earle@smeagol.UUCP (Greg Earle) (02/11/86)
"...and one pill makes you small; And the ones that Mother gives you Don't doooo anything at all ... Go ask Alice When she's 10 feet tall..." Funny, I don't remember Lewis Carroll talking about pills ... C'mon Diane, get serious - there's songs where the meaning is questionable, and there's songs where its all there in Black and White. This is one of those. Ask Kantner & Slick if you don't believe me... If anyone is interested, I hacked up this patch to uurec.c (v. 2.9) for Netnews 2.10.3 - it looks to see if the 'From: ' line contains the strings "dianeh" or "nessus"; if so it opens a pipe to /dev/null. Email me for it :@) :@) :@) :@) :@) :@) :@) :@) :@) To the UCLA Gang Of Four - Sorry I posted an 'opinion' of mine to the net without your permission, I'll try not to do it again, promise!! Just don't call me an asshole again, please, it hurts SO much ... -- Greg Earle JPL Spacecraft Data Systems group sdcrdcf!smeagol!earle (UUCP) ia-sun2!smeagol!earle@csvax.caltech.edu (ARPA)
geoff@ism780c.UUCP (Geoff Kimbrough) (02/12/86)
>> Dianeh writes: >> [...] If the actual >>author of the song said the intent was an homage to Lewis Carroll, I'd have >>no reason to not believe it -- *certainly* not because [...] > Greg Earle writes: >Funny, I don't remember Lewis Carroll talking about pills ... >C'mon Diane, get serious - there's songs where the meaning is questionable, >and there's songs where its all there in Black and White. This is one of >those. Ask Kantner & Slick if you don't believe me... I think you missed the point. Diane never tried to claim that White Rabbit *wasn't* drug inspired (re-read the article). She said that she wasn't interested in anyone's *opinion* on the subject except *the author of the song's*. Sure, it *seems* obvious to almost anyone that _White Rabbit_ was "drug inspired", and perhaps Ms. Slick would not deny it, but *if* she did, and had compelling evidence to backup her statement, I would tend to believe her, rather than some random person's interpretation. The interpretation *I* believe is that _White Rabbit_ was Social Commentary, using AiW/TtLG as a framework for the analogue. (Jefferson Airplane generally said what they wanted to say about drugs and sex, no cute analogues needed.) The "one that Mother gives you" being the "placebo of modern pop psychology". "Feed your head" means *think* (or get enlightened) ... I don't want to expand on this, no doubt it could be debated endlessly (seems that 1+1=2 can be debated endlessly on the net.), the point is that MY interpretation is nothing but line noise if the song's author disagrees with it. (most artists wouldn't disagree with someone's *interpretation* of their work unless it is *diametrically opposed* to what they were trying to communicate.) If you derive special meaning in a work of art that wasn't intended, fine, maybe that's what "art" is all about (but no, I don't want to discuss it, I'll leave it at "maybe") just don't try to insist that the author put it there (on purpose or otherwise). John Lennon says "Lucy" is about a child's painting. If I had some reason to think Lennon was lying, then I might argue the point, but I can't think of any reason that a man who admitted that some of his other songs *were* drug inspired would lie about this one. Can you? I do find it interesting that someone who spends hours dissecting and analyzing and finding hidden meanings in certain artist's works is unwilling to accept any but the most obvious and shallow interpretations of other artist's works. (not you Greg, unless the shoe fits 8^) ) Enough of this nonsense.
