.
No man does: that's his.
william r smith
Do you read compulsively? Do you read cereal boxes? Would you never
go into the bathroom without something to read? Do you feel unhappy,
restless, even desperate if you are caught without something to read?
According to my late friend, compulsive reading is a neurotic behavior
...
Ohhhhh, shit.
William Sburgfort Smith
_______________________________________________________________________________
William Smith will...@mhpcc.edu
Maui High Performance Computing Center WWW: http://www.mhpcc.edu/mhpcc.html
_______________________________________________________________________________
John Camp
>
>John Camp (jc...@mr.net) wrote:
>: fairly snaky? Then there's Sam Coleridge, who smoked a pipe and
>: (supposedly) conceived Kubla Khan, started to put it down when he awoke,
>: but when he was interrupted, and then went back to it, found that it
>: had disappeared; that sobriety couldn't assemble the words...
>
>I've always believed this episode was overplayed. I've woken up
>many times with the belief that I'd just conceived something fab-
>ulous, if only I could write down the words before I forgot them...
>
>I think the subconscious is adept at producing the feeling that you've
>conceived something fabulous, more so than at conceiving fabulous things.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Brian Pickrell
Your point would be stronger if Coleridge had not actually produced
a fabulous fragment, with every indication that there was more to it.
JC
John Camp
>
>I'm surprised that everyone is taking so seriously a putative
>connection between creativity and drunkeness. It's my understanding
>that the two phenomena simply often occur in the same people, namely
>that very creative people have a higher prediliction towards
>alcoholism.
I'm not sure that creative people have a greater predeliction for
alcohol than the average person. If you check any bar about ten
o'clock in the morning, you'll see a fairly high number of dummies
sitting around dangling their tongues in their G&Ts.
There exists the possibility that alcoholism is connected with
creative people simply because creative people are noticeable, and their
characteristics are recorded more often than others. European travellers
in 19th century America -- Dickens and de Tocqueville, for two --
noted that very large numbers of Americans seemed to be drunk all the
time. If many 19th century authors seemed to have trouble with
drink, maybe it was because *everybody* had trouble with it.
On the other hand (for you computer people, that's the same as OTHO),
it may be possible that great artists are so sensitive to the world that
they need to tone down their receptors, simply to make life acceptable;
that alcohol is a form of medication. Or it could be medication to ease
the sense of failure, or falling from a high place. I think most great
artists carry with them the feeling of walking on an edge between
great success and utter oblivion. After a while, you might need a drink
just to keep walking.
JC
John Camp
and achieve that looseness that my friends can simply by drinking a bit.
When I was a child -- seven or eight, I suppose -- my aunt and uncle and
my parents had a summer lawn party with iced beer. The day was very hot,
and I started sneaking cups of the beer. After downing several -- many --
I became extremely ill and spent a protracted time worshipping at the
porcellain throne. To this day, I can't drink more than about 1/4 beer,
or a glass of wine, before I begin to react...
On a hot day, I can get down a couple of G&Ts; especially if I've just
mown the lawn.
But the lack of a serious drinking ability is something I regret...
JC
Jim Hartley
>In article <DC5q0...@eskimo.com>, pma...@eskimo.com (Brian Pickrell) says:
>>John Camp (jc...@mr.net) wrote:
>>: fairly snaky? Then there's Sam Coleridge, who smoked a pipe and
>>: (supposedly) conceived Kubla Khan, started to put it down when he awoke,
>>: but when he was interrupted, and then went back to it, found that it
>>: had disappeared; that sobriety couldn't assemble the words...
>>
>>I've always believed this episode was overplayed. I've woken up
>>many times with the belief that I'd just conceived something fab-
>>ulous, if only I could write down the words before I forgot them...
>
>a fabulous fragment, with every indication that there was more to it.
I'm not sure how this is related to the thread on booze and lit. As I
understand the story, the problem had nothing to do with waking up and
forgetting. Wasn't it Dirk Gently's midnight visit that caused old Sam
to forget the rest of Kubla Khan?
Fortunately, all was not lost--there was that idea about the albatross.
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
Joseph M Green
know whether The radio broadcast of War of the World's was based
on Wells' novel and thought that he would inquire of old Sam -- since
he was so very far from any reference. He then chatted with Sam about
how he couldn't stand Portrait when he was a tad but grew to understand
so much as he became sadder but wiser.
By the by -- as Norman Fruman as shown in "Damaged Archangel" Coleridge
made all of this up. Fruman the first to inquire about how many
copies of Purchas His Pilgrimage were extant, where they were, how
much they weighed -- and much else -- and to wonder just why
and when old Sam wandered lonely on the Moor -- ill -- lugging
a 15 lb rare volume for miles -- and so on...
M.A. Powe
: Meg Worley writes:
: Um, that was e-mail.
: And it is clear that Michael Powe understood his source. This is probably as
: good a time as any to remind one and all that private mail is the property of
: the sender, not the receiver, and it is quite improper to repost it publicly.
: Phew. That's better.
And since you choose to make this a public issue in all ignorance of the
facts:
I already made my apologies to Ms. Worley for what seems to be a
misunderstanding. I get a fair number of e-mail replies to public
messages; and occasionally, as in this case, the reply comes with
"newsgroup" distribution attached. Basically, this means that when I
reply to the e-mail, Pine asks me if I want the reply to go to the
newsgroup(s) as well as to the sender. Since this only happens
occasionally, it has been my assumption that the individuals whose
mailers attach this distribution are indifferent to the posting of my
replies. Therefore, I choose: when the exchange includes material or
discussions outside what I interpret to be "public," I don't post to
newgroups. When the information appears to me to be acceptably
"on-topic," and of public interest, I do. As, in the case under
dispute. It now appears, that some people simply don't know what their
mailers are doing. I quite clearly knew what I was doing, and as far as
I am concerned, I have been handling my mail in an ethical and thoughtful
manner -- striving both to protect the integrity of correspondents and
further discussions in which I was involved.
I am certainly completely indifferent to how my e-mail is handled, don't
care one banana whether you post it or not; and when I do have some reason
to care, as for instance, giving out my home address or something like
that, I <say> so. I would never say something in e-mail I would be
embarrassed to say in public. From my point of view, an e-mail reply to a
newsgroup article is merely the best method of assuring that what I say
gets to a particular individual. Thus, I simply regard this "privacy of
e-mail" issue as a tempest in a teapot. <However>, I recognize that not
everyone feels this way. And, as I already told Ms. Morley <privately>,
which is where the substance of this discussion was <properly> handled, I
will not post her mail again. Presumably, in the meantime, she will take
measures to assure that her mailer does not continue to attach newsgroup
distribution to private correspondence. Thus, the problem is solved at
both ends. End of discussion.
And yes, I am annoyed.
M.A. Powe
: M.A. Powe <do...@teleport.com> wrote:
: >At any rate, the physiologically destructive effects of extreme alcohol
: >consumption are now so well documented, we might ask rather how much
: ><better> Faulkner would have been if he had not been a heavy drinker.
