Subject:  BLIND
        Date:  Mon, 17 Mar 1997 22:35:53 -0800
       From:  Tom & Sandy Fasano tomchat@gte.net
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
            To:  jco jco@usfca.edu


In BLIND, I'll opt for a metaphysical blindness and a portrait
of paranoia. In this story there's a definite reversal of the 
revenge/imprisonment theme that runs through THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO.
        Poe tells his story from the point of view of Montresor, who
begins the narration with talk of a "thousand injuries" he's suffered at
the hands of Fortunato. We never learn just what Fortunato did to anger
Montresor. Poe keeps the reasons for Montresor's hostility hidden,
although Montresor is obsessed with the festering "thought of his
[Fortunato's] immolation." Complicating the riddle is the fact that
Montresor refers to Fortunato as "friend" and seems to respect him, yet
his designs are clearly those of murder and sacrifice. Could it be that
there never was a transgression, just something Montresor imagined?
"Immolation," as Montresor refers to his nefarious plan, means literally
"to sacrifice." Adding to the story's stew of ambiguity is the fact that
wine-amontillado is an exquisite and rare sherry-is often associated with
the rituals of sacrifice.
        JCO plays with these very ideas in BLIND, especially when the
narrator wonders (p. 241) "if unknowingly in my past I had committed some
terrible sin for which I must now be punished, some meanness or hardness
of the heart committed not willfully perhaps but in the absence of will
or conscious intention as in our blind lives we perform so many actions
only half thinking, half seeing the effects of our behavior."
        And of course in both stories there's the image of imprisonment.
In JCO's story it's self-imprisonment (p. 244): "For the darkness in this
place is so complete, none of you will ever penetrate it. And I have
driven in three-inch spikes, to seal the door from within."

Needless to say, a wonderful story.

JCO fan
Tom Fasano



Subject:   Re: BLIND
        Date:   Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:25:52 -0500 (EST)
       From:   RJohn713@aol.com
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
            To:  jco@usfca.edu


Sounds good to me!  :)

Greg Johnson



Subject:  Foxfire film
        Date:  Tue, 18 Mar 97 16:57:08 +0100
       From:  jakob_p@lubio.bib.lu.se (Jakob Persson)
Reply-To: jco@usfca.edu
            To: jco@usfca.edu


My name is Jakob Persson and I'm from Sweden. Since I discovered her three
years ago JCO definitely belongs to my favorite authors. This discussion
club is what I've been looking for.

I wrote my master's thesis (at least I think that's the right term) on some
JCO novels. Foxfire, one of the absolutely best JCO novels that I've read,
is one of them and now I've heard that there's been made a film based on
Foxfire. Was it made for the movie-theatres? Was it good? What did the
critics say? Above all, how can I get it? As far as I understand it hasn't
reached Sweden. I'll be happy for any information I can get!

/Jakob Persson

Jakob Persson, Ällingavägen 7B:404, 227 34 Lund, Sweden
Phone: +46 46 2118576
E-mail: jakob_p@lubio.bib.lu.se



Subject:  Re: BLIND
        Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 11:57:11 -0400 (EDT)
       From:   Richard Ressmyer ressmyrr@wvlc.wvnet.edu
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
            To: jco@usfca.edu
          CC: jco@usfca.edu


I have read the two responses or reflextions about BLIND.

The Poe comparison is apt.

The ambiguity throughout the story is captivating.

There is an alternative, which may very well be a misreading:

SHE is dead--the darkness is the internal, eternal darkness of a life 
ended."For the darkness in this place is so complete, none of you will 
ever penetrate it."

The semiotics run rife--"driven in three-inch spikes, to SEAL THE DOOR 
from within."

I realize that this requires such a reversal in thinking.  She [un-named, 
female in her seventies, stout but not fat] afterall has provided all the 
details, the tangible references to sound, touch, smell.  The visceral 
middle-of-the-night bladder telling time.  The carpet, the rain against 
the house, the passage to the refrigerator; these all establish her voice 
as the real, the active, the LIVE.

Throughout the story there are associations to SEPERATION(S).  The 
leaving of friends, moving from the familiar setting, the remoteness of 
daughters, the RETIREMENT.

The wistful scene of "a window behind the toilet overlooking a 
steep-sloped roof and an OLD OVERGROWN PASTURE."  A referenece to the 
fallowness of her existence?

Besides Poe, in American literature there is also Masters and 
Wilder--the voices from those graves speak concretely about the physical 
world.

The STORM is worth looking at.  It has many of the typical 
characteristics of a storm, but hints at personification "aimed for this 
very house."  More like an ANGEL OF PLAGUE OR DEATH, "rolled over the 
house and away across the fields to disappear."

The "I" of the story expresses her power, in contrast to the 
stultification her life has been.  

The selective loss of sight suggests an alteration to consciousness, a 
different "dimension," but it is SHE who can move, push, crawl, hide.

The GRAVE, the BED, the remote HOUSE, the DEAD MARRIAGE.  The bitterness, 
though harsh, stops short somehow.  Don't we as readers sympathize with 
HER, not HIM?  Although he is described as a rather benign fellow, 
somewhat self important beyond his actual achievements--"his single 
book"--his scholarly vocation Greek tragedy, the image of a tweedy 
professor with a pipe.  But I adopted HER attitude toward him [perhaps 
because I have a long exposure to late twentieth century feminism and I 
am also a three-daughter-father who bristles at the restrictive life 
SHE'S led].

There is a riddle in a paragraph on page 238, 3/4 down:  "except, on my 
hands and knees groping for the fallen telephone, I understood that, if 
HE was dead, IT WAS FOR THE SAME REASON THAT THE POWER WAS OUT; IF THE 
PWER WAS OUT, IT WAS FOR THE SAME REASON THAT he WAS DEAD--THUS BEYOND 
ALL HUMAN HELP."

Natural laws and sensations are breached--"Except for the pull of gravity 
I did not seem to be going down until suddenly, lowering a foot to the 
next step, I descovered there WAS NO NEXT STEP, I HAD COME TO THE END OF 
THE STAIRS."  (!)

The physical world becomes unreliable, yet still filled with danger--the 
flashlight does not produce light, but a glass cuts and results in BLOOD.

It is too easy to push explication too far:  "down in the cellar--in the 
dark alcove where my canned fruits are kept."

The cellar with the stored food is so Egyptian!

