Flagrantly off-topic: Literature rocks! (Was: Re: St. Jude's Novena)
Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa
Paraic O'Donnell wrote in message <34436edc...@news.ieunet.ie>...
>When Michele "il miglior fabbro" Tepper piqued my interest with the
>following fascinating aside, I was spurred on to further research.
_____
Ludicrously overlong posting snipped to save the internet from collapse...
______
>Paraic O'Donnell, par...@indigo.ie
Next time your interest is "piqued" why not try keeping it to yourself
instead of inflicting your pretentious tripe on the rest of the world?
;-)
D
Paraic O'Donnell
When Michele "il miglior fabbro" Tepper piqued my interest with the
following fascinating aside, I was spurred on to further research.
myself the task of calling to mind ten songs indebted as much to
Calliope as to Euterpe.
If you are offended by blatantly off-topic and unabashedly
self-indulgent material, or if such material is unlawful in your
jurisdiction, please stop reading now. On the advice of the Field
Office Department of Marketing and Redundancy Department, the ObUL has
been strategically positioned at the foot of this post.
Michele said:
"I recently learned that the Mekons song "Hey! Susan" is a
hard-charging post-punk summary of the plot of Hardy's novel. I'd
heard the words but never made the connection between "Susan turned to
religion (amen!)/ After the tragedy, the death of her children" and,
well, you know, that same thing happening in the book. I felt very
stupid."
The following brief sampling of the rich dialectic of Rock'n'Lit is
designed to help other readers avoid the acute embarassment Michele
describes.
1. Don't Stand So Close To Me - The Police
Has more or less tenuous links with: _Lolita_ by Vladimir Nabokov.
Back when Sting answered to the name of Sumner, he taught A-level
English to earn a crust. Rock legend has it that this song's tale of
illicit extra-curricular activities is "semi-autobiographical", for
which we can read "true, but with the unflattering parts left out".
Lyrically, Sting still had quite a lot of work to do if he wanted to
rival the Byzantine prose of the writer whose name features in the
immortal couplet
"It's no use - he sees her. He starts to shake and cough/ Just like
the old man in that book by Nabokov."
Killing An Arab - The Cure
Has more or less tenuous links with: _L'e/tranger_ by Albert Camus.
As the title suggests, the lyrics of this early Cure single are
somewhat, er, reductive in their approach to this existentialist
classic, student copies of which tended to be distinguished by the
suspiciously roach-shaped gaps in its rear cover.
Dominion - The Sisters Of Mercy
Has more or less tenuous links with: 'Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe
Shelley.
Arch-mage of goth bombast Andrew Eldritch knew a dramatic vista when
he saw one. The high-octane imagery of Shelley's 'Ozymandias' sat so
comfortably alongside Eldie's own Fall-of-Rome witticisms that he took
the liberty of lifting entire lines from the poem. The lone and level
sands of commercial flopdom stretched far away.
Note: As if to advertise the catholicism of his sensibilities,
Eldritch went on to incorporate an eschatological cover-version of
Dolly Parton's Jolene in the Sisters' live set. The effect eludes
conventional means of description.
Troy - Sine/ad O'Connor
Has more or less tenuous links with: 'No Second Troy' by William
Butler Yeats.
Before the redoubtable Ms O'Connor went on to incur the wrath of,
well, almost everyone, she committed to vinyl this loose adaptation of
Yeats' 'No Second Troy'. Though remaining largely faithful to the
original work, O'Connor added the possibly inapposite chorus:
"Maud Gonne, Maud Gonne / Sounds like Maud's gone / Which isn't
wrong."
Actually, no - she didn't. But the string arrangement was terrible.
China In Your Hands - T'Pau
Has more or less tenuous links with: _Frankenstein_ by Mary Shelley.
As much inspired by the Gothic shenanigans surrounding the conception
of Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_ as by the novel itself, the
ludicrously-named T'Pau reached their artistic (and commercial) zenith
with this venerated monument of 'eighties pop. "It was," they
enthused, "a theme she had, on a scheme he had." Kooky internal rhymes
aside, we can only assume that this line refers to Shelley's feverish
production of _Frankenstein_ in response to Byron's "scheme" (Gothic
manse, floppy shirts, everybody write a ghost story - you know the
one).
Everything by Faust
Has more or less tenuous links with: _Faust_ by Johann Wolfgang
Goethe.
Workmanlike 'seventies Krautrockers (it's a *genre*, not a slur),
named for Goethe's upbeat take on the legend of Faustus. If they
didn't have a track called Industrial Blues for Mephistophilis, they
should have.
Don Quixote - Nik Kershaw
Has more or less tenuous links with: _Don Quixote_ by Miguel
Cervantes.
The great Nik Kershaw disappeared from the landscape of British pop in
the late 'eighties. Massive hair injuries were cited. Fashionably
bereft of a letter C, Nik turned out such classics as Wouldn't It Be
Good and I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me, before making the mistake
of taking up reading. More burlesque than picaresque, his
'interpretation' of Thervantes' magnum opus saw him enter the charts
at number 112.
Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush
Has more or less tenuous links with: _Wuthering Heights_ by Emily
Bronte.
"Out on the winding, windy moors," began this tempestuous rock e/tude.
Emily Bronte herself (an ASCII umlaut solution, anyone?) might have
sacrificed the alliteration so as to spare her readers the agony of
wondering how exactly a moor can wind. Like the television series
'Brideshead Revisited', this was a work of genius based on the work of
*a* genius.
Bernice Bobs Her Hair - The Divine Comedy
Has more or less tenuous links with: 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair' by F.
Scott Fitzgerald
and
_La Divina Commedia_ by Dante Alighieri
Cheating a little here (Bernice Bobs Her Hair was an album track) to
produce that
Oh-look-the-artist's-name-*and*-the-song-title-are-from-literature
effect. The Divine Comedy is the pop incarnation of fey Anglo-Irish
lounge-lizard Neil Hannon, the sort of chap who probably *read* Dante
before borrowing his title. The song title, meanwhile, was pilfered
from F. Scott Fitzgerald, in whose short story of that name an
unworldy young girl is lured demi-monde-wards by a jaded cousin [1].
Romeo And Juliet - Dire Straits
Has more or less tenuous links with: _Romeo and Juliet_ by William
Shakespeare.
This unpretentious ballad left us in no doubt that Knopfler et al fell
into the category of readers who, when Juliet demands "Wherefore art
thou Romeo?" [2], believed her to be attempting to ascertain his
whereabouts. An inoffensive enough piece of music, it nonetheless
earned its place in the Pantheon of Loathed Songs by being the one
that *every* tosser with an acoustic guitar dragged out to try to
"pull" "birds" at parties.
ObUL: Bit of a non sequitur, this, but I have legal people to appease.
Contrary to Popular Belief [TM], the whale does not blow a stream of
water. Rather, as it surfaces, the whale exhales through two blowholes
in the top of its head. This exhalation is expelled and cooled so
rapidly it forms a distinctive cloud.
Paraic "Next week: a fascinating look at buildings that incorporate
ballet in their architecture" O'Donnell
1. Note to self: try to write a synopsis of a Scott Fitzgerald plot
without using the word 'jaded'.
2. The clue's in the missing comma, Mark.
_________________________________________________________________________
Paraic O'Donnell, par...@antispam.indigo.ie
a.f.u. International Field Office, podo...@antispam.ngw.qdeck.com
Dublin, Ireland. sine_q...@hotmail.com
"When Prince Sergei Urusov was appointed Governor of Bessarabia in May
1903, the first thing he did was to purchase a guidebook of the area."
- Orlando Figes, _A People's Tragedy_.
Remove the obvious portions of my addresses to reply.
_________________________________________________________________________
Helge Moulding
Mike Holmans wrote:
> Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa felt like saying:
> >[in response to Paraic's penchant pour poetic prattling...]
> >Next time your interest is "piqued" why not try keeping it to
> >yourself
Oh, sure, criticize the illiterate. Hey, if Paraic can't get
censured by a fellow Scot, is he going to go scot-free?
Paraic - how deep in your cups do you have to be to write like
that? Damn - I'm jealous!
--
Helge "Ireland, Scotland: if the Isles of Man weren't
so small, I wouldn't have to keep them strait." Moulding
mailto:h...@slc.unisys.com Just another guy
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1401 with a weird name
Mike Holmans
Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa <diar...@fusio.com> felt like saying:
>>following fascinating aside, I was spurred on to further research.
