In this issue: Re:Gaslight Digest V1 #77 Re: Owl Creek and time Golden Age of Detective Fiction Website Re: Owl Creek and time Re: Owl Creek and time RE: Owl Creek and time Re: Owl Creek and time Re: Owl Creek and time Stephen King recovering -- Today in History - June 22 Seeking Pancho Villa on film Re: Seeking Pancho Villa on film Bierce's Poe Hoax _Wizard of Oz_'s 60th anniversary as a film, and where are the Munchkins now Today in History - June 23 Re: Today in History - June 23 Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" Anatol Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" Today in History - June 24 Re: Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" Schnitzler, De Mille, Max von Mayerling Games with Love and Death/and Carroll on Freud Re: Ghosts, God, & Violins -----------------------------THE POSTS----------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 19:17:59 -0600 From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org> Subject: Re:Gaslight Digest V1 #77 I will be out of the Library Thursday, June 17 to Monday, June 21. IF YOU ARE MAILING FROM OUTSIDE PVHS, please accept my apology, know I will act on your message on Tuesday, and ignore the rest of this message. IF YOU ARE MAILING FROM WITHIN PVHS: Please refer any document requests to Faye Hagerling and Linda Frank. They'll give them to Connie Bevill, who will be here Friday to take care of them. If you absoulutely MUST have a MEDLINE search done before Tuesday (i.e., for an immiediate patient care decision or for a press release on some big disaster), please forward your request to Marlena Seery if it's Thursday or to Alan Garten if it's Friday or Monday. Please don't use them UNLESS it's an emergency. I will get to any other requests when I return. Thank you! Jerry
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Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 20:41:19 -0600 (MDT) From: "p.h.wood" <woodph(at)freenet.edmonton.ab.ca> Subject: Re: Owl Creek and time Bob Champ, at the conclusion of a very interesting posting, said: <<Well, that's enough of this sophomoric chatter.>> I would disagree; his analysis of the nature of what we call "time" was not, to my mind "chatter" - talk without serious content - and "sophomoric" - literally pertaining to second-year university students - - is to me the kind of widely-ranging discussion that becomes difficult if not impossible as the requirements of subject specialisation begin to widen the culture gap to a point where the Science and the Arts students become unable to communicate with each other. As a science fiction reader for nearly sixty years, I have always had an interest in the nature of Time, and have come to the conclusion that a great dealing of our thinking has been shaped by the first chapter of H.G.Wells's "The Time Machine". In particular, the concept of time as a dimension, analogous to the three metrics of space (length, width, depth) is, I think, a seductive analogy which we tend to adopt uncritically. I think that because we perceive events sequentially (ultimately, because nerve sensations do not all occur simultaneously), we describe this phenomenon as occuring in a sequence we call the "time dimension", which we can measure in ever-briefer units. In brief, I suspect that what we call "time" is a convenience for the technique of scientific analysis of observed phenomena. To talk of "time-travel" is to extend a spatial analogy without justification. Wells's idea was a good basis for a story, but it is now an unrecognized foundation of Mankind's world-view. As yet, the Western world's philosophy does not have the words or concepts to deal with what we now call time, and its associated phenomena - sequence of events, "before" and "after", and so on. One day we may do so. Interestingly, I am currently reading one of the "Dave Robicheaux" stories by the American crime novelist James Lee Burke in which he puts forward the suggestion that all events take place simultaneously, separated on a dimension we have not yet realised exists. I recall an English philosopher William Dunne (late Gaslight period) had a rather similar opinion. Peter Wood
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Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 19:46:42 +1000 From: Jonathan Jermey and Glenda Browne <diagonal(at)hermes.net.au> Subject: Golden Age of Detective Fiction Website I've enjoyed reading the messages and browsing the Gaslight Web site, particularly the classic detective stories that have found their way there. Gaslighters with a deductive bent might want to reciprocate and check out the Golden Age of Detective Fiction website and mailing list. Traffic on the list is fairly slow but the more members we have the more lively things should get. Thanks, =================================== Jonathan Jermey Webmaster, Golden Age of Detective Fiction http://GADetective.listbot.com diagonal(at)hermes.net.au
