HFM – Page 614 – commonplacebook.com

The Library of America

Post author:HFM
Post published:December 28, 1999
Post category:Reading Lists

History and Mission Statement

“The Library of America was founded in 1979 to undertake a historic endeavor: to help preserve the nation’s cultural heritage by publishing America’s best and most significant writing in durable and authoritative editions.”

“The idea for The Library of America was first discussed some thirty years ago by scholars and literary critics who were concerned that many works by America’s finest writers were either out of print or nearly impossible to find. Without a deliberate publishing effort to preserve American writing, many important works would virtually disappear and be lost to future generations. Deprived of an important part of their cultural inheritance, Americans would lose a collective sense of the country’s literary accomplishments. The Pleiade series published in France provided a model, and discussion of a similar American series continued until the late 1970s, when seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation was secured to create The Library of America. The first volumes were published in 1982. Like the historic preservation movement, which originated in the 1920s with concerns about architectural heritage, The Library of America seeks to restore and pass on to future generations our nation’s literary heritage. This entails something never attempted before: not only publishing these volumes but keeping them permanently in print and widely available to readers.

“In the years since The Library of America’s inception it has come to be recognized by both scholars and the general public as the national edition of our country’s literature.”

Everyman’s Library

Post author:HFM
Post published:December 28, 1999
Post category:Reading Lists

“Everyman’s Library, founded in 1906 and relaunched in 1991 [by Alfred E. Knopf, a division of Random House], aims to offer the most complete library in the English language of the world’s classics. Each volume is printed in a classic typeface on acid-free, cream-wove paper with a sewn full cloth binding.” This is the March 1999 catalog, which includes about 275 titles.

Random House Modern Library’s Top 100 Nonfiction Books

Post author:HFM
Post published:December 28, 1999
Post category:Reading Lists

in 1998, the Modern Library released its list of the best 100 novels of the 20th Century amid much controversy over both what they put in and what they left out.

They’re back – with the Top 100 Nonfiction books of the 20th Century. So go ahead and argue what should have been left out and what deserved to be included.

1. Education of Henry Adams – Henry Adams, Edmund Morris

2. Varities of Religious Experiences – William James

3. Up from Slavery – Booker T. Washington

4. A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf

5. Silent Spring – Rachael Carson, Ellen Burstyn, Rachel L. Carson

6. Selected Essays – T. S. Eliot

7. The Double Helix : A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA – James D. Watson

8. Speak, Memory : An Autobiography Revisited (Everyman’s Library (Cloth), 188) – Vladimir Nabokov

9. American Language, Supplement One – H. L. Mencken

10. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (Great Minds Series) – John Keynes

11. The Lives of a Cell : Notes of a Biology Watcher – Lewis Thomas

12. The Frontier in American History – Frederick Jackson Turner

13. Black Boy : (American Hunger) (Perennial Classics) – Richard Wright

14. Aspects of the Novel – Edward Morgan Forster

15. The Civil War : A Narrative : Fort Sumter to Perryville, Fredericksburg to Meridian, Red River to Appomattox (3 Vol. Set) – Shelby Foote

16. The Guns of August – Barbara Tuchman

17. The Proper Study of Mankind : An Anthology of Essays – Henry Hardy(Editor), et al

18. The Nature and Destiny of Man : A Christian Interpretation : Human Nature (2 Vol Set)(Library of Theological Ethics) – Reinhold Niebuhr, Robin W. Lovin (Introduction)

19. Notes of a Native Son – James Baldwin

20. Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein

21. Elements of Style – William Strunk, E. B. White

22. An American Dilemma : The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (Black and African-American Studies) – Gunnar Myrdal, Bok Sissela (Introduction)

23. Principia Mathematica to 56 (Cambridge Mathematical Library) [ABRIDGED] – Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead

