Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group
Saturday 5-27-2000
‘The Long Watch’ and ‘Gentlemen, Be Seated’
You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group.”
TAWN3 has entered the room.
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stephenveiss has entered the room.
KultsiKN has entered the room.
stephenveiss: Hello
Merfilly8 has entered the room.
Merfilly8: Evening all
TAWN3: Hi all.
geeairmoe2: Hello all.
ddavitt has entered the room.
dwrighsr: Hi Everyone. I talked with Bill Patterson earlier and he said that David Silver would be here. But no sign of him yet. I’ve got the room cleaned up and ready to go, but I will have to be absent myself for a while.
ddavitt: Hi there, sorry talking to three people!
Merfilly8: <looks around the room, white gloves ready> 🙂
stephenveiss: 🙂
dwrighsr: Just don’t check my foot locker 🙂
ddavitt: Bill just appeared
KultsiKN: Hello all, was talking to Jane…
ddavitt: Yes, I was typing very fast!
ddavitt: As I was saying; can’t stay long…:-(
ddavitt: But I’ll pop back later if you’re all still online
Merfilly8: we’ll look forward to your return
ddavitt: The chat on thurs got very technical after I left david!
dwrighsr: Hang on every. Bill is trying to get in.
dwrighsr: Bill is having trouble.
KultsiKN: Which Bill?
ddavitt: BPRAL
dwrighsr: Bill Patterson. Now he is offline, maybe he’ll be back in a minute.
ddavitt: He just disappeared…
ddavitt: Thanks for helping my mum Stephen 🙂
ddavitt: Still not all sorted out but getting there
stephenveiss: np
dwrighsr: Do all of you people who are on non-Mac machines know how to save a shortcut?
Merfilly8: yes
Merfilly8: you write it down 🙂
dwrighsr: Do so and then you can pop back in without having to be invited.
ddavitt: No….
dwrighsr: Click on File, then Create Shortcut. then answer yes to save on desktop
Merfilly8: I got mine
ddavitt: OK’
Merfilly8 has left the room.
Merfilly8 has entered the room.
Merfilly8: works
[Editor’s Note: To acquire the shortcut for yourselves, Click on This Then Click on ‘File’ and ‘Save As’. Save to your desktop. Don’t Change name as given. You will have to have AIM already installed for this to work. Sadly, as noted below, this won’t work for MAC users]
dwrighsr: Unfortunately, the MAC people don’t seem to have this capability
ddavitt: Done it
stephenveiss has left the room.
dwrighsr: Yep it’s neet. Notice the name of the Room.
geeairmoe2: Click on FILE, click on CREATE SHORTCUT.
stephenveiss has entered the room.
stephenveiss: Sorry – ‘net connection dies
stephenveiss: died even
dwrighsr: You can keep the shortcut and use it whenever you want to set up the room yourself.
geeairmoe2 has left the room.
Merfilly8: ok
KultsiKN: Bill’s online…
dwrighsr: With version 4.0 of AIM, you have to start the program first, but with the earlier version it will automatically start it for you. I see Bill is back on line
labert8 has entered the room.
ddavitt: Hi there
BPRAL22169 has entered the room.
labert8: hey
BPRAL22169: Thanks, guys.
dwrighsr: There he is. !!!
ddavitt: Getting busy….
stephenveiss: hullo
dwrighsr: I’ve been explaining to the group how to save a shortcut so that they can pop back in automatically if problems occur.
BPRAL22169: Strange how AIM’s connection software gets confused so easily.
Merfilly8: They keep monkeying with it
KultsiKN: Stephen, yr mum gettin online?
BPRAL22169: Yes – the File\create shortcut option.
dwrighsr: Right. I have set up the Heinlein Readers Group room and if everybody who can saves it[the shortcut], they can use it whenever they want to set up a discussion.
stephenveiss: No, not tonight. She sends her apologies, but is on her way to bed fairly soon. So am I for that matter – I gotta be up early 🙁
Merfilly8: Sorry to hear that
dwrighsr: David Silver is here
stephenveiss has left the room.
Merfilly8: need a drum roll for that
BPRAL22169: The room is on your site, David?
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AGplusone has entered the room.
dwrighsr: Actually, the room has no physical existence. It is a construct when it is started.
stephenveiss: I have just come to the conclusion that AIM and Win2K don’t mix….grrr
KultsiKN: Hello, David!
dwrighsr: Yea Dave’s here.
stephenveiss: Hi, David
ddavitt: BRB
BPRAL22169: Windows 2000 bites.
AGplusone: Wonderful … Hi, everyone. Sorry I’m late.
labert8: hi david, and all
BPRAL22169: Crashes more often than Windows 95 or 98
KultsiKN: Hullo, Labert
TAWN3: Getting a really long lag time.
dwrighsr: What crashes? AIM software?
KultsiKN: On 2000?
geeairmoe2 has entered the room.
stephenveiss: 2K is much better for most things, but AIM (and ICQ for that matter) are not one of them
BPRAL22169: Windows 2000 crashes constantly.
dwrighsr: David. Is it true that the shortcut method doesn’t work on MACs?
KultsiKN: No, I haven’t 🙁
AGplusone: Yes, there’s a different shortcut that will, but I’m going to have to put it up on a webpage to use it.
AGplusone: Everyone will be able to use it from the webpage when I do that. A slightly different sort of link.
dwrighsr: Too bad. I’ve got everyone here,(I think), with a shortcut that lets them pop back in without an invite. and that they could use anytime they wanted to set up a discussion
AGplusone: Thank you all of opening this room!
stephenveiss has left the room.
BPRAL22169: Revolving door time.
stephenveiss has entered the room.
Merfilly8: It’s been steadily rotating for Stephen
stephenveiss: If it does it again, I’m switching back to 98 for the evening
dwrighsr: I’m afraid that I am going to have be off for a while. I’ll be back in about 45 minutes. I’m glad everyone is here. See you later.
KultsiKN: YES!
Merfilly8: l8r
stephenveiss: bye
dwrighsr: One or two of you please save your log periodically and then I can pick up anything that I might miss if I get kicked off
BPRAL22169: I always save the log if you need to pickup bits and pieces.
dwrighsr: Thanks.
dwrighsr: I seem to have a pretty secure connection, but you can’t always tell
ddavitt: I have to go, sorry, back later if possible,enjoy yourselves!
ddavitt has left the room.
AGplusone: Okay, has anyone started discussion on “Long Watch” and “Gentelemen”?
KultsiKN: Hi right back to her!
Merfilly8: not yet
labert8: Long Watch is the Dalquist story, yes?
Merfilly8: Yes
KultsiKN: I finally have those stories… Thanks to a wonderful lady
labert8: Can someone remind me what “Gentlemen” is? sorry, been out of the rah mode too long
TAWN3: I now have to go back and read what yiu guys have been talking about the last half hour!
BPRAL22169: Just chit-chat; don’t bother.
Merfilly8: “Gentlemen” concerns the reporter touring on Luna when an accident occurs
labert8: Ah yes.
AGplusone: Then, let’s begin … one thing I wondered about the ‘heroism” displayed in “Long Watch” … why did Dahlquist incrementally find himself involved … was Heinlein pointing to something by writing a story in which Dahlquist’s sacrifice was necessary, but could have been avoided, while Konski, the sandhog, lives even tho he was ready to make the same sacrifice?
labert8: thanks filly. makes my but hurt to think of it
Merfilly8: lol
Merfilly8: I believe Dahlquist is an example of a hero in spite of himself
AGplusone: What I am getting at is there was a simple solution for Dahlquist at the beginning that would have offered him a chance to live, but he didn’t take it, why not?
KultsiKN: The sequence of events in ‘Long Watch’ was inevitable — somebody who did know what had to be done dould not act otherwise…
KultsiKN: The option to live left too many loose ends.
AGplusone: I don’t agree … I agree someone had to stop it, but Dahlquist could have acted in a way that might offer better chances for his long-term survivial,
Kultsi … the ending shows the way …
Merfilly8: He did not seem to think clearly and rationally to me. He reacted, and kept reacting, as other factors impinged on his awareness.
KultsiKN: Sometimes reacting is the only thing you can do… not enough time to think…
AGplusone: I agree with Merfilly … he moved from step to step to step … and he wasted a long time before he found the ‘final solution’ … does anyone know what I’m referring to as the ‘final solution’?
geeairmoe2: Dahlquist’s training included the possibility of giving his life for others. His training is geared to that. He truly might have been unable to discover another option — one that could keep him alive. His first instinct was: protect others even at the cost of my life.
KultsiKN: Scratching the semipheres+
AGplusone: Heinlein used the same ‘final solution’ in another story, the one involving Don Harvey …
geeairmoe2: He is a well-trained soldier, and the first, best option sometimes is: Dive on the grenade!
Merfilly8: Refresh my memory?
AGplusone: What was Don Harvey’s sole duty aboard the “Little David”?
KultsiKN: Me 2!
