Incredibly, once upon a time, there were no blogs. The ages of Yahoo! and Google lay far in the future. It was, instead, the age of the original Internet heroes, and when they read their email, they studied each message's RFC2882 header information closely. It was the time of Stanford University bulletin boards, of crummy phosphor terminals, and of CS PhD students with a tad too much time on their hands. It was, in fact, the age of Cisco and Sun Microsystems, but no one was paying much attention.
It was the time of su.roger-or-andy.
A phone call from the Swede, 7:00am, the middle of the night.
The machine answers. The Swede is barking.
"Pick up the phone. You won you miserable bitch.
The lottery. It's on the TV. Listen to this..."
It's a recorded, metallic voice:
Dog---Thorn---Pisces....
Cheesecake---35---Spritzer....
so I'm thinking, that's it OK, but probably hundreds of people
started off with "Dog Thorn Pisces, Cheesecake 35 Spritzer."
So what? They aren't particularly uncommon words, after all.
Also, it's a principle I try to adhere to: "Prefixes
aren't everything." If ever you had a good example of the
principle, here it was. Still
August---Dolphin---Cannonball...
and then
Prong---Prong---Prong,
and I'm reconsidering. So I pick up the phone. "Swedo: what's your
factor?"
But the line is dead.
* * * * * *
Next thing a press conference, microphones wedged and they want to know,
what am I going to do with the money, twenty-five billion dollars, the
national debt lottery. It's my big chance. Scanning the cameramen,
I'm looking for an important one. But they are strangely interchangable,
beards, cords, kneepads. So I pick one, pause significantly and say
directly into the camera:
"I will build a Pyramid. A pyramid to dwarf those at Giza
and elsewhere. A pyramid not to remain 1000 years nor
10,000 years, but FOREVER...."
and I again indulge my audience with a meaningful pause. The disadvantage
is that they seem to expect some more explanation. So I throw in
"There will be a Visitor's Center. My assistants are distributing
the relevant brochures. Thank you all very much..."
And Bush-like I glide out of the room, a good time to exit.
I was lying about the brochures.
* * * * *
From CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU!news Wed Oct 2 10:02:58 PDT 1991
Article: 1585 of su.roger-or-andy
Newsgroups: su.roger-or-andy
Path: CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU!news
From: gangolli@Theory.Stanford.EDU (Anil R. Gangolli)
Subject: copied from the Pyramid Visitor Center brochure
Message-ID: <1991Oct2.155712.15100@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: news@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Distribution: su
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1991 15:57:12 GMT
Lines: 43
My comments in brackets.
Pyramid Visitor Center
Kearney, Nebraska
Situated just outside Kearney, Nebraska, the Great Pyramid measures 1 mile on each side of its square base.
Each face is an equilateral triangle. You can determine its height if you play with sqrt(2) and high school
trig enough. Thane and the vistor center staff encourage this sort of thing. There is space on the back of
this brochure to work it out. Yes, it’s big. Due to its sheer size, it can be discerned with the naked eye from
outer space.
The Pyramid was funded on a gigantic US “National Debt” lottery jackpot. It was erected as a sign to all
future life that somebody with a helluva lot of money and a weird thing for pyramids had some connection
to Kearney. Of course, it will last much longer than Kearney.
[It also serves as a notice to wandering extraterrestrials that we
don't need their help anymore and we can damn well do this sort of
thing without them now, thank you. But could you tell us how you do
all those neat crop circles? --a.]
The flashing lights located on top and at intervals along the Pyramid’s edges are not placed there for
decoration, but for the benefit of aircraft as they round the Pyramid en route to Kearney International
Airport. Air traffic has increased dramatically since the opening of the vistor center in 1995.
DO NOT TRY TO CLIMB THE PYRAMID. Each year several people are injured trying to scale the
smooth glass-like faces. Use the internal elevators or any of the several designated footpaths.
When touring the interal labyrinths, we suggest that you ALWAYS STAY WITH THE GUIDE. It is easy
for the newcomer to get lost. If you should happen to get lost, you will find a marker pen and descriptions
of classical maze traversal algorithms in niches at 50 yard intervals along the corridor walls.
We hope you enjoy your visit to the Pyramid. You will find souvenirs and postcards at the Gift Shop, near
the Visitor Center lobby.
11.
Let’s say two Chinese are talking on the phone and one of them asks, “say, I’ve forgotten, how do you
spell [i.e. write, draw the character for] “kidney” ?” It seems to me they would have to say something
like “OK draw a squiggly shaped thing with a box, then put a slash into the box and make a
squiggle....” Or do they send a fax.
Please note: no one with any knowledge of Chinese is permitted to reply to this question. When I
asked a similar question about Haiku I got 3 unsolicited Mbytes from Crispin. One likes to have as
little of that sort of thing as possible. I suppose there are macro squiggles that everybody knows, and
you superimpose them? Perhaps improvisation would play a role.
* * * * * *
Then another meeting with the Pyramid Development Corps. Although
it has been “consensus, not unpleasantness” throughout, I am getting
a bit tired of the long discussions. Will it be granite or marble?
Will we have 2000 or 10000 polishers on the North Face? “We should
discuss all possible options...” Blah, blah, blah. One guy said,
“it's not like we're trying to make a mountain out of a molehill,”
and of course *I* had to be the one to remind him that it _was_ like
that, remember, we are a building a pyramid here, OK? You would think
that with 15000 dump trucks running non-stop from Colorado to Kearney,
hauling rock 24 hours a day, people would get the point: we are moving
mountains here, alright? THIS IS A GIGANTIC PYRAMID. I dont know how
the PDC people decided on those green jackets; the armpatch looks stupid
too.
13.
In one of the Chronicle columns I was pleased to see that somebody referred to the name “A. Kitman
Ho,” (appearing in all the “JFK” adverts) as “an obvious pseudonym.” I had identified it as such a few
weeks ago and perhaps Golg can confirm that indeed Gloria and I have been referring to our cat by this
name for a few weeks already. It acts as a symbol of all that remains unexplained by the Warren C. In
an earlier thread we discussed the spindly semantic nets bound up with THURMOND MUNSON, and
indeed the possible confounding of EARL WARREN and WARREN BURGER offers another
interesting starting point. Which one is the low-fat thing you can order at McDonald’s? As Jens C has
pointed out, it is not necessary to assume global conspiracies, only that someone else other than L.H.O
and J.R. were involved. The FBI was embarrassed that Oswald was an informant---nearly everyone
associated with the communist party in the 1960’s was an FBI informant---and so J Edgar Hoover was
the spearhead for the one-man no-conspiracy forces. Hoover had nothing to gain from an investigation
into what (comprehensive) data the FBI held about Inge Arvad and all the other JFK squeezes,
enemies, etc. so he blocked the investigation, or rather made it clear to everyone performing it what the
final outcome must be. That’s the Knitwear analysis. In any case it was not Castro or the anti Castros,
nor was it the CIA, (although it _was_ the CIA in almost every other case).
15.
Rene Descartes is on an airplane. A stewardess asks if he wants some coffee. He says “I think not,” and
then disappears.
T.K.S.
16.
“self-reliance” is the gettysburg address of essays. it repays reading in a way approached only by this
bboard. there is a rebok commercial in which an (as usual disembodied) voice is reading excerpts from this
essay but it is sometimes hard to make out the words. the essay also contains the often quoted bit about
there coming the time in the life of every creative person a realization that “imitation is suicide” etc. i place
emerson two levels above every other writer but then this is just idle enthusiasm. ralph waldo was on the
right track, perhaps because had a cool name etc.
S. Reliance excerpts:
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which
flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the
firmanent of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice
his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize
our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain
alienated majesty.
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the
conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide...
There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail
to wreak itself also in the general history: I mean the “foolish
face of praise,” the forced smile we put on in company where we
do not feel at ease in answer to conversation which does not interest
us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved, but moved by a low usurping
willfulness, grow tight about the outlines of the face with the most
disagreeable sensation.
It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling,
whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for
all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece
venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were,
like an axis of the Earth.
17.
Golg has lamented the dearth of su.roger postings in recent days.
Here then is a blast of Emerson from “Man the Reformer.”
...it is for cake that we run in debt; 't is not the intellect,
not the heart, not beauty, not worship that costs so much. Why
needs any man be rich? Why must he have horses, fine garments,
handsome apartments, access to public houses, and places of
amusement? Only for want of thought. Give his mind a new image,
and he flees into a solitary garden or garret to enjoy it, and is
richer with that dream, than the fee of a county could make him.
But we are first thoughtless, and then find that we are moneyless.
We are first sensual, and then must be rich....
...I do not wish to be absurd or pendantic in reform. I do not wish
to push my criticism on the state of things around me to that
extravagant mark, that shall compel me to suicide, or to an absolute
isolation from the advantages of civil society. If we suddenly
plant our foot, and say,---I will neither eat nor drink nor wear nor
touch any food or fabric which I do not know to be innocent, nor deal
with any person whose whole manner of life is not clear and rational,
we shall stand still. Whose is so? Not mine; not thine; not his.
But I think we must clear ourselves each one by the interrogation,
whether we have earned our bread to-day by the hearty contribution of
our energies to the common benefit? and we must not cease to {\em tend}
to the correction of these flagrant wrongs, by laying one stone aright
every day....
18.
Just minutes ago (about 11pm wed night) I happened to encounter Joe
Euclid (no joke) at the corner of Cowper and Lytton. He asked me
if I could “spare a dime.” I gave him fifty cents and he gave
me a photocopied sheet with the title line:
$1,000,000,000.00 JOE JONAH EUCLID 1991 0410
As we parted Joe said to me that the sheet was “metaphysics and
theology.” The document was apparently ONLY WRITTEN JUST TODAY.
Here are some excerpts:
“If God were actually present anywhere on the surface of
the planet Earth, then that would be big news and Peter
Arnett and all othe networks would rush to get there....”
“From the Practice of thought projection thru the occult there
are unintended consequences, but first it seems to be some sort
of pressure build-up....”
Now I think the first bit is persuasive but I think a bit more explanation
could be required for the second bit.
The title of the document is
THE EVIL WITCHS CONTROL THE GOVERNMENT
I will try to post it on Anil's door tomorrow.
19.
I think Luther Gibson was some kind of geneticist. He pitched for the St Louis Cardinals and had a
good lifetime ERA. The cardinals won the World S in 1967. Curt Flood was on that team. One time
when the team was getting off an airplane a reporter thought Flood was the geneticist and asked him a
few questions. Curt Flood said he wasnt Gibson. The reporter apologized and Curt said that’s OK, we
all look alike. That’s a remark from the 1960’s, something a person doesnt run into very much
anymore. As Kareem is supplanted by Michael Jordan so the strong, independent and possibly acerbic
black hero has been replaced by race-transcending figures who can be idolized without regard to their
race. As a thought experiment imagine Michael J saying in press conference: “oh, and by the way, I
think the way blacks are treated in this country, by this gov’t, is unfair.” It touches off a “national
debate” of the kind customarily reported in the media yet largely nonexistent in reality but anyway it is
not inconceivable tha Pres B would be compelled to offer some sort of reply. There are various
methods by which Michael J would be crucified---for example, he could be accused of being
counterproductive, or of exploiting his position for political goals. Neither of which is really anything
that is necessarily not admirable, the ends justifying the m’s in the Knitwear philosophy. He would be
accused of being a political dilettante. He would be invited to appear on the Brinckley show and
discuss his ideas with George Will or some equally oily, 1000+ yard per season blowhard. The concept
of the dilettante is not a top-level one in the American psyche, so much so that I am not even sure I
spelled it correctly. Yet it is effective, the American being particularly susceptible to the idea of
Expertise, and to the difference between the amateur and the professional. Michael J would be
described as having “entered the National Debate on race,” and his inadequate responses to the
shattercane questioning of Sam Donaldson would reveal his inadequacies---he should have stuck with
basketball. But all the man did (at the start of this gedanken-exp) was express an opinion, a dangerous
one, a truthful one. “Let no person be without his or her opinion” is another Knitwear principle.
As for sno-parks, I have no idea.
20.
Those latin abbrevs, (eg, ie, etc, et al, cf) are a friendly family. We in the know use them to exclude
and intimidate the uninitiated. Still there is always one you dont know now that mutatis mutandis will
rear its head later.
21.
Now that the Hubble Space telescope is up, I have a question. In the news articles they say things like “the
optics are so refined that a firefly may be distinguished at a distance of 10000 miles,” or “it could see the
writing on a nickel from across the country.”
My question is, how many fireflies and coins do they really expect to find in space!??!? As for the writing
on a nickel, isn’t this already known?
It seems like these astronomers are in for some big disappointments.
I'll bet they don't find a single firefly.
22.
TAH’s difficulty is essentially one of measurement. Long sentences are to be measured in years, not words.
For example Anil has been at Stanford for about a decade and I don’t know if he has tried to read Absalom,
Absalom or Joyce but it could be conjectured that if he has started them, he surely hasn’t finished them yet.
I once jumped in with complete writings of William (Bill) Hazlitt and let’s just say that progress is slow.
Some of our fellow creatures show a decided tendency toward longwindedness. If you want to read books it
is your business to lay aside long hours that might otherwise be devoted to fruitful activity (i.e. writing
books). One looks to the future, secure in the knowledge that the novel read today will be completely
forgotten tomorrow. So get busy. As the master has said, “this trackless desert of print winds on before us
into the purple distance” (quote approx).
23.
THINK LOCALLY, ACT GLOBALLY
(third meeting: leader---Tom, notetaker---Vicky)
-----------------------------------------------
Tom thanked everyone for coming and noted that although the group was still small no one should
think we arent going to have an impact in the end.
Cicily apologized for being late to last week’s meeting. It turns out her car battery was dead.
Mike suggested a tri-continental boycott of Sears and that DieHard brand.
Cicily said her battery wasnt a DieHard.
Mike apologized and said OK we should consider energy broadly construed. Mike said he could get
the names of some energy companies from the phone book.
Tom reminded Mike that he was thinking globally and acting locally, not the reverse.
Mike said he didnt get it, how can we act globally without at least a little local action first?
Tom said that was the challenge we all faced. He then told a long story about Zen and inward
reflection, something about a butterfly being stepped on ten million years ago and then Hitler never
existing.
Mike said that sounded like a bunch of crap. Maybe we should be thinking globally and acting locally?
Tom said you can think and act however you want but said Mike should probably go buy that inane
bumper sticker if he feels he must embrace absurdist philosophies.
24.
Now that we have the complete lyrics to “America, the Beautiful” on the bboard, it’s time to reacquaint
ourselves with how stupid these lyrics really are.
Here's what I think: there's only one poetic image worth keeping in the whole set of lyrics, and that's the
fragment
“...from sea to shining sea.”
It’s a very nice image of America, sandwiched as it is between the world’s two greatest oceans. When I
think of the lyrics, I immediately think of this fragment; it is alliterative and just a nice little phrase.
Perhaps even the first line is OK, too. Opening our hymnals, the music begins and we sing:
“O Beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain...”
only to have this passable image shattered by the entirely ridiculous
“For purple mountains majesty above the fruited plain.”
Even children don’t find it difficult to recognize this line for the piece of silliness it is. It’s hard enough to
picture the Purple Mountains; the Fruited Plain is just too much. Do you remember the words to “Lucy in
the Sky with Diamonds?” Please open your hymnals to page 344:
Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmelade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
The girl with kaleidoscope eyes...
Perhaps these aren’t quite the right words, but it’s not too difficult to fit those purple mountains and fruited
plains right into the song—they are equally hallucinogenic.
The remaining two lines of the first stanza improve, only to suffer from not making any sense. Did God
crown our brotherhood? What does this mean? The nice bit about the shining seas does little to mitigate
our confusion.
You can stop singing now at the first stanza, feeling a bit confused and suspicious that perhaps someone has
played a trick on you. But since we’re in church, the organ swells and the second stanza dispels any
reservations we may have held for the lyricist:
“O Beautiful for pilgrim’s feet whose stern impassioned stress..”
This is a truly odd line of poetry, one of those rare ones poised just on the brink of the line between
nonsense and stupidity. Having sung the praises of the Fruited Plain, we now laud the Pilgrim’s Feet.
Make those Purple Mountains Delectable, and our song so far is a sort of LSD trip Bunyanesque....
25.
The only thing I have against Stuart Reges is his name. As a Thane Earl I thought I had the heraldic and
noble monicker category all sewn up. I come to Stanford and boom whom do I meet but STUART REGES.
Since then I have always referred to him privately as Stuart King (you can call me Rex) Reges, but this is
just an indication of my bitterness. When he was Vice President of something (education?) there was a
meeting I attended where he was also present and all I recall is his complimenting someone (not present) by
describing that person as a “crack administrator.” For some reason I found this phrase, “crack
administrator,” extremely amusing. It seemed Wodehousian or something. I am not referring to the
obvious pun on drugs. S. K ® R would do well to fall back on this phrase, “crack administrator” as a
resource should he require it. There is power in phrases like that, the power to intimidate or if not that the
power to give one’s interlocutor pause as he or she contemplates their rich suggestiveness. The first person
to have struck upon the combo “intestinal fortitude” knew such power. The rest of us can only take up what
abandoned weapons others have forged for us. What the hell am I writing about.
There is the temptation to pronounce a judgement, to assert some right or principle, to settle the case. The
image of the drugs in the backpack is attractive. Is it right or wrong? He might have done something
differently, he was OK until he did that, his mistake was this, etc...No, it’s better to stand back and watch.
A man who lands on the front page of the Washington Post is doing something right, what is it. Watch and
learn.
In the first hours after the US invaded Panama there was a rumor in Los Angeles that some sort of
spontaneous resistance group had formed in Panama City and that not only the Panamanian defense force
but also this impromptu organization was fighting US forces, door to door. It turns out the whole thing was
false. But the night of the invasion some reporter tried calling the Panamanian embassy to ask about the
resistance force and he dialed the wrong number. Some unemployed guy in South L.A. picked up his
phone, heard a reporter ask, “is this the Panamanian embassy,” and he had the genius to say yes, it was, and
that yes, there was a resistance effort underway and if the reporter would call back in 10 minutes he could
speak with Arturo Lopez of the People’s Organization for the Defence of Panama. Ten minutes later the
call came and in a hastily contrived accent this same unemployed man spoke passionately about the outrage
of the US invasion and the current progress of the battle etc. He even appeared on several LA TV stations
the next evening sporting a fake beard and broken English soliloquies. Now the point of this story is
simple, that if you think fast the rewards can be great and also that only real quality people ever make it
into the news. You may wish to draw other lessons.
