Errors-To: ecto-owner@ns1.rutgers.edu Reply-To: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu Sender: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu From: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu To: ecto-request@ns1.rutgers.edu Bcc: ecto-digest-outbound@ns1.rutgers.edu Subject: ecto #844 ecto, Number 844 Thursday, 4 November 1993 Today's Topics: *-----------------* SF, World FantasyCon, music,etc. anti-SF Today's your birthday friend.... Pulse DIDs nonsexical talk Aimee Mann Tix 11/22 Chicago ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1993 10:17:26 -0600 From: lakrahn@inst.augie.edu (Laurel Krahn) Subject: SF, World FantasyCon, music,etc. Wow. Did I have an incredible weekend!!!! Best of my life, methinks. I was working on the parties committee at the World Fantasy Convention held in Minneapolis, MN this past weekend. A truly wonderful con (all the more wonderful for me 'cuz i got in free, they had free food, so it was a cheap* con for me as a worker... and i didn't mind the work)... Heck, I served munchies to the likes of Harlan Ellison, L Sprague deCamp, Gene Wolfe, Roger Zelazny, etc. etc. etc. If I tried listing the names of all the famous authors, editors, publishers , and artists, this would be a L O N G post. I'm horribly proud because Catherine Crook de Camp tol me it was the best consuite/party she'd ever seen at a con. And she's been to a lot of 'em.... I think it went well. Other folks there: Poul Anderson, Jane Yolen, John Crowley, Lois McMaster Bujold, Terri Windling, Jack Chalker, Jack Cady, Ellen Kushner, Neil Gaiman, etc...... and the usual Mpls area folk. I even went to a party that Neil Gaiman threw. Talked to all sorts of people. I'm a happy person. But anyhow..... I could write volumes on my experience..... like the first time Harlan Ellison and Steve Brust were on a panel together... (it was them and Neil and Theresa Nielson-Hayden...) and how the words flew.... they're both... argumentative, but have respect for each others work. Wonderful. Some clarifications/comments on the last few digests: Joan Vinge is not* married to Vernon Vinge(author of the award winning FIRE UPON THE DEEP).... They were married at one time, but now Joan is married to Jim Frenkel (currently a consulting editor for Tor) and they live in Madison, WI. (they were at WFC.. :)) woj, regarding the first Cats Laughing album..... It's weak. The songs themselves are good, but it was recorded a long time ago and the band has vastly improved since then. Emma's voice has gained much strength over the last few years. I used to not like her voice much, now I love it. Definitely try their secon album "Another Way to Travel"..it's much* stronger. Though again, they've improved since that one. Would be nice if they'd get another album out, but probably not for awhile. They do still do shows around Mpls and those tend to be more acoustic than they used to be. Which is really* cool. In other SF/Music news, Steven Brust has a cd/tape of his own out.. It's nice. I'm used to seeing Steve play at casual music parties, so this is different 'cuz steve tries to really* sing and he has all sorts of folks helping out with backing vocals and instruments.... (including Emma Bull, Lojo Russo, Adam Stemple, Todd Menton, Gary Schulte, dakota dave Hull....) Omnium might have it or else I have another address for it and cats laughing merchandise. Even better news is that the Flash Girls (Emma Bull & Lorraine Garland) album will be out soon. I saw the mock-up liner notes an such. They're just waiting to get hte cd situation squared away. pressed. Methinks happy fans might like the flash girls... female vocals with guitar and/or fiddle. Some songs written by Neil Gaiman. Others by the girls.... an occasional traditional number. Good vocal harmonies. I've rambled enough. - Laurel Krahn - lakrahn@inst.augie.edu - Augustana College Sioux Falls,SD - - "if you need me, me and neil'll be hangin' out with the DREAM KING neil says hi by the way. . ." - Tori Amos ("he hugged me!"-me) :) - ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 4 Nov 93 15:45:55 GMT From: Jeff Dalton Subject: anti-SF So the dreaded Heinlein controversy has reached ecto. Two contradictory attitudes prevail on the net. At least they're fairly prevalent: 1. Don't confuse characters with authors. Views expressed by a character aren't necssaarily those of the author. So you can't blame authors for expressed by characters. This, plus "he makes you think", is the classic defense of Heinlein. Unfortunately for this defense, the statement beginning "So" is a non sequitur. The author produced those characters, so if there's anything wrong with producing characters of that sort, you can certainly blame the author. No claim that the author