Heinlein Readers Discussion Group
Saturday Feb 17, 2001 5:00 P.M. EST
The Worlds of Number of the Beast
You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group chat.”
ddavitt has entered the room.
ddavitt: Hi, or are you not really here? 🙂
BPRAL22169 has entered the room.
BPRAL22169: Hello — glad to see you’re both here.
ddavitt: Just me i think Bill
BPRAL22169: I’m going to go away for a bit — take my jacket off
Major oz has entered the room.
ddavitt: Must be the log running. OK
BPRAL22169: Ok — I see Ginny online on AOL; she’ll no doubt be here in a moment.
ddavitt: Hi Oz
BPRAL22169: brb
Major oz: hi, all
ddavitt: Just reading the thread on rasfw about that moon landing conspiracy programme
ddavitt: So funny…or not
ddavitt: David saw a bit of it but I had gone to bed
SAcademy has entered the room.
Major oz: Hi, SA
ddavitt: Hi SA
SAcademy: Good afternoon all.
ddavitt: It looks like there are a lot of us here but it’s just Oz and I at the moment
ddavitt: And you of course:-)
Major oz: ?
ddavitt: Bill and david are away from the computer
Major oz: bill and david are imaginary ?
Major oz: hokay
SAcademy: I see Bill there, too.
ddavitt: You might say that, I couldn’t possibly comment
ddavitt: (Did that TV progeamme ever show here? House of cards?)
ddavitt: That was a catch phrase of the cunning and corrupt politician
SAcademy: I only watch news programs.
Major oz: Don’t recognize it
Major oz: …..but the expression has been around for years
ddavitt: It was funny; he would say it to journailsts with this smile on his face…very subtle
Major oz: he?
ddavitt: The actor
ddavitt: Not a real politician
ddavitt: Never mind:-)
Major oz: Wasn’t Profumo or some such
ddavitt: No..fictional tho may have been based on real person. Book was by Micheal Dobbs
ddavitt: I can only stay until 6; hosting a dinner party
DenvToday has entered the room.
DenvToday: Greetings all
Major oz: welcome aboard
ddavitt: That sounds grand but actually our friends are coming for home cooked Chinese food
ddavitt: Hi there
DenvToday: Thanks.
ddavitt: We are discussing the Worlds of The Number of the Beast tonight
DenvToday: Ah…one of my favorites.
ddavitt: i suppose we can start. Oz/
Major oz: ga
DenvToday: I’ve read the last chapter again and again, and I still find new things.
ddavitt: I had a thought that the worlds are quite often from childrens stories
ddavitt: But childrens stories with adult overtones
Major oz: like Swift, etc. ?
BPRAL22169: back
DenvToday: Hi Bpral
ddavitt: Hobbit/LOTR was about WW2 and Hitler, Oz sometimes thought to be about gold standard, wonderland about lewis carrol’s strange habits…
Major oz: I was very surprised that the quarted didn’t wind up in Lilliput on one of the translations / rotations
ddavitt: Multilayered
Major oz: quarted=quartet
ddavitt: They do; Gulliver’s travels
ddavitt: They scare the little people on the ship and leave
Major oz: where….I don’t recall
ddavitt: During the time when they visit the storybooks
ddavitt: After Pellucidar I think
Major oz:and I did not (blush) prepare.
ddavitt: Contrasting this is some straightforward stories like the Lensman onesa
ddavitt: Or do they have a meaning I’ve missed?
Major oz: anyhow, your point was they were mostly childrens’ stories with adult overtones…….where were you going with that?
BPRAL22169: Some time ago I wazs treated to an analysis of the Lensman series in terms of Dante’s Inferno. It took 23 cups of coffee to get through it.
ddavitt: Gosh!
BPRAL22169: I was somewhat numb by the time it was “over.”
ddavitt: Just that it’s similar with NOTB itself; simple action adventure with lots of layers
Major oz: did it make sense?
ddavitt: Things aren’t what they seem
Major oz: ….Bill
BPRAL22169: Yes, quite a lot.
ddavitt: Can you remember any of it?
BPRAL22169: I was thinking about the Lensman series yesterday — you could file off the serial numbers (no! That way lies madness!) (or “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”)
BPRAL22169: and rewrite the Lensman series as a conventional novel of a young professional gaining access to higher and higher levels of a giant corporation.
ddavitt: Grey to unattached
Major oz: I see Kinnison (Sr.) as Ignatious and the Lensmen as Jebs
BPRAL22169: Nobody would be the wiser.
ddavitt: But you’ve told us now:-)
Major oz: and of course, Mentor as the Holy Ghost
DavidWrightSr: Hi Folks. Sorry I’ve been away for a bit.
ddavitt: 🙂
BPRAL22169: Now I have to kill you…
DenvToday: Hello David
ddavitt: Hi david,
ddavitt: darn and i just finished my book catalogue!
BPRAL22169: And myself too — we all Know Too Much.
SAcademy: Robert said all of Doc Smith’s heroines were his wife, and all is heroes himself.
ddavitt: He must have been a very unusual man! Very talented
ddavitt: But I got that from the article in EU
SAcademy: He was a chemist. Cereal variety.
Major oz: I always got the feeling that (with no evidence to base it on) that Doc was a shy, quiet person
BPRAL22169: Oh, the piece he wrote for Moscon? “Larger Than Worlds”
ddavitt: One thing; he’s described as a doughnut chemist; what’s that mean?
ddavitt: larger than Life?
BPRAL22169: First book dragged out in this chat!
SAcademy: Yes, I think that was the title, Jane.
ddavitt: Oh, david just looked over my shoulder and says it could mean organic chemistry; benzine rings
ddavitt: Road testing the car…
SAcademy: He worked for a company that made doughnut mixes for bakeries.
Major oz: your new Viper ?
BPRAL22169: You’re right. “Larger Than Life.” I misremembered — “Larger Than Worlds” was an essay in one of Larry Niven’s collections, about the Ringworld.
ddavitt: That makes sens etoo SA
BPRAL22169: Donut mixes and other high explosives.
ddavitt: i have a trivial memory bill
BPRAL22169: Me, too — but yours is more trivial than mine, apparently.
ddavitt: good for such piffly details,, bad for french irregular verbs and such
SAcademy: No high explosives. I used to make gun cotton in lab.
ddavitt: basically, it’s book specific:-)
BPRAL22169: That’s cellulose soaked with nitroglycerine, isn’t it?
ddavitt: What was that for SA?
SAcademy: Yes.
BPRAL22169: Oh, she was in the Navy; they all like to blow things up. It’s part of the job.
ddavitt: Weapons I assume?
SAcademy: For fun. It goes off with a good flame.
BPRAL22169: (See?!)
DenvToday: lol SA
ddavitt: I liked magnesium tape for that at school
BPRAL22169: I liked metallic sodium for that purpose.
SAcademy: We didn’t have that around.
ddavitt: we’re weird aren’t we?:-):-)
BPRAL22169: Yes, we are, and we glory in it.
SAcademy: My good gosh, did you get burned?
BPRAL22169: No, I was always careful.
ddavitt: I didn’t…
DenvToday: I had to settle for setting off cherry bombs in trash cans, when I was a kid.
BPRAL22169: metallic sodium is somewhat trickier than magnesium tape.
ddavitt: So the science in the Smith books should be relaible then?
BPRAL22169: Oh, Denv, you’re so conventional!
ddavitt: Did you drop it on water 9 david asks)
SAcademy: It’s usually keppt under kerosene.
DenvToday: So true. I feel so non-scientific.
BPRAL22169: Well — he had a lot of Lamarckian stuff in there that died with quantum mechanics.
ddavitt: Lamarkian?
ddavitt: Who was that?
DavidWrightSr: Cherry Bombs. Me too, once blew a garbage can lid about 10 feet in the air.
BPRAL22169: Dropping sodium into water makes a wonderful cannon out of a test tube.
ddavitt: david is nodding enthusiastically….who am i married to here?!
