Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group
Saturday 08-18-2001 5:00 P.M. EDT
Tennyson/Maureen
Here Begin The A.F.H. postings
[Editor’s Note: Following post is a continuation from posts made before the 8-16-2001 Discussion. See log from 08-16-2001]
Saturday, August 18th we’ll continue chatting about “Back To the Future (History)” or maybe, forgive me, “Herstory.”
I got to thinking about the title: To Sail Beyond the Sunset.
Aside from an obvious theme of resurrection of Maureen, the photo of Venus borne on the cover, why?
Long quotation coming up here …
ULYSSES, Alfred Lord Tennyson
“It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
“I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
“I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
“This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle–
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
“There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me–
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads–you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. ”
Uh-huh … nice sentiment. Who’s speaking? The old red-haired fox himself.
Why is Maureen the first person narrator? Forgive me, but isn’t she “the old red-haired fox” herself?
I think I’d like to plan around with this silly notion for perhaps the first hour Saturday. Why, exactly, did Heinlein pick such a title out of such a poem about such a magnificent character? Are there many marked similarities between the two? If so, why?
a little fun, perhaps, about where RAH may have been headed in the “World As Myth” had it continued …
—
David M. Silver
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
–Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29, (1907-88)
Lt.(jg) USN R’td
“David M. Silver” wrote:
>
>I think I’d like to plan around with this silly notion for perhaps the first
>hour Saturday. Why, exactly, did Heinlein pick such a title out of such a poem
>about such a magnificent character? Are there many marked similarities between
>the two? If so, why?
David, I see many lines in this poem that would have resonated strongly with Maureen and, indeed, many of the Howards. Here are some ( I have taken out some weird symbols that popped up);
“I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone;”
The eternal burden of a long lifer…more joy and more sorrow. Some Maureen faces with her family, in the later part of her life, before the rescue, she is alone and again when she is imprisoned.
“Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;”
This could refer to her involvement with the Harriman Corporation; of vital importance as we discover.
“I am a part of all that I have met;”
Her personality is, to a great degree, formed by those she loved; her father, Twain, even Brian.
“How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains:”
She experiences the drag of her years at several points, even as Lazarus does at the start of TEFL. She doesn’t want to be an old woman, incapable of bearing new life and therefore useless in her society of long lifers, discarded by her husband for a more youthful version of her.
“And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star”
She does seek knowledge, signing up for as many university courses as she can, a chance to study that was not available to her in her youth and that family commitments would have made difficult in middle age.
“Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,”
She takes on new duties as rejuvenator and spy.
“Come, my friends,
Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”
Boondock…..
“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. ”
Her motto for life.
I do like Tennyson….L M Montgomery, not Heinlein, introduced me to his poetry but finding that Heinlein liked it, as well as many other of my favourite poets, was a bonus as I could spot the references in his books.
Jane
Go To Postings
Here Begins The Discussion Log
You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group chat.”
AGplusone: Hi, Dave
DavidWrightSr: Hi made it.
AGplusone: wb to the magic world of chat rooms …
maikoshT has entered the room.
DavidWrightSr: Good I got both of my alter egos in.
DavidWrightSr: S’Ok. I’m going to have to miss first part of discussion. My wife needs me to
DavidWrightSr: take her shopping for a bit.
AGplusone: good. I actually enjoy shopping with my wife. Have for years.
AGplusone: Of course she understands not to take me anywhere near a delicatessen counter
DavidWrightSr: Keep the log in case both maikosht or my regular sign on leaves unexpectedly
AGplusone: I will. Dave. Come back when you can.
DavidWrightSr: I have two computers going, but both are dependant on a single dialup
DavidWrightSr: so if the line drops. both are down.
AGplusone: Any chance you might get to the Con in atlanta being held the labor day weekend?
AGplusone: Called DragoonerCon, or DragonCon or some such
DavidWrightSr: I do both because my regular sign on computer sometimes goes crazy on the screen
DavidWrightSr: and I can see it
DavidWrightSr: I don’t know. Faint possibility, but I doubt it.
AGplusone: I’m about to set up an ethernet now that I’ve got a router installed so I can do the same
AGplusone: hook up my wife’s laptop
DavidWrightSr: I’d love to have DSL, but neither it nor cable access is available where I live
AGplusone: That’s a shame. It will be soon. How do you hook up two at the same time with a dial-up?
DavidWrightSr: cable is supposed to be here sometime soon, but I haven’t heard very good
DavidWrightSr: things about it.
AGplusone: Buy two accounts?
DavidWrightSr: Windows 98 has a feature which allows the dialing computer to serve as a
DavidWrightSr: local tie-in to any other windows 98 computer on the same network
AGplusone: and so you echo onto the other?
DavidWrightSr: It works just like a router as far as the second computer is concerned
AGplusone: What does Windows call the network you set up? A LAN?
AGplusone: I see
DavidWrightSr: Yes.
AGplusone: okay, using the VirtualPC it sets up a quasi-LAN within my computer.
DavidWrightSr: It sets up its own IP addressing which it hands out to any one on the lan
DavidWrightSr: Dave. I’ve got to run. I’ll be back as soon as I can.
AGplusone: I haven’t download … see you.
KultsiKN has entered the room.
KultsiKN: Good evening, all!
AGplusone: Welcome Finlandia!
KultsiKN: A fine piece of music…
AGplusone: How close was I on that A-S chronicle translation?
AGplusone: I have a copy by von Karajan with Berlin Orch
KultsiKN: You did it better than I ever could.
AGplusone: But I’d read it before … for fun!
AGplusone: Altho I’m not sure it was the Worchester version
AGplusone: David Wright is off helping his wife shop. Be back later.
KultsiKN: I did understand some because of my knowledge of Swedish & German.
DJedPar has entered the room.
AGplusone: Exactly. In school we had a gloss that noted where cognates existed in Old N and Old HG or LG
KultsiKN: BTW – what’s kunnynge?
AGplusone: Hi, Denis. Met Kultsi …
DJedPar: Yes. Hi Kultsi, David, all
KultsiKN: Hello, Denis!
AGplusone: I’m afraid to guess. I’d think of one thing but say cunning first.
AGplusone: In the Wif of Bath’s tale it’s quiente (sp?) a French word
KultsiKN: I asked because ‘kuningas’ is ‘king’ in Finnish.
AGplusone: Cyning in AS
AGplusone: which shortens to Cyng by the time of that passage, thence to King
KultsiKN: Swedish (short form) for ‘king’ is ‘kung’
AGplusone: Hm … we’re talking about a passage in late A-S that Dave Wright put up on AFH Denis
AGplusone: I tried my level best to translate it.
AGplusone: The one about the battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066
DJedPar: Glad to see you included the chat between both D’s in the log.
AGplusone: The early one?
AGplusone: About the “old days” when we were both sorta younger?
DJedPar: Yes. Indeed.
AGplusone: Fun to reminisce
DJedPar: Always. At our age.
AGplusone: Best part of being ‘mature’ …
SAcademy has entered the room.
DJedPar: Hi Ginny.
KultsiKN: Hello, Ginny.
SAcademy: Hello Denis.
AGplusone: g’day, Miss (er, Mrs.) Virginia 🙂
SAcademy: Hi, Kultsi.
SAcademy: Hello, David
AGplusone: Do you know that in Spanish you never go wrong addressing a lady as señorita
SAcademy: Did I miss anyone?
AGplusone: David Wright is off helping his wife shop. He’ll be back soon.
AGplusone: We just started.
AGplusone: Jane and Bill will be by second hour they said
AGplusone: And Ron Harrison said he’d drop in …
SAcademy: Quite the family party
KultsiKN: So Jane’s going to attend after all.
KultsiKN: Good.
AGplusone: So what about my theory that Maureen is really intended to be Tennyson’s Ulysses? Anyone agree?
AGplusone: Or am I totally off-the-wall again?
