Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group
Saturday 09-29-2001 5:00 P.M. EDT
Heinlein and Racism
Here Begins The Discussion Log
You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group chat.”
AGplusone has entered the room.
AGplusone: Yo, Dave. I’m going to be afk watching UCLA – Oregon until just before start ….
KultsiKN has entered the room.
KultsiKN: Hello, all!
AGplusone: Hi, Kultsi … how’s it going?
DavidWrightSr: Hi David, Kultsi
KultsiKN: Still hanging on 😉
AGplusone: Well, does Finland have a contingent ready to go?
AGplusone: We could use those guys who defended the Mannerheim line … 🙂
KultsiKN: I don’t really know… p’raps I should follow the news…
AGplusone: j/k 🙂
AGplusone: My theory on “planning an invasion” … world wide total mobilization.
KultsiKN: We’ve been asked… to provide
AGplusone: … a few of their grandsons?
KultsiKN: ahhh… a stepping stone
AGplusone: Are there/have there been any incidents in Finland of terrorism?
KultsiKN: Well, at work we have a mosque at the 4th floor, and some guys were throwing stones to their…
KultsiKN: windows. Hit ours instead.
KultsiKN: Seriously, no.
AGplusone: that’s not good. I’m going to start off the chart with an examination of Between Planets … bigotry in wartime … but let’s wait. Have you read it?
KultsiKN: Way back when. Can’t really say I remember.
AGplusone: I’ll remind you … there are some other direct points in other books. Sixth Column, some others.
AGplusone: [I’m all caught up right now in watching UCLA play Oregon for eight more minutes.]
KultsiKN: ‘Bigotry’ is a word not really in my working vocabulary… gimme a rundown, pls.
AGplusone: prejudice, usually on account of race, color, creed
AGplusone: creed = religion
AGplusone: nationality
KultsiKN: Got it.
KultsiKN: About creed: found Credo in Latin on a Web page.
AGplusone: Yes.
KultsiKN: Got most of it, by cognates.
AGplusone: English is good that way … problem is: you have to know six or seven other languages
KultsiKN: And I ain’t got one of the Romance ‘uns.
AGplusone: English is like Heinlein: file off the serial numbers and steal
AGplusone: Latin is good.
AGplusone: Learned more about English taking Latin than any English course I ever took.
ddavitt has entered the room.
KultsiKN: Hi, Jane!
ddavitt: Hello all
AGplusone: Hi, Jane 🙂
AGplusone: two minutes to go …. afk
ddavitt: Jut popped in while I wait for david and dad to get back from fishing
ddavitt: OK
ddavitt: Mum is in charge of the children.
BPRAL22169 has entered the room.
ddavitt: Hi Bill
BPRAL22169: Hello, all.
KultsiKN: Jane, say Hi to Mum!
AGplusone: Afternoon, Bill …
KultsiKN: Hi Bill!
ddavitt: Will do Kultsi, thanks
ddavitt: She says hi back 🙂
AGplusone: Tell Mum to have fun Jane … it’s neat being a grandparent.
SAcademy has entered the room.
AGplusone: Evenin’ Ginny.
DavidWrightSr: Hi Ginny
ddavitt: They have been here since Thursday and the kids are spolied already
KultsiKN: Hello, Ginny
BPRAL22169: Hi.
SAcademy: Good evening all
ddavitt: Hi Ginny are you better?
SAcademy: Some better, had a nap again.
AGplusone: Not ‘spoiled’ simply raised by someone who *has* actual experience … is the way I plan to put it.
ddavitt: They aren’t really spoiling; just give them lots of attention and hugs which is lovely
AGplusone: We learned by making mistakes with you, is what I’m going to tell my daughter, should she ever make the mistake of letting me watch them …
ddavitt: That should reassure her
AGplusone: it should, considering her complaints …
ddavitt: She get those tickets then?
AGplusone: she gets to hear in return mail …
ddavitt: fingers crossed…
AGplusone: love the way the handle it … send us money orders or certified checks only …
AGplusone: they
AGplusone: Bill: mind if I start off?
BPRAL22169: Please do.
AGplusone: Suggest we start with Between Planets …
BPRAL22169: How does Between Planets relate to racism? I’m not clear on that.
BPRAL22169: Xenophilia/phobia, I could see…
ddavitt: Racism between earth and Venerians, both human and native
AGplusone: Don Harvey, a “citizen of the system,” is run out of his school and experiences other things, initially … what does that remind you of?
AGplusone: Today?
BPRAL22169: That’s not racism.
BPRAL22169: It’s demonization of The enemy.
AGplusone: The IBI interrogates him … etc, isn’t it?
BPRAL22169: Different subject entirely.
ddavitt: Well, it was the war of Independence all over again; would you say that was racist?
AGplusone: What is race, other than a decision that any alien is the “other”
ddavitt: Did the Englsih see Americans as inferior or vice versa? I wouldn’t say so exactly
AGplusone: Is the treatment of British subjects (Tories) by American colonists racism?
ddavitt: They were of common stock after all
BPRAL22169: English did see the Americans as barbarians.
ddavitt: No grounds for it
AGplusone: racism …
ddavitt: But they WERE Englsih!
ddavitt: I can’t spell that word…
AGplusone: No they weren’t!
BPRAL22169: They were “the dregs” — defined as such.
AGplusone: They decided they were no longer British …
ddavitt: At that time, hadn’t lots of the colonists been born in UK?
AGplusone: and some were Scots and Irish, and Scots-Irish, and Dutch, and etc.
BPRAL22169: The Revolution started as loyal subjects petitioning the crown for redress.
ddavitt: Then changed loyalties after reaching the New World?
AGplusone: Some did.
BPRAL22169: That was Franklin’s mission as Ambassador to St. James.
ddavitt: Well, hating them is hard to call racist.
AGplusone: By the time of James Otis they no longer thought of themselves as British …
ddavitt: Civil War wasn’t racist either for same reason
AGplusone: they were “Americun”
ddavitt: A war doesn’t have to include racist elements
AGplusone: Sure it was … Suthrun were different than Northern … ask anyone ….
ddavitt: Plenty else to fight over
ddavitt: No, you were all Americans.
AGplusone: Well, isn’t racism an element …
ddavitt: Au fond
BPRAL22169: The Declaration of Independence takes a rather different approach to the matter, David — one people deliberately separating themselves off from the parent stock.
ddavitt: The earth people saw the dragons as animals tho; couldn’t accept them as humans in a different shape
BPRAL22169: The revolutionaries first conceived of themselves as Englishmen affirming the traditional “rights of englishmen.”
AGplusone: An easier example, of course, is Frank Mitsui and others, in Sixth Column …
ddavitt: We should look at SIASL; what is a man?
ddavitt: Is a martian a man? Yes.
AGplusone: That was ‘lip-service’ to the slower Americans
BPRAL22169: No, it wasn’t.
AGplusone: ‘rights’ of Englishmen was a euphemism for the radicals who were fed up with monarchy …
BPRAL22169: Even at the height of the Revolutionary military activity, there were never more than about 1/3 of the population in agreement with the revolution.
BPRAL22169: That’s why so many Tories ultimately fled to Canada.
