Interchange Session on Ballard's "The Enormous Space"


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 Start of conference MAIN

 Monday, 9/15/1997

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 Msg #1  Gerald Lucas:
 Good morning, class.

 Msg #2  Kimberly Conner:
 Good morning to you too.

 Msg #3  Scott Holland:
 Monday at 8:00am, "good?"

 Msg #4  Jose Intriago:
 Good Morning, Mr. Lucas

 Msg #5  Markesha Ruth:
 Good morning, Mr.Lucas

 Msg #6  Hayoung Kim:
 Good morning everyone!
 How is everyone this Monday morning? 

 Msg #7  Stacey Smith:
 msg #1  Good morning, everybody!  This is Stacey.

 Msg #8  Dan White:
 Hello. 

 Msg #9  Shannon Royal:
 Good morning to you also Prof. Lucas.

 Msg #10  Saimir Struga:
 Good morning! 

 Msg #11  Rosalba Singh:
 Good morning, I hope you received my E-mail over the weekend.

 Msg #12  Pierre Joseph:
 hello everyone, gosh today is going to be a rough  day....
 pjoseph

 Msg #13  Rachel Lamb:
 Good morning, not by a long shot. 

 Msg #14  Richard Nylen:
 Whoa, this is cool     

 Msg #15  Dan White:
 Fascinating...

 Msg #16  Mathew Zachariah:
 Hello, everyone!
 Did anyone get started on the Essay yet

 Msg #17  Matthew Gallagher:
 How are you doing today?

 Msg #18  Stacey Smith:
  This is really wierd to have a virtual chat room on a class 
 computer.

 Msg #19  Elizabeth Menietti:
 Liza Menietti: Good morning!

 Msg #20  Scott Holland:
 This sounds like a woodpecker convention.

 Msg #21  Hayoung Kim:
 I have used this Daedalus system before and its fun when we start 
 to discuss some interesting topics.

 Msg #22  Stacey Smith:
 Hi there, Mathew.   Yes, I've started thinking about my essay.

 Msg #23  Richard Nylen:
 ok, what to talk about?     

 Msg #24  Scott Holland:
 Stacy, most of the people I speak with in person seem even 
 weirder!

 Msg #25  Shannon Royal:
 I prefer wuz happening instead of goooood morning.

 Msg #26  Mathew Zachariah:
 Hey class, did anyone did any interesting thing over the weekend?

 Msg #27  Richard Nylen:
 Partied!

 Msg #28  Stacey Smith:
 Hey Scott, you spelled my name wrong!!!!!  Stacey

 Msg #29  Richard Nylen:
 btw, spelling shouldn't count

 Msg #30  Dan White:
 I slept.  That is interesting if you're tired enough.

 Msg #31  Rosalba Singh:
 Has anyone decided what they are going to write about for their 
 essay?

 Msg #32  Matthew Gallagher:
 I went to work and studied.

 Msg #33  Hayoung Kim:
 One interesting thing or rather a "systematic thing" I did over 
 the weekend is work.

 Msg #34  Gerald Lucas:
 Class, I would like to discuss the various issues in "The 
 Enormous Space." Anyone may begin.

 Msg #35  Scott Holland:
 Interesting things over the weekend? Yes, nothing I'd broadcast 
 over this electronic gossip column however.

 Msg #36  Richard Nylen:
 uh oh, an ant!

 Msg #37  Pierre Joseph:
 so, how was the weekend for everyone.  ohh since we are so much 
 on movies.  i saw "hhodlum" over the weekend.  it was o.k.---- it 
 can wait till the video store.... pj

 Msg #38  Dan White:
 I want to write about this abandoned tourist trap in Orlando.
 It is a really cool building.

 Msg #39  Kimberly Conner:
 I went to work and studied too.  So much fun....

 Msg #40  Stacey Smith:
 Hey Dan, sounds pretty exciting.......  Stacey

 Msg #41  Rachel Lamb:
 I am not good at the chat room thing 

 Msg #42  Richard Nylen:
 well, we already touched on the fact that this man is completely 
 weird in his actions, so lets start with maybe the fact that he 
 just decided to quit his job, no pre-meditation, just quit     

 Msg #43  Matthew Gallagher:
 Has anyone rented any good movies lately?

 Msg #44  Scott Holland:
 It raises the question: How does one truly have their "own" life? 
 Is it possible?

 Msg #45  Richard Nylen:
 good question scott.... this is true

 Msg #46  Stacey Smith:
 The guy is kind of sad... I feel sorry for him.  He's thrown away 
 his whole life because he cracked under pressure.  I wonder how 
 many other people things like this happen to without anyone 
 noticing????

 Msg #47  Hayoung Kim:
 I personally did not like the story due to its weird or 
 psychologically troubled man.

 Msg #48  Richard Nylen:
 I wrote about that in my journal entry.... can anyone be truely 
 happy?

 Msg #49  Mathew Zachariah:
 I have not a clue to what to write about for the essay.   Can 
 someone give any good suggestions, Please
 

 Msg #50  Gerald Lucas:
 RE: #44: Scott, you make an interesting point. Can you elaborate?

 Msg #51  Sheena Salmon:
 Hello

 Msg #52  Rachel Lamb:
 The gumption he had to go ahead and do something so radical, 
 deserves some sort of admiration.
  