Major oz: Us hillbillies use 2 in sewer pipe, potatoes, and hair spray to make cannons.
SAcademy: Five inch salutes will do that too.
DenvToday: Fun, weren’t they David? And of course, having pop bottle rocket duels was de rigeur in my neighborhood.
BPRAL22169: Lamarck is an 18th century scientist-philosopher who thought if you knew the position and vectors of every particle in the universe, then the whole of its subsequent history would be absolutely predictable.
ddavitt: I had such a quiet childhood….
DenvToday: I hear Microsoft is working on that very application.
ddavitt: Oh yes, bit in Children about Christopher being able to look at a vase and know the entire history of its universe from studying it
DavidWrightSr: Did Heisenberg have something to say about that?O:-)
DenvToday: David, it’s probable that he did.
ddavitt: Or something like that. Always seemed a tad far fetched but then, I’m not third order:-)
BPRAL22169: Yes, he did. Doc Smith starts writing in, I think, 1911, so Heisenberg was still in diapers at that time.
BPRAL22169: It took about 25 years for quantum mechanics to get into the popular awareness.
SAcademy: Have to go wash my glasses, they’re all fogged up.
ddavitt: Forget what a LONG time ago Smith wrote really….
ddavitt: That happens to me in the winter when I walk in shops
ddavitt: have to go back to my contacts soon
BPRAL22169: I think Gray Lensman started the month after heinlein’s first story and ended up the month “Requiem” appeared, his third story.
BPRAL22169: And Gray Lensman was the third book of the series.
DenvToday: I have a terrible confession. I was given Michael Chrichton’s latest book by a friend–and I read it. It’s a wretched example of writing except for one thing — it has an excellent and clear explanation of quantum physics that even dunderheads such as myself can understand.
ddavitt: I like some of his books; readable
ddavitt: Why terrible confession?
DenvToday: This one is preposterous.
ddavitt: which one is it?
Major oz: George Gamow wrote the best one: One, Two, Three, Infinity
DenvToday: It’s called Timeline.
ddavitt: timeline?
BPRAL22169: I haven’t been following him for awhile. What’s the title?
BPRAL22169: Oh.
ddavitt: not read that one
ddavitt: Jp and Congo were fun
DenvToday: I was making a list of the gaping holes in his story until I ran out of fingers and toes.
geeairmoe2 has entered the room.
Major oz: It ‘splains things better than I have ever seen anywhere else.
ddavitt: Hi Will
ddavitt: explaining complex stuff simply is a gift
DenvToday: Hello gee
Major oz: welcome in
BPRAL22169: Stephen Weinstein does a good job with the parts that are relevant to cosmology in “The First Three Minutes.”
geeairmoe2: Hello to all.
ddavitt: asimov was good at that
DenvToday: ddavitt, I agree with you. And that one short chapter made the book worth reading.
Major oz: James Burke is the best “pop” explainer.
BPRAL22169: Heinz Pagels did a good one — and Stephen Hawking’s “Brief History of Time” had some readable explanations.
Major oz: I have all his books autographed.
BPRAL22169: I just wish he would go back to doing “Connections.”
ddavitt: But some things are just too complicated….computer manuals for dummies being a prime example:-)
Major oz: loved it
DenvToday: lol
BPRAL22169: The first one, not the second two series.
Major oz: computers are complicated only because of the jargon
DenvToday: A computer expert is a person who reads the manuals.
Major oz: all subjects are understandable if they are FORCED to speak in plain English
SAcademy: Is that really so about computers????
Major oz: Yes, once the pompous are pounded down, it becomes very easy.
BPRAL22169: It’s certainly true that computers are very very simple — but they have a lot of different parts that interact with each other.
BPRAL22169: So there’s a lot of simple stuff going on.
ddavitt: Going back to Smith, his women were all pretty bright yet he’s the inventor of space opera where the women all scream when the monster arrives and faint. Why is that? Why did he invent the genre and yet it moved away from the standards he set/
SAcademy: The first computer book I has was by a Hungarian immigrant, and it was simply not understandable.
Major oz: I tell my students: “Always remember that any computer, anywhere, is just a big, dumb, fast, adding machine”
ddavitt: It’s the way they begin very simply then get all excited and race off, gforgetting that people like me just DON”T KNOW about computers
DenvToday: lol Major. Great line.
BPRAL22169: Smith didn’t write that kidn of thing — and that wasn’t true of 30’s space opera, either: you’re thinking about sci-fi stuff from the fifties onward.
Major oz: Once you get through that, and STICK TO ENGLISH, it is not difficult.
ddavitt: Could be; I’m younger than you:-)
BPRAL22169: Actually, you can teach anything to anybody if you stick to English.
ddavitt: I know Smith didn’t wrirte it
Major oz: indeed
ddavitt: But I always heard he was the father of space opera
DenvToday: Major, I’ve decided to learn Java. I’ve never been a computer person, but I thought that should change. And yes, once you get some basics down, the mystery starts to disappear.
BPRAL22169: With some minor caveats: they have to speak English to begin with, and everbody has different levels at different times in their lives. you have to let them take what they are ready for.
ddavitt: He predated those pulps with the covers showing shrinking women with hands up to their mouths; you know the sort
BPRAL22169: What you are talking about really isn’t space opera. that’s the problem with your definition, Jane.
ddavitt: define then?
BPRAL22169: The Bergey covers. Yes. The ironic thing is, the covers very rarely had anything at all to do with the contents of the stories. The covers were bought separately.
Major oz: …..Like the lead in, Jane, of Mystery on BBC
ddavitt: ?Oz
BPRAL22169: The purpose of the Bergey covers was to compete on the newsstands with the men’s magazines.
ddavitt: So they had to be lurid you mean?
Major oz: The “shrinking” dramatic 20’s lady who expires from the vapors.
BPRAL22169: So there was a certain amount of sex and sadism.
BPRAL22169: Yes.
SAcademy: I don’t think illustrators ever READ the story
BPRAL22169: Rogers did.
DenvToday: lol
ddavitt: but wasn’t smith quite advanced having women who were bright brave and beautiful?
BPRAL22169: No, Smith was exactly in his time — for 1911.
BPRAL22169: You are looking backward through the lens of a time of great oppression of women in the last fifty years.
Major oz: Poll: I do not like illustrations in my books — to me it detracts.
Major oz: how do you feel about it?
ddavitt: Does that equate with maureen in Sail/ she has to do a fair bit of camoflague of her brains\
geeairmoe2: ditto, Oz.
ddavitt: sorry; Lauren on knee
BPRAL22169: I am indifferent. If I’m goingt o like the illustrations, it’s going to be separately and not as part of the book.
ddavitt: they can add a lot if contemporary
DenvToday: It’s ironic; RAH was one of the first to have competent, educated women perform all tasks that a man can, and usually do it better. The irony is that RAH is sometimes called sexist by feminists–usually those who haven’t read his works.
BPRAL22169: There’s a lot about Maureen that is conditioned on her environment — midwestern.
ddavitt: i have some lovely ones in a gene stratton porter novel
ddavitt: true Denv…
Major oz: Is it midwestern, Bill, or the times?
DenvToday: Major, I have the illustrated version of TNOB, and I quite like them. I wonder how RAH felt about them.
DenvToday: TNOTB, that is.
BPRAL22169: But generally speaking, feminism and racial equality were much more advanced in 1910 than they were in 1950. Woodrow Wilson set racial equality back 60 years.
ddavitt: i would love to see them; I look out for it wwhen
ddavitt: i’m in book stores
BPRAL22169: Radical feminism killed feminism in this country.
ddavitt: really/ that’s an interesting POV
BPRAL22169:
ddavitt: wonder how it differs from the uk
Major oz: My reproduction Lensmen series (the bound set) has illustrations. I try to ignore them as I read, but must admit they are well done.
ddavitt: why do they bother you so? different ideas of how the characters should look/
BPRAL22169: Up to about 1975, it was just accepted that you would have feminist inclinations; after Shulamith Firestone, to pick one egregious example, to be feminist meant to be lesbian, so it was no longer de rigueur.
ddavitt: What about the 1950’s as shown in Pleasantville for instance?