AGplusone: Agreed. They were propagandizing the 1/3 in the middle … see: you’re still English …
AGplusone: heheh
AGplusone: [ but we’re really Americuns … ]
BPRAL22169: Sorry, but that position is not historically defensible.
AGplusone: we disagree
BPRAL22169: we don’t get to vote or agree on historical fact.
AGplusone: In Harvey’s case, what was he?
AGplusone: What did he and his parents think he was?
ddavitt: Umm..not sure it’s possible to be objective about history Bill
BPRAL22169: A citizen of the system is what he wanted to be — but he self-selected to be a Venerian patriot.
ddavitt: Loved Nollaig’s phrase, ‘too much tonypandy on my mind’
AGplusone: only after the way he got treated … is my point.
ddavitt: But how is that racist?
AGplusone: First, they treat him as a traitor, per se … he’s not native-born!!!!
AGplusone: national racism
ddavitt: Lots of the books have the idea that colonists are rough and ready skivers; see red planet.
BPRAL22169: I would agree that racism/bigotry may be related to xenophobia in some fashion, but not the connection you seem to be trying to make.
ddavitt: But that is the view of the baddies or the unfit
AGplusone: second, he’s treated as a traitor because he has not ties to the country
AGplusone: third, he’s treated as a traitor because he’s leaving, he doesn’t immediately flock to the colors
AGplusone: he wants to be neutral
AGplusone: Next, he’s lumped in (washing dishes) with the ‘inimy’ and shot at and imprisoned …
AGplusone: so, how does he respond ….
AGplusone: which makes an interesting seque …
ddavitt: Day after Tomorrow/Sixth Column seems to present a conflict between cultures as an impassable gulf. I think in
BP a peaceful political resolution is inevitable.
AGplusone: how in the world did the Niesi find it in themselves to enlist in the numbers they did?
ddavitt: If it’s racism it’s on a much smaller scale
BPRAL22169: The Nisei were Ameicans.
BPRAL22169: Jane — which racism is on a smaller scale?
BPRAL22169: I’m losing track of the pronouns.
ddavitt: BP
ddavitt: Becasue it wasn’t the root of the war
AGplusone: Sure, and they were lumped in with the ‘inimy’ imprisoned, their property lost, and treated like hell ….
ddavitt: But it was in SC
BPRAL22169: Sixth Column was built on a conventional “Yellow Peril” paradigm.
AGplusone: and some didn’t enlist … some were deported after the war to Japan.
ddavitt: Could make it Islam and it would be bang up to date 🙁
ddavitt: But in SC there was a deeply rooted racism on both sides
ddavitt: In BP I didn’t feel that
AGplusone: Well, wadda we got … some doctor locked up and interrogated ’cause his name is the same as two of the suicide pilots and he had tickets to LA about the same time …
BPRAL22169: There was a lot of “anti-Arab” sentiment in this country before this happened — the event is simply channeling emotions that were inchoate before.
ddavitt: Just a struggle for control of the planet because it had value
AGplusone: Yes, just as there was a lot of anti-yellow peril sentiment in the US before 1941. They could even buy property … in some states.
AGplusone: couldn’t
AGplusone: until late in the 1930s
ddavitt: I have read a Gene Stratton porter book set in California, 1920’s that made those feelings very plain
ddavitt: Scary to read it
AGplusone: Mitchener’s Hawaii has a little of that, too.
ddavitt: They really beleived they were in danger of invasion
BPRAL22169: Don’t have to tell a San Francisco boy…
ddavitt: and that the Japanese had insidious crafty plots afoot
AGplusone: Did they? Maybe so … but if Warren and Roosevelt can be criticized for something, it was that …
BPRAL22169: I think the internment is generally recognized as one of the most shameful events in American history.
AGplusone: Do you know they also locked up some selected German-Americans and Italian-Americans at the beginning of WW2 as well?
AGplusone: For example, a guy named John Basilone had a father, who in Italy, before he immigrated, was involved in fascist politics … he lost out to Mussolini’s branch, and they locked him up early on …
BPRAL22169: Things seem to have been less — institutionalized? — in WWI. There were anti-German riots and property damage,but it seems to have been on an individual basis.
AGplusone: the elder Basilone was let out shortly before August 1942 …
ddavitt: We see a return to the theme of anti racism in Job, when Alex is muttering about blackamoors
AGplusone: In TEFL Woody notes that they started calling saurkraut “liberty cabbage” and all the German bars became Swiss … and Johann Sebastian Schmidt becomes “Smith”
ddavitt: He is a counrty clubber; polite but not on a level with Luke
BPRAL22169: I had forgotten about that, Jane. alex really wasn’t an admirable character, was he?
ddavitt: Nicer to him in heaven tho
ddavitt: No…
AGplusone: You anticipated me, Jane … I was getting to Alex …
ddavitt: And yet, a saint. How ironic
ddavitt: Sorry:-)
BPRAL22169: I think it was intended to be ironic.
AGplusone: 😉
AGplusone: sauerkraut …
ddavitt: Do we think in heaven he still had those feelings deep down?
BPRAL22169: Jahweh’s criteria for sainthood had nothing to do with justice (comedy of)
ddavitt: Chronologically, for him, it wasn’t long after
AGplusone: you kin’ take the boy out of Missouri, but kin’ you take Missouri out of the boy?
ddavitt: But years had passed for Luke, Steve
ddavitt: Luke was lynched wasn’t he?
AGplusone: Sure was
ddavitt: But died singing hymns and went straight to heaven
ddavitt: And was still a waiter there…
AGplusone: Cook! actually Chef
ddavitt: Because endless holiday is dull
BPRAL22169: Didn’t Twain have a social hierarchy in “Capt. Stormfield”?
ddavitt: Sure, cook
ddavitt: Been a while since I read that.
ddavitt: Letters From The earth was very funny
AGplusone: Look at Moon Is A Harsh Mistress …
KultsiKN: Wasn’t Luke executed, legal & proper?
BPRAL22169: Me, too — I just have a vague recollection that JOB’s heaven was a conglomeration of Twain’s and Cabell’s “Heaven of Jurgen’s grandmother.”
ddavitt: I can check; brb
AGplusone: time of war, and how do they treat the groundhogs … ?
AGplusone: I think there was a trial, described as a legal lynching
AGplusone: the civil servants? the scientists?
BPRAL22169: I still say the demonization-of-the-enemy hysteria isn’t racism, per se, though it will use whatever racism is lying around to be tapped.
ddavitt: Oh yes, Kultsi, you’re right
ddavitt: He fought a Chicano
AGplusone: It’s racism? “Lobsterbacks” … they boy from Shropshire speaks the same English as the boy from Boston …
ddavitt: Who pulled a knife on him
ddavitt: Jury related to dead man; he was convicted
ddavitt: Prison chaplain helped him be born again so went to heaven
AGplusone: hierarchy in Texas (white—>mexican—>black)
BPRAL22169: More of Jahweh’s Justice
BPRAL22169: Ah, but Texas is Hell. I could have told you that years earlier.
AGplusone: Look at Brownsville in 1906 ….
KultsiKN: TEFL?
AGplusone: 9th Cav comes back to their usual garrison, and immediately the oilfield workers make sure they are put back in their places … no, real history, Kultsi
AGplusone: so there is a riot in which “two” white men get shot, and who knows how many 9th Cav troopers, so they immediately dishonorably discharge one full squadron of the 9th, without a trial
KultsiKN: There is something about the order of things in TEFL as well; when LL gets back..
