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 ************
Topic 4         Sat Nov 09, 1991
A.RASMUSSEN1 [Alis]          (Forwarded) 
Sub: Mannerpunk                             

Fantasy of Manners and other forms of cross-dressing.  Is cross-genre writing
the coming trend in genre fiction?  Can genre fiction be cross- marketed?  Is
this making the field stronger?
647 message(s) total.
 ************
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 1         Thu Jun 24, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 22:54 EDT
 
I don't know, Delia; partly I think it's the 90s?  My mother still lives in
the 1958 tract house we bought new;,  when I go to visit there are people out
watrering their lawns and talking to each other, and kids on bikes.  But there
seem to be fewer of them than there were when I was small, and I bet they
don't wait for foggy evenings and play "The Crawling Eye" like we did.  (Heck,
the area is all built up now instead of being half dairy farms, and they don't
=get= low ground fogs with two foot visibility anymore.)

We lived in the middle of a half-mile-square block, of which the southern half
was subdivision and the northern half was leased farmland with the elementary
school on the far edge.  The walk to school was through an open field where
there was corn in summer and mud to dig in in winter. I remember endless long
summer days wandering around that field by myself pretending it was Mars (Mars
had a blue sky then, remember?). =No one= I know would let their kids do that
today, not even the ones who have no TV and go in for home schooling.

And for what it's worth, half of Farmer Bob's field is now condos, and the
other half is a fire station and Knott's Berry Farm employee  parking. 
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 2         Thu Jun 24, 1993
D.SHERMAN9 [Delia]           at 23:04 EDT
 
No.  It's Newton -- or at least it's a suburb that is hardly separable from
its urb.  You're talking about somthing that's more country than city. My
suburb is more like my experience of growing up in NYC.  We knew the lady's
name who lived across the hall, but in 17 years, never set foot iin her
apartment nor exchanged more than the time of day with her.  I've gotten a
little friendlier with the people who live around me, but it's mostly because
I'm home all the time and UPS delivers everybody's packages to me, which I
then feel obliged to deliver in person.

Delia
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 3         Fri Jun 25, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 00:02 EDT
 
Funny what seems "country" at different times.  To me, corn field or none,
anything with pink and yellow and lime pudding green cookie cutter houses with
sidewalks and streetlights is suburbia.  And I'm nevber sure if where I live
now is suburbia or not.  It used to be. Half a block one way the houses have
no sidewalks and most of them are at least 50 years old.  Half a block 'tother
way is the major city arterial of the San Fernando Valley, and we sit at
little tables on the street in front of Starbuck's coffee and watch the
homeless man bum cigarettes.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 4         Fri Jun 25, 1993
KATE.DANIEL [Katie]          at 07:29 EDT
 
I should ask my mom; she's "grandma" to half the neighborhood in the same
suburb where I grew up.  It's still kid-intensive, just a different set of
kids today.  But from things she's mentioned, and the fact that she's
providing cookies and babysitting for a lot of the kids on the block, it
sounds as though it hasn't changed that much.

With the exception of an almost complete turn-over in residents. Mom is one of
a handful left from when I was growing up; most of the other houses have been
sold, often several times.  As a matter of fact, one girl I was in school with
is now living next door to the house where she grew up; she never moved away
and that is a unusual. (Both her parents and husband are invalids; this is
usually given as the explanation for her never moving away.)

The kids still play street baseball, still play in the yards, still are
visible on the street.  Maybe it's just that town.

Katie

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 5         Fri Jun 25, 1993
D.FRIEDMAN11 [Dawn]          at 09:43 EDT
 
  I know that to the little boy in the three-generation house next door, I'm
the funny lady with the interesting garden -- a position occupied by two "old
ladies" on the next block back in my childhood.  (I'm pretty sure they were
considerably older than I am now, but they can't have been as old as we
thought they were, since they still live there, unless they're centenarians.) 
When he encounters me in the garden, he tells me what he's doing -- "Now I
have to get the Power Men," and I tell him what I'm doing -- "These bleeding
hearts have to be cut back." I think we're equally incomprehensible to each
other, but an atmosphere of friendliness and mutual respect prevails.

  He seems a rather lonely kid, oriented on his parents and other adults more
than on other children, and so I wouldn't be surprised if his suburbs were
similar to mine:  a wonderland to explore, full of oddments and secrets I
might or might not share with my few friends, berries to bring home to Mom,
weird bugs, and now-I'm-an-Indian-surviving in the wilderness (a bunch of
backyards and two wooded lots.)

  That would be a easy setting for fantasy, I think.  It's a wonderful setting
for essays.

  --Dawn
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 6         Fri Jun 25, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 21:22 EDT
 
Good stuff, particularly Sherwood and Ellen (and thanks for another spirit
message to read Colette! Real Soon Now....)

This seems as good a place as any to note that I'm off tomorrow morning to
Seattle for two weeks--good opportunity to observe the suburbs! I won't be on
the board during that time.

Later, all.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 7         Fri Jun 25, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 21:25 EDT
 
What great posts! Lois, much upstream, yes, with, I hope Delia's harmony, the
development of the French fairy tale, as a published, and a staged form, in
the  Opera Ballet, does have much to do with DOVE.

As to the discussion of suburbia and Fantasy, and fantasy of manners, I'm a
bit out of it.  I grew up in the northern midwest on a farm, and from there,
with detours to the Southwest, ended up here in Manhattan.  But there are some
very fine books written out of the suburbs, such as Rudy Rucker's, and Alice
Hoffmann's.  Yes!  The kids, always, make the differ- ence.  The
creative/fantasy mind makes magic out what there is.  I used to take my cat, a
very big cat, for a walk on a leash, in a Long Island sub- urb.  The kids
begged to know whether he was a dog.  Growing up on a farm the most magical
thing was running around with my friends under the spread- ing trees of town.

Ellen:  Loved your post.  The thing I've hated most about most contemp
fantasy.  Mistaking the journey for a plot.

Delia: Yeah, I do get it.  Just wish I liked it.  I should.  But don't.

Go for it, everybody!
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 8         Fri Jun 25, 1993
K.DALKEY [Kara]              at 21:39 EDT
 
Reading all this brings back my own memories.  I grew up in a Southern
California suburb, Pacific Palisades, in the late '50s and '60s.  The kid
culture was oriented mostly around the street we lived on, since the area was
hills and canyons.  Anyone from school living one hill above, below or over
was considered far away.  There was still undeveloped chaparral nearby where
deer and the occasional coyote could be seen-- hiking in the hills was one of
our favorite activities (to my mother's dismay...I would come home reeking of
sagebrush to which she is allergic).

Every couple of months, the kids on the street would throw together a play
written by the older kids.  Costumes were whatever could be made out of paper
or found in our parents closets.  The parents on the street would be invited,
and many of them showed up to watch.  This was one activity where the age
groups would be mixed...most of the time, the kid culture was broken into
subgroups according to age/grade, with little overlap.

We had a bomb shelter in the front yard and a swimming pool in the back. Every
Christmas my mother would come up with new, elaborate decorations for the
front yard...including, one year, the life-size angel that flew away on a
Santa Ana wind.

No, I can't exactly claim my suburban experience was dull, but it was what I
grew up with so it's hard to make comparisons.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 9         Fri Jun 25, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 22:13 EDT
 
The deer and the coyotes are still there, Kara.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 10        Fri Jun 25, 1993
JKS [Jennifer]               at 22:36 EDT
 
Deep envy, Kara.  And of you, too, Beth, for having known the suburbs as they
were meant to be known.  For me, as for the kid Dawn describes, it was quite
easy to walk a mile or so to school and back, be in several different school
bands and choirs, and still be trapped in one house with three other people,
as on an island.  The world of school was not real. Only home was real, and
very, very small.  As Lois says, it's quite easy to live in a safe town on a
block with several kids and have "no one to play with."

The suburbs enable people to pretend much more convincingly.

-JKS
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 11        Fri Jun 25, 1993
JO.CLAYTON [jo.c]            at 23:15 EDT
 
This is fascinating.  Suburbs are exotic areas for me.  I grew up at the end
of a dead-end road a mile and a fourth long with around ten small farms
clustered along both sides (10 miles south of Modesto, California).  It was
wonderfully safe, you could wander just about anywhere, but the families were
so busy on the farms most times that there wasn't all that much visiting back
and forth.  Kids worked too, though there was a boy pack that roamed about
after dark, hitting watermelon patches, shooting their twenty-twos and into
other relatively innocuous mischief.  I went from there to San
Francisco/Berkeley, Los Angeles, New Orleans, without stopping in any suburbs.
 (mh.  I expect I'm in a suburb now (Gresham a suburb of Portland?), but since
I'm cultivating hermithood, I can't be said to be part of the life there)

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 12        Sat Jun 26, 1993
D.FRIEDMAN11 [Dawn]          at 10:01 EDT
 
  Jo, your childhood environment sounds very close to my advisor's. And while
he didn't turn out to be a writer, he is a bit of a hermit -- who loves to
tell stories
  --Dawn
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 13        Sat Jun 26, 1993
JKS [Jennifer]               at 10:06 EDT
 
That's the thing about suburbs, Jo.  They're amazingly true to the pioneer
ideal, in a kind of over-regulated way--you can live exactly as you please, in
or out of your community, and it doesn't matter.

Come to think of it, there's few places except the truly rural (say that five
times fast) where you -can't- live in isolation, if you choose. We're all
getting like those eccentric old ladies who lived on the edges of villages and
forests.  The bizarros are those who sit on local committees, statistically
speaking.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 14        Thu Jul 01, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 21:31 EDT
 
Nobody around.  Well.  A.S. Byatt (author of _Possession_ among other very
interesting books) has an essay on Georgette Hyer and fiction of manners
titled "An Honorable Escape" which she wrote in 1969.  In the essay she tracks
fiction of manners to, yes, Beau Brummell and Jane Austen too, and the
BaronessOrczy. Byatt makes a wonderful argument that Heyer's books are so
popular on a continuing basis, not for the sexual thrill, which Byatt
documents as quite minimally played in Heyer's books, but for the details of
how life was lived, and because the books reproduce and age in which men and
women, through manners, talked to each other, frequently during their entire
lives together, or even not together.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 15        Thu Jul 01, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 21:32 EDT
 
I liked that essay, too.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 16        Thu Jul 01, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 21:44 EDT
 
So did I.  See, we're not all dead.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 17        Thu Jul 01, 1993
SHERWOOD                     at 22:45 EDT
 
Where might one find a copy?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 18        Thu Jul 01, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 23:21 EDT
 
4 Was that essay in her collection?  I forget the title.

I still can't appreciate Heyer.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 19        Fri Jul 02, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 05:44 EDT
 
Yes, it's in the collection she published last year.  PASSIONS OF THE MIND (a
pretentious title, I fear).  The first essay, perhaps?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 20        Sat Jul 03, 1993
JKS [Jennifer]               at 12:02 EDT
 
Are we the wealthy or the freeflagged?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 21        Sat Jul 03, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 12:50 EDT
 
Sherwood and Greg:  Passions of the Mind was published in 1992, a collec- tion
of Byatt's essays released in the U.S. for the trade market in the wake of the
marvelous, unsuspected success of POSSESSION.  Turtle Bay Books/Random House. 
The essays go back to the late 60's and through the
 very early 1990's, maybe the latest is 1990.  I like the whole collection.
It's really a joy to read the orderly ruminations on literature of such a
finely trained and brilliant mind.  Big difference from Camilla Paglia!
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 22        Sat Jul 03, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 13:59 EDT
 
JKS - We are aristo-wannabes, remember?  We Do Not Discuss Money.

:)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 24        Sat Jul 03, 1993
ELUKI                        at 22:48 EDT
 
Camille P. is always useful to raise the blood pressure without the
intercession of caffeine. <g>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 25        Sat Jul 03, 1993
JO.CLAYTON [jo.c]            at 23:49 EDT
 
Oh yes, Camille P.  Every time I chance on her in a talk show, I am reminded
strongly of Another P last name Schlafly.  Not the same sort of thing, I know,
same effect on my stomach acids.  <g>

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 26        Sun Jul 04, 1993
D.SHERMAN9 [Delia]           at 17:23 EDT
 
Poor Camille.  I can never figure out whether she's in earnest or just being
provocative.  If she's in earnest, then I'm willing to listen and be
stimulated.  If she's just trying to grab more than her statutory fifteen
minutes of fame, then bad cess to her.  I hate cynics, especially preachy ones
who seem to be working to tear down everything that's important to me.  The
only thing that can be said for excresences like Helmes and Schlafly is that
they really believe what they're saying.  I'm not always sure Paglia does.

Delia
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 27        Sun Jul 04, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 17:54 EDT
 
Camille Paglia is no cynic.  She is quite sincere, and also suffering from a
narcissistic personality disorder.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 28        Mon Jul 05, 1993
K.DALKEY [Kara]              at 00:33 EDT
 
As diagnosed by whom? (and one wonders what the difference is between an
overblown ego and a "narcissistic personality disorder").
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 29        Mon Jul 05, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 14:30 EDT
 
It's simple.  Ms. Paglia is a foolish, solipistic narcissicist.  The only
intelligent, perceptive piece of work she's ever created, IMHO, is her article
on the pictorialism of Spencer's _Faerie Queen_.  She wants, oh she wants, so
badly, to be worshipped.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 30        Mon Jul 05, 1993
SFWA-SOUKUP [Martha]         at 15:37 EST
 
Her advice column in SPY magazine is sometimes amusing.  I say this as someone
who is vastly irritated by Paglia's self-centered worldview.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 31        Mon Jul 05, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 16:44 EDT
 
Camille Paglia is the intellectuals' Rush Limbaugh.  (Actually, I think the
woman is channelling Robert Graves, through a lot of static.)

Debra

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 32        Mon Jul 05, 1993
JOELR                        at 16:56 EDT
 
Thanks, Martha; I say this as somebody who thinks Paglia hits a lot of nails
squarely on their pointy little heads.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 33        Mon Jul 05, 1993
ELUKI                        at 18:41 EDT
 
Debra><g>.  Me, I wonder if there's just Something About The Name Camille.... 
C.P. strikes me generally as immortally stupid, and that's when she =isn't=
trying to pick a fight with Susan Sontag.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 34        Thu Jul 08, 1993
D.SHERMAN9 [Ellen K.]        at 22:59 EDT
 
Well, speaking of manners and cross-dressing (not), I was at a masked ball the
other day (ahem), in a beautifully made 18c man's costume, with my hair tied
back and twisted into one perfect curl (thanks, DS!) . .  . not only did my
entire body language change, but a gay male friend sidled up to me and asked
in a curiously husky voice, "May a man dance with a man?" (he turned out to be
a brilliant polka-er - for a fuller description of the evening, see Delia
Sherman's topic, 12.1).

REading all these descriptions of our childhoods has been wonderful; like
sitting in on one of those late-night conversatins where you really ought to
be shuffling off to bed, but everyone's got one more good story . . . 

 She's Still Hungry, 

Ellen K.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 35        Thu Jul 08, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 23:54 EDT
 
Well, Ellen, if you've got one more good story, I'll make brownies.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 36        Sat Jul 10, 1993
JKS [Jennifer]               at 08:19 EDT
 
Slumber party, Ellen.  Shortly we will do "Mary Worth," after which, if we
haven't fallen asleep, "we must, we must, we must increase our bust."

(Yes, guys, that is what girls do at slumber parties.)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 37        Sat Jul 10, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 12:47 EDT
 
That and tell urban legends...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 38        Sun Jul 11, 1993
S.THOMPSON8 [Sarah]          at 23:22 EDT
 
In my slumber party days, we played "Truth, Dare, Housetop, or Opinion." You
had to choose whether to answer a question truthfully, accept a dare, specify
which of two given people you would rescue from a burning roof, or give your
opinion about something.

We would also sometimes practice hyperventilating in an attempt to pass out. 
The appeal of this is no longer clear to me, unless maybe it was supposed to
be some sort of orgasmic experience...

Oh yes:  we also practiced lifting one person up on the fingertips of six
other people.  You recite a little chant to put yourselves into a trance for
this.  It's really very spooky, and it works.  Probably would have gotten us
burned as witches a few centuries earlier.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 39        Sun Jul 11, 1993
K.DALKEY [Kara]              at 23:29 EDT
 
I remember that "raising a person with a finger" trick--happened at a couple
of parties I was at as a kid too.  I wonder where and when that originated.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 40        Sun Jul 11, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 23:33 EDT
 
Was that like with holding your breath and doing deep knee bends?  Worked
every time.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 41        Sun Jul 11, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 23:59 EDT
 
I flipped through Camille Paglia's book with the stuff on date rape, reading
with my mouth hanging open in astonishment and disbelief. It does lead one to
insist she can't be serious, but I think she is.

My friend Micole had recommended that essay on Heyer by Byatt to me, and I'd
meant to mention it here before this. Good stuff. (And her book ANGELS &
INSECTS is well worth reading too. Only one I've read so far, but it won't be
the last.)

Shall we discuss ORLANDO the book (a postmodern novel written by a High
Modernist before anyone but Laurence Sterne had figured out how to do it
right) and the movie (utterly gorgeous as well as tighter than the book)?

Weren't we talking about TOUS LES MATINS DE MONDE here?  In a review of
another French movie, UN COEUR EN HIVER, the NEW YORKER critic mentioned TLMDM
in passing, describing it as making him feel like he'd been "locked in a
costume shop after hours and beaten to death with a viola da gamba."  I
couldn't agree less, but I thought it was a good line.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 42        Mon Jul 12, 1993
KATE.DANIEL [Katie]          at 04:19 EDT
 
I'm still waiting to someday read a plausible explanation for that fingertip
lift trick.  I did it, on both ends, being lifted and being one of the ones
lifting.  Only fingers used.  And it did work.  It probably still would upset
people who believe in "satanism" as a threat.   All I know is, it worked and
we were normal kids, not monsters in training.  And I'd like to know HOW it
worked.

Katie

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 43        Mon Jul 12, 1993
BETH.MEACHAM                 at 09:18 EDT
 
The fingertip trick is proof that humans, like cats, can alter their own
gravity at will.

I'm disappointed that ORLANDO hasn't opened here in Tucson.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 44        Mon Jul 12, 1993
K.DALKEY [Kara]              at 19:21 EDT
 
ORLANDO doesn't open in Minneapolis until July 30th.  Sniff.  I'll squeeze in
time to see it somehow.

Perhaps the finger-lift trick is simply proof of the old saw "Many hands make
light work."
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 45        Mon Jul 12, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 22:24 EDT
 
Which is of course the Confucianist light-bulb joke.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 46        Mon Jul 12, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 23:53 EDT
 
Fans of TOUT LES MATINS ... may be interested to note tha Guillaume Depardieu
was recently sentenced to three years (the last two suspended) for dealing
heroin.  O MORES, O TEMPORES ...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 47        Mon Jul 12, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 23:59 EDT
 
Let's see: Orlando opens soon in Minneapolis, The North Stars are set to open
in Dallas, Tucson is about ready to open _Texasville_, and New York just got
_In the Line of Fire_.

Got it.

For a bunch that claims to be so prose-conscious, y'all pay a lot of attention
to videoized portraitures.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 48        Tue Jul 13, 1993
D.SHERMAN9 [Ellen K.]        at 00:37 EDT
 
(Hi, this is Ellen Kushner)  Don:  I utterly agree with the TOUS LES MATINS
quote.  It's just that, well, ah, some of us _like_ it that way!

Jennifer - No way.  The only time I did "Mary Worth," oh, gosh, no, I was only
TOLD about MW (at summer camp?)  I was too scared to go in a dark  bathroom
for about 3 years thereafter - I had to go in with my eyes shut and feel for
the lightswitch!!  Actually, it still doesn't make me any too happy . . . 

Cheer up, guys.  I tried to see ORLANDO in NYC the weekend it opened. Tickets
were sold out 3 hours in advance of each show.  But it seemed so...imPORtant,
somehow.  This had, I think, as much to do with NYC Movie Mania (where all
anyone can talk about is "Did you see...?" at parties, and thus going to the
movies takes on an importance it would, I trust, otherwise lack), as with my
utter desire to see it.  (Yeah, Ken, I know. I know.  It's the culture.  Don't
get me started.)  Then, the first week it was in Boston, I was too busy.  But,
y'know what?  Today at 5:00 the theatre was practically empty. It was still a
great time.  And I didn't  have to see it with a bunch of sweaty New Yorkers. 
There's a moral in all this somewhere.  Probably something about balked
desire, or  fate.  Sermons in stones?  Or just another card that didn't make
it into the deck?  (i.e., "This is the Movie Line.  But it 's reversed, so you
won't have to wait that long.")