dianeh@ism780c.UUCP (Diane Holt) (02/12/86)
In article <592@smeagol.UUCP> earle@smeagol.UUCP (Greg Earle) writes: >Funny, I don't remember Lewis Carroll talking about pills ... No, but he did talk about potions, cakes, and mushrooms that had some rather amazing effects... >C'mon Diane, get serious - there's songs where the meaning is questionable, >and there's songs where its all there in Black and White. This is one of >those. (Are "Black and White" anybody like Strunk and White? Maybe they wrote a book called "The Elements of Lyric Interpretation"?) For *you*, and for a "friend" of Doug Alan's, and, presumably, for Doug Alan himself, the song is "unquestionably" about *drugs*. Sooooo what? For me, it's about something else. (And, no, I *don't* happen to think it's just an homage to Lewis Carroll or just about "Alice in Wonderland".) I have *my own* interpretation of the song. BUT, mine isn't *any more right* than *your's*, get it? >Ask Kantner & Slick if you don't believe me... Yup. That's what I said, allright. Ask the author of the song if you want to *know* *for a fact* what it's really about -- anything else is pure conjecture. If you (or any others so inclined) want to use this newsgroup as a forum to discuss your interpretations of song lyrics, I certainly have no objections, just *don't* try to *prove* those interpretations based on "Well, gawd, *everybody* *knows* thaaaat..." In fact, I might suggest you consider starting a whole new newsgroup: net.lyrics, then we could get this stuff out of here, and those people that are interested in posting their own (or reading other people's) interpretations of songs would know precisely where to go (know what I mean?). >If anyone is interested, I hacked up this patch to uurec.c (v. 2.9) for >Netnews 2.10.3 - it looks to see if the 'From: ' line contains the strings >"dianeh" or "nessus"; if so it opens a pipe to /dev/null. Email me for it >:@) :@) :@) :@) :@) :@) :@) :@) :@) No thanks. I got a mail message from a reasonable person showing me their KILL file for 'rn' that should do the trick. Among its entries are: /Kate/h:, /Bush/h:, /nessus/h:. Now all I have to do is add /earle/h:, and I'm all set...hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Gee, we're all so cleverly nasty, aren't we? (Actually, I really liked Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love" album until I started reading this newsgroup. Since then, I've had to try to get the bad taste out before I could go back and listen to it unsullied again.) >To the UCLA Gang Of Four - Sorry I posted an 'opinion' of mine to the net >without your permission, I'll try not to do it again, promise!! Just don't >call me an asshole again, please, it hurts SO much ... I have no idea who those referenced people are, but I can't say I disagree with their opinion of you if your other postings have been as insightful and reasonable as this one. Diane Holt INTERACTIVE Systems Corp. (east coast:) ihnp4!ima!ism780!dianeh (west coast:) decvax!vortex!ism780!dianeh "Go ask Alice, I think she'll know..."
srt@ucla-cs.UUCP (02/13/86)
CRITIC'S DISEASE
Does a friend or loved one you know suffer from critic's disease? Be on the
alert for these warning signs:
* He thinks he knows he knows the "One True Way".
* Contradicting his viewpoint is likely to spur a vicious
personal attack.
* Like an immature four year old, he constantly seeks
public approval.
* He's socially maladjusted and spends most of his life poring
over his own words as reproduced by his typewriter or terminal.
A recent case study at the UCLA GOF Medical Research Center indicates just
how bad the Critic's Disease can get.
Greg Doe (not his real name) was a music critic. Friends and neighbors began
getting worried when Greg started exhibiting all the signs of Critic's
Disease. The first sign was violent reaction to people who suggested he
might not be the One True Font of Information:
> C'mon Diane, get serious - there's songs where the meaning is
> questionable, and there's songs where its all there in Black and
> White. This is one of those. Ask Kantner & Slick if you don't
> believe me...
When he didn't have a leg to stand on he resorted to the sort of senseless
stupid personal diatribes we see so often in these cases:
> If anyone is interested, I hacked up this patch to uurec.c (v. 2.9)
> for Netnews 2.10.3 - it looks to see if the 'From: ' line contains
> the strings "dianeh" or "nessus"; if so it opens a pipe to
> /dev/null. Email me for it
In the last stage of the disease he degenerated into personal, public attacks
on people who had dared to disagree with him in private. The meglomania that
accompanies Critic's Disease leads the patient to spread his (often pointless
and private) viewpoints in as large a context as possible, as if his views
were somehow important or worthwhile to anyone but himself. Before the days
of electronic networks this sort of thing supported the vanity press:
> To the UCLA Gang Of Four - Sorry I posted an 'opinion' of mine to
> the net without your permission, I'll try not to do it again,
> promise!! Just don't call me an asshole again, please, it hurts SO
> much ...
There wasn't much we could do for Greg Doe. Like other terminal patients
such as Robert Mountainburn and Dave Swamp (not their real names), he was
too far gone to help. We did what we could to help alleviate his symptoms -
we ran the output of his terminal back to the input so that no one would
disagree with him - but we have little hope of a complete cure.
Of course, Greg Doe's case was extreme. He was from Caltech, a sanctuary for
geeky social misfits where his sort of narcissistic behavior is actually
encouraged by others of his type. Most cases can be treated and the patient
restored to an active and in many cases nearly normal life.
A Public Service Announcement from the UCLA GOF Medical Research Center