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Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 08:29:02 +0300 From: cbishop(at)interlog.com (Carroll Bishop) Subject: Re: Owl Creek and time Re Bob Champ's post on time: FASCINATING post, Bob. Yes the subjective experience of time -- and timing -- is an endlessly fascinating thing. And how that affects our interpersonal world. I always liked that old Rudy Vallee song, "Your time is my time, My time is your time". And its underlying idea of reciprocity in real time. Then there's E-time, which to my way of thinking is often MUCH TOO FAST. And takes much too much away from real time and its pace, whatever that is. Carroll
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Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 08:06:38 -0700 From: Deborah McMillion Nering <deborah(at)gloaming.com> Subject: Re: Owl Creek and time >Then there's E-time, which to my way of thinking is often MUCH TOO FAST. Book store time--time collapses and you discover much to your dismay that you were only going to go in for 20 minutes and it is 2 hours later. Can also be known as Library Time. Deborah Deborah McMillion deborah(at)gloaming.com http://www.gloaming.com/deborah.html
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Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 19:38:31 -0400
From: "James E. Kearman" <jkearman(at)mindspring.com>
Subject: RE: Owl Creek and time
Bob C. wrote:
> We really can't say, then, that Farquhar experiences a distortion of time,
Our recollection of events is usually not in "real time." When we recall a
pleasant two-week vacation (any two-week vacation is pleasant, eh?), it
doesn't take us the entire waking time we spent on that vacation to sum it
up in our minds; we may think about it for 14 seconds, spending 1 second on
each day, yet we feel we have captured it all.
The saying "my life flashed before my eyes" is often uttered by people who
unexpectedly fell from heights great enough to be frightening but not fatal,
or who had a second or two to realize their car was about to run into
something... These recollections are so fleeting, and are usually followed
by physical trauma, so it's no wonder most people don't remember exactly
what part of their lives they recalled. Heads of psychology departments
probably wouldn't sanction pushing subjects off buildings to further this
research, so what we have is largely anecdotal evidence. It seems, though,
that at moments of great terror our conscious mind runs a script, perhaps as
a defense mechanism. On the other hand, maybe it's all ego, and maybe
falling Buddhists think of something else.
My point is, in the space of less than a second, our minds seem to reel off
an incredible collection of events. Farquhar's drop may have taken less than
a second, yet he is able to see himself successfully completing perhaps five
minutes worth of activities. Most of the time, we don't have to think that
quickly, but it seems our minds are capable of it under certain stimuli.
We continue to adapt to the temporal and gravitational requirements of this
planet. Every year, athletes run faster, engineers build faster airplanes
and pilots learn to handle them. Deciding what to do and automatically doing
it at 900 mph is akin to compressing your life to the space of a second or
two in thought. A recreational pilot in a Cessna may be stressed out
performing a similar maneuver at 90 mph. In some future, busier world, we
may all have to think and work faster ("Work expands to fill the available
time."). It's amazing how quickly we can compose a document when the
deadline is looming. How much more quickly I'll be able to compose email
when I have reliable speech-to-text software!
I'm out of time.
Cheers,
Jim
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Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 12:55:43 -0700 From: Jack Kolb <kolb(at)UCLA.EDU> Subject: Re: Owl Creek and time Bob's, and others', excellent discussion of time's relativity recalls to me the reflections of a noted 18th century critic, defending Shakespeare's supposed "violations" of the unities: The drama exhibits successive imitations of successive actions; and why may not the second imitation represent an action that happened years after the first, if it be so connected with it, that nothing but time can be supposed to intervene? Time is, of all modes of existence, most obsequious to the imagination; a lapse of years is as easily conceived as a passage of hours. In contemplation we easily contract the time of real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when we only see their imitation [Johnson, "Preface" to Shakespeare]. Jack Kolb Dept. of English, UCLA kolb(at)ucla.edu
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Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 20:18:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Champ <rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu>
Subject: Re: Owl Creek and time
I suppose I would have done better, Peter, to have said "idle speculation"
rather "sophomoric chatter." The latter phrase occurred to me because this
was the kind of topic my friends and I used to discuss a long, long time
ago, and I am no clearer about the matter then than now. Perhaps there
have been, in the interim, answers to some of these problems, but if so I
don't know where to find them.
