Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 108 Today's Topics: Sighting: Billy Bragg : "William Bloke" spam and advertising Re: spam and advertising Re: Advertising - suggestion & query Re: spam and advertising Re: spam and advertising Re: Sighting: Billy Bragg : "William Bloke" A call to arms Re: Transcending conformity and disagreeable disagreement via Shelle -Reply Re: Inter-disciplinary studies Spring in Pretoria Re: A call to arms Re: Transcending conformity and disagreeable disagreement via Sh NEMLA Call for Papers Re: Transcending conformity and disagreeable disagreement via Sh -Reply Re: spam and advertising Re: Advertising - suggestion & query BLAKE'S BIRTHDAY & ME & OTHER EARTHSHAKING OCCASIONS Re: spam and advertising BLAKE'S BIRTHDAY & ME & OTHER EARTHSHAKING OCCASIONS -Reply ----- Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 11:42:52 -0500 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Sighting: Billy Bragg : "William Bloke" Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I once ordered some music from a website called CDNow, and they now send me updates on new releases. One such is Billy Bragg's "William Bloke." I couldn't tell from the wording whether it was out now or soon to be out, and I don't know if there's any Blake connection beyond the title. However, I believe Bragg has a rendition of "Jerusalem" (i.e. the Preface to _Milton_) on a previous album. Jennifer Michael (Thanks for all the congratulations, by the way!) ----- Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 12:32:03 -0500 From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: spam and advertising Message-Id: <96090712320352@womenscol.stephens.edu> Once again the Blake list has been invaded by an advertiser. I realize that the methods necessary to prevent this altogether would probably ruin the list and not be entirely dependable, but what options do we have--I suppose since NPR and PBS now allow shameless advertising, that we have been fully Reaganized and "marketing" is the true religion of all parts of our world, including even academic/literary bulletin boards--but I continue to be annoyed and offended, to feel imposed upon, by the arrival of such stuff through a medium not intended for it. What can we do? Tom Dillingham ----- Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 17:16:32 -0400 (EDT) From: Gord Barentsen To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: spam and advertising Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 7 Sep 1996, TOM DILLINGHAM wrote: > Once again the Blake list has been invaded by an advertiser. I > realize that the methods necessary to prevent this altogether would > probably ruin the list and not be entirely dependable, but what > options do we have--I suppose since NPR and PBS now allow > shameless advertising, that we have been fully Reaganized and > "marketing" is the true religion of all parts of our world, > including even academic/literary bulletin boards--but I continue > to be annoyed and offended, to feel imposed upon, by the > arrival of such stuff through a medium not intended for it. > What can we do? > Tom Dillingham > Well, Tom, I've been thinking about this for quite some time now, because I've heard similar complaints from others. I too feel somewhat annoyed by advertising messages on private (or, I should say, specialized) lists; but on the other hand, it's better then having more trees killed to make junk mail - even if they can be recycled. Besides - the internet is *NOT* "informational anarchy," as much as I have heard the term thrown around by the same people who (ab)use "postmodernism." After all, organizations, companies, etc. OWN and PAY FOR the maintenance of these so-called anarchic servers...so they're gonna call (or not call) the shots. To make a long story short, I guess the only thing we can do is just delete them. For me, getting mad and sending dirty messages is simply a waste of time and energy. Welcome to the future! Not looking forward to the first McDonalds on the moon.... Gord Barentsen Dept. of Interdisciplinary Studies, S718 Ross York University 4700 Keele St., Toronto, Ontario CANADA M3J 1P3 gpb@YorkU.CA ----- Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 20:04:06 -0400 From: TomD3456@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Advertising - suggestion & query Message-Id: <960907200405_279769445@emout19.mail.aol.com> Seth- Can we, without further ado, assume that you will unsubscribe anyone who sends the list junkmail like the VGA card ad? Or do we need to alert you to these problems? (I won't assume that you necessarily read all the mail, just because you're the sysop.) Of course, this won't prevent the first occurrence of junk mail from any given source, but it will prevent repeated offenses. I expect that's the best we can hope for. --Tom Devine ----- Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 20:07:11 -0500 From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: spam and advertising Message-Id: <96090720071175@womenscol.stephens.edu> Mr. Barentsen attributes to me, rather ineptly, a position that I certainly did not imply or advocate. In an effort to cast a favorable light on his position, he suggests that the alternative to net spamming must be killing trees in order to support massive snail mail advertising campaigns. Of course, the false dichotomy is his--I said nothing of the kind and intended nothing of the kind, though perhaps I should have made my hostility to the endless loads of unsolicited and unwelcome mailorder catalogues in my snailmail box just as explicit as my hostility to spamming. The