(Cherry) Cordially,

EK
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 49        Tue Jul 13, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 01:26 EDT
 
Katie, I would guess that it involves something I heard about at a party,
called "chi" and pronounced key.  This friend of one of my friends showed us
how to build up chi and direct it.  When you were standing still with one arm
outstretched parallel to the ground and were directing your chi outward from
that arm a person could push down on the arm as hard as they wanted and not
move it much.  I tried it, though my building up of chi was different (it's
something I've done before and didn't know what it was), and it didn't feel to
me that my arm was being pushed very hard.  When she broke my concentration
while pushing on my arm, though, I couldn't hold it up against the push. 
Anyway, the description of how the lifters get ready to pick someone up by the
fingertips sounds like chi buildup to me.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 50        Tue Jul 13, 1993
JO.CLAYTON [jo.c]            at 01:46 EDT
 
Did anyone see the Bill Moyers series on Medicine?  There was this ancient
Chinese man who would hold out his hand (closed in a loose fist, at arms
length, level with his shoulder) and his students or those who were trying to
become his students would attempt to throw him.  They would take hold of that
hand and go flying back.  Moyers tried it.  He didn't go flying, perhaps
because he wasn't trying to throw the man, but he reported that he felt a
sudden build up of heat.  Fascinating.


 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 52        Tue Jul 13, 1993
KEITH.D                      at 10:43 EDT
 
Figgers. Read 13 days worth of stuff and you get a) a topic getting going by
complaining about Twit-Nose Paglia (a favorite pasttime of my own, actually;
the best criticism of Paglia I've read, actually, was by Molly Ivins in MOTHER
JONES about a year and a half ago) and b) Don wrenching it back on topic.  :)

Ellen: hey! HEY! don't knock my city!  ;>

I must needs see ORLANDO at some point....
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 53        Tue Jul 13, 1993
D.FRIEDMAN11 [Dawn]          at 22:53 EDT
 
Sarah, that's kind of interesting about the breath-holding.  A friend and I
tried once, when we were in our teens, to see how much incense we could burn
and keep breathing in a little tent of sheets.  Kids are weird.  I think it's
a challenge to mortality...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 54        Tue Jul 13, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 23:10 EDT
 
The costumes for ORLANDO, btw, are by Sandy Powell, who also did  THE CRYING
GAME.  She understands about using the right underpinnings to make things look
right (from period corsets to strategically padded things for Jaye Davidson in
CRYING GAME).  (This from the LA TIMES "Screen Style" profile of her work.)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 55        Tue Jul 13, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 23:21 EDT
 
Gee, the only finger lifting experience I remember was trancing out with a
bunch of nude friends in the Hot Springs of New Mexico.  No, I wasn't a kid
then, I was better.  But younger than I am now.  Is this kind of like the
Oujia Board planchette?

ORLANDO.  Hmpf.  Great visuals.  Great (NYC) audience (no sweat, NYC has A/C
to the max in her theaters.  Why the child?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 56        Wed Jul 14, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 01:43 EDT
 
JoC, heat is one of the ways you are supposed to be able to detect chi, though
I couldn't feel much heat.  It felt more like a tingling sensation than a warm
one to me.  But they all thought I was weird anyway... <g>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 57        Wed Jul 14, 1993
KEITH.D                      at 09:47 EDT
 
Phaedre: where does humidity enter into that? :)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 58        Wed Jul 14, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 14:14 EDT
 
Sherwood, the film ORLANDO was written by its director, and someone has
already remarked online that the film lacked a screenplay with strong
narrative virtues.  I wouldn't attribute any sloppy writing you picked up to
Woolf.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 59        Wed Jul 14, 1993
SHERWOOD                     at 19:15 EDT
 
Greg, I am sorry if I used the term "sloppy writing," which is incorrect. I
found the writing to be clever in parts, but the overall treatment of the
story shallow to the point of self-indulgence.  I was trying to avoid assuming
this to be the fault of the writer/director (especially since, when I saw the
initial credits roll, and noted that the director also wrote it, I moaned "Oh
God" as too frequently directors think they can write but mistake a series of
vivid images for story).

I hesitate to go into any more detail, as most of the posters seem not to have
seen it yet, but I'll confine myself to observing that too many scenes ended
not with illuminating dialog, but with long posed shots of the lead, and
sometimes little asides from her to the audience, or puckish glances.  And
there were a few mind-boggling cultural inconsistencies.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 60        Wed Jul 14, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 19:31 EDT
 
I don't know, Keith.  I live in Utah which is mostly desert (though not as
much desert as Arizona...) and we don't have a lot of humidity--unless a lot
of people have been talking a lot, I guess... <g>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 61        Wed Jul 14, 1993
W.SHETTERLY [Will]           at 20:49 EDT
 
Sherwood, I tend to be happier when I see that the director and the writer are
the same person. Suggests to me that there'll be a greater unity of vision,
and a greater chance of an individual vision. I haven't paid attention to how
this averages out in the real world.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 62        Wed Jul 14, 1993
KEITH.D                      at 22:28 EDT
 
I agree with Will. At least then I know the director won't screw up the
script.  :)

Of course, there are as many cases of directors doing well by weak-kneed
scripts. DEAD AGAIN and A FEW GOOD MEN spring instantly to mind as two
examples.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 63        Wed Jul 14, 1993
SHERWOOD                     at 22:44 EDT
 
Will, I think you see more art film than I do. (I have to admit upfront to not
liking a lot of so-called art stuff)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 64        Wed Jul 14, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 23:26 EDT
 
[he said carefully] "wilfully shallow" is how the Woolf (have we all been
spelling it wrong??) novel struck me.  Emergent postmodernism, in fact.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 65        Thu Jul 15, 1993
W.SHETTERLY [Will]           at 00:13 EDT
 
Art film? Woody Allen? John Woo? Okay.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 66        Thu Jul 15, 1993
D.SHERMAN9 [Delia]           at 00:45 EDT
 
Don, you just said that postmodernism is wilfully shallow.  I suspect that you
don't quite mean that.  I do agree that ORLANDO (the movie, at least) is as
postmodern as they come, and very self-conscious about it-- thus the puckish
glances breaking the frame of the movie.  I also agree that it's self-
indulgent.  But shallow?  I don't know.  That's not how it struck me, but then
it rang so many of my chimes that I might simply have been supplying my own
resonances.  I'd have to see it again, see whether it moved me as much on a
second viewing.

I don't know why the child, Constance.  Wasn't it in the book? (No, I don't
have a copy available, and I read it almost 20 years ago.) If it wasn't, it's
a good question.  I'm sure there was _some_ rationale. Sally Potter may be a
lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them.

I remember trying the finger-lifting trick at slumber parties.  It never
worked.  The hypnosis did, though.  Boy, I did some dumb things when I was in
my teens.

Delia
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 67        Thu Jul 15, 1993
SHERWOOD                     at 09:37 EDT
 
Will, I like a lot of Woody Allen, but never heard of John Woo.  (I was
thinking of =ecccch!= Bunuel, etc.)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 68        Thu Jul 15, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 09:58 EDT
 
By "shallow," I suspect that Don is not imputing a pejorative, but referring
to the fact that many postmodern works are, in a sense, "all surface" -- the
old model that This is the surface meanining, but This turns out to be
underneath, does not fit here.

ORLANDO is one of the few Virginia Woolf novels I have not yet read.  If it is
indeed a pomo work, that would be a surprise -- Woolf is as High Modernist as
they come.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 69        Thu Jul 15, 1993
CYN.WARD [Cindy]             at 11:16 EDT
 
The child IS in the book, although a boy.

Gee, I'M feeling shallow.  I liked the movie ORLANDO a lot.  The person I saw
it with was so puzzled and found it so strange she would say only "I have to
think about it."
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 70        Thu Jul 15, 1993
W.SHETTERLY [Will]           at 17:13 EDT
 
John Woo's the best there is at making things go boom.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 71        Thu Jul 15, 1993
SHERWOOD                     at 19:34 EDT
 
Is he the one behind the SUPERMAN and other films others were commenting on a
month ago?  If so, I do want to see those!
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 72        Thu Jul 15, 1993
STEVEN.BRUST                 at 19:34 EDT
 
Don (448): Oh, OOK.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 73        Thu Jul 15, 1993
W.SHETTERLY [Will]           at 20:07 EDT
 
Sherwood, if that's in reference to Woo, no, no Superman. He does Hong Kong
gun love films. Just did his first for Hollywood, featuring, alas, Wham Bam
Van Dummy.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 75        Thu Jul 15, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 23:59 EDT
 
Thank you, Greg, that =is= what I meant.  And all I can say is, ORLANDO =did=
strike me as more postmodern than modern.  It was =not= what I expected, and I
have to take literary history's word for the fact that it was written by the
same person who wrote TO THE LIGHTHOUSE.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 76        Fri Jul 16, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 00:02 EDT
 
The Lighthouse thing is Modernist, right, Don?  (just checking)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 77        Fri Jul 16, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 00:05 EDT
 
Lois: Yes. I meant to add that.

Was it clear in post #478 that I was talking about the book? (Just checking.)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 78        Fri Jul 16, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 00:08 EDT
 
I think it would mostly likely be inferred, yes.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 79        Fri Jul 16, 1993
W.SHETTERLY [Will]           at 00:37 EDT
 
Sherwood, that's sort of like confusing Conan Doyle with H. G. Wells, but
don't sweat it.

Don, do any of your mannerettes dislike both Dunnett and O'Brien?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 80        Fri Jul 16, 1993
KEITH.D [Boy Editor]         at 11:49 EDT
 
"Mannerettes"? <chortlesnoot>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 81        Fri Jul 16, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 15:11 EDT
 
Woolf is modernist, but ORLANDO the movie comes across as postmodernist. Did I
get that right?  Could the movie director have imposed a postmodernist
interpretation/approach on the modernist ORLANDO the book in making the movie?
Or has someone already said that?  How hard would it be to do something like
that successfully?  <not having seen the movie--it's not playing here yet, so
far as I know--I would like to request some examples of how something
modernist that I may have experienced would look if presented in a postmodern
way--and vice versa, for that matter>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 82        Fri Jul 16, 1993
SFWA-SOUKUP [Martha]         at 15:34 EDT
 
I am no expert on postmodernism, but I would wager the novel (which I've read;
haven't yet seen the movie) is pretty postmodern itself.

I also think that, if it were written today, it would probably be marketed as
magic realism.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 83        Sat Jul 17, 1993
ELUKI                        at 10:15 EDT
 
Having read the book and heard about the movie (this area not being a hotbed
of less-than-blockbuster movie releases) I would say that the book is merely a
starting point for this director's vision -- i.e., while similar in tone and
theme to some great extent, in terms of event and conclusions drawn (or
pointed for the reader/viewer) they differ substantially.

 I am, meanwhile, surprised that anyone should characterize A Few Good Men as
having a weak script.  Having seen the movie I thought that the script was
quite strong, containing as it did both concepts and multiple complete
consecutive sentences.  And it was also a Broadway play before that, and plays
IMH-and possibly ininformed-O tend to be script driven, unless by Andrew Lloyd
Webber.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 84        Sat Jul 17, 1993
KEITH.D [Boy Editor]         at 12:48 EDT
 
That was me, eluki, on A FEW GOOD MEN. I thought the script to be fairly weak-
kneed, and relying too much on one-liners and macho utterances (like the whole
earning respect business in the courtroom, flitting back'n'forth between
Cruise, Nicholson, and the judge). But Reiner and the actors did a superlative
job with the cliche-ridden muck that was the script.

And something can be script-driven and still have a poor script. Happens alla
time.  :)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 85        Sat Jul 17, 1993
ELUKI                        at 21:04 EDT
 
Keith>Chacun a son gout, as the actress said to the bishop :)   I guess FGM
just pushed my buttons; and besides, I =like= movies with lots of dialogue. 
Saw =Dracula= today, finally.  It is to yawn.  It s to wonder where the linear
narrative drive went to.  It is to wonder what time warp everybody got their
clothes out of.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 86        Sun Jul 18, 1993
KEITH.D [Boy Editor]         at 09:44 EDT
 
Hanged if I know, eluki. I also dunno where Coppola got off calling it BRAM
STOKER'S DRACULA -- and him and James V. Hart carrying on like trash about how
"faithful" it was -- when it had nothing to do with the book =I= read.

Typical Hollywood. It's real easy to tell a lie because E!, ENTERTAINMENT
WEEKLY, and PREMIERE will eat it up without checking to see if the lie is true
or not. LAST ACTION HERO spoofs action movies (as if action movies aren't
spoofs to begin with) because the director says so. AMOS & ANDREW will be an
in-depth look at race relations that will have people talking because Nicolas
Cage and Samuel L. Jackson (both of whom deserved better) said so. HOOK will
be an extravaganza full of wit and homage to PETER PAN because Steven
Spielberg says so. HUDSON HAWK was fun and exciting because Bruce Willis and
Danny Aiello said it was fun and exciting.

Instead we get: a movie that should've been FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S DRACULA to
be accurate instead of the title being a bald-faced lie; yet another action
movie with its tongue in its cheek (snore); yet another film where all the
good lines are in the trailer; a lead-footed, dull, ugly mess of a film which
only managed to get one good performance (Bob Hoskins) out of five excellent
actors (the other four being Williams, Roberts, Hoffman, and poor, wasted
Maggie Smith); and one of the stupider movies ever to exist.



<running away from Martha, brandishing the Topic Drift Axe>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 87        Sun Jul 18, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 10:28 EDT
 
Oh, authors (or creative people generally, or even -- in this case -- their
publicity machines) always try to set the context in which their work will be
discussed.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 88        Sun Jul 18, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 11:13 EDT
 
Actually, having seen THE LAST ACTION HERO recently, and having seen a fairish
number of action movies (by virtue of being married to somebody who will watch
absolutely anything ever filmed, from LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD to SWEDISH GAS
PUMP GIRLS) -- yes, TLAH really does spoof action movies.  Most of the good
stuff is in throwaways going on behind the main action, though.

Nor do I think it accurate to say that "all action movies are spoofs anyway." 
Inherently unrealistic, yes; but so -- wrenching the discussion back topicward
-- is Fantasy of Manners.

Debra

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 89        Sun Jul 18, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 13:54 EDT
 
Action movies are no more inherently "spoofs" than Restoration tragedies are. 
Being stylized and being a "spoof" are not coterminous states.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 90        Sun Jul 18, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 14:24 EDT
 
 What Patrick Said.

 Advert excerpt from Mel Brooks's _Robin Hood: Men in Tights_:

 Richard Lewis: Why should I believe you?
 Cary Elwes: Because, unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an
   English accent.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 91        Sun Jul 18, 1993
KEITH.D [Boy Editor]         at 15:05 EDT
 
Ken: my wife and I nearly =died= laughing at that line.

I just realized I didn't make myself clear. I wasn't criticizing Coppola or
Hart or Spielberg or the others for pushing their product. I was criticizing
the people who interview and talk about them (E!, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY,
PREMIERE, etc.) for taking those statements at face value and not as the
hyperbole they really are. A lot of people really believed that Coppola was
faithful to DRACULA; those same people believed that TNT's FRANKENSTEIN was
faithful to Shelley; neither were, and you can tell that the people who said
that were paying attention to the statements of people who, as Greg pointed
out, have a vested interest in saying nice things about it, and not actually
checking to see if they told the truth or not.

It's the difference between reporting news, and printing press releases.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 92        Sun Jul 18, 1993
ELUKI                        at 18:43 EDT
 
I will not talk about LAH, I will not talk about LAH, I will not t
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 93        Sun Jul 18, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 20:41 EDT
 
Eluki is about to start a 12-step program for movie addicts. One film at a
time, of course.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 94        Sun Jul 18, 1993
KEITH.D [Boy Editor]         at 21:18 EDT
 
Yes, eluki will go from LAH to JURASSIC PARK, then, the ultimate test, RAIDERS
OF THE LOST ARK.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 95        Sun Jul 18, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 21:56 EDT
 
It occurred to me the other day that, many years from now, one of the defining
graphic "keys" to our age will be the forced-perspective,  two-tone
"Adventure!" graphic created (reinvented?) for RAIDERS  ... it was trite six
months after the film came out, but it is still being used as a visual cue to
indicate "Here Be High Adventure and Breathtaking Pacing".  Wonder how long it
will last?  And will it be as aobvious an '80s marker as deco type is for the
30s, or Bocklin for the 1890s?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 96        Tue Jul 20, 1993
ELUKI                        at 17:38 EDT
 
Paula Kate>Reinvented: it is an only-slightly-steroid-loaded version of a
'30's serial-and-pulp coveroid.

 Gee, I like Bocklin....

 Loathed LAH, bored by JPk, and liked Raiders a lot.  Is there any hope,
doctor? <g,d,rvf>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 97        Tue Jul 20, 1993
JO.CLAYTON [jo.c]            at 18:28 EDT
 
But Raiders was clever, Eluki.  One tiny bit - when Indy took the shirt off
the german guard and it just didn't fit.  Ghod, I loved that.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 98        Tue Jul 20, 1993
KEITH.D [Boy Editor]         at 20:11 EDT
 
I also =loved= the "Where =doesn't= it hurt?" <points to elbow> "Here!"
sequence, as well as the all-time classic line, "=I= don't know, I'm making
this up as I go!"
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 99        Tue Jul 20, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 23:39 EDT
 
Raiders is a great movie.  I forgot to breathe for about 15 minutes the first
time I saw it.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 100       Tue Jul 20, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 23:40 EDT
 
Ah.  That explains much.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 101       Wed Jul 21, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 00:30 EDT
 
I thought I was hiding the brain damage rather well.  How gauche of you to
notice, Greg.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 102       Wed Jul 21, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 01:17 EDT
 
The older I get the more I appreciate the line "It's not the years, it's the
mileage."
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 103       Wed Jul 21, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Fr. Sarducci]   at 05:45 EDT
 
Another fine a/a film with many of the virtues of "RAIDERS:" "DIE  HARD."

(And say, how about that Mannerpunk, eh?)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 104       Wed Jul 21, 1993
KEITH.D [Boy Editor]         at 10:04 EDT
 
Mitch: really? DIE HARD was a teensy weensy spark to RAIDERS' flame, IMO. DIE
HARD 2, though, I'd be willing to compare. It was a superior movie in every
sense.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 106       Wed Jul 21, 1993
KEITH.D [Editor Boy]         at 10:19 EDT
 
LOL, Sherwood!

Alan Rickman was all that movie had going for it. At least in the second one,
Willis, y'know, =paused= every once in a while to relax and get bandaged
before going out again.

And I loved the "Why does this keep happening every Christmas to me?" bits. ;>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 107       Wed Jul 21, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Fr. Sarducci]   at 11:25 EDT
 
DIE HARD II? Puh-LEEZ? All these airplanes circling around and around 
Washington National and nobody thinks, "Why don't we all go to Dulles? Why
doesn't somebody send an airforce plane in to radio these airplanes to go to
Dulles?"

No plot logic to that movie whatsoever.

Go stand in a corner, Keith.D
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 108       Wed Jul 21, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 13:22 EDT
 
DIE HARD II was based on a fine suspense novel by Walter Wager called 58
MINUTES (published in paperback by Tor).  They changed everything. Denver
became Washington, DC, etc.  All that was left was "terrorists take over
airport."  Oh well.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 109       Wed Jul 21, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 22:34 EDT
 
Macdonald has long claimed that the best part of DIE HARD II was when Bruce
Willis is running around Dulles Airport and makes a call from a US West pay
telephone.

Actually, after Patrick's revelation, the truth becomes clear:  the movie
character has managed to pick up a pay phone left over from the book version.

Debra

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 110       Wed Jul 21, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 23:39 EDT
 
Debra>Jim's right, and not the only one who noticed that.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 111       Thu Jul 22, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 01:04 EDT
 
Quote of the day: "I'm not a Lord of Elfland, and I'll say 'I told you so' if
I want to."
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 112       Thu Jul 22, 1993
CYN.WARD [ ]                 at 01:06 EDT
 
I thought it was a PacBell phone<g>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 113       Thu Jul 22, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 06:38 EDT
 
PacTel, actually.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 114       Thu Jul 22, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Fr. Sarducci]   at 09:28 EDT
 
And he calls INTO the AirFone on the plane.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 115       Thu Jul 22, 1993
KEITH.D [Editor Boy]         at 14:06 EDT
 
Hang on, hang on -- you guys want LOGIC? In an =action= movie? BWAH-HAH!


Actually, by far the stupidest thing in the movie was the blizzard in
Washington. Washington maybe has one blizzard a year -- yet the terrorist plot
hinged on there being a blizzard.

Now if they'd =left= it in Denver, there wouldn't be a problem.....

And sure, I noticed -=all=- that stuff, and didn't give a whit. Not much point
in nit-picking that kind of movie, you'll drive y'rself all nutsy-cuckoo.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 116       Thu Jul 22, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Fr. Sarducci]   at 15:44 EDT
 
Blizzard in Washington? I never thought of that.