The quality of the dark is revealing.  "NO ONE CAN HELP ANYONE NOW, THIS 
IS THE DARK OF THE VERY BEGINNING, AND THE END."  And, "there was 
something mysterious about this dar, this night; something that made it 
UNLIKE ANY OTHER DARK OR ANY OTHER NIGHT."  [Something about this 
reminded me of Isaac Beshevis Singer and the PASSOVER question.]

The rain has many attributes, threatening AND sustaining.  "A sharp smell 
of rain and earth prevailed, a smell I associated with spring.  The rains 
of spring, and thaw after the long winter.  Each year the thaw seems to 
come later in the season, thus it is more welcome.  On gusty days, when 
the sun shines, such smells can made you feel AS IF YOU ARE ALIVE."

And:  "not water out of the well but water fresh enough for me, dank, 
earthy-smelling but plenteous here in the cellar darkness. . ."

"But the change was upon the world, THERE COULD BE NO LIGHT."


Those of you reading this may already be saying, "he has gone far 
enough."  So I will stop.

But my reading says it is HER, not HIM who is dead, that the world 
continues, and WILL NOT FIND HER.

Richard
Charleston, WV



Subject:   Re: Foxfire film
           Date:  Tue, 18 Mar 1997 08:50:23 -0800
          From:  Randy Souther Randy Souther
    Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
               To:  jco@usfca.edu



Jakob Persson wrote:
> club is what I've been looking for.
> 
> I wrote my master's thesis (at least I think that's the right term) on some
> JCO novels. Foxfire, one of the absolutely best JCO novels that I've read,
> is one of them and now I've heard that there's been made a film based on
> Foxfire. Was it made for the movie-theatres? Was it good? What did the
> critics say? Above all, how can I get it? As far as I understand it hasn't
> reached Sweden. I'll be happy for any information I can get!

Foxfire was indeed made for the theatres, but I found it disappointing.
It was updated from the 1950s to the present time--which was fine. In
fact, I thought the movie started out with promise. But about halfway
through, it just fell apart for me. I think when the movie simply
glossed
over Legs' experience at Red Bank--which is a turning point in the
novel--
I knew it wasn't going to go well. From that point on  it left the plot
of the novel completely.  I don't think the critics were kind to the
movie, either.

No doubt it will be available on videotape soon.

Randy Souther



Subject: 
                      Re: BLIND
           Date:  Tue, 18 Mar 1997 09:00:08 -0800
          From: Randy Souther Randy Souther
    Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
               To: jco@usfca.edu


Richard Ressmyer wrote:

> Those of you reading this may already be saying, "he has gone far
> enough."  So I will stop.
> 

You're definitely not going too far! This is great. Both yours and Tom's
responses.

Randy Souther



Subject:  Re: Foxfire film
        Date:  Tue, 18 Mar 1997 09:04:45 -0800
       From:  Nikki Senecal senecal@scf-fs.usc.edu
Reply-To: jco@usfca.edu
            To:  jco@usfca.edu


>Foxfire. Was it made for the movie-theatres? Was it good? What did the
>critics say? Above all, how can I get it? As far as I understand it hasn't
>reached Sweden. I'll be happy for any information I can get!

Made for the theater, yes.  Good, I guess it depends on what you expect.
They changed the period to the 90s and didn't use even a majority of the
scenes from the book.  When the girls "get in trouble" and can't see each
other, they e-mail each other from their rooms.  (So changes in class too.)
All the class criticism, not surprisingly, is cut as well.  It is not out
on video yet.  And here in LA (the movie capital of the world) it only
played briefly and in the suburbs at that.

I was disappointed, but the film has been the impetus for my dissertation
(shift).  I sort of see it as the difference between second wave feminism
(the book) and third wave feminism (the film).  I am trying to use this to
frame my discussion of women's violence.

Nikki

Nikki Senecal, ABD
Department of English
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0354
Internet: senecal@scf-fs.usc.edu



Subject:  Re: BLIND
        Date:  Tue, 18 Mar 1997 12:22:27 -0400 (EDT)
       From:  Richard Ressmyer ressmyrr@wvlc.wvnet.edu
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu



Of course I should have written, "It is SHE, not HE who is dead."

Please don't FLAME me for my predicate nominative abuse!

Thank you,

Richard



Subject:   Re: BLIND
        Date:   Tue, 18 Mar 1997 13:50:04 -0400 (EDT)
       From:  Richard Ressmyer ressmyrr@wvlc.wvnet.edu
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu


There was one bit of humor--at least I thought so.

SHE uses the simile, "slack and heavy as a bag of fertilizer," declining 
to use the more familiar and scatological SHIT!

Oates does use profanity from time to time--perhaps because she limits 
its use, it is more effective, even in its absence.

I have sometimes asked my fourteen year old when we start watching an 
action movie--well Margaret are we counting the bodies [which I recall 
doing in Radio City Music Hall while seeing THUNDERBALL for the first 
time] or the F-word!

RHR



Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:31:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Richard Ressmyer ressmyrr@wvlc.wvnet.edu
Subject: Title for Short Story Collection
To: discussion list jco jco@usfca.edu


It came to me this weekend that some accomplished writer of stories might 
use the following title and section names for a collection of stories 
which would, of necessity, span time from the early 50's to the present, 
have an existential bent, with some hard ball politics thrown in as well--

Collection Title:               ARE YOU

Section Titles:         I.  Are You
                                II. Or
                                III.Have You Ever Been?

Now with that start, I am about 15 stories short.

On JCO:

Randy, How many people are subscribed to this list?

Is there a concensus about what is next after BLIND--more from HAUNTED?

Is there an interest in poetry--I have re-read TENDERNESS recently and 
have started THE ASSIGNATION.

Greg--  what about my DEAD SHE idea for BLIND?  I will have the chance to 
ask JCO in April when I host her here in Charleston, WV.

When I was in secondary school in Manhattan in the late 50's, I was at a 
small dinner party where Frost and Bernstein were guests.  Frost resisted 
EXPLAINING his poetry as the RAVEN and HEMLOCK quotations asert.  
Bernstein, who I had met at other social ocassions was very defferential 
to Frost, that itself was interesting to watch.  Many people will not 
recall that Berstein, himself was a New Englander, but with an experience 
closer to Hentoff than to Frost.

Richard



Subject:  Re: Title for Short Story Collection
        Date:  Tue, 18 Mar 1997 19:19:22 -0500 (EST)
       From:  RJohn713@aol.com
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
            To: jco@usfca.edu


To Richard:  I seem to have a "blind spot" about "Blind"--just ask JCO when
she comes there.