AGplusone: The “deadman’s switch” …
TAWN3: Dead man switch
TAWN3: Was his sole duty when going to Mars
BPRAL22169: David is talking about BETWEEN PLANETS — the very end.
TAWN3: But that is what dahlquist did
Merfilly8: Ahh. Unfamiliar with story
TAWN3: I don’t understand what final solution you are refering to David
AGplusone: What if: Johnnie Dahlquist goes immediately to construct a ‘deadman’s switch’ upon entering the bomb room, then calls Tower and says, “No minor demonstrations for you, Buster. Surrender now.”
BPRAL22169: It was a “suicide switch,” wasn’t it — if Don relaxed (was killed) it would blow the ship to smithereens.
TAWN3: He did not think of it in time David
TAWN3: Yes Bill
AGplusone: ” … it’s all over. Get Rivera here to examine the thing I’ve done over the TV. I’m here until we’re relieved, and you all die with me if you try to get me out. Surrender now.” I agree, he didn’t think of it in time, Tawn. He wasn’t prepared.
BPRAL22169: My sc
TAWN3: HJe didn’t expect to need to be prepared
TAWN3: BRB
KultsiKN: That was Dahlquist’s first solution — what he finally ended up with was the demolition of the active material in the bombs.
AGplusone: Difference between Him and Konski is Konski was prepared … Konski had thought about things …
AGplusone: Do you think RAH consciously was making that point? Anyone?
KultsiKN: Dahlquist was unprepared, and acted, while Konski knew it all, and was prepared.
BPRAL22169: I think that point rose spontaneously from the portrait of a personality type, rather than being worked into the story.
KultsiKN: RAH was diving us a template — and not the only one — in Long Watch
AGplusone: I agree, but what ‘personality type’ and what ‘template’ … ?
BPRAL22169: Part of the plangency of “Gentlemen” is that Konski is an unlikely hero-type at first glance.
geeairmoe2: What I found “jarring” in a sense was Konski trying to recruit Dahlquist to the Cause so “late in the game”. Bad planning. He should have known beyond a shadow of a doubt where Dalhquist would fall.
TAWN3: Yes Kultsi, your right. He ended up destroying the bombs because he found a flaw in his plan.
BPRAL22169: As we get to know Konski, we find he is the kind of personalilty RAH outlines in “It’s Great to be Back!”
TAWN3: David, that is not fair
AGplusone: Right, Bill, a grievance filing ‘troublemaker’ when need be … but totally competent at his job is Konski … and the one the paymaster particularly ‘picked’ to be the reporter’s escort.
AGplusone: Why not, Tawn?
TAWN3: Dahlquist shouldn’t have been planning to thwart military cuops on the Moon. Konski’s job was to be prepared
BPRAL22169: Maybe Dahlquist believed Tower would give in sooner and as his understanding of the situation grew his tactics changed.
Merfilly8: I don’t see that Dahlquist, in the back of his mind, expected Towers to capitulate
AGplusone: Why shouldn’t he? Do you think that the bomb officers at the Minuteman sites we used to have didn’t think about that … ?
BPRAL22169: You start off “throwingyourself on the grenade” and it doesn’t go off immediately, soyou change your plans.
KultsiKN: Yes, Bill!
AGplusone: No, actually, you constuct a L-shaped bunker Bill, if you think about it, or a grenade sump.
BPRAL22169: That kind of “evolutoin” struck me as “realistic.”
BPRAL22169: It rang true for me.
AGplusone: Tell them what I mean, Tawn.
TAWN3: Dahlquist
TAWN3: Fatso = Konski
geeairmoe2: Like the Secret Service. Hear a shot, jump in front of the President THEN look for the shooter.
geeairmoe2: Training turned into instinct.
TAWN3: Distracted. Why not what David?
labert8: Sorry folks, I m catching up. Does anyone know the publishing history here? Is there reason to believe the stories were written near the same time, so that rah could be seen as addressing the same theme in different ways?
AGplusone: But it’s not the job of anyone except the Secret Service, and not even the Secret Service, to take ‘bullets’ unnecessarily …
TAWN3: Why not Dahlquist need be prepared for his superiors to murder each other off and try to take over the world?
AGplusone: Yes …
BPRAL22169: Theywere both written for the “slicks” and he had roughly the sameagenda for all of his slicks stories.
AGplusone: Dahlquist is in an UN service. More countries in the UN have ‘colonel’ coups than not.
geeairmoe2: “Watch” 1949 in American Legion Magazine.
TAWN3: Because, it is not realistic
geeairmoe2: “Gentlemen” Argosy May 1948.
TAWN3: He is trained to not obey illegal orders.
TAWN3: He did that
TAWN3: He saved the world
labert8: so about one year. thanks geeairmoe
BPRAL22169: I believe “The Logn Watch” was aimed atthe Post but missed because of the readershipsurvey that said they didn’t want more SF
TAWN3: He died a hero, but the last thing I need is subordinates always thinking about how they must usurp me
TAWN3: Likewise, my men need to trust me
AGplusone: I dunno that it isn’t realistic … would Zeb Jones from “If This Goes On … ” have a contingency plan of what he would do if “X” scenario played out?
TAWN3: So, they need not expect that, say a Patriot Officer
Merfilly8: It was pointed out, had the coup gone the other way, Dahlquist would have been a traitor in history
BPRAL22169: Hmmm– I think part of the point was that Dahlquist was the “ordinary joe” who never thought of insubordination but steppedup to the plate when it was necessary — the New Deal Man.
TAWN3: Is going to turn the Patriot around and fire on his own troops
AGplusone: Exactly …
TAWN3: To do that is somewhat unthinkable
AGplusone: Really?
Merfilly8: “History is written by the winners”
geeairmoe2: All I can say, as someone who has spent his whole life around military family members, Dahlquist’s actions seem quite logical to me.
TAWN3: Should it happen though, I would expect a junior officer to react quickly and wisely
AGplusone: Did you ever think what you might do if someone tried to ‘frag’ you?
TAWN3: Think of Dr. Strangelove and Peter Sellers character.
TAWN3: In some ways, he wasa in a situation similar to Dahlquist
TAWN3: Thrust into a highly unlikely scenario and forced to respond.
AGplusone: Or an idiot superior ordered you to unnecessarily fill off your unit and yourself?
AGplusone: fill=kill (sorry)
TAWN3: I need catch up on everyone elses posts now.
BPRAL22169: Gallipoli.
TAWN3: Yes, lots of countries in the UN are third world, and have Colonel coups
labert8: are these just two characters doing what dam-well needs to be done? that particular ethic seems to have been strong with rah. superior or no superior, risk or no, it’s gotta get done.
AGplusone: I agree with Bill, that ‘art of the point’ was what he said, but could it have been also part of the point to say: plan for the ‘unrealistic’ unexpected, like Konski, perhaps?
TAWN3: They are not the countries with enough pull to get important positions and the key rolls
AGplusone: art=part
TAWN3: The US, USSR, PRC, UK, French,
TAWN3: They will get those key roles
BPRAL22169: Again, I think it’s a difference of the persons being portrayed.
TAWN3: Trust me on that one
TAWN3: The congo and paraguay WILL NOT be running the show!
BPRAL22169: Also the difference of story type — “Gentlemen” is a blue story/comedy; “The Long Watch” is a heroic myth.
BPRAL22169: Deliberately written as oneofthe four Patrol heroism stories from Space Cader
labert8: I’ve often wished for the other three
BPRAL22169: Me, too.
AGplusone: I’ve been reading a series of stories by an author named Ian Douglas, who seems to have read Heinlein, in which he anticipates a sort of ‘unrealistic’ scenario taking place in future UN-US operations …
KultsiKN: ‘History heroes’ and ‘Unsung Heroes’ kind of diiference?
Merfilly8: Soldier hero versus blue-collar hero
BPRAL22169: more like Comedy versus Tragedy, I think.
AGplusone: (I agree, wish we’d have all four stories)
labert8: Does Knoski say that he’d considered his ‘solution’ in the past as perhaps one day being necessary?
AGplusone: The French, for example, could have other aims in a UN mission than ours Tawn, doesn’t need be the Congo or Paraguay. No, Labert, but I think Konski is portrayed as the sort who would likely have … just the character portrayal is the type.
BPRAL22169: I’m always appreciativeof RAH’s “tolerance” of people in general — the initial portraitof Konski looks like an annoying person –but it turns out he has the right stuff, after all.
BPRAL22169: That’s a rather sophisticated viewpoint.m You don’t see much of that amongpoliticians today — who want to deal with demons across theaisle.
AGplusone: He knows little tricks like the ‘fools’ mate’ for example, and the first thing he says to the paymaster each time the situation chances is ‘now we’re on this level of premium pay’ etc.