: One might just as realistically ask if Faulkner would have written
: anything at all if he had not been a heavy drinker. After all, perhaps he
Well, I was being a bit facetious. I mean, I regard the conception of his
drinking being a contributing factor to his greatness as equally valid as
the contention that his drinking impaired his greatness. At least the
latter hypothesis has verifiable fact behind it -- namely, that he did
enormous physical damage to his brain.
There's much to be said about the psychology of drinking, too. You can
get people drunk on near-beer, if they think it's alcoholic. So, it's
quite possible that the effects of the alcohol itself were incidental to
whatever Faulkner was seeking from it (and, we presume, found). Being a
"reformed alcoholic" myself, I've lived on both sides of the fence; and
I'm inclined to credit the psychology. The point at which one stops
drinking is the point at which one realizes that the alcohol is not doing
what one thought it was doing. Faulkner, obviously, never reached that
point.
Ted Samsel
(?)
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net
"driving a Hudson Hornet on the disinformation triple bypass:
cruising for burgers & garage sales. Hooks baited, lines en-
tangled, roadkill cooked"
Michael Wise
>
>Postscript. Last I heard Absinthe could not legally be made in France, but
>that Pernod had a manufactory in Spain. The only time i ever used it was
>to freshen the taste of water in those goatskin water-carriers we slung
>alongside the Berliet trucks on our way South across the Sahara to Fort
>Polignac.
>
Pernod no longer makes the REAL stuff; instead they make a taste-alike
that is the rage of France and some parts of Spain. Basically it tastes
like Ouzo with the color of absinthe. No wormwood though. That was the
gastly ingredient that was banned, though I read in a coffee-table book
that it was not necessary the wormwood that did it, just good
old-fashioned hell-bent-for-leather alcohol poisoning with an anise drug
mixing that would astonish a pharmacist caught up in the mundane world of
beta blockers and antihistamines. The wormwood allowed a government to
take action against the dangerous effects of absinthe without addressing
the root cause and the cash cow. In Amerika, however, we got Prohibition
instead.
David J. Loftus
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Bruce Bender (ben...@lamar.colostate.edu) wrote:
: PEOPLE DRINK FOLKS, end of story, if they don't it's because they've
: got god or some other lame icon to throw their sadness at.
Beg pardon, but some of us aren't sad. And some of us savor our sadness,
rather than "throwing" it anywhere.
David J. Loftus
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Alison Chaiken (ali...@wsrcc.com) wrote:
: than the average population. A friend of mine who unfortunately has
: since died told me that you can tell if you are an addictive
: personality by answering (among many possible questions) the following
: question(s):
: Do you read compulsively? Do you read cereal boxes? Would you never
: go into the bathroom without something to read? Do you feel unhappy,
: restless, even desperate if you are caught without something to read?
Urks!! Well, the first four questions might apply to me (I also read
while walking to and from the bus stop and work, and while flossing my
teeth), but I can't say the last does. I am NOT an addictive
personality, though, because I've lived with several and I know I'm not
like that. There is something vaguely compulsive about the way I and
other people read, though....
David Loftus
David J. Loftus
: One of my regrets in life is that I've never been able to enjoy alcohol,
: and achieve that looseness that my friends can simply by drinking a bit.
Pity your friends for having to depend on alcohol for a little
looseness. There are cheaper ways, I think. All it takes is a little
practice.
: But the lack of a serious drinking ability is something I regret...
No great loss.
That's like regretting an "inability" to smoke cigarettes or outrace
another car on the freeway. There are more worthwhile activities in life.
SubGenius
: Which begs the question of the rabble, which are you? Those of
: us who stab at the S)end key without rereading a word of our
: blurtings, then, can be found occasionally passed out in rab's
: alleys; the others (Mike Morris, I name you) who vet their
: work before committing -- they walk the sober side of the
: street.
: Before Kate asks, I'll confess that I have posted drunk a
: few times, but those were never my most regrettable posts.
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
It has been quite some time since I was what I would call drunk. There
was a time, however, when I seldom posted to r.a.b. (or did much of
anything else, for that matter) except when I was either drinking or
recently had been.
I also very seldom proofread my comments in any way shape or form before
submitting them; after exiting news, doing whatever it is that I'm
currently doing offline, and then returning to the harrowed hells...er,
HALLOWED HALLS, appy polly loggies...returning to the hallowed halls
of r.a.b., I'll typically read my most recent spate (`spate', yet) of
posts and then reply to it if I spot some particularly eggregious
errors. I do not spell check.
The vast majority of my posts have been composed at my typing speed,
immediately following my reading of the post to which I am responding
or some fraction of it (i.e., the fraction required to inspire me
to snort, mutter `rubbish' under my breath and hit `f'). Recently,
I've been forced to mark the posts to which I intend a reply as unread
for later response, when my newsfeed is not accecpting submissions.
I don't recall ever regretting having made a post.
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
Alan Scott - CIR
to Alison's original post but it's already gone from this site.]
>Alison Chaiken (ali...@wsrcc.com) wrote:
>
>: than the average population. A friend of mine who unfortunately has
>: since died told me that you can tell if you are an addictive
>: personality by answering (among many possible questions) the following
>: question(s):
>
>: Do you read compulsively? Do you read cereal boxes? Would you never
>: go into the bathroom without something to read? Do you feel unhappy,
>: restless, even desperate if you are caught without something to read?
The term I've coined for this feeling is
ANABIBLIOPHOBIA (n) The morbid fear of being caught without something
to read. From Greek _ana_, without, _biblio_, book, and _phobia_, fear.
And yes, I'm a sufferer, if such is the word. Fortunately, books are
(while certainly not objects of *approval*, of course) not yet illegal; I
can even indulge my depraved habit in public without garnering more than a
few shocked looks.
The only twelve steps I wanna see are the ones up to the closed stacks,
thank you.
--
Alan P. Scott
asc...@egreen.wednet.edu
CIR Help Desk Coordinator
DISK LAMER: These are my opinions.
Alan Scott - CIR
David J. Loftus <dl...@netcom.com> wrote some stuff I callously deleted,
because I *really* wanted to reply to Alison's post but couldn't get to
the original article:
SubGenius
: Therefore it's probably reasonable to
: guess that alcoholism is a problem for writers as it is for other
: creative people (i.e. musicians).
: It's certainly my belief both from personal experience and anecdotal
: evidence that creative people of all types (dancers, literati,
: scientists, musicians) are more likely to be addictive personalities
: than the average population.
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
`It's bound to be a difficult task, giving it
up,' said Naidu. `But you can rely on us three
to give you all the support and encouragement in
the world.'
`Whatever is possessing you, Moti? Nobody said
anything about giving it up. Any fool can give
it up. I'm going to do something much more
worthwhile than that---ditching alcoholism and
taking up very heavy drinking. [...]'
---from _The Anti-Death League_
Kingsley Amis
I'm not sure where the connexion between drinking in general and
alcoholism and `addictive personalities' in particular was
established, but I think it's a load of hooey. Is any repeated
behaviour considered `addictive'? I.e., holding down a steady
job, a sort of behaviour which does not characterise many writers
in exactly the same sort of way drinking does. Monogamy? A
predilection for tortellini in pesto sauce?
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
Ted Samsel
accordion in the band that played this..... He still writes songs,
has worked as a journalist (now those fellers are boozers!), and
has written sci-fi (whatever frosh hell that may portend).