Re. the FOXFIRE film:  actually, it IS out on video (available at
Blockbuster, at least).  It has been almost universally panned by critics.

Greg Johnson



Subject:  Re: Title for Short Story Collection
        Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 19:34:16 -0800
       From: Randy Souther 
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
            To:  jco jco@usfca.edu


> 
> Randy, How many people are subscribed to this list?
> 

There are approx. 40 people on the list right now.


> Is there a concensus about what is next after BLIND--more from HAUNTED?
> 
> Is there an interest in poetry--I have re-read TENDERNESS recently and
> have started THE ASSIGNATION.
> 

I don't think anyone has suggested anything specific. Everything is
possible--poetry, novels, plays, stories--

something old: "The Fine White Mist of Winter"
something new: "Valentine"
something borrowed: "The Dead"
something blue: "The Sky-Blue Ball"

Randy



Subject:  can't find BLIND
        Date:  Tue, 18 Mar 1997 23:27:29 +0000
       From:  "t.a. hulslander" t-hulslander@top.monad.net
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
            To: jco@usfca.edu


I am having no luck finding HAUNTED, so I have not yet read BLIND.  
Has anyone read WE WERE THE MULVANEYS?  I am new to this discussion, 
so perhaps I missed any comments on this book.  I also recently read I 
LOCK THE DOOR UPON MYSELF, I found that to be a very compelling story.  
I have been a bit out of touch lately, as far as my reading 
goes...while I write, I try not to read other fiction.  
Especially JCO...I get so involved in her stories, her characters' 
lives, I have to force myself to get back to work!
I will also be looking for FOXFIRE the next time I go to rent movies.
Does anyone have any info. on the movie based on WHERE ARE YOU GOING, 
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?  Isn't that the story with "For Bob Dylan" at the 
start....? And was that a t.v movie, or can it be rented?
Till next time,
Krista



Subject:  Re: can't find BLIND
        Date:  Tue, 18 Mar 1997 23:54:38 -0500
       From:  Keith Brecher Keith_Brecher@brown.edu
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
            To: jco@usfca.edu, jco@usfca.edu


At 11:27 PM 3/18/97 +0000, t.a. hulslander wrote:
>I am having no luck finding HAUNTED, so I have not yet read BLIND.  
>Has anyone read WE WERE THE MULVANEYS?  I am new to this discussion, 
>so perhaps I missed any comments on this book.  I also recently read I 
>LOCK THE DOOR UPON MYSELF, I found that to be a very compelling story.  
>I have been a bit out of touch lately, as far as my reading 
>goes...while I write, I try not to read other fiction.  
>Especially JCO...I get so involved in her stories, her characters' 
>lives, I have to force myself to get back to work!
>I will also be looking for FOXFIRE the next time I go to rent movies.
>Does anyone have any info. on the movie based on WHERE ARE YOU GOING, 
>WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?  Isn't that the story with "For Bob Dylan" at the 
>start....? And was that a t.v movie, or can it be rented?
>Till next time,
>Krista
>
>I have had the pleasure to read WE WERE THE MULVANEYS and I thorougly
enjoyed it. How about you? I don't think it's her greatest work, but I
think it'll make a fantastic TV movie one day. How about Tori Spelling,
Brad Pitt, Henry Thomas, Raquel Welch, and Rip Torn as the Mulvaneys? On a
more serious note, when I read WE WERE THE MULVANEYS I remember wondering
whether the narrator was maybe inspired by Thomas Pynchon. I can't remember
my exact reasoning, but one thing was that both went to Cornell. Any
credence to this crazy idea? 
I have no information on a movie version of WHERE ARE YOU GOING WHERE HAVE
YOU BEEN. I can tell you that I seem to remember that it was inspired by
the Dylan song "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (by the way, The 13th Floor
Elevators do a great cover of this tune on EASTER EVERYWHERE). And, since
you brought the story up, I've been meaning to ask the list whether anybody
could tell me the meaning of those numbers on the villain's hot rod. Since
I've heard JCO won't answer it, this question may be taboo. If so, my
apologies in advance.



Subject:  Re: can't find BLIND
                Date:  Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:09:07 -0500
               From:  "ANGELA BURROWS" burroang@aquinas.edu
        Reply-To:   jco@usfca.edu
Organization:  Aquinas College
                   To:  jco@usfca.edu


Hi, 
Keith - where do you go to school - sorry side tracked....

Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque is that the collection you all have 
been talking about? I don't believe I've read Blind, but that book is 
sitting in my room right now.

Tried the public library? All the ones in GR and Dayton have had it.

By the way I have to write a mimic of JCO's writing (2-3 paragraphs) 
for a creative writing class I will send it to y'all as soon as I 
finish - I'd apreicate feedback.
*Angie Burrows - burroang@aquinas.edu - *
 


Subject:   Re: Foxfire film, etc.
    Date:  Wed, 19 Mar 1997 10:05:17 -0600 (CST)
   From:   ANDREA WRIGHT AWRIGHT@GAMMA.IS.TCU.EDU
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
     To:  jco@usfca.edu


Yes, Foxfire the film is on video now, and I watched it just two days ago. 
Unlike one of the earlier respondents, though, I was not willing to accept the
contemporary setting so readily.  I admire Ms. Senecal for working with the
film as a third-wave feminist strategy, but I don't believe the tone and aura
of the novel lend themselves to a contemporary setting.  Most important scenes
from the novel were either cut completely or transformed so that they resembled
the book only half-heartedly.  And I was most disappointed by the conversion of
Maddy from a writer to a photographer/artist in the film.  Since I am also
working with Foxfire for my dissertation, I was astonished at the lack of
sensitivity portrayed in transforming Maddy's artistic talents.  Her writing is
the most important facet of the novel, in my opinion, and omitting it
completely changes the entire thrust of the narrative.  

Even the actors chosen to represent the characters seemed completely wrong. 
The psychological interplay amongst the characters was omitted, as well as the
connection between the various episodes.  As it was directed and filmed, the
various experiences of Foxfire seemed disjointed, scattered, and altogether
incoherent.  I even noticed such minor flaws as allowing Legs to run around the
prison alone at night, a totally unrealistic scenario that weakens the plot and
dynamism of the novel.  Certainly, more films have been produced recently that
showcase the struggle for female empowerment--"Girls Town" is a good example,
and a finely-made film.  However, such films must be done well for the public
to accept them, and everything about this film was, unfortunately, done poorly.