26.
We will miss Nils and wish we knew
Why he has quit.
For he is leaving and with him goes
Compassion; wit,
And artificial intelligence:
A perfect fit
For bureaucratic arrangements and
That tactful bit.
Now that we have all received this poem in our physical mail, I feel it
can be safely revealed that the author is our own Anil Gangolli.
Abandoning his earlier blank verse style, Golg here pursues the rhyme in
a reductionist AAAA scheme with the iambic and alexandrine in emphasis.
Quit, wit, fit, bit: what could be more plain, more direct? The split
line
We will miss Nils and wish we knew // Why he has quit.
contains the bifurcation: although Golg takes the plural expression,
his emptiness and frustration ("miss Nils" as woman, negation, or the
oxymoronic empty vessel) leaves him unable even to complete his thought.
The cry
Why he has quit.
then stands alone, disinterrogatory, more assertion than question.
27.
I've been thinking deeply about recent events in the Soviet Union and think this may be the most likely
explanation:
Pyramid Development Corps
Gorbachev returns from a seaside sit and while towelling
off in the dacha he notices a slight sore throat. Not willing
to take unnecessary risks he immediately opts for bedrest and
seclusion. He feels better a few days later and voila.
So let's not blow the whole thing out of proportion, OK?
No event, no matter how catastrophic, is untrivializable. Take any bland 45 year old man with good
personal hygiene, put him on TV under a three color computer graphic, and have him say the words
“controversy in the Soviet Union”. No problemo. It’s worth thinking about this word, “controversy,”
the identification of such forming the basis for the politicization of reporting, No?
28.
Golg brought up “proactive.” Once in a meeting I subtly inserted
not the word “proactive” but “prozactive” into my carefully woven
skein of argument and as I anticipated, I was challenged. Which
only goes to show, if you're going to use language as blunt instrument
it's best to choose your weapon carefully. Again, I recommend
“crack administrator” in bureaucratic settings and “intestinal
fortitude” in all others. I had a case of the latter one time and
let me tell you, I wasnt out of the bathroom for days.
29.
A question for the summer months: what are the fundamental physical
limits (if any) that constrain the design of 7-11 soft drink cups,
i.e. what is the largest possible Gulp. For example could the
wax paper cup be scaled up to hold, say, 5000 gallons of Cola. If so
what name would be appropriate for a Gulp of this size. Big Gulp
and Super Big Gulp have already been taken. Remaining possibilites
include Damn Big Gulp, One hell of a Monstrous Gulp, and Suicide
Gulp. “I will have one Planetary Gulp to go please.” Sorry, it is
serve yourself and the guy in front of you has only taken on 2400 of
his 35000 gallons. One would have to expect such delays, also some
difficult control problems on the attempt to lift a Planetary Gulp
to your lips. Straws could be used but if so then they would have
to be long. Also I dont think it's possible suck up more than 30 feet
or so (some obvious political examples excepted) because of airpressure
considerations. Trees cheat by squeezing the water up. So inevitably
you would have to pick up a Planetary Gulp and the real fun would start
as the liquid jostled round inside the cup. The pressure on the side
of the cup at its bottom would be the real stress point and inevitably
some unlucky drinkers would witness the rupture of the bottom of the
cup and be swept inevitably out into the Pacific or the bay, depending
on the local topography.
30.
Just as the Pinot Noir hits the bloodstream the compositional
fluids flow. Certainly several points require comment. First,
I applaud the recent su.r* volume (but wonder why this is the
first posting today). As a mental exercise let's say we have
before us an issue of the Reader's Digest. It goes without saying
that we will ignore the “Notes from Medicine” (we expect at least
to live to 2002) and the “Drama in Real Life” (unless it has to do
with a plane crash or the north pole) but amongst “Humor in Uniform,”
“Quotable Quotes,” “It Pays to Enrich your Word Power,” “Life in
These United States,” and those little one-liners used to fill out space
after articles, what shall we read first? Humor in U. is anachronistic
and suggests Beetle Bailey in an unpleasant way. Quotable Q's always
includes the damn Santayana blurb and something Bennett Cerfian (Is Sex
Necessary?) and otherwise tends to raise one blood temperature in
unforeseen and (again) unpleasant ways. We reconsider: perhaps one
of the main articles should be read? Is there room in the Ideal Universe
for the Iacocca abridgment? I doubt that very much. My mother always
excused the presence of the Reader's D. in our home by winking and
saying that Grandma had paid for the subscription but now that Grandma
is gone one visitor observed that recent issues were still to be found
lying about the house. I did not press her for an explanation. The
closest she came to an apology was asserting that the R.D. is “the
magazine nobody is willing to admit they like.” Was she willing then to
admit she likes it? No reply. There are certain mechanisms by which
an innocent and otherwise unsuspecting boy acquires the name Thane
and to have English professor parents is perhaps the most likely.
31.
a) X was once a great king Xerxes
Xerxy
Perxy
Turxy
Xerxy
Linxy Lurxy
Great king Xerxes!
b) No sooner had we made our bow to Mr. Cambridge, in his library, than
Johnson ran eagerly to one side of the room intent on pouring over the
backs of the books. Sir Joshua observed aside, `he runs to the books,
as I do to the pictures, but I have the advantage. I can see much
more of the pictures than he can of the books.' Johnson, ever ready
for contest, instantly started from reverie and answered, `sir, the
reason is very plain. Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject
ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we
enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is know what
books have treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and
at the backs of books in libraries.' Sir Joshua observed to me
the extraordinary promptitude with which Johnson flew upon an argument.
`Yes,' said I, he has no formal preparation, no flourishing with his
sword; he is through your body in a moment.'
c) Smiling is a class indicator---that is, not doing a lot of it. On
the street, you will notice that prole women smile more, and smile
wider, than those of the middle and upper classes. They are enmeshed
in the “have a nice day” culture and are busy effusing a defensive
optimism most of the time.
d) “Omit needless words!” cries the author on page 21, and into that
imperative Will Strunk really put his heart and soul. In the days
when I was sitting in his class, he omitted so many needless words,
and omitted them so forcibly and with such eagerness and obvious
relish, that he often seemed in the position of having short-changed
himself, a man left with nothing more to say yet with time to fill.
Will Strunk got out of this predicament by a simple trick: he
uttered every sentence three times. When he delivered his oration
on brevity to the class, he leaned forward over his desk, grasped
his lapels in his hands, and a husky, conspiratorial voice said,
“Rule Thirteen. Omit needless words! Omit needless words! Omit
needless words!”
...Will Strunk loved the clear, the brief, the bold, and his book is
clear, brief, bold. Boldness is perhaps its chief distinguishing
mark. On page 24, explaining one of his parallels, he says, “the
left-hand version gives the impression that the writer is undecided
or timid; he seems unable or afraid to choose one definite form of
expression and stick to it.” And his Rule 12 is “Make definite
assertions.” That was Will all over. He scorned the vague, the
tame, the colorless, the irresolute. He felt it was worse to be
irresolute than to be wrong. I remember a day in his class when he
leaned far forward in his characteristic pose---the pose of a man
about to impart a secret---and croaked, “If you don't know how
to pronounce a word, say it loud!” This comical piece of advice
struck me as sound at the time, and I still respect it. Why compound
ignorance with inaudibility?
32.
Has everyone tried their hand at Haiku? You remember good ol' Haiku.
Was it Japanese, or Chinese? What were the rules exactly? There
were some numbers involved. The first line had to be one word. It was
the subject. Or was it one syllable?
Hell if I remember.
Well, let's go for it, anyway. Haiku was nature poetry, right? So you
picked a one syllable nature word to kick things off.
“Rocks.”
Good enough, good enough! The second line, what was it? Two syllables,
or two words? They had to be adjectives, describing the subject.
“Hard, unyielding.”
Damn good progress so far. That's 2/5 ths of a Haiku poem. We've got
our subject; make no mistake about that. “Hard” and “unyielding”
are right on the mark too. If some Dunderhead comes at me, trying to
say a rock isn't hard and unyielding, I'll be all over him.
We need three words now. What did they have to say? Or was it three
syllables? “Situate the subject in nature.” Who said that?
“In my hand.”
That's a double winner, words and syllables! We've got some real
momentum rolling now. Four somethings next, further elaborating on
the subject in some restricted way. Anybody remember?
“I'll throw them now”
We need the one word finale. Has to be a nature word. Ha! I've got it.
Rocks
Hard, unyielding
In my hand--
I'll throw them now
Duck!
33.
T E L L U S A B O U T Y O U R P R E F E R E N C E S
Your thoughtful completion of all of the following questions will help to
provide us with initial key compatibility factors. Since all the information
you provide us will be held in the strictest confidence, please answer openly
and honestly.
1. What age person do you wish to meet?
I once met a person so old that he could not hear, nor see, nor
speak, nor carry on conversation, nor indeed acknowledge even the
strongest stimulus and it was then that I discovered: this man
is dead, he is dead right here in the bed in front of me. It came
as a shock you bet it did.
2. Is religion important to you? (very important, slightly important,
or doesn't matter).
At Jonestown I knew a woman and we said, this man, this Jim Jones,
is CRAZY and if we dont blow this Guyanan paradise we are looking
the Kool-Aid right in the face. So we plunged into the jungle
with loincloths and daggers saying: if we cannot emerge into
civilization then we're cooked, food for Pirhana and fire ants.
It was the start of a long adventure, you can believe me.
3. Do you prefer to meet someone who is:
a) Single never married
b) Divorced with no children
c) Divorced with children
Now when we decided to get married we needed a blood test and
when the doctor came in with the results she said OK, everything
looks OK, and that was good because we went for the AIDS test
and everything. There's a law that says the doctor must ask
“do you have any questions” and so I thought here's a chance
to make a little joke so I said “well yes,” and then after
a long pause threw out, “say we wanted to have children” pausing
intentionally so as to suggest that I couldn't quite ask what
I wanted. So the deal is the doctor jumped right in and told us
how to do it, right there, and I thought, here is a professional,
I couldnt have done that. A chastening experience.
34.
The Senators seem to have a hard time remembering that nominee's
name. For example someone will start out a sentence with
something like “The nominee's lack of a stand on abortion disturbs
me. I think Clarence.....(long pause as they seem to be puzzled
that `Clarence' is not his last name)....Thomas should clarify
his position.” Many variations on this theme, one of which is
where the solon will start off with “Thomas” and blunder about
trying to figure out the now illusory surname it is to be mated
up with.
Also what is all this talk about “Harrisment.” As with “hunkering
down” language and pronunciation seem to have taken a somewhat
unexpected turn. I think they are trying to take the ass out of
a perfectly good pronunciation, no? (Possibly offensive, sorry).
As Gidi just said, “Sexual Harr_ass_ment was good enough for my
grandfather, it was good enough for my father, and it's good enough
for me...”
TKS
35.
Jens C. and I have struck on the following idea or concept. Get
some land down by Gilroy or somewhere, buy some old heavy machinery
say a bulldozer, dumptruck, front-end loader etc and then charge
people by the hour to move some earth around. I can testify that
driving a dump truck laden with concrete and other massive objects at
35 miles per hour over uneven terrain is an empowering experience to
say the least. It's not unlike driving a small planet. Major Momentum.
At the upper end you would be able to the controls of one of
those gigantic ball wreckers and start slamming the damn thing into
old barns etc. If you are thinking about liability then you are not
sharing the vision. The Fry's crowd should like it. I think it was
Archimedes who said “give me a front-end loader and a condominium and
I'll show you some real damage.” Would environment impact statements
be required etc.
When a windmill starts going inside the noise can be enough make you
want to run for your life. We've got big machines but nobody seems to have
much contact with it anymore. As I. A. Richards observed, the internal
combustion engine destroyed what was left at the turn of the century of
modern man's sense of rhythm. Rock and Roll is 4 beats for this reason.
Everyone used to ride horses and that was empowering. Just the phrase,
“the man on horseback” is used to mean war or strife etc (is it?).
Now the goal seems to be to shelter us from the machine, particularly noise
I guess. Steam engines are cool because they start slow and then speed
up, this answers human rhythms sleep and wakefulness for example when
at a sporting event people clap in unison slowly but the speed inevitably
increases still in unison.
36.
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 91 23:38:05 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: How pleasant to know Mr. Lear
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
Who has written such volumes of stuff!
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few think him pleasant enough.
His mind is concrete and fastidious,
His nose is remarkably big;
His visage is more or less hideous,
His beard? It resembles a wig.
He has ears, two eyes, and ten fingers,
Leastways if you reckon two thumbs;
Long ago he was one of the singers,
But now he is one of the dumbs.
He sits in a beautiful parlour,
With hundreds of books on the wall;
He drinks a great deal of Marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.
He has many friends, laymen and clerical;
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat.
He weeps by the side of the ocean,
He weeps on the top of the hill;
He purchases pancakes and lotions,
And chocolate shrimps from the mill.
He reads but cannot speak Spanish,
He cannot abide ginger-beer:
Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
37.
From “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” by Thomas L. Friedman, p96-97:
On July 16, 1979, Saddam Hussein, who had been the number two
man in Iraqi politics for eleven years, [wanted] to shove aside
his superior, the ailing President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakar, and have
himself declared President. At the time of his takeover, Saddam
was convinced that at least 5 of his closest friends and colleagues
in the Iraqi leadership had some reservations about his succession.
So, on the eve of his ascension, he had one of them arrested---Muhyi
Abd al-Husayn al-Muashhadi, the secretary-general of the Iraqi
Baath Party. Al-Mashhadi was then apparently tortured into agreeing
to make a confession that he was planning to topple Saddam with
some help of some other members of the leadership.
Then, on July 22, with real theatrical flair, Saddam convened an
extraordinary meeting of the Iraqi Baath Party Regional Congress
in order to hear al-Mashadi's confession---live. As al-Mashadi would
tell his story and mention the name of someone else in the leadership
involved in the bogus plot, that person would have to stand, and then
a guard would drag him from the chamber. Al-Mashadi just “happened”
to mention as co-conspirators the four other members of Iraq's ruling
Revolutionary Command Council---Mohammed Ayish, Mohammed Mahjub, Husayn
al-Hamdani, and Ghanim Abd al-Jalil---who Saddam felt were not totally
supportive of him. A videotape of the confessions was then distributed
to Baath Party branches across Iraq, as well as to army units; a few
bootleg copies even made their way to Kuwait and Beirut.
A Lebanese friend of mine saw the video and described it as follows:
“This guy would be reciting his confession and he would come to a person
and say, `And then we went to see Mohammed to ask him to join the
conspiracy.' And this Mohammed would have to stand. And you could see
this guy crying, his knees shaking, and he could barely stay on his
feet. And then this guy would say, `But he refused to help us,' and
then this Mohammed would slump back into his chair, exhausted with relief,
and they would move on to the next guy. I had nightmares about this video
for months...”
38.
Subject: RISC philosophy
Anil, it's a RISC world and it's leaving you behind. I could explain why
that header appeared, but I know how the discussion would go:
TP: Well, I knew commands X,Y,and Z but I had forgotten how to do U and V.
So I fudged by using X, Y, and Z. What's the harm? You read the message,
didn't you?
AG: Ah, but I've told you how to use commands U and V, just yesterday! Let
me review them again for you, from the basics, so you will remember---
TP: (Eyes glazing) Anil...
AG: Fi First, you remember what a bit is, right? Let psi be a random walk
on a convex hyperboggsmanifold with carriage control character meta
shift x doublestroke big T, and...
39.
From somebody's .signature:
“The number of bugs in a program is inversely proportional to
the length of time you have spent working on the damn thing.”
My question: was “proportional” intended here? And more generally,
doesn't it seem like most occurrences of “inversely proportional”
nowadays should actually just be “proportional” ?
40.
10 jan 1988 : This awesome power of invisibility must not corrupt me.
I have resolved to tell no one of my new abilities.
After work, went invisible and took some photographs
of myself in a mirror. There were no surprises--
only my retinas were visible, and these only barely.
Of course you could see the camera.
13 jan 1988 : Went invisible a few times today, but stayed inside.
Picking up things not difficult at all now. While
visible, went to Safeway and bought some Grape Nuts.
I need to toughen the soles of feet--by spreading
the cereal on the basement floor and walking on it.
14 jan 1988 : Curious effect today. For several minutes my elbows
went visible while the rest of me stayed invisible.
No control problems later in the day. The complexity
of my power can be daunting.
16 jan 1988 : Rented several movies and books today that deal with
invisibility. I find their treatment of the subject
banal, even insulting. And of course very far from
being realistic. I hope to use my powers to benefit
mankind. I'd hoped to a least get one good idea.
They are right about how you look with clothes on,
as I mentioned before--stupid.
18 jan 1988 : A call today from my boss. When he said “you certainly
havent been very visible around here the last few days,”
I almost lost it. I must quit my job and work more
seriously at developing my skills.
20 jan 1988 : Call it harmonic convergence: today on the radio quiz
they asked for a phrase with ten occurences of the
same vowel in it. The shortest phrase to win. It
came to me -- “indivisible invisibilities.” Is
there a relation to the elbow event? Questions,
questions, questions.
41.
Speaking of soc.singles Jens Christensen told me earlier today
that when he was working part time for FMC corp he posted a
message to one of those groups in response to a message wherein
some man was asking about how he should handle the following
problem: that his girlfriend wanted to go out with other men
and the man wanted to know, how should he handle it? The earlier
replies basically took the Sting-like formulation “if you love
someone, set them free” and recommended that the man let the woman
have her way, that it was pointless to try anything else etc and
the messages rapidly accumulated backing up this point of view.
Jens then sent a message saying that was crazy and asked “how will
you feel, knowing she is kissing some other guy tonight” and OK
as a Knitwear Specialist I am far too cool to come down on either side
of this question but to my mind the most interesting thing was that
Jens's response won him a lot of personal replies, some attacks yes,
but mostly responses from women asking him to elaborate on his point.
This recalled for me an incident from my freshman year in college when
a special evening seminar entitled something like “Sex and the College
Student” generated a very large crowd in the basement of my dorm.
Typically the thing was led by some sex-therapist or otherwise incredibly
sensitive and enlighted person, I dont remember who, but what I do
remember was that most of the men seemed to want to know “how can I
get laid” while most of the women seemed to want to know “if I
sleep with men will I suffer in some way,” or something like that. In
any case, I had more perspective and sympathy with the male point of view
than the female I am sure. Anyway this was only about the third week
of my Freshman year and what I remember most was my roommate standing
up solemnly and saying, “I will never marry a woman who is not a virgin”
to my utter shock and amazement, not because I really knew him that well
but because by this one remark he shattered the “live and let live”
consensus that everyone seemed to be striving for. Now if there is
a moral to my remarks I have no idea. Golg Gidi +/-R Andy or Nob?