It wasn't a question of nit-picking--the movie was so dumb from the  git-go
that it never achieved suspension of disbelief. It was like  a plane that
never took off....
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 117       Thu Jul 22, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 22:15 EDT
 
Don't forget the mountains in the b.g. shots.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 118       Sun Jul 25, 1993
ELUKI                        at 16:42 EDT
 
=Raiders= was WONDERFUL! (I thought I'd said that already).  D-H II was the
third stupidest movie in creation  D-H the original had lurvely A.R., who is
an entire MPunk movement in his own right

 <wrenching topic back toward track> I think it was DeCamp, in an essay
written about the Enchanter books, who said that the essence of their humor
lay in the cognitive  dissonance -- i.e., it was only funny because it was <a>
unexpected and <b> an anachronism (harder to pull off these days when kizd
have all the core curriculum of linoleum).  MPunk, IMHO, partakes of some of
the same recipe; i.e., exquisitely civilized chat and large doses of violence.

 Capsule Quiz: Are the Bond films MPunk?  If so, which ones?

 *s s
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 119       Sun Jul 25, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 19:54 EDT
 
Proto, at best, I suspect. They go into the mix with THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 120       Mon Jul 26, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 22:12 EDT
 
Oh yeah, Pitman:  Forgot to say my honest opinion of your opinions, which are
strong and clearly based on thinking and examination.  MHO is that I'm very
interested in your opinions.  Whether or not I might agree with them, in that
case, is irrelevant.  Y/N?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 121       Tue Jul 27, 1993
TNH [Sophronia]              at 17:06 EDT
 
Y'all ought to try =58 Minutes=, which is not a bad book, not nearly. Who
judges Zelazny by the film of =Damnation Alley=?

Eluki, I'd have guessed that the trouble with getting that kind of cognitive
dissonance is not the absence of a core curriculum, but that that kind of
juxtaposition has been done enough times to lose its astonishment value.

Whose quote, Donald?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 122       Tue Jul 27, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 22:34 EDT
 
You mean we can't judge John Varley by _Millennium_??
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 123       Wed Jul 28, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 19:19 EDT
 
MILLENIUM the =film=?  Don't get me started!
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 124       Wed Aug 04, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 21:42 EDT
 
For all you mannerpunks online:  This current week's New Yorker contains a
long review of THE OTTOLINE EMPIRE (93/09/08).  In the context of the pre-
vious discussion of the _Orlando_ film,, you may find this review interest-
ing.  Particularly the bottom of p. 84 and top of p 85.  Quote: "It is not
justs a matterof some uniquely English phenomenon or of some particular 
historical moment.  The delectations of Bloomsbury are endemically snobbishsh
...and they are quite as much so in the United States now as they were in
England then and are now.  And the essence of snobbery is treachery.

This brought both Tappan's and Patrick's comments here to mind.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 125       Wed Aug 04, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 21:46 EDT
 
"The essence of snobbery is treachery."  Ooh.

However, it may sound better than it is.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 126       Wed Aug 04, 1993
TAPPAN.KING                  at 22:05 EDT
 
I had rather thought the essence of snobbery is contempt.  The lower classes
are hardly worth the effort of treachery.

     >T<
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 127       Wed Aug 04, 1993
F.KOPETZ1 [> L'Starr <]      at 23:25 EDT
 
Eau de Snobbery?

<g,d,&RLH!>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 128       Wed Aug 04, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 23:49 EDT
 
Too long NEW YORKER articles tend to be -- well, too long, so I skipped that.
Will have to go and read it....

I was more interested in the profile of Ben Katchor and Ben's one-page strip.

Ben's a weird person, BTW -- the Emo Phillips of the comics field.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 129       Thu Aug 05, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 06:35 EDT
 
Tappan, silly boy, upper-class snobbery isn't directed at the "lower classes,"
it's directed at the middle classes and don't you forget it.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 130       Thu Aug 05, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Baen'sBane?]      at 08:41 EDT
 
Interesting how "snobbery" has changed meaning over the past hundred years.
Upper-class snobbery, now defined, is indeed directed downward, but in the
Victorian era it was d ected upward:  a snob was someone who fawned on his
social betters, not someone who looked disdainfully at his social inferiors
(which would have been infra dignitatum for both U and snob alike).

It's odd to read about "snobs" in Victorian and Edwardian literature --
Maugham wrote a great story on the subject -- and realize that the term comes
closer to our "social climber."
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 131       Thu Aug 05, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 08:43 EDT
 
Love your sneaky NAM.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 132       Thu Aug 05, 1993
BETH.MEACHAM                 at 09:27 EDT
 
Silly Patrick -- the middle classes -are- the lower classes. -Everyone- is
lower class when you're a Mayflower descendant.

(But I'm not, of course...just Tappan. <g>)

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 133       Thu Aug 05, 1993
TAPPAN.KING                  at 09:43 EDT
 
When my brother married a woman from an old (and I mean =old=) Chinese family,
it was amusing to see how the class arrows got suddenly  reversed.   To his
wife's family, =we= were the lower classes...

     >T<
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 134       Thu Aug 05, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Mr.Bill'sDog]   at 10:29 EDT
 
As a third-generation Russian-Polish-Jewish immigrant, I'm lower  class to
EVERYONE. I don't even know who my great-grandparents were.

Somehow, I have managed to eke out some semblence of a productive  existence,
despite this.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 135       Thu Aug 05, 1993
F.KOPETZ1 [> L'Starr <]      at 10:49 EDT
 
Right now, my daughter's in the lower classes.















She'll be in sexond grade in the Fall. <g,d,rlh>

Mitch, what family history I know has been gained piecemeal.

My great -great-grandfather, on my grandmother's side, on my father's side,
taught on a reservation in Oregon.  And my grandmother on my father's side was
a newspaper columnist or stringer (have to find the obit).  Nana -- my
mother's mother -- worked switchboard at Castro for years.  I interviewed her
for a class, years ago, about her reaction to the original broadcast of WAR OF
THE WORLDS.

Mom worked for the military as a civilian for many years.  And other than
Albert Gillete (or Guillet, I'm not sure of the spelling -- unfirtunately),
the children -- our generation -- is the one with all the college attendees.

BTW, as fans, us kids are the first generation, and mom is the second
generation.  We brought her into this Fannish world. <GGG>


Regards from L'Starr,

.                    -*> The Midnight Lurker <*-
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 138       Thu Aug 05, 1993
ELUKI                        at 21:56 EDT
 
Courtly manner is the essence of treachery?  

Something rather Rousseauean in that, I think.

 Thesis: Mannerpunk requires a Rationalist worldview.  Metathesis: most great
MPunk works have little or no actual magic in them, or at the very least it
does not make major inroads upon the protagonists thoughts.  Antithesis: So
wot about =Serpent's Egg=, then, eh?  OTOH, I still maintain that the clear
pale light of the 19th century shines through the MPunk oriel window.

 Gee, it's fun arguing with yourself.  Especially if you win.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 139       Fri Aug 06, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 13:43 EDT
 
You =always= win, eluki -- and you =always= lose. Unless it's a tie.  :)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 140       Fri Aug 06, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 19:58 EDT
 
<sits down, thinks a lot, wants to think more. Rationalist??? Meanwhile...)

Did anyone notice that the recent PUB WEEKLY piece on sf publishing uses

the term "fantasy of manners" (in quotes) in passing? 'Course it was Rob
Killheffer, my cohort on NYRSF, who wrote it; and of course he also used the
term "elfpunk" to refer to Bordertown. But interesting still.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 141       Fri Aug 06, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 22:32 EDT
 
DGK:  Which issue (date & number) was that Pub. Weekly?  Like to see it.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 142       Sat Aug 07, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 08:14 EDT
 
August 1, 1993.

When Rob interviewed me, I told him repeatedly that I don't think "elfpunk",
or whatever you call it, qualifies as a full-fledged marketing subgenre like
hard SF or epic fantasy.  And I still don't.

Maybe it will in a few years, but.

I think Rob just wanted to include the term for its amusement value. And it
did get LIFE ON THE BORDER and ELSEWHERE mentioned in the sidebar, so that's
okay with me.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 143       Sat Aug 07, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 08:52 EDT
 
As a sometime journalist, I can readily sympathize with Rob's desire to get a
nifty phrase into his article.  One's piece has to be readable, and the
temptation to include a funny quote, even if it doesn't contribute to the
direct currents of the piece, is great.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 144       Sat Aug 07, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 10:46 EDT
 
...which is why I put "voodoopunk" in the BONE DANCE review, never mind that
a) it was only a 30-line review (it was worth it), and b) I had to correct the
editor/typesetter who first spelled it "Voodoo Punk" and then again "voodoo
punk," and I had to assure them that it had to be one word, otherwise it
wouldn't be funny.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 145       Sat Aug 07, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 19:37 EDT
 
Still scratching head in confusion over responses to the New Yorker quote.
Earlier  in this topic, both Patrick and Tappan had interesting comments about
class and snobbery in manner fiction.  This is why some of us  seem to
appreciate the approach and attitude in some US books, which play against the
manners tradition, while still using them in an authentic way.  It's got to be
a creative challenge to do this.  I'd still like to learn what you and anybody
else thinks about how and why some American fantasy writers do this so well. 
Still curious.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 147       Sun Aug 08, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 09:58 EDT
 
 American society is deeply and complexly organized by class, but the classes -
- save for the bottommost -- tend to permit more mobility than in most class
societies.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 148       Sun Aug 08, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 12:43 EDT
 
Good stuff, Sherwood and Greg.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 149       Mon Aug 09, 1993
TAPPAN.KING                  at 00:18 EDT
 
American class mobility is based on the possession of capital, and, to a
lesser extend, one's acting ability.   British class mobility, by comparison,
is based largely on one's social connections.

Shaw's Pygmalion is really an American fable, which is why "My Fair Lady" has
such staying power.  Shaw concluded that Liza would be squashed like a bug for
her presumption.  Loerner and Loew that she would triumph.

      >T<
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 150       Mon Aug 09, 1993
F.KOPETZ1 [> L'Starr <]      at 01:36 EDT
 
This will sound like a Really Dumb Question, but I have to ask.  Especially
since I've only lurked here a week or two.

What is "Mannerpunk?"

Regards from L'Starr,

.                    -*> The Midnight Lurker <*-
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 151       Mon Aug 09, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 08:19 EDT
 
<large sigh> E-mail me your address.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 153       Mon Aug 09, 1993
F.KOPETZ1 [> L'Starr <]      at 12:24 EDT
 
Don, Sherwood, which should it be?

Should I e-mail my snail, or check the archives? <ggg>

Regards from L'Starr,

.                    -*> The Midnight Lurker <*-
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 155       Mon Aug 09, 1993
D.EGAN4 [Doris]              at 22:23 EDT
 
I'd be interested in seeing that article as well.


Hi, Don, if you're around.  We met briefly at Gordon Van Gelder's apartment
the night of Delia Sherman's reading at Dixon Place.  Ellen introduced us and
you both told me I should get on GEnie.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 156       Mon Aug 09, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 23:13 EDT
 
Hi, Doris. Yes, I remember you. The offer holds for you as well.

I must apologize for lack of charity, but I do get weary trying to re-explain
my theory (which nobody but me understands anyway, he said in his best Eeyore
imitation).
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 158       Tue Aug 10, 1993
F.KOPETZ1 [> L'Starr <]      at 00:01 EDT
 
Which issue of NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION?  I think one of our "local"
(i.e., withing a twenty- to thirty-mile radius) carries it.  Perhaps I could
look it up in one of them.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 159       Tue Aug 10, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 00:36 EDT
 
Could you possibly upload the article to the library, DGK?  (Or if you prefer,
could someone do it for you?)  That way you could just refer people to the
file...

I ask because I'd like to read it, too.  And I can't see you making copies
 for everyone and mailing them all out.  Could get prohibitive.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 160       Tue Aug 10, 1993
F.KOPETZ1 [> L'Starr <]      at 00:50 EDT
 
 I agree with Phaedre.  That would be the simplest form, and you'd $ave
po$tage that way, a$ well a$ your Sanity. <ggg>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 161       Tue Aug 10, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 00:53 EDT
 
It's quite a good article, actually. Lucid, well-written, over-long -- typical
Donald.  :)  No, seriously, it's interesting, but it won't get you any closer
to a proper definition of either term ("FoM" or "MPunk").
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 162       Tue Aug 10, 1993
SFWA-SOUKUP [Martha]         at 02:13 EST
 
Ooh, it'd be good if you could put the article in the library, Donald.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 163       Tue Aug 10, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 06:44 EDT
 
Issue #32.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 164       Tue Aug 10, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Roscoe]         at 09:29 EDT
 
A search of the library reveals the following files (these are  what we call
"topic archives," that is to say they're old  messages from here in clumps of
several hundred, which have  been cut from here and posted to the software
library in one  big bunch):

 6239 MANNER10.TOP             X M.GRABIEN1   930206  138240      1  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk 9/92 to 10/92
 6240 MANNER10.ZIP             X M.GRABIEN1   930206   55808      1  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk 9/92 to 10/92
 4746 MANNER6.TOP              X SARAH-C      920722  137856      2  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk 3/92 to 4/92
 4747 MANNER6.ZIP              X SARAH-C      920722   55040      2  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk 3/92 to 4/92
 4750 MANNER7.TOP              X SARAH-C      920723  191744      1  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk 4/92 to 5/92
 4751 MANNER7.ZIP              X SARAH-C      920723   80256      1  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk 4/92 to 5/92
 5541 MANNER8.TOP              X SARAH-C      921030  141568      1  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk 5/92 to 8/92
 5547 MANNER8.ZIP              X SARAH-C      921030   56704      2  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk 5/92 to 8/92
 5553 MANNER9.TOP              X SARAH-C      921030  158976      1  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk 8/92 to 9/92
 5554 MANNER9.ZIP              X SARAH-C      921030   66304      1  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk 8/92 to 9/92
 4046 MANNERP3.TOP             X SARAH-C      920422  152832      2  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk topic, 12/91 to 1/92
 4047 MANNERP3.ZIP             X SARAH-C      920422   62592      2  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk topic, 12/91 to 1/92
 4048 MANNERP4.TOP             X SARAH-C      920422  161664      3  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk topic, 1/92 to 2/92
 4049 MANNERP4.ZIP             X SARAH-C      920422   67072      3  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk topic, 1/92 to 2/92
 4054 MANNERP5.TOP             X SARAH-C      920422  182912      1  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk topic, 2/92 to 3/92
 4055 MANNERP5.ZIP             X SARAH-C      920422   75776      2  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk topic, 2/92 to 3/92
 3642 MANNERPUNK1.TOP          X SARAH-C      920303  152064      1  25
      Desc: The Mannerpunk topic, 11/91
 3643 MANNERPUNK1.ZIP          X SARAH-C      920303   61056      9  25
      Desc: The Mannerpunk topic, 11/91
 4044 MANNERPUNK2.TOP          X SARAH-C      920422  166016      2  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk topic, 11/91 to 12/91
 4045 MANNERPUNK2.ZIP          X SARAH-C      920422   68736      2  25
      Desc: Mannerpunk topic, 11/91 to 12/91

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 165       Tue Aug 10, 1993
F.KOPETZ1 [> L'Starr <]      at 13:53 EDT
 
Thanks for the library list. <g>  When I catch up on my critiques, I'll see if
I can get one or several.  I don't know when I'll get out to the library,
though. ;;sigh;;

Regards from L'Starr,

.                    -*> The Midnight Lurker <*-
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 166       Tue Aug 10, 1993
D.EGAN4 [Doris]              at 19:15 EDT
 
Hmmm.  I have not yet mastered the art of accessing the archives, and
considering how long it took me to work out Aladdin, perhaps this is something
I should save for when I have time and strength of purpose.

Although I could begin by writing to whomever might have back copies of the
NYRSF.  Is there an address?  There are a couple of other back-issued articles
I've heard of that I'd like to track down as well.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 168       Tue Aug 10, 1993
SFWA-SOUKUP [Martha]         at 19:49 EDT
 
Most zines are -thrilled- to sell back-issues.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 169       Tue Aug 10, 1993
D.EGAN4 [Doris]              at 20:17 EDT
 
Thanks, Sherwood.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 170       Tue Aug 10, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 20:32 EDT
 
Geez, everyone else doing my advertising for me.

I'm not sure there's still a disc file existing of the piece, Martha et al.,
and I'm loth to retype it. Let me research.

There's probably some call for someone (logical candidate yours truly) to comb
the back archives (I've got printout, actually) and pull together an updated
and more focused piece on the topic. I'll think about it.

(By the way, NYRSF is $2.50 per issue, yearly subscription price $25.00-- for
another couple of weeks when it goes up to $3/3 (try again) $3/$30. We're
working on issue #60 now.)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 171       Tue Aug 10, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 23:25 EDT
 
I still have my condensed description of Mannerpunk on diskette  somewhere -
ah, in fact, RIGHT HERE!

+++ REPETITIVE POST WARNING +++  (I HAVE THIS STRANGE FEELING OF DEJA VU)

The abbreviated abbreviated explication of Mannerpunk, AKA "Fantasy of
Manners", the Good Parts edition:

Fantasy of Manners (FoM), as defined by Don Keller, describes fantasy in which
the rules of society are fluid rather than fixed; in which individuals must
determine which actions are "moral" or "right"; in which self-definition is
central; in which the interaction of adults is depicted as role-playing or
"let's pretend" on a grand scale.  What the characters say and think about the
action is more important than the action itself.  FoM is characterized by
words wielded as weapons; by attention to costume and style as outer
reflections of the inner person (and thus with Guise and Disguise); and by
awareness of multiple paradigms of Right Behavior. "Mannerpunk" was originally
a joke label for FoM; these days some of us use it to describe the hipper,
more cynical varieties of FoM.  Some of us don't.

++++  End Repetitive Post  ++++++++

I saved that file for =just this purpose=.  We now return you to the
discussion in progress.  Read Don's article, it's The Real Stuff.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 172       Wed Aug 11, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 00:17 EDT
 
Thanks Pat!  Does the article further elaborate upon "interaction of adults is
depicted as role-playing or 'let's pretend' on a grand scale," and why adults
would find such behavior, hm, adult?  What do grown-upss  get out of it, in
other words, that they wouldn't get from library  theatricals?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 173       Wed Aug 11, 1993
STEVEN.BRUST                 at 00:29 EDT
 
Oh, well done, Paula Kate!

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 174       Wed Aug 11, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Roscoe]         at 09:17 EDT
 
Hmmm... by that definition the Spenser books are FoMs. Except they're not F.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 175       Wed Aug 11, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 09:38 EDT
 
Mitch: well, they can still be oMs, if not FoMs...

PK: thanks. I, too, needed to read that again to focus m'self...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 176       Wed Aug 11, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 10:17 EDT
 
Maybe the Spenser books could be called Mystery of Manners books?  (Would that
include the Lord Peter Wimsey books, too?  And Hercule Poirot?)  Have I
invented yet another subgenre or whatever?  (Don't hit me!)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 177       Wed Aug 11, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Roscoe]         at 10:18 EDT
 
Mystery of Manners? MoM?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 178       Wed Aug 11, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 12:09 EDT
 
Novels of Manners.  The original was Comedy of Manners, was it not?

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 179       Wed Aug 11, 1993
JOELR                        at 16:54 EDT
 
Sure they are, Roscoe -- a character repeatedly deciding that though best way
to locate the source of trouble is to make a nuisance of himself until
somebody tries to kill him is pure fantasy.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 180       Wed Aug 11, 1993
F.KOPETZ1 [> L'Starr <]      at 18:36 EDT
 
That's a start, Paula -- thanks. <g>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 181       Wed Aug 11, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Roscoe]         at 19:37 EDT
 
Very true, Joel.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 182       Wed Aug 11, 1993
D.EGAN4 [Doris]              at 20:28 EDT
 
I'm not sure I'll allow the Spenser books in my FoM classification -- the
point is made several times along the way that Spenser and Hawk aren't
roleplaying, that they just =know= the macho code on some level that Susan
likes to try and analyze.  Lord Peter, on the other hand, analyzed everything,
agonized nicely about the correct action to take, and role- played all the
time, especially the "silly ass about town" part.  (My favorite line from the
entire canon:  "He launched into a rather pointless story about olives.")  We
can also check off the "words wielded as weapons" box, and the "attention to
costume" -- down to the proper choice of tie and shoes, and the somewhat
conscious use of the monocle to get a reaction.

Interesting -- the Sayers books sprang to my mind, too, before I'd even seen
Phaedre's post.

I don't know about Christie.  My initial reaction is "no," but why...   Aha.
There =is= roleplaying, but it's too damned straightforward.  Criminals
pretending to be honest folk, that's just not enough.  Besides, I sense the
shadow of the God of the C. of E., rising up behind everything and deliniating
right and wrong in unarguable, childhood terms.