>Ludicrously overlong posting snipped to save the internet from collapse...
>
>______
>
>
>>Paraic O'Donnell, par...@indigo.ie
>
>
>;-)
>
washed your network connection, because there's dirt on the line
introducing extraneous punctuation marks.
However, you seem to be a stupid luser who can't even read the embedded
instructions, to wit:
"If you are offended by blatantly off-topic and unabashedly
self-indulgent material, or if such material is unlawful in your
jurisdiction, please stop reading now."
This means that you should probably not bother to post to a.f.u. at all.
Mike "tech support" Holmans
El Sig will get up whenever he feels like it on Saturdays, regardless of
when News Quiz is on
The exciting AFU FAQ, and many other things, may be found at
http://www.urbanlegends.com
Vicki Robinson
In a previous article, "Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa" <diar...@fusio.com> said:
>
[snips of Paraic's post snipped]
>Next time your interest is "piqued" why not try keeping it to yourself
>instead of inflicting your pretentious tripe on the rest of the world?
>
>;-)
>
And the next time you feel like posting to AFU, why not make it
something with content (as Paraic has done more than a few times),
something with wit (as Paraic has done more than a few times) and
something without a smiley at the end.
If you're going to set yourself up as a guardian of AFU's mores, then
observe them yourself.
Vicki "I think it may be time for another purge." Robinson
--
Visit our wedding at http://www.rit.edu/~vjrnts/wedding.html and
sign our guest book! The alt.folklore.urban FAQ and archive can
be found at http://www.urbanlegends.com. Take a look, if you
have a week to spare.
Phil Edwards
par...@antispam.indigo.ie (Paraic O'Donnell) wrote:
>Happiness, as the Beatles almost said, Is A Warm Canon, so I set
>myself the task of calling to mind ten songs indebted as much to
>Calliope as to Euterpe.
Mine goes up to eleven.
>If you are offended by blatantly off-topic and unabashedly
>self-indulgent material, or if such material is unlawful in your
>jurisdiction, please stop reading now.
You've been warned.
the Beatles, "Hey Jude"
Title supposedly inspired by _Jude the Obscure_. Lyrics of song
supposedly about Julian Lennon. "Hey Julian" didn't scan. Moving on...
---
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch, "Xanadu"
Tenuously connected with Coleridge's "Kubla Khan". Lyrical references
to "that black barren land that bears the name of Xanadu" suggest that
those responsible hadn't actually read the poem, however.
---
Cream, "Tales of Brave Ulysses"
Lyrically inspired, it seems safe to say, by those Bounty ads with all
the dusky maidens. Also by Homer's Odyssey[1], particularly (well,
exclusively) the bit about the Sirens. No discernible Joyce.
---
the Velvet Underground, "Venus in Furs"
So, er, what's all this about boots? Oh.
---
the Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit"
"Remember what the Dormouse said: Feed your head!"
One of the greatest lines in rock history, only slightly marred by the
recollection that Lewis Carroll's Dormouse said nothing of the sort.
(In fact the Dormouse said "Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle...")
---
Camel, "the White Rider"
The works of J. R. R. Tolkien, proverbially difficult and off-putting
to the casual reader, enjoyed a certain vogue among young
intellectuals in the early seventies. This opus in the 'progressive'
vein bears witness to a thorough immersion in the Master's work.
"Once he wore grey
He fell and slipped away
From everybody's sight.
The wizard of them all
Came back from his fall
This time wearing white."
---
David Bowie, "1984"
Not content with namedropping Crowley and pretending to be a Nazi, in
the mid-70s 'Bowie', as he then preferred to be known, took on the
work of George Orwell and fought it to a standstill. We're warned to
"Beware the savage jaw/Of 1984". Sound advice.
---
Echo and the Bunnymen, "My white devil"
Inspired by an essay the singer's younger sister was writing for
English Lit. The first lines are, I'm afraid:
"John Webster was one of the best there was
He was the author of two major tragedies
_The White Devil_ and _The Duchess of Malfia_"
Sorry about that.
---
Blue Aeroplanes, "Journal of an airman"
An unashamedly literary work: its lyrics are taken almost entirely
from W. H. Auden's bizarrely wonderful prose work of the same name
(part of _The Orators_). A must-read (or -hear), if you get a chance.
Three enemy questions:
"Am I boring you?"
"Could you tell me the time?"
"Are you sure you're fit enough?"
---
the Fall, "Leave the Capitol"
A track whose sheer wonderfulness it would take too long to explain
(and people who don't like songs that sound like they were recorded in
a shoebox with the vocals phoned in afterwards probably won't get it).
It's inspired partly by the work of Arthur Machen, a great and
neglected writer. Kind of like M.R. James, but intended seriously.
---
the Triffids, "In the pines"
A song which takes its tag line from the blues number "Where did you
sleep last night?" and then compounds the theft thusly:
"And at last, in this fine and private place
In the pines, in the pines, we meet face to face"
('S Andrew Marvell innit.
"The grave's a fine and private place
But none, I think, do there embrace")
A sweet and wistful song, greatly improved by undercurrents of jealous
rage and macabre eroticism. A good argument for quoting, in short.
---
I could also mention Patti Smith's interjection "Go Rimbaud!" (from
the superlatives-fail-me "Land") - ruined for future generations,
unfortunately, by Sylvester Stallone. Oh, I just have.
Finally a couple of counter-quotes:
"Pushing through the O Level crowd
Is allowed
It was easy, it was cheap, go and do it" - the Desperate Bicycles
"What was he saying to me? What Little Richard was saying to me,
basically, was 'Awopbopaloobop alopbamboom' - which was something I
felt I could go along with almost entirely" - John Peel
Phil "we don't need no education" Edwards
[1] The blurb of Arthur C. Clarke's _3001_ describes Clarke as "a
modern-day Odysseus". I was puzzled by this - Clarke isn't the guy who
lives it, after all, he's the one who writes it down. It should be...
Doh!
--
Phil Edwards amroth(at)zetnet.co.uk
"Don't call us when the New Age gets old enough to drink"
- Beck Hansen
Ian Munro
Paraic O'Donnell (par...@antispam.indigo.ie) wrote:
: When Michele "il miglior fabbro" Tepper piqued my interest with the
: following fascinating aside, I was spurred on to further research.
<snip>
: Lyrically, Sting still had quite a lot of work to do if he wanted to
: rival the Byzantine prose of the writer whose name features in the
: immortal couplet
: "It's no use - he sees her. He starts to shake and cough/ Just like
: the old man in that book by Nabokov."
Especially since (as I've been told, at least) Vlad the Butterfly
Collector's last name was pronounced something more like "NaBOkof." I'm
not usually fussy about things like that, but my internym needed a set-up.
Ian "doing The Police in different voices" Munro
--
"God is a gentleman. He prefers blondes."--Joe Orton
Paraic O'Donnell
>Paraic - how deep in your cups do you have to be to write like
>that? Damn - I'm jealous!
In vino voritas.
Paraic "I think it was Ibid. who said..." O'Donnell
Lee Rudolph
Helge Moulding <h...@slc.unisys.com> writes:
>Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa wrote:
>> >Oh, sure, criticize the illiterate. Hey, if Paraic can't get
>> >censured by a fellow Scot, is he going to go scot-free?
>> Scot??? We're both Irish!
>
>Aren't we all?
You and Otto Titzlinger, popularizer of the board game Erin Go?
Lee "kush mir na thoin!" Rudolph
David Hatunen
In article <3444C0...@slc.unisys.com>,
Helge Moulding <h...@slc.unisys.com> wrote:
>Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa wrote:
>> >Oh, sure, criticize the illiterate. Hey, if Paraic can't get
>> >censured by a fellow Scot, is he going to go scot-free?
>> Scot??? We're both Irish!
>
>Aren't we all?
The Baltic Irish branch here...
Dave "Lift a pint to St Urho" Hatunen.
--
*********** DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@wco.com) ************
* Daly City California: *
* where San Francisco meets The Peninsula *
******* and the San Andreas Fault meets the Sea *******
Bruce Tindall
O'YHBT. MacHAND.
--
Bruce McGarrity "I'm neither" Tindall
--
Bruce Tindall tin...@panix.com
Dave Rogers
In article <622nt6$5...@panix3.panix.com>, tin...@panix.com says...