AGplusone: chances=changes
KultsiKN: OH, I can be most unsavoury, if anyone asks for my opinion in RL — in the long run I’ll give the facts exactly…
labert8: I’m flatfooted here, haven’tbeen online, wasn’t prepared for this chat, just got invited in. Working from memory isn’t optimum. Yeah I recall Konski as abrasive in the beginning of the story, but
geeairmoe2: The first time I saw “Alien”, Yaphett Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton reminded me of “Gentlemen”. Thinking of bonus pay.
BPRAL22169: That movie occurred to me just now, too.
AGplusone: Konski is sort of a Lazarus Long, isn’t he, in personality? Always looking out for himself, but willing to ‘die gallantly’ if need be.
BPRAL22169: OBanion didn’t do nearly as much with them, though, as RAHdid.
labert8: would rah hvae been tolerant of that type if he hadn’t been capable in other ways? if he hadn’t been the type would would ‘sit down’ when time to be counted (sorry) 🙂
BPRAL22169: LOL
AGplusone: No, RAH wouldn’t have! Good point.
BPRAL22169: You’re right, though — it was what Konski did when the chips were down that counts. Again, a relatively sophisticated viewpoint IMO.
AGplusone: Johnnie Dahlquist is another John Lyle, gets into things without thinking ahead, typical lieutenant, right, Tawn?
BPRAL22169: (or “cheeks” were down)
AGplusone: …. eeeew!
BPRAL22169: sorry — low-flying “cheek” shot.
KultsiKN: Did anyone notice — the way Knowles & Konski started talmking shop when the incident occured?
AGplusone: Descibe it, Kultsi … howso?
Merfilly8: Knowles seemed to know the working side of things
TAWN3: Yes David, typical LT
BPRAL22169: (I always wind up with pilesof books and reference material after one of these chats)
TAWN3: The difference between a 2nd LT and a PFC is that a PFC has been promoted twice. 🙂
AGplusone: Knowles seems to be a shrewd man … picks Konski to guide them, not an ‘office geek’ pencil pusher.
labert8: Bill, sophisticated in that other might judge by appearance rather than performance in crisis? if so, I’d agree at least for the majority of the citizenry.
labert8: other=others
AGplusone: :-)true usually, Tawn.
BPRAL22169: I think so, labert. That kind of tolerance of different personality types is kind of going out of social style.
TAWN3: Knowles and Arnold ran into Konski as he was coming off shift. It did not seem planned to me.
AGplusone: Then, there’s always the Hassan the Assassin exceptions.
AGplusone: But there’s the entire other shift of guys getting off too.. . he coulda picked the foremanof the shift.
KultsiKN: Yes, that’s what I meant — first he acts like a tourist guide to a reporter, but when needed, he knows the procedures exactly.
TAWN3: They seemed like friends to me
TAWN3: They had banter, it did not seem abrasive
TAWN3: some of you seem to think it wasI didn’t
BPRAL22169: Ity’s not “personality style” abrasive, I don’tthink — but Konski comes off as a union slug at first.
AGplusone: More like ‘ancient adversaries’ really, I think. Sounds to me like Konski’s filed a few ‘pay’ grievances against the paymaster over the years.
geeairmoe2: One thing I took away from “Gentlemen” is how sudden disaster could strike. Knowles might have had that in mind when he picked Konski — picking someone good to have along in case of an emergency.
TAWN3: He calls him Fatso, etc., but they strike me as friends
AGplusone: … and they respect each other ….
TAWN3: A logical choice to pick to come along with you
KultsiKN: Knowles & Konski = boss & worker knowing and respecting each other.
AGplusone: but I wouldn’t think they were ‘buddies’ exactly.
TAWN3: I need someone, I know you are competent and a compatible personality to me and/or the job
TAWN3: Seemed very natural to me.
labert8: respect is morre imortant than buddies, especially in their work environment
AGplusone: Yes. And if I make a mistake I know you wouldn’t hesitate to tell me I’m full of it.
BPRAL22169: Another part of the “background” is that thisis the way space is going to be built, this kind of personal versus professional intereaction.
labert8: Which buddies sometimes won’t do
KultsiKN: Yes. David, either way..
TAWN3: Yes Bill, Rah makes that point all the time.
BPRAL22169: And,. of couorse, that’s part of his “agenda” for the Post stories.
AGplusone: It is: from the Roads Must Roll onward …
KultsiKN: In ’49, yes…
geeairmoe2: “Gentlemen” had that wonderful seamlessness of technical detail without slowing the story.
BPRAL22169: (Which takes place in 1969 btw)
TAWN3: brb
labert8: Hmmnn, summer. . . no classes. . .Past Through Tomorrow. beginning to seem like a good combination
AGplusone: It did, as do the Ian Douglas stories I’m reading now. Technical seamlessness.
BPRAL22169: We encourage such thoughts.
AGplusone: Point maybe is: ‘our heroes will be just men’
KultsiKN: Or the other way round.
labert8: Isn’t that integration of tech one of rah’s hallmarks? Few others I’ve read can keep from focusing on the gadgets, even Niven for example seems to need to explain rather than mention
Merfilly8: I thought most heroes were.
BPRAL22169: The American ideal.
AGplusone: Clay feet and all … and maybe you can be one of ’em?
labert8: perhaps his life’s observation had been to that point that only just men seem capable of heroics. I wouldn’t disagree.
AGplusone: I think that’s a major hallmark of RAH’s craft!
labert8: just men are as rare as heroes, it seems
KultsiKN: Lbert — gadgets seldom are capable of heroism…
BPRAL22169: The nobility of the Common man was a New Deal era social ideal.
AGplusone: amazing gadgets operated by men and women like us
labert8: gd pnt kultsi
KultsiKN: It would take far more sophisticated gadgets to surpass men — like Asimov robots…
TAWN3: b
AGplusone: Someone mentioned Thursday night that the adversary isn’t a man like ‘Tower’ but always space and the future in these stories. Is that true?
labert8: seems a valid social ideal. the same values typified by the steereotype of the “common man’ are the ones that lead to standing by principles even when personal loss is at stake
TAWN3: No
AGplusone: Explicate, Tawn, please.
Merfilly8: I don’t see Space or the Future as the adversary
TAWN3: Space wasn’t the adversary in Watch, it was a setting
AGplusone: And Merfilly …
TAWN3: Which provided additional hardships, but it wasn’t the
TAWN3: adversary
geeairmoe2: You’ll always have “Man versus Nature” because while man (to an extent) can be controlled, nature can’t. Some facts are simply cold — like The Cold Equations.
labert8: depends on what you mean by surpass. In any real situation, some cowardly ass could have been in that tunnel, and the news reports would have noted the deaths at six. Machines can at least surpass some of what man does.
KultsiKN: Tawn — a challenge?
AGplusone: Who adversary, if not nature?
TAWN3: ?
Merfilly8: It’s hard to elucidate. To me, it is merely the medium where the story unfolds. It has its unique hardshiups that are lacking here, but then so did the New World.
TAWN3: What Kultsi?
BPRAL22169: Matter of definition, I think: Heinlein didn’t think much of adversary fictions — he got conflict out of different patterns.
AGplusone: ‘some cowardly ass’? The Dark Side of Human Nature, or History, perhaps? “Colonel coups” … included?
BPRAL22169: Very few “bad guys” in Heinlein — and space and the future were places of opportunity — but “the universe bites back”
Merfilly8: Like “Delilah” and “Space Jockey”, they are stories of life, everyday happenings, as perceived by Heinlein from the point of view of working and living in Space
KultsiKN: Space & future are not hardships — they are a challenge to overcome.
labert8: wow, i never noticed that horrible pun, sorry folks.
Merfilly8: If anything, I would go for Human Nature as Adversary
BPRAL22169: I think there’s an evolutionary figure built into this — space is not the adversary, but it’s a test, an evolutionary filter (as Darwin had emigration to the new world.) This comes out explicitly in FITS.
Merfilly8: FITS?
KultsiKN: Yes. Filly, yes!
BPRAL22169: So I think RAH would say: space is not adversary; it is indifferent.
BPRAL22169: Farmer in the Sky
Merfilly8: grrr, another unread book
KultsiKN: Yes, Bill!
labert8: I think rah definitely saw man as his own beggest enemy. thequestion was whether or not he’d stepp up to the plate when venturing out. . .
BPRAL22169: Have you got a treat in store for you!
AGplusone: Reading list for summer!
BPRAL22169: “The weak died on the way; the cowards never started.”
ddavitt has entered the room.
AGplusone: I agree with labert, w/caveat that history is always there to watchfor patterns.
AGplusone: WB Jane
labert8: folks, I’m enjoying this, but hadn’t planned on the time, and other obligations. . . you know. thanks for the stimulation, enjoy. I’ll try to stay more aware so i know when the bext ones coming
ddavitt: Hi again.
Merfilly8: “There’s nothing new under the sun”
Merfilly8: See you Labert
ddavitt: What did I miss?
labert8: hi jane, bye jane
KultsiKN: A lot
AGplusone: Right, Merfilly, or “S O S” …
Merfilly8: An elvis sighting 🙂
TAWN3: Bil, I think yiou are right. Very few “villians in RAH.. Nazis in RG, HSWT, Tower, but very few. Usually it is about how humans react to situations.
ddavitt: Bye labert
BPRAL22169: Only elvis Cole.