42.
Speaking of the French Rev. I think it was Thoreau who in the course
of explaining why it was quite pointless to read newspapers and magazines
etc because the new news is the same as the old news, that is to say if
you have read one account of the shipwrecked sailboat adrift in the
Pacific, or one account of a big fire at a warehouse say, or a train wreck
or a bus plunge, anyway you get the idea, you have read them all, Thoreau
said, and he summarized by saying, “the last real piece of news was the
French Revolution.” Now that was the last century but OK it probably
still applies I think. Political philos. doesn't seemed to have advanced
much at least, for example if you know Malthus or david ricardo you could
be quite the spin doctor on say, the david brinckley show or whatever the
hell that show is called, and while we are on the subject I would like
to ask, what the hell is the deal with Brinckley's lip. Is it old age
or what is that crease anyway. Clearly not your typical cosmetic deal, if
they could cover it up with a spackle of cream or something I think they
would go for it.
43.
Karen Myers once related to me the following story: that in high
school she was in an English poetry class in which the teacher
was moving around the room from student to student asking each
person for their opinion on the poem everyone had just read. The
first student talked about a house and a farmer and beautiful imagery,
the second thought the whole thing was about a shipwreck, a third
person thought it had to do with agriculture in some way and then when
it came to Karen she said honestly that she thought the poem was really
about a house burning down (which of course it was). I. A. Richards
wrote a book called Practical Criticism in which he takes an admirably
scientific viewpoint toward this important question, whether all poetry
is really garbage after all, and he throws out unlabelled works of
the great and nongreat masters, unlabelled, to challenge the reader in
the identification, who is who. I watched the last episode of Northern
Exposure and one person in that show talks about someone else writing
“a lot of pastoral poetry” and this made me think about the big
WW, William Wordsworth, and “Michael”, which is the pastoral in
the heavyweight category I think. If you have high blood pressure a
few readings might calm you down a bit. Like music I guess if you dont
like it, it's really no big deal. But if you do then you are vulnerable to
Ridiculous Enthusiasms. ....which you might see / And notice not....
...a straggling heap of unhewn stones.... I would say that there isnt
time for poetry really anymore, what was left of it having been pulverized
about 1950. For example somebody was writing about the difference between
“White Basketball” and “Black Basketball” and they said something
like this: black basketball is an exploration of the limits of time
and space on the court; white basketball is the pulverization of that
time and space. Similarly I would say that time was pulverized about
1950. Gotta go TKS
43.
as though it were merely a page photocopied out of some book. Not that
it was difficult to read, or hard to follow. She had the idea that she
had before her just the right page; it was that way with photocopies.
Taking the book in hand, one found the right page, split it backward
down over the glass, pressed the button, and flash. Copied. It
was easy to forget the original, and many copiers had a sign: “do
not forget your original.” Messing around with a copier, your hands
got inky. Was it ash? The flash a flame? Could you Xerox a phoenix?
“Of course, that's the problem with this new typesetting.” It was
a man behind her.
This wasn't going to be very interesting.
“Yes?” she said.
“The problem with this new typesetting is that you have to have something
interesting to say. It looks nice, but all the typesetting in the world
can't make something interesting.”
“Yes,” she said. The man wasn't very interesting.
“You were right about that, incidentally.”
“Yes?” she said.
“Yes. I am working on a Ph.D. at Stanford. Maybe I'll have it by
my ten year high school reunion. I've been at Stanford for three
years now. I was in England for a year. A math-research kind of
thing. Do you like math?”
“Sort of.” Was he going to start talking about math? Or about
computers? About photocopies? About typesetting? She found
herself performing a mental calculation:
\[(1978 + 2) + 10 = 1980 + 10 = 1990.\]
It was 1989 now, so maybe he was going to finish soon.
“I'd like to send you some of my art. They are Xerox copies
of very small doodles, blown up to fill a whole page. I'll
put them in the envelope,” he said, as though she would know
which envelope was meant.
She looked down, and there was an envelope, after all. She had
the drawings already. They did look like they were Xeroxed. One
was a drawing of Beethoven. Another was a sketch of a strange-looking
man.
“A self portrait?” she asked.
“No, my name isn't Beethoven.” It wasn't the picture she was referring
to. She didn't want to make it clear, because the other drawing was
ugly.
“I live in graduate student housing. I wonder if you've ever been
to Stanford. If you have, I live in a big place called Escondido
village.”
How whether or not she had ever been to Stanford could possibly influence
where this man lived was a logical point she chose to ignore.
“My roommate is a big Canadian guy named Steve. If you ever call,
you'll probably end up talking to him, and not me. The number is
(415) 856-2677. Leave a message at the beep.”
“Let's see, what else might you want to know,” he continued.
“I have my bookbag here. I'll tell you what's in it. Maybe
you're interested.”
“OK, why not,” she thought.
“From the top: an empty manila folder; today's New York Times;
two tablets of thin-ruled yellow paper; “Semigroups and Combinatorial
Applications,” by Gerard Lallement; “Boxed In: The Culture of TV,”
by Mark Crispin Miller; “The Watershed: A Biography of Johannes Kepler,”
by Arthur Koestler; the February 4 issue of the {\em New Yorker};
another tablet of paper; three mathematics papers; an issue of
{\em Chess Life} magazine; “Elmer Gantry,” Sinclair Lewis; several
pens, half dried out; a metal stapler $\ldots$
“Do you actually read all these things,” she asked.
“Well, no,” although I'm reading some of them. I don't actually
carry the bookbag much, anymore; it's too heavy.”
The paper had run onto a second page now but curiously stopped
44.
OSWALD: Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.
KENT: Fellow, I know thee.
OSWALD: What dost thou know me for?
KENT: A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base,
proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound,
filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-
taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable,
finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that
wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art
nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward,
pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch; one
whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deny'st
the least syllable of thy addition.
[King Lear: 2.2. For this outburst, the bad guys put Kent in
the stocks.]
45.
Who has been distributing those gigantic square face-wrap sunglasses
to everyone over the age of 65? Is it fashion or merely prescription.
I find it unsettling.
The thyroid thing has increased President B's resemblance to Pat Riley.
Agreeing on the hair they could achieve indistinguishability.
Each of them is getting entirely too much exercise, and time in the sun.
46.
Could demerit points be assessed for researchers who write stupid papers.
As in Jeopardy a negative score would be possible. It's always better to
remain silent than to say (write) something idiotic. After 4 or 5
really dumb papers there would be banishment for life
and mandatory exclusion from the Hall of Fame. Perhaps a half-way
house where no conference announcements or Latex software would be available.
It's important to break pernicious habits and get started on the right path
again.
47.
downtown palo alto, the increasingly twenty-four hour environment, is
turning into Rodeo Drive or if not that at least La Jolla. Of course that
has been the goal all along. The neo-birge-clarkian thing at Ramona and
university is scaled out at 50 percent, to see what I mean look at the
rest of Ramona, particularly Pearl's and the double rainbow where you
will see a human scale is achieved and indeed this is the direction we
should be going, birge-clarkian I mean. The thing is too big. Americans
always have to remember: “size is not everything.” The corresponding
project at High and University is obviously a complete wash out. We
have idiots for architects. Go to pearls in the early evening and have
dinner there and you will see what all of downtown p.a. should be like.
not stanford which is a richarsonian aberration, the largest mexican
restaurant in the world. Mission tile has saved many an architectural
enterprise. The church, a ski-lodge done in the Baroque style. Heavy
timber, deep cut windows and doorways, the oval and the palm trees. Ha.
48.
Some critical thoughts and prognostications for 1991:
Those who remember that it was George Santayana who said, “those
who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it,” are doomed
to repeat it.
Possible Corollary: by the G.S. principle itself, even those who fail
to remember that it was George Santayana who said “those who fail
to remember the past are doomed to repeat it,” are doomed to repeat
it.
The word “kidney” may make a resurgence in 1991. You may try it
out for yourself in sentences such as
“I don't care for Saddam Hussein, or other rulers of his kidney”
Webster offers
webster: trying server at next.stanford.edu...connected.
kid.ney \'kid-n<e^->\ n, pl kidneys (14c)
[ME]
1a:one of a pair of vertebrate organs situated in the body cavity near
the spinal column that excrete waste products of metabolism, in man
are bean-shaped organs about 41 /2 inches long lying behind the peritoneum
in a mass of fatty tissue, and consist chiefly of nephrons by which
urine is secreted, collected, and discharged into a main cavity whence
it is conveyed by the ureter to the bladder
1b: any of various excretory organs of invertebrate animals
2: the kidney of an animal eaten as food
3: sort or kind esp. with regard to temperament <a nice helpful guy,
of a different kidney entirely from the ubiquitous Secret Police --Paula
Lecler>
49.
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 90 00:28:08 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: One of our finest knits
It was a splendid mind. For if thought is like the keyboard of a piano,
divided into so many notes, or like the alphabet is ranged in twenty-six
letters all in order, then his splendid mind had no difficulty in running
over those letters one by one, firmly and accurately, until it had reached,
say, the letter Q. He reached Q. Very few people in the whole of England
ever reach Q. Here, stopping for one moment by the stone urn which held
the geraniums, he saw, but now far far away, like children picking up shells,
divinely innocent and occupied with little trifles at their feet and
somehow entirely defencelss against a doom which he perceived, his wife and
son, together, in the window. They needed his protection; he gave it them.
But after Q? What comes next? After Q there are a number of letters the
last of which is scarcely visible to mortal eyes, but glimmers red in the
distance. Z is only to be reached once by one man in a generation. Still,
if he could reach R it would be something. Here at least was Q. He dug
his heels in at Q, Q he was sure of. Q he could demonstrate. If Q then
is Q---R--- Here he knocked his pipe out, with two or three resonant taps
on the rams horn which made the handle of the urn, and proceeded. Then
R... He braced himself. He clenched himself.
Qualities that would have saved a ship's company exposed on a broiling sea
with six biscuits and a flask of water ---- endurance and justice,
foresight, devotion, skill, came to his help. R is then --- what is R?
A shutter, like the leathern eyelid of a lizard, flickered over the
intensity of his gaze and obscured the letter R. In that flash of darkness
he heard people saying---he was a failure---that R was beyond him. He would
never reach R. On to R, once more, R---
Qualities that in a desolate expedition across the icy solitudes of the
Polar region would have made him the leader, the guide, the counsellor,
whose temper neither sanguine nor despondent, surveys with equanimity what
is to be and faces it, came to his help again. R----
The lizard's eye flickered once more. The veins on his forehead bulged.
The geranium in the urn became startlingly visible and, displayed amongst
its leaves, he could see, without wishing it, that old, that obvious
distinction between the two classes of men; on the one hand the steady
goers of superhuman strength who, plodding and perserving, repeat the
whole alphabet in order, twenty-six in all, from start to finish; on the
other hand the gifted, the inspired who, miraculously, lump all the letters
together in one flash---the way of genius. He had not genius; he laid no
claim to that: but he had, or might have had, the power to repeat every
letter of the alphabet from A to Z accurately in order. Meanwhile, he
stuck at Q. On, then, on to R.
Feelings that would not have disgraced a leader who, now that the snow
has begun to fall and the mountain-top is covered in mist, knows that
he must lay himself down and die before the morning comes, stole upon
him, paling the colour of his eyes, giving him, even in the two minutes
of his turn on the terrace, the bleached look of whithered old age. Yet
he would not die lying down; he would find some crag of rock, and there,
his eyes fixed on the storm, trying to pierce the darkness, he would die
standing. He would never reach R.
He stood stock still, by the urn with the geranium flowing over it. How
many men in a thousand million, he asked himself, reach Z after all?
Surely the leader of a forlorn hope may ask himself that, and answer,
without treachery to the expedition behind him, `One perhaps.' One in a
generation. Is he to be blamed if he is not that one? provided he has
toiled honestly, given to the best of his power, till he has no more left
to give?
from To the Lighthouse by V.W.
50.
More on the Reges Thing. I haven't been following it but I understand
he has been fired. It recalls the Bertrand Russell deal I believe
in a pretty direct way, corrupting the young, dangerous and harmful ideas
etc. It was Columbia I think? They either fired BR or declined to hire
him because of poisonous writings such as Marriage and Morals. What is
the recommendation that a student take drugs if not the corruption of
the young. It's a dangerous idea, contrary to the Recognized and Agreed
Upon Aims of Civil Society (drug war).
The phrases “Honor Code” and “Fundamental Standard” recall
the “Boy Scout Pledge,” or say “Gray Tuesday” and “Black Friday.”
Empty phrases whose unworthiness seems to leap out at you from the page.
Behind the scenes some force is always at work, keeping people (boys) in
their places. Thought and Mind control is what Euclid calls it and
Euclid is right.
Holst spent his whole life writing music and thought himself a failure
because in his opinion he had never produced anything with the warmth
of a Beethoven string quartet. That's humility. Keep it in mind. Ask
yourself, “have I produced my string quartet” and if you think you
have, then OK you can be an asshole like Beethoven, you can start
acting like you know who should be fired etc. But before that (your
whole life) suspend judgement, give the benefit of the doubt, and
compliment everyone's work. That's the Knitwear Specialists philos.
and I recommend it to the Deans and whomever else was involved. O no
perhaps I should cross post to su.etc.
You start with a fact
say, that someone dies of a drug overdose say, then by an astonishingly
powerful semantic net, theorem-prover, or contradiction resolver you
arrive at the conclusion: Stuart Reges must be fired. Just where is
the “if p then q” Stu must be saying.
It's time to rally behind our fellow Scientist. Where do I sign up?
51.
* * * * * *
Next, I am in a sewing machine shop looking for a Knit Picker and
I suddenly realize: I can fly. Levitate may be the proper term.
Confined by Singers and Elnas but with no attendant in view I somehow
know that although my emancipation from gravity is complete,
it is not certain what translational abilities I possess. So for
the moment I am satisfied to rise a bit above the carpeted floor. That
no one seems to notice reassures me, and I descend. I don't want to
exaggerate. It was strictly a six to eight inch kind of thing. Yet
I am certain that at least floatationally, my power is great, and still
largely untapped. Horizontal movement does seems to require that I touch
the floor though.
* * * * * * *
In junior high I was taught the three major “literary themes:”
1. Man versus man.
2. Man versus nature.
3. Man versus himself.
Provided one could also identify
A. The protagonist, and
B. The antagonist,
one had here a powerful analytical tool with which questions of the form
“Let's see, now, `Hamlet.' Was that man vs. man, or man vs. himself?”
could be answered with a satisfying and sweeping critical finality. Useful
also was the distinction between
I. External conflict, and
II. Internal conflict.
In class the issue was introduced something like this:
“Now, class, we need to know the difference between external conflict
and internal conflict. External conflict is perhaps the simpler concept.
Let's say a man takes up a club and hits his neighbor. That's external
conflict, pure and simple. Now, what about internal conflict...
(hands go up).... (my friend gary sinclair calls out his answer...)
“Internal conflict---that would be, like a knife, right?”
Which only goes to show that there is no royal road to literary criticism.
53.
It is said that in ancient Sumeria, a certain king decreed that a large brazen
bull be manufactured. The bull was to be made large enough so that a person
could be forced into it, the lid slammed down and the whole apparatus hung
over a fire. The king also desired that the throat of the bull be formed
so that the screams of the unhappy victim be heard as the lowing of the bull.
A famous bronze worker was enlisted for the effort, and he delivered the
bull under budget and two weeks in advance. The king thanked him by popping
him into the bull as its initial victim.
But I digress.
Arising this morning from my bed and stumbling into the shower, I lifted
the wash rag to my face for a preliminary scrub. The wash rag turned out
to be covered with ants. It was a personal trial of the man versus nature
variety, but I exterminated all the ants and washed down their trails with
an ammonia/Raid mixture.
Again: at La Petite Boulangerie this morning, I had a cup of coffee and
a cheese croissant. Taking the last swig of coffee I became suddenly aware
of a jellyfish-like substance covering half my tongue. I spit it back into
the cup.
Yet again: as I left LPB, a pigeon shat on my shoulder.
Three phyla, each capable of mounting its unique attacks: Insecta,
Invertebrata, Birds. Worthy adversaries for man. I am on the lookout
for mammals and fish.
No bull.
54.
Subject: That's right, another ripened contribution
Status: R
When Anil returns Gidi and I plan to press Golg on this matter of the
su.roger-or-andy archive and its eventual publication. I think it may
safely be suggested, subject of course to independent verification, that
Golg is planning to publish our hard-sweat writings with Dover Publications
or somebody after some number years have passed and keep the ill-gotten
profits for himself. I of course am not interested in my individual profit,
but rather in Fairness In All its Manifestations. Justice is blind, as Jens
Christensen's father-in-law, appearing blindfold recently in front of an
Iranian court, can testify. Some editing will have to take place, but
historians will surely insist that such one-liners as Pang Chen's question
(forwarded by Ashok Subra*) “Why must every program have a name?” be
preserved for future generations. What we have here is Midrash, or
commentary. I am no Talmudic scholar but this is the proper term? We
have text, sub-text and analysis. I once read a book by Gershom Sholem
called “Jewish Mysticism” and I'm afraid all I took away from the experience
is that Abraham Abu-lafia had an interest in permutations. Perhaps more
facts were absorbed but this is all that comes to mind. Also, I remember that
Gershom was friends with Walter Benjamin, who in turn had a few beers with
Franz Kafka. This is what we ex-English majors call “liberal education.”
It isn't worth a damn.
I draw your attention to “Journey to the West,” a Chinese novel
written by Wu Ch'eng-en (c1500--1582).
A synopsis:
The Buddhist priest Hsuan-tsang (also known as Tripitika) of the Ming
Dynasty strikes out on a quest to India in search of holy scriptures.
He is accompanied on his pilgrimage by three magical helpers, one of
whom is a monkey.
Benet calls the book “humorous and fantastic, but at the
same time allegorical and deeply religious.” It was partially
translated by Arthur Waley in 1943. He titled it “Monkey.”
This may be a critical document for the su.rog* community. Can anyone
find a copy?