>
>There is exactly one Elvis Costello song that does not contain any
>references to St. Augustine, World War II, Dashiell Hammett, or the
>Epic of Gilgamesh. For 100 furrfu points, name it.
The theme tune to "Clive Anderson - All Talk"?
Dave "Let them talk, let them talk, let them all talk" Rogers
--
daver...@clothes.geocities.com
rational romantic mystic cynical idealist
Address spam-protected, please remove clothes to reply.
Helge Moulding
Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa wrote:
> >Oh, sure, criticize the illiterate. Hey, if Paraic can't get
> >censured by a fellow Scot, is he going to go scot-free?
Aren't we all?
--
Helge "Evergreen" Moulding
Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa
Helge Moulding wrote in message <3443C9...@slc.unisys.com>...
>Mike Holmans wrote:
>> Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa felt like saying:
>> >[in response to Paraic's penchant pour poetic prattling...]
>> >yourself
>
Maggie Newman
Paraic O'Donnell <par...@antispam.indigo.ie> wrote:
>
>
>"Out on the winding, windy moors," began this tempestuous rock e/tude.
>Emily Bronte herself (an ASCII umlaut solution, anyone?) might have
>sacrificed the alliteration so as to spare her readers the agony of
>wondering how exactly a moor can wind.
Perhaps the moor is distantly related to the river that "winds" (with a
short 'i') beneath the feet of young Jakub Dylan, who claims to have
written "Sixth Avenue Heartache" yet sings the word in a fashion more
zephyric than tortuous.
Maggie "submitted for your approval: Springsteen's 'The Ghost of Tom Joad' --
see Steinbeck, John" Newman
Bruce Tindall
Phil Edwards <amr...@zetnet.co.uk.NOJUNK> wrote:
>par...@antispam.indigo.ie (Paraic O'Donnell) wrote:
>>myself the task of calling to mind ten songs indebted as much to
>>Calliope as to Euterpe.
There is exactly one Elvis Costello song that does not contain any
references to St. Augustine, World War II, Dashiell Hammett, or the
Epic of Gilgamesh. For 100 furrfu points, name it.
--
Bruce Tindall tin...@panix.com
Phil Edwards
daver...@clothes.geocities.com (Dave Rogers) wrote:
>In article <622nt6$5...@panix3.panix.com>, tin...@panix.com says...
>>
>>There is exactly one Elvis Costello song that does not contain any
>>references to St. Augustine, World War II, Dashiell Hammett, or the
>>Epic of Gilgamesh. For 100 furrfu points, name it.
>
>The theme tune to "Clive Anderson - All Talk"?
>
>Dave "Let them talk, let them talk, let them all talk" Rogers
Bad choice. It's my painful duty to report that this song includes
both the couplet
"To have and to hold
To have and have not"
and the line
"Have we come this fa-fa-fa to find a soul cliche?"
Be-i-bikki-bi-bo-bo-bo it ain't.
I steer clear of the Costello oeuvre these days for related reasons.
There's clever and then there's *bright*.
Phil "turn it down a little bit or turn it down flat" Edwards
--
Phil Edwards amroth(at)zetnet.co.uk
"Sunny days in January
Left spaces in my diary" - SFA
Bruce Tindall
He twists the stem with one hand while holding the watch in the other.
B "Hath not a moor hands?" T
--
Bruce Tindall tin...@panix.com
Martin Houser
>Emily Bronte herself (an ASCII umlaut solution, anyone?) might have >sacrificed the alliteration so as to spare her readers the agony of
>wondering how exactly a moor can wind.
I always thought it was "Out on the wide, windy moors"
Marty "But then I thought Prince sang 'Raspberry Parfait'" Houser
Paraic O'Donnell
On Tue, 14 Oct 1997 22:09:59 GMT, amr...@zetnet.co.uk.NOJUNK (Phil
Edwards) wrote:
>Mine goes up to eleven.
A Spinal Tap post - now *there's* an idea.
>Title supposedly inspired by _Jude the Obscure_. Lyrics of song
>supposedly about Julian Lennon. "Hey Julian" didn't scan. Moving on...
I don't think McCartney ever planned to use Julian's full name. In the
accounts I've read, he toyed with the refrain "Hey, Jules" before
deciding that "Jude" simply sounded better. I've never heard of the
connection with _Jude the Obscure_ before. Do you happen to remember
where you read it?
[Good stuff snipped].
>the Velvet Underground, "Venus in Furs"
>So, er, what's all this about boots? Oh.
Don't forget the ObTrivia, Phil: _Venus in Furs_ was penned by none
other than Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch [1], who was later immortalised
in the word 'masochism'.
[More good stuff snipped].
Paraic "whiplash boychild" O'Donnell
Rick Tyler
On 15 Oct 1997 11:31:05 -0400, tin...@panix.com (Bruce Tindall)
wrote:
:Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa <diar...@fusio.com> wrote:
:>Scot??? We're both Irish!
:
:O'YHBT. MacHAND.
:
:--
:Bruce McGarrity "I'm neither" Tindall
That would be "McHAND."
-- Rickonnel "O'Surprised, &c" Tylerahan
-----------------------------------------------------
"I can 'splain it to you, but I can't understand it
for you" -- Lizz Braver
+ FAQ and lore at www.urbanlegends.com +
John Schmitt
In article <6222ov$6o3$1...@news.indigo.ie>, "Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa"
<diar...@fusio.com> writes:
>Helge Moulding wrote in message <3443C9...@slc.unisys.com>...
>>Oh, sure, criticize the illiterate. Hey, if Paraic can't get
>>censured by a fellow Scot, is he going to go scot-free?
>Scot??? We're both Irish!
By a strange coincidence, while doing some other research, I was reading Thor
Heyerdahl's book Kon Tiki, an account of his epic raft journey. (too old to
have an ISBN) There is an account of how flying fish kept landing on the
raft, thus providing a useful supply of fresh food.
John "" Schmitt
"Visitors are requested to keep to the paths and are strictly prohibited from
touching monumental erections, trees, flowers and plants."
Allegedly a sign in a New Jersey cemetery.
The usual disclaimers apply, naturally.
James Linn
Rick Tyler <rty...@concentric.net> wrote in article
<34478949...@news.concentric.net>...
> On 15 Oct 1997 11:31:05 -0400, tin...@panix.com (Bruce Tindall)
> wrote:
>
> :Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa <diar...@fusio.com> wrote:
> :>Scot??? We're both Irish!
> :
> :O'YHBT. MacHAND.
> :
> :--
> :Bruce McGarrity "I'm neither" Tindall
>
> That would be "McHAND."
>
> -- Rickonnel "O'Surprised, &c" Tylerahan
The idea that Mc is Irish and Mac is Scottish is ULish.
Truth is there are lots of people in the North of Ireland whose decendants
of
Scots who in turn are descendants of the (ancient)Scotti tribe of Ireland.
So trying to
determine who is who by looking at Mc or Mac is foolish and ULish.
James "not a Mc or a Mac but a Irish/Scottish decendant" Linn
My opinions are MINE,MINE,MINE!!!
Helge Moulding
Paraic O'Donnell wrote:
> Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch [1]
I think that footnoting without follow-through is more typical
of the Marquis, don't you?
--
Helge "A German and a Frenchman. It's too bad they never met,
it would have been a match made in heaven." Moulding
Paraic O'Donnell
>Paraic O'Donnell wrote:
>> Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch [1]
>
>I think that footnoting without follow-through is more typical
>of the Marquis, don't you?
De Sade story of how I came to omit my footnote follows.
"Oh, and don't forget to add a footnote," I instructed the lackey in
question.
"What should it say, sire?"
"One. Period. Space. What I wouldn't give for asterisk that asterisk
name ellipsis."
Later in the evening, when the same lad was bringing my absinthe, I
noticed a scrap of paper carefully adhered to his clumsy brogue.
The doctor (well, he's more of a vagrant apothecary, but this is
downstairs staff we're talking about) assures me that he'll regain the
use of his left leg in a matter of days.
Paraic "Justine the nick of time" O'Donnell
Bruce Tindall
>downstairs staff we're talking about) assures me that he'll regain the
>use of his left leg in a matter of days.
One hundred twenty, to be exact.
--
Bruce Tindall tin...@panix.com
Charles Wm. Dimmick
Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa wrote:
> Next time your interest is "piqued" why not try keeping it to yourself
> instead of inflicting your pretentious tripe on the rest of the world?
