Heinlein Readers Discussion Group
Thursday 07-28-2005 9:00 P.M. EST
The Matrix Pre-Loaded: The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
Here Begin The Postings
From: LNC
Subject: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 20:41:46 GMT
ANNOUNCEMENT:
HEINLEIN READERS GROUP MEETING SCHEDULED
WHEN: July 28, 2005, 9:00 PM EDT and July 30, 2005, 5:00 PM EDT
WHERE: The usual AIM chatroom
TOPIC: The Matrix Pre-Loaded: The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
What is the meaning of life? Where it all come from and why are we here? Everybody’s a critic and everybody’s got at least some personal idea, don’t they? Maybe some of our ideas are pretty similar and maybe some of us think we’ve come up with the definitive answer or explanation or rationale. Then, I’ll be damned if somebody didn’t think of it first. It is real or is it the creation of some artist’s imagination, some concoction of demonic stobor–I mean robots.
Well, Mr. Anderson or Mr. Randall, as the case may be, how about reading this story, again, and coming prepared to talk about that fictional world and the over-arching topic: whose explanation of what’s going on is right?
Is this world a flawed work of art? Is it just another fictional place among all the equally-valid other fictional places? Along the way, feel free to compare and contrast things like the status of critics, the through-the-looking glass effect and/or anything else the story inspires you to remark.
Anticipating your participation and attendance, I remain…
L.N.C.
From: “David M. Silver”
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2005 16:48:50 -0700
In article, LNCwrote:
> ANNOUNCEMENT:
>
> HEINLEIN READERS GROUP MEETING SCHEDULED
> WHEN: July 28, 2005, 9:00 PM EDT and July 30, 2005, 5:00 PM EDT
> WHERE: The usual AIM chatroom
> TOPIC: The Matrix Pre-Loaded: The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
>
> What is the meaning of life? Where it all come from and why are we here?
During late winter and early spring 1942, one meaning of life, for both the author called John Riverside, his wife, and almost all other US citizens, was a little uncomfortable, disoriented and somewhat ragged: war had just been declared.
“The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag,” was the last fiction to be written for four years by a fellow who decided for that story to call himself John Riverside, while waiting a final decision on whether he would ever be recalled to to the colors as a Naval officer, all he expected was conning a desk, or permitted to work as a civilian at Mustin Field in Philadelphia. Buddy Scoles, a friend from the Academy, now a Lieutenant Commander and in charge of the Aeronautical Materials Laboratory in the Naval Aircraft Factor in Philadelphia had asked for Heinlein’s assignment to him as a recalled to active duty officer, but, if not an officer, then as a civilian engineer; but, unaccountedly, no orders had been cut for reasons no one could or was quite willing for a while to explain.
Heinlein’s wife Leslyn was her own last emotional legs, fearfully aware her sister and nephews were prisoners of war in a Japanese concentration camp in the Philippines, the husband and father missing whereabouts unknown–a guerrilla in the bush against the Japanese. Worse, Leslyn had come down with what seemed to be an attack of food poisoning–it turned out to be gall stones, and an operation was required, with the need to pay for it.
They drove from Los Angeles to resolve these problems, cross country through three days of rain, stayed with John Campbell, his editor, while trying to resolve the holdups, in Campbell’s new home in New Jersey. The trip had been expensive; and their cash reserves had to be replenished. In quick succession, between February and April 1942, Heinlein wrote both “Waldo” and “Hoag” to pay for their expenses and Leslyn’s gallstone operation.
The operation was held; and on May 2, as appointment as civilian engineer was finally offered which Heinlein accepted in May 11th, and went to work as an engineer for Scoles.
Those were the last two pieces of fiction written until the war was long done. “Waldo” was published in the August 1942 issue of Astouding as by Anson MacDonald and “Hoag” as by Riverside, in the October 1942 issue of Unknown.
In Hoag, Heinlein went cross genre on everyone, perhaps for the first time, fantastic tales excepted, with a detective-romance plot. Heinlein borrowed a Nick and Nora Charles from Dashiell Hammett’s _The Thin Man_, a 1934 novel and movie[1], did away with Nora’s wealth and made them two working detectives in Chicago instead of New York City.
Hoag is a little weirder in plot than the usual, with the client, Hoag, hiring our heroic couple of detectives, the Randalls, Heinlein calls them, to find out what he does during the day, because he cannot remember. And there’s that matter of grimy red half moons of filth Hoag finds in his finger nails ever night before he washes up to attend to his social obligations.
The search for his identity turns perplexing as the former Cynthia Craig and Ted Randall find themselves involved in a losing battle with a rather odd religious cult whose worship seems always to begin with “In the beginning, there was the Bird … ” with appropriate coverings of faces with hands, a description compelled of “a bird of prey, strong-winged and rapacious–unwinking eyes, whey-colored and staring–purple wattles–but most especially … its feet, bird feet, covered with yellow scales, fleshless and taloned and foul from use. Obscene and terrible—”
The Bird’s tale is a creation myth, in which, in nothingness it lays a hundred eggs from which each hatch a hundred Sons of the Bird–ten thousand, each a king, who go forth and rule each of their kingdoms.
[An aside: it seems strange knowing Heinlein was waiting to hear from Buddy Scoles, yet to read when knowledge of the Bird in this story is revealed it is first by a character named Stoles.]
Jumping forward, it turns out, finally, in a field north on the outskirts of Chicago, Hoag isn’t a human after all–he’s a traveling art critic, and his job is to remove these worshipers of the Bird and all their works from the earth.
Hoag, like Heinlein while writing the tale, is just waiting for a propitious time to begin the removal of these obscene and terrible creatures.
And, once Hoag announces it is time to begin, the Randalls pack themselves into their car and head cross country again, this time to Florida … and the world starts to change all around them.
> Everybody’s a critic and everybody’s got at least some personal idea,
> don’t they? Maybe some of our ideas are pretty similar and maybe some of
> us think we’ve come up with the definitive answer or explanation or
> rationale. Then, I’ll be damned if somebody didn’t think of it first. It
> is real or is it the creation of some artist’s imagination, some
> concoction of demonic stobor–I mean robots.
>
> Well, Mr. Anderson or Mr. Randall, as the case may be, how about reading
> this story, again, and coming prepared to talk about that fictional
> world and the over-arching topic: whose explanation of what’s going on
> is right?
>
> Is this world a flawed work of art? Is it just another fictional place
> among all the equally-valid other fictional places? Along the way, feel
> free to compare and contrast things like the status of critics, the
> through-the-looking glass effect and/or anything else the story inspires
> you to remark.
One could argue that the world of 1942 was flawed and required a few changes — as Hoag hears the snotty-nosed and sour smelling, squalid and squalling children chant, “–give him a slap to shut his trap; the last one home’s a dirty Jap!”
Quite moody this story.
>
> Anticipating your participation and attendance, I remain…
>
> L.N.C.
[1] There had been three sequels and radio shows of each produced by 1942, including a fifteen or thirty minute weekly episodic series beginning in 1941 on NBC. The series has been widely imitated–e.g., “Moonlighting,” with Willis and Shepherd, “The Late Show,” with Carney and Tomlin, Neil Simon’s “Murder by Death,” etc.–even “Mr and Mrs Smith,” with Pitt and Jolie.
—
David M. Silver
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td
From: “David M. Silver”
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 09:52:07 -0700
In article, “David M. Silver”wrote:
> Quite moody this story.
One of the “critical” distinctions between speculative fiction (both SF and fantasy) and other fiction is supposed to be the lack of “realism” and presence of “romance” in the treatment of the material written about.
This is a focused point I found and quoted in my recent introductory essay in The Heinlein Journal, “Blame It on H. Bruce Franklin!–A Sketch of the Motivation …” made in the introductory essay by Oxford University Press editor Robert Scholes in Bruce Franklin’s _Robert A. Heinlein: America as Science Fiction_ (Oxford, 1980):
For the first eight decades of this century critics of fiction have
reserved their highest praises for novels and stories that emphasize
individual psychology in characterization, unique stylistic nuances
in language, and plausibility in the events presented. It is an
interesting feature of literary history that during this same period
of time a body of fiction has flourished which privileges the type
over the individual, the idea over the word, and the unexpected over
the plausible event. This body of work, which has come to be
called–with only partial appropriateness–“science” fiction, has had
some recognition from serious critics but still hovers between
genuine acceptance and total dismissal in literary circles. (vii)
Heinlein’s writings, however, are supposed to stand on the realistic end of speculative fiction, described as “prosaic, plausible, complex, criticial, unsentimental,” and the “life-as-experienced” side, e.g.,
Panshin in Heinlein in Dimension.
http://www.enter.net/~torve/critics/Dimension/hd05-3.html
Well, perhaps with some stories; but not with Hoag, on balance. A writer striving for realism writes what he knows and has experienced.
There’s a long passage (Cp. vii and viii, pp. 274-97, _The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein_) in Hoag that details the reactions of Ted Randall to his wife Cynthia’s period of Sons of the Bird-induced unconsciousness where Ted, unable to bring her back into consciousness, simply sits up and monitors her condition. Leslyn underwent her gallbladder disease operation during the period Heinlein wrote this novela, when her eight or so large gallstones were removed. That entailed undoubtedly a general anesthesia in 1942, and a period when Robert likely had nothing to do but sit in the recovery room hoping his beloved wife would return to life; and the emotional stress of simply waiting without power to affect recovery by a husband to his wife’s being so still that only the faint, but steady and strong beat of her heart disproves her death is effectively written. So we do have Heinlein’s balancing realism written into this story of a fantastic “art critic’s” equally fantastic mission to destroy the utterly terrifying and almost unimaginable Sons of the Bird; but … there ain’t a whole lot of the “prosaic” or “plausible” in this story.
Who likes the story? Who dislikes it? What do you think about it?
Does it change your feeling about the horror story’s resolution at the end when we find that their flight is from the healing activities of a traveling Art Critic, and not some superman from another species more directly concerned and empathetic with humanity, who are after all, a squalid, snotty-nosed species of children to him–a few exceptions, mainly society ladies who invite him to dinner, noted.
Hoag’s certainly not our guardian angel, not motherly at all like Kip and Peewee’s friend, only a passing through critic who decides, cold-bloodedly in concert with others of his kind, impersonally to destroy the “bad art.”
What do you think of the changes Cynthia and Ted can expect?
—
David M. Silver
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td
From: “Bryan R. Stahl”
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 12:37:00 -0700
“David M. Silver” wrote in message
news:…
>
> Who likes the story? Who dislikes it? What do you think about it?
>
> Does it change your feeling about the horror story’s resolution at the
> end when we find that their flight is from the healing activities of a
> traveling Art Critic, and not some superman from another species more
> directly concerned and empathetic with humanity, who are after all, a
> squalid, snotty-nosed species of children to him–a few exceptions,
> mainly society ladies who invite him to dinner, noted.
>
> Hoag’s certainly not our guardian angel, not motherly at all like Kip
> and Peewee’s friend, only a passing through critic who decides,
> cold-bloodedly in concert with others of his kind, impersonally to
> destroy the “bad art.”
>
> What do you think of the changes Cynthia and Ted can expect?
I didn’t really get into Hoag when I first read it sometime in the early seventies, and though I occasionally tried to reread it, it wasn’t until I had read all the later RAH works (especially Job) that I understood this as an early attempt at the World as Myth. The entire universe is someone else’s story. When I took it this way, I enjoyed it more. But then, I’ve never been a fan of horror per se,
What seems to bother many about Hoag is in your point. Humans aren’t the center of everything. Other entities are there that don’t really notice us at all, or only in passing the way that you could notice that you’ve stepped on an anthill without meaning to. Does the average human then try to repair the damage to the ants’ home? Hoag is actually showing much more concern than he could have. He didn’t need to help Ted and Cynthia, but he did.
Bryan
From: Filksinger
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 21:01:57 GMT
Bryan R. Stahl wrote:
> What seems to bother many about Hoag is in your point. Humans aren’t the
> center of everything. Other entities are there that don’t really notice us
> at all, or only in passing the way that you could notice that you’ve stepped
> on an anthill without meaning to. Does the average human then try to repair
> the damage to the ants’ home? Hoag is actually showing much more concern
> than he could have. He didn’t need to help Ted and Cynthia, but he did.
>
> Bryan
In that way, it somewhat resembles the “Cthulhu Mythos” stories, by H. P. Lovecraft and others. In those stories, humans are never important to the real players. They are ignored, or prey, much of the time. The most they can hope most of the time for is not to go mad or get eaten. Occasionally, some beings will help, but not because humans matter at all. Instead, they help in very much the way that a human might toss a captured moth out the door rather than swat it.
—
Filksinger
AKA David Nasset, Sr.