* * *
Burning retinas on a well-aged, network-rerun and made-for-TV movie
a few nights ago it suddenly occurred to me: Montage has gone into
eclipse. I'm no Leonard Maltin but I think this device was introduced
in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” to the captivating strains
of Raindrops Keep Fallin on my Head. The paradigm is action audio
off and swell to music as one's favorite movie characters indulge
themselves with chocolates, park-side walks, pigeon feeding or perhaps
even sex, and particularly sex in which one feeds various fresh vegetables
to one's partner. For example I believe Terminator 2 lacked a montage
although the first scene may be Montage-derivative in some sense.
* * * * *
Nob asked for more examples of Humor in Contemporary Philosophy.
Here is something from Thomas Nagel's _Mortal_Questions_, Cambridge
Univ Press, 1979, from a footnote to a chapter entitled “Death.”
...I suspect that something essential is omitted from the account
of the badness of death by an analysis which treats it as a
deprivation of possibilities. My suspicion is supported by the
following suggestion of Robert Nozick. We could imagine discovering
that people developed from individual spores that had existed
indefinitely far in advance of their birth. In this fantasy,
birth never occurs naturally more than one hundred years before the
permanent end of the spore's existence. But then we discover a way
to trigger the premature hatching of these spores, and people are
born who have thousands of years of active life before them. Given
such a situation, it would be possible to imagine _oneself_ having
come into existence thousands of years previously. If we put aside
the question whether this would really be the same person, even
given the identity of the spore, then the consequence appears to be
that a person's birth at a given time _could_ deprive him of many
earlier years of possible life. Now while it would be cause for
regret that one had been deprived of all those possible years of
life by being born too late, the feeling would differ from that which
many people have about death. I conclude that something about the
future _prospect_ of permanent nothingness is not captured by the
analysis in terms of denied possibilities. If so, then Lucretius's
argument [Knitwear: that because being dead is like being not born
and you dont regret when you werent born, you shouldnt think being
dead is so bad, either] still awaits an answer....
TKS: in my opinion, this passage reaches hilarity precisely at
the third occurrence of the word `spore,' more precisely
at the words, “...even given the identity of the spore.”
Maybe the humor has to do with the juxtapostions
of phrases like `permanent nothingness' and `denied possibilities'
along side the `spores.'
If you're looking for good jokes, like me, then its good to
to focus on what seems to be known as “The Problem of Personal
Identity,” particularly for the brain-exchanging gedankenexperiments,
but also for other reasons....(see next message)
The symbolism and the ceremonial of the Catholic Church were familiar
to him; the mysterious symbols of the Masonic lodge were new. It is
entirely characteristic that he at once began to poke fun at certain
peculiarities of lodge procedure. The Illuminati, like the “Arcadians”
in Rome, were given special names---not fantastic shepherd-names, however,
but ancient or Biblical ones. The Duke of Gotha was called “Timoleon;”
Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, “Aaron;” the Coadjutor of the Archbishophric
of Mainz, “Crescens;” Baron von Knigge, “Philo.” On 15 January 1787,
Mozart wrote from Prague to his young friend Gottfried von Jacquin, in
Vienna:
Now farewell, dearest friend, dearest Hikkiti Horky! That is your
name, as you must know. We all invented names for ourselves on the
journey. Here they are: I am Punkitititi. My wife is Schabla Pumfa.
Hofer is Rozka Pumpa. Stadler is Notschibikitschibi. My servant
Joseph is Sagadarata. My dog Goukerl is Schomanntzky. Madame
Quallenberg is Runzifunzi. Mlle. Crux is Rambo Schurimuri. Freistaedtler
is Gaulimauli. Be so kind so as to tell him his name.
Call it paradox, coincidence, or irony, I dont care, but for me,
I have always confounded CARLTON FISK and THURMOND MUNSON. Which
one died in the plane crash? It's not a good thing, particularly
for someone whose father only last night (wednesday) was on the
Larry King show correcting LK about baseballiana. Did anyone catch
his call ("Kearney, Nebraska, hello!")? YOU ARE (or AREN'T) LISTENING
TO THE LARRY KING SHOW.
A question: when will a Dame Edna Everidge emerge stateside? Does
everyone know the Dame? Please note the previous message contained
the word "Possum;" wholly coincidental if ironic and paradoxical.
If you don't understand this paragraph that's OK.
Re Dr. Seuss: as an ankle-biter I found the Doctor a bit disturbing
because of those fishbowls balanced on the end of sticks and the
general teetertotteriness of his illustration in general. Is it
really true that he coined the word "Nerd?" If so, what references
can be given. The Grinch who stole Christmas is OK but as usual
the Mephistophelean character takes center stage. Ever since
Paradise Lost it has been a big problem.
\documentstyle{article}
\begin{document}
The Emperor needed much sleep, but he could sleep when he wanted to, by day
as well as by night...On a campaign he was awakened for everything. Even
Prince of Neuch\^{a}tel [Bethier], who received and dispatched and knew of
his Majesty's plans, decided nothing...The Emperor occupied himself with
the most minute details. He wanted everything to bear the imprint of
his genius. He would send to me to receive his orders for headquarters,
for the orderly officers, for his staff officers, for the letters, for
the couriers, postal service etc. The commanding officers of the guard;
the controller of the army commissariat; Larrey, the excellent
surgeon-general; all were summoned at least once a day. Nothing
escaped his solicitude. Indeed, his foresight might well be called by
the name of solicitude, for no detail seemed too humble to receive his
attention...he had an astonshing memory for localities. The topography
of a country seemed to be modelled in relief in his head. Never did
any man combine such a memory with a more creative genius. He seemed to
extract men, horses and guns from the very bowels of the earth. The
distinctive numbers of his regiments, his army service companies,
his baggage battalions, sufficed for everything. He knew where each one
was, when it started, when it should arrive at its destination...
\vspace{0.15in}
J. Hanoteau, (ed.) {\em Memoirs of General de Caulaincourt, Duke of
Vicenza} 1812--1813, translated by H. Miles, Cassel, 1935, pp. 599--601.
\end{document}
From plambeck Sat Dec 15 17:34:26 1990
Return-Path: <plambeck>
Received: by Neon.Stanford.EDU (5.61/25-eef) id AA12996; Sat, 15 Dec 90 17:34:25 -0800
Date: Sat, 15 Dec 90 17:34:25 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9012160134.AA12996@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: nerd joke
Status: R
Today's SF Chronicle has the following Jumble words:
GOSUB, MOROG, RAYPER, MORRET
Now excuse me, but why didn't they scramble GOSUB? hahahahahahahahahahaha
Like many people, I think the New York Times is a good newspaper.
Here, however, is a short list of its more stupid aspects:
1) The micro-advertisement that always appears somewhere
at the bottom of page one. Today, the advertisement
reads
CALL THE UNIVERSE FROM THE NEWEST AT&T
Phone Center at 550 Madison Ave.--ADVT.
The whole advertisement occupies about 60 square millimeters.
Is this a superstition, or what?
2) Steve Norman drew my attention to the title for
section B of the newpaper, “The Living Arts.”
What the hell are “The Living Arts?” This is an execrable
phrase that ought to be packed onto a barge and dumped
somewhere off New Jersey. It's an indigestable
synthetic compound--reading it is like drinking some kind of
non-biodegradable plastic. Unfortunately, once such
phrases are introduced into the environment, they have
a way of spreading pervasively into the mind. Walking
in Berkeley a week ago, I saw a magnificent building
with the words BIOLOGY, ANATOMY, PHYSICS, and CHEMISTRY
written in bold letters on the top of it. By some corrosive
mental process, I immediately thought of the phrase,
“The Living Arts.” We all know how painful this can be.
3) “Sports Monday.” Another caustic compound. Are our
lives enriched by this phrase?
4) The Papineau Journal. Papineau is a “tiny town lost in
the cornfields” of Illinois, according to today's
New York Times. There is a bad drought there; a brief
article describes it. The story is interesting, even
newsworthy. Yet I feel safe in asserting that no other
story about Papineau will appear in the New York Times
in the next five years. Why then the title “Papineau
Journal?” It's irritating.
5) The Peruvian bus plunge. Periodically, the brakes on
a Andes motor coach will give way, and 30 or more
people will die. Identifying the nation and body count,
the New York Times can find no other headline:
40 DIE IN CHILEAN BUS PLUNGE
You are ready to apply the principle yourself. Let's
say a coach flies off a ridge near the Matterhorn, and
24 people die. Have you worked out the headline?
24 DIE IN SWISS BUS PLUNGE
From today's (14 November 1991) Examiner, page A-13, “Lottery panel
announces new games”:
[The Lottery panel has announced] a Fantasy Five game
that replaces the current Little Lotto game. The game
offers more chances of winning than Little Lotto, with
most winners receiving prizes of $100,000 or more.
Overall odds of winning some prize would be 1 in 9.
Little Lotto now features a $500,000 top prize and players
pick six numbers from a field of 39.
OK let's say I buy 100 tickets for $100. How much should I expect
to win? Anil may wish to provide a second moment estimation. TKS.
From plambeck Sun Feb 3 16:30:56 1991
Return-Path: <plambeck>
Received: by Neon.Stanford.EDU (5.61/25-eef) id AA04353; Sun, 3 Feb 91 16:30:55 -0800
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 91 16:30:55 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9102040030.AA04353@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: More lies, vicious innuendo, etc....
Status: R
If there are no current su.* messages then the best policy is to reread them.
Occasionally for example one finds misspellings or unclear locutions in one's
earlier contributions (I have found none in my own, of course). Or upon
rereading one may discover remarks such as Nob the Doober's poisonous
fling-off remark that “some postings on su.roger don't make any sense.”
Now I ask Nob to fling off her mask and put forward names and instances of
postings she has found unclear. j'accuse, Nob. Would she have us put up
semantic nets? As one philosopher has said, “the truth is a slippery thing,
and the tread pattern on the soles of our sneakers makes little difference
in the types of fish we may catch.” Yes, I think that sums it up.
The Knitwear Specialist
r.waldo's Nominalist and Realist:
Proportion is almost impossible to human beings. There is no
one who does not exaggerate. In conversation, men are encumbered
with personality, and talk too much.
Subject: Noxious Weed Busting
Message-Id: <12280165477.11.PLAMBECK@Sushi.Stanford.EDU>
I once worked as a member of a “ground crew” whose assignment was
the extermination of noxious weeds. The Nebraska State department of
Agriculture has an official list of weeds it classifies as “noxious.”
Not every weed is noxious: for example, some familiar weeds, like dandelions,
are not. To kill a dandelion is nothing. The noxious weed is
a real opponent. You cannot kill a noxious weed with your bare hands.
One needs a weapon.
On my first day at work, I was introduced to Zane Roper, a seventy year-old
man who had been fighting noxious weeds for decades. He gave me a terse
summary of noxious weeds and the weapons that would be at our disposal.
“We're going to spray Thistles today. You drive the jeep, and I'll walk
behind with the gun. Don't get too goddam far ahead of me. Take those
jugs of 2-4-D. I'm going back for the long hoes and the keys to the
loader; you fill the tank with diesel, put on these gloves, pour in two
jugs and start the mixer. On the way out, remind me to tell you what
Shattercane and Texas Sand Burr looks like. If Gordon comes by ask him
what the hell we're going to do with the tree spade....”
I was overwhelmed with the terminology. “Long hoes?” Wasn't 2-4-D some kind
of toxic chemical? The names of the weeds seemed particularly sinister.
If Zane was going to carry a gun, would I be issued one too?
* * *
Every year, each of 97 Nebraska counties elects a Weed Control Deputy.
The position is not one to be taken lightly. For unto this one person
devolves the ultimate responsibility of ensuring that it is people who
rule in his county, and not noxious weeds. Nebraska is an agricultural
state; in my own county, corn is grown. Living in Nebraska, one might
conclude that it is entirely natural that corn should grow there. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. Noxious weeds governed Nebraska for
50 million years before the first man with a DeKalb hat arrived. This
man has only recently driven the noxious weed into eclipse, and it
requires all his ingenuity to keep the weed down.
Nebraska farmers are required by law to keep their land free of noxious
weeds. Although most succeed, there are inevitable delinquencies and
pockets of weeds where even the diligent farmer is overwhelmed. Noxious
weed control boards, governed by their deputies, are formed as a sort
of agricultural Special Weapons and Tactics team.
Zane and I were just a small part of one team, working in one county,
concentrating on one principal opponent: the Musk Thistle.
A stand of Musk Thistle may be briefly described as a cornfield in hell.
Where sweet corn stands straight, green, neatly arranged in rows and
wafting in the breeze, the Musk Thistle stands twisted, densely packed,
spiky and rigid, with a hideous purplish eye at the top. A corn stalk
may grow to nine feet; Musk Thistles can stand twelve. A naked man,
standing amongst a few hundred Musk Thistles, could hardly hope to
escape alive. He would be cut into fine slices in the attempt.
It is a fertile weed: where 200 Thistles stood on Monday, 1000 might stand
on Wednesday. There is no animal that can eat a noxious weed. Insects
are repelled by them. All of modern agricultural technology is required
to defeat just one.
Zane had been fighting them his entire adult life.
To kill a Musk Thistle, one burns, poisons, and uproots it. All three
operations are necessary. A burnt and poisoned thistle will recover.
An uprooted thistle will reroot itself. It is therefore unrealistic
to hope for ultimate victory over the Thistles, and one must take satis-
faction in knowing that he has at least delivered them a blow.
Zane's simplified strategy was this: suffocation, poisoning, and wounding.
I would drive a jeep pulling a trailer holding a tank filled with a
highly toxic mixture of diesel fuel and 2-4-D. We would advance to
the frontier of the Thistles and don plastic suits. The tank fed a special
spraying gun that was pressurized by an additional engine at the back
of the jeep. On Zane's signal I would throw a lever, and he would spray
the thistles. I would move in his perimeter, striking as many thistles
as possible near their roots with a machete. Diesel fuel will kill a
less hardy plant almost immediately. To kill a thistle, a hot day
is also required--”to bake them miserable bitches good,” in Zane's
phrase.
On a good day we could hope to significantly slow the advance of a few
thousand thistles on an acre or two.
-------
Herbie Husker is a squat cowboy-like figure with a round face and big
biceps. Like the Phoenix, he replaced a ten foot, corncob-headed earlier
version of himself about 1984 I think. (The Phoenix _did_ have a corn
cob head, yes?) My mother made me a quilt on which Herbie commands a
square. I preferred the corn cob head guy, whose name, I am shamed
to admit, I have forgotten.
Speaking of “cob” I remember that in grade school and Junior high we
used this word as a synonym for “steal.” For example you could say
“John cobbed my Pez”
or
“Let's cob his eraser...”
You get the idea.
Anyway I had forgotten this usage until my mother picturesquely used it in
a Thanksgiving telephone conversation. Is it a dead midwesternism or does
it---like “kidney”---merely suffer disuse?
-----
From Robert Nozick's _Philosophical_Explanations_, Harvard 1981:
...it is difficult to discover why the more permanent is the more
valuable or meaningful, why permanence or long-lastingness, why
duration in itself, should be important. Consider those things
people speak of as permanent or eternal. These include (apart from
God) numbers, sets, abstract ideas, space-time itself. Would it
be better to be one of these things? The question is bizarre: how
could a concrete person become an abstract object? Still, would
anyone wish they _could_ become the number 14 or the Form of Justice,
or the null set? Is anyone pining to lead a setly existence?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In 1984 I was in Cambridge with Jim Sanks and he recognized Nozick in
the line ahead of us at some supermarket. Jim told Nozick he thought he
(Nozick) was great, Jim had just read _Philos_Explan_ and thought it was
really good, etc.
Nozick (who was packing more than the 9 item maximum)
looked at Jim like he was insane and didnt reply. So in person RN didnt
turn out to be so funny. Is there a lesson? Golg?
Anyway: here we've got what philosophy has been reduced to in
the last 40 years: a good chuckle. I've been reading some of the
latest philosophy and the most interesting thing is that
it all seems to share one characteristic: it's damn entertaining, even
funny. Perhaps I am viewing the subject through the opaque lenses of a
Knitwer Specialist, and am senstive only to jokes? Maybe. But
Bertrand R. was quite the joker in his better passages, No? I wish
I wrote this Nozick thing, not because it's interesting or wise but
because its a damn good chuckler.
I just read in a book that after the turn of the 20th century it was
the fashion in some circles to call the year 1907 (for example)
“Oughty-seven.” We should seize the revisionist initiative in
preparation for the next palindromic anno, “Oughty-two.” I invite all
to advance the cause: “Oughty-One: A Space Odyssey” would be
a good start.
Q: What is the correct response when someone calls you
on the telephone and asks for you by name?
--From “Mind Your Manners”
A: Not only is there no “correct” response when this disagreeable
thing happens, but there is no real response possible---in the
true sense of the word. Anything you say is makeshift. Hundreds
of “responses” have been tried by millions of phone users; every
one has proved either evasive or ridiculous or rude.
Let us say your name is Brinckerhoff. The phone rings and you answer it,
and a voice says, “I would like to speak to Mr. Brinckerhoff, please.”
You are in an impossible situation. You can say, “This is I,” and
be put down for a purist or a poseur. Or you can say, “This is me,”
and be taken for a tough. Or, rather desperately, you can reply,
“This is he,” or “This is Brinckerhoff,” or “This is Mr.
Brinckerhoff,” referring to yourself grandiloquently in the third
person, in the manner of dictators and kings. Believe us, when a
man starts referring to himself in the third person, the end of the
good life is not far off. To the listener you sound either downright
silly or deliberately vainglorious. Your “response” has a slightly
moldy, undemocratic sound, as when, in the presense of a servant, you
refer to your wife as “Mrs. Brinckerhoff” instead of as “Esther.”
Now, suppose you go off on an entirely different tack when the phone
rings and someone asks for you by name. Suppose you say, with forced
cheeriness, “Speaking!” What a pitiful attempt! The word has hardly
rolled off your tongue when it becomes meaningless, for you are no
longer speaking but are listening---listening, and hoping against hope
that it isn't somebody you can't stand. Or let's take a few other
conventional “responses” and see how miserably they fail:
Voice: “I would like to speak to Mr. Brinckerhoff, please.”
Response: “You are.” This is too rude, too familiar.
Voice: “I would like to speak to Mr. Brinckerhoff, please.”
Response: “Why?” This is evasive, prying.
Voice: “I would like to speak to Mr. Brinckerhoff, please.”
Response: “Go ahead!” Peremptory, unfriendly.
No, there is no “correct” response in this situation. There is
no response that is anything but discouraging. It is the most
disturbing phase of one's telephonic life. Unquestionably it was
not foreseen by Mr. Bell when he was so blithely tinkering with his
little magnets and diaphragms. If only a voice could have whispered,
“I would like to speak to Mr. Alexander Graham Bell, please,” how
much that might have saved the world! Bell would have laid down his
tools with a tired sigh, a man who knew when he was licked.