24. Mismeasure of Man – Stephen Jay Gould

25. The Mirror and the Lamp : Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. – Meyer Howard. Abrams

26. Pluto’s Republic : Incorporating the Art of the Soluble and Induction and Intutition – Peter Medawar

27. The Ants – Bert Holldobler, Edward O. Wilson

28. A Theory of Justice. – John Rawls

29. Art and Illusion : A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation – Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, Ernest H. Gombrich

30. Making of the English Working Class – Edward P. Thompson

31. The Souls of Black Folk – W. E. B. Dubois, et al

32. Principia Ethica (Great Books in Philosophy) – G. E. Moore

33. Philosophy and Civilization. – John Dewey

34. On Growth and Form – D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson

35. Ideas and Opinions – Albert Einstein

36. The Age of Jackson – Arthur Meier Schlesinger

37. The Making of the Atomic Bomb – Richard Rhodes

38. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon : A Journey Through Yugoslavia (Twentieth-Century Classics) – Rebecca West

39. Autobiographies (Collected Works of W.B. Yeats, Vol 3) – William H. O’Donnell(Editor), et al

40. Science and Civilization in China : Chemistry and Chemical Technology : Part 6 : Military Technology, Missiles and Sieges (Vol 5) – Joseph Needham, et al

41. Good-Bye to All That : An Autobiography – Robert Graves

42. Homage to Catalonia – George Orwell

43. Autobiography of Mark Twain – Charles Neider(Editor)

44. Children of Crisis – Robert Coles

46. The Affluent Society – John Kenneth Galbraith

47. Present at the Creation : My Years in the State Department – Dean Acheson

48. The Great Bridge : The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge – David G. McCullough

49. Patriotic Gore : Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War – Edmund Wilson

50. Samuel Johnson – Walter Jackson Bate

51. The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Malcolm X, Alex Haley

52. The Right Stuff – Tom Wolfe

53. Eminent Victorians – Lytton Strachey

54. Working : People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do – Studs Terkel

55. Darkness Visible : A Memoir of Madness – William Styron

56. The Liberal Imagination : Essays on Literature and Society – Lionel Trilling

57. Second World War – Winston Churchill, John Keegan (Illustrator)

58. Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass (Vintage International) – Isak Dinesen

59. Jefferson, the Virginian (Jefferson and His Time, Vol 1) – Dumas Malone

60. In the American Grain – William Carlos Williams, H. Gregory (Designer)

61. Cadillac Desert : The American West and Its Disappearing Water – Mark Reisner, Marc Reisner

62. The House of Morgan : An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance – Ron Chernow

63. Sweet Science – A.J. Liebling

64. The Open Society and Its Enemies : The Spell of Plato – Karl Raimund Popper

65. Art of Memory – Frances A. Yates

66. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism – R. H. Tawney

67. A Preface to Morals – Walter Lippmann

68. The Gate of Heavenly Peace : The Chinese and Their Revolution 1895-1980 – Jonathan D. Spence

69. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – Thomas S. Kuhn

70. The Strange Career of Jim Crow – Comer Vann Woodward

71. The Rise of the West : A History of the Human Community With a Retrospective Essay – William H. McNeill

72. The Gnostic Gospels – Elaine Pagels

73. James Joyce – Richard Ellmann

74. Florence Nightingale : 1820-1910 – Cecil Woodham-Smith

75. Great War and Modern Memory – Paul Fussell

76. The City in History – Lewis Mumford

77. Battle Cry of Freedom : The Civil War Era – James M. McPherson

78. Why We Can’t Wait – Martin Luther, Jr. King

79. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt – Edmund Morris

80. Studies in Iconology Humanistic Themes in the Art – Erwin Panofsky

81. The Face of Battle – John Keegan

82. The Strange Death of Liberal England – George Dangerfield, Peter Stansky

83. Vermeer – Lawrence Gowing, et al

84. A Bright Shining Lie : John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam – Neil Sheehan

85. West With the Night – Beryl Markham

86. This Boy’s Life : A Memoir – Tobias Wolff

87. A Mathematician’s Apology – G. H. Hardy

88. Six Easy Pieces : Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher (Helix Book.) – Richard P. Feynman, Paul Davies, Robert B. Leighton

89. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Perennial Classics) – Annie Dillard

90. Golden Bough – James George Frazer

91. Shadow and Act – Ralph Waldo Ellison

92. The Power Broker : Robert Moses and the Fall of New York – Robert A. Caro

93. American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It – Richard Hofstadter

94. Contours of American History – William Appleman Williams

95. The Promise of American Life – Herbert Croly

96. In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences – Truman Capote

97. The Journalist and the Murderer – Janet Malcolm

98. The Taming of Chance – Tim Hacking, Ian Hacking

99. Operating Instructions : A Journal of My Son’s First Year – Anne Lamott

The X (mas) Files

Post author:HFM
Post published:December 24, 1999
Post category:Holidays

Author Unknown

Mulder: We’re too late. It’s already been here.

Scully: Mulder, I hope you know what you are doing.

Mulder: Look, Scully, just like the other homes: Douglas fir, truncated, mounted,
transformed into some sort of shrine; halls decked with boughs of holly; stockings
hung by the chimney, with care.

Scully: You really think someone’s been here?

Mulder: Someone or some THING.

Scully: Mulder, over here — its fruitcake.

Mulder: Don’t touch it! Those things can be lethal.

Scully: It’s O.K. there’s a note attached: "Gonna find out who’s naughty and
nice."

Mulder: It’s judging them, Scully. It’s making a list.

Scully: Who? What are you talking about?

Mulder: Ancient mythology tells of an obese humanoid entity that could travel at
great speed in a craft powered by antlered servants. Once each year, near the winter
solstice, this creature is said to descend from the heavens to reward its followers
and punish its disbeliveers with jagged chunks of anthracite.

Scully: But that’s legend, Mulder – a story told by parents to frighten children.
Surely, you don’t believe it?

Mulder: Something was here tonight, Scully. Check out the bite marks on this gingerbread
man. Whatever tore through this plate of cookies was massive — and in a hurry.

Scully: It left crumbs everywhere. And look, Mulder, this milk glass has been completely
drained.

Mulder: It gorged itself, Scully. It fed without remorse.

Scully: But why would they leave it milk and cookies?

Mulder: Appeasement. Tonight is the Eve, and nothing can stop its wilding.

Scully: But if this thing does exist, how did it get in? The doors and windows were
locked. There’s no sign of forced entry.

Mulder: Unless I miss my guess, it came through the fireplace.

Scully: Wait a minute, Mulder. If you are saying some huge creature landed on the
roof and came down the chimney, you’re crazy. The flue is barely six inches wide. Nothing could get through there.

Mulder: But what if it could alter its shape, move in all directions.

Scully: You mean, like a bowl full of jelly?

Mulder: Exactly. Scully, I’ve never told anyone this, but when I was a child my home
was visited. I saw the creature. It had long white strips of fur surrounding its
ruddy, misshapen head. Its bloated torso was red and white. I’ll never forget the
horror. I turned away, and when I looked back it had somehow taken on the facial
features of my father.

Scully: Impossible.

Mulder: I know what I saw. And that night it read my mind. It brought me a Mr. Potato
Head, Scully. IT KNEW I WANTED A MR. POTATO HEAD.

Scully: I’m sorry, Mulder, but you’re asking me to disregard the laws of physics.
You want me to believe in some supernatural being who soars across the skies and
brings gifts to good little girls and boys. Listen to what you are saying. Do you understand the repercussions? If this gets out, they’ll
close the X-files.

Mulder: Scully, listen to me: It knows when you are sleeping. It knows when you’re
awake.

Scully: But we have no proof.

Mulder: Last year, on this exact date, S.E.T.I. radio telescopes detected bogeys
in the airspace over twenty-seven states. The White House ordered a Condition Red.

Scully: But that was a meteor shower.