KultsiKN: Jane made some very good points for.
DJedPar: I’m not all that familiar with Tennyson.
AGplusone: Beautiful poem …
KultsiKN: Neither am I.
AGplusone: I posted it on AFH
DJedPar: Will look into it.
AGplusone: old, old Useless … all his buddies are long retired … Telemachus is ruling now …
KultsiKN: I can’t really get the hang of poetry in English.
AGplusone: they feel useless … so he calls them together and they get a ship and go on one final adventure
DJedPar: I`m more into Prévert and some of the other Frenchies.
AGplusone: ‘to sail beyond the sunset’ out past Gibralter’s pilars …
SAcademy: EVer done that?
DJedPar: I love that title.
KultsiKN: To drop over the edge of the world.
Dehede03 has entered the room.
Dehede03: howdy, folks
AGplusone: No, but I’ve thought about doing it … how come Star doesn’t show up on Venice beach and invite me to
SAcademy: Hello, Ron
KultsiKN: Hi, Ron!
AGplusone: some room in a dive nearby to meet a fat lawyer with a blunderbus
Dehede03: Hi, Ginny and all
AGplusone: I keep hoping to see a personal address to Heros
AGplusone: -ed
AGplusone: oes
DJedPar: A blunderbus?
SAcademy: Welll there are a lot of dolphins there
AGplusone: Well, horse pistols are hard to find in Venice
Dehede03: Hey, Dave. Some of us get invited and some of us don’t
AGplusone: OTOH I know where there’s a blunderbus
Dehede03: Yes, but you have to be in the in-crowd
Dehede03: lol
DJedPar: Where…. where?
AGplusone: And it does tie in to the Burrough’s irrelevancy buses that come by every so often.
KultsiKN: Ah… Hope they open a service this way, too.
AGplusone: They fixed my broken nose … it’s sorta straight now, so I supposed I don’t qualify and the scar can
AGplusone: hardly be seen.
SAcademy: Are we writing fiction tonight?
Dehede03: I am
DJedPar: Maybe…
AGplusone: Setting Maureen up in the Ulysses position augered well for a very interesting World as Myth series ..
AGplusone: that might have been written had there been time and space enough
Dehede03: brb
Dehede03: back
AGplusone: I’d imagine Doctor Johnson would have done well as Nestor as well.
AGplusone: Then Woody could revert to his proper role, as Telemachus
SAcademy: Anyone know what Telemachus means?
Dehede03: No, I would love to learn
DJedPar: No.
AGplusone: No, I don’t.
SAcademy: Neither do I . Will have to dig out the Aeneid to find out.
AGplusone: Oh, God, no! Names within names ….
DJedPar: Oooh that hurted.
AGplusone: Didn’t recall Telemachus in Aeneid, do you mean the Odyssey?
Dehede03: My heroes have always been Odysseus and Athene
SAcademy: No, I never studied Greek
Dehede03: I have barely touched Latin
AGplusone: Never did either. Read a lovely translation of the Odyssey I recommend however.
AGplusone: Really good one.
SAcademy: The MIlton one?
SAcademy: Milton
DJedPar: Did Milton do a bit on the Odyssey?
SAcademy: I think so.
DJedPar: I can imagine it.
AGplusone: I can’t put my hand on my copy. Translator I refer to is either Graves (not the one who did the I, Cla
AGplusone: dius, but another one.] issued about 1964
KultsiKN: Telemachus is the Latinazation of Telemachos; son of Odysseus and Penelope
AGplusone: or a fellow named Fitzgerald … can’t remember which one it is.
SAcademy: Oh, I was finished with school by that time so I didn’t learn about that one.
AGplusone: I have the one by D … can’t recall his name right now (senior moment) the poet critic of the sixteen
Dehede03: Folks, I apologise but I am feeling ill and headed for my bed. Bye
AGplusone: th century.
Dehede03 has left the room.
AGplusone: I’m sorry ron
AGplusone: tele means what in greek?
KultsiKN: remote, I guess.
DJedPar: Carry
SAcademy: Don’t know.
AGplusone: looking
AGplusone: “far off”
AGplusone: maybe ‘machos’ means “son”?
KultsiKN: Wasn’t he born after Odysseus left?
AGplusone: ‘macho’ in Latin of course, means “masculine”
AGplusone: masculus, -i
AGplusone: a strong virile man
KultsiKN: Merriam-Webster only has the Spanish etyma
DJedPar: tele = end, as in to the end.
DJedPar: Operating at a distance or far away
AGplusone: I’m looking at Simon & Schuster’s Webster’s New World, 2d ed ©1984 College ed.
DJedPar: from Telos in greek
AGplusone: Sending my daughter to college had one benefit … replaced my old dictionary with a good one.
DJedPar: Tail…. were back to Maureen.!
DenvToday has entered the room.
DenvToday: Good afternoon everybody.
AGplusone: In Maureen many people see someone who is more than just “irregular” … was there a classic novel
DJedPar: The best source for Greek and Latin derivatives is a medical dict.
AGplusone: about an “irregular” lady to whom that may refer? Hi, Ron. Welcome
DenvToday: Thanks Dave.
AGplusone: Fanny Hill, maybe, or someone else with that sort of title. Moll Flanders?
DenvToday: Or even Myra Breckenridge. lol
AGplusone: reason I ask is rarely do I see an unfiled serial number if I look hard enough in the later RAH
AGplusone: or to put it another way, the allusions are always rife
AGplusone: Flanders was one lady who really overcame the adversities of her society …
AGplusone: as Maureen does, whether she’s fourteen or one hundred plus
DenvToday: Good point.
AGplusone: She always found a way to put her mind to doing what she wanted to do, eventually, no matter what her
AGplusone: father, her mother, her husband, her society, told her she should do.
AGplusone: The Gods were against Ulysses
AGplusone: but he got home
DenvToday: Yes, he did.
AGplusone: Is it fair to say possibly the parallelism is intended deliberately by RAH in writing Maureen’s tale
AGplusone: or is that too much a stretch.
AGplusone: What are the arguments against it?
DenvToday: No, not too much of a stretch.
DenvToday: But…
AGplusone: but me lots of buts
AGplusone: as my mother never said
AGplusone: “But me no buts … ” old saying of hers.
DenvToday: I’ve always felt that RAH was referring to himself in the poem Ulysses…as well as to his characters.
AGplusone: Do you think it possible Maureen is more like RAH than other characters. He seems to have put a lot of
DenvToday: “Old age hath yet his honor and his toil…”
AGplusone: his childhood, the wagon rides with the doctor grandfather, etc., into her.
DJedPar: I donno Denv, that doesn’t sound right, or Dave.
AGplusone: Did Alva introduce Robert to Twain’s writings anyway, he couldn’t have introduced him personally. MT
AGplusone: died the year RAH was born?
AGplusone: We know Robert played chess, as did Woody, but does anyone remember if Maureen did too?
SAcademy: 1907
AGplusone: Possibly taught by her father?
SAcademy: It was 7-7-07
DenvToday: Was Maureen modeled after RAH’s mother in any way?
AGplusone: I’ve always wondered that too. We know very little about his mother.
AGplusone: Bam Lyle
SAcademy: Noot at all. My motherinlaw was a very straight laced old lady.
DJedPar: Died when?
AGplusone: More like the former Miss Pfeiffer?
SAcademy: Robert always said that she never let her fingers know what her thumbs were doing.
DenvToday: rofl Great line!
AGplusone: yes
AGplusone: almost as good as Tom Swift and His Electric Grandmother
SAcademy: Didn’t you read that as a boy? I did.
DenvToday: It is the ultimate irony that RAH had a reputation for sexism, when he was extolling independent…
DenvToday: …competent women before most other writers.
AGplusone: Did Robert like Maureen O’Hara movies? And what color was Maureen O’Sullivan’s hair IRL. All I’ve ever
AGplusone: seen are black and white photos.