>
> ;-)
Next time you post to alt.folklore.urban, why don't you check the
rules first? I refer specifically to that ugly sexually explicit
piece of ascii with which your message ends. Such graphics are
verboten here.
Charles Wm. Dimmick, vice-chair
AFU Morals committee
Charles Wm. Dimmick
Helge Moulding wrote:
> What I want to know is how Paraic rates. I mean, I realize I spend
> practically no time in my assigned cubicle on the 63rd floor at
> 1 AFU Plaza - mainly because I spend practially no time at 1 AFU
> Plaza - but I certainly have no staff to do my typing for me. Not
> even here behind the Zion Curtain has the company seen fit to
> provide me with such comforts as I might become accustomed to. To.
> To. To like. Yeah. I know Paraic likes to whinge about the quality
> of his lackeys, but such as I who have no lackeys say, enough.
>
> It's bad enough that this Irish upstart doesn't need to pay income
> tax. I think it's high time that every AFUisti be provided with the
> same corporate and corporeal benefits that employees of the field
> offices in third-world countries get.
I made a quick check of the payroll for the field offices. [Don't
ask me to repeat this, I almost got caught]. There are no listings
for lackeys. Also the amount we are paying Paraic just barely
covers his beer budget. I suspect that he must have an outside
income. Not only that, I suspect the lackeys are being paid for by
a rival agency. Is it possible he is a double agent?
By the way, Helge, since we have not had a janitor on the 63rd
floor for over a year, you will have to empty your own trash
container. The empty tuna fish can is beginning to smell.
Charles Wm. "hint, I need a raise" Dimmick
Michele Tepper
Ian Munro <imu...@fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>Paraic O'Donnell (par...@antispam.indigo.ie) wrote:
>: When Michele "il miglior fabbro" Tepper piqued my interest with the
>: following fascinating aside, I was spurred on to further research.
>
><snip>
>
>: Lyrically, Sting still had quite a lot of work to do if he wanted to
>: rival the Byzantine prose of the writer whose name features in the
>: immortal couplet
>
>: "It's no use - he sees her. He starts to shake and cough/ Just like
>: the old man in that book by Nabokov."
I think we can rule out Sting for futher references on the same grounds
Bruce ruled out Elvis Costello, only without the wit.
>Especially since (as I've been told, at least) Vlad the Butterfly
>Collector's last name was pronounced something more like "NaBOkof." I'm
>not usually fussy about things like that, but my internym needed a set-up.
>
>Ian "doing The Police in different voices" Munro
You should be *shot*.
Michele "preferably by a Mutual Friend" Tepper
--
Michele Tepper "In the immortal words of George Bernard Shaw,
mte...@panix.com 'ghoch agh.'" -- Harry Teasley
Visit the scenic AFU archives and FAQ! http://www.urbanlegends.com
Simon Slavin
In article <3443C9...@slc.unisys.com>,
Helge Moulding <h...@slc.unisys.com> wrote:
> Mike Holmans wrote:
> > Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa felt like saying:
> > >[in response to Paraic's penchant pour poetic prattling...]
> > >Next time your interest is "piqued" why not try keeping it to
> > >yourself
> > However, you seem to be a stupid luser
>
> Oh, sure, criticize the illiterate.
In print !
Simon.
--
Simon Slavin -- Computer Contractor. | The mind abhors a vacuum. Without
http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk | facts, they'll fill their heads with
Check email address for spam-guard. | fantasies.
Junk email not welcome at this site. | -- Jonathan Kellerman: _Time Bomb_
Lon Stowell
Ben Walsh <be...@iona.nospam.please.we'reirish.com> wrote:
>
>My suspicion is that, out near the borders of the Pale Wherre the
>Queene's Lawwe is Nigh Unknowe, Paraic is impressing the peasants with
>his demonstrations of running water and breech-loading firearms to
>exercise a quasi-feudal suzerainty as a latter-day Connecticut Yankee.
Hopefully our hero is demonstrating to the local lasses the one
sport which can be played well during the eclipse.
Andrew Lewis
Phil Edwards wrote:
> ---
> the Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit"
>
> "Remember what the Dormouse said: Feed your head!"
>
> One of the greatest lines in rock history, only slightly marred by the
> recollection that Lewis Carroll's Dormouse said nothing of the sort.
> (In fact the Dormouse said "Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle...")
And for a backward reference (or anti-reference perhaps) there
is no mention in the song whatsoever of the white rabbit biting
its own head off.
Andrew "But then, that's what ether and acid can do to you." Lewis
Helge Moulding
Bruce Tindall wrote:
> Paraic O'Donnell <par...@antispam.indigo.ie> wrote:
> >The doctor (well, he's more of a vagrant apothecary, but this is
> >downstairs staff we're talking about) assures me that he'll regain
> >the use of his left leg in a matter of days.
> One hundred twenty, to be exact.
What I want to know is how Paraic rates. I mean, I realize I spend
practically no time in my assigned cubicle on the 63rd floor at
1 AFU Plaza - mainly because I spend practially no time at 1 AFU
Plaza - but I certainly have no staff to do my typing for me. Not
even here behind the Zion Curtain has the company seen fit to
provide me with such comforts as I might become accustomed to. To.
To. To like. Yeah. I know Paraic likes to whinge about the quality
of his lackeys, but such as I who have no lackeys say, enough.
It's bad enough that this Irish upstart doesn't need to pay income
tax. I think it's high time that every AFUisti be provided with the
same corporate and corporeal benefits that employees of the field
offices in third-world countries get.
Especially if that entails the opportunity to abuse helpless
inferiors at a whim, with no worry about messy consequences.
--
Helge "One letter in the suggestion box." Moulding
Ben Walsh
Helge Moulding wrote:
> What I want to know is how Paraic rates. I mean, I realize I spend
> practically no time in my assigned cubicle on the 63rd floor at
> 1 AFU Plaza - mainly because I spend practially no time at 1 AFU
> Plaza - but I certainly have no staff to do my typing for me. Not
> even here behind the Zion Curtain has the company seen fit to
> provide me with such comforts as I might become accustomed to. To.
> To. To like. Yeah. I know Paraic likes to whinge about the quality
> of his lackeys, but such as I who have no lackeys say, enough.
My suspicion is that, out near the borders of the Pale Wherre the
Queene's Lawwe is Nigh Unknowe, Paraic is impressing the peasants with
his demonstrations of running water and breech-loading firearms to
exercise a quasi-feudal suzerainty as a latter-day Connecticut Yankee.
Wouldn't work here in metropolitan Dublin, where the inhabitants have
long been exposed to Handel's "Messiah," an educated merchant class and
taverns with paved floors.
ben "will ye go, lackey, go ..." w.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Drug dealers dealt heavy blow" | ben walsh
-- Irish Times | be...@iona.com
(allegedly) | http://bounce.to/heretic
Lon Stowell
>Charles Wm. Dimmick wrote:
>> By the way, Helge, since we have not had a janitor on the 63rd
>> floor for over a year, you will have to empty your own trash
>> container. The empty tuna fish can is beginning to smell.
>
I believe the subject line was "flagrantly" off topic, sorry.
Perhaps you were confused by the accent.
Pergish1
Paraic O'Donnell <par...@antispam.indigo.ie> wrote:
>>
>>
>>"Out on the winding, windy moors," began this tempestuous rock e/tude.
>>Emily Bronte herself (an ASCII umlaut solution, anyone?) might have
>>sacrificed the alliteration so as to spare her readers the agony of
>>wondering how exactly a moor can wind.
>
>
Perhaps she means winding vertically.
Margaret "Dramamine, anyone?" Lillard
--------------------------
"Margaret knows a lot of words and she doesn't believe in letting any of
them go to waste." -- Dennis the Menace, Jan. 19, 1991
Visit The Domain of the Devil Dogs at http://members.aol.com/devdogz
Cambias
> Phil Edwards wrote:
> > ---
> > the Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit"
> >
> > "Remember what the Dormouse said: Feed your head!"
> >
> > One of the greatest lines in rock history, only slightly marred by the
> > recollection that Lewis Carroll's Dormouse said nothing of the sort.
> > (In fact the Dormouse said "Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle...")
>
> And for a backward reference (or anti-reference perhaps) there
> is no mention in the song whatsoever of the white rabbit biting
> its own head off.
>
Grapefruit, anyone?