Interesting how time became such a subject of importance for any number of
writers of our period, and thereafter, too: Wells, as you mention; Proust
certainly; Joyce. Btw, on the subject of time-travel, the most
extraordinary book I know is by Charles Williams--called, I believe, _Many
Mansions_--a pretty dizzying work.
Bob C.
On Thu, 17 Jun 1999, p.h.wood wrote:
> Bob Champ, at the conclusion of a very interesting posting, said:
> <<Well, that's enough of this sophomoric chatter.>>
> I would disagree; his analysis of the nature of what we call "time"
> was not, to my mind "chatter" - talk without serious content - and
> "sophomoric" - literally pertaining to second-year university students
> - is to me the kind of widely-ranging discussion that becomes difficult if
> not impossible as the requirements of subject specialisation begin to
> widen the culture gap to a point where the Science and the Arts students
> become unable to communicate with each other.
_________________________________________________
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Robert L. Champ
rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu
Editor, teacher, anglophile, human curiosity
Whatever things are pure, whatever things are
lovely, whatever things are of good report, if
there is any virtue and if there is anything
praiseworthy, meditate on these things
Philippians 4:8
rchamp7927(at)aol.com robertchamp(at)netscape.net
_________________________________________________
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
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Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 04:38:05 -0700 From: "J. Alec West" <j(at)alecwest.com> Subject: Stephen King recovering -- Folks, In case anyone is curious about the state of Stephen King's recovery from that terrible accident, perhaps the best place to go is the source - -- the "news" page for Central Maine Medical Center, the hospital in which he now resides: http://www.cmmc.org/news.html J. Alec
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Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 09:28:56 -0600
From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org>
Subject: Today in History - June 22
1807
British seamen board the USS Chesapeake, one of many
provocations that led to the War of
1812.
1864
Confederate troops under A. P. Hill thwart a Federal flanking
movement at the Weldon
Railroad near Petersburg, Virginia.
1876
General Alfred Terry sends Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer
in search of Lakota and
Cheyenne camps near Little Bighorn and Rosebud rivers.
1911
Coronation of King George V of England.
1915
Austro-Hungarian and German forces take Lemberg from retreating
Russians.
Birthdays
1757
George Vancouver, explored American Pacific coast from San
Francisco to
Vancouver.
1858
Giacomo Puccini, composer of Madama Butterfly and other operas.
1898
Erich Maria Remarque, German author of Im Westen Nichts Neues
(All Quiet on the Western
Front), based on his experiences in World War i.
1906
Billy Wilder, Oscar-winningdirector of Stalag 17 and other films.
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Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 14:52:15 -0600
From: sdavies(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA
Subject: Seeking Pancho Villa on film
The following post is work-related as well as significant to Gaslighters:
- ---------------------- Forwarded by Stephen Davies/Academic/MRC on 06/22/99
02:54 PM ---------------------------
Please respond to videolib(at)library.berkeley.edu
To: Multiple recipients of list
<videolib(at)library.berkeley.edu>
cc: (bcc: Stephen Davies/Academic/MRC)
Subject: Pancho Villa
This is more of a trivia question than a true request...
I have professor wanting to know if "The Life of General Villa" still exists.
It was a documentary/home movie made in 1914 where Pancho Villa played
himself.
(title and date confirmed in the IMDB, but that's all it had.)
This professor thought all copies had been lost or destroyed, but someone
recently told him that there may be a copy or two out there.
