Database updated (1 Viewer)

Who are you, capt. co? You seem to be a human cross-reference machine. Which is a good thing in my book.

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The problem with cross-referencing these things as I add them is I look for what I think is a unique word or phrase in the manuscript and search the text of all the poetry books to see if it pops up. The problem is, since Mr. Martin felt compelled to RAPE so much of the work in the posthumous volumes, I'm always afraid that I'll miss some, and this is a good example of that.

In this case, looking at the manuscript, if you search for something that seems unique - like "5 decades" - you come up with no match, because the poem was changed in the collection to read "6 decades."

So there may be a few more that are "uncollected" in the database, but were actually collected in the posthumous books. But then the posthumous books are such heavily altered shit that I hardly consider them to be Bukowski books at this point.

You know, not that I feel strongly about it or anything.
 
regarding the manuscipt section:
1985:
'you must remember that each day...' was collected as 'remember this' in sifting...
'the albums' was collected as 'albums' in the night torn mad..'.
'loll' was collected as 'please' in the flash of...
1986:
'the other day I saw a man reading...' was collected as 'Democracy' also in flash...

they have all been "modified", of course, especially the last one was so much better in it's original form.
 
71:
'I met this woman' was collected as 'an unusual woman' in open all night.
75:
'46 and 9/10's' was collected as '$1.25 a gallon' in the flash of...
90:
'defect' was collected as 'have we come to this?' in come on in!

btw, what happened to all the poems that used to be in the 'undated' section?
have they been moved to whatever year they were written? and in that case, how did you find out when they weren't dated?
 
They were moved to specific years based mainly on typewriter comparisons, or using information about when they were originally submitted to publishers.

They won't all be correct, but I'd wager that none are more than a year off one way or another.

typewriters.png
 
1975's 'the big score' was collected as 'on the continent'
in love is a dog from hell.
for once the rewrite is better, maybe because the writer
was still very much alive.
 
1975 manuscripts:
'a goodbye' was collected as 'goodbye, my love'
in the people look like flowers at last

'in this place now' was collected as 'in this city now'
in what matters most...

btw, isn't it a little confusing that the manuscripts collected under a different title also have a 'red dot'?
 
capt.co said:
btw, isn't it a little confusing that the manuscripts collected under a different title also have a 'red dot'?
Click to expand...
They shouldn't be. But that other site, the one with the manuscripts, that list doesn't automatically update when the database is updated. So a lot of those could be corrected in the database, but not reflected on that list.

Also, I might miss some. When you say, "'a goodbye' was collected as 'goodbye, my love' in the people look like flowers at last" it sounds very simple to fix, but the reality is I have to add entries to four different database tables, insert into another, and then update the the table with the original work title to indicate that it is indeed collected. It's the last part I might miss sometimes.

A smart man would take some time to write a script to do all that, but I'm not that smart.

---

For you database nerds out there, there are 11 tables used in the site database, consisting of 55 columns. For comparison, the old database had one table with about 10 columns. So while things are more complex now, they are much (much) better and the results are more reliable and infinitely flexible.

bukdb.png
 
I see. I thought that you would just update information to a certain poem in one place, and then it would automatically apply to all the data about that poem.

are you gonna update the post-1989 poems at some point? I have some manuscripts from 1990-93 (from the net) that are not in the manuscript section, but maybe you already have them.
 
capt.co said:
I see. I thought that you would just update information to a certain poem in one place, and then it would automatically apply to all the data about that poem.
Click to expand...
I have dreams of such a system, yes. But if you think about the relationships between the work itself and the multitude of other things that can be attached to that work (books, magazines, manuscripts, broadsides, forum links, etc.), and the other works it can be directly related to (alternate titles, versions, etc.)...you can see that multiple points of reference are needed.

It all boils down to a WorkID, which is a number assigned to a unique title. But after that you fall down a rabbit hole of related data, most of which isn't easily altered or updated.

The database is unique and I dare say that no one could replicate it - at least not live on a web site - so we kind of have to live with its shortcomings (myself being shortcoming #1).

Though I am always open to improvements. Most of the improvements have been spawned by things people asked for here in the forum.

If you send me the title of the 90-93 manuscripts I can check to see if I have them.
 
completely forgot about this. will try to remember to send them soon.

1978:
'crazy' was collected as 'insanity'
in what matters most is how well you walk...

I had also made some notes that
'game day' from 1974 was collected as 'the fight game'
in night torn mad
and that 'new york in hell' was collected as 'bewitched in new york'
but now I can't find these poems in the manuscript section?!

were they moved/deleted? or am I going crazy? (probably)
 
mjp, and other contributors to this database:
this is fantastic work! Incredible tool for studying and appreciating Buk's work. Thanks.

How does it work? Are all these mss in some private ownership? (yours?) If anyone owns such a ms they can get it added by sending a scan?
 
HugOK said:
[...] How does it work? [...] If anyone owns such a ms they can get it added by sending a scan?
Click to expand...
Hi (Victor) Hug,
the scans of manuscripts have been gathered from wherever they were available through many years.

if you own manuscripts and are willing to share, just scan and post them here. They'll be appreciated.

mjp is a bit behind the schedule concerning including into the database. So, if you're after instant results (praise for your contributions), you may post here directly. Otherwise just send to the Master and wait.
 
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roni said:
mjp is a bit behind the schedule concerning including into the database.
Click to expand...
Well, I was "only" 500 or so manuscripts behind until @Dora dropped over 2,000 new images on me. So I think you can throw the schedule (which is a nice euphemism for absolutely no schedule) out the window.