Thanks, Paula.  This is fun.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 183       Wed Aug 11, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 22:11 EDT
 
(Thanks, Paula. It's a good capsule.)

The Wimsey books are definite forerunners, both direct and through their
demonstrable influence on Dorothy Dunnett.

There is lots of fiction of manners, but what my theory covers is the fantasy
version.

For new discussers, and in case you hadn't noticed, the Onlie Begetter of this
theory prefers "fantasy of manners" as the descriptive term. But it's a
personal preference.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 184       Wed Aug 11, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 22:58 EDT
 
Oh, THAT Spenser.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 185       Thu Aug 12, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 10:14 EDT
 
Heh. Just imagining what Ken thought before he realized it was Robert
Parker.... :)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 186       Thu Aug 12, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 23:04 EDT
 
_The Faerie Queene_, of course. (Don said, "OH, they're talking about Spenser
again...")
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 187       Fri Aug 13, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 14:52 EDT
 
Ken, that's what I thought of first, too.  Some minds take the high road, and
some take the low road, I guess... <g>  (Determination of which is which I
leave as an exercise for the reader.)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 189       Fri Aug 13, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 21:24 EDT
 
LONG POST WARNING.

I arrived at Tor this morning to discover the following, which Micole had
titled "Description of a Mannerpunk Hero(ine)," adding, when I asked her where
she'd found it, that she intended no comment on the texts =she= was referring
to by the title of the piece it was actually from (this will all come clear,
attend:).

"...is usually an heiress, probably a peeress in her own right, with perhaps a
vicious baronet, an amiable duke, and an irresistible younger son of a marquis
as lovers in the foreground, a clergyman and a poet sighing for her in the
middle distance, and a crowd of undefined adorers dimly indicated beyond. Her
eyes and her wit are both dazzling; her nose and her morals are alike free
from any tendency to irregularity; she has a superb =contralto= and a superb
intellect; she is perfectly well-dressed and perfectly religious; she dances
like a sylph and reads the Bible in the original tongues.  Or it may be that
the heroine is not an heiress-- that rank and wealth are the only things in
which she is deficient; but she infallibly gets into high society, she has the
triumph of refusing many matches and securing the best, and she wears some
family jewels or other as a sort of crown of righteousness at the end. Rakish
men either bite their lips in impotent confusion at her repartees, or are
touched to penitence by her reproofs, which, on appropriate occasions, rise to
a lofty strain of rhetoric; indeed, there is a general propensity in her to
make speeches, and to rhapsodize at some length when she retires to her
bedroom. In her recorded conversations she is amazingly eloquent, and in her
unrecorded conversations, amazingly witty. She is understood to have a depth
of insight that looks through and through the shallow theories of
philosophers, and her superior instincts are a sort of dial by which men have
only to set their clocks and watches, and all will go well....You are consoled
now and then by a hint that [other characters] have affairs, which keeps you
in mind that the working-day business of the world is being carried on, but
ostensibly the final cause of their existence is that they may accompany the
heroine on her 'starring' expedition through life. They see her at a ball, and
are dazzled; at a flower-show, and they are fascinated; on a riding excursion,
and they are witched by her noblehorsemanship....[We] have the satisfaction of
knowing that her sorrows are wept into embroidered handkerchiefs, that her
fainting form reclines on the very best upholstery, and that whatever
vicissitudes she may undergo, from being dashed out of her carriage to having
her head shaved in a fever, she comes out of them all with a complexion more
blooming and locks more redundant than ever."

--George Eliot, "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists"
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 190       Fri Aug 13, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 21:42 EDT
 
Well, it looks like George failed to put them out of business.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 191       Fri Aug 13, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 22:07 EDT
 
I love that essay.  It never fails to make me LOL, very handy when not so
happy.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 192       Fri Aug 13, 1993
BETH.MEACHAM                 at 22:59 EDT
 
That's splendid.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 193       Fri Aug 13, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 23:28 EDT
 
Damn, Beth -- =I= was going to say "That's splendid." 

So: "What Beth Said."  :)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 194       Sat Aug 14, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 00:07 EDT
 
I am reminded of Ginger Johnson's (unfinished, I think) series on The Byronic
Hero in FANTASIAE.  The concepts were general, but all the illustrative
examples were Rochester from JANE EYRE.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 195       Sat Aug 14, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 00:50 EDT
 
It's splendid, but if Micole or Donald think it actually maps anything real in
modern fantasy, they're full of crap.

As I've said before, this discussion constantly veers into daydreams of a
genre some of us would like to read, at the expense of telling the truth about
the fiction that actually exists.  Micole or Donald should write some of these
dreamt-of books.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 196       Sat Aug 14, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 01:11 EDT
 
Rochester as a Byronic hero?  Hmm, either I'm going to have to change my idea
of what a Byronic hero is, or I'm going to have to change my perception of
Rochester...  (Even the version with Timothy Dalton in the part didn't make
him seem Byronic to me.  And Orson Welles?  NEVER!  <g>)

Though I think I can see a glimmer of resemblance...  (brooding applies to
both Rochester's case and to Byronic heroes in general, right?  but brooding
isn't all there is to a Byronic hero, IMHO)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 197       Sat Aug 14, 1993
SFWA-SOUKUP [Martha]         at 02:35 EDT
 
It's a nice essay, but one that could only be improved by paragraph breaks.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 198       Sat Aug 14, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 05:33 EDT
 
There's =a lot= more to a proper Byronic hero -- meaning like Byron or like
unto Byron's heroes -- than brooding. For one thing, people tend to forget
what a phenomenal sense of humor Byron had (Tim Powers is one of the few
portrayers of Lord B. in fiction that rings right).

I dunno, Patrick, that sounds a touch like the Duchess in SWORDSPOINT.....
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 199       Sat Aug 14, 1993
T.WEBER7 [Quox]              at 07:31 EDT
 
Patrick, I believe Micole was teasing Donald, as is distinctly her wont.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 200       Sat Aug 14, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 09:41 EDT
 
Tom, I imagine you're right.  (Observers who don't know us should note that
Don and I are old friends, and that I ththink very highly of Micole.)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 202       Sat Aug 14, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 18:07 EDT
 
Hmm. Perhaps I'm proving humor-impaired again. (Or maybe not.)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 203       Sun Aug 15, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 14:00 EDT
 
Don - I suspect you may be slightly humor-impaired on this one.  Ask the lady
...  <g>

Oh, Rochester is a great archetype of the Byronic hero - mostly because it's
so anti-intuitive.  He has great brooding problems, which he hides well.  He
can play the social game with perfect aplomb, but he doesn't usually bother.

I always thought Orson Welles' Rochester was very sexy.  (Does anyone else
remember George C Scott and Suzanna York?)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 204       Sun Aug 15, 1993
LACE [E.Gilligan]            at 14:54 EDT
 
Yep, I remember that version, Paula Kate.  That's the first thing I saw George
C. Scott in that I liked ... then I discovered a whole slew of other GSC
movies.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 205       Sun Aug 15, 1993
E.PERRY7 [Betsy Perry]       at 19:47 EDT
 
Byron was sometimes a nifty guy, but he had weird ideas about women before and
after the Princess of Parallellograms; among  other things, he was repelled by
the sight of a woman eating.

DON JUAN, however, is ineffably Cool.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 207       Mon Aug 16, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 21:50 EDT
 
I did ask Micole what she'd intended, and she said it was only half in fun;
she was actually worried that I'd be offended by the actual title of the
essay.  But she feels that at least a few of the areas covered in the quote
(physical beauty--"They're perfect, they're role models; maybe they have one
flaw, a tragic flaw" is a near-quote--and the recorded/unrecorded
conversation) =do= apply to existing mannerist texts, Emma Bull in specific.
We got sidetracked before she elaborated.

One of the foundering-points between Patrick and me is that (and I believe
I've said this before) when he thinks "mannerpunk" he thinks of WAR FOR THE
OAKS and Bordertown and the other hipper, more streetwise stuff; and when I
think "fantasy of manners" I think of SWORDSPOINT and the other "medievaloid"
(to use Ellen Kushner's term) texts. And we wonder why we discover we're not
quite talking about the same thing.

The reason I sighed and settled on "fantasy of manners" for the handle for
This Stuff is because I see the novel of manners as just about the most
important influence. I'm not sure Patrick would agree.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 208       Mon Aug 16, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 22:33 EDT
 
Are Emma's characters really perfect ("with one tragic flaw")?  I really
question this.

"Hipper"?

<leaves, scratching head>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 209       Mon Aug 16, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 23:01 EDT
 
"Streetwise" is a better adjective than such an amorphous and subjective term
as "hip," methinks.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 210       Mon Aug 16, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 23:56 EDT
 
less dated, perhaps, if not more precise
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 211       Tue Aug 17, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 00:04 EDT
 
Or even _though_ not more precise.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 212       Tue Aug 17, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 00:32 EDT
 
Paula Kate, I remember George C Scott as Rochester.

Lace, I liked him best as the Beast, with Trish van Devere.  (But then someone
changed him into a "prince"--yuck!  Why is it that the best beasts are not all
that great looking as princes?)  He was WAY COOL as Ebenezer Scrooge, too,
though.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 213       Tue Aug 17, 1993
LACE [E.Gilligan]            at 01:55 EDT
 
True, true, Phaedre.  An odd-ball film he did, which I think in an odd-ball
way might fit into the Mannerpunk venue ... HERE THERE BE GIANTS or something
like that.  He played a man who'd been a federal judge and went mad when his
wife died ... became Sherlock Holmes and the doctor his brother set on him to
institutionalize him was, of course, Dr. Watson ... but this Watson was a
woman.  It was fun ... perhaps not great ... but fun and fun rates highly with
me.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 214       Tue Aug 17, 1993
TAPPAN.KING                  at 09:42 EDT
 
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS.   I think it's a line from a translation of DON QUIXOTE.
Not to mention the name of a surprisingly influential rock band with wonky
videos.  The sort of detail that might turn up in a  mannerpunk novel.

     >T<
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 215       Tue Aug 17, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 13:15 EDT
 
And then of course, there's the general in DOCTOR STRANGELOVE, which isn't
really mannerist, but is a great film.  :)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 216       Tue Aug 17, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 13:23 EDT
 
THIS IS NOT DON KELLER.  ANY RESEMBLANCE TO DON KELLER IS PURELY COINCI-
DENTAL.  THIS IS MICOLE SUDBERG.
    CRAP respectfully dedicated to pnh Being a list of (mannerpunk) characters
amazingly eloquent in their recorded conversations and amazingly witty in
their other recorded con- versations, while also possessing straight noses, or
at least beautiful faces. War for the Oaks: Eddi.  Falcon: Nikki, Chrysander,
Laura Brass.  Bone Dance: Sparrow.  Tam Lin: Thomas Lane.  The Secret Country
& sequels: Randolph, Fence, Claudia.  God Stalk & seq.: Jame, & brother whose
name has slipped my mind. Sorcery & Cecelia: Cecelia, Kate, James, Thomas. 
Swordspoint: Alec, Richard.  Thomas the Rhymer: Thomas. Etc. Faeries, elves,
and Classics Majors omitted for obvious reasons.

It would do myself an injustice to say I offered the quote in a spirit more
than half serious; but it would do Mr. Keller an injustice to say I offered it
in a spirit more than half joking.  I slipped it onto Mr. Keller's desk and
slipped away before he saw me, safe in the anonymity of a Courier 10=pt. 
ffont.  I obviously do not concur with the quote's snide tone (which-- I will
venture timidly into the treacherous ocean of psychobiocriticism to say--
probably had as much to do with Mr. Eliot s's torturous relations with Miss
Evans as it had to do with the merits of the books discussed); what most
appeals to me about mannerpunk is that the characters really are as witty as
the other characters think they are.  When I first encountered, say, War for
the Oaks in my benighted adolescence, it most appealed to me (so retrospective
says; I would not have so put it at the time) because it offered a role model:
a bright,  attractive, witty woman who did what she wanted with her life and
made nno apologies for it.  I think much mannerpunk offers this satisfaction;
and I do not think it is a small, or detestable, satisfaction.  I was going to
apologize for the intrusion of autobiography and naive criticism, but to hell
with it.  If you are so self-confident and so self-sufficient you can do
without role models or wit in literature (having enough in your life), you can
damn well get along without an apology from me.
                                       Yours truly,
                                       MS
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 217       Tue Aug 17, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 13:26 EDT
 
Micole: you left out the Dutchess in SWORDSPOINT, who embodies that thing-ness
you described.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 218       Tue Aug 17, 1993
LACE [E.Gilligan]            at 14:31 EDT
 
Thanks for the correction, Tappan.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 219       Tue Aug 17, 1993
SFWA-SOUKUP [Martha]         at 14:49 EST
 
I think "They Might Be Giants" was a wonky George C. Scott movie (the one
about the man who thinks he's Holmes, and whose psychiatrist, Joanne Woodward,
is named Dr. Watson) before it was a band.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 220       Tue Aug 17, 1993
LACE [E.Gilligan]            at 15:08 EDT
 
Movie was made ca. 1972-73, I believe ... have no idea about the band.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 221       Tue Aug 17, 1993
BETH.MEACHAM                 at 15:30 EDT
 
Welcome, Micole.  Quick, someone!  Get that woman a modem and a GEnie account!
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 222       Tue Aug 17, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 19:25 EDT
 
Too late; she's (1) too smart to get entangled and (2) off to England for a
term, starting later this week.

I hadn't, of course, thought about the angle that said "this subgenre presents
idealized images of people _and that's what's good about it._" Must consider
this some more.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 223       Tue Aug 17, 1993
LACE [E.Gilligan]            at 20:10 EDT
 
I think one of the things that appeal to readers of "Mannerpunk" is the wish
fulfillment everyone has ... after that argument, you always think of that
snappy reply, that pithy, withering remark that, while not demeaning to you,
would have been just the perfect come-uppance to your "opponent."  You get
that, in spades, in good Mannerpunk.  Mind you, there's more to it than that,
but witty reparte, I think, is a trademark.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 224       Tue Aug 17, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 20:21 EDT
 
It didn't work; I knew it was Micole that had left it for me instantly.

I've been telling her for a couple years now she'd be an asset to this topic
(and others). It hasn't taken .
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 225       Tue Aug 17, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 21:09 EDT
 
Okay, but I still don't see very many of these qualities in Emma's work,
although people always locate it as central to the M-word Thing. Yeah, sure,
some of her characters are well turned-out.  Nikki Falcon _is_ an aristocrat,
after all.  But Eddi never seemed to me anything other than a normal young
professional musician with a personality; I _never_ took her to be
astonishingly beautiful.  For instance.  And I never get, off Emma's work,
that sense of endless high-level repartee. So I keep thinking, either it isn't
central to M-word, or M-word is still misdefined.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 226       Tue Aug 17, 1993
LACE [E.Gilligan]            at 22:06 EDT
 
I don't necessarily think Mannerpunk should have endless high-level repartee
(or any other level).  Maintaining that would not only be hard on the author
but also the reader.  After awhile it gets tedious, but I do think good
repartee is fundamental to what I expect from a Mannerpunk story.  That's part
of the fun ... think of the name "Mannerpunk" or "Fantasy of Manners" or
whatever.  Manners is -part- of the name and, to my mind, part of the game. 
How can one use the manners your good mother raised you with and still strip
that evil turk down to size? The fun is in the delivery, the manner, the tone
... the flavor, nuance ... etc.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 227       Tue Aug 17, 1993
DAN.COMFORT                  at 22:28 EDT
 
 
 (THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS, the rock duo, picked the name in honor of the
 George C. Scott movie).

                               Dan

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 228       Tue Aug 17, 1993
R.DAVIS68 [Ray]              at 22:59 EDT
 
I shouldn't say how long I sat here trying to remember when Orson Welles
played John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 229       Tue Aug 17, 1993
J.BRUNET [JimB]              at 23:48 EDT
 
There, there, Ray.  I'd rejected the same hypothesis, without having come up
with the correct one.  You Are Not Alone.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 230       Wed Aug 18, 1993
TROWBRIDGE [Dave T.]         at 01:38 EDT
 
LACE, re 628: the retort thought up too late. Isn't there a wonderful French
idiom for that, that means literally, "on the stairs?" I've been trying to
track it down without success -- but I agree, that for me, much of the appeal
of mannerist fiction is the repartee.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 231       Wed Aug 18, 1993
LACE [E.Gilligan]            at 02:50 EDT
 
Don't know the phrase you're talking about.  If you find it, let me know.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 232       Wed Aug 18, 1993
BETH.MEACHAM                 at 09:31 EDT
 
There is.  Tappan uses it.  So do I,  but Tappan knows how to spell in French,
and I don't.  So he'll be along shortly to set us wise.

"esprit de'escalier" or something like that.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 233       Wed Aug 18, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 09:55 EDT
 
It would be "d'escalier."

Patrick: why should the implied "beauty" be skin deep? I think Eddi's beauty
was expressed differently than, say, Nikki's or the duchess' or whomever's.
And was mainly done so through her wonderful music.

Sparrow's another can of worms. I still snicker at Ace's early press material,
referring to the protagonist of BONE DANCE as "he."
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 234       Wed Aug 18, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 11:24 EDT
 
I will also admit that I've never understood Bull's inclusion in the FoM
canon.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 235       Wed Aug 18, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 13:43 EDT
 
Keith, the kind of "beauty" Micole was talking about _is_ the skin-deep
variety.  Don't twist my words; I'm not saying Eddi wasn't wonderful person
whom I'd love to be acquainted with were she a real person. That's not the
point.

Sometimes I think any train of thought requiring more than one exchange of
messages is utterly lost on line.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 236       Wed Aug 18, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 16:02 EDT
 
Lois: well, WAR FOR THE OAKS fits -- don't think FALCON or BONE DANCE do,
m'self. Maybe she's just included 'cause she's from Minnesota?  :)

Patrick: oh, calm down, I wasn't twisting anything. Jus' makin' an
observation. And you're right, thinking about it -- but not everything's going
to fit into every category, either.

We're all woolgathering here anyhow....  :>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 237       Wed Aug 18, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 16:29 EDT
 
Keith, my calm is the repose of the vasty deep.  Are you excited?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 238       Wed Aug 18, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 17:34 EDT
 
Parts of WftO do.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 239       Wed Aug 18, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 22:34 EDT
 
Thank you, Ray. It took me about three messages to realise it wasn't Messr.
Wilmot, too. Between that and Spenser...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 240       Thu Aug 19, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 06:50 EDT
 
Turned his spelling British, it did.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 241       Thu Aug 19, 1993
KEITH.D [keith.d]            at 09:56 EDT
 
I love you, Patrick, and I want to have your baby.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 242       Thu Aug 19, 1993
P.GRANZEAU [Pete]            at 23:13 EDT
 
I don't think I have ever seen "Messr." used in the singular in English.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 243       Fri Aug 20, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 01:45 EDT
 
Well, heck, Willie Silver is absolutely perfect with one Great Big Tragic Flaw
(and that's why he doesn't get the girl).

But I;m not sure I agree with the rest of Micole's contentions; Carry on ...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 244       Fri Aug 20, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 06:59 EDT
 
Neither have I, Pete. It took me three readings of the posting to reali_z_e
what had made Donald try to sound like Dick Van Dyke in _Mary Poppins_...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 245       Mon Aug 30, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 22:15 EDT
 
I had a genuinely mannerist experience today on the sidewalks of NYC. One of
the ubiquitous book vendors on the street had copies of the Pop. Lib. edition
of CHECKMATE (which is an extra, and can be sent to a needy Dunnett reader--
beginners be warned, this is the =last= of the six-volume Lymond Chronicles),
and a British mass-market of Patrick O'Brian's MASTER AND COMMANDER.

Now, the burning question is: do I remember correctly that this is the =first=
of that sequence?

There will be a fantasy of manners panel at Worldcon, but I won't be there to
be on it. I would be glad to hear any reports of it. Howard Hendrix (he who
first explained postmodernism to me) will be, and I've deputized Tappan King
as well.

During a conversation with Tappan, he mused whether there was enough material
to create a [virtual, unless some publisher were to jump for it] fantasy of
manners anthology (MIRRORBLADES?????). An entertaining parlor game. The one
"must" inclusion it seems to me is Ellen Kushner's "The Unicorn Masque" f rom
Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold's 1981 anthology ELSEWHERE [I], which was
my first inkling (inchoate at the time, I assure you) that there was something
new happening in fantasy.