Thanks,
Barb
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-**-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Barbara J. Bergman Porter Henderson Library
Media Librarian Angelo State University
ph: (915) 942-2313 Box 11013, ASU Station
fax: (915) 942-2198 San Angelo, TX 76909
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-**-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
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Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 15:38:43 -0700 From: Jack Kolb <kolb(at)UCLA.EDU> Subject: Re: Seeking Pancho Villa on film Stephen, I've forwarded this to the H-FILM list, surely the best possible source of an answer. Jack (kolb(at)ucla.edu) >The following post is work-related as well as significant to Gaslighters: > >---------------------- Forwarded by Stephen Davies/Academic/MRC on 06/22/99 >02:54 PM --------------------------- > > > > >Please respond to videolib(at)library.berkeley.edu > > > > To: Multiple recipients of list > <videolib(at)library.berkeley.edu> > > cc: (bcc: Stephen Davies/Academic/MRC) > > > > Subject: Pancho Villa > > > > > > > > > >This is more of a trivia question than a true request... > >I have professor wanting to know if "The Life of General Villa" still exists. >It was a documentary/home movie made in 1914 where Pancho Villa played >himself. >(title and date confirmed in the IMDB, but that's all it had.) > >This professor thought all copies had been lost or destroyed, but someone >recently told him that there may be a copy or two out there. > >Thanks, >Barb > > >*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-**-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* >Barbara J. Bergman Porter Henderson Library >Media Librarian Angelo State University >ph: (915) 942-2313 Box 11013, ASU Station >fax: (915) 942-2198 San Angelo, TX 76909 >*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-**-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* > >
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Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 15:00:31 -0700 From: Alan Gullette <alang(at)creative.net> Subject: Bierce's Poe Hoax Stephen D. wrote: >I was simply testing Bibliofind this afternoon, and came across the following >curious title: >Hall, Carroll D.: BIERCE AND THE POE HOAX ; San Francisco: Book Club of >California, 1934. >Does anyone know what the Poe hoax was? This refers to a poem by Herman Scheffauer (1878-1927), one of Bierce's proteges, which Bierce published in the SF Examiner as a recently discovered Poe poem in 1899. Unfortunately, the hoax received little notice due to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. Scheffauer later returned to his native Germany and became a propagandist for the Kaiser; following his defeat in WWI, Scheffauer brutally killed his girlfriend and himself, slashing his wrists & throat & throwing himself from a building! By this time, Bierce was long gone (most likely killed in 1914 at the battle of Oinaga in Mexico), but Scheffauer's lurid death added to the macabre legend that surrounded Bierce and his friends (George Sterling had committed suicide the previous year).
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Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 18:14:21 -0600
From: sdavies(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA
Subject: _Wizard of Oz_'s 60th anniversary as a film, and where are the
Munchkins now
Since the Oz series is Gaslight material, and an Oz character recently appeared
on "Look who's reading!" (way to go, Jerry!), it could be of interest to some
Gaslighters to view a page created by ABC News (U.S.) which reviews the
well-known movie and Garland's relationship with the little people.
http://www.abcnews.go.com:80/sections/us/wolffiles/wolffiles.html
Stephen D
mailto:SDavies(at)mtroyal.ab.ca
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Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 15:07:40 -0600
From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org>
Subject: Today in History - June 23
1848
A bloody workers' revolt begins in Paris.
1860
The U.S. Secret Service is founded to fight counterfeiting and
protect the President.
1863
Confederate forces defeat a Union garrison at Brasher City,
Louisiana.
1884
Chinese defeat a French army at Bacle, Indochina.
1885
Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union forces at the end of
the Civil War and
seventeenth president of the United States, dies at 63.
1902
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy renew the Triple Alliance
for 12 years.
Birthdays
1876
Irvin S. Cobb, U.S. playwright, novelist, actor, and editor
[Wasn't "Fishead" his, last
time Gaslight went south?]
1894
Edward VIII, King of England who abdicated his throne to marry
American divorcee
Wallis Simpson.
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Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 15:20:22 -0600
From: sdavies(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA
Subject: Re: Today in History - June 23
Jerry C. informs us of:
> 1848
> A bloody workers' revolt begins in Paris.
Is this where the workers threw their wood shoes (sabots) into the
machinery and a new word, "sabotage", was coined?
> 1860
> The U.S. Secret Service is founded to fight counterfeiting and
protect >the President.
This explains why the Cdn detective John Wilson Murray was dealing with the
Secret Svc. so often, because of their anti-counterfeiting activities. I had
thought they had higher priorities than that.
> Birthdays
> 1876
> Irvin S. Cobb, U.S. playwright, novelist, actor, and editor
[Wasn't >"Fishead" his, last
> time Gaslight went south?]