Having said that, yes, of course everyone is always encouraged to post their manuscripts here. Check the manuscripts page first though. We may already have whatever you're considering posting.

---

The problem with the database is every entry in there requires a manual entry into multiple tables. A really smart guy would build some kind of tool to make the job easier, but life is sometimes too short to be smart. If a manuscript is being added it's worse, since the images have to be normalized so they more or less fit in with what's already there (combined, cropped, adjusted, etc.), and they also have to be added to the manuscripts pages (there are three of them) as well as the database, so that increases the time it takes to make a single entry.

Look at it this way, when I sit down and concentrate strictly on adding manuscripts to the database/site I can do about 5 an hour (and I can't actually sit down to do it, since I work at a standing desk). So to completely finish with everything here in the backlog is going to take roughly 300 hours.

As it is right now I put zero hours into it every week, so I leave you to do the math to figure out how long it will be before the backlog is clear. ;)

There's a reason that institutions pay people to do this shit. It's tedious and miserable work, so no one in their right mind would do it for free. I guess that's where I come in.

(I see that I complained about all of this on the previous page of this thread, so just count this as bonus complaining.)
 
Is there a way to put them in a secure site with strict rules so we could help and not fuck it up??
You know the same way people are trying to find life beyond Mars in a Carl Sagan kind of way
 
mjp said:
adding manuscripts... It's tedious and miserable work, so no one in their right mind would do it for free.
Click to expand...
I can't stop thanking God for you (and some other people here) not being in your right mind.
thanks.gif
a billion, you wonderful lunatic(s)!!!
 
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There might be some doubles, especially with the Los Angeles manuscripts I sent you. You might have more new stuff with the Santa Barbara tapuscripts.
I wish I could help more but, talking of institutions, I´m not even paid to write my dissertation, which is kind of behind schedule as well, ha!
 
I'll fix that.

Funny, the Black Sparrow broadside says:

not to many hangovers
not to many fights with women
not to many flat tires​

which makes it seem like Bukowski didn't know the difference between too and to. But clearly he did know the difference. Though someone at BSP didn't.
 
Come on MJP, it was obviously those lazy, druken pressmen who screwed up, not the editor...He'd never change a word...
 
just discovered that it seems, our database is missing 'THE EARTH ROSE' (1966) aka 'FUCK HATE'.

no-earth-rose-nor-fuck-hate.jpg



and another thing -
THIS can't be the correct date for the manuscript since it appeared in the book in 1990:

poem-wrong-date.jpg
 
roni said:
just discovered that it seems, our database is missing 'THE EARTH ROSE' (1966) aka 'FUCK HATE'.
Click to expand...
What's in that?

and another thing - THIS can't be the correct date for the manuscript since it appeared in the book in 1990:
Click to expand...
Probably a typo for 1984, but it's undated.

Funny, in that poem he talks about typing on the Olympia for 14 years, which is about twice as long as he actually used it. He needs to check the timeline when he types that shit.

I just made some changes to the queries/results on those pages to make use of the the circa dates. There's something else I want to do, but I should probably go to work at some point this morning (and do it there).
 
Lest anyone believe the database is a dead and dusty remnant of the past, I just added 42 new magazine entries, 82 magazine appearances, 36 new titles (none of which appear in collections) and 18 manuscripts. So things are always happening. Have no doubt. I add something to it every few days.

I can't list all those additions for you, because I didn't keep a list. If I was smart I'd figure out a query that could show us the most recent additions in all the different categories, but I'm not, so it's unlikely that we'll ever have that.

I can show you the 36 new titles though:

The Girl Outside Of Strawberry Patch # One - 1975
A Poem To Myself - 1974
Ho Chi Minh - 1967
Propaganda - 1967
Dirge - 1971
The Powerful Way Of Mystery Is Li(k)e A Glad(io)la Bl(oo)***ing - 1961
Primer For Students Of Love - 1961
Till Eulenspiegel And Me - 1961
6x9 - 1961
Milk A Cow And Get Milk - 1976
Nava, And Life - 1975
I Need And I Demand - 1977
After The Party - 1971
I Found This Atomic Stockpile - 1971
Engraving Found Upon The Back Of A Bill Sent To Me By The Southern California Gas Company, Oct. 12th, 1971 - 1971
A Harder Knocker - 1972
Pop Pop Pop - 1972
The Places A Poem Can Take You - 1973
Rip-off - 1976
Directions, Instructions, And Signs To The Indolent, The Bored, And The Insufficient - 1974
Arena - 1966
I'd Like A Mermaid - 1975
Ask The Butterfly - 1976
There Are Demons In All Our Heavens - 1972
The Glass Fly - 1972
Notes Upon Reading The Christian Science Monitor - 1972
The Movie - 1972
He Learned It From Gertie - 1972
There Was Once A Woman Who Put Her Head Into An Oven That I Could Have Kissed With The Most Ultimate Love Possible - 1976
Dim Love Down Low - 1981
The Way - 1978
Upon Our Location - 1986
The Dream, The Dream, The Dream - 1986
Dear Old Dad - 1986
Modern Age Insomnia - 1985
Poem To A Man In Jail - 1972
 
I was pretty sure they were added to the manuscripts page too. That page was updated on May 22nd. But now when I do a count from that page and a count on the manuscripts in the db there's a discrepancy, so I'll update the manuscript pages just to be sure.
 

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