Major oz: I don’t know if “bother” is the word. More of a distraction. When I am involved in the prose, I don’t wish to pause to look at a picture.
ddavitt: women in the kitchen, at home
ddavitt: reaction to rosie the riveter no doubt
BPRAL22169: Huge campaign at the end of WWII to get women out of factories so the returning men could have the jobs.
BPRAL22169: “The Feminine Mystique” discusses it in some detail.
ddavitt: but we didn’t want to go…
Major oz: …..and that is when the REAL war began……
ddavitt: we liked the change and the wages
DavidWrightSr: How do you keep them done on the ‘farm’ after they
Major oz: yes
ddavitt: exactly…
DavidWrightSr: ‘ve seen ‘Paree’?
ddavitt: i have to go get ready; I’ll stay online and pop back when I can
DenvToday: Okay
BPRAL22169: Coward!
DenvToday: Lull?
BPRAL22169: I think the kind of thing Jane was talking about was media sci-fi of the fifties — the kind where they had to have a love interest but didn’t have anything for the woman to do so they let them scream and faint a lot.
BPRAL22169: Badly handled formulas.
DenvToday: I grew up on those films, God bless ’em.
Major oz: The 50’s (bad) movies were probably most people’s first exposure to SF.
Major oz: The didn’t get to the books until later (if at all)
BPRAL22169: I remember being scared by “Invaders from Mars” for about 20 years.
DavidWrightSr: except for Destination Moon
BPRAL22169: (6 years old was really too young to see even a movie as hokey as that)
DenvToday: Yep David. But I didn’t see Destination Moon until I was older. It was a thing apart.
Major oz: The Thing scared the #$%& out of me for many years after — and I was an (almost) adult when it came out.
SAcademy: Anyone see the early version of Frankenstein?
BPRAL22169: I think the two “quality” films that were more or less readily available were — the titles have flown out of my head: Michael Rennie and the remake of “Farewell to the Master” and the sf version of “The Tempest.”
BPRAL22169: The 1930 version?
DavidWrightSr: The original Thing still scares me even though I know it’s just what’s his name from Gunsmoke under there.
BPRAL22169: Actually James Arness was sick the day that was shot — it was a stand in carrot.
Major oz: James Arness
DavidWrightSr: I was about 10 when I first saw it. James Arness
DavidWrightSr: LOL
DenvToday: Yes, I’ve seen the first Frankenstein. But by the time I’d seen it when I was a kid in the 60’s, it was nearly a cliche.
DenvToday: I remember thinking that it was the original Munsters.
DavidWrightSr: And I seem to recall that Groucho’s old announcer was in it too. (George Fenneman?)
BPRAL22169: “The Day The Earth Stood Still”
DenvToday: Well-made film, terrible message.
BPRAL22169: Ah – Gort, Klaatu barada nikto.
DenvToday: Klaatu barada nikto
BPRAL22169: Aside from Dominique Francon, Patricia Neal’s finest hour.
Major oz: Michael Renne in a saccharine anti-war flik
BPRAL22169: But very advanced for 1950.
Major oz: Only in FX
Major oz: Very old in theme
BPRAL22169: Isn’t RAH doing the same essential theme in Have Space Suit?
DavidWrightSr: Very Russian sounding. Nikto is ‘no-one’ ‘u’ and ‘a’ are dative and genitive endings.
DenvToday: Yep Major. Leftist drivel dressed up in SF.
Major oz: One of the three, Bill, that I haven’t read.
Major oz: ……but keep looking for.
BPRAL22169: Some people consider that the finest of all the juveniles.
DavidWrightSr: I watched a sex scene with Patricia Neal and John Wayne the other night. She took off her shoe.
Major oz: lol
BPRAL22169: Of course, that may be because it was the last of the juveniles…
DenvToday: In Harm’s Way. Good Navy film.
DavidWrightSr: Yup.
DenvToday: Bpral, I’m glad to see another Rand fan.
BPRAL22169: I’m still trying to think of the name of the SF film loosely based on Shakespear’s The Tempest.
DavidWrightSr: Forbidden Planet
BPRAL22169: Monsters from the Id. Krell metal.
DenvToday: Forbidden Planet
BPRAL22169: Ah, that’s it.
BPRAL22169: I kept wanting to say “Fantastic Planet,” and that’s not it — that was the Czech animation.
DavidWrightSr: Another one of the few really good ones from that period
DenvToday: Yes. A great one.
BPRAL22169: But that was later — 1957, I think.
geeairmoe2: Didn’t start paying attention to SF until I was older. I was into Hammer films.
DenvToday: I was hooked bye the time I was 7 or 8 years old. I’ll never forget it–my first sf novel was Starman Jones.
DavidWrightSr: To this day, I don’t know whether it was Starman Jones or Between Planets. One of the two, but I can’t remember which.
DavidWrightSr: It’s been a long, long time.
DenvToday: Yes, same here.
DavidWrightSr: But whichever it was, I knew I was hooked. I started haunting the libraries looking for more to the point where I got a job in the library.
BPRAL22169: Mine too — but it was either Starman Jones or Farmer in the Sky for me. I read them back to back.
DenvToday: And when I was 10 or 11, I read TMIAHM. It changed the way I think. It’s amazing the effect RAH has had on my life.
geeairmoe2: I don’t remember which, either, except that Tunnel in the Sky was the first book I ever read that made me say: I got to read more stuff by this guy.
DenvToday: Yep. I always thought that Lord of the Flies was Farmer in the Sky gone horribly wrong.
DavidWrightSr: I’m sure most of you have seen the phenomenom. Either RAH made an enormous impact on your life, or you hated him. Never could understand the latter
BPRAL22169: You mean Tunnel in the Sky?
ddavitt: back; space suit and rollin stones for me
SAcademy: Tunnel has been sold for Motion pictures, but the man (Rick Smolan) wants to do it all himself.
DavidWrightSr: Tell us more!
Major oz: when was that, SA?
ddavitt: it could be a great film
SAcademy: But he can’t get financing.
BPRAL22169: SAcad — have him get in touch with me. I am in touch with a producer who might be able to line something up.
ddavitt: 🙁
SAcademy: I think he’d do a good job of it.
ddavitt: has he done other films?
DavidWrightSr: Tunnel could be done well on the big screen and it could be done without messing it up.
SAcademy: They won’t let him do it himself, he hasn’t had movie experience. He’s the one who did those coffee table books–ADAY IN THE LIFE OF
BPRAL22169: And I bet they would even do it with a black lead actor nowadays.
SAcademy: i WILL PUR HIM IN TOUCH WITH YOU, bILL.
SAcademy: Apologies for all the caps.
ddavitt: or it could be done as the reporters at the end tried to make it seem..
BPRAL22169: (though there might be resistance to portraying a middle-class Black)
ddavitt: that’s so weird
BPRAL22169: Will Smith could have done it very well ten years ago.
ddavitt: yes!
DavidWrightSr: You know. That’s a problem with putting Heinlein on the screen. He was so good at letting the reader ‘fill in the blanks’ as I call it , that a lot of fans are not going to like it because it doesn’t fit there perceptions of what they read.
ddavitt: but rod maybe took himself a bit more seriuosly than will does
Major oz: >>>>>> and GRACE JONES (years ago)
ddavitt: wow! cool caroline
BPRAL22169: As Caroline — yes.
ddavitt: still one handed typing here
BPRAL22169: Does Lauren help you zip up the back?
DavidWrightSr: If I hadn’t been part of the discussions we’ve had here and on AFH, I would have had a great problem with Rod being black if I were to see it for the first time
ddavitt: 🙂 i am all ready now,d is cooking
ddavitt: where’s my aperitif that’s what i want to know
ddavitt: it wasn
BPRAL22169: Have to find Jani for that.
ddavitt: t really
Major oz: Plum wine?