"Fishhead" is indeed on Gaslight; as Lovecraft calls it in his supernatural
essay (also on Gaslight) "banefully effective in its portrayal of unnatural
affinities between a hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake".
I haven't produced any of Cobb's humourous stories for Gaslight; this is
how I first got to read him, was as an anecdotist and joke teller. I expect
we'll have either "The escape of Mr. Trimm" or "Another of those cub reporter
stories" in August.
Stephen D
mailto:Sdavies(at)mtroyal.ab.ca
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 01:18:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Champ <rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu>
Subject: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut"
Having read the by-now infamous London _Evening Standard's_ review of
the late Stanley Kubrick's last film (which was very positive, by the
way), I've discovered that the screenplay was based on a work by
19th-century Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler called _Traumnouvellen_.
Schnitzler sounds interesting and I'm wondering if anyone on the list
knows his work and could tell us whether he wrote stories in our genres.
Bob C.
_________________________________________________
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Robert L. Champ
rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu
Editor, teacher, anglophile, human curiosity
Whatever things are pure, whatever things are
lovely, whatever things are of good report, if
there is any virtue and if there is anything
praiseworthy, meditate on these things
Philippians 4:8
rchamp7927(at)aol.com robertchamp(at)netscape.net
_________________________________________________
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 06:39:01 +0300 From: cbishop(at)interlog.com (Carroll Bishop) Subject: Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" Bob our Champ writes: I've discovered that the screenplay was based on a work by >19th-century Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler called _Traumnouvellen_. >Schnitzler sounds interesting and I'm wondering if anyone on the list >knows his work and could tell us whether he wrote stories in our genres. > >Bob C. Schnitzler's kind of wonderful and very readable. Definitely the right period, and may have written stories -- mostly plays is what he was famous for. His most famous play (I would guess) is LA RONDE or the Ring Dance (many versions, and a really great movie with Anton Walbrook as the Ringmaster/Puppeteer - and a great song, "Tourne, tourne, mes personnages....") The play of Schnitzler's I ran into first (because my parents had it, with pictures of a brooding, romantic Granville Barker) and liked better was called ANATOL or THE AFFAIRS OF ANATOL. It's very funny and Oh so cynical. Do we/can we discuss plays? I'd suggest ANATOL if so.... I believe Schnitzler was also involved in the Zionist movement, but I may be mixing him up a bit with other Viennese of his era (I just did my absolutely BEST Freudian slip ever, in honor of that era, and wrote "other Viennese of his eros.") Carroll
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 07:45:57 -0700
From: Robert Birchard <bbirchard(at)earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut"
Carroll Bishop wrote:
> Do we/can we discuss plays? I'd suggest ANATOL if so....
Schnitzler also wrote short stories. The stories may be in the pblic
domain, but I do not know what the status of the translations might be.--Bob
Birchard
bbirchard(at)earthlink.net
http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/Guest/birchard.htm
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 09:52:12 -0500
From: Chris Carlisle <CarlislC(at)psychiatry1.wustl.edu>
Subject: Anatol
My family had a lot of books, many bought on the cheap at
local book fairs. I recall two Modern Library editions, bound
in limp black leather, which I dipped into as a child, and
I think both were book by Schnitzler. One of them was
definitely Anatol, which I recall as quite dashing and exotic,
and the other may have been Schnitzler's short stories.
I don't think the books were any later than some time in
the '30's. Ah, the chilled wines and gorgeous concubines
and sophisticated conversations!
Those interested in reading Schnitzler should have a look
for the Modern Library version.
Kiwi
>>> Robert Birchard <bbirchard(at)earthlink.net> 06/24/99 09:45AM >>>
Carroll Bishop wrote:
> Do we/can we discuss plays? I'd suggest ANATOL if so....