Cambias
Helge Moulding
Charles Wm. Dimmick wrote:
> By the way, Helge, since we have not had a janitor on the 63rd
> floor for over a year, you will have to empty your own trash
> container. The empty tuna fish can is beginning to smell.
You haven't had a janitor anywhere in the building since it was
first built. Cikoski never hired one, in an effort to conserve
costs. Its for the same reason that the plumbing remains
unfinished, and the distinction between the executive restroom
and the one the rest of the employees get to use is merely that
Trelford Pinkerton gets to use *unused* Saf-T-Bags.
I'll see about the tuna fish can next time I'm in the office. My
current plans have a date pencilled in for the morning after the
21st century New Year's celebration V 1.0 (Jan 1, 2000). I suspect
by then you won't notice the smell anymore.
Anyway, that wasn't mine in the first place. Lieberman brought
it along the last time I was there, and he dropped by for a
quick game of chess. I think he did that to put me off my game.
--
Helge "But I have better brain waves." Moulding
Rick Tyler
On 16 Oct 1997 13:38:23 GMT, "James Linn" <james...@nortel.com>
wrote:
:Rick Tyler <rty...@concentric.net> wrote in article
:<34478949...@news.concentric.net>...
:> On 15 Oct 1997 11:31:05 -0400, tin...@panix.com (Bruce Tindall)
:> wrote:
:>
:> :Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa <diar...@fusio.com> wrote:
:> :>Scot??? We're both Irish!
:> :
:> :O'YHBT. MacHAND.
:>
:>
:The idea that Mc is Irish and Mac is Scottish is ULish.
:Truth is there are lots of people in the North of Ireland whose decendants
:of
:Scots who in turn are descendants of the (ancient)Scotti tribe of Ireland.
:So trying to
:determine who is who by looking at Mc or Mac is foolish and ULish.
Don't be so pendantic, James. There was much sloshing back and forth
of people between northern Ireland and Scotland, just being Gaelic and
playing the bagpipes. My biggish dic indicates that "Mc" is a variant
of "Mac", with "Mac" being the older, Scottish form.
Anyway, you are missing the entire point, which you can probably
figger out if you try MacHard.
-- Rick "Lowlander" Tyler
Rick Tyler
On Thu, 16 Oct 1997 10:39:31 -0600, Helge Moulding
<h...@slc.unisys.com> wrote:
:> Paraic O'Donnell <par...@antispam.indigo.ie> wrote:
:> >The doctor (well, he's more of a vagrant apothecary, but this is
:> >downstairs staff we're talking about) assures me that he'll regain
:> >the use of his left leg in a matter of days.
:
:What I want to know is how Paraic rates. I mean, I realize I spend
:practically no time in my assigned cubicle on the 63rd floor at
:1 AFU Plaza - mainly because I spend practially no time at 1 AFU
:Plaza - but I certainly have no staff to do my typing for me. Not
:even here behind the Zion Curtain has the company seen fit to
:provide me with such comforts as I might become accustomed to. To.
:To. To like. Yeah. I know Paraic likes to whinge about the quality
:of his lackeys, but such as I who have no lackeys say, enough.
:
Unlike the rest of us who have the use of Bo's research assistant
whenever he isn't fixing dry martinis for his master, Paraic has to
make do with semi-educated lackeys.
Bo's research assistant doesn't speak Gaelic, and doesn't drink warm
beer.
-- Rick "He's rebuilding my transmission next week, though" Tyler
Ulo Melton
Helge Moulding wrote:
>You haven't had a janitor anywhere in the building since it was
>first built. Cikoski never hired one, in an effort to conserve
>costs. Its for the same reason that the plumbing remains
>unfinished, [...]
The plumbing remains unfinished because the gators snap at anybody who
gets near it. They like things to stay as they are.
Ulo Melton
Official AFU Sewer Inspector
Ben Walsh
Michele Tepper wrote:
>
> Ian Munro <imu...@fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> >Especially since (as I've been told, at least) Vlad the Butterfly
> >Collector's last name was pronounced something more like "NaBOkof." I'm
Ah, an opnin to come to the ada someone about Nabokov. His name forms an
elegant, leathery-winged pair o' dactyls, thus: VLAdimir NAbokov.
A fellow denizen of the Vladimir Nabokov mailing list [1] writes:
Huggery muggery,
Vladimir Nabokov
Wrote Russian novels, a-
bout eight or ten.
Then in America,
After LOLITA, he
Self-metaphrastically
Wrote them again.
Rarified academic humour is a really terrifying thing, so I'll save you
from my compendium of economist joke.
ben "supposing we had a boat" w.
[1] All rights ignored, reproduced without permission, etc.
Mike Holmans
Rick Tyler <rty...@concentric.net> felt like saying:
>Don't be so pendantic, James. There was much sloshing back and forth
>of people between northern Ireland and Scotland, just being Gaelic and
>playing the bagpipes. My biggish dic indicates that "Mc" is a variant
>of "Mac", with "Mac" being the older, Scottish form.
>
>Anyway, you are missing the entire point, which you can probably
>figger out if you try MacHard.
>
this program.
Mike "rhapsodizing" Holmans
El Sig hasn't got out of bed yet
The exciting AFU FAQ, and many other things, may be found at
http://www.urbanlegends.com
Cindy Kandolf
Ben Walsh <be...@iona.nospam.please.we'reirish.com> writes:
| Michele ["one l dammit"] Tepper wrote:
| > >Especially since (as I've been told, at least) Vlad the Butterfly
| > >Collector's last name was pronounced something more like "NaBOkof." I'm
|
| Ah, an opnin to come to the ada someone about Nabokov. His name forms an
| elegant, leathery-winged pair o' dactyls, thus: VLAdimir NAbokov.
The English pronunciation, yes. But in Russian, that first name is
pronounced VladEEmeer. And the only biographical dictionary i could
find in a hurry agrees with the one-l'ed one that the last name is
pronounced NabOKov.
Still two poetic feet, just not the feet you thought.
- Cindy Kandolf, certified language mechanic, mamma flodnak
flodmail: ci...@nvg.ntnu.no flodhome: Trondheim, Norway
flodweb: http://www.nethelp.no/cindy/
Paraic O'Donnell
On Fri, 17 Oct 97 04:24:28 GMT, mp...@troi.cc.rochester.edu (M. Price)
wrote:
> Back when DSSCTM came out, I believe that I saw an interview with
>Sting in which he said that the age of the children he'd taught when he
>was a teacher was far too young to trigger the kind of feelings in the
>song. He taught primary school, IIRC.
> A-level English at ten beats maths at Oxford at 13, in my book.
"I wanted to write a song about sexuality in the classroom. I'd done
teaching practice at secondary schools and been throught the business
of having 15-year-old girls fancying me - and me really fancying them!
How I kept my hands off them I don't know...Then there was my love for
Lolita which I think is a brilliant novel. But I was looking for for
the key for eighteen months and suddenly there it was. That opened the
gates and out it came: the teacher, the open page, the virgin, the
rape in the car, getting the sack, Nabokov, all that."
- SUTCLIFFE, P. and H. FIELDER, _L'Historia Bandido_, Proteus Books,
1981. 96 pp. ISBN 090671 666.
Paraic "Professor Emeritus, Department of Popology" O'Donnell
Romial
In article <34466E...@ccsu.edu>, dim...@ccsu.edu says...
>
>Helge Moulding wrote:
>
>> What I want to know is how Paraic rates. I mean, I realize I spend
>> practically no time in my assigned cubicle on the 63rd floor at
>> 1 AFU Plaza - mainly because I spend practially no time at 1 AFU
>> Plaza - but I certainly have no staff to do my typing for me. Not
>> even here behind the Zion Curtain has the company seen fit to
>> provide me with such comforts as I might become accustomed to. To.
>> To. To like. Yeah. I know Paraic likes to whinge about the quality
>> of his lackeys, but such as I who have no lackeys say, enough.
>>
>> tax. I think it's high time that every AFUisti be provided with the
>> same corporate and corporeal benefits that employees of the field
>> offices in third-world countries get.
>
>ask me to repeat this, I almost got caught]. There are no listings
>for lackeys. Also the amount we are paying Paraic just barely
>covers his beer budget. I suspect that he must have an outside
>income. Not only that, I suspect the lackeys are being paid for by
>a rival agency. Is it possible he is a double agent?