DavidWrightSr: Stephen is online, but he declined my invite.
ddavitt: significant to the plot imo so he could be either
ddavitt: g and t
Major oz: hokay
ddavitt: more important to get the rifgt actor
DenvToday: By the way Bill, yes, I meant Tunnel before. lol In reference to Lord of the Flies.
BPRAL22169: One thing that will be hard to do nowadays is Rod’s spectacular innocence about Jackie.
DavidWrightSr: Well, Farmers have flies normally don’t they?
stephenveiss has entered the room.
DenvToday: lol Good point!
ddavitt: cocky, confident, gets it all knocked out of him, gets tough, ends up on top
DenvToday: Hello Stephen
stephenveiss: um. .wrong button.. oops
ddavitt: impossible i’d say; might have to drop that
ddavitt: wasn’t it there for the editors/ so r and j could live together
DavidWrightSr: I don’t know. the right actress could probably carry it off
ddavitt: without raising moral issues
Major oz: sure…..Orlando, Portia, etc.
ddavitt: tho why not just have him teaming with a boy?
BPRAL22169: I don’t think there would be any difficulty about the actress — it’s the actor playing Rod that’s the problem. Kids are just a lot more “knowing” these days.
ddavitt: what was the point with that i wonder/
Major oz: ’cause, Jane, that’s like making a whole character out of Dizzie.
ddavitt: crying game….
DavidWrightSr: There are still people around who are not particularly observant 🙂
Major oz: …..the slippery slope arguement
BPRAL22169: But the girl disguising herself as a boy so she wouldn’t be treated with favoritism should still be able to play in Peoria,
Major oz: i agree
geeairmoe2: If you make Rod a geeky math nerd, missing the point about Jackie becomes more plausible.
Major oz: but he ain’t
DenvToday: I’m still waiting for the screen version of TEFL. Of course, they’d have to do Methusela’s Children first.
ddavitt: it was a minor point but it made rod look an idiot; jimmy guessed right away
BPRAL22169: Rod can’t be a geeky math nerd and the kind of character who comes out a leader at the end.
DavidWrightSr: Why Not?
BPRAL22169: It will be very hard to make Jimmy know from the start and Rod not twigging believable.
geeairmoe2: Sure he can. Change from thinker to doer.
ddavitt: he’s one of the best in the class; but he still almost dies
DavidWrightSr: Good director, good actors, good script
DavidWrightSr: Well, maybe that is impossible
BPRAL22169: But it’s not the book Heinlein wrote.
ddavitt: i think it could get dropped but yes, slippery slope
DenvToday: I remember thinking as a kid that Tunnel disturbed me…probably because I would have never survived.
BPRAL22169: You’re superimposing a different dramatic arc that isn’t in the book.
SAcademy: Rick told me that he wants to do it exactly as the book tells the story.
ddavitt: well, good for him
DavidWrightSr: I agree. He can’t be the nerd type, but I still say that he can still be dense on some things.
SAcademy: I don’t know whether Hollywood will let him do that.
ddavitt: but it’s worth rememberingbthat they’re 2 different ways of telling a story
BPRAL22169: In this climate, Hollywood doesn’t really control that any more.
ddavitt: different constraints
BPRAL22169: Indies account for 80% of all new releases.
ddavitt: no need to do an St but can deviate a bit
DavidWrightSr: That’s probably why he is having trouble getting the funding, They would want to do it their way.
Major oz: they ?
ddavitt: books can tell inner thoughts better, movies can fill in details more
BPRAL22169: Exactly — the constraints of a movie are that you can only see what the characters do and say, you can’t easily see their internal life.
SAcademy: Sure set up a new company and to hell with the contract for the book.
DavidWrightSr: The Money people.
ddavitt: but it would make a very good film
Major oz: send the money people to the RAH boards to show them where the income is.
stephenveiss has left the room.
DavidWrightSr: Which is why Tunnel could be done, less internal. Not like ST
Major oz: agree
DenvToday: SA, what was your impression of Star Troopers?
SAcademy: Does everyone know what happened with Door Into Summer?
DavidWrightSr: No. Tell us
DenvToday: No, I don’t.
geeairmoe2: Hollywood, a town of myopics, each with their own tunnel vision.
Major oz: There are parts of T that can be deleted without losing the story
ddavitt: so tempting to make changes tho for the writers…fill in the story of the cave dwellers for instance
SAcademy: It was awful., R would have walked out on it.
BPRAL22169: It is a very straightforward, external story, with a message that is very publicly acceptable. It would play well in Peoria.
Major oz: details of habitat, etc.
geeairmoe2: But high school age children HUNTING!
BPRAL22169: Sorry — I meant Tunnel, not ST
ddavitt: survivor is getting away with it i read…
DenvToday: Yes…I was so disheartened. They turned a thinking examination of the military ethic and civic responsibility into a bug-hunting epic.
ddavitt: pigs too..very lotf
BPRAL22169: Look, if that vile thing about temptation in paradise can get away with it, high school hunters won’t even raise an eyebrow.
ddavitt: st wouldn’y make a good film imo’ too cerebral
BPRAL22169: Besides, Krasny Rasvyet got way with it.
DavidWrightSr: Red Dawn
ddavitt: tacky..tacky…yuk
SAcademy: When the sergeant threw a knife and got one trainee in the hand, I almost walked out myself.
ddavitt: Don’t watch any of them
BPRAL22169: Yes, exactly (I have no idea why I remember that one in Russian)
ddavitt: Don’t blame you SA
DenvToday: Have you all seen The Puppet Masters?
DavidWrightSr: My wife watched it this morning. We rented it
BPRAL22169: yes, S’Acad — that was the most offensive part of the movie for me.
ddavitt: I was the same with judge Dredd when Stallone took off his helmet. david and I hissed
Major oz: so….what happened to Door Into Summer ?
DavidWrightSr: I still refuse to even consider watching it. Once was one time too many.
ddavitt: PM was OK; I liked that
BPRAL22169: I’m going to be away from keyboard for a few minutes.
ddavitt: OK
DavidWrightSr: Not me. PM was one of the scariest books I ever read. The movie just looked ridiculous, even though it was definitely not as bad as ST.
DenvToday: The irony is that Starship Troopers could have been wonderful with the resources they had.
SAcademy: It was bought for movies ;by two men, Reed Sherman and Barney something. They had a falling out, and the whole thing ended up with Sherman. We always get calls from producers who want to do it, so I send them to Sherman, and he hangs up on them.
DavidWrightSr: Too bad. Sherman has the rights and want let anyone touch it. Right?
SAcademy: Stranger has sat on the shelf at Paramount for thirty years. It will never be produced.
SAcademy: Exactly.
Major oz: no “statute of limitations” on rights ?
DenvToday: That’s beyond tragedy. SIASL has become part of our culture.
SAcademy: I have to look into that.
DavidWrightSr: I suspect it would depend on whether it was an ‘option’ or ‘outright purchase’. Too bad AG isn’t here. He might know.
geeairmoe2: Stranger needs to be a mini-series. I doubt it could be covered suffiently in the usual 100 minute movie time.
DavidWrightSr: I’m just guessing from what little my son has told me.
SAcademy: Both were purchases–not options. I do know the difference.
Major oz: Tom Hanks would do a great 18 hour mini-series of SIASL
DavidWrightSr: Yeah, he did a great job with Apollo
SAcademy: He’s too old
DavidWrightSr: Not for him to play Michael, but to produce and/or direct
Major oz: He’s too old to act in it — but can produce and/or direct’
DavidWrightSr: GMTA
Major oz: slow
DenvToday: Is Hanks a RAH fan?
Major oz: very much
Major oz: so is trovolta
SAcademy: I don’t know that. He likes the story.