AGplusone: Bye labert, next time for sure.
BPRAL22169: I can e-mail you the log, if you like.
ddavitt: I’ll catch up…
AGplusone: That’s a good idea, why don’t you, Bill.
labert8: please do so Bill, i’d appreciate it.
AGplusone: Theres’ a lot in there Jane.
labert8: bye all
labert8 has left the room.
BPRAL22169: jane, IM me your full address.
Merfilly8: Sometimes, better stories in how a man deals against himself.
ddavitt: Oh well if it’s no trouble, thanks
ddavitt: OK
BPRAL22169: No trouble.
TAWN3: 1/2 way point. Break?
AGplusone: Why don’;t we take five minutes, and water the cats. Back at 631 EST
Merfilly8: Break what 🙂
dwrighsr: Hi. everyone. I’m back. I’ll read the log to see where we are. Don’t mind me
AGplusone: 636, rather.
TAWN3: Bk break, over
Merfilly8: We’re breaking
ddavitt: OK, give me chance to catch up…
AGplusone: BT, BT, K
AGplusone: 🙂
BPRAL22169: Jane, it’s gone by e-mail attachment; let me know when you get it.
ddavitt: Got it….
AGplusone: afk
AGplusone: Bill’s got the conn
BPRAL22169: Power!
AGplusone: [did you get the cat photos Stephen?]
geeairmoe2: Note to David S before I forget: finally found the Cliffs Notes on Heinlein’s Works. It has a 1975 copyright.
KultsiKN: Stehphen, you’ve been quiet — haven’t read these?
BPRAL22169: Baird Searles. Not very useful, i’m afraid.
AGplusone: Ah, shucks! You have a copy too Billl?
BPRAL22169: Yes — somewhere.
BPRAL22169: It’s really useless so I don’t keep it handy.
AGplusone: Be interesting to read it anyway … if for no reason than to dis[s]pell mistakes
BPRAL22169: However, the LA County Library has a copy you can get through interlibrary loan.
KultsiKN: Filly — you got Ebontress with ya?
BPRAL22169: Besides, we prefer to dis mistakes.
AGplusone: [Fluff Wars II coming up … check reservations at the Raffles]
KultsiKN: 😉
Merfilly8: “fraid Ebon has gone to pick up the male portion of the household
AGplusone: As in: I gotta get outta ‘dis’ place, which once was a favorite song of mine.
Merfilly8: we’ve been pressed for time these few days, so we’re behind on reading the NG
KultsiKN: Give’er me luv!
Merfilly8: I will
BPRAL22169: (groaaaan!)
KultsiKN: Bill, what’s ya groanin’ at?
BPRAL22169: See Dave S’s last.
KultsiKN: 🙂
AGplusone: Okay, back … lets go with a new line … who’s got a theory or a question about these two stories that we haven;’t hit.
TAWN3: Bill, I found the Searles Cliff Notes interesting in many ways. Haven’t read it in two years though and can’t comment. But I do remember getting somerthing out of it.
AGplusone: Raise hands or I’ll pick a victim …
ddavitt: What about how the Patrol went from endangering eart to being its protector?
TAWN3: Panshin is better of course.
TAWN3: Or wwworse!
ddavitt: ie from Long Watch to space cadet
BPRAL22169: Now that’s praising with faint damns1
ddavitt: Though SC came first
AGplusone: In what way, Jane?
ddavitt: Well, how did it get to be trusuted with all the bombs that matt looks after?
KultsiKN: timewise
ddavitt: After Towers I would’ve thought Earth would be nervous…
BPRAL22169: I think it was created for that purpose.
ddavitt: Which?
BPRAL22169: Taking ccharge of the bombs.
TAWN3: Jane, youre right
AGplusone: Wasn’t the purpose of the moon base the same as the bombs in orbit Matt looks after … be peaceful or we’ll bomb you back to the stone age and then send in the guys to cover it with asphalt and put down the parking lines.
TAWN3: Yes
ddavitt: But they had a lesson in how dangerous the bombs were…is it that placing them in orbit came after the Towers takeover?
BPRAL22169: Toward the end of the War – maybe 46, H.G. Wells made a radio speech that said,if thevictors get together to control the air, war will become impossible — thus the Patrol.
TAWN3: Pure speculation Jane
TAWN3: SDI
BPRAL22169: But there is always vulnerability to “interested” people — just less with the Patrol than with bombs in the hands of the individual nations.
AGplusone: And I still haven’t had any luck with Urbana in finding that one (the speech), Bill.
AGplusone: Did Stover ever reply to your inquiry?
BPRAL22169: It’s too bad I cant recall where I ran across that reference. I wasn’tpaying attention at the time.
ddavitt: H tells the story of D in SC; must have always had that history in mind but he misses out the interim; I’m curoius as to how the Patrol got rehabilitated in the public eye
BPRAL22169: No, come to think of it — though he has been busy getting out 4 books this year.
Merfilly8: Did the public really know of the coup?
TAWN3: Bill, David, Welles makes that exact point in Things to Come. Who owns the high ground sets the rulkes and rebuilds.
ddavitt: Yes!
ddavitt: With all the fuss over the funeral?
BPRAL22169: RAH mentions the “revolt of thecolonels” as if it was a historical figure.
ddavitt: Had to know what happened or they wouldn’t have honoured him
Merfilly8: ok
BPRAL22169: Yes, Tawn — Wings Over the World
geeairmoe2: At the risk of triggering a gun control debate, “Watch” shows that bad people are the danger, not the tools they might use to cause trouble.
AGplusone: I think John Ezra Dahlquist ‘rehabilitated’ the Patrol in the publics eyes, Jane, and one reason why they had that enormously expensive funeral and all, was to drive the point home.
Merfilly8: Not necessarily. But then, I’m the child of a paranoid generation
ddavitt: Butt matt and Tex seem curiously ignorant…
TAWN3: Yes
BPRAL22169: And of course that’s a favorite trope of Heinilein’s — the predictions of
BPRAL22169: Where to and again in TMIAHM
ddavitt: Could be…nothing like a hero…
TAWN3: Nukes don’t kill people, colonels do?
TAWN3: 🙂
BPRAL22169: LOL
geeairmoe2: Meglomaniac Colonels.
AGplusone: Yes, more than three generations have gone bye. If it hadn’t been for the movie, how many of us would know about Galipoli?
AGplusone: I can’t even spell it …
ddavitt: But as candidates for the patrol wouldn’t they have rerad the history?
KultsiKN: I do not.
AGplusone: Not what, Kultsi?
BPRAL22169: I think it would still be known — it’s one of the blots on Winston Churchhill’s career, so he kind of carries it forward.
ddavitt: They don’t know the ritual of the four names,….but that may be kept secret..
KultsiKN: Know about Gallipoli.
BPRAL22169: Not necessarily secret — but it’s local history of an in-group.
AGplusone: Do any of us know what the names in Bancroft Hall are?
ddavitt: ?
Lenjazz has entered the room.
TAWN3: Hi Lenj
AGplusone: It’s not a secret, but really only grads of Annapolis really know they’re there, and who they are.
BPRAL22169: Bancroft Hall is main teaching facility at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.
ddavitt: Hayworth hall in SC….
Lenjazz: Hi all.
ddavitt: Coincidence? Or cross ref?
ddavitt: Hi again
KultsiKN: Oh. I only know one nae in the Thorne Hall.
AGplusone: Every graduate of Annapolis who has been killed in active service of the County has his/her name inscribed on the walls of that hall.
ddavitt: Who was Bancroft?
BPRAL22169: There’s a lot more “indoctrination” at Annapolis and West Point.
KultsiKN: i.m. ‘name’
geeairmoe2: In John Wayne’s “The Green Berets”, many of the buildings are named after posthumous winners of the CMH. A soldier says “It makes you think”, and Wayne responds “That’s what its supposed to do.”
AGplusone: A lot more than four …
AGplusone: but the same point.
TAWN3: That’s Army wide, and navy and AF too I suspect
KultsiKN: Geeairmoe, you’re close…
ddavitt: SC is 89 years after LW; hadn’t realised it was so long a gap
TAWN3: And VA, and O club, and NCO Club, VFW, etc
AGplusone: four generations then …
TAWN3: We honor our heros
KultsiKN: YES, Tawn, YOU do!
ddavitt: For a while….
geeairmoe2: A man is a little more willing to dive on the grenade when he knows his memory will be honored and cherished.
TAWN3: Me? Or “USA”?
KultsiKN: US of A
TAWN3: Thought so 🙂
AGplusone: And during Vietnam the middies got to watch names go up every week … and got to “think” about it. Names some of them remembered from previous years pretty well.
geeairmoe2: It’s people who dive on those grenades who help keep us free.