I'd be interested to entertain other nominations.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 246       Mon Aug 30, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 22:29 EDT
 
No nominations, Donald, but you do remember correctly re:  The O'Brian book
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 247       Mon Aug 30, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 23:04 EDT
 
Donald - the Willy Silver short story ... Bird on a Wire? Is that right? And
there's probably something appropriate in one of the Liavek books.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 248       Mon Aug 30, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 23:04 EDT
 
Just remembered; one of the Liavek Pam Dean stories is about a theater troupe.
That's the one.  There may be more ...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 249       Tue Aug 31, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 07:26 EDT
 
Thanks. I'll look up the Pam Dean. The Emma Bull story--that would be the one
to use, I forgot about it--is "A Bird That Whistles" (old blues, not Leonard
Cohen!).

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 250       Tue Aug 31, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Ox]             at 18:48 EDT
 
400 messages have been deleted from here and will be archived to the library.

     Mitch, Assistant Sysop
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 251       Wed Sep 01, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 23:33 EDT
 
Well, I knew it had "Bird" and a "W" in it (curse this blasted visual
memory!).
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 252       Thu Sep 02, 1993
TNH [Sophronia]              at 19:31 EDT
 
 I'd heard Micole was a Dangerous Woman; and now I see my
 informants were correct.

 It is sad to reflect that I have no idea how to convey to
 Micole my observation that she has grown up to talk like a
 character in a particularly satisfying Mannerpunk novel.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 253       Thu Sep 02, 1993
T.WEBER7 [Shameless]         at 21:25 EDT
 
Gee, Teresa, I have Micole's London address, if logistics are the problem.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 254       Thu Sep 02, 1993
R.STAUFFER2 [Rob]            at 23:26 EDT
 
Forgive me for intruding.  As I am new to this Mannerpunk ideal (not the books
themselves, just the concept) and as I still have ten pages left in
Swordspoint (thank you, Donald), I still have many questions as to the borders
of this new subgenre.  The question du jour is "Are the application of
manners, that is the structure and the groups that honor the structure,
limited to those oh so medieval ideals, or does this subgenre also include

Dhalgren (sorry about the hiccup) as a mannerist novel, just of a newly
(scratch the newly) different time and place.  But perhaps I am getting 
carried away.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 255       Fri Sep 03, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 08:56 EDT
 
 I've long thought that the mannerists are missing a fertile ground for their
kind of fiction by ignoring military sf (most of whose current practitioners
are interested in far different aspects of that particular subject.).  
Consider:  in the professional military you have a subculture where rank and
position govern everything, but where on the other hand it is possible for
someone from one of society's outsider classes to reach the top; a subculture
where it _really matters_ whether you're wearing the right clothes for the
occasion; a subculture with its own long-standing traditions, prejudices, and
weird habits; and a subculture that is periodically put under extreme stress
by outside events.
 Most of the mannerists, unfortunately, don't have the background for doing
that sort of thing (it's amazing, sometimes, the number of intelligent people
I've met in sf/fantasy who've never even known a member of the serving
military); and most of the military sf writers lose sight of the fact that
most of the time, a professional military _isn't_ fighting anybody.
 The Brits occasionally do the sort of thing I'm thinking about:  the O'Brian
novels have a touch of it in them, and George Macdonald Fraser's stuff
(especially his MacAuslan short stories).   But I don't know of anybody in
American sf/fantasy who does (though Bujold might qualify if she were a better
prose stylist, since she does sometimes approximate the subject matter and the
angle of approach.)

Debra
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 256       Fri Sep 03, 1993
T.WEBER7 [Shameless]         at 09:22 EDT
 
How about Elizabeth Moon?  I haven't read her, but she writes fantasy novels
and has a military background (Marine, I think).
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 257       Fri Sep 03, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 09:43 EDT
 
Moon isn't mannerist, at least not in any of her fiction I have looked at.

Readers interested in how mannerism can intersect with military fiction should
check out Pushkin's great short story "The Shot."
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 258       Fri Sep 03, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 10:16 EDT
 
Since this topic has produced no agreement whatsoever as to who the
"mannerists" might actually be, I look at generalizations about "the
mannerists" with a cocked eye.  Okay, we all agree on Ellen Kushner.  Are we,
then, discussing Ellen Kushner's attitude toward military SF?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 259       Fri Sep 03, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 13:04 EDT
 
I dunno, Patrick.  Does EK _have_ an attitude toward military SF?

(I'm starting to have that Sinking Feeling possibly peculiar to writers, when
the dawning realization that there isn't very much available of a particular
kind of fiction begins to suggest that one may, in fact, have to remedy the
situation oneself.)

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 260       Fri Sep 03, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 19:41 EDT
 
An interesting line of inquiry, or future work. Carry on.

Rob: I don't quite think so.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 261       Sat Sep 04, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 21:05 EDT
 
My mid-1950s Amy Vanderbilt has an entire chapter on Military Etiquette,
including how a Young Miss should behave and dress when dating a cadet. 
Doyle, you gotta write us some of this stuff.

I believe EK has an attitude about dang near everything.  =What= the attitude
might be, I have no notion...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 262       Sun Sep 05, 1993
L.GROSSMAN [Leigh]           at 22:23 EDT
 
I just found a 1917 manual for noncommissioned officers and privates of
infantry of the army of the United States at a flea market over the weekend.
The first chapter, long before it gets to anything we tend to think of as
military, is on "military courtesy and discipline>' Hmmm....*s
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 263       Sun Sep 05, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 23:33 EDT
 
AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN is perhaps a drama of military manners.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 264       Mon Sep 06, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 00:37 EDT
 
So, in its way, is A FEW GOOD MEN.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 265       Wed Sep 08, 1993
KEITH.D [catching up]        at 16:41 EDT
 
This Topic will be happy to know that I have the =entire= Mannerpunk panel
from WorldCon immortalized on videotape. It had Howard Hendrix, Teresa
Edgerton, and Kevin Murphy. (Don, Tappan apparently didn't make it.) I will
watch the tape again, wait for my brain to return (this may take a while :> ),
and report.

Meantime, others here should report, too. It =was= a good panel, and my wife
and I, at least, had a good time.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 266       Wed Sep 08, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 17:35 EDT
 
Don wasn't at worldcon.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 267       Wed Sep 08, 1993
LACE [E.Gilligan]            at 20:32 EDT
 
Keith, I'd love to see the videotape.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 268       Thu Sep 09, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 09:57 EDT
 
I most definitely want to see the tape. (Lois, did you understand Keith to be
implying I was at Worldcon? I didn't.) Too bad Tappan didn't make it. Umm...I
hate to be either ignorant or insulting, but who is Kevin Murphy?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 270       Thu Sep 09, 1993
BETH.MEACHAM                 at 10:20 EDT
 
Tappan was, alas, otherwise engaged.  The panels we were scheduled for had an
alarming tendency to be held near or at meal-times, and for me, meals are
occasions of business and cannot be cut.  Panels must give way to hungry
writers.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 271       Thu Sep 09, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 10:28 EDT
 
Keith should undoubtedly transcribe the tape and post it in the library.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 272       Thu Sep 09, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 12:48 EDT
 
Hear hear!  Good idea.  (Of course, how Keith feels about transcribing an
hour's worth of talk may be another story.)

Debra

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 273       Thu Sep 09, 1993
KEITH.D [catching up]        at 13:05 EDT
 
Keith would be happy to as soon as Keith settles down a) from W'Con and b)
into his new job. Honest, I =will= do it eventually -- just keep reminding me
every once in a while so that when I =do= have the time, I'll sit down and do
it.

Kevin =could= be an Ellen hero, couldn't he? Heh.

The panel will be available commercially as part of the 1993 Con Tape from
Lucky Shot Productions (us who do THE CHRONIC RIFT), which will have
highlights and panels and =stuff= from all manner <ahem> of cons over the '93
calendar year from Arisia to Philcon. The tape will likely be $20.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 274       Thu Sep 09, 1993
R.DAVIS68 [Ray]              at 23:32 EDT
 
Hear hear! to the hungry writers remark as well.

Ray, who could be a P. G. Wodehouse hero
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 275       Sat Sep 11, 1993
TNH [Sophronia]              at 00:44 EDT
 
 Suppose I should mention a book only now being written? But
 under the circumstances it's irresistible: Forthcoming, not
 altogether soon, from Elizabeth Willey: =A Sorcerer and a
 Gentleman=.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 276       Sat Sep 11, 1993
KEITH.D [catching up]        at 02:22 EDT
 
Well, the title's good....  ;>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 278       Sat Sep 11, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 09:39 EDT
 
Teresa: excellent good point.  But please don't mention =my= forthcoming
fantasy novel, or even its title.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 279       Sat Sep 11, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 10:44 EDT
 
Perish the thought, Gregory.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 280       Sat Sep 11, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Ol Ben Lucas]   at 12:55 EDT
 
Wonderful title, Teresa!
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 281       Sun Sep 12, 1993
E.WILLEY                     at 19:10 EDT
 
Cough.  I'm rather proud of it, myself, and I can only hope that Tor allows me
to use NOBLE ROT for something even further from production.


Elizabeth Willey
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 282       Tue Sep 14, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 02:20 EDT
 
NOBLE ROT is =wonderful=!

On another note ...

All true mannerists will want to read the Sunday 9/12 LA TIMES Calendar
section, which contains a commentary by Judith Martin (Miss Manners) on
Scorsese's film of Edith Wharton's THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. The commentary is
(superficially) about all the finer points of period manners which the
producers got =wrong=, and =why= they were wrong. Great stuff.

(And I though everyone knew that fish knives were only used by vunouveau-riche
vulgarians in the 1870s...)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 284       Tue Sep 14, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 21:21 EDT
 
Quote bits?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 285       Wed Sep 15, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 22:29 EDT
 
"We are used to seeing dramas set in what might be called the Old Fashioned 
Period - back when people had great clothes but were only beginning  to
suspect  the existence of sex ... 

"In the period depicted, the Knickerbockers (New York's old society ...) felt
threatened by the social consequences of democracy.  ... The character of
Julius Beaufort  in the story represents that influx of newly rich people
which, in real life, included August Belmont and the Vanderbilts.

"Barring an actual revolution, class warfare is typically conducted by means
of etiquette rules wielded (impolitely, one must point out)  as weapons.

"...The Knickbockers did not fight by invoking that complexity of social rules
now commonly characterized as Victorian Etiquette.  Rather, they extolled an
eearlier Victorian etiquette that was its opposite: simplicity.

"... Of course, these folks didn't really eat like their socially acceptable
18th century ancestors, who might have still used one knife to bring all their
food directly into their mouths."

And so on.


(The above from Judith Martin's commentary on THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, LA Times
Calendar section, Sunday 9/12/93.)

Interestingly, the October issue of VICTORIA has a short feature on Scorsese's
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, which inlcudes references to the "etiquette expert" who
consulted on the film.  More if that proves interesting.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 286       Wed Sep 15, 1993
T.WEBER7 [Skroderider]       at 23:29 EDT
 
The Village Voice also says Scorsese devoted much effort to authenticity.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 287       Thu Sep 16, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 00:45 EDT
 
The Voice is much besotted with Scorsese, a crude and pretentious director.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 288       Thu Sep 16, 1993
MITCHWAGNER                  at 08:55 EDT
 
Nice to see someone put down Scorscese. I thought GOODFELLAS was a pretty-
good Mafia movie, CAPE FEAR was a pretty fair thriller, and the rest of his
works just-plain failed to engage me. I had particular problems with AFTER
HOURS--went in there expecting a madcap comedy and instead found it downright
=depressing=.

Even the trailers for AGE OF INNOCENCE make it look awful, unless costumes and
pageantry and sets are enough to make you want to see a movie without any
other virtues.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 289       Thu Sep 16, 1993
T.WEBER7 [Astoria]           at 10:31 EDT
 
I'm pretty besotted with Scorsese myself.  Crude he can be, or blunt at any
rate.  RAGING BULL and THE KING OF COMEDY are two of the most powerful and
disturbing films I've ever seen.

AFTER HOURS is a depressing madcap comedy, yes.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 290       Thu Sep 16, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 11:47 EDT
 
Paula Kate, I'm a Judith Martin fan (so to speak), and I'd love to see the
whole article.  <wondering if I can find it around here...>

Did you know, BTW, that she has written fiction?  I have a copy of GILBERT, A
COMEDY OF MANNERS.  Haven't read it though...  (sigh)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 291       Thu Sep 16, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 12:13 EDT
 
Really?  I must see that book.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 292       Thu Sep 16, 1993
K.WOODBURY [Phaedre]         at 12:52 EDT
 
I found it on one of those bargain tables in B Daltons, I think it was...
Strange some of the stuff you find there.

Lois, just for you, I'll get it read as soon as possible and loan it to you,
okay?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 293       Thu Sep 16, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 13:26 EDT
 
Thanks!  Phaedre.  I -do- like Miss Manners.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 294       Thu Sep 16, 1993
SFWA-SOUKUP [Martha]         at 14:52 EDT
 
I loved "After Hours."  Speaking of satisfyingly bleak--madcap bleak,
actually, yes.  "Goodfellas" was pretty good.  Had no strong desire to see
"Cape Fear," and so didn't.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 295       Thu Sep 16, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 23:55 EDT
 
Excellent mannerist values in A.S. Byatt's "Morpho Eugenia," first half of her
collection, ANGELS AND INSECTS.

Also wonderful writing.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 296       Fri Sep 17, 1993
MITCHWAGNER                  at 13:47 EDT
 
KING OF COMEDY. I also enjoyed that one.

However, RAGING BULL put me to sleep.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 297       Fri Sep 17, 1993
SFWA-SOUKUP [Martha]         at 14:54 EDT
 
The new Scorcese is getting rave reviews here, and all for its mannerist
properties.  The Chronicle reviewer remarks on Scorcese's credentials as a
mannerist, for that matter, though without using the term, of course: "Tone is
everything here, and Scorcese--whose films are filled with formalities and
rituals, whether they involve prize fighters, street crazies, mobsters or
social elites--is on top of it."
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 298       Fri Sep 17, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 22:19 EDT
 
Phaedre, email me your snail mail address.

I saw GILBERT by Judith Martin on a remainder table just a couple of weeks
ago, but I bought a George Alec Effinger instead.

Among the gaffes in INNOCENCE, as pointed out by Miss M herself:
 A gentleman is presented to a lady, instead of 'toher way around
 Letters are addressed without courtesy titles
 Ladies tuck the "hands" or their gloves up at dinner instead of
   removing them (okay for standup, wrong for sit down)
 Cream (not milk) is offered with tea

Not to mention the exqusitite colorations involved in fish knives and cruets.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 300       Fri Sep 17, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 22:57 EDT
 
I probably wrote that wrong: the lady is introduced =to= the gentlemnan in
that scene, I believe.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 302       Sat Sep 18, 1993
LACE [E.Gilligan]            at 01:08 EDT
 
GRR.  Now, I've got to go and search for GILBERT.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 303       Sat Sep 18, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 04:54 EDT
 
I thought the book ws endless. But I like the cast,
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 304       Sat Sep 18, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 09:31 EDT
 
Oh, my. Etiquette neep!

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 305       Sat Sep 18, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 13:10 EDT
 
That's why they call us MANNERpunks, Ma'am.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 306       Sat Sep 18, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 13:21 EDT
 
There seem to be a number of reasons for me to go see AGE OF INNOCENCE (a
friend of mine was an extra in the ball scene, for example), so I shall.

Lois: Oddly enough, ANGELS AND INSECTS is the only Byatt I've gotten around to
reading so far. I though it was first-rate. But I've had strong disagreements
with friends as to =which= of the two novellas was better. I'll be interested
in your opinion.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 307       Sat Sep 18, 1993
SFWA-SOUKUP [Martha]         at 14:03 EDT
 
Michael will see it for the Elmer Bernstein score.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 308       Sat Sep 18, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 15:07 EDT
 
Don, my comments were about Morpho Eugenia.  Haven't read the other yet

But POSSESSION is a must-read.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 309       Sat Sep 18, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 17:44 EDT
 
I tried the earlier novel. Couldn't do it. But I adored POSSESSION.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 310       Sat Sep 18, 1993
KEITH.D [catching up]        at 18:27 EDT
 
Any movie that has Daniel Day Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, Miriam
Margolyes, and Michael Gough is worth seeing on principle, as far as I'm
concerned. I don't care how mannerist or accurate it is.  :>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 311       Sun Sep 19, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 05:10 EDT
 
Speaking of mannered movies, saw "Orlando" last night. Visual stunning. But
like "Last Year At MArienbad", the visual overwhelmed the story and the
characters and left no room for emotion of any kind.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 312       Sun Sep 19, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 13:55 EDT
 
Which "earlier novel" is Jane referring to?  POSSESSION is not Byatt's second
novel.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 313       Sun Sep 19, 1993
TROWBRIDGE [Dave T.]         at 15:04 EDT
 
Jane, did you, like I did, find the ending disappointing? I was actually
enraged at the complete destruction of the mood of the movie that silly ending
accomplished. I thought it should have ended in the publisher's office when he
asks how long it took her to write the ms, or when she's visiting her house,
and the narrator comments that since they're English "everyone pretends not to
notice."

But total agreement about the visuals. I especially liked the ice skating
sequence.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 314       Sun Sep 19, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 15:45 EDT
 
ORLANDO was both "written and directed by Sally Potter," and my curiosity as
to whether Potter was a writer trying to direct or a director trying to write
was swiftly answered.  The movie is abominably written, foolish, gassy,
ahistorical, clunkily paced, and occasionally embarrassing.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 315       Sun Sep 19, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 16:59 EDT
 
Oh, I thouight there was an earlier novel. Was it a second novel I tried to
read? It was certainly the second one I read of Byatt's. You mean (gulp_
POSESSION was a fiorst novel? Even more impressive.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 316       Sun Sep 19, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 17:02 EDT
 
No, no, no -- there were =several= novels before POSSESSION.  We don't know
which one you read.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 317       Sun Sep 19, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 17:29 EDT
 
ANGELS AND INSECTS is two novellas.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 318       Sun Sep 19, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 19:15 EDT
 
ANGELS AND INSECTS is also Byatt's latest book. There are, let's see (SHADOW
OF THE SUN, THE GAME, THE VIRGIN IN THE GARDEN, STILL LIFE) I guess four
novels prior to POSSESSION. Plus a short story collection and an essay
collection, all in Vintage trade pb. Plus two more author studies (Iris
Murdoch and somebody else) not in pb.

The ice section of ORLANDO, with the Russian princess, was too short in the
movie.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 319       Sun Sep 19, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 20:18 EDT
 
THE GAME is what I attempted to read. Emphasis on attempted.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 320       Sun Sep 19, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 20:23 EDT
 
Oh, =I= read THE GAME.  Her second novel, I think.  Very vicious.  Did you
notice that the protagonist's flighty, superficial sister is devastatingly
modelled on Byatt's sister, Margaret Drabble?  (Not that the protagonist is
very flatteringly portrayed, either.)

Byatt has since written much better.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 321       Sun Sep 19, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 21:19 EDT
 
Byatt's sister is Margaret Drabble? (Geeze, am I out of the lit'ry loop!)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 322       Sun Sep 19, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 21:31 EDT
 
I didn't know that!  (about Drabble)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 323       Sun Sep 19, 1993
J.BRUNET [JimB]              at 22:39 EDT
 
Margaret Drabble, mother of Norman Drabble?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 324       Mon Sep 20, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 21:03 EDT
 
I discovered a bizarre artifact last night while going through a large stack
of miscellaneous papers. I surmise that I wrote it at =least= five years ago.
It's headed "=Swordspoint= by Ellen Kushner", and the text =in toto= is as
follows:

"Tired of reading fantasy with little wit and less style?  Fond of Georgette
Heyer and Dorothy Dunnett, but wistfully wishing they were a little more
fantastical? Wondering if you'd like Moorcock and M. John Harrison better if
they weren't so relentlessly depressing? Have I got a book for you!"

Apparently I'd sat down and started to write a review of =Swordspoint=, and
gotten no further than this rather overglib first paragraph.  What astonishes
me about it now is that there's my theory, in embryo, in three sentences.  I
had no idea that my thinking on fantasy of manners went back quite that far;
after this, I wouldn't be surprised to find evidence I was thinking this way
when I read "The Unicorn Masque" in 1981.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 325       Mon Sep 20, 1993
KEITH.D [Boy Editor]         at 21:51 EDT
 
Preeeeeeeeesenting, Ladeez an' Gennlemen, The Embryonic Theories Of Donald G.
Keller!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 326       Mon Sep 20, 1993
S.THOMPSON8 [Sarah]          at 22:21 EDT
 
This is off in another direction, but the mention in these parts a while back
of the potential of the professional military as a setting for novels of
manners reminded me of Patrick O'Brian's very elegant books on the British
navy during the Napoleonic wars.  So are they mannerist, Don? Not fantastic,
though.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 327       Tue Sep 21, 1993
R.DAVIS68 [Ray]              at 00:33 EDT
 
Anyone who calls Scorsese "crude" must consider movies a crude form.