Geek Prophet to the Technologically Declined
From: “David M. Silver”
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 17:01:39 -0700 In article, Filksinger wrote:
> Bryan R. Stahl wrote:
>
Replacing the entry snipped:
“I didn’t really get into Hoag when I first read it sometime in the early seventies, and though I occasionally tried to reread it, it wasn’t until I had read all the later RAH works (especially Job) that I understood this as an early attempt at the World as Myth. The entire universe is someone else’s story. When I took it this way, I enjoyed it more. But then, I’ve never been a fan of horror per se,”
Bryan: I don’t think I read any of the Hoag collection until 1959, the same year Starship Troopers came out, when it also issued and a copy popped up in the public library; and I was a bit confused of what to make of all of them: Hoag, “The Man Who Traveled in Elephants,” “All You Zombies–,” “They,” “Our Fair City,” and “–And He Built a Crooked House–”
I appreciated the (to me then) sweet and sappy sentiment of “Elephants,” and the tongue in cheek humor of “Our Fair City” and “Crooked House”; but I didn’t quite know what to make of “Hoag,” or “Zombies,” or “They,” at seventeen-years-of-age. You might recall a post I made a few years back describing myself at that age or so as one who disliked literary analysis so much that I announced to a high school English class using the example of Curley’s wife killed by Lennie to analyze imagery and metaphor in Steinbeck’s _Of Mice and Men_ that I thought “a tart was a tart was a tart” (inferring she therefore deserved what her foolish teasing of Lennie had gotten her) and sat down to ignore further discussion.
> > What seems to bother many about Hoag is in your point. Humans aren’t the
> > center of everything.
Galileo had discovered that “nevertheless, it moves,” as they put it nearly half a millennium past; but the human- or earth-centric view of the universe isn’t something we discard lightly; and it’s harder to realize that to a visiting being if we matter at all, we only matter in the sense that “Our revels are now ended: these our actors, as I foretold you were all spirits, and are melted into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself Å itself–yea–all which it Å inherit–shall dissolve– ” to quote Kip quoting Shakespeare’s _The Tempest_, IV, i, to the panel judging humanity in HSS-WT.
It’s quite a come-down in self-esteem to be judged from that viewpoint; and it is the true fear that Ted and Cynthia express at the ending of Hoag.
In a way the picnic at the end shows how little Hoag himself thinks of the critical abilities of the two toys he is about to allow to rescue themselves, so long as they remember to avoid being turned into pillars of NaCl. He feeds them only what art they might be able to appreciate, the art of the delicatessen. I’m tempted to think of each them chomping into a Dagwood sandwich, and thinking, “Good art. Great resonances … ” while tasting the anchovies mixed with the sharp cheddar mixed with slices of polish sausage mixed with the Grey Poupon and the pumpernickel and sliced gherkins and basil lime mayonnaise. “And now,” sez Hoag, “We’ll try a beverage you’ll surely appreciate … the Windy City’s own favorite brew, served for generations at Wrigley Field … .”
> > Other entities are there that don’t really notice us
> > at all, or only in passing the way that you could notice that you’ve
> > stepped
> > on an anthill without meaning to. Does the average human then try to
> > repair
> > the damage to the ants’ home? Hoag is actually showing much more concern
> > than he could have. He didn’t need to help Ted and Cynthia, but he did.
> >
> > Bryan
>
> In that way, it somewhat resembles the “Cthulhu Mythos” stories, by H.
> P. Lovecraft and others. In those stories, humans are never important to
> the real players. They are ignored, or prey, much of the time. The most
> they can hope most of the time for is not to go mad or get eaten.
> Occasionally, some beings will help, but not because humans matter at
> all. Instead, they help in very much the way that a human might toss a
> captured moth out the door rather than swat it.
The poking of Cynthia by one of the Sons of the Bird when she first is brought before them, and the suggestion that she might be fit for food, heightens that sense. I’m reminded of not only Lovecraft but also of Job: ACOJ when Marga’s body is brought before them, frozen from her battle ending her world. Jerry’s brother’s attitude reminds me so of the Sons of the Bird. Perhaps he’s one of them? Did Hoag miss him?
Has anyone ever tracked down and read the references to “Jonathan E. Hoag, Esq” in the early poems of H.P. Lovecraft, pointed out by Stover, and others?
“To Jonathan E. Hoag, Esq.” [February 1918]
“To Jonathan Hoag, Esq.” [February 1919]
“Prologue to Fragments from an Hour of Inspiration by Jonathan E. Hoag”
[July 1917]
“To Mr. Hoag” [February 1921]
“To Mr. Hoag” [c. 3 February 1924]
“To Mr. Hoag” [c. 10 February 1925]
“To Jonathan Hoag” [10 February 1926]
or, Lovecraft’s own “Introduction” [to The Poetical Works of Jonathan E.
Hoag] (written before March 1923; 1923)
“To Jonathan E. Hoag, Esq.” [February? 1927]
Gifford notes a report that Heinlein himself denied the inspiration of the name; but Henry Kuttner and Catherine Moore in the late 1930s, close friends of Heinlein, corresponded with Lovecraft.
—
David M. Silver
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td
From: LNC
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 15:41:12 GMT
David M. Silver wrote:
> Has anyone ever tracked down and read the references to “Jonathan E.
> Hoag, Esq” in the early poems of H.P. Lovecraft, pointed out by Stover,
> and others?
>
> “To Jonathan E. Hoag, Esq.” [February 1918]
> “To Jonathan Hoag, Esq.” [February 1919]
> “Prologue to Fragments from an Hour of Inspiration by Jonathan E. Hoag”
> [July 1917]
> “To Mr. Hoag” [February 1921]
> “To Mr. Hoag” [c. 3 February 1924]
> “To Mr. Hoag” [c. 10 February 1925]
> “To Jonathan Hoag” [10 February 1926]
> or, Lovecraft’s own “Introduction” [to The Poetical Works of Jonathan E.
> Hoag] (written before March 1923; 1923)
> “To Jonathan E. Hoag, Esq.” [February? 1927]
See, http://www.sockpuppet.org/~tyme/lovecraft/works/index.htm for the “Hoag” poems, “To the American Flag,” “Death,” and “Amid Inspiring Scenes by Jonathan E. Hoag.”
LNC
From: “Howard C. Berkowitz”
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 18:00:53 -0400
In article ,
Filksinger wrote:
> Bryan R. Stahl wrote:
>
> > What seems to bother many about Hoag is in your point. Humans aren’t
> > the
> > center of everything. Other entities are there that don’t really
> > notice us
> > at all, or only in passing the way that you could notice that you’ve
> > stepped
> > on an anthill without meaning to. Does the average human then try to
> > repair
> > the damage to the ants’ home? Hoag is actually showing much more
> > concern
> > than he could have. He didn’t need to help Ted and Cynthia, but he
> > did.
> >
> > Bryan
>
> In that way, it somewhat resembles the “Cthulhu Mythos” stories, by H.
> P. Lovecraft and others. In those stories, humans are never important to
> the real players. They are ignored, or prey, much of the time. The most
> they can hope most of the time for is not to go mad or get eaten.
> Occasionally, some beings will help, but not because humans matter at
> all. Instead, they help in very much the way that a human might toss a
> captured moth out the door rather than swat it.
Cthulhu is becoming increasingly relevant. If, for example, Hillary Clinton and Newt Gingrich run against one another for President, Lovecraft characters are reasonable write-ins to avoid voting for the lesser of two evils. From: “David M. Silver”
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 10:58:43 -0700
In article ,
“Bryan R. Stahl” wrote:
> “David M. Silver” wrote in message
> news:…
> >
> > Who likes the story? Who dislikes it? What do you think about it?
> >
> > Does it change your feeling about the horror story’s resolution at the
> > end when we find that their flight is from the healing activities of a
> > traveling Art Critic, and not some superman from another species more
> > directly concerned and empathetic with humanity, who are after all, a
> > squalid, snotty-nosed species of children to him–a few exceptions,
> > mainly society ladies who invite him to dinner, noted.
> >
> > Hoag’s certainly not our guardian angel, not motherly at all like Kip
> > and Peewee’s friend, only a passing through critic who decides,
> > cold-bloodedly in concert with others of his kind, impersonally to
> > destroy the “bad art.”
> >
> > What do you think of the changes Cynthia and Ted can expect?
>
> I didn’t really get into Hoag when I first read it sometime in the early
> seventies, and though I occasionally tried to reread it, it wasn’t until I
> had read all the later RAH works (especially Job) that I understood this as
> an early attempt at the World as Myth. The entire universe is someone
> else’s story. When I took it this way, I enjoyed it more.
[ … ]
> Bryan
I’ve run this theory before: most recently in the “Least Favorite Heinlein” reading group meetings we had in March this year. After _Time Enough For Love_, with its return to his youth and the portrait of little four- or five-year-old Woodrow hidden in the back seat who Ted and Maureen have to take to Swope Park instead of playing the greatest and oldest of entertainments, Lazarus Long’s story is essentially over, he having renewed himself Da Capo. The author tells him, however, at the end “Beloved. You cannot die.” so Heinlein has to find a new job for Woody.
So casting about, post 1979, for something to write Heinlein turns the elder Woodrow Wilson Smith into an art critic, a “know-it-all,” “nasty,” and “toldyaso” as all those second guessers can be.
He reinvents Lazarus and invests him with Jonathan Hoag’s duties. Hoag, remember, cannot truly criticize human art without having experienced human art as a human. And Woody having lived longest, excruciatingly longer than anyone else, is therefore most qualified of all critics of human art.
So we resume. and when written in 1980 onwards, The World As Myth reverts to the Unpleasant Profession and continues, I think, the next four novels, using Woody’s educated judgment to discriminate against bad art, pronounce it a failure, and remove it from our temples, even unto the last “Committee for Aesthetic Deletion,” along the way engaging in such criticisms as erasing Sam Beaux, like a cartoonist erasing Daffy Duck.
Is it significant that in _To Sail_, the horrible firebombing of Coventry Cathedral is erased? This was one of the things that Hoag had already judged by 1942 and found to be bad art created by the Sons of the Bird.
How might I tie the theory together farther? Is it valid? Why would an author who consigned critics to the Critics’ Lounge turn his favorite characters–all of them–into a band of art critics?
—
David M. Silver
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td
From: “atwork”
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 14:55:04 -0500
“David M. Silver” wrote in message
news:…
> Why would an
> author who consigned critics to the Critics’ Lounge turn his favorite
> characters–all of them–into a band of art critics?
Because when art is just art, you can look at a bad piece and sniff your nose at it. When art _is_ life, a bad piece means someone’s suffering, and a empathetic person might try to go and change that. Granted, this idea would make for sense if you could change a timeline, instead of just splitting another timeline off from it. *shrug*
Those shmucks in the Critic’s Lounge weren’t trying to change anything, they were just bitching.
—
Oscagne
From: “David M. Silver”
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 14:22:33 -0700
In article ,
“atwork” wrote:
> “David M. Silver” wrote in message
> news:…
> > Why would an
> > author who consigned critics to the Critics’ Lounge turn his favorite
> > characters–all of them–into a band of art critics?
>
> Because when art is just art, you can look at a bad piece and sniff your
> nose at it. When art _is_ life, a bad piece means someone’s suffering, and
> a empathetic person might try to go and change that. Granted, this idea
> would make for sense if you could change a timeline, instead of just
> splitting another timeline off from it. *shrug*
>
Well, later on, there was that eraser for Sam Beaux. (Daffy and) Sam, however, probably thought it was pretty invidious. A hare-brained theory (in honor of Bugs): Sam Beaux’s description most reminded me of the original vision of Ponse, in _Farnham’s Freehold_, when he lands to survey the bomb shelter encroachment on His Sister’s lands, striding out magnificently. You don’t think erasing Sam Beaux was Heinlein’s apology for writing FF, do you, and the erasure was that of the ‘Ponse reigns on’ FF timeline? Doesn’t seem like Heinlein would want to apologize to me; but … there was all that late 1960s hubbub, about Heinlein the racist?
> Those shmucks in the Critic’s Lounge weren’t trying to change anything, they
> were just bitching.
Instead of reading …
—
David M. Silver
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td
From:
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: 26 Jul 2005 05:46:26 -0700
“David M. Silver” wrote in
news::
> So we resume. and when written in 1980 onwards, The World As Myth
> reverts to the Unpleasant Profession and continues, I think, the next
> four novels, using Woody’s educated judgment to discriminate against bad
> art, pronounce it a failure, and remove it from our temples, even unto
> the last “Committee for Aesthetic Deletion,” along the way engaging in
> such criticisms as erasing Sam Beaux, like a cartoonist erasing Daffy
> Duck.
>
>
The scene with ‘Sambo’ has always bothered me. The whole thing seems totally out of character with both Lazarus Long and Heinlein’s attitude in his other works. I have argued in the past that the whole thing was some kind of ‘misdirection’, and that all of the clues to Colin’s being black were, in fact, phoney. However, I have never had a plausible answer as to why RAH would have done this.
Your notion of ‘bad art’ makes some kind of sense and would explain why the events in the scene, the whole racial noise, Sam Beaux shooting and mortally wounding Colin, and he, in turn, being killed by Lazarus, John Sterling and Commander Ted Smith, then being ‘erased’ and the mortal wound in Colin disappearing.