TAWN3: We are very Roman Republic here
ddavitt: Heinlein’s stories are full of references to heroes of the past; I like that.
TAWN3: Not Empire
Merfilly8: I would not say Americans now are great at remembering. The local station decided 80 hours of Eighties music is an appropriate homage….haven’t heard one note to the reason it is a holiday weekend
TAWN3: I wonder if that will evr happen
BPRAL22169: The Presidency seems to consider that Empire already has happened.
AGplusone: How many of us will be wearing paper poppies day after tomorrow?
TAWN3: King Bill?
AGplusone: That’s about 87 years ago, Jane ….
BPRAL22169: And King George before him.
ddavitt: Novemeber for the UK…Remembrance Day
TAWN3: Right
BPRAL22169: I thought that was November 11 — Armistice Day.
AGplusone: more like 86, 85, 84, 83 … but close.
TAWN3: Memorial Day, who remembers
ddavitt: We still do that in the UK
ddavitt: That’s when we wear the poppies; Flanders
AGplusone: I saw one this weekend in the Airport in Seattle.
BPRAL22169: “on Flanders Field the poppies grow.”
TAWN3: Clinton was a Tory 200 plus years ago IIRC
ddavitt: Didn’t know you did it this weekend
AGplusone: We do.
AGplusone: … or we did.
Merfilly8: Several months have patriotic/remembering days
Merfilly8: but the spirit of them seems lost, even on Military bases, at times
ddavitt: I think in Canada it’ Nov too
BPRAL22169: I was in SF last Armistice Day at the Museum of the Palace of the Legion of Honor — they did a special WWI presentation.
BPRAL22169: It was also the 75th anniversary of the Museum.
Merfilly8: My last unit…they just saw the days as a chance to get away from work
TAWN3: yes, historical period we are in. Decadent and self involved in many ways,
Lenjazz: I have heard, but have not verified, that in the UK veterans are honored, but there is no “veterans administration” nor a separate set of entitlements (not available to all citizens) as we have here.
ddavitt: There is a War Pensions Dept
TAWN3: unless you live in Africa or other tragic spots, in which case it is self survival involved.
ddavitt: And organisations like the British Lrgion
AGplusone: When I was six or so, every man and boy I saw at church that weekend would have them on … it was so common to see them you’d be ashamed if you forgot to put yours on.
AGplusone: And when I was six or so, RAH was writing these two stories.
ddavitt: Yes….we would have been looked at at school if we didn’t wear one; matter of pride
KultsiKN: It’s good to have monuments erected — lest we forget.
ddavitt: Not sure if kids feel that way now.
TAWN3: Those people (generation) is dead or dying though
AGplusone: WE’ve Lost that, now, haven’t we?
TAWN3: Back then, they were the entire society
BPRAL22169: Sacrifice of self for the common good is not PC
TAWN3: Vince Foster
TAWN3: 🙂
BPRAL22169: And anybody who recited “Recessional” nowadays would be boo’d
ddavitt: I remember when the IRA bombed a Remembrance day ceremony….awful images…
AGplusone: maybe not 🙂 but a point, Tawn
TAWN3: 🙂
AGplusone: a good point
AGplusone: Then there’s the Wall.
BPRAL22169: I would have a hard time justifying Vince Foster’s sacrifice as for the “common” good. Though a couple certainly benefits from it.
ddavitt: Who is he?
AGplusone: And finally the awards of the MH to Inoye and the rest come July this year.
BPRAL22169: Clinton friend who committed suicide
ddavitt: Oh….
ddavitt: Organ donor?
BPRAL22169: You are so innocent!
KultsiKN: If not — coward
ddavitt: You said a couple benefited…<g>
BPRAL22169: I think it’s because they didn’t want a certain organ “donated.”
TAWN3: Depends on your definition of common good. I was being tonque in cheek. And they were talking about the common good and PC. The two seemed to instantly go together.
TAWN3: 🙂
BPRAL22169: Yes, I got that.
AGplusone: We don’t make a ceremony of that anymore, do we? Should we?
Lenjazz: There seems to be a trend, in film at least, that harkens to the RAH traditions…U-571, Uncommon Valor, even G.I. Jane.
KultsiKN: Our Jane, most definitely, is not G.I.
ddavitt: Deep down, people are still sentimental about heroes; just not as willing to be one.
ddavitt: 🙂
AGplusone: Should the media spend more time talking about the upcoming July awards than they did about the six that we awarded to the black soliders a year or two ago. There’ll be 22 awarded the Niesei … in July, including the one to Dan Inoye.
ddavitt: One of a kind me….
TAWN3: Gastro Intestinal?
ddavitt: Don’t; had to leave earlier to throw up….
AGplusone: And Inoye IS a US Senator …
TAWN3: 🙂
ddavitt: Plus my cat is very ill….
ddavitt: House of sickness and plague at the moment
TAWN3: I had not heard about that David.
AGplusone: All from the 442 or the 100th Battalion.
TAWN3: I hope your house gets better Jane!
ddavitt: Thank you…
Merfilly8: (question: what did For Us The Living deal with, unpublished book of Heinlein)
AGplusone: All previously DSCs but blocked because of prejudice.
ddavitt: I thought there was specualtion that bits of it appeared in other stories?
BPRAL22169: He is also the “Fat Jap” Agnew — was it? — called at a press conference.
KultsiKN: No, they cannot, Tawn: they’ve already got the best Jane there is…
TAWN3: But the title gives a good clue in light of our conversation, does it not?
BPRAL22169: Nobody knows.
ddavitt: You are in a flirty mood this week Kultsi! 🙂
Merfilly8: was curious
KultsiKN: When am I not?
ddavitt: I want to read the one H wrote in the 70’s…
BPRAL22169: VH cannot recall.
ddavitt: What was that about?
BPRAL22169: Same two remarks.
AGplusone: The 442 REgimental Combat Team in WW2 was a unit composed solely of Japanese Americans, officers by whites orginally … took more casualaties than any other unit of its size during the war.
ddavitt: The one Ginny advised him not to publish
TAWN3: God Kultsi, I finally figured it out! Groan.
geeairmoe2: The “Go For Broke” unit?
AGplusone: That’s them
ddavitt: Because it was pushed to the front David?
geeairmoe2: The movie shows up regularly on Turner Classic Movies. Van Johnson.
Merfilly8: (12 novels, alone, left to read, plus the collection books)
AGplusone: No, because they insisted they ‘push’ to the front.
ddavitt: Isn’t Go For Broke a ship name in a H book?
Merfilly8: <Woefully behind on Heinlein>
ddavitt: That’s your good fortune Filly!
AGplusone: Many had parents and other relatives in stateside ‘camps’ …
AGplusone: Yes, it is. and the name of the unit that Colin Campbell finds the owner of the bar they hide out in served in.
TAWN3: Jane, they wanted to prove their loyalty and patriotism.
ddavitt: That’s it! Knew it was familiar
AGplusone: In The Cat …
TAWN3: Many of them were being put in camps as not trustworthy
ddavitt: I am cynical; wondered if they were viewed as cannon fodder
Merfilly8: We celebrated their heritage last Asian American month in the service
TAWN3: Colin Campbell?
TAWN3: Who is he?
AGplusone: And they are going to award 22 Medals of Honor (five still alive) to its members, finally, 55 years too late, in July.
ddavitt: Hero of Cat Who Walks
BPRAL22169: Richard Ames.
TAWN3: OH
ddavitt: They all have about 6 names in that book Tawn…
KultsiKN: As they should, David, at last.
AGplusone: Richard Ames=Colin Campbell (also name of man who commanded ‘the thin red line’ in the Crimea).
ddavitt: About time then.
Merfilly8: I have a theory on that, Jane
ddavitt: GA
BPRAL22169: And let’s not get into WalkerEvans. . .
Merfilly8: Presenting the characters as Fictions in progress, the names seem to change with discreet personality adjustments
ddavitt: Hmm…interesting!
Merfilly8: but I could just be seeing things
ddavitt: No, I just ate 🙂
KultsiKN: An Asian take…
Merfilly8: yes Kultsi
ddavitt: It’s a good thought; Lazarus certainly must need more than one name in 23 centuries
BPRAL22169: Lafe hubert
BPRAL22169: Capt. Gilead.
Merfilly8: Aaron Sheffield
ddavitt: Captain Sheffield
dwrighsr: Happy Daze
ddavitt: Ernest Gibbons
ddavitt: Woodrow Wilson Smith
KultsiKN: The people in Singapore, Chinese, that is, may take another alias depending on their life situation.
ddavitt: Gilead = Joe Green?
BPRAL22169: No, I think he comes into Methuselah’s Children with that name – a spaceship captain just in from Venus.
AGplusone: I wonder what Woody sold at that bar he owned where Rhysling sang besides booze that go him the “Happy Daze” name, David? 🙂
AGplusone: got
KultsiKN: Ecstasy?
ddavitt: Gilead was definitely in Assignment in Eternity
BPRAL22169: There was more than one Smith — there could be more than one Gilead, couldn’t there be?