holds the same views as the characters is involved. Now for the second attitude: 2. Knowing more about the author tells you more about the work. This takes many forms. For instance, the idea that once can find something out about a fictional world by asking the author, or the idea that a work is the expression of the artist's genius (recently said of Solace and Sarah in our very own ecto). People who hold such views shouldn't be able to get away with maintaining (1) as well, but the classic Heinlein defense does exactly that, for it's Heinlein who "makes you think". If he can get the credit, why not the blame as well? However, I actually disagree with (2), for down that road we find people discovering that an author was, say, racist or sexist or read pornography, and then condemning the work as well, which may have no such faults. A number of recent biographies (e.g. of Philip Larkin) have produced such effects. -- jd ======================================================================== From: klaus@inphobos.wupper.de Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1993 07:28:06 Subject: Today's your birthday friend.... i*i*i*i*i*i *************** ***HAPPY******* ********BIRTHDAY*** ******************* **** Anthony Horan **** *********************** -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Anthony Horan Fri November 4 1966 Positive Michael Sullivan Mon November 5 1962 Scorpio Larry Nathanson Fri November 7 1969 Scorpio Jens Brage Sun November 8 1964 Scorpio Rising Lynn Garrett-KirchoffSat November 8 1958 Scorpio Ken Latta Sun November 11 1951 Scorpio Rob Craven Thu November 14 1974 Scorpio Elizabeth W. Warwick Sun November 15 1964 Scorpio Naama Avramzon Mon November 18 1974 Scorpio Jeff Smith Mon November 19 1962 Crash Kevin Bartlett Fri November 21 1952 Scorpio Alan Ezust Fri November 21 1969 Earth Moving Claudia Spix Wed November 23 1960 Schuetze Tommy Persson Wed November 25 1964 Sagittarius Pat Tessitore November 26 Sagittarius Justin Bur Fri November 27 1964 Sagittarius Sue Trowbridge Sun November 27 1966 Skytten -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- _____ Klaus Kluge * klaus@inphobos.wupper.de * I'll be here, I'll be (in) Ecto! ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 4 Nov 93 10:28:17 PST From: kyrlidis@templeton.cchem.berkeley.edu (Angelos Kyrlidis) Subject: Pulse DIDs Hi Bob L writes: >You know how Pulse always has a section of Desert Island >Discs? Why don't we ectophiles, in the month of our birthday, send Pulse >a DID list that has at least one Happy disc. Spread out over a year, that >would turn a few heads there! Been there, done that! :-) It works. I suggested that about two years ago when mine got printed, but either nobody sent theirs in or they didn't print them. I *strongly* recommend that ectophiles try it out!! Angelos ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 4 Nov 93 11:24:37 PST From: stevev@miser.uoregon.edu (Steve VanDevender) Subject: anti-SF Jeff Dalton writes: > So the dreaded Heinlein controversy has reached ecto. > > Two contradictory attitudes prevail on the net. At least they're > fairly prevalent: > > 1. Don't confuse characters with authors. Views expressed by a > character aren't necssaarily those of the author. So you > can't blame authors for expressed by characters. > > This, plus "he makes you think", is the classic defense of Heinlein. > > Unfortunately for this defense, the statement beginning "So" > is a non sequitur. The author produced those characters, so > if there's anything wrong with producing characters of that > sort, you can certainly blame the author. No claim that the > author holds the same views as the characters is involved. So you're suggesting that it's wrong to have racist or sexist characters in a work of fiction? I don't agree with that at all. > Now for the second attitude: > > 2. Knowing more about the author tells you more about the work. > This takes many forms. For instance, the idea that once can > find something out about a fictional world by asking the author, > or the idea that a work is the expression of the artist's > genius (recently said of Solace and Sarah in our very own ecto). > > People who hold such views shouldn't be able to get away with > maintaining (1) as well, but the classic Heinlein defense does > exactly that, for it's Heinlein who "makes you think". If he > can get the credit, why not the blame as well? > > However, I actually disagree with (2), for down that road we find > people discovering that an author was, say, racist or sexist or read > pornography, and then condemning the work as well, which may have no > such faults. A number of recent biographies (e.g. of Philip Larkin) > have produced such effects. I will say that I like Heinlein's