So, RAH was giving us an example of ‘bad art’, i.e., the obvious, (to me), uncharacteristic characterization of a person based on purely racial grounds and then the ‘erasing’ the whole thing out of the plot by the Author.
As a by-product, a major basis for the contention that Colin was black has now been removed and there is very little left to support such a contention since Sambo *never existed*. The only support, (very slim, in my mind), which still exists is the reference to ‘different skin color’ of Colin’s new foot, (from LL), but that could be referring to different *shades* of white.
David W.
—
There are different kinds of interpretations of history and different
schools of philosophy. All of them have contributed something to human
progress, but none of them has been able to give the world a basic
philosophy embracing the whole progress of science and establishing the
life of man upon the abiding foundation of Fact.
Alfred Korzybski, _Manhood of Humanity_(1921)
From: “David M. Silver”
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 08:13:48 -0700 In article, wrote:
> “David M. Silver” wrote in
> news::
>
> > So we resume. and when written in 1980 onwards, The World As Myth
> > reverts to the Unpleasant Profession and continues, I think, the next
> > four novels, using Woody’s educated judgment to discriminate against bad
> > art, pronounce it a failure, and remove it from our temples, even unto
> > the last “Committee for Aesthetic Deletion,” along the way engaging in
> > such criticisms as erasing Sam Beaux, like a cartoonist erasing Daffy
> > Duck.
> >
> >
>
> The scene with ‘Sambo’ has always bothered me. The whole thing seems
> totally out of character with both Lazarus Long and Heinlein’s attitude
> in his other works. I have argued in the past that the whole thing was
> some kind of ‘misdirection’, and that all of the clues to Colin’s being
> black were, in fact, phoney. However, I have never had a plausible
> answer as to why RAH would have done this.
>
> Your notion of ‘bad art’ makes some kind of sense and would explain why
> the events in the scene, the whole racial noise, Sam Beaux shooting and
> mortally wounding Colin, and he, in turn, being killed by Lazarus, John
> Sterling and Commander Ted Smith, then being ‘erased’ and the mortal
> wound in Colin disappearing.
>
> So, RAH was giving us an example of ‘bad art’, i.e., the obvious, (to
> me), uncharacteristic characterization of a person based on purely
> racial grounds and then the ‘erasing’ the whole thing out of the plot
> by the Author.
>
Much as I’m yet prepared to argue Colin is still black, I must say I like your reason for inferring that the bad art of Sam Beaux was deliberately cast and then broken into nothingness for the reasons above that you ascribe.
As another by-product, it’s nice this morning to known that, as of ten or twenty minutes ago, we are once again a space-exploring race, and the ghosts of the Challenger can now rest!
> As a by-product, a major basis for the contention that Colin was black
> has now been removed and there is very little left to support such a
> contention since Sambo *never existed*. The only support, (very slim,
> in my mind), which still exists is the reference to ‘different skin
> color’ of Colin’s new foot, (from LL), but that could be referring to
> different *shades* of white.
>
> David W.
>
> —
> There are different kinds of interpretations of history and different
> schools of philosophy. All of them have contributed something to human
> progress, but none of them has been able to give the world a basic
> philosophy embracing the whole progress of science and establishing the
> life of man upon the abiding foundation of Fact.
> Alfred Korzybski, _Manhood of Humanity_(1921)
—
David M. Silver
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td
From:
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: 26 Jul 2005 09:14:06 -0700
David M. Silver wrote:
> In article ,
> wrote:
>
(snip)
>
> Much as I’m yet prepared to argue Colin is still black, I must say I
> like your reason for inferring that the bad art of Sam Beaux was
> deliberately cast and then broken into nothingness for the reasons above
> that you ascribe.
Well, I have to admit that ‘erasing the bad art’ in this case also eliminates much of my basis for thinking of RAH’s mis-direction, so I’ll have to go slower on my assessment. ;-)>
>
> As another by-product, it’s nice this morning to known that, as of ten
> or twenty minutes ago, we are once again a space-exploring race, and the
> ghosts of the Challenger can now rest!
>
I’ll rest better when they get back down safely.
David W.
—
There are two ways to slide easily through life: Namely, to believe
everything, or to doubt everything;
both ways save us from thinking.
Alfred Korzybski, _Manhood of Humanity_ (1921)
From: Nohbody 7llt;>
Subject: Space Shuttle (was Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005)
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 14:09:23 -0400
On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 08:13:48 -0700, “David M. Silver”
wrote:
> As another by-product, it’s nice this morning to known that, as of ten
> or twenty minutes ago, we are once again a space-exploring race, and the
> ghosts of the Challenger can now rest!
When Discovery lands, I’ll buy that.
Though even with never having another shuttle disaster, I can’t quite grasp the notion that the shuttle flying makes us a space-exploring race once more. Most of the probes we’ve sent out were via regular unmanned rockets, which were still operating through the second stand-down period for STS.
Nevermind my opinion that the shuttle is a clunky piece of [excrement] system that should’ve been shut down years ago, and replaced with something a little less “do everything in one airframe” (spaceframe?), when the realities of shuttle operations slammed the door in the face of the hypothetical expectations on which the whole project was founded (less expensive manned access to space in particular).
Dan Poore
—
About the only difference between the wingnuts on each end of the
[political] spectrum is *which* civil right(s) they think we can do
without. — Rowan Hawthorn, in alt.callahans (2/28/05)
From: LNC
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 15:23:17 GMT
David M. Silver wrote:
> The Bird’s tale is a creation myth, in which, in nothingness it lays a
> hundred eggs from which each hatch a hundred Sons of the Bird–ten
> thousand, each a king, who go forth and rule each of their kingdoms.
When you’re sitting around, worrying about the well-being of your significant other, wondering how things’ll turn out, mortality weighs heavily on your mind and you have to begin to think about how it all got started and what it means. If you make your living by being creative, an artist, if you will, maybe it’ll come out in your work.
So, in ’37, Roy Acuff would write:
What a beautiful thought I am thinking
Concerning the Great Speckled Bird;
Remember her name is recorded
On the pages of pure shining gold.
Al the other birds flocking ’round her
And she is despised by the squad;
But the Great Speckled Bird in the bible
Is one with the great church of God.
Probably inspired by Jeremiah 12:9:
9. Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird; the birds round about are against her: come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour.
Various commentators have opined that this verse intends to say that there is but one true way of believing but that competing beliefs have corrupted that true belief. In the context of Jeremiah 12, the utterance seems to part of the prophet’s anguished lamentation over the Jews’ captivity, asking the almighty why the wicked are allowed to prosper (Jeremiah 12:1).
So, is it creation or captivity that’s at issue in “Hoag?”
LNC
From: “David M. Silver”
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2005 04:58:16 -0700
In article ,
LNC wrote:
> TOPIC: The Matrix Pre-Loaded: The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
>
> What is the meaning of life? Where it all come from and why are we here?
> Everybody’s a critic and everybody’s got at least some personal idea,
> don’t they?
One critic expresses the idea that “Hoag” is among a series of fantasies Heinlein wrote in the late Depression “of pyschological entrapment, parania, and solipsism with an emphatic denunciation of science and scientific reasoning.”
Concerning Hoag specifically, he writes it is “another paranoid fantasy,” second only to “They,” in which Hoag is sent to judge whether our world has “any aesthetic saving grace or whether it should be obliterated.” Sounds a lot like the dark Gotham portrayed in Batman, before the capped crusader dons his mask and slides down the batpole into the batcave to go to the batroom down there, doesn’t it?
He notes that, concerning the Randalls, our version of the delightful Nick and Nora Charles, the wife, Cynthia is afraid that if they stay on the case they “will find out what it is grown-ups know,” a loss of innocence is her fear; and she is portrayed as a naif.
Is that really a fair assessment?
Hoag, this critic says, decides to cure the poor art created by the Sons of the Bird, that painted over immature creation of some aspiring mistaken Artist, because of sympathy he feels when he sees the devoted mutual loyalty of these two people who seek to solve his mystery, the “tragedy of human love.” Pity poor Kip who only had the Parthenon, our poetry, and our revels “now ended,” to cite in his plea for mercy.
Is that all it is: pity? No affinity for the Randalls at all? No green monkey with a sense for justice? No one abused Hoag, Art’s messenger, he’s merely somewhat offended aesthetically; but for the “tragedy of human love” we’d all get fire and brimstone brought down as on Sodom and Gomorrah.
He sees Ted and Cynthia’s flight from Chicago as a flight from an overwhelming, threatening, supposedly delusory reality of modern “working-class” urban America to some simple, primitive rural world from a mythic past–which he claims is echoed in many of Heinlein’s fictions, which recall the nineteenth century supposed agrarian paradise.
How true is this characterization of Heinlein’s realities shown in other works?
I think that last is a bit of a stretch; but what do you think: are the Randalls quite this naive, do they fear their presence in the big city quite so vigorously, are they so out-of-touch with reality, and so paranoid as this critic thinks he sees portrayed?
> Maybe some of our ideas are pretty similar and maybe some of
> us think we’ve come up with the definitive answer or explanation or
> rationale. Then, I’ll be damned if somebody didn’t think of it first. It
> is real or is it the creation of some artist’s imagination, some
> concoction of demonic stobor–I mean robots.
>
> Well, Mr. Anderson or Mr. Randall, as the case may be, how about reading
> this story, again, and coming prepared to talk about that fictional
> world and the over-arching topic: whose explanation of what’s going on
> is right?
>
> Is this world a flawed work of art? Is it just another fictional place
> among all the equally-valid other fictional places? Along the way, feel
> free to compare and contrast things like the status of critics, the
> through-the-looking glass effect and/or anything else the story inspires
> you to remark.
—
David M. Silver
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td
From: LNC
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 16:55:06 GMT
David M. Silver wrote:
>
> One critic expresses the idea that “Hoag” is among a series of fantasies
> Heinlein wrote in the late Depression “of pyschological entrapment,
> parania, and solipsism with an emphatic denunciation of science and
> scientific reasoning.”
If a “critic” said it you take it with a block of salt since what critics say they intend to sell to make their livings. Forget that their motives are mercenary and you’ll confuse opinion with fact. But is it just to make a living that the critic does what he does…?
>
> Concerning Hoag specifically, he writes it is “another paranoid
> fantasy,” second only to “They,” in which Hoag is sent to judge whether
> our world has “any aesthetic saving grace or whether it should be
> obliterated.” Sounds a lot like the dark Gotham portrayed in Batman,
> before the capped crusader dons his mask and slides down the batpole
> into the batcave to go to the batroom down there, doesn’t it?
…or are critics Glaroons, feeding us a version of what they want us to believe is going on in order to conceal their agenda? Do we need our own race of Fair Witnesses so we can ask them, “Is it raining,” and receive the answer, “Precipitation appears to be falling on this side of the house”(?)
>
> He notes that, concerning the Randalls, our version of the delightful
> Nick and Nora Charles, the wife, Cynthia is afraid that if they stay on
> the case they “will find out what it is grown-ups know,” a loss of
> innocence is her fear; and she is portrayed as a naif.
>
> Is that really a fair assessment?
It’s a fair critical assessment and it’s not. On the one hand, if there’s more than meets the eye and it’s never met the Randalls’ eyes but they suspect it (sensing that if they learn it, it will absorb them and they’ll become just like everybody else), maybe they’re naive by choice and loving every minute. They can continue to accept clients whose spouses dally because they’re designed to dally. Still…
How do you know that even your Alice is “…behind that barrier of flesh and sound symbols, a spirit that truly yearned toward (you)”(?) Why did she keep you on that job in Omaha? And there’s always the mystery of the rain. It’s why Mike Hammer always found himself starting with it.
>
> Hoag, this critic says, decides to cure the poor art created by the Sons
> of the Bird, that painted over immature creation of some aspiring
> mistaken Artist, because of sympathy he feels when he sees the devoted
> mutual loyalty of these two people who seek to solve his mystery, the
> “tragedy of human love.” Pity poor Kip who only had the Parthenon, our
> poetry, and our revels “now ended,” to cite in his plea for mercy.
>
> Is that all it is: pity? No affinity for the Randalls at all? No green
> monkey with a sense for justice? No one abused Hoag, Art’s messenger,
> he’s merely somewhat offended aesthetically; but for the “tragedy of
> human love” we’d all get fire and brimstone brought down as on Sodom and
> Gomorrah.
Art’s not art unless it evokes an emotional response. Pity’ll do. The fire and brimstone happened, though. It’s in the story. That’s why they left Chicago and remain handcuffed together at night. Not all your brimstone merely tediously, unimaginatively, physically scotches away transgression.
>
> He sees Ted and Cynthia’s flight from Chicago as a flight from an
> overwhelming, threatening, supposedly delusory reality of modern
> “working-class” urban America to some simple, primitive rural world from
> a mythic past–which he claims is echoed in many of Heinlein’s fictions,
> which recall the nineteenth century supposed agrarian paradise.
They weren’t “getting away from it all” because they’d found out that there’s no getting away. When “it all” includes you, the most you can do is to hang on to what you’ve got. That they wound up in a simplified version of living was necessary in order to minimize the sheer numbers of elements surrounding them.