AGplusone: Maybe the mj cigarettes the secretary offers Alec and Marg in Job:ACOJ?
ddavitt: Sheffield is the alias he used to steal New Frontiers
dwrighsr: He made a point that people on dope or wanting it were sent ‘on down the line’
AGplusone: True, but what’s ‘dope’ can be an intersting question …
AGplusone: to use Jane’s favorite word 😉
dwrighsr: A striking thing to me is that the name ‘Smith’ or ‘Jones’ is used so commonly in RAH’s works.
ddavitt: Everyman…
AGplusone: ‘common man’ again
ddavitt: More variety for the women though…
dwrighsr: Actually , one of the few striking things that I’ve noticed 🙂
ddavitt: No such theme with their names
AGplusone: A Martian named “Smith” 🙂
Merfilly8: (Ebontress sends her love to Kultsi, but the Raffles had better serve lobster)
ddavitt: Johann S Smith
AGplusone: Lobster is good!
BPRAL22169: I was wrong — He comes in as Aaron Sheffield.
ddavitt: Lorenzo Smythe
BPRAL22169: So I don’t emember where the Gilead name is.
BPRAL22169: “Larry Smith”
ddavitt: I’ll forgive you for arguing with me Bill…<bg>
ddavitt: I’m sure it’s not one of Woodie’s
KultsiKN: Filly — they do. The las t time I was there cost me $300, so they had better serve lobster!
AGplusone: Makes great soup too ….
ddavitt: But if you discover otherwise, I’ll apologise charmingly
ddavitt: 🙂
AGplusone: I still like my theory about Smitty in Red Planet being Woody hiding out during the Interregnum.
Merfilly8: On the side, Kultsi, Ebon is expensive
ddavitt: Too young….IMO
AGplusone: Cosmetics …
ddavitt: There must be a limit to how young a Howard can look after reaching maturity
ddavitt: ( Before cloned bodies)
KultsiKN: Yeah — everyone likes his own theories best ;-9
KultsiKN: S*** 😉
AGplusone: No one ever said Smitty looked ‘young’ ….
BPRAL22169: I think he said he was on Venus at that time. of course, this is LL — one grain of salt, coming up.
dwrighsr: Young looking or not, can you really imagine Woody putting up with a bunch of school kids and overbearing headmasters?
ddavitt: But Smitty is nice; I often find the secondary characters in a book are more er, fascinating than the lead
AGplusone: Sure, it would have amused him.
Merfilly8: Pixel in both Cat and Sail
ddavitt: He certainly made a lot of money…
KultsiKN: ‘Specially makin’ fun of the headmasters…
dwrighsr: But it could only have lasted a very limited number of years, before he would have had to move on.
AGplusone: And allowed him to ingratiate himself among the PTB while they were sitll young and stupid.
ddavitt: but he must have had to look under 20 to be at high school
ddavitt: If not less
geeairmoe2: Secondary characters are permitted more memorable quirks because they have to be made ‘instantly’ memorable.
TAWN3: “Character actors on stage and in film
ddavitt: Do you think they would be overpowering if expanded upon then?
AGplusone: We had a guy who at 13 had a heavy beard … he was our “designated purchaser” for years.
TAWN3: Peter Lorre, Gabby Hayes, etc
ddavitt: I’m shocked….:-)
KultsiKN: Isn’t it said in TEFL that Woody spent the unpleasant time on Mars?
ddavitt: Venus…
AGplusone: 😀
ddavitt: for the time of the Prophet
geeairmoe2: For a secondary character, the thing to worry about is turning them into a cliche. The Irish cop.
AGplusone: I think there’s a reference to his going to Mars too
Merfilly8: Annoying character = LL on too many occassions
ddavitt: But do we know when RP was set?
Merfilly8: But he does seem redeeming at times
ddavitt: I find him less appealing the older I get
TAWN3: Irish cop is a historical reality
geeairmoe2: I find him less appealing the older HE gets.
BPRAL22169: P. 537 of PTT: “I spent the Interregnum on Venus, mostly.”
Merfilly8: MC was his finest moment
AGplusone: I think he gets more redeeming after a certain age Jane ;-)as in when you get to be a codger …
ddavitt: maybe because I’m less likely to accept what he says as gospel as I did when I was an impressionable teen
AGplusone: Think of an inverted bell curve
BPRAL22169: He seemed less crochety in TEFL (to me) than in TCWWTW or TSBTS
Lenjazz: How old does one have to be to be a codger?
ddavitt: Now i enjoy Hazel beating him up verbally 🙂
dwrighsr: AS my wife says, being 60 allows her to be ‘eccentric’, whereas before she was ‘weird’
KultsiKN: I agree with David 🙂
Merfilly8: But wanting to rescue Maureen, mourning Dora, etc are good moments for him
ddavitt: Oh yes, he’s not all bad…
Merfilly8: Hilda is one of my faves, and so is Hazel,
geeairmoe2: But then, in his “unlikeable stages” is when we’re seeing him filtered through the eyes of other.
ddavitt: Still has a certain magnetism…just so damn omniscient
Merfilly8: but they both grate at times too
TAWN3: You can figure out time of RP by doing the historical analysis
ddavitt: Yes, he and jake never hit it off
AGplusone: … which is maybe why I’m more ready to call Konski the unlikeable a heor than Dahlquist at my age.
dwrighsr: Actually, Hilda gets on my nerves more than LL.
AGplusone: hero
TAWN3: ie, still a colony, later than BP
TAWN3: Etc
KultsiKN: LL’s got perspective, right?
BPRAL22169: me, too.
AGplusone: So did Konski
TAWN3: But I understand there are “3” timelines
ddavitt: She is a bit perky…
TAWN3: And not all things fit together
AGplusone: She is a pita!
ddavitt: Certainly don’t Tawn
ddavitt: ?
ddavitt: Can stuff her with lettuce?
ddavitt: 😉
Merfilly8: I thought it was ‘fica’?
AGplusone: I kept waiting for Jake and Zeb to mutiny and throw her out the airlock
AGplusone: what’s fica?
KultsiKN: LOL
ddavitt: That’s because you think Hugh would’ve done that !
Merfilly8: She was ‘Sharpie’. I suppose I like her because I see a bit of me there
ddavitt: She was elected fair and square
AGplusone: [hell, I see a lot of me there … :-)]
ddavitt: I don’t know but it’s rude according to Zeb
Merfilly8: Some Latin pun
AGplusone: oh, well “PITA” is “pain in the …. ”
ddavitt: And just how did deety and Zeb have time to work out a family tap code anyhow?
Merfilly8: and my Latin is pour….poor
ddavitt: Got it!
Merfilly8: Well, all, we are having family meal, and we are off topic so Adieu
ddavitt: See you !
AGplusone: Adieu … next time!
Merfilly8: c’y’all next time
KultsiKN: Bye, Filly!
geeairmoe2: bye
Merfilly8 has left the room.
TAWN3: Bye Jane!
TAWN3: oops!
TAWN3: bye Filly
ddavitt: No, i’m still here..or is that a hint?
TAWN3: 🙂
ddavitt: H had lots of heroes; trying to think of many cowards? n1yqh a has entered the room.
ddavitt: Simes maybe in SJ?
TAWN3: yes, there are some
AGplusone: Okay, last half hour … up next is Black Pits and It’s Great To Be Back … is that enough to talk about?
BPRAL22169: I can’t pinpoint the Martian revolt on the FH timeline.
ddavitt: Thye are fun stories but not much meat in them maybe? n1yqh a: Martian revolt probably shortly before the cessation of interplanetary travel?
AGplusone: Hi, Mike
TAWN3: add we also walk dogs
TAWN3: at least
AGplusone: That agreeable with everyone else?
BPRAL22169: I agree with Gifford about “We Also Walk Dogs” — fun story but not FH by any stretch of the imagination.
ddavitt: Sure
Lenjazz: Sure.
AGplusone: We’ll do three?
AGplusone: But We Also is soooo neato!
ddavitt: Fine by me
dwrighsr: Good story, but has a lot of inconsistencies with FH.
ddavitt: It has too much going on….
KultsiKN: David, d’you mean doing those two now?
TAWN3: that is only 48 pages
BPRAL22169: If we keep just the two we’ve got anothe rof those contrasting pairs — one is about idiots on the moon and the other is about how swell and competent everybody is going to be.
AGplusone: Okay, then, by the poower invested in me by Zim, we’ll do all three…
ddavitt: i would like it to have been a whole book abaout the company
ddavitt: Would’ve been fun
TAWN3: maybe we add Ordeal in Space, bring it to sixty pages or so?
ddavitt: maybe not Heinlein type of story though
TAWN3: Otherwise we will never get through these stories n1yqh a: that company seemed to really represent a lot of the qualities RAH liked in *people*…
geeairmoe2: three doesn’t seem to many.
ddavitt: But do they have enough of a common theme as these two tonight do?