fiction, in general. I don't always agree with him, but he was intentionally provocative -- he was not trying to avoid offending people. I agree with many of the notions that he and his characters expressed, mostly the ones about thinking for yourself and taking responsibility for your actions. I think in some ways his characters expressed the racism and sexism of the times in which Heinlein's books were written, but in other ways they were not racist or sexist, just not "politically correct" -- many of his female characters, who were almost invariably assertive and intelligent, chose non-feminist pursuits like getting married and having children, or non-feminist actions like avoiding disagreements with their husbands in public. Perhaps now these views are unfashionable; I think it is up to the reader to decide whether he wants to agree with Heinlein or not, and not up to someone else to decide that Heinlein is unsuitable for reading because his opinions are not well-accepted. I think that some authors are separable from the characters in their fiction, because those authors are trying to create characters unlike themselves. Other authors create characters based on themselves or the people around them, and those characters may very well be stand-ins for an author in his work of fiction. I think that Heinlein is frequently an author of the latter type; given what I know of his personal opinions, there are obviously many characters in his works that are mouthpieces for them. No matter which type an author is, though, I think that he should not be judged by the opinions expressed in his fiction and that his fiction should not be judged by his opinions. ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 4 Nov 93 11:49:19 PST From: Neal R. Copperman Subject: nonsexical talk What kind of bugs me about changing the language to make it less sexist, is that it is a huge project. No one really wants to tackle this huge project (or if they do, very few will accept it), so we get these little proposed band aids. Jessica pointed out humyn, but what about female, does that word disappear, or do we just stick in a y whenever a word is male oriented. But the thing that I like least about it, is it is completely ineffective in terms of spoken language. womyn, firemyn, humyn, sound just like women, firemen, humen, so what have you accomplished. I do like the idea of creating nonsex (not nonsense) words, but haven't found an approach I like (though I am always fond of turning things into -rons rather than -ers - waitron, fightron, mothron). I also like a nonsex (and thus far nonexistant, at least in terms of acceptance again) pronoun, which seems far more philosophycally(?) important than womyn. I always thought the best campaign you could make for one of those is to pick one that works well, and convince major authors, producers, and musicians that it was a good idea. If it started appearing in popular culture, it would start to catch on, regardless of whether congress or Webster or anyone else agreed with the idea. Of course, while I think the idea is noble, you have to keep taking it further, to make language non-racist as well. And when you are all done with that, it seems to me that so much of the descriptive quality of language is lost (and much humour, as we get all PC (sorry bout that) jokes). Stevev says: >>It is important to understand how people actually use language rather than try >>to force everyone to use it the same way, But it's only through these kinds of changes, or suggestions of change, that many people think about the nature of language. There are plenty of people who never give it a moments thought, and even if the proposed changes aren't accepted and the effort to force a use of language is attacked, it still resulted in people thinking about the language itself. However, I too am opposed to "textual revisionism". Our interpretations and value of a work can change over the years, but the work itself shouldn't be changing (although it seems fair to change and paraphrase into a different work, as long as it is acknowledged as such). We certainly don't want to remove the existance of slaves in older books, just because we now find the practice abhorant. But you have to admit that textual revisionism can certainly be used to make a point and draw attention to things. I think lenght has definitely eclipsed content by now, so I should stop. Neal ======================================================================== From: dcwalter@tomservo.b23b.ingr.com (Christian Walters) Subject: re: anti-SF Date: Thu, 4 Nov 93 14:29:17 CST Quoth Steve VanDevender: > > Jeff Dalton writes: > > > > Unfortunately for this defense, the statement beginning "So" > > is a non sequitur. The author produced those characters, so > > if there's anything wrong with producing characters of that > > sort, you can certainly blame the author. No claim that the > > author holds the same views as the characters is involved. > > So you're suggesting that it's wrong to have racist or sexist > characters in a work of fiction? I don't agree with that at all. Good lord. Me neither. Boy, I guess I should read these posts more closely to catch some of this attitude. So some of Heinlein's characters are offensive to some people. Doesn't that make them more realistic? Why in hell would you want to read a book where everyone did or said only things that were inoffensive or politically correct? That would be as much fun as reading a transcript of the Republican National Convention. And this crap about a work of fiction being a reflection of the author. Man. That's a pretty pre-Witch Hunt attitude. And obviously the people who think that have never tried to write fiction. Take me, for example. I'm a tall caucasian male agnostic. So I cannot write a story about what life would be like as a short female Oriental jew? Granted, I would have to research it thoroughly :) So you don't like the attitudes of some of the characters. C'est la vie. Boy, it would be exciting to read about characters just like you, eh? Ptui. But if a character says something that you hate, that undermines everything you believe, that really gets your blood boiling... well, isn't that a mark of a well-developed character? Why would you get upset about an unbelievable character? I haven't read much Heinlein, but I do like him. Not for the "he makes you think" thing, because you should be doing THAT anyway :) But I think his use of the language is masterful, and his stories have this air of originality about them. I rarely identify with his characters, but that doesn't matter. I don't need to bond with them to be interested in them. If you don't like Heinlein, fine. It's not like there is a dearth of science fiction. :) But this attitude that I see pervading the net is the same attitude I see in the book burner-types around here. (I'm in Alabama... we have PLENTY of book-burner types.) Okay.. sorry.. I'll hop off the soapbox :) -- Christian Walters * "If we all act responsibly, the world will become dcwalter@ingr.com * fresh and pure and can continue killing us with Intergraph Corporation * earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and Huntsville, AL * volcanic eruptions." - James Lileks ======================================================================== From: guetzlaf@gravity.cray.com (Cathy Guetzlaff) Subject: Re: nonsexical talk Date: Thu, 4 Nov 93 14:45:03 CST I thought I'd throw in another opinion on this nonsexist language stuff. Neal comments: >What kind of bugs me about changing the language to make it less sexist, is >that it is a huge project. No one really wants to tackle this huge project >(or if they do, very few will accept it), so we get these little proposed >band aids. Jessica pointed out humyn, but what about female, does that word >disappear, or do we just stick in a y whenever a word is male oriented. I've never liked using a 'y' to spell woman, seems just too contrived. But I also won't use the word 'policeman', instead choosing 'police officer'. Fireman? Nope, fire fighter. Mailman? Letter carrier, postal worker. There *are* alternatives that don't butcher spelling and are much more inclusive. *I* know that 'policeman' is supposed to be a generic term that includes both men and women, but I wonder if my 3 year old niece can understand that? If she always hears 'policeman' she may assume that only boys can grow up to be cops. Making our language less sexist may not be as daunting a task as it first appears. Look at it as an exercise in creativity! It really becomes second nature after awhile, using inclusive terms. But then, hey, I'm one of those radical lesbian feminists so I'm *supposed* to advocate for gender-neutral language, it's part of our mandate, er, womandate, er, persondate, yeah that's it! ;-) -- Cathy Guetzlaff Cray Research, Inc. guetzlaf@cray.com ======================================================================== Date: 04 Nov 93 15:50:47 EST From: Mike Mendelson Subject: Aimee Mann Tix 11/22 Chicago I am (very reluctantly :-( ) selling my Aimee Mann tickets for Monday night November 22, 1993, at the Park West Theatre in Chicago. This is a great venue and a terrific artist (she used to head up Til Tuesday). These tickets -- there are 2 of them -- can be yours at the incredibly low price of $12 a piece. I would like to sell them as a set, even though seating is not reserved. Note that this is a very good price because it does not include any bullshit charges from TicketMaster. If you bought them through TicketMaster