AGplusone: And Teddy Roosevelt, whose butt they saved at San Juan, immediately approves it.
KultsiKN: to Urth of 19??
KultsiKN: The small town he landed at.
AGplusone: Yep, the sign that says “Don’t let the sun set on you here”
ddavitt: “We even have some Catherlicks”
AGplusone: What was that “Niggers, Kikes …. etc.” and the first thing the sheriff wants to know is “Is you a wobbly?”
AGplusone: Who’s the real hero in Sixth Column?
ddavitt: Frank….
AGplusone: Mitsui
ddavitt: He kills the mad Colonel
ddavitt: He’s a tragic hero
BPRAL22169: “Franklin Roosevelt Mitsui,” if you please.
ddavitt: But is he brave? Life has no value so is risking it all that much?
ddavitt: being provocative here
AGplusone: Frank wanted those side boys for his wife and children … they kept him from doing it
BPRAL22169: “The tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed by the blood of patriots. That is its natural manure.”
ddavitt: But notice how even his friend, Jeff was it, had a moment of hating him because of his skin
AGplusone: because of the ‘greater good’ so he got to be a guinea pig to test …
ddavitt: Instictive recoil from an old friend
AGplusone: They nearly killed the intelligence officer who was passing because of plastic surgery and tatoos
ddavitt: Racism is hard to overcome
BPRAL22169: Sometimes your life is the only coin that will do to purchase what you love best.
AGplusone: How many divisions was he worth?
ddavitt: I wonder why Heinlein didn’t add that to the mix in IWFNE? Why he didn’t choose to make Eunice black and deal with the effects of that
ddavitt: Instead of making it deliberatley ambiguous
ddavitt: Maybe being female was enough of a loss of status….
AGplusone: His tactic … like Rod, like Juan, like Colin Campbell …
ddavitt:
BPRAL22169: I think he would probably have had to choose sides about an issue he wasn’t trying to deal with right then and there.
AGplusone: stealth tactic
ddavitt: But it is almost impossible to get a feeling about her race
DavidWrightSr: Ambiguity was his middle name. Done to make ‘us’ do the decisions.
AGplusone: Some with Rod
BPRAL22169: So what?
DavidWrightSr: ‘We’ fill in the blanks
ddavitt: Oh, yes, Rod is never going to be certain for many readers
ddavitt: So many interesting interprations…
AGplusone: and except for that biz about MacArthur Auditorium he’d have done it with Juan … I would have thought Juan a chicano otherwise …
ddavitt: Liked the one about Jimmy being a minority
BPRAL22169: For a rich white man to take the body of a young black woman in 1969 would have raised issues that would have prevented the other issues of the book from being heard.
ddavitt: Too cluttered?
AGplusone: I think so …
ddavitt: Maybe so
AGplusone: not cluttered … racist
BPRAL22169: Too cluttered. Ambiguity served his writerly purposes much better.
AGplusone: maybe that was yet another thing about Juan that turned off Dalgliesh and Scribners
BPRAL22169: The point is, the book is not racist, but it woul dhave been read as such.
ddavitt: Maybe heinlein didn’t feel he had enough data?
BPRAL22169: Enough data about what?
AGplusone: I note there are no more Jewish boys between Galileo and Troopers.
ddavitt: Enough insight into how black people feel in a world that treats them as inferior?
AGplusone: Instead we get white bread for how many juveniles ….?
AGplusone: Marlowes …
ddavitt: Hard to write about it and not get attacked from both sides
ddavitt: Touchy area
AGplusone: Stones
BPRAL22169: I don’t know about that — he certainly did in Friday — but it at the very least was not what he was talking about in IWFNE
AGplusone: Harveys
AGplusone: Stuarts
BPRAL22169: Kikus?
BPRAL22169: Greenbergs?
ddavitt: Friday wasn’t in trouble because she was black, not really.
AGplusone: Not a major juvenile character
ddavitt: It was the least of her problems..AP far more significant
AGplusone: Not one between Galileo and Troopers was anything except white bread, with the exception, maybe, of Rod
BPRAL22169: AP can be read as a symbol for the integration problems of any minority person.
AGplusone: Maybe that’s why Rod doesn’t marry Carolyn, and maybe why Carolyn don’t marry no buddy
ddavitt: Not really…she could ‘pass’ for human
AGplusone: Dalgliesh was read as not ready to accept it
BPRAL22169: You’re blowing this out of proportion, David — Jews make up 9-11% of the population; a Jewish boy was a heroe of 8.5% of the juveniles.
ddavitt: No one would know if she didn’t tell them. Not the same for a black person mostly
AGplusone: Yes, the first one, but “never again”
AGplusone: And actually, there were four heros in Galileo, so it’s one-forth of 9 …. not counting side-kicks
BPRAL22169: I still think you’re blowing this out of proportion; the fact that two major characters were black and another significant secondary character was Jewish seems to bust your thesis.
AGplusone: they’re just sidekicks
AGplusone: Carolyn and who?
BPRAL22169: The plot turns on Sergei Greenberg — he’s hardly a sidekick.
AGplusone: Who’s the other black in the juveniles, the adolescent who adolescents identify with?
ddavitt: But why wouldn’t they be white? Most of his readers were, Heinlein was….
BPRAL22169: I meant Rod and Kiku. Caroline can be interpreted as a secondary character.
AGplusone: my point, exactly
AGplusone: juveniles identify with juveniles, not Kiku
AGplusone: white market?
BPRAL22169: I still heard a seal bark.
AGplusone: white protagonists
ddavitt: At that time of non PC, there was no obligation on H to have ANY non white characters
ddavitt: That he had several was to his credit
AGplusone: exactly, the fact that he did proves he wasn’t bigoted
ddavitt: No one would have minded if there were none
ddavitt: No one would have thought twice about it then
AGplusone: out ahead of the curve
ddavitt: Laying track for others to use
AGplusone: by the way, can someone name a major juvenile author writing for the general market who writes non-white protagonists today>?
ddavitt: Like Gromit in the Wrong Trousers…:-)
AGplusone: Harry Potter is white, isn’t he?
ddavitt: I don’t read many; a few in harry Potter..
ddavitt: He is in love with a girl who has a Chinese name
AGplusone: Well, that’s an advance …
ddavitt: But his friends are all white; well, it’s et in the UK
BPRAL22169: I don’t know if there is such a thing as a “major” juvenile writer these days… the field is highly fragmented.
AGplusone: L’engle?
AGplusone: Don’t realy recall any of her characters not being white
ddavitt: In Wrinkle in Time isn’t boyfriend balck?
AGplusone: Is he? I missed that.
BPRAL22169: That was 40 years ago anyway.
ddavitt: Long time since I read them; called Cal I think
BPRAL22169: Wasn’t Cal her brother?
ddavitt: What’s the girl’s name? Meggie
BPRAL22169: Roughly contemporaneous with Heinlein’s juveniles. A little after.
ddavitt: Well, I am sure her boyfriend in later books is black
AGplusone: You point at a problem, Bill, there aren’t any major juvenile writers, except for the Potter ones.