I know I am a juicer
It helps me feel looser
When the game is rigged
You might as well quit trying
But I guess I'll take it to the end of the line
It's a slow way to go
But it helps to pass the time
(from IT HELPS TO PASS THE TIME, by John Clay: Mockingbird Music).
1976 (or thereabouts?) quien sabe?
"and pass the bottle when he got dry,
& brush away the bluetail fly"
"soy troquero y me gusta ser borracho!"
"Im Himmel es gibt kein bier"
"dva pivo"
John Camp
>
>
>>
>> One of the more interesting drinking-writing books of the past few years
>> is William Styron's "Darkness Visible," which concerns Styron's descent
>> into a suicidal depression, and the mis-treatment of his malady by certain
>> medical members. Styron suggests that his problem started when he was
>> forced to STOP drinking -- that he had been more or less drunk for
>> several decades when he suddenly developed an intolerance -- essentially,
>> an allergy -- for alcohol, and could no longer drink. Sober, he really
>> couldn't face either life or work, and so went off the edge. Styron
>> liked drinking, enjoyed being drunk; for him, it was a kind of
>> medication that kept him going for much longer that he might of, had
>> he been sober...
>>
>> JC
>
>I agree this was a fascinating and chilling book, but I think you missed
>part of the point. Styron couldn't face his life or work while he was
>drinking, so he tried it sober, and continued to descend into the hell of
>depression without the seeming reprieve of booze. Drinking may have
>helped to blur the demons and self-doubt that paralyzed him when he was
>sober, but it made it even more impossible for him to live in the world of
>reality. He had to stop. Its most likely that he would have sunk into
>his suicidal depression regardless of whether or not he had stopped
>drinking. What may have helped him was if he had been able to somehow
>foresee this end and actually seek help earlier. As it was, he has
>managed to put down his experience plainly to help others understand.
>
>MF
Actually, I think YOU missed the point -- the point that Styron didn't
quit because "he couldn't face life or work while he was drinking." He
says exactly the opposite -- he couldn't face life or work while he was
sober. He didn't have to quit drinking for his mental health, or even
because physical systems were breaking down, he had to quit because of
what amounted to an allergic reaction. He would have preferred to
continue, and in the book, in any case, attributes the onset of the
depression to the lack of his usual self-medication. I thought that
one of the more interesting things about the book was that for Styron,
alcohol worked.
Here's what he says:
The storm which swept me into the hospital in December began as a cloud
no bigger than a wine goblet the previous June. And the cloud --
the manifest crisis -- involved alcohol, a substance I had been abusing
for forty years. Like a great many American writers, whose sometimes
lethal addiction to alcohol has become so legendary as to provide
in itself a stream of studies and books, I used alcohol as the magical
conduit to fantasy and euphoria, and to the enhancement of the
imagination. There is no reason either to rue or apologize for my
use of this soothing, often sublime agent, which had contributed greatly
to my writing; although I never set down a line while under its
influence, I did use it -- often in conjunction with music -- as a means
to let my mind conceive visions that the unaltered, sober brain has no
access to. Alcohol was an invaluable senior partner of my intellect,
besides being a friend whose ministrations I sought daily -- sought
also, I now see, as a means to calm the anxiety and incipient dread
that I had hidden away for so long somewhere in the dungeons of my
spirit. The trouble was, at the beginning of this particular summer,
that I was betrayed, It struck me quite suddenly, almost overnight:
I could no longer drink. It was as if my body had risen up in
protest, alnong with my mind, and had consired to reject this daily mopod
bath which it had for so long welcomed, and, who knows?,
perhaps even come to need. Many drinkers have experienced this
intolerance as they have grown older. I suspect that the crisis was
at least partly metabolic -- the liver rebelling, as if to say,
"No more, no more" -- but at any rate, I discovered that alcohol in
miniscule amounts, even a mouthful of wine, caused me nausea,
a desperate and unpleasant wooziness, a sinking sensation asnd
ultimately a distinct revulsion. <snip>
Neither by will nor by choice had I become an abstainer...
JC
Heather Henderson
>Alison asked:
>> Do you read compulsively? Do you read cereal boxes?
>
>children should not learn to read until they are of school age (1st grade).
>I was therefore actively prevented from reading until I was 6 and a half.
>My mother tells a story of my furiously confronting her with a Cheerios box
>at age 5, saying, "I know this word says 'Cheerios'! Teach me the letters!"
>When she refused, I dumped the contents of the box all over the kitchen floor.
I call that child abuse. My parents taught me to read when I was two
and from then on let me read anything I wanted to, and I'm eternally
grateful to them for their largesse.
***********************************************************************
Heather Henderson * Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting
Director's Office * and baseball is like writing
MIT Media Lab * You can never tell with either
* how it will go
hea...@media.mit.edu * or what you will do
heath...@delphi.com * -- Marianne Moore
***********************************************************************
Donald Phillipson
> Alison asked:
>> Do you read compulsively? Do you read cereal boxes?
>
> My mother has a master's in reading psychology, and her firm belief is that
> children should not learn to read until they are of school age (1st grade).
> I was therefore actively prevented from reading until I was 6 and a half.
Having disciplinary credentials, your mother ought to have been able to
give you (perhaps later) the reasons for her decision. Did she ever do so?
--
| Donald Phillipson, 4180 Boundary Rd., Carlsbad |
| Springs, Ont., Canada K0A 1K0; tel: (613) 822-0734 |
| "What I've always liked about science is its independence from |
| authority"--Ontario Science Centre (name on file) 10 July 1981 |
SubGenius
: Being a
: "reformed alcoholic" myself, I've lived on both sides of the fence; and
: I'm inclined to credit the psychology. The point at which one stops
: drinking is the point at which one realizes that the alcohol is not doing
: what one thought it was doing. Faulkner, obviously, never reached that
: point.
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
While of course being properly impressed by the gripping immediacy and
gritty realism of your personal testimony, I am nevertheless forced to
inquire as to what exactly you think it is that most, or indeed all,
drinkers think that alcohol is doing, and why you seem to think that
your example is representative of all drinkers in general and Faulkner
in particular.
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
Fiona Webster
> Do you read compulsively? Do you read cereal boxes?
My mother has a master's in reading psychology, and her firm belief is that
children should not learn to read until they are of school age (1st grade).
I was therefore actively prevented from reading until I was 6 and a half.
My mother tells a story of my furiously confronting her with a Cheerios box
at age 5, saying, "I know this word says 'Cheerios'! Teach me the letters!"
When she refused, I dumped the contents of the box all over the kitchen floor.
My name is Fiona. I am a compulsive reader. (Say: "Hi Fiona!")
This little anecdote signifies nothing, but it is presented in the spirit of
"gritty realism," to quote one SubG. (-:
--Fiona
Fiona Webster
>Having disciplinary credentials, your mother ought to have been able to
>give you (perhaps later) the reasons for her decision. Did she ever do so?
I'm vague on her reasons. One time she mumbled something about "getting bad
habits" by learning to read too early, and another time I think she quoted
Piaget on brain development and readiness to learn to read at a certain age.