SAcademy: Not that i know of.
AGplusone: and everyone always forgets that Puddin’s real name is Maureen …
SAcademy: I forget it too. Accident, maybe.
DenvToday: I think many critics didn’t like that RAH’s women characters could be the equal (or usually the…
DenvToday: …superior) of men without disliking men.
AGplusone: And usually led men around by their noses …
AGplusone: viewed one way
SAcademy: Robert always deferred to women. I can’t see why they think he’s sexist.
DenvToday: Yes. But they were always aware of and considerate of the feelings of “the poor dears.”
DenvToday: I can’t either.
DJedPar: He wasn’t in any sense. Was he. Ginny?
AGplusone: Robert’s writings were prominent. In the 60s it became a shooting gallery to attack male writers who
SAcademy: No, not rteally, Maybe they didn’t like to be helped into cars? I don’t know
DenvToday: I think he got that undeserved reputation from Stranger. Jubal would yell “Front” and one of the…
AGplusone: presumed to write female characters outside feminist accepted ‘dogma’
DenvToday: …girls would appear. Never mind that they were supremely competent.
AGplusone: And Deety and the rest never fit into the ‘dogma’ of some
AGplusone: too sexy and liked men too much
DenvToday: Exactly Dave.
SAcademy: Me, I get angry when a taxi driver (male) doesn’t hold the door for me.
AGplusone: Now if he’s written a man-hating woman character, they’d have left him alone.
DenvToday: Taxi drivers, be warned! lol
AGplusone: I get angry when someone calls me ‘dude’
SAcademy: Really?
SAcademy: Have to remember that one.
DJedPar: I wonder if Jane likes being a “Dudette”?
AGplusone: oh yeah … I’m “Mr.” to you until I tell you otherwise.
AGplusone: I always thought it was dudess
SAcademy: Okay, Mr. Silver it will be from now on.
AGplusone: all you you are ‘otherwise’
AGplusone: of yo
AGplusone: all of you … knew I could get it right
DenvToday: Well-done
SAcademy: Fingers twisted?
AGplusone: No, second beer
AGplusone: been a long day already
SAcademy: That alcohol stuff, it will get you every time!
DJedPar: We forgive you, monsieur.
AGplusone: It does, isn’t it great!
AGplusone: Two beers and I’ll smile at everyone
SAcademy: Dunno. Never touch it myself. Or only rarely.
KultsiKN: K, I go and open that Red.
AGplusone: beer is the breakfast of all growing teenage boys ….
SAcademy: That is actually true, I don’t drink alone.
AGplusone: and you were right, Ginny. white wine doesn’t give me hangovers
DJedPar: You never did drink much, did you, Ginny?
AGplusone: [teenage boys wish it so, anyway]
SAcademy: Oh, good.
DenvToday: I never thought of it until now, but alcohol doesn’t appear very often in RAH’s works.
SAcademy: No, Denis. only at sea. Then I am a two fisted drinker.
AGplusone: No, it doesn’t. We drank a Manhattan in his honor tho, on 7-7-00 when we had the meeting out here of
DJedPar: I have a hard time visualizing that. OK.
SAcademy: Robert liked a predinner drink and a night cap
AGplusone: Steve, Bill, and a couple others.
AGplusone: Bartenders made terrible manhattans. a lost art.
SAcademy: Yes, Denis, two bloody Marys before lunch and several drinks before dinner and wine with dinner.
DenvToday: Dave, Manhattans are chic again.
AGplusone: Then I’ll have to go somewhere chic and tell the bartender how to really make one.
DJedPar: Thanks, Ginny.
SAcademy: Robert used to like brandy manhattans.
AGplusone: I liked Crown Royal manhattans when I drank them
SAcademy: When I was in college I liked Alexanders. But haven’t had one since then. One, perhaps.
AGplusone: take a sugar cube, put it in a glass, two drops of bitters in it, crush it slowly with a pestle ….
DJedPar: Denv… remember Alex in Job tying one one?
AGplusone: Oh, yes …. Swedish whats?
AGplusone: Zombies?
DenvToday: Hmmm…I don’t remember that. It’s been quite a while. I plan on rereading it.
KultsiKN: Yup, zombies.
SAcademy: Urk. don’t like rum drinks at all.
DJedPar: Lots of drinking in Job.
DenvToday: I’ll get my copy….
AGplusone: Let me drag it out … what he was drinking was a classic huge hangover.
DJedPar: The Captain made him do it.
KultsiKN: Indeed: ice cold Akvavit, zombies…
SAcademy: Once I had a French 75 party on shipboard.
DenvToday: silver fizzes on page 46
SAcademy: brandy with champagne to top it off. Highballs.
AGplusone: French 75s are fun … can’t find my copy. I’m between remodel of the bedroom where I keep most of my
AGplusone: books, with wall bookcases …
SAcademy: We warned them, but they tasted like soda pop.
KultsiKN: You take four schnapps, you are not drunk. Top it with one zombie, and you are not yourself anymore.
AGplusone: Funny thing: only time I ever had a 75 was in a place that specialized in Zombies.
DJedPar: I’ve never heard of that. Brandy with Champagne… Not French.
SAcademy: So we ended the evening with the Captain crawling off, and most of us going to bed, so when he couldn’
DenvToday: Bailey’s Irish Cream isn’t liquor, it’s dessert. So it’s impossible to get tipsy from it.
DenvToday: That’s what I keep telling myself.
SAcademy: t find anyone, he pulled the whistle for a fire drill.
AGplusone: Champagne in a wide sherbert glass. Ice cube. Float it. Pour shot of brandy over it. Don’t stir or
DJedPar: Sounds like a scene from Job.
AGplusone: shake. Drink it and drink another.
AGplusone: Then die
DenvToday: rofl
AGplusone: Is that how they made the 75s aboard the ship, Ginny?
DenvToday: The captain crawling off isn’t an image that inspires confidence in me. lol
SAcademy: No, a jigger of brandy and the champagne was added as a mixer.
DJedPar: Sadly, my drinking days went that-a-way a long time ago.
AGplusone: Ah, exactly opposite to the way we did it.
DenvToday: I can’t take the calories anymore.
SAcademy: Well, who can?
AGplusone: A French 75 is a boilermaker with champagne rather than beer.
AGplusone: And brandy rather than any old hooch.
SAcademy: But, at sea, you are constantly balancing against the movement of the ship.
SAcademy: BRB
DJedPar: Beer and Grenadine. A Bird of Paradise.
AGplusone: I have never even seriously thought of drinking aboard a ship. Most of my time at sea was bravely
AGplusone: pretending I was totally unaffected.
DJedPar: Yeah, Right.
AGplusone: and in a troop ship, staying as far as I could for as long as I could away from the ‘heads’
DJedPar: Couldn’t pee over the yardarm?
AGplusone: Going over to Germany we found the brig unlocked and totally unoccupied. We spent most of the voyage
AGplusone: there, hiding from KP details.
AGplusone: It had a separate head. Nice and clean and unoccupied.
AGplusone: Up in the bow.
DenvToday: I admire your initiative.
SAcademy: Lots of motion in the bow.
AGplusone: I was always the ‘backdoor’ type.
AGplusone: If it’s not forbidden, it’s permitted
KultsiKN: Uh-huh. Gives you a nice up-and-down motion. Right, David?
AGplusone: It didn’t smell.
AGplusone: And sergeants didn’t come around with things to keep you busy.
AGplusone: Mostly I estivated.
AGplusone: I was well-rested when we pulled into Bremen
DenvToday: That’s what I do most weekends.
SAcademy: Did you get seasick?
AGplusone: Not if I can help it.
AGplusone: Actually, never, but it’s been close a couple of times. Smell will get me going.
SAcademy: I did twice. Once at the Antarctic Convergence, and again my first day on a ground swell.