AGplusone: Why is that? Marketing?
ddavitt: I loved those books when I was young; some quite scary
KultsiKN: Lost the thread?
BPRAL22169: Marketing mostly, I think.
AGplusone: I remember Felson … he was major, but all his characters were white
ddavitt: Duane, Wynne Jones are good but mostly white too
ddavitt: Duane has a Spanish lead I think in her So You want to be a Wizard/ books
BPRAL22169: Actually — George Lucas is the biggest-selling writer for juveniles today. And he writes particularly nasty stereotypes. Jar-Jar binks from the ‘hood.
ddavitt: He is picked on for it at school
ddavitt: He was a tiresome character
AGplusone: Yes.
ddavitt: Binks I mean
AGplusone: Stereotypes sell.
ddavitt: No one liked that alien
AGplusone: I guess
BPRAL22169: But the Republic is not multicultural, fer shure!
AGplusone: So we’re not even as far advanced as Heinlein …
ddavitt: That’s a surprise?g>
AGplusone: which maybe explains why Juan and Rod had to be stealth characters
BPRAL22169: Oh — but the Shylock character was even worse, and the pseudo-Mandarins. That movie was full of nasty stereotyping.
ddavitt: Not a patch on the original film
AGplusone: What were those little Shylock like runts in Star Trek—Next Generation
ddavitt: Ferengi?
AGplusone: Yes
BPRAL22169: Ferengi.
ddavitt: Quark is in Buffy, or was
ddavitt: Is that his name? The one from DS9
AGplusone: playing a what?
BPRAL22169: And Armin Shimmerman is on The Invisible Man next week.
ddavitt: Headmaster, gets head bitten off by 60 foot tall snake
AGplusone: Does Buffy have any good guy minorities?
ddavitt: Which was the mayor until he became a demon
BPRAL22169: Doeesn’t matter — we’ve got Blade!
ddavitt: Angel ha a black in the main characters
AGplusone: Of did 90291, even?
BPRAL22169: Blade was cool.
AGplusone: 90210
ddavitt: Buffy has Willow who is jewish..and gay…and a wiccan
EBATNM has entered the room.
AGplusone: jews pass these days
AGplusone: Hi, EBATNM … Andy?
ddavitt: But no black characters. It has been remarked on
ddavitt: Few good treatments of male/female gays tho
ddavitt: Hi Andy
EBATNM:
ddavitt: You’re you again!
AGplusone: Aaron Spelling “makes it so” (or else)
EBATNM: Like a bad penny, I return
EBATNM: But I’m in NM! Yeah!!!!
ddavitt: How did the trip go?
BPRAL22169: We’re sidetracked on racial stereotypes in film and tv — George Lucas’, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Congratulations on being HOME.
AGplusone: break ’til 10 after Bill …
BPRAL22169: If you must…
AGplusone: Actually, we’re searching for universal juveniles, in films since there aren’t any today, except Potter, in books
EBATNM: We drove straight thru & I’m exausted
BPRAL22169: But the ‘cello is YOURS~!
ddavitt: I have to go order tea; Chinese takeaway tonight as i doubt the fishermen will bring much back
ddavitt: brb
AGplusone: afk … making my tea, too
EBATNM: *sniff* I ain’t got no tea *snif*
BPRAL22169: Humiliate ’em — order fish fillets in black bean sauce!
EBATNM: Mu Shu Pork
EBATNM: What time did the chat start?
BPRAL22169: 2:00 PDT
BPRAL22169: We’re just an hour into it.
AGplusone: want a copy of the log, Andy?
AGplusone: I need an e mail addy
BPRAL22169: David started out by comparing the anti-Arab hysteria going on now to Don harvey’s treatment in Between Planets.
EBATNM: I can get it off the web site later
AGplusone: send it IM to me … you might have your zwein pfenning to add to something
BPRAL22169: Things went downhill from there.:-)
EBATNM: Buffy the Vampire Slayer as anti-Arab?
BPRAL22169: I think Buffy came up because we were trying to find minority heroes.
AGplusone: what is ‘two’ in German, Dave …. “downhill” arrgh!
BPRAL22169: zwei
EBATNM: zwei
AGplusone: okay
AGplusone: Wit’ dat, I let Bill ask the questions … from now out (and if you believe dat I gotta bridge deed I want to sell)
KultsiKN: For zwei Pfennig?
BPRAL22169: The chat seems to be handling itself without any help from me.
EBATNM: Pop culture is a closed book to me since I do not partake of duh mass media
BPRAL22169: The tentacles are slithering around the covers, Andy.
EBATNM: TV, films, radio, & etc
AGplusone: problem we were looking at was the lack of universal juveniles being sold
AGplusone: except Potter
BPRAL22169: RAH was ahead of the curve in including minority characters, even heroes.
BPRAL22169: And in fact he was somewhat more advanced in 1947 than the market has achieved yet.
EBATNM: What about Nancy Drew?
AGplusone: and the curve ain’t yet caught up to him … did the Drews ever finally incorporate minorities?
AGplusone: I stopped reading them when I was twelve, back in the stone age
EBATNM: Beats me, that’s girl stuff, ya know.
BPRAL22169: I do’nt think I ever read any Nancy Drew — I was a Hardy Boy generation, but I didn’t read them, either.
AGplusone: gril stuff is neat — know thy inimy!
Dehede011 has entered the room.
AGplusone: Din’ do me iny gud, but that was how I thought … hi, Ron
Dehede011: Howdy all
EBATNM: Well, there was Little Black Sambo, but I don’t think that is what we are looking for.
EBATNM: Howdy Ron
BPRAL22169: Not quite, know — though there is big black Sam Beaux in CAT…
Dehede011: The most puzzling example of racist talk for me is in TEFL
EBATNM:
AGplusone: no, we’re looking at juveniles … now that I think about it, Ogier the Dane in Pyle’s version of the Charlemagne romances was a minority
BPRAL22169: The attitudes LL encounters in 1917 Missouri?
Dehede011: Yes, LL language at his enlistment
Dehede011: I have to figure RAH was telling me something
Dehede011: But I can’t figure out what
BPRAL22169: It was a vintage period in American history, but it had its down sides.
EBATNM: Elaine’s parents are in their 90’s and I have to grit my teeth when we discuss “current events”. They don’t realize how racist they are.
Dehede011: Maybe he was only reminding us how bad it had been and how gratuitous
Dehede011: the whole thing was
EBATNM: It’s the off-hand and …. GMTA
DavidWrightSr: I am still not sure about Sam Beaux.
EBATNM: I think it was Heinlein making a point
Dehede011: Well the name is a play on words.
AGplusone: [incidentally, since it is football season, and since I’ve established a tradition: end of third quarter: UCLA 39- Oregon-0] ….
Dehede011: Northwestern in a thriller
EBATNM: The Duck’s are being shot down
SAcademy: Nite all. Have to head for bed again.
SAcademy has left the room.
AGplusone: [forgive my intrustion … ]
Dehede011: Get well soon
DavidWrightSr: Nite Ginny s’pokoijnichi nochi
EBATNM: There is general agreement that Col. Campbell was of African descent isn’t there?
AGplusone: Did you think it possible that Sam Beaux was from Ponce’s world? Yes, I agree …
DavidWrightSr: No.