>
>floor for over a year, you will have to empty your own trash
>container. The empty tuna fish can is beginning to smell.
>
If its just a minor field office why does this Paraic fellow have a janitorial
budget large enough to hire a dozen NY janitors?
And you are incorrect Mr. Dimmick. Janitorial staff enter every floor of the
building each and every day. I won't say they do anything but they do go onto
the floor. The janitorial staff abides by the contract as it is written. It is
not janatorials fault that AFU lawyers did not read sub part19 paragraph 12
which was written in an obscure dialect of gobbledy-gook.
Robert "Whats a trash can?" Alston
Romial
In article <344690...@slc.unisys.com>, h...@slc.unisys.com says...
>
>Charles Wm. Dimmick wrote:
>> By the way, Helge, since we have not had a janitor on the 63rd
>> floor for over a year, you will have to empty your own trash
>> container. The empty tuna fish can is beginning to smell.
>
>first built. Cikoski never hired one, in an effort to conserve
>costs. Its for the same reason that the plumbing remains
>and the one the rest of the employees get to use is merely that
>Trelford Pinkerton gets to use *unused* Saf-T-Bags.
Incorrect. Janatorial staff was hired before the building was finished. The
real NY building code requires a full janatorial staff for all high-rise and
low-rise buildings. Check the MOB construction guide page 2494 section 2 for
details. Janatorial work was out-sourced tho as by doing so Cikoski was able to
get a better deal on some other costs involved in construction in NY. The
restroom in the offices of MOB Janatorial inc (a division of MOB
Industries) works perfectly thank you. If you would like the trash can emptied
for you its very simple. Go to personell and ask for the kickback and bribes
payroll deduction form. Use the onetime payout line. I recommend half a weeks
salary.
Robert "Union Steward" Alston
Mike Czaplinski
Helge Moulding wrote:
>
> Bruce Tindall wrote:
> > Paraic O'Donnell <par...@antispam.indigo.ie> wrote:
> > >The doctor (well, he's more of a vagrant apothecary, but this is
> > >downstairs staff we're talking about) assures me that he'll regain
> > >the use of his left leg in a matter of days.
>
> practically no time in my assigned cubicle on the 63rd floor at
> 1 AFU Plaza - mainly because I spend practially no time at 1 AFU
> Plaza - but I certainly have no staff to do my typing for me. Not
> even here behind the Zion Curtain has the company seen fit to
> provide me with such comforts as I might become accustomed to. To.
> To. To like. Yeah. I know Paraic likes to whinge about the quality
> of his lackeys, but such as I who have no lackeys say, enough.
>
> It's bad enough that this Irish upstart doesn't need to pay income
> tax. I think it's high time that every AFUisti be provided with the
> same corporate and corporeal benefits that employees of the field
> offices in third-world countries get.
>
> inferiors at a whim, with no worry about messy consequences.
Well, Helge, it involved a dog, some peanut butter, and two-fifty,
same as in town.
Mike "Still trying to regain seniority after a long sabbatical"
Czapliski
ekim.czaplinski<at>washingtoncd.rcn.moc
Besides, I've go family in Dublin.....
M. Price
In article <34436edc...@news.ieunet.ie>,{snip}
>
>1. Don't Stand So Close To Me - The Police
>
>Has more or less tenuous links with: _Lolita_ by Vladimir Nabokov.
>
>Back when Sting answered to the name of Sumner, he taught A-level
>English to earn a crust. Rock legend has it that this song's tale of
>illicit extra-curricular activities is "semi-autobiographical", for
>which we can read "true, but with the unflattering parts left out".
>Lyrically, Sting still had quite a lot of work to do if he wanted to
>rival the Byzantine prose of the writer whose name features in the
>immortal couplet
>
>"It's no use - he sees her. He starts to shake and cough/ Just like
>the old man in that book by Nabokov."
Back when DSSCTM came out, I believe that I saw an interview with
Sting in which he said that the age of the children he'd taught when he
was a teacher was far too young to trigger the kind of feelings in the
song. He taught primary school, IIRC.
A-level English at ten beats maths at Oxford at 13, in my book.
--
Merrall Llewelyn Price Department of English
University of Rochester mp...@troi.cc.rochester.edu
Michele Tepper
>
> Huggery muggery,
> Vladimir Nabokov
> Wrote Russian novels, a-
> bout eight or ten.
>
> Then in America,
> After LOLITA, he
> Self-metaphrastically
> Wrote them again.
Hmmmmmmm. Unless your co-listee wrote _ShrinkLits_, the verse is not
original to him.[a]
>[1] All rights ignored, reproduced without permission, etc.
Exactly.
[a] In one of the Amelia Peabody books, her usually quite verbose son
takes to quoting the pithy maxims of Sherlock Holmes. Whenever one of his
parents compliments him on his new aphoristic sophistication, he says
"the sentiment is not original." I almost wrote "the sentiment is not
original" above, but I figured that responding to an obscure quote with
another obscure quote should best be left to Lee Rudolph.
Michele "another shirt ruined!" Tepper
--
Michele Tepper "I guess you could work a squid in there, but
mte...@panix.com it would seem contrived." -- Bo Bradham
Jeremy W. Burgeson
Rom...@trader.com (Romial) wrote:
>And you are incorrect Mr. Dimmick. Janitorial staff enter every floor of the
>building each and every day. I won't say they do anything but they do go onto
>the floor. The janitorial staff abides by the contract as it is written. It is
>not janatorials fault that AFU lawyers did not read sub part19 paragraph 12
>which was written in an obscure dialect of gobbledy-gook.
I was on the 19th floor of a large bank building here in Lincoln NE one night
at 3:30 a.m. We were doing work that the tenents of said floor wanted to be
done. There was a rather large drill running and someone else was useing a
hack saw on a piece of 3.5" steel pipe when the elevators opened and building
security emerged. We were never questioned. As a matter of fact, nobody
saw security except for me (I peeked around the corner at them).
Well come to think of it, that was the same night someone stole an artwork
from the lobby.
Jeremy
Helge Moulding
Jeremy W. Burgeson wrote:
> What I want to know is, who rates really serious minions? Forget
> having an assistant, flunky, lackey or office boy.
Well, Tom Cikoski has a rat. Vicki Robinson has a sort of a dog.
Barbara Hamel has one or two cats. She also has snopes. I have
four cats. Susan Mudgett has a stuffed gator.
--
Helge "Is that what you wanted to know?" Moulding
Alice Faber
>Jeremy W. Burgeson wrote:
>> What I want to know is, who rates really serious minions? Forget
>> having an assistant, flunky, lackey or office boy.
>Well, Tom Cikoski has a rat. Vicki Robinson has a sort of a dog.
>Barbara Hamel has one or two cats. She also has snopes. I have
>four cats. Susan Mudgett has a stuffed gator.
Not to mention the dog that Madeleine acquires ULs in the process of
walking...
Alice "still not up to ten" Faber
Phil Edwards
par...@antispam.indigo.ie (Paraic O'Donnell) wrote:
>On Tue, 14 Oct 1997 22:09:59 GMT, amr...@zetnet.co.uk.NOJUNK (Phil
>Edwards) wrote:
>
>>Title supposedly inspired by _Jude the Obscure_. Lyrics of song
>>supposedly about Julian Lennon. "Hey Julian" didn't scan. Moving on...
>
>I don't think McCartney ever planned to use Julian's full name. In the
>accounts I've read, he toyed with the refrain "Hey, Jules" before
>deciding that "Jude" simply sounded better. I've never heard of the
>connection with _Jude the Obscure_ before. Do you happen to remember
>where you read it?
Why sure. It's in... er...
< checks _Revolution in the Head_ >
< discovers that this estimable source (a) doesn't include the Hardy
reference and (b) does include 'Hey Jules' >
...that Macdonald book, very unreliable you know...
< checks shelves for other Beatle-related material >
...oh, it's in all the best sources, I'm sure. Honestly, I can't be
expected to do all your homework for you. Look it up, look it up!
Phil "I can tell you what a gerund is, if that's any good" Edwards
--
Phil Edwards amroth(at)zetnet.co.uk
"Sunny days in January
Left spaces in my diary" - SFA
Susan Mudgett aka little gator
Helge Moulding (h...@slc.unisys.com) wrote:
: four cats. Susan Mudgett has a stuffed gator.