Mulder: Officially. Two days ago, eight prized Scandinavian reindeer vanished from
the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. No one, not even the zookeeper, was told about
it. The government doesn’t want people to know about Project Kringle. They fear that if this thing were proved to exist, then
the public would stop spending half its annual income in a holiday shopping frenzy.
Retail markets will collapse. Scully, they cannot let the world believe this creature
lives. There’s too much at stake. They’ll do whatever it takes to insure another
silent night.

Scully: Mulder, I —

Mulder: Sh-h-h! Do you hear what I hear?

Scully: On the roof. It sounds like . . .a clatter.

Mulder: The truth is up there. Let’s see what’s the matter.

New Y2K Software

Post author:HFM
Post published:December 20, 1999
Post category:Jokes

Author Unknown

This memo is to announce the development of a new database software system which will be Year 2000 compliant. This program is known as "Millennia Year Application Software System" (MYASS).

Next Monday there will be a meeting in which I will show MYASS to everyone. We will hold demonstrations throughout the month so that all employees will have an opportunity to get a good look at MYASS.

We have not addressed networking aspects yet, so currently only one person at a time can use MYASS. This restriction will be removed after MYASS expands.

Some employees have begun using the program already. This morning I walked into a subordinate’s office and was not surprised to find that he had his nose buried in MYASS. Some of the less technical people may be somewhat afraid of MYASS.

Last week my secretary said to me, "I’m a little nervous, I never put anything in MYASS before." I helped her through the first time and afterward she admitted that it was relatively painless and she was actually looking forward to doing it again, and was even ready to kiss MYASS.

There have been concerns over the virus that was found in MYASS upon initial installation, but the virus has been eliminated and we were able to save MYASS. In the future, however, protection will be required prior to entering MYASS.

This database will encompass all information associated with the business. As you begin using the program, feel free to put anything you want in MYASS.

As MYASS grows larger, we envision a time when it will be commonplace for a supervisor to hand work to an employee and say, "here, stick this in MYASS." It will be a great day when we need data quickly and our employees can respond, "Here it is, I just pulled it out of MYASS."

Solving The Y0K Problem

Post author:HFM
Post published:December 20, 1999
Post category:Jokes

Author Unknown

While browsing through material in the recesses of the Roman Section of the British Museum, a researcher recently came across a tattered bit of parchment. After some effort he translated it and found it was a letter from a man called Plutonius with the title of "magister factorium," or keeper of the calendar, to one Cassius. It was dated, strangely enough, 2 BC, December 3 — about 2,000 years ago. The text of the message follows:

Dear Cassius:

Are you still working on the Y zero K problem? This change from BC to AD is giving us a lot of headaches and we haven’t much time left. I don’t know how people will cope with working the wrong way around. Having been working happily downwards forever, now we have to start thinking upwards. You would think that someone would have thought of it earlier and not left it to us to sort it all out at this last Minute.

I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn’t done something about it when he was sorting out the calendar. He said he could see why Brutus turned nasty. We called in Consultus, but he simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC won’t work and as usual charged a fortune for doing nothing useful. Surely, we will not have to throw out all our hardware and start again? Macrohard will make yet another fortune out of this I suppose.

The money lenders are paranoid of course! They have been told that all usury rates will invert and they will have to pay their clients to take out loans. Its an ill wind….

As for myself, I just can’t see the sand in an hourglass flowing upwards. We have heard that there are three wise men in the East who have been working on the problem, but unfortunately they won’t arrive until it’s all over.

I have heard that there are plans to stable all horses at midnight at the turn of the year as there are fears that they will stop and try to run backwards, causing immense damage to chariots and possible loss of life. Some say the world will cease to exist at the moment of transition. Anyway, we are still continuing to work on this blasted Y zero K problem.