Dehede011: Yes, and his conversation with his fellow blackman seems authetic
Dehede011: Given what I hear in the factories
BPRAL22169: Perhaps the old black man — I’m assuming that’s what you meant — was nothing more or less than incidental detail, realistically portrayed for its verisimilitude.
AGplusone: Wendy Campbell … Jinx may have been black …
BPRAL22169: LL has to have someone to display his emotions to.
AGplusone: Loonie … the range of colors
AGplusone: Why don’t you agree, David?
DavidWrightSr: There is too much assumption in the matter of Colin and Sam. No where does it actually say that either is black, specifically
AGplusone: The black foot?
BPRAL22169: I think Colin says “I am as Black as you,” doesn’t he?
DavidWrightSr: didn’t say black foot
KultsiKN: No
DavidWrightSr: didn’t same black like you. said ‘
Dehede011: Hey guys I have just turned into a pumpkin. My son wants his machine back
DavidWrightSr: same color
AGplusone: darn dark if not black …
Dehede011 has left the room.
EBATNM: Campbell says that to Sam Beaux; who is described as a “sleek black panther”.
BPRAL22169: Yes, but “same color” isn’t an issue for a WASP
EBATNM: Sam, that is
DavidWrightSr: wearing black clothes, like a sleek black panther. didn’t say he was black
BPRAL22169: Thats it, Andy. I was trying to find the reference.
AGplusone: yes, but “Sambo” …
EBATNM: (And me without a copy of CWWTW)
ddavitt: Ok, fishers back, have to go. they caught 2 but brought none home. i was right to order in
DavidWrightSr: That’s what I meant by assumption
ddavitt: Enjoyed the chat, night all
BPRAL22169: And a sleek Black panther named Sambo isn’t other than Negritic.
AGplusone: even if Lil Black Sambo is Indian in the original?
EBATNM: Bye Jane
KultsiKN: Nite, Jane
AGplusone: nite Jane
ddavitt has left the room.
BPRAL22169: Yes — but the Brits refered to wogs as black.
AGplusone: hi, again, to Mum
KultsiKN: For once I beat Jane
AGplusone: So since the wogs are degraded Black Hats, and Sambo is determined an enemy, then he’s a black Black Hat too
AGplusone: ??
BPRAL22169: Now you’ve got me confused — aren’
BPRAL22169: t the Black Hats RAH?
AGplusone: Yes, but ….
AGplusone: he’s playing with our minds again.
AGplusone: Assumptions
AGplusone: And we’re making them
EBATNM: I thought Sam Beaux is described as a Sky Marshall which would mean he is ‘from’ SST
DavidWrightSr: That’s what I meant. Assumptions. Not necessarily valid
AGplusone: I never thought of that ….
BPRAL22169: Colin refers to him on 360 as “Little Black Sambo, the sky marshal.” and then says “Look, boy, I’m mighty glad that your skin color matches mine.” . . .
BPRAL22169: I would be called a racist for the way I despise you.” that’s not “implication” it’s clear even though indirect.
AGplusone: pretty much so
EBATNM: “boy” is also a term you really don’t want to use to a black man
BPRAL22169: We’re not making assumptions about that — just reading the indirect evidence “Boy” and match of skin color.
BPRAL22169: Yes. Colin is trying to insult Sam Beaux.
AGplusone: unless you want to insult him and start a war, which maybe Colin does.
KultsiKN: Judging by the language — if your quote is accurate, Bill — they were black/dark skinned
BPRAL22169: Beaux has just called him a coward.
AGplusone: And there’s the foot thing when Colin winds up with one of Laz’s spares
BPRAL22169: Yes. It’s one of things that is pellucidly clear to a native English-speaker, but perhaps not to an ESL speaker.
BPRAL22169: I think the black foot was referring to a different foot graft — the Jewish man in the wheelchair.
AGplusone: Then again, Colin meeting the Japanese ‘restaurant’ owner who served with
EBATNM: Heinlein playing with minds, again? Getting white americans to identify with a character whom turns-out to be black?
BPRAL22169: It’s a brown herring.
AGplusone: “Go For Broke” suggests a SST link there too.
KultsiKN: The feet were never referred to as black or white
AGplusone: wait ….
BPRAL22169: No — it looked like a brown sock.
DavidWrightSr: Colin said his the fourth foot didn’t match in ‘skin color, hairiness. etc’
DavidWrightSr: The brown socks were on the guy from luna.
BPRAL22169: Right — the rabbi.
KultsiKN: Yes
DavidWrightSr: Rabbi Ben Ezra
BPRAL22169: Colin’s simply doesn’t match.
EBATNM: and we know LL is white cuz he freckles
DavidWrightSr: Colin does say ‘Little Black Sambo’, but it still doesn’t prove that he was actually black
BPRAL22169: He’s a redhead.
BPRAL22169: What kind of proof are you looking for, David? He talks to him as if he were black.
BPRAL22169: he insults him by calling him “boy,”
KultsiKN: I see a redheaded black man almost weekly
BPRAL22169: he calls him “little Black Sambo”
DavidWrightSr: more misdirection.
BPRAL22169: No, it’s really very clear.
DavidWrightSr: Not to me
BPRAL22169: As clear as you possibly can get without coming right out and saying Colin Campbell is a Negro.
EBATNM: Heinlein was actually very chary of character description.
KultsiKN: That he was, it’s better to let the reader fill in the blanks
EBATNM: Did he actually describe the main characters, as to racial features, in his juveniles? I can’t think of any.
EBATNM: Some supporting characters, yes.
EBATNM: Kiku, et. al.
KultsiKN: Could it be to pacify Ms. “Dirty Minds”
Dalgliesh?
DavidWrightSr: Would a typical reader call someone named “Sam Beaux” dressed all in black, anything but ‘Little Sam Beaux’?
DavidWrightSr: I meant ‘Little Black Sambo’
KultsiKN: After all, he had to make a buck.
EBATNM: Ok – here’s a question: Could a SF juvenile been written and published in the 1950’s with an obvious black as the protagonist?
EBATNM: AND be a commerical success?
DavidWrightSr: I’m sure Dogleash would have rejected it.
EBATNM: Even now most literature written by black Americans is in the Black Studies section of your local bookstore
AGplusone: It would have been a surprise to find one. My dad was surprised about the Abrams boy in 53 … when he read it.
EBATNM: Ms. Dalgliesh would have committed a hysterical-ectomy on the spot.
DavidWrightSr: I was surprized by Caroline Mshiyeni(sp)
BPRAL22169: The “misdirection” theory has the same problems — what is the misdirection of implying Colin Campbell is black supposed to accomplish?
DavidWrightSr: Didn’t catch the Abrams thing
AGplusone: I’d been Heinlein-ized by then, so it wasn’t a surprise.
AGplusone: My dad made a point of it. My grandmother’s maiden name happens to be Abrams.
EBATNM: Bill: having a white readership actually identify with a black character
DavidWrightSr: To make us think
BPRAL22169: And it’s clear that Colin Campbell’s skin color “matches” Sam Beaux’s
DavidWrightSr: Agreed. But no where does it says his is black either
BPRAL22169: Why would he be a racist for despising a fellow Caucasoid or mongolian? it’s not so much misdirection as deliberately misreading the text.
AGplusone: It’s clear that his one leg doesn’t match Lazarus’s leg in “skin color, texure, hairiness, or any detail.”