Schnitzler also wrote short stories. The stories may be in the pblic
domain, but I do not know what the status of the translations might be.--Bob
Birchard
bbirchard(at)earthlink.net
http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/Guest/birchard.htm
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 08:27:11 -0700 From: Patricia Teter <PTeter(at)getty.edu> Subject: Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" Bob C. wrote: <<Schnitzler sounds interesting and I'm wondering if anyone on the list knows his work and could tell us whether he wrote stories in our genres. >> I recently uncovered Schnitzler as well, over dinner. <g> Last week at a dinner party I met Schnitzler's grandson, who is a documentary filmmaker and writer. I have worked with his wife for several months, but was unaware of the connection to Schnitzler. If we can locate a public domain translation, I too would like to read a short story by Schnitzler. best, Patricia
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 11:23:56 -0400 From: "J.M. Jamieson" <jjamieson(at)odyssey.on.ca> Subject: Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" At 06:39 AM 24/06/1999 +0300, Carroll wrote: >I believe Schnitzler was also involved in the Zionist >movement, but I may be mixing him up a bit with other >Viennese of his era (I just did my absolutely BEST >Freudian slip ever, in honor of that era, and wrote >"other Viennese of his eros.") - ------------------------------------------------------------------- Schnitzler was a friend of Theodor Herzl (founder of Zionism) but he considered Herzl's solution to anti-Semitism to be facile. Schnitzler's own writings on anti-Semitism are complex and thorough. He considered it a manifestation of the universal human condition of spiritual malaise. There are many works here, as many as on that other great theme of his: sex. But the best remains in my mind the play _Professor Bernhardi_ which is an analysis of the form and social structure of the various types of anti-Semitism and also of all the dehumanizing forces with which society is infested; I suspect Bierce would have greatly enjoyed this one. Like his contemporaries Freud and Adler he was a bourgeois Jewish doctor and he had like them worked as an assistant in Meynert's clinic; his specialty was hypnosis. I much prefer his tales to his plays with the exception of Bernhardi and Carroll's favorite _Anatol_. I also particulary like the novels that deal with his obsession with death and old age (_Beatrice_ and _Casanova's Homecoming_). His early tales were the basis of a wonderful BBC series _Vienna 1900-Games with Love and Death_ in the early 70's dramatized by Robert Muller and directed by Herbert Wise. All his characters in spite of their wit and command of language cannot communicate with each other; they are entraped in the roles society gives them and allow those roles to satisfy their basic desires thereby losing all hope of more lasting fulfillment. There is a fine though incomplete autobiography (_My Youth in Vienna_) published long after his death[1932] in 1968 and translated into English in 1970-71. My edition is published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson: 1971. Mac,
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 12:58:35 +0300 From: cbishop(at)interlog.com (Carroll Bishop) Subject: Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" Wow! And wasn't the Nicole Kidman play on Broadway a version of LA RONDE? Maybe it's still running, I'm out of touch.... I sent to Gaslight via Netscape a quote from Sunset Blvd. which was kind of very a propos -- I'll reconstruct it if I don't see it here. I think the key I pressed said "Mail Later" -- whatever THAT means. I suspect this movie is going to be one hot item. I wonder what kind of music Kubrick uses this time. The scores of his movies were always integral -- imagine 2001 without THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA and THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE, for instance. Carroll
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 10:52:27 -0600
From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org>
Subject: Today in History - June 24
1812
Napoleon invades Russia [later inspiring an overture].
1859
At the Battle of Solferino, in northern Italy, the French
army under Napoleon III
defeats the Austrian army led by Franz Joseph I.
1861
Federal gunboats fire upon Confederate batteries at Mathias
Point, Virginia.
1862
American intervention saves the British and French at the
Dagu forts in China.
1869
Mary Ellen "Mammy" Pleasant is "crowned" the Vodoo Queen in
San
Francisco, California.
1896
Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to
receive an honorary
Master of Arts degree from Howard University.
1910
The Japanese army invades Korea.
1913
Greece and Serbia break their alliance with Bulgaria due to
border disputes over
Macedonia and Thrace.
Birthdays
1842
Ambrose Bierce, American writer, journalist, and satirist
who wrote In the Midst of Life
and The Devil's Dictionary.
1848
Brooks Adams, American historian who wrote The Law of
Civilization and Decay.
1895
Harry "Jack the Giant Killer" Dempsey, American boxer, world
heavyweight champion with
a 62-1-0 record and 49 knockouts.
1912
Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review, who wrote
Anatomy of an
Illness as Perceived by the Patient.