DavidWrightSr: It’s been said that he is a great fan, but that could be rumor. Obviously, he was a great fan of the space program, so I suspect that it could be true.
DavidWrightSr: Hanks, I mean, not Revolta
Major oz: Stranger cannot be done by anyone under the constraints of a normal length movie.
DavidWrightSr: ‘Travolta’ 🙂
Major oz: yes
DenvToday: If it drags on any longer, Hanks will be able to play Jubal.
SAcademy: LOL
DenvToday: 🙂
DavidWrightSr: Well, Remembering his first big role on TV, maybe he could play Patty Paiwonski
DavidWrightSr: 🙂
DenvToday: lol Good point.
Major oz: busom buddies, wasn’t it?
DavidWrightSr: He and Peter Scolario
Major oz: I love the casting games. It is just that I don’t know any of the stars of today (and those I do, I consider shallow).
DavidWrightSr: Oz said: “Stranger cannot be done by anyone under the constraints of a normal length movie.” I agree, it would take at least 4-6 episodes.
DavidWrightSr: or more.
DenvToday: It’s too late now…I always pictured Jason Robards as Jubal.
Major oz: I see James Earl Jones
geeairmoe2: I saw Raymond Burr.
Major oz: no experssion in Burr
DavidWrightSr: See what I mean by our ‘perceptions’. I always thought of him as rather fat and scrubby.
Major oz: expression
AGplusone has entered the room.
Major oz:
DenvToday: Hello David!
SAcademy: Wishful thinking. No use casting it. I’d be very syrprised if they ever made it.
Major oz: yo, David
DavidWrightSr: Perhaps more colored by my perception of Garsch in Citizen.
AGplusone: Hi, Denv, Oz, all.
DavidWrightSr: Welcome. David. I was just talking about you
SAcademy: I’s like to see JOB made.
SAcademy: For adults only.
AGplusone: [UCLA wins again, despite Lavin … good, said nothin’ good I hope]
Major oz: great idea, SA
ddavitt: Hi david; we are straying far afield into movies
Major oz: What’s a “UCLA” ?
AGplusone has left the room.
AGplusone has entered the room.
DenvToday: I keep recommending JOB to my friends, especially the religious ones.
SAcademy: University of California at Los Angeles.
DavidWrightSr: Good, I thought we had scared you off David.
AGplusone: Garsch was one of the more mature characters, for a juvenile, I always thought.
AGplusone: Think my ISP glitched that one.
Major oz:
SAcademy: WB
AGplusone: 🙂
geeairmoe2: An ucla is this strange, blue and yellow bird indigenous to So. Cal. Often identified by bouts of self-importance when in the presence of a basketball. It can beintolerable at those times.
DenvToday: lol gee
AGplusone: 😀 eleven NACC championships
geeairmoe2: I meant “insufferable’. See?
AGplusone: What were we talking about, regarding Garsch?
DavidWrightSr: Unless you count Doc Smith’s works, we have spent an hour and a half *not* discussing ‘The worlds of NOTB’. Fun
Major oz: Actually, we had a Q for you
SAcademy: Who is Garsch?
AGplusone: The lawyer in Citizen of the Galaxy
ddavitt: lawyer in citizen
DavidWrightSr: Garsch was the lawyer in Citizen of the Galaxy that Thorby hired to help him with getting control of his company.
SAcademy: I’d forgotten.
Major oz: We were talking about how Paramount has put the rights to SIASL on the shelf and it has been there for 30 years. The question was asked if there is a “statute of limitations”
AGplusone: redipped from the “licensed shyster” in “Jerry Was a man”
SAcademy: He should have had Art Dula.
DavidWrightSr: I was just fixing to say that
DavidWrightSr: about Jerry I mean
DenvToday: David, one of my favorite of RAH’s short stories.
AGplusone: Always one of mine.
ddavitt: i love martha as a character
ddavitt: and I always cry at the ned
ddavitt: end
DavidWrightSr: you too?
ddavitt: yes
AGplusone: actually Jerry was unique as a character and so was Martha … all of us cry.
DavidWrightSr: I do that at the end of Citizen for that matter when he remembers Grandmother and Baslim
ddavitt: martha telling off Brownie was a gret moment
DenvToday: I remember crying at Podkayne.
geeairmoe2: “Elephants” always gets to me.
ddavitt: And Rolling stones, last paragraph and when they think Hazel is dead
DenvToday: After the explosion…I was so upset.
SAcademy: Robert always asked whether I had cried when I read his endings.
ddavitt: poddy; no, that didn’t have the same effect on me.
DavidWrightSr: I’m just a sentimental old fool. What am I saying, I did that at 15 too.
ddavitt: Did you?
AGplusone: It was a delight to read Moon and find Hazel as a young girl in it.
DenvToday: lol David
AGplusone: After I’d read Stones
ddavitt: Yes, thrill when i spotted her and joined the dots..
SAcademy: Often, not always.
ddavitt: But did he cry/ I feel sorry for him because as the author he could never be the reader…
ddavitt: must be strange.
ddavitt: maybe better, i don’t know
DenvToday: I always have a box of kleenex handy when reading TEFL.
DavidWrightSr: Sure he could, whether he did in the open or in his mind doesn’t matter.
SAcademy: I cried most at the Long Watch. Rusted out the typewriter.
DavidWrightSr: Dora’s tale really gets me.
ddavitt: i love crying at books and films…so therapeutic
SAcademy: Me, too.
AGplusone: I think that was really the first one except the Requiem-Man Who Sold the Moon where I found one character returning (except the reference to John Ezra Dalquist in Space Cadet which I was pleased to read fulfilled in “Long Watch”)
DenvToday: And the Green Hills of Earth. I’m welling up now. lol Don’t get me started.
DenvToday: David, yes. The most poignant moment in all of RAH…Harriman dying…
ddavitt: Yes; i’ve got all the buttons that writers press when they do heroism and tragesy..or even the happy endings after sad times
DavidWrightSr: I just watched Robin Williams in ‘Bicentennial Man’. That one did me in. And reasonably close to the original in many respects.
AGplusone: I loved those characters from the juveniles “coming back” in the adult stories.
ddavitt: Wish kip and Peewee had; my favourite sequel that never was
DavidWrightSr: Yes. I would have loved to see Peewee and Kip as adults. \
AGplusone: And I always wanted the Rivera story and the other two names.
ddavitt: Somewhere in the worlds of NOTB…
ddavitt: Wheeler and martin…yes
DavidWrightSr: Martin and ?
Major oz: Harriman’s death was spooky for me — it seemed RAH was writing his epitet.
AGplusone: So would have I … I really wanted PeeWee as a late teen … Betty Sorenson cubed.
ddavitt: Ever read that story by Don sakers about Heinlein ?
ddavitt: Very moving
DavidWrightSr: No.
DenvToday: No, I haven’t. What’s it called?
ddavitt: In Carmen Miranda’s ghost is haunting space station three
AGplusone: Isn’t it odd how they picked up on the Requiem story on the cover of The Past Through the Future …
ddavitt: Anthology ed by mccaffrey
ddavitt: let me go check
DavidWrightSr: Is that a title ?
AGplusone: What’s the Don Sakers story?
ddavitt: yes’
Major oz: I’m coming up on “getting dumped” time. Bill, are you hosting the mysticism discussion(s).
Major oz: ?
ddavitt: man who travelled in rocketships 🙂
ddavitt: You are in it too SA
AGplusone: Really?
DenvToday: Thanks! I’ll get it!
ddavitt: Lovely story
AGplusone: Lovely title.
ddavitt: sorry, sakers was the editor
BPRAL22169: I believe I am
ddavitt: Mccaffrey and Cherrth contributed
AGplusone: Who wrote it … McCaffrey?
ddavitt: Don sakers wrote that story
AGplusone: ah … okay
Major oz: hokay — I will announce it as such.
DavidWrightSr: Yeah, you had me scared there.
AGplusone: Expect Alan, Bill. Be nice.
ddavitt: Alan?