DavidWrightSr: The whole notion rests on Sam Beaux being black and Colins’s skin matching, so he is black also
BPRAL22169: Yes — but that doesn’t say “black” or “white.” Your skin color and hairiness don’t match mine, either.
AGplusone: pg. 295, and we’re set up for off-color transplants in the story by Ezra’s two transplants, being from an African.
EBATNM: Trying to get white Americans to see our fellow countrymen as individuals and not The Other
BPRAL22169: Neither does Andy’s — though we are both Caucasoid
BPRAL22169: though we are all three Caucasoid.
AGplusone: Yes, right, but … it’s a bit closer and it wouldn’t be too remarked upon …
AGplusone: while in Cat it is!
BPRAL22169: Look, my point is, you can’t pick and choose which part of the text you will acknowledge and which part you won’t.
EBATNM: “Cat” is, of course a slang term for a Black Man, and Colin does, actually walk through walls when they download Mike
BPRAL22169: That’s an interesting point.
DavidWrightSr: What part of the text are we ignoring?
AGplusone: more of a jazz term, which, of course, is probably ‘black’
EBATNM: The parts that don’t fit into any of our theories, of course! 🙂
AGplusone: i.e., ‘hepcat’
BPRAL22169: The inference that Sam Beaux was Negro is not an “assumption”; it is a conclusion legitimately derived from reading all the text together. Heinlein has carefully constructed his text to make any other conclusion insupportable. They
BPRAL22169: cannot be either Caucasoid or Mongoloid, because the text would not make “sense” for people of those common races to talk to each other in those ways.
DavidWrightSr: Circular reasoning. They make sense because they are black, they are black because nothing else makes sense
EBATNM: Good enough _literary_ reasoning
BPRAL22169: Not circular reasoning: they are black because no other conclusion explains all the references.
DavidWrightSr: I am going to have to disagree. I think that all the references rely on ‘assumptions’ that are not proven.
AGplusone: but not bulletproof … he could have escaped all that as he does with Juan, in one paragraph at the end
BPRAL22169: If you make contrary assumptions, then some of the references don’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense for, say, a Chinese man to say “I would be considered a racist if it were known I despise you” to another Chinese man.
BPRAL22169: There is only one conclusion that validates all the expressions he put togehter in that very brief exchange, and that is that both Sam Beaux and Colin Campbell are black.
AGplusone: He would have had to make both Chinese, of course
AGplusone: which is reaaaaallly strained
BPRAL22169: There is a loophole: Campbell might have had the complexion of a north African Muslim or a Dravidian, which can be as dark as a negro’s complexion.
AGplusone: or some Moros from indonesia … who are possibly either or both …
BPRAL22169: But, again, it would show an unusual degree of awareness of otherness to group oneself as a racist if a dark Caucasian is talking to a Negro.
KultsiKN: Anyway, Colin’s _father_ was LL.
BPRAL22169: Yes, there are other possibilities.
AGplusone: But what was Wendy and Jinx
DavidWrightSr: I’ll just have to agree to disagree. I think that it was a brilliant piece of misdirection to make a point about racism.
BPRAL22169: What point?
BPRAL22169: And why would he drag in an extraneous point?
EBATNM: The only way to settle this: Pistol’s at dawn. If I’m not there go ahead & start without me.
BPRAL22169: And your theory has to account for the fact that we cannot identify Sam Beaux among all those other literary members of the Circle.
BPRAL22169: (i.e., it must not depend on exterior knowledge about Sam Beaux, Sky Marshall)
DavidWrightSr: I don’t see any significance to that. He was an extraneous person used to make the point.
BPRAL22169: Again, what point?
AGplusone: Maybe Sam Beaux was a Filipino like Juan, one of the dark Moros from Zamboanga (Sam Bo = Sam bo) [that’s very probably too far out]
DavidWrightSr: That we make too many assumptions. He was saying ‘stop and think’
DavidWrightSr: Rather he let us make the assumptions to let us prove something to ourselves if we could.
AGplusone: What he definitely did do was make us require ‘proof’!
AGplusone: If it were a civil suit, I’d say proven by a preponderence of evidence, but not beyond a reasonable doubt ….
AGplusone: sufficient to convict of a crime.
DavidWrightSr: Circumstantial evidence. You are right, but not ‘proof’ to me.
AGplusone: IOW, defense counsel Wright, if this is criminal, you’ve established a remote, but possibly reasonable doubt …
AGplusone: or at least enough to hang a jury
AGplusone: one juror being sufficient
EBATNM: not in a civil case
EBATNM: majority rules
AGplusone: exactly
BPRAL22169: I’d like to explore this theory a bit, if you don’t mind.
AGplusone: ga/
EBATNM: fine
BPRAL22169: On the assumption that we are being arrested for our assumptions at this point — what assumption are we intended to be examining?
BPRAL22169: The master assumption of the book is that the Black Hats are the enemy. Jubal tells us there is no evidence for that.
DavidWrightSr: Simply to examine our ‘unconcious assumptions’ about race.
AGplusone: Heinlein delights in misdirection … ‘examine the facts’ he sez
BPRAL22169: Writers just don’t work that way — no successful commercial writer does. If that’s the purpose, it is worked into the theme, not dropped in and then abandoned 20 lines later.
AGplusone: He deliberately gives us the name “Sambo” which is enough for any bigot … which makes us (Dave and me) suspicious
DavidWrightSr: I may be going too much from my own ‘assumptions’. My first reaction was exactly the same as everyone else, but then I stopped and thought about it.
AGplusone: … waiting for the trap to fall somewhere down the World as Myth
BPRAL22169: That is a highly likely explanation, IMO
AGplusone: when it turns out they are both chinese …
DavidWrightSr: Hey. I just realized that this thing is not cutting our sentences short. Whoopee
BPRAL22169: CAT is very complicated — hypercomplicated, even.
BPRAL22169: I think they expanded the message box to 256K
DavidWrightSr: Who erase ‘Sambo’?
DavidWrightSr: erased
AGplusone: not I said the fly
KultsiKN: Prolly the same guys who shot him down.
DavidWrightSr: 256. About time. I managed about 20 sentences per chat that I had to redo before.
AGplusone: but it doesn’t give you message too long or complicated
BPRAL22169: Likeliest candidates are “scene changers” and authors.
BPRAL22169: But how did they even know about scene changers?
BPRAL22169: That stuff was just dropped in without any prior buildup, IIRC.
EBATNM: IIRC?
AGplusone: referring to which: the circumstantial evidence of skin color, or the scene changers?
BPRAL22169: “If I Recall Correctly” DavidW, have you done a timeline for the various circles in time in CAT?
BPRAL22169: I think we were talking about Sam Beaux’s erasure.
BPRAL22169: p. 361 of CAT
EBATNM: Sam is shot by seemingly everyone and it is his corpse that is erased (and all the miscellaneous gore)
KultsiKN: Yes, that one. Who were the operators who knew about Sam’s behaviour?
AGplusone: maybe that’s why we can’t find the literary antecedent … they went back and erased the book too
EBATNM: why is he erased after he is ‘rubbed-out’?
BPRAL22169: It’s described like a time paradox — Sam Beaux was temporally erased, so Colin was never shot.