>
> How true is this characterization of Heinlein’s realities shown in other
> works?
If it’s all a myth anyway, what does it matter? The laws that govern this myth are just as good as the laws that govern any other since they’re the only laws you’ve got.
>
> I think that last is a bit of a stretch; but what do you think: are the
> Randalls quite this naive, do they fear their presence in the big city
> quite so vigorously, are they so out-of-touch with reality, and so
> paranoid as this critic thinks he sees portrayed?
>
Their hegira was necessary to their story. Otherwise, there’d be no story. What the critics will say is just more revisionism. It’s a story, it’s fiction, it’s meant to entertain, it’s derivative, it’s not, it never happened, it’s happening tonight. Same AOL chatroom; same time.
LNC
From: “David M. Silver”
Subject: Re: Heinlein Readers Group Meeting Announcement for July, 2005
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2005 12:16:40 -0700
In article ,
LNC wrote:
> Everybody’s a critic and everybody’s got at least some personal idea,
> don’t they?
Maybe not; apparently even ‘critics’ must meet certain standards to receive their “free passes.” L’Envoi chapter XLVIII of _The Number of the Beast_, pp. 487-511, at 497.
“Mr. Hoag will be checking credentials; book reviewers can’t get past him.” *** “Hoag you can spot by his prissy appearance and dirty fingernails. … Thirteen steps up to their lounge … designer … Mobyas Toras [who] … took special interest in his job because of the way self-annointed ‘critics’ have treated E.R.B. … the interior of the Critics Lounge is somewhat like a Klein bottle, so I hear ….”
Just wanted to note that Hoag does appear in another story.
—
David M. Silver
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td
Go To Posting
Here Begin The Discussion Log
You have just entered room “heinleinreadersgroupchat.”
LVPPakaAspie has entered the room.
AGplusone has entered the room.
AGplusone: Hi, Dave, Aspie
DavidWrightSr: Hi David and Don
DavidWrightSr: It is Don isn’t it?
DavidWrightSr: He may be AFK
DavidWrightSr: I just got back myself.
aggirlj has entered the room.
AGplusone: Hi, Jane.
LVPPakaAspie: I was AFK, but I am Don
aggirlj: Hey, just finished it.
AGplusone: good, like it?
LVPPakaAspie: Not at all
aggirlj: nice exercise.
DavidWrightSr: Hi Jane.
aggirlj: Hi Sr.
AGplusone: I’m going to go get my bottle of Port while we’ve got time
AGplusone: w/Hoag I may need it
aggirlj: GM for me.
LVPPakaAspie: GM?
aggirlj: Grand Marnier
LVPPakaAspie: ah
aggirlj: Sweet
AGplusone: worst drunk I ever had was on GM. Two married friends leaving for Alaska. We drank the entire bottle. Had to stay the night, otherwise I’d have had to drive with one eye shut
aggirlj: Been there, done that
AGplusone: I gave up on one-eye shit driving
AGplusone: not even going to correct that typo
AGplusone: I concluded I was an idiot for ever trying that
aggirlj: Don’t plan on doing it myself again.
RichardFctn has entered the room.
AGplusone: Jim and Gail … they had me draw up their Wills that night.
TheCOinOz has entered the room.
NYC20CnLtd has entered the room.
toxdoc1947 has entered the room.
RichardFctn: Richard says hello!
aggirlj: lol
TheCOinOz: Hi David, tks for the invite
LVPPakaAspie: I admit that I may like the bottle a little more than is good for me. That said, I have NO sympathy for anyone who would endanger others by drunk driving. NONE WHATSOEVER. I might endanger my liver, but NEVER others.
toxdoc1947: good evening from Alabama
NYC20CnLtd: Hi.
AGplusone: Good evening everyone.
aggirlj: Hi to you all, I’m Jane.
TheCOinOz: Good Morning from South Australia 10:30am Friday morning.
AGplusone: toxdoc = just guessing, Krin?
NYC20CnLtd: I’m John, btw…
TheCOinOz: Geoff
DavidWrightSr: Mine says it all.
Major oz has entered the room.
Major oz: Good even, all
toxdoc1947: I’m John too
AGplusone: Hi, Oz, ltnc!
aggirlj: Hi Oz
DavidWrightSr: Where in Alabama are you John? I live in North Georgia
toxdoc1947: Was from Hoover until 6 weeks ago – now from Tuscaloosa
DavidWrightSr: Not too far away. I live 13 miles east of Dalton.
toxdoc1947: Actually, I’m in Asheville, NC right now, but I live in Alabama
Major oz: epi/tox — oligist?
toxdoc1947: toxicologist
jilyd has entered the room.
AGplusone: Hi, Dee
aggirlj: Hi Dee.
jilyd: Hi jane, all.
Major oz: hey, dee
Reilloc has entered the room.
Major oz: I have to relearn all the local aliases
DavidWrightSr: Hi Dee. John, Dee lives in Alabama too.
aggirlj: Howdy LN
Reilloc: I’m alias the late moderator
jilyd: Anybody want the last of those salmon patties and cornbread I just finished? 🙂
toxdoc1947: I know – we’ve chatted
Reilloc: Hi, Jane
AGplusone: Hi, Les
jilyd: Well, dear, if you can’t loook at the clock and come at the right time, just look at the calendar and come on the right day. 🙂
Reilloc: Now, unless this show’s already gotten on the road, (Hi, Dave), let’s start
Reilloc: Welcome to the Heinlein Readers Group, online chat.
DavidWrightSr: Hi. Log officially opened.
Luchlou98 has entered the room.
Reilloc: Tonight’s subject: The Matrix Unloaded.
jilyd: Thanks, David, John and I have chatted. Shoot, John has even chatted with my Joe.
Reilloc: I mean, “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.”
Luchlou98: Good evening everyone..
aggirlj: Hi Lucy
Reilloc: Just a little story, not a whole novel, but something for everybody, I think.
aggirlj: I actually read it for the first time today, finished moments ago.
Reilloc: Let’s start by asking this, which Jane’s already answered.
Reilloc: Has anybody ever read it?
Reilloc: Show of virtual hands.
jilyd: The first time I read it, I did not like it at all. It was only creepy.
Reilloc: That’s two.
Major oz: Looooong ago and then the last two days
Luchlou98: Ummm, I have not read it
DavidWrightSr: Yep. Not very long ago in fact.
Reilloc: Three and I’m four and Dave’s five.
TheCOinOz: not for a long time. Years actually.
Reilloc: Professor Wright’s six and the CO downunder’s seven.
toxdoc1947: long time ago for me – maybe 25-30 years
Major oz: Who’s the yellow name — Yellow on white I can’t read
Reilloc: Anybody else?
LVPPakaAspie: It has been a long time for me too, but I have read it.
jilyd: Oz, what is yellow for you might beblue or red for me.
Reilloc: Okay, we’ve all read it, some more recently than others but I declare us competent.
Major oz: hokay
LVPPakaAspie: I did not understand it at the time. In light of some AFH remarks by Pixelmeow, I intend to reread it at some point.
Reilloc: Now, who wants to start with something controversial.
NYC20CnLtd: I’ve got to get going–family emergency…
Reilloc: That’s too controversial.
aggirlj: Nice to know the world is a canvas.
Major oz: It ceretainly glorifies art critics
Major oz: 🙂
jilyd: I hope all isa well, NYC
NYC20CnLtd has left the room.
aggirlj: Minor hopefully
DavidWrightSr: A key thing to remember is that it was written by ‘John Riverside’ for a fantasy magazine.
Reilloc: Riverside’s a north Kansas City suburb.
jilyd: I never heard that nom de plume beofre.
Major oz: 1940, wasn’t it?
AGplusone: Durn, didn’t get a chance to ask John how Snowy was doing
aggirlj: Let me get my copy
AGplusone: 42, probably April, Oz
AGplusone: first published in Oct
Luchlou98 has left the room.
AGplusone: After the War had started.
Reilloc: Does it glorify art critics or define them tighter?
Major oz: I agree with whoever said it, in pre-discussion, that it is the first hint of the World as Myth
AGplusone: While he waited for the call-up that never came, and got the civilian job instead.
DavidWrightSr: Don’t recall off hand whether that was the only JR story or not.
Major oz: I had never tied it in before
Reilloc: I’d read it, years ago, and re-read it a couple of weeks ago.
IrishBet has entered the room.
AGplusone: Riverside California is where (roughly) Leslyn grew up and where there was a sanitorium RAH was at, privately, for tuberculosis treatment.
IrishBet: Hello all
Reilloc: That has to be more exotic than Riverside, MO
aggirlj: Hi Pam.
Reilloc: Hi, Pam.
DavidWrightSr: Elsewhen by ‘Caleb Saunders’ also has some pre-cursors to WAM, I believe.
IrishBet: Sorry to be late — I was toad hunting with my granddaughter.
TheCOinOz: eewww.
TheCOinOz: Your toads must be much more pleasant than the ones here.
DavidWrightSr: Hoag was in 10/42, Elsewhen in 9/41
AGplusone: I think it places one art critic in a slightly better role that the boss of a certain two angels I can think of, Oz
jilyd: Does anyone have an idea where he got SAunders, BTW?
AGplusone: ’cause it doesn’t seem as if he turned either of the two into pillars of salt for looking back.
Reilloc: It was written on a sign above the door of his house.
DavidWrightSr: What was written?
jilyd: Why? previous owners?
Reilloc: Saunders
Major oz: Can someone tell me what “ichor” is? My old Webbie doesn’t have it.
jilyd: Just curious, since that is my maiden name.
IrishBet: Goo. Ichor is gooey stuff.
DavidWrightSr: He didn’t think too much of ‘Saunders’ in _Farmer In The Sky_
jilyd: It is a body fluid, not blood, I think.
aggirlj: From jewelers?
aggirlj: Nevermind.
AGplusone: A fluid that flows in the veins of the gods
AGplusone: instead of blood
IrishBet: brb
Major oz: When Hoag says the stuff under his nails is: “…ichor of the Sons of the Bird”, does he mean that he done squished them?
AGplusone: I read it that way, or he clawed them to death
IrishBet: back
Major oz: …which seems to have pissed off the doc………on page 1
Reilloc: That’s unclear but I was left with the impression he fought them.
Reilloc: Dave, you mentioned “They” and I re-read that recently to refresh my memory.
TheCOinOz: ISTR that the ‘ichor’ term appears in another of his novels. IIRC, it was ‘Double Star’
toxdoc1947:I’m gonna dash back to the hotel while the conversation warms up – see you in 20 minutes or so
Major oz: I didn’t see Ed and Cyn as anything but empty shells, as far as the story, itself, goes. They are just vessels for the telling.
jilyd: 1 : a thin watery or blood-tinged discharge2 : an ethereal fluid taking the place of blood in the veins of the ancient Greek gods
aggirlj: later
AGplusone: Visualize the Bird as Milton’s Muse, and the bird as the mother of gods … like uranus
Major oz: …my what?
AGplusone: or mother of the Titans
toxdoc1947 has left the room.
aggirlj: 🙂
aggirlj: Oz
Major oz: tsk, tsk
aggirlj: Somehow when I read it and din’t understand that definition . . .
Major oz: Why Milton, David. I don’t see the connection
AGplusone: Trying to remember the Greek name, but couldn’t, so I couldn’t avoid that pun.
aggirlj: I felt it was something more viseral, like defacation.
AGplusone: Well, a Muse inspires something, even bad art.
Major oz: yeah, but why Milton?
LVPPakaAspie: Took me a while, but I finally equated John Riverside to Iver Herd Jones.
AGplusone: Because later, in Job: ACOJ, Heinlein replies to Milton.
Major oz: The other bookend:-D
AGplusone: turns his Hell into a Heaven for Marga and that dork, Alexander Hergensheimer
AGplusone: suggests Milton’s on-surface answer is wrong
Major oz: Anyone agree or disagree that Ed and Cyn were two that just happened by — could have been anyone.
LVPPakaAspie: Do we REALLY have to use the term “dork”? I mean, a good case could be made for Asperger’s Syndrome = dork.
AGplusone: Lucifer is really the hero of Paradise Lost.
Reilloc: So, is Hoag an aberration in the canon or does it presage the notion of World as Myth?
Major oz: nah………he’s a dork
AGplusone: Use whatever you wish, Aspie
Reilloc: I mean, Hoag, himself is dorky.
jilyd: Oz, I am not sure about any two.
Major oz: Surely, he is the intro to WAM
AGplusone: I thought about beginning World As Myth with Gulf, but decided myself that Hoag is really the beginning …
Major oz: ……..and don’t call me Shirley
aggirlj: lol
Reilloc: Agreed, dobro dude.
AGplusone: Hoag is an aesthete … weird, but he am what he am, like Popeye.
jilyd: did not have to be that particular two, but if it had been a couple that just stayed together out of habit, it would have made an entirely different story, I think.
Major oz: jilyd, I mean it in the sense that they are nobodies…they are merely foils so that the story of Hoag can be told.