I will send a parchment to you if anything further develops. If you have any ideas please let me know,

Plutonius

How To Solve The Y2K Problem

Post author:HFM
Post published:December 20, 1999
Post category:Jokes

Author Unknown

The Corporate Office has defined a lower cost alternative for Desktop conversions that also addresses the Y2K (Year 2000) issue:

The goal is to remove all computers from the desktop by Jan, 1999. Instead, everyone will be provided with an Etch-A-Sketch.

There are many sound reasons for doing this:

1. No Y2K problems
2. No technical glitches, keeping work from being done.
3. No more wasted time reading and writing emails.
4. Substantial hardware cost savings.

Frequently Asked Questions from the Etch-A-Sketch Help Desk:

Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has all of these funny little lines all over the screen. What do I do?
A: Pick it up and shake it

Q: How do I turn my Etch-A-Sketch off?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: What’s the shortcut for Undo?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I create a New Document window?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I set the background and foreground to the same color?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: What is the proper procedure for rebooting my Etch-A-Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I delete a document on my Etch-A-Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I save my Etch-A-Sketch document?
A: Don’t shake it.

Two Digits for a Date

Post author:HFM
Post published:December 20, 1999
Post category:Jokes Poems

Author Unknown

(sung to the tune of "Gilligan’s Island", more or less)

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale
Of the doom that is our fate.
That started when programmers used
Two digits for a date… two digits for a date.

Main memory was much smaller then;
Hard disks were smaller, too.
"Four digits are extravagant,
So let’s get by with two….Get by with just the two."

"This works through 1999,"
The programmers did say.
"Unless we rewrite before that
It all will go away… it all will go away."

But Management had not a clue:
"It works fine now, you bet!
A rewrite is a straight expense;
We won’t do it just yet… we won’t do it just yet."

Now when 2000 rolls around
It all goes straight to Hell,
For zero’s less than ninety-nine,
As anyone can tell… as anyone can tell.

The mail won’t bring your pension check.
It won’t be sent to you.
When you’re no longer sixty-eight,
But minus thirty-two… but minus thirty-two.

The problems we’re about to face
Are frightening, for sure.
And reading every line of code’s
The only certain cure… the only certain cure.

There’s not much time,
There’s too much code.
(And Cobol-coders, few)
When the century is finished with,
We may be finished, too… we may be finished, too.

The way to get the time we need
I now propose to you:
A Daylight Savings decade,
Or maybe even two… or maybe even two.

Eight thousand years from now I hope
That things weren’t left too late,
And people aren’t lamenting
Four digits for a date… four digits for a date.

It Ain’t Me

Post author:HFM
Post published:December 15, 1999
Post category:Music

Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan 1964

Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits — Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits

Go ‘way from my window,
Leave at your own chosen speed.
I’m not the one you want, babe,
I’m not the one you need.
You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Never weak but always strong,
To protect you an’ defend you
Whether you are right or wrong,
Someone to open each and every door,
But it ain’t me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe,
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.

Go lightly from the ledge, babe,
Go lightly on the ground.
I’m not the one you want, babe,
I will only let you down.
You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Who will promise never to part,
Someone to close his eyes for you,
Someone to close his heart,
Someone who will die for you an’ more,
But it ain’t me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe,
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.

Go melt back into the night, babe,
Everything inside is made of stone.
There’s nothing in here moving
An’ anyway I’m not alone.
You say you’re looking for someone
Who’ll pick you up each time you fall,
To gather flowers constantly
An’ to come each time you call,
A lover for your life an’ nothing more,
But it ain’t me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe,
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.

Bad Moon Rising

Post author:HFM
Post published:December 15, 1999
Post category:Music

Written by: J. Fogerty
Performed by: Creedence Clearwater Revival

I see a bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin’.
I see bad times today.

CHORUS:
Don’t go around tonight,
Well, it’s bound to take your life,
There’s a bad moon on the rise.

I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

Don’t go around tonight,
Well, it’s bound to take your life,
There’s a bad moon on the rise.

Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we’re in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.

Don’t go around tonight,
Well, it’s bound to take your life,
There’s a bad moon on the rise.