... oh.  Never mind, it's just Greg.

Don, "Orlando"'s ice scene was too short in that it was one of the best scenes
in the movie. If only it had taken up the last half-hour, eh?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 328       Tue Sep 21, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 21:17 EDT
 
Sarah: Patrick O'Brian has been frequently mentioned herein as a fellow-
traveler. I don't know myself, I haven't read him (though I just by chance
found the first one).
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 329       Tue Sep 21, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 23:19 EDT
 
You haven't read him??

<tsk>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 330       Tue Sep 21, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 23:41 EDT
 
<small soft voice>

I haven't read O'Brien either.

<hanging head>

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 331       Wed Sep 22, 1993
KEITH.D [Boy Editor]         at 00:02 EDT
 
Neither have I, though my father swears by him. (Well, not literally, but the
fact that I =haven't= read any yet isn't due to lack of trying on his part.)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 332       Wed Sep 22, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 00:34 EDT
 
Let He who hath read everything else worth reading cast the first stone, I
suppose.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 333       Wed Sep 22, 1993
P.GRANZEAU [Pete]            at 20:38 EDT
 
I discovered O'Brian some time ago (possibly when _Master and Commander_ was
still recent), but he was always a hidden joy (and the library only got the
first ?? novels, through _Desolation Island_), not one of those "discuss it
with all my friends" things.  I don't know if his fiction is mannered or not.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 334       Wed Sep 22, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 22:50 EDT
 
I believe the countess was presented to the duke, rather than the other way
around, because his title outranked hers.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 335       Wed Sep 22, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 23:08 EDT
 
Someone with a handy volume of O'Brian should post a paragraph or so, to
illustrate manneristness thereof.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 336       Fri Sep 24, 1993
R.STAUFFER2 [Rob]            at 00:34 EDT
 
Good goin' Ray. <g>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 337       Tue Sep 28, 1993
S.THOMPSON8 [Sarah]          at 20:59 EDT
 
Don:  had O'Brian really been mentioned herein?  I didn't remember.  Funny how
things like that escape one's notice until one becomes addicted, and then all
the references to the new vice jump out at one.

All the ones I've read so far-- about half of them-- have been loaned to
eluki, but I'll keep an eye out for suitable excerpts in the next one.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 338       Wed Sep 29, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 21:03 EDT
 
Donna Tartt's THE SECRET HISTORY, the ultimate expression of mannerpunk?
Arcane knowlege plus language plus a truly American expression of class
anxiety and desire to change.  And empty souls....
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 339       Thu Sep 30, 1993
E.PERRY7 [Betsy Hanes]       at 19:56 EDT
 
From the AUTHOR'S NOTE to P. O'Brian's THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD. O'Brian is
discussing the difficulties inherent in writing historical novels about "the
Royal Navy in Nelson's time", namely that one eventually runs out of war. 
This is the final paragraph, following O'Brian's suggestion that he may have
to start interpolating fictitious years.

"Yet if he should do so it will be strict chronology alone that is affected;
he will continue to respect historical accuracy and speak of the Royal Navy as
it was, making use of contemporary documents: the reader will meet no
basilisks that destroy with their eyes, no Hottentots without religion,
polity, or articulate language, no Chinese perfectly polite, and completely
skilled in all sciences, no wholly virtuous, ever-victorious or necessarily
immortal heroes; and should any crocodiles appear, he undertakes that they
shall devour their prey without tears."

["he", of course, being the author.]
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 340       Thu Sep 30, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 20:22 EDT
 
Boo, hiss.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 341       Thu Sep 30, 1993
A.RASLEY [Alicia]            at 23:45 EDT
 
There's an O'Brian topic down in Military S/f.  Space Opera as Fighting Sail.

Okay, mannerist O'Brian.  Hmmm.  Not sure of the definition.  He has created a
world-- the sailing ship-- with a system of elaborate ceremony and ritual, and
in its interaction with the larger world (Napoleon's navy, for example), the
rituals and values give the residents some sense of tradition and continuity
that allows them to face death with some detachment.

He's also got an elegant, baroque writing style, idiosyncratic interests, and
a most incisive view of group dynamics.

A sample?  Here's one that I always remember, from the first book (WW Norton
trade pb) MASTER AND COMMANDER.  Jack is the new captain of this sloop, and
he's explaining to his new surgeon (the second protagonist) some of the pains
of command:

"There!  There you are.  Just so.  That's the service for you, from clew to
earing-- the Royal Navy, stock and fluke.  You get into a fine flow of
patriotic fervour-- you are ready to plunge into the thick of battle-- and you
are asked to sign this sort of thing." (shows Stephen an order from the
admiral to court martial a seaman for "unnatural sodomy with the ship's Goat."
the sailor will be hanged.)

(Jack) "Oh, what an infernal bore-- witnesses going over to the flagship by
the dozen, days lost... the Sophie a laughingstock.  Why will they report
these things?  The goat must be slaughtered--that's but fair-- and it shall be
served out to the mess that informed on him."

(Stephen) "Could you not set them both ashore-- on separate shores, if you
have strong feelings on the moral issue-- and sail quietly away?'

"Well," Jack said, whose anger had died down.  "Perhaps there is something in
what you propose.  A dish of tea?  You take milk, sir?"

"Goat's milk, sir?"

"Why, I suppose it is."

"Perhaps without milk, then."

I don't know why that tickles me so.  Is it mannerist?

O'Brian also likes little secret jokes.  Stephen comes across some paintings
of birds "by a Creole bastard"-- but it's never explained that has to be
Audobon.  And Jack finds a lost symphony of Bach's, but puts it back, not
realizing what it is. The reader is expected to do a lot of detective work.

It also takes place in an alternate Napoleonic era, when 1813 lasts forever (6-
7 books now).

#16 in the series is due out soon.


 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 342       Fri Oct 01, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 00:00 EDT
 
Alicia, if that ain't mannered, you can haul me up to the yardarm, but of
course we will all have to wait for Don to Pronounce.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 343       Fri Oct 01, 1993
TROWBRIDGE [Dave T.]         at 03:01 EDT
 
Alicia/341: Where exactly is the Space Opera as Fighting Sail topic?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 344       Fri Oct 01, 1993
KEITH.D [K. DeCandido]       at 08:35 EDT
 
Hey, if M*A*S*H can take eleven years to do a three-year war, O'Brian can make
1813 last as long as he wants...

And if it looks like a mannerist, waddles like a mannerist, quacks like a
mannerist, and drinks tea like a mannerist, it's probably a mannerist.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 345       Fri Oct 01, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 15:09 EDT
 
Keith -- you mean it isn't Jemima Puddle-duck?

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 346       Fri Oct 01, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 17:53 EDT
 
The Fighting Sail topic is 26/3
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 347       Sat Oct 02, 1993
A.RASLEY [Alicia]            at 00:22 EDT
 
Thanks, Lois.  Couldn't find the number of that topic.

Someone said O'Brian writes like Jane Austen's admiral brother would write--
if he had been a writer, of course.  There's supposed to be a compliment under
that.

We just love to quote from his stuff.

Re: Samuel Johnson's negative verdict on the Ossian manuscripts.

"Do you expect a Highland gentleman to produce his manuscripts upon
compulsion?" said MacDonald to Stephen, and to Jack.  "Dr. Johnson, sir, was
capable of very inaccurate statements..... I appeal to your candor, sir-- what
do you think of a man who defines a mainsheet as the largest sail on the ship,
or to belay as to splice, or a bight as the circumference of a rompe?  And
that in a buke that professes to be a dictionary of the English language? 
Hoot, toot."

"Did he indeed say that?" cried Jack.  "I shall neverr think the same of him
again.  I have no doubt your Ossian was a very honest fellow."

"He did, sir, upon my honour," cried MacDonald, laying his right hand upon the
table.  "And falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus, I always say."

"Why, yes," said Jack, who was as well acquainted with old Omnibus as any man
there present.

(A friend of mine says he likes these books because they're about the only
ones with a legitimate hero of barely average intelligence.)



 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 348       Sat Oct 02, 1993
STEVEN.BRUST                 at 15:17 EDT
 
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 349       Sat Oct 02, 1993
S.SHWARTZ [Susan]            at 15:19 EDT
 
Another O'Brian addict weighing in.  But I disagree about Jack Aubrey's
intelligence.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 350       Sat Oct 02, 1993
KEITH.D [K. DeCandido]       at 17:11 EDT
 
Well, Steven, if he kept the receipt on his sloth, he can probably get a new
one.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 351       Sat Oct 02, 1993
A.RASLEY [Alicia]            at 22:37 EDT
 
Susan, well, we know Jack's a genius at sea.  His classical education leaves a
bit to be desired, that's all. <G>

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 353       Sun Oct 03, 1993
D.NOTKIN [Deb & Alan]        at 17:10 EDT
 
Sometimes I wonder the extent to which O'Brien intended Jack Aubrey to be an
intensively recomplicated joke about Horatio Hornblower. Not only do we see in
the very first scene of the very first book Aubrey swinishly enjoying a music
performance -- something that  Hornblower would never be caught dead doing,
being tone-deaf -- but his very nature as a swinish boob of a military genius
reminds me of no one so much as James T. Kirk (the original High Concept for 
Star Trek was "Horatio Hornblower to the Stars).

If that isn't mannerpunk, nothing is.

  -- Alan Bostick
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 354       Sun Oct 03, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 18:01 EDT
 
For the next section of that particular exegesis, try considing Maturin as a
peculiar version of Spock.  Then go have a stiff drink.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 355       Sun Oct 03, 1993
S.SHWARTZ [Susan]            at 18:08 EDT
 
You want some Laphroaig, Debra?  It had already occurred to me.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 356       Mon Oct 04, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 00:59 EDT
 
It makes me cringe a bit to be a Prounouncer (though I do jealously guard the
post--no one's supposed to =notice=!), but it does seem close to indubitable
that O'Brian belongs in this topic.  Just in the way he seems to be
influencing all the other writers herein...

I've been interested in Donna Tartt's SECRET HISTORY since it first came out
in hardcover, and have never quite managed to get my hands on a copy to give
it a try (I suppose I'll go buy a pb now). What startles me about it is that,
in broad outline, it sounds =very= similar to Pamela Dean's TAM LIN, and I'd
love to see someone explore the two in tandem.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 357       Mon Oct 04, 1993
STEVEN.BRUST                 at 01:24 EDT
 
Ahem.  If no one else wants it, you can send that Laphroaig this way.  It is
my opinion that smokey, peaty single-malts are inherently mannerist (Talisker
works too).


 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 358       Mon Oct 04, 1993
S.SHWARTZ [Susan]            at 03:42 EDT
 
Steven, what do you think of Laguvulin?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 359       Mon Oct 04, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 08:52 EDT
 
Single malts are only mannerist if you drink them straight, with the water in
a separate glass alongside.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 360       Mon Oct 04, 1993
T.WEBER7 [Byline]            at 10:03 EDT
 
Lagavulin rules.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 361       Mon Oct 04, 1993
S.SHWARTZ [Susan]            at 18:33 EDT
 
I drink them in a snifter from Tiffany's.

Will that do?  Sometimes I use no water at all.  Sometimes, I cut them with
Apollinaris.

Do any of you erudite characters know where I could get a copy of Lady
Caroline Lamb's GLENARVON?  Constance Ash and I want to read it.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 362       Mon Oct 04, 1993
KEITH.D [K. DeCandido]       at 18:47 EDT
 
When In Doubt (and In New York), Try The Strand.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 363       Mon Oct 04, 1993
A.RASLEY [Alicia]            at 19:42 EDT
 
Sherwood, the sodomy with a goat (why am I convinced you were wondering about
that passage?) was in the first O'Brian book, MASTER AND COMMANDER.  Norton
has them in trade paperback now.

Alan, what (in my opinion) raises Jack above Hornblower is that he doesn't
stay in that same self-doubting mode for twenty years. Hornblower gets to be
an admiral and still wonders, "Am I good enough?  Do people like me?"  Jack
grows in confidence as he grows in leadership.  He also has a sense of humor--
however juvenile!

I loved the Hornblower books, but loathed Hornblower.  He was never
comfortable with himself, and Jack is.

Stephen is a good example of the outsider in court.  Even after 15 years, he
still is an observer.  Hence, I suppose, the Spock connection?



 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 364       Mon Oct 04, 1993
S.SHWARTZ [Susan]            at 19:56 EDT
 
Jack loves silly puns.  Why is the dog watch always the shortest?

Because it is curtailed.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 365       Mon Oct 04, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 21:35 EDT
 
Sounds like a typical sailor'sense of humor (for the jokes that can be told in
mixed company, that is.)  Macdonald had a CO once who thought that the red
dragon joke was hilarious.

You really don't want to hear the red dragon joke.  It's not mannerist at all.
Fifth graders love it.  (It's the one with the recurring line, "Remember,
dragons _love_ titmice, but dragons _hate_ cream pies.")

Debra

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 366       Tue Oct 05, 1993
STEVEN.BRUST                 at 01:01 EDT
 
It's a little too sweet to drink all the time, but nice every once in a while.

I don't understand, Debra.  Is there any other way to drink them?

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 368       Tue Oct 05, 1993
TROWBRIDGE [Dave T.]         at 02:26 EDT
 
Thanks, Lois.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 369       Tue Oct 05, 1993
D.NOTKIN [Deb & Alan]        at 03:25 EDT
 
Alicia:  I at no point was making a comparison of value between Jack Aubrey
and Horatio Hornblower.  I was instead pointing out that O'Brien (a subtle
writer, or else why would we be talking about him here?) was very much aware
of C.S. Forester's work, books that are _canonical_ in the genre in which
O'Brien writes, and wondering just how subtle he is being.

There's no comparison between Aubrey and Hornblower:  the first is a plausible
human being, with strengths and flaws, as likable as he is contemptible; while
the second is a perfectly adequate protagonist for men's adventure fiction.

  -- Alan Bostick
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 370       Tue Oct 05, 1993
KEITH.D [K. DeCandido]       at 19:17 EDT
 
I'd say Hornblower was more than "adequate," however, that sounds like a good
comparison there, Alan.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 371       Tue Oct 05, 1993
P.GRANZEAU [Pete]            at 22:23 EDT
 
Sherwood:  I didn't manage to work slowly through _The Element of Fire_.  I
read it in one long sitting, ending at 2:00 AM.  What a wonderful book!  And
yes, when Kade turned up, the whole book took on another dimension.  I really
like this book!


 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 373       Wed Oct 06, 1993
A.RASLEY [Alicia]            at 00:16 EDT
 
Alan-- Is your Hornblower assessment what the mannerists call "damning with
faint praise"?

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 374       Thu Oct 07, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 22:22 EDT
 
"=The Element of Fire= by Martha Wells on the other hand is a costume comedy-
thriller, set in =Three Musketeers= fantasy-land, with hostile magic. Do I
detect a happy and loony cross-fertilization between =faerie= and cyberpunk?
Punk changeling Kade Carrion hacks her way through magic ICE, saves the
kingdom; snaffles gorgeous True Thomas. There is a bad set-piece opening, but
the characters are engaging, the gruesome effects inventive. Good fun. =If=,
that is, you have the patience to fight your way through the non-existent
editing, or are fortunate enough not to notice the mess." --Gwyneth Jones,
INTERZONE

=In=teresting little review, no? Sounds like she got it, all right (and seems
to agree with the conventional wisdom so far, to boot). Maybe I should send
her a copy of my article....
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 375       Thu Oct 07, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 22:27 EDT
 
My wife said something to the effect that the book improves greatly after the
first scene.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 376       Thu Oct 07, 1993
T.WEBER7 [Nettleford]        at 22:30 EDT
 
Interesting how confidently reviewers assert non-existent editing.  I assume
Jones had access to a copy of the original manuscript.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 377       Sun Oct 10, 1993
KEITH.D [K. DeCandido]       at 12:04 EDT
 
Well, "non-existent editing" is too harsh -- "poor editing" is a bit more, how
you say, determinable. Or opinion-able. But obviously this review had non-
existent editing....
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 378       Sun Oct 10, 1993
BETH.MEACHAM                 at 12:47 EDT
 
Many of the occasions when a reviewer has taken the time to point out a book's
"nonexistent" or "poor" editing are occasions when I know for a fact that the
author of the work disallowed editorial and copyeditorial suggestions and
changes.

It is always good to bear in mind, when dealing with sf and fantasy, that the
Author Bats Last.  This is not so true in other genre.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 379       Sun Oct 10, 1993
M.SWANWICK1 [Michael]        at 21:13 EDT
 
Those of us on the other side of the stick may Bat Last but we don't always
Bat With the Loudest Voice.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 381       Tue Oct 12, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 00:28 EDT
 
To those who indicated Caroline Lamb's novel was in paperback, Susan and I are
waiting to hear from which publisher.  (Actually, neither of us gives a damn
if it's in pb, sc, or otherwise.  We just want to read it, ok?)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 382       Sun Oct 17, 1993
D.SHERMAN9                   at 13:16 EDT
 
Hello, folks.  I'm back from the Delia and Ellen Grand Tour of Europe, no
manoir too large, no charming cottage too small.  What interesting things have
been going on in this topic in my absence, to be sure.  I have a thought about
the adult game-playing thing, if I can articulate it. In the English
Renaissance, there was a concept of Sprezzatura, which is the ability to do
something difficult and complicated with offhanded grace. The "something
difficult and complicated" could range from writing a sonnet to fighting off
twenty drunken opponants, to being burned at the stake. It seems to me that
most FoM heroes have sprezzatura.  Being PostModern heroes, they tend to play
for high emotional stakes--a concept that would be largely foreign to a pre-
Freudian society.                          

As for the Byronic hero.  One thing that most Byronic heroes have in common is
an Unspeakable Past.  The problem with trying to create one now is that no
Past seems sufficiently Unspeakable to excuse their tiresome self-involvement
(said she pettishly).  I'm not sure whether this is the result of living in a
world in which nothing is Unspeakable or where so many things are that we've
become jaded.  Once, a mad wife in the attic was all it took.  Although, come
to think of it, that's pretty bad.

I think I'll stop for lunch now.  Oh, Jane.  _Virgin in the Garden_ is  good,
but I have to issue a depression warning.  With the exception of _Possession_,
which she wrote as a popular romance and not as a serious novel, all Byatt's
books are horribly depressing, if very beautiful.

Glad to be back.  Delia
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 383       Sun Oct 17, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 14:39 EDT
 
Delia: A little more about "high emotional stakes" as a postmodern condition?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 384       Sun Oct 17, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 14:46 EDT
 
Hullo, Delia, welcome home.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 385       Sun Oct 17, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 14:54 EDT
 
Yes, that would be interesting.  I would have classified the postmodern temper
as cool rather than highly emotional.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 386       Sun Oct 17, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Frisco Kid]     at 15:25 EDT
 
Re: Unspeakable pasts. I think P.J. O'Rourke said that it used to be  that if
you called someone a drug-abusing lying pervert you'd be in  for a lawsuit or
a duel. Now it just means you've read their autobiography. <rimshot>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 387       Sun Oct 17, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 15:34 EDT
 
Welcome home. If you are not going to be at World Fantasy (which I am), Boiled
in LEad will be at Johnny Ds Oct. 31. I expect David will go and report it all
to me.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 388       Sun Oct 17, 1993
BETH.MEACHAM                 at 15:41 EDT
 
Welcome home, Delia.

"Sprezzatura" is a fine word;  I've always wanted a word for that idea.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 389       Sun Oct 17, 1993
S.SHWARTZ [Susan]            at 15:44 EDT
 
If you find a copy of Balthasar Castiglione's The Courtier (available in
translation from Vintage, I think...don't hold me to that>, you  can get the
term in context.

"Throwaway chic" just isn't enough of a synonym.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 390       Sun Oct 17, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 15:59 EDT
 
Penguin.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 391       Sun Oct 17, 1993
TAPPAN.KING                  at 16:00 EDT
 
So Cyrano's duel-with-extempore verse (and Steve Martin's updating of it) is
quintessential sprezzatura, no?

     >T<
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 392       Sun Oct 17, 1993
S.SHWARTZ [Susan]            at 16:28 EDT
 
Cyrano, definitely.  Steve Martin--for Castiglione, I'd rather have more style
and less...well..schlump.

The art that conceals art doesn't connote sloppiness, but your mileage may
vary.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 393       Sun Oct 17, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 16:38 EDT
 
Oh, have we established that FoM is PoMo?