DavidWrightSr: Well, the tie-in to 6-dimensional space is certainly in Elsewhen prior to Hoag.
TheCOinOz: Aggirlj: From ‘Double Star’ “He pulled it out and his finger was slimed with green ichor.”
LVPPakaAspie: I guess you’re right…Asperper’s Synrome is harder to type than dork.
jilyd: LOL, don.
aggirlj: Thanks CO, kinda what I was saying.
TheCOinOz: I can relate to Aspergers, one of my Cadets had it…
DavidWrightSr: All ‘syns’ lead to rome. O:-)
Reilloc: Are they foils?
Reilloc: They’re detectives…
AGplusone: Ted and Cynthia?
Reilloc: They’re more “with it” than another couple that could have been picked.
aggirlj: And innocents
Reilloc: Innocents?
Major oz: But what does all their running around have to do with what (it seems) the author is saying about WOM?
aggirlj: I think their personalities are slanted to a degree. They live in a world that is different than the majority.
Major oz: sorry…….W”A”M
AGplusone: Not really, they’re humans, they are the two worthy that Hoag finds all by himself, instead of being told that Lot is worthy by their boss … Lot was about the least worthy sucker I ever read about. Gives his daughters up to the
aggirlj: Bubbly almost
AGplusone: mob to keep them from bothering his important guests.
jilyd: JAne, the online dictionary does not give any sich definition, but in my mind the word is often associated with fluids coming from reptiles orbugs-meant to have a farily repuslive conntation, I think.
AGplusone: What does the B book tell us Lot was supposed to find? “Just men”
Major oz: Honorable men
Reilloc: Sorry, I’m not up on Lot.
Major oz: …there’s a pun there somewhere
Reilloc: How’s this supposed to be a Lot metaphor?
Major oz: I’m glad someone else asked that. I didn’t get it, either.
AGplusone: Two angels show up, in “disguise” but Lot knows who they are. Mob shows up, and wants to sodomize the angels. Apparently how the town welcome strangers. Lot gives them his daughters instead.
Reilloc: It’s more analagous to the passages in Jeremiah concerning the captivity of the Israelites, isn’t it?
Major oz: And that relates………….how?
Reilloc: Jerry, the prophet, asks god, the big guy, “what’s the deal with how the bad guys always get away with murder?”
Reilloc: Jerry even calls his “true” beliefs, as he knows them, a great bird.
AGplusone: Analagous to both. When God decides to fire and brimstone, tells Lot to take his family and go and not look back. Wife looks back, and turns into NaCl. Lot and daughters go on to their life of incest. Ted and Cyn look back and …
AGplusone: maybe nothing happens to them.
AGplusone: How come?
Reilloc: How do you know nothing happened to them?
AGplusone: my point
AGplusone: sure screwed up their minds, din’t it?
Reilloc: Yeah, they spend the remainder of their nights handcuffed together but is it already too late?
Major oz: Similar to what you said in your recent post (Speckled Bird, et al), it is another hymn called Farther Along, where that exact question is asked: why do assholes profit, while me, a good guy get constantly screwed.
TheCOinOz: An aside: Gene Roddenberry, creator of ‘Star Trek’ was often referred to as the “Great Bird of the Galaxy”. An allusion to this writing perhaps?
aggirlj: Ah, we could ask Magel.
Reilloc: Wasn’t Star Trek on NBC?
aggirlj: I used ta do their books.
Major oz: hokay, David, the metaphor holds in the last two pages.
AGplusone: Haldeman attended a writer’s symposium, early on in his career. Says they all opened each session with references to the Bird. Lot of influence there, if they did that. They all became first rate writers.
Reilloc: They could have all just been Charlie Parker fans.
AGplusone: Tribute to Heinlein’s imaginative influence, anyway.
aggirlj: Waaaaaaaaay
AGplusone: Could be.
Major oz: Then there is: “Bird, bird bird; the bird is the word”
AGplusone: Yeah, that one too.
TheCOinOz: Again an aside, interesting that Majel Barrett is the only cast member from the original series that had a role in all the later series and movis, AFAICT. (As the voice of the computer)
Major oz: So many cultures have a bird in their creation myths.
AGplusone: Except the aspirant SF writers plainly were talking about Hoag.
aggirlj: Nurse.
Reilloc: Regarding the Hoag of Lovecraft…
Major oz: yeah, I know
Reilloc: What’s the deal there?
AGplusone: …yes…?
Reilloc: Lovecraft is to Hoag as Heinlein is to Riverside?
Major oz: Never read Lovecraft.
AGplusone: no one knows …
TheCOinOz: yes, Jane in some, but she was the computer voice on the later shows and all the movies IIRC, including TNG etc.
aggirlj: You’re right.
Reilloc: Hoag appears to have been a Lovecraft pen name.
AGplusone: But that name cannot be a coincidence, merely
Major oz: Is that a fact, or just a wish?
AGplusone: of course if you’re writing horror, then it might just be a tip of the hat to a master
Major oz: …it really was?
IrishBet: Oz, he threw in an awful lot of references like that — and he WAS a Lovecraft fan.
Reilloc: Let’s say it’s intentional, is there more than just the acknowledgment?
Major oz: RAH was a Lovecraft fan?
AGplusone: Gifford doesn’t state who his source was for Heinlein’s denial of an influence, and Gifford is, let me put this gently, not 100 % reliable.
Major oz: I am in a confused chicken/egg thing, here.
AGplusone: me too
aggirlj: Me 3
Reilloc: You say Gifford says Heinlein came up with the character name independently?
AGplusone: G says H said he came up with it independently, but notes that two of H’s set corresponded with Lovecraft
TheCOinOz: He was a fan of many and most authors he admired seemed to get at least a ‘cameo’ appearance in one of his novels somewhere. Look at his treatment of the author of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in TNOTB.
AGplusone: Yes, and I’d think H wasn’t at all loath to tip his hat.
Reilloc: George Harrison came up with the chords to “My Sweet Lord” independently and was required to litigate with the Chiffons.
AGplusone: Just like Crais, who tips to H, and a few other writers.
Major oz: Q: Potiphar T. Potbury Wasn’t there, somewhere in the canon, a character named, or nicknamed potpot?
AGplusone: somebody can figure out … Potiphar from the Joseph story.
Reilloc: I don’t think it’s all that unbelievable Heinlein saw the Hoag name, forgot it, and believed later he wasn’t influenced.
TheCOinOz has left the room.
AGplusone: somebody can figure out the permutations or odds of an independent creation. The old roomful of Monkeys typing Willy the S
Major oz: “…never tell me the odds”
Reilloc: Anybody read of that Lovecraft/Hoag poetry?
aggirlj: Not I.
AGplusone: You found more on the Internet than I ever have
Major oz: Joseph story…………the Joseph of the rainbow coat?
Reilloc: The two I read, he was big on flags, patriotism and mandatory rhyme.
AGplusone: Yeah, actually, Joseph seduces Potiphar’s wife.
Major oz: sumbitch, I gotta check that out.
AGplusone: While he’s working for old Potiphar.
AGplusone: Interesting things in the B book.
TheCOinOz has entered the room.
aggirlj: WB
TheCOinOz: thanks jilyd
AGplusone: wb, CoinOz
TheCOinOz: Grrr. IM dropped out on me.
TheCOinOz: thanks
jilyd: Glad to.
Reilloc: Okay, don’t everybody talk at once.
TheCOinOz: lol
jilyd: The way I remeber that story is that Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce Joseph.
AGplusone: I wasn’t horribly impressed with that poety. Lovecraft surely didn’t think it was that great, did he?
AGplusone: Yeah, but I’ve got a dirty mind, Dee.
Reilloc: I’d pick another name if I published something like that.
Major oz: Was it at the end of Men in Black (the first one) that there was a computer graphic of pulling back on earth, the solar system, the galaxy, etc., until there was a marble being shot by an alien hand?
AGplusone: Like song lyrics.
TheCOinOz: I tried to read something of Lovecrafts once, but horror generally never appealed to me and his stuff even less…. I have difficulty understanding the minds of some horror writers…
AGplusone: pedestrian
aggirlj: I liked the early writings of King, not the later ones after he took over publishing. He really needs and editor.
Reilloc: The Lovecraft Hoag persona’s supposed to be a lawyer, isn’t he?
TheCOinOz: yes that’s correct about MIB
jilyd: Like you had to tell me that, AG? 🙂
Major oz: That image swept over me as Hoag was describing who/what he was and where he was from.
IrishBet: I like King’s short stories. His novels bore me to death.
AGplusone: I enjoyed Lovecraft. Went to librarian, at age 11, after I read Waldo and Magic Inc, and asked anyone else like this, and she sicced me on Lovecraft … heheh, that little sucker will stop bothering me now.
AGplusone: [but I didn’t spend a lot of time re-reading Lovecraft … shudder]
Reilloc: Okay, coming up on the hour, shortly.
AGplusone: yep, cat watering time
Reilloc: Anybody have an objection to a brief break before we start the next hour…
Major oz: go for it
aggirlj: Good for me
Reilloc: …with the tantalizing question…
Reilloc: What was Heinlein’s Hoag’s middle initial?
Reilloc: See you in about 5 minutes.
AGplusone: You and Oz get together yet, LN?
Reilloc: Oz, you still down around Springfield?
AGplusone: both of you into pickin’ and plucking … and nearly neighbors
TheCOinOz: I’m going nowhere, I’m actually at work
TheCOinOz: And it’s an hour til lunchtime….
Reilloc: What’s for lunch?
TheCOinOz: Good question, steak and mushrooms I hope.
TheCOinOz: I’m going home for it obviously.
Major oz: Yeah, about 65 mi. east of SField
Reilloc: That’s right on the Arkansas border, yeah?
Reilloc: Oh, east.
Major oz: about 50 miles N
Reilloc: You’re on the fringe of the Mark Twain National Forest?
Major oz: In the NE corner of Wright County.
Major oz: INSIDE the MTNF
Reilloc: Really a pretty place.
TheCOinOz: 33Deg 11’S 138Deg E feed it to Google Earth….some nice very hi res shots, I could lead you to my work or my house LOL.
Major oz: got 63 ac. of turkey, deer, quail, lake full of fish, hillbilly castle (doublewide)………..
TheCOinOz: Hillbilly castle?
DavidWrightSr: Can someone IM toxdoc1947 and see if he is having problems. my IM isn’t working. I’ve invited him back in.
Major oz: …….and accomodations for 12 (or 18 friendly folks)
Major oz: Hillbilly Castle = double wide traileer
AGplusone: He back on? I sent him one and it said he was off line
TheCOinOz: ah, a big caravan, gotcha.
toxdoc1947 has entered the room.
jilyd: I have too, with no joy. Just sent himthe name of the room.
jilyd: There he is. Hi John!
toxdoc1947: hi all
AGplusone: wb
Major oz: Nah; as I read it, a caravan is what we call a travel trailer, motorhome, etc.
toxdoc1947: thx
Reilloc: Hey, John.
Major oz: I have one of those also
Reilloc: We’re just about ready to start the second hour.
Major oz: But the HC is a trailer park model — 28 by 56
AGplusone: Double wide is too wide to send out on road. What they do is put two of them together and make a module home here.
Reilloc: Butane or propane?
TheCOinOz: In Oz, a caravan is a towed vehicle, containing accomodation, a trailer is a box like object you tow, that you fill with rubbish to take to the dump etc.
Major oz: Propane, elect, and battery
Reilloc: Permit me to say…
Reilloc: ooooooooooooeee, exclamation mark
Major oz: yes……………?
Major oz: Yeah, and I play the dobro
TheCOinOz: I think we would call that a ‘transportable home’ here…
Major oz: probablly
jilyd: CO’s caravan is what USians would call a travel trailer RV.
Reilloc: What tuning on the dobro?
Major oz: what……….you tune a dobro…….??
TheCOinOz: Yes, I think that’s right Jilyd
Major oz: Open G
AGplusone: banjo key of fronk minor
Reilloc: Who’s back?
Reilloc: Who’s ready to start?
aggirlj: me
AGplusone: [anyone remember Bud and Travis, besides me: ready to start]
Major oz: Perfect Pitch: throwing a banjo into the dumpster and hitting a mandolin
TheCOinOz: proceed
jilyd: We chatted this once. but I forgot what you would call a “motorhome.”
Reilloc: That doesn’t mean we can’t talk about open G or any air on any G string.
Major oz: Ja Whol
TheCOinOz: oddly enough, a ‘motor home’ but they are not that common here.
TheCOinOz: Get a lot of modified busses.
TheCOinOz: People do up their own.
Major oz: Pricilla, Queen of the Desert
TheCOinOz: Buy an old bus and convert it.
Major oz: GREAT movie
TheCOinOz: Yes, exactly.
TheCOinOz: LOL yeah, I’ve been to some of the locations.
AGplusone: Ben and Jerry will soon have a problem. No one will know what they referred to with Cherry Garcia
Reilloc: What was it?
Major oz: the movie?
Reilloc: Cherry Garcia.