AGplusone: SageMerlin
ddavitt: Oh, from sff groups
ddavitt: I think?
BPRAL22169: Oh heck. he knows more than I do about this stuff.
AGplusone: He loves mysticism. No, Sage is from the old AOL group.
DavidWrightSr: Good. I was afraid that you were referring to an obnoxious character we had several time back.
AGplusone: Alan Milner … had a letter from him in one of Bill’s first Heinlein Journals
BPRAL22169: yes — about Ouspensky and Gurdjieff.
DavidWrightSr: Speaking of Sage. I just invited him in.
AGplusone: Good, tell him I’d love to see him
BPRAL22169: He must be using one of the screen names I don’t have on my buddy list.
DavidWrightSr: SageMerlin No response yet
AGplusone: He uses both SageMerlin and AlanMilner
DenvToday: By the way, I saw the movie “Dave” last week at a friend’s house. I remember thinking that somebody owed RAH a royalty for Double Star.
BPRAL22169: I’ve got SageMerlin on my buddy list, but I don’t see him.
ddavitt: Yes but so do they owe it to Twain for prince and pauper
DenvToday: Good point.
ddavitt: Old plot…that was a good film tho. weaver was great as First Lady
DavidWrightSr: Well, he’s definitely on mine.
SageMerlin has entered the room.
DavidWrightSr: Ah there he is. Welcome
BPRAL22169: Yo, Alan
ddavitt: Not on mine either…but here he is!
AGplusone: Or Alan whatzisname from the one about that german principality (senior moment about the name)
AGplusone: Hi, Alan …
BPRAL22169: ‘ve been having senior moments all day about nams.
ddavitt: Prisoner of Zenda?
AGplusone: That one
SAcademy: Rupert of Hentzau?
ddavitt: royal Flash!
SageMerlin: Looks like spelling hasn’t imrpvoed either
ddavitt: That’s it SA
AGplusone: I liked the one Jack Lemon-Tony Curtis-Natalie Wood-Peter Falk did.
ddavitt: / what was that?
Major oz: Some like it hot?
geeairmoe2: Didn’t Ronald Coleman do a version?
AGplusone: Was a movie comedy take off on Prisoner of Zenda … far different from the Stewart Granger movie
AGplusone: Enormous pie in the face fight
ddavitt: Not a soda?
AGplusone: Think Coleman did, but I’ve only seen the Stewart Granger version.
ddavitt: would that have had ice cream in it btw; the one Kip threw/ We don’t have them in the UK
SAcademy: Someone should show a series of remakes of the same story.
geeairmoe2: I remember Maxwell Smart in an episode of “Get Smart” impersonating Ronald Coleman as they did a take-off of Zenda.
Major oz: AMC does it once in a while
ddavitt: probabaly have to start with the greeks, the bible or Shakespeare…
AGplusone: The Jack Lemon-Peter Falk take off comedy is contained in a round the world auto race
ddavitt: they got all the best plots first..!:-)
SAcademy: Wish I knew when it happened.
AGplusone: They arrive accidentally in the middle of Prisoner of Zenda …
AGplusone: when they pass through Europe
AGplusone: “The Great Race”!
AGplusone: Woods plays a Nellie Bly type reporter
ddavitt: i remember that film..like the cartoon wacky races?
geeairmoe2: Had the guy who played “Goldfinger”.
ddavitt: Capatain dastardly and Muttley and Penelope Pitstop
SageMerlin: gert frobe?
AGplusone: Yeah … exactly, with Frobe too
ddavitt: lots of different nationalities all racing…
AGplusone: but he drops out early … mostly it’s Tony Curtis’ care vs. the evil car of Doctor Death (Jack Lemon and Peter Falk)
AGplusone: car, not care
SAcademy: BRB
AGplusone: Worth an hour and a half of laughter
ddavitt: Was that like ‘Genevive’?
BPRAL22169: Aren’t we a bit far afield? Or did I miss another time out?
Major oz has left the room.
geeairmoe2: I gotta go. What’s the next topic?
BPRAL22169: Heinlein as mystic
ddavitt: Mysticism
AGplusone: Double Star–>Prisoner of Zenda–>The Great Race
BPRAL22169: Yes, but we were supposed to be in the Worlds of NOTB.
ddavitt: we were On topic…for the first 5 mins or so…
geeairmoe2: Reccomended reading?
ddavitt: I made an excellent point…I think 🙂
AGplusone: “great classic plots” would make a great topic …
BPRAL22169: Of course, given the physics of NOTB, everything else is in those worlds, too…
ddavitt: About multilayered childrens books featured in NOTB
ddavitt: well, quite!
SAcademy: Back
ddavitt: going back to the detective worlds Bill
ddavitt: Tou said they wouldn’ seem different but that isn’t quite right IMO
AGplusone: Recommended reading for Heinlein as Mystic?
ddavitt: They are very fantastical
DavidWrightSr: Bill. can you suggest some ideas in particular in RAH which you would consider mystical. I still don’t have a good feel for the concept.
ddavitt: How many housewives do you know who happen upon a murder every 6 montns or so?
BPRAL22169: I haven’t defined that yet — let’s start off with “They” and “Lost Legacy” and I WILL FEAR NO EVIL as a chaser.
BPRAL22169: (Mrs. Pollifax)
ddavitt: project nightmare?
AGplusone: Lost Legacy will be fun. Haven’t read it in a while.
ddavitt: Her too..are the CIA really that desparate?
BPRAL22169: I think one of the things we can talk about is why “Project Nightmare” is NOT mysticism.
SageMerlin: Excuse me folks, but hasn’t anyone considered that Stranger is the epitome of a mystical novel??????
ddavitt: true:-)
geeairmoe2: Do we have some kind 0f pre-accepted definition of “mysticism”?
AGplusone: Anything by ambrose bierce tie in here, Bill?
ddavitt: Lost legacy has him
AGplusone: For someone who’s only read a few Bierce short stories?
BPRAL22169: Some very good material in Stranger. But a lot of the Martian ‘powers’ are simply (simply!) yogic demonstrations.
ddavitt: Dome versions don’t tho…
ddavitt: Some
ddavitt: Not the discorporation!
SageMerlin: Yoga is not mystical in its origins. News to me.
AGplusone: Or anything by Mark Twain?
AGplusone: to supplement, as potential sources, perhaps
BPRAL22169: didn’t say that — the demonstrations of yoga are physiological, for the most part.
DavidWrightSr: Well, when you come down to it. How many people of any category continually come into contact with murders etc. Duke’s sons, Parsons, Old ladies, 😛
BPRAL22169: We’ve got a few too many tracks going on simultaneously.
AGplusone: Stranger thread, then Bierce-Twain thread, then detective stories, perhaps????
geeairmoe2 has left the room.
AGplusone: Stranger-Yoga …
SageMerlin: Farmer’s RiverWorld serie…..
ddavitt: Sorry but guests have just arrived; i have to go for good. Night all.
BPRAL22169: Are you suggesting these as topics for future meetings or as reading for mysticism?
AGplusone: Nite Jane …
ddavitt has left the room.
SageMerlin: That was the question….someone asked.
AGplusone: you=Sage?
SAcademy: Goodnight Jne.
BPRAL22169: no, you AG+1
AGplusone: Just wondering if there’s anything by either Twain or Bierce that would make Lost Legacy clearer
AGplusone: or influences RAH may have relied on for mysticism clearer
DavidWrightSr: There was the mention of Twain talking about telepathy. Saw the articles somewhere
SAcademy: He had a set of encyclopedias on that.
AGplusone: Always fun to go back and read influences, especially if I hadn’t read them before.
BPRAL22169: I think he read the primary sources for “mystical” ideas — theosophy and others.
BPRAL22169: So there’s little about Twain or Bierce that would be helpful IMO
AGplusone: Well, give us a list of primary sources … a small list
DavidWrightSr: What are the primary sources you are talking about
BPRAL22169: Except some attitudes in “What Is Man?” and maybe “Mysterious Stranger.”