As for the film based on Oates's famous story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have
You Been?", the title is "Smooth Talk," and it stars Laura Dern as Connie.  In
fact, the film introduces Laura Dern--and perhaps assisted in propelling her to
stardom.  I believe the film was made in 1986 or 87, and, unlike Foxfire,
critics generally applauded and commended it.  It is available in many video
stores; in fact, I watched it recently and was impressed at not only how
faithful it was to the story, but how the director, Joyce Chopra, was able to
change the ending but not the tenor of the story.  See Brenda Daly's article,
"An Unfilmable Conclusion," for an excellent discussion of the film, its
ending, and the methods that were utilized to formulate it.

By the way, have any other Oates novels or stories been filmed?  

Andrea Wright 



Subject: Re: BLIND
    Date:   Wed, 19 Mar 1997 11:42:13 -0500 (EST)
   From: Fred Frank ffrank@gremlan.org
Reply-To:   jco@usfca.edu

Perhaps injury 1001 occurs during the underground journey itself when 
Fortunato cannot recall the Montresor family's coat of arms. For 
Montresor, this is the final insult and he vows revenge. Had Fortunato 
been able to recall the Montresor crest and the motto, "nemo me impune" 
(no one injures me with impunity)" he might have foreseen what was 
happening to him and avoided his doom. Montresor provides several 
opportunities for Fortunato to perceive his situation.

Fred Frank
ffrank@gremlan.org

On Mon, 17 Mar 1997, Tom & Sandy Fasano wrote:

> In BLIND, I'll opt for a metaphysical blindness and a portrait
> of paranoia. In this story there's a definite reversal of the 
> revenge/imprisonment theme that runs through THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO.
>         Poe tells his story from the point of view of Montresor, who
> begins the narration with talk of a "thousand injuries" he's suffered at
> the hands of Fortunato. We never learn just what Fortunato did to anger
> Montresor. Poe keeps the reasons for Montresor's hostility hidden,
> although Montresor is obsessed with the festering "thought of his
> [Fortunato's] immolation." Complicating the riddle is the fact that
> Montresor refers to Fortunato as "friend" and seems to respect him, yet
> his designs are clearly those of murder and sacrifice. Could it be that
> there never was a transgression, just something Montresor imagined?
> "Immolation," as Montresor refers to his nefarious plan, means literally
> "to sacrifice." Adding to the story's stew of ambiguity is the fact that
> wine-amontillado is an exquisite and rare sherry-is often associated with
> the rituals of sacrifice.
>         JCO plays with these very ideas in BLIND, especially when the
> narrator wonders (p. 241) "if unknowingly in my past I had committed some
> terrible sin for which I must now be punished, some meanness or hardness
> of the heart committed not willfully perhaps but in the absence of will
> or conscious intention as in our blind lives we perform so many actions
> only half thinking, half seeing the effects of our behavior."
>         And of course in both stories there's the image of imprisonment.
> In JCO's story it's self-imprisonment (p. 244): "For the darkness in this
> place is so complete, none of you will ever penetrate it. And I have
> driven in three-inch spikes, to seal the door from within."
> 
> Needless to say, a wonderful story.
> 
> JCO fan
> Tom Fasano
> 



Subject:  Re: Foxfire film, etc.
     Date:  Wed, 19 Mar 1997 08:51:28 -0800
     From:   Randy Souther Randy Souther
       To:  jco@usfca.edu

ANDREA WRIGHT wrote:
> 
  And I was most disappointed by the conversion of
> Maddy from a writer to a photographer/artist in the film.  Since I am also
> working with Foxfire for my dissertation, I was astonished at the lack of
> sensitivity portrayed in transforming Maddy's artistic talents.  Her writing is
> the most important facet of the novel, in my opinion, and omitting it
> completely changes the entire thrust of the narrative.
> 

I admit, I wanted to like the film, and I wanted it to be good. When I
see a film based on a book I have read, I try very hard to allow the
film room to adapt itself to a different medium and to see it
as an autonomous work. So when Foxfire the film made Maddy a
photogrpaher, I thought this a reasonable change since film is a visual
medium after all. However, Maddy's photography ended up being completely
irrelevant to the film, which is what, in my mind, made that particular
change a failure. As for Smooth Talk, this is a perfect example of a
film being good in and of itself, but disappointing if compared to the
original story (whereas Foxfire was disappointing any way you looked at
it). I think JCO was being overly generous when she suggested that the
ending of "Where Are You Going..." was somehow impossible to transform
into film. It could have been filmed a hundred different ways. Clearly
Chopra wanted the happy ending--for her own purposes--and not because
she couldn't figure out how to film the "real" ending.

> 
> By the way, have any other Oates novels or stories been filmed?
> 

In The Region of Ice (1976)
(won an Oscar for short films)

Norman and the Killer (1991)
(short film)

Lies of the Twins (1991)
(cable)

And Solstice is being made by Jeanne Moreau for
Merchant-Ivory Productions.

I believe JCO had worked on a screenplay of You Must Remember This for
Scorcese, but I don't know what ever happened with that project.

Randy



From: RJohn713@aol.com
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 14:31:08 -0500 (EST)
To: jco@usfca.edu
Subject: Re: Foxfire film, etc.

There is also a German film based on CHILDWOLD, and interwoven with a
biographical documentary on JCO.  It was made for German public television
and a copy is in the Oates Archive at Syracuse.

JCO has written screenplays for SOLSTICE, AMERICAN APPETITES, YOU MUST
REMEMBER THIS,  and SNAKE EYES, but all are waylaid in "development hell."
 Also, in 1971, she wrote a screenplay called DAWN (originally titled "The
Verbal Structure of a Woman's Life"), commissioned by Paul Newman and Joanne
Woodward.  It was to star Woodward as a woman involved with a black man (to
be played by Sidney Poitier).  But finally it was deemed "too controversial,"
due to the interracial subject matter.  This film project is mentioned in
John Gregory Dunne's new book about Hollywood scriptwriting, MONSTER, since
he and Joan Didion (I think) also worked on the project.

Greg Johnson



Subject:  Re: Foxfire film, etc.
    Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 17:13:53 -0400 (EDT)
   From:   Richard Ressmyer ressmyrr@wvlc.wvnet.edu
Reply-To: jco@usfca.edu

Randy, I MEANT to say--"I will NOT make inference from the lack of 
reply--JCO deserves her privacy [even if she is lurking!].