I was never interested, because within about two months after my first
exposure to reading and writing, I was a complete bookworm and also spent a
lot of my play time writing. Fortunately, a little sister was born around the
same time, so my parents were too busy to notice I'd totally tuned them out,
until it was too late to do anything about it. :-) But my mother's
philosophy was pretty benign, anyway. She never put any restrictions on what
or how much I could read and write, and even gave up on trying to get me to
turn off the light at bedtime. When I got into junior high, my parents would
even let me stay home from school if I said I needed the time for a
school-related writing project.
Anecdotes from other folks? I'm always interested in hearing about other
people's childhood reading experiences. Not just what books you read, but how
reading (and writing) fit in with the rest of your childhood.
--Fiona
Rebecca Allen
There is some uncertainty in my family as to when I started reading, and who, if anyone,
taught me. Probably my eldest sister, and definitely before I started school. I
didn't get thoroughly sucked in, however, until I was six, at which point it started
to become impossible to get me to go outside, as I preferred to stay in and
read. No one seemed to understand or sympathize with my perfectly rational
explanation that there were _bugs_ out there, and besides, it was dirty.
My mother never really abandoned attempts to get me to quit reading and
go to bed at a reasonable hour. I pretended fear of the dark, so that the hall
light would be left on, the door open, and I'd sneak over and read in the
light, scrambling back into bed when I heard someone coming up the
stairs. Not always successfully. I distinctly remember the look of shock on
my third grade teacher's face when I told her that when I was caught reading
at such times, I was spanked. Somehow, I don't think she approved.
For that matter, I don't.
At any rate, other ploys used in reading at night included flashlights under the blanket,
waiting until everyone else was asleep (around 1 was usually safe; 3 a.m. always
was) and getting up to read then. I also brought books to church and sneakily
read them in the bathroom. I eventually gave up, as it was too risky (other people
helped enforcement), in favor of openly bringing religious material at least
tangentially related to what we were using in the course of church and just
reading that. I'd bring in more than one translation of the Bible on occasion
and compare renderings. (Church may not seem like a big deal to you, but
we went three times a week, for one to two hours -- several times a year we had
all day gatherings. And let's face it: the doctrine is bound to get repetitive after
a few years of this.)
Oddly enough, I think I read a lot less now than I used to, which I consider
a direct reflection on the fact that I have more control over how I spend my
time (fewer demands, and more cash), so while reading has not lost its
charm, it has acquired viable competition.
Rebecca Allen standard disclaimers apply reb...@spry.com
Michael Wise
>
>Well, I was being a bit facetious. I mean, I regard the conception of his
>drinking being a contributing factor to his greatness as equally valid as
>the contention that his drinking impaired his greatness. At least the
>latter hypothesis has verifiable fact behind it -- namely, that he did
>enormous physical damage to his brain.
One would hope so, but I have heard the same argument made in the same
manner in all seriousness. The psychology of genius seems very little
understood, mostly a mish-mash of theories and examples from famous
geniuses who, as someone mentioned earlier, are a statistically-perilous
small sample. It is one thing to say that giving up drinking will enable a
normal person to lead a normal life; it is quite another to say that it
would allow a creative, singular genius like Faulkner to become more
creative. The two are not comparable, mostly because we don't understand
what makes genius work. Is it truly a step above ordinary life, ordinary
coping; is genius akin to the contemplation of God, or science, or
philosophy, which takes a lifetime of study, thought, reasoning, debate,
the exercising of our highest mental faculties? Or is it a form of mental
illness, a disease of the mind that lets too much in, makes too many
associations, feels too deeply or too strongly, hears too many voices,
always bordering on psychosis? I'm inclined to believe the latter. For
one, they say left-handed people are creative and intelligent; they don't
say left-handed people are disproportionally represented in mental
institutions. Creative geniuses don't lead normal lives; they have a
pronounced tendency to screw up in ways most ordinary people do not. They
can't hold down jobs, can't keep marriages together, can't raise kids,
often can't be successful at what they know they're good at.
Of course, a gene for alcoholism probably sits on the same allel as
creativity and mental illness. In the New World Order, we can probably
excise the whole thing and be done with it. In a way, the drugs out there
to control mental illness, depression, and such, do that already. They
block out the extra seven hundred voices. Some patients like the drugs;
some miss the voices. Faulkner probably heard voices too, and drank
sometimes just to give himself a little peace and quiet. And would you
have grudged him Prozac, if he was in our generation instead?
Michael Wise
>
>That's like regretting an "inability" to smoke cigarettes or outrace
>another car on the freeway. There are more worthwhile activities in life.
Rats! you just shot down the three things I most enjoy in life. It must
be time to wrap my lips around the barrel of a large shotgun...
Ted Samsel
: Alison asked:
My name is Ted. I have books in the bathroom to read. (Say: "No! Not a
(water) reader!)
Jim Kasprzak
>Which begs the question of the rabble, which are you? Those of
>us who stab at the S)end key without rereading a word of our
>blurtings, then, can be found occasionally passed out in rab's
>alleys; the others (Mike Morris, I name you) who vet their
>work before committing -- they walk the sober side of the
>street.
>
>Before Kate asks, I'll confess that I have posted drunk a
>few times, but those were never my most regrettable posts.
known to make the occasional (horrors) spelling error when in a less
than sober state. This usually results from lessened manual dexterity,
i.e., hitting the wrong @#$% key. (-: Personally, I'd be more likely
to adopt the maxim of "never post when angry". Anger has caused me to
post far more regrettable things than inebriation. Fortunately, I'm
not often drunk, and very seldom angry (but on the extremely rare
occasion when both occur simultaneously, the results are quite ugly).
--
__ Live from the bustling metropolis of the Big Apple...
___/ | Jim Kasprzak, just a guy from New York.
/____ | "Better in my day," I hear everybody say,
\_| But then, they'll still be saying that tomorrow.
*==== e-mail: jim...@panix.com
Meg Worley
M.A. Powe <do...@teleport.com> wrote:
>And since you choose to make this a public issue in all ignorance of the
>facts:
I suggest that the ignorance of the faqs is Michael's. To quote
from the FAQ of news.newusers.questions:
:It is generally considered rude to post private e-mail correspondence
:without the permission of the author of that mail. Furthermore, under
:copyright statutes, the author of the e-mail possesses a copyright on
:mail that he or she wrote; posting it to the net or mailing it on to
:others without permission of the author is likely a violation of that
:copyright as well as being rude.
>I already made my apologies to Ms. Worley for what seems to be a
>misunderstanding. I get a fair number of e-mail replies to public
>messages; and occasionally, as in this case, the reply comes with
>"newsgroup" distribution attached. Basically, this means that when I
>reply to the e-mail, Pine asks me if I want the reply to go to the
>newsgroup(s) as well as to the sender. Since this only happens
>occasionally, it has been my assumption that the individuals whose
>mailers attach this distribution are indifferent to the posting of my
>replies.
I also gather that Michael is confusing newsreaders with
mailers. The existence of a "Newsgroups:" field in a mail
message is an indication that the writer is using the reply
option of her newsreader rather than switching over to her
mailer. And if he will take a look at RFC822 (available at
ftp.uu.net), he will see that the protocol smiles (as much
as a protocol can smile) on such fields.