AGplusone: Which is why (sorta) I tried hard to stay off KP and away from the heads in the stern that we were
DenvToday: We could do an entire discussion just on the spacesick scenes from the juveniles.
AGplusone: ordered to use. They were slops.
AGplusone: I’m also very lazy and KP is hard work.
DenvToday: No more KP in the military. They hire outside private firms for that now.
SAcademy: Scrubbing out pots?
DJedPar: Really?
AGplusone: too bad … pots and pans are a good job. Cooks don’t harass you. Cleaning a grease trap, OTOH, can
DenvToday: Yes, they hire food services now.
SAcademy: Sure, now that they have cleaning compounds that do all the work?
AGplusone: adjust a recruit’s attitude pretty good.
DJedPar: That’s wretched excess.
AGplusone: peeling potatoes is easy work. those grease traps are hell!
AGplusone: You sometimes find dead rats in ’em
DenvToday: Shhhh…keep that to yourself. Everybody will want one.
AGplusone: ‘kay 🙂
SAcademy: I used to spend my mornings getting dead gophers out of the pool
DenvToday: Do they sell gopher nets?
SAcademy: I think those are rodents, too.
AGplusone: Going to the comissary is fun, on KP, because you steal everything not nailed down and take it back to
AGplusone: the barracks.
SAcademy: Darn beasts were always drowning in th pool.
DenvToday: Too bad chinchillas weren’t attracted to the pool. You could have had a coat eventually.
AGplusone: Privates are different from you and me.
SAcademy: do have a leopaard coat. Useless in Florida.
AGplusone: … but not much.
AGplusone: That’s one thing I enjoyed in Trooper. Juan Rico talking about how everyone stole something and stash
AGplusone: ed it for the long marches. So true.
DenvToday: Fur coats are making a resurgence. Take that, PETA!
DenvToday: Dave, if you’re in the military, it’s not stealing. It’s alternative usage.
SAcademy: I wore it in NY during the worst of the PETA thing.
AGplusone: It’s scrounging.
DJedPar: Every girl and boy in Quebec has a fur coat.
DenvToday: Good for you!
AGplusone: Every unit has to have a ‘scrounger’ essential to the continued existence of the unit.
DenvToday: Did any of the PETA types menace you?
ddavitt has entered the room.
ddavitt: Hi again
DenvToday: Hello Jane
DJedPar: No. Never.
AGplusone: You trade what you steal for stuff the other guy stole … commerce!
ddavitt: Just popping in for a bit before L’s bedtime
ddavitt: Where are we at?
SAcademy: No they didn’t bother me. I withered them with a glance.
DJedPar: Hi Jane.
AGplusone: Hi, Jane. Lots of compliments on your reply post.
SAcademy: Hello again Jane.
DenvToday: lol I’m sure you did.
ddavitt: ? Oh, the Tennyson one?
DenvToday: I wish I’d been there!
ddavitt: Yes, lots of that poem seemed to fit when I looked at it
AGplusone: We once traded an extra D9 caterpillar that came into our hands.
ddavitt: It was only dashed off tho; might be fun to do a closer look
DenvToday: Whenver I go on a diet, I quote Ulysses. “Though much is taken, much abides.”
AGplusone: It would be a nice article to write … hint, hint …
SAcademy: A classmate of R’s had a bucket during WWII, and he had to steal all his batteries etc. He had a real
SAcademy: y well armed ship.
ddavitt: You write it then David; I’d like to read it
AGplusone: Any clue to another book, classic, that has an “irregular” lady in the title?
ddavitt: Fanny or Moll?
DenvToday: Jane Eyre?
AGplusone: I get very suspicious of RAH’s titles and everything else these days.
AGplusone: I thought that too … Eyre is an interesting thought.
ddavitt: Not suspicious; just see them as clues
AGplusone: layered writing is subject to some laughter, but in RAH’s case I’m sure it was deliberate, and fun to
AGplusone: decipher
SAcademy: Well, I supplied some of them. Puppet Masters, Cat, etc.
ddavitt: But can we pin point when he started to do that?
ddavitt: Was it hard Ginny?
ddavitt: I can never think of names for things
DenvToday: I’ve been trying for years to find Torne, Hernia, Lien & Snob in the yellow pages.
DenvToday: No luck so far.
ddavitt: ^lt;g>
SAcademy: Aalways. He’d change them around usually, and then the editor had other ideas.
AGplusone: Hard to say: remember VonRheinschmidt in LifeLine
ddavitt: True..sort of Tuckerism?
AGplusone: sorta … a parody tho
ddavitt: (Can’t you tell I’ve read the latest Journal?)
AGplusone: not intended a compliment by any means
ddavitt: Tho i had heard that term before
ddavitt: Nice how maureen and Ira got to meet maureen
AGplusone: wonder what the real ‘academics’ call it?
ddavitt: Twain I mean
ddavitt: And he wrote something for her
ddavitt: That should be in the Invisible Library
AGplusone: One of the most wonderful passages in RAH. I was amazed.
AGplusone: And delighted.
AGplusone: Was Hal Holbrook kicking around by 1987?
AGplusone: Doing Twain then?
DenvToday: He’s been doing it for 40 years.
AGplusone: Good.
ddavitt: Yes..he did a piece on redheads and cats for her…I’d love to read that…
DenvToday: He was in his twenties when he started. He’s written that he needs less makeup as the years…
DenvToday: …go by.
AGplusone: lol, so true
ddavitt: In one of those parrallel universe libraries of course
AGplusone: Old Useless was described as red-haired, wasn’t he?
DenvToday: Did RAH ever see Holbrook do Twain?
ddavitt: I wonder if the lecture they attended by Twain is documented? 1898 so Heinlein couldn’t have gone but
ddavitt: maybe his parents did?
AGplusone: And do you understand the word “fox” as applied to a woman, in American slang, Jane?
ddavitt: Yes.
ddavitt: Smart, sexy
SAcademy: Robert didn’t see it, but I did down in St. Augustine.
AGplusone: as in ‘stone fox’ …. current in 87
DenvToday: I saw it when I was a student. I thougt it was wonderful.
AGplusone: saw one of the TV portrayals
ddavitt: I don’t know who Holbrook is?
AGplusone: never in person
DenvToday: He’s an American actor, most famous for his “Mark Twain Tonight!” one-man show.
DJedPar: He looks like Mulroney of Canada.
AGplusone: Hal Holbrook is an american actor who give several one man shows portraying MT
ddavitt: Thanks.
AGplusone: gave … they were acclaimed
DenvToday: You might recognize him if you saw him, Jane. He’s been in loads of American movies.
ddavitt: could be
AGplusone: trying to think of one ….
DenvToday: Capricorn One
DJedPar: Sort of an older Jim Carey
ddavitt: I will do a search..bound to be a photo online
DenvToday: Yes, probably.
AGplusone: No, he’s much more serious than Carey … almost a character of quality actor. Not primarily a comedia
AGplusone: n
DJedPar: I agree. But good at imitation.
AGplusone: yes
AGplusone: far, far wider range
AGplusone: could do Thomas More, for example, well
KultsiKN: All the President’s Men
AGplusone: Yes, that was one that showed his range
BPRAL22169 has entered the room.
ddavitt: i have found a page..did lots of films
KultsiKN: First, “The Group” (1966)
AGplusone: Hi, Bill …
BPRAL22169: Yo, all
ddavitt: magnum Force being one
ddavitt: Hi again Bill
DJedPar: Hey, Bill!
BPRAL22169: If we are casting To Sail again, I’m leaving! Yo Denis.
ddavitt: Before that in a TV series
DenvToday: He was in The Firm I remember.
BPRAL22169: Around and around the revolving door.
DenvToday: Midway, another of his films.
ddavitt: Not a casting thread Bil
ddavitt: You can relax
DenvToday: Greetings Bill.
BPRAL22169: *whew!*
BPRAL22169: Yo, Denv.