DavidWrightSr: Sorry. I was afk. No, haven’t done a timeline. Too difficult with events changing history. I’m chicken
DavidWrightSr: Would like to do ‘bootstraps’. It
AGplusone: uh, any possibility that the original Number had a Sam Beaux in it?
DavidWrightSr: is fixed
BPRAL22169: Yes. That’s the curious thing, though — this kind of paradox doesn’t happen in the Everett-Wheeler many Worlds type of multiple timelines.
EBATNM: it’s no biggie being shot in the World As Myth because you can always be healed ASAP
BPRAL22169: So we have both multiple timelines and temporal paradoxes in a single timeline.
DavidWrightSr: Precisely.
EBATNM: To Tertius for the operation and Beluahland to re-cooperate
BPRAL22169: But that’s not what happened here — Beaux was shot, then erased, and the wound was simply gone.
AGplusone: If he was erased … you’d have to erase the book, since all the characters are from books.
KultsiKN: Not necessarily erased, simply led elsewhere, so the shooting never took place.
AGplusone: But there’s no book in our timeline.
EBATNM: my question is: Why do it that way? What the heck is going on in that sequence?
AGplusone: no author
EBATNM: But we know there IS an author: Robert Heinlein.
BPRAL22169: “… his body began to disappear. it didn’t fade out; it disappeared in swipes, through the middle, then across the face, as if someone had taken an eraser to a chalkboard. then he was gone completely; not even blood was left.
BPRAL22169: … Even his chair was gone. And the wound in my gut was gone.”
AGplusone: As if the artist erased Daffy Duck
DavidWrightSr: Heinlein did it, in the chamber, with an eraser.
BPRAL22169: The chair being gone is a telling detail — he didn’t exist so they didn’t set a chair for him. it’s a temporal paradox.
AGplusone: . . . just like the famous Daffy cartoon
BPRAL22169: In a book supposedly built on a completely different theory.
BPRAL22169: Conceptually we just went into a different quantum state with Schroedinger’s Cat.
DavidWrightSr: But, the same thing happens in NOTB, with the places where the four had lived
EBATNM: We are missing something very basic to the roots of CAT
AGplusone: Heinlein again as black hat, scene changers …. I brought you into this world, I can take you out …
BPRAL22169: How so?
BPRAL22169: That was to DavidW, but it goes equally to Andy.
AGplusone: Black Hat both times
EBATNM: the book just doesn’t hang together for me, as if I was reading the middle book of a trilogy
EBATNM: IF we say that CAT is a continuation of NOTB – and why not? – it’s in a further development of the same universe as MIAHM
BPRAL22169: I agree — it has that “expository” feel to it like the middle of a sequence.
AGplusone: The Black Hat rides again, which means, Jane and I have to go look for anagrams again
BPRAL22169: Immediately thereafter Jubal Harshaw reminds us the universe does not have to have a logical structure (but by implication a work of fiction does)
EBATNM: Colin Campbell – Colin Powell?
BPRAL22169: “Tell the truth, but tell it slant.”
BPRAL22169: Actually, they refer to him by this time as Richard Ames.
EBATNM: a work of fiction has to have _artistic_ structure. Logical structure is not needed.
EBATNM: and sometimes not wanted
EBATNM: True, O King
BPRAL22169: I was just reading forward in that discussion — Jubal says when Sterling offs the Galactic Overlord he will be erased. Who or what did Sam Beaux destroy? Colin Campbell. What does this mean? I don’t know — but it’s quite
BPRAL22169: pregnant.
AGplusone: We have a lot of funny names introduced in that section: Sadie Lipschitz, Aunts Tilly, Abby, etc.
AGplusone: Might this tie somehow to Walker Evans?
EBATNM: But he didn’t destroy Campbell – he only tried to & was prevented. Because they needed Campbell for the raid?
AGplusone: since they change that history too?
EBATNM: Sam Beaux as the Campbell cognate in the SST universe?
BPRAL22169: In HIS timeline he had destroyed his complement (Campbell), so he was erased. incidentally, note that hero/villain complement bit — it’s structure of Romance.
AGplusone: ????
AGplusone: in a SST alternative universe?
BPRAL22169: That’s the solution to that particular problem — something had changed in Sam Beaux’s timeline.
AGplusone: one in which Campbell makes Sky Marshal?
BPRAL22169: Possibly.
AGplusone: instead of eating Walker Evans
AGplusone: weird
EBATNM: Sam IS Campbell (or Campbell IS Sam, same difference) but on different axis’.
EBATNM: Heck, maybe everybody is merely a cognate of LL
AGplusone: And Colin Campbell, historically, was an alias for the general who wound up commanding the ‘thin red line’
DavidWrightSr: They are all Heinlein, didn’t you know. Panshin told us so. 🙂
KultsiKN: Nope. Turning point characters, mutually exclusive.
EBATNM: MY BRAIN HURTS!
BPRAL22169: I think it’s supposed to, Andy.
AGplusone: he was related to the Campbells, but changed his name to Campbell only when he enlisted in the 43rd (?) foot
AGplusone: or whatever the Campbells’ number is
EBATNM: That would be him, then, on THIS timeline?
AGplusone: aka the Argylls
AGplusone: but his name wasn’t Ames
DavidWrightSr: test
DavidWrightSr: Sorry. I thought my system had frozen up.
BPRAL22169: I just noticed something else — LL’s leg is burned off him at the assault to rescue Mycroft Holmes.
AGplusone: LL’s? huh? where?
BPRAL22169: LL’s project causes his leg to be burned off. Ames does finally reject the leg as he has been trying to do.
EBATNM: Huh? I thought LL didn’t go on the raid
KultsiKN: His leg did
AGplusone: You mean burnt off Ames
BPRAL22169: p. 377 — no, Colin Campbell is carrying LL’s leg.
AGplusone: again!
EBATNM: that is …. disgusting
BPRAL22169: Yes. LL metaphorically cut off his own leg. Isn’t there something about gnawing off a limb to get out of a trap . . .
AGplusone: ah-hah! rejection figuratively like Johann’s brain …. d’oh!
AGplusone: another argument against Heinlein the incester
AGplusone:
BPRAL22169: I also catch resonances of the Odin at the Well of Wisdom story — have to give up a part to get wisdom.
BPRAL22169: We keep piling ’em up; sooner or later some sense will trickle out of the heap.
AGplusone: yeah … but I’m still going to look for anagrams
EBATNM: I don’t suppose anyone has found any notes in the archive relating to CAT?
BPRAL22169: And it’s also an Abraham-and-Isaac sacrifice of the son.
BPRAL22169: A few so far — I haven’t gotten up to that part.
AGplusone: the son Ismael this time
BPRAL22169: And on 378 he’s “Richard Campbell” so the names are combined and integrated.
AGplusone: And he’s carrying a battle recorder like Ted Bronson … oh, yuck!
AGplusone: Let me ask it: I don’t suppose anyone has found any notes in the archive relating to CAT?
BPRAL22169: OK on p. 381, Richard’s leg gets burned off, the wall collapses and he sees Sam Beaux — so the shot DID reach its mark, didn’t it?
KultsiKN: ??
DavidWrightSr: Saw Sam?
BPRAL22169: No — a couple of index cards that might relate to that, but his index cards are very hard to read.
