8.0092 Rs: Note-Taking; Subway Poems (3/85)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Fri, 1 Jul 1994 12:25:55 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 8, No. 0092. Friday, 1 Jul 1994.


(1) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 1994 15:23:28 +0600 (28 lines)
From: rob@PSULIAS.BITNET (Roger Brisson)
Subject: Re: 8.0078 Rs: More on Text Databases and Note-Taking

(2) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 1994 08:15:12 -0500 (28 lines)
From: jslatin@mail.utexas.edu (John Slatin)
Subject: Re: 8.0081 Qs: Subway poems

(3) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 94 11:41 PDT (79 lines)
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 8.0079 Internet Guides Available for FTP (1/62)

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 1994 15:23:28 +0600
From: rob@PSULIAS.BITNET (Roger Brisson)
Subject: Re: 8.0078 Rs: More on Text Databases and Note-Taking (2/56)

>I'm looking for something to take notes with at the library, something
>like a "sub-notebook" or memopad. It needs to be big enough for touch typing,
>run ideally on flashlight batteries, and be downloadable into my PC...

I've owned a Tandy (Radio Shack) Portable Wordprocessor, model WP-2,
for some three years now, and for the kind of use you're describing here, I
find it much superior to my laptop. It has a full keyboard with a small 8
line/90-100 character wide screen. With a memory card it holds around 50
pages of text (as I recall), and I transfer work to my PC via a null-modem
cable. It's very easy to use, runs several weeks (even months, depending on
use) on four flashlight batteries, and weighs about 2 pounds. The text
editor is very serviceable, and it has all sorts of additional features like
a ROM-based spell-checker, thesaurus, search and replace features, modem
functions, even a calendar. All in all, I consider a real gem of a working
tool for those of us who like to write in odd places (in hammocks, while
camping, on flights, yes, even in hotel rooms). I paid $250 for it, but as
I said that was about three years ago, so I'm not sure what it costs (or
even if it's still available) now.

Good luck!
Roger Brisson
Penn State University
rob@psulias.psu.edu

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------44----
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 1994 08:15:12 -0500
From: jslatin@mail.utexas.edu (John Slatin)
Subject: Re: 8.0081 Qs: Travel lit; Subway poems; Grammar; German Books;

>
> I am beginning a project on the depiction of the New York City
>subway in poetry. I already have a large number of poems about the
>subway by the poets Paul Blackburn, Jim Carroll, Edwin Denby,
>Ferlinghetti, Langston Hughes, Audre Lorde, Frank O'Hara, Charles
>Reznikoff, and Allen Tate's "The Subway." I would appreciate it if
>the members of Humanist would inform me if they know of any poets (or
>individual poems) I have missed, particularly by lesser-known poets or
>poems written before 1953.

What comes immediately to mind is William Carlos Williams, "Rapid Transit,"
in _Spring and All_ (1923), an Americanist reply perhaps to Pound's "In a
Station of the Metro" (it's in the Collected Poems, vol. 1). Also-- though
the subway isn't exactly *depicted*-- I've argued that Marianne Moore's "The
Steeple-Jack" (1932) was prompted in part by her dismay at the damage to her
local church caused by the extension of the subway into Brooklyn c. 1931.
John Slatin
Director, Computer Writing & Research Lab
Division of Rhetoric and Composition
and Department of English
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712
(512) 471-8743

(3) --------------------------------------------------------------87----
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 94 11:41 PDT
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 8.0079 Internet Guides Available for FTP (1/62)

For Petersen of Toronto, who wants poems re Subways of NYC, et al. He should re
ally go back to the turn of the 20s at least. Poems that are in the subway, som
e anthologized in elementary books in the 30s. Hart Crane has events in the sub
way in THE BRIDGE. There is Paul Goodman. There is Fearing. To begin with this
past half century's writers is to begin with belated ones, nachtragers, 2nd ha
nd imitators. He should also do fine writers, Henry Miller has interesting pass
ages on sex in the subways. They were once exciting places, in the 20s, people
cheek by jowl for the first time in our history, but for ferries and buses. I m
ean sexually exciting. They are trips through hell now. I know a little, havin
g grown up riding subways in the 30s and 40s...after which...forget it. Jascha
Kessler