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 20:48:26 -0400 (EDT) From: Zozie(at)aol.com Subject: Re: Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut" In a message dated 6/24/99 3:26:54 PM, Mac wrote: <<All his characters in spite of their wit and command of language cannot communicate with each other; they are entraped in the roles society gives them and allow those roles to satisfy their basic desires thereby losing all hope of more lasting fulfillment.>> I agree, from what I have read, well spoke! Also, as in La Ronde and Anatol and if my faulty memory serves, also in Cassanova's Homecoming, he presents the view of life as a kind of merry-go-round (all glitz and loud music in which the horses are not real) which is also a trap: we are fated to repeat our mistakes endlessly. This can lead to a cavalier, oh-what-the-hell attitude, but eventually, for all the wit and charm of the things I've read by Schnitzler, they are sad at their heart. Anyone else have that tug? best phoebe Phoebe Wray zozie(at)aol.com
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 19:31:39 -0600
From: sdavies(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA
Subject: Re: Schnitzler and "Eyes Wide Shut"
I haven't seen the _Traumnovellen_ in translation here in Calgary, but I'll keep
looking. There are other pieces by Schnitzler, notably _Anatol_, which I could
etext for August.
I was surprised to see a title in the local university's library which read
_Schnitzler, Kafka and Mann_. I've never even heard of Schnitzler before today,
yet here he is linked with two of the greats.
Here's another Schnitzler title which requires some explanation. Did anyone see
this series?
_Vienna 1900 : games with love and death : the stories which formed the basis of
the BBC TV serial / devised and
dramatized by Robert Muller_
Stephen D
mailto:Sdavies(at)mtroyal.ab.ca
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 23:15:49 +0300 From: cbishop(at)interlog.com (Carroll Bishop) Subject: Schnitzler, De Mille, Max von Mayerling "In those days there were three great directors -- D. W. Griffith, Cecil B. De Mille, and Max von Mayerling," Billy Wilder has Erich von Stroheim say in SUNSET BOULEVARD. The suicide pact of Crown Prince Rudolf and Countess Vetsera at Mayerling, the hunting lodge outside of Vienna, took place in January 1889. Two of the episodes of Schnitzler's ANATOL (a seven-short-episode play) were written a couple of months before this event. Freud later wrote to Schnitzler: "You know through intuition, or rather through self-observation, everything that I have discovered by laborious work on other people." There's a very readable book by Frederic Morton called A NERVOUS SPLENDOR: VIENNA 1888/89 (Atlantic-Little Brown, 1979) about Vienna in this turbulent and very creative period. Cecil B. De Mille made a silent film of THE AFFAIRS OF ANATOL I think in 1921 (it's set in New York -- Kubrick may have seen a print). And (don't know if this is part of the link) Anatol's confidant and crony (often shocked as I remember) is Max. Carroll Bishop (cbishop(at)interlog.com) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 00:37:48 -0400 From: "J.M. Jamieson" <jjamieson(at)odyssey.on.ca> Subject: Games with Love and Death/and Carroll on Freud At 07:31 PM 24/06/1999 -0600, Stephen wrote: > >Here's another Schnitzler title which requires some explanation. Did anyone >see this series? > >_Vienna 1900 : games with love and death : the stories which formed the basis >of the BBC TV serial / devised and dramatized by Robert Muller_ Hi Stephen, I had mentioned this series in an early note. I remember seeing it in London Ontario in the 70's. I suspect it was on PBS but it could have been the CBC or TVO. It was really quite good. There was a sort of mini Schnitzler revial in the mid 1970's. The series was based on 5 works: Mother and Son (aka Beatrice) which I have already mentioned in connection with his concerns on aging and death; The Man of Honour (aka The Murderer); A Confirmed Bachelor (aka Dr. Graesker); The Spring Sonata (aka Bertha Garlan); and The Gift of Life (Sterben). Robert Stephens played the central character Doctor Graesler. It was really quite good although terribly fattening in a coffee and chocolate sort of way. Penquin paperbacks published a companion set of tales to the series. And Carroll Bishop notes: > Freud later wrote to Schnitzler: "You know through intuition, or rather >through self-observation, everything that I have discovered >by laborious work on other people." Freud is constantly making such claims and it is one of the least charming features of this man. I have noted earlier that Adler, Freud, and Schnitzler were all at Meynert's clinic. The similarity derives from the influence of Meynert and of course Josef Breuer I suspect. To my mind one of the many but perhaps the most outrageous remark of this type occurs in Freud's _An Autobiographical Study_: "The large extent