R

On Wed, 19 Mar 1997, Richard Ressmyer wrote:

> Randy,
> 
> Does JCO subscribe to this list?
> 
> If this is confidential, no reply is expected--AND I WILL MAKE INFERENCE 
> FROM THE LACK OF REPLY--I JUST WON'T KNOW.
> 
> Also, if you have no objection I would like to use your Something old, 
> new and blue on a display for JCO readers we are having at Charleston 
> Library in April.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Richard
> 



From: RJohn713@aol.com
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 18:22:17 -0500 (EST)
To: jco@usfca.edu
Subject: Re: Foxfire film, etc.

Regarding something the group might read next, I'd like to propose the story
"Life After High School" from WILL YOU ALWAYS LOVE ME?  I find this story
provocative and brilliant, and would like to hear what others have to say
about it.

Greg Johnson



Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 21:22:10 -0500
To: jco@usfca.edu, jco@usfca.edu
From: Keith Brecher Keith_Brecher@brown.edu
Subject: Re: can't find BLIND

At 12:09 AM 3/19/97 -0500, ANGELA BURROWS wrote:
>Hi, 
>Keith - where do you go to school - sorry side tracked....
>
Angie--
Brown in creepy, cthonic Providence, RI, home of the cthulhu mythos,
something presumably dear to JCO's heart. By the way, I look forward to
your JCO mimic, maybe it's something everybody on the list should do. We
could create a communal work in the JCO style with everyone on the list
contributing a chapter, the first of which would be your mimic. Would such
an undertaking be considered trendy, like hypertext, or just downright
preposterous?

Keith



From: LoriLamb@aol.com
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 21:26:59 -0500 (EST)
To: jco@usfca.edu
Subject: Re: can't find BLIND

In response to Keith's inquiry about the numbers on Friend's car, they add up
to 69.  Pretty fitting I suppose.

Lori



From: "ANGELA BURROWS" burroang@aquinas.edu
Organization: Aquinas College
To: jco@usfca.edu
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 21:32:08 -0500
Subject: Re: can't find BLIND

Keith - good idea! A communal mimic would be very interesting! I read 

Blind last night  - very intersting infact, I think I might use it 
for my mimic! Good luck at Brown!!!

Ang
*Angie Burrows - burroang@aquinas.edu - *


 
Subject: Re: can't find BLIND
    Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 21:56:05 -0500
   From: Keith Brecher Keith_Brecher@brown.edu
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu

At 09:26 PM 3/19/97 -0500, LoriLamb@aol.com wrote:
>In response to Keith's inquiry about the numbers on Friend's car, they add up
>to 69.  Pretty fitting I suppose.
>
>Lori
>
>Thanks, Lori, for resolving the mystery of the numbers on Friend's car.
The answer's sort of mundane and I'm a little sorry I asked. As the saying
went in THE NEW AGE, I guess I should have lived with the question....

Keith 



Subject:  Joyce Carol Oates
    Date:  Wed, 19 Mar 1997 22:09:55 -0600
   From:  issy pimentel issy@ici.net
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu

I have read a few stories by Joyce Carol Oates. A couple of them 
include Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been and Naked.  I am 
wondering if you could help me answer a few questions.  I would like to 
know what style of writing Oates sticks with.  I would also like if you 
could help me compare both the similaries and differences in both these 
above stories.  I am currently working on a paper and already have some 
inforation, but would greatly appreciate any information you could offer 
me.  Please help me soon.  

                                Thankyou,
                                Carrie Damaso



Subject:Life After High School
    Date:  Wed, 19 Mar 1997 20:01:54 -0800
   From: Randy Souther Randy Souther
Reply-To:jco@usfca.edu

I will second Greg's suggestion to read and discuss the story "Life
After High School" from the collection *Will You Always Love Me?*

Randy



Subject: opera
      Date:  Thu, 20 Mar 1997 00:20:53 -0800
     From:  Randy Souther 
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
         To:  jco jco@usfca.edu


Information on JCO's opera is located at
http://storm.usfca.edu/~southerr/opera.html

Randy



Subject:  LIFE AFTER HIGH SCHOOL
      Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 13:10:02 +0000
     From:   "t.a. hulslander" t-hulslander@top.monad.net
Reply-To: jco@usfca.edu
         To: jco@usfca.edu

I read LIFE AFTER HIGH SCHOOL some time ago, but I will re-read it to 
refresh my memory.



Subject: Re: Foxfire film
      Date:  Thu, 20 Mar 1997 15:24:31 +0200
     From:  jakob_p@lubio.bib.lu.se (Jakob Persson)
Reply-To: jco@usfca.edu
         To:  jco@usfca.edu

Thanks everybody for all information and all opinions on the Foxfire film.
Unfortunately my high hopes of a great film have definitely shrunk. I was
hoping for a film which was set in the 1950's and was true to the story in
the book. I'm still going to watch the film when I can get hold of it, but
I'm not as anxious as before.

I read "Life after High School" last year and it would be interesting to
discuss it. I just have to reread it to refreshen my memory first.


Jakob Persson

Jakob Persson, Ällingavägen 7B:404, 227 34 Lund, Sweden
Phone: +46 46 2118576
E-mail: jakob_p@lubio.bib.lu.se



From: smancin1@ix.netcom.com
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 14:49:28 -0600 (CST)
To: jco@usfca.edu
Subject: Mulvaneys; First Love

This is my first foray into this discussion group.  I began reading JCO in 
the early seventies and have read almost everything. Mulvaneys found its way 
to me during exam week, really bad timing because of course, it consumed my 
time until I finished it.  Really enjoyed the chapter, Plastica, and wonder 
if she researched it by going to a rock concert.  Also, loved the name 
choice for Corinne -- core in the family? caring? but I still can't quite 
accept the way she banished the daughter.  Also, her treatment of the pets 
as representations of mortality, the self and rebirth:  M's cat muffin. Just 
finished reading First Love.  Is anyone else still reeling from it?  

smb



Subject:   Re: BLIND
            Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 12:49:53 -0500
           From:  "ANGELA BURROWS" burroang@aquinas.edu
      Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
Organization: Aquinas College
               To: jco@usfca.edu


Here's a mimic of JCO's style from Blind: p. 235 last three 
paragraphs:


Blind Mimic


 Things will work out somehow I guess. Accepting so easily the fact
 that my sation in life had changed to just this. Leaving my material
 wealth, my comfort zone in which I'd lived the "expected" lifestyle
 for twenty-three years, for this. This is no where and the
 uncertainty of empty nights that held promise for her (because when
 she was  young, she'd denied she'd live a "conformist, suburban
 lifestyle" - the closest thing to an epiphany in her life she said)
 but not for me. Disappearing from a successful practice without
 giving my partners any notice for fear they'd laugh at me, they never
 appreciated me anyway so disappearing was my way of showing them they
 needed me. And I've forgot what regret is now. I've slumped my way
 through my days here and collapsed into nights feeling my
 frustrations mounting into a squeal! of resistance like a rusted,
 unoiled hinge residing in my ever practical brain. She wasn't crying
 so much anymore, she'd acclimated herself to their everyday poverty
 and pain; she'd never empathized with my materialistic desires, I
 could leave now, wrapped in the anominity of darkness and would she
 care or even take notice? - I laugh hysterically at this thought. I
 lower the squeal! in my brain to my vocal cords and produce a low
 moan. Yet, she doesn't even budge to palacate me. So I try to forget
 the uncertainty of our lives and the suffering of those whe serve.
 The overcrowed clinics. I seek solace in envisioning my maple desk,
 stacked with legal briefs awaiting my review, clerks and assistents
 awaiting my words that might nod approval, or boom with
 disappointment or the silent shake of head in disapproval which is
 worst of all. That was when it was easy. When I didn't have to give
 myself up.  And she did.




*Angie Burrows - burroang@aquinas.edu - *
 



Subject: BLIND
      Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 13:32:29 -0500
     From:  Keith Brecher Keith_Brecher@brown.edu
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
         To: jco@usfca.edu
        CC:  jurczak@aecom.yu.edu


"CRAZY PEOPLE DOING TERRIBLE THINGS"

Re-reading BLIND for the third time, I decided that the best place to begin
analyzing the story was the title. Used by JCO, "blind" has multiple
meanings: deprived of the sense of seeing; a fortification; inconsideration
or inconsiderate behavior. With regard to her use of blind as deprived of
the sense of seeing, a practical question to ask is whther the narrator is
literally, physiologically blind. Meaning that she has suffered something
like bilateral occipital strokes, complications of temporal arteritis or
glaucoma, or an unusual type of ischemic optic neuropathy that has
physically damaged her visual system.
  There are two other possibilities to explain the narrator's blindness.
The first is that she is "metaphysically" blind; in other words, that she
has hysterical blindness. The second is that some millenial, cataclysmic
event has occurred and the entire outside world has become cloaked in
darkness.
  Hysterical blindness is the most reasonable explanation for the
narrator's condition and the evidence for this conclusion is the story
itself. The style of the narrative literally is the narrator and with the
very first line JCO establishes the fact that her narrator is not quite
right in the head: "Sometime during the night which is a terrible dark here
in the country on moonless nights the electricity went off." This very
stylish sentence has a rhythm and cadence that are out of kilter and is our
first indication that the narrator may have a disordered consciousness. As
the story progresses, we are treated to many exclamations points!, more
examples of asymmetric syntax, (parenthetical comments), and ITALICS
indicating the mood of the narrator's thoughts which range wildly from
shrill and hectoring to meditative and quasi-theological. (Incidentally,
JCO's prose style in BLIND is neo-Gothic. If one were to construct a house
from her prose, it would look a lot more like the Winchester Mystery House
than Philip Johnson's Glass House). Additionally, the narrator's actions
don't always make sense. Two specific instances: her sudden ravenous hunger
for a precisely described piece of cake (frosted cinnamon coffee) and a
quart of milk; and, her plan to delightedly lap water from the rock walls
of her cellar darkness (her "blind") which has been fortified from within
by three-inch spikes.
   Dreiser would not have understood the "passion and power" of BLIND, but
I suspect the creators of the nouveau roman like Robbe-Grillet and Robert
Pinget would have since they created similar unreliable narrators in their
fiction. More than the nouveau roman, however, BLIND seems closest to the
first-person, solipsistic fiction of Samuel Beckett and Thomas Bernhardt
because of their similarly surreal, grotesque, and somewhat unlikeable
narrators.
    Stylistically, BLIND is additionally reminiscent of Poe's TALE-TELL
HEART and Lovecraft. By the latter, I mean JCO's fondness for exclamations
like the following, reminiscent of Lovecraftian bombast: "And yet: THERE
CAME NO LIGHT." JCO is far too self-conscious and informed to write
anything but so-called "metahorror." Writers like Dennis Etchison and Karl
Edward Wagner have written existential horror stories similar to BLIND
(check out Wagner's SILTED IN and Etchison's short story collection RED
DREAMS), but they are considerably less precious and literary while still
creating specimens of that increasingly ill-defined subgenre called
"metahorror."
    Thus, JCO's play on the word "blind," something not likely to be seen
in a Dennis Etchison story, certainly not in his novelizations of THE FOG
or VIDEODROME. To return to my original observation, besides the narrator's
hysterical blindness, blind applies to the story as a fortification and the
inconsideration of HIM, the narrator's dead husband Myron. Blind as a
fortification is no great stretch: the narrator finishes her narrative in
the cellar, well-stocked with brackish water and jars of preserves, sealed
from the inside by three-inch spikes (opposite to what happens to Holly
Hunter's character in THE PIANO). 
   Myron--possibly murdered by the narrator, though we have no way of
definitely knowing this (as in THE VOYEUR)--is "blind" to her desires,
autonomy, and presumably her anatomy, too. The narrator's comment that the
move to the country "held a memory for him...but not for me" is one
illustration of Myron's "blindness" toward her in their dysfunctional
relationship of fifty-one years.
    A final point and sort of an aside--concerning BLIND as a species of
the "new Gothic" exemplified by Patrick McGrath--is the water imagery so
prevalent in BLIND. I don't know whether it has any deeper meaning or
whether JCO thought BLIND required a leitmotif to qualify it as literary
fiction, but there's water water everywhere in this story, usually black
water. The narrator is making water, drinking water, floating in water,
fearing to step off into water, listening to water drum on the roof over
her head.
   All this talk of water has made me thirsty so, though I could ramble on
about Bob Dylan's possible influence on BLIND, I'm signing off. 'Nuff said.



Subject:  RE: Mulvaneys; First Love
      Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 14:20:00 -0800
     From:  SOUTHERR@ALPHA.USFCA.EDU
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu


I remember reading the opening of First Love and finding it mezmerizing.
There's nothing I like better than a great opening: Expensive People; 
Bellefleur; You Must Remember This (the suicide prologue, which was
chilling, and also the "regular" opening which followed--just brilliant.)