DJedPar: No, we’re doing Twain.
KultsiKN: Did more than 2000 MT shows…
ddavitt: I have found a photo
BPRAL22169: OK — when we got to casting Wesley Snipes as Lazarus Long, I knew we had lost it!
KultsiKN: URL?
DenvToday: lol
ddavitt: He looks vaguely familiar and a lot like twain
ddavitt: One of those really long ones; not sure I can cut and paste
AGplusone: We did get sorta goofy then, but I’m still proud of my inspiration of Alex Kingston!
AGplusone: ^lt;—-depositing another dime.
BPRAL22169: Alex Kingston would make a very good Maureen.
ddavitt: Won’t let me do it sorry
DJedPar: Ginny, do you think Mo is well picture on the To Sail cover?
AGplusone: I really like her. She is a tough, smart, beautiful, and sensitive lady.
ddavitt: She’s too young..not maternal enough IMO
SAcademy: Botticelli’s Spring
ddavitt: She’s not Mama Maureen there
AGplusone: Wait til next season. She’s PG on ER.
DJedPar: Yes, looks like Mo to me.
KultsiKN: I found a photo as well.
ddavitt: Lovely picture ..but not her.
DJedPar: What inspired Boris to do it?
ddavitt: That is not the tummy of a woman who has given birth many times…
SAcademy: I think that I have some large posters of it here.
AGplusone: lots of exercise.
ddavitt: ^lt;Jane turns a pale shade of green>
AGplusone: Ask Mo
ddavitt: The exercises she does affect a slightly different body part:-)
BPRAL22169: Vallejo usually reproduces a model exactly.
BPRAL22169: including himself, of course.
AGplusone: well, I’m a model of propriety and wasn’t going to mention that ….
ddavitt: You’re raising hopes here amongst the lads, Bill
DJedPar: Jane, the tummy doesn’t go in all pregnancies.
SAcademy: If you will look it up, yo will find it’s exactly Bottlcelli’s Apring.
ddavitt: No, mine is still there
ddavitt: Just rather too much of it
BPRAL22169: “Primavera” it is often titled — the Italian for “Spring”
AGplusone: Did anyone ever get the copy of Freas portrait of RAH, btw?
ddavitt: I don’t have stretch marks tho so i can’t complain. Few million sit ups and it’sll be just like that p
ddavitt: icture
SAcademy: Thaat’s the one.
AGplusone: I could use a few million situps
SAcademy: I have never seen the Freas portrait of Robert.
DenvToday: Neither have I.
DJedPar: A Freas portrait of Robert? Where Ginny?
DenvToday: The early photos of RAH–very movie star.
BPRAL22169: You will be happy to know Lawrence Ferlinghetti drew a portrait of R from a photo
AGplusone: I like them.
BPRAL22169: Rita had lying around.
SAcademy: I don’t know, Denis,. I haven’t seen it.
AGplusone: the movie star ones … he reminds me of how my dad dressed in the fifties or forties
AGplusone: That was stylish then
DJedPar: You still have the Freas painting that Robert gave you?
AGplusone: almost like turtlenecks were in the 60s
BPRAL22169: I think those photos were taken in about 1940. ISTR the photographer was Bill Corson.
DenvToday: Are you saying there was a time when adults dressed like adults? No….
SAcademy: There are a jillion lousy pictures of R. on line,
AGplusone: Aren’t there?
DenvToday: There’s one in particular that reminds me of a young Laurence Olivier.
ddavitt: I found a picture of B’s Birth of Venus which is v similar but it will not let me post an url
AGplusone: The ones I like the best were the ones taken in the 40s and that one you took of him reading the book,
SAcademy: Some Swedish kid has done a bust of him. that is something I’d like to have.
AGplusone: looking down at it.
ddavitt: Has the same hair wrapping round the body and the shell
AGplusone: I have a downloaded copy of one of the Bot version of Venus
BPRAL22169: I thought Whelan was doing the Birth of Venus — because of the clamshell she’s standing on.
SAcademy: I call that cover picture Venus on the half shell.
ddavitt: With cat on the side
AGplusone: LazLor1 pointed me to it. The same lady who found all the what’zname paintings.
DJedPar: Oh, Ginny. I love that picture!
maikoshT: Hi Folks. Just got back and caught up on the log.
DenvToday: Which brings us back to beer. Nothing better than Dos Equis and oysters on the half shell.
ddavitt: Why won’t it let me do URL’s?!
AGplusone: Elizabeth MacLean …
BPRAL22169: Kurt Vonnegut used that as a title in one or two of his books — then Ted Sturgeon wrote it
SAcademy: Men would
AGplusone: put a space between the URL Jane
AGplusone: it will go then.
AGplusone: not as a hyperlink but as text
ddavitt: space where?
SAcademy: Me, I like the Friday cover JudyLynn had done for Friday
AGplusone: anywhere in the middle to tell AIM it’s not a hyperlink…
DJedPar: I love that one too.
ddavitt: http://www.atmos.washington. edu/~pgoodman/birth_venus.jpg
BPRAL22169: Another Whelan, I think — I liked it better than TSBTS
AGplusone: That did it.
ddavitt: But how can you use it now?
DenvToday: Yes, I love that cover.
BPRAL22169: Select, copy, paste into the “Go To” box of your browser.
DJedPar: The Friday cover is very cool. The French used it for their version.
maikoshT: cut and paste into your browser
BPRAL22169: Take out the space.
ddavitt: OK, well that’s a nice one of the Venus
SAcademy: The Germans used the Friday one, too.
ddavitt: And she has a more realistic tum
AGplusone: Yep. that’s it.
BPRAL22169: Did they title theirs “Freitag”?
DJedPar: Yes.
ddavitt: I like the Friday i have where she is leaning against the jump car
BPRAL22169: Figures.
ddavitt: And a cat is at her feet.
ddavitt: She is in a superskin suit.
AGplusone: downloaded
BPRAL22169: That’s a very interesting book, especially when compared to To Sail.
ddavitt: Did Heinlein predict Lycra there I wonder?
AGplusone: Just as flawed and as human as good old reprehensible Hugh
DJedPar: Friday was post-lycra.
ddavitt: Dime in the box!
AGplusone: not a chance
ddavitt: Really? trying to remember my first pair of leggings
ddavitt: I love the person who invented them…
AGplusone: girding loins for continuation of the Hugh wars ….
ddavitt: No, I won’t and you can’t make me!
SAcademy: Thunder in the distance.
AGplusone: Is that Jane and me, or real thunder?
ddavitt: We have rain threatening here
DJedPar: Thunder everywhere.
ddavitt: 🙂
ddavitt: I’m happy.
DJedPar: 😀
ddavitt: But Hugh is off topic
AGplusone: Oh, OK
SAcademy: It’s reql all right.
SAcademy: real
ddavitt: can’t we bash Brian instead?
ddavitt: That’s always fun…
KultsiKN: 2×4?
AGplusone: I was thinking the other day what folk on the praire have to do … Brian had all the advantages …
AGplusone: perfectly sane wife … always supportive … nearly went wacky. 19th Century dream.
ddavitt: Sure Kultsi, that works
AGplusone: And he dumps her for a bimbo.
SAcademy: Kultsi, every time you do one of those things, I amamazed at your command of English.
ddavitt: Who can have babies…
ddavitt: Maureen didn’t blame him because of that fact.
DJedPar: Maureen was a sort of superwoman, ahead of her time.
maikoshT: I don’t think babies was the real reason.
BPRAL22169: Facts of a Howard’s life.
AGplusone: Naw, who flatters him by telling him he’s just as good in the sack as a twenty-year-old … and who is
AGplusone: rich, rich, rich.
KultsiKN: Aww, shucks… It jist takes a long time and lots of readin’
AGplusone: which is why he’s as good as a twenty-year-old
maikoshT: and who tried to be richer than he really was by gypping Maureen out of her portion
SAcademy: I assure you that R’s mother wasn’t a superwoman.