you'd pay at least $15 per. I am willing to mail these to anywhere in the U.S./Canada. :-) I'll pay postage. Please send me email or call me. Email: mjm@zylab.mhs.compuserve.com Phone: 708-332-1821 First person I hear from gets them. Thanks. I would go if I could. If anyone has a list of her other concert dates for this tour, I would appreciate if you could email me a copy. Maybe I can catch her somewhere else on the tour. -mjm (Mike Mendelson) ======================================================================== Subject: Re: anti-SF Date: Thu, 04 Nov 93 16:06:15 -0500 From: jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu As near as I can tell, Steve V sez (to Jeff Dalton): >> So you're suggesting that it's wrong to have racist or sexist >> characters in a work of fiction? I don't agree with that at all. And Christian adds: >Good lord. Me neither. Boy, I guess I should read these posts more >closely to catch some of this attitude. Yes, please do read a bit closer... The complaints, particularly wrt SiaSL but also some of Heinlein's other works, were not that he used racist or sexist characters, but rather that all of his characters shared this personality traits. This does nothing but lend credence to the idea that Heinlein was using these characters as a set of mouthpieces for his ideology. I don't remember when I first started becoming disillusioned with RAH; whether it was before or after I read _Grumbles from the Grave_. I don't think Heinlein ever wanted what he was doing to be considered "literature" or worthwhile except as a form of propaganda. His juvenile series, in particularly, was carefully crafted to turn kids into miniature RAHs. There are pros and cons to this, which may or may not be worthy of discussion. I went through a period during my freshman year of college when I read virtually everything Heinlein had published in book form. I'm not sure what brought on the binge. But at this point, the only book of his I have any interest in at all is _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ (one of my favorite novels, I'll admit). >So some of Heinlein's >characters are offensive to some people. Doesn't that make them more >realistic? The problem, I think, is that *so many* of his characters, ones we are *supposed* to like or respect, share traits that many of his readers find objectionable. I have a similar problem with the fiction of David Leavitt (to briefly go back to the "gay characters" thread...;-). I've read two novels and two volumes of short stories by the man, and I doubt I'll ever read anything else of his. He's good with English. He can explain what a character's motivations are. And I even associate closely with some of his characters. BUT all of his characters are the same. They're just too damned similar from story to story, book to book. It gets very tired *very* fast. >And this crap about a work of fiction being a reflection of the >author. To deny that a piece of art contains any reflection of the artist who created it is patently absurd. >Take me, for example. I'm a tall caucasian male agnostic. So I cannot >write a story about what life would be like as a short female Oriental >jew? Granted, I would have to research it thoroughly :) And even after "research" you still might not pull it off; some might argue that it's impossible for a tall, white male agnostic to grok existance as a short female Oriental jew. In addition to that, I don't think Heinlein was a stellar writer. A great *storyteller*, to be sure. But not a great writer. >But I think his use of the language is masterful Oh, *please*! His use of the language was in no way masterful. He's got a reasonably good vocabulary, but he can't put the words together in interesting ways. For a masterful use of language, look at Delaney. Or Ryman. Or Peter Carey. Or another book just recently mentioned here, Pat Conroy's _The Prince of Tides_. That book reads like prose poetry; the sheer beatufy of the juxtaposition of the words chosen takes your breath away. Heinlein could never dream of doing that. The idea that anybody here has promoted anything akin to book burning is ridiculous. "Does anybody here dislike Heinlein as much as I do?" is a far cry from, "I hate Heinlein so let's make sure nobody else can read his books either." Jeff (who doesn't really mean this as a flame, but does feel that this thread is going downhill *very* quickly and wishes people wouldn't insist on finding so much 'attitude' in other peoples' posts) ======================================================================== The ecto archives are on hardees.rutgers.edu in ~ftp/pub/hr. There is an INDEX file explaining what is where. Feel free to send me things you'd like to have added. -- jessica (jessica@ns1.rutgers.edu)