Major oz: Jerry’s virgin daughter
AGplusone: ooooooh!
Reilloc: I’m grateful to know.
aggirlj: yadadadada
TheCOinOz: Some of the places where it was shot, before and after.
jilyd: groan.
Reilloc: Okay, let’s pretend I’m still moderating a Heinlein discussion.
Major oz: hokay
TheCOinOz: lol sorry.
TheCOinOz: go ahead now
aggirlj: k
jilyd: OK, you can pretend. 🙂
AGplusone: You have the conn, Mr. Christian.
Reilloc: If the Randalls had owned a caravan instead of a Ford, would they have stayed on the road and not squated in Mexico?
AGplusone: Steer small, dam’ yer eyes!
Major oz: Were they in Mexico? How can you tell?
Reilloc: By the sand which is there.
jilyd: Was mentioned in the story, I think.
aggirlj: Clue, the Gulf.
Major oz: Well……….they refer to the local town as a village. So maybe
Major oz: Lots of US on the Gulf
AGplusone: Could have been west Florida, but Mexico works.
jilyd: LOts and lots–TX, LA, MS, AL and FL.
Reilloc: And while we’re there…
Reilloc: What’s the deal with handcuffing themselves together?
aggirlj: Well, from Chicago due south
Reilloc: Are they so simple-minded they think that would work?
Major oz: Anyway, to answer the question: yeah, they would have kept going if they had a MH. Their personalities seem to say so.
jilyd: If one of them is taken they intend to make damned sutre both are.
aggirlj: So they can’t be grabbed and separated through the mirrors, yah?
TheCOinOz: Seems to be the idea
Reilloc: Being together didn’t help a lot before….
AGplusone: makeweight solution by desperate people, seize anything for hope
aggirlj: They will go together wherever, and not be separated. That was very big for Cyn.
Reilloc: Top of the hour poll time.
jilyd: Les, if it were your children, would you not do every last thing possible to improve the odds, no matter how slim?
Reilloc: Who thinks the world is a myth?
TheCOinOz: quite. A non zero chance of success.
AGplusone: Remember how Alec/Alex and Marga keep holding each other through the changes
aggirlj: I think it’s more of a joke than a myth.
Reilloc: Okay, it’s a joke but there’s more than one joke.
Major oz: A bit of Marga(?) and Alex there — stay together
TheCOinOz: subjective
jilyd: Jane, are you subscribing to Spider’s contention that God is an iron?
Reilloc: An iron?
aggirlj: Perhaps.
Reilloc: A steam iron?
Major oz: Poll answer: everyone does, in his own way.
jilyd: If a felon commits felony…
Major oz: We are all sollipsosts to one degree or another.
Reilloc: When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.
Reilloc: How can you argue with that?
TheCOinOz: Seems to be working here…..:^(
Major oz: ya can’t
AGplusone: I’m trying to remember someone else in lit who kept handcuffing herself to the man ….
AGplusone: or could it have been Heinlein too?
Major oz: Ya betcha………OZ and GB showed that, in spades
TheCOinOz: tell me about it
Reilloc: Anybody with a gun will be an outlaw, by definition.
aggirlj: Call me Calamity Jane.
TheCOinOz: lol
Reilloc: What calibre, Ms. Canary?
TheCOinOz: It’s certainly getting that way here. Carrying one intact in public is an offence.
aggirlj: Actually, if it ever becomes necessary I will have one. don’t to this date however.
TheCOinOz: And I’m talking about a legally owned long arm here…
jilyd: Heinlein was very fond of the idea of romantic love that did not fade. Cynthia and Teddy are one of hispairs of romantics. That is what I meant early on about it would have been a different story with a pare that was more jaded.
Major oz: We just got a “must issue” law about a year ago
TheCOinOz: ‘must issue’?
aggirlj: Yeah?
Reilloc: That’s the state that elected the dead guy to the Senate.
: I wish San Diego were ‘must issue’ (or ‘shall issue’ as they call it around here).
Reilloc: I’m not criticizing, though.
Reilloc: A better choice than Ashcroft.
aggirlj: What does that mean though?
Major oz: How ’bout the two in Gulf that died on the moon. Don’t remember the details, but were’nt they together by choice when they did themselves in.
AGplusone: Some jurisdiction leave discretion to the Sheriff of the County. In some counties the Sheriff said blanket no, except to his political buddies.
AGplusone: NO.
Major oz: There is a lot of detail that Jay Leno didn’t tell you / isn’t aware of.
AGplusone: They were separated.
IrishBet: Love deeply, die gallantly.
AGplusone: Telepathic commo.
jilyd has left the room.
AGplusone: One she cut off, he knew what he had to do … and did it.
Reilloc: Contrast that with how the protagonist in “They” felt about his wife.
AGplusone: Once
AGplusone: took all the trees of the forest down with him
: ‘Shall issue’ means they have to show reason why you shouldn’t be allowed to carry a concealed weapon. ‘Will issue’? Can’t remember the other one, but it means you only get a permit if you can show cause (whatever that means).
aggirlj: Thx
jilyd has entered the room.
AGplusone: wb Dee
Reilloc: Hi, Dee.
Major oz: To answeer your question, COinOZ, “must issue” or “shall issue” states that you get to carry unless the gov. can come up with a reason why you shouldnt
Major oz: The burden of proof is on the gov to show why not.
Major oz: …..which is the essense of western thought.
toxdoc1947: another option is to get a reserve commission as a deputy – equals a pretty wide license to carry
AGplusone: protagonist in They finds out his wife is another figment, who wants to be regenerated in Taj Mahal country. Another art critic?
Reilloc: They’re hardly inseparable.
AGplusone: Maybe Hoag in another guise?
Major oz: Whereas, in the west (except GB) it is the other way around.
Reilloc: East, you mean?
Major oz: hey……………..one of my posts didn’t make it.
Reilloc: Shot down.
aggirlj: Can we talk about the picnic. Seems to be a theme.
Major oz: lost it agein
TheCOinOz: Different universe.
Reilloc: Go ahead, Jane.
TheCOinOz: regarding firearms.
Reilloc: What theme do you see depicted in that scene?
Major oz: In the USSR, the constitution says that laws tell you what you can do, everything else is prohibited.
aggirlj: Just wondered. Seemed kind of different.
Major oz: ahhhhhhhh…..made it.
aggirlj: Just that RAH likes them and uses them in a lot of his stories.
Major oz: THEN, in the west, it is the other way around.
Reilloc: There is no USSR and we’re picnicking now.
Major oz: yeah, right.
Reilloc: You don’t know how lucky you are, boy.
aggirlj: What was the purpose?
Major oz: Original post was USSR/Russia, when I was there I saw………….etc.
AGplusone: Always kind of wondered which side of the lake they went up …
Reilloc: I’m unfamiliar with the Chicago geography.
Major oz: Backpacked through there 6mo in 90 and again in 91
Reilloc: One side nicer than the other?
AGplusone: guess west side would be easier
TheCOinOz: you think you have problems with Chicago geography? LOL
AGplusone: closer
Major oz: where are we?
toxdoc1947: any thoughts about how long it’ll take Russia to become another dictatorship?
toxdoc1947: has it already happened?
Reilloc: None; however regarding picnics…
Major oz: You mean it isn’t now? LOL
AGplusone: start Chicago and just go north along the lake
Reilloc: I think Jane’s got something even if she owns no gun, yet.
AGplusone: which side would you go?
Reilloc: The west side.
aggirlj: 😛
Major oz: Are we headed to the picnic?
AGplusone: yep
Reilloc: Seems less urbanized, somehow.
Major oz: hokay
Major oz: Isn’t it a strip city from Chi to Mwake
Reilloc: A picnic’s a place where reality’s suspended for a time.
AGplusone: then, 1942, there was open area between Chicago and Kenosha
aggirlj: Okay, so the fog creeping up . . .
Reilloc: YOu can have anything you want and eat it with your fingers.
Reilloc: Or not.
Major oz: yeah………notice they didn’t have a refrigerator — they had an icebox
Reilloc: They couldn’t find an extension cord long enough.
AGplusone: gotta have something to keep the beer warm
IrishBet: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Major oz: ….for the caviar
AGplusone: or champagne
toxdoc1947: i still take block ice on camping trips
IrishBet: OOps sorry
AGplusone: but, yeah, reality is suspended … as at all picnics
IrishBet: Youngest Heinlein reader is practicing her typing.
Major oz: hokay, I meant at their apartment…………….cheeeeesh
aggirlj: He tips a dime and that seems okay?
AGplusone: oh, yeah. I remember ice boxes. Young ones got to empty the tray under the ice, every day.
aggirlj: Time frame
: How many picnics did Heinlein write about? I can only recall two or three.
Major oz: mac dot com? Military Airlift Command = MAC
Reilloc: It’s fitting they discuss this at a picnic because it’s a place that’s temporarily outside all the problems.
AGplusone: macintosh, I’ll send you an email from if you’re not nice, Oz
Reilloc: I can remember picnics in many books.
Major oz: I see……….get pastoral and let him “die” in the glade
AGplusone: Number, TEFL, …
Reilloc: Glory Road…
IrishBet: I LOVE YOU
Reilloc: That, too.
Major oz: sound made by a hairlip duck………………….MAC
Reilloc: Isle of Ewe.
AGplusone: a suspension of reality, with all the wards up
LVPPakaAspie: Blech, is anything happening here, is it dead, or did I lose my internet connection?
: Glory Road and Number of the Beast is all I could remember.
jilyd: Job?
DavidWrightSr: _I Will Fear No Evil_
Major oz: Blech left, but we go on.
AGplusone: Farmer in the Sky before the line up
TheCOinOz: The scene with ‘Lewis Carroll/Dodgson’ in TNOTB is a picnic
Major oz: Alex and Marga had lots of them
TheCOinOz: I think they had another one in TNOTB as well, earlier in the story.
AGplusone: What surprises me in light of Three Men in a Boat, is that HSSWT didn’t.
jilyd: indoor picnic in Stranger.
LVPPakaAspie: I think I lost my connection think it’s time I caught up. 🙂
Major oz: Didn’t LL fall in love with his “child bride” on a picnic in TEFL?
AGplusone: Or maybe being in Centerville was a ‘picnic’ so Kip could grow up there.
Reilloc: In “Hoag,” I get the impression they’re picnicking in a place that’s protected.
Major oz: I’ll buy that
Reilloc: At least there aren’t any mirrors outside.
AGplusone: Yes. It’s a “time-out” in the old sense, before that got spoiled by use with unruly children.
AGplusone: old sense: ”
aggirlj: And like LN said, out of time in another place, safe.
AGplusone: Go sit in the corner and face the wall into we let you out.
Reilloc: Like wheat pennies?
Major oz: He is protecting them from the birds while he instructs them how to get through Chi……. HEY, I just got the Lot connection.
AGplusone: Heh.
AGplusone: Remind me not to tell you my green hat joke.
Reilloc: I decided to call the chat, in part, with reference to “The Matrix” for a reason.
aggirlj: Schedule about 1/2 an hour for that one
Major oz: I prefer red hat. Schwab is veddy veddy good to me
Major oz: hokay
AGplusone: I wondered what reason that one was … ga Les
Major oz: the reason is………
Major oz: the “machines” are the birds
Major oz: and they are both so damn mystical
Reilloc: Nobody posted any comparisons but, beyond the obvious point that they’re both intended to explain “what’s going on” in existence, there may be other similarities.
Reilloc: Of course, there may not be, either.
Reilloc: Morpheus is no Hoag and Kenneau Reeves is no actor…
Major oz: Well, as much as I hate to say it about my version of the Fourth Person of the Blessed Quartinity, both of the stories are a bit smarmy in keeping the “secret”
Reilloc: There is, though, an interface from one world to another.
AGplusone: [which is why I never saw The Matrix … Reeves’ high point was the cadet Templar in the Malkovic movie, the one they did twice, from the French]
Reilloc: From the world in which people believe they live to the world that’s “real.”
Reilloc: Reeves high point was being Bill S. Preston, Esq.
AGplusone: Oh, yes. Sorry.
AGplusone: forgot that one, or two or three, however many sequels they did
Major oz: I find it strange that RAH doesn’t try to say which is better — the real or the imaginary.
Major oz: Maybe not strange……..can’t find the right word
Reilloc: How can the imaginary be better than the real?
Major oz: Ask any fundamentalist
Reilloc: rimshot
AGplusone: snork
Reilloc: Take my wife…
Reilloc: please.
Reilloc: Why would you think he’s say one was better than the other, Maj?
Reilloc: he’d
Major oz: But cerealy, the imaginary can be “just fine”. Labotomy patients, True Believers, etc. all seem to be happy.
toxdoc1947: I agree – it would be an opening for greater reader investment in the story
AGplusone: Them boys hain’t under drugs, they’s just stupid
Major oz: He wouldnt “say”, but he seems to have a POV in almost all he writes. He doesn’t here.
toxdoc1947: pov?
Major oz: point of view
toxdoc1947: ahhh
AGplusone: Really moody, as I said.