AGplusone: Poor Dickie, but then he never knew, did he?
maikoshT: But. everyone knows who the superwoman was in RAH’s life;-)
DJedPar: You bet.
BPRAL22169: Indeed
DenvToday: Yes indeed.
ddavitt: Was she alive for much of the time you were married Ginny?
AGplusone: Huh? 😉
SAcademy: Quite a bit of it, Jane.
BPRAL22169: Catch up, David.
BPRAL22169: I believe she died in 1976
AGplusone: My wife Andrea thinks she’s the superwoman just because I keep saying “yes, dear, of course, dear ….
AGplusone: it’s all a lie of course.
AGplusone: 35 years of misery now ^lt;veg>
BPRAL22169: This is a portrait of me Not Going There…
SAcademy: You’re a scondrel, David.
KultsiKN: David, I take it she’s not around.
BPRAL22169: Wave bye-bye.
AGplusone: Absolutely correct!
maikoshT: All of his family seem to have been pretty long lived.
BPRAL22169: I think the main characters in the last books are painted deliberately larger than life for
maikoshT: From what little I’ve heard
BPRAL22169: literary reasons — he’s assimilating the story to mythology.
AGplusone: but everyone say a lot of things now so it will scroll up so my daughter won’t see it. She’ll fink on
AGplusone: me.
AGplusone: And I’ll suffer for it.
ddavitt: demi gods
DenvToday: lol
BPRAL22169: Yes.
maikoshT: You should, you nasty man.
BPRAL22169: That whole incest bit really solidly points in that direction. Th gods are not bound my mortal
BPRAL22169: taboos
AGplusone: If you manage to get out here in April when Jani comes, you can meet her.
AGplusone: She’s much nicer and more interesting than I am.
ddavitt: after all, LL is immortal; a godly attribute
ddavitt: And has many other non human characteristics
AGplusone: And also sane
BPRAL22169: Good point.
KultsiKN: No, Jane, just not dead yet.
maikoshT: Just read Sheffield’s ‘The Ganymede Club’. Interesting contrast to RAH long-lifers.
ddavitt: That never really gets explained
AGplusone: I bought a Sheffield too I have to read before September
BPRAL22169: Jove assimilated to Odin.
BPRAL22169: Lots of pantheons in the Tertius Family.
ddavitt: and the names..Minerva
ddavitt: Athena
BPRAL22169: Specifically, she is Pallas Athena
KultsiKN: Pallas Athene
AGplusone: Hamy … from both mythology and Cabell
ddavitt: lapis lazuli is a stone but the Lorelei were from mythology weren’t they?
BPRAL22169: It’s actually an eta, which can be transliterated either way.
BPRAL22169: And ishtar is, you should pardon the extression, the Mother lode!
ddavitt: Heh
KultsiKN: Lorelei is a place — known from Goethe’s poem
BPRAL22169: Ishtar = Isis = Hastur = Astoreth (the female complement of Jahweh)
ddavitt: galahad..back to tennyson
AGplusone: If the Titans piled one atop another, and their decendants lived on a third, then it’s tertius, isn’t
AGplusone: it?
ddavitt: and the Round table
ddavitt: hamadryad
ddavitt: Gosh..more than you think….
BPRAL22169: So lots of mythological systems are contained in the Tertius family, by reference.
DenvToday: Yes, the Lorelei were from German mythology. Enchantresses I think.
AGplusone: yes, I can’t spell that. Hard to even say
ddavitt: Another project!
ddavitt: 🙂
BPRAL22169: Wasn’t there a Lorelei Lee in a Poe poem?
maikoshT: On the Rhine, calling ships to their doom.
ddavitt: Sirens I think
KultsiKN: Yes, Denv.
ddavitt: LIke Odysseus
BPRAL22169: Sirens were Greek.
ddavitt: Similar thing; mermaids
BPRAL22169: Or amI thinking Annabel Lee?
AGplusone: Naw, just wives of Sicilian pirates trying to wreck the greeks by drawing them on the rocks
KultsiKN: Lorelei was sitting in the heights
ddavitt: They are in Tom Holt’s book, ‘Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?”
SAcademy: :-P>:o:-[:-D:-$>:o:-)
DenvToday: You’re thinking of Annabel Lee. Lorelei Lee was a Marilyn Monroe character.
DenvToday: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
ddavitt: Whar sparked that Ginny?
DJedPar: Ginny!
BPRAL22169: There’s a library of emoticons!
SAcademy: Just having fun
DJedPar: Snowy hit the wrong key?
AGplusone: She ended up with a smile. Perfectly normal smile.
DenvToday: lol Woohoo!
BPRAL22169: What does the :-$ stand for?
ddavitt: You go girl…
AGplusone: My lips is sealed
KultsiKN: Bill Gates?
DenvToday: Lips surgery?
BPRAL22169: That’s it: collagen injections.
DJedPar: Good one, Denv
AGplusone: No, it’s put your money where you mouth is, says AOL
BPRAL22169: That’s a good one.
BPRAL22169: It’s PPOR on AFH
AGplusone: Really looks like someone been sucking on a lemon
ddavitt: I have to go now..night all.
AGplusone: Nite Jane
BPRAL22169: No – I’ve seen that one: it has an asterisk.
DenvToday: Bye Jane
DJedPar: Bye Jane
BPRAL22169: Good night.
maikoshT: Night Jane
ddavitt has left the room.
AGplusone: ;-*
KultsiKN: Nite, Jane!
AGplusone: that?
SAcademy: Nite, Jane
BPRAL22169: :-*
BPRAL22169: Yes.
maikoshT: You really have to be fast when Jane is leaving 🙂
KultsiKN: One fast lady…
BPRAL22169: We could all just simultaneously shout: GET OUT!
AGplusone: :-* kissy face …. we could take a pool on how many seconds next time
DenvToday: You’re reminding me of the last thing my ex told me.
AGplusone: I bet three seconds next time
BPRAL22169: )*(
DJedPar: What was that, Denv?
maikoshT: That looks like a star in someone’s navel to me.
BPRAL22169: Further Deponent Sayeth Not. But it was a guess at what Denv’s ex might have told him
BPRAL22169: as a parting shot.
DenvToday: It was “GET OUT!” lol
DenvToday: Not really, but close to it.
maikoshT: We have to keep it clean for the young’uns.
DJedPar: Ora pro nobis.
DenvToday: =-O Reminds me of one of those plastic blow up dolls.
AGplusone: [mmmph!]
DenvToday: Not that I’ve seen one.
KultsiKN: Young ‘uns? Oh! You mean Jane!
maikoshT: Translate David.
BPRAL22169: I t hink he has been muffled.
AGplusone: me, biting my tongue
maikoshT: Or are you limited to OE? O:-)
AGplusone: lol
BPRAL22169: :-|)|
AGplusone: ever read Gawayne?
BPRAL22169: Years and decades ago.
AGplusone: One of the most beautiful lyric passages in English …
AGplusone: ‘thus yearnes the yars in yisterdays mony ….
AGplusone: look for it
BPRAL22169: I have a favorite like that: Sidney Lanier’s “Marshes of Glynn”
BPRAL22169: “Glooms of the live-oak, beautiful-braided and woven.”
SAcademy: L, S. de Camp used to reel off a lot of that stuff in Middle English.
SAcademy: And Fritz Leiber used to recite Shakespeare by the ream.
AGplusone: Like to have heard him. Bet Anderson could do the same.
BPRAL22169: When you have to memorize “whann that Aprille with er shoures southe…” you might as
BPRAL22169: well get some use out of it.