--from _The Second Tree from the Corner_, by E B White
Q: What is the correct response when someone calls you
on the telephone and asks for you by name?
--From “Mind Your Manners”
A: Not only is there no “correct” response when this disagreeable
thing happens, but there is no real response possible---in the
true sense of the word. Anything you say is makeshift. Hundreds
of “responses” have been tried by millions of phone users; every
one has proved either evasive or ridiculous or rude.
Let us say your name Brinckerhoff. The phone rings and you answer it,
and a voice says, “I would like to speak to Mr. Brinckerhoff, please.”
You are in an impossible situation. You can say, “This is I,” and
be put down for a purist or a poseur. Or you can say, “This is me,”
and be taken for a tough. Or, rather desperately, you can reply,
“This is he,” or “This is Brinckerhoff,” or “This is Mr.
Brinckerhoff,” referring to yourself grandiloquently in the third
person, in the manner of dictators and kings. Believe us, when a
man starts referring to himself in the third person, the end of the
good life is not far off. To the listener you sound either downright
silly or deliberately vainglorious. Your “response” has a slightly
moldy, undemocratic sound, as when, in the presense of a servant, you
refer to your wife as “Mrs. Brinckerhoff” instead of as “Esther.”
Now, suppose you go off on an entirely different tack when the phone
rings and someone asks for you by name. Suppose you say, with forced
cheeriness, “Speaking!” What a pitiful attempt! The word has hardly
rolled off your tongue when it becomes meaningless, for you are no
longer speaking but are listening---listening, and hoping against hope
that it isn't somebody you can't stand. Or let's take a few other
conventional “responses” and see how miserably they fail:
Voice: “I would like to speak to Mr. Brinckerhoff, please.”
Response: “You are.” This is too rude, too familiar.
Voice: “I would like to speak to Mr. Brinckerhoff, please.”
Response: “Why?” This is evasive, prying.
Voice: “I would like to speak to Mr. Brinckerhoff, please.”
Response: “Go ahead!” Peremptory, unfriendly.
No, there is no “correct” response in this situation. There is
no response that is anything but discouraging. It is the most
disturbing phase of one's telephonic life. Unquestionably it was
not foreseen by Mr. Bell when he was so blithely tinkering with his
little magnets and diaphragms. If only a voice could have whispered,
“I would like to speak to Mr. Alexander Graham Bell, please,” how
much that might have saved the world! Bell would have laid down his
tools with a tired sigh, a man who knew when he was licked.
--from _The Second Tree from the Corner_, by E B WhiteFrom plambeck Mon Dec 10
16:14:00 1990
Return-Path: <plambeck>
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Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 16:13:59 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9012110013.AA24991@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: Lake House of Tahoe Pizza
Status: R
Have you ever dined at the Lake House of Tahoe Pizza? This is the correct
name. I believe it is on the North shore?
Now of course we might have expected
The House of Lake Tahoe Pizza
or perhaps
The Lake Tahoe House of Pizza
or maybe
The Pizza House of Lake Tahoe
but you will not find these in the yellow pages. Other possibilities
include
The Tahoe Lake House of Pizza
which is not unfair because the correct name already suggests “Lake House”
as a valid construct. Have I missed any?
From @Sunburn.Stanford.EDU:phil@Neon.Stanford.EDU Fri Mar 1 16:51:18 1991
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Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 16:50:24 -0800
From: Phil Stubblefield <phil@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Message-Id: <9103020050.AA22652@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: myers@cs.Stanford.EDU, plambeck@cs.Stanford.EDU, yoda@intuit.com,
young@cs.Stanford.EDU
Subject: Plambeck collection
Status: R
While talking to Karen the other day, I mentioned that I had recently
stumbled across a collection of BBoard writings from the Good Ol'
Days. She thought it would be nostalgic to see them, so here we go...
[BTW, I never really understood the last message, "Attempted Suicide".
Anyone want to chance an interpretation? The author, perhaps?]
=======================================================================
The Collected BBoard Writings of Thane Plambeck
Date: Sun 15 Feb 87 14:32:37-PST
Subject: How they drive: A Cali-braskan study (part I)
Situation I:
A four-way stop sign.
|c |
|b |
|a | The scenario: Cars a, b, and c
-------- -------- arrive almost simultaneously, as
-------- -------- depicted in the diagram. Their
| d| drivers wish to continue down south
| | through the intersection. Car d
| | arrives just after car a, but before
b or c. Car d wants to turn left.
The California protocol: Car a, car d, car b, and finally car c: the
precedence being determined by arrival times.
The Nebraska protocol: Car a, car b, car c, and finally car d, as if
we had a stop light rather than a 4-way stop.
NOTES: 1) Deadlock if b is Californian, and d is Nebraskan.
2) Starvation impossible in the Nebraska protocol--
there aren't enough cars in Nebraska, except in
funeral processions.
-------
Date: Sun 15 Feb 87 14:46:11-PST
Subject: How they drive: A Cali-braska study (part II)
Situation II:
A wind-swept icy tundra. Two cars approaching one another
at an angle of 37%. Visibility blocked by cows and windmills.
The California protocol: Not supported.
The Nebraska protocol: Person driving the pickup with more
hay in the back taps horn, and proceeds.
NOTES: Of any two automobiles in Nebraska, at least one
is a pickup.
-------
Date: Fri 20 Feb 87 20:56:00-PST
Subject: Haiku
Has everyone tried their hand at Haiku? You remember good ol' Haiku.
Was it Japanese, or Chinese? What were the rules exactly? There
were some numbers involved. The first line had to be one word. It was
the subject. Or was it one syllable?
Hell if I remember.
Well, let's go for it, anyway. Haiku was nature poetry, right? So you
picked a one syllable nature word to kick things off.
“Rocks.”
Good enough, good enough! The second line, what was it? Two syllables,
or two words? They had to be adjectives, describing the subject.
“Hard, unyielding.”
Damn good progress so far. That's 2/5 ths of a Haiku poem. We've got
our subject; make no mistake about that. “Hard” and “unyielding”
are right on the mark too. If some Dunderhead comes at me, trying to
say a rock isn't hard and unyielding, I'll be all over him.
We need three words now. What did they have to say? Or was it three
syllables? “Situate the subject in nature.” Who said that?
“In my hand.”
That's a double winner, words and syllables! We've got some real
momentum rolling now. Four somethings next, further elaborating on
the subject in some restricted way. Anybody remember?
“I'll throw them now”
We need the one word finale. Has to be a nature word. Ha! I've got it.
Rocks
Hard, unyielding
In my hand--
I'll throw them now
Duck!
-------
Date: Wed 4 Mar 87 14:07:36-PST
Subject: Was Rilke a FORTRAN programmer?
You literary types--yo! Listen up.
What's the most amusing corruption of a poem you can twist into a description
of a computer? I, for one, am tired of reading technical documents with
quotations from Marcus Aurelius or lines from Blake heading a section on
the method of steepest descents.
Do technoids really believe that when Shylock asked
“Is it so nominated in the bond?”
he had computer network problems in distributed naming in mind? If not,
why the quotation? Is it because it's really just too embarassing to
write a technical document, and one feels obliged to demonstrate to the
reader that he or she does more than just write technical documents, and
in fact knows something as well?
If we're going to cannibalize literature, I say let's do the job right.
Milton, for example. Certainly his genius was never greater than when he
anticipated the cathode ray tube in Paradise Lost. You remember the lines,
of course:
...yet from those phosphors
No light; but rather darkness visible...
And could anyone fail to recognize the roots of the software crisis in Pope's
Essay on Criticism? The lines were memorable:
'Tis hard to say, whether greater want of skill
Appear in logic or in programming ill...
-------
Date: Sat 14 Mar 87 14:40:21-PST
Subject: Noxious Weeds--the top eight.
This is a list of the world's worst weeds. I took the commentary from
several weed books which are named below.
1. Purple Nutsedge (Cyperus rotundus L.)
“Almost uncontrollable. Reproduces both by seeds
and by vegetative nutlets that are produced in great
numbers at various depths in the soil...”
2. Indian Doob (Cynodon dactylon L.)
“A persistent weed...”
3. Panic-grass (Eschinochloa crus-galli L.)
4. Junglerice (Eschinochola colonum L.)
“Very troublesome... The rootstalk delights in being
fragmented, each piece giving rise to a new, complete
plant...”
5. False Guinea-grass (Sorgum Halepense L.)
“Once widely advertised and planted. It was one thing
to start, quite another to kill it out. Like the
English sparrow, it will be with us forever...”
6. Water Hyacinth (Eichornia Crassipes L.)
“Makes a gorgeous display but has many objectionable
features...”
7. Cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica L.)
“The bane of framers in India, Africa, and much of
the Far East.”
8. Lantana (Lantana canara L.)
References: H. F. Jaques, “How to Know the Weeds,” 1959.
Alden S. Crafts, “Modern Weed Control,” 1975.
Lawrence Crockett, “Wildly Successful Plants,” 1977.
-------
Date: Mon 18 Jan 88 18:32:47-PST
Subject: Diary of the Invisible Man
1 jan 1988 : Woke up this morning with a bad hangover. Standing up
from my futon, noticed I was invisible from the waist
down. Went to take a shower, saw my arms vanish too.
In a full length mirror I was able to see only my retinas.
Hard to pick up things at first but getting used to it.
3 jan 1988 : Spent yesterday thinking of my new powers. I can turn invisible
almost at will. Put on a suit, went invisible and looked
just like all the stupid movie invisible men. Resolved
to never dress while invisible. Must return to work on the
fifth.
4 jan 1988 : Several experiments involving eating and drinking. Food
visible in my mouth until I close it. Stays invisible if
I open it again. Starting to think of some get rich schemes.
Can't decide how obvious my retinas are.
5 jan 1988 : Went to work invisible. Good that I dont have to drive there.
Went visible in bathroom, realized that I was naked, and
for a moment had trouble vanishing.
-------
Date: Thu 21 Jan 88 14:32:02-PST
Subject: The greatest poem in the English language
Surely Susan Polis Schutz and Stephen Schutz are the masters of that
wonderfully deep and inspiring genre we've all come to know as
contemporary American poetry. Their wondrous words continue to reach
out to us even today.
Even so, I still maintain that the greatest poem in the English language
is to be found in the works of Dr. Johnson. You will find it tucked
away in the (unabridged) Lives of the English poets:
I put my hat upon my head
And walked into the Strand.
And there I met another man
Whose hat was in his hand.
Worldwide, of course, the greatest poems are those written in the Haiku
style. The master Wi-Li-Sho (c. 800 AD) has left us this masterpiece:
Bat
Flapping
Flipperty-flapping
Wings flipperty-flappety
Flap
-------
-------
Date: Tue 26 Jan 88 15:16:52-PST
Subject: m o n t y h a l l ' s p r o b l e m
Ilan told me this one.
Monty Hall offers you the choice of three boxes.
Two are empty, but one has a treasure inside.
You select your box.
Monty Hall shows you one of the other boxes was empty.
Monty Hall says, do you want to keep your box, or exchange
it for the other box I haven't opened yet?
<< Fade to Rice-A-Roni >>
“Improving my winning chances from 1/3 to 1/2, I will
take the other box, Monty.”
Right?
-------
Date: Wed 27 Jan 88 01:31:58-PST
Subject: Diary of a Vanishing Man (continued)
10 jan 1988 : This awesome power of invisibility must not corrupt me.
I have resolved to tell no one of my new abilities.
After work, went invisible and took some photographs
of myself in a mirror. There were no surprises--
only my retinas were visible, and these only barely.
Of course you could see the camera.
13 jan 1988 : Went invisible a few times today, but stayed inside.
Picking up things not difficult at all now. While
visible, went to Safeway and bought some Grape Nuts.
I need to toughen the soles of feet--by spreading
the cereal on the basement floor and walking on it.
14 jan 1988 : Curious effect today. For several minutes my elbows
went visible while the rest of me stayed invisible.
No control problems later in the day. The complexity
of my power can be daunting.
16 jan 1988 : Rented several movies and books today that deal with
invisibility. I find their treatment of the subject
banal, even insulting. And of course very far from
being realistic. I hope to use my powers to benefit
mankind. I'd hoped to a least get one good idea.
They are right about how you look with clothes on,
as I mentioned before--stupid.
18 jan 1988 : A call today from my boss. When he said “you certainly
havent been very visible around here the last few days,”
I almost lost it. I must quit my job and work more
seriously at developing my skills.
20 jan 1988 : Call it harmonic convergence: today on the radio quiz
they asked for a phrase with ten occurences of the
same vowel in it. The shortest phrase to win. It
came to me -- “indivisible invisibilities.” Is
there a relation to the elbow event? Questions,
questions, questions.
-------
Date: Wed 3 Feb 88 21:04:56-PST
Subject: Exploits of a real-life Indiana Jones
>From “Giovanni Belzoni: Strong Man Egyptologist,” by Colin Clair.
Belzoni was the worst of the antiquities plunderers of the late
18th and early 19th centuries.
* * * * * *
They made their way along a passage which tunnelled into the mountain,
tortuous and irregular, the roof being in places so low that they
were obliged to creep along on all fours. At length they came to a large space
from which several more passsages branched off, and after some hesitation by
the two Arabs they entered one of them, which was very narrow, long and craggy,
and along this they slowly and painfully toiled until they reached a spot
where two other apertures led to the interior.
`This is the place,' said one of the Arabs to Belzoni, who could not
understand how a large sarcophagus could possibly have been taken out
through such a small aperture. That he was in a burial chamber he was quite
certain, for they were continually walking over skulls and scattered bones.
But that the sarcophagus could have entered so narrow a recess seemed quite
impossible, for Belzoni himself could not get through. One of the Arabs
and the interpreter, however, managed to squeeze through and it was agreed
that Belzoni and the other Arab should wait until they returned.
They had gone a good way, for all trace of their light had disappeared, when
Belzoni suddenly heard a loud noise and the distant voice of the interpreter
crying out in fright: `O mon Dieu! mon Dieu! je suis perdu!' Then complete
and utter silence. Not knowing what had happened Belzoni decided to return
to seek help from the other Arabs.
Turning to the man with him, he told him to lead the way back, but the Arab,
staring at him idiotically, said he did not remember the road to take.
Belzoni called repeatedly to the interpreter, but got no answer. The situation
was not a pleasant one.
He made his way back to the open space where several passages branched off,
but all were so alike that he could not decide which was the right one.
He decided upon one, and along this they crawled, their guttering
candles burning lower and lower, yet he felt it would be dangerous to
put one out to save the other in case the remaining one were, by accident,
extinguished. Just when they thought they were nearing the outside they
found themselves nearing the outside they found themselves up against
a blank wall; they had taken the wrong passage!
There was nothing left for it but to return to the centre of the labyrinth
and try again, after having made a mark on the passage from which they had
just emerged. Every moment of delay was dangerous, for their swiftly
diminishing candles would soon leave them in the dark....
-------
Date: Wed 17 Feb 88 14:33:34-PST
Subject: The NBC news theme tune.
Bee-bom dee be DUMB, be bomb dee-dumb.
I can picture the executives, having decided that a new theme tune
is necessary:
EXEC A: OK we need some real music this time--no CBS clanking
teletype music. It comes over the statue of liberty
or something--no stupid electronic maps. We'll keep
it American. Bill, what's American?
EXEC B: American music? You mean classical or something?
EXEC C: I don't know, Gershwin?
EXEC A: Is there anyone else? Bill?
EXEC B: I dont know, uh...
EXEC C: Copeland!
EXEC B: Who?
EXEC A: OK let's get this guy on the horn. If he could write
something short, something we can flash over the
statue of liberty or a sea to shining sea, that would
be it...who's his agent?
EXEC B: He's not in the flex-o-line.
EXEC C: I think he's dead.
EXEC A: OK so we get something sounding like it, OK? Bill....
“Be dumb be dumb-dumb, be dumb dumb-dumb”
-------
Date: Sun 28 Feb 88 15:27:42-PST
Subject: Attempted Suicide
E S E
d u d
I I I
S u I c I u S
I I I
d u d
E S E
-------
You literary types--yo! Listen up.
What's the most amusing corruption of a poem you can twist into a description
of a computer? I, for one, am tired of reading technical documents with
quotations from Marcus Aurelius or lines from Blake heading a section on
the method of steepest descents.
Do technoids really believe that when Shylock asked
“Is it so nominated in the bond?”
he had computer network problems in distributed naming in mind? If not,
why the quotation? Is it because it's really just too embarassing to
write a technical document, and one feels obliged to demonstrate to the
reader that he or she does more than just write technical documents, and
in fact knows something as well?
If we're going to cannibalize literature, I say let's do the job right.
Milton, for example. Certainly his genius was never greater than when he
anticipated the cathode ray tube in Paradise Lost. You remember the lines,
of course:
...yet from those phosphors
No light; but rather darkness visible...
And could anyone fail to recognize the roots of the software crisis in Pope's
Essay on Criticism? The lines were memorable:
'Tis hard to say, whether greater want of skill
Appear in logic or in programming ill...
Would R please explain what is meant by the phrase “do the nasty.”
Of course it's not hard to stand on the sidelines and carp about other
people's musical attachments. Just keep in mind that if anyone asks you
what your own tastes are, the answer is “oh, I like all kinds.” Or
say that you like jazz and immediately follow up with imaginary groups,
perhaps Scarf McGuppy or the Norton Sampson quintet. It takes a strong person
to admit he has never heard of the Norton Sampson quintet. There is a coolness
factor and sometimes it can be hard to ante up. In the 70s it was at least
enough to know that Steely Dan was a group and not a person. Animal, mineral
or vegetable? That's a good way to answer when musical topics come up.
In Transcendental Meditation they give you a personal mantra not to be
repeated to anyone but the secret is that everyone gets the same one (ommmm...)
If it is live classical music then a good comment is “the violas seemed
a bit scratchy.” Which brings up the Sir Adrian Boult anecdote that
everybody knows and which I won't repeat unless someone asks.