Randy



Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 14:26:08 -0500 (EST)
From: "Matthew A. Cheney" mac5519@is.NYU.EDU
To: jco@usfca.edu
Subject: "Life After High School"

On Wed, 19 Mar 1997 RJohn713@aol.com wrote:

> Regarding something the group might read next, I'd like to propose the story
> "Life After High School" from WILL YOU ALWAYS LOVE ME?  I find this story
> provocative and brilliant, and would like to hear what others have to say
> about it.
> 
> Greg Johnson
> 
I'm not sure I'd say brilliant (it's a little too sketchy for my taste),
but certainly provocative, and probably the best short story about a
teenager questioning his sexuality that I've read.  What appealed to me so
much about the story was that Zachary doesn't seem to be simply a
repressed gay kid trying to hide "the truth" by pursuing Sunny, but to be
truly confused.  This seems much closer to my experience of reality than
most stories with similar themes (e.g. many of Edmund White's writings,
beautiful as they can be), and so it really struck a chord.  I know this
isn't the most scholarly way to approach "Life After High School", but
what the hell.

I'll leave the last paragraph of the story to other respondents.  There is
virtue to leaving the final question unanswered so that it lingers in your
mind.  The universe would be so boring if it weren't mysterious...

Matthew Cheney



Subject:  Re: BLIND
      Date:  Tue, 25 Mar 1997 12:41:25 -0500
     From:  Keith Brecher Keith_Brecher@brown.edu
Reply-To: jco@usfca.edu
         To:  jco@usfca.edu, jco@usfca.edu


At 12:49 PM 3/22/97 -0500, ANGELA BURROWS wrote:
>Here's a mimic of JCO's style from Blind: p. 235 last three 
>paragraphs:
>
>
>Blind Mimic
>
>
> Things will work out somehow I guess. Accepting so easily the fact
> that my sation in life had changed to just this. Leaving my material
> wealth, my comfort zone in which I'd lived the "expected" lifestyle
> for twenty-three years, for this. This is no where and the
> uncertainty of empty nights that held promise for her (because when
> she was  young, she'd denied she'd live a "conformist, suburban
> lifestyle" - the closest thing to an epiphany in her life she said)
> but not for me. Disappearing from a successful practice without
> giving my partners any notice for fear they'd laugh at me, they never
> appreciated me anyway so disappearing was my way of showing them they
> needed me. And I've forgot what regret is now. I've slumped my way
> through my days here and collapsed into nights feeling my
> frustrations mounting into a squeal! of resistance like a rusted,
> unoiled hinge residing in my ever practical brain. She wasn't crying
> so much anymore, she'd acclimated herself to their everyday poverty

> and pain; she'd never empathized with my materialistic desires, I
> could leave now, wrapped in the anominity of darkness and would she
> care or even take notice? - I laugh hysterically at this thought. I
> lower the squeal! in my brain to my vocal cords and produce a low
> moan. Yet, she doesn't even budge to palacate me. So I try to forget
> the uncertainty of our lives and the suffering of those whe serve.
> The overcrowed clinics. I seek solace in envisioning my maple desk,
> stacked with legal briefs awaiting my review, clerks and assistents
> awaiting my words that might nod approval, or boom with
> disappointment or the silent shake of head in disapproval which is
> worst of all. That was when it was easy. When I didn't have to give
> myself up.  And she did.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>*Angie Burrows - burroang@aquinas.edu - *
> 
>
>Angie--
Thanks for posting your mimic as promised. I presume its basis is the last
three paragraphs on page 235 of HAUNTED, though I will be greatly impressed
if it comprises the last three paragraphs of a 235 page mimic! My
suggestion that the list collaborate on a JCO mimic has met with ominous
silence, but I've been thinking about writing one anyway. If I do, I'll
post it.

Bye,
Keith 



Subject:  RE: FIRST LOVE opening
      Date:  Tue, 25 Mar 1997 12:07:53 -0600 (CST)
     From:  smancin1@ix.netcom.com
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
         To: jco@usfca.edu



I agree the opening of FIRST LOVE is one of the best.  Her use of the 
usually reviled second person works in this case.  I also enjoyed her use of 
the admonition:  "Fear is good, fear is normal.  Fear will save your life," 
and her return to the same admonition on the second to last page of the 
novel.
  
Also, I heard JCO at a book reading in Atlanta and she explained her 
fascination with twins.  Note twin reference in FIRST LOVE.  I believe she 
said that she has a twin sister who is autistic.  Can anyone else clarify 
this point?  

smb



From: RJohn713@aol.com
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 14:34:56 -0500 (EST)
To: jco@usfca.edu
Subject: Re: FIRST LOVE opening

JCO has a younger sister, not a twin sister, who is severely autistic.  Lynne
Oates was born on June 16, 1956, on JCO's eighteenth birthday.  Lynne does
bear a remarkable physical resemblance to JCO.

Greg Johnson



Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 15:37:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Richard Ressmyer ressmyrr@wvlc.wvnet.edu
Subject: Re: FIRST LOVE opening
To: jco@usfca.edu


Greg, Your response with the biographical information is helpful.

HOWEVER, readers, critics and others with exegetical motivations should 
be cautioned about misreading biographical data as interpretation.

JCO has led a very "work-a-day" existence--perhaps she is seen as a 
"master" [gender agreement is not always graceful, is it?] of American 
literature for the very "journeyman-like" behavior as a disciplined 
writer and teacher.  Her contribution is more akin to the internal 
aspects of James or Dickinson, rather that the material and pragmatic 
experience of Melville's early work [though they were appreciated for the 
wrong reasons--adventurous travelogues--albeit they also had the internal 
and metaphysical qualities later found in Billy Budd or MD.

The very stability in her own life--marriage of greater than 20 years and 
nearly twenty years at Princeton--have been a proper greenhouse for her 
imaginative production.  Reading something like EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES 
does not suggest personal knowledge but rather creative speculation of a 
high emotional pitch requiring significant writerly craft.

Richard
Charleston, WV

On Tue, 25 Mar 1997 RJohn713@aol.com wrote:

> JCO has a younger sister, not a twin sister, who is severely autistic.  Lynne
> Oates was born on June 16, 1956, on JCO's eighteenth birthday.  Lynne does
> bear a remarkable physical resemblance to JCO.
> 
> Greg Johnson
> 



From: Ken Yapkowitz kenny@citysearch.com
To: "'jco@usfca.edu'" jco@usfca.edu
Subject: I Stand Before You Naked
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 15:31:16 -0800

Don't know how many of you are in Los Angeles, but you still have a
couple of days to catch this:                    

I Stand Before You Naked (West Coast Ensemble, 522 N. La Brea Ave.,
[213] 525-0022). Joyce Carol Oates' drama about 10 women revealing inner
truths in a search for understanding. Tue. Wed., 8 p.m.; Ends March 27.