AGplusone: that’s true
SAcademy: Not that I ever heard. Fritz’ father was a sShakespearean actor, and he had the same voice.
maikoshT: Other than some dirty russian limericks, The only poetry I memorized is the opening lines
AGplusone: Just thinking of all the norse stories that Poul wrote. Loved his Rolf Kraki
maikoshT: from Fausts meeting with Gretchen from Goethe
AGplusone: Hrolf Kraki
AGplusone: which is, of course, Hamlet
BPRAL22169: In grade school, I was required to memorize “The Highwayman” and can still reel it off by the yard
BPRAL22169: “And still of a winter’s night they say, when the wind is in the trees
BPRAL22169: And the moon is a ghostly galleon riding the purple trees
BPRAL22169: And the road is a ribbon of moonlight, looping the purple moor
BPRAL22169: The Highwayman comes riding —
SAcademy: And purple poetry
BPRAL22169: riding, riding, riding
maikoshT: Schoenes Fraulein, darf ich wagen , meinen Arm und Geleit ihr anszutragen?
BPRAL22169: Up to the old in door.
BPRAL22169: inn
maikoshT: Bin weder Fraulein, weder schoen, kann ungeleitet nach Hause gehen.
BPRAL22169: Novalis is my my line.
AGplusone: I’m whistling it, but I don’t know the words,
David
AGplusone: My daughter sang it tho
AGplusone: If that’s Shiller
maikoshT: well. for my money that opening in the Tale of the Adopted Daughter is very,very good
BPRAL22169: “Es war als ob der Himmel hat die Erde still gekussed…”
BPRAL22169: And that’s all that has stuck with me, I find.
DJedPar: Landlungenschnecken!
BPRAL22169: Whang in the gold!
BPRAL22169: Except I always suspected it was really “Schenken.”
maikoshT: I had a great time reading the German edition of ‘The Past Throught Tomorrow’.
DJedPar: No Schnecken. Escargots.
BPRAL22169: Ham and snails. Jum!
AGplusone: Wouldn’t be bad …
DJedPar: With sliced almonds.
BPRAL22169: There’s an Alsatian sauce made with ham and pickles…
SAcademy: How about some Finnish Kultsi?
KultsiKN: lol!
BPRAL22169: You know, they call a coiled pastry “schnecken,” too.
SAcademy: Please?
DJedPar: Makes sense.
BPRAL22169: breakfast sweetroll. We get it a lot in beverly Hills.
SAcademy: Denis is a linguist.
BPRAL22169: Lots of Sephardim.
KultsiKN: K!
KultsiKN: K!
KultsiKN: Mieleni minun tekevi,
DJedPar: Any snail dishes in Finland, Kultsi?
KultsiKN: Aivoni ajattelevi,
KultsiKN: Lähteäkö laulamahan,
BPRAL22169: International character set!
KultsiKN: Sanoja saattelemahan.
KultsiKN: Surely, international char.set
maikoshT: That’s a poem, right
SAcademy: Thank you, Kultsi
KultsiKN: the beginning lines of Kalevala, our national epos.
AGplusone: my next question. Who is it about?
SAcademy: I know about three words in Finnish, kissa, and I seem to have forgotten the other two.
BPRAL22169: I thought so — I don’t read Suomish, but the opening line reminds me of “mene mene, tekel
BPRAL22169: upharsin.”
KultsiKN: Ginny, you have an important one — that’s ‘cat’
BPRAL22169: Priorities.
SAcademy: Yes.
maikoshT: That’s all anyone needs to know in any language, besides Thanks
AGplusone: Ah … I’ll see if Bob recognizes it. I know he speaks at least one terran language. That may be it.
SAcademy: Knew that once. But I can’t remember.
KultsiKN: Kiitos!
SAcademy: Yes, Thank you.
AGplusone: Back to Kalevala, what is it about?
BPRAL22169: Finns.
AGplusone: d’oh
SAcademy: Where does that come from?
KultsiKN: Well — Finns. Singers of the Lore.
BPRAL22169: The Simpsons — Homer Simpson always says d’oh! when he does something boneheaded.
AGplusone: not dwarf blacksmiths making singing swords I suppose?
KultsiKN: Folk poetry — mostly Karelian poetry, collected and edited.
BPRAL22169: It’s an epic cycle, isn’t it — lots of legends.
KultsiKN: OH yes, David!
AGplusone: not really?
KultsiKN: Well, not quite. Tolkien WAS familiar with Kalevala, though.
BPRAL22169: I’ve only read a few of them — and heard Sibelius’ four legends of the Kalevala.
BPRAL22169: And the karelia suite, too, of course.
AGplusone: Did you get a copy of Poul Anderson’s Operation Luna?
KultsiKN: Yes. That’s music that really touches us.
BPRAL22169: And did’nt Emil Petaja write a couple of them as small books for Ace back in the 60’s?
BPRAL22169: Sibelius is one of my all time favorites — particularly the 3rd symphony.
BPRAL22169: “The Star Mill,” ISTR
KultsiKN: I think I’ve heard of those books.
KultsiKN: Never read, though.
BPRAL22169: Petaja was great friends with Hannes Bok
BPRAL22169: another Finn of note in SF
AGplusone: You’d find one character in Operation Luna interesting
AGplusone: Not counting the sword himself
AGplusone: and, of course, the red-haired lady
SAcademy: We Americans should learn more about Finland. It’s a lovely country. If I couldn’t live here, I’d li
KultsiKN: 😀 Of course.
SAcademy: ve there.
DJedPar: Let’s move.
SAcademy: Okay, when do we start?
BPRAL22169: Let’s club together for a snow plough and a set of floodlights, first.
AGplusone: we’ll room together next semester, Kultsi
DJedPar: Whenever. Kultsi will help with passports.
SAcademy: I do have Arctic gear.
BPRAL22169: So you do.
KultsiKN: Bill, it ain’t that bad.
DJedPar: We can visit the Lapps.
AGplusone: I’m really good at sitting by the fire. My wife is a Lapp.
SAcademy: I have.
DJedPar: Really?
AGplusone: mostly, the part of her that isn’t Filipino
BPRAL22169: Just a joke, Kultsi. Compared to California, everywhere needs snow ploughs and flood lights.
SAcademy: Yes.
KultsiKN: You are, definitely, all of you, most wellcome to come whenever you want.
BPRAL22169: Incidentally, have you read Neal Stephenson’s latest book, Cryptonomicon?
AGplusone: They’re very proud of being lapps, the Foss clan.
SAcademy: I’ have been there four times.
DJedPar: The Lapps are a very noble people.
BPRAL22169: You came out of the Soviet union into Finland, didn’t you?
KultsiKN: I’ve spoken on the phone with one of Ginny’s friends here.
maikoshT: I’d like to visit Valaam Monstery there.
maikoshT: Monastics not Monsters
KultsiKN: There are no monsters in Valamo. 😀
AGplusone: Right … and Grendel never existed
AGplusone: nor his mother
AGplusone: Anyone besides myself enjoy the movie: The Thirteenth Warrior?
DJedPar: No.
AGplusone: See it?
DJedPar: Have the DVD
AGplusone: Ha!
DJedPar: Maybe I wasn’t in the mood.
KultsiKN: First, we were a part of Sweden, for about a millennium, then we were part of Russia for 110 years.
AGplusone: lovely trick the author played on us, didn’t he?
BPRAL22169: That’s what Russia thought, anyway. I understand the Finns had a different opinion at the time.
AGplusone: Beowulf from another direction.
KultsiKN: Yes, Bill. We were Finns.
BPRAL22169: Sisu
maikoshT: Does Sisu have a real meaning in Finnish?
KultsiKN: Right. Like a juniper: bend, don’t break.
BPRAL22169: I don’t think it could be translated — can it?
AGplusone: Is that what it means?
BPRAL22169: Like the Spanish word duende cannot be translated.
KultsiKN: Sisu is…
SAcademy: brave spirit.
SAcademy: I think.
KultsiKN: You have nothing — but sisu. With that you go against overwhelming odds: through the gray stone,
KultsiKN: if that’s what it takes.