In various newspapers of record (whatever that means), for example
the Examiner, inferior to the Chronicle in its premature use of color
yet superior in that the word “cigarette” is spelled correctly, the
variant “cigaret” being the kind of sacrifice on the altar of efficiency
and wood-pulp conservation at which one has to draw the line---now let's
get a grip---in some newspapers, they have a section in which Area Crimes
are summarized. It's a damn fine section, in my opinion. I had a
one-time Physics tutor, Oxford-Cambridge-Coldstream Guards, who used to
pop out with an abrupt "SPOT ON!" at favorable events and otherwise
likable things/events, and the Area Crimes summary, were he ever to
have seen it, would surely have qualified. There are lessons, for example--
the difference between robbery and burglary is that in the former the victim is
confronted---but more interesting are the catchalls used for misdeeds
in the none of the above category. For example the Menlo police report
6 cases of "Suspicious Circumstances" in the last week in that city.
Maybe you are dining at a fine establishment, Su Hong or something more
proletarian and just as you are about to pay, an unfamiliar man in
spats appears and offers to pick up your tab. Say it happens again the
next night at Star Pizza maybe, anyway, you get the idea---this is the
kind of thing that pops into my head---"Suspicious Circumstances." It's
only one possibility of course, and perhaps it's not a crime, but the
police should probably be looking into it. The Menlo and Palo Alto
police are not too busy anyway. I called them because I heard scratching
noises outside our apartment and before you could say "Possum" the
dispatcher assured me that she had "Three Units Responding." There were
spotlights moving up and down the far side of the building and the critter
was turned up soon enough. Imprisoned with hardened lawbreakers, that
animal will never be the same again.
This may not rank up there with the decipherment of Linear B or
the discovery of Carbon 60 but surely the repeated occcurrence of
“Who's the Boss?” at the top of the TV listings indicates a certain
deficiency in the American Critical Facility (this is the proper
term?). Or say we are to take the reins of some higher circle in
Hell and we decide: yes, it would be good to have noise of some kind,
let's not say 1/f noise or static but something irritating in a
specific way, something that can really get on a person's nerves,
let's say, yes, I've got it: Tony Danza. I think that is what we
would decide. We might have Musak in the background or that man
Tesh from Entertainment tonight fill in on weekends but it is clear
that Danza would be the man for the long haul. There are words
you cant quite call cliches but yet seem to come in Siamese adjunction
with other words and phrases, and when J. Euclid writes of Thought and
Mind control these are the expressions that come to mind---”Sacrilegious”
“Ulterior Motive” etc... With every sentence is associated a
certain information content and when phrases like “it is so political”
arise the baud rate is dropping rapidly to zero. Someone said of
Edmund Burke that he was a man with whom it was impossible to spend
30 seconds without the apprehension that he was extraordinary in some
way. Hardy sought “Spin” and “Old Brandy.” My opinion of Edmund
B.'s “The French Revolution” was (as I was reading it) yes, this is it,
this is Truth, this is the clear view, I am persuaded. But in the
encyclopedias it is remarked that “His views on the French Revolution
must be disregarded,” etc... So what do you make of that?
The Nebraska football head coach before Bob Devaney lost his job
mostly because he liked to punt on third down. It was called a
quick kick in those days, perhaps also in these days. In
the time before the Forward Pass was King, defenses would often
have all players within 5 or ten yards of the line of scrimmage.
The quick kick would sail long over their heads and bounce for
about 50 yards.
More sports facts: 1) only the last guy on each end of the line
of scrimmage can catch a pass. That's why receivers often line up
one step off the line of scrimmage. 2) If a defender doesnt turn
for the ball on a forward pass, he can't raise his arms to try to
knock the ball down. It's called “face guarding” and in my opinion
it should not be illegal, especially in the professional game where
there is altogether too much tossing the ball around. It would also
be kind of amusing to watch the deep safety chasing Jerry Rice,
flailing his arms in the hopes of deflecting the ball. No one but
Knitwear specialists seems to know about this rule (especially football
commentators); often an interference penalty is called not because
“there was contact before the ball arrived,” but instead because
there was some insufficiently disguised face-guarding taking place.
3) In baseball with a runner at first base, the pitcher can only
“throw to the bag.” That's why runners can lead off base so much.
It's a balk if the pitcher throws to the first baseman when he is not
at the bag. 4) In basketball a “closely guarded” player can have the
ball for at most 12 seconds: 4 seconds holding it, 4 seconds dribbling,
and then 4 seconds holding it again. It's supposed to be travelling
if the (fixed) pivot foot leaves the ground before a dribbler drops the
ball from his or her hand the first time.
LM Boyd
* * * * *
Two months earlier I am in a bar talking to a blowhard who has
written a book (Oxford Press, 1992) about a Supreme Court justice.
He wears glasses and even as he fragments me with his assessment
that
"Yes, I suppose I have accomplished a lot in my life,"
I make an important discovery that what reflects back from his glasses
doesn't quite match what it should be. It was a suspicion I had held
about reflecting surfaces, that some kind of cheating was going on.
Yes there is diffraction and angles and everything else but the important
thing is that even admitting mathematical principles when
you look closely you will see (darkly) that what is in the glass
is not quite what it should be. I checked it in a sequence of
home experiments and believe me you should too. OK, yes: I don't know
what the hell to make of it. But try it out looking at various
reflecting objects: store fronts, computer screens (turned off),
mirrors. The question must be approached very carefully.
Take some photographs. You will find that there are certain
inconsistencies. There will be a little light spot where there
shouldn't be one for example. Or there will be some kind of
shadow down about 1/3 of the way down.
* * * *
The next morning, at the periphery of my sight as I am getting out
of bed, a brilliant flash in the Ultraviolet and I am thinking wait,
it's supposed to be strictly Roy G. Biv, this is not a “Bee Purple”
kind of deal, and I realize: I have X-RAY Vision. It's a strictly
willful ability and ridiculously I am already thinking of heading outside
to look at a few women. I resolve to tell no one of my new abilities.
* * * *
From neon!plambeck Thu Feb 7 22:10:28 PST 1991
Article: 1328 of su.roger-or-andy
Newsgroups: su.roger-or-andy
Path: neon!plambeck
From: plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Thane E. Plambeck)
Subject: Pinot Noir
Message-ID: <1991Feb8.060210.4025@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
References: <1991Feb6.225434.5163@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Distribution: su
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 06:02:10 GMT
Lines: 26
Just as the Pinot Noir hits the bloodstream the compositional
fluids flow. Certainly several points require comment. First,
I applaud the recent su.r* volume (but wonder why this is the
first posting today). As a mental exercise let's say we have
before us an issue of the Reader's Digest. It goes without saying
that we will ignore the “Notes from Medicine” (we expect at least
to live to 2002) and the “Drama in Real Life” (unless it has to do
with a plane crash or the north pole) but amongst “Humor in Uniform,”
“Quotable Quotes,” “It Pays to Enrich your Word Power,” “Life in
These United States,” and those little one-liners used to fill out space
after articles, what shall we read first? Humor in U. is anachronistic
and suggests Beetle Bailey in an unpleasant way. Quotable Q's always
includes the damn Santayana blurb and something Bennett Cerfian (Is Sex
Necessary?) and otherwise tends to raise one blood temperature in
unforeseen and (again) unpleasant ways. We reconsider: perhaps one
of the main articles should be read? Is there room in the Ideal Universe
for the Iacocca abridgment? I doubt that very much. My mother always
excused the presence of the Reader's D. in our home by winking and
saying that Grandma had paid for the subscription but now that Grandma
is gone one visitor observed that recent issues were still to be found
lying about the house. I did not press her for an explanation. The
closest she came to an apology was asserting that the R.D. is “the
magazine nobody is willing to admit they like.” Was she willing then to
admit she likes it? No reply. There are certain mechanisms by which
an innocent and otherwise unsuspecting boy acquires the name Thane
and to have English professor parents is perhaps the most likely.
Concerning the contrapositive of “if you don't understand this
paragraph, that's OK...” Applying the known Laws of Grammar and
the technique Semantic Inversion, I obtain “if that's not OK, then
you do understand this paragraph.” Strangely, the technique sheds
no light on my original meaning, which although radiant and clear
as a sunspot to me when I first wrote it, nevertheless proves elusive
now in a moment of quiet reflection. It can be difficult to gather
one's thought. For example I find that the repeated use of the expressions
“Wait, let me think...” and “OK...wait...” interspersed with
nervous giggling and eyeball batting do little more than draw out
the time before I have to eventually say, OK, I have no idea what I
am talking about. Sometimes waiting and thinking don't seem to
accomplish very much. The man of action does very little waiting and
when he thinks, it is strictly on the fly. At least that's what
I always thought. But wait, let me think....
From plambeck Fri Sep 13 23:47:24 1991
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Status: R
----- Transcript of session follows -----
550 su.roger-or-andy... User unknown
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Date: Fri, 13 Sep 91 23:47:21 -0700
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9109140647.AA23251@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: su.roger-or-andy
Subject: Gewurztraminer
La Pyramide
A phone call from the Swede, 7:00am, the middle of the night,
especially for the Swede.
The machine answers. The Swede starts barking.
"Pick up the phone. You miserable bitch. You won.
The lottery. It's on the TV. Listen to this you bastard..."
A click and a recorded voice:
Dog---Thorn---Pisces....
Cheesecake--35--Spritzer....
and I'm thinking OK, but there had to be 200,000 people who started
things off with "Dog Thorn Pisces, Cheesecake 35 Spritzer."
It's not enough to be named "Elvis," after all. You need the whole
thing, Elvis Presley. A principle I try to adhere to: "Prefixes
aren't everything." If ever you had a good example of the principle,
here it was. Still I when heard
August---Dolphin---Cannonball...
and then
Prong--Prong---Prong,
I'm reconsidering. So I pick up the phone. "Swedo: what's your
factor?"
But the line is dead.
* * * * * *
Next thing a press conference, microphones jammed and they want to know,
what am I going to do with the money, twenty-five billion dollars, the
national debt lottery. It's my big chance. I find the most
significant-looking camera and I'm solid with
"I will build a Pyramid, a pyramid to dwarf those at Giza
and at Cheops. A pyramid not to remain 1000 years nor
10,000 years, but FOREVER...."
Here I indulge my audience with a meaningful pause. The disadvantage
is that they expect some more explanation. So I throw in
"There will be a Visitor's Center; my assistants are distributing
the relevant brochures. Thank you all very much..."
And Bush-like I glide out of the room, a good time to exit.
Of course, I was lying about the brochures.
* * * * *
Two months earlier I am in a bar talking to some blowhard who has
written a book about a Supreme Court justice. He wears glasses
and even as he fragments me with the self-congratulatory remark
"Yes, I suppose I have accomplished a lot in my life,"
I make an important discovery that what reflects back from curved
lenses like his glasses doesn't quite match what it should be.
It's a suspicion that I have long held about reflecting surfaces:
yes there is diffraction and angles and everything else but the important
thing is that even admitting all these mathematical principles when
you look closely you will see that what is in the glass darkly
is not quite what it should be. I checked it in a sequence of
home experiments and believe me you should too. I don't know
what the hell to make of it. Try it out looking at various
reflecting objects: store fronts, computer terminals (turned off),
maybe a lake just after you have dropped in a stone. Look at
it very carefully, take some photographs. You will find that there
are certain incosistencies. There will be a little light spot where there
shouldn't be one for example. Or there will be some kind of
shadow down about 1/3 of the way down. It's always something.
not romanesque but richardsonian romanesque. henry hobson richardson i
think was his name. he spent time in paris at some art and architectural
schools and then in the late 1870's and 1880's started popping up buildings
identical to stanford minus the mission tile all over the country,
particularly boston where a building essentially identical to memorial
church was to be built but i dont think it ever was. the plan is
identical down (up) to the original pointy steeple (see all the people)
also some railroad stations that look like little toyons and have the
arches. now the point is that these buildings tend to look like
fascist fortifications after a while unless you pop mission tile on the
top when suddenly the whole enterprise is pulled out of the fire.
people know this intuitively at stanford and that is why ugly buildings
continue to get their crimson caps to this day. R, your turn. Ha.
There is the pleasure of certain Spanish words, say “Rinconada”
or “Embarcadero.” You will want to try them for yourself. Even El
Camino is not bad. However: during a visit to marin, when already
suspecting that I was in paradise my host sat back in her hot tub and
said, “well yes the peninsula area is nice, and I do like Palo Alto.
But when I lived there suddenly I had the realization---I am spending way
too much time on El Camino Real---you know what I mean I'm sure.” Only
too well. we could assert that unhappiness increases the closer we
get to living in Marin. But once in Marin, well, it turns out life is
nice after all. The best street of all, “Almeda de las Pulgas.” Golg
gets to ride it everyday, even if sometimes skidding on the roof of his
car at 2am. The key to the housing market is this: if you ask, “how
much is that house?” you are already a loser, you cant afford it.
Take on debt like Sisyphus, push it up the hill and reaching the top,
take a second mortgage. If you die without debt what have you achieved
but failing to live at other people's expense.
From plambeck Sun Feb 3 13:45:55 1991
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Date: Sun, 3 Feb 91 13:45:53 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9102032145.AA26208@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: Blacklisting, unfounded accusation, -R, backbiting, censorship, etc...
Status: R
I want to make it perfectly clear that I was not the one who offered to take
-R to the quad for a moonlit, midnight kiss. At least I won't do it until
he shaves off that beard. It scratches. Besides, everyone with a beard ends
up falling into one of five equivalences classes of people who wear beards,
all people in the same class being indistinguishable from other people in
that class, with -R belonging to one of the larger cardinality classes, so
that he might try to send a substitute or otherwise try to take advantage of
what for me would only be an expression of true, heartfelt emotion. Now is
not the time for me to discuss my own suspicions, but let me say this: is it
possible that person we are recognize as -R, heavily bearded and Vuarneed, is
in fact only one of several intelligent reasoning agents manipulated by the
international forces resisting peace and progress? I mean to ask this question
in an innocent way, so as to start debate.
From plambeck Mon Jan 28 20:48:34 1991
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Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 20:48:32 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9101290448.AA26386@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: A mailer-ripened contribution
Status: RO
Now -R has charged me with fabricating the Triple Sprog anecdote. Moreover
he notes that it is not difficult to supply additional spurious detail to
what is already a false story. I suppose he wants what all the TV people
are calling “independent confirmation.” I must ask, what is ind.
confirmation, anyway? I imagine you call one person, and he says, “the
SCUD missile program in Iraq was developed at UC Berkeley.” Then you
call someone else, say -R, and he says, “Yes, that is correct.” I suppose
I'm supposed to believe that? There comes a time when I think we to look
in our hearts, -R, and ask, “would the Knitwear Specialist spin yarns? Or
would he rather take only the finest materials and deliver the final
product?”
MOTORCYCLES OK.
Making one's blood run cold: the sudden realization that for perhaps
several years the words "entomology" and "etymology" have along with
THURMOND MUNSON and BUNSEN BURNER suffered a certain intertwining
of meaning. It's a fine line between sense and nonsense. The idea
is to approach it always staying just on the right side (i.e., nonsense).
Or again: perhaps it's only "picaresque" and "picturesque" was never
a word at all except in that Readers Digest section? What does
"picaresque" mean, anyway? Do I ask too many questions?
FUN THINGS ABOUT C++
--------------------
1) You get to type :: all the time.
2) You can get away pronouncing Bjarne “Barney.”
3) You get to type things like
Prong prong("prong");
4) The word `static' has at least 4 meanings.
5) Talking about objects and classes makes you feel
like some kind of philosopher.
G.B.S. wrote to Henry Charles Duffin that “obviously when a passage
is unsatisfactory the shortest way to deal with it is not to enter
into long explanations but to correct or rewrite it.” Now that could
be true but it leaves open the question of how to write, say, a Ph.D.
thesis.
Also, somebody has brought up Hazlitt. Perhaps we should reconsider
his remark that “what made me dislike the conversations of learned
or literary men was that I got nothing from them but what I already
knew, and hardly that, for they poured the same ideas and phrases
and cant of knowledge out of books into my ears, as apothecaries made
prescriptions out of the same bottles; but there were no new drugs
in their materia medica to cause me to feel that I learnt from listening
to them.” Isn't this a long explanation (but probably satisfactory)?
Or should Bill have just said no.
My father recently retired from 35 years of Nebraska high school
basketball and football officiating. Now he is serving as a “monitor”
who checks up on the current officials, sending reports back to
the NSAA (Nebraska State Athletic Association). His most recent trip
was to a (Class D) girls basketball game in Roseland, Nebraska, population
580. He finished his report with this sentence: “for a time it seemed
that I had seen those very same girls making those very same mistakes five
and ten years ago, but then I realized it was just those old dreary
memories returning.” From plambeck Wed Dec 12 23:46:31 1990
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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 90 23:46:30 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9012130746.AA07246@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: Sprog, Double Sprog, Triple Sprog.
Status: R
A sprog is an error.
The double sprog:
1) A man approaches a set of double doors, both labelled “Pull.”
He does not know that the left door is locked. Reaching them,
he first pulls on the left door (a sprog, but not scored against
him). Sprog #1: He pushes on the right door. Sprog #2: He
returns to the left door, and tries pushing it.
2) In basketball, a turnover followed by a foul.
The triple sprog:
I witnessed the following triple sprog in Lincoln, NE
(contra Carolyn Tajnai, NE is here Nebraska and not New England).
A man driving a 1984 Brown Buick Electra approaches a railroad
intersection just after the automatic guard bar has descended.
Sprog #1: He fails to notice that there is a police car behind him,
and makes the decision to circumnavigate the bar. Sprog #2: As
he moves into the intersection he realizes that traffic is stopped
just beyond the crossing so he cannot get across. Shifting the
car rapidly into reverse, he slams into the police car (now immediately
behind him). Sprog #3: Not realizing that the approaching train
is on another track, he brings the car sharply forward so as to
make a U-turn on the tracks. But as he is turning the wheels drop
perfectly into the tracks of the oncoming train.
At this point I had to leave my own car (two behind the police car)
to run for cover, so I missed any of the additional sprogs that
may have taken place between his abandoning the car and the impact.
From plambeck Wed Jan 30 00:57:04 1991
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Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 00:57:03 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9101300857.AA09021@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: It's better with the extra header. Really.
Status: R
As for -R's last intoxicating brew of linguistic trickery, all I can say is
this: I stand by my previous posting. I have no recollection of ever having
had a conversation with -R about the Triple Sprog....no wait. OK I may have
made a few remarks. But I make no concessions, so as not to reward aggression.
I suppose this means no one will believe me if I tell the story of my friend
Kern Heaton and his 7th grade Evil Knievel copycat jump over the Kearney canal.
The minibike was a total loss and we were forced by our parents to return the
ticket sale money ($3 a classmate). I will provide no further spurious detail.
Nor could I relate the Nosebleed story. Let me say this: a humidifier is
often a quite reasonable wintertime purchase in drier climates.