Finally, I would point out that checking over the mail I
have archived -- only a small portion of the mail I have
received -- I find 229 messages with a Newsgroups line in
the header. Strangely, I have managed never to post any
of it to a newsgroup. And of the 4744 messages I have
dashed off via the reply option on my newsreader, none of
them have tempted the recipients to post them.
>And, as I already told Ms. Morley <privately>,
>which is where the substance of this discussion was <properly> handled, I
>will not post her mail again. Presumably, in the meantime, she will take
>measures to assure that her mailer does not continue to attach newsgroup
>distribution to private correspondence. Thus, the problem is solved at
>both ends.
I am afraid I will not be asking Larry Wall to remove the
reply option from rn and its progeny.
Rage away,
meg
--
mwo...@mathcs.emory.edu comparatively literate
Jim Kasprzak
>John Camp (jc...@mr.net) wrote:
>: fairly snaky? Then there's Sam Coleridge, who smoked a pipe and
>: (supposedly) conceived Kubla Khan, started to put it down when he awoke,
>: but when he was interrupted, and then went back to it, found that it
>: had disappeared; that sobriety couldn't assemble the words...
>
>I've always believed this episode was overplayed. I've woken up
>many times with the belief that I'd just conceived something fab-
>ulous, if only I could write down the words before I forgot them...
>
>I think the subconscious is adept at producing the feeling that you've
>conceived something fabulous, more so than at conceiving fabulous things.
Yes, but in Coleridge's case we do have the existing part of "Kubla Khan"
as evidence that he had indeed concieved of something.
Personally I think it's more a question of interrupted concentration
than of sobriety or lack thereof. I've got files and notebooks of partial
poems that never got completed because I lost my train of thought
part way through, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
On the other hand, I did once wake up to my clock-radio playing Jackson
Browne's "Lawyers in Love", and in my vague state of half-wakefulness,
was certain that I understood exactly what the song was about. When I
attained full consciousness, it had slipped away, and to this day it
still baffles me. So there may be some truth to your assertion.
Jim Hori
>
> According to my late friend, compulsive reading is a neurotic behavior
Interesting! Who or what was the medium through which your late
friend communicated this observation? Always on the lookout for
channels to 'the other side'.
....
jimh
Laura A. Davis
f...@access.digex.net (Fiona Webster) writes:
>Alison asked:
>> Do you read compulsively? Do you read cereal boxes?
>
>My mother has a master's in reading psychology, and her firm belief is that
>children should not learn to read until they are of school age (1st grade).
>I was therefore actively prevented from reading until I was 6 and a half.
>My mother tells a story of my furiously confronting her with a Cheerios box
>at age 5, saying, "I know this word says 'Cheerios'! Teach me the letters!"
>When she refused, I dumped the contents of the box all over the kitchen floor.
>
>My name is Fiona. I am a compulsive reader. (Say: "Hi Fiona!")
>
>This little anecdote signifies nothing, but it is presented in the spirit of
>"gritty realism," to quote one SubG. (-:
>
I'm just curious what awful things happen to children who read before they
are 6.5, since I started reading when I was 4ish?
I read cereal boxes, instructions to toasters, most of my junk mail, and
haven't really considered it to be an addiction. I guess since I can still
make it to my job and pay my bills on time it's not yet a problem addiction.
Laura
Jeff Inman
: > One of my regrets in life is that I've never been able to enjoy alcohol,
: > and achieve that looseness that my friends can simply by drinking a bit.
: That's like regretting an "inability" to smoke cigarettes or outrace
: another car on the freeway. There are more worthwhile activities in life.
Exactly. Just be glad you can still play decent pool at midnight.
You CAN play a decent game of pool, can't you?
--
"Milk those poignant thoughts, my sad little clown."
Jeff Inman
j...@santafe.edu
Gerald Rosenberg
>From: asc...@egreen.iclnet.org (Alan Scott - CIR)
>Subject: Re: compulsive reading (was booze & lit)
>Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 22:08:36 GMT
>In article <dloftDC...@netcom.com>,
>David J. Loftus <dl...@netcom.com> wrote some stuff I callously deleted,
>because I *really* wanted to reply to Alison's post but couldn't get to
>the original article:
>>Alison Chaiken (ali...@wsrcc.com) wrote:
>>
>>: than the average population. A friend of mine who unfortunately has
>>: since died told me that you can tell if you are an addictive
>>: personality by answering (among many possible questions) the following
>>: question(s):
>>
>>: Do you read compulsively?
Do you read cereal boxes?
Would you never go into the bathroom without something to read?
Do you feel unhappy, restless, even desperate if you are caught without
something to read?
>
Yes, yes, yes. Yes.
I too read into the night using a flashlight under my blankets. When I first
got my driver's license, I would practice increasing my reading speed by
driving as fast as I could on route 46 and reading reading traffic,
advertising and shop signs. I once got up to 100 miles per hour.
But if you want real compulsive behvior: I even tried to train
myself to independently read opposing pages of an open book with each eye in
order to increase my throughput.
Fiona Webster
> I wouldn't go so far as to say "never post drunk", though I have been
>known to make the occasional (horrors) spelling error when in a less
>than sober state.
Is there room in this thread for people who post while under the influence
of different drugs than alcohol? I find that my best drug for posting is
opium: it helps me to write in a happier, more playful tone.
And what about reading? I dearly love to read Clark Ashton Smith while
high on pot. Phantasmagoria *city*!
--de Quincy knew his stuff,
Fiona
SubGenius
: My name is Ted. I have books in the bathroom to read. (Say: "No! Not a
: (water) reader!)
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
At the moment:
Joe Bob Briggs' _Iron Joe Bob_, Joseph Campbell's _The Masks of God:
Occidental Mythology_, an NRSV bible, Henry Petroski's _The Evolution
of Useful Things_, the Shambhala edition of Cleary's translation of
Chih-hsu Ou-i's Buddhist _I Ching_ and a copy of Gardner's _The
Annotated Alice_.
That's nothing. It's the `current' pile next to the bed that gets
out of hand.
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
SubGenius
: Is there room in this thread for people who post while under the influence
: of different drugs than alcohol? I find that my best drug for posting is
: opium: it helps me to write in a happier, more playful tone.
: And what about reading? I dearly love to read Clark Ashton Smith while
: high on pot. Phantasmagoria *city*!
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
I believe r.a.b. on acid looks even more like r.a.b. than it e'en,
ever, otherwise does. Effects and affectations on posting syntax
left as an exercise for the reader.
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
Roger M Squires
>
>Is there room in this thread for people who post while under the influence
>of different drugs than alcohol? I find that my best drug for posting is
>
>--de Quincy knew his stuff,
Have you read Cocteau's _Opium_? Very interesting book,
with his own opium-induced drawings included.
>Fiona
rms
Fiona Webster
>But if you want real compulsive behvior: I even tried to train
>myself to independently read opposing pages of an open book with each eye in
>order to increase my throughput.
I'm on the other extreme. I'm always looking for ways to help myself
read more slowly. The more slowly I read, the more time I spend in the book's
presence, and thus the more I get out of it.