DavidWrightSr: I can’t find that. My pages don’t quite match yours
BPRAL22169: I don’t think anybody else here has been to the archive.
BPRAL22169: pb?
AGplusone: Which means “who was Talliferro” … Sam Beaux?
AGplusone: It would have to be in the last two pages of the PB, Dave
AGplusone: because it’s the penultimate page in the harbound
BPRAL22169: It’s the page before the last page in mine: “When that wall opened, I think I saw what’s-his-name. Could the bloke who erased him write him back into the story? To clip us?”
BPRAL22169: Again, indirect.
AGplusone: Any book yu can think of about a Toliver, or a Talliferro, anyone?
EBATNM: not me
BPRAL22169: Maupin’s tales of the City has a Michael Toliver as a character.
DavidWrightSr: found it. I had totally missed that one.
AGplusone: Never read it
BPRAL22169: An Isaac Asimov murder mystery about Mercury has Taliafero as a character.
EBATNM: darn, stupid o’ me
EBATNM: (re: Tales)
AGplusone: Color of either match ?
BPRAL22169: Cifcle in time — Hazel killed Tolliver (because he was assigned to kill Richard) and started this whole thing off.
AGplusone: And who kills “what’s-his-name’ … ?
BPRAL22169: LL, Sterling, and Rufo, I think.
BPRAL22169: No. LL, Sterling, and “Commander Smith.”
AGplusone: “someone else was shooting” in p. 381
AGplusone: Hazel again?
BPRAL22169: Incidentally, everyone on the circle calls Beaux “Sambo.”
BPRAL22169: Though only Colin calls him “Little Black Sambo” at the conflict.
AGplusone: Then she says: sorry I had to kill him, he was assigned to kill you, on 382
EBATNM: How can Tolliver get close to Campbell in the first place if the ‘Supper Club’ is edited out of history?
BPRAL22169: Don’t see “someone else was shooting” — says 3 shots from three crack gunmen.
BPRAL22169: Different timeline?
AGplusone: And it’s not clear that Gwen-Hazel lives either. Both she and Pixel are still.’
BPRAL22169: She is also having the “white light” experience.
EBATNM: We don’t see how the raid ends because that would be authorial finality – and earlier we are told in 50% of realities they succeed and 50% where they fail
AGplusone: “Someone else was firing. On our side I think” about ten lines down
BPRAL22169: richard implies Pixel was killed.
EBATNM: Pixel is killed, in 50% of the futures BUT in a multi-timeline multiverse if they survive in _any_ timeline they have a ‘future’ in all the timelines.
AGplusone: I keep seeing little hints of Oscar in this last passage too
BPRAL22169: Commander Smith is Ted Smith from the Lensman timeline.
AGplusone: the crawling … the beam weapon …
AGplusone: Ted Smith = Ted Bronson
AGplusone: Ted Bronski from SST
BPRAL22169: No, he is introduced in RCAC is introduced to the Circle.
BPRAL22169: Different Smith.
BPRAL22169: He’s a Lensman.
AGplusone: maybe
BPRAL22169: No maybe. Definite.
AGplusone: I know who he is.
AGplusone: I’m just brainstorming
BPRAL22169: Besides, that would make two of LL, who is introduced as WWSmith.
EBATNM:
EBATNM: bye everyone
AGplusone: we quit in 15
EBATNM has left the room.
BPRAL22169: I’m not sure we have enough material to make an “ending.” We’ll just have to stop
AGplusone: if we can have Richard Campbell, we can have Ted Smith …
AGplusone: I don’t think we have, but, oh, I wish we had the next volume
BPRAL22169: Sorry — not a Lensman. his timeline is coded “DuQuesne.”
BPRAL22169: p. 354
AGplusone: maybe they’re all Woody, in the other alias we don’t know about in the beginning of TEFL
AGplusone: nuthin keeps Laz from riding on back to the beginning of the Lensmen … and becoming the red haired, green eyed Lensman
AGplusone: now that he’s got Jacob’s wonderful Burrough’s irrelevancy bus
AGplusone: weird theory but scary
BPRAL22169: That is another curiosity, though — Ted Smith was a lensman in Number of the Beast, but he’s in the Skylark universe here.
AGplusone: and notice how he scares Zebbie and Jacob out of the Lensmen universe so they can finally arrive in Dora
BPRAL22169: “Blackie” DuQuesne is the villain of the Skylark series. Dick Seaton is the hero.
BPRAL22169: Just imagine: RAH had to keep all these details straight.
KultsiKN: Idea: Pixel at the end of Cat is the Schroedinger’s cat — not dead, not alive
AGplusone: could be
AGplusone: prolly is
BPRAL22169: I think the quantum paradox is supposed to apply to the situation as a whole: the operation is both successful and unsuccessful and all possible interim states.
KultsiKN: With Pixel as the clue?
AGplusone: one of which is Laz is everyone except Campbell, including Hazel, since she’s redhaired greeneyed too
BPRAL22169: Possible — follow Pixel into the timeline he likes.
AGplusone: and he has a sex change his next trip to the clinic
AGplusone: they did give him a choice, din’t they in TEFL?
BPRAL22169: You realize this allows Heinlein to write off all the events of CAT as a bubble the Circle was studying to plan their operation.
BPRAL22169: Yes, they did.
BPRAL22169: So the “expository” feel of the book might be a reflection of its purpose in the whole World As Myth master plot.
AGplusone: just like the bubble test in IWFNE … ?
BPRAL22169: Well, maybe not “just like.”
AGplusone: If Eunice is black …
AGplusone: parallel to the Smith Campbell breeding
BPRAL22169: Hmmm.
BPRAL22169: As Andy said: My brain hurts!
AGplusone:
BPRAL22169: We’re mad, I tell you — mad!
BPRAL22169: Why don’t we wrap it up here?
AGplusone: lol … and Kultsi is our witness …. we’ll have to swear him to secrecy, or kill him
BPRAL22169: Gentles, thank you, one and all, for coming.
BPRAL22169: Or we could do both. Simultaneously or serially.
AGplusone: virtually speaking of course
DavidWrightSr: We could just nip back to the beginning and erase and re-do the whole thing 😀
BPRAL22169: Good idea. Let’s.
AGplusone: 😀
DavidWrightSr: Ducking
AGplusone: let’s not … we’ll just scare the children
KultsiKN: Where?
DavidWrightSr: Let’s call it a night. I’ve had fun.
AGplusone: Holloween’s coming anyway … so’ve I!
BPRAL22169: Something else just occurred to me: perhaps it doesn’t matter at all what race Campbell and beaux are; what’s impotant is that they are (a) the same and (b) different from everybody else in that room.
KultsiKN: Yes, this’s been fun.
AGplusone: Good night David …. exactly.
AGplusone: Kultsi, hope this wasn’t really too weird
BPRAL22169: Have fun, all.
KultsiKN: No, it wasn’t, David.
BPRAL22169 has left the room.
AGplusone: and thank you for coming!!! always … hope you enjoy the dawn!
DavidWrightSr: Log officially closed at 7:58 P.M. EDT
AGplusone: and Good Night for NBC ….
KultsiKN: It’s loooong ways off — it’s late fall, remember.
DavidWrightSr: Night All
Final End Of Discussion Log