alternative to spamming is not more trees turned to paper, it is the assignment of advertising to places on the net where it can be accessed by those who need or want it and the protection of places on the net that can and should aspire to be free of the characteristic corruption of the commercial market. ONe of the great characteristics of Blake's legacy, by the way, is his systematic demolition of the kind of simplistic binary thinking that Barentsen indulged in his post. Tom Dillingham ----- Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 08:08:15 -0500 (CDT) From: William Neal Franklin To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: spam and advertising Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The middle finger of my left hand to all who waste my time with commercial BS. Folks, it only take a millisecond or two to drop your finger on the D key and move on. I second the motion to drop from the list anyone who uses it for commercial purposes. Zero tolerance. ----- Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 14:38:04 -0400 From: TomD3456@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Sighting: Billy Bragg : "William Bloke" Message-Id: <960908143804_474229360@emout09.mail.aol.com> To add to Jennifer's sighting, I came across a review of Billy Bragg's "William Bloke" in the latest (Sept. 5-11) issue of Metro, a free newspaper based in San Jose, CA. The review (by Gina Arnold) calls the album "poetic" and calls Blake (Ralph should like this): "the English artist, poet and politician" !! It goes on to say "Bragg doesn't paint (as far as I know), but like Blake before him, he has intermingled patriotism, art, and politics to a surprising degree, musing musically on the vagaries of -- to quote Blake again -- 'England's green and pleasant land.'" Other notable remarks: "...'A Pict Song'... [is] highly reminiscent of 'Blake's Jerusalem,' from Bragg's last EP, Blake having long haunted his work." The reviewer also says, in beginning her summation, "In William Blake's epic poem _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_, Blake wrote, 'without contraries there is no progression.'" Nice to see that this reviewer is familiar enough with Blake to include these tidbits. Even with a few inaccuracies, they're close enough, for a record review! --Tom Devine PS-Let me add my congratulations to Jennifer also. Mazeltov! ----- Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 15:37:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Izak/Gloudina Bouwer To: blake@albion.com Subject: A call to arms Message-Id: <199609081937.PAA05928@host.igs.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I am, of course, totally dedicated to, and for ever on the side of, the man with the Uzi. The man who is, again, on the warpath. However, in the next few months Pretoria, the city where Pam lives, will be enveloped in a lavender blue haze as the thousands of jacaranda trees lining the streets start to bloom. Everybody there will experience an unbearable lightness of being. This might give Pam an unfair advantage. I therefore suggest that the settling of accounts be postponed until 28 November, Blake's birthday. Last year Ralph Dumain read through all of Blake's work, and cried. Maybe, this year, he will also. Gloudina Bouwer ----- Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 09:17:11 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com, GASKINS@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU Subject: Re: Transcending conformity and disagreeable disagreement via Shelle -Reply Message-Id: Perhaps Blake could have agreed with Shelley's perception of the deepest truths being `imageless'.... Blake, after all, did concede that he found it difficult `with his gross tongue that cleaveth unto dust' to write effectively about the four-fold man and the wonders of divine brotherhood in Eternity. Pam ----- Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 10:27:54 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Inter-disciplinary studies Message-Id: Dear Gord, I was interested to see that you belong to the Dept of Inter-disciplinary studies as , where I teach, at Unisa, in Pretoria, we are going to have to move in that direction in order to keep some Departments going. For example, the Department of Italian , and of Classics, will have to begin offering inter-disciplinary courses to survive. If your university has courses which could be of help to us in formulating our own, I 'd be interested in receiving a Bulltetin, or e-mail address, or home-page URl so we could explore ideas already operational. Thanks, Pam van Schaik, University of South Africa, Dept of English. ----- Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 10:41:30 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com, izak@igs.net Subject: Spring in Pretoria Message-Id: Yes, it has begun with the faint scent of jasmine in the dry gardens. The Jacaranda trees aren't yet in bloom but all the blue pools are scattered with pollen from the winds blowing off the last of the dead leaves. My own wooded garden is a bowl of soft light with varying shades of green, and grass still dry and brown. Temperatures are rising to 25 C already and I've slung a hammock under which a new Border Collie pup likes to lie in the shade and be where I can swing and stroke him. Yes, there is a hint of `unbearable lightness of being' , but whatever pulls us all downwards is also always on the alert to create new crises, so I aver I have no special advantages. Pam ----- Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 10:39:42 +0000 From: sternh@WABASH.EDU