--Fiona
Miriam Nadel
I have a twist on the "flashlight under the blanket so you can stay up past
bedtime reading" method that is so common to our childhoods. My mother, not
being the domestic sort, favors covering quilts with quilt covers on the
grounds of easier washability. I used to zip open the quilt cover and
crawl inside with flashlight and book.
My parents always claimed my favorite way of procrastinating on chores was
to say "not now, I'm in the middle of a chapter." The trick was, of course,
to start the next chapter before my parents asked again.
Miriam Nadel
Sara Larson
: read. No one seemed to understand or sympathize with my perfectly rational
: explanation that there were _bugs_ out there, and besides, it was dirty.
Ah, I just took my books with me outside. My horse didn't seem to
mind, especially if I increased her warmth by leaning against her side
while she was lying down. Horses make excellent arm chairs at
times. Boy do I miss that horse. Also a book is good for fly swatting,
and is an excellent addition to yelling "Hey!" or "No!" at someone who
has temporarily lost his civility ("Hey [slap!], stop drooling green
stuff on my knee!"). The C.W. Anderson's and Sam Savitt's are ideal
for this purpose, since they're not exactly deathless prose and
therefore it's okay if they get a little bent out of shape.
The idiosyncrasy in my household was the following. My mother didn't
like me to read during meals, but she herself liked to read while
eating. This meant that we'd both be sitting at the table eating and
reading, when all of a sudden she'd say, "Why do you always want to
read instead of talking to me?" I love my mother.
By the way, I'm one of those people who frequently puts down a book in
the middle of a chapter. I guess I like to have time to fully
comprehend the action in a book before reading the completion of that
action.
-Sara
Ted Samsel
: : read. No one seemed to understand or sympathize with my perfectly rational
: : explanation that there were _bugs_ out there, and besides, it was dirty.
Pobrecita! No insect field guides...... or butterfly books...
but up there it would be YOUR FRIEND, THE BANANA SLUG!
Kirk Pearson
>Fiona Webster (f...@access.digex.net) wrote:
>: Alison asked:
>
>: children should not learn to read until they are of school age (1st grade).
>: I was therefore actively prevented from reading until I was 6 and a half.
>: My mother tells a story of my furiously confronting her with a Cheerios box
>: at age 5, saying, "I know this word says 'Cheerios'! Teach me the letters!"
>: When she refused, I dumped the contents of the box all over the kitchen floor.
>
>: My name is Fiona. I am a compulsive reader. (Say: "Hi Fiona!")
>
>: This little anecdote signifies nothing, but it is presented in the spirit of
>: "gritty realism," to quote one SubG. (-:
>
>(water) reader!)
My name is Kirk and I am a bookaholic. I have books in the bathroom to read.
I have books on my bedside table to read. I have books on my wife's bedside
table. I have books on the dresser. Under the dresser. In the dresser.
I have books on the bookshelves in the living room. In the study. In the
bedroom, in two hallways. I have cookbooks (and novels) in the kitchen. I
have books on the coffee table. On the dining room table. On the front hall
table. I have books in my desk drawer at work. I have books in my cabinet
at work. I have books in my car. I have books and magazines in my briefcase
for reading on the bus to and from work. I have e-books marked in my
Netscape bookmarks file. I have yet-to-be-owned books on shelves in many
local bookstores (the store owners don't know they are storing the books for
me). I have boxes of books at my parents' house. I have a "books to read"
list of books to buy when I finish reading all the books I already have. I
am reading 8 books at the same time, but all of the piles and stacks and
lists are growing exponentially while my notebook of "books I have read" is
only growing slowly. I have a problem.
But oh what a problem to have! :-)
--
Kirk Pearson - kdp...@lookout.ecte.uswc.uswest.com DoD #173 MiSTie #48174
U S West, Denver, CO '82 Yamaha Seca 750
Currently owned by: Nikkei and Dax (ferrets) Batch 11: honey apricot steam beer
"Motivationally challenged people of the world unite -- some day." -- anon.
Francis Muir
Fiona Webster writes:
Is there room in this thread for people who post while
under the influence of different drugs than alcohol?
I find that my best drug for posting is opium: it helps
me to write in a happier, more playful tone. ....
--de Quincy knew his stuff,
Have you read Cocteau's _Opium_? Very interesting book,
with his own opium-induced drawings included.
My mother spent her last weeks on this planet in an English Hospice for
the Dying, where she would make merry hell if the Good Nuns who ran the
place did not give her her "Cocteau" on time. She was referring, of course,
to the morphine cocktail that is the standard and efficient cancer treatment
in these places.
Fido
Francis Muir
Rebecca Allen writes:
No one seemed to understand or sympathize with my perfectly
rational explanation that there were _bugs_ out there, and
besides, it was dirty.
Pobrecita! No insect field guides...... or butterfly books...
but up there it would be YOUR FRIEND, THE BANANA SLUG!
Steady on there, young fellah, the Banana Slug is the State Mollusc of
California.
Fido
Media Management Services
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Date: July 14, 1995
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Jim Hartley
r.a.b. is some sort of a Bacchanalian orgy. So, to speak up for the
heretofore silent, moral majority.....I am always sober while posting.
On the related matter of whether rab-types would ever deign to edit
their posts, one might also conclude that the spirits lowering
inhibitions cause everyone to dash off posts at the very second the
last period is typed. Once again, I will admit that since I never
learned how to type properly, I actually go back and correct all the
copious typographical errors my original writing contains.
There you have it: I am a sober editor.
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
Andrew Dinn
: Do you read compulsively? Do you read cereal boxes? Would you never
: go into the bathroom without something to read? Do you feel unhappy,
: restless, even desperate if you are caught without something to read?
You ask this on r.a.b? (hmm lemme see now... rec.anonymous.bookaholics?
rec.addicted.bookworms? rec.absolutelymusthave.books? ...)
Andrew Dinn
-----------
O alter Duft aus Maerchenzeit / Berauschest wieder meine Sinne
Ein naerrisch Heer aus Schelmerein / Durchschwirrt die leichte Luft
Ted Samsel
Today is Malcolm Lowry's birthday.
Don't fall in the barrancaaaaa
a
a
a
!
~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joann Zimmerman
[Anent bathroom reading--a water closet reader?]
> That's nothing. It's the `current' pile next to the bed that gets
> out of hand.
Do you ever knock the bedside pile over in the middle of the night? Great
way to wake up. And sometimes the books thus disturbed go AWOL
behind/under the bed for up to a couple of months--however long it takes
me to become subject to my next fit of housekeeping mania.
--
"All books can be indecent books, but recent books are bolder;
For filth, I'm glad to say, is in the mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed, everything is lewd!
I could tell you things about Peter Pan
(and the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man) ..." --Tom Lehrer
Joann Zimmerman jz...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
william r smith
> Seriously though, there certainly exists the kind of reading which is no
> better then TV watching (sci-fi producers cater to such readers).
> Taking pride in reading a lot of books is not any more reasonable
> then taking pride in using expensive goods, IMNSHO.
WHAT!!!
Reading is not like watching TV. I'm much more embarrassed to mention
that I watch some popular TV show than I am to mention that I've read
any amount of published dreck.
I am sometimes embarrassed when I realize the amount of time I spend
reading about other people's lives rather than living mine more actively.