<making note>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 394       Sun Oct 17, 1993
SFWA-SOUKUP [Martha]         at 16:56 EDT
 
Welcome back, Delia.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 395       Sun Oct 17, 1993
D.SHERMAN9                   at 17:27 EDT
 
Let's see.  Yes, FoM heroes are cool.  They expend quite a lot of energy
looking that way.  They do not spend a lot of time on mountaintops with their
hair blowing back shaking their fists at the universe.  Byronic heroes do
that.  But playing with emotions is not all emoting.  It seems to me that FoM
heroes frequently stake their sanity, their emotional and moral health, on the
chance fall of a word or action.  Moral health is a pre- modern concern. 
Emotional health is post-Freudian.  The self-conscious linking of the two is,
IMHO, post-modern.  I may be wrong.  I'm not wedded to this theory.  I haven't
given it deep thought.  Please don't hurt me.

DDelia
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 396       Sun Oct 17, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 23:42 EDT
 
Not only am I not going to hurt you; I nthink you're on to something.
=Especially= that last bit about linking emotional and moral health being
post=modern.  On, my, yes.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 397       Mon Oct 18, 1993
D.NOTKIN [Deb & Alan]        at 02:26 EDT
 
"Sprezzatura" -- it sounds like what Hemingway defined "Guts" to be:  Grace
under pressure.

  -- Alan Bostick
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 398       Mon Oct 18, 1993
KEITH.D [K. DeCandido]       at 08:24 EDT
 
Welcome back Delia! (and, presumably, Ellen, too!)

This raises the question, can one write FoM with a Byronic hero?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 399       Mon Oct 18, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 08:35 EDT
 
There's something very, I don't know, neo-Calvinist about the idea of linking
emotional and moral health. (On the other hand, the elevation of emotional
health over moral health could well be considered one of the characteristic
sins of the modern age.  But it's probably very unmannerist to ponder too much
upon sin.)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 400       Mon Oct 18, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 09:35 EDT
 
It =is= Calvinist (no neo about it) to link emotional and moral health. I'm
afraid I have no trouble imagining a person who relieves anxiety and restores
his or her emotional equilibrium by going out and doing something selfish.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 401       Mon Oct 18, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 09:45 EDT
 
It occurred to me after Delia's post that Zorro has sprezzatura. (Or however
it is spelled!)

But El Cid is only heroic. 

I'd rather be on a desert island with Zorro. IS this the text?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 402       Mon Oct 18, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 09:45 EDT
 
I meant, of course, "test". (Flying flangers.)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 404       Mon Oct 18, 1993
S.SHWARTZ [Susan]            at 19:33 EDT
 
Jane, that's about right.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 405       Mon Oct 18, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 20:13 EDT
 
This is the text. The text is all that is the case.

Ahem.

Lois: Absolutely. I had a breakthrough conversation with Howard Hendrix (oft
seen being impenetrably pomo in the pages of NYRSF) during which I explained
FoM to him, and after he exclaimed that, hey, FoM is pomo, proceeded to
explain pomo to me. For which I was eternally grateful.

Delia: (Or Paula:) (Or both:) I'm not quite following this moral/emotional
health idea. Seems a little gnomic, or aphoristic, so far. Elaborate?
Examples?

Sprezzatura. Yes. Cyrano. Zorro. But of course.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 406       Mon Oct 18, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 23:21 EDT
 
COuld you recapitulate, Donald?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 407       Tue Oct 19, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 01:47 EDT
 
Not from the chandelier, he couldn't; he'd fall in the soup.

I keep having this weird feeling that there's something very Calvinist going
on behind things Pomo, as if we're all about to embark on a spree of Doing The
Right Thing =because it's Right= whether we enjoy it or not; virtue for the
sake of being virtuous (and Right should most emphatically not be construed to
mean Lawful).  Outlaws are part of FoM because they are concerned with doing
Good which may involve taking the law into one's own hands (that's Outlaws the
Archetype, not to be confused with Gangbangers or Thugs, although I'm not such
an innocent that I =really= believe the James Gang was anything other than
Thugs.  But I want them to have been, or better, somehow we =need= them to
have been  Perhaps I should rewrite this when concious.

Naw...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 408       Tue Oct 19, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 07:29 EDT
 
America is, after all, a very Calvinist nation.  (If this were the horror
topic instead of the mpunk topic, I'd go into my riff about how Jonathan
Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" sermon is the quintessential
text for American Horror, which accounts for the popularity of Stephen King,
not to mention sunspots, the ozone hole, and the national debt.  But it isn't,
so I won't.)

Debra

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 409       Tue Oct 19, 1993
S.SHWARTZ [Susan]            at 20:57 EDT
 
Debra, what about the "hell" segment in PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 410       Tue Oct 19, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 21:03 EDT
 
Yes...I think that the postmodern attitude =is= quite conservative; one of its
tenets (see PJF) is "let's retrieve the baby =and= the bathwater those
extravagant modernists threw out the window."  I recently ran across a page-
long rant (that never became a real essay) that I wrote about the essential
conservatism of cyberpunk (the quintessential postmodern style of sf).  Being
a New Waver and Modernist from way back, this "let's forget the avante garde
ever existed" is pretty maddening.

Lois: Recapitulate what?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 411       Tue Oct 19, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 21:27 EDT
 
The argument for the essential postmoderism of FoM?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 412       Wed Oct 20, 1993
D.NOTKIN [Deb & Alan]        at 02:42 EDT
 
Susan:  James Joyce is an _Irish_ writer, and is not particulary important to
the shaping of the _American_ mind, compared to some contemporary American
like, say, Theodore Dreiser.

  -- Alan Bostick (That's contemporary to Joyce)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 413       Wed Oct 20, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 06:42 EDT
 
I don't think the PJFers want both baby and bathwater, Don, but we do want to
bring back great storytelling to literature.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 414       Wed Oct 20, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 07:34 EDT
 
(Restraining self from commenting)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 415       Wed Oct 20, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 08:24 EDT
 
The "hell" section of _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ reeks of Irish
Catholicism, not Calvinism.  The thing about the Edwards sermon that resonates
with American horror (but not, really, with British horror) is that idea of
there being nothing between the soul and unspeakable torment but the hand of
God -- and there's nothing anyone's done that keeps it there, it's just the
unexplainable will of an unknowable force.

To drag this back on topic, I supposed we'd have to talk about mannered
postmodern horror, if such a creature exists.  (Whatever it is, it _isn't_
splatter -- but that's about all I feel fairly sure of.)

Debra

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 416       Wed Oct 20, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 08:31 EDT
 
Pomo, which loves to assimilate anything and everything, can assimilate
Fantasy of Manners (and doubtless has).  This does not mean that Fantasy of
Manners is postmodern.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 417       Wed Oct 20, 1993
KEITH.D [K. DeCandido]       at 08:37 EDT
 
Well, PoMo is often called a "sensibility" (as Jane Austen writhes in her
grave), and a sensibility can apply to almost anything.

Which is one of the problems with PoMo as a term; it's getting unwieldly...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 418       Wed Oct 20, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 19:27 EDT
 
It's worth noting that Jonathan Edwards' audience regarded "Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry God" as ecstatically optimistic.  After all, he _hadn't_
dropped us into that great pit, now had he?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 419       Wed Oct 20, 1993
S.SHWARTZ [Susan]            at 19:28 EDT
 
They both scare the sht out of me, frankly.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 420       Wed Oct 20, 1993
L.GROSSMAN [Leigh]           at 21:21 EDT
 
Jonathan Edwards' audiences often fainted in the aisles during his sermons,
despite the monotone he gave them in. Edwards didn't hold out much hope, even
to Puritan audiences; ascension to heaven was basically by random chance--you
had to be one of the "elect"

Debra: nicely put!

Leigh
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 421       Wed Oct 20, 1993
CYN.WARD [Cindy]             at 21:33 EDT
 
I thought Jonathan Edwards glared at the congregation so hard that the
bellrope turned away.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 422       Wed Oct 20, 1993
TAPPAN.KING                  at 22:49 EDT
 
I thought Jonathan Edwards sang "Along Again, Naturally."

No, wait.  That was Gilbert O'Sullivan.  Jonathan Edwards sang "Everyone's
Gone to the Moon."

Mannerpunks often make ironic jokes such as these.  <OOTC!  OOTC!>

      >t<
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 423       Wed Oct 20, 1993
STEVEN.BRUST                 at 23:12 EDT
 
<Patting Greg on the head>

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 424       Wed Oct 20, 1993
KEITH.D [K. DeCandido]       at 23:51 EDT
 
<whupping Tappan upside the head>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 425       Thu Oct 21, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 01:24 EDT
 
"I =reek= of England and Calvinism."
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 426       Thu Oct 21, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 07:16 EDT
 
I live next door to Northampton where Jonathan Edwards did his reeking. 
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 427       Thu Oct 21, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 08:22 EDT
 
The neighborhood has clearly improved some since then, Jane.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 428       Fri Oct 22, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 21:36 EDT
 
It's rather late (at least it =feels= late) this Friday night, and I'm not up
to answering Lois' question just now. Maybe tomorrow. What's needed is a
condensed first draft of my essay on Modernism and Post- Modernism in Fantasy,
which I should have written years ago anyway.

Brief comment to Greg: Just as, say, Dickens lived in the Victorian age, we
live in the Postmodern age, and any artistic products we produce will =tend=
to be postmodern. But more of this later.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 429       Sat Oct 23, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 07:49 EDT
 
Even mine? Even Delia's? Even Ellen"s? she asks plaintively.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 430       Sat Oct 23, 1993
A.RASLEY [Alicia]            at 17:00 EDT
 
Just saw a picture in the paper of an Edwards-style fire-and- brimstone
preacher who uses a trick Bible.  As he reads threats from it, it seems to
catch on fire.  You're supposed to feel the heat of hell from it, I know, but
it seems a bit sacrilegious to me.  My seven-year-old, however, was very taken
with "The burning Bible".

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 431       Sat Oct 23, 1993
D.NOTKIN [Deb & Alan]        at 17:12 EDT
 
 Jane:  One could argue that Pre-Joyceanism, being a reaction against
 modernist fiction, is therefore of necessity postmodern.

 Don:  One problem is that there are too damn' many notions of
 "postmodernism" floating around.  Sometimes I thing that what people are
 calling postmodern science fiction and fantasy have as much to do with
 the philosophical/artistic movement known as postmodernism as John W.
 Campbell's "modern science fiction" had to do with modernism.

   -- Alan Bostick
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 432       Sat Oct 23, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 19:28 EDT
 
Been typing all day. Long post tomorrow maybe.

Jane: Yep. Especially Ellen.

Alan: Yep. The odd thing, actually, is that sf is almost =inherently=
postmodern (cf. Kim Stanley Robinson), and that the New Wave--which of course
came =after= Campbell--is the =modernist= movement in sf. It's all very
tangled and confused. But later.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 433       Sat Oct 23, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 20:17 EDT
 
Sounds like a lot of fancy footwork, me boys.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 434       Sat Oct 23, 1993
KEITH.D [K. DeCandido]       at 21:18 EDT
 
Hey, c'mon, let's give Don a chance to give his detailed argument.


=Then= we pounce on 'im...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 435       Sat Oct 23, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 21:39 EDT
 
Postmodernism isn't a reaction against Modernism.  Pomos don't write
manifestoes arguing that 800-page encyclopedic tomes that inveigh against our
fallen times are bad; or that using bits of pop culture for the purpose of
mocking populism or the unwashed masses (as Eliot did, and Gaddis did, but as
Joyce didn't do) is bad.  Postmodernists don't want modernism buried, they are
simply looser about it.

I shouldn't say simply; it's more complex than that.  But Alan Bostick, who
presumes easily to a lot of things he doesn't seem really to know much about,
is dead wrong in assuming that postmodernism and modernism are in opposition.

GRAVITY'S RAINBOW is a postmodern work that contains all sorts of modernist
elements.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 436       Sat Oct 23, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 22:11 EDT
 
Time to restart the PoMo topic, methinks.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 438       Sun Oct 24, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 19:35 EDT
 
I know I'm temporizing, but I'll ask the question: shall I move my detailed
discourse over to 4/5, where it probably belongs?

Greg: Sorry, the prevailing opinion I've seen is that postmodernism is =so= a
reaction to modernism, at least in the sense that every new sensibility is a
reaction to the prevailing/preceding sensibility. GRAVITY'S RAINBOW uses
modernist tropes because postmodernism is, among other things, collage-
oriented, and modernist tropes just go into the collage mix.

By the way, it =has= been mentioned here, hasn't it, that there's a long essay
on Patrick O'Brian in THE NEW YORKER? I just ran across it myself, and found
it a fascinating piece, particularly in the way that it was only as
sympathetic as a snooty litterateur could be to what he accurately assessed as
genre work.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 439       Sun Oct 24, 1993
T.WEBER7 [Scraps]            at 19:54 EDT
 
Post hoc ergo proctor hoc.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 440       Sun Oct 24, 1993
S.SHWARTZ [Susan]            at 20:07 EDT
 
The O'Brian article was mentioned in CAT 26, I think, by Alicia Rasley.

At least the litterateur got it right.  Did you notice that the reason he
liked it seems to be that it's a beautifully done secondary world?

One reason, in any case:  and that is a primary attraction, IMHO, of genre
fiction.

For O'Brian aficionados, please take a look at the book-signing schedule, also
posted in CAT 26.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 441       Sun Oct 24, 1993
D.SHERMAN9                   at 23:55 EDT
 
[[Ellen Kushner]]

<giving Tappan a big wet sloppy kiss> (with violet-stained teeth) (see Delia's
topic 12.1)

I think one thing that distinguishes PostModernism is that it shows the seams -
the theoretical seams, that is, not uncraftsmanlike cracks and joins.  It's
taken me years to get my brain around the definition of this hitherto Esoteric-
to-the-max concept - do we all remember the day we first heard the term, like
the day Kennedy was shot?  Or, maybe, the day we first used it because its
context had finally swum into focus through some kindly fusion of a friend's
explanation and a concrete example?

For me, I use a very specific image to hold my focus:  it's the Philip 
Johnson Bell Tel (I think) building in NYC:  structurally, yet another Big Box
- but ornamented with Greek columns and a Chippendale top.  And, unlike the
Modernists, he's not pretending to have made it up from his  Pia Mater.  He
WANTS you to go, "Hey!  Aren't those Greek columns, you mad dog?"

So I think PostModernism involves conscious quoting of precedent - self
conscious, yes, but not of necessity arch - there's a certain wit to a  very
modern, streamlined chair in chrome that is shaped like a Renaissance folding
chair, with 18c roses painted on it . . . it makes you smile, because it
_tickles_ your knowledge - but if you'd never seen any furniture but the seats
in a MacDonald's, you'd still find it a beautiful object.  That is, I think,
what gives the best of the PoMo its integrity.  "Beauty" is, maybe, not the
criterion to use - although I do think that one reason we all LIke the PoMo so
much is that it IS aesthetically pleasing, in a sensual way, unlike much of
Modernism, which was obsessed with showing its structure by ripping things
down to bare bones . . . but that's another lecture.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 442       Mon Oct 25, 1993
D.SHERMAN9                   at 00:01 EDT
 
(ellen again)

I'll be at WFC in Mpls, looking forward to seeing you, whoever you turn out to
be.

And I do think that Deb's right; in Mannerist fiction, we care passionately
about the moral health of just everyone.  I think the Elect are seen to be so
because they Suffer.  In a sense, moral health creates emotional traum xxxx
trauma in our characters.  The only way they can hold their perceptions and
their face together is with a show of Sprezzatura.  (That last line I'm not
sure about - but I couldn't resist using all my Vocabulary Words in one
'graph.)

Say Goodnight, Ellen.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 443       Mon Oct 25, 1993
KEITH.D [TCR/BPVP]           at 00:54 EDT
 
Goodnight, Ellen.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 444       Mon Oct 25, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 01:32 EDT
 
<Lord, I just =love= people who can take direction>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 445       Mon Oct 25, 1993
TAPPAN.KING                  at 01:35 EDT
 
Ellen, my dear, while I have no objection to unexpected kisses (even with
violet teeth), might one be permitted to ask what one has done to deserve such
attention?

Your obt, &c

     >T<
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 446       Mon Oct 25, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 09:15 EDT
 
Being by training a medievalist, I don't have any more formal knowledge of
either Modernism or PostModernism than I could avoid acquiring.  (I once got
accused, by a freshman at Penn, of "holding modern literature in contempt" --
all I could come up with in my own defense was a rather feeble, "I never
_said_ anything like that!")  But it does seem to me that PostModernism has
more fun with what it's doing than Modernism does.

Extra credit essay question:  is there some reason why PostModernism would
seem more congenial to the medievally-accustomed mind?

Debra

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 447       Mon Oct 25, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 09:44 EDT
 
Yes:  It's all centos and palimpsests.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 448       Mon Oct 25, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 21:57 EDT
 
Medieval authors and postmodernists share a similar sense that they're
entitled to appropriate anything, by any means, for any purpose?  Just
guessing.

I realize this makes me sound like I disapprove of this sense of entitlement. 
Actually, I approve of it.  Signed, Ezra Pound.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 449       Mon Oct 25, 1993
S.SHWARTZ [Susan]            at 23:14 EDT
 
Cognac Snarf.  (derivatively, of course>
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 450       Tue Oct 26, 1993
D.SHERMAN9                   at 01:14 EDT
 
Only steal from the best, is what I always say.  Not being Shakespeare, if I
steal from the worst, it shows too much.  Yes, Patrick, that's exactly what it
is.  There's nothing left remarkable under the visiting moon, so we are stuck
with recycling what used to pass as remarkable.  Creatively, of course.  While
commenting on its relevance, or lack of relevance, to The Modern World. 
Unconsciously, if that can be at all arranged.  And without anyone's
suspecting that it was in the least bit difficult to do so.  Which (it's very
late now, and I'm not sure that I'm in complete control of my brain, much less
my fingers) makes us (PoMo FoMers) the heroes of our own books.  Or at least
of Ellen's books.  I'm not sure my protagonists (is Berthe heroic?) are into
sprezzatura.

Delia
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 451       Tue Oct 26, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 01:42 EDT
 
Also remember that the Medievals (what a horrible word!) saw nothing wrong
with Roman Emperors who ran their households like Dutch Burghers, or Greek
goddesses dressed in the height of Florentine fashion, or Admirals of Her
Majesty's Navy bedecking themselves in Classical draperies and reciting
doggeral in honor of the day (whatever day it was).  The PoMo mindset that all
times and all places are contiguous is far closer to the Medieval mindset than
to that of the Late Victorian.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 452       Tue Oct 26, 1993
J.YOLEN [Jane]               at 06:14 EDT
 
Ellen--NOW I have iut. Thanks. Clearly I am right in the very
muddle...er...middle  of the Postmodernists. Thanks. (Whew. I knew if I
studied hard enough I would get this. I of course never did get
Deconstruction. And I read Chip Delaney's essay. Honest I did!)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 453       Tue Oct 26, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 08:24 EDT
 
Berthe is not into sprezzatura.  That's okay.  Lacking braggadocio, she
attains gravitas.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 454       Tue Oct 26, 1993
TAPPAN.KING                  at 09:59 EDT
 
Since I shall have to appear on a "Postmodernism:  Threat or Menace" panel at
WFC, I wonder if I understand the basic meaning of all these terms:

Deconstruction = taking apart the work to see how it's built; not giving the
author undue privilege to decide how the work is interpreted.

Semiotics = the realization that we transact more in maps than territories,
that the names for things have taken on realities of their own.

Postmodern = the sensibility that realizes that the current generation has
huge quantities of past art and history at their disposal which may be cut,
pasted, and sampled for artistic effect.

Structuralism = the fundamental belief that works of art (including histories)
have certain deep "structures" which condition how the work is seen.

How did I do?

     >T<
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 455       Tue Oct 26, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 10:48 EDT
 
Deconstruction is much more than that; that definition is used by columnists
who have never read any.

Your definition of "Postmodernism" would also fit "Modernism."

"Structuralism" owes a great debt to linguistic theory; John Barnes knows more
of this than I do.

Don't worry, Tappan; we'll get you up to speed by next week.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 456       Tue Oct 26, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 10:50 EDT
 
Um, that's two days from now, Greg.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 457       Tue Oct 26, 1993
L.GROSSMAN [Leigh]           at 20:06 EDT
 
re: 450-451

Of course "The Medievals" saw originality as no great virtue. As late as
Shakespeare's time, even, the object of literature was not to tell a new
story, but to retell a familiar plot in a new way. Not that anybody's ever
stopped doing that, but people became a lot more reluctant about admitting
it....

Leigh
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 458       Tue Oct 26, 1993
KEITH.D [TCR/BPVP]           at 20:59 EDT
 
Leigh: yeah, when the unoriginal complaint rears, I have this tendency to cite
Holinshed's MACBETH...