Reilloc: Everybody knows that if it’s not real it can’t be better…
AGplusone: Reflective.
Reilloc: And he does, as the author, do something about what’s wrong….
AGplusone: War just starting. Have to kill off the birds. Shame the Nazis changed the eagle into an old Indian sign.
Major oz: Any time someone says: “Everyone knows……….” Belongs up there with other LL sayings.
toxdoc1947: you’ve obviously never seen an LSD user happily hallucinating along
AGplusone: Once upon a time ….
Major oz: The Algonquin swastica pointed the other way.
AGplusone: Don’t bet on it …
toxdoc1947: real ain’t necessarily better
Reilloc: Real’s better because pretend can never last.
Major oz: But it can last “long enough”
Reilloc: For you, perhaps, but can you speak for everybody?
Major oz: An real may be nasty, brutish, and short.
Reilloc: Those are the breaks.
AGplusone: I always thought they headed for the Gulf because Penascola was there, and Heinlein really wanted to be a Nasal Radiator.
Major oz: Given Trablinka or heroin, guess which I would choose.
AGplusone: Or maybe conn a desk training Nasal Radiators
Reilloc: You’d be the heroine of Trablinka?
Major oz: I’se lost………..
Major oz: Not Katrinka
Major oz: ……..the death camp in Poland
Reilloc: Well, rounding out the second hour, you said Heinlein took no position in this story.
AGplusone: Pensacola was where they trained Naval Aviators
Major oz: yeah
jilyd: Still do, don’t htey?
Reilloc: I would contend that he did because Hoag told them to drive, don’t look back and things changed.
AGplusone: And he still hoped while writing it they’d call him up and let him put that uniform back on
Major oz: ……..let me hedge: none that I could see
Major oz: But didn’t he tell them that, because he was destroying Chi?
Reilloc: Right.
Major oz: …….and thereby eliminating the unreal?
Major oz: or affirming it?
Reilloc: Why destroy Chicago, in the way he did, if that wasn’t an authorial commentary on what way was better?
AGplusone: Gets really cold and foggy in Pensacola … not exactly Miami Beach
toxdoc1947: not THAT cold
AGplusone: Well, compared to God’s country here in LA-LA land
Major oz: I took it that chi was a shitty place to live. Ed said that a number of times in the story.
toxdoc1947: Canadians down for the winter don’t even put on tee shirts
Reilloc: Both the real and the not-real Chicagos?
Major oz: yes
AGplusone: which is too crowded and you should go to Oregon or Washington where it’s much better
Reilloc: by the say, was Chicago destroyed like Sodom and Gommorah were, do you think?
aggirlj: Didn’t they talk about a canvas with superimposed layers?
Reilloc: Or just “changed?”
Major oz: As I said, I finally got the Lot connection that David was saying earlier.
Reilloc: Driving through Chitown, they saw what they always saw.
AGplusone: That’s interesting because when you get to Friday, it’s rather nice, isn’t it? Or at least outside Chicago.
Major oz: Oh, I see……..yes, it was destroyed, in reality
Reilloc: It was only when they opened the window to ask the cop a question that things were different.
Major oz: Allagory on the mirrors………the “:real” was the fog
Major oz: my spelling sucks
Reilloc: I don’t disagree either with the foggy being real or that your spelling sucks but was there physical destruction?
Major oz: Too bad TV wasn’t around then. Think of the plot points that could have been made.
toxdoc1947: ahhhh – he just hated yankees
Major oz: I think so, yes. A crater, or the Dead Lake
AGplusone: Dunno, but I’d suggest there was lots of ichor under Hoag’s fingernails when he got done.
toxdoc1947: Dee can probably relate to that sentiment
Reilloc: I got the impression that the change was not physically intrusive but, rather, was more fundamental.
Major oz: eh?
Reilloc: That cop’s still there, right where they tried to talk with him.
Reilloc: He’s different, though, and he doesn’t know it.
AGplusone: Hated Yankees to the guy descended from someone who walked up Mayre’s Heights with the 116th PVI? Be very careful.
Major oz: You maintain that there are two cops, the real and the …what….the fogcop?
Reilloc: Same cop, different world.
aggirlj: I must go now. I’ll see ya’ later.
Reilloc: Sleep well, Jane.
Major oz: Now wait a minute………neither of them knew Schroedinger
AGplusone: have fun Jane
aggirlj: bye
aggirlj has left the room.
Reilloc: It’s the top of another hours so let’s take a little break.
Reilloc: Back shortly…
jilyd: Honey, I was twelve years old before I knew Damn Yankees was two words. 🙂
DavidWrightSr: It is?
jilyd: LOL!
IrishBet has left the room.
AGplusone:
toxdoc1947: don’t THROW me into that briar patch
AGplusone: “whoopin’ slaves and pickin’ cotton//good times there is not forgotten ….
Major oz: While we have a break, let me repeat an announcement. I have a large place I live in by myself. I used to live in an apartment in my barn. I got the bigger one for friends and family. All RAH cronies are invited to visit any tim
AGplusone: and waiting for the Robert E. Lee//
Major oz: time of the year.
AGplusone: it never came on time!
toxdoc1947: I know – you wouldn’t like the pace, or the people, or the priorities
Major oz: As a destination or as a stopover when going from A to B
AGplusone: been there, done that. Actually Benning was rather nice.
AGplusone: considering why I was there
Major oz: Bring single malt
toxdoc1947: can you be a little more specific about which route would likely lead by the apartment?
Major oz: you talkin to me
Major oz: ?
toxdoc1947: yes
AGplusone: Might actually be there, Oz. In August, if not July. NASFiC will probably be in Saint Louie.
Major oz: I will be gone the weekend of 13AUG to a family wedding. e-mail me anytime. Just give me 30 min notice so I can put some clothes on — I am waaaaaaaaay out in the boonies
AGplusone: You plan weddings that far in advance?
AGplusone: NASFiC will be first week.
AGplusone: of ’07
Major oz: Thinking about volunteering for a “after celebration” location for 070707.
Major oz: I am about 65 mi E of Springfield MO, about 55 mi N of Arkansas border.
Major oz: Just inside the Mark Twain NF
Major oz: Just N of Booger County
jilyd: Remeber JMA and Jen getting married the weekend following that.
AGplusone: 070707 is RAH’s centennial. There may be something in KC that weekend.
AGplusone: Huh?
AGplusone: Thought they were getting married this year?
Major oz: Didn’t know they were getting hitched this soon.
Major oz: stop…rewind…are they getting married after 070707, or after my family wedding next month?
AGplusone: next month I thought
Major oz: I didn’t hear either way
Major oz: where?
AGplusone: Dee?
jilyd: The weekend after Oz’s wedding trip. Aug. 21.
Major oz: hokay
jilyd: They ar married alreadyand they are getting married Aug 21.
Major oz: anyone know where?
jilyd: Austin? I think.
DavidWrightSr: http://www.hoemke.com/wedding/
DavidWrightSr: Austin. Tx
AGplusone: Thank you, Dee. Now I have an address to send something to.
AGplusone: Asked Krin, but didn’t get back.
jilyd: I am asking out of town friends who cant come to my mother’s bday to send a note and a pic to me to past in a meory book. Might be a nice idea for JMA and jen–email a goodw wiishes note with a picture.
jilyd: Thank David, he sent the addy.
Major oz: Lovely web site
AGplusone: Is Jen scheduled to go into a PA unit when she gets back. Thought she was in a TransCorp bn in Irag.
AGplusone: Driving truck
Major oz: brb
jilyd: She is a pohotjournalist there in Iraq.
AGplusone: Ah, good. Better than driving underarmored deuce and a half
jilyd: *photojournalist.* Doing stories for Army pubs.
AGplusone: which is what she was doing when we had her for dinner three years ago out here.
jilyd: Well, now they have her learning quark and doint the layout and all, as well.
Major oz: b
AGplusone: great. Someone recognized her brains.
AGplusone: Is she still bucking for a commission?
toxdoc1947: what grade specialist is she?
jilyd: They have loosened vision requireents and age for pilots–that is her dream.
AGplusone: onlyt one these days, Sp4
Reilloc: cough
Reilloc: Sorry that took so long.
Major oz: For someone her age, laser surgery will do it all.
jilyd: If you want to keep up with her, her LJ is http://www.livejournal.com/users/soldiergrrrl/
toxdoc1947: As late as my senior year in Pharmacy School, I looked into becoming a weapons officer (no change for pilot) in F4’s – no dice my vision was too bad
AGplusone: Yes, tell her my GP had it while he was still in the Doc-in-space program for NASA, and he was at maximum age.
Reilloc: I’ve got one more thing about Hoag, guys…
toxdoc1947: would really consider it now is offered, even though I’m pretty much an old f*art by anyone’s definition
AGplusone: He swore by it. Best idea he ever had.
Major oz: Hokay, LNC
Reilloc: Something I didn’t understand.
Reilloc: The first time they followed Hoag and came back with different experiences…
Reilloc: Who was responsible for that?
jilyd: Been a long time since I read it, LN, and I do’t remeber what you mean.
Reilloc: Well…
Major oz: the birds
Reilloc: He did the following and she did the observing.
Major oz: who else
Major oz: Maybe I don’t understand the Q
Reilloc: The sons of the bird were able to tamper with Hoag’s actions during the day?
Major oz: That wasn’t Hoag, as far as I understood later.
Reilloc: You mean because he claimed he never left the apartment?
Major oz: yeah
AGplusone: Are you suggesting a vision of an elephant here?
Reilloc: I’m saying that now there are three stories. Which one’s right?
AGplusone: a blind vision of an elephant?
Reilloc: All of them?
Major oz: That queation is why there is a “story”
AGplusone: “very much like a snake.”
Major oz: Zombies, anyone?
Reilloc: That’s not too tautological for you, Maj?
Major oz: Nah, I live by them tauto thingies
AGplusone: and, I’m lonely
Reilloc: Okay, that settles that question.
Reilloc: It was the sons of the birds and what Hoag said he did, he did.
AGplusone: That’s “They” again.
Major oz: I am suggesting that there are wheels within wheels within……..and that it is in the contemplation that we find a hell of a yarn.
Major oz: I know there is a term for that, but I are and engineer.
Major oz: an
AGplusone: You old “rambling wreck,” you!
DavidWrightSr: That’s funny David. I was just watching “The High And The Mighty” and John Wayne was whistling that.
AGplusone: I agree, there’s a lot more in Hoag than a horror story.
DavidWrightSr: Ramblin Wreck from Georgia Tech.!
Reilloc: I didn’t even take it as a horror story.
Major oz: I don’t see the blind beggars and the elephant comparison, here. It isn’t different characters having diff experiences.
Major oz: I agree, however that you, I, and the rest of us can be the blind beggars and the story is the elephant.
AGplusone: Well, you do have Ted and Cynthia seeing different things.
LVPPakaAspie has left the room.
Major oz: But by design, not interpretation
AGplusone: But they could both be blind.
AGplusone: To Hoag, who sees the ones to rend until the traces of ichor are under his nails, they are.
Major oz: In the sense of reaqlity intruding on “their ‘reality'”, yes
Major oz: BUT……..they were set up by an outside force. Not just happened on an elephant.
AGplusone: They couldn’t see the elephant in the middle of their room. The Sons of the Bird until the Sons of the Bird came to get them.
AGplusone: Nice sophism
Reilloc: Even though it was right there in the mirror.
Reilloc: By the way, how do we know it’s ichor?
Reilloc: Why can’t it be oil paint?
Major oz: I found myself in a position similar to that of watching the high heeled heroine who can’t get the gate to the three foot high fence open to escape from the mummy. LEAP THE @#$%^ FENCE
AGplusone: When all the Black Hats turn into “Snob” in L’Envoi, did you ever notice that “both Heinleins” although alleged to be there, never make an appearance?
toxdoc1947: I don’t remember well, but wasn’t it jeweler’s rouge?
Major oz: Why didn’t he smash the mirrors?
AGplusone: That was the excuse … on the Thirteenth Floor that really didn’t exist.
Major oz: We don’t know what it is. That is what keeps us reading. If he says it is ichor, it is ichor.
Reilloc: I picked up the copy of NotB with the Powers illustrations.
AGplusone: maybe because the reflection didn’t require a big piece of mirror, any fragment would do?
AGplusone: So did I, or rather Bill sent me one.
Major oz: But that is a needless complitation that wasn’t alluded to.
Reilloc: So, going back but not going back, just Chicago, eh?
Reilloc: That’s all that needed destroying?
AGplusone: And if you smash them, then Potiphar can’t scrap off the paint and escape.
AGplusone: When they lock in him the John.
Major oz: Yeah, just Chicago.
AGplusone: As in “John” Riverside.
Major oz: Again, they should have killed the bastard.
AGplusone:
Major oz: Where is LL when you need him
Major oz: JUMP THE FENCE
jilyd: Hmm, nice mention of the prot.
Reilloc: I don’t buy it.
jilyd: *port*. ANd I have no excuse.
Reilloc: You mean just the city of Chicago, city limits to city limits?