Harvee gets offended when anyone uses the word "stuffed" to describe
him or any of his siblings in plushitude. He prefers to be called
"non-bio."
I also have three cats, two dogs, and a husband, plus a large
collection of nonbios, most of whom are fewer grumpy than Harvee.
Jeremy W. Burgeson
rty...@concentric.net (Re: Re: Re: man) wrote:
>Unlike the rest of us who have the use of Bo's research assistant
>whenever he isn't fixing dry martinis for his master, Paraic has to
>make do with semi-educated lackeys.
What I want to know is, who rates really serious minions? Forget
having an assistant, flunky, lackey or office boy.
Jeremy
Todd
amr...@zetnet.co.uk.NOJUNK (Phil Edwards) wrote:
>Camel, "the White Rider"
>The works of J. R. R. Tolkien, proverbially difficult and off-putting
>to the casual reader, enjoyed a certain vogue among young
>intellectuals in the early seventies. This opus in the 'progressive'
>vein bears witness to a thorough immersion in the Master's work.
Lots of Tolkien references in Led Zepplin songs too. "Ramble On,"
"Battle of Evermore," "Misty Mountain Hop" Any other Tolkien refs in
Zepplin tunes?
Ramble On: "In the darkest depths of Mordor/I met a girl so fair/But
Gollum and the Evil One/crept up and slipped away with her"
Battle of Evermore: "The Wring-Wraiths ride in black"
Misty Mountain Hop: I don't recall any particular lyrics, but the
Misty Mountains are from the Lord of the Rings books.
Todd
"I'm sure I've missed some"
Simon Slavin
In article <627c7t$58q$1...@ezekiel.eunet.ie>,
Ben Walsh <be...@iona.nospam.please.we'reirish.com> wrote:
> [snip] I'll save you
> from my compendium of economist joke.
I thought that was a typing error the first time I read it.
Very funny.
Simon.
--
Simon Slavin -- Computer Contractor. | The mind abhors a vacuum. Without
http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk | facts, they'll fill their heads with
Check email address for spam-guard. | fantasies.
Junk email not welcome at this site. | -- Jonathan Kellerman: _Time Bomb_
Bruce Tindall
In article <62iegn$h...@fcnews.fc.hp.com>, Ray Depew <r...@fc.hp.com> wrote:
>[1] _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_. As with C. S. Lewis
> and Mark Twain, many of Tolkein's other works are less popular
> except among serious scholars, and rightfully so.
Yeah, I heard that Queen Victoria was so captivated by the adventures
of Bilbo that she asked for a copy of Tolkien's next book, and was not
amused to receive an autographed copy of "On The Morphology Of
Adverbs In Old Church Slavonic" that she had him beheaded.
B "but of course Ray knows that, at least the last part" T
--
Bruce Tindall tin...@panix.com
Jeremy W. Burgeson
r...@fc.hp.com (Ray Depew) wrote:
>Jeremy W. Burgeson (ne...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>: rty...@concentric.net (Re: Re: Re: spect) wrote:
>: >Unlike the rest of us who have the use of Bo's research assistant
>: >whenever he isn't fixing dry martinis for his master, Paraic has to
>: >make do with semi-educated lackeys.
>: What I want to know is, who rates really serious minions? Forget
>: having an assistant, flunky, lackey or office boy.
>Well, I have a fan club of sorts, but I wouldn't exactly call
>them "minions" ...
And I thought you had the biggest army of Atomic Robot Zombie Men
in the world... Or maybe that's Michele.
Jeremy
D.M. Procida
Bruce Tindall <tin...@panix.com> wrote:
> Yeah, I heard that Queen Victoria was so captivated by the adventures of
> Bilbo that she asked for a copy of Tolkien's next book, and was not amused
> to receive an autographed copy of "On The Morphology Of Adverbs In Old
> Church Slavonic" that she had him beheaded
While we're on the subject, what is the current wisdom on the subject of
Carroll's fondness for young girls, and for photography? I have been
assured repeatedly that there exist very dubious photographs, but
nothing has been offered that seems conclusive.
Also on the subject of photographs which several people tell me their
friends have seen, in the safe at the offices of _The Guardian_ there
are supposedly pictures featuring Michael Portillo and Peter Lilley
(Conservative ex-Secretaries of State) in a barnyard, engaged in
barnyard activities. Publish and be damned, I say. I like the barnyard
touch, though.
D.M. Procida
--
"...the so-called support act, The Awkward Moments, climbed onstage
unsmilingly, not even looking at the audience. They only played one
song: "Autobahn". In German. For twenty minutes. Then they swaggered
off, not once having acknowledged the crowd. Conceited arrogant swine."
Dave Rogers
D.M. Procida wrote:
>
> Also on the subject of photographs which several people tell me their
> friends have seen, in the safe at the offices of _The Guardian_ there
> are supposedly pictures featuring Michael Portillo and Peter Lilley
> (Conservative ex-Secretaries of State) in a barnyard, engaged in
> barnyard activities. Publish and be damned, I say. I like the barnyard
> touch, though.
Voracious or not, there's definitely some kind of UL here. The
canonical form seems to be something along the lines of "Every-
body in the government and Fleet Street knows, but nobody dares
publish anything for fear of lawsuits", and I've heard it from
at least two unrelated sources. Given that Lilley and Portillo
were two of the most unpopular members of one of our most
unpopular governments ever, and given the extremely explicit
revelations that seem to have been published about virtually
every other member of John Major's cabinet, it seems both very
likely that this one was made up out of sheer malice, and very
unlikely that something wouldn't leak out in the press.
Dave "Note that I didn't actually say *what* everybody knows"
Rogers
--
daver...@clothes.geocities.com
rational romantic mystic cynical idealist
Address spam-protected, please remove clothes to reply.
Ray Depew
Phil Edwards (amr...@zetnet.co.uk.NOJUNK) wrote:
: r...@fc.hp.com (Ray Depew) wrote:
: >Although my newsreader missed it, I am told that
: >: amr...@zetnet.co.uk.NOJUNK (Phil Edwards) wrote:
: >
: >: >The works of J. R. R. Tolkien, proverbially difficult and off-putting
: >: >to the casual reader, enjoyed a certain vogue among young
: >: >intellectuals in the early seventies.
: >
: >That's an interesting way to look at it.
[In short, I didn't believe him and wanted to say so, politely.
Dunno why I missed all the "just kidding" clues. Maybe Phil
should have used a sm!13Y, umm emoX!K0N, er colon-slash-something]
: Oh Gawd, I'm really going to have to work on this humour thing.
No, this one's my fault. I've been working too hard, and my humour
detector is not working reliably. I think I'll go get lost in
a book or something.
R
R
Leo G Simonetta
In article <Pine.OSF.3.90.97102...@arriba.nm.org>,
Janet Rolsma wrote:
>That's interesting to hear. I started reading Tolkien because my
>brothers and sisters were assigned to read _The Hobbit_ for their high
>school English classes (11th and 12th grade, mostly). Only one of them
>(out of 5) ever read it on their own and I don't think he did it because
>it was cool. Where did the idea that reading Tolkien was vogue come from?
I hate to weigh in here with more personal observations (of course it
will not stop me, I just hate to do it) so here goes . . .
I went to an all male Catholic (no, not electic) high school in the
early 70's (1971 to 1974 to be exact) and at least in that very small
universe Tolkien was cool. You know, the hippies read him, wow.
I remember at least among certain cliques a well-thumbed copy of the
Hobbit was a status marker.
Of course, TWIAVBP.
--
Leo (married) Simonetta My Opinions! MINE. All Mine!
Director, UNH Survey Center
le...@christa.unh.edu
Michele Tepper
Phil Edwards <amr...@zetnet.co.uk.NOJUNK> wrote:
>I heard someone on TV recently saying she thought Terry Pratchett was
>a better author than Dickens[1] - it's a similar sort of mentality.
>(And I like Terry Pratchett, too).
>
>[1] I just hope Michele's still busy
No such luck! Anyone who thinks Pratchett is a better author than Dickens
should be flung into the deepest dungeon in Ankh-Morpokh. Pratchett is a
more accessible author for your average late-20th-century reader, but the
best of Dickens is worth the work (the worst, as someone who used her
commute to read all of Dickens once remarked, reminds you that Dickens was
in fact paid by the word) and then some.