I will also remain silent about the time the Swede's toe fell off. If the
President's physical fitness test in your junior high school included the
“Shuttlerun” and the gym had a tartan floor, would you run in barefoot?
A hypothetical question. Let's say things get a bit sticky.
Or more recently in San Francisco when I strolled outside the Cafe Picaro
with Steve Norman and saw him step in the largest pile of shit I have ever
seen in an urban environment. In moments I saw a man reduced from a doulbe
latte quiet confidence to imploring the street people to take $2 if only
they would clean his shoe. Let's say things get a bit sticky.
Here are the ten worst popular songs of the 1970's:
“Feelings” (Morris Albert)
“Muskrat Love” (Captain and Tennille)
“You're Having my Baby” (Paul Anka)
“You Light Up my Life” (Debbie Boone)
“Seasons in the Sun” (Terry Jacks)
“Laughter in the Rain” (Neil Sedaka)
“Go Away Little Girl” (Donny Osmond)
“Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” (Rupert Holmes)
“Billy, Don't be a Hero” (Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods)
“I Like Dreamin” (Kenny Nolan)
--from the Boston Phoenix
Is it true that the appeasement of terrorists will only lead to more
terrorism? If so, what proof can be offered? When we say, “the
United States should not negotiate with terrorists,” what is meant?
The payment of ransom has a long and colorful precedent in history;
why do Americans forbid themselves from considering it?
It's easier to call a person a terrorist than it is to understand
why he does what he does. “I will not negotiate with you” is often
verbal shorthand for “You are an unreasonable, paradoxical maniac
whose ideas, being unfamiliar to me, I must condemn.” Would anyone
care to defend the claim that Ronald Reagan has anything
but the dimmest understanding of Middle East politics? Or, declining
this opportunity, perhaps one would champion George Shultz?
When Reagan speaks impromptu on foreign affairs, the results are
appalling.
Clarence T is the one telling Fibs, no? At least I would take a 7 to 1
bet that the words “Long Dong Silver” indeed passed his lips.
He said that “you have taken my integrity from me,” but you cant
really do that just by making charges, can you? He confuses “apparent
integrity” with the real thing. If you want reliability, remember I made
that prediction that those crop circles would be revealed as a fraud
about 2 months ago, et voila. However Clarence T is right about the
Kafkaesque Thing. He should be hoping that the Whipping Machine (is
it in The Trial?) doesnt make an appearance. In particular I seem to
remember that at the very end of The Trial there is a bit about K
feeling that he is being coerced to commit suicide, the examiners never
quite say that is what K is expected to do but there are certain hints
that he should just give up and plunge the knife into his own chest.
But I dont think he does it, the examiners have to kill him in the end.
“Someone must have been telling lies about K....” anyway you get the
idea. Also that green cloth they throw over the examinee table has
a certain worn informality that makes the whole thing a bit more
horrifying. Amongst the Senators it's not clear who one would elect
to preserve for future generations to study. Anyway Biosphere II
is full.
From plambeck Tue Jan 8 00:40:20 1991
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Date: Tue, 8 Jan 91 00:40:18 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9101080840.AA14830@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: Batter my heart three personed god, (quote approx)
Status: R
Some more thoughts for the palindromic anno. As Gidi has observed, most
of us can expect to see 2002 as well, but does anyone really expect to
run things out until 2112? (“In the year 2525... // It's unlikely I'll
still be alive (jingle approx))
More seriously in H.G. Wells “The Time Machine” the traveller somehow
is victimized by the machine run amok and travels to the Year..... (make
your guesses now)....387,355. Surely the sun will have exploded by then?
Still if you had deposited, say, $10 in a trustworthy institution think
of the killing you could make.
There remains the question of NFL football team helmet designs. Aren't
many of these in need of postmodern revision? The dolphin on the Dolphin's
helmet is anatomically correct and moreover is wearing his own little helmet
with a tiny “M” on it I believe. It is obvious which teams have spruced
up their symbols (Bengals, Falcons) in order position themselves a bit more
agressively for the 90's. The Oilers probably lost last week because of
their inferior design, an again over-detailed oil derrick to representational
to call up the appropriate military-industrial complex allusions so necessary
to winning play. Other teams with bad symbols are the Patriots and the Chiefs.
The Vikings made a change when I was in high school I think but they probably
need another one. Does the name Joe Kapp carry no weight anymore?
In the 1,000 years of su.roger history, never has there been so
long a dearth of messages. Now is the time to support this newsgroup.
We know you are listening. Pledge now. This means you too Golg.
OK so it isn't *exactly* 1,000 years. But what was the big deal
in Kiev in the year 991? Probably not so much. It's not good to
go around foaming about 1,000 anyway. In fact, whenever someone
is described as “going around (doing)” something, it usually turns
bad, viz:
“So she went around saying my Russian was a fraud, the backward R
isnt even a consonant! The nerve.”
“So there I was, going around and around with him. But it was
Tilt-o-Whirl, so maybe that's not surprising.”
Which only goes to show, it's hard to find two really good examples
of anything.
Spacing is everything: noone likes to read alot.
Incidentally, that word, “alot,” is pronounced to rhyme with
“ballot.” I'm talking about when it occurs in poetry and such:
On the night of the first ballot,
He won by a landslide and an alot.
From plambeck Sun Feb 3 19:16:13 1991
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Date: Sun, 3 Feb 91 19:16:12 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9102040316.AA12543@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: Tornado story (doubters may press “n” now)
Status: R
I was umpiring a Senior Little League baseball game in Grand Island, Nebraska,
the night 9 tornados obliterated other sections of that city in 1981. I was
in the midst of contemplating just how large a strike zone I could implement
in order to bring the game to its wretched conclusion before the rain started
when wrapt in the contemplation of distant cumuli I perceived a wall of sand
advancing at 60 miles per hour from the adjacent diamond. Instinctively I
turned on a miniature camcorder in order to record this extraordinary event
for the doubters I knew would eventually plague me, but as my ears filled
with sand I dropped the instrument along with my ball-strike-out counter,
and fell to the ground. Sadly, it would be inaccurate for me to describe
baseball bats driven through tree stumps or other tornadiana because after
the sand storm stopped things became calm for a moment whereafter hail the
size of jumbo marshmallows but much more hard started falling. Calling the
game with an expansive gesture, I joined the ballplayers in shelter and
only after driving home 40 miles to Kearney did I learn the extent of the
damage. There is some Chinese guy who simulates Funnelcloud in this wierd
airchamber and I recently I saw an article in one of those insufferable airline
magazines in which this guy described the G.I. storm as a “textbook tornado
swarm.” Which just goes to show, although weather can be violent it often
will just pass you by with an earful. (other lessons could surely be drawn)
Speaking of Picard didn't I glimpse him slipping unnoticed into
Biosphere II? Perhaps he thought the different uniform would
prove an ingenious disguise. I don't know why all the scientific
people are in such a huff about Bio II. To my mind the question
being asked is perfectly sound: can humans, like snails and fungi,
live in terrariums? As usual they have ignored the earlier research:
millions drove those AMC Pacers in the 70s. I rode in a few and
although they were hot, I survived.
From plambeck Tue Oct 9 23:26:26 1990
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Date: Tue, 9 Oct 90 23:26:24 -0700
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9010100626.AA02523@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: (none) ---possibly twin peaks
Status: R
Some analysis of the recent twin peaks:
It's risky to introduce the supernatural and UFO-ial because these
are essentially proletarian concepts that when explored to any
depth are revealed to be very stupid. I once read a book called
by stan lem called “his masters voice” which the sf-heads amongst us
may have also read and let me be perfectly clear, I HATE science fiction,
but the point was this: a man, selling extra-T transmissions as
random numbers, is confronted by a customer who points out that these
bits, put forward as random, in fact repeat themselves after some
large number of gigabytes. a los-alamos-type effort is struck up
to determine what the hell these bits are and the mathematician-narrator
and indeed none of the most-qualified scientific personnel described
in the book are ever able to figure out what the bits mean, although
they are able to interpret some homomorphism of the bits as chemical
formulas and they synthesize some sort of slime out of it that has
odd properties. now ones interest in this story may indicate
nerd tendencies but I for one found it at least mildly compelling
particularly because the right note---that of never really figuring
out what the bits mean---is struck.
These outerspace phenomena, if explained, lose much of their force
so that the narrative motive force eventually causes them to become,
as I have already said, very stupid.
From plambeck Tue Oct 9 23:42:46 1990
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Date: Tue, 9 Oct 90 23:42:45 -0700
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9010100642.AA03143@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: extra-T in art, etc...
Status: R
so then, take for example close encounters of the third kind. now that
was a typical case. the movie is quite interesting to the point when
things are being explained----when the spaceships appear we begin to
feel an ennui, a thickness, a (how should I say it) Very Stupidness.
when the extra-terrestrials themselves are seen, we feel silly indeed
to have even entered the theatre. the best plan, the only plan, once
these concepts have been brought into play, is to forever postpone
explanation or clarification, and it is in this sense that they may
succeed in twin peaks. what we have here, ultimately, of course,
is a SYMBOL of what is unanswered in our lives, whatever that may be.
an explanation, once offered and accepted, in effect destroys that
thing which it explains. the little green man is of course, a fetus,
an origin, or a place unexplained. ((let me recommend this
rhetorical technique, that of spraying `of course' into your
writing at random, unexplained points, to you)) the habit of
CAPITALIZING words, on the other hand, demeans the reader and let
me offer my apology before continuing.
From plambeck Wed Oct 10 00:04:09 1990
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Date: Wed, 10 Oct 90 00:04:08 -0700
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9010100704.AA04089@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: science, fiction, and science fiction
Status: R
fiction, then, is false; science, explaining; science fiction, explaining
the false. we are not interested in science
because it explains, but because it delineates the unexplained more
clearly. we would see the ufo photo, but not a description of what
these extra-T's really are, because then we have science, we have an
explanation, and we are not interested in explanations, and particularly
in explanations of what we already understand to be in false framework
(art is representational). there are riddles of this sort---”a man
is dead in a closed room and the floor is wet”---for which we are asked
to guess an explanation---and the so-called answers go something like
---”he tied a rope around his neck while standing on a block of ice and
as it melted he strangled.” I would say that to the extent one is
interested in these sort of riddles, one is unable to adopt what I
would call the True Critical Viewpoint: art is what it offers, and no
more, and the greatest sin is to bring one's own biases or inventions
to the critical effort. Such a riddle could in effect have any solution:
why am I being asked to provide one?/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////
From plambeck Wed Oct 10 00:36:42 1990
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Date: Wed, 10 Oct 90 00:36:41 -0700
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9010100736.AA05664@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: ESP paranormal, etc.
Status: R
One might think naively that to distinguish between what is ESP, paranormal,
bigfoot, kirlian photography etc and what is science, say fourier series,
superconductivity or anil's thesis would be a difficult thing but we know
it to be trivial. Only in the lower reaches of the prole press (national
enquirer) do we encounter any confusion about what's what, and this only
in the context of appropriating the scientist's authority for headlining
(“Top researchers baffled by Zebra's Haiku”) I own a two volume
“research study” on Bigfoot but the emphasis throughout is on what is
unknown or mysterious about the creature, and not on what evidence,
even if fabricated, really exists. for example many pages are devoted
to “possible sightings,” but none to “sightings.” there are big
apes and the lines are not long at the zoo---but this is irrelevant
because it is the unknown dimension that we are being asked to respond to.
let's agree then on this point and move on. taking a closer look
at the UFO, extra-t's etc. in our culture reveals some interesting points
(next message if I continue typing....)
From plambeck Wed Oct 10 00:57:09 1990
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Date: Wed, 10 Oct 90 00:57:08 -0700
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9010100757.AA06401@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: across that crazy quilt we call the classes
Status: R
take the ufo encounter as we find it in movies, in books, in television
commercials. at the prole level (national enquirer) we find the
abduction theme. the aliens seize a victim who is returned unharmed
with vague and usually not altogether unpleasant recollections. higher
up the cultural ladder (but not too high) we find the man, isolated in
a rural environment, suddenly illuminated by a bright, mesmerizing light.
the aliens inspect the human and move on, and the man understands himself
to have been in considerable danger, perhaps because bright fireballs that
burned circular patches into a nearby wheatfield may just have well have
burned him alive and indeed looking at his fishing waders we find them
to be singed at the seams. still higher on the cultural ladder we have
what is known as “the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence”
with radio waves, space-craft messages on records, and the musings
of Carl Sagan. at the top we have twin peaks, where the ineluctable
core of the idea is yanked out and thrown in with its true company,
the unexplained murder, the mentally half-sane, the inscrutable
closed community with symbolic visitor (agent cooper), prostitution,
shady investment practices, and the far east.
From plambeck Wed Oct 10 01:32:39 1990
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Date: Wed, 10 Oct 90 01:32:38 -0700
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9010100832.AA07702@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: you know
Status: R
if twin peaks is about anything it is about messages, messages sent but
not received, messages by phone, messages as clues, messages as dreams,
messages as massages (one-eyed jacks). we have messages from logs,
messages from birds, messages going on to recording tape for diane, messages
to iceland, messages from outerspace, messages from a giant in the
middle of the night with UFO bright light metaphor, strange accent
and token of proof (missing ring). The best scene in the last Twin peaks
was between the military man and the log lady---the log's message was
“deliver the message,” the log ladies question was “do you understand that,”
and his answer was “yes, I believe I do.” It was a gratifying scene
for the viewer precisely because this moment distilled the act of reception
from our own understanding of the information conveyed---we know
none of the message, the sender, the receiver or the mechanism by
which it is conveyed, but that it is confirmed as received is gratifying
to us. modern man desires community and a sense of belonging and even
this highly reduced communal feeling or understanding strikes a deep chord.
raw materials:
menlo park
palo alto
mountain view
los gatos
portola valley
redwood city
sunny vale
santa clara
san jose
in vitro combos:
los altos -- cross Palo Alto with Los Gatos
(you get a little of each)
mountain jose -- no one wants to go there but
everyone knows the way
santa city -- midway between santa clara
and redwood city. (i.e. stanford
cardinal s.c. w/ OMB investigation)
please carry on from here... TKS
I took delivery on a Garrison-like pair of new spectacles over the
weekend. Heavy plastic on the top, largely wireless on the bottom,
they are perfect for forming conspiracy theories. They have “high index”
lenses. When I walk it seems as though with each stride
I am coming out of some kind of pit, even on level ground. And
my feet and soup spoon look very, very, very tiny.
Following Golg's lead I have also taken steps forward in the contact
lens domain, tossing out my previously undisposable lenses for the new
kind that you throw out on a schedule. The general question arises:
Who has vision? I worked for a software company in
which it was customary to refer to paying customers as “visionaries;”
skeptical or otherwise nonpaying customers were “not visionaries.”
When I took my eye test I was shocked to discover that numbers had
been thrown in with the letters. The top letter wasn't even E. What
opthamology concern would publish an eye chart in which the top letter
isn't E? It's not sporting. Also I like to bring a bit of the deductive
science to my eye examinations, and it's a bit hard to bluff when it's
quite clear that a `Z' could be a `2.' There are other numbers that are
easily confounded with letters, too. I dont remember which, but I'm sure
you have some ideas already. When I said, “I know that symbol, but not
in this context,” the doctor was decidedly unimpressed. By reducing
the problem to alphanumeric identifications, the physicians seize the
upper ground.
Anyway I think I kicked butt on the astigmatism portion of the programme,
but that seems to count for less than the majority of one's final score.
Now I have been reading the novels of Barbara Pym on the strength
of the following recommendation (you will find it under P in the
Readers Encyclopedia I think): that in the late 70's or thereabouts
a survey of some heavyweight writers and critics was taken and they
were asked---who in their opinion were the 10 most underrated novelists
of the 20th century. 25 people responded but the lists had an empty
intersection (pairwise). Except that b pym made it on to two people's
lists. So I guess her novels, which had languished unread for many
years suddenly got picked up again. There's quite a big Pym section
at Keplers for example. Anyway I think her books are pretty good,
even if she falls short of the Knitwear Pantheon (wodehouse, emerson,
swift). I dont who said it but I will paraphrase “Whosoever still
believes there is a literate society, let that person mention a book
he has read and he will find the subject rapidly changed” or something
like that. It was probably Thoreau. While we are on that subject,
isnt Thoreau the most appropriated author of all time? I don't mean
quoted (although that could be true too), but appropriated. For
example the different drummer bit. Does anyone really remember the
context in the hdt original? I dont. There's a bit too much pious
Joseph-campbell-like harmonizing about him in my opinion. For example
there is some kind of effort underway to bulldoze Walden Pond and
replace it with condos. Now that is supposed to be quite horrifying
but I have no doubt Henry would have been the last to stand (or squat)
in the way. “I delight to come to my bearings,---not walk in
procession with pomp and parade, in a conspicuous place, but to
walk even with the Builder of the Universe, if I may---not to live
in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth century,
but to stand or sit thoughtfully while it goes by.” Now in the
20th century thats what walden pond is, a conspicuous place.
There's always another quiet bower and it has always
been damned inconvenient to live in it. “Let us not play at
kittly-benders.” (pg 294 in Walden). These quotations of course
do nothing to prove my point but they do at least demonstrate that
I took the trouble of finding the book. Now in my explorations
I hit the different drummer bit and here it is:
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in
such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with
his companions, perhpas it is becuase he hears a different
drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however
measured or far away...
However in the preceding paragraph:
Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns
generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients,
or even the Elizabethan men. But what is that to the purpose?
A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and
hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not
be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let everyone mind his own
business...
Beside the US Armed Forces commercial
“Be all that you can be”
It is nice to place
“Be the biggest pygmy that you can”
I think. OK thats enough.
Golg recently visited my remote posting HQ and has cleared up this
matter of mailer-ripening so that all of my future postings should meet
the highest Chicago standards of stylistic accuracy. I intend to bring the
full power of EMACS to bear on the problem. If a word on an earlier
line looks inferior, I intend to Control-P myself right up there and
make a correction. There will be no more run-on sentences. The most
strict capitalization Laws will be observed. I have said “goodbye” to
the Useless Abbreviation, and “hello” to the proper quotation. No more
shall I lean upon the Unclear Locution. I thank Gidi, Golg, -R, Nob, and
others for their useful remarks on this subject. Together, we all look
forward to an increasingly computing-literate world.