AGplusone: We can contrast, and then do separate on WE Also Walk.
BPRAL22169: Drawn from historical fact, AFAIK n1yqh a: Sorry – thought you were talking about “We also..” tonight – too much time in the sun… <g>
AGplusone: Searchlight and Ordeal are a pair we should do togehter I trhink.
ddavitt: That will take about 10 minutes!
AGplusone: And we’ll come to an end of the FH soon enough. It’ll sneak up on us, Tawn.
ddavitt: Searchlight is very flimsy
TAWN3: TEFL?
TAWN3: Big book
ddavitt: Oh yes….
KultsiKN: Gimme a Break! I just got TGHOE; I haven’t waded thru yet….
TAWN3: Searchlight is not in GHOE
TAWN3: Some people may be using GHOE
ddavitt: Worlds of RAH
AGplusone: Speaking of which … when we get to Universe and the other one, people are really going to have to dig that book up …
ddavitt: and therfore EU
dwrighsr: MC TEFL NOTB TCWWTH Sail ?
ddavitt: In one night!!!!?
ddavitt: Or two…
AGplusone: No, I think we should stop at MC, and leave TEFL, NOTB, TCWWTH, and SAil for separate topics
TAWN3: EWxactly David
TAWN3: FH is actually quite big
dwrighsr: No, I meant that it will be a while if we go all the way to the end of FH
ddavitt: Ah…
AGplusone: Maybe combine them into a Howard series.
TAWN3: Have to do MC before TEFL I think
Lenjazz: I’m new…has it been long since you discussed stories in The Menace from Earth?
AGplusone: But definitely do MC within the FH as well.
ddavitt: Perhaps look at them from one or two standpoints rather than the whole thing?
AGplusone: Long time, Len.
TAWN3: Been long since I read it
Lenjazz: Just curious.
AGplusone: Perhaps do them in a series with AiE, except for Menace itself …
ddavitt: Didn’t we do Menace along with poddy?
TAWN3: AiE?
BPRAL22169: Will people make an effort to post on the preparatory thread on afh? The preparatory posts have been a little puny recently.
dwrighsr: Well, for me, whenever I reread, I start at the beginning and go all the way to the end 🙂
ddavitt: assignment in Eternity
AGplusone: Assignment in Eternity …
TAWN3: ah
ddavitt: Hey, I try to say something….
dwrighsr: go
AGplusone: Includes “Gulf” Jerry, and two others.
ddavitt: Just not much feedback
BPRAL22169: You are excepted from that remark, Jane.
ddavitt: Thank you <smile>
AGplusone: It would help … every post sparks another point, and the more points we have … the funnier the zoo can get.
ddavitt: We need more of the formerly AOLers on afh; they did good pre meeting posts
ddavitt: Have they all moved over to AIM?
BPRAL22169: The AOL people seem to have been more accustomed to research — Dave trained ’em up.
AGplusone: We’re working on it! Send them letters. Their E-mail is easy, they’re all @aol.com
dwrighsr: I find it strange that AIM is an AOL product, but AOLers have trouble using it, or am I mistaken?
AGplusone: Not strange …
AGplusone: a new thing for most
KultsiKN: With AOL, nothing’s strange…
TAWN3: Jane
AGplusone: AOL is like a familar back yard …
ddavitt: Yes?
TAWN3: ? Former AOLersn on AIM
ddavitt: I don’t know; just seems the two chats have the same people on them and there are a lot of missing faces
BPRAL22169: Only one book to put away today.
ddavitt: How is it going to combine them?
geeairmoe2: Whatever you hash out topic-wise suits me.
AGplusone: I’m going to start combining the lists from now on … so expect some e mail that explains stuff to them, and to non-AOLers … and please read it.
ddavitt: OK
Lenjazz: Again…please indulge a newbie here trying to get his bearings…how many of you folks are writers?
AGplusone: So the merger can get more complete ….
AGplusone: a wanna be writer is me
ddavitt: Housewife
geeairmoe2: another wanna be
TAWN3: OH You are correct
ddavitt: Well, I’d like to be…. n1yqh a: grad student – not anywhere close to a writer, even in my dreams… 🙂
AGplusone: By the way, did you figure out the C14 thing, Mike?
KultsiKN: I’d like to be more informed about our meetings, if that’s possible.
BPRAL22169: 2 novels; a history and 40+ screenplays.
TAWN3: veryone that doesn’t lurk is writing Jazz:-)
ddavitt: Really Bill?
ddavitt: I didn’t know that…. n1yqh a: I’m working on it… I left my references at the lab last week, and I didn’t make it over to get them back today, maybe tomorrow. Once I work it out I’ll post it to afh.
AGplusone: I’ll be doing that with the letters Kultsi …. that’s one reason why I’m combining lists. On AOL I did a lot of informing
dwrighsr: I’ve always wanted to write stories like RAH, but I realize more and more, especially when I hear you guys, that I simply don’t know enough. I never saw any of the things that you people have picked up on RAH.
KultsiKN: Len — I don’t even use this language except on the Internet… Definitely not an author.
AGplusone: [Big Secret: reason I formed this group was to pick everyone brains on how to write like RAH]
BPRAL22169: Let me know if it works.
dwrighsr: David. If you please, send me a list of everyone’s address and I’ll notify them directly when I get the logs posted. I do it on AFH, but apparently a lot of the people are not on AFH.
Lenjazz: Yeah…me too.
BPRAL22169: I’d rather THINK like RAH.
ddavitt: I have that problem; I think of a genre and realsie that I’m not equipped to write about much at all that’s fiction.
AGplusone: Sure will 🙂
ddavitt: maybe I could do a bodice ripper….
dwrighsr: The position is open now. I hear Barbara Cartland died
ddavitt: But no way could I write SF
BPRAL22169: Not quite to opus 800
ddavitt: Yes; she was..prolific\
AGplusone: Okay, but I’ll let the AOLers know about you first David so they won’t automatically delete as spam because they don’t know who you are.
ddavitt: A book in 2 weeks….quite Heinleinian 🙂
ddavitt: Shame it was the same book over and over….
dwrighsr: I think RAH’s record was 23 days with Glory Road, or is there a better candidate?
ddavitt: I read two as a child because they were the only ones my mother banned
AGplusone: Anybody else have a suggestion on the point of informing or making the groups merger more effective?
BPRAL22169: 13 days with Door into Summer
geeairmoe2: My problem is I can’t keep stuff in one genre. How do you market an inspiration speculative fiction political potboiler mystery?
dwrighsr: Wow ! I hadn’t heard that one
Lenjazz: What? RAH wrote Door in 13 days????
BPRAL22169: Yup
ddavitt: Without a woed proceesor too
TAWN3: I can post on Egroups, where Kaz’s group went
ddavitt: You know what I mean…
ddavitt: That sounds fun Will!
AGplusone: Or a spell checker ….
Lenjazz: Now there’s book begging to be a film…Door, I mean.
AGplusone: That can help Tawn
ddavitt: My fingers are all thumbs
KultsiKN: I call it ‘spel caster’..
BPRAL22169: Apparently he had been germinating the story for awhile. At breakfast one day Ginny let out their cat but he wouldn’t go out because there was this icky white stuff on the ground. Ginny said “he’s looking for thedoor into summer.” “Dont say another word,” he said and rushed into his study. 13 days later the first draft ws finished.
ddavitt: Nudity, possible under age sex….hot potato
KultsiKN: As you see, haven’t got one handy…
AGplusone: I was laughing at an airliner announcement this week. The pilot says: “attendants prepare for takeoff” and I thought: “man your brooms” the plane is heavily overloaded tonight.
dwrighsr: Gosh.. I remember thinking how far in the future 1970 was going to be
KultsiKN: Jane, what’s so fascinating about the hot potato?
ddavitt: How they would film it….
AGplusone: Problem with reading the Anderson books last month
AGplusone: <–MCP
ddavitt: Some people with nasty minds read a lot into it
KultsiKN: Like me?
ddavitt: That’s my opinion on it anyway…
ddavitt: Do you see something wrong with the Dan and Ricky romance?
dwrighsr: People with nasty minds can read *anything* in his or anybody else’s books
KultsiKN: No
AGplusone: Hell no!
ddavitt: Well then…not you!
dwrighsr: Like Dora in TEFL, she was an adorable child who *grew up* to become his wife
ddavitt: I think it’s a very sweet story….I like the whole book
Lenjazz: I think that aspect of the novel might raise some studio eyebrows, yes.
ddavitt: Especially Pete
AGplusone: We should have a theme … Heinlein and Incest and end this one once and for all..
ddavitt: Ha!
dwrighsr: Nasty minds want to know 🙂
KultsiKN: Gooood idea!
ddavitt: Want to sort out ST is fascist as an encore
AGplusone: Especially studio that give us wonders like Battship Urth
KultsiKN: Hell, no!