BPRAL22169: A primary source would be something like the primer Blavatsky wrote about Theosophy — Isis Unveiled? or any of Steiner’s books.
AGplusone: Reading looking for pointers in Bierce … must have been something …
BPRAL22169: It would simply not be practical to give those as preparatory reading.
AGplusone: I agree
SageMerlin: In Search of the Miraculous
BPRAL22169: I think Bierce was just coincidental
DavidWrightSr: You said it. I have never heard of any of them.
SageMerlin: by PD Ouspenski
AGplusone: Maybe a precís of those, however?
BPRAL22169: Tha’t s a very good suggestion, Alan. The book is broken up into digestible bits, and you get Gurdjieff — it’s Ouspensky relaying the content of Gurdjieff’s lecutres.
AGplusone: “In Search of the Miraculous” available?
SAcademy: I keep telling Bill that we never had any Ouspenski in the house.
AGplusone: What section of bookstore?
SageMerlin: I am sure that is true, but he was very influential in forming the ideas of others
BPRAL22169: It’s available but you may have to go to a specialty bookstore.
BPRAL22169: It would be in the religion section or philosophy or metaphysics, if the store has those in separate sections.
AGplusone: Santa Monica and Venice might surprise you …
BPRAL22169: Locally, we’ve got the Bodhi tree.
SageMerlin: Are we restricted here to things that RAH might have or actually did read, or may we consider books that might expand our understanding of what the mystical impulse is all about?
BPRAL22169: However, I think we should stick to “Lost Legacy” and “They” as our primary material.
AGplusone: True, but … for those of us who’ve read them … many times.
BPRAL22169: They will be adequate to introduce the ideas and work up further explorations from.
AGplusone: some diversion or edification might be fun
BPRAL22169: It might actually be helpful to read Emerson’s essays on “The Over-Soul” for example.
AGplusone: ‘kay, that’s a classic start
DavidWrightSr: But what makes them ‘mystical’. What am I looking for?
BPRAL22169: I think it’s in the modern library edition of the collected works.
AGplusone: Mysticism is something many of us cringe from … too many flower children reading them …
BPRAL22169: I’m not going to define “mysticism” — that’s going to be part of the discussion. I’ve got an approach worked out for this, but you’ve kind of rushed me.
AGplusone: so we might be helped by a primer
BPRAL22169: Agreed, David — and too many new age mushheads.
BPRAL22169: So I want to distinguish what’s going on in RAH’s mind from the mush we’re exposed to in the pop media.
DavidWrightSr: OK. I’ll read them and see if I can get any insight into just what you are talking about. Any others of Heinlein’s or another prominent SF writer. I’ve got a lot of those.
AGplusone: which is a real good reason to try to point to primers
BPRAL22169: There are a few things that illustrate what is NOT meant by mysticism — “Magic, Inc.” and “Project Nightmare.”
AGplusone: Any articles in your Journal you’d recommend?
AGplusone: Aside from Sage’s letter, of course?
BPRAL22169: Not at this starting level. “The Hermetic Heinlein” in the first issue will develop some of the ideas we’ll be talking about.
AGplusone: ‘kay
AGplusone: just noddling
SageMerlin: What letter? What did I do now?
SageMerlin: Did I write a letter?
BPRAL22169: Incidentally: dictionary: “experience of direct communion with ultimate reality.” “belief that direct knowledge of God or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight)”
BPRAL22169: Back in — I think it was issue 2 of the Journal.
AGplusone: We were mentioning your letter in issue two, I think, just about the time we invited you to join the room
SageMerlin: Wait a minute. Whose been writing my letters?
SageMerlin: Or whose letters have I been writing?
SageMerlin: And did I give away anything I should have?
BPRAL22169: I certainly hope you have — it appeared over your name. (How soon they forget! Only 4 years!)
SageMerlin: Jeez….. I think I have been working too hard. I remember being a writer once, but I thought was just an idea I once had. I really wrote it?
AGplusone: yep, way back on AOL
SageMerlin: Okay. Was it any good?
BPRAL22169: I re-read it a couple of days ago. Definitely holds up.
AGplusone: If you think of a Bierce, Bill, let me know. I’m looking for an excuse to read more of him
DavidWrightSr: Bill: your definition reminded me of what I said about similarities in ‘They’, ‘BTH’ and ‘TEFL’, where the protagonist has ‘dreams’ about being part of the ‘real world’. Was that something like you had in mind?
BPRAL22169: I think Bierce was put in there simply because he was kind of “in the air” — he had disappeared in 1914.
SageMerlin: Here’s a good one. I left a $100 bill in one that I turned over to good will. If you find it …the last three digits on the serial number were 007…who could forget that….I want half of it back.
BPRAL22169: Yes, reincarnation and the subjectivity of experience dreams are very much within the mystical corner.
DavidWrightSr: That makes a little more sense to me now.
AGplusone: Hence The Mysterious Stranger bubble ending
BPRAL22169: The editor who published it — Norton, I think was the name — changed the name to Ambrose James so Bierce (who would have been about 114 at the time) couldn’t come back and sue.
AGplusone: some editors
BPRAL22169: At any rate, there was another candidate for a mysterious disappearance Heinlein could have used — Judge Crater — but he was notoriously corrupt, a Tammany figure, I think. Not quite the right character to head up an esoteric lodge.
AGplusone: … are worse than some lawyers …
DavidWrightSr: The female character said that Bierce reminded her of Twain. Did I remember that correctly, and was there a physical similarity between them?
SageMerlin: facial hair
BPRAL22169: I don’t think so.
BPRAL22169: Yeah — about that level. They were both 19th century gentlemen
BPRAL22169: I think that, and the sardonicism, might be what Joan Freeman was referring to.
AGplusone: define “sardonicism” the tone?
AGplusone: sardonic
BPRAL22169: Yes. Heavy use of irony or sarcasm.
AGplusone: ‘kay
SageMerlin: Does anyone remember a pulp novel called Sardonicus?
DavidWrightSr: the quote was ‘mane of white hair which matched his eyebrows’.
BPRAL22169: I do — I read it in the 70
AGplusone: No, but it sounds like fun.
SageMerlin: remember the name of the author?
BPRAL22169: but i can’t remember anything about it.
BPRAL22169: Wylie?
AGplusone: Wylie!
AGplusone: Must have read it then.
AGplusone: Miss writers like Wylie …
AGplusone: Was it Philip Wylie, Sage?
DavidWrightSr: I read Wylie because of ‘When Worlds Collide’, but enjoyed his non-sf stuff more.
BPRAL22169: He also, according to Sam Moskowitz, wrote the book that inspired Superman.
BPRAL22169: But he wa smore famous for Momism.
AGplusone: I never realized he wrote that long ago, but then I’
SageMerlin: I think you may be right.
SAcademy: Ever read the Wylie book about the USSR?
DavidWrightSr: ‘Worlds’ was in the very early thirties.
AGplusone: didn’t pay much attention to dates of publication when I was seventeen or so … it was all just too ancient for me to distinguish between them
BPRAL22169: I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that one, SAcad.
SAcademy: Can’t recall the title. Maybe Opus 52 or something like that.
AGplusone: Which one was it, about the USSR?
AGplusone: okay
BPRAL22169: Opus 21?
SAcademy: That’s it!
DavidWrightSr: Right. I read that one.
AGplusone: Have to search out a Wylie web reference, and see how many I can find I haven’t read.
SAcademy: How they killed his brother by putting some microbes into the water?
DavidWrightSr: He also wrote a strange one called ‘The disappearance’ where all the men and women just disappered from each other’s sight
SAcademy: I read that one–R. had it.
BPRAL22169: He was a very prolific writer. I would recommend the Twayne overview of Wylie.