It has come to my attention that Gidi, offered the chance to soak
suds last Friday with many quality individuals, responded with an
impertinent “What is the point?” and failed to appear. What explanation
can be made? Again---j'accuse. Modulo DMV, the goal of every social
function is to ensure that everyone gets at least quietly tight. Does
anyone disagree? I suppose Gidi wants to put up semantic nets (or was
that -R). I'm sorry, I've lost (missed) my train of thought.
“The Love Connection” may be seen weekdays at 4:30 on one of the local
TV stations. Could we try to arrive at some sort of consensus on this
show? My own feeling is that it is unbearably difficult to watch from
start to finish. It sets my skin crawling like an anaconda. But why,
exactly? Does it recall my own fauxes pas (not that I remember any---OK
so I remember a few. But my erstwhile roommate Bruce Oberg used to
liken certain unpleasant social memories to “having iron spikes driven
slowly into my brain” and I'm not sure I can go the whole distance with
him there). Let's say you are videotaped being asked stupid and embarrassing
questions for 2 and 1/2 hours when the best 6 second fragment in the eyes
of some particularly shallow Hollywood executive is cut out for broadcast
to a national television audience. Perhaps I am judgmental but it is
always immediately clear to me from these fragments who is the most
appealing individual of the three put forward and sure enough when the
person makes his or her selection they pick the person I have in mind.
But what of that? I am only trying to touch upon the salient issues
in this rambling (but accurately proofread and capitalized) account. Surely
Chuck Woolery is repellant, but he seems to be irrelevant and substituting
any equivalently greasy MC the unpleasantness of watching the show would
remain unchanged. There was a two-part report on one of the local TV
news stations on the L.C. and I remember two things: first, that Chuck
Woolery, when asked whether he had ever been tempted to ask out anyone
who had been on the show, simply shrugged and said “yes,” thereby
shattering what remaining illusions I may have harbored about TV
personalities and their surely more-exciting-than-everyday lifestyles;
and second, the remark of the show's creator that “when we decided to
make the show, we thought it would be best if not everyone on the show
was attractive” I was momentarily overcome with sympathy for the 45
year-old men who, according to their own damning self-description are
looking for a 22 year old with big tits interested “in the exercise
and in the outdoors” (and are unfortunately presented the choice between
3 divorcees more commensurate in years) when the message seems to be---
yes, this is the love connection, but it is not a whorehouse---oh I
don't know.
JMC is right; Vietnam was a hard war to lose. But it was also impossible
to win.
What would it have been to win in Vietnam? Presumably we would have counted
ourselves successful if somehow our efforts had resulted in the creation
of an independent South Vietnamese government capable of resisting both
the North Vietnamese and the communists inside South Vietnam.
Assume there had been no anti-war movement. Americans, wholly persuaded
of their ability to bend the Vietnamese into a benevolent and powerful
democratic government, would have continued beating back the Viet-Cong
where they could find them in the jungle, and tried to prop up some
kind of democratic government in whatever areas they could subdue.
More Americans would have been killed; even more Vietnamese villages
would have been destroyed with the “friendly” villagers transformed
into miserable refugees awaiting “resettlement” into corrugated steel
shelters on land poor for farming. Intensifying our efforts against
the North Vietnamese government, perhaps we would have lost 250,000
lives.
But would we ever have broken the back of the Viet-Cong, supplied
by forces outside the country? Perhaps JMC believes that we might
have.
There is no evidence to suggest that we would have succeeded after 30 more
years of war.
From plambeck Mon Jan 28 20:37:45 1991
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Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 20:37:44 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9101290437.AA25743@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: P.R. slogans (a mailer-ripened contribution)
Status: R
How about
SURELY WAR IS NOT BEST?
In order to spur citizens into a more reflective mood than the conventional
declarative style allows.
I think it's time that we all reconsidered the practice of wearing
words.
I'm not talking exclusively about T-shirts and sweatshirts,
although this is as good a starting point as any. Reviewing my clothing
a few days ago, I calculated that around 30% of my clothing has
some type of word appearing prominently on it, and that of this 30%,
almost all of these words are essentially some sort of advertisement.
Remember the sandwich man? Supporting two attached placards on
his shoulders, he would drift in front of the furniture store or delicatessen,
shifting his weight despondently: “Loans now lower than ever--hideaways
35% off” or “Going out of business: bagels $1.00/dozen!” He had
no use for his hands--they were invisible behind the placards. He
had no voice, no good job, no livelihood. The image is one of humiliation.
The T-shirt is more comfortable, but the pay is worse, and the humiliation,
voluntary.
In junior high school Physical Education, we all had to wear white T-shirts
with our names on the back. It made it easier to distinguish your shirt
from the next boy's. We were a sort of junior Marine Corps, every man
clearly identified. Inevitably fashion took a grip, and kids would wear
colored T-shirts with their first names in decal on the back. Walking
down the hall, you might see “Bob” in a green T-shirt, or “Kevin”
in yellow.
My mother asked me if I wanted one, and I said I didn't.
Mixing in adult society, one cannot get far before he is asked to wear a
name tag. In fact, one is usually stopped at the entrance.
If a gathering is large, there will be more than one receptionist,
and the tags will be there on the table in front of you. Would you take
one and fill it out please? Here is a pen. It is impossible to refuse;
you have just surrendered your coat, they are seated, you are standing.
You look, and yes, they are already wearing their own infernal tags. You
are reluctant; you would escape it--but they are smiling, the tags are
smiling, and one cannot be difficult.
Well, all right then. Before meeting any person, you shall meet your tag.
As an experiment, I once tore off my tag, simply greeting everyone with the
words, “Hello, my name is Thane Plambeck.” I did not find it to be an
effective way to start a converation.
Later, when I sought to avoid the admission that I had forgotten someone's
name by glancing at their tag in the midst of an introduction, I felt
false and disingenuous.
When I see a man wearing a sweatshirt with the words “Stanford University”
on it, I understand that he does not mean to communicate that he believes
himself to be Stanford University. But what should I understand? I think
it's some sort of voluntary uniform.
TKS
This is a list of the world's worst weeds. I took the commentary from
several weed books which are named below.
1. Purple Nutsedge (Cyperus rotundus L.)
“Almost uncontrollable. Reproduces both by seeds
and by vegetative nutlets that are produced in great
numbers at various depths in the soil...”
2. Indian Doob (Cynodon dactylon L.)
“A persistent weed...”
3. Panic-grass (Eschinochloa crus-galli L.)
4. Junglerice (Eschinochola colonum L.)
“Very troublesome... The rootstalk delights in being
fragmented, each piece giving rise to a new, complete
plant...”
5. False Guinea-grass (Sorgum Halepense L.)
“Once widely advertised and planted. It was one thing
to start, quite another to kill it out. Like the
English sparrow, it will be with us forever...”
6. Water Hyacinth (Eichornia Crassipes L.)
“Makes a gorgeous display but has many objectionable
features...”
7. Cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica L.)
“The bane of framers in India, Africa, and much of
the Far East.”
8. Lantana (Lantana canara L.)
References: H. F. Jaques, “How to Know the Weeds,” 1959.
Alden S. Crafts, “Modern Weed Control,” 1975.
Lawrence Crockett, “Wildly Successful Plants,” 1977.
From plambeck Fri Dec 7 00:16:27 1990
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Date: Fri, 7 Dec 90 00:16:25 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9012070816.AA00699@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: Thane designers, Thane knits, Thane sweaters
Status: R
“The image of Wittgenstein....is that of a misguided and tortured showman
whose main talent seemed to consist in exploiting his considerable intellect
in the corruption of innocent minds with an error-ridden, intoxicating brew
of mysticism and linguistic trickery...”
Now this is a Q from this week's Nature magazine, to which I suscribe at
great expense. It appears in a letter by AJ Greenfield. I wonder if anyone
else reads this magazine. Choosing a sentence at random I obtain
“Indeed, in an alignment of D3 with D1, dimerization loops of immunoglobulin
V domains would not be foreshortened in D3 as they are in D1.”
There are typically 3 or more stereoscopic pairs in every magazine, and if
you have a viewer (I purchased mine mail order from NASA), it's a real delight.
There is a type of reading I enjoy where you disregard words you dont know
but never stop reading. The effect rendered is an intoxicating brew of
mysticism and liguistic trickery. There is also strange advertising
for recombinant DNA technologies and you can believe it----this is the future.
Ride the wave and share the fantasy.
I own a medieval astrologer's handbook and the effect is much the same.
The attraction is to the encyclopaedic, to the systematization, to the
Art of Computer Programming (volumes I-X), to the exhaustive analysis.
I repeat, I hate Science Fiction. But Delphi! We would know the future.
From plambeck Mon Dec 10 15:56:34 1990
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Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 15:56:29 -0800
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Full-Name: Thane E. Plambeck
Message-Id: <9012102356.AA23102@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck@neon.Stanford.EDU
Subject: Uses of Q
Status: R
Wittgenstein's ponderous
“And what we cannot say, we must pass over in silence”
invites rejoinder, especially because it appears as the final sentence in
what the Pointyheads agree is his most important book. There was a man
named F. P. Ramsay I think who was a good mathematician and philosopher
(he died young maybe at 26 I think) who offered
“What we can't say we can't say, and we can't whistle it either”
but surely this admits improvement? Golg or Gidi?
The WOOZ is a labyrinth (maze) that opened on August 2 in Vacaville,
across I80 from the Nut Tree. I went there a few days ago; here's
a report.
Admission was $7 for adults. The maze itself is pretty big; I would
say it has 2- to 3- times the area of the Hampton court maze in Britain--
let's say roughly the size of half a football field. The walls are
made of wood and there's a six to nine inch gap underneath them. I
guessed that I could probably crawl underneath them, although a fat
person probably couldn't. The little bit of the next passage you
can see allows you to see the feet of people in the next passage.
For reasons I can't quite explain, being able to see those feet in the
next passage makes it easier to negotiate the maze.
There are actually three mazes--the Mini-Wooz, the Wooz, and the
Super-Wooz. The Mini appears to be for children and the faint of heart;
I didn't explore it. The main maze is the Wooz. Upon entering it,
you are issued a card with four places for rubber stamps that are
located in four towers inside the maze. Finding a tower, you climb
it, stamp your card, and move on. If you get all four stamps
and exit in less than 40 minutes, admission to the Super-Wooz is free;
otherwise you have to pay $3 more.
Although several bridges and the towers lift you to heights well above
the heights of the walls, I found it almost impossible to plot
a course from the towers or bridges. The maze seems to have been designed
to defeat this approach. The towers and bridges are much more useful
as landmarks than as vantage points.
Someone names R. D. Marks (or something like that) once gave a rule
for exploring a maze: “never return along a passageway that has
led to a junction for the first time unless it is impossible to
do otherwise.” He wrote this in 1880 or so; nowadays we all would
just say “depth first search.” When a two-dimensional maze
has both entrance and exit on its perimeter, you can explore it
by always following the left- or right- wall. I used the latter
approach to find all four towers in about 20 minutes. I knew the
exit to be beyond a particular wall; after following the left wall
for another 30 minutes I was more than vexed to find I had returned
to precisely the point I started from, behind the wall.
Thinking I had made an error, I did the whole thing over, and again
ended up completing a lengthy tour of large parts of the maze.
In a strictly two-dimensional maze such a circuit would imply
that escape is impossible. I had forgotten: the Wooz has bridges!
I had to leave the wall and penetrate another part of the maze
to find the passageway leading to freedom (and sure enough, passing
under a bridge).
It took about an hour and a half to get there from Stanford.From young Tue Jul 17 15:26:36 1990
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Full-Name: R. Michael Young
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 1990 15:26:33 PDT
From: "R. Michael Young" <young@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: plambeck
Subject: DoD GumShoe
Message-Id: <CMM.0.88.648253593.young@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Status: R
Thane,
There was a DoD Dick sniffing around Jacks this afternoon, asking alot of
_pointed_ questions about you. I was gonna put a few nickle-sized holes in
him and dump his carcass in the basement, but instead I just fed him a few goo
d lines. Don't worry - I covered for you - told him you had given up all that
commie shit along time ago, after you got that Bulgarian pregnant and she
nearly O.D.'d on the hash you left at her apartment. He seemed to believe it.
You're in like Flynn.
Always glad to help out another Cell Member.
See ya, comrade.
-R
P.S. Isn't the next coven meeting this coming new moon? Don't forget the
infant this time, Wyxren.
“Hang not on my garment.”
(Prospero somewhere in the Tempest I think)
“If you show your face, you surely must not speak, but
if you speak, you must not show your face...”
(some nun in Measure for Measure)
“Oh, hell.”
(one of the suitors picks the wrong casket---which play?)
“Is it so nominated in the bond? I cannot see it. It is
not so nominated in the bond...”
(Shylock in Merchant of V.)
“There is a world elsewhere.”
(Coriolanus I think)
I got a problem with the Grab Bag
Don't like this L.M. Boyd
What's the use of having answers
The question is just a drag
The tomato is a fruit, and not a vegetable
Oh thanks and now I'll tell my friends
Miss a question on double jeopardy
Now Alex Trebek is in my face.
Don't care much who was president
The survey said that he was wrong
Take a poll or count the voters
I'll spit up phlegm instead
“Now that's what I call a kick-butt kind of prosody...”
---anon
T.K.S.
Reviewing an earlier su.roger posting in my ceaseless inquiry into
posting quality, I encountered a deployment of the phrase “empowerment”
for which some apology must be offered because after all it is
one of those KQED and-or Berkeley-type words which once uttered begins
to take on a perverse life of its own, bean sprouts and sandals all
over the place. Like Kudzu, it throws out little tendrils and pretty
soon has a Prussian grip on the whole kit and caboodle. Listen to that
Berkeley radio station and you are never too far from the next empowerment.
Look down and you will see it has already entwined you at the ankles.
The clergy have a weakness for “sharing,” particularly in the (nonexistent)
intransitive sense, for ex: “One Great Hour of Sharing” (what?) or
“Sharing and Honesty in the Modern Marriage.” (with whom?)
Again the idea is to seize the initiative via unusual or unexpected
usage. The Bible itself is filled with odd phrases that dont make much
sense really, and I stand by this judgment I dont care what (everlasting
torment in Hell excepted). “The lilies in the field do not turn neither
do they spin yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these”
OK that's pretty good but what have you shown me lately. (3:16 aside)
All Bible quotations approx. of course, maybe it wasnt Solomon. but I
think it was. Anyway in the Revised Standard they take what was OK about
the B and blast it into Hell by exploding the King J locutions that carry
all the real punch and who really cares anyway if the sense is there
it is poetry after all, right? If the unwashed masses dont understand
it thats probably all the better. The book of Job is a nice one in my
opinion, although I think I missed the point somewhere about midway
through. Maybe it picks up later on, I'm not sure I finished it. I've
tried a Bible study group but inevitably someone starts blathering on
about “Gawd” or some other extraneous concept and things get a bit
off track. Worse yet, someone will try to apply the Good Book to some
incident in their own lives and then things can get a bit ugly of course.
I've always liked to have as little of that sort of thing as possible. The
Oxford B I have is good on the annotations if long on the Miltonian
cross-referential style that is only appreciated by people who died
over 400 years ago.
From MAILER-DAEMON@labrea.stanford.edu Thu Jun 7 11:34:40 1990
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Status: R
----- Transcript of session follows -----
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Date: Thu, 7 Jun 90 11:34:24 -0700
From: Thane E. Plambeck <plambeck@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Message-Id: <9006071834.AA19984@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
To: su.roger-or-andy@labrea.Stanford.EDU
Subject: Hiking with John Muir
The twin peaks finale: As I said before, once the supernatural
is brought into play there is no choice but to leave things
unexplained or otherwise your book, play, movie, TV show or whatever
becomes very stupid. It becomes ET or Close Encounters or something
equally proletarian.
The spirit world is not closed to you: it is your mind that
is closed, your brain that is dead.
Now that is a Knitwear Goethe translation (carlyle probably has it
better). Anyway I think it is from Faust. If there was a message
I think it might have been somewhere on these lines?
Thor:~/neon/diary|60>
I’ve taken over $70 in pennies into a Wells Fargo and gotten paper money with no hassle other than having
to put my account number on each roll.
And yes, WF is the bank with the secretviewer on their ATMs.
I’ve always confused THURMON MUNSON and LOBSTER THERMIDOR.
| Brian Roberts Stanford Univ, CS Dept -- Computer Facilities |
| bjr@cs.stanford.edu -- Preserve wilderness, stay home. -- |
I draw your attention to “Journey to the West,” a Chinese novel written by Wu Ch'eng-en (c1500--1582).
A synopsis:
The Buddhist priest Hsuan-tsang (also known as Tripitika) of the Ming Dynasty strikes out on a quest to
India in search of holy scriptures. He is accompanied on his pilgrimage by three magical helpers, one of
whom is a monkey.
One critic calls the book “humorous and fantastic, but at the same time allegorical and deeply religious.” It
was partially translated by Arthur Waley in 1943. He titled it “Monkey.”
This may be a critical document for the su.rog* community. Can anyone find a copy?
On the subject of wartime paraphrasing, GBS wrote in 1937 that a speech by the Soviet diplomat Ivan
Maisky (later at Potsdam and Yalta) could have been translated as
“We dont want to fight; but by Jingo if we do, We've got the
guns; we've got the men; and we've got the money too.”
I think President B might strike a nice posture by taking up the expression “by jingo” (also fits in well with
the k- word)
If su.r* postings were magazine copy they would read like this. Short sentences. That don’t really make
sense. At all. But here is the real news. On su.rog*, you would get the best writing. Writing that is backed
up by today’s brightest computer professionals. That adds up to higher productivity for your commercial
applications. Is su.rog* working for you? To follow-up press “f” now. Would you? Again.
I see them now, in rank and file arrayed
Like blind chessmen, columnar rows parade:
First comes king Knuth, his papers in a wreck,
Fear not, Don Naught! Too long books soon are TeXed.
Long-promised volumes waiting in his queue
Ask if done soon, or in 3002?
Surreal MIXed numbers notwithstanding,
We'd rather search, than sort through nothing.
Queen Nils is next, a Dane true yet twice nil:
Words change their sense, and minds turn artificial.
Traipsing behind him, like devotees praying,
The students solemnize--what is it they're saying?
“Thinking machines and reasoning agents--”
Possible worlds, and waltzing detergents
PRESIDENT HURLS, NO-HITTER
Japanese Dignitaries Unsoiled
-----------------------------------
HEAVE-HO: BUSH SPEAKS OUT ON JAPAN
“Frank yet courteous discussions”
------------------------------------
READ MY FUGU
President visits historic site
of Porcelain deities
------------------------------------
TKS