 Msg #53  Rosalba Singh:
 What type of characteristics would you say this man has 
 throughout the Enormous Space?
 I don't think he was just merely insane.

 Msg #54  Pierre Joseph:
 enormous space was something else. i am still trying tomake the 
 connection between the name of the story and the events that took 
 place.  someone tell me what you think.  pj

 Msg #55  Kimberly Conner:
 Why didn't the narrator just order pizza rather than eat people 
 and animals?

 Msg #56  Dan White:
 I thought it was interesting that he treated the whole thing like 
 an experiment.  It was almost like he felt that he was 
 sacrificing himself.

 Msg #57  Stacey Smith:
      Hey anybody.... do you think this could happen in "real 
 life"? I do.

 Msg #58  Dan White:
 It could definitely happen in real life...
 

 Msg #59  Richard Nylen:
 kimberly--- he decided to have no contact with the outside world  
    

 Msg #60  Gerald Lucas:
 RE: #55: Does Kim have a valid point here?

 Msg #61  Saimir Struga:
 I think the question raised is how much can we take.
 

 Msg #62  Elizabeth Menietti:
 I thought the story was very, very strange! The main narrator is 
 a very sick man. I mean, eating pets, eating people, and stuffing 
 a woman in the freezer!

 Msg #63  Markesha Ruth:
 yes she does

 Msg #64  Richard Nylen:
 What's up with the secretary lady

 Msg #65  Kimberly Conner:
 Yes I realize he didn't want any contact with the outside world, 
 but he could have at least ordered about 20 pizzas at once.

 Msg #66  Sheena Salmon:
 The pilgrims had to eat cats and dogs to survive in their new 
 world.
 

 Msg #67  Richard Nylen:
 back to the eating thing, he didn't want to have any contact 
 with the "world", this is true, he could have stocked up at the 
 beginning, but shortly thereafter he burnt all his bank notes ($$
 )

 Msg #68  Rachel Lamb:
 IN "real life" there are already hermits who are afraid to leave 
 the house, so this is just an extreme version of reality.
 

 Msg #69  Dan White:
 I would have started ordering pizzas before resorting to eating 
 the neighbor's pets.  He was willing to allow people from the 
 outside in, why not the pizza man?
 

 Msg #70  Stacey Smith:
 It seems that he had too much time to premeditate this act. 
 Where was his family? Where were his friends?  Is this supposed 
 to say that people with jobs of power have no true support, that 
 they are just shells of real people?

 Msg #71  Gerald Lucas:
 RE: #69: Yes, Dan. At least he could have eaten the pizza guy.

 Msg #72  Mathew Zachariah:
 It was little hard for me to analyse that essay. Has anyone

 Msg #73  Hayoung Kim:
 To have one's true life depends on himself/herself. In my 
 opinion you have a true life if you are happy and active in the 
 society you live in even if you do the same thing everyday.Even 
 though we do act like "ants marching", everyone of us is 
 different in character.

 Msg #74  Saimir Struga:
 I don`t think he premeditated anything.

 Msg #75  Scott Holland:
 Are each of us a product of our society, spoonfed from grade K - 
 12, only to begin to think at a college level. If true, can we 
 unravel our past brianwashing and find our true self?" Did 
 Ballentyne finally find his true self? How do you know he did or 
 did not?

 Msg #76  Kimberly Conner:
 I think the narrator was quite fond of his secretary, this is 
 probably why he never ate her.  Even though he killed her, he was 
 trying to save her from the enormous space.

 Msg #77  Dan White:
 If he had anyone around, he probably would have never gone this 
 far.
 

 Msg #78  Richard Nylen:
 It was once said to me if you like your job, you will never work 
 another day in your life... thus implying that work might be a 
 labor you don't necessarily love

 Msg #79  Shannon Royal:
 Does anyone fully understand HTML.

 Msg #80  Pierre Joseph:
 referring to the question of can anyone be happy in this world.  
 that answer is obvious, yes people can be happy in this world.  
 the character in this story let two chain of events take him 
 over.  the accident and the divorse.

 Msg #81  Mathew Zachariah:
 I believe that this essay was to solemn
 

 Msg #82  Matthew Gallagher:
 If he did have friends this action probably wouldn't have taken 
 place.

 Msg #83  Saimir Struga:
 HTML!*?? What is that?
 

 Msg #84  Elizabeth Menietti:
 For MSG 64:I think the secretary is the one thing from the real 
 world that the main character still accepts and appreciates. 
 Thats why he put her in the freezer instead of eating her!

 Msg #85  Gerald Lucas:
 Is anyone still here?

 Msg #86  Saimir Struga:
 Under pressure everyone of us can become weird to an extent. The 
 story tells us that sometimes we can go too far, so we have to 
 take care of our psychological health the same way as the 
 physical one.

 Msg #87  Saimir Struga:
 Anbody here?

 Msg #88  Rosalba Singh:
 I am
 

 Msg #89  Rosalba Singh:
 What exactly is the point of the Story?

 Msg #90  Saimir Struga:
 Why do you think he did not eat the secretary?
 

 Msg #91  Rosalba Singh:
 Anyone still there?

 Msg #92  Rosalba Singh:
 I think he did like her enough not to eat her, but not enough not 
 to kill her.

 Msg #93  Saimir Struga:
 No, because she had too much make up on and had had too much 
 plastic surgery.

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 End of conference MAIN

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 24 June 1998; 2.0