AGplusone: Sounds like a trip to UCLA, speaking of the ‘debil’
DavidWrightSr: You know. In a way, we are discussing the ‘Worlds of NOTB’, as all of these authors would certainly be included there 🙂
BPRAL22169: Twayne published a uniform series of author surveys — the US Authors series. Stover’s book about Heinlein was in that series.
BPRAL22169: Joe Lee Davis did a good one about Cabell, too.
AGplusone: And they would all be somewhere in UCLA’s reference libraries … well, I’ve got a card …
SAcademy: I thought Twayne cancelled the series?
BPRAL22169: I believe you are right. At least, they haven’t added to it. But many public libraries have a lot of the TUSAS books.
SAcademy: No, that was Oxford, after H.
BPRAL22169: I know the Oxford Press — you got there first.
SAcademy: Bruce Franklin.
AGplusone: Is Franklin the one who wrote for Oxford?
BPRAL22169: Yes.
SAcademy: Yes.
AGplusone: Shows their lack of taste, doesn’t it?
BPRAL22169: “RAH: America as Science Fiction”
SAcademy: That was the title. They shut down the series and fired the editor of it.
AGplusone: He’s the one visited under the aegis of claim to having been a former SAC pilot?
SAcademy: Yes.
AGplusone: uh-huh
SAcademy: I didn’t stay for his visit. I left.
DavidWrightSr: My son just told me today that he has been asked to do a review of some article which treats juveniles in SF. Don’t remember the title, but he said that RAH was specifically mentioned in it. He is going to send me his review when he finishes it, so I’ll be able to say more about it then.
AGplusone: They are talking about expanding that lesson plan they did on Farmer of the Sky with your help (allowing them to make a tape of it), SA
AGplusone: for special education school students
SAcademy: I haven’t heard that.
AGplusone: I’ll send you copies of what they’ve posted, discussing it
SAcademy: Fred Pohl sent me the teacher’s letter about the use of that book.
BPRAL22169: “it’s amazing how many adults don’t know anything aboutanything.” One of my favorite Heinlein quotes from that book
AGplusone: And that is the Millenium Com they’re trying to get it ready for … in Philadelphia.
SAcademy: Thanks. I’d like to see it.
DavidWrightSr: OTOH, a lot of RAH’s juvies were always getting surprised to find out how much ‘the old man actually knew’.
AGplusone: I’d like to hear more of that review your son is working on, Dave
SAcademy: Yes, I’d like to have a ocpy for the files, too.
DavidWrightSr: I should know in a few weeks. I don’t know what his deadline is for it. It’ll be his second or third published work.
DavidWrightSr: Will be happy to provide when I get it.
SAcademy: Thank you very much.
AGplusone: Great, talk him into giving you a copy of the article he’s reviewing … great time to try out your OCR software … 🙂
SAcademy: What is OCR software?
DavidWrightSr: My OCR software works very well. Thank you. How do you think I got all those quotes into my two essays.
AGplusone: Optical Character Recognition …
BPRAL22169: Optical Character Reader — scanner for text instead of pictures. Turns it into a text file
AGplusone: scans and comprehends text …
DavidWrightSr: OCR is the bane of your existance. allows scanned works to be turned into text files.
BPRAL22169: Yes, exactly.
AGplusone: Probably how most of the infringers avoid having to reset … but very useful to preserve and research.
SAcademy: Will wonders never cease?
AGplusone: Guttenberg uses it quite a bit on legal reproduction of out of copyright works
SAcademy: wonders
BPRAL22169: No. they keep making new ones.
BPRAL22169: We have about10 minutes left in t his session — any last minute things to clear up?
BPRAL22169: We are working on setting up anauthor chat in a month or so.
DenvToday: You asked before about Sardonicus?
AGplusone: Yes, …. Sage did.
DenvToday: Sage, I believe it was made into a movie called Dr. Sardonicus, about a man whose face was frozen into a ricuts.
DenvToday: rictus
BPRAL22169: “Rictus Sardonicus?
DenvToday: I remember the movie. With Oscar Homolka.
[Editor’s Note: Some material deleted here due to partcipants requests]
SageMerlin: How about a bodkin in the back?
AGplusone: discussing … bodkins work!
DavidWrightSr: ??
BPRAL22169: Ah, the prefered method!
SageMerlin: (You know how I prefer the the direct approach.)
BPRAL22169: or the snide kris
SageMerlin: ?? A shiv. David. A small, thin bladed knife.
BPRAL22169: suitable to hang from a belt
SageMerlin: The kris is too noble for this hobbledehoy
DavidWrightSr: Gotcha.
BPRAL22169: LOL
SAcademy: Slides in better, I would think. Never used one myself
DenvToday: lol
SageMerlin: Besides, I left my best one in the last person I had to correct in this manner. No fingerprints, David.
DavidWrightSr: How about a vibroblade?
SageMerlin: There is something about finely honed thin bladed knives, an elegance that electronic contraptions never match.
DavidWrightSr: I know. All of RAH’s more distinguished people preferred blades.
DenvToday: Frank Herbert would be so proud. lol
SageMerlin: Where do you think I picked up the habit?
DavidWrightSr: the steel kind, that is
AGplusone has left the room.
SageMerlin: I haven’t left the house naked since I was 17.
DenvToday: I did once, but the charges were dropped.
BPRAL22169: Or as Dorothy Sayers says, “a bullet may go anywhere, but a knife is almost certain to go somewhere.”
DenvToday: Great line!
DavidWrightSr: I’m reading Busman’s Honeymoon as we speak.
BPRAL22169: Dedicated to absent Janes
BPRAL22169: Great Book
SageMerlin: Most of the emergency room docs I know dread knife wounds far more than bullet holes.
SAcademy: Anyone like throwing knives?
DenvToday: Only at IRS agents.
BPRAL22169: Bloodthirsty wench!
SageMerlin: I have a few….both knives and agents….I try to ekeep them out of the same room/
DavidWrightSr: I learned to throw a knife when I was a teen, and hatchets. You should have seen the trees in my back yards from my practice. I think I got that from ‘Tunnel’
SageMerlin: Damn, you’re right. That is where my knife fetish comes from. Never realized that before.
DavidWrightSr: I was never very good with a knife, but I was deadly with a hatchet
DenvToday: It’s not fair. Lazarus Long got to wear a kilt most of the time. Exccellent garb for weapon hiding.
BPRAL22169: Well, it is past five, and I have relatives waiting to spirit me away, so I will bid you all adieu.
SAcademy: Robert used Yank Levy’s book as reference.
DavidWrightSr: Could Robert throw knives himself. I know he was a fencer.
BPRAL22169: Anf flights of angels wing thee to thy rest.
DenvToday: I don’t know the book. Another one for my library list.
SAcademy: No knives for R.
AGplusone has entered the room.
DenvToday: wb David
SageMerlin: The way I was taught, SA, there were two rules. Keep both feet on the ground, and never throw ammunition at your enemies.
AGplusone: Back. someone picked up my phone …
DenvToday: lol Sage. Words to live by.
SAcademy: WB David.
BPRAL22169 has left the room.
SageMerlin: But, SA, according to one source I read not long ago, there was only one recorded kill from a THROWN knife in World War II.
DavidWrightSr: OK. Is that it for tonight? Any more good gossip or other discussion?
AGplusone: basketball?
AGplusone: 😎
SAcademy: Single track mind./
DavidWrightSr: What’s that. A game?
AGplusone: single cell mind
DenvToday: I must be off. As usual, a terrific discussion. Good-night to you all. And SA, a great pleasure for me.
AGplusone: Sage, UCLA’s playing fun and games again.
AGplusone: Go’night, Denv!
DenvToday: Night!
SageMerlin: Well, David, you have kept me here at the office again.
DenvToday has left the room.
DavidWrightSr: Good night everyone. Log officially closed at 8:13 P.M. EST
SAcademy: Good night all.
SAcademy has left the room.
SageMerlin: Good night david.
SageMerlin has left the room.
AGplusone has left the room.
Final End Of Discussion Log