Major oz: Or something like that. Surveying not necessary.
AGplusone: Spousal overlord unit has arrived home from work. She says hi to everyone.
Major oz: HI
Reilloc: Hi, Andrea.
Reilloc: So, maybe most of northern Illinois?
DavidWrightSr: My impression was that the whole world got re-arranged by removing all of the underlying ‘Bird’ stuff.
AGplusone: Thursday is late night in the hair salon, er, saloon.
Reilloc: I think that’s right, David.
Major oz: I’m sure, to stretch a metaphor, that there was a farmeer near Sodom that was spared.
AGplusone: Close, anyway. I always told her they should serve.
jilyd: HHi, Andrea.
Major oz: OOH, OOH…………Maybe the earth just stretched its skin a little and it was like Chi never existed.
Reilloc: Chicago was still there.
AGplusone: I think Chicago Imperium went up to Lake in the Woods
Major oz: I mean after
AGplusone: or at least Superior
Reilloc: Hey, David?
AGplusone: Yessir?
Reilloc: What was the nature of the underlying bird stuff?
Major oz: ….underlying bird stuff………
DavidWrightSr: Don’t ask me. I’m no Artist.
Reilloc: What did they do that made them so bad?
Major oz: there is a joke there somewhere
AGplusone: Something that lined the paper in the bottom of the cage?
toxdoc1947: lol
AGplusone: Started a World War …
Reilloc: They did?
AGplusone: we didn’t want one of them
Major oz: Hey, maybe the bird boys were the good guys and Hoag was the baddie.
Reilloc: We would have preferred the Nazis prevail in Europe?
AGplusone: All those 10,000 kings … each ruling their kingdoms.
AGplusone: H was a one-world gvmt guy back then.
Major oz: ……….and Ed and wife were collateral damage.
Reilloc: It was a celestial power struggle over stakes that were unarticulated and inarticulable.
AGplusone: Judging from “Heil!” I doubt that preference.
Major oz: I’ll buy tat
Major oz: God and Lucifer
Major oz: ?
AGplusone: And from Methuselah’s Children.
Major oz: ?
AGplusone: “preferred Nazis prevail in Europe”
Major oz: is that so?
Major oz: who are we talking about?
Reilloc: Just asking whether the war was a bad thing.
DavidWrightSr: I’m lost.
AGplusone: “doubt … that”
Major oz: which one?
AGplusone: Heinlein would have “preferred that”
AGplusone: or “we”
Major oz: Did I come into the middle of a movie?
Reilloc: The subject is what got changed in the artwork.
AGplusone: It was inevitable that we go kill them all, just as Hoag had to rend them out of the world they had spoiled with their bad art.
Major oz: hokay
AGplusone: Didn’t have to like it.
DavidWrightSr: Maybe our Author has changed the plot on us and blue-penciled something out .:-)
Major oz: I think Hoag said that they were “bad art”
Reilloc: What does “bad art” mean?
AGplusone: I’ll go with Hoag’s judgment. Like his taste in food.
Major oz: Kinda the ET version of Jack the Dripper
Major oz: Poker playing dogs
Reilloc: Recently sold for more than half a million dollars.
AGplusone: And he doesn’t have to check with the home office before telling Ted and Cynthia how to avoid the fire and brimstone.
AGplusone: The Glaroom doesn’t hesitate to delegate discretion.
Major oz: Is it that characteristic that identifies him as the good guy?
AGplusone: I think so.
AGplusone: Working for the Glaroom might not be what Foster thinks it is.
Reilloc: The good guys put the burden of proof on the government when it comes to denying a right?
Major oz: “bad art” is what brings low prices at auction
AGplusone: Beats the hell out of working for Jerry’s brother.
Major oz: I’ll buy that
Reilloc: Bad art fails to evoke an aesthetic response.
Major oz: That’s art 101 and I never bought (pardon me) it.
AGplusone: Like, sadly, what we’ve seen of the poetry of Jonathan Hoag. Example: if you can’t write, be a critic.
Reilloc: You’re the one who defined perfect pitch.
Major oz: you got it
Reilloc: You know bad art when you see it then.
AGplusone: Just like old Potty Stewart.
Reilloc: Stravinsky’s “Firebird” on the banjo and mandolin played by the Dixie Chicks, drunk.
AGplusone: Did they actually DO that?
Major oz: The constitution says what the supremes says it says. Bad (or good) art is what those who pay for it say it is.
Reilloc: They probably could.
DavidWrightSr: fails to produce what the Artist intends.
Reilloc: They’re phenomenonal.
toxdoc1947: on that note, I’ll say good night
DavidWrightSr: Bad Art that is.
toxdoc1947: see you Saturday if I’m able
AGplusone: LOL, thanks for coming toxdoc
Reilloc: I’ll be here, tox.
Reilloc: Might be just you and me.
toxdoc1947: thanks for the chat – y’all are great
Major oz: c ya
DavidWrightSr: No. I’ll be here as always.
Reilloc: You, me, David and my cats, then.
Major oz: I’ll be dancin’
toxdoc1947: that’s “you all” for the yankee americans in the chat
toxdoc1947 has left the room.
DavidWrightSr: You had better practice that one. It’s ‘yall’. Oops too late.
Reilloc: Okay, final thoughts for this session, please.
Major oz: Better than most
Reilloc: Don’t make me call on people.
Reilloc: I’ll start, then.
Major oz: I haven’t been here in a Looong time, but we used to get lost in minutae. this was one of the better ones.
Reilloc: “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag,” is bad art.
Major oz: Do I hear an “amen”?
Reilloc: It fails to evoke the aesthetic response intended by the artist.
Major oz: which is what?
Reilloc: Instead, it comes off as a horror story to most and incomprehensible to a good part of the rest.
DavidWrightSr: The only problem with that is: How do we know what response was desired?
Reilloc: It made the “least favorite Heinlein” list submitted by a large number of educated fans.
Major oz: No POV (where have I heard that before?)
Major oz: “educated” is as subjective as “bad art”
DavidWrightSr: I don’t like it as much because it is fantasy and my tastes don’t run to fantasy.
Major oz: I tend to lean that way. I like “science” in my SF
Reilloc: There’s a clear connection in my mind between Hoag and Waldo and Magic, Inc.
Major oz: and that is………?
Reilloc: The rules of the fictional worlds were all different from the rules of the worlds in his other works.
Major oz: To Magic, maybe. But I don’t see it to Waldo.
DavidWrightSr: Yes, ‘magic was let loose in the world’.
Reilloc: Even JOB starts in a world where airplanes can’t work.
Major oz: Could you rephrase that? Fictional vs. other works?
DavidWrightSr: Not quite. They were ‘proven’ not to work by some professor, but that happened in our world also.
Major oz: They heven’t been invented yet.
AGplusone: I think it evokes an answer. I think the problem is the same with most critics. You have only to “read” it.
Major oz: Different from “can’t work”
DavidWrightSr: correct.
Reilloc: Okay, I’ve said my piece. Your turns….
AGplusone: Job doesn’t start in that world. It starts in a world where science was so inhibited that it never invented airplanes.
Major oz: I also think there was a meta-meta trick being pulled on the reader. A critic is a critic is a critic. Whether art or (ahem) writing.
AGplusone: Inhibited by religion.
Major oz: I apologize Reilloc. I commented on each sentence of your summation. I should have shut up until you were through.
TheCOinOz: It’s been many years since I read it, and I have to say I don’t recall all the details, this in itself is unusual, as rarely do I find one of RAHs books at all forgettable, however this one seems to be, at least to me.
DavidWrightSr: Magic, Inc. was also published by a fantasy magazine, whereas Waldo was in Astounding.
AGplusone: And Hoag in Thrilling Wonder
TheCOinOz: On that basis I’d likely agree that it was not one of his better works. I hesitate to say it was his worst, as even his worst story is better than many others best, but it was clearly not his best…
AGplusone: not mainsteam Heinlein, and quite a surprise
DavidWrightSr: Nope Unknown Worlds.
jilyd: The first time I read Hoag, the only effect was to creep me out. Later readings make me see a bit more in it, but it still des not really reach me the way many others of RAH;s stories do.
AGplusone: That’s right: Jerry was in Thrilling Wonder
DavidWrightSr: Which Jerry?
TheCOinOz: Yes, I’d agree with that. I’m not a fan of ‘creepy’ stories and it was, to quite a degree, creepy.
Major oz: I found it difficult to read because he commits the (in my opinion) sin of not letting the reader know what is going on.
jilyd: Jerry was a man?
Major oz: RAH virtually never does this.
AGplusone: Yeah, and there’s a great illustration of Jerry singing way down upon the swannee riber
Reilloc: Okay…
Reilloc: Folks, it’s about the designate quittin’ time.
Reilloc: designated
AGplusone: Judge is busting a gut laughting
jilyd: HF adopted an expression years ago–least favorite Heinein, because most disliked is stronger than many care to use.
Major oz: We are all familiar with the SF author that starts off with unknown terminology, unknown situations, unknown relationships, etc which makes him oh-so-much smarter than us poor schmuks that bought his book.
AGplusone: least understood when first written and first read, I’d agree with
AGplusone: My recollection is that missing 13th Floor at age 17
TheCOinOz: There was a bit of that in TMIAHM actually, that and the ‘Russian style’ English…
Reilloc: Naturally, the room’ll be open in perpetuity and anybody who wants can stay here and keep talking through the Saturday session and until the bovines sense of anima revertendi strikes.
TheCOinOz: Took some getting used ot.
TheCOinOz: to
Major oz: RAH always (almost) tells what is going on, from the start. He identifies people, places, cultures, technologies, etc. so that he can get on with the STORY.
Major oz: He didn’t do it here.
AGplusone: No, he slipped in a few spitballs, din’t he?
TheCOinOz: I parsed that as ‘until the cows come home’?
Reilloc: Maj. Oz, will you be here on Saturday?
DavidWrightSr: But he always leave a lot to the reader’s ‘unconscious assumptions’, IMHO
Major oz: Sorry, I will be dancing Sat.
Reilloc: Cancel it and get your ass in here.
Reilloc: I want you to bring up this point about “story” you just made.
jilyd: He almost tells us the big stuff of what is going on, and saves a little surprise to our assumpptions. Like Johhny Rico’s mention of Tagalog at the very end of ST.
Major oz: Thank you. This is one of the best RAH chats I have been in on.
TheCOinOz: What does his donkey have to do…..oh, US-spell, never mind…
DavidWrightSr: Hey Major. when’s the book due?
Major oz: ?
AGplusone: If someone you dance with says, “I’m a mad scientist’s beautiful daughter… ” run, do not walk, to the nearest punch bowl
TheCOinOz: TNOTB
Major oz: …..book due?
Reilloc: The library called…
Reilloc: You’re wanted.
DavidWrightSr: Who is writing the book ‘Heinlein’s Children’? isn’t that you?
Major oz: Not me
Reilloc: Joseph Major.
Major oz: Wish I was
DavidWrightSr: Ok. Major Major 😉
Reilloc: Or Major Major Major.
AGplusone: I have an advance copy. I’ll review it next Newsletter.
RichardFctn: Thanks for the evening! Bye
Reilloc: Bye, RF
AGplusone: Not due out until after October.
AGplusone: bye Richard
Major oz: Jam on most thursdays, dance fridays, saturdays, and sun afternoon.
RichardFctn has left the room.
Major oz: Jams now and then saturdays
Reilloc: But, exercising my moderatorial discretion, I propose the adjourning of this session unless I hear a significant, “no the hell you won’t.”
DavidWrightSr: I’m ready to call it a night myself.
AGplusone: How about what we do next meeting?
Reilloc: The August meeting?
TheCOinOz: “A motion to adjourn is always in order” RAH
Reilloc: Got any ideas?
AGplusone: yep, that one, and scedule it before we all leave for Seattle
jilyd: Goodnight all.
Reilloc: Night, Dee.
TheCOinOz: Bye Jily, see you around the traps
Major oz: Motion to adjourn always in order
AGplusone: Why not the rest of Fantasies
Major oz: ‘night folks
jilyd: Rufo gave me an idea a good whnile back, and now I forgot. I will look for the post and send you a note.
Reilloc: So, you want it on the 18th and 20th?
AGplusone: I think so
Major oz: see ya again
Reilloc: Done.
TheCOinOz: Night Major
Reilloc: ‘night, Maj.
jilyd has left the room.
Major oz has left the room.
Reilloc: Be here Saturday.
DavidWrightSr: Log Officially closed at 12:02 A.M.
AGplusone: bye Oz, great to have you again
DavidWrightSr: Night All!
Reilloc: ‘night, professor
AGplusone: Got log Dave
TheCOinOz: Good Night and Good Afternoon
DavidWrightSr: Got it
Reilloc: ‘night, CO
TheCOinOz: 1:33pm CST
AGplusone: Good night from Washington Dec
TheCOinOz: Have fun all, see you next time around…
AGplusone: deecee
Reilloc: Send me Alec’s idea, Dave, and I’ll implement it.
TheCOinOz has left the room.