Delia: I =really= like PoMoFoMers as a term.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 459       Tue Oct 26, 1993
J.GARDNER4 [Jim Gardner]     at 21:34 EDT
 
I listened to a local lit-crit professor talk about Deconstructionism and I
gleaned a few (possibly inaccurate) insights from the conversation.  He said
that it was important to realize that deconstructionism arose at a time when
the major thrust of literary criticism was, "What does it mean?" In order to
answer that question, many critics naturally looked at the author's personal
life in an attempt to figure out what might have been passing through the
author's mind at the time.

In contrast, deconstructionism began to look at the question, "How does it do
what it does?"  When you ask *this* question about literature, the author's
personal life is irrelevant. Instead, you look solely at the text to see how
the choice of words, images, etc. all come together to convey whatever effect
the work has as a whole.

Obviously too, you can't ask, "How does it do what it does?" without asking,
"What does it really do?"  That question opened up a big can of worms,
especially because the early proponents of deconstructionism were iconoclasts,
often using a close reading of a text to show hidden bourgeois assumptions, to
show that people claiming to be broad-minded were actually narrow-minded
establishment toadies, and so on.  The overt "noble" themes of a work often
concealed much more squalid covert messages.

Now these days, we're likely to say, "Yeah, so what else is new?"  We're all
so deeply postmodern that doubting the overt message of a work is as natural
as breathing.  Remember, when Jonathan Swift published "A Modest Proposal"
(about solving Irish overpopulation by eating Irish babies), large numbers of
readers thought he was serious...and that was a blatant work by a renowned
satirist.  People of Swift's day were more likely to take a work at its face
value, even when Swift went out of his way to telegraph his true meaning.
These days, we go one step beyond even that.  We assume that =everything= we
read has a hidden agenda, frequently a subconscious one, and that assumptions
colors every artistic experience we have.

It's interesting to reflect that the idea of having subconscious goals is
barely a century old.  Now, that idea is thoroughly engrained in our world
view, and it's hard to imagine *not* seeing subconscious tricks and traps
everywhere we look.
   ---Jim Gardner
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 460       Tue Oct 26, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 22:51 EDT
 
Good post, Jim Gardner.  Quite so.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 461       Tue Oct 26, 1993
D.DOYLE1 [Debra]             at 23:42 EDT
 
I've known college freshman who had to be told, explicitly, that Swift was not
intending his proposal to be taken literally.  And this at an Ivy League
university, too.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 462       Wed Oct 27, 1993
TAPPAN.KING                  at 00:09 EDT
 
Deconstruction = How a work of art does what it does, without  reference to
who its author might have been.  In the process, it often reveals unexamined
assumptions that are built into the form, or the work.

Thanks, Jim.

Who wants to try for short definitions of the other terms?

     >T<
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 463       Wed Oct 27, 1993
D.SHERMAN9                   at 00:19 EDT
 
In ninth grade, I thought Swift was serious.  And even after I figured out
that he wasn't, I still didn't like it.  But that's neither here nor there.

Deconstructionism (which I never quite got either, despite living with a
professional who was more than willing to explain it, at length, at the drop
of a ball-point) sounds to me suspiciously like New Criticism plus jargon. 
Which comforts all my prejudices.  Give me the New Historicism, which is
pretty much the exact opposite, seeking to place each text in its historical
context, trying to recreate, through research and imagination, the world-view
that sparked it.

As for the Medieval/Renaissance view of history, it was very closely tied, I
think, to their religion.  Know those religious paintings where everything's
happening at once?  Like, St. Whomever is getting colorfully martyred in the
center panel, while in the upper left-hand corner he's giving his cloak to a
beggar, or blessing a leper, or converting three million heathen or rejecting
the hand of a nice, puzzled-looking girl, and in the upper right, he's being
translated into heaven.  This is supposed to be a God's-eye view, because to
God (who is omniscient, not only from moment to moment, but through all
moments past and present) that's what the saint's life looked like. 
Therefore, Antony in a doublet isn't really an anachronism. In such a system,
anachonism is a meaningless term.  I can think of fifty ways to argue with
this particular point of view, but I'm pretty sure that they believed it, or
assumed it, in the way that we assume that moment follows moment discretely.

Sorry to go on so long.  I had no idea I thought all those things until I got
started. Delia
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 464       Wed Oct 27, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 01:57 EDT
 
The whole idea of a picture as capturing a specific moment in time as it
actually happened is rather modern.  Medieval (and "northern" Renaissance)
paintings were "read" more as stories or icons than as snapshots; they tell
you =about= the subject, rather than illustrating the subject.  Delia's
saint's-life painting is one example; the Armada portrait of Elizabeth I and
the story painting of the life of Sir Henry Unton are secualr examples of the
same thing (well,  semi-secular in the case of the Aramada portrait, anyway).
Much good info on this sort of perception in several of Sir Roy Strong's books
(THE CULT OF ELIZABETH and SPLENDOUR AT COURT, among others).

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 465       Wed Oct 27, 1993
L.BAILES1 [LennyB]           at 02:40 EDT
 
   Takayuki Tatsumi has some remarks in the latest issue of SF Eye
 that strike me as profound and having some bearing on this
 thread.  He is coming from a position that seeks to link
 cyberpunk sf stories to "postmodern" counter-cultural tales
 written since 1960:

    "...I was very interested in the aesthetics of postmodern
    fiction.  Around 1980, I found numerous critics trying to find
    a suitable term to characterize contemporary fiction; Robert
    Scholes; "fabulation," Raymond Federman's "surfiction," Linda
    Hatcheon's "Narcissitic Narrative," Masu'd Zabazadah's
    "transfiction," Jerome Klinkowitz's "post-contemporary
    fiction," and so on.  All these weird coinages were, in fact,
    involved with the fate of metafiction -- fiction self-
    criticizing/deconstructing/metaphoricizing fiction itself..."

    "...But what happened to metafiction in the mid-80s? 
    Metafiction became so disseminated between 1960s and 80s that
    its conventional gimmicks (the play of floating signifiers,
    self=reflexive obsession, chinese-box structure) have become
    completely self-evident.  Post-Pynchon postmodern writers like
    William Vollmann, Kathy Acker, Steven Milhauser, Julian Burns,
    and Peter Ackroyd all seem to take for granted those
    metafictive devices.  But, have these devices actually become
    dated, or institutionalized?...

    "...It turned out that cyberpunk let us know we were
    surrounded by a metafictive network of advanced capitalist
    ideology, our own subjectivities constructed as a sort of
    "cyborg," in Donna Haraway's term.  Good-old metafictionists
    in the late 60s narrated the fate of metacharacters in the
    Chinese-box-like structure of fiction-within-fiction, whereas
    in the late 80s we have come to live the life of the
    metacharacters ourselves, with our own identities as the very
    narrative effects of hyper-media that we invented and have
    been talking about.  Metafiction made us aware that what
    fiction can tell us is not reality, itself, but a narrative
    version of reality.  But in the post-Foucaudian hyperreal age,
    we have come to realize that our contemporary lives are all
    ideological versions of reality, with us characters within
    narrativers.  It isn't so much that metafiction is now out-of-
    date, but that it's no longer an avant-garde literary device. 
    It's part of the popular life we are leading now."

                                    -- Takayuki Tatsumi,
                                       in Science Fiction Eye #12

   For T. Tatsumi, there already appears to be something that
 might be called "classic" postmodern fiction.  I'm only familiar
 with a few of the authors he mentions, but I'm intrigued with his
 linkage of "meta-fiction" and deconstruction (stories about
 stories as illustrations of the deconstructive process in
 action).  I wonder if an old fogey like John Barth might be added
 to his list of examples. 

   Tatsumi strikes me as saying that the experiential world he
 lives in makes the narrative techniques of even his favorite
 postmodern writers now obsolete.  (The idea that "we have come to
 live the life of the metacharacters, ourselves," with our own
 identities as "the very narrative effects.")

   I'm not sure I want to buy into Tatsumi's distinction between
 "classic" and "current" postmodernism (seemingly embodied in pop-
 culture videos, computer experiments and something he calls
 "Avant-Pop.") The case he goes on to make in SF Eye sounds too
 much like the acid rap I remember from the '60s. "Man, this is
 different, it supersedes everything in the history of Western
 Civilization." The signifiers that separate Tatsumi's "hyperreal"
 age of the 1990's from the decade that produced =Vineland= and
 =You Bright and Risen Angels=  appear to be simply a context that
 includes hypertext, virtual reality simulations, and smart-drugs. 

 But Tatsumi's carefully worked observations about "metafiction",
 deconstruction, and living through stories strike me as having
 some relevance to the thread under discussion here.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 466       Wed Oct 27, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 09:47 EDT
 
Yeah, Debra, but that was Penn, which is only Ivy League by courtesy.
(Obligatory snotty Yalie comment.)

Tappan, you still going to be here tonight?  If so, I will set you down and
explain postmodernism.  (Don can listen in.)
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 467       Wed Oct 27, 1993
TAPPAN.KING                  at 10:09 EDT
 
I'd argue with Takayuki's sweeping generalization that most of us have become
self-referential metafictional constructs as a result of changes in technology
...

... except that the person who signs himself " >T< " on this board =is= in
fact a metafictional construct produced in response to changes in technology,
no more "me" than the person who wrote editorials as  editor-in-chief of
Twilight Zone Magazine.   

I'd argue that I'm a special case, since I already live a metaliterary
existence, have written about myself as a character in my fiction...

... but then I remember Rodney King and Amy Irving and the Branch Davidians
and Rush Limbaugh and "America's Funniest Home Videos" and I begin to wonder
if Tatsumi-san may not be right.

Greg, if you want to amble over to my topic and give me a few last tips on
right crosses and uppercuts this evening, I'd be happy to have you in my
virtual corner....

See what I mean?

     >T<
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 468       Wed Oct 27, 1993
MITCHWAGNER [Teri McWhang]   at 11:07 EDT
 
I'm sure I have only a vague idea what Takayuki is talking about.  He seems to
be saying that because there's so much TV and radio  and news out there, we
all exist in relation to that, just as when  an author writes a story in which
the character =knows= he's in a  story, the character exists in relation to
the story. Like that?

I don't know what a "post-Foucaudian hyperreal age" is, but  I imagine it has
no relation to either the Hyborean Age or the Wonder Years.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 469       Wed Oct 27, 1993
L.GROSSMAN [Leigh]           at 21:16 EDT
 
re: Delia's point

Edmund Carr made a nice point (in his book WHAT IS HISTORY) about the medieval
worldview being so tied to religion. He noted that while it certainly SEEMS to
be true, almost all of our sources of medieval history were from people who
were professionally concerned with religion, and inclined to see it in
everything. Whether or not ordinary people were quite so spiritual is open to
debate. After all, Carr notes, everybody thought the Russian peasants were
deeply religious too...until 1917.

Leigh
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 470       Wed Oct 27, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 21:31 EDT
 
Utterly braindead tonight. Leaving for WFantCon any minute. (Am I on panel
with Tappan???) Look, more excuses.

Good stuff, guys. I was particularly taken with Ellen's =very= demotic
definition of postmodernism, and Tappan's very pithy, more formal brief
definitions. And Mr. Gardner's post as well.

Greg: Modernism is monadic. Postmodernism is pluralistic. I think there are
differences even in collage technique along those lines.

All for now. Might be back on again as early as Tuesday. Carry on.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 471       Wed Oct 27, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 23:47 EDT
 
Except you're all leaving out another element of Mannerism, which sprezzatura,
as coined by Castiglione in CORTEGIANO, included: an obsession with favorable
audience reaction.  Does PoMo, in its most rigorous application consider
contemporary audience's favorable reaction? The way I've understood
deconstruction of text, audience reaction only matters in accordance to the
mapping of such text.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 472       Thu Oct 28, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 02:11 EDT
 
Audience reaction is central to Pomo; what's the point of clever in-jokes and
tips of the hat in the direction of this-and-that if nobody gets it? The
experience of reading THE PHOENIX GUARDS if you have read THE THREE MUSKETEERS
is not th same as the experience of reading the Brust if you haven't read the
Dumas; fun either way, I expect, but not the same.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 473       Fri Oct 29, 1993
J.GARDNER4 [Jim Gardner]     at 23:06 EDT
 
Further to what Paula said...the experience of reading THE PHOENIX GUARDS if
you have read other Brust works is not the same experience as reading it in
isolation.  One important aspect of post-modernism is the continuing
conversation between works of art.  In SF, it's almost de rigueur now to
address elements of your own previous work and of other classic works in the
genre.  This goes beyond old ideas of setting a collection of stories in the
same universe; now, it's more of a game, sneaking in references, hints,
puzzles, and so on.  (One of my favorite gags of this type was done by Fire
Sign Theatre, where Porgy Tirebiter makes a phone call from one record album
to another.  On the first album, we hear Porgy's side of the conversation; on
the next, we hear the other side. The album's were released about a year
apart.  Seldom have I ever encountered a more obscure in-joke.)

It's always amused me a bit that Brust signs PJF after his name, then pulls
outrageously PoMo stunts like having the fictitious author of THE PHOENIX
GUARDS give his views on Brust himself. Of course, these days we're so
thoroughly embedded in the PoMo mindset, that feels like a pretty
straightforward joke.  Once upon a time it would have been bold and daring
(like John Barth's faked-up introduction to GILES GOAT-BOY...I remember all
the critics at the time struggling with that introduction as if it were filled
with quantum field equations).  ---Jim Gardner
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 474       Sun Oct 31, 1993
D.NOTKIN [Deb & Alan]        at 02:07 EST
 
  Jim: >In SF, it's almost de rigueur now to address elements of your 
   >own previous work and of other classic works in the genre.

 If this hasn't always been true, at least it has since John Campbell
 took the reins at ASTOUNDING.  And it describes the interaction between
 members of the Lovecraft Circle to a T.  (Just imagine HPL's horror,
 perhaps even eldritch horror, at the thought of being labeled
 "post-modern.")

   -- Alan Bostick 
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 475       Sun Oct 31, 1993
J.GARDNER4 [Jim Gardner]     at 19:38 EST
 
To Alan...it's true that SF has always fed off other SF stories; but there's a
slyness to the references these days that feels different from two or three
decades ago. Of course, that may simply be my imagination...
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 476       Sun Oct 31, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 21:59 EST
 
PM:  I don't think that PoMo and Deconstruction are interchangeable terms even
in literary theory.  I was referring to the latter.  However, I may be wrong,
and it wouldn't be for the first time.  My personal theory about the elements
you pointed out concerning (any) form's prevalent self-refer- ence -- movies,
art, other literary marketing slots -- is this is end of the century
decadence.  When the creative impulse is so lazy or so spent that it eats its
own tail.  Interesting enough, but only to the players. There are large
numbers of works out there that have no significance of their own, all the
significance has been borrowed from other works.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 477       Tue Nov 02, 1993
STEVEN.BRUST                 at 13:48 EST
 
Geez, Jim.  I hope I haven't given the impression that to be Pre-Joycean is to
be anti postmodern.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 478       Tue Nov 02, 1993
N.BARDSLEY [Nathan]          at 20:54 EST
 
Could one argue that by wanting to use all the good bits, no matter where they
came from, Pe-Jay is inherently PoMo?
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 479       Tue Nov 02, 1993
STEVEN.BRUST                 at 21:31 EST
 
I suspect so, Nathan.

 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 480       Tue Nov 02, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 21:55 EST
 
I'm going to have a sampler made up that says:  "I hope I haven't given the
impression that to be Pre-Joycean is to be anti postmodern." -- Steve Brust.

If he ever expresses the hope that the PJF hasn't given the impression that to
be Pre-Joycean is to be reactionary, I'll frame that one, too.
 ------------
Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 481       Wed Nov 03, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 14:02 EST
 
Lovecraft was a Modernist.

Kim Stanley Robinson has expressed the idea (the elaboration for which I've
forgotten) that science fiction itself is inherently postmodern. (As I think I
said upstream but am too lazy to look at, the New Wave is modernist.) So the
in-jokiness is right in line.

And just as the minimalists, who are totally tonal, represent going back
before atonality (modernist) as the postmodern thing to do (I think that's
really scrambled--can everyone follow it??), PJF, in going back before
Modernism for its inspiration, is clearly postmodern in essence. (I =am= going
to get a button saying "It's Very Post- To Be Pre-")
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 482       Wed Nov 03, 1993
C.ASH1 [Constance]           at 19:01 EST
 
DGK:  No.
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 483       Wed Nov 03, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 22:13 EST
 
No?
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 484       Thu Nov 04, 1993
J.GARDNER4 [Jim Gardner]     at 20:25 EST
 
Sorry if I misunderstand Pre-Joyceanism (I wonder if there's any way to sneak
a few more syllables into that word).  Perhaps someone can enlighten me?  ---
Jim Gardner
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 485       Thu Nov 04, 1993
L.GROSSMAN [Leigh]           at 20:28 EST
 
"proto-Joyceanism" maybe? 
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 486       Thu Nov 04, 1993
JOELR                        at 20:48 EST
 
Nah.  Think of it as proto-Dadaist, albeit syncretic, attempt to reconcile the
obvious with the obscure.
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 487       Thu Nov 04, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 22:34 EST
 
What Joel Said.

Do we need to open that topic again???
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 488       Fri Nov 05, 1993
STEVEN.BRUST                 at 02:26 EST
 
Greg, I assume you threw in "reactionary" just to irk me; but can you point to
someplace I said that to be Pre-Joycean was to be anti post-modern, or are you
just being childish?

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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 489       Fri Nov 05, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 07:29 EST
 
Neither.  No member of the PJF has ever said that Pre-Joyceanism was anti-
postmodern, or antimodern.  No PJFer has called it reactionary, either; that's
my judgment.
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 490       Fri Nov 05, 1993
PNH [Patrick]                at 08:49 EST
 
zzzzzzzzz, guys
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 491       Fri Nov 05, 1993
K.HOUGHTON                   at 21:58 EST
 
What Patrick Said.
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 492       Fri Nov 05, 1993
STEVEN.BRUST                 at 22:36 EST
 
...and Greg Feeley wins this week's Polite Answer to Rude Question award.

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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 493       Sun Nov 07, 1993
D.SHERMAN9                   at 16:16 EST
 
I'm suffering from definition-slip.  I keep thinking Modernism has something
to do with form following function, with streamlineing, with simplicity of
effect.  It does in architecture, anyway (which is at least marginally easier
to pin down than literature.)  So.  Why is a writer as exuberantly non-
functionally verbally playful (my apologies for the adverbs) as Joyce a
Modernist Writer?  It seems to me, frankly, that no SF or Fantasy writer could
be a Modernist, simply because Modernism seems inimical to the idea of
Fantasy, even Fantasy dressed up as Science.  But I may be missing  something.

Delia
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 494       Sun Nov 07, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 17:16 EST
 
Delia, after suffering through a great deal of this quandry, I have concluded
that the term "Modernism" has a number of different meanings which do not in
the least intend to designate a single object.  And that many of the problems
of understanding postmodernism suffer from the mistaken notion that they do.
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 495       Sun Nov 07, 1993
P.MARMOR [Paula Kate]        at 21:23 EST
 
The LA Times Book Review this morning had reviews of both PEMBERLY and
PRESUMPTION, the dueling sequels to PRIDE AND PREDJUDICE.  Review by James
Wilcox, who seems to think that "Julia Barrett"'s (what =is= the rule for
punctuating that?) PRESUMPTION captures the flavor if nothing else.

Have any of the Austenites in attendance read either of these?
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 496       Sun Nov 07, 1993
L.TILTON [Lois]              at 22:10 EST
 
No, but one of them will be looking for these.  Hope they're better than
SANDITON was.
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 497       Sun Nov 07, 1993
D.SHERMAN9                   at 23:43 EST
 
Why, oh, why, do people insist upon writing sequels to books that don't need
em?  I guess the people think they do, or else they wouldn't write them, but
they mostly can't write their way out of a dampish paper bag, so what do
_they_ know?  OK, OK, _Wide Sargasso Sea_ is good, but it isn't a sequel.  And
name me another one, do, that doesn't make the teeth itch and the eyes twitch.
If you want to dedicate a shrine to a dead author, set up a nicely decorated
altar in the parlor.  If you want to be Jane Austen, write a Regency, by all
means.  But make up your own characters, at least. 

Crankily yours,  Delia
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 498       Sun Nov 07, 1993
G.FEELEY1 [Greg]             at 23:50 EST
 
ULYSSES is a sequel.
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 499       Sun Nov 07, 1993
T.WEBER7 [Polgar]            at 23:52 EST
 
!

Several of the Ruth Plumly Thompson OZ books can stand comparison with Baum's.
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Category 4,  Topic 4
Message 500       Mon Nov 08, 1993
DGK [[Don Keller]]           at 07:59 EST
 
ORLANDO FURIOSO is a sequel.

Defining a form, much less defining an entire period, is like trying to keep
an octopus in a box. (I really =must= write that ***** essay already, but not
this morning....)
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