I'm going tonight...

      ---==>Ken



Subject:   RE: FIRST LOVE
      Date:  Wed, 26 Mar 1997 08:05:32 -0600 (CST)
     From:  smancin1@ix.netcom.com
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
         To:  jco@usfca.edu

Richard,

Obviously your adherence to exegesis suggests that you are a formalist.  
Nonetheless, biographical data does find its way into the text.  As I wrote, 
Oates admitted in public that she has a fascination with twins in part 
because of the stunning difference between herself and her sibling.  I think 
that it is necessary to consider other critical approaches when considering 
literary works, but your comment definitely holds true for those who wish to 
limit themselves to a formalist approach.  

smb 



Subject:   Re: FIRST LOVE
         Date:  Wed, 26 Mar 1997 13:21:15 -0800
        From:   Randy Souther 
   Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu

smancin1@ix.netcom.com wrote:

> Nonetheless, biographical data does find its way into the text.  As I wrote,
> Oates admitted in public that she has a fascination with twins in part
> because of the stunning difference between herself and her sibling.  I think
> that it is necessary to consider other critical approaches when considering
> literary works,

Aboslutely. A biographical approach to interpreting literature is no
more or less problematic than any other "form" of criticism as long as
one doesn't pretend to have found THE interpretation, but simply AN
interpretation. Each method reveals its own particular facet of the
whole. Oates has written, "all art is both personal and
autobiographical, and at the same time social, political,
historical...." How can a work not be autobiographical, if we expand the
term to include the interior life? And if biography is deemed a dubious
method of interpreting a work, one must also question, it seems to me,
the very genre of biography--for what is a biography if not someone's
interpretation of someone else's life? In any case, I don't know how one
can even resist applying biography to criticism--I certainly can't!  ;) 
And I'm absolutely looking forward to the soon-to-be published Oates
biography for this reason, among many others!

Randy Souther




Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 13:52:28 -0500
To: jco@usfca.edu
From: Keith Brecher Keith_Brecher@brown.edu
Subject: Re: BLIND

At 06:56 PM 3/25/97 -0500, ANGELA BURROWS wrote:
>Keith, I think you definately try and post a mimic. what did you 
>think of mind - good? Does it sound like her style?
>*Angie Burrows - burroang@aquinas.edu - *
> 
>Angie--
I greatly enjoyed your mimic. Particularly, "the squeal! of resistance."
You have definitely tapped into a vein of JCO's  brooding, somewhat
oblique, and occasionally overheated style. 

Keith 
>



Subject:  [Fwd: oates on list]
      Date:  Fri, 28 Mar 1997 09:45:46 -0800
     From:   Randy Souther Randy Souther
Reply-To:  jco@usfca.edu
         To:  jco jco@usfca.edu


Subject:  oates on list
    Date:  Fri, 28 Mar 1997 09:44:27 -0800
   From:   Randy Souther Randy Souther
       To:  jco jco@usfca.edu


The question was asked earlier if Oates subscribed to this list: no she
does not. However, should this question arise in the future, I think I
will neither confirm nor deny her presence so that should she wish to
subscribe and remain anonymous, she can.

Randy



Subject:  Re: [Fwd: oates on list]
      Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 14:27:58 -0400 (EDT)
     From:  Richard Ressmyer ressmyrr@wvlc.wvnet.edu
Reply-To:jco@usfca.edu
         To:  Randy Souther Randy Souther
        CC:  jco 

Subject:   RE: [Fwd: oates on list]
      Date:   Fri, 28 Mar 1997 14:22:16 -0800
     From:  Ken Yapkowitz kenny@citysearch.com
Reply-To: jco@usfca.edu
         To:  "'jco@usfca.edu'" jco@usfca.edu


Randy,

I think a good policy regarding mailing lists in general is to treat the
membership list as private data, and to respond to queries about list
membership with a statement of that policy.  I think you should protect
the privacy not only of those who choose to subscribe, but of those do
not choose to subscribe.

Those who want to make their membership known, will send mail to the
public list.   Those who want to lurk, will lurk (I spend most of my
time lurking because, quite frankly, my degrees are technical, and I'm
not in a league with those who contribute to the critical discussions.
But I enjoy and learn much from reading them!).

But the fact of whether Ms. Oates, or my old English professor, or my
next door neighbor is or is not on the mailing list should not be
revealed by anyone but themselves!

                            ---==>Ken
>-----Original Message-----
>From:  Richard Ressmyer [SMTP:ressmyrr@wvlc.wvnet.edu]
>Sent:  Friday, 28 March, 1997 10:28 AM
>To:    Ken Yapkowitz
>Cc:    jco
>Subject:       Re: [Fwd: oates on list]
>
>Randy,
>
>Honest answer; sound policy for the future.
>
>Thank you,
>
>Richard in Charleston, WV
>



Subject:   Re: [Fwd: oates on list]
         Date:  Fri, 28 Mar 1997 17:23:40 -0800
        From: Randy Souther 
   Reply-To: jco@usfca.edu



Ken Yapkowitz wrote:

> I think a good policy regarding mailing lists in general is to treat the
> membership list as private data, and to respond to queries about list
> membership with a statement of that policy.  I think you should protect
> the privacy not only of those who choose to subscribe, but of those do
> not choose to subscribe.
> 

That sounds about right to me. I'm just dealing with these issues as
they come up, and certainly don't mind free advice.

Randy



Subject: Life After High School
    Date:  Mon, 31 Mar 1997 10:33:47 -0800
   From:  Randy Souther Randy Souther
       To:  jco jco@usfca.edu


"Life After High School" I thought was a very interesting story. In
thinking back over it, I ask myself whose story was it? It is more or
less told from Sunny's perspective, and would seem to be her story, but
even so it "feels" more like Zachary's story. It is like one life is a
metaphor for the other, or is a positive/negative mirror image--Barbara
lives the life of "Sunny" to fulfill the expectations of those around
her, not quite realizing that that is not who she "really" is, and
Zachary tries to live a similarly constructed life, ironically choosing
"Sunny" as the piece that will complete the life he is attempting to
construct. 

Randy

Maintained by Randy Souther
Last updated 3-26-97
Send comments and suggestions to Randy Souther