I don't think that taking pride in reading a lot of books is any more
misplaced than pride in other accomplishments.
William Sburgfort Smith
_______________________________________________________________________________
William Smith will...@mhpcc.edu
Maui High Performance Computing Center WWW: http://www.mhpcc.edu/mhpcc.html
_______________________________________________________________________________
Abby Grossman
: Anecdotes from other folks? I'm always interested in hearing about other
: people's childhood reading experiences. Not just what books you read, but how
: reading (and writing) fit in with the rest of your childhood.
: --Fiona
I used to be a sneaky after bedtime reader (now that I'm grown up, I don't have
to sneak around.) My mom tells of a time where they put me to bed at my normal
time, probably 8 or 9. I was around 5 or 6, and my grandfather had recently
sent me old editions of all of the Bobbsey twins books. When my parents went
to bed at 11:30ish they were quite surprised as they went by my room and found
the light still on. When they, in typical parent fashion asked why the light
was still on I responded "but I only have one more chapter!".
Abby Grossman
back to lurking
Joann Zimmerman
<reb...@spry.com> wrote:
> I also brought books to church and sneakily read them in the bathroom.
> I eventually gave up, as it was too risky (other people
> helped enforcement), in favor of openly bringing religious material at least
> tangentially related to what we were using in the course of church and just
> reading that.
Sermon time was more than a bit dozy as far as I was concerned. It was OK
for junior citizens over the age of 10 to sit up in the balcony, and I
tended to dip into whatever book I had just checked out from the church
library, when not actively required to stand, sing, or pass the offering
plate. (I would generally pay attention to the music, except when the
pastor's wife, who had a horrendous vibrato, was the musical offering of
the day.)
The downside of all this was that I would be sufficiently sucked into the
book that when church was out and we ate Sunday dinner in some restaurant
or other (common occurrence--big Sunday treat) I frequently didn't want to
drop reading in favor of eating. (OK to bring a book to the table if you
were snacking or eating alone, but meals involving the assembly of all
four of us were notable for their strict prohibition on any reading matter
not printed on the back of a Rice Chex box. Do they still issue the
Ralston-Purina Times or whatever it was called? In later years, it became
acceptable to read the newspaper at breakfast.)
M.A. Powe
: f...@access.digex.net (Fiona Webster) wrote:
: >My mother has a master's in reading psychology, and her firm belief is that
: >children should not learn to read until they are of school age (1st grade).
: >I was therefore actively prevented from reading until I was 6 and a half.
: >My mother tells a story of my furiously confronting her with a Cheerios box
: >at age 5, saying, "I know this word says 'Cheerios'! Teach me the letters!"
: >When she refused, I dumped the contents of the box all over the kitchen floor.
: I call that child abuse. My parents taught me to read when I was two
: and from then on let me read anything I wanted to, and I'm eternally
: grateful to them for their largesse.
Jeez Louise! Get real! "Child abuse," indeed.
In fact, the principle espoused by the psychologist-mother is well-known,
though not necessarily widely accepted. Based on Piaget's theory of
development, it merely holds that (1) social and physical development are
the primary stages of early childhood and (2) intellectual development
follows these. I forget the actual ages. I believe it is well
documented that, other things being equal (e.g., not being in an abusive
home), a child not learning to read until age six will be reading at or
above the levels of his peers within a year. In other words, no damage
is done to the child. My recollection is that the structure of the
Waldorf schools is defined by this psychological theory.
The idea appeals to common sense. An excessive emphasis on intellectual
development is not good for kids, any more than a strict prevention of
it. If (as, again, I believe is generally accepted) a child's
fundamental behaviors are well-defined by age five, it only makes sense
to emphasize good social and physical development in the early years.
According to family mythology (impossible to reconstruct events at this
remove), I "taught myself" to read at age 3. I've always speculated as
to what this actually means. However it came about, I can see no
evidence in the history of my life that learning to read at such an early
age made me an improvement over anyone else who may have learned in
school. I was pathologically shy as a child; and to this day, my
all-time-favorite book remains Margot Austin's <Growl Bear> -- this is,
IMNSHO, the only children's book you need to own. I still get a childish
pleasure from reading it; and my 5 y/o nephew -- who, btw, is just
learning to read -- just loves it.
The coupling of my shyness with my precocious reading led to a childhood
spent largely in books. I do not regard this development as healthy.
Children should play, fight, crash their bikes and blow the neighbor's
mailbox up with an M-80. There's plenty of time for reading after these
accomplishments have been mastered. ;-)
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
do...@teleport.com Michael Powe
"What hath night to do with sleep?" --Milton
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
SubGenius
: > That's nothing. It's the `current' pile next to the bed that gets
: > out of hand.
: Do you ever knock the bedside pile over in the middle of the night? Great
: way to wake up. And sometimes the books thus disturbed go AWOL
: behind/under the bed for up to a couple of months--however long it takes
: me to become subject to my next fit of housekeeping mania.
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
Well, the bedside pile tends to actually be several piles (six- or
sevenish) whose height is determined by various considerations
related to pile stability, usually working out to three or four
books high. They tend therefore not to be knocked over so much as
inadvertently punted across the floor, although usually not by Your
Humble Narrator, who has fairly good mental pointers for the random
objects strewn about the floor at any given time and the sort of
autopilot that can navigate around them without neotic intervention.
Skittish books can find no refuge under the bed, though; the boxsprings
rest directly on the floor, which I'm periodically assured is some
sort of transgression of the same order of magnitude as tearing off
mattress tags and storing bananas in the fridge, but which eliminates
both the problem of the spontaneous creation of a junk cache and annoying
bedframe noises.
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
Meg Worley
>: >My mother has a master's in reading psychology, and her firm belief is that
>: >children should not learn to read until they are of school age (1st grade).
>: >I was therefore actively prevented from reading until I was 6 and a half.
>: >My mother tells a story of my furiously confronting her with a Cheerios box
>: >at age 5, saying, "I know this word says 'Cheerios'! Teach me the letters!"
>: >When she refused, I dumped the contents of the box all over the kitchen floor.
Michael writes:
>In fact, the principle espoused by the psychologist-mother is well-known,
>though not necessarily widely accepted. Based on Piaget's theory of
>development, it merely holds that (1) social and physical development are
>the primary stages of early childhood and (2) intellectual development
>follows these. I forget the actual ages. I believe it is well
>documented that, other things being equal (e.g., not being in an abusive
>home), a child not learning to read until age six will be reading at or
>above the levels of his peers within a year. In other words, no damage
>is done to the child. My recollection is that the structure of the
>Waldorf schools is defined by this psychological theory.
That was certainly the reigning paradigm (Kuhn fight, anyone?)
when I was a Meglet, but then Fiona & I are of an age. I was
carefully taught how important it was not to let on at school
that I could read (having taught myself at age 3), but I wasn't
as practiced a deceiver then as I am now, and I blew the hatch
a couple of months into first grade, which prompted the teacher
to ring up my poor mother and intone direly, "Mrs. Worley, we
*know* about Margaret." They booted me up to 3rd grade, and I've
been a geek ever since.