To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: A call to arms Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Amen to Gloudina's call for a jacaranda-scented truce. After re-reading Ralph's extraordinary note to her of last April, I was already hungry for one. Bert Stern ----- Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 11:12:16 -0400 (EDT) From: "Avery F. Gaskins" To: Subject: Re: Transcending conformity and disagreeable disagreement via Sh Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Type: Text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Actually, Pam, I was just joking around. There are a great many affinities be- tween Blake and Shelley. The Pre-Raphaelites saw them and were collectors of the works of both writers. But, I don't think Blake would have ever had trouble finding an image for whatever he was addressing at the time. I do see your point, though. The correspondences in Blake's and Shelley's views on free love which you noted in an earlier post probably derive from Blake's friendship with Godwin and Shelley's relationship to him. Both men say things which parallel the writings of Godwin. Avery Gaskins ----- Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 10:35:21 -0500 (CDT) From: RPYODER@ualr.edu To: BLAKE@albion.com Subject: NEMLA Call for Papers Message-Id: <960909103521.20267ac8@ualr.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT The NEMLA Conference for the coming year will once again feature a Blake panel. The topic for the panel is open, and we hope for a diverse and interesting set of papers. The conference will be held in Philadelphia, PA, in April 1997. Participants must be NEMLA members by November 1, 1996. Deadline for proposals is September 15, 1996, and final decisions for the panel participants are due by October 15, 1996. So. . . . send proposals, abstracts, or completed papers to the address below by Sept. 15. Paul Yoder English Department UALR 2801 S. University Little Rock, AR 72204-1099 Or email your proposal to me at rpyoder@ualr.edu. All inquiries are welcome. Come on. Here's a chance actually to see the people you "talk" to. ----- Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 08:32:10 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com, GASKINS@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU Subject: Re: Transcending conformity and disagreeable disagreement via Sh -Reply Message-Id: Thanks Avery for adding the connection with Godwin. I seem to remember that , at one time, Blake lived only a few blocks away from Godwin or Mary Wollstonecroft. Perhaps someone can confirm, or deny , this. My own emphasis wasn't on Blake and Shelley's having the same views on free love, though... I was thinking more of how what Shelley says on love evokes, for me, the type of reader best suited to understanding Blake ( and perhaps any other poet of spiritual depth). I love the type of thing Shelley says in his Defence of Poetry, too. For ex., `Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it'. Don't you think this is neat in relation to BLake's statement that he writes `to open up the inward heart' so that it can see Eternity? ...Haven't the exact quotation handy. But even more appropriate to what we have been discussing is: `Neither the eye nor the mind can see itself, unless reflected upon that which it resembles' which , for me, implies that the reader should make an effort to reflect back what the text seems to reveal since, as SHelley says:` A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth' and, ` A poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one.' I can imagine Blake applauding the last two statements. Moreover, since in Blake's eternal realms of Innocence the females all reflect back the desires and wisdom of their masculine counterparts, like mirrors (a Behmenistic and kabbalistic image), it could be constured as `innocence' in us to attempt to reflect the truth and beauty in Blake's poetry. I know this is hopelessly old-fashioned, but to me it makes sense to relate to Romantic writers as far as possible in terms of their own `take on the world'. In my ignorance, I thought that this is what the New Historicists were going to try to do. (I suppose the results would be far too subjective, if put to the test?) The latest crop of films based on the works of Jane Austen, George Eliot and Defoe similarly, gain in excellence, the more they can convince me that they reflect the manners, dress and way of looking at the world of the times they represent. Why should we apply different rules when interpreting? Or do we do so mainly to keep creating new scope for student dissertations and for new journals using a new angle and focus? Please make allowances for my being the backward crawling `crab ' here. I am, in fact, Cancerian, and was born on the same day as John Dee, July 13th - as I found out reading Ackroyd's novel on Dee yesterday while swinging in my spring hammock in unbearable lightness of being. Pam ----- Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 14:04:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Gord Barentsen To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: spam and advertising Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Whoops....I think that I should have made my message clearer... > Mr. Barentsen attributes to me, rather ineptly, a position that > I certainly did not imply or advocate. In an effort to cast > a favorable light on his position, he suggests that the alternative > to net spamming must be killing trees in order to support massive > snail mail advertising campaigns. Of course, the false dichotomy > is his--I said nothing of the kind and intended nothing of the > kind, I should say at this point that my message on "informational anarchy" was NOT directed in a hostile manner to ANYONE. I was just replying to an issue which I have thought about many times before, and I guess your message, Tom, gave me a platform to air my views...it wasn't intended as an attack of any kind. My mention of killing trees was not meant as a false dichotomy - I was trying to illustrate, through contrast, that there ARE certain advantages to getting junk email - specifically, that hitting the 'D' key takes a LOT less time than flaming someone or campaigning for their removal. Yes, junk (e)mail of any kind is annoying. But that's a risk you run when you have discussion lists that are open to all potential posters, whether or not they are subscribed. Which, incidentally, brings me to my next question; has anyone considered moderating the list so as to restrict posters? I'm not sure if this list is already moderated, but at least one can then check the "credentials" of anyone signing on. Sorry to waste your space on a non-Blakean issue. Again, I apologize if my message was construed as aggressive. It was just me and my soapbox, I suppose. Gord Barentsen Dept. of Interdisciplinary Studies, S718 Ross York University 4700 Keele St., Toronto, Ontario CANADA M3J 1P3 gpb@YorkU.CA ----- Date: Tue, 10 Sep 96 12:55:42 -0700 From: Seth T. Ross To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Advertising - suggestion & query Message-Id: <9609101955.AA00941@albion.com> Content-Type: text/plain > Can we, without further ado, assume that you will unsubscribe > anyone who sends the list junkmail like the VGA card ad? Yes. --Seth =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- To leave Blake Online, send an email message to blake-request@albion.com with the word "unsubscribe" in the SUBJECT field (putting it in the body of the message may or may not work), like so: TO: blake-request@albion.com SUBJECT: unsubscribe Note that an archive of Blake postings can be found on the World Wide Web at the URL: http://www.albion.com/indexBlake.html -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ----- Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 16:07:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Ralph Dumain To: blake@albion.com Subject: BLAKE'S BIRTHDAY & ME & OTHER EARTHSHAKING OCCASIONS Message-Id: <199609102307.QAA10431@igc4.igc.apc.org> Gloudina Bouwer made quite a statement, ending with the following: >I therefore suggest that the settling of accounts be postponed >until 28 November, Blake's birthday. Last year Ralph Dumain read >through all of Blake's work, and cried. Maybe, this year, he >will also. So what am I supposed to do this year? Use the outtakes from Blake citations I compiled last year? Forsake my dog-eared copy of the Keynes edition which I have been using since the age of 17 because the layout is so familiar to me, for Erdman or repros of the illuminated books? Write my own poems? What? And Bert Stern adds: >After re-reading Ralph's extraordinary note to her of last >April, .......... What did I say? How come I don't remember what I wrote last April? "I feared the fury of my wind ..." ----- Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 19:27:46 -0500 From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: spam and advertising Message-Id: <96091019274631@womenscol.stephens.edu> I apologize both to the list community and to Gordon Barentsen for overreacting to his earlier post. I read it without responding to its ironies, seeing it only as an assertion of the primacy of the profit motive, which it was not intended to assert. (If it had, I would stand by my earlier comments.) Without wanting to extend the discussion beyond its usefulness, I would suggest however that the issue is not entirely "non-Blakean." While Blake's thinking is not often discussed in these terms, it seems to me that tensions between free creativity and freedom of the imagination, on the one hand, and the bought and paid for (and inherently corrupt and corrupting) extrusions of slaves to that profit motive are well within the range of Blakean thought and myth (though I suppose that would conflict with the visions of cherubs and spirits--Maxfield Parrish-style, I think--that account for the range of the more "spiritual" reading of the oeuvre). But then I do not see the "hapless soldier's sigh" or the "infant's blasted tear" as examples of Blake's otherworldly aspirations. (But no doubt we will be treated to an explanation of how they fit perfectly into a system of higher spiritual imagery.) I appreciate Gordon's generous restraint. Tom Dillingham ----- Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 08:35:21 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com Subject: BLAKE'S BIRTHDAY & ME & OTHER EARTHSHAKING OCCASIONS -Reply Message-Id: Dear Ralph, I too have a dog-eared and altogether tattered Keynes edition which I had to divide in half last year so I could take one half with me overseas. Whenever I tried to submit anything to American journals they always insisted I use Erdman, so had laboriously to look up both which quite took the spontaneity and joy out of much of my work. However, I spent 4 days with David ERdman almost a decade ago and found him very pleasant and, ultimately, he sent me his own pre-publication copy of THe Complete Works. Oh, by the way, I think you misunderstood what Bert was saying about Blake's belonging to a different ethos... I don't think he was implying at all that BLake will not be relevant to many future centuries. Pam