Still, I treasure the FOAF story of the young man who, in a seminar run by
Jan Radway (whose long-awaited new book on the Book of the Month Club is
so far quite interesting - a provisional thumbs-up), claimed that in the
late 19th century people thought that the serialization of Dickens was a
desecration of great literature. The room was silent until my friend, a
Victorianist, said "uh, Kevin? They were *originally published* in serial
form." There's a moral in that story somewhere, but I don't know what it
is.
Michele "so, Phil, you want to write my Alasdair Grey paper for me?" Tepper
--
Michele Tepper "The general death of the author would be hard on
mte...@panix.com her. She had not yet gotten over Little Nell."
-- Richard Powers, _Galatea 2.2_
Simon Slavin
In article <1997102201...@dialup247.dip.cf.ac.uk>,
pro...@cf.ac.uk (D.M. Procida) wrote:
> While we're on the subject,
We are ?
> what is the current wisdom on the subject of
> Carroll's fondness for young girls, and for photography? I have been
> assured repeatedly that there exist very dubious photographs, but
> nothing has been offered that seems conclusive.
I have a biography or two but they're biased and contradictory.
I've also pawed-through some of Carroll's papers still at Oxford
University and most of the stuff still in his posession when he
died -- which should still be at the Guildford Muniment Rooms and
be available to pretty much anyone who writes asking to see them.
Some of his (unsorted, unpublished) photography is there.
It is widely-acknowledged that Carroll was a pioneer in the
development of photography and that he took a number of photo-
graphs of girls who were nearly naked. It is, however,
necessary to understand this in the context of the era. There
was, in the mid-to-late 1800s, an artistic movement known as
Naturalism -- faithful reproduction of anything depicting a
work of nature.
This lead to many paintings of women (felt to be closer to
nature than men), young people (more recently 'part of nature')
and people without clothes (allowing the viewer to perceive
their 'naturality'). The combination of these elements lead to
a prevalence of pictures of young female people with few clothes.
These were /common/ at the time and possession of such a picture
would not mark someone as unusual. The artistic movement also
lead to some really bad 'still life'-type art, most of which,
mercifully, has been lost. It's cheaper to buy a bowl and a few
pieces of fruit than to hire a model to sit for a few hours, and
when you've finished the painting you can eat the fruit.
(Copyright (c) 1997 Straight Lines 'R' Us Productions.)
I've attempted to establish that pictures of nearly naked little
girls in those days was about as common as photos of little girls
in swimwear is today. Carroll had minimal skill at drawing, but
was one of the foremost photographers of his day. Naturally he
took photos instead of attempting to draw or paint.
Now even the most fair-minded of us might point out that whereas
the posession of one photo of a friend's daughters in swimwear
might be sweet, the fact that someone requires three shoe-boxes
to store such pictures might be taken as a sign of some unusual
tropism for such things. Any one picture I've seen could be
considered 'sweet'. Personally, I interpret the extent of the
collection that Carroll possessed as unusual.
I've read (probably in one of the biographies) a letter from
Carroll in response to one from the mother of one of his little
-girl friends. He acknowledges the mother's wish that he not
take any more photos of her daughter and no longer entertain her
without the presence of another adult. The letter reads as
somewhat sulky, offended and disappointed.
It should be stressed that nowhere in any of my sources have I
seen any proof (or anything stronger than the above) that Carroll
/did/ anything more unusual to little girls than taking pictures
of them. I'll append a couple of extracts from his letters,
however, ripped untimely from context to make a point:
April 19, 1878 -- to 'Gertude'.
[...] When a little girl is hoping to take a plum off a dish,
and finds that she can't have that one, because it's bad or
unripe, what does she do ? Is she sorry or disappointed ?
Not a bit! She just takes another instead, and grins from
one little ear to the other as she puts it to her lips! This
is a little fable to do you good; the little girl means /you/
-- the bad plum means /me/ -- the other plum means some other
friend -- and all that about the little girl putting plums to
her lips means -- well, it means -- but you can't expect
/every/ bit of a fable to mean something! And the little
girl grinning means that dear little smile of yours, that
just reaches from the tip of one ear to the tip of the other!
March 31, 1890 -- address lost, no salutation.
I /do/ sympathise so heartily with you in what you say about
feeling shy with children when you have to entertain them!
Sometimes they are a real /terror/ to me -- especially boys:
little girls I can now and then get on with, when they're few
enough. They easily become 'de trop'. But with little /boys/
I'm out of my element altogether. [...]
He thought I doted on /all/ children. But I'm /not/ omnivorous!
-- like a pig. I pick and choose [...]
Usually the child becomes so entirely a different being as she
grows into a woman, that our friendship has to change too: and
/that/ it usually does by gliding down from a loving intimacy
into an acquaintance that merely consists of a smile and a bow
when we meet! [...]
[Yeah, yeah, that wasn't his name. You know who I'm talking about.]
Alice Faber
In <62qjse$e69$2...@verdi.nethelp.no> ci...@nvg.unit.no (Cindy Kandolf) writes:
>Bruce Tindall (tin...@panix.com) writes:
>| Cindy Kandolf <ci...@nvg.unit.no> wrote:
>| >I was declared a goddess once,
>|
>| "Is Goddess Undead?"
>| -- _The Oslo Times_, 1966
>I was famous three years before i was born? Wow.
Prophecy, my dear, prophecy.
Alice "seers Roebuck" Faber
mitcho
Simon Slavin wrote:
[justifications for Lewis Carroll's nude pix of little girls snipped]
> Now even the most fair-minded of us might point out that whereas
> the posession of one photo of a friend's daughters in swimwear
> might be sweet, the fact that someone requires three shoe-boxes
> to store such pictures might be taken as a sign of some unusual
> tropism for such things. Any one picture I've seen could be
> considered 'sweet'. Personally, I interpret the extent of the
> collection that Carroll possessed as unusual.
My interpretation of the evidence is that Charles Dodgson was in fact
what we would today call a pedophile, but he had the manners and the
grace never to have indulged himself in his proclivities. It is after
all possible to have a particular sexual orientation, but never, uh,
consummate it.
That "naturalistic" photos were not unusual in Victorian society, as you
suggest, was a convenient cover for Dodgson's perhaps
not-so-innocent-after-all activities.
> I've read (probably in one of the biographies) a letter from
> Carroll in response to one from the mother of one of his little
> -girl friends. He acknowledges the mother's wish that he not
> take any more photos of her daughter and no longer entertain her
> without the presence of another adult. The letter reads as
> somewhat sulky, offended and disappointed.
IIRC, Dodgson asked Henry George Liddell, the dean of Christ Church
College Oxford, for the hand of Liddell's daughter Alice when she was
all of 12 years old. Dodgson was rebuffed. This Alice Liddell was the
model for his Fictional _Alice_. I understand he was quite infatuated
with the girl.
Really, he was a clever, kindly and rather upstanding fellow in every
way. Which I think is one reason people are so reluctant to draw the
obvious conclusions about him. But IMHO, that he was what he was, yet
resisted the temptation to victimize children, makes him all the more
admirable.
When you think of him this way, it really makes his story a sad one.
Sometimes I think he sublimated suppressed sexual desire into his
amazing mathematical and literary work, for which we are all the richer,
though at some cost to Dodgson himself.
Mitcho
Cindy Kandolf
Angus Johnston (ang...@mindspring.com) writes:
| r...@fc.hp.com (Ray Depew) wrote:
| > Jeremy W. Burgeson (ne...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
| > : What I want to know is, who rates really serious minions? Forget
| > : having an assistant, flunky, lackey or office boy.
| >
| > Well, I have a fan club of sorts, but I wouldn't exactly call
| > them "minions" ...
|
I have one short person following me around while i hum "There once
was a man named Oedipus Rex..." Does that count?
I was declared a goddess once, but apparently minions, flunkies,
lackies, or disciples were not included in the contract.
Ray Depew
Cindy Kandolf (ci...@nvg.unit.no) wrote:: | >I was declared a goddess once,
: |
: | "Is Goddess Undead?"
: | -- _The Oslo Times_, 1966
: I was famous three years before i was born? Wow.
You youngun.
Regards
Ray "newly forty" D.
Helge Moulding
Ray Depew wrote:
> Ray "newly forty" D.
That's right - missed your birthday by three days! And it
was Bo's three weeks ago. And our li'lest gator turned two
score this year as well.
Wow! Hope y'all had a happy one.
--
Helge "Time passages." Moulding