>According to family mythology (impossible to reconstruct events at this
>remove), I "taught myself" to read at age 3. I've always speculated as
>to what this actually means.
I did the same, but I remember the process quite well. It was
slow and loud and drove my parents batty, but it was unavoidable.
They had no hobbies, only reading, and it was monkey-see, monkey-do:
There is even a photo of me sitting up in bed at a year and a
half looking at the cartoons in the New Yorker.
>The coupling of my shyness with my precocious reading led to a childhood
>spent largely in books. I do not regard this development as healthy.
>Children should play, fight, crash their bikes and blow the neighbor's
>mailbox up with an M-80. There's plenty of time for reading after these
>accomplishments have been mastered. ;-)
Oh, c'mon, Michael, the history of your life cannot offer any
proof that learning to read so early was harmful either. Trying
to judge events that are so heavily influenced by personality
(assuming your philosophy admits of the existence of consciousness --
Churchland fight, anyone?) is a thankless task.
Of course, it's easy for me to say that -- I was the geekiest
Bad Girl my school ever saw.
Rage away,
meg
--
mwo...@mathcs.emory.edu comparatively literate
SHERRI CALVO
which I am too embarassed to bring into the house while my husband is home.
The handles of all my suitcases are broken because a trip of n days
requires at least n+1 books, with maybe a few more thrown in just in case.
My name is Sherri and I am a bookaholic.
In article <jzimm-28079...@slip-21-5.ots.utexas.edu>, jz...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman) writes...
>Do you ever knock the bedside pile over in the middle of the night? Great
>way to wake up. And sometimes the books thus disturbed go AWOL
>behind/under the bed for up to a couple of months--however long it takes
>me to become subject to my next fit of housekeeping mania.
>
>--
>Joann Zimmerman jz...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
Jan Yarnot
that children should not be taught to read earlier than 6, at which time
Dick and Jane was the approach of choice. I, meanwhile, was asking my mother
what words were, and reading Reader's Digest articles by 5. When I started
kindergarten, this led to some unhappy times... once the teacher realized I
was reading, she put me into first grade, when all I wanted was to stay in
kindergarten in the mornings and do first grade in the afternoon. This was
the cause of one of the few tantrums I ever threw. I was only 3 days short
of the cutoff date, however, so first grade wasn't out of range, but then
they wanted me in a combination 2-3 class, and my mom decided it was time to
hit a private school (the University lab school) where I could get some
attention.
Anyway, I agree with Heather that KEEPING a child from reading borders on
child abuse. My own philosophy, backed up by a lot of CD (child development,
for you computer geeks!) classes, is that no one teaches a child anything
anyway, one provides incentive and help for the child to teach himself.
I was ready to read at 3-ish, and other children are not ready till 7 or
so (by which time they've lost the incentive because of poor schools, tv,
and socialization.)
The Mayor's reading camp I mentioned earlier finishes today. The idea is
great, but at my site we had some problems, starting with the hospitalization
of the site supervisor. The Powers That Be should probably have sent someone
to get us started, but in the event, we got thrown in and learned the ropes
on our own. A couple of days, due to car troubles and vacations, there were
only two volunteers there, though I grabbed a Mom to help with potty runs
and reading to the children. Some of the children were not the at-risk
children we'd been led to believe, but highly literate smallfry who were
only there to enhance the summer of their parents. However, there were
children, including one I added the second week, who needed the help.
When it worked well, it worked VERY well. We had a story, (another quibble.
The first book was a badly-written version of Disney's Pocohontas, and others
of the books were poor choices. I raided my own kiddie-library and visited
the public library for a much wider selection.) and then individual attention
with words (sight words, mostly) and writing and reading. All the really
poor readers got a lot of attention, which I'm sure is the key to the
success of the program, and had happy experiences reading simple but
nifty books. There were snacks, toys, games, and the chance at lunch
(this was one thing we had to find out by osmosis.)
My homeless kids from a couple of years ago needed the help more, but I
feel good about the time I spent with this program. The child I added
the second week really wanted to come, leaving a recreation program to do so.
(The fact that the rec. leaders seem to spend a lot of time screaming at
the children may have added to our allure.)
--
Jan Yarnot, net.granny, RABbabe, Proud Mom to Stands-With-a-Book
the Booklist Boy, the IRS Guy, the Tycoon, and Sunbunny.
Disgruntled baseball fan, on strike. Nifty Fifty (growing older is
jya...@netcom.com || mandatory, growing up is optional.)
Michael Richard
Rebecca Allen writes:
No one seemed to understand or sympathize with my perfectly
rational explanation that there were _bugs_ out there, and
besides, it was dirty.
Pobrecita! No insect field guides...... or butterfly books...
but up there it would be YOUR FRIEND, THE BANANA SLUG!
Francis Muir advised:
Steady on there, young fellah, the Banana Slug is the State Mollusc of
California.
Being situated midway between the golden hills of California and
the green clouds of Washington, in the home of the Slug Queen, I
feel obliged to point out all the slime trails in these here parts.
I think I must of missed the towering beauty of northern Illinois
during my hikes there because I strode about dumbfounded looking to avoid
the invisible slugs.
But here at home, in the wooded hills around Eugene, Oregon, I have
seen the proverbial 7" bright yellow slugs many times. Sometimes too
late.
veg
Ted Samsel
: My mother spent her last weeks on this planet in an English Hospice for
: the Dying, where she would make merry hell if the Good Nuns who ran the
: place did not give her her "Cocteau" on time. She was referring, of course,
: to the morphine cocktail that is the standard and efficient cancer treatment
: in these places.
My paternal grandmother was wont to shout the house a round of Brompton
cocktails during her demise.
Fiona Webster
>My paternal grandmother was wont to shout the house a round of Brompton
>cocktails during her demise.
Brompton's cocktails -- boy, that sure brings back memories. Of oncology
rotation, of course. What all do they have in them, anyway? Everything
under the sun? All I can remember is lots of morphine with a thorazine
chaser. A noble doc, Brompton was.
--Fiona W.
Fiona Webster
> Taking pride in reading a lot of books is not any more reasonable
> then taking pride in using expensive goods, IMNSHO.
A strange comparison -- prompted, I suppose, by a notion of excessive
consumption. I don't know quite why it irks me. Perhaps because books
need not cost a penny? Because consuming is different from using? Because
information is not the same as material substance?
I do know, though, that the word *pride* doesn't apply to this thread. We're
not taking *pride*, here, in our compulsive reading. We're confessing -- yey,
wallowing -- in our sins. We're digging into our sordid pasts and dredging
up tales of childhood fixations. We're admitting to living untidy,
overcrowded lives where our commodes sport mildewing stacks of the coveted
objects, where dust kittens pile up in the corners behind more and more of
them, where every errand seems to induce even more of them to follow us home
and further derail us from worthier pursuits. We're checking off those
depressing questions: Yes, we do it alone. Yes, we do it in the morning.
Yes, our marriages suffer because of it. Yes, our jobs are less well done
because of it. Yes, we do it when we're happy. Yes, we do it when we're
blue. We do it because we can no longer help it. This is not a matter of
*pride*. This is a matter of resignation in the face of a lifelong
compulsion. Pity us, Kagalenko. We are the lost ones.
--Fiona