to which psycho-analysis coincides with the philosophy of Schopenhauer-not only did he assert the dominance of the emotions and the supreme importance of sexuality but he was even aware of the mechanism of repression - is not to be traced to my acquaintance with his teaching. I read Schopenhauer very late in my life. Nietzsche, another philosopher whose guesses and intuitions often agree in the most astonishing way with the laborious findings of psycho-analysis, was for a long time avoided by me on that very account; I was less concerned with the question of priority than with keeping my mind unembarrassed." Actually questions of priority were a very big deal for Freud and that chapter on "The Metaphysics of Sexual Love" in Schopenhauer's _The World as Will and Representation_ (E.J. Payne translation) must have been a bitter pill indeed. And I wonder what the brillant Lou Andreas-Salome so greatly loved by Nietzsche, Rilke, Schnitzler and of course Freud would have to say about the "unembarrassed" mind of Freud. Mac
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 23:14:44 -0600 From: R John Hayes <liardrg(at)telusplanet.net> Subject: Re: Ghosts, God, & Violins Priya Subramaniam wrote: > what I find fascinating about this passage is the way in which we take for > granted that the scientific "objective" reality is a valid one, when in > essence it too is a Belief system! I think that what we all have to ask > ourselves when addressing the issue of ghosts is the way in which we > construct and define our perception of reality. I thought I'd jump into this conversation (with a certain delay, but Prima promised to return to the topic and, as far as I can see, hasn't). Allow me, for a moment, to come to the defence of science. We construct and define our perception of reality based on what works for us, and science (and its offshoots, such as technology) has a better record than any of the other "belief systems." Take a look at the predictive ability of science, technology, religion, astronomy, dowsing, etc. and compare them. While it may suit us personally to want to believe that cruel, cold science, with its sterility and its lack of heart is "just another belief system," when something is on the line, say a life, or the safety of many people, I know most of us, an overwhelming majority, would plump for science and technology over the others. If someone has the flu and it's too much for him, would you use some form of commonly prescribed drug, or would you call in a shaman and have him pray over the person? If you're paying for a bridge over a canyon, would you hire an engineer or an astologer to assure its safety? If you need to know what it's likely to be like in three years, would you consult a Ouija board or a futurist? (Although neither is likely to be perfect, I suspect that the futurist would do a bit better on detail than would a wiccan, no disrespect intended.) Recall the many times that various splinter religions have predicted the end of the world on such and such a date, which passes and they simply go on to the next end of the world. Or look at a horoscope, and ask yourself how what is vaguely hinted at could possibly not come true, to some extent. And how can two people born on the same day at the same time have such differing horoscopes, or how can the SAME person be given contradictory horoscopes by two or more different astrologers? And you might want to debunk your idea that science shuts out the rest of the world, as if it doesn't deal with, say, natural remedies, etc. It certainly does, and does so with a passion. What it doesn't do is offer belief without some rigorous testing. At times, as with everything, science is dominated by people who close their minds. But, generally, and when it is properly practiced, science is as open to other ways of thinking as other ways of thinking are closed to the thinking and methods of science. Science does not require belief in the face of evidence. It asks only that you weigh the evidence, test where you can test, and make the logical decision. And it can do it with passion. Where do you think the phrase "Eureka!" comes from if not from science and scientists? > > what is rational? and why does this have a premium over its opposite, the > irrational? in any case, there is, as you rightly point out, a widespread > belief in god and religion whic is at odds in many fundamental respects with > the scientific reality... All of which is not to say that there are no ghosts, only that we know of no ghosts that do not appear to us. And we are aware of the ability of the mind to fool itself, and to be fooled by others. It would certainly be fun if there were ghosts. Well, it might, depending on what ghosts are like. Best wishes, John liardrg(at)telusplanet.net "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." - - George Orwell ------------------------------ End of Gaslight Digest V1 #78 *****************************