Lenjazz: I was just talking to my wife todya about his uniqure views on different family styles.
geeairmoe2: I thought Tom marrying his distant niece in Time for the Stars was a unwholesome.
ddavitt: Why?
Lenjazz: Battlship Urp?
KultsiKN: Battleship Earth
ddavitt: Not a blood relation in a meaningful sense
TAWN3: Has anyone seen battlefield Earth? I heard it is terrible
Lenjazz: I know…bad joke.
BPRAL22169: It is the worswt kind of pulp hackwork.
ddavitt: When did the telepathic link between them activate?
AGplusone: And incidentally, TftS and DiS were written one after the other–both about marrying relatives after time travel. n1yqh a: It was a good book, so of COURSE it had to be slaughtered in movie form…
TAWN3: Yes Geeairme, I agree
ddavitt: Tom is only 20 odd at the end of the book after all
dwrighsr: Dan was not related to Ricky.
ddavitt: It doesn’t bother me…but Brian bonking nancy makes me feel quite ill
AGplusone: ‘relatives’ in the adopted uncle sense
ddavitt: Slime….
BPRAL22169: Incest is legally defined in terms of “caretaker.’ So teacher, priest, social worker could be incest as well as statutory rape.
AGplusone: But doesn’t Woody bonk Nancy too?
TAWN3: Yes, but nlyqh, I heard it is REALLY bad
ddavitt: Good point….but that seems different somehow…
AGplusone: Or was that Caroline whom Brian Bonks too n1yqh a: I’l be sure not to watch it, then… Thanks, Tawn… <g>
ddavitt: Who is caroline?
BPRAL22169: Santa Carolita?
dwrighsr: Carol. I think he means n1yqh a: Carol, not Caroline…
ddavitt: Oh, santa Carolita?
TAWN3: And I loved the book
KultsiKN: His daughter
ddavitt: I don’t think so; have to read it again. Just remember nancy because maureen was there too; yuck!
TAWN3: Why the fascination with incest at the end of his career
AGplusone: Think both, Jane
TAWN3: and perhaps even the beginning
BPRAL22169: There are certain kinds of initiation that require transgrression of a taboo — the act is not important; but the freeing of self from the taboo is important.
TAWN3: BTW “Survivor” premieres Wed. in the US. TitS like show on island.
ddavitt: lazarus knew there was no danger of getting his sisters pregnant ]
AGplusone: John Lyle getting Judith is ‘incest’ by law according to laws of Prophet
TAWN3: Each week eliminate one person
BPRAL22169: It’s a declaration that the individual is a morally free agent, not exploitation of a taboo.
TAWN3: winner get one million
dwrighsr: Do they eat them after they eliminate them? 🙂
AGplusone: He’s a guard to protect her ‘innocence’
ddavitt: They didn’t know he was their brother and 23 centuries later puts a whole new slant on it
ddavitt: Brian didn’t even know about the rhythm method….
ddavitt: Just wanted fresh meat.
ddavitt: own little harem…
ddavitt: Sorry, but that makes me feel ill.
geeairmoe2: Slow, deep breaths, Jane.
ddavitt: 🙂
AGplusone: Naw, fresh money … you inbreed stock you want to preserve bloodlines … bet the Howard Foundation would have paid off if either had become pg
AGplusone: <veg>
ddavitt: They shouldn’t have really….does that work well for humans?
ddavitt: Besides, he probably used a condom…
BPRAL22169: But they knew there had been no bad reinforced recessives in subsequent children — Cpl.. Bronson would have told them.
ddavitt: Tried to make LL use one remember?
AGplusone: Wadda you think homo australia pith did?
KultsiKN: Yup, David, that’s the point — t’was a breeding prog, so anything goes.
ddavitt: Don’t know why he kicked up such a fuss…
AGplusone: If the old man hung on long enough and didn’t get et when he slowed down
ddavitt: Do you really think that was Brian’s motive?
AGplusone: Brian was always driven by money wasn’t he?
ddavitt: And his little head….
AGplusone: <g>
AGplusone: that too
BPRAL22169: And of course one way you can read the FH is that treating people like cattle caused a moral degeneration to the polymorpyhous sensuality of Tellus Tertius.
AGplusone: Ah ha!
geeairmoe2: I think RAH was trying to suggest that intimacy shouldn’t be limited, and seems to suggest consentual sex represents the highest, purest level of intimacy.
ddavitt: I don’t think he ever impregnated his daughters; just used them.
AGplusone: Sure he did.
AGplusone: Richard’s wife
BPRAL22169: Who used whom? Jane you have only read part of the exhcange about the subject.
AGplusone: his daughhter in law
dwrighsr: Laz and Lor were not his ‘daughters’, as they pointed out, ‘they were him’
BPRAL22169: Nancy wanted Brian is how the subject came up.
ddavitt: Nancy was willing ; I agree there
ddavitt: But should she have been?
AGplusone: So were they all
ddavitt: And should her father have agreed?
BPRAL22169: Brian is portrayed as cooperating (enthusiastically) with the inevitable.
KultsiKN: Daughter in law is a term for which we have no meaning….
ddavitt: Doesn’t maureen have Nancy’s fiancee at the same time?
dwrighsr: Being particular horney was probably a reinforced characteristics as well as longevity
BPRAL22169: It’s 5:08 and we are anticipating our inceest discussion!
ddavitt: Well, I have to go…but that will be an interesting and lively chat i can see!
AGplusone: At least in the Johnson line … we are ….
dwrighsr: You can bet on that!
Lenjazz: Indeed.
AGplusone: “Now it’s time to say goodnight …
ddavitt: OK, I’ll read Sail again in preparation
AGplusone: “To all our company ……
BPRAL22169: Ciao one, ciao all.
ddavitt: Night all….enjoyed the chat. see you on afh.
ddavitt has left the room.
Lenjazz: Adios.
KultsiKN: Haven’t got Sail 🙁
geeairmoe2: Goodbye all.
BPRAL22169 has left the room.
dwrighsr: Adieu auf wiedersehen good night spokojinochi
AGplusone: G’nite everyone. Thanks for coming …. I’ll hand if anyone wishes.
Lenjazz has left the room.
geeairmoe2 has left the room.
AGplusone: hang
dwrighsr: I’ll be here until the end so I’ll have a complete log.
AGplusone: separately or together, as an old Mason once said …
dwrighsr: I should have the log posted on my site within an hour after we sign off. I’ve got the process down. Anything particular that I should omit?
KultsiKN: Not for me?
AGplusone: I don’t see anything. You might consider light edit for spelling if you wish but it’s not necessary really David n1yqh a has left the room.
dwrighsr: I usually try to correct spelling where I can, but you know the attitude about editors 🙂
AGplusone: Btw, Kultsi … I haven’t mentioned that slur to my half Lapp wife yet. You should know the other half of her ancestry is the reason why the American Army adopted the .45 cal sidearm.
KultsiKN: ga, David!
AGplusone: The .38 cal sidearm they were carrying in 1900 didn’t exactly put them down to stay.
KultsiKN: And the other part of her is…
AGplusone: [my wife is Norwegian Lapp-Filipina American]
AGplusone: and the sweetest nicest lady you ever could imagine … especially patient
TAWN3: b
AGplusone: <—object of her patience
KultsiKN: LOL — not unexpected! I know the guys around here, absolutely no racial prejudices .. when it comes to ladies…
AGplusone: And I agree, Finn ladies are exotic looking in several extreme
TAWN3: I’m out of here. See you guys later.
TAWN3 has left the room.
stephenveiss: Sorry- I wasn’t here then – I hadn’t read the books 🙂
KultsiKN: brb
AGplusone: Altho I picked up ClarisHomePage or whatever lately.
KultsiKN: brb
AGplusone: :-)no problem
dwrighsr: Are you having gas pains Kultsi? 🙂
stephenveiss: No, I don’t seem to have – when did you send them?
AGplusone: I sent an e mail with photos of a cat about a week ago
KultsiKN: The f***in window didn’t roll…
AGplusone: Let me try it again
AGplusone: Your e mail is?
AGplusone: okay, gotcha … expect something today later
stephenveiss: k
AGplusone: I’ll heading off … unless someone has something
AGplusone: Jane told me you really enjoyed meeting those folk Kultsi
stephenveiss: I’m outta here – its half one and I need to be up tomorrow 🙁
AGplusone: Nite all ….David, Stephen
AGplusone: Thanks for everything David
stephenveiss has left the room.
dwrighsr: You are most welcome.
KultsiKN: Yes, I did — only it was just the son of the family…
AGplusone: Saturday, May 27, 2000, 5:30:38 PM, PDT
AGplusone: Glad you did. Night Kultsi
KultsiKN: I was exited — unexpected and all that..
KultsiKN: Night, David!
dwrighsr: Good Night
KultsiKN has left the room.
AGplusone has left the room.
dwrighsr: Log officially closed at 8:30 PM EDT Saturday May 27, 2000
Final End of Discussion Log