SAcademy: Good for you, Kultsi.
BPRAL22169: We do have an equivalent in English. I just thought of it: The Right Stuff
AGplusone: punctillo … what does that mean?
KultsiKN: Thanks, Ginny.
maikoshT: An apt name for a ship of the People.
AGplusone: honor plus necessity?
AGplusone: probably spelled the Spanish word wrong … let me see if I can find it.
BPRAL22169: I always thought punctilio was scrupulous adherence to formalities — with an implication of dash.
BPRAL22169: There are a few languages with words like ‘sisu’ and ‘duende.’ The details always differ
AGplusone: it has something to do with a point of honor
BPRAL22169: because what they really mean is “that’s what we are!”
AGplusone: you have to abide by it
maikoshT: The mention of Hrolf Kraki above reminded me of that derogatory term in Citizen, a ‘fraki’.
AGplusone: if you have the honor
maikoshT: nobless oblige?
AGplusone: even unto the breach
AGplusone: even if the breach isn’t big enough
BPRAL22169: Neal Stephenson makes this point about sisu with some Finnish characters in WWII
KultsiKN: David, it’s not honor.
AGplusone: no, what then?
BPRAL22169: “mensch” is a similar word.
AGplusone: duty?
SAcademy: NO, Bill, it isn’t
KultsiKN: Or perhaps it is. Pride. Necessity.
BPRAL22169: “That’s what it means to be a Finn!”
maikoshT: Like John Dahlquist?
BPRAL22169: I thought he was a Swede.
BPRAL22169: But perhaps I’m being over-literal.
AGplusone: 🙂
maikoshT: I was thinking of what he did, not who he was
AGplusone: sí, claro
SAcademy: Swedish and Finnish are the two languages they speak there.
KultsiKN: Yes
BPRAL22169: A Spaniard would say of someone “he/she has duende” or “is duende” if they see an example
BPRAL22169: that embodies the highest, best vision of what it means to be a Spaniard. It’s sayign “he is
BPRAL22169: Spain”
maikoshT: Kultsi. did a lot of Swedish and Russian actually get into Finnish?
SAcademy: Spaniards are quite different from Finns.
KultsiKN: And it’s pride, si?
BPRAL22169: Si.
BPRAL22169: It’s the same kind of word — embodiment of the spirit of a people.
AGplusone: We really need Korzypski in here now. the burden on some words is incredible.
KultsiKN: You got it, Bill.
BPRAL22169: Thanks.
SAcademy: Now you’re approaching it, Bill.
BPRAL22169: Sisu is what makes a Finn a Finn.
maikoshT: Then Dahlquist is not a good example, his is just personal heroism.
BPRAL22169: And not a Swede
BPRAL22169: Good distinction.
KultsiKN: Nom Dahlquist is a very good example.
KultsiKN: I.M. No, dahl…
KultsiKN: What needs to be done, is done.
maikoshT: But he didn’t do it out of any sense of national or cultural pride.
maikoshT: I don’t think
AGplusone: “fit”
KultsiKN: We are quite individual.
SAcademy: I will post a Finnish site on afh, if you like.
maikoshT: Great. I’d like to see that
BPRAL22169: That would be quite interesting.
BPRAL22169: A curiosity about the language — the only other language on earth Finnish is related to is . . .
BPRAL22169: Hungarian.
SAcademy: Okay I will do it tonight, if I don’t get caught by that storm approaching.
KultsiKN: Take the war: our soldiers are taught to fight alone, if need be.
AGplusone: How’s that Swedish site? Does he get any traffic?
maikoshT: An army of one 🙂
BPRAL22169: Now there’s a nice little paradox.
KultsiKN: Also Estonian, some languages in Siberia and so on.
AGplusone: Oh, gawds
maikoshT: That’s a joke, Kultsi. a current ad about the army talks about being ‘An Army of One’
BPRAL22169: I see we have hit the witching hour.
KultsiKN: That’s just because you are finally getting there… 😉
AGplusone: I have no clue what Madison Avnue is trying to tell the recruits and can only conclude that Puzzle
AGplusone: Palace is smoking very skinny cigarettes.
SAcademy: Thank you ever so much, Kultsi
maikoshT: Looking back at the log, I see one answer to my question. Kuningas is King in Finnish
AGplusone: Thanks, yes.
maikoshT: from Swedish. Did you know that Knyaz in Russian comes from the same source?
AGplusone: Yes, ‘cynning”
BPRAL22169: I wonder if that’s a borrow work. Koenig in German.
AGplusone: Derivative
maikoshT: Koenig and Kunigas both derive from proto-german
BPRAL22169: Philology is endlessly fascinating.
AGplusone: My grandmother was born in Gdanzk
KultsiKN: We have several words that are very early Germanic loans
BPRAL22169: Yes, fromt he Greek Kunos!
BPRAL22169: Joke, joke! No rotten tomatoes.
AGplusone: that was my first unstated guess
KultsiKN: We have retained them almost in their unaltered forms.
maikoshT: David is very good at translating early languages O:-):-D
AGplusone: That’s cause david is very early and ancient
KultsiKN: Our word for beautiful is ‘kaunis’, the original word was ‘skauns’
BPRAL22169: schoen.
maikoshT: I knew a fellow in the army named ‘Kaunas’
KultsiKN: Yes, ‘ch’ as ‘k’
maikoshT: cognate to schoen?
KultsiKN: Kaunas is a city in Lithuania.
BPRAL22169: I think it’s pronounced sKon in Swaebisch
BPRAL22169: Kaunas City?
KultsiKN: could well be.
AGplusone: Ah, just north of Butler ….
maikoshT: Dialect Geography is also fascinating.
KultsiKN: Doh!
BPRAL22169: Yup
AGplusone: And now that we’ve come full circle
BPRAL22169: Yes, we do go ’round in circles, don’t we?
KultsiKN: The girl from downstairs was there last year.
AGplusone: I thank you all for putting up with me the past three hours
KultsiKN: In Lithuania.
AGplusone: and promise I’ll reform …
maikoshT: Anyone want to join in the pool on that promise? 🙂
BPRAL22169: Well I’m going off to rest from my labors.
AGplusone: as soon as I find time how to figure out to do it
KultsiKN: As always, the pleasure’s been ours.
DJedPar: The cats tell me the chicken is ready to come out of the oven.
DJedPar: Bye all.
BPRAL22169: I get turkey tonight.
SAcademy has left the room.
AGplusone: or as Midnight the Cat used to say …. Niiiiice!
BPRAL22169: Good night all. A pleasure.
maikoshT: Enjoyed it folks. Wish I could have been here the whole time.
DJedPar: Enjoy!
BPRAL22169 has left the room.
DJedPar has left the room.
AGplusone: Got it all Dave?
maikoshT: Got it all twice.
AGplusone: Good night David
maikoshT: Night Chet.
AGplusone: and good night from NBC
KultsiKN: Bed for me, C ya, folks! Nite!
maikoshT: Nite Kultsi. How do you say that in Finnish
AGplusone: nite Kultsi … sleep well
KultsiKN: 🙂 Hyvää yötä!
maikoshT: Easy for you to say 🙂
maikoshT: Same to you again
AGplusone: not very
KultsiKN has left the room.
maikoshT: Denv. Are you still here or have you gone to sleep?
AGplusone: time for me to nap … wife should be home soon
maikoshT: Talk to you later. Did you try sendine me that minutes etc?
AGplusone: two aspirins for three beers … that’s about right, isn’t it.
AGplusone: Not yet. Will do it tonight.
maikoshT: Thanks.
AGplusone: me gusta
maikoshT: Denv must have gone to supper or something.
maikoshT: That’s it
AGplusone: hope so … I’m hongry
maikoshT: Log officially closed at 8:10 P.M. EDT
maikoshT has left the room.
